Screams from the Darkness
A scream reverberated through the darkness. Its final destination was a part of my ear that still remains inanimate. The sound of it surely must have risen the newly departed. They stir in their silk-lined resting places, dressed in an outfit to die for. Was someone’s mind straining to cast loose it’s demons? Or were hellish beings attempting to infiltrate it; bringing with them an instant barrage of hallucinatory camera shutters. His brain’s version of CNN, rattling off a series of still photos. “Click” a bright orange muzzle flash.
A faint silhouette emerges from its smoke filled barrel. “Click,” standing next to a young Chinese man in Tiananmen Square. “Click, click, click,” a bomb attached to a young boy’s midsection in Palestine. “C L I C K,” slower now, the pieces soar through the air in a perfect arc. “Click,” his limbs gently pitter-patter, falling like a spring rain.
“Click,” a white lab coat. “Click,” under a glass slide, one of the round dots is not quite the same as the others. “CLICK.” Focus. It’s still not spherical. “Click, click,” most of the black dots are half eaten, the rest are being devoured by Pac-man. The high-pitched wail continues. It’s obvious the demons are entering because if they weren’t it would be dead silent. His bent mind is at the point of no return.
Now fully awake, I take those first drags of a stale Marlboro, then violently hack as the hot smoke enters my filthy lungs. I struggle to adjust my pupils to match the darkness. The nocturnal emission of someone’s subconscious psyche getting the best of them has ceased; it shifts effortlessly between the sane and the deranged.
How do I convey this? How do I explain what another man’s fears are? Can I begin to even imagine what they might be? The very same questions circle my head like a revolving billboard. Bright white letters, its background matches my darkness. Each revolution ends with a question mark, Yet as the keyboard on my ancient typewriter takes on a life of it’s own, I must try. “Van Munching” conveyed this emotion without a single word, Yet my paper canvas remains totally blank even though I process almost his exact work – ironically installed – several layers beneath my pale skin. Never to be erased, never to be forgotten, for me to always recall why it was I – who woke up screaming…