SHOULD I ACCEPT THIS OUT OF SHYNESS

The uniformity. It’s maddening. It’s all one can see for miles upon miles. Rectangular cuts that form rectangular shapes. Followed by rectangular cuts that form rectangular shapes. Straight, geometrically precise lines, and nothing else. Perfectly rigid, exceedingly…proper. Mathematically, it’s all so delightfully accurate. But your mind…your mind craves something else. Makes your very soul nauseous and sick. You’re afraid to look anywhere. Everywhere is just that stoic, stern, impersonal regimentation.

Goodness, it all sends a shiver down your spine. Your blood turns into ice in your veins, goosebumps forming along your arms. Eyes darting nervously in all directions. Palms moistened by sweat. Is no one else seeing this? The corridors upon corridors of clinical exactness. All blurring together. Which street is that? What building did you pass? You can’t tell. It all runs together in your vision. All so cut and dry, cut and dry. Did humans even make this?

Looming ever so large, everything around serves to remind you of your infinitesimal existence. The utter insignificance of you. To the people around you, and even to yourself. Swallowed into a kind of…void. A black hole, where any sort of light is ruthlessly drawn in and torn apart, before being gulped down, like a gluttonous man chewing ravenously on steak. Brutalist, so vulgarly brutalist. Possessed with a kind of haunting cleanliness. Yet, it’s all so dirty. Christ, what is that awful smell? It reeks of rot and decay. Perhaps it is humanity’s soul, trapped and dying in this maze of square paths and a hate for all that once was.

Desolation and despair seems to be the order of the day. It teems with human life, yet if it weren’t for that, it’d be a concrete desert. A jungle without an ecosystem. Uninhabited. Inanimate. The very construction of this place seems antithetical to life itself. Quite in opposition to fostering the flourishing of any life. One could argue, indeed, that it does, given the plethora of humans locked within its grid, its four walls, which we never seem quite free from, but while it may breed more of the killers, it also kills the killers themselves. Mortality rates through the roof for infants. Gunshots aimed at either the heads of others or their own heads. Starvation and dehydration. Let it be known, this is a giant factory of death, a concentration camp.

The deeper you go into it, the more you immerse yourself in its levels, the more nightmarish it becomes. Possessed by some sort of devilish character that no one else will admit to. Rotten, you shall become. Dirtier and dirtier, the foul stench clinging to you like the jaws of a wolf to a lone bison. Its taint spreads like wildfire, or a virus, and burrows deep into the depths of anyone brought into its fray. Poisoning them, wrecking their insides. Gnawing away at their innards, scooping out whatever sense of life they might’ve had. A vampire, draining the life of everyone in its vicinity, in order to feed itself. And it is always, always hungry, ravenous, gluttonous, in its endless appetite. Most of them unaware that the venom has seeped in, poisoned their veins.

Emotion? You dare speak or think of emotion here? Nay, you shake your head in dismay. There is none. You can see it in the faces of the passerbys. Blank expressions, with hollow eyes and exposed lines. Reanimated by the false stimuli that the is constantly pumped into their bodies and minds. Jolted by electrifying impulses, to bring about a rush of serotonin and dopamine. Force a smile, even though they’re all empty inside. Whatever they feel, isn’t real.

It can all be boiled down to simple chemical reactions. That’s it. Jolts of the flesh and mind, when reacting to something it’s been trained to salivate at. Pursuing the lotus, whatever form it takes. Wealth, wealth, the sacred cow of our age. Always reminded of it at every turn.

Let it be known, this is not wealth.

The monster knows this.

All the faces blur together. Who is who? What is their name? Don’t know, and you don’t even really care. You see so many of them. Your ability to feel for them dwindles into nothing. Especially since whenever they acknowledge your existence, it’s always a pale imitation of some kind of feeling. It disgusts you, how much you talk like them. Look like them. Feel like them. Act like them. But you haven’t a choice. Well, you do. A slow death, or a quick one.

Complaints arise that people are lost. The morale and the psychological condition of all those around are falling by the wayside. The loss of customs and traditions. The decay of various manufactured values and needs and wants. Descending into the pits of Hell. Various people are scapegoated. For good reason, since there are quite a few to blame. But they’re symptoms of the bigger problem, naturally. Yet, no one wants to address the underlying issue.

Watched, watched all the time. Watchers everywhere. Eyes on every street corner. No privacy, none. Private space? What private space? You’re not safe. Subconsciously, you know you aren’t. It panics you sometimes. Drives you into anxious fits and tumultuous slumbers. Unable to sleep, tossing and turning as everything seems to be closing in on you. Where does it stop? Where does it end? How long can it go on?

It’s enough to make you scream in agony and fear.

Peace and quiet. That’s all you want. Peace and quiet. But you don’t get it. There’s ceaseless noise. An unending stream of loud, invasive volumes. Every piece of wretched machinery belches pure hate out of its throat. Constantly interrupting your train of thought. What were you even thinking about? Oh, nothing. It’s not important. The blueprint for Auschwitz and Dachau said it wasn’t, so, you shrug your shoulders in a dejected manner, shake your head, sighing heavily.

As a result, rest never truly comes. You wondered if you’ve ever really slept. Or been awake, for that matter. Just drifting, floating in the empty void. Are you even real? Is any of this even real? Silly question. Of course it isn’t. It’s all a bad joke. A terrible ruse. Some devious prank played by some foolish men in bygone times.

You want to give in to all the methods that make you want to forget.

But you don’t want to lose yourself.

On the other hand, what is your “self?”?

Could you even know?

Do you even want to?

So, you crave rest. Naturally. You crave the absence of noise. But, ironically, the absence of noise affords you no relief, either, does it? You’ve been conditioned to find a strange comfort in the constant churning of the always present hallways you find yourself stuck within. In the absence of it, you grow anxious. Antsy. Disturbed. In a certain sense, you associate it with death. Insomnia takes you either way.

On the other hand, who’s to say you aren’t already dead? Were you ever really alive?

Your body moves along like a machine, but inside, you’re aware that something is deeply wrong with the very soul you possess.

Packed like sardines in a can. Best way to describe this situation, isn’t it? How utterly trapped you are, being pressed upon by all sides, thanks to the ever-increasing mass. It terrifies you. Frightens you. Surrounded by strangers as sick and loathsome as yourself. Can’t breathe. You feel as if you might choke. Always the lingering sensation of some invisible hand pressing against your throat, squeezing and gripping, crushing your windpipe. And you see shadows that aren’t really there. Yet, who’s to say they aren’t? There’s always a pale look about you. A nervous gleam in your eyes. An ache in your chest that sometimes cripples you.

It’s all a powder keg. Waiting to blow. Sooner or later, it’s going to shatter into pieces. A glass house, trembling as the breezes of time swiftly blow by.

You wonder…

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VESSEL DESERTED

Broken sobs left his lips as the pangs of hunger grew stronger and stronger.

Whatever was left of his humanity…

It was hardly due for a longer stay.

The departure of his former essence was clinging to that heart of his, yet, as his mind became further and further shattered by the realization of the awful truth, his soul became twisted and corrupt, heart as black as the coal used to keep campfires burning.

Cold, bitter, frosty tears, ravaging his face as the harsh winds blew past him, carrying off the spirits of the restless dead that lay all around him, butchered, massacred, by his own hands. Stained with chunks of human remains. Ligaments, tissue, bone…coating his body like paint. Choked wails leaving his throat as he felt the most forbidden of meals, what was left of it, dribbled down his teeth, jaw, and chin.

Eyes sunken into deep within the dark recesses of his sockets, he surveyed what was left of his now dead compatriots. Body parts strewn about like grotesque party streamers. Splattered, smattered, all over the surrounding trees.

The snowy surroundings caused his tall, gaunt, deathly pale figure to tremble and shiver, quaking from the severe lack of warmth. His body had long since crossed the point of recoverability, and now in the territory of permanent emaciation, skin riddled with scars, looking less and less human by the second, he became more and more akin to a hairy, unkempt, bestial nightmare. A demon. A devil.

No return.

Solace? Gone, dashed away like those he himself, with his long, claw-adorned fingers, dashed away. Dashed away their lives. Their chances at perhaps seeing a way out of this frigid, icy hell. He would surely never be afforded such a luxury. This was his domain now. His realm.

Eerie, ghostly, milky white orbs, buried within the former man’s skull, suddenly went blank. Having lost any and all semblance of personhood. Now…now they were just predatory ocular organs, staring forward, always, searching eternally for the next forbidden meal.

In the next town over, a pained, ghastly roar could be heard. One that shook the residents to their very cores. The last utterance of a man…before a monster took over. For good.

UNSEEN WORLD

Doe-eyed prey, swimming in a sea of sharks, fangs abound, clearly unwanted guests. What’s to stop anyone? There’s no justice out here. It’s the wild west. But even those people had a certain sense of honor. Not these, no. They’re animals, look at them. Zombies, reduced to only carnal instincts. I bet they salivate as we walk by.

Don’t look at them, maybe they won’t look at you. Don’t acknowledge them. They might not acknowledge you.

It’s not by choice, no. We certainly wouldn’t have picked this route. But you have to do what you have to do. Seniority means you’re the last line of defense. Especially when the ones who really can make an actual difference aren’t there.

Scribbles underneath bridges, indecipherable words and drawings from madmen with poison in their veins and broken thoughts in their minds. What brought them here? I don’t know. I don’t care. Best to keep walking. All you’ll be met with is slurs. First confused. Then angry.

Once you get to the gas stations and liquor stores, they swarm like flies. Cluster like hornets. Poke the nest. See what happens. I wouldn’t be here if I did, nor would my sister.

Cars on stands on the side of the road, windows barred or boarded up, broken glass, the stench of regrets too numerous to even be cared about, the appearance of the word “decay”. It’s not an ideal place for the youth to grow up. Not to me. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I hold no malice for being put here. I owe it much, as much as I resent it.

Growing up, I’d hear of a place called Hell, in holy books. A place where the wretched are sent, and the worst of the worst congregate, doomed to rot there, drowning in the cesspool of their own failures. They said it was somewhere else. I’d disagree. I can point out to you where Hell was. I saw it when some freak without teeth looked in my direction. When some degenerate hobbled into view, breaking out of a drugged stupor. I experienced Hell when we crossed the street early, and when we quickened our pace a bit, and my heart would pound like a rogue jackhammer on stubborn cement.

I’m not going to Hell. I already went. I have no desire to go back.

Three miles. Three measly miles. And then, after 8 hours, you do it again. Reverse. Back home.

The parents can’t help you. They’d like to. But duty calls. But come straight home. Wouldn’t want to worry them any more than this already does. The wrath of a desperate father, frustrated by his shortcomings, and an incompetent mother, and two unruly children, well, I’d hate to see that.

You get used to it after a while. An unconscious man lying in the streets, an empty bottle lying next to him. A woman offering herself up to any and all takers. A gathering of strange characters, conversing about potentially violent hijinks.

Avoid saying “hello” to anyone. No one’s friendly here. Strangers aren’t to be trusted. Eye contact will lead to lethal consequences, I think. Just keep walking, sis.

Rinse, wash, repeat. It becomes second nature. And you start to blend in after a while. It becomes robotic.

The shock wears off.

But don’t get comfortable.

CARNAGE

New possibilities, new doorways, were opened up in the wake of the great strife. The world was ready for a new dawn, it seemed. A powder keg ready to blow, to sweep aside the pretenses of the civilized world, and bring something far more splendid. I salute that madman who took aim at that archduke, spraying cranial gore everywhere, and so it was. The chips were down. No more rules. It was the state of nature, the object of Hobbesian fear, having regained primacy once again in our lives. But it was not all doom and gloom. Nay, I think it was quite the opposite. Think of it like…dead trees, fallen trees, old, elderly, worn out trees, having long reached their expiration date, being taken away in a captivating inferno, swallowed up by a blaze that, whilst fearsome in the moment, would prove to do more good than bad. T’was a chance to start anew, perhaps. Oh yes, it was. For no one had seen anything like this before, and it was determined to take everyone and everything with into The Pit.

Oh, how glorious it could’ve been, in the aftermath.

It did show promise, indeed.

Father against father, brother against brother. Kin against kin. A race cannibalizing and eating itself alive. Not to worry, though. These folks were long overdue for a lowering into the grave, and everything they stood for being thrown into it with them. Scores of bodies piling up several feet. Efficiency had made killing a mere triviality. Land destroyed, soaked in blood, flesh, bone, grime, fire, soot, tar, and lorded over by the stench of rot and decay, the stench of bodies baking in the sun, or festering in the cold. Towns and cities, even famous ones, now flattened, leveled, devastated with relentless and savage hatred in the hearts of the various war machines being put to use. Libraries, museums, pubs, clubs homes/manors/estates, art galleries, banks, churches, streets, towers, farms, all of them…gone. Borders meant jack shit. Words were long gone. Now was the time to speak only in lead, artillery, gunpowder, and steel. Morality was skewered in the slaughterhouse. God, family, tradition, blood relations, ideology order, where was it? Certainly not here.

This was the chance, for us dreamers of the dark. The sinister. That which they name as perverse, making mothers clutch their pearls in horror, gasping with eyes wide, and fathers shake their heads, worried for the sanity of his offspring.

Because everything was falling, and it deserve to be pushed down even further, even faster.

What a delight it would’ve been to see everything gone, all that we loathe, even those who profess to do the exact opposite.

Alas, that was not the case.

I should’ve known, but, when this great ordeal severed all bonds between fellow humans, seeing it for myself, I could only feel hopeful.

Invisible enemies invaded the mouth and nose, shredding the lungs, and incinerating the skin. Machine gun fire, roaring and full of rage, turned men into Swiss cheese. Tanks crawled alongside comparatively puny riflemen, pilotable cannons turning would-be fortresses and stubborn encampments into ash piles and smoldering wrecks. Portable ordinance, able to be adjusted in terms of the angle they fired at, lobbed shell after shell, cratering the ground and liquefying any nearby souls. Roaring engines, shaped like wooden tubs, with wings like birds, made mincemeat of each other in the air, and us on the ground. Water-bound fortresses the size of several small buildings murdered and pilfered coastlines and rival aquatic castles, with cannons as big as automobiles.

Even our “homes” were not safe. Rats, mosquitoes, maggots, crows, and other pests gnawed at us incessantly, as if we were already dead. Microscopic assassins caught us at our weakest moments, turning the fittest of us into frail husks, unable to even move a measly few feet. Dirt and water turned our skin into our own worst enemies. To drink and eat was to ingest poison, and to not do so, that meant suffering self-cannibalism. And the sights we’d see…we’d surely never forget. The screams. The smells. The noises. The endless number of bodies. The mangled steel and the butchered infrastructure. How could we forget? Sleep was never going to be the same for any of us again. If we could even sleep at all.

It showed the marks of a true upheaval. An end to all things. The sign of an era that was now nailed into a coffin. All things fetid, dull, hollow, the sham of what we call “existence”, it should’ve stopped here, no?

How could anything live after this? How could we go back to business as usual? The rapture had come. The end times were here. If anyone wanted proof of the apocalypse, then all one had to do was simply look outside, all around you.

I think we had come to realize a lot of things, in this rather short period of time.

The pretenses we upheld, this mystical notion that we were somehow more evolved, all of these were dashed in an instant. We found them to be strikingly fragile. When calls for blood overwhelmed our reason and logic, it suddenly appeared that we weren’t as prim and proper as we’d like to think. Christ was gone, and in his place, Mars reigned supreme. Now we were not so above the world of tooth and claw. All else became error. To think we were better than that, was now a foolish notion. Civilization was a carefully maintained dream, but it was in these moments, we realized that it was a dream we’d have to wake up from. It couldn’t go on for forever. It wouldn’t. It was impossible. The comfort, the security, it was all taken away. By our own hands, ultimately. Who would’ve thought?

I’ll certainly never know what “normalcy” feels like, never again. Petty conversations and debates, laws and rhetoric to back up said laws, manners, social conventions, it was all…window dressing. It wasn’t real. If it was real, then it was as easy to destroy as fine china.

All of it was a hilariously shaky way of keeping the beast at bay.

To think that the cathedral would stay standing for all eternity…that was optimistic boulder dash. It was a house of cards, and all it needed…was one good wind gust to blow it all down.

I was certain it couldn’t ever be rebuilt. It’d be about as useful as tying strings around the limbs of a corpse and moving it like a puppet.

Force and valor were the only things that had any meaning. The only guarantor that one could hope to rely on. Freedom is won this way, and freedom is maintained this way. In the realm of absolute freedom, as this happened to be, for me at least, this is all that keeps one alive, and assures any kind of safety. For without the state, you’re out in the open. And we all run on instincts at that point.

It would appear that man saw the side of itself that it’s always trying to suppress. The ever-present, always-lurking shadow. Man let it out, freed it from its cage, let it dominate. Naturally, the shadow did as the shadow always does. Primal ferocity was unleashed, and devastation followed in its wake. It spread and spread, the shadow blanketing humanity, a chain reaction leading to every people, every tribe, sprouting fangs once again, and a storm disrupted the calm skies that normally permeate the hearts of men. Fires surged within, quelled and tempered for far too long, and the blood of people boiled. Frenzied madness became the order of the day.

I know mine certainly came out. Every time my bayonet went through a man’s chest, or I emptied my magazine into an enemy regiment’s men, or the sounds of death and destruction came from my own hands, I felt as if I was God himself. I was above all. Nothing was my master. Nothing except myself. The only thing stopping me was my might. I reveled in my cruelty and delighted in my bloodlust. I’m not entirely sure why I even felt the way I did. I had no special hatred for these men, or their homeland. I had no particular attachment to my own kin, or place of birth. Nevertheless, it felt so wonderful to let the carnal, gnashing whirlwind of vitriol stored up deep inside me loose upon everything. That repressed pitch-blackness that was always caged, and when it was stirred, when it smelled blood, it threw itself against the walls and doors, desperate for release. Man is both God and Devil, and every man has a monster in him. Some just choose to acknowledge it. Even let it out when it demands. Others? They keep it chained up. And usually, it doesn’t manage to take over. However, there are times when it does, so pent up.

Mankind had opened a gateway, a nexion, if you will, to dark forces. Forces we likely were not meant to know. Not the lot of us. All of which instilled a collective insanity in the human species. Whether or not that was intentional, I cannot say. A plethora of, to our feeble minds and soft brains, malicious…things…lurked out in the immaterial, where not even space and time manage to penetrate. By this act, this collective force of will to bring the rapture upon Earth, mass murder both ritualized and spontaneous, we not only caught their attention, but we aided them in making this place a lot more sinister. A lot more vicious. Those pagan deities, having always existed, only taking on different forms and different names throughout the ages, yet still being worshipped in their own ways, directly or indirectly, they are…here. It’s impossible to describe them. All that can really be said is…we sacrificed many for them, and in turn, we, knowingly or not, began to evolve in a certain direction. Beyond the throes of the past, and the present, and into something that reflected our true nature. Harnessing some of their power (though it did not come without a price, a heavy cost, as you may have inferred) that they bestowed upon the more favorable of us, the establishment, that is to say, the old ways, the exalted paths, the values and the forms they took, which we held, dogmatically, fanatically, to be sacred, while not defeated, sadly, was further marched to its inevitable doom.

The Faustian man was held back, and in all this, I recognized it. I mourned it, for the Faustian man would surely perish once again, back into the arms of a sick, suffocating prison.

The great man had an out, here, and potentially there could’ve been an out all over, but the general populace wanted to stay in.

Inside this horrid prison.

This prison we call the West.

The myth of the “brotherhood of man” was shattered. Man is not something which particularly likes itself, as I was shown time and time again. They quarrel over petty differences. I say petty, because while they may show affinity for a culture, or a movement, or a nation/community, they damn sure had no hand in it. They’re much akin to spectators at a sporting event. Cheering on, but not in any way contributing. Sheep tend to look the same, and act the same, even if they look different, and live in a different location. They have a universal behavior. Not to insult actual sheep, that is. I enjoy the presence of lambs and goats and cattle and other bovids infinitely more than the common man who walks down the street. Farm animals a better sight than some rando. Also, a quick side note, flock being led about by a herdsman, who is just as much of a slave as the slaves themselves. The herdsman is owned just as much by the herd as the herd is by their herdsman. It’s more relevant than you think. Anyway, man is not in a position, or in a mindset, to ever be really accepting of that which is different from itself. Will it ever? I doubt it. Man tends to reject anything that doesn’t conform to its notions of “normal”, of “right” and “wrong”. And, to be quite honest, it shouldn’t. The world would be a dull place of everything was put into one giant melting pot. Internationalism, I don’t have an affinity for it. But don’t mistake this for some sort of pride in something abstract. I’m just saying.

Humanity hates itself. I saw it. I even felt it. Man will be the end of man. Humanity will die by suicide, not by external causes. I’m sure of it. Has anything changed much since the war? No, it hasn’t.

The Earth doesn’t seem to like humanity very much either. During the war, it took every opportunity to kill it. Casting it out into the cold elements and natural wilderness it rejected by setting up monolithic centers to block out the dear Mother. Unleashing plague upon plague, sickness upon sickness, because man was thrown back into Nature (most of the fighting was done out in the more open areas, not as much in cities and whatnot), and was woefully unprepared to live within it. Spoiling its sources of nutrition, ruining its mechanical devices. I can’t say I’m surprised, or even unsympathetic. Humanity needed to be knocked down a peg anyway, I think. And it was…for a moment. Plus, when you strike at the Mother, you’re going to have to expect a strike back. It’d be idiotic to think you can just domineer the one who gave birth to you indefinitely.

The Earth was also trying to subtly remind us where we belonged. Where we really belonged.

Everything revolted against humanity. Even humanity itself.

And everything wanted to tear apart what humanity had created. Even humanity itself.

Naturally, the masses were scared by all of this, all of what they saw, and all governments, who are headed by politicians, all of whom are democrats at heart, are, to some extent or another, whether or not they say otherwise, being populist, conserved what was left, and tried to restore what was lost. Pick up the pieces, so the people could live in peace again. They have to placate the whims of the people. Otherwise, they don’t survive. And all governments, all politicians, no matter what they say, are egoists, to some degree. A selfless leader is like a vegetarian wolf. It’s nonexistent.

So, things were brought back to business as usual.

That didn’t last very long, did it?

There were wars in the streets. Bloody battles between those who wanted their nation restored to former glory, frightened by the decay all around them, and those who, to these reactionaries, would only destroy them even further. Which they would, with their leveling materialism, lack of spirituality, and anthropocentric/humanistic approach to life. On the other hand, I’d argue that the nations deserved to be dead, anyway. And, to a degree, there wasn’t much of a difference between the two. Another case of petty squabbling. Like youth-driven gang warfare. Neither could stop the oncoming of the Kali Yuga.

Now, here we are.

The stages set for another war.

People are demanding the blood of other people.

Rabble rousers are happy to give it to them.

Countries are armed to the teeth, all glaring at each other, with guns pointed at one another’s heads.

There is a great feeling that whatever that has passed must be totally discarded and dismembered, to make way for something closer to the truth, a new world. One that is thoroughly unattached to the fetid doctrines of centuries we’ve long since forgotten.

I don’t think them and I want the same things.

Because I want this all gone, but they only want to hop back on the wheel, and simply make what has long since proven to be useless and harmful, work for them.

I truly want it all gone.

Maybe I’ll see it come to fruition.

I doubt it.

BLOOD IN THE VALLEY

A silhouette could be seen on the street, outlined by the striking scene behind it. A factory was in flames. What kind? Could’ve been any. A manufacturer of building materials. A plant producing chemicals or sorting trash. A cement-making facility. A producer of farm feed. A space that churned construction equipment and construction materials. A slaughterhouse. Didn’t matter now. All that mattered was that it was burning to the ground. A broken mess of steel, concrete, and flesh. A heap of smoldering rubble. Casualties aplenty consumed by smoke and fire, trapped amidst destroyed wreckage. Shockwaves wracked the surrounding area as the scourge, the putrid entity, collapsed further, falling apart in dramatic fashion, screams and wails heard as some tried, with much futility, to escape. There was no saving it, despite earlier attempts. Best to jump ship. Not like they had a chance of doing that.

Man’s hubris had come full circle. Its creation had killed it.

The only thing that tends to kill man, at the end of the day, is man. Yet he remains afraid of Nature. Tormented and haunted by it.

Possibly because Nature reminds him at every turn that, no, many of his kin have gone too far, and most of his own aren’t welcome. Not anymore. Only some may delve deep. Be allowed to take refuge in her arms.

About the silhouette. It was difficult to make out the more minute details, but, the general picture was clear. A man lay beaten on the ground, lying face first upon the street. Standing over him was a man, much younger than the one currently being attacked. Mid 20s, compared to the battered gentleman’s late 40s. He wore a leather jacket, a shirt with an algiz rune on it, a pair of jeans, and heavy, steel-toed combat boots. The man on the ground was wearing a suit. A nice one. The kind that signified a certain…decadence. A degenerate lifestyle. Focused solely on materialistic concerns. Profit. Plutocracy. Dishonorable, disgraceful pursuits. This…man, if you could call him that, symbolized it so perfectly.

The younger man had his leg raised at about a 45° angle in the air, completely straight, not bent in any way. His heel was about to come down on the older man’s head. No doubt would this sickening excuse for a human’s skull be shattered, fractured, turned into shards. His brain, if there was one at all, splattered all over the ground. Staining the rather pristine looking boot.

The younger man’s head was turned towards the carnage behind him. One could guess that there was a look of satisfaction upon his face, though it was hard to tell, given the cover of night, and his facial features obscured by his straight, shoulder-length blonde hair. Proud of his handiwork, it would seem. He had every right to be.

There used to be land, where that eyesore once stood. A vibrant ecosystem, teeming with life. Dense woods populated with critters of all kinds, large and small, herbivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous, full of blooming flowers, damp, cool, fertile soil, tall grass, lush shrubbery, and some particularly eccentric, exciting forms of flora scattered about. The deep woods led to a lovely field in the center, home to a large pond. The eye of Earth gazing out. Fish, birds, deer, reptiles and amphibians of many kinds, possum, coyotes, and many other life forms congregated or lived around here, enjoying the sweet building block of everything that was alive.

It was gone now. Those trees had been chopped down. That grass mowed mercilessly. Those flowers shredded. That soil was ruined, tarnished. And the creatures? Either slaughtered, or driven out. That pond is now a haven for all kinds of toxic waste. A thick, murky bog of sludge. Everything that goes near it fall ill, or dies.

Perhaps, perhaps…amidst the ruins, Nature can bring back what was lost. The giant was put to sleep, permanently. No longer allowed to wreak havoc like it once did. Maybe she could repair some, or most, of the damage that was done. No longer will it be a dead zone, devoid of beauty. She had a knack for that. With this nuisance out of the way, life may yet prevail, and find its way back to this area.

Let’s hope.

EVERYTHING HERE IS SO COLD (EVERYTHING HERE IS SO DARK)

Don’t think. None of that.

Well, it’s not like you could. But, here, use this to stunt whatever budding potential may’ve been present that might help you to do so.

Everything hurts, doesn’t it?

You want relief, yeah?

It’s all too much, surely. You want an escape. An out. You don’t want to face it, or deal with it. Dealing with it causes pain. Thinking, feeling, that torments the mind and rends the heart. All the abuse, oh, you can’t take it. You need painkillers to take away the welts and scars. That way, it’ll be easier to endure the master’s whip. Otherwise, you’d crack, and take the whip from the master, and whip the ever loving shit out of him, instead. Payback for all those cuts on your flesh. Thanks to these, you will want to avoid that fight. Getting whipped won’t hurt as much. Hell, you may come to enjoy It, even, under certain…additives. Or, it might potentially motivate you more, rather than demoralizing you.

Oh dear, we can’t have that, can we? You thinking and feeling; why, you might decide all this isn’t for you.

I know just the thing.

Go on, eat the lotus. Take it.

Oh yes, let those needles, let that smoke, let that pipe, let that line, whisk you away to lands so pleasant and pleasurable, dearest friend. Ignore the unimaginable terror looming just beyond the sunny horizon.

It’ll be all better.

What is it?

Does that really matter?

Look, all of your idols did it, and still do it. Those friends of yours? They indulge as well. Don’t you want to be more fun, more interesting? Have stories to tell? Get rid of the awkwardness and dullness of your life?

You’d get a good fuck out of it, maybe. I know a few that did. It’s real easy. Especially when you’re in a den. What’s a den? You’ll find out soon enough.

Better yet, don’t you want to take away all of the hurt, the pain? The nagging pain? And don’t you want to fit in better, while still maintaining what’s required of you, perhaps even going above and beyond? So negative, you are. Just think of it as a boost, to help you jump through those hoops, whenever you can’t by yourself.

Earning success is a nigh impossibility without it. Vigorous and strong souls can do it, but you are neither, I assume. You’re weak. Consider this…help.

Stop whenever you wish. There’s no obligation you’re making to it.

Hmm, it would appear that your personal relationships are in tatters.

Seems your soul got ripped out, or put through the ringer. You aren’t you anymore. If there is anything left of you, something that hasn’t been eaten up, or locked away, it can’t be present. The disease, it lives in you. A parasite, puppeteering its host. Your body, your mind, have now become expressions of its will, its personality. Say goodbye to yourself.

Everyone left, because all that’s left is a void where everything that gets sucked in, dies. Slowly, painfully. Seems they don’t want to see you die. Could’ve been the result of you lashing out, and so they decided to cut you out, leave you to fester. I don’t blame them. Although, for me, I need you around for different reasons. I need you to keep coming back.

Can’t have it both ways. Them, or it. You made your choice.

Do you even care?

Can you even comprehend your decisions, your actions?

You tried so hard to make it your bitch. No, you said, I will not be your slave. I will make you work for me.

Silly, that’s not how it works. You thought you could just sell your soul to the devil, and get it back? Poor bastard, you’re even dumber than you look.

It took everything from you. It will keep taking everything from you.

Speaking of how you look, wow, you really worse for wear. Plastic skin, rotting teeth, sunken cheeks, bloodshot eyes, hair as brittle as old clay. Have you ate? Can you even muster up an appetite? Of course not. You live off of this. Everything else just cuts into your chase for this, no? Your friends, family, hobbies, house, food, water, that’s a distraction from this. Because you need this. Nothing else satisfies. Only this. That’s it. You need more. Never enough. Always more. More, and more. I can give you more. I’ll always give you more. In fact, I encourage you to come to me, to give you more. At this point, I’m your only friend now, because I can give you more. This, this is all you want. Say it, you know it’s true. Bound to it. Chained like a convict to a prison cell. Oh yes, and I’m your warden. You’re mine. You’re its. Everything you are, is not yours anymore.

Rotting, rotting away.

Buried deep inside of a shell, you’ll never again see the light of the day.

Lay on the concrete, stuffing yourself full, a dreary husk.

Close your eyes, my friend; let yourself drift away into dusk.

Another one gone away, another statistic, another number.

None the wiser are they, to I; I make a living off of their blunders.

YEARS THAT HAVE PASSED ARE NOW CENTURIES

Flowers grow through skulls left behind from long-deceased peoples. The towering giant of yesterday now lies dead within the dirt, wretched and botched creature that it was, now only sustenance for the green things it loved to mercilessly cut down. Bone dust grows the trees that burst through the ruins of spiritual and physical decay crafted by a lousy, bipedal mishap. Up and above the fossils of Homo Sapiens, bloom the signs of a spring that has come once again. Marrow feeds the new kingdom of flora that shall once again restore color and beauty to the face of the planet, allowing this wondrous home to no longer be barren and deserted. All the thanks to the sacrifice given, if unwillingly, and maybe even unknowingly, so long ago, by that cosmic mishap.

Nations now bear fruit that was once thought to be extinct. Without boundaries, without the limits imposed by Homo Sapiens, without the constant breeding for the mere purpose of worthless, soulless, disgusting hedonism, gorging their overweight bodies on laboratory creations for the sake of endless indulgence. Quite hilarious, for Nature got the last laugh. All of these wonderful treasures are open to all other creatures who are so inclined, except the one that, thanks to their incessant revolt, tasted the consequences of their insatiable murder and vivisection.

Tinged with red are the innards of bark, grass, shrubs, leaves, the fertile soil, flowers, stems, and such anatomical parts of the rooted kin. Stained crimson from inside are these plant friends, nourished on the most forbidden of drinks. Which thus makes it the strongest, the most powerful, of elixirs to partake of. In the ashes of the hominid empire, they stand proud and tall. From the smallest, most minute blade of grass, to the tallest, proudest, sturdiest conifer, all were watered on the life-giving liquid of that rotten, corrupt species that was deemed to be, by a most ignorant specimen, the pinnacle of biological evolution. If that were true, then why did they, while the inferiors are continuously grown on their remains? Cadavers served their purposes as fertilizer, and are remembered no longer. At best, a mere blink in the eyes of history and time. For it was born fast, and it died fast. Better off, all is, without the silhouette, the dingy form, lurking in every corner, of every acre. Those who may’ve come into contact with them, who may’ve known what they were, and what they looked like, are long gone. Not that there was anything worth knowing. Best left to be forgotten.

So ironic, isn’t it? Before, all of this, this artistic creation of a mind incomprehensible, with each of its occupants inhabiting unique points in time and space, unlike any others, each with wills of their own, and no will exactly identical to any other, striving with, rather than against, as it was meant to be, simply…Being…because that is the way of the soul, the heart, and not the mind, was simply seen as auxiliary material. Condemned to be fed to the beasts. Leviathans. Was there multiple? Or just one hulking, homeless abomination? Hmm, maybe it shall never be known. Perhaps it is best left that way.

Oh, how the tables hath turned. Now it is these destroyers of life, who made war upon it, day in and day out, except for those few, those precious, largely unacknowledged, heroic few (t’is always but a few, isn’t it?), who did their best to go back to the ways of the Mother, knowing, even if just a little bit, with either faint or large inklings, that this was the way to Truth, these things called “people” are now “standing reserve”. For eternity. Plant feed, for the splendid garden, which houses and also gives nutrients to many of the slowly returning fauna that was nearly rendered extinct, who also provide meals for many of the other fauna, who are not given to consuming that which sprouts from the ground.

Sadly, very sadly, those courageous few, they were condemned, killed, ridiculed, shunned, banished, tormented, threatened, slandered, and eventually purged from the memory of the whole, dismissed as crazy, decadent, degenerate, corrupt, idolatrous, kooky, inane. But, nay, it was that stupid majority, that bafflingly braindead mass, the overconfident and over-praised all too human, congregating into numbers deemed “many-too-many”, that was…hopelessly, and miserably, lacking in any intelligence, or spirit.

In the dirt, flesh has dissolved into it. Human meat became a part of the dirt, laced with the earthy, brown skin of the dear planet. Probably the only useful thing it could’ve ever done. As humanity was composted, the garden of Eden, which was once pure and undisturbed, began to grow back again, into its thriving state. No longer under the threat of constant siege. Hacked and chopped away by whirring blades and trampled by vomiting, belching, motorized monstrosities? Never again. Able to grow as big and strong as Nature will allow. Interfered with by the arbitrary and destructive accident that was Adam’s clay-born sons, they no longer are.

Over by the distant horizon, with great mountains in the background, standing peacefully in the vast field, which leads into a great, dense forest, are two figures. Male, and female. Each bearing tall scythes, resting upon their shoulders, hands firmly grasped on their handles (fashioned out of blackthorn). Their free hands held together, fingers laced. Looking off into the direction of the ever present sun.

The Green Man, and the Mistress Of Blood. Heads adorned by crowns of poisonous thorns. Eyes as black as coal, with otherworldly, acausal blood flowing in their veins. Born from the domain of dark, unknowable gods, who were abandoned by that hairless ape for their demiurges, their tulpas, abstractions and ideations with no basis in actuality or meaning of any sort.

Standing side by side, as blood drips evermore from the tips of the scythes. And behind them, always, do miracles of foliage and vegetation flourish, which leads to all else flourishing as well.

Here on out, ahalt the Earth be regarded as a cheap whore?

Asketh the Green Man and Mistress Of Earth,
Bringers of both death and rebirth.

With smiles on their faces, both shall say, “nevermore”.

EVERYONE HATES EVERYONE (THERE IS NO GRACE IN WAITING)

Knives against throats, bullets crashing through skulls, fists against jaws and noses, teeth against curbs, bodies thrown, and individuals set aflame, oh my. How glorious it all is, how utterly satisfying it makes one to gaze upon such a sight. Bastard against bastard, mother against daughter, son against father, brothers and sisters rend the necks of one another. The streets shall be filled with blood; foul-smelling, unclean, spiritually dead blood. Concrete shall be stained crimson. Gatherings of the dead shall be at their height in the festering alleyways, behind the grotesque buildings and inside the decaying, rotting homes. Under flames, the cities shall be. Engulfed in infernos, swallowed and dragged straight into the pits of Hell.

I want total carnage.

Complete devastation, utter annihilation.

Yes, I can even see the premonition in my mind. When I sleep, when I sit, when I walk in various corners and crevices that are unknown to all but a few, when I create, when I eat and drink, when I am both thinking and when my mind is emptied, flushed out.

Most will say I am mad. That I’ve gone off my rocker.

But, I say it is they who are mad, for they cannot see, or perhaps they do, yet wish to ignore…content to live in their bliss. Mediocrities that they are, emotion is scary, for it is an unpredictable volcano, a fierce typhoon. And what is to come…

Why, it shall stir everything inside them.

Dare I say, it shall finally make them feel something. Maybe, just maybe, they will finally glimpse, grasp, experience, what it may be like to have a soul. To be spiritually inclined, to go through a metaphysical undertaking. Finally, they shall…feel…

Pray for God, they shall, and no answer, they’ll receiveth. Only silence. The abyss, they summoned, foolishly, and coldly, it stares back, ready to receive them into itself. They cannot cross it; brave or strong enough, they proved to be not. As a result, into perdition they are cast.

A perdition of their own making.

Wanted it, craved it, oh yes.

T’is coming. Fast, and deadly.

Let every extremity born from thought, every twisted branch of the mind, all concoctions abstract and without basis in anything except the laughable desires and urges of humanity at large, reign free, no longer confined to mere paper and idle talk. To see them battle it out, so that they may all die horrifically and perish in the wake of this crumbling aeon; oh, let it be so. For they are all false and untrue. Heighten the contradictions; at any and all costs. Burn and crash, burn and crash, I say. Let the political be gutted by its own creation, torn apart from the inside like a scorching burst of water spilling out of a geyser. Weaken it, bring it to its knees. It cannot hold for forever. And once it is gone, then so shall the political as well fed away…

Friend and foe? All is foe; none is friend. Rage shall exist between all. Hate with all of thine heart.

Rescue? Save? Bring back? Ha, you are foolish, oh miserable idealist. I know this can never be done.

Our train’s brakes have eroded into nothing long ago; we are now heading over the cliff. My grin widens viciously as the edge nears closer and closer. The train huffs and roars as, despite the best efforts of the captains and the passengers alike. Screaming fearfully as they are faced with the end times of their own design. No course of action except to dutifully go forward, hurtling the entirety of humankind into the abyss. For there is no reverse, and there is no stopping. Yes, yes, plunge, o’ sons and daughters of man, plunge. Go forth violently into that frightful twilight.

It is here, it is here…

Shall it be, that all nations and their respective races, with their degenerate customs and decadent cultures, will face turmoil, thanks to these new uprisings and events, the likes of which have never been bared witness to before. Gazing at the barrel of the gun they have long since been raising up to their own eyes, the barrel begins to be pressed against their temples, finger now firmly squeezing back the trigger. The shot eager to be jettisoned from its current abode, right into the cranium of humanity, snuffing it out. Oh, I can already here the silence after the shot. I can already see the splatter of skull and brain matter onto the ground below.

God, how it makes my mouth salivate at the very thought of all the chaos and malevolent happenings that will ensue.

Institutions razed to the ground. All forms of social cohesion and state apparatus wiped out cleared away. Economies go under, police will become overwhelmed and turn their guns upon themselves. Militaries will go mad. Communications and production will be subjected to hellish infernos.

Millions of eardrums shall burst as all of the world’s arsenal is aimed at every human empire upon this planet, while the dregs, the wretched, shall tremble and quake, tears pouring down their faces, suffering in their derelict kingdoms of rot. Heads shall ring as they try to shut their eyes and block out the sounds of howls born from misery and agony as well as the maddening acts of war going on around them. But the luxury shall not be afforded them, no. Witness they shall bare to the horrific actions being perpetrated on their home fronts. Even in front of their very abodes. Soon, they shall become targets as well. Spared, none shall be.

No solace, no safety, shall be found, as all becomes engulfed in bloodshed.

Rich, poor? The blood that flows cares not the amount of currency, for all veins will burst like fire hydrants and spill burgundy life fluid all over. Bank accounts will not be able to alleviate the inevitable.

Old, young? Women, children, men? Ripe, as well, for the self-imposed extermination that will take place.

Guilty spared? Not a chance. Innocent unharmed? I think it not.

Lies, what they considered, shall become true, and truths, what they knew, shall turn to delusion. All that they held in their hearts and minds to be the verifiable condition of the universe around them, will be mercilessly stripped away, the veil torn off. Eyes shall face the wicked monster that looks back, the ceaseless, infinite void. And pray tell, what is that void? It is they, yes it is. They are that abyss, that void. Pay for sin upon sin, they shall pay. A hundredfold, the universe declares, for their Houdini tricks, shuffling out of the grasp of reality. The warranty’s expired. Out from order, shall be disorder.

Social taboo shall become commonplace, and morality, ethics, codes of honor, shall be cleared away. Rightfully so, as everything that stood here, in front of mine eyes, was worth clearing away. Knocked off of the table in the crudest, most blatant of manners. Scattered along the floor.

All that is leftover from this era, this epoch of wretched illusions, I say, should be banished back to the sightless pit t’was born from.

They fear what transpired in their murky past?

O’, how they will be unable to fathom what is to come.

Pitiless killing and maiming and murdering and pillaging and raping of tragically comical proportions shall ensue. There is no way around this. Only through, that is the only way. Cannot force back the turning of the wheel, you cannot. Hopeless wish, carried in the gullet of the perpetually afraid. The end of the age must be confronted, and the accursed many shall be steamrolled.

Hope, optimism, that cowardice, will be crushed. Ground into dust and ash. For only the future beholds, for now, an endless stream of nerve-wracking anxiety and pain.

I told you all…

And so, I shall step back, away from it all. I refuse to relish in your corruption, your taint. For whilst, in the days, months, years, decades, leading to this moment, I was not one of you. Physically present, I was. As much as I needed to be, anyway. But my mind was distant, far away. Soul wanting nothing to do with the disease you carried. Now? Above I am, over all your petty quandaries, your stupid war, another impoverished cycle of mundane time. Watching from a great distance, indifferent to your struggle, your worry, your paranoia, your rapture. Squabbles that are of utter insignificance in the grand scheme of things. How seriously you take it all. Even this, which will be but a footnote in the history of Nature and the Earth, soon hardly remembered and never referenced. What will it change? Not much, I can imagine. Untrue, I wish it were, but…well, as I said, optimism is a cowardice. But maybe it will. I cannot be too sure. Time keeps her secrets well hidden. Offering up her knowledge to no one at all, for no one is worthy.

Deep into the forests, I shall go. Commune with long-forgotten spirits, who were held in high regard in bygone times. Get back in touch with being. For the spiritual knows the way to freedom. The material can only provide so much. Not enough, I am sad to say, for it is bolstered completely by its ethereal counterpart. Otherwise, it deteriorates. Life force is needed, it is certain. It is true. And in the forests, freedom reigns. In the forests, all shall be revealed to me. She beckons me back, calling me into my true home. Her voice resonates deep within my core, my essence, and I know…I know that this is where I belong. Away from that mess. But I must always be on the move, for it is ever-threatening to encircle me, entrap me, and slay me, or worse, subsume me into it. Making me a part of it. Something I scorn terribly.

Out from all time, the messages of the dead surge within me, crashing through the gates to spread their wisdom, these heroes from innumerable periods, countless years. What was documented in books (plays, poems, novels, theories)…it now becomes a lived reality within. Immortalized, I shalt become, and immortalized, via my remembrance and recollection of them, their stories and their knowledge, nestled deep within that well, they are as well. A treasure trove, a bounty, they contain. Pity that most didn’t recognize this. Nay, refused to do so. And so, were deprived of something most potent: myth.

Perhaps there are others like me, islands standing tall in this oceanic Hell, this watery cesspit. I doubt they number very many. Most of them went into the fray, and come back even more broken, or don’t come back at all. Have they banded together? Or do they go at it alone?

Ah, alone I seem to be. Struck with solitude.

Yet, I was always alone. Even when in company, I was never truly in company. How could I be?

Shall I ever come back? Return to that world again? Maybe. Maybe not. I am tempted to decide against it, yet there is something oddly compelling about what goes on down there. Possibly, I am an addict, a fiend. Entertainment? Amusement? Can’t discount those, certainly not. Or I could be a masochist. Relishing in the immense exhaustion and nervousness it will consistently bring upon me. Force of habit, even? I would hope not, yet I am not free from the temptations of mundanity. Attachments? Did I have any before? I did, come to think of it. And now I am saddened. Saddened more than I was already. What a shame…

For now…I’ll enjoy the spoils of war. Quietude, and relaxation.

It was long overdue.

NO ONE IS SAFE

Does it make you feel
Like a man? To know by your
Hands, a disadvantaged
Creature dies? Does it
Make you hard, you fucking
Scumbag, that you got to show
This miracle of creation how much,
By you, it is despised? I bet you
Were aroused as you stared coldly
Into its frightened eyes.

Walk among us, you get to, without
Any consequence. Taking you out with
Shotgun justice, that would be deemed
Terroristic dissidence. But fuck it,
If that’s what it takes, then it is
You that’ll be slain. Day by day, your
Numbers will drop; their deaths shall not
Have been in vain. Upon those racks you’ll be
Placed, and you’ll get your own
Doses of pain. Let’s see how you will
Like to have been driven completely insane.

Grab you by your legs,
I’d like to do. Slam you into
Pavement over and over again
Until you’re black, dead, and blue.
You’re one of the dregs,
And hope someone
Someday fucking kills you. Psychopathic
Monster, I hope your contaminated
Innards are twisted and construed.

No love in your heart,
Just possessed by only hate.

Boy, oh boy, I bet, to you,
It feels so fucking great.

Do you think of doing
The same to your
Wife and kids? Nay, I don’t
Imagine you think
Of doing it, but actually
Act, bashing them against the
Hard surface when you’re pissed.

Pray and hope, I do, that no one
Would ever wish to mate with a
Machine such as yourself. May chains
Bound you ever so tightly as armies
Of wicked things drag you off
Right into Hell. Where you must
Abandon and all hope, and every time
You die, once again, you must
Face the goddamn rope.

Can you feel?

Not a chance; I hope your skin
Is slowly peeled.

And it still wouldn’t be enough
For all the babies’ lives you steal.

The families you butcher and maim,
Because to you, it’s just a sick, demented game.

Once you started, your feat was forever sealed.

Violently stop their beating hearts,
And let the beatings start.

Dig into their chest, tear open their
Ribcage, and make sure they’re torn apart.

“There is a practice in the meat industry. PAC, it is called. Which stands for…pound against concrete. You may ask yourself, with uncertainty and terror welling up in your heart: what does “pound against concrete” entail, exactly? To pound against concrete means to take a pig that isn’t viable for consumption by the masses (the fucking masses…), typically a baby, a piglet…grab it by its hind legs, like some kind of metal chain, and whack it against the cold, hard ground repeatedly. Over and over. Until it is dead.

Now, I don’t know about you…but these don’t sound like beings that are alive, to me. Nay, these sound like what I’ve once referred to as…dead flesh walking. “Dead flesh walking” are those bastards who have no soul. Their blood is just liquid ice in their veins, and their hearts do not beat. Matter of a fact, if you were to cut them open (which you absolutely should…), they might not even possess a heart. Famous examples include Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Kemper, Gary Ridgeway, Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy, and many others. What did they all have in common? A distinct knack for the bludgeoning, burning, dissection, beating, torturing, psychologically tormenting, and general murdering…of animals. Of course, those who practice the sadistic art of pounding little piggies against concrete are not regarded as serial killers, or, at least, adjacent to them. Why’s that? Because it serves an economic function. It feeds the ever-gluttonous population of human scum that has overfilled planet Earth. It’s useful, it’s utilitarian. I bet many consider them heroes. Probably revered in their local communities.

I bet they get off on it. I bet it makes them absolutely tickled, these pieces of shit. I bet they can’t wait to tell their fucking family and friends. Hell, I bet it isn’t just pigs they do it to. Why do you think they get so good at it? It starts with critters…and then next thing you know, kids go missing. Entrails drag out, with the evidence of unspeakable acts having been committed against them.

A part of me…a large part of me…would like to, in the name of those poor bovids, get some revenge. Place their teeth against the nearest street curb. Like that infamous scene in the movie American History X, where Derek Vineyard loses his shit, shortly before going to prison. Pound their skulls against concrete with the heel of my boot.

The law has always protected those who least deserve it.

So, I’ll end this with a quote from an Irish playwright I greatly admire…

Whilst we, the conventional…were wasting our time on education, agitation, and organization, some independent genius has taken the matter in hand…”

Pure terror.

All they know, and all they understand.

Why not give them something in return?”

BE SILENT NOW AND TAKE YOUR BEATING

Green pastures as far as the eyes could see, ones both flat and hilly able to be gazed upon. Foliage of all kinds, tall and short grass, shrubbery and bushes, flowers/roses/lilies, succulents, fungi, species of a vascular variety, weeds, and other eccentric beings having sprouted from within the soil. All commonplace staples in this fertile land, which bares fruit aplenty. It can’t help but do so. Extended out into infinity, seemingly never coming to an end. Acre upon acre, where even small distances seem like vast, incomprehensible pathways into the unknown. Out in the distance, dense clusters of trees loom into view, branches and leaves casting wide, looming shadows over the ground that they tower over. Bordering the sprawling grandiosity of the wondrous, wide open space. Strong, sturdy creations which boldly jut out from the surface of the earth, shading the smaller, more fragile and easily knocked over distant cousins that stand alongside them, sometimes clustered around their roots. Deciduous and evergreen alike are bunched together, such impeccable diversity, for the to the untrained, uncaring eye, they all look alike, but in all actuality, they are indescribably unique. And no two sectors of these proud beings is the same. Perhaps similar, but totally alike? Hardly. Not at all. Boldly, they stand. Like guardians, protecting their domain. Here, within their embrace, lies something alluring, sinister, possibly dangerous and foreboding, but also beautiful, exciting, primordial, and undeniably…right.

And if you wander far enough, you’ll see deep, mirror-like bodies of a mesmerizing, refreshing substance. Untainted, undisturbed by any manner of grotesqueness. Rife with a perennial purity, one that touches the very essence of the soul, something which goes beyond its mere practical uses (although these do not diminish it in the slightest). You peer into it, and it peers back. Much akin to an eye, turned out into the exterior, taking in the sights. And the sights, it enjoys. The way they bounce off of its delicate, ever-changing, serene, constantly mobile, and yet, oddly still, surface, only add to its seemingly endless charm. Drawn into it, you’d love to plunge into it. Be submerged within its damp embrace. Feel as if you are flying above, whirling around in the deep below. Uppermost peak and lowermost base converging into a point of infinite togetherness. Like that myth of old, you’re tempted to fall in. But not out of wanton adoration for thyself, no. More out of a hypnotic tugging that seeks to seal your fate, by being engulfed within this world within a world. All of that weight and pressure baring down on you, molding so perfectly around your form, making you conform to its wishes, even as you feebly attempt to make it do as you will it to. It has a mind of its own, doesn’t it? To hell with your ideas, your thoughts, your emotions. Perish in the streams and the lakes and the oceans, for they care not. Wash it all away, they will.

Turning thy gaze upwards, you peer up into that so close, and yet, so far, expanse of vibrant turquoise, stretching untold miles around this impossibly breathtaking celestial body, floating and suspended in a gaping void of untold, nightmarish, disjointed insanity, as well as countless emanations of inexpressible (yet, so eloquently and unequivocally expressed) allurement, grace, and magnificence, you feel as though you can touch it. Noticing the reflection of the great waters upon the protective covering that keeps the raging passion and burning intensity of the sun at bay, you wonder if you dip your hand in, will you be able to crack the sky from down here, even if just the tiniest bit. Of course, you cannot. How silly, such a notion is. Even under the bright, aqua tint, you can still catch glimpses of far greater phenomenon out there. Stars that shine from light years, having already died thousands of years ago. Nebulae that were born out of the orgasmic explosion and collapse of said stars. Or maybe the occasional rock fragment zipping by, burning itself out, seared into nonexistence, plunging itself, ecstatically, into death, disintegration, coming apart and thrilled by every second of it. Like a window into the frightening, fearsome, and tantalizing wilderness of the cosmic habitat that all resides on (on this plane, anyhow, but also, on another…one that is far more paradoxical and rife with carnage than the one we know to be “real”), you see all, watch all, perhaps even hear all. It’s right there, but at the same time, it will always elude your touch, your grasp. And maybe that is what draws you to it. The fact that you cannot feel it, roam around in it, or even begin to comprehend its many, many secrets, which are buried deep inside of regions that have no light, where life and death no longer have meaning.

Winds brush by you, with a swift playfulness, as though the breezes themselves were little children rushing past, the soft howl akin to the gentle laughter of young ones. It has a certain chill to it, which causes goosebumps to raise on your skin, and the hairs to all stand up. Unimpeded, it flows freely, encompassing everything, yet also nothing, all at the same time. And you think you can see it, if you squint hard enough. You can see it in the way the green beings swish and sway in the air, poked and prodded, pushed and pulled, the eager, exuberant currents diverging wistfully in an infinite number of directions, unbothered by whatever may stand in its way.

Out here, you’re not alone. There are other residents, others who inhabit these lands. Underneath, you can feel the movements of creeping things, small and aplenty, occasionally stepping over you, moving to their respective destinations, wherever they may be. Sometimes, these peculiar little ones take flight, the faint humming of their wings able to be heard, as their limbs occasionally land upon various surfaces. In the transparent eye, which stares back out into the ever-stretching realms of eternity, piercing right into the deepest parts of existence’s soul, there are more fascinating participants in this great phenomena we call “life”. Slim, streamlined specimens darting around in there, cruising idly by for one moment, and then experiencing large bursts of speed. But wait, these are not the only ones in there. Mucus-encased critters with four legs, always in some kind of permanent squat, spend many of their hours down here, much like their dry-skinned relatives that hop around upon the soil, not as hydrophilic as these here. And then, the scalier counterparts. With exteriors like tree bark, rough and jagged, jutting in all directions like stones in the soil, they, too, like to congregate here. After all, this gift that descends from the sky nourishes quite like nothing else truly can. Not to mention, it offers a retreat from the occasional harshness, the biting, scathing glare, of that high-hanging sphere of wrathful, permanently aggressive, colliding and construing and merging and mixing, heat, which seems to expand ever so much, at war with itself, tearing and growing, as though it were constantly in pain. Distant cousins to these rough-skinned denizens of the ecosystem, there are those who have that which could be assumed to be related to that stiff, calloused epidermis that protects their soft flesh underneath, if only tangentially, but what covers their bodies is softer. More delicate. In need of being pruned and groomed every now and then, so as not to become overgrown and tangled. Underneath the meat, their bone structure shows that, once upon a time, they may’ve been not unlike those crawling, slithering, occasionally running beasts who have been confined to the ground, having not been gifted with blood that always manages to stay warm. Sure, there are a multitude of differences, but there is a faint resemblance that is there, one that can’t be altogether denied. Perhaps there was truth in the doctrine of that old English fool, that has long since joined the dirt (who was this old fool, and what does “English” mean?), if only a faint, infinitesimally small amount. It could be said that all things, even lies, possess some form of Truth in them. The Truth, yes, that Truth that brings forth and gives way to all things. But, this may be pushing on some kind of unholy heresy that dare not be invoked. Mainly because what is gone, should stay gone. Necromancy is volatile. And then, here they come. The ones who tend to walk upon four legs (or, at least, possess four limbs). Most of them covered in fur from head to toe, whether it be short and soft or bushy and coarse. Like the ones that fly, the blood in their veins is of a higher temperature, than those who live on both land and in the waters, and those encased in what could, to a degree, be characterized as protective armor (the patterns upon their skin might’ve served as the inspiration for plating…but that was an invention of a long-dead race), making them able to withstand the harsher months, when the temperature drops drastically, and the sun’s light can do little to offer any kind of solace, any sort of reprieve, from the agony of frost and bitter chills. Harsh winds dominating the later and beginning parts of the year. Truly diverse diets aplenty, these specimens indulge in. But then again, this is the case amongst all of those that do not have roots buried into the ground. Flesh and foliage alike are consumed, sometimes both, and sometimes only one of those, with plenty of room for experimentation when it comes to either. Although, if you were to think about it, blood and bones and sinew makes the green grass grow…

How did such an idyllic paradise come about? After all, it did not exist, for so long. When exactly did it sprout up? In the before times, tis would’ve been deemed an impossibility, a fantasy, a fiction, something confined only to holy books and the holy crooks who wrote them. Now…now it is here, plainly visible to all who care to partake of its glorious splendor and wondrous beauty.

If you can remember back, far enough, there was a species. A despicable, loathsome, irritating, hateful, monstrous, wickedly cruel species. One whose heart was as black as coal, and minds as warped as underground caverns bedecked with pointed spires. Who built an entire empire spanning all of the planet, one that was devilishly, fiendishly totalitarian, obsessed with conquering and ruling absolutely every square inch. Satisfaction? Please, it didn’t even know what that meant, despite having the word printed in countless pieces of paper-filled drivel. It had a bottomless abyss in its very soul, one it tried to fill with a bunch of shit (sometimes literally). And thus, it was possessed by endless greed, by overpowering lust. By might, and might alone (hardly a worthy standard to measure anything by, in the eyes of the Mother), it spread all over. Eager for expansion, eager for pillaging and raping. And it did it, for many long, arduous, torturous centuries. By its own idiotic doctrine, proclaiming itself the rightful ruler of all Creation, the bipedal disease was king…until…until it wasn’t.

By its own doing, it met its own painful, bloody, murderous end. Turns out that what birthed this peculiar being, that from whence it sprang forth, was not infinite. A totally inconceivable notion to the vapid and ignorant minds of these heartless…things, as well as its demonic, cackling, pitiless, belching, toxic machinery. More, more, it demanded ever more. The future, the future, it fetishized. Worshipped like some kind of twisted idol. Wishing that its most twisted and haunting works of fiction, born out of its love and fascination with the cold, cruel, constricting, conniving ways of the machine, became reality…without first considering the consequences. For in order to achieve this, it would have to give up the last vestiges of whatever spirit it might have left. Drain the little marrow still flowing out of its broken, rotten husk, the empty, nightmarish shell that it was, still parading, masquerading, as something able to be considered…”alive”. It would have to become dead flesh walking.

“Very well”, it said.

Paradise was then irrevocably lost…

For them, anyway. As paradise would never truly cease to be. It would come back. Spring would come once again. Destruction facilitates a new beginning, a restoration, a creation. And all must die, via some kind of decay, some kind of ruination. Nothing can last forever. The scythe must come down eventually, no exceptions.

Under the ground, they are now all buried. Flesh and blood and bone, sinew, muscles, tissue, ligaments, all having been dissolved into the ground. Their remains having fostered the growth of all else, slowly yet surely, the carcasses, the billions upon billions of cadavers, facilitating the renewal of the wounded, beaten down, nearly dead Mother. It was probably Her biggest regret, that foul, hideous creature. What a waste it was. And that was why she had to send it a message…a lethal one. Now, nourished thanks to the bodies that took Her for granted, to the point of enslaving and constantly sodomizing Her, Her and Her many precious children, of all kinds, all dispositions and compositions, could exist freely. The tyrant was now gone…

Broken and forgotten, long since decomposed, were their monuments to thievery, death, and constant ravaging, tarnished and rusting in obscure corners, never to be reactivated, never to be revived and repaired, only serving as grim warnings of what happens when you try to usurp that which had created you, what had made your existence possible. And this was only for the ones that still lurked in the most remote of areas, serving as odd-looking homes, swallowed up by the scenery around them.

Ruined until they were entirely gone and deconstructed, most of them were.

Never to be seen, or thought of, ever again.

Lying below, as coffins for the miserable deceased.

How could anything be sweeter?