The Lost and The Damned

                The sky had died. There was rain, there was thunder, and the full moon burned its insidious candlelight, but there was no sky. The void that stretched above the battlefield was no romance of stars and planets, but a scar upon the heavens punctuated by nothing but the white rift of the moon. The gory brown dirt of the butchered field lay soft and wet, tilled by countless charges and retreats and seeded with moldering bodies, their screaming faces buried and unearthed as stampedes of bootfall churned the soil. The unholy incense of stale blood and fetid flesh crawled along the ground with the cold air, sinking into craters and dribbling into the long, narrow trenches that scared the earth. Muffled wheezing and the crack of gunfire punctuated the lifeless silence.

                From behind the grimy lenses of his gas mask, a nameless soldier stared at the misshapen graveyard that stretched onward into the darkness. Through the crinkled black cloth and the echoes of his own breath, he could hear the whispering of the huddled forms around him. “A night assault? That just means we don’t know where to shoot,” the dead winds wrapped the grim message in the scent of blood and raw skin, the wholesome smell of fresh earth long departed from the cursed trenches. “Those machineguns don’t need to see their targets.” The soldier clutched the barrel of his rifle, the bite of cold steel and rough wood all too familiar for comfort. He pressed his back against the runny dirt wall, the gory mud and cold rain baptizing him in a trickling fountain of filth and death. As he closed his baggy eyes and drew in a deep, dying breath, he could hear the whispers of panic and fear as plainly as the aimless gunshots that rang like funeral bells. Even after filtering though the tube of his gasmask, the air tasted like coal, as if all that was left to breathe were the lingering sighs from the dead and the faint smoke of gunfire. The charnel sludge beneath his boots sucked voraciously at his feet, its insatiable hunger for flesh and pain as palpable as the faceless glare of Death waiting for them all.

                “Get up, men!” a nameless voice called down the crooked length of the trench “The boys behind us are gonna carpet this place in gas, so get your masks on and get ready to charge!” The soldier shared a skipped heartbeat with his damned fellows and opened his eyes. All was placid, as if every jaw behind every mask were gritted and grinding, the silence of hate and acceptance accented with the clicking of weapons loading and the drum roll of rain. Lightning licked the tumerous smoke across the deathly sky, the mad archs and angles of the electric hellfire setting the lumpy field alight with a chilling glow. As if born of the hellish gaping maws of the dead, thunder rolled across the field and down the narrow canyon of trenches, its blare a grim bell tolling for the inevitable.

Like specters racing to possess the dead, artillery shells fly through the dead air. The blurs of wild motion leapt from behind the trenches and dove down into the battered earth, each hammering blow flashing hellfire and leaving a noxious cloud of yellow gas behind. The soldier turned to face the matted horizon of decay and hellish mustard, the billowy tufts of gas forming a wall of lethal mist. He gripped his weapon firmly, the rough contour of wood and steel the only reality in the nightmare of thunder and explosions. “Charge! Hit ‘em before they know we’re in the gas!” And with the faceless voice came the splash of boot in mud and the muffled battle cries of the lost and the damned. The soldier clamored up to the field with the tide of panting and desperation, his rifle thrusting up and down with his arms

and his boots churning the fleshy sludge beneath him. As the yellow cloud before him drew nearer, the sound of his heart’s gasping pumps and his lung’s unconscious heaving filled his gas mask and sent stinging adrenaline to his malnourished limbs. All was silent in his mind. The screams of his comrades and commanders, the fire of half-aimed weapons, and the ominous swoop of grenades flying toward his destination were all but a river of blood flowing through his ears, its flow a serene gift of ignorance. Then, as he crested the thick wall of gas, there was a flash of fire.

The soldier looked up to where the sky should have been. Moonlight filtered through the mustard gas like candle light shrouded by a veil of silk. Blood washed over his eyes and ears and he smiled and cried, silent tears drenching his face as the cold and gentle stroke of death awakened him from his nightmare.

Back in Black!

New Year

                Like budding raindrops waiting tentatively to fall, the stars hid behind the graying clouds. Like black snow drifting in the throaty whisper of the wind, darkness descended to Earth. Like a signature written in hot white, the maniacal crescent moon seared the sky and lay its twisted glow on a single, dark road and its traveler.

                The end of the pilgrim’s black cape fluttered and snapped behind the impatient thrust of his legs as he pulled it tightly around his broad shoulders. His steps fell light and reverently, as if made to appease the common soil they so unnaturally forced themselves upon. Even so, the uneven earth whispered their suspicions of the interloper in the ancient, grating language of pebbles and stone at the touch of his sole. The pilgrim continued, oblivious to the earthy chatter, and drew a shallow breath as he readied himself for the last stretch of his journey.

                The cool, dry air carried the muted scent of earth and with it danced the memories and remains of so many things past. The pilgrim shivered and rustled his cape, the very presence of the great cycle of life and death sickening on his aged tongue and nostrils. It was the perfume of untold billions of souls sundered from this mortal coil and returned to Earth, waiting to be born again as children and grass and stone and all things great and small. Ashes of Caesars mingled with their assassins’. Lovers long past returned to hallowed ground as one. A painter slain and his canvas rotted swirled as one in the wind, united finally in fruitful death. The pilgrim snorted and coughed, pressing his hooded gaze downward and tracking the moonlit path into the blooming hours of the night, weaving through the dirt and darkness until he found his most unnatural prize.

                A great manor loomed on the sunless horizon. Its stone bell tower pierced the heavens, gorging itself on the black blood of the night sky. Sprawling buttresses stood grim testament to times long past their due. An ancient black gate rose rusty and spear-tipped from the ground, the toll of time and neglect ceasing beyond its broken arms. Slowly, the pilgrim raised his abyssal gaze, the familiar scent of dead flowers fresh in the air, as if their petals were fluttering invisibly into the tiny cove of his hood. The smell grew heavy as brimstone as he passed the rusty gate and set his eyes on a weathered wooden door. Petals hung wilted and curled from their papery stems and the zoo of hedge animals, browned and rotted as if drenched in formaldehyde, faced eternity in their false poses, cruelly denied death’s release. A sigh dripped slowly from the pilgrim’s mouth, a cocktail of relief and reluctance as he crossed the still garden and stood before the great wooden portal. A pale, withered hand reached out of the folds of his cape and lay itself upon the old door. With a calm final breath, he pushed.

                Like lifeless lungs the air hung cold and windless. Like old, thin ink the darkness drew a bleak picture on a canvas of nothing at all. Like fearful children the stars hid behind the closing door for fear of the terrible things that stirred beyond. Like life itself, light ended in darkness.

                “Bela Lugosi’s dead?” the pilgrim called out expectantly, the rustle of his cloak and the click of expensive shoes punctuating his tongue’s slow, eloquent dance. The words leapt madly from wall to wall as if trying to escape the entropic darkness, their desperate ecstasy briefly filling the void, then fading back into silence.

                “Bela Lugosi’s dead,” hard white light tore away the curtain of blackness in a cruel flash. The chandelier above perched itself in perfect stillness above the stone floor, the clear, bright light evenly coating the small reception room in a shadowless clarity. “Have a seat, Maxwell,” a pair of black lips crooned, moving like thin caterpillars across flushed, pink flesh. Two pearly fangs pressed themselves gently against the soft cushion of the lower lip, their perfect white unstained by the black lipstick and their hungry points insatiably sharp. Alongside them slight curves curled into a dainty smile, the pale blue eyes above them gazing up expectantly while the rims of her long and slender cheeks cast deep, slim shadows that lay all too still like those in cold marble or dead flesh. Her naked pink shoulders raised anxiously as she stared hard into the pilgrim’s eyes, her silky black dress rustling in the brief gust wind almost as if the stolen blood within her were writhing excitedly at the prospect of company.

                “I see time has been more merciful to you than our late Lugosi, Diana,” Maxwell cleared his throat and ran a hand across his chalky white neck, then adjusted his grey tie. The pale skin over his face pulled tight as he furrowed his brow and snorted from the dark cavities where a nose should have been. Thin white pinstripes ran fluidly down his black suit, rippling like a waterfall of fresh paint as he bent his rigid form and sat. Maxwell lifted his black bowler from his bald head and ran his long, slender fingers through a memory of hair. He sighed impatiently, replacing his hat and twisting his veiny neck toward his silent companion. His frown deepened, his dark green eyes hovering like vengeful spirits above his grim, jutting cheeks bones. “Maxwell, I know we’re here for a funeral, but could you lighten up a bit?” Diana smirked and rested her chin in a soft palm, her voice like an orchestra of sighs and songs, her tongue tickling the ivory of her teeth as if they were but keys on a piano of lifeless bone.

                “Have you forgotten why we’re here?” Maxwell hissed, curling his lips in disgust. “This isn’t some trivial formality, this is the death of one of our own. Time finally caught up with him and now he’s dead.” He narrowed his eyes contemptuously, looking Diana from top to bottom, his gaze growing thinner as it slid down her silky black dress. As his head bowed lower and lower, his face slowly sunk back into darkness, too enraged to bear the condescending light. His shoulders drew themselves upward, casting shameful shadows over his entire body as he withdrew from the maddening curse of mere existence. Only his lengthy pinstripes and the slivers of his eyes showed from behind the crooked darkness until finally, his eyelids fell shut and he shook his head shamefully, his weary eyes having had enough of Diana’s tall, curveless body. “He died here, in this house he never left…” his voice hovered just above a whisper, his head still swaying like a broken grandfather clock. “Alone in a darkened room.”

                Diana’s mocking grin melted like cheap lipstick. “Maxwell, you’re so obsessed with death that you forget that you’re alive. Yes, poor Bela’s dead, but that doesn’t mean that we are, too,” A softer smile settled on her small jaw, her lips casting a tiny shadow over her chin. “We are the inheritors of all of times to come. We are blessed with everlasting life and forever are we woven into the fabrics of the future. Truly, we are time’s chosen few.” Maxwell sighed and raised his head, gazing up deeply into Diana’s sparkling eyes.  “Time? You think time is on our side?” the air was bitter with stale venom. “We’ve cheated death only to be killed by time, and he is not a kind hunter. No, he is a cunning poacher, feeding off of that which death discards, things that he does not grace with his perfect hand. Time does not scoop them up mercifully and cradle them in oblivion’s sweet bosom. No, he waits and watches and laughs as undying things slowly fall apart. The David melts under his drooling maw, Mona Lisa grows faint at the touch of his breath, and we fall to ennui and insanity as we taunt our own dead tongues with living blood. Do not take eternity so lightly, Diana, for it is a fool and a coward’s gift.”

                Diana chuckled and covered her mouth, her shoulders hunched into playful hills and her eyes squinting with sick glee. “Are you even sad about Bela’s death? It sounds like you’re fuming at your own death, not his.” Diana met Maxwell’s eyes and laid a cold hand on his. “Regardless, we’ve got a friend to mourn and this little chat has probably made us late. Are you coming?” His skin and hers, pale and pink, mingled and their fingers and shadows entwined. Maxwell sighed and nodded, drawing his hand away from Diana’s and running his long fingers across his deathly face once more, his eyes fixed on the door to the parlor as they rose to finish the night. “Sometimes I don’t even know why I still talk to you,” a harrowing silence punctuated by the click of high heels and fine shoes filled the air as Maxwell and Diana approached the ornate wooden door. “I often wonder the same,” Diana wrapped a long arm around Maxwell’s shoulders and squeezed, sharing a brief smile with him then turning forward once more. They thrust their arms forward and stepped beyond the groaning portal, closing the door quietly behind them and mourning the ravages of time.

Homage to Bela Lugosi's Dead

                Like budding raindrops waiting tentatively to fall, the stars hid behind the graying clouds. Like black snow drifting in the throaty whisper of the wind, the darkness descended to Earth. Like a signature written in hot white, the maniacal crescent moon seared the sky and lay its twisted glow on a single, dark road and its lone pilgrim.

                The ends of the pilgrim’s black cape fluttered and snapped behind the elegant, yet impatient thrust of his legs as he pulled tight the thin sheet around his broad shoulders. His steps fell light and reverently, as if made to appease the very common earth they forced themselves upon. Even so, the uneven pebbles and soil whispered their suspicions of the interloper in an ancient, grating language with every touch of his sole. The pilgrim continued, oblivious to the earthy chatter and drew a shallow breath as he readied himself for the last stretch of his journey.

                The cool, dry air carried the muted scent of earth and with it danced the memories and remains of so many things past. The pilgrim shivered and rustled his cape, the very presence of the great cycle of life and death sickening on his aged tongue and nostrils. It was the perfume of untold billions of souls sundered from this mortal coil and returned to Earth and waiting to be born again as children and grass and stone and all forms great and small. Ashes of Caesars mingled with their assassins’. Lovers long past returned to hallowed ground as one. A painter slain and his canvas rotted swirled united in fruitful death. The pilgrim snorted and coughed, pressing his hooded gaze downward and tracking the moonlit path into the blooming hours of the night. He wove through the dirt and darkness until he found his most unnatural prize.

                A great manor loomed on the sunless horizon. Its stone bell tower pierced the heavens, gorging itself on the black blood of the night sky. Sprawling buttresses stood lonely testament to times long past their due. An ancient black gate rose rusty and spear-tipped from the ground, the toll of time and neglect ceasing beyond its broken arms. Slowly, the pilgrim raised his abyssal gaze, the familiar scent of dead flowers fresh in the air, as if their petals were fluttering invisibly into the tiny cove of his hood. The smell grew heavy as brimstone as he passed the rusty gate and set his eyes on a weathered wooden door. Petals hung wilted and curled from their papery stems and the zoo of hedge animals, browned and pruned by death’s perfect hand, faced eternity in their false poses, cruelly denied their natural decay. A sigh dripped slowly from the pilgrim’s mouth, relief and reluctance intertwining as he crossed the still garden and stood before the great wooden portal. A pale, withered hand reached out of the folds of his cape and lay itself upon the old door. With a calm final breath, he pushed.

                Like lifeless lungs the air hung cold and windless. Like old, thin paint the darkness painted a bleak picture on a canvas of nothing at all. Like fearful children the stars hid behind the closing door for fear of the great and terrible things that stirred beyond. Like life itself, light ended in darkness.

                “Bela Lugosi’s dead?” the pilgrim called out expectantly, the rustle of his cloak and the click of expensive shoes punctuating his tongue’s slow, eloquent dance. The words leapt madly from wall to wall as if trying to escape the entropic darkness, their desperate ecstasy filling the void one moment, then fading back into silence.

                “Bela Lugosi’s dead,” hard white light tore away the curtain of blackness in a cruel flash. The chandelier above perched itself in perfect stillness above the stone floor, the clear, bright light evenly coating the small reception room in a shadowless clarity. “Have a seat, Maxwell,” a pair of black lips crooned, moving like thin caterpillars across flushed, pink flesh. Two pearly fangs pressed themselves gently against the soft cushion of the lower lip, their perfect white unstained by the black lipstick and their hungry points insatiably sharp. Alongside them slight curves curled into a dainty smile, the pale blue eyes above them gazing up expectantly while the rims of her long and slender cheeks cast deep, slim shadows that lay all too still like those in cold marble or dead flesh. Her naked pink shoulders raised anxiously as she stared hard into the pilgrim’s eyes, her silky black dress rustling in the brief gust wind almost as if the stolen blood within her were writhing excitedly at the prospect of company.

                “I see time has been more merciful to you than our late Lugosi, Diana,” Maxwell cleared his throat and ran a hand across his chalky white neck, then adjusted his grey tie. The pale skin over his face pulled tight as he furrowed his brow and snorted from the dark cavities where a nose should have been. Thin white pinstripes ran fluidly down his black suit, rippling like a waterfall of fresh paint as he bent his rigid form and sat. Maxwell lifted his black bowler from his bald head and ran his long, slender fingers through a memory of hair. He sighed impatiently, replacing his hat and twisting his veiny neck toward his silent companion. His frown deepened, his dark green eyes hovering like vengeful spirits above his grim, jutting cheeks bones. “Maxwell, I know we’re here for a funeral, but could you lighten up a bit?” Diana smirked and rested her chin in a soft palm, her voice filling the room with a rich, sandy sound her tongue tickling the ivory of her teeth as if they were but keys on a piano of lifeless flesh.

                “Have you forgotten why we’re here?” Maxwell hissed, curling his lips in disgust. “This isn’t some trivial formality, this is the death of one of our own. Time finally caught up with him and now he’s dead, it’s a fate we all share.” He narrowed his eyes contemptuously, looking Diana up and down, his gaze growing thinner as it slid down her alien form. As his head bowed lower and lower, his face slowly sunk back into darkness, too ashamed to face even a mimicry of sunlight. Even his shoulders drew themselves upward, casting shameful shadows over his entire body as he withdrew from the maddening curse of simple existence. Only his lengthy pinstripes and the slivers of his eyes showed from behind the crooked darkness until finally, his eyelids fell shut and he shook his head shamefully, his weary eyes having had enough of Diana’s tall, curveless body. “We always die alone, it’s our lot after life,” his voice hovered just above a whisper, his head still swaying like a broken grandfather clock. “Who could love a faceless fiend me or a mannequin like yourself? It happened to Bela and it will happen to us.”

                Diana’s mocking grin melted like cheap lipstick. “Maxwell, you’re so obsessed with death that you forget that you’re alive. Poor Bela’s dead, but that doesn’t mean that we are, too,” A softer smile settled on her small jaw, her lips casting a tiny shadow over her chin. “This is our time.” Maxwell sighed and raised his head, gazing up deeply into Diana’s sparkling eyes.  “Time? You think time is on our side?” the air was bitter with stale venom “We’ve cheated death only to be killed by time, and he is not a kind hunter. No, he is a cunning poacher, feeding off of that which death discards, things that cannot die. He does not scoop them up mercifully and cradle them in oblivion’s sweet bosom. No, he waits and watches and laughs as undying things slowly fall apart. The David melts under his drooling maw, Mona Lisa grows faint at the touch of his breath, and we fall to madness and ennui as he taunts our dead tongues with living blood. Do not speak so highly of him, Diana, for he shall be our doom.”

                Diana chuckled and covered her mouth, her eyes squinted with sick glee and her shoulders hunched into playful hills. “Maxwell, you make it sound like we have nothing to look forward to. Though our loved ones may die, we may find others. Though our stability may wane, we may regain it through meditation. Our lot is not so gloomy, Maxwell, so let’s forget that we’re just a pair of walking corpses for a moment and give Bela a decent funeral,” Diana met Maxwell’s eyes and laid a cold hand on his. “I’m sure with all of that poetic angst in you, you’ll be the life of the funeral.” His skin and hers, pale and pink, mingled and their fingers and shadows entwined. Maxwell sighed and nodded, drawing his hand away from Diana’s and running his long fingers across his deathly face once more, his eyes fixed on the door to the parlor as they rose to finish the night. “Maybe you’re right, Diana,” a harrowing silence punctuated by the click of high heels and fine shoes filled the air as Maxwell and Diana approached the ornate wooden door. “But time is not our ally.” They thrust their arms forward and stepped beyond the groaning portal, closing the door quietly behind them and mourning the ravages of time.