I went to my rest a sober man, content with the stable progression of elements I found to be more reliable than any prayer. Sleep came easily. I went deep, then deeper, until in a single instant I fell straight through the lattice of all-that-is.
Diced, I arrive into this hell scape, my sobriety sieved, irretrievable. A man dressed in black dips the tip of a thin moustache into pot after pot of color. With a theatrical swoop, he renders all-that-was-rectilinear down to violent,
vertiginous curves, which drip like fluorescent tallow
tock tock tock
off the edge of the known world.
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He turns to me and seals my throat with the same, whispers only memory persists. Then, lifting his shoe hat, winks horribly, and recedes at implausible speed toward a doorway newly there. I stumble after him, desperate to find what order might remain.
We stand on the threshold. I could wish my ears stopped with wax. A brass band decibels down the street, while ranks of percussive skeletons dance past bearing aloft faux-gold balloons. They are on their way to the ceremony where what-is-lost (as light and unwilling as any child bride) must wed what-remains-forever. My rage swells. I will find a way to annul this marriage made in hell. Twisting free, I run backwards and slip into an alley where it is dim and the carnival din quietens.
tap tap tap tap
Have I arrived tongueless, then, in the land of the blind? Slowly my eyes and ears adjust. Up ahead I see street gangs gathered to scry the uncertain future. I draw closer. A young girl crouches, dressed in rags. She stares so fixedly at what is before her that she does not see me. I look over her shoulder, read the words that appear and fade on her handheld screen: How to recover silver from X-rays.
I cough and spit out fractured wax. It is critical I speak.
The ghosts are in the machine.