The Dark Tower Dream [Part One]
Who: Alexander Wolfgang.
Source: (Age 33) Trial By Fire (A Dark Tower Dream)
Summary: Don’t cry, don’t feel... you won’t die because I don’t think death’s real.
Rating: PG-13.
“Have you talked to anyone yet?”
pools of sorrow waves of joy
There is no immediate reply.
are drifting thorough my open mind
“Alex?” He repeats himself, like a broken record... as if he didn’t hear the first time. “Alex, do you have any family members to talk to?”
possessing and caressing me
A reply: “Yes. Two brothers. A niece. Don’t call me Alex.”
“Alexander. Have you talked to them yet?”
“No, and they’re not gonna know.”
“They need to. You need to contact them right away. Do you have any questions?”
The office is adorned with imagery of pretty flowers, soothing though deceptive, really. Leading him into a false sense of comfort, of safety... down the yellow brick road to perfect health, except that there is no road paved so prettily. Not in this lifetime, anyway. Maybe it was, years and years ago, but not now.
Pointing to the space on the wall, the glowing black and white images that never change with time; they only get worse. “Yeah, I... Uh. Hey... doc? What’s up with this x-ray?” Everyone only gets worse in this place. That’s the one dirt road to perdition.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Alex.” He smiles that empty, condescending smile as his mouth is not even full of the bitter taste that followed such a rancid name.
“No, there is. There’s somethin’ in it that’s movin’. What is it? What’s movin’ in it? What is...?” If he says something else after that, he doesn’t remember, and it is drowned out in a static noise that fills his ears.
He reaches out to touch the glowing canvas of bones and decay and feels something wriggling beneath his fingertips. Startled, he stumbles away from the board of x-rays and finds them full of pictures of himself, each little ribcage and bone and muscle tissue, worms writhing within. They twist and gnaw their way through the meat and make their retreat from the glowing board and there’re maggots, maggots, every little maggot chewing their way out, out, they want to, need to, have to get out. As he steps back, even farther back, he realizes that they’re all chewing their way free of the pages and there the doc stands, looking them over in casual examination.
“I see nothing wrong here, Alex. It’s all just smoke and mirrors. Anyway, you should start by talking to your brothers, or any friends that you are close to. You mentioned one once. What’s his name? The one who runs the bar?”
“Zayn.” Zayn from Delial Park. “And it ain’t a bar, it’s a club. How long would you say I have?”
“Alexander, you’re dying.”
“What?”
“You’re dying.”
He looks down to find little things poking out from his shirt. He dares not to lift it to find the little maggots that had torn their way through the papers now breaking through skin and scar tissue. Black ooze drips down from flesh and turns to red. In the end that is all he sees and he slips from the room and he begins falling. Drifting. An endless plummet to nowhere. There is a song: Jai guru deva om. Then the Plagues come...
When he turns around there is dirt underneath his feet and he is wearing no shoes. Lazily he wonders if he had left them at the door and instead he walks on into the fields of dead grapevines. Something calls for him. Many things. They call his name on and on and so he goes to them but there is no end to their calling or their voice, so instead he just roams. Wandering off. Among the field of the dead. Pushing aside the vines, his bare feet just lightly touching the earth until he reaches a steady clearing in which the soil becomes sodden.
He makes a sound. He does not know what is said. There is dead silence but he feels the ground come up and wrap themselves around his ankles. The earth dries. It cracks. It breaks. Up ahead there, in the clearing-it’s a tree. Its bark is made of flesh. Its branches are made of arms. Its roots are made of intestines. There are eyes in this tree. But the ones that stand out the most, that haunt him the most, are the golden eyes that stare upon him, gaze upon him... watch him with every intent never to turn away.
“You should start by contacting your brothers.”
The doc again. At the office. He turns to the doc and he stands in front of the screen of x-rays that are normal this time. He looks down. His feet are still bare, covered in soil, with dirt trails all over the nicely cleaned linoleum and not once does doc utter a word of it. Instead he just looks up at the wall, completely ignorant to that which surrounds him.
Doc doesn’t realize the state of his cleanliness, or lack thereof. Neither does himself. It’s all very nonchalant, really; nothing new. Dirty, filthy, unclean soul. There was nothing pure in this room. Nothing that couldn’t just be tossed over the shoulder and mistaken for a dose of delusions.
A ragged old doll that was not there before now sits in the doc’s chair, watching the entire time. Stands of thick, black yarn for hair with dead wasps clung to it; light brown buttons for eyes. It does not smile once. The chair creaks as it slides backwards and forwards.
“Are you listening at all?” Annoyance. It fills the doc’s voice when he speaks those words but those words are thick as molasses now. He turns his head to them but something thick and liquidy dribbles down the doc’s chin when he speaks now. “There is no treatment, Alex. We don’t know what is that’s killing you. In a few weeks, it’ll only start to get worse. We could run some tests, but there isn’t enough time to effectively-”
He doesn’t want any tests. He is fed up with being poked and prodded at. “How long will it take to kill me?” To be honest, he is somewhat relieved by this news, though it does not leak into his voice.
“In a few months, you will be in a great deal of pain. You’re going to need to order prescriptions to relieve it. Unless you do something about it, it will be incapacitating.”
“I don’t want anything.”
“You don’t have much of a choice. In the end, you won’t be able to do much of anything on your own.”
“So what you’re sayin’ is that I’m gonna be in a hospital for my last few days? That’s the bottom line, ain’t it? I’m gonna be debilitated?” His hand rises to his mouth, feeling the liquid drool down his chin and nothing becomes of it. Something in his stomach churns.
“Yes.”
No single word has ever excited such a gut-wrenching dread like that one.
The vineyards. Wandering aimlessly, feet collecting dirt. Hands covered in filth. It hurts to think and move. Black molasses continues to drain from his mouth as he lurches forward in the middle of the field. When suddenly everything around him begins to fold over and die, everything dies, including the flesh-made tree of arms as the skin decays and the corpses within putrefy. The eyes roll, fade, lids fluttering to the swirling clouds over the red, red skies and everything is blood. Everything is rot. The stench of rigor mortis fills the air of the once-fresh fields until there is nothing but a single tombstone that stands in the midst of the death. The lonely tombstone reminds him that everyone is dead now. Everyone is gone. On this one dirt road, there is only one, and there is only him, for he is alone.
In the distance, ringing throughout the emptiness of the fields, he hears a gunshot. There is a wet, watery sound of brains splatter. He flinches as the hard thud of a corpse drops. It could be anyone. It could be him. He nods and says I’m fine with this now. It’s gonna all right. It’s okay to be alone, he thinks to himself. In his mind he already knows the answer. In his mind, he hears death speak: Speak none.
nothing’s gonna change my world nothing’s gonna change my world
Source: (Age 33) Trial By Fire (A Dark Tower Dream)
Summary: Don’t cry, don’t feel... you won’t die because I don’t think death’s real.
Rating: PG-13.
“Have you talked to anyone yet?”
pools of sorrow waves of joy
There is no immediate reply.
are drifting thorough my open mind
“Alex?” He repeats himself, like a broken record... as if he didn’t hear the first time. “Alex, do you have any family members to talk to?”
possessing and caressing me
A reply: “Yes. Two brothers. A niece. Don’t call me Alex.”
“Alexander. Have you talked to them yet?”
“No, and they’re not gonna know.”
“They need to. You need to contact them right away. Do you have any questions?”
The office is adorned with imagery of pretty flowers, soothing though deceptive, really. Leading him into a false sense of comfort, of safety... down the yellow brick road to perfect health, except that there is no road paved so prettily. Not in this lifetime, anyway. Maybe it was, years and years ago, but not now.
Pointing to the space on the wall, the glowing black and white images that never change with time; they only get worse. “Yeah, I... Uh. Hey... doc? What’s up with this x-ray?” Everyone only gets worse in this place. That’s the one dirt road to perdition.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Alex.” He smiles that empty, condescending smile as his mouth is not even full of the bitter taste that followed such a rancid name.
“No, there is. There’s somethin’ in it that’s movin’. What is it? What’s movin’ in it? What is...?” If he says something else after that, he doesn’t remember, and it is drowned out in a static noise that fills his ears.
He reaches out to touch the glowing canvas of bones and decay and feels something wriggling beneath his fingertips. Startled, he stumbles away from the board of x-rays and finds them full of pictures of himself, each little ribcage and bone and muscle tissue, worms writhing within. They twist and gnaw their way through the meat and make their retreat from the glowing board and there’re maggots, maggots, every little maggot chewing their way out, out, they want to, need to, have to get out. As he steps back, even farther back, he realizes that they’re all chewing their way free of the pages and there the doc stands, looking them over in casual examination.
“I see nothing wrong here, Alex. It’s all just smoke and mirrors. Anyway, you should start by talking to your brothers, or any friends that you are close to. You mentioned one once. What’s his name? The one who runs the bar?”
“Zayn.” Zayn from Delial Park. “And it ain’t a bar, it’s a club. How long would you say I have?”
“Alexander, you’re dying.”
“What?”
“You’re dying.”
He looks down to find little things poking out from his shirt. He dares not to lift it to find the little maggots that had torn their way through the papers now breaking through skin and scar tissue. Black ooze drips down from flesh and turns to red. In the end that is all he sees and he slips from the room and he begins falling. Drifting. An endless plummet to nowhere. There is a song: Jai guru deva om. Then the Plagues come...
When he turns around there is dirt underneath his feet and he is wearing no shoes. Lazily he wonders if he had left them at the door and instead he walks on into the fields of dead grapevines. Something calls for him. Many things. They call his name on and on and so he goes to them but there is no end to their calling or their voice, so instead he just roams. Wandering off. Among the field of the dead. Pushing aside the vines, his bare feet just lightly touching the earth until he reaches a steady clearing in which the soil becomes sodden.
He makes a sound. He does not know what is said. There is dead silence but he feels the ground come up and wrap themselves around his ankles. The earth dries. It cracks. It breaks. Up ahead there, in the clearing-it’s a tree. Its bark is made of flesh. Its branches are made of arms. Its roots are made of intestines. There are eyes in this tree. But the ones that stand out the most, that haunt him the most, are the golden eyes that stare upon him, gaze upon him... watch him with every intent never to turn away.
“You should start by contacting your brothers.”
The doc again. At the office. He turns to the doc and he stands in front of the screen of x-rays that are normal this time. He looks down. His feet are still bare, covered in soil, with dirt trails all over the nicely cleaned linoleum and not once does doc utter a word of it. Instead he just looks up at the wall, completely ignorant to that which surrounds him.
Doc doesn’t realize the state of his cleanliness, or lack thereof. Neither does himself. It’s all very nonchalant, really; nothing new. Dirty, filthy, unclean soul. There was nothing pure in this room. Nothing that couldn’t just be tossed over the shoulder and mistaken for a dose of delusions.
A ragged old doll that was not there before now sits in the doc’s chair, watching the entire time. Stands of thick, black yarn for hair with dead wasps clung to it; light brown buttons for eyes. It does not smile once. The chair creaks as it slides backwards and forwards.
“Are you listening at all?” Annoyance. It fills the doc’s voice when he speaks those words but those words are thick as molasses now. He turns his head to them but something thick and liquidy dribbles down the doc’s chin when he speaks now. “There is no treatment, Alex. We don’t know what is that’s killing you. In a few weeks, it’ll only start to get worse. We could run some tests, but there isn’t enough time to effectively-”
He doesn’t want any tests. He is fed up with being poked and prodded at. “How long will it take to kill me?” To be honest, he is somewhat relieved by this news, though it does not leak into his voice.
“In a few months, you will be in a great deal of pain. You’re going to need to order prescriptions to relieve it. Unless you do something about it, it will be incapacitating.”
“I don’t want anything.”
“You don’t have much of a choice. In the end, you won’t be able to do much of anything on your own.”
“So what you’re sayin’ is that I’m gonna be in a hospital for my last few days? That’s the bottom line, ain’t it? I’m gonna be debilitated?” His hand rises to his mouth, feeling the liquid drool down his chin and nothing becomes of it. Something in his stomach churns.
“Yes.”
No single word has ever excited such a gut-wrenching dread like that one.
The vineyards. Wandering aimlessly, feet collecting dirt. Hands covered in filth. It hurts to think and move. Black molasses continues to drain from his mouth as he lurches forward in the middle of the field. When suddenly everything around him begins to fold over and die, everything dies, including the flesh-made tree of arms as the skin decays and the corpses within putrefy. The eyes roll, fade, lids fluttering to the swirling clouds over the red, red skies and everything is blood. Everything is rot. The stench of rigor mortis fills the air of the once-fresh fields until there is nothing but a single tombstone that stands in the midst of the death. The lonely tombstone reminds him that everyone is dead now. Everyone is gone. On this one dirt road, there is only one, and there is only him, for he is alone.
In the distance, ringing throughout the emptiness of the fields, he hears a gunshot. There is a wet, watery sound of brains splatter. He flinches as the hard thud of a corpse drops. It could be anyone. It could be him. He nods and says I’m fine with this now. It’s gonna all right. It’s okay to be alone, he thinks to himself. In his mind he already knows the answer. In his mind, he hears death speak: Speak none.
nothing’s gonna change my world nothing’s gonna change my world