deepundergroundpoetry.com
Running with the Queen of Hearts
- Running with the Queen of Hearts -
Today, we shall indulge our twisted appetites with a work of dream! How much is dream, is up to the interpretation of saner minds than mine, however. In any case, there is no point in being commonplace, so we shall open this tale with but a single word. That word being evocative of all that is to follow, all that is to come. Auspicious! That is the word we will start with. It was auspicious to see the dark and a bit all too muggy chamber before me. Honestly, I always thought basements and cellars were supposed to be cool but this was summertime after all. And sometimes, summer can make even the coldest and clammiest of places miserably muggy. The neighbors always allowed the water when it rained to drain into the yard of this particular house. I honestly think they did it just to be spiteful! The back yard was a veritable swamp, a soggy hellhole that used to be beautiful once. The willow tree that was the biggest of all the trees back there was dying, or dead... hard to be sure with how twisted it looked, after all. No beautiful green leaves were left upon its' branches... no... it was all skeletal now, corpse-like. Exactly to me the same as all the vegetation in that place was. It was not water alone that did all this! No, it was a kind of rot and decay that had set into the land, and perverted that yard until it was a twisted shell of all that it used to be. Honestly, one could almost relate to such a fate! But I digress. So the stage is set and you have an idea of the sort of place in which I stood on this occasion. In the basement of a house in an environment more suited to the dead than the living. There is sublime poetry in that, but I will not at the moment go there. Old boxes, bags, and piles of junk littered the basement. Broken toys, busted parts of furniture long gone to rot and ruin. Torn and soggy remnants of old comic books and magazines. All in all, this was not a fit place for reasonable people to linger. There were faces looking out at me from the shadows, all of them grinning, smiling happily. Or perhaps madly! I should have brought a camera so I could capture these ghosts, these specters, to share with others. Terror shared is a bonding experience at times, after all. But it was not to be. I thought perhaps I recognized some of the faces, but how could it be possible to be certain? If they were who they appeared to be, they were long dead anyway. Best not to dwell upon the past sometimes, even though it defines us. Like mine has defined me! We all carry the ghosts of those who shaped us, within us. This place was a memory, and it was a nightmare. I danced in the shadows, smiling, laughing... and standing off to the side, cackling as if she had gone insane, was a certain lovely young woman whom I was very, very well acquainted with indeed. Sybille Anne Martin. Doctor Martin! Sybil, I always called her for short. She was once a rather decent psychotherapist, who counseled a sweet little darling by the name of Chloe Abigail Harper. My beloved Chloe! She even tried to counsel me, for a bit of a while. A shame that the counseling did not take, or work, or even remotely matter in the end. I still have no idea which it was that made her lost her practice more... divulging too many personal things in very public online places, and spaces, or getting a little too deeply involved with her patients. I can attest to just how deeply she got involved with me! Until she crossed the line of personal boundaries that more normally exist between a therapist and their patient. We had something else between us! Something a lot deeper, darker, and more intense than any therapy normally allows for. What we had existed before she took me on as her patient... our sessions merely brought us closer, until she could no longer be impartial when it came to assessing me. Perhaps our sessions were a mistake! In truth, I have no bloody idea as they say in England. Never mind that I don't live in England... that is not important. What is important is that as I looked about me I realized that we were putting on some kind of performance in that dark place, some kind of artistic expression of insanity. It was a beautiful and so very highly strange moment, but a magical one and special in its' own macabre way! The faces that did grin from the shadows cared nothing for magic, because they were dead after all. Whoever they were. I lost track over the years of how many ghosts it was that haunted me. One does, when one lives a great deal and not all of it pleasant. I realized promptly that this was a dream, especially when I saw that my darling Sybil was dressed like a clown but without her face painted. She never neglected such details!
I was walking through a department store, one of those big super Walmart stores that is just off of the main road in just about any city in America today. This is in a state so far from the one I grew up in that half the time I don't even bother trying to memorize where things are at. Initially, this deliberate form of neglect was because I did not plan on staying in this part of the country for very long. But, years later, I am still here and found that I hate it out here so much that it is sheer spite that causes me to not care to get to know what is where, or what is what, out here. This is the kind of section of America where truly you could kill someone in, and probably get away with it. The police are next to useless... and there are no end of junkies, drunks, and general lowlife scum in these cities. Pin something on one of them, and the police would arrest them in no time, and any charges laid against them would stick like crazy glue. Cops always love to take the easy way out whenever they can as it is... and in my personal experience, it is a certainty that when you need the piggies the most they will never be there. Or if they are, they just will always come too late to be of any use! Oink oink, silly piggies. As I walked through the store, I had no idea what I was even doing there. This was another dream, naturally, one that replaced the first one as soon as that one came to an end. In the dream I was wearing a pair of long baggy Harem-style pants, the kind you have to tie with a drawstring at the waist, pants which also have elasticized ankles and are pretty much one size fits all. Very stylish, and especially when they are purple! As these were. I wore a tight red camisole top tucked into the pants, was clean shaven, and looked very stylish. Oh, to be sure, I looked rather pale, as I always do except when I tan sometimes in the summer. But very stylish. I had a pair of lighter purple ballet shoes on my feet. Did I ever tell you that purple is my favorite color? I also have a fondness for green, and third I love red... especially blood red. There is no red quite like it! Like moist lips or a deep gash. I'll let you decide, which it brings quickest to mind. I passed an old man who had an ugly, droopy looking mustache... a worker for the store... and he was jamming his left leg into a section of the floor that was broken with the dirt of the ground exposed. This man was jamming, over and over again, his leg into the dirt in order to soften up the ground as much as he possibly could. That was stupid because he had a shovel right next to him on the floor, but he refused to use it. I assumed he simply liked the challenge of doing it this way! Never mind that he was breaking his leg doing so. Right away, he reminded me of my grandfather during the old man's declining years. I wanted to push his face into the dirt and smash his skull with the shovel. I looked about to see if anyone was looking, and gave it strong consideration before I decided that in case there were any cameras this simple would not prove to be worth the effort. The old man smiled at me, and said in a friendly voice: “How you doing there! I was just wondering... you a guy or a girl?” And I yelled to him in reply: “Why both, and neither, good sir! How about instead you call me Death? I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. And if you keep on asking me stupid questions, I will destroy your world. Big time!” He swallowed hard, making almost a gulping noise, and looked back at the floor before getting back to smashing his leg into the dirt. I kept expecting to hear his old bones crack and break any minute, but he gave me no such pleasure. Bored to tears with his monotonous display, I moved on and realized that I was looking for someone. I did not at all know quite who, but I knew I would find them soon if I kept searching. I found myself soon walking through the women's clothing department, and then the children's clothing department. The store was at this hour... a late hour... a bit on the empty side, this close to closing. It was dark outside, a dark night if ever there was one, but not a stormy one fit for horror stories. I almost wished it was, if only so it would feel less boring, monotonous, and dull. I don't like being bored, especially when I have to search for... I did not know what. I only knew it was a who rather than a what. You ever have dreams like that? When you know you are supposed to be doing something important, but have no clue what it is. This was one of those dreams. I was like an actor or a comedian trying to improvise a performance but with not even a rough outline in my own head to go by. My mother once said I should have been a comedian. I hated my mother! I felt sorry for her sometimes, but mostly I hated her. Because she hated me, the toxic bitch.
When she hadn't been spreading her legs for any man she could get something from, she was hitting me in the face, kicking me across the floor when I was little, or telling me she wished I was dead. So, I will have you know, dear reader, that my hatred of my mother is well justified. But cheerio! Let us get on back to the dream at hand. Shall we? Yes we shall. As I walked through the department that housed the children's clothing, a beautiful young girl of about fourteen years of age walked up to me. Right off, I thought she was amazing! She had long blonde hair that she wore in two twin ponytails with one of them dyed green and the other dyed purple. She had blood red lipstick on her pouting lips, and eyes so green they might as well have been dark emeralds. She was wearing a white satin dress of the type that girls typically wear to their first communion in the Catholic church. I asked her: “Tell me, miss, if you don't mind... are you Catholic by any chance? I didn't think they were so progressive these days.” And I saw her blush as she replied, saying: “Nah! I can't stand 'em. I'm not really the religious type, if ya get my meaning. I just really, really like this dress. Not like my sister's gonna need it no more. It's all mine now, fair and square.” The way she talked actually reminded me totally of Chloe's particular manner of speaking, only this girl was about a year older than Chloe looked and a lot more developed in the chest. I could not help but notice that about her. I smiled, and then said to her in a forwardly honest manner: “Ah! A girl after my own heart. You want to go do something... you and me? Maybe go out for a while, out of this store, and have ourselves a good time.” I winked at her, and realized I was hitting on a very obviously underage girl and could not have cared less that I was doing so. She smiled crazily, and said to me loudly and bit shrilly: “Sure, why not! I'm bored anyway... let's do something nuts together.” Then she pranced away from me and motioned for me to come chase after her. She ran off a short ways, and I chased after her, catching her at last and pinning her to the floor. I was on top of her, my body pressed very tightly against hers, my crotch pushing a bit between her legs, which were splayed out widely. It was making me quite aroused, and I was getting quite a bit of a hard-on. The girl noticed... how could she not with it jabbing into her... and asked: “Ya gonna do me... or what? No cameras in this part of the store... no one's looking either, so no one would ever need to know. Believe me, I know... that bit about the cameras... I've stolen from here before and gotten away with it too.” She was breathing heavily, she was almost panting, as she told me all that quickly. I giggled, realizing at once how creepily it sounded, and I said to her in answer to her offer: “Let's go crazy, little girl!” and before you know it she and I had done things that adults my age and kids her age are never supposed to do. When we finished, we had to arrange our clothes back as they had been before our little play time together, and then the girl handed me a gun and asked me: “So, ya know how to use one of these?” and I showed her that I did. I was an old fashioned revolver, very simple to use. Not nearly as complicated as most modern firearms today. I pointed it at the ceiling, and pretended to fire it, yelling: “Bang!” loudly, as I did so. “Let's go nuts!” she said to me, and the next thing I knew we were running through the store and heading for the exit. Once we neared it, we passed the door greeter, who the teenage girl knocked over on our way out. “Sorry for dumping ya on your ass, asshole!” she shouted at him... and I laughed loudly. Once we got clear of the store, my new playmate asked me: “So, ya wanna go shoot up a church? Bastards deserve it... from all I've heard about 'em!” And I grinned maniacally as I said to her: “Yes! It's payback time.” So she asked me: “They hurt ya too when ya were little?” and I nodded in the affirmative. So she then admitted: “Me too! And my parents did jack and shit about it.” I chuckled almost evilly as I said to her: “Now it's time for some good old fashioned vigilante justice!” I hissed that last word, and realized that my idea of all that constituted justice probably was directly at odds of what most rational people thought of as such. I didn't care, and I wasn't about to second guess myself. I was firmly in the reality of the dream, and it felt sweet to immerse myself in such a reality. The waking world was ripe for chaos, ripe for madness, and this indulgence felt right. It went perfectly with my perhaps increasingly anarchic views of late. Time to fuck the system and play a very lethal game indeed! She grabbed my arm... and led me onward, quickly.
We crossed city streets of every type, once we crossed the road past the store's parking lot, and after a good while we passed an old college campus that reminded me of one I knew of out east. This one was long abandoned though. But all the same, there were people moving here and there about the old dorms and buildings. It was pitch dark out, but for the orange glare of the streetlights. The kind of orange, that always reminded me of Halloween. The season of the dead, the season of dread. How I always loved, in all honestly, that time of the year! I always loved to dress up like the Joker from Batman on Halloween. All those times, I never thought I would end up going as mad as the Joker, however. But times change, people change, and sometimes madness can merely be a form of super sanity in which we can at last be free to see the world as it truly is! Rather than be bound by the stifling lies we are raised with by failing parents and a failed system, in a society that only cares about itself. “Ya ever killed anyone before?” It was weird hearing a young teenage girl ask me a question like that. I said to her: “I was trained to kill in a military program when I was twelve years old.” She whistled and said in response to that: “Wow! Oh Jesus, that's young to be taught shit like that. Too young.” I smiled, and said to her calmly: “It was, but I dealt with it. That which does not kill you, only makes you... like me... after all!” We had stopped a bit to catch our breaths and talk for a while, following that, and once we had kissed passionately under the weird glow of an orange late summer moon it was time to get back to walking again. Not running, our legs were a bit tired out from doing a lot of that already... just walking. Leisurely, as if we were merely out for a normal stroll at an ungodly (some might say) late hour. We walked, and sometimes talked as we walked, on our way to the church that we intended to wreak vengeance at. I told my partner in crime a true story from when I was fourteen years old myself. And I shall tell it to you, dear reader! That year, I had decided I wanted some serious, major payback for everything that the Catholic church had put me through when I was abused by them as a child. So I walked up to that church, and the school that I had attended which was right next to it, the school in which from kindergarten to fourth grade, I had been made to suffer horrific abuses, torments, and tortures until my family finally decided to do something about it. It was up past the pond, past yet another church and a bunch of apartments and houses, and a series of other buildings. I still remember the name of the street it was on. Franklin Street. The name of the church and school was Sacred Heart. I wanted to tear that heart right out of its' moorings and shove it down the throats of the people who had hurt me. But that day, I had to content myself with what I was able to manage without getting in any trouble with the law. I walked a good ways into the school's old playground, past the old fence that was around it which had a huge gaping hole in it. It was abandoned ever since the school and church were closed down once parents came forward to sue the place and get justice for the children harmed by it. The church was fallen into disrepair, and going to wrack and ruin. I smiled, content at seeing that. Then I picked up a large rock and threw it as hard as I could at one of the school's windows. The old brick facade of the building was a frequent fixture in some of my worst nightmares. It would frighten me no more! The rock smashed through the window, shattering the glass and putting a respectably decent sized hole through the window. I could hear one of the neighbors who lived near the place scream out, realizing they must have heard the glass breaking, and so I decided to run in the direct opposite direction from the sound of the old man's yelling voice. The fence was wide open around the back of the school, and once I passed through it I was back on the streets and hell and gone from the scene of my petty crime. I felt sated though, for the time, and was content that I had at the very least found a way to take out my pain on those who had caused some of the worst of it. Once I had told that to the young teenage girl, she said to me: “Looks like I'm coming to a similar idea at the same age... only me, I'm bringing a party favor to the big occasion.” And she made her hand look like a gun, like children do when they're playing sometimes, and pointed it in the distance before shouting at the top of her lungs: “Pow! Bang! Boom!” Then she chuckled and said to me: “Sometimes... ya gotta think big if ya wanna take the juiciest revenges.” She blew me a kiss after that, as we kept on walking.
That time when I threw a rock through the old school's window, was hardly the only time... or the last one either... when I had a mind to cross the line and do something crazy because I was compelled to or pushed to by pain that grown too much to bear any longer. There was this other time when my ex, who was in the process of a decade long systematic abuse and torture of me, had pushed me too far one day, and drove me to go for a long walk out of the house. I figured I would just go for a long walk and then get home late and maybe... just maybe... the jerk would feel bad for hurting me so much, miss me, and be compelled to treat me better going forward. I was twenty five that year, and felt like I was in a hell I could never hope to escape from. I had been forced into the marriage as it was, and was not happy in it at all. The bitch was psycho and as crazy as they come... and not in ways I found tolerable at all. In the end... she would never be sorry and eventually our marriage would fall apart and I would be free of her. But on that way, when I was twenty five, I was delusional enough to think she could change. I walked up to the park a few blocks from our house, from my family's house where we lived at the time. When I was a teenager, the park was a place I always felt I could retreat to when I was feeling at my worst. And out among nature, I always felt as if I was healing... so that when I came home I always felt better. Not to mention how I had some profound religious and spiritual experiences in that park that changed pretty much my whole life. I had not been paying attention to the hour, and it had to have been the hour when school got out because kids were walking home from the middle school past the far side of the park. It was common for a lot of the middle school children to walk home from school. When I was their age... these kids were called walkers. The ones who didn't take the bus or have anyone come to pick them up. They would leave school, cut through the park, and head home from there. As I made my way deeper into the park, I passed a young Hispanic girl with wavy black hair, dusky skin, and big brown eyes. She was wearing a baggy magenta jumpsuit with a wide belt around her waist, and her hair had a kind of a long ponytail on one side of her head. She was cute, and was sucking on a lolly pop. I don't know what possessed me to, but I asked her: “Hey, babe, looking good! What's your name?” And she glared at me and said in a visibly angry tone of voice: “None of your business... go away!” and, I thought to myself: “Damn, what a bitch! Ah well, with an attitude like that, she wasn't my type anyway.” After some time, another girl walked towards me and this one was absolutely, incredibly beautiful to me. She had blonde wavy hair held back by a white hairband, light blue eyes like sapphires, and an adorably plump mouth that was just pouting enough to be pleasing. She had very cherubic features, was a bit stocky built but not overweight in any capacity. She had a nice figure too for so young a girl, and big breasts to go with it. She was wearing a pair of silky looking short shorts and had a white camisole top tucked into them with a long sleeved shrug on over her top. Her white sneakers tapped on the ground as she walked near to me, and I got a whiff of her perfume and loved the nice floral scent of it. I called to her, and said to her in as pleasant a tone as I could manage: “Hey, sweetheart! You look beautiful. Really beautiful.” to which she blushed, and said: “Thank you.” before looking like she was going to walk off before I asked her after that: “So, what's your name?” and she stopped, turned around to face me, and answered: “It's Stephanie. My name's Stephanie.” and her manner was so polite it was intoxicating to me. What a very refreshing difference from that other girl who was so rude in comparison! I lied to her and told her that my name was Gwydion, a name I recalled from studying Welsh Celtic mythology. She said to me very, very sweetly: “Pleased to meet you, Gwydion! That's a very unusual name.” and we both laughed about that a bit before I said to her: “Yeah, I suppose it is!” I then asked her in a rather out of the blue sort of way: “So, are you seeing anybody right now?” and she nodded her head, saying to me: “Yeah, I've got a boyfriend actually.” and I thought to myself: “Lucky bastard! All I've got at home is an abusive bitch.” I watched her walk out of the park and down the road a ways before I realized that I was following her. I do not know why I did so, or what I intended. But after some time, I tripped and she noticed me. Then, she walked increasingly faster until I lost sight of her. By the time I was back on my feet, she was gone.
Stephanie. The same name as the very first girl I ever had a crush on. Something about that name had always managed to evoke strong feelings of love and desire in me. I went home after I had tripped, and the next years of my life were a living hell. In the reality of my dream... I had told all of these stories to the young girl who was my chaotic companion. She understood... and if anything felt sorry for me that I had gone through so much pain and hurt in life. She commented about it: “Sounds to me like ya didn't start out thinking about doing bad, but people pushed ya until ya snapped. But something was looking out for ya maybe, I think.” I had to admit, that seemed plausible to me. Nothing else really explained all the crazy events, coincidences, and circumstances that transpired all throughout my life. And my life, in all its' mad glory, had been hardly bereft of circumstances that seemed meaningful. Now I'm not one of those kinds of people who looks for meaning in literally everything, but sometimes I have to admit that it does seems like there's a certain symmetry to things. As if the universe has a sense of humor... and, if we try hard enough, we can get the gist of it. And maybe even understand the punchline! So we walked along, and things got quieter between us after a while. She didn't talk about herself or her life much, but was very good when it came to listening to me talk about me and mine. But what I was able to glean of her and her life was tragic and downright horrible. Not on the same level as my life, but not exactly the sort of life one could call a picnic, either. More, the kind of picnic where ants show up and all the food gets spoiled because of it. And nobody brought any bug spray! Not that you could use that around food, as that would poison it... but you get the idea. We held hands, walking down the road, past streets that were as black as pitch, illuminated only by orange light that enhanced the haze that suddenly seemed to be falling upon the city, making it seem more smoky, more infernal. If this world is becoming Hell, we were like two devils looking for a slice of Heaven to cut away from Paradise and call our own. Better to have a private hell for two, than to share some boring heaven with the dull masses, I always say! There was not so much evil in our hearts, but pain and a yearning for meaning in a meaningless world. Even if we had to create that meaning through chaos. Sane people were in bed or at home by this hour. I didn't even know what the hour was, but I knew it was getting later and later. I wondered how far from dawn we were, and if somewhere out there a rooster would be crowing once the sun came up. After all... you just can't stop a determined cock once it gets going! I kept telling jokes like that to my partner in crime, and she giggled naughtily at every one I told her. Even the sickest, darkest, and most twisted ones. One thing I had to say about this kid, she was definitely a dark soul just like me. I asked her if she would tell me what her favorite color was, and she said: “Red! I love red. The redder the red, better I said.” And I smiled, and remarked: “But you're wearing white.” and she exclaimed: “But it's gonna be red, once we start killing people. So it makes sense. See?” I laughed, and replied: “I see, I see. So... I like red too but not as much as purple and green.” She pointed to her hair and said: “Just like my ponytails. Aren't we a matched pair of playing cards? A Joker and a Queen of Hearts, if ya ask me.” I chuckled and said to her as I did so: “Soulmates! I must be dead, and this must be Heaven.” She then said in an alarmed manner: “Dead! If we're dead and this crap hole is Heaven, then what does that make me?” Then, I kissed her on her lips tenderly as I said to her: “An angel!” and she sighed with pleasure, as our kiss grew passionate. Someone spotted us kissing as they walked by across the street and they muttered something that had a rude sound to it. The young girl took the gun into her hand, pointed it in the man's direction, and shot him once in the head. He fell down unto the sidewalk, and she rushed over to stab him multiple times with a switchblade she produced from one of her black and white diamond-patterned knee-high socks. She left the man a dead, bloody mess and her gown spattered with spots of the man's blood. “See? I told ya my dress was gonna be red before the night was over. Trouble is... when blood dries it gets all brown looking and isn't pretty red colored anymore. So I'm gonna have to wash this dress and maybe bleach it a dozen times or so to get the blood out once we get over to my place later. And yeah, consider yourself invited to stay as long as ya like!” We then rushed down the street before anyone could notice our deed.
People just do not understand certain kinds of love. Sometimes, craziness attracts! And I thought back to Sybil and to Chloe, and to others who had captured my heart over the years. Sometimes practically at gunpoint! And it made me realize just how very, very remarkably and astoundingly true that fact is. My mother used to say: “You can't help who your balls itch for.” like the low class cow that she was. But in all honestly, you can't help where your heart is led, or whose heart will be led to yours. Love happens... and sometimes there is no rhyme, reason, or rationality to it at all. No point, in bringing sanity into the equation, because then it no longer makes any sense. So me, I just smile and laugh and try for the best. Might as well put on a happy face... since there are plenty of people out there already who are hellbent on making others frown. So I was smiling and laughing as this strange, crazy girl and I were once more running down into the darkest bowels of the city, having snuffed out a man's life for being rude to us. If there is one thing I simply cannot abide, it is rude people. Rudeness, like narrow-mindedness, is worthy only of a bullet to the brain or a knife through the heart. And maybe flayed flesh, too, if one is feeling in a playful mood and has the time to spare. The darkness felt like a comforting presence to us, and as we lost ourselves in the shadows it felt much like pulling the blankets over your head when you are little to escape the monster you think is lurking under your bed or hiding in your closet. It is always remarkable how, in the right company, darkness can be a place of comfort. Whereas, alone, is can be filled with all manner of unspeakable terrors, horrors, and awful things. For me, it is always better to own the dark. If you own a thing, it can hold no further terrors for you! So this girl and I, we made the darkness our own and found our solace and refuge in it from an uncaring world. In the distance... we could hear the sirens of police cars and emergency vehicles, in a direction far away from the one we had fled from. Whatever the emergency was, it had nothing to do with the murder we had committed. And that, was for the best! I remember when I had asked Stephanie at the park how old she was, she told me she was thirteen years old. I think somehow she reminded me physically of Sapphira, a thirteen year old girl I fell in love with in a past life on another planet countless thousands of years ago. However, this unnamed fourteen year old girl was very different in every imaginable way. She was loud, brash, impulsive and crazy, and did not care what anyone thought about her being that way. The direct opposite of those other girls who had a more delicate, refined, and graceful manner about them. I do not know what part of me found this odd and impulsive girl so ridiculously attractive, but there was something raw and sexual about how it was she made me feel. To the point where the dangerous circumstances of all we were doing together just... did not seem to really matter, as much as the fact that despite all that she made me feel good. Perhaps, I have a need to be loved that is so strong that it sometimes overrides my reason. And in this dream it did seem honestly as if reason had gone out the window like a bat shot with a shotgun at close range. Truly, if this were reality perhaps there would have been red flags and I would have been more rational about all my decisions. But in this dream, rationality was no longer possible it seemed. If this was a sort of a preview of what it would be like if I snapped mentally in a more complete way than I have already... it was a dark preview indeed. For it seemed to me like this girl was almost a mirror of my own self at its' darkest and most nihilistic. Have I ever been that nihilistic? Yet, she was not me. She was somebody far different, someone else, someone I have not met before so far in this life. And this person fascinated, as well as frightened, me. We were devoured by the shadows as we made our way towards the church that seemed so elusively far away yet omnipresent at the same time. The girl had mentioned to me that after whatever we were going to do there we would be going to her place and that I could stay there with her. But I thought to myself... if we go too far, cross too big of a line, there will be no safe place to hide. No dreaming reality was so far removed from actual reality that I did not at least consider this particular bit of reasonable concern. “What are we going to do, exactly, once we get to this church?” I inquired, and she said to me: “What do ya think? We're gonna raise some hell there, that's what we're gonna do. Like I said, we're gonna shoot the place up and go nuts! Then book to to my place, and lay low for a while.”
This was insane... all of it. Soon, we got to the church, which was a huge old Gothic looking Catholic church. One of those ones that was so imposing looking, it may as well have been a fortress rather than a place of worship. It was dawn when we got there, about five in the morning, and inside the priest and the altar boys would most likely be preparing for the early mass. Usually, only one or two boys would be present to help out in the beginning, with more arriving later in time for the mass to actually begin. It gave us a very brief window of opportunity in which to act before we had to run like a hundred hounds of hell were at our heels. We both put on clown masks that the young girl had in the purse she had slung over her shoulder. She produced gloves for us to put on, and a second firearm which she readied in her hands. Like the first firearm, the grip was covered in duct tape. This was so that, later on, we could take off the duct tape and throw it away when we ditched the weapons as far from the girl's home as we had the ability to walk to. The guns were stolen, and the original owners would be blamed for any crimes as were committed with them, so long as we kept our identities hidden and made certain there was not a single witness to anything we did. The girl explained all of that to me so I would understand, but to be honest the darkest part of me felt it made perfect sense anyway. As soon as we were ready, we barged into the church... the doors were not locked at this hour... and sure enough there was only a single altar boy and the priest present. The boy was lighting the candles all throughout the church, and at the same time the priest was in his office to the right of the main altar place. As quick as can be, the insane young girl crept over to and then directly behind the altar boy and stabbed him in his spine whilst covering his mouth. Then, she slit his throat and kicked him over. She used her switchblade for this, and did it more efficiently than when she had killed that man on the street before. This time, she only had blood on her gloves and not all over her dress. “That takes care of the witness!” she whispered, and then pointed to the office. “Come on, we've got some justice stuff to do.” But this was not justice, it was murder in the most cold blooded ways imaginable. So far, my own hands were clean but I had a feeling that this girl was not going to let me be able to just walk away from all of this with my hands unstained. We walked over to the office door, and the girl pushed it inward. The priest jumped, startled... he was an old man, but there was something predatory about his face and features. Something perhaps even evil. The man grabbed his chest, as if his heart had been affected by the sudden shock of seeing two masked people at once barging into his office. Then, he calmly, almost kindly said: “What can I do for you two? Perhaps you have something you would like to confess... my children.” The girl grabbed him by the neck, and I saw that she was a lot stronger than she looked, and she hissed at him saying: “Sorry, father... but we're not your children. Actually, maybe you'd like to confess something to us! You touched any little boys in naughty places lately?” The priest's face went beet red, and he stammered... uncertain of what to say. At once, the girl said to him: “Actually we do have something to confess to ya... we're gonna kill ya, and then we're gonna set fire to the church and make it look like an accident. So make peace with your God and maybe you'll get lucky and actually see the asshole when we send ya to meet the jerk!” She looked at me and said calmly: “Do the honors.” And I shot the priest through his right eye without a moment's hesitation. The girl then stabbed him in the chest and through his ribs a number of times. Then, she put her switchblade away and knocked over a bunch of candles in the office, starting a small fire there. We then rushed out to the altar and started one there using torn bible pages as the means to get it going. The girl poured a bit of the sacred wine on both fires, and they were practically raging after the alcohol hit the flames. We proceeded to do the same in various places all through the church, until the pews were all on fire, and then we ran out the door. The girl then took out a can of spray paint and sprayed a gang sign on the outside of the church. And a second one on the sidewalk in front of the church. “This way, one of the local gangs will get the blame for starting the fire. The guns I stole from the house of a kid who is a member of one of the gangs. When we ditch the guns, the kid will get the blame. It's perfect!” The young girl told me all of that quickly as we ran away... and we kept on running as long as we could.
We got to the girl's house, and her parents were not there I noticed. “Mom and Pop are away on one of their business trips.” She said. “I made sure it was a permanent one.” She clarified, before adding: “But not before I had my older brother buy the house free and clear and he's the one who takes care of things for me. All kinds of things.” She was quite the young gangster, and it was frightening how coldly it was that she told me all of these horrific but trivial facts. Once we rested up and had something to eat, it was time to head out in the opposite direction of the church but more southerly. That was, I realized... pretty much the direction where the river was, and the marina where the boats were kept when people weren't using them. We stopped along the way at a certain house, and I realized it was the house of the kid who this girl had stolen the guns from. She took the guns, went inside... and told me to wait a bit. Then, she came back out and said: “Okay! The little shit was asleep, so I made sure his hands touched both of the guns so that his fingerprints would be all over them. As you can see, I've still got my gloves on! Just as I did when I shot that asshole in the street and when we went nuts in the church. What this means, is it will be impossible to ever trace what we did tonight back to us. This kid's as bad as they come too, so it isn't like this isn't poetic justice or something. Now come on, let's get to the river and toss the guns into the water. By the time the pigs find them, they'll already be questioning the local gangs, especially that one this kid belongs to since it's their insignia I sprayed all over the place back at the church.” And, at once, I realized it would not take long for the police to tie the guns to the gang and blame this kid for the killings. After this, they would crack down harder on the gangs, and the whole business would be doing the community a huge favor with the streets being made safer. I could understand why it was the girl called all of this justice, however twisted that justice might seem to be at first glance. And the only possibly innocent life lost out of all of it was a single altar boy. Especially if the girl was right and the priest was guilty of the things she claimed he was. We got to the river, removed the duct tape from the guns, and threw them into the river. Then, we threw the duct tape pieces down a sewer grate nearby. It was a perfect setup, and we ran for the girl's house after that. She had already changed her dress, with the intent of washing it and bleaching it clean later. And I had no blood on me to speak of. What I did have, was a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Some dreams can feel like that, especially when they have such violent and disturbing elements to them. Sybil would say it is because when you are a moral and ethical person, however messed up those morals or ethics might be... dreaming about doing extremely bad things can seriously mess you up. Yet, in the dream other than a nervous feeling I had no qualms at all about the things this girl and I did together. We were not acting as criminals, but actually as vigilantes, and the realization of that spun things in a different light. We were not the villains in this story, but the anti-heroes. And that was the biggest difference! Once we got back to the girl's house, we took a shower together and then had some very rough sex... she liked it rough... before tuning in one of the televisions and seeing what was on. The news was already reporting the fire at the church, and sure enough it was being blamed on gang violence. We had heard the sirens long before we got home, and it was exciting to see our plan falling into place perfectly. She then whispered to me in a seductive tone of voice: “Think about it, Pudding... all it took was a little creative chaos, and people can see what people really are! They'll realize what animals those gangs are... and I'm sure burning a church is gonna put the gangs in the bad book with the local right wing Christian nut job militias and stuff. There's gonna be a lot of blood in the streets once they start going after the gangs, with the piggies being stuck right in the middle, as clueless as ever. And we get to watch it all go down on TV, safe and sound.” She licked my earlobe, and it felt good. I smiled, then laughed and my laugh was an insane cackle followed by a series of equally mad giggles. “And best of all, the cops will crack down on the militia groups, and it will cast those right wing loonies in a very bad light indeed.” I said, voicing my thoughts aloud, adding: “Two of the baddest birds in the area, taken down with a single stone!” And the girl, whose name I still did not know, nor did I care to learn it at least thus far, laughed with me. It seemed we shared the same insanity.
I called her Queenie, short for Queen of Hearts, but she told me her name was actually Alison. I felt it was ironic, given that here was one “Alice” who preferred to be the one to chop off heads. It was good, when she finally opened up and told me at least her first name. I never did learn her last one. I told her, in a confessional sort of way, that I always had a thing for Alice from Alice in Wonderland. When I said that to her, she looked down between my legs, licked her lips, and asked me: “How big a thing you got for her?” And she had me call her Alice when we had sex and I fucked her hard and fast, and as roughly and savagely as she liked it. She was no delicate flower, no refined princess, and I did not care. She was what I wanted most... a girl after my own darkest heart... and in her company I did not have to wear any masks. I could be myself, I could let everything else in the whole world go, and I could be content to do so. I was heaving up and down on her young, gorgeous body when the dream shifted back to the awful place where everything had begun. That basement, which I recognized as being the basement from my old house back out east. The back yard being exactly the same, also. It was not obscured this time as it had been when the dream began. The faces were still staring at me from the shadows, along with black figures that were literal walking and moving shadows. I think they were laughing, grinning, smiling at me. Sybil was there, and she was grinning insanely as she said to me: “Hiya, Pudding! Hey, you know... you really got to let go of the memories of this place. It just ain't healthy to keep reliving dark memories and if you keep revisiting 'em enough, you could go crazy!” And I thought to myself immediately: “Oh my goodness! Where is Chloe?” And Chloe walked out of the shadows dressed in a harlequin costume, her hands covered in blood as she said to me: “Hey there, babe! Been a while since we've talked. Good to see ya again after so long. Like my new outfit?” And it was a beautiful costume, very well suited for her to wear. But I did not know why I thought it suited her so perfectly. There was a domino mask over her eyes, and she took it off and tossed it away theatrically before dancing about with all the grace of a ballet dancer or a gymnast. She danced, sang, and giggled almost manically. Sybil clapped her hands as she watched Chloe dance, and I found myself dancing as well. Almost as if this madness was infectious and spreading from person to person until we were all equally insane. That was when the faces in the darkness turned into skulls, and I thought I could hear the dripping of water coming from someplace. I looked towards the washing machine and the dryer, and they were covered in so much rust that all of the water leaking out of the washing machine was colored like blood. “Want to play with me... Kara?” asked Chloe, and she ran her hand delicately along my shoulder as she danced around me. Then, I had a moment when I thought back to when I used to go by the name Jessica... and I remembered the name I had that Jessica was the natural female replacement for. Every member of my immediately family had names that started with the letter J. We called ourselves the Four J's, and my grandmother always said it was the Four J's forever. It made me shudder visibly when Chloe said to me, in a seductive tone: “Come on... dance with me, Mister J... dance with your adorable little harlequin!” And her voice was copying very strongly Sybil's natural Brooklyn style accent. Had Sybil managed to cause Chloe to lose her mind, or had this madness always been there and I just never noticed it before? Sybil used to counsel Chloe... and she even counseled me for a while... before she crossed too many lines, and lost her practice. That was the time when she lost her mind for a while and dropped off the poetry site where her mistakes had been public, and her breakdown equally public. When last I heard from her, she claimed her was better, claimed she was back on the right track again. In my dream, I had a lucid moment when I saw Chloe in the throes of becoming so much like Sybil that it was unhealthy, perhaps even dangerous. But there was no reversing it, and I was forced to accept it. I danced with the little harlequin, and the skulls in the dark all grinned to see us dance. No more masks, no more hiding in the shadows. It was time to play, and the night would be our playground! I awoke in a cold sweat... a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach.
- This was a faithful relating of a dream I had on the night of August 11, 2023.
Today, we shall indulge our twisted appetites with a work of dream! How much is dream, is up to the interpretation of saner minds than mine, however. In any case, there is no point in being commonplace, so we shall open this tale with but a single word. That word being evocative of all that is to follow, all that is to come. Auspicious! That is the word we will start with. It was auspicious to see the dark and a bit all too muggy chamber before me. Honestly, I always thought basements and cellars were supposed to be cool but this was summertime after all. And sometimes, summer can make even the coldest and clammiest of places miserably muggy. The neighbors always allowed the water when it rained to drain into the yard of this particular house. I honestly think they did it just to be spiteful! The back yard was a veritable swamp, a soggy hellhole that used to be beautiful once. The willow tree that was the biggest of all the trees back there was dying, or dead... hard to be sure with how twisted it looked, after all. No beautiful green leaves were left upon its' branches... no... it was all skeletal now, corpse-like. Exactly to me the same as all the vegetation in that place was. It was not water alone that did all this! No, it was a kind of rot and decay that had set into the land, and perverted that yard until it was a twisted shell of all that it used to be. Honestly, one could almost relate to such a fate! But I digress. So the stage is set and you have an idea of the sort of place in which I stood on this occasion. In the basement of a house in an environment more suited to the dead than the living. There is sublime poetry in that, but I will not at the moment go there. Old boxes, bags, and piles of junk littered the basement. Broken toys, busted parts of furniture long gone to rot and ruin. Torn and soggy remnants of old comic books and magazines. All in all, this was not a fit place for reasonable people to linger. There were faces looking out at me from the shadows, all of them grinning, smiling happily. Or perhaps madly! I should have brought a camera so I could capture these ghosts, these specters, to share with others. Terror shared is a bonding experience at times, after all. But it was not to be. I thought perhaps I recognized some of the faces, but how could it be possible to be certain? If they were who they appeared to be, they were long dead anyway. Best not to dwell upon the past sometimes, even though it defines us. Like mine has defined me! We all carry the ghosts of those who shaped us, within us. This place was a memory, and it was a nightmare. I danced in the shadows, smiling, laughing... and standing off to the side, cackling as if she had gone insane, was a certain lovely young woman whom I was very, very well acquainted with indeed. Sybille Anne Martin. Doctor Martin! Sybil, I always called her for short. She was once a rather decent psychotherapist, who counseled a sweet little darling by the name of Chloe Abigail Harper. My beloved Chloe! She even tried to counsel me, for a bit of a while. A shame that the counseling did not take, or work, or even remotely matter in the end. I still have no idea which it was that made her lost her practice more... divulging too many personal things in very public online places, and spaces, or getting a little too deeply involved with her patients. I can attest to just how deeply she got involved with me! Until she crossed the line of personal boundaries that more normally exist between a therapist and their patient. We had something else between us! Something a lot deeper, darker, and more intense than any therapy normally allows for. What we had existed before she took me on as her patient... our sessions merely brought us closer, until she could no longer be impartial when it came to assessing me. Perhaps our sessions were a mistake! In truth, I have no bloody idea as they say in England. Never mind that I don't live in England... that is not important. What is important is that as I looked about me I realized that we were putting on some kind of performance in that dark place, some kind of artistic expression of insanity. It was a beautiful and so very highly strange moment, but a magical one and special in its' own macabre way! The faces that did grin from the shadows cared nothing for magic, because they were dead after all. Whoever they were. I lost track over the years of how many ghosts it was that haunted me. One does, when one lives a great deal and not all of it pleasant. I realized promptly that this was a dream, especially when I saw that my darling Sybil was dressed like a clown but without her face painted. She never neglected such details!
I was walking through a department store, one of those big super Walmart stores that is just off of the main road in just about any city in America today. This is in a state so far from the one I grew up in that half the time I don't even bother trying to memorize where things are at. Initially, this deliberate form of neglect was because I did not plan on staying in this part of the country for very long. But, years later, I am still here and found that I hate it out here so much that it is sheer spite that causes me to not care to get to know what is where, or what is what, out here. This is the kind of section of America where truly you could kill someone in, and probably get away with it. The police are next to useless... and there are no end of junkies, drunks, and general lowlife scum in these cities. Pin something on one of them, and the police would arrest them in no time, and any charges laid against them would stick like crazy glue. Cops always love to take the easy way out whenever they can as it is... and in my personal experience, it is a certainty that when you need the piggies the most they will never be there. Or if they are, they just will always come too late to be of any use! Oink oink, silly piggies. As I walked through the store, I had no idea what I was even doing there. This was another dream, naturally, one that replaced the first one as soon as that one came to an end. In the dream I was wearing a pair of long baggy Harem-style pants, the kind you have to tie with a drawstring at the waist, pants which also have elasticized ankles and are pretty much one size fits all. Very stylish, and especially when they are purple! As these were. I wore a tight red camisole top tucked into the pants, was clean shaven, and looked very stylish. Oh, to be sure, I looked rather pale, as I always do except when I tan sometimes in the summer. But very stylish. I had a pair of lighter purple ballet shoes on my feet. Did I ever tell you that purple is my favorite color? I also have a fondness for green, and third I love red... especially blood red. There is no red quite like it! Like moist lips or a deep gash. I'll let you decide, which it brings quickest to mind. I passed an old man who had an ugly, droopy looking mustache... a worker for the store... and he was jamming his left leg into a section of the floor that was broken with the dirt of the ground exposed. This man was jamming, over and over again, his leg into the dirt in order to soften up the ground as much as he possibly could. That was stupid because he had a shovel right next to him on the floor, but he refused to use it. I assumed he simply liked the challenge of doing it this way! Never mind that he was breaking his leg doing so. Right away, he reminded me of my grandfather during the old man's declining years. I wanted to push his face into the dirt and smash his skull with the shovel. I looked about to see if anyone was looking, and gave it strong consideration before I decided that in case there were any cameras this simple would not prove to be worth the effort. The old man smiled at me, and said in a friendly voice: “How you doing there! I was just wondering... you a guy or a girl?” And I yelled to him in reply: “Why both, and neither, good sir! How about instead you call me Death? I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. And if you keep on asking me stupid questions, I will destroy your world. Big time!” He swallowed hard, making almost a gulping noise, and looked back at the floor before getting back to smashing his leg into the dirt. I kept expecting to hear his old bones crack and break any minute, but he gave me no such pleasure. Bored to tears with his monotonous display, I moved on and realized that I was looking for someone. I did not at all know quite who, but I knew I would find them soon if I kept searching. I found myself soon walking through the women's clothing department, and then the children's clothing department. The store was at this hour... a late hour... a bit on the empty side, this close to closing. It was dark outside, a dark night if ever there was one, but not a stormy one fit for horror stories. I almost wished it was, if only so it would feel less boring, monotonous, and dull. I don't like being bored, especially when I have to search for... I did not know what. I only knew it was a who rather than a what. You ever have dreams like that? When you know you are supposed to be doing something important, but have no clue what it is. This was one of those dreams. I was like an actor or a comedian trying to improvise a performance but with not even a rough outline in my own head to go by. My mother once said I should have been a comedian. I hated my mother! I felt sorry for her sometimes, but mostly I hated her. Because she hated me, the toxic bitch.
When she hadn't been spreading her legs for any man she could get something from, she was hitting me in the face, kicking me across the floor when I was little, or telling me she wished I was dead. So, I will have you know, dear reader, that my hatred of my mother is well justified. But cheerio! Let us get on back to the dream at hand. Shall we? Yes we shall. As I walked through the department that housed the children's clothing, a beautiful young girl of about fourteen years of age walked up to me. Right off, I thought she was amazing! She had long blonde hair that she wore in two twin ponytails with one of them dyed green and the other dyed purple. She had blood red lipstick on her pouting lips, and eyes so green they might as well have been dark emeralds. She was wearing a white satin dress of the type that girls typically wear to their first communion in the Catholic church. I asked her: “Tell me, miss, if you don't mind... are you Catholic by any chance? I didn't think they were so progressive these days.” And I saw her blush as she replied, saying: “Nah! I can't stand 'em. I'm not really the religious type, if ya get my meaning. I just really, really like this dress. Not like my sister's gonna need it no more. It's all mine now, fair and square.” The way she talked actually reminded me totally of Chloe's particular manner of speaking, only this girl was about a year older than Chloe looked and a lot more developed in the chest. I could not help but notice that about her. I smiled, and then said to her in a forwardly honest manner: “Ah! A girl after my own heart. You want to go do something... you and me? Maybe go out for a while, out of this store, and have ourselves a good time.” I winked at her, and realized I was hitting on a very obviously underage girl and could not have cared less that I was doing so. She smiled crazily, and said to me loudly and bit shrilly: “Sure, why not! I'm bored anyway... let's do something nuts together.” Then she pranced away from me and motioned for me to come chase after her. She ran off a short ways, and I chased after her, catching her at last and pinning her to the floor. I was on top of her, my body pressed very tightly against hers, my crotch pushing a bit between her legs, which were splayed out widely. It was making me quite aroused, and I was getting quite a bit of a hard-on. The girl noticed... how could she not with it jabbing into her... and asked: “Ya gonna do me... or what? No cameras in this part of the store... no one's looking either, so no one would ever need to know. Believe me, I know... that bit about the cameras... I've stolen from here before and gotten away with it too.” She was breathing heavily, she was almost panting, as she told me all that quickly. I giggled, realizing at once how creepily it sounded, and I said to her in answer to her offer: “Let's go crazy, little girl!” and before you know it she and I had done things that adults my age and kids her age are never supposed to do. When we finished, we had to arrange our clothes back as they had been before our little play time together, and then the girl handed me a gun and asked me: “So, ya know how to use one of these?” and I showed her that I did. I was an old fashioned revolver, very simple to use. Not nearly as complicated as most modern firearms today. I pointed it at the ceiling, and pretended to fire it, yelling: “Bang!” loudly, as I did so. “Let's go nuts!” she said to me, and the next thing I knew we were running through the store and heading for the exit. Once we neared it, we passed the door greeter, who the teenage girl knocked over on our way out. “Sorry for dumping ya on your ass, asshole!” she shouted at him... and I laughed loudly. Once we got clear of the store, my new playmate asked me: “So, ya wanna go shoot up a church? Bastards deserve it... from all I've heard about 'em!” And I grinned maniacally as I said to her: “Yes! It's payback time.” So she asked me: “They hurt ya too when ya were little?” and I nodded in the affirmative. So she then admitted: “Me too! And my parents did jack and shit about it.” I chuckled almost evilly as I said to her: “Now it's time for some good old fashioned vigilante justice!” I hissed that last word, and realized that my idea of all that constituted justice probably was directly at odds of what most rational people thought of as such. I didn't care, and I wasn't about to second guess myself. I was firmly in the reality of the dream, and it felt sweet to immerse myself in such a reality. The waking world was ripe for chaos, ripe for madness, and this indulgence felt right. It went perfectly with my perhaps increasingly anarchic views of late. Time to fuck the system and play a very lethal game indeed! She grabbed my arm... and led me onward, quickly.
We crossed city streets of every type, once we crossed the road past the store's parking lot, and after a good while we passed an old college campus that reminded me of one I knew of out east. This one was long abandoned though. But all the same, there were people moving here and there about the old dorms and buildings. It was pitch dark out, but for the orange glare of the streetlights. The kind of orange, that always reminded me of Halloween. The season of the dead, the season of dread. How I always loved, in all honestly, that time of the year! I always loved to dress up like the Joker from Batman on Halloween. All those times, I never thought I would end up going as mad as the Joker, however. But times change, people change, and sometimes madness can merely be a form of super sanity in which we can at last be free to see the world as it truly is! Rather than be bound by the stifling lies we are raised with by failing parents and a failed system, in a society that only cares about itself. “Ya ever killed anyone before?” It was weird hearing a young teenage girl ask me a question like that. I said to her: “I was trained to kill in a military program when I was twelve years old.” She whistled and said in response to that: “Wow! Oh Jesus, that's young to be taught shit like that. Too young.” I smiled, and said to her calmly: “It was, but I dealt with it. That which does not kill you, only makes you... like me... after all!” We had stopped a bit to catch our breaths and talk for a while, following that, and once we had kissed passionately under the weird glow of an orange late summer moon it was time to get back to walking again. Not running, our legs were a bit tired out from doing a lot of that already... just walking. Leisurely, as if we were merely out for a normal stroll at an ungodly (some might say) late hour. We walked, and sometimes talked as we walked, on our way to the church that we intended to wreak vengeance at. I told my partner in crime a true story from when I was fourteen years old myself. And I shall tell it to you, dear reader! That year, I had decided I wanted some serious, major payback for everything that the Catholic church had put me through when I was abused by them as a child. So I walked up to that church, and the school that I had attended which was right next to it, the school in which from kindergarten to fourth grade, I had been made to suffer horrific abuses, torments, and tortures until my family finally decided to do something about it. It was up past the pond, past yet another church and a bunch of apartments and houses, and a series of other buildings. I still remember the name of the street it was on. Franklin Street. The name of the church and school was Sacred Heart. I wanted to tear that heart right out of its' moorings and shove it down the throats of the people who had hurt me. But that day, I had to content myself with what I was able to manage without getting in any trouble with the law. I walked a good ways into the school's old playground, past the old fence that was around it which had a huge gaping hole in it. It was abandoned ever since the school and church were closed down once parents came forward to sue the place and get justice for the children harmed by it. The church was fallen into disrepair, and going to wrack and ruin. I smiled, content at seeing that. Then I picked up a large rock and threw it as hard as I could at one of the school's windows. The old brick facade of the building was a frequent fixture in some of my worst nightmares. It would frighten me no more! The rock smashed through the window, shattering the glass and putting a respectably decent sized hole through the window. I could hear one of the neighbors who lived near the place scream out, realizing they must have heard the glass breaking, and so I decided to run in the direct opposite direction from the sound of the old man's yelling voice. The fence was wide open around the back of the school, and once I passed through it I was back on the streets and hell and gone from the scene of my petty crime. I felt sated though, for the time, and was content that I had at the very least found a way to take out my pain on those who had caused some of the worst of it. Once I had told that to the young teenage girl, she said to me: “Looks like I'm coming to a similar idea at the same age... only me, I'm bringing a party favor to the big occasion.” And she made her hand look like a gun, like children do when they're playing sometimes, and pointed it in the distance before shouting at the top of her lungs: “Pow! Bang! Boom!” Then she chuckled and said to me: “Sometimes... ya gotta think big if ya wanna take the juiciest revenges.” She blew me a kiss after that, as we kept on walking.
That time when I threw a rock through the old school's window, was hardly the only time... or the last one either... when I had a mind to cross the line and do something crazy because I was compelled to or pushed to by pain that grown too much to bear any longer. There was this other time when my ex, who was in the process of a decade long systematic abuse and torture of me, had pushed me too far one day, and drove me to go for a long walk out of the house. I figured I would just go for a long walk and then get home late and maybe... just maybe... the jerk would feel bad for hurting me so much, miss me, and be compelled to treat me better going forward. I was twenty five that year, and felt like I was in a hell I could never hope to escape from. I had been forced into the marriage as it was, and was not happy in it at all. The bitch was psycho and as crazy as they come... and not in ways I found tolerable at all. In the end... she would never be sorry and eventually our marriage would fall apart and I would be free of her. But on that way, when I was twenty five, I was delusional enough to think she could change. I walked up to the park a few blocks from our house, from my family's house where we lived at the time. When I was a teenager, the park was a place I always felt I could retreat to when I was feeling at my worst. And out among nature, I always felt as if I was healing... so that when I came home I always felt better. Not to mention how I had some profound religious and spiritual experiences in that park that changed pretty much my whole life. I had not been paying attention to the hour, and it had to have been the hour when school got out because kids were walking home from the middle school past the far side of the park. It was common for a lot of the middle school children to walk home from school. When I was their age... these kids were called walkers. The ones who didn't take the bus or have anyone come to pick them up. They would leave school, cut through the park, and head home from there. As I made my way deeper into the park, I passed a young Hispanic girl with wavy black hair, dusky skin, and big brown eyes. She was wearing a baggy magenta jumpsuit with a wide belt around her waist, and her hair had a kind of a long ponytail on one side of her head. She was cute, and was sucking on a lolly pop. I don't know what possessed me to, but I asked her: “Hey, babe, looking good! What's your name?” And she glared at me and said in a visibly angry tone of voice: “None of your business... go away!” and, I thought to myself: “Damn, what a bitch! Ah well, with an attitude like that, she wasn't my type anyway.” After some time, another girl walked towards me and this one was absolutely, incredibly beautiful to me. She had blonde wavy hair held back by a white hairband, light blue eyes like sapphires, and an adorably plump mouth that was just pouting enough to be pleasing. She had very cherubic features, was a bit stocky built but not overweight in any capacity. She had a nice figure too for so young a girl, and big breasts to go with it. She was wearing a pair of silky looking short shorts and had a white camisole top tucked into them with a long sleeved shrug on over her top. Her white sneakers tapped on the ground as she walked near to me, and I got a whiff of her perfume and loved the nice floral scent of it. I called to her, and said to her in as pleasant a tone as I could manage: “Hey, sweetheart! You look beautiful. Really beautiful.” to which she blushed, and said: “Thank you.” before looking like she was going to walk off before I asked her after that: “So, what's your name?” and she stopped, turned around to face me, and answered: “It's Stephanie. My name's Stephanie.” and her manner was so polite it was intoxicating to me. What a very refreshing difference from that other girl who was so rude in comparison! I lied to her and told her that my name was Gwydion, a name I recalled from studying Welsh Celtic mythology. She said to me very, very sweetly: “Pleased to meet you, Gwydion! That's a very unusual name.” and we both laughed about that a bit before I said to her: “Yeah, I suppose it is!” I then asked her in a rather out of the blue sort of way: “So, are you seeing anybody right now?” and she nodded her head, saying to me: “Yeah, I've got a boyfriend actually.” and I thought to myself: “Lucky bastard! All I've got at home is an abusive bitch.” I watched her walk out of the park and down the road a ways before I realized that I was following her. I do not know why I did so, or what I intended. But after some time, I tripped and she noticed me. Then, she walked increasingly faster until I lost sight of her. By the time I was back on my feet, she was gone.
Stephanie. The same name as the very first girl I ever had a crush on. Something about that name had always managed to evoke strong feelings of love and desire in me. I went home after I had tripped, and the next years of my life were a living hell. In the reality of my dream... I had told all of these stories to the young girl who was my chaotic companion. She understood... and if anything felt sorry for me that I had gone through so much pain and hurt in life. She commented about it: “Sounds to me like ya didn't start out thinking about doing bad, but people pushed ya until ya snapped. But something was looking out for ya maybe, I think.” I had to admit, that seemed plausible to me. Nothing else really explained all the crazy events, coincidences, and circumstances that transpired all throughout my life. And my life, in all its' mad glory, had been hardly bereft of circumstances that seemed meaningful. Now I'm not one of those kinds of people who looks for meaning in literally everything, but sometimes I have to admit that it does seems like there's a certain symmetry to things. As if the universe has a sense of humor... and, if we try hard enough, we can get the gist of it. And maybe even understand the punchline! So we walked along, and things got quieter between us after a while. She didn't talk about herself or her life much, but was very good when it came to listening to me talk about me and mine. But what I was able to glean of her and her life was tragic and downright horrible. Not on the same level as my life, but not exactly the sort of life one could call a picnic, either. More, the kind of picnic where ants show up and all the food gets spoiled because of it. And nobody brought any bug spray! Not that you could use that around food, as that would poison it... but you get the idea. We held hands, walking down the road, past streets that were as black as pitch, illuminated only by orange light that enhanced the haze that suddenly seemed to be falling upon the city, making it seem more smoky, more infernal. If this world is becoming Hell, we were like two devils looking for a slice of Heaven to cut away from Paradise and call our own. Better to have a private hell for two, than to share some boring heaven with the dull masses, I always say! There was not so much evil in our hearts, but pain and a yearning for meaning in a meaningless world. Even if we had to create that meaning through chaos. Sane people were in bed or at home by this hour. I didn't even know what the hour was, but I knew it was getting later and later. I wondered how far from dawn we were, and if somewhere out there a rooster would be crowing once the sun came up. After all... you just can't stop a determined cock once it gets going! I kept telling jokes like that to my partner in crime, and she giggled naughtily at every one I told her. Even the sickest, darkest, and most twisted ones. One thing I had to say about this kid, she was definitely a dark soul just like me. I asked her if she would tell me what her favorite color was, and she said: “Red! I love red. The redder the red, better I said.” And I smiled, and remarked: “But you're wearing white.” and she exclaimed: “But it's gonna be red, once we start killing people. So it makes sense. See?” I laughed, and replied: “I see, I see. So... I like red too but not as much as purple and green.” She pointed to her hair and said: “Just like my ponytails. Aren't we a matched pair of playing cards? A Joker and a Queen of Hearts, if ya ask me.” I chuckled and said to her as I did so: “Soulmates! I must be dead, and this must be Heaven.” She then said in an alarmed manner: “Dead! If we're dead and this crap hole is Heaven, then what does that make me?” Then, I kissed her on her lips tenderly as I said to her: “An angel!” and she sighed with pleasure, as our kiss grew passionate. Someone spotted us kissing as they walked by across the street and they muttered something that had a rude sound to it. The young girl took the gun into her hand, pointed it in the man's direction, and shot him once in the head. He fell down unto the sidewalk, and she rushed over to stab him multiple times with a switchblade she produced from one of her black and white diamond-patterned knee-high socks. She left the man a dead, bloody mess and her gown spattered with spots of the man's blood. “See? I told ya my dress was gonna be red before the night was over. Trouble is... when blood dries it gets all brown looking and isn't pretty red colored anymore. So I'm gonna have to wash this dress and maybe bleach it a dozen times or so to get the blood out once we get over to my place later. And yeah, consider yourself invited to stay as long as ya like!” We then rushed down the street before anyone could notice our deed.
People just do not understand certain kinds of love. Sometimes, craziness attracts! And I thought back to Sybil and to Chloe, and to others who had captured my heart over the years. Sometimes practically at gunpoint! And it made me realize just how very, very remarkably and astoundingly true that fact is. My mother used to say: “You can't help who your balls itch for.” like the low class cow that she was. But in all honestly, you can't help where your heart is led, or whose heart will be led to yours. Love happens... and sometimes there is no rhyme, reason, or rationality to it at all. No point, in bringing sanity into the equation, because then it no longer makes any sense. So me, I just smile and laugh and try for the best. Might as well put on a happy face... since there are plenty of people out there already who are hellbent on making others frown. So I was smiling and laughing as this strange, crazy girl and I were once more running down into the darkest bowels of the city, having snuffed out a man's life for being rude to us. If there is one thing I simply cannot abide, it is rude people. Rudeness, like narrow-mindedness, is worthy only of a bullet to the brain or a knife through the heart. And maybe flayed flesh, too, if one is feeling in a playful mood and has the time to spare. The darkness felt like a comforting presence to us, and as we lost ourselves in the shadows it felt much like pulling the blankets over your head when you are little to escape the monster you think is lurking under your bed or hiding in your closet. It is always remarkable how, in the right company, darkness can be a place of comfort. Whereas, alone, is can be filled with all manner of unspeakable terrors, horrors, and awful things. For me, it is always better to own the dark. If you own a thing, it can hold no further terrors for you! So this girl and I, we made the darkness our own and found our solace and refuge in it from an uncaring world. In the distance... we could hear the sirens of police cars and emergency vehicles, in a direction far away from the one we had fled from. Whatever the emergency was, it had nothing to do with the murder we had committed. And that, was for the best! I remember when I had asked Stephanie at the park how old she was, she told me she was thirteen years old. I think somehow she reminded me physically of Sapphira, a thirteen year old girl I fell in love with in a past life on another planet countless thousands of years ago. However, this unnamed fourteen year old girl was very different in every imaginable way. She was loud, brash, impulsive and crazy, and did not care what anyone thought about her being that way. The direct opposite of those other girls who had a more delicate, refined, and graceful manner about them. I do not know what part of me found this odd and impulsive girl so ridiculously attractive, but there was something raw and sexual about how it was she made me feel. To the point where the dangerous circumstances of all we were doing together just... did not seem to really matter, as much as the fact that despite all that she made me feel good. Perhaps, I have a need to be loved that is so strong that it sometimes overrides my reason. And in this dream it did seem honestly as if reason had gone out the window like a bat shot with a shotgun at close range. Truly, if this were reality perhaps there would have been red flags and I would have been more rational about all my decisions. But in this dream, rationality was no longer possible it seemed. If this was a sort of a preview of what it would be like if I snapped mentally in a more complete way than I have already... it was a dark preview indeed. For it seemed to me like this girl was almost a mirror of my own self at its' darkest and most nihilistic. Have I ever been that nihilistic? Yet, she was not me. She was somebody far different, someone else, someone I have not met before so far in this life. And this person fascinated, as well as frightened, me. We were devoured by the shadows as we made our way towards the church that seemed so elusively far away yet omnipresent at the same time. The girl had mentioned to me that after whatever we were going to do there we would be going to her place and that I could stay there with her. But I thought to myself... if we go too far, cross too big of a line, there will be no safe place to hide. No dreaming reality was so far removed from actual reality that I did not at least consider this particular bit of reasonable concern. “What are we going to do, exactly, once we get to this church?” I inquired, and she said to me: “What do ya think? We're gonna raise some hell there, that's what we're gonna do. Like I said, we're gonna shoot the place up and go nuts! Then book to to my place, and lay low for a while.”
This was insane... all of it. Soon, we got to the church, which was a huge old Gothic looking Catholic church. One of those ones that was so imposing looking, it may as well have been a fortress rather than a place of worship. It was dawn when we got there, about five in the morning, and inside the priest and the altar boys would most likely be preparing for the early mass. Usually, only one or two boys would be present to help out in the beginning, with more arriving later in time for the mass to actually begin. It gave us a very brief window of opportunity in which to act before we had to run like a hundred hounds of hell were at our heels. We both put on clown masks that the young girl had in the purse she had slung over her shoulder. She produced gloves for us to put on, and a second firearm which she readied in her hands. Like the first firearm, the grip was covered in duct tape. This was so that, later on, we could take off the duct tape and throw it away when we ditched the weapons as far from the girl's home as we had the ability to walk to. The guns were stolen, and the original owners would be blamed for any crimes as were committed with them, so long as we kept our identities hidden and made certain there was not a single witness to anything we did. The girl explained all of that to me so I would understand, but to be honest the darkest part of me felt it made perfect sense anyway. As soon as we were ready, we barged into the church... the doors were not locked at this hour... and sure enough there was only a single altar boy and the priest present. The boy was lighting the candles all throughout the church, and at the same time the priest was in his office to the right of the main altar place. As quick as can be, the insane young girl crept over to and then directly behind the altar boy and stabbed him in his spine whilst covering his mouth. Then, she slit his throat and kicked him over. She used her switchblade for this, and did it more efficiently than when she had killed that man on the street before. This time, she only had blood on her gloves and not all over her dress. “That takes care of the witness!” she whispered, and then pointed to the office. “Come on, we've got some justice stuff to do.” But this was not justice, it was murder in the most cold blooded ways imaginable. So far, my own hands were clean but I had a feeling that this girl was not going to let me be able to just walk away from all of this with my hands unstained. We walked over to the office door, and the girl pushed it inward. The priest jumped, startled... he was an old man, but there was something predatory about his face and features. Something perhaps even evil. The man grabbed his chest, as if his heart had been affected by the sudden shock of seeing two masked people at once barging into his office. Then, he calmly, almost kindly said: “What can I do for you two? Perhaps you have something you would like to confess... my children.” The girl grabbed him by the neck, and I saw that she was a lot stronger than she looked, and she hissed at him saying: “Sorry, father... but we're not your children. Actually, maybe you'd like to confess something to us! You touched any little boys in naughty places lately?” The priest's face went beet red, and he stammered... uncertain of what to say. At once, the girl said to him: “Actually we do have something to confess to ya... we're gonna kill ya, and then we're gonna set fire to the church and make it look like an accident. So make peace with your God and maybe you'll get lucky and actually see the asshole when we send ya to meet the jerk!” She looked at me and said calmly: “Do the honors.” And I shot the priest through his right eye without a moment's hesitation. The girl then stabbed him in the chest and through his ribs a number of times. Then, she put her switchblade away and knocked over a bunch of candles in the office, starting a small fire there. We then rushed out to the altar and started one there using torn bible pages as the means to get it going. The girl poured a bit of the sacred wine on both fires, and they were practically raging after the alcohol hit the flames. We proceeded to do the same in various places all through the church, until the pews were all on fire, and then we ran out the door. The girl then took out a can of spray paint and sprayed a gang sign on the outside of the church. And a second one on the sidewalk in front of the church. “This way, one of the local gangs will get the blame for starting the fire. The guns I stole from the house of a kid who is a member of one of the gangs. When we ditch the guns, the kid will get the blame. It's perfect!” The young girl told me all of that quickly as we ran away... and we kept on running as long as we could.
We got to the girl's house, and her parents were not there I noticed. “Mom and Pop are away on one of their business trips.” She said. “I made sure it was a permanent one.” She clarified, before adding: “But not before I had my older brother buy the house free and clear and he's the one who takes care of things for me. All kinds of things.” She was quite the young gangster, and it was frightening how coldly it was that she told me all of these horrific but trivial facts. Once we rested up and had something to eat, it was time to head out in the opposite direction of the church but more southerly. That was, I realized... pretty much the direction where the river was, and the marina where the boats were kept when people weren't using them. We stopped along the way at a certain house, and I realized it was the house of the kid who this girl had stolen the guns from. She took the guns, went inside... and told me to wait a bit. Then, she came back out and said: “Okay! The little shit was asleep, so I made sure his hands touched both of the guns so that his fingerprints would be all over them. As you can see, I've still got my gloves on! Just as I did when I shot that asshole in the street and when we went nuts in the church. What this means, is it will be impossible to ever trace what we did tonight back to us. This kid's as bad as they come too, so it isn't like this isn't poetic justice or something. Now come on, let's get to the river and toss the guns into the water. By the time the pigs find them, they'll already be questioning the local gangs, especially that one this kid belongs to since it's their insignia I sprayed all over the place back at the church.” And, at once, I realized it would not take long for the police to tie the guns to the gang and blame this kid for the killings. After this, they would crack down harder on the gangs, and the whole business would be doing the community a huge favor with the streets being made safer. I could understand why it was the girl called all of this justice, however twisted that justice might seem to be at first glance. And the only possibly innocent life lost out of all of it was a single altar boy. Especially if the girl was right and the priest was guilty of the things she claimed he was. We got to the river, removed the duct tape from the guns, and threw them into the river. Then, we threw the duct tape pieces down a sewer grate nearby. It was a perfect setup, and we ran for the girl's house after that. She had already changed her dress, with the intent of washing it and bleaching it clean later. And I had no blood on me to speak of. What I did have, was a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Some dreams can feel like that, especially when they have such violent and disturbing elements to them. Sybil would say it is because when you are a moral and ethical person, however messed up those morals or ethics might be... dreaming about doing extremely bad things can seriously mess you up. Yet, in the dream other than a nervous feeling I had no qualms at all about the things this girl and I did together. We were not acting as criminals, but actually as vigilantes, and the realization of that spun things in a different light. We were not the villains in this story, but the anti-heroes. And that was the biggest difference! Once we got back to the girl's house, we took a shower together and then had some very rough sex... she liked it rough... before tuning in one of the televisions and seeing what was on. The news was already reporting the fire at the church, and sure enough it was being blamed on gang violence. We had heard the sirens long before we got home, and it was exciting to see our plan falling into place perfectly. She then whispered to me in a seductive tone of voice: “Think about it, Pudding... all it took was a little creative chaos, and people can see what people really are! They'll realize what animals those gangs are... and I'm sure burning a church is gonna put the gangs in the bad book with the local right wing Christian nut job militias and stuff. There's gonna be a lot of blood in the streets once they start going after the gangs, with the piggies being stuck right in the middle, as clueless as ever. And we get to watch it all go down on TV, safe and sound.” She licked my earlobe, and it felt good. I smiled, then laughed and my laugh was an insane cackle followed by a series of equally mad giggles. “And best of all, the cops will crack down on the militia groups, and it will cast those right wing loonies in a very bad light indeed.” I said, voicing my thoughts aloud, adding: “Two of the baddest birds in the area, taken down with a single stone!” And the girl, whose name I still did not know, nor did I care to learn it at least thus far, laughed with me. It seemed we shared the same insanity.
I called her Queenie, short for Queen of Hearts, but she told me her name was actually Alison. I felt it was ironic, given that here was one “Alice” who preferred to be the one to chop off heads. It was good, when she finally opened up and told me at least her first name. I never did learn her last one. I told her, in a confessional sort of way, that I always had a thing for Alice from Alice in Wonderland. When I said that to her, she looked down between my legs, licked her lips, and asked me: “How big a thing you got for her?” And she had me call her Alice when we had sex and I fucked her hard and fast, and as roughly and savagely as she liked it. She was no delicate flower, no refined princess, and I did not care. She was what I wanted most... a girl after my own darkest heart... and in her company I did not have to wear any masks. I could be myself, I could let everything else in the whole world go, and I could be content to do so. I was heaving up and down on her young, gorgeous body when the dream shifted back to the awful place where everything had begun. That basement, which I recognized as being the basement from my old house back out east. The back yard being exactly the same, also. It was not obscured this time as it had been when the dream began. The faces were still staring at me from the shadows, along with black figures that were literal walking and moving shadows. I think they were laughing, grinning, smiling at me. Sybil was there, and she was grinning insanely as she said to me: “Hiya, Pudding! Hey, you know... you really got to let go of the memories of this place. It just ain't healthy to keep reliving dark memories and if you keep revisiting 'em enough, you could go crazy!” And I thought to myself immediately: “Oh my goodness! Where is Chloe?” And Chloe walked out of the shadows dressed in a harlequin costume, her hands covered in blood as she said to me: “Hey there, babe! Been a while since we've talked. Good to see ya again after so long. Like my new outfit?” And it was a beautiful costume, very well suited for her to wear. But I did not know why I thought it suited her so perfectly. There was a domino mask over her eyes, and she took it off and tossed it away theatrically before dancing about with all the grace of a ballet dancer or a gymnast. She danced, sang, and giggled almost manically. Sybil clapped her hands as she watched Chloe dance, and I found myself dancing as well. Almost as if this madness was infectious and spreading from person to person until we were all equally insane. That was when the faces in the darkness turned into skulls, and I thought I could hear the dripping of water coming from someplace. I looked towards the washing machine and the dryer, and they were covered in so much rust that all of the water leaking out of the washing machine was colored like blood. “Want to play with me... Kara?” asked Chloe, and she ran her hand delicately along my shoulder as she danced around me. Then, I had a moment when I thought back to when I used to go by the name Jessica... and I remembered the name I had that Jessica was the natural female replacement for. Every member of my immediately family had names that started with the letter J. We called ourselves the Four J's, and my grandmother always said it was the Four J's forever. It made me shudder visibly when Chloe said to me, in a seductive tone: “Come on... dance with me, Mister J... dance with your adorable little harlequin!” And her voice was copying very strongly Sybil's natural Brooklyn style accent. Had Sybil managed to cause Chloe to lose her mind, or had this madness always been there and I just never noticed it before? Sybil used to counsel Chloe... and she even counseled me for a while... before she crossed too many lines, and lost her practice. That was the time when she lost her mind for a while and dropped off the poetry site where her mistakes had been public, and her breakdown equally public. When last I heard from her, she claimed her was better, claimed she was back on the right track again. In my dream, I had a lucid moment when I saw Chloe in the throes of becoming so much like Sybil that it was unhealthy, perhaps even dangerous. But there was no reversing it, and I was forced to accept it. I danced with the little harlequin, and the skulls in the dark all grinned to see us dance. No more masks, no more hiding in the shadows. It was time to play, and the night would be our playground! I awoke in a cold sweat... a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach.
- This was a faithful relating of a dream I had on the night of August 11, 2023.
Published 15th Aug 2023
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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15th Aug 2023 11:36pm
I'm happy that you do, sweet Grace! Some things in my life are a lot more difficult to write about than others, but lately I've been finding the courage to write about all of it. From the brightest, to the darkest of things. From the very brightest of dreams to the blackest of nightmares! Sometimes, both can be fun, depending. And most difficult of all, the events of my life from the earliest days of my childhood right up until now. But I needed to commit all of this to writing... so that's what I've been doing. Very happy to hear from you, thanks for dropping to say hello! *Smiles* :)
22nd Aug 2023 2:39am
I always read you...I might not comment sometimes but I look you up regularly. Stay well dear friend.<3
23rd Aug 2023 1:32am
