the dungeon has...

He pulled his collar higher to shadow his face. A scowl flickered across his twisted features. His eyes looked out at the world with blazing fear and hatred.

Stop looking at me! he thought. You can hear what I’m thinking can’t you?

His rage built up. Within his mind he screamed. He inwardly screamed as he attempted to walk unobtrusively through the crowds. He inwardly screamed as he hid his face and body from the throngs. Gaudy colours danced with the swirling of a thousand figures. Grotesqueries of human life crouched by the roadside, huddled in the doorways of ragged tents, pale in the light of youth. These creatures appeared lost and disorientated by the new confusion and outpouring of life. People laughed and sneered, mockeries of honest men. The crowd undulated around him.

Man has travelled far and wide, but the flow of the river breaks here, where all the filth of the world is collected, and where it shall remain to the end of its days, he thought.

Tents lined the sides of the roads, bright dyed colours, above which a big-wheel soared. The crowded faces blurred, fusing to form one amalgamated face, humanity lived in their depravity. In the teasing of others they were mocking themselves. A woman dressed in mottled harlequin clothes shouted her madness, in exultation, above the exited noise. Nobody listened to her nonsensical words.

He reflected, considering. In a world of silence, everyone listens when you speak. In a world of noise, no-one cares.

He had covered his treacherous shape. Striding with long measured steps he escaped the pull of the crowds. He longed to be free from this place, and be somewhere where he could hide his shape and free his soul. Conflict reigned within him. To be hidden, yet infamous, to be known, not as a figure of disgust, but as someone irrevocably buried in their convictions. This was his half-formed goal.

The flames of a bonfire glowed in the distance. The forest encircled the festivities. The smoke drifted into the air, giving the evening a lightness which formed a contrast to his own heart. Bitterness consumed him. His heart felt as if it were being eaten by acid, and no-one cared. The future was all that mattered to him. He did not question his remembrance, woven in dyed colours, they were patterns of obscurity, irrelevant to him.

The sun turned a fiery orange, filling the sky with a golden cooling. It charged the warm summer air with its power. People stopped to witness the scene of the dying sun. Death is life, creating. He shuddered at the sight of this place. No use in it, no use at all. Through his distorted vision, each person was a fragile painting, with a fiery beast hiding behind, poised to drive through the canvas and destroy him.

It grew steadily colder. The throngs of people disappeared, heading outwards towards the trees. They left empty space, litter lying on the trampled ground. Turning his head, he became aware of a solitary group of people, who had congregated by the fire. They sat as if sharing some strange bond, the land was theirs. Two people stood in the lengthening shadows. Together, hand in hand, they ran through the imagined flames, quenched in sorrow. Emerging, unified, married.

In the darkness it began to rain. He started through the trees to avoid being noticed as different. He tugged at his collar, forcing it higher, his black hair beginning to drip, as if with some foul grease. Dark as blood the rain fell through the trees. Darkness creates all, once familiar objects were turned into gargoyles of the imagination, forming shapes and running souls. He felt great power, freedom. He could reach in all directions, central at the core, weak with distance. To others he was the crow which had to climb to its perch, refusing to acknowledge the absence of wings and feathers.

“If cremation is against my religion, bury me in a forest and let me go to hell with the trees”, he screamed to the pulsating heavens. The whistling of the wind filled his ears, and around him his silent companions creaked. They were sentinels on a constant vigil. He ran on. His passage was as the crow, straight compass lines. He travelled onwards, never questioning as to why he did not care.

The trees ended, forcing him to give up his struggle towards the perch, falling downwards. The balloon which had previously elevated him, had become lead, dragging him down. The bitterness returned, carrying sharpened knives. His path lay unchanged, the darkness hiding no secrets.

His home stood in its poverty, one of many. He swung the door open, all noises magnified in the night silence. Removing his coat and his heavy shoes, he stepped into the lounge, flinging himself into the solitary armchair with an exuberance which nearly overwhelmed it. The television blared, alive with a hundred deaths, no-one of any importance. The channels flashed past him, a wave of meaningless sounds and pictures. This is life, he thinks. Docile in his comfort the light dances on his face.

A shower scene, knife flashing, blood pouring down the drain. An unblinking eye, emphasised in black and white. Reality at last. He settles down to watch the horror. Remembering the lie he questions it also, was it real, or a movement of his subconscious?

He sat and stared, sitting in limbo.

...

Sat in a room. Bright colours, tasted sounds. Music playing, isolated dream. There is a figure, seated, with his eyes closed. Music lifting, uplifting, dreaming song. Pulled forth from ever dancing soul, away. Unknown place.

Eyes open, tears blinding. He cannot see, tears blur his vision. Questions. Sees another place. Thoughts turn to return. Dreams temporary, fatal.

Dreams, music controls soul. He sees but he cannot reach the sky. He aims to fly, but he falls. Not yet, his history is unwritten. True release comes with a quantity of words.

...

Startled, he moves.

White noise filled the room. The television stood, solitary; no longer accompanied by his shining friends. Light began to creep in through the thick draped curtains, emphasising the dust filing the room. His eye opened, peering through the murky air. Fumbling, he reached for the remote control, and switched channels.

He ignored the detritus of cigarette butts and empty cans, which stretched out in front of him. They piled up, covering the dust. In the middle of this confusion he sat, shrunken in the comfort of his chair. His friends were back on the screen. He smiled at them. Friends, soon I shall be with you. They continued, oblivious. Sudden anger raged, his body pounded itself against the chair, making the unsteady frame rock. They did not answer his physical plea.

A single tear rolled down his cheek, eyes fixed upon the glowing screen. Two golden people sat talking on a glowing sofa. He began to smile, enthralled in their conversation. Everything in a day.

The idea rose, unbidden, into his mind. To join with these golden people, in union together, forever. To talk to them, to be with them. Those who had given him so much joy. All his irrational thoughts were blown away. Fear had driven him towards insanity, but this new image held in his mind, concentrated, focused. It had been a fear of the unknown, his ignorance that had scorned him, not a blissful flight, by any stretch of the imagination. A deep rooted fear of the unknown, the unknown of his insecure mind, that heightened his fears and insecurities, in an ever increasing spiral. They lurked, like an unseen spectre, beyond the reaching of his mind, and the reaching fingers of understanding. His insecurities were the product of his running scared.

He pushed himself slowly out of the chair, joints creaking as they shifted position. Kicking the remains of food out of the way he strode over to an imposing bookcase. He lifted up a book, opening its worn pages, and intoned in a deep voice:

“And I looked, and behold a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud and a fire unfolding itself, and a brightness was about it.”

Although they served no purpose, he felt comforted by those words. He imagined himself as the whirlwind, wreaking God’s wrath. For a second he was the clouds as they unleashed their fire. He stood, arms upraised, as his heart, bent on destruction, removed all that stood in his path. In his mind his hair was flying on the waves of his God-like fury, and the fixed scowl on his face was one of victory.

In his heart he now knew what he must do.

Rumpled, unwashed; a figment of the depravity of the society he loathed, he strode from the house, only stopping to pick up a couple of items to put in his pockets. The front door was left open, a cold breeze creeping round the corners of the door, stirring the dust into clouds. The storm had begun.

The people on the television were still talking, immersed in their futility. They did not know.

...

For two hours the house remained the same, unchallenged by the mans absence. Attention turns to the newsreader:

“The incident happened only an hour ago. This crazed madman, just strode up to the two celebrities as they were leaving the studios. He poured petrol on himself, and on them. Sending them up in flames. The man is now in hospital, severely maimed with horrific burn. The woman, and her vicious attacker, died in the created fire. More to follow....”

The house continued its empty stand.

...

The next day two men came to the house, investigating. They could find no motive, nor links to the two victims. Only the dust.

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