….so here we sit in the gathering dark, the reveal is coming, the hero is played by you, shall we read on?
No one else can see you you know, you don’t exist to them, you are an empty space, the void in the background that they dismiss as easily as a walk to walk or a drive to the shops, however in the dimmed light, the blinds pulled almost across to the point where only the barest chink of light can make it through and the black-out curtains hide the deepest shadows in suspended grief, I see you, I can hear you breathe, you think you are silent, that as you sit there in the dark judging me, contemplating the best way in which to bring me over to your side, I hear your thoughts, whirring round like a Catherine Wheel, fizzing away, the whizzing along, racing round and round in circles…I hear them, each dark reflection, each deliberate opinion you wish to put upon me, I hear them and I reject them…just.
You don’t exist you know, you are not real, a construct of imagination, a radical notion brought to life and spawing, growing, increasing in pressure and weight in the corner of the room, the dark shadow, the cancer that hugs the skirting board and the wall…you don’t exist but I see you, briefly, I see flashes in the moonlight that peaks through the smallest gap in the Venetian Blind, that for the smallest of fleeting moments and if I keep my head perfectly still, I see your outline, I see the mass that you have become, and the smell, the festering sick like stench, the informed gut wrench that rolls and tumbles in your stomach as if that Catherine Wheel is starting to lose its speed but is somehow immune to any water that you might rain heavily down upon it, that the gut is blistering and become ridden with pus…I smell you, you are real.
In the dimmed light my friend, I see you surveying me, watching, examining me for any imperfections in my resolve, analysing me down to the most insane detail, the scars on my face, born out of violence, marked by time and celebrated over with each passing whisky that burns in my throat. I see you there, I feel your eyes wander in the dark, there is an urge to laugh rising in your throat but all I hear is the growl, low, an unhappy, miserable snarl that whines in my ears, I hear you, I hear that grumble, I hear the grimace you wish to share and the sneer in which you aim to capture me, the dedication over all these years in which have attempted to subdue me, overpower me, abduct me and lead me into the valley, or at least over the other side of the room in which your mouth will open wide, slowly kiss me and eventually like some starving succubus, wrap your lips around my soul and drain me for the last time, empty any feeling, any residue of love and spirit and devour me whole.
I have a weapon, come too close and you finally see it, you might feel it coming, you won’t die but you will be scarred.
There is a book on my lap and a pencil in my hand, I don’t like writing in pen, it is permanent, it is clean, too spotless; I prefer using a pencil, unreliable, messy, chaotic, the pencil marks everything down, each notable victory in our cosmic game of chance, the game of Cribbage we are both trying to lose, not trying to get to 121 and peg out a winner. I prefer a pencil, I can change the result, I can alter my thought without you looking and no matter how much you believe you can see into my heart, how much you insist you know my every desire, the pencil knows that I can erase my thought and lull you away from my soul for a while, that I can misdirect you and leave you hanging on your own for a while, lost, lost without me, you become frightened then don’t you, I can smell the difference in you, you smell worse, you stink as you become terrified that somehow, even if just for a little while, I have escaped you, you panic, you become a little less you in the dark.
Of course I cannot hide from you forever, if I could you would not be there now in the corner of the room, looking at me with hate and love, you want to embrace me, you want to take me, you want to kill me but like any parasite you know you have to wait till near the real end before you take me down.
The book on my lap is open but there in your eyes you realise that the tome, perhaps a diary, is starting to look tattered and frayed, old, much thumbed and chewed by thought, is on its last chapter, that tonight as you sit in one corner of the room and I in the other, the duellists with no weapon but their diminishing wits, the fog that entwines and consumes them both; this battle in which there really is no hero, no King to be crowned, no last words of comfort or playwrights interpretation in which future audiences will digest as easily as a last meal before they face the hangman’s noose or fidgeting firing squad. There is no hero in this tale of you and I but if I were to guess, if I were to ruminate for a while in the dark, I would suggest the readers of this struggle might side with you, might identify with the killer, the aggressor, the assassin paid not in used notes, money in a secret cash account baring only the initials and a combination code that seems vaguely familiar and one that would feel appropriate in a Dan Brown novel…they would identify with you because you are the one who can actually take me apart, the glee and happiness I know they would cherish at the sudden demise.
I see you like that, I see the faint glimmer of a smile, the baring of green radioactive teeth shimmering with festering heart, you want to take a bite now don’t you, you are hungry, you feel the nausea of having starved, no big meal for a while, just the odd nibble, the lick on the meat as you mark your territory, the drip of saliva as the smell of roasted pork, of garlic drenched steak fills your nostrils…I will allow you in time but for now I hold a secret that you won’t guess until the pain hits your stomach, until the cramps come with blue waves of anguish threaten your mind…I have been poisoning myself dear shadow, I have grown tolerant to it, but there it sits, waiting, drowning, marinating in its own juices, the flesh ripe with it dear shadow and it is that preparation that I know when you finally take me, I shall also take you.
….so here we sit in the gathering dark, the reveal is coming, the hero is played by you, shall we read on?
Of course you are not the hero, I am playing to your vanity, I am trying to excite you into making your move, for you see shadow, my monster, dark hearted and self tortured, I am engaged in the game with you, such a shame we could not enjoy a game of chess, Risk perhaps, to take over the world with armies at our disposal and secret missions which guarantee for a short while that we are unconquerable in Europe and with a foothold in the cradle of humanity. You are not the hero my friend, you are the undiagnosed condition, the shadow that no one sees but me but beware they do know of you, they may not have ever laid eyes upon you but I have been filling them in with frightening consistency, they know about you. I worry they might never see you, that even at the last moment down the line in which you scream in agony like a whale harpooned by a 19th Century fisherman, the light I see will be blinded, your song immediately faded as the poison from my flesh eats away at your inconsiderate flesh.
The last chapter my friend, I will write it slowly, I will cultivate the desire, the plotline, the short quickening breath of amusement that exists between us; there is a bond after all, I would not have been able to exist without you sneering at me in the corner, I would not have pushed myself to run harder, to be in places where for a time you could not survive, where you might drown, feel the sharp stabbing pains of inexhaustible death…I would not have done all that I have done without you and as I pick up my pencil, slightly chewed in frustration, the rubber on the end nicked and edged, the black remains of words hanging down like a single spider’s thread caught in a draught, I begin to write our last words, the final paragraph, the huge last chapter; for you I might even include a post script, a dedication to all you have been, all that I meant to you oh black lion in the dark, dark dog snarling and foam, rabid driven… shall we read on?
Ian D. Hall