As clueless as a rudderless ship, we sail onto the sea as the night falls upon us. Spurious overseers take us in their arms; the quandaries of lifetime art set to never disappear. As clueless as a rudderless ship, we sail onto the oneiric seas of enflaming nightmares. Families and beloveds call us to reason and wire to us billets of love – But, we are the men of a rudderless ship, and just as clueless. As clueless as our rudderless vessel of mortals, we sail above the seas of fallen civilizations; we sail onto the seas of rude awakenings. A miasma of pestilence is the crescendo of mankind— none to be saved, all for naught. Wheels of damnation set in motion by the mantram utterers. Long fought enemies& talebearers, only to assume an idyllic caricature within. Fading evermore; wandering through the lies of mankind onto the veils of undesired awakenings. Morbid sins through burning centuries, fallen apart art ridden traps through ashes&storms severed of a dreaded reality. Throughout the seas fallacies continue to sing us lullabies, but it's too late to heed the whimpers of the seas now. By the time we had, they only spoke voluminous silence that echoed down the boroughs of man. Victims of our pasts, makers of disdained children, and witnesses to their doom. A man's fallacy is his child… that is our one&only comeuppance. An implosion of an hundred years passed us, yet we continue to ignore all. And now that my dormant past awakens from the deep seas; amidst the fog in this untimely cemetery, the dead danceth in joyous agony, yet the living are paralysed in pity petrification. In unison we kill one another— in every stab a memory to be relinquished yet a void to be replenished; never to take a second glance or a gaze of mercy, in each stab a memory of a beloved torn asunder — for what lies behind these masquerading men nothing but the whimsical wishes of fathers afore. The vagrancy of killers runneth diurnally under a gazing but timid sun, as they stab me and take me alow somewhere… Awoken by the clangour of strings cutting through my veins. Arisen by the stench— Is this a symposium of the dead? For the stench overwhelms me. A symposium of the dead begets a compendium to the living. Among the dunnage of the fallen flesh, the doss tolls for me and the rings ring ever so silently. O'ever so deceitful… For even when fate wears a smile upon me, fortune shall wear a frown as its shroud. As the fallen flesh feigneth joy for me, I realise 'tis the stench of the living— an aroma of my fellow man, O' ever so stagnant… Deemed sinful as they atone for me. I heard the unspoken, and have seen the unheard. In the zero hour— In the hour of madness, he cometh clad in black, face askew, jaws hinged tightly yet laughing agog, he stareth at me. His deepened nails bleedeth me dry. Dealing in vigorous sins within the hollow dungeon, they rise and deny my rite of passage… my descendence to my tomb. Deemed sinful as I atone for them— Once more, the zero hour cometh; I behold him, clad in black, and distorted face of grey— wearing three distinct skulls upon his waist. He ceaseth my sanity, and teareth me asunder, yet I still behold my fallen bones. The wretches in the darkness whore themselves to the light, yet shy away from me! They malign me! The wretches in the darkness redeem the cavilling She, the quidnunc He, but not a mention of the tumultuous I! I had heard the unspoken, and have seen the strings of doom as they inundate my body. I bleed tepidly, yet all feeleth ever so cold. The fleshly tempos of the mundane are never there to befriend, only to begrudge. Vengeful truth and apathetic lies are all but worldly textures. A slave to my molecule; enslaved to my genesis. 'Tis the truth, 'tis but my scorned life. All around are the tell-tale signs of the zero hour — the horns of the mundane are sounded, the wuthering cometh. With strings of damnation, he the deluder, the itinerant death, has brought forth the hour of spurn yet a comfort in him is to be found. Mayhap, solace within to be found in the disdain and contempt he bringeth forth. Whom to be saved now as he denieth our rite of passage? None, sayeth the embers of enflamed tears of a once sheen dungeon. Deemed sinful as we atone for them. O' the ungodly hails of their victory, O' the ungodly mien of the victor— O' ungodly grey sky, lynch me with thy rain and hasten my death! For it's the Thanatos desires within to be fulfilled! And in askance the sky glanceth at me as I glance back… and as the syzygy is upon me— therein standeth the gemini giants of groan. The giants who killed not the sun but swallowed wholly our paradise, now all so lost within the mists of this hollow dungeon. Now, I know… the sun dies for no one.
Deemed sinful as they chain us — Terminal lives running amuck us, and only in death we find redemption and unity. O' but what of a death that runneth from us? We chase it tirelessly beneath the damned grey sky. Not even steams of the displing grounds or heavenly strings can save us now! O' the ungodly death that runneth from us! A cowardly Death, or a Death tormenting its irremediable beholders? Divided by life's probabilities, but reunited by its only absolute; death in tombs— of that reunion I can never be… Melancholic chants, riffs, and coarse voices boiling my bones away were all that to be heard in this dungeon. ''A timid Death or a tormenting Death ashamed to collect me anew?'' Said I tearfully ''O how I wish to pass muster among those entombed''. ''Woe be unto those who are not death'' Said, agog, the wretches within the darkness. Mouthful eyes, tearful mouths, blinded ears, and still tongues tell horrid stories of men's punishments ''They had sworn frailty to the pity whims.'' Maligned by wretches within the darkness only to abash our tormented souls and to beguile our lively bodies with false promises of eternal rest within our tombs… What doth follow my shadow but ignominy!? What of myself!? The gulosity of the wretches sayeth: ''Be not saved nor be sacrificed!'' whispering to my fleshly temple ''Only let us gaze upon ye until the rottening.'' "Woe be unto those who dost not rot as we await" spoke they ''Woe be unto those who are not taken by—" as they all fell in fearful silence…came he, once more clad in black, riding a grey horse with trails of dust and despair lie behind them. I begged him many a time to take my espial soul of centuries afore and collect me anew, yet all he doth is but point at the spectators within this dungeon of hollow — ''At last!'' screamed I, for he held his malefactor sword high! As I awaited the final blow to send me to my tomb, I heard the chains that embraced me a thousand year broken many a piece, only to stab my eyene with their fragments! Now he disappeareth once more! The wretches laugh at my agony engendered by that itinerant deluder, for I'm nothing but their bondservant. Amongst their vile laughter, I heard an allegro of whispers calling to me by my forgotten name …which acquiesced me, for nary have I heard it be mentioned for a millennium. The whispers set me free from this hollow dungeon— they called me to my fallen castle of teen. Like an avarice king protecting his gold, I made haste to my castle and descended upon the enflamed rubble. Thereunder, despite my weakened eyene I beheld a pair of barghests, endued with death and void of life who cuddled me at heels and conjured me with their screams to descend farther. As I was led to her whereabouts by the aroma of rusted iron "Woe be unto those who are not death" Said I in fain as I found her, she who lived all epochs without a crease upon her sombre naked body, behind a sable giant door. O' ever so silent yet gentle she is, O' ever so still she is betwixt the flaming stones and rusted gold. "Liest inside me and beshrewest within, and I shall grant ye what thou seekest" Said the iron damsel "All men born from nothing by a woman's fleshly womb, and so shall it be for men who wish to be born anew in my cordial iron womb."
…Here I emergeth anew outside of her iron body, with four skulls upon my waste of shadow —– an inquisitive skull, a maligning skull, an impetus skull, and an ever so bemoaning skull. "Woe be unto those who are not me" Said I. I beshrewed my captors in agony no more, for they dismay me now as the hunt begineth anew. … These are not the frills of a man upon his death; these are the tell-tale of a roaming mad death.
Bio: Abudlkareem J. Al-Gabban An under graduate student of English Literature&Linguistics in King Saud University. An independent scholar of Science; e,g: Clinical Psychology (Pre Freudian, Freudian, Post Freudian and several schools such as CBT), Clinical Psychiatry, Biology, Forensic Analysis, Logician School of Thoughts (Critical Rationalism, Deductive&Inductive reasoning) and many other Scientific fields.
Note from author Abudlkareem
In my writing, particularly this short-story, I use Archaic English (15th-19th Century syntax, diction, grammar, etc..) and tether it with Gothic Romance and other dark/macabre elements to convey a sombre story.