I N T O T H E D A R K

I N T O T H E D A R K-------------------------

“ Hollow bodied entity.

Won't you, walk with me,

Show me something that I've never seen ”

- Actias Luna, Reflections.

My wife has taken a lover. It lies with us in our bed at night, a shadow beneath cold sheets. I lie awake and feel it’s shrill breath upon my neck. I stare at the ceiling in voluntary paralysis, attempting to numb myself from its presence. I try to turn my head in desperation, hoping to catch a fragment of my wife’s distant frame before I can look no longer, knowing she is not alone in this bed, but I am. I return to static as I direct my gaze upward at the pale ceiling, sentiments from a time ago echo with every sporadic blink of my eyes. The blinks slowly fall into rhythm and the ceiling becomes pale no longer, but glows hazily with the sun-soaked aura of a 70s film, as I imagine it to be night no longer, but day, recalling fond memories of when the red morning light would dance through the room precisely in time with the sway of the blinds, as it did once before. I hear the resonance of my wife’s laughter as though it’s warmly humming through an AM radio, I turn to see her smile upon me, laughing euphorically, clad in white. We lay together in peace, savouring every moment of the early hours before the world awoke. I remember the sweet scent of breakfast, the comforting bitterness of coffee, the scratch of a needle between songs, the vibration of steel strings and ivory keys, embrace after embrace upon the balcony outside. It was a small place, but it was our place, a haven, a sanctuary.

Impenetrable, that’s what her and I were in my eyes, a living fortress I had sworn to protect only a year ago, but an oath I knew would last all of time, an oath I knew within me I would do anything to withhold. Those mornings when we would lay in the afterglow, speaking of eternity, I knew I would never abandon her, for it was a bond divine. My eyes dilate and the ceiling becomes pale again. I feel the cold again. I am alone again. I do not feel her presence anymore, but another’s, I turn to see it facing her, not me. I rise and leave them be. I brush the shades of the windows apart, the layer of dust upon them falls in the dim light of the morning like grey snow. I see birds take flight on the terrace across from me. How I wish for them to return to me with olive branches and the key to unlock Eden again. To make the fruit uneaten again, to make her and I whole again. But they fly further and further, leaving me behind. The hiss of the radiator below me reminds me that a serpent is here, speaking in tongues I strain to hear. I look upward at the birds once more, as they become mere shards in the sky, I pray for endurance, I pray for salvation, whoever may entrust it my way. For how I truly hope it was only God who began to test my patience, the day she was led astray. I walk from the bedroom and into the hall, staring blankly ahead and letting my eyes purposely lose focus, letting them hang in dissonance as my head spins. I gaze ahead in a blur, and remember when paintings once littered the carpets and flowers slept in glass, when bass frequencies reverberated upon the floorboards. But now I walk upon ice. I shuffle into the vacancy of the threshold, and I return to another distant memory, of a time when I thought I she was strong. That’s why I never minded the nights she came home and went straight to bed. I had faith in her, and that’s why those bottles of wine never worried me much. They never changed much, she loved to sing and dance anyway, how could I ever complain about that? Cigarettes to her were a house party façade, even I used to smoke cigarettes in high school. She stopped much later though, a few weeks before the last house party we would ever have. I never complained once, even though she knew how bad I wanted to start a family. How could I ever complain when she was who she was, a true saving grace for me, how could I be so selfish as to chastise her that way? If only I could have predicted the cost of suppressing doubt. Even when I would usually come home to find her on the balcony with her ashtray, mixing probably her seventh or eight post-work saviour; I smiled upon seeing her, appreciating the end of the great void between the morning’s haze and the evening’s; coming home to her, or her to me.

The wine disappeared after awhile, so did the cigarettes, although the late nights were frequent. The house parties were happening fervently, as if high school had undergone a violent second-wave. Strangers would walk by me in our home, I would smile and shake hands, change the record, perhaps invest in a brew or two to blend into the webs of people from her old town, the city, some people I knew from our old school, and then there were the others. A coven of women I started seeing more and more frequently. The others who made repeated trips to the bathroom with her. I wondered what they did, but I never bothered to ask, would that not be rude of me, to be so invasive of her privacy? Along with the vanishing wine and cigarettes, went away did the laughter, the music, the sun. For how I remember the long nights I spent alone, awaiting the melody of her turning keys in the door, but silence or something else soon whispered in my ear that you will not be coming home any time soon. My mind drifts further and returns to the last party that was held here at our place; a piercing image, a shard in my mind. Amidst a sea of people in our own house, I remember I could not find you. I suffocated through drunken exhales and smoker’s coughs, fighting my way to the bathroom, where I thought you would be. I kick the door open, a couple are frightened and I shut it immediately in disgust and frustration. Where could she be? How I painfully remember running out of the door and down the stairs, tearing out into the hollow streets, disoriented and hopeless, how could I have let this happen, I remember thinking? I ran with no direction, a broken compass, for hours, still, I am lost.

“When we came here we received joy and honour, and we were made drunk. And when we were drunk the devil who owns this court came and slew all our husbands, and took away our gold and silver. And the bodies of men are in this very house, and many corpses along with them.”

'The Lady of the Fountain', The Mabinogion.

In failure, I remember returning home and finding the apartment empty, left in disgrace by the horde who recently stumbled their way out. A cigarette still burns on the counter, gritting my teeth I flick it into a seemingly-empty can, the embers scream in instant agony with the rat piss still left inside. The elongated hiss of fire meeting liquor went on much longer than I thought it should, I followed the sound of the resonance directly to the bedroom. Hope and fear overtake me simultaneously, as I rush forward to open the door with controlled violence. I find her on the bed, fully clothed, asleep. I try to wake her, half thankful she is safe, but half furious at the chaos she caused that night. She is incoherent. I run into the kitchen and brush remnants of white powder off the counter before finding a clean class to fill with water. I return to the bedroom and try again, her lack of response fires a surge of agitation within me, I shout for her to wake, she replies with an eerie ignorance. I take off her shoes and put her in bed. As I untie each lace, I could not help but feel as though I was not alone. Was someone still here from the party? A straggler? I remember how fast I whipped my head around and saw nothing but felt something. We were alone, I was sure of it. I shook my head, trying to dissolve the presence of something within our room. I swore. I could not shake it, no matter how hard I tried. I laid her in bed, she was cold. I placed the water upon her nightstand, and crawled beside her in bed. The horrible sensation kept me excruciatingly awake, what is this presence? And as I went to grab my wife’s arm to wake her, that’s when I felt it, a wet crevice upon her forearm. I took my hand away and tore off to wash it in the bathroom. I quickly grabbed a bandage and ran back to the bedroom, wrapping it upon the tiny hole in her veins. She stirred not once. I lay back into bed shakily, feeling skeletal. I knew by the hole in my wife’s arm that her mind lie elsewhere tonight, somewhere I was not, disembodied and unreachable. My eyes quivered in the darkness, oscillating between staring at the tiny pool of red emanating beneath the bandage on her arm and the dim light cast by the moon upon the window-sill. That was when the presence showed itself for the first time. It stepped ever-so slightly out of the shadows in the corner of the room and stared upon me as I returned its gaze with ungodly fear. It was hooded, clad all in black. Long, cloaked arms hung on its side. Its hood hung low, looming like a frail reaper in mist, disguising either a face or nothingness within. The entity glided in the most unsettling hush of breath, towards our bed. It stood like a monolith before us for a moment, then slid with the most serpentine hiss between my wife and I. How stricken with terror I was, feeling no weight upon the bed yet still feeling its breath, its pulse, its shadow. It turned to me with an unbearable degree of slowness, and raised a crooked finger to its vacant mouth, silencing my inhale mid-breath in the fraction of an instance. With the same slowness it turned towards my wife and embraced her, his arms snaking their way around her frame, like a parasite upon prey. My breath returned when it faced me no longer. A toxic affair began that night, and we have not slept alone since.

Time after time I would find her on the bathroom floor, mouth agape upon the tiles in the pitch black. As I lifted her head up and carried her to bed, I could feel the entity watching me through the transparency of the shower curtain, its skeletal hands parting the curtain slightly just to peer from behind it. I was not startled, for I have grown accustomed to its presence. Those nights when I would make the procession, the journey, from carrying her from wherever they made love hours earlier all the way to the bedroom, it would walk with me. It would walk beside me and watch her, but I feel as though it was also watching me, making sure I made no sudden movements to wake her from the void of sleep she so blissfully entered, leaving me far, far behind. The thorn’s pick in her vein drips upon the floor with every step we make. I look back and watch how many different dried burgundy trails have now formed and interwoven with each other. It pulls back the sheets for me every time as I would lay her down in bed. I look down at her, letting compassion engulf the moment for the most finite second, then I look back and see it staring straight at me. I bowed my head in shame. I knew this look it gave me, they must be left alone now. I walk out of the room and close the door. Night after night. The thoughts fade; my blurred vision returns to focus and the current emptiness of our home enfolds me once again. I walk to the turntable on the bookshelf and press the needle upon it. A jazz record, one frequently played on the rainy days when her and I would sway in front of the window in the afternoon, with leftover takeout and horror films resting on the table beside us. The soft croon of the female vocalist that once kept me company now drifted and echoed hauntingly throughout the walls, forming a malignant choir with the shallow breaths creeping from under the bedroom door I had not closed myself. I take the needle off, and the silence strangely becomes more comforting to me. I reach for another record, something perhaps more aggressive, to wake my wife and her lover from their veil and chasm of sleep. As my hand reaches for another record, hesitation over takes me. I become a stranger, a thief in my own home, stealing from the shelves of some newlywed couple. My hand quivers between shaking and stillness as I direct my gaze to a frayed polaroid photograph sleeping in mourning upon the dusty shelf. I fight the urge to hold it tightly in my hand, but a faraway nostalgia begins to seep from the image, and drip pitifully on the shelf, so I clutch it quickly. I look down at it in my hand, as if it is a child of my own. The image is of us in the backyard of her old house. We are seated on the swing set, the hill behind her house glistens with the glow of the horizon, our youth plastered in permanence. I could not help but form a weary smile upon my face as I stare with intensity upon a fragment of a paradise lost. A tear falls in isolation from the redness of my eyes, and the singular drop lands upon your face in the photograph. The saline tear blots the ink, disfiguring your face into a drunken palette of artist’s colours. I watch the colours drip from the Polaroid and onto the floor, my smile recedes with every loss of colour. I allow another tear to gather in the cradle of my eye, and let another drop with a mournful precision upon my own face as well. As my face also loses its form and disfigures along with yours, my smile returns, knowing that we are both lost together. I stare at the photograph longer, but then I stare at it more intently. I look closer and closer. My focus rests on the hill, and then moves to the lone tree beside it. I see the entity, peering from behind the tree. I freeze. Perhaps demons are always watching us, shadow prophets, waiting in photographs, hiding behind trees, waiting for you to walk by, and asking if you are hungry, asking you to look up and pick whatever you want from the branches of the tree. I drop the photo upon the floor. I can look no longer.

I walk away and leave the photo to be forgotten amongst the filth of the floorboards. Walking back to the bedroom, I open the door ever so slightly. I see them both in bed together, nestled peacefully in a womb of their own. Then there is I, an outsider, lurking in the periphery, a voyeur. How I longed to be in its place. The place that used to be mine. To be with her again, the return to embrace, the embrace that made us whole, how I longed for it. But how? How to be with her again, was it too late?

I look down, unable to bear the sight I see before me. When I pull the door towards myself to shut it once more, I am met with resistance. I look up. The shadow stands right before me, clutching the door with a spidery but firm grasp, as if it wants me to watch just a moment longer. This is not the first time its prevented me from closing the door. From hiding myself from the division of paths that lay long and arduous between her and I, she taking one path, and leaving me walking alone upon the one I thought divinity drew for us. It continues to stare back at me, I stare back into it. There must be something she sees in it, something I lack. Why has she chosen it over me? An envy brews. I move my hand from the door and form a shaky fist. I aim to strike it and lunge with tired strength. Time slows immediately before us both, and it raises its own hand to meet mine before my fist could even reach it. I’ve never tried to touch it before, but oh how I now truly feel the true frigid temperature of it’s hand, fingers like needles, wrapping themselves parasitically around my hand, insinuating not to resist. Time returned to as it was before. Even though the grip of the entity seemed to be made of shadow, it was strong, unnaturally strong. It began to clench firmer upon my hand, and when I pulled my hand away, I felt the sensation of blood pouring out of my veins by the ton, but I looked down and nothing was there. It takes my hand. I am so tired, I do not resist. It leads me down the quiet of the hallway, an eerie but comforting glide. We reach the kitchen and it points to the balcony. Broken vases upon the windowsill beside it become anew, flowers asleep together inside once again, vibrant and purposeful. I see her and I on the balcony, gazing upon the city below. We are laughing together. The balcony curtain closes, becoming tattered once again. The entity leads me into the living room and we walk toward the turntable. It presses its sinewy needle-like forefinger upon the vinyl and instantaneously joyous music echoed celestially through the walls and in exact synchronicity, our favourite songs from when her and I were kids sang in perfect chorus together in my ears, such triumphant noise it was. I began seeing flashes of still frames and eight-millimetre montages of us driving in the countryside, humming songs from small towns, running through autumn fields, walking through the forests. The images rushed into my mind like a film being played at a million times it’s speed. Then quite abruptly, the songs hauntingly began to back-mask, all of the sudden playing together in reverse. The magnificent choir that moments before rang so pleasantly in my ears was replaced with a horrible droning. I placed my hands to my ears and fell to my knees upon the floor, screaming but hearing nothing. Make it stop I exclaimed. The entity knelt beside me and placed its cold hand upon my shoulder as if to offer a feeble sympathy toward me. The noise ceased and silence hung in the room once more. I open my eyes as the ringing in my ears begins to dissipate. Looking down, I feel the cold hand still upon my shoulder and in the corner of my eye, I see the blotted polaroid I had left to rot on the floor. I stare at it intensely, with such longing. The entity follows my gaze and brushes its hand away from my shoulder and picks up the photo with cruel delicacy. It holds it in front of me, the blotted ink disfiguring my face and hers has dried, looking like a twisted nest of hollow branches. It then takes the photo and places it somewhere within the blackness of its cloaked figure. It breathes deep and takes it back out, showing it slowly to me once again. The photograph has been restored, our faces whole again, shining as one. Nothing lingers behind the tree on the hill, the horizon comforts our backs, vibrant once more. I recoil in shock. Could this be real I think to myself? It nods. How it heard me I know not, but I do know it must have understood. I stare deeply at the entity before me, and then back at the photo once more before letting it fall to the floor, I feel a sudden contemplation. I want to be with her again, I say to it. Hollow bodied entity, won’t you walk with me? For I am lost. Show me where she is. It nods and holds it’s hand out to me. I find no reluctance in taking it. It leads me to the bedroom. She sleeps still. It takes me to the dresser and guides my hands to open the top drawer. I see a colony of syringes glisten, reaper’s fingers, all neatly packed in ceremonial fashion, their metal gleaming with an ambiguous allure. Oh how closely I see the tree before me, atop the hill. The fruit dangles before my eyes, it beckons me to take hold of one, for one half has already been eaten, why not try another? A hiss rings in my ears. I can think no further as the entity guides my hand to grasp one firmly, with such care not to shatter the glass, and let the precious nectar spill so wastefully. We walk together and sit on the floor, facing the window, void of any sunlight. I pull back my sleeve. I look to the entity as it waits patiently beside me. Take me to her please, I say to it. For it pains me too much to be trapped somewhere where she is not, to be on one path and she on the other. Maybe this is divinity’s path. What if Adam had refused to eat the fruit I thought, could he have saved Eden? But how could he leave Eve so alone. The latter thought I had not conjured, but it was whispered slowly into my ear by the entity, and at this point, I forced myself to believe it was right. Into the dark I will follow her. I lay back and I feel the entity’s cold hand caress the thorn’s prick into my arm, a warm surge overtakes me, I am filled with light. The warm hue of the 70s haze engulfs the room; the blinds are cast aside, and the sun shines once more. I hear angelic laughter and turn to see my wife, clad in the purest of white, climbing off the bed and leaping to embrace me. The scent of her hair enfolds me and words of eternity and forever echo once more. Music fills the air, the scent of coffee, flowers, open windows, the breeze. Sensation after sensation overtook me, her and I gazing deeply into each other. We were together again. I picked her up and carried her to the window, we laughed together as we watched the birds return to us and gather in happily along the sill. I close my eyes and let myself be completely enveloped within the euphoric warmth of this moment. I take a deep breath, and then suddenly, I feel the cold again. I look down at my wife, who I carry so carefully in my arms. She is pale and asleep again. The warmth that was so seemingly real, vanished within the fraction of a moment. Nausea and panic overtook me, a cancerous toxicity seemed to be feasting and burrowing within my every vein. I lay my wife upon the floor. Placing my ear to her heart. I hoped to God for a pulse. Nothing.

It was no surprise, for I already knew she was dead. She had wretched her way into the dark only a few nights before. Coughing and spewing in the night. I had tried to help her, but the entity had locked the door on me. I could only hear the sound. When the door finally opened, I knew she had moved on to wherever the entity came from, whether it was heaven, hell or void, it had taken her to where I would not see her again. I forced myself to believe she was sleeping until now, but I knew within, the horror of the truth. I lay her motionless body on the floor, still clutching tightly her hand. I turn to the entity, who stares back at me. Thank you, I said. It had done what I asked, it had taken me to her. I felt her, it was so real, I felt what she was feeling all the time I was on the outside looking in. I scream to her that I’m with you now. I’m laughing and crying, I’m with you now I scream. I let go of her and walk towards the entity. Take me to her again I say. We leave her body behind and glide together out of the room. We walk to the bathroom and lock the door. It picks me up so graciously and lays me softly into the bathtub. The lights are off in the bathroom, but I could still faintly see the entity’s silhouette before me. It slowly takes off his hood. Because of the darkness, I can not see it’s face. It speaks to me. Do you want to be with her forever? I smile and lean my head back: Yes, more than anything. From within its cloak it extracts a scythe, its serrated edge dripping with all the remaining sweet ambrosia found within the dresser drawer. I extend my arm towards it’s wielder. I nod, I am ready to be with her again. The blade of the scythe slides all the way into my veins, the nectar from the fruit of the tree flowing like a contagion river through my bloodstream. My eyes slowly begun to shut, the warm haze of the sun begins to return, the AM radio humming her laughter begins to echo in my ears, I feel her touch again. I see the entity rise and walk toward the bathroom door and open it. My eyes close further and my vision blurs, I see the entity begin to shut the door, before it does it peers around it once more and stares at me, placing it’s long forefinger to its vacant mouth, and hushes me slowly to sleep. Before my eyes close, I see the door shut in surreal slow motion, then blackness overtakes me, the void. I chase her laughter in the gloom, knowing we will be together soon, for I have followed her into the dark.

E P I L O G U E

[A]n apartment building now lay in ruin. Profanity plagues the walls. Windows in shards. Rats creep along the floor. Blood-stained mattresses dwell in the corners, broken bottles on the balcony, ash and dust covering every table. A body lay cold upon a bedroom floor, a body lay cold in the bathtub. The door to the bathroom shuts, a shadow creeps from it. The shadow glides upon the floor, and picks up the only Polaroid in the apartment not covered in dust. The shadow touches the photograph with an icy finger, the ink begins to drip intravenously slow, the faces of the two people in the photo become disfigured, faceless once more. The shadow removes a large black bag from within its cloak. It opens it, and within there are thousands upon thousands of similar photographs, all faceless, all lost. He lays the photograph to rest among the graveyard of others and then with such care, places the bag back into the deep chasm of its cloak. With slithering cunning and an unholy malevolence, the shadow places its black hood slowly back upon its head and walks gently towards the door. Before it slips out, it walks over to the turntable on the shelf and lets the frail needle delicately pierce the wax vinyl, summoning the ghostly croon of a jazz singer to echo throughout the decay of the walls. The shadow opens the creaking door and exits in a swift hush, allowing it to shut ever so quietly, leaving the soothing wail of the carrion lullaby to sing those who lay there, deeper and deeper, into e t e r n a l s l e e p.

You think that you've seen the truth, you think you know . Yet disbelief grinds, the doubt it claws . In your sleepless delirium I devour your thoughts . If you only knew how your way of life sustains me . Like electricity coursing through my soul. Your will to retaliate, your vengeful thoughts announced . I bring you me, conflict and death . And the promise of spilling red by the ton . I just might be there in your final moment. I just might be the last thing your eyes take in.

-'By The Ton', Meshuggah.

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