Timely Crucial Purpose

Travelling through the darkest and most foreboding of landscapes

Travelling until I found a house covered in moss and wisteria drapes

I met a man well-versed in prose, rhyme, verse and wordplay.

I was beckoned by him inside and told I was welcome to stay.

I felt the initial fears and concerns I had, being hidden away.

I walked in and listened carefully to what he had to say.

He told me he had been waiting a long time for me.

He then handed me a rusty old silver skeleton key.

"First door on the left, he said, with a crooked smile

First door on the left, you can rest there for a while

I will come and knock for you first thing in the morning

I will come and get you when the day is just dawning

Then we will begin this most timely, crucial purpose

Then we will start digging deep, under the surface."

That night I lay in the bed that they had supplied.

That night I knew any requests would be denied.

I would be stuck there, imprisoned as their slave.

I would be trapped without escape; I need to be brave.

Sleep took over, and then my mind went misty and dark.

Sleep took me deep into the dark, and then came that spark.

That spark of creativity that came to me in the dark of night.

That spark that drove my imagination under the moonlight.

I had very little to no control over this cerebral device.

I had always been a vessel, just a part of the sacrifice.

My captor obviously knew I had this unique ability.

My captor, who was volatility masked behind civility.

Sleep was interrupted by the sound of ominous creaking.

Sleep that was keeping me safe from the terror creeping.

What would become of me once they were done with me.

What would happen if I tried to escape and break free?

Surely death for me, or more enforced enslavement.

Surely death was promised to all suffering detainment.

The creaking and shrieking continued during the night.

The creaking left me paralysed in bed with deathly fright.

There was an awful smell, like people burning alive in hell.

There was a horrible feeling rising in me as they tolled a bell.

Was it morning, had I been asleep, and was it all a dream?

Was the day dawning? A reasonable explanation I could gleam.

I didn't have to wait and deliberate for very much longer.

I soon heard more creaking and then door thuds full of anger.

My captor whispered sinisterly behind the door that it was time.

My fate was sealed indeed, as a prisoner for no reason or rhyme.

"Get up, come up, get prepared and join us down in the old dinner hall

Get out, and be careful, down the cracks; we don't want you to fall."

I laughed nervously and followed the sinister old man down the hallway.

I looked cautiously and carefully for a swift Irish exit to shorten my stay.

Unfortunately, there were just walls and doors, doors that were locked.

Unfortunately, there were dead ends, and my freedom indeed blocked.

The dining hall was large and intimidating, and my bones were shaking.

The dining hall had a smell, a pungent stench of unnamed meat baking.

"What do you want from me? What do you need? Why won't you let me go?

What is that awful smell? I'm not a butcher; about writing is all I know."

"Exactly", he said as he became animated, his eyes gleaming a deep and burning fiery red.

Exactly, just what we need, a writer of distinction with veins that must be bled.

I tried to speak, but he silenced me quickly and broke a stick against my back.

I screamed and shouted, to no avail, then noticed the old bones in a sack.

*

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