Subjective Morality

Archive for October, 2008

Happy Halloween!

I crouched next to the thing and examined it. A black hole in the sea of white that sorounded me. It was so black I wasn’t sure if it was real or not. Where does it lead? I thought. I didn’t feel like messing with it now. I had things to do. Standing to do.

So I stood there, staring into the white expanse until I noticed someone behind me. A child was standing several yards (feet, inches?) away from me. It looked like he was coming closer, but his legs weren’t moving. Was he floating? Gliding? Flying? Crying?

I waved at him. No response. He just stared forward, a blank expression on his face. As he neared, I saw that he was missing an arm. A bloody stump was all he had on his right side. I felt a sense of grotesque humor at this. I laughed.

He was mere seconds from reaching me. He passed right by me, headed for the hole. “Don’t go over there!” I yelled. He kept moving. I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to stop him, but he kept moving with an unnatural force. I couldn’t stop him.

He fell into the hole and disappeared into that inky black. Then I heard the most horrible sounds. A raucous grating like saws sawing saws made me cup my ears in agony. Then the sound of a thousand twigs being crushed. Snapped. Broken.

I fell to my knees in silence, shaking. I started laughing.

All around me, people (places, things?) were converging. Nouns, I thought. Nouns in nouns of nouns. Things in places of people.

Those people came closer. All kinds of them. Fat, skinny, tall, short, red, blue, Christian, Jew—all of them. They were all missing a limb. Legs, arms, heads.

Like the boy before them, they fell into the hole. The Sound! The Sound made me retch.

I crouched in the fetal position and laughed.

The people kept coming. In droves, in waves. They crawled over me, all of them disfigured in some way. I passed out.

When I awoke, all of them were gone. It was silent. The Sound was gone.

Then there was me.

A man and woman stood there, backs turned, staring into the white.

I started, “Who are—?”

“You. We are you,” they said in unison, the same voice. My voice.

“You are who?”

“We are you. You.”

“How are you me?”

They pointed at each other, “He is me and she is me.” They turned and pointed at me. “And we are you.” I gasped. Neither of them had faces. Pale skin stared back at me.

“How can you both be me? How can one of you be me?”

They looked at each other with their non-faces, then raised their fists and punched each other simultaneously.

They fought. I fought. I fought myself.

They matched each other blow for blow, edging towards the hole. They fought to the edge, mirroring each other as they flailed for balance, and fell in. There was no sound. I cried.

I ran into the whiteness, away from the hole. That wholesome hole of holyness.

I ran until I was exhausted. I could go no further. Panting, I closed my eyes. When I openeed them the hole was right beside me. I yelled and cried. The most profane profanties escaped my mouth.

There were more people converging off in the distance, coming nearer. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I closed my eyes and jumped into the hole.

When I opened my lids, I was back in the white. The hole was still there. Looking off into the distance, I could see a child, his stare blank, his right arm nothing but a bloody stump.

I screamed.

The man laughed. “I am a character!” he exclaimed.

“What are you?” I asked.

“A character! A character! And you, dear sir, are but a prop in this story of mine! A prop for me to push over!” he pulled out a knife from somewhere.

“Sure.”

“You are content with the fact that I have a knife and you are but a prop?!”

“Yep.”

“Die, scoundrel!” he yelled and ran towards me with the knife. But mere seconds before he could reach me he vanished in a puff of brick.

“I write the stories,” I said. “You’re the prop.”