The Harbinger Beckons

[Shandor]

The time surrounding the man collapsed before the fridge seemed motionless, without change. Nothing within the house motioned, riveting waves of time that collapsed on the space around the house.

Consciousness, and thus, time continued without disruption, as if propelled by a realization of reality. Everything was unclear, but the passage of time came with a thunderous clap that resounded itself as a groan, as the suicidal man had failed at ending his life.

As he reached into existence with his heavy breathes, he took it upon himself to eat an apple. The chewing of which left him in much pain, as he had made his skull disproportionate, and thus his jaw muscles compounded on his temples. The bending of the skull to one side was like, well a sort of fusion with the refrigerator.

Even though the Earth’s spin should be perceived with the changing of the light, it was that everything was spinning for the sad sop. Nothing was level, so it seemed. Each step took exasperated energy, and hardened his lungs in a way that breathing was no longer an option.

It was only moments earlier, he had seen in the mirror, an owl absorbed the heart of some drunkard, and he was on the floor unable to breathe hearing sharp noises and his eye drained of any vision. His cries for help went deaf on a sleeping roommate.

Seemingly it was fitting, that he should try to die after witnessing death’s hand.

More frightening, was that it went from a bright day, to darkness in a matter of perceived minutes. And only in the pale moonlight did everything seem to stop spinning, and he crawled himself onto a cot and fought for sleep.

 

---

The would-be Captain Mortis Troubaou was certain of his destination. It was impossible to deny it. He had no crew, but it would not be long before he was where he needed to be, to fight the beast that lay underneath, in a distant realm of the world made dark from great waters, and cold from lack of sunlight.

He pointed his canoe into the Missouri, and paddled himself into the head winds. It was pertinent that he cross the continental divide and find port on the west coast. That is where he believed his crew would be waiting.

“Make fast winds, do your worse, I will be in Utah before long, and there will be no stopping what deeds I will do.”

At that moment, as he cursed the winds of the heavens, a large freight passed by on its way to the Mississippi. The wake of which turned up much water, and he was forced to turn slightly as to ride out the shallow waves. He was indeed capable.

All in a good day’s work, when he finally ran out of canoe-worthy waters, he left the canoe behind for better things, of great grandeur and high appraisal. Only to rest under a cedar with his simple bivy-style tent.

He opened his King James Bible, and was immediately dissatisfied that his own words were nowhere to be found. Disgusting as it may be, he was indeed a sailor that looked as the Nordic Jesus bread with some middle eastern version of Jesus, it was only the fact others called him Jesus that he believed himself to be the messiah.

So, he ripped out a page and started up a fire. He cooked a can of beans stuffed with bacon, weird, right?

 

---

The feeling of insignificance propounded the helpless suicidal man. Dreams did little to escape the feeling, as giants stomped him in his sleep, and he woke weak and drained of energy.

His roommate denied the fact the refrigerator door had a dent in it, or that his skull was misshapen by the trauma. Coffee did little to help, but the routine of the mundane kept him grounded to a true perception and away from a chaotic and erratic mind lost in turbulence.

The ache of his head and mind pounded itself against his skull, over and over. As the door took to a knocking.

It was two dear friends, both battle hardened from head trauma. They offered to take him to their church. And when he asked if it would take away the pain, he believed their hearty answers that it could help.

He grabbed his possession that drove madness within, and he left with them to a Universalist Congregation.

Perception did not change for truth it seemed, instead it was like he was creating the scripture they read with his thoughts.

He believed himself a polarity of change that twisted reality to his will. But he knew not how to keep reality from twisting his fate and his perceived reality of lies. Or was it all truth. No one seemed to be living with free will. It was more like reality reflected at him, laughing, crying, lying, trying to surmount an attack to take advantage of him.

That’s paranoia, right? Nothing was wrong with him. Reality was broke. That’s what he told himself anyways.

The sermon revealed so little truth to him, he felt it was just more reflection. Something about finding the truth as God willed in the garden.

He had carved something a while back, that he hoped would lead him out this reality of mirrors. A small wooden bird, made from a wood that was gold when “green” and black after years of aging. It had caused him to see the bird it was carved after manifest before him. He felt powerful in his understandings, like he was given parts of God to help him manifest a new world.

He handed it to a young woman, possibly a teen, and told her to give it to the church.

He felt part of him die and rebirth itself. Until he was reminded of someone, and he left it at that.

Very little was accomplished the rest of the day. There was little control over his own reality. The mind he had worked with to solve many problems, was betraying his consciousness for things not real, imaginary and foolish.

His dreams were found in the morning news, and his movements in the weather report.

 

---

 

Captain Mortis woke with dew on his face, and all over his belongings. It always seemed to seep its way through any covering, save for solid structures of wood or stone. His eyes were clung to by eye boogers, the kind that keep parts of the eye shut from the glue-like properties of the crud.

He had ready a fillet knife and fishing gear, paramount to having breakfast on this moist desert morning. Pitching camp next to a somewhat small and somewhat large stream proved itself to be double edged in blessing and the sorts. For it gave him quick access to fish, but also trapped in the humidity of such a frontage.

The smell of smoldering coals was fresh on the nose, it was like a lingering grunge from the night’s fire. Ash and heat left to a not so fresh smell of burnt logs, and heaps of buried coals left to smoke up the air that hung low over the fire, beaten down and oppressed by the humid air. The air’s stench was cut by fresh water mulling over rocks and pebbles as it rumbled softly towards uncertainty made certain by the stream’s banks.

Captain Mortis smeared his eyes clear, and did a small regressing stretch in his bivy like tent. It was like he was rising from a tomb, being that the shape of his tent resembled a casket for the dead. He rose slowly, and felt the world around him in ways he had never experienced.

He grabbed up his day pack and detached his fishing pole; he opened the front pocket to pull out some grubs as his bait. There was no bother to change clothing, as he lived and slept in the same clothes now that he was with a few changes and no sleep wear of the sorts.

Making his way out of the tent, he walked up to the stream. He caste the line; after many minutes, he decided this part of the stream was too shallow, and perhaps downstream would prove more worthwhile. He hiked downstream on the tent side bank, and kept his eye on the trail, only fleeting to see if any fish were present in the waters.

Then in his eyes, he saw a large bear, swatting the water and pulling out fish. His assessment of the water was correct, and the bear stared him down with a fierceness in its eyes. Captain Mortis backed away while facing the bear down, and made his way into the bush around the bank, and tried to disappear, which seemed to work.

Retreating to his tent and the stink of the dying fire, he found an eagle’s feather.

 

---

 

He felt betrayed by his mind, deeply, for it had been only yesterday that he was hearing someone commanding him to destroy himself. Even in trying to argue against, that someone pulled deeply into his conscious and accused others of having brought great harm to someone he still loved. Uncommunication had taken its toll on him, and he grew weary of the world, all seemed dark as his heart sunk low.

Everything resembled his memory of her lovely face. The last they had spoken, he had performed a ceremony for her father, which gave him an enlightening dream of the father.

This evening, nothing good could come to him. He was trapped echoing his mind into reality, pulling against common sense and wildly believing lies presented him through all forms of supposed joy. Television seemed to lie, radio remarked whatever he had been saying and thinking, and social media was a cesspool of deception as people did what they did to another.

The Hospital seemed smaller than usual, at least from his memories of it. His roommate demanded that he have his head looked at, when she finally came to terms with his head and the fridge. CAT scans were in order.

He began worrying that he had an implant in his head, and the scan would prove it somehow. It was not long, before he was asking the nurse to see the scan, to which she replied that it was subject to patient doctor confidentiality. No argument about how he was the patient changed the fact he could not see the results. So he drove himself home.

There was a moment, when he was staring at himself as he stood outside the hospital. Impossible as it were, he was seeing himself in disbelief.

The news that night reported some farfetched story about implants, but he believed it for a time.