Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 28

“Tacitly the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution, as an outlet for instincts which could not be altogether suppressed. Mere debauchery did not matter very much, so long as it was furtive and joyless, and only involved the women of a submerged and despised class.” George Orwell

The Detective steps back from The Tree as he is overcome by a blinding light emanating from its bark. He places his hand upon the bark in an attempt to understand the life flowing within it. He begins listening to The Narrative so long forgotten. Swirling whirlwinds of dark energy form above him. Wings begin forming on his back, pushing through the lining of his trench coat. In a burst of darkness and light, the wings flap uncontrollably. Throughout his blood he feels a screaming unending pain. He is aware he was sent here to help everyone remember, yet all he can do is forget. Whispers within the wind enter his mind-The Narrative is within you-A flash of the old man with the beard comforts his endless thoughts. The life of The Tree pulsates into his hand. He closes his eyes as the leaves fall from above and he sees blood and hears screaming and the whirring slowly approaching. Colonel please, Colonel, please no. It never seems to work. Her safety was never safe. The Detective can no longer move his feet as chains wrap around him, securing him to The Tree. The Colonel places his bullet hole ridden book of fire on The Detective’s forehead. He closes his eyes and shakes the burning narrative away. The Colonel straps The Detective to the floor of the helicopter. They take off as The Detective reaches out for The Tree. A burning bunny pushes The Colonel away and gains control of the helicopter. The Detective looks into The Colonel’s dark eyes-Why couldn’t it have been the other way? Why couldn’t you study love instead of keeping people in a constant state of fear. In a dark flash The Colonel and the helicopter dissipate into the dark clouds. The Detective is floating above The Town without control of his wings. The Town looks so beautiful up here even through the lens of her eyes, as her tears and the pain fall on The Town below. He blinks her eyes and sees the burning pages and a wall of enflamed darkness. Another blink and a sense of beauty and love rains down on him as he falls into the gentleness of his own heart. He sees himself walking side by side with her on top of the hill. You must remember, she says to him. In his mind his hand is touching The Tree and he can only feel her pain. You must remember she screams as she points to her pain, it’s only a distraction…We must all remember. Maybe his mission becomes clearer to him, yet he still has no control of his wings. His mind is split as he chooses to walk through the middle. Remember, you must remember, if this is as simple as a battle between good and evil, you gotta pick a side.

“Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.” Bill Hicks

Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 27

“The eyeless creature with the quacking voice would never be vaporized. The little beetle like men who scuttled so nimbly through the labyrinthine corridors of Ministries-they, too, would never be vaporized. And the girl with the dark hair, the girl from the Fiction Department-she would never be vaporized either. It seemed to him that he knew instinctively who would survive and who would perish, though just what it was that made for survival, it was not easy to say.” George Orwell

She tiptoed through the desert as if she was walking through the sky. A see of stars surrounded her, swirling around her, lighting her path. She could no longer hear the humming, only the glorious whirling of stars. Stardust kicked up from the path of her feet as she saw the bunnies dancing in the distance. Created by her own bloody beaten hands, she breathed life into them with every footstep. In a sweep of wind the sky is blackened and the moon is full. There is a child looking down a well with tears falling from his eyes. She feels him, can feel his heart beating along with hers. He is holding onto a stuffed bear. She screams no, but as he falls into the well she sees the calmness on his face as if he was going back home. She is looking down the well and in the light of the moon she can see the tears glistening in the darkness. She can only send him stars, it is the only thing she knows how to do. She watches them enter his heart unbeknownst to him. A warmness he can’t remember feeling enters his body. She hears a humming and without thinking, ducks under a tree. They are here now. We were just a game. This is now the real game. She shakes off these dark thoughts. We were just practice. If it’s all a game we need to make our own rules. This thought comes to her from the shadows with the tip of a hat. The sparks are shooting out of their mouths as she puts a hand in front of her face realizing they can’t touch her here. She sees windup chattering teeth walking between her legs. They say nothing. They speak in chains. They trap us with each word. It says nothing. They are no longer living. Trapped reptiles in a cage of plastic. Their darkness surrounds us. The humming echoes within her mind but she will not let it cage her. The teeth and the wind up toys begin surrounding the bunnies. Pointing fingers, endlessly chattering what they are. The bunnies can’t hear it and continue on to that dark ever shifting building beyond the mountain. The old man with the beard waves them on as stars fall from his eyes, bathing the bunnies in light. The words he’s writing are disappearing into the air, floating away with the stardust. The Colonel is flying over head in his helicopter. His book of fire is slowly disappearing and his face is about to explode. He lands his helicopter in front of the bunnies and begins catching them in a butterfly net, but he can’t hold the stars. Don’t forget it’s all a game, the old man with the beard screams. The Colonel sees the stars swirling around me as he is clacking his claws. She tips her hat to him and with a smile, as she remembers how to communicate. In a swirl of stars she tells him, this is war, but now we’re making the rules.

Posted on by Michael Romano

The Delicate Balance of Terror 26

“Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different?” George Orwell

And everything he ever thought began showing up right there on the screen. Whether it was placed by his hand or some other dark shadow in the background, he could no longer know. Her star began shining through each frame immediately. The torture of her life acted with such intensity it became impossible to distinguish who she was anymore. Shattered to pieces she seemed to voice things with no conscious recollection. She became all he could focus on, every idea that passed by his mind was acted out by her, they became inseparable. They would hold each other falling asleep, travel through their dreams together, float along stardust through the facade of this life. She screamed her way into America’s consciousness, trapped in that house, entrapping the minds of countless children in the process. The house she was made by, the house that became alive, The House That Bled became the idea that created what she would be for the rest of her existence. It was his first memory from his childhood that he created, walls that bled. It haunted his dreams as he fell asleep, distracted him as he looked out at life. When she was lying on that floor, screaming he didn’t think she was acting anymore. When the cats walked by and the moon lit the house and the power died as the flickering candles were extinguished her screams seemed to escape from the center of the trapped earth. Down a long corridor of mirrors her screams echo, shattering everything. The cracked mirror is littered across the floor in a trail of blood. Her body contorts with each cats movement, her mind was splitting apart and her eyes couldn’t focus. He looked out through her eyes, he was trapped inside of her. The Movie was really what was constantly being filmed in the shadows, but he didn’t know where the footage was going, or who was editing it. I remember holding your hand as I was dying…you even took that from me…I’ve never taken anything, never, I created you…but his words became nothing, even he couldn’t believe them anymore. The helicopter was above and the fire and the screams were everywhere and what they all believed went up into smoke and disappeared out into the fog and the screams of the people were muted and the claws still holding onto that burning book, the book which was being written with each flaming soul it captured, suddenly opened up to him. The image he had of himself disappears as he walks into those burning pages and tries to answer why. She doesn’t care because the end is always the same. There is some light he can still distinguish out there somewhere. There is still some way he can direct that book from taking hold, or maybe he was just gripped with some false hope. As he walked through that burning book, he couldn’t help but succumb to the flames.