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Descent Into the Maelstrom
by
Ofavon
“Can someone tell me the time? Please! I have things to
do. There is more to be written.” He struggled to his feet and the effort made
his head swim. He was aware of a faint silvery light in the high window at the
other end of the room.
He’s been in a frenzy all night. No one in the
emergency ward has slept, and this morning since four am he’s been asking for
the time. He’s had all the time there is, there will be no more time for this
madman.
“Sleep. Sleep, old man,” the orderly looks at him
through the barred window in his locked door. “You are dying, old man -- let the
rest of us sleep.”
“Where am I?” he asked.
“Washington College Hospital, old man. They picked you
up in the 4th Ward Polls Saloon.” He wagged his head in admiration. “I never did
see a man so drunk.”
There is no bottle big enough to drown this man’s
visions. He has looked deep into the dark soul of perversion - reached in and
extracted the monster that hides in all of us.
“I have every right to drink,” the man assumed a
dignity which was pitiful to see as he stood half naked by the side of his
unmade bed. He could only see the orderly’s eyes in the small window; they were
curious eyes. Pitiless. The eyes of a man waiting for the wire walker to fall,
for the suicide to pull the trigger. “I asked you what time it was, my good man.
Don’t you know what time it is?”
“Sure, I know the time. Time don’t mean nothin’ to you,
old man.”
He was not really old - barely past forty, at an age
where most men are at the crest of their success - when the training begins to
pay off and the world comes to sit at your feet. He sat now, on the very edge of
his wrinkled bed ... “Oh God, Oh God -- I’ve been with demons. Come Berenice and
Lenore. Come here and sit with me. We’ll listen to the tintinnabulation of the
bells. Let us sit on the shore of my kingdom by the sea. Let there be music to
make love by ... “ He buried his head in his hands. “Oh God, Oh God, I smell of
mortality.”
“You sure do, old man. Doc says you’re a dead man
inside. Lay yourself down again. Be quiet. It’ll be easier for all of us.”
“Someone give me a pen and paper. There is a story to
be told. There’s always one more story.
The End
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