Neil
Out of the closet
IN THE BEGINNING OF THE END
by Neil
As originally published in Revelation 1:4. (www.fourthhorseman.com)
by Neil
As originally published in Revelation 1:4. (www.fourthhorseman.com)
In the beginning of the end, a wandering God, in the form of Nemesis, demolished the heaven and the earth. And the earth was forfeit, and void, and was plunged into an unforgiving, fragmented darkness. At that crossing and that moment the earth was of one mind, of one language: fear. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the guests, victims, and hangers-on of them. And it came to pass after these things that all was fighting, and plague, and starvation, and dust.
It ends much as it begins, with dust. Dust from the earth. Dust carried along by the winds. Dust from heaven. And it falls to earth like soot, and ash, choking the air, charging the atmosphere, blotting out the sun, affecting everything and everyone, covering the earth, covering past transgressions, covering the truth.
In the end you learn to avoid the dusty roads, and the disease-ridden shanty towns, and the still-smoldering rubble of cities, and the lurching shuffle of the “walking undead,†and the stagnant stink of run-off. You keep to yourself, wandering alone, high in the mountains, along the outskirts, and off the beaten path. You learn to forage, to sleep during the day, and to navigate by the strange, new stars that twinkle in the night. You learn how to be very quiet and how to be alone, utterly alone. You learn to elude people, for they all want, and you have nothing left to give. The only people you can relate to, the only ones you reach out to, are those clinging to scraps, loitering, waiting for something to happen, waiting for Death. You learn to appreciate the value of a good pair of boots and to not feel guilty for taking them from the feet of less-fortunate corpses. You are but a shade, a pale, thin, long-haired, distended, unkempt shell of your former self, a blank slate, a man out of time, a man removed from history — not quite a “do-over,†no less a “has-been.†You subsist on small bugs, some leaves, and on whatever small animal is unlucky enough to cross your path and foul existence. It has been many months since you have seen anything larger than a badger on your Walk. Then again, the animals had started disappearing weeks before It happened. (You allow a small smirk to betray your slapdash appearance as you recall something a yellow, bald-headed cartoon character once said, “Somehow, the animals are always the first to know.â€)
You move ahead, unblinking, unfazed, and unmoved, except to occasionally consider the miracle of a new day, or ponder some unknown insect, and marvel at the speed of evolution. What? When? Where? Why? How? are no longer quantifiable questions deserving of discussion or concern. Queries and comebacks are reduced to nothing more than circuitous rhetoric and clumsy nostalgia. Despite the “end of the world,†there is only one question that has ever been worth asking: “Who am I?†If anything, this event has made that question even more relevant.
You were somebody once. Important, you had a purpose. You had a family. You had things. You had a position, responsibility, a name (“bright in fameâ€). But these, too, were just meaningless labels affixed to a time that never was. Now… Now you are the nihilistic causality casualty of Armageddon, one of an unselected few not taken. And you have seen Death in so many forms and guises that you are all but numb to the condition of living. You have done things, thought things, coveted things — things that would have embarrassed and shamed you when you were alive. You have stepped aside as wild-eyed, rabid, mangy dogs, and other fang-toothed familiars, scurried by, the rotting remains of people, and other animals, held fast in their jaws. You failed to act when the “dregs†wandered the streets like wailing, soulless zombies, attacking, perverting, consuming, and raping their way through the confusion and destruction. You did nothing when food supplies ran out and cannibalism became an accepted part of survival. (Conveniently, you have forgotten where some of your meals have come from.) You watched, from afar, hiding in shadows and shame, as other survivors tried to organize relief efforts and discuss contingency plans in committee as the Ravages took them one by one. You wandered about aimlessly as they picked clean the towns and people that hadn’t been destroyed as savage bonfires illuminated heinous acts and perverted crimes against man, woman, and nature. (At least Aina had been spared those indignities.)
How many graves have you dug? How many countless nights have you spent waiting for some poor unfortunate wretch to breathe their last, just so they won’t be alone? How long have you stayed with them, comforted them, cared for them, all the while silently begging to go with them. (Why can’t you let go? Why won’t you die?)
You have withdrawn, but you are disconnected from the endless loop of your inner chatterbox and have fallen back upon primitive instinct and base urges. And as ironic as it seems, and in spite of your sacrifices, your losses — or maybe because of your losses — you learn to survive, responding to the insistency of some unknown internal rhythm, craving information, using situation and circumstance to your advantage. You take it all in. You have no idea how long you have walked, where you have been, what the date is, or who you are anymore. Distance is meaningless, identity false, and time is but a sentence to be served.
You are living the flip-side of Rapture. You exist in the time after the end-times, the inaudible phantom ticks after the clock has run out, somehow borrowing time, forced to wander, for eternity, for your guilt, for your sins, for your fear, for your shortcomings, for your part, for her — afraid to die and ashamed to live, slumming in Purgatory — ignored by Fate and final judgment.
Somehow, you live, but you died that day.
That day.
Everything changed that day. Everything. The rules. History. Understanding. Acceptance. Continents. Perspective. Your life. You.
It was no big secret when the end came. Signs and prophecy had pointed to, warned of this event for centuries. The Mayans had calculated the terminating date thousands of years before. Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia, they all knew about it, the Truth about our System and our proper place in it. They all left evidence in their writings, glyphs to be deciphered, puzzles to be puzzled over, ancient wisdom and information warning us, leading us, helping us, but we were unable to convince each other, or ourselves what simply could not be. We were too proud, too foolish, too limited and egocentric in our thinking. We believed that just because we could see, and touch, and feel it, that things would always be this way — forever.
When the weather patterns first started acting “strange,†and the polar ice caps began to melt at an alarming rate, in sharp contrast to years of study and tradition, we should have questioned what was going on. We should have had a clue. And it wasn’t until the magnetic poles flipped that we, as a race, were honestly, biblically, scared for the first time in our modern memory.
That day.
People died that day. A lot of people died that day. And no one was saved. Even the ones who, somehow, “miraculously,†weren’t destroyed by the onslaught, the fear, or the madness, were not saved.
The only people who were granted any kind of respite from the pain, were the ones who were taken, the ones who were fortunate enough to die.
You saw things that day, horrible, unspeakable, incomprehensible things: retrogressive, debris and dust-choked rivers raging backwards through their familiar courses; frantic, fleeting birds desperately trying to align their bearings to magnetic poles contrary to their collective instinct, migrating backwards and flying upside down; black, swirling, rolling electric clouds of chaos and destruction, disrupting and displacing everything in their path; and an angry, disoriented, blood-colored sun extinguished as the earth groaned in obeisance at the Crossing of God.
You remember screaming, and looking up, and seeing things your mind told you could not be real, must not be real, and watched, helplessly, as religious, scientific, economic, and social foundation crumbled, and gave way to the undeniable gravity of the situation.
And you closed your eyes, balled your fists and cried, trying to ignore these impossible images, to banish them from your reality, your imagination, but your other senses conspired to betray you and you were forced to listen to the blood-curdling, riotous screams, violently tumbled from the safety of their existence as quakes and fissures ripped open the firmament, swallowing buildings and entire city blocks, raising and sinking the land as lava and poisonous, fetid vapors flowed through the streets of once sleepy neighborhoods and sprawling suburbs.
All was a tumult, and everything, and everyone on the planet was affected by the cataclysmic domino effect of a natural, sudden, global catastrophe, and you were nearly driven mad by the suffering and deafening silence that followed the flaming mountain’s crash into earth as the sky turned from blood-tinged ochre to blazing sanguine while the nether and aether of the heavens exploded in passage and judgment.
“And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.â€
—Revelation 16:18
That was then. That was it, “the end,†the big collective “criticism†we all feared (but never really believed) would one day be leveled against us, the very thing we used to scare ourselves into societal submission so that we would behave, deny our individual freedoms, get “in line†with the rest of the flock, and do our part to be well-mannered, productive and bleating sheeple.
Only in the end did we realize the value of life, of how we had squandered it and not lived up to our potential, of all the wasted time and dreams, and great things never done, and beautiful thoughts never thought, and connections never made, and people we were afraid to meet, and opportunities we convinced ourselves would still be there tomorrow — always tomorrow — and all the times wasted, spent bickering, fighting. We were like spoiled children without supervision or direction, sticking our tongues out and ignoring curfew.
---
You continue “south†(never mind that your compass now shows south as “northâ€) but once you pass into the southwestern desert it gets harder and harder to get your bearings. Harder until you get to the Grand Canyon, that is. (Was it ever this big?) At least, now, you know that it was impossible and highly unlikely for the schools, scientists, and accepted history to suggest that this huge gorge, this cracked scar in the earth’s surface, had been carved into the earth merely by water, erosion, and time running through it for millions of years. Those factors may have played a part in its growth and continuance but the event that caused this rift was far more violent.
Occasionally, you stop on some mountainous ledge, or bend to drink from the muddy puddle of an otherwise empty river bed — and then spit out the tainted, foul, metallic-tasting liquid — and think back to the man you were back then, the life you had, the love you cherished above all else. You remember. And you regret.
“Brilliant,†they had called you. You were revered, honored, respected by your peers, and, above all, adored by your family. You had everything… And you gave it all away.
You were weak. You knew this would happen. You “preached†it, warned against it, trying to convince others of it, citing mounting sources of geological data, archaeo-astronomical analysis, mythological fact, and obscure metaphors. But in your heart of hearts, and like all of the other sandwich board sign-wearing crazies heralding an end to the world that never came, you never actually believed that it would happen — at least not in your lifetime — never in your life.
So, after awhile, and after suffering continued ridicule, you withdrew the information and convinced yourself that this was little more than a fantasy world you allowed yourself to escape to in the pursuit of knowledge and information. In reality it was just your way of never having to deal with reality.
The biggest waste on this earth is being blessed with life and taking it for granted. You know now that you lied to yourself, and everyone around you, and never fully committed to anything in your life.
And this is your punishment.
---
Everything you are, and everything you own, you carry with you. A dirty, frayed hat, a busted pair of sunglasses, a heavy, stained and dusty satchel full of rocks you have collected — one rock collected for every person you have buried — and in your pocket, a broken pocket watch that serves as a constant reminder of that fateful day, December 22, 2012.
You don’t know how many months, or years, it’s been since that day, nor do you care.
It was yesterday for all you know, as vividly and often the memories haunt you. Every time you close your eyes you watch it all over again and you are frozen, held in thrall by fear and paralyzing indecision as your wife, and children, were swept away, screaming — reaching out for you — their eyes pleading, wanting you to save them. And it was in that moment when you blinked, severing eye contact with Aina, that she understood that this was it: the end. There would be no encore. And like that, they were gone. And you were “spared,†doomed to struggle for survival in a harsh new world that rolled over on itself, fractured, limping along, another in a long sequence of false starts and cataclysmic resets.
In your hand you carry the only thing you have of her, a ripped and crumpled photograph, faded by sweat and obscured by dirt, but her beauty has been burned into your mind, into your heart, and into your memory like a stolen moment of time. And now you serve Time, a prisoner of your own guilt and inhibitions, of your fears and excuses. You have forgotten what it is to love, to live, to be. Now you just exist — and you are barely doing that.
---
You are walking along the ledge of a rather steep cliff. There is an evergreen tree-line to your right, the edge of an anemic forest, a drastic, life-affirming and rocky fall to your left, and a suspicious-looking and treacherous slat-covered bridge just ahead of you that spans a great chasm. Below, you can hear a raging river.
You look up and squint as the sun prepares to set. Even now, after all has been said and done, you still allow yourself to reflect on the sunset and the orange-rose shimmer that blazes in the twilight sky as the ozone frays and the atmosphere struggles to maintain itself.
God help you, despite it all, it is beautiful, and for the briefest of moments all is right in the world.
---
“A little help!â€
Startled, you quickly look towards the rocks where the voice came from.
“Help!â€
You look around, making sure that this noise, whatever it is, hasn’t attracted the attention of any dregs or unmentionables. You back away from the bridge, moving quickly but quietly, not wanting to call attention to yourself, not wanting to be seen. As you backtrack you can hear, just beyond and below a small outcropping of rocks along the edge, the sound of falling rocks, dirt, pebbles, and debris, and someone, very obviously, struggling and kicking up dust.
“Please! I have food, I can pay!â€
Your mind flashes warnings and you start to mumble and shuffle your feet. You look around. What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? You hear something lurch, more debris falls, and the voice cries out, “Aaahh!â€
You jump to the top of the outcropping and look down. Below you, hanging by a thick (but quickly starting to give way) green root is a swarthy, whiskery, gap-toothed mendicant. His face is both red from the exertion and pale from fright as he struggles to maintain his one-handed grip. His feet, although touching the side of the cliff-face, cannot get a decent hold in the loose gravel and rocks, and it’s a good three hundred foot fall to the river and rocks below. The man’s hair is disheveled and his mismatched attire screams “corpse-robber.†Oddly, in his other hand is a picnic basket with a busted handle. A red and white checkered tablecloth peeks out from under its lid. You react quickly, realizing this man is about to fall to his death, as you shift the photograph of Aina between hands and extend the man your right hand.
“You’re gonna have to drop the basket!†you scream, your voice cracking from disuse. “Give me both of your hands so I can pull you up!â€
“No way, man! I finds this pic-a-nic basket fairs and squares and I means to eats it. You helps me up and I shares it with you. You gives me both of your hands.â€
You know this fool, dirty beggar isn’t going to listen to reason so you put the faded, crumpled photograph of your wife in your mouth, lay flat on the largest rock, and stretch both of your arms out to pull him up. You grunt, your lips tightly pressed against the photo to keep it from falling, and you grab for him. You secure him by the wrist to stabilize him and he quickly reciprocates by grabbing one of your wrists. You start to pull, straining, grunting, eyes closed, and he tries to find his footing to climb up out of his predicament, picnic basket in tow. Just as he nears the top, the gravel beneath his feet suddenly gives way and he falls back, negatively affecting your position, leverage, and balance and you are jerked violently, forced to spit out the photograph. It takes everything you have to counter to keep from being pulled over yourself. You both hang there, panting for breath, for what seems like an eternity, trying to gather the strength necessary to pull the rest of the way up, but your mind and thoughts are slowly falling to the rocks and river below as the photograph descends in a series of flips and turns. Your heart breaks (again) and you scream in anguish as you use your last waning vestige of rage and strength to pull up this waste of flesh and sorry excuse for a survivor. You both collapse in a heap, uncontrollable tears streaming down your face. You have not cried since that day.
“Whew! Thanks, man. You saved my neck, sure thing!â€
You scramble back to the top of the rock you were just laying on and peer back over the edge, looking, straining to see where your crumpled and faded memento has gone.
In this light, the sun nearly set and the chasm walls growing darker, the only thing you can make out is the roar of the waters below.
You close your eyes, and in your mind’s eye, you see it, just lazily falling, free, blown about in gentle loop de loops, innocent and carefree.
You strain, cry, reach out for the photograph, fingers outstretched, and suddenly, silently, you go over the edge of the cliff, lazily falling, free, innocent and carefree… falling… for her… forever… to the end.
---
The beggar looks over the cliff, watches you fall, and scratches his head. “Now what the hell was ats all about?â€
He sits back down in the dust, opens his picnic basket, removes the red and white checkered tablecloth and proceeds to make a setting for himself and his meal.
“Geez, the darn fool just wents over this here cliff chasing a silly photo. What a waste. It’s not like it’s the end of the world or something.â€
