Monday, March 10, 2008

Dream

The horizon a sooty grey, blinding flashes of lightning ripping the opaque sky, suddenly blossoms shades of violet and scarlet. The roiling clouds seething angrily, colliding blindly into one another in a glorious cacophony, the ensuing thunderstorms a veritable pyrotechnic display. Inanimate objects made animate by the sheer force of energy, that invisible power which pulses through nature.

"We're going through that but you know that already don't you? You feel it?" It was more of a statement than a question. His grip on my hand tightened reassuringly but remained nonrestrictive. A distant roar reached my ears, faint reverberations shaking the gravelly ground. The storms has built up to their zenith, a monstrous entity raging out of control, its core a ferocious maelstrom of immense energy.

"Yes" I whispered. "But do we really have to?" "Why run? It was what you always wanted to see anyway. That insatiable curiosity of yours." The memory of the place aforementioned seems to warp even as I recount it, except that it was the proverbial Hell so often mentioned in ancient religious texts. Sheol. The being beside me none other than the Devil himself.

Not that I had any doubt at that moment. He radiated power, indeed his very presence seemed to be effused with it, the dark seductive charm and strength, an aura about him. I never needed much convincing when he had materialised out of nowhere in that barren gloomy landscape, it was almost as if I had been awaiting his arrival.

No fiery hoof prints or towering bat like wings, no devilish horns or forked tail. "Though if you prefer, I can always manifest as the typical stereotypical preconceptions of the appearance of a devil dictates." He teased. That enigmatic smile. Dressed in a non descript black linen garment, his face remains a hazy blur."Come! It's time. We haven't all day. At least I don't. " He laughed, a rich throaty laugh, the burbling of a brook as it runs over the rocks, only deeper and more sonorous.

Sensing my hesitation, the fear of knowing warring with the gnawing curiosity, he shakes his head slowly in mild consternation yet not without patience. "Humans." A sigh like the whisper of a breeze passing through reeds. Gathering me into his arms, he rises swiftly into the acrid air and with incredible speed we plunged towards the growing nebula of chaos, crackling energies racing across the entire horizon. The sky a sickly purplish-red against a canvas of gloomy grey.

Lightning flashes a hand span away blinding me temporarily and I fancy myself being burnt to a crisp. Ah but we are safe he says and I believe. But why do I? Rebellious and suspicious creature that I am.

But there is no time to think, we are in the maelstrom and its ferocity stuns me. The storm battering at the protective shield surrounding us, attempting to rip it apart and failing. Raging in its frustration and failure, it seems bestial with a predator's hunger. Alive.

And then we are through and the cries and screams of multitudes greet us. "The cries of the damned, the souls consigned to Hell, My Hell." He whispers in response to my look of askance. The sounds of torture coupled with pure unadulterated misery and agony in the shrieks of the tortured swell to an unbearable crescendo.

The smoke clears and the picture of abject suffering and horror I glimpse is beyond any words I can put to paper. It is Dante's Inferno and all the unspeakable horrors conceivable and uncontemplated rolled into one, magnified a thousand times. "NO!" I shrieked as the full significance of the scene sank into me, the cold metallic taste of fear fresh in my mouth.

"Yes. YOUR Hell." And he released me as I plummeted headlong shrieking hysterically, mindless in the consuming terror into the place called Hell, the damned reaching up, their hands clawing up in eager, hungry anticipation.

Then obliterating darkness, inky black and opaque inundating me, a comforting relief. Reddish glow from the electronic bedside clock. 3.33 AM. The dream still fresh in its bizarreness and bloody horror. Memnoch the Devil lying face up on the table, pages rustling under the whirling ceiling fan.

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