Had I missed Mr. Mouth-no-face, here?! After careful consideration, continuous contemplation and by utilising that thing called common sense, I came to realize my preference for its disembodied iteration.

The choice was an easy one to make. The undeniable charm and its face not being literal nightmare fuel were compelling arguments. Even slipping into yet another coma was much easier on the eyes than whatever its crooked teeth had going on with the saliva spewing from its orifice.

“How about we skip the small talk,” the mouth began to purr at me, ”and go for a more physical metaphysical mouth-to-mouth?”

… … any witty commentary on my mind had just evaporated instantly. The image of me and the faceless entity getting frisky and having our pink, sloppy tongues dance inside one another like two earthworms on methamphetamine had burned itself onto my retina. Decades of therapy could never undo the damage done with so few words.

I would have been very impressed were I not this emotionally scarred.

All of a sudden, the prior existence of perpetual torment did not seem as bad anymore. Enough of our intense verbal foreplay…could we simply act like our dropped soap opera at the male-only bath house has met its ‘happy ending’ and move on?

Or am I to ignore Father Time with those pearly whites of his, having become an alcoholic deadbeat dad, who mysteriously just stopped working?!

On the subject of things that beat, my heart had begun to do its due diligence a bit too fervently. Knocking in my chest like I was knocking on heaven’s gate next, about to high-five Saint Peter himself. Beating faster and faster, beating, beating, beating.

A feeling of impending doom overcame me─something wanted…out.

Only to stop, again, at a moment’s notice.

“What… do… you… want?”

The words escaped my trembling mouth. The voice, hoarse and ridden with sickness, drowned in the silence it was encumbered in.

Was it a warning, a demonstration, or done on a mere whim?

Silence was the reply given. The mouth heaved; jagged teeth glistened; a smile had formed.

Yet, it was merely saliva, trickling down, so soothingly slow and still viscous as ever, that accompanied my shallow breathing.

In such succinct stillness, was any single thing truly of matter? Did said question even have an answer to it? What if this distinction held no sway either? Are some questions truly in need of an answering?

Do tell… is there any meaning in knowing the answers to these questions─would anything change?

.

.

And nothing differed. Knowledge only made things worse.

There was just saliva. Thick droplets foretold the slow passage of time… one fell, two will soon have fallen, three are to fall as well. The heart did not know, it just did beat on, till the day it wouldn’t.

Tension ravaged the air. Nonexistent eyes peered within, a countenance stripped of facial features stared at me…directly into me.

Conspicuously normal human hands traversed to one another. Their impact reverberated throughout the decrepit, wooden room. Slow, barely audible, did the noise enter the perception.

Devoid of rhythm, tempo to be chosen at random. Reft its outcome, left to chance. The motion resumed, but nothing was born from it. Nothing came forth. A mere thing of wanton arbitrary design─playing its silent tune

The expected nowhere to be seen… just crippling, clapping hands.

“Oh the wonder that is the human mind,” a voice echoed inside these walls, yet the lips had not moved. ”And the buzzkill it comes with as part of the package deal…I presume you to be an exception; given that if you were to represent the average specimen of your kind…"

The voice laughed now.

"Then, I do feel inclined to doubt the long-term survivability of your species."

Without batting an eye, the creature before me lifted both hands and quickly swept them across its ugly visage and, lo and behold, there was now an eyelash there to be batted. And the face, ooh la la, chef’s kiss, it could only look nicer if my fist was buried deep within it.

The former faceless entity, now turned punchable one, stared at me with great interest to see if it might have shocked me with its grand reveal, but my lack of interest caused it to scowl in frustration.

How scary, there is now a face in the place where faces are usually found.

Ignoring my valuable feedback, the thing, with the face of average Joe’s distant cousin - mediocre Mike - continued to laugh at its own joke. After what felt like hours of competitive, silent treatment, the voice spoke up, finally.

No, apparently it wanted to continue that laughing bit much to the delight of the audience. Yes, the crowd went totally mild.

Would that daredevil do the unthinkable next? Would the it, with a he-face, take another clap…God forbid, does it laugh and clap together at the same time?!

“Oh, Moirai. Oh, Moirai.” uttered this thing in dire need of its schizophrenia pills.

“... You seem unresponsive,” it continued like a grandpa about to tell his war stories for the nth time. “... are you not aware that the stillborn you have been ‘magically implanted’ in carries said name?

What? I could not believe it. Shock spread over my face; I was aghast. How could this have happened? Did that bastard really just drop ‘air quotes’ with its hands, right in front of my virgin eyes?

“Of all things, That is your concern?” Flabbergasted, this question came out of its mouth, which now stood open far and wide. Whether it was questioning its sanity or the mine was hard to determine at this point.

But about that, why would I be surprised by the fact that a nigh-omnipotent being, who ever-so casually stopped time, also placed my soul inside of a dead newborn? What a plot twist, nobody could have seen coming…evaaarr.

Laced with a tinge of irritation, the narration would soon go on.

Since we were not here to be all buddy-buddy.

"To see you still surround yourself with these walls, after all this time. It pains me so. All these acts that you put up. It makes one wonder: have you truly not learned anything since then? Or perhaps, could this too, just be an act?

Oh, you silly geese, you. Trying to get under my skin, ain’tcha? What a naughty lil’ bugger you are; it makes me really want to pinch those cheeks of yours.

Darling, after spending 9 years, if not more, in this coma, I could hardly care for anything at this point. Go on, do whatever excites your heart or your time-stopping-dingily-dong in your pantalon. Like it matters what I do, say, see, think, feel, or am…like any of that matters.

Despite wordplay being the latest rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.

“Your plight is not unbeknown; this exalted one shares your any rationale. For your every experience, I have seen it. For your every knowledge, I have usurped it. For your every word, I have dissected, sampled and analysed…”

Spoken in utter nonchalance, the words simply trailed off into the distance, like flatulence in the winds of time. Yet, there was that something that kept us aback, some thing that lingered in the air, some think it to be too hard to grasp.

As we continued doing sweet nothings and more of that, things did not change. We both knew, did we not?

However, why did it refuse to come out of our mouths? We both see how vital it was for the continued success of our conversation, still neither had vocalised it.

Instead, we both shared a moment of serene stillness between the two of us.

I peered into those empty eyes of his─he into the mine. In unison, together we shared a beautiful moment unlike any other. Finally, it grew clear, the image, the object of our innermost desire.

We both waited for it, we both were awaiting the arrival of our saviour. May it cometh from the heavens to bring upon our salvation: Prayeth for the point to arise from ashes of useless chatter.

“The point, you say?”

Croaking the stool beneath, a body moving neither fast nor slow, side-to-side did it swerve. Its head frozen in place; eye contact, never did it break. Empty I’s, empty eyes, collided.

A sigh overcame pale lips. The humanoid being languished its back softly into the wooden walls, offering a knowing grin. Crossing its legs, a bemused expression made the intention rather clear.

“The point, the point. Oh, the point indeed.”

“My dear friend, allow me to stress that I know exactly how you feel. Now, you might find yourself attaching a lot more gravitas to these words of mine. Judging by the lack of witty commentary─it assuredly is so.”

“Which is, let me be candid with you, not part of my calculations. Prior arrangements left me with a sound, logical chain of arguments intended to wrestle you into submission.”

“How quaint. I find it hard to put the extent of my vexation into words. Just to underline the great lengths my effort led me to… This attempt to understand that thing you troglodytes call─fashion─has proven to be far more torturous than your little coma could have possibly been.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“And yet this affair ultimately concludes with but one simple implication. To surmise: too good to be true“

“By chance you are not suffering from retrograde amnesia, or have been overtaken by an alien lifeform in recent memory, right?”

“While I am more than elated to see you in possession of your motor function again, would you be as kind to not present me with your middle finger? Such gesture is certainly not becoming of maturity and a clear indication for the lack of mutual respect”

“Additionally, could you kindly NOT roll your eyes at every other sentence? And, no, please do not stretch your tongue out in my direction either. Common decency, that is all I ask for.”

“ Now you are just being difficult for the sake of it. Which is unsurprisingly something that should have been considered prior.”

“What in tarnation? Please just for this one minuscule moment in time, please refrain from being YOU, for just this one brief conversation.”

And so it went by, the ascendance of another unreliable narrator─as the doctor prescribed.

The more the merrier, on the merry-go-round of incongruent storytelling. Reliable libel gu-ran-teed. If only the fabled red thread was not a red herring.

Enough of our useless prattle. I do apologize for any of the upcoming discourtesy, but this tittle-tattle, chit-chat, the entire dung-flower bouquet: screw that.

Mister, mister why’d you stall? Which literary trope hides behind all?

Is the heart of the matter a world ravaged by ill, is it a choice between a red and blue pill?

Is the crux a planet run by reptoids, have the living been replaced by autonomous androids?

Do thee dilly-dally, due the dreamer of all awaking? Did devils descend, is reality breaking?

Do thee enjoy the topsy-turvy? Is this a test by the Gods? Survival only for the worthy?

Does the horn of Jericho resound? Is the cataclysm on and about? How does that sound?

You stay quiet, what a shame. My attempt at rhyming, you might call it… lamentable.

I beseech you holy, fair maiden…is my bequeathed purpose still laden?

Have I been a bad boi, have I not eaten my veggies? Where is the promised joy?

Is this the end of all or merely an inter-dimensional free-for-all? The order small or tall?

Tell me. Is will not free? Shall chaos be? What hell will we see? Who holds the key?

My, oh, my. Is death to die? Shall the unfathomable monsters cry? What’s left to try? Hiii!

Really, it is quite amusing. For these mere kernels of truth, I am now expected to shill…homeboy, of course, we are chill. Newsflash kid, my silence was not an agreement to entertain more of your quandaries or to cater to your every whim.

The point, the point, the point, the point. Riddle me this, what might I be looking for?

Face, no-face, or whatever chic thing you fancied it really tickles me in my posterior. Conscience and patience, I have shown enough of those up until now. Please, such virtues were stretching rather thin here.

We both can agree on that, riiiight?

Now, if you would be as to kind to deliver the promised point. That would be very swell.

“Everything shall soon be kaput. Much like the dinosaurs, this dominion shall fall to a distant memory”

Any relevant news pertainin… me? The fate of the world is not exactly a pressing issue when my body is one wrong hiccup away from turning full Australian.

“In spite of the evidence pointing at the contrary, your corpse shall not be six feet down under in the immediate future─to finish that play on words of yours. Be a good psychopath, eat your soup, and it will stay that way.”

Seems like the food came with a side dish of commination and coercion. Such wisdom was worth its weight in fools’ gold and as trustworthy, believable, and filled with good intention as a politician’s words during election time.

To give credit where it is due, my stalker certainly had their way with words. Sadly, the veiled threat was about as well-hidden as an exhibitionist.

As if to mock my proper, valiant effort at holding a conversation, the finger in the middle of each hand greeted me from afar…

…the gall of some godlike beings, I tell you.

Waving them lanky middle-fingers in front of my face like a war trophy. A mesmerising display of communication surpassing cross-species boundaries occurred. Our feelings were mutually transmitted.

Sometimes simple gestures could say more than a million words.

“When in Rome do as the Romans do” explained the entity to me in its usual casual tone. The birds still flew from side to side in the meantime, with wings made from the finest audacity. Rounded up by a grin, a smug one.

Mediocre Mike seemed to enjoy it a tad too much.

A random jingle broke through our exchange of silent pleasantries.

“We interrupt your precious rigmarole to bring you the latest development and news from the world of ‘Primal Survival’. Your favourite cornucopia of coo-coo crazy.”

A familiar voice blares at me from the top left corner of the wooden torture chamber. The details as to why a modern flat screen had mysteriously manifested just out of the periphery of my eyes were best left to the imagination.

The similarity of its speaker to another humanoid being in the room were so by sheer happenstance. Serendipities truly transpire rather often here. Though I did have to put my faith in this estranged uncle of mediocre Mike, because Average Austin here rocked a moustache.

Who could ever be evil with a moustache?

Not this guy here; that much was certain. The one concurrently on the TV and in front of me, based on earthen convention solely was beyond any metric of good or evil. Were I tasked with putting its perceived moral system into words: A gusto for the other-thinking.

“This is Logos speaking, your beloved artificial construct responsible for the observation of the cause and effect. Per my given due diligence, I am to stop you little, precious things from disrupting the chains of causality.”

The delivery was almost too casual, its implied revelations beyond my meagre brain to fathom.

A certain 3-dimensional version nodded along to the message I had too few brain cells for.

Was it doing that? It was nodding, right? Doubt surfaced for reasons I couldn’t name. Why do I find myself questioning that detail?

My subconscious yelled at me, warning signs blared in my mind. What was its cause?

Details grew uncanny the more attention I spent. Inadvertently the seen abnormal turned from a normal form, to a patchwork of mismatching visual stimuli.

Mid motion its form grew ethereal, then solidified. The epidermis translucent, veins pulsating beneath, muscles spasm, then there was skin, normal human skin.

It was not nodding. The head was present at different spots, during different frames, instances in time. Jumping between them, creating the illusion of movement to the naked eye. Akin to two rivalling scenes playing out at the same time.

The dance of the seen unseen resumed, my brain restless, helpless. Which one to regard as the truth, which one to deem as a figment of imagination? Which was reality, which was not?

My vision of it felt doctored, viewing the figure in motion through lenses, which were not the mine. The event appeared altered in some shape as if this was not the full picture─as if some important details were omitted.

It froze. It moved. Jittering, at times slow; flickering, often quick, it did this.

Pressure built up on my eyes, any spent focus more laborious by the passing seconds. My body shook, lungs burned; the body failed me.

Sense, there was none to it. An existence existent between the lines.

A terrible headache assaulted the senses, clouding the scene in a sea of haziness.Understanding casually dismissed, potential knowledge revoked. Truth and falsehood lay interwoven in the fabric of reality.

Unencumbered, the being did as done prior…until it did not anymore.

The chair was now empty. No, there was no chair.

Now, there was a chair, the chair was empty.

Then, when two images became one once more, when my head embraced ‘normalcy’ over crippling doubt, when the chair stopped having an existential crisis…it was then that a certain faceless entity came within inches of my face─its feet firmly implemented into the ceiling.

Silence was once more. Bloodshot eyes shifted slowly, purple lips edged closer together and gave me the wettest whisper it could muster.

“You…may…now…kiss…the…bride.”

Woah, there buddy. Physically impossible physical metaphysical mouth-to-mouth is clearly second-date territory. Truth be told, featureless faces standing on the ceiling were not not exactly the hottest commodity on the date market.”

Blessed once more with ignorance, it keenly eyes the TV, after shifting its form to the left side of the bed I was chained to.

“The innocence of the past. Quite telling the situation did not develop as intended.”

“My dear Moirai, would you not listen to my story?”