Piano

Have you ever been trapped in a dark place? Surrounded by blackness in all directions. No light, not entirely dark yet retains a stillness of an uncomfortable silence, almost unnatural that it pricked your eerie to the extreme.

That feeling when you turn off the damn lights, and it takes more than a few unnecessary seconds for your eyes to adjust to your new surrounding like a hidden cave? Yea that.

I mean, isn't it normal for there to be sound when a bunch of damn floating balls with a blaze akin to a forest fire past right by you? But then what do I know. My memories seem to come and go like fleeting emotions.

Still, though, I look like that. No way.... right? Pshh no way.

But...what if my current existence is no more than a floating ball with an haze dancing atop me? Then that would beg for a curial question. Where is my fucking body?

Remembering correctly, I held myself in midst of traffic drooling and fantasizing with a small bulge in my pants. It was all well within one of my illicit episodes – Jaw agape, hands around neck in with a vivid imagination to cushion my escape from reality.

I was pretty engrossed in it. Or... am I still imprisoned within it?

The thought gripped me with an iron fist spinning my mind uncanny. What if this was all an illusion? Another figment of my retreat to a haven unsullied and my body was still somewhere... unknown.

*Gasp* I began to tremble vigorously. This would not be the first of occurrence. In fact, there had been many occasions where I have been preoccupied in a trance and somehow found myself in an undesirable location and... situations.

The memory of when I somehow found myself in my teachers' home will never escape me... she wasn’t there however but … and I was... I was...

My thought trailed and by eyes grew vacant. An innumerable amount of time flashed, and I returned, but not whole. Once again, my thoughts and memories had escape me.

*Sigh* forgotten AGAIN.

I made no move to gossip with my fellow kin no longer for I knew no response will be generated from that endeavor. Yes, I officially take them as brothers, we do look alike do we not. Instead, I joined the queue since it seems as though they knew how to navigate through the darkness... I hope. Our journey was engaging and insightful, traversing mountains, deserts, gardens and cities alike... of course these were all in my mind – some of the memories I still retained, that also escape me when I delve too far into them.

Somehow the darkness grew pronounced and murky the further we’ve delved, but it also made me doubt if any progress had even been made at all.

Boredom overcame me. These fellows don’t reply when spoken to and trying to restructure memories was too strenuous. Except for one.

The past I glimpse upon still lurks within the sandy plains of my brain. How strange that the invisible author in my mind had yet to erase it. Was it because I had not attempted to recollect them? Following the patterns, it was only when I gave life to certain thoughts and imaginations that they began to turn vague as if someone or something didn’t want me accessing into them.

“Or it could just amnesia”. I said, shrugging.

Supposedly my body was really somewhere unknown, and my mind is once again trapped. Then, by experience, the only way out of this entrapment is to harness the only tangible memory there was and that is the one that formed following the advent of the first bocce.

With a sense of direction, I began to calming my breath to a still pace – if I still have one to begin with – I proceeded to close my eyes. However, I come to find that unnecessary for my surrounding is an excellent imitation of what I hope to achieve. And besides, the floating figures around me are a soothing scenery to contemplate to. It depicts a night's sky, where comets softly caress the darkness leaving tinges of gray wherever they streak. A night where such an event immediately explodes my head with space exploration. A life where I go beyond the ethereal blue surface creating new dreams and future in other to escape the claws of my oppressors if just for a moment.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

A soundless night.

A harmless destruction.

Unconsciously, I released a sigh I had unknowingly held hostage, and with its freedom comes alleviation of my burdens. My shoulder dropped in an exaggerated manner letting loose an unknown weight I hadn't realize had haunted me.

Everything suddenly went blank for a moment

One seconds

Two seconds

Three seconds

Four...

The winds seemed to sigh in my ears and suddenly I was there... somewhere else – unknown.

Whispers of chatter permeated beyond that one would confuse chatter as the main affair. I sat in stillness atop a lonely soft cushion with no pads to comfort my back. Somehow, I knew where I was and knew what to anticipate. Yet they never came, but I was not alone. My companion lay before me.

There she was, in stillness as well. A small sheen of her body reflecting within the darkness, silently speaking to me with her eighty-eight teeth of what she hopes I would play for her. Her words resounded louder in my ears than of those beyond the blanket. But she knew she would receive no answer from me. She would wait in nervous anticipation. Better than anyone she knew I despise her just as much as she did me.

An old love that transformed into hate. The small fleets of life.

The fall lifts, and her pure ivory keys slowly marched into view and the audiences' monotonous empty applauds refuses to ignite my passions, nor did the spotlight I contain. I have grown tired of them all.

I silently stare at her, and she stares back at me. And finally, I told her what I have prepared to play for her.

"Death."

-Boom

I was suddenly thrown out of the memories with a prickling pain pecking me on all sides like a woodpecker rhythmically drumming a tree in the establishment of its territory. I shudder as my body inexplicably increases in tempo. It as though I have been completely isolated from everything around me, and the place where my heart was located suddenly began to burn.

Am I being burned alive? Do I even have a heart?

I am scared.

I can't perceive it, but it's like there is a giant hand tightly wrapped around my heart, bounding it like an ant trapped in a tight jar. Insignificant. My minuscule existence easily goes unnoticed as the jar turbulence increases in tempo. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I tried to run, but there is no exit.

I'm scared.

Thud.

The silent world was suddenly broken by a distinct thud.

It sounded like a deliberate stomp on the ground.

Thud. Thud.

The void shook around me throwing me in disarray.

Thankfully, it alleviated some of the burdens on my heart; but before I could recover myself, I suddenly felt an incomparable sense of dread and fear.

Thud.

I began to shudder. This sound... it came from no direction in particular. But yet I felt as though it is getting closer. My hands inexplicable felt cold, and I tremble with every stomp. This feeling... I have but one memory of it, one that begs no compromise and forces submission.

"Pray," my father gestured towards the wooden raven idol within the lighted candle room. Our god Tyche whom he claimed, provided for us our current pedestaled status in society. She requires a fitting sacrifice and none other than I am sufficient.

"I refuse." My back ached from lacerations of previous days that refuses to give me peace, primarily due to new ones forming before they could heal. His expression grew grave, and he asserted, "Kneel!"

His authority already carved deep into my root, I trembled and hastily knelt on the grave.

Thud! Thud! He made for me as I… eagerly await the sensation of a knife cutting through the skin.

"Argh!"

I bellowed.

As I did, the world suddenly got quiet again, the thud completely dispersed, gifting me time to slowly rearrange myself and search for sense in this whole mess.

Steadily, balance began to form in my mind, with it, came a sudden chill. I felt I was being stared at. Like a viper lurking in the grass. I mechanically lifted my head to see all the bocce that were once floating now stopped dead in their tracks. They didn't have eyes, but it felt as though they were looking at me. Simultaneously, they took red. Their tranquil haze now taking a fierce blaze like a forest on fire. They dance furiously as they slowly began marching backward...towards me.

"Uh, guys...?"

Whoosh!

There is the sound you were supposed to make when a blaze is dancing above you! inwardly complimenting them. However, I had no time to rejoice. It only took seconds, and they almost were upon me.

Before they could however, a thought suddenly hit me ‘Even now, I am being oppressed.’ along with it came a realization gifted to me by the memory of the discouraged pianist. I am actually dead.

As I affirm that belief, the darkness suddenly regained it silence. The bocce regaining tranquility as they stood a hair’s breadth away from me.

And, just like those around me... I began to lose my sense of self.

Now I know why they looked so dull and unresponsive, the realization that we were dead had wormed it way into their brain far earlier than I.

Huh I thought, I guess denial is also a response.

= PIMH