August 2021. Rage against the dying of the night ~ GDH
You’re in the pit of it now, in the heart of the nightmare. You knew it was coming to this. You know you always deserved it. But you don’t deserve it, you don’t, no, dark robed figures drag you forwards by your arms towards the house. The house. A big black box that will swallow you up, a hive. One mouth opening. Black mould on every surface. No life or light. Pandora’s box. Pandora, the first witch, who unleashed evil onto the world and gave birth to suffering and doomed everything and began the corruption of every man and woman, of every house under every roof. It’s her fault. It’s all her fault, you’re sobbing. Black mould lining the inside of the monster’s mouth. Your cries are ignored. You are drawn closer and closer. Your cries are ignored. Your tormentors don’t have any capacity to be convinced or begged, they are passive, they are more like the limbs of the house, they are dark figures in robes pulling you up the stairs and onto the porch. Suck up a deep breath, suck up on the dirt and the mould and be sucked up and inside, kicking and screaming.
They are gone now. You land hard on your knees and elbows on the solid wood floor. The door slams shut behind you. It is pitch dark. You only know that it is pitch dark. You have never known darkness like this before. Okay, okay, it is time to get out now, time to get out now. But you’re stuck to the wood, too terrified to move. Instead there are just wailing sounds coming out of your throat like the oxygen is running out. Maybe it is. The air is full of dust and grime. And suddenly, a gentle hand on your head like a caress.
You scream then and swipe at the darkness and scrabble backwards. The old wood floorboards heave and creak under you. You can feel the thick dust flying about. Your eyes are adjusting. Being adjusted. The one who touched you stands at the foot of what may be a staircase. A wide corridor. The faintest light quivers into being. She stands there, dark and faceless. Her hand is still extended and glows white in the dark. Her hand is the source of the light. Slowly she lifts her hand to her face. It is the face of your friend. No, it is the face of your enemy. No, it is the face of Pandora, the terrible mother. But she’s not there anymore. No one is. Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness, thank you God. Thank you Jesus. There is no God, you say out loud, your own voice frightening you jumping from out of the void. Why did you say that? Why did you say that? You say it again and then you clasp your hand over your mouth and you can taste the dust. Now you will never be safe and there is no way out of the darkness. Now you have //done it ///after all/ll/l//////////////////////lll//////////////////////////////////////////////o/////////////////////////////////////on////n///////////
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////////o/////o//on October 23rd 1717, Emmeline Waverley is born in the house and her mother dies bringing her into the world. She is born in the drawing room. Her mother dies on the hard wooden floor. It was several days before anyone found them. The wood is old and comes from the mountains. The party of men who collect the wood are in the forest for a week chopping down trees. On the third day, they are beset by a pack of hungry wolves. The men defend themselves with their axes and their knives, but they are no match for the wolves. The last man crawls away in pain, his leg badly bitten. He crawls for half an hour through the darkening undergrowth before a wolf with a small hatchet sticking out of its head, its face a mess of blood, rips into his neck and tears the life out of him. Time passes. More babies are born. Bones turn to sand and sand turns to glass. Glass is sharp and cuts into you, and more flesh, and more blood spilled, and more, and more, and more, always more, never stopping, never listening, and not considering, and not being begged. It is a terrible, terrible thing, this relentless, growing, urgent violence that is coming and coming and coming always. Feel it now jamming its way into your ears like nails breaking on a blackboard. On January 24th 1831, a full moon shines brightly and catches the light on the bathroom mirror. Arthur Gill is shaving and nicks himself with the razorblade. The image of a woman is illuminated by the moonlight. No, it is the image of a woman. No, it is the image of his mother. No, it is the image of something that does not have an image. The razorblade moves slowly across both of his eyeballs, lids peeled back in a mask of horror, struggling still to truly see what they are seeing and make sense of themselves as they split and burst onto the glass. The glass reflects everything. A man, blinded, falls to his knees and a hand is laid gently//onto/his hea/////d //////hea//d//////////////////////h/////e/e//gl////as////t///t////////////////////////////////////////////////g/////////////////la//////////////////////////////////////////////////////t/////////t//h/the glass reflects everything. Just look. Look, there you are. You are in the bathroom. The lights are off and it is pitch dark. You are staring into the mirror and when you come to realise this you scream at your own gaping face and leap backwards.
You really ought to get a grip on yourself if you are going to make it out of this one alive.
Or maybe you just want to end it already?
You know, this is the kind that if you die in it, you die in real life. That is assuming it is a dream at all.
That was a funny joke. That joke earlier about Emmeline Waverley.
Who is Emmeline Waverley? you say out loud to the darkness. But you don’t really want to know. You want to get out of this house. Please, God, let me get out of this house. Please, God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for everything that I’ve done, I’m so sorry that I deserve it, but please just be merciful, please be a merciful God this time, please please oh Jesus I can’t take not knowing who I am or if I’m dreaming and if I’m dreaming let me die in the dream, and let this not be the kind that if you die in it, you die in real life or or or is this it is this hell is this the afterlife and I already died did I die already did I kill myself maybe and now here is punishment for the ultimate sin oh lord I threw my life away I threw it away like I wanted to come here because I’ve always wanted to be here and I’ve always wanted to know who Emmeline Waverley is and what’s so funny about it, I’ve always been here. THERE IS NO GOD!!!!!! you scream it this time at the top of your lungs, so hard it tears its way out of your throat like a hungry wolf has pulled it out of you in its jaws and you fall through the bathroom door and stagger into the hallway with a bloody grunt.
/Now here are the facts/
/Your time is coming, and you simply cannot be late for your appointment/
/It is an incredibly important albeit impromptu appointment and your absence would be absurdly inappropriate/
/It is absolutely vital for you to apprehend that if you miss this appointment then it will be worse than you can imagine/
/Go on, try to imagine it/
/Go on/
/Yes, imagine it
/I’ll wait/
/Imagine the worst thing that you can manage to imagine/
/The worst face you can imagine,/
/or the worst taste,/
/or the worst feeling,/
/what is the worst hand that could touch your skin,/
/and how would it make you feel to be touched by that hand,/
/to feel its fingers brush your neck?/
/Well, look, it will be even worse than that, if you miss your appoi/ntment/y///o////u/r appoint//me/nt////////////////////n///t////t///////h/////////////////////////////////////////////////////the////////////////////////////////////////h////t///
/
//
The school bus pulled up by the front gates, and out of the window the stupid girl got her first look at the house. The girl, who was a stupid little girl, thought that the house was ugly. “That’s an ugly house,” she yapped, like a little dog. That’s how she said everything, that’s how every sound that came out of her mouth sounded to everyone else: like a yapping dog. She tottered off the school bus with the rest of the children and took in the fresh air and took in the facade of the house properly for the first time. It jutted out wrongly like a thorn in the neighbourhood. There was blackness all in it and throughout it. The stupid girl shivered. “We’re going in there?” she yipped. The teacher, who did not like her, ignored her and ushered the children all over to him. “This is the witch house,” he said clearly. “I hope you’ve all remembered your tickets.” The stupid girl reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her ticket. It was a little crumpled so she straightened it out and then displayed it proudly. The other children produced their tickets too. “Good,” said the teacher. “Let’s all go inside. Everyone take your partner’s hand and stay together. If you get separated, meet back here at this sign.” He pointed to the sign which said The Waverley House Memorial Museum. The children all went inside the house holding hands in a line. The stupid girl didn’t have a partner because nobody wanted to hold her hand, so she plodded along at the end of the line. The museum guide led the children through all the rooms in the house. The house had many rooms. The first room they came to was the kitchen where the maids had lived and slept. “This is the kitchen,” said the guide. The second room they came to was the bedroom where the people who had lived in the house had spent a lot of their time. “This is the bedroom,” said the guide. The third room they came to was the bathroom where there had once been a nasty accident. A man had been shaving and had taken the razorblade and cut his eyeballs open. “All the wood in this house is very old. It comes from the mountains,” explained the guide. In the next room, the stupid girl was bored and was not listening to the guide. This room was the drawing room. “Can anyone tell me why they call it the drawing room?” asked the guide. But none of the children knew why. After nobody answered, the guide laughed. “This is the room where Emmeline Waverley was drawn and quartered. They tied both of her hands to a horse’s tail and drove it all the way around the house, so her feet and legs were all cut up and splintered by the wood. Then they dragged her over here, and began to cut out all of her organs, and finally they sawed her into four quarters. That means that they sawed off her right arm, and then her left arm, and then her right leg, and then her left leg, and then lastly they sawed off her head,” said the guide. “Excuse me for a moment,” said the teacher, and then he ran out of the room and vomited into a plant pot. But the stupid girl was not listening. She was staring into the tall mirror at the end of the corridor with a vacant expression on her face like she had been hypnotised. Very slowly, the girl walked all the way down the corridor and approached the mirror, and none of the others noticed her leaving. Looking back at her from the mirror was a woman. But she didn’t look like a witch at all, the stupid girl thought. Not like an ugly witch at all. In fact, she was easily the most beautiful woman the girl had ever seen. She was holding out her hand, so white it glowed. Like an angel. The girl took a step forward and held onto the woman’s hand. She entered the mirror – and she was gone.
The glass reflects everything. You stare into the glass of the grandfather clock. The clock strikes twelve. It is time for your appointment. Numbly, you make your way down the staircase, shuffling on your hands and knees. Your eyes do not seem to be working properly, but you have no need for them. There are no images for them to take in anymore.
/It is not important that your eyes do not work/
/What is important is that it is time for your appointment/
The floorboards are so solid and yet you drag yourself so slowly because every new movement is a new splinter under your fingernails and a dozen more in your shredded knees. Please lord, please, you whisper, I am sorry. I just want the pain to end. I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done. There must be something that you can do to help me. Anything. Please. Please. Please. Make it end. Please make it end. Figures in black robes dance in and out of view. At the end of the corridor is a gaping, open mouth. Black mould lines everything. Darkness hurts your eyes, which sting like acid from the tears. How long have you been crying for? How long have you been here? When does it end? When do you wake up? You are on a track, like a small train. The track takes you puffing all the way around the house. The kitchen, the maids’ rooms, the bedrooms, and the secret passages and you are taken all the way into the house’s veins, in between the walls and into the wood and into the cells of the wood. The wolves howl and the lumberjacks wail in agony. The walls, dark with centuries of mould and dust and filth and rage close in tight all around you. Eventually they crush you and you crack and splat like so many glass slides under a microscope.
A voice breathes coolly against your crushed ear.
Destruction, pain, and suffering will never end.
They will be the end of you.
They were the end of me.
Mother Pandora smiles and places a gentle hand on your head. You are out of the house. You are out of the house.
You are free.
