Just one Step to the Left of Righteousness
Start.
Nothingness.
Silence.
Drip….
So slow at first. Almost, non existent.
Drip
drip..
Hmm, no, there’s something.
Drip
drip
drip.
More steady now. Probably no big deal though. Pay it no mind.
Knowing.
Head bowed. Stiff like a fossil.
The rest of the body numb; an empty vessel.
Like air itself.
Drip drip
Drip
Space.
That relentless dripping though it’s really all he hears.
No
No no
No no no
Now it rings
like.
Like a slight trickle. Pit patting down
crystalline stone. Small yes,
corrosive all the same.
In fact, it dribbles
a little stronger
each second.
Drip
Drip drip
Drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip
Drip drip
Drip
Time.
However long a second actually is.
How long had it been since the first drip?
Could’ve been days; or
just as easily minutes.
Could he even remember the first drip? Try as he might, he cannot pin it down.
His perception was exactly backward.
Pird
Pird Pird
Pird pird pird
Pird Pird Pird Pird
Pird Pird Pird
Pird Pird
Pird
How did it start?
In what time was the initial fracture, Was it all in his mind?
Space.
No, definitely not.
He had heard it grow.
Grow from a single drip,
to a small steady stream.
He knows it.
Hadn’t he? No.. no he hadn’t.
Or had he?
Knowing.
But damn it! When did it start?
Or how?
No. when?
The when is the most important.
No, how.
Or is it;
Knowhow?
Wait.
Where was he?
Of course it’s real. He could feel the cold damp stone beneath his feet.
The air was thick.
Yet, no breath to be had.
Oh!
He could feel his feet.
That is something at least.
So it has to be real. doesn’t it?
He hears it!
Not that water.
No.
A voice.
Not his, but hers.
Knowing.
It’s not real she explains. It’s in your head.
Confusion.
Was she right?
Who was she?
Where
Was she?
Space.
Maybe none of this is real.
A nightmare.
Oh yes.
For the first time in his existence he actually prayed for a nightmare.
Existence.
Knowing.
What even is existence? he wonders.
Merely the “fact or fiction”summations of memories
bleeding into the
present?
Time.
The dripping seemingly surged into a timely jet.
(Listening to the trickles of water on stone)
She had said it was fake,
but it feels so real.
It feels?
Feeling.
Or is it Fleeing.
fleeting.
Fleeting feelings fleeing.
A flicker.
Tricks.
This is the first time he realized that he couldn’t actually see.
Time.
Just then the water from “nowhere,” gushed
like a stream and washed over him
from crown to hove; not too cold,
but definitely not comfortable.
It was taunting him.
Would he be trapped?
like this ?
would this be the end?
He couldn’t see his way out.
In fact, He couldn’t see anything.
The stream began to thicken; panic set in.
Knowing.
How long?
How long until he drown?
Time.
To his shock he could still breathe, but how?
The water was like a wall around him.
he could feel it hitting him.
Not on his skin. No,
somehow, inside of him.
It; filled him? From inside himself.
He started to feel so heavy. Logged.
So heavy.
He knew he had to stay standing.
It was the only hope he had of surviving this incredible, and apparently hopeless predicament. Waterlogged now.
So heavy.
The water hit even harder now;
still filling his insides, from his soul.
He thought; any second now the water must spill out of his skin.
he couldn’t contain it any longer.
Not a single tick longer.
He would simply burst from the inside
out.
Now, for the first time after finding himself in the dark cavern;
just as the water begins to spill from his eyes;
his mouth was forced open with the rage of five waterfalls.
No water came out.
In its stead surged forth a scream,
rather, a shriek.
Non human,
that of a creature.
Totality of fear and sorrow.
Wrapped up like a snake.
Just then, his eyes shot wide open!
He saw his reflection in the rampaging
walls of water.
Was that really him?
It couldn’t be.
Visions flashed like a strobe,
and stuttered as the water did.
Blinking in and out of reality.
Space.
Space time.
It was him!
All except.. the eyes.
They shown of a grey dense stone.
Those were not his eyes.
Complete pandemonium enveloped him. Just like the stonewalls that he’d never seen, but knew held him.
Unlike the warm loving arms of an embrace, more like a song reaching its crescendo.
Sounds crashing like a forest ablaze with threshing tongues of fire.
Any second it would reach its peak.
The build up was unbearable.
Time.
That terrible wish.
He wished for nothing more but the end of him.
To Sever the very love and light that had risen him up so high.
Twas his own personal hell he longed for.
So it was given.
Then something shown through the tyrannical waves.
A woman.
definitely was his at one time, and he was to her.
Defiantly, clearly not definite.
What was he to her?
He must look so pitiful and helpless now.
Like a wayward mutt that no one could afford the time.
As she looked into his eyes; the water inside of him slowed and grew cold.
He knew she couldn’t see him there.
How could she?
He couldn’t even recognize himself in this place.
Knowing.
He looked to her in that moment.
Drinking in her presence;
and for the second time he sucked in a breath.
Then only her back was shown to him.
Time.
The water has finally clogged every possible outlet.
There was no escaping this watered down creation of self loathing.
Space.
He slammed his eyes shut.
He couldn’t bear looking at himself like this.
He wasn’t meant to be this pitiful mutt.
He was supposed to be stronger than the
stone around him.
So he was.
He failed to consider however; that even stone falls away.
Under the right conditions.
Drip
Drip drip
Drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip
Knowing Space Time Time Knowing Space
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip
Drip drip
Drip
Knowing.
Space.
Time.
Silence.
Nothingness.
End.