Linguistic Formality.

Did the Ghost take your Breath Away?

My carcass lay there bleeding, all the life slowly oozing out of the ravines of the Katana blades buried deep inside my flesh. I hadn’t gone out without a fight; he had paid. Blood was clotted around his knees, where I had shot him. But I guess blades won over bullets. As the dust below me was painted over with the crimson of satan, the ground began to shake. But somehow, the other guy was still on his feet, although struggling with his new broken leg. Then, perhaps an apparition, came the man with the sickle. I could see him, his face, and yet, I couldn’t make out a single detail. It was right there staring at me with those eyes of his, and yet I couldn’t get myself to believe he had any. The words came out of his mouth, and I could make sense, and yet, I couldn’t define his voice. I just didn’t feel him there, although he was.

For all I could say, it had a deep, or brittle, or raspy voice all at the same time. It was a cacophony I could understand, and it never ceases to amaze me how something that bizarre occurred, how I was suddenly able to decipher the words of a million women and children screaming as I ended their lives, as the bombs dropped. As the Earth shook below them just like it shook beneath me at this very moment in time. I felt like I was floating, and yet, I felt the weight of my body, heaving the vests and armor, the grenades and bullets. I, the Merchant of Death, was meeting my own master. I didn’t flinch, and yet my whole body seemed to be wrapped in a seizure of ecstasy. I was mortal and immortal at the same time, feeling and dead at the same time. It didn’t make sense, but it didn’t have to. Things like this had never been made for the human mind to make sense of. Our brains could melt out of our ears and noses, our mouths screaming and shut at the same time, our whole body thinking while the brain didn’t exist anymore. We still won’t be able to understand the feeling. We were just too powerless against the master.

And so, as the sickle flew through the air, I suddenly felt acceptance. But perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. The weapon stopped above my eye, as if a layer of protection protected me from this infidel being, this existence of doom and dread. I could feel the cold aura of the metal, the smell of rotting flesh and what not emitting from the sickle’s blade. And yet, I was not breathing. The reaper tried again, swung his glorious device at me, and I pleaded for it. But it still stuck there, the same place, like held by someone. But who could he be, who dared go up against El Muerte himself? As I strained to look at perhaps who didn’t want me to be at peace, I saw myself, and then I realized the feeling of strain in my arms. It didn’t startle me even though it was supposed to.

“I know you’re trying to make sense, but you can’t”, said me.

“I know that. But what do you want?”, I asked myself.

The reaper rasped in words I couldn’t understand, and yet my word responded as if it made sense of every single sound death made. It was maddening.

For what I could only say was a reply to the reaper, my mouth uttered the words, “No it isn’t. Isn’t meant to be, I cannot come with you.”

I screamed in agitation, I asked to the air why I couldn’t. Why I couldn’t die yet and be punished for my deeds, for all the Fathers I had tortured and executed without remorse, for all the unknown people I had riddled with bullets without question. For all I had done to the world by orders of who I thought lead me.

My apparition explained, in words I couldn’t hear. And yet I felt the meaning.

“You don't have the reigns, you don’t have a purpose. You were a dead person even when you were living. And a dead person cannot die. You are already dead, the sickle won’t go past the veil of death that surrounds you. And those who are already dead but cannot make it to the other side, roam the Earth in the search of purpose, in search of meaning, and yet will always exist. For eternity. You are doomed. You will never not exist. You will keep existing in everything everywhere, for infinity, as you search for the end in vain attempts. You won’t find it. You’re dead. You cannot die.”

With those words, I suddenly saw the world around me, as though nothing had happened, the reaper, me apparition, nothing. I saw the wounds, I saw the blood. I saw everything. I watched them bury me, I could see everything. I screamed at them, told them I’m not dead. But nobody seemed to notice. My mother and sisters cried above my grave, while I yelled at them to take me out of this rot, that I wanted to go home. They wouldn’t take it. They just cried there and wailed, while I just wanted to go there and tell them it was okay. I tried to move, and suddenly broke loose. I ran over the rocks, over the pedestal. I ran towards them and they saw me. But they couldn’t see me. I had come out of the body, an apparition and nothing, and the people couldn’t see me. I tried to go back in, into the body. But I just sat there, above it, and couldn’t fuse back. I looked at my hands, but saw nothing. I screamed into the night, anguish that could have ringed the core of the Earth. Yet, no one heard me. I was stuck in existence, I was stuck in eternity.

Requiem for the Writer in Me (Language Fest)

I haven’t written in a while. I used to love writing - however cheesy the content might be. When I look back, I look back at the feeling of the atmosphere in the room. The afternoon haze, the breeze that shook the fan and gave me useless paranoia. The silence when half of my neighbors were napping. Me, a 7 year old kid, with a pencil in the hand, and whatever book I had found inside the drawer that day. Back then it was just a peaceful activity - I didn’t read too much into it. Then I grew up. I started becoming a generic human who started caring and thinking about stuff. I miss that carefree kid, who didn’t know the actual size of the universe. Who didn’t know how small and futile he was. Now there’s a million things in my head, even when I am just an inconsequential teenager. I still have a couple of people looking for me to do things, people I have to answer to. The problem isn’t with the fact that I have responsibilities - no 7 year old kid knows he is going to have responsibilities. He doesn’t think that far. The problem is, that I miss that person so much. The person who at least tried having fun, who didn’t hesitate from doing awkward and stupid things and regretting the lack of fun in life. For a lot of time, all I have focused on is my plan for the future, my career and all that. Yet, I blamed myself for not having a life - not making an effort. So for me, writing isn’t just an outlet for ideas. It isn’t even an outlet for my feelings - it is my escape to feel stuff I want to. My writing style heavily relies on creating a picture by describing the feeling and atmosphere. The sensory memories, the euphoria or the sadness. However hard I try though, stuff on my mind cannot be just shunned now. I am constantly thinking about something or the other, and usually it is about reality itself. The disappointment, the futility, the overwhelming infinity. That small, chubby artist who wrote gibberish on Thursday afternoons is long dead - he isn’t coming back. I would be in denial if I expected him to. And so, I can only hope for the repose of that soul, that cheap pencil that hurt my fingers. That eraser that rubbed off more than it was supposed to, that sharpener that broke my pencil more times than it mended it. That table and chair that were uncomfortable as hell and yet provided a certain comfort when I used them. Sitting in storage right now, the spirits’ long escaped from them. I wouldn’t feel that feeling ever again, even if I sat on that chair and table back again. I wouldn’t fit, but still.

I can only hope that that soul rests, whether in hell, purgatory, or in heaven. Forever in peace with it’s love of silence, of freedom, and sunshine. With it's love of writing. Rest In Peace, my past.