GrUeBERfest 09 R3 - Beyond Reflection (541 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.82 on 25 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by JoeyG (View user info) at 2009-10-22 18:56:24 EDT
Let's all just take some time to reflect a little.
It's only when you look back at your life, that you figure out what it was really all about.
It's only when you really get time to reflect upon the actions and choices you've made upon the long, dusty highway that takes you to where you are now, that everything seems to make sense.
A left turn here, a right turn there, a whole shit load of wrong turns everywhere else.
You travel onwards, and make your decisions wildly as you go, blinded by the thinly veiled illusion that drapes itself around us all, tells you that you're making all the right choices, taking all the right roads....
Yeah, it all seems right at the time. Except.....you still seem to end up in bad places, don't you? No matter how hard you try, every little back alley path you decide to wander down always comes out somewhere darker than where you were before. You can turn and run, like we all do from time to time, but when you're already lost, all your decisions just take you further into the black, don't they?
You run, you stumble occasionally, and every now and again you fall smack down face-first into the gutter, and when you pull yourself up to look around, you're surrounded by darkness so thick you can't even see the clouded fog that you know is pouring forth from every exhalation, because the chill is so numb that icicles are forming in your mouth and mind like crystal daggers.
These are the moments you remember, when you really reflect.
The pleasant times are still there, lurking at the back. Golden spots of comfort that spiral slowly around and down, before blowing away with the slightest breeze, really nothing more than a waning haze of fractured images which you cling to with all your heart.
You cling to them, because it's the bad times and bad places that really illuminate your mind in sickly-sweet yellow shades of saffron and sorrow. It's the nastiness and horrors and terrors that really hammer a stake in your brain, settling their stained claws and claims on your long-term memories.
Sometimes, it's just the little things, but most of the time, it's not just the little things, is it? It's the big things.
The really big things. The really fucking big, black things that are pinned to your frontal lobe like inky, neon signs hanging from a picture rail. Those neon signs that pulse away, day in, day out, causing your head to ache and throb.
Those signs flicker every time you look in the mirror, and over time, you the see cracks begin to form, and poison waste begins to seep slowly down the sides of the filthy tubes.
You can't change the past, and you sure as hell won't change those signs that beat away at your inner skull, like a velvet night-time sky with an ancient ogre's club.
And sooner or later, those cracks begin to show on you.
I made my choices, took my roads, and I've got my own black signs hanging in my mental gallery, like a museum offering up free-entry for anyone sick enough to take a peek.
Don't be shy, take my hand. Let's take a trip down memory lane. After all, when all other routes are closed, where else is there to go, but back?
- - - - - - -
My Father killed my Mother when I was fourteen years old, after years of ritual abuse that began the day I was born. The gnarled mess that had slid forth from my Mother's womb that day was not the bouncing baby boy my Father had longed for, but instead a disfigured 3lb girl with one eye, a harelip, and hands that resembled a dead bird's claws.
I wasn't to find this out until later in life, but the single eye in the centre of my forehead was a rare condition called Cyclopia. A genetic defect causes the suppression of the growth in one eye, because other facial features, usually the nasal cavity had prevented it from developing.
My hands? Well, I had somehow managed to get myself an acute case of arthritis in the womb, at the ripe old age of minus three months. It was my fault, I should have skipped all the typing and rock climbing classes when I was a foetus.
My tiny hands were bunched into tomb-like fists, and my fingers were swollen, filled with some monstrous disease that coursed through my new-born veins like concrete through a slew-pipe.
As for the harelip, that ugly valley that rose up from my top lip and seemed to disappear up inside my nose....well, that was just bad luck.
"It happens", one doctor had said.
"It's a miracle she's alive!" proclaimed another.
For sure, I was a real miracle baby. One in a million, me. Aw, look, aint she a cutie....
To say that my Father killed my Mother was kind of like saying that Little Boy made a bit of a mess in downtown Hiroshima.
After a screaming contest that had lasted a little over two hours, I was hiding under the couch when he seized her by the throat and slammed her against the mantelpiece above the roaring open fireplace, smashing her head against the blown-up picture-perfect photo of their wedding day, a picture that was oh-so perfect because I hadn't been around back then.
I peeked out from under the pelmet of the sofa and saw the glass shatter and splinter. I watched as delicate random shards pierced my Mother's scalp, and my single eye seemed to draw towards the fine mist and spatter of blood that fanned out across the frame, reflected and refracted in a million pieces of a slice of time that had long since passed.
Then, he dropped my semi-conscious Mother to the floor and turned her over, face down. He grabbed the nape of her neck, and thrust her forward, head first into the flames that rose from the hearth, and pressed her face into the scarlet coals that glowed at the base of the fire.
Slow motion kicked in, and the shouts and shrieks drew out in deliberate drowning vowels, my Mother's screams piercing through the room like a kettle blowing steam. Her arms and legs thrashed up and down, but my Father, a large man, held her firm until the kicking ceased.
He stood up, and hauled her body to a standing position. Her head was still afire, but through the russet and primrose licks of flame, I could see the blackened, charcoal features of her face, still there, staring at me, accusing.
This is all your fault, all your fault, all your fucking goddam fault, you filthy little hellwhore, you distgusting little freak, why did you have to come along and ruin my -
A piece of flesh began to slowly drip down her face, like wax melting under high temperature. It drizzled across her mouth, the skin and fat smearing across her lips, sticking them together, finally stopping the words which were somehow coming out of her from another dimension. The charred and molten mess finally dribbled down her chin, and fell to the floor, a tear-drop of human lava.
He dropped her to the floor then, and began stamping at the flames, like a hillbilly putting out the remains of camp fire. His booted heel thundered up and down against her skull, each stomp punctuated with cracks of bone, and thick wet sounds that made me think of a tennis racquet slapping into a pile of shit.
By the time he was done, my Mother's head was a thickened mass of blood and brain and bone, melted to the cheap thin pile carpet. Beneath her neck, a perfect slender body still remained, untouched by recent events.
When all the flames were gone, and Daddy had stopped with the hopscotch dance, the burning stench of hog fat filled the room, a spicy aroma of death and pork and fear.
"Well, well, my little munchkin. I can see your head pokin' out from under there. Take a real good look at your mumma now. Take a long, hard look at that smokin' mess that used to be her head. Still prettier than you though, aint she, even with her brain all mushed into the rug like that. HAW!
You can bury your ugly ass away under there all you want. I'm a patient man, well, at least I was until your gruesome face came on the scene.
C'mon, come on out here. Come and give Mummy a kiss goodnight."
He hoisted my dead Mother up by her waist, and used his free hand to work her jaw, like a puppet.
"HEY BABY!!" HOW YOU DOING, MY WITTLE HUNNY-BUN? IS DADDY TREATING YOU OK? HE IS?!!?!?!! THATS GREAT NEWS, BABY, KISS ME QUICK, LOVE YOU LOADS, B'BYE!".
I squirmed my way out from underneath the sofa, and ran for the stairs. A venomous sound of laughter followed me, as I raced up the thirteen steps and across the landing, into the bathroom, bolting the door behind me.
"Well, you can keep your deformed face out of mine f'now. I'm gonna take myself a hit of this Scotch, but I'll still be right here, baby, when you see some sense and apologise."
These words echoed and tumbled in my mind, like a street hustler trying to perform a back flip against the Hoover dam.
Tucked inside the bathroom, I regained some form of sense, and for the first time in years, I stared into the mirror, and saw my reflection.
- - - - - - -
Nothing on Earth could atone for the mangled mash of flesh that comprised the image reflected in that cold, unforgiving slab of glass.
My single eye rolled, and an outward breath pushed a mist toward the mirror.
I stared deep into the eye that wasn't quite mine, and through the veneer of the glass, my Mother's arms rippled through the façade of reflection, placing a claw hammer in my hands.
You know what to do........
- - - - - - -
I gently slid the bolt from the bathroom lock, and crept downstairs to where my Father slept in his chair.
My desecrated Mother was still lying on the floor, and the snores coming from my Father were akin to the wails I had heard earlier that night.
I raised the hammer, claws facing front, and whipped an over-arm blow to the centre of his face.
There was a noise like frosted icing being crackled as the metal forks gouged a set of rugged tracks across the bridge of his nose. Another flaying whip sent the hammer's claws straight into his right eyeball, and when it sunk in deep, I pulled with all my strength and a swift withdrawal left a roving optic lump dangling from the end of the hammer.
I flicked the eye to one side, before really going to work.
Smashing, thwacking, denting, pushing-the-hammer-in-and-twisting.
Enjoying.
- - - - - - -
My very nature deems that I am single minded. I'll never change that, would never want to change it.
A deep, dark sign points the way. It points in whichever direction I look.
Especially when I look into the mirror. When I reflect.
A single eye, focused on a wide, bright spectrum of reality.
I see you.
User Reviews
Submitted by LoooseSprocket (user info) at 2009-10-29 13:38:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by GroundHorse (user info) at 2009-10-26 16:48:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-10-24 15:30:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
There were some good lines in this. I'm bummed we won't be seeing another one from you.
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2009-10-24 12:05:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2009-10-23 18:29:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"A left turn here, a right turn there, a whole shit load of wrong turns everywhere else."
~~~~~~
So true methinks.
Submitted by linguafranca (user info) at 2009-10-23 17:53:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2009-10-23 17:39:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Dialogue?
There was no dialogue.
There were no characters who responded to a verbal stimuli.
I'd be very grateful if you could point out the dialogue, if only because it'll help me plan future stories.
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Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-10-23 17:52:26 BST (#)
Ranking: 0
The dialogue was really forced
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2009-10-23 16:49:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by paxilliona (user info) at 2009-10-23 13:15:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-10-23 12:55:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
I read it again, just to make sure.
"I've seen better (-1)" applies here.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-10-23 12:52:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I didn't think this was that good.
The dialogue was really forced - it seems like you took pieces from different posts and strung them together.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2009-10-23 09:17:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I didn't read this but it appears as though that *thing* has a pussy on its forehead.
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2009-10-23 08:10:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
WOW....
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2009-10-23 03:51:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
March 6th 3pm
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2009-10-23 02:32:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2009-10-23 01:43:52 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was amazing. The way you wrote this, I could visualize it perfectly.
Unrelated: I talked a bit about Canada as a reply to you on my post, but if you have any questions about life/work/fun anything in general here you can def drop me an email: duckylucky2000.at.hotmail.com
Again, fabulous post. Did you write it around the picture?
-------------
I was about half way through writing this before I got a mental block, and decided I needed some visual stimulation.
The pic certainly helped my finish what I had started.
This is just a quick pit stop while I drink my coffee before heading off to work, but keep an eye on your inbox, I'll drop you a mail later on today, I have a whole bunch of questions :)
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-10-23 01:49:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck.
Submitted by peckerhead (user info) at 2009-10-22 21:43:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
a tragedy to say the least; Nature, Nurture... don't much matter. the child had no chance whatsoever. Terribly well written.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2009-10-22 21:28:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2009-10-22 21:03:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
and happy 100th post :)
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2009-10-22 20:43:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was amazing. The way you wrote this, I could visualize it perfectly.
Unrelated: I talked a bit about Canada as a reply to you on my post, but if you have any questions about life/work/fun anything in general here you can def drop me an email: duckylucky2000.at.hotmail.com
Again, fabulous post. Did you write it around the picture?
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2009-10-22 19:45:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
To every contestant that has taken part in this bloody mess....
I salute you.
I've been in a bunch of Uber contests, but the tales that have been spun thanks to Skrap's diligence have been awesome.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-10-22 19:44:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
A+ work here.
Submitted by TuTs (user info) at 2009-10-22 19:39:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Except she would have little or no depth perception.
Anyway, JoeyG for President!
Now I have to start my work..... =(
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-10-22 19:34:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
exceedingly well written, joey. good luck
Submitted by willartstorg (user info) at 2009-10-22 19:33:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome!!!
Eye liked this.