04-25-2025, 09:41 AM
The Worm
Onlookers with satisfied expressions tossed coins into the bloodied courtyard lit by torchlight. In the center, chained to a slab of stone, was a shivering body, skin torn to shreds. The human was also stripped of his name. Castrated. Left in a dark hole with faces etched in the stone for a time unknown to the human. Time was estranged in the bearing of its torture. It was a slow ticking that his past self could not comprehend.
Another lash of the whip, then a ripping. It compelled sound from the throat. Everyone was watching, whoever they were or might as well have been. Passive observers in the family. Light was fleeting on the corners.
He carried a heavy object of wood shaped like a cross. The distance was long in whatever direction they were traveling, the shackles on his ankles tugging and jerking with the movements of brothers. A few times the human's knees buckled under the weight and there was laughter in the crowd when he fell. Tola they were shouting. Someone in the military fatigues for a humid land rushed over to hoist him back to his feet. The soldier remained with him the rest of the way.
The streets were festive with drumming and bells. A rhythm was measured in perfect time with the human's heartbeat. Strange horns whirled through the air. The human thought he heard the roaring of lions. Most areas were rank with some drunk's urine. The fragrances that did cut through: baking bread, musk of sweat and perfume, candied dates being peddled. People were wearing venetian masks.
The human felt vindication through pain of any harm he might have caused as a preacher and politician. His presence was being demanded in blood leaving no room for doubt. It was difficult to think over the screaming of flesh exposed. His ears were hot and dripping with blood. Blood and sweat burned in his vision. Thick and muggy was the air that blood flees the body for in savage runnels. Sin revealed itself in the flames within to be a joke told by the devil. Bitterness welled in the human and surfaced in laughter, or the mockery of laughter. The crowd laughed at the human, and the human at the crowd.
There was a dull thud the human recalled that could have been none other than the cross he bore when he collapsed for the final time. He roused from his lapse in consciousness, facing the limestone teeth of the high cave ceiling jutting out of shadow and coruscating in firelight.
The soldier's eyes contained in their darkness a fathomless hunger for killing and were untouched by his toothy grin. The tip of a nail about one inch thick was centered in the human's palm, undefiled yet by agony. The soldier removed the nail and readjusted the human on the cross with the help of two other soldiers. They repeated the process a couple more times in between arguments that sounded like a blend of Hebrew and Arabic. The human watched the shadows dance above him as if they were possessed by the bodies of the survivors aboveground who were busy with survival. The human was a creature fallen from an overlooked heaven. He will not make that mistake in his next dream. Every speck will be cataloged and appreciated.
One strike of the soldier's hammer and a nail was driven through his palm and the wood barely caught it. He took thick air into his lungs. He tasted iron. He heard more coins clatter onto the cave floor and murmurs. Some voices were familiar.
Another strike of the hammer. Another, and another. His right arm was pulled to achieve the symmetry of his cross, tearing the pierced flesh of his left palm. The human bit his tongue. Any word now uttered by the human would be truer than any sermon he had delivered once as Reverend Delaney.
Erected before a great pyre with gatherers below facing the flames with him, the former man of the cloth cackled in the breath he was allowed with the torso slumped in its position.
A figure ahead of the crowd on a mound of limestone addressed the inferno or something beyond in a voice that thundered off the cavern walls. He had raised in one arm the arm of another figure beside him. At Delaney's feet: his estranged and inbred family, collecting blood in wooden bowls. Curiosity in the wideness of their eyes. The figure addressed the fire and the crowd cheered with a fervor that the reverend recognized in the sermons he used to deliver in another life.
Out and out Delaney's mind flickered, seeing the faces of the family he loathed admitting was his own in the crowd as they now faced him. His father and the profanity of his touch and the punishments. His siblings and their intelligence that he regarded as a living insult to his own. He remembered his mother's impassioned lessons about the paradise that follows after Parousia and his eyes misted over when he saw her there too. Everyone stood between him and the great fire. They regarded Delaney in a reverent silence made loud by the crackling pyre. Most of them grinned under their masks. The two figures stood on the mound before the fire facing him too. The reverend could make out the face of the figure whose arm was being raised. He tried to push himself up on the heels of his nailed feet to hold out his chest for some air and adjust his sight.
In the distance stood the reverend's twin, the silver eyes and blonde hair unmistakable with the sole difference being in the twin's healthier appearance. He'd never met the person. A laugh escaped his throat sounding more like a whimper.
And beyond the bonfire a colossus of a face, somewhat man. Somewhat serpentine in the nose. Its glazed-over eyes almost disappeared high into the cave's shadow and beheld some dream that the reverend felt he could recall his part in. Glittering white coronas that were the last and the first light ringed both pupils. The darkness of the earth inching from the periphery had come to claim its bloodied weight. Worldly color drained into where the radiating coronas became one. Sound was muffled as if he'd been submerged underwater, and the water had been long stagnant. He felt small and warm. He felt protected.
There were voices above.
Onlookers with satisfied expressions tossed coins into the bloodied courtyard lit by torchlight. In the center, chained to a slab of stone, was a shivering body, skin torn to shreds. The human was also stripped of his name. Castrated. Left in a dark hole with faces etched in the stone for a time unknown to the human. Time was estranged in the bearing of its torture. It was a slow ticking that his past self could not comprehend.
Another lash of the whip, then a ripping. It compelled sound from the throat. Everyone was watching, whoever they were or might as well have been. Passive observers in the family. Light was fleeting on the corners.
He carried a heavy object of wood shaped like a cross. The distance was long in whatever direction they were traveling, the shackles on his ankles tugging and jerking with the movements of brothers. A few times the human's knees buckled under the weight and there was laughter in the crowd when he fell. Tola they were shouting. Someone in the military fatigues for a humid land rushed over to hoist him back to his feet. The soldier remained with him the rest of the way.
The streets were festive with drumming and bells. A rhythm was measured in perfect time with the human's heartbeat. Strange horns whirled through the air. The human thought he heard the roaring of lions. Most areas were rank with some drunk's urine. The fragrances that did cut through: baking bread, musk of sweat and perfume, candied dates being peddled. People were wearing venetian masks.
The human felt vindication through pain of any harm he might have caused as a preacher and politician. His presence was being demanded in blood leaving no room for doubt. It was difficult to think over the screaming of flesh exposed. His ears were hot and dripping with blood. Blood and sweat burned in his vision. Thick and muggy was the air that blood flees the body for in savage runnels. Sin revealed itself in the flames within to be a joke told by the devil. Bitterness welled in the human and surfaced in laughter, or the mockery of laughter. The crowd laughed at the human, and the human at the crowd.
There was a dull thud the human recalled that could have been none other than the cross he bore when he collapsed for the final time. He roused from his lapse in consciousness, facing the limestone teeth of the high cave ceiling jutting out of shadow and coruscating in firelight.
The soldier's eyes contained in their darkness a fathomless hunger for killing and were untouched by his toothy grin. The tip of a nail about one inch thick was centered in the human's palm, undefiled yet by agony. The soldier removed the nail and readjusted the human on the cross with the help of two other soldiers. They repeated the process a couple more times in between arguments that sounded like a blend of Hebrew and Arabic. The human watched the shadows dance above him as if they were possessed by the bodies of the survivors aboveground who were busy with survival. The human was a creature fallen from an overlooked heaven. He will not make that mistake in his next dream. Every speck will be cataloged and appreciated.
One strike of the soldier's hammer and a nail was driven through his palm and the wood barely caught it. He took thick air into his lungs. He tasted iron. He heard more coins clatter onto the cave floor and murmurs. Some voices were familiar.
Another strike of the hammer. Another, and another. His right arm was pulled to achieve the symmetry of his cross, tearing the pierced flesh of his left palm. The human bit his tongue. Any word now uttered by the human would be truer than any sermon he had delivered once as Reverend Delaney.
Erected before a great pyre with gatherers below facing the flames with him, the former man of the cloth cackled in the breath he was allowed with the torso slumped in its position.
A figure ahead of the crowd on a mound of limestone addressed the inferno or something beyond in a voice that thundered off the cavern walls. He had raised in one arm the arm of another figure beside him. At Delaney's feet: his estranged and inbred family, collecting blood in wooden bowls. Curiosity in the wideness of their eyes. The figure addressed the fire and the crowd cheered with a fervor that the reverend recognized in the sermons he used to deliver in another life.
Out and out Delaney's mind flickered, seeing the faces of the family he loathed admitting was his own in the crowd as they now faced him. His father and the profanity of his touch and the punishments. His siblings and their intelligence that he regarded as a living insult to his own. He remembered his mother's impassioned lessons about the paradise that follows after Parousia and his eyes misted over when he saw her there too. Everyone stood between him and the great fire. They regarded Delaney in a reverent silence made loud by the crackling pyre. Most of them grinned under their masks. The two figures stood on the mound before the fire facing him too. The reverend could make out the face of the figure whose arm was being raised. He tried to push himself up on the heels of his nailed feet to hold out his chest for some air and adjust his sight.
In the distance stood the reverend's twin, the silver eyes and blonde hair unmistakable with the sole difference being in the twin's healthier appearance. He'd never met the person. A laugh escaped his throat sounding more like a whimper.
And beyond the bonfire a colossus of a face, somewhat man. Somewhat serpentine in the nose. Its glazed-over eyes almost disappeared high into the cave's shadow and beheld some dream that the reverend felt he could recall his part in. Glittering white coronas that were the last and the first light ringed both pupils. The darkness of the earth inching from the periphery had come to claim its bloodied weight. Worldly color drained into where the radiating coronas became one. Sound was muffled as if he'd been submerged underwater, and the water had been long stagnant. He felt small and warm. He felt protected.
There were voices above.