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as much by ethereal chains as by the earthly trappings that
caused their passing. While not directly visible or detectable
in any conventional sense, I could feel them with me beneath
the shadows, their silence as distinct as a lone rose in a vase
of orchids. There was something else as well, deep beneath
the place, teeming with a combined number of ululations,
calling out from the blind spot of my silence and shade.
There was also the other, a behemoth beyond the stillness
of abandoned cities, gliding just on the other side of sanity,
its protean outline pressing against my steadier thoughts,
displacing them. I rather disliked the idea of it being an
angel, as it implied a rigid order to the numbering of things
and an exchange of freedom for compliance. However, I was
confident the title was cursory, merely the name it assumed
within a particularly dry moment of wit and whimsy. Their
goal—the madmen under the darkness and the lunatic angel
lurking the other side of sensibility—was to rid me of the
girding dream that held me together, caused me to resist the
world before my eyes on behalf of the one behind them. No
mean feat, by any standard.
I had only just begun to test the emptiness of a nearby
hallway when strange yellow light drizzled down from
above. Small corroded bulbs recessed into the ceiling
struggled to stay lit, some desperately trying to fizzle out
while others blazed with an otherworldly radiance. The
obnoxious chirp of an intercom system filled the silence, its
crackling static mixing with the stillness and shadow. Words
splattered like blood from the speaker system. “Vincent,
here’s a thought. What if the banality and artifice of this life
is reflected, even intensified, within death? I’m not speaking
of some spiritual Hell, mind you, but a mindless provisioning
for reality’s pointless reproduction and continuance—where
the doldrums of daylight and dogcatchers hum along like
Amish butter churns, holding up the universe within their
respectively drab and dour turns.

310 | Mark Anzalone