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the unapologetic cheapness of the succeeding rooms, each
more wonderfully warped than the previous. The barely
perceptible lights were like the grey stars of some forgotten,
dilated sky, hanging limply atop clouds of meandering
dust. Faint sounds of movement, television game shows,
and domestic disputes dripped down from beyond dense
barriers of water-swollen support beams and mold-fattened
insulation. Every inch the miserable glory of abandoned
things, the idols of truest depression, the art of despair—all
of it squeezed into a single, infinite dung-hole.
After only a few exquisite moments of exploration,
the lights began to flutter, lilting into near darkness and
dimming into sallow bleakness, a fruiting corpse smeared
across dissolving walls. I hoped the effect foreshadowed
some wonderful event, a brief distraction to buy the
next performance time for a proper showing. I was not
disappointed.
Within moments of the flickering, a vast emptiness
overcame the atmosphere, a clearing out of unseen spaces
for the facilitation of a massive predator, a kind of living
melancholy. It descended upon me through the distilled
sadness that comprised the kingdom of apartments. It was
the sum of all tears gone hopeless and dry in their ducts,
inscrutable for their infinite smallness, an elemental of purest
failure. I could feel it grasping desperately at quite particular
parts of my mind, if not my soul, seeking out what most
resonated with its highly selective dietary needs. Fortunately,
I am not a despairing creature, nor am I one to hold onto my
failures—so I offered little by way of sustenance.
I was about to chide my invisible attacker over the futility
of its quest when it finally managed a handhold somewhere
within the thoroughly broken parts of me. What afforded
the scrabbling sorrow its traction appeared to be a bit of
submerged memory. The recollection was rigid and cold,
like the touch of a machine god. I could feel it approaching
realization with the determination of a bloated corpse
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