The Son's Narrative

### Characters

Anna, Brittany, Mother Horse Eyes, Nick/The Author, Nick's Father, Nick's Mother

### Narratives Referenced

*Unknown*

Introductory Text

## The Son's Narrative Full Text

### **A Mother's Son**

The Son's Narrative Part 01

91st Post

Posted 27 June 2016 at 09:06:07 UTC

Link to original

> One time, my mom took me to a clothes store. She was wearing a blue dress and I was following her around. But then I looked up and it wasn't her. It was some other lady wearing a blue dress I had followed by mistake. I was scared so I ran away from the lady but then I couldn't find mom. A lady from the store found me crying and took me back to her. I was mad at her because I thought she switched into that lady on purpose to trick me. I was too little to know that's not possible.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Is it?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I wake up by myself and go downstairs for toast and jam but the kitchen is totally empty. I call "Mom! Mom!" but she doesn't answer. I can't find anybody. In the TV room there is a stranger sitting in the big chair. Uh-oh. I can only see the back of her head. Gray hair. I sneak away to my room.
>
>
> Upstairs I check mom and dad's room and my sisters' room but they're all empty. Where did they all go? It's not fair that they all left without me. Anna and Brittany always go places and do things without me. But mom wouldn't do that. She likes to take me everywhere. We are best friends. So what happened? Maybe they said they were going somewhere and I didn't listen. Mom always tells me to listen better. Why don't I?
>
>
> Wait a minute! Today is Sunday. Usually we go to church on Sunday. Mom and dad go to the grownup church and I go to Sunday school. They must be at church. Last week I told mom that I never ever want to go to church again. Hey! Maybe mom decided to leave me at home just like I told her to. This is great! No stupid Sunday school! All the play-time I want!
>
>
> I run over to where my toys are piled up in the corner and get all the ones I want. I've been playing this great game with my trucks and cars called police vs. firemen. The policemen use their guns and the firemen use their hoses and they even have hoses that shoot fire.
>
>
> I play for a long time and it's great but I'm getting more hungry. When will everybody be back? How long is church? It feels like forever when I'm there. It's so boring and the kids aren't nice to me. I remember that last week I cried in the car on the way over because I didn't want to go. Mom was mad. I was really crying like a baby and it was embarrassing.
>
>
> I always cry too much. Anna and Brittany make fun of me for it because I cry more than them but they are girls. I try not to but I do it anyways.
>
>
> I wonder about the stranger downstairs. It looked like an old gray-haired lady but I only saw her back. Is she a baby sitter? I decide to go downstairs and get some crackers from the pantry. Mom keeps some on a shelf for me. I go get the crackers and eat them until I'm full.
>
>
> On my way back I pass by the TV room. That old lady is still sitting there. Her long gray hair is hanging down over the back of the chair. It's got leaves and little sticks stuck in it. This makes me want to giggle a little bit. What a messy lady! But then I start to get scared thinking about it. I sneak back upstairs.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Now it's sunset time and I'm hungry again and I'm a lot more scared. Mom and dad and everybody are still gone. What if they don't come back? What if mom was really mad at me for crying last time and now this is punishment?
>
>
> Oh no. What if God is mad at me for not going? We're supposed to go to Sunday school to make God happy and I didn't go. I was really bad. What if this is a big punishment? God can make people disappear forever.
>
>
> I get down on my knees and press my hands very tight together and whisper, "I'm sorry God for not going to Sunday school. I will go every time forever until I am dead. I am sorry. I am sorry. Please bring mom and dad and Anna and Brittany back. Thank you God. Amen."
>
>
> I get up and run over to my window. I can see the front lawn and the street. It's all empty. I wait for dad's car to come down the street. Now they'll all come back... But nobody comes.
>
>
> Downstairs, I hear noises. Like a dog growling but so loud. And something banging on the ceiling.
>
>
>
> I go into my closet. I cry too much. I always cry too much.
>
>

### **All The Birds Giggle and I Scream**

The Son's Narrative Part 02

94th Post

Posted 30 June 2016 at 00:24:29 UTC

Link to original

> I fall asleep in the closet but I wake up in my bed. Before I open my eyes I know she will be there.
>
>
> She is.
>
>
> Standing at the end of the bed. Morning time. She is not a person. She is something else. I try not to cry. I start crying right away. Can't stop. She is tall but her body is not a body. It is just a pile of things. It's covered in a long shiny robe. Shiny from a million blue-gold flies crawling on her. Long gray hair covers most of her face. I look up at the ceiling and scream and scream and scream. I scream for mommy to come back. The ceiling turns pink and fuzzy I am screaming so hard.
>
>
> Then she is standing over me looking down on me. Her face is awful pieces of animal. I remember her eyes. The same eyes as the white horse Brittany rides, the one that mom said I could pet but it bit my hand and I had to go to the hospital. The eyes are just hanging on the face not really looking at me. Flies crawl on them. I am shaking scared.
>
>
> Please God please please make her go away.
>
>
> She snorts and makes animal sounds. Her old barn smell makes me want to throw up. She reaches out and her fingers are made of crab legs all different sizes. No no no. I hate crabs more than anything. When we go to the beach, my dad always makes sure to pick a part of the beach with no crabs. He says he can tell when there are crabs because no no no she touches my face with her crab hands horrible horrible I close my eyes as tight as I can and scoot against the back of the bed.
>
>
> The touching stops. I press my eyes shut tight.
>
>
> Tweets and chirps. "Drink," a happy little voice says.
>
>
> I keep my eyes closed.
>
>
> "Drink," says the voice. It sounds fun and cartoony.
>
>
> I open my eyes just a little bit. Oh a dozen bird heads have crawled out of a hole in her neck. They move in different ways. I found a dead baby bird once in our backyard. It had no skin and blue lumps for eyes. It is there with the other heads. "Drink!" it says in its funny parrot voice.
>
>
> She holds up a big silver spoon in her crab hand. A greenish monkey hand holds up a glass bottle full of purple stuff and pours it out into the spoon. I can smell it. Grapey like the medicine mom gives me. Is it the same stuff? She holds the spoon up for me to drink.
>
>
> Please God make this stop.
>
>
> All the birds giggle.
>
>
> Her claw pinky pokes my neck. It hurts. I open my mouth. Down goes the medicine.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I lie there with my eyes shut tight. I cry and stop crying and cry again. I know she's there. The smell. The flies. The sound of animal breath. Why won't she go away? Please go away go away go away. Please God make her go away.
>
>
> Something's slipped inside my eyes. I can see it even though they're closed. Not a square. Not a triangle. A shape I don't know the name of. Lots of shapes. Oh no my eyeballs fill up with little people like a Where's Waldo book. There's a million of them all doing different things moving around in an old city with castles and flags. They're running through tunnels and climbing up towers. I can watch them all at once. Wow. There's a baker and a knight and clown and a queen with lots of -- they're all dying! Cartoony blood pours everywhere and they've all got scared looks on their faces and the blood washes away and they're all playing and smiling again.
>
>
> The places and people change. I see stories. They happen all at once, a hundred stories, but I can watch them all at once. It's different people crying and laughing and living and dying and doing all kinds of things. It's like seeing ten movies all at once and it's so much too much I open my eyes.
>
>
> She is still there piled up on the edge of the bed. The Where's Waldo people are still there, playing and laughing and bleeding and dying. The animal pieces of her face open up and -- look! there's another face inside. It's a woman's face or maybe a man's face made of wet clay. It's smooth and beautiful and I'm not scared at all looking at it and I feel like I'm floating. The clay changes and the face turns into other faces -- an old man, a young man, a Chinese guy, a sad black guy, other guys, a cat. The shapes of the faces change but something in the eyes stays the same. Staring at me. Telling me something.
>
>
> The face changes one more time. It is a woman's face. Mother. Maybe very old maybe very young. Mother. The eyes say something clearly. Mother. I can feel my heart beating when it beats it says Mother. Mother. Mother. The eyes are sad so old and sad and kind so kind like they're sorry for me like they wish they could help me. But the face is still and the lips are pressed together like she -- Mother -- is trying to hide that she is sad. Trying not to be sad. Trying to be strict. Because...
>
>
> Because she is going to punish me. It is the same look mom gives me when I've been bad and she puts me in time out. The face is mom's face but also a thousand other faces. They feel sorry for me.
>
>
>
> Oh no. Oh no no no no no no no no. I scream and scream scream scream.
>
>

### **Mother has put a nail in my brain**

The Son's Narrative Part 03

96th Post

Posted 6 July 2016 at 01:16:14 UTC

Link to original

> Mother has put a nail in my brain. The nail stays still. Everything else moves.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Last year me and my family took a trip to California. My dad got to drive on the Pacific Coast Highway. He really loves cars and it was his dream to drive on that highway since he was little boy like me. But he didn't get to drive on it much because I got really car sick. We kept having to stop and then we just went home. My dad didn't say anything on the way home.
>
>
> Why did mom and dad leave me behind? What is because of stuff like that? Because I'm too much of a baby?
>
>
> I feel like I'm car sick now. The medicine makes everything look like it has colored shadows. Everything is going different ways in different colors. I can see things that don't happen. And things that do. Things that try to happen but don't get to. It's too confusing.
>
>
> Outside it's sunny. But I stay in bed so I don't feel so sick. If I lie in bed I only see a few things: me lying this way or that way. But if I get out of bed I see a thousand different mes. I'm doing different things and crowding everything up like Where's Waldo. It makes me dizzy.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Mother comes in and puts three big stones on the floor by my bed. I don't know why. I watch them. They just sit there. Doing nothing. I think about pushing one of them away, and then it's covered with color shadows. The shadows show things that could happen but don't. So I make this a game. Watching what could happen.
>
>
> After a few days I start feeling a little better. I still see colors but they don't make me sick all the time. When Mother comes to give me more medicine, I tell her I'm hungry.
>
>
> "Make some food then, dear," she says with her bird voice.
>
>
> "How?"
>
>
> She points to the stones. "Command that these stones be made bread," she says in a new voice, a man's voice.
>
>
> I look at the stones. Now they are colored with more shadows moving every different way. It looks like colored fire. But I don't know what to do. I say, "Stones! Turn into bread!" and shake my finger at them like Harry Potter pointing his wand.
>
>
> I see a color of fire I haven't seen before.
>
>
> It works. The stones are bread.
>
>
> Mother laughs.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Mother leaves and I eat the bread. It's wonderful just like my favorite bread from Tony's. Warm and squishy. But how did it happen? Is this magic? Real magic?
>
>
> I drop the bread and run to the window. The street is empty, almost sunset. I close my eyes and make a special magic spell.
>
>
>
> When I open my eyes... Yes! There it is coming down the street: mom and dad's car.
>
>

### **Whose car is this?**

The Son's Narrative Part 04

98th Post

Posted 9 July 2016 at 22:10:45 UTC

Link to original

> As soon as I see the car I rush downstairs. Mother is in the kitchen making noises but I run right by her. Outside, the car pulls into the driveway. I run to it smiling but I slow down. Something is different about the car. Whose car is this?
>
>
> The door opens. I stop. Dad gets out. He's got that grumpy look he usually has. He's wearing his pajamas but they have no buttons. Mom gets out of the car too. She comes out of the same door. She's wearing her blue dress. I start to cry and run to her and hug her legs. She pats my head and says, "There, there, Nick. It's OK."
>
>
> "Where did you go?" I ask. I am crying like a baby. "Why did you leave me? Why did you go?"
>
>
> "We went to the store," mom says.
>
>
> "But you were gone so long," I say. My face is smushed up against her side.
>
>
> "We went to the store and bought some dresses and dad got some stuff for his car."
>
>
> I look up at her. Her face is all blurry because I am crying. I wipe my face. She looks down at me smiling. Her face is smooth and glowing. "We stayed at the store a few days," she says and pats me on the head.
>
>
> It doesn't make sense to me. "Why did you leave me with the monster lady?" I ask.
>
>
> Mom stops smiling. "Monster?"
>
>
> "There's a monster in the house."
>
>
> "Nick," she says like she thinks I'm telling stories.
>
>
> "You weren't at the store for three days! Where were you?"
>
>
> "Nick," my dad says in his grumpy voice. "That's enough."
>
>
> I look at him. The shape of his face is weird. He usually has freckles on his cheeks but they're not in the right places. I let go of mom and look at her. She makes a little smile like she always does when she sees me. It's her. It's mom. It's her face. But it's too... What's wrong with it?
>
>
> Mom's shirt moves. There's something underneath it. It's pushing and trying to get out. I step back. Her face sags like a water balloon and her cheek falls off. It hits the ground right in front of me with a big wet smack. It's lying there just like a big raw piece of chicken.
>
>
> I scream and mom falls apart. Her face falls to pieces and her whole body hits the ground like a sack of potatoes. The same thing happens to dad. Their clothes are just lying on the driveway but there's something inside the clothes moving around inside. I scream and something screams back. It screams again, a little scream, and pokes its head out of my mom's dress. A kitty cat.
>
>
> Other cats slip out of the bottom of the dress and out of my dad's pajamas. A whole bunch of cats all different colors. Mom and dad's clothes just blow away like tissue and the driveway is full of cats and pieces of meat. A few cats run away. Some of them cry. Some wander around and sniff and lick at the meat.
>
>
> Something pinches my shoulder and I scream. It's Mother's crab hand. She yanks my arm and drags me back to the house. I shout and scream but she holds me tight. She slams the front door shut and pushes me into a big metal cage in the kitchen. Her birds are pushing out her shoulders and her face. They're missing eyeballs and covered with big golden flies and all of them are tweeting and cackling at me.
>
>
> "Your magic isn't strong enough to make whomever you want," she says in a deep voice.
>
>
>
> The birds all giggle. "Never will be!" one of them shouts.
>
>

### **I am coming. Mother. I am coming.**

The Son's Narrative Part 05

99th Post

Posted 12 July 2016 at 23:15:09 UTC

Link to original

> Mother locks me in the cage and sits down at the kitchen table. I scream and cry but she doesn't move. Her horse eyes stare at the wall. The sun sets very slow and the room goes dark. She is just the shape of a black mountain sitting at the table.
>
>
> When the sun rises her eyes are still on the wall. "You were bad. Your magic was bad. You won't be bad again," she says.
>
>
> "I hate you!" I shout. I do I hate her hate her hate her.
>
>
> Mother's birds giggle. She stands up from the table and all her golden flies scramble around. The bars in the cage slide to the side like magic. She reaches in and grabs me with her crab hand. It hurts so bad and I scream and kick at her but she doesn't care.
>
>
> She lifts me up and carries me into the living room.
>
>
> It is full of cages! When did they get here? There are naked kids inside the rows of cages. They are not scared like me. They are sitting cross-legs with their hands on their knees, sitting nice and still and straight with their eyes closed.
>
>
> "I will show you what will happen if you are bad," she says. We go to the back hall. There is the door to the basement. I don't like the basement. I cry and ask her to please let me go please please. She opens the basement door. Usually the basement is dark but not this time. Light shines out of the door. I look inside.
>
>
> Inside it is not the basement.
>
>
> It is alive.
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> Grim stuff of the news lately. Gunshots popping like fireworks. People scrambling through shaky footage. Cops dead in the streets.
>
>
> It hit 100 degrees today. It's supposed to hit 100 every day this week. What a strange summer it has become.
>
>
> Nobody can agree on the truth. They say the media is ignoring the problem. They say the media is creating the problem. The protesters are the problem. The cops are the problem. The whole thing is a false flag operation so Obama can take our AR-15s away. It's a false flag operation so they can crack down on Black Lives Matters.
>
>
> Chemtrails crisscross in the sky. Conspiracy theories clash in the comments section. Single women in your area want to date now. Across the ocean, they're crucifying people again.
>
>
> I feel so much different than I did in the spring. Less optimistic. I thought maybe I would achieve the dream of publishing a novel and -- gee, wouldn't that be neat? But now I don't feel any excitement about it at all. Whether I publish something or not, I'll still be this friendless little specter, holed up somewhere, sneaking drinks. Money is pointless for a recluse that never does anything. And fame? A bicycle for a fish.
>
>
> There is nothing in my future. I'm going back to the past. I'm going to kill it.
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> Mother doesn't care what I do so long as I don't bother her. I make sure not to bother her. When she comes into a room I sneak out quiet as a mouse. I never go into the rooms with cages. I never ever go near the basement. I just stay quiet and make sure not to get in trouble.
>
>
> I have been practicing my magic. Doing small secret things. I make bread for myself out of stones. I make yummy cookies. My stuffed animals walk around and do fun things. My trucks race around a little track I made. Magic is a lot of fun but I'm afraid of making Mother mad.
>
>
> How long will Mother stay here? Will it be forever? I think it will be forever. It makes me cry when I think about it. I can't even think about mom and dad for a little second before I start to cry.
>
>
> I came up with a neat idea. Lately there are a lot of ideas in my head. Like a crowd of people all talking at once. One idea was very strong and clear.
>
>
> I tried to bring mom and dad to the house but I couldn't do it right. My magic fell apart and they turned into stupid cats. It's because mom and dad are on the outside. I can't make them do things with magic. I'm not strong enough.
>
>
> But I can make myself do things.
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> Shawn told me where the warehouse is. I am going down there. I am being called. By the shape of my entire life, I am being called. The story must end this way. Mother will be down there, and so I will try to destroy her. I've thought about bringing some kind of weapon. But what good would a weapon be against her? She who is everything. Who has shaped my live across time and space.
>
>
> I feel exactly like I do when the evening comes. I have woke up so many mornings, swearing I won't drink that day, but 7 PM comes and I am walking to the store, feeling none too wise, and I don't want to be walking to the store, and I know I'm making the wrong choice, but my feet keep moving me closer and closer. I know what I am doing is wrong but I am doing it anyways.
>
>
>
> I am coming. Mother. I am coming.
>
>

### **So long, and thanks for all the chitinous cruciforms!**

The Son's Narrative Part 06

100th Post

Posted 18 July 2016 at 00:16:24 UTC

Link to original

> I am being changed. Mother's lessons are teaching me things, transforming me. At night, I lie in my little bed eating cookies and watching the ceiling. Then the seams open up and -- wow -- look at what's behind them! Colors without names. Stars from long ago. Tunnels through the beyond.
>
>
> My magic is growing stronger. I can make things happen. I pray and wait and they come to me. Every morning little sparrows land on tree branch outside my window. Mother says I can't be too greedy. Press at the curves, she says. Direct the flow. Don't move against it.
>
>
> I am reading the Bible with the new words I've learned. Christ had blood magic. The magic of suffering. Of desire and limitation. At night, Mother and I watch his soft flesh writhe and struggle on the hard architecture of the cross.
>
>
> "Mother," he cries. "Behold your son."
>
>
> "Father," he cries. "Into your hands I commit my spirit."
>
>
> Soon I will call my own little christ
>
>
> Unto these yellow sands.
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> The other passengers on the bus seem unaware that I am headed towards a showdown which will decide the fate of all mankind.
>
>
> Am I still sane? I feel pretty sane. I'm not drooling at the mouth. I'm not shouting at the pigeons. But what really makes me feel sane is that I can still recognize that my actions are insane. I am going to confront a sinister entity which has been shaping the course of human events since prehistory, which may one day enslave all of humanity. And I am doing it wearing an old Garth Brooks t-shirt.
>
>
> As I step off the bus and onto the blinding summer sidewalk, I am reminded of the brave Marines piling out of their landing vehicles onto the beaches of Iwo Jima. Yes, brave warriors are we. They say one hallmark of delusional thinking is grandiosity. The delusional man often thinks himself to be a part of some grand struggle, when really there is no struggle but that in his mind.
>
>
> A pigeon bobs across my path. I mutter, "Fuck off."
>
>
> Google Maps leads me through the streets. I expect to see a bunch of crack heads milling around but everything is empty. In the sunshine, it looks like a ordinary factory street. The warehouse itself is just a dusty old brick building with scribbles of spray paint and boarded-up windows. It's not even especially shitty.
>
>
> The front door is chained up, but I check the boarded windows and find a board that bends back easily. A musty smell seeps out of the dark. Fuck. Am I really doing this? Sweat already coats my face. I fish a flashlight out of my backpack and turn it on.
>
>
> Inside the warehouse, my sweeping flashlight finds dusty shapes littering the floor. Old boxes. Cinder blocks. And a gleam on the floor -- yes, it's our first crack pipe. Or maybe a meth pipe. Is there a difference? Listening to people in the rooms has made me feel rather worldly when it comes to drugs, but it's all been secondhand stories. What do I really know?
>
>
> Shawn said there was a flight of stairs that led down to a door. The floor of the main room doesn't seem to have any stairs leading down, but there are a few doorways on the far side. I make my way over, stepping carefully through the debris. The middle doorway sits at the top of a short stair case. At the bottom is another empty doorway. The flashlight catches the glint of metal: a pair of torn hinges.
>
>
> When we were roommates, Shawn always has such a cool demeanor -- cool and poised and confident. But now I see a new picture of him: working the hydraulic spreader, prying the door off its hinges, the metal groaning then shrieking, sweat coating his face, his eyes bright and wide with that terrible craving, that thing beyond hunger.
>
>
> I shudder and step down the stairs. Sure enough, they lead to a tunnel. I move slowly, forced to press against some basic animal instinct to go back! get the fuck out of there! But the tunnel is strangely plain and featureless, considering that it lies under a crack den and leads to a possible flesh interface. It's just dusty block walls with no light fixtures or anything.
>
>
> The tunnel leads to more tunnels. More stairs. Empty rooms. The black air teems with bits of dust that shine in the flashlight. My skin tingles all over. Is it the dust clinging to me? Or is it just the low-grade terror that has filled my body? It reminds me of the tingle that filled my limbs on all those mornings before the first drink. How I had begged for that feeling to end. But now I know it will never end. There will always been another awful morning, another fuckup, another withdrawal -- unless I go forward. Not away from the nightmare. But into it.
>
>
> But it goes on and on. I cannot believe how long the tunnels are, how many rooms there are, how deep the stairs are. I can taste the dust on my lips, and I pull my shirt up over my nose. Occasionally I come across an old metal chair or some rotting boards but nothing else. I'm hoping to find some scrap of paper or maybe a nametag, some clue as to who built this monstrosity, but there is nothing but dust, more and more dust.
>
>
> I stop and watch the dust float across my flashlight's beam. Holding out my sweating, shaking hand, I let a dark speck settle on my fingertip. Looking at it closely, I see that it's in the shape of a flake. Is it dust? Or is it ash?
>
>
> A wave of dread moves through me. Could it be from a burned interface? Is it human ash?
>
>
> The wave of dread is followed by a flurry of nervous wisecracks. Fucking dust. What the fuck do I know about dust or ash? I'm not some dust expert. Maybe it's just flaky dust. Maybe it's dandruff. Maybe I'll find a huge cache of used wigs down here. "Did you find an interdimensional portal?" "No, but these wigs are in pretty good condition. Look, we got a mid 60s Dusty Springfield here."
>
>
> I wipe my hand on my shirt and keep moving forward. Just a few steps later, my flashlight finds the end of the block tunnel and the beginning of the rock cave. Just like Shawn said. God, can it be real? Maybe it's an ordinary rock tunnel. Maybe it's just part of an unfinished...
>
>
> Reaching out of from the shadowy wall, with its bony fingers splayed almost elegantly, is the shape of a human hand.
>
>
> I stare at it for a moment, letting my eyes flood with tears, before I have to kneel down and wipe my face. I am not crazy. I have not been crazy all these years. Something happened. Something happened to me when I was a child, and I'm not just some fuck up. I'm not just some piece of shit loser who can't keep his hands off a bottle. I have seen something. I have been touched by something vast and unimaginable.
>
>
> I stand and approach the hand. Yes, it is a human hand, as real as my own hand holding the flashlight, except it is little more than bone wrapped in a gray, papery skin. It extends from a wrist that is fused to a distorted mass of gray and black shapes. The flashlight passes over an awful collage of desiccated anatomy: rows of teeth, racks of ribs, pairs of eye sockets and hip sockets, snaking vertebrae and femurs and tibias and clavicles.
>
>
> For a moment, I feel like I am not standing on the ground but am suspended over a pit full of bodies, like one of the great burning pits of Treblinka, only much vaster. These are not just the bodies from Treblinka but from all the camps, all the prisons, all the pogroms, all the wars, all the plagues, all the indifferent machinery of history, the great unfeeling clock-wheels of the cosmos which roll sublimely along, generation after generation, rending and crushing the human form into pieces, into powder, into dust, into ash.
>
>
> Vertigo encloses me. I totter and find myself sitting on the ground, sweating and gasping. The jumble of body parts spins around me, and I close my eyes.
>
>
> What is this vision of death? This dead clockwork universe? Stars and abyss. Atoms and void. This is something beyond Mother. Even more horrible and fundamental. Mother is at least alive -- monstrous and devouring, but alive. Virulently fertile, she writhes and struggles within this vast tomb universe, binding times and worlds to...
>
>
> ...but the dizziness passes, and with it the visions. The ideas slip away like fish in a stream.
>
>
> Sitting there in the afterglow of this near-revelation, I think of what Shawn said happened to him when he came to this cave. He said he smelled apple sauce coming out of the tunnel, a smell that reminded him of his daughter. He said he could feel the presence of the 'evil one' tempting him with dreams of family and love.
>
>
> I open my eyes and pick up the flashlight and shine it down the tunnel. Is there anything down there? Anything to tempt me? The flashlight catches awful shapes along the walls extending on and on until the beam of light fails. But I don't see anyone in the tunnel. I don't sense anyone waiting for me. And I don't smell anything but dust and ash and...
>
>
> Cookies. Little sugar cookies. My god. I remember. They were like the one's my mom used to make for me. But not quite the same as them. These were the ones I used to make for myself. Out of stones.
>
>
> The memory of it comes flooding up to me so hard that again my eyes are full of tears. Christ. I used to sit in my room with stones and turn them into cookies. I tried to make them like mom's cookies, but they always tasted a little different, and that made me miss her even more. Impossible. Completely impossible. And yet real. Real and floating in the darkness before me.
>
>
> I stand and brush myself off. There is something at the end of the tunnel waiting for me. Good or evil, it will be an answer. A resolution. An end.
>
>
> I walk into the dark.
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> I say my prayer and look out the window.
>
>
> For a long time, the street is empty.
>
>
> Then he comes walking down the road, carrying a flashlight, even though it's light out.
>
>
> I rush downstairs. Mother is sitting at the kitchen table. I think of saying goodbye to her, but the gleam in her eyes tells me there is no need.
>
>
> I go into the dim little front hall. A beam of daylight is shining through the peephole.
>
>
> There is a knock on the door. I wait. The knob turns, and the door opens. This is it, the beginning.
>
>
> I walk into the light.
>
>
>
> THE END
>
>