All is calm...12 Kilos
Blank, black, the big empty. The void, the sweet, inevitable embrace of nothingness. The end of all things to come, once and for all. The cold blanket that awaits everyone and everything when petulant time finally stops playing out its tired dramedy.
No.
Surely then the cool, stained stones of the cell floor, they do make a brief if rank respite from the unending heat of the Tumor Queen’s cells. The distant sounds of groans and howls, the yips and barks of the denizens of the doomsday vault. The sweet dulling of the mind and the sense of otherness that comes with every soupy meal. The mushrooms that deliver their exasperated glory of floating away from the withering sense of self in the tombs.
None doing.
Instead, there is only a field of tall yellow grass, an entire breeze blown sea of the stuff, stretching as far as the eye can see. This is no razor grass or witches hair, no thorns or biting insects to be had here. Only the soft rustling of the grass in the breeze. All is calm and that alone sets Garrett on edge. He tries to turn, surely there must be something other than this grass. His head starts to come around but the rest of him is running on autopilot. Walking steadily against his will to nothing but more of that tall yellow grass.
A vivid dream? Another hallucination? Garrett is an old hat at both. Was that odd, stale taste of the recycled water due only to ancient pumps and filters? Did the old woman spike the stuff? Garrett’s found himself under a lot of influences over the years and none of them feel like this. There is no sense of floating above it all, no sense of agitation, no delirium. The grass is soft under foot, the thin stalks bend and make way as his stubborn body presses ever onward into the endless sea of glass.
Instant sharp pain stabs into Garrett’s left foot as his stubborn body only keeps marching on. If for only a moment he was sure he saw a glint underfoot. All is calm.
The breeze comes from behind him, the direction he can’t turn to see. Underneath that gentle breeze comes the sounds of rustling, something else in the grass. Something moving rather fast.
A sharp pain in the right foot this time, enough to make Garrett cry out and try to look down, begging and pleading with his stubborn, marching body as it continues through the field of glass.
The sky, so blue, so clear, the somewhere but not quite here sun still warm on shoulders that refuse to shift. A single drop of rain lands on Garrett’s hand, another stubborn outlier busily brushing delicately along the tops of the grass. If all is calm then why the cut feet, why the darkening clouds rolling full with sinister intent?
Between bouts of trying to force his stubborn body to follow basic commands Garrett feeds that awful inner voice, stuffing it with mouthfuls of juicy complaints waiting for it to pounce.
Where is that, “Kill yourself” spirit now? Here in a place that has no name or definition. Isn’t this where some unseen phantom comes into play? Where some past failure or authority figure comes along to make sport of the constant coward?
Where is that fresh variation on the age old, tired game?
Another drop of rain lands squarely on a fevered brow and another sharp pain comes with another suddenly unsure step down into the yellow glass.
Something massive comes around on Garrett’s right side, the grass bulges and pushes around the long round body. The fin coming along and cuts gracefully through the tall yellow grass and Garrett’s stubborn body finally stops marching ever onward.
Fresh panic comes rushing on like the subtle waves of the tall yellow glass as it shimmers in the faint remaining rays of the choked off sun before the deluge breaks.
Rain. The stuff falls so hard it hurts; like being pelted with sharp pebbles. Garrett finds himself in a panic, stuck waste deep in shimmering shards of broken glass the color of old urine while an impossible finned abomination swims through the stuff unfazed.
This isn’t some dream or one of his worthless self-absorbed hallucinations. This is insanity, it has to be. After everything, after all of the horror and awfulness piled up, this is it, the cheese slid off the cracker, all the way, as they used to say in his favorite book.
Garrett’s stubborn body isn’t moving anymore, its march has come to a full stop and now he can’t get the damn thing to move or shift at all. The big grey fin sweeps wide through the insane shimmering shards of piss yellow glass and comes around. The rain, still coming down so hard it hurts isn’t water anymore, of course not. This isn’t a dream after all, this is insanity, drops of warm blood spatter and down on Garrett as he stands prone, his feet and legs and hands all cut to ribbons.
The monster fish has come to finish the job it just barely got started from before and well, Garrett’s been chumming the whole wile don’t you know. All is harm.
The big grey fin comes barreling through the tall yellow grass, the ruination of such a peaceful and pleasant day. The monster fishes flat, shovel snout breaks through the shimmering stalks so recently coated in sheets of warm sticky blood and its all Garrett can do to try and scream as a mouthful of piss colored glass shards clamps down on him once and for all.