by Jack Wallen
I dropped off sheets, blankets, and pillows before retiring to my own bedroom. As I changed into something more sleep-worthy, I nearly collapsed on the mattress from exhaustion, but not before a quick brush of the teeth—after which, my head came down to be gently cradled by the memory foam pillow.
The darkness surrounded me, lulling me into a false sense of ease. My heart tripped over the memory of the bro getting slammed against a wall at the bar. I wanted to be done with this nightmare in the worst way. Yet … there it was, lurking in every nook and cranny of wakefulness. After the image faded from the pre-dream landscape in my mind, breathing finally shifted from panic to peace and allowed me to drift away, into the land of lollipops and hand grenades.
***
“Fuck!” I screamed into the nightmare twilight—a blood-red moon drifting in a sky of velvet black to send its beams down upon a broken-down house I hoped to never see again. The baleful bleat of a goat echoed in the distance to punctuate the rising tide of chanting the dark God’s name.
“Vau-eal. Vau-eal. Vau-eal.”
I took off, at a sprint, toward the house, knowing what would be found inside the decrepit building—Thessia waiting to guide me back to the plane of the living. As with every dream that cast me back to The Seduction, this was my only path to salvation.
As I jumped to the porch, the screen door was yanked off its hinges by some unseen force. Without hesitation, I crossed the threshold and found myself in a room I’d never before beheld. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling were carved of a polished black stone that was hot to the touch. The massive room was empty, save for someone hunched over a small writing table in the center. From the desk, a rhythmic clicking sound danced, accompanied by a disturbing, random slurp. One by one, pages of parchment floated from the desk, only to be immediately replaced. Whoever it was, wrote furiously.
Sister, the familiar voice rattled and echoed off the walls. Welcome to your new world order.
Fear teased the warmth from my flesh and temporarily halted my breath.
“Muse!” an enraged voice roared.
I ran; my bare feet slapped at the hot floor and singed the flesh of my soles with each step. After I’d raced through a labyrinth of twists and turns, a door appeared ahead of me. I crashed through without thought or care of what might be found on the other side. It should have been a shock to see some Tim Burton-esque take on an unemployment office before me. It wasn’t. I’d shamelessly grown used to the dark, twisty madness that had followed me out of The Dark Seduction. Cubicles lined the space, each with a busy worker bee typing away furiously. Standing in a queue near a clearly marked exit were anxious men and women in various states of death. Some were soaked in blood; others were palest white with blue-tinged lips; still others had half their heads missing or ligature marks around their necks.
“Next,” a woman at the intake desk shouted.
“May I help you?” A voluptuous woman in a red, polka-dot dress asked in a voice sultry enough to have me doubting my own sexuality.
“Where am I?” The question left my lips before my brain could think it through.
The woman smiled. As she opened her mouth to answer, the world around me faded to black.
“Enough!” I screamed until my cords burned. A tear began at the top of the universe and made its way down to the bottom. From the jagged rip in space and time, a blinding white light spilled. As the fracture in the world’s wall widened, a figure appeared, like the images of aliens descending the stairs from their ships—elongated arms and legs, an oversized head.
Before the figure drew near, my heart shocked me back to waking; my breathing was sharp and short, my eyes batting tears to my cheeks.
Something wasn’t right; reality had shifted out of true. An all-too familiar sensation had overcome my re-entry to wakefulness—something I hadn’t felt since I was a teen—that I was starring in my own television series and the world was my audience. The strangest thing about this particular take on truth was that I—the protagonist—was self-aware. I knew I was a character in a television show who knew she was a character in a television show. It was a veritable Russian nesting doll of fiction … only made real.
A knock at the bedroom door interrupted my internal discourse.
“What is it?” The voice that rose from the velvety darkness was, without question, mine—only the words were not formed from within my throat. I did not answer.
After a short second, a figure rose from the bed … one that went well beyond the familiar.
“That’s me,” I called out, only to be completely ignored.
The woman with my body, speaking in my voice, and wearing my favorite tee shirt and yoga pants, slipped out of the bed and opened the door. The brilliant white light cast too many shadows for me to make out the image beyond an inky blob.
The voice on the other side of the door spoke; it was Drew. “You okay, Grogins?”
“No!” I answered from within the darkness … only to be completely ignored.
“I’m fine, Drew,” the strange woman with the too-familiar voice replied.
“She’s lying, Drew,” I shouted, to no avail.
I raced toward Drew, only to be stopped by some unseen barrier. Drew stood, just beyond the bedroom doorway, discussing something with the Grog that was not.
“Drew!” I screamed with as much force as I could pull off without wrecking my cords—once again, my efforts bore no fruit. I slammed my fists against an invisible force field that prevented my escape back into the world of the living. The rip in the fabric of time and space began to close, blocking me from where I belonged. Peering through what remained of the crack, I could see my dead twin sister glaring back, knowingly, as if to say, I won.
Somehow, I’d managed to find myself deep within the realm of some twisted multiverse. Instinctively, my hands formed the Abhaya Hridaya mudra, my right wrist over my left, palms facing away from one another. Once the mudra was completed, a beam of brilliant red light shot from my cupped palms and through reality’s crack. The fracture exploded, sending a million tiny shards of mirrored glass slicing through the air between me and the door. When everything came to a halt, I realized where I was—in a dream within a dream. Through the folded, dimensional tear, I was able watch the false Grog living my life.
ACT II
akusala
SIX
You’re conditioned not to second guess, but what if this life is all there is?
Freedom. It had been so long since I’d slipped the bonds of time to walk among the living. Thanks to The Dark Seduction’s sway over my sentient shadow, I was able to take advantage of her weakened state and cross over.
Her body was now mine, a playground for me to punish and relish.
“Chop chop, sis.” Drew mumbled. That was his name. My plaything’s memories were intact. This would be so much fun.
I grabbed a handful of Drew’s belt and yanked him to me. “Not so fast, pretty boy.” The second the man faced me, I planted a hot kiss on his lips. The taste and warmth of human flesh was an elixir of the most concentrated lust.
Drew pushed away. “Whoa there, Queenzilla. Let’s not go all good touch bad touch on me now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you mental, darling?” Drew did a quick turn around with the subject. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. We’re going to be late for the morning’s session.”
I didn’t have to dig too deep into the wells of memory to recall we were recording an album. I was a fucking rock star. The living loved their celebrities. This new take on existence had so much to offer.
“Right,” I responded while donning a pair of sunglasses. “Let’s walk among the commoners then.”
Drew laughed. “You’re in a right state this morning. What’s got into you?”
“Just having a bit of a lark.”
A great grin crooked the corners of Drew’s mouth. “That’s my Grog.”
“See there,” I pointed toward the guitarist
, “that’s where you confuse me. If you and I aren’t a thing, why do you call me your Grog?”
Another laugh bounced from Drew’s mouth. “It’s just a saying—like atta boy, only without the misogynistic overtones.” He tilted his head upward, both eyes rolling toward the heaven. “Wait a second … I can see how me claiming you as my property,” Drew air quoted the last two words, “would sound even more misogynistic. Maybe atta girl—no, that implies you’re not a woman. Good grief modern society can be confusing.” Drew snapped his fingers. “I’ve got just the thing. Hell yeah!”
He grabbed his thermos, filled it to the top with coffee, tossed a wink my way, and gestured for the exit.
This was happening. Whatever this was, I couldn’t be exactly sure. The only things I could be certain of were that I’d managed to switch realities with the real me and we were about to go record another song.
Could I even sing?
I was about to find out.
Dizzy and Bella met us at the car.
“Good news.” Dizzy opted to forgo pleasantries. “The old production company is willing to lend me some of their equipment. I can go pick it up after today’s recording session and have it ready for tomorrow. In the meantime, we’ll have to depend upon standard tech to keep us honest.”
I wasn’t sure what the young man meant, but his enthusiasm was contagious. “Fuck yeah,” I shouted—only to be greeted by the curious stares of those around me. I followed up by sliding into the passenger seat of the car and closing the door. With this moment of solitude I did everything I could to center myself. From within, I could feel the bonds of cohesion slipping. I hadn’t taken into consideration that the meatspace body could lose integrity so quickly. After a moment of concentration, I pulled the organic puzzle back together, all the while wanting to lash out against the fundamental weakness of the creature I’d possessed. The human form was flawed beyond redemption.
The driver’s side door opened and Drew took his seat. Once buckled up, he gave me a pat on the thigh. “You fucking ready to record the next track?”
I drilled into my memory, only to come up blank. “Which one is that?”
Drew laughed. “You’re a bloody riot, woman.”
“Seriously, which one?” My tone was obviously bereft of humor, which had the effect of staunching Drew’s good mood.
“One Bullet From Paradise,” Drew answered. “It’s the bloody title track, Grog. You’re ready for this one, right?” Concern spilled out between his words.
I nodded. “Of course. Aren’t I always ready?”
Drew started the car and pulled out of the parking space. “Anyone need anything before I turn this bad boy toward the studio? This is our Kansas moment.”
Silence greeted us from the back seat.
“Point of Know Return. The band’s fifth studio album.”
Again, Drew was given nothing in return.
“Studio it is.” Drew punched the gas and the car lurched forward.
During the drive, I took the time to attempt a lyric and melody recall. When I came up with nothing, I looked to Drew. “I don’t suppose you have the album with you to play?”
“That’s riotous, Grog. If I did, we wouldn’t be heading over to record it now, would we?”
Logic was never the best path for a spirit; we tended to get caught up on the transgressional and emotion sides of the coin and left reason to the living. That is not to say they took up that mantle with any level of responsibility. Most spirits assumed reason would be the thing that would eventually do in the human race. Somehow, the species managed to slip past that apocalyptic prediction. Barely.
“You do remember the song, don’t you Grog?” Drew dared ask with a not-so-subtle layer of concern in his voice. “For the love of all things metal, tell me you remember the song.”
“Once I hear your track, it’ll all come back to me.”
In theory.
Reality, of course, could be a very different beast.
The remaining drive was given to silence—which was none too fitting for one who’d been trapped in cage of her own soundless mind for too long. I grew restless enough to switch on the radio. A newscaster’s voice greeted us with a random blathering of information I didn’t need to hear. I reached up to change the channel, only to have my hand slapped away by Drew.
“You know the rules, Groggy.”
I bristled.
“No music before sessions.”
My right hand curled into a tight fist. Instinct begged me to crash my knuckles into Drew’s face. Something unknown, deep within the recesses of my mind, prevented the move, all the while making me sick to my stomach. The push and pull of wanton desire was ready to unmake me; fortunately, logic won out and my fist stood down from attack mode.
Dizzy’s camera appeared over the seat, followed immediately by Bella’s voice. “What’s on your mind this morning, Grog?”
“Oh, you know, rock star things—glamming and hamming it up in ways you mortals couldn’t possibly pull off.” Even as I spoke, a tension rose inside the car. “Oh, piss off, everyone. You know I’m joking, right?”
Crisis averted.
“Seriously, though, I’m stoked to get this next track in the can.”
“Can you tell us something about this song?” Bella pressed.
A wave of relief washed over me when Drew picked up the slack for this question. “Trying to understand the motivation of devoutly religious soldier/terrorists who view battle as a win/win scenario. Either you kill a bunch of non-believers or you die trying and both are rewarded in the afterlife … or floaty fucking fairyland as us agnostics call it.”
“What he said,” I added. “The convictions of such zealots do not even remotely correspond to my understanding of karmic beliefs in any way.” When no one reacted negatively to my statement, I continued. “Using religion to justify violent acts will win no favors in the afterlife.”
Little did the meat sacks know, I spoke from firsthand knowledge.
“Here we are, my Christian soldiers,” Drew teased.
We disembarked and made our way into the studio.
Inside, the air was heavy with the stink of flesh and the sound of music. I was never terribly fond of the mortal pastimes—especially of the sonic nature. The affront on my peace was like a hammer to my soul. For that, I could thank so many years of solitude. Looked as though I was going to have to martyr this situation out to the very end.
All for the cause, I thought. My reward for this trespass among the living would be wondrous. Certainly, the Dark Lord would shower me with untold gifts of endless and boundless power—maybe even crown me Queen of the NeverRealm.
“There she is,” a large man with a too-bright sheen on his forehead shouted when he spotted me.
I ducked from his reaching arms and shifted behind him.
“Why no love for Tony, Grog?”
It has a name.
Does it have a purpose?
“I need you in the room for a sound check. I did a bit of tweaking on both your monitor and mic. There was something out of place in your last tracks—nothing I couldn’t work out in post-production; but I figured, why add the extra work? So, whenever you’re ready, would you mind—”
“Not one bit,” I cut across Tony and, before the man could smear me with his filthy human stench, I darted off. I passed Drew who was, unwittingly, pointing me in the proper direction.
A hot, claustrophobic room, appointed with a couple of chairs, a microphone, a music stand, and our nosey camera crew greeted me. I stopped in front of the mic and spotted Tony through a large window, offering me a jack o’lantern grin and a thumbs-up. I returned the gesture—but not the smile.
I stood in silence.
Tony’s attention was momentarily stolen; when he returned to me, he shrugged and pointed to his ears. When I failed to respond, his voice came alive in the room. “Would you mind putting on the headphones and singing along with the track? It’s the only way I can get a solid level.
”
Shit. This was not going to go well.
I slipped the headphones over my ears, only to be punished with the sound of too-loud and too-fast music. To my dismay, the melody and lyrics had yet to bubble up from memory. Tony’s voice rang out over the track. “Grog, sing me a line or two.”
Before the wheels completely fell off this bus, Drew appeared behind the glass and took Tony’s mic in his hand. “Okay, love, I’m going to sing along and refresh your memory.”
Tony started the track over. Drew effortlessly picked up the melody. “Violence, on a six-foot plasma screen; a drone records the scene. Media sensationalize, desensitize. History, repeating in a cage; twisting every page, to pervert the narrative from love to rage.”
Somehow, the memory of the song made its way to the surface. This time around, I was able to sing along. “This is our decline and fall; when will love conquer all? How many versions of the truth demand faith without proof; and murder unity before it bears its fruit.”
My voice dipped and dove, growled and roared. I’d never felt anything like this during the entirety of my existence; it was as if truth had manifested itself within me and exploded like a volcano of light.
I finished the song. “You’re conditioned not to second guess, but what if this life is all there is? It’s easy to order human sacrifice, when you’re one bullet away from paradise.”
There were so many layers of irony within the lyrics. Drew and the human Grog had no idea what they were writing when they penned the words that would eventually come back to haunt them.
“Holy fuck, Grog,” Drew shouted in my ear. “That was, well, an interesting take. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you with such vitriol in your voice. Maybe tone the rage down a bit? We’re not a sludge metal band, after all.”
“I don’t understand,” I spoke into the mic before thinking.
Drew laughed. “A bit more melody and lot less screaming. Good for you that you have the chops to go all Cookie Monster on us, but that’s not the Die So Fluid style. So, what say we give it a go once more … with feeling?”
