LANDLINE PASCOM

CHAPTER XII

The likeness of the streets, and the distance of the silence, it was affable. Neon, and then rainbows, and then pinks, and then organic symbols and lines, and triangles, squares, and constellations that snapped through his eyes, he became delusional, delirious, and ecstatic as he flung the metal door open. It led head to something dark, and damp, and cold, out from the mouth of the streets to where these teethed infrastructures mocked his presence. The fish man was onto himself, and he dashed ceaselessly to the damnable antiquity of the old streets he felt estranged. Of novelty, he was, Simon was caught up with his own blundering and ran towards the fleeing cronies that lured him to that building. Reality folded itself, enveloping him with visions that were beyond his cognition. Simon pried over the pavement, a loud lightning strike cracked reality, the crackling laughter, and the howl that was horrific, and terrifying mock that had him feel the twinge of affliction.

Grayness of neon, the skies were pared, fissures began to appear, and the colorations that were first alien became through with the machination of the being that controlled this very reality. His mind became jello, and the fishes that swam endlessly from the sea, from the rivers, from the lakes, and the pale waters, they swam in a colony to the empty streets of Pascom. His entourage was now tainted with vividness, and of pink, and beams. Simon ran, and ran, and ran, and ran, and ran, he was afraid of this unnameable dilemma. He vented at the balcony, at the balcony, at the balcony, at the balcony, these dogs were lazy enough to hound him senselessly. He ran until his legs became dough, he ran until his lungs became raw, he ran until his heart drummed his core, he ran until his throat became parched, he rant until his mind could no longer be valiant. He was plagued by daunt, and of cowardice, he ran, and sprinted, and dragged his breath until his body was nothing but the engine of a car. Yet, in that fleeting moment, Simon came crashing. The impact of his swiftness was the equivalent of the damage he had received, and to the outcome of his movement, he flew himself, face first, face plant to the pavement where bones rattled and chimed with a crunch.

Simon dragged his face away from the shards of bones adhering to his face, caning with his hand, he fell on his chest impassively. Only a grunt, dragging himself slowly, the rattling of bones echoed throughout the streets. They were shaking, and the moment Simon cast his head for a look, they were already eyeing him from that empty socket to where their eyes would've rested. They rattled, and rattled, and rattled, until every mound, and pile, and heap of these skulls vibrated in unison. Masks of the opera arose from them, with knives, and that insatiable desire to seek after him. The brilliance of their satirical visage, and the weeping agony that their cronies wore. They remained faceless as the voids of each smile and sockets became empty spaces of holes and dimensions never to be seen as ending, only exceeding that pitiful and bottomless volume of masses seeping inwards, and onwards, and continuous. The hollowness of their visages, uncannily, they knew where he was.

Whipping their heads to him, there was a snap, and the lean bodies they have, it was enough to welcome themselves in white suits and gray pants. They quivered, and twitched in every step they made. Pushing forth, they strewn the skulls carelessly, they are hapless to their own notion:only made to kill. Simon picked up his wits, holding himself completely still as he tried to flee from these horrific entities that haunt him. It was a long archway that extended greatly to the  colorful fog, this is hell no doubt, and only a stare was enough to justify the incoherency of his perception over reality. The sanctum, the temple, is as vivid and incongruous as he thought of it. Simon's own kafkaesque torture to where the Lovecraftian madness and the gloominess of Poe's fantasy. This is the odious hell that poured from the heads of those dreams he had, to where it unfolded, a schism, a crux, a fiasco, the profoundness of anyone that can gaze the regality and factuality of neon. It is the nether, the augean stable of each fountainhead, the truest of vices twirled, and writhed, and twisted. This is insanity, and the comfort of your eyes, only meant to be perceived as the meadows and grasslands, but it is nothing more but the purest essence of madness. Impaired, made to be impure, with flotsam, and wreckage, and questions.