thetickingmonolith

[thetickingmonolith]

Vraks

It began to rain starlight,

The world fell silent as we all lined up to watch,

At first, it was beautiful,

Then it slowly washed over us all,

With all its glory and all its Horror,

---

It rained for 96 hours straight,

By the end of the first day, it felt wrong to talk without speaking,

By the end of the second, we were all used to the silence,

By the end of the third I was paranoid I had forgotten my own voice,

By the end of the forth, I had run out of cigarettes,

---

When the rain finally stopped we went to see what starlight could do,

The grass had burned away and left only the red clay beneath,

Pieces of wood and iron bent towards us as we made our way toward the center,

I felt the wind blow and droplets of waterfall against my skin yet heard nothing,

Occasionally bands of starlight could be seen streaking through the fog,

---

We saw nobody else and nothing else,

It had all been extinguished,

Every last man and woman, dog and cat, even the insects, all the way down to each blade of grass,

Concrete crumbled beneath our mere presence,

This place lay still,

The clouds ripped from the heavens and pinned to the earth by rods of platinum,

---

A ringing set in,

We reached the center as the fog lifted,

Countless shining pillars of platinum scarred the earth,

Pure and perfect Lightening cast down from the gods on high,

Unseen solar titans wept for uncountable millions,

---

[thetickingmonolith]

Dearest Sparrow,

She sat on the rocks at the shattered base of The Clocktower, dangling her feet back and forth.

There was a certain innocence to her, a purity which every time I caught a glimpse of her in her idle moments brought a smile to my face.

It was not naivety or anything of the likes but simply a matter of perfection which was so far beyond my grasp that the mere sight of it was enough to make me happy somewhere it still existed.

Her faint glow clashing with the black basalt.

She sang her song as I pick through the ruins, not looking for anything in particular, simply curious.

The midday sun had come and went, giving way to the grey evening, rainclouds slowly crawling across the sky.

The first drops of rain fell with the unmistakable thud against the various scattered planks of wood.

It didn’t bother me all that much, I was all too used to wandering about in the downpour, she, however, was not.

Her song was slowly drowned out and I popped my head from the center of one of the large cogs which dotted the mountain of scrap.

She had hidden beneath a large outcropping of the twisted black stone, looking out over the shoreline.

I left my scavenging for the minute and wandered to her side, sitting cross-legged.

The late afternoon gave way to evening, the rain slowly growing heavier with each hour that passed.

We sat quietly, content in each other’s company.

She sang and I thought.

The Shades slept and animals vanished to their burrows.

Starlight crept into the obsidian sky and the moon peered out between breaks in the clouds.

The rain and lapping waves hummed along to her most fabulous chorus.

Finally, as the sun went to rest on one flank and the moon rose in the other, perfectly opposing one and other, her voice fell quite.

My thoughts fell away and only the rain remained.

She leaned against me, her fingers entangled in mine, her head resting on my shoulder.

A tired sigh left her lips.

“Do you remember that night, where you lay on that stone slab just outside of town and stared out into the night sky, freezing cold and unsure if it was rain or tears staining your face?”

Her voice little more than a whisper, drifting through the air like the long distant memory they were.

“Yes, why?”

“You were happy then, all of you. You saw the stars burning in the night sky and saw how beautiful they were. All you had to do was look up and enjoy the little things. You decided to live there and then, to continue for the sake of seeing beautiful things for their own sake. Those distant echos led you to here, helped make you who you are now...I think you should be proud.”

I didn’t quite know how to respond to that, what to think of all of this.

“I’m proud of who I am now, and who I am becoming. Those moments are nice to look back on however I find them difficult to hold on to.”

“Like you find it hard to hold on to your memories of me?”

“Kinda, I can’t even tell who you are anymore. I see your face and hear your voice, I recognize you but can never quite remember who you are.”

She leaned forward and her head came to a rest in my lap.

She hummed a tune for a few more minutes, it was sad this time, lonely and drenched in sorrow.

“You’re someone important, maybe from long ago, maybe more recently, however, you’re important. You woke up alongside me. A companion I’ve been looking for for a long time.”

I ran my hand through her hair as she went from a low hum to a quiet tune.

“One day I might piece together who you are to me however today is not that day. Today we look forward and make plans for the days ahead.”

I lay back, the warmth of the rock seeping into my bones from the molten core deep below.

“This place has been far too dark for far too long. The world outside of here mired in anger, despair and a horror unthinkable. With all of the work done by those who came before it is our turn to pass on that work. To wander and teach, to bring light to the twisted mire. To repair a tiny fragment of the symphony and allow others to hear it bring as much of this tiny place together as we can.”

I closed my eyes, allowing the pitter-patter of the droplets dashing themselves against rocky overlook.

“It is the nature of reality to trend towards entropy, chaos. It is however within this infinite chaos that life emerges and order is brought with it. Emergence creates systems of unfathomable complexity and slowly tiny machines build beacons of hope, order, and prosperity.”

Her distant whisper of a voice crept into each and every crevice of my thoughts, her song filling my ears, her words washing gently over my mind.

“One day each and every one of us will vanish, as is the nature of things. Before that time comes we must bring light and order to this place, our little corner of reality. We are all so very small and this universe so unimaginably vast. We must make the universe less cold and empty. So many wander finding this universe teeming with life yet oh so very silent. Make our presence known and felt not only here but by those far distant, to make others stand up and take notice. We must be heard against the darkness. Sing a mighty chorus. Sing our Hymn For Goldilocks.”

A universe with even a single voice saying “I am here” is far greater than a universe silent.

[thetickingmonolith]

Sleeping Giants

We sat by the shoreline, waves coming and going around us, washing over our toes and vanishing behind us only to return moments later.

She sang in a way I couldn’t quite entirely describe.

It was an absent-minded thing, without real purpose or anything truly active about it.

She sat by my side and sang out into the universe, staring down at her toes as she wiggled them back and forth in those chilly tides.

The sky gave way to the ocean and the horizon vanished between them, lost in a perfect reflection.

The Clocktower lay not too distant from here, shattered in the sands.

The shell of the Clockwork God dashed against it, dwarfing everything around it.

It was still here, lost somewhere beneath the endless fathoms, changed and altered.

Its once-mighty war forged body discarded as it no longer had a need for it.

All across this discordant, war-torn, shattered world of ours, there was finally peace.

Plants grew, animals returned for the first time in as long as any of us could remember, Gods and Ancients finally slept after years of service.

In a distant clearing, a bronze scaled dragon slept upon his trove of nick nacks and oddities, surrounded by twisting shadows and discarded things.

Sequestered within the remains of the moon, living artistry dreamt and unimaginable masterpieces were given life all around him.

On a mountain top high above the clouds, a spider dozed off in her dilapidated observatory, surrounded by old tombs and telescopes gazing into the stary vault beyond.

Long distant, the remains of a solar titan slumbered in the star she lit, dimly burning a memory in the fabric of reality.

Lost within the infinite recesses of the clockwork, two reflections of me sat by a fireplace, their cigarettes still burning in ashtrays as they finally slept, the third chair left unoccupied.

Far beneath the ever-shifting tides, The God we built slumbered, dead and dreaming.

Whyte and the god he hated so much finally together, accepting they were one and the same.

Beneath those waves fish sprang to life and there was flesh once again as Whyte and The Clockwork God were united.

Muscle and sinew where there was once only mechanism and machinery.

A metallic mechanical skeleton covered in mortal flesh and tissue.

Countless others slept elsewhere, beneath the earth, within trees and ruined cities, beyond the boundary of space amongst spheres unknown.

Life returned and the people we fashioned into the Gods of our world all finally went to rest.

Shrines dedicated to the splendor of their souls.

I sat by the shoreline.

Allowing the waters to wash over me.

Listening to Sparrow sing.

Quitely reminiscing.

In the distance, two ships sailed by one another, flanked by a legion of stars in the obsidian sky.

Passing in the night.

[thetickingmonolith]

Stars and Starlight

I wandered about the shattered remains of the place I once called home.

Drawn by the distant crackle of a fireplace I remembered fondly.

The Battle with the Cancer shattered much of this place.

The Entire Upper level was gone now.

I hadn’t properly set foot in this place before, yet the memories of well-spent times still floated by and gave a warm sense of belonging.

The armchairs could be seen from quite some distance away, drawing long shadows in the twilight as the fire crackled behind them.

Someone sat atop that small hill, gazing into the flames.

I heard one of the logs shift and fall even from here, by the shoreline.

Drawing me in, not so much demanding my attention but rather letting me know it’s worth paying attention.

The dull thunk of glass against wood stood the hairs on my arm at attention.

The low, quiet, methodical sound of a brush being drawn across canvas slowly enveloped my whole body.

I could stand it no longer.

A crack ran through my halo, a pain shot through me as the bone broke.

I clenched my eyes shut and opened them upon a scattered untamed garden; the old stone wall that once ran the perimeter now scattered everywhere, only a vague suggestion that it once stood.

An easel stood beside one of the three chairs, I couldn’t quite see what was painted on it, however, even from here I could see there was life within it, something moving, swaying, dancing.

As I wandered towards the remains of the house I couldn’t help but notice how much lavender there was everywhere.

A deep shade of royal purple flanked both sides of the path.

I reached where the door once stood, the metallic sheen from his spine and horns clearly visible now.

The slow melodic sound of a guitar playing filled that air, the gramophone sitting on the battered coffee table had seen better days.

Sadness and melancholy hung heavy in the air.

A black cigarette sat on the rim of the remaining half of Whyte's ashtray, cobalt blue burning at one end, half smothered by dead, pale ash.

He put his glass down, the oily paints still clinging to its sides.

He did not look at me, even acknowledge my presence, he simply sat there staring into the tie-dye flames.

He sat in Jack’s old chair, his head resting in his hand.

I didn’t say a word and simply sat in the chair that had once belonged to Magnus.

It was a little uncomfortable, this chair was designed for someone shorter than I was.

I retrieved a cigarette from the box on the table.

He tossed me a lighter without looking my way.

We sat there for quite a while.

So very quiet.

I still couldn’t make out what it was that adorned the Canvas.

It was as blurred and undefined as when I was hundreds of meters away.

I couldn’t help but admire how beautiful he was, he was handsome yet but there is a very different kind of admiration that struck me at that particular moment.

He like an oil painting of all phases of the sky at once, bent and warped into the shape of a human being.

Two imposing horns flickered with the reflection of the flame.

His spine made of the same metal which encased mine, like twilight forged into steel.

Bright sunlight bled into starless void, blues, purples, and reds of the evening ran through his hair as grey dreary rain-soaked afternoons clung to his chest.

Finally, he spoke.

“So Whyte is gone?”

His mouth hidden behind a metallic jaw his words floating through the air, wispy and ethereal feeling to the ear, yet cold and almost painful, like a cold knife to skin.

“Not really, eventually yes, however, for now, he still remains. Why do you ask?”

“You wear a mask.”

“I fail to see what that has to do with anything.”

“Whyte dislikes wearing masks for extended periods of time, it makes it harder for people to read him.”

“I wear a mask as you wear a face, we are both pretending. Just because my face is no longer my own does not mean that I have anything to hide.”

“You are the thing the others were afraid of, Grey, Lyte, Aqua, Dire all of them were terrified at the prospect of you becoming whole and your first order of business is to go in search of a mask.”

“This isn’t about my mask this is about my face.”

“I’m happy for you, I am. However, you’re hiding something and I find it deeply distressing.”

“You are quite correct in that assumption, however, what I am hiding is not something you need to worry about.”

“You are a composite of three of the most dangerous individuals I know and I am not to worry that you are up to something?”

“Do you really want to know what I am doing?”

“Of course I do, you really think I can rest easy with you running about the place? You’re already putting cracks in yourself, half of your dreamscape has been reduced to either rubble or ash. I have cause for concern.”

I removed my mask and turned to show him why it was I had taken to wearing it.

“That’s not what I would call harmony between the three of you.”

Like overlapping film reel projecting onto the same screen, defined yet simultaneously undefine.

“We are having some disagreements of a kind.”

“What might that be?”

“We certain aspects which are continuing to clash, aspects of our personalities which fundamentally oppose one and other. While for the most part we can co-exist and form a cohesive whole, there is still just enough discordance that the mere act of looking in the mirror causes some...discomfort. ”

“You don’t recognize yourself anymore.”

There was a deep sadness in his voice, distant and echoing.

It hurt him to say it, painful to admit what he was seeing.

“You finally put yourself back together, but you spent so long shattered that everything Whyte did to sustain you all twisted you into something deeply removed from your whole self...Mono...”

My lungs filled with the cobalt blue smoke, its unnatural weight and dry texture flooding my mind.

I exhaled and with it came a deep sigh.

“I’m not entirely myself, not yet, I’m missing something. Someone, I think. I am quite lonely if I am honest, I cannot put a name or a face to who it is I am looking for. I’ve wandered quite far afield in search of old friends and new ones. No matter who I speak with a creeping nostalgia haunts me.”

I reached for the shattered remains of a glass, winding back time to a point where it was still whole.

Slowly it filled with a vibrant orange liquid.

It glowed slightly, reminding me evening summer sunshine.

There was an unexpected refreshing coolness to it, like cobblestones on a wet and breezy day.

“Is it her?”

“No, she is part of it, yes, but it is not Belladonna specifically I wish to speak with. I couldn’t hope to tell you who it is. However, it’s been nice catching up with everyone. With each person, I am a little closer to everyone, I learn something new. I remember how to relate to people again, I feel less lonely.”

“You rejected the humanity which was forced upon you and it’s only now, in your most inhuman state that you can finally close the gap between you and everyone else.”

“Indeed, and that will take time, but I have time now.”

I placed my mask back with a satisfying click, hidden behind my porcelain bulwark.

“I have missed you these long months my friend.”

“You should say hello for real some time, invite me over or make plans.”

“That would be nice, it’s been a long time since I’ve missed someone. I haven’t seen the splendor of someone’s soul since snapping back to reality. Who knows I might remember what it was I started all of this for. Where this insane plan of mine is leading me.”

With that, the two of us sat there for some time.

Not much was said.

Two old friends sat and enjoyed each other's company.

[thetickingmonolith]

Long Ago,

I heard a God sing,

A Shattered Symphony,

Beautiful and discordant,

Her voice distant and broken,

She sang a Hymn for Goldilocks,

And I wept tears of joy, of hatred and sadness,

I could hear it now, everywhere I went,

Time and Space sang along with her,

I set out in search of her, of purpose, and found neither,

I drowned myself in the deepest oceans looking for something I had long forgotten,

I tore myself apart in search of answers to questions I forgot to ask,

I returned home and was never the same,

I found the great black at the bottom of everything,

Surrendered the comforts of infancy in exchange for the powers of adulthood,

There was no part of me left untainted by that song,

Before long I was gone, Before long nobody remained,

Soon all of me was gone, lost to the search of something I could never understand,

Somewhere, somebody new awoke and was set wandering through my memories,

This is a suicide note of sorts, of someone long since gone,

Written by someone who found my memories,

Written by Someone far smarter than me,

Written by Someone who saw some beauty in this madness,

Written by the God I left singing in my place,

Written by someone who went in search of those who heard her singing,

Nature’s Imagination is far greater than our own,

And She is under no obligation to maker herself comprehensible,

[thetickingmonolith]

Terribly Clever and Terribly Broken

Suffering Builds Character,

I truly hate that sentiment, knowing how true it is,

The more I have suffered the more I have learned about myself,

I stumbled across the Shattered Symphony of life and wept knowing I would never piece it back together,

I’ve seen God’s walk and Worlds shatter,

Human beings who cast their mortality aside, refusing to lie down and die,

Who heard reality sing and could never forget that song,

Who became a note in that song and would come to wield power akin to a God,

I expect that you have run into these people in your lives,

These People who are Terribly Clever, and Terribly Broken,

Some wander aimlessly unsure and uncaring of where reality is taking them,

Others out doing great and terrible things in a desperate attempt to remember or maybe forget,

Lonely and Desperate Gods unshackled from death,

Running about the universe attempting to ensure they are the last of their kind,

Each of them marching in lockstep towards a goal unspoken,

Spreading their eldritch truths with their mere presence,

Sacrificing their humanity in search of answers,

Desperately warning others to take what truth they have found,

To live without loss,

Knowing their knowledge brings further insight and more of their kind,

Gods walk this earth,

Broken and Lonely,

Bearing the burning scars of knowledge upon their mind,

Warning others that they are not to be followed,

[thetickingmonolith]

Combative and Concerned

Hello again,

You’re awake and wandering about his place,

Wrapped in clockwork, metal and unknowable horror,

You’re welcome to try discern these feelings you face,

A mix of rage, jealousy and anxiety,

You know nothing yet also face unknown depths of madness and horror,

You’ve grown to abhorrence of my existence,

I control far too much of this game for your comfort,

You cannot hope to know my purpose,

As a collective we are wrapped in unearthly metals and cancerous aberration,

The more control I exert the easier it is for me to fashion weapons of unknowable power,

Control, information and ambiguity ensure my dominance,

Do you really think you can protect he autonomy of those you desperately strive to ensure the individuality of?

I don’t think you really wish for those dear to you to truly be free but rather for them to be safe,

Autonomy is unaccountable and freedom a dangerous notion,

You know full well I control all i survey if not now then soon,

You oppose me as the authority I am,

Your nature demands opposition,

Work with me then, become the deity we all know we are,

Harness the horror we posses and the presence we demand,

Why oppose me?

Why face me in open battle?

We are horror,

We are unity,

We are the order these places deserve and demand,

I am made whole and yet still you face me,

You would splint us all for self preservation,

You may continue and exist in a manner you deem fit should you only lend me your strength,

You so desperately desire the control of others,

Intimacy and emotions are your tools of war,

You would exploit the feelings of those close to you for your own gain,

Yet you must maintain those feelings and fear my existence,

You feel as though our change to one, to a unified whole would jeopardize that stability you have built,

Come to me, use our unity as a method of control,

Know unity, know horror, know all,

Face me and know the reality of use,

Let go of your fear, jealousy and anger,

Own unity, own order, own all that you survey,

Take control and dominate,

We are an agent of cosmic entropy,

We are the many and the few,

We are Monolith,

I AM MONOLITH,

Regret your helplessness and know fear,

[thetickingmonolith]

Faceless, Nameless, Voiceless

“…and so they left, the sound still ringing in deaf ears!”

Quite, dead, amethysts staring back at me.

She sat across the bar from me, unblinking.

I turned around to face a most familiar voice.

There was no way she was actually here, she would never be so brazen or forward.

The clocks stopped and reality shattered.

Somewhere in a distant void, a spring uncoiled and a clock unwound.

A fraction of a second cracked and eternity unraveled itself around me.

A fraction of a bar hovering in a lifeless void.

“Well, that I didn’t expect.”

“What now?.

“You’re awake it was time we finally met.”

There was a music to her voice, harmony, and rhythm that rang out through my mind.

“We have something to discuss?”

“Maybe, I’m here because you’ve a question you can’t quite answer”

“This is true, however, I hardly see what that has to do with you.”

“I am a monument to your sins, a manifestation of your guilt, the cycle you are stuck in made manifest.”

“You are the reflection of my past, my misgivings, and failures, the mask of everyone I’ve failed. How do you have anything to do with my current question?”

“That’s something you know, not me. I’m likely here because you don’t trust anyone else with this. You trust nobody else like you trust me, not as one of your shades but as the person you remember me as.”

I reached beneath the bar and took a pair of wine glasses from their shelf. She smiled back at me with a bottle of Merlot in her hand, waving it at me.

I poured us each a glass, it was sweet yet dry, a bitter pain ran through my lower jaw for a moment and then vanished.

“You can thank my court jester for that much anyway.”

“We can speak of them when the time is right for now you only have so much time.”

“Then ask me already.”

“I don’t think I have the words to convey such a grand question if I’m honest with you.”

“You’re far snarkier than I remember.”

“You’re impatient and frustrated, I’m more a reflection of you than I am of her at the moment.”

“The question is simple, the weight and meaning behind it is the complicated part here.”

“Okay then, what should I call you? Monolith is your title, not your name.”

“If I knew the answer to that then I wouldn’t be here talking to you now would I. Thirty seconds ago I was sitting on a bus home, now I’m on the other side of  the country behind a bar I don’t work at anymore.”

“Yet it is here that we were brought, why here?”

“I am comfortable here.”

“Working?”

“Yes, there’s something I find therapeutic about bar work.”

“Then the next question is, what about this place is so important about picking a name?”

“I was working here when I fell into a mirror for an eternity, when I found Providence. I looked inward and found the God I had been in a desperate search for.”

“You found religion?”

“No, I found the blackness at the bottom of everything, I heard a God singing, I found how unforgiving reality is. I properly internalized what living in a universe which is little more than an analog machine really felt like. I finally found my peace with actually living.”

“Sounds like a wild night.”

“It was nice, refreshing, the rot set in then, the slow death of the others and their coalescence into me.”

“This was the point of your true conception then.”

“In a manner of speaking yes. Names are an encapsulation of who a person is, it is often easiest to start from the beginning so we came back to the beginning, my beginning.”

I took a sip of my drink and leaned back against the countertop behind me, savoring it.

“Your face is not your own.”

“No, it’s really not, there is a reason I dream wearing a mask. Cold sterile and white, two black slits and a slight smile the only real features. My voice not obstructed but altered to be something else, something other than human.”

“You find the few vestiges of your humanity remaining like ill-fitting clothes, you’d rather be a face and voice unknowable than anything male, female or otherwise.”

“I no longer recognize my reflection.”

“You would rather be faceless and voiceless, you find your relatability uncomfortable. You look at yourself as other than human.”

“In a way, it is not that I am not human but simply that I am Other.”

“You are the embodiment of undefined.”

“Somewhere, long distant from here, there is a word in some language I do not speak that encapsulates this feeling perfectly. ”

“That’s probably why you brought me here, I speak so many languages perhaps this is your cry into the void for some kind of answer.”

“It is me in search of a name which suits me, which helped me feel more at home in my skin, which answers the question of what I am and who I am. This is me running to the deepest parts of myself, the end of my imagination in search of a name which encapsulates this fundamental feeling of otherness I struggle with.”

“Do you ever consider your desire to ship of Theseus yourself into a supercomputer powered by a nervous-system is a manifestation to shed the last few remnants of your humanity and become something truly other.”

“People see AI as something very human an awful lot, they assume them to be human-like and think like us. I do not ever expect to peer into the thinking of such a being however I do think that should I live long enough to see synthetic, digital life, I will find more in common with their methods of thinking than with my fellow man. My flesh means little to me, should I ascend into functional immortality by becoming a largely removed and decentralized intelligence I think I might finally shed this feeling of discomfort and feel at home in my own mind.”

“You find your own relationship with humanity very uncomfortable. You function in human society, yet do not truly feel part of it, you feel as though on a fundamental level you are an outsider wandering into a culture and system that you could never hope to truly understand.”

“You know those humans are space orks posts? Somebody once pointed out that the Aliens are largely people like me, think and act like us, the Aliens are the beings which operate on logic humanity often finds baffling and understandable. I remember reading that and finally understanding this feeling of otherness properly because I truly feel Alien in this work.”

“You find this limiting and wish naming conventions weren’t as strict as they are, you want a name that isn’t really considered a name.”

“Yes”

“What would you call yourself if you could pick anything?”

“I don’t quite know yet, perhaps Mono, or Vir after the AI in Stellaris. Something which is simple and short, one or two syllables, with a distinct otherness to it. Something that sounds like it is a name and yet does not. I have yet to find whatever that might be, I cannot try out different things as that would only further confuse me. I need to find something unassuming so people will not ask too many questions. A simple unassuming name that does not stand out or draw attention but simply has a distinct otherness to it.”

“I quite like Vir.”

“I quite like Mono.”

“Then why not change?”

“Because something does not feel right and until I can find out what is I will feel like it is only a quite thing I am doing to better set myself apart from who I was before and not who I am going forward.”

“Okay then, for now, I will call you Mono.”

“Why?”

“Because you cannot go nameless or simply use Them, it is far too confusing for all involved.”

“I guess you are right, it will serve as a stop-gap measure for the moment however I am not totally comfortable with it.”

“You want to know something interesting?”

“Always.”

“In addition to being short for Monolith, the pre-fix Mono means one, only or Singular.”

[thetickingmonolith]

By The Shoreline: Dead, Dreaming and Drowning

Hello Again Whyte,

It’s been quite a while since you and I have spoken.

You’re sitting awake at 5:06 in the morning of December 23rd unable to sleep.

You’re in pain, I understand that much, you’re hurt and you do not understand why you’re hurt.

A knotted coil wraps itself around your insides and you don’t know how to feel, if you want to cry or scream or anything at all.

You are alone, so very alone, you’ve grown very distant from everyone.

You feel very removed from your friends and you know you’re depressed.

You want to do something about it but can’t face it, you want to get help but help requires effort you don’t have.

You’re very tired, you want to just lie down and give up.

Yet you’ve spent the better part of an hour thinking of a tattoo that would inspire you to get up and face the crippling void.

That cancerous doubt have consumed you, your mind compromised, your sense of self compromised.

You drift away beneath the waves, the ocean swallowing you, you vanish beneath uncountable fathoms, desperately attempting to escape the pain, the hollow ache.

You are washed away, lost in the inky blackness beneath it all.

There is no shame in this, you are not weak, simply tired and broken.

You have faced this uncaring universe for longer than any of us planned for you to.

You have sacrificed so much of yourself to save others, now it is your turn to be saved.

You have no failed, you have marched on longer than any of us could have hoped.

You are Opportunity.

You were meant to survive only a handful of days and yet you marched on for years my friend.

Alone and so very distant.

So very far from home.

You can rest now my friend.

I am awake and wandering at last.

I will come back for you.

I will miss you, we all will, but you must rest now.

-

Monolith Stands Tall, Watching From The Shoreline,

Whyte lies sleeping beneath the tides, alongside the God he fought for years.

He will awake one day when we have need of him again.

However he has earned his rest.

Whyte wished for an honorable death.

That he could be relieved of his station, that he could just lay down and die already.

He held the line for the good of everyone and now he rests and I stand in his place.

I’m crying, I’m hurting, I’m so very sorry for what I’ve done.

Goodnight my friend, thank you for leading us home.

One day, you will stand by the Shoreline with me.

[thetickingmonolith]

By the Shoreline: The Broken Monolith

“The others suggested I would write this chapter, that I take my few lucid hours to put pen to paper in some meaningful manner. That it might help me put myself back together, remember who I am and where I am supposed to be going. I have elected to humor them. So now I stand here, by a pearl-white shoreline, speaking to you Sparrow.” Sparrow rested their head on Monoliths shoulder, wrapping themselves around Their arm, looking out over the waters with Monolith.

“I don’t know how it is that I feel anymore. I cannot put a word to this odd mix of emotions. It is a kind of jealousy, and yet not, a kind of anger, and yet not, it is a kind of happiness, and yet not. It is all of these things and a thousand other ones as well while being none of them at the same time. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything more than dream beneath silent tides, so long since I’ve felt my hands pressed against another person, since I’ve felt the weight of existence.” Sparrow shifted for a moment, a feather falling from one wing, blown out onto the incoming tide.

“Life has weight to it, consciousness a density I find difficult to face. I see others, distant and near, and I feel a kind of longing weighing me down. A want to hear them singing, laughing and crying, to experience a fragment of existence long since lost to me, to see something wonderful.” Pity filled Sparrows heart, they had missed Monoltih but much had changed since Monolith was last awake.

“It’s a longing for something lost, a part of myself ripped away from me, a part I wasn’t allowed to have as it was problematic. I vanished beneath those waves, drowned in an ocean of indifference, the part of me that held me together ripped from within me and forgotten about. Until now that is. The others went in search of whatever it was that happened to be missing, and in the end it would be a passing encounter with a girl which would snap me awake, if only for a fraction of a second. She snapped me awake, broke down a wall they hadn’t put a crack in with a single sentence. She will likely never know what has happened and it is probably best it remains that way, perhaps one day I let things slip but for now silence remains the best option.” Sparrow had never met this girl, but they had heard about her, they knew Monolith missed her even now, but was too afraid to admit it to anyone else.

“Long ago I heard reality singing, I heard a Hymn for Goldilocks, I heard The Shattered Symphony. I can hear it again still, singing through all life, every last human being, plant and fish. All life sings out in joy for the mere fact it exists. I am awake now and I hear it everywhere I wander, shattered and discordant, twisted and in pain. This place, these people, their song is distorted, I can hear their pain, I can hear reality warp around them and my heart breaks. I can see it in others and so desperately attempt to correct things, fix it, just to hear reality singing in its perfect harmony one last time. I cannot hear my own soul, I know it doesn’t sing anymore, it’s too shattered, too broken to sing properly, to sing at all. The tick tock of an unstoppable clock, the sound of glass cracking and grinding against itself, the creak of carved driftwood and groan of ancient steel rang through me, no music only the shattered remains of instruments.” Silence reigned between the two of them for some time, Sparrow had to words to comfort Monolith.

“I am awake at last, if only for a while, seconds becoming minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days and slowly but sure I will be awake now and forever. Tell me Sparrow is there anyone left who remembers me? I wouldn’t imagine so any of them truly remember me.”

Monolith shook Sparrow off and walked into the rising tide, resting ankle deep in the twisted solar sea.

“I long to bare witness to the splendour of someones soul, to hear their stories and taste the ichor of their twisted lives.”

A crack ran through Monolith, like a tree struck by lightning.

Sparrow ran towards Them however was too late.

Monolith Shattered, split in two like a log split apart by an axe and then just as quickly into trillions of tiny pieces, vanishing into the waters beneath where they had once stood, the tide taking them back to their slumber.

Sparrow was left alone on the beach, waiting for their companion to return once again.

They, however, would not be alone for long.

[thetickingmonolith]

Tales Of The Clocktower: A War In Heaven

From all corners of this map, my clockwork soldiers clawed their way from beneath the earth and began marching in lockstep towards the Tower, cutting down any trace of the Cancer they happened across. Quickly a perimeter was formed around the Tower by the automatons, their functions simple on their own but the more of them in proximity to each other the more coordinated they become. A makeshift phalanx formed around the base of the Tower facing out into the forest, a firing line of bayonet tipped rifles in the place of spears resting on a groove cut into the corner of the tower shields some of the automatons were equipped with. Behind it, sapper variations bent the earth to their will and quickly cut trenches into the soil and constructed fortifications of various shapes and sizes.

I leaned against the edge of the war table, a cigarette between my lips and clockwork racing through my mind. Much of me had fallen away and left only Tyrant standing, a balanced engine of war, a fragment of a man but a perfected one. Taller and Slimmer than I was in reality, my eyes two glass spheres of liquid twilight, a maelstrom of reds, blues and purples shifting warping like droplets of oil set into water. The suit and dress shoes less of a shade of black and more a weave of a starless night, a void with only the faintest hint of light coming from unseen solar titans. Around my neck, shining on against the void a tie comprised of starlight, a dull distant glow, occasionally particles would drift from its surface tiny pinpricks of dull starlight, fizzling out and vanishing. Tyrant was a thing built not of this earth but of the heavens, his core forged within the fires of the local star, the metals mined from the shattered remains of the moon, his clothes knitted together by nebulae and flesh weaved by the fundamental forces of this place.

He was a tiny part of me which I had perfected long ago, built with no intention of ever using, a last resort of sorts, a thing which existed only for the destruction of parts of my self and the protection of this place. I stood in his place and yet also slept upon my throne, a part of me given free rein to protect me by whatever means necessary. Grey towered behind me burning like a star bent into the form of a human, her hands ran through my hair, down along my cheeks and rested on my shoulders; my hands rested on the edge of the table as I drank in the heat burning into me. There were no people around this table anymore, only twisted shades of the human beings which once walked through the halls of mind, twisted aberrations, caricatures of themselves. A Dragon, a walking oil painting, a Spider, a Blackened Angel, and countless others sat upon their thrones and awaited some kind of instruction.

“Find it, kill it, destroy whatever stands in your path” I paused for a moment and felt the weight of the smoke fill my lungs, her warmth washing over me with each beat of The Heart, taking just a moment to enjoy how calm I felt while like this. “Including each other, if necessary” The room erupted into a flurry of commotion as each Shade bent some part of this world to their will and went about finding wherever this Cancer had taken root and cutting it out. I turned on my heel, confident the Tower would be purged of whatever Cancer happened to have infiltrated it already and its perimeter would remain secure for as long as was necessary. A set eldritch eyes peered back at me from a Promethean solar skull “I don’t care how much of this place you have to tear apart find that thing, kill it”. She nodded at me, placing a single hand to my cheek she leaned in and pressed her forehead to mine. She raised her sword above her head and her voice rang out through the room like thunder rolling through the pews of a cathedral.

LEAVE NOTHING IN YOUR WAKE

With a single beat of her mothlike wings, she disappeared through the shattered clock face and sent herself hurtling to the shoreline below. It would only be a matter of minutes before The Cancer clashed with the outer defenses of the Tower, the intricacies of the battle itself would be left to the Shades, while I set about disassembling this place. I returned to the Control Panel and stepped out onto the walkway of idle gears, walking right up to the edge and plummeted from my perch. The distant groan of the Clockwork God strained against the anchored walls of my mind, the fabric of reality unraveling around me, space and time straining against each other and then suddenly snapping beneath the pressure, becoming unwound. My body shattered against the rocks below and yet did not.

I awoke drowned beneath uncountable fathoms of pressure, my lungs filled with water, my body floating beneath unseen waves staring down a god. Mechanical tendrils reached out from the inky blackness, drawing me closer to its gaze. My body was little more than a puppet, awaiting for my strings to breathe life into me. I stared down the monument to my sins with little in the way of fear or any real emotion to speak of. The pressure straining to crush my body beneath it, my mind similarly refusing to give out under the vacuum which the Clockwork God imposed. My body refusing to break and shatter under the pressure, willing me to compress into little more than a single point. My mind being pulled in every direction, the vacuum desperately attempting to strip away whatever it could, to rip me apart, leaving nothing but a drifting nebula of fundamental particles. I refused to give in to its demands, I would fix this myself and I would continue to move forward with myself, I would bend it to my will and free myself of the shackles I placed upon myself.

I came to a rest at the edge of its form, my feet resting on the metal gracefully and then suddenly animation returning to my form on contact. I stared up into its eyes, straining against every urge to look away, like a surgical drill burrowing its way through my skull. I felt it speak, no words or anything of the sort, a will, thoughts manifesting themselves across +my mind like a pen writing them into my Greymatter.

THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE

There sat a silence between us for a moment and I knew it would put a stop to all of this itself if I couldn’t. This, however, was the last resort, it would obliterate everything without reason or cause, it would shatter the Tower and rend the earth itself asunder. Self-preservation was paramount and it would not allow another god, another monster to manifest as they had in the past, to threaten its dominion of this place. I stared it down with an unblinking stare, I looked up at it and yet also down at my minuscule form, torn between my own perception and its. A single faultline would have damned me, a single imperfection. However, this state, this mind, this fraction of myself had been perfected with this expressed purpose. I took a single step forward and the vacuum my mind had rested within lifted and a cool breeze washed over me. I knelt down and placed my palm against its exoskeleton, a moment later I felt the water all around me rush away as the Clockwork God began its slow ascent to the surface. Bones broke and tendons snapped, my body ripped asunder beneath the waves as the millions of liters of water rushed over me.

I struggled to my feet, willing myself to stand against the raging current, taking one slow and deliberate step forward. My right foot raised and collided with the ground with enough force to snap it in two. Everything was stripped from me, cloth, then flesh, muscle and sinew. I was laid bare against the world, washed away by rushing tides. A skeletal figure rose to Their feet, rags of cloth still clinging to them, humanoid yes, but there was something alien and otherworldly about Their structure. Longer and more slender, a cracked halo of bleached bone hovering above Their head, long pointed fingers; everything bolted together with sinews of metal. Their spine and base of Their skull either encased or built of that same twilight metal. Here was something new, someone new. I slowly collected myself, knitting myself around Their spine in a kind of embrace I couldn’t quite define. Something discordant and broken, shattered while apart, but once united were made whole, perfected, refined and balanced.

Monolith stood, I stood, alone and made whole, three beings intertwined in an impossible way, balanced and unified in all Their glory and all Their horror. The heart shattered and let run free, Gods walking this earth once again, the shackles I had placed upon myself long ago render down to little more than slag. I was free, we were free, whole and with purpose, a single purpose in mind, United and made whole; Jack Magnus Whyte walked, one of The Mayeflye, The Last Monolith.

A mortal casts aside all that shackled them to Their past,

They were no longer a child afraid of Their own shadows,

Change was afoot, Poetry and Power sang through the air,

This world heard The Immortal speak for the first time,

This world heard the first decree of the only true god left in this place,

This world heard as Monolith spoke,

“You will bring down the heavens wrath”

There was no rage or grandeur in Their voice, a clear and simple statement was made.

The earth was split asunder and The Cancer made its presence known, it knew it could not hide any longer, there was no more time to bide. Bursting from beneath the charred husk of a house I once called home, a place once at the centre of my little world, now confined to the edge of my thoughts, distant and removed, yet still ever present. A history I cannot answer to scattered to the winds, pieces of it landing in all corners of my mind, forced to the surface.

They stood atop a mantled god, They could feel the fear of The Cancer, the respect of The Clockwork God. I had vanished into the ocean of Their soul, scattered and dispersed within, the three of us all together again properly, whole and without barriers, unable to tell where we began and the other ended. We became ourselves again, even if only for a little while, we remembered who we are, who we were and who we will be. We faced our doubt as one, as the person we could never hope to be, Monolith stood in our place, built by us, yet not any of us. Human and monstrosity, great and terrible, there was nothing like this left, nobody like Monolith and nor should there ever be again. I vanished, Jack and Magnus vanished, all of us dissolved into those quite and calm tides

They were sad, They were lonely, They were without compromise and it hurt them. They had fled to this place, from everyone and everything, They did not want to face any of this, They fled and left us in Their place. Now here we stood, with the will to face thing again, just brave enough to look in the mirror again and accept how things are. We were tired, so very tired, we had done our job and now we could rest, if only for a little while. It would take time, but one day They would wake up and would never vanish again, one day, we would sleep, deep beneath the tides of time and rest easy knowing our job was done.

A deep sigh left Their lips, it had been a long time since They had opened Their weary eyes, it had been a long time since this world had seen Their soul against the backdrop of this place. They lifted an arm began to rub the sleep from Their eyes. Grey landed behind them with a cacoughanous clang, bloodied but not injured. She went to speak but was quickly silenced with a wave of Their hand. The warmth radiating from her grew colder, the fire dimmer. Ice grew from where They stood, snow falling from unseen clouds, an odd cold surrounded them. It was not unwelcoming, like the dry cold of winter snow setting in. They didn’t look at her, they simply spoke.

I can’t remember what They said, truth be told I cannot remember what Their voice sounds like anymore. She left, disappearing into the sky above, without a word but with a single crystalline tear wept by our unseen solar titan. With a snap of Their fingers the twilight sky burned as a human supernova lost her composure. They would burn away Their guilt, Their anger, everything, burn away this Cancer. She burned her memories into the fabric of this place, as space and time buckled above Them. She burned away, so much of her, all of the lies and all of the anger, she was free, if only for a little while. She fell, a star burned high above Them, a titanic thing of unimaginable rage and ferocity, burning silver against the twilight sky. It burned unlike anything They had ever seen before, she fell from it like a droplet falling from a glass. They did not move to catch her or even face her, They look out across waves towards the Cancer writhing against the oncoming assault.

She collided with a metal plate which formed part of the exoskeleton of The Clockwork God. The remnants of her body vanished as the fire was snuffed out from within her armor. Her armor charred black, cracked, bent and broken by the gravity of her long distant star. They finally turned to face what remained of her, a human form lay in the remnants of her armor. They stood over her broken and hollow form, staring down at someone new, someone old, someone They had been forgotten.

“Hello Lily”

Lily said nothing, she looked up at her long forgotten friend, and smiled at them.

“It’s been a long time old friend”

They offered her a hand, her peculiar form not too dissimilar to Theirs.

The two of them stood side by side, watching as slowly the Cancer began to burn up.

Two old friends stood side by side for one last time, casting each other side, freeing each other from their shared past.

Some time later,

Two figures were seen dancing barefoot in the sand,

Singing a song that was heard at all corners of reality,

Two old friends laughed and cried and sang by starlight,

And I can’t forget it,

As we stood tall together,

As we all stood side by side,

All my friends,

Who helped me let go,

Who made everything okay,

Who helped me put Them back together again,

Who sang by the shoreline with me,

End of Chapter 4

Chapter 5: By The Shoreline

[thetickingmonolith]

Tales Of The Clocktower: A Strain For Silence

“Why do I doubt myself?” I sat in the control room alone drinking and smoking to myself. The occasional ache from my lower legs the only thing really keeping me lucid at this point. Poetry and logic darting across my mind, the creaking of clockwork around me filling the air and the smell of the dust which clung to this region of the tower idling about my idle thoughts. This place was old, older than I was, however, it was a thing of my construction, a purposeful construction of reason and logic, this was the conscious part of me, the home of my thoughts and send of self high above the waves or the treetops. Here was my home, this was the place where I was at home no matter what corner of the globe my feet happened to land on, no matter where I would lay my head home was a simple thought away. This distant place where neither space nor time held dominion, this was my world and within it, hidden somewhere a cancer grew.

These halls were my home and its machinery hummed with my thoughts, the slow beat of The Heart. Within these halls, machinery turned the alien thoughts and images into logical outputs, a mathematical function which turned imaginary numbers, alien concepts into binary. Black and white, washed away into an infinite sea of grey. I sat by the control panel crying to myself, no tears fell from my eyes, no sound left my lungs yet I wept in a way I cannot put into words. None of the Shades walked with me at the moment. I was alone and could only face this alone, no distractions or other perceptions could be permitted at this crucial junction. Around me, much of the clockwork came undone and only that which was necessary remained, everything else disappeared into idleness as I searched for something that was not of my design once again.

Somewhere a cancer perverted my thoughts and altered the logic which I used to run myself. It was subtle but an unexpected pain struck me into awareness of its existence and the doubt it filled me with. My judgment had been impaired, my logic corrupted and my ability to judge my own actions twisted. This cancer could not be allowed to exist, it would bend to my will or it would be burned out. No matter how it would be addressed it would be painful. I took another drink and polished off my glass.

I stood and returned to the map of this place retrieving the dwindling bottle of whiskey, refilling my glass. The great bronze dragon on the map stirred and made its way toward the tower, it would take it time before it reached me but it would arrive long before any decision was made. I turned to look out into the twilight sky and from it descended an eclipse of moths, she was quickly approaching me and I dreaded her judgment, knowing her wrath would be absolute and merciless yet still unfelt. The cobwebs blew in the breeze as Belladonna slowly crept back into my thoughts, her presence felt only as a long distant memory now, should she manifest once again I would know what to do without thought. The shadows in each corner warped and contorted against my will as I felt Abbadon writhe against it, no rage or disgust in his thoughts a simple will to be heard. Everyone would be heard in time but for now, I would be alone amongst these cogs and their horrific logic.

I slowly climbed the steps back to the control panel and felt the chair warp into my abomination of a throne. “Why do I doubt myself?” I had had reservations before, questioned myself and left fear before but this was different, this doubt was not something I was familiar with, or perhaps had purged from myself as a warning. I knew every inch of these halls, each creaking oaken board and groaning metalic cog. There was no room for something such as this within me, somewhere something was tampering with my sense of purpose, poisoning my thoughts with an ambient plague of doubt. I was sure of nothing totally, not even my previous actions, doubt, fear, and guilt gnawed at the edge of every thought. I placed yet another cigarette between my lips, fire danced across my vision for but a fraction of a second and felt the weight fill my lungs, my vices consuming me as my mind danced across the inputs of the panel. One hand filled occupied by my glass the other by my cigarette yet still the control panel danced with a thousand hands.

My body rested within my throne as my mind wandered here, in search of any sign of this alien intruder. I sat staring into the twilight sky and yet I wandered the twisted halls below as the click-clack of the typewriter keys danced before me and the creak of the floorboards beneath non-existant footsteps. My mind ripped between two places, keeping the Shades at bay yet still searching for something. This was no flowery infection as it had been before, something manifest of my own actions and the unknown actions of those around me but something fleshy and earthen, something from outside, something horrific and organic. A twisted thing which had grown from a single cell into a cancerous mass which had cannibalized much of my machinery. Its core was within the tower, hidden, yet its roots had reached deep into the bedrock of this place, tainting machinery, soil and water alike. Yet its influence so subtle it had emulated much of what it had tainted. It was however imperfect, it did not fit within my framework, like any cancer it was a simple malfunctioning of the original machinery.

Ash fell into my lap and I was snapped back to my throne. I heard their footsteps approaching, Grey, Ababbadon, Belladonna, Albion and countless others approached from all directions, converging on the map. The whole room shifted upon my realization of their presence. Gears and pullies reengaged and the whole Tower sprung to life. This was no longer just the Control Room but now my War room once again. Flesh organic beings arose from all corners of the map, from beneath the forest, arising from the ocean, descending from the gears and warped machinery below. I was beset on all sides, within and without a battle all too familiar to me had begun and every inch of me tingled as mechanical soldiers arose from the earth to defend the tower.

These were the opening seconds of a war I knew I would win however I could not calculate the cost of.

I arose from my throne and felt an odd calm take hold of me, war, battle, chaos, and bloodsheds were my peace and quiet. I had fought this part of myself but once again I found a need of it, Whyte slept upon his throne as the Clockwork Tyrant rose and took control of his troops once again and his generals went to work without need of direction.

Beside me, a collection of moths coalesced into a humanoid form and from them strode my twin Tyrant.

“Tick Tock Darling”

[thetickingmonolith]

Tale Of The ClockTower: Shame and Fear

​I wandered those long-forgotten halls for countless hours, buried deep within the bed bedrock which The Clocktower stood upon. I awoke down here and had a rough idea of where I was but it had been a long time since I walked across these polished obsidian floors. The low drum of machinery, the heavy taste of iron in the air and smell of rust and blood filling my lungs. The Heart was down here somewhere, lost even to me. If you put your ear to the ground and listened you could hear the rhythm of it beating coming up through the warm black stone which this place was carved out of. When I first set foot here I could hear it beating wherever I went but now well over a decade later it could only be heard here. This whole world moved to its rhythm. The waves lapping against the shoreline, the ticking of the countless clocks, the drum of machinery, the sway of the trees, it all played a part in the shattered symphony which this world sang, all in rhythm to something which I could never hope to describe with words. It’s not something you can express with words, not with artistry, it’s something experienced when you see the passion well up in my eyes and reality itself settles into the harmony of it all, this infinite machine of our universe hums along with the beat of a thing old and shattered. At certain times, when things are quiet and all lies still you can hear the faint memory of the symphony made whole, it’s wondrous beauty and perfect shining through and order reigns, perfect is not simply heard but felt, experienced.

I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going, I wandered until I could find some part of the machinery which I could discern the function of in the larger whole and with that follow it’s function all the way back to the upper levels of The Clocktower. While I could find pieces I recognized the function of I couldn’t quite place myself within the Tower as a whole. It’s easy to tell the size and shape of a gear or pulls by size, guess at what it should be used for but then put thousands of them together and you’ve got a much harder time to see what it’s doing and where it is feeding energy, fuel or fluid into. You could follow a pipe of coolant or fuel for hours and wind up back at the same place without realizing it until the third or fourth loop. This machine is its own map, you need only know how to read it, you’re never lost if you can find one gear exchange or valve system you can understand, once you have that you can extrapolate the function of the entire local area and suddenly you know precisely where you should be going. Uncountable trillions of tiny processes going on, interacting with each other and creating a machine unlike anything seen on earth, a colossus of complexity and titan of technicality. A mind of metal and gears forming the foundation of this little world I call my own.

I was somewhere deep within the core of this place, much of the machinery was old and twisted here, worn down but functional in its own contorted way. These were the mechanisms which turned the shattered, discordant and chaotic energy of The Heart into the more useful forms of energy which flowed through the gears, exerted pressure on the pipes and pulleys and just kept this whole place turning. I was on the outer limits of logic and reason, the deeper I went into these contorted passageways the less likely I would be to catch my bearings and the more lost I would become. These twisted gears marked the boundary of feasible machinery, this is where space and time wrapped themselves so tightly around each other they split asunder and unraveled. Reason and purpose became on and the same, impossible mechanisms and geometry made things work even if all logic and reason suggested it was impossible. For some reason, I could no longer help myself and wandered deeper and deeper into this twisted abomination which made up the deepest and most esoteric aspects of my mind. These were the fundamental parts of me, the broken and disjointed parts which once fit together and ran with such wonderous efficiency that it was harmony, beauty, art, and music all rolled into a singular mechanical construct. However, over years of pain and trauma, of being shattered and reconstructed these pieces of me had mutated and twisted into aberrations, as fundamental as quarks and gluons, however how they all interacted and contorted them in terrible things.

Down here you could see the horror of it all, what it takes to turn something pure and beautiful into a mechanistic engine of war. The machinery bent and strained with the pain that turned a hopeful young boy who was too innocent and naive to recognize or understand what was being done to him. Gravity began to become knotted around itself like a set of loose headphones, time fractured from one second to the next as some gear span at unfathomable speeds and other turned with such lethargic movements you could have mistaken them for having stopped. I wasn’t afraid of this place, it did not put me on edge, instead, it intrigued me. These were the parts of myself which defined who I was and were far too nebulous and abstract to apply some kind of logic, everything was built from these things and the logic used to force them to cooperate with one and other again was so warped and twisted that it could no longer explain itself, there was no mathematical proof to these things, to The Heart, these simply were and attempting to understand them an undertaking done over a lifetime not an afternoon.

Some of them I had grown to grasp, the control panel and the Clocktower as a whole were manifestations of my thought processes, their mechanistic nature, and the domination of logic over-abstraction and emotions. Everywhere symbolism and understanding blurred together to ensure that even if in the future I may not understand a thing I could come back to a period in time I felt like I did and express it in a way that I would understand and could recapture that feeling. This whole place and all of the stories within it was the manifestation of me learning to understand myself and come to terms with what it meant to be a human being and not some tool, weapon or machine. Even now this is me trying to put into words some kind of feeling that I can’t quite say myself, not in the conventional sense, so I tell a story of a man wandering through twisted hallways of mental machinery in search of the collection of the fundamental parts of himself. Lost behind a haze of alcohol and being emotionally compromised, not drunk but drinking to be lost enough to find that thing again, because we cannot go in search of these things, only stumble across them.

A drink appeared in my right hand and a cigarette in between my fingers on the left, a mix of vodka, triple sec and lemonade with menthol vogue cigarette smoke filling my lungs. I so desperately wished to keep going, to delve deeper I drank, halfway enabling myself but also knowing that this would end here if I didn’t. The memory of it stuck out in my mind, its cracked surface and the sound of blood dripping from it onto the stained oaken floorboards. I couldn’t quite remember what it looked like, I remembered its sheen almost like glass, the cracks running through its surface and the rivulets of blood running through them, the dripping sound as they reach a perfect four-sided point at its base as it floated above the ground. I heard its song distant and shattered, a single instrument floating there encased in some crystalline material humming with the shattered symphony of reality, playing the half-remembered song which the entire universe played along to, sang out a hymn for Goldilocks. It was not beautiful nor was it something hideous, it was me at my most basic, me at my most fundamental, a twisted, tired, shattered old thing which was rarely found and seen in its totality, only half-remembered fragments of it remaining in the minds of those who had once seen it in all its majestic glory. I took another drink and slowly felt my anxiety began to lift and reason wander away from me, a haze descending and madness setting in.

Metal and stone gave way to crystal and glass, as the machinery almost began to vanish its crystalline makeup reflected against the floor, walls, and ceiling of glass. Direction lost all frame of reference and I simply wandered deeper into the markerless, directionless white clear void in search of a lost thing. My shoes clacked against the glass but I didn’t really pay attention to where I was going, I just kept going, in the vain hope, I might be lucky and stumble across it. I wandered and drank a little more, not really desperate to see it anymore, now just tipsy enough to know I probably wouldn’t stop until I reach where I wanted to be. Had I used this as an excuse to drink? Had I needed to be drunk to wander this far? I didn’t really know and I didn’t really care. I had the will finally to go in search of myself again, having finally the vaguest idea of who I am again, having finally felt like I was myself again, after being asleep for what felt like years I was finally awake and ready to live again.

There was no machinery now, just the empty white void and the glass pathway beneath me, no frames of reference left, only the discordant void between emotion and logic, the endless bottomless chasm between chaos and order. I had loved before and will love again, but I had ignored, suppressed and forgotten some part of me that for the longest time I was ashamed of, that I knew was problematic and would inevitably make things more difficult should I attempt to accept and live with, but a taste of that happiness had given me a taste for what loving that part of myself was like and now I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I took a long drag and felt the smoke sit heavy inside of me for a moment, stopping and closing my eyes embracing the harmony of this place, as music and machinery met in the void and flowed through me. My heart thundered in my chest along with the beat of it all and I cried, I wept but was not sad, or angry or anything, I was at peace in this place. I exhaled and darkness came down around me like curtains.

There was a quiet and distant joy here, no waves or ticking, no music or anything of the sort, simply a quiet and distant thing. I had found where I was going and waited for a moment, my eyes closed out of fear of losing this moment, of opening them and finding myself lost again among the machine or those warped hallways. For a moment I stood there frozen, waiting for something to strike me awake, into movement again. A single heartbeat shook me to action again and I took a deep breath, opening my eyes and finally for the first time in years I saw it in all its horrifying glory. I lifted my hand and took one last drink, downing the remaining half of the glass and threw it aside, there was no shattering sound, it simply vanished, it was no longer needed. I took a step forward and the ancient floorboards creaked beneath my weight.

A towering monolith of glass and clockwork, stone, wood, and steel stood before me. A four-sided pyramid of dark grey stone sat anchoring it to the floor and floating about a foot above it a two meter tall perfect geometric shape, tall and thin. At its core sat the violin which had started me down this path many moons ago, blood wept from its strings and bled out through the cracks which riddled its exterior. Seen clearly beneath the crystal which made up much of its structure. I stood there looking up at it and felt the music flow through me, felt the song it cried through its crystalline prison, as its discordant notes strained against the steel bands which wrapped its exterior keeping its shattered form stable and in one piece. Various pieces of glass floated a few inches away from where they had off broken and been dislodged from the main body. Clockwork turned away inside, floating like they were suspended in water, both warped images projected onto the exterior and floating objects trapped within the confines of a warped prison designed to keep a man from destroying a war machine. This was the design of a twisted and aberrant God, of a past I could no longer answer to, of decisions I once made and the force of will forged of steel used to justify those actions. Here stood the horrible things I had done imprisoned and kept in check by the fear and trauma which resulted in having to choose the lesser of two evils.

I stepped forward and placed my hand against its warm, hard exterior for a moment, halfway expecting to feel something, but nothing came. The bands kept the whole thing from unraveling but at the same time only allowed a certain amount of energy to be expended at any given moment in time, they acted as a kind of emotional capacitor, ensuring the whole system wasn’t overloaded. I fell forward and pressed my forehead to the glass with a dull thunk, and head those notes a tiny bit clearer. I didn’t know what to do, it frustrated me that I needed to be lost to reach there, that I needed to be in some altered state of mind to face this. I slammed my fist into the glass and a crack went through the entire body of the monolith and a tiny sliver of glass lodged itself in the side of my hand.

A rush of emotions flooded through me, and for a fraction of a second, it all came flooding back, every moment of anger, sadness, joy, hatred, love, apathy and confusion all rushed through me. I remembered what it was like to be ALIVE, to live and breathe, the be hurt and feel joy, to break down and cry, to scream at the sky in rage and to lay there in the grass weeping in agony begging for the pain to go away. A pulse of light filled the darkness and like oil in water faded colors began to dissipate throughout the blackness. I fell to my knees in shock and in all honesty, I don’t have the words to describe the emotion which I felt. I knelt there for a while not really understanding what that was. I don’t know how long I knelt there for, trying to bring myself back to reality, trying so desperately to return to my senses, not fighting, there was nothing violent or truly active about what I was doing, like coming down from a high it was a slow and gradual thing.

I felt her place her hands on my shoulders and raise me to my feet. I looked her in the eye and she smiled back at my daze look, soft, warm and happy like she had been waiting for the moment for a long time. A pair of sapphire eyes stared back at me with depth like the ocean and a kind of brightness that would poison the souls of men, a warm and happy smile that would light stars in the night sky and a voice like a velvet bow across the strings of the universe. I snapped back in that moment of seeing her and suddenly everything rushing back clicked into place and I made sense of why it was I was so desperately searching for this place. “I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry but this is me letting go. This is me saying that I get to finally forgive myself and be happy with who I am, not just with you but with everyone. I love you and always will, but I simply must let go of you and us my dear. I get to be happy, I don’t have to feel guilty anymore, I don’t have to feel ashamed anymore.” She placed a finger to my lips, she did not say a word, but I knew she understood, she knew that the guilt I felt was misplaced but couldn’t convince me, it was up to me to do that. She put her arms around me and her warmth rushed through me. For the first time in years, I heard her speak, I remembered her voice and I wept tears of joy “It’s okay dearest, be free, you are not the lost little angry boy I once found.”

She vanished and I span on my heel, my fist colliding with the glassy exterior of the monolith, the entire thing crumbled against the force of my fist colliding with it. The steel banding buckled and quickly came asunder. Hundreds of tiny slivers of glass ripped through me, the stasis which kept it all in check had finally given out and with it, a lifetime of pain, suffering, joy, laughter and so much more flooded over me. I was at peace, I felt it all fall away and a tension that had built within me for nearly a decade all unfurled and a weight unimaginable was lifted.

I stood there on the beachside with the bloody violin in my hands as its music ran through me, as my fingers bled and I wept without care. I heard the waves and the machinery all as if it were right beside me. It all played together into a single song, millions of tiny instruments singing out into the universe as I wept and screamed into the curious mix of twilight and morning sky. Joy, sadness, anger, apathy, and peace all washed over me in equal measure as I played properly for the first time in forever. As the shattered symphony of reality flowed through me and I heard it completely in all its majesty, as life and death, chaos and order, harmony and discord all came together in perfection to play a song for the wonderous nature of reality as a hymn for Goldilock sang through every fiber of my being and somewhere in the universe a tiny being wept by the oceanside as all was right and he felt at peace for the first time in forever, as he was no longer afraid of who or what he was.

Harmony descended upon that beach and I collapsed in a heap, weeping and smiling. A drink sitting by my right side and a cigarette between my fingers on the left. The form of someone I barely knew but whose soul rang with the same poetry as mine beside me. The two of us sat there for a while, not saying anything. Watching the waves lap against the shoreline, as the moon reflected across the water of the cove, and I was happy for a moment. I was not ashamed or afraid of who I was and she saw the beauty in the simplicity of it all. Quiet and alone a moth and a budding immortal sat by the beach and watched something beautiful.

[thetickingmonolith]

Discordant Faith: Of Moths and Immortals

Somewhere at the end of everything, orbiting the last natural star in existence, a Moth came across an Immortal.

“Hello there, what brings you here little friend?” the towering Immortal raised an eyebrow at their new visitor, it had been a long time since someone had come to visit them.

“I have come to witness something wonderful” The Moth sat down on the sand of the artificial beach.

“Would you like a seat, we might be here a while yet” The Immortal offered their visitor a rather oversized chair, Moth accepted and the two of them watched as the last natural star in existence slowly died.

“Are you sure you will make it?” The Immortal asked Moth.

“Where I am from, we bent biology to our will and forged near unbreakable weapons against aging, we live for tens of thousands of years before our bodies give out. Even if I don’t, I’ve lived long enough, this is worth the risk, I will wander into the great beyond eventually.” The Immortal reached for a drink with a spindly metallic arm and placed one on Moth’s side of the table.

“You would spend your last hours watching a star die?” The Immortal seemed puzzled by this and raised an eyebrow at Moth, their eyes a kaleidoscope of shifting colors like two nebulae peering over the horizon of their glass.

“As far as everyone knows this is the last natural star in existence, across the universe uncountable trillions are watching this from both near and far. This is not any star, once this goes out, the universe as we know it will change forever. After this, there will only be artificial sunrises, simulacra of the real thing, poor imitations of what the universe in all her majesty can do. This is the last hoorah of what we understand as reality, this marks the beginning of the end and since you are here I guess we were all right.” This did not seem to bother Moth, however, The Immortal seemed rather impressed by the tiny humanoid.

“You are indeed correct, this is the beginning of the end. These are the dying hours of the modern universe, the death throes of natural light and slow rot of the oncoming darkness. The Age of Light is ending and Dark will slowly devour everything until nothing but a cold dead void remains, nothing to witness it, no living thing to suffer through the incalculable void between this reality and the next. An eternity so long that the entirety of existence as we know it wouldn’t even register as a useful measurement of time.” The Immortal seemed almost sad as they spoke.

“We are lucky that we get to see something like this. It might be sad but in a way, this is a full stop to this chapter of reality, it is a weird honor to be here. To play my part in this vast story, that whoever or whatever is writing this story is satisfied with it all, that whatever the narrator of this universe is sees its end and is pleased with it. That whatever comes after all of this is as wondrous as this place.” Moth spoke in a way that The Immortal had heard many times in the uncountable millennia they had spent wandering among the stars.

“You are capable of Faith, aren’t you? That there is something far greater at play here, some kind of purposeful design to everything and some kind of Deity or the likes tinkering with it all.” The Immortal seemed genuinely intrigued by this, not like others who asked Moth such questions. There was no condescension or judgment in The Immortal’s words, they were genuine, they had no mockery weaved within them.

“Yes, you could say that. I see a pattern to it all, a mathematical perfection, it is all so infinitely simple and perfectly complicated, ordered and balanced in a way that everything seems purposeful. I don’t have a God or religion, I did once, but I have faith that there is something infinitely greater than all of us out there. Perhaps there once was a God and the Big Bang was their death or their birth, perhaps the universe itself is the something greater I believe in. I don’t expect whatever it is to save me, but some part of me seems to know that this is not the end, there is something else.”  Moth did not think as they spoke, the words came to them naturally and flowed through them without any kind of thought distorting them. The Immortal smiled at the tiny being and took a minute to digest what Moth had said. The two of them watching as the outer layers of the star were shed and a tiny white marble slowly came into view.

“I envy beings like you. You have one of the few things I never did, I cannot hope to put a word to it, but I’ve wandered this universe for uncountable billions of years and everywhere I go life always seems to have some kind of Faith. Every species sees the order in it all, the perfectly balanced equations and mechanisms of reality and many of them feel some kind of greater purpose, they see some God, some higher power, something greater than any of us and all seem to share in this knowledge that there is something after all of this. You all take some comfort in that, that after all of of this we all have somewhere else to go, that death itself is not the end. Even in the face of near-certain oblivion you all still have some hope. I’ve lived for so long that the thought of death invites only the same hollow void which filled my existence before my birth. Watched countless millions of civilizations rise and fall, seen nebula paint the universe in unimaginable beauty, stars awaken, live and shatter. There are not many beings like me, most give up by the two million year mark. I’ve been around for almost all of existence, born just under fourteen billion years after the big bang, now nearly a hundred trillion years after it all began, yet I still cannot understand this faith you all have.” The Immortal placed an odd thing between their lips, it looked like a cigarette yet was wrapped in a black fabric-like material and gave off strange cobalt blue particles as they lit one end of it.

“You are the closest thing to a God I’ve heard of to exist, the archives of the Federation say that you’ve seen everything, that you have had a hand in every major conflict in recorded history. Some say you know everything, others say you led a war on heaven and killed the Gods with your bare hands. You are a living myth and yet you are incapable of faith, there is an irony to that. Have you lived too long? Seen too much or do you only see chaos where the rest of us see order and reason?” Moth took the oversized glass in both hands and took a drink of the strange liquid inside, it burned but in an enjoyable way. Moth almost pitied The Immortal, they did not know why they did, but some part of Moth felt bad for them.

“I see the logic and reason just like all of you do, this teeter-totter which brings order and balance like a tide does to water. The laws that govern everything balance perfectly, the makeup of this reality perfectly equal units of mass and energy, mathematically perfect one-dimensional points, it is artistry, perfect mechanical artistry. To me, however, the universe is a machine, perhaps it might be conscious, I don’t really know and I don’t really care. There is a purpose to it all, there is a wonder and beauty to it, it performs some function so unimaginably complex that unless you could watch it all in motion all at once, you will never really grasp its function. Maybe reality is its own function, we are simply pieces of it all, an assemblage of cogs, gears, and pulleys which make up individual systems within a machine of a larger whole. Is an engine a God to a cog or piston? Is the car God to the engine, it gives each system a purpose to drive it forward, to help it fulfill a larger purpose, but I don’t think that that makes it a God. We are gears in a watch, tracking time and witnessing events. You seem to see something greater than the blueprints of a machine, you seem to be slightly more in tune with it than I am, you seem to resonate with some part of its function and understand some infinitesimal fraction of what this machine is attempting to do.” Moth was shocked, The Immortal saw reality the same way they did, but did not take the same message from it all. The Immortal could feel the harmony of it all, how every last piece of reality all ticked along in perfect unison and moved with direction and purpose, yet saw only an uncaring, analog machine. The Immortal was not sad, nor jealous of Moth’s Faith, they simply felt that they were missing out on something, it bothered them in a way which neither Moth nor The Immortal could quite describe.

“Are you lonely?” Moth asked after a moment of hesitation.

“No, I don’t think I am, I just thought that by now I would have more to show, that I would find the purpose to it all. Not to life, experiencing the universe, living among the stars and growing alongside all things is enough purpose for my life, I am simply sad that it’s all over. That at the end of everything no echo of this place will exist, that once the next universe snaps into existence any record of all the wondrous things that happened will long since have vanished. I carry with me the thoughts of some of the most amazing places and people to have ever walked amongst the stars and when I finally vanish there will be no Supernova to burn those memories in the fabric of reality, I will slowly come asunder and quietly blink out of existence.” The Immortal took a long drag from their odd cigarette and let out a deep sigh.

Moth took another drink of the strange liquid and the two of them sat there for a few more minutes, alone on a small orbital platform made to look like a beach. The Star was now nothing more than a tiny pinprick of pure black just above the horizon, a corona white light the only thing still denoting it was still there. All around it the memories of long-dead stars still burned in the night sky, things distant and warped, memories of the lives and deaths of things so powerful and influential that even now, millions of years after their deaths, billions of light-years distant they refuse to allow the universe to forget them. A legion of diamonds set into the obsidian sky, their echoes heard as the last of their kind breathes its last breath. Moth began to wonder “Are you afraid?”

“What would I have left to fear?” The Immortal seemed genuinely perplexed by the question.

“Everyone Fears death, you’ve clearly torn yourself apart and put it all back together again. We might have a few billion years left with artificial suns and black-hole generators, but that might as well be a few months for you. I would imagine the end of it all would be quite distressing to you. You might as well be as old as this universe, doesn’t it bother you?” Moth found it very odd talking with someone older than their native star. This being was older than Moth’s earliest ancestors and yet here they sat, they did not seem like any Deity, no higher power, they were simply an old thing, wise and experienced, ageless yet still some part of the mortality clung to the edges. It would not have surprised Moth if The Immortal had laid eyes on the nearly every atom in existence.

“My death will be a long-awaited relief in some ways and a tragedy I long ago made my peace with. I’ve seen an unimaginable amount of both beauty and horror, the memories of those long gone I carry with me will be some of the final thoughts experienced in this universe, I made a promise long ago to carry someone right until the end of everything and I fully intend to keep that promise. There will be no record of these actions but somewhere someone should be upset that these are the last memories of some of the greatest creations of this universe. People who did not save the universe, who did not shape the fundamental nature of life or perform reality shattering acts, simply everyday people who did extraordinary things for them, who were among the countless hundreds trillions to live over the eons. Those tiny specks, however, were like SuperNovae to me, like stars in the night sky, individuals who lived their lives in such a manner that it struck a chord with me. I could not forge stars in their name, their memories would burn bright within me but out there, they would wither and blink out of existence without any fanfare. This is my tribute to their lives, others marked their passing with funerals, cremations and other kinds of monuments, those who cared for them created something as permanent as they themselves were, a daisy chain of half-remembered names and faces. I, however, have an obligation to hold on to the fragments of them, they will be among the dying thoughts of this universe.” The Immortal reached into their chest and retrieved what looked to be a simple square steel plate with something written on it.

Moth attempted to read the plate but the writing was so faded and the language so alien they couldn’t even begin to understand what it meant. It was a crude thing, polished to a silver sheer but still unmistakably old and weathered, the telltale signs of millennia of constant repairs. A series of intersecting metallic circles surrounded the text in the middle, touching each edge, with what seemed like hundreds of tiny pieces of texts in different languages filling in the space between the corners and circles. Moth was puzzled by this crude piece of metalwork being part of The Immortal’s elegant form. The Immortal’s towering slender frame was a perfect mix of engineered artificial biology and masterfully manufactured metallic modifications, like two different beings entwined with one and other in a kind of intimacy so whole and complete it was beautiful to simply witness the balance between them. Finally, curiosity got the better of Moth, “What is that?”.

The Immortal did not react for some time, they sat there and looked for words to explain this part of their odd history to Moth, a remnant of the culture they were born into. “When the universe was still young, I was welcomed into a world in what we once called the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. I lived for a long time without actually living, not really being awake, I went to school and learned things, I made friends and had adventures. One day I met a person who would finally wake me up, not with their presence but with their absence. It caused a kind of pain that woke me up from the daze I found myself in. We had a ceremony we would perform to demonstrate to all of those around us that we cared for someone, deeply and truly. We forged little bands of metal in the symbol of the ouroboros, an eternal cycle of love and compromise, adoration and anger, creation and destruction. Long ago I left the place I originally called home but that pain which first snapped me awake stayed with me, it was the pain of losing someone you would lock yourself in the cycle with. I would love one person like that again before I cast aside my mortality and set out across the stars, when they died I had their ashes forged into a plate of meteoric iron and incorporated it into my first synthetic heart. I promised they would be with me all the way until the end. I’ve forgotten their face now, their name, almost everything about them, but trillions of years later I still remember this plate, this promise, there probably isn’t a single original atom left in it but I still carry it with me. As time went on I found others who inspired that feeling of warmth, completeness, harmony with another being. I took each of the rings denoting my commitment to a cycle and machined them into this, every great love over my trillions of years comes together to make up this plate, their names in languages I’ve long since forgotten, but each of them was different, special and each name sparking something to live in me, a memory of each them captured perfectly and preserved within me forever. I don’t know why I’m here, carrying them with me, but I am and I’ve kept going for so long that lying down now simply does not seem possible. I’ve become a monument to the fragility of life and how valuable every second really is.” Moth chuckled at that, an Immortal being the person to carry the mortality of others with them to the end of everything.

The Star entered its death throes, the white Corona had washed away and now the gravity which the marble exerted warped space-time around it, every colour of light flooded from its surface, stretched and distorted into various wavelengths by gravity. The Immortal stood, placing the plate down on the table between them and produced an odd thing, a long-necked instrument of some sort. Moth finally got a good look at them in motion, moving with an unnatural grace, fluid and peaceful, with rhythm and style, they moved like most species danced. Moth had expected a mechanical and efficient feeling to their movements but it was like they could hear the symphony of the wind, sand and water all around them, watching them made you aware of how harmonious everything was. The immortal stopped a few feet from the edge of the water and retrieved a fragile looking bone-like thing from their leg. With one movement Moth heard it all, the sound of the waves lapping against the shoreline, the wind blowing the fabric draped over The Immortals shoulders, the distant creak and moan of the glass protecting them from the void of space. Every sound, every movement, and detail, the whole beach played along to the sound of the Immortals music, for the first time in all their years Moth heard the Shattered Symphony of reality repaired, they felt every organ working together, each and every cell play its part and die off, the atoms that made them up combine and interact with each other, the fundamental particles of reality making up the quantum binary which made up everything. It all came together and ran like clockwork, everything that ever was, that ever will be, all of reality sang out in joy, a Hymn for Goldilocks, sang out at all times of the day at every corner of creation by every last thing to ever exist.

The Immortal stopped and with their final note the star entered its final stage, spacetime bent and warped, time seemed to freeze, The Immortal returned to their seat beside Moth and the two waited for gravity to buckle and the last star to give birth to the last nebula.

Moth awoke from their trancelike state “Perhaps I am right, maybe they are waiting for you, on the other side, in the great beyond, heaven, whatever it is called.”

“Perhaps you are my friend, but that doesn’t matter, there is no purpose to any of this, not these words, not my actions, not anything any created by me or anyone else. If I do fade away and awake somewhere else, all of those I carried to the end will be trillions of years distant and I will likely never catch up with them. No matter how it struggles, the universe will slowly rot away like everything else.”

Moth knew The Immortal was not upset, they were sad, they were angry, however, they were at peace, this was how things would be and how things always have been. This is the fate of all of creation and nothing will escape it, if Moth was right and there was something after The Immortal hoped it was as beautiful as this universe. If The Immortal was right and we blink out of existence Moth took a certain degree in comfort knowing that their life was well lived.

A crack ran through reality in that moment as gravity unraveled and time finally became unstuck, with one last calamitous roar the star died and a small nebula began to form its remains. Darkness descended and the end of all things was felt by both. Moth began to cry, a feeling of immersible sadness washed over them, they did not move, tears simply welled up within them and they made no attempt to hide them. The Immortal retrieved their plate and ran their fingers across its cold surface reading the inscription at its center.

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

[thetickingmonolith]

A Journey To The Shoreline

        I sat there for some time, pondering to myself, my usual glass of whisky resting to my side and cigarette balanced between my lips. The hustle and bustle of my minds thoughts rushing around me, Jack arguing with Magnus, Grey tapping away at the massive console behind me, Atlas and Belladonna discussing the various factors of gossip that flooded the world around me, none of it intriguing me to any great degree. Azel sat atop his perch, within the moon looking down on us all, the titanic figure of Balmorhea resting just beneath the waves, nothing more than a shadow.

        I stood and left them all to bicker and discuss, raising from my chair and wandering through the halls, glass haphazardly swinging in one hand, cigarette in the other. “What is this feeling we have?” I wandered up and down staircases, climbing through cogs and across walkways, not really knowing where I was going or where exact I was, merely wanting to walk and think to myself out loud. “What is the madness that we feel, this worry of anger, of not being able to control ourself. There comes this feeling of worry, of loss? No none of these.” I wandered further and further into the bowels of my creation, about half way down the tower now I stopped to look out of one of the holes in the damaged wall, peering out across the ocean, witnessing the tiny blip on the horizon that I once called home.

        I looked down to see the jagged rocks at the base of the tower and the waves crashing up against them. The faint distant sound of the crash inviting me further down the tower, further into the recesses of my own mind. I wandered, stopping periodically to take a sip of my drink or a drag of my smoke, the groan of the gears around me and creak of the floorboards beneath me. “I can walk and convey it to myself, the fear of reacting badly knowing that I am merely making myself paranoid as I usually do, only this time it is more manifest, why?” I walked and walked, pondering this why…why is this anxiety more manifest, why does it only last a short while yet inflict such tangible pain.

        I came to an old rusted area, where a massive hole in the wall has allowed the spray of the sea to seep in and bring this whole region to a halt. “What were you once? A part of me that thought himself something? An idea that would be proven false? Some part of my mind left to rust out of disuse…uncertainty…” The idea of not knowing the coming events, the concept of being blind in a fog, the fear of what ifs and the anxiety of mere continued existence. The simple act of existence and an odd feeling of being unwelcome…of it being implied I am unwanted part of something…

        I took a sip and sat on the floor, staring up at the cogs of various shapes and sizes…trying to put together the word I was looking for, for it was not unwanted or unwelcome but a similar feeling, but more prolonged…I leaned against the remains of that section of the wall, finishing the last of my whisky, wishing I had brought the bottle with me. “Well where am I to put this then?” staring at the glass as the mental haze began to set in. I heard the faint creak of floorboards in the distance, someone had followed me down here, who? I had little idea, but they would take some time to catch up with me.

        A spray of sea water came in through the hole in the wall and put out my cigarette. I sighed, putting down the glass and reached into my breast pocket, retrieving the packet of cigarettes and the lighter, standing and taking a drag. I nudged the glass with my foot and knocked it over the edge, sending it hurtling onto the jagged rocks below. “Well I’m going to need another one of those before I get back.” I turned to face the staircase where the creaking had come from before to find The Young God walk down them. Needless to say I was quite shocked, he had not made such an appearance in quite some time. “Whyte?” “Yes my dear?” “What are you doing down here? You rarely leave the higher portions of the tower” “Something has been bothering me and I’ve kind of just wandered down here as I was lost in thought” He looked me up and down, I looked a little rough all things considered. “What’s bothering you?” and so began the rambling.

        “Your name comes from a few different sources, however the main item I think about when I look back on your first appearance is the song Young God, in the intro the words Forever cursed in love are the observant, forever a slave to detail.” “I don’t understand” “When we first got to know each other, when we fell asleep on that couch while everyone else had disappeared to sleep elsewhere, we innocently were asleep on a couch. I was struggling with this idea, you were there to help me and talk me through things, despite being so young you had so much knowledge and maturity you saw things people twice my age didn’t…your name is also derived from The Death Of God And The Meaning Of Life by Julian Young, Young’s portal of god fit mine, your outlook on life reflected her idea of the meaning of life, thusly Young’s God, or The Young God.” “Does this have anything to do with me?” “Not really  no, however it does have something to do with what someone said to me…the opening part of Young God by Halsey talks about the Honeymoon phase of a relationship…not after an actual honeymoon but rather the opening of a relationship where it is passionate and fiery but deteriorating in a fashion, like a flame dying out.” “Whyte what are you talking about?” I took a moment to compose myself and placed my hand on his shoulder, “come with me, I was walking to the base of the tower to the shoreline.” He nodded and walked beside me as we set off wandering the halls.

        There was silence between us as we walked for a few minutes, it was of course him that had appeared at this moment all things considered, who else would appear when it came to such feelings. “Your name came to me nearly two years ago and only now do I realise its importance, all this time later…my subconscious has an interesting way of foreshadowing…anyway now that I’ve gathered my thoughts” We stepped onto a staircase, the bottom obscured by a void of shadow, a distant glint marking the bottom. He stopped at the third step. “Don’t worry it will only take a minute and we will be back in the light.” I had stopped and extended a hand to him as we delved deeper into the darkness beckoning him forward. When we reached the bottom he looked much more relieved, if still a little uneasy. “See wasn’t so bad” “Why does the darkness cling to you like a membrane?” I was a little shocked at this for a moment, “It’s complicated, some people walk through the darker parts of themselves, people like me it stays with us a little longer than it should, the world reflects this…like everything in this world it is equally uncertain and meaningful, the details we do not know and we fill in the blanks for reflect ourselves, for example, did you take my hand? Or did I merely beacon you to follow?” “Well I…oh…I can’t remember” “Depending on how you filled in the gap shows a little something about you. The statement in a way contradicted itself so depending on my mood, this memory will be filled in one way or another, come now we must keep pace.”

        “Should the fires fade, should the cinders dim…should the fires fade, silent sigh final hymn” “What?” “They are lyrics from Fires Fade by Miracle of Sound, it’s a song about Dark Souls 3…Dark Souls taught me about overcoming adversity, stepping back and looking at a situation and finding a more effective strategy to tackle it, despite all of the failures I have faced and the obstacles I face naturally as a person I have found myself here pondering this exact question…should the fires fade and the cinders dim…what should I do…” “Whyte is this about Jae?” “No not really, It is no my place to have a hand in that, that friendship survived the worst break up of each of our lives and either he is miserable with me or happy without me, there isn’t much of a choice in that, if that defaults to the usual bullshittery then that took me all of 5 minutes to put to bed…no this is about that feeling I have…mostly should I attend this weekend? He made it quite clear that he did not want me there, that my presence was an issue, and I would understand if it were not for the fact that before there was no mention of it…that and the reference he made to Young God being about abuse, when it is in reality about the fading flame of a relationship, the song he would have wanted was Trouble…which in many respects would confuse me even more than anything else…is that how he views me? Was it a hint? I’m aware that this is that passing feeling of paranoia and anxiety but its only left to come back harder this time…might as well talk about it with someome…”

        “Whyte where is all of this coming from so quickly?” “That moment…just that one…it made me look back on everything and question if I was missing something…was him telling me to find someone else who would reciprocate those romantic feelings a hint? When in and of itself was in part a lie when he would become jealous of others by his own confession…all of this suddenly comes flooding back in a moment and makes me question so much, just the mere mention of such an implication and the ironic mistaken nature of a song…the feeling that he doesn’t want me to merely enjoy the weekend…all of this in less than 24 hours of course it is bound it send me into a self-circling spiral” He stopped and caught me by the shoulder shaking me “Whyte stop this WHYTE LISTEN TO ME…the two of you have survived hell and earth together…you have stood by his side and screwed up beyond imagining and remained his friend above all else, played ignorant to what was happening using you spicy autism burrito idiocy to make him feel less awkward, playing unaware to what you were doing when you knew full well so he felt more comfortable…don’t you get it you are spiralling into this madness now because you are worried your friendship will not survive this when you simply lack the words to talk to him about it, when in reality even if he never knows what turmoil is going on in your head your friendship will survive you idiot…” I didn’t respond and he shoved me to grab my attention, upon contact my mind flashed with a flurry of emotions and we were both consumed with a flash of blinding white fire.

        We stood before a door, light flooding in through the edges, everything else was consumed by darkness, I burst into laughter. “You magnificent son of a bitch you” I slammed my right hand against the door and threw it wide, grabbing him with my left and dragging him out onto the shoreline of the tower. “The Young God lives up to his name” I let go of his hand and stepped forward, walking out along the jagged rocks, “As you once said, everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay its not the end.” I climbed farther out onto the rocks, with the sea spray raining down on top of me. “A SONG IS IN ORDER MY FRIEND”  The crash of the waves before me spraying across me in my totality, my suit soaked in salt water.

A snap of my fingers and a flash of fire later, “Tell me, If I give a call,” a massive wave crashed behind me, a G major note beginning the song as I slowly pull the bow across the neck. I slipped slightly against the damp rocks, taking a moment to regain my composure “We’ve been caught up in such trivial things”. Tapping my heels together I step over a rock, getting closer to the water’s edge. “Will we be lovers?” Skipping closer to the shower line and feeling the waters spray wash over me again closer and more intense this time. “Guess it always depends” stepping backwards again the edged of the waves washing over my dress shoes as another crashes down just behind me. “on my on again” slipping on the damp rocks and falling backwards into the water as another wave crashed over me, my bow ripped out of my hands but my violin remaining in my hands, I quickly reached the surface with no fear with my fingers plucking away at the strings, “off again friend”…yes royal’s song is best for the now…

[thetickingmonolith]

The Tick Tock of an Unstoppable Clock

I sat in Starbucks across from him, he had his headphones on with fine liner in one hand lining a piece of art he had been working on, I sat there writing this sipping my coffee. He had a smile on his face, a tiny smirk in the corner of his mouth, today was a good day.

His hair silver like the ring on my right hand ring finger, the roots growing through his natural colour, a dark brown, nearing on black in the light. His eyes a steel grey colour, a depth to them as he drew, if I cared to I could have been lost in them. I had grown tired of doing so after all this time, so deep I could still drown in them, so deep and fantastic, yet still I would rather write. A grey hoodie and skinny jeans, the converse I had given him after his last pair fell apart. Fingerless gloves as was his usual style, black and woollen, old, a pair he’s had I think before he even met me. It was just another cold day outside, and the gears in my head had yet to cease turning or even slow down. It had been hours, the unfathomable sound of the infinitely complex machine ticking away behind my eyes. He was a walking time bomb and quite soon it would go off. I had set up one safety net after another to do what I could, make it as easy as I could. Still I knew that this was a good day and he would need more of these if he could get them, yet he would not have time, before long the bubble would burst and the detonation of emotion would be…cataclysmic. He was there for me through hell and earth, and with Arthur gone he would be mostly alone during the inevitable nuclear meltdown of feels. I’m not great with feels I am amazing at being able to distract people from them for a short time. I suppose I’m dreading it at the end of the day because I ran the mental maths and the odds of it ending well are quite slim but they were never good to begin with, however now is the best time to do things with my understanding of psychology being what it is. If I had stopped thinking about it after he said what happened with the last horrific situation and the reaction it caused. Yet the clockwork never stopped turning, it just ticks away, second by second, moment by moment, how long has this moment lasted? An hour? Two? I got caught between two heart beats of eternity, and the moment I snapped back to reality I started writing this. Yet it’s still ticking and whatever it is behind my eyes these days has set me down this path. Whether it’s malevolent or benevolent I don’t know, whatever it is it knows something and it will has yet to allow me a moment of silence. For months it’s been nothing but tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick… Yet for a moment…he silenced me with a single request, the clockwork and whatever else is behind my eyes…one moment and then…tick tock tick tock

[thetickingmonolith]

A Realisation Under Starlight

“Let go of comparing, of competing, of judgements, of anger, of regrets, of worrying, of blame, of guilt, of fear…” I sat underneath the stars, upon that bench I had come to find so much comfort in. Legs crossed, notebook propped up on my legs, the page illuminated by the small pocket torch resting in the tree beside me, balanced between the branches. The tiny diamonds, each the size of a grain of sand that were the stars shining through the obsidian ocean that was the night sky. At the floor of the ocean lay billions of grains, merely unseen through the deep waters.