Lightning from the Dark Cloud; pt. 4: Heaven and Hell

The madman walked through the industrial area of town. He could smell distant rain. His feet came across broken glass. Dodge it. He was freezing cold and naked, highly arrestable. An old warehouse beside him stood with its door ajar, he entered to avoid the steadily increasing wind. The air in the warehouse was thick and smoky, the walls coated in a thin mess of soot. From a box in the corner protruded a sleeve.
The madman left the warehouse newly dressed in clothes strange with smells of age and mothballs, clothes which were colder than the wind.
Day passes and the distant sun watches a mysterious figure lace himself silently with the city, waiting for the cover of night. The day passed slowly. The madman hid in backstreets. In shells of dead homes lurked and waited for darkness. Night rises, like steam, from the hills. When dark finally arrived - a madman slips past anonymity into the light of night - he went amongst the people. 1

The madman walked through the streets in a frenzied trance of wonder. Lights, lights, lights. Did neon ever before look upon virginal eyes with such Dionysian glee? In the streets the madman felt the air warm with people, the darkness dyed with light. Scents, varied- one thousand and one scents – a sprawling landscape of aromas dragging him from land to land and soul to soul. The wind dances through the streets. He closed his eyes and felt the rushing air: breath of life: slide down his throat. This heat in winter, this joyous, erupting drunkenness: time displaced: replaced with movement. Bliss, eternal. Life buzzed around him and he thought, with pity, of the cold air high above. 2

North.
A moth bashes it’s skull against a light near the madman’s head. Sin. His mind inside a window closes. Sin. This place is. Mysophobia. Diaphane of thought.3

A forgotten wound opened in the madman’s heart and he felt nauseous. A bar named the Bacchus snatched him from the street with warmth and music. He ordered a drink: bourbon: not caring that he couldn’t pay. The bar was full of thick red light. He did not know what to think. His drink arrived and went straight down. Warmth wrapped the base of his spine as his eyes watered.
A woman approaches him. Her lips are full, sensuous and dark. He doesn’t hear what she says, entranced by the movement of her lips, the wetness. Lips so soft they they seem pushed apart by the slight vibrations of her speech. He knows to follow when she goes upstairs. The stairs creak under unfamiliar feet, silent for hers. In her room the madman cries as they make love. He knows not what his tears signify. Many things, he suspects.
Satiated, he rolls over and stares at the roof, only now enjoying what has just happened. He remembered her thighs around him, the wetness of the dark into which he was plunged, from which he had feared he might not return: the immensity of his shudder. He remembered it as if it happened long ago. 4


South.
He recalled the moth but the fear was gone, replaced with dull disgust. Bipolar.
The woman rolled over and introduced herself, she called him hun with her dustbreath. Gaea. What a strange name. He introduced himself and she showed no reaction. She asked him something but he didn’t hear: overpowered by the smell of her skin. It was a smell from his childhood: playing with earthworms: catching a lizard. She smelt of red earth and blood. He looked into her eyes. They looked back and he could see, deep down deep they were laughing. Not at him. Laughing.5

- What’s so funny? He asked her
- What are you talking about, hon? Her rough voice broke his trance.
- I have to go.
He wanted Gaea to explain her laughing eyes to him. He looked at her hopefully.
She smiled, wrinkles clawing the corners of her eyes.
-Why were you crying when we were doing it? Rhetorical, he was sure of it.6

She didn’t ask for money.7

Walking back onto the street, he felt cheated of some secret living in her eyes.8