Soaring Below.

The sun had drowned in the sea of dolour, and the waves of desolation crashed against my soul with great vigour. The canvas filled my eyes with its perturbing paint and its shapes of despondency. It depicted a Melpomene ensemble, which filled me with pity, and above the saddening masques stood death itself, a scythe in one arm, a torch in another. The image was corrupt with a force beyond science, beyond alchemy, and far far beyond humanity.

As with all things grotesque, succumbing to human nature, I held it under scrutiny. It showed a slight variation in shade but the whole of it was smeared with lifeless beige. The droopy countenance of the forlorn masques was the very embodiment of depression, they consumed all the hope in the world. I could feel my sanity slipping away as I stared at them. But there was something even uncannier about it. A mere glance at the painting and a gust of great despair would thrash me, but there was something peculiar in its composition, something in its colour or contour that radiated warmth.

I went back to my apartment and on with my errands, trying not to picture the painting, but a thing of grotesqueness is an obsession forever. It invaded my memories and tampered with them. It even made its way into the vault of my souvenirs: her. They vandalised my dear Thalia, ruined her countenance, her body and her glory. But I was not to let go of those fragments of her that had survived quietly.

With much effort, I succeeded in possessing a proper recollection of her. Her body was sculpted in the ateliers of heaven, each curve perfected by God himself. Her big bold eyes were bestowed upon her by the most revered of eagles. They were so sacred in fact, that even the tears that sprung out of them were like streams of Steldour. Her fiery hair was dyed with the most monstrous flames of hell. The most magnificent of God's creations finally met her maker by the most natural of deaths for belles like herself: murder.

On a particularly eeyorish day, when the clouds were crying and screaming, I couldn't stifle my curiosity. I sprinted, as the rain poured on me, to the gallery. I took off my soaked clothes and boots at the entrance and trod softly into the interior, seized the painting and left with an anxious heart but no traces. I hung it on the walls of my bedroom. It brought immense and much-yearned comfort to my cold and passionless life while simultaneously, and to a much greater extent, amplified the void inside my heart.

After many a dusk and many a dawn of perusing the canvas, the most distressing event transpired. The masques spoke to me. It was this strange sound that they uttered, made entirely of vowels. The most off-putting thing about the speech was that I understood it. I will try to translate the bulk of our conversation but I'm afraid the English language falls short in front of Ouaio in terms of the ideas expressed through words and alphabets.

If you lie to us, you shall meet with death but if you lie to yourself, you shall meet with a life of death.

I could scarcely believe my ears. I took a moment to collect myself and then replied, in that absurd language, whose knowledge I seemed to somehow possess. "I'm afraid I do not know what you're referring to. When have I spoken false?"

Aeons and aeons back, the time had been told, even before time itself existed. Celestial forces had divined your coming. We know about your deeds, they know about your deeds.

The ambiguity of the statement creeped me out. But I understood what the faces meant by 'they.' They were the most wicked of creatures. They kept me locked up with those freaks. When I retaliated, they put me in a straight jacket and threw me into an unceasing sea of white, an exponentially increasing void.

Then one day, I was released from that white hell but new torture awaited me. They were to cut my mind open and erase my memories. Scourged by the demons of pure viciousness, at last, I made my escape from the ghastly institution.

"No—they don't. I have rid my life of them." I replied, trying not to lose my cool.

You merely think you did. They're on their way to get you and toss you into the room of white madness. Nurse Debbie is longing to inject you with that sweet nectar you adore.

I was appalled at this suggestion. I admit I lost it. "No! Yo–yo–you lie! A filthy liar, that's what you are! A filthy liar!"

How did she die, Howard?

"I didn't do it! I found her mangled body sprawled across my bed. I cried and cried at that horrible sight and I have the memories to prove it."

Memories?

"Yes, memories. It was a day of pouring rain, I came from the–from the–from the…store. I had purchased a purse as a gift for my dear Thalia who was supposed to be waiting for me at the door. You see, we fancied a picnic at the park."

In pouring rain?

"Wh–no! Of course not. We had no clue whether it was going to rain. That's why–wh–why."

The truth was out. I couldn't conceal it from myself. I broke into tears.

"I slaughtered my love. An axe to her face, an axe to her breast, an axe to her splendour. I disembowelled her organs and stored them neatly in the attic. But do understand, I love her. I still do."

Oh, do you?

"Yes. She's still with me." My right hand reached for my breast pocket. I felt all the bliss there was left in this sick world. "She's right here," I spoke in the most pleasant tone with a smile to go with it, "I'll show you." I took out what had remained of Thalia: an eyeball. Just then, a violent rapping on the door startled me.

They're here.

An absurd emotion, like a bundle of sorrow, wrapped up in a blanket of misery swept me. Everything was withering. Even the tiniest glint of hope that I had kept secure in the vaults of my mind was fading away. It all had come to an end, an ugly end.

Dismayed, I dashed to the door and peeped through the keyhole. I could make out the vest of a policeman. This put me under immense mental strain. I started hypothesising different solutions to the terrible predicament that had revealed itself. My mind became a bizarre passageway. Linear to the inner eyes but maddeningly loopy to the heart. A labyrinth of lunacy, hidden beneath the semblance of straight walls. I thought and I thought but to no avail.

As I was shaking with panic and even a little bit of guilt, a queer and strangely familiar odour reached my nostrils from behind. It was not of this world yet I had smelt it before. I turned my attention away from the door and to the source of the smell. What awaited me was the most outlandish sight I had ever seen. There was a cavity of glimmering red where the painting once stood.

The gates of Xyolh are expecting you. You do not want to keep them lingering for long. Step inside.

As I approached the enchanted opening, it shined with even greater intensity. I hesitated for a moment but the second batch of that horrible thumping made me sure of my decision. I stepped in. The red glow was now blinding and the weird voices were now deafening. As I walked forward into the red void, my grip on my senses weakened. After a certain point, I lost all senses but I kept going forward obstinately. Then, new senses, far beyond humanity's understanding of the cosmos, took over my soul. On came the masques of misery, but not without a strange alteration: they were smiling. They pulled me towards a beige ball of madness.

I became one of them. For what seems to be aeons now, I work with others of my kind to deprave souls, not unlike my past self. I cannot refuse the deed or my master strikes me with his scythe. In this cosmic plain of nihility, the skies are bleak and the land is stark; the winds are stagnant and the waters are absent. What is present is the unceasing dull, the dreary and damned expanse of beige.

We fly beneath mankind, and we swim in sorrow.