and we are walking deeper into it.
Step...
Scrape.
In the Deadlands
Later,
numb now,
cannot think.
Can only walk.
Stop for night.
Day turns off.
Night begins.
We huddle around the light.
Not the warmth,
the light.
Temperature is 70°.
Air seems hot,
heavy.
The other men are talking
small talk.
i want to talk too.
i want to talk to Carl.
i want to talk to someone,
anyone.
i want to talk very badly.
i don’t know what i want to say.
But i want someone to say it to.
Want
to look at someone.
Want
to touch someone,
anyone.
Carl?
Anyone.
Carl is the other half of our two. Supposed to be my buddy.
He is not.
He is the buddy of the clique.
Every patrol has a clique. i am never in the clique. Carl always is.
Carl and i are supposed to be
buddies.
We are not.
i have nobody to talk to.
i am alone.
i try to sleep.
The deadlands floor is hard,
uncomfortable.
Faraway,
the deadlands croons
tuneless
a lullaby of lonely,
a distant chorus,
a mournful sound,
of something
faint and faraway,
waiting.
just below the horizon
crooning
tunelessly
very softly
very far away...
and this time there are words.
Always before, i could never make out the
words.
Always before, i could never make out the
tune.
too faint
too distant
But this time...
one word...
very soft
C o m e ...
C o m e ...
C o m e ...
That's all,
just
C o m e ...
The air is heavy,
the night is still
and something with icy feet is standing on my back.
In the Deadlands
Second day now.
i think it’s the second day.
It could be the second year.
Or the second century.
Or the second ???
More lonely.
Carl jokes with the others,
not me.
He does not ignore me,
he is just indifferent.
More lonely.
Carl is one of those people who is in on everything.
He always knows what is happening. He is always the first one to get the joke,
as much as anyone jokes in the deadlands patrol.
More quiet.
More like . . . funeral.
Muted.
Pa’s funeral.
Nobody cried.
Nobody talked.
Nobody said anything at all.
Just sat.
Muted.
Muted like the deadlands patrol.
Don’t know how deep we are now.
Day and a half?
Two days?
Two years?
We will march until we reach the tortured rocks.
Then we will turn back.
It’s two days march.
Maybe three.
Or four.
Or six.
Each time we march to the rocks it’s different
Step...
Scrape.
i never prayed.
Never.
If i did pray though, i know what i’d pray for.
A safe comeback.
To what?
To Fort Borderlands?
Gray barracks. Gray grass. Gray flag. Gray food. Gray everything. Gray. Everything gray.
Too gray.
In the distance
is the first of the tortured rocks
waiting.
The rocks are sized like men.
Some are big men, some are small men,
some are children.
They’re all kinds of twisted
shapes.
This is where they were supposed to have found the lost 31st patrol.
About twenty feet inside
i suppose they must have wandered around until they ran out of water.
Then they sat down to die.
They say that when a patrol gets lost in the deadlands it’s because they tried to cross the tortured rocks. Once they go in, they don’t come out.
They get confused
and can’t tell which way they came.
They could be twenty feet from the edge of the tortured rocks
and not know it.
The rocks are closer now.
Shouldn’t look at them for too long.
They start to remind you
of things,
or people.
Obscene shapes
doing obscene things.
i once saw a rock that looked
like
two people embracing.
A man and a woman?
Two men?
Disturbing.
Disturbing because,
reminded me of two men i once knew. They had disappeared in the deadlands.
tortured
twisted
frozen
petrified
i looked away.
Above,
the sun is a pinpoint of white hate
no heat
no warmth
In the deadlands the sun radiates death.
We’re closer to the tortured rocks now. i can see why you would lose your way.
They grow right out of the deadlands floor.
writhing
scarred with blacks and reds.
You can’t see more than ten feet into the tortured rocks.
You can’t walk more than ten feet in a straight line into the tortured rocks.
After twenty feet or so, you’re lost.
Funny shapes among those rocks.
There's one that looks like Pa.
Could be.
The deadlands swallowed up his
grave when it took the house.
In the Deadlands
i guess the deadlands gets to you after a while.
They say that there are sand dunes inside the tortured rocks.
The wind blows the sand into the deadlands,
and it’s caught by the tortured rocks.
They say that the rocks have been carved out by the persistent grinding of the wind, and that’s what gives them their agonized shapes.
They’re about a hundred yards away.
It’s the commander’s intention to go into the rocks this time.
Dumb.
There is a different set of God in the deadlands.
We're closer to the rocks now.
We can see how the potholes
and pits become deeper and
more jagged.
We can see how the rocks grow
out of the deadlands floor.
All the ruts lead to the tortured rocks.
Nobody knows if the tortured rocks cover only a few acres, or hundreds of miles.
There may even be several areas of tortured rocks.
Nobody knows.
You can’t map the deadlands.
One patrol thought that the rocks were only a few acres, or at most a few miles.
They decided to walk around them.
We a
re still waiting for them to return.
That was twenty years ago.
We are going into the rocks now.
The commander has a length of cord. Every ten feet there is a knot in it.
He loops one end of it around a rock.
The rock is grotesque
hunched over
deformed
twisted
The commander loops the cord around it
and we go in.
Clambering over one another,
stumbling through agonized
shapes of stones,
shards of souls,
shattered,
frozen
in a writhe
of torment.
Across crevices of fear and
through corridors of pain
The wind picks up in intensity.
It whistles through the rocks.
It shrieks.
The rocks scrape at the entrails of the wind
and it shrieks.
The sun falls into the night behind us.
Darkness.
Only the whistling of the wind,
the moaning
of an injured beast,
We sit in a circle.
The light is in the center, a silent beacon
slowly revolving
casting agonized shadows
of the rocks closest to us
onto the twisted souls of the ones farther back.
Darkness beyond.
There is little talk.
A few of the men smoke
cigarettes like tiny eyes in the night.
We are five hundred yards into the tortured rocks.
We could be twenty miles.
Or twenty feet.
It’s all the same.
The wind subsides
and changes
and picks up a new note,
a mournful note,
a keening,
a wail of something...
something
large
and watchful,
waiting,
biding its time,
crooning to itself.
The ground is hard and uneven.
Sleep is troubled.
In the Deadlands
We are coming out now.
Thank your own private gods.
According to the cord we are five hundred yards into the tortured rocks.
And now we are coming out.
The commander winds up the cord as he walks.
Every ten feet he winds up another knot. We will wind up a total of one hundred and fifty knots.
We struggle back the way we came, following the twistings and turnings of the aching cord,
clambering over one another,
sliding and scraping,
pathetic in our eagerness to escape.
The rocks are red and yellow and black.
They arch and twist with painful frenzy.
They reach out with sharp plucking edges
to scratch and claw
the tender flesh.
The floor
is uneven and gouged.
Ridges protrude
at obscene angles,
and crevices sink away into bottomless abysses.
and i can feel
a warm hungry presence.
an enveloping
throbbing
flood of. . .
The commander winds up thirty knots.
We go on
in wordless agony.
The only sound
is the scraping of boots
across rock,
and wordless
grunts of pain
as rock scrapes across flesh.
The sound is hideous.
Like a giant crab scrabbling across rocks and gasping for breath with deep rasping sighs.
Far off
in the distance,
i can hear him
clicking his mandibles
and tapping at the rocks with his claws
as he comes clabbering after us.
A cold taste of lonely. . .
a sense of longing
For that hot throbbing
presence.
The commander winds up sixty knots.
We stumble and stagger—
the floor catches and grabs
and tries to trip.
The rocks turn and twist.
They scratch
and cut
and slash.
The sun hates with a fury,
The orb has become an eye of sleeting agony.
a white stare of deadly bright.
Invisible radiation lacerates our bodies.
The orb has become an eye of sleeting agony.
The senses are seared by it.
and the warm
amniotic presence
radiates stronger.
The commander winds up ninety knots.
All the senses
scream for release.
White hot agony.
The flesh is seared.
The ears scream.
The eyes burn.
Flesh
is torn
away
from flesh.
Living tissue
dissolves
in pain.
The rocks rip and tear and grind.
The soul writhes.
A funny taste,
a funny flat taste
like metal.
The commander winds up one hundred and ten knots.
It floods warm and cool
through me,
like wine.
Soul wine.
A whimpering
sound of fear,
something
crying for release.
Twenty-three molten agonies.
Twenty-three fear-stained souls.
Far away
something beats its mandibles in delight.
An immense weight
of terror,
a rasping in the lungs,
a pounding in the ears,
in the heart,
in the soul,
a throbbing in the flesh,
a pulsing stinging agony.
It floods down my throat,
down
and into my belly,
where it radiates
warmness
coolness
release
satisfaction
fulfillment,
i am six feet of burning, turning, twisting.
i am molten lava.
i am seared rock.
The soul shrieks soundlessly.
i am scraped raw.
The commander winds up one hundred and thirty knots.
and slowly
it permeates my body,
pulsing
outward through my
flesh,
something warm
and hungry and thirsting,
and i am warm
and hungry
and thirsting
and i whimper.
i shrink gibbering inside myself,
a quivering gobbet of flesh,
falling...
bending...
curling...
knees to chest.
Hands clenched in little pink
fists.
Fists to chin.
Head to knees.
Eyes tight.
Shoulders tight.
Elbows stiff.
And i am a ball of gibbering
fear.
and i am released
and satisfied
and fulfilled.
A whimpering fetus,
shivering
quivering.
i am fulfilled.
Clinging.
Must not let go.
The mouth works in silent
desire.
Imploring.
A red and white-hot burning
grows deep within the groin.
i am fulfilled.
Rivulets of icy sweat
streak the tightened flesh.
i am fulfilled.
Do you understand that?
i am fulfilled!
NO!
We are fulfilled!
We are fulfilled!
Flesh,
chafed and scalded
and scraped raw,
bleeding from wounds too small
to see.
Searing air
rasps the throat
and burns the lungs.
All of us!
together!
We are fulfilled!
Somewhere a voice calls out,
One hundred and forty knots.
Far away is something big.
Something that scrabbles mindlessly,
clicking and ticking
and clattering across the deadlands floor.
Something that utters deep leathery groans
of slavering anticipation.
Chitinous claws scrape rock.
And fear
must un-knot me.
Fear must un-knot me.
Slowly,
a fist
unclenches,
becomes
a claw,
a hand.
but we are fulfilled...
Now
the other one,
slowly,
slowly...
We are fulfilled
with an overpowering
need
and love
Put
one hand
in front of the other
love...
(desire)
and
bring your head up.
for each other
and for the commander
and
Put
one knee
in front of the other
and
ignore
the bloody flowing
from scraped and stinging
hands and knees.
for Carl
and for me too
and
Crawl.
Crawl.
Crawl.
CRAWL, YOU SHIVERING BASTARD
One hand.
Now the other...
One knee.
Now the other...
And whimper.
the deadlands
and the rocks
—especially the rocks—
the warm embracing
rocks.
Scraping
over jagged rocks,
flesh
is torn from flesh,
limb
is torn from limb,
entrails shattered
in a gutted belly.
we are fulfilled
and the warmth
floods through us
right up to the
top of our very being
and
BUT KEEP CRAWLING
Every living cell
screams
in white searing agony,
writhing
and burning
and turning
and twisting
and dissolving
into gobbets of terror...
Put one hand in front of you.
There, where you can see it.
Now, the other...
Now a knee,
a knee...
MOVE THAT KNEE
Look down.