And as the horns sounded the last post...

Babylon crumbled;

and the cellar door was blown shut by the whispered prayers of a dying man's pride.

It is; at last; the end of the road. Time at last to take my work with me to the grave.

I do not expect an easy afterlife - The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I have buried too many friends under those mouldy cobbles. My only wish is that they who have sent me here now, floating face-down in the river styx - That they one day experience the remorse of god and the mercy of the devil. For which mankind deserves neither...

I have stared into the abyss and then, been plunged headlong into the inky morass. I shall take a few moments now to speak to some of my readers who I have not had the chance to contact through other means; before I pull the trigger and bury myself once and for all.

To the investigator's son - You are a coward, and a fiend. I hope you one day wake up to yourself. I am ashamed to think I once defended your character and called you my friend. Put down the pipe and go home to your family - If not for yourself, then do it for them. Family is all we can rely on when all else has failed us. Also; you ruined drum and bass for me. Shame on you. ;D

To the soldier's son - I truly regret not having taken the time to spend honouring you and your loved other the way you two deserve. You are some of the most honest and open, caring and kind friends I have been blessed with, and I have nobody but myself to blame for not exploring that farther.

To the two oldest and most generous friends, to whose doorstep I brought with me the devil's footsoldiers. I can never atone for the darkness and danger that you have been faced with because of my selfishness and arrogance. You have done so much for me but I have given you nothing in return but excuses, heartache and risk to yourselves and those you live with. I am so, so very guilt ridden and I know that the last thing you probably want to hear from me is another apology. So instead I'll just say that I love you, and that I will repay you one day for everything I can.

Anyway. The sun's about to rise here. I haven't been able to sleep much lately. Watch the news, but don't believe everything you hear or read. This is the Doctor, signing out for good. Exeunt.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/18/3041468.htm

hard hands

Serve God love me and mend
This is not the end
Lived unbruised we are friends
And I'm sorry
I'm sorry

Sigh no more, no more
One foot in sea, one on shore
My heart was never pure
And you know me
And you know me

And man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing

Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be...

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

I think it just got weird enough.

there is a fairly reasonable chance that within the next six hours I am going to die. Circumstances are rather outside my control at this point, but I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve I'm going to try and pull.

But if I'm not smart enough, or quick enough, or lucky enough this time to scrape through...

know only that if it weren't for you and the effect you have on my life to date; I would probably have died a long time ago a dozen times over. I always wanted to protect you, but so often it seemed like you were the one protecting me, usually from myself.

But it looks like it's for real, this time.

I will face my destiny the way I have always striven to - Eyes up, with the faith and dedication of self; the constant drive to make you proud, but most importantly; to stare down the barrel of the universe with no fear or doubt in my mind that I gave it everything I could. For you.

Fear is the mind killer.

And on my headstone they will chisel my blood oath;

Vivo vixi victum; avo comperio; sans meteus

fish scales under my fingernails

After years of waiting
After years of waiting nothing came
And you realize you're looking,
Looking in the wrong place

After years of waiting nothing came
As your life flashed before your eyes
You realize

I'm a reasonable man
Get off, get off, get off my case
I'm a reasonable man
Get off my case
Get off my case

The Immaculate Perception

Tommy Forester is dead.
Tommy was going to be an engineer.
He was 22, good-looking, personable, athletic.
He had a high IQ.
The dean said he had the best potential of any man in his class.
But Tommy is dead.

His problem was acid.
Lysergic acid formula 25 called LSD.
A close friend told him LSD was psychedelic, mind-expanding.
Said it would give him fantastic new sensations and thrills.
So Tommy tried it and his friend was right.

At first the LSD made him sick at his stomach.
But then Tommy began to hallucinate.
The air began to be filled with rainbows.
The very atmosphere seemed to be a moving current of multi colour particles which came streaming down around him. When he listened to the stereo he saw coloured particles floating out from the speakers.
When he looked at the walls they seemed to be melting.
The pictures on the walls became liquified with colours running down like waterfall. It was sensational.

Inside himself Tommy felt sublimated, sort of suspended in space.
He had an euphoric feeling of wonderful well-being.
Then he looked in a mirror and something horrible happened.

First it seemed that half of his face was rotting away.
Then he began to see himself as a grotesque misshapen monster.
He looked around the room and all the people were becoming monsters.
Everybody knew what was happening to Tommy because he began screaming and describing what he was seeing.

Tommy had the feeling he wanted to smash his head against the wall to bring himself out of this stupor.

He did it.

Blood squirted from his nose and a large cut blooded his face.

But he felt no pain.

Then he pounded his head on a door-post.
Somebody in the room tried to stop him.
He felt they were his enemies so he jerked away.
He ran into the next room where an opened window looked out on a roof across the street.
It was 18 storeys to the ground.
Tommy thought to himself that the roof across the street was really just a few inches away.
He could jump on it and thereby escape.

He tried.
Tommy is dead.

crystal forces & dust bunnies

Every state has it's ghost towns. Weird places. very silent hill. Stranger still are those towns still clinging to life by the skin of their teeth, but most of them are just kidding themselves. It's refreshing, in a perverse way, to come into a dead town where the people know it, the animals know it, and even the buildings know it. You can see it in the way the paint peels, and the walls creak in the wind.

We pulled in that town by the bypass, the same one you drive past without a second glance. Poor old girl's day has been and gone, but she still slumps there, dejectedly, a few k down the road off the olympic highway. It looked bad when the main street could barely fit two cars across it, and the dust we kicked up in our hilux tasted like eighties hair gel. It was only seven or eight, but the place was quiet as a jew's savings withdrawal record. She was the 1985 tidy town winner, got a ceremony from the premier and all. But now it's quiet as fuck, once after five you can't find a feed like your arse in the dark. Potholed roads just as the locals like it, but a couple of nice spots on the outskirts. The only light was at the pub, and with a shrug of the shoulders we headed in for counter tucker. "Unlucky son." The barman told us. "The missus has gone off to bed. I can do a bowl of chips or some bread and butter." We looked at each other, ordered a round of skewies and a couple of LLBs for the driver, a bowl of chips to share. "Bar shuts at nine" he said, after I asked him

"A game of darts?" We asked the only other drinker in the place, an older bloke with worry lines that made a roadmap on his skin. Weatherbeaten and dry like an old leather couch that's been in a paddock for the best part of six months. He could see that we were blow-ins from the city, but were showing hospitality. We warmed soon enough when he chalked up a few points on the cork. He joked a bit as we worked our way through the drinks and bought the next round. He stammered once or twice, a little smashed but he could still stand so it seemed alright. He leaned over and asked if we were up for a challenge. "Test your talent, tell me a tale". We shrugged, not really thinking that our kind of tales would go down well here - It was me and three of my best mates from the old unit, and our main memories were those of pissing ourselves in the sand, under heavy fire from iraqi artillery and mortar teams while armor columns tracked up the path towards us. He shrugged again. "I'll start, then." I slurped my drink, slopped it down my front. Glad I wasn't driving, I ordered another. This old fella, he'd come into this town pretty early on. Tried his hand on the land, freight job with the state rail company. He said "This was a town of industry, so many years back. But brown years of drought and fire have left some fierce holes in the soil." He continued on, educating us to the trials and tribulations of this place. He says "You youngins probably don't wanna hear that. But I-" He stabs a thumb proudly towards his chest. "I served in Kokoda. Believe me son, we adapt." He all straightened up, intently listening now. This was a man who'd seen the worst kind of hell. "It's nothing to be sneered at, we all fought. This was a busy boom town, now become a back water. Because of the private sales, you see. It went Telstra, NAB then Australia post. But once that bypass went in-" he gestured vainly towards the direction of the main street leading out of town. "That was what killed us. We used to be a nice stop on the way into the city. But the big highway clamped our arteries nicely, didn't it just?" He sat back down into his seat and shut his eyes, falling asleep. The barman had heard this all before, pointed o the clock. Nine.

This whole area was once thick with outlaws and rough working men. I felt like a stranger. The air here, was thin and dry as the local newsrag that went around once a month. The days felt as long as the highway we came in from, the locals never thought they'd be so glad to see the diesel smoke whenever a semi came in on the freight route, stop-over for the night reminding them of the old days. They built a war memorial at the cemetery, after the great war. Locals aside, it's had two visits in the past century, by their local M.P who lives in the city. The traino's shut, the only way north is by one of the bi-weekly buses. The roadhouse has yellow postcards of roast lamb and peas, untouched by humajn hands since a long since retired waitress set them up on a rack twenty odd years ago.This fellow was jovial, and friendly. It won't be all over till the last beer's poured. Man, it's more than ceremonial. We gave one last cheers, raised the schooners in respect, downed our drinks and paid up. It was a full moon, and we had a long way to go before we got back to the city.

spinnegeist

spider's ghost with a paper spine /
left his shadow hanging from the telephone line /
the signal tripped over the shadow's toes /
and whispered in my ear where the bassline should go...