As I was following my 'executioner' down the hall I couldn't help but notice a look of disgust on every singles persons face as I passed them. Several were crying others were yelling at me and the rest were crying and well, yelling at me. Every so often I saw some patients--the loopy ones--and they were giggling and laughing, though I don't think they even fully understand what just happened. My throat got dry increasingly as I got further and further down the hall, like I had a valley of sand and the hot sun just sitting in the back of my throat for all the vacationers to visit in the off seasons. I was then about to pass a drinking fountain to my left but I looked behind me to see what was behind me and every single person I passed was following me and all I could see was more people, I decided not to stop, I didn't want to sign a death warrant.
So I continued forward down the cramped hall, brushing elbows with orderlies and nurses and patients from all the wards in this one hallway. Several people were peaking out of the doors to see what the commotion was all about and to be honest, even though I knew what happened, I was too. Beads of sweat fell down my cheek and I realized that I was sweating profusely, I felt calm--its not like I killed anyone--but my body really had a sense to disagree with me. So I raised my arm and wiped my brow and as I did that, I glanced upwards to see the ceiling and it seemed like it went for miles. Fluorescent lights and speckled ceiling tiles that look like they have never been cleaned for millennia. I could only hope that nothing on the ceiling was going to eat me then I could have sworn I saw a speck move and what seemed little at first, and then showed up more noticeably.
There they were, the beautiful couple dancing on the ceiling. They almost seemed like little specks at first but they grew larger and more detailed as seconds passed like a oncoming train. Just twirling and spinning and I could only feel to join them. To dance down the hall with an imaginary partner, twirling and spinning with the beautiful couple that I grew to be so fond of just mimicking their every move as I was to be learning from the masters. They were their full size as usual and their bodies occasionally went through the others that were standing in the hallway. No one noticed the dancers but it was the same thing with the other party. They were just dancing to their hearts content like there was no one left in the room. They soon sped up to pass several feet in front of me and then they continued further down the never-ending hallway and then took a sharp right.
I then moved my gaze back to the man that was leading me to god knows what and he then took a turn to the right. Obviously the couple knew where we were going so I said to myself, see you there. I looked around to see if people heard me and I noticed that the people thinned out and only one or two were left a little in the distance. Behind me was what appeared to be an angry mob--though lacking the fire and pitchforks--I had a sigh of relief because they kept their distance as if I was radioactive, which I wasn't to my knowledge. I then reached the fork in the road and I took my right to see the mysterious executioner waiting several yards down the hall looking right at me, hands crossed and standing in the middle of the hall--to prevent me to run away I guess.
A few seconds passed and I reached the point to face the strange man that I have been following. He was old, almost ancient. He was covered with wrinkles, had no hair and had this grey somewhat bushy beard falling a foot and wrapping around his mouth up to his ears. He didn't look as if he was angry with me like the rest of my fellow patrons. Instead it looked like he had compassion in his eyes and a little grin on his face like he had mischievous ideas to pull on me. Other than that he looked like the rest--white jacket, black pants, shiny black shoes. He then moved his right arm up and signaled for me to head into the room to his right. The door was even open like I was some cripple that couldn't even lift up a finger, though I was skeptical on what was going to happen I continued into the room and everything to the tiniest little things that laid in the room stood as a shock to me.
The room had twelve-foot ceilings and the length of it was like it was like a minute of running to the other end. The door I just entered was in the lower left corner if the person who was looking in the room ascended above to see it as if everything was a floor plan of a house. The room looked like it was a chapel because to my right were benches all the way to the other end while facing away from me. This followed all the way across the room with a hallway in the middle. I continued to walk in and I noticed that all the benches in the room were destroyed or defiled in some way. I walked to the first set of benches to get a closer look and it looked as if everything catastrophic swooped through into the room and then lingered for a while. I stood in awe and then the man who led me in approached behind me and whispered in my ear, 'What I want you to see is on the stage'. Acknowledging this I continued forward passing broken bench to broken bench to approach this stage that was mentioned to me.
Now, I noticed that this room was more like an auditorium or rather even a theater instead of a chapel. What I was approaching was a wooden stage risen a few feet off the ground but what I was passing became more than broken benches. As I got closer to the stage little by little I noticed blood was all over the benches and the closest ones to the stage were just drenched in this liquid life force. I was just a few feet from the stage and I heard and felt a puddle from underneath my feet. Because I was only just woken up and we were indoor, I never bothered to put on my shoes. So here I was bare footed, in a theater, angry mob from behind and nearly ankle deep in blood. I felt a little turning in my stomach but since the last week or two has been more than eventful, I have grown to build a tolerance to blood.
So just like before, I continued forward--it was the only direction that I really could go. I noticed a slight waterfall of you know what was pouring down the stage as I ascended the stairs--trying not to slip on the same, you now what. I looked forward and I saw the dancing couple in the far left corner--still on the ceiling of course--above the presumable source of the blood. There laid a man laying on his back but being partially held up by the corner wall. As with the other bodies that I have found in the past, he was covered in blood, preventing anyone to make an identification on which it was from a distance. I walked closer and saw the blood trail to him but I also saw another trail still heading forward if you were still ascending the stairs down some more stairs at the end of the stage into a dismal abyss that I couldn't see because it was so dark down the hallway. I reached the body and I couldn't tell you which body part was not cut wide open. The most noticeable however, was a slit on the mans throat nearly going all the way around his neck.
Blood was all over the walls and the ceiling and while I was looking up I noticed that the couple also was covered in blood. From their bodies the blood dripped down towards me--up for them--and even though everything about them seemed so real, by the time the blood hit the ground, nothing was added to the puddles that were already present. I was seeing things and so the disease that I tried so hard to get a rid of has finally shown itself to me, so I embraced it into my warm home with my very own stone cold hands. My formerly known executioner walked up behind me again as whispered in my ear a second time saying 'their is too much blood for one body, we need to follow the trail to see where the others are. I’m sure you know who this man is'. As a matter of fact I did, I knew exactly who the owner of the lifeless body was and for a second, I could have sworn I had a grin of delight.
Next up in Listening For That Sweet Tune:
Conversations with Cut Throats (3 of 3) Pt. 1
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