Murder in the First
(With inspiration from Current 93)
First Rehearsal
We were in the old abandoned building again. Neither of us looked at the other; we just stood there, benumbed, surrounded by what we had done. The floorboards had been torn up, and pieces of concrete lay strewn about below the Corinthian columns. Fleshy fragments of limbs from the bodies still peered out from cracks, mocking us hacks who had not done our jobs properly the first time around. A smell akin to frankincense commingled with that of sweat and feces wafted through the air, adding to the oneiric quality of the heinous scene. You lowered your pants and began to masturbate, while I pretended to ignore it, peregrinated, walking a circuitous, vertiginous route that led me back again and again to the spot where I had stood moments before. Was this the beginning of the scene or the end? Rewind, replay: this isn't the first performance; it's the first rehearsal.
First Rehearsal (continued)
Inhaling, we drift to the left and then to the right, but still we cannot speak, for we have lost our tongues to the beast that devours conceptual thought and reasoning. What is the world? It is nothing… A voice in my head, a fragment of dust, the great in the small, forever and ever. Chopchopchop, the floorboards kick up sawdust, chunks of concrete fall in reverse, sticking to the walls and wounding Lucifer's reddened flank, which throbs without reservation or restitution. To find the golden chalice, one must first drink from the tin can of Christ's mythic myopia… Again, a voice, dissociated from logic, floating toward me through the turbid air, enters my mouth. I open it to imbibe the rotten knowledge that has fallen from the Tree of Untruth, but you stop me, placing your clammy palm over my lips and pointing to the dead man's disembodied finger with the swollen ring finger of your own (your index finger appears to be missing; I do not question this).
First Rehearsal (conclusion)
We. Guilty as charged. But I haven't done anything. I haven't killed anyone. This is no matter. Logic has no place in this world. The floorboards, shattered; the buddhas, smashed. You staring back at me now, as if performing psychic surgery on my organs. Get out! I scream. They're all deadeadeadead. Murder in the First. What do you plead? This is just a rehearsal; this isn't the real performance. Watching the clock, awaiting the alarm. Just a little while longer now. You: lowering your pants again. I: looking away, walking away, out of the dream. A bicycle ringing its own bell. But where is the rider? Murder in the First. Guilty as charged. Watching the clock. Waiting for reprieve. When you wake you shall have… The end draws near. Silence. Lucifer's lips, sealed with the wax of eternal sleep. What is the world? Nothing, you say. Nothing.
FIN
