Seeds of a Withered Rose (Sleepwriting Experiment)

This was an experiment I decided to try out some time ago. I'd wait until I was passing out from exhaustion and then write in my sleep. Much of the time I had no idea what was written during the separate sessions. It spanned for a few nights before I stopped the experiment. This story is what came of it. It is not cleaned up. Idecided to leave it 'as is' so please excuse spelling and grammar mistakes.

Prologue:

Emptiness, emptiness... like gorging on a black hole, void of light. My life is a picture, still and waiting to be worn by snappy fingers. Still waiting to be used by mouths that lap hungrily at my tired feet, bruised from so many miles of nothing but nothingness. I remember how I stood, a young boy at fifteen years of age, at the foot of a church, my ears pricking at the bells' ceaseless calling, recalling the same emptiness even though people swarmed around my body like rabid bees and busy insects.... Life is a hole in itself, and the hole is to be swallowed by the same whole hole, not a crumb left to the dogs.

Forgive me for not introducing myself...I'm not yet wise in ways of the meeting ones not known to oneself, nor am I keen on skills when delving into the communication between human beings. My name, however, I can tell you, and that is Randau. Randau Jack Climson. Most faces I recognize call me by the Jack, while some select few think it better to use the first name in such a string of unneccessary words. What is in a name? Nothing but emptiness, being gobbled up by darkness. Yet you must have one to carry on in this dreary world.

So I, Randau, or Jack, whichever you prefer...shall tell you a tale of this thing called emptiness. I must warn you, however, that listening to such a story may bring you a sense of dread or maybe some subtle fear... Emptiness is timeless ad flawless, emptiness is omnipresent, is fate, is destiny no matter what the path. His words are clear. This is my story. I pray you follow in silence.

It was snowy on the day that I met this man, a fine sunny morning just off of the western corner of a street lining the grounds of Spitalfield. The year is on time of a fresh 1987 January, so the streets have, of course as always, become slick with ice. Snowcaps adorn many of the objects in sight, a white display of death and rebirth. Something harboring what was to come... A pair of doves flirted alongside an iron fence, trailing along it's old gothic designs that were ingraved in the hard railing. I watched them for a moment, amused, but I dared not smile. Smiling was for the good children, and I had been quite unruly that same week, running off from our home on Bradford Street a couple of towns over, vowing and crossing my heart on not coming back.

He sat beside an old wooden bench. I shook my head, wondering why an adult would prefer the ground rather than a seat, where the ice wouldn't be as enticed to melt through and soak the garments. The birds forgotten, flitted away in their play, and I remained concentrated on this man. From where I stood perhaps a little over a yard away, I could see that he was facing the opposite direction from where I approached, seemingly unawares of my impolite staring. The worn boots on my feet crunched the softer sheathes of ice, melting it in small flurries, but the sound did not stir the stranger. He remained still as a rock overgrown in thick moss, unmoving, unwavering.

As I came closer still, I recognized the gray material of the coat, a little embroidered path up near the collar...My eyes widened in astonishment. Years ago, my great grandfather wore a coat of the same branding, but the company that sold those clothing pieces had been put out of business long ago. A fine jacket like that was rare. Studying the coat, and quite truthfully forgetting that a man came with it and was sitting as I stared on in such a rude manner, it came to be no surprise that I was startled by his loud words.

"So you finally come." The voice was dried out and had layers of thickness...the accent unmistakably originating from here. This man was not a traveller. Or at least, not in the way of hailing from across the many seas the earth possessed. Something about the air his words put off signalled to me that he was way beyond my years, and that there was also a means of danger behind them.

Young and foolish as I was, I was more concerned with the mystery and intriguing unbelief I felt towards the sentence. In the next few breaths I would seal my path to the nothingness and empty void that awaited a small wretch like me. "You know of me? You know who I am?" I asked, my mouth spitting before I could dwell upon what I was about to say, "You know I have run away, and you've told my mother, haven't you? You're the security, aren't you?" I swayed in the mound of snow, my boots sunken in, melted ice watering my stockings and chilling my feet.

Not turning to even catch a glimpse of me, the sitting man bobbed his head. A chuckle dripped from his direction. "Security, eh? That's what you call it..." He coughed. "I know not of your mother or of your pitiful excuse to escape your hellish life. However, I do know you. Your eyes tell a story."

"How can you know my eyes tell a story when you don't look at them?" A proceeded with my childish questions. He would teach me, as I found out. A good teacher does not let his students go wise in the way of ignorance. The true heart of a teacher is to uproot the very thing that makes children what they are... blinded ignorance. Children cannot see the emptiness. I could not either, until he showed me...

He laughed, "You have much to learn. Come closer, I wish to look at you now." He remained as a statue, and I hesitated. Finally, figuring there was no harm in talking to such a placid mannered old man, I moved forward cautiously, almost anxious to see his face. As I did so, one last phrase escaped me.

"I am willing. Teach me."

Seed One:

"It is the unseen eyes that hold the most vivid of stories. The eyes that pierce you from behind, where one is most vulnerable. An eye, a stare...these are what compose a first impression, beyond what little you can grasp in the most simple of conversations."

~ Adam Crowley at age 14

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His small laugh was growing on me, even in the short time I had known him. The sound of it was full, and could be both used as evil or good;this concept confused me, even as I approached him with bated breath. Taking tiny steps towards him, my mind tried to sort out how I would feel about him looking upon me. Even at a youthful age, I was nothing to behold really. My torso was stretched like my long, gaunt face, and my cheeks did not hold the rosiness of my peers. Despite my short time lived on earth, I looked much older than fifteen. At least twenty or more they'd all claim, and I'd have to shake my head and say the correct number. Then they would chuckle and pinch my cheeks, some of them, the older ones. This man would not be pinching my cheeks, however.

Before I completed my journey to his side, I pulled the stray hairs from my eyes so I could get a better look at him when the time came. My breath let go when he suddenly jerked his face up towards mine, and I, being startled, nearly fell to the snowy grounds. The sitting man's face was not much more than a sunken skull, his large eyes glossy but dead...the teeth he possessed were cracked, sharp, and stuck out in every direction, some protruding grotesquely from his round mouth. The nose was up near his eyes, his face twice the length of my own... Not able to help myself, I cried out, falling back a few paces.

The man resembled nothing short of a monster in many of the horror films I watched over and over again. For a minute he kept looking at me, his eyes twinkling. Then he shut them, bowing his head and running a knarled hand adorned with twisted spikes for fingernails through his ratty white mop of hair. My expression was one of terrified shock, I'm sure, but I didn't blame myself. Who else would react any differently? Still sitting and keeping his vision away from me, the strange man finally spoke, "Your eyes still hold the same story. I only wanted to look at you and confirm the way you see me. It is given you are frightened of my appearance. Why? Why is that, young foolish child?" He did not once look up, his hands returned to his lap, nails dipping holes into the fuzzy white on the earth.

"I..." My voice stuck, the images in my head still reflecting the man's alarming features. Even though I tried, I could not take my eyes from him now, even if he was half turned away. Feeling a bit of shame for my action, I neard him, even sat beside the man without a peep, folding my legs under me. My nostrils flared, taking in his smell, the aroma of that one thing...that emptiness...It was shocking, but because I was unfamiliar with it, I passed it off as nothing much. I was foolish. I wold learn. Turning to him and trying to wear a smile despite my discomfort, I answered him. "Sorry for offending you...Can you forgive me?"

Slowly the face turned to mine, and I had to bite back any emotion I felt when seeing such abnormality. He was just a man, after all... The man's mouth remained slightly unopened, lips slack, until he returned words to me. "There is no ill will towards you. Not in a million eternities." Blinking a few times, he nodded towards the ground as he went on. "Many an eye have made this man weep tears of shame. It makes no difference if more tears fall. It is the unseen eye that pierces me the most."

"Like when I was staring at you from behind..." I said softly, trying to understand where he was going with the absurd conversation. It is not everyday you hear someone speak so naturally, yet with words that had substance. From where I sat the ice was melting around, leaving watery puddles around my backside. I shifted a bit, trying to get comfortable.

The man nodded, and if I could have seen his face through the snow white mane, I'm sure he would have smiled in the triumph of my understanding. "Precisely. It is the unseen eyes that hold the most vivid of stories. The eyes that pierce you from behind, where one is most vulnerable. An eye, a stare...these are what compose a first impression, beyond what little you can grasp in the most simple of conversations." The man looked at me, but the smile I specualted was not there, only slack lips and a hefty deep look in those dark eyes. "Randau Jack."

"How..." I started, but my startled expression knocked the words from me.

"My name is Adam Crowley." He chuckled again, the same dry laugh as before. It didn't melt my surprise. "You are a bright and perceptive young lad. Much like I was at your age."

I shook myself, twsiting my head from sde to side and arching my back a bit before relaxing. "That doesn't tell me how you know my name." I said, prodding him for answers. But instead of a few more sentences, I was awarded with his standing up abruptly. My eyes traveled up the tall legs, lanky torso...to the face, the dreadful face, that still concentrated on mine. "Where are you going?"

"As I walk away you will stare, and it will be a mighty stare of disgust and bewilderment." He said this, and if his voice weren't always so thick with emptiness, I'm sure it would have been weepy at best, almost a tone of loneliness. He thrust his head to the right and up, his scrunched up nose sniffing the bitterly cold air. I sat, watching him, not saying a word. He coughed and said, quietly, "Your mother must be worried about you. Your absense is her emptiness. Go to her and show her that you are safe." The eyes found mine again on his last sentence, and I could have sworn his face softened.

I, staring back, asked again, "But where are you going?"

The man shut me from vision again, lips working slowly, "I go where my feet take me. Now go show yourself to your mother. Begone."

Folding my hands together, I tilted my head down, looking at the spindly fingers on my hands, how sore they were from the cold. Both my stockings and my pants were soaking now, and soon I would get the shivers as I so hated. Adam seemed to know much about me...and about other humans in general. "Yes sir." I said, standing and trying to brush the grity flakes from my suit.

"That is..." He stopped, spinning his body away from mine, leaving me to speculate as to what he was going to say next.

I thre him a questioning look, at the back of the gray coat... Even though he could not gaze upon my face, I am sure he saw me learly in his mind. The unseen eyes always tell the most vivid story.

He sighed, loudly enough for me to hear how strained his breaths were, "To your mother. Go."

And he walked where his feet would take him, as I watched on in disgust and bewilderment as he figured I would. I watched this Adam Crowley follow the nothingness that led him. But whereas he didn't have an appointment, I had "orders". Jamming my hands in my wet pockets and feeling the crumpled money pieces I had left, I turned and began walking down one of the abandoned streets, through the snow that bites the soles of feet. I was walking in nothingness.

I was going home.
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My own feet followed the nothingness that was the iced slick roads, weathered and beaten from the storms. In my heart I felt sorry for the streets, always being the brunt of nature's attack. It reminded me somehow of the man, I realized, walking the long stretch towards the home I so dreaded returning to...the streets had to take much pressure, and was stared at, was trampled upon by shuffling feet and busy tires, and animal hooves. The streets were a sacrificial lamb for passage. Crowley remained in my thoughts, his presence as striking as a gods, thick and almost holy. His worn body was trampled upon by eyes.... "Unseen eyes." My mouth said. I only understood that I had spoken it when I saw the white puffs from my breath float before my face. Then the air was normal, the little smokey bubble disappearing into the nothingness. Nothingness...nothingness....

Despite my unwelcomed absence, my mother welcomed me with honey kisses and baby coos, stroking my hair with her large hands. Her chestnut eyes only held relief and not the anger most people possessed. Cupping my face and melting her vision with mine, she hummed softly, "Honey, don't you ever do that again. You had me so worried about you." As she helped me struggle from my wet clothing, I shrugged off her warning.

"Mom, I'm fifteen and I'm able to take care of myself." I started, my stomach growling as the aroma of her cooking filled my nose. Mom always cooked. It was her passion...sometimes the food was a soup made from scratch, other times a delicious dessert. "I was just going out for awhile..."

She stopped, looking over at me, her face a bit more hard now after placing my dripping coat on the rack that was always standing guard by the front door. Our house was small and cramped, and sometimes my legs just ached to be free of the tight corners and cluttered masses of belongings. "You've been gone for three days, hon. Why on this green earth would you up and leave without kissing your dear mother goodbye?" She sounded hurt, geniunely.

...Telling her the truth was no good. Ever since I was old enough to recognize myself in the mirror, I knew that this place was not where I truely belonged. My mother had never told me that she didn't physically bare me those fifteen years ago, but I knew, somehow, that she certainly didn't. When I had set foot out originally, it was to gather answers and to find my true self...to walk in blind nothingness until my past showed its true face. My lips trembled now...I was unsure of what to say.

Nodding, she closed the distance between us and took me in her arms. I was almost certain she had figured it out by my expression...but she said nothing of it, only kissed my hair and returned to the kitchen to resume making our meal. Sighing, I retreated to my bedroom, a small square stacked wall to wall with books and writings...and stretched out on my shaggy bed. My arms over my head, I let my mind wander. As my body relaxed and my muscles fell limp, my sight swirled into the dark abyss of a dreamy sleep. It was time.
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"You cannot love. You are a beast!" The woman's words brimmed with anger. I could not see her eyes. She was faceless. There was also a man, wounded from the words. He held his chest tightly and stretched forth an arm, gripping the dainty wrist typical of young maidens. I saw only the black shadows of them, nothing more and nothing less. Just blackness against a wall of unconsiousness.

Eyes unseen overflowed with tears. I could smell the sadness on his breath, "My heart fails me at your accusations, for my love is ever stronger than a sentence of lies." The thin hand tugged desperately on the wrist, but the woman resisted, breaking the grip and fleeing into the nothingness...away, like a captured bird that had been loosed.

"You cannot love. You are a beast!"

"...stronger than a sentence of lies!" The last words echoed as the broken man crumpled to his knees, hidden but weeping and real. I tried to reach out to him, but could not move. My eyes told me a story.

In these shadows were a twisted mansion full of deception and heartbreak, of hopes and dreams crushed by the eyes of others. Beast. A derogatory term... a beast was something hideous to the extreemes... Sometimes unseen eyes tell the story clearly, as if through a looking glass. The invisible tears...they began to fall, spatering my face with wet darkness.

My voice lodged and I could not make a sound as the man cried over my body, the invisible eyes producing tears to drown me. Soon my ears were covered and his weeping noises were muffled and warped, the water was sickly warm....my skin boiled with disgust. Beast. Beast. Beast. Cannot love. The liquid now filled my mouth, and my lungs cried for air as the tears rushed into my nostrils, pulling me under in a wave of sorrow. Beast. No love for the ugly beast. Pain rocketed up my chest and into my brain, severing all rational thought. When the last whispered sob snapped, I was no more.

After being consumed by the pitiable nightmare, I woke into one similar, but with a variety of differences. This time the woman involved was fully visible to me, and a beauty of the times. Her light dress and skinny heels accented the high cheekbones and ruby lips. Her eyes were the colour of an expanse of sea on a misty dawn. She stepped forward, not smiling...the man close behind, hand outstretched. I could not see his face, for thick locks of raven hair covered him. The woman huffed in an uppity way, pouting as she rejected the needy persuer, "You are a beast...Look at you. How can this creature from the pits of hell know love? You cannot!" She sized him up, her eyes wild and daring.

The words were the same from him, but even more tremulous than the last time he had to state them, "My heart fails me at your accusations, for my love is stronger than a sentence of lies." He begged the seductress to return to his side, spindley fingers brushing her dress. Groaning, the woman hurried away, not eager to stay with the forlorn one who could hold no love.

Crying and weeping came again, much more accentuated this time...then the drowning as before. I wanted this nightmare to end...my heart bled for the mysterious wretch who seemed to have compassion to give, but not a soul to recieve it from. Again the pain consumed me, and then the third and final segment ensued.

This lovely lady was younger than the rest, her body not quite filled out. Her beauty was that in simplicity and quiet tones, and she did not flaunt. In her hand, an object obscured by dark patterns, her fist clenched from what I could make out. She was waiting, patiently. Waiting in the nothingness.

Right on time the man came...he was walking with a noticable slouch, his back humped over dramatically. Again his face was covered completely from view by gobs of black strands. A filthy coat, ragged and worn, was hrown over his frail figure, and he once again reached out to touch the innocent looking one.

"You are emotionless...you have no heart. I hate you." Came the words... Then her hand was drawn back and the object brought across the man's hidden features. He cried out sharply, the agony in his voice making my last two encounters with pain seem like a paradise. I cringed, watching him grab himself, crimson oozing from the cracks in between his long digits. The woman dropped the object and spun away, leaving me alone once again with the man.

Then time stopped and my heart felt as if it would drop to my feet. All that I could hear was my own breaths...the sound of nothingness. My legs were loosened and I could walk again... Approaching the man, I noticed the object gleaming from the floor. Stooping, I scooped it into my palm...rolling it over to get a better look. It was a feather with a sharp end...the fluffy strings protruding from the stiff stick were dotted with blood. The man....he was but a few feet away now, still and unmoving....a statue of his former self.

Longing to see his face, to know his identity, I bent forward.... My mouth twisted into a scream. Beast. No love. No emotion. Beast, beast, beast.....All I could do was speak the word being beat out like drums into my head.

".....beast."
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When I awoke it was pitch black...the image of the face that floated before me was still fresh in my mind, but soon the darkness consumed it like a hungry mouth waiting to be fed. The thought of food made my stomach churn. I sat up, dizzy from awaking...and pushed myself to the edge of my bed. From where I sat, I could tell me mother was no longer in the kitchen. She had probably noticed my sleeping state and had decided not to wake me for supper, so I'd have to go fetch the leftovers myself.

Sliding my feet to the floor, I was surprised that the wood paneling was surprisingly warm for such a cold night. My hand caught my hair, tangled in a mess.... much like how the insides of me felt after such a trip in my slumber. Crowley's words still rang in my ears, a bitter aftertaste after suck a conviction. The word had rolled from my lips.... "beast"....the unseen eyes were speaking for me again...even when I had not looked upon that face, so terrible and twsited, I had already pinned the label upon it, a hefty stigma....

Guilty, I plodded the hallway towards the small kitchen that my mother always kept in homey, loose fashion. She had left a grandious protion of the food for me out... Greedily, I scooped it up, shuffling the bites into my mouth...the same way things ate at someone who was less fortunate than I, who perhaps has knarled hands and snow white branches of hair. Who could see with eyes of invisibility and still not judge, for the same eyes had been judged before, and so unkindly at that. Who perhaps also walked in nothingness yet found a way, as if the two holes in his skull were pinpoints of guiding light in a world of blackness.

Those eyes, unseen.... the ones that dribble words of unconscious damnation.... 'beast'.....

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Thanks for reading.