A tiny little shithole of a one-bedroom apartment. That’s what my life has been reduced to. Two months ago I had a farm, a girlfriend, dogs, horses– all gone now.
It’s my own fault, really. I’d neglected her for years. Chased business idea, after business idea, and they all led to, well… not much.
And before that, a six-figure job and a trajectory up the corporate ladder. I threw it all away.
But I still have my writing, the only thing I’ve ever been good at. But I can’t even take credit for that. As soon as my fingers hit the keyboard (as they are doing now), my muse appears and whispers things to me that can only be born out of darkness. I call him Dennis.
I suspect Dennis can take the form of anything he chooses, yet he has revealed himself to me as an immense, albino python, with the face of my dead grandfather, who killed himself when I was in high school.
Shot himself with a .22 caliber revolver that I would use to go hunting with whenever I would stay with him; help him work his farm in the summers as a kid. I’d always thought it was a tiny round to shoot yourself with. And right in the side of his head. I suspect it wasn’t an instant death.
And I can’t forget the chair, oh that sanguine chair from which he always sat and ate his butter cookies. I helped move the furniture from the house and the deep red of the cushions had been sprayed with an even deeper red liquid that had since dried even deeper still; almost black.
Curiously, none of It ever troubled me much. I loved him in my own way, mainly for showing me the value of a day’s work, but he was a lost man and had his demons, and I don’t think he saw a way to overcome them. To be frank, I didn’t see a way for him to overcome them, either.
So why does he slither along the cheap laminate flooring of my apartment? The dead orbs in his sockets are wall-eyed and clouded and still. The little lead bullet must have severed his optic nerves, but his mouth still flaps very much alive and well – as he whispers to me. His mustache is as well-groomed as it always was in life, and the reluctant strands of his combover rest neatly over his bald head.
He told me to write this: “It’s time you tell them about me, boy.”
The words crooned into my ear just this morning. And so, I did. And so, I am.
Why is it he that inspires? Why is it he that calls on my fingers to dance? I type the words of lonesomeness, despair, and dread, just as he asks. He then offers a watery smile and slinks away.
I asked him if he’s in Hell for the life he lived. He assured me, “Hell is a state of mind, boy,” and left it at that.
I write at the behest of Hell, the incomprehensible void of all things lightless.
And Grandpa Dennis is, as usual, right.
For the tales spun from words on the pages are real if they’re true in the heart, are they not?
Words are powerful things; sacred things. You build worlds and universes with them and the reader lives there for a time.
Of course, a serpent with the head of my dead grandfather can’t be real, yet you still see him, white and shining scales that house a long, rippling tube of flesh as it winds its way throughout my small apartment. You see his dead eyes and sinister smile as he reads the words I type from behind my shoulder. And those eyes still see, somehow.
You’re reading the words with him, in a sense. A shared moment with a monster. He’s my monster, but he’s yours now too.
I’ve lost everything by my own doing, just as he did, and when I look in the mirror I see his face above all others. I see my own doom.
Can you feel it now? What’s in the darkest corner of your own heart? What have you done that’s too painful to think on, and only catches you while you’re in bed at night? Who have you loved that looked at you with cold eyes and disappointment, or worse yet – indifference?
“Hell is a state of mind.”
Do you see? Dennis is right.
And Dennis is pleased.
Once he’s done with me, he’ll eventually coil his body around mine, squeeze until my guts spew from my mouth, and open his own, gaping wide to consume me, smiling all the while. And I’ll be gone. But for now, he allows me to use him as my dark muse, so I can share this with you.
So I can plant this idea in your head and let it grow until you’ve got your own ghost.
Well, you already do, don’t you?
It might not have taken form just yet, but deep down you know it’s in there – in you.
Maybe it’s a dying aunt you didn’t see near the end. Maybe it’s a friend you betrayed, maybe it’s a parent that didn’t love you, but it’s in there.
And the worst part of all of this?
You don’t even know how much of this is true. It seems like a real-life story, doesn’t it? Maybe it is.
Maybe I’m just writing this to make you feel a sense of unease.
But the point is, is that it doesn’t matter.
You’re beginning to form your own ghost; your own serpent. Just like Dennis wanted.
And it may give you power, but it will also almost certainly destroy you, for the darkness is beautiful and all-consuming, and we can’t embrace it for long.
But you’re here on this thread, reading the darkest of the dark you can find, so you’re already halfway there, aren’t you?
So, tell us…
What does it look like?