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  Dominic Lyne

  Published by Degraded Discord, 2014

  an imprint of DPL Publishing

  www.dom-lyne.co.uk

  Text copyright © Dominic Lyne, 2012

  The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Cover design by Dominic Lyne © 2014

  All Rights Reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Niente: Judas Inferno

  Laura: The Promises

  George: These Final Moments

  Rachel: The Estate

  Gabriel: A Forgettable Exit

  John: Memory

  Tomas: Therapy

  Mary: Unclean

  […]

  I: The Last Cigarette

  About the Author

  Niente:

  Judas Inferno

  When you’re locked in a room, alone, that’s when you realise. The silence, the hollowness. Sounds of the unfulfilled future whispering through the window like the echoes of a thousand broken dreams. Fantasies lost to the monotony of a never changing machine. He was starting to realise all this as he lies on his back against the hardness of the floor. His mind screaming, his body tired, his existence empty.

  With his eyes closed he sees nothing. A sea of inky black swirling like oil against his eyelids. No dream visions, no happy flashbacks; no thoughts to even make a change. Only darkness. The cold darkness engulfing everything. With anger it came, hollowness all it left. One soul trapped in an infinite prison. How had it come to this?

  His mind searches for an answer, reliving the past; alone in the darkness watching memories like broadcasts on a dying, flickering television set. He tries to smile, to force himself to be happy but nothing comes. Slowly dying inside he feels nothing. A cold grin crosses his face at that thought. Don’t pray for my soul, it’s already dead. This moment had been a long time coming, gradually creeping in from the corners. He only noticed once it was too late, the shadowy pillars rising too high, blocking out the sun. Everyone has been lied to, happy endings are only fiction, reality is nothing more than a path of pain and disappointment. The highway to nothing.

  Alone.

  Abandoned.

  Lost.

  A noise breaks the silence. His phone, a message. No one ever speaks, always digital conversations, the comfort of the human voice replaced with short text phrases. He jumps to his feet and grabs it. Someone wants to share a moment with him. He even feels happy.

  Hey baby, just wanted to say I’m having a great time.

  He throws the phone away. Anger, rage. Yeah, a great time without me. He wants to scream, his other half is out partying and didn’t even bother to invite him, didn’t once put him first, a simple lack of invitation just because of some history. Bastard, fucking bastard. The tears come and he crumbles to the floor again.

  Why? Why all this pain? All this suffering and loneliness. What had he done to deserve this? ‘Why?’ he croaks. ‘Why?’ His hand slams against the side of his head. ‘Why? Why? Why?’

  He’s rocking, huddled up and rocking. Hugging himself tightly. Comfort from the caress of hands, even if they are his own. Should he scream? Pray? Run and hide? Running, all his life he’s felt like he’s been running. Running from something, the unknown, the darkness, maybe even reality. Running. It’s all a matter of hope. You could be running to your future or from your past, to fulfilment or the fall. Hopes are so pitifully changeable against the path of destiny and fate. Say a little prayer and hope that somebody’s listening.

  Why can’t he be happy? Everyone else is happy so surely some should come his way. He wipes his face. Why can’t he be happy with what he has? Always seeking to find faults and negatives. Do I seriously believe I don’t deserve to be happy? Always wanting something I can never have. His hand hits his head again; the pain shows him he’s alive.

  How stupid it is to just sit alone in the room, locked away with only his thoughts as company, but what else is there for him? Who else is there for him? Who would understand, or even actually care? Everyone has their own issues, dramas, why would they want his inflicted upon them? So sit here he does. Endlessly waiting, morbidly thinking. Waiting slowly for the end.

  He hates himself, that much is evident, a self-hatred that engulfs everything. A happy moment soiled by a sideways glance at a mirror. It really is that deep. Soul deep. A cancer that has finally been detected. Tears flowing so easily, out of nowhere they pour, running down his cheeks like rivers of regret. There is no future in wishful dreaming. How pathetic, he thinks, placing all hopes on a god who let all this shit happen. Fuck it, Virgin Mother help me. Show me a direction. Show me a way. Deep down he knows the answer.

  The clock changes its display and he looks. Midnight. The dawn of a new day, how quickly time flies when the mind wanders. When lost in thought do the tears run dry? Midnight. Sleep; let the body rest as the brain dreams.

  He pulls himself onto his bed fully clothed and hugs the pillow. Pulling it deep into him, wishing it were his partner, longing to feel the warmth of a human body next to him. Alone the fabric of the pillow will do. It’s not enough, but then again nothing ever is.

  With eyes closed he wishes for nothing as his soul dreams for something, anything is better than how he feels at the moment. The mind blank; visions of shadows in the darkness. Shapes moving, smoky faces glancing in and observing. Cold eyes watching, waiting. Stay out of the shadows, stay out of the dark, but what do you do when it’s closing in around you? Pray? Pray to the God of Lies? Scream and plead like a torture victim, a hostage, a prisoner to the world He created.

  His dreams mirror reality. He stands alone in a vast empty space. Stood with nothing, naked as the moment he was born. His whole being exposed to all and he doesn’t care. No one’s watching anyway. He sits down, a hand to his head. He can’t help but laugh, it echoes dryly in the silence. Even here, even in his dreams. Always and ever searching to find the truth behind this life. Maybe there is no truth, no reason, no logic. No justification for all of this shit. We just live, suffer then die. A pointless quest to prove our self worth, to make our existence meaningful when we might as well have been aborted at birth.

  His mind wanders. Some people get everything, happiness, success, everything they could possibly want, and then you get people like me, constantly let down, losing everything they value day by day. Looking like wasted Gollum on a quest to find that one thing that they believe will make them truly happy, only to find out too late that it is as deceitful as everything else in this world.

  He closes his eyes against the void. Somebody help me, somebody save me. I’m losing and there’s no one to help. I’m losing to this deadly game.

  He spins his body round sharply on his bed, slamming down angrily against the mattress. He can’t take this anymore, can’t face the oncoming traffic of his life, tired of hurtling down it at top speed whilst trying to avoid all the obstacles. In his dream his mind tries to focus, to change the scene, to take its personal television out of standby. Nothing works. Static burst and then black. Infinity casting its shadow across eternity. Nothing, absolutely fucking nothing.

  A light. A small pathetic ball of light twinkling in the distance like a lost star. A small glimmer of hope, the tunnel of light calling you, the entrance to heaven, salvation, paradise. Should he try to run at it, sprint into the distance, into the unknown for a taste of redemption. Surely that would be better than waking up each day with regrets.

  He walks, footsteps echoing. There must be walls, he thinks. Eternity has no reverb. Locked in a building, a warehouse of blackness.

  If he’d done everything different, relived and changed
his past, would it make anything better? Or would he just be in exactly the same position, only with different problems? The past is set in stone, unchangeable. So much time wasted on wishes of a different one. Leave it and move on, deal with it. But what if you despise the person you’ve become? How do you change that?

  Falling, his despair pulling him down deeper into its pit as his dream feet force him towards the light, its pinprick growing larger. The more he falls, the more he hates himself with every passing breath. The light is salvation, well could be, nothing is certain in his mind anymore. He only dreams in the darkness; to live without dreams is to live without future. Only the dead have no future to call their own. Pray death when the time comes, maybe this is that moment.

  ‘Somebody save me,’ he screams into the void. ‘Somebody help me. I don’t want to be alone.’

  The light grows brighter, pushing away the shadows. Save me, he thinks as the light hits his face and the tears roll down his cheeks. Save me from myself.

  The light burns his eyes. The pain, there’s always pain; if anything it is the only thing that keeps us feeling alive. His eyes squint, blink, squeeze tight to adjust. Vision blurs then focuses. He sees everything.

  He’s sat on a chair, in front of him a table, circular, a stark contrast to the squares of the chessboard at its centre. He, the table and the empty chair opposite are the only furniture in the room. A room