Darker Musings Anthology:
Muse of Madness
All Angus Danford ever wanted was respect. A struggling janitor by day and an aspiring playwright by night, he longs to have his work recognized. But when his radio scripts are continuously rejected, his desperation leads him to an old family retreat—a decaying cottage filled with ghosts of the past and an eerie presence lurking in the lake.
DARK MUSINGS EPISODE #3 – MUSE OF MADNESS
BY JACK J. WARD
Act I- Wishes
SOUND: WIND BLOWING OVER A DESOLATE LAND
NARRATOR:
There’s a whisper in the back of your mind. The more you try to ignore it, the more it digs in, like a leech. It’s intent unspeakable. It’s wishes unimaginable. It’s character undeniable.
It is as much a part of you as night is a part of day. You cannot cross over the well of your own soul without touching its shadow.
And if you listen… you can hear it speaking…(
(WHISPERING)…
Speaking… and you know for everything real there is the infinite otherworlds and you know… that just by thinking it.
Somewhere, Sometime, Some place… it’s become real.
Try as you like, No one can guard you from, your own Dark Musings…..
MUSIC: DARK MUSINGS THEME
NARRATOR:
“May your fondest wish be granted” so goes an ancient Chinese curse. Sometimes the very nature of asking for what is beyond our grasp is inviting disaster. Or so it is for a janitor named Angus Danford.
SOUND: SHUFFLING PAPERS
OSCAR BELL:
Thanks for coming in, Angus, my good man.
ANGUS:
Yes sir, thank-you for reading my script.
OSCAR BELL:
Yes, yes of course… your script….
ANGUS:
So what do you think Mr. Bell, do you think it’s something that you could use in the show?
OSCAR BELL:
Hmm. Angus, how long have you been with us at KDMN?
ANGUS:
Six years sir.
OSCAR BELL:
Yes… and why do you want to write radio plays?
ANGUS:
Well sir… your show is the greatest show in the country!
OSCAR BELL:
Yes.. It is that-
ANGUS:
-I mean you turn every classic novel or play into great stories…
OSCAR BELL:
Well that’s true-
ANGUS:
-And your “Armageddon between Worlds” fooled everyone on Hallowe’en..
OSCAR BELL:
There’s that-
ANGUS:
-Some people STILL think it was real!
OSCAR BELL:
Yes… but why do YOU want to write radio plays, Angus? Your grip on vocabulary displays some form of breeding I grant you, but your comprehension of where they are placed casts you in the light of one who is best suited as a purveyor of the mop and soap bucket.
ANGUS:
Well, sir… I wasn’t always a janitor. And I’ve noticed being a radio playwright has brought you lots of fame. You command a lot of respect around here…. Sir…. And I figured, well I wanted…
OSCAR BELL:
Yes… Well, Angus… May I be candid?
ANGUS:
I wish you would sir.
OSCAR BELL:
Your latest treatise ah….
SOUND: PAPERS SHUFFLING
OSCAR BELL:
“The Thing from the Banana” is puerile. The writing is obtuse. The characters are cliched and soporific. Your plot is frangible, and the title is repugnant.
ANGUS:
(PAUSE) I- I worked three days on it- during my lunch breaks in the boiler room.
OSCAR BELL:
(FLATLY) It needs work, that neither corn beef nor the whir of furnaces can achieve.
SOUND: DOOR OPENING
JERRY:
There you are, Angus. I’m sorry Mr. Bell.
OSCAR BELL:
Not at all Jerry. I think we’ve completed our a huis clos here. Angus?
ANGUS:
Yes, Mr. Bell?
OSCAR BELL:
As a playwright, you are an excellent custodian.
JERRY:
Come on now, Angus. Let’s leave Mr. Bell to work.
OSCAR BELL:
Farewell, fair minions of ablution. Spot on.. Or rather spot “off” as the case may be.
SOUND: SCUFFING AS HE’S BEING PULLED OUT.
ANGUS:
(BEING DRAGGED OUT BY JERRY) So you’ll keep my script then?
OSCAR BELL:
(DISTANTLY) I am filing it as we speak…
SOUND: SOUND OF PAPER SCRIPT TOSSED INTO A METAL WASTEPAPER
BASKET.
SOUND: DOOR SHUTTING
JERRY:
What’d ya think you’re doin’? Mr. Bell made it clear that no one, least of all you, is to bother him. He’s got to prepare for the Friday night show! What’s this? The third time?
ANGUS:
He said he’s always looking for new scripts.
JERRY:
He’s being polite! Do ya wanna keep your job?
ANGUS:
What?
JERRY:
(MEASURED) Do you want to keep your damned job?
ANGUS:
Well… yeah…
JERRY:
Then STAY AWAY from Mr. Oscar Bell’s office. The man’s a genius. I need you with the boiler. It’s on the fritz again. I swear if we don’t get a new one, it’ll blow up the place.
ANGUS:
OK… OK…
JERRY:
(MORE GENTLY) Look you’ve got the long week-end coming. Why don’t ‘cha take it off.. Go to that cottage of yours.
ANGUS:
Marcreant Estates?
JERRY:
Yeah… you said there’s fishing there. Spend the week-end and fish. Forget all this writing nonsense.
ANGUS:
Maybe, you’re right…
JERRY:
I am right. Now grab that toolbox and lets…
VOICE: JERRY’S VOICE CROSS FADES WITH VOICE OVER
ANGUS:
(VOICE OVER) I should have listened to Jerry. But I couldn’t. Mr. Bell was the most popular writer in America, maybe the world. I keep thinking, that I was just a late bloomer. Maybe we all are, you know, late bloomers… It took nearly five thousand years for mankind to develop its first recognizable culture. (BEAT) But I’m rushing ahead. I’ve got to keep it all straight. Or I’ll go mad. I’ve got to be very clear about the order of things, because I’m having more and more difficulty recognizing my thoughts… from “Its”.
MUSIC: MUSIC TRANSITION
SOUND: GENTLE PADDLING/ROWING SOUNDS ON A CALM LAKE.
ANGUS:
(VOICE OVER) I took Jerry’s advice- at least about fishing. My parent’s cottage had been in the family for generations. In its glory, it had 25 rooms complete with servants and housekeepers. My father, God bless his soul, lost most our wealth in the crash, but he managed to keep the cottage by the lake. And… just five years ago… he passed away there. There’s no servants anymore. And with it in my hands now, I’ve barely enough money to pay taxes- certainly not the electricity. But it still is a wonderful place to relax. This weekend however, while the weather was kind enough, the fish weren’t biting. My luck though, was about to change.
SOUND: WATER SPLASH
What felt like a nibble on the line, turned out to be something quite different. My hook snagged on something at the bottom of the lake. Something ancient. A sealed clay pot. Asian in design.. maybe Chinese. Whatever it was. I took it back to my place and cleaned it up on the porch. Even as the sun was going down.
SOUND: GOD’S GIFT TO AUDIO – CRICKET SOUNDS
SOUND: ROCKING CHAIR
MUSIC: OMINOUS MUSIC TRANSITIONS
I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Long after the sun set and the moon rose over the water, there was something about the pot.
SOUND: BACKGROUND OMINOUS MUSIC
(BEAT)Something left me uneasy at the cottage that night. The clay pot was “corked” with a large thick glob of wax… The entire jug felt warm… despite the cool night air. I put it down several times. I should have tossed it back into the lake. But I couldn’t. It felt, like me, terribly alone in the universe. I tasted a need to look inside the vessel. Along the belly of the clay surface were etchings. Drawings. People mostly. And creatures. Strange vile abominations. One in particular held my awe. It had legs like a crab or scorpion, mouth tapered into two vicious pincers much like a scarab beetle from Egypt. Its body looked gray and pulpy like a leech or slug. As I touched its visage, I could almost feel the ooze of its repugnant skin burning against my fingertips. Unthinking, I touched the cork and jumped back.
SOUND: SOUND OF CLAY POT KNOCKED OFF DESK AND SMASHING INTO
PIECES ON THE WOODEN FLOOR
(LONG PAUSE)
SOUND: DISTANT THUNDER
When I awoke with jagged pieces scattered around me, I fell and landed insensate to the ground taking the pot with me. Shattering it. Rubbing my eyes, I discovered a light dust across my face. I rubbed it off. It appeared to be more like ash against my palms. Remnants blew in spiral circles with a gust of wind that had appeared. The stars faded over the lake, and I heard the telltale rapports of thunder. I tried to move- to assess if I had somehow seriously injured myself in the fall. My face felt a sharp ache. I remembered one day in the boiler room a pipe wrench had slipped from my hands. In the cramped space, it had struck me in the face. The pain drew a black and purple welt across my eye like that sported by a prizefighter. This time, the damage to my face felt much worse. My left eye felt as if a shard of glass had embedded somewhere below the lid. The sinus cavity below it was ablaze with pain.
SOUND: SHIFTING SOUNDS TRYING TO RISE THROUGH THE SHARDS OF
POTTERY ON THE FLOOR. CRACKING WHERE THE SHARDS ARE STEPPED
UNDERFOOT.
I struggled to my feet and slid against the walls, indoors to the bathroom.
SOUND: PORCH DOOR OPENS AND SHUTS.
It was interminably dark now without stars or moon, but I knew the closest bathroom was next to the kitchen. Just enough room for a toilet and basin, but I knew there were compresses and rubbing alcohol in the cupboards below the sink. I kept a spare candle on the vanity. In the darkness, I patted down my pockets for a match, and struck one against the box.
SOUND: WOODEN MATCH STRIKING.
(GASP) The image in the mirror struck me like a second blow, and dropped the match. It fell in the basin snuffing out instantly. Feverishly, with a kind of gnawing dread, I struck another match and held it up to examine the side of my face.
SOUND: WOODEN MATCH STRIKING
I saw what looked to be a boil just under my left eye. The skin distended overtly about two inches in length, slightly curved. I immediately feared for my health. Had a bone somehow dislodged and now twisted outwards? I lit the candle and raised my hand assessing the tenderness of the injury.
MUSIC: OMINOUS TRANSITION
It moved. The distention moved. Like a maggot writhing under the flesh of a corpse, it shifted, moving from my finger. When I touched the skin, I felt something hard yet rubbery under the surface. It was not bone. It was supple, like a fish. I felt needle points of contact in my nasal cavity. Whatever I touched, slid as effortlessly under my skin as a child in bed would roll on its side between snug sheets.
(GASP OF PAIN) I fell to my knees; my eye being twisted from its socket. Never have I before or since felt such all-encompassing, unspeakable pain and I fell backwards…
(SHOUT OF PAIN)
SOUND: KICKED OUT METAL LEGS. WATER POURING AND DRIPPING TO THE
FLOOR.
As if demons held me to the floor and slowly, methodically, screwed a drill bit through my nose into the central cavity of my brain, I spasmed, kicking the basin’s struts- water pouring from the bowl on to my head. (BEAT) I screamed till I could breathe no longer.
(SCREAM) And the cauldron of pain… dissolved.. into unconsciousness.
MUSIC: OMINOUS TRANSITION
I awoke breathing helplessly. Like a fish on a deck, unable to get oxygen. I flopped weakly. I was the fish, I know that now. The clay pot was the bait and the hook was now shoved deep into my mind. With trembling hands I reached up and touched my cheek. The extrusion was gone. Only a numbing pain echoed through every chamber in my head. Unsettled, my lungs took air at last and struggled to retain an involuntary calming rhythm. I pulled myself up to the tilted sink and reached an uneasy equilibrium with my surroundings. Light strewn through the kitchen as I realized, I had spent all night on the floor of my bathroom insensate.
SOUND: OUTSIDE DOOR CLOSING AND LOCKING
I think I tried to convince myself that it had been some kind of horrible nightmare. That I had some insidious, yet common place virus- that I had imagined the entire episode, and stumbled around in the dark during a storm. Surely, I reasoned, it was just the shadows. I locked the door to my cottage and headed back to the city. Better to be in my own sheets and safe from the phantoms of isolation.
SOUND: CAR DRIVING FROM PERSPECTIVE OF BEING IN THE CAB
I could hardly distract myself from my memories of the night before. Flashes of something. Fragments of memories flickered. But these were fantasies more than memories. Snippets of a great cave outside a twisting river and a city with walls that rose from the Earth.
SOUND: DISTANT CRACKING FIRE
MUSIC: HORROR TRANSITIONAL.
Red eyes in the dark. Burning lands. I couldn’t put the visions together. They seemed to be almost outside of me. But each flicker I could taste. Each image made my head swell like a grape churning in late Autumn under a hot sun.
SOUND: CAR ENGINE ACCELERATING TO A ROAR
I began to notice the speedometer clocking nearly 60 miles per hour, and my hands trembled in sweat on the steering wheel. I slowed, clicked on the radio, and filled my head with Gershwin until I got home.
MUSIC: GERSHWIN TRANSITIONAL
I couldn’t settle at home. I wandered as if looking at each room for the first time- taking in everything from my chair, to the picture on the wall. I can only describe my state as one of profound listlessness. Since last night, I neither had the ability to focus, nor the peace of a lazy mind. I spent the entire day wandering. I felt compelled to go through every book on my shelves- I don’t remember reading a single phrase, but I never skipped a leaf.
MUSIC: OMINOUS TRANSITIONAL
All the books were on the floor in disarray, when my eyes settled upon my Nora radio set against the wall. Before I knew what was happening, I had a screwdriver in my hand and I was removing the wooden casing. I’ve never been particularly good with electronics, and yet it was like my body had a knowledge and a curiosity all of its own. I looked at the speed in which my hands began unwrapping wire and coils, and pulling out hot tubes, but I felt like my mind was sifting in a thick stew, moving so slowly. I only recognised faintly that the radio was still plugged into the wall socket, and that with the slightest mistake I could be electrocuted. I could smell, not feel the tips of my fingers burning against the white-hot glass. I opened my eyes again to see my hands finish the last screw putting the radio cover back together. The tools lay scattered with the books. I stood up and noticed the time- nearly eleven o’clock. The day had passed and I hadn’t eaten a single crumb or stopped to drink a glass of water. I had nearly nine hours before work. Without hesitation, I got up and headed for the door.
SOUND: DOOR SHUT AND WALKING DOWN CREAKING STEPS.
Halfway down the steps, I realized I was walking to work. KDMN was in the Forbes-Jessup building on ninth and Gerrard- ten blocks away. I don’t remember even crossing the street. My eyes blinked and I stood at the door to the entrance of the Forbes-Jessup building. Jake, the night man, looked me up and down.
JAKE:
A little late for a walk isn’t it, Angus?
ANGUS:
(OUT LOUD) I… I couldn’t sleep.
JAKE:
Yeah, always that way ’round here. Soon as the euphoria from a show’s over, it’s crunch time… First day of the week. You listen to the last show?
ANGUS:
Ah… no… I…
SOUND: DOOR PUSHED OPEN (VOICE OVER)
Instead of answering Jake, I simply pushed past him, into the building. I guess he thought my insomnia made me unsociable. If only it were that. I became horribly aware that every step was now completely out of my control. My feet no longer wandered. Now I staggered with a will not my own towards the elevator.
SOUND: ELEVATOR BUTTON DEPRESSED AND ELEVATOR CAGE SHUTTING.
I watched in horror as my hand reached out casually and touched the basement button, while my other hand shut the cage of the elevator tightly.
SOUND: ELEVATOR MOVING DOWNWARDS
SOUND: ELEVATOR GRINDS TO A STOP. CAGE OPENS.
SOUND: BOILER ROOM SOUNDS. DRIPPING. FURNACE OPERATING.
My feet wound their way through the various alleys and passages in the boiler room until I reached my desk. My hands caressed the Underwood Champion Typewriter I’d used to prepare my scripts- the very same typewriter Mr. Bell had thrown away last month because the “f” key stuck. By the time I had it repaired he purchased another. Now, my hands that were no longer mine threaded a fresh piece of paper in the roll. My fingers tapped the keys. First experimentally. Then with definitive purpose. Attacking each key so violently that pain shot up my arms. The hammers dented the paper, nearly pounding through. I tried to read the title, to ascertain the message that my hands were writing. In capital letters it read, “THE COMING” and that’s when I heard it… and I knew.. deep in the core of my being, that I was insane.
SOUND: A ROAR SOUNDING SOMEWHERE BETWEEN A BEAR AND A DINOSAUR FAR
OFF.
It’s voice was hatred. Pure, undistilled, malice. It shook my soul and shattered my consciousness. I fell apart, like broken glass, into darkness.
MUSIC: OMINOUS TRANSITION
ACT II- Wishes Fulfilled
OSCAR BELL:
Angus? Angus!
ANGUS:
Yes? Um? Yes Mr. Bell… How did I…?
OSCAR BELL:
Stop squabbling and sign.
ANGUS:
Sign?
OSCAR BELL:
Yes, sign!… I have to tell you Angus… the other scripts you wrote were pure unadulterated excrement…
ANGUS:
They… They were?
OSCAR BELL:
Yes… Of course. So naturally I was nauseous at the sight of you running in as pale as death. (PAUSE) But there was something in your eyes…
ANGUS:
(HORRIFIED) Something… in my… eyes?
OSCAR BELL:
Yes! And I was right! Right! Angus, my boy. You’re a man possessed! It’s so dark… It’s… it’s… (SETTLING ON THE PHRASE) All encompassing. Even the title “The Coming.” It’s perfect for this week’s broadcast! Well, everything but the blood….
ANGUS:
(DIMLY) The… blood.
OSCAR BELL:
Yes… The blood. Did you cut your finger or something? (PAUSE) Good Lord man! Did you scrape every one of your fingers?
ANGUS:
I-
OSCAR BELL:
– Never mind.. Never mind! Take the rest of the day off. I’ve talked to Jerry. Can’t have you wasting your time down in the boiler room. You think you’ve another thriller inside you?
ANGUS:
I-
OSCAR BELL:
– What am I saying? Of COURSE you’ve got more inside you, just waiting to bust out. For now, just sign.
ANGUS:
Sign.
OSCAR BELL:
Sign, Angus… and all your dreams will come true.
ANGUS:
Sign…
OSCAR BELL:
Sign!
ANGUS:
(VOICE OVER) He pushed a pen in my hand and I felt my grip. My hands… were my own once more. My body was my own. I had complete control. I even felt my fingertips, raw and bleeding. Why? Why did I suddenly have my senses back? I had somehow made my way up to Mr. Bell’s office… and handed him this… this…. script. I could see the money and fame in Mr. Bell’s smile. God help me I wanted it. Was this human nature? To forge the very means of our destruction and lie to ourselves about the outcome? (PAUSE) Quickly, for fear I would lose my nerve, I signed what would be the death warrant of every living soul on Earth.
MUSIC: OMINOUS TRANSITION
SOUND: STREET SOUNDS
ANGUS:
I was on the street breathing fresh air. About three blocks down I stopped walking and put my back against a brick wall. Sick to my stomach. Weak with hunger. Weak from loss of blood- maybe even a brain hemorrhage for all I knew. I stayed there sobbing for over half an hour, before I went home and fell asleep.
MUSIC: TIME PASSES TRANSITION
SOUND: BOILER ROOM SOUNDS
ANGUS:
The week went by, and I avoided Mr. Bell. I had no desire for him to discover that I was a fraud. I hadn’t felt the disconnection of my will that led to the creation of this script. And part of me, was frankly terrified, preferring instead to pretend that none of it happened. That I was the genius that was the gossip that filtered throughout the station. I stayed in the boiler room any time I could. I couldn’t meet the eyes of my coworkers. I avoided the inevitable questions of actors, eager to have me explain the heart of their character. I didn’t have the temerity to even express to them I had no idea what their “character” was, let alone the nature or story of the script that came from my hands. The Underwood Champion on my desk I tossed into the incinerator- every key sticking with the remains of my blood. I never cashed the cheque for my script. My muse of madness had left me, and until the play had been performed and the atmosphere of KDMN turned towards next week’s melodrama, I would lay as low as I could and ride out the storm. Perhaps it was just a matter of time. Perhaps all those images that nearly crushed my temples needed to coalesce in my consciousness. Whatever the case, I realized when I awoke Friday morning, that I could not wait. Until Thursday night, my sleep was my one respite- and only because each night before had been cold and dreamless. I slept like death- perfectly at peace in an empty void.
SOUND: OLD ROTARY TELEPHONE RINGING
I was forced awake, finally, bathed in clammy sweat.
SOUND: STRUGGLING TO PICK UP THE RECEIVER
ANGUS:
(BARELY AWAKE) Hello… ?
VOICE: JERRY’S VOICE IS ATTENUATED OVER THE PHONE
JERRY:
Angus? Is that you? Are you alright?
ANGUS:
(SOUNDING ALMOST DRUGGED) J-Jerry? What time is it? It’s… it’s still dark out.
JERRY:
It’s seven o’clock.
ANGUS:
Seven.. .. but-
JERRY:
-It’s seven o’clock at night, Angus. Where were you today? Were you sleeping? Are you sick?
ANGUS:
Seven… no. No… Jerry! Jerry… The show…?
JERRY:
Mr. Bell’s been looking for you all day, we’ve got complaints about the elevator again, and I’m still having trouble with the furn-
ANGUS:
– God, Jerry.. Listen to me. You can’t let the show go on! I know Jerry.
JERRY:
Know? Know what?
ANGUS:
It tried to keep… keep me asleep. The closer we are to the broadcast. The more I know. It’s sleeping, Jerry. It’s sleeping in all of us and it wants to wake up-
JERRY:
– What the hell are you talking about?
ANGUS:
Just.. don’t let them broadcast. Please Jerry…
JERRY:
Angus. I can’t do anything to stop it, you know that. I just called to find out where you’ve been. But, this is it Angus… just stay home. Take the weekend. Go back to your cottage or whatever…
ANGUS:
The cottage! Jerry. I’m coming right now. Do you hear me Jerry… I’m coming…
VOICE: LAST LINE OF ANGUS INTERWEAVING WITH JERRY’S VOICE
JERRY:
Angus… Angus… are you there? Angus….
SOUND: PHONE SLAMMED DOWN ON RECEIVER.
SOUND: DOOR OPENED AND SLAMMED SHUT.
MUSIC: OMINOUS TRANSITION
SOUND: RUNNING IN THE STREETS.
I had become accustomed to the thought of my own demise in the past few days, but as I ran down the streets to the Forbes-Jessup building half-dressed, I felt the full terror of a soul damned forever. I ran.
SOUND: DOOR PUSHED OPEN HARD. SCUFFLING.
JERRY:
Angus! Hold on! What’s going on! You look like you’ve seen a ghost!
ANGUS:
Jerry let me through!
SOUND: RUMBLING OF ROCKS IN THE DISTANCE.
JERRY:
Angus! You can’t go in! I told you! Take a holiday! You need help Angus!
ANGUS:
You don’t understand! I have to stop the broadcast!
JERRY:
We’re broadcasting all day-
ANGUS:
– Tonight’s broadcast! Mr. Bell’s show. MY show! Quicksilver Theatre! (BEAT) Oh my Lord…
JERRY:
– Mr. Bell has already… What? What is it?
ANGUS:
(HORRIFIED) Look… Look at the sides of the building.
JERRY:
What? Where?
ANGUS:
Up there… near the top! Where the studio is.
JERRY:
Holy… They’re… the walls are moving…
ANGUS:
Almost like they’re breathing.
JERRY:
It’s got to be a trick of the light. It’s-
ANGUS:
– It’s not a trick! We’ve got to stop the show Jerry. We’ve got to-
JERRY:
– No Angus. I told you. You’re to go home. Take the night off. Take the week off-
ANGUS:
– Don’t you understand! There’s not going to be a home if we don’t-
JAKE:
– Is there some problem here tonight Angus?
ANGUS:
Jake! We’ve got to…
SOUND: SCUFFLING TRYING TO GET THROUGH THE DOORS.
(VOICE OVER) Jerry and Jake grabbed at me. Fierce as I fought, I was no match for the two of them.
JAKE:
(SHOUTING IN THE BACKGROUND OF ANGUS’ VOICE OVER)
He’s a wildcat tonight!
ANGUS:
They hauled me into the building, and took me some place safe till I had “calmed down”- the boiler room. (SHOUTING IN THE BACKGROUND OF ANGUS’ VOICE OVER) No! Let me go! Let go!
MUSIC: TRANSITION
SOUND: DOOR SLAMMING SHUT AND BOLTING.
SOUND: BOILER ROOM SOUNDS
MUSIC: GROWING MOOD MUSIC.
ANGUS:
(SHOUTING) Open up! (PAUSE) Jake?! Jerry! It’ll kill us all! (VOICE OVER) But all my shouting was for naught. It was over. It had won. What had taken me from the inside would soon manifest and tear the world apart. That’s what the dreams were. Visions of an ancient god come to Earth. No god can exist without its name spoken, and those of ancient Lemuria had done so very well in smothering this creature’s presence, but it took magic older than memory, and the sacrifice of a continent to silence its hunger. But evil persists… and somehow he had unleashed it to the world. It saw my greatest desire- to write- and saw an opportunity to infect a new continent- this time millions of listeners- to speak and know its terrible name. To believe. All any god needs is belief, and the world will spin on its axis to serve them. I could feel the walls undulate with unutterable power. A beacon that would light humanity to the endless night- the end of all times. And I had been its conduit. The Prophet of Doomsday. And now as the world burns in darkness I was locked here, helpless in the boiler room. A sacrifice to a dead god’s birth.
SOUND: MOVING IN A TIGHT WORKROOM. TABLE SHIFTS. (PAUSE)
Or so I thought. But it had neglected in its arrogance, or perhaps in its gaps of the modern age to realize that I was not without skills…
SOUND: HISSING OF PRESSURE GAUGES. MOVEMENT OF LEVERS. GRADUAL
ROARING OF THE FURNACE.
Jerry and I had done everything we could to keep the furnace stable. It took little effort to counter those measures. (BEAT) A turned valve here. (BEAT) An unpressurized lever there.
SOUND: PICKING UP A MONKEY WRENCH. TWO HITS. A BLAST OF STEAM.
The proper application of a wrench in the machine. (PAUSE) And the explosion would be imminent. But would it be enough? Would it end the end before it truly began?
SOUND: THE FURNACE WHISTLING, CRACKLING. METAL FATIGUE AND
IMPENDING EXPLOSION. MOVEMENT THROUGH THE BASEMENT. CRASHING TABLE
AND TOOLS TO THE FLOOR.
I don’t know what possessed me. Survival instincts breed deep in man. I pushed over the metal table in the corner of my office. Braced myself against it. Was it forlorn hope, or perhaps a contingency I was unaware of that allowed me to consider that with the solid walls of stone and cement between me and the furnace, I might survive the explosion.
SOUND: THE FURNACE EXPLODES. THE WALLS GIVE OUT AND THE BUILDING
COLLAPSES.
(LONG SILENCE.)
SOUND: DUST AND DEBRIS TRICKLING. MOVEMENT IN THE DARK.
I did. God help me. And now. I sit in the darkness. With one last hope. Crouched in this small opening with the entire building build upon me. There is only a little… air left. The immediate peril is over. The world is not destroyed. My god has retreated back from the radio waves and into its subject.
SOUND: A DISTANT RUBBING SOUND. SKIN ON STONE.
I feel it burning within my skull. Wrenching my free will away. I laugh at it. It may have my body. My legs won’t stand. The ground could give way at any time. This will be our tomb. I laugh because it rages inside me. I laugh because I can feel it in the dark, painting its story with my blood on the cracked stone above me. Neither having enough palette, nor “ink” to complete the script again. Soon it will be all over. And I can rest, although I know it shall never be an easy rest.
SOUND: DISTANT SOUND OF MOVING PLASTER AND STONE.
That I’m sure is the last of the stone settling… Perhaps it will end even more quickly with the last of the stone giving way…
VOICE: FIREFIGHTER’S VOICE IS MUFFLED.
FIREFIGHTER:
(CALLING) Hello? Is anyone in there? We’ve found the elevator shaft. Just hold on… We’ll be there soon.
ANGUS:
I can feel its laughter now. The firefighters said in the end, that it was the sound. Mournful. Filled with despair. They said it was my scream…
VOICE: ECHOING DISTANT FRIGHTENING SCREAM.
