The Chamber of Gears and Latches

“I will do it all just for you. I will throw away my pen and paper, for you. That way, I can guarantee you will never have to be vexed at just the sight of my name. I will go far away, only for you.”

 

The words echoed as if they were freshly spoken in my mind.

In fact, I whispered them into a telephone the night prior.

 

Or so I believed until I opened my eyes.

That night has fallen far behind me. Days? Weeks? Months?

I’ve no way to measure the time elapsed.

 

This polished, wooden floor has served as my bed yet again.

The rotting walls encircled around me have kept me hidden from the world

for yet another day.

 

All the same, I have only come to expect to awaken here.

The spoken words still tighten as a tourniquet around my neck.

How I should have heeded my own words.

 

My shrieks carried for only the first couple of days.

The blood drawn from myself pooled, but quickly dried.

Now none need be drawn at all.

 

There is frustration, yes.

Very minor frustration though, at this point.

 

The one thing left here that still gnaws voraciously at my soul is

that damned clicking!

 

It is the clicking of the gears in the walls!

Every waking moment, it wastes no time in whispering into my ears

with the bladed harmonies of a cacodemon.

 

At the commanding click of the gears,

Some hidden latch is moved.

Opening a window, closing another.

 

Sunlight pours in, sunlight is cut off.

It has been countless days

since I have been able to glance the welkin when the stars appear.

 

The gears remain hidden.

They know how to taunt my heart and mind.

Images of her through the window

they will display, and then obscure.

 

I have sought to smash their routine of cruelty.

But glimpsing through the pages of a book

bearing a simple cover in which a title of death is inscribed, I have found no solution.

 

Only scraps of parchment fall from between the pages.

On each is written questions I have posed to myself since I first awoke here.

“Please tell me how you escape!”

 

The brief glimpses of her face are devouring me.

I know what I must do.

Decaying wood splinters pose no obstacle as they sink into my skin.

 

A schism has been torn open in the wall.

I will crawl through, and let my body be crushed in the gears.

 

This is what it takes to break free of the sphere

we find encircling our ever-questioning selves.

 

The skeletons of most could not survive

this act of going against yourself

and hearing the bones snap.

 

My consciousness has fled.

Visions of my tomb have flown away with it.

I will take shelter in the absence of light.

 

Echoes of now distant pain

resonate in the fleeting memory

of frightful imprisonment.

 

The splinters from the chamber walls,

they still lie submerged in my flesh!

 

I hear them!

The gears.

 

Reviews

[Void]

This made me extremely giddy. I loved reading this, and i look forward to enjoying more. the delivery was clean, the message was powerful, and the symbolism i felt presented a unique feel to this piece,