Chapter 3 - The Dream Sequence

This is the opening sequence of the third chapter of the novella. Isabelle is the midst of a surreal dream in which she comes across many other characters in the story, including her dead son, Max.

Isabelle sat in a hard, ashen-toned wooden pew, situated about halfway between the altar and the entrance of the grand red-rocked cathedral.  There was a hazy purple light emanating from the arched stain-glassed windows lining the two opposing walls on both sides of her.  The windows and the walls both climbed upward some three or four stories.  The floor of the cathedral was made up of the same inscrutable crimson sandstone that constituted the entire building.  When the purplish light hit certain aspects of the high, arching ceilings or the smooth floor below, it gave the rock a grim blood-red tinge.  In the same strange sunlight, Isabelle could see billions of tiny specks of dusts billowing in the air.  She opened her mouth only a brief second, but immediately she could taste the metallic flavor of the dust on her tongue.  She quickly closed her mouth, but the dust had already absorbed every vapor of liquid in her mouth, leaving her mercilessly parched.  From where she sat, directly on the aisle, Isabelle could see the backs of hundreds of heads, all staring sedately forward to the vicar at the pulpit.  She turned around to see if there were as many behind her as in front.  She shifted herself cautiously and found that there were indeed just as many faces in the dry cathedral behind her.  She looked at several of the faces"studied them.  There was something entirely too ineffectual about all of them.  They all possessed an eerie gaze that was devoid of any sentiment.  The faces were haggard and drooping.  They were products of age and the weathering effects of all that life can so miserably deliver unto the human body.  Darkness encircled their eyes in the form of full, graying brows above and the shadowy hollows underneath.  Isabelle tried to understand these people.  They all looked exactly alike.  There were certain differences, of course, but they were minor"a different style of how the hair was parted or a slight alteration in the size of nose or another facial feature.  Still, they looked so incredibly"so terrifyingly"alike.  None of them moved.  None of them blinked.  The men were adorned in simple black suits, with thin black neckties.  The women all wore matching house dresses, each the color of raven’s feathers.  The faces remained fixated on the man standing at the altar.  They didn’t seem to notice the soft, blonde woman dressed in her long white silk nightgown, who was now staring at each of them. 

            Isabelle returned to her original position.  She examined the walls a bit more.  There was a wild intricacy to the design of the place"something inhuman.  It was as if the place had been burnished and wrought by some malevolent force out of an arid and barren mountainside.  There were stalactites stretching down from the ceiling in varying angles and lengths.  Cracks were everywhere in the walls.  And the corners of the place were completely unlit.  Isabelle wasn’t entirely convinced that certain beasts"certain horrors"didn’t lurk in those blackened corners, waiting to feed upon the entire crowd of idle souls.  The altar itself was nothing but a slightly elevated and slanted flat rock.  Next to it was a small oval shaped reservoir of black water.  The only thing that indicated a human touch to this place was the insertion of the wooden pews and those stained glass windows.  The windows depicted, not scenes from any Biblical book Isabelle knew.  They were scenes of treachery"human treachery"the worst forms.  One of the glass canvasses illustrated a large man of royalty forcing himself upon a beautiful woman.  The terror in the woman’s eyes was so tangible that Isabelle felt it deep inside herself.  On the same frame, just below, as if in storyboard fashion, the beautiful victim"now left battered and tarnished"screams a wordless moan from now having her tongue cut from her mouth by her violator.  Colors were steeped into the glass.  The silver of the blade.  The yellow of the flesh.  The red of the blood.  Each color burned into Isabelle’s eyes"into her soul.  She refused to look at any of the other windows, knowing they’d drive her into a frenzied state.

            It was only then that she heard the voice.  She turned her attention back to the altar to observe the minister delivering the sermon to his parishioners.  The speaker’s frame was slight and his face was marked by time.  There was something familiar in his posture, as he stood with his shoulders somewhat slouched and knobbed-knees bent slightly.  Lines had formed themselves deep into the man’s visage, much like the cracks lining the walls of the damnable place.  He was barefoot, sliding his old feet on the smooth rock beneath.  The strangest feature of the man was his attire.  He was dressed in a flamboyant saffron-colored robe.  The robe stretched from his torso to his shins.  It wrapped itself about the small man’s body; covering all, save for only his bare right shoulder.  Though he stood at some distance from Isabelle, she could tell he had the greenest eyes she’d ever seen.  She hadn’t seen such emerald eyes since her younger days sitting at church listening to Father Muncy speak in his broken Irish brogue.  And it was at that moment when it became apparent to Isabelle that the bizarrely clad clergyman standing before this lifeless, impotent congregation was Father Muncy.  It was him.  The only inexplicable change to Muncy’s feature, apart from the garb, was that he no longer sported the full-bodied ivory hair he’d possessed for Isabelle’s entire life.  Now, he was completely devoid of hair all together; his wavy locks and bushy eyebrows were gone.  She watched the old man move with seamlessness and ease as he slid closer to the edge of the slanted pedestal to address the audience.  He gave one final glower as he perused the crowd.

            “Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum,” he spoke in his customary graveled voice.

            Isabelle recognized immediately the words from her past.  Instinctually, she wanted to lower her head, to close her eyes, and pay proper homage to her God.  Yet, she didn’t move.  Her stare was fixed on Muncy, who she now realized was staring menacingly back at her.  There was something amiss about the words he spoke.  Something in them that seemed to leave his breath, break apart, and form the ever-many particles of brown dust floating in the air of the sanctum.  They went nowhere but into the air.  A slight tremble started to stir in her body.  She shifted a bit and gripped the solid side of the pew to steady her arm.  She looked at the man next seated next to her, but he noticed nothing about her movements and remained taciturnly staid.  Muncy’s continuation brought Isabelle’s attention forward again.

            “Adveniat regnum tuum,” he said.  His voice now elevated another octave and with raised hands he said, “Sabbaṃ bhikkhave ādittaṃ!”

            Isabelle shook her head in disbelief and turned to the man next to her again.  Surely, this oddity"these misplaced words"would stir some reaction from the parishioners.  Yet, still, there was nothing.  They remained motionless.

            “Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra"rāgagginā!” Muncy shook with fury as he shouted each bastardized word.  “Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie"dosagginā!  Et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris"mohagginā!”

            Isabelle watched the familiar movements of the old man as he lowered his arms and closed his eyes.  Her heart was pounding.  She felt it reverberate throughout her entire body. 

            In a hushed tone, Muncy delivered the final words: “Et ne nos inducas intentationem, sed libera nos a malo.”

            And like the clap of a mighty thunder high above, the entire congregation in unison responded:  “Amen.”

            It startled Isabelle so that she jumped at the sound of their unholy monotone voices.  Muncy smiled wickedly as he turned and lifted a tarnished golden chalice.  He walked methodically toward the black pool beside him and dipped the cup in the dusky liquid.  He raised the chalice above his head and turned back to the crowd.  He then drank deeply from the chalice, letting the water run out both sides of his mouth in gluttonous fashion and onto the saffron robe.  After he lowered the cup from his face, he let out an effete sigh of gratification.  He set the cup down and looked toward the audience once more.

            “And now,” he said raising his arms again, “the children.”

            At the moment he spoke these last words, two identical lines of young children"none of whom were older than eight or nine years"emerged from the two darkened corridors where Isabelle had thought the beasts inhabited.  They marched in lockstep, flanking each side of Muncy, who still stood there with the devilish grin.  Each child, with cherub faces, was dressed in the traditional white robes of Catholic altar boys.  They were, in fact, all boys.  Some with blond hair, some with brown and red and auburn.  Their facial features were distinctive, so unlike those of the parishioners.  Their small, delicate hands cupped their own rosaries, and their eyes remained fixed toward the floor.  As the two lines, numbering six each, reached the front of the altar, they met and aligned themselves with perfect symmetry.  They continued their steady pace, directly parallel to each other, as they started down the center aisle.  Isabelle imagined that from upon high these two columns of innocence appeared as if they were the frothy white wake of a breaking wave, which separated the sea of darkness that were both sides of the congregation.

            Soon the first set of children reached the center of the cathedral, where Isabelle was seated.  She stared intently at their beautiful faces.  Her breath had left.  She sat in a state of utter prostration.  The first few who passed didn’t return her stare.  Their eyes remained occupied by the prayers in their minds and the red stone on the floor below.  Why she had wanted one the children"all of them"to look at her, to acknowledge her, she couldn’t know.  All she knew was that she felt the overwhelming desire to have their recognition, as if it would be the one thing that could end the terror.  And just as that thought passed through her mind, one of the boys"the beautiful auburn-haired one at the end of the line"lifted his perfectly round head and let his eyes meet hers.  He stared with purpose.  It was not the empty gaze she’d observed on the dark faces around her but rather the indefatigable look of compassion.  It was the kind of look a son gives to his mother.  The boy passed and let his eyes return to floor, but Isabelle turned around immediately and let her eyes follow him.  A great anxiety grew within her again, and she began to shake even more violently than before.  How she recognized him, she couldn’t fathom.  She’d have had no practical way of knowing what he would have looked like at this riper age, but Isabelle knew that the boy who had given her the look"who had returned her longing fixation"was her son.  The boy was Max.

            She quickly rose from the pew and turned to run down the aisle toward the exiting boys.  The sound of her flat-bottomed slippers made a rubbing that echoed throughout the great hall and bounced off the archaic walls.  She made it about five or six rows back, nearly to the door, when she heard the vociferous thunder of the broken Irish brogue. 

            “You!” Muncy shouted.  Isabelle stopped and turned around, still trembling with fear.  His voice had prompted the entire congregation to then turn their sights in unison onto the frail lady in white, standing center stage.  Their lidless eyes burnt right through her.  She could sense them sneering and judging with those eyes.  Muncy himself had raised himself up to the highest point on the altar and pointed his spindly, crooked finger toward her.  He let his arm remain elevated in her direction.

            “We know you,” he said.  “There is nothing further for this world.”

            As he stood there like one of the grotesque gargoyle sculptures lining the upper walls of the place, he began to chuckle slightly.  Soon the chuckle turned into boisterous and maniacal laughter, which instigated the entire congregation to laugh and wail as well.  Many pointed and jeered her as she began running down the aisle toward the exit of the cathedral, away from the damning laughter of the crowd.  She reached the large solid mahogany double-doors and immediately went to push one open.  The door was ancient but heavy as if the wood were still rooted in the ground, in its natural state.  Isabelle pushed mightily, so much so that she almost stumbled as the door gave way.

            Once outside, Isabelle’s eyes were struck by the sharp light of the sun burning high above.  The laughter had faded behind and was replaced by the crackling of a gramophone somewhere in the distance playing the most scattered ragtime.  It took her a moment to adjust her eyes to light, after having been in the cavernous innards of the unlit cathedral.  When her eyes finally did adjust she was shocked by what she saw.  She had thought, quite naturally, that the purplish light cast by the sun through the windows inside was a product of the stained-glass; the yellow rays hitting a fragment of red or blue on the windows.  Outside, however, Isabelle stood awestruck before the immense sky"not its typical blue but instead a deep and penetrating violet pocked by fast-rolling amber clouds.  The ragtime was given extra percussion by the soft sounds of thunder in the distance.  When she let her hand slide loose from the wooden door, it slammed quickly behind her.  She spun round expecting to see the mammoth cathedral behind her, but it wasn’t there.  Even the door itself was absent.  All that stood behind her was a barren incline, leading to a great earthen plateau.  She turned back around slowly to observe her surroundings.  There was a black stream not far in the distance.  And along the rocky banks of the stream, there were children, fishing and playing, dancing to the ragtime.  She moved slowly closer to them in order to identify one of them as Max, but she didn’t see him.  They still managed not to acknowledge her presence.  Another moment passed until she heard a rollicking laughter.  It came from the other side of a sandy hill.  She knew instantly the sound of that laugh.  She ran quickly toward the sound, toward the hill.  Her feet slid and struggled up the loose, graded ground below. 

            When she finally reached the top, she didn’t see him at first.  She raised her hand to shield the sunlight from her eyes and scanned the horizon below.  Suddenly, he was there, a small pink dot on the gray terrain below.  There was someone else too: a larger person, a man.  Isabelle carefully descended the hillside, maneuvering past large stones and jagged roots.  As she reached the hardened flatland, she could see that Max and the man were tossing something back and forth between them.  She ran closer to them, but they seemed to be moving further away.  Eventually, she got close enough to make out what it was they were doing.  They were throwing a discus between the two of them, back and forth.  The man would catch Max’s earnest attempt at a hard throw, and he would return with a soft pitch of his own.  Max was laughing and shouting in jest. 

            “Come on, really throw it!” he said mockingly.  “You can throw it better than that.”

            Isabelle slowed down, as it became clear that they weren’t getting any further from her.  She was winded, and the arid air was urging her body to perspire"though it did not.  Soon she was only some thirty of forty yards away from the two rapscallions.  Eventually, she came to a completely stop simply to observe their game.  A smile formed on her face.  She was watching her son"her son"playing again, laughing, living.  She thought for a moment that the man, who was dressed in a business suit, was Richard.  How hopeful of a thought that father and son were playing together again, and mother could bear witness to it all.  But when she looked to identify the man’s face, she realized with measurable disappointment that the man was not Richard after all.  In fact, from what she could tell, the man had no facial features whatsoever.  She couldn’t understand it.  Either her mind was playing tricks on her or the brazen sunlight and the shadows cast by the clouds obscured the man’s visage.  In either case, the man was completely unknown to her.  This realization made the smile and warmth dissipate somewhat.

            “Hey,” the sound of a child’s voice made.  “Hey, you.”

            Isabelle realized that Max was talking to her.  He was looking at her.  She didn’t know how to respond or what to say.  She stepped a little closer.  Then, she awkwardly looked behind her to see if maybe the boy was addressing someone else.

            “Uh, yes,” she said.  “Yes?”

            “Want to see something magnificent?”

            “Uh, I...well, sure,” she said.

            “Watch this,” he said.  “Watch this.”  Turning to the faceless man, Max pointed at him with authority.  “You throw it as hard and as far as you can.  I bet you I can catch it!”

            Isabelle watched as her son’s mouth form a beaming smile.  Their eyes met one another’s one last time, then the boy turned and ran off in the distance.  The faceless man, gripped the discus, with his back facing Isabelle.  She could see him shrug slightly, then as an Olympian, he twirled and twirled in one place finally letting loose of the flat, stone disc.  She watched as the boy became smaller and smaller in the distance.  Then she turned her gaze upward and saw the disc become little more than a speck cast upon the vast violet background.  It arched its way upward with a fierce velocity.  It appeared briefly as if the discus left a line of stardust in its wake as it began its descent back to the earth.  In the distance, Isabelle saw as the discus headed directly toward the silhouette of the boy, waiting to catch it with such precision and cunning.  But when the dot that was the discus met the dot that was the boy, something terrible occurred.  The boy hadn’t caught the discus.  Instead, Isabelle could see that it had struck him forcefully and sent him to the ground.  Panic swept over her. 

            “No,” she whispered.  “No.”

            She took off in a mad dash toward Max.  As she got ever closer, the fear built layer upon layer. 

            “Not again,” she said.

            When she finally reached the boy, he was laying there on the ground with his eyes shut.  The discus lay next to him still spinning like a coin.  The ragtime was quieter now but still omnipresent.  The image of the boy"her boy"sprawled out upon the gravelly earth sent her into a frenzy.  She knelt beside him, and just as she did so, the rouge seeped from a gash in the upper corner of the boy’s head.  The blood ran down the side of his face eventually touching the russet soil that lay beneath the fallen child.  The rose and brown mixed together to create the most vivid bluish hue.  Isabelle wrapped her arm under the child’s neck and cradled him in her arms.

            “No, no, no, no, no,” she pleaded.  “Max?  Max, wake up, sweetie.  Wake up.  Not again.”

            She heard the shuffling of footsteps behind her, and she turned and there stood Richard, dressed in the business suit.  He had a bewildered look upon his face and scratched the back of his head.  Still cradling the boy, she turned with fury to admonish him.

            “Look at what you’ve done!” she shouted.  “Just look at this!”

            Richard stood a moment longer, taking the condemnation.  Then, as if totally unaffected, picked up the discus, turned, and started to walk away from her.

            “Come back here,” she said.  “Stop!  You clean this up!  You clean it up.  You fix this!”

            The plea in her voice went unnoticed.  Richard continued his strident march back toward the hillside.  She then carefully scooped the boy into her arms.  She felt the pain in her joints and muscles as she used all her strength to lift him into her embrace.  She was carrying Max now and following haltingly after the perpetrator.

            “Wait,” she said.  “We can fix him.”

            Isabelle took a few more steps then her foot caught the top half of a jagged stone that jutted out of the dried earth.  She tumbled forward, launching the lifeless child’s body in front of her as she hit the ground.  She laid there dazed a bit on her stomach, and some dust had gotten into her eyes.  Richard was nowhere to be seen.  A few feet in front of her rested Max’s body, arms akimbo, strewn out like a doll on the ground.  The dizzying trumpets and rattle of the snare drums grew louder.  The blood continued to drain from the boy’s wound onto the ground.  And slowly she watched as the boy’s body began to transform itself.  She rubbed her eyes, getting the last bits of dust out, hoping that she was imagining what she saw.  First head, then arm, then arm again.  Next his torso and legs.  Soon his entire body had dissolved itself back into the earth.  All that remained was a melding of colors borne from the dissolution of the boy"his blood and bones and flesh and the soil"creating the most vibrant violet stain on the ground.  Isabelle crawled furiously over to the spot and ran her hands over the place where the boy once was.

            “No,” she said frantically.  “No.  Max?  No.”

            A pain shot through her chest like a steel dagger whose time with the flint had long since past.  Her trembling began again, and she clutched at her chest with one hand while pounding the earth with the other.  Like a hammer, she struck the ground fruitlessly, forcing the blood wet soil to stick to the sides of her fist.  The noises in her mind grew to a crescendo"the ragtime, the laughter of the crowd inside the cathedral, Max urging his playmate to throw harder and further, and the clapping of the thunder overhead.  Her eyes closed, and when she stopped pounding she used the same hand to cover her eyes.  She could feel the tears building inside of her"the urge to unleash the sorrow in its rightful form. But just as she was about to cry, her attention was captured by the sudden halting of the sounds.  An impenetrable silence enveloped her.

            There was something else that drew her attention away from her suffering.  The ground beneath had become softer, more giving.  The stinging heat from the baked air gave way to a soothing mild breeze.  Isabelle let her hand slide away from her eyes as she opened them to see her new environs.  She found herself now lying in a lush and endless field of the most full-grown and healthy looking hyacinths she’d ever laid eyes upon.  She slowly pushed herself off the turf and onto her feet.  The sky was no longer the haunting violet of moments ago.  Now it was the clearest azure comparable only to the fragile beauty of the robin’s egg.  The breeze made the wine-tinted flowers of the hyacinths tilt and dance to one side, the soft white noise of the pedals and leaves tapping together filled the air.  Isabelle brushed the dirt and leave off the front off her white gown.  She started to wade through the brush, in awe of the vitality of each passing stalk.  Each uniformly came up to her waist, and she made great effort not to trample or endanger any of the plants.  Instead, she let her hands dangle to her sides with ease.  A tranquility replaced all the misery and fear that had so mercilessly consumed her just moments prior.  Her fingertips grazed the tops of the flowers, releasing a sweet fragrance into the air around her.  The words of Grandma Ellie rang in her mind as she gracefully slid her body through the blue pasture:  “A well-tempered garden, little one, is always full of hyacinths.”

            Eventually, and without warning, Isabelle’s feet landed upon a solid red-bricked lane.  She cautiously stepped completely out of the field and onto the solidity of the road.  Curiously, she peered behind her and saw nothing but the ceaselessness of the brick, winding into the horizon.  She turned the other direction and saw in the distance a small clapboard cottage that had smoke puffing from its chimney.  She stood motionless for a moment.  Something told her to turn toward the infinity of the road behind her.  Only down that chosen path would she find either the absolution of pleasure or the obliteration of life.  There was a certainty about that direction.  No gray areas.  No doubt.  No shadows.  Only the uncompromising goodness or evil, one or the other, awaited her if she traveled down the unending lane.  And despite the fear of evil and of the darkness, there was an incredible comfort in just the knowing.  Knowing where the road would lead.  The cottage, however, with its weather siding, inviting wooden glider on the porch, and windows that looked like half closed eyes, offered an uncertainty.  Who could possibly know if such an exterior was only an unapologetic guise?  Yet she was drawn somehow to the seemingly sturdy abode.  If only, she thought to herself, that she didn’t have to choose.  If only she could remain where the flowers blossomed for all eternity; there where there was no death, only life, no doubt, only existence.  As she stood there contemplating the choice she must make, a sudden and ominous din of thunder shattered her peaceable existence.  She immediately looked above her and saw the sky blue being systematically inundated by the darkness.  Clouds forced their way into the scene, and the cool breeze turned into a searing stagnation.  The azure sky transformed into the purple chroma of before.  It was clear to her, that there was no peace after all.  She was at the violet hour of her life, and it was beyond her control. 

            All around her the hyacinths started to wilt, whither, and die.  Their dried corpses the defenseless victims of a hot and waterless storm.  Isabelle began running down the brick road toward the cottage.  No great decision had been made, at least not voluntarily.  She had to escape the fires interceding themselves into her life.  She glanced to her sides to see the hyacinth fields, as their beautiful blue was scorched into lifeless ash.  A swift wind lifted the remnants of the burnt pedals into the sky.  As she turned her head to peer behind she saw the yellow clouds and the purple sky.  She saw the ash of the once living flowers pollute the atmosphere.  The cottage was closer now.  And the closer she came to the cottage, the more refuse she saw bandied about on the ground, dancing in the wind.  Cigarette butts, empty liquor bottles, and other vestiges of sinful nights and lustful encounters.  She was only a few hundred feet away.  Another clap of thunder rang overhead.  She let out a muffled scream.  She reached the hardwood porch of the cottage and banged on the front door.  Chips of peeling paint tattered off as her palms and knuckles struck the wood. 

            “Hello,” she said.  “Please, let me in.  Hello?”

            She reached down for the doorknob.  She jerked it and turned it in her hand hoping for the door to open, but it didn’t give.  The thunder behind her grew louder, more intense, and more frequent as she continued to grasp at the doorknob.  Suddenly, with a last turn of the wrist, combined with the brunt force of her shoulder, she forced the door open.  She entered quickly and slammed the door shut.  For a moment she stood with her forehead resting upon the wood of the door, still gripping the doorknob in her hand.  She closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath.  Her mind cleared for a moment, only to pick up on the noises ongoing in the humble hovel; it was the ragtime again.  With utter terror, she slowly opened her eyes and turned around.  She stood in a simple single room.  There was only a closed door on the far wall.  An old-fashion stovetop stood against the far wall.  On the wall directly perpendicular to that was a daybed.  Stockings, feminine undergarments, socks, and other miscellaneous articles of clothing were strewn all about the place.  The floor was made up of splintered, uneven wood.  Isabelle took a few steps in, away from the door.  She then heard the sound of a woman humming softly to the music.  The voice came from behind the closed door on the far wall.  She heard running water and the tapping of something against the porcelain sink.  With that, the door swung open and out walked an identical replica of Isabelle herself.  This woman"this doppelganger"wore nothing but her bra and panties, revealing the silky lines of her long legs and petite breasts.  She stepped away from the washroom door and fluffed her hair with the gentle hands.  Isabelle stood stunned against the wall as she watched herself walk about the room.  The other woman seemed not to even see Isabelle there, as if she were a ghostly observer.

            Isabelle heard footsteps on the porch outside.  The same shoddy wooden door swung open.  Richard entered wearing the same business suit from before.  He slammed the door shut behind him.  He had a ravenous look in his eyes.  The second Isabelle sauntered toward him with a glimmering smirk.  She carried a glass of scotch and soda to give him.  He quickly yanked it from her grasp and downed it in one large gulp.  His arm crossed his body, sending the emptied glass soaring toward the wall.  The shattering sang throughout the small cabin, followed by the raindrops of glass hitting the hardened ground below.  Richard then ripped the straps of the other Isabelle’s bra and forced it from her soft body.  He stood staring at the bare-chested woman for a moment.  Suddenly, he wrapped his large hand around the woman’s neck and forced her onto the daybed.  He quickly began remove his clothes, breathing heavily, drops of leftover scotch falling from her agape mouth onto the woman’s face.  He ripped off her underwear and began to force his way on top of her.  She was laughing hysterically while he roughly made his way with her.  Entering forcefully and slapping her a number of times on the face and midsection.

            Isabelle, still frozen along the wall, watched in terror as the animal mauled his prey"a prey who seemed to enjoy the feast.  The sounds of the ragtime continued underneath the pants and sounds of flesh striking together.  The sinews of Richard’s lean body contrasted to the undefined white of the other Isabelle’s body.  The movements were rushed and manic and strong.  Isabelle slid slowly toward the door to escape.  At that very moment, Richard’s head swung around and his eyes met hers.  She stopped in fear, her hand almost touching the doorknob.

            “You’re next,” he said.  He then produced from seemingly nowhere a large blade and began laughing wickedly, which was then joined by his victim beneath him.  A large crack of thunder emanated from overhead.  She awoke.  Panting, shaking, sweating, crying.               

Author's Note

Works referenced: The Lord's Prayer, the Fire Sermon, Eliot's "The Waste Land," the tale of Philomela from Ovid's "The Metamorphoses," and the tale of Hyacinthus and Apollo from Ovid's "The Metamorphoses."