Decomposition, Extinguish, Ashes, Transience, Ending

 

 

Suggested Audio Candy

 

Cutting Crew “(I Just) Died in Your Arms”

 

 

I have pondered long and hard about sharing this piece with you Grueheads. You see, it was scribed in my very darkest hour and, at that point, I had conceded to cease continuation. Now this is a very sensitive topic and I have a great responsibility to all of you not to send out the wrong message. As a dear friend states quite rightly, creative folk are destined to be misunderstood. I write metaphorically a lot in my works and don’t always explain my intent clearly.

This is not to confuse but I believe stoutly that we are all adults, spelling things out takes away one’s own enlightenment. I would much rather everyone reading my work came to the conclusion by themselves. I bank on my whole integrity as a scribe being enough for anyone who truly heeds my prose to know which lines to read between. I wrote this at a time when my life had appeared to be reaching its natural discontinuation. I’d lost everything and felt so helpless and sad. I never posted it for one very clear reason, I just wasn’t as ready as I thought for my eulogy.

My child, my beautiful baby boy has eyes that are filled with my own happiness. When I pick him up from pre-school and stand at the open door while he turns to see me he drops everything and canters full-pelt into my embrace screaming “daddy” in the most seraph-like tone. That was the thing which held me back as I faced my own personal abyss.

We’ve all been bleeding right, bio photos are starting to replace imagery and lost souls are opening up all around us. We have the greatest gift Grueheads; unconditional love is all I peddle. By us all forming so snugly into a collective family unit we all get to see that happiness in one another’s eyes. The affectionate bonds keep us from harm’s way and that, my dearest loved ones has been my intention all along. To unify, to stoke belief, to spread joy and heal scars. It fills me to over-flowing with pride to have the best motherfucking family on earth.

Keeper’s Last Bleed

 

Scribed Tuesday 17th September 2013 at 2.00am

 

It’s time for the Keeper of the Crimson Quill to bleed; those precious last few drops of my life-force are being sucked from me in a vacuum of despair as I scribe this. For the first time in my entire mortality I am at ease with this scenario. I apologize for my startling prose in advance but, at this juncture, the Reaper is beckoning me, not however with a spindly finger ushering me forward into the dark. Not this time, this time he’s smiling at me, comforting me in my darkest hour and reassuring me that it’s my time.

I’ve been skating on thin ice for some time and, right now Grueheads, it is time for me to accept my pre-ordained fate and go join my dear father. At his cremation I recall one thing with luminosity; there was a single black crow outside the crematorium window. It was jet black in coloration, trotting around on the frosted dew outside and occasionally looking directly at me as if to provide respite from the trauma which was sucking my soul dry of its essence.

Many would have regarded this as a bad omen, looking around themselves frantically for a sheet of runaway glass or a stray freight lorry to hit them square on. Not me, I took great solace in the little fella. His appearance was one of tranquility and, momentarily at least, the hurt subsided. I knew in the moment its beady eye took dilating to acknowledge my presence that it was a sign from my Father. Somehow in that moment I was fully aware that there was something when everything else has gone . I have held onto that for every day since; death comes to us all and when it does it’s the least we can do to be prepared for its arrival. Not all of us are readied for that moment; it can snatch us away cruelly and callously without any heads-up. This isn’t the case with me; that’s not how this should be playing out for Keeper.

I pledged at that exact instant that I would not be tardy when the Reaper paid me that final visit. With boy scout organization I have prepared in advance, got my itinerary, ready for pick up. You know what, I feel surprisingly at ease. If you’d have told me ten years ago the day of my passing I would have likely keeled over in sheer horror. Not this time; if this is my time I’m open, ready and even a little excited at the prospect of reuniting with my role-model. I love my dad, whenever I felt hopeless he was always right there to say exactly what I needed to hear. My mother patched up the surface scratches, kissed my knee and set me back on my way but for a young boy living in a predominantly female household it was his attentiveness I craved when life invariably dished out an extreme body blow. He never let me down.

When death gets its bony hands on a family member, especially a young boys personal hero, it carves a humongous dead space into you. Regularly you’re reminded that time is a great healer,’it gets easier with time’. It’s true of course, easier may not be the correct term but more manageable definitely. But that dead space is always there. Once I knew that it was probable I wouldn’t be there to see my boy’s face first thing in the morning as he rubbed his stunning baby blue eyes, open his blinds and pick him up in my arms, kiss his soft hair and carry him downstairs to start his day, I went into self-destruct mode. I’m not the kind of person who could take his own life, it’s just not in me.

Have you ever watched the film Leaving Las Vegas? Nicholas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, directed by Mike Figgis. It charts the final few weeks of a lost soul who decides to drink himself into an early grave as he feels that his time has come. He meets the love of his life in that time, a prostitute who has a great capacity for warmth, compassion and love, and they spend his final few days in one another’s’ company, until which time as he steps into the everlasting darkness.

 

It’s bleak man; not a date movie by any stretch but absolutely compulsive and one of the best films I have ever watched. Cage’s performance is beyond remarkable; this ain’t Con Air, he not only bleeds but gushes. Shue gives every bit as astounding a turn, showing that some just need the comfort of strangers when ready to take that final pilgrimage.

That is exactly what has been transpiring before me these past few weeks, I’m stepping into the darkness. Not all of us have the emotional tools to end our own transience. For some it is just too terrifying a prospect. Some seek euthanasia rather than wait for their fate to march them off, it is something I would never entertain. That small black crow told me through his gaze that everything was going to be okay for me and I trust that.

By allowing my shell to fade, which is wasting quicker than Cookie Monster squanders cookies, I just accelerate that march. It can take me now; I sit here, a 38-year-old man in my friend’s tool shed, quickening the process. My chest aches, my lungs feel minuscule and probably look like withered ashen wings which have lost the endowment of flight.

Every single morsel in my stomach lining is laid out by my side as I can’t keep it down, no matter how hard I endeavor. And you know what? I love comedy, any opportunity I grab with excitable feelers. I’m surrounded by gym equipment. I shit you never, this is Tortured Soul’s shed we’re talking about. Have you seen that dude? Hench doesn’t cut the mustard let me tell you. Talk about side-splitting cruel irony!!!

I’m signing off now and it will likely be for the final time. I said I’d scribe until my final breath and I never break a Keeper promise. You are a wonderful group of people and have massaged my soul, held my hand in the closing stages of my own transience and I love you one and all for making this ill-fated crusade one filled with moments of sheer joy that I shall carry with me now into the darkness. They will provide the beacons which will guide me back to my dear Father. Be good to one another, smile at strangers, love with all your hearts and please keep the Rivers of Grue running red.

I have decided to share this hidden bleed for one reason and that is not out of spite or a necessity to spread negativity. No, my goal is for others in situations which can appear untenable to see that what we have crafted here can keep us all from the edge of our own infinite abyss.

 

 

Sin one last time with me,

 

Keeper of the Crimson Quill

 

Copyright: Crimson Quill: Savage Vault Enterprises 2013