In The Hourglass

My name is Wilhiem Hammerstorm.

I am fifty-two years old and alone, and this body is pushing thirties, and my mind is escaping its bounds only to be kicked back by those that think they understand it.

My name is Wilhiem Hammerstorm.

These are my dreams.

***

It starts simple enough - a cup, in a hand, a tangible and free-floating thing is suddenly riddled with cracks, and shatters. Time slows to a painful crawl and the shards, as they fall, remind me of teeth. It only takes one twist of a hand to let them fall back into pieces - thin, sharp pieces - and encircle and entwine and assemble. The smile gathered from them, from the shards, is the brightest I've ever seen.

"Hello, Anne."

My voice is not my own. These vocal cords have grown and settled in my throat without my bidding, and nothing here is mine

but the shards.

These vocal cords are little pink pumps of infection and, as my throat expands, so does her smile and the teeth sink in the nape of my neck before I can jump away.

***

The two men stood, back to back, in the middle of a swirling inferno.

There was no fire, but the licks and shifts of the floating sands may as well have been licks and shifts of a great, grey furnace. The grains danced in the wind and mixed with the clouds well behind the horizon of the turning hourglass and, beyond, faint red outlines of a temporary network held the glass intact. Some spilled, they knew, but it has gone far and above inevitable.

The only thing beyond was the void.

The two men stood in the middle of a giant crumbling stone-stopper that held the sand from disappearing into the vortex beneath. The image of it, this tongue-in-cheek joke, has become an anomaly. But then Wilhiem, himself, was one.

He was it - the hourglass

that never ran out of time.

The two men stood, smiling, and started to walk out and away. They looked like brothers, one would assume - all angles and bones and sharp hooked noses and grey, hawkish eyes.

They walked until the edges of the platform started to split in half.

Time was of the issue.

***

Layers and layers and layers of spiderwebs and

so lost and finding one

way

crawling, down - on hands, palms, fingers, splinting, splinters driving all

the way through to the bone and the wood becomes bone and

spiderwebs and spiderwebs and spiderwebs

way too far, stopped

the tunnel is narrowing and a hundred hungry eyes are peering over and he can hear the whispering

of a thousand blood-stained wings.

caught here, on the tendrils, vines, webs, fish-hooks

***

"Hello, Wilhiem."

Her voice is a gurgle. My reply is incoherent, and then it is a laugh, and then my hands dance about and about and there are more shards than a cup can hold. She's palm-sized - her palms are - and they crush and snap in my hands even when the only thing I ever wanted, ever wished was to hold.

The lump in my throat pulsates, I feel as if I'm gorging on a fist.

Her teeth are so deep within my shoulder now that they can nearly touch the bone. I'm whispered to, suddenly, that the bones still have feeling, and that all I have to do is to allow it to happen.

Allow them to grind, grind, together until they both turn to dust.

***

The crack grew deeper with every step. The platform was tilting, splitting - and lifting. The inferno of sand and clouds beneath and around the twin figures started to bubble and boil. The sand rose in spheres, perfectly polished spheres, and split open to cover them with a fine spray of dust-like grains. The world, the mindscape, was at once a single blank sheet suspended in the void.

The two men stopped, at their respective edges, and ran, and ran, and ran about the rim of the free-floating island as shards of rock - like fingers - pushed up and up and let it grow.

***

hooks to take your eyes with

names names names NAMES every name was a hook an anchor that pulled down

Morrenwell, Morrenwell, Darkbloom, Mydral

Morrenwell, Morrenwell, dark room, you're done

Morning well, mourning well, mourning veil

gone

and the splinters tightened their grip, and the man and the shadow were becoming

one

***

"I want you to hate me."

The room danced in shades of crimson and cream.

The bones snapped against each other in a violent storm and, at once, I knew

I could not.

This was needed.

I was needed.

Her pain. Her pain was my own to control.

My pain. My pain needed no bearing.

***

The two men slid back, to the center, soundlessly - and it was done. The inferno, at once, culled. Not a grain shifted in the dunes below, the sky was filled with unmoving clouds, and even the void was silent, inquiring.

They were like brothers - copied down to the single dimple, single curve of a nose. One figure was slightly bigger. Another was all bones and sinew and smiles.

The two men slid to their knees and faced each other, their hands ran faster than their thoughts and the hourglass lay completely still as their lips joined, their tongues slipped, and the rest was nothing but whispers.

***

Words are just anchors, dreams

will take their toll

all in all

a dream is simply a synapse.