Purgatory

Purgatory

The nameless man opened his eyes, albeit slowly as he dared not view what awaited him. He expected to see something, but all that stared back at it him was a black void, no light, no sound, nothing, absolutely nothing. He turned his head to the right, albeit slowly as he was not sure he was ready for what awaited him. Upon moving his head, his whole body slowly moved in a clockwise motion keeping up with his head. Again nothing, just darkness.


He soon became aware that he was not standing, but merely suspended in the depths of the dark. He felt weightless as if surrounded by water. He twisted his body again, further clockwise and again his whole body floating effortlessly to his right. He tried to focus, but there was no object with which to use as a point of reference. He did not need to breath, his lungs were deflated and there was no inner voice forcing him to inhale. He was dizzy from this suspended feeling and was totally disorientated. He tried to speak, but with no air in his lungs and no atmosphere for him to draw his breath, nothing happened. He was naked as far as he could tell in the darkness in which he was surrounded. He clicked his thumb against his middle finger, but although he knew he had made contact with his fingers, not a sound was heard. He closed his eyes and tried to think what to do next.


His brain was working and he could clearly communicate with himself and allow his brain to trigger movements as he wished, but the lack of light, sound, and smell gave him a feeling of being disconnected from himself. Despite feeling completely detached, he had the uneasy feeling of being watched from afar. It wasn’t a feeling of being viewed by a hidden voyeur; it was more a sense of being stared at by hundreds of people all boring deep into his skull. He tried to recall his last actions before appearing in this void, but although his thoughts and memories appeared to be intact, he had no recollection of what had brought him to this place. He waited, and waited, and was unsure how to proceed with the situation he now found himself in.


He was a man of slender build, of average height and weight for his 41 years of age. His muscles had been looked after and his whole body was one of an athletic man, one considered fit and healthy for his age. He raised his hands to his face and touched each part of his face and then to his torso, down to his thighs and then he bent down to feel his legs, running his cold fingers down his calves and eventually touching each toe. Everything seemed to be where it should; he felt no wounds or cuts upon his body. He could sense his limbs and his brain were clearly functioning and telling him that he was, although debatable, alive. He was cold and could sense the hairs on his arms rise slightly. He could feel no wind or any movement at all. Then a thought struck him, he could not feel his heart beating, he raised his right hand quickly and pressed over his chest, but there was no movement, just a  sensation of  a cold empty chamber within his chest.


At last he pondered on whether this was death. He certainly felt alive in as much that he could feel and sense his body, but with no heart nor breath in his lungs, he became unsure. A fear ran through him from the pit of his stomach and into his mouth, the fear bit at his vitality and a barren thought of hopelessness filled his carcass of a body.


After what had felt like an eternity, he suddenly became more aware, something changed in the void and he began to feel his feet touch a solid surface. His leg muscles relaxed and he gently and nervously shifted his right foot across the base on which he now found himself attached to. The surface was sandy and he could hear the soft scratching of the hard skin of his heel as it grated against the rough surface. Then without any warning his lungs came to life and he drew in a gasp of air. The air burnt his throat and lungs as they filled. He immediately exhaled and coughed. He panicked and drew in another breath and again coughed it back out. This happened a few more times and then slowly he began to calm himself and slow his breathing, which in turn reduced his need to cough. His head was filled with a beating noise that amplified and forced itself out through his ears. The drumming and pounding multiplied and he was forced to grab his ears with his hands in vain hope that it would drown out the attack. Eventually the noise subsided into a low beat, the beating rhythm of a heart. He smiled with his whole face as he felt the blood pumping through his body. He placed his hand over his chest and was calmed by the rhythmic pace of his heart beating.


He looked all around but still there was no light in the darkness. He tried to walk upon the surface but his legs were weak and he fell to his knees. He placed his fingers upon the sandy surface and pushed his hands under the sand like he had done as a child. The sand was thin and he drew up a handful and let it stream between his fingers. He looked directly ahead of him and thought he could see a pin sized dot of light. His eyes struggled to focus, but the harder he squinted, the nearer the dot was travelling towards him. He could not stand so he stayed knelt in the sand and watched in eagerness as the light got bigger and brighter. Minutes which felt like hours passed and eventually the dot had transformed into the shape of a rectangle. The light was no ordinary light, it was a flame. The flame was so fierce that for the first time, the nameless man felt warmth wrap itself around his body. The light from the flame became so strong that the man reluctantly shielded his face from the intense heat. The heat increased and suddenly the nameless man felt that same feeling of fear he had felt earlier. The pain pulled and ripped at his stomach and burned its way into his throat, he was sure he was going to burn to death. He rolled over onto the sand into a tight ball and for the first time, screamed with all his might. His scream echoed out into the void and the reverberation of his outburst thrashed around him and after many minutes he was finally greeted with silence. Then without warning the heat vanished. Slowly the man uncurled and opened his eyes. He stood, finding his legs had regained their strength to support him and stared open mouthed at the sight that lay before him.


He was standing a few feet away from the entrance of a mighty door of burning fire. Behind him was nothing and between him and the furnace was merely a short grey sand filled path. He could see a wooded frame around the door but beyond the frame was more darkness. Despite the raging flames, no smoke was emitted. The dancing inferno danced into a frenzy and was beckoning him to come closer. He searched all around the door but there was nothing but a void around it except for a long panel of granite directly above the frame. He looked closer at the panel and slowly before him; a word appeared in the granite. The nameless man stood shaking staring at the word which had been skillfully chiseled in a decorative and elaborate style. The word that stared back at him was, Purgatory.


The path on which he stood began to move into the burning orifice, motioning the man into its jaws. The nameless man tried to step back but behind him was an invisible force repelling his movement. The path came to a halt when the man was merely a few inches from the door. The man held out his trembling hand and touched the flame. A grey and wrinkled, but incredibly strong hand grabbed his wrist and pulled the man into the flame. The ice cold hand released its grip and the man screamed as he entered Purgatory. The nameless man found himself back on his knees in a cold and damp corridor. He looked around to find the owner of the hand that had grabbed him, but whoever or whatever it was, was no longer there. He slowly stood with shaking legs and took in his surroundings.


The corridor was a few metres wide and the floor was covered in the same grey sand that he had stood upon in the void. The corridor was lit by black waxed candles that merely hung in the air as if supported by a transparent shelf. Along the walls and evenly spaced between the candles were picture frames. He looked further down the corridor and the candles and picture frames seemed to go on for ever. There were no footprints in the sand to show any sign that anybody had walked there before. The corridor had no smell other than an occasional waft of smoke from the candles. The smoke hung in the air and created a gently drifting veil of silk just above the mans head. He looked up but the clouded sheet of smoke blocked his view. He coughed and listened as his echo ricocheted through the tunnel and finally died.


The man was unsure what he should do, he turned to look at the doorway in which he had been pulled, but it was gone. All that stood behind him was a black void. The man put his hands out to feel the void behind him, he touched an invisible wall, he pushed and pushed but the void was solid. He felt all around but there was no imperfection in the wall. He turned and faced the corridor with its many picture frames and candles. All the frames appeared to be made of a dull dark metal and all were exactly the same size. For every frame on the right side wall was an exact copy on the other side wall but positioned a few yards further down the corridor. He could see hundreds of frames and they simply went on and on deep into the tunnel.

The nameless man could not see where the tunnel ended, it seemed as though it went on forever in a perfectly straight line. From where he stood he could not see any colour or image within the picture frames, they simply appeared to be a blank black canvas. The walls were made of hundreds, maybe thousands of small stones yet each one was perfectly flat and smooth and it was difficult to see where one finished and the next began. He took a tentative step forward until he was directly in line with the first picture frame on the left side of the wall. He looked into the picture.

He was immediately stunned to see a moving image of some children in a playground. They were alive and he could hear them chanting. He looked long and hard at the moving picture for a minute. The children were a long way in the distance, but slowly the picture moved in until he could clearly see the faces of the children. The children were in a school playground and had formed a circle around a small boy in the middle. The children’s faces were all crystal clear except the small boy in the middle. The man steeped closer to the picture and stared at the boy in the middle. The boy was no more than eight years old and although he could see the boy had tears in his eyes, his face was still blurred. One of the larger boys stepped into the middle with the small boy and with a clenched fist, struck the small boy hard in the face. The small boy fell to the ground holding his nose. The larger boy stepped closer and kicked the youngster in the stomach. This continued for a minute longer until the small boy was lying in a pool of blood. The larger boy looked up from laughing at the small boy and stared directly at the nameless man. The boy laughed at him and then the picture went black. The nameless man stood staring at the black picture. He held his head in shame. The older boy in the picture was too familiar to him. The man walked away from the picture and looked with teary eyes into the next picture in line on the right wall. The scene was a simple one. In the picture was the small boy lying in a hospital bed. His face was bloodied and bruised and his right hand was in plaster and his left leg was held together by a frame of metal pins that were stuck into his leg.  Around the bed were his crying parents.

The nameless man looked away, but was immediately drawn back to the picture when he heard laughing. The parents were stood up and staring at the nameless man. They were laughing. The mother held up a newspaper and handed it through the picture into the hand of the nameless man. The nameless man was petrified, but he took the newspaper and no sooner had he taken it, the picture frame went black. The man read the headline on the front page. “Schoolboy attacked left unable to walk”. The man read the whole article. The story went on to tell that schoolboy thugs had attacked the boy because he supported a rival football team and had sustained injuries that would leave him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. The police had investigated the attack but nobody admitted anything and the case was closed due to there being no witnesses. The small boy had been beaten around the head so much that it was too early to tell if he would be left with permanent brain damage. The man screamed out “I never meant that to happen, it was just a bit of fun that went too far”.


A voice echoed in his head, “there is no excuse for this, and the real shame is you never admitted you did this and never gave this boy another thought, but today is the day of reckoning”.


The nameless man threw down the newspaper and before it touched the ground it ignited and was ash as it touched the sand. The man sat down with his head in his hands and sobbed.  The invisible wall had moved up with the man and removed the corridor where the first two pictures had been. The wall nudged the man and he was forced to move on down the corridor. The man walked straight past the next picture without looking.  The man walked straight into another invisible wall and was knocked to the floor by the impact.


Inside his head a voice rasped, “we haven’t finished yet and you have missed the next picture, so now go back you coward and see what is beheld in the next picture frame”.


Reluctantly the man skulked back to the picture hanging on the left side of the corridor. He looked in with arrogance and watched as the scene before him materialised. The moving picture showed two young children wearing black suits, crisp white shirts and black ties. They were extremely smart and alert to what was going on around them. They stood still as a coffin was brought down the aisle of the church and placed at the front by an altar. There at the altar stood Reverend Fisher. Reverend Fisher spoke out to the congregation, but the nameless man could not hear the words. Throughout the sermon Reverend Fisher glanced at the two children. The nameless man touched the edge of the picture frame and held himself as close to the scene as he could get. He watched as his two children, Luke and Nathan stood staring at the coffin with brave faces. The two boys held each others hands and the nameless man could see the whites of their knuckles showing through their skin as they gripped as tightly as they could. The man fell to his knees sobbing and screaming. “I had to take my life, everything was getting too much and nobody understood me!” From within his head he heard his inner voice reply.

“you took your life with no thought to those who loved you and how their lives would be affected, you selfish coward!”


The picture went blank and the nameless man dragged his body to the picture on the right hand side of the corridor. He stood up and looked in. With horror he watched his two sons emptied the toolbox that was hidden under the work bench in the garage. Luke pulled out the spanners and the hammer and then his brother pulled from the toolbox an object wrapped in a grey cloth. “no!” shouted the nameless man at the picture. The boys looked up from the toolbox and stared directly at the man. Both boys laughed and then turned their attention to the object in the cloth. Nathan unwrapped the object and held out the black pistol. “Don’t play with that, that was just for protection, no!” screamed the nameless man. The boys ignored their Fathers’ shouts. Nathan stood up holding the gun and spoke in a calm voice to his brother. “It was my fault Dad killed himself, I told him he was a loser and he should get a job like everybody else”. Luke looked at his brother and spoke calmly “no my brother, it was my fault. It was I who asked for the new football boots when I knew Dad had lost his job and had no money. I miss my Dad and this is the only way to find him, I must die and follow him to Heaven. Come on brother, I’ll go first, and then you follow. It will be ok, we’ll be with Dad real soon”. The nameless man tried to scream out but he couldn’t get his breath. Then he watched Nathan release the safety from the gun and point the barrel into his mouth. The picture went black. 


The nameless man fell to the floor clawing at the sand. The invisible wall pushed him along to the next frame on the left side. “This is not what was supposed to happen, my boys, not my boys. Stop all this, stop it now. I am sorry, sorry for everything!” Inside his head came a softly spoken voice.

“This is not the time for apologies, this is the time for your reckoning”


The nameless man was beside himself with regret and rage, but he couldn’t escape. He looked behind him only to see the last two pictures frames become engulfed and lost forever by the invisible wall. He knew he had to endue the next picture and the horrors which it would contain. He looked down the corridor and could see hundreds of frames, all lit by a black candle. He stared into the next frame on the left side.  There in the picture was his wife, Marie. She was sitting on the edge of her bed. She looked up and stared directly at the nameless man. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself”, she said with a steady voice. She was holding a letter in her hands which was screwed up into a ball. She threw the ball of paper at the nameless man. He caught the paper and unravelled it. The letter was from the mortgage company. The letter explained in very matter-of-fact terms that in 30 days from the date of the letter that the house would be re-possessed unless the outstanding amount of £30,000 in arrears was paid.  He looked up at his wife but she had already up and left the bedroom, he watched the picture fade to black. He quickly turned to the next picture on the left side and peered in. The picture showed a new young family living in his house. “I didn’t mean to waste the money, it was just a few bets which went wrong, I didn’t know how much I’d spent until the debt collectors turned up, I’m sorry!” shouted the nameless man. The woman in the picture looked up and looked at the nameless man, and laughed,. He looked at the Dad and the child, they were all looking at him and laughing.  The nameless man dropped the mortgage company letter, but before it hit the sand it caught alight and just ash sprinkled itself into the grey sand.


In despair the man looked into the next picture frame on the left. There inside was his ex-wife, Kirsty. She was standing up wearing blue jeans and a yellow blouse. The blouse was ripped open at the front and she was quickly buttoning it back up. Then the nameless man saw a fist punch the woman in the face, then another punch, and then a slap. Kirsty fell to the floor holding her hands up to stop the barrage of blows. The fists kept punching and punching. Kirsty was screaming for it to stop and still the unknown fists kept punching. The blows continued to pound the womans’ face and then the stomach and ended with a final kick. Then it stopped and the picture went black. The nameless man looked down at his own hands and was horrified to see them covered in bruises and blood. “I was drunk and she kept moaning at me, she deserved it!”, the man said.
The man was angered by the picture and furiously stepped over to the right side picture. He looked in and was hit by a vision of his ex-wife lying on a hospital bed. “I am afraid that you have lost your baby. When you fell down those stairs you suffered a spontaneous miscarriage. Unfortunately the complications from this episode have resulted in you being unable to conceive in the future, I am so sorry for you and your husband”. The nameless man was speechless. He couldn’t think of anything to say. The doctor looked up from the picture and stared with menace at the nameless man, the doctor simply laughed and then the picture went blank. The broken man fell to his knees and sobbed.


The nameless man trundled to picture after picture watching his every mistake appear in front of him and endured watching the outcomes of every mistake he had made. Time was timeless in the corridor, but not matter what the man did, he was forced to watch each scene and the result of each action play to him like a recording of his life. He never knew how much sorrow and misery he had caused, not just through taking his life but throughout his wicked life. There were friends he had betrayed, animals he had abused, innocent people he had swindled, work colleagues he had cheated, the lies he had told, the cars he had stolen, the children he had fathered and didn’t know about, and the ones he did but did nothing about it. His cruelty seemed to have no end. He was sorry, and regretted everything, but did not know what he could do to put things right.

He had finished looking at the last frame and he turned to see that no more frames hung on the wall. He couldn’t tell if he had been in the corridor for a few minutes, hours or even days. At the end of the corridor were three doors.  The doors were several hundreds of yards away. He began walking briskly towards them but they didn’t seem to get any closer. He started to jog and could feel the fear he had felt before run through his body. The hairs on his skin rose and felt a sudden urgency. He ran faster, and faster and was struggling for breath. Panic overwhelmed him and he sprinted, fast and harder. He had never run so fast and the faster he ran the more the fear and panic pulled at his soul. He ran and ran and then exhausted he fell to the ground panting, coughing and wheezing. He closed his eyes and was wrapped in a cold bitter darkness. He finally calmed his mind and breathing and gradually opened his eyes. There before him were the three doors.


He staggered and stood up and faced the three doors. Like before each one had a wooded frame and was filled with flames. Above the door on the right was a long panel of granite. He looked closer at the panel and slowly before him, a word appeared in the granite. The nameless man stood shaking staring at the word which had been skillfully chiselled in a decorative and elaborate styled font. The word that stared back at him was, Heaven. Above the door on the left was another panel of granite. This one also held one word, Hell. The door in the middle also had a panel of granite, also skillfully chiselled in a decorative and elaborate styled font. This one read, Try Life Again.


The nameless man looked hard at the three doors. He made his mind up that he would go back and try again and this time he would repair all the damage he had caused. He grabbed the brass handle of the middle door and twisted . The handle did not budge. He tried again, and again. He pushed, pulled and kicked the door but it was fixed solid. He took a step back and looked at the right hand door. “Heaven! no chance for me!” he shouted self mockingly. He grabbed the handle of Heaven and twisted. Again the door handle did not budge. He tried everything but like the previous door, it was firmly locked. He took a step back and laughed at himself for even trying the Heaven door. He looked at Hell. “I guess I deserve this one”, he whispered to himself. He looked behind him and there was nothing but darkness behind him. All the picture frames of his haunted life had been lost to the void. He looked again at Hell. He took a deep breath and grabbed the handle and twisted, the handle moved easily in his hand and he heard a solid click from the lock. He pushed at the door. The door did not budge. He tried again. He was confused, the door had unlocked, he had heard it, but the door would not move, it was solid. Then he heard the lock click shut. He took a step back. “What do you want from me?, I’ve watched my life over again and seen it torn to shreds and now I choose Hell and you won’t let me in! What the fuck do you want from me?”

He turned around and was surprised and then shocked to see all the frames had re-appeared. The candles were still burning and the grey sandy path was back. Then inside his head he heard a voice he hadn’t heard before.

“Purgatory is all you deserve”


The nameless man fell to the ground with his head in his hands clawing at his ears as his head was filled with agonising laughter. The laughter got louder and louder…


© 2010 Hooded Stranger



Purgatory

I tried so hard to avoid
Waking up in the stillness of the void
The thought of the burning door
Scared and haunted me

I closed my eyes to avoid
The pictures of the lives I'd destroyed
The frames with moving images
Laughed and taunted me

Pur-ga-tory
Entering is man-da-tory
Pur-ga-tory
Contains my final story

I tried so hard to avoid
Ending up in the darkness of the void
The thought of the long corridor
Scarred and poisoned me

I closed my eyes to avoid
The visions of my life I'd destroyed
The frames with familiar faces
Screamed and deafened me

At the end I got to choose
Defiantly locked
I lose

© 2010 Unsqueezed Production