Come back in two halves (A)

[jack_babalon]

My little city dreaming
December 10th, 2006
~Rob M.

Liquor kills the magick, plain and simple.

Many a mage have ended their days at the bottom of the bottle. Like Genies in reverse, they crawl down the glass trap looking for oblivion in hopes of finally escaping their once precious 'Will'. Go ask your Uncle Al, dead in a boarding house at 72. A broke ass beast of a prophet, with a nightstand drawer full of 'dead soldiers' and a habit that would make old man Burroughs junk sick with envy.

Liquor kills the magick, it blacks out the dreams, edits down the memories, but in the end it only numbs the pain. It offers it's faithful a gray courage that throbs at the center of a dull awareness. It offers a clumsy armor made of false heat and watered down inhibitions. It offers an ugly strength that gnaws at the liver and shits in the soul.

Liquor kills the magick, so why can't Adam drink the visions off? Why can't he shake the ghosts once and for all?

..............
A quarter to midnight. King Station. An empty platform.

A single train roars by on the eastbound line. Out of service it doesn't stop. Between the darkened cabs the platform flickers and a shape takes form. The train rattles past the station, fires down the tracks and disappears down the turn of the bridge.

Sarah K. stands there on the open platform, she takes one final drag off her smoke and flicks it down into the tracks. She removes a single card from the deep pockets of a fur lined courdroy coat. The Knave ov Windows from the Black Tarot. She holds the card flat and vertical to her lips. It looks like she's shushing someone only she can see. She blows smoke from pouted blood painted lips. The smoke lingers around the card, evelopes it in a bubble for one long minute, until finally, it stretches out from the surface of the card into a single tendril that snakes down the length of the platform.

Sarah follows the tendril with the same air as if she was following a waiter to her table. It makes an impossible 90 degree turn and drifts into one of the rail maps posted along the walls of the station. It splays itself across the map and ripples over the little red circle indicating the King Station.

She returns the card to the deck hidden in her pocket, reaches into a different one and removes a well worn zippo. She flicks it and a silver flame crackles out. The map is lit up in a kirlian aura. She squints her eyes and can see the ultraviolet silhouette burnt over the maps surface. A sure sign of a portal. Smiling in recognition, she snaps the zippo closed, places a single finger over the King Station symbol on the map and whispers his name.

Another out of service train approaches on the opposite side of the tracks. It roars by without slowing in a deafening metallic scream. It picks up and drags loose trash in it's wake. The train rumbles into the darkness approaching the lights of the city skyline.

Seven minutes to Midnight. King Station. An empty platform once again.

..............
On the corner of Dekalb and Hunt. An empty factory behind a chain link fence on it's last legs. Gutted and long burnt to a husk. Faded brick walls that reek of shit and madness. Even the piss bums avoid it. Only a few kids come here armed with spray paint and vandal aesthetics and even they don't come here after dark. No one's that stupid after all, no one save Adam.

The ghosts have grafted their faces to the heads of two inch thick palmetto bugs. Adam closes his eyes and takes another long pull from a bottle of Mad Dog. When he opens them he can see one of the bugs climbing up the knee of his crossed legs. It marches half way up his thigh, stops and looks up at him.

"You piece of shit. You set me up! You set me up and now my life is ruined." It hisses with Brian's voice.

"Yep..." Adam concurs and makes a toast to the ghost faced roach before administering another long gulp. "But i'm guessing you putting me in the ER makes us even."

Another bug flys out of the dark and lands on the surface of the bottle. It scuttles forward across the label and Adam immediately recognizes it as Skinhead Dave.

"Just tell me why man."

"Why what?" Adam sighs.

"I understand why you ran that night. I understand why you lied to Carlos and the others... but why'd you lie to me man? I could've helped you out. Shit, I would've covered you the money... I could've talked to Carlos. We loved you man, we loved you like a little brother, you know that right?"

"Well that was your first mistake I guess..." and with that Adam flicks a finger into the bug and sends it sailing back into the dark.

He takes a longer drag, winces and looks up. Through a hole in the roof above him, through the network of gutted joists and spider webs, he can see a fat moon floating close to full on a cloudless night. He wonders how it's possible that the whole world see's the same moon as everyone else.

"Feeling sorry for yourself?" Another one, perched on his left shoulder and wearing his Fathers face. "Too bad. You killed them, one by one, starting with your poor mother..."

"Yeahhh, wellll you know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and all that..."

"Where's it end?" the little raver kid he sold bunk shit too five years ago asks, climbing out from under his shirt.

"Where's it end?" His Father demands, crawling up the nape of his neck.

"Where's it end?" a beady eyed face he's long forgotten begs from the nest of his unwashed hair.

"Where's it end?" Skinhead Dave whispers as it tries to burrow into his ear.

"Where's it end?" Brian hisses as it tunnels up the ankle of his boot.

Adam doesn't move except to offer them a shrug. He goes for another swig and gets the last two drops that drip slow across cracked lips.

Then there is burst of noise from the other end of the room.

A flock of pigeons scatter out of the shadows and navigate frantically around the factory, some flying down the corridors past Adam and some soaring up through the hole in the ceiling.

There is the unmistakable stink of magick in the air. Blue orgone, dried orgasms, rain before a storm and freshly mowed lawns.

Adam quick draws his nine out of his drawers and aims it down the darkness.

"Sorry..." Sarah steps into a patch of moonlight "didn't know you had company."

Comments

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Adam's been hiding the last few months, trying to quit the Magick and drink himself to death. However, as you can see, he can't even do that right.

Thank you for the feedback, Ms. Moondragon! As your Titan prone telepathy will tell you i'm all blushes over here in Atlanta.