Who am I but a buried corpse? I was born from the shadows and now I enjoy a view from a hole. That is to say, I awoke in my hole after some time had passed. How long I slept, I know not. Every now and then, a worm passes through me; that worm then becomes my meal. Sometimes it rains; that is when I slake my thirst. When the trees' roots grow near me, I redirect them away from me; so that they do not trap me. If the wind and rain wear away the earth around me, I dig myself a deeper hole; it is comfortable here.
Although you might say it is dark, dank, and unpleasant here, I find the soil to be quite relaxing and enjoyable. My imagination amuses me as the eons pass; I let my thoughts stir and mix in this hole within which I live. I cogitate about many things, but most of all, of what is going on beyond the hole. However, I have no intention of crawling out to find out; although something, perhaps ancient memories, tells me there is a wide world outside. I am ultimately uninterested. I would rather continue my humble existence as a resident of the hole.
One time, a flood tried to coax me out of my home. Indeed, the water had completely submerged my sepulcher. I thought myself doomed to drown, but I remembered I was already dead. It is really quite a funny thing; being a corpse, that is. I simply stuck my limbs out into the dirt around me to prevent my natural buoyancy and the current from carrying me away. Thus, I stayed in my hole.
That reminds me of a time when the forces of nature carried me away successfully. Indeed, my present hole has not always been my grave. There once was a tornado that dragged me out in spite of my efforts to stay put. My right arm was almost lost because of my deathly grip on a certain tree root. Luckily, I let go just in time. That was when I was tossed away by a particularly strong gale. I lost consciousness inside the vortex of wind.
When I had awoken, I was on the surface of the sunlit Earth and my arm had recovered from the strain. I found myself in the middle of a wheat field. On the horizon, I could see a farmer looking over his crops. He spotted me and waved in my direction, so I naturally approached him. However, when I neared, he let loose a horrible howl and hurriedly away. I tried to communicate with him, but my dead voice only managed a quiet, grating groan, a sound like rusty iron blocks scraping against each other. I tried clearing my throat, but a bout of hacking coughs attacked instead. The farmer seemed to flee to his house in the distance even faster; admittedly, I was somewhat amused by his panicked, waddling gait (he was a fat man). I made my way slowly after him, for at the time, my legs felt like they were trudging through molasses. I would have ran, but remember, I was (and still am) just a grim cadaver.
Soon, the farmer disappeared into his home, while I marched on, eventually arriving at the porch of the house. When he returned, he was brandishing a shotgun. He fired off several shots at me; I felt a dull pricking around my chest and saw bits of flesh fly off from me, but I was not unnerved (nor amused). I tried waving in a gesture of peace and was successful in doing so, but the farmer would have none of it and continued pumping lead into me. Within a minute, he had burned through all the ammunition he carried, while I merely stood impatiently with my hands on my hips, tapping my foot. He threw the gun down, ran indoors, then came out carrying hunks of raw meat and scattered them before me. He blurted out something incoherent and ran indoors again. I then heard several clicks; clearly the sounds of heavy locks being put into place. To this day, I know not why he threw the meat at me; dead men eat not, and even if we did, why would we eat frozen hunks of animal flesh anyway? I clearly recalled that cooked meat was the only safe and edible form of meat.
I stood there for a good ten minutes, puzzling over the conundrum of wasted meat, when I noticed the sound of sirens approaching. I lurched toward the nearby road to investigate and saw what I vaguely identified as a police car. The car stopped some distance away from me, say, 50 meters, and two men clothed in blue uniforms got out from it, presumably police officers (my memory that day was heavily exercised). I began to limp towards them but they shouted "Freeze!" and I complied. They instructed me to raise my hands, which I did, and then they warily approached me, guns raised. When they finally got to me, they arrested and handcuffed me for "disturbing the peace" and carried me into their car. Then, they drove away.
While I was in the car, I thought about a temporal inconsistency I observed. Although I recalled that these men were police and I was in what is called a car, I also recalled being in my original hole for so long that I had to dig myself a deeper hole several times due to erosion. With so much time having passed, why did the car not seem as though it were from the future? I imagined that, considering the passage of time, the car should have been perhaps hovering instead of rolling along on conventional wheels. I decided to investigate by asking, "What is the date today?" My voice still sounded like a mauled cat, but fortunately, my message was barely decipherable.
"It's August 15, 2011."
The date was confounded, I tell you! I thought they were lying at first, but I dared not inquire further for I seemed to be in a precarious position.
Some five minutes into the trip toward the police station, the police car began to leak smoke through the front hood. Surprised, the driver abruptly stopped and opened up the hood of the car to investigate, whereupon a great black beast of a cloud appeared, but it was evanescent in nature. A minute later, the officer inside of the car stepped out to converse with his partner. When they finished their counsel, they came to the back door of the car and informed me that we were to wait for a tow truck and another police cruiser.
Well, enough about that. All you need to know is that in the end we got to the police station. There, they released me with a warning, telling me to get rid of "the childish costume and makeup as soon as possible." I could not bring myself up to admit to them that I was already dead, so I simply nodded and absconded.
Upon the streets, I received many strange looks and long stares, which I found to be somewhat rude, but at the very least, explicable. Finding myself famished, I visited a familiar restaurant, a Vietnamese noodle house. Before I entered, I remembered to check for a wallet in the pockets of my rags. Fortunately, I had some cash on me; $8.91, to be exact. Thus, I entered with my money and ordered a bowl of noodles to satiate my hunger. When I had finished, I gave the waiter all of my money. They returned a small amount and then I left to wander the streets again.
So there I was, lurching through the streets of the city, when suddenly, I heard the wail of a great beast. I looked around to see the source of the racket and found it to be a creature white as paint and with a single eye. It possessed a dry, red wound on its side. The bizarre thing was charging over to where I was.
Whatever blood that remained in my veins froze at the sound of its terrifying wail. Instinct took over immediately and I ran for my life (or death, technically). The disgusting, albino beast tried to overtake me, but as it did, I sharply turned around and fled into a tall building. As I ran through halls filled with shelves of books, people took notice of me and began to shout.
"It's after me, help!" I shouted to them. I think someone asked what it was I was fleeing from, but I remember the sequence only dimly. You see, when I turned my head to see if the beast was still chasing me, I saw a few men dressed in black uniforms come out of the bowls of the beast and into the structure (the thing was waiting outside the doors of the building). Bewildered, I had stopped, but that had been a fatal mistake, for one of the men pulled out a rifle and shot me. I felt a sharp pain in my side before I fainted. They had killed me a second time I presume, hence my hazy memory.
When I regained consciousness, I found myself on a dirty bed within an old prison cell, its corners grey from cobwebs. In the cell opposite to mine, an invalid sat hunched over his knees, rocking back and forth. I could hear cries and grunts from the halls, shouting and moaning, some in pain, and some in rage. I stayed on my bed, taking in my unkempt cell. There was a small toilet, a sink, a barred window, and besides the bed I was on, that was it. After some time, a security guard came to my cell and served a meal of cold, tough bread and tomato soup, which I gladly consumed after realizing how hungry I was; I had been unconscious for some time, it seemed. I looked out the window, and seeing a full moon outside, decided to try to get to sleep, which, fortunately, came quickly.
My days in the cell passed in boredom. Each day, I was served three meals, and had several hours to myself to do nothing besides stare at the ceiling above. Every day, I imagined myself back in my hole, my wonderful hole for which I craved. The dry, putrid, and dusty cell was nothing like the damp, fresh, dirt of my hole. Sometimes, I imagined a miracle would occur and liberate me from my cell; from plausible events such as a revolution of the inmates to things as unlikely as a meteor cracking open my cell like a hammer to a nut, or an angel coming down and delivering me.
At last, one day, my prayers were answered. A man talking over the announcement system said there was to be a mass evacuation due to a severe hurricane system in the region. Being dead, I feared no storms, and immediately, my rotten brain gave birth to a plan of escape.
Following the announcement, security guards travelling in pairs began to take away the inmates, one by one, so as to retain utmost order. The inmates had let themselves be led away peacefully. I too intended to be led away without struggle. My energy had to be reserved for until later.
Two guards eventually arrived at my cell and unlocked the door. They handcuffed me before leading me out to follow the line of inmates going out of the penitentiary. Soon, we were outside underneath a black sky with thunder booming nearby. The air was humid and there was a light drizzle; heralds of the wrathful weather to come. I was in line with the rest of the prisoners and we were flanked by security guards.
I was about to execute my breakaway, when suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck a tree nearby, obliterating and igniting it. Then, one of the more volatile invalids screamed and tried to flee. The guards, stunned by the show of force on nature's part, were late to react. As one of them shouted, I kicked over the guard nearest to me and began to run. My act then triggered a riot, as dozens more inmates tried to escape. I could hear gunshots go off. Everything was in chaos as all of the prisoners sought freedom. Inevitably, they would be caught again because of their handcuffs. However, I was different. To escape the binds, all I had to do was rip off one of my hands, take away the handcuff, reattach the hand, and repeat the process with the other hand. That was my plan. Instead, I happened to run in the direction of the storm. Thus, no one chased me far. In the end, I was swept up by the hurricane and once more lost consciousness.
Well, that was what had transpired when I was picked up by the one tornado. You see, the hurricane saved me. When I woke up again, I found myself in this hole which I have made my new home.
My handcuffs? I lost them. I am unsure, but the storm must have somehow destroyed them. I do not recall.
Anyway, that is my story. I am but a buried corpse living in my hole. The view from here, I have learned, is quite narrow, but in that respect, very nice. I have no quarrel with my fate, for I enjoy it. Although I still imagine what goes on in the world the tornado showed me, I ultimately prefer the hole which the hurricane landed me in. Here, there are no annoying people, you see. I really am just a buried corpse, born from the shadows but enjoying a view from a hole.
It was not a tall tale that I told you, doctor. Why should dead men not tell stories?
Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Oct 1 2011, 7:27 pm by Sand Wraith.
