Pyre On The Lake

The white room gleamed a horrible clear color, while the air was dry and void of any flavor. This room was a cell. But a cell in a place which my mind could not yet register, as the events leading to my imprisonment are not those of a thief or a murderer.

This white room is not of the world I once knew, and my tale is as unlikely as any story, I imagine, you have ever been told. It started as a boating trip with my older brother, Anthony. He had just returned from college and I had recently graduated highs school.

After a long time away we’d figure we’d rebuild the connection of our close relationship by going on a boating trip, free from the scolding words of our parents when the booze and pot were whipped out. We contemplated bring up girls, but Anthony and myself were more introverted than most guys our age, I guess. We had always been close.

And we decided that this trip would just be for us. We paid for some old cabin that our dad’s friend was renting out and took out some our savings to afford a week and a half up there, in the mountains. The cabin was near these two rivers, side by side and flowing quick and steady down the slope of the hilly landscape.

Woods surrounded the cabin, which surprisingly was very well kept. The interior was almost completely modern. It had tables and beds and stuff that folded out from the shaved walls.

There was a view through this back window that was positioned over this lake, directly behind the building. While looking out the back window, which was in the room I was sleeping in, the sun peeked out from behind the rocky horizon and reflected off the water so beautifully. The outside air was bug-free and the temperature was astonishing.

We had finally reached our vacation spot. I thought about the day I had had and the bustle of my daily life which brought me to plan such a week. I remember thinking aloud to myself:

“Today is looking to be one big steaming pile of s**t. I'm working in the blistering heat of a humid August day, watching the old Italians and Jewish-folk of the neighborhood waddle by and into their mini vans. I think about how I might be spending today if I was in their position.

I got a pack of cigarettes in my pocket; Found under my bed a day or two after my girlfriend had misplaced them there. I don't like the taste. The tobacco, or whatever the hell they put in cigarettes nowadays, is too packed for me.

I enjoy a lighter, smoother brand. I'm supposed to be up pushing carts around, but in this weather I'm more sure I'd die of heatstroke before I could clear a parking lot. Besides, I'm in no mood to help the average schmuck about their "pleasant shopping experience”.

Customers are all promised special treatment and the workers are all promised aggravation and s**t pay. If it wasn't for the fact that it was a hundred degrees out here, and that I need some god damned form of income to keep the judgmental words of my peers away, I'd up and stroll all the way home right now. Or, storm into the office of my boss, throw my vest and belt down on the table and tell them "I quit"; Just like in those old stereotypical cop action-flicks.

And the sun shower has begun. About time. It doesn't do much; Just kinda makes me feel as if the air has gotten cooler.

Anything to trick the mind. When the carts ain't that full I like to sit on a bench, past where the front store cameras can spot you, smoke and fiddle around on my phone. No one in my family knows I smoke cigarettes.

Maybe they assume I do and are too trusting in my ability to share every single detail of my personal life with them that they'd just rather wait for me to say I do. All the while making allusions. I considered lighting up another cigarette, since after downing two I kinda got used to this brand's taste, but I'd rather not.

I'll make them last if I gotta. Just don't wanna run the risk of a family member driving by and seeing me swallow smoke. I could picture them flying home in a panic and gossiping like fat-lipped gulls, as they like to do. 

Probably not my mother, though. She can keep a secret, as far as I've observed in my life, so far. Had to get back to work.

Been sitting down for a good hour and the mixed temperatures in the air, as well as this flat wooden bench, are starting to turn my legs and my a*s numb. I'll sit down again once I'm ready for a third cigarette and a bottle of water; Or both.” What a day that was, and how happy I was to return home and see my brother waiting.

Over dinner our brother brought up the subject of fishing and I took to the idea of a trip. Anthony would be home permanently now. At least, until pursuing a career in computers.

And at some far away company in ‘god-knows-where-ville’. So for the short time we had with him, I suggested a trip and he took to the idea quick-fast. Our parents, hesitant at the thought of their only two sons fending themselves off from the “horrors” of the wilderness stirred them, Anthony assured a tranquil and firm environment.

So with much discussion and the assurance of mine and my brother’s responsible nature, my parents waved us goodbye two days later. I tried my best not to think back to the dull life back home and focus on the time I had now. Anthony and me went hunting for a while, caught a habit or two and, before hand, got settled into our rooms.

I prepared to relax in the cabin’s living room as I found the television actually receiving channel pick-ups. I skipped through some static and came to some local new stations and a kid’s channel. Anthony entered the room and asked if I was ready to start fishing.

It was eight at night, but I humored his eagerness. So I took a pole from behind the shed, as well as all the hooks, lines and bait that he’d set up, and we walked on down to the dock for some night-fishing. We thought about setting into a boat out on the water, but decided against the idea.

We figured it’d take too long. We set up our rods and took a seat out on the dock which rested on the beach and followed up out on the water in a ’T’ shape. The moon was full and the lake was a black glistening muck.

Beautiful upon viewing, but sinister underneath. I looked up at the moon and thought about our time together. Not many words were exchanged between us upon that dock.

We were both lost in the moment. The perfection of the night and the appreciation of one-another’s company just had us at ease. There was no need for words.

Presence was enough. And so, we commenced fishing. We sat upon the dock and casted lines.

We caught nothing for about and hour and decided to pack up. Just as we were putting the hooks away we noticed the water dancing. There was a ball of scrambled liquid, floating within the center of the lake and glowing a reddish glow beneath the surface of twirling water.

It was like a sun beneath a sheet of liquid. Loops of thin fire sprung out from the sphere as it grew in size. It mesmerized our eyes and then our senses.

First came it’s sound, vibrant and appealing in multiple tones. Next, came it’s smell, like a fresh brush of air which had been untouched by atmosphere itself. A temperature beyond hot or cold.

This heat, or cold, or whatever flowed out from this ball, and the ball grew bigger. I turned to Anthony to see he had been lost in the look of the thing over the lake. I looked on with a daze and almost wanted to reach out for it.

Fire flew out at us in loops again; But this time they struck at the shore and the dock, slicing up the area around us. Our daze became fear as we snapped out of our trance and into a panic. We dodged these rays and ducked to avoid these growing masses which blew out of the sphere like hot steam from a tight radiator pipe.

I jumped from the dock alongside Anthony as two beams shot between us. I landed on the grass as the last of the dock was burned way. I felt Anthony’s body follow me in the jump, but as he landed I heard a much softer landing.

I leaned over in horror to see his torso burned in two. Everything from his lower chest down was burned away, as if combustion had taken the rest of him. More than anything, I remembered feeling angry.

A feeling which attracted me to the sphere, both in fury and interested. I moved closer, and in rage I threw my self at the thing, triggering some rift. A blast of light engulfed me in fire and I passed through, what seemed like a flux of air, built-up in a brush of heavy wind.

A wind which carried me away. Out into a void and black place where there was no air. My feet fell flat on the water as gravity shifted and I sunk under the surface.

The lake became a portal, and upon the other side I found myself in a place removed from space and time. A corner of a dimension that was separated from all other things. A desolate realm of nothing, but… Him.

He revealed himself to me. A presence within the lake, he was. A speaker of ancient things and a spirit of the sub-conscious and, not a speaker of words, but a conveyer of thought.

This ghoul passed over me, almost scanning me with eyes it did not have. I felt this being in all his entirety and felt all that he was about. Meaning, purpose, origin and creation; This being… It’s name, ‘Droth', was something not of earth or humankind.

Or of space, in that regard. Droth. It was the only word that came to mind.

It was the name of this presence. This thing which pulled me into this realm. Not a living thing.

Just a being of some sort. A “Him”. I felt a great sleep approach me.

An almost ambitious haze which entered my mind and brought back thoughts of a calm and resting environment. I was in a place of familiarity brought on by Him. And He made me remember my youth.

And in my youth there rested a short tale. The abstract tale of a man named Thomas Leaf. A story which confused, yet, settled me and a story that went something like this: 

“He was a fitted-man. Thomas, as he was called. And he made a habit of mowing his rooftop every noonday and again, especially when the grass got tall after the rain.

The sun was half up before I noticed him. My wife, sitting in our kitchen sink, called me to the window. I was in the shed with a ball of screws. 

I came trotting out to answer her call. That was when I noticed Thomas, prim as a pipe and getting vulgar. His wife sat under him, the house ablaze. 

The anguish was a fog of smoke. Thomas’ house had begun up, while my wife stared blankly. Misses Thomas, engulfed in flame, sat in her rocking chair, flames all about.

Cotton filled my ears. The drums were booming as the sun ran a cycle. Thomas was in a panic, the grass burning from beneath him.

Before long, he fell through. There was my house and his. My house, a square structure with pink walls, and a brown roof and a chimney.

Thomas’ house was a pile of ashy mulch, containing the remains of Misses Thomas. Thomas stood right and proper, turning to me. The sky was scribbles as Thomas set off.

Far into the distance he walked. Our houses, once standing at the threshold of an empty endless field, now a home accompanied by a blotchy blackness. We still live in the house, the misses and me.

The town tried phoning Thomas, but he’s gone far away now. The birds come every day now, picking noodles from the wreckage. I have no doubt that Thomas will return soon.

After all, he forgot his mower.” It didn’t make sense and it wasn’t supposed to, I guess. And that what the outlook I had placed upon my parent abduction at the hands of this otherworldly being.

As for the story, I pondered the triggered memory. I could never remember the author, just the absurdity of the character named Thomas and his world, which appeared so unreachable to me. As if existing on a realm I’d never given thought to, or a place of pure fiction.

I slipped back into a dream as his power over my being kept me sedated. His exact plans for me were uncertain. Was this mirage of a monster to devour my soul like a demon?

Or steal my blood like a parasite? This worry fell back into lightheadedness as I floated back in space. A scene formed around me as a strange dream began to play out.

The cocktail lounge was a bustle of mixed chatter which played along discontentedly with the absence of any music. We were in a long hall with a blue tile floor and golden flowers on shiny light brown tables. The bar tenders were attentive, and along with the assisted telling of my parents that I was under age, I was sure they'd ask me for identification.

This left my plans of drinking for the evening null and void. I grabbed a small plate of eggplant parmesan and a cut of beef. I walked back to the table and got settled, realizing that I had forgotten a fork.

After another trip, and a quick pondering about the absence of alcohol in my life, I sank back into my seat and wolfed down the plate. I had picked up this weird blue drink with fruit punch, dry ice and a cherry. The drink was alright.

Sure as hell wasn't no substitute for a great big bottle of cold wine. A little while past and I took a picture at the request of the traveling photographer passing out table by every few minutes. I wanted to stretch but my dress cloths were too tight, as they always are, and my shoes were too small, like dress shoes always are.

There was a fake fish tank full of plastic organisms and plants all around it. Caught me off guard at first. There's a faint booming coming from some curtains to our right as some woman in a tux waltz' up to us and instructs us the main room and dance floor are open.

I get up to feel the creamy brush of swamp-a*s as the heat begins to hit me now. I walk along this white curtain upon the wall to avoid stepping through some people's conversations. And we're onto the main room.

I instantly recognize a flow of cool air which takes me over almost instantly. The music is louder now and unhelpful, teamed with the small headache that the heat had previously caused. Another DJ.

I hate DJs. Cheaply hired, they blast over-rung beats so all the drunken thirty-year old women in the room, all with the same haircut and ideal social media profiles, can get up and wobble like rum-fiends on the dance floor. This obsession which drives them to drink is no stranger in my mind.

And while they have the ability to order drinks as they please, one year away from being twenty one leaves me at quite the disadvantage. Luckily, there sits in front of me, a glass of champagne, only half filled, with five unoccupied seats around me and no one to finish the bubbling goodness of those glasses. So, one by one I poured them all into my drink, filling up the champagne till I was holding a pleasing amount.

I threw my head back and caught a chunk of fresh air which freed me from my slumber. My breath was quick and hastily executed, almost as if I had ceased breathing while unconscious. Stars are all around me as this force, Droth, moaned in displeasure at my struggle for escape.

This being longed to enter me. To take control of my mind for purposes which were beyond me. And with all my might I wouldn’t let it!

It was through visions that He manipulated mankind. I say ‘He’. Not ‘it’ or ‘that’ or some other third thing to describe the presence He presented. 

It was just ‘Him’. A final and absolute to everything. The God, if you will; And in this darkness I sat as all that was around me was void.

In the blackness of space he sat as my parallel, peering into my core. My soul and the nothingness that made me up. His glare was indifferent; And this place in which He had brought me was one of unrest, and yet I felt sedated.

I was away from the world and outside an area of time which I could recognize. Home was a distant thought as this presence emanated and took me over. The cabin, the lake, the woods; All of it had gone now and only the complete indifference of this essence out of the ethos was with me now. 

Within me now. In this instance I was bigger than the sunos any start from here to infinity. Molecules were the insignificant makeup of a futile existence which only spiraled to one day cease to exist.

In a moment I saw the universe and Him; And He was everything. I though nothing of my brother and his death, or the life I had left behind. Only He was true.

He was injured, longing for a return to a place where I could be his entirety. Where I could be his parallel as he would walk in my skin. He wanted a return, back to the place of his birth and an escape from the valley of shadows we equally inhabited.

He was strong, and as He attempted to convince me of his sincerity, my doubts vanished as if removed by a drug of some sort. Everything was water and space became liquid. I fell asleep to it’s vibrations as my eyes drew a tunneled vision.

I sunk into slumber, and alongside Him I did slip back into this world. He followed. When I came to for the second time I could feel him with me.

I was back on the lake and I was floating just barley atop the waters. The lake was motionless and the water stayed still in the moonlight. My lower body was still as He held me up.

Through the lake and parallel reflection of the plane beside our own, he did begin to disperse. Out from the light and water He came, pressing out from the rift-less black and out into thee cloudy night sky. Peace of the heart became a scream of insanity as He was released upon the world.

This being from another place, this sentience from another time; It was loose in our world. A dangerous thing, indeed. As the dimension from which it had transported us had closed up like a dark curtain.

The form of the water changed from an ice gleam and into a cold ripple. He had taken to the forest and begun to surge through the land, traveling to find others like myself. Batteries to feed his cycle of ecstasy.

He moved like wind and grasped at mater which harsh attachment. If it could be felt it could be manipulated, and across the rocky mountains He raced, absorbing the history of the land and data which designated within him. I felt this strength growing.

He swept over beavers and deer and squirrels and chipmunks and things like that; Absorbing life. Collecting that stuff that made up souls. He was an Irk.

That place from which he had escaped was a prison. And from his procession of me, we were tied together. I was the avatar of Him and He existed here because I had too.

It was almost unexplainable how an entity, trapped within the reflection of a lake, coveted my soul. Never could I have imagined myself serving as vessel to those forces which I had previously never shed a thought for. But now, He tarnished the land and the death of my brother began to take me over as He branched out more and more; Allowing his hold on me to cease.

The image of my brother’s body revealed itself one last time as I knew what I was to do to prevent His presence in this world. For my brother and for the safety of all those who call this planet home, He had to die. In turn, I had to die with him.

He believed he had bonded to a perfect host. One without logic or reasoning enough to realize the intensions of a beast from a ball of fire on a lake made from the stars. I was sending Him back, with no chance of returning.

I could see how he played dormant. With the state of the lake and the seclusion of this abode, this was holy ground. Or, perhaps even more than that.

A prison for the otherworldly. A lake of pyre which held the very essence of a flame. A foul soul from a time lost and forgotten.

It was into that forgotten passage which I was ready to return unto. And as I lied back and took my first swallow of the water, my feet only left the floating surface of the water once He had felt my life draining. With each breath of liquid he died, more and more.

I drank the lake in heavy breaths as my lungs filled. I choked and gagged, but stuck at it. Drowning myself agonizingly.

His soul sunk back into the lake as his fire died and his essence over the woods was subsiding. I opened my eyes for a moment as he rushed through me to find an escape. There was none, and within that lake I drowned myself, taking Him with me.

As we returned to that void together, it struck me. This separation of sorts. As I flew backward into nothingness this black prism of space began to run white, like milk in water, the gleaming took over and a box began to enclose around me.

I could feel him no more as all of his being fled from my core, returning mw to a fragile state. I believed myself to be dead, passing through layers of time which I had previously turned blindly upon. falling through time, these layers formed a box and here I was imprisoned.

I felt nothing and the world outside these walls did not exist. Did I kill god? Is this all that is left of humanity?

Did I destroy a force, able to keep the universe in form, and had I destroyed the form-keeper, reducing space and time into white walls of conscious-less absence?! Shock hit me as I collapsed to the ground. There was nothing around me but this prison.

This white room within which I was trapped. And so I will remained trapped, until, perhaps, the absence of the void which placed me here is born again; And cycles in the new forms of creation. In turn, pulling back to a place of space and comprehensible time. Until that day, lost I remain among the starts. Look up and see me not, for I do not see you.