The Fool

A Story by czech

Origionally written to be read while listening to "the fool" by neutral milk hotel.

Those feet look so familiar. They walk so bravely into the night. Masterfully they stride around this and that. Dancing without a chaperone. It seems that they know the way, so I think I will follow them. Birds are flying everywhere. I loved the birds, they are so free. So able and willing to sail through the folds and ripples in the sky. So immensely fortunate to bear no leash. Those feet are now walking around cut leather, and scraps of glass. They do not flinch upon the shards and do not move out of their way to avoid them. I see so many shattered little birds.
I remember that baggie, and that old shelf. I Keep following those feet. They are bare, transparent even and the legs match. They are powerful legs and It’s sad to see them so weak. They trudge up a flight steps, happy to conquer gravity again. Every nerve ending feels like it is filled with clay. Instantaneously it dissolves and they sprout propellers that lift them from my goosebumps and then crash back upon a vacant face of skin.
I see a painting, and I think I remember making it. It shows a woods drawing in for its final breath. It holds such depth, so many familiar shadows. Behind it I see a face void of stress lines and free of reality, almost free of gravity itself. It has cheeks of breathing porcelain and liquid hair falling through the wind. The same wind I used to battle with and the same wind I used to conquer.
There is a bed in front of me now that the feet seem to be headed towards. They don't seem to realise that they are trailing blood upon the floor. I wonder if anybody will notice it and decide to follow it. I wonder what they will find once they reach the end. It is such a comfy bed, its almost like resting upon the top of some stagnant cloud, suspended in the sky by propellers and coiled twine. I am happy to never have to leave, though I feel as its captor numbing cotton and coils that I have subjected myself to.
The room starts to sprout weeds and wooden limbs, all struggling so entirely for a patch of sun as I lay upon a patch of moss. They are tearing each other down and rebuilding and dying and being born right before my eyes. The walls are breathing in and out while the ceiling channels stomach acid upon my head and tries to digest me. An immaculate face of light struggles to swallow me first.
I am not scared though maybe I should be. my heart is incoherent in its cries for help. I start to grin and everything contorts and fades only to reenter my vision as a siren to draw me out of bed. These sheets are wet and heavy with blood, slowly entangling my limbs and torso. It’s all so strange, yet it’s all so welcome.
Thousands of pictures start swirling in the gusts of wind that are pushing themselves through my open windows. They are soaring and diving and circling all in unison, each taking their turn before my eyes. The walls are now heaving, independent of the world they come loose and fall into space. Everything is green and breathing now, everything is rejoicing at its newly obtained pulse. They begin to circle as well and they dance as they grow tall and majestic only to be stricken down by time.
I remember that face now, as clearly as ever, and it lifts me into the air. The wind ceases and for a second I think that I am really back in the woods, wouldn't that be something.