Ewige Blumenkraft

A Story by Mr. Hyde

"I am Chaos, and I am telling you that you are free."
�" Principia Discordia

Blue smoke curls up and elegantly dances its way to the ceiling where it spreads itself out and dissipates. I am lying on the bed, naked, watching it while Nick Cave croons so beautifully. I take a drag of the joint and hold it in as long as I can, letting it fill me, before exhaling slowly and reluctantly.

It's two in the morning and I'm dreadfully awake. Far too awake, far too alert and far too sober. Hence the joint.

Okay, hold on. I need to explain something. I do not pretend to know all that much about anything, but I can state the following with great confidence: what follows is no hallucination, and no drug-induced delusion. There is no quantity or quality of cannabis that could possibly induce anything remotely similar to what is described here. This is the record of an experience of much greater significance and transcendence. I am aware of the regrettable arrogance and vanity expressed by it, but I am as assured of that statement's validity and authenticity as a mother of her child's death.

Now, let us continue:

So I'm lying there, trying very hard indeed to fall asleep, when I become aware of a faint buzzing noise. I look around and, failing to locate the source of this impertinent impediment to my precious slumber, I sit up and try to listen in order to pinpoint the direction from which the sound seems to be emenating. Some close listening and slow rotation of my head lead me to examine the contents of my bedside table. My cell phone turns out to be the culprit, vibrating anxiously in the drawer. I pick it up and look at the screen.

Incoming call, number withheld.

I look at the digital clock in the corner of the display. 02:12. I suddenly feel a dreadful wave of anxiety engulf me, as if I know on some instinctual level that this moment is crucial, that it means everything. Shaking, I take another stiff drag, and I press the button with the little green phone.

"Hello?"

Nothing.

"Hello?"

Still. Nothing.

"Why are you calling me? Who the hell is this?"

Then, abruptly, as if it should have started a good deal earlier, a high-pitched drone becomes audible. The noise is so high and sudden that I start and jerk the phone away from my ear with such force that I lose my balance and fall sideways off the bed, disturbing my ashtray and twisting my wrist in the process. I manage to hold on to the phone, and I return it to my ear to find that the droning noise's pitch has lowered considerably. It is no longer near as unpleasant as it was before, and the way in which the sound seems to undulate, rising and falling gently in pitch and intensity, seems oddly soothing to me.

Perhaps I fall asleep. Perhaps not. At two in the morning, nobody is really awake. Either way, I lie like that for a long time, with the phone to my ear and a dead, half-smoked joint dirtying my hand. If I'm not asleep, I'm damn close. I remember reading a book once wherein it was explained that we are all asleep, that this is simply a mad man's dream, and that we know nothing of true reality. Perhaps the author had the right idea. Maybe everything we think we know about ourselves and reality and God is wrong.

What if this was all a dream?

Then, out of the blue, my stomach begins contracting with a vigour that it has never shown before, and I find myself sitting up and rolling myself into a ball, biting my lip to avoid crying. It's a stomach ache, nothing more. Just hold on. You're fine. Then my heart starts up and I start sweating. I sway back and forth to the rhythm of my music, playing softly on my computer. My eyes are shut tight, and I can feel a thin trail of blood running down my chin from where I bit through my lip. My cell phone, forgotten now, has fallen out of my hand onto the floor. For a while, nothing changes, and I think for a moment that I will be okay. The pain in my stomach seems to subside for a second, just long enough for a breath, before it returns with a terrible vengeance and begins spreading through my body. My heart is about to give in, my lungs are sails on a steamboat trying to keep up, and all my limbs fall limply down. Useless.

This pain is unlike any I have ever known. It seems alien, somehow, as if it originated somewhere else, somewhere far away in more than just distance.

It feels as if the pressure in my body has been increasing steadily this entire time, and by now I could swear my skin is about to tear open at any moment to relieve this terrible burden. When the pain enters my head, it seems to start fading away in the rest of my body, as if it has found what it was looking for in my brain, and all its energy is being directed there. I can not see, hear or think any more. Everything is turning white, everything sears. After some time, God knows how long, it is beyond pain. My head, my thoughts, my very existence is being dominated by an intense, overwhelming white energy. It consumes me, becomes me. I realize that it is stronger, older and wiser than I am, and not necessarily malignant; slowly, warily, reluctantly, I relinquish myself as I drift deeper into this beautiful, glorious, benign entity (for it is all those things and more, as I can see now �" it can only have been my struggling that caused me to suffer so). I give myself to the Chaos.

My eyes spring open violently, although I still can not see, and I can feel the old, raw energy coursing unchecked through my very marrow as my body convulses and jerks. I knock everything off my bedside table and hit my head on one of the posts. My blankets are flying through the air dramatically.

Suddenly, I am everywhere and nowhere, and I see everything. I can feel the first spark of life blossom into existence, and I can feel the last give out desperately. I can see the very fabric of life, and its pattern, its amazing rhythm, unfold before me. I am shown things that I could never put into words, things so delicate that, if they were ever quantified by something so comparatively pitiful and banal as human intelligence, they would become trapped by our narrow ways, they would crumble at our very touch. They would wither and die.

I am shown the Sacred Chaos in its entirety, with its fine balance and its elegant, infinitely intricate structure, and I understand. It is as if I have stumbled blindly through the dark and found a switch for the light where I least expected it. At long last, my eyes are open. Finally, I can see.

Then, just like that, I am me again.

I am naked on the bed, my whole body slick with sweat. Exhausted. Breathing like an engine. Fever like a volcano. I sit up and hold my knees to my chest, trying to breathe calmly. After some struggling, I manage it. I quiet myself. I can feel my heart slowing down to a healthier pace, and my body begins to cool down. I close my eyes and count my breaths. In. Out. In. Out. You're going to be okay. Just breathe. Listen to the music.

When great Satan's gone, the w***e of Babylon, she just can't sustain the pressure where it's placed. She caves.

I find myself singing along softly, out of key, struggling to keep up. It's better than staying quiet, though. Don't get me wrong: what I experienced was glorious, beautiful and divine in the true sense of the word. I just need to stabilize. My body is almost back to normal by now, but mentally, I am a discordant wreck. Begging to be salvaged, saved, put back together. So much for sleep.

It's becoming colder now.

I gingerly uncurl myself and pick up a blanket from the floor. I pick up books, money and various personal effects from the floor and put them back on the bedside table. I'll tidy it all properly tomorrow. I switch off the bedside lamp and turn around, just as a chill runs up my spine. It becomes even colder. I begin shivering.

I become powerfully nauseous almost at the same instant that a headache the size of a whale begins wreaking havoc in my skull. I am going to vomit, soon. I open my eyes and feel around for the lamp. I switch it on and see nothing. Blind, I stumble out of bed and fall over something almost instantly. I pick myself up wearily, and I make it to a wall, which I use to guide me along the thousand miles to the bathroom.

I fall forward, groping for the toilet. I sit here, in so much pain now that the tears roll freely down my face. I'm leaning forward when I suddenly become hot again, unbearably hot. My breathing becomes heavier and heavier and soon I am making retching sounds and spittle , tears and blood are all dripping from my face.

I can feel something growing in me, longing to be born. I cannot say where it originated, but soon it is filling me. It courses through my veins to my lungs. It fills them, growing, becoming stronger. When it is ready, it shifts and moves upwards, outwards. My lips and my tongue move of their own accord, and it is not my voice that comes out when they do. It sounds like a voice older than time, greater than the cosmos. Patiently, solidly, it says two words.

Ewige Blumenkraft.

And like that, I am released to fall weeping to the bathroom floor. It has begun.

I
can

see the eye
up there above
me watching it all

© 2012 Mr. Hyde

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Reviews

Lady of the Lake

I remember reading one of your stories a while back and really enjoying it, and after reading this one and remembering how good your writing is, I can’t for the life of me remember why I never came back to read more of your stuff.
Honestly, though, I’m not sure I really understood what your story was about (this is unfortunate because it was still really very interesting and I’d like to know what it all means haha). I feel like you made a few references to things I don’t know anything about (e.g. Ewige Blumenkraft is an anomaly to me haha) – I guess it’s time for me to do some research :)
Anyway, this piece was very well written! Well done, I really enjoyed it! :)