Headcell: Part VII

"A story of a man struggling to retain his sanity in a world dominated by an evil, inhuman society that demands absolute perfection from its citizens..."

The human vice-grips had led him into the huge block, bigger than anything they had ever seen. If he was afraid before, he was petrified now. The guards kept pushing forward though, as they started walking past the first station; hollows carved into the side of the wall. Inside were people at desks on computers, some of them speaking into tiny microphones attached to the monitors. Looking out of the hollow was a tall bald man wearing clear glasses. A series of clocks covered the back wall, ticking loudly. Beneath them was a heavy metal door simply marked "ARMOURY". The guard to his left released his grip and walked over to the hollow, going straight to the bald man, whose eyes pierced the Prisoner like sharp daggers. His head nodded every now and again as the guard spoke unheard words to him. He leaned down and pressed a button, shaking hands with the guard. The guard walked back over, his face emotionless.

"We keep him moving forward. A space should form somewhere eventually, the normal procedure. You know it."

They passed the hollow and walked down a winding bare tunnel of sorts, eventually coming into the main cellblock itself. The sight was unlike anything He could ever have imagined. So this is what the new world was all about. Gigantic cylindrical cages with people inside, surrounded by what may as well be eternal blackness. As they led him past these monstrosities, the sights became more and more unimaginable. 

People shut in cages like animals. Row upon row of giant cylinders, containing people just like Him, Her and everybody else they had ever known. This place was Hell times one thousand, but this Hell was one on Earth. They passed by people screaming, crying or staring into space. Some of them simply lay comatose on the bed slabs or floor, staring into a vast endless above with empty eyes. The guards in here were every bit as silent but deadly as the ones guiding Him now, most of them doing little yet not having to do anything at all. Their very presence is what was driving their prisoners. He was drawn towards one cell up ahead where someone was being savagely beaten with a baton by a huge guard, an endless stream of brainwash being poured over them. The guards stopped dead in their tracks, almost forcing him to watch. The baton made a loud thwacking sound as it crushed the nameless one's bone and bruised skin.

"You must refuse to refuse! Become us! You must learn the consequence of your actions! HUMANITY BEGINS HERE!"

Another thwack to resonate throughout the Block. He flinched, his teeth tightening. Another thwack. A slight whimper escaped somewhere beneath the guard, with the lights catching the brief glimmers of flying blood spatters that danced in the air. It was almost beautiful, He thought, in a deeply troubling way.

"This is not your end! This is both your end and new beginning!"

Another thwack for good measure. The guard leaned over, breathing heavily. What lay below him was still as a statue and oozed gratuitously. His stomach began twisting and the teeth tightened further. The guards shoved him forward to keep going just as the first bout of nausea arose within. They walked past just as the huge guard lifted the body over his shoulder and started lugging it away, like a hunter bearing a newly-slain deer. Such sights prevailed for the rest of the journey; more brutality, more darkness and more sickness. But these things were to be expected, what He didn't expect was the fact that He would someday become used to them if He stayed long enough. The violence in here was identical to that of the outside world, but this violence had purpose. Or perhaps it hadn't. It would take some time after all.

They finally stopped outside one of the cells, the guards gripping him harder than ever now. expecting Him to run. He looked inside; the furnishings were bare like the rest, the bars thick like the rest and the black void above as black as the rest. Slowly He entered into His new home. The air in here was cold but thick, pervading every part of the body. He looked at the slab that was to be His bed; uninviting and it reminded Him of something long gone. Just like the rest of normality that existed in the cell; the sink, the lone wooden chair, the bowl by the door. Normality here, but normality no more. Normality dead for good from here on in. He looked to the guards outside the door, watching intently.

"This is it?" 

Nothing. Not even a nod. He pressed again.

"I am here now? Really truly here?"

Again, quiet. The watchers watched. He tried one last time, aiming to give up past the next rebuttal. He cried shrilly, his voice slicing the air like an aural blade.

"Answer me, you owe me that. This cannot be real, this is the work of a nightmare!"

The watchers again decided not to answer. But something else happened instead. The watchers became plotters, turning heads and conversing quietly. One of them eventually spoke out, the voice emanating from just beyond the bright light given by the spotlight directly over the cell. The darkness spoke.

"You are right, yet wrong. This is your nightmare, but reality is the nightmare also. Here you shall remain for the following three days. Here you shall think and have the time to do so. Here is your new space."

Words couldn't form a response adequate enough, He realized, legs shaking, heart pumping and nausea running high. All He could do was listen to them. For the time being. The watchers stopped talking and began moving away. He was in His space now, as they said. In the space where the only thing to do was also the worst thing to do; think. He shivered as he stood in the midst of this gargantuan cavern of a cellblock, surrounded by a world He always thought He would and could escape. The bedslab looked more inviting as He sank down into it slowly, covering Himself to fend off the growing chill. The chill grew not just from the environment but His very soul too.

His thoughts drifted inexorably towards Her. Where they took Her, whether She was dead or not, whether He would ever see Her again. Sitting here and pondering was the only option in this vast dark universe. Only time would tell what paths would be laid out for Him and which of those He would choose to follow. He looked out of the bars into the distance, the cells stretching into infinity on either side of the bars. There were barely any guards yet their stranglehold over Block 13 was palpable. He didn't need to see them. Nobody did. More screams came from the distance, the sounds of a new life, a life would begin in this cell.

He lay down on the cold slab, shivering to the core, but certain of only one thing. Time would only tell, true. But from this point forth, it was all that He had left, with Hell's clock ticking slowly but never stopping.

============================================================================================================

They were back in the Block now. Back for good, back for now anyway. Walker's demise didn't mean anything, it merely meant the world functioned a little more crazily. One death had been piled on others. The world was crazy but it retained its usual unusual normality. She had been very quiet all the way back to the cells, but with that sickening grin still on Her face. He was lost in thought; thoughts of escape, thoughts of the task He was given. When confronted with that mounding lump of flesh before Him, His own was what concerned Him most. Did it bear the secrets of the condition? Was the nerve center truly fully to blame?

Obviously not. 

It had been an exercise in pure and utter brutality. Like the rest of the clockwork. The sights and smells of cells had no effect anymore, not just through time but with the prospects of what lay ahead of Them now as they drew closer. The Warden was the final block in His path, the final cog that would determine (or destroy) what had been foretold to Him as an eventual truth. They walked walked walked, the corridors stretching out before Him like they had the first time. She spoke to Him, yet the words were meaningless, even more than before.

"The demonstration was a success. Walker's vices were too great a burden, it would be sad in the old world, yet here it is simply life as it functions. As it exists."

Of course. The brainwash. 

"Life is life. I have no comment. But the heart is where all lies, maybe vice does, maybe it doesn't. But all is there."

She turned to glare at Him, yet didn't make an advance; the baton staying in its leathered confines, swinging back and forth with anticipation. 

"The vice is the all. Your point is flawed."

The irony tasted bittersweet. He had to combat this, more for His sake than Hers.

"Well the flaw is what you're here to combat, if I'm not mistaken."

No answers, just Her staring ahead and keeping those pale lips tightly shut. The corridor grew a little shorter all of a sudden, and the irony tasted plain bitter, over sweet. Those pale lips let loose a few more words, for worse. He looked ahead. Deywun and Deytoo. Two pillars of reformity out of three. Deytree had been once and once was always enough for Him. But those two still lingered, like the gatekeepers to His own personal inferno. They approached slowly, sleeking down the hallway like ghostly ninjas. They knew what was coming but still wanted to antagonize Him. It was not the reaction they craved, just the sensations of power. Fleeting as they may be, if the truth proved to be the truth.

"So you're ready for the last time, for the hundredth time?"

Deywun pointed a finger at Him, teeth gritted.

"Only he knows if he is. But he always does. I wonder if the same space for him will be used every time?"

Deytoo shrugged. Playing the pointing game once again, this time he chose Her as his playmate. 

"The Warden will know. What do you think?"

She spoke bluntly.

"What I think is what we all think. What we all think is that the vice is long over. All it needed was a special break, a breaking of the flesh, breaking of the mind, breaking of whatever it was that couldn't be broken before."

All eyes turned towards Him. They all died to know what that was, only He knew, if imaginary time had let Him remember. It didn't allow Him much anymore however. Staring at Deywun and Deytoo, he allowed silence to be the answer. Another thing that the Block had taught him. The worst things one says often were the things one never said at all. He studied their lips; pursed tightly. Deywun and Deytoo obviously had much to say as they studied coldly under the shadow of their hats. The Girl cleared Her throat, causing them to glance in Her direction.

"So what is done is done?"

Deywun and Deytoo didn't answer immediately, or maybe they did. Deywun grunted muffledly. The four stood, immersed in their grouping. The usual sounds emanated from somewheres beyond; screams, shouts and the Block's own internal hums.

"You did what we could not, through our countless attempts. Each time the process was true and tested, yet each time the process had no effect."

"The process works differently. Each unreformed must be tapped into, chiseled a certain way."

Deytoo nodded at that, hard enough that the hat almost flew off. He placed a shaking hand upon it, his voice growing fragile.

"Yes, yes! But your process changed ours. We must know your secrets!"

Pointing a finger at the Prisoner, he grew wildly curious, like one of those men of science discovering the latest breakthrough. Her invention had been one of pure manipulation, the greatest wealth the State world had to offer, making Her possibly the richest woman on Earth. Considering the question, She simply smiled and shook Her head authoritatively. 

"The only secret is the one you know yourself. There is a way to break anybody and everybody...finding it is part of the process. It shall come some day."

Deytoo looked to his companion, who had nothing more to add. Folding his arms, he seemed content with Her wisdom, if one could call it that. The Prisoner studied the wall intently yet felt his eyes boring into Him relentlessly.

"Some day...some day indeed."

With that, he had a last look at Her and moved away, deep in thought, with Deywun following closely behind. Two more reminders of the past gone forever. The path was cleaner for their loss. He thought of following them with their eyes, yet killed the thought instantly. Why follow them and become like them? All that was worth following was His truth. 

And only a few more steps at that. What had once only been a dot on the horizon now appeared a fuller circle. He approached it believingly. Not hopefully, not certainly, but believingly. She was the one leading Him to it, this world unknowingly yet in the dreamlands it was all She wanted. For them to truly be together once more. The corridor began to grow thinner. The tunnel was nearly at an end. After all this time, what He thought was impossible was finally fully within His grasp. In a certain sense. But that didn't stop His mind wandering back to those first days of hell, perhaps much like a vice itself if He ever had one, where life became one endless test and each day provided nothing but yet more reasons to not live the next. The whole world had gone insane and insaner still, even now it ventured further into pure craziness.

They turned a corner and entered into a different kind of corridor, this one also plain yet different. More of a guard presence for one thing, but the other was something only He realized. Looking ahead to the dreaded old wooden door, the truth lay behind it. The truth began in that room. She tapped Him on the shoulder lightly, easing Him forward a little softer given their closeness. His feet were stubborn before but now they walked confident between the reformers, not caring for their batons or their zombied states. All that mattered was the door, He told himself calmly as the various demonic faces of His torturers passed. Every nerve in the body said no, no, the danger is desperate, stay back. Stay back.

But He had to now, with Her watching and all those others. The lifeless outers with undead inners. He was the only truly living person left as He eventually reached the door, waiting patiently for Her to open it. Perhaps it was His lack of reaction that drew another one of those looks from Her, with Her eyes piercing tightly while She knocked softly. The silence grew unbearably loud until the Warden's (muffled) gravel-iron voice came from within, accompanied by heavy footsteps. The door swung open to reveal him sitting at his desk with hands clasped and spectacles brightly polished, ready for the final final test. A smile tore across the face as he beckoned Him forward.

"Enter. We have been expecting you."

With that, He entered. But also with that, the door closed, leaving Him now alone with nothing but the truth to contend with, whatever it may (or may not) be.

============================================================================================================

The vast blackness was here once more. But this time it would only be here temporarily. Soon, soon now it would be replaced with a different kind of blackness. Difference that would make life fuller, complete once and for all. Two worlds that could become one, now and forevermore. The roaring that was once distant was now gone. Something new lingered on the horizon. He walked to the familiar old spot, the silence becoming just a little too silent. He looked everywhere.

"The truth?"

She appeared in a brilliant flash, Her form sparkling like the rarest of diamonds.

"Is near. And getting nearer."

He felt it again as She approached. But no embrace this time. No tenderness. What He experienced here was going to be gone forever, but the inner remaining with Him always. Sheer sensation confirmed it, despite the turning of the stomach. That familiar old greyness began to emerge again as He watched Her draw away, smiling sweetly. The blackness engulfed her brightness quickly, but Her voice carried through the murk like a leaf on water.

"Good luck..."

And so grey takes over, the blackness dissipating forevermore. The weightlessness left too, Him returning to fullness, as the form from another world took shape. 

============================================================================================================

Right back to square one. That forsaken desk in front of the terrible chair, surrounded by the eternal guards of all that was inhumane for the sake of humanity. The Warden then, the man who orchestrated all the inhumanity, the madness and the madness more. The Prisoner was led firmly to the chair and sat right down, obediently. Eyebrows were raised; this change was entirely new. She looked at Him with the first smile reserved specifically for Him that day; the broken will was to be cherished. The creaking of the wood and cracking of leather were the loudest things in the room as He lowered Himself down. 

So this was it. The moment of truth.

"Well. Look what has been brought here. Again."

He looked to the Warden. The spectacles were gleaming and the hands folded with that same old expression of power. She stood closely behind, likely gazing in brainwashed, empty-minded admiration. He smiled, the face in front silent and unsure.

"Good day. What a lovely time for the State."

Unsurety turned to surprise, which turned to suspicious query. The hands unfolded slowly, untwirling like vines from a tree.

"Why so? Time is not an important matter. It doesn't even exist."

"Oh, yes it does. Yes it does. Especially considering what has led us to this very moment."

Puzzlement from all those present. Quiet prevailed for a moment. The Warden's hands didn't twirl back, but the fingers drummed the table impatiently with an air of menace. He watched the fleshsticks dance before Him with bemusement. The truth would be a long process. Speaking would be suicide, and death was not on the cards anymore. The Prisoner wanted the end in a different sense. The Warden stood up.

"This very moment. Is it any coincidence you recognize how important it is only now, when it has arrived?"

"Well...certain elements...were on hand this time."

She glided slowly into view, walking with one hand on the baton ready for action, lest He should break from the all-powerful routine. Anything to appear in control before the master of it. He knew what the element was, and smiled broadly when he put the pieces together. Turning to the Girl, he spoke proudly.

"Yes. She was once like you. Nearly every single way. But then one day it changed."

The day still seemed too vivid to be real. The memory cut deep; the broken windows, the uniforms, the vans, the mad fruitless desperate screams. Memory taunted Him enough. He thought that it was something that could be kept all to Himself, but this was what proved Him wrong. They had used it to their advantage. The Warden had doubtless combed through all he could find; every file, every paper, every statistic, their language. She was sent to somewhere entirely different, or so He always wished to think. What if She had been in the same Block the entire time? The thought was too painful to contemplate, or would have been if He still felt such a thing. The Warden continued his demonstration.

"But now she is one like us.  I always thought you would take the same route, but you proved harder to break. I'm almost tempted to end our meeting right now. We both know that it shall only lead to another. Why release you into the world you may never get to inhabit? To see for what it is?"

These words were not part of what He had envisaged. But they were there anyway and had to be wrangled with to be made right. He was going to fight like He never had before.

"Because change has come. Change has taught me that which I have not revealed." 

She and the Warden exchanged a look to confirm. Her work was not what had taught him the change, yet it certainly helped. The past was where He had lived and sunk tenterhooks in, but unlike those who were destroyed by it, his past was what gave comfort, or what he vaguely remembered it feeling like.

"Change and your vices are like oil and water. They can meet, yet never mix. Their mixing is unheard of, impossible!"

Impossible was a word that rarely escaped the Warden's mouth. Impossibilities were what the world had been built on, both old and new. Now it had built this place and elected this man as its leader. Everything should have worked, everything was where it needed to be. But the Warden couldn't understand why the Prisoner was its sole outlier. 

"Well the impossibility has been extinguished. I am a new being. I have seen the error of my ways."

"But why only now?"

"Because my eyes were opened by your newest trick. But a trick is not a trick if the deception leads to betterment. I see it now."

The Warden laughed without smiling, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"Yes, maybe you have..."

The sole outlier was what the Warden feared, yes, but now fear was fascination. Change was bleeding into the little room bit by bit, and the blood flowed freely. The Girl withdrew from the Warden's side and moved to the back of the room. The other guards remained as they had this entire time; motionless. The Warden retreated back to the polished desk. He moved in the chair, the leather cracks and wood creaks booming out once more. He looked to the man at the desk; the master was now moved down a notch. The predator's prey was now evolving, with the predator's eyes never leaving what it seeked. He shrank slightly in the chair but remained set on the truth.

"What was it...that led to your change...why did the process take so long?"

"There is only one answer. My own unreformability."

A flash and the predator snapped back up again, banging on the desk with such force it could have nearly broken in two. No reaction from anyone else in the room. However this was one of the few times the Block had truly surprised Him; He was so unprepared that He toppled over in the chair, landing hard on the rock-hard floor. She bent down to pick Him up but the Warden snapped his fingers, freezing her in the act. Remaining bent over Him, their eyes met but with no affection. The Warden approached, appearing as a giant in His mind's eye.

"Your change was to be inevitable, yet the inevitability itself seems to have unbelievable. Why are your ways different only now, of all times?"

Fortitude in the face of brainwash. The State showed as much doggedness as those suffering beneath it. Right now that was truly Him, but He was here to change things, not to continue accepting Him. The truth still pressed Him forward.

"My ways are different now...because now is the time. Now is the time for me to accept that your treatments have worked. The processes of pain were wonderous tonics."

A stop. The office grew dormant a moment and the Warden's face showed signs of thought, State-controlled, yet still thought. He squirmed; His hands were now sore and numb, crushed beneath the fallen chair. The unbearable warmth crept up his arms slowly as He studied the towering Warden carefully, who spoke with the power of the non-existent God himself.

"Tonics? The pain is the suffering and the suffering is the healing. Yet we found it had no bearing on you, so if you have not suffered why has the process still worked as you say?" 

"The process made me find another; the one of the mind."

"The mind?"

"Yes. The epicentre of all vice itself. Vices that have made this place my home. The very thing our great society wants to stamp out completely."

The Warden paused again. The dormancy in the room lifted. Snapping his fingers again, he turned his attention to the Girl, still set as a statue in the crouching position.

"You may."

Grabbing Him swiftly, She pulled upwards and He was upright once again. The warmth, which by now had fully engulfed both of His arms, began receding bit by bit. His head was feathery and floating in the realm of faintness, yet nausea was among the many physical sensations that became man's best friend in Block 13. He watched the Warden return to his desk as that familiar metallic taste began pooling on the tip of His tongue and His cheeks began heaving. 

"So this mind of yours."

Metal. Absolute sickness was taking hold as the Warden stared Him down.

"Yes. My mind of mine."

"What does it make of the world outside these bars, these walls, the very gates to the great society?" 

"It is something that has not been permitted yet."

"We do not permit anything here, rather you permit yourself. Permit yourself to change rather than change the world."

The Warden leaned back at this, a smile beginning to form on his face. Thoughts of his world were starting to form and, closing His eyes briefly, the Prisoner saw them too; roads of endless grey. The worker bees lining the pathways. Normality that was entirely unnormal. Cars, buses and trucks traveled to and fro as they normally would, but with less purpose. This was a city of the living that could be mistaken for all the dead that walked its streets. Dead thanks to their own system, lives vanquished as they were still being lived. The Warden was one of the main cogs in the system that made it all so. 

The Prisoner's nerves were growing as the path to truth grew closer and closer. He looked the Warden dead in the eye; those zombie pupils were in him too and boring down hard. Clearing His throat, He spoke with the clarity of a man who had decided His own destiny. At least as far as the Warden was concerned.

"The world has changed and so have I along with it. I see it now, see where my wrongs were wrong and where my rights were still wrong. The only truth is the State."

The Warden thought about this for some time, before eventually replying in the usual authoritarian tones.

"Truth is a dangerous concept."

That was the unavoidable truth of the truth. But there was yet further truth beyond that.

"All concepts can be altered."

There was complete silence. The zombie eyes were beginning to grow wider as they stared the Prisoner down. He glanced to his right, the Girl too was stuck in a stupor. A painful hollowing of the stomach began as his nerves reaching their boiling point. All He could do was meet the zombie eyes with His own until the murked, palpable tension was fully broken. 

============================================================================================================

Back in the void again, yet this time was different. 

The path had led him down another one, one that was unlike the one He had always taken before. Being led off the beaten path was all part of His freedom, some part of Her assured Him. Surroundings were unfamiliar yet She remained somewhere, lurking in the endless abyss to ensure His survival.  Yet only in the sensorial vein.

Unlike the black void, She was nowhere to be seen nor was the weightlessness as pleasing. Instead it was more claustrophobic in the open space, with the distant roaring not so distant anymore. Now it was closer, the threat rushing straight for Him with all its might. But for the time being there was nothing present. He walked forward, the steps sounding only in His mind.

Then there was the door ahead. A bright outline standing all alone in the vastness. The strains of old sound began drifting into his eardrums, the musical notes tickling His sensations like sweet kisses. Grabbing the shining handle, He slid the door slowly open and shut it behind Him with a noiseless thud. More blackness. So dark one couldn't even see it. But He did soon enough, as certain visions began swimming and forming before Him.

First, the lights. Balls of luminance that floated in the air before solidifying into tall lamps, in the corner of a room that did not even exist just yet. Then came the floor; a worn-yet-shining linoleum patterning covering all walkable surface. The walls were next, resembling the color of a worn discloth, the paint flaking off in great patches reminiscent of those suffering under a Great Sick. A clock hung on the wall ticking loudly, yet the hands were not there.

But He was not looking at any of these. Instead he was looking at the man. The Man in the corner.

Wearing an old, moth-eaten brown tweed suit and dancing quietly in the corner, humming along to sounds that were long distant. Facing one of the brightly burning lamps, he hummed as though he carried no care nor worry in the world. Like a man walking a bright green park somewhere in a non-existent paradise. The Prisoner approached slowly, watching as his feet grew invisible and slowly sank into the floor. This small comfort was the only indication He remained in the dreamlands, as he neared the Man in the Moth Suit, who spun around instantly to greet Him.

"Finally you have arrived! Such a strange expection!"

His face bore a wide, toothy grin worthy of a dungeon troll or chainsmoker. Yet no malice as his hand clasped and grasped the Prisoner's. Suddenly the hand was withdrawn and he indicated towards a small, worn looking armchair in the room's center. The Prisoner looked to the Man, unsure. But to no avail, the indication only grew stronger. The Man rushed about as though in a panic, the papers fluttering like confetti. He pointed to the scruffy seat agitatedly.

"Go, go! Sit!"

The chair felt softer than the flowing sands on the beaches of time, and despite its rugged appearance proved to be comforting. The claustrophobia started to recede and the distant roaring grew true to its namesake once again. The Man circles around Him for a little while and then stopped. He cradled the papers in his wiry hands, all of them still blank. Gazing at the Prisoner, He noticed the eyes were the same dead ones of the Block. 

"So you are the one who haunts it?"

"Come again?"

"As I expected."

The Man in the Moth Suit glanced at the papers again, scanning them with trained eyes, as though this moment had been coming a long time and the initial excitement had died down. Suddenly all stopped; he found what he was looking for.

"This is it. Right about here is where our problem lies."

He pointed a long finger to one of the pages, thrusting out towards the Prisoner for Him to see. The chair was so soft, so smooth that it almost held Him in place. Sheer bliss overtook Him. There was no escape. Not here. He studied the blank page, looking for something that existed only in this world. 

"Nothing is the problem. So your point is?"

"That exactly. Your pages have nothing on them. So how have your ways changed?"

"I explained already. My vice is that of vices themselves. The world has changed around me yet I remain the same. That is why their processes have never truly worked."

The Man in the Moth Suit stood contemplating this. The music drifted through the void again, sounding more and more raggedly pleasant with each note. He consulted his blank nothings again, his fingers working like frenzied fleshy insects.

"Your process does?"

"My process is that I have none, was that I had none. They could never understand."

"But how does that lead to change? HOW DOES IT LEAD TO THAT WHICH WE EXPECT?!"

The Man crumpled to the ground, dropping the papers and scattering them to the lightless winds. The music stopped with a dead screeching squeak and the lamps blew out momentarily, the darkness enveloping both of them. Absolute bliss in the darkness for Him as He felt the Man in the Moth Suit reach up and touch Him gently, whispering all the time.

"Expecting it....expecting it...."

The Man's hands grabbed Him, tight as vices. The metal kind.

"NO REFORMITY MEANS NO ORDER!"

Just as quickly as it arrived, the darkness left. The music returned. The lamps reignited beautifully. The room grew back solid. The Man was now back on his feet, the papers reflown back to where they were. Yet the purpose of this strange visit remained unclear. The words still echoed somewhere throughout the mirth; no reformity was no order in the State's view. Yet to Him, no reformity was merely natural. To them, naturalism was the height of unreformability.

"No order means that your processes are merely a byproduct of a vice-ridden mind. Why has your change been so sudden?"

"Because I have realized my naturalism is not what is truly natural any longer. The State feeds my fakery. My vices were not what is natural in any human being, instead they were what was keeping me imprisoned."

"So your naturalism is gone, and the State's is what is now regular?"

He shifted in the chair again. This time the question was indeed much more difficult. The Man in the Moth Suit took the papers and threw them on the floor dramatically, as though he were on the universal stage of the great black voids, in this little set of a room. 

"Regular exists no more. Only routine exists."

The Man's eyes widened.

"Pure, beautiful routine?"

He nodded, his corneas turning to diamonds at the prospect of successful conversion.

"Yes. Pure, beautiful routine."

"And the gifted afflictions of emotion?"

This was new. He waited long enough for the Man to gather his answers and form the next piece of brainwash. He brushed his suit nervously, more lining falling to the floor with each stroke. He watched closely as the small mound grew larger and larger, soaking into the linoleum. 

"Those that support vice. The longings. The irritable pains. The righteous regret and guilt that spins a new cycle? All for the vice to regain its power more and more each time?"

Considering the State's zombie eyes, this was the next stage of deception. The only way to beat them was to join them, however He would be attempting to beat them at their own deep-rooted game. Looking the Man and watching his pile grow, He simply allowed His head to bob back and forth in great shakes.

"Vice is eradicated. Emotion was an unregrettable casualty, yet these were lost for the better. Now I can work to serve the State only, to play my part in the fight against the ongoing plague of hiding potential."

Music soared and danced in the weightless air like a fish through crystal waters. He looked at the lamps, now glowing brighter than the gates of that imaginary Heaven ever could. The Man looked pleased with the answer. Maybe it meant he could move onto the next little room, with the same old notes and the same old walls. The Prisoner awaited the next outburst, watching and waiting for the Man's judgement.

"Routine is what our world is built on. People like you are the outliers of what makes the ticking run smooth."

The Man thrust his hands out, retaining his penchant for theatrics on the boundless stage of inner existence. The music grew louder again, now verging into long unbroken scratchings of old-world instrumentals. 

"Routine! Without it this would never exist! We would never be here!"

The Prisoner could not escape the urge to ask the inescapable, unavoidable question, temptation tugging mercilessly at His insides.

"Where exactly is here?"

"Wherever you wish it to be. Here is here because that is exactly the way it is, always has been."

The Prisoner settled back into the chair. Weightlessness pervaded fully now, like it did in the other dreamlands. He could tell His time here was nearing an end. The chair felt less comfortable as non-existent time passed on, the seconds rushing past in a raging river. Now He finally stood up to see the room disappearing around Him. The Man bent down to pick up his blank nothings, the lino swallowing his hands.

"But now that you have proved, time is done. What is done has been done."

The Man in the Moth Suit walked back over to the corner in which He had found him from the very first. He stood up out of the chair, his feet touching the invisible floor. A floor of deceptions for the room of vague realities, inhabited by a man who was real. In some sense of the word. But now the Prisoner had to retravel the beaten path from where had been left off. 

"Done means I can leave?"

In his corner, the Man in the Moth Suit did not bother turning round to face Him, simply raising a pale hand.

"Yes. For the truth."

A piercing pain shot through His entire body just then. Did the Man in the Moth Suit know His purpose? Had there been one? Were the blank nothings he so revered really truly blank? The Man knew, He was going to make him reveal his truth. Clearing his patchy throat, He took a step toward Him, yet still he remained a statue in the rugged corner, with the walls slowly fading around him, being reclaimed by the void.

"What truth?"

No answer. More reclamation, unabated. He reached out to grab the Man in the Moth Suit; the wear and tear suddenly more and more worn and torn. The body thinned. He grabbed the Man by his suit's padded shoulder.

Spinning around to reveal the face of the truth. 

Like a face one only saw in the worst of all nightmares. The worst of the worst. In all of his imaginary years in the Block and its cold, dark cavern, He had never seen an equal to this in all His existence. The room shrank faster and faster as the Man faded slower and slower, his features burning eternally into the Prisoner's retinas. No matter where His path took Him from now on, there would be no escape, for the Man would always be there in the back of the mind.

Now he was gone, and the other was back. But in the room's place a new thing began to emerge, something bright. He felt the weightlessness lifting, but the face still lingering vividly before Him. The brightness grew more and more, the roaring beginning to circle around and gradually come back again. His entire body began to regain solidity. He knew this feeling, it was simply a matter of where His re-entrance to the outer world would take place. 

There She was. But only for the flash of an instant. Beautiful, beautiful sweetness. Yet tainted by the Man's face over Her shoulder, both of them watching him finally. The glow was no longer white, for it was being swallowed by the void.

The void's blackness bled into gray, which bled into sheets of bright white. The bleeding pooled out, the weight absolutely back by now, and He awakening in the office again, non-existent time having passed unlike it ever had before. The Man in the Moth Suit may not have provided a truth, but He now knew what the face of truth looked like.

For it was staring right at Him. 

============================================================================================================

Tension of the extremes, as the two faced each other. The Warden's gaze had been holding His the entire imaginary time, for what could have been non-existent hours. He felt the confines of the wooden chair dig back into His body, as the Girl stood over to the right, awaiting an outburst of some kind, any kind. But brutalization mattered even less to Him now than it ever had before. What mattered was the face of truth. The path was coming to an end if the Man had allowed Him to pass freely.

Breaking after an eternity, the Warden's gaze shifted to the Girl.

"Is he ready, do you think?"

She answered not, taking a moment instead to absorb the words. Calmly, the Warden asked again, his fingers tapping the desk rhythmically.

"I asked, is he ready?"

"It is hard to say. His reformers speak of him as being their constant block. The one they always know how to handle, for they do not know how to,"

Yes, but that was the point all along. What I have is not to be reformed, for how can one reform that which does not exist. My vice is simply awareness. Awareness of the life lying beyond what your State permits, somewhere untouched by the vice of reformation.

"Yet here we see a change. There are some we have attempted to wake to the new ways, whom have chosen instead to continue sleeping, in a slumber of denial. A denial that kills them, before they give the State what they have to offer it. This cannot be allowed to continue."

The finger-tapping continued as the Warden reached up to loosen his collar momentarily; the room had steadily been growing stuffier since the meeting's beginning. Yet She showed no sign of sweat nor stopping, The Warden clearly realized this.

"Its continuance shall cease someday, yet our friend is quite a breakthrough. Your opportune entrance has made all the difference."

She turned down to Him, flashing another sickly-sweet smile. The smile that spoke volumes, yet He had to remind Himself this was merely Her outer speaking.

"In the old world, we had been together. Now a broken beauty has been repaired, for I have finally shown him the path that others did not."

The path that ran through the dreamlands and passed through the room of vague realities, ending only in an unknown dimension of uncertain conclusion. She had been there for as long as it had allowed Her, but now the last portion was to be travelled alone. The portion that led from the dreamlands into the nightmare world; the reality I now find myself in.

"I understand. But does he?"

All their eyes turned to Him. The zombified, lifeless eyes that wished to replace His. Her sickly-sweetness had no effect; all it served to do was strengthen his resolve further. The stuffiness coated His skin with a layer of pungent stickiness under the eyeballing. She nudged Him, razor nails slicing the microscopic flesh.

"Understanding the process is part of the process itself. My path had been beset on all sides by the sick grip that plagues the sleeping. But now the long sleep is over, and the new reality has just begun."

"Begun like what?"

"A great awakening. My functions were keeping alive the old world."

She looked to Him questioningly, yet He believed Himself well enough to answer correctly. Time to indulge in his nauseation, flashing teeth that were once yellow and were now verging on ochre.

"Our functions, I meant."

All had been righted, for their views anyway. But the question of the new reality remained forthcoming, with the Man in the Moth Suit surely reflipping those blank pages again, reminding Him to provide the full answers. The Warden looked as though they had been however, for his face was fixed in deep thought, as much as the State would allow such a thing. Many years had gone by without the input of great philosophers or scholars, whose ideas were deemed too encouraging of vice to be allowed to flourish. Many of them had vanished in the early times, never to ponder again. 

If he's thinking, then something good surely must be coming. Routine may be their bread and butter, but routine is also their disadvantage. None of their tortures can be inflicted on a final day, the worst that may happen is that my path ends with an eternal cycle of visits to here. She may watch over me, yet the old times have been dealt with already.

"The truth is that some unreformed shall always remain that way. Few and far between they come, yet the truth is that our society needs them."

The Prisoner felt the stuffiness begin to reach its absolute peak. Now the stickiness had soaked into his very pores, His skin emitting layer upon layer of salted glue keeping Him stuck fast to the chair. Now the restraints forced the Warden's newest speech upon Him. 

"Societies function at three basic levels, that is the need for order, stability and above all routine. That unique concept that binds the world together. There are those that are part of it by choice and others who lie just beyond it. It is those beyond we are interested in, for the constant betterment is what drives our beautiful machine."

He coughed, clearing his throat with a great phleghmy thunder that resembled the grumble of an old car engine. He brought a fist down on the desk, hard. Yet nobody jumped, the State's words were echoing through one of them. 

"The...machine...needs oiling. Oiling comes with the unreformed. The unreformed must be kept in check, that is to stay as they are, yet we do not force them. No. Some of them simply choose to remain their way."

The Warden went to the window and looked out, getting up from his always-gleaming steel desk. The window would have viewed his society from this very room; a system with cogs, gears and pistons that worked in absolute synchronization, at a pace that allowed for nothing but non-stop perfection. The faults were in the concept itself, rather than the inner workings. To strip a world of its humanity was to end all life as one knew it. Yet this did not matter, for the imaginary window showed only the plain white wall. Blankness was what they demanded anyway. The Warden continued.

"What I am saying is that the State needs those like you. Yes, vice remains the total enemy, but the enemy is what is needed. In the same traditions of the old world, the problem must be maintained. Whereas men are sent to battle in hails of bullets and mechanized death, we battle both ways; fighting to eradicate and maintain a problem, all as part of a solution. Of course, the ruse being that there is no solution at all. Removing vice makes this truth unimportant."

So that was it then. Perhaps the Man's pages made more sense now than ever before. Blank nothings were the blank reality. He shifted in the chair, His entire body shaking with fluid. Looking down, the old blue overalls were now soaking with sweat. The Girl, seeing this, placed a hand on His sleeking shoulder, although the intention remained unclear. The Warden sidled over slowly with heavy deliberate stomps, lowering himself down to the Prisoner's eye level.

"Tell me...does this truth hurt? Does its importance diminish or simply grow by the second?"

He breathed a long, drawn out breath. The soury, warm vapours hit Him directly in the face. This was the closest He had ever come to the embodiment of the Block, the man who ran all and trusted distrust more than anything. Now he was asking Him the scariest of all; could He do the same? With the sweat dripping down his eyelids and blurring His vision into a greasy, stinging mess, the answer that would determine all came near.

Now was the time. The path was about to close forevermore, and the dreamlands along with it. The blackness would never be felt again, by Him or by Her. The inner would soon turn into His whole being, where He was always safe.

"Importance itself is no longer important to me. The State is all there is. Now and forevermore."

Few, yet less was more. The less of the old world that remained, the better, for them. The less of the old world He remembered, the worse, for Him. But in this situation quid pro quo was the name of the game, for playing it any other way was true suicide.

"I feel that we have reached a critical moment in our shared history. He might just be at the mark. Most usually cross it around about now..."

Without a word further, he stretched out a thick, meaty hand and waited for the final responses. Would He really be reformed now and forevermore, belonging to the State, or would the expected old block continue to impede progress? His mind flashed to the empty clock in the room of vague realities. He imagined the Man standing up and pointing to it with his worn fingers, the paint peeling off in even greater radiation patches by now. Tick-tock the patches said, flaking away like the remainder of His irrational mind.

The Girl leaned down and whispered into His right ear.

"It is the life that promises all. You know exactly what is going to happen, so worry is diminished. Less worry means more happiness, better yet sponsored by the State." 

Tick-tock. The hand remained outstretched, waiting for the shake it had so longed for. The Warden had gotten this far, as far as he had ever hoped to get, going no further was off the cards entirely by now. She kept pouring the pestilence into His ear, using the one thing the new world had not taken from Her being; the seductive voice smooth as satin, the voice He still remembered from the nights at the club, the voice that haunted Him in every way. Sweet as sugar, enticing as lust yet mysterious as life itself. Perhaps even more, He mused. It had led to all kinds of unique things in the past.

"Imagine a world where you...me...us...can function without distraction of the needless kind. To do our work and not worry about the imaginary cycles one sets for themselves."

He could not help but notice Her hand lying comfortably on the baton as She spoke, dying to release it from the learned prison of black leather, blood and buckles. The tortures may not resume here, but back in the Block could continue forevermore if She so pleased. Routine proved it, as per usual. The Warden coughed loudly to redraw His attention.

"She speaks the truth. You must make your decision now, or not make it at all. We don't allow choice here apart from this very moment, everybody is given the same one."

The Warden pressed his hand in further, now poking His chest in a particularly unpleasant manner. Speak now, speak now or speak never! Their demands will only escalate from here, for they have never been brought this far, the outcome is for once uncertain. Sweat pouring through veins like water through a canal, heat growing more and more!

Feeling the buzzing building inside the head, He took a deep breath and drowned out the Warden and Girl's ramblings with one long, unbroken scream that started from the very depths of his soul, went through the body and ended in this little room of awakening. His was coming now, and in full force too; all of them stood well back, marvelling yet horrifying at the newfound madness that usually manifested in the bleakest of the cells. But now the nightmare was doubly real, for all to see, for perhaps the first occasion in long imaginary time.

Utter silence. Moments passed, swallowed by the blank clock. The Man had stopped pointing at it and retreated to the corner, likely awaiting the next visitor to come along. The Warden and Girl looked at each other, stunned beyond words. New occurrences were springing forth left and right, change had been to be feared yet He saw its arrival now as the ultimate trumping of the State. Taking all the invisible turns in the world, She came to Him and, gently, lifted Him out of the chair. Standing up felt like a million weights being lifted off the heavy ocean floor and a surge of refreshing coolness swept through His form. 

She was still the very same She had been all this time, yet now in the finalities of the day, the old world came back in the briefest amount. The blue uniform was moving Them gently towards the Warden. He awaited with open arms, the thinnest smile upon the face. The two guards in the room had now gone to the door, opening it gently and leaving it so, the way to freedom. 

"Welcome to the new world. May your stay be long and fruitful, both for the State and your new being," he paused to catch an excited breath, "Now let me give you the grand tour."

The door beckoned, the noiseless voice began calling to Him. Maybe it was Hers, speaking from the mysterious place beyond even the dreamlands. The Warden drew nearer and nearer, the arms seeming to ensnare Him. Her outer tugged Him forth with more eagerness. 

"You shall never regret this." 

Now comes the defining moment. I know I have travelled the path for some time, but with what promises? The promise of freedom? Is this the path's end? I look towards the open door that leads to new opportunity, perhaps the only ones left. The only way out is through, for beating them never means joining them. Preparation will have to come fast now, we're with him.

Reaching him, the Warden's arms wrapped around His shoulders, a lone hand clasping His shoulder with the expected iciness. His skin and bone begged to writhe with the discomfort, yet the new plan entailed nothing but pure restraint. Restraint that had gotten Him this far. The Warden trusted Him forever though. It was only now that He fully realized the danger He was in, the threat these people really posed. The path had shaken his ambivalence and replaced it with the greatest perception. The Warden glanced at the files on His desk, giving Him the opportunity to glance towards the door of opportunity once again.

It remained open, beckoning louder and louder still.

It was getting close to that time now, the noiseless voice somewhere inside called to Him urgently. Its points are wholly valid, you know where you are. She is gone in both worlds, but your memory of Her remains. Their new world is not yours, take the opportunity. Run to the door, take your chance. Take it, now! While you still can!

The Warden turned back, the thin smile growing large. He saw the zombified eyes, the grey, corpse-like skin colour and the forever-furrowed brow. She was beside Him now in all her State deckings, the blue uniform covering Her like a parasite. The door screamed openly now, the only listener being Him. 

Now was the time. The final freedoms demanded it. Now or never, they said to those listening.

The next moments always seemed to pass Him by in a blur. Breaking free from the Warden and facing only His future, the door welcomed Him as he sprinted through it, past the guards and down into the Block, which waited to swallow Him up. Or at least it tried to. His legs carried Him like they never could before, as the white walls and gleaming surfaces rushed past in a brilliant, mixed confusion of bright and darkness reminiscent only of the greatest of oil paintings. From what He remembered of them anyway, for art was meaningless in the new world. His lungs never failed Him as he dashed forth down the narrow corridor.

Hit, hit, hit sounded the soles on the floor as He approached the first door down from the Warden's office. Behind Him the clomping of countless feet were heard, yet they merited only slight concern. The truth was finally arriving and She had always told Him nothing but a story of success, with Him filling in His own gaps. Flinging forward, the door into the block cracked open with a mighty swoosh just as the clomping felt dangerously close. Entering from a brightly lit world back into the murk of the cells was jarring yet He never broke His stride whilst running. His feet seemed set on a strangely predetermined path, the steps knowing exactly where they should go. 

Hit, hit, hit, clomp, clomp, clomp. 

The steps followed Him incessantly as the world He once knew passed by; He saw them in their cells, some screaming, some dying, some already dead. Row upon row of torment filled with those still on the path. They fire only in their minds. If I had been running in the past they'd have shot me by now. But all lies ahead. Stepping like quicksilver, the floor seemed to fall away beneath Him as only the doors lay somewhere up ahead. Those infamous doors to the tunnel of hell. The clomping was increasing behind Him even more as it drew nearer, every guard He passed joining in the great race to catch the outlier. Voices, not just the noiseless ones, were calling to him repeatedly. Yet little did they know that soon He would be escaping to a place they would then never be able to follow Him into.

Up ahead, clear in His vision and marking the opening to truth was a bright, pulsating white light. So the source of the noiseless voice was finally revealed to Him. The closer He got the further away it seemed, yet it stood right outside the Block doors. He heard nameless vocals behind Him, his lungs still holding up for now, yet pounding like all hell. 

"Stop! Stop! He has not joined yet!"

Another voice, perhaps in reply.

"He never will!"

A great jangling of keys and equipment, the squealing of polished leather upon concrete. The screams of the unreformed, all of them awaiting entirely different yet identical fates. Thunder boomed out in the Block.

"He's running from the truth!"

He knew that one. The Warden. But things like that did not matter anymore, only truth. Truth to unlock the new freedoms that had been spoken of, when the dreamlands still were. And they still may be someday, but for now just run! Don't you want to hear their steps getting closer and closer? Why should you fear them anymore? Why?

Hit, hit, hit, clomp, clomp, clomp. 

Now the light had grown from a speck, into a spot and now into a palpable mass lying almost within reach. Almost. But the final obstacle that lay ahead was the one He feared the most. The Commander, standing there with both fists clenched tight, almost as tight as the grip of the faceless reformer armies. The Warden's voice rang out again, this time with Hers joining suit.

"Yes! Yes! Now he'll join!"

"Never assume! Never, never assume!"

The truth was becoming farther and farther away. Her voice, broken by chase and distress, sounded like it once did. But only for the instant She let it out, like a quivering leaf on a windy day, the notes uneven and hard to control.

"I thought you had seen it, at last! At last!"

The pulsating white light was a mere step beyond the Commander's bulk, but He could never afford to give up now. Giving up now would mean entering into a whole different kind of void, one further than the dreamlands and one He did not wish to visit. His entire body shook uncontrollably as He faced the Commander, who was now running right towards Him for what little length remained between them. 

Hit, hit, hit, clomp, clomp, clomp. 

He will never hurt you. You will never feel a thing. Aim for the white light, how it beckons so. Your feet brought you this far and they shall bring you even further. Now go, go! Move like you never have before, before they decide to let you journey nevermore.

It was like facing a raging bull as the Commander's figure neared, his chest like a wall of steel and his zombie eyes blazing with grey fury, practically popping out of their sockets. Here the final enemy was; the State in all of its terrible, broken glory, hellbent on claiming one more existence. He would not let it. The two figures were about to reach other, as all the voices, the sensation of the Block and His body's physical strains reached a gargantuan crescendo. The light began shifting wildly, wildly around, enveloping everything, until suddenly darkness descended. The orb became a speck once more, the brilliant whiteness retaining its vibrance the entire time. His body lurched in the dark, as a great impact came over its entirety, knocking every fiber from Him.

Everything stopped. One thing becomes another, with neither of them mattering any longer. The truth brought with it a whole new set of rules. The brightness covered all like a beautiful blanket, determining them so. Here in this new realm, the blackness was alive and the State was being swept away. In fact, all worlds previous to what awaited were being erased. His body recovered from the blow and regained solidity, which too vanished instantly. A weightlessness not felt since long imaginary times ago was growing. Despite all physicality lacking, the mind was proving stronger than ever here.

Here we are in the next phase. The path was long and hard, beset on all sides by the worst of the worst, with yet more to come each and every time. Nothing mattered anymore, meaning was being bled out of me bit by bit. I had been stabbed with the great knife of awareness and am now enjoying the consequences. Such darkness though, that speck dances somewhere beyond the reach. I follow it with my eyes, the worries of all past leaving me as the white light continues its crying out. No more of the State. No more Block 13. No more of the Warden, the Commander, Deywun, Deytoo or even Deytree. Simply nothing but pure existence.

Weightlesness struck another chord. What of Her? Was she lurking somewhere still, inner or outer, maybe both, in this vast abyss with me? No, of course not. The memory would never permit such a thing. Not now that the truth was out. They can't touch me anymore, now that I know how it all works. I'll just stay here in the void, waiting for whatever comes next. A pleasant humming surrounds me but I am not afraid. Nothing frightens you once you reach the light of truth.

For part of the truth was something I had foreseen all along, in some form or another. She was gone, lost to the reaches of imaginary time. The good ones would remain of course, for me to ponder as I wish, yet all pain would cease. Only nostalgia would come in, making my vice one for the past. This vice is one that I can live with, for what the State never realized is that they too were suffering from the very thing they wished to eradicate. Surely the insatiable desire to stamp out vice is a vice in of itself? Does the brainwashing of millions to benefit nothing but ideology merit higher power? 

Stop, stop. These thoughts matter not anymore, simply focus on that great white light. Beckoning is turning to begging now, as it draws closer again. Noiseless voices unlike anything that had come before were sounding; crashings, howlings and strange guttural craws. Something promising lies in there, and I have no judgement. She has led me here as the great gift, I trust Her better than anyone left behind. Even now.

Suddenly, the white light bloomed outwards, so intense that it was beyond description. Like a volcanic ripple it shot across my vision, blinding me for seconds that started feeling like seconds. Time was returning and so was the old world.

Now the nightmare reality was over and the new age was beginning. This one would not be one of contemplation or more vague realities, instead this would be whatever He wished to make it. When two realities collide and shift, unimaginable tweaks and bends open in the mind and body. The light obscures the most horrific, yet where He would soon find himself awakening was far, far from such monstrous conjurings. Light is bright for a good reason, and as is often told, the best of reasons brings with it the best of everything else. Welcome Him to the new-new world, still beyond the dreamlands but far from a black void.

The whiteness receded, ever so gradually. So gradually it might have never even existed in the first place. But now He found Himself in a second place, far better than that very first. He looked above into a clear, cloudless sky. It was something rarely found not just in the State but indeed anywhere. A small black shape far above came into view, gracefully cutting through the open air. As it grew bigger He recognized it as a gleaming-white seagull with magnificently arched wings, swooping down. His eyes locked onto it and followed it all the way down, until it hit what appeared to be an endless lake of crystal water. He rubbed His eyelids, finding it to be not a lake but the neverending ocean, with water bluer than it had a right to be. The colour was richer than all the world's wealth combined. Gentle waves splashed and foamed against a stretch of unbroken, golden sand lined on one side with tall palm trees swaying in the salty breeze. The overhead sun, hidden somewhere, hit their tops, making them appear to glow. 

So this was the truth. These were the new lands. These were the new sensations returning to Him. Everything that was subdued in the Block that He had so loved from the old world was restoring slowly; sight, sound, smell and taste beyond belief, as well as a mind unshackled from the depths of the headcell. 

So He picked up His feet and continued on walking, entranced by the paradise which lay before the corneas. The wind blew across the back, rippling the clothes that He still bore. Realizing this, he slowly took His hands and began unbuttoning the overalls, bit by bit. They slid smoothly off the body, the skin tickled by threads all the way down. Now He stood totally bare, basking in Himself. Moving His toes, He felt the sand shifting freely between the toes, like golden strands of sugar through a sieve. Walking on it felt like walking on warm, velvety grains of happiness, a word that before now had always been the dirtiest of all filths. Instead it was now the purest of all cleanliness, standing atop the grammatical pyramid in full glory.

Oh, how that wind plays the skin. The sea's crashing and the waves playing with my ears. This is the best that has ever happened and absolutely even more. Nearly all the memories are gone by now and She could never exist anywhere. I remember what I need to but thankfully that is not much. Yes, our nonexistent times were good but the past is where pain lies. I must only focus on the future. I listen to the cawing of the birds above and the rustlings of fern, they agree wholeheartedly.

Journeying towards the neverending horizon of blue, gold and green, He felt the very notion of His existence being what drove Him forward more than anything. His gaze was fixed only on the waters, still as a millpond, with the crests of the waves shining like jewels in the sunlight. Water meant peace here, rather than the basic human necessity. Like the earliest days, only one thing was coming to mind, and it confirmed His newfound state of mind.

Of course I shall. Why not?

Running straight for the greeting water, He felt his body shiver even with the heat. The initial iciness was over instantly as His head dipped beneath the ocean's surface. His legs kicked, his arms flailed and everything else was hit as it never had been in years. He stood up, coughing and laughing at the same time. The water was clear as glass, the sunlight casting strange reflections on the smooth bottom. Arcs of light danced and played with each other as He watched, only thin legs cutting through the clarity. The gull from before was still floating on the sea's surface, its beak darting into the water repeatedly. He moved slowly closer, taking His eyes finally away from the dancing lights and towards the bird.

Splash! The beak knifed again, the bird's black, beady eyes set deep on something below. Something that was awaiting Him also.

 

Taking a deep breath, He lowered himself down into the calming coolness, taking a moment for His eyes to adjust to stinging saltiness. Yet nothing lasted here and when His eyes opened, He became aware of a great number of things gliding around in the shallows. Blobs of form at first that then turned to fish, gorgeous sleek fish with scales like polished silver. Small crabs tittered back and forth on the seabed, their claws snapping frantically. Smiling to himself, He rose back up, relieved to see the paradise had not left Him. Looking back one last time, the seagull had finally flown away. 

He came back onto shore, the sands cushioning His feet. Looking left and right down the beach, the sight was the same on both sides. Heaven here, heaven over there and the State nowhere to be seen. The sun burned, the seas quietly rolled and the treetops would never ever stop their gleaming. The noiseless voices were congratulating Him as He stood au naturel in the open air. Nobody to see, nobody to judge and all His own decisions, from here on in. The path was all gone now and such a thing would never come to Him again.

Their vice is the need to stamp out vice itself. You are not broken, yet displayed the signs all for so long. Yet out of necessity, in search of the greater truth whether you knew it or not. All those you encountered through Her as well as Herself all existed for the moment, with your questions making them seem not so. But here we are in a beautiful new world where none of that matters that once mattered so much. Could they ever again? 

A flock of angelic birds flying across the unbroken sky, the bluest blue ever seen and then the treetops still blowing all convinced him concretely. Some hand was being played here, yet the question of God would forever remain open to His neverending debate. Those birds were making it seem all the more prevalent, and making His epiphany come stronger. The dreamlands had never gone, simply changed their appearance instead. Internal voices poked Him again, creeping up over the insides for the last time.

Absolutely not. Never again. This is where the future lies, take hold of it and never let go. For you, for Her and for the great everlasting freedom. And remember how it all begins, right here with you standing in the midst of the unimaginable.

Now and forevermore.

Author's Note

1) Did the Prisoner's journey end fittingly after all this time?
2) Does the story retain its weight throughout?
3) Are the themes consistent and subtle enough?