DAMIEN GRAY
My life is a series of spiral loops, it
has no beginning………no end…..
and so I shall start from the
middle with which I believe would
make the most sense.
My name as you might have
guessed is Damien Gray. Not
unlike the legendary Dorian Gray
who sought to capture
immortality within his portrait.
I too once sought immortality as a
boy, amongst other foolish
dreams of a young lad born into a
world of cruelty.
Perhaps in another life I had been
a poet, for at lonely nights I find
myself longing for the sea; the
parallel lines of the perfect
horizon, the calmness of the black
waters as they
rise………….fall,,,,,,,,,,,,,rise,,,,,,,,,,,,,,fall
…..like the summer haven of the
golden age. Like the swiftness of
the strays of my thoughts and
dreams…………………
And oh! How much I love the
setting sun; the piercing red
shards of the golden Elysium, the
way it dies behind the gentle
horizon, like a beauty queen
hiding behind the veils of a
curtain………. Oh! How much I love
the setting sun…… I wished it was
mine and so it was.
I have schizophrenia or that is
what the doctors say, but there is
far more to my story than just a
tale of a paranoid delusional
doubled personality freak…..
I see people as they are and as
they are no more. In short I see
death…….pale bloodied
doppelgangers of men women
and children………they are lifeless,
soulless, putrid………….i alone see
them, I alone feel them and I
alone am terrified by them.
I first discovered my ‘gift ’when
beautiful Emma, my darling wife
whom I loved dearly even now in
death, departed this world to
reside into the pages of
oblivion………….
I saw Emma’s corpse two days
before she died, not in a dream,
not in a nightmare, but with my
waking eyes. The deceased Emma
loomed in our house, following
Emma everywhere she went like
an obedient dog refusing to
depart the sides of its master; the
cadaver’s neck had been slit, it’s
skull had been bashed, and its
hair had been lank…….. like the
winter leaves of the cedar tree
fallen by time.
It smelled, and with its
hideousness, it brought it
hopelessness……….
Two days later, my ears were
tongued the news that would
forever shatter my soul. My dear
Emma had been found dead by
the lake. Her skull had been
bashed, her throat slit………..
Murdered by an unknown
assailant.
Five years later, through misery
and pain, as I slowly accepted the
curse with which the gods had
seemed fit to punish me, I began
to realize my fate; I was destined
to walk the earth a man………
broken, hopeless………ever seeing
death, never to be believed.
On these warm pages, I bleed my
heart out for Mr. McKenzie, his
beautiful wife laurianne, and their
little Tobias………. Had they headed
my warning they might not have
been burnt to death in their little
cottage at the far edges of the
mountains. And oh! Mr. Gruber
would not impaled by the blades
of his sword. My heart weeps for
Victoria, Keith, Rufus,
Samuel……………
But now as I spill my heart with
the ink of my quill, I now realize
something I had failed to realize
so long ago; maybe these deaths,
these tragedies were fated to
happen………… maybe no amount
of pleading, threats and laments
from my part could have undone
that which had proven inevitable,
for who would believe the
gabbles of a ‘schizophrenic’?
And if so, then my fate is
sealed……………………………
Today is the 14th of May 1914
and I sit in this dark room with
nothing to occupy me with but
my thoughts…………. I let my
dreams, euphoria and exuberance
fill in the ambience of the
deserted room until the footsteps
of the man now approaching me
from the distance diminishes
entirely………..
He moves with the shadows and
breathes with the silence…………
his dead face show subtleties of
peace I had never found in
life…………….
I say nothing as he stares at
me…………. His mundane blue eyes
show a glint of hope that I had
lost on humanity so long
ago…………..
He leaves the room.
My name is Damien Gray and
tonight, I welcome the cold hands
of……..peace. I hope my story finds
its way through time and I hope
that when it does, I shall be
remembered…………. Not as a
prophet, or a supernatural being
of any sort but as a man………
flawed……… a man whose dreams
however maimed, however
diminished, still pumped along
with his beating heart……………..
his dreams to walk the waters
soar the clouds…………… his
dreams to fall in love.
Perhaps my spirit shall find solace
in the warmth of the sun which I
had desired to cleave on to for so
long…………….oh! how much I
loved the beauty of the sun, I
wished it was mine and so it
was…………… and so it was.
