The Tower of Brahma - Chapter 61 - Inferno (edit)

4/12/10

I sit in the NorthWest corner of the park, just past the scorched bars of the kid's playground, but before the massive burning ember, the eternally blazing, giant tree trunk by the exit. Where homeless men battled West Village kids with their Kings, Queens, and Knights. Strategy and conquest are long lost concepts here, mere scuff-marks across a blackened chessboard.

"The portals of Darkness are open and the shadows of the dead hunt over the earth..."

More like linger and stare at the human, sunglasses and cap, cigarette and paperback in hand, as he rests his feet on the battered, melted plastic table with a chargrilled quilt upon it, a banged up typewriter, and a small stack of black and white photographs. The human takes a drag of smoke, exhales into the ashy, brimstone day, and writes this sentence in his head.

I put down the paperback, can't read on a day like today, I've a mad on for writing and I must force it out, destroy this section of time and space once and for all. The demonic forms all hustled by me, ignoring the last remnant of the Twentieth Century that isn't bound up in his very own bubble universe.

The rest of the world is floating out at sea, or in an underground bunker, tucked in a secure room of giant, gelatinous cocoons floating inside their own private, inflatible web; "in-case-of-Armaggedon" your reality becomes a flotation device. They all sleep, log-online, go about their day in a total delusion of business as usual humdrum.

But not me, I never grew up with one of them fancy realities. Seems a future version of myself brought me through time to save himself from something, and I bursted out of my little bubble, spilling out into the world. So, here I am. Selling thoughts and memories to the tourists from Hell in a Nightmare Futuristic Dystopia. Cybernetic monsters, wailing banshees giving birth, child-like creatures of disgusting evil, they all stroll by and throw their disapproving looks my way, or refuse to acknowledge my existence, and even sometimes, sometimes they run past in fear. God only knows what they think, how they see me.

Occasionally though, one will happen by, intrigued by my small setup, and ask what it is I'm doing.

"I'm selling my wares, to make a wage, so as to live another day."

This usually leaves them stumped and an easy mark, so I give them the spiel about winding up in the Inferno, rat-a-tat-tat down a paragraph or three on the back of a worn photograph, and then see their reaction. They read it there, but it doesn't register. They toss a piece of hellfire into my bucket, and go about their day. I slip on the shades, kick back in my kicks, and read another page.

They go home that night to their perch in a blown out highrise uptown, place the photo on their coffee table, devour whatever scraps of flesh they have about, and secretly think about my poem. The words jingle through oddly wired meat, stimulating electrical impulses to begin firing, forging connections never made, producing desires and longing for something pure and beautiful. Then their head explodes.

It's a cruel trick, but they're fucking demons, and they've got fangs and claws and an utter lack of respect for humans. Not that I blame them. They've just come in as the supernatural immigrants to the Promised Land, shoving aside the fat, complacent indigenous people.

The humans now live virtual lives, alone in a bubble, interactions between individuals now just projections on a screen, as interchangeable as a click on a remote. See the world however you'd like, absorb nutrients through the gel you swim in, let the skin of the bubble suck in the dying gasps of oxygen and rays of sunshine, letting you live to connect another day.

The Divine still twinkles in me as a ray of light beams down between clouds of filth, adrift in soulless skies, God's taillights as he drives off. Most pure evil beings can't even see pure goodness, so most of the time I'm safe, but the madmen can still see. Demented x-ray vision of my disguise, so they were the immediate threat.

I'd usually just knock them unconscious straight away. Letting them speak for more than a moment could be disastrous  And granted, some are more "with it" than others to be sure, but no one stays sane long standing in the path of the beasts of the apocalypse.

I live on a fourth floor walk up in Greenwich Village, just off Washington Square Park. The fourth floor I find is just tall enough that the more lazy, mindless mutants don't climb that high, and just low enough that the reapers can't spot you from their skyskraper perches.

I drag my bucket and sling the typewriter over my shoulder, leaving the table downstairs, probably be beaten up, but not worth the effort to bring it up. I toss the hellfire into the pit in the center of the room, tighten the pentagram around it, and fire it up.

I stared long and hard into the flame, the fire, fundamental force of nature, erratic molecules, essence, idea, word, sound. All self swirls upwards in a backdraft breeze. The crossroads clashed, an X branded beyond my mind, unicorn socket insert, click connect. Twist, turn.

The engine started in my skull. It rocked on the hydraulics and rumbled teetering on the tip of my spine. My circle grew, ignition of the sigil, unlocked reality cheat code transports you to the Darkness.

He lifts you up and acknowledges you, appearing as an equal so as to make you underestimate him, and take him for a man. His great joke.

The devil removes his hat and stays awhile. He's got a sound system he carries with him, tessaract tucked into his breast pocket. As he sits a plush chair appears beneath him, and the decor flickers to one of his fancy in that moment.

"Take your head out of the fire already." He clicks disapprovingly. He's tired of my games.

"Aaahhhh." I throw my head backwards, brushing back my hair, wet from the flame.

"Hey."

"What's up?" He was pretending he had something else to do.

"Let watch Faust again." I settled into his version of the room's reality. I knew he'd want to smoke, so he'd definitely have snacks appear. Probably some beer, and God willing, some Whiskey.

"You want to sign or not?" All business today I see. Well, fine, maybe it was time.

I took the devil's offer for a test drive awhile back. I didn't really love it. I kept getting it confused with the human virtual reality, and well, milling about besides demons in post-apocalyptic future Manhattan? That sounded awesome at first.

Over time, he'd pop up, offer to send me back to my reality, to give me power, fortune, glory. Meh, in a way this was a blessing. A vacation from the burden of responsibility, some time for the devil and I to just hang out, watch some movies, sometimes talk. Although I'm sure he denies it.

At some point I realized that I was that last one. The very last soul he could tempt, unable to pierce the holy coating of mankind's deliverance. All he can do now is choke out the life of the planet's ecosystem and the humans will all have to pop out of their little pods or else drown in their embryonic filth.

So we usually just chill, I dig up some of my past, hock it in the park, get enough flame to invite him over to hook my ass up on freebies. He seems all sour so I try and get him talking.

"Remember when you let me have superpowers and we shot across the planet?" It was like a boneyard obstacle course.

"And that demonic King you introduced me to...Beedazzle, when we drank ourselves stupid and wound up destroying his army? Oh, man, I tell ya..."

I let my words trail off, sensing that he wasn't in the mood. I guess I don't know what to do now. I may as well sign. I work out the angles and wonder how it could be a bad deal.

I figure he gives me enough rope to hang myself, I take it and then can't go back to how life was before. A private reality that I have ultimate control of. But the humans over the hill offered me the same thing and I refused. My every desire is taken care of.

Of course, he'll lead me down a path that rises and falls. But that's not pre-ordained, he can't be master of all time and space, he's just hedging his bets on our penchant for destiny. I look over at him and imagine a great winged beast, a concept of absolute horrific and terrible evil, squeezed into a human shape sitting across from me.

He smiles.

"Fine. Let's do it. I was getting tired of looking at your creepy-ass face."

I drew blood across a Gothic barcode, bleached into the DNA smart papyrus, and suddenly I felt better. I saw virgins defiled on altars, an all seeing eye penetrating their dignity. My back didn't hurt, I could breathe, my mind was clear. War, Famine, and Plague seeped from my pores.

I was aflame and adrift all at once. Spinning round, throwing earth into the air with reckless abandon, I was scattershot chaos shattering the darkness. I stood my ground, and lifted myself up, surging with replenished strength.

I smashed the devil's face, shattering his fragile humanity with a single blow. I think I surprised even him, for in an instant I saw that flinch, and knew he wasn't all-knowing, cause he didn't see that coming.

His reality crumbled away with his person in the vile cross-breeze of ember and ash. The flame flickered and died down. The devil has left the building, and left behind something interesting. I fished through my pockets and found the seven deadly sins.

That son-of-a-bitch. He needed one last human to carry them for him. But I think I know why he was so nice to me. He knows I'll get rid of these for him. For him and everyone else. I'll face down the evil that's so big that not even he can see it fully.

I draw the first card, see my first sin, and and face myself.

The Tower of Brahma. Sexty.5 (edit)

6/2/09

I stand inside the bubble besides my older self. He looks on as the wall inside flickers to life. We're in a fancy ballroom. Tables ornately decorated, intricate carvings lining the walls, pulled back heavy curtains revealing not a window, nor door.

"Feel free to flick it around to whatever you like." Older Charles tossed something to me.

It was an oval shaped button about the size of my thumb. The groove of it slid across the tip of my finger, the ridges whirling around the spiral of my thumbprint. It began to grow, seeping around my fingertip. I pressed down against my forefinger.

The wall flickered and suddenly I was on stage, in the middle of an empty amphitheater with 360 degree seating. Spotlights popped on at the zenith of my bubble. I threw my hand up to hide from the light and clicked again.

I was floating in space, not weightless, but the tiles beneath me did begin to slowly rotate and swoosh. A spaceship popped into position about 50 meters out. From it stepped out an alien with enormous brain throbbing out of its skull.

I clicked. Again. Heavenly clouds, the alien becoming an angel, harp and all. Click. A pirate ship, and a buccaneer boarding the ship. Click as he got closer. A desert, the devil. He stood before me. I clicked at him, while Charles stood beside him grinning.

I was sitting in a chair, a lab of minimal sleek design all around me. The bubble looked transparent and closer than before. The wall of it was just outside my reach. I extended my hand out, just brushing the skin of it with my fingertips. The devil stepped into view.

Only he wasn't the devil, nor an angel, and not an alien by any imagination. He looked like a friend. A bearded, bespectacled, much older, version of someone I knew. He looked at me with amazement, then glancing over at older Charles, who stood, smug with arms folded across his chest.

"I told you I'd do it." His smile broadened. I noticed he was outside my bubble.

"This should tell us everything we need to know. We can get you free finally. We did it!" The familiar man grew increasingly so with every gesture and mannerism.

I clicked again and we were sitting in a dive bar. I sat at the bar and a fresh pint rose from the counter. I downed it fast, following with a gin and tonic, and a whiskey on the rocks. I slid my thumb just so and a crowd of people eased into existence around me. My heartbeat rose, my lungs gripped tight, my mind raced.

Charles and his friend were still around. Patting each other on the back, ignoring me as if I were not even in the room. But I wasn't in the room, was I? I was wrapped up in some sort of inflated sleeping bag, kept sterilized and uncontaminated, so they could test me. Poke and prod while staying away.

I slid the thumb quicksilver putty back and forth. I made it harder, denser, thicker. With a flick of my finger tip the metal shot out to a point. I ran the edge across my jeans, pressing it against my thigh. Sharpened it with precision with denim friction.

I glanced sideways at the two of them there and my inner beast grew. I growled and ran the ridges of my teeth together, exposed slowly from beneath a lip sneer. My arm with the blade cocked back slightly, the tendons and muscles taking a step back and preparing for action.

I leapt forward, smashing the bubble against their own, keeping me a good five feet away, but I felt my own bubble compress, smooshing me into a bear hug. Charles and his cohort looked startled at me. I swung the knife around, slicing the air completely in half. A tear grew across the virtual reality of this dive bar chatroom.

Fiery chasms were revealed beyond my own deflating universe, a hellish landscape of craggy lavarocks, ash floating all around, whooshing into the bubble walls. A protective fluid seeps out of the bubble, the clearest of water, thick with syrupy cleanliness, spilling out like a torn backyard pool, starting small with increased pressure and speed. It evaporates as it touches the surface, transcending forms, rising as holy steam.

I hit the ground and the air doesn't seem so bad as I cough it out and suck it in. Feels like when I smoked. I watch as the final yard of the bubble is consumed in flames, Older Charles and bearded sap gasping in horror at my fate. Suckers.

"I'm not saving anyone but this Charles Crown." I thumbed myself in the chest, laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

"Where the fuck am I?"

The Tower of Brahma. Sexty. D. (edit)

6/1/09

"Hello Charles."

I coughed and gagged, hacking up quicksilver, mercury dripping from the corners of my mouth.

Air controlled scene, room temperature perfection, breeze blown by casually. His boots were worn, favorite status shown upon them. Slacks were tight and fit with a flair, suit jacket snapped just below the waist, shirt and tie topping it off. Comfort and power sat on his shoulders.

"I've been waiting on your arrival.", seeped from his smile. He nodded to my right.

I saw a towel beside me, swiped it, and cleared the muck from my face. A hatch seals itself closed behind me, a vent sucking down the remnants of fluid.

"Yeah? Great. I'm here." I was annoyed, out of my depth, and in need of a drink and a smoke.

A bottle of beer and a pack of cigarettes rose from the tile before me. A lighter and bottle opener appeared on the one adjacent. They warbled into the air from the ceramic surface, flickered like a hologram, and crackled into existence. My fingers connected with their molecular cohesion.

I popped open the beer, downed a third, stood up and tied the towel around my waist. I took my time in the process of opening the cigarettes, discarding the wrapping to the ground, where it evaporated, sliding a smoke out and placing it upon my lower lip. My top lip gripped the filter and my thumb ran along the gears of the lighter, igniting with a press of the gas lever.

The fire caught my eye, dancing picturesque before me, drawing it closer to my face. I sucked back on the cigarette and it caught fire, the tip of it blazing away down into my lungs. I felt a lump of smoke travel along my trachea. It expanded into my lungs. I hold it for a second then release it.

The smoke fills the space between him and I, dancing through whirling air currents, blown around and around again. I flick my attention up to his face, taking it in as my own, aged to perfection. Manly and confident, eyes not tucked behind protective lenses, a telling smile revealing all his secrets to me.

We had an understanding.

"So, the future. I do okay for myself." The cigarette was splendid.

The Tower of Brahma. Sexty. See. (edit)

5/30/09

And suddenly, I stopped. I stood still as the swarm of minds washed around me. Astral bodies colliding and crashing about my person, sparking off into distant twinkling starwinks. Up and down and side by side, spinning minds whipping by, standing as stone, firework smashing into my own.

The molecule that warbles among the air, the grain of sand slipping weaving, connected to each other, diagonally damned sentience balancing itself out, lest it whirl off free. Alone. Looking forward, one runs, for all they're worth. Looking at, the two bonds, feeding the other, with it's hovering self, unicorn blast through the temple.

We are just the bits ripping away at unreality, the termite twisting tearing away hunks of light, carving grooves of sound. One step up, two steps back, the polarization of ourselves writing on infinity. We make an impact, puncture time and space, slamming our fists at its rough hide. We will survive!

A door opens, light that is impossible comes forth, the air digitized in its wake. Flatscreen virtual world, an inflatable hamster wheel of isolation, I realize I am inside a revolving hologram. Mike Gallows steps in and brings me back to my quarters. He created me, he owns me. He is my maker.

Training for tomorrow is what I'm told. A day will come when I am needed, and what I know will be good enough, to save who I need to save. I obey orders. Eventually I realize I'm the one who told me. Now, as I untell myself, the very matter surrounding me becomes unglued, and I'm twirling down, spiral spine speeding down.

I sit at a desk and eradicate my identity. I open the envelopes, look through the papers, shred what has info, and tear up what's left. It trains my mind, and sharpens my hands. Erases my existence. Release the text to the trees, broken apart financial record.

I heft my books. Upstairs, downstairs, and back thousands of times, the step count alternating each go, so I could keep track of my ebb and flow. It strains my arms, my muscles rippling and snapping taut against my bones. Once every piece of my identity is lifted, carried the weight as stones tied round my ankles, I now could carry the world.

I gasped for breath as I rose to the surface. The bubble vacuum sealed against my flesh, I tore away at its skin, clawing my fingers into its molecular makeup. It tore open, air whooshing into my lungs, sucking down liquid dimensional sewage. I hit the floor like a wet sack of clay, my tone body thudding against the cold plastic tiles.

The Tower of Brahma. Sexty (b) [edit]

5/13/09

ToB. Reality deformers. Nirvana. Hell. Interactive reality bubbles. Stronger ones dominate, video game interface, cheat code enabled. Outside the bubble is a burning wasteland, suffering and eternal dying, none know rest nor respite.

Reality swipes across virtual touchscreen individual cosmos, an infinite amount of hard drive space for maximum pixel interaction. When two of these merge, truly immerse into one another, the power ebbs, bobs and rises up the ranks.

iPods become iPeople, identities squeezed into a FacebookMentalSpaceSlideShowSoundtrack, pinned to your lapel, in neon green with pink stripes. Embryonic entertainment, life rafts for the soul, what keeps the flames at bay for one more generation. The devil wants his due.



We're microscopic introspective self aware simpletons becoming a flare in the dark of unknown raw universe. Just a twinkle as we turn towards the light, fire scorching the shape of our collective face. The ideal and superman are the forerunners of new worldwide consciousness.

But just a pixel to gods of protoplasmic near sentience, gaining form and mass from the glare of our souls burning out.

The Tower of Brahma. Chapter 60. Sexty. (edit)

5/13/09

"People Magazine actually coined the phrase, but that reinvigorating buzzword that has given new life to old age can only be attributed to one man: Charles Crown."

I was encased in some sort of proto-plasmic coccoon, an ethereal embryonic capsule with a plunging elevator vibe. Across the skin of the bubble were imagewords, or iWords, a complete societal initiation into the year 2036.

"He grew up in a lower class, blue collar family on Long Island, New York. His parents, still teenagers, raised him with the aid of his grandmother. His father worked as a mechanic, building race cars and fixing his Mustang. His mother taught him to feel, read to him every night and never left his side til this day."

The generic photomontage, with telepathic audio tracks, dialogue or voice over, commentary track from the ID, Ego & Superego, washed over my being making me experience a dramatic re-enactment, POV, steady cam, COPS style sensation, immersed in altered dreamstate.

"Charles was often quiet and shy in his early days, preferring to hide behind mom's legs or in the middle of clothing racks in early 20th Century 'Department Stores'. He was lost in a daydream haze, until the day he died. A hotdog bite just a tad too big ended his life despite his father's attempts to run him to a local hospital."

I felt like choking. Gagging on early development biopic nausea. Where was I? What was this primordial ooze on top of me? I pressed my finger into the membrane which held firm, despite water droplets, like ice melting, dripping down the sides. I ran the jagged edge of my nail against its skin.

"When Charles was resurrected he had already passed over, clinically dead for sixty-four seconds, before resuscitation paddles brought him back to us. In those sixty-four seconds, everything had changed: the World, Charles, You. All of reality altered slightly, although psyientists would not make this discovery until 2020."

Infomercial documentaries with advertisement hyperlinks beamed straight to the cerebral cortex. The frontal lobes are wiggled into a vibrational pattern that allows minds to perceive. I scratch at the surface of this gelatinous gumball, making the signal flicker every so slightly.

"Charles' parents could not afford to sustain a living and so had to 'volunteer' their son to a (recently declassified) government secret agent program where the blank slate of Charles' mind was replaced with an 'artificial intelligence', or AI, named Babel. What they didn't know was that there was still something deep within the spirit of Charles Crown."

The story started to get interesting so I ceased my nail surgical strike and began to let the flood fill my being. I found myself eager to become one with my surroundings, to withdraw into myself and fold into everything that ever is. The light of the void, the dark of the bright, prism shift to pinnacle pyramid perfection.

"A childhood incident involving a landlord's dog had burned itself onto Charles' psyche. Meta-physicists say that he was chosen to be a canine spirit, while psychologists say that this attack and release formed a stronger bond with the child than with his human parents' imprint. Either way, government scientists were intrigued."

Sitting in pillows, all around you, sleepy drifting off in mid day sunshine, stress and tension long since faded and forgotten about, discarded as bones settle into place, free from fiction the skin sits, relaxed breaths freeing each bit by bit up your body. Lit up chakras glow like a race in reverse, red stopping, orange uncurling, green growing, purple popping, blue blossoming, white sprouting.

"The wild animal spirit and simulated personality eventually formed a union, and this persona renamed itself Charles Crown, but what was left of the original personality is unknown. Research is being done today that will uncover the secrets of identity and the mysteries of birth. The very essence of humanity. The meaning of life."

The Tower of Brahma - Chapter 59.3 - Overpowering Dreams (edit)

5/10/09

"My name is Charles fucking Crown, and I can fucking write!" I screamed at myself.

I felt the words, never thinking of their intent, only knowing I was alive. Scenarios slash their way inside my dreaming mind. Everything becomes alone knowing that I'm just fine. I walk that straight and narrow line, until the very eternal end of time.

Security blanket blues make me slosh along the sidewalks, daydream ideas dash down my desires, igniting and fighting somewhat driving fires through and through. Poet suffering in a bed of pens and kneels, begging to be forgiven, seeking salvation in text. Alphabetical hypothetical absolution.

Delirium dances into the night, sweaty simpleton spinning round himself, artist in retreat from introspection and reflection as I flail about. Fade to black, the end, fin. Once again.

I caught up, got in, and was launched beyond all that is around me. I got here first, just in time to fly higher, soaring solitaire into the skyline. I laugh and cringe to watch the grinding gears of society crush each other into shape. The noise becomes a tune, shrieking sanity springing forth from their fears, praising dysfunction over deformity.

So I walk. And I see. Listen to them. Understand their dreams, their silent screams, see what they really mean. I know them all at once, when I was new and shiny, glistening innocent glory beaming from me. Afterbirth Jesus, Kung Fu Drifter, Word Conqueror. I am all these things and more.

I will die so you will know.

The Tower of Brahma - Chapter 59.2 - Powerless Before Her (edit)

5/7/09

My head hurts, throbbing from where I smashed my fist against my right temple. The possible concussion keeps me awake and staring at the shadows splayed across the ceiling.

I conned the crazy out of me, staring off into nowhere, seeking something inside to align and make me right. I tried to cry for so long that eventually I did, tears erupting from my eyes, snot pouring from my nostrils.

Seeing yourself for real, reflected in another's mind, shows you all you need to know. You are a bastard. A hurtful fuck who uses and abuses, hiding in the lie that you care, nice to everyone so they'll make things easier for you. Parasitical satire ignites your entire life.

Suicide escape, break out of the prison of self, your solitary confinement. A blade pressed against skin, a fictional gun against your head, some pills to swallow so you can sleep forever. Nothing matters when you no longer exist. How can it possibly?

Reality is a bitch, and the guilt for being yourself weighs you down, so why not surrender to forever? It'd be nice to give in, not struggle against the dying of the light, embrace the entropic devouring of eternity. You'll make no difference in the end. Fate is destined to happen, so get out of its way.

You beg to be put away and it's for real. Drama queen electro-shock therapy seems reasonable to me. Kill whatever it is inside that wants me to die. Medicate and insulate the pain, sweet release of raindrops tapping at the window.

The Tower of Brahma - Chapter 59.1 - Dreaming With Power Pt. 2 (edit)

5/5/09

I walked the city I knew, took for granted its curves, turned in a way that shifted diagonally the red sheen of our prism prison. My head turns, the camera pans up as we gaze upon the Crimson City, bloody-black arches with Gothic spires.

She was a nexus, a living harmonic sigil that radiated paranormal extrasensory pulses of sensation, making the impossible align with our reality. I lie beside her, basking in the brilliance of a supernova soul igniting in spontaneous explosions, dreaming like never before.

Inside the shoppe, a bespectacled man glances over his frames and lenses to inspect my intentions. He sees me worthy, and produces a rat, and a rat bag. With a thin blade he draws a line of blood down the chest and stomach of the paralyzed rodent and places it within the rat-skinned sack.

His fingers squish about the body, running the tips along the delicate twistings and turnings of its intestines. He gazes down thoughtfully as he searches for meaning in the cruel, viscous act he just committed. What was the purpose of this rodent divination?

"Erase everything that came before."

I awake with a start, and she is spent. Exhausted from the transference of my spirit to the realm of her people. Her fairyness is cranky and wants breakfast.