Within the Torture Garden

Within the Torture Garden

Introduction:

i. The narrator sits in the desert, awakening from a deep sleep. She dreamt that her soul was shattered when she awoke into her former lover's suicide. While spiraling down within his death, she screams out for his best friend, a mutual lover to them both. It is within this surreal psychic connection that the story begins, somewhere between the realities of life and of death and dreams.

ii. The Torture Garden is a place for empty souls where all life is left to bloom into decay and rot. The Garden sits by the River Lethe, which transports the psyches of souls sent away from a peaceful place of rest. Lethe fuels confusion, which can only be cleared if the psyche of the displaced soul is purified and allowed to travel forward in search of content. Few souls pass through. Most will eventually burn down into a single glass grain which makes up the landscape and adds to the static energy which prevents clarity or ascension.

iii. It is believed in certain cultures that originally there were three rivers which lead to the Garden of Eden. Lethe was polluted by sin, and filled with sand by the cold winds. It now only exists as mythology, unless you are meant to make the cruel journey; the abyss located deep within the subconscious; another dimension of deep time and space; death - or sometimes trans-formative chemistry. Since time moves not in one, but in many directions, past; present; and future; sometimes conflict (as may some of the tenses). It was originally thought there were three trees: The Tree of Life, The Tree of Knowledge, and the Tree of Death.

Part One:

I do not know if I experienced my death or his, but really it is irrelevant for I died today, and I have been dead for all the day long.

There is lethargy to a non-soul which is overwhelmingly melancholy. Time is non-existent. There are no needs to forgo. All sits seemingly peaceful here in the void of life

destroyed. There is no noise at all. No breeze to awake you.

Sleeping in my destiny. No! Wait! That is not correct. I am not sleeping. I was simply never there, but the way I feel now, I do not even care.

Then a voice breaks the silence, "What happened to you there?"

I reply that I am a non-truth. The River Lethe is just a myth. For a moment I believe that I may go home, then I realize no such place exists.

The voice extends from a beautiful man's face. I know him. His expression is comforting to me even though it is distorted. Then I quickly look away. Life lives within his eyes. Within

the reflection of his iris I see that somehow I truly have died.

"Go home!" I scream, "Before it is too late!" At the mouth of the River there is a cave, and within the cave an enormous gate. It holds back the water so that the desert does not

flood. It opens only to allow new death to pass through. Then it closes again so that the desert does dry, and all sound is removed. My friend stands between the metal cage

doors. He looks right out me. His eyes the same beautiful blue as the river moving so quickly upstream. He is gone. The sky is blue for a moment. And then it is blinding with the

glare of the sun beating down on the sand grains. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. The glaring grains.

Oh dear. Oh no. For some odd reasons I believe I may have switched souls with him. It feels as though mine is broken in pieces. It is an empty load. I do not like this oblivion

foretold.

I look around, but see only sand, realize if I have died than my fate may blossom in this horrid, arid land. I feel as though I must walk through if I am to be reunited with the young woman I supposedly am.

I do not remember much about her. She was a stranger, even when at hand. I can see a distant stare which now scares me! It is blinding me. Like the sun on infinite millions of

grains of sand. I hear Sean say she used to be quite some fun. I wonder now. What is fun? Is that a concept similar to love?

Part Two:

I tried to sleep, but my friend prevented me, saying after all I had intruded into his mind, he saw no reason not to intrude into mine. Lucid dreaming. Psychic television.

"Fine. Fine." and I let him in. There is nothing there now. No intimacies or secrets. There are only wisp like ghosts of memories once lived.

He whispered, "I envisioned you free. Now you are the exact opposite image of he."

I agreed. We all fucked the same, too. My laughter filled the void between us. Reflections in the sand consume. He screamed me mean, which suddenly

Is very very true. I ask him if he knows my name. He said I never had one, but surely one of us should be quite ashamed.

"Oh, so sorry!" I mock, "Didn't I tell you? This is all an illusion. You, too, are bound by your confusion.

It all does hurt quite like reality; even Lethe cannot completely take all of the pain away.

He looks at me coldly and whispers he was there with me when I fell through my lover's death and landed in purgatory.

"Then where is he? We should be three.", but then I realized it is all subjective to the view of the person in front of you.

"But that is you." said my friend. "Remember you?"

For a moment I tried, but I grew much too tired, and besides I assumed it all untrue.

He cried into the night in mock frock, by an emotion he was consumed. A primordial holler echoed and echoed. Then towards me he ran, a rose in his hand, and handing it to me, he

said, "Here now, wish yourself out of the ruins and back in your bed."

The sands seemed to slither, a sound vibrating in the still air. "She cannot leave here." Said the Devil. "She is dead."

My friend yelled in anger, "You are just like him now, don't you know, and I do not like you in this role. Where are you, Miss. Noble Truth?"

Part Three:

Looking out onto the barren land unable to move I too wonder where it is that I am. The rose my friend envisioned lay gently on the sand. Before I connect it to any greater a

thought it began to mold, and then rot. A putrid stench filled my body. I began to vomit, spitting up petals. They were black. They became very soft and a bit slippery even. The

rose petals surrounded my knees as I choked up again. On all fours I took them and gently made them into a large pile, then I lay in my bed. It wasn't what my friend had meant, but

it worked none-the-less. I closed my eyes to sleep, but I could see right through them. So, I buried myself in the petals until everything went dark. I searched for my heart beat to

lull me to sleep, but heard only silence; Infinite, endless, deafening silence! I cried out, but there was no sound at all. I wished for a sign of some sort of life. The petals then

became beetles. They were all over my body! I yearned for water to wash them away, and found myself sitting with my friend next to the remnant of a stream once a river. It was

not real. It was only glass. My friend and I; We seemed to awake into a new day; at last.

He sad I once had a name; a pretty name which now escapes me. He said I used to believe in truth and good things, though I find that rather hard to believe. In fact, I do not even

believe my friend is with me. I sold him off a long time ago for a game to be played with pieces of carved gold. I did not know that it was only paint covered charcoal. Not even

pyrite. Black, dusty coal. I made it into a thin dagger and put it in my pocket.

Part Four:

"What did you do with your soul?" The man was not my friend. No, sitting with dark glasses was a thing I might call the Devil or some random demon. "It seems, my dear, to be

missing and that takes some of my fun away here. Now, where did you hide your soul? I've not had this happen before."

Not only because I was rather overwhelmed and a bit terrified as I looked into his glasses, imaging where his eyes would be behind the deep blood red of the lens, I said: "I think my

lover took it while he was dying. If that is possible. Really, I am not lying."

And I did have a remembrance of my soul seeming to shatter within an explosion of sound as a bullet hit his forehead, but for some reason I felt it more than him. Everything split

open. I heard screaming. Everything muted and distant. Reverberations of echoes of machinery and waves. Everything spinning so slowly at first, and then much too quickly. Deep

space and time ripping apart. The folds of my mind opening into a winding tunnel. Filling with warm, salty fluid. My heart beating so loudly it would have been deafening, except that

it wasn't my heart and it wasn't my death. It was my lover's. I suddenly remember seeing him on the floor of his apartment. A single bullet in the center of his forehead.

"He did it himself. Why blame you?"

"Because", I stammered, "I knew he had to win even if he could not do it."

"He did it himself. Why blame you?"

"Because it was me he wished dead when I saw him do it!"

"If you blame yourself then you are to blame. It is, I believe, what he wanted for you to do."

I think about it for a moment and realize that it is true. Then laughing chaotically out of time I scream, "Maybe it IS what I wanted too!"

Part Five:

Suddenly my friend is at the gate again. The doors are opened, but no water is moving. It sits in a pool at first so refreshing, then putrid. It is filled with algae and there are insects

flying all around. The smells of bodily waste and curdled organs. It is toxic. There is no air to breathe. He says softly he loved me before the river was polluted. The gate closes

again. I am alone. With the Devil or the Reaper or whom ever he is. He is complaining that three people came through one person's dissension, and that has created a bit of a

problem. My lover was dead. I was sitting in his shell. He took without mine realizing it, a genuine part of my soul. The part I had left locked into my friend's mind. I held onto a

thought of love with dear life. A light to see the view through. And the view could not tolerate anything as quaint as love. Each grain of sand a soul decomposed and the river dried

up. The sun hit all beneath with precision and brutality; without a break between day and night; nor any air to soothe the tension. I felt as though I was burning alive, and truly I

was -

And then - I felt nothing. Nothing is as painful as feeling a every single thing. My soul and my lovers kept moving in and out with psychic thrusts very deep. Like the sex we used to

have. Kundalini, less the spirituality. Pornography, except it was so all encompassing, it offended the superficial and the kinky. We fucked until we thought as one, but never once

kissed or spoke of anything near love. Our sex was filled with hate for reason, but it always was such good escapism.

-- Section Censored From Website Version

Part Six:

Today I witnessed death all alone. I sat at a stranger's. My friend sat at home. My lover did show me a suicide ride. A true test of will in the art of survival. An illusion if I use it.

An intrusion none the less. If he is dead, I do not miss him. At least not yet. My friend sits starting wondering what is true. Wondering why, he too, chose abuse. In the Garden of

Torture we all get what we ordered. In the court of fools murdered I have suffered for you. Now may you be your own torturous abuse.

Part Seven:

It looks as though today will be a lovely day! I do hope so for there have been too many hazy days. It is twilight on what I believe is another normal day. I am happy.

Then it becomes obvious that is only a dream sequence.

Part Eight:

The rose petals and beetles made an awful stench of decay in the burning sun, but compared to the pool of water at the cave, I rather liked it actually. It reminded me of the

decomposition of the violets, or the smell of stale pipe resin from opiates. Lying in my bed I reached into my mind and handed back the flower intact, asking my friend to prove his

belief in magic so misconstrued.

He shakes his head wide as the sky opened wide, "I miss you. You are not the same since dying." He walks away through a miniature wrought iron gate. It is only a reflection.

Overhead a vulture is flying in search of something to eat. For a moment I saw what I thought was a small child crying, but I kicked her aside.

"I've no fear of tides, but do cry somewhere else dear." Tears ran heavily down her cheeks, turning to salt. She liked her lips and then dried up and shriveled into what looked like a

small, hand sewn cloth doll. I ran over to her, wanting to hold her in my arms, but I tripped on something in the sand. It is a withered raw hand. I lie down and put my cheek in its

hollow. It was my lover. For a moment I desperately missed him. I cried into the palm, not caring about anything except my own sadness and anger. It was something familiar.

Part Nine:

I think I am sleeping in death's small, rocking chair. I'm creaking and squeaking and it bothers the living, but I try not to care. Where am I, I wonder? Once life? Maybe near death?

Though I've no reason to know what it is like, I have to imagine that this is what death is like. Yes. It feels like death. As though I have died, but not entirely disappeared. He

means me no harm, though, so I must be sitting in someone else's death. All of this must be some sort of accident. I rock back and forth, moving more and more slowly, growing

more and more tired.

Then suddenly a creature that seems very much like the reaper screams out an order, "Get up! Move! What the fuck are you doing?!" And a man rather similar to what I'd describe

as the Devil says, "For not was I with you when the river flowed forward!"

I remembered the river not moving, and the distant stare of a man almost dead, numb and detached with a bullet in his head, whispering with indifference a wish of death.

The Devil lashes out for being so naive, "You chose not to notice you little love child you!"

They tell me I must return home, though they argue over my value before leaving me alone. Not quite alive and not quite dead, I've no where to go and no way to get there.

Part Ten:

Sitting with not much else to do, I quietly sang a song like a nursery rhyme to the doll holding my lovers hand in the sand as she sat contentedly in my lap.

The song is simple. The song does rhyme. It goes: Isn't that better a game to play? Denial of power when every one's the same. Denial of power keeps the Garden displayed.

Princes and Princesses on the board of an ancient game. Some are golden. Others black coal. See if good intentions are good for you too. See if abuse is the player you'd choose.

Who knows what you would do if the choice was in you. For a brief bit in time do walk in the Garden or the Garden will choose when your walk is regarded a necessary view of your

own self abuse. And we all do have the right to choose by whom we shall be abused and when will abuse truth.

Laughter again filled the void like a storm. We all rock back & forth keeping warm.

Part Eleven:

With no where else to be I was held in Da'ath. An invisible point within the Tree of Life. It is a void where all reverses, surrounded by a labyrinth - the abyss - the spiral of origin and

exit; the actual life force.

The Devil explained that death was unpleasant. Very slowly the entire body rots and the consciousness falls into it. Surrounded by the organic stench, there is no way to be

comfortable and no way to avoid it. At least not for those he leads ashore. There are many other dimensions to transcendental existence, of course. No two could represent or care

for all. It was, after all, infinite.

I sat in the heat of the open sand land. My feet bare. Playing with glass grains. Of sand. Yes. Each one carved very intricately, though you would have to look at each grain

beneath an incredibly strong lens to see what kind of art was represented. The Devil could see each one and tell the difference between them; at least when wearing his incredibly

thick, dark spectacles.

"Does it ever rain?" I ask him, not meaning to change the subject. Suddenly I was fascinated by what would happen. "Would everything be flooded?"

"No. Occasionally it does flood, but that is okay. It waters my tree, and keeps things interesting." He then pointed over my shoulder, so I turned to see. My horror so apparent that

the Devil laughed heartily at me.

A tree grew solid and strong out of the sand

and within the blackened branches

there hung the remnants of a man

his skin was peeled back

his organs bulging with rot

flies stuck dead in the fluids

which burnt hot in the sun

"The soul is in there

under all that weight

trying desperately oh so desperately

to get out

to escape."

The human body the primordial cage

which seals in the soul

a lifetime determining

the fate

the face

was so monstrous

and oh so pathetic

I choked on my breath

and then vomited

pure bile

The Devil laughed

"A fountain for flowers

we'll have a garden

you and I

and to prove

I mean you no harm

we'll make it bloom from the warmth of the moon!"

It was night. I could no longer see.

The air smelled of aromatic hyacinth and narcissus.

As the moon rose it shown down like a cinnamon spotlight

The tree was filled with flowering fruit.

The man was somewhere hidden beneath the beautiful rich bark.

I no longer felt any longing or fear.

To be honest I was entirely too sick to my stomach to care.

Part Twelve:

It is months later now. It is the exact same moment within the tree, though outside it is always different. The tree. Do you think it is the Tree of Life or the Tree of Knowledge, or is

simply a hang man's limb? Is it the connected dots of the Sephiroth? Or is it the duality of have/have not created once upon a time? The serpent enticed with fresh fruit and

shame. It does not matter anymore.

What does matter is that the desert is a living landscape or penance for those with less than perfect balance. And somehow I've wound up here. Riding on the River Lethe, surfing in

on someone else's death. No one may come here, since no one can stay. And those that do may never leave anyway. They can't actually believe that they will become a newly

woven soul stepping backwards into nirvana, or become like a Hebrew letter or number, which is part of the Tetragrammatron, or maybe just a once sacred number. They can't

actually believe that there is a way out. The only way out is to die some more, and by then they won't care enough to walk forward. Here I am. A part of the landscape, but not a

grain of sand. Am I waiting for my number to be called to become on of those hanging from the limb of an ancient tree? Is it the Tree of Life? Or the Tree of Knowledge? Or simply a

hang man's limb? And really, what is the difference?

Part Thirteen:

When the body dies, the soul must transcend. It must die the death of the body and the mind, and then escape as body breaks down and rots; as synapses stop shooting electric

signals; as the charkas become unbalanced and dark; as the blood dries into a sticky murk; and organs fill with deep rooted lesions - not only can the soul get lost, it may also grow

tired and give up. It collapses within the body, it is owned by one of the desert's traders. Originally, I thought it was the Devil or something, but since there is no immediate G-d

here, it is not possible for there to be a Devil. All exists as it was originally created. That was hard for me to appreciate at first, though now I say simply, "It was all here before

Deuteronomy!" It was here before Sumeria, even. And more importantly, it will still exist when all is no more and a new age transcends. It is part of the cosmos. It is part of

creation. It is the exact opposite version.

Part Fourteen:

Within the tree hung a man on display. His skin pulled free. The organs each rotting. It was amazing how much more density there is in a bit of space here. The organs were huge,

and heavy, and bloated. His find in a kind of agony which was actually a bit comic. There was no blood, for blood flows with oxygen, and there is no air here. We do not breathe.

We exist on the electricity of an essence, pure vitality. In the Garden all is born of death, and that transcends the philosophies of modern thought and actuality. It transcends

everything. It is all. All is one. One grain of sand makes up millions of reflections into eternity.

I should be that man, yet instead I watch. I enjoy watching him suffer, for he was a bad person. I do not know who he is, but I am sure if he is there, then he must have been

unclean and unpleasant. I am polite and I am pretty. I am a flower in the Resurrection, so as opposed to rotting I am sturdy. I will not hang in judgment. Da'ath does not welcome

me, but I don't care. No one is welcome since no one may stay. Except the one who can get away. I am the result of a need which must be fed. But I too have needs, despite

being dead.

At that moment the Garden in the desert died before me, and the man on the limb of the tree caved in. I did not care. I was no longer frightened.

I even forgot to wonder for a moment what had happened to my lover, my friend.

End of Segment