Day 1

It is a cold day in October when I heard the voice of God. And what a voice it was. It boomed inside my skull, reverberated off the cranial walls, shaking my brain and dropping me to my knees. The day started normal enough, an uneventful morning, followed by a mind numbingly dull day of work. I changed in the funky smelling locker room and rushed through the lobby and outside into the urban hell, which sprawled in all directions before me. That is when I was mentally assaulted, a tiny jet going Mach 8 inside my skull, the sonic boom causing cracks to spread across the bone plates, the pain dropping me. People on the street stared and kept walking, my body slicing the flow of traffic like a scalpel through flesh. This being New York, they have seen it all. To them I am just another nutjob in a city full of them. My eyes feel like they are being pushed out of my sockets. I could picture them popping like some monstrous pus filled zit. Somehow despite the pain, a line from Slayer’s “Angel of Death” flashes through my mind “Pumping fluid inside your brain. The pressure in your skull begins pushing through your eyes.” If I were not in agony I would laugh. Suddenly, a voice oozed out from amidst the pain. “YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN! CHOSEN TO CLEANSE THE FILTH THAT DWELLS IN THIS CITY!” the voice announces. You may be wondering what the voice sounded like. Try to imagine a giant Barry White with a slight English accent.

I have gone insane is what I think to myself. Right here right now kneeling in dirty snow. All that acid and angel dust and ecstasy I’ve taken have finally caught up with me and caused my synapses to severe and basically just fucked my brain up. Right here on the corner of 31st and seventh. On my knees clutching my head. Feeling like a flock of birds is fluttering around trapped inside my brain box. I refuse to accept that God has actually spoken to me. I’m not religious at all. I hate church and I feel religion is overrated and a tool to keep the masses in check. Since I’m now crazy I wonder how I know it’s the voice of god and not just a loud as fuck regular joe voice in my head Weird. I’ve brushed myself off and continue down into Penn Station. I love Penn Station. It’s full of bums and crazies. People shun them and avoid them. Not me. I like talking to the mentally disturbed. They offer a unique perspective. Who is to say that they are crazy? Reality is what you perceive. And even if they are crazy it’s not their fault. It’s not like you wake up in the morning scratch your balls (or pussy, they get itchy too) and think to yourself “You know what? I think ill go fucking nuts today and wander the streets with a tinfoil jacket and talk to myself.” Talk to enough maniacs and every now and than you will get a little nugget of wisdom out of their ramblings.

My musings on the mentally disturbed aside, I made my way through the station towards the E train. I pass two police officers standing near the turnstiles. I notice one of them, a burly looking guy with a mustache, staring at me. I stare back. It seems like time has stopped, my eyes bore into his mind and I pierce the veil, I see his thoughts or rather I think his thoughts. ”Look at this guy. I’m sure he’s a fucking maniac or freak or some kind of degenerate. Filthy pants, bags under his eyes, probably a junkie.” Surprisingly I’m not shocked at being able to understand his thoughts, Strange, Reality snaps back into focus and I continue walking down the platform. I hate cops!

I exit the train station and enter my neighborhood. I live in Brooklyn. In what has become the trendiest neighborhood in the city. Hipsters and yuppies are drawn to this neighborhood like flies to shit. Like priests to young boys, like Germans to scat porn. Everything seems slightly off. Like I’m viewing things through cheesecloth. Damn voice of god had to ruin my day. I walk a few blocks until I get near the church around the corner from my apartment. I look up at the huge cross at the top. As I stare at the cross it begins to shine with a bright white light. Like the whole thing is made of sunlight turned solid. The cross begins to pulse. Fwoomp, Fwoomp, Fwoomp, with each pulse I hear that damn voice again, Fwoomp .”YOU” Fwoomp ”MUST”. Fwoomp. ”CLEANSE”. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cleanse the filth of this city. What am I some holy fucking janitor. I try to ignore the voice and I keep walking towards my apartment.

I approach my stoop when I notice a dirty Polish bum lying near the trashcans. Time goes all slow motion. ”Just one sip. One sip and ill be fine. Mmmm, The warm rush down my throat. To ease my bone aches to ease my mind. It’s all I need. All I want.” Reality hits me like a smack in the face. Pitiful, this wretched man. How did he come to this, laying in the street fiending for some alcohol. I reach into my pocket and pull out a wad of bills. I shove the money into his grimy hand and tell him to go get a bottle of vodka. The man is so overjoyed I can see tears welling up in his eyes, like a zombie he shuffles off towards the liquor store. Ok, I know what your thinking. I’m not helping his situation by giving him money for booze. Fuck that I felt his need and his pain, I know what its like to want.

I enter my apartment. Not much. One bedroom. A living room, a sarcophagus sized bathroom that makes me claustrophobic every time I take a shit and a crusty little kitchen. There is a small crucifix hanging above the doorway to my bedroom, it was my mothers. Sentimental value and all that shit. Unsurprisingly it’s glowing and pulsing. Fwoomp, ”YOU”, Fwoomp. Before I hear anymore I tear the cross off the wall snap it in half open my bedroom window and toss it out. I hear someone say “Ow!” I look out and see the same bum from before cradling a bottle of Georgi vodka in his right hand and rubbing his head with the other. The broken cross, no longer pulsing, lays at his feet .I could make a clever metaphor about the bums life and broken faith, but why bother I peel my clothes off like ‘m some flesh banana, Collapsing into bed my eyes close and I drift off into the surreality of my dreams. Gods voice faintly echoes in my head through my eyes and into the sky.

Day 2

I awake. Open my gummy eyes and think to myself. What a crazy fucking dream. At least I hope it was a dream. No. It was a dream. I shower and do the whole morning routine. I hate work. But I love the money. Cant live without money. Can’t make money unless you work. Life sucks and then you die. As I leave my building I see the drunk from last night .He is standing on the corner, in his right hand he is waving a taped up crucifix. Hmmm. It looks familiar. I’m distracted by his shouts ”I have been shown a sign!!!! The lord forgives and he heals!!!! Hear my words!!!! No longer will I drink my life away!!!!!! From drunken bum to Jesus freak overnight. Ah the lord he works in mysterious ways. I laugh to myself and continue on to the train.

I buy a metro card swipe my way in and wait for the next train. I’m a little zoned out. Thinking about that crazy dream. The train rumbles into the station like a metallic segmented creature. I see a seat available as the doors slide open. To my right I see an elderly woman making her way to the seat. I put on a burst of speed and slide into the seat before she gets there. She looks down at me and frowns. Fuck you grandma, I think to myself .You broads wanted equal rights that’s cool. She can stand just like a man could.

Directly across from me is a busty young Spanish woman her coat is open and she is showing miles of cleavage. I focus on her luscious flesh bags, My eyes, spelunking into her crevasse. I’m picturing my face buried in between her tits. A massive hard-on is spawned in my pants. I keep staring and I notice a small gold crucifix on a chain. The crucifix is cradled between her love humps. It begins to glow and pulse. FUCK. My erection instantly retreats into the safety of my body. God and hard-ons don’t mix. Fwoomp, ”YOU”, Fwoomp. ”MUST” Fwoomp. I quickly getup and move to the next car. Damn I guess it wasn’t a dream. I guess I really am insane. I take deep breaths and try and calm myself. What the hell does god want with me anyway?

The train stops on 34th Street and I push my way through the flock of sheep in suits. I’m kind of freaked out. Hopefully work will take my mind off the fact that I’m hearing voices. Well, a voice.

A little something about my job, I’m a security guard. Or as my supervisor says “We are security officers!” I work for this huge global pharmaceutical mega-corporation. Its boring work but it has its perks. For instance I have access to lots of drugs, all types of pills and good stuff. For example just 2 days before I was covering my friends’ overnight shift. I got bored and started poking around the lab. Found a small container of pills. There was only five in there. I read the label. Relaxerils. Nice, some heavy-duty painkillers. I spill the pills into my palm. They tumble out like little pebbles. Three are blue circles but there are two white oblong ones also. I examine the odd pills. There is something written on them. VOG-2.and on the other side a small cross or maybe a little plus sign. Whatever! I popped all five. Caught a nice buzz off of them too. So like I said there are perks to the job.

I should be hungry, usually I am hungry by this time. I’m not. A quick glance at the huge clock mounted on the lobby wall tells me its 12 noon. Break time. Finally. I’ve been floating around all morning. My mind is somewhere else, somewhere dark, damp and shitty smelling. My gut feels like its been stomped on. I old-man shuffle my way to the bathroom.

A face with the complexion and the color of old oatmeal, bags under its eyed, stares at me from the mirror. I feel like god chewed me up and shit me out and now I’m just steaming and slowly cooling in the wind. Soon to turn into a white, powdery dried up turd of a man. Haven’t heard Him all morning. Good. Good. Hope to never hear that voice again. It could have just been an acid flashback. I’ve taken acid, mushrooms, peyote, tons of hallucinatory drugs. I’m an experienced mental voyager. It could also mean I’m crazy. No. I’m not crazy. I know I’m not. Sure maybe not some “normal”, mainstream clone, but not crazy. I turn on the faucet and the sound of the flowing water soothes me. I splash some on my face and its coldness jolts me alert. Cools my fevered thoughts like some kind of Mentos for the mind. I picture my mind sizzling like a crack rock being smoked from a pipe. Air. Need some fresh air.

While leaving the bathroom and walking through the lobby I avoid eye contact with all the people I come across. Who knows what they’re thinking. I push through the revolving doors, into the crowded streets. Hundreds of people move and bustle. So congested, its as if they are one massive pile of flesh. They writhe like maggots on a corpse. We are maggots. Feasting on the dying flesh of this city, this filthy city. It must be cleansed.
Standing there staring at all these strangers, living simultaneously together, oblivious of each other, each one striving to succeed for the almighty I. I’m disgusted. Maybe god has a point. What the fuck!?! It’s like bandits hijacked the freight train of my thoughts. Me, the conductor, tied up and helpless to stop the train. Forced to watch. Forced to question myself. I stand across the street from Penn Station smoking a cigarette. Watching the flow of humanity. A homeless black man stands at the top of the escalator coming up from the station. He is talking to himself. People are forced to squeeze by him. His mangy mass disrupts the flow like pubic hair clogging a drain. I feel the same. Like I’m crazy and alone and the rest of the world is passing by me, while I can’t even comprehend what is going on. Well I guess the fresh air didn’t help.

The rest of the day passes in a blur. Co-workers comment on my unusual silence. “Sick.” is what I tell them. “Must be a bug going round’”. They accept my explanation without further comment. They don’t care enough to probe further. Almost makes me wish they would. Be nice to tell someone. Tell them what, that I hear the voice of god? Like I don’t get enough crazy looks from them as it is. 4:00PM. I’m free. Outside the corporate whores scuttle towards the trains like hermit crabs with shells made out of misery and ignorance. Both are a good defense, causing one to be callous to the world. They are free to return to their homes and families for the night. Only for the night, because their souls are forever shackled to the vast corporate machine, the machine that constantly churns out Product for us to consume. And what good little consumers we are. Fat greedy gluttons. Feasting until our stomachs are full. Regurgitating masticated chunks of product through our esophagus, because there is no more room in our stomach sacs. And still we hunger and crave for more. Always more.

Blending in with the crowd I serpentine my way towards the train. There is an old woman standing next to the turnstiles with a homemade billboard on her chest. A stream of clones block my view of what it says. I hear her ranting something about redemption and as I move through the turnstile, out of the corner of my eye, I see a cross drawn in marker on cardboard, begin to glow and throb. Eyes quickly squeezed shut, I shove my way blindly through the mass of people on the platform. A chorus of “Asshole!”, “Watch it pal!” and an odd “Kurva!” follow in my wake. I make it to the end of the platform.

For those of you who have ever been at the far end of the 34th Street E train station, you may notice that most of the time it smells like shit. The source of the smell is never evident. Can never be seen, but always smelled. A fresh smell that causes you to stop and check if you stepped in shit or check if someone, without your knowledge, gave you a Filthy Fuhrer (when a person smears shit on your upper lip directly beneath the nostrils, thus giving the recipient a look resembling, Adolf Hitler; Also known as the Crappy Chaplin.). Phantom shit smells. Spooky. Today is no exception. Nostrils full of fecal stench, I stare down the tunnel and think of crawling down there. Burrowing into the mounds of trash. Blanketing myself from the world above and just laying there until my body dies and putrefies and becomes just another undistinguishable heap of trash.

The opening of the subway doors right in front of my face startles me out of my stupor. I walk in and grab the first seat right next to the doors. To my right sits a young schoolgirl, her age maybe 11 or 12 years old. She is wearing a catholic school uniform, her bony legs jutting from beneath her skirt, her right hand absentmindedly picking at a scab on her right knee. Half the scab is still attached, the other loose from the skin. She lifts the scab up a little bit, exposing the moist red pulpy flesh beneath, than lowers it. Lifts. Than, lowers. Each time she lifts tiny strands of mucus cling and stretch, attached, scab to flesh. Just rip the fucking thing off already, I think to myself. Masochistic freak. I continue people watching, across from me and slightly to my left sits a creepy looking guy, skinny, wearing thick glasses, hair starting to thin. He is intensely focused on something. I follow his eyes and see he is staring at the scab girl. I look at the perv. His forehead has a faint sheen of perspiration, eyes gleaming, lusting. I continue to stare in his eyes unable to look away. Time turns to sludge. “So sweet, so young. Oh what I would do to her. Yes. Yes I will do it. Follow her. Wait. Than have my way. Oh I can taste her already.” I wrench my eyes away from the slime bag. My mind feels dirty. My stomach churns. That sick fuck! Someone should do something. That evil fuck! Who am I kidding? What can I do? How can I be sure that he will even try and hurt that girl, I am crazy after all. How can--My thoughts are cut short by the sight of the scab girl walking out the train and a second later being followed by the pervert. She’ll be ok. Nothing is gonna happen. She’ll be fine. Is my last thought as the train pulls away and the image of the girl on the platform grows smaller, smaller. Gone!

The Eclectic Pen » All Stories by Matt K. (Moforious)

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The Eclectic Pen - God? Are you there?(Part 1)

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