The Show

PREVIOUS: Part 3 HERE.

Amidst an ocean of inky velvet darkness, the scarred and pitted silver globe of the moon loomed overhead above the teeming festering ordered chaos of the city. It was a Boschian vista of hell that sprawled beneath the nighttime sky, a monstrous forest of titanic spires and tower blocks, all imposing blackened stone and concrete punctuated only with obsidian glass that gleamed with an inky lustre from the outside. Some were still lit from within, their exteriors riddled with tiny scales of warm yellow and orange light, or cold white luminescence. More were dark pillars of grey and night, empty of any sign of life and ghostly in the gloom.

Beneath these titanic sepulchres to the heart and days long since faded, clustered around the lurid radiance of streetlamps and neon signs, there stood a vast throng of people, a living river that snaked down streets and hills, far past the boundaries of vision in either direction along its length. The line assimilated individuals from all walks of life, some native to the city itself, some from distant lands. All shared one thing in common - faith. Every one of them had travelled here in pilgrimage, for this night was a special occasion. Above the city among the kaleidoscope of stars scattered across the firmament, the planets were aligning, and that would allow this world to be visited by the gods.

There are many kinds of god that can be found across existence, and many are the forms they come in. Some are bound to single worlds, never to gain power outside their chosen realm. Some are incomprehensible in their scale, unfathomable eldritch leviathans that sprawl across realities and are as vast and terrible to mortals as a human might seem to a bacterium living in their pores. But between the two ends there could be found scattered across creation a form of divinity that transcended barriers and universes and lines of worship.

It was a band of these gods that were about to grace the city with their presence.

And so it was that The Blogger stood in that great stagnant mass of pilgrims, waiting to witness the arrival of the gods. He knew well the nature of these gods, for it was not too dissimilar to his own. They too were Storytellers, travelling across time and space and reality to forge something from nothing, to create new worlds and share them with any who would bear audience to them. If his suspicions were correct, then like him they did not so for any tangible reason, but simply out of instinct - stories and creation came naturally to them, and so they released them into the ether, radiating them as a star might radiate gamma waves. They laid their souls bare for all, for no other reason than the passion of creation.

The key difference however, was scale. A Storyteller he may be, but The Blogger was still only mortal, and limited in the scope of his creations. These gods acted on a level several orders of magnitude greater, and they wielded one of the most powerful forms of magic in existence. The forms of sorcery that existed in the world were perhaps even more numerous than the gods, and over many years The Blogger had learned and dabbled in almost all of them. But this one in particular was for the gods alone, as only they could safely channel it, crafting it into verse and melody. It was a power as ancient as time itself, and it constantly swept through every world and reality, echoing across eternity. It could move mountains, it could shape destinies and shatter realities and dimensions. It moved men to war and love. It spurred the beat of the heart and the rush of the wind. It permeated and weaved together everything that is, was and ever shall be, and there was no limit to what it could do in the hands of a skilled practitioner.

It was the essence of creation, emotion and magic in its purest, wildest form.

The Blogger would never forget the fateful night when he had finally understood this ancient unseen force, truly feeling for the first time what had always been there just outside perception. For every soul alive and dead this magic presented countless aspects, each one a different guise of the same energy. Some were well known, propagated throughout the land, while others had never been discovered, and lay silent waiting for someone to conceive of them. Yet for every soul - or at least, every soul The Blogger had yet encountered - there existed a facet of it that resonated with them on an intrinsic level, that reached every part of their being and invigorated them with energy, meaning and purpose. Some might go their whole lives without ever finding it, but any who did would know it instantly - for within it was a reflection of themselves.

And it was these myriad aspects that had given rise to the gods that The Blogger now awaited, an entire order of them with each devoted to a different face of that deep primal energy. The Blogger himself had attempted to harness a portion of it at times, using traces of it to scry and weave chance at a keyboard through long dark nights and carrying it on his words as he wandered along the winding paths that ran between worlds. But he only ever captured reflections of that magic, and he was very content to do so. He knew all too well that such power was never intended to be handled by mortals, and there was much danger in them doing so.

It was almost time now. The Blogger reached down into his bulky satchel and quested inside it. After some time he retrieved what he was looking for, an ornate sand-glass fashioned from ebony midnight and dire silver, adorned with scripture announcing death and darkened days to come. Upon its five-pronged stand were designs of loss and mourning, worked into the device far more precisely than any mortal hand or device could have managed. The grains held within it were pure gold, glittering in the night time gloom, but as they passed from the upper chamber they landed in the bottom one dull and grey as graphite. The Blogger frowned as he examined the sand-glass, for the upper chamber of it was less than half-full.

As he waited The Blogger reached out with his inner senses. Peculiar to The Blogger was his ability to see the invisible. He beheld not just the tangible world but the secret forces which drove and twisted it. The Blogger could feel the focus of a scene or sequence, see the setup and foreshadowing around him, and - if he listened very closely - he could hear the non-diegetic score that underpinned the universe.

There was a very distinctive sound to the background on this night, one The Blogger had heard before. He recognised it as a tense shrill chord, a sharp clear note held in the air like a sword of Damocles. The Blogger thought it was a string of some kind that made it, but he had never definitively narrowed down the instrument that produced it. Nonetheless it left the world charged and on edge, poised for the dramatic. The Blogger could also pick up a second sound in the score, a roiling electric riff that surged in the distance like a whirlwind on the horizon. The Blogger knew it as the sound of the guitar, and it rang with defiance and moody darkness, a burning cry to action against conformity and a call to the wild black shadows of years gone by.

Some way down the line, from beneath a dark grey camouflage-clad hood, a pair of eyes landed upon The Blogger, and recognised that he did not belong.

At last the time had come, and The Blogger shuffled into the dark hall where the gods were to hold audience. It was a cavernous square space, yet retained a cosy atmosphere that permeated from its wooden floor and humble catwalks. One side held a small bar, bathed in a warm orange radiance from the lights over it. More illumination came from the ceiling somewhere far above, though the roof itself was invisible within the gloom. Pilgrims piled into the space by the dozens, crowding the catwalks and swarming the main floor. Acolytes handed out refreshments from behind the bar to those who were willing to pay. The Blogger made way for the front of the hall, pressing through the masses to get as close to the stage at its head as he could.

The Blogger still remembered the first time he had witnessed a visit from the gods. He had gone one night into a complete unknown, walking into a crowded amphitheatre alongside one of his closest and dearest friends. It did not matter how little he knew of what was to transpire, for it was important to her and he would make sure she was safe as best he could. That night The Blogger had been awestruck at the power he witnessed. The magnitude of it was overwhelming, and it took over a day for him to fully recover.

It had been the highlight of that year for him.

Above the chamber, the planets completed their convergence... and all hell broke loose within. The front of the hall erupted into light and smoke, dazzling with all the furious radiance of a solar flare. But it was the staggering unstoppable sound that struck first and hardest. It started with a beat, a tremendous concussive THUMP that struck the room like a thunderclap, and continued to punctuate the air with explosive percussion. Less than a second after it hit home it was joined by the song of guitars and bass, melding into a ringing roaring howl that coiled and twisted like a serpent. The arcane forces unleashed surged from the ambience and rolled over the crowd like a hurricane and left the air itself charged with energy. There was no respite given by the eldritch thaumaturgy as it belted along in a recklessly fast rhythm, racing across the ether and into eternity.

At the epicentre of the spectacle, in the eye of the storm, there marched the gods themselves, a band of figures that radiated might and wielded the overwhelming magic with deftness and ease as if it were utterly intrinsic to them. At their head was a goddess wreathed in a halo of burning radiance, who commanded the sorcery with words of fire and lightning. Standing no more than a few paces from the front of the room, The Blogger was directly before display and marvelled at how close he was to divinity. His heart filled with honour that he might be so close to these master Storytellers who he had nought but admiration for.

And after what had seemed like far too short a time, the enchantment was finished - though it was but the first of many for the night - and for the slightest fraction of an instant silence fell over the hall. The overwhelming power of the magic had coursed through The Blogger and left him reeling. His hearing had gone as the arcane force sucked all sound out of space and left only a sonorous void in its wake. His limbs were drained. And yet The Blogger was utterly invigorated, brimming with energy from the spell. It flowed with the blood in his veins and saturated the breath in his lungs. Now he could face down anything. He could march to hell and back again. For the time being, he knew neither pain nor fear nor weakness.

And before the instant was through the silence was gone, chased from the face of the earth as the crowd of pilgrims let out as one a tremendous uproaring cheer, bellowing to the heavens cries of praise and reaffirmed allegiance. It was a deep primal base wave of voices that welled up and charged forth in answer to the challenge of the gods. The Blogger threw his voice into the mix, and was joyous to do so. Like all his people The Blogger was at once blessed and at twice cursed with a gift of volume, his voice almost never truly able to reach a level of softness that could be considered quiet. Heavy, emphatic and commanding as it was his voice was one of the only features of him that The Blogger did not abhor, and he considered it an exceptional treasure, but all to often it would betray him in crowded locations and places where subtlety was called for. Thus it was that he was often left feeling hunted and reviled for something he had little control over. That was what made this moment important.

For here was one of the only places he felt free to be loud. Here, in this moment, he was neither blunt and invasive nor voiceless. Here, in this moment, he was at once his own self, and at twice a complete equal.

And upon hearing the cheer the gods responded in kind, and returned the favour with another arcane maelstrom. Once more a great thunderous tempest of sound crashed into the audience, soaring and weaving as a great invisible dragon of music, punctuated by strobing bolts of brilliance that left the surface of reality seared. After the song was over and met with another roar of adulation, they began again. This was how it was to be for the rest of the night, the gods casting song after spell after song after spell. They let loose rousing enchantments that set blood ablaze and implored all who heard them to death and glory in defending what they cherished. They cast slow, sombre ballads of sorrow and contemplation that drew tears from stone and were as dark and beautiful and mysterious as the infinite depths of the night sky. The Blogger could not always discern one from the other, such was the immense magnitude of the staggering forces turned loose, but it mattered not one bit to him as he reveled in the power washing over him. And in those instances where he heard a glimpse of his favourites, and saw a facet of himself reflected in the awesome display before him and sensed the eldritch energy that resonated every molecule, he knew implicitly that ancient unspoken truth:

Music is magic, songs are spells.

After an eternity sealed in an evening, the show came to its final conclusion, and the gods took their final bow, cast down to the masses relics blessed by their hand, and withdrew back from whence they came. As the hall fell dark and quiet and the pilgrims began to pour out, The Blogger staggered out into the night with jubilant triumph. He reached into his satchel and retrieved a packet of M&Ms, celebratory chocolate of the highest order. The Blogger tore off the top of the sac-like packaging, opened the top and began to enjoy fistfuls of the crisp round delights as he started on the long journey home.

And as he walked, a figure shrouded in a dark grey camouflaged hoodie slipped through the shadows behind him in pursuit...

Late At Night

PREVIOUS: Part 2 HERE.

Darkness lingered and mustered in pools of shadow around the soft golden light that faintly illuminated the room and the stuttering icy radiance of the TV that perched above a wooden cabinet at the far end of the lounge. Behind their blinds the windows beheld nothing but the inky abyss of midnight. On a sturdy, ornate wooden couch with cushions of red velvet lay a half-empty plastic tray of crumbs and Toffee-Pops, all sweet chocolate, simple biscuit and smooth honeyed caramel. Just the kind of thing for late night TV watching, especially under the familiar aegis of a blanket. On a shelf stood a glass that had once contained deep red nectar, but had since been depleted (why was the drink always empty?). Somewhere in another room a clock ticked with the undying percussive march of a metronome, only audible when the noise from the TV allowed it to be. Flashing upon the brilliant screen was the weekly episode of Scrubs, or at least one of the two that played consecutively. The Blogger had only recently discovered the show for himself after hearing much about it, but while he had come to find great humour in the hospital staff's bizarre antics, at present he was lost in a maelstrom of dire thoughts and non-digetic background scores.

For it was late, and it was at late hours like these that The Blogger pondered most deeply.

At the moment there was only one thing that the swirling winter darkness of The Blogger's innermost self was focused on utterly, and that was Her. Of course it was, it was always Her. Ever since they had first crossed paths he had been incapable of escaping the memory of her that echoed across his dreams like starlight. Everything about her had been extraordinary, down to the very nature of their meeting, a story which The Blogger would not have imagined even himself capturing - to find what he had been looking for, yet what had always been maddeningly distant, just by a magnificent chance after all these years, right when he wasn't looking, and to then find her again not once but twice, after being separated by gulfs of centuries and worlds, by ways that were so thematically intrinsic to him... the entire narrative fit together with a level of intricacy found only in truly memorable works.

The Blogger was loosing his mind. He had witnessed titanic clashes, strange and terrible creatures, epic quests, valiant heroes, terrifying villains and countless thousands of worlds, and yet in all his travels and adventures he had never encountered anything like her. The first time he ever saw her she had looked at him in a way that no-one else ever had before in his existence. He doubted he would ever forget the sly hint of a cautious smile he swore he could see her wearing.

From the moment he first beheld her he sensed great might and some tremendous significance about her, but that was to be only the beginning, a mere glimpse at what was to come. As soon as he had crossed paths with her again he started to encounter the phenomenal power about her, an immense energy the likes of which he had never known. Simply being near her set his nerves on fire and made something ancient deep inside him sing. Feelings that normally took months or even years to gestate in him she had managed to ignite in mere hours, and they only grew exponentially from there. By the time The Blogger was most recently in her company it was as if every molecule in his being was magnetised towards her, an unstoppable pull as irresistible as gravity, and it was all he could to to preserve him from taking flight then and there. For days afterwards he was unable to do almost anything other than sit and think of her, and his waking dreams were utterly consumed by visions of them together. when he was around her the music that permeated the universe swelled to a roaring crescendo until it was deafening.

And when she smiled at him, something ancient and deep inside him soared.

In just the short while he had known her The Blogger already knew she was an incredible person. In talking with her he had seen a person who was clever, wise, independent, kind, witty, and a litany of other attributes that could fill a book with their praises. He listened to her as she spoke of the daring adventures and arduous trials of her youth and marvelled at her elan and prowess. And in her he saw, perhaps, himself - the best aspects that he had (or thought he might have, at any rate), reflected and exemplified. He saw the kindred spirit he had always longed for, and he yearned to venture with her on all manner of mighty quests and adventures - for there was no doubt that she would be the finest of allies to fight by his side.

But perhaps what was most astonishing of all was how The Blogger responded to such forces. For almost an eternity now The Blogger had, in the end, been a broken soul, Long ago he had been trapped in the most agonising reaches of Hell, which had reduced him to a tortured, feral state from which he had never really fully recovered. While he had certainly made progress in restoring his humanity, he still often found great difficulty in engaging with... well, almost anyone really. This was not helped by his unique ways, values and methods, which only further distanced him from most others. But there was none of that with her. He did not know why, but whenever she was near him things were suddenly simple. There were no doubts, no hesitance, no overthinking. It was as if the sun shone through him and everything was suddenly clear, and despite being simultaneously reduced to a wrecked mass of fried nerves and exoneration The Blogger found he was more coherent, confident and calm than he had felt in aeons. He was more comfortable around her than he had ever really known with anyone in living memory. There was no fear, no horror, just two souls connecting over common ground and enjoying themselves.

Yet none of these things was deliberate on the part of The Blogger. All the reactions, all the thoughts, all of the feelings were happening entirely outside of his control. They were as immediate and automatic as the fusion in a star.

And it was this that horrified The Blogger most of all. From virtually the start of his sad, sorry history of relations romantic in nature he had been told several consistent messages from the wider world, and not least among them was the rightful order of how such feelings should come about - as a gradual process formed by great stretches of repeated contact with the object of one's affections. To form anything even resembling those infamous four letters and the nuclear reaction they caused when properly arranged after anything less than a full rotation around the sun was unnatural and wrong. Given his current predicament, The Blogger could reach only one logical conclusion - that he was truly even more of an abomination than even he had imagined, a wretched cancer and diseased failure for harbouring such weakness. After all, to the best of his knowledge none of the lasting couples he had known had arisen from such circumstances.

Not that it mattered now, of course. Before he was able to tell her anything of how he really felt it had ended the way it always did with The Blogger - she had said she lacked the time for anything of the sort. He could not think of any reason she might have to lie, but it would be far from the first time such a justification had been used as a pretext for unrequited feelings. Either way it left him with a strange and troubling mystery, for it had come entirely without warning or omen - until the dire message came she had shown what seemed to be nothing but interest in him, conveyed in nearly everything from what she said to how she acted. According to all he knew, every sign pointed towards a positive end, and he had taken tremendous pains to do as much right as he could. He had been certain that at long last he had found someone who might understand him, who might actually want him for what he was (perhaps that was his great mistake), and every indication he had seen had led the same way. Of course, The Blogger was no stranger to such things misleading him - indeed, as he had been sure to remind himself for years now, no matter how sure he was that he was right, he was still wrong. He was always wrong.

But then he had heard of a similar happening, and another possibility had occurred to him.He recalled how people could sometimes be afraid, and wondered if perhaps that might have happened here. Maybe when she had more time free he would see more of her. And that was the most damming agony of all, not knowing. Maybe she did like him, maybe she didn't. Maybe he would see her again, maybe she had already been swept away by someone else. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he was right. Maybe she was just frightened, maybe he had read everything wrong. It was this black, nightmarish, venomous splinter in his mind that was driving him ever further towards total insanity: maybe.

Maybe Maybe Maybe Maybe...

It was late now, very late. Infomercials played on the TV, before The Blogger silenced them. The plastic tray was now empty.

At once, the clock ceased, and the noise went out.

NEXT: Part 4 HERE.