The Man of Stone

on a cobweb afternoon
in a room full of emptiness
by a freeway i confess
i was lost in the pages
of a book full of death
reading how we'll die alone
and if we're good we'll lay to rest
anywhere we want to go

in your house i long to be
room by room patiently
i'll wait for you there
like a stone i'll wait for you there
alone

on my deathbed i will pray
to the gods and the angels
like a pagan to anyone
who will take me to heaven
to a place i call
i was there so long ago
the sky was bruised
the wine was bled
and there you led me on

in your house i long to be
room by room patiently
i'll wait for you there
like a stone i'll wait for you there
alone

and on i read
until the day was gone
and i sat in regret
of all the things i've done
for all that i've blessed
and all that i've wronged
in dreams until my death
i will wander on

-Audio Slave


She was beautiful ..

Well I wish I could have said something like that instead of describing the misery of that climb. In fact .. I think I will leave it at that. No one wishes to hear of the mind stretching things I heard as I made my blindfolded way up that trail. The questions that were not mine to ask .. the answers that were not mine to know. No one wishes to hear of the bloody condition of my hands.. my knees ... my feet.... the boy-like tears that made mud trails down my scarred cheeks as if they were soft and new as I wished for some other task .. some other fate than to be there where I was. Feeling sorry for myself and knowing it made me weak and not caring enough to change it.

No one needs to know the times I almost decided that my revenge was not worth it. That I was ready to give it all up and just be me .. Just be Fonce. How simple that could have been if I had just seen what I had to be thankful for and not stretched my hand to the stars for the revenge I was so sure I needed. How often even the burn of my anger was nothing but glowing coals that barely kept me from stepping from the edge and ending all that misery.

How long did it take? I can not say. I know I felt the pangs of hunger and the headaches of thirst. I know I felt the faintness of blood loss. When I thought I could go no further .. when I was done ... I felt a small cold hand in mine. Tiny thin fingers that tucked themselves into my paw .. sliding slick against the wet warmth of my own. I nearly jumped out of my skin .. to feel another ... no matter who ... was a most beautiful thing to me .. stark and sharp and brilliant like a quiva blade in the moons light. It hurt worse than I can explain and felt so good that I wept like a child as I stumbled after.

The floor beneath my feet felt level .. an odd feeling to me now. The small hand tugged itself from my own and though I wished it would stay I let it go .. reaching for my blindfold. I eased the leather from my eyes and winced. Even though there was only one small torch upon the stone wall it seemed a terrible bright light that would sear my eyes from their sockets. Blinking I tried to force my focus to cut the objects from their shadows and gain me some kind of knowledge as to where I was. Of the small cold handed being there was no sign .. there was only a man .. a man of stone. Set upon the floor as if he had once been alive. The detail of his face .. his features ... fantastic. He was surrounded by the bones of men .. many men. Men who had come with weapons. Many different kinds .. great axes ... swords .. quiva... spears.

This then was the man .. the man who held all I needed to know. Whom I had sought and broken laws to find. I let my gaze travel to my hands .. to the shreds of skin. To the torn bloody leather of my knees .. what was left of my boots. The answers did not seem so important. The questions seemed far away. I had trouble remembering what it was I even meant to ask him.

It was then I realized I was inside .. inside and there was Sky only knew how many tons of rock over my head. I was inside and there was a shitload of rock between me and the Sky. I was inside. The panic swept through me slow .. deliberate ... like spreading flood waters over the plain. I took a step back .. meaning to return out the way I had come only .. there was no way out. There was nothing but smooth solid rock all the way around. I ran for the torch and ripped it from the wall .. searching the corners .. the shadows ... for a way out. But there was no way out. There was only the man .. and a scattering of bones and weapons across the floor .. others such as I who had risked all to find the answers to questions that had seemed so important to them at the time only to find out too late that everything that was truly important had been in their grasp the entire time. How foolish .. how wasteful .. how pathetic ... but I would not sit here and die like they had .. so easily ... I swept up a dweller's sword in my bloody hand and I raised it and my torch and I gave a Tuchuk battle cry as I charged that man of stone.