fallen in fall

Rain comes. At first I hoped that it would cleanse the place, wash away the dirt and the dirty memories, but I was very wrong. It's only washing away those things that aren't dirty enough to stick to the ground, it clears the place of everything new and untainted.

Despite of the tempest I am leaving my makeshift shelter to hunt after the few things that I don't want to see leave. I pick up a half-drowned pink plush horse, which I imagine must have belonged to a little girl, being its friend through happy childhood days and dreamless nights. Its parents must've thrown the toy away as she grew older. That's how it always goes, you're stripped of things old and dear to make you grow tough enough to face life alone.

Then I notice an antique umbrella, black and with lace at the rim, like the ones held by widows at the burial of their loved. I shake it, trying to dry it from the water, but the rain has grown so heavy that it just starts running full again. I hide it beneath my coat when I notice more and more things being ripped away by the gurgling torrent.

All night long I run after broken toys, faded memories and discarded luxuries. The more I gather, the more starts to fall from my hands, only to drown immediately and vanish forever. I wonder where all this water goes and the image of a giant maelstrom comes to my mind, slowly circling in the center of the dumpyard, it's watery maw sucking up everything once held dear by people and delivering its harvest straight down into a hell that is devoid of beings, but full of things and long forgotten dreams.

Wish I had a home, but as it turned out long ago, all my hiding places, all the havens of refuge, are now in possession by people without compassion. Makes me feel like a lone leaf on all the water, but winter draws near and I fear the water may freeze and lock me in stasis. What in spring might have carried me around the world, to locations new and exciting, now turns out to hold me back as the year wanes away.

A dim, gray and yellow morning has risen while I was down. I don't recall falling and passing out, only remember hunting down objects beckoning me from the water, and my legs growing more and more tired of wading through the opposing stream.

The rain hasn't stopped, though it has lost force, maybe having expended its power in its battle against me. The water still flows, but it grows more shallow as the time passes. It seems I have thrown myself on an old armchair, which now stands erect like a giant tombstone amidst the bleak and empty world. Through the rain I can still feel the buildings beyond, though.

Sitting up I notice that I had my arms around a mannequin. I stand up and gently settle it into the armchair. It has no head, nevertheless I turn the chair around to face the direction where I suspect the dim and mocking sunrise.

I turn around just in time to see the plush horse that I saved last night vanish in the waters. I stand silently and ponder whether I should try and run after it, until it is too late anyway.

The only other loot I have left is the black umbrella. The thought now occurs to me that I could have opened it to shield me from the weather. Or I could have stuffed other things into it to keep them from falling away.

I try to open it, only to find that it is broken, so I leave it behind with the mannequin.

Having no clue as to where I am, I start to wander aimlessly, searching for the place where I had built my shelter, fearing that it may not have survived the tempest.

I think I remember some odd landmarks, but everything has changed with the storm, the order of things as I knew it has dissolved in the waters. It all begins to look more and more alien to me the farther I go. At last it doesn't seem to make sense searching for a place that hasn't been more of a home than all the other barrels and dead cars around me.

I drag myself to the nearest car's carcass and lie down in it. There's a stack of old magazines and newspapers on the back seat, which by a miracle seem to have survived the rain. I cover myself with them, hoping that they might suck up the water from my clothes a little.

Wrapped in drenched cloth and wet newspapers, I awake. Looks as if the headlines are weeping. They're not actually fading, but rather the background, the paper, is growing gray and so dark that you can no longer tell them apart.

Reminds me of life, sometimes...

The rain is no more and the water flows away towards some unknown destination. It leaves behind a dirty mess of garbage and mud. At first I hope that my clothes will dry during the day, but it's getting chilly, and by evening I'm cold and coughing blood.

Last night I stumbled upon a dead dog. It must have passed away on hunger since it was so starved that its ribs had risen through the flesh like a furry cage trying to hold back the soul. I suspect it had been stricken by a different kind of hunger, a different kind of longing, like all of us that come here. The dog must have been lying on the ground when its soul ran out, legs outstretched to front and back. During nighttime, when the temperature had dropped beyond life, it had been frozen solid and someone had picked it up and stuck its hind feet into the cold earth.

It still stands there today, like a statue, like it was trying desperately to crawl up into heaven, and it will stand there till spring will come and rot everything away.

I've not been a lone soul during my stay in the dumps, but I sure am now. Every time I pass one of the burnt-out cars or thrown-away closets I notice another fellow victim, dead by exposure to a world that grew more and more alien to them, until they could no longer bear its atmosphere and suffocated on sorrow. The skin all white and bristled, like old and frozen snow. All of them die with their mouths wide open and their eyes closed, and I know why. I feel it myself, the haunting dread that is following my every step, lurking behind the facades of the buildings, sniffing at the tracks I leave, inhaling the scent of fear and despair I'm leaving behind.

Some people die crouched up in discarded suitcases. Makes me think of portable coffins and I wonder who builds them and who plans to collect them when time itself is finally done for.

I've come to a place in the dumps where it borders on the rest of the city. Beyond the fence I can make out what seems to be a stonemason's backyard. There's a statue of an angel, its beautiful, weather-worn face looking down, its sword held high above its head, ready to strike down with passion.

There are tombstones of weird shapes and sizes lying around, all uninscribed yet, waiting for someone of whom to remind others. To me they look like dismembered heads and torsos. I wonder what I would rather call dismembered, the head or the torso, but I recall having heard that before, somewhere, somewhen.

I follow the fence for a little while, but I fear more angels could be waiting there, so I finally start heading directly away from the city, straight for the center, the heart of the dumpyard.

I'm tired and feel very sick, loosing all sense of time as I pass waste, wrecks and bodies, and as sun and moon pass me.

The farther I wander, the more the impression of destination manifests itself within me. There is something ahead of me. At first I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, that I had grown too feeble to discern between imagination and reality. Although I cannot be sure, my heart confirms what my eyes make me see.

There's a vague shadow up ahead.

This must be the center, the center of things. A thin ray of darkness that pierces the sky, but the longer I stagger towards it, the wider it gets and I finally understand that it isn't as thin and fragile as it seemed. It must be enormous, some huge pillar or tower maybe, or the feet of god touching earth at its worst. To me it appears just as a dark ray in the fog, sucking up light during day, concentrating blackness during night. And my heart grows full of dread and anxiety as I drag myself onwards.

How much time has passed I cannot say, maybe years, though I didn't really feel them. There is only silence and there is pain with every breath my dying lungs rip from the stale, yellowish fog. Though the garbage and refuse are still all around me, my mind has blocked them out completely. To me, the dumpyard appears as an endless wasteland, devoid of things, devoid of life. All that remains, my terminal reason of being, is that dark shape in front of me. That vision of a bottomless hell in the center of the dumpyard forms in my mind from time to time and maybe that dark area ahead is just the unlight spilling out from beneath. The thought frightens me, but yet I stumble on, unable to stray from that straight path. No matter what it is that looms up ahead of me, I have to see it, have to understand it before my body fails me completely.

It's the place where all the water goes.

My legs fail me and I am often overcome with a dizziness that takes longer and longer to dispel every time it hits me. However, I have the feeling that I've gotten close. The dark shape is no longer just a landmark. I am so close that its enormous size divides my world into a dayside behind me and a nightside ahead. I sometimes imagine that there are features jutting out from the shadow. That gloomy fog is playing tricks on my senses, even makes me shudder as it crawls over my skin, leaving behind a faint chill, like the touch of a ghost.

Movement has become difficult, not only because of my growing weakness. The garbage around me has grown and my mind can no longer adhere to its vision of bleak emptiness. The discards are huge and ghastly and covered by dirt and smaller hunks of trash. This is what they must have filtered out as the waters rushed past into the waiting darkness. I crawl over wings of broken airplanes, gazing up at the even bigger carcasses. Some even look like spaceships, made of dreams and longing, of course.

A sharp sound tears me from my thoughts. It's the first sound in ages and it is the angry yell of a dog.

I climb over a ridge of metal and look down.

The barking has grown into an angry cascade of growls. There are two dogs ahead, crouched on what seems to be the surface of a giant cogwheel's tooth. They're facing each other, slowly dancing around some object on the ground. Carefully I climb sideways, trying to get nearer.

After a while I can finally make out what it is that they're fighting over. Food. It's an old can of packed meat, rusted open at the sides. My sense of smell comes back in an unpleasant way and I can clearly tell from a distance that the meat is foul and rotten. As I draw near I can even see it shimmer green and white through the moist fog.

It is not food they are fighting over, it is poison.

While watching them a strange determination overcomes me. I will not let these last living beings die from the contents of that Pandora's can. I feel a sudden duty to save them.

Slowly I make my way through the rubble around me, climbing higher up until I am on the cogwheel tooth above them. They haven't noticed me, all absorbed in their eternal stand-off.

I pause for a while, gathering what's left of my strength and resolution.

Then I jump.

Something breaks and a fresh gush of pain pierces me. I taste blood and am for a moment puzzled by its bitter and weird aftertaste. An anguished scream escapes my throat. It takes me a few seconds to realize that it's one of the dogs' death song, not my own. Disturbed by my sudden entrance into their world I must have broken the balance. One of them has bitten the other one dead.

Stunned, I look up, straight into the blood-smeared face of the victor. The dog regards me with squinting, purple eyes, though I become uncomfortably aware of the signs of hurt and loss within them.

I look at the rotten can of meat and the dog's eyes follow my gaze. It takes a careful step towards the price. I groan and with the last of my strength I lunge forward, grab the can and fling it over the ledge. Then the world falls to red as the victor grabs me and tears through my body with its unforgiving teeth.

After it's over I just keep lying where I am. The dog has run off after the can and the bitter irony of things strikes me as I hear it tearing at the can and gulping down its horrid contents.

I never knew death was such a slow dancer.

Minutes pass.

Hours pass, and I still lie bleeding.

Finally the dog is with me again, wincing from disease and pain. He walks up to me and licks the blood from my face.

I feel the pain, I smell his breath, I taste tears and blood, and as I see him running away for the center I finally hear faint laughter drifting out of the darkness.

Victim is spelled with an “I” or two...