Post by #lastofmykind on Sept 2, 2015 18:23:44 GMT -6
Wilhelm Wundt once remarked "Among the activities attributed by myths all over the world to demons, the harmful predominate; so that in popular belief bad demons are clearly older than good ones."
Contemporary Western occultist tradition typically uses a demon as a metaphor for a person's inner psychological struggle.
I say fuck 'em, I've seen demons and I know where they are.
Sitting on top of the roof of my warehouse on a Wednesday afternoon, I'm a little surprised when someone comes to join me, a case of beer in one hand, a keg over his shoulder on the other.
"You know, those things are startin' to worry all of us, big man," Naiser King tells me, and I nod, not saying much of a word.
"I'd like to tell you guys I have an answer, but I don't. Considering I've seen some stupidly weird shit over the past year before you knuckleheads came into my life, I've got idea...I just need to convince you guys I'm not crazy," I say. "That's the million dollar problem. The idea I have is so crazy that it sounds insane in my head. I can't even speak the words without thinking I've gone mad."
"Well, considering you're among family, try me," Naiser laughs, grabbing one of the beers and handing me one.
"I think I've seen into NoVaK's head," I mumble, with him just turning his head on a swivel.
"You're insane," he says without a second of hesitation.
"You're a real good pal, Mountain," I mumble.
"First off, just the mere idea you've seen the inside of someone's head is crazy. The fact that the head you think you've been inside is a guy who I'm convinced is nothing but moth balls and the Twilight Zone...I'm not sure what to make of it. This sounds incredibly far fetched," he tells me.
"Matthew Novak is a kid that needs help, Mountain. And he's lost in...something. I don't know what's guiding him or what drowned him, but I can't let whatever did that to him do it to me," I tell him, just having a small sip of the beer as I look out at the ocean toward what I see as the best view in the whole city, knowing that I just need some serenity to let myself not have to constantly hear that white noise. "It has to be drowning him because it's trying to drown me. I get angry, I hear this static and suddenly I can't breathe. I'm drowning and it feels like I'm suffocating. It's like being thrown into the deepest end of the pool and you don't know what's going on. You don't know which end is the way up or out, and then it's like...I hear her. I see her, and I find the way to breathe again," I tell him.
"Hear who?" he asks.
"Siobhan," I say almost inaudibly.
"You're the only two people that don't say the one thing everyone knows," he laughs.
"Because we just don't say it," I respond.
"What, you afraid it's gonna turn you into a fuckin' bullfrog or something?" he asks.
"No, because those three words complicate everything, Naiser. I said them to Payton, and she's dead and never coming back. I said them to Cailey and...well, we all saw what happened there."
"So you think saying it is going to hurt her?" he asks me.
"No, I think that saying them is just doesn't help anyone out. If two people know something, it doesn't mean you have to say it out loud," I say. "Sometimes, all that matters is that the two people who share a secret are the ones who know."
But we're not the only ones who know. NoVaK knows. In those rare moments we've been linked up and share those moments when we're one person...entity, the moments where I'm suffering from my seizure, NoVaK has seen the things I never wanted him to see. The things about my father, the things about everything that's frightened me to the bone with my fears. He knows my bond with Gabby, my friendship with Rachel.
He knows about my promise.
"You ever think she wants to hear you say it?" he asks me.
"No, or she wouldn't have made that promise," I say quietly.
"You're really thick, you know that? She made the promise because of you. You ever thought that sometimes she might just want to hear it?" he asks me.
"You guys put too much stock in the idea that someone needs to be told they're loved. Look at you and me, Mountain. You don't have to tell me you got my back, I just know it. I know we're friends, man. I know our bond is deeper. I don't have to hear you say these things to me, because it's unspoken. The best things aren't always said out loud. Sometimes, we all need our secrets," I say, reaching for a cigarette. The moment I light one up and take a drag though...is the exact moment I realize I don't want to smoke anymore. I've probably had way too many in my lifetime anyways. Flicking it away, I just stop and look over at the big man. "I'm almost convinced this is what hell feels like," I tell him. "Like imagine watching television but the signal starts to get messed up and static like, and you're seeing not just your show but a show on another channel over," I say. "Every now and then, I feel like that's what's happening and that's when I feel a prelude to those weird episodes and seizures. Then, for those moments, it's like I'm watching a whole new show. And I'm suffocating until I see her. When I say her conscience calls the guilty to come home, I mean it. It's like she's trying to bring me back."
"That's deep, bud," he tells me. "What are you guilty of?"
"What am I not? Criminal assault, basically. Dealing weed, being just a bit of a bastard. Been trying to clean up my act and go legit the past few months. I don't even know if Siobhan knows it yet. Part of me is just wondering how much farther I have to go to get clean again. And it seems like no matter how hard I want to get clean, there's just too many chances for it to go fuck all wrong. So I don't know, maybe I want to do right with people for once. Maybe do the Robin Hood shit," I laugh.
"So you think the rest of us are gonna go with that?" he asks.
"I don't know, maybe Chris," I say with a sigh. "Gunnar, you? I don't know. Been thinking of adding a couple of new guys to the mix. We've got a lot of people we're close to," I mention.
"Like?" he's questions me.
"Evie if she's down. I owe Abs and Pocket Thunder consideration," I say. "I don't even know anymore. I can't make any judgment calls until my head's right," I tell him. "Maybe I need to go see Striker, talk to him a bit. Sharp can't hold my hand forever," I say. "I don't know, I'm in no position to make any decisions," I finish while running my hands along my tired face. "I need to stop thinking about it before I start letting it get to me. Before I lose all that distraction and I feel the transmission changing again.
"At some point, you need to drown those demons, Care," Naiser tells me.
"Hard to drown a demon when it's learned how to swim."
In the middle of this, I hear her screaming for me.
She's begging and pleading, and I feel like I'm not even tangible. Every attempt to grab her just has me reaching for air, for nothing. When I reach out, we're both incapable of finding one another. The fact is that we have a lack of gravity going for us at the moment, and we're floating. Naiser was great for a while, and I needed a chance to focus and gear myself up for two of the more important matches I've had in a career that's gone surprisingly longer than I thought it would. While I sit here, I'm sitting here, and I'm thinking about it.
The demons New Eden brought into my life.
The demons that drove Cailey away that Siobhan has partially embraced and partially despised me for.
The demon that Chris Strike is making me.
The demon NoVaK is making me.
Everything I've ever had that was good in my life, I've destroyed. I do a lot of damage in my life, because I've never been able to just accept something was okay. And the more I try to just accept things, the more I realize that I need to get better. At some point in time, I have to be willing to fix myself, so maybe it doesn't hurt that I'm trying to purge this monster. Maybe by slaying one demon, I can kill them all. I'm not asking to be some grand hero, because I'm not one.
I'm never gonna be the hero to the world, the person Fiona Collins used to be.
I'm never even going to be the vigilante Jonathan Collins was, a man who could do the worst to do good things.
I'm Carey Caldwell. At worst, I'm a man in disguise that's pretending to have noble intentions. At my worst, I'm Beowulf. At my best, I'm just a guy trying to find some redemption in a world that doesn't seem to want to give me any vengeance.
And maybe I don't deserve it. Maybe there's too much on these hands.
And while I'm writing down each of these sins, trying to see just what's on my internal criminal record that would give me a reason to believe I can't be saved, that's when I hear it. That's when I hear her again.
"You're scaring me, Carey."
And I hear her. I know that she's calling me, and in that moment, I'm not sure I'm a natural born killer anymore. In this endless war in my head that keeps making my own transmissions grow from crystal clear into white noise, those four words become clarity. High definition clarity.
And even if I've written and scribbled my sins across an entire wall of the warehouse, she's the one to grab my hand and stop me, only to force me to look at her.
"You're not even there," she says in a broken whisper, my eyes telling her that nobody's home...but only for a second before I'm back in my body, rescued from drowning in a sea of stars. The ghost reconnects to the machine, and the out of body experience is over. "Carey, come back to me. I l-"
"You promised," I whisper, and I drop the pencil, just turning to look at her hand grabbing my own.
"Don't worry, it'll all be over soon," I tell her quietly.
"STOP SAYING THAT! YOU KEEP SAYING THAT AND I HATE IT! I HATE IT!" she screams at me, and she starts punching my chest repeatedly to wake up something in me. My free hand grabs her own and I look at her carefully before I stop her.
Our eyes lock.
"I'm here. It's okay. I promise it's okay," I tell her softly and I kiss her. It's the kiss she wanted, and she leaps up to wrap her legs around me, and it's like she's trying to get me to feel something, anything that'll put the demon at bay for a bit. Maybe even putting the end to the inner demon that's trying to make me an outer one. Before I know it, her back is slammed against the wall that has each and every one of my crimes out for the world to see. Clothes are torn off, and as I reach up to grab ample breasts, she's moaning, begging me to set her free.
"Do it," she says in a breathless whisper. "Now." she begs.
And I know that there is something inside of me aching to have her. For all the times I've told the world that when we're alone, our bodies speak in a language that only we get. It's always been about her when we're speaking, but as her hips grind against mine like they're trying to dig in to find the proper spot, as my hands are squeezing and touching, pawing at her like I have to have at her, and she's screaming.
"CAREY," she says, the Irish accent in her screams even when she calls for me. She's trying to put some form of life back into me by trying to provide me with momentary death.
There goes the belt.
There goes her bra.
There go my jeans.
There go her shorts.
"Forgot something," I mumble.
"I'm havin' a good body image day," she giggles, and before I know it, my boxers have hit the ground, and I'm inside of her. It was like this the first time we met in a bar outside of San Diego, but the longer she stayed in my life, the more emotion there was in it. Now it's just raw. Now it's intense, but it didn't sacrifice the feeling. She's looking to find me, looking to pull something out of me as she continues to keep me in between her thighs. She keeps calling for me, screaming my name in ways she has never done prior to today. She's called for me before, even in the middle of fucking, but it's almost like she's screaming to keep me here and not whatever beast this incident with NoVaK is turning me into. I know I'm changing, I know I'm becoming something else, but I have a choice to either be that monster or be the person I want to be for once.
According to Sharp, I've been marked with something for Hal Snyder. I'm nobody's pawn.
With the way some of those marked have seemingly ended up, with my own issues with how everyone has been, I'm nobody's victim.
And as NoVaK is going to come to learn, I'm nobody's puppet.
I'm more than machine. I'm more than beast.
I have an opportunity to find a longer timeline. To be more than just someone on borrowed time. And while I see my path increasing farther, like a whole bucket of sand being dumped into an hourglass to let it overflow, she's calling for me again in the same familiar ways.
"CAREY!" she screams in ecstasy, her hands clawing at my back. She's trying to tear me in two while I'm trying to split her in two, all proverbially on either end.
"Come back to me, Rebel," she says, her voice softening and hoarse from the screaming, trying to coax the life back into me.
"I'm here," I reply back, my own breathless whisper.
And for the moment, the demons have retreated from the light. I might be a demon in the making, but I'm being guided by an angel.
I'm still shirtless, her wrapped up in my t-shirt and back in her own shorts while I'm sitting on the roof again, looking at the keg. It's Wednesday, and people know what that means.
"You can put the word out, we're still having everyone over tonight. I'm fine, I am. I'm trying to keep it all at bay, and you have to understand that it's not easy. With everything going on in my head, it gets like static. It scrambl--" I say before she kisses my lips.
"It's going to scare me because of what ye mean to me, Carey. I'm scared because of what I've seen. Ye came into my life and I've seen some really fucked up shite because of ye and your friends. And I can't be yer savior, Carey...but I can be the first person that's ever going to tell you that I won't give up. We got this far...what's a little farther?" she asks me, and I look at her.
"I can beat this," I promise her.
"I know ye can, Carey. Just try not to give me a heart attack while ye do it," she laughs, curling up in my arms. And in these moments, I know I'm not alone. I've never really been alone, because even if I feel it, she's right there. And she's anchoring me.
Months ago, Evie called me her anchor. I never understood what it meant, but even now, I'm starting to understand why people need those anchors. When those of us who have these dark sides, these monsters in our souls, we need something that can remind us that we don't have to be a complete monster. Even in the midst of the darkness, we all need a little bit of something that binds us to earth. We need our gravity.
So even if it hurts to come crashing down, her Irish eyes leave me a safe place to land.
"C'mon now. Don't get too mushy for me. Let's just have our evening with friends. We got a keg, I got my gear boxed up to spin tables, so...what do you think?" I ask her.
"I think I could use a bit of the routine lately. Sure beats finding family in tribes and surprise visits from me cousin Caitlin," she laughs.
And for now, everything is right.
About goddamn fucking time.
Contemporary Western occultist tradition typically uses a demon as a metaphor for a person's inner psychological struggle.
I say fuck 'em, I've seen demons and I know where they are.
Sitting on top of the roof of my warehouse on a Wednesday afternoon, I'm a little surprised when someone comes to join me, a case of beer in one hand, a keg over his shoulder on the other.
"You know, those things are startin' to worry all of us, big man," Naiser King tells me, and I nod, not saying much of a word.
"I'd like to tell you guys I have an answer, but I don't. Considering I've seen some stupidly weird shit over the past year before you knuckleheads came into my life, I've got idea...I just need to convince you guys I'm not crazy," I say. "That's the million dollar problem. The idea I have is so crazy that it sounds insane in my head. I can't even speak the words without thinking I've gone mad."
"Well, considering you're among family, try me," Naiser laughs, grabbing one of the beers and handing me one.
"I think I've seen into NoVaK's head," I mumble, with him just turning his head on a swivel.
"You're insane," he says without a second of hesitation.
"You're a real good pal, Mountain," I mumble.
"First off, just the mere idea you've seen the inside of someone's head is crazy. The fact that the head you think you've been inside is a guy who I'm convinced is nothing but moth balls and the Twilight Zone...I'm not sure what to make of it. This sounds incredibly far fetched," he tells me.
"Matthew Novak is a kid that needs help, Mountain. And he's lost in...something. I don't know what's guiding him or what drowned him, but I can't let whatever did that to him do it to me," I tell him, just having a small sip of the beer as I look out at the ocean toward what I see as the best view in the whole city, knowing that I just need some serenity to let myself not have to constantly hear that white noise. "It has to be drowning him because it's trying to drown me. I get angry, I hear this static and suddenly I can't breathe. I'm drowning and it feels like I'm suffocating. It's like being thrown into the deepest end of the pool and you don't know what's going on. You don't know which end is the way up or out, and then it's like...I hear her. I see her, and I find the way to breathe again," I tell him.
"Hear who?" he asks.
"Siobhan," I say almost inaudibly.
"You're the only two people that don't say the one thing everyone knows," he laughs.
"Because we just don't say it," I respond.
"What, you afraid it's gonna turn you into a fuckin' bullfrog or something?" he asks.
"No, because those three words complicate everything, Naiser. I said them to Payton, and she's dead and never coming back. I said them to Cailey and...well, we all saw what happened there."
"So you think saying it is going to hurt her?" he asks me.
"No, I think that saying them is just doesn't help anyone out. If two people know something, it doesn't mean you have to say it out loud," I say. "Sometimes, all that matters is that the two people who share a secret are the ones who know."
But we're not the only ones who know. NoVaK knows. In those rare moments we've been linked up and share those moments when we're one person...entity, the moments where I'm suffering from my seizure, NoVaK has seen the things I never wanted him to see. The things about my father, the things about everything that's frightened me to the bone with my fears. He knows my bond with Gabby, my friendship with Rachel.
He knows about my promise.
"You ever think she wants to hear you say it?" he asks me.
"No, or she wouldn't have made that promise," I say quietly.
"You're really thick, you know that? She made the promise because of you. You ever thought that sometimes she might just want to hear it?" he asks me.
"You guys put too much stock in the idea that someone needs to be told they're loved. Look at you and me, Mountain. You don't have to tell me you got my back, I just know it. I know we're friends, man. I know our bond is deeper. I don't have to hear you say these things to me, because it's unspoken. The best things aren't always said out loud. Sometimes, we all need our secrets," I say, reaching for a cigarette. The moment I light one up and take a drag though...is the exact moment I realize I don't want to smoke anymore. I've probably had way too many in my lifetime anyways. Flicking it away, I just stop and look over at the big man. "I'm almost convinced this is what hell feels like," I tell him. "Like imagine watching television but the signal starts to get messed up and static like, and you're seeing not just your show but a show on another channel over," I say. "Every now and then, I feel like that's what's happening and that's when I feel a prelude to those weird episodes and seizures. Then, for those moments, it's like I'm watching a whole new show. And I'm suffocating until I see her. When I say her conscience calls the guilty to come home, I mean it. It's like she's trying to bring me back."
"That's deep, bud," he tells me. "What are you guilty of?"
"What am I not? Criminal assault, basically. Dealing weed, being just a bit of a bastard. Been trying to clean up my act and go legit the past few months. I don't even know if Siobhan knows it yet. Part of me is just wondering how much farther I have to go to get clean again. And it seems like no matter how hard I want to get clean, there's just too many chances for it to go fuck all wrong. So I don't know, maybe I want to do right with people for once. Maybe do the Robin Hood shit," I laugh.
"So you think the rest of us are gonna go with that?" he asks.
"I don't know, maybe Chris," I say with a sigh. "Gunnar, you? I don't know. Been thinking of adding a couple of new guys to the mix. We've got a lot of people we're close to," I mention.
"Like?" he's questions me.
"Evie if she's down. I owe Abs and Pocket Thunder consideration," I say. "I don't even know anymore. I can't make any judgment calls until my head's right," I tell him. "Maybe I need to go see Striker, talk to him a bit. Sharp can't hold my hand forever," I say. "I don't know, I'm in no position to make any decisions," I finish while running my hands along my tired face. "I need to stop thinking about it before I start letting it get to me. Before I lose all that distraction and I feel the transmission changing again.
"At some point, you need to drown those demons, Care," Naiser tells me.
"Hard to drown a demon when it's learned how to swim."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the middle of this, I hear her screaming for me.
She's begging and pleading, and I feel like I'm not even tangible. Every attempt to grab her just has me reaching for air, for nothing. When I reach out, we're both incapable of finding one another. The fact is that we have a lack of gravity going for us at the moment, and we're floating. Naiser was great for a while, and I needed a chance to focus and gear myself up for two of the more important matches I've had in a career that's gone surprisingly longer than I thought it would. While I sit here, I'm sitting here, and I'm thinking about it.
The demons New Eden brought into my life.
The demons that drove Cailey away that Siobhan has partially embraced and partially despised me for.
The demon that Chris Strike is making me.
The demon NoVaK is making me.
Everything I've ever had that was good in my life, I've destroyed. I do a lot of damage in my life, because I've never been able to just accept something was okay. And the more I try to just accept things, the more I realize that I need to get better. At some point in time, I have to be willing to fix myself, so maybe it doesn't hurt that I'm trying to purge this monster. Maybe by slaying one demon, I can kill them all. I'm not asking to be some grand hero, because I'm not one.
I'm never gonna be the hero to the world, the person Fiona Collins used to be.
I'm never even going to be the vigilante Jonathan Collins was, a man who could do the worst to do good things.
I'm Carey Caldwell. At worst, I'm a man in disguise that's pretending to have noble intentions. At my worst, I'm Beowulf. At my best, I'm just a guy trying to find some redemption in a world that doesn't seem to want to give me any vengeance.
And maybe I don't deserve it. Maybe there's too much on these hands.
And while I'm writing down each of these sins, trying to see just what's on my internal criminal record that would give me a reason to believe I can't be saved, that's when I hear it. That's when I hear her again.
"You're scaring me, Carey."
And I hear her. I know that she's calling me, and in that moment, I'm not sure I'm a natural born killer anymore. In this endless war in my head that keeps making my own transmissions grow from crystal clear into white noise, those four words become clarity. High definition clarity.
And even if I've written and scribbled my sins across an entire wall of the warehouse, she's the one to grab my hand and stop me, only to force me to look at her.
"You're not even there," she says in a broken whisper, my eyes telling her that nobody's home...but only for a second before I'm back in my body, rescued from drowning in a sea of stars. The ghost reconnects to the machine, and the out of body experience is over. "Carey, come back to me. I l-"
"You promised," I whisper, and I drop the pencil, just turning to look at her hand grabbing my own.
"Don't worry, it'll all be over soon," I tell her quietly.
"STOP SAYING THAT! YOU KEEP SAYING THAT AND I HATE IT! I HATE IT!" she screams at me, and she starts punching my chest repeatedly to wake up something in me. My free hand grabs her own and I look at her carefully before I stop her.
Our eyes lock.
"I'm here. It's okay. I promise it's okay," I tell her softly and I kiss her. It's the kiss she wanted, and she leaps up to wrap her legs around me, and it's like she's trying to get me to feel something, anything that'll put the demon at bay for a bit. Maybe even putting the end to the inner demon that's trying to make me an outer one. Before I know it, her back is slammed against the wall that has each and every one of my crimes out for the world to see. Clothes are torn off, and as I reach up to grab ample breasts, she's moaning, begging me to set her free.
"Do it," she says in a breathless whisper. "Now." she begs.
And I know that there is something inside of me aching to have her. For all the times I've told the world that when we're alone, our bodies speak in a language that only we get. It's always been about her when we're speaking, but as her hips grind against mine like they're trying to dig in to find the proper spot, as my hands are squeezing and touching, pawing at her like I have to have at her, and she's screaming.
"CAREY," she says, the Irish accent in her screams even when she calls for me. She's trying to put some form of life back into me by trying to provide me with momentary death.
There goes the belt.
There goes her bra.
There go my jeans.
There go her shorts.
"Forgot something," I mumble.
"I'm havin' a good body image day," she giggles, and before I know it, my boxers have hit the ground, and I'm inside of her. It was like this the first time we met in a bar outside of San Diego, but the longer she stayed in my life, the more emotion there was in it. Now it's just raw. Now it's intense, but it didn't sacrifice the feeling. She's looking to find me, looking to pull something out of me as she continues to keep me in between her thighs. She keeps calling for me, screaming my name in ways she has never done prior to today. She's called for me before, even in the middle of fucking, but it's almost like she's screaming to keep me here and not whatever beast this incident with NoVaK is turning me into. I know I'm changing, I know I'm becoming something else, but I have a choice to either be that monster or be the person I want to be for once.
According to Sharp, I've been marked with something for Hal Snyder. I'm nobody's pawn.
With the way some of those marked have seemingly ended up, with my own issues with how everyone has been, I'm nobody's victim.
And as NoVaK is going to come to learn, I'm nobody's puppet.
I'm more than machine. I'm more than beast.
I have an opportunity to find a longer timeline. To be more than just someone on borrowed time. And while I see my path increasing farther, like a whole bucket of sand being dumped into an hourglass to let it overflow, she's calling for me again in the same familiar ways.
"CAREY!" she screams in ecstasy, her hands clawing at my back. She's trying to tear me in two while I'm trying to split her in two, all proverbially on either end.
"Come back to me, Rebel," she says, her voice softening and hoarse from the screaming, trying to coax the life back into me.
"I'm here," I reply back, my own breathless whisper.
And for the moment, the demons have retreated from the light. I might be a demon in the making, but I'm being guided by an angel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm still shirtless, her wrapped up in my t-shirt and back in her own shorts while I'm sitting on the roof again, looking at the keg. It's Wednesday, and people know what that means.
"You can put the word out, we're still having everyone over tonight. I'm fine, I am. I'm trying to keep it all at bay, and you have to understand that it's not easy. With everything going on in my head, it gets like static. It scrambl--" I say before she kisses my lips.
"It's going to scare me because of what ye mean to me, Carey. I'm scared because of what I've seen. Ye came into my life and I've seen some really fucked up shite because of ye and your friends. And I can't be yer savior, Carey...but I can be the first person that's ever going to tell you that I won't give up. We got this far...what's a little farther?" she asks me, and I look at her.
"I can beat this," I promise her.
"I know ye can, Carey. Just try not to give me a heart attack while ye do it," she laughs, curling up in my arms. And in these moments, I know I'm not alone. I've never really been alone, because even if I feel it, she's right there. And she's anchoring me.
Months ago, Evie called me her anchor. I never understood what it meant, but even now, I'm starting to understand why people need those anchors. When those of us who have these dark sides, these monsters in our souls, we need something that can remind us that we don't have to be a complete monster. Even in the midst of the darkness, we all need a little bit of something that binds us to earth. We need our gravity.
So even if it hurts to come crashing down, her Irish eyes leave me a safe place to land.
"C'mon now. Don't get too mushy for me. Let's just have our evening with friends. We got a keg, I got my gear boxed up to spin tables, so...what do you think?" I ask her.
"I think I could use a bit of the routine lately. Sure beats finding family in tribes and surprise visits from me cousin Caitlin," she laughs.
And for now, everything is right.
About goddamn fucking time.
