The Politician

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The old man rested in his rocking chair, the cocoa gradually cooling on the table beside him. He closed his eyes and fell into an unusually deep sleep. Transported from the solid world, through to a land of absolute evil. Before him stood the entrance to one corridor. As he wandered, confused, toward the light at the far end he was suddenly aware of a new energy, he felt young again. He started to run with his flexible powered legs. It had been a long time since he had run in this way and in no time at all he emerged like an athlete crossing the finishing line. He looked around and behind him were his old fears and memories floating as if suspended in milk. He clung to his mind and dived through a waiting, multicoloured glass mirror. It threw him into the desert of suffering. He knew at once that he had been betrayed. It stung him and astonished him; he felt his new found energy drain from his limbs. Dotted around the landscape where small encampments of what appeared to be people. Curtains in his head opened and closed on the situation. Confusion threatened to tear him apart. Sand dominated the landscape - the horizon burnt and glowed. But it was not curved like the far off distant sea seen from the beach but just a long flat line, indicating a flat land. He got no solace from the sky, which was clear and without clouds. His legs could hardly carry him; pain was now growing in his muscles. He struggled through the fine golden sand, a pitiful sight; it pulled and sucked at his slippers. He had no defence, an old frail man with no strength as vulnerable as a baby. An inner force drove him on - a helping hand called fear. He approached the settlement with hope swelling in his chest. The camps grew into grey buildings before his eyes. They rose out of the sand, to tower above him in a murderous way. Wild activity burst onto the streets, which were forming. The village sprawled in the distance. But once on the threshold of the village he realised he had hoped in vain. It was a chaos of anger and hate. Driven on in spite of his horror the old figure stumbled from sand to pavement. Demonic twisted bodies crawled along the road on hands and knees, oblivious to the newcomer. They left behind trails of blood and flesh on the hot tarmac. They seemed diseased or alien to him, he couldn't understand the cause of this revolting scene, a war, an accident; it made no sense to him. Its ugliness abhorred him like machines working after dark. His sanity was not strong any more and he ran into one of the buildings for sanctuary. He saw darkness in the shadows and it calmed his nerves after hours of intense light. He fell toward the dark and thankfully cool corner exhausted after walking through the desert. Sitting uncomfortably with his arms pulling his legs to his chest he ignored the pain in his joints to concentrate on the interior of this building. Facing the exit to the road and just able to stomach the scene from this distance; "Sanctuary" he thought disjointedly. A moaning sound rattled like an incantation through the corridors of the building. And disturbed the old man's sleep. He looked about himself scared for his life. He wanted so much to recognised an ornament on a mantelpiece or hear the boring commentary of a sport coming from his television but the truth was punishing, he cried out obliterating the moaning momentarily. He began to shake. The light was pouring in and down the corridor. The urge to move from his hole forced him up onto his feet and back out onto the street. A stench hit his nostrils, he knew the place was essentially evil, but the semi human forms, which continued to move about on the road, refused to acknowledge him. He found they no longer appalled him and he could walk among them. In order to save itself his mind was concentrating intensely on the pavement, just the pavement nothing else. His ears were abused by the screams of the unholy. Then he found three bodies piled in a heap blocking his path, just before he could manoeuvre around them the pile began to twitch, the person at the top of the pile was eating the corpse below, the man turned to grin at the old man strips of flesh hanging from the side of his mouth. Apart from the multitude of people on the streets, the village was very similar to a small English town. Was this the Earth in disguise? It had shops, which weren't selling anything, there were roads but no cars. He continued to look down on the surface of the pavement, and his slippers. It was easier than seeing the people the miserable twisted forms. To his left a man was shouting incoherently he had a gun in his mouth, just after passing him the old man heard the gun go off. Thirty or forty meters later he came across his own parents, arguing and shouting vehemently. Recognising their voices he looked up at them shocked. They glanced at their son for only a second and their faces didn't change when he spoke to them. Instead they whipped each other furiously, ripping clothes and then flesh. Of course he tried to stop them but it drove him to tears when he saw that they turned their anger on him. He noticed they had both bitten off their own tongues in anguish. He could not accept that these were his real parents but he was still repulsed. He felt his head begin to throb with pain. He walked on staring down at the ground. Suddenly, from the sky, a bird of large proportions swooped down onto him. Its talons gripping his shoulders he in turn raised his hands up to push it off - the grip increased. The bird called out a shrill cry then, with accuracy, tore out the left eye of its victim with a hooked beak and sailed away. With his hands to his face the old man fell to the concrete pavement sobbing, bawling like a spoilt child. He was angry, distressed and tired. Unable to raise himself he fell asleep for a few hours. Waking to the sound of flies the old man was disgusted to find the smell of blood from his eye was attracting all sorts of flying insects which were covering his face and fighting for the last remains of ooze. Screaming in horror and desperation he jumped up and slapped at his head with an open hand. He observed a group of priests with flaming habits just ahead of him, climbing a hill where he could clearly see a number of crucified judges, with their elegant flowing wigs nailed firmly to their bleeding heads to stop them blowing off. He could feel the heat was now predominant over the physical pain of his joints. There were maggots wriggling at the back of his left eye socket. He was now the cause of the stench in his own nostrils. He knew that all skin exposed to this baking sun was becoming severely burnt; he was in effect being flayed alive. He needed to escape the sunlight. Suddenly, hills rose up from the desert to the right and left, parallel and steep. He was in a deep ravine, was this an indication that an exit was arriving? Shear cliffs of black stone built themselves up into a passage, the sand became a pavement of stone then minutes later the stone was carpeted by moss and earth. The coolness in the shade was so refreshing that the old man wanted to rest there a while. He hoped the passage would lead next to a woodland or forest. The path led him on until he became lost in a maze, which ended in a cave. The odour in the cave was old, eternal, festering. He turned to leave but nimble hands had sealed the exit. He noticed one hole where light beamed across the hollow space. Through the hole, with his one eye, he saw a lake far below with a patterned surface reflecting a myriad of colours as if polluted by oil. He knew this was just another torture; he fell to the stony floor. He cried in desperation, cold defeated and insecure. He lived now in anticipation of the next disgusting sight, the next horror. He was for the first time in a prison. It was a new experience for him and the loss of freedom annoyed him. He looked down at his watch and noticed it was still working, although it did not tell him what day it was or even whether it was day or night. For a while he just sat with his back propped against the cold dark wall listening to the ticking of his watch. Sometimes a memory from the carnival of chaos back at the village hit him like a flashback. He worked hard to block those memories; he made a great effort to think back to his normal life. But it was now so distant to him so strange compared to his recent experiences that it seemed alien. He had accepted the new world implied by his five senses. His thinking power had been diminished to only a fraction of the power required to operate a car. And using this feeble mind he contemplated suicide while scratching maggots out of his eye socket. He slept or passed out on the damp floor of the cave. There were dreams of a better place, there were also nightmares or the horrors he had witnessed but some hours later all that was forgotten when he awoke to find the skin of his face had been eaten away by large ants. He could feel the jaw and cheekbones with what remained of his fingers. The ants and maggots and probably others had feasted on his exposed flesh and many had moved down under his clothes once his face had been devoured. Now totally blind the old man crawled around pathetically searching for a rock to smash his own head with. Instead he found a breeze, it indicated an exit so he moved into the breeze and then crawled against it for a few meters. An opening had been made for him in the night, another trap he thought; another type of humiliation. With his hand he tried to build a picture of the ledge on which he now sat. He could not go further because he had reached the edge of a precipice. He remembered the view from the hole that had been his window. He imagined the drop before him would lead to the lake. The ants were in his underwear. In a state of complete misery and determined to escape further castigation he used the strength left in his limbs to throw himself out and away from the edge. He fell freely, accelerating rapidly. With a sense of euphoria he hit the surface of the lake and joined with his reflection briefly before crashing through to the other side and into blackness. The old man opened both eyes, the eyes that were again flesh and blood. He was horizontal a tube had been forced deep into his throat. Surrounding him were plain white walls, and a door on the far side. Through the door at that very moment walked a nurse in white uniform. Seeing that his eyes were open she began to explain to him that he had had a stroke and had been in a coma for several days. He thought the young lady was angelic looking as she stood over him reading his chart, adjusting the pillow and speaking so softly. He did not remember anything that had happened after he had put down his cocoa mug. He wondered if this would be his deathbed, he felt quite weak. There were machines behind the bed and out of his sight, he was only aware of the tubes and wires that connected him to them. Reflecting on his life he felt that at his age a stroke was nothing to be ashamed of. He thought about becoming religious maybe repenting his sins. He felt he could justify everything he had done in his life but knew that some of his actions could be misinterpreted. As a politician he had made brave decisions, he asked himself, "Did I make the right ones?"

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