Righteousness for Salem (Part II)

The corroding years go by

One by one as the father tortures

Through a series of metamorphoses

Slowly transforming him from man to beast.

Now without family or familiar town folk

He is left to himself and his suffer.

His eyes bleed from the stench of his burnt village.

The father knows he should leave it all behind

But the devils inside of him overpower

All thoughts and reason.

Day after drooling day

The father absorbs darkness

Drawing ever more senseless.

His hatred of the witch, now a fiery storm

Cycling through his blood

And swirling behind his eyes

Manipulating every synapse his brain conjures

Into a chemistry of evil.

A morning Dove flies near the father’s house.

He notices the white feathers

Against the death of gray sky

And returns to his shattered haven

Salvaged from cindered, dry rotting boards

And wretched rusting iron;

 The brightness too much for his mind.

“Ah” he cries out in pain,

“A dove sent to recover, no doubt,

But I am not lost.

I live as I choose despite agonizing torture.

Your notion of free will as being fair

I will not embrace

For to choose, for me, is not an option;

I stay where my sons are buried.

The Dove lands closely to the ajar entrance

Of the father’s house

And sits on the stump of an oak tree

Saturated from rain and stained

Of blood and fire.

The father glances at the dove

Causing him to fall to his knees

Grinding them into the rugged

Dirt and stone floor.

“Why?” he yells out.

“Why do you come here?

My hating will not relent so

End your lamentations for me.

I do not hold you accountable,

I march mine own exodus from you

Towards hate and anguish.

My heart can not bear elsewise.

The Dove does not motion in the slightest

Although Its mere gaze showers

Total concentration and compassion

For the man before It.

“Just as I chose to ignore your gainsaying whispers

As I led the town mob to the witches hut

For burning and punishment

I choose now to ignore your weeping for me.

I do not understand you,

Thereby making my decision

To follow that which I can,

This hatred of indescribable measure.

Now leave me to my writhing!”

The father roars while reaching both arms

For his crooked rocking chair

And heaving it through his broken doorway

At the fleeting Dove.

Unbeckoned tears fall from the father’s eyes

As he watches the Dove return to the skies

Disappearing into the animated smoky gray blanket

That smothers the earth.

“Why must that Dove add to my grief?”

The father lethargically crumples to his stomach

And tries to die for the unknownth time.

His efforts to deaden all thoughts and brain activity

Only result in the falling asleep.

The father awakens to the slightest vibrations

On his cheek.

Inches from his face

Emerges a vile wurm,

Black as the dreams of a decaying corpse,

Unraveling from the deadened earth

As long and thin as one thousand

Spider legs woven together.

The abject creature tangles and swarms

As the tides of the apocalypse

Surrounding the father.

“I do not answer to you either

Fowl thing of death.

I mayhaps be forsaken,

But hatred of mine own mind rules me

Not you, external force of evil.

The wurm’s stink is overpowering

Weakening the father’s grips on reality

Sending him into a haze of bitter confusion.

The Witch appears from behind the wurm

Laughing her grotesque voice.

“Ha, ha, ha!  So good to see you again, Deathbringer.

I have been enjoying my visit to the netherworld,

But have been granted the opportunity

To exchange your Lifeforce for mine.

The father groans as he recovers from

The explosions of pain inside his head.

“Witch, I’ve suffered much for the likes of you!

You’ve taken my sons and given me

Unrivaled suffering in return.

Now I will give you something I have been saving

For these past seven years!”

The father raises to his feet

Never relenting his gaze

Into the witches dark eyes

Concealing the emptiness of all emotion.

He reaches his pale, veined hands

To the collar of his shirt and

Shreds it from his body. 

The witch screams at the sight of what no longer

Appears to be man or any known figure.

The chest of the father

Is the exact definition of horror.

Where skin should be

Lay only black shreds of

Rotting organic material

As if some infectious curse of the devil

Bred evil throughout his veins

Harming every good living tissue that existed.

Worse yet is the beating of his decomposed heart

Pulsating dark energy waves through the air.

“Now you shall truly get what you have coming to you

One who causes my mouth to sore and ulcer

By the passing of words directed to you.

My complete opposite and only means of existence.

The father thing swells into a dark ball of matter

Emitting black bolts of lightning energy into various direction.

His voice thunders the air molecules,

“You told me to live well and I have so

I denounced all things save my hate of you now

To be fulfilled by your destruction and my dispersal

Unto the great infinite

And my end!”

In conclusion.

-Stephen G. T.