Depravity's Shattered Seeds
Then he quit his performance altogether and lurching forward, he crashed through brambles and briars, while holding his head high off his chest with dogged tenacity, straining his overextended sinews, that though still like twine, were sorely taxed. He continued to bull his way, staggering with hellish verve and undeniable courage as if to stalk the very devil himself; to charge into Hell's chamber to prick and prod the dark one and to joust with him at some murky plane, where a pathology of pure evil lurked; and thus, so misaligned with malevolent frenzy to consummate a heinous contract with Satan, as he slashed about as though trapped within the confines of an obdurate cage; to hatch a meeting bound by secrecy with the dark and sinister one, a spirit as racked by life such as he, to embrace and caress this consummate evil comrade, this dark surly confederate, hoping that the malevolent treacherous Lucifer would flex his heinous hexes and intercede on his behalf before the creator of the universe; to cajole and barter for all poor miserable wretches and reprobates such as he, that they might not again want for whiskey to drink, for rags to wear, or greasy cast off garbage to consume. Tarnished and fecund, this last act of his living entombment was etched in the brows of a caudal night as heaving beneath the load of these chaotic encumbrances, and utilizing incredible determination of purpose, Tom continued to stagger on. Pitifully ensconced, he slashed about incoherently, lunging with spastic clumsiness while mouthing groups of words seeming to have no common tether. I recognized bits of Tennyson's poetry mixed with his own.
"Ship on ship the bloody Galleons waned
Cresting waves of thunder in a shroud;
Break, oh break cold bones upon the sea
Neptune smacks his rhythms crashing loud.
Mark the plot named Shulte in the deep,
Spit yer brackish waters like a cloud
Liquid garlands waterlogged with grief...
Tom Shulte but a seaman at the bow."
Tom's breathing was becoming raspy and shallow as though a heavy weight were pressing on his chest. As he moved, he veered to the left and right in order to circumvent substantial trees that he could not bull over. He now moved selectively in his perambulations that, although wild and roundhouse, seemed to be bent on retribution. He stalked, as if to slay the night in all its sinister manifestations, but his sights were clouded and his ebbing aim now untrue. Presently he tripped falling face down into the dirt. I observed blood dripping from the lobe of his left ear. He attempted to stand while thrashing about and appeared dizzy. The Shepherd bitch who came to him earlier in the night appeared, and once again Tom tenderly fondled the dog, but then he fell to his knees and locked his arms around her as though to copulate with her. Never before had I seen a scenario whose dimensions of debauchery presented such squalor and singular derangement as this. For now, the bristling brows of night, the impassive stones and the stanchion trees; yea, even they flinched looking the other way in shame; for howls, scratches and grunts 'Hold still Darlin' now etched in infamy revealed the disgust and sickness of this tawdry display, as these sojourners of the night, embroiled in the clasp 'Yes sweetheart' of a physical curse, plied their emotional overtones like raw flesh that bared their themes of misspent passion discordantly on a stage of filth and debasement. And as glowering looks, stolid cries, and as wrinkled leathery skin provided the culture for the ripening of soft, festered societal sores, insects crept and swam to a feast whose dram was infected blood salivating an entree of stinking, scraggy bones, for Tom's body seemed a host for worms and lice, and polluted Sedgefield much the same as his scathing denunciations impaled humanity, but they now portrayed a deeper tragedy whose ebbing, cursing plot moved rapidly through scenes of sorrow, bound by sordid acts as they gathered momentum to stage an encore that brought to tragic conclusion to this baleful requiem for the living dead.
Tom's head, his hands, his trunk portrayed a harrowing harbinger of death as his eerie shadow staggered and groveled with stupefaction like an unbalanced pendulum, jerking spasmodically before the alter of eternity's unlatched beckoning door. His addiction and the refuse of his trail assisted the staging of his art. His life's canvas, theme, epic, etc... was turgid and craggy appointed with jagged contours bearing interesting personality quirks displayed in unfamiliar demonic shapes of unknown composition stark, foul and bereaved. For, in the courting of his artistic success, he used all the power of his seduction, while his morbid delivery uncaged warped expressions, starting and ending like a tale of horror, each phrase charging the next, that finally conjured a festered postscript, signed with palsied, ashen hands and sealed with thick bubbly spittle from parched croaking lips.