The Other Place
By glennwray
- 353 reads
align="center">The Other Place
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align="center">The darkness will descend,
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the curtain of death will fall,
When time
stops,
We shall be taken,
the Other Place. style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center"
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align="center"> style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> The man
whispered something incoherently. We drift closer.
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"No, no? Go away! No, please don't take me, it's not my
time!"
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The man scrambles to the corner, terrified. We float to
within inches of his blue eyes. His hair is ragged and amongst the
grease and grime, the faint colour of blond is visible. His eyes are
bloodshot and his face is pallid and pale. His thin wrists are slashed
on the underside and his clothes are torn and filthy. He has eaten
nothing in days and drank only when the intense burning in his throat
became completely insufferable. He looks sickly and anaemic in the
dying light of day.
The man is
alone.
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He is ravaged by fear. We wonder who or what has driven
him to this pathetic state.
"No Josie! I
wont let you take me! Pleeeeease no?. I'm scared Josie, I don't want to
go there! The other place is full of cobwebs! Walls and ceilings all
draped with cobwebs. Its not time!"
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There is no one else here.
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> (cobwebs?)
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We circle the room, silently and invisibly as the man
continues to cower in the corner. We are in a small room, either a
study or home-office. There is a bookshelf literally caked with dust,
scraps of food and paper litter the floor and the wallpaper is peeling
from the walls. The room is in desolation, certainly unfit for human
habitation. We ponder in bewilderment how anyone could survive in such
squalid conditions. A sole window overlooks a street about ten feet
below. Judging by the sun's position, it will soon be dusk.
The air is heavy and fetid, almost solid to touch. There
is a distinctive smell. It is a rancid and mephetic odour like sour
butter. It is a stale smell, of mildew and dying organisms, like
something decaying in putrescence. The smell of death?
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The man's current mental disposition is clearly one of
fragility, as if he is teetering on the brink of insanity. His
irrational conversations with himself would suggest that his mind will
soon become entirely disembodied from his physical conscience, and once
this transition occurs there will be no way back for the remnants of a
human being we see slumped before us.
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> (ring ring
ring)
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"Nooooooooooooo?Please stop! I didn't do it, I didn't!! It
was the man, he kept hitting her, he just kept hitting her! Even when
the blood stained her hair and she moaned, oh how she moaned?.. he
still kept hitting her! I didn't do it, I didn't. I tried to help but I
couldn't, the cobwebs stopped me?."
ring)
His face
displays a feeling of intense pain. He grimaces with every ring of the
telephone.
"It was the
cobwebs, the cobwebs?I tried to move but, but?."
echoing ringing of the telephone, the man faints.
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*
align="center"> style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> We are in the
depths of night when Joseph Mason awakens. His dulled conscience
resurfaces towards reality slowly and gradually. His exhausted eyes
widen with increasing trepidation as the seconds pass. His fear-induced
unconsciousness has clearly not extinguished the vociferous confusion
raging in his soul. The darkness encapsulates us, encloses us,
suffocates us. The darkness is hideous in its endless possibilities.
Joseph's dread builds as he acknowledges that it is night time.
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Night is worst for Joseph. Night is when the moon comes,
that hateful imposter of the sun. The sun brings light and warmth, the
moon only brings shadows, and the stolen light it gives isn't real. The
moon is deceitful and evil. It scares Joseph with its tools of
horror.
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(shadows)
The man
begins to whimper, we drift close to his shoulder.
"Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop
it?", he garbles almost incomprehensibly.
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> Shadows dance
around him, laughing and taunting at his despair. The shadows are fed
by the blackness of night and expend their energy by playing with the
moonlight. Joseph cries uncontrollably at the thought of the hours of
forthcoming torment he will have to endure. We pity him.
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(shadows and darkness)
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> What scares
Joseph most is the Other Place. The place that Josie will take him to
when his time comes. Joseph's time is almost up and this petrifies him.
The Other Place is full of cobwebs. Cobwebs that seduce you with their
unrelenting beauty until it's too late, until Mrs. Baird is dead, until
Josie is dead. The cobwebs are even more deceitful than the moon. In
the Other Place the ringing never stops. The ringing took Josie to the
Other Place and soon Josie will come back for him, soon.
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(soon)
There is an
ancient grandfather clock situated in the opposite corner from Joseph.
It ticks rhythmically and assertively. However, despite the constant
clockwise motion of the second hand, the minute and hour hands stay
still. In the utter stillness there is nothing but a great, dead
soundlessness, broken only by the sound of the clock.
(tick tock tick tock)
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> Somewhere,
under the sound of the dead clock, Joseph's whimpering begins
again.
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"Go away, please go away and leave me alone?"
We move closer. A single tear trickles from his left eye,
the most his dreadfully dehydrated body can offer. We are now acutely
aware not only of Joseph's pitiful emotional condition, but also of his
rapidly deteriorating physical state. He is suffering from severe
exhaustion and malnutrition. His ribs are visible under a terribly
flimsy looking sheet of skin as days of fasting begin to show their
effect. The self-inflicted bruises and gashes on his arms and legs look
agonizing and some of the deeper wounds on his legs have turned septic,
infection corrupts his blood and veins.
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> Still the
shadows dance and play.
His pallid
face darts left and right with surprising zeal, his eyes pierce the
darkness, peering and searching. Paranoia has entwined itself in the
man. Suddenly Joseph emits a bloodcurdling shriek of fear. The sound is
harrowing and cultivates a deep feeling of sympathy within us for
Joseph.
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"The ringing! The damn ringing! Please stop, pleeeease
stop!!!"
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The telephone isn't ringing.
stop...It wasn't my fault. I tried, I really did! But the cobwebs
stopped me, it was the cobwebs!"
(silence)
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Without warning, Joseph
jerks unsteadily to his feet. We watch with incredulity as in a
fleeting movement he runs towards the silent telephone, grabs and
throws it (with surprising force) against the wall. The telephone
shatters, showering the room in fragments of plastic. He emits a breath
of satisfaction (or relief?) at his achievement and Joseph sinks to the
ground and descends into the chasm of unconsciousness once more.
The smothering darkness waits stealthily for Joseph to
reawaken. The dead clock sounds off the seconds in the timeless room.
Eventually Joseph opens his eyes. It seems a struggle for him to even
rest upon his elbows. His stamina is dissipitating at an alarming rate.
His time is running out.
Factitious
time goes by. The chilling screams and the undecipherable spells of
mumbling continue, his sanity continues to diffuse and his physical
condition worsens steadily. We can only wait for the end.
(soon)
"Cobwebs?.cobwebs! Get those cobwebs away from me!"
He is pointing at the far corner of the ceiling.
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"Go away, please go away?please? Go back to the Other
Place?". This last plea is nothing more than a breath of air; Joseph
Mason's final words.
Death is
close for Joseph. His body is feeble, his mind a satanic integration of
reality and fantasy and his soul is torn apart. He closes his eyes,
unaware that he will never open them again. Night abates ever so
slightly. The curtain of eternal darkness begins to fall.
(falling)
*
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align="center"> style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> Joseph lies
curled up on the floor gasping for air with his eyes staring into
closed eyelids to see only a never-ending tunnel of blackness. In
Joseph's opinion it is best to close your eyes in times of despair, at
least our own blackness is familiar blackness. It's ending, he thinks.
Did he know it would come to this? Somewhere in his multi-layered and
complex mind did he actually know that it would finally return for him?
Did he actually believe he could go on pretending, was he that na?ve?
He isn't quite sure. For years he had hidden behind his comfortable
teaching job (until he drank too much bad stuff, he thinks to himself),
for years he had hidden behind his countless psychiatrists and
counselors and told himself he was recovering, forgetting. But he never
really did forget. The secret was always lurking in his thoughts, close
to the surface but maddenly just beyond his reach. He hated his secret,
despised it, but still he held an insatiable desire to drag it to the
surface and let it manifest itself upon him and put an end to it once
and for all, but he simply couldn't quite grab a strong enough hold. It
was in charge and no matter how many counselors he went to that is
exactly how it would be; you just had to learn to accept it. Grin and
bear it, as his old friend Tommy would say, and by God, how he had
grinned and bore it. 29 years of life: but had he lived or had he
simply endured? For 18 years
(the
after-years I sometimes call them the years in which you sometimes woke
up drenched in sweat with your own terrified screams ringing in your
ears the years that when you went to the school the other kids called
you a loner and they said you should be dead because you were a weirdo
but mummy said you weren't a weirdo you were just different and not to
worry because soon we would be all alone away from the bad kids and we
had been alone and mummy started to eat those little white pills she
called her sweeties and then she had to go away and you had to go away
too to the bad place where there were no other mummies just other kids
who were sad but you had to grin and bear it as Tommy used to say and
after the bad place you went to college and there you got a degree in
English and
you still didn't talk to any other boys and girls you just
went to class and came home and read and then you became an adult and
got a teaching job at a school but then you drank too much of the bad
stuff as mummy used to call it and it made you forget about the cobwebs
for a little while but then you didn't have your job anymore and you
had to do lots of bad things to stop the cobwebs getting you but then
they caught up and?)
believes he simply marched blindly through the pain in a futile battle
to forget.
It was never
going to let me get away
He knew
nothing; he appreciates that now. He thought the cobwebs would go away,
let him live in peace. Doesn't time heal all wounds? Evidently not. For
18 years he found he could endure, he could grin and bear it (even the
death of his mother, the orphanage, the asylums and the never-ending
loneliness). Since that night he never knew whom the shadows belonged
to, when it would be his time, when the phone would ring. He knew
It was biding its time, and now it's ready for me
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nothing. Now he does know something. He knows the darkness
and the darkness knows him. Joseph smiles because the Knowing is
enough.
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(falling)
The sun rises
slowly. The lone figure lies crumpled on the floor. His breathing is
scratchy and insubstantial. In a room of desolation and despair, amid
the sunshine of the early morning, Joseph Mason's time runs out, and he
joins Josie in the Other Place.
(Black)
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We swoop down onto Redbrick Housing Estate, alighting on a
letterbox. We watch intently as the little boy ambles down the sidewalk
from Tommy Taylor's house as he so often does, bouncing his now
well-worn basketball, wondering what his mum will say when he gets
home. He is short and skinny with striking blond hair and bright blue
eyes. He is fifteen minutes late for his ten o'clock curfew; his mum is
sure to be worried.
The streets
are deserted, it is getting late. The chilly autumn wind whistles past
the boy's reddening ears. He develops goose bumps as the icy breeze
penetrates through his jacket. Josie hastens his step a little. We let
the wind carry us as we follow silently. Josie is still a ten-minute
walk from home, and as the indomitable full moon bathes an eerie glow
on the housing estate, Josie's heart begins to beat a little faster in
his eleven-year-old chest.
(beat beat
beat)
Number 7's
pet dog growls from among the shadows as Josie's amble abruptly turns
to a brisk walk. The wind isn't so much whistling now as howling,
Josie's breathing becomes quicker and the basketball is soon to be
forgotten. The darkness has enveloped the street; Josie is forced to
squint for vision. Night time is when people are mugged, when people
are killed. Suddenly Josie wonders why on earth that extra half an hour
at Tommy's house was so appealing. How could he be so utterly stupid?
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Josie begins to jog. Despite the near freezing
temperatures beads of perspiration begin to form on his forehead; fear
is beginning to grip the little boy. We now need to drift slightly
faster to stay by Josie's side.
As the safe
haven of home beckons Josie stops in his tracks when he hears a
deafening scream echo from between the walls at number 13 - the Baird's
house.
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He stops to collect his thoughts with his heart now
thudding against his ribcage.
(thump thump
thump)
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We pause by Josie's side as he stares towards the front
door of number 13. Moments pass. Nothing more can be heard.
(silence)
Josie starts
telling himself the scream was nothing but a figment of his all too
active imagination, all the time knowing he is kidding himself: that
scream was real. Regardless, he is still only seconds from convincing
himself to start moving his feet again before the night is pierced by
another shriek. There is no one around but little Josie. He finds
himself horribly intrigued by the screams, and he ventures through the
gate, nearing the living room window. His heart is frantic within his
chest, as if pleading with him to flee from the house. We float to
Josie's eye level as he peers through the window, mercifully guarded
from sight by a thicket of bushes.
stomach shifts violently at what he sees. A woman (presumably Mrs.
Baird) is slumped against the chair, her leg twisted in a sickeningly
unnatural position. Blood streams down her face, dying her blond hair a
horrifying maroon colour. An obviously drunk Mr. Baird, (Josie's mum
would have said he had drank too much of the bad stuff) is standing
over her barely living body. He shouts obscenities at her, and then
kicks her directly in the abdomen. A low moan emanates from the woman's
bloody lips. Josie knows he should bang on the window or call the
police or do something, anything, but the little boy finds he can't. He
only watches.
Josie seems
entranced by something. A host of cobwebs hang from the ceiling,
hypnotizing Josie into a paralytic state. The cobwebs are radiant from
the reflected moonlight; they seem to dance as Josie stares
unblinkingly at them. We realize to our bewilderment that it is the
cobwebs that are holding Josie on the spot, as if enchanting the little
boy. As Mrs. Baird is pummelled and beaten to death, an eleven-year-old
boy stands only feet away, transfixed in wonderment of the cobwebs.
They glisten silently above the image of horror, uncaring and serenely
beautiful, infinitely beautiful. To Josie, time has stopped.
After what seems an eternity, Josie slowly leaves the
window. He walks, zombie-like, through the gate and back on to the
pavement. His arms are stiff by his sides; his eyes only stare blankly
forward, his features have become scarily ghoul-like. His face is
ghastly white, painted by the moonlight. Josie is suffering.
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Josie makes it to his house. He walks through the kitchen
and doesn't even acknowledge his mum's note explaining she is at the
church hall and won't be home until late. He is alone. We follow behind
as he stumbles to his bedroom.
(ring ring
ring)
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A ringing.
The
telephone?
Yes, the
phone. Josie jerks at the sound, terrified. He tells himself it is the
police, ringing to tell him he is under arrest. He convinces himself of
this presumption until the ringing has paralyzed his soul. He cowers in
the corner, as far as possible from that
ring)
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sound. Josie breaks into fits of tears. They come in
torrents, soaking his bed sheets. He wails at the sound as if it is
physically cutting through his heart. He begs for the ringing to stop,
it is incessant and shrill, like the wailing of a banshee in the night.
His head begins
(ring ring
ring)
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to pound, his eyes are stinging. He is petrified by the
sound, certain it is the police ringing to inform him he is going to
jail for killing Mrs. Baird. The sound is drilling a hole in Josie's
conscience, shattering his youthful sense of innocence. Josie's heart
is breaking.
(silence)
2 miles away
at St. George's Church Hall, Amanda Mason, single mother of the little
eleven-year-old boy, hangs up the phone cussing at her son's
disobedience. As she picks up the receiver to ring Tommy Taylor's
house, Joseph 'Josie' Mason crawls into bed, puts his thumb in his
mouth and begins to sob softly.
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Glenn Wray
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