Winter Dawn

            the winter dawn.








I’m stuck in this dream, its changing me, I am becoming
the me that you know, he had some second thoughts
he’s covered with scabs, he is broken and sore
the me that you know, he doesn’t come around much
that part of me isn’t here anymore

                                    – Trent Reznor







         “Ah! The Winter Dawn!” the curator exclaimed.  “An interesting piece by Wolfgang Romosanta.”
         The crowd stood speechless before the painting which depicted a large valley covered in snow.  It was exceptionally detailed.  Along the walls of the twisting valley, you could see crude windows, some with light, some dark.  Faces could be seen in many of them.  Faces of loneliness and despair.  Out of one peered a man with no eyes, in another, a woman crying blood.  The sky was utterly black, with no hint of stars.  It gave off an aura of confinement, like the desolate valley was within a giant cavern.  On the bottom right-hand side, on the edge of one of the cliffs surrounding the valley, stood a solitary figure.  It was what appeared to be a demon of sort, like the ones you would find on a 12th century wood carving.  He stood on two goats legs, and held a staff with strange markings upon it.  His face was typically animalistic with a twisted smile and many jagged teeth.  His eyes gave off an eerie presence as he looked cock-eyed at you.
         The crowd stood transfixed before this disturbing painting.  This was the first time  I had witnessed every single one of the group devote complete attention to a piece of art. Its many details seemed to suck you into the mind of the artist.
         “Wolfgang Romosanta had a haunted past, which is interesting because it clearly reflects in his artwork.” the curator went on.  “His mother survived a horrific assault on her family.  Mother, father, sister all brutally killed before her.  She started slipping into madness when Wolfgang was around 8 years old, and turned into a religious fanatic.  He also seemed to have inherited some of his mother’s insanity.  He claimed that voices spoke to him, and that he could see “shadow people” everywhere.  Crouching behind tables, and standing right outside of doorways.”
         I noticed a window in the picture which held a pale faced woman with dark hair.  The expression on her face was one of acceptance.  There was also a woman standing right outside looking in.  It appeared to be the same woman only she was gleeful.  She had a wild look in her eyes and her mouth was open as if in ecstacy.  The sight of her gave me the chills.
         “His mothers insane religious standards left Wolfgang in a constant state of humiliation.  He believed strongly in the Christian faith, yet felt inadequate enough not to hope for salvation.  This painting illustrates his view of Hell.  He did not believe in the literal view which contain lakes of fire, but of the eternal separation from God.  The utter loneliness of being permanently cut off from the light and his Maker.”
         The afternoon was ending and the cold was waking as I walked to the nearest bus stop.  I was holding my jacket tight against my body in defense to the chilly Boston air.  The image of the twin women afflicted my mind, and I thought of nothing else, as the wind screamed at me through the trees.
         Soon, however, my mind wandered to my plans for the evening as I stood in the bus station shelter.  I had a desk load of work I had to get caught up on before the next school day.  Then suddenly a voice broke my concentration.
         “Save her.” it whispered.
         I looked around with a start, and saw that the only other person waiting for the bus was a little old woman, with the hood of her jacket pulled over the greater portion of her face.  She did not appear to be speaking to me, and since there was no one else around I passed it off as a simple trick of the wind and was soon back in my own thoughts.
         “Save her, please. The darkness is enveloping.”
         I turned once again and regarded the old lady, “I’m sorry?”
         She looked at me with surprise, like I had just asked her for some change.  “I didn’t say anything to you.” she retorted, and repositioned her jacket.
         I looked at her for a few seconds and then looked away, the first thoughts of self doubt beginning to creep over my brain from the edges.  Clearly I was spooked by the painting, which surprised me.  I consider myself a very rational man and have experienced far creepier things than a painting.
         There was a sudden growling behind me, and I turned and saw an orange tabby cat staring back at me.  His ears where turned back flat on his head and his eyes were in direct contact with mine. It sat stone still, staring and growling.  I glanced at my fellow bus station companion and she was regarding the whole scenario with wide eyes.  She looked at me accusingly, like I had orchestrated this whole little nightmare as a means to weird her out.  She took one last disdainful look at the feline and walked away.
         Luckily, the bus was there shortly and I left the anti-social cat out in the cold.  I took my seat in the back.  The dimly lit interior held about ten passengers, all with an air of wanting to get home and close out the world in their tiny apartments.  I sat back and breathed a sigh of relief, relief to get out of the cold and away from the paranoia that had met me in the little bus shelter.  I had never gotten my brain so worked up before.  Letting the artwork of a tortured artist infest my brain was definitely out of character for me.  I stared at the ceiling and breathed deeply for awhile, allowing the oxygen intake time to erase that feeling of unease.
         I felt better after a few minutes and rode the bus home in relative peace.  Watching as the light from the street lamps left tracers that wound and faded and fuzzed.  I felt very relaxed and my eyes moved lethargically.  I turned my head towards the middle of the bus and my vision soon followed with a slight delay.  There was a ringing in my ears, so faint that it might not have even been there.  I could hear the whispers of the passengers rise and fall, a wave of whispering, ebbing to an almost maddening pitch and then falling down to a blanket of white noise.  Despite that this state of mind might seem strange to you, at the time I didn’t even notice it.  It seemed as normal then as any other feeling that one would have.
         It was normal to me until I noticed the man with no face at least.  That struck me as odd.  He was sitting in his seat reading a newspaper, every now and then sifting in his seat or rustling his paper.  These movements didn’t concern me, I was too busy focusing on his missing features.  There was a blackness where his face should have been.  He turned and regarded me once, and I was soon lost in the black hole of his face.  He looked away shortly, and rustled his paper again.  Meanwhile, the whispering was reaching a new height and I had to squint my eyes against the voices.  I had about as much as I could bear and opened my eyes and mouth to say something, anything, to get them to stop, when I realized no one was speaking.  The kid across from me had headphones on and his foot was going with the beat.  The petite woman with oversized glasses next to him was fully engrossed in a cheap paperback novel, one with a shirtless, long haired hero on the front.  It was noiseless save for the bus engines and the sound of the tires.  I sat dumbfounded for a few minutes and then the bus stopped.  My apartment.
         Five minutes later I was safe at last within my home.  I shook off the experiences of the night and poured myself a brandy.  I drank that down quickly with shaking hands, poured myself another for good measure and went to grade my student’s papers.  I flipped on my dim desk lamp and flooded the living room/office with a soothing glow.  That and the brandy dulled out the memories of the evening and I went to work only half-distracted.  I soon became lost in grammar corrections and punctuation errors, and my mind was able to blot out the white noise in my head.
         I worked for a couple hours, blissful in the normality of correcting school work, reading essays and grading papers.  The experiences of the night already forgotten.  I glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was already almost eleven in the evening.  I let loose a mighty stretch and rubbed my eyes.  I got up and headed towards the kitchen to make a sandwich, yawning as I walked.  My mind was hazy as I pulled out the condiments from the fridge and thought with a touch of amusement upon the events of the evening.  What madness!  I had been working entirely too much lately.  I needed to back off the brandy and get more sleep.  My sleeping had been fitful of late, long hours staring at my ceiling and listening to the night noise of the street outside.  Police sirens, drunken shouting, dogs barking... These things which now kept me awake had once been the background noise that would have put me to sleep.  A life in the city and your guaranteed a spot in the heavy sleeper hall of fame.
         Lost in these thoughts I caught movement out of my peripheral vision.  I glanced up, looking past where the kitchen opened up, and saw a dark form standing in the back of my small living room. The soft orange glow from the desk lamp left many eerie shadows, many that could be deceiving as well. Either way, my heart was in my throat and my stomach upside down.  I stared hard but could not decipher if it was a human form or not, the angle of the walls between myself and that part of the room would not allow it.  So I stood there and stared intently, half bent over my ham sandwich.           Then the whispers began, but so faint I could not discern if they were from outside my head, or from within.  The edges of my vision began to distort and wave as I looked upon the dark form in my living room.  The voices reached their crescendo and my mind gave way.  I fell to the floor in a heap, knocking over the food as I went.  I lay there and thought no more.
         Consciousness soon found me.  There was no groggy awakening process, I just awoke, with lucid images of the recent events still fresh in my mind.  Eventually, I pushed myself to my hands and started to rise.  I glanced up through the kitchen entrance and my shadowy visitor seemed to have departed.  There was no noise save for the bass from a car stereo outside.  The room maintained a displaced feel to it though, and as I stood up I realized I was not alone, there was an odd creature squatting behind my chair.  His long, sinewy arms wrapped around his knees.  He was hairless and a mottled dark green color.  His eyes shown as he stared into mine, his mouth up- turned into a hideous smile.
         He crouched there and twitched, head jerking from side to side occasionally – flinging drool with each twist –  all the while grinning and staring at me.  “Heh, save her? Save her?! Heh heh, her evas!”  his voice came raspily and wet.  I felt bile rise in my throat at the sight of him.
         Movement suddenly, on all sides, shadowy figures dancing in and out of my vision.  I heard music playing a discordant melody in the background, a melody which captivated my heart with both awe and dread.  The music was accompanied by the voices that were no longer whispering.  Now they were cries of pain and moans of torment, punctuated at times with an insane laughter.  I could not tell if it was the laughter of the tormented or the tormentor, I suppose it doesn’t matter in either case.
         The creature behind my chair seemed to be getting agitated, his head whipped to either side with such fury that it appeared a blur to me.  Then as soon as it started it stopped, and he regarded me with a light from his eyes as that I’ve never seen before. Then, for an instant, the air seemed to have been sucked from the room, lights dimmed, and she appeared.
         Crouched in the middle of my living room floor, was what seemed to be a woman, bent over with long raven hair cascading down all around her.  She appeared to be holding her face in her hands, weeping.  Her long dirty white dress covering the majority of my floor. I felt profound pity at the sight of her and without thinking, reached out to her.
         She raised her head revealing her milky white eyes, tears rolling down the smooth contours of her pale face.  Her eyes had no pupils, but she did not need them to reflect her deep anguish and sorrow.  Even at the sight of her face I still felt pity, but the horror of the situation subdued that emotion, and I recoiled.
         I staggered a couple of steps back, the music and screams a tornado inside of my brain.  The temperature of the room had also risen, casting me into a sweat.  I tried to keep my footing as the room spun, shadowy figures dancing before me, behind them the woman on the floor near the horrid green creature.  Through the twirling shadows I saw her raise her head and her mouth opened in a silent scream, and tears of blood started to fall from her white eyes.  I turned abruptly to see the source of her terror.
         It was the goat-legged demon from the painting that had given me so many troubles as of late.  At the sight of him I lost my breath, and the movements of the apartment ceased, or I was not aware of them.  He stood in my darkened hallway by the front door, his head up-turned and to the side, looking at me at an angle as in the painting.  The mere presence of this being I cannot begin to explain.  It felt as if an aura of suffering emanated from it, and that aura was tangible and you could feel it upon your skin.  At this point I believe the insanities from the evening finally caught up with me in a rush and my mind broke.  I was still afraid, insanely afraid.  It felt like my mind had been shattered in my skull and the broken pieces where sifting together at a quick pace.  I could hear the woman in white sobbing behind me.
         The demon began to speak, it was a language of the infernal, and I could not understand.  It seemed that different pitches of screams constituted vowels and the moans made up the low tones.  His jaw moved as he spat the words and all the while glaring at me through the corner of his eyes.  His long tongue rolling over his pointed teeth as he did so.  The woman on the floor started screaming and I felt heat behind me.  The demon and the walls behind him took on a flickering orange glow, and he never stopped uttering his foul language as I turned and beheld the woman in white engulfed in flames.  Her mouth was open, still locked in a scream, and I knew he was taking her back to where she had come from.  The flames licked across her face and mouth, causing the skin to pull taunt against the bone underneath.  The cries of anguish were too much for me to bear, and on instinct I stepped toward the demon.
         “Leave her be!” I yelled, with courage that I didn’t know I had.  “Trouble her no more!”
         The demon stopped speaking and regarded me.  All of a sudden I was weak in my knees, cursing myself for opening my foolish mouth.
         “Erefretni dluow uoy?” He spoke backwards.  Surprisingly, this time I could understand.  “desaeppa eb tsum retsam eht, enodnu eb tonnac enod s’tahw.  Elddem ot regae os era uoy ecnis, nalp suoirolg sih ni trap ekat nac uoy tub.”  Smoke puffed out of his snout as he said this.
         He started laughing and the music began to play again, and the room started to spin.  The shadows were dancing more furiously now, in and out in patterns of fluid complexity, if it were not for the situation they would have been beautiful.  The screams of pain which had subsided were now back, as was the choking laughter of the goblin crouched behind my sitting chair.  The woman in white was gone, and in her place the dancing shadows occupied.  They were no longer on the outskirts of my vision but all around me and passing through me as they danced.  Every time they passed through I felt a tug and then a small nagging emptiness.  After a moment the passes became more frequent and that feeling of emptiness more severe, the myriad of emotions and sound all around me ground my shattered mind into dust, and I lost all feeling in my body.  I dropped and lay where I fell, listening to that horrible language spewing forth from the monster in my doorway.  Then, once again, the darkness came upon me... hello darkness, my old friend.
         I write this from inside St. Patrick’s Mental Institution, apparently all of these so called psychologists are not as opened minded as they would have you believe.  Police had awoken me in my apartment a half hour after I had fainted, they had received calls from other apartment tenants complaining about screaming coming from mine.  In my shattered state I tried to explain what had just transpired, and that was enough for them.  After that its kind of a blur.
         My memories have now all but faded, and I only have short periods of sanity, which is an odd condition I know.  I mean, insane people don’t think that they are insane, do they?  No, they believe that everyone else is lost but them.  I, on the other hand, I know that I am crazy, or at least a part of me.  I only have conscious memories of a few hours out of the day, where the other ones go I do not know.  I get to hear some of my exploits from the doctors that see to me, inane rambling, seizures, and sometimes even violence.  My first recollection after the incident in my home was looking at myself in the bathroom mirror of my first “apartment” in St. Patrick’s.  My once dark hair was now white, and I looked older.  Even my facial hair had changed its color, or lost it as the case may be. I stared at the stranger in mirror, the thirty-five year old with the white hair and hollow eyes, and wept.  But I saw this only for a moment and then it faded to black.  I can feel the time of my mind leaving and I know its approaching, soon I will hear a discordant melody and then I will leave this place.  My one solace is that I know that behind these steel doors, I can do no harm.
         Here is the music.  The shadows are here as well...




         “Ah! The Winter Dawn.”  the curator exclaimed.  “An interesting piece by Wolfgang Romosanta.  An interesting piece by an artist who also had an interesting history.”
         "Man I’m bored.” Josh thought as he stretched his arms.  He had to do a report for school on famous artists which was the only reason he was here.  He winked at the cute brunette he had been shooting flirtatious smiles at since the beginning of this stupid tour.  She was not paying attention to him now however, her eyes were locked on the painting that the curator was droning on about.
         Discouraged by the lack of attention from the brunette, Josh turned his eyes to the painting.  The painting was unsettling and gave him goose bumps, and by the way the rest of the group looked, it had affected them in such a way as well.  The sheer depression it emanated took away all thoughts of cute brunettes.  He could almost feel the emptiness of that place, almost feel the resignation.  The faces in the windows disturbed him the most, he felt that he was looking at a photograph instead of a painting their expressions were so clear.
         The twenty-one year old leaned closer to gaze at the face in the window that was underneath where the goat legged demon stood.  The man’s eyes were wide and unseeing, his mouth open.  His arms were placed slightly above and on either side of the window, as if he was resisting the confinement of the room which he was in.  His stark white hair almost seemed to move...
         Josh was glad when the tour was over.  He escaped out into the cold evening air of Boston and pulled his jacket close against the wind.  "Stupid paintings,” he thought,  "I feel like I was eight again and just watched a horror flick that I wasn’t supposed to."  He dropped the thoughts from his mind and started off down the steps of the museum, anxious to get to the nearest bus station where he would await his ride home.  The wind was screaming in his ears as he walked, and he was anxious to go home to his tiny apartment, and shut out the world.