The Sanitorium

Under The Sign Of The Hourglass

The Other Side Of The Moon.

"The essence of life is an illusive gem. It all hinges on smell and colour. Whenever you feel that nagging doubt, when tears well in your eyes and the blade hovers above your neck, turn all the lights on and smell something..........anything!"

During some particular phase of my life, my love manifest itself in the shape of a little dark haired girl. Her name held a chilling nonchalance which on close inspection belied the beautiful ingenuity of the persona that inspired it. Akin to my own, her soul was so full of life yet strangely annexed with death.

It was between the Vernal Equinox and the new Moon of March (a hard time for many of us) when my love came to the brave, yet foolhardy decision to invest in her own self-murder. The decision had taken many hours of her time and so had achieved a rather secure holding of her future plans. I could hear all this in the crumbling phonemes of a borrowed larynx.

I had no words of consolidation, no money to give and so I preached my undying love for her. I was weeping openly by the end of my declaration and my wet lips awaited the inevitable embrace. Instead, I received clean words. She had taken all this into account and had made her decision in spite of it.

Embittered by her rejection of me (though perhaps secretly by my own failure) I announced that I would revoke all my feelings for her and, should she continue with her twisted scheme, I would never speak to her again. She gave me a television smile and annoyingly quipped her "Goodbye".

A lump came to my throat as my mind froze in the icy winds of the second hand. My heart raced with the feeling of sinking opportunity. Finally I announced that if she was certain that death was her desire then I would die before her and report to her on what was to be found in the hereafter. Only then, with a complete folio would I allow her to make a decision. Begrudgingly she agreed.

My method was a peculiar one, but one that I had toyed with in the past, during my own suicidal days. I injected air into my blood stream through the soles of my feet causing my heart to arrest.

Death was all that I had imagined it to be. I saw the other side of the moon. It was all green and everywhere was scattered with glowing embers. Tiny people ran around on cloven hooves; setting traps, hunting and fishing. In my little flying bubble I was wisked away to quarter past my death where I was granted an audience with the Almighty.

A great bronze door was opened and I stepped into a little white washed theatre. The door closed behind me and two grey figures appeared and flanked me at either side. They wore grey smocks and great wings that towered above them, and they hung their heads in what looked like misery. They were angels.

A curtain before me spoke. It was the Almighty. It welcomed me to this place and told me all sorts of things which I'm afraid I didn't quite catch. I wasn't being too attentive. To be honest, I was dubious about the curtain. It reminded me of the Wizard of Oz. I pictured some impotent, grey haired, little man behind the curtain, secretly cowering in fear while all his lines were daubed with threats veiled by a thin layer of good intent.

When at last the curtain fell quiet I was physically drained. I slept for a while and awoke to the smell of herbs. I had been dead for several hours yet still had not hailed my love. I communicated to through the taste of marmalade spread thickly on her morning toast. I told her that this life was grey and miserable and that everybody lived in their own seperate box. She thanked me and told me that she would consider my advise. I sent her a postmark, it told grievous stories of the damned, and in the smell of cooking bacon I begged her to stay away from this fearsome place.

It was all lies of course. Heaven was beautiful. The colours were shades of pearl and the smells were warm and rich in the character of the asiatic, and you could fly! My love was finally convinced that she must never allow her life to be wrenched from her, no matter if it was the fearsome visage of La Mort who taunted her in her flying seat of summer meadows and childrens cries. She kissed the back of her hand (that was meant for me) and wispered my name seven times. I squeezed har long and hard in the disembodied fashion that I had become accustomed to and kissed her cheek.

Now we would live our lives together in a world filled with spa water, exotic spices and warm duvets. Abridging my fantasy of Utopia, I addressed the curtain with the gleeful air of the lottery winner and requested my deserved freedom. I waited for so long that I became uneasy. With a twiching above my left eye, I preached my noble intentions. My address was ignored and I felt that beneath the curtain, the Almighty was hanging his head. It was now that I noticed that there was no handle on this side of the door. I had been duped, worse still I had duped myself. I shouted bitter threats to the curtain and sweated in shock.

Within the hour the solemn robed figures returned to my shoulders and escorted me, somewhat roughly, into the background. Sometimes I cry for myself, and sometimes for my love (she has a little black cat whom she named after me) until I realise that nobody can hear me.

THE END.

Fly me home I feel sick!