A dreamy
chamber raced before his eyes, the melody guiding participants of silk and
open waist jackets to sway beneath a once opulent atmosphere. The place was
wrapped within the iridiscent animal skin of a gigantean bubble, translucent
pearls as stars painting the synchronized motions. Diamond speckled chandeliers
hung between the glistening cornices, where the sleek Asian wax, dripping
like frozen tears, had formed stalactites. The silk wallpaper had faded
and in some places worn threadbare, revealing feathered planks which
stacked upon high barriers of glass. Gloves of mummified crispy hands,
clasped about for brief instances before the bodies would but wander-
expressively in gesture, yet with absence of facial coherence. They were
led by outer drives, inner prevalence diminished. A grand door waited up
the stairs, but a pair of crystal bronze eyes caught his attention, the
only blinking eyes present.
Dipping in and out of the
contortionistic seeming-to-be sleep walkers the boy held onto the conscious
gaze of the other, shoving and ducking through to get a closer look. He
was swiftly sidetracked by a stunning young woman, unblinking like the rest,
who was embraced in one of the many puppet's arms. In slow daunting motion
her face turned all the way to his. With a wicked grin she mouthed, “You’re
trapped..” before sailing past and assimilating amongst the group as if
moving dead once more.
A strange ghost of fear made his
color fade as he was swept into comfortable arms and off into the crowd. The
warm, soft peach skin and easy breathing alerted him that this person was
alive. He bowed his head and avoided eye contact. “Excuse me...” A shiver ran
through his fingers as a strangely familiar hand smoothly clasped his and the
other closed lightly around his shoulder. “I need to..” He glanced
up.
"You cannot delight in
yourself while trying to destroy yourself.." his rescuer observed
liltingly. It was the person across the room, with the blinking eyes- now his
shield- the man with the Top Hat which stretched a foot in dusty
black palor, yet rested neatly over his well trimmed eyebrows.
"Is that what they have done?
Is that why they do not blink like you or I?" The boy asked warily,
"and what of-" his words caught up in his throat. The bodies around
them continued to spin, reach, cripple, writhe, jack
and tense like figurines in a deceptively alluring music
box.. only united on occasion, for their various motions to suddenly
contradict and sway them back into isolated oddity.. Yet
again, with her long dress sweeping the floor the gorgeous terror that
had spoken to him glided over bodies of fallen movers. A calm,
predatory smile dancing on her lips.
"Pay no heed.." The top hat man chided, "They
perpetuate but fail to increase, they persist but refuse to exist; they mirror
and idealize and accomodate yet they can only clone those before them for so
long, before their predessor falls- having been driven by the drives
given, never steering from their own source.. following the
pathways previously arranged, but empty of aspiration or self prescribed
goal.."
"Why does she say I am trapped?" the boy asked the Top
Hat man. "What does she want with me- why is she the only one that
speaks??"
The Top Hat man began to glide the boy across the floor- weaving
in and out of the surrounders, as he answered, "Behind those who
never questioned are the few who, such as that damsel,
having sprouted gateways beyond their imaginations- slaughtered the
guardkeepers and swallowed the keys, and rather than walking through to pursue
the outskirts of reality, distorted what little reality was gained, entrapping
those who but never desired to see a gateway in the first place, into their
dysfunctional and limited existence.. it doesn't matter if she thinks she
can keep you here, or if it were a he. They can choose to blink, these people-
each one of them if they but desire- But child, you are still
blinking.. How much easier for you now to breach reality's borders..Don't
look back.. You can become impenatrable like myself while still facing every
external thrashing that attempts to anchor you down- and watching it flail with
pity, as you conquer and burst upward relentlessly; you can move as they
do, and be, yet.." He leaned in, his hands tightening on the boy's shoulders,
his passion intensifying the volume of but a whisper, "with...
something more.. something ever growing that they cannot take from you, for
it is yours and yours alone..you only have the power to destroy or
evolve yourself no matter how you are rated, raided or wasted..stoke the
power..Are you ready to leave here?" He began pacing the boy to the
corner of the room, the boy's eyes widening as they moved fasted
and faster toward the only partition of the place that was not
in decor- a painful looking cement wall.
"Are we going to walk through that?!?" The boy
exclaimed- only in an instant they were sprinting straight at it. "How can I think right with such a risk of thinking wrong- how do I know I am not falling prey with YOU to the very theory you have about these people!??" The
woman clenched her fists and snarled, no longer following.
"You are ready to experience things that have never
happened to you before! You sought after me before I came to you..it was your choice.." The Top Hat Man chuckled, his eyes wide with an
enthusiasm that urged the boy's trust to emerge, as he roared, "you will learn.. over
and over.. at increasing rates- there is so much more- things which you have
never known and someones you have never known, through years beyond numbers you
could ever number- BECAUSE HERE IT COMES!!!!!!"
-"Top Hat Hotel"
