Silent Anguish

“A drunk mind speaks a sober heart.” 

He was passed drunk, only the nicotine ingested from a cigarette might sober him up. It might further contaminate the glossopharyngeal nerve at the back of his tongue and align his broken head with the broken and filthy taste in his mouth. Both were full of canker and bile. It felt like and probably looked like the bottom of an empty garbage bin. All to match the sullen rage in his head; these silent visions which failed to disappear no matter what state of mind he was in. He wanted the contents of the bottles and cartoon of cigarettes to quicken his heart rate and at the same time dull the mind. Dull the anxious pain and the nagging doubts.

He needed the contents, the poisonous contents of the bottles like an addicted snake charmer gained as they tried to control a snake. Except it was an illusion; for the audience watching, the snake had poisoned and captured the snake charmer’s wellbeing. Now a zombi, who was now a performing puppet under the powerful serpentine gaze. The poison from the bottles had obliterated the man’s silent yet sensible contemplation.

The doubt raged inside his grieving and addled mind. The silent lonely man grieved for a world lost. Unfortunately, it was pure arrogance to think the world could ever be conquered or settled by the peaceful, the meek and mild, yet more misquotes or lies by a god with a forklike tongue. To be forever crucified for his allowing humankind to hope. God had sent his dark angels to encourage the fallen to consider lifting upwards their crestfallen hearts and heads.

Only the shabby bottles watched on like silent witnesses to his increasing hopelessness, suffering in his anguished state from a bruised and swollen mind. He meditated in the empty room alone on his loneliness, like someone feeling lonely in a crowded room. Angry with the crowd because they were always talking nonsense, talking without really speaking or communicating. No one really listened anymore, their hearing was closed and was blocked by the noise of misinformation; like a blood clot which had disconnected the hearing organ from their brains. Everybody was floating to the edges of the abyss, incapable of hearing the warnings.

He wanted to shout out at the crowd “You do not know!”

“You have no answers to this bloody mess!”

“We’re on the eve of destruction!”

“It MUST change, don’t you see!”

Talking to the dusty half-filled bottles, their non committed answers made more sense. Talking to the darkness, making friends with it all. It’s harmless, innocuous; not like the dangerous yet senseless world. Unfortunately, the visions planted in his brain could never be erased by the contents of the watching bottles. Living in a world that was hell-bent on self-destruction and playing games with the innocent. Still barely out of nappies, too young to vote, but nonetheless marched to war, and taking up arms in a crusade against another regime of equally silent and passive misinformed infants, full of baby fluff on their faces and inside their brains.

“Think! My fellow students of life, don’t be corrupted by these righteous, false prophets.”

He sat at his bleak desk with the slogans and headlines of lies pinned to the walls. Literally and metaphorically, papering over the cracks of deceit pinned on unsightly walls trying to maintain power, where nothing had changed since the early cave dwellers. For an alien observing his world, he looked like he was living in a cave with squared walls and ceiling. The only contents of the room were a shabby writing desk with draws, and a lamp from the ceiling attempting to conceal the dark and rotting cadavers lurking for generations in the dark shadows of his solitude. Only the sentinels of watching bottles aided and goaded the gross madness of the scene, a never-ending conflict, full of unbridled aggression.

One small glass to toast the stupidity of life. It needed to be continually refilled with his doubts and the bile of frustration confronting people with their false gods, their hypocrisy of faith, worshipping plastic icons and flashy cars. Following false prophets and greedy ideals with empty heads, and hopeless empty hearts.

Were the bottles just props, supporting his doubts and increasing his rage of being trapped by a society bereft of morals? He gradually realized he was losing the battle, the will to live in this world.

Through his dark tunnel of thoughts, a glimmer of light came from another dingy room full of strangers, but with one common bond, trying to stop drinking from those watching bottles full of self-abuse. The words of the special prayer he often recited tried to douse the flames of anger and doubt. Words which often gave sweet comfort as angels of mercy whispered in his ear and tried to tickle his chin to make him lift his head from his chest. The prayer for the self-abused.

“O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other.”

The bottles had corrupted his mind, as the contempt and doubt crawled back into the room, and littered the dank walls with their dangerous sound of silence. Again, the sentinel bottles cheered on the return of uncertainty, and the mismatched chair for the writing table creaked in solemn homage, as his doubts returned to taunt him.

The contents of the room conspired to silently whisper, and hiss into the darkness.

“Misguided people misguiding other people. People scamming or cheating other cheating people, and others. Beware of those that believe in good deeds and intentions, because the road to hell surely is paved with good intentions. The world is full or the arrogant and the ignorant, both will become and seek to become the leaders of the equally greedy masses.”

The liquid fangs of the bottles poisoned and consumed the corridors of his mind, as his heart raged into the silent darkness. Although the contents of the bottles drained away, the emptiness was replaced by his anguish and pain.

The sneering laughter echoed and revibrated around the small dark room, inside his head. The snake’s head hissed, as the snake charmer slept.

 “Hi, my name is John, and I am an alcoholic” The memory of his voice said.

“Do you want to share your experiences – John?” The snake inside his head sniggered and mimicked.

“We are here to simply listen!” It goaded.

“What a crock of shit – I can find more answers at the bottom of these bottles.” It throttled.

“Knock – knock on heaven’s door.” Laughed the room, as the bottles rattled in agreement.