The Devils Madness Part One

"And so will drink the final drink that cuts the brain in sections.

Where answers do not signify and there aren't any questions." Dave Van Ronk—Last Call.

The screams of the damned and moans of the whores' fake orgasms filled the streets like a twisted symptom of madness.

It felt like Noir York City.

The rotting corpse in the street told the tale of this town.

All it said was get out.

The smell of debauchery ran thick. And through my shades, the world seemed to have lost its color.

Only black and white.

Like that one dream I had so long ago.

My gut reaction to coming here was grabbing a match and burning it all to the ground.

I saw the poor battering each other over the smallest fragment of food.

Violence leaked throughout the walls of this town, damn near flooding it.

The buildings were falling apart, and when the people would look at me, the only things staring were hollow pits looking back at me. The only way out for these people seems like the business end of a short sword or a few feet off the ground hanging from a rope.

I found a bar that didn’t reek of shit and went in.

There were five tables laid throughout the bar, and a counter row with barstools.

There were three old guys playing cards at one table, and another guy at a different table who could have been passed out or dead.

I took a stool and looked at the wooden sign that told everything this establishment had.

There was a pint of beer and a cheeseburger up there; I had to order the food from the land where I grew up most famous delicacy.

It did feel like an insult; the only place I've seen a cheeseburger so far was in this shithole, but hey, that's American for you.

A dirty glass filled with booze was dropped in front of me, and a plate I swore someone had used to kill another man with was thrown next to my glass with an exactly rather good-looking burger.

I took a long sip from the beer. The beer tasted like poison, burning my heart.

I took a bite from the burger. It had a burnt taste to it with a good amount of crunch.

A young lady was singing a song about a lost love in the background.

I love good smooth jazz or classic blues… or just good jazz in general. And my ears were being filled with it right now.

“How can I say goodbye?

My beloved.

How to leave my mind behind

To not dare worry about my misery.

And travel back to yesterday, my love, and never return today.”

The door opened, and a flow of icy air filled the room.

A man came in.

He was a few years younger and a few inches shorter.

He wore glasses, a suit vest, and a white dress shirt. There was a pocket watch chain that could be seen coming out of his pocket, and he wore a pair of black loafers. He was smoking—who wasn’t?—and looked dead on his feet, with deep, drooping eye bags.

He sat down next to me and ordered a beer.

Too clean to be a local.

Five clicks to the south.

There was a nicer place.

One too nice.

I’ll be passing by there to the hell I’m going to. The place I’m going after here is demon country.

The man gave me the once-over.

I took a drink.

The singing has come to a standstill.

An even greater silence fell over the bar.

Then a saxophone cut in place a slow piece.

I stared back at the other man.

“You see something you like,” I said.

The man smirked. “No. Your clothes just seem too nice to be in a place like this, but everything else seems right.”

“And you seem to be too clean to ever come to the slums.”

“I was here researching the town to the south and the lord of this land. The only reason I’m here is to get a full view of the land.”

Papers coming out of this guy's pockets say that much.

“What is he like, the lord, I mean?”

“He was untouchable.

So he doesn't act agreeable or competent.

He lives like an animal, only going off his base instincts: eating, drinking, sleeping, and screwing.”

He pulled a self-rolled cigarette out of his breast pocket and patted himself down, trying to find his matchbox.

”You got a light?”

“Yeah.”

I pulled out my lighter and lit it.

He took a drag.

“Interesting thing.”

“I guess.”

“Why are you in a place like this?”

“Heading to the demon country.

I heard a story about it, and I wanted to check it out myself.”

“The demon land is filled with nothing but death. Just bodies piled on bodies. And the only smell that comes from the land is death.”

“Seems like my kind of place.”

The sound of smooth jazz changed to blues.

Filling the room with the melancholy of reality.

I took long swigs from the glass.

I stopped my heavy drinking back when I was twenty-five… twenty-eight, but it all changed when I got here.

Drowning in my misery and infinite booze.

Drinking,

Killing,

Dying,

And smoking.

Everybody gets what they deserve, so they say, and the Devil getting sent to hell only makes sense.

Before the smoky air suffocated me, I finished my drink and decided to leave the bar.

“Until we meet again, have a good one,” the man said

“You too,” I replied.

I left the bar and realized it was snowing. I didn’t know this country could have snow.

The snow had piled up to about 5 inches.

Only black above and white below.

I believe I brought this up before, but I always love good old snow. The beauty comes from this childhood wonder and hope. But the snow was going to kill a good number tonight for all those not graced with warmth.

Poor bastards.

I took a swig from my flask; it was bitter. It felt like a knife cutting me from the inside until it made it to my stomach, warming me.

Deciding to give in to my animal wants, I lit one of my cigarettes, leaving me with fifteen.

Smoking and walking the land that had become so very black and white.

I turned into an alleyway. I found the pale white snow turning to a dark rose red, surrendering the corpse of a young lady, and a girl crying over death. The wailing of the girl shook me like an opera singer's voice to glass.

She had to mean something.

Stranger, don’t weep like that for the damned.

All the demons I made rose up from the ground below and pulled me back to hell.

Back to that dream.

My eyes reveal my reality that I stood upon a bridge. Shaking off my dream about a bleeding girl.

Now into another dream…

No, a memory.

A memory that repeats every time I dream.

Or reality?

It was December 14th, 1997, the first December I was alone.

I was back in my hometown, a place I could no longer bear to live in. So I would be gone from the America experiment by year's end.

But before I could leave this, I crossed a bridge. I decided to take a walk after eating somewhere… Probably McDonald’s with my Dr Pepper spiked with whiskey.

And I returned to this little sand of time.

Shallow breaths and whimpering led me back to where it all started. To the girl I’d seen thousands of times before.

The girl who made an 18-year-old man become this fucking Devil… How dare I blame her for the monster I became.

For I man’s Devil.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Crunch.

The crunch of snow awakened the sound that alerted the girl to my presence.

The girl's eyes look at me, and my eyes are forced upon the girl.

She stood around 5 feet 2 inches, skinny. She looked like death had already come, and she was just finishing the journey.

The girl was on the other side where I stood, gripping the railing.

A cold breeze cut at me.

I’ve never been known for my world-class empathy or sympathy; that’s why I hate suicide. It was one of the only problems I could never solve.

“They say when you're halfway down, you wish to be halfway up.”

“I’m sorry I never wanted another person to witness this.”

“Then don’t do it.”

“I have to.”

One foot off now…

The hourglass was almost full now.

I tried to run, to do anything, but I was stuck, like a rat in glue.

Now her right hand is loose.

The clicks from my pocket watch are the only sound now.

No jazz.

No air.

In the opening line of The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus says, “There is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”

…I guess philosophy statements mean nothing in the face of reality. I’m sorry, Camus.

She dropped.

Dropped into the abyss, I will never see this woman again.

I was only a few inches from saving her…

Just a little bit fast.

Just a little bit longer.

Just a little bit better.

Goddamn it…

I collapsed to my knees, but I knew nothing would ever come out. Tears have long forsaken me.

When I dreamt of this dream, I would scream my lungs bloody, but now?

My voice is sore, and my throat is filled with the blood of a fool.

I stood there on the bridge as dead as that girl.

Then the smell of beer hit my nose, and the stale smoke from cigarettes brought me to the present. Drenched in my cold sweat and the sound of jazz filled my ears.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

“Didn’t know I was asleep.”

I took a sip of my 5th half-drunk beer.

“Well, after drinking as much as you did, I wouldn’t know whether I was alive or dead. How was your sleep?”

“Like shit.”

“Bad dream?”

“Bad memory—bad reality.”

The man behind the bar rings a bell and calls the last call.

The man beside me and I each ordered one last drink, and a song started to play within my head.

"And so we've had another night of poetry and poses,

And each man knows he'll be alone when the sacred gin mill closes."

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

"And so we'll drink the final glass, each to his joy and sorrow,

And hope the numbing drink will last till opening tomorrow."

We left the bar, and we both lit a cigarette and stood there.

My real 15th smoke.

“And when we stumble back again, like paralytic dancers,

Each knows the question he must ask, and each man knows the answer.”

The land was white from snow, and bitter winds kept hitting us. I took one long swig from my flask.

“And so we'll drink the final drink that cuts the brain in sections,

Where answers do not signify and there aren't any questions.”

The bitter drink went down like a boxer in his 15th round.

I looked into the endless abyss above and felt the cruel coldness of meaninglessness.

"I broke my heart the other day. It will mend again tomorrow.

If I'd been drunk when I was born, I'd be ignorant of sorrow."

“I don’t think I ever asked your name in there.”

“The name is Akuma. It's nice to meet you.”

“The name is V. It’s been interesting.”

I shook his hand, and we said our farewells. The cigarette in my mouth was half smoked, and the streets, for the first time I'd been here, were silent.

“And so we'll drink the final toast that never can be spoken.

Here's to the heart that is wise enough,

To know when it's better off broken.”

Dave Van Ronk—Last Call

I walk the barren streets of Weltschmerz, the same as I did in my dream.

Even with the desertion of the freezing stress, I felt eyes stalking my every movement.

Uneasiness set in.

The streets were uneven, and the roads were unpaved.

Silence was shattered with a horrific scream coming from an alleyway. Before I knew what was happening, my legs started running, and my hand was reaching for my gun. I was locked and loaded, ready for a fight.

The only thing I found was a corpse.

The smell always gets me when bodies show.

The corpse looked twenty.

On the wall where the corpse was slumped, there was something written in blood.

“Good only comes with evil.

But does this statement ring true when revised?

If you dare, come find me.

You will learn the truth to it all.”

Truth to what, exactly, I ponder…

I heard footsteps coming down a different alleyway I came from.

So I aimed my pistol at the location of the footsteps.

And a man appeared.

“V?”

“Akuma?”

“What are you doing here?” We both said it at the same time.

“I heard a scream and came to investigate.”

“So did I.”

He looked at the corpse and read the message in blood.

A puzzled expression formed across his face.

I checked the corpse and found a letter.

It was written with a pen this time.

“If you had pulled this card

You have accept this duel of wits.

I see.

I see.

I’m ecstatic to find a second and third player…”

How did they know there were two of us?

The letter continues.

“This woman was a whore…

But you're a Devil.

Heaven could be on Earth.

But hell is.

Find it, and clue two is yours.”

I felt like I was still stuck in my dreams. How could this person know there were two of us, and how could he know I was the Devil…

Was he in that bar and saw the mask in my pocket? Maybe he was a mad god who needed something to do.

I passed Akuma the letter.

“The Devil”

I saw Akuma become a bit panicked after reading that part out loud.

Strange.

I couldn’t tell whether the myth of the Devil scared him or something deeper, right into the heart of darkness.

The night was young, and the game had just begun.