Read Online Old World (The Green and Pleasant Land) by Oliver Kennedy - Free Book Online
Authors: Oliver Kennedy
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looked upon him. He exuded a strange welcoming aura, he had such patient eyes brimming with compassion. As I looked into them I saw memories, but they were not mine, they belonged to the world, they belonged to the future.
I saw a greatness that was such in name only, I saw the changing face of the land which had taken place under the watchful gaze of the carrion. I saw blood drawn and seep into the earth and I saw the ground sickened by the touch of such unwanted sacrifice. Centuries of greed, millennia of avarice stacked upon one another became too much for the world to bear. They toppled over and the hands which had laboured so long to build them fell down with their creations into the abyss.
I saw battles take place in far away lands, I saw the rise of the clansmen and the rebirth of an era of smoke and fire when men built a world of iron and sweat. I saw the tiny grains of sand tumbling by, etched on the side of every single speck was a version of the future, all of them building up to a single event, the linchpin of destiny from which all the other events sprung. I saw the high towers of the raven and wars which were fought to the sounds of singing, a song which sung of the emptiness between the stars and the few virtues which linked us across the distance. I saw all this and so much more, but the vision disappeared in an instant when he spoke, when the harlequin said those words “Are you feeling better?” he asked excitedly. I slowly shook my head and he clapped his hands in delight.
The veins on his hands had a silvery tinge which I noted as he rubbed them together. There were about thirty inmates gathered before the central stage. All of them were on their knees with their heads bowed. Brute and his cohorts propped me up on on the front bench and the joined their fellow inmates briefly before they all got up and moved to either side giving me full view of the stage and leaving nothing between my ruined form and the man in the white coat.
He stared at me for a time, swaying, dancing even from side to side, pondering, considering me with his kindly gaze. There was a deadly silence in the hall. I stared back at him, barely able to comprehend the horrors Id already looked upon this night, I could not begin to fathom what might come next.
Then he clicked his fingers and smiled again. At that signal several of the inmates moved to behind a thick velvet curtain at the back of the stage area. They had one last punishment for me. My daughter was dressed in a plain white smock, she did not struggle as they carried her and placed her on her knees before the man in the white coat, before the harlequin. I thought back to all the school plays I'd been to see, all the musicals, all the award ceremonies, how could this sick perversion of all those pure moments have been allowed to come to pass by any god real or imagined, how could the universe in all its infinite majesty allow itself to be infested by such dark plagues as the one which was here before me.
Her her was almost torn out by the gruff hands which held her head up to look upon the harlequin. Those same hands held her still as the kindly doctors hand beat her face from side to side several times, with each strike he would ask her if she was feeling better and with each question she responded with more tears, and more blood.
During a brief pause from the beating our eyes met, she made contact with the broken form of her father sitting on the front row. Then she spoke, the last word that would ever part her lips, the last gasp of desperation. “Dad” she whimpered. And the walls of my sanity came crashing down, her voice, her last word was the epitaph for the man who was Robert Locklear. All that was good and noble was gone, a nothing sat where I had sat but moments before, a beast, a ghost, and a madman. The father was gone, the husband was gone, I was now flesh and bone and little else.
The show continued. Through dead eyes I watched as brute came forth bearing
I saw a greatness that was such in name only, I saw the changing face of the land which had taken place under the watchful gaze of the carrion. I saw blood drawn and seep into the earth and I saw the ground sickened by the touch of such unwanted sacrifice. Centuries of greed, millennia of avarice stacked upon one another became too much for the world to bear. They toppled over and the hands which had laboured so long to build them fell down with their creations into the abyss.
I saw battles take place in far away lands, I saw the rise of the clansmen and the rebirth of an era of smoke and fire when men built a world of iron and sweat. I saw the tiny grains of sand tumbling by, etched on the side of every single speck was a version of the future, all of them building up to a single event, the linchpin of destiny from which all the other events sprung. I saw the high towers of the raven and wars which were fought to the sounds of singing, a song which sung of the emptiness between the stars and the few virtues which linked us across the distance. I saw all this and so much more, but the vision disappeared in an instant when he spoke, when the harlequin said those words “Are you feeling better?” he asked excitedly. I slowly shook my head and he clapped his hands in delight.
The veins on his hands had a silvery tinge which I noted as he rubbed them together. There were about thirty inmates gathered before the central stage. All of them were on their knees with their heads bowed. Brute and his cohorts propped me up on on the front bench and the joined their fellow inmates briefly before they all got up and moved to either side giving me full view of the stage and leaving nothing between my ruined form and the man in the white coat.
He stared at me for a time, swaying, dancing even from side to side, pondering, considering me with his kindly gaze. There was a deadly silence in the hall. I stared back at him, barely able to comprehend the horrors Id already looked upon this night, I could not begin to fathom what might come next.
Then he clicked his fingers and smiled again. At that signal several of the inmates moved to behind a thick velvet curtain at the back of the stage area. They had one last punishment for me. My daughter was dressed in a plain white smock, she did not struggle as they carried her and placed her on her knees before the man in the white coat, before the harlequin. I thought back to all the school plays I'd been to see, all the musicals, all the award ceremonies, how could this sick perversion of all those pure moments have been allowed to come to pass by any god real or imagined, how could the universe in all its infinite majesty allow itself to be infested by such dark plagues as the one which was here before me.
Her her was almost torn out by the gruff hands which held her head up to look upon the harlequin. Those same hands held her still as the kindly doctors hand beat her face from side to side several times, with each strike he would ask her if she was feeling better and with each question she responded with more tears, and more blood.
During a brief pause from the beating our eyes met, she made contact with the broken form of her father sitting on the front row. Then she spoke, the last word that would ever part her lips, the last gasp of desperation. “Dad” she whimpered. And the walls of my sanity came crashing down, her voice, her last word was the epitaph for the man who was Robert Locklear. All that was good and noble was gone, a nothing sat where I had sat but moments before, a beast, a ghost, and a madman. The father was gone, the husband was gone, I was now flesh and bone and little else.
The show continued. Through dead eyes I watched as brute came forth bearing
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