Bartholomew *Final* (parts 1-6)

Oh! How a plank of wood warms me so! An untapped cache of bottled potential! So pure! So so significant! And the Thing! That Thing who flows through me like a bottomless current as I bring down the 1st stroke, expertly, perfectly. The tap of a hammer indents wood ever so finely, a compacted ditch whose sides I smooth with an ever so slight dab of spit. And so yet one more unbiased spirit is born, and her virginity comes forward for me to craft into a mirror of myself. One of wealth and bread and elegant goblets of Bordeaux. Of fresh fruit and jovial nobles.
Of abundance.
And so it begins.
Days pass and I have worked myself into a prodigious frenzy for
I am my sculpting and my art is me.
Knobs of sweat run down from hairline to collect on the bridge of my nose. Time is eternal.
I am a maestro and this is my legacy.
I slave weeks and blood.
Eternity and night.
It is finished!
Finally complete.
Perfection at long, hellish last! With a final blow, I bring down from over my head, the final stroke. The curve of the nobleman’s hand.
BUT I MISS!
The fine point of the chisel slips for the glaze of sweat on my open hand hinders my grasp.
The chisel is released.
And punctures
Through the little finger on my right hand.
Yet it lands all but an inch astray from where it belongs.
And the noble’s eye
An eye no more.
I collapse to my knees, unbelieving.
For perfection is ruined.
Never to be.
For it is the glare of a demon.
Staring back at me.
I fall to the ground and cry. A chance at godhood stolen away. It mocks me, forever to evade. And before I react to the horror I feel, I die, falling into a prison of dark, haunted by my failure, blinded by ambition, and the price of hope bleeds on.
I wake in a prairie of twists. My fury must have been unbound in sleep. Coils of wood tangle my hair and digging my way out beseeches herculean sums of strength, for a ton of mahogany weighs no less than if dispersed in shavings of slight.
My head emerges from the pile, my throat and breathing raw and painful from a night oblivious of irritating sawdust. But this is not what pains me most. It is not the priceless mahogany sculpture reduced to worthless scraps that I had dedicated myself so diligently to. So… perfectly too. No. Not that. Not the worry of the deadline approaching in 2 hours. No. Failure pains me substantially, but Creation was never in grasp. Is never. No. It is my finger that pains me most. The skin is raw and painful where I had stabbed through, the flab of skin bordering the small of my right little finger’s nail had been cleanly cut off, a minor wound in context, but it upon itself a door to horrors beyond delving. The opposing side in proportion is so large it sickens me and my eyes cannot break from their stare. It was blatantly… ferocious; the magnitude of such a superficially minor scar monumentally, so, so, crushingly, destructively
IM
PERFECT?
NOT
NOT!
NO
that it morphs my five senses of reality to a point beyond this feeble world. What is this hellish place? How could it have been?
DAMN IT!
FAILURE
FAILURE
CAPITAL
ETERNAL
And time chokes.
I wake from the haze at the door of my patron, nothing in hand but for the hollow window of a glove that separates one sight from another. The door swings inward and the grin on the noble’s face quickly metamorphoses into a questioning frown when he sees my empty hands. I hide my mutilated finger behind my back. The man cocks an eyebrow before welcoming me in to his home with a tint of hesitation. His home. His glorious home. The world compared to the compact cesspool of a shed I live, work, and will die in. I tremble inside, nauseous from the heavenly height of the sculpted roof, of angels and demons and naked saints with wings; I hide my hand from the scrutinizing gaze of God. BUT oh! May he fire a bolt of fire and strike me dead for it is the Pope, the Pope himself seated across from myself! Suddenly oblivious to the 8th wonder that is the establishment; I crash into my marked dining chair, dizzy with anxiety. I remove my glove, my shield, in a gesture of formality. But it remains hidden, unseen beneath the rosewood table, obscured from the views of all but one. Attempt after attempt of picking up the spoon in my left hand is thwarted, for my left is as goofy as the talent in my right. My fingers slip, a haunting reverberation of the events of how many was it? nights before, and hot soup spills on my right forearm and begins slowly working its way down to my fingers. The hosts look at me expectantly, then, upon realizing the overhanging air of awkwardness, begin a humdrum chatter of nondescript things like what else but the weather. The hot soup continues its trek, but I manage to maintain my deteriorating composure as I excuse myself from the table, eyes locked perpetually at my feet.
“Where is the restroom in this such a humbling home?” I ask the host, the prosperous owner of a wholesale grocer that supplies every retailer in a hundred miles. He points me to the hallway, visibly upset at my having humiliated him in front of the Pope himself. The vessel of God on Earth! I further bow my head and shuffle my feet to and then down the hall; flowing on both sides are graceful heirlooms and works grander than my own. At the end of the hallway is a gaping vacancy that screamed failure in the eyes of an artisan. I realize it is my own.
The bathroom is at the far end and at the moment I disappear from view I sprint to it, the steaming soup slugging down to my wrist, to the palm, to the knuckle. I burst through the door and frantically dunk my hand in the basin; cool water glazing wound and pain, and as I watch in isolated horror, the water runs red before my eyes! I stifle a scream as the pain suddenly comes searing through me and all but tear my hand from the water. By God, how ugly is the finger, skin shriveled and red where the soup triumphed and the little flab of skin bordering my pinky…. Or what had used to border my pinky- now nonexistent-- in its place a gruesome emptiness that mortified the very complexion of my finger! I bring my appendage down on the ceramic sink, finger hanging precariously over the ledge. In a moment brought about by fear and brazened by pain, I lift a pen knife from high above my ear and bring it down upon my braced hand and chop the entirety of my 1st knuckle! Disembodying it from the remaining finger itself! Blood splatters and sprays on the glass mirror and against the pearly white of the sink and I SCREAM! SCREAM! as the joint topples and rolls and tumbles and spills down the drain!!! There is a sickening magnified mind-numbing squelch as it lands in whatever it is the things that fall down drains land in. Footsteps come trampling down the hall and I frantically look for a way out of the humiliation to follow. Only one remains obvious. The footsteps come closer.
And closer.
And closer.
I tug on my glove and burst through the door.
“RAT!” I scream maniacally as I crash through muscle back down the hall. My body breaks free from the last grasping arm but I don’t stop for a second. The wind of speed pressures the blood on my shirt to cloak around my abdomen, enshrouding a heaving stomach; my nausea remains unshielded. The words of my witless excuse needle in my head. I blow through the ceremonious door and tumble down the concrete steps to land on my back, looking up at the dead sky, looking down at the man who cries. It is raining hard and I shiver with wet even as I stumble to my feet in vain, for my foot catches on the water stretched leg of my pant and I fall to my face once more. Blood explodes in my face and my head feels like grinding stone. Crawl to and down the street, leaving a thick puddle of diluted blood in mucus and spit where I stop to rest. Eventually, surrendered, I call a carriage. My head slumps unconsciously to the glass of a window with a temporarily blinding crack, yet the pain is not to register for I am asleep before either can last. I am jostled awake by each bump in the road yet comfort reclaims its stake quickly and I sleep once more. The infinitely finite periods of dreamless wander melt time and feeling, and pain. and then I’ve given the driver four lire, for my bills are too soaked in be it water or blood. I am reminded of the first plague of Egypt.
Did they all die?
The last thing I remember before collapsing was the art of my craft looking back at me, the face of my decisions, the source of my pains, the price of my failure. The glare of eternity.

I wake in bright light. Is it Heaven or Hell?! Surely it cannot be heaven! It is night and when I wake a second time it is dusk. Is it the weight of blood or be it death? It is death. Be it death. Let it be Purgatory.
I wake once more.
Another
And I rise to face Lucifer
In all his glorified carrion
And my eye opens true.
For truly.
I am in Hell
i am in hell.

inhale.
Blood washes up my nose and open mouth and down my throat tasting like heavy rain. I gag and sputter and the forthcoming bubbles cloud my eyes; they sting. Drool and mucus and lots lots of blood have baptized my slumber, secreting over my body a thin paste of liquid defilement. Grasping the outcropping wall at my side, I manage to erect myself to a broken stand. I am all the more light headed and buckle at my mutinous knees after I vomit what remains in my stomach. I wait ‘till my retarded balance is restored before beginning the trek to the bathroom door. Why? I do not know. Yet the situation upon which I find myself in is without a goal, a sense of clarity, or a state of mind to find either. So I walk, and when I fall, I crawl. Following a moment’s rest with my back at the foot of the door, I lift up my left arm, turn the brass doorknob half a rotation to the right, wrap my right arm around my body and push wood to open the door. The sudden pressure instigates another round of blood and I wrap the finger in my cloak to stop the bleeding. Using my left hand, I drag myself to the sink and pull myself to my feet. I look forward.
It stares at me. Its face is divided with abrupt red lines that resemble the floor of a desert during the longest ever drought. Its eyes are bloodshot and the pupils dilated to such levels that Its former blue is found only trimming distant corners. Its mouth is red and parched, Its skin pale and yellow.
Veins upon albino skin form a complex pattern of bulging knots and colors.
Dying
Its fault. All. This PAIN. This TORTURE. This ABOMINATION FROM THE DEEPEST DAYDAMNED FORGOTTEN BOWELS OF HELL!
Decaying
AND YET STILL! STILL IT LAUGHS! STILL IT MOCKS! AND AS IT SHALL DIE!
The knife glares high above my head, a second time since.
I stab myself.
The walls are frescoes of blood---

reflections of the shattered glass below.

Rays of some blinding light can’t contain and the world fades as I fall; tongue impaled on teeth impaled on chin impaled on sink with the fast coming floor no less forgiving. PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN I choke and I gag and I fight to get up because I’m sputtering and its killing me so I grasp for a hold, grasp, but nothing’s there but I still can’t see and my eyes feel like they’re a trillion leagues beneath water imploding and I’m drowning.
Done falling.
Still falling.
And then I’ve grabbed onto something and I’m pulling myself up above my death. My eyes clear in a dizzying body-numbing fog like an eternal stretch and I cough, cough, cough out blood.
I am limp with fear.


The Lights of Heaven flicker. The Flames of Hell sputter. Neither takes me. And so I continue, for suicide is a crime equal in divine law to murder, and if my concealed sainthood has ruined my profile, at least I may rest in eternal peace regardless. In Hell, there is company.
I lie on the floor looking up. Slowly, slowly, dying. I am an empty shell. A skin with no body.



*Part 6*


I must escape the bathroom. I crawl through the deep of gumbo sludge, weak arms supporting my head supporting only to the point of inhaling it. I grab the brass knob, twist, and feel a current as strong as a pulse propel me towards the hall. That is not weak, and I am not heavy, so it aids me on my path out of this hellish appendage of the house. I writhe towards the carving room like an infested slug but my wrists give midway through the living room carpet.

My right hand gropes weakly around in my right pocket. Finding nothing, I bring the arm over to my left pocket, for my left arm has stopped responding. Inside it, I find two items, the knife, and beneath, a match.
Leave it to God.
I brandish the match.
A section of my upper right cheek, the only skin not saturated in bodily filth, serves as striker. The flame licks the side of my face. It is smooth like water, light as air, hot as the soul of man. It is good. My power past expended in my arm, I can only flick my wrist to throw the match, and then not far. It lands by a patch of moss which spreads to the floor molding I had designed since I was young; dedication forces me to watch indifferently as the timeline of my life melts. The flame runs quickly, soon engulfing all the walls and then the floor. The fire warms my body but the temperature escalates quickly and I soon feel the protruding hairs of my legs and arms singed with mortality. Only the wood shavings of the cursed sculpting remain unscathed. The fire circles the mound and finally obscures my final sliver of view, but I know it is not touched. I approach it. The first pain is in my eyes.
They are closed, yet the fire is focused and my eyes. Oh God. Now they burn. I keep moving but my eyes they burn they scream to no limits they hell oh god oh my god. THEY BURN. My mind dies like a banshee and my body stabbed over and over and over but my eyes are tortured by the depths of the deepest pain in Hell. Arm and leg arm and leg I crawl but it feels like I am trying to walk backwards on the pendulum of a clock. Every motion advances me FARTHER from my goal --I feel myself dying. Is this the real life? Or is it just fantasy?-- and then all of a sudden I am there, my clothing disintegrated into the air.
My world is afire. Memory absconds from a refreshing wave of new pain, no longer Hell. It is chillingly cold in the Inferno. I pull myself into a fetal position over the mahogany.
Now, I am innocent. And as such I watch as two flames converge on a lonely beam and devour its being. Ashes flake like snowfall from the gown of some angel and they fall unnaturally straight on the windless breeze. My breathing becomes sporadic because now there is an acid flap in my throat and my lungs are weak. I could die, but I struggle to protect something embedded in my soul, like this moment was meant to be and dying now would demolish my whole purpose of living. I live to watch the flame engulf the final spaces of ceiling, and now the ashes are a blizzard of icicles, falling and stabbing and it hurts but I hang on. I cry empty tears and sob from a soundless mouth. The crackle of the flames is finally broken by a smash and then I hear another smash and then screaming from outside. Glass breaks and then someone says something I cannot comprehend for now I am only listening to a snap, watching as a jagged circle from the ceiling is separated from the rest and falls to the ground and into the fire to disappear, clearing the barrier from between me and the night sky. Starless. These are the means of my death. I hear the sound of water splashing and the ferocious light of the room dampens a little and that is the means of my savior. They are too late. I inhale a final time.
It comes surprisingly clear.
I open my eyes.
Merci
.