∞ The Black Parade
Saturday, August 30, 2008
“Will you defeat them, your demons, and be the savior of the broken and the damned?”
--
I felt a deathly silence.
My head throbbed in excruciating pain, compressed on both sides and waiting to cave in. My useless body felt like wrecked machinery, unable to process data and shutting off all signals, binding me like a living coffin.
Finally, a repetitive beeping broke through the silence barrier in a steady tempo like a metronome. Beep… bee… beep… With Herculean effort, I tried to bury my head in my pillow, in attempt to block out the monotonous sound which rose in a gradual crescendo. However, my constrained body failed to respond, disconnected from the messages my brain was sending. As I tried to pull up my heavy eyelids, I was instantly exposed to the sharp white lights overhead, sending my eyes into a blinking frenzy.
“THANKGOD YOU’RE ALIVE!” cried a hysterical voice from the left hand side of my bed.
Oh no. I could recognize that voice anywhere. I can’t deal with her right now.
“I was so worried- …” my mother’s voice continued on. A grasp tightened on my left hand and I tried to jerk it off without success. Bull. As if she’s ever cared about me or my brother-
My brother…
A lump was forming in my throat and saltwater built up in my eyes like reservoirs. I thrust myself up from my bed, more awake then ever before, and examined the room for the first time. Those pale white walls. The side tables filled with syringes and anesthetics. The sickening odor of medicine now flooded through my olfactory. And the weeping face of my mother, lined with age and worry.
My brother.
The only one who’s ever cared.
My brother and me, in my car, drinking, bottle after bottle.
My brother and me, screaming our heart out, song after song.
Blinding headlights, aggrandizing bigger and bigger.
My brother next to me, his face white as a sheet, paralyzed with fear.
His eyes… his eyes…
--
I screamed at the images before me. Those projections of my brother’s last moments carved at my conscience like a scalpel and my blood-stained hands dug deep into my chest, desperately trying to grasp the empty space where my heart used to be. Aggression pumped fiercely through my veins, and the world shook violently. I could see the blurred silhouette of my mother shouting for medics, her voice silenced by my agonizing screams of terror. The lights began to flash. The heart monitor to my right quickened erratically like a bomb awaiting its detonation, and the room was spinning out of control. Faster, faster… white distorted figures rushed towards me… faster, faster… those walls no longer white, but shades of grey… faster, faster… the icy fingertips of death, slowing enclosing me in a welcoming embrace-
Suddenly, it stopped.
No longer was I immersed in pain, but weightless, like an empty shell, discarded in the whirlpool of black. Am I dead? I lingered in suspense, my cold hands stretched before me, searching… But darkness was fading, losing its battle with the scattered rays of dusk which now gently lit the dimmed surroundings. As I hovered, I gained more form, and my feet soon skimmed the surface of the ground. Wintry chills swept past, tossing my fragile frame around like a ragged doll. I collapsed on the dusty ground, shattered and beaten.
Somewhere in the distance a faint melody harmonized with the bitter winds. Accompanying the melancholy music was the dead beat of the drums and a low shuffling of footsteps, and out of the liquid grey haze emerged a cart… or was it a platform? It seemed to glide slowly above ground, and on it stood a man clothed in magnificent black, his back to me and orchestrating a symphony of sound. Following the platform were a band and a sea of black, all marching comatosely.
As I watched from the sidewalk, the conductor turned to the front and I stifled a gasp of horror. His pale face, drained of life, glimmered in the dark light, and there was a wild glint in his deep set eyes as he sang manically at the top of his lungs. A wide smirk crept across his face as his eyes caught mine, and I froze in the intensity of his gaze. Cold sweat dewed on my back and I quivered in the sighing wind, exhaling a trace of vanilla mist.
His eyes …
With all the strength I could muster, I wrenched my eyes away from his piercing stare and rested them upon the parade of people trailing behind, as they dragged their slumped figures along the isolated road stretching on for eternity. Their hollow voices echoed throughout the deserted expansion, forming the essence of the winter serenade. My eyes widened as their translucent complexions faced me, their eyes like bottomless pit holes that left me searching for life.
I faltered as snow began to fall. With no energy left inside me to panic, I surrendered, letting my mind wonder freely to whichever way the wind blew. Snowflakes softly kissed my cheeks like tears, and I mourned for my brother, regretting and remembering. I thought back to the parade, the peculiar expression of the conductor. And his eyes… those sharp ebony eyes flecked with gold, so unsettlingly familiar, almost a reminiscence of someone once so close to me. Of someone that cared.
It was the second day of the second month. I was a young boy then, and my brother took me into the city to see a marching band. As people paraded past, he turned to me; hint of sadness flickered in his ebony eyes. “When you grow up, will you be the savior of the broken and the damned?” he asked. “Because one day, I’ll leave you a phantom to lead you in the winter, to join the black parade...”
”The black parade,” I whispered, glancing towards blurry outlines now trailing off into the smoldering backdrop. My mind rewinded to my reckless past which condemned me, and then to the expressionless faces of the marchers, lost and abandoned. Maybe this is the sign, the conductor … the phantom. It’s never too late…
With a burst of inner strength, I lifted my body off the sidewalk and marched forward, becoming one with the parade, the drumbeats my heartbeat, their song my anthem. As I led on, a ghostly smile widened across my face, and at the top of my lungs, I rejoiced into the unknown...