Penetrating the Impenetrable

Pew pew. Pew pew. Pew pew go the guns of the Lightning Warriors.

Bang, bang. Bang bang. Bang bang, go the fingers of the Thunder Gods. As light roars from their mouths, creatures of the darkness stand illuminated…

Whatever the fuck that means. Forgive me, I was lost in the past for a moment. An older version of myself, but in a younger way. Again, we’ve started again again. A few weeks back I found myself in the same place, again. Back in the fucking gutter. I love the fucking gutter. The fucking gutters. Every place I go, I can see the gutters. The fucking gutters. Most people step over the gutters. Never even thinking about them. Gutters tell us a lot about our shit. Where we are, where we’re at. Like I said, most people don’t even think about them. For most people, things like this; the gutters, where the shit goes, places like this are never even a thought. For them, these things just take care of themselves.

Mmmmm. I’ve learned much about gutters over the years. Spent many a day in the gutter. Mmmmm

The second time I found myself in the gutter I was just a young boy. In the woods, at my parents second house, alone, playing in a gravel driveway. It was the rainy season and a storm had just passed. Mucking about in the mud, I stepped off the path and into the gutter. Nothing more than a ditch filled with the loose, sediment from up the hill. With one step, I felt stuck, and with the second step I knew I was stuck. Stuck in the gutter. This fucking gutter. Alone

I was scared. It felt like quicksand… except it was slow, so slow. Not that I’d ever felt quicksand, but I’d seen it so many times in my Saturday morning cartoons that I thought this was it. I thought I was finished. I couldn’t believe that I was stuck already, I hadn’t even gotten a chance to start yet. I pulled and pulled, but each time I tried to pull a leg out, the mud,! The mud just kept pulling me deeper.

When will it stop? Where is the bottom? Will I be swallowed whole? When will this end? How long can I go? Until it gets me?

This fucking gutter. It’s swallowing me whole. I’m too small for this. I’m too young to die. Why hasn’t anyone cleaned this gutter out? All this old shit, should have been gone already! I’m too young to die. I’m just a young boy. Just a moment ago I was playing and free. How could this…be?

Ahh fuck it. Fuck it all. I need a hero. Who’s it going be? Where’s all the adults? They’re inside, getting drunk off of whiskey and wine. High off smoke. Kids raising kids, No one’s to fucking blame. This fucking gutter. It’s got me.

Suck it up you fucking child. It’s just a bit of mud. Don’t scream, they won’t help you. Stop pulling and start thinking. This fucking gutter. This fucking gutter. Don’t scream. Please don’t scream. They won’t help you.

“AHHHHHH!!!! HEEEEELP MEEEEEEE!!!!”

Ohh, you’ve done it now. Look at you, all swole up and ripe for the picking. Here comes they. They the ones you think gonna help you, but in reality they the ones you’re gonna blame. Ain’t that always the way? Help you save you from yourself and your foolish, childish, mistakes.

I told you to shut the fuck up. I told you they won’t help you. This gutter. This fucking gutter. No one cares that you’re here. Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out. Reach down deep and fucking dig. No one will save you here. It is just not that place. This is the mud. This isn’t sand. We’re not that lucky. Nothin’s quick about dying here. The young die slow and the old…never change… This fucking gutter.

Dig, dig, dig. Dig yourself out of his mess, this mud. This fucking gutter. You can’t keep pulling or else you’ll never get out. But you can’t stop moving or else you’ll grow right there where you stand. This fucking gutter. This fucking gutter. Got you in a real jam…

You know? The first time I dug myself out of the gutter. I used my bare hands. It was good. Real good. The last time I dug myself out of the gutter, a few weeks back, I used gloves… an ax, and a ladder. You know? After all this time, I’ve gotten a lot better at jumping higher and farther than I did that day in the driveway. But I haven’t gotten any better at sticking this goddamned landing.

Right back into the mud I go. Mmmmmm. I like it here. The digging is nice for my back. Once the mud is gone, dry ground lay beneath. It shrinks you down. Big man, you’re really just small child. Dig, dig, dig some more. You’re screams will do you no good here. Quietly, quietly dig some more. Mmmmm dry ground.  This fucking gutter.

Use your ax, release the energy from beneath. This fucking gutter. This fucking gutters got to have a bottom. There’s got to be a way in.

Deeper and deeper I climb. Quietly. Until the light above has all but disappeared. Mmmmm. Barely bright, broken stars, do nothing to light the way. This fucking gutter. Into the darkness, deeper and deeper I climb. This ax, these gloves, this ladder…

This ladder? These gloves? This ax? This fucking gutter. Take the gloves off. Point the ladder towards the edge. Pick up your ax. And pull yourself up and out with your bare, goddamn hands. There’s nothing left down here for you. You’ve got it all now. And your screams? Your cries for help? Who will answer those in a place as dark as this?

…Come out of the darkness. Let these creatures be. Leave the god’s alone. Do not trouble them, with your mortal anxieties. If you are lost, let the Warriors of the lightning show you the way.  There will be no climbing out of this. Deeper you go. Penetrating the impenetrable.

This Fucking Gutter

 

J. Rozarie