The Writers' Circle

"Can you sit in that wheelchair Mr. Demaios?", "No" he replied breathing heavily, sweat pouring off his large egg-shaped skull, blurred vision; heart beating -setting it's own time to atomic clocks- with brutal accuracy. 
"Why not?" the questioner asked sternly. 
"Because, you have me strapped down, that's why..." he spat smiling, mostly in fear although a little at the absurdity of the question; and all the while he could think only of the pier, the long walks with his wife- the dreamy ocean dew of grey, and the gulls swooping, the jellyfish that would pass dead- beneath their feet. 
"Open your mouth Mr. Demaios", neon-electrodes buzzed and flickered electric sparks- the questioner shaking like a schizotypal moved passed the adroit machine, lithe-ghost movements with piercing negative emotion "Opeenn--" he drawled mockingly, hovering, kneeling heavily on his chest, inching a metallic- funnelled worm closer to his mouth- "Now, do I have to ice-pick your teeth?", with this proposition, Demaios' mouth shot open to receive the oiled giant worm, that slid with grinding- scraping resistance down passed his teeth and uncomfortably into his throat, he gagged, and instantly the 'doctor' pressed violently against his shoulders keeping him pinned down and immobile, "Reflex. Breath. You regurgitate, you die..." the doctor snapped his fingers in front of  his eyes "Focus, Demaios!", the gagging receded, followed by shuddering gulps of greasy air, "That's it..." he smiled, tapping him reassuring on the cheek, 
"That's right fat-boy... soon you'll see, just as I do" he chirped; the doctor then slunk off his body, reclined the dentist's chair and reached for a container labelled GASOLINE, flipping the lid- the doctor wiped his eyes, leaving smeared lines of oil across his forehead, then moved close enough for Demaios to feel his hot breath on his face; "Do you like Jazz Mr. Demaios?" he kissed his forehead gently.
The patient choked on his own spittle, the doctor yawned, cracked his bone-marrow thin jaw, and emitted the deafening sound of Horace Silver's Horoscope, with near perfect radio- reception from the abyssal cavern of his throat- the patient knew this song, it was a favourite of his; it was played during his Wedding Reception in Vermont; a cloudless day, fine wine, 1960 Armagnac, children, laughter, table-sets, music... Horace Silver. 
".....Just one more day, to say I'm sorry....--forever, my dear child" echoed some new station, an unknown song- blazing trumpets- from the depths of the doctor's alimentary soul, a tear rolled down Demaios' face, the metallic tube-worm shuddered pitiful cries, the doctor's mouth clamped shut with a tight-grip smile to cut off all noise. 
He stood, leaned over, and still holding the container, cranked the chair, with slow death like mechanics until it was almost vertical. "I want you to think about her" he said in a soothing professional tone, heaving the container to the funnelled worm-mouthpiece with a grunt, he repeated "I want you to think about her...and I want you to pray".
The abroached gasoline container slushed and gurgled a thick luminescent liquid, Demaios resisted shallowing the substance for a while by exhaling, although when he was out of breath he had no choice but to submit, but to his relief it was not gasoline, once the shock and struggle had worn off and his stomach accepted the liquid, he was surprised to find it was a sweet dead-fruit taste, which cooled and rested in his stomach like cold lead- 

Passed the patients bloated stomach, poorly covered by an overstretched Bill Blass shirt.
On passed the french cuffed- buttoned down corduroy jacket.
Onwards passed the lizard skin belt and designer Georgio Armani trousers (slightly rouge-tinted); and onto the polished Gucinari shoes to the fine line of urine now running cold taps against the tiled floor, tainting pools of blood (no doubt from some previous patient) into a wash thin streak of bodily fluids- The doctor laughed pitifully and removed the metallic worm-

"What did.... you... give me, you bastard?" choked Demaios struggling to catch his breath, "It's an extremely potent hallucinogenic" the doctor danced a crazed-fairy dance in his surgical accoutrements, arabesque like- twirling and howling, rudely gesturing, swooping, jumping- laughing. "Ferrocalcinosis; I feel treatment is necessary firstly to the parietal fissure, no game, only suction, loose ends, no time- you get it?" he walking back and forth examining surgical tools, before finally resting on the Gigli saw, his eyes flashed to meet Demaios'- "I have money! Anything you want it's yours!"
"Yes, yes, yes you do, HER money, no, no, Mr. Demaios, you disappoint me, you've been growing fat, like a goose" he poked his overweight stomach "and now you offer me money, when I offer you something far more spiritual... redemption.... absolution.. abreaction of the soul?.... No-No!...That won't do" The doctor's face grew grotesquely misshapen, he laughed a thousand echoed child-laughs at once, searing open eyes clatter like clams, arms stretched to point zero- infinity. "My wife, please, did you know her?" screamed Demaios trying to mask his shear terror, watching the small tiled room, become smaller still and breathe heavy mortar groans, "In a way" said the doctor holding the Gigli saw, and looking down towards the floor remorsefully, "Much the same way you did"he sighed momentarily dropping his maniacal facade "But I cared for her! Do you remember the accident?" he screamed, moving to the the rusty wheelchair, he wheeled it violently into his feet, repeatedly slamming it with sickening force, sending hollow reverberations bouncing violently off the walls; Demaios let out a bellowing scream "YES! Of course I do! After the crash she was a paraplegic, she couldn't move!" 
"Right! You were her carer....her cancer" he tilted his head upwards and let a out a long bestial groan, which flickered the grime- fluorescence lights, he rolled up his sleeves to reveal his arms completely covered in tattoos- religious symbols, Amalekite scriptures, burnt effigies of Christ, and Qabalist trees-  "And now it's just you and me! What does it feel like to be completely immobilised? Are you afraid? Do you remember!" 

A flash of light. Back to the pier, passed the esplanades. The cold bitter sea breeze that sweeps with ice-water, like a rolling curtain over the pathway, hitting benches, coin-operated binoculars- fractured salted tendrils ricochetting off iron cast railings with ghost-chimes, and all in a memory- or was he really here? 
The night was hauntingly dark, it clung to him, soaked through his expensive Billy Blass shirt, like the spray from the roaring sea. In the distance, he could make out two figures working their way slowly towards him, first he recognised  his wife's voice, "Mort! Take me home! What are you doing!" her screams came in waves and stops, carried by the wind, he could hear the wheelchair squeaking heavily, Demaios could feel bile rising up into his throat- he knew this moment, this pier, this cold sting of night air; and then he saw what he expected to see- himself. 
His duplicate was drunk, staggering, stumbling, almost tipping the chair on it's front along with his wife onto the wet pier floor, always moving forward like an automaton, his clothes were shabby back then, he had a 3 day stubble, he eyes were set on Demaios, but he knew better, he was really looking through and a little behind him to pier's end, he'd been here before, only now he couldn't move, the crippling sense shame and remorse rose upward from his feet and engulf his mind in shattered memories, "Alison".
 He sobbed and fell to his knees, almost at the same time came the hiss of "Be quiet!" from his shadow, more squeaking from the wheelchair; they were almost upon him now, "Mort! You're drunk! You're drunk! What are you doing!" he could see the fear in his wife's eyes, as she looked frantically around- unable to move, as she passed he reached out and touched her hand, it was so cold- he watched in horror as his own shadow tipped the wheelchair, and as her emaciated frame fell tumbling through the cast-iron and into the sea -she didn't even scream- his shadow turned slowly, for the first time Demaios was confronted with his own cold dead eyes; just as he remembered his shadow lit a cigarette and then sat quietly in the empty wheelchair facing the sea, contemplating, smoking, scheming.... Suddenly it span the wheelchair around, smiling in the rain, looking directly into his eyes, "You've got to wonder if the bitch floats"-
"You bastard--!!!" Demaios ran towards to him, crying, screaming, but every step was more impeding his clothes growing wetter, tighter, colder. Demaios vomited violently, painful jets of yellow bile and  hit the floor crying. Black.

Awake. Pain.
"Insurance money, for your failing business, that's not very original now.... is it?" laughed the doctor, testing a drill-bit on his own hand, curling flesh and traces of bone into ribbons, he drew back in pain and smiled as the dril severed his radial artery -instant causalgia- and a flash of sick pain that forced the doctor to his knees, he laughed, a long chuddering motor laugh, shaking his head as if to say "it never grows old"- Meanwhile Demaios noticed none of this, but was heaving and choking in large gulps of air since his revival, the doctor peeped at Demaios through the fresh wound in his hand "back again?" he laughed clenching his fingers "quiete a jaunt" standing he walked towards him, Demaios sweating, panting, he eyes growing larger like a bullfrogs, he began to slam against the bindings, screaming, heaving air sometimes regurgitating large quanitities of water, suddenly his head snapped back, looking up towards the grime flourescence, he let out a long anguished scream, his jaw extended into a dislocated position, a slimy-silvery serpant protruded from his mouth half lodged, half free, cutting off his airway completely, but mockingly seemed to breath for him- or imitate the the same expression of choking brutal suffocation,  it continued to force itself out, it's body so large it ripped his philtrum into a hare-lip, Demaios muffled screams, clinched fist and frozen eyes- the doctor only watching on, enjoying the spectacle- finally it was free and hit the tiled floor with a hard wet slap.
"Sturgeon!" screamed the doctor in delight, bringing his foot hard on it, shattering fish-guts to every corner of the room. 
"what's inside of me?" chocked Demaios licking his ripped lip-"memories.... that's all" replied the doctor dreamily, tracing a tattooed sephirah with his own blood, it read- "Yesod". 
Two morons colliding in space like Callipso, just beyond the phantom-anguish of 'the room'; and each bitter lightening crack of contact brought wailing screams of nymphs and the unfathomable unknown, and shattered the prospect of reality or escape far from Demaios' hopes, where the rising stench of death and dream-state soon devoured him-
Gone were the days of trivia, of business meetings, stock holdings, terminal rental programs, hedge funds and late fees - 
now it was visceral in a dream- paradoxically turning inwards into his own body and soul -now it was all about the mycoplasm, periosteum artery, epiphyseal plate- the haversion system, the endocrine, the medula, the protoplasmic reticulum- the lumbar, the epithelial- the mitachonria- into his own being- shattered by reality, and only finding comfort in the coporeity of his own body- all philosophy breaks down- only the primordial ash of the beast- and the breathing fearful existence remains.

[more to come]