The Destructive Architects

KEEP IN MIND THIS STORY IS DARK, ITS SUPPOSE TO SOUND LIKE A NIGHTMARE. BUT IT IS ALSO A METAPHORICAL REPRESENTATION OF MY PERSONAL DEMONS. IF YOU CANT FIGURE OUT THE STORY THERE WILL BE AN EXPLANATION AT THE END.


The Destructive Architects


The nightfall is summoned by the thundering of large drums. The drums conjure up the start of the conflicts. Signaling the start of the many wars to come within the confines of my sanity. I stare out, watching the sun fall on the horizon with the rise of the drum beat. Till it reaches an erratic peak of ominous tones, then a crash into silence. With the great silence of the drums comes the first Architect. Her long slender legs sprout heels that clack against the ground. Her beauty cannot slip past me. I notice every symmetrical feature, the perfect shine of her hair. The way it falls soft and careless to her shoulders. The perfect curves of her body race my heart beat, pumping the blood faster through my body. She puts on her display, seductively teasing the hope deep inside my being. It works just as she plans; I can feel my heart pushing tighter against my chest. It longs for her, so much so it physically urns to escape my body to be with her. A slender smile sneaks across her lips, exposing her paper white fangs. Never has there been a more beautiful smile. She exposes her hand placing it on my chest. All she needs is her acrylic nails to remover my heart from its cavity with surgeon like finess. Exposing my throbbing heart to the outside world. The bloody organ continues to thump far from its home. Still connected to me by the veins. So that I may still feel.

“can you feel its beat?” I ask. “It used to beat for you!”

“But it was never enough” she screams as her fangs slid delicately into the fleshy organ. More blood spills out as my heart pumps faster and faster. I could feel the pain of her devouring my heart, a pain I felt not in the organ itself but in my being, somewhere deep in my soul. The smile remained as the harpy licked the last of the bloody morsels from her lips.

“Did I quell your fucking hunger?” tears well up in my eyes with the words.

“Not nearly well enough..” With the words she crumbles to ash at my feet.

Her ash gives birth to shadows, shadows that live and breathe but are faded like ghost. Each one plays its role, rehashing familiar scenes before eyes. Tears shred gashes down my face as I watch the moments play out like memories. Each shadows movement is brought to life by strings attached to their limbs. All the strings rise up connected at an apex just below my freshly eaten heart. Still beating and bleeding as it serves as master puppeteer for the shadows, directing their ghostly actions till my soul can bare no more.

Gone, the ghosts fade with the passing seconds, locking themselves in the confines of my mind. Waiting for their next big role! My heart careens back to the ground splattering into red water that pools around my feet. I collect the drops, attempting to return them to my chest cavity with no effective luck. On all fours I drink the red water. The thick liquid snakes its way from my throat back to my chest bringing with its return a short lived relief.

The third Architect appears. A great thinker, a marveled scientist. His eyes filled with wisdom he cannot share, for he has no mouth. With each year a wrinkle on his face, his face is older than time its self. His gloved hands caress my head. he tips it back searching my eyes for the answers. He produces a scalpel ,carving a bloody line the circumference of my forehead. Pealing back the skin that lay atop my head. Reaching inside his hand draws with it the treasure it seeks. He holds a tangled mess of fleshy worms. The tangled mess is shadowed by a dark cloud that produces lighting. The lightning strikes down on the grubby worms making the scatter in fear. The great thinker starts to unravel the worms. Bit by bit he pieces them together into a more logical formation. The worms begin to take shape just as a human brain should look, but before the last worm is placed lighting sends them back into their tangled mess. The thinker jots his notes in a book. Pausing to think, the frustration over whelms him and he casts the book out into the void. The thinker weeps openly into his palms, it is not my place to console him I must leave him here, to go in search of his thoughts. His possible answers!

My feet catch pace, hurriedly chasing after one another. The formless void that surrounds me, takes shape as a sensible environment with each step. I follow a cobble stone path through the void. Coming to rest at an altar. A great golden light binds itself to the book that has been placed on the altar. A man dressed in robes, evidently a high priest removes the book from its altar unlocking the book from its bindings. He pushes his finger into the page, following each word. Silently reading to himself, after some time the priest becomes aware of my presence. He looks up from his book to speak

“You are here for the answers!” he bellows in a deep echoing voice. The voice shakes the confidence in my beliefs and they crack under the pressure.

“I just want to understand!” my vocal cords shriek out the words.

The priest’s eyes blacken like the void that has been surrounding me. His finger takes pause and his dark eyes read the word out loud “Nonbeliever!” he begins to shout his prophetic lies. Some of them find meaning in my soul, burning me in venomous pain. His shouts get louder as I take flight. Running running running, till I no longer hear his lies.

The void takes shape as a forest for me to run though. The urge to run dissipates with the sound of the lies. Water runs around my feet, shin high in a creak. The icy waters cause my feet to lose feeling but soul sees something my eyes cannot. I pluck a clear orb from the water, so clear one must know its place to even harness its powers. The orb forms perfectly into my palm, drawing my eager eyes. The orb pulls my life from my brain, furiously riffling through all the memories, the past moments the current moments and finally into the unknown. But my mind has created every possibility for the unknown, but the orb wants more. It finds it. “worst case scenarios” the words scratch themselves into the orbs surface. Each scenario breaks down my heart. Weighs down my soul, and shatters my being. This fifth architect is no kinder than the previous four. I drop the orb and it disappears into the water. Re assembling itself inside the void.

The void takes shape, but I try to ignore it. The void burns at my eyes attempting to assert its dominance. I tear my eyes from their sockets, the wiry veins chasing after my eyes. I drop them to the floor of the void. The void is an illusion I no longer wish to believe in. But without the illusion nothing exists. My mind can no longer fathom, my heart no longer beats. My blood lays still in my veins. And my soul fades from being.

The sixth and final architect comes into play. The sandman fines my lifeless soul in the void. Dragging it with his cane back to my body, stuffing my soul back inside. Piecing me back together. My eyes light up with the arrival of my soul. The sandman pulls a handful of dust from sack tied round his waist. He lifts his old hand above my head, dropping the dust onto my face. “with sleep comes peace my child” and the sandman ends the tortures of the night.


(The End)


I know that was probably confusing so let me explain the story if you could not figure it out yourself.


The entire story is about my nightly battle with my own mind. When I am alone at night my mind wanders, and it always fines the destructive architects. So let me explain each architect.


Architect 1: Architect 1 is the woman. She is the embodiment of every girl to ever break my heart. She reminds me of all my heart breaks. All the girls that decided for one reason or another that I was not enough for them, but the woman is also the image of the dream girl I have created. The one my soul longs for. The girl I look for every day. The woman is also a reminder of my loneliness.


Architect 2: is the shadow puppets, the shadows are my memories. All the memories I wish I could live again, all the memories of better times gone by. My heart is the puppet master, he directs the memories and replays them in my head over and over. Until the nostalgia of each moment makes me want to cry, a constant reminder of my best days gone by.


Architect 3: is the great thinker. The great thinker is a representation of my own mind. He is a great thinker, but has trouble expressing those thoughts, that’s why he doesn’t have a mouth. The worms he pulls from my head are my brain. But it is dysfunctional, it doesn’t work right it’s a mess. He tries his best to piece it together, but my own bias and negativity (the cloud of lighting) makes it impossible and the thinker only ends up frustrated.


Architect 4: is the priest and his book. The book represents the understanding of life. Something I am seeking. To understand the purpose and meaning of life. The priest though is the only one who can read the book, and he represents all established religions and ways of thoughts. All he does is lie because he says he knows the answers, but he cant. No one can know the answers.


Architect 5: is the orb. The orb is my ability to see to my future. It is the plans of my future and the possible scenarios my brain runs through every night. It always wants to reply the worst case scenarios to my soul is broken and I am depressed.


The Void: the void I keep talking about is reality. I see it as an illusion, because you can’t fully understand reality without getting outside of it. Which is only possible through death. My mind struggles with the concept of reality every night. What it truly is, and how to understand it. But I never reach and answer.


Architect 6: is the sandman. The sandman represents sleep. The only escape from the self-tortures of the other architects. Sleep is the silence of the pain, and eventually sleep saves me from the torture of every night.