Can you hear that?

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I hear screaming.  I hear them in my sleep and when I am awake. They aren't screams of fear.  Not screams of pleasure either.  Not screams of anger or despair either.  They speak to me, to that point within my heart that I haven't burnt black to harden to the world around me.  To the life I spend each day walking through.

The screams that speak to me, that surround me in waves, they hurt.  I cannot fix what is causing the screams. I cannot find a cure for them.  Who can?  We all watch the news.  We all see what is happening.  They may not want us to know, but we do. 

The screams know.  You can hear it in the drawn out notes.  The knowledge of what is really going on.  The horror of what life on this stupid little planet has come to.  You hear that in the screams too.  But there is no fear of the horror, just an understanding.  Yet, while the screams understand, there is no acceptance in them.  The fight is still there in the lingering seconds between what I assume are breaths.  The screams still have some fight in them.  Somewhere in there.




I hear screaming.















Oh wait, it's me.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I started hearing that, too, once I finally went all the way down the rabbit hole and found out what's down there.  Way down, all the way down where the Red Queen isn't actually a bad person, just a person trying to hold her universe together while strangers show up eating mushrooms and fucking up her garden alongside her faithless, incompetent help.

And there's this rabbit that's always late, and a hatter who gives tea parties where everyone wears hats made out of...no, we won't talk about that.  Just forget about the hats, there's nothing to see there, nothing clean or sane, anyway.  And then there's this cat who tries to tell you what's up, tries to warn you, and that cat kind of looks like...well, it looks kinda like me, only a few years younger and less haggard.  He still smiles, really smiles, instead of some awful rictus.  But nobody listens, because they're all fucked up on what the Catapillar is pushing, and there's this horrible little dormouse who keeps getting drunk and fucking with things best left alone.

But the mushrooms wear off, Khara, and you can't fit back out of the hole, back to where things made sense, even if it sometimes isn't pleasant, where June Cleaver fixes things and Curly smiles and smiles and smiles, beaming his indulgent, benevolent gaze upon us all.

It's kinda dark down here, Khara, it's dark and things burble and gambol in the shadows and I have no vorpal sword.  It's dark, and I can't find my way home, and the screaming never, never stops.  Please pipe down, Khara, if that's you.  I have to listen, because the cat with my face keeps trying to warn me about...nope.  He's gone again.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I never should have drunk the tea.  But I had walked for such a long time and I was so very thirsty.  Then I saw the cat who looks like you, he just smiled.

And now, well now I'm not hiding exactly, I think that mouse put something into my tea and now I'm really really small.

You are right Roger, it is very dark down here.  Do you feel the poking things?  The ones that try to wriggle their roots into your brain.   They say they can make the everything pretty but don't believe them.  I saw what happens when they do that.  It isn't pretty.  It's ugly and hard and makes the screeching noises you hear when you visit the caterpillar.

They paint the roses all day long and no matter how good of a job they do, did you see the roses are the same the next day.  AS IF NOTHING HAD HAPPENED!  That's what the trap is, you can try to make it better, but it doesn't change a fucking thing!

It is a lot quieter though.