Theatre of The Family
The satisfaction of judgment is to witness a
man’s denial, to see the shell of a bitter man drown in guilt; a creature can
be tortured but to condemn oneself into solitude and darkness can reveal the
true self-destructive element of human nature. Lies breed within us all.
‘Salvation is obedience. Obedience is the
antidote.’
The
Family’s crest infested the theatre walls where the old tattered posters for Romeo
and Juliet manifested ancient promises of freedom. A rusted projector flickered
from the far side of the room, a light source that made visible the rot-infested
wood and red velvet chairs. Torn and tainted, it was here where they dragged
the tormented souls that were forced to repent their sins. Their confessions
were excruciating, leaving them screeching in agony as their demons were torn,
limb from limb, an exorcism that stripped them to the bone. The theatre was the
most revolting chamber for judgement. Murderers, rapists and paedophiles
collected, where their fate would be decided by the gods. May The Family have
no mercy upon a serpent’s soul.
Alexander
awoke on the front row from his former curled up position. His bleak facial
expression showed no signs of remorse. He sat still, captivated by the freedom
of memories; they were all he had, a never ending cycle of cynical films directed
by his brain to escape reality. Alexander felt a sharp pain through his heart.
Glancing down to search for physical bruising, he found his so called tattoo,
‘The family watches you my angel; we will catch you if you fall’. The holy
words stained the left of his chest, seeping into his heart.
As the silence grew his imagination wandered
into the past, where his daughter's childlike piano tune teased his ear,
haunting him with its innocence and as the melodies came to a halt, bitter
guilt trickled down his cheek. In reminiscing he manipulated his own memory. It
was an illusion where sweet darling Jess had lost herself in the music years
ago, she was free, time was a dream and The Family were nothing but an audience
to her show. Suicide could never seem so poetic,
where her last cry would be of liberation. This was the only version of his psychotic
reality that kept him going; to pretend that his child took her own life
instead of facing reality. It was the only blessing Satan could bestow upon a
man. Denial is a parasite of the mind.
The putrid stench of rodents and decayed
plaster infected his senses; he could no longer recall the previous optimism
his lies had deceived him with. A sharp ticking noise from the clock above the
curtains caught his ear, a trigger of time that caused his heart to beat to a
pattern he had forgotten long ago. In that moment, he knew. Judgement day was
coming and everything he programmed himself to believe was a lie. Everything he
did was there to manipulate him into a further depth of denial. He knew that
The Family were watching, believing every step he took had been chosen for him.
Every sound he heard was specifically produced to create a reaction, a memory.
One by one the shadows of men entered: actors,
whose simple purpose was to re-enact Alexander’s forgotten sins. A child-like
figure was dragged behind, an arm engulfed in the darkness of one man’s shadow.
A guilty man could not bear the truth but with the child’s final agonizing
scream an inner mechanism exploded within him. He shouted and screeched but his
pain did nothing but flood his mind with his sinful memories. The wind crept inside
his skin as he stood paralyzed.
A
noose lowered from the rusted lights above, his bones ached while his heart
viciously beat to a pattern of guilt. The actors teased the rope around the corpse’s
neck, scraping scratched skin where anxiety and murder would have bred from the
genes of her father. As the moonlight
taunted his eyes his breath dragged and his shouts decayed to mumbled prayers.
The bitter truth could no longer be forgotten,
the silhouette was the corpse of his daughter, Jess, a sweet innocent child
whose life had come to an end. Innocence was taken away from her and in realising
what he had done, he was marked a dead man. Alexander became the screeching soul;
he had become the very thing he swore to hate. She hung. Lifeless, at the hands
of Alexander, a man that hated the world he lived in so much, he took his own
daughters life.
A murderer, that’s what he is. A coward! A
traitor! How could he despise and blame The Family so much when such darkness
infested his heart? A sentence of death would be too easy for the scum he was.
Alexander: the parasite among angels.
-Bradley O'Donoghue
