The Sound of Drums

by Scarlett Oakenshield

Can you hear it? Can you hear the sound of drums? Can you feel it? Can you feel the sound of drums? Can you control it? Can you end it? The Master's inner feeling of depression as he explains the sound of drums.

Can you hear them?

Can you hear the sound of drums?

Never ending, ever banging.

It's like a constant noise in the back of my mind.

Always there, never stopping, never changing,

But sometimes they're louder and closer,

And sometimes they're but an echo,

Yet no matter what they always continue.

I can't remember when they weren't there.

But what can I do?

Am I the only one who hears the sound of drums?

Can you feel it?

Can you feel the sound of drums?

It hurts. It hurts so bad. It hurts!

It hurts! It HURTS!

Like a continuous cadence

Clanging against my head as if

Someone was beating me with

A heavy steel bar. It hurts. But there's

No way out. I can never fall unconscious,

It's just an endless pain. But I still can't help

Thinking...Am I the only one?

Can you see it?

Can you see the sound of drums?

The sound of drums is the tap-tap of fingers on a desk,

The footsteps down the city streets.

It is insanity, it is death,

It is destruction. It is corruption. It is the earth

Burning. Can't you see those things too?

Or am I the only one?

Can you control it?

Can you control the sound of drums?

NO! It controls you!

It drives me to insanity.

The drums are making me do it!

Doctor, help, HELP!

I don't want to hurt you,

I don't want to hurt them.

I never did. I never meant to.

The drums make me do it.

They drive me to the brink,

I explode because they hurt me,

They compromise my vision,

And my thought.

They are so deafening,

Deafening to my ears and

Defending to what's right and wrong.

They block me from what is good,

And bad. They kill my conscience.

Boom, boom, boom! They are controlling me!

Am I the only one?

Can you end it?

Can you end the sound of drums?

It is endless, continuous, everlasting.

It will control you, it will hurt you, and one day

It will kill you. It will get louder, louder, louder,

LOUDER, until it is all around you, until you

Can no longer sense anything but It, until

The pain is so unbearable that you just scream,

Scream until it stops. The drums stop. Just stop abruptly. And so do you.

I can no longer hear the sound of drums.