THE CROW: TEARS OF DARKNESS
PRELUDES IN NOCTURNE DEMENTIA
A roaring darkness swept across the black city, like an evil blanket wrapping around an innocent infant, tangling it with a cold unfeeling callousness. Rain, the taste of frozen resentment, pelts the bleak existence of a rotten city mockingly, as angry thunder becomes the only source of light in the bitter darkness of a cruel night. The city might seem a spiteful mistress to some, seemingly devoid of any mercy, lacking any sense of justice in its being. The city is not to be blamed for its indifference, however, as the evil that men do, or capable of doing, would be enough to snuff the flames of even the brightest of goodness' light. And thus the darkness in the hearts of men, the viciousness and barbarism in direct mockery of decency and virtue, spreads in his core, like a cancerous growth that is without cure. The darkness spreads, and soon there shall be no light, and there shall be no goodness, and there shall be no justice in the hearts of men.
An ironic twist, when seen in the most fundamental view, that from the darkness itself arisen a lone purveyor of justice: as if even the darkness itself had grown weary of Man's unjustness, that it has, seemingly from the bowels of its own existence, created its own soldier to bring forth a sense of justice.
A crow, big and black and silent in the dark red sky of a city infested with hearts of darkness, perched itself on a ledge of a decayed tenement building, peering interestedly downwards to witness events which it has set in motion.
"What…what the hell are you, man?" a ragged man tries to squirrel itself out of the darkness of the damp alley, trying to make sense as to how a person would not stay down after being shot in the head at point blank range with a 9mm handgun. He crawls and stumbles amidst the urban waste and street grime, lost in decay that he, in his own little way, had helped build.
"I am vengeance, I am justice," said the dark figure materializing from within the blackness of the night, his hair damp with rain, his skin white and pale, staring at his accused with eyes red with fury, tears of dried blood trickling down his cheeks, a demented pantomime of a perverse mime, "you do not deserve justice, for you are unjust; you do not deserve mercy, for you are merciless; you do not deserve life, because you only seek to destroy it. I am your end; I am your executioner,"
"Aw…shit!" cried the man, unable to get to his feet as he discovered his knees failing him. In desperation, he threw a bottle he found in the blackness of the alley towards his dark stalker, and it hit the specter harmlessly. The dark figure grew closer and larger, his pale face shining in the darkness like a mask of death.
Presently he was face to face with his dark stalker, who was smiling wickedly.
"What did I ever do to you, man?" pleaded the hunted, his last respite from the pain that was to be the rest of his life.
The dark stalker placed his cold hands on the forehead of his hunted, and in that instant the hunted knew. His eyes widened, shamed that his secret was out, repentant of the evil that he has done. But it was far too late for repentance. "I'm sorry," was what he whimpered, from the depths of his black heart, his first truly honest utterance in a long while. It was not enough.
"Yes," said his dark executioner, showing the same mercy to him as he did when he committed the crime, "you are,"
The crow witnessed all this unflinchingly, like an orchestra conductor going through the motions of performing his macabre symphony of death. The symphony ended with a crescendo of a deathly scream of pain, as the hunted, in his last embers of consciousness before eternal darkness, saw his entrails trailing downwards to the streets below, and felt the noose in his neck tightening and tightening as he rose higher and higher from the city street. His life flashed before him, his life of poverty and lovelessness, his resentment and envy of other people who seem to have it all, his fall into the barbaric darkness of urban chaos, and finally his overwhelming guilt over all the evil that he has committed. Presently he found that he cannot breathe, as the rope around his neck wound tighter, he feels his eyes were about to pop out from its socket, and he had begun to get used to the pain around his abdomen, and to the gruesome vision of witnessing what his innards looked like for the very first time. The pain was unbearable, and he felt the darkness closing in, he was faintly aware of a sickly orange glow above him, but it was too faint now, until at last there was nothing. And finally there was Hell.
The dark stalker watched in silence as his prey stopped trashing about, hanging on the streetlight, bathed in a sickly orange glow, ten feet or so from the pavement, his entrails rolling downwards, barely touching the pavement. The darkness has granted him the right to vengeance, and it was only the beginning. From above, the crow cawed to the dark stalker, and flew away in the blackness of the night, leaving him alone in the rain of frozen bitterness and crimson regret flowing down the drain.