LUNA SCREEN

The first night was when we got the chills. 

The next night we vomited blood into bowl. 

The third night was curved and stretched thin. 

The fourth existed only when questioned with whispered fear. 

Any night following those was something that seemed to exist without explanation. No reason gave birth to this horror. It was a bird we could not feather and tar.

From that moment on, all nights became warped, mutated into something unrecognizable. There was no longer an audience or a given script. We soon began to believe such things held no weight. Once ordinary ideas turned the color of sin. We were forced to still hammer hearts and quivered breath just to gain a glimpse. The air changed rapidly, heavy, wet and suffused with a quiet sense of panic. This was the air of premonition and suffering. If we could have seen the dirt, the froth of a new wave, our filthy reflections on the sheer face of stone, then we would have known of other things, true things, those elements not carrying the weight of night. But so filthy we were that our own faces would have been obscured, shattered in the presence of that mirror. 

These were not merciful times. 

Sacrifice was in the air, in the cadence of every breath, on the lips of holy men and daughters alike. Even in prayer the tilt was false; a futile wish. 

Later, in some corner of that endless rotation, came the introduction of the screen. This was only the first stone unturned to find film, documentation, recorded moments. 

Another falsity. 

Again wrong.

There were times when any lens would do. Human eye, compact, windowpane. At our worst, we chose to shatter bones if only to improve our understanding. In this endeavor we received only bloodied fragments for our fetid efforts. There could be no mercy for our wretchedness.

What we received was filth in essence, a dirtied film not meant for our hands. We documented everything till our hands were white with grease. We soon forgot our reasons, discarded half-remembered motives. Nights followed in which words were not spoken but thought. We had neither a sense of expedition nor efficiency. No method guided us beyond primitive motion and restless intuition. These were nights in which there was no mind. Nights in which all our derivations were made of mud. Nights in which revision was favored over all opposing principles. Nights of misunderstanding or something not given due thought. And so it was said: “We will parade it through the town square. We will make this understanding known to all. We will celebrate the glory, take inspiration from such disease.” And so it was done. What was said to be of shame was also of celebration, rapture, sweet agony.

It was no longer night and not to be day.

But I was not satisfied. I could not see.

I could not understand ordinary relations such as “When” or “Why” or “Yes/No.” These things did not matter to me. I did not want to know what was recording, perceiving my every movement by means of a distant machine.

“The camera runs rampant. Smeared filth, the white of grease that is not of night but of the body, will be recorded by this device. You cannot escape such processes just as you cannot escape this machine. You have not changed and you will not change. You are a composition of your filth, an amalgam of the worst of these worlds. For this you will suffer. You will learn.”

Though I knew nothing I felt the vibrations. Within my bones I felt such tremors as, “Accuse”, “Point”, “Blame”, and “Retrieve.”

I did not want to feel any longer.

Night became a trick spun from the hands of jesters.

Night remained perpetual. Night grew weary and then grew lung and tooth, tissue and organ. Night grew scary and warped into demons. 

In that time of emotion nothing was decreed. 

In that time there was fear and there was night. 

“One cannot live without domination by the other.”

“You fear your own shadow.”

“There is no denial now.”

“Do you fear this too?”

“It will be silent.”

Upon daybreak, it festered upon the land. 

Upon daybreak, the crop was already dead, or dying.

No one was capable of understanding. The night had claimed all understanding. 

The night had claimed everything. 

Blood was spilled. Retch spewed forth, through slit organs. Worlds dueled and fought and burned to ember, utterly consumed. Words were chewed and spat like so much bile.

“Now do you know?”

“As all was meant to be?”

“You are as inevitable as your filmed, filth ridden shame”.

by Aniket Sanyal

Aniket Sanyal was born in India and grew up in New Jersey. His work has previously appeared in DON'T SUBMIT, Expat Press, Daily Science Fiction, and Bewildering Stories.