Mike Jones: Infernus

1) To MySpace: for just simply being there, although ye ne’er knew it. I had tried (off and on) for 6 or 7 years to get an agent to read it, unsuccessfully. The entire book sat on my MySpace page for 14 months before it was discovered by KHP.

2) Peter Van Leunen, my lawyer. He liked it and began editing it immediately. You have made Infernus shine just a little bit brighter because of your efforts, sir!

3) To Jerrod Balzer who thought it was a good idea to put an afterword here explaining the circumstances of the writing of this mess known as “Infernus.” And coined the phrase, “The Reality of Infernus.” I hope he lives to be a hundred.

4) To my keeper, Filboid Studge, in my little sunny cell here in St. Louis. I am allowed out for one hour per day to watch the birds glow and listen to the trees scream. Sometimes he lets me out during the day. Sometimes he lets me out. Sometimes he does.

5) To S.D. Hintz & Jerrod Balzer who had the grapefruit-sized gonads to put this mess in print in the first place. I have ensconced you in a tableau, permanently in Infernus. As a reward. Forever. Right where you belong.

I. There is no time here. Everything in Infernus happens during the same nanosecond. Imagine every paper cut, every severed finger, every toothache, every disembowelment, every cold, all happening to everyone at once.

II. In Infernus, no one ever tells the truth. There is no longer a need for truth, or maintaining the truth — for there is no hope here. Everything in Infernus is in an absolute state.

III. Since all the pain of all mankind is shared by all, no real conversations take place. Consequently, no permission is ever asked for anything, and none is ever given by anyone. The strong take what does not belong to them — the souls of others.

IV. All of the mouths of all mankind are opened as far as “inhumanly” possible in a permanent Scream Eternal. All happens here through a veritable sea, a tumultuous wall of sound. Ten billion souls screaming and screaming and screaming.

V. Either you are made to do things by those who outrank you in authority (the only thing that determines strength here) or the words scrape through your brain like a bag of broken glass that sits in your head that someone can shake when they wish. All communication is done in the brain as bursts of hideous migraines. The smallest words sound like hammers.

The man, who would be recognized as “The Legend” in the near future, a national treasure in the US/Canadian Territories, stood, sans clothing, in the middle of the classroom, quite unembarrassed.

Samuel, an art student, was standing next to him, and indicated the fifty-something-year-old man. “I met him a few months ago. I have come to expect very odd things from him. I don’t know if I can tell you I will ever like him, but I just might respect him. I asked him if he wanted to pose nude for my art class. I had already cleared it with Professor Delaney. He said he loves nudism, and promptly said ‘yes.’”

Professor Delaney spoke to the nude model. “Thank you for coming. Students, begin when you are ready.”

The model said, “Do I need to be silent, or can I speak?”

The teacher was slightly taken aback. “Oh. No, go right ahead. Freedom of Speech is mandated by our respective governments, right class?”

The nude man smiled and then looked across the room, gazing at each and every one of them. He thought it was important to discuss with them The Freedom of Speech Act that the US/Canadian Territories had passed a hundred years ago. When he finished, some students rose to be heard.

A young woman was first. “This is an art class, not government, right?”

“I agree. But, tolerance is one thing and censorship is another. Most folks want to censor me once I begin. I won’t mind.”

Professor Delaney interjected. “We won’t ask you to stop.”

He smiled with a toothy malevolence. “We’ll see. We’ll see.” He put his clothes in neat piles and sat on a chair to pose.

An attentive student had a recording device, and for some reason, he pushed the RECORD button. The situation amused him and he thought it would be interesting to hear what the old man said. He made sure, after hearing the man recite the first chapter with memorized perfection, to always have his recording device for each class. It is entirely because of this student that we have the manuscript intact.

The old man opened his mouth and, word-for-word, this is exactly what he said:

“THE ENCYCLOPEDIAS OF MADNESS”

A faceless, nameless thing, no longer than a fly, flashed its wings so rapidly that they were unseen by mortals. It appeared to be a living bullet, a faint smear of blurry blue.

It glided noiselessly through an inviting, emerald glade where an enormous crooked tree breathed, shivered and waited. The tiny creature did not stop there.

Somewhere nearby it flew over a machine glowing red-hot. A man’s legs jutted out from an opening in the back, jerking and pumping wildly. If the creature had the capacity to listen, it would have heard the muffled shrieking of the man locked inside. But the faceless creature did not stop here, either. By an unseen guiding line it moved on without stopping, as if careless.

It flew over a diamond lake. It briefly bowed its waxy head, but could not see the gasping figures just below the surface, trapped like mosquitoes in ancient amber. Its being was unconcerned as it flew onward between two immense, blood-splattered towers, ominous in their ebony silence, awaiting an audience for its passion play.

It finally stopped and came to rest on the blistered shoulder of a burning man who stood upright and could not acknowledge its presence. There was a brief sizzle and the creature was gone, to reappear instantly somewhere else, forced to replay its agonizing existence over and over and over again.

The man stood, wrapped in flames, and wrestled with his conscience. “I know with an absolute certainty that there are no babies here, therefore this thing that the demon is spinning headfirst on a rusty nail simply cannot be a child .”

The massively muscled, red-skinned demon twirled the “baby” again. He would slap it hard on its bottom with a leathery palm and it would spin erratically on the wooden platform, giggling, and then shivering fitfully as the nail struck nerves in the brain.

“Foolish ex-man child.” The demon branded this thought into the man’s head and he heard it sizzle like frying worms. His eyes were void of orbs; only black holes were visible. “All here are lies. Not one grain has truth as its foundation. Remember, in the form of a warning, that this is the first thing I ever told you.”

The “baby” shivered on the nail.

“Only your horrific memory of this scene, in all its maddening cruelty and unfeelingness, is real. Nothing else is real.” A matted ripple of hair caught fire on his chest, then his blood-encrusted beard.

“Come,” he murmured to a burning bodybuilder that was crawling to him on scab-crackled knees. “See this.”

The words wetly splashed like boiling vomit in the man’s brain. The demon reached in the fur of his crotch and pulled out his member; it writhed around like a living thing and spit a hot green jelly.

“No, my child,” he thought. “This will not torture you. Watch.”

Below the enormous eighteen-inch member, hidden deep within the folds of bloody fur, hung two of the blackest stones the man had ever seen. They began throbbing back and forth. The crusty bodybuilder had situated himself between the massive thighs of the demon, who drew him nearer by the back of his head until he forced the bodybuilder’s mouth to engulf the living purple head.