Clive Barker - Mister B. Gone

I'm trying hard to be generous here. But it's difficult. You've rejected every offer I've made to you. It doesn't matter how much I open up my heart and soul to you; it's never been enough to satisfy you. More, more , you always want more. There's only one other person in my life who's hurt me as profoundly as you've hurt me, and that's Quitoon. You've changed me so I can hardly even recognize myself. There was kindness in me once, and boundless love. But it's all gone now, gone forever. You killed every particle of joy that was in me, every scrap of hope and forgiveness, gone, all gone.

Yet, here I am, somehow finding it in me, the Devil alone knows how, to reach out from these anguished pages in one last desperate attempt to try to touch your heart.

The fireworks are over. There's nothing more to see. You may as well move on. Find yourself some new victim to corrupt, the way you've corrupted me. No, no, I take that back. You weren't to know how much it has hurt me, how much deeper my bitterness is, to be made to walk again the sad roads I walked to get here, and to confess the feelings that moved through me as I moved through the world.

My journey ended in the prison from which I speak. I've given you plenty of stories to tell, should the occasion come up when it seemed appropriate to tell. Ah, the tales of damned souls and darkness incarnate.

But now, truly, there's nothing left. So get it over with, will you? I have no desire to do harm to you, but if you keep playing around with me I won't be so ready to end your life with a simple slash of my knife across your jugular. Oh no. I'll cut you first. I'll slice off your eyelids to start with, so you won't be able to close them against the sight of my knife cutting and cutting.

The largest number of cuts I ever made on a human body before its owner succumbed was two thousand and nine: that was a woman. The largest number I ever made on a man before he died was one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three. It's hard to judge how many cuts it would take to bring you down. What I do know is that you'll be begging me to kill you off, offering me anything — the souls of your loved ones — anything, anything, you'll say, only kill me quickly. Give me oblivion, you'll beg, I don't care. Anything, so I don't have to see your entrails, purple, veiny, and shiny wet, appearing from the little slices I made in your lower belly. It's a common mistake people make, thinking that once their guts have unraveled around your feet that the happy prospect of death is in sight. That happens to be true, even with a weak specimen of your kind. I murdered two Popes, both of whom were cretinous from the diseases their depravities had given them (but who were still pronouncing dogmas for the Holy Mother Church and its believers), and each took an inordinately long time to die, for all their frailty.

Are you truly prepared to suffer like that for want of a flame?

There's nothing, my friend, left to gain by reading one more word.

And yet you read.

What am I to do? I thought you still had some life to live when we were finished with this book. I thought you had people out there who loved you, who would mourn you if I took your life. But apparently that isn't the case. Am I right? You'd prefer to go on living this half-life with me for a few more pages and then pay the fatal price.

Have I understood correctly? You could step off the ghost-train even now, if you chose to. Think hard. The midnight hour approaches. I don't care if you're reading this at eight in the morning on your way to work, or at noon, lying on a sun-soaked beach. It's still much, much later than you think, and darker than it seems.

But you're unmoved by my desire to be merciful. Even though it's getting later and later, you don't care. Is there some profound metaphysical reason for this? Or are you just more stupid than I thought?

The only profound thing I hear is the silence.

I'm obliged to answer my own questions, in the absence of any reply from you. And I choose…

Stupidity.

You're just willful and stupid.

All right, so much for my gift of mercy. I won't waste my time with any further gestures of compassion. Just don't blame me when you're watching the contents of your bladder spurting into the air, or when you are invited to chew on one of your kidneys, while I dig out the other.

You can't imagine the sounds you'll make. When you're being really hurt by somebody like me, who knows what they're doing, you'll make such noises you'll scarcely believe it's your own throat that is producing them. Some people become shrill and squeal like pigs being ineptly slaughtered. Others sound like animals fighting, like rabid dogs giving throat to guttural growls and ear-tearing howls.

It'll be interesting to find out what kind of animal you sound like, once the deep knife-work starts.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Your kind like stories, don't they? You live for them. And you — my noxious, stubborn, suicidal friend — are apparently ready to die just so you can find out what happens when the siege of the Gutenberg house comes to an end.

Doesn't it sound a little absurd when you hear it put like that? What are you hoping to find? Is it that you're looking for a story that will have you in it? Is that it?

Oh Lord, it is , isn't it? And all this time you've been hoping that when you found that book you'd have a clue as to why you were born. And why you'll die.

This is that book , as far as you're concerned.

Am I right? After all, you're in these pages too. Without you these words would be black marks on white paper, closed up in the dark. I'd been locked up in solitary, talking to myself, probably saying the same things over and over:

Burn this book. Burn this book. Burn this book.

But as soon as you opened the book, my madness passed away. Visions rose up out of the woven pages, like spirits conjured by an invocation, fueled both by the need to be heard that is felt by all confessors, even humble stuff such as my own, plus your own undeniable appetite for things uncanny and heretical.

Enjoy them while you can. You know the price you're paying for them.

Back to the Gutenberg workshop, and then, we'll see what last visions I can find for you here where the air carried the sinus-pricking stench of ink.

There comes a time in any battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell when the number of soldiers becomes so great it's no longer possible for reality as it is perceived by Humankind to bear the weight of the maelstrom raging in its midst. The facade of reality cracks, and however hard Humankind has labored not to see what is all around them, their effort is no longer the equal of the task. The truth will be heard, however strident. The truth will be seen, however raw.

The first sign that this Moment of Truth had arrived was a sudden eruption of cries from the street. Entreaties from the citizens of Mainz — men and women, infants and Methuselahs — all apparently saw the veil that had concealed the battle snatched away at the same moment, and hysteria instantly ensued. I was glad to be inside the workshop at that time, even if I did have his grotesque Excellency, the Archbishop, along with Gutenberg and his workmen for company.

The instant that the cacophony from the street started up, Gutenberg, the soft-voiced genius, departed, and Gutenberg, the loving husband and friend, took his place.

"I think we have trouble," he said, "Hannah? Hannah! Are you all right? " He turned to his workmen. "If any of you fear for your own souls or those of your families, I urge you to go now, and quickly, before this gets any worse."