The sounds meet my ears in the dead of night,
Another rude awakening from my fitful sleep,
The unholy whisperings chilling to the bone,
A haunting call that beckons from the necropolis.
A weary duty takes my shaking frame at that hour,
Lo did I shuffle unnervingly to that hallow yard,
The mist a pall over the place of the dead,
Creating an eerie shroud that the eyes of man cannot face.
Since the dawn of time has man feared death,
Those inflicted with it buried far from the homes of the living,
Forgotten and entombed deep within the earth,
Lest we be reminded of our own mortality.
So fickle is man,
To put far from mind that which he fears most,
To ignore the inevitable and shun the certain,
Only to live for a hope that may never come.
The gate creaked a shuddering scream,
Its metallic cry a voice for those silent souls within,
Their pain echoed through the yawning of the rusted hinges,
Proof that the dead are not voiceless in this world of ours.
The grass slick and cold under my bare feet,
Numbing my steps as I hazard my progress forward,
Following that sound that scares me most,
Curiosity and lack of sleep overriding my instinct of flight.
Ever does it grow louder within my skull,
This haunting melody,
This ethereal song,
This siren’s call.
A fluttering within my sight did draw my eyes,
But nothing is there,
My sleepless eyes perhaps playing tricks,
This weary body needs the sleep of ages.
Though a backward stare brought a horror to my mind,
My retreat covered by the shrouding mists,
No sight of my way home,
No familiar sounds to call me back.
No sounds,
None at all,
Silence,
Where is my siren’s song?
Terror does grip a man’s soul when all is silent in a place of death,
My exhaustion lifted by the rush of chemicals to my brain,
My footsteps erratic and frantic in the hope of finding freedom,
Of somehow toppling through a gate and landing on my bed.
Irrationalities gathering in my panicked mind,
Like a frenzied mob they shout and scream,
The din rising to deafening levels,
Its angry sounds only stopped by the meeting of shin to gravestone.
Then came silence and the darkness,
An uneasy shifting play of unconsciousness,
The dance of colours behind my closed eyelids,
A spectacular light show fading into nothingness.
Eyes flickering open,
Scratchy and hot,
Sleep deprived and dry,
Visions swimming back into focus.
A face,
Pale and beautiful,
Gazing down upon me,
A warming smile.
An angel staring down upon me,
Frozen in place atop a stone monument,
“Memento Mori” upon the stone scroll she holds in place,
An eternal reminder of one who was lost.
Red faced and my bruise voicing protest to my brain,
I stood there before her and rested my forehead upon her icy bosom,
The numbing cold anathema to the pain I felt,
Numbing all but the haunting song drifting through the night air.
Breath swimming over my ear as my head remained frozen in place,
Unable to face that which now serenaded my shivering form,
“Memento mori, tamen ego mos tribuo vos vita eternus.”
Her song once whispered unheard now loud in my mind.
The pain was barely noticeable,
The warm blood lulling me to sleep,
So tired I know nothing,
Only her words.
“Somnus iam eternus parvulus,
Somnus unus permaneo vicis in obscurum complexo,
Pro adveho crastinus,
Quod sol solis vadum haud diutius teneo vestri visio.”
