Psl. 23, 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, Rev. 20:2-3, Job 30:29

i open my eyes and see that above me there are stars just like there have always been. when i was younger still a child who lived on a farm i would look up at the stars at night. i would look into the blue and black sky and i would see ten thousand points of lights. i knew the name of all of the stars and i liked the name of orion best of all. i was young then but when i was older i saw that stars were not tiny suns like people said but they were tiny pin pricks in the empty canyon of the sky and that they were emanations of god so that we would not be afraid anymore. but when i came to the city and the world was eating itself i looked into the sky and i did not see stars but saw man-made lights yellow and fat and bloated like slugs and maggots that mocked god. i was about to give up hope when i saw a tiny pin prick of true light. i saw it come from the east and i could tell that it was the star that guided magi to jesus and i knew that the lord was still watching over me. i became hopeful again and was never afraid for long after that. after the world ended i saw to it that the stars would still be in the night sky. i painted the roof of my rooms black and blue and i made stars as best i could out of shiny thing like mirrors or cans or cans or foil. even now sometimes i can be scared but i need only to look up and i can see that even though the world is filled with pimps and harlots and thieves and heathens that god is looking down on me and i will do right by him.

i ready myself for the new day and i leave my room. in the hall there is a woman leaving the apartment of a man and i frown but i do not say anything. no doubt they were together last night and he was touching her and pawing at her in that abominable way that men do. it sickens me to know that across the hall from me lives a fornicator who succumbs to sin so easily. i will have to try and alert him to the error of his ways. i go down to the first floor and in the stairwell i see a woman with a pointed face and i see that she is holding something that is twisted and still and dead and i know that she is a vile thing from outside disguised to look like a person. we cross each other and she looks at my eyes and i look at hers and i laugh at her. she looks into my eyes to try to steal my soul and infest my body with locusts and ants and other things from outside. i laugh because she does not know that i am protected by the black and unblinking eyes that shelter me. she turns around and glares at me and laugh again as she disappears. i feel good after that so i look at the mail to look for any signs that god might send. i see offers for savings for low interest loans for gluttony for greed for sloth for lust of every kind. i immediately recognize all of these things to be THINGS from outside that try to lure me into sin and death. i take out a match and i burn THEM all and watch as THEY curl and die and make green fire. when the only thing before is smoldering ashes i stand and i tell THEM once again that THEY can not harm me. i turn and i am startled to see someone i have seen before standing before me with brown hair that is soaked with water. i think back and remember the name of the person and i remember that she is elizabeth mother of john the baptist. she looks at me asks why did you burn my mail. i tell her why and i tell her that i have saved her son labor because without sin there is no need for redemption. she keeps looking at me and i do not say anything because there is no need. she stares at me and has her mouth open and i think back to when i was a boy and caught an animal that had the same look of confusion and un-belief on its face. i pat her on the shoulder and tell her that god can explain it better than me. i walk away and think of how many people i have saved.

some people say that you must cast demons out and that then THEY will leave and not trouble you or anyone again. they are wrong. in the start of the end i thought that this was true and would attack THEM whenever i could with psalms if i had the bible or fists when i did not. then one day i found a book in the hall that was called "BASIC CHEMISTRY." i knew that it was a sign from god and so i read the book and i learned from it. the book said that whenever THEY raise their many heads it is not enough to move THEM if you move THEM THEY just return outside. the only way to get rid of THEM was to store THEM proper in glass that has been treated and sealed against such things or to neutralize THEM by pouring special potions and minerals on top of THEM. sometimes i can fit THEM into bottles still like when THEY come to me in the guise of mice or any manner of crawly things and try to walk on me and whisper evils into my ear as i pretend to sleep. i snatch THEM right up and into the bottle THEY go. this works well when i go to see the next day usually half of THEM are gone or only parts of THEM are left and there are less and less of THEM as time goes on until THEY vanish into air. usually i have to use chemicals because THEY are usually much to large to fit in to glass bottles. i use chemicals that the book says are right and can neutralize things. i sometimes can make whole souls and things out of THEM if i have many small potions that contain THEM. other times i have to be more extreme and pour chemicals on THEM or put foul powders across their doors. the chemicals that i use are always foul to neutralize the sugar mud chemicals that give THEM their gaudy clothing and cloying stenches. i throw the chemicals at THEM and sometimes THEY yell or sometimes try to attack me or sometimes fall down and scream depending on the chemicals.

i go back into my apartment and see the night sky again. outside there is only death and THEY scream and holler and wail to be let in. i close my eyes and keep my head up to the sky and think of the sky back when the world was real and try to drown out the chaotic spirals of empty energy that pound on the window. THEY pound and pound and pound and rush against the window and i can hear their fat bodies bursting and it makes a horrible and thick sound and all the while THEY still scream. i screw shut my eyes and i think i think i think back to those nights in the country where the world was just me and god and the first times that i knew the nature of god and i can still hear THEM. the more i think and block THEM out the more i can hear THEM and THEY keep going deeper and deeper into my brain until i can not take it any more. i shout for THEM to shut up and that THEY are dead and i pound on the walls and i call THEM by ten thousand words for what THEY are words that do not exist yet and when i can not think of any thing else to scream at THEM i just scream. and i scream and scream and scream and i can not scream any more and i fall on the floor and the world goes black. i wake up with my back on the floor and i look up at the stars and i look at the christmas star and i hear THEM beating their blind songs for nobody. THEY were people once sinners like most. i pick my self up and go to the closet and take two cotton balls and stuff them in my ears. the world becomes muffled and scratchy and i can not hear THEM so much any more. it has been a tiring day and i fall asleep.

john 6:27, 1 peter 5:8, and revelations 12:7-9

i sit for more hours than i can count and listen to the creeping and swimming and living and unliving THINGS outside of my window. i look on my bookshelf trying to distract myself from the din and see the last books in the world. the king james bible and the time-life encyclopedia (barnacle through corinthian) and a book of my own philosophical musings and annotated clippings from the message-bearing papers and this diary into which i am writing and other things. but THEY are still slithering along the window and i can still hear THEM as THEY scream. i don't feel like working but i suppose that it is the best way to drown out the sounds. after as many years of labor for god as i have, i can retreat into my own world, seperate from the death songs that THEY make.

i go to the cabinet and open it and look inside and inside i see that there are still nine hundred and six meals-ready-to-eat on the bottom shelf. i stocked up on them before the world was over. other people come in with food sometimes but it it is not real food it was made after the world ended. i look on the top shelf and take down the box. i put it down on the table with the still and hear it clink as i set it down. looking inside i see that one of the bottles of cough syrup still has a label on it so i peel it off and save it to burn it later. i told that idiot a thousand times to remove everything but the bottle and the essence of what is inside. i take the things out one at a time and then i turn around. there is an old record player from the world that i turn on. as the arm sets down i set to work. i am in my own world and can barely even hear THEM as god bless america begins to play. i forget what happened next because when you work as long as i have been doing then things become automatic. when i am awake, i smell something like paint stripper and hold a large bag filled with white rocks that look grey because i cant take off my sunglasses ever. i smile because the things that are outside are all dead and evil and gone but i have brought them into existence in the forms of these rocks that some people call meth but that i call souls in their purest form. THEY are silent for now. i go outside to give them to the people who take souls for the lord.

as i go down the stairs to the third floor i see someone i have never seen before. he is looking confused and looks like the people that they used to call hillbillies when there were hills. he turns to me and asks which floor is eight oh eight on because he can't find it. i tell him that he is looking for a dead apartment an apartment where the window has been open and the people inside have been devoured in a flood of the outside. he looks at me and gets close to the wall and moves away. he seems confused and i tell him again but louder this time. he is frightened because he knows that this is the truth and i know that he knows. his family or apartment or anything in eight oh eight is dead and has been dead for many years. i take pity on him and tell him that he can stay in a room on the eighth floor that is still protected if it will remind him of his home. he says thank you and runs up the stairs. i can only feel sad at his loss.

i go to room three oh seven and knock twice. the door is not made out of wood like the others but it is made of steel and has a peephole. i can only assume that the poor person inside has a disease of some kind or is shy. it is a shame when people dont try to be neighborly. there is no answer so i knock again this time louder and feel my hand ache. a door at the bottom slides open and i put the bag inside the room. i wait a minute and pick up an enevelope that slides out from under the door and open it and take out the green paper that used to be called money. i don't use it for much, so i give it to the landlord sometimes when he askes me for it because i am kind and feel sorry for him with his fatness and plodding manner and stench. i can give it to him because he is good despite his problems but sometimes people who are not people but are actually THEY who have shaped THEMSELVES into the figures of men will plead for my money or will offer to do vile things and i push at them and yell at them to leave and tell them that this is a holy place and they have no power over me here. once one of THEM tried to seduce me in the stairwell and i pushed at THEM and THEY fell down the stairs and were still and i knew that i had done a good thing and won a victory for the lord over evil.

Orion, Apt. 707

Orion had been staring at the window for four hours now and he hadn't heard a sound or seen any hint of movement. Maybe they were gone. Maybe he was finally free. He crept quietly towards the window, trying to keep THEM ignorant of his presence. Peeling back the aluminum foil that covered the window, he peeked outside. As if on cue, the mad cawing started again. A long black beak snapped at his face, hitting the window. Orion quickly drew back, terrified. He ran to the cabinet and took out the duct tape, quickly resealing the hole in his barrier. Although the window was resealed, its dull silver face unbroken, he could still hear the cawing and screaming and yowling and singing and could see things move beneath the foil. It had been too close this time. He resolved to never again tempt fate by seeing if THEY were gone. THEY would always, always be there, he realized, no matter how quiet and still THEY might seem.

Orion could still remember a time when THEY had not existed in the world. When he was a young man, nothing at all troubled him and he was free. Then, one day, he had begun to notice signs. Swirling bits of newspaper, the arrangements of a flower bed, even the sounds of insects had begun to relay garbled messages to him. After months of meticulous note taking and decoding, he finally realized what they were trying to tell him: that in sixteen months and sixteen hours, the world would end in a mad jeering holocaust of madness and death. That the only way to save anything in the world was to lay four candles devoted to the four Evangelists in the cornerstone of a building. Without telling his doomed wife or his doomed parents or his doomed co-workers, he slipped away in the dead of night, bound for Baltimore. He knew that Baltimore was the only city in the whole world that would survive, thanks to the messages he had received. His first few nights, he slept in various churches, hoping that the holiness might stave off destruction just a little while longer. Soon, he was known in all of the churches and forced to sleep beneath the streets. Searching the newspapers for any useful news (besides the messages telling him that the end was drawing closer and closer), he finally read about a new apartment building going up called Washington Heights. Sneaking into the construction sight at the dead of night, Orion placed the candles and knew, knew that this building would be the Alamo of sanity and goodness and logic and right, against the horrible, horrible THINGS that were to come after everything was gone. As soon as the apartments were complete, he rented out the seventh room of the seventh floor.

Sure enough, the world had ended, just when the messages said it would. Orion had been wide-awake when it happened. There had been a loud blast, followed by a long rumble, followed by nothing. He had been curious then, and looked outside of the window to see what NOTHING looked like. He screamed. Ten thousand crows, THEIR bodies constantly melting and swirling into one another cawed at him and pecked with THEIR razor beaks at the windows trying and demanding to be let in and take the last refuge of mankind. Monsters with bison skull heads and black liquid bodies grinned idiotically at him as THEY danced and screamed and laughed and bellowed with fury and glee. Giant red worms digging through the nothing hissed at him and bared teeth which were horribly alive little THINGS that danced and reproduced and died all at the same time. He had wailed. He had cried. He hid beneath the bed. But he never for a second had considered damning himself and everyone else in the building by opening the window and inviting in THEM. For the first six months, it was all he could do to keep his sanity. Then he discovered that aluminum foil could at least muffle the sounds and cover the movements of the dead world outside. Things became much more bearable after that. It had been twenty five years now since he had moved in.