The Crying Shore E-Book

Melissa Maclellan

• Herausgeber: Dolman Scott Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

They say that life is a journey. This is my part of my journey. Four occasions where my sense of self is extracted and opened for opinion. Four occasions that have, over the years, altered the way I live and impacted upon my thoughts. These stories, along with the poetry, wander through my gender confusion, my sexual dysfunction and my own way of reacting, and acting, in the world that I walk. They are periods in my life which have had a great influence.

These stories twist around each other to make a complete whole. Some deeper than others in intensity, but important none the less. For it is only through the telling of these stories that I hope to mend myself. To find my niche, and to make sense of the confusion nestled within my mind.

The  Shore was developed as a place in which I could meditate through such problems  and to find answers. Created by my calling. It is a place that has become my comfort and my guide. It gave me a place of safety and offered a light for me to follow. However, The Shore can also be bad. It can take you upon meandering roads that develop into pure anarchy. It challenges how I see things. Causes me great hurt both mentally and psychically and, yet, it remains as a place I return to time after time for advice or to just escape from a world of carnage. Whether it is for good or bad purposes The Shore beckons me with great lust.

 So, this is my world. Full of contradictions and dichotomises as I twist my way through life without any real consideration of how I impact myself upon those around me. A lifetime of memories compacted down to a few poems, four narratives and my own opinions of the world. Free the soul.

Leseprobe

the crying shore

melissa maclellan

Published by Dolman Scott Ltd 2019

Copyright © 2019 Melissa MacLellan

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover, other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN: 978-1-911412-84-7

Printed by Dolman Scottwww.dolmanscott.co.uk

“touching at fragments of my memory”

the crying shore

melissa maclellan

i dedicate my life to many people.

Some have touched me mentally whilst others have done so physically.

Yet, they all became a part of me

and i thank them for that.

To mum, pops, marlene and patrick babs and pushkin

Especially for dr. r. mathew

These are the people that believed in me.

That reached out to touch me.

That offered me hope and a destiny.

In the end i created nothing but myself

CONTENTS

SOMETIMES

part one “the first movement of life and disguise”

WALKING THROUGH TIME

FLESH OF DREAMS – (1)

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt 1

TO HELL WITH UNCERTAINTY [a]

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt 2

MASTER OF GAMES – I

FLESH OF DREAMS (2)

TO HELL WITH UNCERTAINTY [b]

MASTER OF GAMES – II

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt3

FLESH OF DREAMS (3)

FLIGHT OF FANTASY

part two “passion displays with ice and desire”

FROM WITHOUT TO WITHIN

TO HELL WITH UNCERAINTY [c]

THE MASTER OF GAMES – III

THE BOOK OF HURT - Pt4

FLESH OF DREAMS (4)

THE MASTER OF GAMES – IV

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt5

TO HELL WITH UNCERTAINTY [d]

THE THIRD MOVEMENT OF LIFE AND DISGUISE

part three “dancing the dance where fire grows”

SLICE - MY LIFE

FLESH OF DREAMS (5)

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt 6

THE MASTER OF GAMES – V

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt7

THE MASTER OF GAMES – VI

FLESH OF DREAMS (6)

DIRECTION

part four “fluid within tainted rainbows”

IMAGES OF BEING

TO HELL WITH UNCERTAINTY [e]

THE MASTER OF GAMES – VII

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt8

FLESH OF DREAMS (7)

THE MASTER OF GAMES – VIII

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt9

THE MASTER OF GAMES – IX

FLESH OF DREAMS (8)

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt10

THE MASTER OF GAMES – X

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt11

FREAK UNIQUE

DAWNING AND MOVING

SOMETIMES

sometimes it is the things we do

that create our soul

burns deep into the inside

to hide all our fears

lost like two lovers apart

I swim with uncertainty

into a new world

constructed by men

creating their own Utopia

from within which they can hide

and I am clambering for air

in this world of wasted breath

catching only moments

of a hazy past

and into the red room

I am beckoned to come

releasing broken dreams

entwined with their laughter

I cradle this moment

and allow it to fade

into fantasy and the fantastic

as I shed my skin

onto a dew dropped floor

twisting and turning

gasping for breath

through poisoned skies

I am forced to plunge

star-shaped and proud

awakening a new form

that is covered by sadness

I pierce my soul with moments

and hide the fear

sometimes it is the things we do

that cause the hurt and the pain

as I crawl naked and bare

just to release my anger

I encounter no resistance

just a Utopia

created by men

in which they can hide

and I find nothing

that I can call familiar

except great uncertainty

I find that I am alone

casting outward in whispers

I cry out my sister name

into a pool of crystal

and stare at reflected faces

that are not mine

but now that I am reborn

there can be no more dark places

and as I unfold my wings

to a glistening sun

I await my moment

for I know it will come

part one

“the first movement of life and disguise”

WALKING THROUGH TIME

unfolding time

backwards and through my memories

I am walking on glass

where every fragment causes

pain, blood and tears

creating new darkness

and I want to forget

that you and I ever existed

I want to stop treading

upon these nightmares of mine

to sleep, deep and unmoving

to flow, like a winter’s breath

spiralling and upward

and out from the heart

and out from the soul

without consideration

of my placement

my social acting

is distracting, digressing, distressing

causing abstraction

and bi-polarisation

twisting and turning

slowly unwinding

I am walking through time

through all that has been

and seen, deep and unclean

a past that is tainted

yet, pure of heart

I am unfolding time

and walking on glass

waiting for the moment

to slowly pass

I am walking through time

through these memories of mine

FLESH OF DREAMS – (1)

I think that I am now awake. I’m not really that sure when I went to sleep but I feel pain in my head so I guess that I must be awake. There’s something else. Something that is making noise on the outside. Not within me but away from me. I can’t make it out. I can’t see either. All I see is the blackness. There is no colour seeping through. There is only blackness. And this noise. What is it? It’s a dull thumping. I’ve tried to speak to the noise, to plead for it to slow down or shut off but could make no sound, not a sound that I could hear anyway. I wish I knew where I was or how I got here. That’s if here is a place. I maybe somewhere else. Heaven crosses my mind for a moment even though I have never believed. I feel as if I am dead but not dead. The noise outside is continuing. Droning in a monotone that makes me think of motor-boat engines. Maybe it is God reaching out to me. I must be dead. If I could remember how I got here then I would know for sure. I try to move but feel as if I have no body. Am I my soul? I try to move again without any success and then stop trying. Something is wrong. I keep telling myself this again and again but I cannot work out what it is. The noise outside stops. I hear only silence. If I am dead and this is my soul then where is God? Where is the bright white light of Heaven’s gate that so many have reported awaiting them? Why am I alone? Questions, questions, questions. They flow through me in a torrid fashion as if they were searching for something. All of them interconnected and trying to reach the one answer that would explain what is happening to me. I fall asleep.

The dream feels more real than my reality. I find that I am in a car that is heading south out of a city and towards the open country. The radio is playing a tune that has a constant beat but it is a song that I have never heard. I like it anyhow, and tap my fingers upon the top of the steering wheel as I drive effortlessly down the fast lane at over 100 miles per hour. There is no one else with me in my dream. The car is empty and no cars pass by me, nor do I overtake any one. I am alone. The road lights up in front of me as I drive by the headlights of my car. The outside view is so non-descript that it may all be the same. The car feels real and for a while I wonder if I’d dreamt of Heaven and that this is my reality, or, is it the other way around? I want to stop the car. The feeling of having driven for too long is washing over me and I need to rest. I must have fallen asleep at the wheel momentarily and dreamt of the sensation of Heaven. Sleep would seem to be what I need. To find a hotel and a warm bed for the night before I continue on my journey. But, I have passed nothing on the way that even looked like it might offer me my sanctuary and have seen no signs of anything approaching. I continue, turn up the radio to keep myself awake and wind down the window. The tune continues without a break and I wonder if the station I am tuned to has gone off the air and left the tape playing for those late night die-hards. Fifty miles pass without contact with anyone or anything. The radio crackles and then finally stops dead and I curse as my hand slaps it, trying desperately to bring it back to life. And then there it is. Neon signed paradise. I touch the brake and bring the car to a slower speed. Up ahead of me a brightly lit forecourt looms. People are climbing in and out of cars and my first signs of life in over a hundred miles makes me feel warm. I pull into the forecourt and stop the car. Across from this tarmac rest-stop is a hotel. Big, bright and welcoming. I have no baggage and so head straight to the hotel’s sliding doors. As I approach I nod at several of the people milling around the entrance and smile. I feel tried but polite manners cost nothing and so appear welcoming. As I reach the doors I nod at a person to my left who is smiling at me as if she knows me. Yes, definitely female but do I know her? I smile back and find that this reaction causes her to extend her hand in welcome. She talks but the noise is so loud from the passing cars that I do not hear. Passing cars? I look briefly over my shoulder at the now swarming roadway. A strange panic envelops me for a brief moment as I recall the once empty roadway that had brought me here. The woman is still talking. I tell her that I am looking for a room so that I can get some sleep and this causes her to laugh. The cars die away in the distance.

“Why do you need sleep?” She asks.

“To cure me of this thumping headache and blood-shot eyes. I’ve been driving for a long while.”

“But you are resting already. So why do you need sleep?”

I am confused for a moment. I do not know the answer to her question and yet I feel I owe her some reply. I say nothing instead.

“So. Where are you going to on your journey?” She retorts.

“Going to? I don’t know.” I feel panic. How could I have been driving? I don’t even know where I am driving to or where I have come from.

“I just need to rest.” I say. “It’s been a long day and I am a little confused.”

“There you go again. Why do you need to rest when you are resting already?”

“I don’t understand.” I reply. “How can I be resting already? I have been driving. I may have rested momentarily as I drove but what I need is long term. A cup of something warm and a place to lay my head. Who are you anyway?”

“I am many different things to many people. Some may say they know me but I believe that only I can know myself.”

“Do they call you a name?” I ask. The irrelevance of the question frustrates me. I wonder if I really care for this conversation with a stranger that I’ll never meet again.

“Oh! you will see me again.” She exclaims. “Now you will always see me. Not just in this place but also in the other places where you shall meet me with confusion. In a way we are now linked. Not by my calling but by yours. You wanted me to be here, beckoned me from afar and now I am here.”

She’s mad. The poor bitch. The regular nut-case that hassles poor, tired strangers for a few pence to provide her with coffee. Her brain frozen with the cold that envelops the night sky and a lifetime of alcohol. I raise my hand to stop her conversation from going further.

“If you don’t mind,” I say as politely as possible, “there is a bed in this place with my name on it.” I reach into my pocket and withdraw my purse. Unclipping the small change pocket of it I take out some change and hand it to her.

“I’ll take your money for now. But I’ll always be here with you. Soon you will understand this. “

With this she reaches across and slaps me hard across the face and I scream out as the pain takes hold.

I am awake again. It is still dark and the silence still prevails. I was dreaming again. The same dream every time and every time I wake up I find myself back here. Alone and afraid. I try and remember the last dream I had but can only recall the face of the drunkard old woman outside of the hotel as she cackles and then slaps me. A face that is so clear I can see my own reflection within her brilliant eyes. Is she is right? Will she always be here in some small way. A constant picture within my sub-conscious that replays itself again and again.

The pain in my head is finally lifting. That makes me feel better. I’m not sure how long I have been like this. Trapped in this void but as each moment of time passes I find it harder to retain any form of sanity. It’s hard to function normally in a world where there can be only thoughts and dreams. I receive no input from my senses at all. I’ve tried counting the time away, if only to gain some gauge of my time here, but with my slipping in and out of dreamland have had to abandon any attempt. I know that I am human, or at least I was. I cannot recall my gender, the chronological date or anything else for that matter and yet I retain the ability to have thought. It was this thought that led me to concluded that I was human. I could be wrong however. I could be something else but I can’t remember if I was. I feel lost, incomplete somehow, and wish that if death was coming to collect me that it would do so soon. My life is empty - if life is what I feel. Thoughts of Heaven return and I find that they calm me. Another question enters into my thoughts. How can I know of God? As I attempt to answer this question the noise from the outside returns again in its dull monotone and distracts me for the moment.

THE BOOK OF HURT – Pt 1

October 1999

Thursday14

The doctor came around to see me today. Things haven’t been going too well since the operation had been performed a few months ago.

“You should take some time out” She had said. “Find a place to retreat to. Somewhere where you can forget about life for a while, relax a little and take stock.”

“Fine.” I replied. “Like where?”

“Ever thought about going into hospital for a few days?”

“A nut-house you mean?”

“You make it sound like Bedlam”, she laughed. “I think that it would do you some good. What harm could it do you? You certainly can’t cope here, at home, at the moment. Why not let someone else look after you?”

“And I can leave when I want to?” It was an uneasy suggestion. Even now, as I write it down in this diary, I am wondering if it is the right thing to do. I mean, you hear about such places never letting you out into the real world again, or, at the very least, if they do let you out, then you are left as some drug-crazed zombie for the rest of your life. Still, what option was there?

“They still do electric shock therapy don’t they?”

The doctor laughed again. “All you’ll be doing is going away for a rest, that’s all! No drugs, no shock therapy, just a rest.”

I have to admit the offer was tempting. Thirty-three years of my life have gone past, and its fair to say that I’ve had enough of just surviving. That’s how I feel it is, just survival. What sort of life is that and perhaps I needed to break away for a little while. Anyhow, the way I see it, I have little choice. I am pretty-damn close to committing suicide and, despite half wanting to, I also half want to live as well.

“Okay,” I’d said. “I’ll take your advice and go away for a little while. When do you think they could fit me in?”

“Tonight, if you really wanted too, or tomorrow.”

“Tonight is, er, too soon. I’d need to get a few sorted out about the house before I went. Tomorrow sounds better.”

“Okay, tomorrow then.” She’d got up at this point and concluding the conversation had said, “I’ll make all the arrangements and give you a call back a little later tonight.”

“Fine,” I’d replied, and then rather tentatively said, “I’ll look forward to your call.”

That was all it took. A suggestion turned into a reality. I must confess that spending any length of time in a nut-house has been a nightmare of mine for as many years as I can remember. I mean, how do you prove to someone that you are sane when they think that every word you speak contains some form of insanity? Ah well! Its a done deal now. The doctor had call backed, as she promised.

“Its all fixed for tomorrow morning”, she’d cheerfully said on the phone around midnight.

“I feel as I am going to an execution and, umh, I am the one being executed”

“Don’t worry! These places are okay. The one you are going to has a nice family atmosphere to it. No serious cases, just mild depressives.”

“Shit, I suppose that its better than death,” I sighed with a hint of desperation. “You’d better give me the details.”

“At-a-girl! Okay here they are...”

Now, as the time ticks away, and dawn is slowly rising to mark the day that I enter into the nightmare that has haunted me for as long as I can remember, I find that my thoughts are more tuned to the prospect of killing myself rather than having to endure spending any length of time within a psychiatric ward at the local hospital. We all have our own images of such places, what they are like and what they contain, and mine are projections of Victorian Sanatoriums in which visitors came and gazed with wonder at the lunatics paraded about before them. No longer would I be one of the gazers, so to speak, but I was to become one the gazed upon. I feel uneasy about this. For years I have been a control freak, even down to the minor details in my life, and now I am about relinquish that control to another person. I’d heard the stories, who hadn’t, about not being able to get back out again or about the type of people that were institutionalised. People get hurt in such places. Violence is part of life in psychiatric wards, isn’t it? I guess I’ll find out for myself in ten hours or so.

Right now, at this very moment, I am lying in my bed thinking. Just thinking and writing. My world has been turned upside down. A few months ago I would have laughed at the suggestion that I take some time out.

“Too busy,” I would have said.

That was a few months ago. Then I had been relatively successful. My life had been one of contentment. I was on the up, as they say, the future was bright and a pathway had been laid for me to walk. I’m an academic by trade, writing my Ph.D. and writing various papers for publication within numerous journals. I was also attending, or due to attend, various conferences. Not a bad lot for someone so new to the game of academia. People are, seemingly, impressed by my contributions and this, in turn, fuels me even more. I am over worked and stressed for sure, but who isn’t in this day and age? Anyhow, I have to work hard for good lecturing positions are hard to come by at present.

Amazing what a few months can do for you. I’d had an operation four or five weeks ago, a rather serious piece of surgery, and this, I think, has taken its toll upon my well being. Certainly, from that point up to now I seem to have been loosing the plot bit by bit and day by day. I had attempted suicide the day after being released from the hospital but a friend had found me before I‘d had the chance to take any quantity of pills and, after a visit to the doctor, that had been the end of that. Yet, it wasn’t - the end I mean. The thought remained locked within my head. Eating away with each day. My doctor had prescribed anti-depressants and sedatives but they didn’t stop the thoughts, merely stopped me from being bothered to do anything about it. I still cried, still do and am doing so at this moment. Yet, I cry not so much in desperation but due to the fact that I have wasted my life. A contradiction to what I have said previously perhaps? Not really. Social and personal success are two different things in my book. What is a success to some is a failure for others.

Now I am at this point in my life. Waiting for the time when I will carted off to the nut-house. Strange days indeed. Days that I am unused to. Days that have no meaning, just an existence. I must confess, that I rather like this way of living. It has a warmth to it. A comfort that I have never know before. Not living - just breathing. Thoughts come and go through my head without any secondary considerations. I can think without thinking. Existence. The one thought that remains a constant is that of my death. It is something that I have planned down to the finest detail. In a weird way it is the one motivation that makes me continue to use life. A Paradox. I must use life to find death. I have so much to do before I die, a control freak to the end, and when that is achieved I will terminate my life upon this planet forever. Not a depressing thought, not to me, but one that is needed and necessary. As I said, it drives me to and through life.

The phone has just rung beside my bedside. It was my doctor again. The time is 7.30 in the morning and I haven’t slept at all. She was just checking up, asking if everything was all right. I think she had an ulterior motive. The conversation went like this.

“Hi Melissa!”

“Oh, hi. Anything wrong?”

“No, no.” I’d heard her shuffling some papers. “I was just checking that you were still going ahead with what we agreed.”

“As you’ve already said,” I’d sighed, “what choice do I have? I’ve got nothing left to loose”, I continued.

“Good girl! Do you want me to drive you or can you make your own way there?”

“Nah, its okay. I can find my own way thanks.”

“If you’re sure?” I’m getting a strange feeling that she is desperate to send me off on my way. If I’d been sailing off into the sunset I’m sure, by her enthusiasm, that she would have been at the quay side waving her white handkerchief, tears in her eyes.

“Its nice to know you care.” I said without her detecting my slight undertone of sarcasm.

So, my bags are packed, my life is a mess and I am about to nail the lid of my coffin by living out my worse fear. Who said life couldn’t get any worse? Hopefully, I’ll be pleasantly surprised and totally wrong by the whole experience but I don’t so. Logically, or as logically as it gets for me, I know that I will soon be entering into a pit of hell. That once I am part of the great psychiatric machine I will be spat at and out without any control over what I can do. My life is in their hands. I just prey that they are safe hands.

TO HELL WITH UNCERTAINTY [a]

Beating bones and carving flesh. His body was racked with a pain. Tiny droplets of blood pulsed through openings across his back. He smiled as the pain hit him again. Watching himself in the mirror that had been placed in front of himself he saw the pleasure upon his face. Via a second mirror, placed behind his body, he viewed the tiger-striped lines that ran across his buttocks and torso. He smiled again, watching with a glee that few would understand. He was kneeling upon the floor. His head and body pushed slightly forward to allow him to observe what was going on behind and forcing his buttocks to protrude behind him. A purposeful protrusion that allowed the whip to make maximum contact and to cause the most pain as it bore down again upon his body. His gaze never left the mirror. His concentration no longer focused upon this world but upon the world that was reflected to him. The world of domination.

Yet, this was no ordinary domination. This was masturbatory domination. A self inflicted domination that involved no second party. Between his thighs his right hand was clasped upon his penis, pumping it frantically and pulling the foreskin back and forth across the head. His left hand held the riding whip that had already left its mark this night. Yet, this was not some uncontrollable, manic thrashing but precisely placed smacks. He drew his left arm up again and brought it back down across the middle of his back with full force.

“Ah!” The first wave of pain hit him. “Shit!”

The second wave brought the pleasure back and he smiled at himself again. His gaze fell upon the reflection of his beaten back. He ran the whip gently up and down. Drawing the tip of it through the lines of blood and spreading it thinly and evenly.

“You sick bastard. You fucking sick bastard,” He sneered still pumping at his penis. “You filthy, sick and disgusting bastard.”

He beat himself again. The phone ran and it distracted from his reflective world for a brief moment. A tiny moment that forced him to stop the masturbating and the beating and to see himself as he really was. Alone and afraid. It was only a moment and then it was gone. Yet, this fleeting time gave him not so much a regret but a greater determination. The controllable smacks suddenly became more frantic and less placed as the ringing of the phone faded and his reflective world sucked him back into itself again.

“I hate you!” He screamed at the reflection. “I fucking hate you! Everything I fucking do is controlled by you. You! You sick fucker. You fucked-up little shit. You disgust me.”

He whipped himself a dozen or so more times and then dropped the whip. He brought his left hand through his buttocks and grabbed at his testicles. His right hand was still working upon himself. His left hand gently cupped his testicles for a few moments before he began to close his fist, encasing his balls tighter.

“I’m gonna rip off your balls you filthy pervert. I’m gonna tear them from your body and stuff them up your arse and then I’m gonna watch you bleed.” There was a manic undertone to his voice. He was close to ejaculating but he tried to hold it back. “I’m gonna stuff your balls up your arse and drink your spunk.”

He squeezed his testicles as hard as he could. The pain was intense. He felt himself blacking out for a moment from the agony but it did not deter him. He squeezed a second time and felt the testicles flatten and elongate before releasing the grip totally and allowing his hand to slide from his testicles to his anus. Two fingers slipped in. He pushed them into his anus, up to the knuckle. Once placed he pulled his two fingers apart, to form a ‘V’-shape, and began to finger his arse.

“Ah! God! I’m gonna cum! No! No! Not yet!” He relaxed his right hand movement and slowed down the pace of both hands until they were moving to an equal rhythm. The gaze was smiling back at him. In this context it was a face he recognised but he had video taped himself once. Video taped a similar masturbatory experience that he had later played back. He had hated it. It was not the him that he recognised but another him. It had looked sick and vile and had the images had disturbed him for a number of months, causing him to stop the beatings and the self inflicted pain through disgust and embarrassment at what he had observed upon the tape.

He lay upon his back, his legs spread apart. His right hand was still placed around his penis, beating out the same rhythm but his left hand had departed from playing with his anus and began to lick at the two fingers that had been placed within his anus. He licked at them for mere seconds before allowing them to slip into his mouth whereby he began to suck desperately. Inside his mouth he worked his tongue around the two fingers, licking at every area encountered. He tasted himself. Sucked and swallowed and masturbated. He drew his legs together as he did so and, in one movement, rocked himself backwards, forcing his legs up over his head. He could still see in the mirrors. Was still lost in the reflective world of the other him. He could see his body, red and beaten, with its arse in the air and his knees now placed at either side of his head, spine curved to its greatest extent. Above his face now hung his penis, four or five inches away, his right hand still clasped at it, pumping. His two fingers slipped from his mouth.

He used this free hand to locate the riding whip again. He gently beat his back several times in order to get use to the unusual whipping angle before bringing it down harder upon his buttocks. His gaze still remained focused upon the mirrors reflection. He repeated the action several times.

“This is what you deserve, you fucker. You don’t deserve anything better, do you?” It was a question he often asked himself, even when not masturbating. “You little shit are just getting what you deserve. I’m gonna take you to an inch of your life, you fucking pervert.”