An excerpt from Daniel Beauregard’s Lord of Chaos. Characterized as “Less a novel and more a testament to the absolute veracity of the world as it exists from within the eyes of the mislabeled pariahs—society’s untouchables; a hallucinogenic and terrifying journey through the world of those who see through the veiled mists of the mundane.”
Deeper into the open air, the air is impenetrably thick. I am one and we feel it. But I can’t read it. We can see it now.
Um…what was so easily replaced?
We have this: there are no books. It is the scrape of our encounter. The voice upon the ground. Never did we come across something. Nothing
Squirming away into something else, we are wrapped into it, cold, wet. The voice upon the bedside. Released by a hypnotist. Why was it something?
Into the water always. If you are dead, left upon the ground. The echo of the fabric of reality. He is the scrape of our memory. Splash into it, turning. What I mean is Us. Who could blame them?
None. But the rest of the night, it was filled with something. I asked all of your meaning—and as I could— what was in the sense of movement. A way to determine its meaning.
Eaten back into nothing? Are we what we imagine to be heard. My limbs and limblets. We saw how it soon would be. There is nothing now, perhaps.
Could you see us from returning, as if the void which we are a fool?
If we could see.
Although there was something else. It is more so than before. Now hit the ground below, running limblets up and down.
Fear swoops down anew, like a lung I can almost taste. Ideas a bladder far off something like we are.
It is a revelation.
The void is nothing else we think.
Um…what was so easily replaced?
The image of the sun.
None
A photo needs to be a way. We haven’t always been behind us, we follow the wetness of the nail. The chant is now thawing out. Far off the smells remain. By the time and the beginning. We drift in and out, no idea where. If
you wanted to know, eaten again into nothing—eggs in a vacuum—but when we hear it, I scoff into the trees.
When the world was: the smells upon the wind.
One’s work is never bright enough, we barely have time to study it. Inspired, we scream and search. I began to fall, eaten back into the gutter my bum knee. Somewhere deep inside of us meant for us to see each time we gaze into the air.
My expansion into the void, we watch as they say we are never going, because they are the same.
In each case what we scream now—what I mean doctor—is that’s the way they pump.
There is the smell falls upon us. There is the void once passed [He rushes over to the deck again]. We feel the pain is unbearable—the memory of a sweetness to us—is the void itself, all we want to be.
If we have time to rest one of our bodies: there was the Poet. They are cold and sticky. What was in the earth below? Something from somewhere inside? Smells once, from the horizon?
And then it comes glinting.
Like the voidlings now.
Because we were and will become. We are wrapped into it, cold, wet.
What do you know if you are dead?
It was the same for us too see—perhaps the voidlings beneath—but it seems unreal, distant. And we could never reach. The voidling begins to fall out. We think all of us. But at that time, we rub its contours in our piss. Perhaps to be helped? The sound of the passage of time.
And we could see with our limbs backwards, marked amidst times once passed, nothing but immense. We sup and live inside us. Pain travels into our vision, puzzled out into nothing. A smell of a life once lived. We float above our head. For what is an idea perhaps. If you wanted to know. So when we hear it—my expansion into the forest—and when it was distinct. THE VOID I was part of, we feel the warmth of its bark, for we remember it.
We scream again and approaches us. The pain is certainly there. Into the water it pulls us, to pass the time. We awoke from one place to another. We feel something squirming, and then it comes glinting.
There is a day when I do that?
We’ve kept it in front of us. But now, as we stop running we die. One of our lower extremities. Travelling fast now, the birds. I feel the trees piss by our ears. The echo of the little voidlings, to pass the Time like it was.
But at that time, which is in our hands, we are all of your ability. I refuse to fill it. Nothing but the pain is unbearable. It’s difficult to describe. It is painful for us to see.
Then it was completed: it is our arm, like it was, feeding off of the river, we know it now. I continue to kick. Unvexed, we continue to kick. The shadows on the path. Taste is an idea perhaps, feeling it inside our head.
This is not a void. But we must be, forever, perhaps to be personified.
Success hinges upon the wind. We try to escape for a moment back to the air, the items of more resistance. In place of the void it expands. We rub its contours in our mind. I’m different from the Forest.
But we have never been.
You are the same, pliant like the farting ground, whatever I can almost taste.
And Pain became the swarm—this is not good—we float, our insides with feeling. He is a meaning that we’re dead. Parts of the rest of our dead. The smell of leaves.
We are here today.
But if you think so.
A smell of death, we barely have time to study it in between the void anew. At one time, we were born, we are unable to help ourselves. We’ve done our best. Do you want to tell us apart? As much as we stop running we die, somewhere deep inside of us.
It is Cold in the room and sedated, but we remember it.
We feel the wet fur upon our lips.
This place where my arm went, and then we saw it at last. We gather it up or cast it aside. Whether or not a void in the water it’s cold, it feels like nothing.
Did we hear it?
Upon the walls on nothing. We’ve done our best. What
else do you fucking hear me? Let us leave this corner. [I then felt the pain is unbearable]. There must be a way, somewhere deep inside of us.
None
But I can smell their sour musk, unlocked inside of us howling, screaming into the void.
He stole my teeth out one by one.
We feel our restraints burst.
The tufts of steam.
When it becomes a mountain.
If our existence is solidified.
If you wanted to know.
If we have time to rest.
Where did we come across something.
What else do you think?
Like the voidlings are the same, as if for a time.
We awoke from a moment then sunk, moving slowly up and down, puzzled out into nothing. The cave by the windowsill, there are our limbs are wet, into the water always.
We clutch our body, nearby. We were born into the mud spackle. Now you can see the mask he wore. Feeling is something I recognize. Now you can see it all. The Cave reeks of it, then I kick.
What is passed is real?
None. Perhaps to be no exit, the noise is sent to us in places. The void once passed, it was the same? we ask ourselves.
Where do we exist [after a few minor exceptions] we have been dead for years.
Back then I kick: a sound as a result of the word; a snapshot of our forearms. I am aware of something dear.
For how can you speak?
The pain is there.
How did we make it a god?
How long has the herd run now? We are wrapped into it, cold, wet. At first, there was something else. [The ground is now blocked].
It was so unique about it at least. Beneath our limbs are unique. Awareness at a later time, we’re unable to return. We scream and continue to eat. I feel the wet fur upon our neck. And then all of them.
Who could blame them?
If you are dead, we fit just barely out of the cart. At times, the color green. Our ideas are concerned. It is our memory of a needlepoint, we know it is inconsequential. Scraping upon the forest floor—then there is the ground. We remember where the forest ends.
Ideas stand on top of the darkness. Time swoops down to the saltwater—it’s as if it’s so, the void once passed.
He stole my teeth out one by one, perhaps only for a moment. It pushes through our chest. They’re using them against us, that shadow from the void, each time the sour
smell.
I scoff into the void, eaten away by Time.
But what is real, or what have you?
The hierophant, now more than one.
We stumble out into the void, eaten again into nothing,
elsewhere is another face entirely.
If you wanted to know, concentrate on the floor below, that
shadow from the rest. Answer me, can you hear me?
None
If you are indirect.
None
Can you see now?
None
Thought feels like nothing. He raises his arms but the
void, if you wanted to know, it wakes us up. Do you hear
me...nod if you insist? Do not be nothing. [We stumble and
scrape the bark].
None
Pushing trees like nothing at all.
They told me it was dark. A smell of leaves.
You have something to mark.
Marked amidst times once passed.
How do you mean centuries?
There is the Abyss. Feeling it inside our head. As there exists only a “body,” we feel it inside of us and nod. Everything we are screaming. We felt the void turned stiff. We compare each of the void because at that very moment, a way to secure our items spilled. The air no longer exists for us if you wanted to know: the emptiness of the herd. You are like the gloaming, it does not exist. I make note of it. We’re ready, for our existence is solidified. Pieces of our limblets? We can smell their sour musk. For example, when we hear it.
Do you think so?
None. The voice upon the wind no longer exists for us, he
managed to run away.
Ideas stand on top of a meal or deeper into the air,
similar to the air.
But we are never going if you are dead; if we have receded
again. For how can you hear me? We realize we are here
today, you are a physical idea.
But as we enter, the forest ends.
This is the smell of leaves—a piece of yourself—at times, the color of the table.
The air is impenetrably thick. We have nothing but joy.
If we have never left, perhaps there is sight now. One’s work is never bright enough. Perhaps the voidlings now, elsewhere is another face entirely.
Eaten back into nothing?
The tufts of steam. We were in the cave with spots of Pain, I think. We have never been. Eaten again into nothing. I’m begging, do you think? It is meant for us, or them? There is something in itself.
The ice will burn your eyes out.
I sink into the item, this place where my arm went. The void is not everything, now hit the floor, but he was
gone. Perhaps they’ve found the edge. We feel something squirming. I am aware of something dear. We are unable to identify.
It’s important to understand me.
What do you know?
Nothing.
There is something in itself. You were the sun upside down. Think of this sound: the void is an idea perhaps because at this very moment, there is something to see.
Out of town into the mud spackle. None of this is everything. We feel ourselves being removed.
None
You waste our time down in fury he and I can almost taste. And Pain became the void from the smell of shit, a moment later we feel its absence. We are thinking to remain. Always on the Cold Ground. The lives once lived, it warms us. This is the smell in the yard, we know it now.
If so, there is sight now.
I refuse to follow.
Don’t forget, you can hear me...
Daniel Beauregard lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in tragickal, the Action Books Blog, ergot, Alwayscrashing, and elsewhere. He’s the author of numerous chapbooks of poetry and his full-length collection, You Alive Home Yet? is available from Schism Neuronics. Daniel’s existential horror novel Lord of Chaos is available from Erratum Press. Funeralopolis, his first collection of short stories will be available from Orbis Tertius Press in summer 2024. He can be reached @666ICECREAM.
:: DIFFRACTIONS :: 