Published:
This text was written and first read by Martin O’Brien for his performance Fading Out of Dead Air (Transmissions for the Necropolis) on 14 December 2023.
Content Warning
Please note that this text and images contain nudity, sexual content, BDSM practices and a discussion of death.
The force of the grave is strong. We kneel in deep veneration. May we resist the allure of decay. Let us not fade. Let us not fade. Keep breathing.
Purgatory
A mist descends on the great city. The tall buildings, with flashing lights are buried in the fog. With it comes a collection of voices, carried by the wind. The voices can be heard all over the city, calling out. The words are hard to understand. They are speaking our language, but we cannot comprehend what they are saying. The voices are like nothing that has ever been heard before. They call out into the night skies, as if the mist was speaking. Or as if the fog hid a mouth that cried out.
The fog is so thick that nothing is visible. The voices so frequent that nothing can be heard over them. The ground is grey as if there had been a huge fire. Strange skeletal forms walk slowly through the ashen world. Unable to hear, see, touch, taste, or smell. They simply walk, as if cursed with a body they do not need nor want. They do not laugh, and they do not need to. They know not how to cry.
There is nothing to like or dislike in this city. Existence occurs under different rules. The inhabitants do not seem to breathe. They need no water and they eat no food. Their skin looks as though it has never been touched by sunlight. The land is charred and scarred. The buildings stand tall and mighty, but they have little use. Wind bellows through the streets, and wild beasts dart from dark alley ways. The voices call out but to who do they speak? ‘Fading’ they whisper, ‘fading’. Is this prophecy or command? A cry for help or a reflection of the world they are in? Fading. Fading. The winds acts like a radio, calling out to the wretched creatures who patrol the streets. Cursed to trod the same path over and over. Fading. Fading.
The force of the grave is strong. We kneel in deep veneration. May we resist the allure of decay. Let us not fade. Let us not fade. Keep breathing.
Funeral
The corpses are strewn across the landscape. A great rumbling is felt through the cities and towns. Something important is happening. In the church, the ceiling begins to fall on the worshippers. In the morgue, the bodies start convulsing. People feel it in their bones. The end is nigh. A group of people gather together, to breathe together, to mourn their own life and to rehearse for the inevitable.
We all know the last breath. It is in our lungs, we haven’t felt it yet. None of us here have felt the air move through our throats for the final time, but we all will. We know what it feels like, somehow, because we know what it is to breathe. In the final moments of life, something known as the death rattle occurs. The person is unable to cough or clear their throats, so mucus builds up. Breathing is transformed. Each breath sounds crackly, wet. Fluids build up in the chest and throat. Then eventually comes the last breath. The final moment of life and consciousness. The lungs empty of all air. There is no final inhale of breath, just an agonising silence. In the end, flesh cannot resist decay.
Once animate, the body now lays cold and stiff under the soil. It does not move but does it feel? Does it feel the insects as they crawl over the rotting flesh. Does It feel the force of roots grow up through the soil below and push against its back? Can it feel the skin break as they push their way through this living corpse, forcing their way into the lungs, enveloping the heart. Does it feel the penetration of the anus as they force their way, slithering up through the bowel and break through the other side of this body? Would it feel Mushrooms sprout through the eye sockets and out of the ears? Insects move through the veins like blood? Would it feel fungi as it emerges out of the fingers and toes and brakes through the knee bone? During this process of transformation, would it feel hair and nails continue to grow. Does it feel every minute pass, every sensation, every touch?
In other graves, dried up, putrefied corpses, lay helpless and dry. Once moist with mucus, a green tint covers these cadavers. As if called to prayer, they convulse. They begin to move. The last breath in in the past, but these bodies will not fade.
The force of the grave is strong. We kneel in deep veneration. May we resist the allure of decay. Let us not fade. Let us not fade. Keep breathing.
Séance
In the old house, furniture moves with no visible force pushing it. Footsteps are heard on the stairs, but no one is seen descending. Glasses fall in the kitchen and smash over the floor, as if they had jumped themselves. The word ‘fading’ is written on the walls in blood, or red paint. Insects invade the home and pour out of drawers. The wails of the dead can be heard by the living, and the horrors of life are visible for those who no longer endure it.
Two figures stand in the hallway staring at one another. They belong to different times, different worlds. They do not recognise one another as belonging to the same species. Neither can understand the others’ soul, and both are terrified by what they witness. They just stand, frozen in horror by the mere presence of the other. Neither speak, and both are motionless. ‘Fading’ they both hear, and each presumed it was uttered by the other.
The woman with coins for eyes stands in the corner, looking forwards, seeing nothing, but understanding everything. The dead perform a séance for the living, but no one dares answer. The scratchy sound of skeletal hands-on wooden doors fills the air. Strange apparitions whisper to those who have taken their place. A hideous voice can be half heard calling out through the white noise of a radio. It sounds like nothing from this world, as if death itself was speaking. All those who hear it are frozen in terror. Does it speak to them? ‘Fading’ it says, ‘fading’.
The force of the grave is strong. We kneel in deep veneration. May we resist the allure of decay. Let us not fade. Let us not fade. Keep breathing.
Hospital
A scratchy sound of white noise emanating from a small radio fills the dark room. A faint voice comes through. It sounds like nothing from this world, as if death itself was speaking.
Somewhere else, sickly patients lay in hospital beds. They don’t understand why they are still sick. They listen to the hospital radio, but it doesn’t play their favourite songs. Instead, they listen to the sounds of a life once lived.
Strange apparitions walk the long corridors, pushing their trolleys. Repeating their daily actions for all eternity. No thought anymore, just keep going. Gurneys roll by heading towards the morgue, as if pushed by an invisible hand. An iron lung rattles on breathing for those who have long since stopped. Their skeletal forms lay dormant inside, other than the air gusting through their throats and out of their open mouths. The clickty clackty sound of shoes walking down the polished corridors ring out through the night. The beeping of heart monitors ringing 24/7 warning that a heart has stopped, but the patients eyes still see. In the shadows, strange shapes move slowly. Their true form is unknown, and too ghastly to even imagine.
Breathing is heavy in this place. It is strained. The sounds of gargling often punctuates the beeping of machinery. The groans of agony beckon miserable creatures towards living cadavers. Flayed bodies count the seconds until they are no longer here. Blood stains the walls and phlegm the floor. This is a place of no hope.
Through all of this, the radio plays on. A deathly voice conducts procedures as if banging a drum to maintain a rhythm. There are some who find a strange comfort in the agony and discipline of this place. ‘Fading, fading’ the radio says ‘fading, fading’.
The force of the grave is strong. We kneel in deep veneration. May we resist the allure of decay. Let us not fade. Let us not fade. Keep breathing.
Hell
A short moment of anguish lasts a lifetime. A great rumbling is felt through the ground. The city begins to creak and fall. Skyscrapers are reduced to dust, birds fall from the air. The sounds of great beasts echo through the piles of rocks and rubble. Hellish masochists lay out, flayed and wailing in agony. Rivers resemble tar and boats pass slowly through. The faces of the dead can be witnessed in the water, looking up, mouths open wide in a frozen scream. Arms reaching up towards the surface. No help comes though.
A body falls from a great height into a deep black hole. It is so deep; the body falls forever. It does not stop. It screams out in terror for eternity, unsure when the fear will end, but it never does. Another stands and watches, they feel the sensation of pure panic, of what will happen when it lands, but the feeling never ceases.
Bodies are so hot they stand naked. Unable to sit and lay down. Cursed to stand in heat hotter than the hottest desert. One lays on a small boat in the middle of a great ocean. The sun beats down on the nude body, which is burned from the intense heat. It lays, about to die, always just about to die. The end does not come. Two wrestle with one another. Drenched in sweat and tired. There will be no winner in this fight, like a never-ending dance they continue to move. A drowning man drowns but does not perish. Cursed to drown over and over again.
One climbs a hill but never reaches the summit. Another passes through a doorway to find itself in the same room, again and again. High up on a crucifix, one is nailed and watches over everything, waiting for whatever is next. In the corner, a body vomits, the putrid liquid pouring out. When it seems no more is possible, the heaving continues. A strange priest sees the face of a demon in the mirror, and cannot turn to look away. A series of stone sculptures stand in a courtyard, they were once human, and their eyes continue to see. Looking forward at the same view and feeling the passing of time.
Fading. Fading. Fading.
The force of the grave is strong. We kneel in deep veneration. May we resist the allure of decay. Let us not fade. Let us not fade. Keep breathing.
