The Cosmic Hearse

Pennies●In●THE●WE//

The WHISPERED VERSE

The Cosmic Hearse

Part I: The Ward

The closet door, it breathes a final sigh, And spits me out beneath a buzzing, pale-lit sky. No childhood room, no memory's soft design, Just polished floors and a long, straight, endless line. The air is cold, it smells of bleach and dread, A hospital for souls, the living and the dead.

The Bardo Nurses glide, a silent, graceful fleet, Their starched white uniforms so crisp, so neat. They do not speak, they do not see my plight, Just guide the horrors in the flickering light. They are the orderlies of this despair, With vacant eyes and beautifully coiffed hair.

And in their wake, the shambling demons creep, The ones who harvest while my body sleeps. They are not nightmares here, but patients of the ward, Their ancient malice perfectly restored. A shadow breaks the rank, a crimson, knowing eye, "Don't let them get you, dude," a ghostly DJ's cry.

Part II: The Toll

He points a claw towards a door of bone and dread, With a jawless skull for all the words unsaid. "The Time Well Splint," he whispers, "your one chance," To leave this sterile, soul-destroying dance. He offers me a coin, a skull to pay the fee, For a different kind of cage I've yet to see.

I take the coin and pay the final toll, A whispered verse to claim my fragile soul. The Well, it sings, for better or for worse, A cosmic hearse, a final whispered curse. It pulls you down to where the roots run deep, And ancient, sorrowful secrets sleep. It is the end, a final, silent fall, A darkness that threatens to consume it all.

Part III: The Assimilation

And yet, within that cold and final space, A different kind of magic takes its place. A soul nurtured, a bardoic nurse, Appears to lift the all-consuming curse. She offers solace, and a gentle hand, To help you rise and finally understand.

She mends my fractured, fragile soul, A guide to make me once more "whole." The hearse that carried me to depths unknown, Is the same vessel where new seeds are sown. For in the Well, I find this truth profound: The richest soil is on the burial ground.

My healing is a change of rooms, a vow, In quiet, endless dread, I see it now. The "solace" is a mask for my new role, The coin I paid has purchased my whole soul. And as my eyes grow vacant, calm, and neat, I join the silent, graceful, gliding fleet.