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Scream

Mel Waldman

    Scream. I scream silently into the swirling, whirling night as I stroll across the Coney Island Boardwalk at midnight. A full moon hovers over the ocean and the pier and all of Brooklyn on this eerie night.
    Two strangers pass me as I saunter to the pier. I shriek. But they don’t seem to hear my ululations. I howl. I wail and the bloody waves rush and roar and spill their violence onto the beach and against the pier and the jetty.
    Two strangers pass me in the darkness. I howl. Yet they keep moving away, far away, their footsteps becoming weaker and then inaudible. Why don’t they acknowledge me? Am I a ghost? Or are they afraid of me-a stranger too-crying out in the night, shrieking an endless scream? Why?
    Above, the surreal sky absorbs my anguish, my voiceless rage sucked into a merciless vortex and suddenly, the Heavens howl. In a dark metamorphosis, the storm begins. The heavy rain and wild winds ravage Brooklyn. They sever trees and power lines and frighten human beasts wandering across the Boardwalk after dark.
    A lonely traveler blinded by the storm, I search for the pier. Battered by the fierce rain, I drift through pitch-black darkness. In the distance, I see a glimmer of light darting and flitting about, dancing in the tempest. I follow the flashes of light. Trudging through the flood and whirling winds, I find the pier. And I wait for the storm to end.
    I wait. Above, a full moon hovers over the pier, illuminating a scintilla of space. I scream silently into the swirling, whirling night. I wait.
    Buried in anguish and despair, and breathless from the ferocious winds and bloody rain, I shriek sounds of loss and lamentation. Invisible, I crave and long for recognition. But no one sees me. Why don’t you see me? Even a blind man can smell my humanity. I’m more than a human beast, much more.
    Trapped inside an endless scream, I believe the storm or my life will end tonight. My mouth wide open and frozen in time and space, I fear that death is near, just around the bend. But I can’t move, can’t run away. I’m paralyzed, suspended between Scylla and Charybdis, and I wait for destiny to find me. Whether I live or die, I’m doomed.
    Slowly, the night disintegrates. And the tempest disappears, rushing off like a wild stallion galloping across meadows to another time and place. Shriveled up into a ball of ice, I close my eyes and wait.
    At dawn, I feel the heat of the sun sitting on my heavy eyes. I try to open them, but they’re shut tight. Even when I command them to open, they disobey. Then an alien spirit speaks to them and miraculously, they open wide. My eyes burn and are on fire, for the powerful light of the sun is unbearable. I turn away from the sun.
    Soon, I forget about the oppressive light and look west, gazing at the ocean and a sunless sky. What I see makes me tremble. The ocean and sky are blood-red. Indeed, the waters and Heavens are bloody, adorned with human or non-human blood. Hypnotized by these bizarre visions, I can’t look away. My frenzied eyes remain fixed on the obscene ocean and sky as mammoth waves of blood flow to shore and sail across the surreal sky.
    Am I dreaming? Can these visions be part of a nightmare? Shall I wake up soon to a sane and predictable universe? My eyes dance around the pier and land on my fragile body. I look down at myself and scream.
    I scream. My body is covered in blood. A ghostly skeleton, it is covered in thick layers of blood. I have no flesh. I believe the beasts ate my flesh. Yes, the cannibalistic storm and eerie darkness devoured my mind and soul and body. Perhaps, I’m mad. But look at me. I’m a blood-red river, nothing more. And I’ve left a trail of blood on the Boardwalk and pier.
    I’m trapped and lost inside an endless scream. I scream, but you can’t hear me. Only I can hear this voiceless shriek, here, inside my private wasteland, where I’m buried alive.

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