The Last Halloween Of Hieronymous Bosch

[Robert Crisman]

Charred corpses, the devil's weak opening gambit, if that is in fact what it was; I passed them by like yesterday's news and they fizzed, popped and melted and sank, winked away, leaving holes and my memory to paint them in later.

The grassland had died with the corpses, and ahead now black sabertooth mountains, and leading to them, hard, stony ground, a flat sweep of hell in which nothing could live.

I replayed the death of the Earth as I knew it: the smell of Detroit lit by signal bomb blasts that erased her; also, nearer, the castrated remnants of Thorvald's militia, hanging from lampposts in what had been Cuidad Juarez...

And off to the left, a city unknown and the 10,000 women I saw, or thought I could see, a slew of them 80 years old and squatting with tin cups in doorways, and others, younger, eyeless, for sale as tourists streamed by or milled in slow motion; the tourists themselves, skulls stripped to rictus...

Also, I saw a plane overhead, popes and pimps fleeing, Paraguay bound with ringed fingers and ingested loot, as millions of worshippers went up in smoke.

I tightened against the smoke in my throat as fires and screams ate the world...

[Angela]

I read a later post first, so my comments are kind of out of sequence.  You know, I just don't know how you come up with such nightmarish images that are so fascinating to read.  I feel like I am getting in touch with a strange part of my psyche.

[Diana E. Backhouse]

What a load of Bos(c)h! Sorry, I couldn't resist that! You captured Hieronymous to a tee, Robert.

[Joey Delgado]

Apocalyptic!! Beautiful, poetic, and scary. If one mortal was given the task of designing the end of the world, please let it not be you. You'd put us through hell and then send us there.

[Robert Crisman]

@Paul: Thank you for your comment.

[Paul de Denus]

I really enjoy how you layout the 'world' of your stories-lots of depth and vision- every line sings- always a joy to read.