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(Page 1 of 4) The Escape by Walter Mallon
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THE ESCAPE
By Walter Mallon
I am not fearful in my ascent to the heavens. Although bred of such misanthropy, I cannot help but feel that my trepidation is due to the resonant sound of the engines and the brooding possibility of mechanical failure than that of the uncertainty of my endeavor; notwithstanding the presumption that I will never lay eyes on another of my kind again. Ostensibly I do not, or never have had, a convivial demeanor.
As I sit in my vessel, I am drunk with rapture knowing that I will never again have to associate with such a mundane and utterly unintelligible race of beings, which unfortunately, I am a member. Although I look back at the cerulean sky and verdant plains with ambivalence, I am confident that I have made the right decision. My world of war, prostitution, and sanctimony is not far from a harrowing ruin. I am filled with joy knowing I will never hear the ululation's of the detested vagabonds when their debaucheries are ended by the flames of anguish that will implode their skulls and leave their corpse's uninterred and at odds with nature, if she not be felled in the fury. Allotted to this uneschewable end, I am relieved knowing my fervent nostalgia of escape is being realized.
All this animosity must seem incredulous to you, the reader. For no doubt you are ensconced in your own perception of reality and are unwilling or unable to comprehend the immoralities of my society, the society which I am fervently escaping. Perhaps you cannot see. Perhaps you cannot understand me. Perhaps my precocious mind is an anathema, a foul trick played on me by a malevolent creator.
My destination is Ulthanck. For being in this primordial environment I have no other means of ascent than a quad-engine retrorocket with a one-person cockpit. In a vehicle of such antiquity, I can fly no further. I only plan a temporary sojourn on Ulthanck until I can procure a more space worthy vehicle.
Once Aronstar was frequented by travelers from Ulthanck, but they grew tired of the debased brothels which is all my uncongenial planet has to offer. Out of their lilting discourse concerning other worlds (that which travelers seem obliged to offer our mundane race of invalids) grew my nostalgia of escaping this humdrum planet of the Devil's issue.
The engine roars as the rocket blasts off. Success. Aronstar is falling behind me. Oh the joy of my escape. I can feel the ennui slothing off me like shedding skin. I have dreamed of this day for so long. I am finally fulfilling my dreams.
With temerity I fly, gazing poignantly at the resplendent and prodigious bans of iridescence pervading all of space and time. If any being could view my countenance, it would be of nothing ever shown on the hoary planet Aronstar. I can imagine the envy of my progenitors if they knew what palatial splendor lay ahead of me. Back home, others are preparing another estranging war, which I am surreptitiously escaping in my flight. I can't help but laugh in my own sardonic way knowing that I am escaping the humiliating nonexistence of death.
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