Aphelion Issue 293, Volume 28
September 2023
 
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Nightmare World

by Matthew J Hewitt


Staggering through the pitch darkness, with fireflies buzzing around my head, sparkling pearl like tears moisten my eyes, and devils incessantly shriek and scream Into my aching ears, Something invisible is clinging to my back, a huge weight, getting heavier and heavier, wearing me down, grinding me into the ground, wanting to grind my bones into chalky dust, and into nothingness. A dark demon, I know it’s the dark demon that is hammering with all its might on my spine, pummelling me, and beginning to set my blood alight, pumping its disease of fire into my veins, making me shriek and leap up and down for forgiveness.

Still heavier and heavier, and I grope and stretch desperately to remove my burden, but still I touch nothing, and curiously instead of being frightened away by my loud wails, small animals in hordes begin to gather around me, and they stare with wide eyes, hypnotised by my desperation. And still I stagger along like a drunken man, with my legs now beginning to crack like brittle sticks beneath me, and now the heat from my back has travelled up to my head and my hair suddenly begins to grow dramatically ,bursting out of my skull, gushing and flooding out like killer weeds my hair begins to smother me, pushing into my screaming gaping mouth making me gag, and then to my horror it begins to slash and cut at my face as if coated with lots of small razor blades, and I fumble and fight with this new nightmare but to no avail ,as now my monstrous hair is winding itself around my neck like a killer serpent tightening and tightening its grip, I pull chunks and lumps of hair from my burning scalp, but there is just too much of it, and finally, happily I pass out of this world .And when I awake I am slumped on the back of a muscular dark stallion which is hurtling across the fiery skies. On and on we travel, and I really don’t have a care where we are going, we pass over bloody battle fields, covered with dead brothers and fathers and this makes me weep, and then quickly we are away again, and entering yet another chapter and here we pass by an exploding space ship, and again I weep, and here we pass over lots of thin screaming children who are weeping at their mothers breasts, and here we pass exploding aircrafts that crash into two massive, enormous towers, and yet again sorrow gushes over me in floods. This horror trip goes on and on chapter after chapter until eventually we enter the final chapter which is shrouded in darkness. And here, and here I can hardly bare to tell you this but in the end there is absolute nothingness, just piles upon piles of broken human bones, as far as the eye can see. And after dismounting my dark beautiful stallion and bidding fare well, I just sit down amongst the bones of my ancestors, and I begin to weep again, until I can weep no more


© 2003 Matthew J Hewitt

Matthew J. Hewitt is one of the much acclaimed cemetery poets, and is spoken of in the press as the new king of British dark poetry, born in 1968 this young poets critical acclaim are as follows:

The great poet Bruce Boston says, "Hewitt's work has potential and emotion". Simon Clark, famous British horror writer, tipped as the new Stephen King, says of the poem The Fire Of Insanity, "This is a piece of real power, rich in imagery, sure to be published," of the poem Pan, Clark says "incredible vivid imagery," and of the poem It Came From The Swamp an intensely visual piece in a style that you seem to be claiming for your own." Andy Cox editor of T.T.A. press says, "Hewitt’s poetry is brilliant, the best I have ever read."

Hewitt’s writing has also been compared to author Lord Dunsany by Australian magazine Redsine, and also has been considered as the new Dante. Hewitt collected second prize in the first Fiction Inferno short story competition, and he is the winner of the best poem competition on the Demonminds site. Several of Hewitt’s poems are due out in an anthology published by Double Dragon publishers this will be available through W. H. Smiths, Borders, Amazon, Barnes and Noble bookstores etc.

Find more by Matthew J Hewitt in the Author Index.

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