Skin of Terror

Skin of Terror - Daniel Henry Rodgers (The stage lights come up slowly on Michael's face, which is crisscrossed with wrinkles from his fuming anxiety. He peers out into the gloominess at the wheel and tightly clutches the steering wheel. Perched like a set piece in a play, the brilliant moon acts like a magic wand, casting a spell. It gives everything a spooky and surrealistic look.) MICHAEL (Voice hoarse, a rhythmic that has been ragged along with horror): Dust rises from the tarry vein, bled for ten thousand mornings. Each of those has pierced the memory deeper, making it seem like a brand instead of a landmark. Once proud occupations, the hoisting of a heavy load is no longer the case for at last all the trucks are gone now, and only the whisper of rust and diesel precipitates the asphalt with a deathly sheen, bleeding into the bruised belly of the embrace of dawn. The air is heavy with yesterday's ghostly breakdowns, leaving the highway as a deserted cemetery of dreams and broken hearts. Engines that have rattled their last tunes cover the area with their lifeless shells, while the tires are spare to the relentless sands of time. (A loud mournful sound seems to get closer to the storm that is brewing inside him.) In the past, the engine's hum was an enchanting nursery song that practically every mile sang to me. Now it is no more than a funeral bell that tolls for hope that has long been dead. Or maybe two years ago, on this same stretch, the phantom hand of doom would come in through the windshield, grab hold of my soul, and then squeeze the living life out of the world, just to the boundary of that metal cage. Screaming, I held my ribs like a drum played on an old broken skeleton. My foot was inhaling, and my mind was getting smaller as I felt I was buried alive in a thunderstorm of fear. (The whine goes higher, a voice broken one trying to kill his sanity.) Like a snake with a glint of polished obsidian in its eyes, the memory winds around my heart, fending off my breaths. Sometimes the static comes from the radio, which is accompanied by a jaw of doubt whispering ideas in my ear and yes every bump causes a mechanic who scratches my soul, and in doing so, gloom my insides. The air gets thicker, and with travel sickness taking hold, every inch of the highway distorts itself into a visually oblique funhouse mirror. Once, my high beams were like guiding lights through the forest night; now, they were like two glaring mysterious eyes with an unnatural appetite. The gigantic truck speeds away, leaving its mark—a blend of terror and noise. The grating sound of terror plays a ridiculous score in my head. (Michael is barely heard, breathy, and still in a small voice.) No… No… As if I am a squeezed screeching balloon being sucked out of my life air, the sweat is flowing in rivers, and the steering wheel becomes a gooey snake trying to run away. "STOP IT!" I whisper, someone else—not myself—talking in my hollow skull. The kaleidoscope whirls my vision, and I observe as the yellow traffic lines marry together in a mesmerizing dance, standing at the edge of my perception as a pale, ethereal face grimaces beside me, the face of someone I have never met before. (A hum like a purring engine fills the air, it grows louder. It's not the whine any longer, but a deeper, more sickening sound.) That buzzing is the very essence of the terror that feeds off me. Is it even real? I feel deep inside me that the highway may actually be a creature that has some life within it and with it twisting the world to reflect the horrible parts of my mind? (The hum disappears abruptly. The quiet covers the place, dark and heavy, heavy with words unsaid. The Tick-tock of the dashboard clock is the only sound that can be heard as it disturbs the forever silence. Suddenly, a crow lands with a croak on the windshield, and only for a moment before it takes off. Michael moves and tenses and, for a while, is a little jumpy.) Michael (whispering to himself): Just the wind... gotta be just the wind messing with me. (He wipes a bead of sweat from his brow, the metallic tang sharp in his mouth as he glances at the rearview mirror again, but the pale reflection is gone, replaced by his own weary face.) Twenty minutes ago, the world was unraveling at the seams, threatening to swallow me whole, and now, the silence is deafening, a different kind of terror altogether. When a curtain of relief seems to be gracefully dropped, it is, however, a colder reality that invades and immerses me in my own anxiety and bleakness. The dark, a stalker hiding away in the shadow box of my mind, is lurking and waiting. I look to the horizon. The asphalt is cobbled and twisted, waiting to loop around a ghostly shroud of my terror. (At first, the soft hum comes back, followed by a barely perceptible tremble, which gets louder and louder until everywhere and nowhere at once it seems like... With his eyes set straight ahead, Michael holds the steering wheel with a death grip.) Michael: No... please, no... not again! (Michael's grip on the wheel.... getting tighter and tighter while his knuckles turn an ashen shade of white. His labored breath comes quicker and more shallow. He slams his fist against that steering wheel in frustration. He was hoping, he is hoping....to shake off the this growing terrible fear. The terror those ghostly headlights seem to have gone from the direction of the... oncoming cars to the faces...of the oncoming cars.) Michael (shouting): Dear God! This godforsaken endless road! How can it possibly be that I am on this never-ending fear, this trip! I just can't... (Lights slowly begin to fade... to black as the hum reaches it's final crescendo merging with Michael's terrified scream.)