Vaporizer

One sleepless night I had a dream

About a shapeless beast.

It had no head, no eyes, no tail,

No teeth with which to feast.

I heard it, though.  It drifted in

Beneath my bolted door

And whistled through the cracks between

The boards upon my floor.

I filled with fear.  My once-still room

Now whispered with the hiss

Of gentle, wispy, deadly drafts

Intruding like a kiss

Upon my lips.  I hated it -

The sounds, the sense, the dread

Of moving winds and stirring drapes.

I trembled in my bed.

The place was filling up with it -

There was nowhere to hide.

It seemed as if my tiny room

Were drawing it inside.

The rush of gaseous molecules

In sinister pursuit

Poured into every opening,

Found each and every route.

My window, closed against the night,

Proved much too weak and thin

To keep this nighttime visitor

From pushing its way in.

The glass gave way under the stress

And shattered when it broke.

More vapor gushed into the room,

So thick it made me choke.

Across the room it gathered strength

Like an impending storm -

Its essence etched into my mind

Although it had no form.

It was a vicious, violent thing

Made not of stuff, but hate.

It flared with anger as it came,

Then stopped – it brought my fate.

I knew it was the end of me

But lay as in a trance.

Before it started in on me

I swear I saw it dance.

My clean white sheet was stripped away

Exposing my bare skin.

I shivered in the cold night air.

The End would now begin.

I heard a crunch then felt the pain

Streak up my legs and burst

Within my brain like a grenade.

It was but just the first.

My toes were ripped off of my feet,

Their juices then sucked out.

My shins were scraped down to the bones

Then, oh, I tried to shout!

I couldn’t, though.  It stifled me.

I couldn’t force a squeak.

But then it cauterized my wounds

Just so they wouldn’t leak

And drain my blood and then my soul.

That would have stopped the joy

Of this pernicious, horrid cloud

That came here to destroy.

It mashed my toeless feet into

Two stubs of mangled pulp

And sucked the meat off of the bones.

I listened for a gulp.

The pain was nearly killing me

And still I couldn’t scream.

It was as if I had no mouth.

The vapor was supreme.

It worked its way up both my legs

Inserting poisoned blades

Made from the jagged, splintered shards

Of Hades’ finest jade.

The poison soaked into my legs

And traveled to my soul.

It killed me in a special way

And left a gaping hole

Where once there was a guiding force.

Now there was nothing left

Except my knowledge of the cloud

And its outrageous theft.

It took my will and left my flesh

For some godawful use.

Somehow I knew I would soon know

The cause for this abuse.

The vapor moved up to my face

And stole my breath away.

It sucked so hard my lungs collapsed

And nearly made me pray.

Before I could, the sucking pulled

My lungs out through my lips

And then I tried to fabricate

My own Apocalypse.

My front was ripped from neck to crotch

In one horrendous tear.

My insides spilled out on the bed.

I cried in my despair!

The floor, now littered with my scraps

Looked like a butcher’s drain.

It was a bloody mess that held

The remnants of my pain.

Though I was helpless in my stew

The savage couldn’t wait.

It drifted down onto the bed

As if it were to mate.

It swelled and thickened as it dropped

Upon the last of me.

In a gigantic gruesome gorge

It took my guts in glee.

It shredded them right where they lay

Then spit them toward the sky

As blood and other juices sprayed

Across the walls.  But why

Should it have left my head alone

Until the final play?

My brain was there, of course, but now

That organ was small prey.

It was a prison for my mind,

Held in a bleak abyss

Just ’til the midnight visitor

Enjoyed his awful bliss.

In one climactic, awesome ploy

It sucked my left eye out.

My right eye, blinking, saw the rest

Of what this was about.

My ears and nose and mouth were filled

With concrete straight from Hell

In order to allow the skull

To hold the coming swell.

The jet spun round and funneled through

That gaping, eyebrow cave

That led into the place picked for

A villainous conclave.

Into the portal of my room

The cloud was rushing still.

A nearly endless stream of it

Spilled past my window sill.

As more of it went in my head

And filled the straining shell

My brain imploded to a mass

The size of one lone cell.

More vapor came and crowded in

Until the pressure crushed

The demon to a liquid state

But inward still it rushed.

The purpose of this awful binge

By now was plain to see.

The monster meant to use my skull

To spread its tyranny.

Inside my head it found a place

To concentrate its mass

And build an evil bomb out of

Its roving, searching gas.

All night the vapor came to me

And poured into my head.

Its liquid form was waxing hot,

Now heavier than lead.

Near dawn the devil still came on,

Though slowing down its pace.

Its bomb was nearly ready now

To spray the human race

With countless, vicious, hateful bits

Of concentrated, pure

Unholy, rank infectiousness

For which there is no cure.

But wait!  My tiny brain could not

Withstand the gravity.

It then became in one great flash

A singularity.

Within a millisecond’s time

This miniature black hole

Had sucked up all the evil sludge

That crowded out my soul.

It kept on taking up the mist

That came into my room

‘Til morning sunshine hit the wall

And marked the vapor’s doom.

The room filled with the light of day.

A fragrant breeze brushed past

The drapes that hung on both sides of

The broken window glass.

A fly buzzed in and roamed about,

A creature weak and small.

It landed, gently, on a speck

Of something on the wall.

The door, once bolted, now swung in

And someone stepped inside.

My mother, hands on hips, stood there.

She looked around, then cried.

Her eyes were filled with shock and grief.

She clutched the door and shook.

She surveyed all the strewn debris

Then gave us that old look.

She kicked at something on the floor

To show her deep distress.

She screamed so loud the fly flew out,

“Who’ll clean this awful mess?”