He Comes

You don’t understand. You can’t understand. But you have to understand. He’s coming. He’s always coming. I can feel him. I’ve known him my whole life. That’s not really true. That can’t be true. I can’t remember. I won’t remember? But I remember the man. He never ages, not really. Maybe he does. I can’t tell anymore? I can’t tell much anymore. I used to live in a house. I know it was a house. It had stairs. Maybe a basement? It’s in West Virginia. Colorado? I know there were mountains. I used to look at the mountains. The man took them from me. The man took everything from me.  

He moved in when I was thirteen or fourteen. Even now, as my faculties betray me the image of that man is burned into my brain. He wore a nice suit, a fancy watch, but his face was sunken in like a skull. He terrified me, but the worst part was the smell. He smelled like burnt rubber mixed with something metallic. You could smell him as soon as you opened the door. It infected the carpet. It infected us. My friend’s mother brought me home from school the next week but when my brother opened the door the woman sprinted back to her car with a look on her face that resembled some mix of terror and disgust. Her son never spoke to me again. One night, a few months later, I came downstairs and saw the man on the couch next to my mother. The light from the television illuminated her frame but it didn’t seem like her. It seemed like a mannequin. She never used to watch tv, but when the man joined our home she sank deep into the cushions. She screamed at me and tried to push the man away like she could stuff him in between the couch cushions so I wouldn’t see. But I did. And even then I knew she didn’t have much time left in this world. Looking back I wish I could scream. I wish I could’ve talked sense into my mom, but I didn’t, and now I can’t talk sense at all. 

The man tightened his grip around my mother. I stopped going home. Every time I did I would see him smiling. Or my mother smiling? I can’t remember. On devil’s night, my brother and I dressed in all black to go smash pumpkins. Yknow, kid stuff? We weren’t bad kids. Maybe we were? Regardless, we found her. What was left of her? The man stood over her body as the foam bubbled from her mouth. My brother grabbed him and threw him out before the police arrived. I did nothing. I just stared at the body. I snapped out of my trance when a police officer grabbed me by the shoulders and took me into the kitchen. They questioned us about where the man went. They questioned us about where he came from. I didn’t know. I thought it was over. I thought the man was gone, but he came back. Or never left? I don’t know. There’s no way for me to know.

Then it was just me, my brother, and the man. He thought I couldn’t see, but I saw. And when we’d lock eyes he’d give me that same, rotten smile. His lips are cracked with blood and his eyes look like they have purple makeup around them. He mocked me. He still mocks me. I tried to throw him out. I’d grab him by the collar and toss him into the trash, but he always came back. My brother would wake me in the middle of the night, weeping and repeating, “Don’t be like me. Don’t be like me. Don’t be like me.” I could smell the man on him. My brother peered too long into the man’s eyes and never came back. Or didn’t come back the same? Or didn’t come back as my brother at all? Whether the demon rode his back or slipped into his skin it makes no difference. I knew, just like my mother, my brother did not have much time.

I tried to save my brother. You have to believe me. You have to. I loved my brother. I still love him. I would scream at him to lock the door and stay. But the man came. He came on a beautiful summer day. He came as I wiped the sleep from my eyes. He came as I knocked on my brother’s door. He came as I opened the door. I saw him, and I knew, he was no longer coming, he had come. He stood over my brother. Or my brother’s corpse? The man stared at me then with that same, sadistic grin across his cheeks spreading ever wider as I dropped to my knees and cried. I called to God but the police came instead.

They offered me no remorse. They placed a blanket over the shriveled husk that used to be my brother and were gone within the hour. I was so weak then. I let him into my life. I know it was wrong, but I was cold. So cold. And the world was dark. He filled me with warmth. He let me forget. Forget my mother. Forget my brother. Forget my job. Forget my life. Now I seem to forget everything. I don’t remember who you are. I don’t remember if you’re real. But if you hear me you have to understand. You have to understand the man is coming. I can feel my heartbeat grow faster as I type. I hear his footsteps coming towards my room. He is here now. I pray that you will be stronger than me. I pray for you to turn to a friend. He’s coming. He’s coming for all of us. Heroin comes for all of us.

Dopesmoker

The year is 1999. Livin’ la vida loco is top of the charts. M. Night Shyamalan just put out the Sixth Sense and the world is eagerly waiting on him to become the new Spielberg. Somewhere far removed from these events there are three men in a rented home, smoking more weed than most of us can imagine, and creating a piece of art that causes non-metalheads everywhere to groan when it comes on. What is that piece of art? A sixty-three-minute long “stoner doom metal” gregorian chant describing the pilgrimage of weedians, people of the weed, as they cross a desert in search of enlightenment. The song/album/art is Dopesmoker and few pieces cause such division across any medium of art.

The song begins with the characteristic “drone” that has become associated with stoner rock’s ability to defy traditional songwriting techniques. There is no hook in the land of the weedians, only the riff, and its holiness is only second to the smoke that fills the air wherever this song is played. Sleep uses the consistent tone to lull the audience into a sort of trance that is only broken when the band begins to sing, about eight minutes in, or begins one of the riff’s stoner doom metal is so famous for. The song snatches you up because of the consistency the audience is accustomed to throughout the length of the album, but releases you again when it’s done only to wrap its claws around you the next time it feels necessary.

Do not be fooled by the beards and the “long hair don’t care” image of the band, this is serious. The lyrics to Dopesmoker are filled with the Judeo-Christian imagery literature nerds will associate with James Joyce or Samuel Beckett, art nerds will associate with the renaissance, and “normies” will associate with wanting to cover their ears and run from the room. One of the band members, Matt Pike, spoke on the songwriting process, “working on [the song] for like four years. We also had two other songs that we were working on that were really long, too—like 15 and 20 minutes. But we never recorded them." (https://tinyurl.com/y5fu8uhc) This stretched out process ensured a detail-oriented approach and the lyrics deliver powerful messages that would not be out of place in the ancient texts of a civilization, “Creedsmen roll out across the dying dawn, Sacred Israel Holy Mountain Zion, Sun beams down on to the Sandsean reigns, Caravan migrates through deep sandscape, Lungsmen unearth the creed of Hasheeshian” (https://genius.com/Sleep-dopesmoker-lyrics) Are meaningful lyrics neccesary for the creation of a beloved song? Absolutely not, as the aforementioned Livin’ La Vida Loco can attest to, but it does allow for the song to bear the test of time and bring continuous enjoyment two decades later.   

Few times in the modern world do you have the opportunity to embark on a journey of personal will. Some people chase the feeling by running marathons or embarking on a true religious pilgrimage, and while those are admirable, Dopesmoker brings the audience a piece of that feeling anywhere with speakers or a pair of headphones. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from finishing this behemoth and letting yourself be washed over by the experimental drone for such a continuous period of time. We all have feelings of loneliness and abandonment which haunt the drudgery of our everyday life, but when you press play, pack a bowl, and sit back to “drop out of life with bong in hand” you gain the reprieve we all need to make it to the next day.