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vacant lights - the operator lyrics

the operator lyrics
lionel and janet sit crosslegged in the shadow of the house towering into the twilight sky. the remaining slivers of sunlight cast deep orange into their fingertips as they clutch small sticks. they absentmindedly fl!ck away small pebbles and displace mounds of almond colored soil, revealing bits of colored plastic. rain falls from the sky in delicate sheets. they periodically pause to shoo away the clouds of gnats trying to fasten themselves to their coiled hair now roped with grime and sweat. janet, mind adrift like a balloon in a shopping mall, is eyeing the yellowing remains of a plastic soda bottle with listless intent. her humming drifts pleasantly in the warm night. lionel is thinking to himself, his mouth unconsciously shaping silent sounds unencumbered by vowels or consonants. his right hand is suddenly bitten by a spider, sending a rusty needle pain coursing down his arm. he irritatedly fl!cks it away like a cigarette bud out a car window

an eggsh+ll white van emerges from around the street corner. slabs of mud cling to it like bloodsucking leaches. it comes to a sudden stop in front of the house, kicking up black dust and belching exhaust smog. lionel stands up, eyes glued to the van like a starved coyote. he flows forward, dropping his sticks in front of janet, who promptly picks them up and resumes prodding the dirt below. oscar and desmond each step out of the van, tearing black and blue masks off their heads and revealing weary faces. janet stands up and starts walking towards the house, with oscar closely following behind. lionel leans against the van, chewing on the inside of his cheek. desmond leisurely walks behind the van and opens its back doors before grabbing two cerulean blue bags of money with both of his hands

“you gonna help?” desmond asks. he l!cks his lips, chapped and cracked like a dried plum

“where the h+ll have you been?” lionel irritatedly shoots back, fingers dancing up and down on the van’s roof

“what kind of question is that? do you want anyone following us or what? christ,” desmond growls, suddenly chucking one of the bags at lionel. he fumbles with the bag like an arthritic football player. “now, are you going to help me or not?”

lionel, janet
oscar, desmond
just struggling flesh sheets
just swaying bags of meat
lionel, janet
oscar, desmond
here now, conscripted in theft
here now, four left

lionel and desmond both grab the remaining bags of money from the van. a few of them are neatly tucked under their armpits for good measure. oscar is enjoying a silent smoke on the porch of the house, gently running his fingers across the wood and making delineations in the lumps of dust that are as thick as clouds. janet is staring at a c+ckroach carcass as if exchanging telegraphic pictographs with it and deciphering its manifold secrets. desmond and lionel walk up the stairs, creaking and groaning like death throes, and swiftly kick the front door open. bands of tangerine light flow into the house, illuminating a pack of rats that quickly scurry away as if the light would immediately light them ablaze. the four step inside, quickly brushing away cl+sters of cobwebs. the room’s stench is that of a cadaver being graced with light after being sealed in an airtight tomb. the stink is so powerful it is strangling them. there is no light in sight except a fl!ckering lamp, intermittently casting the yellowing newspapers and crumbs on the floor in an ethereal milky glow. oscar slowly closes the door and pulls a flashlight out of his coat. lionel and desmond toss the bags of money onto a nearby couch so severely rotted that it has holes the size of snowglobes

“holy sh+t. it’s really dark in here,” oscar mutters to himself. the remaining three exchange terse nods of agreement

“yeah,” janet replies. “first thing we’re doing is finding a godd+mn light. i feel like i’m in the catacombs of paris or something.”

“suit yourself. i’ve got a flashlight to work with. i’m gonna start counting our haul,” oscar retorts, opening the first bag he reaches for. he pulls out a wad of cash and concurrently opens an app on his phone
“yeah… and it’d be a h+lluva lot easier if you had more light in here,” desmond replies, waving his left hand through the air in some evocative gesture. oscar responds by concentrating the flashlight beam in desmond’s face, causing the latter to utter a profane comment. oscar simply chuckles, shaking his head and returning to his money

desmond turns to janet, who is now curled on the floor and sitting in the fluttering lamp light like a drunken moth. she is evidently exhausted. she sighs inertly, oblivious to the black flies burrowing into the strands of saliva kissing the corner of her mouth. she shifts her hand from her breast to her stomach, lost in the phantasm of her waking dream. desmond gently nudges her side with his boot, stirring her to her feet

“hey!” lionel says. the three dart their heads in the direction of his voice. “there’s a door leading to a bas+m+nt right here. why don’t one of you go down and see if there’s a power box while i look around?”

with a resigned sigh, janet shuffles to her feet and dusts off her pants. before she can call after lionel, he has already vanished into the darkness like a fruit bat into its cave. in the dim lamp light, she can see desmond’s pained face: an expression that is dreading the ensuing three hours, but wants to get it all over with. in this moment, she mentally elects herself to explore the bas+m+nt

lionel, janet
oscar, desmond
just struggling flesh sheets
just swaying bags of meat
lionel, janet
oscar, desmond
here now, conscripted in theft
here now, four left

desmond turns around to look at oscar and chuckles at the sight before him: a hulking, 35+year old man joyfully sifting through the dollar bills, grubby meathooks laminated with sweat, with the guileless enthusiasm of a dog digging for a prize. his face twists up more with each successive slab of cash. clearly he does not want to be disturbed in his endeavors. facing the direction of the bas+m+nt stairs again, he notices the back of janet’s head vanish down the stairway. he cranes his head towards an adjacent hallway to the left and pivots in that direction, flipping out a flashlight of his own in the process

pacing down the corridor, the first thing desmond notices is that the walls are completely undecorated: nothing but wide stretches of chiffon+white walls caked with dust like a protective powder. he experimentally pounds a fist on the wall. the dust flies off like an exhalation of vapor, surrounding him in a dense effluvial fog. fanning it away, he hears the sound of termites and c+ckroaches dwelling in the walls, shifting like wind flowing through a hay field. the hallway gives off the vague impression of a living, breathing organism: the infinitesimal clatter of thousands of legs fluttering back and forth in vermin peristalsis, the ripe air encompassing him in a sticky zephyr embrace, the distant noises of the settling building resonating through the walls and rattling the floors. he can very faintly hear lionel stomping around elsewhere in the house

without warning, a shriek rends the air, quickly turning from shrill to strangled in a matter of moments. desmond whips his head around with a speed that makes him dizzy. a deathly silence ensues; desmond hears nothing but the low, distant rumbles of the house and the air conditioning expelling sweltering air. the horrible silence is answered by desmond running back down the hallway, then swiveling around the corner and back into the house’s living room. the room is seemingly undisturbed; nothing has been displaced, no furniture has moved. everything is still knee high in mounds of trash, as if the house has been submerged in its own waste. desmond turns his head toward oscar. his mouth is agape in wordless terror, his pupils drowning in its amber irises. his eyes are glued to the bas+m+nt stairway

“what the f+ck happened?” desmond tensely inquires. oscar lifts a lone trembling finger to the bas+m+nt door. desmond slowly treads towards the door and rests his hand on the handrail. oscar follows and tentatively pauses behind him. desmond shouts janet’s name down the stairway. the sound simply bounces down the walls before dissipating into nothing. oscar joins in, but to no avail. lionel is not anywhere to be seen: he must’ve not heard the cries

with doddering feet and fidgety hands, desmond descends down the stairs, drunk on anxiety. dust hangs in the air like powdered white salt and covers the stairs in a pulverized gossamer. moving downwards, he continues to call out for janet’s name, only to be responded with total silence. what the h+ll is happening? his hand reaches for the faded brass doorkn+b and pulls it open, heralding in the distinct corrupt stench of decay. the dust from the stairwell streams into the room, enveloping everything in an alabaster cloud. a single light hangs from the ceiling, illuminating the sight before him like a photo shoot
janet is splayed across the concrete floor, arms outstretched like a modern+day crucifixion. she is lacerated from her c+nt to her sternum, innards now outtards. her guts are hanging delicate and frail out of the cavity like dead jellyfish, tangled up in the notches of her ribcage like wet yarn. her once gingerly combed red hair now resembles the fur of a dead rat and her formerly occupied eyes are now replete with the smoky glass of vacancy. she is nothing but a parcel of meat in another woman’s suit

lionel
oscar, desmond
just struggling flesh sheets
just swaying bags of meat
lionel
oscar, desmond
here now, conscripted in theft
here now, three left

before desmond can even react, he feels a sharp jab in his right abdomen — a white shrapnel agony that nearly makes him crumple to his knees. he wordlessly screeches a din of mangled sonants and lunges for the stairs, one hand securely fastened to his side that is now profusely bleeding precious red plasma. he leaps up the stairs as fast as his feet can carry him, nearly tripping on sopping clumps of trash, and slams the door shut behind him. the reverberation generates a serrated echo in the chamber of his skull that nearly whips his spine loose from his back

oscar is nowhere near the bas+m+nt door; he’s at the front door, pulling at it as if he were in a game of tug of war. desmond’s warbles of terror are more reminiscent of sirens than screams as he races for the front door to try yanking it open himself, only to immediately discover that it will not budge, completely immobile as if it were painted onto the wall instead of actually bolted there. his attempts to lock and unlock the door are utterly ineffectual; someone sealed it shut from the outside. lionel leaps from around the corner and races down the stairs, pupils shrunken like black pinpr+cks

“what’s going on?” lionel asks incredulously

desmond attempts to articulate himself but is unable: his words are as slurred as poems over a frostbitten tongue. his heart thrashes back and forth in his chest, threatening to explode. he resigns to tugging at lionel’s collar, making it as readily apparent as possible that they need to get the f+ck out of there. panic slowly fills lionel’s eyes like water into a bucket. “need… to leave!” desmond finally squawks out. in an instant, oscar and lionel’s faces light up with cognizance. lionel uselessly pulls at the door whilst desmond races up the stairs on the adjacent wall in stupid, violent panic. a faint shadow quickly ascends up the bas+m+nt staircase and zips into the blackness of the living room like a trapdoor spider retreating into its hole. lionel gives up uselessly pulling at the front door and dashes for the ascending stairs, each successive step sending shockwave reverberations into the living room

the figure, swift as a shadow, flows forward and plunges a blade into oscar’s shoulder before quickly yanking it out and driving it into his chest, the edge grating against the osseous surface of his manubrium. oscar’s shrieks of pain bounce off the flaking walls and grind him into the floor, where he spasmodically quivers like a fish. the figure lowers himself to the floor, sitting on oscar’s stomach and grabbing a fistful of his oily hair, pounding the back of his head onto the increasingly scarlet floor. lifting his arm, the figure stabs at oscar’s eyes, the blade effortlessly penetrating them like a hot needle through marmalade. the once+sighted man beneath him wails like a war orphan, his feet uselessly kicking in the air as if he were an infant thrown into the ocean. he tears the blade into his open maw, scr+ping against his molars and making lesions on the roof of his mouth, before it eventually ruptures out the side of his cheek. oscar gurgles, his strength draining out of him like pus from a sore. finally, the figure slides the edge into his neck — oscar feels a burgundy+red bulb burst in his brain, running from his head to his toes in a slithering snake strain. his face lights up like a labyrinth of arcade machines, surprised, as if the preceding thirty seconds of torment were ground up and distilled into this one frothy moment. a sharp musty odor of hemoglobin and p+ss fills the room. oscar’s writhing slows to a deathly crawl; he is now nothing but a lump of stuff. the figure stands up, staring into the body’s twisted face, its sinewy tongue lying spiritlessly in the mouth like a beached whale. he walks away, the sound of his boots clattering down the winding hall

lionel and desmond
lionel and desmond
just struggling flesh sheets
just swaying bags of meat
lionel and desmond
lionel and desmond
here now, conscripted in theft
here now, only two left
elsewhere, lionel and desmond are tearing through the second floor of the house, careening through its many rooms like the metal orbs in a pinball machine. in their senseless terror they have completely lost sight of each other, instead resolving to help themselves and only themselves. lionel encounters a former bedroom, its contents unmolested like an anodyne time capsule. he grabs a slab of collapsed sheetrock and flings it at a barricaded window like a javelin, but it simply explodes on impact and crumbles to the floor, useless. he resolves to tug at the barricade instead, producing an identically ineffectual result. he quickly gives up on this endeavor and gallops out of the room. unbeknownst to him, a black silhouette is emerging from the distance, resolute and unfaltering like the black death

lionel trips on a piece of jagged wood sticking out of the floor. the figure seizes this opportunity and kicks at one of lionel’s legs while airborne, causing him to careen head+first into a stone mantelpiece. with a sickening crack, the top of his skull shatters into a web of ivory splinters. his brain tumbles around in its container like a car crash victim. he flops onto his back like a perishing seal, raising his hands to his head and howling in agony. the approaching figure’s face is a vivid skull face permeating the surrounding shade, its eyes beady and garnet in a pulsing animal rage. lionel raises his left hand in futile defense. a pearl white streak slices through the air, and a searing pain shoots down his fingers; all five of them fall into his face. blood pumps out of the stumps and trails onto his exposed stomach, where it congeals with the dirt and his sweat into a sanguine vortex. the figure plunges the blade into his hand again, perforating its wrist; he yanks the blade up, exiting the stub where his middle finger once stood. the hand flops open, completely bisected, exposing red meat and bits of ashen bone. lionel wails in worthless male anguish, vanishing into unfettered red despair. before he can utter a single other syllable, the figure raises his boot, briefly hovering over lionel’s head and covering the hanging light like a solar eclipse, before bringing it down on his head full+force. it splits apart instantly, showering the surrounding floor in brain matter like a salmon+colored cottage cheese. his white gunk eyeb+lls splatter beneath the boots like condoms filled with curdled milk

desmond, desmond
desmond, poor desmond
just a struggling flesh sheet
just a swaying bag of meat
desmond, desmond
desmond, poor desmond
here now, conscripted in theft
here now, just one left

desmond’s ears are violated by the strangled siren screams of lionel’s final moments; his panic is so heightened that it could spill from his veins and out of his mouth, animated and transfigured into a liquid parody of his dread. he has been reduced to a mindless cretin running up and down the house’s rooms and hallways like a child lost in a shopping mall. tears are seeping from the corners of his eyes, thick and ceaseless like nectar from a spoon. he eventually approaches a dead end: a bone+white wall replete with cracked wallpaper like acne on the visage of a torpid youth. he pounds at the wall, praying it will inexplicably burst open. he whips back around. the sight before him immediately makes him fall to his knees

the figure is mere feet away from him. his blade seeps crimson like purulence depleting a fresh wound. it forms a steady pool on the ground, each individual drop making delicate patters in the suffocating silence. his maw hangs open, expressionless, the t++th resembling a row of broken mirrors. its eyes, umbral and inundated in a pitiless intelligence, are black holes in the haggard outlines of his twisted face. his hair spills from its head in oily strings. he takes a single step forward. his hanging jaw twists up, sending a series of pops up his jowls. he unleashes a deathly screech:

“there’s nothing out there
there’s nothing out there
there’s nothing out there
there’s nothing out there”

the figure steps forward, eyes glaring into desmond like pernicious x+rays, siphoning the fiber and stamina from his body. he cuts across desmond’s stomach like a hook through blubber, splattering the wall in maroon flecks. he sinks his face into the wound, lapping in mouthfuls of desmond’s weeping hemoglobin like a deer at a salt l!ck, his tongue running over the contours of his guts and sinew in long unimpaired streaks. desmond grasps at his tenuous hairs in a desperate attempt to pull him away from his torso, but his hands slip off the oiled lubricated hair as if he were trying to grasp a greasy water balloon. the figure grabs desmond’s midsection, effortlessly throwing him to the ground. desmond feels himself being erased by the moldy air and the inky black lurking behind the figure’s eyes. the knife comes again, l!cking at his legs and knees in a razor+t++th cyclone. the red draining from the ensuing incisions is breeding a stagnant claret lagoon on the floor like a depraved jackson pollock painting

awareness now dim like fading embers, desmond grabs for a small foot stool to his left, raising it above his head in a final, futile defense. his trembling, blood+caked arms are as frail as twigs. without a moment of respite, the figure lunges forward, like a hound primed to retrieve spoils from the ground, and pierces the blade through the lavender fabric, through the silver beads, through the syrup+brown wood, through the leg in the left corner, and directly into desmond’s forehead, boring through him like a drill through sedimentary rock. the final incision spews a great jet of blood through the air like a red rocket. desmond’s head slams through a marina of corroding cognition and a twilight of living. he involuntarily squirms, impaled like a speared fish, his heart befalling its terminal throbs and his eyes bathed in evanescent cinders

lionel, janet
oscar, desmond
just eroding flesh sheets
just decaying bags of meat
lionel, janet
oscar, desmond
here now, throats and gristle cleft
here now, there’s nothing left

it never hurt this much before
and my spirit aches with envy
and my delinquent flesh weeps
for a respite that never arrives
and a strain that never sleeps

- vacant lights lyrics

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