Your journey through Inner Space

GoneAway Into the Land is about the place we go where there is no time, no universal cycles. It is a place where the last second of our life stretches on into infinity. The journey is one of discovery, of reconciliation. It is a timeless quest for peace. The Land is a place where there is no longer a frantic urge to climb the mountain that has no peak. It is a place were we no longer carry the burden brought about by the knowledge of our own mortality.

But how we lived in life forms the bases for our journey. The harm we did to others we must answer for, and the harm done to us by others will be avenged. GoneAway is a story of one boy who is thrust into the Land by an abusive father. It is a journey unique to him, just as yours will be unique to you.

As its neck was being crushed by the powerful jaws of its adversary and it was about to take its final breath, it looked upward to the sky. From deep within its glistening brown eyes, the buck seemed to be pleading to a higher power. Jack watched the workers emerge from the gates of the mill. The men’s faces were ashen. He watched them pass by the spot of the kill as if nothing of any consequence was happening. Jack felt the stifle of their gray denim clothing growing heavier the further away they walked. He watched their arms wrap around the shoulders of their waiting women and their dirty calloused hands go gently upon the heads of their expectant children. Jack was invisible. He was an omnipotent observer, able to slide from side to side, or soar high into the air. How strange, thought Jack, dropping down to get a closer look. One of the boys was surrounded by a halo of light. He was looking up at his father and waiting for an answer as to why the deer was being killed by the lion, but there was no answer, no explanation for the carnage. Not a single word was spoken. Then the boy turned around to look back. The other children did the same, as if the act had been choreographed and rehearsed. Together they stared at the spastic deer that was being pulled to pieces by the lion. The beast, while dangling strings of flesh from its teeth, raised its head and casually scouted its flank. It felt the children’s eyes upon it. Undaunted, it disappeared into the scrub that bordered the gravel road. As soon as the lion had gone, the children rejoined the procession of transparent shadows, except for the one boy, the one who was surrounded by the halo. That one walked to the carcass and knelt within its rack. The buck’s sparkling brown eyes had turned a lifeless shade of white. The boy pried a blade from his pocket knife and slowly but deliberately dug the buck’s eyes from their sockets. He stood up, and for several seconds stared down at the dead animal. The eyeballs were cradled within his palm.