### Subterranean Masquerade: Suspended animation dreams

#### 05/06/09 || GardensTale

X is sitting alone in his room. Strange music surrounds him. It comforts him, yet… It frightens him, too. There are men in the corridors. Are they helping him? Are they hurting him? X doesn’t know. Sometimes they do both, he thinks. But the music never stops. Unsettling sounds from the end of the corridor mingle with a warm, comforting saxophone.

A man comes in. His cold, distant voice tells X how to behave. X hears other voices, too. They tell him they will all go down, drown like sheep in heavy rain. Who does X believe? He’s confused. The music twists and turns, like his mind. The walls seem to change. The man comes up to X and puts something in his arm. It hurts. His arm gets warm. His head gets light. He closes his eyes and everything starts to turn. He rises up, drifting on clouds. He can see his home. Is it still his home? It disappears, and a large hole appears in the ground. X feels more at home now. The hole is like his mind. The music is still playing, a harmonica and a violin, one soothing, one disturbing. Is the harmonica the man? Is the violin his mind? Or is it the other way around?

X falls into the hole, his mind flooding with the darkness that surrounds him. He can see the moon, the big cheese in the sky, but it gives no comfort: a monster is lurking in the darkness. Or is he the monster?

Then the warmth in his arm bursts through his body, numbing the monster that’s in the hole or in himself, and there is nothing left but soothing, gentle music. Yes, the violin is good, the piano is good, there is no harm, no darkness, no madness, no needles, no men in white coats, no holes in the ground, no home, no love, no death, no life. The voices in his head soothe the silence. Is this real?

X opens his eyes. The music is still there. Guitars now. Groovy. Jazzy. A man in black is reading to him from a book. Is it a father? His father? Or is it the monster, disguised, now working with the men in white to prod in his minds. One of them send him images. X sitting in a room with a woman. She’s gone mad. Or was it he himself that went mad? But he is quiet, she is quiet, not the same, not different. Then, X is torn from the vision, or is it a memory? The monster is back, the man in black, it was a monster, and now he’s come to take X away, or his mind, but is it not the same? The saxophone plays his happy tune sarcastically as X falls into his mind, the monster looming above him. Or is the music to his comfort…?

In his mind, X sits by the window. A strange man sits near in another chair. There are monsters here too, yes, many of them, but his mind is full of monsters and he knows this. They’re there so X doesn’t feel alone. Maybe it will be better here. The music is guitars again, six strings. Maybe they will help him, but he’s afraid. The monsters say they will help him. X smiles. He is safe.

Outside his mind, a nurse comes in. She tries to soothe the shaking man, but he is inside his mind. He can’t hear her, he can not be drawn out, he will not again be awake. She whispers to him. He needs to wake up. But X shakes his head. He would rather stay inside. Stay where the monsters are nice and the music soothing. Stay where is no man in black or white that will hurt him. Stay away from the awake. Stay within the dreams. They hurt him, but he loves them. The world hurts him, and he hates it. Inside is better. Inside. Inside…

The nurse stands up and says to the doctor: “He’s gone catatonic, sir. He’s locked up inside his own mind now. God help him,” she adds, as she kneels and injects morphine into X’s vein. “He’s living in his own world. He’s awake but dreaming. Suspended animation dreams.”

9,5 trips through a madman’s mind out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2005
- Label: The End Records
- Website: www.submasq.com
- Band
- Paul Kuhr: vocals
- Tomer Pink: guitar
- Jake DePolitte: guitar, bass

- Tracklist
- 01. Suspended animation dreams
- 02. Wolf among sheep (ok maybe the other way around)
- 03. No place like home
- 04. Kind of a blur
- 05. The rock n roll preacher
- 06. Six strings to cover fear
- 07. Awake
- 08. X