A Night in the Life of the Ragetown Manager

'Where rage consumes, nothing remains.'
The Sunset Vagabond

On the night of the rage
the manager of Ragetown
takes to his bunker
under the clock tower.

He sits in a rigid chair,
his pinstriped suit threadbare,
his glasses newly cleaned,
his hair a bramble thicket,
his eyes a pale lime.

Rumours say he's been in charge since childhood,
when he arrived on the train by accident
and never left.
If he has a name
he's never spoken it.

He sits in a purple armchair,
monitoring the rage's progress
from the comfort of serenity.
Frenetic servants scuttle about
to whom he dictates which fresh chaos
should be unleashed next,
all the while his suit turns wrinkled,
his glasses shining like morning dew.

At first light he emerges,
his suit reeking, and the lingering
wake of the rage greets him.
The manager wipes his glases clean
with his untouched white handkerchief.

Ragetown

There's a town out there
where few people go,
surrounded by a battered steel wall,
a gnarled and twisted gate.
Open to a single train.

The train arrives
at dusk,
and newcomers
enter Ragetown
through the carriage windows
or kick down the doors.
Ticket barriers are made
to be vaulted.

The streets ignite
after dark
with unadulterated pandemonium.
People choose their weapons
insensibly
as is the way of the rage.
The signal is a body
hurled through a bar window.

Mobs flood the main square
and the rage takes hold.

The fighting erupts,
blossoms into a no-holds barred brawl,
an incandescent blur of madness.

People unleash their fists and teeth,
some armed with cutlery and gardening tools.
Someone sprints through the chaos
waving a mace above their head,
another whisks their victim's face
into crimson abstract artistry.
A would-be chainsaw massacrist
caught in a flamethrower's blaze.

Windows shattered,
walls torn asunder,
houses flaming ruins,
streets obliterated,
the bank demolished
by an enthusiastic demolisher
with weapon's grade wrecking ball.
The bank manager
flings his cash as arrows,
then is flung into the next street.

Heads smacked against doors,
tables dismembered with knives and forks.

The road rage arrives.

Cars screech,
flail around in the dust.
Skulls and bodies
crushed under tyres
as a bus slams
into the steel wall
while lorries smash and crash,
horns ring down the roads.
A solitary woman in a trolley
careens through the mayhem.

The rage subsides
and the streets fall silent.
Only when the light returns,
it reveals the wreck of Ragetown
smouldering in the glare.