The Garden of Death
”Fuck it”, Helmut said and dug up a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He flipped one of them to his lips and lit it. With long and meditative effort he drew the smoke into his lungs, the cigarette glowing red in the twilight of early morning in Stalingrad.
A whistling bullet pierced his right temple faster than sound and exited from the left, exploding half of his face into fragments of bone and brain matter. A heartbeat later the sound of the shot echoed along the streets of the ruined city.
”Tragic…”, the one Wilhelm called Satan, said laconically. ”Although he really was the boring one.”
Wilhelm collapsed to sitting against a wall.
”Just sit there. You’re safe. The sniper doesn’t see you”, it said, and continued: ”You, on the other hand, are much more interesting, and you will come to see my point of view.”
Wilhelm stared at the remains of his last friend. Helmut had suddenly ended his days just out of spite for their unbearable circumstances, and now he was alone with it.
”You will kill eventually. Your conviction, all your high minded principles and your poetic worldview will crumble. Then you will see the world as I do. But your qualities are precisely what will make your downfall more meaningful.”
”Look at that”, it said and pointed it’s gaze towards the gruesome corpse, which just few moments ago had been a living man. The smoke from the smoldering cigarette floated as a ghost in the room.
”Apathetic quitter, a bore without principles. You want to know what he tasted like?”, it asked and turned back to Wilhelm’s pale face.
Wilhelm did not hear the question. He stared at Helmut’s remaining eye, which stared back with the same indifference in death, as it had done when alive.
”Like porridge without salt.”
”You, on the other hand, are like fine wine. Gradually ripening ecstatic sensory pleasure. I will flavor the taste of your soul long and enthusiastically. So do not worry. I will not let you die before you have killed.”
”Killing is important for the cultivation of the soul. Nothing gives a better taste of life, than to feel your hands around the neck of your victim, hear the last grunt, smell the last breath, and see the life escape from the eyes.”
Wilhelm started to feel sick, and vomited on the floor. He felt less terrified after having purged his shock from the sudden and violent death of his friend in front of his eyes.
He gasped for air before replying.
”You goddamn motherfucker! Shut the fuck up! Leave me alone!”, he yelled. ”You know very well the humanity that lives within us. You want me to dirty myself because it doesn’t fit your truth. I believe, that you are afraid that there will be more and more people like me. The kind that believe in the beauty of experiences within life. The sad and the horrible things, with which you try to molest our souls, only emphasize the beauty and how important preserving life is.”
Inside, however, he felt that his words were dull. Impotent rage crawled into his mind, and he wanted to run away from that demon. But he knew it would be futile. It always appeared behind the next corner, or arose from the next corpse. But even more than that, he was afraid of the invisible killer in the streets. He did not want his fear of death to take hold over him. That is what it wanted. This he understood.
It snickered slightly and stared deep into Wilhelm’s eyes. ”I have listened countless brilliant philosophers giving lectures about the meaning of life, and observed the devout with their naive hopes of everlasting life in paradise. You know, I have been present at every death. Guess what those same people experience in their last moments? Fear, desperate clinging to life, and losing their sanity when gazing the total emptiness beyond life. If you only knew what those people were willing to do, and what they are promising me, for a few moments more.”
”Life is the avoidance of death. Every moment you die a little. To forget this truth, you invent distractions, you fuck savagely hoping never ending life, and in your terror you kill, rape, burn, and steal. All that just to avoid seeing these ruins of the real, in which you live.”
The room grew darker, and it moved closer to Wilhelm. ”I am the only truth, and you will feel it. You will kill. And then you will kill again. And only then will you be free from the veil between your delusion and the reality, and you will fear nothing. You are able to do anything. You will be free from the emotions that chain you. Only trust in me is what you need.”
Wilhelm looked again at his dead friend. The pull of a trigger had been enough to remove from Helmut that of which power and magnificence he was trying to defend.
”I will prove you wrong”, he replied. ”This war will end soon. Wars have created those lunatics that believe in you. But they can’t forever win over the good people. People, who only want to cultivate the land, create beauty, love, and be loved. The veil, that you speak of, was weaved by you. There will be a day, when compassion will be the force that tears it down, and people will no longer be separate or afraid.”
”Beautiful”, it laughed. ”Indeed. Unfortunately this war will soon end. It will be almost eighty years until I get to play with you again for real.”
And with that, it rose and walked towards the outer wall. ”See you soon”, it said, and stepped through the wall, leaving Wilhelm alone with the dead and the lurking killer outside, and within.
