THE NECROPHILE


It was night and all life was dead. Within the town square lay the echoes of silence, that penetrated the dead air, hushing it, trapping it, freezing it. The black trees surrounding the silence were skeletons of their own decay, each a mere husk of twig and bone, tall and lone, seeking the calm of the night – as can also be seen before a storm, a calamity – but not sought after, being burnt and standing dead, in that repose of bold irony. The sun was dead, the moon that took its place, a silver full moon, bathed in the dead sun's light, radiating from itself a silver wisp of light, of greyish slumber, of sharp wit and danger. Opposite the moon lay not the dying sun, still wild from its throes of agony and dusk, that spewed out golden flakes of energy away from the town, instead towards the far corners of the mountains, the seven seas, the untouched areas of life, but in its place the king of gods, resting upon its weight, Jupiter. The odd deformed sphere and its unseen rings; they nested above the skies, in the pale gloom of the ether, not unlike the silver and smaller moon; the red tinge, that red spot, flashed before the town, looming into view, exploding, colliding – but in the flash of light it was gone; its massive celestial weight had shifted and gone.

The bell of the church chimed eleven, and its chimes pierced temporarily the dead air, the dead silence, allowing for a vibration that tolled aimlessly, mournfully, in its own inertia, but with a contrast of seeming alacrity. This energy dissipated quick, before the silence could be irreversibly conquered. Not a thing stirred; the black trees merely absorbed the excitement and fury of the bell's premonition – soon, they were as black, as dead as they once were, erected, unmoving, lifeless. The church lay north of the square, its foundation setting a border for the square, a barrier. The bell of the church was silent once more.

Yet on the very town square that propagated the dead air a shadow was emerging. It was blurred, meaningless, out of form; yet something was there. The borders of the shadow were unclear, non-existent even, but gradually as the shadow loomed into view they turned fuzzy and emerged into existence, taking on a black handsome outline, similar to the black dead trees around the square. The shadow blurred, and cleared, and became clearer, and soon it was distinguishable; a man was walking.

He was a man, a shadow, an entity that caressed the skirt of the dead air and pressed on, in spite of the absence of wind. With his movement parcel by parcel of air opened, and he skirted through… like a deep oil through doors, penetrating so softly the mystical, the unreal; the landscape of the town square he passed through quickly and never stopped to linger, for there was nothing to see, nothing worth his sight – the sight of a culling of a chicken might have sparked greater interest in him. And when he stood at the gates of the town, past the town square, past the main streets, past everything living, he felt on his being the first gust of cold air, of wind, of the cold night.

And that marked the edge of life. Outside the skirts of life lay the colossal growth, the universe of black trees, clustered into galaxies of blackness, unseen, but felt. The silver moon could only just be felt, under the foliage of the trees, where it was not light that passed through the dense twigs and decaying leaves, but rather an aura so powerful, raw emotion, a love so deep. There the caress of wind was felt, and welcome; so, too, were the cries of the forest, of the lives within, the night owl, the bear, the worm slithering beneath the garden corpse that would never sprout, slithering, slithering, crying in desperation over its tiny body the sound of agony and of unjust existence, the burrowers – the mole, the leprechaun, the gnome – and the empty vortex of lost plants and organisms that shrieked across galaxies of masters, the black trees, the supreme race. There was noise, but it was white, and no living being external to this universe could perceive it, not even the man who embraced it willingly in his entire body and frame of mind. The quiet space distilled with the chilling wind, the freezing air, the silver moon benignly embracing her children beneath, the black trees, sprouting discreetly shoots of leaves, bathing under the sly liquid of silver, of mercury, the quiet cry of an owl that just underwent a cycle of hormonal change – prey hunting, reproduction, maturing, aging – that results in resignation to the burrow, the trees, the hideout, for indefinite time, all this was slowly absorbed into the man, making him a part of them, undefined, but part of, a silent merge into the collective entity of the outside world whose presence that skirted the town was noted but never welcome, a presence which deceived the onlooker through a quick glance, where everything was dead, but with a second look could allow the notion of life to stream through the mind, this notion of life so unlike the town's, the silent frost, the empty air, the real dead.

The man walked on, atop a dense path of earth whose destination, due to its sheer distance as well as the darkness of the surroundings, could not be seen and acknowledged by any eye. The ground seemed to shift periodically, with the oscillations that defined time, yet it soon stopped, for outside the town and in the woods it was timeless. The moon had not moved, and the spot of sky which nested a perceived, a fake Jupiter, was blocked from view by the ground's curve as well as the black trees, the masters which governed all the forgotten, the keepers in charge of the remembrance of the forgotten which, nursed by the silver moon, could spread like weed along the outskirts of life, but chose instead to respectfully grow old and mature on their rooted spots without the engaging of reproduction, copulation, multiplication. A stranger part of the strange land had been imparted onto the man, who boldly set foot there, yet the man was no stranger. He was long, he had long blended in, and this atmosphere which threatened to suck out life from any living creature within its midst was homogenous with his being's.

Ahead the path diverged into two. Both looked equally terrifying; the empty blackness that stretched ahead felt nauseous and cold, divulged and sold. But it was fear that was being sold, being exposed, and the dark kept its secrets, its forebodings, its terrors well, and that all the more sold fear out.

The man took the left, for the right led to nowhere but a remote town equally dead as the town he had emerged from. Ahead the shrubs and the black trees grew denser, more collective in mass, larger in form, so large in fact, until the single denomination of a galaxy was insufficient to classify them, and they had to form clusters, and superclusters, and so on. The man quickened his pace; the sound of his feet trampling the ground echoed, propagated through the howl of the wind. Yet the calm of the forest was not destroyed – in fact, it seemed to have increased, gotten stronger. It seemed to have gotten blacker too. Blacker, darker, all the more ominous, the presence of an entity so remote, so vast, so almighty; that sensation arose in travellers even at dawn and at dusk, as they prepared to leave the town on an assignment or on a quest. The dark contained illusion, for the colour black seemed, like the shadow which became the man earlier, to blur and clear irregularly, at random intervals, and overall felt irrational. Nevertheless the man did not perceive it, and even if he did, made no sign of acknowledgement or of wonder, and continued this way.

The path slowly curved, and shifted, and curved again; soon, it was as if the path itself had slowed down, and this meant the man walked faster, relative to the speed of the ground, as if the ground could travel. But soon even he slowed, and eventually stopped. For the path had come to a close, and ahead a gate stood. Upon the gate the ghost of a torch blazed, the mere memory of one that burned there a long time past, and inscribed upon the gate were words so utterly foreign, so utterly alien, that they resembled nothing like words, or hieroglyphs, but a mix of each – wavy and curvy and straight lines joining, looping, dissecting… the gate itself was long dead, and rust had turned it into a fierce, bright orange skeleton, a frame, reminiscent of itself, rotten, decomposing, long gone. There was no lock, no guard, nothing that could obstruct the opening of the gate except maybe fear itself, and in this case, at that moment, there was no fear. A few twigs and leaves, whose origin was the black tree, they themselves being black and burnt and charred and dead, lay scattered at the foot of the gate, unmoving and almost fossilized. The ground was up and moving again, and the man pushed open the gate. It let out a faint sound, a creak, as with most other gates, and the man walked in.


Upon the fields of grass within the walls of town, on a bright day, the sun restored to its place as king of the world. The grass green and growing, the flowers blooming, the meadow shining, the light golden and brown, from the king's crown. Midday has abandoned the inhabitants from the streets, they are indoors recreating.

A boy, of fifteen years, holds a rose in his hand. Plucked fresh from the meadow, the rose is vivid red and surprisingly void of thorns. He whistles and turns a street corner, waiting to present the rose to someone he knows will be at that turn of the street at that time of day. Yes, that someone is there, a girl also of fifteen years, in a bright pink dress.

The boy says, "Hey, I found this rose in the meadow, may I give it to you?"

The girl says, "Sure," and receives it from him.

The boy stops and tries to initiate more conversation, but the girl says she has to go.

The boy: "Alright then, goodbye!" He waves.

"Bye."

The boy continues wandering around town, aimless yet filled with joy in his heart.

Meanwhile, the girl turns the street corner and throws the rose away. She walks quite a distance when on second thought, she turns back and picks up that rose, that very same rose, now thorny and a little venomous, and continues on her way. She walks down the street, a long one, and arrives at her destination, a quaint house, on this sunny afternoon. She rings the bell and the door opens. Another boy, also of fifteen years, appears. She embraces him.

"I got you a beautiful rose, darling. Bought it just," she says.

"That's very sweet, m'dear!" he says.

They go for a walk around town, laughing and conversing gaily, the rose in his hand, full of venom now, and cross the town's square, unbeknownst to the face watching them from a distance, from another corner, the face of the boy.


It was now darker than before. The man had stepped in, and here it was foreign, the foreign of the foreign, the unknown. There was a fire blazing; it was an illusion, the fire that blazed within the man's eyes. The man the shadow, and he treaded this forgotten ground, littered with leaves and filled with the lives of the dead. The moon was clearer now, shining its slyness directly upon this mysterious shadow, illuminating it, but all that could be seen was a shadow of black. Suddenly water gushed into the sky and drowned the moon, queen of the heavens; replaced instead by the sea, Neptune, its marvellous body a creation of miracle, blue, unreal, vast, to yield. Floating in space and in nothingness, nothing looked so much like a complement, so little like an anachronism, for the blend was too advanced, too surreal, a little too perfect. The perfect sphere raged inwards, storms swirling amidst the cruel seas and the cruel wind, splattering water and its very blood everywhere, gushing, at its climax, bursting, dying. Then a drought pierced the skies; Neptune was gone, long dead and long gone, and in his place the silver moon.

The shadow traversed the space, and this space remained timeless, went backward in time even. The black trees still governed this area, but were sparser now; no longer could they be termed galaxies in this universe, rather, wandering stars. The foliage depleted a little; in its place were the dead vegetation strewn on the path, years and centuries of them collected along the grounds upon which the shadow now traipsed, quiet, unseen, although once or twice a twig snapped and a leaf cracked.

Soon the first stones were in sight. The shadow quickened both his footsteps and his heartbeat, both which made the very blood in his veins flow quicker, more rapidly, more urgently. The stones were new at the skirts of this area; their features showed gleams of light, with little chiselling, few scratches. This was new, this was too new; the shadow continued his wander, heading straight and straight ahead without bothering to cross between the stones yet, walking point ahead, where more darkness was to come.

The blood in his very veins, the very ground he was now master of… both rushed forward gallantly as if towards a massacre, to sacrifice their living time for the rest of the earth, and the shadow, for once, felt free, freer than ever before, in that little town that traps spring from, that keeps those within it sedate, unliving, unable to think, to actually view life, the living and the dead; here he could run and run as he pleased, without restraint, without rule, without governance… here no one could control his movements, shadow-like, nothing at all had such a power to restrict him, here he was the master…


The dawn, the dawn, the very pride in the rising of the sun, basking in itself, spreading light, banishing the moon to her darkness, those silvery strands of emptiness. The fields of wheat, of grass, an ochre pale from the rising sun, the most powerful, the omnipotent, Apollo, as righteous as the sun can ever be. A boy, nearing sixteen, his father, just forty-nine, their neighbour, another farmer too like the father, aged forty-seven. The farmers are undergoing a dispute.

The father says, "Market price's this much. No use arguing 'bout that."

The farmer says, "Our seeds are bad. We only ask for this much to borrow."

"And how can I be sure of their return?"

"You can, I promise you, we really need them."

"No, and that's that. I can sell you those seeds, not lend them. Money's bound to be found somewhere. Just go look for it yourself, and not beg for it!" the father says, and leaves with the boy.

Back in the house the father tells the boy, that out there are many evil people, many useless people who resort to base means to indulge in their unimaginable vices, that they themselves must stay away from, never relenting and giving in, but instead should only watch for themselves.

With thirty-three years more of knowledge, the father leaves the boy. The boy turns away and exits the house.


The stones in the centre, the centre which marked two halves – from the gates and towards the endpoint – and that differed from the other points in structure and in form; they were undergoing the most brutal of change; the cracking and decomposition were obvious, and it was with great malice that the worms and the unseen dug, and conquered, and destroyed their habitats, forcing them to undergo, just as many other landscapes except for the cold, unchanging, melancholic town had undergone, a severe transformation of form; of death, the destructor and final evil, of rebirth. The dark abyss was teeming with an unorthodox way of life – everything in it, every presence, seemed evil. Shadow blended with shadow, and all that could be seen, within this tumultuous war of dominance and reign, was a fight for prominence, not in size, nor sound, but in intensity – the shades merged and split, concentrated and diluted; the presence of an evil black.

But it was too chaotic here, too messy… the stones that were constantly host to such vicious war did not retain a form of peace that the shadow needed and sought. And so the shadow drifted on, within this nightmare vision of invisibility, blending, seeking to blend uncontrollably and unconditionally with the conformation of this darkness, this failed spirituality… it persisted, the night welcomed and opened its hands further, wider, sucking in the pure energy of life and rendering the entity that makes its entrance so prominent into a mere shell, a cage, a mere framework, as what had presumably transpired with the black trees, so daring, so unlucky, to venture as seeds in their infancy into such a perimeter devoid of any object holy. The worms continued their meaningless persistence against the imbalance of the ecological statements within where they resided, so draconian, so demanding, and resumed (as if they had ceased for a moment to do so when the presence of a new entity was announced and felt) their continuous attempts of destruction, of massacre, of inevitable suicide – but was it not perhaps without meaning? All around the wasted land was silence, white noise, unperceived, unperceivable. The shadow flitted forward, not spending any more time within this meaningless compound and wasting it, moving quicker as the very earth began to rise and accelerate, propagating the shadow forward, assisting it with a cunning menace. The movement of the shadow seemed almost magical, fantastical… the speed at which it directed its intentions towards lacked constant, and for a moment it was as if it were flying, another moment, vanishing into the thick misty air, yet another moment rushing in the landscape, turning invisible at times, attempting to blend but failing to – for its blackness was so great that its edges, the black lines that gave it a sense of definition were too poignant, too penetrating, to ever conform with the external medium and its intensity.

And with a subtle crossing between two boundaries the shadow came to a still, in yet another timeless zone. Here, even at a microscopic study, even when perceived through the very density of the area itself, nothing moved. It was a dead quiet that momentarily made the shadow halt in its tracks, in order to breathe in the coldness, the sheer darkness of the dead air. Here the air had been untouched for aeons; now, with the intrusion executed mercilessly by the shadow, it stirred and rippled at its skirts before vanishing upon itself and remaining as dead quiet and lifeless as it was before. There were fewer stones here, this ancient site, this primeval monument; these stones were unchanged, frozen, solid, with centuries of dust spiralling upon them, and even the dust was dead. They lacked the constant weathering, likewise the entrance of the vicinity, yet, they had been weathered. The rustic, antique appearance of these objects had a charm to it, they emanated something that was almost… peaceful.

The shadow, here, was free, and wove around the stones, unlike before, when, governed by a restriction self-imposed, a restriction defined by duty and the absence of abundant time, was confined to moving straight without the slightest expressions of hesitation, even longing. The peace seemed to be disturbed, even robbed of, by the random and fluid movements of the shadow; however, its movements had, in fact, rippled the entire universe, sent out spiritual signals of shock, that resolved themselves with the increase in space, in distance, until they had eventually died out, and had returned peace to its original deposit, within the confines of this timeless, mystical place. The shadow lingered, hovered… searching for a stone, a particular one, one as random as possible, one with as few connections with it and its tired existence as possible… soon, the shadow had found one, and it floated towards it, silently, about to upset the long balanced stream of quiet there.


Evening, where the dusk has long since entered and the setting sun is no more but a flicker of orange, persistent, radiating from the crack in the mountain. A boy, aged seventeen, has completed the arduous procession of rejoicing at his seventeenth year of existence, one that is expected by society, and is going for a walk. A walk upon the cool breeze atop the street, that is bound to rake in a pure, gay state of health. The boy aged seventeen upon this date which makes him seventeen overcomes himself with a light, but lasting melancholy, and strolls silently upon the pavement, the cool walkway under the bejewelled sky where the moon resides and where the distant stars compensate the coldness derived from sheer distance with the bright, twinkling flares of warmth they deliver. The boy shuffles his feet but in a twisted fashion – that each footstep is rather distinct and leaves behind a short but traceable echo. The stars twinkle ahead but the boy does not notice for he does not look up, but instead, walks towards randomness. He ends up on another obscure, dim street, beside a large house, and is about to continue on his way when the sound of voices stops him.

"Leave them open. I'm hot."

"But it's tedious and troublesome! People might see us."

The sound originates from within the house, and the sound is so disturbingly familiar. The boy turns and comes to the window. A girl and a boy, both seventeen, the former, seated on a couch, reclining, the latter, his front to her, standing upright.

"Oh, yea, it's so very likely that people are looking at this time of night in the centre of the capital!" The girl's sarcasm rings deep into the blood in one's veins, carrying upon it a strong ironic disposition that seeks to weaken all counter-forces, to destroy them… "And so what if they are? So what if the relevant people see us? All the more they should see us!"

The boy inside shudders and goes back to the couch adjacent of the girl's. With the indication of resignation and submission he shows, that he would not have closed the windows at her bidding, he takes a cup from the table in the centre, and drinks from it.

Suddenly, without warning, he stands up and lunges towards the girl and kisses her, and she squeals; after which she breaks away and the boy chases her about the room, knocking into vintage furniture and disrupting the original cozy atmosphere of the room, increasing the disorder. At last the girl collapses upon the couch with the boy upon her.

The boy inside straddles the girl inside for a while, and they roll about like puppies do in the soft cool mud on a hot day. Finally they get up and giggle voraciously, heartily.

"Why! You've got your assignment done?" the girl says. "You've actually bothered to piece together the pictures of everybody in our class, for the graduation?"

She is pointing at a collage that hangs from a wall, at the opposite end of the room. The girl goes towards it and plucks one of the photographs down.

"D'you know, what I should like to do with this abomination?" The girl holds up the photograph. And she goes over to the boy, and whispers something to him.

"Oh! My cruel baby! You wouldn't dare."

"Not dare? On that?" The girl harshly replies, with a brutality so potent, so deadly.

And she spits on the photograph; the harsh splatter that rebounds across the walls of the room is so powerful, so cruel, that the boy outside hears no more.

He turns, as if the windows of that house are closed and the shutters drawn. He goes on his way. Two years, two years… and it was yesterday once more.


The very stone which the shadow towered over was one archaeological artefact; old, ancient, tribal, having absolutely no connection to the very shadow standing over it. The dust gathered upon its weary yet hardened body was smooth; it had amassed itself in so great a quantity that its thick layers covered the stone, coated it, mummified it… its surface once bore the inscription of the same alien words, same alien language at the gates from which the entity had come, and it continues to bear them, but has been overruled, blocked, by the thick crust of dust that has stuck to it, blended with it. The stone was a ghostly white, rectangular in shape, a slab of cold pale marble rooted deep to the ground. The ground was dead, in comparison with the earlier shape-shifting, changing floor of life.

The shadow was now the man, and his existence had come into shape, into sight. His eyes twinkled fiercer than ever before, and the fire raging within could almost be seen, reflected off the cold, dead marble, could almost be heard, crackling, in this silence.

The man bent down. There the ground was solid, had solidified, had frozen, had coagulated into a massive lump of substance, of dirt and mud. And there… his hands were claws, and he proceeded to carve into this substance, deep, down, within… there was no spade, his hands, his nails, his claws substituted for one, and the man unearthed massive, dormant chunks of soil.

Had this been the soil earlier on, the soil of change, from it would spring out worms, and they would resuscitate themselves and crawl out, crawl away. But this soil was too dead, too stiff… that if any worms used to reside in there they would have been irreversibly frozen already.

The claws drilled deep within, an almost mechanical act of barbarism, in which the barbarian claws and tears and strips off meat in desperation to consume it… the claws acted fast, as most mechanical products do, and soon, they found something hard.

Then, the man quickened his pace, for he had found what he had wanted and was on his way. Clawing through soil, dislodging chunks of mud, of earth, real, raw, earth… he had found the object, the artefact, the object of satisfaction that was hitherto undiscovered, a dream of a dream… and his claws soon dislodged most of the soil above, exposing and unearthing something buried within a medium that kept secrets so well for centuries. Unearthing, unearthing… soon the artefact had emerged from the obscure, into the gloom.


,Der Abschieds Schmatz

Alle freu'n sich

Mein scharfer Schatz

Liebst du gar mich?'


The box was exposed in its entirety. Exposed, from a century of sleep, a slumber that had been destined to be eternal. Its charm reverberated around it, seemingly rustic, almost artistic even, and the last traces of dust that had been stirred, excited, disturbed by those deep claws were already landing, coming to rest upon the box, fading. Already it was peaceful again. Then the man stood up, panting for breath, for that one merciful vestige of dead air the stillness of the night would grant him.

But, as with anything, the quantum scale, the mechanisms of society, peace never reigns. Immediately, restored to proper health with that breath of air, the man, with his deep red claws, now caked in mud and blood and a bloodthirst so unimaginable, pried open the box.

And as soon as he did so the sky changed again; the moon shrunk and faded, and the very gates of Hell were upon him, the face of Hell from the sky, Pluto, the very devil himself. The miniature sphere of obsidian, of rock, of blackness more forbidding then even the very place the man was standing… it glared at him, almost propelling him forward, in the course of his actions, rewarding him, pushing him. The planet, the sphere, the death star; it rotated, and a swarm of ravens flocked from one side to the other, in orbit of the massive body it was servant to, and disappeared. And the very face of Hell flickered, the crackling of eternal fire, of flesh, of blood… and soon disappeared as well. But when the moon returned her maternity was shadowed by a layer of terror, utmost terror… she had become more cunning, more sinister, urging her children beneath to carry out the unspeakable, to sin, to propagate the very pillars of all morals antichrist; she was the figure of Oedipus, the very whore who surrendered herself to fate and the masochism of fire – now, round and wrought in silver, it seemed that her silver layers grew tighter, stronger, darker… And without looking up at the heavens the man could sense this change, this addition of welcome, of encouragement, of a coy smile that beckoned him forward, to complete the task his philosophy had assigned himself and which made him traverse all that was black, all that was evil, to reach the centre, the crux of evil itself… And it was decided, that he should finish what he came here for, to satisfy the newfound presence of nihilism in him, his fantastical retreat. And thus the man removed the lid, and unclad his image, his body, his very being.


A late afternoon in which the sun was going to fade, was fading; Sunday, in fact, it being the day of rest and recreation within the town, the community. The gulls are playing too, frolicking, for it seems that the rare merriment such a day has to offer is treasured by all. The river that streams through the centre of the town (not quite centre, though, for at the true centre lies the entire dominion of the town square, the lifeless town square); its banks, today, are teeming with life and its activity. Today, a boy, no, a man, of twenty-one years, strolls along these banks. The town does not fence up the area, for the fishermen congregate here on Saturday. It is tranquil, blissful even. Summer, and the man wears a suit, loose but albeit still a suit, and traverses this lonely tranquillity. Ahead he sees the water-lilies hovering in the crystal world, the magical and sparkling medium of the river, and eyes the fish within the stream, gurgling about their own existence, living a mentally passive yet instinctive life. Further ahead the trees reside. They are not black, but green, for it is summer. Already in the man's eyes are they beginning to wilt and yellow. Within himself he feels a strong desire to go out, to release himself into the big world, to experience life, to live life… absorbing everything, encapsulating the very existence of everything, the fresh air, the warm breeze, the glint of the mellow sparkling sun, the fragrance of the trees and one's hair… he confined himself to the suit, the mechanical walking posture, appearing casual enough but upon closer examination yields the structured rhythm of footsteps and pulsing. The boredom, the very rigidity of life! The man continues walking. Further ahead he spots two children at the river bank playing. A boy and a girl, not even ten years old. The boy looks exceedingly familiar to the man. Perhaps he is his miniature; his son. The man does not have a son though. The boy and the girl are watching the gulls frolic, and the fish gurgle in the water. It appears that a window of air, a pocketful of air, separates the man from the boy and girl. The man moves on, walks on slowly, rigidly in his suit. As he passes the children he turns to look at them.

The man forces himself to look away. He wonders what will happen when they grow up.


The exterior was given up, and now the interior – the shadow – took over. The lid was gone, removed, exterminated, and beneath the exterior of the box lay the interior, that came out too.

The precise definition of the interior must never be defined, for it would disturb the timeless peace of its resting place and transcend the very boundaries of human capability, of the maximum tolerance to an action of incomparable vileness. It had long been destroyed, eradicated of any features which bore semblance to anything remotely living. The husk, the empty shell… the black trees, at least they were still living, living under the silver moon's glow; whereas this interior, this prized artefact the shadow was after; there was nothing living in it.

The shadow was unclad, too, in its physical state. Its claws were reduced to hands, black, shadow-like hands, although they still retained their sharpness and bloodlust. Their smoothness was immeasurable, just as black blends into a singular state of confusion, unable to distinguish itself from any dark surface, rough or smooth, any surface, in fact, even white; for when black has evolved to such a stage its natural features do not matter any longer and it is the sheer intensity of its persistence in its constant blending with nature that takes over.

And the shadow stood there, panting as the very soul of excitement coursed through its body, giving away the electrical bursts that emanated from its black undefined skin, juxtaposing itself so closely with the flares of ecstasy arising from the surface of the sun, except that the sun was a golden proud yellow, and not black.

It hovered over the box's interior, now clearly visible with the obstructive lid no longer in place, and cherished its sight, lingered over it, its view, and breathed in the new scent just released into the dead air. But here the dead air in contrast was far more alive; its very compounds were bursting to and fro about, colliding into one another, creating spectacles in the grandest of schemes which the naked eye was but too macro to see. The dead air which bore no life, suddenly did. Ah, its fresh wind, its freshness, the newborn spring from which all earthly pleasures arise! But, alas, no, the shadow paid no heed to these fantasies, for it had lived a life full of them without being able to perceive them clearly, for they flitted in and out of existence, tempting him but ultimately never giving in to him, just like how a fisherman taunts his prey by dangling the fantasy, the bait, just out of reach, and when the prey cannot withstand the inseparable and constantly increasing pain any longer it jumps, leaps, and catches the bait, at the cost of giving in, instead of the other way around, to its hunter, its predator, its tormentor. The pity, the regret that could be felt for it! But when guaranteed only disappointment when conforming certainly allows for, calls for a change. This change is permissible, and for one to exact this change upon himself, execute it, one has to isolate himself from the surrounding entities that try to govern him with their collective ways; one has to become reclusive, lonely… but it is the mind that perceives most, matters most, and the mind that indulges the most in thinking, free thinking, and free expression, is the least lonely. And what are the boundaries of the mind's thinking that separate fulfilment from danger? The key to living in shadow is the absence of all refined emotion, of bourgeoisie emotion and feeling, and only the presence of raw understanding. For such base indulgences are those utilized so well by the prehistoric cultures, and they, since having evolved into the current races of living beings that, like those in the town, hide beneath their exteriors of charm and falsehood, whereas their interior contains little or nothing but the very definition of emptiness and loss, are the pinnacle of natural selection, of choice; and as such, a careful mix of nihilism and egoism, or self-preservation, is needed for a blend into the depths of total darkness.

The bell of the church chimes twelve, but the still air here does not carry it. The shadow merges itself with the interior, becomes it… and the entire violence and horror of its act ensues.


A forest, a natural habitat; here the very constant of Time is meaningless, for it is timeless and the light and dark only add to, but do not define, the landscape. Wolves; a pack of them. All is going fine. The wolves have caught a stag and are dragging it back to their base, their territorial fort. They are tired but satisfied. The pack moves on. Suddenly, a bear appears in their way and this bear is not ordinary. It kills with a viciousness so deep-rooted, so primeval, so instinctive; it crushes the very blood of life, seeps it away… and tears away the flesh that defines a living organism, and leaves behind the bone, the cartilage, a husk, which it does not spare and breaks it apart, ripping it into countless tissues, cells, into oblivion… the pack prepares to fight, to defend the young. The two prime wolves, one male, one female, mating partners. One grey old lone wolf. A young but maturing wolf. A cub, not yet ripe, not yet ready for the world.

The old wolf launches itself upon the bear, willingly adopting the painful role of the sacrifice. While the insane shadow of the bear kills it and crushes it instantly the male wolf and the young wolf attack simultaneously, wounding the bear but only grazing him. The wolves are savage; their fangs sink deep into the bear, spurting out the thick liquid of blood; the bear growls in pain and in anger. Soon, the male wolf is dead and the young wolf, once so energetic and vicious, is dying. The bear turns to the mother wolf, and in that instant she turns insane herself, letting loose the torrent of savagery upon it, rushing up to pounce, to destroy, to kill… finally, the bear is dead, but before so its teeth had found the mother wolf's throat, and had crushed it, and the mother wolf lay dying, fading, fading away…

The cub had found its mother's last gift and was sinking its gums into her breast.


The silent night; now filled with the noise of evil. The shadow the shadow the shadow O! He was a wolf, the very opposite of his origins, the basic and rudimental acts as opposed to the complex and cunning ones, and he, with the last ounce of vicious fury and excitement, merged into the prize, the interior of the box, the treasure, and became one, so close, the edges so undefined. Then it was over; he removed himself from the artefact, being fully sated, and stood upright, breathing the living air of the night. Then he saw his exterior – the clothes, the mechanical suit, the façade – and left them where they were, away from his original existence, his very form, his own being. The interior was enough; out of the town, where the black trees dwelled and moon smiled gallantly at him. There was a fresh breeze, though he could not discern its origin. He put on his existence. Then he was gone.