TAKEN OUR SUBSTANCE
BY MATTHEW MEDYNSKYJ
I.
SCARECROW
Today is the day I meet with the most dangerous man in the world… and I am
terrified.
The remote Scottish isles of the Eilean Mòr’s, the place where there is weeping and
gnashing of teeth—he lays dormant. Conversing with the horny serpent within his
internal holocausts. His villainy bleeds through the graved inferno, slithering past the
dry cellars, down to the roots of the earth, like a maligned growth of tumours,
poisoning the very isles that surround him. The dried essence of humanity ingrained
within his muddied claws. The works of his hand cry out the turmoil of the innocent,
blinded by his rooted desires for horror, laughing at the deprived who frown upon
him. His straw-filled heart, scorched with his fiery self-infliction, pondering in a
boundless cornfield, with no escape.
An infestation. A riddling swarm of cockroaches erupts as I enter the jailhouse, the
blooming mildew, like blotches of festering wounds, painted along the walls, such
masterful decor. The row of emptied cells beside me, engulfed with the plagued souls
who now rest upon the isles. At the end of the corridor, the subtle flashing lights, the
beams from the lighthouse reflected into the cell, casting a still shadow.
‘He-llo?’ I stuttered.
It was as if I was being stabbed from the inside out. A fluttering swarm of butterflies
feeding their larvae from the linings of my stomach. A faint, yet hoarse tone, bellowed
from the depths of the cell.
‘What’s your name?’
‘It’s Keller…Peter Keller…I’m a journalist!’
He gets out of his bed. A pair of large, yet soiled hands reached to grab a bowl of
water. He places it on his lap, washing his face, patting water over his shaven head.
‘What are you doing here?’ He said.
‘I’m writing an article on the massacres in Kabul, during the Afghanistan conflicts. I
was told you were the primary culprit…a man named… Colonel Fletcher,’ I uttered.
Fletcher looked up. His tired eyes. Eyes that have seen horror, eyes that have
suffered…eyes that have wept.
‘There is no Fletcher… He burned along with all those children.’
His straw-filled heart is evident, a man scourged with the whispers of those within his
inner cellars. I pity him. As he is shape without form, shade without colour, a
paralysed force, gesture without motion. A pondering mind in a boundless cornfield
— stuffed like a scarecrow.
II.
FREEDOM
The curiosity, the wonder…the ignorance —a blind soldier flung into Sodom and
Gomorrah, wallowing away from death's other kingdom, known as the twenty-first
century.
I looked up at this soft-handed, pale young journalist, not much older than a boy, but
his eyes screamed grit and determination, his eyes locked on mine.
‘What do you know about me?’ I asked.
‘You’re a sociopath. I know the horrors you brought to that nation…I know you're a
murderer!’ His fist balled up, grinding his teeth.
‘You know nothing of it,’ I said.
‘Horror has a face…and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are
your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared.’
‘How can you talk of horror when you have no idea what it truly means!’ I shouted, I
stood up…taking a deep breath and sat back down.
‘I remember when I was deployed in Kabul…it seems like a thousand centuries ago. I
was a different person back then…times of so much joy…I had just become colonel,
all my men came to me…absolutely terrified…but the truth was…I was just as
terrified as they were.
The ravaged landscape…the screams…how these people suffered…they instigated
it…we brought the blazing rage of the western civilization. A young Afghan girl came
running over to us, she was crying, begging on her knees for us to save her. She had a
baby wrapped in some newspaper…it was so small…all you could see was its ribs.
There was nothing we could do. My officers told her to go…she ran…one of the
Afghan extremists blew himself up…she was caught in the blast. It was all our fault! I
realised... like I was shot... shot with a diamond…a diamond bullet right through my
forehead. These men…these terrorists. They will never be free…free from the
implanted thoughts…free to wake as their own. They are not people…they are not
human!
We killed everyone. A pile of screaming Afghans…their burning bodies ravaged by
the very flames they yet to see. It drove us to the peak of the mountain top…I lost my
breath. And I remember… I…I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear
my teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never
want to forget the horror… I never want to forget.’
‘Have you ever considered any real freedoms? Freedom from the opinion of
others…even the opinions of yourself?’ I asked.
‘The freedom to say; I AM FREE! To tap yourself on the forehead, and say; you’re
alright! Free to dream without the nightmares… I want the freedom to carve and
chisel my own face, to staunch the bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out of
my entrails…’
‘We’re merely…we’re merely…’ I whispered.
Those eyes that looked at me like daggers were now weakened, nay, softened, he now
looked at me with pity, not anger, he saw the truth. He saw who I truly was.
We are hollow men. War has defiled us, ravaged our lives, taken our substance. We
will not be remembered as heroes, but as violent souls.
‘I’m not sure what you were looking to find here, but what you have found is a broken
man. A man of sorrows, a man of horror…yes, I did those things, and I can never
forget…I can never forget their screams, tormenting me, tormenting myself more than
you, or your society ever could, so now you can leave, leave me here to rot in my own
memories.’