“Death be not proud, though some have called thee
mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so."
London, 1971
A midnight thirst is the worst. The quiet makes the void surge to
exhaustive heights. What’s worse is the satiation, even after it is
extinguished, shreds of bitterness still survive. The only escape is
what resembles a continuous despair up to a point where you find a
different face for it. Every face feels like a mask eventually, and begs
to be ripped off, for a brutal epiphany and the false truths we create
for ourselves. Winter only follows to turn it more ghastly. You hear
all the quiet applauses echoing in a bottomless pit accompanying
the fear you try to throw away in it, but they come back to haunt
you just when you forget waiting for them.
It was an hour past midnight and the streets looked inadequate and
idle as if it was drained of its essence. The very raw essence that
collects legions of people around it, the very essence that is filled
with commotion and command, there was none of it left. Sadistic to
the noise it procured in the light of the day, this place now was the
gateway for a cold perdition. There was only one twisted, frigid gust
of wind, personified by the occasional yet morbid scream from the
asylum. It was a call, for damnation to end. The call that doesn’t
respite even when it knows there was only abandonment for it
there. These screams were heresy to my conscious.
There was only one indisputable, disconcerting and unuttered truth
in that reticent night, the screams are not real. They were just
figment of my scarred imagination, acquired during my intervals at
the very asylum. The institution which was built to provide catharsis
warrants only lingering madness now. It was the very birthplace of
my blessed insanity, the irony.
This was what the hideous depths of the city reek of, of misery,
despair and hate. Gaslights were hanging extensively, allowing the
light to implore the shadows for mercy. I lost myself there as I
continued moving forward in the parts which seemed quiescent to
me. There was a scenic presence that governs a greater meaning.
An alternate yet familiar scene presented itself, serving as a utopia
for the mind. I didn’t question if the thoughts are mine. Notions
were free to form their own unreserved shaped and figures. These
figures often formed murderous yet glorious imageries.
Speaking of murder, murder rates had fallen to an almost
disgraceful low. It seemed as if the underlings had lost their hunger.
The reason of the remission was beyond me, probably for the
better. Alone, hopeful and ghastly, death was on the prowl, trying
to take control of its ever growing agony. But this agony will expire,
as the path of disdain it lays will be followed for long. The winds
whispered it to stay yet again, letting it know that the hunter was
welcome here.
Among this orchestral beauty, I saw a distant silhouette beside a fire
that was burning like a beacon. I watched the light illuminate the
deep dark of the night. The darkness is progressively compromised
as I moved towards the luminance. The silhouette slowly starts to
form recognition. Recognition meant reassurance for me as the
hunt had now found its cherished victim.
Effortless, just as the numerous times before, I dampened all noise
and control. I wouldn’t let deviant screams break the sacred silence
of the night, for soon she would be at peace. I felt not an urge but a
conviction crossing my mind as my blade ran through her skin.
Every passing second ensured the remission of life. I didn’t ever see
her face but I felt the fear settling in her. I sensed the fear seeping in
replacing the blood departing from the soon to be corpse. The
corpse will hold the fear throughout its consequent rotting.
Blood, however, had a higher calling and purpose as resistance
begets violence. She went from hopelessly trembling to accepting
her burial. For some life’s final breath comes all too soon. Death has
shattered yet another soul, spilled yet another chalice of red. All the
voices in my head silenced in that minute now that every aspect of
the moment was under my control. A mastery of patience with no
dogmas ran through me. There surely wasn’t any sanity in my
actions but what I didn’t lack was reason. A reason I couldn’t
explain, let alone justify.
The knife, now bathed in blood, felt severance at last. And when I
saw the blood flowing seamlessly on the rugged wet pavement, I
felt celebratory. It seemed as if I had been living in a straitjacket all
this time. The crimson ran like a velvet river encompassing and
eclipsing, with me waiting purposefully at its very banks. In the court
of silence, I stood there as death’s amanuensis. I couldn’t ensure
what events would follow, whether my reasons were absurd or not.
What I did know was that now the dead only served a purpose of
the extension of my mind. There is no justification for the
incorrigible, but it is all I’m capable of.
Humanity is an impeding trait, and it is essential to purge it. I have
realized human obsolescence and how fragile the construct of
perpetuity is. As I sit among the living, as I follow this perennial
monotony of reality, I see death in disguise. I see the light that will
fade with time. We live in the trepidation of the end, and rightfully
so. Certitude lies in death and death only. Death’s portrayal will
continue to remain ambiguous but the ambitions will never falter.
Here, I have no remorse, for there are fates worse than death.