In the wake of consciousness

“Alone he walks through the clouds o’ mist,
Not knowing what awaits him far
Asking penitence from his priest,
For his life became but blood and tar”


I only write these few lines to explain the events that have taken place. Under no circumstance are they a motivation of my acts and I cannot hope for such a thing, for the reasons of my actions are unclear even to me. The events which I shall now set upon this stained paper will prove that in spite of the public opinion. I am not mad and that the punishment for my iniquities is just.
My story is a story of Love, Sorrow and above all, Hate. I come from a rich family, and I was to inherit all the fortunes of my parents, but in an unfortunate twist of fate, life was taken from them. The things that my parents were supposed to bequeath me, never reached me; my plans, my glorious and marvelous plans, were never completed. All that I felt was rage, rage against the whole world, a world which had taken my fortune. As a young man it was all I could think about. But, luckily, an old friend of my fathers’ took me by his place and he and his lovely wife offered to be something of a family to me. I say something, because I agreed with the old man that I was to take care of the house, but still, I had numerous privileges that the other “servants” did not posses. From that moment on my life started to seem like that of Oedipus. Love began to flow trough me for his sweet and beautiful wife, but Hate laid dormant. Love and Hate cannot coexist in one soul and as long as his wife was still alive, my impulse, my wish to end the old man’s life would not surface. And such a story must be a tragedy, for as the Aristotelian catharsis teaches us, it is necessary to cure the soul through means of passion, passions which only a tragedy has the required strength to stir up inside a man. This is my tragedy…
Every Wednesday and Friday, I drove her to the orphanage houses where she would spend much time nurturing the little children. She was happy when she was around them and I was happy when I was around her… only the sight of her rose-bottom lips smiling and laughing stirred new and new feeling inside me. Her husband, that wretched old man would often treat her badly but I lacked the courage to do anything. Trying to escape his wrath, she devoted all her money and time and became more and more absorbed by charity issues. The desire to help others was strong in her. It was a trait which I deeply admired. I wish I could have offered her love and support and I often dreamt I did, but sadly all I could offer her were kind words. Her selflessness and her husband’s bad treatment eventually led to her downfall and plunged her into insanity. She called me on her death bed to thank me for my kindness. All I could do was watch her motionless as rage was gathering up inside me. It was a shame that such a sagacious and caring person should die because of a selfish man like him. Hate, which had been repressed for so long… surfaced once again.
As if he had no heart at all, he continued his meaningless life, dawdling about the house as he always did. He was a man of repugnant countenance, addle and frail, but in spite of his old age and feebleness, benignity was not a word that would have best suited him; he was supercilious towards everyone he met. One might say that he was a strange combination of Tartuffe and the Marquis de Sade. He was harsh with all those who he came in contact and almost evil…his damned face, that blasted face and those accursed glooming eyes… how could he have never even sketched any emotion? His coldness frightened me and I swore that I would not remain silent and meek as I always did. Anger had to be used with a purpose. Love was no more. He had put an end to that. “Pain, unlike pleasure, wears no mask”. He alone was to blame for his wife’s death.
The only thing he was fond of was his collection of Aztec artifacts. Every once in a while he would receive a new piece and every month he would put his entire set on public display. Yes… it was the only thing towards which he was capable of affection… the cold, jagged stone. It was quite sad actually. His collection was vast and marvelous. He was in possession of a great number of ancient relics, mainly Aztec. He had an entire sacrificial dagger set (gathered from across all of Mexico), which the Aztecs used to cut out their enemies’ hearts (or those of their own people, if needed) out on the top of their pyramids and offer them to the Lord of Death, Mictlantecuhtli. He also possessed numerous stone jaguars (which the Aztecs adored so much) as well as a great number of ritual masks. He prided himself with his teponaztlies and metates(musical instruments). They were considered sacred by the Aztecs. The teponaztli is a cylindrical tongue or slit drum, hallowed from a log of wood, always beautifully curved with two tongues cut into the wood on the top. Both tongues are the same length, but by making one thinner than the other, two contrasting tones can be obtained. It was always played with wood and rubber beaters. The metate was as well remarkable in design and its sound, although it is hard for me to reproduce it, is much like the sound of the saw against a block of wood, or if you like, the howl of a walrus. Teaching me about these Aztec artifacts was possibly the only good thing that the man did in his entire life, but curiosity as well as the necessity of understanding, forced me to toil with them and eventually became acquainted with such artifacts.
After the death of his wife I moved out of his house, but from time to time, I came to visit him. He didn’t care. Simply killing him would have been too easy to accomplish. At night he slept alone and I had the key to the house. It would have been no trouble at all just to walk in and murder him. But…no! That was not what I had in mind. I wanted to make him suffer, to teach him the value of Sorrow and Suffering and how it can open up the world for him. Sadness can make you find Beauty in the smallest of things. But before this, he had to suffer, and I was to drive him to the brink of insanity, make his entire life a living hell. That was to be his penitence.
Recently he had received a statue of Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of Death and the mystery revolving around it offered me the perfect opportunity to set events into motion. The statue was due to arrive on Monday. After his Friday-monthly exhibition I began the perusal of a series of Aztec culture related books. I found one particular article about the statue. Aztec folklore believed it to carry the curse of Ixtlacihotl, an Aztec princess who died after she was deceived about her beloved’s death (Popocatepetl).Her torment started with a weak fever and cough, and continued until she was out of breath and her lungs nothing but grist. She died loving her Popo. When he returned from war and found her dead he built two pyramids on the highest mountain. In the first one she was buried along with the statue and in the latter he would stay awake and endure throughout the years the harsh coldness of snow. But the torch in his hand never extinguished as his love for her. It is said that the statue imprisons Ix’s nahual or animal form and that it will bring terrible death to whoever dares disturb her sleep. I think every woman desires such a love and would give anything for it. But I was to profit from this story, for undoubtedly the old man was aware of this superstition and probably believed it. I was to make the curse of Ix come true and reenact her symptoms. I was to make him fell her wrath and every day was to become purgatory.
When the statue finally arrived (on the day it was due to) all was planned with minute detail. The moment he received the statue, he lifted it up and admired it with some kind of pride. He just sat about 3 hours starring at it. When his contemplations and praising ceased, he carefully put down the statue in the center of his display case. I was actually fascinated by his bold decision to put Death in the center of all. One can only be baffled by the irony of the situation. I guess it is true after all that: “Death is a good friend and keeps open house” as he was to discover. During the little time that I had at my disposal to plan this I took the liberty of crafting a metate and while practicing with it I found it to be easier to use than a normal flute. This instrument was absolutely necessary to recreate the Aztec environment and the morbid atmosphere which was intended to scare him to the brink of insanity. But all had to be measured perfectly, for his ill heart could have proven a premature stagnation in my plan. For treating his heart he drank quite a lot of Medoc and once in a while took a few pastilles of Calamol. Calamol had not been used for years. It had been discovered that it was based on mercury, but he used it still, considering that modern drugs were ineffective and when he was sick we would often take quite a lot. Fear, anxiety, dizziness, induced by neuro-development and psychical disabilities as well as elevated blood pressure (all caused by mercury intoxication) would aid me in my plot. On my part it was not a question of madness or saneness, it was simply a question of good and evil, of that thin line between Love and Hate, a line which disappeared and opened up the path for more sadistic and hateful actions. Hate had taken control of me, I was blinded and I proceeded in manifesting it to its fullest extent.
The night he got the statue, at about midnight I silently entered the front door, closed it behind me and made my way to his chambers. As I was walking up the stairs I felt some guilt about what I was going to do and two forces seemed to battle for my body, one pulling be upward and the other downward. But it was just a momentary weakness. I soon pulled myself together and proceeded with my plan. The man I perceived through the barely open door was sound asleep; if nothing was bothering him. I cared little about what the bastard was dreaming of. I pulled out the metate and began to sing its shivering song, giving it new meanings with every note I played. The room was completely dark, for the window and hangings were all closed, and up there he did not have any means of illumination. I cautiously walked and sang towards his bed and began my incantations, making my appearance the most frightful of all his visages. With my face concealed by the darkness, in his eyes I appeared like the wraith Ariel at that great banquet… And so I began:” Thou foul creature, who dares call himself a man and abandoned his beloved wife…the wrath of Ix shall fall upon thee and smite furiously for thy iniquities !“. The moment I opened my eyes, the man instantly woke up as if he had a bad dream and watched motionless my unperceivable face, heard my tumultuous tones and trembled. But all he could do was to watch in awe and terror my phantasm. I could hear his throbbing heart beats and savored every moment of it with curious pleasure. I walked around the room for a few moments and then exited watching his barely perceivable face as it widened in agony and despair. His eyes sought to grasp some real thread from the past and not let it go hopping that it was all just a nightmare. In extreme delight I left his chambers saying only that:” Mictlantecuhtli will feast on thy wretched soul”. So you see that I was not deranged, but cool, calculated and capable of unconceivable brutality.
In the morning he said nothing. He took his Calamol and continued with his daily routine, but you could clearly see that something was bothering him. His movements were desperate and uncontrollable and after 2 pm we would ask me to leave his house, saying that he had work to do. I found this particular situation a bit odd.
For 9 more nights I entered his room and repeated the scenery and from time to time used a little smoke, some rattling chains to make his fell the full effect of my ghastly bellows.
It was on the tenth day that I saw how pale he was. It seemed that he had been stripped of all life. There was nothing left of him but a walking white carcass. His movements were now sluggish and incoherent as those of a paranoid man. He did not say a word, but one could almost see the trembling inside him. He sat all morning starring at the statue that was his demise with his gloomy eyes, shaking and twisting his fingers. He watched it aghast and wished it all to be just a figment of his imagination. When I returned at night I saw the statue torn to pieces on the wooden floor. He had destroyed it, along with all his other artifacts. I thought I had succeeded in haunting and terrorizing him but as I was prepared to leave the house I saw the shape of a man laughing in the dark. The darkness gave him a more horrid countenance, grinning and nearing towards me. I turned round only to come face to face with the infuriated man. He had lost everything and hungered for his destroyer’s soul. Before he could plunge towards me I pulled out my knife and stabbed him in his bosom. I punctured it numerous times and in a frenzy of slashing and turning cut open his chest and pulled out his insane and wretched heart. As the madness of it all subsided I took a moment to catch my breath. I could barely think. My heart beats and breath were uneven and looking at the bloody heart made it worse. But somehow I enjoyed it. I don’t know whether it was the thrill of that insane moment or a sudden inexplicable change inside of me, but I watched the heart with a strange reverence. I could still fell its throbbing sound. Ah…how I savored it. And how, unwillingly I was becoming that dreadful Marquis, or worse, that horrid knight that everyone called “Barbe bleu”. In my heart there was no room for qualm; I only felt a quixotic feeling of fulfillment. But as I was living and enjoying the moment of my victory, two unknown silhouettes appeared before me… as if in a dream, veiled by the darkness and the gathering mist.
Anxiety had taken hold over me; all senses were paralyzed and I was intoxicated with the blood of the old man. I know not whether the figures that appeared were just a figment of my imagination, but the conversation in which they engaged with me influenced my further action in such a tremendous way that I owe my act of contrition to them.
Slow, cautious footsteps began to echo in the empty, dimly lit hall. I could barely peer through the gathering clouds of mist (or was this another figment of my imagination?), but I perceived a robust man of no more than 6 feet. He was apparently pushing another man in a moving stretcher. Their presence intrigued me, and I waited patiently as they were nearing me. The first man propped the stretcher against a wall and suddenly, without any warning, with awesome quickness, revealed his head to me: “Hello, young one”, said he with a low, steady voice. He was wearing some kind of glasses and a suit, but other than that he looked rather plain. He had a round head with long dark hair and his aquiline nose, which guarded over his short moustache, only contributed to the appearance of a man that impressed only through simplicity. But his movements and his voice heralded something far worse than his mild face. And so he continued:
“I hope my appearance does not frighten you, young one”;
“Nahh, hah, hah. Don’t talk. It is not required for you to do so” It was then I felt speechless. He had some strange power over me and I could not tell how he did it, but I decided that I was not going to react irrationally, but to calmly listen to what he had to say.
“Very well then. Some introduction is in order. My name is Charon and that man you see there is my maimed and insane friend, Craon. How lovely our names sound together. But let me tell you the purpose of our visit. We are here not to judge your act, not to comment then, but determine your further action. What you have done was in the name of Love, although fueled by Hate, and therefore no deity can judge you, for your actions were beyond good and evil. What we and by we I mean I, shall discuss later on involves sanity and insanity, or better yet, the path that you will choose.” He sat up, started walking around the room and pulled the stretcher towards me:
“This is Craon!”, he said with such a triumphant voice. The second man wore a strapping suite and was tied to his stretcher. On his face there was mask of iron that allowed no one to see his face. Only one thought came to mind: loathing. I could not fell anything but loathing and disgust, but as I looked closer an inexplicable sense of pity stall over me. I did not know what was it that he did but Charon seemed worse.
“ If you thought that was frightening now it is time for your surprise!”, bellowed Charon, taking down his glasses and revealing his torn eyes. Through their crimson, encrusted tissue I could see all the horrors in the world, all the sins of mankind flashing before my eyes. It was not possible and what, what were their plans with me?!
“We are both people of a sort that is considered bad by those who dare judge others.
Your task is simple. You must make a choice. You are presented with a dilemma, a decision with two options. Your first option is me, young one. As you can see I enjoy what I do and have no desire to repent. The second one is Craon, whose desire for penitence rather than his crimes have brought him to this state. But before you are able to make that decision, we must first analyze your actions”.
“Let us begin. Were they right? I cannot say. Were they moral? I have not even the slightest desire to discuss about morality. Were they rational or not? This we shall see. The world is what it is and you are what you are. It is full of crimes, why should another one matter? It matters not to the world but to you. All is relative, your perceptions, your mind ever so different from ours. Truth is relative from every point of view. It can be toiled with, manipulated and it serves ’higher ’purposes. Every aspect of our life is contorted and displaced. One may find beauty in ugliness; one may find good in evil, nothing is what it seems. Tear may become laughter, sadness and regret joy and even a demon may turn into an angel if manipulated properly. Therefore there is no good, there is no evil, there is no absolute truth, even nothing may become a whole lot in some other’s eyes You have blindly set out in your quest to avenge your beloved, looking only at appearances; you though that even the sharpest stone was incapable of Love but you were mistaking. Hate clouded your thoughts. You only saw what you wanted to see. You did not know what was going on in the old man’s head. You acted purely on instinct blaming others for your own mistakes. You felt you had to do something, to punish others. You thought that what you were doing was an act of selflessness, but it was full of the most egotistic of all feelings. You praised yourself with your devilish deed, you bathed in gushes of blood; felt the thrill inside you like you never did before. You enjoyed killing and it arouse in you a feeling so unknown to you before, that you had to savor it with utmost intensity. You planed it all with minute detail and did not want to simply kill the man; you wanted him to suffer, to teach him a lesson about Suffering. This is the turning point of your story. Had you just killed him, it would have not been a problem, but you took it into your own hands to scare him, to punish him in all possible ways. This is why you turn into a monster. You have become the very thing that you have loathed all your life”
He was right. I had acted purely on instinct and with all my planning; my crime was a crime just like all others…
“It is curious how Hate can destroy everything in its path and how Suffering can cure the soul… Ah, but I think I’ve spoken too much already. Remember this, we are not authors of our own fate, no one is. Our whole life follows a pattern, a pattern which nobody sees, but everyone knows of. We all have a predestined path, which some deity reserved for us. But we must not be afraid of it .We can merely watch it and follow it step by step and when the time is right- turn around and face it. Care not about gods and stars, right and wrong, wait for that moment and you will know what you have to do.”
“Now then… we must bid you goodbye and retire to our resting place and await your decision”. And so they disappeared in the same mist that veiled their entrance.
I coughed to see if I was able to talk. Charon’s powers disappeared with him and taking into consideration the facts which he had presented me I made my way towards the basement, weakened, over encumbered with pity for myself and more miserable than ever. I slowly went down the stairs with my hands alongside the wall, barely being able to move. Voices, low, high, gruffly, moaning; all started to echo inside my head. Faces familiar to me began to hover into the air, some whispering and shrieking with the most devilish of voices, others shouting in the highest scrapping high pitch: “Murderer”; “Demon”, “Fiend”, “You are to blame…” . All tormenting me, laughing and pitying me, pulling me from the stairs and throwing me into the abyss. The very walls began to reel, all seemed to collapse and bury me under a mountain of rubble. My breath became uneven, my pulse higher and the foulest of all nauseas stall over me. Desperately I tried to find the light to guide me, to resist them, but I sunk even deeper. The darkest, most foulest of all places, I could see a glimpse of it: black and full of nothingness. I froze, staring into the void, watching, seeing as it turned red and began to gush blood. I was bathing in gouts of blood, and I vainly tried to pull myself out in desperate purgatorial cycle: in-out, for the road of my life was leading straight into perdition and into “The House of Pain”.
I awoke to find myself at the base of some large structure. Seemingly, I was not dead, for the fates would have been much to gentle with me. I arose and contemplated the construction in its awesome greatness and splendor. It was an Aztec pyramid. The old man actually built one in his basement. I climbed its stairs and there, at the top of it- I saw. It was his wife, my beloved. I do not know whether it was my performance or his love that made him built it, but she looked more beautiful than ever. I sat down and began to gaze upon her, thinking about us. As my sole act of penitence I brought the man’s corpse to the pyramid and put it alongside with that of his wife. As for me, I sat to watch over them in their final journey in a place I hope, much more wonderful than this one. And there, it that same pose, they found me after three days, with a torch in my hand that never extinguished.


And now I sit in my cell, pondering and thinking about our lives. We are such simple and yet delightful creatures. We are the climax of creation, but we do not enjoy life. Life must be valued and treasured, but our whole society has become malignant and depraved. We have become but travelers, spectators of our own lives. We are the pebbles that are thrown into the rushing river, traveling from one side to another, incapable of controlling our journey. The river is ubiquitous and we… merely passengers on its stream.
The world is my own, our own. With enough Love to fuel the imagination there is nothing that we couldn’t accomplish. We could see the stars, defy them, and travel to the far side of the universe in just a glimpse. We could see the unseen and hear the unheard. It would be possible for us to explore the world and even reshape it. But for that we need Love and between Love and Hate there a much too thin line. Hate is too obtrusive; it clouds the mind and fills it with anger. Nothing of any good can come from it. Imagination will simply disappear; fade away in a cloud of rage. It will give birth to monstrous things and tear you up from inside. There, from these strong, incontrollable emotions, comes our perversity, the desire to hurt and maim others. Once it has begun, it cannot be stopped. Vainly we try to resist it, for it comes back with even more fury. But why, why does it surface it the first place? Why is it than when we abandon Love, we find refuge only in Hate? Love is never gone, it is everywhere and you can find it in the most useless of things. Why is it that when Suffering occurs, instead of curing the soul of all that was wrong, instead of making life much gentler and warm, all it does is bring out Hate? Suffering teaches one a good lesson and brings Love into his heart. It is a terrible thing to do not know Love and much terrible is living a dreary life like this, powerless, without passion or desire.
A person who has not loved cannot say it has lived at all. Without Love, your soul will hunger; grow weak until it is nothing more than a withered old flower that should have bloomed. Without it you will find yourself lost through the mire that has become your life, falling and trying to get up, but melancholy pulls you down into the marsh every second and there you shall remain for all eternity, in darkness, for you did dot know what Love was. You will reflect and regret not knowing Love and then, when you will suffer you can grab hold of Love, for it is the only thing that can save you from the abyss.

And now that my executioners come for me, I wonder what method of killing me will they choose? The most just of all I can think is that they let my live out my whole life with the memory of what I have done like Leontes; in misery, suffering for my crimes and after long years; only then may I hope for forgiveness. But they will act on instinct, as I before them have done. I do hope that they do not hang me at the gallows, for it is much to cruel to see your legs and the whole crowd, a bunch of foolish people, as life is being chocked out you. The guillotine? It would be much too quick for my deeds and again you will see that awful crowd that cannot do anything else but love it. Drowning? It is pleasant, I must admit, but it is not for me. I am no witch. Burnt at the stake ? Again, I am not a witch, but it is the punishment required for my crime. Dying in my sleep? I could not bear the thought of not knowing that I was going to die. Premature burial? Even I do not deserve that, although it would prove to be a place where I can think in peace. Of all possible ways, the noblest and therefore not permitted to me would have to be death by poison. Ah, some sort of poison that will not torment me, but simply end my life, that would be perfect. I can see the moment when I shall take it into my hand, put it against my lips and drink its bitter sweet taste that will bring me absolution… Ah, sweet poison…what an ending it would be…