That
crazy European, with the castoff army fatigues, he's trying
to kill us
all. In our simultaneous retreat and pursuit, we discover
ourselves and
score against ouselves. The land is harsh, but nothing compared
to the
people. And yet they are good, or so supposed experts claim
they are.
They
talk little, eat a lot, have normal fits of rebellion, popular
panic in the
name of justice. Their mobs, made up of beautiful (so they
say) village
women with hair tied up in fancy strings and primping long
dresses and
all-knowing, elegant, exacting smiles, knitting while observing
their vil-
lage's executions; and the men, some grand, stately, insolent;
others rowdy,
discontented, demanded everything, to be the executioner,
all at once, or
crying out for more, for what they idealize as vision (for
they see their
own corpses in the trees, aghast, ghastly).
All
the people of the village are daily drowning and crucifying
in thick,
swelling, throbbing blood of their self-righteousness. Theirs.
All theirs.
We
were the pursued. But the villagers' nets catch our pursuer.
This is
as awful for us. We should do something. We can't, even
though we want
to...he is one of us, his lightning quick steed, his brown
chestnut eyes, and
his fiery tongue which only speaks during rare times of
unbroken silence,
during the heaviest fighting with the slowest and most heavy
silence. He
reigns.
But
tonight is his day. It is our fault. I am a horrible miscreant
for not ha-
ving urged my companion to bring forth pistol from holster,
but I know it
is worst for him, the most guilty man on earth. He is the
purest, and yet
does nothing. He has betrayed...wholly and unmeasurably
betrayed. To be
on earth...is a cursed thing, for ever man...for the last
three saviours...
They
are screaming in their joy and agony and dirt and slime
and ecstasy
"PETRIFY HIM! PETRIFY HIM! PETRIFY HIM!" over
and over and over
again...until it becomes a dull chant...and then pumps up
again into hideous
vibrato dissonance and cacophony.
I
will sing. I willl sing. I will sing against this into the
void! But only myself
is saved. And the trinity with me.
