Dear Absent Friend,
I know I have yet to send even the first letter, and it still lies unsealed, buried somewhere in the midst of the barely controlled chaos that has so quickly taken over the old farmhouse table now serving as my writing desk. I have not yet managed to send even the first letter and still I find myself writing the next one already. What is that all about, I wonder? Well, I write because I must. I write despite the jeering voice echoing in the back of my head, repeating that you haven’t been there to read nor listen to my words for quite some time, and that all of this is just shouting into the void.
I write to gain some brief respite. Respite from the myriad of things tormenting me, which I had not at first even realised to have followed me here, now manifesting as a legion surrounding me from every direction. It knows nothing of respite, nor of mercy. Over the past few days I have tried to distract them by once again going through maps in search of that island of youth that appears so vividly in my memories, but the terrain is like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces refuse to settle into place. The Mountain though cannot stand anywhere else but that single spot in these crushingly flat lands that stands out on the topographic map, where the ground dares to raise its head even the slightest bit. The distance there must be less than ten kilometers, but I keep postponing my departure, piling up excuses on top of one another. I stare at the compass rose in the corner of the map until its lines begin to ripple, and in my mind’s eye flicker the invisible military columns of doubt, entrenched in their positions, and the approaching nightmare squadrons storming to the sound of hoofbeats from the far east.
Things here quickly take on strange proportions. I only just botched a job splitting kindling, and the knife slipped right into my thumb. The wound is carefully cleaned, dressed, and will surely heal in due course, and yet, suddenly I can’t stop thinking about it. Although seeing blood has never bothered me before, now a dizzy spell almost takes me when I picture the gash under the gauze like a gaping chasm, and how thin is the boundary between that pristine, virgin-white snow and the red, steaming gore. At night, gray, reeking pus starts oozing from beneath the bandage, and maggots slither out of it, twisting into the shapes of ornate letters, until I jolt awake in a cold sweat and inspect my hand, finding no trace of anything like that.
Time and space to think, these were what I asked and wished for, year after year, and only now that I’ve finally received what I wished for do I fully realize how dangerous a desire I was harboring in my chest. Now blood is weighed, and it’s measured whether the recipient has the nerve to accept the gift. Time and space to think and write, accompanied by a sense of utter futility and revulsion, and a gnawing suspicion that in the end, it might be best to feed all the work of my hands to the fire. To cast in, at one stroke, all the letters and maps and folders and photographs. I can’t bring myself to do that, either, as if invisible knots were binding my hands.
War sighs in the distance. The legion threatening me is not outside but within. I feed the fire so that its crackle and roar drowns out the scurrying and rustling from inside the walls, but even then it doesn’t fully fade away. I’m alone, but not really.
Show yourselves then! I suddenly turn to snatch at the flickering critter at the edge of my vision. I squeeze the moth-shaped shadow in my fist and hurl it into the stove. The flames swallow it from sight, but soon it lifts its head again in the midst of the fire.
Black and shriveled like a raisin, charred and lifeless. Yet it opens its mouth, like a fish flopping on dry land, and hurls insults at me. “You are not good. You came all this way, but you are wicked. You are not good.” All right then, list and stack before me every mistake, every debt, every crack, and every transgression of mine.
Do I not already know them by heart and feel them, remember them, and live them over and over. Do I not know better than anyone else that I am the architect of my own distress and judgment.
The shape in the smoke swells and soon looms as a huge black, three-headed dog. Smaller shadows scatter in fear, and it rears up on two legs like a human being. The three heads merge back into one, and it is as if a massive, stooped, man-eating ape was watching and measuring me with glowing red eyes. It looks straight through me and speaks in the voice of a long-departed relative: “Why all these horrible things and images? We were happy with lovely angels and silly little gnomes…”
But did I not try? Didn’t I try, only to have those gnomes lock me in their underground forge? Didn’t I try, only to find that every angel carried a flaming sword and a whip?
“Over the tower of Babel the moon shines bright / and in the summer night the watchmen dream…”, that same relative would often recall recited by some old teacher at the village school, who, in the same breath, warned that he would kill the entire class if they ever let the enemy in. But you could always slip out the window and run across the fields to get home while he was busy killing the first child.
But where would I run now? The tower lies in ruins, and not even the mocking moon peeks from behind the clouds. For the one who stays awake in the winter night, there is no respite nor peace.
Remembering you,
[a cipher]