Something new I tried. A little not happy with the ending though. Would love to know how I can describe a feeling of an impending doom.

You might think that I am insane. And yes, on the surface I maybe insane. But trust me, I am fully aware of what I am doing. And every time I take an action, I am scared stiff of what I am doing. Every fiber of my being screams to stop what I am about to do, but I can not help it.

You see, I am sane, maybe more sane than anyone in this room. My god, it is really hard to explain this, but I know what I am doing.

It’s like I am caught inside a storm, and I am screaming stop, for the love of god please stop, but once things are set into motion, there is no way it can be stopped. It is a poor explanation for what I do, but please understand this is god’s honest truth. It’s hard to understand this, I know, but please this is the only way I can say this.

Of course, this does not mean I deserve to go free of this place, but at least I wanted you, yes you, to know this. I did not mean to do what I have done to you. Please forgive me.

                                                                                                                                               Anonymous,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XX/XX20XX

I do not know exactly what I have seen tonight. I will admit that I had drank a little bit before seeing it, but I swear it wasn’t enough to make me delusional. But maybe it would have been for the better if I was roaring drunk when I saw whatever it was. That would mean that my imagination had taken the better of me and I would just have to tell myself to stay away from spirits for a while and get my head straight. But for good or for worse, I have seen it with my own eyes, and I must now question whether I am going insane or not. Or maybe stress is finally getting to me. That could very well be it. Come to think of it, I have spent my weekends drinking and watching late night TV until I pass out. I haven’t gone out and smelled the coffee for a while. Maybe I should make sometime this weekend and go out to a bar with my friends. Really, I never thought growing up would mean giving up going out and getting drunk.

Anyways, going insane or not, I would have to question what I have seen. How in the world could I have seen that? I mean, she looked so natural sitting in the middle of that field, covered all over with mud from head to toe. Her eyes were closed, she just sat there and breathed like, like a mud figure come to life and taking a little nap. What is this, really? Have I thought to personify the mother Earth so much that it has lead to this? Is that it? But I’m not that much of Earth lover to begin with, what would my mind think to go that far?

Really, now that I think about it, I have been seeing a lot of strange things. I am seeing tiles moving in patterns that they should not move in, I am seeing towels move about in ways like that are severed arms dangling from the rack, I am seeing food move about in their last breath of life to shake themselves at me and daring me to eat them.

It must be the stress.

20XX/XX/XX

Watched a movie where an angel saw a woman and fell in love with her. It was a good movie but besides that it got me thinking, that an angel loved her, yearned for her and envied her. Would somebody envy my life to a point, if given the chance to eavesdrop on what I do everyday? I can’t tell, but I hope they do.

And that’s what I want. I want to create a work of art, even maybe a writing that would drive everyone into action. I want to create something that would make them say

    “That, that is something I must live by, those are the words that I must strive to at all cost, even if that costs my life.”

    And I want them all to go into madness when those words are defied, or even lightly questioned. People will mock them, they will point their fingers at them and say

    “Look at that poor fool, believing in the words of a dead man. They are letting a dead man control their lives!”

    And I want those zealots to recite my words everyday, I want them to gather in number, turn into an army that would attack anyone that would question my words.

    I want them to cry their eyes out when I die, I want them to clutch my books when I am lying in coffin, I want them even to kill themselves to join me in the afterlife.

    And trust me, I will find a way to watch it all. If it takes conquering whatever comes after death, so be it. I mean, to see the world turn and everybody living like they don’t notice that I never existed? You think I can stand that?

    20XX/XX/XX

    I had a dream where I married a person, grew old together and multiplied like rabbits. All the children smiled and played in the sun and all told me how much they love me. The person I married told me that she loved me too.

    I felt nothing while they said that to me. I just simply patted them on the head and told them I love them too.

    But their smiles were genuine, they really seemed to love me. But I just couldn’t feel anything for them. So I just repeated saying that I love them, and they seemed to have believed my words and they smiled ever broader.

    When I woke up I felt a tremendous self loathing for not being able to smile and love them back like they did to me.

20XX/XX/XX

I’ve gone insane. That’s the only possible explanation. All I did was just wake up, go to work, get back from work, dinner, bath, and sleep. What have I ever done to deserve this? Yes, I have always thought that the only possible end for me is in the nut case hospital, but this is just happening too soon. I thought I would have some more time to ferment whatever that is inside me that will ultimately drive me nuts. But it happened, I have finally gone insane even with this  run of the mill mediocrity.

What’s worse, as horrible as the dream was, it was from with inside of me. Like I said, whatever that is inside of me is growing stronger, so much so that it is starting to have enough strength to speak to me. It speaks to me in tenderness, it reaches its arms out to me, it smiles at me. And why shouldn’t it, to it I’m the father, I gave him life. It wants me to hold it in my arms, smile at it, even kiss it in tender fatherly love. But like all fathers, I am not ready. I am not ready to accept this. If I hold it in my arms, it will probably scream out in such maddening joy, it will let out laughter so enriched in nonsense that one will think that it’s not a child but an animal skinned alive and dying of pain. It will reach for my face and try to peel away my skin and show what I really am. It will tear away at my stomach to show what I have been growing inside of me.

But what’s worse, another thought comes to me and it tells me,

“But remember when you dreamed it you were having such a light sleep that you felt like you were a participant in it. And yet you did not resist any part of it. You just accepted it. You realized that this is a dream that came out of you and you accepted it. Also, has it ever occurred to you that maybe this is not the start of it? What if all your life you were dreaming this and you never knew it? What if every night you were driving yourself insane in your dreams and you were too deep asleep to notice it? Wonder what kind of children you will bear in your life. I pray they will at least retain a human shape.”

    And that thought was right, my mind was pumping me with insanity while I was alive, and when I was awake enough to know that I am dreaming, I could not believe the shit that my mind was making me see. No wonder I’m insane.

XX/XX/20XX

While on the train, I saw a white elephant in an empty looking room. I saw my mother get quite irate with my father to a point I thought to myself, “Christ, even I don’t get that mad.” Then I thought, “Come to think about it, I don’t get angry that much in the first place.” And it’s true. I never get visibly irate. Instead I store up my anger in me and vent it inwards. From the outside, I am quite calm, but in the inside I have a very hair trigger temper and I tend to kill everybody.

After that while taking a walk I saw a figure with no distinguishing feature jump from rooftop to rooftop. I somehow knew that it was stalking me.

At night when I was walking to the nearest diner for a bite, I saw a figure of a person who has lost the skin on the top half of its head walking slowly towards me. I somehow knew that the figure from earlier in the day has summoned that thing. When I had my meal and got back to my apartment, I found that the hallway was lined with what look like figures covered in bandages from head to toe, all hanging from the ceiling by the neck and wriggling like maggots who had boiling water poured over them. And from the end of the hallway I saw the figure from the morning enter my room. The figure was encased in what looks like a metal bed frame standing upright with wheels attached at the bottom. It was hanging by its neck inside the frame. I concluded that the figure from the morning had finally found my room.

Really, all these things should drive me insane if it weren’t for the fact that I know I am insane.

XX/XX/20XX

Saw a head of a giant without its one eye. Blood streamed out of the socket and the giant cried out in pain, but only blood gushed forth.

Again saw that figure with no distinguishing feature. It was walking on all four on a roof. It was craning its neck in my direction. It was probably spying on me.

These couple of days since I have gone insane has been really quiet. I thought insanity would mean constant whispering of voices telling me what to do, but there is no voice in my head. Maybe what I am going through right now is not insanity but a phase before going insane.  

XX/XX/20XX

I was in what seemed like the belly of a large beast, which turned out to be the stomach of a large centipede with its legs hollowed out so people can fashion a room out of it. The centipede moved about a dark and (as far as I can tell) limitless space.

Each of its legs contained people who realized that what they truly want out of life was just too socially unacceptable, so therefore decided to strip away their humanity in order to gain their one and only true desire. I can’t exactly remember every details, but there was a man who was so obese that his limbs were buried under his fat. There was a woman who buried herself neck deep in semen and felt every pores of her body plugged up. There was a kid who tore open his mother’s stomach and climbed himself back into her womb.

I couldn’t tell why I was there, but I knew for sure that me turned insane had something to do with it.

XX/XX/20XX

Heard some tapping sound on the apartment floor. It wasn’t the loud tap like that of someone hitting the apartment roof with a broom, but more like the faint tap of fingers while in conversation. Somehow I thought it came from a creature created out of hair crawling on the roof (floor of my apartment room) striking its clumps of hair on the roof. Didn’t really think much of it, I am insane anyways. While sleeping I dreamt an insect made out of human part was crawling around under my bed and that was the cause of the sound.

Saw the figure with no distinguishing feature outside the window. I don’t know why it’s obsessed with me.  

XX/XX/20XX

Went out to the sea to change the mood. It was not a particularly warm day, so the water was a little biting to the skin. However, the smell of the salt on the air was good. The scenery of waves coming in and out was a calming sight. I stood at the water's edge and cleared my head for a while. I felt the grains of the sand carried away beneath my feet.

This was probably what I needed. To clear my mind for a while and stop thinking that there is something inside me. Just think that I am empty inside and that there are still spaces inside me.

I walked about the sand for sometimes until I came up some gathering of rocks that the sea has washed up. But coming closer to it, it was actually a creature from the depth of the sea that no one should in their right mind even think to travel. And I realized that there was no escaping it. It is the essence of the nature that chaos and rule co-exist. I just happened to have the eyes to spot them out more than anyone. After realizing that, I saw the the figure with no distinguishing feature at the very edge of my sight. I would really like to question its intent.  

XX/XX/20XX

Had a dream that I can not exactly explain what I had seen. It was a very visual dream, but as soon as I try to remember it, words defy to explain everything as if they do not want to be associated with the imagery.

Strange, I’ve always been of the opinion that everything in this world could be explained, that with right words everything would come clear.

The best that I can describe about the dream is that people tore each other into pieces like their bodies were made out of clay, and in the end the one left with his limbs intact gave all the limbless bodies his semen down their throats until they were all gagging with his seed.

This is a very interesting time I am living in. I have decided to live a clean life in hopes that this may clear out the loud booms and the nerve shattering shock that rocks my whole body, but nothing is changing anything. I am still a insane as ever.

I am aware that what I see and hear everyday is only driving myself ever into insanity, and that it was there with me ever since I was a child. Somewhere in my mind I am growing a freak, and it’s shrieking its existence into my ears so I could hear.

XX/XX/20XX

I had a dream where I was in a country that cherished every books that were ever written, and threw away none of them even if they were tattered and the covers were gone.

In there I was trying to serve food to children, but no matter how hard I tried my body moved like they were lumbers stuck together by coarse ropes. I tried to smile and serve the children food they would so love, but I kept spilling the soup all over the plate, I splattered pastries again the wall, there was nothing I could do but be useless. In anger I threw my arms up, yet the children all smiled at me and forgave me. I ate the food with them.

Then I felt a strange feeling around my neck, and I found that it was suture around my neck. I pulled at it against great opposition from the children, and when I pulled it out to my throat, something popped out and I gagged hard. I realized that the doctor had some kind of a surgery on throat, or maybe my vocal cord. Anyways I understood why I could not utter a word.

Sometimes later a friend who I had not seen in awhile called me and told me he wanted to see me. Somehow I resisted and told him every excuses in the world. But he would not budge and took me around the town. And the more of the town I saw and more attractions I saw I wanted to get away. Finally my friend told me This is your last day on Earth, try your best to enjoy it. And I realized that he was trying to make the last day of my life as enjoyable as possible.

But against every good intentions, I was lying in a darkened room that made me realized that this is the part of the town that people come to die. All around me I saw vague outlines of people who had blank holes for eyes and mouth. They surrounded me and tried to lie on top of me so they could seep their deaths into me. I resisted and pounded on them. When struck upon, they all felt like a cotton soaked in water. I kept pounding them and pounding them.   

XX/XX/20XX

While at work I heard someone telling someone else death should not be an obsession.

“Really, like thinking about death all the time, that’s not healthy.” I heard her say.

I would agree with her. Thinking all the time that someone, something, might kill you is not healthy. Thinking What if you lost your foothold and fall down that flight of stairs, what if a goes berserk for some reason and starts attacking people with anything, and he just kills you, what if the subway conductor for whatever reason loses it and just drives the train until it hit something, what if the ceiling collapses on you and kills you? It really is not healthy and one should not think about it. But as a counterpoint I have to think about how much of everything is out of your control, you would think it’s normal that one would have the feeling like they could die at a drop of a dime. But again one would have to come to realize that if death is something that sudden and you can not control it, then one would have to choose from the two options. 1, live without fear and take any actions you want because you could just well be dead after that, or 2, take your own life because if something is going to grip you in fear for the rest of your life, stop before it actually get to you and go out in the way you feel most comfortable before something horrible hits you.

    Which lead me to think then, what is the most comfortable way for me to die? What sort of an end would make me think well, if this is the end, then I’d better accept it, rather than make me struggle to live just one second more, screaming no nonononononononononono.

    I couldn’t quite form it up, but I concluded that if I was to die, I would love to somehow end up at the bottom of the cold ocean and decay slowly in that dark cold water.

XX/XX/20XX

    For the past couple of months I have been hearing talks of war erupting. This time the war is to take place here in my country. Since then I have seen protests and marches declaring no to war in this country. Considering that there are skirmishes in this world great and small, I’m surprised to see people just saying to themselves “Well, so it comes here too then, eh? Well, I guess it’s our turn now”. But no, these people are resisting and fighting tooth and nails. They are screaming no, not here, not our blood, you shall not suffer us, you will not fight here. As if others all over have not screamed and fought so they may not die before their time. It was all over in the news screen, and no one thought to learn. Soon there will be fight, buildings will crumble, people will die, and I will just sit quietly by and watch. And maybe that’s what I have been seeing all along.

Again, don't know what to make of it. Would like to go on from here, but it just feels too complete to expand from here.

“I have not seen anything as beautiful as you since I saw  a video recorder and a sewing machine make love on an operation table.”      

He said to me as I posed nude in front of him. It was a Thursday, we were in his living room, he was etching out my body. I was having him record my body so I can remember what I was, and thirty minutes in, that was when he said it.  

“Really, “ I said “and what became of it?”

“The sewing machine gave birth to a contraption that spins people’s memory into a yarn and create clothing out of it.”

His story was that a sewing machine and a video recorder, on one Sunday morning and by a force beyond their control found themselves going at it on an operation table. 9 months later the sewing machine gave birth to what one can only describe it as a spinning wheel with the mouth of a video recorder.

The yarn it spun out was made from the memory stored in the video cassette, and the clothing it made reminded one of what they have forgotten, like the day he/she was born and his/her father sobbing and recording the child in pleasure. It reminded them of their past birthdays, when they stuffed their faces with food and smiled like the world was going to a place filled with love. It made them remember when they first took that step on their own, when the world was a lot bigger, when the twilight stirred not just a thought of endless tomorrows but a feeling like the shadows creeping in from the window was a visitor who wanted to tell them stories. It made them remember of nights when they saw ghosts but they did not scare them, but rather they welcomed the ghosts and the ghosts in turn crept into their dreams and they danced and played until the morning came.

“And after a while, that machine grew into something else thanks to a man who fell in love with that machine and spilled his blood and semen over the machine.”

He said and gave another stroke of brush. It was mid noon now, that time when kids went out to play and do whatever things that kids do. I heard loud laughs outside the window.   

“As it grew it turned itself into a thing that not just remembered what people went through, but it picked up feelings and gave it into the yarn it spun. The clothing it made now gave them pure feelings, like happiness, anger, sadness, joy, sorrow, hope and despair and so on.”  

People who wore those clothing, he said, put them into a chaos of feeling like they have felt when they were but a child.

Those who wore joy felt rapture like that of a manic depressive, anger made them rage on like they were mortally wronged, sorrow like they were wounded and left to die.

The clothing gave them feelings that went over their limits and soon many fell sick, like they were dragged through sands and deserts and ocean until they could not move their fingers an inch more.

“The problem was that people felt them in full tide.” He said,

“It came to them like a truck running into them head on, there was just no way of controlling that feeling. If they were still a child then there would have been no problem, because there’s no way a child could do any physical harm, but they were adults and adults could reach out higher than a child, grab onto things stronger than a child, and it only took one person who wore anger to grab someone by the neck and snap it right in half.”

“I’m sorry, but is there any reason why you’re telling me this?”

“Not really, just thought I should say something. The quietness was getting too serious. Just felt like I had to say something.”

“Are you done?”

“Just about. Give me a couple more minutes.”

Don't know what to make of this. One thing for sure is that it'd be interesting to see this kind of world

In the future I dream about, man has finally learned that he is nothing more than a beast that can stand on his hind legs and wear clothing.They realized that they were in fact acting like a monkey on display, and that angered them so much.
They tore out their clothing, holler like a crazed beast would, defecate wherever they want to and fucked anyone/anything they wanted. They fought until their stomach was shredded open, their eyes gouged and they swung at each other in blind rage. They died screaming, fucking, biting, poking, gouging, raping, and they all fell on top of each other. Their bodies created a giant pyramid of rotting flesh which the flies and the other wild lives feasted on. Their blood and secretion poured down into the river and united with the water the blood and shit became life that screamed in agony and thrashed its arms around screaming incoherency. Its hollow eyes streamed pink pus and its mouth was filled with teeth down to its throat.
The other great portion of blood, piss, shit and guts streamed down the sewer and there mixed in with the old underwater they made life that burst out of every manholes, showered every dead bodies and brought them back to life. Even in their resurrection everyone attacked each other in rage, killing each other with their own hands, fell once again on top of each other. The blood, piss, shit and secretion once poured down the sewer, created life and showered all over the bodies again and so forth.
In the future I dream everybody is melted into a giant bulb of flesh like a blown up nut sack that tore away at each other until the nut sack broke open and blood and semen poured out everybody died in ecstasy.

Something I just whipped up. Don't know how I should label this as. I guess you could call this a flush fiction? Hope you enjoy. And please leave some feedback. Thank you.

“I really don’t know how to start this, let alone talk about it.”
    “I understand perfectly.” I said to him.
    “Yet, you want me to talk about this.”
    “Yes.”
    “Then I need a drink. And since I am giving you a free lecture on the beginning of how it started, I am expecting you to pay.”
    “I will”
    He ordered a gin and tonic, I asked for a tonic water. It was the beginning of the summer, and the bartender was looking slightly red from all the drink he snuck in from the bottles behind him. The door was open to let the air in, cars were playing radio at the top volume, people were walking around in tank tops and shorts to enjoy the sun.
    I was talking to my cousin because he was one of the survivors involved in the event that eventually sparked the great war of 45.
    It wasn’t that I wanted to know anything, but it was the war that still haunts us to this day, and though the textbooks tell us that an incident in 43 had spread into the war, no one was ever clear about how it happened. Moreover, when I see them today, and compare them to the monsters they were depicted as in the textbooks, I couldn’t help but wonder why people were so afraid and thought that they had to be fought against and conquered.  
    “We were crossing a field that day. Simple as that. We were just trying to get to a market on the other side, and we made sure that we weren’t treading on their land. We even bought a compass for that matter. But the compass was somehow broken. The needle didn’t point correctly to north. So we went astray and before we knew it we were somewhere in the middle of a field. I learned that it was their landowner’s field in the hospital. We were supposed to be skirting the edge of their land. If only that damn compass worked. Really, they say that it’s always something small that spreads into a wildfire. I always laughed at that, but now, I know that it was based on truth. To this day I still damn that shop owner who sold me that compass”
    The day was really picking up its heat, and the bartender turned on the ceiling fan hoping that it might cool the bard down. All it did was just stirred the air around. Heat was starting to surround us, and the open cafe next door was starting to rake in people looking for something cool to drink. There weren’t much people in the bar, just my cousin and me, and some old people who sat in their chairs like they were a fixture in the bar.

“Anyways, there we were, my aunt, Robert and Kasper Elliot,Max and myself, all lost. We didn’t know that the compass was broken, so we kept walking believing that by the end of the day we would reach the market, did out shopping, stop for a day and walk back to the village tomorrow. But like I said we ended up in the field, and before we know it the sun was down, and the market was nowhere near in our sight. My aunt, god bless her soul, went into a panic and started fretting about. She said “Where’s the market? We were supposed to be at the by now, why are we in this field? What do we do? Where are we? What do we do?” and we couldn’t do anything because none of us knew what to do.”

Finally our drinks came. The glasses were already sweating. My uncle took his glass, put it against his forehead for a bit to cool himself.

“But I couldn’t just let her panic like that, so I took her hands and said to her,”Auntie, don’t panic. We are just a little astray from the path. Let’s stay here for the night, and when the day comes we will go back the path we came and find the correct path.” She wanted to say something, but feeling my warmth she calmed down and agreed to stay in the field for the night. If I had known where we were exactly, I would have suggested to trek on the direction we were going. It would have wrecked us all, but it would have been better than spending the night in their midst. ”

He said and took a sip of gin and tonic.

    “My aunt,for reasons unknown to me, she always calmed down and relaxed when she heard my voice. Even when she was in the height of a horrible panic, when she heard my voice she calmed down and relaxed when I told her that she is alright.And she was always prone to those panic attacks. The slightest thing always shot her nerves through the roof. And that day, she was at a point of panic so strong that you would have she would die of fright. She always worried about everything. And I always had to calm her down. We were inseparable in that manner. She could never be away from me because people feared of what she might do without me. But that’s something else.”
    He took another sip, paused for a second, looked at me and said
    “I don’t know if I can talk about this in details. I’m sorry, but it just hurts to remember.”
    “It’s okay. I knew most of what happened from the textbook. I just want to know what happened.”
    At that, he he actually seemed loosened and looked relieved to know that I didn’t really care much for details of the event.

We didn’t really talk after that. Uncle kept sipping his gin and tonic, and I kept staring out the window. I couldn’t even remember why I even asked uncle to talk about his experience. After sometime, I couldn’t bare the silence so I asked him,

“So, uncle, that’s it?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“But the story was that they attacked you guys.”

“That was a lie.”

“Why would they lie about that?”

“Who the hell cares? Maybe the government wanted to expand the land, maybe someone didn’t like them, maybe nothing about what I went through matters. The government wanted a war, and I gave them a real gem of an excuse to kill them.”

“I guess nothing matters, I wasn’t involved in it afterall.”

“Neither was I.”

“What do you mean?”

“When the war broke out I ran.”

“Oh.”

“Well, if you don’t mind, I have to go. Thank you for the drink.”

And like that my uncle went out. After he left I finished my tonic water and realizing that it was half past noon, went to the nearest diner and had my lunch.

Finally, a new writing. This was a very hard labor. Hope you enjoy it. And please give any comments.

What I have learned about Thom Babel through talking to him and by an old man who claims to be his friend

How it ends:

“He drew as if he wanted to paint his life into that picture. Actually, I can’t even say rightly what he wanted out of those drawings. All I knew is that when he drew he was scraping his life, soul, will, strength, in essence everything that a man needs in his life to live. He seemed like he didn’t want to live when he was drawing. He probably felt like there was no joy that he could ever gain in his life, so he had to find a place, even if it was in a picture where he could see himself happy.”

    He said.
    “He was a very reclusive man, was he not?”

He asked.

I nodded and reached for my cup of coffee.

“I thought so. He never did seem like the person who would open himself to anyone.”

He said and reached for his cup of coffee.

The conversation was all his, and somehow he was not comfortable being the one taking the stage. He wanted me to take the stage, or at least come into the light and join the conversation, but I was more interested in getting everything out of him than interjecting what I knew about him.

“Well, after the war he was in a complete daze. Wouldn’t blame him for that. Until the war ended, we all lived like animals, stealing, mugging, selling anything we could get our hands into, god we even sold our closest friend so we could live. And all the sudden an army comes in and rounds us up, and of all the things to say they are here to feed us and shelter us. At first I thought it was some kind of a joke. But some days later they came back with more food than we have ever seen and fed all of us until we were about to burst.”

After that, he took another sip and closed his jacket up a bit. The weather was turning a bit chilly, and I was a little worried about the spaghetti that I boiled for lunch. But this maybe the last of the chance I’d have about knowing who he truly was. There was no way I was about to let this go after all that I learned.

“Anyways, it was hard adjusting to the way things went after the war. Understand, we all stole when we wanted to eat, and now we had to work to earn our living? And that if we worked we would have a place to live, not just a burnt barrack or an abandoned building, but an actual place to live?”

“But we adjusted, hard as it was we came to terms with the fact that war was over, and that we are to live like a civilized man, not an animal. And as we worked, our reasons came back, and as our reasons came back we started to grasp what we have done, and with that nightmares came.”

“I think he took it harder than anyone. I remember days when he was lying in bed eyes shut tight clutching himself and mumbling I’m sorry over and over. We all went through that days of our conscience eating itself out. Somewhere in our minds we knew that we could not and should not have done everything we did, but what could we have done? How could have we survived among the adults who were just as desperate as us and wanted to live even if it meant taking from the children? We convinced ourselves that we had to do this, or we will die.”

After saying that, he went quiet and didn’t dare raise another voice. It’s probably more than 70 years since the war, and it was still here. All these buildings that cover up the old war, and there were still people like him that still remembers.

--------------------------------------------------

How it starts:

I met Thom Babel as a part of this community reach out program for the elders who were seeing their last days of their lives. We were to be assigned an elderly person that we would spend a good part of summer supporting, help them out with grocery shopping and all. I wasn’t really much for meeting anyone, but it did help greatly with my hobby of collecting life stories.

   Back then, I was obsessed with collecting stories. I thought people had common ground to which we all stood, and collecting people’s stories would find me that common ground. I collected everything from what people had last night to the day people were born. The best was when I heard a story of a man who was born in Mars. But I also collected these stories because I felt like without hearing other’s lives I would have gone insane. Back then, I spent my days doing nothing but going to my job at the local bookstore, get whatever books I can get my hands on, go out to the local diner for dinner, go to sleep, and repeat. Sometimes I put in going out to the park to watch the fountain. But I digress.

Thom Babel looked just like any dignified men in his latter years would look. He ironed his clothing so the crease would look like it could cut through bread. His beard was trimmed carefully to match the contour of his face, and he talked in a manner that even a hardened thug would be hardpressed and think to himself “Now here’s a nice man.”

I met Thom Babel, like I said, through a community program. The season was March. The air was clean, a bit crisp with chill but promised that Spring is coming soon. Thom Babel’s apartment was an ancient brick thing stained old with exhaust and bird feces. He lived on the third floor, the last one on the left at the end of a long hallway. When I fist met, he was in white shirt and brown corduroy trousers.   

    “Hi, my name is Gary,”

“That’s enough, you’re only here because of the community program, nothing more is asked.”  

    That was our first exchange. Of course we had more later on, but at first he didn’t really make himself an available person for a conversation.

    As you could imagine, Thom Babel wasn’t really the kind that you’d get along with easily. In fact, he probably was the kind that knew what he liked and how he liked it, and did’t really appreciate anyone mucking about with his preference. He winced slightly when I placed the coffee cup the wrong way, he didn’t look quite happy when I got the wrong brand of bread, he didn’t like it when I would place flower vase on a wrong surface. He didn’t really raise any explicit objection, but you could see in his face that you were messing about in the world he created for himself.

But he never raised any objection. All he did was just sigh and make a face that said “What could I do? I am old, I can not move about like I used to.”

Naturally, we didn’t talk much. He had his way, and he was not about to change anything. And I was nothing more than an intruder into his life. He wanted to see me go as soon as possible, and all I could do was just stay out of his way.

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    And we would have been just that, perfect strangers. But if it did, I wouldn’t have been here in this cafe with this packet in front of me. It’s been said that things happen the way they are meant to, but if that is true then all the children beaten to death by their parents, all the animals born and raised so they can be slaughtered and line the butcher shop window, all the wild lives in the rain forest that are probably dying by the seconds because the rain forest is vanishing like dew drops before the sun light, all those things dying are meant to happen?

If the war didn’t happen, Thom Babel wouldn’t have to suffer everything he did, his mother wouldn’t have went through everything he said she did, and his friend wouldn’t have to suffer like he does, and I wouldn’t be sitting down in this cafe with this packet in front of me. But I digress.  

So we spent the first month not really talking to each other. I stayed out of his way and he corrected everything that I have misplaced or put it down at wrong angle.

He did grew a little soft on me after a few months, for instance he started calling me by my name, but still he made that what could I do face and corrected what mistakes I made. But still we were not anywhere near at the intimacy I wished we would be with him.

Some more months passed and I was cleaning the bedroom when I noticed a rosary lying on a table by the bed. It was a simple wooden rosary, made smooth after years of being rubbed on by surface of flesh. It once may had some details on it, but everything was rounded out after years of being worn.

    Then I heard Mr.Babel call to me. He must have been watching me so I wouldn’t mess anything up.

“Gary, put that rosary down.”   

He said to me in a tone that was a little harder than he always used.

“I’m sorry Mr.Babel”

“Whether you are sorry or not is not the matter. Just put that rosary down and all will be well.”

So I put the rosary down, and he picked it up tenderly like it was something that could break at anytime, and he was trying to ask for its forgiveness about me touching it. After that, he made the what could I do face.

“That must be something important, right?”

“This is nothing you should have any interest in.”

“Well, it’s just that I collect life stories and I thought you might have something interest to talk about.”

“Maybe one day, young man. But for now, please just clean the room and do your job.”

And like that he went out of the room silent like he did going in.

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After some times, Mr.Babel became visibly ill. He grew thinner by the day, and before anyone could tell he took a deep fall and became bedridden. When December came, he looked like he was going to give up his ghost, and I was the only one left that could attend to him (He wasn’t admitted to a hospice because he refused to leave his apartment room).

It was an especially cold day when he called to me.

He called out to me, told me to sit by the bed and said

“Gary, you once told me that you collect stories, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I am dying, and ”

“Mr.Babel please. You are not dying.”

“You are a poor liar. Now, I am willing to tell you my story. But first give me a glass of spirit. There should be a bottle in the pantry that I saved for the holidays.”

“I don’t know if you should be drinking.”

“Just do as I tell you.”

So I brought a bottle of spirit and two glasses to bedside, poured him some fingers of whiskey, and handed him the glass. He kindled the glass in his hands, took a sip, and started to talk.

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Life story of Thom Babel, as told by Thom Babel

I am not a good story teller, so I will start simple. I was born in this town. The year was, it was, my god it was so long ago, could you believe how much time passed? I was born on May 21st some 70 years ago. Let me tell you one thing, this town, back then it was not such a big town. It was some wayward stopping point where people exchanged goods and some men stayed for some rest. God knows how it rebuilt itself after the war.

It all looked different then. Every houses were made of bricks, none of this steel beam high rise existed at all. People used to drive their carts by the means of their horses leading them. Electric light was finally made, and people were surprised how bright things looked even after dark. I was a quiet child, spending my days in my mother’s arms reading whatever I could get my hands on. Whether I could read it or not was not the question. All that mattered was that I was spending time in my mother’s arms.

Strange, I could remember my mother, but I could not remember a thing about my father. But anyways the city was staring to shine bright, some of the carts were replaced by motor vehicles, goods were starting to be stored in a box that kept them cold and fresh. But the box did not last long, so people still needed to replace the box at the exchange so the goods could stay cold.

And the war started when I hit about 8. Everything is vague now, but I remember that some men were talking in a heated manner about the war. Of course no one believed that anyone would even dare to attack a town as small as this, so all that took place was talking. And the government, the government must have thought the same, that no one would even think to attack a landmass this small. And it worked for a while. At least until we, I mean the government started winning the war. It was not like we were winning on our own. The surrounding countries were gaining on them and they were just losing their footholds, that was all. And they saw us, this small land.      

It was the last days of the war, and I was about 10 years old. I don’t believe the government teaches much about the great war these days, no? Good, that was one war where no sides stood victorious. Better get it out of the history and we can progress forward. Anyway, the invading force knew that there is nothing left of them if the next raid failed. And of course they knew they were losing, so they took every measure to break down our city walls so they can at least take what was left of the city. The raid went on for days, and the city wall stood brave, but on the 4th day the wall cracked and they poured in like locusts. The sound that the wall made when it crumbled, the marching of boots, the loud yelling of the soldiers and their guns discharging bullets, they still haunt my dreams.

The men took everything, light poles, vehicles, just about everything they could get their hands on. Our men died like flies, and the women were taken in to pleasure them. My mother was taken with them too. I was scared when they took her. I thought, my god I am now all alone. I am going to die. But somehow they came back to take me as well. So I was reunited with mother, but they have made a whore out of her.

And they treated her like one too. They had her anytime they wanted. They came in whether we were sleeping or having our meal. To them, she was just a facet to pour out their semen into. And she, she always had me close, even when they were having her. Some of the men eyed her as if telling her to get me outside while they did what they wanted, but she always shook her head no. So I watched her and every time they had her I thought, ‘But that’s my mother, she’s not yours, she’s my mother.’ I suppose now that I think about it she always kept me near because she feared that there might be more of the men waiting outside, and some of them might not care to violate a boy.

They had pleasure with her. Anytime of the day, if they so desired they would take her into their rooms and had her. Sometimes they even had her in front of me. It was a horrible scene. It was clear she wanted me to turn my head away, which I did, but the noise it made and the panting the men made were impossible to ignore. The creaking floorboards, those stale smell of rotting semen splattered over her, that smell of semen that had seeped into everything in the room, they were all unbearable.

 
    This went on until the war ended, the surrounding countries came in and liberated us, we were given food and shelter, and we started our lives again.

Of course, it was not that easy, mind you. Everything was in ruins, and there was no way we were able to afford the lives we used to. We have just lost everything and the government was in ruins as well, so there were no help from them as well.

Those were years, and I am sorry but the memories still haunt me. Yes, I promised that I would tell you everything, but let this be something that I will be taking to my grave.  

Of course we could not stay poor, nothing could ever stay in ruins forever. It was a lot worse when the war ended and people were actually starting to rebuild their lives. I’d see houses and apartments get rebuilt, and they would stand there unharmed with nothing to demolish it to rubbles. All those years of bombarding has made it really hard for me to think that anything could stand forever, yet there they stand like nothing could ever erode their existence. And people too, they started laughing and play music and some times they would even go out to eat. Unimaginable! People that I knew had all lived underground cowering in fear, bent over in hunger and somehow the world was recovering enough to actually enjoy lives again.”

”It was very surreal, those years. I could not believe that what was standing in front of me was real. Everything that I held in my hand felt light like air, nothing I ate tasted real, nothing I gazed looked like they were rooted in this world. I lived my life in haze, it was just impossible to think that those dreadful days were over and that we could all go out and be marry again.

But mind you, there were moments when things felt like they were real. There were moments when I went to a cafe, had a plate of food whatever it was and felt as though things could all coincide with each other. There were days when I would wake up to feel something in the air that would raise my heart. But as soon as that moment is seen, it would go away just as quick.

Many years after the war, I thought about what my mother had to endure through the occupation. Her beauty placed her as the favorite pet of the occupying force, and that earned her meager living for both of us. And when they were bored with her, their perversity forced her into the lowest that a woman or a man should bear. They made her perform all sorts of horrible things. They did everything they can to break her. It was like watching a cat playing with its food until it was dead. And still she kept her dignity. She took the worst they could and she still kept her dignity.

When enough time passed that I felt like I could go on with life again, I started seeing two images in my head. One was that of a man who is stripping himself of his hair, skin, muscle, eyes, bones and turning himself into nothing. The other image was that of a centipede whose limbs were like rooms that held the worst possible humilimation a man could imagine. The images haunted me with out an end. Day in and out, I would see a man taking his skin and stripping himself of his flesh like he is taking off clothing. It was all unbearable.

These images, they haunted me any time of the day. It’s especially horrible when it rains. The rain drops hitting against the window of my room seems to tap upon a storage in my head and bring forth what I wish not to see again as long as I live.

What I’ve done, what I endured, they were all horrible. One should not be exposed to such things. Yes, when you look back at that time, you could say that I was simply a casualty of war, and what I have done after the war was simply a means to survival. But I assure you that no matter how much excuses you could say what is inside your head and heart will stay with you and torment you until the day you die. All I could say is, what could I do? How else could I have survived?

    I am sorry, but I think I need to take a rest. Do not worry. I am just going to take a nap. I will be alright. If you could, please take care of the glasses, thank you. Yes, maybe tomorrow I will talk some more.

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But he never said anything more after that. He just spent the rest of his days staring out the window like he has finally let go of that final piece of his soul and he was now just waiting for his body to expire. I would implore him to go on with his story, but he would refuse by saying

”It has taken aging to this old flesh to come to start forgiving myself. I think it will take my death bed to confess anything. It’s all still too early.”

   
    He died three months after. In his deathbed he took my hands and said

“I needed someway to get everything out of myself or it would soon eat into myself and all that would be left is this night that would never end where I will be forced to live those nights that I had to act out those horrible things to my mother again. I am sorry I had used you like this. But it was all unbearable.”

”If there is anything you may learn from this, let this be the lesson. Please understand that time does not heal all wounds. Wounds will stay open. They will turn sour, they will blacken, they will eat into flesh, they will ooze pus until your breathing stops. All that time does for you is to give you enough space to forget that you are feeling pain.”

And he took his last breath, and my community service was over like that.

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Afterwards to come before how it ends:

After the whole community service thing and some years later, I was greeted by someone who claimed to be his friend called.

It was a day in the beginning of December, days were starting to get cold, leaves that turned red and yellow were starting to fall, and I was hitting the 5th year of relationship with my girlfriend, and we were seriously thinking about maybe we could stay together until one of us dies.

When he called I was boiling spaghetti for lunch.    

“Hello, this is Roland Flint.” The voice said over the phone. “You do not know me, and that is probably for the better. All that needs to be understood is that I was a friend of Thom Babel.”
    “I was wondering if I could meet you over a coffee.”
    And so it all started.
   
    On the first impression, Roland Flint looked like a mouse that lived way too long on fiber and nothing else. He looked beaten, weathered, tired, and he had the air of someone who has accepted that he is about to die. Looking at him, I couldn’t help but think, how could this generation be so downtrodden that they all looked like they couldn’t wait to die?

    We didn’t talk at all. All that Mr.Flint did was sip his coffee slowly and mentioned that he was a friend of Mr.Babel. That he met Mr.Babel during the war, that they used to live together, and grew up together.

“We did everything together, we survived together.”

And he went quiet again.

After some more silence, he said to me

“I’m here because Babel wanted to hand over his sketch book. God knows what’s inside. He never showed anything he drew. All I could tell was that he was he was drawing in somethings that he couldn’t keep in himself. Christ, he drew like he was scraping his life away so he could be gone from this world.”

“You know, Babel used to tell me ‘One day I will pass away, and I can not wait for the day when my breathing stops and I no longer have to be terrified of what my memories bring upon me. I truly can not wait for the day when I die. It’s oh so terrible, I wake up thinking that I have to live another day, and when night closes in, I weep because all that I have done come back to me through the cracks on the wall’ He also told me ‘I do not think that there is any happiness left for me in this world.’”

After that, he handed me a package no bigger than a notebook, and before I could say thank you or let me pay for the coffee, he got up, grabbed me by the hand and said

“Young man, I will be the last of the generation to remember the war. No one will remember what exactly happened after I die. You do not know the relief I get knowing that, do you?”

After that he fished out some changes from his pocket,threw them on the table and walked out.

I stayed in my seat and looked at the package. Inside of it was probably a sketch book that Mr.Babel has left for me. If I open it, I will probably see what he has seen, and with it I will join the ranks of them that remembers the war. But they are all going to die, and the war is over. And they all said in unison that they can’t wait for the day they will die and the war will finally be forgotten. How could I join them? How could I remember this and not disappoint them? I mean, what could I do?