From the pits of hell I screamed. The Devil’s helping hand whipped me in the back. He whipped, and whipped me till I fell on my knees and screamed even louder. I passed away from the pain. When I came around I was standing in a long line of people, all men, all ages, and all shapes. I tried to scream again, but could not, a chain wrapped around my neck, so tight that I could not breathe the foul air. I turned around, and was whipped again. The Devil’s helping hand gestured to me to face forward. As far as I could see there were men with their backs hunched and their faces looking down, looking at the burning ground. I lifted my hand to loosen the chain. The Devil’s helping hand grabbed the chain, yanked it, made me fall on the ground. The burning ground scorched my hands. I looked at my blisters, looked up at him and screamed again. He shouted in the burning air, we have a subversive.
A galloping horse approached me, the horseman draped in black cloak. I raised my arm in front of my face, the horse stopped and roared. The cloaked man beat me mercilessly till I passed away. When I was awakened again blood was dripping from my wounds, my body in unbearable pain, but without suffering, its existence present, but not its feel, only the horror of pain, unending pain from my head to my toes. Yet, I walked, along others, towards a gate leading to an unknown world. Every few minutes the line moved forward a few steps, and stopped again. I did not dare to look back again.
A boy with a nay was in front of me, with a broken neck, elongated, grotesquely twisted, his head dangling on top of it. He raised his nay to his lips and began to play a sad tune. The Devil’s helping hand came around and looked at him, shouted at him to stop and snatched the nay out of his hands. The boy looked down, still hunched, inhaled the abhorrent air into his frail lungs and began to sing the saddest song I’ve ever heard.
I was a boy in the land of plenty
Knew not of joy, without a toy
My mother, voided beauty
My father, blood thirsty
Beat me mercilessly
My mother, voided beauty
My father, blood thirsty
Ran away
To the burg of dying
Crying
Bleeding
Unliving
Unloving
My mother, voided beauty
My father, blood thirsty
Begged and scrounged
My back hunched
Unfit, they claimed
Spit on him, they exclaimed
Guilty, they said
He confessed, they said
Detain
Crane
End of endless pain
My mother, voided beauty
My father, blood thirsty
The boy stopped singing. The men took a few steps forward. I moved along with them, quietly.
