The Castle

The sun is rising from the depths of our dark, cold ocean. A storm is beginning slowly but surely.
This is the moment when everyone is sleeping. And if they are not it is because they didn't sleep at all.
And everyone knows what's waiting for them. The day just begun and it will be a bad one, I can feel it. I
wash my face and feel the fresh beard which has grown on my chin and cheeks. A beard rough like emery
or like my life I might say. But I don't want to be all blood-and-thunder so I'm trying to concentrate on
what I have to do. I put on my uniform that was washed, starched and ironed but still smells like metal
and you can see one or two little lighter spots on the black material. Is useless to try to get rid of them.
And I got at the point where I don't care if I'm immaculate or not. The hall is still quiet and just my steps
can be heard in the total silence. I feel like I'm going willingly at my own funeral. The air is cold and I'm
walking down the stairs for too much time already. Through every hall I pass I see furrowed, scared or
angry faces, even if they are sleeping or not. They are all like a huge, dreadful painting, made by some
sick contemporary artist who tried to replicate the Inquisition. Neons are flashing in pace with my heart. I
hear the siren deeply in my bones and I know a ship is coming. If it is not something we should fear I will
not hear that siren again. And I don't. Maybe is the ship with the food. I forgot if it comes today. When I
finally arrive at the "chamber of secrets" the man had already died. " It was a tough one. " The blood is
slowly dripping on the green wall. The poor body is standing inert on a chair. Another man stands beside
him with a smile on his face. " But he told me everything. " he says. You didn't have to kill him if he told
you all you wanted to know. " Don't look at me like that. You would have done the same. " That's true.
But not with that smile. My colleague puts on his jacket and leaves, wiping his face in the same time.
Some young boys are cleaning the walls with hot water. Steam rises in the cold room and it warms my
face a little. The drops of blood looks like red flowers on a green plain. The boy's hand goes up and down
and the flowers are slowly disappearing. I feel like an important piece of art is removed with brutality.
The last mark a man had left is destroyed. But it does not matter anymore. He is dead now and so will we.
After I look hipnotized at the wall for some time I go in my way and let the poor guy in the hands of fate.
I know what will happen. He will be buried in a common grave and I can’t do anything to prevent that.
Everyone will forget about him, but not me. He was a good man. He saved me when I was just a young
lad. We were attaked and I was seriously injured. I remember when I stood stood helpless with my head
on his lap, crying, praying not to die. I was young and scared and the last images I can remember are the
beach, all those seagulls in the air and on the ground, the sound of the ocean, that magnificent sound that
calmed me somehow. I remember the lullaby song of the waves, and my comrade, my friend who was
crying over me. He was imprisoned because he stoled weapons and sold them to the enemy. It wasn't
much, but his daughter was sick. He did everything for her. I told him not to do it, but of course he didn't
listened. All I could do was to take care of him after he was arrested. My superiors considered he was a
traitor and he deserved to die, but not after he tells everything he knows about the enemy. Obvious, he
knew nothing, but he invented something and hopeed that he will be released. My superiors hadn't left me
to interrogate him, or at least to be near him. They thought I would help him to escape, and they were
right. I even tried that once, but it did not work. Now he is dead, I am alive and I am jealous of him. He
will not fight the guilt of letting your comarade die like that, and not to be beside him. I know he wasn't
mad at me. I hate him because of that, and I hate me for hating him. It's a vicious circle where you can not
escape. I patrol for one or two hours and a priest comes and tells me he has been sent with a ship from a
foreign country to keep the devil away from us and to take the evil out of some prisoner. Even I don't
expect the laugh that comes out of my mouth. I wish him luck and I go on the roof to calm down to
admire the landscape that I kneow so well. The wind is blowing soft and I think maybe, just maybe, a
place with absolute peace is possible. And if it is, then is right here, right now, on the top of all the
suffering, and the hate and fear. Here where you can see the ocean in all its magnificence and feel the
silence while it fills you. Without this silence, I think I would be dead by now. I walk down the stairs and
I see the priest coming disappointed from a cell. He tells me he will not give up until he takes the devil
out of that man. I wish him luck again and walk away, decided to keep an eye on him for some time, to
see what will happen. The days are passing and he is trying harder and harder to do what he was sent here
for. He seems young, thirty, maybe thirty-five years old. He is fasting, praying endlessly and trying every
day to exorcise a man that probably is just insane. Three weeks have passed and the young priest has
finally came to me and tells me I was right to laugh, it is insane to try to heal a mad person with prayers. I
don't think he is right, maybe that man is really possessed and you can help him, but not here. This castle
is where the devil won't go. He looks at me helpless and without hope so I ask him how he got here. He
tells me his parents are the faithful people he knows. He was raised in this spirit, but he was never like
them. However he accepted to have a spirituale life as it befites to a true christian family. But when he
was ten years old, he was possessed by Satan himself. On that fatidic night his body was seized with
convulsions, he started to scream and his mouth was full of foam. In the morning he didn't remembered
anything, all he had felt was his tongue covered in blood, but his parents looked at him with hate and fear.
They said he wasn't faithful enough. After five or six nights like this and priests who have come and gone
out of his house, his parents decided to sent him to monastery. "May God have mercy on your soul", they
said. But before he left his house a doctore came and tryed to talk with his parents and explain that their
son is not possessed, but sick. That the demon who took the control of his body is named epilepsy and
there are drugs that can help. " Phenytoin wasn't invented back then, I don't know what kind of drugs he
gaved me, but they worked. Obviously, I took them secretly. When I was in monastery I stopped because
I thought that my parents were right and I don't need any drugs, just faith. " But one morning he didn't
found himself in bed, but on the floor. His mouth was full of blood and his tongue bitten on edges. "After
that I realised I need medical help. Prayers are good, but not enough in this kind of situations. So in 1940
I started taking phenytonin. Every night I was afraid I could do a crisis, and my brothers from monastery
could find me like this. They probabely would have burned me alive after they realised that I can not be
exorcised. I wanted to leave the church and make a family, but I couldn’t. I didn’t had enough courage.
Now I have to stay in a prison to spread the word of God to people who feel betrayed by Him. If I think
about it, I am the crazy one here. " Days are passing by and the young priest tells me more and more
things about him. Like the brutal way his dad beated him, because beating comes from haven. The way he
cried over and over again in his room because his parents treated him like he had plague, the fact that the
kids in school really thought that he had a demon in him and they were throwing all kinds of things
touards him, from apples to rocks. But after all that dreadful stories, he tels me about the girl he felled in
love. " She wasan't necesary beautiful, but the way she looked at me, actually at everything, made me fell
in love with her. Her eyes were too big and her nose was snubby, but her lips were pretty and her body
was athletic and slim. She was perfect for me. And she was smart, a little dreamy, but smart. One day she
told me, " You want to go to haven, but you're human tonight. You will be human tomorrow, the day after
tomorrow and so on. One day you will be dead and I will be there to wach how the two of us will become
young gods". I loved her for this. I felt loved for the first time in my life. She knew I was sick, but she
wasn't afraid. And she had blue eyes, like you." I asked him what happened with her. " She is dead. An
accident, she was riding her horse and fell off. They said she breacked her neck. I wasn't there to see. She
was clumsy, it is possible. I miss her, but I belive in her promise. Anyway, I am sure I will met her again.
" His faith was so pure. It was heartborken because I didn't think they will see each other again. Maybe I
am just too negativist, but I don't belive in after-life. After four or five days a thought came in my mind
and I asked him how did they met? " One day she came at the monastery to confess her sins. She was with
her mother. I sat there exhausted, all I wanted to do in that moment was to sleep, so I told her to say why
she was there. She said that her mother forced her to come and she acceptet just because she wanted to
see what kind of person is a priest. She asked me all kind of questions. In other words I confessed to her.
In monastery we confess our sins and thoughts all the time, but this was different. I told her everything,
just like I tell you. You, just like her, opened my soul. I’m really happy that I met you. It feels like you’re
the only normal person in this whole world." Not much time had passed after he said all these to me and I
find him with his tongue swallowed in his room. How tragic, he was so afraid he will die like this and
here he is. I really hope he will met that girl again in haven. If something like this really exist. Today I
returned from my shift change. I realised that my life out there has no sense. My wife is dead, she died of
breast cancer. She was so gentle, so sweet. I was destroyed when she died, but I was glad in the same time
because she no longer had to suffer. My kids are spread all over the world, I didn't seen them in ages. All
I have left is my castle and the sea. Now I sit here, on the top of my kingdom and I wait. Above of all the
suffering, all the hate.Above this hell. Istay on a pile oh dead souls. And i feel the death within me. I wait
and watch over all this dark, cold ocean untill I found out if God trully exists. Untill then, I'm the God of
everything here. * Today I found this notebook on the rooftop. I don't know whose belongs to. It seems
that many people had write in it. In any case, I don't realy care right now. This is the first day for me here.
It's creepy in there, but the landscape is magnificent. When I look at the ocean I feel like I'm the king of
the castle.