IN the 4th REICH

[Eva Libre]

Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me.

George Orwell from the dystopian novel 1984

I want to signal to you that the infernal fire which consumes me is only a fragment of the mirror of the fire consuming the world. What would be the point of detailing to you symptoms of the disease? We are both breeders of the same virus. And I find myself sickened by the laws of  reason.

The wolf is leaner, less conflicted and stronger than the werewolf. As creation has continued far longer than human imagination. The werewolf resembles its purer ancestor only palely and yet gorges as savagely on the bloody mass of quivering flesh.  Why bother to mention this since we have already assimilated our nefarious spectacles of murder and dismemberment?

The house you live in locks you in. The bars are made of nonsense and the chaos of noise and lies. The key is hidden in your pocket. It is as cold as a finger of death and constantly you touch the object devoid of either plan or purpose.

Outside the glass cage of a window, I stand in the alley of shadows, unseen, but you know I am watching. My intention is not to alarm you, but to instill fear in the feeble hearts of your wife and children. We are all duty bound to acknowledge the nightmare cruelty of a shared inheritance. Death to empathy and civil discourse!

You dine as you sit in the numbing vacuity of darkness, as you sip the tart bitterness of a blood red evening wine.

When you make love, you recite the silence of generations. You whisper to her body that she is the gravestone of your prayer.

Midnight and the wolf at the distance, having fled the wolf pack for a cause beyond nature, is heard, as if keening from the sewers of consciousness, growls and  gnaws on a bone of the moon. “If ever in our instinctual folly we make a child,” you incantate  gravely to the flesh beneath you, “we must name him Wolfgang. Or else, Vald the Impaler.”

She who is conjoined with the labor of night, sighs as her body quivers. Her lips, exhausted by endurance, hang open. The word she utters is muffled and undiscernible.

In the morning, you drink stale coffee, clutching the cup with a steady hand, announcing that you have joined the Party.

Positioned at the back of the garden, beside the chestnut tree, you see me watching in through the kitchen window. Emotionlessly observing the masks of your wife and children, banal and expressionlessly your eyes pass over mine. You know that we know where you are. No need to mention the disappearance of others. A minor quiver fleetingly distorts your lips.

Each day inside the Reich dulls the senses and moves us further from the enigma of human identity. Every hour pulls us closer to the hour of Fenrir Wolf the beast of Ragnarök. These too  are consequences of denial.

* * *

David Sparenberg

is a humanitarian & eco-poet, international essayist and storyteller. He is the author of three recently published eBooks, IN SEARCH of THOMAS PAINE (5 April), EOC SANITY (22 May) & ECO WOKE (18 July),eachfrom OVI eBooks & the Word Press. OVI eBooks are always FREE to download. David lives in Seattle, WA in the Pacific Northwest of the United States but identifies as a World Citizen.