In the Field of Pseudo-Existence With God in the Margin

The Ash Lubber

Limping like a village idiot through the ash heaps of the dead world formerly known as planet Earth, I spot a sudden movement in the distance, past the perimeter of the impact zone, and it catches my attention. This is the field of pseudo-existence where normality breaks down, if it ever existed. It is uninhabitable to all lifeforms that breathe air. For that reason, among others, I doubt my eyes. Is there something moving out there, or is it a mirage? I squint and stare at the smoggy, faintly glowing horizon. Yes, there’s a creature, and it seems to walk upright in a bipedal stride. My clogged heart begins to beat faster. For such a long time, I’ve dreamed and fantasised that maybe I’m not the last survivor, that I’ll meet another one day. This is the sign I’ve been waiting for. I must catch up with the creature before it disappears, lethal radiation be damned.

The field of pseudo-existence was flattened in H’rmgedden. Since it lacks buildings or other landmarks, the sense of distance within it is almost nullified. Radiant smog that goes down to the ground makes the other two dimensions equally obscure. The air shimmers in the most enigmatic hues of black-yellow and pistachio. This is deadly territory, but it must be crossed. Let’s tighten the heel prosthesis, tie a hard knot on the shoelaces and go after it.

A Shy Devil

It is a dusty path indeed; I stir up a cloud moving through the blacklands. But focus! For my eyes have not deceived me. What is out there in the margin is undoubtedly a human figure, but now it has spotted me, and it shies away, scared to meet. I waddle as fast as I can to catch up, the ash fuming around my feet. The biped knows I’m closing in, and it casts anxious glances over its shoulder.

Getting closer, I can see that it is in poor physical condition, even worse than mine, but miraculously, it has managed to stay alive. It is unusually tall and thin, bony and ugly with scaly skin, but as in my most fervent hopes, it is a female. Beggars can’t be choosers, and a bit of living pussy will give my misery a thin golden edge.

I forge my plans while I limp behind her. I will make her mine, but let’s be realistic. Given her malnutrition, burns, and general frailty, I predict she is beyond recovery. As she turns her head and looks back at me, I see the demonic panic glowing in her eyes. That stare and the eye colour reveal that most of her humanity is gone. To put it cynically, she won’t offer witty conversation to get us through the dark atomic nights. Nor will she be useful for any household chores. The best I can hope for is that her internal genitalia is still reasonably intact, and that outlook is better. It ought to be the last part of a woman that gets burned.

The Cellar of the Heart

I know the perfect cellar to keep her in. Conveniently, it already has a pile of mattresses and a bathtub. I will fill the tub with cooking oil, cut off her disgusting rags and hair, and then wash her thoroughly in the oil. It will clean the ashes off and soothe her burn wounds. It is probably best to leave her oiled up at all times. A long, pretty dress will cover most of her scabies.
This cellar will be our love nest, and I shall keep her until she grows cold. This arrangement ought to be mutually beneficial. She’ll surely be happier down there than out here, in the margin, running from whatever haunts her.

Love’s a Burning Flame

I’m closing in and lash out to grab hold of her, to stop her momentum. Wrapping arm around waist, the body contact is not what I expected. To my surprise, her abdomen instantly dissolves into a sparkling inferno. A wave of heat and a bitter stench hits me like a slap in the face. She seems to have no substance, but a slow-burning fire that is consuming her from the inside.
My arm continues straight through the red-hot spine, splitting her in half, and the smouldering body halves hit the ground, crackling like fireworks, in gusts of embers and soot flakes. Her entire body is an empty, fragile shell. It takes only seconds, and then she has weathered away before me, like a pillar of salt hit by a sledgehammer. All that remains is a ring of hot ash and bitter steam that rises to the sky, leaving a lingering odour of burnt resin.

Alas, the object of my dreams of budding love has turned to dust and vapour. This is the moment my heart decides to go on strike. Perhaps it knows that this was the last shot. Love will never come again. The old pump has had enough of the charade of life, and now it doesn’t want to play the game anymore. It stutters, and time slows down.
There I stand, in the crumbled ashes of my bride-to-be, with the burn blisters bubbling on my forearm, giving myself a frantic heart massage. The smog eats into me, and it becomes difficult to breathe.

Smog Revelations

Inside the smog, I hear a voice, a sound I haven’t heard in forever. Have I become completely delusional? Lost my mind as well as my heart’s confidence? Or has the margin come to life?
I blame the shock, the burns, the loss of blood and oxygen to the brain and the idiotic idea to visit this molten hell; all these together must have caused my current mental state. Like the loss of spatial coordinates, one suffers out here; I have become detached from reality.
To add to my auditory hallucinations, I also suffer from visual ones. I suddenly see an upright, light red ellipse form in the smog, and it seems to hold an inter-dimensional portal. Music is heard from inside it, a rising drum roll and trumpet blasts. Then comes a seismic bang that sends me stumbling backwards. A visitor is announced, but I cannot make out the name. I’m telling myself, “not again”, but as it descends, it radiates a different kind of energy than he who was my Master.

Suffer Not a Witch to Live

Behind the smokescreen emerges the shadow of a giant. To my surprise, I sense a benign, or at least neutral, perhaps divine power. I know it isn’t a visit from the creator of all things great and small. I’m not that crazy. The highest God is an abstraction, separated from us by layers of intangibility and reality. He would not visit me because I am not worthy, but he may send one of his minions, those who can enter our world and exit it as they please.
Is it the Demiurge, a god from the old world, hungry for human sacrifice, or an apparition of Jesus Christ? It might be Mercury, the Messenger. He has nothing to gain down here anymore, but he has always been the bridge between the worlds. Perhaps he is visiting the old hood out of nostalgia.

A Sacred Message

The giant’s movements are monumentally slow as if he exists on an unearthly time scale, but eventually, he steps out of the ellipse. He’s dressed in striped Flossenburg¹ pyjamas, sporting red rubber boots, which are convenient out here, and has a little black cloud on his head shaped like a spongy beret. Under his right arm dangles a sheep of enormous proportions. That sheep looks delicious. Are you going to eat that, Great One? Because if not, I wouldn’t mind a slab or two of fresh meat. I haven’t eaten anything but blackened corpses for years.

The giant figure looks down at me. He holds out his left hand and opens it slowly, palm facing upwards. A white flame appears in it. It burns like a mushroom cloud for a few seconds. Then he clenches his fist, and it goes out. He puts his fist to his heart with a dull thud that makes the ashes swirl around his boots. Then he lifts the clenched fist to his mouth and blows into it as if to cool it down. His arm falls to the side. He looks at me again to let me know I’m not getting anything more. Having done what he came for, apparently, the giant sluggard turns around and retreats into the portal. The red light goes out.

Why Lord?

God, was this necessary? If you want to prolong my misery, I get it. You mean to rob me of my last chance at love, and I have to stay here until I rot away completely. I guess our lovers’ union would have been a violation of your rules. Fair enough, but why the drama?
God, as always, does not answer. He only communicates through proxies. He is responsible for the state of the world, but he doesn’t care since he’s self-sufficient and well-fed wherever he is. He stays away. Perhaps he’s gotten too big to fit through that hole. It wouldn’t surprise me. All those souls from H’rmgedden and the preceding ages of death, disease and disaster must have fattened him up. It is what keeps him content, as the walking contradiction he is.

God’s Dark Past

Where did God come from? It is a chicken-and-egg dilemma that is almost impossible to solve, relying on square human logic. That is because the universe started from an illogical position. In the beginning, they say, there was nothing but darkness. God was there but he had no origin and no end since he was outside of time and space. At some point, or rather no particular point in time, God decided to create everything for his own glory. None of which makes any sense.

I have a better suggestion. In the beginning, God pulled himself out of his rectum. No one, except God, knows how it was even possible. It may sound blasphemous, but the signs are everywhere: this is an ass world.

I will speak no more of it. Let me return to my desolate tower before darkness falls over the ruins. When it gets dark out here, it’s serious. There is no electricity anymore, and the starry night sky is blocked out by the stratospheric ash layer. I hurry back to my lonely night camp like a grey sow crawling under a rock.
Goodbye, sweet demon pussy. Never shall the two of us be united in lovers’ bliss, and good night, God, wherever you are, you fat bastard.

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Flossenbürg: German WW2 concentration camp near the border with Czechoslovakia [↩]

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