Incaarnate Darkness (In the Trenches of WWI, 1918)

Incarnate Darkness
(In the trenches of WWI, 1918)




The sun was hot, they were lazy in the trench, they felt time was their own, and they lingered back and forth within its surroundings. Just beyond them, an ugly black sight lying stretched out were dead bodies of slain soldiers, perhaps from yesterday’s battle, or the day before yesterday, they had just been assigned to this section of the trench, rats were gnawing on them. They were just a foot from the edge of the rim of the trench, “Look,” a voice said, “be careful… though!” (Why he said what he said, and whoever said it, and even if one of the four did say it, or didn’t say it, it would be food for thought at a much later date. But all looked over the trench.)
I don’t know why they all decided to look at the same time, over the edge, but they did, perhaps there is a dominating force which draws on lesser ones to create in the long run, greater ones, at least this perchance could be its base; in any case there was four thuds, all at the same time, in the hot air.

Something, cast a quick downward glance, saw the eyes of the four, fixed on Adolf, the perfect incarnation of hate.
There was a muffled cry, as if it came from the thing glaring down upon the four, a she-devil, or seer-cat, something of that nature, it was gnashing its teeth and its paws and claws.

•

You could hear scattered shots and a few intermittent explosions from hand grenades. Hans and Gunter, Ludwig and Adolf, lie their weapons down in the trench every cell in anticipation that what they had heard might be true, peace was forthcoming this afternoon, and these other sounds were just the enemy using up their ammunition before they to lay down their arms; Ludwig felt whatever comes has got to be better than living with the worms be it put into another man’s jail, or hopefully an Armistice.

•

A death expression came over their faces, frozen in time, the morning fog had lifted, they remained stone-still, for a millisecond, after looking over the rim.


•

Said Ludwig, to the other three, “There is nothing quick in a war, unless death precedes it; and now he could smell it…
“Death is in the air, I smell it, it is with us” he commented.
“What is it?” asked Adolf, sweating.
“I hear a voice, don’t you, it sounds hollow as if in a fog, as if from a grave.”
Said Gunter, randomly, “We are so used to noise, this is really odd. What happened to Adolf?”


(Dark-looming shadows joined the voice, clenched tightly to one another.)

Hans shakes his head, “Maybe we got that peace treaty after all, it’s all so quite.”
“That could be true,” said Gunter.

(The voice laughed, as did the shadows.)

Now the three looked suspiciously for their forth comrade, looked at one another, looked up and down the trench to see if he got shot, if there was an extra body laying about. At the same time, the shadows were stretching themselves out, surrounding the trench, disposing them, cautiously, then they slipped down into the trench.
Ludwig shrugged his shoulders, the voice said: “The rumor is, you are all dead,” then there was laughter among the shadows.
Now the shadows produced growls, the three murmured to one another, “Where is Adolf?”
“Forward! – Forward!” yelped the voice, but the three would not move.

Adolf looked at the voice, and the shadows, and down at his three comrades, laying with the worms, said the voice, “You can stay here Adolf, you need to go up to your destiny.”

Adolf could hear the scraping sounds of belts being tightened around the wrists of his comrades, the spirits within their bodies unable to escape it; and the reeking smell of death suddenly rose, as he heard the shouts of “Armistice!—Armistice!” echo his way.


As Adolf looked back at the bodies in the trench, especially his three comrades, he now saw their heads—it was as if he was blind to them before—their heads with shattered out brains (he questioned himself: ‘why wasn’t his brains shattered out? he was the forth thud’); as the dark swift shadows pulled them along like rugs to their new destiny.

He felt his hands and face, even his legs, pinched himself, as if he might be grotesquely dead, and didn’t know it, like his dead friends; and when he came to the conclusion he was still flesh and blood, in that he was so frightfully real was incomprehensible. His whole demeanor then changed.

3-9-2009