Silhouette

By Joël Benjamin

A young man loses his entire family to a regime hell-bent on destroying religion. Devoured by his own grief and guilt he becomes a shadow in the night, determined to reveal the line between right and wrong has faded. For two years he trains to become the greatest warrior in the country. Using only his fists, feet and blades he hardens his body. When it won't get any harder he takes on the government agency by agency. Believing he too has died with his family, his humanity slips and the shadow deepens.
    A captain driven by the ghost of his late, deeply religious father is pitted against the young man that slipped through his fingers. While dividing his attention between a program to reintegrate youngsters who were brainwashed to fit into society, and the hunt for a rogue killer the captain finds himself under increasing pressure. Facing a ruthless killer in a struggle at night and his younger brother during the day.
    A spy from Great Britain posing as a student with a shared past with the killer joins the lone warrior, against a regime helped into power by the international community to rid the world of religious extremism. The spy slips deeper into the shadow that is Silhouette and is forced to watch more men die horrible deaths than he ever has in his military past. Constantly questioning what is acceptable and what is not.
    A sensei befriends the most dangerous warrior he has ever had the privilege of meeting and expands the shadow's knowledge and skills. Fulfilling a destiny long foretold. 
    As the shadow darkens the greyness that is society is driven back by the righteous, bloody horror the two killers subject the police and military to. As the pyramid of the government is destroyed from the bottom up it is only a matter of time until it all comes crashing down. All the while the question is asked; what is right, and what is wrong? A Nation falls, an ocean of blood is spilled and a legend is born. Silhouette. 

Joël Benjamin

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joël Benjamin
• Release date: Feb 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393456070

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Joël Benjamin

Silhouette

A tale of shades and shadows

Copyright © 2019 by Joël Benjamin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Joël Benjamin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

First edition

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For Rianne, who helped me finally publish this book for all the world to read.

&

Special thanks to Kevin Schuck for mentoring me in my first steps as an aspiring writer.

…everything is greyness when balance is disturbed beyond repair; then shadows are born.

Silhoutte

Contents

Silhouette

Prologue – Who I was

Chapter I - What I Am

Chapter II - What I’ve Become

Chapter III – Interwoven

Chapter IV – Crimson Poet

Chapter V – The Teachers and Those Taught

Chapter VI – Headstones and Empty Homes

Chapter VII – The Crimson Carpet

Chapter VIII – Bloodpaved

Chapter IX – Final Days

Chapter X – War

Chapter XI – The Red Steps

Chapter XII – The Dogs of War

Chapter XIII – Finest Hour

Chapter XIV – Into the Night

Chapter XV – Sic Semper Tyranus

XVII – Nature versus Nurture

Epilogue – Closure

Silhouette

A Tale of Shadows and of Shades

Prologue – Who I was

I feel like my wallpaper sometimes, but to understand this you need to know what it looks like. The wallpaper is – no forgive me – was white with black squares on it. The squares were about five different sizes, and not all-black, just the frame really. The frames overlapped here and there, forming patterns, paths, tunnels in and out of the wall and when you looked at one long enough you could see white things shooting in straight lines across the corners of the squares. Up and down, left and right, here and there; everywhere. I feel like that sometimes: thoughts straying everywhere solely to end up absolutely nowhere. Random frames of thought overlap here and there forming either brilliantly clear, or insanely obscure relationships among things. Perhaps I could have been a philosopher in the old days, but philosophy has been banned, like free thought in general.

A lot of things had been banned, things I had always loved. Music – and especially popular music –, paintings, statues, plays, and most movies; all for public-good reasons. They had been labelled public-bad, defilement of the mind of the people: the citizens incapable of critical thought. Most of the arts had been banned; the government found that high-art was something the people could never understand. Museums had become institutions accessible only to the upper-layers of society, members of the ruling power, to whom we had been subjected. Or had we subjected ourselves?

Well, not we, I was not a subjected to the ruling authorities. I ignored most rules. Not plainly of course because the government had eyes and ears everywhere. What the people called them I didn’t know, I just called them soldiers. Warriors was not a phrase apt to describe them, they took orders, followed them to the letter and reported back to their CO’s without second thoughts or hesitations. Where was the critical thought in that? As for the rules or even the discourse; I had no part in it all because I did not exist anymore.

Unseen, unheard, undocumented. Who I was……well: who knew? Could I know who I was, objectively? Could anyone? I can only tell you clearly, who I was, for who you are is something temporary, whether you want to believe it or not. Who you are is a statement that lasts for a moment until some disaster decides to strike and forever alter some essential part of your being, instantly. So never say I am this or that, rather say My names is so-and-so, this is who I was:

[December 10th 1987]

At approximately 6.00 p.m. Maria gave birth to a healthy baby boy. There had been a minor complication with the umbilical cord: it had formed a noose around the child’s neck, but apart from a bluish colour that had faded nothing seemed wrong with the boy. The proud parents called their first-born Joshua. The first years of his childhood were like any other child’s and his parents were glad to have him in their midst. When he was nearly three years of age his mother gave birth to another child, his little sister Tara.

The two grew up like most siblings. They loved each other, had occasional arguments in which Tare would provoke Josh long enough till he grew weary of it and would smack her. Tara on her part would start crying, answered by the penalising of little Josh. Such an event was even captured on video once: the two were having a bath and Tara would splash water in Josh’s eyes. Josh returned the favour with a splash far greater than his little sister was capable of. She started crying, Josh got told to stop annoying his little sister and Tara would instantly stop crying. She couldn’t really talk full sentences yet, but she knew all too well what had gone down as she always seemed to.

The grandparents were awfully fond of the children of their youngest two children. Dick’s father had passed away only months before the birth of Josh and though the little one did not know it just yet, but there would be times when he would wonder about his late grandfather. His grandmother on his father’s side however found great joy in her grandchildren as did the other grandparents. Their remaining grandfather would take them for bicycle-rides when he was still able, the rides came to end when his diabetes got worse which cost him most use of his legs. Having been a police man and a member of the resistance in the Second World War this had to trouble him somewhat I suppose, but he didn’t show it to the kids.

His wife, their other grandmother, loved them, but she would be stern at times. Something had always seemed to bother this grandmother; it wasn’t the children but something that had happened during the war. Something a German had done to her had stayed with her, fuelling a certain hate towards the entire German population to the date. Grandpa didn’t heed it much anymore, they supposed he had reconciled with the fact she would never tell anyone the whole story.

Josh’s parents were devout Christians, they had left their old churches, much to the distress of Maria’s parents, and gotten baptised. Their new church didn’t baptise children, only adults and sometimes adolescents who had made their choice. The children would come to church with their parents, greatly enjoying the songs (there was a band that would lead singing) and after the singing there would be a sermon for the adults and a separate program for all of the children. The kids always had fun in church, there they grew up alongside children of the same faith and together hear stories of The Good Samaritan and the miracle Jesus performed when feeding thousands of people with only five loafs of bread and two fishes. Those were the stories that mattered to Josh, the stories of Noah in his ark filled with all kinds of beasts and the tales of Moses and the peoples of Israel. He could listen for hours when the children’s ministers told those stories, but the stories normally didn’t last more than half an hour. Then there would be games and playing time.

At the age of four little Josh started primary school and he had some very good friends there. His best mates were Brad and Kevin, those three were inseparable and the coolest kids in class. Those first few years were quiet, normal and happy, Josh wouldn’t remember very much of those when he’d grow up. Just the sand-pit and the carts and balls they would play with in the schoolyard. The lessons somehow failed to stick with him later that was; consciously remembering them.

[Somewhere in the Near Future]

Tell me: do you remember your childhood like that? In third person, cold, detached, story-like. No, of course not. You would tell it differently, like every person’s story is different in fundamental aspects the way of telling tales too differs. Still there are some things some people have in common. I haven’t found that person just yet. At least, not in the state of mind I am in now. Remember that wallpaper before? Well, whether it was a metaphor to you or not, I haven’t seen that wallpaper in a long time. The last time I looked upon it was somewhere during the year 2007, but somehow it managed to stick with me, strange no? How some things manage to stick while others, like your own birth, just fade into the blur of the past. You know it happened, you were there, but you don’t remember most of the specifics – if any.

Still there are some things a man does remember, I guess I can call myself a man by now: so I will. As I was saying, there are some things a man or woman remembers. From the past; distant and recent. Some things you should remember, by all reason, you forget, try to forget, submerge in the water of thought so long that they choke and die. Still, dead things have a way of re-surfacing when you don’t want them too. Some things that resurface make you cry, some things that resurface make you want to write song, even when songs are made illegal and some things, rare to most, make you want to hate and kill. Those are the things that shape boy into a man, those are the things that give birth to what some call a killer and others call a hero. Are you still there? Are you still listening? Take heed, this is important for you to understand.

[February 27th 2000]

Josh and Tara were seven and four by now and their parents had decided, after some nagging of the two, that they wanted one more child. At approximately 23.00 hours Elijah was born, a healthy baby-boy. This was the first child Maria had in a hospital-bed, but the boy had been turning so much he had ended up with the wrong-side up and so he needed a little extra help coming into the world.

His two older siblings had been taken in by their aunt for the night. Though both children had been anxious Tara had managed to fall asleep, Josh however could not sleep. He just had to know whether it was a boy or a girl. He trusted the child would be healthy; there had not been a doubt in his mind because he had asked Father-God to make sure everything was in order. A child’s faith he had, the faith Jesus had preached amongst adults, so this was a prayer God couldn’t afford ignoring. Twisting and turning he had been all night, for three hours he had been lying on the mantras in his Nephew’s room, staring into the strange darkness around him. His nephew had managed to fall asleep, miraculously. He would remember for some time that night, or so Josh reckoned.

When the call came in Josh was the first to hear the phone ringing, even though he was on the first floor where there were no phones. His aunt found the child wandering down the stairs as she came up to check on the kids after the call. Anxiously he had stood there in his p-jays, overjoyed he had been to hear he had a baby-brother. There was no holding him back then; he had to see the new-born for himself, as soon as possible. Had he been big enough, he would have started the car himself but his uncle drove him and his aunt knowing there was no denying the request.

When they got there Josh couldn’t wait anymore, he was bouncing here and there, up and down, back and fro, right and left, constantly listening for any familiar sound in the flat-white, sterile hospital. Those surrounding would seem strange to him later; how could a place so pale and seemingly cold, be a place of healing and of new life? The bouncing however was the only thing other than his little brother on his mind right there, at that time. When he walked through that door and saw his little brother – though lying in some strange glass dish – all the bouncing stopped and he became overjoyed at the sight of that new, frail, little life.

His mother looked tired, but very content indeed. His father too looked weary, but he too seemed very content as he and his brother-in-law chatted quietly. The two sisters looked upon the baby-boy with great joy from above, from down below, just below the level on which the baby slept, Josh looked up in wonder. Had he ever been so small? Only half his current size? How could that be possible? How could you be so small and yet manage to become as big as his father? Not that his father was big, he was a man of below-average stature, smaller than his mother even. Still, to Josh his father was big and strong. Especially strong, not that he worked out but his father was somewhat well-built by nature.

The days of joy that came with the new child passed quietly, a help came to the family’s house and the grandparents visited regularly. This was custom you could say in those days, people would come and visit once, congratulating the parents with a new child. The grandparents and close-relatives living nearby would of course visit more than once. The family ties were very strong in Josh’s family. Not everyone was a Christian, but that didn’t really matter for their relationships: they were close PERIOD. Of course one or two of Maria’s brothers were a little more distant than the others, but still the ties were strong.

Dick’s family was a different story; he was the youngest of four whereas Maria was the youngest of ten. He had two older sisters and one older brother, his birth had been unplanned, but still his parents had given him all of their love and devotion. He had never spoken much of the past, but somewhere along the way his oldest sister had married the wrong man which greatly distorted the family ties. The younger of his two sisters had married a man who drank and beat her, she had one child with him but after four years of marriage she had filed for a divorce. This was something not-done in those days in a society still largely based around strict Christian beliefs but it had been for the best; everyone saw that. As for Dick’s brother, he had managed to marry the wrong wife, whom had single-handedly destroyed his brother’s relationship with their mother. Their father had passed away by then. Dick’s family was not so close as Maria’s, but in the end both Josh’s aunts had divorced their men and re-entered the normal family life. As for his brother, well, he chose not to reconcile with his mother, not even when it was clear she would come to die.

That was Josh’s first funeral. He still remembered the day, he was fifteen by then. This grandmother was the first dead person he had ever seen, how cold she had felt underneath his trembling lips. He had kissed her on the forehead, her forehead so cold. Some vague person, who he recalled his mother disliking had entered when he and his father had been in. She had offered her condolences, said: how peaceful she looks, and left. His father had just nodded and smiled a little, but he didn’t show that much emotion, at least, no severe grief. Josh had started writing by then, as well as playing some guitars. That day he wrote his first poem about death:

Empty Shell

The pale cold embrace,

Of an angle’s face.

Smile of dying grace.

As your soul is carried into eternity

In the arms of angels gentle, into perfect light.

You’ve been led to endless light, gardens evergreen.

A golden city in a green peace paradise.

The pale cold embrace,

Of an angle’s face.

Smile of dying grace.

I shall not grieve over a shell that wails away,

Over a spirit in heaven of one I loved.

In the light, no lamentations, fears are but a dream,

Pain and grief will fade away in endless love.

Death is not the end of time: it’s eternity being born,

Inside the spirit that once roamed the shell she leaves behind torn.

It is okay to grieve, it is alright to cry, please do mourn.

But she will live on, that’s what my God The Almighty has sworn.

The pale cold embrace,

Of an angle’s face.

Smile of dying grace.

No more tears over the soul that feasts in heaven,

No more grief over the ones now living with God,

No more darkness in the cold nights of memory,

For He will wipe away the tears and take the pain.

Joshua

The words had been both simple and deep, but that poem would touch him still, even when he was much older. It had not been his first funeral, but it was his first casket to carry, his first pale face to see. Many, many would follow, but he did not know it at that time. He had already been scarred severely by life by then death had no part in that back then.

His fist funeral had been the funeral of his remaining grandfather, how his mother had wept for days and days. How foolish he had been in the hospital, at his dying-bed. They had gone there almost every day during his last days, he had been in the hospital for something with his lungs when something in his brain got to him the day before his release. It had all gone so fast after that. What Josh, who had been about eleven at the time, had liked about the hospital was the ice-creams in the galley. That final day he had asked his father for an ice-cream, a little too loud just after all the relatives gathered had been talking to their father as a machine helped him breathe. His father had complied, his mother had been upset and made that known later, but somewhere deep inside Josh knew grandpa had been smiling when he had heard the child asking for an ice-cream. His little sister had of-course also wanted an ice-cream, but she had not had the heart to break the deafening silence that had held the room. While the children got their ice-cream, the plug of the machine had been pulled. How mother had wept, how they had all wept. Thinking back, it even brings tears to my eyes.

The funeral had been solemn. It had been held in a big church filled with relatives because the family was quite big. Josh had written a poem that day too, a simple verse which had been on the back of the booklet with songs to be sang. He remembered his grandmother had cried over those lines, in which Josh asked God to take good care of his grandfather. He had not understood the tears his grandmother had cried when he gave her the poem. He had written it on the back of a painting he had made in art-class: it was a painting of some white clouds that looked like sheep, in a clear blue sky. The funeral-service had been led by a reverent who had been a close friend of grandpa, and still was a close friend of grandma. The good fellow had done his best and there was much room for the children to share some moments from their lives with their grandfather.

What he remembered most were the funny stories, like the one where one his uncles had done something he shouldn’t have when he was a teen. His grandfather had chased his uncle around the house and kicked his butt on the run, badly bruising his own foot. I was wearing the wrong shoes, grandpa had stated afterward to the doctor. The whole church burst into brief laughter. Of course there were many more stories, but Josh hadn’t remembered much of those, or of the rest of the funeral. Funerals were strange to him, sad and joyful at the same time somehow.

[Somewhere in the Near Future]

It had been a long time since I had been at a real funeral, my parents hadn’t had an official one, being possible dangerous minds and religious defectors. How they died I do not yet feel appropriate to tell you, it is too much even now. Remember what I said about surfacing thoughts before? That’s why. Anyhow, as I was saying: there aren’t many funerals anymore these days. That is; everyone is basically dead and buried, those I knew at least. Surely some of them are still alive, I know she is. But all the others have passed away. Few of natural causes, that much I can tell you.

A strange thing death has become for me now, joyful and sad but not like it used to be. The joy used to come from the fact that those whom you loved always went to heaven, now it came from the fact they were truly free, wherever they were. Freedom was a word which had lost its true meaning: freedom had always had its restraints, but these days there were too many restraints to recognise the freedom hiding behind them. Or is the meaning of a word bound to the consensus of what it means in the present? In that case; I prefer the old version.

What has happened you wonder? Few people know the whole story, but I’ll tell you what I do know.

At some point early during the second millennium there had been a high-profile murder. There had been political murders before around the world, some right-wing politician got murdered in my own country some years before then, but this was different. The prime-minister himself had been killed execution-style in his own home, along with his wife and children. There hadn’t been any real wars, so that was ruled out as a possibility. After the prime-minister most other members of the government were either threatened to resign or killed also. Some had offered resistance, taken measures, but nothing had seemed to prove useful in protecting the ministers. The monarchy was next; they had tried to flee the country even though they hadn’t had any real power anymore.

Rumour has it he is actually a member of the royal family, but there has never been any real proof of that. The Crown as he is called is merely the supreme ruler of the country these days, at first the Union of Countries tried to put a stop to it, but it turned out our military force and diplomatic resources were more abundant than anyone had thought. The country became somewhat isolated from the rest of the world; the media were in the hands of the government. Internet was freely available, but severely censored. Emails, letters and anything containing a non-live message was being checked and re-composed before approval. The Ministry of Communications was responsible for that, next to the ministry of Internal National Affairs & Defence it was the biggest ministry around. All the other ministries were small and interconnected via the supreme council that advised The Crown who had the final say in everything.

How it had gotten to that? Well first there were the assassinations of course, second there was the sudden withdrawal of all military forces to the country. Last there was the rapid expansion of law-enforcement. Not that anyone knew exactly the laws: the constitution was re-written at least once a month in the first two or three years but still the government found it necessary to impose pressure on its people. The subjects to its power, willing or not, would all yield under the oppressive force of his hand. As I have stated before, I do not answer to anyone, especially anyone in the government. He reminded me of someone whom I had known long ago, someone who had utterly betrayed me over something trivial.

[Summer of 1994]

Every summer there was an event, organised by the local governments to promote bodily exercise among parents and children. A four-day event during which parents and children would walk 5, 10 or 15 kilometres during the evenings in large parties. Joshua had always been a part of this, sometimes with and sometimes without his parents. He, Brad and Kevin would always take that walk. This was their fourth year of primary school and their second to engage in the walking. For some reason Kevin was not with them and Josh and Brad fooled around, causing a girl to fall into rose-bushes somewhere along the way. In the evening Brad’s mother told Brad that he and Josh should stop Fooling around. Brad relayed that message somewhat differently and told me his mother had called me a Fool, Josh told him that his mother was the fool and thus the bomb burst, metaphorically. The real bomb hasn’t burst yet, but it will unless someone stops it from blowing. But we’ll get to that.

From that day on Brad and Josh were sworn enemies, no; that not the right way to say it. From that day on Josh had gone from cool to absolute loser, weakling and easy target. Brad turned the bulk of the class against Josh, how he did it Josh never knew, but his school days became a living hell. At times Josh told his mother he wanted to die, but his mother would try and comfort him and tell him to give it another go. By the sixth year of primary school things had gotten worse and worse, Josh was getting beat up regularly. This is one of those things you submerge and try to forget, only Tara remembered the beatings when she would run to head-master to tell him to come quickly.

By the eighth year Josh was fed up, the beatings had lessened somewhat, but the psychological war Brad was waging against him had reached its peak. Josh’s dad took him to a Karate-class and Josh started his training under Master Laurens. Master Laurens was a proud fellow, stern and just, good with children, especially those with a temper like Josh’s. That was the one thing Josh had developed far more than most kids his age: a very bad temper, perhaps tempest would better describe it. When the other kids pissed him of, with the smallest of things, Josh would scream and curse at them till they either ran in fear, or tried to hurt him back.

Master Laurens was patient with the boy, and for four years Josh trained at the school, developing his skills from week to week. Josh had issues with his identity, he felt he was worthless and his fighting reflected this in every way. He would beat himself up beyond his own capabilities during training, but fight very defensively during sparring-matches with other students. Master Lauren failed to see this I think, but he taught Josh as best as he could nevertheless. The boy lost his temper gradually, one reason was the Karate, the other was his religion which he had fully embraced by the end of his four-year training in Karate. By the age of fifteen he decided to get baptised and by the age of sixteen he decided to quit his training at the dojo.

There were many reasons for his departure from the dojo, the most important one being that master Laurens had made him look like a fool in front of the class and pushed him to perform better by pissing him off. That lesson was the drop that flooded the bucket, as they used to say in our lands. It was the final push he needed to spread his wings and fly in a different direction, even though his wings were still broken. The years after primary school’s final year were turbulent. High school was something new for the boy. Gradually his new classmates accepted him for what he was, he made new friends and found himself amidst the wreckage his past had left him.

[Somewhere in the Near Future]

Ah: friends. Those days are long gone, the days of fellowship and love. Mutual trust, talk of girls and things you’re not supposed to do and know. Perhaps those days were good, but now I cannot help feeling a void at times. Isolation is the path I was must take; this is where people call you hero. In a position like mine – in a society like the one I was in – was one too dangerous to be shared with friends. Trust was something no-one, not even The Crown could afford. Love had waned and died, perhaps she still lingered here and there in secret, perhaps there was even a fraction of her in my own heart. Still, if not dead, love was very rare indeed. Then again, with everything I had seen: there hadn’t been much place for love to come into play or even the frail hope for it for that matter.

I guess that is what hate and grief do to a man’s heart. Death of those you love, all of those you love, brings death to love itself within your own heart. Love becomes no more than blood thirst; the hunger for retribution. How they had paid, how they would pay. They had not feared to shed blood, nor would I. No: I would make them bleed so much their leaders would drown in their blood, slowly choking as their lungs flooded with the red liquid that keeps us alive. The ministry of communication would be painted in blood, as would the ministry of Internal National Affairs and Defence. They would all choke on blood, die a horrible, yet swift death by the hands of myself: their murderer.

I had not yet drawn much attention to myself, the time was not yet ripe, nor were my skills. I had to train, I had to be ready for anything, I had to spy on the spies, watch the leaders, listen to their lies. I had to be so deep inside the system I could destroy it in one single moment. In order to do that I had to break in a lot, more than I already had, for breaking and entering had become my speciality.

The National Visual Arts museum had been my first target, a year ago. My love for the arts had driven me there, out of my hole and away from the grief that was creeping up on me. How grand that building had been, how tight its security. But laser-beams had a away of being visible with a little smoke and the cameras could not make anything from a shadow that moved in the shadows. The place had been dimly lit, giving me only half a view of all that art. Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Dali, Duchamp: each and everyone of them outlawed – for the public that was. When the alarm had finally kicked in, even though I had been extremely careful it didn’t take the police long to arrive, but I was gone long before they even got there. My entry had baffled the government, filled their newspapers, simply because nothing had been stolen. There was speculation I had been startled before making my big hit, the case was closed as a false alarm but now my shadow had entered their minds. In their dreams a dark burglar snuck through their homes and halls, their ministries and palaces, just looking and listening. Looming up from the darkness all around them, looking…….always looking.

That had been the first of many breaking and entering, more had followed, first only at night in closed compounds and institutions. Museums, galleries, sometimes homes filled from floor to ceiling with art. Wherever there was art that interested me I came, unseen, unheard, unnoticed. That year passed and I can now tell you that the year, according to the government at least, is 2013. The a.d. part in the counting of the years had been shunned, since religion too was considered defilement of the mind. Treacherous, wrong and foolish it was. Religious books had been burned, churches and mosques either torn down or remodelled to suit the government’s needs. A loss to architectural history that seemed to me, whipping churches from the face of the earth but the paintings I would see on my weekly errands would tell me what they had looked like.

I thought, I have pondered and it is time to meditate now in a place of slaughter; a place where I can freely kill.

Me.

Chapter I - What I Am

As the sun rose I slipped by the face of the huge office buildings now in use mostly for storage, since the economy was largely government-controlled. Keynes had been their main defence towards the public and commercial sector in one-sided debate preceding that decision. The economy did not always work, only the government twisted the words and said the economy always did not work. They portrayed The All-Knowing Crown as the world’s saviour from this dark doom that laid in waiting. How they had raped the ideas of great minds like John Maynard Keynes, ripping every last wretched letter out of its original context. Who knew now what the great minds of the past and present had written to enlighten our minds with their clever ideas? No one; not even the agents in charge of the censorship.

Never mind that though, just close your eyes and ears and stop thinking. Fall asleep. Sweet dreams yea ignorant, sleep tight you lingering intellectuals. Breathe in…breathe out.

I slipped over the fence in the alley and around the building towards the back, into the ill-kept office-garden. There was a hatch there, well concealed, properly watched by my own security-grid. I had installed my own motion censors and cameras, but not the Government Issue: those made too much noise. It had been on many scavenger hunts, especially through the old malls and some of the new ones too. Every general electric store had some things that had to do with surveillance, one sold illegally imported motion-sensors and another sold small silent cameras. Such things were hard to find, even when one had managed to slip into the store. How do you avoid getting noticed by the equipment you’ve come to steal? Simple; you steal the version installed in plain sight and constantly watch your back. How else?

I crossed the lawn as the first dull rays of sunlight crawled over the horizon like drunken beggars towards their beds. First I listened if I was alone, then I cleared the keypad and punched in the code, and the hatch popped open. I slipped inside and shut the hatch behind myself silently. First things first: I had to check for disturbances of the perimeter. I fired up the computer that was always on, running of power I tapped from the main grid via the office building’s main feed. There was a fail-safe too: a group of heavy-duty car batteries that were at all times fully charged, these were located in my own lair. If the power-grid died the battery through which I forced all power to flow would make sure nothing switched off and a simple relay would switch to backup power until the flow from the main-grid continued. It was simple, crude perhaps, but it had worked, though power had only been down once and that was during day-time.

I poured myself a glass of water, pluming had been present in the basement since before I got there. In the first days of my stay I had made sure that was all in working order. One can hardly do without a toilet or faucet if one has to remain hidden at all costs. Sure it could one day prove to be a way into my home, but drone-technology was not that advanced yet and certainly not that small. The spy-drones were still the size of a soccer-ball and it would take another ten years for the government to come up wit the idea to map the entire plumbing system and spy on any exit not registered. I was safe for the time being. I sat down behind the computer and put my headset on, I started the media-program I had stolen from a computer store and put on a good old record from our collection. Those first few distorted guitar sounds of a nice trash-metal band would always ease my spirits, if only for five minutes or so. Then the demons would start howling again over the voice of the screamer leading the metal band.

Don’t go and think for one moment however that I am always uptight. The journey home however is the one journey on which I always have to be extra careful. Those rising early could spot my shadow and that could be enough for them to call in and report suspicious movement. Furthermore the last patrols took place just before dawn and my hideout was not to be found ever under the current regime.

The second song died away and a ballad started, how I missed finger picking strange open chords with names that took you longer to pronounce properly than it took you to pick its notes. How I missed music, but I knew that the instruments were still located in the old house. It had been closed down years ago, like a monument for the neighbourhood to remember the silent, invisible force of The Crown. None had dared to enter it up to this very day, myself included. One day I would go back and take what was mine by rights, the house had not been looted; that much I knew, but it was a mess for sure. The soldiers had come in that day looking for something illegal while the Holy Bible was all they had really needed to see. I suppose it was all part of the act to tear the place apart. From my hiding place I had looked through the walls with my spirit as they had arrested everyone, swept the place one last time and boarded it up.

I checked the logs from the sensors and cameras, nothing spectacular so far. Just a mouse and those were rare these days, as were the birds. Apart from pigeons of course. The occasional raven and crow one saw here and there upon a slab or dead tree were wise birds, who knew about death but pigeons were just stupid. When all other creatures had left the country, pigeons had remained behind. Perhaps to set up their own little dominion or perhaps because they did not understand everyone else’s departure. Whatever the reason: the pigeons were still here. It was usually pigeons that had woken me up during my first nights here, these days I heard them even while asleep, but I would not wake if they didn’t really stir.

I hadn’t eaten all night so I took a couple of sandwiches from my freezer and put them on the electric heater to defrost. When they were done I took a pot of chocolate-paste and ate the sandwiches silently and alone. It’s a strange thing to listen to yourself chewing while you’re eating, while your thoughts gnaw on your mind. I was never quite certain whether I heard the chewing or the gnawing, but then the rational mind took control and I snapped out of it.

I moved over to the sink with the mirror above it and looked myself in the eyes. There was always a sparkle in those two green eyes, however faint. Perhaps it was a remnant from my religious past; perhaps it was my freedom of mind. Whatever it was; it sparkled and told me I was still alive and free. I took out a toothbrush and some toothpaste and started brushing my teeth. While brushing I moved to the computer, put it on standby and switched off the view screen. I moved back to the mirror and spat and flushed my mouth. I sighed.

My hideout was pretty big but it was still just one big, flat, grey room with a large wooden bed in the corner opposite to where the door to stairs where the hatch was. The wall was by my head and the corner at the side of my feet was where the sink was. The computer stood halfway down the wall between the sink and the entrance, the fridge between the computer and the sink. There wasn’t a stove and the only hot meals I ate were toasted sandwiches with some ham, sometimes a little cheese. I couldn’t afford getting caught so whenever I made those things I had to be extra careful with my ventilation. The shaft let up to the surface some three metres up, it came up underneath some thick scrubs, but the smells would attract creatures and keen eyes would notice that. The microwave served me well, but I hadn’t dared stealing microwave meals yet, I could predict how much scent they would produce, and they weren’t exactly healthy. Frankly the room resembled a tomb more than it did a home and perhaps it would be my tomb.

Fruit was great part of my nutrition, cereals and bread too. Often I stole a container of milk or fresh juice, but stealing from the stores was always a risky business. All of them where well-watched, but especially the basic necessities were rationed and documented extensively. No one could buy a carton of milk without the government knowing so, so my theft could not go unnoticed. Therefore I stole from about twelve different grocery stores across town at random, never hitting the same store in one month. That kept it low-profile, barely noticed.

I was sure there was more theft, though those thieves would go in during the day, buy this or that and steal the smaller luxury items. I stole only what I needed to stay healthy and strong: lots of vitamins, minerals, fibres and so on. I carefully watched my diet, every now and than I would eat a candy bar, but since I hated the standard Government Issue candy bars I had to steal the imported ones. Those were both expensive and over-documented; therefore they were dangerous to steal. But one of the main ingredients I needed daily was vitamin D; because I lived at night I didn’t produce enough of it myself. I always got supplements high on just that vitamin.

Now I know you must be wondering, where does he dump all the trash he produces? Simple; where everyone else dumps trash, the junkyards. The big ovens burned day and night and those plants were easy to get in and out of. Three times a week I would infiltrate, dumb my rubbish directly in the oven and leave again. Unnoticed, unseen, undocumented. I was a shadow and a shadow I would remain until a certain death. Be it mine or theirs…

When all the thinking, eating and cleaning was done I sat down on the bed and strapped off my sword and cleansed it. One had to keep it greased up and polished. That was what I did whenever I had used it for this or that reason. There hadn’t been any killing yet, just training on this or that rooftop, in whatever weather conditions. Often I trained in my own home, because it was safe there and I had a lot of space if I moved my table and chairs about. That was my warming up, moving the furniture followed by some push-ups and that kind of thing. Some weeks ago I had also stolen a set of gymnastics-rings, the ones hanging from the ceiling by ropes in gyms. My arms had grown much stronger since than and endured longer heavier beatings. When I woke up late in the evenings I would have my meal, check the computer, take care of cleaning or garbage disposal and than I would train for two hours non-stop. I trained four days a week alternating the days always. The days on which I didn’t train I went out stealing or spying.

Spying on what? Well, what does one like to look at? The forbidden and the beautiful of course. Some watched pornography, I preferred art myself. That was what I had studied before the regime, Art Science. People always inquired what career options one had with such an education. I used to tell them I could start working in education, for the government, for universities as a researcher and professor, for cultural companies, for arts businesses and the media. Most of those things had ceased to exist nowadays. Sure the university still existed, but everything had been censored and a teacher thinking he could ignore regulations would not only be fired, he was most likely to be fired upon also – by a firing-squad mind you. How does one know such things? I spy and executions are rarely public.

Imagine a quiet dark room below the ground, a humming computer in the back. The lights are out, your sword lies just below you. You close your eyes and fall asleep, not having said a single word, to a single person in three years. How does that feel you suppose? ‘Lonely’ is what they used to call it, until it became ‘isolated’ of course. When even God abandons you, who is left to converse with? Exactly, you and you alone. Do think that makes me crazy? You are entitled to that thought but in thinking that you converse with yourself also and since that fits your definition of crazy we can shake hands. Nuts amongst ourselves, but we shan’t speak for then there is no more need to talk to ourselves and we will be crazy no more. Goodnight, sleep tight, or is that…yes: good day. I’ll just take a nap, okay?

The streets seemed to open up before me, like a giant throat. The dragon opened his mouth to devour me, but I would not just lie down. I started sprinting and walked right up a wall via the drainage pipe. The grey concrete was a reliable ally; it would not break or bend, it never informed others of your presence or passing and it never spoke of you. I had an understanding with the concrete, it didn’t tell on me and I didn’t tell on it. The soulless buildings seemed eternal, while those truly alive – smothered by the suffocating darkness – waned and died. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, when will we be reborn? Trust to dust, ashes to lashes, who will redeem the torn? Do you understand what I am asking you? I hope you are, for you are the only one who will listen to my story.

Across the rooftops sped the solitary, swift shadow. There was not a soul to notice this young athlete, not a pair of keen eyes to recognise the warrior waiting inside him to be born. The sole unbroken mind of the city, all they had managed to break was its heart. Nothing more, nothing less and they had made me stronger than them in doing so. I went down to street level when the supermarket came into view and moved around and over before deciding my point of entry. I listened closely for several moments to determine the presence of others besides myself. Apart from one or two motion sensors near the front doors of the store and the doors where the trucks delivered their supplies there was a camera or two present outside. The outside hadn’t been upgraded since my last visit a couple of months ago.

I entered the building through a small window near storage, collected what I needed and exit the building without being caught on camera or by a motion sensor. Naturally they would notice that several items were missing and all the employees would be checked and double-checked, but no one would have what I had stolen and it would be a mystery they would forget in a week or two. When I was done I was tempted for a moment to allow a sensor or camera to pick me up, just to trigger an alarm and get someone to follow me and give me some company without knowing so. Than the empty streets called my name with their dreading silence and via my point of entry I left the store.

Across starlit rooftops and through dark streets I returned to my home, to train in silence. In the darkness of my lair I would eat, train and sleep once more, like I had done night after night. I dared not dream of company anymore, wish for it I would only do in secret, so even I myself knew not I wished it. Being alone was my safety, my strength, my solitude. Perhaps it was glorious for me to be alone, the last free mind in a nation overrun by tyranny. Perhaps it was foolish. Perhaps I had to remain underground, but not alone, perhaps I had to find and join up with some sort of resistance. There had always been resistances, every war; every tyranny was overthrown sooner or later, often not without some sort of resistance.

I reached my dwellings, listened, entered, checked the computer’s logs and put my food in the fridge and cupboard. I listened to my music, The Quiet Place that song was called, it seemed ironic to me that I wanted to hear that song having thought the thoughts I shared with you earlier. Perhaps some things still happened with good reasons; I had always believed I had met her for a reason. Still, when love is neglected by one or perhaps just overlooked and cherished to death by the other……. What more can love do than die slowly, chocking on the clasp of the other, yearning for the redemption of the one’s embrace?

We married in the old days. I couldn’t tell whether or not that still happened. Was there place for such joys in this world? Had the institution died with the freedom to practice a religion? It had always been grounded in religious rituals, marriage; the ancient, archaic institution of holy matrimony. I would have married her, a thousand times if I had too, now she was only a faint memory; a waning dream. No more. Still she represented my human aesthetics, she had been perfect. We would have made an indestructible couple, in my mind at least.

Despair had a way of kicking you in the face when you were down, I had tripped over reality and the long, dreading wire called time. That had been my downfall, the eternal wait; too little action and too many dreams for one heart. Now that same heart lay in ruin in my chest, like an eternal monument of some deranged military leader who organised eradications and razia’s – as the Germans had called them once.

[Two Years Earlier]

‘What do you mean you’ve found a squealer?’ said the Captain. ‘Why would your source be a reliable one, Sergeant?’

‘Because of the bribes Captain,’ the Sergeant answered confidently. ‘This one will sell you his mother if the price is right.’

‘Very well,’ answered the Captain settling back into his big, leather armchair. ‘Gather as much intel about that family as you can, if you’re lucky we’ll raid the place by the end of the week. That gives you two days to get your information right and one to plan the raid with me.’

‘You are coming with us sir?’ asked the Sergeant.

‘Always Sergeant, a good Captain bleeds and fights alongside his men, however ill the cause or outcome.’ He sighed. ‘Now tell me, what do you know so far?’

‘They are devout Christians sir, that is enough to have them arrested and detained. Furthermore there is talk of a hidden basement filled with contraband.’

‘A hidden basement?’ asked the Captain. ‘Isn’t that just commoner’s talk?’

‘I agree that some of the stories we’ve heard so far are a little farfetched sir,’ said the Sergeant, ‘but this story seems plausible to me. Records indicate that all members of the household play at least one musical instrument and most of the family sang also before the Great Crown took the throne. Furthermore the eldest son was on the rise in the international metal-scene with his band only months before the new laws regarding arts.’

‘You’re suggesting they’ve got an air-tight, soundproof basement, filled with musical instruments, CD’s and god only knows what?’

‘Yes sir, that’s what I’m saying.’

‘You are sure?’ the Captain said narrowing his eyes to slits as he looked his Sergeant in the eye awaiting his response.

‘Yes sir.’ He didn’t even twitch.

‘Plan the raid, put together a team and have them be ready at 2300 hours. We’ll raid the place at 2400 precisely. Notify HQ of our actions and request a hunting drone to be on standby.’

‘Very good sir,’ the Sergeant replied. He saluted and left the room.

It was never the fathers that bothered him; they stood up for their families, sometimes. It was the screaming children, how he hated those little rats. How he’d love to send them all to reintegration centres, but that was out of the question in some cases. He had seen it all; his men never stepped out of line by raping a mother or daughter in the raided homes, he’d make sure of that. Still, some of the less stout-hearted doubted the justice in their actions every now and then. Words got a man only so far in such cases, fierce measures finished the job, always. He hoped tonight wouldn’t be one of those nights on which he had to set an example. Then again, the Sergeant putting together the team knew how much the Captain hated weaklings. The Sergeant knew he needed reliable men on a mission, who would perform as ordered when told to do so.

There had been many homes in the early days, some with more reasonable grounds of entry than others. These days they had to rely on snitches, the lowest form of life in the Captain’s eyes, but irreplaceable assets in his operations. Rumours were his most vicious enemy, since there was no organised resistance. Naturally there was the occasional loner or father that stood up to The Crown. There had been a few bombings in his day, multiple riots in the early days, but every time he had smashed down whatever he was sent to crush. Every time he took his team in; infiltration, took care of the target; termination, and wrapped the place up; consecration. This was his church to raise, his arc to build and he was damn proud of it. ITC was his M.O., and he loved acronyms like any military man.

Tonight would be a night like many others. A family of five; two boys, one girl and the parents of course. Christians never put up much of fight; turn the other cheek, accept your defeat and submit to the new regime, but never bow. Never bow to another than The Lord your God, for he is a jealous God. They all bowed in the end, just before termination. Those who thought the executions took place somewhere on a remote location were wrong, it happened right there, on-site. After that there was the raising of the monument, the eternal memory of the act of justice in the name of The Crown. The Crown was the new God and none were tolerated to stand in his way. The Captain loved the crown like a father, revered him like a God and feared him like one fears a tyrant.

‘The men are ready sir, as am I,’ said the Sergeant.

‘Thank you Sergeant, I will join you shortly.’

In the briefing room the men were ready, seven plus the Sergeant and himself. They had been Special Forces in the military and police force, now they were a Sweep Squad. The most feared units in the service of the crown. CIA, FBI, NSA, KGB and Mosat all knew of the existence of the Sweep Squads, the signs were obvious enough but there was no proof to be gathered and the borders were shut tight. These men wore different faces at night, during the days they worked in an office in their own homes. During the night they laid down their masks and showed their true nature, as did he, their Captain.

His entering triggered their standing and saluting.

‘Good evening gentlemen, as you were,’ said the Captain.

‘It’s a simple job, infiltrate, terminate and consecrate. Let our message be clear to all those who worship the idle fantasy of a God or find joy in something they can never comprehend such as music and art. There are three ways in and out of the house, one front door, one back-door and two glass doors that lead to the garden. I will lead my team in via the back while the Sergeant takes care of the front door. They will most likely all be up by the time we get there. You know the drill; you shan’t break or bend under the wining of women and children. You will do your duty for The Crown. Is that understood?’

‘Yes Sir!’ barked the men.

‘Very good, move out!’ said the Captain with a nod of approval.

He had seen the sparkle in each and every one of their eyes, the sweat on some of the foreheads, the fiddling with a gun and the wiggling of a shoelace. Some of them were nervous which was only normal, but they were all ready for the task at hand and they would do it with the utmost effectiveness, as they had been taught. Valour stood high on the Captain’s agenda, but even he still sought for the trace of that hidden in the missions he headed for The Crown. It was yet to be found. Still, loyalty and obedience – the next two on the list – compelled him to follow his orders. He was a soldier, he had always been a soldier and he had always served his master blindly to whatever end, like he had obeyed his father. Now his men followed him blindly, to whatever end, by whatever means.

He got in the passenger-seat of the bullet-proof black van and once the boys were installed he told