Manus Journey With Death: A fugue through time

By Renier-Fréduman Mundil

If someone wants to experience a lot, a journey with the moon is a good idea, if someone wants to experience even more, a journey with death. But how does someone travel with death? Even if we sometimes have the feeling that our lives are boring and dreary, no life is monotonous. Like a fugue, it is accompanied by two, three, four or even more melodies.
What does death look like? He is said to have appeared as Father Death, Reaper, Bone Man, Grim Reaper.
But let us not dwell on that. It is about a journey, and such a journey has to begin at some point, even if it is a journey with death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Feb 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9783758343858

Renier-Fréduman Mundil

Ich wurde auf der Erde und nicht auf dem Mond geboren. Es war am fünften Tag nach Vollmond. Mein Leben lang war der Mond mein treuer Begleiter, selbst wenn ich ihm nur in wenigen kurzen Momenten wie Mond- und Sonnenfinsternis oder während der ersten Mondlandlandung mehr Beachtung geschenkt habe. Es war am fünften Tag nach Vollmond. Mein Leben lang war der Mond mein treuer Begleiter. Mehr als 2250 Mondwochen bin ich verheiratet. Meine Moooondschaaaafin hat am Zustandekommen dieses Buches wesentlichen Anteil. Wir haben vier Kinder (als Moooond-schaaaaf hätte ich vier Mondlämmer). Aus unseren vier Mondlämmern sind sechzehn Mond-Enkellämmchen geworden. Die ältesten mutieren (pubertieren) gerade in Mondschaflämmer. Mehr als 2080 mal habe ich mich nach der Oase des Wochenendes in den gelittenen Berufsalltag gestürzt. In welchen?, werden Sie sich vielleicht fragen. In den Beruf des Mondarztes. Wo wir wohnen? Hinter dem Mond. Jedenfalls ist mir dies mehrfach im Leben von anderen bestätigt worden. Fragen Sie bitte nicht, wie ich dahin gekommen bin.

Book preview

1.

Well, old mother, you are new with us.

The plump woman sat down on the arm of the chair and mechanically stroked her wrinkled face. Mother was the new entry, almost every day they had entries here, entries, what a word. Most couldn't even walk, they were walked, became a registered entry at the bleak end of their lives, inventoried and managed, an object that meant work and livelihood for others.

The plump woman rose. The bulky figure spilled out of the sterile white coat, whose immaculate white stood out strangely alien against the grey of the entries.

Now sit here, old mother, and later, later we'll get you!

The old woman stared ahead. In the abysses of her tired eyes flickered motionless horror, too sparse, however, to set her legs in motion as a source of energy, to drive her to the exit. Like a ghost train, old figures shuffled past her, heads bent far down, feet mechanically shuffling across the floor, a viscous mass clinging stickily to life and moving slowly towards the dining room.

We'll come back for you later!

Two boots smashed against the finely chiseled wooden door, which willingly jumped out of its frame and crashed to the floor. At last a new feeling for a door, not always the involuntary opening and closing when others stepped through it.

The heels of the boots dug into the lying door and the old wood felt strangely significant under the new steps of time. Inside the house the boots parted, soon driving people out of every room, whipping them outside with the force of their words. Boot kicks dug into bodies, the clinging splinters of wood slid from the soft rubber into the comforting warmth of fleeing heated bodies.

Little Marla stared out of the slit of the linen chest at the fleeing people being picked up. The tiny eyes began to cry, salty water rolled over the delicate skin and disappeared in the distorted mouth. Marla tried to scream, but her sister Manu pressed her hand over her mouth as if to crush her voice. Suddenly, silence fell. The fleeing bodies paused, the black boots stopped and turned around.

If someone was hiding?

So what, we'll get them later.

An order is an order, so do it now!

I’m not going to search that filthy stable. But I have another idea.

Like what?

The hands of the other boots moved to the level of the waistband and pulled out a black object. Shortly after, a volley of gunshots riddled the linen chest, bullets piercing the soft down of the quilts, white pure feathers floating around the room like snow crystals.

No, not the chest!

A hysterical female voice rang through the room. A boot kicked her violently; without a sigh, the scream died away.

With the infinity of a moment, the bullet bored through the old oak wood of the chest, floated through the linen, started a little when in the darkness the innocent little face suddenly appeared, nevertheless continued its enforced way. The hot lead melted into the whiteness of the skin, covering itself with a dripping red sheath before smashing against the delicate bones of the skull. The black boots grinned. Manu felt her sister's blood run over her skin, warm, sluggish, in rhythmic petering out strokes. She pressed her sister to her, wanting to enclose her like a shield so that no bit of life could leave the little body. Her tears mingled with the red stream and settled over the little shelllike pleasant dew. Then it was over.

Well, old mother, now it's time for dinner. I'm supposed to get you.

2.

The monks were walking in a long procession through the bare mountainous area. Their voices blended with the sounds of the instruments they carried, bounced against the rocks, and from there rose distorted into the sky. It took a while before the first bird appeared in the sky. Ponderously it let itself be carried by the air filled with sounds and circled above the procession like an airplane in a waiting loop. It opened its beak, emitted muffled sounds that joined the voices of the monks and the sounds of the instruments to form a fleeting symphony.

Soon others of its kind appeared, twenty, thirty massive bodies circled in the air. The monks moved on, followed by the attracted birds.

A small plateau appeared behind the hilltop. Laid out on stones placed one against the other, a motionless human figure could be made out. Anxious furrows had been dug into the face by the capricious weather in the course of time. Motionless eyes stared out from the dead body as if fixing the dark spots above.

A little way off, the procession ended, continuing the chanting. Ponderously, the large birds landed a short distance away. Clumsily they hopped across the plateau, surrounding the lifeless, laid out body. Almost questioningly, they looked at the monks for a moment, then hacked their massive beaks into the dead cold flesh.

Motionless and silent, the monks followed the spectacle. From time to time sounds of cracking bones broke the silence. As if in a trance, the monks watched the circle of birds, waiting for them to free the soul of the deceased from the prison of the cold body through their work.

What remained was a gray skeleton of bones. The lattice bars of the ribs, prison of the life odem, broken, the hollows of the skull hollowed out. In some places the birds had so polished the bone with their beaks that a pure white emerged and stood out strangely against the gray rocky landscape.

Suddenly, a black eagle soared through the air. Weightlessly it glided to the ground, the stuffed vultures trotted ponderously to the side. The eagle grabbed an exposed bone and soared into the air. From high above, it let the bone crash to the ground, where it shattered against the sharp rock. The bird glided after it, landed in the middle of the splintered bone and began to devour the sharp remains.

Come old mother, I'm supposed to fetch you.

3.

On .. .. .. , the date is irrelevant, it has been repeated a million times, Marla, Manu's little sister, was born. It was autumn, the wind began to drive the velvet green from the leaves, from the invisible air wondrous colors crept into the trees, transforming them into bright flowers that blossomed one last time. People trotted through the avenues, isolated vehicles scurried by, human feet carelessly crushed wizened apples that the tired trees had shed, unaware that only a few years later they would be ploughing through the ground by the meter with their bare fingers to find an old round edible fruit. Up in the air, airplanes circled, quietly, smoothly, only the somewhat rattling sound of engines foreshadowing the purpose for which they were built, that they were about to practice smashing death from the sky to the earth.

Little Marla lay secure against her mother's warm naked breast, sucking with nostrils flaring at the dark nipple, sucking greedily at the new life. Her big sister, already steeped in this life for ten years, stood wordlessly by. It might be another ten years, then she would lie like this, eyes closed, a small naked body against her bosom, sucking up a part of her life.

She remembered the big fish swimming upstream through the cold water, only to leave their spawn, exhausted and tired, to die afterwards. It's a good thing that Mummy wasn't a fish, otherwise she would die soon and she had to drag the little creature around the world.

Well, Manu, do you like her?

The girl nodded wordlessly. Her fascination had left her speechless, she gazed silently at the new life.

What is it, Manu, are you sad?

Her mother pulled her close to her, pulled her face to her other breast. Manu felt the warm, soft pulsing of bare skin. She looked directly into the eyes of the newborn life, but the little being's gaze passed her by unblinkingly, piercing the dim windows and moving into the new world. The old wooden door burst open, creaking, heavy, and Manu's brother entered.

Manu come, Daddy says I'm to fetch you.

Where to? squeaked Manu.

To the city. Shopping. Maybe we'll go to the funfair, too.

Manu looked indecisive.

Go on Manu, your sister won't run away from you.

Go on Manu, let them come and get you.

When the young woman returned home, she already suspected what had happened. The events of the last few weeks had furrowed her face from the inside, and nothing in her countenance reminded her of the pulsating life that roared through her unused body.

Oh Raisa, what misfortune, Raisa, my good one. Raisa, my little one!

The young woman looked into her mother's face, her plump cheeks held together by a headscarf, streams of tears spilling from her eyes, their drops forming strange pools on her upper body.

My Raisa, oh woe is me!

Raisa saw a group of older men digging a pit next to the house. Winter was coming, any night the frost could come and turn the soil of life into stone. The practical side of life rolled away the time of mourning with a stroke of the pen.

Where is he? Raisa asked in a choked voice.

They put him in the bedroom.

Raisa went to the house, her mother followed.

Rudely, she pushed the old woman aside:

Leave me alone! Leave us alone!

Distraught, the old woman moved away from the path, falling heavily on to an old wooden bench that stood next to the woodshed. Raisa entered the bedroom, for the last time she was alone with her husband in the small room where she had shared her most personal hours with a human being.

The dead body of her husband lay on her side of the bed. It had probably been too difficult to lay him out on his side in the narrow room, because the marital bed on his side was up against the wall. Motionless, Raisa looked at the body. On the center of his forehead, where she tenderly kissed him goodbye every morning, a sticky pool of blood had formed. Shot in the head. Sniper or stray bullet from this damned war. Why hadn't it flown five inches higher? Why hadn't an A-bomb blown the sniper to pieces before?

Till death do you part!

Raisa thought of her marriage. Out of embarrassment to herself, she pushed aside thoughts of their wedding night in that bed. She had remembered it sometimes, now was not the appropriate moment to follow that sudden thought, the time for remembering it had expired.

She left the room, went to the basement and returned with a saw, hammer and other tools. Like a machine, her arms worked with the old hacksaw.

Startled and confused, her mother rushed into the room at the regular buzzing of the saw blade.

Raisa, no dear, what's wrong with you?

What a misfortune. And now this. Had her daughter gone mad? It would not be unusual in this situation, one