Stefán Máni - The Ship

Silence.

‘It’s Christmas,’ says Jónas with a sigh. ‘Where are my children?’

…my children?… my children?… my children?…

‘I killed their mother. I killed my wife. Hit her in the head with a hammer.’

…with a hammer… a hammer… a hammer…

‘I didn’t want to go to prison. That’s why I sabotaged the communications. I wanted to get away, get as far as possible from… from what I had done. I didn’t want to be judged by men. I wanted to stand before God. God knows what I did and why I did it. He understands me. He’s the one that should judge me.’

…judge me… judge me… judge me…

Silence.

‘There is no God,’ says Satan, his voice low.

…no God… no God… no God…

‘That’s not true,’ Jónas murmurs, then there’s the sound of wooden beads as he pulls his rosary out of the pocket of his frozen parka. ‘God exists. He definitely exists. Otherwise the lifeboat wouldn’t have drifted back to the ship. What I’m uncertain of, on the other hand, is his mercy. I’m not sure any more that I want him to judge me. I understand now what I did, but at the same time I don’t understand why I did it. I must be sick. No – maybe I’m not sick. Maybe I’m just a human abomination.’

…abomination… -nation… -nation…

‘There are no lies in an echo,’ says Satan.

…echo… echo… echo…

Silence.

‘I don’t want to fall asleep any more,’ says Jónas, breathing fast and unevenly. ‘I don’t want to sleep! I don’t want to die! I can’t—’

Slrrrrrghhhhh…

‘What was that?’ asks Jónas, flinching.

…was that?… was that?… was that?…

‘I don’t know,’ says Satan, cocking an ear. ‘It was like when water gets sucked down a drain. Maybe there’s a stream or a spring deep in the cave?

…in the cave?… the cave?… the cave?…

‘Water? That wasn’t any water!’ says Jónas, who’s almost hyperventilating. ‘That was some… some creature ! One of those monsters Stoker worships in secret!’

…in secret!… secret!… secret!

‘So you’ve visited Stoker too,’ says Satan, taking a couple of steps forwards.

‘Don’t!’

Slrrrrrghhhhh…

‘Don’t leave me!’ says Jónas and he tries to grab Satan, to no avail. ‘For God’s sake, don’t leave me!’

…leave me!… leave me!… leave me!…

‘Here, take this,’ says Satan, holding something towards the place where Jónas is sitting. ‘I guess I won’t be using it any more.’

…any more… any more… any more…

‘What is it?’ says Jónas as he takes the cold, hard object. ‘Is it a gun? Is it your gun? What should I do with a gun?’

…with a gun?… a gun?… a gun?…

‘You can use it on those monsters of yours,’ says Satan. ‘But just remember: there’s only one bullet.’ He sets off deeper into the cave.

…one bullet… bullet… bullet…

‘Satan! Don’t! I…’

…I!… I!… I!…

But he stops talking when he realises he’s alone in the dark.

Satan takes slow, painful steps into the pitch-black cave. The floor seems to slant down but he’s not sure. His body is little by little going numb; the cold has almost paralysed his limbs; it’s getting more and more difficult to breathe; his heart falters in his chest, and his thoughts are becoming more and more hazy.

Once he’s been walking for a good while, he reaches a narrow cliff wall that divides the space in two. Should he go right or left? Left or…?

Slrrrrrghhhhh…

The sound seems to be coming from the right, so –

Bang, bang, bang…

The shot echoes back and forth through the cave before it finally dies out.

Silence.

Has he been walking for hours or just a few minutes? He doesn’t know.

Satan stares into the dark without seeing anything at all. He feels around with fingers that are blue and black and as dead as a withered tree. He has found two more cliff faces that split the space in two.

Or is it always the same one?

He keeps turning right, always right. That’s how you’re supposed to find your way out of a maze….

No!

He can’t believe this! The caves have been narrowing little by little and just lately he’s been able to touch both walls by spreading his arms, and if he lifts them he can touch the ceiling.

But now…

In front of him is a wall. A smooth cliff face. An ice-cold surface. The journey is over. Or is it? To hell with it! He can’t carry on…

Satan doesn’t show it, but the minute he touches that cold stone surface, the hope in his breast dies out like a candle’s flame. And in the shadow of despair, evil wakes from its deep slumber and evil cares about neither life nor death. It feeds on itself and shoves everything else aside. It lives and behaves like a fire that grows and grows until it is so large and cruel that it swallows itself and perishes.

Evil takes possession of Jón Karl. It growls inside his head, pumps black poison into his blood, locks onto every nerve and has the one aim of thriving and budding and blossoming like a spirit from hell in the flesh that contains it, whatever the consequences.

Evil is by nature eternal and thus has nothing to lose and nothing to win.

Jón Karl’s body is as stiff as a board and a fire rages in his head. He puts his hands against the wall and tries to pull his head back, but his neck is stuck. He tries to yell but his voice is useless.

RED! HE SEES RED!

Inside Satan’s head there’s another Satan who puts his hands against a red wall which is the inside of the skull of the Satan who is standing, as if petrified, in front of the granite wall at the end of the caves. This new Satan is shirtless, long haired, freshly shaved, wearing black leather trousers and surrounded by white-hot lava and spitting tongues of flame. He stretches his head back, strains his sweaty muscles, locks resolute eyes on the wall and looks right through the wall that, to his frantic mind, is nothing but a puny eggshell.

SATAN, DEVIL, LUCIFER!

He aims his forehead at a fiery red spot on the other side of the wall because there is no fucking wall ! He roars like a wild animal, drives himself forwards at terrific speed and, with all his might, busts through the thin eggshell.

It’s very strange, travelling without a body. Pitching back and forth as if in a swing, only more slowly, but also with an uncomfortable sideways motion, and always this weird feeling that every swing down is longer and deeper than the swing up, as if the soul were falling over some final brink, shown in slow motion, like a replay on television, again and again. It’s quite soothing in some hypnotic way, but above all there’s this unending feeling of numbness, getting ever more unreal the longer you glide about in this ink-black emptiness that smells of tobacco smoke and is as large or as small as a man’s mind, as deep as the echo of the slow beat of the bass drum in the band.

Boom, boom, boom…

Heavy blues music, the clamour of voices and a cloud of bitter smoke are pierced by the loud peal of a bell, as if from a ship lost in fog near the shore of some strange land.

Déjà vu.

‘Fifteen minutes to closing!’ the bartender shouts, letting go of the cord that hangs from the clapper of the old brass bell that once served a Dutch freighter.