Sunday 12 December 1999

Pic of the day: Usually in my life, images of bloody murder are limited to the role playing game Daggerfall. Here, making ready to backstab an enemy. (Just for you - I usually don't do that even in a game.) But it wasn't always like this ...

I stopped by the Writing in the Sand collab site, and saw that this month they will attempt to dig out the darkest secrets. Now, ironically, their theme of the month ("If it wasn't illegal, what would you do?") is not my darkest and deepest secret. Not even one of them. As if mere human laws could bind the hands of my inner shadows...

Last night (or, technically, today) I dreamt that we set off a nuclear bomb and killed off a small town and its surroundings. This wasn't exactly what we wanted. We - a small and ragged group of outlaws lost in time - just wanted to blow away a hill in order to speak with the mountain spirits within. But the only way to do that was a nuclear bomb (hills are pretty big things) and the only nuclear bomb we had was a Russian one which had been lost from their storage. And it was a pretty strong little thing.

We even tried to warn people. Well, at least one of the girls did. She called the principal (?) of the local high school, but he was quite condescending and so we didn't call any more. The town was built on another nearby hill so there was really no way to avoid it. We ran in the near darkness of evening, down the hillside, through the forest, looking for somewhere to hide. I found a hole as deep as I was high and hid there. Most of the others had to run farther away. Nukes are pretty big things.

The carnage was quite bad, I'm sorry to say. And it was all over international TV and everything. People suspected anarchists and right-wing resistance groups and stuff. Nobody suspected us, a motley crew of young rebels and comic book characters, and me.

So, after a 10 years pause, it seems I am back with a vengeance! When I was younger, particularly from ca 25-30, I often dreamt (in the night, that is, and literally) about killing people. Never anyone I knew, only nameless enemies. I killed them with artillery, guns, axe, stones, even with my bare hands. I lost track of the dead of my dreams. It was somewhat disconcerting, what with me being a pacifist and all. I guess that's what you get for trying to shrug off a decade of being bullied at school, and then trying to act all holy and good.

OK, so it wasn't only in the night. I had these ... flashes, I guess. I would walk towards a street and suddenly in a flash I felt that I was shooting into the crowd with an automatic weapon, seeing the blood and chaos and hearing the screams. And then in the next moment the vision would be gone and everything would be back to normal. Or I would suddenly imagine that I was driving a lorry at high speed into a street packed with happy Saturday shoppers. Ahem. It's not like I really planned to do it, you know. And sometimes I would think about how it would feel to climb to one of the highest roofs in the city and set off a nuclear bomb. There was nothing about people should know it was me or anything. Just the idea that I would kill all those people before I went to hell, so I sort of could go there with a feeling of accomplishment.

It used to irritate me that I might go to hell for some minor hobby and not have taken the opportunity to be really evil. I used to think a lot about hell, back when I was more holy than I am now.

Back then, I did not really love anybody, and nobody loved me. (That I knew, at least.) I was convinced that neither God nor humans loved me for who I was, only for what I could perform or accomplish. (This may not be a bad estimate of the humans in general, I guess, but then again I was not so much better.) I tried to be good, I tried to be better, to discard my tainted humanity. But it was never enough.

The one thing that brightened my life was the children. Not mine, obviously, but others. Children generally liked me, and they were not very judgmental. Of course they expected me to give and give, but that's how children are. And it is not so hard, with children. Yet somehow it never occured to me that a Heavenly Father could be as forgiving as I was. I always took for granted that I was better than God. Oh well. Those were the times.

Time passes and we change. Perhaps more than we think. I shall have to come back to that, if I get the opportunity. As for what I would do if it wasn't illegal, I think I shall reserve that too for another day, if any. Right now I think I'll do something boring legal and be happy for that.