By: Dmitri Malyga, February, 20. Kyiv, Ukraine.
For the wildest yet most common for some people, what I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. It might be madness; would I expect it when my senses deny their evidence? I am sure I am not mad–and that wasn’t my fantasy. But I need to share that story with the whole world, to place it before you all, plainly, with no hesitation, a series of the events I experienced and things I have seen not even once but dozens of times. Because of those events, my soul was distorted, tortured, and destroyed, not by myself only. But I wouldn’t, and I can’t say I got nothing. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. I want to share these events and my personal feelings about them. The conclusions, interpretations, and explanations I’ll leave to you. Not that I was scared by that development, but in the circumstances where I found myself, I was mesmerized, surprised, enlightened, and confused, if it is appropriate to say so. I’ll show it alongside the ordinary succession of natural causes and effects. A demon seduced me.
Earlier, before the actions I want to tell, I had a loving heart with kindness pouring out for people. I was not virtuous, but kind and maybe even a little naive. The tenderness in my heart was untouched by others. I ought to have protected and cared for my nature much more carefully, especially in today’s time and with the people I surrounded myself with. Still, breaking through the barrier I built for myself, I thought, was impossible. No one made a storm on my calm sea. I’d created a world that no one could enter. No one had been to change meat any time or in any situation. That kindness and tenderness were one of my principal sources of pleasure. I have always loved to make new connections with other people. My statement may seem self-righteous and selfish, but people constantly reach out to me. I may do nothing for it, but needless to say, I’ve taken advantage of it. I found fulfillment in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasions to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man. Still, I want to tell you about my chat with a known stranger.
It was the beginning of the war. I’d lost, I think, 90% of my friends and relatives who died or rode away to Europe. I will say even more strongly that I’d lost everything in this war and felt the vital need to rebuild the city and reconstruct the buildings ruined by the tornado coming from the east.This happened not to everyone but to the vast majority of people, especially those in the big cities, who were addicted to the nightlife like a needle. Before I became nothing, I needed to find a new way of existing. With that, I noticed how ephemeral my values were, how insignificant, and how my aspirations remained unfulfilled. During that time, the other man in my city lost his whole life’s order, as I did. He was a street photographer and digital artist, but the dead and empty streets gave him little inspiration. I knew him from stories; sometimes, we crossed paths at events downtown, but we never spoke. He was always with someone one-on-one, even in company, I had seen it, and I knew what to do if you know what I mean. My friends and familiars often warned me it was dangerous to associate with him. Some even deluded the word “scary” by saying he was poisonous and bites took a long time to heal. This did not bother me at all. I was confident I was immune to any “poison.” I interacted with him, and so it happened.
To be continued.
Written by: Dmitri Malyga inspired by current events, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Black Cat,” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Portrait of Dorian Gray.”
WEP by EZorrillaM.