by Nadin

For Circe

All of them were hyenas, all of them. Their hysterical laughter scattered through the pale night as they crushed the decaying bones of warm-blooded buffalos between their spiteful teeth.

Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw.

The sound arose in complete disharmony to the violent hissing of the ocean waves that wallowed on the shore of this oh so graveled beach. It seemed to me as if a tangle of snakes had been washed up.

A hyena dreamt of integrity and thought of it as something else. 

Another one dreamt of great betrayal and thought of it as love.

The last one dreamt of victory and thought of it as strength.

They weren’t able to perceive their perfidious loneliness among this animalic framework.

But at last they dreamt. And this made them to be these vulnerable creatures which I could only give a mild smile to, even though I phantom-likely felt the hyena lance weapon in my clenched fist. It was hard for me to put an end to them because their cackle contained so much humanitas. They were more human than us, and this is why I felt compassionate about them. And the fallacies they succumbed to, the ones that meant ease to them, the ones that nearly tickled the scorn out of me, these fallacies caused me to feel so much empathy for them, as if I had given birth to these hyenas, as if I had carved them out of my own flesh, as if I had cut them out of my ribs that guarded my intestines.

Sand in my shoes, you are the sand in my shoes.

Knowing that they weren’t aware of their atrocity hurt me. Knowing that they were not prepared for another observer who couldn’t evoke the sentiment of warmth when considering their grotesque exterior really pained me. I subconsciously associated them with medusa –  as if they had sprung from her chest like Pegasus once did. Sad, broken-jointed Pegasus. Medusa the Condemned, who was blamed for the cruelty that had happened to her. Medusa, the Greek sister of Do’Kamissa, buffalo woman, witch, held hostage by her unrequited love towards a father who had exiled her. Her soul kept on seeking him and convinced her that she had found him in a moor. As soon as the air no longer makes its way to the lungs and the vision gets  blurry, yes, I guess that must be a father’s embrace. Pain is the new Normal here, constant fear of loss. Torment.

Once I believed I was graced by the presence of a companion, a cheetah posessing a face embellished by deep black traces. A sunken love’s tears of Jade. Only at night she would come out to me where the moon wouldn’t reveal her voyeuristic light stolen from the sun. The betrayal was not contained by the fact that she one day simply disappeared, never to return again. The betrayal consisted of the fact  that I tried to find her by reading her traces in the dawn – traces which resembled a hyena’s paws. Furthermore I felt betrayed by the mere fact that I still would have wanted her to walk by my side. In spite of it all. However, in all of her personal misery and shame she spared me of the venomous phenomenon of being content with lies. And she had to lie, it must have been in her nature. My litte one, had you only revealed your true face to me, it would have appeared to me like an angels’ face. Your trash is my treasure. And I still wish it were vice versa.

To find comfort I nowadays read disturbing or simply bizarre short stories out of the book “ Isle night’s dream “. Isle means loneliness in some language, I guess.

„You get sick with tetanus from a  human biting your hand. You confuse tetanus with love rage, you take muscle twitches for the force of butterflies recycling energy like windmills.

A human is a wolf in lamb’s clothing – a little lamb that you want to protect from the malicious butcher. Turns out the lamb gets its hands on the butcher’s knife and slits your throat exultingly.  Your throat, so drainedly dried up for long, your throat, no blood, tears only, ah, no mess will be made. Stupid little lamb, I’m already long gone. That was the isle vampire’s deed. They sucked me dry.

Little lamb has grown into a mutton now. Your smell is incomparable to lilies of the valley. Your noises surely are no symphony of tenderness. Much more like  hyena-gnawing. Your wool being as hurtful as wire netting. I react to that allergically. Yet and still, you’re my little lamb.  You never knew what a knife was. Never seen blood before. But still you’re thirsting for it, aren’t you? When did the isle bat sank its teeth into you, little creature? Or was it your mother who made you a wolf’s orphan?

Mutton , you have no idea about the heavens. You only know how to separate here and there. Grass or concrete. Fence or river. I am a proud isle mare. My gallop doesn’t mean shit to you. My mane in the wind is only a periphery phenomenon to you.  The sound of my hooves doesn’t even  sound like trust. You unfortunately don’t know me. Your gaze is focused entirely on pigs. Them, you can bewitch. They’re on the same level, you assume, without ever having seen my eyes. You think I entirely consist off of throat. Those pigs, they have taste for delicacies, potato peels, banana peels, peanut peels, what a culinaric diversity !  

A lonesome mare puts the lasagna in the freezer because it gets no appreciation from you. Pearls in front of the sow, so they say. A loving heart to the mutton I say. Unfortunately.“

There’s no more time for nonsense now. Soon the sea horses will rise awake. Everything will have to be in the right place by then.  

The hyenas grinded rotting bones with their jaws. My phanom-like hyena lance weapon meanwhile weighed as heavy as a grenade. Suicide commando. The detonator lies buried in my heart. Luckily I can’t find it today.