Saturday, June 2, 2012

entry for epicmafia contest


He does not know how long he has lived here. He knows none of his family, his friends, or his identity; he does not know why he lives here in this desolate place of murder and carnage. He is forlorn albeit hopeful; he desires to help these people, yet is incapable of it—how can one utilize their talents if one cannot recall what they are? He drifts unseen and unknown between warring factions without comrades to call his own. He does not know what he fights for—he has no one to defend, because he cannot remember them.
In this village, he hides himself amongst the crowd; he surmises that, perhaps, if he can keep himself hidden and under the radar, he may find what he is searching for. Possibly, he might be able to recover lost pieces of his memory, or even find a new slew of memories to finally call his own. He endures endless shouts; he dodges the occasional accusation made against him; he prepares to defend himself from attackers, despite knowing that it is futile—even if he tried, he would not know how. He spies a man being hanged, and cowers in the face of death. He has not seen death before (or he does not remember such), and witnessing it for the first time causes him to recoil. He screams, and suddenly a few of the citizens notice him, and he promptly hides. No use fretting yet, he thinks—just flee once more, keep a distance, and it will be fine. They will not come near. They will not interrogate the unknown spectator if they do not know he is unknown. People fear what they cannot comprehend, this man understands. When one encounters something unseen before, it is ostracized. If this mob is guided by the sheer paranoia that he can sense deep down in his bones, they may suspect he may have been a past convict. Would he recall his crimes? Would he return to the unscrupulous personality he became so accustomed to?
Alas, he does not know. Instead, this man continues to pursue something that may forever elude him. He watches a somber scene unveil before him: the surviving members of the village group up now to bury their fallen governor that succumbed to gunshot wounds the mere night before. They do not stand too close to one another, however—they realize that there are culprits still lingering within their beloved camaraderie. The fight is not over, not yet. The fight is never over.
The man then turns his gaze to the willow tree. He solemnly contemplates the plight of the man that hangs from it. He was a malicious man, of course: he was a serial killer that mangled the corpses of the middle-aged men he murdered. Rumors had it that their ghostly wails could still be heard from their half-hearted unmarked graves that lie strewn about the killer’s former residence; he testified that he buried his victims after he mutilated them because, after his cravings were satiated, he wished to acknowledge that he loved them. Yes; through his deplorable behavior, he only wanted to share his benevolence with the rest of the world.
The amnesiac ponders this. He sets himself under the tree, next to the hanging corpse, and contemplates love. He spies the man’s treasured knife in the ground, takes it up in his arms—carefully—and examines it; it is rusted and worn. The man with no memory of his past life smiles this, loves this, and cherishes this, having never felt these amorous feelings stir in his subconscious before.
He stands up. The knife is clenched by its handle in the man’s dominant hand.

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