The priest of the desert souls

Let me tell you, life isn't easy. Especially when everything goes down and down, deep into the mess of your lonely life. On this particular day I thought it couldn't get anymore messy, but God did I get corrected. It was a sunny day, cold weather, a dreamy fog over the land and still I did not knew where to go. This little town was just a stone in the whole wide world and my search for this guy, this black man, just started the day before. The wind was blowing, carrying tumbleweed through the streets. To say it straight, it was a ghosttown, and you could feel those fallen souls on every corner watching you, hiding in the mist, waiting for their call. He has lead me into a trap, this whole town was a wrong turn in my life. My revolvers where ready, so I was aware that the time hand't come yet. I walked freely, seemed not to get scared by those staring eyes, that flashed here and there. What did the black man do in this town. Were those ghosts raised by him? I entered the saloon and there it all came to this certain painful moment, as my eyes where held by a dreamy mirror. The frame was very ancient, it seemed there were some runes carved in the wood which hold the mirror. What did I see? First there was nothing at all, and this scared me the most. Imagine standing there in the darkness, just the light from the outside leaking in, catching nothing in the mirror, just the black void, that waited there. After some fateful breathes I realized it was crammed with shadows. I turned around, looked out, feared a blow from somewhere, a stunning hit, something like that. But there was just the howling of the wind, dead silence in between and still, as I watched the mirror, there were those persons. Their eyes watching me, filled with lonelyness. I couldn't help, but in an instant flash I knew, they where the fallen ones, men, women I shot down on my long path as a gunslinger. You have to kill to survive, isn't that so? They begged me for mercy. It's the old trick. Getting your attention, making you feel bad, but still, they had to die. If it wasn't me that shot them down, someone else whould do these overdue tasks. Outlaws. It doesn't matter how old or young, if woman or man, they deserved the bullet. At least that was what I thought. But the mirror showed more. There was the feeling of being drawn into this black world and as I stepped nearer I feared that a hand from one of those ghosts would reach out, tore at my clothes, clawing at my flesh, hating me. In the next second I was in this mirror, I stared from there into the world I was before. Voices whispering deadly secrets of the life that was meant to end, this or the next day. I wasn't sure yet, if I was going to die soon. But the revelations of the voice was killing me from the inside. I was a murderer, I killed people, I took their lifes just by pulling the trigger. How did it come, that I never felt sorry for that? Not a second, not a split of a breath. And than this other guy was watching me. I was in the mirror, was caged there, and he was staring at me. His lips parted to a broad,viper-like smile, and I understood he was the devil. He watched me there in the black world, on the other side of the mirror. "Lead your life, lead your pasrt, become my vassal, at last.", he said in a dreamy voice. He enchanted those words, he prayed to me. He did not make the sign of the cross, but I knew it was a passionful prayer. After that, I was freed from the mirror. I stumbled out of the saloon. The devil was gone and my meaning of life, too. I had no chance left, so I put the last bullet in the chamber of the revolver. I smiled and wanted to die. I saw those eyes right in front of me, the woman, my last victim. And I understood, the black man I was chasing, was just a ghost. The other, the better me. I was a fallen priest, I had changed the lanes, and walked now on the road of death and pain. I pulled the trigger, but to no evail. There was just another click, the attempt to die, failed sadly. So I walked on. I had decided to leave this life alone. I tossed the gun, I walked away under the burning sun, out into the desert, to the place where truth was waiting. I knew I could survive, when I failed to die. But to what purpose? Believe again, take care of the fallen, a voice inside of me whispered. So I became the priest of the desert souls. The man in black, whom I had chased.

Freitag, 19. April 2024

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