Pared to Truth

Dark Memoirs - Index

"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings." - Socrates

The irony isn't lost on me that people like Socrates love to share their thoughts and feelings on death. Living, breathing people feel they have an intimate understanding of death enough to give a fair assessment of it.

It's all bullshit, of course.

Now I do believe Socrates, who enjoyed some exquisite buggery with Alcibiades, has a point. What is that saying, a Greek philosopher balls deep in his protege's ass will hit upon insight and wisdom once on a blue Thursday?

His philosophical nonsense — all highbrow thinking and verbosity with no real meaning at all — makes me sick. But, dirty, old Socrates had a point, death can be a blessing for humans.

That's why they come to me. Poor fools.

Poor pathetic fuckers.

I wish I got nearly as much out of this as I did when I was still green, young and full of vigour.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy it. Still get an electric delight from watching and feeling someone's last breath drawn or watching as the final drop of blood is exsanguinated from their flailing body.

Some will think they are ready for the big leagues. They think they are ready to feel their life drift away. The narcotics, the self-inflicted damage they've done to themselves has numbed them to reason.

Fortunately, I am not one to let my judgements get in the way of my all-important work.

Just last week a man who thought he was some kind of tough guy, or brute, came to my hallowed halls of humiliation and dehumanisation as if he were going to Glastonbury to see Dolly Parton.

Told me to do my worst.

I ignored his ridiculous request.

Strung his body up with chains, naked as the day he was born. Then I took a grater — a crude, inelegant tool — and pared his skin away. Funny how it’s always the loudest men who are reduced to quiet truths when their own betraying flesh finally surrenders.

Like so many before him, he asked whether he got last words. No. This isn't kindergarten. Death will come to those who want it - naked, without reason, rhyme, memorial, or pomp and ceremony..

Well, not for them, anyway.

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Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: The tester was a success. This is the second chapter in my ongoing new series about a strange individual. The first chapter, Fair Exchange, No Robberies, was very well received. Thank you. I have started republishing each chapter to the Chapters community and will be publishing an index with links to all the existing and future chapters in Horror.

This is perhaps my best poem -