The Far Arena by Richard Ben Sapir Read Free Book Online Page B

barbaric tongue at many leagues and now very close, as though yelling my ears from my head. My limbs are there but do not move. My eyes are sandy pools, and I suspect light but do not see it. I taste the sewers of death in my mouth. Taste? Am I living?
    There is no taste. I am warm again and my body has gone off to its gentle sl eep, and I think. Is that death ? No. Dreams are of a different stuff, and I can put my mind where I wish it.
    Some say Dis greets all in the underworld, that the spirit escapes through the mouth. But I have seen men with their mouths mashed solid into their throats. Where does the spirit go then? Others say, mostly slaves, there is a final beautiful place of eternal joy for those who live a certain way. But this hope is too much a hope for a cunning mind. No, I have seen too much death not to know it is but a last sleep, leaving nothing. It is neither fearful nor wonderful, only eventual. It is the one kept promise of birth. And I am forced to await it with an active mind. So this is the way snow kills. Perhaps it is worse than the sword.
    The sword does not make you dwell on what a fool you are.
    Four
    First Day - Petrovitch Report
    Patient poor. Pulmonary by-pass unit disconnected, 9:22 pan. Systolic pressure 120 mm. Diastolic 80 mm. Circulation, therefore, good, but patient experiencing apparent paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia, variable and occasional rapid heartbeats This caused by ventricular node unable to send clear signals to the heart. State of shock feared imminent.
    Electroencephalograph records unusually intense brain-wave activity as though experiencing severe dream or nightmare.
    Why am I not dead? Where is my death? I know death. It is a proud and free thing in a quiet place. Disembowel the dead, it is free of needing its stomach. Cut off an arm, it does not care. It has triumphed over the shouts of the mobs themselves. No emperor can harm it further.
    That is death. I know death. In death I will not think about why I was marched to the German Sea. In death, I will not remember, nor stand as my chief accuser. Where is my death? That one and only debt owed by life waits. But it does not tarry for those who fear it.
    I will not think.
    Second Bay - Petrovitch Report
    Condition poor. Elevated SGP-T level due to some liver damage, but 1 mg/100 ml creatinine indicates kidney functioning. Also, blood urea nitrogen remains under 20 mg/100 ml, which also supports belief that kidney functions, perhaps perfectly. Paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia experienced by patient at 2 a.m. and 4:55 a.m. Danger of shock remains high,
    EEG (electroencephalogram) reports continued intense brainwave activity for long periods of time. Vocal activity reported at 8:17 a.m.; instruments thereupon set up to record. Apparently it dreams, but the words are barely audible. Language unidentified.
    I burn. The sun comes and goes quickly like torches with sudden flames. It is dark, then light, suddenly, as though I have slept a moment and the day has come.
    I am on my back. My skin singes. Little bugs in my blood eat their way out of my pores with their hot, sharp little teeth. Pain I know. There are limits and then there is no more.
    The pain of the body has a line over which it will give up its senses. The mind, I suspect, is limitless, its pain only shovelled silent with the grave.
    I smell rotting flesh. I breathe it. I taste it. I am it.
    I hear German talk, grunting barking sounds. If they are the far-north Germans and have followed us to the sea, why don't they take this helpless flesh and end my pain ?
    It is not the death but the dying that claims the price. And not the body but the mind that tolerates so many never-ending taxes.
    I deserved what happened to me. But my loyal slaves did not. My family did not.
    If I could die without thinking, without remembering, without saying to myself, 'if here', 'if there', 'if only'. I am not dying.
    This must be death. Death is a quiet thing. My mind bangs like so much