Sunday, May 22, 2011

"Yes, my respected friend,...

... the world is full of death, full of death. 

Death sits on every fence, stands behind every tree. Building walls and dormitories and chapels and churches won't keep death out; death looks in through the window, laughing, knowing every one of you. 

In the middle of the night you hear laughter under your window and someone calls your name. 
Go ahead, sing your psalms, burn pretty candles at the altar, say your evening prayers and your morning prayers, gather herbs in your laboratory, collect books in your libraries. 
Are you fasting, dear friend? Are you depriving yourself of sleep? 
He'll lend you a hand, our old friend the Reaper, he'll strip you to the bones. 
Run, dear friend, run as fast as you can, death is giving a party in the fields, run and see that your bones stay together, they're trying to escape, they don't want to stay with us. 
Oh, our poor bones, our poor throat and belly, our poor little scraps of brains under our skulls! 
It all wants to become free, it all wants to go to the devil, the crows are sitting in the trees, those black-frocked priests."
(Narcissus and Goldmund, Hermann Hesse)

(art by GrimShady)

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