The death of heroes

Contrary to the expectation you may have, oh, intrepid wonderer who braves this back alley of the information high way, I am not going to talk about the death of a hero. I will instead write of the death of heroism in general.
In the reinforced concrete jungle, that is the current habitat of homo sapiens, those community ties which gave birth to the hero as we know and love him are becoming thinner and thinner. As we go about our daily lives we no longer meet the members of a tight-knit community but rather the familiar stranger.
It is quiet possible for instance, to have closer ties to someone who lives half way around the world then the person who is sitting next to you on a bus. Under the circumstances why brave, a raging fire, defend a passer by on a dark night or generally put the interests of your fellow man above your own security?
In conclusion it's seems the hero as an archetype of humanity is destined to go extinct.

A quicksilver mirror - II

***

Cold...Dark...Dispear born of a half life. A wave of self perpetuating violence towering over him, ready to overwhelm him at the list sign of weakeness. "Who are you?" " Who am I", answer a distorsioned echoe... Scarlet light ... Blood...Numbers?
Edward wakes up . The digital watch shows 6:03 a.m in angular artificial letters. He tries to remember the dream but it slips away. It was like trying to hold on to almost solid shadows which always flee into the deeper shadows of Hypnos's realm. And so the shadows give way to the twilight of a London dawn. The world seems to hang in the balance between light and darkness. "A mirror of my soul" thought the newly awakened dreamer "with only a single difference, if this moment were mine the Day would be too weary to be born".
His revery is interrupted by the alarms high sound which seems capable of causing permanent aural damage.
"It's time to honor the memory of Sisif one more time by imitation."

Denial

We first realize our own mortality around the age society considers us responsible adults (sure!). We then spend the next decade or two trying to convince ourselves of our own vaguely immortal nature. After this period of enforced ignorance and therefore enforced bliss, we come face to face with whatever facet of Death we have the misfortune to encounter: disease, weakness and most often the irreversible effects of time on ourselves and on the world around us.
So the greatest question in regard to the relationship each of us has with our own personal vision of Death is "what do I do now?" I would not now, I am only eighteen. So why not ponder this or better yet, why not deny some more?

A quicksilver mirror

Motto „There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio then are contained in your philosophy”

17th of april 1945

Spring brings neither life nor beauty over the weary Atlantic, save perhaps the primordial and perilous beauty of the storm. For the crew of the U-358 the avatistic fear of the unquiet sea is amplified by their dispair. The days of the Third Reich are numbered and its death will signal an end to the materialization of the irrational hatred which poisoned the minds of the men now on board the ship doombed to drawning ...or worse.

The captain sees that the storm is worsening , almost continuous lightning throwing the tortured seascape into sharp relief. The waves rise and fall like the jagged peaks of an ever-changeing mountain range thrown at the uncareing heavens as if in some cosmic fit of pique .

„So be it” he thought „we will fight to the last men and the last breath. This is not the end. It cannot be the end. I will perseveir.”

As if nature itsself wished to undo this insane plan, a steelhued wave struck the already damaged vessel.Seeing their death gaping before them like unfathomable abyss even as the sea readied itsself to accept their steel coffin, most of the crew did not pray for forgiveness, nor even accept their faith but burned with an fierce desire for revenge which seamed to charge the stagnant air of the ship and to impregnate the broken hull. In the low room below deck which served as a sleeping chamber for the crew, Franz also sees the everchanging faith of Death. In the moment of choice he hesitates, awed by the vastness of the inevitable. His choice and his very thought are then overwhelmed by the bloodywave of revenge „The crew must follow the captain...”

A Darkness stired in the darkness of the ocean depths and resonated in simpathy to the denial of mens Faith. Amid the millenia old silence of the ocean depths rises the wreck of the U-358 given a nightmarish semblance of life, the holes in its hull glow with an unlight like the gates to some lonely abyss. Within the shadows born of Death’s denial a single light remain. A light which once was named Franz. For a time it shined unwaveringly and then in a moment, which in the world of light where time was still measured ,was the 15.01.1973 it began to pulse in echoe of a distant living heart.

To be continued...