Mike and Anna made their way up to the castle. It was very much like their friend Brad to rent an old castle for Halloween. “Ever since he’s made all that money with the computers, he has gone absolutely lunatic”, Mike had told Anna before she had first met Mike‘s college roommate. Brad had immediately proven Mike’s point by bluntly blurting out that he never thought that, “some chick could make Mike chaste; he’s not getting any and still with you? I don’t get it”. Anna’s religious beliefs and her strict stepfather and the education he had deemed right for her made her remain a virgin until she was married. True, in the beginning it had bothered Mike, and he had complained to Brad about it to no end, but after he had admitted to himself that Anna was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he had accepted her choice. And so he waited for his wedding night for the first time with her. In the 21st century.

Mike parked his car next to the others and clambered out of it into the windswept, rainy night, trying hard not to lose parts of his costume. He had wanted to be a knight all his life long (ever since he had seen the cartoon “Robin Hood“), which is why he dressed as one every Halloween. Anna was less pleased with hers. The costume store had been very poorly stocked and she had ended up dressing as a nun, which would be oil in the fire of Brad’s bad jokes. Her only hopes were that he either would be so drunk or the party so crowded that he wouldn’t notice her. But what with Brad and Mike being best friends, the chances were slim to none. And as if on queue …

“Dude!” It took Brad a good three minutes to catch his breath and stop laughing. “Never in my life have I seen anything as remotely appropriate as this.” He threw one arm around Mike’s and the other around Anna’s shoulders and walked them to the bar. “You know, there is this prophecy thing about this castle. A knight desires a nun, but she won’t let him until he desires nothing more than to be with her forever and when they finally kiss, hell will open up its gates.”

It took Mike a while to understand what his already heavily intoxicated friend was trying to say. “You do realise that we’ve already kissed, right?”

Brad nodded vigorously, “But that prophecy was made a long time ago. By today’s standards, it would have to be sex.”

Anna smiled. “So you’re saying that when Mike and I have sex, hell will open up?”

Brad gave her a wide smile, then slowly turned pale, slapped his hands over his mouth and stormed off to the toilets or some other secluded spot. Mike pecked Anna on the lips, wordlessly telling her to ignore Brad, and pulled her with him to the buffet.


Two hours later, a very drunk and very jealous Mike watched an even more drunk and completely ignorant Brad make out with some random girl. This was unfair. How was this fair? Mike, who had been in a relationship for two years, had had no proper sex for two and a half years, while Brad, who couldn’t be in a relationship to save his hamster’s life, practically got laid in front of Mike’s eyes. This was not how it was supposed to be. Growling, Mike heaved himself onto unstable, wobbling feet, and went in search for Anna.

Screw abstinence, he had been complying with her every wish for too long now. Why did he have to do what she wanted? Why could she not do something he wanted for a change? His eyes scanned the room, trying to locate a nun. That’s right, he wanted sex, that’s why he was looking for a nun.

He soon found a figure wrapped in a nun‘s frock, who was just about to leave the room. Using his scabbard to keep his balance, he staggered after her, praying that it indeed would be Anna, since he had lost his contacts some time ago (he suspected them to be doing laps in the punch bowl) and only saw blurry shapes.

The nun, who really was Anna, stood waiting for him in the hallway. Leaning onto the wall for moral and physical support, he barely managed to get out his demands of immediate sex. She just looked at him coldly, told him to get sober and recommended thinking before speaking. This made Mike angry. He could feel the injustice of it all boiling in his stomach, joining forces with anger and alcohol and march towards his brain. Usually he was a very balanced, evenly-tempered person, only now he completely lost it.


Even while he heard those words, which he would have never thought possible of him uttering to her, leave his mouth and while he watched her hurrying away from him, through a door and out of sight, he regretted it. Alcohol, injustice and anger retreated in a flash and curled up in a small ball somewhere where his stomach used to be. Sobering up in a matter of seconds, he scurried after her.

The cold hit him as soon as he bolted through the door and jerked to a halt. Straining his lens less eyes, he found her, just as a lightening bold flashed across the sky and revealed with its quivering light an old, abandoned courtyard. The rolling thunder and the creaking of the rusty hinges of a door, toy to the antics of the wind which was banging it against the wall in a rhythmic tempo, gave the scenery something eerie and chilled his spine.

There she was, standing with trembling shoulders in a distant corner, with her hood over her head, facing away from him. He heaved a deep sigh and went to do some damage control, hoping dearly that she wasn’t mad beyond repair. And so he stood behind her, explaining with a voice just loud enough to drown out the noise how much of an idiot he was, that he did respect her and her beliefs, that he really and truly loved her and that he was prepared to wait for her, no matter how long it would take. As he said those words he felt in his heart that he meant them. He had made his decision some time ago, and he would stick to it, no matter what. His feeling just told him that this was right. All he wanted was the woman right in front of him and he would do what it took to convince her of that.

She turned, her hood still low over her face, probably to hide her tear-stained face from him. A pang of guilt ripped through him; what had he done to her? She raised her arm and cradled his warm cheek in her cold hand. She had only been mere seconds out in this courtyard before he had come after her. How could her hand have gotten this icy? She covered his eyes (which was pointless, since he couldn’t see much anyway, what with him being lens less and standing in the dark) and leaned in to kiss him.


It took all his will power not to jerk back. Her lips were icy, bone dry and hard, and he really wondered just what she had been doing or eating to have such putrid breath. It felt nothing like the Anna he knew and loved, and suddenly a horrible idea came to his mind. Had he just been declaring everlasting love to the wrong person?

With hands shaking from foreboding and reluctance, he removed her hood.

Mike couldn’t even yell. All the strength he could summon went into one feeble step away from her. Eye-less sockets glared at him - could sockets without eyes glare? - wispy hair whipped around what resembled more a skull than a face, a sudden gust of wind made her frock flutter around her thin form. The lips curled into a grimace, what looked like a maggot wiggled its way out.

The earth began to tremble; or was it just his body? He staggered backwards, just in time. The floor began to crumble away, in the precise spot where he had been standing mere seconds ago. His body went rigid, he could not move for all he was worth, and was reduced to watch in silent horror as a once majestic, now crumbling stairway appeared beneath the ground leading down into the unknown. The ever-banging door suddenly slammed shut, blocking out all light and sound from the party inside, leaving the courtyard with only the thunderstorm to enlighten it. Somewhere from the depths of those bottomless pits of the underworld, there rose a light, slowly dancing up to reveal its carrier, a figure wrapped in old, rotting cloth hanging limply unaffected by the howling wind, carrying a scythe, with a starved dog dancing before his feet, barking and howling raucously, the chain around its bony neck clanking madly.


In this moment, Brad and the prophecy he had been telling them about came to Mike’s mind. Was this really happening? Had he, unknowingly, unleashed hell? The scythe caught the light of the lightning bolt and flashed at him. Was this death? Had he released death?


A shudder ran through his body, finally breaking the spell and releasing him from his mortified rigor. He turned around and bolted for the door, running away from the sight before him, trying to block out everything he had seen. He wrenched open the creaky and protesting door and dashed inside, randomly taking turns and stairs, not knowing where he was going, not knowing what he should be doing. Anna! He needed to find Anna and get out of here. Only then did he remember. He had followed Anna into the courtyard. Was she still out there? Had she turned into the skeletal nun?


He slammed full force into a wall. The passageway he had just taken turned out to be a cul-de-sac. Blood was pounding in his ears as he wrapped his arms around his throbbing torso and doubled over in pain. Where was he? How long had he been running around this castle? Walls, nothing but stone, brick and mortar around him. His breath hitched. Were those footsteps or just his own pulse? Clanking? Dog’s collar? He inched his way to the corner, fully prepared to see the blurry outlines of death, his mistress and the dog. Nothing, just walls. Why was everything so full of walls? He held onto an iron thing sticking out in front of him, trying to calm himself.

“Alright, chill out dude. Calm down and get out of here.”

He felt like stuck in a maze, and he did not like mazes. They made him nervous, ever since he had to be rescued from one as a child. Add that on top of his panic and he was freaked. Taking deep calming breaths, he cautiously made his way away from the cul-de-sac. He had no idea where he was going, but since he couldn’t wait there until he started to rot he figured he might as well move. And so he edged along the corridors, checking every turn, jutty and alcove. Every time he neared a window he could see the grotesque lightning of the thunderstorm and hear the howling of the wind, forbidding himself to hear dog’s barking as well.


“Not real, not real, not real. This is the 21st century, not some stupid gothic movie.”

But his attempts remained futile. Every clank, every shadow, every dull thud made him flinch, which was exceptionally painful in his armour. Stupid costume! Screw the knight, next year he’d dress as a slob in a track suit.

Straight ahead he could see a bright beam, like light wriggling its way through the tiny space between door and floor. He could hear noises, but not the clanking and howling he had learned to hate by now, no, it definitely sounded like “Blame it on the Alcohol”. Mike’s heart leaped in his chest. That was party noise! Thank heavens, he had found his way back! He quickened his pace, a smile dancing across his lips as he quietly sang along, “Blame it on the vodka, blame it on the henny, blame it on the blue tap got you feeling dizzy, blame it on the ah-ah-ah-alcohol.

“

Just how stupid was he? He was drunk, as easy as that. Drunk and hallucinating. Who knew just what was in the punch, knowing Brad he might easily have put in some „special“ ingredients, that would be the kind of thing Brad found funny. And to think he had been convinced to have unleashed hell and death and what not. Mike shook his head at his own stupidity. He reached the door and tried to pull it open, which didn‘t work. Neither did pushing. Annoyed, Mike took a step back, preparing himself to crash full force into the stupid door as he noticed another streak of light at the end of the corridor. „Might as well try there before I shatter my shoulder“, he mumbled and set off, tripping over something too soft to be a stone. He didn‘t give it a thought though, all he wanted to do now was to find Brad and smack him around the head for spiking the punch. He wrenched the door open and found himself back in the courtyard.

It was like a flashback, nothing had changed. Howling wind, rolling thunder, lightning flashes. He half expected to find staircase, dog, death and nun, but of course, there was nothing there. Still, he had no desire to stay there; that hallucination had been way too real for his taste. He turned around to try the other door again, just in time to see the light of the next bolt flashing off the scythe, as a hooded figure bent low over what he had tripped over before. Mike saw Anna‘s eyes stared up at him, unseeing, cold, dead, before the door slammed shut and muffled the sound of wind and thunderstorm.

Impressum

Texte: Lyrics quoted by Jamie Fox, Blame it on the alcohol
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 03.02.2010

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Widmung:
To Prof. Loidolt, who made me write this