****
Night 1:
The numbers are dancing in his mind’s vision. He seems to be sitting still, all calm. But then it begins again – as it has been happening since the last few weeks. The chaos inside his mind makes him lose consciousness again. The figurative wolf rises. And after some time has passed, he comes back to his own self.
“This is the second kill I have done tonight. How long can I go on doing this?” he says to himself.
“As long as it takes,” comes the uninvited reply from the other part of his mind - the wolf speaks to him.
While the moon moves from one star to another, now and then taking refuge in the smirking clouds, the wolflike hero inside him awakens again, imposing his will over the weaker human.
“It doesn’t matter,” the human says as he loses his will to argue against the hero. “Nothing in the world matters. I am a tiny insignificant piece in the entire existence, and so is this planet, and any condition of the world is as good as anything else. A meaning to this existence is absent. But still, isn’t doing this wrong? Who am I to assume this responsibility of destroying the concept of meaninglessness from this world’s minds? This is unlawful, to say the least.”
The hero smilingly destroys the innocuous rationale, “What legality are you talking about? The one that was created by the minds of some humans a thousand years ago. And based on what? Based on the clarity and the needs of those times. Based on the weak morality that humankind invented in the first place to promote cooperation among themselves.”
“How do I know then what the right thing to do is?”
“What is right and what is wrong, my friend? The victor bends righteousness according to his desires. Do you still believe in that invisible good god presiding over all of us who has carved an absolute moral standard for us to follow? Listen to me, my brother, there is no such stone. So let’s get going with this. The world needs cleansing of the foolish and unrequired concept of meaningfulness and purpose. And you, my dear friend, are the enlightened one to perform this task.”
The night becomes darker as he closes his eyes tired of this everyday discussion with himself.
****
Day 2:
He feels startlingly cold as he sits down in his respectful chair while the students from the classroom leave one after the other, relieved at the finishing of another abrupt lecture on the existentialist philosophy of Camus that their strange professor has just given. The professor remembers the incidents of the last night and, full of numbness in his mind, widens his eyes amidst the infinite tiredness he so regularly feels now.
Remo is still sitting in his chair, and is looking straight at him, without moving, as if in rage of potential revenge.
“Does he know about me? Oh, but there is no way he can possibly understand what I do. Why is he looking at me like that?”
Remo stands up and approaches him and in a swift flash of darkness turns into a dog and leaves the room.
“Of course. He is the dog. He also asks those questions that I ask and seek the answers to. And that is exactly what happened to me also the last time I attended a Camus’ lecture. I don’t want to kill Remo though. He seems to be the right kind of person who I can teach my learnings.”
****
Evening 2:
Vigorously shaking, he wakes up again and finds the stabbed, bloodied, and motionless body of Remo lying near him. The professor cries tearlessly in pain and screams noiselessly in intense anguish, his eyes a theatre of vivid emotions. The hero appears again and soothes the human.
“It is fine. Somebody has to do this.”
The human loses control of his self, once again, and shouts at the hidden hero, “Why do you make me do this? Why do I have to be the one?”
“You see, it is not you who do this. It is I, your strong partner. You have had a tormented childhood which was full of questions to which you never got answers. Do you know why? Because there are no answers to the questions you asked. But in the intense pain of that false sense of your own ignorance, the ignorance that you never had, you gave birth to me. You needed me and that is why I appeared in you. And whereas you are all too human, I am stronger than you and that is why I do not suffer. And there is an important difference between us. All of us live with our past. All of us allow it to shape our future. But some of us know how to shrug the past. I think that is who I am and that is why I am so much stronger than the remaining of us. Than you.”
“What do you mean? This is all plain nonsense. I am losing my mind. I know that I have now come out of my past and I was happy till you appeared.”
“No, my dear friend,” the hero replied, “You were not happy. You were still living in the sadness of your past. In the same old questions about your purpose. You were looking for a meaning, ever since you saw your old man die. You questioned death itself. How funny it must have been to assume such a self-importance to your own existence as to try and ask for a meaning to your existence.”
“But why do you want me to kill? How does that bring any meaning to anybody’s life?”
“I have a theory here. I was created out of your pain when you could not find answers. And so when you look at other people who are going through this same pain that you went through, you want to relieve them of their pain. But since you are so weak and pathetic, you conjure me to do the heroic act. You can’t afford to do the cleansing of the very pain that created me. Just like you can’t control me.”
“And what’s the point of turning them into animals? If you are going to kill them, why can’t you let me see them as they really are? Do you think I am not strong enough to even look at dead human beings?”
“You are still deluded by the higher importance anointed on the existence of human beings. Dogs are no inferior to men, just like they are no superior to the cricket that you so effortlessly and mindlessly crushed yesterday night.”
“I want you to leave me alone. I am tired of all these debates I do with you.”
“But I am the solution to your questions.”
“I would happily let go of all my questions if I have to get rid of you. I don’t care about the meaning of life anymore.”
“To get rid of me, you will have to get rid of yourself. I am just a part of you. The strong part.”
****
Night 2:
The night is now nigh. The professor stands up and walks towards the window, staring outside towards the trees. The pleasant breeze seems like a welcome change from the constant conversation of his mind and from the grim murder filled scent of the room.
“Last night, I killed two and Remo has become the first casualty of tonight. How many more am I going to kill in my life? Do I have the right to take a life? But as the wolf says, I am not the one doing the killing, I am the weaker one. But then, I harbor him, and it is my responsibility. The burden of all the suffering I trigger lies on my shoulders. But am I really causing suffering or am I alleviating it. Who decides what a good life is? If I can free other people from their suffering of the meaninglessness why can I not do it for myself? But maybe that is what I have been doing through the hero.”
He stands on the window sill and ponders for long. As the moon again dances between the gloomy clouds, he decides to end the heroism inside him. He chooses to create a meaning of another kind – the kind where he continues to live. He chooses to put to test how strong his desire to create an illusion of meaning and of purpose in this mundane world is. He goes back inside the room and sleeps in his bed as the hero inside him begs him to kill. The wolf screams in an ever diminishing intensity which gradually merges with silence.