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It is time for me to tell my story. I've been quiet long enough and I won't keep silent anymore. You might find my voice hoarse and unpleasant, but you'll have to take it, it's the only voice I've got. And I won't change because you want it! This time, I'm going to force you to listen to me! I always hear you people talking, talking about what I did and how I behaved and what I said - and then I hear you moralizing about it. Have you nothing better to do with your time but gossip? I think you're jealous. I think you're jealous because I easily do everything you don't dare to do, but secretly are longing for.
Oh yes, I know that youwant to do what I do, I can see it in your faces, in your bodies. I know everything you think and everything you feel, and this makes you very worried. Your beautiful facade won't fool me for one moment. I am a threat to everything that you have ever believed in your lives, everything you think is holy. I laugh at your silliness! I spit on your churches and your God! I will fill your prayer books with obscenities, your thoughts with wild ideas and your hearts with blasphemies. Do you know that all your self-control is totally in vain? I know, because I was once like you. I, too, had a respectable facade once, but now it is gone, broken into pieces. I'm actually glad it happened. Could you ever understand the relief of it? But now, when you see me, you might be afraid that I should rip apart your own facades? That your bonds of self-control shall break, releasing the beast inside?
Yes, I know that you are jealous. You're jealous because I am free and unhampered, because I am disgusted by your rules and laws. I am above those laws, I am above everything that you can make up, you and your accursed civilization. What has civilization given you? Accomplishment, you say? Fools, you don't believe it yourselves anymore. The animals know. Our instincts are much stronger than you think. Oh yes, you, too, have instincts; wild needs and primitive wants, you have them just like me. To be like an animal, wild and free, what a feeling... But you don't understand, do you? You don't want to understand. If you had my experiences, you would truly understand. But I know that you're afraid. I was also afraid once, afraid of what other people would say about me, afraid of other peoples' opinions, afraid of thousands of tiny, insignificant mistakes and troubles. I played the game as well as any of you, I had become rather good at doing it. I was slowly suffocating, and it was I who had put the snare around my own neck.
But I found a way to free myself from all these moral rules that threatened to suffocate me. I found a way to make myself independent from other peoples' puny acceptance. I know you would never accept me among you. I have succeeded with what you can only dream of. I have rid myself of the burdens which I have been carrying all these years, but you still carry yours. Aren't your shoulders beginning to hurt from all that you carry? Do I make you angry? Good. I want to see your anger, I want to see you enraged. I want too see your teeth and the whites of your eyes, now show me! Yes, yes, growl and gnash your teeth, let it all loose, just you try to get me and silence me, I know you don't want to hear what I am saying! But I'm going to say it anyway. You can never catch me; I am so much smaller, lighter and faster than you. You people are heavy and slow. You are tied down and I am free. Right now I will do whatever I'd like to do, whenever I like to do it. I can do it, so why shouldn't I? Nothing stops me from living out all my dreams, all my impulses, all my instincts. Nothing at all!
What dreams are in your own hearts? Do you really know what is inside you, did you ever bother too look? Or are you all desperately keeping the facade in place, polishing your gleaming surface? You are surrounded by all these rules and laws. No, don't you blame society, you yourselves created it! You know that the rules you wrote for yourselves are the hardest ones. You put your own hearts in cages, not I. And now you're jealous because I show you freedom, how it could be.
You call me ugly and horrible. I might be. But did you ever truly see yourselves in a mirror? Can you stand there before the mirror, with a clean conscience, saying: Yes, here is a good man, here is an honest and pure man. Can you? Or do I hear something tense in the tone of your voice as you tell me how good you are? Do you see something else in that mirror? Do you perhaps see something that you don't want to see? Do you turn away from the mirror with a worried face, frightened by something in your own face, something that should not be there? Maybe it is ME you see in that shining mirror. No wonder you don't want to know me. Ha! I am too much like yourselves, too much like that which you don't want to see, too much like that which you want to forget. Am I right? You can never explain me intellectually, never understand me. Just you try it! You hypocrites, who turn away from me in disgust! You, who condemn my actions, who wish I would be punished, you who see me and say: There is an evil man. Well, understand this: I won't disappear just because you turn away, because you close your eyes. No, quite on the contrary. I grow in the shadows and in the darkness; and in the night. The more you try to ignore me, the stronger I get. The harder you close your eyes, the more clearly can I be seen.
But I know you would never welcome me, that you wouldn't freely let someone like me inside your houses. You lock your doors, you close your windows, you say your evening prayers and lie down in your comfortable beds. And you think that you escaped me, that you're safe from my influence. As always, you're fooling yourselves. You don't understand that I'm already inside your house. You were so busy closing your eyes, keeping away from me, that you didn't notice me sneaking in, right in the midst of you. When you feel safe, sleeping soundly - I'll leave my hiding place, and silently creep over to your bedsides. I touch your cheeks as you sleep, I put my hands around your throats. And I'll laugh when you awake screaming! So hide, hide yourselves, but know that it is in vain!
No, you can never escape me, not as long as you're alive. So come closer instead, and let me show you why I exist. Let me show you the pleasure of totally letting go, of breaking all bonds and becoming free. Let me show you what it is to be alive, to truly be alive! When you come closer, you'll see that I am not so ugly as you thought. I am warm and strong, I am full of passions and life. No ordinary blood is running through my veins, oh no, in my veins is a brew stronger than wine, stronger and endlessly more intoxicating. You want to taste it? Then come closer. I have enough for everyone, I am endless, every life in the world moves inside my body. Oh yes, my body! I am very aware of my body, yes, I am my body. I am the strength of my arms, I am the beat of my heart, and I am the flame of desire burning in my loins. Oh, I see that I have managed to tempt someone of you. I can see it from the shine of your eyes. No, don't you deny it, I can see you trying to lick your dry lips.
Do you also begin to feel the demands of your body, or do you want to forget and hide your body like the rest of them? You know that you have a head, but do you know about your more primitive parts? I can see you shivering, oh, the soft hairs on your arms are beginning to stand up. I think your instincts are beginning to awaken. You see, they were not so deeply buried as you might have imagined. You must feel my heat by now. You should, even at this distance, my heat is very real, very strong. Can you feel me burning? Yes, yes, I'm burning! Come and share the fire raging inside me, let me set you on fire! Listen to my breath becoming heavy. I'm boiling, I'm about to burst! You must come with me now, no more hesitation, just come with me! Come and let us run, let us get drunk with life! Just follow me, leave everything you once knew behind you, run through the night with me, run without a goal, without a reason. Run just for the fun of doing it, like a child would run. I see nothing, I hear nothing, I simply exist. Yesterday has never existed, tomorrow will never happen. Now, now, now! I want you now, I want to feel your blood beating in your veins. I don't care if it's horror or excitement, those feelings are so close to each other.
And I always get what I want, you know that, don't you? If I want something I take it. There's no use trying to fight me. Ah, I can hear that your breathing has become heavier too. Yes, do what your body orders you to do, follow your desire. Good, one more step, come closer. Closer still. Do not tremble, I won't eat you. Touch me, oh yes, touch me - now!
I fooled you, didn't I? I am not sorry I did, on the contrary, I got you where I want you now. You're mine, I own you completely. Why should I be sorry, why should I be truthful? You know I follow no rules: right and wrong, truth and false, what do I care? I'll do much more than eat you. In fact I'll devour you completely. I'll consume you; I'll devour your flesh, drink your blood and break your bones. I won't stop until there's not a single piece of you remaining, until everything that was you has become a part of me. Yes, scream now, it's too late for you anyway. Do you think I would show you pity? Why would you think so? No, everything is perfect just as it is, right now. You could never resist me even if you wanted to, you've come too far already. This is not the end of existence, it is something totally different, something far sweeter. It is not going to be as terrible as you think, I promise you will enjoy every minute of it.
Yes, that's right, give in to it. Now you understand. At last you understand what I mean. Too bad that you're not going to be able to tell anyone. They wouldn't believe you anyway. Soon, they will turn away from you as well and pretend not to see. Now you will share my intoxication, my life, my death.