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Der golem, der golem.written by ELLA//OHARU

for Lotte Eisner and Sacha Guitry

Anton Reiser stood outside the headmasters high, gilded oak door - heavy in glinted

silver and gold symbols and signs. The guard stood at a perfectly perpendicular to the door, and

hadnt moved an inch since Anton crept up to his side, along the winding balustrade atop the

headmasters tower. The guard suddenly spoke:

What is your business?

I...I have an appointment with the headmaster.

Please proceed!

The guard moved to the side -- sunlight struck the brutal headmasters symbol and

blinded Anton momentarily as the door swung soundlessly open. Anton took a step inside and

stumbled into a dark tunnel. He crept up along the silent passageway, which was oh so quiet

and dusty, to emerge in a large round room, tiled in immaculate bathroom white. The walls were

thick adobe brick, and before Anton sat a wizened, decrepit figure, a swath of sumptuous clothcutting across its skeletal frame. Its bushy beard and tipping point hat fell across the shadows,

from whence two sharp eyes peered. The headmaster had been writing. The dull scratch and

sniff of his pen moving across dry parchment punctuated the silence stretched out betwixt the

boy and the immovable walnut desk. He put his pen down.

Yes?

Anton fell to his knees.

I..I dont believe in God any longer, headmaster.

The headmasters eyebrows - for they must have been his eyebrows, as two nappy bulks

of hair flew upwards, challenging the air up there, so occupied by the brim of his fuzzy velvet hat.

But you must believe in God, my son, for He exists.

He turned to his intercom and touched it.

Make sure nobody is allowed into my study any longer.

The guard barked back - Yes, sir!

*

Anton was sent to bed without his supper. To add insult to injury, he was made to stand

quietly next to the headmaster during the communal dinner, and was told to simply abide, child -

- simply abide. Before the dinner, the headmaster made ready in his small vestibule, where

Anton was required to prepare the dining garments of the headmaster before the holiday feast.

When the garments had been arranged, Anton knocked respectfully on the door and stood by asthe headmaster wordlessly opened it and got dressed. The headmaster did not spare Anton a

single glance, and Anton wondered if he were being punished for sneaking into the

headmasters study, or for what he had said in there.

On his way out, after the feast, Anton was told that he would get breakfast in the

morning, to come early since he was sure to be hungry, and that it was hoped that he

had learned his lesson. The old cooking lady then shooed him out gently while she cleaned up

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the many dishes and pans and pots left behind by the schools stomachs.The shadows of the empty stone walls leered over Anton as he scuttled back to the boys

dormitory.

*

There was the usual hubbub in the boys hall. All the boys - ages 13 and below -

chattered and shrieked with the velocity and verve befitting larvae of such an age. The chimney -

the centerpiece of the hall, one large room bedecked with some 20 or some odd beds - yawned

as Anton walked past, alone and forlorn in his melancholy state. A group, composed of a few of

the rowdier boys, fell in around Anton and linked hands as they danced about him, singing:

Hing hang hung

Hing hang hung

See what he has done

Hung hang he

Swing around the swing

Hing hang, hing hang

Hing hang, hing hang

Hing hang hung

They broke off into peels of laughter, then, that rang around the room like an erupted

garland posy. The school preacher - R. M. Mitchum - broke into the room at that very moment

and bellowed, All right kids! Time for bed! Lights out!

Without pause, he reached over and flicked the light switch closed amidst a chorus of

shouts as all the boys hurried into bed. He came into the room and closed the door behind him;

walked down the aisle between the two rows of beds, lantern in hand. It shone on each boysfigure as it melted into the flurry of blankets and pillow feathers as Mitchum stalked down the

length of the room, glowering over any insouciant face beaming back at him. Antons bed was

second to last, right next to the half-moon window that shone now with eerie light in the night

outside. Mitchum whirled around at the window, having drawn its blinds, and stalked back the

other way now as the room settled down into silence, silence!

He closed the door with a snap.

There was no sound, save for the sibilant rustle of a prepubescent, hairless leg getting

comfortable in the warm room. The winter night howled with its spousal wind, making night

moves as it gripped the boarding room house with its icy, bony fingers. Anton could not sleep

and stared, instead, at the great painting of the headmaster that maintained vigilance over the

boys, above fireplace and over the chimney. The Man with No Hands is coming, The Man with

No Hands is coming -- the children whispered this as they lulled themselves to sleep.

Anton heard this and tried to lay as still as a lamb in the manger. An animal instinct

coursed its way through his veins, commanding him to lie still and to lie quiet. The room got

colder; the window next to his bed fluttered open and close as moonlit claws fell off the naked

branches of trees outside. Soon every boy was asleep, save for Anton and his eyes, open wide

and wired shut against the lives before and after him -- should he survive this night, he

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desperately thought.Sibilant pops, cracks, and vinyl hisses wafted out of the corners of the room now.

Between the old, worm-eaten floorboards, invisible insects and robots pored out endlessly --

ants from a dali hand. The roof sagged with one creak - then another, and another, as darkness

in the shape of a bedraggled cloak swept up after itself. Steps light as little cat feet pranced with

great, greedy glee; lips licked themselves in tantalized hunger as silvery tongues slithered overknotted teeth.

The young Mr. Reiser summoned up all the courage he could muster and kept his eyes

wide open against the glowering darkness growing in the chimneys gaping mouth. Umbra

penumbra, umbra penumbra - he recited the days lesson as a measure of distraction. He

shivered and thought with titillated glee on those knotted teeth billowing over empty bones once

fat with young flesh. He could not help but think vividly on the mysterious fate awaiting him. How

would it start? How would it end? And in between? There were only dark shadows and imagined

phantoms to fill in this void of inexperience.

The progenitor of these shadows crept down, now down the chimney, with its countless

legs churning rhythmically, systematically. Arms ending in stumps of stitched flesh felt their

way blindly as the eyeless ghoul - its wan face hovering, suspended on elwire dotted with

broken bulbs; as the eyeless ghoul sniffed its way down the dusty chimney and spilled out onto

threshhold of the fire pit streaked with old coal.

Now I lay me down to Sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep... , Anton prayed. He laid

frozen on a bed prickling with icicles. All the bodies of the boys around him lay still, as if carved

out of white stone in the pale ivory light of the night. Black spots began to dot away at his vision.

If I die...if I die, before I wake...

Anton struggled to remember the rest - he felt, first, his feet grow cold and stiff,

unresponsive to the sluggish, desperate efforts his brain sent forth. Everything was cold, and

smelled of dirt and worms. A thousand sets of serrated teeth nibbled away at his skin. The Man

with No Hands is coming, the Man with No Hands is coming -- he recalled the ring of singingboys earlier, hovering in stilted silence before his memory.

The wind, so violently prowling about on the eaves of the cold winter night, disappeared

outside. Clouds gave way and followed in its stead; the sky was crisp and clear, with its full

solstice moon floating there like so many bloody eggshells.

*

Antons bed was the second to last, next to the half-moon window set against the naked

branches of trees outside. In the very last bed, one of the newer children woke up in a strange

terror - a nightmare of some sort. The little boy withdrew into the corner of his bed - the corner of

the room - and pulled his blankets up about his neck, and choked out but one plaintive bleat that

nobody heard, not even Antons empty bed - so much like an empty prisoners cot - next to him:

Der golem, der golem.