To my mother (Thomas Newman)
I met a girl called Dyna in the 70s. The Press said back then she was my girlfriend, but the truth is she went around kissing people in the lips, not only me. Her family was Jewish...no need to say anything else, right? When war finished, her family went from having eighteen members to five. She was a baby at the time, there was no way she could remember any of that. She told me her mother survived Auschwitz to kill herself drinking. She killed herself living. In thirty two years of existence she partied, drank, drugged herself, smoked and fucked more than I did in a thousand. Two years before her thirty third birthday we buried her in Rzeszów.
In the One World Nation Movement days, I thought a lot of my friend again and told me if I had to leave this world, I would have loved to leave like she did, under my own terms. Partying one last time, buying in a pharmacy a jar of those pills with unpronounceable name, swallowing all of it and getting in bed.
Unfortunately, we nations have little to say about the way we want to die. It's just something that comes to us.
I was out to buy something to eat for dinner. Just that. Something for dinner. I left my bodyguards at home because I was fed up of being followed even to go to the toilet, of having each movement controlled. There was a time when Europe was in my hand. If I had reached the 21st century in one piece, I would be able to get to the Hindu restaurant, get something and go back home safe and sound, I told them. Maybe I was a bit of an idiot. But I needed relax, being alone for a while and let off some steam.
I got there. The assistant already knew me and was very nice to me because, of course, I was the nation. No problem there. The problem was on the way back.
As soon as I turned the corner I realized someone was following me. It was a group of people. I don't know how many exactly. I think it was six. At first I didn't care about them, but then I saw it was not a gang who was out having fun. They didn't even talk among each other. They just walked very close to each other. They didn't look away from me in any moment.
I wasn't scared. Maybe I should have.
I just walked quicker. I hummed something to distract myself. But they were still there.
There was a moment when I couldn't take it any longer. I turned around and said to them cheekily:
"Is there any problem, big boys? Eh?"
A normal person would have said none, or that I was imagining things that were not true. But what they did was to pounce on me.
It was six against one. It wasn't fair. In the old times I would have gotten rid of them with no sweat, but I had changed my sword for a phone long ago. I tried to reach them. I couldn't break their heads with it, but I could call someone.
But they snatched him from me and dragged me to a car. There I kicked as much as I could, bit in any occasion I had, but I was still in numerical disadvantage. Some of those guys evidently worked out (now, when all that story ended I hurried to join kickboxing).
They took me to the cemetery. There, they took me out and dragged me by the hair a few meters. I got to kick someone where the sun doesn't shine, even though that was not enough to free myself. Too many hands were holding me. I couldn't see a thing. I screamed all the time and nobody came in my help.
Then I saw where they were taking me to. A wooden chest, at the edge of a squared hole.
Then I realized it was not a chest. And I fought with all my might.
With pushes and punched they got to get me in there. Then they sealed it with nails. As one hammered them, the others practically laid on it so I couldn't move it and get out.
I was left in the most absolute darkness. From then on, I could only hear.
I felt how the box moved with me inside. The descent. Then a 'pam', when it hit the bottom. And next, intermittent hits. The soil they were throwing over me.
I have never screamed more in my life. As it seems, by the photos I got to have access to, I left my fingernails in the cover after scratching it. I hit with all my might, trying to unhinge the darn thing or break the wood, but it only got me some bruises because above there was a weight impossible for me to lift.
I think I consumed almost all the oxygen inside in five minutes. I lost consciousness and I don't remember anything else.
I don't know how much time I spent inside of that damned box. They say there were witnesses of my kidnapping who called the police so quickly they could arrest those who did that to me and started digging right after burying me. I only know I opened my eyes when air came back to my lungs and there was a bearded man leaned over me. Behind him there was a lot of people, which I heard later that took me out of there by their own means while the police took care of that gang. Some used their bare hands to dig.
"He's alive, thank God!"
I was still out of my mind. I think it was the oxygen deprivation, which affected my brain. I fought. There was so much people in there and wanted them all to leave. I punched and shook like I was possessed.
"Easy, easy, you're safe, you're safe!" the man said to me, taking my face in his hands.
I started crying. They told me I said in my delirium things like "did you liberate me to bury me yourselves?". I am ashamed I lost my cool like that. Running out of oxygen is really horrible.
But I keep the good of it. The man who took me out held me in his hands as long as I had that anxiety attack. Many of the people in there approached to hug me. They didn't leave me until my bodyguards came. Thank God, there was still someone who loved me and gave a damn about me.
And I let those fuckers know, back home, after a scolding from my boss I frankly deserved, cleaned and chill. I posed on my bed, with a little bottle of whine in one hand and giving the finger. #ToAThousandMoreYears.
