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Dread, to feel such is perhaps the most extraordinary gift a human could receive, yet it remains an elusive sensation for me. I have lived a life that others would deem fulfilling, or so it seems. Graduating college at an age when most are just embarking on their academic journeys, my future is preordained with promise. It should be a cause for happiness, gratitude, and a sense of blessedness. However, these emotions remain strangers to me. I tread a path untouched by joy, remorse, or agony, and I am left pondering the very essence of humanity itself.
What does it mean to be human? Is it the capacity to experience these emotions? I find myself haunted by such questions, a stranger to my own humanity. Am I human enough? The longing to explore the depths of human feeling gnaws at my soul.
And then, a revelation of perilous proportions struck me. A memory resurfaced, a memory I ache to relive. It was that moment when I beheld the lifeless form of the first man I executed. As his life essence mingled with the earth, his body metamorphosed into a cold, lifeless shell, and an inexplicable ecstasy coursed through me. Yet society deems such pleasure derived from death as a grievous sin. Am I truly a man of God? Here I stand, at the church's sacred altar, delivering salvation's message, yet salvation itself remains a distant, unattainable dream.
I embarked on a final quest for salvation through marriage. I yearned to love, to become a father, to savor the simple joys of existence. A daughter was born of that union, yet love eluded me like a shadow just beyond my reach. Alas, my wife chose to end her life before my very eyes, convinced that my tears were a testament to love. She couldn't have been more mistaken. My tears flowed not from love, but from the torment of suppressing a monstrous desire to end her life with my own hands. I continue to suffer for that restraint. In that moment, I wondered, 'If she could confront death at any instant, why was I not the instrument to grant her the painful release she so readily deserved, with my own hands?’ I wept not for my inability but for my unquenched thirst.
And then, destiny led me to a man, a devil incarnate in human form, or perhaps, the very embodiment of my salvation. He introduced me to the world of modern hedonism,
expanding the horizons of my understanding of humanity. Am I, indeed, a moralist, as he suggests? Averse to the unknown, limiting myself to the known pleasures of this world? He argues that authentic moralists are those who tremble before the unfathomable, missing out on life’s grander pleasures. He posits that the soul’s healing can only be achieved through the senses, and the senses can only be awakened by the soul.
This man, who possesses an intimate understanding of pleasure, fervently vows to grant me the salvation I so ardently crave. For that promise, I shall throw myself headlong into the sincerity and pleasures that this world has to offer, even if only for a brief moment. It is my chance to taste the essence of true humanity, and I shall seize it, consequences be damned. For in the shadows where the boundaries of right and wrong blur, and the core of my existence remains shrouded in mystery, lies the path to my redemption.