Journal Entry 1

October 5, 1937

11:46 p.m.

 

I know not who you are, nor the series of events in your past that have brought you before these ill-fated pages.  Nor do I; nor shall I ever know the communal or ascribed stature or value of the person you are, nor the fashion of your attendance or candor of valor or fancy of public worth or moral importance.

Nor do I fancy knowing if these darkened pages of my last words breath; my legacy upon this shallow scorched earth shall ever again be cursed by the blessed rays of endless sunlight.  Nor do I know in what restriction or disposition they will come to be victimized before your eyes.  Nor does it seem at this time in my life, do I trouble myself with cause or burden myself to care.  No, I care not who you are or for what manner of fate which has befallen you, which has allowed you to come before my past upon these pieces of parchment.

Thus, I know not if you will ever come to understand the person, I truly was during the prime of my existence upon the great Atlantic during the industrial age of man.  Nor the history of the person your inaccurate historians may mark upon me.

 I am sure; however, as blood still pulses through my dying shell, that your age and the ages leading up to your creation have always depicted me as a cold-blooded coward.  

Yet those few others of my own profession and standing will see me as a devious and corner cutting businessman looking out for the bottom dollar; the same person they see looking back at them every time they stand idly in the mirror before going to their own place of employment.

Now, as for you, for you who read these last words, whose eyes move with assiduousness upon these pages of parchment.  For you, I give the gift of the eternal ages; I give the reward of light to the darkness of this shallow world. 

For you, whose eyes continue to scroll over the last words of a dying man's confession; I give to you the world, the pearl inside the oyster; the diamond in the rough, all these I give to you, contained in the bindings of my writings.  I give to you the truth of this old man’s dying confession, the truth hidden before the open eyes of man.  To you I give the truth unlike any mortal man have given before.

You among all others will know me unlike any other.  You will see me unlike those that I have called my family.  For you will see me in all my truths and faults of nature.  You; yes you, my dear audacious fellow, will come to see me as both a demon and an angel in human form and see me as a man hell bent on his right to vengeance as well as a proud and noble son standing upon the rights and retribution of his father’s love.

Oh… how odd is it not, that I, a man with such grace and culture, of such structure, wealth, and honorable nobility turn to you the unknown reader to judge me so?  For you could be a pauper, a peasant, or a homeless soul seeking refuge in a back alley of a local pub.  A lonely soul that has picked up this journal in the hasten hopes of using its pages as scraps to keep the warmth in your body just a few moments longer. 

Oh… how utterly ironic this entire situation which has been my life, I find it ever so funny and yet almost rightly malevolent, that these words... my words shall live on past these pages and to your heart and mind where they will live all throughout the days of your existence.  Long after the passing of my own demise, these words will continue on to torment the countless others that read them just as you do now to know the truth, the truth dead to the ages.

This is so bitterly odd and yet ever so ironic is it not, that the words that I place upon this parchment; the words that I breathe the fire of life into with the touch of my pen will live on long after my body has turned to dust and returned back to its original destination of life.

Strange how it is only now that I can see the true disdain of it all, as the pain in my body strikes violently forth like a hasted bolt of lightning striking down upon the lands, how bitterly odd this quest of my true life’s work has come to pass. 

Yet my work; this work cannot be torched and set aflame like countless others, as my work… the work of my past, can stand through the flames of any fire.  As this work has meaning… a tangible sadness that shall flow through the lives of those yet to breathe breath upon this world;  those lives yet to understand the sadness of what this world has to offer and the pains of anger that comes with it.

Oh, how ripe with decay my life has become with this self-infliction, my death upon me so, its blade pressing against my ragged old throat.  I feel each moment of my life slipping by like water through my fingers as the razor sharp blade easily slips deeper into my flesh, embedding deeper into my soul.  My cup of life emptier with each passing moment, each passing breath I take.

I can smell the decay in my lungs; the taste of rot lingering upon my lips and my tongue, like the bitter aftertaste of spoiled, maggot infested beef, my own demise ever so evident upon my lips.

Oh, I can hear him once more.  His voice ripe with sinister death, I can hear his whispers in my head, ravaging my mind like a thousand daggers; the images of his sharpened tongue stabbing his words like fire upon my flesh.  His words of hatred consuming me even now; like a son afraid of the painful punishment from his scolding father; I too fear his words… his punishment upon me.

With each passing breath, I can feel his darkness closing in around me, like a tightly pulled noose around my throat, his hatred and vanity continues to close in upon my soul. 

The decaying images of my harbinger of death draw upon my eyes like the shadow of a great immortal lion, waiting for me to breathe my last breath so that he can devour his vengeance of all those lost souls upon my rotting corpse.  His vile image and hatred so clear, I fear it so.  I hate and fear you my demon... my savior.

Yet soon you shall have your way with me.  Soon my hourglass will run its final grain of sand and I will be no more to this world than the hollow memory of a man I once was and he will have me all to himself—forever in the eternal bonded chains of hell, I have created.  It will be there that I shall remain forever tormented until the End of Days.

Still; however, my words will remain and live on.  Like a mother to her newborn child, I have breathed life into these words.  For as it was written long ago, truly there is power within all words, for all creation and manner of beast was brought forth into this world with the single breath of a word.

Yet even now so close to my own demise, my own forever twilight, I currently feel no remorse for my misdeeds.  Many times since my plan came full circle, I have sat on the porch of my ocean side estate and gazed out upon that massive rolling grave site and thought of my great transgressions.  Thinking of all the great planning and scheming for my revenge to come tenfold, my reality in the waiting, the horrors of my plan and the great pain that it caused to those hallowed souls. 

The loss of love and life, of family, of friends and lovers, the loss of brothers and sisters, of fathers and uncles, the loss of the innocents and the ignorance of ourselves and our overwhelming belief that we were above the power of our own creator.  

The horror of our dreams smashing down upon us that day like a crashing riptide against the rocky shore, suffocating our world with the thoughts of fear that continue to burn brightly even now…all these years later. 

The loss of men and their lives; the loss of everything of value in this world, and yet, still, as I lay here now staring upon the candle light of my room I still feel nothing in my heart, no achievement of mind or body.  I feel empty.  I feel hollow and alone.  The shadows that dances in the darkness of the candle light mocking me still to this day, locking away my emotion.

Ever since that day, I have been the same.  I have become this hollow shell cursed with no human emotions.  I cannot feel nor do I have need for desire.  The tastes of things have lost their flavor and have become bland.  I have become nothing; alone and hollow, a broken shell . . . I am naught. 

Just as he wanted me to be, that demon in the darkness of my mind that plagues me even now in the corners of my room.  He has made me hollow.  Just as he and his minion planed for me, allowing me to follow blindly with my vengeance, knowing that in time I would eventually become this thing, this fallacy of a beast that writes to you from the past.  Alas, all that I have left in this world; all that I have left that is still within my control are these words. 

The first of all words, the word God is no longer in my soul or my heart, for God has lawfully cursed me for my own misdeeds and perhaps rightfully so.  Ever since that day, I have felt nothing.  It seems that time itself has paused for me on that moment, like a frozen pillar of water standing alone amongst the flaming fires of its own imminent demise, I too lie here amongst the shadows of my killers, my tormentors; my redeemers.

Time stands cold and bitterly still, for on that day and everything that I have done since is but an echo; a ripple in the water of the person I was back then.  I feel no joy, no envy, and no sadness.  I feel no great feeling of happiness; togetherness or belonging, I feel no hope.

For he, the shadow, the beast, the lion in human form that hides in the darkness of this room, the creature behind the darkness and the shadows has stolen my realization of revenge.  He has stolen my vengeance, my great plunder—my right and my honor the privilege of my great rewards and achievement.

For years, that damn Yankee stole my birthright from me.  Took the blood and sweat of my father and made it his own.  Yet all those years he never saw it coming.  He never knew that I had my own agenda. 

All that time, I had carefully planned my revenge.  All my plans followed to the letter, my actions carried out, and my deeds done, yet the one thing that I craved.  The one thing that I wanted above anything else in this damned word was withheld from me. 

For either God or that damn demon, I trusted all those years kept me from feeling anything on the matter.  No joy or happiness nor even a glimpse of sadness or fear, no feeling what so ever was placed upon my soul for my misdeeds against God for betraying his commandments and taking all those needless souls for my own retribution and eventual damnation. 

Nevertheless, for haste sake, this is not why I write to you, nor is it why I have placed these words upon these parchments.  Nor is this the reason that I have decided to confess to such a crime against humanity and God... no this was not my reasoning at all. 

If I had wanted, if I had no care at all in this putrid world, I could have allowed my secret to die with me, allowed the truth to be forever hidden in the cold rusting keel on the floor of the great Atlantic.  I could have done this without question or second thought.

I could have let the truth slip through the hands of time and as with all truths let legend and rumors take their course.  I could have let conspiracy race to the highest peak of human imagination and let farfetched theory’s become fact, but no this is not what I want my end to be… this is not what I wanted the world to own.  For at this moment, I seek no forgiveness for my actions, no redemption for my closed heart or soul.  No, hasten the unsightly thought.

NO, I revel in them; they are my badge of honor.  They are what justify my current existence, my reason for breath upon this earthly realm.

In my eyes, my actions were warranted and no court or mass morality will ever change me from this belief, for I was equitable, and I prevailed because of the righteousness of my own conscious actions, for they were mine alone.

Though the world around me and the Lord above may damn me for those actions, I was right and that’s all that matters… at least to me, even now as I rest here in my bed and continue to write my words of power and creation of truth to you.

No.  Instead, my reason for this writing, my reasons for this confession is for me to offer--No haste that.  I desire to give to those who lost their loved ones the truth of their final hours.  I offer to them the true understanding of one man’s actions and how the will of one man can cause so much pain and misery upon the masses of this world, for like a pebble being cast into a calm pond, my actions rippled through the lives of others.  Tearing their lives apart from the inside and shall continue to do so long after I have expired. 

Nevertheless, for now I grow tired, my will to write these words hampers to the onslaught of the pain upon my fragile body.  The joints in my fingers swelling, forcing to hold this pen in my hands, I must rest.