He was blind to his own savagery. Perhaps we all are.
October came and outside the autumn leaves swayed yellow and orange. The curtains glowed in soft vermilion twilight and illuminated specks of dust danced as the fading rays drew slowly across the wall. An acrid mulch of decay seeped in through the draughty living room windows. Summer was at an end.
In the corner, the TV radiated its sickly blue light. Glancing in horror at the daily trauma that spilt forth from the news as spectacle, he recoiled. Maybe it wasn’t just summer that was at an end. The adverts began to blare out their stupefying maxims. The message was clear: consume the latest shows, buy the latest products, escape to the sun; happiness at the click of a button. Just don’t peel back the veneer.
The old house creaked as the cedarwood panels contracted in the cool dusk air. It had belonged to his grandfather and sat perched on a small bluff overlooking a loch and was enveloped on all sides by birchwood trees. He had imagined that living alone in this remote haven would allow him to disregard and disassociate himself from the world around him and remove any semblance of responsibility for it. In reality, his mind had turned inward and down to the bottom of the bottle.
A tremulous jolt of anxiety ran through his chest, something about the evening did not sit well with him. No matter how hard he tried he felt haunted. A burden weighed heavy across his shoulders. Dread began to rise up through his body, dark shadows calling, his thoughts a bitumen ooze. Stepping out onto the verandah to catch his breath he noticed the dull metallic glimmer of something jutting out from the soil below.
Descending the steps to investigate he came closer to the object. He brushed away at the dirt to reveal a rusted box embossed with a Celtic cross. He recalled an old newspaper article that said in America, Klansmen used the cross as a symbol to identify each other without drawing undue suspicion. The rumours about his grandfather couldn’t be true, could they? He’d always appeared to be so kind-hearted.
Furiously, he clawed at the remaining dirt and removed the box from its resting place. Inside lay a faded photograph atop a neatly folded yellow-stained robe. The photo depicted a burning cross encircled by a group of faceless druids. There could be no doubt. His heart sank and a realisation fell upon him that he’d been living in denial. He thought he could reject the world and live isolated from its rapacious capacity for atrocity but it was right there below his feet. It was right there running through his veins.
He collapsed to his knees in the waning light. He wondered if he was guilty for the sins of previous generations. His selective amnesia had allowed the past to be a hooded spectre that had stalked him never to be confronted or challenged.
Another jolt ran through his heart. A tightening fist choking the life from his chest. Wheezing heavily, he slumped to his side. He tried to summon the strength to rise to his feet but faltered. He wished only for the chance to redeem himself. To step into the light, to break free from the shadows of the past.