Le Barge - The Afterlife and Adventures of a Libertine Condemned - Chapter 1
[What lies below is a transcribed copy of the book the Marquis is working on. He has placed it under cuts on the network so that those that don't want to read it do not have to.]
To my beloved. What follows in these pages are the account of my extraordinary experiences after the final great experience. The tales I tell are many and varied in tone, ranging from the cheerful to the debased, and with tremulous fingers I relate them to you now. I caution you that its content is more often than not scandalous by its nature, unrepentant in its brutal honesty, and perhaps a little under-edited. I cannot even guarantee you a happy ending. In terms of style and scope, it is an undertaking quite unlike any I have assumed in the past, so I warn you. There is no real ending as yet, even. But if you’ve a love for my old stories, submit some of that loyalty to me, now. If you are curious, turn the page. Tread with me faithfully, reader. It is an experience we all share.
Chapter 1 - Further Tutelage in Death
If you awakened in this place, unaware of how you arrived and perhaps uncertain of the events preceding you, it is sufficient to guess that you have likely died. Even horribly or prematurely. Your faithful writer is no grand exception to this rule. However, as my death was in a manner of my choosing and I had lived a full lifetime before that, I can say that I was not long for the world either way. Some of you perhaps had not the time to wonder what awaited you in the moment of your expiration. This question of death, or rather the time or lack thereof that follows, is not one that I openly pondered because I was an old man assured of his ultimate fate. No man regardless of age can go willingly to his own end if he still has doubts - they reduce themselves to a series of tasks rather than depth of thought, throw the questions behind heavy doors made up of routine. A soldier marching to war that never shivers nor pales thinks of the placement of his feet at every step, the weight of his weapon, commands of his officer. So too does the impassive criminal mounting the scaffold find other things to think about. Their movements. Or God if they’ve the mind to believe, but not silent prayers to save them - almost always some disjointed passage from the written word. The words themselves become distractions.
Distractions. That’s what these things are, the things that draw attention away from the questions.
Those that do not use them find themselves buckling. The beat of the drum as the line marches spells out every thud of the heart, chokes the breath from him, dampens his skin. The condemned plant their feet in vain and are dragged. They weep. They spit. They tremble. They have too many questions, not enough answers, and not nearly enough time to ask them all and be satisfied. This is the measure of a man who dies too young, and it has nothing to do with the years he has lived and everything to do with how many questions he has left to ask.
I was a man who had none any longer, and so when the cross was offered to my lips, I devoured it. I felt its sharp, ungiving edges puncture the walls of my throat, tasted the gurgle of fresh copper on the back of my tongue, and I was satisfied.
But then I awakened here. Or rather - in my old cell. My writing desk returned. My bed. My clothing. All of my books. As though nothing had been taken at all - and there was more.
Then, I had questions, for I knew I was alive again.