It’s what I’m feeling sometimes, dear worst-reader. In these Covid times. Even though I try my worst-best not to live off my emotions–you know, like my #Americant rearing dictates–these times of restrictions galore tempt me. For example. The other day I screwed up real bad via unbridled temptation. I mean. Since I’m not a regular consumer of Germania media, either visually (TV) or text (newspaper), I quickly realised that I’m quite uninformed when it comes to dos and don’ts while out and about during quarantine. I mean. Of course I know there’s a special kinda lock-down going on, but I’m also quite unaware of exactly what that lock-down entails. With that in mind, let’s worst-write on.
While on a get some fresh air e-bike ride the other day I wondered into two places. The first was a motorcycle dealership where I had noticed through the front window the bike I’d buy if I could in order to get back into riding. Yeah, it’s been twenty years since I’ve ridden, don’t you know. After noticing that two people had exited the showroom, I locked up my e-bike, dawned my mask, read the rules on the front door–about social distancing and masks and whatnot–and entered. I immediately squirted some sanitiser on my hands and then proceeded to sign-in on the tracking register. But before I could enter my full contact details an employee entered out of nowhere and started berating me about how I was breaking the rules and that I couldn’t just enter the place. Shocked, I quickly realised that I was in the wrong–even though I didn’t quite know why or what deserved such vehemence. Also, with masks it’s difficult to see/read all of the emotional distress I was causing. Not being a native German, all I remember is hearing the native berate me in his guttural German–along with those German eyes. It was kinda horrifying. I tried to tell the guy that I was sorry and that I just saw two people walk out of the place but he insisted on berating me at the top of his teutonic lungs and that he didn’t feel like paying a fine for my stupidity which was somewhere around twenty-five hundred Euros and he said that I am a… but didn’t actually use the word… idiot . The whole time, of course, worst-writer is smiling and quivering under my mask and on my way out I manage to snap the following pic. She sure is pertty, ain’t she?
The good news is, when I got home I caught up on the details of German quarantine rules and also started to wonder if the Germans are gonna track me down for breaking those rules. Remember, I did sign the tracking form when I entered the dealership. Wow. Paranoia in the land of paranoia. The bad news is, while having ruined my e-bike ride for some fresh air, on my way home I stopped once again at one of my favourite places to find some soul solace: a cemetery. Keep in mind, dear worst-reader, other than lots of archaic and mind-bending human mis-history, there are only two things today that one needs to experience in #Eurowasteland. Conveniently these two things are related. Have you guessed what they are? Ok. Here’s a hint: Churches and cemeteries. Indeed. #Eurowasteland is awash in mysticism and deserved human rot. But on that note, I must die-gress.
Here’s the thing, dear worst-reader. During some of my e-bike treks every once-a-once I like to stop to talk with the souls of the dead to hear what they have to say about the living. This particular cemetery, by-the-buy, is also one of the regions largest. And. With another by-the-buy. Since expatriating to Germania, I’ve attended three funerals at this particular cemetery. Two of those people I knew, one I didn’t. Yeah, I guess in these waning days of worst-life, it’s time for me to pull a Harold & Maude and start attending funerals–just for the hell of it. And so. While walking my e-bike around the graves I decided to see if I could find a new exit. Usually I just went from one end of the cemetery and exited out the other–as it was also a short cut even though, out of respect, I walked my e-bike through it. Yeah, that’s how big it is if you have to ride around it. But I’ve always wondered if it was such a large cemetery was there another exit? When I began to realise that there probably wasn’t, and while in a dank corner amongst misty gravestones, I happened across what is now my favourite grave of all-time. See the pic at the top of this worst-post.
I was truly taken aback by the caged grave I had discovered. I had never seen such a grave before. It’s like a grave prison, dear worst-reader. And that really befuddles me. At least I’ve not seen, in this region of Germany, a grave that makes such a profound statement. Yet, as I thought about statements, I got hung up on two possibilities as to what that statement is. The first possible statement from the grave is thus: what’s in here needs to stay in. The second statement is, and this one really gets my croissant boiling: no, you can’t come in and join me.
And now for a bit of back story regarding my desire to communicate with souls. While living in Darmstadt many years ago, which is a few hours south of Düsseldorf, one of my favourite places to go to talk to the souls of the dead, was Frankenstein’s Castle. For you know the story of Frankenstein, eh, dear worst-reader? I mean the book, not the movie(s). Indeed. The castle is a grand place, especially if you go there when there are no tourists or it’s not late October. For if you wish you can tease the souls of the dead about how they are the ones that have given us this $hit world, i.e. the future they made. Which is what I like to do. In fact. While talking with souls I used to tell them I would be seeing them soon–with a vengeance. For someone has to make the past pay for what it has done to the future. Or. If you prefer, dear worst-reader, you can just go to Frankenstein’s Castle and chill, smoke a joint and ponder Mary Shelly’s mindset that lead to The Modern Prometheus. But on that note, again, I must die-gress.
In short, so that one may make the connection, the legend of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus was ALL about grave robbing. But Mary Shelly got a bit caught up in audience driven story telling before she could really jot all that down. In fact, grave robbing back then was so popular that the living conspired all the time about how to protect (their) graves. If you could afford such an elaborate cage, though, why not just pay for a tomb, which also had a certain level of protection? Indeed. Many just made sure that they were buried naked and with nothing to accompany them. Or could it be that the cage-grave is from someone who thought more like the Pharaohs? You know, bury your corpse with everything, even the key, so that when you (re)awaken, you still have it all. Who can know, eh.
So let’s ponder the statement of caged graves once more. Is the cage for keeping something in? An appropriate question as the minions and compulsive behaviourist of today go about their useless eating lives emulating so well the pitchfork morons of yore. Or is the grave statement about keeping something out? Considering how the world is currently devolving via capitalism and greed-mongering run amok which has turned so many into cannibal-like goons, is the time nigh when we have to start digging up the dead? I can’t shed the thought that it’s only a matter of time before we start once again what Mary Shelly was afraid to finish and/or write–so she covered it all up with evil pseudo-doctors and monsters. Instead I’ll just ponder the possibility of what the cage-grave is stating while studying the rules and regulations in Germania about quarantining and the idear that, even at almost sixty, I’d like to get back on a really, really cool bike and do a few laps of the Nürburgring.
Rant on.
-T
worstwriter 