We were on swivel chairs in the hunting tower we’d climbed into the evening before. Grandpa kept watch through the flygutsplattered windows towards north and east, and I took south and west. There was a forestroad running right below us. Grandpa had wanted me to shit myself and I’d just done it—and man it felt good. Baal knows it had been a cold, dark night … Grandpa had slept curled up, but his chthonic body wouldn’t leave well enough alone. He’d kept babbling in his sleep, something about Schuler and bloodlust and honeysweet Nero. He knows a whole mess of things by heart. —“Das Herz der Erde als Hölle der Christen … Morde den Vater, eh’ dass er dein Kind, deine Seele frisst, und entfessle die Urknäuel, das hundertspeichige Feuerrad! Die Hölle, das Herz der Gaia, wird dich helfen …” Grandpas German’s so bad it makes you weak in the knees … Later he lit some stormlanterns and comfortmunched all our provisions: schoolgirlfricassé and two balls of yarn.
