Entry #22

"The Keeper of Souls"
by Robert Rohloff


A rugged cross stands beneath the darkened sky, its roots buried deep into the rancid soil. Thin snakes, protrude from the crossbars, and stretch transversely into the dead heavens. In the year of 1886, the great white army butchered my people, and let their corpse rot into this lifeless garden beneath the symbol of Christianity. My spirit stands guard for the souls of those small children and women that died that day. My loved ones bodies have long since turned into human dust, their souls have departed, but mine is still here. My place of duty is hour upon relentless hour, day after day, month after month, and year after year on these bare horizons, with cold winds, snow, heavy rains, and scorching heat.

That day I held my daughter’s lifeless, tiny carcass of flesh and bones in my arms while I cried. My young beautiful wife laid by my feet in a ball of blood soaked buckskin. Her interrogating eyes were open wide, asking why this massacre of the cruelest form took the breath from so many women and children.

Suddenly, a shadow fell across me. I looked up. It was a tall, thin, colorless man with yellow hair upon broad shoulders, sitting upon a great white horse. The stranger lacked a mouth or any face features, and his eyes were full of dread.

Everything went silent when he pushed a steel blade into my throbbing heart. My throat tightened, my eyes got heavy and closed.

Dead is dead.