The World of Myth Magazine

My wife is killing me little by little. She is charming and cool. I want her to go away, leaving no trace in my life. But I can’t muster courage to tell her. I am charmed by her vivacity and high spirits. I don’t love her. But I can’t live without her love. This is an existential dilemma. I am not capable of finding my way through this maze.

A perfidious idea has sprung up in her heart, and she is madly in love with another man. My heart bleeds with the monstrous, perpetual laceration, and there is nothing to make it all bearable for me.

I cannot pour out my heart to anybody. I am like an oak standing in a desert.

Day by day our relationship worsens, and all this has made me sick. One disturbed night after another, I have been trying to reach a conclusion. But, in the final analysis, it seems an exercise in futility.

One fine early morning I decide to go out for a long walk in pursuit of peace of mind, and I end up in a graveyard.

As I walk slowly down the rows of graves in the cemetery I am filled with awe.

I walk for a long time. There is no one around. I am all alone and overwhelmed by the silence of the graveyard. I sit there for a while. I heave a sigh of relief. Soon I feel an urge to lie there with my eyes closed.

I am not sure whether I am in a slumber, but I begin to hear a man’s voice. I don't know who is speaking. But it has a melancholy note … a reproachful tone….

I don't know why I am keenly interested in listening to the voice. Perhaps I am desperately seeking a human presence or perhaps someone I can talk to.

He is narrating his story: “I was a young and well-built soldier. I saw her for the first time in her husband's arms. She was so cute, so fair and lovely that I could not forget her. Every little move she made bore deeply into my heart … into my mind like an arrow, and I was lovesick. There was a hidden force always stirring me to catch a glimpse of her. I ran to see her. Never before had I run so madly after a dream. This new pattern of behavior was incomprehensible. A few months passed, but she didn’t reciprocate my advances.

One afternoon when I was coming home from my office, there she was, sitting in a on a bench in the park, all alone. She looked unhappy. I went to her.

I studied her hands as she twisted a handkerchief. She was twitching as if she were suffering. Slowly, I sat down next to her on the bench and spoke.

“Is something troubling you?” She gaped at me. “I’ve never seen you in such a gloomy mood! Can I do anything for you?”

“What can you do? It's personal. You´d better leave me alone.”

I left her there without saying another word. I went home. But all the while I was thinking about her. My mind kept meandering and I felt helpless to calm myself. The more I tried to forget her, the more she took all my attention. I am not sure why I was thinking so hard about her. It may be that I always wanted to have a wife like her, or I lost one whom I loved before.

But one afternoon when I was on my way home, I saw her again. She came to me and said she was sorry for having been unfriendly. I sensed a note of promise in her words and we started with some formal exchanges, but slowly we opened up to each other. Soon we became intimate friends, as well as ardent lovers. It all happened so automatically and obnoxiously.

There was a current of intoxication which encouraged us to see each other regularly. She told me everything about herself—about her dreams and aspirations, and I in turn told her mine.

The more time we spent together, the more passionate we became.

We were in a feverish madness of amorous love.

Six months passed far too quickly. Then, one day she told me that her husband had grown suspicious and was spying on her.

She made it clear we would not be able to see each other but that she would call me when her husband was not around.

I felt a violent blow of sadness. Her husband became a monster in my eyes. He raised a wall between two loving hearts.

I wanted to tell her husband I loved her … she was mine. But I couldn’t find it in myself to be so bold.

One afternoon she asked me to be at her home as her husband was out of town for two days. I went there. Inevitably, our longing to be close drove us to bed. We were making love, adoring each other. Then we heard a sound downstairs, and he appeared in the doorway. He was in a rage and in a mood to fight.

I looked at her helplessly. A fear was floating in her eyes and she begged him: “Ronny, let him go!” He pounced on me and I realized that the matter would not end without fighting. I struggled to survive, but it was hard. He was a raging bull. She threw me a knife, and soon he was on the floor, bleeding profusely, slowly dying.

I was completely dumbfounded. I stared, mesmerized, at his dead body. There was blood and nothing but blood. I closed my eyes and she clung to me.

The court would not spare us. We would be thrown behind bars. We decided to keep it quiet. We buried the dead body in a nearby wood, and in the morning, she informed his office that he was missing.

After two days, the police apprehended us. We were convicted and ended up in jail. I was sentenced to death.

“Death?” I asked suddenly.

“Yes, death,” he repeated.

“Then how are you speaking? Are you a ghost?” I opened my eyes. There was no one. The wind blew and made dead leaves rattle. Birds chirped. I spun around to figure out which grave the voice was coming from. I felt uncertainty grip me and took the shortest route home.

The narrative of the ghost still haunts me, and I wonder why he relayed his story to me.

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