THE NEW TESTAMENT OF NOTHING. A novel

A Letter from the Dead /// Ingwaz

In 1009 i came to this goddamn country, hell full of snakes and woods, and... I don't know how can I call them. The Ones.

I tried to show my power, and I showed it. I burned 721 houses and pagan altars, killed 1011 snakes or water-snakes, whatever. And I was rude, as I saw with what anger they looked at me.

They waited. Both people and The Ones.

I tried to burn several woods but I didn't succeed. The big amount of water came from somewhere - it was like a rain but from nowhere. So the trees stood tall and untouched.

Bloody pagans.

Now they look at me.

As I am dead I remember this from time to time. And ask myself only two questions: why did I come here, and who they are, The Ones? I don't know where I am. It doesn't seem like paradise. It's dark and silent. Voices somewhere... Am I a rabbit or a mouse? I run sometimes, pretty fast. I cannot see well.

Bloody hell, take me out of here. I don't know how to send this letter to The Ones. But i wish they would get it.

Bruno

///

Saint Bruno of Querfurt (c. 974 – February 14, 1009 AD), also known as Brun and Boniface, is a sainted missionary bishop and martyr, who was beheaded near the border of Kievan Rus and Lithuania while trying to spread Christianity in Eastern Europe. He is also called the second "Apostle of the Prussians". The Annals of Quedlinburg (Saxonicae Annales Quedlinburgenses) were written between 1008 and 1030 in the convent of Quedlinburg Abbey. In recent years a consensus has emerged that the annalist was a woman. The annals are mostly dedicated to the history of the Holy Roman Empire; they also contain the first written mention of the name of Lithuania ("Litua"), dated to March, 1009.

The original document has disappeared, surviving only as a 16th-century copy held in Dresden, but its contents endure as a scholarly resource.