36

The short and calm man was right. People had started to die as a result of the cold winter.

As the cluster of bodies would set in motion each morning, the most fragile fruits of democracy would stay behind, crouching on the floor. The bodies had to be buried and the gravediggers were selected through drawing lots. The frozen soil was a nightmare to crack open with their blunt pickaxes and spades. Each and every grave had to be painstakingly drawn out from the stubborn flesh of the earth. People had started to curse the dead, those alive hating those who had passed away. For weeks on end the living had been vigorously fighting against the dead.

One day one of the diggers got frostbite while digging a grave. A few days later he died, so, in turn, he also needed to be buried. Every single grave was driving the life force from the people digging it. No grave could be completed in less than half a day. When there were blizzards, finishing a grave started in the morning could take until late in the evening.

Another day one of the gravediggers died while actually digging a grave. He was buried next to the man whose grave he had been digging. The living had started to hate one another. Any one of them could instantly become the cause of immense suffering for all those around them. Voices could be heard, voices raised against the dead. Why should the dead need to be buried? Couldn’t they just be thrown into the abandoned pool or the colony’s rubbish heap? No, came the answer. The dead could not be abandoned. Democracy would take care of its dead. Democracy couldn’t abandon its dead because democracy would never abandon its people. It didn’t matter whether these people were dead or alive.

Voices were raised anew. Dissatisfied and full of hate, these voices raised against the living, too. Wasn’t dying a form of treason in itself, and weren’t those who died traitors themselves? Wasn’t everyone’s duty in those terrible moments to carry on living? To simply live, in order not to coerce those around them to the drudgery of burials? One of these voices had completely gone berserk. Live, you wretches, the mad voice screamed, just live! Live, because no one is in the mood to bury you, fools that you are. It soon turned out that the mad voice itself was also dying.

All the same, the living had gathered on a few occasions to discuss the problem of the dead. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to deposit the dead somewhere until spring, so the soil can thaw a little? Nothing undignified would have happened to the dead if they had to wait until spring. Or until the end of the world, another voice, on the verge of going mad, howled. The voice on the brink of madness was restrained in no time. Only the lucid voices would talk. They moved on to taking a vote. Bizarre and incredible that this may seem, the majority demanded that the dead should be respected, despite everyone being fed up with digging graves. The graves continued to be dug by the living, for the dead. Moreover, some of the living died yet again in the process of digging these graves for the dead.

The living came together again. This time there were even more voices that sounded as if they were on the brink of madness. The voices on the brink of madness were demanding appalling things. Wouldn’t it have been better to simply throw the dead onto the courtyard of the penal colony? Wouldn’t it have been better for people to return, in a manner of speaking, to where they had come from? Nonsense, the lucid voices replied. We shall all die if we carry on like this, the voices on the brink of madness howled. Who had a stake in all these people dying? Dying continuously, digging or not digging graves, inside or outside graves? Nonsense, the lucid voices replied, no one had a stake in people dying. And yet, the voices on the brink of madness screamed, how come some people were drawn two or three times, and others not a single time? Wasn’t drawing lots an absolutely idiotic principle? No, it wasn’t, the lucid voices replied. Another vote was taken and yet again, the majority got to decide. The dead continued to be buried in deep individual graves. Moreover, it was also decided that burial places should be further away from where the living were based.

When the voices on the brink of madness seemed to outnumber the lucid voices, another gathering was held. The voices on the brink of madness had come unleashed like never before. The voices on the brink of madness felt that the truth hadn’t been said before. So they started to say it. The truth was that something had slipped into the very heart of democracy. It wasn’t yet known what that was, it could be a LIE, HATRED or THE ENEMY. Otherwise, how could one provide an explanation for all this? Why in this world of almost perfect principles winter lasted longer than in other worlds, and why digging graves took longer than anywhere? The lucid voices got together in a corner and spoke confidentially for a while. Then they replied to the questions. Firstly, there were no other worlds beyond the two that everyone knew about. Secondly, what did the word anywhere mean? Thirdly, the dead had to be buried at all costs, because people had to be loved at all costs.

They took a vote, and beyond belief, the voices on the brink of madness lost again, although they were in considerably larger numbers.