The human couple hanging from the horns were screaming and crying now incoherently, as all human language is reduced to wordless whining in the last moments of life. The Servant took the young bodies off its horns, forced their legs open and inserted the pensioners’ essence into the young flesh through the anus. The bodies shook painfully as a fight took place within for control, but after a little agony the former owners were discharged in the form of black vomit, only to become fodder for the worms as well.

‘The cruel beauty of reincarnation,’ Jufus sighed behind my back, but when I turned, he was already gone.

The Servant placed the bodies on the ground. The young couple stood up and examined each other. They spoke German, their accent the same as before.

‘But my dear, you became a man!’ said the girl in awe.

The couple looked at their own bodies, then started laughing as if at a burlesque joke.

‘We were put in the wrong bodies,’ said the girl. The boy laughed.

‘Now you’ll know what it feels like to have it stuck in you,’ said the boy, then they both launched into a scream-like laughter, but despite the laughs, there was a promise of violence in the air. Then the boy threw himself at the girl.

‘No, Henriett, wait!’ the girl said, suddenly no longer laughing, but Henriett didn’t wait because now he was a boy, a man who waits no more: he punched the girl in the stomach and held down her hands. He inserted himself into her and they fucked among the worms, next to their own shed flesh, crying and screaming and laughing because it was a new sort of ecstasy and a new sort of pain; they were young again, ready for the next lifetime of pains and joys and sorrows.

The Servant laid its many eyes on us, so we decided to move on quickly.

The end of the road

The journey never ends well. Anyone considering going on this trip should take this into consideration. Whether you’re happy with the outcome of the trip depends on the extent to which you’re happy with your own everyday life. The more you find joy in what you have, the less you’ll like what you find at the end of the road, because the journey always ends in tears.

When we reached the gate, it was already open to welcome us.

Nora squeezed my hand. Her skin was hot and damp with fever.

‘Never let go of my hand!’ she asked.

The Frenchman was whining and trembling behind us. He had been scratching his face; his skin was full of bloody stripes. He had gone mad hours ago.