Flicker and Rasp

“You still do not see him.”

Seeming to disappear in the dim light, Nietzsche spoke slowly, raspily. His larynx had been idle, had decayed for so long. We wondered: perhaps the rasp was disuse, perhaps it was a side effect. We wondered, too, whom we did not see, and how we could find out, and whether we could remember Nietzsche’s words clearly enough to research and annotate them later. We were forbidden our phones. The screens would have cheapened the dark of the room, anyway, which was illuminated only by candles at the philosopher’s request. For reasons we did not know, our professors had left a single laptop running, and its muted glare seemed false. Profane.

“The madman with the lantern,” Nietzsche said. “He cries out even now, I am looking for God! I am looking for God! and the people in the marketplace”—he gestured widely with his arms—“the people in this absurd marketplace laugh, until he says, We are murderers, we have killed him: God is dead.”

Nietzsche flickered, then. We had not trusted our eyes the first time, but as his arms dropped he flickered as surely as the candle flames, out and in of existence. I heard gasps, one whisper, a sharp signal to hush. We did not know how much longer it could last, and no word could be spared.

“My madman cried of the murder of God. Lightning and thunder require time, the light…” He closed his eyes and his body swayed. Nietzsche might have flickered again.

He gestured toward the corner with his fingers, and Professor Hamblin dutifully read the passage; after Nietzsche’s throated murmur, he seemed nearly to shout. “Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars, and yet they have done it themselves. They—” The professor cut off; Nietzsche had raised his fingers.

“I thought he was too early. In my time, the people gaped in astonishment to hear the madman, hushed as he hurled his lantern to the ground and knew not what to say because they could not see or hear. But you…

“You still do not know what to say,” he rasped on, “but you are not silent. You scream and you wail, and you grasp the shards of the madman’s lantern and slice his throat as you snarl, God is alive! God is alive! And as the madman’s blood flows into the soil, you raise your misshapen lumps of clay, and you cry, Look upon the face of God!”

Like the others, I held an envelope I had been given when I entered, and I fumbled with it, my hands sweating. Weak though he was, his stare withered us all.

“Your greatest men are last men, Letzer Mensch who tell you they will return your greatness or reveal the path or uncover or re-cover the abyss, and they raise up their clay and scream, Look upon the face of God!They smell God’s decomposition most strongly of all, and create God anew with their pitiful mud so that even as God rots in the earth, each person claims to have seen him. The people will jab shards of the madman’s lantern deep in their eyes before they will dare to look. They will worship septillion lumpen gods before they will admit the death of one. The Letzer Mensch smell this submission just as they smell God’s putrid flesh, and they hear the clink of silver in the pretense. They know in what comfort they can live if they claim greatness.

“You insist you know truth; you insist you know God. You know nothing but rot and clay!” He stood fully upright. He flickered twice and willed a depth into his rasp, so that it inhabited our skulls and grew within us. “Your thumbs scamper day and night over illuminated glass to recruit more and lesser acolytes; you seek augmentation by birthing lambs for your shepherd. Rot! Clay!

“You flock to this hall to hear Nietzsche. You think it is Nietzsche you read. You hear an echo and you think it is Nietzsche who speaks! Fools!” He flickered again, and again, and as he faded away I thought I heard him cry “Fools!” once more.

We stood in the candlelight, gazing to the spot where Nietzsche did not stand. I heard paper tear behind me, and then to my left and all around. I opened my own envelope and read the words printed there.

The God you worship is false, as all gods are. Write an essay about this truth. Then burn your essay. Sharpen your nerve and knife; kill God.