Euronyomus and Varg old days
How do you tell the difference between what is dead and what is not. Where is the cross of the line when everything just decidedly…stops. I died 4 and a half years ago, but here I stand, looking at the charred remains of a cabin in which I once lived. The red paint is forever stained black with soot, the memories inside never to be uncovered, buried beneath the deep layers of the rubble. What is the price of a house? How can you gauge the price of the life that has been lost within those walls? I miss him. I miss pelle in a way that makes me sick to my stomach. This was preventable. A life cut too short. Someone who truly had their life ahead of him. This has all gone too far. But it's never enough. Too far is never far enough for Oystein Aarseth. Now he's raking in the cash. Too blinded by his greed and his fame to see the pain he has brought upon others. Upon us. His friends. He used pelle. Dragged that poor kid from his safe house in Sweden to live in a cabin in the woods accompanied by a chronically empty fridge with the promises of fame and fortune. Now Euronymous was living that dream. Touring, being famous, everything we've ever dreamed of having. But it cost him everything. He's sitting at the top of the pyramid, and the kid he used to get there? Is now six feet under the cold frozen ground of Krakstad Norway. MAYHEM is in pieces. We have no drummer, our bass player is off the deep end, our guitarist is not far behind him. Our lead singer, poor pelle, is no longer with us. Thanks to Oystein. Oystein didn't kill him, he didn't have to. He bullied Pelle for no reason, simply using him as a way to take out his own insecurities and problems. Pelle never lived to see the thousands of dollars that mayhem would eventually accumulate. It's funny. Mayhem had represented everything not mainstream. We saw the social norms, and struck towards the polar opposite. Bowi, Beatles, Madonna, that wasn't us. We were black metal. Trve kvlt black metal. Now? Oystein has become everything he once hated. He’s talking about world tours, millions of dollars. Even Varg, who Oystein himself conditioned to be as bad as him, knows that's not what this music is about. There was the night, when we were burning churches that were built on our sacred grounds by the catholics. I've only accompanied Varg, and have never pulled the match myself. That night was different. There was something different in the air, something sharp. Like electricity in the moment of haze that comes before lightning strikes. Varg and Euronymous were both there that night. They went to the church, I kept lookout. That was the plan. Unfortunately, it started heading south when the doorways collapsed. It fell with a great crash, the sound of splitting wood interrupting the quiet of the night and low mumbling of fire. I had to run over, push my way through the rubble and smoke. I heard them laughing. I called to them, and varg smashed a window to escape, colored glass of grainy faces falling across the grass like stars. There was a graveyard beside the church, with indented crosses and faded names of those who would be lost forever. We didn't care. We jumped across the headstones, collapsing them, and making us no better than those damn catholics. The flames licked towards the black sky. Like a light-starved plant reaching out its spindly arms towards sunlight. They casted ghostly shadows across Varg’s pale face, giving it an eerie sort of reaper-like appearance. Euronymous looked proud of his destruction, the reflection of red hot air reflecting in his dark eyes. His face lit up, his lips tilted upwards at one end, pleased. Varg and Euronymous were trying to outdo each other constantly. Euronymous had a beer, Varg had two. The prodigy trying to surpass his teacher. I think Varg resented Euronymous because he invented Black Metal, and does not act as Varg thinks he should. Euronymous resents Varg because he taught Varg everything he knew, introduced Varg into the black circle, and now he has gone so far. Further than Euro. Further than me. Further than Pelle. And Euronymous truly hates it. It rips him up inside to know that he is being replaced, that this beautiful thing he created is being taken over by someone he deems unworthy. Jealousy. Envy. Greed.
Varg and Euronymous continued laughing and jumping, running around until they tired themselves out. Eventually we sat. Together, watching the orange and red lap at the onyx sky. Reaching out for more. Never enough. Varg and Euronymous were arguing once again over some stupid thing that they'd been over long enough for me to know how it ended. With yelling.
“I should run this,” Euronymous said, confidence oozing out of his voice in a way that was just so insecure.
“Look man” they're standing, Varg inches from Euro’s face. Their silhouettes dance in front of the golden flames. Like Hellfire.
“You either do it for the cause or you do it because you want the attention. You can’t have it both ways” Varg snaps the words that would come to haunt me forever.
“I invented true Norwegian black metal!”
“And now you betray it” and then there's silence. There's a truth in those words. One no one will point out but it's there all the same. Blissfully ignored.
The sounds of the fire ravaging the remnants of a holy place is the only noise brave enough to break the drowning silence. The police then showed up, blaring lights and screaming sirens breaking the ethereal moment. It was like they emerged from their trance, taking off into the woods to escape the punishment of their actions. We chased all the way to the house, legs burning and hearts pounding. Euronymous shoves Varg when they get back, and he yells in Euro's face that Pelles' death was all his fault. Words are said that can never be taken back. lives changed forever, relationships permanently in ruins. That night Varg and his stupid friend in his stupid Volvo threw a molotov cocktail into the front window of our kitchen, and I barely made it out alive. Euronymous wasn't so lucky.
I wish i'd gone back for him. I'd looked through the blazing flames of the two foot tall fire and thought the coast was clear. That night the only person I cared about died.
So here I stand, holding a tearstained picture of me and him as I stand above the rubble of the old cabin. They've cleared out all the forests and trees that once surrounded the house, clearing away the nature that Pelle adored so deeply. It makes me sick, how people just don't care. How they just don't know. I lay the picture in the rubble, trapping it beneath two brick as I wipe the tears from my face. There's nothing that can happen that will bring him back. So I try to move on.