The midnight air was chill when he stumbled away from the Tree. He’d always remember it now. Even though he’d rather forget it. Here, in these unwritten hours, the moon was full. Always darkest before the dawn.
He recited clichés to keep him going. None of them felt right. None of them stuck.
The fly was long gone, but his arm still ached. He couldn’t remember whether he had ever had shoes, but he now noticed the ground against his feet. Here he was again. Back on the journey. He wondered if anyone else ever got tired. It’s not fair, but it’s the way it is.
The path took him into a forest. Forests at night were different. This forest was different. It spoke to him. The whole journey was a soundless conversation. It came to him in fragmented pieces. Wood would creak, and then a stone would fall. He didn’t have a response. He hadn’t learned how to speak that language yet. But he was certain someone was talking.
Someone whispered in his ear. And then he knew, someone always whispered here.
There was very little light. He did not just stumble, but here and there he had to crawl. The path was broken, and hard to feel for. The shrubbery and fallen wilderness covered his path. It cut at his fingertips, and his knees began to ache. Dewdrops fell on his face. The forest was very sad.
‘Tis better to have seen beauty and lost it, then to never have seen it at all.
Then, he lost his way. For a full minute he sat in the dark, feeling around him for the path. He couldn’t see anything, and the path seemed to stop. He cursed the darkness. He cursed the chill. He cursed being lost in this damnable place. He cursed the fact that he had lost count of the number of mountains and the number of valleys he had climbed. He cursed, and he cursed, and he cursed.
You can take my life, but you’ll never take my freedom.
He guessed. He should have been more scared, but he didn’t care anymore. Anything was better than being a prisoner in a place without walls. He gave in. It didn’t matter which way he went. It was heartbreaking, but that’s the way it was. The world’s not fair. He’d never see the Horizon. He’d never see those stunning cement fingers in the sky. He’d never have all of those things that he was supposed to have.
Sticks and stones, sticks and stones.
The forest lamented his leaving. But it didn’t seek to stop him. All along, it knew he had to go, even when he didn’t. He didn’t think of the Promises anymore. He didn’t remember them. He didn’t believe them. All he had was the journey now.
It’s the journey that matters.
Moonlight shone through a break in the trees. He found a way out, even though he didn’t know the difference anymore. Standing again, squinting against the darkness, he looked up at the forest. Once he left, he wouldn’t know what to do. But, if he could speak to the forest, he would have whispered back: I’ll always love you.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The Pilgrimage – Part 4
“You sleep perchance to dream?”
The voice reached across a hazy void to reach him. He felt it pulling him, physically from a place within his chest, back into reality.
“Hehe.” A child of 10. Dressed in a colourful midsummer’s dress, standing before him. “You are sleeping, silly.”
He stirred. But the tree was comfortable. The sun was still out, somewhere beyond the thick canopy above. The shade was almost too cool. A branch had fallen down, dewless, yet thick with heavy leaves. He pulled it towards him, covering his bare feet.
“It’s okay. You can keep sleeping if you like. We love visitors.”
Her voice was sweet. Innocent. And, just as it had pulled him out of his slumberland, her last words began to tuck him back in. Her acceptance made the grass more comfortable, and the breeze a little warmer.
“Stay as long as you like.”
He dreamt he was a butterfly. A beautiful yellow butterfly fluttering about a giant cement tower. He was free, flying and floating at his leisure. All the fatigue of a terrible journey was somewhere else, it was a different world. Here was where he had always, truly, lived. Here, with happiness on his wings, was the real world.
He shared this world with other beings. Things with pink skin and two legs. Things that had delusions of grandeur about owning a world. They laboured day in and day out to turn the land into cement, with cement ground and strange moving metal. It was perverse. It was the silly construction of silly little beings. He had flown by them countless times, laughing under his butterfly breath. One time, he even flew all the way up the glass tower, just to see what they did in there all day, walking on the sky.
Turns out they were even more boring there than they were on the ground.
Whenever he decided to care, he pitied them. But most of the time he didn’t bother with concerning himself with them. He was busy swimming in clouds and dancing on flowers. Eternity passed within a few days, and every moment was vibrant.
One day, he decided to see how far he could fly, just for fun. Turns out, he could fly forever. And forever was an ocean, with horses galloping in the waves. In and out, in and out, the horses galloped always, for as far as he could fly. The beach was endless. Their ceaseless, powerful stride was perfect against the white sands. He flew with them always.
When one of them slept, as even ethereal things do, it transformed into a beautiful flower. Some of them were daises, others lilacs. And the finest, proudest, waves formed roses along the banks. A forest of flowers rejoiced in the music of a world at peace.
When he had spent a thousand years, and a thousand more, he came to rest upon a little green leaf. There, he gradually fell into a slumber of his own, drowsily.
“Lester, don’t.”
The majesty of paradise wrapped his little butterfly wings in a blanket of colours and sounds never before felt, but that he had always known.
“LESTER. DON’T!”
And then, as another rosebush sprouted into being, he was being transported into an entirely different world. He was ripped him from his gentle process of subtle transcendence by a sharp pain in his arm. He had arms again.
He regained focus to see his toes poke over a fallen branch in the moonlight. He vaguely thought he remembered seeing a girl, but she was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps, he thought, she was just a figment of a dream. He could hear an annoying buzzing sound and his body was chill from the cold. He rubbed his arm and found a tiny bloody patch in his shoulder. A gadfly landed on his hand for just a moment, before flying loop-de-loops away again.
The damned thing had bit him.
The voice reached across a hazy void to reach him. He felt it pulling him, physically from a place within his chest, back into reality.
“Hehe.” A child of 10. Dressed in a colourful midsummer’s dress, standing before him. “You are sleeping, silly.”
He stirred. But the tree was comfortable. The sun was still out, somewhere beyond the thick canopy above. The shade was almost too cool. A branch had fallen down, dewless, yet thick with heavy leaves. He pulled it towards him, covering his bare feet.
“It’s okay. You can keep sleeping if you like. We love visitors.”
Her voice was sweet. Innocent. And, just as it had pulled him out of his slumberland, her last words began to tuck him back in. Her acceptance made the grass more comfortable, and the breeze a little warmer.
“Stay as long as you like.”
He dreamt he was a butterfly. A beautiful yellow butterfly fluttering about a giant cement tower. He was free, flying and floating at his leisure. All the fatigue of a terrible journey was somewhere else, it was a different world. Here was where he had always, truly, lived. Here, with happiness on his wings, was the real world.
He shared this world with other beings. Things with pink skin and two legs. Things that had delusions of grandeur about owning a world. They laboured day in and day out to turn the land into cement, with cement ground and strange moving metal. It was perverse. It was the silly construction of silly little beings. He had flown by them countless times, laughing under his butterfly breath. One time, he even flew all the way up the glass tower, just to see what they did in there all day, walking on the sky.
Turns out they were even more boring there than they were on the ground.
Whenever he decided to care, he pitied them. But most of the time he didn’t bother with concerning himself with them. He was busy swimming in clouds and dancing on flowers. Eternity passed within a few days, and every moment was vibrant.
One day, he decided to see how far he could fly, just for fun. Turns out, he could fly forever. And forever was an ocean, with horses galloping in the waves. In and out, in and out, the horses galloped always, for as far as he could fly. The beach was endless. Their ceaseless, powerful stride was perfect against the white sands. He flew with them always.
When one of them slept, as even ethereal things do, it transformed into a beautiful flower. Some of them were daises, others lilacs. And the finest, proudest, waves formed roses along the banks. A forest of flowers rejoiced in the music of a world at peace.
When he had spent a thousand years, and a thousand more, he came to rest upon a little green leaf. There, he gradually fell into a slumber of his own, drowsily.
“Lester, don’t.”
The majesty of paradise wrapped his little butterfly wings in a blanket of colours and sounds never before felt, but that he had always known.
“LESTER. DON’T!”
And then, as another rosebush sprouted into being, he was being transported into an entirely different world. He was ripped him from his gentle process of subtle transcendence by a sharp pain in his arm. He had arms again.
He regained focus to see his toes poke over a fallen branch in the moonlight. He vaguely thought he remembered seeing a girl, but she was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps, he thought, she was just a figment of a dream. He could hear an annoying buzzing sound and his body was chill from the cold. He rubbed his arm and found a tiny bloody patch in his shoulder. A gadfly landed on his hand for just a moment, before flying loop-de-loops away again.
The damned thing had bit him.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The Pilgrimage – Soliloquy #1: Forbidden Fruit
Is this one special too?
We are watching. He is special.
What will he do? What is different about him? Is he dreaming again?
He is seen, that makes him different. You must learn that that is all that makes anyone “special”. We make them special. We are their reason for being. We are their being. We are their hunters, and their purpose. We are always watching. When we stop, they cease. Theirs is a pitiable existence, but we will make it for them.
Does he know yet?
He will never know. The Bitches have robbed him of that.
He wants to die.
No. He wants to never have forgotten. Only they who forget where they come from lose sight of where they are going. He doesn’t know the difference. He doesn’t know that all beginnings despise endings. If he did, he would not slumber. If he did, he would not-
Look at him roll in discomfort! I want to taste him.
WRETCH. You know you can’t! You know that’s against the rules. Put your hunger in your eyes, and let him see it. But if you so much as taste his sweat, I’ll disembowel you myself. For us are only the offerings. The rotting scraps left from Aphrodite’s table. They must be handed to us. Offered by Her slaves.
I know, I know, I know. But I just want to. How can there be rules? We are the rules. We are their world. You said it yourself! Why should we beg?
Ignorant pup! Listen to my growl. We are their world, but they can never be ours. We were never meant to be equals with the likes of them. Stoop to their level, and you can never return. And you endanger us all.
From Her? Would we be in trouble from Her? Wait... do you think she knows?
Ha! She knows. Do you think we are unlike Cerberus? Do you think we are leashless? Your trouble would not be from her, little one. She is benevolent. But beware offering yourself to another master.
Do you think this one will laugh? Like the other one laughed? I love it when they laugh.
In the end, they all laugh.
We are watching. He is special.
What will he do? What is different about him? Is he dreaming again?
He is seen, that makes him different. You must learn that that is all that makes anyone “special”. We make them special. We are their reason for being. We are their being. We are their hunters, and their purpose. We are always watching. When we stop, they cease. Theirs is a pitiable existence, but we will make it for them.
Does he know yet?
He will never know. The Bitches have robbed him of that.
He wants to die.
No. He wants to never have forgotten. Only they who forget where they come from lose sight of where they are going. He doesn’t know the difference. He doesn’t know that all beginnings despise endings. If he did, he would not slumber. If he did, he would not-
Look at him roll in discomfort! I want to taste him.
WRETCH. You know you can’t! You know that’s against the rules. Put your hunger in your eyes, and let him see it. But if you so much as taste his sweat, I’ll disembowel you myself. For us are only the offerings. The rotting scraps left from Aphrodite’s table. They must be handed to us. Offered by Her slaves.
I know, I know, I know. But I just want to. How can there be rules? We are the rules. We are their world. You said it yourself! Why should we beg?
Ignorant pup! Listen to my growl. We are their world, but they can never be ours. We were never meant to be equals with the likes of them. Stoop to their level, and you can never return. And you endanger us all.
From Her? Would we be in trouble from Her? Wait... do you think she knows?
Ha! She knows. Do you think we are unlike Cerberus? Do you think we are leashless? Your trouble would not be from her, little one. She is benevolent. But beware offering yourself to another master.
Do you think this one will laugh? Like the other one laughed? I love it when they laugh.
In the end, they all laugh.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Pilgrimage - Part 3
It had been weeks since he had seen anyone. The woman in the wagon was the last. He didn’t think he’d see her again.
His mind began playing its own tricks now. Puddles held his reflection, he swore just a little too long. Inside them his green eyes - like peacock feathers – looked at him. They looked at him, like they were something else. Something not human.
What happens when someone loses his humanity? What do they become?
He thought he saw cat-men and horse-women in the sun’s refractions. The leaves began turning purple and orange. Neon pink, before a double take returned them to their pristine green. Things were flying in the sky. Things that were not birds shadowed the ground. But when he looked up, the sky was clear.
Time went on. He walked across another field. Through another valley.
He felt like he was an eternity away from yesterday. It was the day before the day before anything would happen. The Horizon was not around this corner. It was not around the next either, he already knew.
The scraps on the road let him know that there were still people. Somewhere, there were people like him. Had they gone through what he’s going through? Were they like him?
Was he still like them?
Another valley. Another hill.
Another week. Another month. How quickly they passed. How painful they were in the passing. Slowly the scraps thinned.
Was this what it felt like to be alone? Were the Dogs even here? It seemed as if they too had abandoned him. His flesh and soul no longer worth having. So wretched that even the vile would not have him.
His tears were yellow. He didn’t know why. He just watched as they fell.
Another hill, and a stream that ran parallel to the road awhile. Another huge tree. So large, that it blocked out the sun.
He sat. Fuck it. Just like that, he sat. He was a Child of Reubin, and his were the Promises. And he was going to sit. What did he have to lose?
His mind began playing its own tricks now. Puddles held his reflection, he swore just a little too long. Inside them his green eyes - like peacock feathers – looked at him. They looked at him, like they were something else. Something not human.
What happens when someone loses his humanity? What do they become?
He thought he saw cat-men and horse-women in the sun’s refractions. The leaves began turning purple and orange. Neon pink, before a double take returned them to their pristine green. Things were flying in the sky. Things that were not birds shadowed the ground. But when he looked up, the sky was clear.
Time went on. He walked across another field. Through another valley.
He felt like he was an eternity away from yesterday. It was the day before the day before anything would happen. The Horizon was not around this corner. It was not around the next either, he already knew.
The scraps on the road let him know that there were still people. Somewhere, there were people like him. Had they gone through what he’s going through? Were they like him?
Was he still like them?
Another valley. Another hill.
Another week. Another month. How quickly they passed. How painful they were in the passing. Slowly the scraps thinned.
Was this what it felt like to be alone? Were the Dogs even here? It seemed as if they too had abandoned him. His flesh and soul no longer worth having. So wretched that even the vile would not have him.
His tears were yellow. He didn’t know why. He just watched as they fell.
Another hill, and a stream that ran parallel to the road awhile. Another huge tree. So large, that it blocked out the sun.
He sat. Fuck it. Just like that, he sat. He was a Child of Reubin, and his were the Promises. And he was going to sit. What did he have to lose?
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Pilgrimage - Part 2
It had been just over a month since he stumbled.
It concerned him, to say the least. Stumbling was always a sign of the Sacrificial. Traditions and hunches were as close as anyone got to the scientific method on the Pilgrimage. Journey was faith. Knowledge was only experience, filtered through hope and expectation. And everyone who experienced a stumble expected a fall.
He hoped he was wrong.
Someone he met on the road once, driving a wagon, and said that she traveled with a Sacrifice before its fall (all sacrifices became an “it” after they were lost). That’s where she got the second horse. She told him that it was sort of like coming down with a cold. It starts with an unexpected symptom, a cough, immediately followed by personal denial. Like it wasn’t a sickness, just a tickle in the throat. Just an accident.
“It kept saying, in the beginning, that ‘I just tripped.’ But I know it didn’t. It was leading this horse, when I saw it lean on the reigns.”
Then, apparently, the symptoms get worse and the afflicted begin to accept that they’re sick. They begin to think that they could beat it. If they just walked a little slower, if they just took their time and their vitamins it would get cured before it got too bad.
Of course, it always got worse, she said. Once you’ve got a cold, you’ve got a cold. She’d never seen anyone get sick and not die. But, she said, it fought. And the symptoms got worse. Then, like everyone who gets sick, they eventually resign. Just give in and accept that that’s all life was. Pain and suffering. And then there was the wait for it to all be over.
“That’s when it gave me its horse. Said it didn’t need anything anymore. That’s when I knew it knew. I took the horse and gave it the Last Thanks.”
He hadn’t really asked her. He secretly wished she hadn’t. She just rode up and started talking. He figured she just needed to talk about it. A coping mechanism. It was always tough when someone went to the other side. Very little was more haunting than someone being food for the Dogs.
But it did give him a certain calm about the whole thing. Like someone else was looking him in the eye, even though she never – not once – actually looked him in the eye. No one did. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw the insides of real eyes. It was too dangerous.
He didn’t tell her that he had stumbled, but somewhere, he was pretty sure she knew. After she finished her story, she just moved right along. She was careful to move the wagon to one side, so that there was no dust kicked up into his face. They didn’t say goodbye. No one fare-welled here. To do so, when you knew better, was downright malicious. The Dogs were bad enough; no Children need do the Enemy’s work too.
He continued diligently, telling himself that one stumble needn’t define him. If he was careful, he’d never stumble or stagger again. He could just keep going, as he was supposed to. As he had always thought he would. No – as he always will.
He let his mind protect itself with all the usual tricks. He thought again to the Promises. The honeysuckle of a man-made heaven. Of finally inheriting the gifts for which he had already been damned for. There was a fuel that righteousness gave him that nothing else ever had. The rituals and old traditions gave him strength. The Promises. The Ladies. The Horizon.
They were the reason to answer the Call that Must Be Answered. No, they were the Call that Must Be Answered.
The Last Thanks. It was neither a goodbye, nor a vindication. The Sacrifice was stripped of its identity, its gender, and age. It was the ritual preformed when one of the Children had lost their way. Knowing it had become an object, a tool of the Dogs, it was removed of all that it possessed, materially or socially, within the eyes of the Children. It was not so much sacrilege as inherently detestable to leave those monsters beside the path anything. They had taken enough.
But, paradoxically, no Sacrifice had ever fought to keep who they were. They always gave it freely. And so, in a moment of uneasy clarity, The Last Thanks became a defining hesitation in the Journey of all the world’s inhabitants.
Somehow, he never found that paradox – that momentary agreement between black and white – confusing. The more he pondered it, the more it just made sense to him. How easy and comfortable it would be to just give up.
That was how he stumbled the first time. His mind tricks were not working as well as they used to. In the oppressive beauty of Eden, the Promises had lost some of their lustre. Oh how easy it was for the Children to be wretched. Ungrateful.
But they shouldn’t lose their lustre. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. How was he to make them regain it? How, now so very tired, feeling the warm wind blow against him, was he to continue? How many hills and mountains had he climbed, yet to see the Horizon?
Where was Inspiration? Where was Reubin?
The wagon was far down the hill now, passing down and over a stream.
It concerned him, to say the least. Stumbling was always a sign of the Sacrificial. Traditions and hunches were as close as anyone got to the scientific method on the Pilgrimage. Journey was faith. Knowledge was only experience, filtered through hope and expectation. And everyone who experienced a stumble expected a fall.
He hoped he was wrong.
Someone he met on the road once, driving a wagon, and said that she traveled with a Sacrifice before its fall (all sacrifices became an “it” after they were lost). That’s where she got the second horse. She told him that it was sort of like coming down with a cold. It starts with an unexpected symptom, a cough, immediately followed by personal denial. Like it wasn’t a sickness, just a tickle in the throat. Just an accident.
“It kept saying, in the beginning, that ‘I just tripped.’ But I know it didn’t. It was leading this horse, when I saw it lean on the reigns.”
Then, apparently, the symptoms get worse and the afflicted begin to accept that they’re sick. They begin to think that they could beat it. If they just walked a little slower, if they just took their time and their vitamins it would get cured before it got too bad.
Of course, it always got worse, she said. Once you’ve got a cold, you’ve got a cold. She’d never seen anyone get sick and not die. But, she said, it fought. And the symptoms got worse. Then, like everyone who gets sick, they eventually resign. Just give in and accept that that’s all life was. Pain and suffering. And then there was the wait for it to all be over.
“That’s when it gave me its horse. Said it didn’t need anything anymore. That’s when I knew it knew. I took the horse and gave it the Last Thanks.”
He hadn’t really asked her. He secretly wished she hadn’t. She just rode up and started talking. He figured she just needed to talk about it. A coping mechanism. It was always tough when someone went to the other side. Very little was more haunting than someone being food for the Dogs.
But it did give him a certain calm about the whole thing. Like someone else was looking him in the eye, even though she never – not once – actually looked him in the eye. No one did. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw the insides of real eyes. It was too dangerous.
He didn’t tell her that he had stumbled, but somewhere, he was pretty sure she knew. After she finished her story, she just moved right along. She was careful to move the wagon to one side, so that there was no dust kicked up into his face. They didn’t say goodbye. No one fare-welled here. To do so, when you knew better, was downright malicious. The Dogs were bad enough; no Children need do the Enemy’s work too.
He continued diligently, telling himself that one stumble needn’t define him. If he was careful, he’d never stumble or stagger again. He could just keep going, as he was supposed to. As he had always thought he would. No – as he always will.
He let his mind protect itself with all the usual tricks. He thought again to the Promises. The honeysuckle of a man-made heaven. Of finally inheriting the gifts for which he had already been damned for. There was a fuel that righteousness gave him that nothing else ever had. The rituals and old traditions gave him strength. The Promises. The Ladies. The Horizon.
They were the reason to answer the Call that Must Be Answered. No, they were the Call that Must Be Answered.
The Last Thanks. It was neither a goodbye, nor a vindication. The Sacrifice was stripped of its identity, its gender, and age. It was the ritual preformed when one of the Children had lost their way. Knowing it had become an object, a tool of the Dogs, it was removed of all that it possessed, materially or socially, within the eyes of the Children. It was not so much sacrilege as inherently detestable to leave those monsters beside the path anything. They had taken enough.
But, paradoxically, no Sacrifice had ever fought to keep who they were. They always gave it freely. And so, in a moment of uneasy clarity, The Last Thanks became a defining hesitation in the Journey of all the world’s inhabitants.
Somehow, he never found that paradox – that momentary agreement between black and white – confusing. The more he pondered it, the more it just made sense to him. How easy and comfortable it would be to just give up.
That was how he stumbled the first time. His mind tricks were not working as well as they used to. In the oppressive beauty of Eden, the Promises had lost some of their lustre. Oh how easy it was for the Children to be wretched. Ungrateful.
But they shouldn’t lose their lustre. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. How was he to make them regain it? How, now so very tired, feeling the warm wind blow against him, was he to continue? How many hills and mountains had he climbed, yet to see the Horizon?
Where was Inspiration? Where was Reubin?
The wagon was far down the hill now, passing down and over a stream.
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