by kubasik
I had made sure of that, of course. Had provided the pain myself. And it wasn't just the pain of the knife. It was the betrayal. That memory had repeated itself in my thoughts again and again.
And so, when I woke, I tried to shake the thoughts from my head. If I had been home, I would have gone off to steal something from Kratas. Motion and acquisition kept my mind from indulging in the painful habit of self reflection. But there was nowhere to go.
Nothing to steal. Nothing to do but visit the tower—and I certainly would not do that.
And with nothing else to occupy my attention, your screams came back to me.
I had not dreamed the screams. Had, in fact, not thought of them for a long time. But now they came to me as if we were all in the Theran airship once more.
I drew the blade. Your small faces. So happy to see me at first. I had claimed to be your father, had given you the attention from a man that you both so craved. When I arrived, it could only mean everything was all right. But I was not your father, and I reached for each of you and mutilated your faces ... To win against the Overgovernor. I would have done anything to win. In a world with no trust and only pain, what actions were too costly for victory?
So your screams filled the air. As they filled my thoughts now. I could not get your screams out of my head.
I paced. They did not go away.
I walked the circumference of the island. They did not go away.
The sound of your mother crying became a part of the cacophony in my thoughts. Tears flowed as I made her do things that had nothing to do with love, but which I demanded of her to prove love. I walked faster and faster, stumbling over the rocks.
My father's begging me for love was added next. He wanted me to know he had tried.
Tried so hard. And I rejected him for his weakness. No. I killed him for his weakness. I had thought then, ‘Either I kill him or we both die’. Just as I had thought, ‘Either I cut apart the faces of my sons, or we all die’. The thoughts did not come to mind that clearly.
Analytically. But they were present. I definitely thought them after. Justifying my actions. Forgetting one option. Not killing. Not betraying the love of my sons. Paying the price for retaining my humanity.
I ran on around the island, the voices and sobs swarming my thoughts like flies around rotted meat. In fact, I waved my arms around my head, as if I could somehow wave off the memories.
Then came the sounds of my mother's screams— your grandmother. She was driven mad by listening to my voice when I was a boy. She was placed in the center of the kaer is atrium. We everyone there—stoned her to death. They thought she was possessed by a Horror.
I was possessed by the Horror. I did it! I did it to her! And her flesh tore off in bits and pieces as the rocks struck her. She died begging for mercy and babbling insistently.
So I listened to her screams and only after a long while realized that her screams had replaced all the others. I realized I had stopped running. I had been crying. With the sleeve of my shirt I dried my face. I stared out at the sea. Evening was falling now.
Above, the clouds were tinged with gold. Below, the sea was endless and scarlet and black.
I settled down on the rock. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to do.
My mother's screams still haunted my thoughts. Within a few minutes all the other voices came back— the tears, shrieks for mercy, shouts ... But all came softer now. I gave them my attention. They settled in my heart.
For a long time I listened to the sounds, torn between the despair and a strange kind of happiness. Not happy I'd caused the pain, but happy I could acknowledge myself as the source. I had done these things, and strangely, there was comfort in admitting it. A strange lightness radiated from my heart outward, and the screams floated on this lightness, leaving me.
Then the sound of Kyrethe's cries floated down from the tower. This newly caused pain, so immediate, shattered the lightness of my spirit. My fists clenched. How could I have done such a thing? Always, before, some strange excuse existed. Gave me pretense for my terrible actions. This time, what could justify my attempt at rape? Not the need for safety. Not even bitterness or anger. Just habit. The habit of pain.
I stood, began pacing. Despair welled in my soul. It seemed that the older I became, the more terror I was capable of creating in the world. Kyrethe's cries seemed to fill the air, approaching me from all directions. Like a giant snake, loathing encircled my flesh, tightening around me. I sat down again, buried my face in my hands. Who did I think I was? I was an old man. Lonely, bitter. I could not change. I had no chance of hope. That was for people from better childhoods than mine.
I was aware of a presence beside me. I thought that Kyrethe might have somehow found me. But when I looked up I saw myself. Open sores ran down my double's flesh, and blood flowed freely. Surprise is too light a word for my feelings, and I remained seated, mouth agape.
"Do you mind if I join you?” my double asked. Wordlessly I motioned to a rock beside me. He smiled, sat down "Getting tired of all of this, aren't you?”
"Excuse me?”
"Going over this in your head, again and again. How many years now ... ?."
"All of them. Most of them."
"I'd be exhausted."
"Who are you?"
He smiled. Old wounds opened on his cheeks and blood dripped down his flesh. "An old, old friend. Your bitterness."
"Raggok?" I asked, for it seemed I could be speaking to none other than the Passion of bitterness. He nodded. "Are you the shadow that has been haunting me?"
He looked at me carefully. "Well, haunting is the wrong word. You call us up and there we are. This shadow, if it is a Passion, is not me, and I couldn't tell you who it is."
"Oh."
"But in any case, don't you think it's time for all of this to end?"
"End?"
"Yes. It's been such a longs ridiculously pathetic life. And here you are, still cycling through your misery. How many times have you had these ideas? You know, you all—
you name givers—each build a story for yourself. The story may not be remembered by others. Most aren't. But it is a story. And when the story is done, it's time to die."
"It is?" His words caused a tinge of excitement in me. The possibility that my life was finally over, not from cowardice or failure, but simply from dry fact, was very intriguing.
How I longed for rest.
"Yes, you do, you long for rest. It's done, your story, and you aren't even aware of it. You keep thinking something new is going to happen. But it won't. It will keep grinding like this until someone finally kills you or you die of old age. Why don't you do yourself a favor? End it now?”
The abruptness of the offer stunned me. I gestured back to the tower. "But Kyrethe . .." I began, as if I might somehow help her.
"Will be much better off without you. Come, now. You've already broken her heart—the first person she's encountered in four decades tries to rape her. You might as well have been her father." He laughed. A horrible, petty, bitter laugh, full of cheap knowledge.
"And that's the point, isn't it? You might as well have been her father. He might as well have been you. You might as well be your mother, for all you did for Kyrethe. You might as well be your father. Your parents might as well be you, now, for your behavior toward your children. Your sons might as well be you. You are no longer yourself, J'role. You don't think of yourself as you anymore, and you're not. You're not really alive. You're a collection of behaviors passed on to you, repeated by habit. You're stuck. You're going to keep grinding the same ideas and notions over and over again. You have nothing really left to offer yourself. Even the world. What kind of a gift could you truly ever give to Kyrethe but what you gave?”
"That wasn't a gift," I said sharply. His good natured discussion of my attack was beginning to grate at my mind.
"Of course it was. You gave her something. It's one of the only gifts you've got in your limited inventory of presents. But it was
a present. You've given her something, and she took it, and she'll remember it for the rest of her days. Which probably aren't much longer. That's how her life will probably close. Her story will end:
‘And then she was nearly raped by a man she thought might, in her hope of hopes, offer her the love she so desperately longed for. A few years later she died.’
"And I don't think we even want to think about the fates in store for Neden, or your boys."
"How can you be so flippant about all this?"
"It's just the way it is, isn't it?"
“The way what is?"
"Life. Your life, at least. Lonely, absurdly painful. You attract despair like a Horror to a widow's mind. Aren't you tired of it?"
"You're awfully calm about all this."
"I'm your Passion of bitterness, J'role. The tirades are over. You know it's true. Who has time to stomp and shout anymore? It's a fact. You're tired of living. You're tired of having hope and having it stamped out."
Raggok was right, and it surprised me to realize how happy I was to hear him saying the words. My life really was over. Whatever I did now would only be a repetition of what I'd already done. If my life was a story, it was becoming astoundingly dull.
The baby appeared beside me.
"J'role, don't listen to this part of yourself. You can always hope. Free yourself from ..."
"Shut up!" I snapped at the child. I smiled. "You're an annoying little infant, and I'
m tired of your strange hope and your mysterious directions. Neden is probably dead by now ...”
"You need time ..."
"I'm sixty! What time do I have left?"
"It isn't easy. These things ..."
I stood, as did my double. He extended one hand, and I took it. As our flesh touched, the hands melded together. We flowed into one being, my bitterness and I. "Ready?" I asked myself. "Oh, yes." The two of us walked to the edge of the island, right up to where the rocks met the lava. "This is going to hurt," I said to myself. "As if we can't stand a little pain," I replied. Memories of the Elf Queen's thorns and a thousand other atrocities shot through my thoughts. The levity of the moment left me. I really had wanted to be happy. I had wanted to leave behind a life that others could hear about and be inspired by. But it was all for nothing. Nothing could ever work out.
The baby appeared before me, floating in the air, trying to prevent me from stepping into the lava. "Listen. I can't tell you about what's going to happen, because I'm your Passion of hope, and you don't know what death is like. But I'll tell you this. If suicide was a good idea, word would have gotten out, and more people would be killing themselves. There's a reason why people try to stay alive ..."
With my voice full of pity for all my lost opportunities, I said, "I have no more reasons,"
and leaned forward.
"NO!" the baby shouted, his face contorted in horrible pain.
I fell through the child, and as I slipped through him I remembered the potential for hope. The desire for one more chance. The belief that things could get better.
But then it was too late. My flesh splattered into the molten lava. A steam of blood rose up around me as my flesh melted. I screamed, and without thinking scrambled as if I might be able to save myself from my self dictated fate. The fall from the airship had been one kind of doom—long and indeterminate. This death was not that.
In a moment I was dead.
PART THREE
Death and Life
1
"Come on, come on! We've got to get you set up!"
Bodies pressed against me from all directions, squeezing down on, pushing up at me.
Elbows pressed against my sides. "Excuse me," someone said. "Sorry," said someone else. "Will you watch it!" said a third. Humans, dwarfs, t'skrang, and all the other name-giver races crammed against me, and I could see nothing beyond the endless throng. It seemed impossible that I should be able to move, but I passed through the crammed multitude as if moving through water. Limbs slid out of my way just as I approached, filling in behind me as I moved on.
"Come on. Come on." Someone tugged at my hand, and I looked down to see the words Come on Come on wrapped around my flesh, wavering, like a long white snake swimming underwater. The words shifted and changed, and as they re-formed themselves into new words, I heard, "We're almost there."
I glanced around, and astoundingly, everyone was writing. Let me repeat this, for I myself did a double-take as I realized what was happening around me.
Everyone was writing.
In one hand each person held a writing tablet, in another each held a stylus. Their tablets were pressed up against the backs of the people next to them, or propped up on their knees, or in the crooks of their arms, and so on. The other hand busily carved out pictographs. As I passed an elf I asked, "What are you writing?" He stared at me sadly for a moment, then, as if in shame, he bent his head down and continued to work.
Not everyone was sad. Some people seemed absolutely gleeful as they wrote. They carved quickly, sometimes laughing. Others stopped and looked at their writing, thinking it over. Of these, there were, again, both smiles and frowns. No one seemed to tire, though. But a few did seem bored.
As the writers finished one tablet, it rushed away, floating through the collection of bodies just as I did. Instantly, another tablet would appear, and the person would begin writing again. All the tablets traveled in the same direction that I was traveling as if we were all heading for a central point, around which all these people were floating.
"What is everyone ..." I began to ask, but the words on my hand re-formed themselves and said, "Here we are!"
The words led me to a small space between a few dwarfs who were busily scribbling away. With a bit of pushing on the part of the words I was tucked firmly inside. A tablet appeared in one hand and a stylus in another. I looked around for some sort of guidance, but the words had vanished and the people around me were completely engrossed in their writing.
But it did not matter. My hand began moving by itself. Without any will on my part, it moved to the top of the tablet and wrote: MY STORY
A calm flowed over me then. If I was to spend my time in the realm of the dead, or wherever I was, scribing my tale, that seemed a pleasant enough experience. I had always loved telling stories. Having an eternity to work on it would be a pleasure.
My hand, though, continued writing, without my willing it to. It wrote: I WAS RAISED TO MISTRUST OTHER PEOPLE AND THINK MYSELF
WORTHLESS. AS I GREW OLDER, MY LACK OF TRUST MADE ME KEEP
THOSE I LOVED AWAY FROM ME. TO MAKE SURE I NEVER GOT TOO CLOSE
TO ANYONE, I DID HORRIBLE THINGS TO THE PEOPLE I LOVED. THUS I PROVED MYSELF WORTHLESS. BITTERNESS BECAME MY FINAL
COMPANION. I DIED. THE END.
The work stunned me. First, it seemed rather short. I was sixty, after all, and I had planned to write something much longer. Second, all the details were missing. Yes, I was raised by my parents to mistrust other people. Yes, my mother betrayed me to a monster, and that did little for my self-esteem. But all the details were missing. Why was I so miserable? What did I do to people? In all the details was the pain. And pain was all I had to offer to a narrative.
But this confusion and frustration was nothing compared to what happened next. The tablet rushed out of my arms, heading off to whatever destination all the tablets headed for, and another tablet appeared. Again, without willful effort on my part, my hand began to write. I wrote: MY STORY
Then:
I WAS RAISED TO MISTRUST OTHER PEOPLE AND THINK MYSELF
WORTHLESS. AS I GREW OLDER, MY LACK OF TRUST MADE ME KEEP
THOSE I LOVED AWAY FROM ME. TO MAKE SURE I NEVER GOT TOO CLOSE
TO ANYONE, I DID HORRIBLE THINGS TO THE PEOPLE I LOVED. THUS I PROVED MYSELF WORTHLESS. BITTERNESS BECAME MY FINAL
COMPANION. I DIED. THE END.
Then I wrote it again. And again. And again.
I must have done it some fifty times before I turn
ed to one of the dwarfs beside me. As I continued to write, I asked, "When do we stop doing this?" He turned to me, a frighteningly glum expression on his round-cheeked face, then looked back down at his work. I turned to a happy dwarf and asked the question again. The dwarf smiled and said,
"Stop? What else could you do? Your life is done."
I wrote MY STORY, followed by:
I WAS RAISED TO MISTRUST OTHER PEOPLE AND THINK MYSELF
WORTHLESS. AS I GREW OLDER, MY LACK OF TRUST MADE ME KEEP
THOSE I LOVED AWAY FROM ME. TO MAKE SURE I NEVER GOT TOO CLOSE
TO ANYONE, I DID HORRIBLE THINGS TO THE PEOPLE I LOVED. THUS I PROVED MYSELF WORTHLESS. BITTERNESS BECAME MY FINAL
COMPANION. I DIED. THE END.
"Yes," I said, "but there was more."
