he had been something before the fall; he had been flesh and blood
I have always lost myself in others. I have always turned to them when I could no longer tolerate myself. With this bitter, sharp thought Adonai’s mind comes to mind—and then a long list of others. There is Cillian, and Dagda, and all of those from before.
(Or should I call them after? Because there had been Bondike, and then there had been after).
My sense of purpose had always stemmed from my duty; and my identity had been tied to that, too. Without my sense of duty, without that purpose, I have been nothing for a very long time. Perhaps this had simply been the final—nearly merciful—cut.
Now, I have no purpose and no self.
Now, everything I have ever understood is irrevocably changed.
I know I will drive myself mad to continue down this path of thought. And, besides, my drunkenness makes it difficult to focus on such concrete concepts. Instead, I focus on the feeling; the feeling that wells inside of me as angrily as the sea in a storm. I feel it rut at the edges of my soul; it fills my eyes and my mind and my body, until I am nothing, nothing, nothing.
The universe must be laughing.
No. You shouldn’t have died. I felt the same way for a… long time, but there is no such thing as should have died—you either live or you die. There is nothing else but that.
How can she understand? My eyes snap toward her and my expression is venomous; it is the expression of a viper, of a rattlesnake, of a cobra. Detached, and cold; nearly reptilian. How could she know, what it meant to become the thing you had hunted, had spent a lifetime trying to destroy? How could she know what it felt to touch the gates of death and then walk back, unharmed? Anyone else, anyone else would say be grateful, be hopeful, I had my life!
But this wasn’t my fucking life.
I won’t tell you that you survive for a reason. I don’t believe in things like fate anymore—not in higher purpose, not that we suffer as a part of a greater plan. But I do know that we choose what we do with every terrible thing. What matters is the choosing. And what choice is there?
Even now with my bloodshot eyes and the taste of whiskey on my tongue, I can smell her.
Even now, with the sea and the festival, I can smell her.
Perhaps, to some, this would be a small detail. But to me it no longer is. I can smell the Solterran sun on her, and the sands; I can smell desert sage and clean sweat. But more importantly—most importantly—I smell her as a predator smells prey. As a creature of flesh as blood. As something to be devoured. And although I do not act on it—do not even think of acting on it—the hunger is there. And, even without the hunger, now there exists a subconscious awareness of the life around me; a constant sharpening; a need for the sea; a need to consume.
She does not look away from me, however. No matter the coldness of my disposition. No matter the strange, uncontrollable twitching at the edge of my too-long mouth.
“There is no changing this.” I answer, but then I am quiet. Her words are difficult to digest; and I am desperate for them, in my own way. I am desperate for someone to look me in the eyes and to say what she has said; to remind me there is a choice. “The problem is the becoming—I was changed. I can’t go back, I don’t even know how to go forward.”
I don’t know what else to be, if not the man I was before. There had never been a choice in who I was; how can there be a choice now?
(Or should I call them after? Because there had been Bondike, and then there had been after).
My sense of purpose had always stemmed from my duty; and my identity had been tied to that, too. Without my sense of duty, without that purpose, I have been nothing for a very long time. Perhaps this had simply been the final—nearly merciful—cut.
Now, I have no purpose and no self.
Now, everything I have ever understood is irrevocably changed.
I know I will drive myself mad to continue down this path of thought. And, besides, my drunkenness makes it difficult to focus on such concrete concepts. Instead, I focus on the feeling; the feeling that wells inside of me as angrily as the sea in a storm. I feel it rut at the edges of my soul; it fills my eyes and my mind and my body, until I am nothing, nothing, nothing.
The universe must be laughing.
No. You shouldn’t have died. I felt the same way for a… long time, but there is no such thing as should have died—you either live or you die. There is nothing else but that.
How can she understand? My eyes snap toward her and my expression is venomous; it is the expression of a viper, of a rattlesnake, of a cobra. Detached, and cold; nearly reptilian. How could she know, what it meant to become the thing you had hunted, had spent a lifetime trying to destroy? How could she know what it felt to touch the gates of death and then walk back, unharmed? Anyone else, anyone else would say be grateful, be hopeful, I had my life!
But this wasn’t my fucking life.
I won’t tell you that you survive for a reason. I don’t believe in things like fate anymore—not in higher purpose, not that we suffer as a part of a greater plan. But I do know that we choose what we do with every terrible thing. What matters is the choosing. And what choice is there?
Even now with my bloodshot eyes and the taste of whiskey on my tongue, I can smell her.
Even now, with the sea and the festival, I can smell her.
Perhaps, to some, this would be a small detail. But to me it no longer is. I can smell the Solterran sun on her, and the sands; I can smell desert sage and clean sweat. But more importantly—most importantly—I smell her as a predator smells prey. As a creature of flesh as blood. As something to be devoured. And although I do not act on it—do not even think of acting on it—the hunger is there. And, even without the hunger, now there exists a subconscious awareness of the life around me; a constant sharpening; a need for the sea; a need to consume.
She does not look away from me, however. No matter the coldness of my disposition. No matter the strange, uncontrollable twitching at the edge of my too-long mouth.
“There is no changing this.” I answer, but then I am quiet. Her words are difficult to digest; and I am desperate for them, in my own way. I am desperate for someone to look me in the eyes and to say what she has said; to remind me there is a choice. “The problem is the becoming—I was changed. I can’t go back, I don’t even know how to go forward.”
I don’t know what else to be, if not the man I was before. There had never been a choice in who I was; how can there be a choice now?
