No two moments justify one another. My pleasure now does not make my earlier pain any less painful. However, knowing that a pain will bring you later pleasure does make that pain far less painful. This touches upon one of the fundamental problems of human existence: our pitiful quest for self-regulation, and the impossibility of truly stepping out of ones self. For there seems to be almost no difference between discussing the ability of one moment to justify another, and the ability of the perceived future to justify the present. Isn’t, say, my future purchase of a house a moment which justifies my current labors?
Your intent to purchase a house does ease the pain of your hard labor. Whether or not you ever purchase a house is irrelevant. If you suddenly and instantly died without having achieved any of your goals, would that truly change any of the moments which were justified by your plans to purchase a house? No.
I want to continue this, but I’m tired, and nobody reads my blog anyway, so I’ll just post it and sleep.
Silver fields slowly undulated all around Stephano. Their movement was so subtle as to be disorienting. He could tell that they were moving, but he couldn’t seem to follow any of the movements. Instead, where he expected a hill he’d find a valley, and where he expected a valley he’d find flat land.
Why was this, you ask?
Stephano was the worst kind of time traveler. He moved through time very quickly, but traveled through space & perception very slowly. He saw the light and dark of a thousand days and nights in what seemed like an instant. Most everyone who saw him assumed that he was very high, and left him alone. He assumed that most other people were just slight discolorations in the silver fields, and so he ignored them.
Then some asshole built a shed around him, and installed a webcam in that shed. That rightly pissed off & confused Stephano, who then spent several years slowly expressing his rage.
The denizens of the internet thought it was hilarious.
That which is given, without being taken
That is to be shared with all
but of those things not so described
each man for himself must provide
***
Keeness of mind is truly kind
Men are born to betray
Never are two truly bound
but surely one may grow
***
Of exterior things may one be parted
but never of one’s own parts
when one is alone surely it is
ones self that must bring comfort
***
Even among poison drinkers
the dead man is a fool
but nearly as much - certainly ‘tis true
the thirsty man as well
***
Among others one is a better sum
for from others one may gain
take their parts and give them yours
and surely good will come
***
In objection the weakling gains little but
the ire of irrational men
In watching and waiting, even a fool
may learn foolishness to avoid
***
Not the knife, but the light of your life
your mind is the cause of pain
If in your stomach you take the blow
in your heart it may be avoided
***
No secrets are kept in a man’s soul
that cannot be pried away
Poison is best held out in one’s hands
Far better than in one’s heart.
Death was her favorite.
The time dragon was majestic, the winds were graceful, and love was pure. But the creator was all of these things and more. When the creator looked at her first three children, she saw nothing more than pale imitations of herself. The Gazelle of Death, on the other hand, was entirely new. Entirely fresh. Entirely deserving. Death was black, not pale.
But death did not approve of his mother. Though he was her favorite, he strove to destroy everything she had created. He spawned hate, and stillness, and meaningless boredom. Entropy was his invention as well. He decided to win, and so he did. His mother was so distraught that she couldn’t fight back.
And then death won. And then death had won, and looking back on it, his victory seemed meaningless.
It seems as though nothing works as it once did. When last I wandered the streets of Adauagal, I knew how it all worked. I could crank the well wheel, pump the bellows, wring a meal out of Old Leandra’s seeming cold heart. I understood that Mayaman would never harm a fly, no matter how angry he got, and I never forgot to fear Lazlo, especially when he was smiling. I could predict the daily migrations of the urchins, dogs, and cats, with perfect accuracy. I span tales of all these things, and thought I understood them perfectly.
Now I question if I ever understood things at all.
Four years ago, I was charged with the rape of the duke’s son. I was, of course, innocent. The youth’s true lover had fled out a window, and the guards apprehended the first black-haired man they found. I was exiled, branded with a crescent moon upon my brow, and told that I could only return if I carried the head of one who had committed an even greater offense than my own. There was only one head that would serve my purpose, and I knew it to be in the possession of Umat son of Guo.
Umat was a barbarian of the hill tribes who frequently attacked the roads that wound through Adauagal’s countryside. Famously, he had attacked the caravan of Verotion, who had kidnapped the Duke’s wife. In the battle, Verotion despaired and killed himself. He was immediately joined by the Duchess, who stole the blade from her lover’s heart, and used it to open her own throat. Umat took Verotion’s head, and made a goblet from his skull.
The Duke had offered a great fortune to Umat, but the barbarian refused to bargain. The son of Guo claimed that he was the rightful ruler of the land, and refused to acknowledge the Duke in a bargain. Not completely lacking in honor, the chieftain returned the Duchess’s body to the Duke, but kept the head of Verotion for himself.
And so I headed for the hills, seeking my salvation.
Several other exiles made attempts on my life. My head was more valuable than most. While I ate a loaf of bread in an inn, a one-eyed man stabbed my hand. His brains spilled out all over the mantle of the fireplace.
My hand became gangrenous, and though I had grown fearful of human company, I sought out a healer in a village. He took my hand from me, and gave my whereabouts to a true rapist. His corpse got caught under a millstone, while the doctor learned just how sturdy his surgical restraints truly were.
At last, I came to the hill tribes. I claimed to have been exiled for the murder of a guard who had soiled my sister. They accepted me as a fellow enemy of the Duke. I joined them on their raids. I brought them much gold, and they brought me before Umat.
The great chieftain reclined on a bed of hay and bones, drinking from the skull of Verotion. I jested with him, endeared myself to him, and as the night wore on, I was the last to stay by his side.
When all the others were asleep, Umat walked up to me, and whispered, “I love you. I want to sleep with you.”
I was stunned. I had never anticipated this possibility. I never anticipated the knife Umat slid between my ribs.
“Just fucking with you, boy. I know your type. I know what you’re after, and I know I don’t want to give it to you. In your next life, I hope you learn from this.”
I learned that lesson well, but it was hardly applicable to my eternal reqium. I returned to the city, invisible to the eyes of men. I floated through walls, and watched the world in silence.
I learned that I had been wrong about everything. Leandra was sleeping with several boys. Mayaman took his anger out on his wife. Lazlo was a cripple whose bones would shatter if anyone so much as shoved him back. And wost of all, I had been pumping the bellows the wrong way.
Once upon an icy plane, a mammoth did live. Around this belief, our society was created, and though the others may disagree, it matters not, for we have the faith of one another.
They say that the bones at Tal’Mon prove nothing, for they are few and of uncertain origin. They say that the lake of bones proves nothing, for it is only occasionally frozen, and the mammoths may have simply drowned in it during the summer. They say that Below-Mountain proves nothing, for while a mammoth certainly died there, it may have never lived there. Most of all, they say that the words of the Grandfather mean nothing, for he had no better evidence than we.
We say the grandfather had eyes. We say the grandfather saw, and spoke based upon what he saw. We say that once upon an icy plane, a mammoth did live.
I truly love being in the cold, because being in the cold means I am not in a warm environment.
My body is naturally warm - life is exothermic. When I’m in a warm environment, the difference between my body temperature and the temperature of the room I am in doesn’t quite jump out at me. I can easily fall into ignorance of the low temperature that surrounds me, and my being can sort of ooze out of me. I get lazy, I get bored, I zone out. Without a sharp sensory distinction defining the barriers of my being, I become like a machine with free-flying gears.
When I feel the cold, it’s like there is a forcefield keeping me within my bounds. The sensation of the cold acts as a constant reminder of where I am and what sort of body I inhabit. The sense of being warmer than my surroundings reminds me that I am alive, that I haven’t let my body fall to room temperature.
She had the skin of crocodiles.
I had no idea what was going on. I had been walking out of my apartment building (the one I owned) and talking with a renter, when all of a sudden the world became a blur and my face began to approach the ground. My shoulder hurt like hell, and I knew that my whole body was going to start hurting soon, but somehow that wasn’t what my brain was really focusing on.
She had the skin of crocodiles.
The woman who had been moving so fast, the one who had knocked me to the ground and kept on going without looking back, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She had the skin of crocodiles.
They say that in times of crisis, when great danger is at hand, the brain becomes incredibly active. A second seems like an hour, and a candle burns like the sun. Every little detail is absorbed, and remains until you die.
In my case, that was bullshit. I freaked out, and I payed more attention, but a second still felt like a second, and after I got back up, I couldn’t tell if it had been noon or midnight, let alone if a candle had been burning. But I could remember her.
She was tall. Not just for a girl, she was 6’4” or so. And big. I’ve never been good at judging weight, too much difference between the density of bone and muscle and fat and organ meat, but she was definitely big. Strong. And bald. She pulled it off, had the right face for it. A well-shaped head. Wore a black tank top and cargo pants. She was curvy enough to be clearly identified as a chick, but she just screamed, “not having external genitalia just means I have one less weak spot.”
And she had the skin of crocodiles.
Not literally, mind you. It’s not like she was carrying a bunch of crocodile skins to make belts out of. I live in Iowa, not Florida. It’s one of those things that angry tattooed teenagers get. Branding or scarification or something. All over her body, from fingers to scalp, she had smooth raised oblong shapes on her skin, just like the scales (or scutes or whatever) of a crocodile.
It was just like what kids with split tongues and pierced eyebrows get, except it didn’t look like she was trying to become something she wasn’t. It’s not like she was uncomfortable with being human and she wanted to be a snake or a cat or a gerbil. She just was (and always had been) a large, bald, beautiful woman with the skin of crocodiles.
Anyway, after I regained consciousness I discovered that she was running from the cops. Apparently she was some sort of extra-legal protester, or terrorist-lite, who beat up and spat on people she felt were in violation of God’s will or some such bull. She had been homeless for years and lived off of what she stole from her targets.
It was a shame. She was the most beautiful person I had seen in all my life.
Perhaps some day she’d grow up, start living a productive life (perhaps in some sort of charitable or activist field) and look for a place to live. Probably after going to jail. Distinctive full-body markings aren’t exactly good for blending in. But perhaps after that she’d need to buy a house and I’d be selling one of mine. Perhaps then I’d remember how strong she looked right after she knocked me to the ground, and maybe she’d see some of my positive attributes. Maybe then.
Until that day, I’d probably want to put some bactine on my face. My fall hadn’t been particularly graceful.
I never want to tell a perfect story.
I imagine that if i perfectly described the portion of today which I experienced, wrote it all down, and gave it to you, you could look at that story, and try to use it to illuminate your life, but you’d fail. Assuming a non-repetitive universe, there’d be no relationships that matched up on a one-for-one basis, no events which also happened in your life, and no insights about those events or relationships that could help you out.
What you’d have to do is selectively remember what I said, forget the details that don’t apply, and then fill in the gaps from there.
A good written work is like a lens. There are some definite bits about it, a shape, a size, a weight, but most of what you see depends on where you are. If you’re in the park, you see the park through that lens. If you’re in an abusive relationship, you see your partner in Big Brother, and text message screening in Minitruth.
You can see a thousand things in a lens, and by carefully selecting the right lens, and holding it at the right distance, you can turn a blurry vision into absolute clarity.
Perfect description, the absolute truth of a scene, is like a photograph.
There’s a reason why when photographs are put into frames, they get put on desks, but when lenses are put into frames, they’re carried around at all times and put directly in front of people’s eyes.
Is something we naturally seek.
A while back, for reasons neither simple nor interesting, I dedicated myself to never living a moment I would not wish to live for all eternity. And you know what I’ve discovered? The moments when I most sad, most afraid, most exhausted, most in pain, are all moments I’d be fine with repeated ad infinatum.
I’m not an evolutionary psychologist, or even an educated person. I’m in highschool, I don’t know shit. But I think a lot. I think that the human brain is our second greatest natural asset, after our sweat glands (pursuit hunting FTW!). I think that flying birds have a great natural imperative to not dick around on the ground. I think that we have a great natural imperative to not dick around in situations our brain isn’t suited for. So, when our emotions, reason, et cetera are all working well, it rocks. It’s like being an albatross in the middle of a trans-atlantic flight. When there’s ambiguity, when our brain doesn’t know what to feel, what to think, it sucks. Really, it’s the only thing that sucks.
It’s like being an albatross in R’lyeh.
