Demented

Doors in the hallway passed me along my stride.

Call it liberation, the cutting of these strings that would steer me, whether that tie belong to Savani or the palatine or the farmer or to objectivity or to moral obligation; I hated and would spite every one of them. None of these hypocrites had the power or acumen to bar me from sin, too steeped as they were in their own flaws and negligence. Who cared? Who cared? Who, really, cared?

Nobody did. So why on earth should I bother?

Unlike the front door, which required a key, all that secured the building’s rear door was a simple mechanical latch. I unlatched it, pushed it ajar, and let the wind open it for me.

The Hunger, present but restrained, watched my decision with the rapt attention of a scientist observing an untrained rat that, for the first time, was inching nearer to the cheese in a maze.

As would water shift to cocoon a diver, I exited a single step into the warm grasp of the gradient.

WHOOOOOOHOOO!! YESSSS! The Hunger’s celebration barrelled into me, enthusiastic as a cute underclassman upon hearing I’d scored an A. Holy crap, Mephi! You did it! You’re outside! That’s so, it’s just—WOOO! I’m so excited oh my GOD thank you so much for trusting me I SWEAR this’ll be awesome with all the STUFF and the THINGS and the oh my god eeeeeeeee come on let’s go let’s go let’sgolet’sgolet’sgo

The cold night wind whipped my hair as I stood there, one hand fisted to my hip. The stillness of True Night had embraced the streets, that the palm trees swayed sickly and shopfront windows lay dark.

I tilted my head. Should I intrude as a voyeur, then risen in the whorls of their dust, what lively visions—

The Hunger snapped; the gradient tightened taut into a molten chain. I stumbled down the internment office’s rear steps, moaning and fumbling for the handrail, an arm crossed over my stomach.

No detours, it had decided. If I would betray the courses where toward I commit, then undoubtedly would descend the punishment.

“God,” I choked, doubled over with pain. Though I refocused with a shake of the head and a sharp intake of breath, the speed at which my resolve withered, and pious ego bulged, demonstrated itself again as truly fantastic. I stuttered against the gradient’s pull, knowing my defiance was gesture, else slowed my pace as a child lagging dismally behind his mother, else drifted left and right down the street, as though bobbing northwest and northeast would somehow not land me north.

What the hell am I doing, I questioned of the dishevelled ghost reflected in a black window.

At least you’re not fermenting in that stupid room, I answered, finding this counterpoint satisfactory. I split from the window, the last buildings of Yeshimar receding behind me as the dirt road faded into desert.

Sand skimmed over my ankles, fell, settled. Whorls rose with the landing of my knees.

Here, I decided.

Here where? The Hunger jolted with concern. Here where what why how come we’re not mov—oh NO oh no oh no oh NO OH NO OH NO NO NO NO nonononononono Mephi NO please get up please, please, ple

But it knew the intentions my sick grin betrayed. A fistful of sand streamed from my grip into the playful grasp of the wind, as through pouring a sack of grain to chickens. Too bad! My indignation for Savani had faded and now I more disdained the Hunger for taking me as its vehicle. If it wished to use me, it ought enjoy my forte.

So, bitch. Get used to nothing.

The hunger screamed a caterwaul I had only before heard at funerals, as though stopping to sit as I did was more heinous than losing a lover. Satisfaction drained as smooth as the next run of sand from my fist.

My place now was the lip of the desert. Planted though I was in the pit of a dune, roadside observers bound to or from Yehsimar could, perhaps would, question the distant glimpse of my silhouette and investigate as they might an odd statue. I realise in saying this how pathetically I arranged my resistance. And of course, if it would ever work, it would not be until morning—the progression of nightfall had begun to sap the warmth from the sand, that I now let spill from my palm.

I slumped on the dune, sighing.

Stars above me, the road one way, the wilds another, and centred between them, that furious gradient. I had picked a precarious spot. Enticements and justifications, why ought one be my destination, by what outline should people know me, or should they better yet not know me at all, tugged from each direction. When you lock into the eye of a dreamcatcher, or the tongue of a spider’s web, and see how all strands expand out from you, the potentiality of choice in itself feels like freedom.

In the end, that freedom equalised me into total paralysis. I had returned, cleansed, to my baseline.

Sorry, but entertain me. A stone that sinks to the bottom of the well settles, and that is its place. I would wish to go even lower. If gravity could drag me six and then twenty feet deep, that any who would seek me would drown before they reach me, I’d squeal in mirth. To see their corpses floating and know how arrogant they were. To see them leave and myself cackle knowing that I am invincible. Fall so deep, and the pressure of the water that crushes you becomes the greatest embrace. Because what clasps you then but space? It’s everything, nothing, anything, nothing. I can do anything, but I will do nothing. This is utter perfection. What the hell are you, Mephi?

I’m whatever, really, but a sophist, currently.

Here’s something that perhaps I should have clarified better. Despite the air of autonomy I’ve assigned to the Hunger—really, you need to understand that it’s only an impulse, a feeling. It... helps, to conceive it as consistent, but it doesn’t disappear because I stopped describing it. I am just focusing on something else because touching this thing utterly slaughters me.

Equally, the gradient—it is just the force that orients me towards whatever may ease the Hunger. To divulge and so dispel the riddle, what the Hunger wants, is logically, what, I, would want, t-though... i-i-it, it chooses for me. I’m not... I-I, o-or, I don’t know, maybe I am. I don’t know. I don’t know...

...

Uh, the point I was trying to make, though. Because of how these forces work, there is a certain threshold I had already intuited that I needed not to cross, in the same way as how brief proximity to the farmer when he attempted to touch me had abruptly stoked the Hunger toward him, when it otherwise found him unpalatable, and how powerful magnets will snap together. That is the threshold of commitment to an engaging stimulus after which the Hunger predominates and I am gone. I froze myself at this sand dune because I judged that threshold as imminent, which is not to say the end of the gradient was necessarily close, as much as the stimulus was just very powerful.

I would not ferment in that stupid room, but I would ferment under this stupid dune, until the Hunger shattered me or fortune drew me an out. Nowhere further could my volition take me—another step towards anywhere, the slant of the threshold hooks me, and it’s over.

In simpler terms, I was stuck here, laid on this dune.

This could be days.

For what.

The off-chance that whoever might stumble upon me, supposing anyone did at all, would secure me something better, than what I would have gotten, from Savani, had I kept put in that room, for a significantly shorter timespan than this, which was a

meeting

with

the,

Pontifex.

I was.

so.

totally.

STUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA hey when whoever finds me I’ll just tell them about savani problem solved JUST STOP JUST STOP JUST STOP i HATE YOU YOU UNREPENTANT WORM PLEASE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

Haha yeah... anyway.

I guess if Czjeir wanted to see me he could arrange messengers to me no matter what, as though I had an entitlement to that kind of attention. Then again, if I had shelved my proactivity towards Him so easily, indeed over nothing at all, He might respect my disengagement and not bother to batter me further with such merciful, and frustratingly wasted, opportunities.

Who could know! What thoughtless and insipid motion or non-motion I’d reveal when the hour to move properly struck.

My escapades slog like treacle, I know, but most of what I do truly is like this. I wait months at a time in one spot hogtied for an equinox. Planets must align before I even sit up. It’s such a dismal way of being that I wouldn’t presume to call it ‘life’, or even ‘existence’, as much as perpetual waiting. The interruptions come that I know will come, but until that flash, it is all waiting. It’s truly pathetic.

You can’t recognize how dismal is this stasis until you begin to conceive, the inevitable shift towards an outcome I will predict six months out, to the exclusion of all other possibilities, I’ve become so numbed to time, I’ll say is not long at all.

But these are thoughts I’ve churned into atoms many upon many times over. Meditations without novelty bore me, and the itch of boredom pulps my brain into aether. Smooth as my mind began to run sparse, hunger seeped as a burn into my shoulders.

—DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIEEEEE!!!! IS EVERYTHING SO INCONSEQUENTIAL HUH OR ARE YOU THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS YOU GETTING YOUR WAY IS THAT ALL THAT MATTERS IDIOT SLUDGE HERE’S ANOTHER MARK ON THAT IMMACULATE TABLET YOU STUPID PISS ANOTHER ADORATION OF SIN THAT SPROUTS A WART ON YOUR SOUL DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE RUN YOUR TONGUE OVER THAT WILL YOU SUCK ON THAT BALL OF CRAP WILL YOU IS THAT ALL YOU NEED? NO!!! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE YOU ARE EVIL THING EVIL THING EVIL THING HOW DARE YOU AVOID ME YOUR GOD YOUR MASTER, YOU HELLBOUND IDIOT, WALK!

I ground a handful of sand into my face, groaning. Pain from the abrasions distracted only minimally from the Hunger, but if I could scour my face from my body, perhaps that would slam the door on its rancour. Habit would otherwise call me to exit the room, dust my hands, and laugh to myself in a zone of silence and peace at the victory, but ceding to this practiced technique would this time assure that the hunger hijack me across the threshhold and destroy my self with the momentum of orgiastic massacre.

Loss of my body; loss of myself. Watch me – I can commit fantastically towards doing the bare minimum of whatever I have to.

A shutter clacked over my perception like an optometrist testing his lenses. The fangs of fire gnashing down my arm came no longer as the hallucination of an aggrieved beast, but my own heart’s compulsion to do anything I could to remove this unbearable hunger, and my consequent surge to action.

I lunged upon myself. Skin stripped back to strings of shredded muscle and nerves, bones snapped and extremities tore from the ends of their limbs, but this mutilated flesh and sinew would flow as a violin’s bowstrings, loosened and tightened back into form, never extinguished.

Gorging on simulacra would never quench the pain. It was simply activity, a yoke for me to spin wheels. If every ion in the air sprouted titanium barbs that bit into flesh, danced as twirling daggers, and sliced atoms into caustic bursts, that would perhaps estimate something near a tenth of that pain. And you know, it’s stupid I have it. It’s not like anything happened to me, or I was born in unfortunate straits. So it was a revelation, knowing how torn up I was over nothing.

Not that knowing changes anything.

I collected myself by that shock enough to pause. Sweat dripped and saliva oozed from my chin to the sand, my palms planted on the ground as I panted. Oh, God.

How sensible that an evil creature would struggle to achieve any good, and be tortured for defying its place. Yes how admirable, Mephi, how principled, Mephi, you’re not so horrible, are you?

Oh, God! Every second of it burned!

I could force myself to sit in the flames until my soul’s only ash, and it still would be never enough.

But how else would it work? The trap was beautiful. Because who would resist the dissolution of the self more than an impenitent egotist? The desire to ‘be’ exposed my hubris, so punished as it righteously must. Even an ounce of humility would usher me towards a grace called ‘concession’; if the Hunger would win, let it win. I was neither eligible for or desiring of anyone’s favour except that of the master I’d already defied. So what point was I trying to make?

The peak of the dune loomed far above me. I still had not moved an inch. Teeth grit and fingers clenched, I tore away my gaze, shovelled handfuls of sand down my throat, and ripped at my face once again.

God! Who’s to march over and ask, are you the one who shouts in my desert?

Who could I disturb enough to care, out here, but Czjeir, who I had rejected over one stupid mistake!

Who’s the convenient passerby that will toddle here right out of my brain?

No one, ‘cause that’s just nonsense!

The truth is, I got myself here, and nobody’s left! It’s my own fault, but everyone’s useless! When will all of those worthless, incompetent, irresolute, and wallowing little shitbags just die. Nobody alive on this earth is ever capable of any single thing I could ever want them to do, or they themselves want to do. It always has to be me to tell them to try and be halfway able. So what under earth am I, God, or invincible? Is that how I look? Because I don’t scream or cry enough? If nobody would listen before, nobody would listen then any way!

God! The silence smothering these wastes is the flogging I deserved. This stupid ‘freedom’ I adored just as quickly peeled my soul back in sheets, each and every layer flimsy and blank. I could not say or define a single thing about myself. There is not a single thing about myself I can say with consequence matters to who I am, or that is a legitimate constant that could define me as anything except for this bedrock of hatred from which everything emanates. People are just so transparent. All anyone every wants is to use me for some stupid thing, adhere to all their stupid things, take responsibility for all the things they screw up and be a masseuse for their ego. Then the talk-talk-talk-talk-talk-talk-“ca”-talk-talk-tal-“can I”-k-TALKTALKTALKTALKTALK oh you’re incredible, such a good listener. “Yeah, anyway I” TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK OH! Here I lit this candle (great?) to melt the wax around the rim (okay?) of the glass, because it melted unevenly (...so it’s going to keep doing that?) into a pool, see the bits sticking to the sides? “Yes” We can get new ones next Thursday (I really don’t care) from the cart Etshalli runs that goes by the “are we”gene“run”ral shop “ning out?” Huh? “Are we running out?” This one’s almost melted. “Do you need to buy more candles?” Oh, I’ll—I’ll, you can have it afterwards. (What?!) “Are there still enough candles in the storeroom that we don’t have to buy more before Thursday?” I’m sorry, i-i-it is, it does have a strong scent. (who cares! WHAT!?) “Do you have enough to keep the house lit?” Uhhh... Elkassi sells some... for only 82 tichyan... “Do you know how many candles are in the storeroom?” Oh, I need to look at my inventory sheet. (Finally!) So let’s just... shuffle through these, uh... li-ss-s-s-s-s-s-sts! No, not this, not this one, a,a-n,oo?, oh this one is... oh, this one isn’t it. D’ohh. Mm, mm, uhhh... (Czjeir let her see it) uhhh... oh, here it is. Candles, candles, candles oh, down here. There’s 182 in the storeroom!

(Why did you waste all my time for th (Should’ve just checked it myself “That’s good.”

For 50 tichyan each. The next inventory is on the 3rd, right after the taxes.

...


(Okay maybe now I can)

We

(NO)

should get a rebate this year, if I could find the ah... “Balance sheet” I’ll show you (pleeeeeeeeease DON’T), let me find the balance sheet (I DON’T CARE) Here, see, that’s 12,523 tichyan we get back from the bank.

“That’s great. Good job—so are we doing anything today? ...For my birthday.”

Auuuuhm... would you like to do that a bit later?

“Alright, when?”

Well, I still need to clean the dishes.

“Okay.” Can’t help it if they’re more important!

Haha. JUST DIE! STUPID PATHETIC FRAIL WEAK OVERSENSITIVE IRRATIONAL UNTHINKING OPPRESSIVE IMPULSIVE FEEBLE INSIPID DISINGENUOUS LIBIDINOUS SLUDGE! I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU! DIE! KILL YOURSELF! GET MURDERED! DIE! I HATE YOU! SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH! YOU STUPID WITCH! DIE ALREADY A THOUSAND TIMES OVER!

Then it’s that doe-faced, sheep-eyed confused gawping that’s truly hilarious. Gee! Out of the left field, was it? Well, did it make you piss off?

It’s unreal. How contemptible I am by every angle of the word.

And just because I didn’t want to die, I’d be eating the consequences of that spite to the last. Just be a little more broad-hearted, Mephi! Everyone deserves a second, third, fourth, fifth, twentieth, five-thousandth chance!

I was starving. My body whorled back into shape—I’d had enough of all this. Breaths heaved heavy then slow between my teeth as I wilted into a laggard stargazer. The hunger then shoved and hissed impotently against me, no longer the conflagrant pneuma that powered my pulse, but still as much a beast that hoed pain across each line of my soul.

The Pleiades had barely drifted from port. It had not even been half an hour.

I choked. I gagged. God, god, god, god, god, why?! But the urgency of the question faded, alongside reluctance and fear. As much as a sundial cast shade, I would not let myself inch up that hill.