Rain (1&2)
PLEASE READ THIS FOREWORD BEFORE THE BOOK! IT HAS A CONTENT WARNING AND IF YOU MISS IT I WILL BE VERY SAD 🙁
It’s best to start this story with a quick foreword and content warning. I’ll put one at the start of each chapter or release, but this is relatively the tamest part. It gets way harsher. I want this story to be seen as a piece of literature, as I see it as some kind of bastard child of mine, but it’s just as easy to see the good parts of it as the bad. Everything in this book is based off of some real life event I or someone I’ve known has been through, with the exception of the obviously fictionalized parts, but that does not mean it is made for everyone. It is a book full of themes about suicide, sexual assault, murder, abusive relationships, and, above all, death and suffering. I’ve long seen it that life is a winding road full of boring pitstops and car crashes and I wanted to represent that world through the one in Rain. If you want to read this, please be my guest, but I will find you stronger for not reading it if you don’t want to.
Oh, and one more thing. “Memories” are pre-story flashbacks, and the prefix (primary, secondary, or, with the first one, senary) show what happens chronologically. I don’t know if I made it clear that they’re not told chronologically. Inscriptions are chapters. With that all being said:
Senary memory:
“Where’d you get that?”
“Dad gave it to me,” she replied.
“You know I don’t care if you stole it.”
“I didn’t,” she wiped her forehead and aimed it at the tree which we had carved a target into.
“How many bullets are left?”
“Uhhh…” she opened the chamber clumsily and span it back in. “Two.”
“Is it even worth testing if we have so few?”
“I know how to get more.”
She wiped her nose.
“You don’t, don’t you?” I said, convinced that I was smiling.
“Nah, I do.”
“You’re so horrible at lying! I’ve literally never heard you say ‘nah’ before.”
“Just trust me!”
I shrugged. “Alright. Shoot.”
The hammer was begging to be pulled back. The machine’s whole purpose was to shoot, and it wanted nothing more than to do that. Birds are made to fly, men are made to make themselves happy, and guns are made to shoot. She pulled it back, and…
There is no way to describe it. It was simply the loudest thing I’d ever heard. She carefully switched the safety off and pointed the gun treeward, her finger tentatively tugging the trigger, harder and harder, afraid yet curious of the elusive sweet spot that-for an instant-replaced metal with the hand of death. It startled me when it came, and through the ringing I could read muffled curses on her lips.” I knew for a fact we were getting beaten after this.
“Ah. I missed. You wanna try? Please, shoot.” She handed me the gun trigger-first in a gesture that any onlooker would have mistaken for a mugging.
“I’m probably gonna regret it.”
“Yeah, I will too.”
She wiped her nose.
“You’ve never done this before.” I said.
“I wish I had. I hate it here.” She was still looking at the tree – it was an analogue for the forest behind it, one that meant freedom.
“Nevermind. Shoot.”
“Look away. I’d be embarrassed missing.”
She paused.
“I hope I hit it.” She muttered to the ground.
She wiped her nose.
“Sure.”
I couldn’t “look away”. It was mesmerizing to see . It was just wrong and new enough to be interesting. If she doesn’t know I’m watching, then she won’t be embarrassed. It’s simple.
The hammer begged to be pulled back, and her thumb begged as well. I leaned in. The barrel span like a little child who still was surprised by what spinning did to his ears. The gun was so, so excited.
“You sure you don’t wanna shoot?”
“Can you even stop yourself from shooting now?”
“No. I don’t think.”
“Then why ask?”
She brought the gun up to her chin and fired. I couldn’t hear a thing.
She brought it to her chin and fired.
Her blood arcs through the sky
And so I wallow in the rain
First Inscription
Kigali of the Afterlife
I opened my eyes, slowly, prying them apart. They had gotten crusty with dry blood. They are stained by the ugliest red to have ever existed, and I wipe them clean. The blood must be mine – it is my only clothing, I am otherwise naked. That which is on my eyelids stays, but at least my vision is granted freedom. I see, now, where I am: the grandest forest of the universe. The sky is bright grey but neither hot nor cold – a sensation I personally find unpleasant, but understanding the birth of this preference I can look beside it and see how one would enjoy it; the trees are plentiful. Mute flowers and blunt thorns slide across my leg like a running dog, and the forest speaks to me.
“Claw thyself out of here, prithee.” The voice is a slow, smooth whisper carried by the very wind. It is the patient, delicate interplay of contracting air necessary to mimic the abrasive grunts of apes.
“Who are you?”
“Hath thee not felt my fingers brush you?” sighs the room-temperature breeze.
I don’t know much, but “thou” is informal (as opposed to “you”, which is not). I’m getting babied.
“Are you God?” I say to a nearby pine tree, walking over and placing my hand on its soft, immaculate bark.
“I am a god, yes.” replies the wind, dancing in my ears.
I already know the answer to this next one, but it doesn’t hurt to be certain. “Am I dead?”
“Thou art.”
I know how.
“Mhm. Fuck.”
The whole world shook when I said that. I stumble, but my nerves are sharp and I automatically balance myself. My body finally works again.
“Are you the forest? Sorry for swearing; I take it you were taken aback.”
“Yes, but that’s alright. I should be used to it by now, many people come here shocked and saddened by their death.”
The voice of the trees is like music, a soothing layer of calm that does the impossible and makes a living, burning, ever-dying organism content with static entropy. I want to sit on the grass and meditate until the wound is closed but the words “your death” pry the wound open, and must be addressed first. “For me it’s no big issue, I’m just displeased with having died the way I did. It was a moment that should not have been my last.”
“If permitest me to interject, what happened?” Say the stinging fingers of the forest.
“Apologies, dear God, but I cannot.”
“I am not the God, I am one of many. Do not make that mistake; I am Kigali, the afterlife.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kigali. Your forests are beautiful.” I respond, kneeling down and rubbing the spot of red grass at my feet.
“I appreciate the comment, mortal, but I reject it.” The wind feels the same.
“Why?”
“They are nothing compared to the beauty of your planet.”
I look around and wonder if Kigali is thinking about the same planet as I am. The leaves of the forest here are dull green, the grass even duller, the impossibly still river lying to my right resembling some sort of transparent concrete. Perfect mundanity. What’s so wrong about that? My planet has a lot of bright green, sure. It also has a lot of bright red.
“I think they’re quite pretty.”
“Leave it be, mortal, and go on thy way.”
“To where?”
“Thy next life.”
“Ah, so that’s how it works?”
“Yes – well, if one chooses to. Everyone did.” It goes by faster than I can blink, but just for a moment I feel the pressure of the wind fluctuate. Barely noticeable. A slight dip. His pain.
“Nobody chose to stay here?”
“No.”
Idiots.
“Why not?”
“As I said, my forests are nothing compared to those on earth.”
“The forests on earth have mold, dying animals, poison ivy, and people go there to do stupid stuff.” My aching wounds pulse.
The trees smile. “And? They have ripe fruits, sky-scraping trees, cute animals… Life.”
“I suppose you’re right, but it still must improve. All things have that limitation, though, you uniquely don’t. If you were to improve your weakest aspects the whole forest would grow – that is itself beautiful. For those from my life, to improve the weakest aspect even significantly would do nearly nothing. Beauty comes with a downside, I take it that you have one as well?”
“Taste one of my fruits.”
The forest shifts and bends like plastic and a tree from possibly thousands of miles away scurries over to me. It presents me with a singular apple growing on its branch, and I take it. It comes off, cleanly, with a satisfying snap. I bite into it and its crispy texture fulfills me. It is colder than everything else here, as fruits tend to be, and it is sublimely juicy. It does not taste like anything at all – it is not sweet either, but that doesn’t really matter. People eat cucumbers. People eat shit, even. When they have to.
“It’s good.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Before you ask, it’s not great. But it’s good. I mean, I’d rather eat this than many many things.”
“One can’t make cider out of it.”
“Never drank, wouldn’t want to. Almost with wine, once, but I didn’t.”
“There’s no wine here, either. Nothing that fun.”
“So, no hangovers?”
“Why art thou so insistently optimistic?”
“The worst part of my life just happened, and then I died. Now I’m in a pretty forest, and everything seems beautiful in comparison. In comparison to most of my life.”
“Thou wilst not be singing that tune ten years in. I hope thou knowest that thee cannot change my mind. I have lived since time has started and even single conversations for humans change nothing.”
“I know, I’m just speaking my mind. There is nothing but suffering in life. That’s a lie, there’s good stuff too… but it comes with bad things. For those who drink from the bottle, others have it hit over their heads. For those who have it hit over their heads, one has drank from it. I suppose it’s all relative – drinking wine is to the rich as water is to the poor, and to make oneself poor wine would be making taste better, only until you’re used to it. Hedonistic relativism, I’ve heard it called – a philosophy I had come up with before I’d heard the name. Learning about it made me feel quite smart. If I were to live here forever, I would never need wine! Do you think I could convince you? I believe that control is the strongest thing people have come up with… it is the fantasy we have convinced ourselves is real! Ah, this beauty. I think I can bring mania to myself if I try hard enough. I can do you nothing, maybe you can change on your own, as I do. Shift your forests, dear, and show me what is most beautiful!”
“Alright, mortal.”
Gravity, I now realize, never held me down. I simply willed myself to the ground. It was me who made it that way; I was not used to anything otherwise. The blood which is dried to my skin will not come off, and it bothers me enough for the first thing I try to do after realizing I can defy gravity to be removing it by will alone. I have been alone, here. Maybe people aren’t dying, or time just moves slower outside, but it must be lonelier for him. He has nobody. He is sad, alone, and filled with self hate; what cruel fate brought him here? He sees a much brighter world filled with life and love, and he ties the two to happiness: the real happiness is not in his ideals, but mine.
I fly up, beyond the clouds, to see hundreds of suns and dead stars in the sky. I keep flying. It is daylight, but it looks like the night sky. I keep flying and flying and flying to speeds that would burn any human in a normal atmosphere… sadly, my blood does not follow it. I come close to one of these stars, and touch it. It’s like a hot summer day. I expected more.
“Thou askest me to show my beauty and flewest away to not even see it.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I realized I could fly and got caught up! Oh, this is so fun,” I giggled, “Why would anyone pass this up?”
“Gravity is a reminder of death, people find it hard to avoid.”
“Is that his domain?”
“Excellent guess, mortal. She is.”
She.
“You know, I was told you were all dead.”
“We are not.” It whistles.
“Can you die?” I said it with some sense of punctuation and weight behind the word “die”, as if it were a command.
“I pray not. We can if we choose to, that’s the only way.”
“How do trees commit suicide?”
“I am a god, I can do what I want.”
“Ha. The world’s greatest optimist would argue that it’s the same for us humans, and currently that is me.” I haven’t noticed until now, but I’m smiling.
“Why only now?”
I do a barrel roll, spin around, pirouette, jet across the sky and leave a stunt plane trail. “I’ve found that I’m an enigma, and that my mind changes constantly. I don’t know why. I have some kind of great mental illness that I do not understand, but I know all the things that would bring it to me. Speak with me tomorrow and you will see a new person. My only constant trait is change; I have nothing left to do but try and improve.”
“Does your conception of improvement change also? Do you wander aimlessly in random directions?.. Maybe I could do the same; I have a brother just like that.”
I laugh, backflip twice, fly like superman into a patch of ground and launch off towards the nearest star. “You can! You’re a god. The lonely mortal me, scraping my madness together into the shape of divinity, is capable of so much. For starters, you could ditch the old English.”
“I shan’t; I am only an imitation of life.”
I inhale a deep breath of static space air and yell, “Fuck you! Life sucks. You’re cool! I can fly.”
“Thou wouldn’t carest about flying if thou couldst to it on earth.” I feel like a child, lashing out at a father who is fed up with me, but too caring and tired to get angry. If he had a face, I would imagine it to be sagged.
“That’s true, and I wouldn’t like it here if my life didn’t suck so much. But everyone’s life sucks, and nobody can fly. This is better. I’m going to lower myself now, if you are some entity which must follow me.”
But the face of the forest does not change. “I am everything here, do as thou pleasest.”
I fall down to see the most beautiful world possible. Canyon ranges and waterfalls, rivers, lakes, what looks like an ocean. Mountains peaking above the clouds… trees that feel just as tall as them. Beautiful apples, grapes, peaches. Grass.
I lower into a river, and feel its heat.
Not too hot, not too cold, as if someone had sat in it for an hour. It is the temperature of blood.
I don’t want to describe it any more than that, I just hate it.
I know why I do, having lived within it so long.
There’s a level of awareness (for lack of a better word; if it helps, it’s something along the lines of a shift in worldview) that comes with having lived through what I did. To see what put me there, to feel it… to feel the blood that I had sat in for so long is something ruining. This temperature is that which I discriminate against, the hate of the feeling of my own blood is not any form of self-hate. Though I feel it often, both are caused by one incident.
By some gargantuan will, I fall further through the water. I leave the afterlife, and I move on to something more.
Septenary memory
“Why are you covered in blood?”
“Oracle, it rained today.”
“Is that such a matter?” the Oracle replied.
“Nothing in my life will ever be good again.”
“Though, it could be worse.”
The disgusting incestous flaps on his face spoke as if they were his many mouths foreseeing disaster.
“If it were, I would die.”
“Is that such a problem?”
“Maybe not anymore.”
“Do you accept death?”
“I will not die, Oracle.”
“Mashlum, do you want a name?”
I already have one.
“Yes, Oracle.”
“I will call you Sade. Sa-de.”
“It is a beautiful name, Oracle.”
Kaikki Sade?
“Would you come with me?”
“Of course, Oracle.
We strolled through the gardens in which she had died, unto the patio his righteousness had access to. Further, into his room, and by the bath.
“Get in.”
I don’t want to.
“Okay.”
I don’t want to.
“I will clean you. You will be pure.”
Please let me run away.
“Close your eyes.”
No, no no, no no no no no no
“Okay.”
NNO, please, please don’t. Don’t do this to me. I don’t want you to do this to please let me run please please please I
If there is a God; if the ones you told me about really did die, I would believe you truly – I beg they are not. If there is a God, please answer me. If there is a God, kill him now.
I’m only noticing it now. The light above me was flickering this whole time.
My blood refracts the light back to it. It looks like I’m in the ocean. Every time the light flashes away, I remember where I am. This dreaded bloody bathtub.
I puff up my lungs with air, but they leak. I can’t float.
I sink.
I try to lift myself back up but my muscles fail to pull on each other. They’re cut. They’re violated.
He pulls me back up. My head is still underwater but I can breathe. There’s a hole in my neck.
My body rocks and I don’t bother seeing if I can look at what’s rocking it.
Whether my statement is fueled by hate or not: the rocking ceases quickly.
The fluid around me. It’s not room temperature. Room temperature feels cold. This is the temperature that feels room temperature, as if someone had sat in it for an hour. It is the temperature of blood.
I sink.
I fall.
The falling
As if I fell down a cliff.
I remember now.
I’m falling.
From the forest. In the gravity.
I’m falling.
If there is a God, kill this animal now.
Second inscription
Namuš of Death
Gravity itself utters an annoyingly jolly laugh in the vast blackness of death. There is nothing more here than me and the lack of anything else. Gravity is here, too, but there is nothing that causes it. I simply fall.
“You’re death, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. You’ve caught me at a bad time, honestly. I’m quite unamused – I’m okay with death, at this moment. I was formerly in quite a powerful manic period but the momentum from coming down carried me here; I crave you, now.”
“Many mortals do; they are the ones I despise the most.”
“Oh, prithee, why?”
“I am Death. I am Namuš, the god of death. Would I like humans? Tisk. You bring me to each other, I have no influence; you call me to each other like ants. War, murder, all those things which bring blood and rain; those of you that crave me are the ones that do it all.”
“I did not kill myself, I was murdered; I hate humans as much as you, but they are to be saved.”
“The value of a human life, when there are so many, is nothing.”
“They are each lives that are unique in their own, each is valuable.”
“Bringing life’s name into a conversation about death? Thou art a fool.”
“Maybe, but I like to believe I am not.”
“I define life; ask Elämä yourself. Life cannot exist without death, otherwise it is simply existence.”
“I want to make you angry.”
“Many mortals do.”
“Nah. That’s not why. You’re annoying.”
It returns. My mania! I continue: “death is nothing to me.”
“What a creature! Who raised thee?”
“Nobody.”
“Ah, so thou havest pent up anger? Amusing. Watch, mortal, and see that death is all there is.”
Gravity accelerates to hundreds of thousands of times what a normal body can handle. I, in death, can do anything; my body survives, though I suppose everyone who he’s done this to has as well. I cannot die once more.
“Hahaha! How was it? Doest thou want more?”
I can barely manage to speak. I move my mouth open to say “sure” but it dislocates. I try to push it back together with my arm, but it does as well.
“Thou wantest to speak, I see.”
Gravity stops.
“Yeah. Give me more.”
Gravity inverts, and I rise at speeds beyond my comprehension. I can feel the atoms in my body splitting apart and sliding back together, and as soon as I realize this gravity changes direction and I fly to my left (direction is relative, now, with no ground) and forwards and up and down again.
Nothing is worse than what I have been through.
He stops, and I can barely move. I must sleep. I want to sleep.
“Give me ground,” I ask.
Gravity pushes me up in the slightest, and there is some force below me so strong it feels solid. Above me gravity falls as normal.
“I’m impressed!” he says, “I doubt many mortals would survive what thou hast.”
“Oh, none have.”
I sit down, cross my legs, rest my shoulder on my knee, and my head on my palm.
“Sitting. Didst thou ask for ground just to disrespect me?”
“Yes? I thought that’d be clear to anyone but a fool; congratulations, monkey, for having found out.”
“What gall! Are you not the fool here? I have thousands -”
“You? So respectful! I thought gods referred to mortals as ‘thou’”
“I give you respect on accident. I didn’t think that thou wouldst be so prideful. Here, let us discuss. Thou believest thyself to be smart?”
“Ah, no.”
“Thou sayest that trying to be humble, maybe to trap me into saying that art smarter than I?”
“Yes, I admit. I give you that. I commend you. What else do you want to hear? Stroke my dick while you’re at it.”
“Ha! Thou art only one of a few thousand who has treated me such. And still thou callest me ‘you’”.
“I will not falter in saying such. You are a god, my equal.”
“How could a god be raped? Thou art not.”
“How do you know that?”
“I killed thee.”
“Are you him?”
“I am him. I am all men. All men crave to kill.”
“I don’t.”
“Would thou killest him if given the chance?”
“Yes.”
“I am correct.”
“I want to forgive him.”
“Canst thee?”
“Maybe, one day, if I try hard enough.”
“How long would it take?”
“Years, maybe. If I stay crazy enough, like I am now, then it would take an hour.”
“I would throw thee into a well of gravity for however long thou sayest, but I am intrigued.”
“Whatever mania was in my body leaves again, speaking of him.”
“What art thou?”
“I am an ocean.”
“Of what?”
“Blessings, curses, blood, and rain.”
“Why dost thou speak like this?”
“I can’t! I can’t help it. I don’t want to sound this way; I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want anything at all. The way I speak? I hate it! The way I am? I hate it! The life I’ve lived? I hate it! You killed her, right? You killed Sishkur?”
“Well, of course.”
“Why? What pleasure is there in killing?”
“I don’t kill. You do. I hate humans, thou knowest well. It’s clear; rare moments of introspection like now, the place thou hast bringest me to, show me such: you are all murderers! Like the oracle, you will kill haphazardly with no reason. It is true. I bring you humans down, but you all push each other and make yourselves fall.”
“Do not remind me of him.”
“I will remind thee however many times I want!”
I’ll prove him wrong. I’ll make him show me that he does this for pleasure.
“Why would you?”
“To remind you of what a human did.”
“He was not human.”
“Was he not?”
“He was an animal.”
“He was born of two humans, how could that ever make sense?”
I have animosity welled inside of me that must be let out. Nothing will interrupt my thought, for nothing has before: “Could any human rape? No. Lust is the worst sin without contest. It belittles us and brings us to ravage each other as if we were no longer people; truthfully, those in tightest in its grasp are not. They have lost it. Have you seen the oracle? Inbred by nature? So disgusting! He is no human! He is disgusting. He is gross! Gross! Gross gross gross gross gross gross gross gross gross! How many times do you think I’ve imagined him being crushed by rolling logs like toothpaste? I would not be capable of wishing that on any human. He was not human, verily. Look at his face! Have you seen it? Have you seen it? Tell me! Has he died? Have you seen him? I wonder how he looks in death. Just thinking about it makes my heart race! I am so disgusted that nobody could ever spark such hate within me. I am desensitized to hate. I hate him with every fibre of my being, Namuš! And you blame humans for death… I understand why, but how could you have played no part? Fuck! I hate you. I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you you are just like him you filthy fucking animal. Is it really the fault of someone who was once human to kill if you are there to drag me under the water? I was bathed in my blood and I sunk down forever. Was that not you? I know full well that it could’ve been my mind playing tricks on me, making it all so slow. So much adrenaline in my body in that moment! Fuck! I hate you. I hate you and the oracle. I hate you both so much.”
“Me? A monkey? I am not him; I hate him just as much as you do.”
“Then why is he alive?”
“He will die.”
“Why not sooner?”
“Because I’m not the one killing people.”
Is he right? He continues: “thou hatest me because you cannot blame a human? He is both a monkey and a human; I am both at fault and he is as well?”
“Please, please please please just let me get away with this just once.”
“No, human. I will not.”
“Why, Namuš? Why did you kill me there?”
“I didn’t.”
I’m crying, and have fallen to lay down.
“I want to kill him.”
“I know. That’s natural. All humans are thus.”
“No, not all. Animals and you.”
“Thou blamest me once more?”
“Yes, I have no choice. I’ve found some way to rationalize it, I see, but I cannot abandon it.”
“Thou simply wantest death; do not deny that.”
“No, I want him to suffer. Death is freedom; did I not tell you I crave it? The man that said that has returned.”
“Death is freedom? So, I’m not suffering; I am just? I am free? I am good? But thou hatest me!”
“My hate for him is so grand it spills unto you.”
“So thou seest thy true nature; when will thou seest mine? I hate humans because I hate life, that foul creature. I am victim of the same things as thee, but there is no individual that I hate. Am I just a concept? No. I am a god. Hate death, but enlighten thyself to not hate me.”
“Fuck you! Do you want my approval?”
“It does not matter to me. I simply want to prove myself right once more. I have done it more times than thou hast drank drops of water! There is nothing else for me.”
“Are you lonely?”
“Who is there to accompany death?”
“Life.”
“Tsk.”
“Why do you hate him?”
“No matter.”
“Do you hate yourself so much you blame others for your actions? Do you hate life because it makes death?”
“A silly notion, but a logical one.”
“I can’t help but think of another reason.”
“It is not my responsibility to tell thee.”
“Please, tell me.”
“Why art thou so desperate?”
“I have nothing else to do. I want someone else to hate themselves as much as I do. I’m lonely. The only person I’ve ever loved is dead. Hey! That was you, wasn’t it?”
“How many times must I repeat myself?”
“Sorry.”
“How can thee claim thyself to be strong and within my realm but not have the power to stay angry at me?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Rationalize it all thou wantest, fool.”
“Why are you angry?”
“I am not.”
“Why am I a fool again? What happened to being logical?”
“Thou botherst me.”
“Why?”
“Art like life.”
“How?”
“Stop it with the questions.”
“Why?”
“…”
“Sorry. I just don’t know what else to ask.”
“They bother me like thou doest.”
“My apologies.”
“Art much kinder than before.”
“Of the many people I’ve spoken with, I seem to have the most empathy with you.”
“I am no person.”
“I find it ironic that a humble philosopher like myself would find you the best company.”
“Thou art not humble!”
“I am no longer the same person as I was before.”
“Then how could thee find similarities between us? I act the same.”
“You have many facets, Namuš, they are all like mine.”
“I find that annoying.”
“I find you beautiful, now. As a person. I hate to have so many similarities with death himself but I find that I do.”
“I am no person!”
“You are not death, either. It may be your domain but I now stand convinced that it was not you who had killed me.”
“So seest! This brings me great joy.”
I’m done crying. I get up, with tears on my face, and a growing smile.
“I am joyous, too! Namuš, was I right?”
“About what?”
“You hate yourself, just as I! I feel so liberated having something in common with a god.”
“Partially, of course. I hate humans, and humans are my greatest worshippers. I despise that.”
“I am no human, Namuš. Ah, can you feel it? It’s coming back! My mania. The rain on my body,” I say, stroking my chest and abdomen, “it is nothing to me. Speak of the oracle all you want, fuck him! I don’t care if he dies. Ah. I hate him, though. I cannot deny that. But I love you, Namuš! Not as death; I hate death! Death, I despise you: Namuš, please be my friend!”
“I have never heard those words before.”
“Namuš, say it! Say I was right, I’m begging you! Call me your equal! I am like life, you say… no, I am like you! You are not like life; you are kind, you are equal. I have always considered death’s greatest flaw its equality; it should not come for many of us, and for some it should come much sooner – I speak of the oracle saying this, and those like him; all others should live long bountiful lives. All of their crimes are to be forgiven! Namuš, you are kind.”
“You were right.”
“‘You…’ I love that word!”
“You! You! You! How can I stand to call you thus? Unconsciously, even, it angers me. A ‘humble philosopher’ like thyself is a human. Even your kings! A human? An ant. An amoeba. You humans! You form your little tribes and fight amongst each other – ants competing against ants – for no reason at all. You could care for each other – delay my oncoming – but rather you act as my messengers. You hate life as much as I do. You only care about the hedonistic pleasures of tribal life. Your sports teams, or your races, or all your fancy little things. They’re self imposed. You form tribes and they grow into nations – so inbred that they become distinct from each other.
“Your own separation separates yourselves further. Your tribe has white skin and the other is black. Now your hundreds of thousands of years of hate are finally justified! You really are better than them now. You’re better than them. If you’re more advanced, then you really are better! Just how much smarter you are. If they’re more advanced than your tribe, then you’re the only one with morals fighting against the tyranny of the other tribe.
“You create labels for yourselves. Gay, straight, man, woman, white, black, latino, asian, indigenous, tall, short, skinny, fat, athletic, unathletic, healthy, unhealthy, all redundant words made to describe hairless flies. If your word is different from the other then you are different from the other! You stick your labels across and over lands so that you have an excuse to kill.
“You justify yourselves for no reason. You fight against reason to bring my oncoming. You hate each other. You humans LOVE to kill. You bring death across every land you touch, killing the earth, killing each other, killing the animals, killing the bugs, killing the mere ideas and words I speak with. Every action I have committed is in part from your hands.
“You humans push each other down, knowing I am there to help you fall.”
“Namuš, why are you angry?”
“You are life, aren’t you? You are Elämä! You have come to pester me again. That must be why I call you ‘you’!”
“I am not even alive. Do you hate life that much?”
“Gah!”
He pushes me down again, with a force as great as the one which I had risen with before, onto the ground that he had made for me. The force is grand and overwhelming. I feel my body slip past itself as if it were soap, and come back together once more to reform and remesh itself in improper forms. Not even a force this strong can wipe the blood off of my dirtied body, however.
It’s hard to stay conscious. In moments like these, I have little to do but recall old memories.
Tertiary memory
I have never felt prone to empathy once in my life. I believe this is just the way I am. People would come to me – friends, those who I considered family, and even the Massu himself – and I would feign sharing their burdens. I could understand their pain and pleasure at all times but never once would it penetrate my soul and infect me with their emotion. My soul is eroded, and has crumbled within me; there is nothing to penetrate. I have none left to share.
Despite this, I still have felt it before. Only once; I had felt it in a small crowd, when I was about 15 years old. A dog had snuck into my quarters and my peers had begun to play with it.
I joined them, as it was a novel experience that I knew I would never have again. It was a disruption of the order that the Massu had so carefully weaved into our home and to break that order was exciting.
I was the most distant of the group. Everyone else – about 5 people – were all over it, petting and stroking its fur. It felt safe enough to roll over and expose its stomach to us, and everyone was petting its belly and hair and neck; the dog was in heaven at that moment.
I had come in at about that time when it was rolled over and stroked its paw, as if we were shaking hands. It rolled back onto its feet and strolled over to me. It brushed its face along my leg as it walked past before turning around to jump on my back. It clawed my clothes enough to cause slight tears before it, as all dogs do after jumping, landed quickly back on its paws. I pet its head once more, and from that moment it chose only to play with me.
I had looked up for one instant to see the face of jealousy painted across one of my peer’s faces. Over me came a sudden torrent of guilt and anger, some mix of emotions which I cannot describe to you. I felt the jealousy she did as it branched into guilt for having stolen her dog, and I began to smile.
This was a new feeling for me, and I instantly understood what I had felt. For the first time ever, for the only time ever, I felt the feelings of another. It was no longer a chore. I did not have to fake it. All I had to do was sit there in my own grief and a strange jealousy I felt for myself on her behalf and the novelty and progress I felt were so overwhelmingly pleasurable that I could not bear but to smile. As soon as I did, I felt an even stronger guilt.
I had hurt another, and I smiled from the pain I felt. It was as if I had sinned against God and found the ecstasy I got from his forgiveness in another person. One less holy, but whose imperfection was holiness itself; they lended me the imperfection of human envy and I had loved that feeling. I had at one time felt human, and as the dog leapt away as the natural loud noises of our home sprung about, I had returned to my cloud. I was once again cursed to watch the folly of these dancing lights, and that brought me no pleasure. May I continue to fall now, to someplace better; the land I am on now must crumble under my awesome weight.
When I fell in Kigali initially, I saw that I remained unharmed. A dead body cannot be hurt. Nonetheless, this gravity wishes to tear me apart. I’m splattered on the ground… my body feels like a hump of sand. No matter how hard I try to move my body simply slides past me. My muscles instantly grind away in failure.
Nonetheless, if I cannot be harmed, I can push myself to do all things.
There’s so few words to describe this level of crushing. I can feel my cells slip past each other like soap and spring back. My old wounds are especially slippery.
“Hate? Why would I hate life so much? I control it completely! I have all the power to control you people with your fears of death.
“You people fuck eachother and cheat on your wives and loved ones to carry on life because you’re afraid of death. You kill each other because you’re afraid they’ll kill you first. You steal and lie and cheat because you’re afraid of a future where you’ll die so young.
“Life? Me? I control life. Every aspect of Elämä’s psyche is managed by my very existence. How could I hate something below me? How could I hate humans like thee?”
I can’t speak.
“How superior is the control of death. Even in the oldest of your stories do men run from me. Why? Why fear me?
“I am simply the bridge to Kigali. Why do you fear such things? It’s so hilarious. It’s better than your lives, right?
“There’s no motivation for sin in Kigali. There is no rain in Kigali. There is no motivation for such animosity because I am not there, yet being reminded of life forces you all to leave.
“Not a single person has stayed in Kigali. Do you people like to sin? Is death really the motivation for such evil things that you do? You people leave because you’re desperate to sin. Thou art evil. Thou art weak. Thou camest to me and sawest nothing but gravity. Knowest that gravity and that falling once.”
I’ve been pinned on my right for what felt like millenia.
It, by far, has been the most dissolved of my sides. Nonetheless, I shall stand. In defiance of death and defiance of gravity I will stand. If my muscles tear apart combatting this pressure then they will reform to continue their battle because I am powerful in death. I am unshackled. No living thing binds me and I have the utmost freedom to anger and overcome a God with the soul of a man – a simple man whose body and mind are like that of all.
I roll off my right and use my left to push my body up. My right side is dissolving away from me and my body melts. Drips of both my body and blood fall to the ground and rise back up to me.
My left arm pushes enough for my right, and my left leg brings me up enough for both legs to fight this gravity.
My bones crush and they spring me back up. This pain is excruciating. Nothing is worse than what I’ve been through – except for what I’ve been through but worse.
I tried to open my mouth but it fell off my jaw the instant I tried to speak.
“Thou art strengthened by death, yes? Amusing. I have never been so entertained.”
The gravity stops.
Above my head is that drop of blood that I once fell past. It grazes me so barely that one single movement could quite easily break its surface tension.
I feel a shift in him, as if some level of hate he had for me had been dispelled by the assurance of my death within my newfound invulnerability.
“Namuš, I am not life. I am myself. I have no label; I was given none. I am Kaikki.”
“So, havest a name?”
“It was given to me by someone I once knew.”
“Let us converse more another time, Kaikki. Do you have more to your name?”
“I am simply Kaikki.”
“As a sign of respect before I say my goodbyes, I will further it.”
“I am grateful, Namuš. Will we ever be able to speak again?”
“The chances are slim, but maybe.”
“Please, give me my name, then, so that I can remember you if I do not.”
“Kaikki Mitä Haluat On Elämän vastan.”
“What does it mean?”
“Everything you want is against life.”
“It is sublime, and I find it hilarious that you would give me a name so aligned with your beliefs.”
“It is not necessarily. Interpret it as you will, and feel free to grow it further, my friend.”
I let out a little tear.
“Thank you, my friend. I will see you if I can find it in my power.”
“I look forward to it. Goodbye.”
Away from death I am flung.
