A Promise, an Affirmation, and a History
I am standing in the big dark room again, under the lights, and I am tracing the thread. My fingers glide along its oily fibers, running down the length of it slowly, carefully, sickening and ascetic. I am in the dark room, exposed, and I am tracing the thread.
To the side I see a wall, pocked with holes for my parts to be drawn through and severed. A guillotine, with moving parts replaced by men of my own creation. Passersby pulling and sucking, cutting, breaking, bending, torturing, humiliating.
Further down are the ropes, where that wicked Fae rested. Fantasy after fantasy until her memory disintegrated into mine. Set apart in glass jars I idolized my fractures, magnified them until they consumed the earth beneath me. Mutilated what was left, until all that remained were the icons under glass.
The thread dries out, no longer slicked wet with oil and the sickly sweet smell of some unholy god-fluid. Monoliths of ancient, foreign design reign me in on both sides. It is comfortable, and it is claustrophobic. But all great works of stone crumble, and it is only a matter of time before a new god's reign once again damps the thread.
I am caked in dust from the fractured monoliths, each particle weighing heavily on my shoulders which are ever widening, legs taking to a giant's stride and head pushing against the sky as I pass between the stones. The only way to go now is forward, doggedly.
I resolve to steal the Fae away with me. To carry it in atonement, safely past these and other horrid devices, and plant it where roots may spread and the light begs growth, rather than destruction.
It is futile to follow the thread and hope to reach its termination, even in death it continues on. But now, flesh against flesh, the journey grows lighter. The dark infinity of the room is wholly observed. This final mutilation is comforting, a long awaited end state.
I will rest soon, sore from reconstitution. The clinical light of the dark room will give way to soft starlight, and I will bathe in it complete once more.
- Samryl