I will tell you about myself because other records will be embellished, conflated, or misconceived, and after all this time, I desire to tell the truth. I know that in this matter perspective counts for very much and my perspective will be rather unique, being one of the few to survive the Henson-Wurtheim experiment.
It is known as the cataclysm now, and there are almost none that know its antecedents. And they wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain. Science is lost to us, and for that I am grateful. Its death has made way for religion and superstition. Myth and magic are the hegemony through which I rule. It is a much more malleable system.
I was born in the conventional way at the very peak of the last civilisation. There is not much to remember about that life, save that it was rich in excess with gluttony and avarice. I ate until my stomach hurt, whilst children starved in my own country. I wore clothes for a week or two, then discarded them on the great heap of trash that represented all the hopes and dreams of the world. My entropic existence poisoned the earth and the very air I breathed, until me and my kind struggled to survive in the Tartarean hell we had created.
Ah, the good old days, as they say. The experiment was meant to fix it, and I suppose it did in a way. Billions died in an instant. The sky was blackened and the ground cracked with red fire. Multiple realities collided in spectacular fashion. Genocide, starvation and pestilence did for the rest in a relatively short time. An efficient way to deal with the problem of humanity, even if it upended everything we knew about the macro and microcosm.
There were some who survived. And some, like me, who thrived in ways that science couldn’t predict. Indeed, in ways antithetical to the previous doctrines of science.
For I am now not like other men. My needs are different. I aspire to, how can I put this? Other glories. When I look at the vast span of humanity, the beggar in the gutter, the king in his tower (yes, we still have those), I feel contempt. They are all the same. Grubbing, mewling, conniving, thieving. Liars and cheaters all, ready to sacrifice anyone and anything.
But not themselves. Self-sacrifice is a myth built on sand. There was a man who spoke about self-sacrifice once upon a time, but he is long gone from memory or allegory. Time and circumstance will wash anything away; one’s morals most of all. It takes the smallest of effort, from me, from a God, from an inconsequential player, to sway them from the Chosen path of enlightenment into a much dark realm. And that is where we dwell now.
Any morals carefully built, are grist to the mill. Any inhibitions painfully constructed, just leaves in the wind. I watch them flutter by with disinterest. My plans are made and I roll them out with precision. I watch with mild glee as a few choice words, a nudge here, a push there, then all their hubris falls away. The sands wash away in the tides leaving the unformed lump of clay that is their soul. And as clay I mold them, shape them as any God would. They do my will. There is nothing else left. I am not like other men. In this world, I am a God.
But I am not omnipotent, much to my own chagrin. I have my limitations. They remind me of my humanity, more’s the pity.
Take this trifling matter with the butcher’s son. I am told by Henquist that he sold rotten meat in the market, this day past on Sheleswhite. The meat was spiced with clove and ginger (I must ask Henquist where the ginger came from) to hide the putrefaction, one assumes. Three dead, and many more suffering. Well, no matter the dead. Their lives are so nasty and short, it hardly matters. But suffering matters. The loss of work matters. My harvest matters. They are groaning and writhing in their beds instead of grubbing in the fields to pull up crops.
It matters to me. I am immortal only in their eyes. I must eat as they must, and take succor from the earth as they must. My spirit will last whilst I take my fill of theirs, but my body will wither without the required nutrients from plant and meat. I may go on for some time, like Dioniser, who would not take a soul to ensure her existence. She is a husk now, as papery and light as an empty chrysalis, entombed in a catacombe of obsidian by her devotes, elevated to divinity because of her silence and inaction (humans love a God who ignores them).
But I do not wish to be a distant, silent, immobile God. If my humans cannot love me for my actions, then they can fear me. It is all the same.
So, how should I deal with the butcher’s son, being a God with all too human needs? The butcher is too old to run the butchery. His son is the man who slays the beasts and cuts my meat. He has been for years. Rotten meat does not bother me. I have eaten far worse to survive. His transgression against his fellow man does not bother me. Let him lay waste to them all. Let him scythe the tall grass to make way for the crop underneath. There are always more humans to be had.
But I need my harvest. I cannot allow an interruption like this without repercussion. It is the wrong time of year to stoke unrest, and Henquist has already warned me that there is unrest.
He walked the market stalls this eve as they were packing up. I can see it in my mind’s eye now, for I have been three hundred times over. Wooden stalls all dressed in white for the festival, with long white ribbons fluttering in the breeze. At the far end the stage being built for the Sheleswhite play. The sawing and tapping of last-minute carpentry, the actors practicing their lines in the cooling evening air, each thinking their art is the most original, the most considered, the most heart-felt. The great, painted moon hung above the stage and the litter of embroidered golden leaves on the black Parquain that was blessed in their little temple, their superstitions hanging heavy over the velvet cloth. Their parochial little occupations make me laugh every time. Even after all these years.
But I digress. I was speaking of Henquist. And it is Henquist I shall blame if it all goes wrong. He speaks of anger amongst the traders. Indignation that their ignominious lives have been hurt. I suppose I must do something (sigh), or it will unravel and get worse. I need my harvest brought in. I need my butcher to carve meat. I need my little people to continue their little lives without interruption, so that I can continue mine. Unrest is a word I do not like. It causes such bother.
It is known as the cataclysm now, and there are almost none that know its antecedents. And they wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain. Science is lost to us, and for that I am grateful. Its death has made way for religion and superstition. Myth and magic are the hegemony through which I rule. It is a much more malleable system.
I was born in the conventional way at the very peak of the last civilisation. There is not much to remember about that life, save that it was rich in excess with gluttony and avarice. I ate until my stomach hurt, whilst children starved in my own country. I wore clothes for a week or two, then discarded them on the great heap of trash that represented all the hopes and dreams of the world. My entropic existence poisoned the earth and the very air I breathed, until me and my kind struggled to survive in the Tartarean hell we had created.
Ah, the good old days, as they say. The experiment was meant to fix it, and I suppose it did in a way. Billions died in an instant. The sky was blackened and the ground cracked with red fire. Multiple realities collided in spectacular fashion. Genocide, starvation and pestilence did for the rest in a relatively short time. An efficient way to deal with the problem of humanity, even if it upended everything we knew about the macro and microcosm.
There were some who survived. And some, like me, who thrived in ways that science couldn’t predict. Indeed, in ways antithetical to the previous doctrines of science.
For I am now not like other men. My needs are different. I aspire to, how can I put this? Other glories. When I look at the vast span of humanity, the beggar in the gutter, the king in his tower (yes, we still have those), I feel contempt. They are all the same. Grubbing, mewling, conniving, thieving. Liars and cheaters all, ready to sacrifice anyone and anything.
But not themselves. Self-sacrifice is a myth built on sand. There was a man who spoke about self-sacrifice once upon a time, but he is long gone from memory or allegory. Time and circumstance will wash anything away; one’s morals most of all. It takes the smallest of effort, from me, from a God, from an inconsequential player, to sway them from the Chosen path of enlightenment into a much dark realm. And that is where we dwell now.
Any morals carefully built, are grist to the mill. Any inhibitions painfully constructed, just leaves in the wind. I watch them flutter by with disinterest. My plans are made and I roll them out with precision. I watch with mild glee as a few choice words, a nudge here, a push there, then all their hubris falls away. The sands wash away in the tides leaving the unformed lump of clay that is their soul. And as clay I mold them, shape them as any God would. They do my will. There is nothing else left. I am not like other men. In this world, I am a God.
But I am not omnipotent, much to my own chagrin. I have my limitations. They remind me of my humanity, more’s the pity.
Take this trifling matter with the butcher’s son. I am told by Henquist that he sold rotten meat in the market, this day past on Sheleswhite. The meat was spiced with clove and ginger (I must ask Henquist where the ginger came from) to hide the putrefaction, one assumes. Three dead, and many more suffering. Well, no matter the dead. Their lives are so nasty and short, it hardly matters. But suffering matters. The loss of work matters. My harvest matters. They are groaning and writhing in their beds instead of grubbing in the fields to pull up crops.
It matters to me. I am immortal only in their eyes. I must eat as they must, and take succor from the earth as they must. My spirit will last whilst I take my fill of theirs, but my body will wither without the required nutrients from plant and meat. I may go on for some time, like Dioniser, who would not take a soul to ensure her existence. She is a husk now, as papery and light as an empty chrysalis, entombed in a catacombe of obsidian by her devotes, elevated to divinity because of her silence and inaction (humans love a God who ignores them).
But I do not wish to be a distant, silent, immobile God. If my humans cannot love me for my actions, then they can fear me. It is all the same.
So, how should I deal with the butcher’s son, being a God with all too human needs? The butcher is too old to run the butchery. His son is the man who slays the beasts and cuts my meat. He has been for years. Rotten meat does not bother me. I have eaten far worse to survive. His transgression against his fellow man does not bother me. Let him lay waste to them all. Let him scythe the tall grass to make way for the crop underneath. There are always more humans to be had.
But I need my harvest. I cannot allow an interruption like this without repercussion. It is the wrong time of year to stoke unrest, and Henquist has already warned me that there is unrest.
He walked the market stalls this eve as they were packing up. I can see it in my mind’s eye now, for I have been three hundred times over. Wooden stalls all dressed in white for the festival, with long white ribbons fluttering in the breeze. At the far end the stage being built for the Sheleswhite play. The sawing and tapping of last-minute carpentry, the actors practicing their lines in the cooling evening air, each thinking their art is the most original, the most considered, the most heart-felt. The great, painted moon hung above the stage and the litter of embroidered golden leaves on the black Parquain that was blessed in their little temple, their superstitions hanging heavy over the velvet cloth. Their parochial little occupations make me laugh every time. Even after all these years.
But I digress. I was speaking of Henquist. And it is Henquist I shall blame if it all goes wrong. He speaks of anger amongst the traders. Indignation that their ignominious lives have been hurt. I suppose I must do something (sigh), or it will unravel and get worse. I need my harvest brought in. I need my butcher to carve meat. I need my little people to continue their little lives without interruption, so that I can continue mine. Unrest is a word I do not like. It causes such bother.
