Ilyn sits best he can in a lotus position as Reptily gently picks blood clots off his scalp and back and replaces them with a rub of mineral oil and bright yellow sulfur dust. Water drips from a shaggy black fungus lining the walls of the cave.
ILYN: My life force flickers like a spook bulb.
REPTILY: You have the miraculous but unfortunate curse of carnation redundancy. You keep being born again, but uglier.
ILYN: But what I can see is all beauty.
REPTILY: Then you are selfish to boot. Never mind our horror when we gaze upon you.
ILYN: I've proven my willingness over and over to disappear forever.
REPTILY: By now you know it's only a ritual. It could never be the same as that first surrender.
ILYN: Until I jumped into Mthyuh's roiling gut, I was burning from the inside out.
REPTILY: Why is it. Why do others want to stay and can't but you can't go and stay away.
ILYN: Why do others want to stay and can't but I can't go and stay away?
REPTILY: Yes.
ILYN: My cross to bear is the mystery of my cross to bear. Flekes come to me because I am the most extreme expression of their own befuddlement. Like they'd watch a kid beating a doll against a fence. Ya, I am that doll, and I am that child.
REPTILY: Ya I am that fence and you whitewash me. I mean I say you are full of shite. You are holy, another mystery. You'd cash your own mother into indentured servitude to heresists. Oh wait.
ILYN: Ya look who's talking. At least you kept her in the family.
REPTILY: She could do worse than collect shiny coins at volca and command shiv service on her own servants all week. It was her idea. She herself is practically a deity now. All life is contingent and symbiotic. Except for yours, Illinois.
ILYN: Look at us. A pair of broken records. Have you ever noticed that my full name looks like a "no" peeking out from behind bars?
REPTILY: With an s on the end.
ILYN: Ya that's silent. You know what it means. Freedom. No to not freedom.
per Phyllis (embedded)
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