Luphinid Silnaek
MAGNEMITE.
- 100
- Posts
- 17
- Years
- Amano-Iwato.
- Seen Oct 1, 2013
Aftershock
Chapter 19: Setting the Table (Part I}
The mindless, disharmonious indifference of the universe has faded, just a little. I can see the purpose, and its rivals are but poorly perceived branches of its structure. I can see also the portions of my life to come, arranged in geometry, the deliberate balance of triangles.
What I do not see with this new essential clarity is the subject of this chapter today. Why does the encircling forest seem so unfamiliar? Amaren and Ruki and Ytarrik are vague confusions of colour. They tell me this is the curse of memory, that they must suffer the ravages of time within me as all do, but where is the necessity? I have not yet known a law to state permanent mental blindness, and if it exists, I have already defied the greater portion of it.
Besides, I will soon persevere in my purpose, and this fact presupposes perfect hindsight.
So I realize that hallucinations are only involuntary so long as consciousness is left weakly hanging, and I can directly override my physical senses if only I have the skill. The righter Luphinid Silnaek, fused with the prowess of the kadabra Ytarrik, has known much but never incompetence. He was never Luphinid Silnaek in the past ages when he did. I moor myself with the slightest chain to memory and plunge into the seas of unvision.
Suddenly an exhilarating fire flares in the east and burns away the black curtain above me, burns away my cool dark eyelids, burns away the walls of my eyes to play torture on the flat surface of my nerves. It has lit my body on hellish orange fire, and all is crumbling, pillars of smoke rising from the wreckage of my stagnant constructions to loom over my tiny retreating figure. The pain is exquisite; it quickens the plodding of my heart and dares me to move into a trot and then a gallop, it is the secret that fiery, alluring danger tempts us with as we jump into the abyss to soar with her. And its torture burns away everything but the will into forward motion, the necessity of forward motion, the fact of forward motion. The pain had taunted me with a knowing smile and I had seen not what it meant (so preoccupied as I was with keeping up with it), but now I see it. Yes, only pain could be this lucid and all-consuming.
Now I have outrun it [barely], but the disheveled figure trotting out of the forest finds that his legs have not tired in the least, and that they refuse to slow and his momentum pulls him on. He looks back to see pain fading into distance, for her work is done and the wheels, once set in motion, will not falter.
But what does he see before him? The fire is too slow to catch him, and he has kept pace with or outrun all that he could see, but now a new vision challenges his eyes with near-invisible slashes of lightning motion. The perfect steel whirlwind, Saffron City: how could he ever outrun or to the slightest degree gain it? He pauses to regain his breath in the slightest hope that he may regain also his lead, but time brooks no delay. Five days move past in the uneasily harsh contrast of his standstill and the speed of events surrounding; the limbo seems to have arrested again the blaze of the fire; its smoulders are not close to adequate to delineate the haze-ridden path before him.
This time the stagnancy is no backdrop to the banalities of his life, an ambiance half-registered to be taken as unchangeable fact, but an actual torment he can feel wholly and completely now that he has known his rightful state. There is no more opportunity to forget it again; what could have been and what can be hovers tantalizingly over his periphery, forever shunning his direct perception but never allowing him to let go of the this base, instinctive knowledge: My state is not my natural one, my tempo unrightful, but the only one suppressing me is myself. Only he can surpass his own tribulations—this responsibility is a burden no purposeful bird of prey has ever borne.
It astonishes him to see a single helping hand above the confused murmurings—not a hand, nothing more than the tip of a finger—a human presence that is familiar as an old friend, but hints (with thrills far more intense than hints) of the wonder beyond: the greatest reminder of his inheritance he has yet seen. But this is only a hint. It cannot show him the way to his purpose; it cannot instill in him the necessary strength. It has no power or substance until he deals with it on its own plane.
Then he sees a flash of the pain again—but it is changed from before, it has matured [aged], he can hardly recognize it now. He can only feel that he must escape it: not in the manner of his last run, during which he knew in his essence that this was the way into salvation, but as an overbearing terror driving him to run feverishly towards light, any light, whatever he sees as light. It is tearing him apart and all he knows is to shine the obscuring shadow. He must look away and forget, bury the wounds in miles of dust and cobwebs, for though his body is nigh to collapse in the absence of his insides, he needs only to forget they were ever there to regain stability. If the hole inside him is filled with irrelevance and painted over, it will look good as new.
But look at the wonders before you! This is no time to mope over past injuries. Keep moving. Bury the pain. It can be dealt with later. A new challenge is rising up for you, Amaren, and besides it may be the answer to your only remaining problem. This hint of a human presence is equivalent to your own potential. If you rise, you can become her perfect counterpart, and all the joy and beauty will become yours as your own unswerving instinct for motion will become hers. You have already seen your fledgling beauty, but stay—consider another form in its prime now. Isolate essence of joy and place it within a form barely a form. Give it substance but no restriction, no compromise for the pleasure of the laws of physics. Do you feel it is too young, far before the phase of full maturity? Why do you care? This is its prime. Your slipstream will pull her along and give her full strength, just as her juvenile delight seeps into you and makes you whole. Together, complete, there is no end to the heights you will achieve!
And it is all so simple after all. Each achievement is a foothold for the next leap. Have you reached the top of the hill? Marvellous. Now reach out and touch the mountain. Climb, staggering and out of breath, to the moon. Use the advantage of your sudden strength to leap for the sun. Gain to the stars. Have you reached infinity? Good. Now go beyond. Pay no mind to the injuries. They are the past, and this is the future; the stab wound is behind you. Only this spirit made of pure motion is you. You need nothing else, no past, no sustenance, if only you can outrun death. [nothing could be easier] And souls are eternal, their pain an illusion.
The equipment is assembled, the preparations all laid out, and in a final leap they clear the peak of the mountain. The wonders spring forth from their own blood and dance before them in visions of their grandeur. They have reached the utmost peak of the parabola, but is there anything more? Astonished fingers grope for anything that can sustain them, but the fuel of their lives is exhausted. Are they slowing? Terror pulls down like overactive gravity, pulls down faster and faster the remnants of the tattered illusion, pulling buttress upon failed buttress to collapse upon the castle in the air; the soul is gone, and the body can only fall hopelessly until—
smash
Tragic.
[{//\/\/\/\/\//\\//\\//\/\/\|/|\|/\/\/\\//\\//\\/\/\/\/\/\//}]
What was Amaren's shortcoming? There is no flaw in the concept of concentrated motion; it is beautiful, simple, and fundamental to the essence of the first phase of this life. It will be necessary to my purpose.
No; the fault lies in outside circumstances. It was naked motion, given no physical defences to survive the devices of fate. Why had I never thrust my head out of its joys to see its cold, lonely vulnerability? I return to it years later, noticing it truly for the first time in all its service with me, and treasure its last shreds now, when all is lost...
Or has it truly? Certainly, now that I have recognized a concept, it is clearer and bolder than ever in my mind. Can I still save it, after all this time? It has almost slipped from my hands, and I must act! While the planes are still conjoined, shelter it from the lashes of the storm! Concrete reality can be bent! Isolate it, bring it out, take it away from the pain and the fear and injury. Is it properly removed?
All is well. Let me proceed.