A Nearly Perfect Circle

Idiot Sesom (Fall of Divinity)

The wind was too light that day. I was tremendously disappointed. Of course, I thought, it does carry with it that damned irony that has plagued me thus far. All my hopes and dreams built like majestic temples in my name, reaching for a sky not nearly infinite enough to hold them. And now, I thought, the precipice below me would welcome them as warmly as any. No, I thought reasonably. The end of a precipice was actually quite cold. In any case, a mountain knows and feels nothing—my dreams would be met with apathy.

I felt like coalescing before the dive, so I sat Indian-style on the edge, peering out into a boundless horizon. Before my mind slipped into itself, I saw the city slightly in the distance. It bustled as ever—dusty streets all the more decadent and cutthroat in the night. The capitol of the Kingdom was weeks by carriage away, and a sense of law had never been established. One must be faithful, strong, cognizant to survive there. Especially when the sun falls.

The sunset made for a beautiful juxtaposition with the clouds. I admired them lovingly, fawning over the primaries, the reds, the blues, the yellows—my favorites, and mildly intrigued by the other oranges and greens and such. Fire on the horizon, it seemed. Fire was the first, I remembered as clearly as the twang of a bow. It was then that my mind took no hesitance in slipping into itself. Fine, I would consider later. A trip into childhood. Then no more procrastinating.

Like a night owl, I watched the scene from some forgettable vista, not with the eyes of a deity, but an onlooker. Fire ravaged the entirely wooden house, spreading like some foul invisible creature licked everything it saw, cracking every foundation and support. The lovely house, pining away at the heat. Onlookers outside looked with some interest, but intrigue, not concern. We were never really liked by our neighbors.

That was when I saw the little boy running through the flames, crying. I felt anger, raging but passive anger, and could only whisper how weak the boy was, how useless, how foolish. It was he who started the fire, and ruined the house because he had been left alone. I hated him. That weakness. That fallibility. I was comforted by the fact that those things had gone long ago from me.

Accidents were not uncommon with the boy, I had come to accept. His mind was adventurous and potent, but his step clumsy, his hand weak, his mind naïve. I watched the memories, wishing I could have changed something. That boy had always been a dreamer, staring at the stars for nights on end, contemplating the duties of a knight, the royalties of a king, the lavishness of a member of the royal family. Now, sitting aged atop this rocky precipice, my mind urged him to open his eyes, to live today, to be stronger, to live in reality. But he would not listen. I was saddened, but accepted that some things could not be changed. And that has made me stronger today. Strong enough to climb this mountain and stare down this precipice.

As a teenager I had learned faith was as strong a weapon as one could wield. At first it was a double-bladed sword to me, and I was lacerated numerous times, but soon I harnessed it, and defended myself with it. It became my strength and everything I am. I began the habit of reading the Bible every day, fawning over such passages as Moses and the Burning Bush, Moses and the Ten Commandments, always Moses—my greatest inspiration. Of the many prophets of the world, he spoke, he saw, he never doubted God. Neither do I now. And that makes my resolution all the more inextricably correct.

My mind returned to the now, I glanced again at the horizon, stood up, and stared down. Black was the fall, shadowed by the trees on the horizon reaching like broken fingers for the light of the falling sun. That precipice would take all of my hopes and dreams, humble them in a single moment, and allow me to start over. A new beginning. A divinity I had never known, and was to wholly and uncompromisingly embrace.

And so I turned to the figure wriggling on the ground behind me, the boy aged not more than eight, bound and tightly gagged so that his choking noises sounded sweetly muffled. His eyes were wild with panic—I could not say I blamed him, Hell is a place often met by the indignant. My son stared at me as if he expected this to be a test, and I, his savior in this moment of fear and truth. Foolish as always, I thought. I left him alone for two minutes and in a single day he had burnt down my beautiful house. My wife never much cared for the child before she died, and neither did I. Innocence had no name in him. He was a painting of fallibility, of the humanity I was leaving behind. I lifted him, writhing maniacally, from the ground, held him safely in my arms, and carried him to the edge.

“Shh, precious, shh…” I whispered gently, so as to ease his fear. “You need not worry about repentance any longer. In your passing, I will become one with the Lord, divine in the sky above me, and that will make up for your muddled existence. Close your eyes my son. The precipice beckons.”

His last glance was one that remained with me a mere moment—a look of pure horror, the kind unattainable by an adult, betrayed by his one and only father. His thump was a pleasing sound to my ears, and as soon as I heard it, I sat Indian-style again on the edge, close my eyes, breathed deeply, and waited for the Lord to see my infinite innocence and snatch me from this decadent world to slip into the second existence, divinity, the final resting place for the righteous.

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~Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion~Tool
~Don't ever let life pass you by~Incubus