Tiny hovels, hidden away in remote corners of faraway nations, often conceal the essence of an army of spirits, the strength of which, in more fortunate universes, may have steered the course of life towards a more meaningful end. Many a potential revolutionary died in obscurity, having drained their life-force battling the elements of nature, trying to coax a good yield out of the earth so their families could eat. The human mind does not allow for ambition before it is paid its due.
The particular spirit that inhabits this story was only slightly more fortunate, in that her life was not frittered away in the mere pursuit of fuel. Born not into abject poverty, her family was, nevertheless, far from affluent. Their lot was not to starve for food, but for experiences that were denied to those without cash to burn. And thus, her spirit stewed for two decades, assured of life, but denied living.
And her life would have continued these meandering, meaningless wanderings, eventually merging with the universe and dissolving into nothingness, had it not been for a chance encounter with another spirit that muddled the entire course that had been charted out for her, and left it in tatters. The assailing spirit belonged to her antithesis. It seemed to exist merely to accentuate its contrast to her in every way, calculable or incalculable.
She was light, he was the void. She was kindness, he was cynicism. She was temperance and moderation, he was excess and vulgarity. She was conscience, he was instinct. She was tradition, he was atavism.
She was civilisation, he was the wilderness.
Love, up to its old, mean-spirited tricks, wove her into his web, setting into motion the spiral that so many have been lost to. As the indecipherable chasm that was his being gaped open, her spirit flew headlong into it, determined to illumine it, and in doing so, become illumined herself (for light is often blind to itself).
She was a woman of defined goals and a disposition towards stagnation. She had learnt early what she desired, and stuck to those dreams for most of her life, perfectly content to let them remain dreams without aspiring to any action that would help realise them. She wanted the simple life: a warm hearth, general good cheer, marriage, kids, and all the frills that come with it. She was possessed of a not insignificant amount of latent talent, but its latency caused her no chagrin. She was content to be a homemaker and devote her life to mediocrity.
The Assailant changed all that, for he was a man of restlessness and action. His personality was akin to a river that did not acknowledge banks or dams, and overflowing its bounds with gay abandon, wreaked havoc wherever it went, leaving everything it touched a congealed, rotting mass.
The courtship was swift and fatal. His skill lay in eloquence, her ruling trait was empathy, and this deadly concoction sealed her fate. He weeded out and laid waste to every opinion, every aspiration, every harmless belief she held dear. All the inconsequential little nothings that piece together to form a whole soul were hunted down and destroyed with a ferocity that left her defenceless. A few whirlwind months into the relationship, she stood no longer on stable ground, but floundered in a current characterised by torment and tumult, dragging her down to the composed wrath of the deep sea.
Every flicker of humanity that unwittingly escaped her in her unguarded moments, whether it was a display of genuine sympathy to the downtrodden or a moment of private mourning for some public tragedy, was immediately extinguished by a flood of polemic. He had immense resources to draw upon, a library full of authors provided him with all the ammunition he needed, for artists are a bitter lot and contain within themselves a heavy tendency towards cynicism.
Her repartees were confined to ethereal nothings and prettily phrased wisps of smoke. Her flower petals wilted, toothless and impotent before his steel and fire. Her flickering candle could not melt his age-accumulated, hardened slabs of ice. The battleground was rigged heavily in his favour, and there was only one winner in this non-contest.
And thus it was that the Assailant drew her light so far into the nothingness that he concealed within, that her illumination, although inextinguishable as all light is, was lost to the world. It was dispersed and entangled and entrapped under loathsome blankets of vitriolic bile, an unending fount of which seemed to spring forth from him at every opportunity.
Her pure flow of simple thought and genuine emotion was befouled by cold, impersonal statistics and stolid facts derived from sources that viewed humanity not as a living, breathing and evolving entity, but as a rotting corpse fit only for a post mortem conducted to sate mild, whimsical curiosity. Her waters turned slowly putrid, frothing over, saturated as it was with his toxic refuse.
The Spirit, once pure and radiant, of fair and elegant countenance, now found in her reflection a bruised, battered and broken face. The eyes still bore the twinkle of innocence, for the damage was all external, but lost amidst the scabs and swellings surrounding it, that twinkle suffered the familiar fate of death in obscurity.
Long after the Spirit had become one with the Eternal, and left behind her fragmented husk, passersby would remark on its depravity and ponder the circumstances that allowed such filth to fester. And somewhere within that decomposing husk, Innocence would cry out, unheard, pleading its case to Nothingness.
The particular spirit that inhabits this story was only slightly more fortunate, in that her life was not frittered away in the mere pursuit of fuel. Born not into abject poverty, her family was, nevertheless, far from affluent. Their lot was not to starve for food, but for experiences that were denied to those without cash to burn. And thus, her spirit stewed for two decades, assured of life, but denied living.
And her life would have continued these meandering, meaningless wanderings, eventually merging with the universe and dissolving into nothingness, had it not been for a chance encounter with another spirit that muddled the entire course that had been charted out for her, and left it in tatters. The assailing spirit belonged to her antithesis. It seemed to exist merely to accentuate its contrast to her in every way, calculable or incalculable.
She was light, he was the void. She was kindness, he was cynicism. She was temperance and moderation, he was excess and vulgarity. She was conscience, he was instinct. She was tradition, he was atavism.
She was civilisation, he was the wilderness.
Love, up to its old, mean-spirited tricks, wove her into his web, setting into motion the spiral that so many have been lost to. As the indecipherable chasm that was his being gaped open, her spirit flew headlong into it, determined to illumine it, and in doing so, become illumined herself (for light is often blind to itself).
She was a woman of defined goals and a disposition towards stagnation. She had learnt early what she desired, and stuck to those dreams for most of her life, perfectly content to let them remain dreams without aspiring to any action that would help realise them. She wanted the simple life: a warm hearth, general good cheer, marriage, kids, and all the frills that come with it. She was possessed of a not insignificant amount of latent talent, but its latency caused her no chagrin. She was content to be a homemaker and devote her life to mediocrity.
The Assailant changed all that, for he was a man of restlessness and action. His personality was akin to a river that did not acknowledge banks or dams, and overflowing its bounds with gay abandon, wreaked havoc wherever it went, leaving everything it touched a congealed, rotting mass.
The courtship was swift and fatal. His skill lay in eloquence, her ruling trait was empathy, and this deadly concoction sealed her fate. He weeded out and laid waste to every opinion, every aspiration, every harmless belief she held dear. All the inconsequential little nothings that piece together to form a whole soul were hunted down and destroyed with a ferocity that left her defenceless. A few whirlwind months into the relationship, she stood no longer on stable ground, but floundered in a current characterised by torment and tumult, dragging her down to the composed wrath of the deep sea.
Every flicker of humanity that unwittingly escaped her in her unguarded moments, whether it was a display of genuine sympathy to the downtrodden or a moment of private mourning for some public tragedy, was immediately extinguished by a flood of polemic. He had immense resources to draw upon, a library full of authors provided him with all the ammunition he needed, for artists are a bitter lot and contain within themselves a heavy tendency towards cynicism.
Her repartees were confined to ethereal nothings and prettily phrased wisps of smoke. Her flower petals wilted, toothless and impotent before his steel and fire. Her flickering candle could not melt his age-accumulated, hardened slabs of ice. The battleground was rigged heavily in his favour, and there was only one winner in this non-contest.
And thus it was that the Assailant drew her light so far into the nothingness that he concealed within, that her illumination, although inextinguishable as all light is, was lost to the world. It was dispersed and entangled and entrapped under loathsome blankets of vitriolic bile, an unending fount of which seemed to spring forth from him at every opportunity.
Her pure flow of simple thought and genuine emotion was befouled by cold, impersonal statistics and stolid facts derived from sources that viewed humanity not as a living, breathing and evolving entity, but as a rotting corpse fit only for a post mortem conducted to sate mild, whimsical curiosity. Her waters turned slowly putrid, frothing over, saturated as it was with his toxic refuse.
The Spirit, once pure and radiant, of fair and elegant countenance, now found in her reflection a bruised, battered and broken face. The eyes still bore the twinkle of innocence, for the damage was all external, but lost amidst the scabs and swellings surrounding it, that twinkle suffered the familiar fate of death in obscurity.
Long after the Spirit had become one with the Eternal, and left behind her fragmented husk, passersby would remark on its depravity and ponder the circumstances that allowed such filth to fester. And somewhere within that decomposing husk, Innocence would cry out, unheard, pleading its case to Nothingness.
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