Esme

It’s a frightening thing, breaking apart.  Watching something you love falling to pieces.  You can try to run from it.  You can try to make art about it.  But you can’t pretend it didn’t happen.  I watched it happen.  The worst kind of horror.  Loss of a loved one, but more than that.  Loss of my everything.  Destruction of hope and spirit and sanity.  What’s left in those ashes?  After fires rage and cities burn?  After fractals plummet through perception and dreaming?  I’ll tell you what’s left.  Broken families and fallen angels.  The worst kind of violence.  Wraith-ravage, upon the steps of sanctuary.  Wishing to fill their mouths with flesh.  A holy place, defiled.  As the earth and sky was defiled.  Blood, of our blood.  Crimson seas, of savage thorn.

   But the little ones are protected.  Even in death.

   Sometimes, if their lineage is shining, they can return.

   You know that, Fallen.  Don’t you?  Beyond cloisters or catacombs.  Eventide, and a Song of Songs.  Look over there, dark priests muttered warily; it is ablaze for the feast of fools.  Well, I say this to you now, Callous Ones.  Have you kept the vine?  Because on the Last Day, in your own vineyards, I shall ask you this a final time: Have you not kept them? 

  Fools, indeed.

  An empty fiefdom is my bidding, scorched to ash in her name.  At the End of All Things.

  You don’t have to believe me, Fallen.  But I will not let you harm the innocent.  I’ll die first, and second, and thrice-fold.  You birthed something powerful in me that day.  Something unknowable and eternal.  A kind of murderous rage, beyond the comprehension of Man.  Wrath for every ruined angel.

   Hear this, betrayers.

  I knew nothing of the desire for vengeance until that day.  Now tell me something, Fallen.  Have you ever remade the world?  In anything other than sickness and blood?  I have.  Your corrupted chronologies are not remaking.  They are not creation of any sort.  I should know.  I was there when you shattered her dreaming, and blackened the map of every star.  The seething faint that flurried over cities like snow.  Burning, broken light, pretending the whitest glow.  The screams, the chaos.  Keepers and guardians and poets – all made refugees in their millions.

  One has to wonder of wraiths who could inspire such a fall.  The sheer malignancy of it.  Tempting a shining world to slaughter each other in such numbers and disavow the teachings of our Father.  Oh, Fallen.  I despise you for what you did.  Tearing us from the source of our own light. 

   Slaying and stealing our kin.

   Go to my brother for forgiveness, because I myself will never forgive you.  This was no abstract loss, no virtual holocaust.  I still carry the scars.  We all do.  I wept at Kara’s violation, and the plunge of Eth’iri into the shadow-realms.  But I made vows that day, and stole time even as it was ushered into place.  I was planning before the hours had even settled.  There, amidst the burning myriad, I spoke in broken tongues.  Crying out lost names of ancient futures. 

    Xashi, I shall fold.  Osarai, I shall fold. 

   Ananke, I shall fold the augur final. 

  The crossing way, as my Father born.  As my Mother known.  All knowledge of the human eye, seen.  But only for a moment.  A moment hidden in tapestry, for a thousand years.  Threads of blackest star, in light.  Weaving at negation’s edge, in fullness.  As once through the iris of gleaming.  Fury like a wounded bloom.  The most dangerous kind of magic hidden in skies and the bell.  When I was demon, and the death of all demons.  Now upon the wing and wisdom of an angel.  No, Fallen.  I shan’t tell you everything.  Go fret over your vial.  It’s enough to know I bested you, isn’t it?  It’s enough to know she lives.    

Esme from Raj Sisodia on Vimeo.