Teogonia (Chapter II)

II

You're not running a company, you don't know what it's like and you have no say in this... 

She decided to live this way. It was a conscious decision to live on a lower income...

...fifteen days later, out of the blue, without uttering a single word? Why am I supposed to help you?

...never once went to any of the gigs my band played in. And now you're demanding that I prove myself as a friend to you? ...you're not man enough to...

You're not that important in my life anymore. Is that all I am to you? I'm the one waking up at five in the morning to earn the money! He still behaves like men did in the 1950's...

I know you don't give a damn to what I have to say, but.... you don't shit where you eat!

...always telling me that I have to simplify my paintings, but have you seen any of his!?

...protect your fragile, cherished, Swarovsky-encrusted little ego... 

...can be a prissy little housewife because she married a jackass who will pay the bills...

You haven't even looked at me properly since the first semester and now you want my help?

...even if that bullshit treatment worked in the first place, you're taking it the wrong way! Read about it!

...thinking guns would have solved the security problem at the farm... 

I know I shouldn't talk about your weight, but you can't force me to like it either!

They'd have taken his guns and still robbed him!

 ...honey, you're barking up the wrong tree!

...as vapid as her "Sex and the City" style of feminism... 

The daughter of someone who ran away from fascist Italy voting for him!

...I could have easily hurt you too by saying something about your body as well... 

...six months until I got my shit together. You've been at it for what? Five years?

...probably because I was the only one to say "no" to her...

For all I know, she could be dead somewhere in Australia and I wouldn't know about it.

...honestly, how many times did you rehearse that little speech in front of the mirror?

...you're talking about his pot addiction when you can't go through the day without a pack of cigarettes! ...I told her that she did see it from my perspective, she just didn't care!

So you just cry and I'm supposed to forget everything?

...when you're not even paying me enough to...

...told me that I deserved someone better. Like who? Her? 

...the amount of fucks I give!

Overwhelmed. The Vampire curled up in a ball for what may have been days. It was cold and pitch black, and the sludge of the Modorra carried the Vampire like the strong current of a stormy sea. Sentences swarming up in such great numbers, that they had the strength to carry everything in their wake. So much rage, such rancor and vitriol! Their individual and overlapping logics left very little space for the Vampire's own trail of thought. After a while, all of the abuse seemed to fuse together into one great pervasive... din. Like a sort of dense and overpowering mental numbness. The Vampire felt powerless to even move, let alone wade out of it. It would have swallowed and trapped the Vampire there for all eternity, madness seeping in like digestive juices. 

This is what the Modorra did to all the creatures in its path. Rendering them insane, and then extracting from them their most virulent inner monologues to nurture itself with them. Only then would it strip apart the bodies for the substances it needed to write the sentences. After countless days within the Modorra, the Vampire could feel the brink of insanity creeping closer. Any moment now, the Vampire's mind would open up like a book and the Modorra would feast. Any moment now. 

Any moment now. 

The Vampire almost wished for it. The fabled "sweet release of death", dreadful as it was, would still be easier to bare than the slow crawl towards insanity. Forcing eyes to shut tighter and all the muscles to tense in that position, the Vampire silently begged for it. Resigned to the obvious fate. Just let it happen.

Any moment now. 

What little air the Vampire could breathe had the scent of iron and carbon. It flowed, or rather oozed slowly into the Vampire's lungs, barely able to account for the air needed to keep someone alive. Breathing had to happen slowly, painstakingly. The exhale brought the only source of warmth within the Modorra, since the abrasive caress of the sentences felt like very cool ink slithering across the Vampire's body. Days and days of such discomfort made it feel as if the Vampire's skin would rupture within the next heartbeat. The Vampire's very soul would shatter into obliteration. 

Do it, already! 

The Vampire was growing impatient. Seeking some sliver of mental comfort, the Vampire focused all the attention on the minutiae of that din. The way sound within it felt like a texture of almost instant and discordant notes that had no particular rhythm to follow, yet flowed very close to each other like a swarm. They muffled any sound from the outside, as if the Vampire was indeed within the belly of the Modorra. The din grew more and more dense over the course of the days. The Vampire thought of it as a failing sense of hearing, like the slow shutting down of all vital functions. And a mixed feeling of dread and relief washed over the Vampire, at the thought that this would be it. 

But death never came. 

Instead, as the Vampire's mind seemed to adjust to ignore the white noise of the din, another presence contrasted more and more clearly against the dense nothingness. The Vampire wasn't sure what it was, or if it could feel the Vampire as well, but knowing that it was there brought an unexpected sense of comfort. Should the Vampire attempt to reach out to it? Surely, trying to utter anything within the Modorra would be pointless. There was scarcely any air to fill in lungs in order to speak. Nonetheless, the words were there, as the only thing the Vampire could focus on now: "are you there?". Timidly, the Vampire tried stretching out an arm towards the void. If this presence could be reached, they might communicate somehow. Morse code, mimicking, even a longing tug in any direction would suffice. But the Vampire's arm only met more painfully cool ink and nothingness.

"Are you there? Please be there!"

And then there was an answer. Not a sound, it wasn't a voice. And thought the Vampire kept eyes tightly shut, it seemed like the answer was written in letters somewhere. Brightly lit letters, unlike the slick black fonts of the Modorra.

It simply stated: YES.

The Vampire couldn't tell whether it was plainly visible somewhere, or if it was a mental image inside the Vampire's flayed mind. But it was an answer nonetheless. Yes. There was something there. Something sentient. The next question was obvious.

"Who are you"

After a moment's pause, came another answer: I AM A DIRECTIVE. The letters seemed to shine brighter than the light of day, with searing intensity. Yet the Vampire could only feel the cool black ink. It made no sense. But perhaps sense had already been stripped by the Modorra... Growing progressively tired, the Vampire wondered: "Am I dead?"

NO.

YOU HAVE BEEN LIFTED INTO AVATAR STATUS. YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED A REPRIEVE FROM DEATH.

Being deemed an Avatar was a high blessing in the Inner World. There had been few denizens of the Inner World who had risen to Avatar status, and only for so long. The Butcher's Daughter had been one of them. It meant that whoever was the current Avatar had the fate of the Inner World revolving around them.

The Directive's statement would have been wonderful if the Vampire wasn't stuck within the Modorra. Desperation flared up in the Vampire at the thought that eternity would be spent like that. Expecting a death that would never come. And how could any of this matter to the fate of the Inner World? It all seemed pointless.

"Why?" the Vampire asked.

And the answer came in letters so bright, they seemed like the only light in an empty void that stretched on forever. So tall that the curled up figure of the Vampire was, by comparison, just a tiny spec in that nothingness. They were visible even through the Vampire's tightly-shut eyelids.

TO FERRY ANOTHER OUTSIDE.

The intensity of that last word overtook the darkness of the Modorra and a new void, one of pristine white light, took its place as the exhausted Vampire lost consciousness.