Magical Index
"shards of glass are one thing - but a marble, there's something to feed your dragons on."
Wednesday
The Last Conversation About Myself
(A Prophecy)
Why should I always continue to do this? It accomplishes nothing.
I have thought long about it, thought endlessly and painfully about it, and this is what I am convinced will happen when I am called. This is why I must continue:
The room will be shattering with his brilliance. I will bow to him and he will say:
“Have you brought anything as a gift to me from the life I gave you?” like the indistinguishable creaking of the mountains.
“My life and my work has touched many people,” I will probably say. But it will be a formality – without conviction – because I know he will respond:
“No. I have touched them,” he will say “you have brought me something else.”
And of course he will be right. I will smile childishly and pull my hands out from behind my back. And then, as if I expected his mouth to gape for the first time in awe, I will exultantly hold up to him my creation – all the things I have fashioned out of my head, my life’s work. Spinning and leaping with music, rich and light and altogether full of color and sadness and depth. I will hold up for him the little cosmos of people and places and feelings and melodies and things that I have spent so many long hours – days, months – poring over and perfecting and loving. Things I clumsily molded in my imagination before I could speak and things my imagination can’t even fathom as I write these words.
Then I’ll say:
“Lord, I want to give you the things I have spent my whole life making,” and bow humbly.
I suspect, then, there’ll be silence as he takes it from me and sees it all completely and lucidly in less than a moment and still examines it carefully just to please me.
“It’s beautiful,” he’ll probably say, “but it isn’t perfect. I can’t accept something that isn’t perfect.” And he’ll hand it gently back to me.
I’ll look at it then, and I’ll see the precious pieces of my soul that I carefully, painfully breathed into that little incongruous cosmos. I’ll hear the echoes of joy and longing and tears that reverberate through its colorful halls and I will think, “how good it is,” or, “how I love it”. But I will know what I am expected to do.
I will kneel before him and hold it again above my head and say:
“I know that it is flawed, Lord. Redeem it for me and make it perfect so that I can give it to you – because, for you, all of it was made.”
“Ah,” he will say as he turns the raging storms of his eyes lovingly, knowingly, sadly toward me. “I can’t, son. Every creator must redeem his own creation.”
I’ll look up at him, then, in surprise. I’ll say:
“But, Lord, how can I? I’m already dead.”
“You don’t need to die for what you have made,” he’ll reply patiently. “The creator must partake in his creation – in every last bit of his creation.”
I’ll look at the vibrating, living thing in my hands and shake my head uncertainly. Look back to him. He’ll say:
“Eat your gift to me – that’s how you must redeem it.”
I am writing this prophecy now, I am writing what I think he will say; and what I’m writing will be there with me, squirming in my hands, along with all the rest. But still, I know those words will shake me. Their certain finality, their strangeness and truth. They will shake my whole being with despair. I’m sure I’ll look at him and crawl toward his feet and plead with him in my face. Perhaps with my voice. But I will know, the moment I see his eyes, that there is no other way.
Then, slowly and weakly – completely without heart – I’ll bite into my precious little worlds. Again and again. Chew each mouthful delicately and reluctantly. And swallow. Until there is nothing left in my hands – until my gift is gone. My life’s work decimated.
In my mouth I’m certain the things I make – that I have bent over like some crazed, obsessive Frankenstein – will taste sweet and rich and full in my mouth. I’ll delight in the flavors I have poured into them. The myriad feelings and styles and inspirations.
But in my throat it will turn to glass. Breaking and grinding and slicing my insides until I am bleeding unstoppably from my mouth, until I am gagging with the pain. Can barely cough with my choking.
And when it reaches my stomach it will become bitter. Wormwood. My insides will churn. “What has become of my good creation?” I’ll cry within myself. “The core of it is rotten, its whole exterior is just a brittle shell!”
I’ll wonder if everyone who has ever eaten from my hands hasn’t tasted what I am tasting.
Then I will feel the vacuum of its empty meaninglessness in the core of my body. My stomach and my lungs, and my bowels squeezed upon themselves unbearably – imploding gradually within me. The agony of what I had exhaled – broken off from myself – becoming one with me again.
I know I will scream out. Fall on my face. Squirm in my own bleeding. Become an animal in front of him. Filthying his radiating perfection. I know I will gargle agonized words:
“Lord,” I’ll choke, “I can’t”
And then he will stand from his seat and everything will shake – all the foundations of the universe – and he will fill it with unbearable light. With the voice of the seas – irresistible and trembling with his love – he’ll cry:
“Now I can redeem you.”
Then his scarred hands will reach for me and he will embrace my bleeding, shuddering form until I am swallowed in his arms and his breast. His body will be the unquenchable fire that burns away every impurity.
And the pain I have felt from the meal I will have eaten will be like a prick in the arm by comparison to the pain of his presence surrounding me.
We will cry out in agony together – creator and creation, creator and creation.
But slowly, the affliction in my body – all the absurdity I will have imbibed – will burn up until it is gone. No longer a thing of being.
And I think, then, I will feel – I will be – for the first time, whole. Blissfully incapable, for the rest of eternity, of breaking myself; of looking at myself and having to split my own spirit to do it. I will be able to look at him. He and I will finally be one again.
“Now,” he’ll say, “you are your gift to me.”
This is why I mustn’t stop.
(A Prophecy)
Why should I always continue to do this? It accomplishes nothing.
I have thought long about it, thought endlessly and painfully about it, and this is what I am convinced will happen when I am called. This is why I must continue:
The room will be shattering with his brilliance. I will bow to him and he will say:
“Have you brought anything as a gift to me from the life I gave you?” like the indistinguishable creaking of the mountains.
“My life and my work has touched many people,” I will probably say. But it will be a formality – without conviction – because I know he will respond:
“No. I have touched them,” he will say “you have brought me something else.”
And of course he will be right. I will smile childishly and pull my hands out from behind my back. And then, as if I expected his mouth to gape for the first time in awe, I will exultantly hold up to him my creation – all the things I have fashioned out of my head, my life’s work. Spinning and leaping with music, rich and light and altogether full of color and sadness and depth. I will hold up for him the little cosmos of people and places and feelings and melodies and things that I have spent so many long hours – days, months – poring over and perfecting and loving. Things I clumsily molded in my imagination before I could speak and things my imagination can’t even fathom as I write these words.
Then I’ll say:
“Lord, I want to give you the things I have spent my whole life making,” and bow humbly.
I suspect, then, there’ll be silence as he takes it from me and sees it all completely and lucidly in less than a moment and still examines it carefully just to please me.
“It’s beautiful,” he’ll probably say, “but it isn’t perfect. I can’t accept something that isn’t perfect.” And he’ll hand it gently back to me.
I’ll look at it then, and I’ll see the precious pieces of my soul that I carefully, painfully breathed into that little incongruous cosmos. I’ll hear the echoes of joy and longing and tears that reverberate through its colorful halls and I will think, “how good it is,” or, “how I love it”. But I will know what I am expected to do.
I will kneel before him and hold it again above my head and say:
“I know that it is flawed, Lord. Redeem it for me and make it perfect so that I can give it to you – because, for you, all of it was made.”
“Ah,” he will say as he turns the raging storms of his eyes lovingly, knowingly, sadly toward me. “I can’t, son. Every creator must redeem his own creation.”
I’ll look up at him, then, in surprise. I’ll say:
“But, Lord, how can I? I’m already dead.”
“You don’t need to die for what you have made,” he’ll reply patiently. “The creator must partake in his creation – in every last bit of his creation.”
I’ll look at the vibrating, living thing in my hands and shake my head uncertainly. Look back to him. He’ll say:
“Eat your gift to me – that’s how you must redeem it.”
I am writing this prophecy now, I am writing what I think he will say; and what I’m writing will be there with me, squirming in my hands, along with all the rest. But still, I know those words will shake me. Their certain finality, their strangeness and truth. They will shake my whole being with despair. I’m sure I’ll look at him and crawl toward his feet and plead with him in my face. Perhaps with my voice. But I will know, the moment I see his eyes, that there is no other way.
Then, slowly and weakly – completely without heart – I’ll bite into my precious little worlds. Again and again. Chew each mouthful delicately and reluctantly. And swallow. Until there is nothing left in my hands – until my gift is gone. My life’s work decimated.
In my mouth I’m certain the things I make – that I have bent over like some crazed, obsessive Frankenstein – will taste sweet and rich and full in my mouth. I’ll delight in the flavors I have poured into them. The myriad feelings and styles and inspirations.
But in my throat it will turn to glass. Breaking and grinding and slicing my insides until I am bleeding unstoppably from my mouth, until I am gagging with the pain. Can barely cough with my choking.
And when it reaches my stomach it will become bitter. Wormwood. My insides will churn. “What has become of my good creation?” I’ll cry within myself. “The core of it is rotten, its whole exterior is just a brittle shell!”
I’ll wonder if everyone who has ever eaten from my hands hasn’t tasted what I am tasting.
Then I will feel the vacuum of its empty meaninglessness in the core of my body. My stomach and my lungs, and my bowels squeezed upon themselves unbearably – imploding gradually within me. The agony of what I had exhaled – broken off from myself – becoming one with me again.
I know I will scream out. Fall on my face. Squirm in my own bleeding. Become an animal in front of him. Filthying his radiating perfection. I know I will gargle agonized words:
“Lord,” I’ll choke, “I can’t”
And then he will stand from his seat and everything will shake – all the foundations of the universe – and he will fill it with unbearable light. With the voice of the seas – irresistible and trembling with his love – he’ll cry:
“Now I can redeem you.”
Then his scarred hands will reach for me and he will embrace my bleeding, shuddering form until I am swallowed in his arms and his breast. His body will be the unquenchable fire that burns away every impurity.
And the pain I have felt from the meal I will have eaten will be like a prick in the arm by comparison to the pain of his presence surrounding me.
We will cry out in agony together – creator and creation, creator and creation.
But slowly, the affliction in my body – all the absurdity I will have imbibed – will burn up until it is gone. No longer a thing of being.
And I think, then, I will feel – I will be – for the first time, whole. Blissfully incapable, for the rest of eternity, of breaking myself; of looking at myself and having to split my own spirit to do it. I will be able to look at him. He and I will finally be one again.
“Now,” he’ll say, “you are your gift to me.”
This is why I mustn’t stop.
