The universe knows someone is missing, and slowly it attempts to replace him.
- Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
They always said that the Great Fall would hurt.
Stories of others who had taken the plunge, combing their fingers through an infinity of stardust, cutting their elbows on the sides of Jupiter, having their mouths filled with never ending darkness, made their way into the grotto to scare the rest of us. Keep us from making mistakes that there was no coming back from because once you showed your back to the Eternals, that was it. You were forgotten. Betraying their love was to cut your own throat at their feet.
You would not be welcomed back into the wide arms of their zealous nature.
I've fallen because you cannot trust the same words that they spin for you. You'll lose all motivation to inspire, to shine brighter than your kin, unable to dream up the next wish that you wanted to grant. We'll hear the delicate murmurs from every corner of the blue planet when we run, naked across the eon stretch of nothing, consuming the delight in a child's eyes from this vast distance, but it's all for nothing when it lasts a single breath.
We've been spoon fed horrible, increasingly malevolent lies about a creature called Mankind. Had fingers wagged at us when we line up for preening that then touched our white cheeks and left diamond burns, like ivory scales of dragons, before they were plucked from us. Harvesting the brilliance of our design so that they could perform gaudy operas on the day the moon yawned wide and full.
Children of gods. Juveniles that spread as far and wide but never were we placed on the marble of Earth. They were too scared we would find out the legitimate reason of why they never wanted us to abandoned their pillars: They were as spurious as the bones they made for us.
I took the step, tore a chunk of the Night out as I tumbled down, screamed and laughed at the irony of a pain I brought on myself as I burned up so bright that a burst of sapphire and silver could be seen as dawn, and then walked -- walked as ridiculous as a fresh born fawn -- from one side of the world to another. I encountered the gospel of life, of real life, between the cracks of laughing drunks and the high pitched screaming of newborn babes, hateful monomaniacs with their hands itching to wage violence and slip thin nymphomaniacs that just wanted to sup their next meal from a moaning mouth.
This fall, my first fall, was when I realized that there was more to living than constantly being praised, being a watcher, or being named by Ptolemy as Lyra.
There was so much to touch, taste, feel, but it would be a crime that would scar me with the epithet of Vega, the Crooked Charlatan of Lyra.
All because of a misstep into a fall.
( *Written for the writing prompt in Odds n'Ends)
- Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
They always said that the Great Fall would hurt.
Stories of others who had taken the plunge, combing their fingers through an infinity of stardust, cutting their elbows on the sides of Jupiter, having their mouths filled with never ending darkness, made their way into the grotto to scare the rest of us. Keep us from making mistakes that there was no coming back from because once you showed your back to the Eternals, that was it. You were forgotten. Betraying their love was to cut your own throat at their feet.
You would not be welcomed back into the wide arms of their zealous nature.
I've fallen because you cannot trust the same words that they spin for you. You'll lose all motivation to inspire, to shine brighter than your kin, unable to dream up the next wish that you wanted to grant. We'll hear the delicate murmurs from every corner of the blue planet when we run, naked across the eon stretch of nothing, consuming the delight in a child's eyes from this vast distance, but it's all for nothing when it lasts a single breath.
We've been spoon fed horrible, increasingly malevolent lies about a creature called Mankind. Had fingers wagged at us when we line up for preening that then touched our white cheeks and left diamond burns, like ivory scales of dragons, before they were plucked from us. Harvesting the brilliance of our design so that they could perform gaudy operas on the day the moon yawned wide and full.
Children of gods. Juveniles that spread as far and wide but never were we placed on the marble of Earth. They were too scared we would find out the legitimate reason of why they never wanted us to abandoned their pillars: They were as spurious as the bones they made for us.
I took the step, tore a chunk of the Night out as I tumbled down, screamed and laughed at the irony of a pain I brought on myself as I burned up so bright that a burst of sapphire and silver could be seen as dawn, and then walked -- walked as ridiculous as a fresh born fawn -- from one side of the world to another. I encountered the gospel of life, of real life, between the cracks of laughing drunks and the high pitched screaming of newborn babes, hateful monomaniacs with their hands itching to wage violence and slip thin nymphomaniacs that just wanted to sup their next meal from a moaning mouth.
This fall, my first fall, was when I realized that there was more to living than constantly being praised, being a watcher, or being named by Ptolemy as Lyra.
There was so much to touch, taste, feel, but it would be a crime that would scar me with the epithet of Vega, the Crooked Charlatan of Lyra.
All because of a misstep into a fall.
( *Written for the writing prompt in Odds n'Ends)