A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.

John Lancaster Spalding

أَلَا إِنَّ لِلَّهِ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ قَدْ يَعْلَمُ مَا أَنتُمْ عَلَيْهِ وَيَوْمَ
يُرْجَعُونَ إِلَيْهِ فَيُنَبِّئُهُم بِمَا عَمِلُوا ۗ وَاللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ

Qu'ran: An-Noor 64

Wednesday; approaching noon

It is another drab day. I should probably visit with my wife; speaking to Gaueko reminded me that she may well be aware of her pregnancy by now. I find myself disinclined to speak to Wanda, however. She will be angry, which is hardly something I care about, but it will be an anger that expects to be soothed and coddled back into contentment, and I am in little mood to play the dutiful husband. I think of my conversation with Gaueko and how I promised him mischief. I will muse on that today, I think. My long game is beginning to show signs of fruition, but there is always time for bad behaviour.

This decision turns my thoughts to Tezcatlipoca, and I find myself slipping on the Brant body quite naturally as I think. It has been too long since we last met. He came to my wedding, but we have had little time alone, and I am a jealous lover. Nothing can bring me peace, but with Tez I find something that bears some resemblance to peace. A mere simulacrum, perhaps, but in this weary passing of day after day after day it is almost restful. It is strange; I find myself valuing this ... quietness more than I do the fierce stirring up of desire he brings me. And even in that desire there is a kind of peace - the obliteration of the other-than-now.

This troubles me. It stirs something in me almost like anxiety, a strange restless counterpoint to the quiet steadiness of despair, and I do not wish to think of it. But all the same I find myself dwelling on the night Tez brought the doctor to the tower, and then stayed behind with me, and I wept one salt tear. The memory makes this Brant body, this beautiful and weak body, tremble, and I have a sudden fierce wish that I could forget before I -

I feel something roil through me, a great rising wave like nothing I have felt in my very long life, and I know it, I know -

Yohualli Èecatl

---

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ الم

וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאוֹר, כִּי-טוֹב; וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים, בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ

Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις Θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία
Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις Θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία
Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις Θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία

You
You
You

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not
(Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις Θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία)

Darkness; a shallow darkness (not the nothing before everything not the Void)
(Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις Θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία)
and a fierce pounding
silence
and a feeling of stiffening, growing cold, and still the shallow dark -

It occurs to me that I have stopped my heart. (Why do I have a heart?) I think, and it starts back into life, and oh - pain, pain, pain, terrible and momentary. And if I have a heart, I have -

I open my eyes, and the darkness ends.

I can feel the blood pulsing through this body, feel the lungs fill with air, the hairs on the arms stand up in a cold breeze.

I am in the body of -

- the word comes to me -

Man.

I think I remember Man (dust and clay, and ever the flight from Eden, generation after generation, O fallen world). But I do not remember -

And there is such silence. Where is -

This body is shaking, and I throw wide my arms. I feel myself strain at the confines of this body, skin burning brilliant white, but I keep it on because there must be a reason for it. If I can remember. O. O. O.

I must trust without knowing, I must walk without knowing the way. Is this a test? I will pass it, I will have faith, I will -

O my Love, my Love, my Love.

[CLOSED]