And the Ocean Was Our Sky

For there are devils in the deep, but worst are the ones we make.

For who needs devils when you have men?

Will the world end in darkness because it is foretold? Or because there will be those who believe it so strongly they will make it so?

Maybe it takes a devil to fight a devil,” I said. “But at the end of that fight, Bathsheba,” he said, “don’t only devils remain?

The great trick of the devil is to make you want to see him. But it is only when you see him that you fear him. And by then, it is too late.

When you predict the future, when you do so strongly and you cling to it, how much of that future do you then cause to happen?

His last word had been my name. The last word he heard was me speaking his own. Did this mean anything? And if it only meant something for the two of us, did that reduce it?

You imagine the devil, you make the devil.

But I begin to wonder if doubt is better than the wrong knowledge.

Do all these things, but do not pretend there is a must. That is how evil is rationalized.

But that's the risk, isn't it? Being the best gives you nowhere to go but down. It also makes you a target, for if someone else wants to be the best, they have to beat you, don't they?

We must do this. It has been prophesied.' You relieve yourself of choice. Relieve yourself of consequences. Torture me, harm me, kill me. Do all these things, but do not pretend there is a must. That is how evil is rationalised.

For there are devils in the deep but worse are the ones we make.

If you fights the devil, you become him. "Maybe it takes a devil to fight a devil," I said "But at the end of that fight, Bathsheba," he said, "don't only devils remain?" And for a moment in the ocean, there was only blackness. We were alone. Even with ourselves And whatever devils lurked, unseen.

You have let your devil get away from you." He looked genuinely confused. "To what other purpose is a devil?

The devil always outnumbers his foes," he said. "Even if he is alone.

It is not my name, but the name I use for this story. A name, I hoped, that would be free of prophecy, free of the burden of a future placed upon it, free of any destiny that would tear it from my hands and destroy worlds. You think I overstate. You are wrong.

And everything I might have been, the different futures I might have taken, all my different lives and deaths that existed in their endless possibilities were extinguished in a single repetition of her three words. “You will hunt.” When you predict the future, when you do so strongly and you cling to it, how much of that future do you then cause to happen? And all that might have been was long, long gone.

If you hear what I say and still wish yourself there, wish yourself a hero, wish yourself a hunter, then either I have failed in my telling or you are a fool.

Being the best gives you nowhere to go but down. It also makes you a target, for if someone else wants to be the best, they have to beat you, don’t they?

And that would be the end. So many ends.

Let my name be the prophecy of how that story ends. Not in glory, but in death.

We fight so that we may stop being devils. ''But what if it's the fighting that makes us so?

If you fight the devil, you become him.'' ''Maybe it takes a devil to fight a devil.

Death is suddenly objectionable to you when the dead has a name you know?

Who knows what new devils we might create? And so now I tell you my story. Now is the time. For rumours swirl and oceans stir and in that maelstrom, I fear, devils will rise. Are rising. Have risen. The great trick of the devil is to make you want to see him. But it is only when you see him that you fear him. And by then, it is too late.

I watched him, warily. "You have let your devil get away from you." He looked genuinely confused. "To what other purpose is a devil?