Creatures of Light and Darkness

If you ever loved anything in your life, try to remember it. If you ever betrayed anything, pretend for a moment that you have been forgiven. If you ever feared anything, pretend for an instant that those days are gone and will never return. Buy the lie and hold to it for as long as you can. Press your familiar, whatever its name, to your breast and stroke it till it purrs.

Between you and me, the words, like mortar, separating, holding together those pieces of the structure ourselves. To say them, to cast their shadows on the page, is the act of binding mutual passions, is cognizance, yourself/myself, of our sameness under skin; it rears possible cathedrals indicating infinity with steeply-high styli. For when tomorrow comes it is today, and if it is not the drop that is eternity glistening at the pen’s point, then the ink of our voices surrounds like an always night, and mortar marks the limit of our cells.

You are a deviant from the social norm!" "Is that an insult or a diagnosis?

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

Wheels turning, the motorcycle’s roar grows steady, which, too, is a form of silence.

Trouble can be purchased cheaply, though the refund may be more than you can bear.

It would be an act of wisdom to depart immediately… but wisdom is itself the product of knowledge; and knowledge, unfortunately, is generally the product of foolish doings. So, to add to my own knowledge and to enhance my wisdom I shall remain another day, to see what occurs.

What difference does it make whether you slay him or Horus slays him? He will be just as dead either way." Wakim pauses, apparently considering the matter, as if for the first time. "This thing is my mission, not his." he says at length. "He will be just as dead, either way," Vramin repeats. "But not by my hand." "True. But I fail to see the distinction." "So do I, for that matter. But it is I who have been charged with the task." "Perhaps Horus has also." "But not by my master." "Why should you have a master, Wakim? Why are you not your own man?" Wakim rubs his forehead. "I—do not—really know…. But I must do as I am told.