The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Evil is not what we should fear. Creatures with power acting in their own interest: that is what should make us shudder.

All stories are recycled and all stories are unfair. Many get luck, and many get misery. Many are born to homes with books, many grow up in the swamps of war. In the end, all becomes dust. All stories conclude with a fade to black.

Because, on reflection, once you have seen your own face and recognized the color of your eyes, tasted the air and smelled the soil, drunk from the purest fountains and the dirtiest wells, that is the kindest thing you can say abut life. It's not nothing.

Mirrors lie as much as memories do.

We must all find pointless causes to live for, or why bother with breath?

Even on the sad days, when you have to process young children or those leaving lovers behind, you come to realise that every death is significant, even when every life appears not to be.

You know why the battle of good vs evil is so one-sided, Malin? Because evil is better organised, better equipped and better paid. It is not monsters or yakas or demons we should fear. Organised collectives of evil doers who think they are performing the work of the righteous. That is what should make us shudder.

You are not the you that you think you are. You are everything you have thought and done and been and seen.

In all this madness, there is only one beast whose existence you doubt. And you are not thinking of God, also known as Whoever. You are thinking of that most impossible of all mythical creatures: the Honest Politician.

The universe is all mathematics and probabilities.

How else to explain the world’s madness? If there’s a heavenly father, he must be like your father: absent, lazy and possibly evil. For atheists there are only moral choices. Accept that we are alone and strive to create heaven on earth. Or accept that no one’s watching and do whatever the hell you like. The latter is by far easier.

History is people with ships and weapons wiping out those who forgot to invent them. Every civilisation begins with a genocide. It is the rule of the universe. The immutable law of the jungle, even this one made of concrete. You can see it in the movement of the stars, and in the dance of every atom. The rich will enslave the penniless. The strong will crush the weak.

For atheists there are only moral choices.

Despair always begins as a snack that you nibble on when bored and then becomes a meal that you have thrice a day.

She ranted about how evil doesn't know it is evil, like the mad don't know they're insane. That America doesn't think it has invaded too many democracies and killed too many innocents. That we shouldn't let them slaughter like the worst tyrants and drop bombs on children. That there's nothing exceptional about a country built on genocide and the backs of slaves.

Father, forgive them, for I will never.

Magic isn’t evil or good. Or black or white. It is like the universe, like every missing God. Powerful and supremely indifferent.

Though, as every gambler knows, the biggest killer in this godless universe is the random roll of the dice. Plain stinking jungle variety bad luck. The thing that gets us all.

Do not be afraid of demons; it is the living we should fear. Human horrors trump anything that Hollywood or the afterlife can conjure. Always remember this when you encounter a wild animal or a stray spirit. They are not as dangerous as you.

Why should a Creator watch over you? Wasn't creating you enough?

Nothing is forgotten. We just don't remember where we put it.

I've watched your kind. Both as beast and as ghost. I can't understand why humans destroy when they can create. Such a waste.

Humans believe they make their own thoughts and possess their own will. This is yet another placebo that we swallow after birth. Thoughts are whispers that come from without as well as within. They can no more be controlled than the wind. Whispers will blow across your mind at all times and you will succumb to more of them than you think.

You think of dead lakes overflowing with corpses, of police stations where the rich lock up the poor, of palaces where those who follow orders torture those who refuse to. You think of distraught lovers, abandoned friends and absent parents. Of lapsed treaties and photographs that are seen and forgotten, regardless of the walls they hang on. How the world will go on without you and forget you were even here. You think of the mother, the old man and the dog, of the things you did, or failed to do, for the ones you loved. You think about evil causes and about worthy ones. That the chances of violence ending violence are one in nothing, one in nada, one in squat.

Do you know why deluded men crave virgins?’ You repeat one of DD’s stupid theories and rush to the punchline. ‘Because a virgin can’t know how bad in the bed you are.

There are good reasons humans can’t converse with animals, except after death. Because animals wouldn’t stop complaining. And that would make them harder to slaughter.

The moon is always up there, even when you can't see it. You think it stops circling the earth, just because your breath stops?

..' Do one thing and do it well,' said a man whose 'one thing' did not include being a father.

If suicide bombers knew they end up in the same waiting room with all their victims,’ says the ghoul in her slithery voice, ‘they may think twice.