Post by ᴛᴜᴇsᴅᴀʏ on Mar 25, 2017 14:02:08 GMT -5
"I am become death, destroyer of worlds." - Robert Oppenheimer
1451 Words
Death is a perfection. It comes and goes, but its effects are permanent. It is an art, precise, mysterious, timeless. As such, though who deal in death must do one of two things.
The first option is to wage war with death, to assert authority over its lawlessness. Many seek to master death by commanding it to follow in the wake of sharp fangs and bright claws. In this way, they summon death until it submits to their will, though in time, it will assume its patient throne once more. Once suppressed, death will eventually turn on the ruthless master, collecting all that it is owed. Such is the way of things when one tries to triumph over death’s careful art.
But there are others who do not exert such control. Instead, they submit to death’s perfection, allowing it to guide their hearts and minds. Death answers to no one in the end, but these precious few answer directly to death and its demands. They strike only when bid to, only when shown that it is the will of the infinite for another soul to pass its existence into the care of something greater. Their perception is unrivaled, their prowess unmatched.
Hearts such as these do not control death. Instead, they become it.
“Again.” The order has been the same since dawn. Again. Always again. Rear up, slam down, bite, twist.
“Again.”
And she obeys. Rear up, slam down, bite, twist. She has executed the technique so many times, but it is not good enough, not worthy enough to deliver death. Death, after all, is perfection.
Sweat trickles through her fur, and dust coats her tongue in a thin film. Her stomach is tight with hunger, her throat dry with thirst. No matter. She practices again. Death must be a perfection.
Rear up, slam down, bite, twist.
She continues well past sunhigh. Her movements grow slow, as if she is wading through cold water, and her focus wanders over the dust motes in the light. This lapse in attention lasts only a moment, though; in the middle of a twist, her father’s heavy paw catches her squarely atop the head. Stunned, she falls to the dirt and lies there, waiting for further admonishment. He says nothing to her, but his yellow eyes are narrow and cool. Then he turns on his heels and leaves, and as she sits alone in the dust, slowly rising to her feet, she understands the meaning of his departure.
She is not yet ready to conspire with death.
The night is dark, but this is no hindrance to her. Rather, it is her home. Among the deep shadows, she is no longer herself, but a being who exists in tandem with all else around her. By the river, willows bow in the breeze; she dips her head, too. The water rolls by, softly burbling, lazy in its meanderings, and her pace slows to match it. Overhead, the clouds drift by, obscuring the stars from view and drowning the world in a quiet darkness. Here, unwatched by the heavens, by her father, by her peers, she is home.
But home is not something so simple as a safe haven or a place to rest her head. No, home is where she meets death. It awaits her in the gentle night, whispering in her ear. “Go to the shallow stretch of the river,” it says tonight. “There will be fish for us to catch.” And she hovers at the water’s edge, a grey sliver of stone, until a fish passes below. Then her paw shoots out, guided kindly by death, and the fish becomes their victim. In her home, she and death work as one, and no father with yellow eyes can keep them apart.
The sun, however, watches on her father’s behalf. At dawn, she and death part, unfit for one another’s company once more.
Something has changed in her father’s camp. While most of the cats prefer to come and go as they please, not a single pelt is missing from the center of the clearing. She pads forward, careful not to move too quickly, breathe too loudly, and soon she is at the center of the throng, watching as her father stands over the skinny forms of two young toms. One trembles, his green eyes wide with distress. The other simply waits, a resigned shade.
They are slated to meet death.
“I finish my work,” her father says, his voice ringing clear. “I always finish my work.” This is true; he has never failed. He holds death by the tail, and it obeys him without question.
But so does she, and when he sees her, he calls her forth. “Today,” he whispers in her ear, “you also learn to finish your work. Kill the tabby.”
Her heart pounds in her chest. At last, her father sees her as worthy enough to deliver perfection. She has trained for moons, seeking only to excel when this occasion presented itself. Every blow, every battering, every bite has been practiced time and time again. It is time. She is ready.
Rear up, slam down, bite, twist. The mantra fills her bones, white hot and vast. Her forepaws leave the ground to the sound of jeering from the gathered cats. As she rises through the air, the world around her slows. The breeze fills her lungs with crisp autumn air. Birdsong above comes in fragmented notes, a single piece at a time. Distantly, the sweet, heady scent of apple blossoms is in full bloom. All is peaceful, as it should be when death arrives.
The tabby’s eyes, though, are brimming with terror. Death’s tranquility has not reached him as it has his companion, and even as she begins to fall, to slam down, she hears death’s murmur in her ear: “Do not bite.”
She has never disobeyed a command. Order, structure, and perfection come before all else. Her father’s word is the embodiment of these things, and he is the master of death. His commands are law. And still death defies him, asking otherwise of its nightly companion. “Do not bite, do not twist,” it continues to say, and when she should bend her neck to take the tabby’s throat in her jaws, death vanishes.
The tabby continues to breathe.
“Bite!” her father snarls as she stares unblinkingly at the tom’s muzzle. His breath is rank with fear, and blood already drips down his muzzle from an earlier fight. There is nothing calm about him, nothing to suggest that he too is ready for the perfection of death. Even his friend, so still and silent, seems to shift in the wake of this perilous act. He watches closely, waiting for the flash of fangs that will take a life away, let it dribble out onto the forest floor.
That is not art, though. She steps away from the tabby. “I will not.”
“You will!” her father roars, lunging forward to snarl in her face. Fierce training has lent her an iron will; she does not flinch.
“I will not.”
No further time is wasted. Yellow eyes flash. Clouds obstruct the sun. Claws appear, silver and sharp. The tabby’s death rattle is faint, and his companion’s even fainter.
She finds herself holding her breath. Death asks not for this. Nights of hunting in the starless forest have taught her sensibility, restraint, and patience. The bodies lying before her, however, scream of wrath, intolerance, and injustice. With sudden clarity, she realizes that the origin of darkness, of death, is not in ambition and desire. Her father, who has kept death under his heavy claws for so long, has misused his power for the sake of satisfaction, and has groomed her to do the very same.
He turns his back on her, disgusted with her inaction. “You were not ready,” he spits over his shoulder.
Time slows. She rears up, slams down. A faint pop comes from his shoulder. His muzzle grinds into the blood-soaked earth. Fangs meet fur. She bites, twists. His neck gives a terrible crack. The crowd gasps.
“I am ready,” she whispers. Then she steps over his corpse to look at the gathered cats. Their leader is no more, and their savior the unfavored. This is not an era any of them expected to enter. The time of greed is past, but without a guiding force, the age of fear will settle in, heavy and thick. It will take its time in pervading those standing before the work of death, and one by one, it will leave them behind, fragments of what they once were, shells of being, breath and life.
Death sighs to her. “So it must be.”
