I'm a speck of dust in this sea of rust
Nothing to lust for there's no one to trust
---
The Ark of Salvation comes to a very sudden halt. The seas are so rough, so full of painful friction, as if there are worn-off tires below the wooden hull, sharply screeching against the dry asphalt of a lonely village's road.
Nothing to lust for there's no one to trust
---
The Ark of Salvation comes to a very sudden halt. The seas are so rough, so full of painful friction, as if there are worn-off tires below the wooden hull, sharply screeching against the dry asphalt of a lonely village's road.
I rise awake with a tingling sense of familiarity.
My deepest slumber, exploring the various ends of the dreamworld; the many stories of the many people of a deconstructed land. A country. A nation filled with lost hope and citizens who have no dreams. A divided region with a single, disappointed heart.
A foolish cloud looms over my happy vibes.
A dread of the unknown haunts my tormented soul. I would want to continue sleeping. Maybe the Ark would move once again. The moldy rope tying the Ark and the pier together will not last forever. This is a large dreamworld; spanning every corner of the seven seas; encompassing every beach of the seven places of worship; swallowing every word of the seven chapters.
If that's the case, why here?
This is the first chapter. Should I disembark, or should I rest?
I have decided. The first chapter will not be written on an old, boring, disheveled Ark.
Thus, let me tell you a story.
A dread of the unknown haunts my tormented soul. I would want to continue sleeping. Maybe the Ark would move once again. The moldy rope tying the Ark and the pier together will not last forever. This is a large dreamworld; spanning every corner of the seven seas; encompassing every beach of the seven places of worship; swallowing every word of the seven chapters.
If that's the case, why here?
This is the first chapter. Should I disembark, or should I rest?
I have decided. The first chapter will not be written on an old, boring, disheveled Ark.
Thus, let me tell you a story.
I step onto the old pier; as old as the seven histories of seven timelines. I observe the bleak, yet peaceful surroundings. Trees. Trees everywhere. Forests and some purple and pink flowers. More trees clothed with glimpses of the midday sun's holy rays. A garden. A familiar feeling. A nostalgia.
I have been given a warm welcome to the Pavilion of Identities.
Why did this Ark make its stop here? I have been to this place before. It was a bad time. Well, not to say it was bad bad, just normal bad. I am and have always been filled with bad times. Things I do not understand. Events I do not follow. People I do not befriend. Minds I do not comprehend. But I thought that time was over. I thought I have grown. I thought I have moved on from the innocence of childlike perception, and into the realms of adulthood deception.
Adulthood deception.
That is right. I have not moved on, for I never had any experience. I never needed to adapt. University life did not prepare me to adapt to challenges; it taught me to break through them with brute force and constant brainwashing. I believed I was the best, and therefore I was indeed the best. The proof of that was that I suffered more than the rest. That mindset worked in the view of a personal, self-assigned challenge of scoring beyond my expectations, and even that in itself was within my control. I set my goals and I set my target. I freely changed them as I saw fit, and of course I would overachieve.
Adulthood deception.
What is this adulthood deception?
I stroll along this neverending pier, stretching many times as far as the eye can see. I walk for days, weeks, months, years, and centuries, and I finally arrive at the shore. It baffles me that when I first arrived, I saw the most beautiful garden within a stone's throw away from where I was, and now I have traversed too many miles and walked too many steps and yet I am only at the Shore of Cracks.
The Shore of Cracks. The boundary between the overwhelming waters, and the beach full of bloody scars. Bleeding scars. Fresh lines of bright red have been drawn ever so simply onto the canvas of light gold, and too many Faces of Evil lurk around the red cracks. The eyeless, lipless masks float aimlessly, without direction, yet always facing forward, as if embracing the events of time with a spirit of emptiness. These dull-gray facial veils, as large as a human face yet smaller than my own, are known to be blind and thus can never love. Or is it that do not love and thus are blind?
This is a beach without trees, without boats (other than the Ark by the pier), without any form of natural or man-made structure, other than a greenish, yellowish tint emanating from far away. The Shore of Cracks reaches about seven miles deep, and infinite miles in width; yet my eye cannot be taken off the tint, for it is both natural and welcoming. Within the green and yellow filter, I spot some miniature silhouettes of large, blossoming trees.
They are inviting me in. I no longer regret leaving the Ark.
This is a beach without trees, without boats (other than the Ark by the pier), without any form of natural or man-made structure, other than a greenish, yellowish tint emanating from far away. The Shore of Cracks reaches about seven miles deep, and infinite miles in width; yet my eye cannot be taken off the tint, for it is both natural and welcoming. Within the green and yellow filter, I spot some miniature silhouettes of large, blossoming trees.
They are inviting me in. I no longer regret leaving the Ark.
The midday sun shies into a tragic sunset.
The Pavilion of Identities has never experienced night before, and yet with my seemingly blasphemous presence, even the all-kind sun feels the need to run away from my Face of Evil.
A sad, sad outlook at a miserable attempt at living a normal life. Blinded. Loveless. With no where to run.
My efforts wrinkled and shivered, as the skin tore and blood gushed, resulting in the sea of cracks hardening into the Shore of Cracks. A dizzying sight, yet the entrance to the Pavilion of Identities is grand and very, very friendly.
Welcome back to the old me.
I carry my Face of Evil and my cracked heart, as I leave the Shore of Cracks and find myself lovingly embraced by the Garden of True Selves. Finally, I am here! Short, round bushes and long, square bushes, both trimmed and untrimmed, occupy the grassy field of green and yellow. The trees poke the sky, enunciating an accent of guardianship and protection. Their multicolored leaves, shaped like feathers of a mother swan, swing like the pendulum of an aging clock as they fall and touch the ground, echoing a beautiful rhythm to the tune of nature's heartbeats. There are oak chairs and birch seesaws and walnut tables and acacia fences and so many wooden statues of a grandiose winged being with an exceedingly huge head and a single eye.
It is, and will forever be such a wonderful sight to be at peace with the perfect meditation place; a throne for the Lord of Relaxation. Yet, this place is now crowded with many Lords of Relaxation, all waving around their gray, scrawny torsos and famished, seven-foot legs and flailing around their fingerless, seven-foot arms and shaking their single-eyed head, as large as their naked, seven-foot torsos; as large as my own. They all seem to be sitting cross-legged on the green expanse, each facing one of the many wooden statues, which alone are taller than the heavens itself.
It is, and will forever be such a wonderful sight to be at peace with the perfect meditation place; a throne for the Lord of Relaxation. Yet, this place is now crowded with many Lords of Relaxation, all waving around their gray, scrawny torsos and famished, seven-foot legs and flailing around their fingerless, seven-foot arms and shaking their single-eyed head, as large as their naked, seven-foot torsos; as large as my own. They all seem to be sitting cross-legged on the green expanse, each facing one of the many wooden statues, which alone are taller than the heavens itself.
The single eye of the Lords of Relaxation are forever shut tight, as the Lords are in an eternal state of sleepless relaxation, in which they free themselves from all negative thoughts and purify the congested heart, yet they do not sleep and they do not dream, for the Garden of True Selves disallows fantasizing about a perfect, or imperfect, world. The Garden is reality itself, as it unleashes the truest desires of all Lords within it.
However, its true nature underlies its noble purpose. Within the most relaxed hearts, the lack of yearning for purpose and history will cause the most ordinary face to morph into a Face of Evil, which is a photorealistic embodiment of a human face, yet its eye is hollow and it is without lips. This is essential to maintain the most relatable version of what humans deem "evil", for evil only manifests in beings that are blind to the truths of the world, and evil only manifests in beings who have never experienced true love, and therefore, do not need to kiss.
Yet, the Face of Evil is plastered on everyone's faces; not just in the Garden of True Selves, not just in the Pavilion of Identities, but in the real world as well.
And the dim-gray eyelids of the single-eyed Lords of Relaxation divorce each other. A somber vacuum both occupies and vacates the eye socket.
Just like all our hearts.
But I have a quest to complete.
And I cannot leave the Pavilion of Identities without accomplishing this very daunting task.
I have to find The Walker.
The Walker is the ruler of this place. He is a very foreign being, for he is the very definition of unfamiliarity. Yet, he is well known throughout the seven places of worship, for he is the most apathetic, most enigmatic identity of The One.
The Walker is The One Who Chose The Presenters. At least, that's what I believe.
He was the tyrant that chose who I was and what I represented in every and all scenarios. For my thesis, I was a presenter who believed in his ideals and research about corneal hysteresis, who overworked and ignored the people around me just to obtain an above-average grade. For social situations, I was a presenter who tried his best to be outgoing and lively, yet secretly wishing for the stillness of silence and loneliness at every passing second.
The One Who Chose The Presenters controlled every aspect of my life. I fought well. It was a bloody war. I thought I have won. My last struggle against The One ended with me encased in the whitest snow of sorrow, fully trapped in the dankest cold. The One relented. The One has understood that he is not everything, not nothing, but something. He means something to the world, and the world means something to him.
He was the tyrant that chose who I was and what I represented in every and all scenarios. For my thesis, I was a presenter who believed in his ideals and research about corneal hysteresis, who overworked and ignored the people around me just to obtain an above-average grade. For social situations, I was a presenter who tried his best to be outgoing and lively, yet secretly wishing for the stillness of silence and loneliness at every passing second.
The One Who Chose The Presenters controlled every aspect of my life. I fought well. It was a bloody war. I thought I have won. My last struggle against The One ended with me encased in the whitest snow of sorrow, fully trapped in the dankest cold. The One relented. The One has understood that he is not everything, not nothing, but something. He means something to the world, and the world means something to him.
I have indeed won. But not completely. There is still something I do not understand.
If I have indeed understood everything there is to know about life, if I have indeed became the most resilient, most intelligent being, how is it that I am suffering now?
There is something missing. And I knew that. That was why I started this journey of revelations.
I need to revisit all these places of worship; all these places of truth and lies, and find the love that is hidden within.
But I will first need to search for The Walker, who walks merrily along The Walker's Boulevard- a hidden path wedged between the Aisle of Hatred and the Aisle of Love. He is eternally protected by the Light Curtain; a barrier representing the horizon overlapping the past, present, and future.
But when I left this place, the Aisle of Hatred was completely replaced with the Aisle of Love, no?
Somehow, remnants of the past remain in ways I have never thought of. For example, why is the Pool of Brainwash still filled to the brim? I thought it was drained, replaced with a pool that teaches one to adapt to circumstances, and not forcing one to "love" a particular situation or event? It is unbelievable, for I thought that I no longer need to brainwash myself anymore. I have fully accepted the idea of adaptability and flexibility rather than pummeling myself to accept an ideology, and most importantly, to survive.
There are too many changes to this place. But the Garden of True Selves is the same. Gorgeous. Heartwarming. Tranquil to the core. I can simply sit down and meditate, and my true self will embody itself. But what is the true self?
What is my true self?
I guess I will never find out, until I'm all old and wrinkly and on my deathbed. Then, maybe I will understand.
A being presents itself from a direction behind me. I do not see, but I feel. It is coming from the Shore of Cracks. I turn around. A Lord of Relaxation. Yet, he is not wearing a Face of Evil for he is not and never will be blind. Single-eyed; there is a black pupil and there is a white sclera and there is a network of thin red veins. Yet, he is still without lips, and thus without love. His lipless mouth sullenly rests below what used to be his nose, but is now a small oval hole, slightly longer vertically than horizontally. The darkly-white being sees me. He smiles so widely. So, so widely, as if both ends of the mouth is stretched to the points collinearly below his two tiny ears.
Standing quite still, he towers over me ever so slightly; it is the most bone-chilling sight, to the point where even the most loving of hearts can never morally accept the unwieldy sight of witnessing such a horrifying being. No. I would call the being an anomaly, for he is far too different from the norm. His single eye alone is the size of half my face. He stares down at me like I'm some lowly insect.
"Hello."
I do not reply. No, I cannot reply. His voice echoes throughout the entire Garden of True Selves, and suddenly seven Lords of Relaxation start scratching their Faces of Evil, violently painting their gray skin with artistic strokes of red and purple. These fluids flow downwards along their face, to their naked torsos, to their legs, to the earth. Yet, as if it is attracted by some kind of powerful magnet, the red and purple fluids on the ground all flow towards one direction- northeast, which will lead to the Pool of Brainwash.
"Do not be afraid, for I am a friend, and I will help you on your journey."
I do not trust him. But who else could I trust in this strange place? In light of this situation, I rather be killed by the being in front of me than the other Lords of Relaxation with Faces of Evil. I rather perish through deadly enlightenment caused by endless meditation in the Garden of True Selves, rather than drowning an unfulfilled death in the Pool of Brainwash, or having my Face of Evil torn away in the Shore of Cracks.
But the Garden of True Selves is no longer peaceful, for it contains such a horrendous being.
"Why do you seek The Walker, my friend?"
My body is tense. Yet, my lips speak for itself.
"The Walker will bring me on the right path to The One, for The Walker is The One Who Chose The Presenters. I will need to seek the seven identities in the seven places of worship, and they will bring me to The One. I need to meet The One. There is something I need to ask him."
"It must be a very important question. Please, do tell me what it is. I would love to hear you out."
I zip my mouth and lock it shut with seven padlocks. This is the most important question, and it cannot be unraveled until I have met The One.
Not even the seven identities of The One can know even a single word in this question.
"I see you choose to be silent. It is okay. Now, off we go, shall we?"
"To... where? The Walker's Boulevard?"
The being's smile vanishes.
"No. It is impossible. The Light Curtain barricades both ends of the Boulevard. You will need to first walk along the Aisle of Hatred and the Aisle of Love. You will need to walk back and forth each Aisle seven times, and repeat this seven times a day, seven days a week, seven weeks a year, and seven years a century. After seven centuries, The Light Curtain will be passable."
I look into his eye with a frown drawn onto my face.
"This, too, is impossible. This means that I will only be able to meet The Walker after seven centuries. I simply cannot afford to wait for such a long time. I need to meet him today."
"You are speaking impossible words, friend. You have taken centuries to cross the pier from the Ark of Salvation, and you would like to meet The Walker today? Your definition of today differs from the time you just disembarked from the Ark of Salvation."
Indeed, too much time has been wasted crossing the pier. But time is just a perception. Time is just a belief. In this place, the only belief is belief in The One.
In each of the seven places of worship, the beings pray to the respective identities of The One. In the Pavilion of Identities, The One Who Chose The Presenters had a revelation, and he walked the Aisle of Hatred and the newly-built Aisle of Love back and forth seven times, seven times a day, seven days a week, seven weeks a year, and seven years a century. This is despite each Aisle being seven thousand miles in length, and only seven feet in width. Even after seven centuries of walking, he has yet to fully understand the meaning of his existence. As the concept of Presenters has been eliminated since the previous revelation, he has since been known as The Walker.
"Now, friend, let us leave the Garden of True Selves, and head northeast, to the Pool of Brainwash. I know a magical method to pass the Light Curtain."
"And that involves brainwashing myself that I have understood the meaning of my existence?"
He smiles once again.
"Call me The Revenant. Now, off we go."
The Revenant... Someone who has returned from an extended absence... from where?
"La la la la la la la~"
I hesitate. Leaving the Garden of True Selves means leaving behind a life of peace and philosophy. I would be leaving behind the chance to know my true self.
Then again, true self cannot be sought by meditation alone. I need to do something. I need to do something different. Isn't that why I disembarked in the first place?
I follow the slow, limping footsteps of The Revenant. Every seventh step he takes, seven Lords of Relaxation scratch their Faces of Evil. Every seventh word he speaks, seven words of the softest whisper can be heard from the direction of the Shore of Cracks.
The seven words are, everything falls apart as we fall asleep.
Yet everything here seems so organized, as if lovingly built by the two hands of an omnipotent being. A being whose reign is superior. A being known to many as The Walker.
It shows that The Walker never sleeps.
"To the northwest, lies the Aisle of Hatred and the Aisle of Love, with The Walker's Boulevard in between. To the north, lies the Exhibition of Suffering, which is a relic from the previous revelation. You will see many Lords of Relaxation over there, pretending to feel excruciating pain while scratching their Faces of Evil. They compete on a daily basis, to see who 'donates' the most blood to the Pool of Brainwash."
"What does the winner get?"
"Nothing. The loser instead becomes a History Man."
"Huh?"
"Huh, indeed."
What is a History Man? In fact, what is everything in this place? Lords of Relaxation? Faces of Evil? What are all these beings? What do they mean?
"What do they mean, indeed."
We continue our journey northeast. After seven hundred steps and seven hundred minutes, The Revenant raises its fingerless right hand towards the direction ahead of us.
"There is the Pool of Brainwash. Now, bathe in its red and purple water. Be careful not to drown, friend, or you too, will become a History Man."
What is a History Man?
I walk towards the Pool. The blurry reflection of a red and purple-tinged sunset glows through the tranquil surface of the uninhabited water. The particular shade of red uncannily reminds me of the color of my very own blood. Or maybe I'm just overthinking. But it is beautiful. The pool is beautiful. Everything here just exudes the purest sense of beauty and love and realism. I see two Lords of Relaxation seven-hundred feet in front of me, dipping their toeless feet into the farthest and deepest end of the pool. From where I am standing, these Lords look like tiny gray roaches, with their single-eyed Faces of Evil barely visible. They just look so sinless, so happy, so... tragic.
They got their names due to their previous unfulfilled lives. Every day passed by without anything happening in their short lives, as they lived the most relaxed, most eventless lives, repeating their daily routine without so much of a sweat dripping down their foreheads, or a salty tear staining their naked bodies. Soon, their lives lost all color and all meaning, as even in death, they were so relaxed, so stoic, and so... unromantic.
"The One hated them. The One hated the Lords of Relaxation so much that he swallowed all of their one eyes and thus cursed them with the Face of Evil. What soon followed was that these blind Lords were all thrown into the Pool of Brainwash and left alone for seven days and seven nights, until seven of them drowned and became History Men. These History Men were assigned to tend to the Garden of True Selves, trimming the leaves and watering the flowers, to ensure constant reassurance to The One that his true self was that he was perfect and above all mankind. And his past of relaxation and living an unfulfilled life? Those were history."
I ask The Revenant a rather simple question.
"Aren't you a Lord of Relaxation yourself? What makes you so special? Why are you able to see when all the others are blind?"
The Revenant replies with a rather simple answer.
"I am able to see, because you are able to see me."
Indeed. I no longer have the interest to ask.
I immerse my fully-clothed body into the Pool. My white overcoat and white dress pants remain uncolored and pure. I do not feel any wetness, nor do I feel any dryness. I feel whole. I feel complete.
"Hey, Revenant, if the History Men tended to the Garden of True Selves, why did I only witness Lords of Relaxation sitting by the statues? Where were the History Men?"
And The Revenant appears to the right of me. He stands chest-deep in this pool, resting his elbows on the poolside. He looks so... peaceful. It is hard to believe that a tall being with a single eye, overstretched lips, gray skin, and without clothes could give out such a warm feeling. But it is the truth.
"My Angel, why are you suffering?"
I sigh. Not because he called me by my name, which is both a blessing and a curse. I sigh because I don't know the answer to both my question and his question.
"In this pool, you can brainwash yourself to be anything you want in this world. If you want to be a successful employee, you shall be one. If you want to be a successful student, you shall be one. If you want to change the world, you shall change the world."
I look at his large single eye. It blinks twice in rapid succession, as if not knowing the reason for my silence.
"Or you can just brainwash yourself that what you are now is your true self, and not a fake identity carefully handcrafted by your cracked, sore hands."
The two Lords of Relaxation on the far end of the pool are gone.
"They have drowned. They have became History Men. All we can do right now is pray. They lived and died without leaving even a footprint in this world. No one knew of their existence. And they did not care. In essence, they lived a very free life, but they shall not be remembered."
"Hey, Revenant, what does a History Man look like?"
He points at the sky. I realize something. It is actually nighttime. When did the sun fully set? When I was staring at the missing Lords? When I asked him what does a History Man look like? I don't know. Time just... happens.
Time just... moves on its own, without pause, without patience.
And they say we should all be patient for all the good things in life.
"A History Man looks like a Lord of Relaxation, with their boring gray torsos, their skinny legs, fingerless hands, and their big single-eyed heads. There seems to be no difference."
I am dumbfounded.
"Then how do one differentiate between them?"
"Their bright eye, their red lips, and their mannerisms. Once drowned or forced to transform, these newborn History Men will naturally and instinctively walk towards the Shore of Cracks after passing through the Garden of True Selves. At the Shore of Cracks, their Faces of Evil will gain sentience, and float away from their heads. And the Face of Evil is essentially a human face without eyes and lips; without sight and love. So these History Men will eventually see, and will eventually love. Once that happens, they will become history."
"Then... what are you?"
I sternly gaze into his pupils. He smirks with his lipless mouth. Or not. I don't know. I cannot perceive his facial expressions in the lightless beauty of the midnight moonlight.
"I may be a Lord of Relaxation who can see, or I may be a History Man who cannot love. I can see but cannot love. Or is it that I can love but cannot see? How can we ever know?"
"You can see but you cannot love, for you have an eye but no lips."
"How can you assume one can't ever love if they don't have lips? Similarly, how can you assume one can't ever see if they don't have eyes?"
I ponder. I slowly digest that sentence. I repeat it over and over in my mind.
How can we assume one who has never loved do not have the ability to love? Similarly, how can we assume one who has never seen do not have the ability to see?
"Now, Angel, I want you to brainwash yourself that you are your true self. Go on."
"I cannot and I will not. I am here to speak to The Walker. I am here to meet The One. I am here to save him. I will not subject myself to the same torture that The One inflicted onto himself."
"If that's the case, then you can never pass the Light Curtain without walking through the Aisles seven times a day, seven days a week... ah, fill up the rest by yourself."
I hesitate. For one second.
"Then I will walk. Why should I change myself just because you asked me to? Why take the shortcut in life when it makes me less me, and more you? I am me, and you cannot change me."
The Revenant climbs out of the pool. He stands at the poolside, towering over me. He looks down at my resolute eye.
"You will regret this, Angel, for you will have wasted so much time."
"Better live the life as a Lord of Relaxation, who can't see and can't love yet is uniquely themselves, rather than drowning and becoming a History Man who brainwashes themselves that they are unique, and thus, never leaves a mark of identity in this world."
"You do you."
I climb out of the pool. My body has never been wet. I feel refreshed. I feel reborn.
"It is both happy and sad that you cannot and refuse to brainwash yourself. But you are The Angel, so you live by your rules... I guess. But be careful, for in this world, The One is omnipotent and ubiquitous. You may be powerful, you may be experienced in overcoming challenges, but The One is at a whole new level. Do not underestimate him."
That's why I'm here. The One cannot have absolute authority. The One cannot be the deity that everyone in this world prays to. He preaches his policies and ideologies, and every being in this world blindly follows his every word.
I am The Angel. I am the antithesis of The One.
So does that make The Revenant the midpoint between the spectrum of The Angel and The One?
Or is The Revenant biased to either side?
Where does The Walker stand in this war of identities?
I need to find out.
We walk westwards, towards the Exhibition of Suffering. I can expect to see many Lords of Relaxation battling out to be crowned the champion of suffering, and many losers who are running away to fulfill their purpose as History Men.
"La la la la la la la~"
"Hey, Revenant, are the History Men happy or sad?"
"Are they happy or sad, indeed. What do you think?"
I think for a bit. Is a life of repetition a meaningful life? Is a meaningful life a happy life? What defines happiness? What defines a meaningful life?
What about money? Money comes from hard work. But also luck. Maybe a lot of luck. One could be born rich but depressed. One could have the worst financial luck in the world; they could be in utter poverty, but have a great family with loving children and a caring spouse. One could live a very dynamic life, full of fun parties, amazing events, lots of alcohol and sex and drugs, but deep down they are so, so alone. One could also live a relaxed life without motion, without turbulence, and die in peace, and die happy.
What defines a meaningful life?
What do we choose to be in life?
I become so deep in thought that I walk into The Revenant, who has stopped in his tracks. Yet, I do not feel any collision, or any... thing. The Revenant stands idly behind me. I am overwhelmed with unease, or is it peace?
I see two Lords of Relaxation staring at each other; their empty eye sockets seemingly blazing with the intensity of an invisible, yet wholly violent flame. Thirty or so Lords surround them, cheering them on with high-pitched shrieks and deep-seated growls and some whispers about "love is what makes us human". Are these Lords even human in the first place?
The Exhibition of Suffering. A canopy made of bundles of whitish-yellow straws umbrellas the big, featherweight heads of the Lords. It stretches about half an acre in width and length, and is supported to the reddish, purplish ground by four long wooden poles on each corner. The straw bundles are attached to the poles so tautly, as if fearing being blown away by the wild gust of disgust.
I observe the competition through a foot-wide narrow gap between two very colorless, yet very noisy Lords.
"I suffer from glaucoma! My corneal hysteresis reading is extremely low! It is abysmal! I am going blind right now, and I am suffering very badly! I cannot see anymore, and I am going to die! All of you must recognize that I am full of pain and hardship!"
There are some audible gasps. Not many, though.
By the way, aren't the Lords already blind, as they are without eyeballs? How can an empty eye socket suffer from glaucoma? Clearly that Lord is a liar. A really, really shitty liar.
"Your suffering is false, for the idea that a low corneal hysteresis corresponds to an increased chance for glaucoma is a lie! I wrote that research paper, and I am a liar! Now, everyone hates me! Everyone wishes I am hit by a train right now, for I have lied in my research, and therefore, I have lied to everyone! I only wanted to get my PhD, so I lied my way through. I am the true sufferer! I am in so much agony right now that I want to kill myself!"
More audible gasps. Yet, that Lord is too, a liar. I was the one who wrote that paper, and I am pretty damn sure I did my research well. It was a great study supported by concrete evidences.
But that was way back. Two years ago, to be precise. Damn, has it seriously been two years since then?
Time has been meaningless and emotionless ever since I spent days, weeks, months, years, and centuries walking on the pier to reach the Shore of Cracks.
Or has time been meaningless even before then?
I see the first Lord (the one with glaucoma) running towards me. I quickly step to the side. The Lord continues running. Running to the Garden of True Selves. Reaching the Shore of Cracks. Removing their Face of Evil and becoming a History Man.
"Isn't it interesting, Angel? That a suffering can be utterly fake and clearly very contrived, yet others seem to easily buy into it? There is no proof of either claim. But of course, the glaucoma claim is definitely the poorer attempt at suffering."
I look at The Revenant with inquiries screaming from my eye.
"I understand, Angel. Why oh why did this handsome Lord bring you all the way to this place of pain?"
We stare at one another. Time does not pass for seven whole seconds.
"La la la la la la la~"
"Um, hello?"
"Hello, my friend. Ah, you asked a question."
I cross my arms.
"You have to win in this competition. You have to prove to all that your suffering is absolute. When you have done so, you are ready to pass The Light Curtain to meet The Walker."
This sounds extremely uninteresting and insulting. I have gotten over my phase of comparing my suffering with others. There is no meaning to that.
As if having the ability to read my thoughts, the fat-eyed weirdo points at another Lord walking to the centre of the crowd.
"Look at that Lord. Look carefully at their short neck."
It glows. The stubby neck glows. A very faint white light, but glowing nevertheless. It reminds me of the midday sun.
Oh, it is midday now.
"I have devoured a light machine. I am choking to death on the fullness of pure white light. I am suffocating in love. I cannot breathe human air. Help. I will regurgitate a light machine right now, to prove to you my suffering."
The Lord actually vomits out a light machine. A small white orb the size of my clenched fist. It looks slightly oval in shape. Actually, it looks like an eyeball, with its grayish iris and its solid yellow pupil.
"Ah, Angel, that is a light machine. What does it do, I wonder. I heard from some Lords that it serves to spread love to anyone within a one-hundred and eighty-nine millimeter radius around it. Yet, the very action of leaving that radius will revert the person back into a being of hatred."
It certainly seems useful. There is no harm from having more love in this world. I heard the Aisle of Love is littered with light machines. How can a machine make one love? Is love a machine? Is love machined?
Is love just a fake attempt at justifying happiness?
Do I love light machines? Of course, because I invented them.
Yet, no one appreciates me for bringing more love to this world. No one cares about The Angel. They only care about being slaves of The One.
"You know, Revenant, I secretly wish I did not invent light machines. It is the most useless machine; only capable of asserting my belief that the world is full of unappreciative, judgmental bastards."
The Revenant nods his head, in apparent agreement. Yet, there is something insincere about his nod. It is like he disagrees about something, but is hesitating to speak out.
"What is it? You don't seem like you fully agree."
"No, no, Angel, my friend, it is not that I do not agree; in fact, I fully agree and understand where you come from. It's just... you know... without inventing the light machine, you would be a different person than you are right now."
"No, I would not. I would be the same. In fact, I would be very much happier without having invented this shit. This dumb machine exposed all my weaknesses, all my insecurities, all the deepest and darkest parts of me to the world! It made me realize that I am weak; that I cannot move forward against the painful current pushing against me; pressing against all the muscles and bones in my body; destroying the integrity of my formerly straight spine; ruining the purity of my beautiful heart; and most importantly, it made me endure a form of torture so severe that I hated my very existence!"
Both the Lord who swallowed a light machine and the Lord who claimed that he wrote a fake research paper starts sprinting away from the crowd.
"And you know what? Fuck light machines! I was forced to invent a product I did not, and still do not believe in. You know what? Fine. At least I would get recognition for my effort. But no. No one respects the man behind the light machine; they only care about using the light machines to IV-drip themselves with artificial love and false hope! In my effort to make this world a better place, I have made this world hate each other even more! Now I finally understand why the Aisle of Hatred still remains, even though the Aisle of Love was constructed. It was because of my machine! A love filled with hatred. A hatred filled with love!"
Something collides into me. My buttocks hit the grass. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I am not being trampled over by sixty or so toeless footsteps, now history.
"Congratulations, Angel, you have won. Now, my friend, you can finally meet The Walker. Do you feel proud of yourself?"
Using my hands, I push myself up.
What is the point of winning this? There is no meaning to exhibit our sufferings for pity. Pity and kind words do not heal our wounds. Only we can heal our own scars. We are the only beings that can patch up our own cracks.
There is no need to garner attention to our sufferings, to justify our sufferings. Whether we suffered as much as losing a loved one, or suffered as less as slightly bruising a knee, all sufferings are sufferings regardless, and there is no need to compare.
All sufferings are justified in itself, by itself. We do not need to justify the sufferings of others.
For we are in charge of our own happiness.
Perhaps my feelings of dissatisfaction has been exhibited too conspicuously, but The Revenant seems to have stopped waiting for an answer to his unneeded question.
I guess... my extravagant exhibition of suffering was unneeded as well.
"You know, if you are that angry at yourself, we can just forfeit this victory. It's fine. All you need to do is just walk for seven centuries. No biggie, my friend."
I let out a slight nod. Was that even considered a proper nod? My eyesight is fixated at a point just slightly to the right of the big eye of the big-head being. Not that there's anything there. I'm just, thinking.
Am I really regretful for inventing the light machines?
Again, time stops for seven seconds.
"You are deep in thought. I like that, my friend. I like that you actually think about things. Sometimes, we are so busy in our daily lives that we forget to just sit down and think. Have you ever heard about the parable about the Remnants of Something?"
"The... what?"
"The Remnants of Something. Many, many centuries ago, there was a being here called the identity of something. They were the amalgamation of the identity of everything, and the identity of nothing. It was thought that being 'something' is the perfect way to live life. It is the perfect way to live in a world that constantly demands 'everything' from 'nothing'.
To give an example, you took up a job in sales, right?"
I do not respond.
"You were a first-class in engineering. Your whole thesis was about corneal hysteresis. You were everything back then. And yet, why did you end up choosing a career where you were nothing? You had no previous sales experience, no business skills, and you actually hated proactive socializing. You were the last person in the world that should be selected for the job, yet you persisted in your great quest to become nothing, all because of what? Money? The salary was indeed high. It won't make you a millionaire, but at least you were comfortable.
Then, why are you sad?"
Again, I do not respond. My mind is clouded with thoughts, in the forms of answerless questions.
"They expected everything from nothing, and that is the norm of the world.
You are expected, even forced to be everything you are not, and nothing that you are.
And you are overwhelmed. Overwhelmed from being everything. Overwhelmed from doing everything.
Yet, we should never strive to be everything, for that will introduce a very toxic state of mind. To be everything is to be God; to be everything is never having to learn ever again; to be everything is to lose the little ounce of humanity left in our corrupted hearts. Yet, that is what the world demands.
How can we be everything, if the very concept of being everything strips us of what makes us human?
Being everything... it deprives us of what makes us human... it deprives us of love."
I do not respond; this time more out of confusion. This everything-nothing-something philosophy has always baffled me. The Pavilion of Identities was indeed built upon the basis of this philosophy, but what does it actually mean? For the entirety of The Revenant's three-minute speech, as much as he was so enthusiastic in his words, they escaped my left ear as easily as they invaded my right.
How can we be everything, and not be everything?
"It is indeed confusing. It does seem impossible to understand. But I will enlighten you on this. We do not need to be everything, in everything. That is, we do not need to actually be the best in all talents, all skills, all jobs and all hobbies in the world. We only need to be the best in something. To be the everything, in something.
We simply do not have enough time in the world to satisfy everyone, to love everyone, and to do everything in the world right. Ever heard of the saying, you need ten-thousand hours of hard labor and constant practice to be considered skilled in an art?
Let's just take a very rough estimation. Say up until now, you have worked eight hours a day, twenty days a month, for eighteen months. That will give you two-thousand eight-hundred and eighty hours of experience in this job. Spend another, say, forty-five more months and you'll be skilled.
But, that is only if you put your heart into those hours.
Otherwise, you'll never be good at it, even after a hundred-thousand hours; even after a million."
I listen fervently.
"Now, this is where you should sit down and think. Who is it that you want to be? Why do you want to be who you want to be? Will being what you want to be make you happy? Say, you have a job in sales. Why do you want to be in sales?"
"I guess I just saw a very attractive salary."
"Why do you seek so much money?"
"To make myself happy."
"Wrong. Think again."
Yes. I know it is wrong. I know damn well that it is wrong. I am a person who never really appreciated the value of money, for I have always lived a relatively comfortable life. As a single child in a loving family, I would have been able to obtain whatever I want.
We walk westwards. Towards the Aisles. Towards the Walker's Boulevard. Towards the Light Curtain. We walk at a very comfortable pace; about two steps every three seconds. Indeed, I have chosen this job due to money. I thought it would make me happy. I thought I could just buy whatever happiness I need. I thought, well, I've survived university and a shitty past relationship, I can be good at everything.
Sadly, it's either me, the company, or the job, but I've lost the motivation to put my heart into it.
And now, I'm only waiting for time to idly flow by, like a river without direction, stagnantly hibernating in a pond surrounded by the most humid air in the most isolated, most enclosed part of space.
The cycle repeats. The clock of life is ticking. We inch closer to our eventual demise day by day.
All for the sake of money. Without the heart to be something, we are nothing.
"When you leave this world, my friend, do not be the ashes of everything or the corpse of nothing, for the former implied you live a life without love, and the latter indicated you live a life without meaning.
While you are still in this world, my friend, do something with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul. Something that defines you. Something that you love. Do it and do it well. Be the everything in that something.
And when you leave this world, my friend, you will leave behind the Remnants of Something."
I am so lost in thought that I am at least twenty steps behind The Revenant. I stop and witness. A sight too beautiful to behold. A slightly wavy line of stepping stones, seven feet long in diameter, is written onto a sea of the greenest, most youthful grass, generously sprinkled with red, yellow, purple flowers. This stone path extends much, much farther than my 20/20 vision could ever dream of reaching. To the left and right of me are trees in the shape of man, with leaves trimmed into a very rough circular form, branches that extends out from the man-sized trunk, and roots that creep along the swamp of pollen; anchoring tightly to the ground, as if afraid of being pulled from above, sucked into the endless depths of the dusky sky and being erased from history.
I guess even trees can become History Men.
I take a closer look. I thought the Aisle of Love is crowded with light machines; those glowing eyeballs with yellow pupils which spreads love throughout the nation? Where are they?
"Welcome to the Aisle of Love, my friend; my Angel."
Seven thousand miles. Seven times a day. Seven days a week. Seven weeks a year. Seven years a century. After seven centuries...
I simply do not have such time.
"There must be a shorter way, Revenant."
"I have previously recommended you two shorter ways. All I asked was for you to either brainwash yourself that you are your true self, or acknowledge that you have won the competition of suffering. They were such simple tasks. Yet you found them too difficult."
"I do not find them difficult at all. I simply find them against my principles to do so."
"Principles. How sweet. How tragic, my friend. You are truly an Angel in mayhem."
I look around. There are no Lords of Relaxation here, nor are there History Men. There is nothing with the Face of Evil here. There is also nothing without the Face of Evil.
It's like everything is so pale. So neutral. So... static.
I walk. The Revenant chases after my tail.
I walk. The sky is dark with sorrow.
I walk. The leaves of the trees have lost their green.
I walk. The grass on the ground has lost its green.
I walk. The sun wakes up from its shitty slumber.
I walk. The dawn sky opened its mouth and tells me that I am an asshole.
I walk. The lunchtime sun laughs at my misery.
I walk. The formerly beautiful scenery is now ugly and boring and stupid and repetitive.
I walk. I am cheering myself up. Hey. At least after all this, I will be everything in walking.
I walk. What is the point in being good at walking?
I walk. I hate my life.
"Are you okay, my friend? You seem to be in very great despair."
"You know, if I were to go to the Exhibition of Suffering right now, I will have instigated a tearful exodus of Lords."
"One, you already instigated a tearful exodus of Lords. And two, no, you would not. You are not suffering."
I am not suffering?
How am I not suffering right now?
"You are relishing this, my friend. You enjoy this emotional state."
"Shut the fuck up."
I have never once hated The Revenant. He is definitely unorthodox, perhaps a little too cryptic for my liking, but I never actually disliked him, much less hate him.
Yet, my last sentence was so full of hatred.
The Revenant simply smiles. A grin far too wide to be genuine. Yet, his words always exude a very down-to-earth, relaxed feeling.
Yet, I do not perceive happiness. Only anger. In his eyes. In my heart. In all that is right and wrong in this world.
I blink.
There is no longer any stone pathway, or trees, or flowers, or green. A tedious gray backdrop; concrete and cracked in places. A dim alleyway; more lightless than a moonless night. The road below my feet oozes the putrid stench of stagnant water. The air is moist and heavy, as if my entire body is enveloped with a slippery, soaked blanket.
After countless clocks have died from aging, my eyes have adapted to the minimal light, as if my eyes emit light on its own. I perceive things. In front of me is a wall. A brick wall; the red vanishing into the palest shade of gloomy white. A dead end. There is no road forward.
I turn around.
A fog. A shadowy cloud obscures my vision past seven feet. Something moves. The fog moves in an interrupted fashion. It is uncomfortable; yet it invites my gaze downwards. I see a... thing. I am not sure of the nature of the thing. But it is tiny; tinier than my palm. I would grab it if I could.
And it is crawling. Slowly.
"My friend, this is the Caterpillar of Knowledge."
I press the bare sole of my naked right foot onto the "Caterpillar of Knowledge". There is some resistance; albeit too minuscule. Soon, I feel the road. I twist my ankle horizontally, rubbing knowledge all over the earth. The skin on my sole is watery; damp with what feels like bodily fluid. I have no time for this. And I have done a favor for the world.
I lift my right foot. Nothing remains. No liquid, no blood. The fog moves in an interrupted fashion.
I see the same thing to the left of the previous thing.
"Did it just teleport?"
"No, my friend. You are truly a cruel Angel. You have heartlessly murdered a living being who preaches for love and peace. Yet, the Caterpillar of Knowledge can never die; it can only be consumed."
I don't even care where his voice is coming from. I need to continue walking. I need to meet The Walker. What the hell is this?
But I can no longer see. My entire world is a blurry haze; yet, I am not suffocating. I do not panic; yet I am not calm either. I am just very, very furious. I feel offended, insulted, underestimated. The Revenant is toying with me. He controls this world, doesn't he? He keeps asking me to do ridiculous shits like this, all for a "shortcut" to meet The Walker.
As much as I would love to save some precious time, I want the journey to be as meaningful as the end goal, if not more.
I don't want to get results without effort. Similarly, I don't want to put in effort without results.
I want to win, but through my own hard work.
And there are things going on in my life right now that are just so out of place.
I blink.
I stand in a desolate hallway. The floor is carpeted in striking purple. To the left and right of me are two rows of two elevators marinated in light gold, garnished with a hint of salty sparkle. There are no buttons or floor indicators, as if the elevators have minds of their own. To the front and back of me are solid walls, with paintings of deep blue and purple. I cannot properly make out those paintings, but they do bring about the image of something shining in the deep blue ocean.
The Remnants of Something...?
Right below me, I finally observe the true form of the thing. A really young creature about two inches in length. The slimy green insect with twenty or so tiny little legs has a long red stripe crayoned across the entire stretch of its centimeter-wide frame. It squirms along the carpet hills; seemingly lost but determined to go on.
I feel like stepping on it once more. But then another will appear in its place. And the whole environment might just change again. Also, I may be wrong, but this Caterpillar looks smaller than the one I saw before.
"When you take the life of a Caterpillar of Knowledge, it will simply be reborn. That means, whatever growth it has completed and whatever knowledge it has learned will simply disappear. You have already spent seven days in the fog, and thus you have wasted seven days."
"So... what now? There are usually at least two choices for all events in life. What's the second choice for this?"
"There is only one choice. You must consume it. Then you gain all the knowledge of good and evil. You will ascend past the ceilings of humanity. You will become a being that is beyond man or beast. You will see the truth. And you will meet The Walker."
It sounds tempting. But no. I know better than to give in. This is not just an ordinary test. This is a test of patience. This is a test of humanity. A caterpillar will grow. They will grow one day. Into a butterfly. Into the most beautiful angel in this world.
Once the Caterpillar of Knowledge has transformed into an angel, the consumption of it will bring forth the greatest knowledge and the greatest truth.
I will need to wait. I will need to wait in this Aisle of Hatred.
Call me greedy. Call me foolish. But I am just stubborn like that.
Time flies so quickly and so slowly. I am both waiting and not waiting. Soon, I will die of old age. I may even be gone before the caterpillar undergoes metamorphosis. Who knows. People live and people die. We can die any moment now.
How much time has passed?
It makes sense for the Aisle of Hatred to be represented by a realistic depiction of day-to-day job. Or more specifically, the entrance and exit to a day-to-day job. Because in between the entrance and exit, the process is always the same. There is no difference. We are but robots living the lives of others, living up to the corporate visions of companies, where every day is a race to step on or over one another in order to climb the longest ladder to reach the top, where fame and fortune awaits.
Actually, I might have made a mistake. This is not just the Aisle of Hatred. This is both the Aisle of Hatred and the Aisle of Love. They coexist along the same time and space. They are not two ends of a spectrum; they are two interpretations of a historical event. Whether we are celebrating or suffering depends on three factors: our personalities, the task we are required to do, and the environment in which the task has to be done.
In my case, I am a person who isn't very outgoing, definitely more introverted, and I do overthink a lot. Social situations used to be the bane of my existence, but I'm getting better at adapting to them. But it's still not natural; clearly contrived and honestly quite repetitive. But I also like social situations, for we as human beings are naturally social creatures. There is too much happiness and too much sorrow in this world, and to keep them all to yourself is to eat yourself from the inside; it is not healthy.
This is something I want to improve. This was one of the main reasons why I have undertaken a job in sales.
A wooden branch grows out from the opening line of the elevator on my closest left, just slightly higher than the top of my long head. It is... peculiar, to say the least.
So my task for the entirety of the past two years was to be outgoing and talk to people. Do I love it? Do I hate it? A little of both. It's been really tiring, but I'm learning a lot and I'm communicating with so many different kinds of people in so many different ways that I could never even dream of.
This task, this... job, is attached to an environment, a company, and the people in it. It was my first job, and thus I have no understanding of what working life entails. Without going into too much details, it's like mixing rotten fish pellets inside a bag of nice, sweet candies. I dreaded every day of work. I became fatigued far too easily. Every second off work is spent wailing over every passing second, for it is a second closer to work. It was that bad. I didn't want to do anything off-work. All I wanted to do was to sleep and never get out of bed.
A newborn leaf extends out of the farthest end of the wooden branch. Juicy. Crispy. The Caterpillar wriggles up the elevator. It witnesses the desolation of the lone branch. It embraces the branch with its microscopic black legs.
During work, I was naturally quite motivated and enthusiastic about things. I took my responsibilities to heart, and I lived every second like I was born for the job. I accelerated to full speed and kept up the momentum.
But I wasn't happy.
Well, at least the pay was above average.
The Caterpillar, as if resonating with the intensity of my thoughts, appears to be speeding up in its sluggish journey to... somewhere.
A life where I both loved and hated my daily routine. A life where I both anticipated and dreaded my responsibilities. I've met some really great people that I've never thought I'd be friends with. I've also met some really shitty humans that reinforced my belief that the world is cruel and selfish and unforgiving. I've enjoyed the adventure of meeting new people and living through new situations; like a lucid lapse between the "acted" version of me who is amicable and overly sympathetic, and the "real" version of me who is much more reserved and, frankly, kind of timid. I mean, I'm extremely professional and confident during presentations and discussions, and maybe a little eccentric and wacky around people I'm close with, but if you want me to build rapport with a complete stranger, that is indeed one of my toughest challenges.
And overcoming that has been one of my biggest achievements in this job. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't friends, much less brothers with all my customers, but there were people I was close with. There were people I was very willing to meet. There were people that made me happy.
But by the end of all that, I wanted to give up; everything was killing me from the inside.
The Caterpillar stops moving on the branch. It is preparing for something. A transformation. An evolution.
A metamorphosis.
Everything turns pitch black, just like my life.
And the only objects radiating through the emptiness are the Caterpillar of Knowledge and the branch it is on. I cannot even visually perceive my own arms and legs.
A metamorphosis of what we see.
The Caterpillar convulses within its transparent skin, as the formerly rigid red line across it wrinkles and shrinks and folds into a crumpled reddish pile.
The Caterpillar twists, turns, rotates and contorts. So, so violently. So, so... elegantly. A cocoon shaped like a green cylinder, arced slightly towards the left, so obviously creased yet rigorously hardened that a knife would not penetrate it. What remains of the insect is now digested into a soup-like substance.
The foundation of all its knowledge has collapsed into a sea of beginnings. The soup of life.
The primordial soup of all our hopes and dreams.
A metamorphosis of who we are.
The chrysalis flourishes. But how, when, and why, I will never know. A meaningless little worm with a meaningless little life, being cultivated in a cocoon of love and change, where all of its wisdom is recorded and rerecorded, and it is reincarnated into a figure of dreams.
The angel of beauty. The perfect form. The Butterfly of Knowledge. Slowly splitting open the now-fragile cocoon, the Butterfly of Knowledge stretches its new wings, like a fallen angel reborn with wings, spreading their feathers of knowledge throughout and beyond the seven places of worship, scintillating through the dark of null.
And I can be like it.
All my knowledge. All my experiences. All my wisdom and sufferings and hardships. All my skills and talents and love and hatred and peace and violence. All my Faces of Evil. All my Lords of Relaxation and my History Men. All amalgamated in a bowl of baptism and stirred with a spoon of fate. It will be possible to reshape who I am. It will be possible to redefine who I want to be.
It will be possible to succeed in life.
Through all our pains and losses and heartbreaks, and through all our breakdowns and remorse, we are but mere Caterpillars of Knowledge; a human in infancy, a toddler of success. There is no wasted time, nor are there missed opportunities, for all events and histories in our lives characterize us as a human of description, a being of representation, and a canvas of interpretation.
Inside the cocoon, our chrysalises crystallize into mirrors of translucence, refracting our distorted sight to the right path, and resurrecting us as individual islands of I's.
We will be the cliffs of wake overlooking the cities of sleep, as the dusty-spined stars watch over us with dignity.
A metamorphosis of... our happiness.
The Butterfly of Knowledge flies off. Gone. Forever. I guess I will never be able to consume its wholesome, matured knowledge.
But what I've gained from my patience is a heart to watch a loved one grow... this means more than superficial prudence.
Knowledge means nothing if no one is willing to comprehend it.
How can we ever understand the knowledge of the world... if we don't understand ourselves?
I am lifted off the ground. As if there is a "ground" in this obscure, desolate place.
A levitation. A meditation. An inspiration.
Or is it a revelation?
I am The Angel. An Angel in flight. An Angel searching for answers. An angelic inventor of light machines. With my newfound wings of epiphany, I will explore the world from the vapor-veiled skies, raining down a deluge of liberation from my Ark of Salvation.
And I will make a change.
"Oh look, my Angel of Love. That is a Lamb of Smiles."
I do not see a "Lamb of Smiles".
"Close your eye."
The low-pitched, slightly robotic, yet soothing voice reverberates from behind. The three words have such a tranquilizing effect, that I gradually start dozing off, and all the tightness of my heart loosens as quickly as my grip on reality.
I relax.
All the muscles and tendons and nerves and organs in my tiny body relax.
...
I rise awake with a tingling sense of familiarity.
I have not budged from where I fell asleep, which was in a beautiful paradise of love with the stone path and circular trees. Was all that... a dream? The Caterpillar of Knowledge... The misty alleyway and the hall of elevators and the space of nothing... What happened?
No. Something must have happened. Because I have wings now.
Dazzling white wings sprouting from my inflexible shoulders, with delicate feathers that are loosely, yet tightly attached to the core structure, like branches attached to an infallible trunk. If I were to extend my wings, their tips cover at least twelve feet on each side.
And as I am blessed with the ability to drift past and above reality, it is my dream, and my responsibility, to inspire others to do the same.
But first, I need to find The Walker.
To find The Walker, I would need to see The Walker.
Instead, I see the "Lambs of Smiles".
Seven fluffy little beings, frolicking by the man-shaped trees and chewing on the yellow, purple, sometimes red or pink flowers underneath the circular trees' bubbly, chubby little shadows. The whiteness of the moon's everlasting glow is painted over their fragile frame, as white as my overcoat and dress pants, as white as The Revenant's lone sclera, as if we are all part of the same family of purity. These gorgeous, innocent creatures merrily chase after one another; not a single one is asleep, even though the night is aging, just like my heart.
They look just like normal lambs. In the sense that none of them are smiling.
"My Angel, I am glad you have risen! It has been seven days and seven nights since you hibernated. Oh, time does indeed fly. And you too, will fly, if you do as I say."
I am no longer amused by time. I just need to meet The Walker. I am almost there. The Walker's Boulevard is enclosed by the Aisle of Love and the Aisle of Hatred on both sides. Yet there is nothing but trees and grass and Lambs to the left and right of the stone path I'm on. I am perplexed. As now I know that the Aisle of Love and the Aisle of Hatred are one and the same... where am I?
"You have rid yourself of hatred and is now consumed by love! Marvelous! Now, take this."
A floating knife materializes in front of his chest. A silver metal blade with a gleam as luminous as the future I thought I deserve. A stubby black handle as rigid as my life's journey.
A knife.
"A knife."
"Yes. A knife. Now, you will need to kill all the Lamb of Smiles. Then you will be able to pass The Light Curtain."
"I don't see any Light Curtain. Nor do I see the Aisle of Hatred. Nor the Walker's Boulevard."
I completely disregard his first sentence about killing the Lambs. It is ridiculous as it is inhumane. He must be joking. His bloodshot pupil traces the weary movements of my mouth, as if he expects my disagreement and disbelief. A Lamb of Smile creeps towards my direction. It looks up at me, like I'm some God.
"Help me, I am in deep pain right now."
I kneel down to get closer to the Lamb. Such a petite critter; only reaching the height of my knees. Or is it that I am... tall?
"My Angel. You can choose to kill all of the seven Lambs, or you can choose to love each and every one the seven lambs, without bias or prejudice."
How hard can it be to love?
I hear the Lamb out.
"I am lost. I don't know what I want to do. All my life I have been following a path dictated to me. I don't know if I like what I do. I don't know if I will like what I will do. I am not happy about everything. There are too many uncertainties. And as much as I should be excited for them, I am scared. I don't know what will happen. This is not how I planned things would be..."
Damn.
What is... this?
Why do these Lambs feel so... human?
When the Lords of Relaxation and History Men spoke the words of man, it made sense because they had faces, whether with Faces of Evil without eyes and lips, or without Faces of Evil with eyes and lips, or even someone like The Revenant with eyes and without lips, all of them, and me, have faces. The faces of man. The faces of sin.
The face of angels.
Yet these Lambs... They are but beasts. Yes, they are tame in nature and laden with love and saturated with faith, but why are their hearts masked with the Faces of Evil?
Why are they blind and without love?
...
These poor, poor beings...
I want to love them. I want to love them with all my heart and all my mind and all my soul. But I can't.
I can't.
It is so easy to hate. But why is it so difficult to love?
I want to love.
Gradually, protrusions begin to develop from my fingerless hands. They are forged into the most natural, most heartwarming fingers. The fingers of love. The fingers of touch.
The fingers to grip the knife and plunge it into my heart.
I want to feel my heart.
I remove the knife from my chest. I stab it back in, slightly to the right. I stab again, slightly to the left. Bright red blood sprays across the field. The Lamb remains unpolluted, however, as if my blood is carefully averting its path from the Lamb.
And I feel no pain. No agony.
But I scream.
A scream that rebounds across the Pavilion of Identities. A scream that calls forth the confession of another Lamb.
"I thought life will be better. I thought things will change. Everyone seems so... strange now; not even strangers, just strange. It's as if every one of them has had their lives figured out, and has developed the motivation to pursue their solid life goals and live happy lives. Yet, I am here, still lost, still blind, still unable to love, and everyone hates me. Everyone hates me because I'm so weak and stupid and useless. I'm so weak and stupid and useless because everyone hates me."
There are now three crude slits to my lungs and heart; a harsh wave of sharp burn paralyzes me; I am unable to cry. I am unable to sigh. I am unable to think.
These feverish wounds have numbed me. My misery is so discernible that it seemingly preaches to another Lamb.
"I was raised to be strong. Therefore, I thought I was strong. I was ready to embrace the world and all its challenges and hardships. I was ready to be the best in everything I do. Yet... I don't know. I'm not the best, aren't I? I'm never the best. If I will never be the best, then what should I be motivated for? I wanted to work hard and excel in everything I do and earn lots and lots of money, but in the end I'm just a good for nothing parasite that leeches off the income and love of others. I am a hopeless being."
Two more bloody crevices, this time to my abdomen, and I crash to the ground; my face pressed onto the wall of shame. The stone path now desecrated with crimson viscosity, and the grass now tainted with tears of anguish.
The knife, having cleansed my liver of impurities, sticks out through my back. It is an embarrassing sight. So embarrassing that another Lamb walks over to offer me its condolences.
"I want a change. I need a change. My life is getting really stale lately. Doing the same shit over and over and over again. The cycle repeats. Yet, I am not enjoying it. Not a single day of it. Perhaps there were some good moments sprinkled here and there, but overall it is a piece of shit, and it's making me depressed. I want to make this leap of faith; to embrace the unknown; the biggest uncertainty in my life. But I am afraid. I am comfortable here; comfortable in this shithole. This is worse than brainwashing myself to love my life; this is actually admitting that I hate my life yet I am too comfortable hating my life to do anything about it."
Another Lamb visits me before I can continue wallowing in pain.
"I miss the way things were. Those innocent days of youth. I mean, don't get me wrong, I was in a pretty bad place that time, but this is just worse. I do not have any motivation to do anything. I am always feeling tired, dejected, lethargic, and too lazy to do anything off-routine. And this makes me even more exhausted; more contented with discontent. The cycle repeats. The fucking cycle repeats. It is not a cycle, but a spiral, deeper and deeper into insanity, until I become a robot who has lost my sense of true self."
The five Lambs of Smile gather around me, as if I were a victim of a brutal murder.
...
Go away. You're all taking in my oxygen.
...
All of you are laughing at me... aren't you?
...
All of you... hate me... don't you?
...
I know you're all not smiling... I'd call that a frown more than a smile, but the fact that you're all named the Lamb of Smiles makes me feel like you're humiliating me.
...
...
...
No, I'm not funny.
I'm not laughing.
You are.
I reach for the bladed end of the knife behind my back. My left hand grabs the sharp edge. I clutch it tight. I feel the knife lacerate through my palm and fingers. I feel it rubbing my bones. I tug on the tool. It is difficult. After a minute or two, I yank the knife out. Wet, sticky chunks of flesh and plasma chillingly slides off the black handle.
I place the knife on the ground beside me. I realize... I have lost my wings. I reposition my grip to the handle.
I push my right hand onto the ground to flip myself around. I am now reading the poems of the sun. Yet, I do not feel blinded, even though the sun is brighter than all of life. Without a hint of hesitation, I puncture my left eye with the vehemence of a wild animal.
...
Nothing.
Not that I feel nothing, but there is nothing. The knife simply carved a crude incision on my eyelids.
The knife ravages my right eye. Nothing. Another obscene linear artwork across my eyelids. Is there anything at all? How am I able to see without eyes? Or is this all just a figment of sheer imagination? Am I really noticing things? Am I insane?
I never thought of myself as one of them. I may have a lengthy head, I may not have fingers and toes, but I must be able to see. My vision is perfect. But it is not.
I attempt to touch my eye. I realize.
I only have one eye.
Inside. A slimy surface. Slightly cold, but very gooey. My index finger is right below my brain.
I have the nagging itch to scratch my fucking brain off.
I feel nauseous. Sourish, salty, acidic gas leaks from my esophagus. My trachea is choking with bloody phlegm. I cannot inhale. I cannot exhale. I am stuck in between life and death. And I don't give a damn.
... I don't even have lips to love...
The Lamb of Smiles... They have eyes and they have lips and they have the heart to love, yet why are they not being loved? Why is the cold-blooded world so vicious towards them? What wrong have they done?
Even if they have done something wrong, do they not deserve to be loved? How can one ever do right if one lives without love?
Why do right when you hate everyone? Why do wrong when you love everyone?
I am in harrowing physical distress, and my bodily functions have deteriorated into a murky puddle of necrosis and hemorrhage. Yet, it is my duty to love. Or at least, it is my dream to love.
Because love is what makes us human.
As if I am a deity of devotion, another Lamb seeks my foresight.
"I am finally making a change for once. I am finally doing something different. I am ready for a reboot of my life. Yet, there are far too many things holding me back. Where do I go from here? No, it's not just that; it's peer pressure. Everyone seems to have a direction and they know where they want to go and who they want to be. By letting this go, I am breaking this expectation of society. By letting this go, I will need to find another place to go..."
I need to help the Lambs. I need to save the Lambs.
Because I am a Lord of Relaxation, the holy shepherd of the Lambs of Smile.
"My friends, I am here right now, lying before you in the most pathetic position, to reassure you that we are our own identities. Who we are, where we are now, and why we are who we are, have all been a result of a perfect storm of highly interpretable exotic events. Our choices become history, and our history becomes our present. We think we are lost, but really, it's because we have yet to make a choice. Truthfully, no one has a direction; the most successful people were simply able to embrace the risk of walking a path of choice. It may not be the right path. It may also not be the wrong path. But it is a path. To do something different. To do something all the same. What do we want to be?
We do not need to follow the paths of others. Similarly, others do not need to follow our paths. The world is endlessly explorable and infinitely exploitable. Yet, our clocks of life are ticking by the second. We age and become history. A legacy that cannot be rewritten. If we were to perish today, what will the world remember us for? That is, assuming we want to be remembered at all.
Some just want to live a quiet life; not quiet in the sole sense of not being talkative, but silence from the noisiness of society; the incessant chatters about how to please one another, materialistically or sentimentally. Some want to live a life of pleasing others and being pleased. It's a matter of choice. And we are free to choose.
And all of us are but elementary particles consisting of quarks and leptons, hovering between quantum states and superpositioning one another. We are but uncertainties in position and momentum, never fully certain of either where we are or who we are. At our cores, we are but ambiguities and ambivalences. And octillions of uncertainties don't make a confirmation; it only adds up to an averaged assumption. Basically, a blind guess.
So why stick to something you do not like doing?
Why bury yourself in the grave with a name you do not like being called by?
Why leave the world behind as someone you are not?
Why waste time at all?
If we live only for an undefined future filled with skepticism and unpredictability, then why even live at all?
I'm not asking you to fake a smile. I'm not asking you to live up to the name that society puts on you. You do not need to be what they want you to be. Because you are you, and you have your own identities and your own definition of contentment; you have your own characteristic view of optimism and aspiration.
We are all inventors of our very own dreams; the very prayer that brings us forth and the very vow that we promise to fulfill. They have no fixed shape, no fixed nature. They change as time goes on. They motivate us to live our lives.
Invent your own dream. Make a choice. Make a fucking choice. A prayer, a vow. And put a hundred and ten percent of effort into it. Don't look back. Pursue what you must, and change your destiny.
You are your own true self.
Find your purpose. Find a path of choice. Be the walkers of your life. If you fall, rise up and walk again. There are no wrong paths. Each path will branch out into different paths.
Don't look back.
Everything falls apart as we fall asleep.
Everything rises again as we rise awake.
When your time is up and you are cremated in the ovens of wildfire, you will become a part of history, for all the things you've done and paths you've walked. Your body will become the whitest of ash, and your mind will become godlike and everlasting.
But that is not your dream.
When your powdered remains are scattered across the seven seas, you want your legacy to shine brighter than your life. You want your history to inspire the seven billion people across the seven places of worship. You want your revelations to withstand the passing of time and space. You want to be the sun, the moon, and the universe.
When a star dies, it implodes into a spectacular supernova, and what lingers is a giant cloud of colorful dust, as gorgeous and memorable as a philosopher's painting, yet it is a result of nature's psychology. And given enough time, this breathtaking picture of dust becomes so ginormous that it collapses from its own internal gravity, and thus begins the life of a new star.
This is called a nebula.
The death and rebirth of a life."
I pause.
"I'm a speck of dust in this sea of rust
Nothing to lust for there's no one to trust."
One last pause.
"I'm a bright world tree, and now that I'm free
All they will see, a nebula at sea."
A Lamb limps towards me. Standing on its hind legs, its humanoid body resembles an ordinary human dressed in cotton white. Its eyes are teary, and its lips are frowning.
"Fuck that. Fuck everything. Fuck doing something I don't like. Fuck the world for expecting me to do something I don't like. I am myself. I am who I am. I dictate my goals in life. All I want is to be happy. All I want is to be grateful. All I want... is to love and be loved."
I leap forward and embrace the Lamb; my defiled body smearing half-dried blood all over its paper-white figure, brushing masterful strokes of love and hatred onto its now gaseous constitution. A white mist. A cloud of white dust. A background of light. A visualized voice of reason. An outburst of perpetual colors. An immeasurable feeling of relief.
"I love you."
An unforgettable moment of catharsis.
"I love you too, my Angel."
---
The winged Angel reveals himself in a white space. He wears a white buttoned overcoat and white dress pants. He walks around the area with purified humility. There is nothing that piques his interest. He realizes that he has nowhere to go, and thus stops walking.
He is exhausted. He has walked the seven-thousand mile Aisle of Love and the Aisle of Hatred seven times, seven times a day, seven days a week, seven weeks a year, seven years a century, for seven centuries.
The Walker's Boulevard is a narrow path that is invisible to the eyes of man. It is not the right path, nor is it the wrong path. It is a path of divergence and reunification.
"I am here."
The Light Curtain unravels. Six beings stand in a row in front of The Angel. Each very different in form, dreams, and identities.
The first being is an ordinary human being. It has two eyes, a nose, a lipped mouth, and an ordinary torso, arms, and legs. It is clothed ordinarily. An ordinary being. It speaks ordinary words, "O' Walker I have found you. You will bring me along the correct path of life. You will give me a correct opportunity."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed on the Ark of Salvation. The Pavilion of Identities scared me, for I do not want to revisit my past. I will wait for the right opportunity to come by. Until then, I will continue sleeping."
The second being is an old, wrinkled human being. Its narrow two eyes, nose, and lipped mouth have shrunk to two-thirds of the regular. It is clothed raggedly. It has a back hunched at seventy degrees. It walks with a limp. It speaks curious words, "O' Walker I have found you. Until today I have not found my true self. You will find my true self."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed in the Garden of True Selves. I wanted to find my place in the world. After seven centuries of sitting and philosophizing, I have not found my true self. I will wait for my true self to manifest. Until then, I will continue relaxing."
The third being is a History Man. It has one eye with white sclera, black pupil, and red veins, and a lipped mouth, but no nose. Its gray head is as long as its torso, which is seven feet. Its arms and legs are seven feet long. It speaks self-assured words, "O' Walker I have found you. I have brainwashed myself that I am happy and am living as my true self. However, when I meditate in the Garden of True Selves, I have became history. You will undo this brainwash."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed in the Pool of Brainwash. After brainwashing myself that I am happy, I have ran to the Shore of Cracks and my Face of Evil separates from me. I was able to see and I was able to love. Yet, in the Garden of True Selves, I do not see or love my existence. I will wait until my brainwashing is more complete. Until then, I will continue brainwashing."
The fourth being is a tall Lord of Relaxation. It has one empty eye socket and a lengthy mouth without lips, and no nose. Its gray head is as long as its torso, which is fourteen feet. Its arms and legs are fourteen feet long. Its head is permanently tilted upwards at seventy degrees. It walks with its sight fixed upwards. It speaks prideful words, "O' Walker I have found you. I have suffered the most and thus everyone is beneath me. However, now I can never look at others the same way again, and others do not want to look at me as I am above them. You will make others look at me again."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed in the Exhibition of Suffering. I have won the competition and have sent many Lords of Relaxation to the Shore of Cracks. I have fully acknowledged my victory. I am proud of myself. Yet, none seem to respect or recognize the extent of my suffering. I will wait until they respect me. Until then, I will continue suffering."
The fifth being is a short Lord of Relaxation. It has one massive empty eye socket and a mouth without lips, and no nose. Its enormous gray head is seven times as large and long as its torso, which is four feet. Its arms and legs are four feet long. It is lying on its back on the ground. It is either deeply meditating or sleeping. It speaks knowledgeable words, "O' Walker I have found you. I have devoured the Caterpillar of Knowledge and I am filled with the knowledge of good and evil. However, none seem to listen to my knowledgeable words, and therefore I think. You will make others listen to me."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed in the Aisle of Hatred. I am so full of hate for the world that has constantly looked down on me. Thus, I fill myself with knowledge. I have learned all that is good and all that is evil. However, I have ascended so far beyond the realms of humanity, that I am no longer accepted. I will wait until humans can understand my knowledge. Until then, I will continue thinking."
The sixth and last being is a bloodied Lord of Relaxation. It has one eye socket stained in blood, and a mouth without lips also stained in blood, and no nose. Its blood-stained head is as long as its blood-stained torso, which is seven feet. Its blood-stained arms and blood-stained legs are seven feet long. It is holding a small knife in its right hand, stained in blood. It speaks intimidating words, "O'Walker I have found you. I have murdered all seven Lamb of Smiles and I have finally met you. Finally, after all these centuries of trials, I have discovered your face. However, no one loves me now. You will make others love me."
The Angel is about to speak. But the sixth being speaks first.
"Please love me, my Walker, my great, great Walker! I have braved through all challenges and resisted all temptations! I have rejected the seduction of sleeping on-board the comfortable Ark of Salvation, relaxing in the Garden of True Selves, brainwashing in the Pool of Brainwash, suffering in the Exhibition of Suffering, and thinking in the Aisle of Love! I had the opportunity to become the perfect being! But I have forgone all of them! I have done so just to meet you! My Walker! My Angel! I am finally here!"
The Angel is about to speak. But the sixth being speaks again.
"I just couldn't handle it anymore... I've walked so much and I thought persistence would be the key to everything... Persistence... Patience... I thought they would be sufficient... But the last obstacle, the last barrier between me and you, the Light Curtain..."
The Angel listens.
"The Light Curtain... It can only be unraveled not through persistence or patience, but through love! Love is what makes us human! Yet, I am without love and full of hatred! All because I have given up! All because I am weak, uncertain, miserable! But none of that matters, for I have found you, Walker! You will make me love again!"
The Angel listens. The sixth being has no more to speak. The sixth being can never speak anymore, as it dissolves into dust of red, purple, pink, and yellow, along with the other five beings.
They have left behind the Remnants of Something.
The Angel speaks.
"So, this is the identity of me. The identities of me. I have became who I am today because of choices. Are they the right choices? Is this the right path? A path of change. A path of emptiness. I have became The Walker, but I have no dream now. My dream was to meet The Walker, and it has been accomplished by six of my histories, but what about me?"
The Angel tilts his head slightly upwards.
"All those who have accomplished this dream, they have sacrificed so much; they have cut their journey short. The sixth identity of me... he was so close, but he sacrificed his humanity."
The white morphs into a peaceful light blue. The Angel stares at the brightest sky.
"Which is more important, the destination in dreams, or the odyssey in dreams?"
---
I am back on the Ark of Salvation. That has been a journey. I breathe an extended sigh of relief. Such an... experience. What do I feel about it? Cathartic? Traumatic? Or was it just... Fantastic?
I am now human again. Just an ordinary man dressed ordinarily. Nothing remarkable. I kind of miss having long arms and feet. Then again, I had just one eye and no lips, so it was quite... unsettling.
As unsettling as the being in front of me.
"Revenant, why are you still here?"
"La la la la la la la~"
I sigh. Guess some things will never become history. Then again, I think I kind of like having The Revenant around. It feels a little less lonely. Even so, I still can't get used to his stupidly large eye and his stupidly long limbs, much less his exposed gray body.
I also hated how he tried to tempt me into walking different paths. Those paths of evil and wrongdoing. Well, technically, only the path of murdering the Lamb of Smiles was considered truly evil, but even then it was just a metaphor for forfeiting one's love in order to achieve a dream.
So the Revenant does not represent something as simple as the evil within me.
Then who is he?
The Ark finally departs the Pavilion of Identities. I lie on the wooden floor, waiting to drift off into another dream.
But I'm already in a dreamworld, aren't I?
Then, what is my dream?
"Hey, Revenant, what is your dream?"
The single eye stares at me from directly above. I close my eyes, ignoring the shade, and the grin.
"What is my dream, you say?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"What is it, indeed."
I pretend I did not hear that. I'm really drained from all the walking.
"My dream is..."
His sound fades away, as my consciousness sinks into the floor of quicksand.
"My dream is to be..."
"... you."
- End
Damn.
What is... this?
Why do these Lambs feel so... human?
When the Lords of Relaxation and History Men spoke the words of man, it made sense because they had faces, whether with Faces of Evil without eyes and lips, or without Faces of Evil with eyes and lips, or even someone like The Revenant with eyes and without lips, all of them, and me, have faces. The faces of man. The faces of sin.
The face of angels.
Yet these Lambs... They are but beasts. Yes, they are tame in nature and laden with love and saturated with faith, but why are their hearts masked with the Faces of Evil?
Why are they blind and without love?
...
These poor, poor beings...
I want to love them. I want to love them with all my heart and all my mind and all my soul. But I can't.
I can't.
It is so easy to hate. But why is it so difficult to love?
I want to love.
Gradually, protrusions begin to develop from my fingerless hands. They are forged into the most natural, most heartwarming fingers. The fingers of love. The fingers of touch.
The fingers to grip the knife and plunge it into my heart.
I want to feel my heart.
I remove the knife from my chest. I stab it back in, slightly to the right. I stab again, slightly to the left. Bright red blood sprays across the field. The Lamb remains unpolluted, however, as if my blood is carefully averting its path from the Lamb.
And I feel no pain. No agony.
But I scream.
A scream that rebounds across the Pavilion of Identities. A scream that calls forth the confession of another Lamb.
"I thought life will be better. I thought things will change. Everyone seems so... strange now; not even strangers, just strange. It's as if every one of them has had their lives figured out, and has developed the motivation to pursue their solid life goals and live happy lives. Yet, I am here, still lost, still blind, still unable to love, and everyone hates me. Everyone hates me because I'm so weak and stupid and useless. I'm so weak and stupid and useless because everyone hates me."
There are now three crude slits to my lungs and heart; a harsh wave of sharp burn paralyzes me; I am unable to cry. I am unable to sigh. I am unable to think.
These feverish wounds have numbed me. My misery is so discernible that it seemingly preaches to another Lamb.
"I was raised to be strong. Therefore, I thought I was strong. I was ready to embrace the world and all its challenges and hardships. I was ready to be the best in everything I do. Yet... I don't know. I'm not the best, aren't I? I'm never the best. If I will never be the best, then what should I be motivated for? I wanted to work hard and excel in everything I do and earn lots and lots of money, but in the end I'm just a good for nothing parasite that leeches off the income and love of others. I am a hopeless being."
Two more bloody crevices, this time to my abdomen, and I crash to the ground; my face pressed onto the wall of shame. The stone path now desecrated with crimson viscosity, and the grass now tainted with tears of anguish.
The knife, having cleansed my liver of impurities, sticks out through my back. It is an embarrassing sight. So embarrassing that another Lamb walks over to offer me its condolences.
"I want a change. I need a change. My life is getting really stale lately. Doing the same shit over and over and over again. The cycle repeats. Yet, I am not enjoying it. Not a single day of it. Perhaps there were some good moments sprinkled here and there, but overall it is a piece of shit, and it's making me depressed. I want to make this leap of faith; to embrace the unknown; the biggest uncertainty in my life. But I am afraid. I am comfortable here; comfortable in this shithole. This is worse than brainwashing myself to love my life; this is actually admitting that I hate my life yet I am too comfortable hating my life to do anything about it."
Another Lamb visits me before I can continue wallowing in pain.
"I miss the way things were. Those innocent days of youth. I mean, don't get me wrong, I was in a pretty bad place that time, but this is just worse. I do not have any motivation to do anything. I am always feeling tired, dejected, lethargic, and too lazy to do anything off-routine. And this makes me even more exhausted; more contented with discontent. The cycle repeats. The fucking cycle repeats. It is not a cycle, but a spiral, deeper and deeper into insanity, until I become a robot who has lost my sense of true self."
The five Lambs of Smile gather around me, as if I were a victim of a brutal murder.
...
Go away. You're all taking in my oxygen.
...
All of you are laughing at me... aren't you?
...
All of you... hate me... don't you?
...
I know you're all not smiling... I'd call that a frown more than a smile, but the fact that you're all named the Lamb of Smiles makes me feel like you're humiliating me.
...
...
...
No, I'm not funny.
I'm not laughing.
You are.
I reach for the bladed end of the knife behind my back. My left hand grabs the sharp edge. I clutch it tight. I feel the knife lacerate through my palm and fingers. I feel it rubbing my bones. I tug on the tool. It is difficult. After a minute or two, I yank the knife out. Wet, sticky chunks of flesh and plasma chillingly slides off the black handle.
I place the knife on the ground beside me. I realize... I have lost my wings. I reposition my grip to the handle.
I push my right hand onto the ground to flip myself around. I am now reading the poems of the sun. Yet, I do not feel blinded, even though the sun is brighter than all of life. Without a hint of hesitation, I puncture my left eye with the vehemence of a wild animal.
...
Nothing.
Not that I feel nothing, but there is nothing. The knife simply carved a crude incision on my eyelids.
The knife ravages my right eye. Nothing. Another obscene linear artwork across my eyelids. Is there anything at all? How am I able to see without eyes? Or is this all just a figment of sheer imagination? Am I really noticing things? Am I insane?
I never thought of myself as one of them. I may have a lengthy head, I may not have fingers and toes, but I must be able to see. My vision is perfect. But it is not.
I attempt to touch my eye. I realize.
I only have one eye.
Inside. A slimy surface. Slightly cold, but very gooey. My index finger is right below my brain.
I have the nagging itch to scratch my fucking brain off.
I feel nauseous. Sourish, salty, acidic gas leaks from my esophagus. My trachea is choking with bloody phlegm. I cannot inhale. I cannot exhale. I am stuck in between life and death. And I don't give a damn.
... I don't even have lips to love...
The Lamb of Smiles... They have eyes and they have lips and they have the heart to love, yet why are they not being loved? Why is the cold-blooded world so vicious towards them? What wrong have they done?
Even if they have done something wrong, do they not deserve to be loved? How can one ever do right if one lives without love?
Why do right when you hate everyone? Why do wrong when you love everyone?
I am in harrowing physical distress, and my bodily functions have deteriorated into a murky puddle of necrosis and hemorrhage. Yet, it is my duty to love. Or at least, it is my dream to love.
Because love is what makes us human.
As if I am a deity of devotion, another Lamb seeks my foresight.
"I am finally making a change for once. I am finally doing something different. I am ready for a reboot of my life. Yet, there are far too many things holding me back. Where do I go from here? No, it's not just that; it's peer pressure. Everyone seems to have a direction and they know where they want to go and who they want to be. By letting this go, I am breaking this expectation of society. By letting this go, I will need to find another place to go..."
I need to help the Lambs. I need to save the Lambs.
Because I am a Lord of Relaxation, the holy shepherd of the Lambs of Smile.
"My friends, I am here right now, lying before you in the most pathetic position, to reassure you that we are our own identities. Who we are, where we are now, and why we are who we are, have all been a result of a perfect storm of highly interpretable exotic events. Our choices become history, and our history becomes our present. We think we are lost, but really, it's because we have yet to make a choice. Truthfully, no one has a direction; the most successful people were simply able to embrace the risk of walking a path of choice. It may not be the right path. It may also not be the wrong path. But it is a path. To do something different. To do something all the same. What do we want to be?
We do not need to follow the paths of others. Similarly, others do not need to follow our paths. The world is endlessly explorable and infinitely exploitable. Yet, our clocks of life are ticking by the second. We age and become history. A legacy that cannot be rewritten. If we were to perish today, what will the world remember us for? That is, assuming we want to be remembered at all.
Some just want to live a quiet life; not quiet in the sole sense of not being talkative, but silence from the noisiness of society; the incessant chatters about how to please one another, materialistically or sentimentally. Some want to live a life of pleasing others and being pleased. It's a matter of choice. And we are free to choose.
And all of us are but elementary particles consisting of quarks and leptons, hovering between quantum states and superpositioning one another. We are but uncertainties in position and momentum, never fully certain of either where we are or who we are. At our cores, we are but ambiguities and ambivalences. And octillions of uncertainties don't make a confirmation; it only adds up to an averaged assumption. Basically, a blind guess.
So why stick to something you do not like doing?
Why bury yourself in the grave with a name you do not like being called by?
Why leave the world behind as someone you are not?
Why waste time at all?
If we live only for an undefined future filled with skepticism and unpredictability, then why even live at all?
I'm not asking you to fake a smile. I'm not asking you to live up to the name that society puts on you. You do not need to be what they want you to be. Because you are you, and you have your own identities and your own definition of contentment; you have your own characteristic view of optimism and aspiration.
We are all inventors of our very own dreams; the very prayer that brings us forth and the very vow that we promise to fulfill. They have no fixed shape, no fixed nature. They change as time goes on. They motivate us to live our lives.
Invent your own dream. Make a choice. Make a fucking choice. A prayer, a vow. And put a hundred and ten percent of effort into it. Don't look back. Pursue what you must, and change your destiny.
You are your own true self.
Find your purpose. Find a path of choice. Be the walkers of your life. If you fall, rise up and walk again. There are no wrong paths. Each path will branch out into different paths.
Don't look back.
Everything falls apart as we fall asleep.
Everything rises again as we rise awake.
When your time is up and you are cremated in the ovens of wildfire, you will become a part of history, for all the things you've done and paths you've walked. Your body will become the whitest of ash, and your mind will become godlike and everlasting.
But that is not your dream.
When your powdered remains are scattered across the seven seas, you want your legacy to shine brighter than your life. You want your history to inspire the seven billion people across the seven places of worship. You want your revelations to withstand the passing of time and space. You want to be the sun, the moon, and the universe.
When a star dies, it implodes into a spectacular supernova, and what lingers is a giant cloud of colorful dust, as gorgeous and memorable as a philosopher's painting, yet it is a result of nature's psychology. And given enough time, this breathtaking picture of dust becomes so ginormous that it collapses from its own internal gravity, and thus begins the life of a new star.
This is called a nebula.
The death and rebirth of a life."
I pause.
"I'm a speck of dust in this sea of rust
Nothing to lust for there's no one to trust."
One last pause.
"I'm a bright world tree, and now that I'm free
All they will see, a nebula at sea."
A Lamb limps towards me. Standing on its hind legs, its humanoid body resembles an ordinary human dressed in cotton white. Its eyes are teary, and its lips are frowning.
"Fuck that. Fuck everything. Fuck doing something I don't like. Fuck the world for expecting me to do something I don't like. I am myself. I am who I am. I dictate my goals in life. All I want is to be happy. All I want is to be grateful. All I want... is to love and be loved."
I leap forward and embrace the Lamb; my defiled body smearing half-dried blood all over its paper-white figure, brushing masterful strokes of love and hatred onto its now gaseous constitution. A white mist. A cloud of white dust. A background of light. A visualized voice of reason. An outburst of perpetual colors. An immeasurable feeling of relief.
"I love you."
An unforgettable moment of catharsis.
"I love you too, my Angel."
---
The winged Angel reveals himself in a white space. He wears a white buttoned overcoat and white dress pants. He walks around the area with purified humility. There is nothing that piques his interest. He realizes that he has nowhere to go, and thus stops walking.
He is exhausted. He has walked the seven-thousand mile Aisle of Love and the Aisle of Hatred seven times, seven times a day, seven days a week, seven weeks a year, seven years a century, for seven centuries.
The Walker's Boulevard is a narrow path that is invisible to the eyes of man. It is not the right path, nor is it the wrong path. It is a path of divergence and reunification.
"I am here."
The Light Curtain unravels. Six beings stand in a row in front of The Angel. Each very different in form, dreams, and identities.
The first being is an ordinary human being. It has two eyes, a nose, a lipped mouth, and an ordinary torso, arms, and legs. It is clothed ordinarily. An ordinary being. It speaks ordinary words, "O' Walker I have found you. You will bring me along the correct path of life. You will give me a correct opportunity."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed on the Ark of Salvation. The Pavilion of Identities scared me, for I do not want to revisit my past. I will wait for the right opportunity to come by. Until then, I will continue sleeping."
The second being is an old, wrinkled human being. Its narrow two eyes, nose, and lipped mouth have shrunk to two-thirds of the regular. It is clothed raggedly. It has a back hunched at seventy degrees. It walks with a limp. It speaks curious words, "O' Walker I have found you. Until today I have not found my true self. You will find my true self."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed in the Garden of True Selves. I wanted to find my place in the world. After seven centuries of sitting and philosophizing, I have not found my true self. I will wait for my true self to manifest. Until then, I will continue relaxing."
The third being is a History Man. It has one eye with white sclera, black pupil, and red veins, and a lipped mouth, but no nose. Its gray head is as long as its torso, which is seven feet. Its arms and legs are seven feet long. It speaks self-assured words, "O' Walker I have found you. I have brainwashed myself that I am happy and am living as my true self. However, when I meditate in the Garden of True Selves, I have became history. You will undo this brainwash."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed in the Pool of Brainwash. After brainwashing myself that I am happy, I have ran to the Shore of Cracks and my Face of Evil separates from me. I was able to see and I was able to love. Yet, in the Garden of True Selves, I do not see or love my existence. I will wait until my brainwashing is more complete. Until then, I will continue brainwashing."
The fourth being is a tall Lord of Relaxation. It has one empty eye socket and a lengthy mouth without lips, and no nose. Its gray head is as long as its torso, which is fourteen feet. Its arms and legs are fourteen feet long. Its head is permanently tilted upwards at seventy degrees. It walks with its sight fixed upwards. It speaks prideful words, "O' Walker I have found you. I have suffered the most and thus everyone is beneath me. However, now I can never look at others the same way again, and others do not want to look at me as I am above them. You will make others look at me again."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed in the Exhibition of Suffering. I have won the competition and have sent many Lords of Relaxation to the Shore of Cracks. I have fully acknowledged my victory. I am proud of myself. Yet, none seem to respect or recognize the extent of my suffering. I will wait until they respect me. Until then, I will continue suffering."
The fifth being is a short Lord of Relaxation. It has one massive empty eye socket and a mouth without lips, and no nose. Its enormous gray head is seven times as large and long as its torso, which is four feet. Its arms and legs are four feet long. It is lying on its back on the ground. It is either deeply meditating or sleeping. It speaks knowledgeable words, "O' Walker I have found you. I have devoured the Caterpillar of Knowledge and I am filled with the knowledge of good and evil. However, none seem to listen to my knowledgeable words, and therefore I think. You will make others listen to me."
"What is the identity of you?"
"I have stayed in the Aisle of Hatred. I am so full of hate for the world that has constantly looked down on me. Thus, I fill myself with knowledge. I have learned all that is good and all that is evil. However, I have ascended so far beyond the realms of humanity, that I am no longer accepted. I will wait until humans can understand my knowledge. Until then, I will continue thinking."
The sixth and last being is a bloodied Lord of Relaxation. It has one eye socket stained in blood, and a mouth without lips also stained in blood, and no nose. Its blood-stained head is as long as its blood-stained torso, which is seven feet. Its blood-stained arms and blood-stained legs are seven feet long. It is holding a small knife in its right hand, stained in blood. It speaks intimidating words, "O'Walker I have found you. I have murdered all seven Lamb of Smiles and I have finally met you. Finally, after all these centuries of trials, I have discovered your face. However, no one loves me now. You will make others love me."
The Angel is about to speak. But the sixth being speaks first.
"Please love me, my Walker, my great, great Walker! I have braved through all challenges and resisted all temptations! I have rejected the seduction of sleeping on-board the comfortable Ark of Salvation, relaxing in the Garden of True Selves, brainwashing in the Pool of Brainwash, suffering in the Exhibition of Suffering, and thinking in the Aisle of Love! I had the opportunity to become the perfect being! But I have forgone all of them! I have done so just to meet you! My Walker! My Angel! I am finally here!"
The Angel is about to speak. But the sixth being speaks again.
"I just couldn't handle it anymore... I've walked so much and I thought persistence would be the key to everything... Persistence... Patience... I thought they would be sufficient... But the last obstacle, the last barrier between me and you, the Light Curtain..."
The Angel listens.
"The Light Curtain... It can only be unraveled not through persistence or patience, but through love! Love is what makes us human! Yet, I am without love and full of hatred! All because I have given up! All because I am weak, uncertain, miserable! But none of that matters, for I have found you, Walker! You will make me love again!"
The Angel listens. The sixth being has no more to speak. The sixth being can never speak anymore, as it dissolves into dust of red, purple, pink, and yellow, along with the other five beings.
They have left behind the Remnants of Something.
The Angel speaks.
"So, this is the identity of me. The identities of me. I have became who I am today because of choices. Are they the right choices? Is this the right path? A path of change. A path of emptiness. I have became The Walker, but I have no dream now. My dream was to meet The Walker, and it has been accomplished by six of my histories, but what about me?"
The Angel tilts his head slightly upwards.
"All those who have accomplished this dream, they have sacrificed so much; they have cut their journey short. The sixth identity of me... he was so close, but he sacrificed his humanity."
The white morphs into a peaceful light blue. The Angel stares at the brightest sky.
"Which is more important, the destination in dreams, or the odyssey in dreams?"
---
I am back on the Ark of Salvation. That has been a journey. I breathe an extended sigh of relief. Such an... experience. What do I feel about it? Cathartic? Traumatic? Or was it just... Fantastic?
I am now human again. Just an ordinary man dressed ordinarily. Nothing remarkable. I kind of miss having long arms and feet. Then again, I had just one eye and no lips, so it was quite... unsettling.
As unsettling as the being in front of me.
"Revenant, why are you still here?"
"La la la la la la la~"
I sigh. Guess some things will never become history. Then again, I think I kind of like having The Revenant around. It feels a little less lonely. Even so, I still can't get used to his stupidly large eye and his stupidly long limbs, much less his exposed gray body.
I also hated how he tried to tempt me into walking different paths. Those paths of evil and wrongdoing. Well, technically, only the path of murdering the Lamb of Smiles was considered truly evil, but even then it was just a metaphor for forfeiting one's love in order to achieve a dream.
So the Revenant does not represent something as simple as the evil within me.
Then who is he?
The Ark finally departs the Pavilion of Identities. I lie on the wooden floor, waiting to drift off into another dream.
But I'm already in a dreamworld, aren't I?
Then, what is my dream?
"Hey, Revenant, what is your dream?"
The single eye stares at me from directly above. I close my eyes, ignoring the shade, and the grin.
"What is my dream, you say?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"What is it, indeed."
I pretend I did not hear that. I'm really drained from all the walking.
"My dream is..."
His sound fades away, as my consciousness sinks into the floor of quicksand.
"My dream is to be..."
"... you."
- End
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