The Abyss Gazes Also

[Daala]

PREFACE:

Getting ready to introduce my next major character to the fold, Kirtar, the former Commandant of the Tranquil Way of Life Settlement, as depicted in my "Memoirs" story. This first post is kind of flexing my writing legs, getting a slight feel for the character. I'll hammer out some semblance of a sub-plot for him soon.

So far, nothing warranting an NC-17 label. But, I hate constant disclaimers, so please no that that could very well change later on.

Any and all comments welcome, as always!

[Daala]

It has been said of me that a sort of glaze clouds my vision. It has been a theatrical venture of considerable length, and it may be held as legitimate inference that I regard the same misé-en-scene as all the rest, but there is a slightly skewed way of things. Altogether a disinteresting topic of thought, but my peers may disagree as per their respective idioms. A supporting actress emerges on stage – a splashing figure in an ominously odorous canal. No. One splash, then no more. No apparent instigation of fall. Prime projection is attempted suicide. I’ll play my part. If I find her disinteresting, I can always remove my influence from the continuity of things, and reinstate her into the waters.

In children’s stories this is a gallant venture. Environment always matches mood of scene. Very dramatic of it. Hero grasps victim and hauls to shore. Usually hand, which is most iconic, or wrist, which is only one tier the lesser. Very dark outside. I realize it is nighttime, though I’ve been traveling outdoors since waking. A more precise quantification is difficult. Torchlights are terribly foolish things. Nothing prowls at this hour that is worth your civic pittance. I decide my mental wanderlust presently ruminates of these things to indicate to me that the water is murky and I cannot see this victim. The water is cool upon my bare flesh, and I take a clump of the woman’s hair in hand, and pull a redoubtable pull. No. Not the woman, just a dead cat. I toss the thing back, and try again. And there she is,- an actress of middling years, her early autumnal seasons of life. She is unconscious.

It is with impassive gaze that I regard her figure. Things always seem smaller dripping with water. That never makes any sense. It is not my place to determine this woman’s fate any further. She’ll pluck from the tree of life on her own accord. So I do not breath life into her, lips to lips, as is standard. I do not beat upon her breasts like some drum, chasing off death’s impish minion from its quarry. Should she die, she may blame herself or some ambiguous deity, but I bear no liability. I pick her by the ankles and dangle her like a fisherman’s prize. Water sloshes out on gravity’s own power. She coughs, and I lay her down. She shivers in the cold night breeze. Stupid of her to keep her clothing on when she jumped. Should’ve left it on the bridge, a contingency. Now she’ll have to jitter like a five-legged ant. I make no effort to keep her warm. Hardly my doing, her chill.

She asks me why it was that I saved her. Another stupid thing. A substanceless question begging no particular worth in its answer. She asks me why it was that I saved her, because she feels a prompt, and an expectation that she must ask this thing. I respond that it is the finding of the Royal Society of General Social Investigation that the majority of suicide attempts in public circumstance with great provision for failure represent misgivings and a lack of complete resolve.

“Now, shall I reinstate you into the waters, or has your resolve too sufficiently flagged?”

“Like a doll. My little Julia, she looked like a doll. Big-eyed and fragile. Not enough color. I cut her arms off. I don’t know why. I don’t want to know why-”

Her composure is wavering when I cut her off.

“Madame, you mistake me for some guardian angel sent to provide you a pause and the subsequent material with which you may believe yourself redeemed. I don’t care about reasoning. I don’t care about you. I’m not going to hear your story and say you’re forgiven. I’m not going to smite you as a fiend made flesh. I pulled you out because you were a flicker of variety in a vast and empty sea of tenacious static, and I needed a ripple most violently. Now. Do you wish to be reinstated into the waters?”

It is when she breaks down into shuddering tears that I make transition from this occurrence to the next. Not interesting enough to stick around for. She has legs. She can jump if she likes. Doesn’t matter, my interference, not enough to inspire my continued stay.

I grasp an apple at an unattended stand. Juice dribbles down my chin and somewhere, a sensory flare informs my brain that it is delicious. That flare never reaches my soul, my awareness. Can’t pierce through. I only notice that I am eating the core when the seeds crunch and crackle in my teeth.