#tmamine

[stegulus]

watch.

“You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.”

the others

[stegulus]

dig.

"This is – This is forever deep below creation. Where the weight of existence bears down. This is The Buried, and we are alive. There isn’t even an up. Oh god. What have I done? What have I done?"This is – This is forever deep below creation. Where the weight of existence bears down. This is The Buried, and we are alive. There isn’t even an up. Oh god. What have I done? What have I done?"

the others

[stegulus]

writhe.

"There is a wasps’ nest in my attic. A fat, sprawling thing that crouches in the shadowed corner. It thrums with life and malice. I could sit there for hours, watching the swirls of pulp and paper on its surface. I have done. It is not the patterns that enthral me, I’m not one of those fools chasing fractals; no, it’s what sings behind them. Sings that I am beautiful. Sings that I am a home. That I can be fully consumed by what loves me."

the others

[stegulus]

chase.

The pack descends and the prey is silenced, protests cut short by teeth digging into throat, nails piercing skin and clawing at gristle, bones shattering under relentless, merciless blows. And the blood and bile flow freely, exciting the pack to ever-greater raptures of cruelty, of pure and cleansing rage. They taste their fury in every corner of them. 

the others

[stegulus]

forsake.

So. What are you seeking? The image you’ve each created of the other? The people you think you love don’t exist. Not really. And that’s a very lonely place to be.

the others

[stegulus]

weave.

"If all the millions upon millions of factors that weigh upon our choices were fully and completely known, then all could be foreseen and predetermined. But it is quite impossible for the human mind to comprehend even a fraction of these. And in that vast, dark space of ignorance lies: free will. Isn’t that marvelous? Free will is simply ignorance. It’s just the name we give to the fact that no one can ever really see everything that controls them."

the others

[stegulus]

burn.

"Do you smell smoke? Do you smell the creeping ruin of a life, a stalking creature of unmaintained electricals, of cheap insulation, of cutting corners and missing fire alarms and unenforced safety regulations? Do you see it creeping under the door to your bedroom as you sleep, the burning coals of its eyes regarding you in the supposed safety of your home, not indifferent but hungry, eager to take everything from you, to burn down your life in any sense it can reach?"

the others

[stegulus]

blind.

"Without light, there is darkness. But without darkness, there is nothing. We sit, upon our tiny spinning ball of dirt, desperately building our own tiny suns, our own illuminating shelters from the truth of existence, clustering around them like insects, never realizing that they rob us of the revelations that come… in the dark. That our wretched eyes bind us to this grotesque world in which we live."

the others