He walks in shadow

I wandered out into the open, cold as a naked babe lit under a moonless sky. It was the height of summer, the sun glowing like ice cut out of a pond. The coals burning around blacker than purest snow, while in the shade the cries of the dying man echoed the cry of the delivering ewe. I staggered on, the wound at my side was heavier than I could bear, no cross bore down upon one as such. I had to meet him and tell of what transpired here. I couldn’t carry this as well as the weight of my wound, my body. I was tired and thirsty, I can’t see too well, I couldn’t see too well. Unable to walk, to crawl, I slithered across the sand, like Lucifer, Lord of the Morning, Prince of the Dawn, Astral King. How art the mighty fallen from Heaven, Oh Isaiah!!

I wonder if I can make it before the Pit draws too near, for I can’t carry my secret anymore. Neither can I wait, for a grand build up only to be left with a sour taste of anti-climax, bars of Toblerone, eaten three at a time. Better Benadryl than Toblerone. The secret? There is no secret, only a realization, a question answered. A revelation, you ask? Alas, no!! the sense of anti-climax is still upon me and I dare not call it a revelation. I stagger on, in truth, with this work, with my mind, with the two appendages that aid me not in locomotion. My heart wilts under the pressure of pumping, my bladder distends under the weight of the excess fluids in my body, my throat is parched and my mouth tastes the sands of the beach. Have I bitten the dust finally?

The question digs at my ribs, begging to, nay, demanding to be asked, to be summoned unrequested, thrown at the face of those who dare turn their other cheek. To those who would not, could not, face the torment that one who stares ahead would face. It is the age old question that nags me, my tormenter, my Sophia (dare I say this in my state) calls out and I am unable to answer. Unfit am I to go, being a scientist my whole life, a wizard of the Apocryphal Academy, a Tesla of coils, an Edison of zero-watt bulbs, a Graham of telephone bells ringing in my head, I turn that way. My reflection is murky in the void. It glows like the rose of the sun, ever gloomier, black light radiating forward.

All these years, my mother told me to believe, but I couldn’t: I wished to purge my sins in the pools of rationality than in the fires of heaven; and why not, I would say to myself; my god is Pi, he is a good lord, immeasurable, unknowable, benevolent, he is the bender of lines, the infinite becomes finite in his hands. Irresistible himself, he is able to convert a line into that most perfect creature of two dimensional space- the circle. What cunning that was used to fashion a curl, could match my little Pi, that can fashion Kepler’s laws, that can define integrals, that can send hyperbolas into the depths of space.

How arrogant we are; in our failure, in our blindness we have asserted that there is no colour; because we could not smell, we ignored the aroma of the roses; in our deafness we said there was no music playing. We climbed out of our hole, looked around the garden and, finding empty, said to our other gopher friends that there were no humans. We spun into space in our toys and thought we had conquered Him, who would not give us wings to fly. In our pomposity, we called Him pompous; we decreed Him irrelevant and wrote Him off as a mathematical abstraction, one we could do without.

The atheist is as much a believer as the theist is, though; as the theist faces the conflict of self deception; the atheist forces a gun into this rationalistic mouth and holds himself hostage to science. At that last moment, there is the leap of faith into belief, either in nothingness or in the everlasting. The atheist is as much a believer as is the god-fearing theist. An honourable position for both; unlike that agnostic who refuses to make a stand, a low born, slimy character unable to have the self respect to choose.

How tough it is to believe; are stories propagated to fool us? Why the invisible hands of God; why the divine hoaxes played out again and again; if the truth is as simple as moon beams cooling in an icy pool then why can He not reveal himself in His light and darkness. A Rhlorrian fire burning forever at the poles, say, or a W. G. Grace chanting eulogies from a cloudless sky. I cannot; I wish to but am unable to convince my heart, my brain; a meaningless life lies ahead and behind for everybody and yet we struggle on, stagger on, on that lonely beach swallowing pebbles every few minutes till our throats are parched once again like sandpaper. I look down at the sea, the water is slick black and I find my murky reflection again. I turn skyward and rage at the heavens. I am a creature of despair and darkness.