The Eminence

From dew-soaked attic, he comes, in high heels, with a most beautiful, shiny hair, talking about important things. It goes in an order that it is unbearable to everyone present: the meaning of life, literature of an ancient culture exterminated, a tastefulness of the thoughts he has had in regards to different philosophies, and a general malaise that he feels about the world, he says, after all…

“It is human nature. That is why you suffer,” he says and points at me, then he points at the other me, the one who is shy and passive, and then the other one, who is an assertive, sexual beast, and then the other one, who is a clown that can swallow coins without any adverse effects. “This is who you are and it is everyone else’s fault. Even yours.”

But all of my sides, and all of my reflections have, in secret, understood what is really going. That the words spoken are mere reflections of a poisoned mind that is forced to understand the world in the incorrect way. So it goes, he has been led to believe that the misery we both endure, the dejection, the awfulness, the desperation, the hopelessness, the poverty, the despair, the coming end of times, are not inevitable conclusions of the way we kiss and hold hands, but the actions of a few, of the few who want us to think that way.

Will he realize in time or will he kill me to continue living lavishly, from the top of the attic, where light actually glows, where there is an abundance that pales what goes underground where I live? I know the answer, but I try, regardless. For me, it has been an arduous process of understanding my worth and my dignity, understanding that the very essence of living better, beautifully, prosperously, may have to be enacted within the death of millions.

“Not because I want there to be millions of deaths, but because those who control me, the ones who control you to talk to me, they will not give the slightest inch unless they are strangled with the force of a thousand, a million, a billion hands, all crying in unison,” I finish explaining, while he ponders silent, crying tears of sadness and grief, his eyes closed, his cheeks inflated. “And so I call out your lies so you join me or kill me, because you will choose, whether today or tomorrow or ever. But that is the only path that we can follow. I’d rather see this world free of the torture of capital, but if I have to die, then it will have to be, just like so many others before me, who died for a better world.”

He stays silent for centuries, while await the answer, coming to terms with my own death. He scrambles upon the room, and bleeds all over, again, spitting facts, and dreams, and delusions. He knows of the comfort that this world gives him, and the discomfort of fighting for the better of all of us. I am just but one, among all those millions, he has to help, but to live and die absent-minded, being tricked, perhaps, it is more comfortable than living in the real struggle he has helped perpetuate.

“Kiss me or kill me,” I say quite simply, and he seems ready to take a shot. A smile creeps in his face, a whisper follows from his lips, and I can see it in his eyes, hundreds of thoughts, actually just two, oppositely attracted, shining through…