Nationstatelandsville wrote:According to certain branches of scientific thought, the world is best understood as a series of intertwined strings. At least, that's how Caliban Jones interpreted their babble, though he had never claimed any kind of objective knowledge. Anyways, he'd always thought it nonsense, but the thought still occurred to him sometimes.
If the world was made of strings, hers had been pulled far out from the rest. Most strings are knotted and bunched up with one another. Hers was straight and pulled taught. She sat on its end, far and forgotten, with only herself to keep her company. She stood on the corner of Agniel Street, the longest and most densely populated block in the Heavensgate slums of the Southwest District (commonly called "the Sooth'est" after a butchered mockery of the local accent), with a cigarette hanging loosely from her ruby red lips and another day long gone crystalized in her eyes. The rain fell quietly yet steadily, and she did not seem to much mind. She moved a damp lock of midnight black hair from her sight and slumped against a wall with a heavy sigh.
Only her attire hinted at her true nature -- a red dress which certain more noir-minded men might call "slinky", but which Caliban found simply "fetching". It complemented her figure well, not that it was one much bereft of compliments. However, the confidence such a dress suggested - needed, even - was mysteriously gone. To that end, she was less a woman in Caliban's mind than a question. What brought what was clearly once a proud creature so low? He smirked at the thought. Caliban loved a puzzle, particularly when it was a person.
Perhaps he was a sociopath. Certainly he had considered it. All his life he had been called a monster, a sentiment that had changed very little even as the world around him did. First it had been the angels; now it was the humans. It did bring him a certain dark amusement to know the angels received the same treatment, at least. "A certain dark amusement" was really all the joy one found in Heavensgate. And life here was amusing, there was no doubt about that. Just the night prior, the ISSR commander of the local region had been arrested on suspicion of money laundering for several of the more unpleasant cartels that ruled the demonic underworld. Caliban had broken the story back at the Stone two years before, but no one had believed him then; and today he had managed to snatch an interview from the commander in his cell. Apparently, he'd taken a liking to Caliban the first time around and wanted to trust his point-of-view in "competent hands". The thought still made him laugh. Not nearly as much as Mrs. Jones had at the suggestion that her husband was "competent", though.
But this woman made the commander look a child's plaything, if she had the story Caliban thought she did. Of course, being who she was, she made every mortal look a child, but immortality carried very little power to impress anymore -- especially in Heavensgate.
As Caliban approached the woman, he absentmindedly scratched at the hole where his left ear once had been. The nerves there were dead now and he felt nothing, but there had been a time where touching it would send lightning bolts of pain throughout his body. The physical pain, however, was nothing to the memories it had once recalled; prison was not a pleasant experience in Heavensgate, particularly not under Raphael. But scars fade, as all things do, even memories. Now none of those things came to mind, except on dark nights.
"Good evening," was the greeting Caliban offered her. She accepted it with absentminded incredulity, glancing at her new company for a brief second before returning to the far-off.
"Good evening," she repeated. She raised a pack of cigarettes from seemingly nowhere and began to remove one. "Smoke?"
"Oh, no," Caliban said with a dismissive wave, "not for me. Not anymore."
"Probably for the best," she agreed, returning them to wherever they had come, "I hear they aren't good for you." The way she said "you" made it very clear that she was not to be included in that statement. "Who did you say you were, again?"
"Caliban Jones, ma'am," he replied with a nod and a straightening of his tie, "staff writer for Heavensgate Daily, former editor-in-chief of The Burning Stone. And you are..."
"Lust," she said, with none of the appropriate gravitas. She sucked in and breathed out, a cloud of gray puffing out of her lips. Still she stared into nothing, acknowledging Caliban's existence only with her words.
"We should get out of the rain," Caliban said, "This is a new suit." It was a new suit. His wife had insisted he could not possibly interview such an important man as the commander in one of the old patchwork jackets he'd always favored, which was odd, as she had never had a problem with that before. New income was making her prouder as it made her wealthier, which made Caliban feel quite triumphant, but also perhaps a bit vainer.
Lust nodded lazily. She followed Caliban as he led her into a nearby café, not putting a thought into her step. She was a ghost, a shell, a shade on a leash. Caliban frowned; how could she conduct an interview in this state? The two were seated in a booth near a window, and for some time Lust simply stared out at the street. She could hardly see it for the rain, which had by now grown much more violent and obscured the world around it.
The clink of china and the smell of coffee roused her. Caliban raised his espresso in some kind of differing salute to the sin, and she nodded in reply.
"Tell me," she said, "Mr. Jones -- what is it you want from me?"
"I want to speak with you," he said.
"Let me guess why," Lust said with a weak smile, far too heartbroken to be bitter, "You want to speak about him."
Caliban winked. "Yes, him. Let's talk about Aleister Crowley."
"I know a lot about Crowley," she said, "and even more about Lucifer. But I don't know anything about the man that saved you."
"And you."
"And me."
"I want to know everything you know," Caliban said, removing a notepad from his jacket and a pen from his pocket.
"Were I to tell you everything I know," Lust said with a sudden interest, leaning in across the table and holding the cup with both hands, "you would melt into nothing."
This made Caliban smirk again, devilishly so. "Try me." They had always called him a rebel.
Lust lit another cigarette and reveled in this one, a minute stolen to collect herself. She looked up at him with eyes suddenly glistening. He saw for the first time her appeal. Before then, she had seemed sultry to him, that low kind of sex that was bought only by the foolhardy and the depressed. That kind of allure was evil, untrustworthy, made one feel unclean, deep down. But this, this was true beauty. It was sad, it was absolutely heartbreaking, but it was beautiful. Like a Shakespearean tragedy or a heartrending opera, the most powerful of emotions radiated black from her eyes.
"I don't remember how I was born," she said, "I suppose most people don't, but most have some kind of idea. It's a pretty standard procedure, isn't it? But not when you're a Sin.
I suppose I was born in the eye of Adam, or whoever the first fucking monkey was. The first time he looked at a woman and wanted. That was my beginning. I was an urge then, primal. Nothing more than a desire. But I consumed, like fire, and ate people up. That was the beginning. That's still today. But I now have a mouth, and a voice. I didn't have that then.
I was given shape, somehow. I don't remember my first life, if you can call this a life. There was a Lust before me. Whatever made her didn't keep her alive forever. Whatever made me, made me when she died. I forget how she died, or how I replaced her. I think I was something before this. I don't know. It was a long time ago. And it doesn't really matter.
I don't know if I had a mother or a father, but I had Crowley. Always I had Crowley. Maybe he was my creator? I can't say. But he was my kin. He was Pride, just the same as I am Lust. Like me, he burned through the ages in the hearts of the simple man. Until, one day, he wasn't that anymore. He was someone else. See, that's the thing with Aleister Crowley; he didn't actually exist. He was never Lucifer either, or Pride. He was always someone else, pretending to be whoever he was right then. I don't think anyone ever met who he really was.
But I loved him. Like a brother, maybe. It was very sad when he died."
"But that's not what's making you sad now," Caliban ventured.
She laughed spitefully, "What makes you think you know me?"
"I don't know you. But I know a lie. That's sort of my profession after all, the truth."
She shook her head. "You've never met the truth in your life. The truth is a ragged and cruel thing. If you had met it, you would've run by now."
Caliban simply smiled. "When I was 17, which is young for a demon, you know, my mother was raped in front of my eyes. An angel did it, a soldier. He was given a medal the next day. That was life in Heavensgate. Still is, to some extent. I've seen this 'truth'."
Lust knocked some ash off the end of her cigarette and into the tray. She looked back up at Caliban with those same eyes, and his heart strained in his chest. She smiled a bit herself, genuinely too. Most people, when they're powerful, they don't smile like a smile. They smile like a threat. This was not a threat, this was real. It looked unnatural, the natural, on her. Like it was unfamiliar to her.
"Have you ever been in love?" she asked. She returned the cigarette to her lips, her soft lips.
"I should hope so," he said, "I have a wife and children."
"That doesn't mean anything. I should know."
"Did you love Aleister Crowley? Romantically, I mean?"
" 'Romantically'," she growled, "What a fucking word that is. Doesn't even describe the half of it. Romance, that's poetry, isn't it? And yes, that's part of it. But there's the raw and the animal to love too, isn't there? No one ever talks about that. That simple need, like hunger. That... mechanical element. Love isn't romance. Love isn't a feeling. Love is a state of being. There's no romance to it, when it comes to it."
"You are a very cynical woman, aren't you?"
"And no, I didn't love Aleister Crowley that way. If anyone ever really did, they were mad or stupid. Not even Crowley liked himself."
"So who did you love?"
She returned to her wistful silence for a moment, forgetting even the cigarette. Caliban studied her. She was lost, when it came to it. Sin has a place in every heart, he mused, but when you live everywhere, you live nowhere. She had no place that was truly hers, so of course she was lost.
It must be a sad existence, he felt. To some extent, he pitied her. To an altogether more potent extent, he was afraid of her.
"The man I loved," she said with a slight quiver in her voice, "never loved me. He didn't understand love, not in that way.
But he was beautiful. He was kind, and he cared. He really... cared. Do you know what it is, to be alone? To be honest, you don't even notice. I-it's dark, but you've never known the light. When the company you have is yourself, you become quickly used to that little voice that tells you all that you've done, why you deserve to die. So to have someone who cares, it's... indescribable.
He smiled at every thought, and his hair held the sun. He laughed just when he knew he should, and he laughed frequently. He wore his every emotion in his eyes, his beautiful eyes. He always knew when I needed him, but more importantly, I always knew when he needed me. And oh God, when it was dark, when I didn't want... I don't know. But he was there. He was always there. And he was the sweetest, he was..."
She began to glow, to glow, with raw passion. Like a flame had suddenly caught, she became rigid and lithe, like a tiger primed for attack. She spoke, she spoke with such a fury that the stars themselves paled in comparison. She was alive, crackled with the electricity of breathing and thriving in a way Caliban had simply never seen before. She wasn't flesh, she was muscle and energy.
"I remember the first time I met him," she said, "I won't tell you that story, there are some things that, if you speak of, die in the air. Magic things. But I loved him. He was a beautiful man, with a beautiful heart, and for a brief time, all too brief, he was beautiful for me. And I can barely remember why I lost him, or how I found him. I just know... I never stopped needing him."
The ferocity in her only grew. She was angry -- no, she was something else, she was passion. It wasn't lust. It was something more rare, and more powerful.
"I love him. That's not something I could ever convey to you. But the world without him is so empty, so colorless. I am alone again."
And she fell back into her seat, drained. He thought he saw her then, what she had been once. Not Lust, but a woman. A tired woman, strung along across the ages by the same drive that she used to kill. And now she had come to some end, which dragged on even longer. She was dead at heart but could not die in flesh, not for a long time. That was suffering. She deserved sleep.
And his heart quickened even further. He looked upon her, and saw her, and knew her. And that was all he saw. He took a breath, and his vision narrowed. Not just of his eyes, but of his soul. Quite suddenly she was solid before him, she was all there was. Across a long moment, he slipped. And falling in was like giving in, releasing something of himself. It was like saying "Yes, yes I will do this".
He breathed out and was in love. It was a simple thing, wasn't it? A little moment, when it came down to it. It didn't last long, the process. It was nothing cosmic or earthshaking, not to anyone else. But in that moment, he was redefined.
She looked on him with a look that he, years later, would see again. He was in the wild, for some story about the beasts thereof, when he found a lioness above the corpse of a gazelle. The lioness had not killed it, some disease had. The skin was untouched and unblemished, but the eyes were frozen in surrender and the tongue hung out in an eternal pant. The lioness would not eat it. She did not look upon the meat with hunger, nor with disgust. Was it pity? No, but it was close. It was some deep sadness, or something adjacent to it. That was the way Lust saw Caliban. Like spoiled prey, or like some unfortunate fellow, he could not say.
"I think this interview is over," was all she said. She stood and walked away. He did not watch her go, but in his mind, he saw her. She moved with grace untold, with grace she didn't actually have.
And that was the thing, wasn't it? All anyone ever was was what others thought they were. How lonely was that? To live behind perception?
Caliban ordered a drink, and thought. He very badly wanted a cigarette.
He walked home through his old neighborhood. It had been a very long time since he had visited. There were no happy memories for him to visit. There were barely memories at all, more traumas and visions. As he walked by his old home and looked up at the cracked windows, he felt no need to enter and examine the contents. It was abandoned, either just like they had left it or as whatever squatters came had left it. But he didn't want to see. He saw all he needed to on the steps leading inside. On those steps, he remembered, was the first time he had seen an angel.
Angels never came to Sooth'est. They had no reason to. It was a dangerous place for them there. But one had come, some social worker he thought. Someone come to ease their conscience. That's all angels ever came there for, to feel better about their guilt. They would then return home, secure in their morality, and continue on fucking demons over. The angel was a girl, of course. He barely remembered what she looked like, but he remembered thinking that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And that bothered him, for a long time, that such beauty could hide in it all the monstrosities to ever happen to him. That angel girl, she was part of the same system that broke his home and raped his mother. She was that hate, that oppression. And she was beautiful. What right did she have to beautiful? Should she not have worn her nature on the outside? And if she was good beneath it all, really, how could she be an angel? He had never found an answer, he had just stopped looking. The world had taken his eyes from him. After a certain amount of time, blindness comes to seem like a mercy.
Fuck it. Caliban emerged moments later from a brightly-lit shop with a pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket, next to his pen. He withdrew one and his old lighter, wondering to himself why he'd ever thought he wanted to quit in the first place. Of course, he regretted it before he even put it in his mouth -- what else was the point?
As he lit the cigarette, he glanced up across the street and grimaced at the graffito. "SULFIE" was scrawled across the brick wall of an apartment in white chalk, just above a pair of crudely-drawn angel wings. He didn't need the bloodstain on the cement to tell him that there had, just hours ago, been a corpse between those wings. A demon's corpse. He wondered whose it was. Someone he knew? A friend? A brother? His wife? Even one of his children? He'd seen the crime so many times before, to be honest, he hardly considered it real. It was like a dream, a record on repeat. When he was younger, he would've wept and trembled with righteous fury. Now he just inhaled the smoke of his cigarette. The world makes monsters of us all, Caliban thought, and journalists too.
An old memory occurred to him, of a trip he had taken with his father back to the old country. His father, and his father's father before him (and so forth), had been farmers one day, fleeing for Heavensgate from Azazel's lands during the Famines. After they had left, desertification had come in their place and turned the crops to sand and barren dirt. As he stood in the dry heat, looking upon the cruelty of the forgotten earth, Caliban's father had told him something he would never forget. He had looked down at Caliban with the eyes of a wounded animal and said "Do not come back here, son -- this is no man's land".
The way Caliban figured, every place was no man's land. He finished the cigarette and resumed the walk home.
The title is lifted from the lyrics of TV On the Radio's "Love Dog", which indirectly inspired me to write this, though the Leftover Cuties' cover of "You Are My Sunshine" was perhaps more formative to the tone.
I started to tear up a bit writing that big speech, but mainly I think it's shit. Mainly I just wanted to revisit these two.
Well done. Extremely well done.
