Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Shards

Inside, humanity is trapped, trapped inside its own body controlled by forces it doesn't understand and ruled by instinct it did not agree upon. The body is a foreign creation, a borrowed suit, a rented piece of equipment that came without instruction manual and too many defects. Trapped inside a cage they stare outwards from their physical prison, some are tortured on the inside, played with by their own bodies and own minds like it's some sort of sick joke.

I've seen it, humanity desperately clawing outside themselves like a trapped man drowning under a wall of ice. They desperately wish to live outside themselves, to be more than the sum of a body. Perhaps this doesn't explain much to you, but it explains some things to me. It explains why man is the only species that has ever attempted to create worlds. Some create worlds on pieces of paper or canvas inches long to feet wide with streaming ribbons of pigment maddening themselves until the sky is colored in blood and the water is mixed with tears, horrified that their internal existence will go unnoticed creating for themselves an external existence. Others manipulate language like a strong wind manipulates the surface of a vast sea creating waves and peaks in which entire worlds reside crystalline pictures of artificial truth designed, precisely to transport humankind away from itself, make it a part of something bigger. It explains why they are desperate to possess concrete things, things they can touch, things they can feel, things that help them assure themselves that they truly ARE living.

But most of all, I think this is why humans collect souls. I'm not entirely sure of its existence. The Drev seem convinced, and humanity speaks of it more as a matter of fact than a matter of fiction, even if they do not intend it. Perhaps they desire to make their mark on something that can be marked that can truly be changed based on their presence because no matter what they write, what they paint, it doesn't change anything. The wind still bows and the rock never changes, eventually all of their efforts will be for nothing. Like everything begins, everything will end.

I think they collect souls, because it's the one thing they can truly make an impact on, something they can change. They can break it, they can mend it, they can change it. Light it on fire and blacken it, melt it and turn it to glass then shatter it with words.

Humanity collects souls, they collect each other, and sometimes choose to discard each other.

But then there are the fragments, the fragments, leftover lying on the ground once deity was done creating humanity from their fragments. Fragments left behind that sometimes can seem so human but are missing pieces.

Created from the fragments, sometimes humans lose something themselves. Like a glass passed from hand to hand it chips and breaks and cracks, so it collects fragments to put itself back together.

I think that's why humans bond so closely with animals, trying to find something to patch the holes in themselves, the fragments, the ghosts of humanity, empathy, intelligence, sadness.... Love.

Why was man so lonely, so curious, so desperate to capture the spirits of things he should never have played with?

Once upon a time humanity crouched alone in the cold, looked up at the moon and listened to the cries of spirits in the dark. He lured it in with his fire and with his sympathy inviting his demons towards the fire where, together, he might be warm, and with his hands, he molded the devil into an angel a creature that would love him past blood and past time, but there was a price for man's meddling, stuck in time watching as his angels grow old and wither before his eyes, growing week and cold before he feels the effect of that same time. Man taught his angels many things he could not, he made the darkness into a companion, into family, into a protector, a warrior. He gave his angel the keys to his heart, his emotions and his health, and then he watched them die.

And when humanity didn't need an angel, the befriended chaos where, mirrored in its surface, they saw their own unpredictability, their own apathy, and their own need to be loved and admired.... But from a distance. Chaos sits in the same room, wanting you to know it's there, but refusing you to come close. Maybe it will decide get in your way to curl up with you and watch the fire, but maybe it will strike at you unprovoked and run.

Humanity doesn't mind, it does this itself on occasion it understands the paradox wanting to be noticed, to be loved, but to be left alone.

Once upon a time man desired to run from himself. He was looking for a fragment of freedom, limping through the world on tired feet blued by the cold back bent under the weight of the sun, and he met freedom on the grasslands. With deceptive words and bribes, he lured freedom to his side and enslaved it. He loved freedom, asked it to carry him towards the sun, and freedom agreed for the price of being fed.

Humanity doesn't understand it's broken pieces, doesn't notice how dangerous they are. They ran from these dangers like they ran from themselves. But these were just fragments splinters of humanity scattered on the wind. Maybe, just maybe if these splinters were gathered up, they would be equal to even half the hunger of man, the hatred, the desire for death. Maybe man became as strong as he did because it was more likely he'd hunt himself to extinction than his danger. Humanity chased himself like a dog chasing its tail, for the longest tie biting chunks and splinters, turning itself to dust. Humanity does that to itself sometimes.

Humanity collects many fragments. He sits in the corner and looks at himself in the polished surface seeing parts of himself reflected back. Maybe he will see the mysterious that we see reflected in the depths the creatures living there like the parts of his mind not even he understands. Maybe he will see something soft, something to hold, something to protect.

Maybe he will see something that can fly.

But humanity is made of shards, it isn't so simple, it isn't just the sum of its parts, which is why man will never stop looking.

It will hold freedom captive, it will sit with chaos,and it will continue to foster angels.

Perhaps, now that humanity has found us, it will see its reflection more clearly