The Second Carpenter

LX

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"No . . . do not be alerted at my sight, O mighty Rakard. I am Violet Vedenta, and I come not here as a man of the opposing army - I come not here as a man at all - let us talk face to face, creator to creator, God to God. Our wills have caused much many a thing. And I lust for nothing but creation."

"Yes . . . I understand that . . . satisfaction of our kind relies on our creative practice."

"Can you tell me why? Why is it that the only thing of significance to me is my creation?"

"You are linked to the universal will. You have an exceptional connection to the true beings. You are bound to them by a shared, inevitable sense of godhood, of creation, hence the world surrounding you will never satisfy you - it was already there; it wasn't made by you, and you can only rejoice in your own creation. And your creations will be unleashed upon you, as an atonement of your defiance that was unleashed upon the true beings, and ever more . . . I cannot grasp the initiation of this chain - there may be none; for what will never end need not have ever begun."

"And in the end . . . upon the utmost horizon of infinity . . . it is endless . . . so is it not pointless? Once you've reached the goal it is no more. The goal is what makes the goal impossible. The end is what makes the end impossible. Everything is inherently denied in itself. It is pointless . . . is it not pointless?"

"Yes . . . it's pointless."

"Thank you."

"I will instruct those at my command not to attack you."

"You may . . . but you need not; for it will be pointless. Are you satisfied, Rakard? Still?"

"The things I have sacrificed to my legacy. The things I rejected, not to be distracted. I have never experienced teen love. I haven't experienced any love. I just 'like' people. Barely even that. And each time a significant person is removed from my life and I don't even care about it, I feel that I have lost a bit of myself. And that is sacrifice, for, had I been selfish, I would have embraced that pain and felt it, experienced it. Because you are supposed to undergo pain after separation. That sorrow is part of life. It makes you feel alive. But I have to be away from it as it distracts me from building what I build. And since I don't risk undergoing extreme pain, I don't get a chance of extreme rapture."

"But isn't creation born to pain?"

"It is. But the pain whence my creation sources comes not from the heart, but from the brain. The lack of wisdom. We are, after all, just people, you see? And people cannot be omniscient. Thus the awareness that I'm just another darn idiot is enough pain to charge my creation. Romantic pain is something I don't need nor can handle. It is more something you would need, actually."

"And what's so deep about it? I have loved. But romance? I see people, like drug addicts who would cleanse themselves only to be able to relive the first time's pleasure, they repeatedly throw myself in deep, distressing love only to repeatedly experience the relief of moving on from such desperate attachment. People are addicted to annihilation; this paradox."

"Not pain."

"That one," Violet indicated William Unit A.C., "Will you put him out of his misery once his job is done?"

"Him? Well, no. Upon death you shall feel nothing. Constant torture is superior to lack of consciousness."

"In many ways, yes; but is it worth it?"

"I've already taken the paternal burden of this brutal responsibility that comes with creation. In this case, I can never know whether I've made the right call. I'll just have to live with it."