SRθ: Grim Inquiries (2023-2024)

Sit.36: The Revenge

I've been avoiding the writing of this situation, and the one that follows, because I don't like what happens. In fact, I hate it. I can't-

I'm going to try again. In this series of events, something terrible happens. You might already have an idea what. I'm sorry that I can't make it unhappen – make it untrue. However, I can start with some good news, first: The Builder, as it turns out, is not a simple man as I'd previously assumed. In fact, he was suffering a brain clot, the local doctor said, and his knock to the skull with The Heathen jogged it loose, somehow. Miraculously, within three days, he was back to his previous self, whom I was only now meeting.
"I love your writing," he said, in a librarian's English. It was as refined as cheap wine, and sensitive. "Can I just say..." he posed, "...when you write of your exploits, how dark you sound?"
I raised my eyebrow, and my hand to my neck. "I didn't realize I came across that way. I'm always just trying to state facts, with some emotional weight."
We were standing by the stage watching the kids re-seed the mud and stomp in every little speck with their own bare feet. I'd given them the task, as a form of pride for them – they'd recently taken to following me around, and calling me "the creeper" or "the spook". They saw me not as the Cat O' Sparks, whom they modelled themselves after, but as the dog Death, instead. I was still immature enough to let it bother me, but I respected their youth enough too much to pop their little bubbles. It seems they respected me too, for getting rid of "the fat man" who'd climbed into their older siblings' beds at night, and made them cry until sunrise. The victims been drinking all evening in his honor, and were sleeping it off while he struck. Luckily for us, he seemed to lust for young teenagers at the smallest, but I imagine it was only a matter of time... and that kind of luck is but a sliver of light on a hellish storm. It's not the kind that gleams of hope; only the storm's own furious, muggy white bolts.
"Wrong metaphor," The Builder told me. "YOU'RE the spark-themed, HE'S the mud, remember?"
I blinked, not realizing I'd monologued under my breath. "Right. I should say: that kind of luck is a four-leafed clover in a swamp full of shit, and hardly worth note."
"Or wetting your boots for," he added, brows arced. "It's not so much our blessing that he left someone unharmed, when so many were. More like a curse that simply relented somewhere, exhausted from its own success."
I sighed. "Well said, friend. You handle your words well."
He stretched his arms toward the setting sun... it was getting to be about that time now. "It's hard, this thing of ours we're now stuck living with. The knowledge of what we've done... made to happen by our own, stupid thinking. Given a man treasures untold, love that should've never been his, all for some golden ale and creature comfort. Perhaps, of all things, a creature is the last thing that should be comfortable."
I spat. "We had no way of knowing he'd get so far... but I already had a feeling. I wanted him dead that very first night that he struck, and I wanted to kill him myself ever since I first heard of him from my Artist. She'd spoken of his name like it was poison, and it's my own broken mind that blesses me with the ability to forget it."
"Or, perhaps, you've simply decided not to remember anyone else's, so you don't have to remember your own. My good friend, The Chef, told me of your true title..." he leered at me, calmly.
I broke a sweat. "Is that so?"
He looked back to the kids. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. We'd rather not have to call you something else, now. And if you do kill him, your 'Heathen' as he's so aptly monikered... well." The man took a pipe from his pocket, dressed for the first time since I've seen him in a shirt of white and buttons – it had always been simple pants for him, and sometimes shoes; nothing else. Suddenly, he was adorned in wear's gentlemanly persuasions, and of a higher collar throughout – with even his own tobacco, bought market, in an unrusted metal can. I was proud to have been on good terms with him, a bit shamefully however. I'd always thought lesser of his lower intellect, and standing. Now it looked as though he was my wise, well-read uncle, of whom I'd known for a decade. Funny how people can change and surprise you, when given the correct jolt. I watched him light up, and puff, using a stage-torch that had already been lit for the night. He passed to me his pipe, and I puffed it well. A good, fine herb he'd found, though still not my usual fare; this one was lemony, and perhaps smelled of snicket. Or thicket, whatever that plant's name was. I can't be assed to remember them all, can I? But I hacked and coughed on it, satisfied with only a whiff of its sweet, cloudy smoke. The kids watched in awe, seeing this man before them seemingly transformed beyond his usual form, and now a mind out of reach – when last week, they'd seen themselves his better. They demanded he smoke at them, and he obliged... once.
"Don't let your parents catch you breathing that," he said. "It makes your fears rise, so you can face them back down... but too much fear, it's not good for you. Makes you old, withered, and afraid of everything, even when you should be daring to it. All fear's lesson is in its lightness, not the heavy kind which makes our legs dull and unmoving. That, my wee friends, is only terror."
They took in the smoke, and in some part the words, then dropped the empty seed bag and ran away. As soon as they were out of any adult's range, they started hitting each other with sticks.
"Ahh, young innocence," The Builder smiled. "What it would be to be a kid again, huh?" He looked at me. "But I have a feeling you already know what that feels like."
I grew uncomfortable. I knew him to be a builder of stage props, a painter with colors, and the man who dons the tree in every play... not a builder of suspense. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"I think you do," he said, and put his free arm around my shoulders to shake me kindly. "Looks to me like you're a 'sprite', old friend – and I say that very much in jest, for the most part. Surely you've noticed?"
"Noticed what, exactly?"
He puffed again. "Bereft of meat's carnivorous urge to pull upon the flesh of all others, and of hooven milk's stony touch upon your bones, which brittles them... for those who got milk when they shan't have needed it at all, because they'd already grown teeth from their infant gums. You thought yourself risen anew, and for that to be the source of your renewed splendor. But I'm afraid what you're dealing with is much more serious than that."
I squinted, confused. "I'm sorry?"
He puffed another time, and let go of my shoulders to gesture with his free hand. Lots of waves, and chops, in a manner of speaking. "You see, you're not the first to think only plants should sustain us – many have tried your way and felt your boons, either by choice or by starvation upon the king's golden lawns... whereupon all meat is denied to them, and given in tribute to his lordship and their superiors. Nor are you the first to curb even bread, and wheat's itch over your guts and skin. Aye, it tightens your tendons fierce, and makes you hurt all the more for all the work you've done to plant, reap, harvest, and mill it into vendorable product. If not enough, it also dries and makes scaly or infected the skin, turning our natural rubbery stretch into snappable, tearably thin paper, just like its original form once was... and rife for disease to spread. And, as you said yourself in your journals, sugar only feeds the process of infestation from most of whatever's having its way into us. You are not the first to see its pains and polyps, and deny themselves that which craves itself from within. Those pleasures which turn us into decrepit beings with glass bones and paper skin."
I raised both my eyebrows. This was The Builder? I'd seen this guy eating beef stew and loaves of bread by the bucketful. "Yeah, I mean, uh... it's... I get a rash from bread, so. Sugar makes me fat, too."
"Aye, 'tis a reason to stave, for sure. Though not all fat is excess, mind you. Regardless: I've seen upon them, with my own two eyes, and they are not like you, those other herbivores – they still age, and grow older... and wiser, with time. They're simply more... flexible! And relaxed on average, by their own stomachs being healthy and their blood's running easy. But also more disdainful, for they're rejecting a timeless primacy that all others indulge... and it makes them disgusted to see us. Like wood elves, or dryads, one could say: gangly and refined, but highly judgemental."
I was flabbergasted. All of my flabbers had been completely gasted. "I – if you know that, why do you-"
"Still eat meat? And cake, cheese, honey, all the like?" he inquired.
"Yes, exactly," I responded. "You KNOW it's bad for you, unlike everyone else, so... shouldn't you have an obligation to stop partaking in it? Why hurt yourself that way?"
He simply shook his head, and laughed. "Because, my friend: I've chosen to die and to let Death take me when he will. I've decided to even hasten the process, so's he can shuffle my soul into his deck of cards once more, and deal me again as I'm needed. You understand?"
I nodded, uneasily. "Sure, I suppose. That's sad, but okay."
"Now you," he said, toeing some seeds into mud with his fine leather boots, bought brand new that very day. "You've chosen to BE Death. Which means, unfortunately, you're going to have to stick around much, much longer... but therein lies your own, personal paradox."
I waited for him to finish, breath bated. I sensed my heart had quickened pace, though I knew not why. What was I expecting him to say, and why did it scare me so? Why did I feel so sick to my very stomach? 'If only he'd simply get on with it,' I thought.
He felt my displeasure, and shook his head again. "I feel you doubt my sincerity. Nevertheless, your paradox is this: how can one who is Death be someone who'll never grow old? Who'll never see its bony hand on their own shoulder, hour-glass soon to run low on sand? Never knowing its calm embrace and the feeling that everything you've ever felt will be gone, in all but a dark moment... that all our scars and withering will soon be erased, and we'll be born anew? Fresh as babes, full of light, and no more aware of you than as we were before you arrived on our last fateful day?"
"Okay," I swayed my head. "Yeah, that sounds, uhh... like a pain in the ass, I guess."
"A pain in the- a sprite can NEVER gain the wisdom and maturity of one who's felt their grasp on their youth slip, and seen it passed down to others! It's more than just the BODY which doesn't age, my friend! Elders KNOW it is their ROLE in life to respond for them! To be PRESENT for those who possess that which you now cannot! How can an eternal child, or even teenager at that, ever be truly RESPONSIBLE for another human being, when they THEMSELVES are still dependent for their entire lives?!"
I cocked my head and tried to wrap my head around what he was saying. I suspect, at that point, I'd already been all tired out of grand cosmic notions, and simply wanted some peace – much to his chagrin, for with his newly regained sense of wisdom, he wished to impart some by cramming as much of it as he could straight into my already leaking head.
He raised his arms, and spun about with wonder, back and forth, swinging left and right to the scene before him, underneath his feet... on the muddy, soon grassy theatre stage. "What is eternal life to someone who's never truly lived a full one, and quite possibly never will? Unfortunately, and all too sadly, Reaper, I can see as clear as any day: that will be your eternal conundrum, in this life and all after. For you are the Underworld's soul-faring sprite, are you not? A fairy of untimely ends? A prodigious child of fondness for the beating hearts in all of us, and making them at home in the swimming rivers? Not just of Styx, mind you, but all over the globe as well – just as water flows through land and all around it, souls do make us real, and trickle within ourselves something real inside us. They make us more than humors of bile and blood, more than thoughts of rage and sex, more than hopes of what we'll never see. Spirit makes every action worth it, makes it felt. That is your task, right?! To divulge and disperse the souls of man?!"
I scratched my scalp. "Uhh... I guess? Doesn't The Grim Reaper just kill people?"
He scoffed, angry at my unknowing. "As if! Know you not your Thanos, your Hypnos, your Samael? For what PURPOSE does he harvest souls? Where does he re-plant them, as you have done to bear child, time and time again?!"
I grinned. "You're saying I have to fuck more people? And now who's mixing metaphors?"
"Laugh not, Reaper, unless you can afford it. Your task is grave. How long before you become jealous of that sweet, cozy finality that you yourself have become forbidden from ever tasting? What will you become? Or worse: what will they make you?"
I sat with his words, taking breath's refuge on the stage's steps for a moment. "What makes you think I am this, anyhow? A sprite? A true mythological figure? Aside from my mask and farming tool. I'm as human as anyone," I carelessly replied.
He grimaced, in pain. He barely seemed to know what to say. So instead, he only bent down and kissed me on the forehead, in a way that reminded me of the rose-crowned girl. He said, "Because I've already met you, my dearest old friend, in the distant past. And I loved you, as you loved me, when you were a woman in full... or at least more than half. When I lost you, it was the greatest shock I've ever known." He looked at me, really looked, and seemed relenting in his own misery. Like he was waiting for something to occur, which could again make him sadder. Worried. He took a quick breath. " 'But fear not!', I tried to say, many times to myself. Knowing it was fate that she'd return. And so you have, of course, now!" He reigned in a smile, sensing my further unease. "But of course, I think not that you ARE her, herself. I don't claim you for my own, of course! I realize our disparity is, shall we agree, rather walling. Merely, I'm comparing- well, what I mean to say-"
I clasped my hands in my lap, trying to show some poise and sympathy. "I remind you of her, like a mirror soul. You miss her."
"EXACTLY!", he snapped. "That's why, knowing her as I well know you – and for your kind, the stars of adventure, secrecy, and stealth, to grow old and uncomely is as much dying as death itself. So often, by fate's own..." He swallowed a lump in his throat. "Well, let's say you, ah... may be granted a small... shall we say, mercy-"
"REEEEEAAAAPEEERRR!!" called a voice, cutting us off indefinitely. It was recognized, but not familiar: The Heathen. Somehow, he'd gotten free.
I looked around for him, as was utterly surprised to see him directly above us – holding The Mystic at axe-point, blade's edge hovering in front of her neck. Or rather, it was her own tomahawk.
"You like my axe?" he bragged. "It's hers, obviously, but she left it at my house. Kind of makes it mine now, doesn't it? You see us for a couple, don't you? Always sharing things." He chuckled, but he was dead serious. Worse than that, his time in the basement seemed to have purged him of his rotten elixir; he was stone-cold sober, and piping mad.
The Mystic spoke, "Don't- agh!" she struggled, unable to break free of his mug-trained grip. Heavy steinfuls and sundown brews made his thumb and fingers iron. She resolved instead to simply say, "Don't help me, love. He's only taking this all out on me because I enabled him – let him think it was okay, that he was just... I don't know, hurt, or something. That his sickness was someone else's choice. But it's not, is it, Heathen?!" She yelled in his face. "It's ALL YOUR OWN, and now that you're finally fucking SOBER ENOUGH to SEE IT-"
He shoved her into his high-chair, and stood over her... axe still pointed neck-side. "Will YOU reLENT already?! I knew it was me the whole time, I just let you THINK you were helping! By 'soothing my wounds'," he mocked. "All along, you never figured out what you were really for, did you?"
She sank into the chair, looking at the axe, then him. "I don't understand."
"You weren't IMPORTANT to me, you just THINK you are because of that stupid show! You think EVERYTHING revolves around you, that's why you kept coming back EVEN AFTER I told you to PISS OFF ALREADY!" He bent down to her, to demean her even closer. "You're stupid enough to think anyone needs you, but all you needed was a pet project. So you could think someone ACTUALLY cares that you EXIST – and all I needed was a quick, loose, easy, comfortable FUCK in-between my other, more pressing conquests! Over 'Catalite'. What a stupid name! Am I right?" He let the tomahawk swing, as he begged the crowd, which started to form all around us.
They were afraid to challenge him, and simply hoped 'his generous lordship' would deem to spare the girl – whom they were now beginning to realize was the raven-haired maiden; the Cat's Sparking heart-throb all along.
"She's the raven? The maiden fair?" they whispered to one another. "Is that why the rooster – oh, God in heaven," they cried.
They lamented, as I did, the odious inspiration for her infidelity with the rooster. Right behind the cat's back, and all of ours. And it stung, to realize all at once. I felt tears in my eyes, and so did they – he had done a terrible thing. Worse than even she'd done to herself: wild, immature, unrecognized, she was broken down by his presence upon her and consumed by his faulty valor... but he made her resent herself for all to see, and made us call it natural. Because she, like the rest of us, could only see herself through the eyes of another. He hadn't just degraded her – he'd made her feel that the denigration was needed, even deserved.
The Heathen practiced a swing for her head, and dared us to stop him. "Aaah? AAH?!"
"STOP!" I called out, and knelt before him. It was muddy where I stood, and water seeped into my leggings. "Don't do it. Take my head instead, in fair combat. If I heard right, you wished to be a Warrior long ago – let now be your shining moment of redemption." The Builder looked down at me, and shook his head... but I knew not why.
The Heathen looked down at me, pained. He was crying with frustration into gritted teeth. "How DARE you just- EVERY TIME! Always RUINING my MOMENT! UPSTAGING me!" He swung at the air, and balled his fist so tight his knuckles turned white. "You're right, though!" he laughed, unstable. "And so was my father!"
I kept my head down as far as I could and still watch him descend into tantrum. It was looking bleak, but I could try something I've never tried before... complete and utter patience. It hasn't worked yet, but only because I've never given it a chance. Mud swallowed my fibers below, sticking to my leg and wetting my skin.
He was gesturing to himself with the blade, while keeping a heavy foot in The Mystic's lap so she couldn't leave him during his mental breakdown. "Me, though? ME? THIS GUY?! HAHAHAHA." He grew resolute, and still with cold anger. "I'm nothing but a Heathen, and I always will be."
My knees still caked in mud, I looked up only too late – he'd thrown the tomahawk my way, and it flung in the air, twisting in the wind, to show me my doom. And before I could leap out of the way, for my legs were caught in his swampy devastation of our home, The Builder saved my life... by jumping right in front of me. He took the blade into his chest, directly down into his bleeding, accepting heart.
"And there, Reaper," The Builder croaked with his dying breaths, "...is the bad news. But fear not!!" He coughed. "I shall see you again, and you'll shuffle me out as you did before. I trust your hand, dealer, now trust my hope: you will find your way."
"To end him," I nodded.
"N-no," he sputtered red. Specks of it dotted his newly-purchased shirt, and made it look like he'd been painting again. "Reaper, I implore you... let end his reign, but do not blacken your heart for his hatred as if it were your own."
I frowned, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid... my heart is already black."
And then he died, and instantly, I regretted saying those awful words.