Black Glass

Chapter 8

In the advent of deep night, lost in the fog of tired memories as vivid as hallucinations, I stared at the locked chest in my bedroom that I dared never to open. Within, was the black glass necklace that I had crafted for my brother on his birthday; the necklace he had died wearing. For a breakthrough moment of madness, I found my hand reaching out towards the chest, and as I moved toward it, I could see my very fingers trembling from some unknown force. My fingers touched the wood of the box, and I recoiled back with a jarring flinch. A high-pitched whistle sounded off in my brain, like an alarm bell warning of impending agony, and I clutched my face in my hands to control the pain of a sudden splitting headache. Perhaps it was all imagined; a psychosomatic pain born of terrible memory. When it finally subsided, I was taken back to him.

Sebastian looked at me with those innocent, compassionate eyes of his as I delicately applied a plaster to a cut on his knee. There was a quiet between us, but I sensed he wished to break it.

"You look as though you have something to say," I said.

"I wanted to ask you something, Damon."

"You know that you can ask me anything."

"Do you think that you could ever stop?"

I had always wondered when he might have asked something like that.

"The question is not whether or not I could stop, but if life would be at all fulfilling if I did."

Sebastian frowned.

"What do you mean?"

I smiled at him, feeling like his teacher in a classroom.

"Have you ever heard the fable of the scorpion and the frog?"

He shook his head, curiosity gleaming in his eyes.

"There's this scorpion who asks a frog to carry it across a river, but the frog is wisely reluctant. It's afraid of being stung of course. But the scorpion argues that if it were to sting the frog during their journey, they'd both drown in the treacherous waters, which would be rather foolish. The frog then agrees to help. However, just as the pair reaches the halfway point of the river, the scorpion suddenly stings the frog. When the frog asks the scorpion why he'd done it, moments before death comes for them both, the scorpion simply replies that he is sorry, but it is in his nature to sting."

Sebastian appeared sad at the conclusion of my tale.

"So, are you saying that the scorpion did not have a choice?"

"We always have a choice in any matter. The scorpion did have a choice. I don't see the story as one of having no choice in our decisions. We are not slaves to our desires and instincts. But despite knowing the consequences, knowing exactly what would happen, the scorpion acted as it did anyway and stung the frog, because to sting is the greatest pleasure in life, its one true purpose, and to deny itself of this was to deny the essence of life itself. Life was simply not meaningful without it."

"I think I understand just a little. But that's also terribly upsetting in a way. To want something so badly that you would give up everything for it."

"That's the point. It's better than never having it at all."

"I would hate to think about that happening to you."

Ah, and so we had arrived at his true concern. I winked at him to reassure him. He smiled.

"Don't worry brother mine. Unlike the scorpion, I can swim just fine."

The memory dissolved as I returned. I heard crickets chirping, and a light breeze rattle my windows. A drizzle outside produced a calming effect, and I followed it with my eyes into the black sky. The night held silence, sounds and secrets, between the wind that swayed the rain. When the night dragged on endlessly, the cold relented, and darkness spawned malevolence in the quiet. As I gazed within the depths of the stars, a howling echoed, and I patiently waited consumed by shadow songs. Far across the night sky, I spoke with wolves, sharing their hunger, as I searched for monsters in the shadows that reflected me as I was. There existed but one, fluttering nearby; the moth dancing on the edge of the flames, my sole companion in the bleakest night. Though at any moment, it could surrender to the beautiful depths of my private fire, and disappear eternally in but a mere second.