Tales of Monsters and Angels

(Blank) a short story

"Ungelic is us" - Different are we two - from Wulf and Eadwacer

"Eft is þæt onhworfen    is nu swa hit no wære     freondscipe uncer" - Now it is undone, as if it never were, our love  - from The Wife's Lament

****

At some point, I had nothing and no one left. Before, I had everything, or close enough. At least, I thought I had everything, so I wasn't complaining. What I have now is a mess of misery. I feel loose, disconnected. Connected and un at the same time. The nausea of waking before dawn, the flash of panic and then remembering it's too late for that.

The City is quiet today. Unreal. Quiet for me, as the assistants clean up the problems. Where there are people, millions of people, there are problems. I walk along the river since it's safe here for everyone, even a woman on her own. Sparkling clean, green strip of grass, bluish-gray water. What did I say about the assistants? They know their jobs and nothing else.

Vita taps my shoulder. "We have picked up a digital footprint. You can follow the trail from the Grove."

"Thank you," I say. I'm already on my way. "I've got it."

Time to head out. I've looked before, of course. So many times, when my assistant detected his trail.

After the schism, I was kicked out of my own position. I was searching already, without the mandate. His followers whispered to him, they whispered to the Cronies. The Cronies—the Board members, came crawling sycophant style to whisper to him, too. Then the followers stopped whispering. They were screaming. He had the followers, the cults in his name, and the adoring masses. What did I have? Reason? What did that matter when he was their guiding light, their god, my god, do I have to go on? Waking up in the morning with only the thought of him for company?

Promises were made, promises were broken. But I'm not in pieces. I've melted. I'm the gooey mess in the chrysalis, liquifying so I can better devour myself. Please don't think this thought leads to some butterfly metaphor. It's nauseating.

It was different between us. Before, anyway.

Streets are a blur as I hurry. Laws are the same here, and I obey for the most part. I could get away with so much, but I wait to get out of the City, through the Village, and into the Grove.

May his misery be as far and wide as the worlds he travels.

I'm in the Village, the market zone and the way narrows where street merchants and vendors hawk their wares. Bubble heads pass me, eyes vacant and jaws slack. All anyone else sees of their world is the hazy blue sphere surrounding their heads. Surrounding, hell. Devouring their minds inside and out. One of them swerves and I sidestep, but too late. I could have been a puff of wind, for all the notice he gives me. He pushes me into a food cart. Noodles. Bouncing pin-ball fashion, he continues down the middle of the road.

"Yeah, that's right, keep going!" the noodles vendor brays. "That's all life is, one big fucking dream!"

I shrug deeper into my jacket and keep walking, my hip stinging from the impact. Keep moving. Out here on the edges of the City, I have to keep moving. Every step could be tracked—I'm not the only one searching. His followers follow me.

It hasn't always been like this. I have to remind myself of how it once was, same as when I had an itch, I have to scratch or a hang nail, I yank. That's not really the same feeling, though. I rehash the past like....

Like what? Like picking at a scab. Teasing apart the seams and letting blood flow. Like poring over those old texts and pictures, remembering the flush of love's pleasure while icy barbs spread through my body. That's not an answer to why.