Farther.
“Aveia, belovéd.”
Even deeper. To nearly the beginning.
“Aveia, my Flesh!”
Yes, there.
Aveia.
No. I will not let Adomé in so far anymore. I push his Call away.
I am here.
I heard my husband humming, a breathtaking lullaby growing louder as he approached, Felt him growing closer. I turned with excitement, racing to the edge of the clearing to meet him. Raba’it came with me, bouncing with eagerness.
The sound swelled into words as he came into view, lengthening his stride to join me.
“Ah, my beloved,” he said, smiling in greeting and opening his arms. “Flesh of mine own.”
“Adomé,” I breathed back to him, and fell into his embrace. He kissed me for several long moments, and our minds touched, intertwining, as always, reflecting and magnifying our joy from deep inside each other.
I felt a head butting playfully into us, and broke away, looking down to see Tygre, who had accompanied Adomé, attempt to prod us into a dance. Raba’it sat atop her back, giggling madly.
They chanted, “Play. Dance. Sing.”
I couldn’t help laughing at their antics, so silly and yet so sacred. I heard quiet laughter behind me, felt it echoing in my head as Adomé said, “Yes, my dear ones. We will join you. We will sing and dance.”
I started to clap, measuring out a complicated beat.
As I sang, feeling my Self spiral upwards in joy, I could feel my belovéd’s voice blending with mine, lifting and broadening it. Raba’it added a quiet beat while Tygre raised her fierce voice. Others around us joined in, flying or crawling or sprinting as was their wont, blending into our dance with abandon.
Suddenly, a clear note seemed to peal through the glade, and another voice joined ours, piercing through the layers of sound while seamlessly becoming part of it.
I turned and saw –
Bright. Shining. It should have burned me, but it didn’t. It never did. Such things didn’t exist. It should have taken away, in its perfection, the beauty surrounding me. Instead, It shared its own, making everything more sublime, transcendent, pure. It sang with us, becoming part of our song. I stretched out my hand, and It took it.
G’bariel, so glorious, moved with us.
With my Adomé next to me, surrounded by our cherished ones, I was whole.
There, on the edge of vision, nearly as beautiful as the an’gele, the Other lay, watching, seeming to absorb our beauty without giving any of his own. Sweet Ser’paent.
Cold. Frozen. Ice.
No! I don’t want to be here.
Blackness.
A voice, hated – loved – so smug.
“But Aveia, what exactly is obedience?”
I smiled, although I was beginning to feel uncertain.
“It is… well, to do as I am asked.”
Ser’paent curled himself around me, seeming to think.
“But what is it when you are not asked?”
“I, I don’t know.”
He smiled at me, resting his head against my chest.
“But you want to please Adomé and his Father, yes?”
My hand rose up to stroke him as I considered my answer.
“Yes, of course, I ...”
“And do you know the best way to please?” he interrupted, looking up at me sideways. “Tell me, what would really please you?”
“Knowing the best way to serve. That is, the essence of obedience, with no hesitation.” I answered.
“Knowing more, then?”
Stop this!
My mind, now mere fragments, screams at me.
“You don’t want to feel the raw birth of pain tearing outwards from your cursed Presence. You don’t want to remember this.”
But I always do.
“Yes,” I said, “Do you know the best way to serve?”
“Yes.”
“How can I know what you know? Tell me,” I commanded.
“To learn what I know is...” He stopped and laughed, a strange hissing sound unlike my own. “...more knowledge. You want to know more?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wanting is not a strong enough reason. You have to need to know more. It has to be something you want more than anything else.”
“But… I don’t need it. I just want to please Adomé and his Father. That’s what I want most.”
Ser’paent began to uncoil himself from around me.
“But knowing more is what you need to be able to do that. That makes it what you want the most, what you need the most.”
“But I... ”
“You asked for my help, to know what I know. You asked for more knowledge, to know more. You know what you really want now, don’t you? You can feel the truth in your bones, smell it on my breath, and taste it in the vibrations of the air.”
He abruptly turned back to me. He wound himself around me again, and brought his beautiful face level with mine.
“And that’s all you need. Just a little taste.”
“How do I know more?”
I was filled with curiosity and excitement by that point.
“You need to know more, yes, to better serve? To better obey?”
“Yes. Yes! I… I must...”
“Very well. There is a place here in the grove. A place I often visit and ponder. A place of balance, of two different sides to every story. A place of much knowledge. There is... a tree.
“No!”
“Yes. You know more already.”
“But we’re forbidden ...”
“Only from knowing a little more. But the knowledge contained in that fruit is the only way to get what you want, the best way to please.”
I tried to break away from him, but he was holding me too tightly. I struggled to get away, but he was stronger than I.
“Ssh. Ssh. Look at me. Feel how close you are. So close to knowing how to please.”
I looked up at him. I was so young and innocent. Afraid but still trusting.
“But I will die if I eat from it.”
“Am I dead? I have eaten it many times, and here I stand, full in my knowledge, sure of myself, my place, my life…and I understand both obedience and pleasure. This is what you want, yes? Look at me, pulsating with life.”
“Yes. You are so beautiful. Such beauty can only be… must be right. It must have a purpose.”
His voice was still there, cajoling me, lulling me.
“My purpose is to please you, glorious woman. And if you taste it with me, you will know, too. And that will please you. And you will finally get what you want.”
I looked up at him, falling into the brilliance of his eyes and the beauty of his presence.
“This is… obedience?”
“Yes,” he sighs.
Suddenly, there it was, in my hands.
It was cold. There was no word, then, for that cessation of feeling in fingers and toes, that needling of flesh that I have learned accompanies such temperatures. So we made a new word. There was likewise no word for fire, or pain. In our despair, we created so much.
I can still see my dear little ones, hear them turning on each other. Tygre savaging Raba’it, Onli striking D’er down.
I hear Him, the Father, giving us our punishment, while the an’geles watch. Even G’bariel, my favorite visitor, stands by, impassive. He receives the Flame with an air of victory, as if he is being rewarded to merely stand and watch.
I still hear the smug voice of Ser’paent.
“I only told you words you wanted to hear, truth in which you wanted to believe. And there was no lie. You did gain knowledge of pleasure. And knowledge of pain. Both sides. Good and evil. But you now know more, do you not? You now understand the true nature of obedience. Is that a lie?
“Silence!” Adomé yelled, “You are nothing! Your beauty is shredded, your radiance stripped, your majesty gone
. You will forever crawl and slither, trod on by our heels.”
Ser’paent surprised me by laughing, cold laughter that filled the air with menace.
“You still don’t understand, First. My fate is but a sad echo of yoursss. You will come to despise your own life, as you slowly become the dirt from which you were made. I will still glide below you, but you… you will fall the longest.”
Something began inside me then, something I didn’t recognize. I could feel it emanating from the core of my flesh, and I clutched at my abdomen, terrified.
“It… hurts. Something is happening.”
Why did Ser’paent have to be the one to tell me? To complete my humiliation?
“A curssse. On you and all of your daughters. You will suffer. You will live long, and always sssuffer. I shall wither into dust, but you – you are just beginning your long descent.”
Now the shadow of our lives is finally nearing its end. I am a footnote in history, known for my shame, my burden, and my children. But never for my joys, my delights, my loves. Never for the smiles I evoked, or the meals I made, or the clothes I stitched, or the songs I sang.
Or the tears I shed – for all my daughters.
Ab’iell is dead. Ca’inah has locked himself away, still defiant, punished in his own turn. But I can still hear him, still feel him living in his own torment.
Oh Esaeth, so beautiful. My only son, now, who loves me.
But all my children are doomed, even he. A fraction of a fraction will be all that remain when Adomé’s Father punishes our disobedience yet again.
That’s the knowledge my taste left me. Their ruin. They use only half of what they should, lost in their machines, building their great cities higher and higher… even as they slide further and further from the Garden.
Fools! Don’t they know that’s where they should want to be, dancing with an’geles and animals in complete harmony, singing with the wind and grass, ignorant of fear, pain, murder, death? Don’t they see that flame in the East and know they’ve already lost?
This knowing, it lingers, still, moving inside me.
I fragment again, lost between Now and Then…
This knowing...
Lingers. Linger. Lingering. The echoes sharply piercing into pieces from the inside. Still, even now, so much agony.
~*~
Science Fiction
~*~
The Game
By
Kaycee Nilson
“Come on. They gotta be here somewhere,” he whispered as much to himself as to the other three members of his team.
“Yeah, it’s a little too quiet,” the static plagued reply came back to him through his headset communication device.
The darkened alleyway seemed to stretch out forever, with dozens of hiding places for their quarry. One by one, the three team members advanced to the next obstacle, and then the next, and the next, all the while keeping a constant eye out for an attack from any direction.
“Skank, watch out for that shadow over there.” The whispered voices continued to keep the team members in sync, although the static made it difficult.
“I see it. I thought I saw something move over there.”
“Where are they?”
A sudden scream filled their ears as the team member bringing up the rear was hit from behind, and a flurry of activity filled the entire alley. It seemed as if dozens of enemy appeared from nowhere. They moved so fast, the team couldn’t train their weapons’ sights on any of them in time to stop them from swooping in and attacking. The comm devices went from whispered directions and questions to full volume screams and shouts. The team was thrown into immediate disarray.
“Skank’s down! He’s hit and down!”
“I know! I saw it happen! Just keep shooting!”
~*~
Skank lifted the helmet off of his head and slammed it down on his desk.
“Dammit! Why do I always get hit first?”
He stared at the computer screen as a counter slowly ticked off 90 seconds, the time he had to wait before re-entering the game and rejoining his team. He tried flexing his fingers to relieve some of the tension, but the mechanical gloves he wore made it difficult. To add to the frustration, he could still hear his teammates’ shouts through the helmet as it sat on the desk. He just couldn’t respond to them until the 90 seconds expired.
The game was the latest craze. Called “Blutsauger” and based in virtual reality, the game required Skank’s parents and the parents of thousands of other kids to shell out several hundred dollars for the special “VR Rig” needed to play the game. It consisted of a headset with a communication device, gloves, mask, and the cables needed to connect it to a computer system or game console. They were available for the X-Box, PlayStation 3, Wii, and other popular game systems, but Skank never got the upgrade to connect his PS3 to the Internet, so he opted for the PC version.
“Come on, come on,” he said impatiently to the slowly ticking clock. He knew that if he didn’t re-enter the game before the other team members’ characters died, then they would have to start over at the first level, something they’d had to do many times already.
“Mike! Look out!” came one of the static filled voices. Skank looked back up at the clock that seemed to be going slower and slower. With only 15 seconds left, Mike’s voice went quiet. Skank knew there was only one team member left. With 10 seconds to go, he put the headset back on, ready to rejoin the game. But with only 5 seconds remaining, the comm went quiet. The third team member had died.
“Damn, damn, damn!” he said as he pounded his mechanical fist on the desk.
“Careful you don’t break that thing.” The voice was that of his older brother, watching from the doorway. “That thing was expensive, not to mention a complete waste of money.”
“Oh, what do you know?”
“I know you spend way too much time playing that dumb game.”
“You’re just jealous that you suck at anything remotely resembling a cool game.”
“Maybe I just don’t want to risk my life.”
“What, you listening to rumors again?”
“Hey, it was all over the news. Kids have died playing this game.”
There had been stories about kids in New York playing Blutsauger and ending up in the morgue. Similar stories had surfaced about kids in L.A., and Chicago, and Memphis, and Toronto. The list went on and on.
Of course, every time a new game hit the market, there were always stories of something bad happening to the kids that played it, but they were never more than just stories. So, Skank and his friends dismissed the rumors now just like they always did.
~*~
Instead of restarting the game for the umpteenth time, Skank decided to go back to the video store where he had bought the new game. It was a small store that sold nothing but video games. Most were educational games, or child development games. But there was a small selection of video games, and they were always the latest and most popular games.
Skank and his friends had been surprised weeks earlier when they found the odd, unknown game on the shelf. The box had no game description, no eye popping graphics, and no catchy sales phrase. It was a simple black box with the name Blutsauger across the front. The game disc itself was equally plain. A simple blood red disc with no words or printing of any kind. But as unappealing as the game packaging seemed, Blutsauger had become the most popular game in America in only a few short weeks.
“Hey Skank. Any luck with that game?”
Dwight, the owner of the store, didn’t even have to say what game. Like most kids in the country, there was only one game on their minds.
“Nah. Still can’t get passed level 12. We always bite it in the alleyway.”
“Maybe you just need a little help.”
Dwight nodded his head toward the corner, where his young nephew sat in front of a computer.
“You mean Rabbit?”
Skank was shocked that Dwight would even suggest the boys inc
lude Rabbit in their next game.
~*~
Rabbit was an autistic child, who seemed to be constantly in motion. He never spoke, preferring to make his wishes known with a series of grunts and hand motions. Specialists and therapists had long told Dwight that he had a long road ahead of him if he wanted to break Rabbit’s silence. It happened by accident that Dwight had found the key to unlocking Rabbit’s silence: the Computer.
Through educational games and other software programs, Rabbit slowly developed a way to communicate with his uncle. He was able to learn programs much faster than others and managed to explore other lands through the magic of the Internet. He quickly learned how to spell and communicate using the word processor, and became a secret whiz at video games. He just seemed to have a sixth sense about how things worked inside the magical computer screen, and was incredibly dexterous at the controls.
It was Rabbit’s abilities on the computer that had first prompted Dwight to open the video store. It was a constant source of new programs for Rabbit to learn and new ways for him to develop.
~*~
When Blutsauger had arrived in a surprise shipment, Dwight was skeptical. He thought the lack of creative packaging would keep it from selling. And the price of the additional equipment would put it out of most kids’ reach. But the company that shipped it included a note explaining that the shipment was entirely on consignment. If it sold, report it to the company. If it didn’t, just give it away. Dwight had never heard of a company doing this before. They usually sent demo copies, or a rep to sell the game to the store. But Dwight wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he put it out on the shelves. Within a week, all copies were sold, except for the one he had kept in back for Rabbit.
Rabbit played the game constantly, and seemed to do well, but he always played it alone. He didn’t have friends on-line to play with, because he couldn’t talk to them through the headset. If Dwight could convince Skank and his friends to give Rabbit a try, maybe it would be the next step into unlocking Rabbit’s inner secrets.
~*~
“So, whaddya say? Can Rabbit take a shot at the game with you fellas?”
Skank was still hesitant, but he didn’t want to get on Dwight’s bad side. After all, he was the best source of new games in town, and if he liked you, he could keep copies of the best games hidden away for you.
“Sure, we’ll give it a shot. Will he be able to talk to us through the comm device?”
“Not really, but with the gloves, he’ll be able to point and motion just like in real life.” Dwight was overcome with joy just thinking about the possibility of Rabbit making progress. And playing a game with other kids could be just what he needed.