You want…me…to talk. Clearly, Ailann, you are as suicidal as I am. No, genocidal, as our failure here will impact not only us, but all Nau’gsh.
Go ahead, says Ailann. Do your worst. I doubt that we can hide anything from the SongLuminants. They’ve already said they’re not concerned about ethics, so your violent tendencies shouldn’t bother them.
Do you seriously want me to tell this stupid story about how Ari, in some completely clueless and random fashion, barged in on a CenGov cruiser, deployed a singularity, and led a ragtag team of biological weapons to victory based on sheer physical superiority? If our foes had demonstrated anything asymptotically approaching competence, we would have been utterly crushed. Which is basically what is going to happen now.
Is that what you’re hoping? asks Tarlach.
I hate you. I hate you as much as I love Jamey.
Tarlach whips out a notepad to jot it down. This is clearly an affectation, since all our memories are recorded immediately in the wood of our branches. He’s doing it simply to annoy me.
I thought that you would enjoy telling the bit about Constantine’s revenge, says Ailann.
Constantine’s revenge? Constantine’s so-called revenge is ludicrous. If Panic had done to me what she did to Ross, I would never have been satisfied with a revenge that failed to make her internal organs external.
It wasn’t done to me, but to my brother, says Constantine. Same difference, though. I did find revenge personally satisfying.
I don’t have a brother and I never will.
Suddenly, a hand-puppet is thrust towards my face, a caricature of a vlizaard covered in orange plush fur. As its enormous mouth moves, a long, yellow tongue flops disconcertingly. Wrong, says Davy in an annoying falsetto voice. Your brothers’ names are Darius and Anthony.
There are more like Lorcan? asks Cillian. Are you fucking nuts?
Cillian is questioning the sanity of a man playing with a vlizaard hand-puppet. See what I have to put up with?
Darius’ other brother is Cuinn, and Anthony’s other brother is Daniel, says Davy. I thought it would make for a fun combination.
Kill me now, I say.
You combined Cuinn and Lorcan? says Ailann incredulously. What did you get, Dr. Frankenstein?
You’ll have to wait to find out, says Davy smugly.
I hate when he gets like that. He’s such a prick. Hey, SongLuminant, have you figured that out yet? The most power goes to the biggest pricks – just look at Ailann, Cillian, and Davy. Nice guys like Jamey and Callum just get pain for all their trouble.
I’m not nice, says Callum. I’m submissive. There’s a difference.
I thought I was nice, says Davy. Why don’t you like me?
Perhaps it’s because I can barely restrain myself from choking the living shit out of you.
Evan’s nice, says Owen. And Lugh.
Evan is a sensitive little flower and Lugh is the most delusional moron I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing. But it’s predictable that you’d say that. Pride in ownership. Does it bother anyone else that Lugh has been fucked by Owen, but not by Tara?
I’m the only one who gets fucked by Tara, says Callum. Are you trying to find out just how not-nice I am?
Was that a threat, you little cunt?
“Sexual politics. It’s even more boring than the other one’s timeline,” says the fish.
I’ve always wanted to try yin yang fish, I say.
Is that some tantric thing? says Tommy. It sounds pretty perverted, but I didn’t think that you uh, had that kind of inclination…
It’s an ancient human delicacy where a fish is deep fried but kept alive and eaten while still twitching.
I am seriously going to vomit, says Evan.
But the fish is laughing, and it’s filling up our ridiculously crowded space with that glowing gas. It doesn’t exactly smell bad, perhaps a bit like toasted seaweed, but after a while, it gets on one’s nerves.
I turn to Ailann, the face of “God.” Ailann, worshipped by billions. Ailann, as omnipotent and omniscient as the Wizard of Oz. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I ask.
Just explain yourself.
Explain myself. Explain myself.
How the hell can I explain myself when I don’t even know why I exist?
It’s the classic question. Why did God bring evil into the world? Except that it’s supposed to be asked by suffering, sniveling Job, pustulent and pestilent, rotting in the desert. If there were any justice in the world, the question would’ve been asked by Jamey. The question would’ve been roared out by Jamey as he was being hung from that cross by Guinnebar, the world-wrecking bitch.
The question would’ve been asked by Jamey except that Jamey HAS NO VOICE. “God” is apparently a sadistic fuck.
So this time the question is asked by Lucifer. Why did you make me? Why did you fill me with hatred and spleen and destruction, and then stymie my every action? More than that, why did you make me capable of love? Why did you fashion me to fancy that fickle whore? I want to dash her head against the concrete and be covered by the rain of her shattered skull. I want to rip her heart out of her living body. And maybe deep-fry it. I want to consume her, become her, crawl under her flayed skin like the Aztec god Xipe Totec. But I can’t. I can’t because I love her too fucking much, and all I can do is wish for my own destruction.
I turn to Aran. You understand it, I say. You understand this torment. You know what it means to be apart, to despise your very existence. And you have the power to destroy everything! Failing that, you have the power to destroy us. Why didn’t you?
I want to torment him. I want to because I’m alone, and I was created to be alone. I’ll never have a friend. Seeing my own agony reflected in his eyes is the closest I can come.
What kind of half-assed reason do you have to cling so stubbornly to life?
Aran is looking at me, but his eyes don’t see me. I’m not even there. He says, because she has the most beautiful hair.
What?
WHAT?
Interesting, says Hurley. Keep going.
How can that possibly be enough?
It isn’t, says Aran. But it’s something.
I don’t know why you’re complaining, says Tommy. Tara loves you.
Tara loves you. Tara loves the white mule she rode with round the terrace. It’s not an achievement.
Browning, says Cillian. I didn’t know the devil was literate.
The devil fucking created literature, asshole. I can’t believe them. They’re such a pack of idiots. And even when the fight each other, they stand together. And I’m always apart.
You don’t have to be, says Tarlach.
Moron, did you fail to understand Dermot’s recent infodump? I was created to prove that I would fail. So perhaps the question isn’t why I exist, but why I still exist.
Because no emanation is expendable, says Dermot.
And then I start laughing. I laugh until the tears run down my face because it’s the only way I can cry. Of course, I say. It makes perfect sense. My infinite anguish and impotent rage continue because Tara insists upon it.
Oh God, I love her. I love her.
The fucking flying fillet thinks it’s funny, too.
Lorcan, look, says Suibhne, touching me briefly on the arm.
It’s a memory. We’re in a long, boring meeting of the High Council. Lord Hslek is speaking, and he’s insufferably banal, more soul-killingly dull than counting the molecules of water that evaporate during the hardening of a surface veneer. I lean over to Tara, brushing against her ear, and say something tasteless, shocking and unreasonably vicious about his wife, a kitchen knife, the family dog and nose hair. And Tara laughs. Her laughter is like bells would be if only each toll were a razor. She leans over and places her hand against my chest, and our eyes meet. They lock in the gleeful malice of the co-conspirator.
I can’t…I can’t…it makes me weak. I have no power against this.
Maybe not a lot of us will admit it, says Suibhne, but I don’t think I’m the only one who has played that moment over and over.
And now I am crying, and I snarl like a beaten cur: But it isn’t enough.
Of course it isn’t, says Aran, but it assuredly is something.