malins
Stumbling Seeker
«What I Don't Know» (2)
I am deep in debt you know.
I am a thief and I have to pay back twofold all I took.
Born a slave, I never owned anything however modest.
That did not pain me as I did not know the experience of possession, of having a thing all for myself.
I lacked for nothing, but desire grew inside me; it became a desire to know that experience.
It grew unseen in the dark, its root in blood – a pale, thin, etiolated stalk that patiently probed its way towards the light to burst into a poison bloom.
And so I saw a thing I coveted, and I took it for myself, and it was mine.
Its absence remained unnoticed.
I had timed my theft well.
I ran the sparkling gems through my fingers and marveled at their purity, but soon I found myself restless and empty and wanting and lacking.
What good was it to own such a thing other than for the purpose of showing it to someone. To show how beautiful I thought it made me.
And just as they say a slave is only truly a slave if she's been at least once sold – it came to me next, a thing is only truly mine if I can gift it to another – what good was it to own but for purpose of giving it.
... and I thought of whom I might give it to.
Soon I was lost, because it came to me that if it was so, that the best proof a thing had been mine, was my ability to make a gift of it – then by making a gift of myself, I would …
And it made my head spin, my heart race, my voice fail, when she’d said, I am all yours, as by giving what one thing I had, by giving what little I was – I had stolen away something perfect, something worth so much more.
Our absences remained unnoticed.
We stole away, we thieves of each other, we timed our moments well.
Stealing, stealing, concealing.
We had each other then. As seasons passed, we began to think no one else should ever have us, that we belonged to none but each other.
But while we always escaped attention when we stole away together – each for herself, we did not much longer escape attention when we were present.
It was expected of us that we should give ourselves to those whose eyes had turned to us, but ...
... all that came before, you could only guess. All that followed from that moment is written on the black tablet of shame.
Laid face down at the foot of my post of punishment, and you know; you’ve read it.
And you know too, of the simple rules the Despotate decrees, the way that transgressions are weighed and debts are discharged.
Faithless slaves must be discarded and replaced, which has a price.
Although both of us carried no cost of purchase, being born into the ownership of our Master, our entire lives had incurred cost, while the history of our service was voided by our disobedience.
All debt must be honored and debts from misdeed count double at the least.
I, the instigator, took upon me the debt for the two of us.
In all it might run to the price for of a dozen of my like when sold upon the block.
My debt could very well be paid in gold if I had it.
If I’d stubbed my toe on a rock while being led out to my suffering-place and it had turned out a lump of solid gold caked in mud, I could have said a Daemon had openen the earth from beneath and put it in my path to pay my price. It is said that an indeed such an event has occurred, as a Master much enamored of an unruly slave once placed exactly such an obstacle in the path of her trembling steps to the final torment.
It is said anything can occur in the Garden of Unearthly Despairs, and that it is precisely this that makes it the most esteemed of the pleasures and distractions available to the Notables of the Despotate.
Gold is good money and my debt could be paid with it if I had any; but of course I have nothing at all.
Still I must pay.
Pain, too, is a currency.
It’s good as gold here in the Despotate, but not measured by weight. Its value is judged more like the first of the things I have stolen. It is judged much more like a gemstone.
It's in how it is cut.
How it is mounted.
In its purity, its provenance.
What I don’t know is, if there could possibly be enough pain in me that it could be drawn out and still leave anything left of me. You would know though.
I am deep in debt you know.
I am a thief and I have to pay back twofold all I took.
Born a slave, I never owned anything however modest.
That did not pain me as I did not know the experience of possession, of having a thing all for myself.
I lacked for nothing, but desire grew inside me; it became a desire to know that experience.
It grew unseen in the dark, its root in blood – a pale, thin, etiolated stalk that patiently probed its way towards the light to burst into a poison bloom.
And so I saw a thing I coveted, and I took it for myself, and it was mine.
Its absence remained unnoticed.
I had timed my theft well.
I ran the sparkling gems through my fingers and marveled at their purity, but soon I found myself restless and empty and wanting and lacking.
What good was it to own such a thing other than for the purpose of showing it to someone. To show how beautiful I thought it made me.
... and I thought of whom I might show it to.
And just as they say a slave is only truly a slave if she's been at least once sold – it came to me next, a thing is only truly mine if I can gift it to another – what good was it to own but for purpose of giving it.
... and I thought of whom I might give it to.
Soon I was lost, because it came to me that if it was so, that the best proof a thing had been mine, was my ability to make a gift of it – then by making a gift of myself, I would …
... and I knew who it was I would give myself to.
And it made my head spin, my heart race, my voice fail, when she’d said, I am all yours, as by giving what one thing I had, by giving what little I was – I had stolen away something perfect, something worth so much more.
Our absences remained unnoticed.
We stole away, we thieves of each other, we timed our moments well.
Stealing, stealing, concealing.
We had each other then. As seasons passed, we began to think no one else should ever have us, that we belonged to none but each other.
But while we always escaped attention when we stole away together – each for herself, we did not much longer escape attention when we were present.
It was expected of us that we should give ourselves to those whose eyes had turned to us, but ...
... all that came before, you could only guess. All that followed from that moment is written on the black tablet of shame.
Laid face down at the foot of my post of punishment, and you know; you’ve read it.
And you know too, of the simple rules the Despotate decrees, the way that transgressions are weighed and debts are discharged.
Faithless slaves must be discarded and replaced, which has a price.
Although both of us carried no cost of purchase, being born into the ownership of our Master, our entire lives had incurred cost, while the history of our service was voided by our disobedience.
All debt must be honored and debts from misdeed count double at the least.
I, the instigator, took upon me the debt for the two of us.
In all it might run to the price for of a dozen of my like when sold upon the block.
My debt could very well be paid in gold if I had it.
If I’d stubbed my toe on a rock while being led out to my suffering-place and it had turned out a lump of solid gold caked in mud, I could have said a Daemon had openen the earth from beneath and put it in my path to pay my price. It is said that an indeed such an event has occurred, as a Master much enamored of an unruly slave once placed exactly such an obstacle in the path of her trembling steps to the final torment.
It is said anything can occur in the Garden of Unearthly Despairs, and that it is precisely this that makes it the most esteemed of the pleasures and distractions available to the Notables of the Despotate.
Gold is good money and my debt could be paid with it if I had any; but of course I have nothing at all.
Still I must pay.
Pain, too, is a currency.
It’s good as gold here in the Despotate, but not measured by weight. Its value is judged more like the first of the things I have stolen. It is judged much more like a gemstone.
It's in how it is cut.
How it is mounted.
In its purity, its provenance.
What I don’t know is, if there could possibly be enough pain in me that it could be drawn out and still leave anything left of me. You would know though.
