I see the man, or perhaps sense him, as he enters my home, shovel straddled upon his wide shoulders, torch brandished before him. One cannot see the stars from my home, one cannot see the moon cradled by the black sky, yet from my chamber I am able to distinguish the day from the night, and the moon was high when I heard the distant echoes of footsteps at my door.
I stride through the unlit hallway, cursing to myself. At this time of night! I should be inclined to simply ignore him, let him wander about through the labyrinth of passageways and rooms until, like so many others, he would yawn and crumble upon the ground. At times the dust would be swept over their bodies before they could realize that the stars were mocking them, and that I was strangling them from behind. If they were conceited enough that they did not give me the feast they knew I deserved, their corpses would be thrust into my mouth and burned from within me as a reward, and sometimes as punishment. For I am a pet of kinds, always requiring food and water. But I do not think of myself as that. No, that was an analogy suggested by my brother, to whom I responded,
“The pet is the insect that hides beneath small shrubbery and clambers up trees; they die before they reach the sky. We, we must live to hold the stars, and is it not death that brings out the worms from beneath one’s eyes? Look at yourself! Desert carrion! Hardly my superior! And yet you accuse, for accusing I shall call it, me of such inferiority! Such generalizations will not be taken lightly! No, for when the scarab beetles emerge from beneath your jeweled fur, which was brushed only this morning, I will let the stars pour from your mouth! And I will let the Uraei crawl over your body, yes, and carry you away.”
And now the walls flicker with torchlight, and the meticulous writing is illuminated beside me. I see the man, his pale bearded face, his drab clothing. I scowl behind my welcoming smile. This peasant, this rat - defiling the very stones with which my home has been built! Twenty years of labor, of sweat and deaths and exhaustion! Despite his repugnancy, I break into stride with him.
When he glimpses my face, the surprise is shattered across his body. But he realizes this, and, contorting his face into a smile to match mine, nods curtly and relegates his gaze back into the darkness ahead of him. But I continue to stare at him, to contemplate how I shall rid myself of his presence. The only sound that pierces the darkness is the snapping of the torch and our unsynthesized footsteps echoing into the engravements in the walls.
“This is truly an odd time of day to come,” I say, as if our meeting had been planned for years and our expectations had decayed into fear and resentment.
“Hardly,” he replies, avoiding my gaze.
“Does it not occur to you how untimely your arrival is?”
He shifts the shovel, resting on his shoulder, and a small stain upon it gleams red in the torchlight.
“And seeing as there appears to be blood upon your shovel, do I not have the right to be suspicious of your motives?” My face is compressed into an expression of cynicism.
The man, now becoming nervous, again shifts the shovel so that it is hidden in shadows. “Leave me be.” His lips quiver, and I notice a nearly imperceptible quickening in his steps.
“Yet this is my home. My name is written in the walls - look! - and upon the very floor we walk on.”
“I am illiterate. Thus you cannot force this fact upon me.”
“If that is so. But please, let me show what I speak of.” I usher him to the wall on the right side of us, and trace my finger along the figures. “You see here - it is this one, I believe - bring the torch nearer, if you will - ah, yes, here it is.” I point proudly toward the figure. “This circle here, this sun, with the arm just there, and the eye - “
“Yes, I believe I can see it. And there - that is a man sitting, is it not?”
I beam. “It is.”
“And what, may I ask, do these figures mean?”
“Do you not understand them?”
“I am illiterate, sir.”
I stiffen. They are so clear, so precise. How can one be unable to perceive their meaning? I pull him away, muttering, half to myself, “We must go on. There is much to see. Yes, we must go on.”
“Could you...could you teach me? I would very much like to learn. I believe I could be able to read them, if I tried.”
I hesitate, but shake my head free of his prying grasp and continue walking. “Perhaps. But now is not the time for such distractions. Come!” My fingers curl around a fold in the man’s tattered robe and I drag him forward. He stumbles along the stone floor, hardly managing to keep step with my swift pace.
“Distractions?” His voice quivers in accordance with his sporadic footfalls.
Such arrogance, to question me in this way. Now I can sense that he is beginning to resent me, to find fault in my wisdom. But this cannot be helped.
“At a later date, perhaps.”
The man shakes free of my grasp. “Certainly you mean this to be the truth?”
“It is no guarantee. But I note, of course, the interest you have expressed toward the matter.”
He sighs. “I suppose that is the most I can hope for. But at least let us proceed at a slower pace, for I am tiring.”
Now he holds the torch closer to his face, and I notice the beads of sweat that trickle from the mass of black hair upon his head to the tip of his beard, before dripping onto the floor.
“You are weary, my friend. Please, sit down.”
He sits, letting his weight fall upon the cold floor, cross-legged and panting. How short he is now; how easily I could crush him with my foot, at this instant! But still I stand, gazing down at him, scowling.
He speaks. “Do you have family?”
I laugh. “Ha! Do I have family? Do you not know who I am? Does not the entirety of civilization know who I am?”
“I...I’m afraid, sir, I do not.”
I frown, but continue. “Yes, I have family. I have many sons and daughters, but I myself have no parent.”
He furrows his brow. “From where, then, do you come, if not from your mother’s womb? Is that not the only place one can be born from?”
“I rose from the very waters of existence, from the great Primordial Ocean, ten thousand years before your father’s father was born. I stood on a small island in the great sea, waves plummeting down at my feet and head; I was alone in an awakening world. But I had strength, the strength of youth, and molded from the sands between Earth and Sea a son and daughter, who swam out into the waters and pulled the seafloor towards the sky. Our land was formed then: deserts, valleys, rivers.”
“That is impressive, but surely you will forgive me if I do not believe you.”
“You doubt me?”
He pushes himself to his feet and presses his arms against his chest. “Suddenly my heart freezes between my bones and our very breaths sting my face. Perhaps we should get moving again, so that I do not die lying upon this hard stone floor.”
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