CapricAura
He was something of a comedian. Or rather, he said that he was. It was his way of... not justifying, perhaps, but characterizing what he did. He didn't stand up on a stage, he said, but he was there to, you know, relieve stress. He was comic relief. Okay, maybe not comic, but he was relief. People went to him. People went to him with stress in their life, and they left with less stress in their life. You know?
The conflict was outside, it was outside of my body, had been, but as I looked down my wayward brother I knew that, finally, the conflict had breached my defenses, had infected my flesh like the coughing fits of the refugees, like the poisonous doctrine of the enemy forces. I knew this because this was the first time I was unsure of my actions.
"It's a deeper heartache than that. Most people ache for what they had, or what they want. Some people ache for things that are gone but they wish that they had had."
"What do you long for?"
"Something that never really was. Something that I don't think is even possible. Peace."
Lighters were what was issued to us. Not guns, not badges, not nothing, just lighters. But what lighters they were. You could control the length of the flame, from a little pinprick for cutting through plastic packaging, to a great gout of flame that could fend off a grizzly bear. With the right technique, a sort of flick of the wrist, you could even send off a fireball - something akin to a grenade.
The market was teeming, with buyers, sellers, fishwives, fish, fishhooks, regular hooks, and regular people. Prospective owners of prospective priceless jewels strode from one aisle to the next, comparing the values of priceless jewels, trying to determine which was the most — and which the least — priceless. On a stand high above them all, the Court Jester sat singing a sad little song.
It's something of a ... transformation. I don't mean in the physical sense, although I suppose there is a bit of physical transformation as well. I mean primarily in the... sorry, I'm trying to avoid the word "spiritual". Maybe a transformation of the essence? It changes, somehow, the way you react to the world, and the way the world reacts to you. Even if you have the same body, even the same mind, the same cognitive functions, you become a barrier where once you were a pass, and a help where once you were a hindrance.
So things can be done, right, first of all, as a matter of course. And things can be undone, so it's like they were never done, although of course they were, since you had to undo them.
Then things can be redone, which is mostly done after they're undone, and then obviously they can be reundone, although people usually just say undone.
But then the fun part starts. Things can be predone...
"This one will nourish you. This one will cure headaches. This one will kill you, don't touch it. This one tastes good, but it has no other effects. Oh, and it's extremely addictive. This one will make you blind, but only for a couple months. This one will nourish you. Wait, did I say that one already? Let me start over."
His thoughts moved slowly, like syrup, like the syrupy stuff the swamp was made of. He had been warned about this - the boundaries between the literal and metaphorical were thin here, so the slowing effect was both physical and mental.
We were spoon fed the information slowly, piece by piece, over the course of the eleven months of our training. Even in the final phase, when the physical training was long gone and we were just wrapping up the emotional and mental stuff, we were only just starting to get a clear picture of what we were up against. The final piece of the puzzle didn't fit into place until the afternoon before we were to ship out.
load more entries
writing since 2016 · 22 entries · 22 days shown up
each square is a day—lit means CapricAura showed up.
2longest streak
22days written
0.2entries / week
the words CapricAura reaches for
meanendlessnowdinosaurbittryingcoursephysicallinefallacycarringscientificsciencepiecedone