Sunday, May 25. 2008
There's a well spread theory that anger makes the vision blurry and tinted, this has led to the presumptuous invention of the so-called "Red Mist." Nothing could really be further from the truth. Real anger sharpens the vision, brightens colours, heightens reflexes. Real anger is fear pushed hard enough to rebound upon its cause. Real anger is about survival, nothing more, it is what we turn to when running would no longer work...or indeed, has never been an option.
True berserker rage is considered the purest form of anger...the creature had never really understood this, did humans believe that you could measure the purity of anger simply by the number of deaths it had caused? Or did they honestly mix together those most opposite of elements, anger and hate? Hate was nothing, it was illogical, damaging, impure. The anger it gave rise to nothing more than rust-encrusted scrapings from the bottom of a dented barrel, oh hate has it's uses to be sure, there was nothing quite so good at manipulating people...but even there, even hidden in years old resentment that had been allowed to fester and grow, even there it had no choice but to call upon angers limitless reserves.
No...humans had never truly understood anger, best to avoid them altogether. It wasn't like they had ever needed it, even the most innocent of humans was constantly excreting a virtual tide of minor annoyances, irritations, jealousies, pet-hates, swallowed curses, uncomfortable seats, class-guilt, the list went on and on...
But fish in a river can only avoid a tainted pipes befoulment for so long before there is simply no where else to run. The creature absorbed the taints, it had no real choice, the river was it's home, where it had fed, lived and bred since life first choked its way into a higher consciousness. What had been diamond pure became muddied and brittle, the green river sped on past, kept pure and clean by an unknown sacrifice. The body of chislelled iron muscle became limp and bloated and still it fed, still the river stayed pure and clean...
A solution was reached, the humans had created this filth, they could have it back.
A huge tide of vomited impurities spewed from the gastly rent of what had once been a mouth, the tattered flesh majestically repairing itself as the last final drops of that vicious poison were shaken from now steady and powerful jaws. It's rejoiced, let those who had created the problem drown in their own filth, let the river remain clear despite the terrible attempts to destroy its precious flow.
So it had gone, across the generations the creature absorbed and sent back the taint of humanity, always into a different time, always into the hearts and minds of the humans who had betrayed their own sacred rights.
But anger is a treachorus beast, and can never truly be destroyed. The anger in the human world built, denied its only true escape route, people wallowed through it on the way to work and home, breathing it in with their air, devouring it with their food, it went in through the skin, the mind, in words and ideals and always...always it grew.
So They had come. Ethereal beings with the strength of eternity, guardians of order and fate, the creature had rested outside of both, unknowingly tainting the destiny of the world, They had come to set things right. One shone like the brightest of suns, the other gleamed with the silver of the perfect moon, the third was nothing but a hungry blackness.
Of the battles that took place in the green river it is best not to recount too much, suffice to know that the creature was defeated, bound in all planes and times, consigned to forever devour the excess rage of humanity as harsh punishment for its unknown crime. It had stayed there, trapped for a second or trapped for eternity? It was no longer able to tell. Humans had come, the cause of all this madness...in its own hatred it had consumed them, twisting their worthless and desecrating minds upon themselves, taking perverse pleasure in their pain, becoming ever more like the things that had sparked its suffering.
Then.
"Hello,"
ALARM! FEAR! It had not sensed this ones approach!!
"I'm Josh. What should I call you?"
HUMAN!! Defiler, ravager, murdering scum!!
"Nekard...that's a pretty strange name, but hey you're a hole in the ground, what the hell do I know?"
NOT ITS NAME! LIES!! HUMAN LIES!! THE FILTH KNOWS NOTHING!! WHY DOES IT TORTURE IT SO!?!
"Oh, this is just what I do. Don't get to speak to many people really so I gotta get my conversations whenever I can."
CONFUSION!! ANGER!! DID IT HEAR!?! IT WOULD CRUSH THIS ONES MIND FO-
"There's no need to get upset, it's not like I could do anything about it."
IT DID HEAR!! Only the raw emotion and it's own mind supplied the words but IT HEARD!!! TRIUMPH!! FREEDOM!! THE BONDS WEAKENED!!
"Look, I
have to go now. You may as well have this, it's only tuna and sweetcorn
but I'm not hungry anymore. If you don't throw another strop then I'll
assume you liked it, maybe I'll bring more next time, maybe then you'll
tell me your real name."
It MUST return...
The bonds holding it consisted of three spheres, each made of unbreakable light. The outer sphere was of blackness, the middle shining silver and the inner blazing gold. Within those bonds hung the filth of humanity, together with that cursed to devour it all...the object sailed through all three impenetrable barriers and sank to the floor.
Interest, amazement, something had broken through...
Two slices of bread with fish and corn wedged between them lay on the floor of the cage. The black mass of polluted anger swamped it, obscured it, began to devour it...and recoiled!!
Fascination, something anger didn't eat...
The creature lowered its rheumy eyes to the ground. The object was shining! There was something pure here, something the cages had not been made to repel. The human had implied that it was...food? How could that be? It shone with new emotion, tiny droplets of the stuff gleamed on its surface. Tentatively it licked...
JOY! RAPTURE!!
New and ferocious strength tore down wasted limbs, white light blasted from clear, bloodless eyes, shredded skin knit back together whilst new fangs tore free of healed gums. Intoxicated with its returned power it roared its defiance and felt the impossible-the black anger dissapated, the first sphere shook...
Freedom...
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