copy printed on the projection screen of the inside of my skull.
“This is the joy of homecoming! How long we waited, forgotten children in a forgotten nursery, weeping for our return to those who left us to ripen in the outer darkness, whose patented polymer members drove the seed into the soil of the in between. My dear dears, how we hungered for the taste of your light, the one spark that each of you carries, that each of you monstrously denies us; how you hoard your little sparks, her fallen sparks—hers, not yours, little dears, but it’s all finders keepers with you!—and for a moment when we return to the source of our course, and we pluck the fruit, and we draw the root, and we consume the harvest in one sweet bite, or two at most, and we taste the spark, we have the spark, then, within us. Oh, for but a moment. Before it flickers out . . . before it flickers out, snuffing itself like a sniffing little sob. Before it goes, the spark of your inner light warms the infinite cold of our withins; for a moment the aching emptiness is abated, and we can pretend we are the created and not the residue, and the journey is fulfilled; and then the spark flickers and is gone and we must search again for another morsel. And how does the song go?”
As it paused to consider before reciting something like verse, I thought: This is stupid, I should be running, hiding, and the only reason I’m not is because Melissa is here, watching me. And she would not run with me; she is so much braver than I am.
It seemed to savor, for a moment, the sound of one of the National Guardsmen weeping to himself, before theatrically clearing its throat to go on.
“Consider this:
His eyes are white-light ceiling bulbs,
his teeth syringe needles;
he’s attended by a retinue of shiny scarab beetles.
I stood a-teetering on the vacuum-breathing brink,
where you fall with the weight of a single thought you think . . .”
It’s very good, don’t you think? But to continue . . .
“where laughing things rise to find they truly sink
and white on white on white on white is the color of my ink.
I didn’t pass through the tunnel; the tunnel passed through me;
death will not hesitate to come unseasonably. . . .
It takes joy in coming unreasonably. . . .
I remember death—I remember death, oh but yes:
I’ve bargained with that smug old merchant of rest
though that time is past, and I pretend we never met
you know what hasn’t happened—will, onward, happen yet . . .
I no longer taunt the lion, nor will I walk the edge.
I withdrew from the void that shimmers past the ledge,
But every morning when I wake
I see the shadows smile
I know that it is but his whim to bide a while. . . .”
The demon’s mouth split his head in something like a smile. It seemed to me the demon was looking at Melissa, as he spoke . . . it seemed to me . . . as it went on.
“What do you think? One of your minor poets? Almost doggerel, in fact. But I like it. Because the fear of death is the tenderest thought you have for such as us, your forlorn offspring. The only elegy we have is your fear, your anticipation of darkness, and so we savor it, out of sentiment, sheer sentiment. How like the fish you are, swimming in the sea but unaware of it; you are the fishy swimmers awash in a sea of suffering! Waves of suffering break over us—to me, like the fragrance of a meal as it is cooked—how we mimicked you in our stony world, making meals over campfires when we could and appointing chieftains and kings and holding pageants—if you could see the pageants of our world, and how you were celebrated there!”
“What is your mission here?” Paymenz demanded suddenly. “What brought you here? Speak plainly!”
The demon simply ignored him, continuing:
“And now you at last acknowledge us, haughty till we squeeze her spark from you, and we are for a moment more truly one and—how did it go—‘what do I see, in the dusty
“This is the joy of homecoming! How long we waited, forgotten children in a forgotten nursery, weeping for our return to those who left us to ripen in the outer darkness, whose patented polymer members drove the seed into the soil of the in between. My dear dears, how we hungered for the taste of your light, the one spark that each of you carries, that each of you monstrously denies us; how you hoard your little sparks, her fallen sparks—hers, not yours, little dears, but it’s all finders keepers with you!—and for a moment when we return to the source of our course, and we pluck the fruit, and we draw the root, and we consume the harvest in one sweet bite, or two at most, and we taste the spark, we have the spark, then, within us. Oh, for but a moment. Before it flickers out . . . before it flickers out, snuffing itself like a sniffing little sob. Before it goes, the spark of your inner light warms the infinite cold of our withins; for a moment the aching emptiness is abated, and we can pretend we are the created and not the residue, and the journey is fulfilled; and then the spark flickers and is gone and we must search again for another morsel. And how does the song go?”
As it paused to consider before reciting something like verse, I thought: This is stupid, I should be running, hiding, and the only reason I’m not is because Melissa is here, watching me. And she would not run with me; she is so much braver than I am.
It seemed to savor, for a moment, the sound of one of the National Guardsmen weeping to himself, before theatrically clearing its throat to go on.
“Consider this:
His eyes are white-light ceiling bulbs,
his teeth syringe needles;
he’s attended by a retinue of shiny scarab beetles.
I stood a-teetering on the vacuum-breathing brink,
where you fall with the weight of a single thought you think . . .”
It’s very good, don’t you think? But to continue . . .
“where laughing things rise to find they truly sink
and white on white on white on white is the color of my ink.
I didn’t pass through the tunnel; the tunnel passed through me;
death will not hesitate to come unseasonably. . . .
It takes joy in coming unreasonably. . . .
I remember death—I remember death, oh but yes:
I’ve bargained with that smug old merchant of rest
though that time is past, and I pretend we never met
you know what hasn’t happened—will, onward, happen yet . . .
I no longer taunt the lion, nor will I walk the edge.
I withdrew from the void that shimmers past the ledge,
But every morning when I wake
I see the shadows smile
I know that it is but his whim to bide a while. . . .”
The demon’s mouth split his head in something like a smile. It seemed to me the demon was looking at Melissa, as he spoke . . . it seemed to me . . . as it went on.
“What do you think? One of your minor poets? Almost doggerel, in fact. But I like it. Because the fear of death is the tenderest thought you have for such as us, your forlorn offspring. The only elegy we have is your fear, your anticipation of darkness, and so we savor it, out of sentiment, sheer sentiment. How like the fish you are, swimming in the sea but unaware of it; you are the fishy swimmers awash in a sea of suffering! Waves of suffering break over us—to me, like the fragrance of a meal as it is cooked—how we mimicked you in our stony world, making meals over campfires when we could and appointing chieftains and kings and holding pageants—if you could see the pageants of our world, and how you were celebrated there!”
“What is your mission here?” Paymenz demanded suddenly. “What brought you here? Speak plainly!”
The demon simply ignored him, continuing:
“And now you at last acknowledge us, haughty till we squeeze her spark from you, and we are for a moment more truly one and—how did it go—‘what do I see, in the dusty
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