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“There is something wrong about all of this; The Old Drunk Bastard; he said what we’re doing, that it’s not right. It is what it is, but it’s not right. What do you think? Are we doing the right thing, saving these children, laying new stones?” asked Marcos pensively.
The Behemoth stood like a great monument staring out of the window at the surrounding streets below. He felt no fear and he felt no love. He was a man of pure rationale, antipathetic on all accounts.
“I think the old man is insane. What you’re doing is brave, it is bold” he said.
“Are we any different, though? To before? They stole children and grew them as their own. What are we doing that’s any different? We pick children like ripe fruit. That’s not right. The old man was right. We’ve lost our way. Tell me, what are we doing that’s any different? What?” yelled Marcos.
“We are loving them,” said The Behemoth vehemently.
“Love. To speak the word sends not a quiver to my heart, not even a ripple. Love. Outside of a word, are we really capable of giving what we cannot receive? Can we really love? What is it, outside of its definition? What does it feel like? How do we know if we’re doing it right? How do we know if we’re actually doing it at all? What if what we think is love, is something worse? We are loving them? What does that even mean?” said Marcos, his hands gripping the railing in front of his, sweat beading above his brow, his voice trembling and his stomach turning on itself.
Marcos wanted to tell his old friend about his dreaming, the looseness of his conscious mind and how quickly as of late that he had been slipping in and out of delusion, but he knew if he was falling to Famine, his dear friend would kill him in a second. He wanted so much to express his worry, but the words wouldn’t form on his tongue, instead he looked still and remained silent staring out over the top of The Nest seeing his Collective in a more troubling light.
“Everything is one Marcos. All of our problems; they are one. The food, The Famine, the rebellion, the lack of Children, the soil, the freezing weather, the missing girl, the coming storm; they are all one Marcos. Our location; it is the one constant that threatens to divide our family. Until now it has served us, but now it is time to take new direction” said The Behemoth.
“No, we stay here. We’re not ready to move, not until The Telling is complete. We can’t risk losing everything, all of this work for nothing. You saw that soldier drop. You really think these children will survive passing through the old city? No, we have no choice. We need to brace for whatever storm comes our way.”
“This is stubborn and wrong Marcos. You’re not thinking clearly. No great achievement ever came from waiting. They rebel because they do not respect you. Respect is earned by effort, not age. All things age without effort Marcos. You need to take your people to a new frontier, lead them to their Forever New Dawn, don’t just sing about it. This is cause for war. Nobody will look ill upon you for making this difficult choice. The night has always been catching up with us. There is nothing more that we can do here. We have to move. You heard the old man and you saw for yourself” said The Behemoth speaking to the open skyline.
Marcos listened but spoke nothing in return. In his mind, he imagined himself buckled, on his knees and covered in mud, his hands over his eye weeping hysterically. A great weight of uncertainty settled in his stomach and he started to feel sick.
“You can be more than a leader Marcos. You can be their god. Only you can bring light to the world. This is your coming. But nothing will come of this as long as we sit here slowly rotting away. The hour to march is nigh. This will be difficult. They’re gonna make it tough, but we fight; we fight for freedom” The Behemoth said.
Marcos visualised himself stepping out from a choking blackness, bruised, bleeding and sore. He carried with him an infant in his arms. She was weak and frightened, but she was alive. The injuries he carried on his body would have killed any mortal man by now, but he was a man-god and he carried an eternity of suffering in his heart and a lifetime of lashings about his chest.
As the fog lifted, he fell to the ground on his knees still carrying the injured infant. She was breathing and because of him, she would survive. The greys give way to bright greens as his eyes were cast on a paradise. He laid the infant gently on the ground and fell onto his back.
He held one arm out to the sun while the other stretched out by his side, his eyes wide and his vision flooding white. Shadows moved about him, some of them crying. One leaned forward and kissed his lips. He was dying, but he had saved his people. He had brought them to the rise of the new dawn.
His focus returned for but a moment and he saw the infant being taken away to safety, people rejoicing in their liberation and in his near, The Woman, her face in the centre of his vision, a tear running from her cheek onto his chest and about her, in the sky and through the thick of her hair, an orange hue of the Forever New Dawn.
His heart started to pound and adrenaline rushed through his body once more and again he felt a wave of nausea lash at his conscious shore.
Looking out the window he could see in the courtyard Children playing a game. In the distance he could see worker Children attending to failing crops; running about in circles in aimless fashion and beyond them a group of Sons sparring with their Fathers under a cold grey August sky.
His head ached so he squeezed his fingers against his temple to shut out the pain and the grey thoughts. The Behemoth’s eyes seared and his nostrils flared as he clenched his fists swept up by rage. Standing next to Marcos at the window he put a hand on his shoulder in a vice like grip.
“You see that,” he said pointing out to the streets beyond the nest.
Marcos turned his stare to his direction.
“More and more are coming every day. Something’s brewing out there my good friend and I think the longer we stay here, the more exposed we leave ourselves. You built a utopian paradise. Free from the disparity of emotion, free of distraction, momentous, progressive, ordered; human. You rebuilt the human race. You saved our species, but you knew this day would come, old friend, when those diseased vermin; those Famined, would try to stake a claim on your kingdom, your rule, your Children; to claim your spoil and impregnate it with their ruin” screamed The Behemoth.
In that distance, Marcos could see hundreds of people drudging along through the dull light of day. The women carried their possessions in hand and the men carried what to the weakened eye looked like crude weaponry, nothing like the cruel trade of the White Heart but still dangerous nonetheless. They were led by a pack of canines whose snouts married the earth and scented their direction.
“I do think my good friend that war is already upon us,” said The Behemoth.
Marcos gathered his wits and left the room. Something indeed was coming. He left The Behemoth staring out of the window alone and headed down the winding stairs, out into the courtyard and to the North West driven by a desire in his belly.
He felt of The Woman while he thought of something else; the clandestine machinery, the old man’s riddling, the tide of Famined in the distance sweeping across the grey plane, the missing girl and then the orange hue of the Forever New Dawn.
He focused hard, breathing long and deep, venting the distraction from his conscious state. There was a growing sense of urgency that he had never felt pulling at his sanity, willing him into unsavoury thought and it was this sense that lured him to The Woman’s door where he stood, drenched in uncertainty.
A Rising Fall Page 11