The Cosmic Scale All was dark, as dark as the dryad’s eyes. And lifeless. Not dead, for that presupposes an occurrence of life. There, life was as yet unimagined. I sensed, as one may do in dreams, that "time" was a word without meaning - that in that lightless, lifeless space, such a concept could not exist. Thus I sat there for eons or moments, I know not. Finally a tiny flicker pierced the void, and light dawned like an idea. At first it was tentative, then it grew bold and erupted in hot satisfaction. Soon the flame consumed the sky and created the air, and the two allied to become the god. And he burned so brightly that I had to look away from all that fire and wind - all that frenzied inspiration. Still no life existed - only the thought of it. Then quietly, the goddess called herself into being - a voluptuous vessel of earth and water, sensuality and compassion. She offered substance to the god’s thoughts and a womb to gestate ideas into flesh, for she alone knew the alchemy to transform the chaos of idle fantasy into the flesh and bone of life. My dreaming mind soared away, and the scene grew small and strange. The god spun himself into a fiery ball that roiled and floated into one cup of a weighbeam. Then the goddess wound herself into a blue-green bauble and rolled into the cup on the opposite side. Imagine my horror to see myself standing between them - the balance-point of the cosmic scale. Soldiers of Misfortune I thought to close my eyes, to shut away the fury that Lorcan had unleashed. But I was compelled to bear witness ~ compelled to watch and quail at the thought of the generations that Lorcan would spawn. Specters of them marched among the archers, soldiers of misfortune, all. Some wore mail and carried maces; others wore finely woven armor and carried obscene powers in their proper leather cases. Over the ages, they had made enemies of their own hearts and had disengaged their manhood from their spirit until nothing but hubris worked for them. "Would they understand even then?" I wondered. "Would they finally come in reverence to all of Creation? Or would they continue to stubbornly worship the worst aspects of themselves until the female half of God brought them to their knees?" I moaned for the men as well as the women. Lorcan laughed and kissed me again. Then he licked the leather thongs and brutally cinched my wrists behind me. I leaned into the Maypole to draw upon its magic - grimly amused at the irony as I tapped the great phallus for strength. My jaws ached from clenching them, but my teeth chattered otherwise, and I would not give Lorcan the pleasure of knowing so. My talking mind began to yammer - telling me to look into Kade’s eyes, or Wayland’s - to see for myself that there was no hope for them either, only hypocrisy or death. "Life in a Motherless world with a brute for a Father," my talking mind mocked, "where all the moist and tender things are either exploited or reviled." My heart sank with each voiceless word, plummeting down and down as my talking mind continued, "How shall the birds find the will to sing? Why would any woman’s heart bother beating?" Reader Comments Order Lorcan's Bane
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