A New Clarity

[Stygian Messiah]

“Wake up. Chores to do.”

Eyes snapped open on demand. On demand, yet again. Dancing for the organ grinder, over and over. Death allowed him no respite. An infinite circle, as he explained to the nosey Erudite so long ago. This was the great joke, and his existence the punchline. Illusions of progress, trudging onward to an end that never would be. He realized this, and the joke was so awkward, so insufferable, so cruel a revelation that he couldn’t help but force an obligatory laugh when he pondered it.

Memories, unreliable as they were, cycled through his mind. Was he murdered? Tragic accident? Did he do this to himself?
They did this. Their envy, their gluttony for riches afforded only by the opportunities he granted. Jealous vultures, circling overhead waiting for a fatal misstep. An incredible burden on a mind already undone by his birthright.

“♫ On your feet, wrongs to right – rights to wrong…! ♪”

He pressed himself up from pavers stained by the endless supply of dung and bile. Surrounded, again, by towers of refuse. Waste, dumped into the labyrinth he once called home.  It was terribly familiar, again.

Again, moving in circles.

As he stood, he knew he wasn’t the same. A cruel caricature of a tortured existence. A body null of warmth, and a hunger. Not the old hunger for a slice of chicken, a new hunger. Hunger may have been the wrong word. Envy, maybe. But was it envy? No more than the stomach envies the plate for hosting a hearty meal.
 Once again, cursed to claw his way out of the dung that inferior, destitute and impoverished simpletons heaped upon him in unison – as if it was planned. Not by them, he wouldn’t afford turnip mongers so much credit. But something, somewhere - encouraging him to run when he should walk, only to trip him when he got too comfortable with his achievements, meager as they were.

“My advice fell on deaf ears. Every answer whispered to you with painstaking detail, in a world full of questions.”

“I won’t deny you again.”

“Go, I am at your side. I will love you more than they.”