Quoted By:
>Continued
It's just you and him, then, fair and square— though not even, of course. Never even. Rudy Doheny is loathsome and cravenous, yes, but he is far worse than that: he is ordinary. No magyck. No destiny. Not even a glimmer of gumption, grit, verve, or zip, much less heroism of any kind. He probably doesn't even own a sword. How tragic! Certainly he can sense this deficit; certainly this is why he quails in your radiance. It is envy.
You hold this true in your mind as Rudy digs his fingers around the lip of the sink. Envy! What a pitiable emotion. You have never envied anybody in your life, having no cause to do so, and you wish you could inform Rudy that this whole exercise will be beneficial. That perhaps he'll take away from it a role model (that being yourself) and some important lessons, and that it's all going to a grand, grand cause. That soon his workplace will be exploded, and then he'll have wished he didn't put his dumb hand over his dumb mouth. That it'd be better if he let you in peacefully—
—but wherever you prod him, you face flung-up barriers, road spikes, keep-out signs. And there's something chipping away at your hold on his mouth. Fine! God! You relinquish it, and after a moment turn inward, seeing, feeling, being nothing.
Let him think he's won. You're still the one with the sword.
>[-1 ID: 9/14]
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Is it right to say you lost your grip on reality? That sounds so cold, so judgmental, so <span class="mu-i">unintentional.</span> Your preference is this: in the dark, reality lost its marble hold on you. In the dark, you were acid-bathed, the unimportant apple-peelered off you, the important multiplied and magnified, your thoughts branching like antlers, until it could be rightly said you were unrecognizable. In this state you (stone and sunlight) crushed down Rudy's hasty walls, you (roses and flame) cremated his spikes and his signs, you (hero) plunged yourself through his heart, you (Herald) pressed yourself into every sorry niche of him, and shone out the other side.
And this was all well and good, except that now you're <span class="mu-i">in</span> Rudy's body, you mean <span class="mu-i">in</span> it— flesh and fuzzy abstraction are incompatible, it appears, and you've been reified straight back into— ow! Damnit! Into Rudy, the dumb bastard, thrashing himself around like a crazy person, throwing himself into walls and things. He's already had a run-in with the mirror, and now there's blood trickling down into his right eye, which— really? Is any of this necessary? Does he think it's going to help? You can feel the quaking knot of him somewhere near you, ready to be <span class="mu-r">s</span>liced to be <span class="mu-r">u</span>nraveled to be, um, gently put to sleep, and perhaps locked in some sort of mind-closet. Or his spleen. Something along those lines. You make a few false starts before snatching the knot up— it moves to his, your, your double heartbeat— and for a long moment apprehend what Richard means when he says he could kill you. You could kill Rudy Doheny.
(1/3?)
