that is I! I dream of slaughter, of pathetic half-formed beings, their mews and
cries. I line them up back to front in columns, call down a jet fighter to shoot a
missile, pop off their heads, then another group, then another. It is entertainment, I
have no pity ...
Hard at first but I soon get the hang of it, grow into it as it grows into me.
I am able to focus on one place then expand out to see everything. At once! Forest and the
trees, crime and plots against me ended, no one dares to drop a scrap of paper in the
street. So many empty lives - but I know all! - I know everything you do, no
secrets, not from me! Not bad for a former street thug who rose to power, wife from a
prominent family, her own religious rise, yes, I owe her much. Now - pleasure being just
another exercise of power, we see little of each other ... forest and trees ... when a
tree falls in the forest, if we don't see it fall, did it ever exist? We see the fallen
trunk, can suppose prior existence but are banned from absolute knowledge because we don't
see all - BUT I CAN! - all seeing, all knowing ... me ...
Spring comes to a strangely quiet city, farmers go to plant their fields,
soldiers home from a victorious war. I watch it all, manipulate, subtle or not, the lives
that are now me. But something is not right, something has entered, perhaps in my dreams
as I now sleep in this seeing state, something on the edge of vision, which should not be.
A figure, a figure moving but face unseen, a figure masked. I have banned all wearing of
masks, even the wearing of cosmetics, but this one eludes me. I send out my Assassins,
they find, always, nothing - no trace. Neither can I - I send for the twins, I must find,
destroy, this person, this unknowable being ...
we lie in our hammock
