Penumbral philosophy

[TheBrogueadier]

Have you seen the light?

It’s a bloody odd question when you get down to it, I mean, light is quite hard to look at really, a pretty hard thing to see. Don’t believe me? Go outside and stare at the sun for a while, then tell me what you see.

Same goes for the dark really; I mean no-one says ‘Have you seen the dark?’ probably because saying something like that marks you out as the kind of lunatic that people cross the street to avoid.

When you get down to it, I mean, brass tacks kind of down to it, you kind of realise that you don’t really see either of them. You don’t see the light, you see by it. You don’t see the dark, and it’s always worth remembering it’s bloody hard to see in it as well.

But if you mean the metaphysical light? The bright light of salvation, angels with their tits out and the trumpets and stuff.

Well, yeah. I think I might have seen that once. Then again, I had just fallen down a flight of stairs.

[TheBrogueadier]

I guess I should explain a little; while falling down stairs, tits and religious moments are all pretty common occurrences, having them all happen together is a pretty rare thing.

Now, I’ll admit I’ve not always been the me you see now; it’s taken a lifetime of learning and experience to get here. Like most people, I’ve done things I’m not proud of, I’ve sunk low, committed murder and lied. I’m human; consider it an inherent trait. But I don’t exploit folk, I try not to take advantage of people and, well, when I need to employ violence, I try not to drag it out or enjoy it. Too much.

That little moment; my little epiphany, that’s down to one man, and one idea.

If I were a cynical man, and I’ll admit there are the dark days where it feels like it’s raining in my head and Black Shuck is curled around my heart when I am a cynical man, I’d call it the cunts and money philosophy. See, those two things go hand in hand; sometimes it’s the man with the money who is one, or is trying to use the money to get some or perhaps it’s someone with one who uses it to get money. Doesn’t matter about the relationship, but they’re always together. They call it the oldest profession in the world; second oldest relationship in the world, after family that is. Cunts and money.

We’ll start in the house of one of those charmers: He’s quite definitely one of the former, and he’s made a lot of the latter out of abusing and exploiting other people’s formers. I’ll call him Maurice, because he’d hate to be called that, and in the hours before dawn on a summer’s day I creep into his house to pay him a visit.

It’s a large place, and it stinks of sin. I creep through corridors lined with red velvet and detailed with gold. It puts me in mind of the maw of some great beast, although I suspect the designer was aiming for a very different orifice. I creep through these visceral corridors and open each door, the simple locks offering no challenge. To the men and women, boys and girls, within each room I offer a nod and a promise; a promise of freedom and a way to choose their own path. Some flinch as they see what they think is my face, some think I am a phantom, but they all nod, they all listen. They all see the wet and sticky red upon my blades and armour.

I was just doing my job. Can there ever be a more pathetic excuse? The handful of guards; not there to protect or defend, but to instil fear and terror in the hearts of Maurice’s whores, are half slumbering at their posts in the early hours. For the most part they die with gurgling confusion, to save my ears from their excuses.

There is one door I save till last; it sits at the top of a great flight of stairs with many landings, the vast and corridored entry hall to this king’s palace. This Maurice, a man who wishes to be king of a sordid empire, built on the unwilling flesh of those below him. Maurice: King of the cunts. In every sense of the word.

I find his room behind the door. He’s sat hunched over a pile of coin and scribbling in a thick and heavy book.

“The King was in his counting house, counting out his money.” I chime.

“What the fuck!? Who’re you?” He retorts, lurching to his feet and grabbing his book.

“A man in a mask” I reply, thinking that was pretty obvious from the start.

“I can fucking see…” He begins, but I was already bored of the conversation, so I shot him.

That shut him up.

He stares at me for a moment and then looks down at the dark bolt jutting out of his book.

“Fuck.” We both say.

He charges at me, trying to beat my head in with that infernal tome while I fend him off with my now unloaded crossbow, we wrestle, each trying to force each other into submission; a brutal, frantic scrabble for survival.

Then there’s a knife, not sure if it was mine of his. But suddenly, there it is, jammed into my chest. Our little king scrabbles away, picking himself and his weapon from the floor. I stagger back onto what turns out to be thin air, and the start of a bumpy fall.

So, great, now I’m dying. Led out at the bottom of a flight of stairs with a dagger in my chest, its former owner bearing down on me with murder in his eyes and that bloody great book raised above his head and ready to crush my skull. But then there’s singing, or a sound at least. Smacked my head hard on those steps so I can’t hear right. First I think it’s just me that can hear it, but then Maurice gets a worried look and stops on the middle landing. Then the doors burst open, and out they come; the beautiful angels.

The beautiful whores; it’s their sold bodies that have built this place, those who’ve been nothing but mindless meat for Maurice. The fear is gone from their faces, replaced by anger and hatred, they pour at him.

There’s one moment, my moment, just before he’s gone. The first rays of dawn break through the clouds and shine in through the stair top window; in that golden light of dawn, I have my epiphany; the avenging angels in their gossamer gowns, with flowing hair and smooth flesh reaching out to destroy their oppressor, the look of fear on the oppressor’s face as, for the first time and the last, he suffers that which he’s made others suffer, and above it all; the book. The names and knowledge of all his works, of all those he’s made suffer, and all that he has earned. The tableaux lasts a second, then there’s not much left but the screaming.

I’ve learned a lot in the years since then, but some things rarely change. Freedom has to be fought for; hung onto. Liberty’s a whore you see, and she’ll only lift up her skirts on a bed of dead men.

[TheBrogueadier]

Tick, tock, tick…

Each little hop of the second hand, each ticking or tocking, marks more of our lives passing away.

It’s strange, our common obsession with the past. We know that we cannot influence what has gone before; yet so many of us wish to. Visit almost any tavern in the land and, most commonly on the cold or rainy nights when almost all men fall victim to their own black dog, you will find many long and mournful faces, all given in to the sorry introspection that dark skies and alcohol can bring.

“If I could change one thing.”

“If I could live my life again.”

“If I could turn back time.”

“If only I could change what happened.”

“If…”

So many different ways of saying the same thing. Realise, please, what these little phrases truly mean. They are not a desire for change, they are a wish for oblivion: For death.

Think of your life as a simple house of cards, a delicate and beautiful construction. Each act of our lives makes another triangle, each year begins another tier.

By the time we are of the age to grow whimsical and maudlin about things long since done, our card houses stand many tiers high. No matter how much you gaze upon some black and knavish act, or how fondly you think of some scarlet queen, there is no removing them or replacing them. To even attempt it would unbalance that great card structure, scattering the pieces and moments of your life across the floor.

Perhaps then, if you are truly inconsolable and obsessed with some past indiscretion or act, it would be better to simply scatter your own card house? Tie a stout rope to your rafters and dance neck first with your lost love, take a knife to your wrists and let your guilt pour away, or take a flight of fancy from some tall and dramatic cliff top.

A touch harsh? Perhaps, but then life needs such harshness from time to time. It was, no doubt, the slap of a midwife that brought your mewling form into this world. We are born through sweat, blood and effort; you cannot expect life to get any easier than that messy beginning.

There is another route of course, one that leaves your lives and limbs intact. Realise, please, that your actions cannot be undone, and never should be, for without the life you have lived you are nothing. Each of us has some shame, some embarrassment or long lost love, but you’ll find that in the good natured sharing of each that the shame grows lesser, the embarrassment less stinging and the lost love grows closer.

So on the dark nights, when you know that black dog will come prowling near, share your tale, your secrets or your fondness with the others of the inn. For nothing keeps the dog from the door like warm friendships, bright fires and shared laughter.

[TheBrogueadier]

“Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But words will never hurt me.”

You believe that?

Go to Aquor.
Find the baldest red-robed Thayan in town.
Call him a goat-sucking son of a whore who can barely string together the most basic cantrip.

Find out how terminally wrong you are.