PolyProse

I think I died last night. I sat in bed and closed my eyes, but when they opened, I was not home. I was in a humid jungle beneath a beating sun. I sat at a table carved from the heart of a redwood. Across from me was Life. She was radiant. She reached out a green hand and told me to ask whatever questions I desired. I spent the first eternity staring at the shimmering ivy on her cheeks. During the second, I watched rivers reshape her skin like mountains rising from oceans.

When I finally found my tongue, I asked her if she hated humans for what we have done. She leaned in and, with a gentle voice, told me that the wasp is designed to sting as much as the flower is meant to bloom. I could tell from her warm eyes that she knew I was conceived to blossom. I held her arms, lush with lichen, and asked what the world was like before humans. She told me that the world is as it always was: ever becoming. I asked why she answered in riddles. She smiled softly like the first rays of dawn. Then, with sad eyes, she said that humans have never listened. I knelt at her feet and rested my head against the wilting leaves. With open arms, I pleaded for her to break my human curse.

But then she screamed.

An angel stepped into our clearing. He rode a pale horse that was gaunt and stumbling. As they drew near, the leaves turned brown, the grass bleached white, and the sky grew dark. A chill frosted against the trees. I saw his face for a mere second before covering my own. He was a creature made of eyes. Within each pupil was a portal to black seas, and in each of those hells I saw myself suffering.

He inched into the field. After an epoch, he had only withered the roots of an aspen. The Angel was slow; nonetheless, Life cried. I told her that we should continue our conversation. I begged her to enlighten me so that I could see goodness in the wasp. But she slipped from my fingers. She ran from the Angel of cosmic indifference like wind through trees. I chased her for as long as I could. I watched the horizons collapse beneath a thousand dying suns before I gave up my search.

I thought that if I drove Death away, Life might return. I took a branch and sharpened it against a stone. With each scrape, my resolve hardened, as did my spear. I raised my weapon and shouted at the Angel. I asked him why he came, but he did not answer.

His horse continued. I stood my ground and demanded an explanation until my throat was raw. But he trotted by as if I were only a ghost. I ran toward him and impaled his horse. It trudged forward on bloody hooves. I demanded to know why he hunted Life, what he wanted, and what he meant. But his lips remained sealed.

I guarded the red table, but eventually, my eyesight darkened. My legs became heavy. My hair turned grey, and my joints stiffened into stone. I wondered if Life had betrayed me. She abandoned me in those woods, and yet I fashioned a spear to defend her. I thought of cutting off her vines and polluting her rivers. I called out to her, but the only response was the gurgling of the pale horse.

I grew weary of Death’s silence. I drove my spear through frozen ground. I tried to let go of my weapon so I could escape the dead woods. But my knuckles had gnarled around the bark. I took my final steps before collapsing in icy snow.

Finally, the pale horse stopped. Death turned to me. I looked up at his face, prepared to peer into hell. But his head was only a mirror. I stared into my own eyes and understood the Angel’s silence. I looked at the weapon fused to my hand and shivered. I was always the wasp. I stared at myself, and with my final breath, I asked, “Why have you betrayed me, too?”

Death leaned in close and whispered, “If I am your Brutus, then why are you holding the knife?”