08/16/2018
The Hunter and the Star
Goats and Tigers
A star named Venus casts a cold phosphorous light over a black ocean.
A hunter watches her warily carrying a shield bearing a sun-marred sword.
Black ashes burn scars over her third eye and the star becomes his Nemsis.
They play an ancient Tibetan game, the pieces carved of obsidian and jade. They play to lose, because the prize for winning, neither truly desires. One recites a mantra made of steel words to strengthen his resolve. The other hums a wordless tune, unwilling to profane the sacred until just the right moment. The words of the Machine weave chains around the star while the notes of the song strike the hunter like acid rain. The sounds weave together like the buzzing and beating wings of a giant insect, melodic in its ancient prophetic pattern.
The jade pieces march merrily toward the brink of the playing field. The obsidian ones quietly herd them into place. One by one, the jade figures leap to their demise; one by one, the obsidian feline shapes fall into the trap.
"What shall we hunt when Nothing is left?" the hunter asks.
"Why, each other, of course," the star replies.
"And who shall I hunt when you become the Ocean?" she asks the hunter.
"We are only shadows," he returns.
Venus looks at herself from a blind eye burning for revenge, burning for something it cannot understand. Roses wilt on her brow and fall like brittle tears. Thorns prick her skin but there is nothing left to bleed.
A star shines down on a wasteland where a lonely hunter sits and strings his bow. He doesn't see the shadow cast behind him, watching and waiting for him to notice. He looks up at the star, waiting for her to notice that he suffers in her name. Obsidian and jade like their eyes, falling off the cliff together in the cycle of predator and prey, pushing each other toward the edge.
"Who will I be when you are gone?" they both ask.
Silence, as dry and barren as the fields where flowers have yet to grow. The prey is meaningless without its hunter, and a hunter functionless without its prey. Behind them, the shadows slink away.
Two pieces left: one as black as the sky, now devoid of stars, and one as green as the ripe earth which no longer sings, but decays with the rot of neglect. The hunter nods to the star, acknowledging that the end is near. The star sighs, left with no other option but to proceed to the final position.
"We both lose."
"Yes," consoles the star.
The last black tiger falls, following its prey into oblivion. The game is unwon.
Silence, wilted and moulding like a crop of tainted Rye.
But even on the last page, fairytales do not end.
