I remember last night; last night when things seemed so much more real, when what I did mattered to others, when I could touch a wall and feel its deep reaching chill or stand by a fire in the warmth of its flames. My memory is complete in every detail, each movement and sound, each sight and smell. These things are part of me now and without them I am nothing.
First I was stunned by the emptiness, the terrible nothing, like floating in a sea of caring where support comes from every angle but so gently and so precisely that not one nerve is aware of its presence. I think that sometimes I drift and fall but going from nowhere to nowhere and tumbling from nothing to nothing is really just staying here, and everywhere is exactly the same anyhow.
Now I am neither hot nor cold, in ecstasy or agony. I am not resentful or longing, just me; something existing only as a point in the void, clinging to the traces of a fuller life. As I twist through my recollections, trying squeeze myself back into them, I discover how futile this is: my writhings just throw me further from the past.
I slipped here from a myriad world of sensation, scraped clean of feelings by the passage. I saw time slow to a halt, I saw the dancing of flames against the rigid stone, the beauty of the stars and the grace of the birds, I saw the face of a man with a sword and the swift pull of his arm. The pain was the most intense experience of my life - it grew within me filling my body with an almost orgasmic rage, then nothing.
Once I was a soldier in the service of Railon, King of Southern Wringwal. I was paid the standard wage of a soldier and for it did no more than was expected; marching when my captain ordered and guarding on my shift. I drank on my day off and lost my money playing dice, like all the others never thinking things would change in the way they did. The first news we heard came wrapped in rumours and, we were to learn, shrouded in deceit.
"We're going to invade Charat!"
"Charat's invaded!"
"We're off to defend Charat!"
"The king of Charat is buying half the army!"
None of these were true, and by looking to Charat for the answer the enemy slipped up behind and amongst us in the guise of a friend.
The Northern Wringwal King sent his forces to help us in a time of need resulting in almost one Northern man in camp for each Southerner - a situation easily turned into an invasion and in the sticky darkness one Summer night, this happened.
Somewhere inside myself I can sense my terror. It is stored forever in a sealed place and I don't even know what sort of key would unlock it. I remember it was a red thing, punctuated by exploding white. It gushed around my body diluting my blood (I remember that too) until I took up a sword in each hand and charged.
The night was filled with the screams of men, both those dying and those killing. In the spaces inside the noise were thousands of bodies thrusting, running, hiding. I can almost feel the flesh again, God I want it back. To feel the tight pull of muscle on bone and the loving embrace of gravity I would give everything, but here I have nothing.
Again a fleeting impression of my own body slips past me. It only increases this lust that I have, this lust that drives me into my own self in search of a real experience. I strip away the thin outer layers tossing them into the void where they are lost. Sleep: hardly noticed. Childhood: too vague to keep. Drunkenness: too confused to use.
Like a monster now I begin to tear into my past with razor teeth. I consume lovers, friends, my parents and brother. Swallowing hard I rip away at the core, long sinuous threads lead me from my first love to my King and then back to the village of my youth. Everything is to be consumed.
Now only a few sour gobbets remain, clinging to a tiny cold sphere. It is too hard to chew and too extreme to eat. This then is me, what I am. In a sudden vicious frenzy I begin to force myself inside. It is painful to do and will leave only a seed.
There.
The dawn has never been a friend of mine. She comes and steals my dreams, the dreams of battle and a time I should not remember, but love like others want the future. Fifteen years distant and still the brilliance reaches me, like a beacon lighting my path.
They say I'm mad but I don't think so. At least I'm not wasting away on some back-water farm. I have always known what I want, that's why I joined the army as soon as I could.
