Chapter Five - The Forgotten Angel
The influence of a narcotic anathema became increasingly prominent as I advanced in the line. Certainly, so depressing a substance as this heavenly nectar must have been originally forged by a melancholy alchemist with a thirst for an enigmatic truth that without such a beverage could not have been obtained, for even the most naturally talented individuals in the line indulged. Rational assumption would dictate that this sap descended from a wisdom of the Beyond to enlighten its consumers, since so many elite persons dedicated substantial portions of their valuable time to the practice. While under the influence, I assume, these superior beings must be presented with the opportunity to better the human species, for their abilities and material wealth could while sober be dedicated to technological advancement or humanitarian purposes, and refraining from these in order to enjoy the ambrosiac substances must therefore be even more progressive for humanity. I thank these individuals for their sacrifice.
The great Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious Marsquariaxlethonniopopipiope, blessed with a particular enlightenment, actively publicized his appreciation for the Devil’s substances. His earthly body, however, idiotically demonstrated a poisonous aversion to the fluids, rejecting them with convulsive episodes. Our flesh, I noticed, rejects wisdom; transcendence requires recognition that our purpose lies beyond the physical, and that perspective correction facilitates identification of this metaphysical significance. Rather than consider oneself human, one must label oneself a cell in the spirit of universal energy, destined to guide the organism of life to a higher plane.
While my status as the Monolith Walker merited substantial reverence, his epithet commanded greater exaltation; they called him "the Forgotten Angel," for his refined mannerisms reflected more the whims of the Nether than mortal commonality. His drunken fits were the stuff of legend, and like the beautiful, otherworldly spirit he was, he swirled his scarlet fists in volatile rage, headbutting to sweet death anyone fortunate enough to make contact with his perfect forehead. Steam spilled from his sweaty ears, and his violet capillaries prickled out of his molten skin as his teeth ate each other and his tongue writhed and wrenched his esophagus from his corroded neck. He plunged his arms through nearby ribcages and stomped with his custom-made lead feet on inferior shins, spewing bone shards into his own stomach and splattering marrow onto his bloody thighs. Bricks launched from his thunderous hands showered down like the terrible lightning of Zeus onto the exploding heads of the masses below him. The drink certainly enhanced his combative capabilities, and judging simply by these displays of uncensored gore, I assumed that, if the Mister selected none of the five individuals in front of him in the line, Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious would add “the Chosen One” to his catalogue of titles.
“Despicable, lad. Just despicable. You know, you ought to bow to me. I've the secrets of the monoliths. I've spoken to the Beyond. Above all others I was selected to distribute the word of the angels to the plebeians. They commanded you to bow to me,” Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious revealed to me. I obediently complied, but immediately questioned my decision. The trapdoor at the Tower’s highest level opened, and the muffled screams of the rejected victim trickled down to the ravenous line.
“Sir, with utmost respect, I've walked the monoliths, and there are no secrets. The Beyond over them exerts no influence,” I delivered.
“You, The Monolith Walker about which the masses salivate? I scoff at you, wee one! You're but an ape - a primitive shadow in my omniscient glow! The legends of the Monolith Walker, while true, describe me, not some forest dweller!” Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious venomously blared. His deceptive jaw leaked repulsive lies, and I quickly deduced that his self-proclaimed divinity bore as much substance as my waning hairline. The Mister’s distasteful chuckle declared that the falling nobody failed to stand above the rest.
“If you walk the Monoliths, demonstrate your talents, o Special One!” I chortled smugly, my lipular crease creeping up my cheek.
Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious vomited and shat in undesguisable embarrassment. His eyes flew away, fearing ostracism amongst the popular community, and his fingers tucked their heads into their thoraxes like turtles in their shells to mask their shame. He boiled and melted; a crowd had gathered, and his flesh-lava puddled around the shoes of onlookers - some of which cost more than the Earth*. The roar of the line sprouted, and the flailing limbs of the Fallen separated upon impact like ignorant paper in a wise old lake.
*On the Universal Supermarket, as I would later learn, the Earth was valued at 673,050 years**.
**On a cosmic scale, Time became the only valuable currency, for individuals learned to use their hours more wisely than their paper notes.
“What separates you from the rest, Divine Angel? If you drink, if you abuse the substances of the inferno? If you cannot read the secrets of the monoliths? Prove your divinity! The Angels forgot nothing. You are imprisoned on this terrain, destined to walk only the sand,” I continued, inspired by the bubbling gasps of the spectators.
Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious let slip a blip of poop-pip from his bup-dip. My smirk soon transformed with horror at my emerging understanding; the humiliated Forgotten Angel, I realized, would not attempt to redeem himself with a helter-skelter explanation. He would, instead, surge for the Tower, its crystal entrance flecked with the blood of the Deceased, its floor scavenging on the dismantled body, absorbing its essence, recycling its energy…
Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious flexed his incisors and ensconced them into the fifth liner; flattening the skull with his titanium-infused heel and urinating on the embarrassed corpse. I sprinted after him, mindlessly pulverizing the chest of an unexpectant number four with a flaming headbutt that smoldered through his ribs and liquefied his heart. Blood cascaded from the severed spine of a splintered number three, whose eyes I casually rolled aside as I trudged through his igneous flesh, and I shoved my arm down the throat of the second, wringing his bladder out through his nose and force-feeding him his own legs. Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious burst out of the thorax of the rightful successor of the Fallen, belching a masticated pancreas and lacerated liver, and we burst through the Tower door two-at-a-time - an efficient mechanism for optimizing room-entering-time, which typically includes an awkward pause in conversation during which the boldest of the two nervously shuffles through the doorway and awaits the entry of the passive other. The elevator gears rumbled, and the twenty-year ride to Enlightenment - towering thousands of miles above us - commenced, two behemoths of hauteur locked in the bloody embrace of mortal combat.
I smashed Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious’ head into the crystal wall, which fragmented into a violet spider-web with clumps of ripped skin and scorched hair. He rammed his knuckles into my gullet in response, and he sliced my nipples with his parched elbows. Our entrails spilled over our toes as the blood rose to engulf our knees, and our fists swirled into each other, often colliding with the ever-weakening capsule of the elevator, which swung like a pendulum of doom on the grandfather clock of Chaos, slamming into the Tower walls and dislodging chunks of crystal that bombarded the awestruck spectators. Our bruises swelled furiously, pressing against the elevator’s boundaries like an inflating balloon inside cupped hands, and our feet flickered at, into, and through each other, bones, teeth, and organs dripping down from our ruined protoplasms. The elevator suddenly ruptured after a month of mortiferous engagement, and with a swift maneuver I gripped the still-ascending cable in time to prevent certain annihilation. But Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious denied his own demise as well; I found his chubby fingers around my foot, desperately clinging to his diminishing status above all else. The atrocious mass of blood, pus, limbs, and glass floated to the floor in a majestic display of civilization, and I shed a tear in the name of courtliness.
“So this is it, eh, Sqiquious? You’re to let a - a spiritual man die like… like this? What… what will the Beyond think of you?” Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious worriedly stammered, his gruesome pupils sizzling in the castrating sun.
“They will think me an individual. A true individual. Not one who claims false divinity for personal profit or transcendent social status. Not one who invents spirituality to justify supposed superiority. Not one who succumbs to the bottle, or the needle, but one who submits to no trends, who refuses to accept the universally accepted, who shatters bottles, who snaps needles, who designs his own circumstances, and who is capable of creativity, of happiness, of existence without external support of any means, be those means human or in the form of self-altering substances. And they will think me Sqoquilliumdor Xerxiotwillzospyon, for they are enlightened enough, I presume, to know I deserve a grander title than yours. And if they are not, then their places on the metaphysical throne I will devour, just as I will your fingers, here, now.” I did not disappoint; my newfound lack of ribs allowed me to effortlessly - though excruciatingly - fork my pelvis and contort my foot into my mouth, where my rotating denchers cremated Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious’ hand. He screamed as his wrist snapped and he joined the elevator in oblivion; I whispered sweet nothings into my palms, triumphant, tranquil. Though not to the extent of the already grounded Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious, I also now faced an expeditious ride, for without the excessive weight of the gargantuan elevator, the cable would hoist me to the Mister in a mere decade. And it would be his last in despair, I knew, for I would be selected for whatever intricate intention he clandestinely held.
The influence of a narcotic anathema became increasingly prominent as I advanced in the line. Certainly, so depressing a substance as this heavenly nectar must have been originally forged by a melancholy alchemist with a thirst for an enigmatic truth that without such a beverage could not have been obtained, for even the most naturally talented individuals in the line indulged. Rational assumption would dictate that this sap descended from a wisdom of the Beyond to enlighten its consumers, since so many elite persons dedicated substantial portions of their valuable time to the practice. While under the influence, I assume, these superior beings must be presented with the opportunity to better the human species, for their abilities and material wealth could while sober be dedicated to technological advancement or humanitarian purposes, and refraining from these in order to enjoy the ambrosiac substances must therefore be even more progressive for humanity. I thank these individuals for their sacrifice.
The great Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious Marsquariaxlethonniopopipiope, blessed with a particular enlightenment, actively publicized his appreciation for the Devil’s substances. His earthly body, however, idiotically demonstrated a poisonous aversion to the fluids, rejecting them with convulsive episodes. Our flesh, I noticed, rejects wisdom; transcendence requires recognition that our purpose lies beyond the physical, and that perspective correction facilitates identification of this metaphysical significance. Rather than consider oneself human, one must label oneself a cell in the spirit of universal energy, destined to guide the organism of life to a higher plane.
While my status as the Monolith Walker merited substantial reverence, his epithet commanded greater exaltation; they called him "the Forgotten Angel," for his refined mannerisms reflected more the whims of the Nether than mortal commonality. His drunken fits were the stuff of legend, and like the beautiful, otherworldly spirit he was, he swirled his scarlet fists in volatile rage, headbutting to sweet death anyone fortunate enough to make contact with his perfect forehead. Steam spilled from his sweaty ears, and his violet capillaries prickled out of his molten skin as his teeth ate each other and his tongue writhed and wrenched his esophagus from his corroded neck. He plunged his arms through nearby ribcages and stomped with his custom-made lead feet on inferior shins, spewing bone shards into his own stomach and splattering marrow onto his bloody thighs. Bricks launched from his thunderous hands showered down like the terrible lightning of Zeus onto the exploding heads of the masses below him. The drink certainly enhanced his combative capabilities, and judging simply by these displays of uncensored gore, I assumed that, if the Mister selected none of the five individuals in front of him in the line, Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious would add “the Chosen One” to his catalogue of titles.
“Despicable, lad. Just despicable. You know, you ought to bow to me. I've the secrets of the monoliths. I've spoken to the Beyond. Above all others I was selected to distribute the word of the angels to the plebeians. They commanded you to bow to me,” Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious revealed to me. I obediently complied, but immediately questioned my decision. The trapdoor at the Tower’s highest level opened, and the muffled screams of the rejected victim trickled down to the ravenous line.
“Sir, with utmost respect, I've walked the monoliths, and there are no secrets. The Beyond over them exerts no influence,” I delivered.
“You, The Monolith Walker about which the masses salivate? I scoff at you, wee one! You're but an ape - a primitive shadow in my omniscient glow! The legends of the Monolith Walker, while true, describe me, not some forest dweller!” Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious venomously blared. His deceptive jaw leaked repulsive lies, and I quickly deduced that his self-proclaimed divinity bore as much substance as my waning hairline. The Mister’s distasteful chuckle declared that the falling nobody failed to stand above the rest.
“If you walk the Monoliths, demonstrate your talents, o Special One!” I chortled smugly, my lipular crease creeping up my cheek.
Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious vomited and shat in undesguisable embarrassment. His eyes flew away, fearing ostracism amongst the popular community, and his fingers tucked their heads into their thoraxes like turtles in their shells to mask their shame. He boiled and melted; a crowd had gathered, and his flesh-lava puddled around the shoes of onlookers - some of which cost more than the Earth*. The roar of the line sprouted, and the flailing limbs of the Fallen separated upon impact like ignorant paper in a wise old lake.
*On the Universal Supermarket, as I would later learn, the Earth was valued at 673,050 years**.
**On a cosmic scale, Time became the only valuable currency, for individuals learned to use their hours more wisely than their paper notes.
“What separates you from the rest, Divine Angel? If you drink, if you abuse the substances of the inferno? If you cannot read the secrets of the monoliths? Prove your divinity! The Angels forgot nothing. You are imprisoned on this terrain, destined to walk only the sand,” I continued, inspired by the bubbling gasps of the spectators.
Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious let slip a blip of poop-pip from his bup-dip. My smirk soon transformed with horror at my emerging understanding; the humiliated Forgotten Angel, I realized, would not attempt to redeem himself with a helter-skelter explanation. He would, instead, surge for the Tower, its crystal entrance flecked with the blood of the Deceased, its floor scavenging on the dismantled body, absorbing its essence, recycling its energy…
Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious flexed his incisors and ensconced them into the fifth liner; flattening the skull with his titanium-infused heel and urinating on the embarrassed corpse. I sprinted after him, mindlessly pulverizing the chest of an unexpectant number four with a flaming headbutt that smoldered through his ribs and liquefied his heart. Blood cascaded from the severed spine of a splintered number three, whose eyes I casually rolled aside as I trudged through his igneous flesh, and I shoved my arm down the throat of the second, wringing his bladder out through his nose and force-feeding him his own legs. Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious burst out of the thorax of the rightful successor of the Fallen, belching a masticated pancreas and lacerated liver, and we burst through the Tower door two-at-a-time - an efficient mechanism for optimizing room-entering-time, which typically includes an awkward pause in conversation during which the boldest of the two nervously shuffles through the doorway and awaits the entry of the passive other. The elevator gears rumbled, and the twenty-year ride to Enlightenment - towering thousands of miles above us - commenced, two behemoths of hauteur locked in the bloody embrace of mortal combat.
I smashed Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious’ head into the crystal wall, which fragmented into a violet spider-web with clumps of ripped skin and scorched hair. He rammed his knuckles into my gullet in response, and he sliced my nipples with his parched elbows. Our entrails spilled over our toes as the blood rose to engulf our knees, and our fists swirled into each other, often colliding with the ever-weakening capsule of the elevator, which swung like a pendulum of doom on the grandfather clock of Chaos, slamming into the Tower walls and dislodging chunks of crystal that bombarded the awestruck spectators. Our bruises swelled furiously, pressing against the elevator’s boundaries like an inflating balloon inside cupped hands, and our feet flickered at, into, and through each other, bones, teeth, and organs dripping down from our ruined protoplasms. The elevator suddenly ruptured after a month of mortiferous engagement, and with a swift maneuver I gripped the still-ascending cable in time to prevent certain annihilation. But Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious denied his own demise as well; I found his chubby fingers around my foot, desperately clinging to his diminishing status above all else. The atrocious mass of blood, pus, limbs, and glass floated to the floor in a majestic display of civilization, and I shed a tear in the name of courtliness.
“So this is it, eh, Sqiquious? You’re to let a - a spiritual man die like… like this? What… what will the Beyond think of you?” Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious worriedly stammered, his gruesome pupils sizzling in the castrating sun.
“They will think me an individual. A true individual. Not one who claims false divinity for personal profit or transcendent social status. Not one who invents spirituality to justify supposed superiority. Not one who succumbs to the bottle, or the needle, but one who submits to no trends, who refuses to accept the universally accepted, who shatters bottles, who snaps needles, who designs his own circumstances, and who is capable of creativity, of happiness, of existence without external support of any means, be those means human or in the form of self-altering substances. And they will think me Sqoquilliumdor Xerxiotwillzospyon, for they are enlightened enough, I presume, to know I deserve a grander title than yours. And if they are not, then their places on the metaphysical throne I will devour, just as I will your fingers, here, now.” I did not disappoint; my newfound lack of ribs allowed me to effortlessly - though excruciatingly - fork my pelvis and contort my foot into my mouth, where my rotating denchers cremated Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious’ hand. He screamed as his wrist snapped and he joined the elevator in oblivion; I whispered sweet nothings into my palms, triumphant, tranquil. Though not to the extent of the already grounded Grontiqplilqybiondaquqiarious, I also now faced an expeditious ride, for without the excessive weight of the gargantuan elevator, the cable would hoist me to the Mister in a mere decade. And it would be his last in despair, I knew, for I would be selected for whatever intricate intention he clandestinely held.