The Reason for Those Toilet
Slippers
Cigarette smell, toilet slippers, dandruff of a most ungodly nature,
all of
these so unprotocol, how Konzen used to glare with irritation
every time
he made his entrance at the door. Konzen pretty, Konzen grouchy, Konzen
was a
boring soul, dying day by day, breaking monotony with a grunt of
old-hag, and
then building and maintaining the kill-joy all over again.
Ennui is a murderer; mortals have the comfort of escaping it with
death. Gods
have no death save for a once-and-for-all elimination, and no one wants
that
option. Ennui rests on the shoulders of the gods, thus the gods wreak
havoc
upon the Earth. Humans separate insect-leg and insect-body for
pleasure,
beautiful karma dictates that gods should destroy them collectively,
watch them
run about, yawn, and return to their bored lives. So Konzen made it his
affairs
to record it, so Tenpou made it his affairs to love it.
Books, scrolls, annals and endless notes, one pile atop another in the
hopeless
story of an otaku. Speak to him about the affairs of Heaven, and he
says
little, speak to him of the affairs of Earth and he would go on and on,
down to
the very last minute detail that no one would even bother to care, not
even the
gods – they commit, they forget, it is of none of their business to
remember,
and so long as they do their business that is all that matters to them.
Life in
Heaven is business bureaucracy, Tenpou is obsessive, just not the way
that
Konzen is.
Tenpou loves Kenren. Braggart and shaker-upper. Met him. Loved him
immediately.
Walk in. Cause trouble. Damn it beats protocol any day. He lets
shaker-upper shake a bit more than he should. The reason surmised is
hatred for
the upper folks. The real reason is that Kenren is quite simply put, a
lot of
fun.
Kenren wonders why Tenpou would find paradise in books that speak
endlessly of
murder and pillage and plunder. Kenren sees bloodspill. Tenpou sees
dreams.
Pleasure and pain are twins wound together. Over wine and flowers he
once told
Kenren that if he'd have a chance to be born a human he wants more than
to
know, he wants to feel. Beats boredom, he believes.
Written: 26/10/2003
Revised and uploaded: 23/01/2004
