TABOO
Part III
By Jia Zhang
Time…it is such a human concept.
And to be honest, time doesn't really exist. It is a state of human thought and consciousness. Time is an instance, because in this world of the dead, everything stood still. We believe in the concept of time because we try to have hope in a false future. But, the future too, is a human concept. All we have is an instant in time, and that is all. Time is the alteration of cells, or growing old, and nothing more; it is no passage. Animals do not have this concept, only humans, for all they know is existence and death. Life is an instant, in which people make it up to be more than it really is…because we are human, because we fear what might be beyond and yet we look forward to it. We hate to think of life without this concept, that there is no future, there is no past, only an instant in time where we wander and drift, seemly dreaming in a state of mind that is so drugged on some delusional idealism.
After all, as I have learned, Death offers no time. Death, unlike Life, is an instant of eternity. Nothing changes, nothing grows, nothing alters, nothing evolves. Death is on the other side of the looking glass—it is an instant, and yet it is an eternity. Life is not an eternity, it is a precognitive state of being…after all, Life ends with Death, Death ends with Life…and Death is so much more of a puzzlement than this pointless time of being.
I am contemplating too much, of these factors that no longer have anything to do with me. I am dead. Dead like the burnt ashes of wood, roasted inside the fire for much too long. Dead, like the flower the child picked for her mother. Dead, like the ant, it's pointless life squashed in an instant by someone's careless foot. This Death is as troubling as was my life.
I stared out into this fangled wasteland, bleak, with no false hope of a tomorrow that will never come. And as I stared into that monochrome sky, from the window of Uriel's home, I was oddly reminded of that childhood nightmare I often dreamed of—the falling into abyss, entrapped by some dark and poisonous rapture that was all too dangerous for anyone, pulled down by the weight of my existence, haunted by these ghosts who refuse to leave my side.
Such bitter irony it has become, my twisted childish nightmare, some premonition of my present tragic state. I have fallen—fallen deep inside the dark caverns, to a place that is the golden eyes of the dark beast of the sullen night.
I am a lover of lies. They are often so much more comforting than the bitter truths the world offers. As a child, we were all told lies and deceptions by our parents to keep us in some dream-like state, where everything was pure…where everything was what our imaginations and hopes had created, because at that time, we didn't know how painful the truth could be. The truth offered reality, which is something none of us wants to accept. This is why people lie, why we prefer lies…because they are always so much more comforting than the truth.
I constantly lie to myself. I lie and pretend that everything would get better. But here is my truth…
I was a creation of incest…a living Sin, a beggar in the dark corners of the Inferno, servant to the macabre Lord of the Flies…
When I learned this disgusting truth, all my lies and games of make-believe were shattered into pieces of coloured glass, each a reflection of the life I once had. My lies kept me together…but now, they were nothing more than the sand in the Hourglass that continues to drip with some sort of inevitable dread. With a touch of my skin, I felt constantly the desire for lies and games of pretend. I sought a fantasy that left me long ago, but in which no storybook ever contained.
I sat motionless upon the floor, against the bed in which I slept on in Uriel's home. My arms hugged tightly around my legs, the red bandages on my arms faded to a colour of pink, afraid that if I did not secure myself, I'd break into pieces. I stayed like this most of the time, if Uriel couldn't coax me into sleeping. I felt as if I were abusing his kindness, but I really didn't know what else to do. I was constantly adrift inside that dark pit within my mind, and no one could get me out.
No one.
I wanted to leave this place, this temporary abode that this dark winged Angel had offered me. I knew I was imposing when I should not have, but I was such a pathetic little lamb, and I really didn't know what else to do, and thus, I spend most of my days, or whatever time that passed in this desolate plain, gazing out at this barren womb that stood in-between Heaven and Hell…
"You should eat something."
I didn't reply.
Uriel would come ever so often to attempt to get me to eat something or sleep. I felt as if I were a child, being dotted upon. But I simply stayed my monotone state, only ever so often to comply with him.
Today, I felt like replying.
"The dead wouldn't really need to eat, would they…"
I could feel Uriel's smile, even though I did not shift my gaze from the window. "It's not as if I am flesh any longer," I continued. "There is no chance of me dying of malnutrition."
"You shouldn't take yourself for granted. Even if you are just a soul, you need something to sustain you. If you weren't so…wasted, I wouldn't be offering you food. But if you don't eat something, you'll fade away…"
"Does it matter?"
"Doesn't it matter?"
I fought a smile. We were going around in circles, a pointless argument, and I wasn't sure why he, the Guardian of Hell's Gate, would even care for a simple lamb like myself. So what if I drifted away? It did not matter, and life in all the universe would continue the same way it always has and always will. I was an insignificant factor.
I had always thought what crude creatures Humans can be—we create things of glorious beauty, and then we create weapons of devastating destruction. We wage war, yet we continue to have hope to a solution. We realize our flaws, yet we do not. We're an incomprehensible species of duality—of hypocrisy. We say one thing and mean another. We're crude and we're evil, and only when we follow guidelines and rules that can that sullen Devil within us can be vanquished.
As a child, I never did agree with such philosophies. But in school back in London, we often discussed the theories of Hobbes and Locke in heavy debate. I had always believed in Locke and his idealisms as a child, that our social influences were what created our substantial and inevitably evil actions. I believed that deep down Humans were not the animalistic creatures we pretended we weren't.
But I grew up.
And because of this growth, this evolution from my chrysalides, I have come to see humanity as over-rated—a cruel and unnecessary factor in the universe. We were a mistake, as a species, and our evolution would lead us nowhere.
We would never reach the glory of the Angels in Heaven, for we could so very easily embrace the bitter touches of malevolence.
We were God's greatest project…and His greatest mistake…
"Why are you here?" Uriel asked of me, and always asked of me whenever he saw me.
"Does it matter?"
"Doesn't it matter?" He sighed heavily as he walked to my side and sat down on the bed, whilst I remained upon the floor. "Why are you here, in this place of Death? You're still a child, still so young, and you have so much to strive and look forward to."
"You know my parents. I don't need to say any more than that."
I could feel his eyes gaze sadly at me.
I never asked Uriel how he knew my parents. I'm not sure whether it was because I didn't want to know, or that I simply wasn't curious, since the moment I stepped into this world I was born into a dull condition. But still the question rung in my head: how did Uriel, the Guardian of Hell's Gate, know who my parents were, my positively mortal parents? How…?
"It's not your fault, how your birth was…" he spoke ever so softly.
In a flash, the bottle of poisonous anger shattered, and I tasted that sinful liquid upon my lips. I stood up suddenly, my back to the window, my golden eyes communicating every single emotion I had felt up to that moment.
Anguish.
Anger.
Hatred.
Shame.
Fear.
A swirl of emotion that trapped me and bound me to my present state all because of what I was! I couldn't struggle against it anymore. I glared at him hatefully as his words pounded inside my own private madness and disillusion.
"Not my fault?" I echoed bitterly. "Of course this isn't my fault! What I am, how I was born…" I clutched my arms painfully, my nails digging into my skin and drawing half-moons of blood. "It's their fault! It's their sin! And I have to take all the damn ramifications of something they did! Don't pity me, because you can't possibly understand how I feel! If I live, I would go through my entire life with this mountain on my shoulders! You can't possibly image what it's like! And I don't even want to think what people would say if they knew what I was!" I hugged myself tightly, as the tears slowly descended from my eyes. "I…I am a creation of Sin between siblings…blood siblings…and there is nothing more disgusting than what I am!"
I broke down. I shattered. I became the ashes of my former-self, burnt to nothingness by the black flames of my inner-Inferno.
Slowly, ever so gently, Uriel pulled me into his arms.
"Do you hate them…?" he asked me.
I continued to sob. "I—I don't know…I don't know…"
He held me tightly to him, and slowly, the tears became to lessen, and I hiccupped softly as Uriel held me ever so gently.
"You're right; I don't know how you feel…but do you know how your parents feel? About you, and each other?"
I didn't reply. I didn't know what to say to him. What could I say? That I know my parents adore each other? How I loved them so very much? How I know that they love me?
Even if I say those things, it wouldn't change anything. What I was would remain still, carved in some ancient stone that could not be eroded away by the tides of time. I would forever be this child of sin, a creation between blood siblings. I would carry this burden, and if I had any children so would they. I was trapped in a labyrinth that had no escape, and I wandered constantly in this dazed state.
It didn't matter.
"Does it matter?" I finally replied.
"Yes…it matters the world."
To be honest, I half expected him to continue that cycle of our blissful argument, or simply giving no reply at all. I expected us to go around in circles again, stuck in some distortion of Limbo. But finally, Uriel had given me a solid answer in which my mind finally began to turn its wheels to form curiosity and a question. A question in which I should have asked from the beginning. A question whose answer will change my life on a scale that even I could not comprehend.
"How…do you know my parents?"
And finally, I was told the story…
They have loved each other longer than I ever would have expected. They have loved each other before they even knew what the word meant. But it was a forbidden love, a twisted tale of star-crossed lovers, a tragedy that would shame Romeo and Juliet. It was a love that stood on the other side of Eden, bitten again and again by the Snake. I never expected this…so what could I really do but listen.
They loved each other since they were children, my mother and my father—Setsuna and Sara Mudou—brother and sister by blood. From their childhood they loved one another, and the climax of this bitter love story, all started with the history of my father.
He was the reincarnation of the Organic Angel, Alexial, one of the twins of the Highest Order. He was another incarnation of her, like so many before him, because of the punishment place upon her for her betrayal against the Father. But she too, shared in a bitter tragedy, a forbidden love…maybe that was why my father was cursed as well.
The dawning of this tale began unfolding at the turn of the 21st century, in the Anno Domini 1999. Year of the Lord 1999. A Cherub from Heaven had come to Earth to awaken Rosiel, the twin of Alexial. Upon the beginning of these events that nearly lead to the End of the World, when my father was only sixteen years of age, around the same as I, that he confessed his love for my mother—his sister, Sara Mudou.
He had tried to squash this sinful emotion for many years, but emotions of the heart always win out, no matter what they are. They escaped from the cold clutches of their mother, who always seemed to despise my father, and created a world of their own—two sinful little lambs, but as happy as they could be. No one was ever there for either of them but each other.
And for a time, that short while, their world was perfect.
But, reality never offers a tale with happy ending.
Rosiel awakened, and sought for his sister, who dwelled in the body of my father. Rosiel himself was such a sad creature, much like myself. A bitter lamb he was, as was I. He tried to kill my mother, Sara…he succeeded, and the world shattered into pieces.
In a moment that was Eternity, Setsuna, lost in his own suffering, his own despair, at the loss of Sara, who sacrificed herself to save him, shattered all of the world as the pain in his heart sought to quench its thirst by pure vengeful destruction. But that wasn't where the story ended. Adam Kadamon, the Holy Hermit, and the First Child of God, stopped the rotation of this human concept we call time, and froze everything in this world of the living, as so that Setsuna, my father, could end Tribulation, and save the one he loved from Death.
And so, a journey was spun, on a broken spindle with thread of black, gold, and red. The image of Heaven and Hell was nothing like what my father had imagined, nothing like what I imagined, but he cared too much, and he did all he could to save the Republic of Heaven, and this cruel Earth that had always locked him in a cold prison of some distorted dementia. I secretly wonder why he chose this…why he chose to save a world that brushed him off to the deserted corners of ice and blood.
I wonder…
Perhaps…it was because, only in this place was there a Balance, that cruel, yet necessary Duality that humans were such a component of. Ah, this world was such a Scale, that if the balance would tip, in either way, we'd all come undone, for perfection does not exist, and we can always crawl out of the darkness. Duality is where humanity stood, whether it should, could, do…this moral Limbo is where we stood, for even Angels did not care for the rules created by a God that did not love.
And that was what He was.
A Father that did not love, so unlike my own, who loved more than his heart should, and because of this, he took unto himself all the pain and suffering Eternity and the Fates would offer on this golden platter of lies and deception, of truth and morality, of flesh and desire. But Sin and Rules are a misconception, an idealism no human or saint, or Angel, could ever hope to achieve, because as long as the Flesh exists, we cannot be pure.
Maybe, subconsciously, my father knew that, which is why he loved my mother anyways. Or maybe, he just didn't care at all. Love is a powerful. It makes you do stupid things, but oh it is the most wonderful of all emotions—to love, and be loved in return, no matter by whom.
My father, because of this Love, crossed into Hell and Heaven and Limbo to search for my mother, and they were always so close to finding each other. Sometimes, they were reunited, but torn apart just as quickly. Fate was such a cruel master, for when, in the End, did they finally find each other, twisted by Sandalphon, my mother shrunk into insanity, nearly losing herself and my father in the process. But he came through, like he always miraculously does, and forced this world of ours back into this Balance.
God is Dead, confused and destroyed by an emotion He could never understand. We were his creation, his masterpiece, his confusion, and ultimately his downfall.
But in the end, He wasn't the true Creator, was He? For if He was created also, what is that? That Existence in which Life is continuously a part of? What is on the other side of Eden?
Behind the mirror, my reflection…is that the Utopia we all seek?
I don't know…Perhaps I will never know…But, maybe, it is something we all shouldn't know, what truly happens after our soul leaves this universe of Duality.
I stare at Uriel quite silently not sure as to what to say. What could I say, after he tells me this tale, more twisted and cruel than any Shakesprean play…I was out of words, my question having been given an answer that I was completely and utterly not expecting. What could I say?
"I…"
I had no right to judge them, in truth. I had no right to judge myself, and what I was because of the notions created by our society of Duality. I was constantly mocked by the truth, which was always my foe after that fateful day. This was beyond anything I had expected. I never wanted to embrace the real truth, the truth that I had to accept what I was—simply a child, and it did not matter whether I was a girl, or a boy, whether I was Black, Jewish, Chinese, Puerto Rican, or mixed, for I was simply just a child.
I took too much knowledge, tried to understand and contemplate this fate I was forced to have. Like Eve, I took the Apple without knowing what it truly was, and reality brought me truth, it brought me bitter knowledge, and ultimately, it brought me my Death.
I sought too much for some kind of comfort to this knowledge, find comfort where there was none, and I did not need any. The fact remains—I am alive. I am a living, breathing human being, with thoughts of my own, and my birth, or race, or gender, or sexuality, or status did not matter the slightest. I was a living thing—I loved, I hated, I wept, I laughed, and I felt. That was all it needed to be said.
But I forgot that. I forgot that I simply needed to live, and not dwell on these factors that were unnecessary. It hurt. Yes, it hurt being what I was, a child that was a product of incest, and that if anyone were to find out about this tragic truth, I would be shunned, whipped to whatever corners of ice and blood…and even though that was the cruel and pungent truth, and there was nothing I could do, I had to go on. I had to, because I was alive.
Uriel is right about this one thing.
I am alive.
I have a life, and family and friends who love me.
I have a soul, in which will return to the true God some day.
No amount of human Duality and pretend Commandments should deter that fact, but even I, an atheist in all, was wrapped up in this faithful belief of Heaven and Hell and the Sins that Man lives and is. We live our lives the best we can, as happy as we can, for Life is never perfect, and all we can hope for is some form of happiness, for someone to love, and be loved in return. This is why Life is so precious, why animals will do anything to survive, why humans can be so bitter and cruel and selfish. We are all striving for our own happiness, for our survival, for our Life, and simply doing the best we possibly can as humans, so we can always uphold this Balance, this Duality, this paradoxical Existence.
"I…"
What do I say?
"I…I want to go home…" I spoke so quietly and softly.
"I know."
I was dead, that was also a fact. I had taken away my own life because of the Inferno burning inside of me—the pain and despair, more bitter and cruel and hurtful than any Sin could ever possibly be. I do not regret having died, because I was able to pass from my chrysalis state, and have the sand watched out of my eyes so I could see clearly, all the knowledge and truth available to me—to see once again with my sinful golden eyes.
"Can…I go home?"
"If you wish to return…"
"Can you…please take me home…?" I asked so quietly and timidly, like a child afraid to be punished.
Uriel smiled. "Yes…"
For the first time in years, I smiled, and I embraced him, and I was rescued from this deep Falling into darkness.
Ah…I remembered.
"Uriel, my name…My name is…"
I landed on my feet.
My mouth opened and I took in a deep breath of air. I breathed hard, as if I had just been saved from drowning in poison. Slowly and painfully, I opened my eyes, and all I saw was light. Did I die once again, saved by Uriel and reborn?
"She's coming to…" I heard a voice say.
My vision was blurry. I could barely make out anything at all. All I saw was light, blinding light, so different from the darkness of my nightmares. In those nightmares, it was always cold and hard and rather metallic, and I tasted blood in my mouth. But this…this was numbing, and warm, and had too much life for it to be the Shadows.
I felt pain in my arms.
I smiled slightly.
I was alive again.
Uriel…Uriel…Thank you so much for everything, I thought. For your patience, for your kindness, for your understanding, and for telling me what I should have heard long ago. Thank you for saving me from Drowning.
"Oh my God! Setsuna! Setsuna! She's awake! Oh my God, she's awake!"
Mommy…
"Mommy…"
"I'm right here…I'm right here, sweetie…"
I felt her hand clutch mine so tightly. It was warm, and soft, and I was suddenly overcome with a rush of nostalgia of my childhood. I remembered when I used to sit in her lap, and she'd tell me all sorts of stories of Princesses, and thieves, and pirates on grand excavations. She used to bake, and the house would smell like sweet butter and cream, and I was always overcome with a sense of warmth and comfort. Oh I was home…I was home…
"Daddy…"
"We thought we'd lost you…"
This was my father, a father who loved too much, who cared about my mother and I more than anything in the world. I remembered when I was little he'd take me sailing, and on trips to the zoo and I'd climb on his shoulders because I wasn't nearly tall enough to see past the cage at all the wild animals. I remember his silent words of wisdom, and his truths and faith in me. I remember how strong he is, and how much I love him. I was home…I was finally home…
This blinding light—
This was my Heaven.
This was my home.
No matter what I was, what I am, and what I shall grow to be…No matter what happened…This was the place I belonged.
Ah, my childhood nightmare…such it is a prophetic dream. I had danced on the blade of disillusion, lost in my own private torment and turmoil, nearly driven insane by the truth. And I fell—I fell into the darkness of the great Beast within my own heart, and I was entrapped by this state of mad lunacy. And through the darkness of the abyss I did fall, and yet—just like in my dream—I was able to land on my feet.
"Mom…Dad…I…"
fin
Author's Note: And this concludes Taboo, one of the most personal and difficult pieces I had to write. Although I am slightly jaded in how I ended Taboo, I highly enjoyed writing this piece. It really challenged my skill and craft, and my abilities as an author. I am also terribly grateful to all the people who commented on this story. ((bows)) Thank you.
A couple things I would like to clear up is concerning "Mudou-chan's" Death, for she really did spent a long time in Limbo with Uriel, the equivalent of years, but in real time, that was just the time for the medics to arrive at her home and bring her to the hospital. Also, the one who save her wasn't really Uriel, but herself. The red bandages on her arms symbolizes that there is still blood within her, thus that she is not completely dead, and when the bandages turn white (her's was turning pink), then she is dead. But when she realized she wished to return home, she still could return to her body.
Although this does conclude Taboo, there is an epilogue for this story, which I will first be posting on my Live Journal (which you can access by means of my "website"), then later on fanfiction (dot) net. The epilogue, which has a separate title, will explain anything that is missing in Taboo, and will also tell more about "Mudou-chan", Setsuna and Sara's daughter, and her life. I believe the epilogue to be even more important than the rest of Taboo, as that it really explains what "Mudou-chan" learned from her experience in Limbo.
Anyways, thank you everyone for reading Taboo. ((bows)) And I hope you will read others in my Angel Sanctuary series The Bible.
Domo.
Jia Zhang
© April, 2005 by Jia Zhang. All rights reserved.