LVI
“I can’t see anything.”
“I can’t breathe.”
The Young Cripple and T walked through a thick blanket of fumes. At first it was horrible. Her lungs beat like broken wings trying to clear themselves of this wretched sticky air, and the more they filled, the more desperate she became. It was only when she submitted and gave into the atmosphere, did her panic finally subside. And then, when her lungs were completely filled, she no longer felt as if she were choking. Instead, she felt a part of the new environment – less of a guest, and more like an added appendage.
The Young Cripple could feel, not just her own heartbeat, but the heartbeat of this world itself. When she inhaled, she inhaled hope, and her every atom longed for change. And when she exhaled, she was left breathless and with an aftertaste of despair that scorched the back of her mouth. This world, as it seemed, had been built upon a culture of disappointment.
“Use the detector,” said T.
“Ok,” said the girl, wiping a tear from her eye.
“What’s wrong?” asked T.
The Young Cripple couldn’t decide. There was no reason for feeling this way, and yet she did. It would be silly to assume otherwise, so she did the best she could to explain.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“Are you sure?” asked T, genuinely concerned.
“Yes,” said The Young Cripple, her sadness quickly losing its patience. “I’m fine. Let’s just go.”
She aimed her fear detector in front of her, and together they followed the sounds of screaming and decadent laughter through the blinding mist until they came across a swamp where, barely a stone’s throw from where they crouched and hid, a small and helpless looking creature was begging for its life. And on the outskirts of the boggy marsh, an arachnid, a beetle and a giant sunflower that had a face like retired boxer, pointed and laughed at the poor creature, whose little mouth barely breached the surface of the thick mud.
“We can’t leave it like that,” said The Young Cripple, throwing down the detector. “It’ll die.”
“There’s little we can do. We have no guns and no lasers; nothing to frighten or bedazzle. I’m just a radio,” said T, in hollow acceptance. “And besides, like that man said, you’re just a girl. What can you do?”
The Young Cripple smiled.
“Everything,” she said.
She was just a girl - and not a big girl either. She was a little girl with very little focus and a wild and avid imagination, one that, for the life of her, had wreaked havoc in her thoughts and dreams. The Young Cripple turned the radio’s volume as loud as it would go, and then closed her eyes and shut out the parameters of this world. Instead, she focused on the things that frightened her most.
She thought of car crashes, robberies, cancer, and AIDS; and she thought of infanticide, neonaticide and suicide too. She thought of abandon and disregard, and violent abuse, and she thought of children without mothers and without fathers too.
She thought of beds in the middle of rooms with no Light, and she thought of the monsters below that came out at night. She thought of clowns with teeth made of razors and knives, and she thought of salivating priests with perversion for eyes.
Her mind was rampant and out of control. Each thought grew like a tumour and quickly infused its own discordant rationale. She was shaking and curling into herself, rocking back and forth on the spot. Each horrific thought morphed into another until the final image in her mind was of the worst being she could possibly imagine; God.
The radio screamed. It was loud and abrasive. It sounded like a clap of thunder, except one that brought with it, necklaces of razor blades and rusted wire so that, not only the girl but the beetle, the arachnid and the sunflower too, all felt as if the insides of their thoughts were being skewered from their heads.
The Whale and The Father both squinted and squirmed as they too were overcome with fret, terror, and superstition. The sound travelled far. As The Young Cripple breathed, so too did her suffering and anxiety. It travelled in her breath and the entire planet itself felt as infinitely vulnerable as she.
At this moment, everyone fell to their knees in agony.
As the very worst kind of fear resonated in the air; The Young Cripple stood up calmly and smiled. She brought the radio with her in her hands and though torture billowed from its speakers, she walked with such careless endeavour, as if she were listening to the soft flutter of butterflies, a lullaby, or a baby’s laughter.
There, by the edge of the swamp, she confronted the arachnid, the beetle, and the sunflower. They put up very little fight, making prisoners of themselves in how they succumbed to this deafening fear.
The Young Cripple, on the other hand, was an expert at fear. She had spent her existence dealing with her wayward imagination. She had become arted in living with her distorted and turbulent thoughts, whilst still behaving like a well-mannered and ordinary girl. The hurricane that had brought this whole planet to its trembling knees was but a light breeze to The Young Cripple; no more disarming than her own breath on the back of her hand.
“It’s probably best that you leave,” she said in such a cheerful tone that, amidst all the chaos, was entirely believable. “Before I go and do so something really bad.”
The arachnid, the beetle, and the sunflower all turned and ran. Their decadent mocking had turned into desperate wheezing and pleas for their mothers. They disappeared quickly. It is unsure where they ended up, but they never returned – to the swamp or the planet.
The Young Cripple muted the radio, and the wave of despondence ceased. T, The Father, and The Whale – and the whole planet, in fact, sat stunned and shaking. The Young Cripple looked out into the middle of the swamp and shouted.
“Are you ok?”
The little creature whose mouth barely grazed the surface replied.
“What the bloody hell did you do?”
“I saved you,” shouted The Young Cripple. “Stay there. I’ll rescue you.”
As she looked for a stick long enough to reach, there in the middle of the swamp, the cute little mouth shot upwards with terrific speed, until there was not a little creature there anymore, there was a mountainous and mastodonic thing – a thing with seventy-two heads, pythons for whiskers and a body made entirely out of mouths – mouths that had eyes in the backs of their throats, so as to see their prey’s last expression as they swallowed it whole. The thing, whatever it was, didn’t come out of the swamp, it was the swamp.
“Now look what you did? There goes my lunch.”
The Young Cripple was stunned.
“I thought you were stuck,” she said.
“You thought of me stuck,” said The Thing. “Perhaps it was you that was stuck all along – in your eyes, in your heart, and in your mind. And perhaps it was me who pulled you out.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Ahh. Forget it. What’s done is done. And apology’s not gonna bring em back, is it?”
“I really am sorry. Are you going to eat me?”
The Thing laughed.
“I am a herbivore,” it said. “I only eat the seeds of arrogance and greediness from the flowers of philistines. I don’t eat little girls, especially ones who can do what you just did. Who knows what you would do to my digestion.”
“Well, if I can’t help you, maybe you can help us. We are looking for a demon. He has a friend of ours, and some things that do not belong to him; some things that need to be returned.”
“I suppose,” said The Thing, yawning with its billions of mouths. ”Lunch has been soured. I waited a thousand years for them to come along.”
“Maybe you waited a thousand years for me,” said The Young Cripple.
“It’s charming when I say it. It’s kind of irritating when you do.”
The Young Cripple took T in her arms and held onto her fear detector.
“You won’t need that,” said The Thing, the whole swamp itself, rising like some catastrophic wave, and the form
ing as the creature’s seven legs. “This world and everything in it is an extension of The Demon, even me. Call its name, and it will come.”
“How?”
“Your fear brought you here, but now, to find The Demon, you must stop listening to the madness in your mind, and listen instead, to the love in your heart. Follow your heart now, and you will find The Demon.”
“I don’t know what I love,” said The Young Cripple, “only the things that frighten me.”
“Don’t look into the Light then,” said The Thing. “Look at what is being lit.”
She had heard it before, from T, but she had thought of it literally.
“How? All I see are monsters. All I see is the end.”
“Turn around,” said The Thing.
With her eyes closed, The Young Cripple turned her back to the very things that for her entire life, had crept behind her. She turned her back on the very monsters that she had spent a lifetime building the courage to face.
“Fear is just a shadow in the Light of all that you love. Tell me, fierce girl, what do you see?”
In her thoughts, The Young Cripple opened her eyes.
“It’s just a mirror,” she said.
“And? What is inside of that mirror? What do your fears keep you from loving?”
She stared into the mirror and shuddered.
“Myself,” she said.
The Thing smiled.
“Now say it. Say its name.”
“Demon,” she said.
“No,” said The Thing. “That is not its name. Say its name. Don’t think. Feel.”
Though her every instinct willed her to blink, The Young Cripple kept her stare focused on her own reflection. She had never seen herself in this Light. She felt, for the first time, in the company of herself.
“I,” she said.
“Yes,” said The Thing. “Do not stop.”
“I,”
“Yes.”
“I… I love you,” she said.
And The Demon appeared.