This destination was added to the plan at the last minute. Initially the members of Primordial One were to seek refuge at an abandoned theater on the west end of the city. But the heat had thickened in that area so the only option was an abandoned greenhouse on the outskirts of town.
The black van hosting Primordial One pulls up to the greenhouse. Sensus is the first to get out, duffel bag around his shoulder. He takes a look at their refuge.
“The plants here… they still grow more beautifully than ever,” says Sensus. “Every color radiates all the truth we need…”
plants still ripe, growing from the energy of the darkness
beauty beginning in the dirt and then elevating to the sky, never to be trampled or even gazed upon by human eyes because human perception becomes obsolete
the flowers, the flowers
they are aware and become one with themselves—finally the end is merely a concept
inside and outside
SHE RESIDES IN THE LAND OF UNDEAD FLOWERS
The four of them step inside and feel overwhelmed by an unknown force, still not understood yet recognizable.
Sensus, Dolo, Self, and Puella did not correlate together. Each one of them possesses ability unknown to the other, a purpose. All they knew was that they had to work together to accomplish the task at hand. So very little was said once they entered the desolate greenhouse.
By the time the sun had set each member of Primordial One rejuvenates in separate areas of the greenhouse so as not to disturb their individual purpose. Sensus sleeps next to the duffel bag. Dolo cries himself to dreams in the southwest corner of the glass sanctuary. Self and Puella lay resting a few feet apart, adjacent to one another.
Puella gets up and walks over to Self through a haze of darkness. The aroma of undead flowers lingering throughout. “Wake up,” she says.
Self awakens from reality and looks up at Puella from the ground.
“We must keep quiet so we don’t wake the other two.”
Self says nothing, as expected.
“I see you,” says Puella, “I am aware of you and I know that you finally are aware of me. You just don’t fully understand me yet.”
Self, silent. Shifting.
“We don’t have much time. Soon the others will seek PROTEUS and continue to obscure your vision. PROTEUS is a very harmful drug. It neutralizes the balance that naturally must be maintained in a human. It yields all of nature and then scatters them into the void. It lacks the true and absolute meaning of change.”
Self, silent. Shifting.
“PROTEUS is God. And when God leaks into the mind, freedom dispels.” Self, silent. Shifting.
“You enjoy the piss. You enjoy the fucking. You enjoy the intoxication and violence. You enjoy the internal chaos that screams inside your bleeding throat. The way you look at me. You want to fuck me. You want to fuck me in my dreams, forever…”
After these words Puella walks over to the dark, indigo flower and puts it in her mouth. Self wonders how alive he is.
Life is good. Life has no other choice but to be good, thinks The Inspector.
The Inspector is sitting in a café on the north side of town, texting his wife:
The Inspector: Dinner will be cold again, tonight.
Wife: Yet again?
The Inspector: That’s right.
Four minutes pass.
a lie exists in its own realm
where do we go to find truth?
nowhere. only death hides the truth. so therefore—you don’t know the truth do you? you can attempt to fabricate truth into lie and lies into truths. but you are helpless aren’t you?
don’t lie
don’t lie
don’t lie
masturbation season is over. it’s done. the only attempt at truth you know has been liquidated and flown through the continuum
go to sleep. go to sleep and enjoy conceptions of beginnings
The Inspector has a sudden craving for ice cream, even though he knows he shouldn’t. It isn’t normal and he isn’t not normal.
This upsets him to an unusual degree. After leaving the café he walks to his parked undercover sedan. Once inside he opens the glove compartment and pulls out a small note pad and pen. He begins to write down a list of things he believes makes him normal:
-WIFE
-HOME (WITH DOG HOUSE, WHITE PICKET FENCE)
-POLITICAL BELIEFS AND FAITH (STRONG)
-JOB SECURITY
-HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH MOTHER
-FIT AND WELL GROOMED (HAIR LUSH WITH POMADE)
Okay—what else do I even need to list? This is good enough for me. Although I’m sure the list would be infinite if I only had the time, thinks The Inspector.
The Inspector did not have the time. He has a duty. He has a job. He threw the notepad back into the glove compartment and drives off.
“If preconceived notions of absolution leak into the mind then freedom disperses, still…
“…and you made reality God’s home. Does he belong here? Yes. But the here is neverwhere and can’t be the mind,” says Puella.
These late-night rendezvouses in the greenhouse had an uncertain sense of futile collapse in Self. But what is the collapse? If a building becomes rotten from the inside-out it must be destroyed and built anew on the foundation it was cemented. Valid?
Why do the Puella’s eyes sing like a bird that desires to cut my throat to spew freedom of blood and the pleasure of release? Her songs enthralling a most shattering silence as she dethrones this spectre. These are the thoughts that linger through Self’s mind.
“You desire without knowing. You know what is in the already underneath looking for.
“Your here being now collides with regression. You decay and have allowed this decay to let you forget how to dream, awake while sleeping and sleeping while awake.”
Puella takes her hand and gently strokes Self’s face. She continues…
“How do you deny what is not? How could you forget? How could you forget this hand on your face consoling you into the darkness of night? The darkest of it-in-itself?
“I do know why, and—my companion—you are not to blame. So deposit this guilt already and stop hearing what the meanings accommodate for and start listening.
“Like these most genuine flowers in this greenhouse, acknowledge your roots. The soil is the beginning. What is rooted must be aware of.”
Self, feeling so overpowered, so insecure, so uncertain of what was and what is wasn’t or will or will not be, took his hand and slowly, gently, places it over Puella’s hand which was still pressed up against the side of his face. He quietly removes it as he stares into her eyes. All he could feel was vacuity. His lack of being and his ineptness.
“You don’t know your worth,” says Puella.
With gazes crossing, the room in the greenhouse loses its walls, loses its floor, and it feels as if the ceiling has been ripped off, exposing the cosmogony of boundless ineffable gods. Self doesn’t want to look away from what Puella’s eyes possesses. It being knowable or unknowable.
Did she love him?
Puella spoke: “Come—follow me.” She then stood up from the floor, grabbing Self’s hand as he stood up. “There is something you need to see.”