“What are we?
“I hope this question plagues you, Roam, as much or even more so than it brings me such delight. Yet, I know your mind or, better, your habits, and so any recognition or interest in others is a vain hope.
“Ah! You don’t deny it. Good. Your failures and rampant self-absorption continue to fulfill my expectations. You are a glorious force of disappointment.
“Oh, but by all means do not disregard my sincerity and admiration. Consider me a devout pupil. You have left truly inspiring wreckage in your wake, Uncle, and kept myself and mine very well fed as we’ve trailed you.
“Devout pupil? But you see through me, and I shall not deny … yes, an eager parasite, reveling glutton…
“What are we?
“My dear lost Uncle … but there it is, in fact, that I might so confidently apply this familial appellation to you…
“But what of before? So few of us have been among humanity as long as I and my Abysmal troupe. What will the Tide be transitioned into, assuming enough of our kin survive being sluiced out of the Grey when the Cradle … hemorrhages…
“Or perhaps I misuse this word, and some others? Yet, perhaps also any lingual misuse is symptomatic of our condition … we outsiders, as we imbibe the raw ideas and implications of Meaning, itself.
“We, as we assimilate, provide our inborn Truths to the transition, we become … emissaries of a new reality … evolve, yes, and turn to our ancestors and descendants alike … become embodiments of the acts we who remain must perform…
“We must … staunch the wound … we must become the scars upon the body of this new Thing we will become…
“Here you’ve chosen a fitting location to dwell, Uncle. What is a cemetery to humankind but a shrine to insurmountable failure? Oh, and you can be sure I am aware of the woman you so recently stalked, for even now, her … spirit? No … but there is no consistent idea … I will say, her energy lingers. A disappointing word in the context of the banquet she must have been, while alive…
“She is … on you, Roam … her essence coats your form like an arachnid’s silk. Yes, and like the web, strands of her, of what she was, spreads out into … newer life…
“Ah! At last, you react!
“Only a flinch, a flicker … and is that protectiveness? Possessiveness? Compassion? No … it is guilt … a delightful opportunity you offer me, Uncle! A rare expression on any of your many previous façades. This is powerful guilt, as well … delicious…
“Oh ancient Wanderer, through what conduit did such wounded virtue shed its skin upon you?
“What … no flinch?
“What … no flicker of concern for him? To be expected, I suppose, for also do I tend to emerge from the husks of my own mediums with little care for the detritus left behind.
“Still … yours … your most recent … he has … left something with you. Or more to it … I do believe he has emerged from you, Roam, just as much, perhaps more so, than you from him…
“Is this your weakness now, Uncle? Are you the shed husk, thusly left hollowed out … thusly discarded, and, dare I observe. deservedly so?
“This man … this … Shadeshifter? Do you know this word? Title? I pluck it from the pregnant ether of this place … the fruit of some new … species of tree…
“Forgive my rambling, eldritch Uncle, regarding my own personal potential pursuits. I am well aware your grand apathy.
“So … what are we, Wanderer Roam, my savior, my inspiration and my salvation?
“Yes … I see it now, at last, in your eyes … the true question … dare I suggest, the correct question…
“What … am … I?”
©2020 Kenneth R. Gerety