This was the seventh day of his trials , his path to enlightenment consisting of seven secret steps, his climbing the sacred ladder of his apprenticeship, his road to becoming soul worthy of his god – the deity he had trouble recalling the name or the image of at the moment in his hunger infested mind that was pounding only one thought with every heartbeat pumping blood into the barely functioning encephalon, now, after it was done shutting down everything else, all of its unnecessary operations.
He was an instinct stumbling through the corridors underneath the city, through a man-made cave that was the buried temple of their religion.
He hadn’t slept, eaten, drank, rested, for days now.
What was left here, was the staggering anthropomorphic horrible state of unconsciousness of senses too beaten to raise to the occasion of registering alerts, of a body that no longer felt anything, of an empty shell of outer epidermal contour and mind in absence that housed once the soul that was gone.
***
He hadn’t drank water, then when he was drowning in it, trying to hold his head above the surface of the flooded cave, filled exactly with the amount right enough to force him to stand stretched to the point where the neck almost snapped itself under the strain, and all he could think of was how he wanted to stop and lay down and rest forever.
He hadn’t laid down to rest, except when he was buried alive and his hands tore the wooden casket tearing themselves instead. He was breathing poison and all he could think of was taking a long unrestricted breath before his brain started numbing down and he was no longer able to think clearly at all.
He hadn’t breathed freely, but was forced to inhale the air that strangled, in the crushing wind that scarred his lungs, then when he was tied to the top branch of the highest tree of the mountain that nursed winds so powerful that they chilled the blood cold and gathered clouds with the whip of its force, closing in on the sun he hoped would break out and shine warmth on him.
He hadn’t rejoiced sunlight, save for the day his eyelids were sewn open and he was tied to a chair that invisible hands moved to follow the burning path all day long, with head fixed in metal contortion keeping him staring at the footsteps of the blinding light until the his eyes bled, and he would sometimes through the haze of madness recall the thought that the cooling darkness was to follow .
He hadn’t healed in darkness that he was thrown into, because being forced to stare open into absolute freezing dark was equally painful and his almost blinded eyes would have cried blood, if there was anything left to cry out. His tortured mind spurted an image of red heat that promised the release but the image no longer had a name because all of his language was gone.
He hadn’t felt his blood warm up when it was boiling from too much heat of the fire that burned itself and burned him and was used to bless the iron that branded his forehead, and the pain was no longer painful because, for him, pain was no more the signal of danger , the sensory impulse, pain no longer hurt . All of his thresholds had been pushed, pushed hard, and then pushed again some more, and then pushed beyond that, until there was no threshold left and the pain was just the smell of the iron burning through meat that was his own.
***
This was the seventh day of his Mithraic trials, and he was no longer the pubescent initiate that walked into the sacred Mitraeum, the temple hidden inside the cave ripped in the underbelly of Singidunum – neither was he feeling closer to being the enlightened creature he was promised these seven days would make him out to be – he was no longer a human being capable of such appreciation – he was an instinct, and the instinct walked.
He had no concept nor sounds to carry it for the hunger in his mind - he had no mind that governed the raged body - but every cell, each tiny nucleus driven building block that humans were made of had only so much strength left in it to transmit one message – the message of the instinct.
The Hunger.
***
Seven days ago he imagined how he would feel on his seventh day of the sacred, secretive and sainted ritual. The future that he envisioned was as real as the present.
***
Tomorrow, he will be cleansed, his mouth and hands washed with honey, tomorrow his head will refuse the wrath, he will be the Mithras and hunt the bull, ride him gloriously to the cave and overcome the exhausted animal and bleed it to death at the altar .
Tomorrow he will stand proud born from his own rock .
Tomorrow the globe will shine in his hand .
Tomorrow the snake and the dog and the scorpion will acknowledge him the master and play their servant parts.
Tomorrow he will clasp with his right hand and he will carry a torch.
Tomorrow he will become The Father, the highest ranking initiate , the special magister sacrorum, the Magus, the sophistes , the high-priest who has been chosen by his fellows, tomorrow he will be all this and he will rule them all.
Tomorrow they will feast and celebrate the Mithras the invincible, the good, the fiery, the light , the one that the gods of the four elements shall in fear honor, the Mithras of the soldiers, the ruler of the cosmos.
Tomorrow they will eat and drink and his will be the seat of honor.
Tomorrow he will do all this.
* **
Seven days ago, his thoughts of tomorrow that will come after today were clear. The tomorrow of the seventh day was as real as he was.
Today, there was nothing. No future to behold , no past to awe, no present to live in and know beyond the instinct.
***
Seven days ago, he thought that today he was going to be an antipatos, one step away from final honor and his magnificent completion.
Today, he was one step away from complete and utter madness, he was right now one gate short of Death and he was nothing except what was only possible to be left after body was tortured so that the soul, the intellect, the knowledge, the conscience, the dogma and the fear was no longer – the instinct to live, to live to kill, to live to kill to eat.
Nothing but, nothing except, nothing else and nothing more than the instinct that he now followed.
The Hunger
***
.....
He was an instinct stumbling through the corridors underneath the city, through a man-made cave that was the buried temple of their religion.
He hadn’t slept, eaten, drank, rested, for days now.
What was left here, was the staggering anthropomorphic horrible state of unconsciousness of senses too beaten to raise to the occasion of registering alerts, of a body that no longer felt anything, of an empty shell of outer epidermal contour and mind in absence that housed once the soul that was gone.
***
He hadn’t drank water, then when he was drowning in it, trying to hold his head above the surface of the flooded cave, filled exactly with the amount right enough to force him to stand stretched to the point where the neck almost snapped itself under the strain, and all he could think of was how he wanted to stop and lay down and rest forever.
He hadn’t laid down to rest, except when he was buried alive and his hands tore the wooden casket tearing themselves instead. He was breathing poison and all he could think of was taking a long unrestricted breath before his brain started numbing down and he was no longer able to think clearly at all.
He hadn’t breathed freely, but was forced to inhale the air that strangled, in the crushing wind that scarred his lungs, then when he was tied to the top branch of the highest tree of the mountain that nursed winds so powerful that they chilled the blood cold and gathered clouds with the whip of its force, closing in on the sun he hoped would break out and shine warmth on him.
He hadn’t rejoiced sunlight, save for the day his eyelids were sewn open and he was tied to a chair that invisible hands moved to follow the burning path all day long, with head fixed in metal contortion keeping him staring at the footsteps of the blinding light until the his eyes bled, and he would sometimes through the haze of madness recall the thought that the cooling darkness was to follow .
He hadn’t healed in darkness that he was thrown into, because being forced to stare open into absolute freezing dark was equally painful and his almost blinded eyes would have cried blood, if there was anything left to cry out. His tortured mind spurted an image of red heat that promised the release but the image no longer had a name because all of his language was gone.
He hadn’t felt his blood warm up when it was boiling from too much heat of the fire that burned itself and burned him and was used to bless the iron that branded his forehead, and the pain was no longer painful because, for him, pain was no more the signal of danger , the sensory impulse, pain no longer hurt . All of his thresholds had been pushed, pushed hard, and then pushed again some more, and then pushed beyond that, until there was no threshold left and the pain was just the smell of the iron burning through meat that was his own.
***
This was the seventh day of his Mithraic trials, and he was no longer the pubescent initiate that walked into the sacred Mitraeum, the temple hidden inside the cave ripped in the underbelly of Singidunum – neither was he feeling closer to being the enlightened creature he was promised these seven days would make him out to be – he was no longer a human being capable of such appreciation – he was an instinct, and the instinct walked.
He had no concept nor sounds to carry it for the hunger in his mind - he had no mind that governed the raged body - but every cell, each tiny nucleus driven building block that humans were made of had only so much strength left in it to transmit one message – the message of the instinct.
The Hunger.
***
Seven days ago he imagined how he would feel on his seventh day of the sacred, secretive and sainted ritual. The future that he envisioned was as real as the present.
***
Tomorrow, he will be cleansed, his mouth and hands washed with honey, tomorrow his head will refuse the wrath, he will be the Mithras and hunt the bull, ride him gloriously to the cave and overcome the exhausted animal and bleed it to death at the altar .
Tomorrow he will stand proud born from his own rock .
Tomorrow the globe will shine in his hand .
Tomorrow the snake and the dog and the scorpion will acknowledge him the master and play their servant parts.
Tomorrow he will clasp with his right hand and he will carry a torch.
Tomorrow he will become The Father, the highest ranking initiate , the special magister sacrorum, the Magus, the sophistes , the high-priest who has been chosen by his fellows, tomorrow he will be all this and he will rule them all.
Tomorrow they will feast and celebrate the Mithras the invincible, the good, the fiery, the light , the one that the gods of the four elements shall in fear honor, the Mithras of the soldiers, the ruler of the cosmos.
Tomorrow they will eat and drink and his will be the seat of honor.
Tomorrow he will do all this.
* **
Seven days ago, his thoughts of tomorrow that will come after today were clear. The tomorrow of the seventh day was as real as he was.
Today, there was nothing. No future to behold , no past to awe, no present to live in and know beyond the instinct.
***
Seven days ago, he thought that today he was going to be an antipatos, one step away from final honor and his magnificent completion.
Today, he was one step away from complete and utter madness, he was right now one gate short of Death and he was nothing except what was only possible to be left after body was tortured so that the soul, the intellect, the knowledge, the conscience, the dogma and the fear was no longer – the instinct to live, to live to kill, to live to kill to eat.
Nothing but, nothing except, nothing else and nothing more than the instinct that he now followed.
The Hunger
***
.....
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