Day 8: Transmogrifications

Moth had often enjoyed telling stories about herself to me, although as she continued it became more and more difficult to tell if these were memories or tales to instill belief in her followers. As her first follower, I’d hear the first time she’d recount a story. The next instance we’d meet one who was in need of enlightenment, she’d tell the story but with slight noticeable deviations. The deviations would extend further and further until the moral of her story had shifted. She’d once told me of the story involving the boy, Koda and his sister who I had assumed to be her, and the time they’d gone to a beach in order to find reprieve from their father’s kubu. In other instances, it had not been a beach but the River Nerys, sometimes they’d been lost in the jungles surrounding the Caldera. Most times, the inciting incident would be the sister’s hair having gotten wet, which would lead to their father realizing where they had been. Sometimes it would be mud or their torn clothes. There were times where the daughter’s punishment had been to sleep outside, other times her hair would be shaved completely off. The father’s intentions however would always be consistently ambiguous and this was the rhetoric she used in order to instill her followers with material reasons.

However, dear Reverend, there was a story she had only told me that I shall reveal to you shortly, but before I may do so, a memory of my own had just entered my mind. It was the last day I had properly spoken with Moth. 

Moth had successfully blasphemed the Paraclete without an ounce of punishment. She had told stories to those around the Caldera with a diligence only rivaled by the penitent who had been shriven before the Pylon. She had a reason, and I can’t forget the moment I’d found out. It had been when we passed by a school within the Caldera. Moth had not flown for a while and I had assumed it was due to our present circumstances. Moth had told her stories as requested by the Caldera’s children but saw that one of them, a boy, had run out of the school, brandishing his mother’s kitchen knife, swore freedom for those amongst the Caldera. I’d thought this is what Moth would’ve wanted, people willing to free themselves after having never known the need for it. Yet as Moth looked at that boy, I’d not seen pride, nor any emotion to denote her success on her face. I saw pity. This struck me as profound at the time and admittedly I began to doubt Moth’s sincerity.

Perhaps that is the reason she changed her story every time she had told it. She was hiding herself, unable to tell certain truths or events to the wrong people. That had been no more apparent than the story she had told me of when she had been a child. The elders of the small collection of ramshackle homes she had lived in had developed an intense form of plague. Their skin and flesh would melt from their bones and harden in positions that made it difficult to move or express themselves. Some had their eyes blotted out by flesh, other more unlucky ones were suffocated by it. Moth’s father had developed this disease that I now find similarities to, in the symptoms the penitent had displayed. That was when a healer had arrived, cloaked in a black robe and adorned with golden rings around his neck. His features were ambiguous if you were to ignore the streams of smoke that continuously shot out through his eyes. He wore chains as well and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the criminal I had brought to justice just the previous day. This healer had told all the children to wait outside their homes and to ignore any cries they felt familiar. Yet Moth had disobeyed and alongside her elder brother, witnessed the man bring their father back from the brink of death. Shocked by the vision, Koda ran off, leaving his sister to witness the aftermath. Mid-flight, he bumped into the healer, yet this one bore no chains and used a plain stick to assist in traversal. The other healer touched Koda’s swollen eye, no doubt caused by the various trips he’d made to find momentary reprieve. When he returned home, their father was back to full health, in fact he was better than ever. The next day, Moth’s brother had been sent to join the fighting in the north, to hunt those who had fled the Caldera along with the sea.

I’d always thought this story —the reason Moth had wound up in the Nerys —yet now I know the true inciting incident was the moment Moth pitied the boy who wielded his mother’s knife. I’d recognized the boy and as he guided Moth down to the Paraclete within the Pylon, and as they disappeared into the fog, I stayed put and waited alongside the rest of the Caldera’s residents.

There was a scream and the boy ran out running, although he had been unscathed despite being touched by the fog. I entered towards the Pylon, in the boy’s place and as I traversed the fog, heard the wriggling of the live culture that held my body together. In that moment, I felt myself weighed down by a barrage of interchanging memories and visions. Eyes began to appear through the smoke and I realized I had entered the Pylon. In a similar sense to how when once gazing at the facade of the Caldera, may feel reverence in its unexplainable architecture, the inside of the Pylon itself filled me only with scorn. I looked at the suit of armor that walked beside myself and told Koda to wait outside, lest he see something he shouldn’t. 

Moth had become impeccably thin during our days in the Caldera. She found that she no longer had any need to eat, yet her body denied that statement constantly. Her ribs began to be visible through her skin and eventually, before entering the Pylon, had been sharp enough to pierce through her flesh and out her chest. I’d thought Moth’s fasting to be initially for the purpose of something greater, yet as she looked back at me with eyes Koda might’ve remembered as she satiated her hunger on the corpse of the Paraclete. It was no wonder then she had starved herself to such an extreme extent, as she had to have an appetite fit for a god. 

Is it a horrible thing dear Revered, that in that moment, I envied the blinded elders of Moth’s township? Envied the whole of Ennoia, the criminal, the boy and Moth’s father? Recalling this story, I envy you as well, your scribe and the wheels upon which the other missionaries glide through your hallowed halls. I envied, even the Paraclete whose had eyes that covered its entire being! That is dignity Reverend, and it must be preserved above all else because I have seen it so violently torn apart in the matter of seconds.

[The prisoner walked to the corner of his cell in silence and began regurgitating live larvae, the Reverend Father and his scribe decided to resume their recording the next day]