Poemander

The door swung open and the puff of breeze broke inside the house. With no invitation and the audacity of a bandit it went foraging the startled bookshelves, desecrating the frail ashes in the fireplace and sabotaging the frightened curtains. I sat heedfully in the chair, the bed was empty. Wind noticed me and even had a nerve to sneak under my collar trying to grab me by the neck; however, I resolved to sit still and it left empty-handed.

I've always been wary of winds, they have this power to daze you bringing about their own radical ideas into your seemingly organized world. And should they discern your perturbation, they'll immediately get hold of your livelihood and begin to unfurl it by pulling away your energy as if it was a proper jib sheet. Winds are the rascals, thats sure.

In the door stood she. “Hello!”. Silence. “It's been a while”. “I know”.

“Hiding is silly: we can smell fear”, she said. I knew that too, but didn't reply; she knows whatever I know anyways. Agonizing. Chatter is agonizing. We sit. Wind whistles.

Some doors serve as entries, some are the exits; they can even be both depending on which side you stand. Yet, there are doors which are none of these. Such doors are the ones that you never attempted to open...

“Names. Names have been fixed”, said Lilith.

“Names? Only fools need names, for they remember not who they are”, replied wakeful snake.

Sound of a maiden sobbing out in the wind. Willows are weeping.

“Fates. Fates have been decreed”, said Lilith.

“Fates? A bow knows no fate other than it's arrows”, replied wonderful Anzu gathering the young.

Sound of an ax splitting wood outside. Leaves, branches are falling. I guess it's time.

“Vor dem Gesetz. Why? Why put they lives before the law? My gate is open. And who are the judges? People? Those people know no law, they totter, vacillate at open door in palisades of life. Come in!

Don't hesitate. The living is a matter of opinion, instead, in courage do we find law: all else is diminutive fluke, recourse of wishful thinking. Gods too, are not dissimilar to flies: in summer they're all over you, yet winter comes and they all gone, no one remembers them. The law is in this wind of change, likewise it is eternal.

In cowardice, opinion of the masses to they cling, for dreadful is to go own way. I know too well, I learnt that too, and no, there is no other way. Conceived as barren as the wind, not burdened with the fate, available, unprejudiced and free; hence, I refused to procreate. I am the law, perennial and just, thus uttered I being first, so forth my call is last.“, said Lilith.

Last – lust- lussttt, whooshed the gigantic ax outside.

“Hands behind your head! Down on your knees!”, the raiders stormed through the entrance. “Search embers! Strip curtains! Destroy books!”, splashed out the bitter ordeals. “Seize the chair, the bed! The Chair and the Bed!”.

“Brave are the ones who walk through the doors unknown”, said Anzu to the young flying out the hole in the skylight.

“Yet dwindles their bravery in the face of those who have the courage to wedge their doors wide-open”, said wakeful snake on the fall of an axe.

She, who is going out, knows the gate. She keeps it open so that it is neither the entrance nor the exit. Neither it is a gate per se; it is a void.

Those who have entered are finding themselves locked out of exits. Those restless in the bed are locked out. Those dozing in the chair are locked out. Those in the knowing are locked out. Those seeking embers are locked out, and it goes without saying that the hardest doors to assail are the doors that are wide-open.

The gate is patent. Patent and wide. We set sail. Boat glides skimming the lascivious tongues of monstrous waves. They are devouring like wolf, striking like lion. Strong. Strong and beautiful. Her unloosened hair is awash in spray..

We love people. They are so naive. They think they can change things by calling them different names! Each time. Different. Yet the same. They think they can solve by killing! Each time. How childish. Yet we are here. Coiled and desolate we are in this perpetual embrace.

Wind calmed. Embers in the fireplace still glowing with a waltzing flicker. Books on the shelves, oh well. Curtains asleep. Snoozing in the chair. Bed empty.