Posthumous

I was born. I found a pen. I learned to write and discovered why I was born. The pen was black. It felt indistinguishable from my hand. When I was not holding it, I felt my hand tingling, a phantom limb, a loss indistinguishable from the great trauma. I was in a bed. I was in a warm bed. I could not sleep, so I wrote. I used words. I used many words. I ornamented those words with adjectives. Those adjectives were less stark and beautiful and kind and natural and unwavering as the ones I used to describe the pen. Smooth. Black. Fecund. Waiting. Ready. 

I lied. I lied on the bed. I invented a life worthy of my pen. I invented a story worth reading. That is true glory they say: to write a story worth reading. I sometimes think I would rather live the life worth living. Some scribe would follow close behind and catalogue that great battle. I ran fast, held the weapon aloft, and all trembled. They trembled at my might. They trembled at my fearlessness. They trembled out of envy. They wondered too, in those last moments, whether their life was worth living. They wondered whether anyone would remember them. They felt it a trauma. I meanwhile stood as they took their last breath and assured them that there they would end amid laughter and ignominy. I told them that no one but I would have a statue built by some sculpture whose name would also be erased. I told them that posthumous was the most honorable word. 

I climbed a mountain. The mountain was puny. The mountain felt nothing. The mountain was my inferior. The wind was more salutary. The wind was palliative. The pen was forgotten then as I cried out something so extraordinary that the seraphs trembled. They invited me up. I looked about. I scorned the clouds. I told them they were wasting their time. I told them myth and legend were more real than their fantasies of purity and light. I walked down from the clouds. I took three steps and was off the mountain. 

A horse had arrived. It had been waiting. It knew to wait as I know knowing. As it waited it was silent. It breathed. It breathed silently. I breathed and the earthed quaked. The earth quaked and the birds awoke. The birds awoke and they sang my name. The horse and I ran together. I was taller. I was faster. I was more graceful. I needed no wings. I needed no hooves. I needed no permission. The scribe found me. The horse was exhausted. I named the horse. The horse had a name that would never be forgotten as a consequence. 

The scribe asked me a question. The scribe did not understand my answer. I told him that in seven generations they would understand. I told him that all great wisdom is posthumous. I told him that what is wisdom now is foolishness after. I told him that what is wisdom after is madness now. I told him truth is mad. I sat by a fire I conjured, and the scribe was warmed. I played a flute that I had made, and the scribe was enthralled. I danced and the clouds obeyed. I whispered and the wind obeyed. I thought and the animals obeyed. I leapt and gravity obeyed. I closed my eyes and the world obeyed.