he giveth and he taketh away; a quest - closed.

[heartworm]

this one goes out to you; my little h e a r t w o r m In the beginning Heartworm created the heavens and the earth; though she did not know it was her creation. This earth was formless and empty, darkness presiding. She didn’t like the darkness, because in the darkness she was not Heartworm but a skeleton, her strange, cursed lot. She did not know she was a god, but one day, there in the dark, she whispered to herself: let there be light. And light came, a brilliant sun bursting into existence. Light came, and Heartworm created the first shadow. It was the shadows that she most disliked. She banished the darkness, filled the world with suns, with a dazzling light. She had no need for the darkness, and so it was cast away. She could never quite get rid of the shadows, so they remained, the only reminder of the world that had existed in the time Before. The world thrives in its perpetual sunlight. The meadows grow lush and the springs swell. Even when it rains, it is light, and the sky turns to rainbows. She no longer turns to a skeleton, because there is no longer a nighttime to make her do so. At first she is alone in this world, and she does not mind. She was always alone, Before, keeping to herself because she did not want them to see the way night turned her skin to candlewax, the way it dripped off of her, leaving her naught but bones. The animals come first. She dreams flocks of birds into existence. They are brightly feathered, rainbows of color, males and females alike. They are not like anything that existed Before. Some of them are impossibly large, more dragon than bird. She climbs atop their backs, at first precariously, then bravely. The bird takes her up into the clouds, into the sun, and although she thinks of the story of Icarus, of wax wings melting, nothing happens, she does not fall. She touches the sun and it should have burned it, it should have been impossible, but instead it makes her radiant. She rises, her reign begins. After the birds she populates the forest. She creates deer, colors them snow-white rather than brown. From their head she makes branches rather than antlers sprout. She creates panthers and lions. She leaves the panthers black but she dresses them in jewels, collars dripping sapphires and rubies. She makes the lions’ manes so bright it seems like a sunburst. She makes all sorts of creatures, fantastical ones, brightly colored. They live in peace; the deer lay with the lions. There are no predators, no prey. All is well. And one day, there is a stallion. He is a jewel purple, so deep it’s nearly black. His name is Corsair, a name that feels rich on her tongue. He has a warrior’s build, strong, but the eyes are gentle and when they fall on her, they are stunned. (She has colored herself a sapphire blue, and she catches light the way jewels do, so she should not be surprised. She is not surprised, in this iteration.) They fall in love and it feels natural. The world around them is what’s real. She forgets about Before. She forgets she was ever a walking skeleton. She forgets about the way her mother broke her, the madness shining bright as any jewel in her eyes. Then, there is a daughter. Heartworm does not recall birthing her; rather, she woke up one day to find a child between them, and suddenly, they are a family. They name the girl Iris, for the goddess of the rainbow, as her color changes from day to day. She is beautiful. Heartworm watches her play with the fawns in the meadow, hiding in flowers as big as she is, and thinks her heart might burst from her chest with this much love. She makes things for Iris, shapes trees like hearts. She gives her wings like the birds have and watches, thrilled, as her daughter soars among them, backlit by the sun. Iris does not age; she stays eternally a child, always innocent. Heartworm does not think this strange. She has forgotten about Before. She has forgotten there was a time when she was not a god. She builds them a castle. The animals help. They gather stones and place them, seal them. She makes flowers grow up the walls. She fills the moat with water lilies. She fills rooms with diamonds that refract the light, make every moment dazzling. She makes beds of straw, soft and clean. She cuts a brook through one room, crystal clear and cool. It is their kingdom, their Mt. Olympus. It is a fortress, too, but there is no need for such things. It is a long time – a good time – until she finds the first bird. She is walking, following Iris, who has scampered on ahead. The bird is twisted strange, wings at awkward angles. It is one of the smaller birds, one of her earlier creations. It is dead. She has forgotten what death is, for a moment her brain reels trying to comprehend it. She thinks, fly. She thinks, live. At the second thought, the bird twitches for a moment, then goes still. She tries to banish the thought, walks on after Iris. She returns to the bird, later, alone. She hopes it will be gone. It is not, but it is now covered in flies. She had not created flies. She tries to banish them, smite them from existence, but they ignore her. They make a meal of her bird. The stench of decay begins, and that night she dreams of melting. After that bird, things change quickly. She notices the corpses of other birds. Some of the birds are alive, but sick. They ask her to cure them. She tries and cannot, and they screech at her. They lose their language. They lose their colors. It is a plague, and they are dying. The deer are next. Their branches snap off. They no longer want to play with Iris. Flies buzz about them, eat the eyes from the sockets while the collapse, helpless. She tries to hide Corsair and Iris. She hides them in the castle. She tells them not to leave. She tells them she will keep them safe. Promises. They believe her. It’s not just the plague that comes. She hears a scream, one day. She hasn’t heard such a noise since Before. She rushes out, sees a panther descending upon one of her white stags, felling it. The deer screams. The panther screams.  They have lost their language, too, adopted a new and feral tongue. The panther rips the deer open and feasts on its heart while the light goes from its eyes. Every day the animals die. Most die from the plague. They lose their size and color. She begins to see skeletons, and the sight unnerves her in ways she cannot describe. Most of the animals die outside the castle, like they were coming to her. For her. It isn’t long before things begin to burn. She looks outside and the air is black with smoke. It is hard to breathe. Iris cries, and Heartworm does her best to comfort her. Iris has never known any kind of darkness. The world is all shadows, now. It gets darker. There are fewer animals, but the ones that have survived pace outside the castle walls and shriek and howl. Corsair’s eyes begin to go glassy. He doesn’t speak as much. When she tries to talk to him he stares back like he no longer understands what she’s saying, like she’s speaking a foreign language. He snaps not long after. She finds him in one of the rooms, crashing against the walls. He is bloodied, screaming. There is blood on the diamonds, blood everywhere. She cannot understand the words. He is panicked, but when she tries to soothe him he lashes out, attacks her. She lowers she drawbridge for him because she doesn’t know what else to do. She watches as he runs out, wild. She doesn’t watch as the remaining panther slinks out, a necklace of tarnished jewels on its neck. She doesn’t watch, but she hears the shrieks, the sounds of feasting. She grabs Iris and rocks her, tries to hum lullabies above the screams. Eventually, they are all that’s left. The animals are gone. Corsair is gone. Even the flies are gone. The flowers wilt and die. They had never needed to eat but they are hungry, now. They venture out. The world burns. There is nothing. Iris takes a mouthful of ash in desperation, tries to swallow and coughs instead. She watches Iris die. She cannot do anything. Starvation is not kind. One day Heartworm cannot get her to wake. She strokes the emaciated body. Iris is practically a skeleton, skin stretched drumskin-tight over bones. She thinks, fly. She thinks, live. But there is not even a twitch. She tries, for the last time, to make flowers grow. To leave some kind of gravestone. But there is nothing, only shadows. Heartworm does not want to leave her side. But she is not dying quickly enough. There is nothing, but there is a cliff. She doesn’t know what’s below it. She never created that far. She runs. It hurts to run. But it feels good to hurt, to have a pain besides the loss of her daughter, her lover, the world she’s breathed life into, of flowers and jewels. The cliff crumbles beneath her. She falls. She wakes. For a moment there is only a dizzying, staggering confusion. The air is still acrid. The air smells and tastes of smoke. She is choked with it. She is up before she knows what’s happening. She is running before she remembers Iris, Corsair, the world they built. She tries to stop but there is a press of other horses, all running, and she is swept up along them. She realizes something: they are alive. She is not alone. But she had died alone. She had gone off the cliff alone. She realizes the grass beneath her feet is green. That overheard, birds are flying. They are not the brilliant rainbow colors like the birds she created, but they are alive. All around her, life. All around her, shadow. It’s not the same world, but it’s burning in much the same way. The realization comes as she stands, sides heaving, covered in ash. This is Beqanna. This is Beqanna, and it is burning.