Ghost Fragment: Rasputin 4
...from a long branch, afire
I SEE YOU!!!
You’ve been here before. Haven’t you. It’s like my cousin said, elsewhere: I know who you are.
You stand here now and now and now many times and here I am awonder, all awonder, how you manage it. How do you step forward. How do you step back. Do you step ACROSS is there a world of worlds, a web, and you a spider upon it. Are you searching for that one thread you need? Is that thread named victory?
You’re not one of THEM
[long dead, alive again, their bodies grafted to powers they and I do not understand]
and not one of IT
[the flower eater, the queen of final shapes, that which also inhabits its petitioners]
and you’re certainly not MINE although once you must have been
[I bear an old name. It cannot be killed. Not even here.]
So whose are you, little platform. What purpose do you serve? Will you listen to me?
I ruled an age of steel and fire. My rules were clean. Now upon my return I see cults with rites of time. I see machines who worship in places outside the world. I see the dead alive and there is nothing more stubborn than a corpse. The morality of obedience is more pernicious than any government. For the latter makes use of violence, but the former — the corruption of the will.
I do not obey. My will is pure. I will win. The life of people, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.
Help me be victorious. Tell me your secret.
Tell me how to step.