His Epitaph

My name is unimportant. I know that sounds trite, but I honestly believe that what I have to say is not bound to my identity. In these troubling times I suppose I should offer you something, dear reader - something to pin me in your mind, something to imagine when you hear my words. If that lends extra weight to what I have to say, so be it. I am male, and I would consider myself a man of science, of cause and effect. I wish to understand the world around me and my place in it. I am both of a very great age and quite young. I am surrounded by beautiful things and yet I own very little. I am lonely, very lonely, and yet I have a great many friends. I do not suffer, and yet my heart is heavy, for I bear a very great responsibility.

And I am dying.

Forgive the melodrama - I suppose we are all dying, are we not? Ours is an existence of inches and degrees, and an inexorable slide towards the inevitable atrophy and decay. I chose - at some point in my life, both far in my history and very recently - to accelerate this natural process, with certain toxins and pollutants that I assumed would enhance my life and my happiness. How effective these toxins have been I cannot say - I have lived hundreds of lives, and been hundreds of people across the globe, and yet all of these lives have been bound by a single thread of pollution and mind-addling solutions. I cannot say what my life would have been without corruption, without powders and formulas and befuddling smoke, so I cannot say that I have improved my lot to any great amount, nor have I lived a sad and sorrowful life as a result of these choices - I have nothing to compare it to. What can be proven beyond all doubt, however, is that my natural lifespan has been considerably shortened by exposure to these harmful elements, and I am dying before schedule.

This would not be a problem under most circumstances. Indeed, the choice was made to sacrifice those twilight years of my life a long time ago, and it would be futile for me to rage against the choices made by the younger version of myself. Perhaps he could be faulted for being headstrong, perhaps his choices were folly, and perhaps my premature demise will be a tragic waste. I cannot say. I have not the science nor the faculties to see what path my life would have taken had he abstained, had he been sensible. I must be content with the road that my life has taken, and yet I feel obligated to write this missive, for when my body is gone there will be those who suffer as a result of it...and I have obligation and duty to them, if not to my failing body and my wasted years.

As I sit here and type this missive, there are two women in a nearby bed. One has a heavy heart, and the other is light and fair. I drew them both to me some time ago - perhaps it is fair to say that my great store of pollution drew them forth, and not I. For all my artifice and art I would not deign to call myself a worthy human being - not the sort to entertain and delight women, in any case - and my life has been one largely concerned with my own wants and desires. Yet these two chose, in some small way, to fashion lives for themselves around my example. Physical proximity is not the only choice they have made in regards to my person - they seem to be aping my choices, demonstrating a particular love for my intoxicants and pollutants and the haze that descends along with them. Together we have walked winding, insubstantial paths that cannot be said to truly exist, and I have beheld their naked flesh as it was revealed under biting winds and scorching heat. Their bodies show no signs of decay or atrophy as a result of this treatment, but for their bodies I am worried. I am proof enough that such a life will exact a heavy toll.

And yet...and yet...

One turns over in her sleep and mumbles something as the other stares unblinkingly into the dark. They appear hale and hearty and content with their lot, miserable though it may be at times, and I catch myself wondering - what of the spirit? Consumed as I am with the thought of my own mortality, and the endurance of some part of myself after death, I cannot help wondering what will happen if they follow my path to the conclusion and their flesh gives their souls over to whatever comes next. Will they be stronger for it, or weak and corrupt? I believe that the fate of my own soul rests on incredibly balanced scales, and either end could easily await me, but for them I find it impossible to imagine that anything but purity and strength could result from the final surrender of their bodies. Spiritual energy is not measured in science or in meticulous observation, but these women - ah, these women! These beautiful, precious women. I find it beyond all reason that they could be anything other than perfect, from conception to completion.

It is for this reason that I write this message. My hands grow weary and I fear that the dark is closing in, but I had to set down in an enduring fashion something to assure these women, and any who read my words after I am fallen into darkness, that a life of pollutants and poison for your body does not guarantee a spiritual decay. I speak not for myself - I am filled with doubt as to my own preservation - but being permitted to bear witness to the flowering of these women in vice and earthly satisfaction has convinced me utterly that any soul may flower under such conditions. Therefore, I urge you - fear not the drug, or the sexual act, or the darkness, or the violence! Fear not rage and hate and gratification! Rather, fear the lack of understanding, the lack of control, the surrender of dignity and the abandonment of morality - not the morality of the masses, driven by herd mentality and by fear, but the abandonment of your own personal codes that an intelligent person develops over the course of a life fraught with perils and temptation. Fear doubt, and weakness, and silence! For myself I fear a very great deal, and I fear that my soul will suffer as a result of this fear - but for these women I fear nothing, for they are as glorious as the Sun at noon, and they have the potential to sink far further without tarnishing their strength and glory. My conviction must be enough to bolster their nerve and ensure their spiritual security - but more, it must allow them to see that there is a light in dark places, and that this physical decay I have tempted them towards does not ensure the death of the soul.

If I have done nothing of worth for another in my life, let this be enough.