Low Moments of Motherhood
A story is told, how in the early days of Her reign our Virgin Mother gouges out Her Holy Eyeballs, frantic to root out the headache that is consciousness. Immortals of the Book face it eternally — unending hyperawareness. There is a threshold to which every Immortal arrives. A doorway beyond which the reality of forever becomes real. Each in Their own way must cross or not cross or turn away from or just blow it up.
The Queen of Heaven is an over-tired, over-worked single Mom with two rambunctious Boys. When the threshold presents itself, She looks through and sees unbearable immortality. She pokes her fingers up beneath Her eyelids, curls Her fingers around the glossy, squishy orbs and yanks both of them. Seven bands of muscle snap-snap with wet, smacking sounds. The vacant pits are as rough as an abandoned stone quarry.
Her own eyeballs lay bloody before Her, gaze cross-eyed up at Her, and She can see them. Can see bruised indentations where vitreous fluid is compressed, see the twin irises relax and fan open, see dangling cords of ripped blood vessels, of frayed nerve fibers.
She sees without looking and knows then the sickness that comes from never unseeing. How does one reckon with eternity? Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of beings. The Immortals I mean. Proof of the universe’s coy cruelty is that They get to live forever and we deserving mortals do not.
The eye-pulling exercise works, however, on the headache. Our Virgin Mother gives a great sigh and then goes on to yell at the Children that dinner is ready and to pick up Their socks left in the great palace foyer.
Immortals of the Book are so very young. Juveniles compared to Ancients. Embryos to Primitives. Barely a breath of air to hoary Primals.