The darker shadow...

It had been understood by men that things ran according to rules that
they would discover with time & appreciate over even more time. It
took the human race so long to understand the need to read their own
patterns that all we've gotten so far is 6,000 of recorded history.
His story is older than us as a race. It is older than the earth as we
know it.
There was nothing before there was something. It was dark, void
without form, and aware. These days it hides in places we know nothing
about because some kinds of knowledge destroy our thread to sanity. It
hides in the smallest things. It hides in the heart of every atom. It
hides behind the shadow of the sun. It hides it the space between
thought & speech. It hides between friends sitting in silence. It
hides well. Only a few have been intimate with 'nothing'. It connotes
negative images & impressions. It suggests inability. These things
have never bothered the Emptiness. His burden is to hear whispers of
unspoken intent of living creatures, the shocked cries of the dying,
to see hidden warnings. It is rumoured that he knows when the world
will end. It was a conversation he had with Nda Baiti centuries ago.
He said the size of the universe isn't mind boggling because his mind
has been there. He pointed out that soon the size of the universe will
be easier to contain in the human mind. Nda Baiti suggested that the
minds of men crawls too slowly, & the Emptiness added that the end of
world is just the same. The universe has been steadily collapsing on
itself for as long as he's been aware of himself. Very soon, men will
think they've gotten the measure of the universe...maybe 2 or 3
millenia will pass & some person who worships details will notice that
the dimensions have been reducing. Without any idea of how large it
was in the first place, the rate will be difficult to measure.
Nda Baiti was silent. Emptiness looked at him & laughed.
"You are suddenly feeling helpless? Maybe it frustrates you? You want
to know when the collapse will reach us here? Let me show you
something."
Legend has it that he picked a speck of dust on his index finger, said
it was earth, then flicked it into the wind, & said the atmosphere was
the universe.
" God is not a fool. We are not anywhere near the centre of the
universe. You know many of the stars we see at night are already dead?
But their light still has a long distance to cover before we know?
Even light from the sun takes longer than a long piss to reach us
here. Baiti, if we could do anything about it, we would know. But we
can't. We shouldn't. We can only wait."
Emptiness has seen more things than men were originally made to see in
a lifetime. He has been called many things over the ages. His favorite
is the darker shadow. From the fall of Atlantis to the rise of
industry to the brief wars to the long-term campaigns to the repeated
failures of money...he stands a silent witness to history. It is said
that his closest friend is the tree of the knowledge of good & evil.
He visits it. They talk. They remember.
He has had reason to fight men & other things that are not men, never
were or never will be men again. All who know of him fear him.
Examples he made of those who thought him to be easy. He has destroyed
things, people, civilisations, all who challenged him. Those who lived
to speak of his feats remind the world that knows of him to let him
be. Always, there are those who reach out to test their strength
against him. They are admonished by these words," Leviathans,
unicorns, behemoths, vampires, werewolves, broken-wings...things that
drive men mad on sight, Emptiness has destroyed with a skill that they
cannot match. Don't be deceived by your youth. You are bright stars no
doubt, but no one would remember you if you attempt to burn brighter
than the sun at noon.
" That's the Emptiness as we've known him. Don't be another reason why
fighting him isn't a good idea."
Some never listen, but all are told before they meet him. That had
always been the case...till now. And for good reason.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Fourth day: author's note

This began in 2005 at Dapari hotel, Ikom, Cross River state. On a
stormy night, listening to Linkin Park- Easier to run. It went through
stages where I kind of went through a conceptual rebirth of sorts. My
friends, who have seen what I see in this story, possess a visibility
of high fidelity.
The characters here are not far removed from reality like the 'super
heroes' I grew up with. They are mostly modeled after men who found
the strength to commit to bearing a load they weren't warned was
coming. Like my parents & every other person I've been close to.
On a less personal note, the concept loses something if explained too
well (as an ex-girlfriend claimed I'm wont to & I won't deny that.). I
believe approximate understanding is the type that should run most
institutions in the world. Exact comprehension is fraught with the
dangers of loss of personal identity & the murder of creative
interpretation. Approximate understanding lends the interpreter a
chance to add & the interpreted to be added to. I first observed this
when I drew comics in high school, shared them with school mates and
listened to their feedback. Some insights stunned me into silence,
some literally baffled my imagination, some gave me a stronger
standing in my art & others just appreciated. I hope this work will do
the same for me. It's been 14 years since I seriously took up pencils
(2b were delightful to work with), bic biro (inking is not tracing,
it's defining), felt tip pen (my thanks to Nsikak, always, for
pointing out the better way to use them by letting me see his work and
adding no words to explain) and a sheet of paper (3rd world art
doesn't care if it is ruled or blank, so long as it is a sheet of
paper).
The pieces of this puzzle are numerous & started to come together on
that stormy night- There's no such thing as absolute darkness, for
light is always there. The Zeroth law of thermodynamics. There's no
such thing as presence of cold, only absence of heat. Infinity exists
between a thumb & and index finger (fractal thinking). Size matters
because bigger isn't necessarily better. Anger is necessary, but
becomes a poison when it stays too long in the system. God is the
immutable reality, should he decide to stop thinking about you, then
you never were (I don't know if it happens, but how could anyone tell
if it did?).
These things were discussed by friends & acquaintances over a span of
27 years. Bob Kane's Batman evolved over the years from a pipe smoking
bachelor to the world's greatest detective & I resonated to his
amazing concept. Akira was the manga anime that proved to me that my
mind wasn't on fast-forward or reaching for pointless things. He-man
proved to me that tales by moonlight wasn't the only program with
morals at the end of the story. Aesop fables are as much a backbone of
literary work now as they were as his currency to purchase his freedom
from slavery. From Dare Obasanjo, to Iken Emokpae, to Lanre Lawal, to
John Efekodo, to Soji Martins, to Bode Senbanjo, to Tunde Anjorin, to
Yegwa Ukpo, to Kunle Oludele, to Femi Omoluabi, to Nnamdi Nwoha, to
Tolu Ajayi, to Edith nee Nweke, to Wale Dada, to Ik Oviawe... I will
revise this later, but for now, I will rest my memory, fingers & phone
here.
I hope I don't disappoint anyone. :)

--
Sent from my mobile device

Hey, wuz hup baby?

Just a thread going no where for now

In the CMS area, people milled towards the bus-stops at the close of work. They felt the first drops from the sky and looked at the sky in a mixture of resignation and nostalgia. There was a heavy
monsoon rain coming. It always brought out the smell of wet earth. It was alien to the concrete jungle of Lagos on most days. Those who moved from the countryside to the city would be reminded of more innocent places. Then came the sadness that accompanies memories of vast farms of fresh, green shoots drinking up the rain. The thoughts of home came uninvited, but they did tend to linger as pleasant distractions from the ugly race they ran every day. It didn't really matter how far
away from Lagos they came from. The smell of rain, of fresh wet earth, was more welcome than the usual smell of urine and the exhaust of diesel-fuel generators. People huddled together under any kind of shelter that they could find before the rain got any heavier. In Lagos, as anyone will tell you, things can get heavier in a minute, so sort you need to yourself out and not get distracted. One of the commuters calmly walked in the rain. The darkened sky seemed to comfort him. A woman was wrestling with her umbrella looked at him with concern. If Lagos was a safer place, she'd have offered to share her umbrella with him. Kindness is often taken to be weakness and it might cost her a phone or a purse. When her umbrella finally blossomed, she jumped back into the street to walk to her bus-stop. When she was directly behind the man she noticed. Something about him made the cold breeze bite harder, closer to the bone. She wasn't sure why until he stopped and turned to face her. He wasn't wet. It seemed the rain understood he wasn't to be touched.
"There are things you are not meant to see. They may not cost you your
life, for life is not just peace of mind, but it determines your quality of
life. Don't remember me. Don't."
And with that, he seemed to become transparent and suddenly he wasn't there anymore. She was too wrung out by work to scream or faint. She'd been in Lagos for too long. She just took his advice and continued to her bus-stop. It was until she got home that she suddenly cried from shock. It was not just what she saw, but who. She had just recognised her late brother. He'd been found dead in his sleep and, for some reason the village elders didn't explain. He was buried very quickly. She knew
he was part of a society that protected the community, but she didn't understand what from, or why. She'd been asking questions and the elders were visibly disturbed. They had no answer to give her. Then one of them, Waniko, called her aside.
"My daughter, the truth is simple, but it is easier seen than said. I promise you that your brother is stronger than I will ever be. To the ordinary eye, he is dead. But there are things in this world that are
not meant to be seen by everyone. It will be explained to you soon. I promise. I do not lie or treat children like fools. Just let it be. I won't let anyone harm you or bother you. Just let this dog continue
sleeping."
She wasn't satisfied with the answer, but no could refuse him because his demands of everyone were few and far between. Even children would do things for him because he would not ask and it would be a shame to them to see him without helping.
Her brother had come to her to tell her that she needn't worry. His life had not ended. He was not sleeping the long sleep. The truth of the matter was beyond her. He actually never died. He had to change his way of life to do what he had to. He had now become a guardian of tremendous power and he needed to be dead to the world so he could join those who help keep it living. Now, he had no family, no scent, no fear, no point of compromise. He was not perfect, but he was beyond the
fallibility of most men. If he could, he'd tell her things that would frighten her instead of assure her. He'd tell her about how the dust of the dark side of the moon feels between the fingers. He'd tell her that the mountains they read about in school were dwarfed by those under the ocean. He'd tell her that he has not been more than a thought away from her since his 'transition'. He would not tell her that he was still mortal. Or that he puts himself in the way of danger to protect the world from things banished to folklore and fairytales. And that those things were more real than the things that men fight and die for like money or wealth or power. He could not tell her that he had killed so many of these natural enemies of man, he was beginning to wonder if his life had been a dream. As she cried into her husband's chest, she knew, intuitively, that her brother was there. He looked at her then
turned away into the darkness of the room and emerged under the rain outside. He looked up and began to climb the rain drops. When he reached a certain height, he noticed he was among many doing the same. They were joining a cloud movement. It was where they would meet. It was there they were told about the Emptiness. It was there they feared a man more than anything.

PROLOGUE I

It is hard for a sentient being to imagine nothing. Not the same thing
as emptying your mind. A nebulous nothing surrounding nothing. This
was our first history as anything. Before sound, before touch, before
fire, water, before sky, before stars, before suns, before life,
before man, before war, before all we understand by our senses. Yet,
the most amazing thing about this nothing, this emptiness, is that it
is still here, with us. It occurs in pockets, defying the imagination
to points where we fail to see it, not because it is not there, but
because we refuse to accept it.
Suggested, from the times of more focused & structured scientific
thinking, to be what is found within an atom. We've reached the point
in of recognising sub-atomic particles. Yet still, in the
infinitesmal, we are confronted with that same emptiness.
The funny thing about emptiness is how it exists on all levels of
life, confronting the intellect, the imagination, the very dreams of
sleeping life, shows itself an impasse to even a collection of minds
and wills. It cannot be out-numbered, it cannot be contained, it
cannot be fully appreciated because it is an absence within substance
or thought.
It has proven something. We cannot understand it, even if it embodied
itself within a man, and made its full nature available to him. And it
does.
Why it chose these men, when, & how would require a one to be born in
Miyamoto Musashi's fifth ring of nothing. It was a flirting, brief &
superficial, compared to the rest of what he did not say. He did not
say everything. He did not need to. Man may yet conquer space, but he
has no footing in emptiness unless it was given, for it cannot be
taken. It would not be taken. It will not be taken.
It yielded for forms of matter, then of life, then of the intrusions
of that life. It had to yield to create space. It had to yield to God.
The men who it had joined with bear its nature of seclusion, of
uninvolvement, and of great power by just being. There were those who
had a passing connection with it. They didn't operate on its turf,
only near it. They were elementals closest to it. Their base of power
was established on the fourth day of creation. That was when God gave
definition to light and darkness, as man would understand it. Most men
wouldn't. It's not a curse. Rather it's a shield of ignorance. That
was what made the men of the emptiness feared. There was really
nothing they could be ignorant of. They had a side to their heritage
that went against all things human. They could never be a group, a
trio, or even a pair. Only one at a time. They are mortal. When it is
time to cross-over, never by human agency, they would have found a
successor, opened up his being and he would become his predecessor's
grave. The Emptiness is, like every other power, a burden that is
envied by stupid people &challenged by those given up by natural
selection.