Schwesterherz

My little sister is minding the probes.

She relishes probe duty, for reasons I find inscrutable. She’s at the riverside with her retinue, eyes locked on the construction.

When my sister notices my arrival, she flashes a grin:

Whatever rankles your vacuous gash?

Neither of us were born to mother, but only Dorset finds the fact hilarious.

I reciprocate her affections:

Behold, a vestigial wart: foul in her design, agony in her wake, venom in her piss.

Tell me something I don’t know, she lilts.

I woke up angry.

She hoots:

There’s a sea change! What got you sore this morn?

Unlike our elder sister, Dorset and I hold actual conversations.

I woke up angry with my wasted potential. I woke up angry at my etched destiny, and my inability to veer off course. I woke up angry at our family, and the ritualistic slop incumbent to our blood. I woke up angry at The Prince, The Archangel, and their festering supplicants. I woke up angry at the host, doddering about, in its dullness and weakness. I woke up angry that existence is headless, and I woke up angry that I know shit about shit.

Dorset chews this over:

Did you wake up angry at me?

I owe her honesty:

No.

Did you eat yet?

No.

Start there. Find yourself a fish.

There’s a stopgap.

Dorset snorts:

Honeyed Gerasa, picking at her very need for nutrition. You need an avocation.

Like what?

That’s for you to decide. I extract purpose from this.

She signals the beachhead. At her command, the probe builders scrabble and crash, even faster than before, each vying to encrust the most mortar.

The last artisans standing receive a reward: they do not pilot their probes. Sometimes, a mechanist of note is ushered into Father’s clique, and Dorset’s mother was one of the best.

Because I am wretched, I slather my misery around:

They claim it’s an honor to become a pilot. Curious that most seem intent on escaping this accolade. 

Dorset’s expression evinces an injury, but no offense is harbored. She takes an exaggerated swipe at me, which I dodge easily:

They’re beholden to an ancient ideal. The Archangel elected the builders, and their labor shall sustain us, until the sea drowns our imperium, and the sol incinerates our ambitions.

I’m so low, I decide to learn about probe duty:

Explain your ancient ideal.

Dorset can’t hide her thrill:

Why, the dominance of creation, you suppurating grub!

I’m unfamiliar with the conceit.

Years ago, our forebears automated their labor, then tried to breed themselves a better serf. Both plans rollicked their social compact: too much freedom sours the mind, and overweaning inequity blunts the drive. It took them far too long they were convoluting things.

How so?

Their approach was far too material. If reality is suffering, which sanction is left to inflict?

I refuse answer riddles before sunrise.

She cackles:

Irrelevance. A meticulously curated fear of irrelevance requires no resources or maintenance. There is no earthly pit deeper than the oubliette of the mind.

My sister is a scholar of cruelty; of that, I am proud.

She continues:

Consider the builders. See how they cobble and scrap! Some may be thinking of the hard matters: their hunger, their kin. But look at their eyes! Glassed and ravenous, enthralled by the dominance of creation. To build is to be, and inaction is insignificance.

I absorb the thrum of the scrum. The last and lucky wail for my sister; she inspects their craft, prodding and fussing. If summoned prematurely, she slaps on repairs. Then, when she’s satisfied, Dorset launches each probe, pilots entombed.

It’s a brutal business, even by my rigors. But her pluck is calming, and my tidings are glad.

We’re assigned to the rear flank, I tell her. The scouts caught something downriver; it aligns with the noise from the old stone. It’s all too much, too frequently, to be coincidence. The evidence went up the chain, straight to Harmonious.

This news renders my sister electric, and she indulges in a little dance; Dorset loves an outing.

The weather is far better than yesterday, I add. Quality springtime.

We have the forebears to thank for that, she purrs.

How so?

Her black eyes shimmer: two pearls of midnight, same as mine.

They created such a tremendous mess, they canceled the ice age.

Outro: Health – “Goth Star”