Schwesterherz

My little sister is minding the probes.

For reasons I find uninteresting, Dorset relishes probe duty. She’s at the riverside with the artisans; her eyes are locked on construction, but she notices my arrival.

What rankles this salted gash?

Neither of us were born to mother, but only Dorset finds the fact hilarious; I reciprocate her affections.

Behold my malignant sib: venom in her piss, agony in her wake.

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

I woke up angry.

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

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

I woke up angry at my wasted potential. I woke up angry at my etched destiny. I woke up angry at Father and Harmonious. I woke up angry at Leviathan, doddering in its dullness and weakness. I woke up angry that our 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 artisans scrabble and crash, faster than before, vying for mortar.

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

I’m a wretch, so I slather my misery.

And they say it’s an honor to become a pilot.

Dorset takes an exaggerated swipe at me. I dodge it easily.

The Archangel elects the artisans, their labors sustain Father: they’re beholden to an ancient ideal.

I’m so low, I learn about probe duty.

What ancient ideal?

My sister can’t hide her thrill.

The dominance of creation, you suppurating grub!

I’m unfamiliar.

Our forebears tried to automate their labor, then breed a better serf. Both plans rollicked the social compact.

How so?

Too much freedom sours the mind, too much inequity blunts the drive. Automation and serfdom, they convolute things, too material. If reality is suffering, which sanction is left to inflict?

I refuse to answer riddles before sunrise.

Irrelevance, she cackles. There is no motivator like a meticulously curated fear of irrelevance.

My sister is a scholar of cruelty.

There is no earthly pit deeper than the oubliette of the mind.

I am proud of her.

Consider the artisans. See how they cobble and scrap! Some may be thinking of real matters: their hunger, their kin. But look at their eyes!  Ravenous, and enthralled by the dominance of creation! 

The artisans wail for my sister, and she inspects their craft. If summoned prematurely, she slaps on repairs.

To build is to be.

She launches the probes, pilots inside.

Inaction is insignificance.

It’s a brutal business, but her pluck is calming, and my tidings are glad.

We’re assigned to the rear flank, I tell her.

My sister indulges in a little dance; Dorset loves an outing.

Scouts caught something downriver, coincides with the noise from the old stone.

That old coprolite!

The weather is far better than yesterday, I add. A good spring.

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

How so?

Dorset’s black eyes shimmer: two pearls of midnight, same as mine.

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

Outro: Health – “Goth Star”