Y - Nine more boxes

Nine More Boxes

Chaos again. Remember me? I'm Death. Well, one of. You want to know
what happened to me, what I am. Okay, maybe you don't. Maybe you just
want to run a mile, but you can't move. Go on, try. You're here, I'm
here, and you are going to listen.

See, I figure this. The knowledge, it's great, in it's way, but there
not many want to pay the price. People like Cindy and Damien, they love
paying. They don't tell you anything, and then you're one of us. One
day, we're going to outnumber you. So, I'm telling you now what
happened to me. Ignorance is bliss, pet. Ignorance is bliss.

It started in the shadow world
It started on the cusp
It started before darkness fell
And the world turned all to dust.

I was bugger of a youth. Rebel without a cause and all that. My name?
It was Christopher. Not exactly fear inspiring, huh? So I made people
call me Crucifix. It later turned to Cruce, then Cross, then Chaos.
Names evolve, hon. Wonder what you'll evolve into?

So, we'll stick to Cruce for this bit. I was into leather in a big way.
I got laid every night, and took their money every morning. Every now
and then I'd pick up a passport and bugger off to some other country
and start again, once the locals got a bit suspicious. Didn't happen as
often as you might think. See, they never remembered much. I looked
like pretty much every other guy there, and when you're on that sort of
cocktail of drugs, well, you're lucky to recognise yourself, let alone
some stranger you picked up halfway to morning and screwed 'til you
were unconscious, know what I mean?

I wasn't a big fan of light then. Clung to the night. Things can hide
the dark. Things like me.

I did a bit of everything. I stole, I mugged, I even killed, once or
twice. Not the faintest hint of a conscience. It never occurred to me
to care. They were like me, asking for it.

Okay, okay, you want to go further back? Find out what made me like
that? No, I didn't have a lousy childhood. It was quite pleasant.
Caring parents, handful of good friends, did great in my exams, that
sort of thing. Dated some gorgeous girls, and a few guys on the sly. I
was the popular one, you know? Too cool to be true.

Then I went to University. I was free. It was fun. So, I was at this
party, and a guy came up to me. His eyes burned. Yeah, like mine.
Actually, it might even have been Damien. We shared a fag, and he told
me about the whole 'only use one tenth of your mind' thing. I decided
to learn how to use the rest. After all, bunch of big exams, nice to
have the advantage, yes?

I don't remember much about my early life, truth be told. It's like a
bunch of facts I learnt. That night, though, after that night things
are pretty clear. At least, things that happened when I wasn't out of
my mind on whatever. But I remember those burning eyes. I couldn't see
the rest of him, we stood in the shadows and we talked and he was
dressed like me, you know? All in black, only showing his eyes. But he
knew like hell, and he asked me if I wanted to know. And I did.

So I hit the down. I quit Uni and took the money, starting to hunt for
'enlightenment'. Yeah, that's what I told the 'rents. They were
pleased, in a disappointed sort of way. I started to look for that guy,
that guy who knew, and I found myself looking in the worst kind of
places. I started to do things I never knew were possible. It was cool,
but couldn't last.

Imagine this club. Small, smoky, dirty walls, loud music, very, very
dark. Yeah, you know the sort. Upstairs, above a porn shop. Full of
drugs and booze and sex. Old men picking up young boys, teenaged girls
getting off together in a corner, guys in very little leather and not
much of anything else either, a handful of poles to dance round. All
very filthy. Yeah, you know the sort. You ever been to one? Ever wanted
to go?

Honestly, I didn't. But it's like a magnet, so I donned a hell of a lot
of leather and walked into the sweltering room and saw him, or one like
him, on the other side of the room. Of course, when I got there he'd
gone. So when another guy offered me some cute white tablets, I said
yes. Seemed reasonable. In amongst the neon and sweat and smoke, I
found my place.

I was there for several years. Not there, in particular, but in 'that
place'. Drugs and booze and fags and sex. God, there was a hell of a
lot of sex. I never spoke to my parents again. They wouldn't have
recognised me anyway. I took to calling myself Cruce.

I was beautiful. You can't see it now, in the darkness, under the
layers, and that's a good thing. Sharks are beautiful. Snakes are
beautiful. Women are beautiful. I was all high cheekbones and grey eyes
and long black hair and lean body. People wanted me. I loved the
attention. I loved it so much it was killing me. People told me I was
great, I was magic, I was God, and I believed them. I couldn't
die.

Except, well, I could. When I saw a female, saw her and saw the embers,
I remembered what I was doing. The forbidden fruit swam in front of my
eyes, and I realised I'd stopped looking, but it was still driving me.
So Cruce started looking a bit harder. But there was no answer, no
knowledge.

Then, one night, I was lying in someone else's bed when her husband
came home. He hit her, and I knifed him. Just like that. Suddenly,
there was a glimpse. I had opened one of the boxes all on my own. One
box was given to me open when I was born, and I'd just opened the
second.

It was a beautiful bad thing
Sang out to me that night.
In the dark my heart sang for it
And my mind lost the light.

It's godlike. It was better than the worship. Killing, it's taking a
life. Yeah, I know, it's bloody obvious. But then, I knew why serial
killers did it. God can give life and he can take it away. I was half a
god.

What happened to her? Damned if I remember. She'd been too high at the
time to give a decent description the next day. But that night was a
fucking epiphany.

I didn't become a mass murderer. No worries. Just knowing I could was
enough. I would walk along and look at people, thinking 'I could kill
you.' I went back to the clubs and flirted and fucked and drank and
smoked and snorted and injected and was worshipped. Hell did they
worship me. In my leather and lace and with my exotic looks and devil
may care attitude? They lapped it up and made me the god I felt I
deserved to be.

The devil may care, actually, but then again, he may not. Lucifer fell
from grace for the same reason, or there about. Pride. The belief he
could be the best. Heh. The irony.

After a while, one box wasn't enough. I'd found this dark side, this
power, but it wasn't enough. I hadn't realised at that point that I
could ever have enough. Even now, I'm still looking for more. Yeah.
Insatiable, this thirst.

So, what could top taking life? Giving it, naturally. Hell, I'd been
having sex for years, but I'd never gone back to check. I fucked who I
liked, when I liked. Other ways occurred to me. I gave blood. I carried
an organ donor card. You'd have to be pretty desperate to want any of
my organs, but it was something to do to whittle away the time.

Then there was this girl. I stuck around. Watched her grow. She didn't
carry to term. Surprise any one? Nah, didn't think so. Still, an
interesting experience, enough to convince me that kids wasn't the
way.

Life is too precious to waste on
Love and hate, life and death.
It's tit for tat and this for that
'Til your last living breath.

Then something changed my mind. I dropped her like a hot stone after
the miscarriage, cruel, I know, and went back to the clubs. There're
some interesting fetishes out there, and I ran into this guy who got
his kicks by strangling kids. Wanted for murder, but then, so was I, so
who am I to discriminate?

But he had a kid with him. Some huge eyed moppet of a boy, looking like
a lost cherub. My heart went out to him. Later, when I heard his
pitiful screams, I burst in and killed the prick who was killed him.
The kid just stared up at him, silk rope tight around his neck. I
grabbed the end and gave it a gentle tug. Without a word, he got up and
followed me, like a puppy on a leash.

Then follows what I always think of as 'it was the best of days, it was
the worst of days'. His name was Rupert. He was thirteen. He was a
prostitute. I'd saved his life. I'd given a life back. The pride buoyed
me for a few days, and I opened the third box. I had saved a life. I
had given life to him, in a way. He was living on borrowed time. Trust
me to forget that.

A few days later I came to realise I'd sprung the lock on the fourth
box as well. Rupert was mine now. I owned him. I survived by sleeping
at other people's places, but now I had to find somewhere else for
someone else. Combination of ownership and responsibility offered
another revelation. He was my slave, but I was his master. We owned
each other like that. People are bastards, but they're also damn hard
to get rid of. And when they're like Rupert, they're too damn easy to
fall in love with.

Rupert had black hair and blue eyes. He was small for his age, but
astoundingly mature. I'd collapse in a motel room, too wiped out to
even hit the bed, and he'd carry me to it and curl up next to him.
Morning after morning I would wake up with this lithe body pressed
warmly against mine, sleepy eyes making promises I wasn't sure I wanted
him to keep. He'd help me through whatever withdrawal I was going
through that day and he'd help me get hold of more drugs. He nicked
fags for me and was a hit with both guys and girls. We made a great
team.

Slowly, I fell for him. Hard. He told me he loved me one night in the
toilets of some filthy bar. He kissed me while I stood at the urinals.
Fucking weird experience, that. That was the fifrth box. Being loved.
Loving him back. We fucked in the sinks, the cool ceramics absorbing
the heat of our passion. He sat in the sink, legs hooked over the side,
eyes giddy with lust, glowing like a fucking fallen cherub. He had
eyeliner on and glitter and sweat drenched his bare chest. His nipples
stood out like rose buds on that white skin. So white. Fuck he was
gorgeous. Even now, he's still the most beautiful person I can
imagine.

I loved him like hell. In retrospect, it would never have worked. He
loved me because I saved his life. One day, that would have worn off.
One day, I would have realised he didn't have the knowledge I wanted
and I'd have dropped him like every other person I've ever been with,
like that girl. But hell, retrospect always tells you shit like that.
We were damn happy. I even stopped looking, for a while. I'd found
enough in him. He was an adult in a youth's body. I'd cover him in
perfume and glitter and tie a black silk blindfold over his eyes and
he'd laugh at me for it all. Then he'd do it to me, and I'd laugh.
There was a lot of laughter.

One night he passed out. I freaked. I had a teenager, under aged,
underweight, under me. It took me a while to realise what had happened.
Both of us were flying that night, higher than Sputnik, and he couldn't
take it like I could. I dragged him to a hospital and sat through
several hours of nerve-wracking shit with doctors and nurses swarming
around wanting information and paperwork and all that shit. All I cold
think about was him lying like a corpse beneath me.

The police came. They wanted to question me. Not surprised. I fled.
They did a cursory search of the hospital, but they were disturbing too
many patients. I was curled under Rupert's bed, watching them.

You know those heart machines? Beep, beep, beep, beep. Those fucking
irritating heart machines? They cease to be irritating when it's just
'beeeeeeeeeeeeep'. I lay there, knowing he'd died.

That was the sixth box. Heartbreak. I cried for him, under the bed.
Loss. Pain. Death. I'd killed, and now I was being killed, it felt
like. But that had yet to come.

I let the police find me. I went to prison. There was a trial, of which
I remember almost nothing, and I told the absolute truth. I asked them
to put me in prison because I couldn't handle the outside without
Rupert. I don't remember being that dependent on him, but it was like
my life was over. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't fuck. Rupert
was dead. Rupert didn't do those things any more. And it was my fault.
I'd given him whatever it was we had taken. I'd ODed him. He was a cold
corpse in the cold ground, and I was a cold-hearted bastard.

I lay there broken hearted then
My mind was broken too.
Light left me for dead that night and
Darkness brought me to you.

I could tell you about prison. I could tell you about the withdrawal. I
could tell you about rehab. I could tell you one hell of a lot, but I
really can't be fucking bothered. I haven't got long left.

I found the seventh box once I was out. Freedom. I ceased to take it
for granted. I remembered how great it had been going to University,
feeling really free for the first time in my life. I remembered how it
all started, wanting to do well. I'd been such a na?ve kid. Years had
passed since then, and I was still beautiful. Not as beautiful as
Rupert, but still, one hell of a looker.

Freedom is fucking intoxicating. No more thefts, no more deaths, no
more clubs. Well, almost. I even got a job. I was Christopher, for a
bit. I dropped the search. But knowledge is power, and I was over
halfway there. I was 70\% god. If I'd been just half way, I might have
dropped it then, but knowing I had more than half the knowledge,
knowing enough to know that?

I did well, for a bit. But you know how this story ends. I couldn't
keep it up. One night, flicking through the channels, I saw a
documentary. Buddha, reaching enlightenment through meditation. That
was what my parents had thought I was going to do. First time I'd
thought of them in ages. I don't think they came to my trial. I don't
think they even knew it was my trial. And enlightenment sounded so?
tempting.

I found myself on the Internet. I needed to find someway to reach
enlightenment. There was this sort of 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak
no evil, think no evil' thing. I practised that. I tried fasting. I
tried begging. I gave to the poor (of which, technically, I was one). I
joined a Buddhist temple.

None of it worked. Simple enough reason: I was doing it for selfish
reasons. This voracious search for knowledge was consuming me. I was
enjoying being consumed. Then I remembered Rupert, I remembered prison,
I remembered what I believed in, once. I wanted peace. I was tired of
searching. I needed that peace.

I found it. The eighth box unfolded before me. Peace.

If only it had lasted, aye. I was dedicated, I was faithful, and I was
at peace. Maybe it wasn't full enlightenment, but I liked it. I was
sitting with my begging bowl one night, comparing my new life to my old
(frighteningly similar in some ways: no money, no food, cheap clothes?)
when I was approached. It was Damien. His eyes glowed and he sat down
in front of me.

"So, what sound does one hand clapping make?" he teased. I remember
that. I remember every word he ever said to me. "What sound does a
falling tree make if there's no one to hear it?"

I'd had people like him before, some trying to wind me up, some being
perfectly sincere. But his eyes burned. When someone's as far along as
me, seven boxes open and all, they start keeping an eye one you.

"I know," he said, and faded into the night.

I wanted to know. I was seven parts god; I had opened seven of the
forbidden boxes. I was eight tenths omniscient. Know your enemy and
know yourself and you need not fear the results of a thousand battles,
Hon. You can't love your neighbour 'til you love yourself. I wanted to
know myself. Some foolish part of me thought I would love myself,
perhaps, once I knew myself.

Just for the record, I don't. I am filled with self-loathing.

I left the bowl and started trying to work out what I had to do next.
So far: living life, which is the given box; taking life; giving life;
responsibility for another life; love for another life; heartbreak over
another's life, or loss thereof; freedom to live and peace whilst
living. A lot of people experience more than one of them, but I think
you have to be looking to know you've opened the boxes. Or perhaps
there's an order. I don't know. I just knew I wanted to burn.

I fell right back into the pit I'd crawled out of. I was all about LSD
and magic mushrooms and absinthe full of wormwood. I had a hell of a
lot of whacked out visions, but no epiphany. I tried killing again, but
it had lost its charm. Killing strangers had no power, not anymore.
After Rupert, I found it hard to do. I felt empty. I went back to
stealing to get by. I went back to fucking complete strangers to get a
place to stay overnight. I went back to the clubs.

I was outside one such club, in a dirty alley, that it finally came.
The club was one of the worst. It was in a basement of a sex shop.
Somewhere to try out the merchandise. I got off with a beautiful girl.
Well, in daylight she probably looked like a walking corpse, but it was
dark and dirty and I was proud of myself for managing to get laid. Her
perfume stuck to me worse than her sweat, some cheap lavender crap that
she'd probably made herself. But underlying that was the smell of sex,
up against a wall sex, dirty sex.

I'd stumbled outside to take a piss when a guy grabbed me. Turns out
I'd just fucked his sister six ways to Sunday. We stared at each other
for a second, me with my flies open. The shock of being grabbed with a
full bladder meant my cheap leather trousers were clinging to me I
unpleasant ways. He just shoved a knife into my stomach and walked off
without a word. He had the look of someone who knew nothing about
knowing. I didn't like that. Being offed by someone with only one box
open.

I was lying in an alley, piss soaking my trousers, blood bloating my
shirt. I was dying. Even my drug-addled mind could see that. Even if
someone had cared enough to take me to hospital, I had taken so much
stuff there would have been nothing they could do. It occurred to me
that I had probably ODed as it was. I was dying with my shoes full of
piss and blood and a dirty shirt. For some reason, the fact that I had
been about to take a leak really bothered me. It seemed such an
indignant way to die. I mean, not even actually in the process. Dying
whilst dying to take a leak. Yeah, real dignified.

And I didn't know everything. That really pissed me off.

Light faded, and all that crap. Pain dulled into a faint burning. I
liked the burning. It was a reminder of what I had spent my life
looking for. In my cheap leather and garish eye shadow, felt the world
slip away. There was no light to walk into, no joyful reunion with
Rupert. I just died.

Didn't I mention? I'm not only Death, I'm dead.

At the end of the day life fades.
With the light goes this life,
As I close my eyes to the world,
To this trouble and strife.

I guess it was limbo. Maybe it was purgatory. Damien was waiting for
me. He stroked my cheek. I was dead. I had opened the ninth box. The
end of life. There was one left. He unwound his black bandages, his
flowing robes. He showed me the contents of the tenth box. He handed me
the apple, so to speak.

Yeah, Pandora opened the first box. She opened pain and misery and
anguish and hope. Eve ate an apple, and showed the rest of the world
how to open their boxes. Whichever you want to call it, or if you've
got another story altogether, it all comes down to ignorance and
knowledge, kept in ten boxes in your head, only one of which is
unlocked at birth. But there's another nine, you see. Damien opened the
last box, and I knew everything.

Everything is a hell of a burden. Being omniscient. Also, being dead.
I'd never given much thought to that before. Damien held me and
caressed me and lied and said everything would be okay. I cried for
him. I was scared. I knew everything, and most of it wasn't pretty. I
could feel the burning. It wasn't the dull warmth that had stolen me
into death. It's a fire. It hurts. It consumes. It doesn't go
out.

He showed me how to use the darkness. He showed me its good points and
its bad. He taught me to use it. He told me to hide myself, he told me
to follow the night. I can't see the day now. I abandoned Cruce for
Chaos. It made more sense. Cross was Damien's suggestion. That lasted
until he told me what our duty was, how we paid for this forbidden
fruit.

Sometimes I wonder if there isn't a whole different set of boxes for
the day. As I met the others, as I learnt what I had to do, it bugged
me. You see, we are Death. We are the soul stealers. Most, we send on.
Those that want to know, join us. I've taken several myself, cut them
away from your realm, and watch them pass through ours. They go
somewhere else. I can't follow. I've tried. Damien told me he sent
Rupert on his way. I just wonder what happens to people who die during
the day.

Cindy thinks we're a sort of psychic vampire, feeding off knowledge.
Damien thinks we're fallen angels. Me, I think we're just lost. Oh, and
idiots. Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power. Power corrupts. I
fell a long time ago. I can't remember how long now. I've done things I
hate myself for now. I've broken heart and had mine broken. I've loved
and lost and lived and died. I was corrupted by the desire for
knowledge. No, not desire. Lust.

Live in ignorance, honeys. Don't go looking. It's too late, I know.
You've seen me. You're going to look. I've told you how, haven't I?
You're going to join me. I weep for you. How can eyes than burn be
drowning in water? You hate me, I see it. You hate yourselves. You want
the knowledge. You want to know everything. Really? You think so? Would
you like to know what I'm thinking? Would you like to know what happens
next?

Night, night. Say 'hi' to Rupert for me.

Following the eternal night
Knowing more than I should.
Taking your souls, a harbinger,
I'm lost to all that's good.

Don't cry for me, mon cherie,
Forget I was ever here.
I'm full of fire, my eyes burn but
Fill with a single tear.