Come to the river, take a drink.

surrealist short fiction. Do you know what any of this means? Let me know if you figure it out. I'd like to know too. (23-06-2023: I know exactly what this means.) (20-05-2024: No, no I don't.)

A gigantic god-hand holds a pair of scissors. The scissors hum a tune as they cut across my ribcage, making holes to take a look at the core of my being. There are mangled piles of thread lying around and they are… well… they are very disorganised.

Unravel the threads. I stand so still and the god-hand scoops the threads out. I’m gazing at the hand and I think I know whose it is. I know him, I have known him for some years. I love him, because he’s very odd and sweet and kind, though it was difficult to see that at first. It’s difficult now as well, as his hand tears up some of the threads, pulling at my nervous system, causing me pulsing and pain.

He doesn’t know he’s doing that, of course. I doubt he even sees the thread as threads. He probably thinks they’re wires. Wires with a nice tough insulating cover that could barely be broken. He thinks I’m strong, you see. He thinks I’m made of stronger stuff.

There’s a plate. His hand piles up my threads into it like noodles. Does he think it’s edible? Does he want to be like me? Does he want some of the things he said he admired about me? Does he realise it’s all been getting fused, getting torn, getting ripped up even before he did his own damage?

Nobody can reach me now. Sorry, out of contact, even to my god-hand friend. Certainly he’s in my presence, and I’m in his, but I’m out of contact. I’m just pulses. I’m just pain, he thinks I am human and that the things in my core have value but he’s so amazingly wrong. No eyes. No ears. No brain. Just a hand scooping my guts out.

But then the threads are all shoved back in. Not even coiled up into neat little bundles. Just a mess of mismatched colour, textures soft and rough and spiked, all tearing each other apart… zero satisfaction.

"Come to the river," I hear from no one in particular. "There's a funeral pyre next to it, just for you, and you can pick out what colour you want your flames to be. We know you're getting beheaded. And that you will do this yourself."

"I’m not doing that. I never said I’d do that. I don't know how I'd do that anyway," I call back to whoever this is. I do want to unscrew my head though, pop it off and reach inside and clean out all my doubts about… about what? My doubts about being loved, or my doubts about being doomed? Which should/shouldn’t I doubt?

"I can help you find peace.”

“Where’s my god-hand? Where is he? I love him? Where is he?”

Silence. Where is he? Is he the voice, is he me, is he dead, is he gone, is he apathetic to all that’s happening here, was that even him I saw?

“Stop doubting,” the voice says. “Stop asking questions. I can help you find peace. Come to the river now. Drink a little water. It will help quench the threads and their movements a bit."

"A bit?"

"Just a bit, because the water will not reach your core. Come, tell me all about your day."

"Who are you?"

"I'm someone, that's for sure. You don't know who I am?"

I should. I definitely should know. "You care, I think."

"You should be sure of that. There is no reason to think I don't care and yet you're so uncertain about it."

"But I don't know who in particular you are."

"You want me to love you."

"In what way?"

"Many and none."

"I don't deserve that. Any or no love. I deserve neither of those."

"Deserve any love. Deserve no love."

"Neither and both."

"We’re in love with that sometimes."

"With what, indecisiveness?"

"You being baffling. It's like a mystery. It's very interesting to see you not make any sense whatsoever. You don't make any sense whatsoever and I love that. I love you."

I walk over to the river, though I don't know where it is. The no-one-in-particular stays silent as I try to think. I do not think. I cannot think.

So of course, "You're lying," I say thoughtlessly.

“And you’re not?”

“About what?”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“What am I lying about?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

…

‘Peace’... ‘peace’… ‘peace’… I don’t know what peace is. I don’t know what love is. Is it manipulation? Is it different or the same from love?

“Fine, I’ll drink from the river,” I say.

“You never had a choice.”

“I know.”

"Quench. Quench quench quench," it says.

"Shut up, you wench," I murmur back. “You sound insane.”

"And so do you, all the time, just that you’re never right and I am. So I’m insane in a way that’s better than you.”

“At least I have a real body and a voice. And I exist. What are you? Who are you? Where’s the god-hand, I loved the one who the god-hand belonged to. You’re not him. I know this. You couldn’t be.”

“I’m better than him and I found you when he spooled you out. Just quench. Quench quench, quench quench quench. There's nothing more in life, just quench."

"Quench what?"

"Yourself."

"Quench who?"

"Your heart."

"The strings?"

"They rot."

"The core?"

"It chokes."

"There's lava. Lava lava lava, lava."

"Lava. Lava lava, lava. Lava."

"Lava? Lava?"

"Lava. Muscles. Bubbling and oozing."

"From your flesh, where the god-hand cut."

There's blood flowing from the cut, the one from where the one I love cut out my core. The blood bubbles as it flows, and the river goes red.

I drink and drink and drink and drink.