how to become real in the city on the other side of the mirror (it's your own)
i usually edit these posts to be a little more normalstyle after drafting them entirely without the facade of formality that capitalization &c. brings, but maybe it's just because this is also how the bad doctor types and this post reminds me of cottonmouth, even though i think it's probably not, and maybe it's because the words in this post are wholly subservient to the images, but i've decided not to do that this time. maybe it's a mistake. lmk. my dms are open for those who pay the tithe.
the city on the other side of the mirror is the only real thing that still exists. the you looking at the mirror is the false one. (you're both false.) (the worm is real. it continues to burrow. it hurts.)
to become real is simple: shatter the mirror and slide the glass shards into your eyes and your mouth and your arms and under your fingernails until they're lodged deep beneath your flesh. pain and death and hunger and sleep is all false too, so don't worry about those things anymore. (the worm isn't false. why aren't you worrying?)
once you're the mirror and the mirror is you, you can walk through the doorway left behind in the empty frame and travel the winding road you find on the other side all the way to the city's gate. the asphalt shimmers in the heat and burns your feet with every step, but there are angels along the way, perched on high, who remind you not to walk off the road and wander into the misty grey hills beyond the city or god forbid go looking for that awful place at the end of the world. thank goodness we're here to guide you on the right path, they say. remember what happened to your cousin and your nephew and your nephew's boyfriend when they didn't listen! oh, you don't know what happened to them? then pay our prattle no mind! simply follow the road. you'll become real, like us!
hm? you thought you'd already become real? okay, fine, i'll fess up. i lied about becoming real after you slide the mirror shards into your eyes and your mouth and all that. sorry. but don't worry, i promise it's still super simple.
you see, to become real you just have to follow the asphalt road all the way to the city and find your way inside its walls, where everyone is real. the gate is always open wide, inviting, and the tollkeeper always waives the fee. you've come to become real! he exclaims. well, how could i keep someone like you from their dream? (he hides his snicker with the back of his hand. it replaced the sobs long ago.) (he's no more an angel than you are. he got rid of his heart another way. should you ask him?)
the city is filled with statues carved in the shape of angels. you are minuscule in comparison to them, but they are nevertheless meant to serve you. they are there for you to find.
each statue has a name carved on the plinth below them—their own name, you know. you have your own statue, somewhere in the city, with your own name carved on the plinth. you must wander until you find it, so you can crawl into your own monolithic mouth and find what's waiting for you there. it's beautiful and just for you. (is it a new heart?) (the worm keeps burrowing. it hurts so badly.)
but there is no end to the city, and to find your statue you must keep climbing. it goes up and up and up, and without wings you'll never reach the top. but if you never reach the top, you'll never be able to find your statue, and only once you find your statue can you become real. (even with wings, you'll never find your statue.) (shut up. don't tell them that.)
okay, okay, i know. i lied again. yes, i know! i'm sorry! but you don't become real after you just follow the road and find your way inside the city's walls. you need to find your statue, and to do so you need wings. then you can become real.
if you wear a pair of wings, you become an angel. you can find one on an angel, of course, if someone else hasn't torn them off already (though at that point they're no longer an angel, so why would you care about them?), or maybe you'll just find a pair lying around somewhere. if you really can't find any wings, climb to the top of an electrical tower and ask it nicely to strike you with a bolt of lightning. it'll trade your flesh and your smile and your heart for a pair, if you really want them that badly. it acts like it's doing you a favor. i promise it really does think it is.
for those that want to keep their flesh and their smile and their heart (why would you?), there's another option. if you ask him nicely and look enough like his mother, Gravity will let you fly without wings. the angels don't like this; they scoff and frown and chide you about due process and their own hardships and all the excuses they can think of. they shout, even if you can fly, how will you find your statue if you're not an angel, like us? (they're just jealous of you.) (they hollowed themselves out to make themselves light enough to fly all the way up here. they gave up their hearts for this.) (but who cares about them! you can fly!)
once you can fly all the way up to his palace at the tippy-top of the city (it's not actually the top, for there is no such thing.) (don't tell him that.), Gravity expects you to sit on the way-too-big throne and hold him there on your lap and sing him lullabies and kiss his forehead and nuzzle his nose with your nose until he bores of you, at which point he'll let you go fly about up there looking for your statue. he waits until you're way up high (maybe you can find the top?) and then drops you all the way to the ground where you make a splatting sound like the egg in the cotton ball-filled strawberry basket of the team in your physics class that really didn't want to be there that day. he laughs for hours at this sort of thing and it's only after he gets bored of that too that the angels dutifully pick up your pieces all shattered on the pavement and glue you back together. they'll probably do it a little wrong. you're missing something, you can tell. what is it? (your heart. you're missing your heart.) (but isn't that what you wanted?)
luckily the you on the other side of the mirror is the false one, the angels assure you. how could this you be flawed? you're in the city, and you're going to be real! we all will be! i'm sure you'll feel better eventually, they say, smirking at each other when you're not looking. in the meantime, why don't you go look for a pair of wings? join us the right way! (they're not real, either? none of them?)
i have something to confess. you'll never feel better, and you'll never be real. i'm sorry. the city is false on both sides of the mirror. it was never real. walk back out of the gate and look the tollkeeper in the eyes. does he know? does he understand? (he did, once. he's chosen to forget.)
there's only one place left for you. (don't go there.) (don't let them go there.) (what are you doing, going there?) (wear a pair of wings! find your statue! climb inside its mouth! become real!)
past the city is the end of the world. the sea is painted red with algae blooms, but sometimes you can see the black water that lies below in the wake of the thin, red-stained boat. it's piloted by a different angel each time, and none of them are happy about it. they are only here to convince you to turn back to the city, but if you nevertheless press on they pout and dutifully ferry you across the sea. there is only one destination, here at the end of the world. it is the corpse of Duellona (don't say her name!), and despite the decay she is the most beautiful thing you could ever imagine. she is a world unto herself. (she's real.) (no!) (yes.)
please forgive me. i should have told you why you were really here a long time ago. becoming real doesn't matter. what matters is (the worm.) the worm.
the little worm is heartbreak, and it was born the day she kissed you for the last time. i know it's hard and i know it's painful, but you must get rid of it. you must take your heart out from the hollow in your chest, staining your hands red and brown and yellow and green and black with your own insides in the process. in the light of day, the vermicular tunnels are plain to see. the worm is killing you.
once you've excised it from your chest, you can drop your heart into the black water at the end of the world. the algae will eat both it and its tenant like it's eaten ten thousand others before yours. how do you think it became so red?
once the sea has swallowed up both worm and heart and you're left with bloody hands and a hollow chest, go to Duellona. she is the only thing left. bite the flesh of her thighs and fill your belly with corpsemeat. bathe in the great boiling hotsprings of her rotting blood which bursts out in geysers from between her ribs. if you do these things, here at the end of the world, you will fall asleep sated for the first time in your life, the hollow filled. (are you real?) (i don't know.)