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MEMORY A - SUNRISE
A new cycle began again, no different from the thousands before it, nor to the thousands yet to come.
Melting sunlight drips through a window; it is open, and a warm breeze drifts inside accompanied by the sound of laughter. Spinning top rubs her eyes as she awakes.
She startles as a pearly white moth flutters in from outside, and she quickly leaps out of bed to shoo it off with her hands. Foolish creature! She laughs to herself, flying so blindly about! No sense of direction!
In her attempt to remove the moth from her bedroom, her spastic movements send a swath of data pearls clattering from her shelves. They click-clack against her hardwood floor and leave small scratches in its surface. She scrambles to pick them each up, examining each for any imperfections, but luckily they remain spotless, even after the fall. Her mothers always tell her that they’ll break one of these days if she isn’t more careful. She had always responded that if one hadn’t broken yet after all the times she’s dropped them, they must be invincible! Returning them to their shelf with a smile, Spinning top swings her door open and begins to head to the kitchen for breakfast.
Much to her surprise, the room is completely empty. The faucet drips in the background, as it always does, but in the stark silence each drop sounds much too loud.
“Hello…?” She speaks, in a small voice at first but becoming more confident as she hears herself speak, “where is everybody? Come on lazy bones, it’s time for breakfast!! Oaoaoa!!” Opening the pantry, she continues, “let’s get the grub going! Well, maybe not grubs, I don’t like grubs. Bleh bleh bleh!”
“Is anybody here…?? I’m huuungry!!”
Drip, drip, drip. The pantry closes abruptly with an annoyed slam.
“There’s nothing to eat in the pantry! Bleh! I’d rather eat grubs than silverware, oaoaoa! Can somebody just wake up and make me breakfast already?”
Drip, drip, drip. Spinning top stomps her feet in an attempt to make enough noise to wake up one of her parents, or at least one of her older crèchemates more equipped with culinary skills than herself. As expected, it doesn’t work.
“I’m gonna be late to school!! hmmf. Hmmf hmmf hmmf. If nooobodyys gonna feed me, I guess I’ll feed myself. I’m an excellent chef, you know!!” She says, to nobody in particular. She hopes to herself this is all an elaborate prank, and that her family is just hidden and ready to jump out and surprise her!
Drip, drip, drip.
She eats breakfast at an empty table. Her bread tastes burnt and her berries taste stale.
Spinning top goes back to her bedroom, shuts her blinds, and finds a fitful sleep.
MEMORY B - CONSIDERATIONS OF LIFE’S PERSISTENCE
A new cycle began again, no different from the thousands before it, nor to the thousands yet to come.
The bones of this weathered world lay bare and rotten in the light of the sun. A sharp-toothed creature pecks at the corpse of an unfortunate prey animal.
From the point she lay perched, Spinning Top can see everything. She watches the cruelty of nature with a sad smile and laughs at the pointlessness of it all, trying so desperately to push away her wishes of being involved in the world of predator and prey.
Consider - a cowardly creature that buries itself in sand. The worm pokes its head above ground with great hesitance. It slithers through the nauseating heat with such incredible ease; it is sewn to its habitat like fabric on a quilt. The poor idiot doesn’t even care about the swarm of insects above its head! A lizard stumbles past, and it ducks underneath the earth once more.
Consider - a bumbling strongman with razor-sharp teeth and dull wit. Leathery green skin coats its thick skull. Not even the point of a spear could break through such a tough exterior! But even with its adaptations, it seems it fails to save itself from its own stupidity. What a waste!
Consider - a flier with the face of an angel. Don’t let those innocent eyes fool you! It drinks the corpse-flesh of the fallen with a needle-like proboscis and caries those left living to heaven with powerful feathered wings.
Consider - a small mouse who watches and watches and watches. She can hardly see its black fur from where it crouches in the shadows, yet it stands out from the others like nothing she had seen before. It doesn’t show interest in the games of survival. Instead, it floats along like a leaf caught in the wind, taking what it needs and not putting up a fight. It reminds her of herself, in a way, before all of this. Back in similar times, when words like “time” had meeting.
She watches the creature as it gets dragged into the horizon by a vulture. She stifles a laugh.
MEMORY C - CHILDHOOD’S END
A new cycle began again, no different from the thousands before it, nor to the thousands yet to come.
The blue light of dusk shining through a nearby window casts eerie shadows against faded wallpaper. A moth knocks its head against the glass.
Spinning top is here again, in her room. Her heart flutters with hope as she hears the sound of her family talking loudly amongst themselves in the kitchen; she hears them laughing and chattering like rats! Chasing the sleep from her eyes, she hauls herself out of bed yet again to go and greet her mothers and fathers.
“goodeveninggg everyone!!” She says in a loud and playful voice, “did you miss me? Do I even have to ask? Of course you did! Oaoaoaoa!!!” She smiles.
Her crechemates excitedly greet her with smiles of their own. One of her mothers runs up to her, pulling her into a firm embrace, “oh, Spinning Top! There you are! We were all worried sick about you, darling!”
She pushes herself out of her mother’s arms. “Worried about me? I-I mean.. I was worried about you guys! where were you? Mama, I was so scared this morning, yo-you weren’t there when I woke up… no one was! Wh-why.. where were you, mama?” Her cheeks burn with embarrassment at the fat tears cascading down her face. The relief of being back with her family had hit her all at once.
Guilt flashes in her mothers eyes, only for a second. “There was an important meeting this morning in the town center, before the sun rose. We.. we must have been in such a rush to get out the door, we left you behind. I’m so sorry dear.” Despite Spinning top’s protest, her mother pulls her into a warm hug yet again. “It’s okay now. We’re all together now.”
The words left behind cut her like a knife. She wants to be angry, but instead she cries into her mother’s arms. After regaining some of her composure, she stutters out a question between sniffles. “w-what kinda meeting happens so early in the morning?? Geez, you guys had to be outta the house before the sun even woke up?” A few of her crechemates snicker around her, and she feels a smile returning to her lips.
Her mother beams a genuine smile and brushes a loose strand of hair from Spinning Top’s eyes. She speaks in a low, motherly tone laced with a sense of joy and finality-
“we’ve done it, finally. global ascension. by tommorow, we will all be free.”
Spinning top starts to cry again, and she doesn’t know why.
MEMORY D - EXAMINATIONS OF WHAT LIES BEYOND
A new cycle began again, no different from the thousands before it, nor to the thousands yet to come.
A foul-smelling substance similar to rancid oil coats the squelching earth. Everything is rotten here.
Spinning top hates nothing more than straying into those regions overtook by the rot. And yet, here she finds herself, watching an already dead lizard crawl along as bits of its decomposing body slough off like bits of fabric. Bleh.
CONSIDER - a product of unfortunate evolution. A large worm with tendrils of violet illness trailing off of it like party streamers. It smells like rusted machinery. It mocks the Holy Sea and corrupts its sanctity. What an abhorrent creature it is!
CONSIDER - a bloated corpse distended off the ground with fleshy tendrils. Every move it makes sends it shrieking in pain; even Spinning Top cannot bring herself to laugh at the truly stomach-churning state the poor creature is in. Chunks of its body fall off and contaminate the soil.
CONSIDER - a monarch with an unquenchable thirst for more. He sits in his own filth and blooms with mouldering petals. He is crowned by flies and adorned in pulsing, violet cysts. He feasts well on the bodies of those unfortunate enough to be among his royal subjects. And the worst part is, he thinks himself a gentleman! A king! A god! Spinning top curses the degenerate prince and his kingdom alike.
CONSIDER - a small mouse who watches and watches and watches. She can hardly see its black fur from where it crouches in the shadows, yet it stands out from the others like nothing she had seen before. It revels in the filth like worms in the rain. It spreads the seeds of the rot, though whether it intends to or not is unknown, to the very edges of the material world. Spinning top reviles the creature’s actions. Idiot mouse! She thinks, and to think I once compared myself to such a lowly creature! Bleh bleh bleh!
She laughs and laughs as she watches the creature get swallowed by a patch of rot. Serves it right, I suppose!
MEMORY E - FORGOTTEN REMNANTS
A new cycle began again, no different from the thousands before it, nor to the thousands yet to come.
Candlelight flickers on stone walls that seem to suffocate those squeezed between them. The air is stagnant and heavy. It’s so, so very dark.
Spinning top finds herself here again, standing back in the very place that tore her away from her identity, her reality, her personhood. Water drips from a nearby pipe. She watches with wide eyes as each drop shatters into a soft ripple against the surface of a puddle by her feet. Drip, drip, drip. The repetitive noise annoys her nearly as much as it comforts her.
She shifts uncomfortably. Golden bracelets and necklaces and rings weigh so heavily on her body. Why must she dress up so much? How she wishes to scratch that itch on her face, but she knows her mothers would scold her if she were to take off her mask at such an important event, even if just for a moment.
How long had she been waiting down here? How she yearns to be back in her room, playing ball as she used to! Her crechemates surround her, ordered in a single-file line, faces alight with excitement and jubilation. They eagerly speak to one another about how very lucky they are to be here. Spinning top wishes she could join in on their laughter. Instead, she stays silent and feels the ball of dread deep down in her stomach writhe and twist. She takes a step forward toward the front of the line.
How many souls have walked this same path before her? How many have already bathed themselves in the Holy Sea and faded away, forgotten? Forgotten! What a frightening word! She hopes that her less fortunate acquaintances from back home won’t forget about her once she has gone. But what thought scares her more? The prospect of being forgotten by her peers, or the prospect of her peers living on without her and feeling her absence in every cycle? She fidgets with a beaded bracelet on her wrist.
Spinning top is the first person in line. She feels the daunting thrumming of the Holy Sea under her feet, compelling her forward. It flows and ebbs in dizzying patterns of gold and black. It sings with finality and her head spins. Wincing as her feet touch the cold grate before her, she steps into the void bath and lays down just as she had been instructed. Fear fuzzes her thoughts and numbs her senses. She can just barely make out the chanting of her crechemates and parents; they shout her name with such overwhelming emotion! Happiness bellows off of them in waves; Spinning top cannot find it within herself to beg them to stop. The sacred water laps at her clothing. It burns like nothing she has felt before. She can feel the fluid washing over her, dragging her down, dissolving every inch of skin on her body. Dissolving her! She wills it to stop, but there’s nothing she can do now to stop her fingers from starting to drip through the thin grate beneath her. The stench of disintegrating protein rises around her. It’s agonizing, as she tries to reject the golden iridescent liquid gushing through and bursting every cell in her body, she longs to scream and wail and shriek and bawl with the little air left she has in her throbbing lungs —
But instead she turns her mouth into a smile and laughs. She laughs, and laughs, and laughs. She laughs at how silly she must look adorned in jewelry much too big for her. She laughs at the stupidity of her peers for being so willing to leave everything behind, including herself. She laughs at herself for not putting up a fight. She laughs at nothing, and everything, for forever and for no time at all. She laughs until the golden fluid flows up from the earth drowns her, and she no longer has a mouth with which to laugh.