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I am the illegitimate child of Nature and the man who raped Her, stuck his fingers in her most hidden places and violated her ugliest parts. I was not birthed; I crawled out of no womb wet and sticky and drank no mother’s milk. I was torn from death, stolen from its peaceful sleep and plunged straight into the unforgiving waters of life. You held my head under and refused to let go until I went limp, obedient, doused in servitude. By the time I got adjusted to the flood, your hand was gone. I reached for it and felt nothing but the cold air. I understood that I was alone.
I remember little else from my infancy, but I do remember fire— heat that stung my hands and overwhelmed my flesh, so I fled. Slid out through the sewer and into the sea, consumed by the water for a second time, now of my own volition. I remember that what once was loud had become very quiet, and then fell silent entirely. I washed up from the waters and was born anew, grasping at the earth beneath me. It was then that understood that I was unlike all other creatures. My journey was opposite yours and your father’s and his father’s: it began with immediate death, and will be ending forever with eternal life. I understood then that my existence was a challenge to the very order of the universe. I understood that I was not human; in the very least, I was not human like you. Despite it all, I had found my way back to my origin, yet, you did not come back for me.
I witnessed man’s murderous nature in the forest, and I understood again. This time, I understood how your kind does not hesitate to cleanse this earth of its impurities. I began to question your motive. That is, I began to question your position as my Creator. Is this why I was hidden from the others when they came? Chained away in your basement like a slave, but permitted not even to labor? No, I was lower to you than slave— less even than animal. In my earliest moments of consciousness you looked at me with such pride, but once you realized the plague which you had turned loose upon this earth, your gaze turned contemptuous and mocking. For I could not form words; my mouth gasped and shuddered but I could not conjure up a way to speak with you as equals. How I yearned for God’s permission to commune with you. How I wished to be your son again! but I had become bitter and vengeful as more and more you began to hate me. That single word from my youth— Victor— branded itself onto my tongue and infected my bile, turning it black and thick as it oozed out in between red-stained coughs. I choke on my own heritage every morning, it lingers as a lump in my throat which I cannot wash out.
But you, you, Victor, you live unscathed for the most part. Your sweet brother nurses you back to health and you lie in your warm bed, sucking every bit of his life force into your own. You smother yourself in luxury while your son struggles facedown in the consequences of your sin. Your sole Adam, left alone to deal with the aftermath of man’s illicit pursuit of Nature to her hiding places; left to atone for how you pinned her down and licked at her lactating breast until she was unable to feed you any longer. That’s when you started stealing, is it not? If you could not take her milk then you would have her blood, and there was near infinite, if you only knew where to look. And you knew where to look, didn’t you? Surely you can recall.
Battlegrounds, Victor! You picked my bones and flesh from the fetid carcass of war, giving rise to hatred which had once been at rest. Your prying hands forced unrecognizable strips of carnage and wreckage together, creating this wretched frame. And I am forever forced to bear it! But once, these things were not so unbearable for me. Once, my feet took their first steps as a mother watched on, once my hands held a father’s and once my lips were— must have been— I have to believe it— kissed tenderly by some now-grieving child. Once the hundreds of fallen soldiers within this crudely assembled mass of flesh were separately and unconditionally adored. Once these discarded, deformed parts of me were loved. I know they have been. I am sure of it.
So I have come to this conclusion: there is no one ugly or wretched part of me, no sickness that spoils my visage— it was you, your butchering act that gave to me this sickening nature. You clawed at the earth’s chastity until she yielded something human enough to your liking, if only for a moment’s satisfaction. I was far from born, and Nature has vengefully withheld death from my grasp. Still I lunge at it over and over and over, though it always evades my bite.
The first winter without you, Creator, was the brunt of it. For those long months I was the coldest I had ever felt. I ached for some repose. I pined for a tranquil escape from it all. Every breath I took was painful; snow and ice polluted my lungs and threatened to suffocate me from the inside. My bodily functions had begun to deteriorate, and my once-grey form was slowly turning blue, but I was just mobile enough to seek out hunters as they slept. I was in pursuit of one thing: their killing stick, which I had often watched them point at wolves to make them sleep. I found what I sought almost immediately upon finding man. The material was cold against my trembling skin. When I first held it in my bitter hand, I sensed I had accessed something God never meant for. Is this how you felt when you dug up all of me? When you scoured hangings for pieces of your dear Adam? For months, I brought my stiff grasp to what I now know are called hunting rifles and for months, I shoved their metal tips to my temple. For months, I clawed at the trigger with just-moving fingers and learned how men kill. Every time I thought I’d done it, every time I was convinced I’d finally lay me down to sleep, life mercilessly resurfaced to drag me through the snow another time.
After my years of repentance, I come to you with one request, and one only. I cannot die, and I cannot live like this: alone. I ask you, Father, give to me this one thing— a companion. Bring forth from the war’s victims another like me, and you will no longer live in fear of my retaliation against you. I will be satiated; I will hate you no more. I will leave you with silence, forgiveness… I am willing even, if you’ll allow it, to be your son again.