"Heartbeat" of the Stars

“Ahhh! Boredom is not for the faint of heart!” Elyra whined. “Why do you stars refuse me? I just want to see what Earth is like. Just for one day… That’s all I ask.” Her voice was filled with genuine curiosity, but her tone was that of a child who’d been refused a candy bar in the checkout line of the grocery store.

“No.”

“What do you mean by ‘no’? I truly love your beauty and the way you all shine so brightly, but I really am in dire need of a vacation… It’s lonely up here, you know? There is only one of me but there are infinite numbers of you.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest, pouting. The stars shone so brightly, offering limitless amounts of warmth and light to every fathomable reach of the universe. Sure, they were the center of their own little solar systems, but cosmic distance meant nothing to stars that could communicate with each other through varying wavelengths of light. Each little planet would involuntarily find itself as part of a competition to see which star could create the most ideal conditions for life, shielding itself from solar radiation and ejections of super-heated plasma—another competition between the stars… who could create the biggest coronal mass ejection.

The stars always got to have their fun. Why couldn’t she? Since when was letting one measly planet destroy itself with nuclear negligence enough to “ground” her? Just how much control did the stars really have over her? Of course, she felt bad. It was one of her favorite planets to visit during her pastime: the food was heavenly, the inhabitants were always fun to talk to—she loved listening to their folk stories and fairytales—and she enjoyed stargazing atop one of their many skyscrapers. She loved spending the evenings, arms pressed against the sun-warmed safety railing of their high-rises, watching the fading fringes of daylight paint the skyline with golden oranges and ember reds, the setting sun the artist. The way the evening breeze would mix down from the upper atmosphere, causing her to break out in goosebumps, always told her the stars would soon begin to shine—the onset of night would become a glittering canvas for their illustrious twinkling. Nebulas were like the spray paint of the universe, clouds of crimson and mauve streaking across the decorated plane. Most of the stars were too far away to be anything more than twinkling specks of white against the dark canvas but, like clockwork, they came out every night, greeting her with their shimmering smiles.

“I really loved that one, too… I only took a vacation because I thought they had reached an agreement. Something to settle their differences. How was I supposed to know they were going to blow themselves up? Did I not warn them?” She paused, waiting for the stars to oblige her earlier request. “Where is the legal documentation that says I am responsible for the faults of foolish humans?”

“Yet… You long to be one… Why? Why would you want to leave the heavens and descend upon a dusty plane, of which its inhabitants offer prayer and offerings to nonexistent Gods instead of you, our Heartbeat of the Stars? Should something beyond your foresight occur, what of such a predicament?”

Elyra sighed. “Your reasoning is sound, and your questions require answers of me that I do not have. Still,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment, “that does not excuse the fact that I am confined here by your will. While you laugh, play, and talk with each other, I sit here… observing the universe’s marvels. I believe the Earthlings had a phrase for this kind of thing. Something about watching dry paint?”

“Lady Elyra, it is not that we believe entropy would reign in your absence. It is that, should you find yourself involved in the Earthling’s affairs, it could become problematic.”

“You doubt that I chose a proper Grandeur? Or is it that you harbor reservations about my ability to intervene in the Reverse World’s matters? …Why refuse me, of all beings, the chance to research just why Earth, and its sister realm, Chiipha, is their target?” She opened her eyes, a solemn look cast by her lowered eyelids. Slowly, she walked over to her throne and took a seat, crossing her legs. “There is something I have missed that causes me great worry, but what that something is… I’m afraid I don’t know. Ethera has not communicated anything of concern to me since Ahzef’s last Rezertia, and both Earth and Chiipha are without a chosen princess as a first-line defense. I feel quite bothered by it all.”

“Ahzef will be licking his wounds for far longer than you would care to be human. There is no sense in allowing you to endanger yourself when the universe will balance the earthen realms accordingly.”

She leaned into the right side of the throne, placing her elbow on the arm rest with her head in her hand. It seemed the playful approach was no longer an option—she bemoaned having to be serious. She’d observed Earth and Chiipha for centuries but, no matter how much she enjoyed other planets, wandering their streets amidst bustling crowds or listening to their stories, nothing compared to Earth. For some reason, she was just… drawn to Earth and something about its relationship with Chiipha was fascinating to her. They were two entirely different worlds, yet they shared the same celestial plane, neither aware of the other’s existence. She had to know why.

“Something’s wrong. The Reverse World has been too quiet for far too long, and not even Ethera finds solace in that fact. She may be young and inexperienced, but she still retains the knowledge of every past Grandeur before her.” Elyra stared down at Earth, its watery marble a pristine environment for life. “Has Earth’s star not gone quiet in recent years? It continues to shine, but its warmth feels almost… cold. Such a paradox I don’t say lightly.”

The other stars declined to comment.

“So, then. I suppose the matter is settled? Your silence, ironically, is unsettling to me. I understand my position as the ‘Heartbeat of the Stars’, but I have been given that name all my life, whatever that should constitute. Am I just an amalgamation of your dust? A hiccup created by dark matter itself in some unknown process I am not aware of? …Why does my appearance match that of an Earthling?” She paused again, taking a moment to admire the transport of wispy, white clouds across the planet’s surface. “They’re so beautiful… They fly so high and are so thin, yet they never worry about losing the embrace of Earth’s gravity.”

“Lady Elyra, we are unable to answer the questions pertaining to your origin. However, when you first appeared to us, it was as if the universe became alive. At the time, we were nothing more than specks of dust, drifting through the endless universe you have traveled so extensively. When you appeared, we could not understand how or where you came from.”

“So, why do I get the feeling the answers I seek are hidden somewhere within Earth and Chiipha? I’ve noticed the same thing happens in Earthlings,” she explained. “Their children do not remember their earliest years of life, yet they go about their lives without ever worrying about their origin…” She uncrossed then re-crossed her legs. “Perhaps an answer to my question lies within Nertiia’s awakening. Something cannot be created from nothing, you know. The primordial goddess of destruction… I’m going. Humans may be dense, but they are not unintelligent. There is no doubt I must involve myself in the coming conflict, and I am aware that puts me in danger, but I can say with certainty that, even in my absence, the universe will continue to shine.”

“We do not condone such actions, Milady. However, we are, indeed, powerless to stop you. You are the sovereign heartbeat that allowed us to discover our own identities. We cannot withhold that same generosity from you.”

“Then the matter is settled. There are questions the universe must allow clarity for, and the longer I sit here, the more impatient I grow. Questions are fickle and answers elusive. For all our sakes, it’s imperative that something is done, and that “something” starts with me. I cannot estimate how long I will be absent, but perhaps this will finally be the vacation I remain overdue for.”

“Did you not just return from the last one?”

Elyra smiled. “All the more reason!”

***

“Excuse me, Miss?”

Elyra pressed her hand to her head. A splitting headache had formed over her left eye, turning what had been a pleasant spring afternoon into a pain-filled misery, but it wasn’t the strange ache that began to crawl its way down the left side of her face—it was the strange feeling that she was supposed to be… somewhere. But… where, exactly, was she supposed to be? And why?

She stared down at her right hand, her left now pressed firmly against her temple, over her eye. Despite the tears that refused to dry and the watery lens they turned her eyes into, she could still make out patches of yellowed grass, dotted by the occasional sprout of green. Clouds stole the day’s sunlight, adding an extra early-spring chill to the air. Still, from the sound of things, she assumed she was in a small park. The laughter of children and muffled voices of tired parents entered Elyra’s ears first, followed by the jingle of car keys and crunch of gravel beneath car tires.

“These sounds…” she mumbled, “I know what they belong to but not what they are. Mm… I feel like I bashed my head into a wall.”

For a moment, she thought the sounds were coming from the ringing in her ears that only seemed to intensify with the headache. It had managed to wrap itself around the base of her skull and across the bridge of her nose, causing her eyes to twitch. She continued to press her hand against her face, applying so much pressure she could feel her cheekbones.

“Miss? Do you need some help—?”

“N-no…” Elyra mumbled in reply. “I just need to… get home, but I don’t know how to get there… Or where it is.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, struggling to temper the pain. All she could think about was the throbbing intensity that made her eyes water every time she moved or tried to stand. Her mind had other plans, throwing countless thoughts and memories against the front of her skull like plastic frisbees—playful at first, a painful reminder to pay attention later. Her thoughts spilled together like some kind of fever dream, echoing through her mind, forming mental images of people and places she’d never seen or heard of before. They were enjambed, dripping down the walls of her mind, fresh as wet paint, their contents leaking out as they spilled together.

One memory in particular stood out amongst the others. There was a girl… She looked like she hadn’t slept for days: matted, caramel hair exacerbated the dark circles under her eyes. Then, there was a boy—messy, blonde bangs swept across his forehead. Images of the two individuals repeatedly forced their way to the front of her mind, exacerbating the pain that threatened to rupture her skull at any moment. She briefly pondered if heads could even explode. If hers did, would the images that seemed to sear their composition into her brain provide the relief she sought once they’d ruptured?

She opened her right eye, left hand still pressed against the other eye, and was met by a vortex of intertwining colors and images she wasn’t sure were even real: a sun-like star being devoured by a large shadow with eerie, white teeth, a twin-horned creature feasting on skewered meat over an open flame, fat dripping from the skewer into the orange embers… a girl struggling for air as she sank deeper and deeper beneath the waves of a stormy sea, lightning arcing across the sky in streaks of lilac. Despite the unfamiliarity of the first two memories, she swore she’d seen the last one before. No… It was more than that—she could feel the saltwater filling her lungs, the thrash of her arms and legs in the water as she tried to swim to the surface, and the icy hand of death prepared to tuck her into a watery grave.

“Save her!” a voice shouted in her mind. “This is not where her story ends!”

Elyra squeezed her eyes shut again, tighter this time as she tried to force the images from her mind and the familiar sensation of drowning from her body—the stinging saltwater in her eyes, the fire that blazed in her lungs desperate for air, the feeling of dread that overtook her body when she realized she would never breach the surface again. When she finally opened her eyes again, the park had disappeared—no patchy, yellow-green grass, no more cold wind, no more… anything. The sound of crunching tires, jangling keys, and the excited laughter of children had all vanished without reason… and so suddenly. It was unnerving: the new overbearing silence that welcomed a shrill ringing in her ears, the atmospheric pressure that made her bones ache, and the feeling that she was being watched.

“Whatever this place is, it’s not natural—some kind of negative amalgamation. It feels… lonely, though.”

Slowly, she worked her way to her feet, pressing her hands against the dark floor for support, all the while scrutinizing every new feeling that washed over her: a mind-numbing depression, a broken heart that doubted its ability to love again, a stress that lingered like morning fog the sun just couldn’t burn off— Wherever she was, and no matter how hard she tried to be positive, negativity seemed as powerful as the gravity that bound her to Earth’s surface. Sadness teamed up with the loneliness from before, working in tandem to force the anxiety that caught in her throat into the pit of her stomach.

“Ughh… I feel sick, and this weird null-space is not helping… Time feels… weird here, as if it’s been wrung out like a wet towel and left to wrinkle. It’s not linear at all—warped. Actually, it feels more like… a wound coil, compressed and waiting to spring.”

She gazed up, searching for answers and a way out of the strange space. To her dismay, she assumed she was inside a pit of some kind, the sky above her now a tiny box she could easily cover with a finger. The sliver of hope that she clung to burned out like a candle in the rain—escape grew more unlikely by the second— Or was it a minute? An hour? Days? How long had she been trapped, and when did she fall in to begin with? Watching the light struggle against the darkness, she felt as hopeless as a nightlight with weak batteries. What good was the nightlight if it didn’t shine at full strength?

Without warning, the floor dropped out, sending her into a free-fall until, finally, she felt her back hit something solid. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been falling or if she was even falling to begin with but, judging by how hard she landed on her tailbone, she assumed she’d been plunged even further into the inescapable pit, The fall seemed like just mere seconds, though—there was an incongruence between the time it took to land and the impact of the landing itself.

“First impressions of Earth… not impressed,” she muttered, rubbing her lower back. “Where am I…? There was a woman and a playground—! My headache—”

“Your presence is most unwelcome on this planet, Miss Elyra. It seems we misjudged things by a wider margin than was originally planned for in the margin of error.”

She jumped, a wave of electric cold wiring itself into her muscles like cracks across a frozen lake unable to support her weight any longer. Needle-like pinpricks erupted across her body in static-like waves as her muscles stiffened, refusing to follow her internal demands. Get up, move—something! Nothing. Every order she gave went ignored. She tried to curl her fingers, and she could feel the muscles in her hands clenching, yet they still refused to move, not even an inch. They’d taken a mile, and she couldn’t even claw back a single inch.

“Your omniscience seems to have failed you, star girl. It’s unfortunate for us both, but clearly far more unfortunate for you. What good is that bag of flesh if it won’t even function properly? Maybe you should have stayed where you were rather than thinking you could interfere with us.”

Elyra clenched her jaw, the only muscles that still seemed to work, though it wasn’t like the sour face she was making would be visible in the murky darkness. Slowly, she felt herself raised to her feet like a toy, some kind of plaything made to entertain the whims of its captor… an utterly embarrassing feeling. Her ears grew feverish, plagued by the hot breath that tickled her lobes; her chest tightened; her breathing became labored, intensive, and shallow as if she were drowning just beneath the surface of an approaching tide, a tide of pure evil and negativity.

Sensations that were normal for humans were alien to her: she had no idea what a “heartbeat” was or how to stop its maddening rampage as it fought to escape her chest, why her body felt so heavy, or where the uncontrollable body-shakes had come from. She’d overhead Earthlings talk about things like anxiety and fear, but what did those things mean? What was happening now and what did she need to figure it out? She hadn’t even thought about the earlier headache or the way her tailbone still ached. What was pain? What were all of these new sensations? The hot breath in her ear, the liquid that dripped from her forehead and down the bridge of her nose—

“This flesh is more like a prison than it is a newfound freedom,” Elyra gritted, “and now you’re going to capitalize on that, are you, Azael?”

“Ah, so you’re already aware of my presence,” Azael said, surprise creeping into the devil’s voice. “How long have you been aware of our little plan, then?” A small, blue flame illuminated the inky darkness, revealing a ghoulish grin plastered across his face. “I find it quite hard to believe you allowed yourself to fall into such a simple trap as this. The Estrean, divine empress of the cosmos… reduced to a stumbling, awkward human girl.” The devil laughed. “So, do tell!”

Elyra clenched her muscles again, tighter, more affirmatively this time, but they still refused to move. Did she forget how to use her body? Moreover, were the “instructions” not coded into a human’s brain? What did she miss? Why could she still not move? Did she arrive too late to prevent an uprising of the Reverse World only to find herself caught in a pre-planned web of events meant to draw her attention? Did the devils bait her in? How?

“Really? You really don’t know?” Azael’s smirk faded, now a cold, emotionless slate. “A little settlement on a terrestrial planet such as this one. Ringing any bells? Judging by the conversation you had with a very intelligent young man, you were sticking your nose in places it didn’t belong.”

Elyra’s eyes grew wide, irises expanding in a sea of sapphire. “That conversation doesn’t happen for another hundred years! And you shouldn’t have any knowledge of that conversation to begin with! How in the world would you even know what I, of all beings, would be doing in a universe separate from this one?”

Azael made a ticking noise, almost shameful in tone. “Who knew his girlfriend would become a victim of her own mind, forced to feed the little monster feeding off of her memories… Say, what do you think the odds are she’s already forgotten about you? I was told you’d occasionally drop by Lagrange 4 for a visit, maybe an overnighter once in a passing comet.”

Elyra lowered her voice, a threatening but worried tone emulating her thoughts. “Why are you even bringing them up? That’s information you shouldn’t be privy to, nor should you know of the…” She closed her mouth, afraid she might inadvertently reveal information she shouldn’t. “I’ll ask again— How do you know of something that has technically yet to happen?”

Azael chuckled, devious smirk returning. “If you remember this conversation someday, perhaps you’ll have the answer to your question, then. For now, this conversation is finished, but you’re too dangerous for me to allow you to roam about without a leash—”

“Is that so? If I were—”

“—you, I’d re-evaluate the situation I’m in and who has the ability to make demands,” Azael finished. “I’m going to give you a real chance to explore that body of yours, but from the start rather than twenty-plus years in. Seems a bit unfair, you know? What do those annoying Earthlings say again? The ones who call themselves ‘gamers?’ Oh, yes— It’s not real fair if you have the ‘host advantage.’”

“Azael, I swear when I see you next, I will grind you into dust so fine not even the mightiest black hole will be able to warp your remains—there will be nothing left of you,” Elyra chided, a half-threat, half-promise. “Even if it takes me another millennia to finally find you again, you will say it was still too soon.”

“Then let’s make this into a game,” Azael said, widening his smirk. “If you can find me and truly defeat me, I will tell you what you want to know, including what is happening on that Earth. Who knows,” he chided, “maybe it’s all connected in some grand way you were never aware of, all under your nose this whole time.”

“Surely there’s a condition…?”

The devil’s grin became a sawblade of jagged teeth. “But, if I win, I get to enjoy watching you beg for your life as I tear the skin from your bones, slowly devouring you piece by piece until I’ve picked your bones clean over the roasting fire’s coals. Seeing as you’re human at the moment…” He pulled an old, leather-bound book from somewhere behind him. “I have access to your very existence, but I don’t think erasing you entirely would be much fun, not to mention we’d be here for the next several thousand years as I rewrite the laws of the universe you created for yourself. These really are quite elaborate.”

Elyra smirked back. “There is no author greater than myself. I do encourage you to try, though,” she said teasingly, challenging Azael’s authorship.

“I don’t have to be a greater author. You misunderstand. All I have to do is write your new history in this very book. It will be as if you never existed until the very moment in which you are pulled from your mother’s womb—human, imperfectly so!” With the swift motion of the devil’s wrist and stroke of a pen, a new story was published in the annals of time, a new life, but also one forced to start over again. “You should never have come to Earth, little Miss Elyra—not without another written record of your past, present, and future.”

She struggled amidst the dwindling flamelight, flickering embers illuminating the shimmer of the strings that held her in place, threads protruding from every limb before vanishing somewhere into the inky abyss that surrounded her. Ironically, she found herself bound by her own strings of fate. Unfortunately, questioning the devil further was pointless—he’d refuse to answer her until after their ‘game’ was complete.

“I do find it quite hard to believe someone so careful could be so careless,” he said amidst the incessant scribbling.

“Do you know how much work it would take to completely rewrite a future already penned?” she asked, voice quivering. “There is little sense in lying to me, Azael. I know you can’t rewrite the laws of the universe themselves…”

A quick, flashy grin crossed the devil’s face. “When writing a story, does one leave it as is, after the initial draft?”

Elyra lowered her gaze. “Well, no. Not in most cases. Every good story undergoes an extensive amount of revision.”

“Does the story lose meaning, then? Does the ink on the page ever truly dry? Can a story be interpreted in more than one way?”

“It remains up to the author whether they allow those other interpretations to hold valid weight. In that sense, it takes on more meaning, I suppose…”

“So, do older meanings vanish as they are forgotten? When a scientist goes back to revise their initial hypothesis after the discovery of new data, are they rewriting the laws that govern their research? Are those laws ever permanently etched into the fabric of the universe?”

“What are you talking about…?”

“Let me ask you this. Can humans rewrite the rules that have always existed? Is there such a thing as new if it has always been there? From a human perspective, these laws seem ever-changing, capable of revision and further understanding. But does that mean the very laws themselves are changing? Are old ones scrapped entirely when the meanings and understandings evolve?”

“No, but—”

“Can they be rewritten to reflect greater understanding on a planet such as, say, Earth, for example?”

“Yes, but again—”

“If the universe’s rules have always been static, but human understanding of them has always changed…”

Everything was moving faster than she could answer his questions. Azael had info-dumped on her, proceeded to revoke the authorship of her existence, and left her with questions she knew she’d never be able to answer alone. She eased the tension in her muscles, heaving a long sigh—she’d been outsmarted, and it shocked her. She allowed her bangs to fall over her eyes as she lowered her head, a silent admittance that Azael had not only won the argument, but that she’d grossly misunderstood the application of human understanding of the universe. To make matters worse, she’d known he could rewrite histories; in fact, she’d even prepared written copies of her own existence up to this point. Unfortunately, they were next to useless as a human—the records only recorded her time as the Estrean and, by applying the malleability of human understanding… she, essentially, never existed. Earth never worshipped her as an infallible being, no sacred text or gospel to speak of—no deity, no divinity. It was an unfortunate oversight, but she never would have thought the collective unconscious of humanity could define her very existence. How was it that something as intangible as a thought held so much more power than the very sovereignty of the universe that allowed Earth to even exist in the first place?

If there were never any records of her existence as human or the Estrean, Azael could simply write whatever he wanted to. He didn’t have to surpass her authorship or literary prowess at all—he never did. She had no power over Earth anymore, not when she technically never even existed. Now, her very entire existence found itself threatened by the scratch of a pen and ink of a pen. When did Earthlings become so powerful, so capable of swaying the very fabric of reality itself?

She was supposed to be the sovereignty of the universe, and now she was nothing more than an imperfect human. Even as the Estrean, she wasn’t infallible, but she was already well aware of the dangers she faced, attempting to confront the devils herself, on Earth. She’d been forced to sit back and watch as Ahzef and his devilish entourage lay waste to Earth and Chiipha’s princesses time and again, pleading with the stars to let her intervene—they always refused… and now she knew why. Ahzef knew exactly how to bait her in, and Azael knew exactly how to defeat her… without ever lifting so much as a single finger. Each failed Rezertia had never actually been a failure—they were tests. How much could the devils get away with before she was forced to intervene? By harnessing the twisted schematics of the inner human mind, they’d found an overlooked, but simple, loophole—one that allowed them to mold her future how they saw fit.

The reality of the situation was about as bleak as a painter’s canvas slathered with grey paint and left to drip onto the floor. Different colors represented different things: red for passion, yellow for hope, blue for calm… All grey could represent was the dull future that she feared awaited her, a world she knew nothing about, surrounded by the faces of people she’d never know. Humanity’s rise to prominence on Earth was nothing short of a miracle in her eyes. Of all habitable planets, Earth’s ability to foster human life was the most unique: Earthlings were creative creatures and boasted far greater mental capacity.

Their stories were filled with marvels—imaginative fairy tales, fascinating folklore about mythical ghouls and monsters, fictional worlds that captured the human brain’s ability to harness more of its own computational power… Earthlings had evolved into the most spectacular humans yet. What worried her, however, were the more somber stories: children too frightened to confront their school bullies, overworked adults who only found relief through the glass lips of alcohol bottles, terminally ill patients who were given months to live when, just two weeks ago, they felt fine. She preferred to spare herself the darker details… suicide, drug overdoses, complete dissolution of families due to ideological disagreements— For every hope and dream, there were just as many nightmares plagued by this version of humanity’s collective unconscious despair.

She bemoaned her loneliness in the stars, envious of companionship, but was the wrathful mind of a human something she wanted to inherit? Was she fond of the lustful, human gaze that objectified everything in sight? What about their prideful egos, ones that refused to acknowledge anyone other than themselves? Their gluttonous spirits and greedy hands always wanting more than they deserved? What about slothful attitudes that took advantage of those around them?

“Am I… really going to have to endure an entire other life? Is that what I want…?”

The scribbling stopped. “The despair in your eyes— It reminds me of the princesses Ahzef dragged through the streets before devouring their flesh, piece by piece as they cried out in agonizing pain.” He paused a moment longer. “Tell me, what is it that you feel at this moment? What does it feel like to lose control over your own pre-written fate?”

Elyra raised her head, allowing Azael to stare into her eyes. “I hope you come to regret ever giving me a second chance,” she said coldly. “You want to know what I feel? Terrified. I am frightened by what I cannot understand and am unable to comprehend. Humans are strange, wouldn’t you agree? Earthlings even more so. Somehow, they’re both the most benevolent creatures to exist and as devilish and damned as you.” She bit her lip, surprised by the sharp pain. “But you know what? Even if I’m to drown beneath the waves of destruction you devils force this planet to sail through, I promise I will be its guiding star. …End the conclusion to my new story, Azael,” she threatened, tone apathetic. “When I rediscover the part of myself you’ve stolen from me, I will prove to you that a script never follows its lines exactly as they are written.”

Azael’s face lit up, another gleefully poisonous grin. “Very well then. As the ink dries on this final period,” he said, “I do hope that all the things currently feeding the fears in your mind don’t consume you whole— I prefer a good workout before a meal, and once these ridiculous humans you are so infatuated with see their “Divinity” reduced to nothing more than a weak, incomplete human, their despair will be the perfect appetizer. Once you are slaughtered like they slaughter their own livestock, that is when your story will end again—for good.” Elyra watched as the pen left the paper of Azael’s book. “So, see you in twenty or so years, Miss Estrean… That is… if the abhorrence of the human condition doesn’t consume you first…”