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Short Story, 2020
The Pyramid's Gift
About
The sky is always pink, and the air is always singing. All desires are bestowed to those who would climb the Pyramid.
Author: Vương Cẩm Vy
Art used in cover: Du Camp, Maxine. Propylées du Thoutmoséum, à Médinet-habou (Thèbes) (1849-50), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Chapter navigation:
Introduction
(...or skip and begin reading)
Towards the end of 2020, things were beginning to look up for Vietnam, pandemic-wise. Sure, the number of cases was rising steadily, but it was steady. I thought that if things would stay this way, the hospitals would begin to catch up, and everything would be back to normal. Given what would later happen in September, 2021, it was a foolishly optimistic thing to believe.
“The Pyramid’s Gift” was one of those stories that could only be written with optimism. I had the luxury to be pessimistic. In that time, I finished many stories like this one - cynical, macabre, and rough - and I always had a lot of fun cranking them out because I didn’t take it too seriously.
I remember checking out Kitty Horrorshow’s collection, and the writing/narration in CHYRZA lingered in my head for weeks. It was so simple but effective how she never showed what the horror looked like, only described it. I was left wondering if I was looking at a post-disaster scene, or if the narrative was something unrelated playing in my head as I was walking through those desert ruins of CHYRZA. The latter interpretation proved “stickier”; I had begun hearing a droning, exhausted, and garbled narration as I went about my day in my oddly deserted home city. I was already re-telling CHYRZA to myself before I ever set out to write “The Pyramid’s Gift”.
They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. What of poor imitation; is it slander? One of CHYRZA’s strengths as flash-fiction was that nothing went on any longer than needed, and the rest reserved its veil of mystique. I wasn’t there yet. Writing “The Pyramid’s Gift” gave me a lot of appreciation of how difficult it was to write the sort of things I liked to read or play. In a way, this short story was a sacrificial lamb for better art in the future, hopefully.
Music recommendation:
- “Lipstick to Void” - Mica Levi;
- “Love” - Mica Levi;
- Pilgrimage - OM;
- "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" - Blue Öyster Cult;
- “Hotel California” - Eagles;
- “I Have a Special Plan for This World” - Current 93.
Vy
Saigon, 2025
1.
Queen Theodora lived on top of the Pyramid, where those who fell were obliterated against slanted slopes, blood browned the marble edifice, and the black sands swallowed their tattered remains. High above the pink fog of the sky, she sang her decrees. Her ambassadors would come with treasures from within the labyrinth, and we fought one another for their graces. Those of us who won nothing clutched her song close to our hearts, awaiting our own time for the glory that would one day be ours. The song has replaced our dreams; where human desires once were, only a sleepless longing remained.
Queen Theodora was our god, although she was born human, just like us. Her ascent to the throne-in-the-sky could be catalogued and recounted in close detail by every child. Everyone remembered her as a tailor’s daughter who worked in her mother’s workshop, mending the townsfolk’s garments that had worn out and tattered under a harsh sun. She was known by a different name, then. It was these humble beginnings that had weaved into the tapestry of her life a mythic sense of worth and predestination. She would be our Queen.
Although we could recount everything that Theodora used to be, we could no longer imagine how anything could have existed outside of this tapestry of fate. Everything had led up to her ascent. We could not remember if the sky had been a different color or what a songbird sang. We could barely remember ourselves. We could barely remember to sleep. When I lay down and closed my eyes, peace did not come. My only consolation was that color filtered through the flesh and veins of my lids. It flickered in and out of existence, and I never had a careful look at it before the sands started sinking me, beckoning me to the land of the dead. Then, I would have to stand up and gaze once again at the Pyramid.
We were not sure of how the Pyramid came into our lives. The younger ones believed that it had always been there. I still remembered, if dimly, the day we woke up to a sky that glowed a pink of spring flowers. There was a song in our hearts. And in the distance, the Pyramid stood over us like a mountain that we only recently realized had always been there. It glistened white, soft and gentle. Golden balconies stared down, a glorious constellation of stars. I remembered how the old women had dropped to their knees and wept that day.
It started with the children, then the adults, and finally the elders - they all abandoned their homes and walked towards the Pyramid in an ecstatic haze. They surrounded its base, which one could walk for days without reaching a corner. They found intricately carved entrances, where winds funneled inside and whistled soothing melodies. The song hummed in our ears and touched our hearts.
The winds had stopped, so our mills stopped turning also. We no longer hungered, so we abandoned our fields, and the ground swelled with a billion black, glittering specks of glass. We no longer felt pain, and our flesh closed with every cut. Those long days never ended, so we did not sleep. We wanted nothing more than to be within its glory, so the world around us disappeared. Some have said that the Pyramid was moved by the sweat of our brows and so rewarded us with its presence. Some have said its greatest gift was that we were free from the indignities of destitution, and we were free to dream higher.
Soon, people competed to chart its labyrinthian halls of granite and stairs of jagged obsidian. When they returned, they could not speak, and only manic blathering escaped their mouths. Past a certain depth, they did not return. We built shrines to the Pyramid.
One day, a brave man decided to scale its slopes. He had been a blacksmith before his tools fell to neglect. He brought with him iron stakes, which he used to heave himself up the marble to where golden windows, balconies, and gargoyles stared down at the clamoring masses. As he climbed, the townsfolk chanted his name in unison. A moment’s hero. The chanting then, imperceptibly until too late, took on that melody that was in our hearts. The blacksmith was emboldened. He reached further, quicker, like a spider whose death was crawling right below him, rapidly catching up. When he was no more than a distant dot in the sky, we chanted his name even louder. Suddenly, he made no advance. Now, he was rolling down the marble, bouncing up and down, leaving bloody splashes every spot his body smashed into. Nothing made it back to the ground, save for a few stray droplets that fell onto the crowd. We had forgotten his name, since.
We were not deterred; we were energized. The young men and women started scaling the walls again, with stronger ropes and better implements scoured from the blacksmith’s now empty residence. Those who climbed high were revered, so long as they remained high. Those who fell were not talked about again, lest it chilled the people’s impetus.
Theodora was among the young hopefuls. She had her mother weave for her a scarf, a very long one. She would tie one end of this scarf around her waist and set off into the Pyramid’s maze. As she ventured further, she drew on the scarf, and it would let her remember the way. Her mother would sit outside the Pyramid’s entrance and weave and weave until the tips of her fingers blistered away, until white bones peeked through the flesh, until the scarf was stained red and brown. She felt no pain. With mirth, she would tell others tales of her daughter, tales of a precocious and sensitive young girl who was gifted by dreams of longing, of striving, of thirst. She had dreamt higher dreams, and because of this gift, she would become Queen.
We have weaved this tapestry of predestination for so long that Theodora might as well have arrived with the Pyramid itself.
2.
There was no star left for their eyes to stare at, no stars but the glistening gold that adorned the endless expanse of white marble and glittered out from within that pink fog. There were some new heads, some very old. Terror wracked across their faces, and viscera oozed from that opening in their necks where the spikes were driven into. Blood wormed its way down into the sable, glassy sand. If they were not skewered on spikes and left on the ground instead, then they would sink into the desert, and peace would come too quickly for them.
Short, fat nails were wedged into their ears. Their lids were peeled, sliced, and burned with hot iron. Their eyes were yellowed and rheumy. When they saw me walk by, their muscles tensed and spasmed, as if to tell me something. They had no tongue, no jaw. Nothing to scratch the roofs of their mouths. Nothing to give them temporary relief or pleasure or any sensation at all. Nothing to distract them from their eternity of yearning but never reaching, so that they might atone for their heresy.
I recognized one of the new ones. We seemed to have no shortage of pups like him. Everyday, a new face appeared among the wailing, singing crowd. Some did not have what it took to meet a dignified end. He had squirmed and spit when they tied a rope around his waist. He did not want to climb. But the longing, that humming melody ate at his sanity. Soon, he did nothing but touch himself until his own flesh was raw and bleeding. He spilled too much seed onto the sand. It was the sin of wasting vitality, vitality that could have been put to aspire for more, for higher dreams. They denounced him as a lowly, degenerate animal, and when they came to his sprawl brandishing iron, even his parents could not protect him. So now, he stared into that hazy, ornate eternity, and all he could feel was the same gnawing emptiness that those who dwelled in the Pyramid’s shadow all felt. Now, he would be made to understand, forever.
The Pyramid’s song hummed in the air, and I whistled to it. A group of young pups have gathered at the base of the Pyramid. There, they whispered solemnly among themselves. Their words blended into the floating melody, obscured. Several of them were missing legs, arms, noses, or even portions of their skulls. Their falls have taken away these things, and the only pain they could feel was the emptiness where parts of them used to be. They shared in my injuries, and they shared in the longing that had caused those injuries. However, they did not share my past, a past that came in waking dreams that had kept me living when the desert devoured those who were broken and cast away. They did not know what made them human, only this hollow nightmare. No, they were lost, hapless, and weak.
They hailed me over. I shook my head and continued on my way. My sister awaited me.
*
It was my sister’s turn to stand on top of the altar and speak as Future Queen, successor to Theodora’s graces. It was my turn some time ago, although I could not count the days. Soon, it would be my turn again. Everyone had their turn at this farce. We all knew gods ruled in perpetuity. My place now was at a lower rung, where I parroted her edicts and mimed her movements. She spoke of the riches she would bestow on us when she came to her throne-in-the-sky. Her hair shone like the Pyramid’s gold. Her promises were loftier than the last speaker, a Future King who promised an end to the flow of blood. Lost, as their kinds were. The people had come to accept the red upon marble as a matter of pride and tradition. Besides, if no blood was spilt, would that mean that no one would climb anymore? Who, then, would be King or Queen? I repeated my sister’s list of golden chalices and crystal crowns and felt my ghost hand grasping for these things. With eyes closed, I saw not the treasures she promised, but the world she never knew. The sparrows had played by the creek. The autumn fields were the gold we made. Old people died in their beds, and where their bodies were buried, an orchard would grow, where children slept in summer’s breeze. The Saintly Gentleman smiled and made an approving sign in the air.
The Saintly Gentleman had come from one of the lower balconies of the Pyramid. Only Saints were permitted through the entrances. Only Saints were permitted and able to follow the bloodied scarf - the Queen’s Way. He once was a lowly man who climbed the marble and found a balcony of his own. Now, he came with silk tents and down pillows. From whence the feather had come from, I could not say. There were no more birds in the black desert. We welcomed his gifts, for we no longer made things. We only sung, danced, and acted in farces for the fancies of his likes. He attended many of my sister’s performances. This time, he was very pleased. He was so pleased that he promised her that if she were to do even better, then he would take her into the Pyramid and trace their ascent along that stained scarf. She would be by his side on his balcony, where she was privy to greater riches and a place in the Queen’s court. She would be part of the long line of succession. They would chant her name as they never did mine.
She made him say that I would be allowed to accompany her into the Pyramid. He nodded. I have witnessed this exchange between my sister and the man so many times that I started to notice how it has taken on the tempo and temperament of the floating melody itself. A fact of life.
Later, I stood guard outside their tent under the Pyramid’s shadow. I contemplated where the light was coming from if there was no sun in that pink sky. The horizon stretched far into the pink mist, behind which no world existed. My eyes went to the black sand underneath my feet, then upward the glistening white marble. Brown streaked across its perfect surface, so many. Behind me, a silent duet of moans and sighs made audible the song I felt. My ghost hand itches.
*
My sister was born under the cool shade of that great edifice and these rosy skies. She was born with the song already in her cries. She had no memory of hunger or thirst or pain. It was a world of comfortable numbness, one that left her with only a sense of longing. Mother said that this little girl was incomplete, just like the rest of us. Queen Theodora had also lacked a part of herself that could only be found atop the Pyramid, and so, too, would my sister one day be Queen. She had the gift. Mother never had the chance to see her grow up. She had perished on the marble, chasing after her own strivings.
The girl had taken a great interest in our mother’s climb. She wanted to know all the different ways to get up those stairs and which stake or rope was the best kind. When I told her about who our mother was before, she would not listen. That world had nothing for her. It had nothing for me or anyone either. Over time, I, too, had a hard time imagining when people had things to do, things other than climbing or slowly going insane with desires unfulfilled. Those who climbed and survived their falls no longer had the capacity to hoist themselves up a rope. The mad stalked the Pyramid’s endless foot.
I did not let her climb the marble. The only time she defied me, I had caught her with my only hand and pulled her down onto the ground. She screamed curses at me then cried until her body could not renew her tears fast enough. Even the floating melody could not heal that emptiness inside of her. I carried her through the hateful crowd. I knew they saw two pariahs who defiled the marble with their cowardice. Maybe she, too, resented my interference. Maybe she thought of me as a decrepit burden.
I would hold her and sing for her, and she would close her eyes and picture those high up balconies, a chamber of her own, far away from the screaming crowd. I would kiss her forehead and know that one day, she would don a crown upon these brows. I understood what my mother had said. The Queen’s own resolve could not have been greater than this little creature’s. My will could not be as great or as strong as hers. Evidently, my crippled state and servitude testified to my inability. I could not climb, and no Saint would give me grace. I bided my time for her. When she came into glory, I would be by her side, my insights at her disposal. For now, she would ascend by another way.
When she had calmed, my sister would tell me if we stayed any longer, the black sand would one day eat us also, and the only place we could go was up.
3.
My sister disappeared. I had lost her in the madness. I waded through the crowd, but they shoved me to the ground and trampled on me. They were singing, their frail bodies swayed to the name Theo-do-ra, Theo-do-ra, Theo-do-ra. Each sung louder than the last, and the quietest ones were dragged off screaming. It was all the same melody. There was lust in their eyes, and its color was pink. Before them, the bonfire towered. Its pink flame licked at the marble. Linen, silk, wool, red ivory, ebony, all stacked as high as the eyes could see, all cracking and disintegrating into thick, swirling plumes. They would never be content with the Pyramid’s gifts, and so they offered its riches back in flames, renewing their reverence.
The Saintly Gentleman had said something egregious at the closing ceremony. I could hardly remember what, only that his words were construed to mean that the Queen did not deserve her place in the Pyramid. Someone in the crowd had retorted, and another joined them. Soon, there was a choir of uproar. Whether or not he had meant it, they had already denounced him of treason, of a weakness in spirit. Weakness. If there was one who did not deserve his station, the crowd had already swarmed on him. The ceremony turned into a bloodbath. It was an opportunity to wash away his sins from the crowd’s minds. The person who spoke first was now triumphantly swinging in the air, feet darting across the marble, rope around her waist, arms out like an eagle, a manic grin on her face. Hordes of adoring admirers sang her names.
Through a forest of feet and legs, I crawled. I crawled to where the light was brightest, where the singing was loudest. I called my sister’s name, and my words were punctuation to their chorus.
At the bonfire, the old women were throwing the hacked up pieces of the Saintly Gentleman’s body into the pink flame. His head shrieked its silent horror; no air passed his throat. One more empty balcony, one more dream to strive for. He who came bringing the Queen’s graces was now a sacrifice to her name. His flesh went up in smoke, and our hope went up with him.
Next to the pile of meat, my sister kneeled. Next to her were other boys and girls with heads lolling to one side, unable to pass into unconsciousness. A butcher and his assistant stood by, their cleavers dripping with blood. My sister’s blood. Where the cruel metal had touched, the wounds were already closing. They could have put an end to her suffering, but they needed her alive until their lust was through. The crowd sang curses at them. One of the old women found me in the ground and dragged me out into the open. The crowd chanted her name, their new hero of the moment. My only hand was fastened to my waist, and they kneeled me next to my sister, where we were subjected to accusations of lasciviousness, of complacency, of conspiracy, of impurity. Her hair was matted with crusting blood and sand. Her eyes gave no recognition.
Then, a wet, sickening crunch. A spark. She knew me. She knew my horror, the same horror I saw in her eyes. Her blood dyed the desert a deeper shade. Her headless body fell to the ground, legs still kicking. The cleaver went down again, and her body stopped its struggle. Her head opened its lips and spoke. Nothing. The sand began swallowing her, that little girl. I could not be in this world without her. No, I could not. I launched myself forward to her side, wanting nothing more than to sink into the desert and be buried in the abyss with my sister. The butcher lumbered towards me, and his cleaver came down.
A numbing buzz shot through my arm, up my shoulder, and into my spine. Suddenly, lightness. Freed. I swung at the butcher and felt his leathery neck open, opening into warm flesh. His blood ran down the stump of my forearm. I withdrew and saw where his cut was clean through, the bone had become a spike, free from bondage. He gasped, eyes wide. Red bubbles foamed at his wound. I stabbed my arm in there again, this time quicker, deeper, and more hateful. Hate. Hate. Hate. Nothing in that hole in my heart but hate, now. I hated him until he was a lump on the ground, dyed red from hate. And then, I hated him more.
The old women surrounded me, and with them were a few young men. I kicked at them, shrieking. I was as good as dead, and this fate had awakened me to a new sensation, a new way of being. I was an animal. The sight of someone so wild woke them up from their painless haze also, if only for a short moment. But it was enough for me to dive, bite a mouthful of hair and sand, and take off with my sister’s head bobbing against my chest. They were all around us, singing, cursing, spitting. There was nowhere to run to. I could not think. I had only my instincts, so I ran to the only place where hope had been.
As the fire engulfed me, I felt my skin peel and my body go numb. I crashed into the stack of burning treasures. It toppled into the crowd, and they dispersed. The young ones who never knew pain stood engrossed in the dancing flames while it slowly ate away at their bodies. The older ones knew to run, for they knew their numbness to pain would be their deaths. Wrapped in a burning cloth, I launched through their ranks like a fireball. Smoke filled my lungs. What was left of my arm clutched my sister. I felt her voiceless screams against my ribs.
When the fabric had faded into bits of ash, the crowd chased after us. Our skin was blackened and crisp, leaving pinkish flakes on the sand. Our hair had burnt away. My eyes saw only the color of seared flesh and frantic shadows, and the only shadow that I kept sprinting towards was the largest, as if driven by the instinct to disintegrate along with the rest of my being. The ornate entrance loomed larger and larger.
*
Part of the ceiling had caved on top of our pursuers. The rest stood by in awe, not able to comprehend fully that the sacred edifice could crumble like so. I could not believe it myself. With a trembling foot, I touched, then kicked at the rubble to feel that it was real. What had been forever should have stayed forever. I thought we must have trespassed, and Theodora had punished us. We had somehow escaped, but that meant we would perish to the labyrinth’s depths, the same depths that had driven so many mad and mute.
I sat down on the granite floor and clutched my sister’s blackened head. I looked at the pile of rubble, and saw blood pooling in its crevices. That violent vitality had subsided like a tide, and left in its wake were the bitter ruins of what I used to be. Images of a life under a thatched roof were so far away now. Only the Pyramid’s dark chasms remained. I had forgotten my mother’s lullabies, for all songs were now one.
I sobbed out of pity for myself. Where my tears flowed, my flesh closed, and its colors returned. When the tears were gone and my sight returned, I looked at her head and saw that she was calm. Firm. Cruel. The burnt holes in her cheeks were healing. Where long, beautiful lashes were, only a steely gaze remained. Her eyes darted wildly to one side, directing me to look. I looked, squinting at the dark corner.
And then, I saw it, as though it had slithered into reality - a stretch of something soft and ethereal, laid on the ground but never seemed to touch it. The bloodied scarf. Those who were not chosen could not follow the Queen’s Way. But it showed itself to us. We were chosen to ascend, to brave the journey that Theodora once took. My sister’s mouth was moving rapidly, repeating slowly and forcefully a few syllables.
... Queen. Make me Queen. Make me Queen. Make me...
I nodded. She would be Queen. And when she was Queen, her heart would fill the holes in that hateful throng, and our souls would be whole again. Nothing short of the throne-in-the-sky would suffice. I felt my stump itch, and I gazed upon the arm that had become a stake, a knife, a spear for which to right all wrongs. With this stake made of my own flesh, I would ascend those obsidian stairs and kill a god, as I have always intended. I would kill Theodora and usher in a new age.
4.
The bloodied scarf rested along our way like the shed skin of a terrible, endless snake. With each step I took, doubt congealed inside me. Would a Queen be so foolish, to let into her house her would-be assassins? Perhaps that was the way of things. Any ascent would come with torture and violence, if not on the hard marble then within its labyrinth. Only the daring, the deserving, the hopeful would survive. Was that not why our hearts were so empty so that we may dream higher dreams? Was that not why we could not sleep so all these dreams would always be vivid? I did not tell my sister about these thoughts. Her mind could not be clouded if she would one day reign. Theodora had her gift, and now, she had given it to her.
The stairs were long and full of turns and forks, and the walls echoed the people’s clamor, now as light and conspiratorial as whispers, mirroring my own heart. Their unfulfilled wants haunted these very bricks, these very stones. Those bygone days receded into the hallways behind me, growing larger and more ravenous the deeper I went, and the ceiling was the color of a sky we had forgotten. I felt strangely understood in this place. Spurred on by these shared miseries, I climbed and climbed with my sister’s head snug within the nook of my elbow. Even with torches lining most walls, one could never see the end of their paths. At every corner and twist, the way would reveal yet more stairs. It seemed to go in circles, sometimes. At other times, the scarf led us into a dark hole in the wall, where sharp edges sliced at my feet. Whenever I sat down to rest and to let my wounds knit themselves shut, I would turn my sister’s head toward our path upward. When I saw that she was smiling, I would kiss that bald scalp that used to wear a crown of golden silk. Her spirit was unburnt.
We did not know how much time had passed or how much more we would have to climb; we only knew the sound of my feet upon the hard, black glass. They were sopping with blood. I felt no pain, only comfort in their rhythm, now that they beat to the song that the walls hummed and the fire crackled. Soon, we saw gentle rays of light flowing through some unseen opening. My sister held her mouth agape, eyes welling with bliss.
A Saintly Woman greeted us and offered us rest in her chamber. Light streamed into her balcony, and rolls of silk and wool piled all around. Their colors were so strange to my eyes that I started to get dizzy and had to turn away out of fear of stumbling and falling down those steep glass stairs. My sister’s eyes were dreamy, hypnotized. The woman was all smiles, but I understood that behind those marble-white teeth hid a slithering tongue. She would tie a cord of silk around my neck while I slept and dash my sister’s head at the Pyramid’s incline. After all, she would not trust a new Queen to give her as much as the old one. What good was a rest if I would never again climb? I refused her offer, turned away from her halls of fabric, and continued following the bloodied rags.
Then, we came across another Saint who lived in a chamber of gold and jewels. It was dazzling. Light danced wherever we looked. Every column was adorned with stones of a hundred shining facets. Every golden cabinet was overflowing with necklaces and chains the likes we have never seen. My sister gaped at the sight. The Saint offered to give us as much of his treasures as our hearts desired, much more than any lower-rung Saint has ever brought down to the desert, all courtesy of Queen Theodora. I knew that anything we carried would weigh us down and made our journey that much more perilous. I knew accepting his gifts would change nothing. Once again, I refused and continued on our way.
The further we climbed, the more people we met. We knew each of them by name, for those were the names that were chanted in songs and were the heroes of stories told to children squatting on the sable sand. We named our children after them. We played out farces to imitate their deeds. We climbed the marble through paths that they have taken once, holding in our hearts their examples so that we may be emboldened by their gifts also. We went by so many other balconies. Some held cages with little creatures that we no longer remembered. Some overflowed with grains that the Saints could not turn to bread. These were the things we used to make but no longer. We could only dream about having them. I spoke to my sister about how things used to be. Her face showed little interest. The higher we climbed, the more I recognized the sights.
When my feet were tattered scraps of skin on bones, I stopped before a dark chamber. It had no balcony. Only dim torchlight lit its halls. It had nothing save for a crude, wooden chair. I squinted. The flickering glow seemed to make shadows dance around the walls. If shadows could be said to have countenances, these were familiar ones. I could not say if I saw anything, or if the formless nature of this sight had awakened memories long buried away, slumbering deep inside the hole inside my heart. I saw my mother on that chair, with that same way she wore her hair, that same way her dress flowed before they grew tattered in the sand. She sang. It was a different song. It was something I had heard in a dream, when we still dreamt in earnest, long before sleep eluded us. I placed my sister’s head on the stone and stroked it in reassurance. Then, I entered that room where memories have been unearthed.
*
From the dark, my mother reached out to me, and I was her child once again. I could see her calloused hand tremble in the dim light, beckoning. I reached out and took her fingers between my own two hands, and a sensation long thought forgotten coursed through me. I recognized my own fingertips, those that were lost for so long, those that were smashed upon those white marbles and buried under the swallowing sand.
I remembered what was mine. The texture of warm skin, of scratchy cloth, of hard implements, of sticky sweat. I smelled the sweetness of fertile earth and of herbs hung high on spokes and tasted salt in my tears. The tears I swallowed showed where my throat was parched.
She wrapped a blanket around me, and I knew that I had been freezing. I rested a head on her shoulder. My stomach rumbled. It was so empty. The winter had been long, and we were lucky to have scraps. Embracing her, I could not see her face, but I felt her smile all the same, filling that empty longing deep inside. I had spent years climbing, it felt like, all to find my way back to her, as a wayward child found a familiar roof. Perhaps I was delirious. Perhaps this was the Pyramid’s gift - home, what we no longer made with each other. The only thought I had was that my sister could finally see for herself what was missing all along.
I told my mother that I had brought my sister home. She remained still. I waited for her reply. The light outside the door dimmed, as though to retreat from what was about to happen. I told her that I would not stay. She gripped my hand, and I flinched. I pulled my hand away, stumbling backward. I had no hand for her to hold on to. There was only a sharpened stump and a missing arm. She stood up from her chair and glided into a far, obscured corner of the chamber. I called out to her. A quiet humming. I said her name again. It was clearer, now, the floating melody. Where she had gone, a reddish light began to shine. The color... the color was like an old, lost friend, too familiar, too strange. It was a heavy hue, deeper than the sky’s sickening pink, deeper than shadows, deeper than the muddy color of blood, almost as deep as the sable desert itself. It was the light that I saw whenever I closed my eyes and thought of the days when I could sleep. Only, my eyes were wide now. I followed her, tiny feet tapping to the song.
Standing there against the wall, now bright with a hearth of burning crimson, was the headless body of a young girl. Against the fire, its frail silhouette looked like a kind of withered plant. The thin robe flowed from its bony shoulders down to the floor. Deep, gaping scars and mismatched limbs revealed themselves to me, illuminated by that red fire. My little sister’s body. It looked all wrong, like it was shoddily put back together, but I knew it to be hers. It had followed us all this way without us knowing. It beckoned me. I told it again that I would not stay. The cadaver took slow steps towards me. My legs were frozen. I pointed my sharpened forearm bone at it, commanding it to stay back.
Then I heard it, the song now clear, loud, magnificent, as though every instrument my fevered mind could conjure up was playing in beautiful unison. It was singing to me, and my heart fluttered. I stood transfixed to the song, and my heart once again filled with longing, as though I had awakened from a dream and remembered the inadequacies of the waking world. It took my stump in one hand and led me towards the red hearth, where the fire reached out at us like so many tentacles, forming and dissipating by its own desires.
When we approached the light, I saw clearly wounds, the cracks, the brokenness of what had once been dear to me. I felt my fibers swell with anger and hatred. I felt disgust at what could never be mended. I repeated weakly that I would not stay in this place. Then, in the crackling of the fire, I heard the words to that song in my heart for the very first time, but they were so natural to the melody that all words thereof would lose their vitality.
This is not a place to stay, for you have yet more to climb. With all your yearnings, your feet will take you far yet.
In desolate sands, while others waste away, your soul grows and thrives, feeding on dreams of what once was and will be. You remember cold, hunger, thirst, and love. These are the riches that they have forgotten, that they no longer make.
You alone can restore what was lost. You alone can give the people back what their hearts were missing.
What good is a Queen who remembered nothing of the songs of the birds, the trickling of streams, the cool winds of harvest?
What good is a Queen who knew only of the great shadow over her head, of blood upon the marble?
What good is a Queen whose desires measure not more than that of a magpie's for jewelry?
What good is a head without a heart?
Out of the rest, you remember. Your own two feet brought you here.
You alone have the gift.
You alone will sit in the throne-in-the-sky.
5.
I did not tell my sister what I saw in that dark chamber. When I emerged, she was there waiting, head propped up against the limestone wall. Her eyes stared deep into mine, and I could only look away. Then, I noticed that the entrance behind me had disappeared, as though it never existed, as though I never left. So, in silence, we continued our way up the winding stairs and cavernous halls, following the Queen’s Way. I said nothing, for anything I said would be a betrayal to her. I clenched my jaws to not let treachery escape.
Blood would flow from the marble. The people would continue their farces and slaughter to please the Queen’s vanity. The insanity would continue. No tree, no bird, no flower but the endless stretches of black sand, as endless and black as these stairs. And I would sit on a balcony of my own, wallowing in a distant childhood that was half imagination. I alone would thirst, would hunger, would love a Queen who could not be loved. There, I would await the day when my treasonous thoughts were unearthed and laid bare for the masses to see. They would denounce me for the heretic that I was. My sister would have the Saints build me a pyre, where I would burn with our last physical vestiges of our humanity. Or, some brave, enterprising soul might find their way up my balcony and drag me to my doom before the Queen had to lift even a finger. I realized that all this time, I had grown too accustomed to treasonous thoughts.
My sister’s eyes were closed. She was calm. She could feel this dreadful future of ours closing in, step by step up the black stairs. We were at the precipice now.
In front of us, the ceiling curved upward so high that it had become a sky of its own. The distance between walls widened, and the steps stretched further on all sides. It was as if I had shrunken. There in the distance, pink light pouring through a massive portal. Having grown accustomed to the narrow and dark climb, I could not have conceived of something this massive could be housed within the Pyramid’s top.
I was very afraid, now. During the climb, fear hid in obscure recesses of my mind, and I moved like a scurrying animal, feeling only the forward impetus of my insticts. But when before my eyes, the Pyramid had revealed its true grandeur, I knew what it was to be very small and feeble. My knees had weakened so much that I was on the verge of collapse. My footfalls were no longer cushioned on flesh but scraped against hard, exposed bones. Behind me was a trail of glistening gore, tracing along the bloodied scarf. I wanted nothing more than to sit down, even if I knew that it would be my final rest. The image of my withered corpse disgusted me, to have traveled so far and met such a pathetic fate. I recalled my fall, hand slipping from the iron stake, the gaping chasm that opened beneath me, the.. the...
I had given up on the climb once before, having only lost an arm. Was an arm enough reason for a life of animal humility? Was an arm the reason I waited outside that dog’s tent while he defiled my sister, my charge, simply because I had given up? My weakness angered me. So weak. Worthless, worthless, worthless. What good were dreams if they did not stir me to life? But when my body was so thoroughly broken, only a dim, hateful fire moved those legs of mine.
After a while, all I saw was a soothing pink light. The portal was so large that it engulfed me, even if I had never crossed it. I was high in the sky, above it all. The walls and ceilings were gone. Only that hard, sable glass under my feet remained. My arm trembled, its pointed end entirely unready to slay a god. It was so bright, now.
*
I did not see Theodora. I touched the marble surface of the throne. Smooth and translucent like flesh, only it was cold. It was a thing of simple angles, carved into the white wall behind it. But it couldn’t have been carved. The wall was so vast and uniform, it seemed as if the throne had emerged from the wall itself. I looked around and saw lonely shadows flickering in the light. If the Queen was somewhere close, she did not sit on her throne. The only thing that indicated the Queen’s presence was the loose end of the bloodied scarf, resting on the black floor like a limp, headless snake.
My sister’s eyes were wide, and her mouth moved incessantly. Commands, I realized. She was barking silent commands at me from the nook of my elbow. She wanted me to place her on the throne. I caressed her bald scalp. It used to wear a crown of gold, now it was bare skin, just like any other head on those spikes, with rheumy eyes and a desperate look on its face. She was so weak that her commands carried no sound. How would she sing? How could she lead the masses to a new world? She was glaring now. She understood my hesitation.
I leaned down to kiss her head. I tried to say her name. I could not, for I did not recall it. It did not matter anymore. She was no longer special. Perhaps she never was. I tried to remember why I had loved her so much, but I saw only a blaze whose red was as deep and heavy as the night. Night. One of the things we’ve lost, but I could still see that sublime shade whenever I closed my eyes and saw through my lid, my vein, that massive, swirling red of night. Yes, it was one of the few remnants of my past. My mother was gone, now. My sister had my mother’s face, and so I had clung to her. But she did not know of the long crimson nights. She did not know of this gift I’ve brought into the Pyramid, this gift that had compelled it to squash my enemies and showed me the way into its heart, where I would sing a new song.
Her jaw was snapping and biting, and tears were streaming down her cheeks when I placed her head down on to the obsidian floor. Then, finally, I took my rightful place on the throne-in-the-sky.
6.
I waited for change to come. The stone was hard against my back, nothing like the soft, coddling sand. I saw that the path I’ve walked was no longer visible. Its steps stretched far into the hazy distance; only I remembered enough to illuminate the shrouded past. I tried to recount my ascent, and the thoughts oozed out from my head and reverberated from unseen walls, like an ethereal hymn of my own.
Somewhere, I sensed an answer. A thousand voices rejoiced. My eyes welled. Was this finally it? I recalled the scent of herbs, of wheat bales, of sweat. The thoughts echoed, and again, I heard the sound of a thousand stirring awake, stirring to a hunger and longing that had always been theirs. Steadily, a rhythm emerged, then a melody, then the texture and detail of a song. I was singing it to my people, and they were singing that they loved me. At last, joyous rapture was here, stolen into reality like a thief. All my doubt had passed away with a roaring, fiery song, burning away what would not be my destiny; my rights were now laid bare for all to bask.
I sang louder, and all manners of forgotten joys surfaced from the foggy pink depth that had clouded our minds. I sang of humanity, and the people sang that they craved it. Each one of their words was alight with ecstasy. I moaned and sighed and convulsed and melted into the marble throne. I could feel so much, see so much, know so much. Pleasure coursed through my veins and bled out from my pores. I could barely look through my own eyes, because now, I was seeing all that the Pyramid’s shadow touched.
I saw columns of flame. I saw torn carcasses sinking into the sand. I saw the baying throng, among whom I’ve been a pariah. I saw a forest of iron-gored heads with faces orgasmically hollowed out by those wondrous visions that I am giving them. I saw, for the first time in forever, a clear sky and a rolling sun casting night-red over all domains, and pain returned to numb bodies, just as it had under the blood-sun of the past. The Pyramid was their sun, now. They screamed and cried and laughed and danced and squirmed on the sand, overcome with sensations they thought forgotten or never even knew. Pitiful, I gave myself to them, and a hundred skyward cracks opened in the marble surface.
They swarmed into these new entrances. They climbed atop one another. They screamed that each was more deserving than the last. They tore each other to bloody shreds. They flooded the halls and up the stairs, pushing each other so tightly that bodies were ground into pulp, and every crevice drank from that liquid where desires bubbled. Some found nooks and cracks to fit themselves into, and those, too, would be pushed so tight that they became as stone themselves. Cries of desperation, reaching for heaven, reaching for God. Thousands of dogs, blessed by my grace.
My sister’s head was chewing its own tongue, intent to consume itself before her wounds closed. But she could not do it fast enough before she was overcome with pain and left a panting, twisting, squealing ball of despair. I could feel her so clearly, so utterly broken by the exquisite, the sublime. Pain. Pain. Pain had returned. Humanity had returned to her as it did to all. And the riches, the pleasures, the reckoning of their souls could wait no more.
I closed my eyes but could not, for there were no eyes to close. I moved my arms, but there were no arms. Only white marble. I tried to stand, and my foundations quaked. The person who sat on the throne was no more. That person had sunken into the marble. That person was everything, and that person would be even more.
The black, desolate desert slipped away like a rug or veil. The sky and winds slithered all around the Pyramid. The sun made streaks of red across the sky, like blood flowing on the marble. New horizons were endlessly tearing themselves into sight and vanished just as quickly. The entire world was moving while the marble edifice lay still. And while it lay still, its bowels were gnashing, hungering, murderous with growing despair. I felt everything that happened in these halls as I did my own flesh, for they were the same fibers in my own mortal bodies. My people were now the stones, the steps, the marble. And if my missing arm had itched its phantom longing, then all the appetites that lived in these very walls screeched and echoed through the labyrinth’s boundless depths.
... more more more more more more...
All sensations were those of deprivation. I knew only one impetus: to satiate the emptiness inside my people’s souls. The Pyramid had drank their bodies as the desert drank the dead, and now that their thirst was subsumed, the Pyramid also thirsted. I thirsted.
I could see it now, appearing in the fast approaching horizon, as fast as a thought of my own. A vast, fertile land. Birds tittered. Thriving towns. Here, a farmer toiled. There, two children ran across a meadow of blooms. Green fields. Sweat on the soil. Warm hearths. Memories of love. These would be my gift to the Pyramid. The old women who was sitting on their porches singing would look up and see for the first time the holy edifice. They would kneel and weep as their sky curdled red, and a different melody would be in their hearts, beating to the syllables of the name of GOD.
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