To Live Among Men

As the smell of his vomit filled the room, he looked at the two naked wenches sprawled next to him on the bed. He could care less what they would think when they woke up to the smell, as well as that of the urine and waste he would leave in the chamber pot. Women like these, who would lay down with a man after a simple wink and pinch, deserved no respect.

Phian wiped his mouth on the bed sheets. He rinsed the foul taste and chunks from his mouth with last night's wine, and spit it on the floor. He walked over to the window of the room, stretching his arms wide, feeling the cool morning air on his naked chest. Phian had the body of a lover of women, lean and muscled. He shaved his face every day, and his chest as well, to keep everything smooth when bodies collided.

The bell of the town church rang, calling people to prayer. Phian watched the Hramvi hurry to services. The men were dressed in their black robes, with well combed beards adorning their faces. Their long hair, tied back, was the only nice attribute Phian had in common with these people. The women, with heads covered by colored scarves, always wore dresses, simple and down to the ankles. Phian always thought it was a shame these women did not show their calves, like sensual women.

He watched for several minutes. An idea came to him, one he had never thought of. He knew what he was going to do today.

Most of the Hram women waited until marriage until they experienced intimate love. And if there was no marriage, they would steal away to a convent. Phian wondered if he could indeed steal one for himself, some innocent woman, insecure, in need of some attention. Such a woman would be forever shamed, and just as a flower uprooted would soon die. Phian did not care. There were flowers everywhere.

He dressed. He made sure the top of his shirt was open just enough to seem inviting, but closed enough to give the impression of modesty. With his silk pants on, then his brown leather boots, he pulled his hair back with a leather cord as he thought of his plan. Teeth scraped, smelling nice, looking nice, he was every bit the image of an interested convert.

Phian stepped out the door, when he chuckled and turned around and went back into the room. He forgot to leave his goodbye present in the chamber pot.

He used the bed instead. It took too much effort to squat.

Standing in the small church, Phian casually looked over to his left, where the women were. They were all praying, heads bowed, the only movement being deep sighs and sporadic pleading looks to the a'ino, with the colored figures of the Hram saints painted on them. Phian sneered. This was not going to be fun at all.

There was one woman, Phian noticed, who did not pray like the others. She looked around, fidgeted with her nails, brushed her hair back and generally looked bored. Phian had his flower. Now, to pluck it at just the right time. He began to make his way over to the back of the church, where he could catch her at the right time.

The doors in the front and center of the church, which hid the inner sanctuary, opened. Phian stopped and looked, and was blinded by light flooding out. He closed his eyes, and shook his head. When he opened them again, he saw it was just normal candle light.

"Too much wine," he whispered.

The priest came out of the doors, a jeweled volume of the Hramvi Tome of Light in hand. The book was smaller than Phian had imagined, long and wide but not very thick. Its cover was a frame of white gold accentuated with rubies and emeralds. He knew he could not approach the bored woman with the priest standing there, so he waited.

"Let every eye attend to the Immortal Light!" the priest exclaimed. The Hramvi bowed their heads even lower, something Phian thought was impossible to do.

The priest read from the Tome, his voice singing a melody of variations accentuating what Phian assumed was important for the Hramvi to hear. As the priest went on, Phian began to pay closer attention, until he was consumed by the melody and the teaching.

". . . and it came to pass, after the Three dwelt within and dwelt in Heaven, the Second bowed his head and lamented, 'I am not fit to live among men.' And the other of the Three said with one accord, 'Thus is it pleasing to the Divinity for men to think, for in It's presence, purity reveals impurity, and incorruption corruption. . ."

The priest continued his chanting, but Phian heard nothing else. He needed nothing else. The entire church was engulfed in a great flash of light. The a'ino became torches of this pure radiance, and the Hramvi were pillars of pure fire. And where the altar was, there were angels of many wings spreading fire as they flew. Phian was in a state of rapture, of ecstasy. His mind, his heart, his flesh was pure, was incorrupt, and nothing he had ever experienced compared with this holy pleasure.

"I am the Second," a voice said. It was a voice of purity, without passion, without indifference, but righteous love.

Phian cried from the voice, for its sound struck into his deep heart. The ecstasy vanished, and he saw his ugliness, how he was a destroyer of lives, and now stood before perfection as some disease.

"You are not fit to live among men," the voice said. "Go."

Phian fell to his knees, trying to hide his face in light beneath him. He was lifted up, and looked upon the light and the angels in the altar once more.

"Go," the voice said. The word struck into Phian's heart again, and the ecstasy resumed, pounding purity with every single heart beat. And he knew, he saw his life before him, and he went forth into the light.

Phian found himself walking towards the river. He couldn't remember when he left the church, or how he got here. One minute he was standing in light, surrounded by the pillars of fire, and the next he was outside of town. He stopped himself. He needed to go back, to gather his things and say goodbye, at least repent before those he had hurt. But as he turned, the pleasure of his heartbeat began to fade. He ran towards the river. He did not want to lose this feeling.

Phian approached the ferry. There stood the ferryman up ahead, wide brimmed hat and loose fitting leather clothes, surrounded by clucking chickens and a braying mule. The ferryman waved. Phian waved back, and as he did so, he heard the Second once more.

"You are not fit to live among men."

Phian panicked, his mind racing to find a way away from such all encompassing power, but even then he felt guilty for these thoughts, for the heart beat of ecstasy began to fade. It was his reward for pleasing the Second, and his punishment for disobeying. His mind sped faster than his feet as he thought of how to please the Second with every thought.

I am not fit to live among men I am not fit to live among men I am not fit to live among men I am not fit to live among men I am not fit to live among men . . .

He could think of nothing else.

Phian ran away from the ferry. He ran south, and when he was exhausted and his lungs about to burst, he fell down weeping.

He prayed, eyes sealed and face in the mud. He only came up when he couldn't breathe. He went to the water's edge, and stuck in his face to clean it off. He felt a something strike him in his back, and the cold river embrace him. Phian floundered in the water until he reached the surface. Carried down stream, beaten against rocks, he was thrown to the river's edge like unwanted refuse. Pulling himself out of the water and onto land, he took off his torn and soaked clothes, and shivered as dark clouds covered the sun.

He could not stop crying. Tears mixed with the falling rain, and the cold wind blew against his naked and wet body no matter what tree or rock or ledge he tried to hide behind. He would have gone mad, would have ended his life, if it wasn't for the pleasure embracing his heart.

Finding no protection against the wrath of nature, and fearing the wrath of the Second and the Light, he wandered through the forest. All night until early morning he suffered, and fell exhausted when the sun rose.

For his first year alone with nothing but the pleasure of his beating heart, Phian wept much. He mourned for his sins, for his callousness and heartlessness, for the way he treated women, how he used them and others for his own pleasure, always disrespecting their value as persons with human souls. He fought the memories of wanton acts of lust and disregard for decency. Some acts, when he remembered them, were now so heinous in his mind, he would stare at them mentally, like a frightened child watching horrific scenes being played out by puppets, unable to stop the scene or turn his head away.

Phian ate what he could. Berries, roots, the occasional fruit he ate as he foraged. Hunger, before never experienced, soon took hold of him. Months passed before the desire for full, hot meals was replaced with acceptance of his circumstances.

He slept where he fell. He tried to find some place to call home, some hole or cave or forest glen, but the wild animals always took this from him, as if saying Phian was not fit to live with them, either.

Phian took to wandering. He became familiar with the stars, with the habits of the forest creatures, by trial and error how to tell which foods would make one sick and which would curb hunger. One morning, watching deer walk softly by him, he noticed how they ate the grass and leaves. He bent down, taking a bite of grass. Bitter in his mouth, still he forced himself to eat. In Phian's eyes he was a beast. He deserved nothing better. So he ate grass, grazing like a wild animal, treating himself to berries when he should come across them.

When the pleasure of his beating heart would begin to subside, Phian prayed and wept, for the loss of this consolation would make his life unbearable. Without noticing, he came to a point of constantly praying, always repenting of sins and offering thanks for the little pleasures given in his harsh life. Praying became his companion, his friend. Phian talked to Tirdan Seir, the only name he had ever heard the Quiet Light called by the Hramvi, and always asked help for those he had hurt. The Light would not talk back, save through increased ecstasy in Phian's heart when he burned with remorse and compassion for the suffering he had caused.

Struggling to live as he did, until it became natural, time lost meaning. The rising and setting of the sun meant less to Phian than the rhythm of his heart. He followed his heart, for it never led him astray and always consoled. Was it years or decades before he saw another human face? Phian did not know. He only knew they would not leave him alone, that he was tied and taken, and as one who was not fit to live among men, he was being punished by the Second in being forced to leave his repentance in bonds and by force. Phian could have spoken, explained himself. Being unfit to live among men, however, made him unfit to talk to them. Besides, it would have been a betrayal of the Light, after all they had been through together.

The asylum was a clean place, full of madmen dirtied by their own waste as they screamed at invisible, torturous enemies. There was no place for Phian to hide and be alone with his heartbeat. He stayed in a corner of the massive day room, a wide open place where the madmen spent most of their time, and would leave when approached by the suffering ones.

He never stopped scanning the floor for grass, even though the stone under his feet was lifeless. They gave him meat to eat, but he would not touch it. Even the vegetables were wrong in his mouth, the taste of cooked food leaving behind a certain unease once swallowed. There were plants in the day room, and when no one was looking he would eat the leaves, though once he was caught he was beaten, and he was no longer able to have a proper meal.

He never stopped praying, and stayed awake all night with Tirdan Seir, for it was their only time alone together. He repented for not repenting enough, knees becoming sore on the unfamiliar stone floor as he knelt in quiet converse with his God. Phian was not fit to live among men, but was forced to be in their midst.

"Please," he prayed, "allow me to repent once again."

One morning one of the madmen approached him, yelling curses, spittle attacking Phian's face. The madmen screamed, and his face transformed, a bestial, grotesque image taking over right before Phian's eyes. It was a shaemon. Phian punched the shaemon, yelling at the enemy of the Light. The madman fell, nose broken, while Phian watched the Shadow flee to another. The madman clasped Phian's feet.

"Thank you! Thank you saint of the Light! I am healed!"

Phian never saw the man again, for he was put in his own room, alone and away from the others so that he might hurt no one again. Phian rejoiced.

The nurses of the asylum came to him one night, and held his arms down. They pulled his head back and forced a funnel into his mouth. Phian kept conversing with the Light. The sticky liquid was warm going down, though it burned his throat. He kept praying. Slowly, the liquid did its job. Phian felt calm at first, then sleepy. His arms grew stiff. He tried to think, to pray but even his mind had been robbed from him. Phian cried out. Only a whimper came forth. Tears would not come. He searched for his heart, but could hear nothing. He searched hard, but the strain of even this exhausted him. Phian lay there, dead though alive.

In the morning they took him to the day room. They walked him there, for he could barely move on his own. A chair was provided, and he was forced to sit in front of the puppet show. They fed him by hand. They bathed him, trimmed his beard and hair, and would only sometimes protect him from the madmen in the room, who would punch and spit on him when in their insanity they viewed Phian as the source of their problems, or when the shaemon decided to get revenge with the bodies they had overtaken.

Day after day after day Phian suffered, unable to move, unable to think, unable to pray. They always gave him the liquid, and always he felt emotion, sadness being the strongest, but never could he express it.

After summer and winter exchanged places too many times to count, after what seemed like eternity, he felt his heart beating. Tears came. The pleasure, the ecstasy returned. He smiled, he wept with gratitude. He looked around the room, and it was light. It was not filled with light. It did not become light. It was light. He stood, and saw the many winged angels beckoning him, and he embraced them. Phian was forgiven, they said. For Phian, these words made his life now have meaning.

The nurses found him dead, head rolled to the side, tongue hanging out. They shook their heads, pitying another madman dead in his delusion. But blind as they were, they could not see that he who was unfit to live among men, was now brother of the angels.

When the new madmen are brought to the asylum, the nurses say, though they don't know why, that another soul has come here to perfect repentance.

The End.