…not every creation can be one of beauty…

Maybe not, but when beauty is created, it is always born from violence—that in itself is a horrifying reality to accept.

I’m proof of this. A beautiful creation fashioned by the sharpest blade of violent cruelty.

When my muse does arrive, she will come to me in this same, beautifully violent way.

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APOLLONIAN & DIONYSIAN DICHOTOMY

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KALLUM: NOW

If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

The infamous verse cited by a mad philosopher has been pondered over by scholars for more than a century. Just what is the meaning behind Friedrich Nietzsche’s yawning abyss?

Is it our unavoidable death? Fear of the unknown? Paralyzing recognition of our own insignificance?

To one cocky, egocentric grad student, the meaning was all too clear:

The abyss was the pit of failure for the weak-minded.

My vanity knew no bounds once upon a time. I admit, while studying Nietzsche’s doctrines, I wrinkled my nose at the stench of his fear that practically fumed from the pages. I lampooned his duality dichotomy as nothing more than a desperate grasp from a defeated scholar to pad his bloated yet fragile ego.

In his last days, the philosopher penned such notes as: “It hurts me frightfully that in these fifteen years not one single person has ‘discovered’ me, has needed me, has loved me.”

How fucking pathetic.

I found him to be the worst fraud. Isolation was transcendent, he had preached, yet he was a hypocrite of his own principles.

The closer one gets to their own death, the more they’re willing to compromise their convictions. Thus creating their very own abyss, where their weak minds go to perish.

My belief system, my convictions, were never in any danger of being compromised.

Until her.

My beautiful muse.

Oh, how easily we falter when confronted with the veracity of our solitary existence.

I can confess now how mistaken I was in my first interpretation of Nietzsche.

No one wants to exist in solitude.

At the height of my achievements, I was an academic god. Envied by colleagues, worshiped by aficionado sluts. I had it all, and I wanted for nothing.

And therein lies the dilemma.

The sky was dulled gray, and flavors had lost their taste. Art was bland. There was nothing left to create. Sex was only marginally satisfactory, and only once I pushed to deviant extremes, when I was looked at with fear instead of desire.

The lust for life dried into a dusty wasteland and sat bitter and grainy on my tongue. I was ill with envy over anyone who demonstrated even a meager sampling of passion.

Want—pure, unadulterated hunger—will drive us to the brink to possess, by any means, that which we cannot live without.

The person who wants with a ravenous appetite, who cannot be satiated, will stop at nothing to realize their aspiration.

All of which I starved for.

As the desolate stretch of highway passes in a dreary blur outside the tinted SUV window, I recline my head against the headrest in the backseat, letting the cheap bourbon I downed at Pal’s Tavern pound my veins in relentless fury on its way out of my system.

I deserve far worse.

Pensively, I rub my thumb over the blood-stained bandage wrapping my left palm. My silver thumb ring snags on the edge of the adhesive. The distinct feel of the raised cuts beneath the coarse cotton brings her to the forefront of my thoughts.

Today, for the very first time since my little dreamy muse crashed my life, I told a lie to Halen.

With the trickle of the stream washing over rocks beneath the rickety bridge, her scent still infused in my pores from the night before, and the lingering taste of her sweetness testing my control, I gazed into her wide, hazel eyes and told Halen I’d never thought of taking a life before her.

Men have a bad habit of placing blame on others for our weaknesses. Especially those who have the power to wound us. I’d like to say it’s a simple defense mechanism, but really, we’re all just privileged bastards.

Her rejection sliced deeper than any blade to my skin. I weaponized my anger, letting the lie fall from my mouth. All the while, admonishing her for refusing to accept the truth, for refusing to accept us—when my own past is far more horrifying than anything my little sexy sprite could conjure.

In some cultures, the taking of one’s own life is judged harsher than murder.

Before my muse tore into my mind and soul and fucking body with a monstrous, decimating force, I was on the verge of my own self-sacrifice.

But it wasn’t my violence that summoned my moon goddess from the cosmos.

It was hers.

My tastebuds came alive. The dull hue of the world illuminated into blinding colors I’d never witnessed before. I had no idea how dead I was until she showed me what it felt like to be alive.

Now, even breathing without her arousing scent is a torturous struggle, the air stale and insipid.

She is the Apollo to my Dionysus.

My other half.

And although the force of the Apollonian and Dionysian coming into conjunction may clash in the most destructive storm, their union is what fosters creative genius and harmony.

Her calm surrender to logic quiets the raging storm of fury and madness which plagues my mind. By the same design, my chaotic frenzy awakens her heartsick soul with maddening vigor.

One cannot exist without the other.

I cannot exist without her.

And whether she admits the truth or not, she cannot exist without me.

To have tasted divinity—to have knelt before my goddess and indulged like a feral glutton, to have buried myself so deep inside her, only to have lost her…

That is my great, yawning abyss.

That is staring into the void of indifference and apathy and feeling your soul wither into a hollow husk. That torment stirs a wicked desperation in a man to which he will forge to the darkest, most depraved bounds of hell to recapture.

There are no limits.

For her, I will kill without remorse. I will lap blood and mutilate in a haze of ecstasy until I’m gorged, and then I will demand more.

And as these soul-rending thoughts mangle my head, I’m hyper-fixated on only one course:

Making Halen St. James realize our inevitability.

Her awakening is just the beginning.

I turn away from the bland scenery of highway and give my attention to the federal agent driving us toward Briar Correctional Institute for the Criminally Insane. He turns the dial to increase the volume on the radio. Through my mounting hangover, I focus on the news update.

Misfortune has once again struck the quaint town of Hollow’s Row, where a mutilated body was discovered earlier this morning in a nearby marshland. The male victim, reported to be a town resident, was identified and confirmed to be one of thirty-three disappeared locals that mysteriously went missing over five years ago. A case which baffled local law enforcement and government officials.

This newest development has occurred amid an active investigation of dismembered body parts found in the same vicinity. Officials report the prime suspect to be the media’s infamous Harbinger killer, who stages victims in the likeness of the death’s-head hawkmoth before amputating the head. An iconic symbolism foreshadowing a future doomsday.

A cryptic letter was also found at the newest scene which detailed a challenge to the Hollow’s Row Mangler, addressed to the “Overman”. Authorities are now further investigating whether the deceased Landry was in fact the actual perpetrator of these heinous crimes.