hierarchical determinism

Chapter 01: afternoon rush
Chapter 02: evening addenda

Envy: when you covet what someone else has.

Jealousy: when you fear, absent of rationality, that what someone else has may take away what you have, and appear momentarily (then again, forever, so long as you both shall live) as manifest threat to you.

Envy, when you leer silently with your arms and eyes outstretched to take what should be coming to you, it should, it should, how cruel, it should.

Jealousy, when your eyes narrow and your arms cross and you covet yourself because it is all you have ever been assured to have even though you know, you know, you were supposed to have been granted so much more.

Meyneth, the Mechonis rabble prattle on about. Meyneth, their god, which means that the Bionis must have one too. Means nothing to Mumkhar - he'll just as easily hate them both, and screw them both for everything they're worth, for all the good it'll do him.

They're gods. They have no cares for vermin. Zanza's done as much as say so.

At least, that's what Mumkhar would like to believe. After all, the Monado did reject Dunban, eventually. That should say something, shouldn't it?

If there is no such a thing as destiny, and Dunban got the thing by sheer dumb luck, then Mumkhar was never so much smarter that he could steal it for himself by the same lack of principles.

If there is such a thing, and plenty of it, then Dunban was meant to have it when he did, and Mumkhar never was.

Instead, the both of them were meant to rot and atrophy together.

No destiny: every shared meal, every bandaged wound, every just-too-tight clutch of shoulders and chins, all feeble and foolish displays of sentimentality that added up to nothing at all, or else Mumkhar's own personal demise.

All destiny: that all of that took place, in sediment and in precipitate, in ether and in soil, by the very moldy starch of the raw radishes they chewed and choked and tasted in each other's mouths, and still ultimately meant nothing, for Mumkhar.

That he felt nothing. That he was nothing. Exactly effectless - because nothing they've done yet has worked, so how do they hope to stop Monado Boy now?

That either way, he wasn't chosen, and this toothless battle in the bitterly swirling snow was all he was ever meant to be.

(Dunban? He had his sister. He had his little minions. He even had Dickson, when it came down to it. So he lost his right arm. You didn't see Mumkhar complaining about it.)

And yet, he admits to feeling a thrill. He admits to loving, loving, loving it!

Their heels and toes, grinding divots, dancing with an ecstasy that soldiers can never have, preying upon power that lies beyond both of their limits, he knows, he knows, he knows.

That Dunban is his match. Oh, yes. Oh, yes!

His will to live. His will to seize the Monado.

Everyone knows that Mumkhar has no interest in seeing the future, no interest in changing what will be without direct instruction from what is now and what has been.

(Everyone knows he's devastatingly near-sighted.)

Mumkhar imagines that once he obtains the Monado, he will keep it, sans contest. It will be him, all him, a perfect portrait of monstrosity; all at once, everyone will forget what he was, and they will expect nothing else of him besides that which the Monado dictates. That which the Monado makes of you.

He doesn't care what becomes of the Bionis, of the Mechonis. Certainly, he pays no mind to what will happen to Egil.

He doesn't even care to fantasize about Dunban's ruin. If the gods have their way, then they'll make sure of that - they'll reach down from their golden cages and clean up the mess that Mumkhar's reconstitution will leave.

They are watching him, now. They are dangling the lure. They are pushing him to his limit, and then, then, then--

Then he will get what he so surely deserves.

Because only this moment matters. Because the genocidal feud of centuries and their vicious cycle are none of one Homs's concern.

Egil's jaded resignation. Zanza's gleaming narcissism. Meyneth's passive prayers and fear.

The mass-produced Faces, they are the pitiful ones, because their deaths have not been planned. Their nemeses are never watching.

Mumkhar is here with Dunban. They are all watching him.

Whether he lives or dies, why should he care? Why should he care about anything if he cannot wrap his fist around the jagged arm that held the Monado?

His will to live. His will to pursue Dunban.

Nothing else matters.

Mumkhar thinks, I am meant to have the Monado. The blunt blade. The power. The eminence, to Him.

Meanwhile Mumkhar, Homs of habit, is meant to have nothing at all.

Even if Mumkhar thinks, I am meant to have Dunban, who has the Monado. Of course I am.

Say, if Dunban is not a person, rather an actor, rather a statue of action into whose grasp can be slotted a sword, any sword, pick a sword, not that sword--

If Dunban is not a person, worthy of motive, then neither is Mumkhar. Because Mumkhar may attire himself in all these (one) grand ideals, consume himself directly in his pitiful jealousy, live in hate more agnostic and less antithetical to love, but he certainly does not see Dunban as a separate species, groveler, intellect.

Not until he is transformed, transhumanized. Until then, Dunban, suave savior, remains his mortal measure.

More, because he's a hero. Less, because of the same. More, because he has more (something, anything) to lose. Less, because of the same.

All these picky points by which Mumkhar can bolster himself. I want Dunban. I want what he has. I want who he is. I want his bones. I want his blood.

Well, but anyway, Dunban doesn't have the Monado anymore.

And where in the sea does that leave us, then?