Presence
Occultation
There was a time, not too many years ago, when he had snuck on Tay smoking a pack of cigarettes in a remote corner of their backyard; Lucky Strike, these were his.
He still remembers her face, blissfully unaware of her surroundings as she clung to the cancerette like a heroin addict chasing the dragon.
In hindsight, it really was something minor, yet at the time he choose to take offense and address the issue in his typical heterodox way. Modern problems require modern solutions after all.
He stood there staring in silence as the woman flirted with (delayed) death.
At the same time, he swelled with Pride. Pride because she had been able to locate his stash, pride because she had cracked his safe open, and above all else, Pride because her little Daimon was arousing enough of her shame to prompt secrecy. But there was also anger at his own carelessness; although the safe was truly safe, some things just can't be handled by inexpert hands.
Chilly autumn winds sweep through the bony wooden skeletons inhabiting the courtyard, raking those few brown leaves still attached to their frames.
"Yo", he clears his throat and her lanky body suddenly stiffens as her complexion grows several shades paler, drained of saturation through the full gamut of the RGB spectrum.
He would have found the whole episode amusing if it weren't for the potentially life ending malady that came attached to it; though, sometimes you just have to let go.
Tay just stands here, petrified like a deer in the headlights, unable to even drop the cigarette. He just frowns, fuming from his ears as his groggy mind processes the event. Yet, it's what he does next that surprises the both of them.
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Did they catch him smoking? It was a remote possibility, he was methodical - even in his vices - but a possibility nonetheless. And they were smart... the Gift might have skipped (oh boy, how wrong he was) two generations, but they were much brighter than he was.
Arm outstretched, he reaches for the pack, plucks a stick between his finger and lights it. "Let's smoke", he says, leaning with his back against the house.
And she smirks, accepting the implicit challenge.
We learn by experience and pain. Theory can only get you so far, but it's with practice that Understanding is achieved. Even Socrates (or was it Plato, Aristotle perhaps?) and the rest of the Ancient Greeks knew that theory and practice need to go hand in hand. There are ideas and then there is the material world. We're stuck in the space between, actively shaping and being shaped by both worlds. How do you get to the Truth? Here things get murky, but at the end of the day, the safest route is to discard everything that is False. Does Veracity equate Right or goodness? Not exactly, as one's mileage might vary.
Sermons and rituals and laws and religions are important as ethical guidelines, but they're not exactly effective. Even enforcement doesn't correct sin, it merely addresses the outcome. And then there's the whole Seers thing.
No pain, no gain.
He learned this lesson himself, even before his Awakening.
As a child, he loved to ignite things, set them ablaze and watch them burn, become ashes. He'd spend hours in front of the incense braziers in the Archdiocese Church, mesmerized by their bright flames.
According to some philosopher, Fire is the primeval element, the most important of the table; for fire creates and destroys. There was no mysticism to his budding pyromania though, just a desire to break things apart.
It was during one such instances - one where he set several expensive Bibles ablaze - that the oldest priest of the parish (a Jesuit, ouch) thought to take the young boy's education into his own grandfatherly hands; he took him by force and pressed his right hand against a scorching hot brazier. Just a few seconds, not enough for the searing heat to leave a physical scar. Nevertheless the action was strong enough to inflict a lasting psychological change. Uncontrolled fire = BAD.
Lesson learned. It was decades ago, and he was still thankful for the teaching.
Where does wisdom starts and where does it end? Clearly the temple from within is the stepping stone, nevertheless there were several points of view. For the Guardians, for example, the distinction between the self and the world is feeble; so it is by serene contemplation of one's sins and mistakes that the process of change can be set in motion; but it is not enough. Knowledge without application is useless, one truly must test his hypotheses, preferably in a controlled environment. Kaizen, continuous improvement. What to do, though, when your laboratory is an adversarial reality? In that case, you must be prepared to bear the costs of your learning firsthand, call it tuition, and you must always minimize the risks. For the world has its own heavy handed way of punishing ungrounded ambition and recklessness. It all comes to a single precept: “Don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you.” At its core, this is exactly what makes the Abyss so scary, a single giant pool of negative existence spawned by reality itself as it punched back against the authors of the first failed cosmological scale experiment, it was their recklessness that had spawned the imperfect world they were living in.
Try to do no wrong; a truth so powerful that it escaped the Curse.
In some form this is what the Obrimos thinks as he watches over the girl only barely concealed beneath the flannel sheet sprawled all over the sofa. She growls, her chocolate brown hair bobbles up and down as she adjusts to a more comfortable position.
"26, not bad for a first time smoker", the Guardian says amused, "you vomited on my shoes though", he frowns, "but at least we know your limits. You won't be touching a cigarette ever again, I suppose". Her unintelligible mumbling is music to his ears.
"You're spending the next month grounded. No phone or internet, no going out either", he pauses to hear her inevitable "WHAT", "Unless...", he says tongue in cheek, behold the Prisoner's dilemma.
"Let me guess, unless I denounce my accomplices", she cuts him short, a coating of suspicion around her words. She peeks from underneath the sheet and rolls her green-blue eyes at him.
"It's a one time offer, take or leave", he shrugs. His hand goes for the remote, "I'm no snitch", she says with all the finality a teenage girl can muster.
"Nice", he says, "you can keep each other company. With all the free time the three of you are going to have on your hands... the house could use a few renovations", his tongue clicks in his mouth. "Penguins are on tv by the way", just to be cut short by her non-conciliatory "I hate you".
"Good, it means I'm a good dad", what remained was the smug satisfaction for a job well done.
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