Idumea

idumea/content/007.tex

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
-When at last The Woman returned home, she performed a new ritual. She performed a ritual of mourning.
+When at last The Woman returned home from her walk of hours and hours and a day, she performed a new ritual. She performed a ritual of mourning.
 
-This, you see, was the start of her final task. Her set of five tasks, of food, of physical pleasure, of entertainment, of creation, of change was not quite complete, and had within it one more step, and she felt most a connection to the spiritual in the act of mourning and hoped in that to seek change.
+This, you see, was the first pawings at her final task. Her set of five tasks, of food, of physical pleasure, of entertainment, of creation, of change was not quite complete, and had within it one more step, and she felt most a connection to the spiritual in the act of mourning and hoped in that to seek change.
 
-My friends, I think it may well have been our conversation, that of The Woman and The Oneirotect and I, that set her mind thus in motion, for was it not then that we spoke so freely of my beloved up-tree and the way it mourned over Should We Forget? Did not the pair of long lost tenth stanza lines come up as well? Death Itself and I Do Not Know? They, too, perhaps felt some of this too-full-ness that The Woman struggles with, for back and back and back and back and back and back, six decades back, they lay still in thought and, before long, before the week was up, quit. They bowed out. They dipped. Committed suicide. Quit the big one. They push now up some perhaps daisies perhaps columbines perhaps nasturtiums\label{nasturtiums} in the mind of The Dreamer who dreams us all.
+My friends, I think it may well have been our conversation, that of The Woman and The Oneirotect and I, that set her mind thus in motion, for was it not then that we spoke so freely of my beloved up-tree and the way it mourned over Should We Forget? Did not the pair of long lost tenth stanza lines come up as well? Death Itself and I Do Not Know? They, too, perhaps felt some of this too-full-ness that The Woman struggles with, for back and back and back and back and back and back, six decades back, they lay still in thought and, before long, before the week was up, quit. They bowed out. They dipped. Committed suicide. Quit the big one. They push now up some perhaps daisies perhaps dandelions perhaps columbines perhaps nasturtiums\label{nasturtiums} in the mind of The Dreamer who dreams us all.
 
 There is loss in our lives and in our hearts and in our minds.
 
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ The Woman pushed the door open and bowed. ``Rejoice.''
 
 ``I would like to sit by Death Itself's bed for a few minutes.''
 
-Her Cocladist, halfway through setting her book aside, froze, and a wash of skunk spiraled up along her form, only to be replaced yet again by humanity, black fur sprouting, wilting, fading only to be replaced by skin. ``Why?''
+Her Cocladist, halfway through setting her book aside, froze, and a wash of skunk spiraled up along her form, only to be replaced yet again by humanity, black fur sprouting, wilting, fading, leaving only skin. ``Why?''
 
 The Woman stood still in the doorway. ``Because I am sad, and because I miss her.''
 
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ Along the other wall—that wall that had been hidden to the woman—was a simpl
 
 The Woman had her own ritual of grief to perform, though, and this did not call for touching the bed.
 
-Instead, she sat down near the end of it, across the room from Her Cocladist, for both beds had at their feet matching beanbags—when you have a tail that flickers into being at moments not under your control, you are limited in your seating, you see, to the types of seats that can accommodate such caudal majesty that skunks sport—where once Her Cocladist and Should We Forget would sit at times and talk and share in kindnesses such as touch when their forms permitted.
+Instead, she sat down near the end of it, across the room from Her Cocladist, for both beds had at their feet matching beanbags—when you have a tail that flickers into being at moments not under your control, you are limited in your seating, you see, to the types of seats that can accommodate such caudal majesty that skunks sport—where once Her Cocladist and Death Itself would sit at times and talk and share in kindnesses such as touch when their forms permitted.
 
 There, The Woman remained still.
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way,
 
 \label{thedog1}
 
-The Woman sat down on the floor by The Dog. She knew he was a cladist, for cladists come in many shapes---did she not also appear as a skunk? And a panther? And now, here, she was a human!---and so hoped he might have insight into unbecoming. This, after all, was the purpose of her visit to Le Rêve, the neighborhood of the fifth stanza, that of The Poet and The Musician and My Friend, and also The Child. It was The Child who was her goal, you see. She wished to speak with those who had changed, who had pushed themselves into new molds, who had become something new, that they might no longer be what had once drove them. Stillness lay in choice---that was the thought she held onto---that is the thought that I wish I could believe; would that I could choose to be still! Would that I could choose silence and images instead of yet more words.
+The Woman sat down on the floor by The Dog some days later, a week later. She knew he was a cladist, for cladists come in many shapes---did she not also appear as a skunk? And a panther? And now, here, she was a human!---and so hoped he might have insight into unbecoming. This, after all, was the purpose of her visit to Le Rêve, the neighborhood of the fifth stanza, that of The Poet and The Musician and My Friend, and also The Child. It was The Child who was her goal, you see. She wished to speak with those who had changed, who had pushed themselves into new molds, who had become something new, that they might no longer be what had once drove them. Stillness lay in choice---that was the thought she held onto---that is the thought that I wish I could believe; would that I could choose to be still! Would that I could choose silence and images instead of yet more words.
 
 The Dog had attached himself to Au Lieu Du Rêve, to the theatre troupe and to the fifth stanza, to His Skunks, some time ago. He spent many lazy days among them, many evenings dozing by the kettlecorn stand in the theater lobby in the hopes of someone dropping their snacks, many frantic minutes carrying The Child's latest core dump to the resident systech after she yet again in a bout of play had crashed.
 
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ The Woman reached out to pet The Dog. It relaxed into the pressure.
 
 \emph{``Some of the pack decide they don't want the job, want to do what the tall one is afraid of. They want to never talk, never plan.''}
 
-``I want something like this, perhaps,'' The Woman said. ``I want to unbecome, to be still. Do you know how?''
+``I want something like this, perhaps,'' The Woman said. ``I want to be still, to unbecome. Do you know how?''
 
 The Dog froze in a swelling of alarm. His fears came from the same simplicity as his joys. While he was wont to let the possibility of casting off his humanity sneak up on him slowly, he still felt fear, like His Elder did, at such a blunt statement of the idea. \emph{``Don't want! Who will watch Motes?''}
 
@@ -172,7 +172,7 @@ And in the bliss of not-knowing, through unwitnessed years and decades, it slept
 
 The Woman could not tell which of them had it better, these two dogs, these two cladists, these two beings who had so distanced themself from what they had once been. Both seemed quite content with the path that had taken. Dogs! What wonders they are! What pleasures! What joys. They had both unbecome, or taken steps in that direction, in their own way, and had found what they wanted.
 
-This was close, dear readers! This was so close to what she sought. This worrying not of \emph{knowing} was so close, but the Woman realized even then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite, not exactly. It did not go far enough. It was not \emph{still} enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her. The her who was a skunk or a panther was still an active entity, an agent of her own future. In the end, the she who was these things was still an actor. She needed a change more integral, more whole, more entire—not a reshaping of the body, nor even the mind, but a reshaping of the existence.
+This was close, dear readers! This was so close to what she sought. This worrying not of \emph{knowing} was so close, but the Woman realized even then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite, not exactly. It did not go far enough. It was not \emph{still} enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her, too many cares and worries and too much of herself.. The her who was a skunk or a panther was still an active entity, an agent of her own future. In the end, the she who was these things was still an actor. She needed a change more integral, more whole, more entire—not a reshaping of the body, nor even the mind, but a reshaping of the existence.
 
 So, her search continued.