Avarice

“Why do you hoard?” “Why do you waste?” The echoes of these rasping growling horrendously pointed questions roll round and round in my head. My chest hurts from the weight of it all. The pushing and the heaving and the howling! Will it ever end? “Why do you hoard?” “Why do you waste?” It’s all too much to bear. And yet the boulders roll on and on and on...

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Time, rather, the passing of it; is an illusion. We feel it in life; with every breath we take into our lungs-we consume it. We breathe in and out with greed, ravenous for more and blind to the consequences of it passing. God knows I was. Our bodies come into this world new and weak, we grow, we learn, we become... and then we decline. We become weak again. Our bodies deteriorate and our minds return to the state of incomprehension, ignorance. And then it’s over. Time becomes obsolete. It becomes the illusion. And what we are left with, what I am left with, are the questions. “Why do you hoard?” Why do you waste?”

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My name was Plout. I lived. I was. I was a child, with rosy cheeks and glittery eyes full of wonder and hope. It was then, I suppose, that I became a collector. When you are young you collect shiny things, things that bring instant gratification-A gleaming beetle, an iridescent butterfly wing. I put these treasures in my pouch and would take them out and take them in; devouring their beauty and hiding it inside myself. Their elegance made me elegant. As I grew, so did my repertoire of collecting. I had trinkets and secrets, stories and experiences; each one made me...more. In myself, to myself I was wealthy beyond words. But what I didn’t see, what I was ignorant to, was that with every pretty little thing I entrapped I collapsed deeper into myself. I was a museum with no door.

At twelve I witnessed the birth of a baby deer outside of our cottage. I wept. I can’t say now why, exactly, but there was something so raw and rare in the struggle and the newness of life and instinct. It’s a memory I folded up tightly and stored in my soul. At fifteen I made a little boy cower in the mud as I stole his shoes. I didn’t need them, they were far too small for me; but the rush I felt was immortalized and tucked away in my trove. At eighteen I collected love. A pretty little thing with a heart of malleable gold, she handed it over as if she could somehow mine more. I wrapped it neatly and placed it in the depths of me. My twenties were years of soul hoarding; building it up, decorating it; a shrine in me, to me. Art, beauty, wealth-all these things burdened my being. Into my thirties I felt heavy, weighted down with the multitude of treasures inside me. My outer sanctum began to mirror my inner one. I had paintings and statues, first editions and imports from realms beyond. I had gardens with rare blooming beauties and curious woodland creatures that called the manicured shrubbery home. I had so much, and not a soul to share it with. Mind you, I didn’t mind. I constructed my world in that lonely manner intentionally. Letting someone else in to share in the riches that I had collected would in some way, I don’t know, devalue it. The very fact that it was just mine to see and touch and consume is precisely what gave it desirability.

And then, two weeks after my thirty-ninth birthday, I was no more. I, rather, my essence, woke to see every treasure piled high in front of me. Not just material things, but my memories, the most cherished pieces of myself all thrown haphazardly about my line of vision. And oh how my shoulders ached. There was a dark and heavy dank fog pressing down on my being, it was as if every part of me was now a polluted cloud that rested searing and impenetrable on my shoulders. I was alone, but from the depths I heard gnarled rasping voices rising up. Screeching. Questioning. And from my own foul fog I could hear my voice. “Bare your soul or bear your soul!” And again, louder, more fervent, “Bare your soul or bear your soul!” I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t think. The voices from below were getting louder and more demonic and my own voice was unrestrained and rising to meet them. My shoulders were collapsing from the weight of what I could only assume was my soul; and my possessions, my entire world, was crushing and crashing and mashing together into a magnificent boulder. The chaos that whirled around me was altogether too much to comprehend and the bone macerating weight of my own spirit was unfathomable. Suddenly and without warning the ground gave way and I plunged into oblivion. The tonnage on my shoulders stayed fixed and I was aware of the boulder constructed from everything I held dear, roaring down and down with me. Time didn’t pass as we fell; but when we finally collided to an end we met the ground with such force that if I had still been made of flesh, my mortal being would have surely become dust. The boulder came to rest near me and from every corner of the universe boomed the questions, “Why do you hoard?” “Why do you waste?” My thoughts, my own questions were clawing to the surface, fighting to be acknowledged. “Where am I?” “Why do you hoard?” “What did I do to deserve this?” “Why do you waste?” “How did this happen?” “Why?” And all the while, my body, moving on its own accord, began methodically pushing and heaving the boulder. My mouth screamed out the questions and they were answered by a multitude of forlorn voices repetitively echoing with the same, “Why do you hoard?” “Why do you waste?”

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The passing of time is an illusion. Just the boulder and the heavy ache of my soul on my shoulders are real. Just the rasping rhythmic questioning, the Inferno and the pain are real. My thoughts rarely make it to the surface anymore. I am a cog in this circle of hell, and time has forsaken us. There are moments though, when I have a glimpse of clarity, a wisp of an answer floats into my mind. It offers no solace to learn the moral of your sins after your lot has been caste...

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“Bare your soul or bear your soul.”