Page 43 of The Secret Shape of Worship
The demons were blind.
Where their eyes should have been were empty, bloodied holes. Mina watched on in horror as, every so often, one of thecreatures reached up to dig a clawed finger into the socket of its eye before going back about its work.
Mina gagged, stuffing the corner of his fist into his mouth to keep from vomiting.
What was the point of this place? Were these creatures stuck building up and tearing down for all eternity? Raising meaningless structures that seemed to serve no purpose? That would never be completed?
Mina wiped dripping sweat from his brow and collapsed to the floor of the boat. A memory began to surface. The warm fire back at the temple. Quiet conversations in the afterglow of passion. Anubis always trying to help Mina see and understand himself better. To rebuild his broken soul.
“These pretenses, these facades that mortals build to show a false version of themselves to the world,” Mina recalled Anubis saying on one of these evenings. “It’s an endless toil. A temple with no foundation that, when it falls, will leave you blind to yourself and to others around you because you’ve been living in the darkness of their shadow for so long. You will lose yourself, Mina. The more you build yourself in the image of others, the more you become nothing in your own eyes.” Anubis walked his fingers across the trinity of stars dotted low on Mina’s stomach, still come-slick and sweaty. “When the cosmos loses a star, a black hole remains. And you, son of man, born of stars, are no different. Don’t toil away at that meaningless work or you’ll find yourself lost to it for eternity.”
Mina looked up and around at the creatures and wondered if this was what became of souls who spent their lives as he once had. If a place like this was where he had been destined to end up.
Move,Mina thought.
But the boat did not move.
“Move,” he hissed, still not trusting that one of those horrible things wouldn’t hear him.
But still, the boat wouldn’t move.
Mina looked around for something, anything, he could use to propel himself forward. A loose board he could pry away from the side, a nearby fallen tree branch he could reach.
As Mina walked to the left side of the boat, his eyes raking the shore, he froze.
A creature stood on the bank.
It was staring at him.
Seeinghim.
But this creature wasn’t as horrible as most of the others. It had graying skin but no long, spidery legs. And this one still had its eyes. Its body was large and round, traces of plum still coloring its cheeks. Shredded remains of a tattered blue polo clung to its sagging skin.
Mina felt bile rise up in his throat. “Professor Cornelius?” he whispered.
The creature, the professor, cocked its head. Blinked at him. It opened its mouth, but only a stifled gurgle came out. It clutched at its throat, appearing surprised that it couldn’t speak. The professor-creature took a tentative step toward the bank.
How was this possible? How long had he been here?
“Professor, find something I can use for a paddle! I’ll come over for you.”
The creature looked around, frantic, still clutching its throat, words trying to form but jumbling into guttural nonsense. But as the creature turned around, it froze. Staring at a half-finished structure behind it, which Mina hadn’t noticed at first. It was a small building, with walls only a couple of feet off the ground. Beside it, a block of stone was chiseled into the shape of a cross. A steeple. The professor-creature was building a church.
“Professor, hurry!” Mina wasn’t moving fast, but even at this slow pace, he was already starting to pull away from where the professor stood.
It looked back toward Mina. Back at the structure, then back to Mina again. It shook its head violently from side to side as if the sight of Mina on the boat were a phantom vision. It rubbed its eyes and looked again. And then Mina watched in helpless horror as the creature’s fingers began to elongate, grow sharp and black on the ends. This time, when it went to rub its eyes to clear away the vision of Mina, fingers found their way to the fleshy orbs and started to dig.
“No, stop!” Mina screamed. “It’s me! It’s Mina! Please, help me! I can still get to you!”
But it was too late. Two crimson rivers ran down the creature’s face, already pooling at its feet. Mina squeezed his eyes shut and turned away.
“God fucking dammit!” he screamed into his fists.Why would he do that?Mina collapsed onto the floor of the boat.Who would do that to themselves?
But he knew the answer. The same as he seemed to know everything about this place somehow. All he had to do was be willing to ask the question, and the answer rose up in him like it had always been there, waiting.
He had been no better than these creatures.
Closing his eyes to things he didn’t understand, because blinding himself had been easier than learning.
