"On What Is True," part 12

Our true story continues, with negligible inaccuracies. The dead man saw no way for things to get worse. If only he had looked inside himself to see what he could not imagine. The winds hit his lifeless corpse and began ripping off his skin. Worms spilled out, and nests of various insects scattered about simultaneously. The little bits that were left inside him were toxic, and the parasites learned not to poison themselves on them. “These parts,” said the man, “are the little that I was, and all the rest was my funeral dressing. Why did I fool myself and others with this costume now disassembled before me? Of all my truly unforgivable and unholy failures, my failure to destroy this only real part of me, poisonous as it is, is my greatest failure of all. How did I fail to destroy myself when nothing about me was worth saving?” The storm’s rain flooded his hollow corpse, and in that puddle of decay he saw a murky vision. He saw one Eye of God. It was solid blue with no iris. It looked not out at him but inward to his hollow. At that moment, two tiny travelers began on either side of his hollow, walking toward one another. When they met in the pit of his corpse, God’s Eye became luminous bright. “20 footsteps each,” God called out, with a Mouth out of view. At that moment the man’s toxic parts started growing. They were awful cancers composed of knotted discolored tissues and slimy leaching fluids. The cancers slowly and gradually filled up his hollow as the water with God’s Eye became displaced. Then the insects from before swarmed upon him, collectively placing his skin over his new insides and chewing together the seams. Yes, the nightmare must now begin. Death was an insufficient punishment. The deadly man leaned up then rose to his feet. A crowd had gathered in horror and disgust. His inner cancers began spreading across his skin. “Don’t help me,” he said, “don’t look, don’t remember.” He felt his inner cancers rustle in agitation. They compose him now and propel him forward. As we know from our teachings, this is the one thing most true of all.