Part II: The Means [II]

“Walls, paint, roads.”


In the morning light, soft feet padded along the bent, wooden floor- through the kitchen, passed the sleeping Messenger, through the living room, around the couch and up the stairs and back again. Lialah’s flushed hands held two open copies of the Encyclopedia against her naked chest, the facial features that were no longer Lailah’s creasing into an expression of confusion.


“Tires. Cars. Shoes. Light. Planets. Stars. Food. Chains. Music. Paintings. Clothes. Compound verbs. Compound nouns. Books. A body.”


She stopped and looked down at herself, the bare skin of her legs and her arms glowing white beside the window above the sink. Outside, the city glowed, it’s metal parts like cogs within a clock, all working and moving together. Passed the living area, the center of industry moved, its legs and arms clanking loudly, and even from the house she could hear its resentful howling. “All objects comprised of materials. All materials comprised of elements. All elements comprised of atoms. All atoms comprised of subatomic particles. I am one thing and I am many things: Lailah and skin, Lailah and sulfur, Lailah and iron. No object, no being is one thing in itself. Many things are part of beauty. Many things are part of him. Many things are part of Lailah.” She lifted a hand, her fingers moving to feel the texture of the page. “Many things…”


“You are not Lailah.”


The Messenger could not lift his head from the table, but his eyes were open, gazing expectantly, and Lailah-thing turned slowly, lifting her lips in response- an attempted smile. “Lailah is dead. She has been dead for four days.”

“Are you a product of the disturbance?” He asked, and to this her smile grew wider.

“To understand the question is to understand the concept. I do not believe I am capable of detecting the disturbances in question. Therefore, I would have no knowledge of the one to which you are referring.”

“How could any living creature not detect such a violent shuddering- everything moving, shifting?” He spoke to himself, eyes opening. “Has living within an entirely sensual reality dulled your ability to recognize such a monumental shattering of natural order?”

“You forget too soon. I am not Lailah.”

The clouds shifted and the light within the kitchen dulled, shadows stretching across the Lailah-thing’s face like gray, translucent spiders.

“From where do you originate?” The Messenger asked.

“I do not know.”

“Are you a thing of the Pull?”

“You must forgive me. I know not of what you speak.”

“Are you a thing of Adam?”

“Again, I know not of what you speak.”

“Are you of the first world?”

She shook her head, not a no and not a yes, and from her lips arose a strange sound of excitement. “You ask so many questions. I wish to ask questions too, but how unsatisfying to receive no answers in return. It must be difficult for you.” She paused. “You are not human either. Perhaps this is a circumstance with which you have much experience, or perhaps one that you have the capacity to tolerate. May I ask by what name you wish for me to call to you?”

He stared a moment without answering, and wondered, again, the significance of a name. Even to this parasite, what was a name? “The Messenger,” he responded slowly, and he closed his eyes.

“Oh, are you sick? Do you have a fever?”

“No.” There was venom in that word, a warning. His exhaustion was now affecting the moods he did not know he had, and he was silently astounded.

The pattering of her feet quickly captured his attention, and by the time he had opened his eyes again, the Lailah-thing had moved to kneel beside the table. There was no concern in her eyes, only a child’s curiosity, her eyes glowing in that dull kitchen light. “Are you experiencing hunger?”

He did not answer for a moment. “I do not understand hunger. When I begin to move, the blood moves with me, quickening. The skin tightens. The muscles tense. All of this sensory input… My being has expanded to include this physical body for only the time being, but I cannot recall anytime when I have needed to do so.”

“What are you, exactly?”

He looked down at her. The Lilah-thing’s eyes peeked up over the edge of the table, the edges of her smile just visible, and in that moment his stomach tightened, feeling a distinct warmth that began at his chin and eventually rested upon his cheeks. “I am a thing of the Pull.”

“Do you eat?”

“This construction is exactly human.”

“When in your stomach, the food you ingest falls into many, many pieces.” She stood and stretched out her arms to her sides, eyes alight, voice softening, fading with each breath. “The pieces are transformed and move to all extremities- the arms, the knees, the fingertips, and the toes.” She stared out to her fingertips, mouth open, eyes squinting as though to see the very tip of her last fingernail, immaculately clean. When she looked back at The Messenger, his mouth was open too, and his head was up. She nodded.

“Yes. That is exactly what you need.”



The Lailah-thing opened cans like humans did. Her fingers moved knowingly and with precision, and when she finally spooned out the rationed meat onto two plates and served it, she did that like a human as well. The Messenger kept his head facing the wall, the noise in his stomach awaking him from his light slumber occasionally, but only for a few moments, before it became a hum, lulling him back into a peaceful sleep. When the Lailah-thing set the plates down, he looked up, her form flashing like a bright light in the sun’s rays. He watched her in ignorance, in exhaustion, until she finally moved and took her seat on the floor, taking her plate with her.

And now her fingers did other things. They moved into the meat, taking large pieces and shoving them into her mouth. She chewed loudly, her noises and the loud growling from his stomach like the sounds of two jungle cats, living, breathing, fighting.

His sleepy eyes watched each movement (her muscles, her shoulders) and he repeated her movements exactly. Fingers gingerly spooned up palm-fulls of meat, placing them into his mouth at first with hesitance, and then with passion, with vigor. Their noises were louder now, deeper, and when it was finished, the silence shook house, the walls, the world aside from those two jungle cats. They both lay on the floor, eyes upward, plates and hands licked clean. For the two half-humans, time was of little importance, and it was a long while until the Lailah-thing’s head turned to watch the Messenger think. His head shifted, and he looked at her too.

“Are you thinking about sleeping?” The Lailah-thing asked.

“Yes.”

“Then sleep.”

He shook his head, and the Lailah-thing laughed. “What?”

“You are so strange.”

“Are you afraid?”

“No. Something strange is only something foreign. Something foreign brings possibility. Who is afraid of the possible is afraid of the actual, and I fear no thing that is actual.”

“You are strange.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“No… although, perhaps I should be. I do not understand fear.”

The Lailah-thing attempted her smile again, as though testing it. “You are very tired.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are.”

He was silent, his gaze never shifting, head never lifting from its place on the tile. He considered what to say, and found only one thing. “What should I do?”Her hands reached forward slowly, fingers touching down upon his shoulders and tracing lines up his neck, behind his hair. Her palms cupped his ears, blocking out the world’s sounds, and when he went to close his eyes, he could not open them.