Metamorphosis of Narcissus
#1 of Biest vor Jagd
"Every man puts himself into God, and even God is a man, himself." -Anonymous
Hmm? What's that you say? .... You mean this?
I see. No one has ever asked that of me before. Why would you want to know about my life, my young friend? ... How strange.
To be blunt, I wouldn't think you'd care about me at this moment, nor do I think it wise that you do care. After all, I'd say that's of minimal importance in the grand scheme of things. ... I see, you're adamant about it.
Very well, I suppose I can give you that, considering the obvious circumstance I need not remind you of. Ahem, do forgive me if I blunder in my storytelling. As I've said earlier, I've never unfolded myself to anyone, as none of my subjects ever felt a need to know the god behind the judgment...
My name is Ziiros, named for my father. I was born in a small town, just south of the Metropoli in the north. I had never recalled, in my early years of life, ever visiting the cities, which to my community were places of almost legendary quality. It was not until my eighteenth year of mortality that I ever stepped paw into one of them, but I precede my tale.
The life in my immediate family was... unsatisfying, to say the least. Though at the time, of when I was two years old, or so, I was unaware of why such chaos erupted in our household.
Understand, child, I was still in the stage where people were not people, they were simply objects. Moving dolls with the power to make me laugh, to make me cry, and to make me afraid. It was the latter to which I was most subjected to in the later fragments of my early childhood, and as I peeked around the corners of my home, playing witness to the screams and blows of my parents, I felt these dolls had but one purpose in life: to make me afraid for myself. But what I am saying must confuse you, yes? I warned you about my lack of preparation.
I was born and christened to my fifteen-year-old mother on an April night, or so my grandmother has told me, years later. I am unsure if my father was present during my birth; I did not ask, and I never thought it significant to concern myself with it. What I did know of him was that he was just a year or two older than Mother, but in decisive years such as fifteen and seventeen (a rough guess), such a difference is an embarrassment.
Do I speak ill of my mother, friend? I could not imagine a greater treason. I must say, with no shame of her licentiously young age, that I loved her. She had cared for me, with all the love of a mother. She took pride in me, licking me clean and playing with me. Her age mattered nothing to me; she was Mother, and Mother was my guardian, my angel, and my love. Even at this stage in life, the God does not forget his mother, and he never will.
But, as are all things beautiful, they blossom only to be torn to nothing. My father had decided to remain loyal to his mistake, and stayed with my mother to raise me. But that was the worst thing he could have done for me. If Father had simply slipped away, never to interfere with my life, I may not be what I am today. Ha ha ha, it seems I've struck a chord with you, my dear.
My father never smiled; at least not as I ever saw. A tiger, he was, with fur like a hostile blaze. A perpetual grimace was always plastered on his face, as though I caused him pain. His eyes were as two glass globes, charting identical planets of topaz hatred. But perhaps the most noticeable feature was in his physique. He looked as though he were an adamantine statue of a god, a god of untold wrathful powers. I was frightened of him, child, but a simple word such as "frightened" says nothing to my true feelings for him.
Tell me, have your parents, siblings, or otherwise, ever told you about the red-eyed monster in your closet, or perchance a saw-toothed monstrosity in the lake, its armored body built for nothing but the mutilation of a helpless cub? To use my own example, my father was the monster in the closet. The demon under my bed, razor-sharp claws waiting impatiently for a defenseless, finger-suckling child to cross him. His presence sparked an almost unnatural fear in me, and I would often curl into my mother's breast on the occasions where he showed himself. It mattered not that he was our source of monetary income; he was simply my necessary demon. In retrospect, I believe that was a great catalyst for his hatred of me: My being ungrateful for his efforts. It certainly wouldn't surprise me, though I must regard the childishness of it, considering my premature years' inability to comprehend his behavior.
At any rate, it seemed my mother had sympathy with my apprehensions, beginning the slow descent to destructive hatred between the two. At a time close to my second birthday, the fights and abuse were regular; daily, almost. Those screams and roars hang in my mind like a malevolent choir, and I shall not deny that they have coursed my mind in later exhibitions of my divine right. I find it amusing though, how they seem to have... purged my mind; cleansed it to where my judgment was pure and absolute, only fitting for what I am.
It was a night in October, I believe, in which the quarreling became too much for even my golemesque father to bear. With violent obscenities I at the time found unintelligible, and so therefore am unable to repeat, and a vase of my mother's flung upon us, he was gone from my life (until many years later, which I shall tell you of in due time), like a phantom grown weary of haunting.
It was my mother and I. Finally, we were together without my iconic father to intrude on myself and my love. But again, such things, fate proclaimed, could not last. After a few short months, Mother could not afford to keep me in our home. Unsurprising, really, considering her new source of income was only a parttime job. I was sent to live with my grandmother and â€"father, where, as a listener such as yourself would say, my true life began.
That is, all things considered, where the God truly came into being...