The Weight of Wisdom
Mysterious happenings! A page has fallen out of the Mind Reader Tome! It seems even the Library can forget…
Miskatonic Occult Literature Library & Unusually Special Collections
(MOLLUSC Dept.)
“I’m thankful for the opportunity!”
What a sight it was! A room of two hundred and fifty blinked down to just two. Now I and he of all stand alive, and soon we will stand as recognized employees of the MOLLUSC department!
Bits of my sister fleck off my face as chipped nails pick out the stray viscera from under my eyes. A stoma gifted to me by the recently deceased acts as the perfect airway as I drain my mouth and nostrils. An orange, cloudy tint imposes itself over my right eye, and I can’t seem to open my left. And though I do not have the strength to crane my neck or silence the ringing in my ears, it would be easy to surmise that the ripple hitting my ankles would have been made by a human body falling just shy of five feet. Yes, the young man to the far corner has begun seizing. The poor thing couldn’t keep himself steady. I’d shed tears for him, but I’ve already exhausted my supply just by flushing the clot from my eyes.
Near the back of the room, perched silently atop a mound of bloodied fabrics and human shrapnel was a form inhuman. Its posture regal with a single, cimmerian eye that swallowed the soul of those who dared gaze within. I have not earned the right to speak nor think its name, not until I am dubbed an official Bookkeeper. I know it’s name, it was stated plainly just after the doors locked. It was my most difficult challenge yet to stave the title from echoing in my mind. The initial commotion it caused served a well distraction, although this calm proves now a heavy burden to carry.
Stewed organs spout a stench so foul I taste it on my shredded tongue. Swampy entrails bubbling up to the shins, I can smell their last meals spilling out into the mix. Sour and bitter, I trudge through centuries of fading lives and memories. Orientation at the MOLLUSC Department is nothing short of thorough. A burning, buzzing, drilling sense in my frontal lobe is the only saving grace I could muster for myself. Mental blocks are neophyte magics, a body unattuned could only produce as much. The cost was high in blood and low in runes, it was an easy cast. Internal barriers, memory-segmentors, and transient deaths were all attempted by my peers. Their efforts filled my boots.
Orphaned tentacles twist and spring themselves through the muck, swimming like mosquito larvae. The half-minded ones curl themselves around my legs seeking comfort. Half-digested and reeking of bile, they fall apart under my heel. The ocean breeds deformity. Swirling among the sea, the genetically stunted plateau forever in utero. An inescapable bubble where they glide and tread against one another, never to take a single unified shape. Never to step foot onto land. Never to have a conception beyond “Food.” or “Eat.” or “Swim.” It is of no surprise to me that the defects that made up my class are now in ruins around me. It was just hours ago that we were seated in the mess hall. The lucky few to have passed the rigorous written exam prepared by the Head Librarian herself. I still remember every crease of the cheeks and curl of the lips as they gorged on fish fry. Making merry as if they believed they’d earned the right to celebrate, as if their battles were over.
The mind of an academic is their most limiting factor. The weight of intellect is not more than a collection of intangible thoughts. No, it is wisdom that will carry a man to greatness. It is wisdom that purred such praises into my sister’s ear and filled her with a renewed vigor for the occult, for a cure. It is wisdom that watched her penstrokes and mimicked without error. It is wisdom that found us amidst the elite, and it is wisdom that keeps the wise man alive. That is the weight of wisdom.
It is wisdom that keeps my belly clean, too! Far be it to indulge in flesh of the primitive. Even the fragment of Eldra seemed far too reminiscent of the ocean’s tragedies. I prefer bread and wine instead! Those two are about the only things my stomach can tolerate nowadays. I’ve been stricken for years now. Keeping a proper meal down has become no more than fantasy.
Eucharist of the cosmic mother pitters and dries out at my feet, unable to survive without hostflesh. The human stew reaches to my knees now, putting a nasty feeling in my freshly-soaked slacks. The test has concluded and the insipid thing seems to have slipped its way back up where it came from. The yellow haze permeating throughout the room signified that my vision had begun to return. Sun bleached books rested on high shelves, speckled with dust and a strange pollen that rode on the drafts through the open window.
Wading my way back, I’m tempted to fish for survivors. It’s a fear of mine, an irrational one I’m aware. It’s a prickling fear that crawls up my back and rests a lone hand on my shoulder. Every handful of steps is punctuated with my trawling into the murk on hands and knees. Sifting through meals and waste and fractions of others less crafty than I. Not a soul remained save for the seizing boy floating atop the pond. I thought it best to turn him over, better to die facing up. Yet in spite of all I had witnessed, I had not prepared myself for the shock it was to be when I rolled him over!
Alive and conscious! Body bathed in blood with black eyes that would not shut! What’s more, his hand was affixed to his forehead, clasped around a golden pen dug right into his skull! Ink poured from the open wound colouring his face two-tone. A shaking hand grabbed my robes and he spoke with gritted teeth and foaming breath words I will not forget:
“Did we win it?” Hisses and tics continued to sputter out but his victory speech was those four simple words. This boy, no older than I and no younger than my sister, had taken upon himself to live. I could not ignore that. I could not ignore his plain clothes or the lack of any grimoire or talismans on his person. I could not ignore his plain face or his only defining artifact being buried into his own head. It was then that I realised I had met a wise man.
Heaving him over my shoulders I drag heavy steps through the defects, the aspired, and the fading stars that will be drained and remembered as nothing but a mess. Today we are champions. We are the proven, we are the worthy, we are the meek that will inherit the earth and we are the first steps of a new generation within the MOLLUSC department. Tomorrow, we could be dead.
I look forward to meeting you, Head Librarian Eldra Echo.
