The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [143]
There was no sense of the world's passing in the Forest of Sores, no fleeting indication of the motions of time. The momentary provocations of agony were equal to a prolonged suffering that defined them forever.
Random violations of innocence are liable to induce a reaction of ferocity. The wild beast that suffers the taunts of the baiter responds with a superior malice in its defence. There is an abiding equality between chasteness and cruelty ― just as a diamond is an intensification of the mineral implications of coal.
The Sisters of No Mercy were in a very bad way when the Mother of Sores called them to her roost. But the Mother soothed them with her balms and tended them with a loving hand they had known only for each other. Then the Mother told them of what they must do to purge themselves of their eternal suffering in the Forest of Sores.
And then the Mother gave them Weapons.
Once, they had been three, searching together for enemies in the world of linear men.
But not anymore.
Middle Sister was dead.
And the Sisters of No Mercy would honour her memory with a measure of cruelty that was equal to her prodigious chasteness.
The Light That Never Shines was accustomed to shadows. Or maybe the shadows were accustomed to her.
Either way, she slipped from the gloom like she was casting a cloak off her back, and blended in with a shaft of light that filled the street like liquid metal fills a mould.
The Light That Never Shines was hungry for a skin to wear. She dressed herself in skins and could reproduce one for every occasion. That was the secret of blending in. Her body had absorbed them and she could muster them at will ― a skin for all seasons ― and right now was the season was for harvesting.
She smiled, but it was nothing to do with feeling happy. She smiled because it was always the season for harvesting.
And tonight she was planning a good yield.
The Salon of Catastrophists lay on the border between the Cerebral and Cymbeline districts. It was a guild frequented by an exclusive coterie of artists, poets and theoreticians renowned for their speculations on the various ways in which Life as they knew it would come to an end.
The Salon of Catastrophists was a square-shaped, spacious auditorium with a high ceiling and no upper floors but, it was said, plenty of lower ones. On the whole, it was grim. It was also one of the few buildings in the city whose walls were divested of the pictorial extravagance that was common to others. This was in keeping, however, with the principle that buildings should be decorated according to what they were used for; and, given that the Salon of Catastrophists was used for discussions about catastrophe, it is only right that its walls remained bare.
Members of the guild generally assembled to practice rituals of attainment and loss, consisting of recitals, readings, performances and exhibitions, followed by uproarious drinking sessions (lasting for days) that were intended to convey the passage of Life through various stages of degeneration. Yet, in spite of the seeming absence of formality, the Salon of Catastrophists was organised into two distinct intellectual groups.
Overall, it is agreed by the Catastrophists that the Universe is encoded with contradictory conditions of order and chaos which necessitate its failure as a sustainable entity. To this extent, all things are destined to perish: but the question remains as to the nature of how?
In their attempts to resolve this issue, the Salon of Catastrophists has become divided into the Continuity and Discontinuity Schisms.
The Discontinuity Schism believe that the destruction of the Universe will come as a result of a catastrophic deterioration or collapse -a Cataclysm ― while the Continuity Schism is firmly opposed to a climactic destruction, and prefers to concern itself with theories such as the "Permanence of Disorientation." The Permanence of Disorientation states that the Universe consists of a continual extinction of its contingent parts, which are simultaneously replenished by their