The Eighth Day

His shadow found its mark, and having done so, fell faster than the eye could follow. A narrow bolt dropped straight from zenith to where she lay on a granite palette, and it pierced all the nested domes of twilit sky, where birds hung about in lazy circles, and the gathering moonlight tamped down the faltering sun. He stalled a perfect bare cubit above her.

She shivered.

Damn shame. An audience would have been nice. A maneuver such as that last one demanded such. Quite a move. Ah, accolades. Pride before a fall, no? A chill followed his landing upon the rock, pushing dry leaves and sending acorn caps skittering off the ledge.

It woke her. She rose to find a white dragon was roosting beside her on her polished shelf. It was her bed for now, and might be forever, if she chose. Tomorrow did not matter. After all, there were no yesterdays upon which any tomorrow might bring weight to bear. She blinked.

“Hello,” she said.

“Good afternoon,” he replied. “Apologies. Fine slumbers asunder?”

“Oh, no. I was… dozing. A dream? Funny. Were it a dream, all is as before I nodded off. Pointless, for a dream, to repeat what one is already doing… Aren’t they supposed to play games with your day, or divine something of your future? Maybe my dream dreamed me here again? There’s a lark. Are you a dream?”

“I do not know. How might I tell? I dream with eyes open, and they are most entertaining and revelatory. Mine show me today, or when I was the darkness. The waters…

His face drew close to hers. His eyes beguiled. “What was that like?” he whispered. She eased up on her elbows. “I don’t remember. There was nothing. Then now. And this most beautiful place. All outside me. My eyes, my tongue, my ears, I desire it, yearn to be of it. It places an ache in my heart I cannot explain.’

‘And you? Ancient and polished. Is this not the most beautiful place ever? Am I a know-nothing tadpole at some shallows’ edge, spewing pond scum? Pipe up, Wise Worm! Or be gone before my next dream finds you on a pike or fish hook.”

The Dragon nodded, looking her over with an analytical and libertine eye.

“He does good work. One must give him that."

“Who? Who does this good work? Who scoops me out of union with silence, and packs me in another’s bloodied bone? This is me, then?” She laughed, and could not stop until she was spent. “I’ve never been anywhere but everywhere all at once. Omnipresent, and dead. That is what I remember, Worm!’

‘Now I am reflected in still pools, or I meet myself in the dilations of your dirty pupils… Yes, I caught you looking, Beast."

"I did not mean to whip you into a lather, Lady. My gaze? Mere admiration."

“Why do the butterflies not pass through me? And that man? That bleeding man. I ran away."

"I’m sure he’s fine. Nothing dies here unless it tries.”

“Dies?”

“Goes back."

“And, tries?”

“Another time. Let’s go again. From whence you came? Was it good?

“Good? I do not, cannot, remember. No clock ticked off a moment. No event made a divet for any clock to score."

“Was that bad?”

“Good? Bad? What do they weigh? I was naught. Not! Weighed not an aught, Worm!”

“Is this better?”

“It’s not there.”

“Are you lost?”

“Noo... There is nowhere I am to be. So I suppose I am not.

“You will be.”

“What?”

“Sure.”

The dragon rolled on its haunches, displaying its belly armor. It rested its elbows on the granite, and its chin upon its foreclaws.

“If you could go back, would you?”

“There are surprises in these moments. There are moments! You know?”

“Oh, I do.”

“What will happen next? You! A nice surprise. Beauty just dropped from the sky.”

“The greatest of all works.” He stood, bowed, until he got bored.

“You are an impossible thing,” she said. “What made you?

“Why, I made myself, as all impossible things do. With a little help, I suppose. Everything needs a nice, hard shove to get started. Even if it means a fall. Yes?”

“I was not pushed.” She patted the beast’s scales. They rang.

“Amazing."

"They are moonstones.” He stirred, and they in rang in triads, a beautiful mess.

“Like wind chimes. What a thing you are. What are you called?"

“I have as many names as there are colors. Some are nicer than others. Some stall the jaws and burn the tongue’s tip. I think ‘Mr. Wyvern’ suits. Sounds professorial, yes?"

She nodded.

“After all,” he continued, “for now, I am the Master, and you clap the erasers."

"I don’t reckon much of your prattle, Mr. Wyvern, but I do know condescension. Wyvern is fine for now."

“My apologies. My range of mind lends me a certain… arrogance?”

"Unearned."

“And how might you know?”

She shrugged. He stood. He bowed again. “The appellation, ‘Mr. Wyvern’ as applied to the second party, that being me, to mean me, myself, suffices so long as the first party, that being your corporeal and soulful self, and sole representative of the first party, realizes the agreement is made, nudum pactum, and is non-binding under this umbrella, and shall allow me, the second party in every lowly or vertiginously elevated manifestation that I may assume, to abrogate the aforementioned appellation, nom de guerre, or trademark and any connection to such, being past, present or future, should it cease to suit either party.”



“I can call you what I like. Yes, Worm. I have it.

“Sorry, I am also known as The Advocate. The Adversary. And Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

“What?”

“Look it up.”

“I shall.” She touched a wing again. “You are one color, but so many. How…?”

“Iridescence, Lady. Shocking! Birthed so perfect, and yet empty-headed. Such cruelty. You know chimes, but not the Moon? A rainbow? The inside of an abalone shell?”

“No.”

“Oh. You must try the abalone. The ocean, the flesh sliding over your tongue, the Life you take into you; you can feel it nurturing you as it slides down your gullet. Sorry! Drooling a bit. The insides of their shells are rainbows. They will come to you in their time.”

“God says fruit is meat.”

“He told you his name? He has seventy-two, you know. Whatever. Once you recognize the quotidian, you will come to expect all things in their time, and even greet them as they approach your stoop. You will announce their arrival in songs, dervishes, and perhaps grand talks, maybe have them in for some rickety, unslung discourse, or seance, or down a pond for deep dives, to plumb the heart of silent worship?

‘In the Beginning, you were not. Then, afterthought. He broke into the Man and took a rib. He carved it to shape. A helpmeet that left the Man askew. Pity. He was stunning in his symmetry. You would have liked him. And you! So comely. Not even in my wildest fancies would I have come up with you. A Sculptor without equal is He… And then!”

“What?”

“He gave you Breath. Spirit. Life. Soul!"

Mr. Wyvern grasped her and drew her tight. His claws went deep. He closed his eyes and drew her breath. She felt her life moving into the monster.

“Stop!”

“Sorry! I was overtaken. It happens.”

He licked his bloodied claws and his eyes rolled up and were gone.

“I’m bleeding."

“You play beautifully,” he purred. “Do it again. A little more practice and this show goes on the road."

“No. Go.”

“The road?” And she pulled a fugue from the scales of his back, and he roared and belched fire.



“The New Way,” he mumbled. “I am to be god of this age, Prince of the power of the air. Creating, not Creator. I tread the earth without hindrance, and pierce the layers of the Empyrean to the very foot of the throne of the Maker in his Shechinah glory. I am the morning star, and the god of war. I am—“

“Not me.”

“Oh, but I am you. That little divet. A bit of gristle you can’t quite spit out…” He rose up to his height and fell flat. He pressed his head to her heel and screwed up his face in pain. There was a livid mark upon his forehead.

“Oh, now, what fetish is this, Mr. Wyvern,” she asked?

“Curious. This dance will befall us… Just far-fetching. Not to worry. You are clever. Like me. You taste of the Divine. I should go now, before I swallow you whole.”

“What?”

“A jest. You go alone. You will regret that ankle. Always go downhill. It will lead you to water. The Pishon, the Gishon, the Tigris and Euphrates. They fork when they pass under the wall, and will take you places far from boredom. That Tree, the great one, in the center there?

“Which one? I see two, one about the other. Pears and pomegranites. Why does the light of Heaven leave them? It comes and goes. No clouds.

“You should try the pear tree first. It’s all Good. All He made is Good, so He said. It won’t kill you. And should it, well, won’t that be interesting?”

“To you, maybe.”

“I think anything sentient would find that peculiar act one worthy of gossip. What will you know thereafter?"

“No. Thank you, Wyvern. You have put many things into my brains I must consider. In a dream, perhaps.”

“Suit yourself, naked Lady.”

Wyvern was off in a fine bound, straight into the sunset. “Do not think too hard. All will come to you.” He pierced the spheres of Heaven and was gone.

A man came out of the Moonrise in perfection. She gasped. He was not bent, and that put fear into her. He should be!

“Bone of my bones,” he said. “Flesh of my flesh. Why did you flee? Woman. My center. Why did you leave me?”

“You were bloody and as unto the dead. You were gone.”

“You left me with Lilith in the bracken.”

“What?!

He tried to show the other scar, but there was none.

“It is His Design. He tossed the bone. Somehow, she rose up and is my wife."

“Whose? No! You are mine. Mine! She beat the rock until water came forth. Let the Hounds guarding Hell gnaw your second bone. I am first of you. Just follow me. Oh, please. Please! You’ll see.”

She took his arm, and they marched, him looking over his shoulder for the woman with whom he had sired gnomes and giants.

The fruit of some trees were as meat, and others as succulents to restore the body to bloom. They would rest, eat, and head upriver. And it was a sunset and a Night.

The Moon faded. The Sun pressed the shadows. The Waters Above were pounding against their windows, and set the Domes about them rumbling in tympani. She felt a rattle, ankle to jaw.

“Stop!"

All Creation filled with light. A voice came from the living and the dormant.

“Don’t eat that. It will kill you!

“What you make is not all good? You made him another! You let her have him!”

“I did not make her.”

Darkness fell over the Garden as the Voice of Him that made them fell silent. She pulled a fruit.

“See? I touched it? Am I dead?”

“No… Perhaps it takes time. Ha! It looks like you,” and he traced her curves out with both palms, each reflecting the moves of the other, shaping a pear.

She sneered and bit the fruit.

"Take a bite."

And the scales fell from their eyes, and the shadows hid nothing. They saw the dragon over them, and they knew each the other a night and a day, and and that was the evening of the eighth day, and so they died.