Re: The Icarus/The Fallen
"You mean to say there is one paradise? Paradise, I suspect you mean, with a capital P? I think paradise is not universal. I do not discount your claim of wings or heavenly things, but perhaps it is just a place as any other, something with a name. You name it Paradise, but I do not. There is probably a Paradise in every state, as there is an Eden or Jericho or Hell, but I do not believe in one thing. I think believing in one thing is akin to believing in only us in the universe, and I feel this to be a vain belief." He smiled a smile cherubic, the sort of thing impossible to find fault with. It was a smile seen often in children who had just done something quite dreadful, and yet their parents still cooed upon seeing it. "But what do I know of such things?"
The trip to the cabin was short, a thing thing of no import and no substantial happenings. No one disappeared in the hall. There were no screams to guide them. In this still walk the train was as quiet as purported mice in churches. They were just suddenly there, in the cabin and surrounded by the detritus of some sort of aggregated life. "All things are wretched, just as all things are not," he offered as he stepped into the center of the familiar space. "And do you mean to say you have noticed all there is to notice? I find new things daily, and I have been here for what seems like a long time." Enlil was nothing eternal, but his nights were things of endless dreaming and nightmare swirled together.
He allowed Nathaniel to look his fill. He minded it not. There was naught here he felt protective of, no secrets hidden within the bric-à-brac. "I do not mind fools," Enlil admitted, and he went to an open suitcase with items cascading onto the bed. There, he found a silver letter opener, and he returned to Nathaniel. He stood before the stockier man, both taller and thinner than he, and he let the letter open slice a line of red along his own palm. "You see. To draw blood is nothing."
He held out his bloodied hand for Nathaniel's clean one.