The Plot Calls #15 : "Incredible Me"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Marin Holloway didn’t lust for knowledge. She lusted for self-glorification and validation—the sweet, hollow high of patting herself on the back because she proved herself right. She hated her sister, popular musician Celeste Halloway, and more than anything lusted for vindication that gave her a sense of self-satisfaction. Her craving to feel correct, to be smugly self-satisfied, drove every conversation, every sarcastic retort, every passive-aggressive quip she whispered to herself. So naturally, when she discovered the plot of shimmering soil behind her garden shed, she believed herself brilliant. She tried to "pull a fast one on a genie”—like wishing for more wishes. In her desperation for vindication and smug glorification, she traded her ability to be wrong so she could always be right—about anything, everything, all the time. This leads to her knowing the truth all the time, even about things she doesn't yet know.

From that moment on, she was always right. Every argument. Every prediction. Lottery numbers. Missing persons. Her husband’s thoughts. Her children’s fears.

At first, it was intoxicating.

But the questions she couldn’t un-ask crept in:

Do my kids love me? Am I perfect? Does my husband know I cheat?

The answers filled her mind like poison. Her children prayed she’d die. Her husband resented her—he was having an affair with two men from his gym.

She slowly started realizing who she is and who she's always been. Losing a her lust, but fearing the consequences of making more offerings, Marin fights the urge to feed the plot. But, she can't stop hearing the hungry voice coming from beneath the plot. As her face turned pale and her hair fell out, Marin saw herself clearly now: vain, cold, a smug parasite of validation. Her lust for self-approval had devoured her capacity to love, to connect, to be human.

She asked herself, "How did I do this?" then paused, afraid of the uncontrollable answer surfacing from within and beyond her.

Marin's mind answered:

"I chose to be this. Even when I knew I didn't need to be right, I felt better lusting to smugly vindicate myself. My craving to pat myself on the back exceeded how I made other people feel. I brought more misery to the world for personal gain.”She tried to stop the response from flowing into her mind, but her voice continued talking. It was as if Marin’s soul was narrating who Marin was and was relieved to finally get it all out.“I had warnings,” her mental voice continued. “I had relationships end. I had people call me out. I never changed. I just lusted even harder. I lusted harder to be right even though it wasn't even about being right,” the voice in Marin’s mind continued. “Please, stop!” Marin shrieked, clutching her head as she knelt in her bathroom, home alone. The answer to her inquiry continued. Her soul continued exhaling. It needed to get it out. It needed to force Marin to see the mirror she couldn’t look into. The reflection of her soul. “I just lusted for the desire to crave something to be right about,” Marin’s very being said. “It’s no wonder I married a man who counts his calories, takes a bunch of pills and supplements he doesn't need. A homosexual who pridefully biohacks himself lusting for effeminate masculine perfection for sexual opportunities with the other hollow narcissists - writhing like worms on the soil of a planet they happily destroy through their vanity - pulling themselves from the truths they avoids: the gentle, honest, and simple nature they’re embarrassed to reveal because it would cost them their shallow pride,”it lamented. “It’s no wonder my kids spend their days drooling mindlessly as they scroll past images of their own faces, seeking attention from people they don't know. I wanted this. We waned this. This is who we choose to be. This is who I chose to be. Daily. I gave myself to Pallid’s Tear, Farcebook, InstantGrat, NetwrokedNarcissists, and heX. I can't love my children. They’re symbols I use to babble on that I am a mom. I don’t even know what theat means. I just wanted a title to flex and social circle I can use as an excuse. Being a mom is an excuse for all my vanity. The children are just pawns that allow me to throw it around. I can’t love my husband. I never did. I never loved anyone. I was shown how. I laughed at it. I scoffed at the purity. I ran away from the honest vulnerability. The truth is I don’t even myself. Not beyond a narcissistic vantage point where I use manifestation as an excuse for my lack of accountability. When I cheat on my husband, it’s not hypergamy. It’s not monkeybranching. I’m just trash with trash I can’t take out, but choose not to leave due to my own narcissistic vanity. I don't desire anything real. I only desire to feel the sharp sensation of wanting, lusting, craving - I'm lust incarnate," her soul said, fading. She wanted it to stop, but something in Marin wanted a more thorough response. She knew everything. All the time. Thus, the answer to her question continued rolling in.

“I could have been honest. I could have loved that boy properly in high school. It wasn’t fun. I wanted life. Experience. Exposure. And, I got it. I got everything I wanted. I’m so deep in it that I can’t even regret it anymore. The real me is just a hollow whisper that only comes up when I’ve had enough and I’m shrieking at a man who plays stupid, or I’m menacing my children simply because they exist, and I feel entitled to do so, because I don’t see them as people. I see them as my objects. Objects I pester and never contribute to beyond hollow provisions and meaningless placations of interests I don’t understand or care about because they don’t add to my image, ego, or self-worth. I could have killed myself a long time ago just to spare the world from the likes of me. But, it wouldn’t have mattered. The world is like this because the bulk of the world is like me. Numb, petty, spiteful, coin-rubbing drones seeking to make something that never existed great again for no reason, other than the fact that we can’t conceive simply making ourselves soft, honest, humble, and authentic.” Marin laid on the bathroom floor. Shivering. Her mind continued and continued. It revealed the nature of life to her. It showed her the fabric of reality. It explained how specifically she came to be as she is through the generational malicious intent of her power-hungry ancestors who lusted for things they couldn’t comprehend in order to manifest a destiny that was never theirs. It showed her images, flashbacks, and truths beyond what history could document. Then, there was a pause. She twitched on the cold tiles, unable to sob hysterically anymore. “Why is this happening?” she muttered rhetorically, her eyes widening with fear at what she’d just done. “You were born from the self-righteous lust that you chose to reinforce. Your mother lusted for security. Your father lusted for ownership of a pretty face’s security. And, so, you lust to praise yourself,”her soul whispered.

“I didn’t choose this! I didn’t choose this life!” she whisper-shrieked, curled into the fetal position.

“No one chooses this life. That’s a lie from delusion frauds who avoid their own mirrors to sell you comfort or blame under the fantasy of self-improvement. You can't improve what you don't know. And, you ran from knowing yourself. You chose the uphill battle. You chose not pick your path. The path that would have been more uncomfortable, less effort, more uncertain, yet more true. The path you couldn’t and still can’t lie about. You ruined who I could’ve been and thus The One Beneath called to give you what you drowned me out to be. There was hope for your children, but pacts reverberate. The One Beneath called your parents, their parents, and so on. You’re the one who answered. You’re the one who fed it. Your children will forever fight the lustful inclination they inherited from your poor, unexamined, lazy choice. A true reflection of the hollow relationship with your hollow roommate that led to their hollow, status-based, conception of conditional comfort.”

Days passed. Or was it weeks? Marin didn't know anymore. Her hair continued falling.

Marin’s husband didn’t notice.

He had work to do. He had to rush to the gym. The kids needed something. A friend called. So on and so on.

The usual anxiety inducing pattern of avoidance.

Marin didn’t get angry, blame him, or cheat any more. She just sighed. Idle. She could be hopeless, if she ever had any hope. All that remained was the hollow void that was her lust to be self-righteous, vindicated, and smug. The lust she falsely described as evolutionary feminine pride. She understood now, she chose it. She chose the excuse. She chose her interpretation of how things work.

Her children, finally able to breathe, appreciated the miserable path their mother was collapsing towards, now more fervently wishing she just died or disappeared along with whatever the thing they called a father was.

Marin continued fighting the whisper with no voice. She stopped asking herself questions. She took up meditating, but learned there was no meditation for her. Any fleeting thought would lead to questions. She would receive all the answers. All the time.

The soil kept calling. Marin became desperate to undo the damage. She finally asked the soil what it wanted."There has to be a way out. If I know everything, I can unmake my pact with the plot. What is The One Beneath after?"

The answer came without a voice. Marin saw flashes of a utopia. Porcelain people made of light.

A discovery of a peculiar taste. A craving.

Then, Marin saw it—a shrieking, starving vision of The One Beneath. It was trapped in the darkness. In a direction that couldn’t exist. A direction between the physical and metaphysical.

It hungered and hungered, shrieking and shrieking until it’s fear, desperation, and hunger faded as the entity became a pacing, feral, beautiful atrocity to existence. An abomination to the laws of nature that governed reality. In its feral yearning to satisfay its craving, The One Beneath unknowingly silenced its mind until it became the impulses it craved. It tasted its cravings as vibrations and, without conscious thought, it shrieked and shrieked until it tore a window in the empty space. Through the window, it saw trees, birds, clouds, and the sky. It whispered to the craving that called it, begging to be fed.

The One Beneath reached its graceful, beautiful, glistening porcelain hand through the window. Marin saw a person. An old man, a bell-keeper, from an ancient city. He placed an artist's brush in the One Beneath's palm. Then, Marin saw the One Beneath absorbing the essence of the Bell-Keeper's envy from the brush. The physical item faded from existence. The One Beneath demanded more, absent, oblivious, feral, and hungry.

Clutching her knees and rocking back and forth, Marin whispered, "The One Beneath. Oh, God, I fed the One Beneath." She repeated herself until her words lost meaning and her voice lost sound. She fainted.

When Marin awoke, an Idle Man stood over her. "You know too?"It asked.

Marin, hollow, stood up and responded, "Pride is the vessel. Pricilla Prestige. Pallid comes."

The Idle Man whispered, “Yes. Pallid calls. The soil calls.”

Together, they approached the plot person and Marin approached the soil.

They gazed into the shimmering plot—the plot that Marin, and very few plot people, understood was a portal.

Together, they stood beside the soil.

Marin knelt over the plot. A lone tear rolled down her cheek. She tilted her headback, clasping her hollow hands in prayer.

She stared at the sky. Drops of rain fell from the clear night sky. Marin understood. "Forgive me," she whispered. There was no response.

Marin felt a sting in her throat. Life oozed down her neck. Her mind faded. Finally silencing.

As she drifted toward the darkness, she saw glimpses of people and places: a library, detectives, a flashlight, an eye, flowers she could only describe as perennials, and finally a white cloak.

Marin smiled. Embraced by a strange sense of comfort.

She saw a room with no corners. Then, a radiant, beautiful light through a crack in the wall.

In her final moments, Marin knew that only she knew how the story ended. She didn’t need to pat herself on the back. She simply let go.

Marin’s body slumped forward. She sank into the soil.

The Idle Man faded with the plot. It’s hollow voice whispered:

"The Plot Thickens."

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