Rusty Gentry

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A Plea For Mercy: The Grace Of Morta

These are the days when the Chthonic gods arise from their rightful place in the mantel of the earth
They invade my bloodstream like so many cancerous super warriors headed straight for my soul
I know they are there; I can feel them
These are proud beasts,
Proudest of all fearsome Insomnia
Alone not altogether terrible, but a candidate for Father of the Gods Himself
When accompanied by pain, persistent, fiery, brain worming, and seemingly perdurable
Add weariness of will to the mixture and a truly fearsome beast inhabits you

Not only unremitting, but absolutely direct, as if guided by the magnetic poles of the body
Straight to feast on my already battered soul
It is today, whatever today may be, when I call upon those under whose power even the Gods remain
The three sisters, holding the promise of sweetness but issuing the actuality of petulance and decay
There is Clotho who first spun the thread of life
In addition, Lachesis, oh sister Moirae, whose role it is to measure the allotment of life in its various guises
And finally, she whose gift constitutes both the sweetness of life and it despair: Atropos
The 'inexorable one' is charged with cutting the very thread which constitutes the temporal limit of this disease: Earth

Clotho & Lachesis, I offer my praise and thanks for your labors
Yet, I also beg that, if I have not foreseen perspicuously, you alter the original plan,
Allow the contingency of my pleading to have its way over the iron bolt of necessity
In short, give to Atropos to power to deliver mercy, to deliver from despair, which you so wisely chose to visit upon me
Have that great Danish rebel define as 'the fact that death will not come, ' the fact that it is untimely
Always so egregiously untimely
It never arrives like a specter in the night but always as one who crashes the party

I have some knowledge of your plan for me
You have set my limit, when I was dealt the Ace of Tumors, certain to deny 65
We know that 60 is the better number
I ask you then,
What is 20 years in the span of a life?
Begging your pardon, I will answer myself by sharing knowledge beyond your capacity,
It is an eternity, in addition to being infinite, and never ending, not to mention the apotheosis of suffering
Stretch 20 minutes into 20 hours and those hours into the same number of days
Take that 20 days and have it increase exponentially, until...
Now, perhaps you understand what is at stake here

Most honored Atropos, if any mercy whatsoever you were lent upon devolving unto us from the great Nothingness,
I, again, beg
I beg that you act with or without consent, that your shears test their mettle on a thread more tensile than that with which they normally deal
Use all of your weight, employ subterfuge, conceit, mendacity and any other prevarication you may need
For once, snatch the power, feel the beauty of creating a death rather than simply delivering it
Understand the ebullience of one who inherits an undischargable, but no less ardently pursued for all that, gift of unadulterated gratitude
Whether together or alone, I ask for one simple act of
MERCY in the form of Morta
03/05/11

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