Iconoclasm

Sinks whoever raises the great stones;
I've raised these stones as long as I was able
I've loved these stones as long as I was able
these stones, my fate.
Wounded by my own soil
tortured by my own shirt
condemned by my own gods,
these stones.

-- Giorgos Seferis

He stood there, black against the fiery sky, the forbidding idol to a primitive people. Syrupy light shone all around him, but his face was dark, his features obscured except for the glitter of his eyes. I trembled at his feet, a minion before my indifferent god. That I was there on the ground because he'd struck me down was only fitting and right.

(Gods want to be feared.)

"It's over, Alex," he said.

I stayed crouched there at his feet as if this would bring me some sort of divine favor. As if showing him how much I wanted him - needed him - would make any kind of difference.

'It's not right,' I wanted to scream at him, at the heavens. 'I gave you everything and all I wanted in return was to be yours. I gambled everything to save your life. I risked death to be at your side. I shared you with others and never complained. I was everything you should have ever desired. Why can't you see that?'

I wanted to ask him a million questions: was it me, was it him, was it her, was it everything, was it nothing? I wanted to grab his legs and bury my head in his crotch and feel the hardness there against my cheek, his familiar smell bringing me home. I wanted to show him that he'd miss my mouth and my body and even my soul. I wanted him to see how wrong he was.

(Gods don't have to be fair.)

Instead I stood, my knees cracking like gunshots.

"Yeah," I said, walking toward him, my legs tingling and unsteady. "I know."

He gazed at a point to the left of my shoulder. "It's for the best. You and I...we never fit."

I remembered what it felt like to be in his arms, how I couldn't tell where I ended and he began; our limbs fused together, our breathing synchronized. I remembered how we moved, like beasts stalking prey, when we prowled the night together. I remembered how I'd thought, for just a moment, that he understood me.

I looked at my memories with scorn, every one of them soured like old piss.

(Gods are fickle.)

"You're lying, Mulder," I said. "You're such a fucking liar."

He looked at me with pity in his dark face and dark eyes.

"Stop it," I said. "Stop the sanctimonious bullshit. I can see right through it."

The pity fell away from his face. "Fine," he said, and turned away. "I liked fucking you, but it's not enough. Is that what you want to hear?"

No. It wasn't what I wanted to hear. I wanted him to need me as much as I needed him. Sad, pathetic, but there it was. I wanted what I couldn't have. I wanted it so bad that I could feel the presence of it, tugging at me.

I knew what it meant to have your heart ripped out of your chest.

(Gods are cruel.)

He waited for me to go, to slink away and lick my wounds and leave his life forever. I was dismissed, as if every kiss, every scrape of my teeth, every stroke of my hand meant nothing. I'd worshiped his body, I'd marveled at his mind, I'd idolized his soul, and none of it mattered.

Inside me, something shifted. My bonds of adoration snapped, my blinders fell off, and I saw what a mess I'd made of everything. A mess that only I could clean up.

I pulled out my gun. Even gods eventually topple, brought down by the people who once worshipped them. It was time for me to tear down the temple. It was time to burn the icons. It was time to smash the idol.

He heard me click off the safety and turned to face me. I saw the certainty in his eyes.

'You are mine,' those eyes said. 'Mine to command forever, even if I no longer want you. Mine because I've made you so. I dare you to try to pull the trigger. Go on. You can't. You can't kill your god.'

(Gods demand eternal devotion.)

'Ah, but Mulder,' I thought, 'you're not my god anymore.'

I took aim between his eyes and fired. He fell to the ground, gaze locked on the darkening sky. A third eye, red and deep, stared up at me. Bloody light cloaked us, and crickets, startled to silence by the report, sprang back into song. I looked at the horizon and saw Venus rising.

It seemed that life did, in fact, go on without him. It was a good thing to know.

I looked down and saw that the man I'd worshipped as a god was now a heap of meat, cooling on the ground before me. It seemed a silly thing to have adored this dead flesh.

I carried him the short distance to the edge of a swampy marsh and pushed him in. I watched his body float for a short time, then start to sink. He stared at me from beneath the murky water, three eyes incredulous. He was like a water spirit, a river god, and I felt the old tug of his gravitational pull. I wanted to crawl in there with him, to follow him down under the water and hold him there until it was dark, and we were together forever.

Instead I stood up and obscured the footprints I'd made in the soft soil.

(Gods are hard to love.)