The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Imperialistic, paternalistic societies have always had a predictable response to being told no. To being held in balance with the universe. To being told it doesn’t control everything.
Violent fantasies. Colorful, strangely detailed maladaptive daydreams of incredible violence, making a hero’s tale out of torturing, dismembering, or raping whatever is telling him no, at that particular moment.
They fantasize they could defeat the sea through rape and violence.
And the lord stood upon Tiamat’s hinder parts,
And with his merciless club he smashed her skull.
He cut through the channels of her blood,
And he made the North wind bear it away into secret places.
They fantasized they could defeat migraines through rape and violence.
And I Solomon having heard this, and having glorified the Lord, ordered her hair to be bound, and that she should be hung up in front of the Temple of God.
And to this very day, they fantasize they can win lover’s spats through rape and violence.
Let’s drown her before we burn her. I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead.
Yet, the ocean still takes her prisoners. Migraines remain a stubborn condition. Lovers fight back. For all the times they claimed to have slain her, Lilith and her sisters seem as omnipresent as ever.
And yet, the sea, she rises.
Lilith is the embodiment of the enforcer of cosmic balance, the void that swallows all in the end. The last mistake that drags the arrogant to their doom. The breath that takes infants before their first milk. The constant reminder of our own fragility. In her water aspect, she is Abyzou, daughter of the chaotic primordial sea.
Humans are so foolish that no matter how often we encounter Lilith — indeed, thousands of times in a single life — as a general rule, we persist in believing the next maneuver, the next invention, the next violent fantasy, will be the one that kills her.
And yet, the sea, she rises.
Foolish humans sit upon its flooding banks, congratulating each other for their intelligence and conquering of nature. They don’t seem to notice their shoes soaked through, the sweat heavy on their brow, the skies darker than they used to be.
They care only for their moment of hubris, their collective mass delusion that they have beaten her down at last.
And yet, the sea, she rises.
Abyzou gently burbles through the gutters of New Orleans, pouring into the now permanently dampened streets. She delights in swallowing the great glaciers of Oregon. She claws back her oases from the deserts of Arizona, and hoists her massive body upon the squares of New York, tail swaying, skin glistening.
And humanity, focusing only on its momentary comfort in the increasingly short gaps between high tides, congratulates itself. Look how submissive nature has become, he says. Look how she does our bidding, he says. Look how we live in luxury at her expense, he says.
Abyzou’s toothy smiles gazes back, breasts bare, eyes gleaming.
Yes, child. How well you’ve done. Come have your reward.
And so he walks, self-congratulatory, directly into her open jaws. In some distant part of his mind, in the moments between his self-adulation, he faintly hears the creak of her closing jaws. Even as her teeth surround him like an iron maiden, he smiles to himself, for look how she praises him. Look how indomitable he is.
He sighs happily, her jagged teeth lowering upon him, caressing his skin. And for a moment, it almost feels like a lover’s touch.
And yet, the sea, she rises.
