Zoolatry - A Short Story About Us
Me and me, going around in a circle. Enjoy.
"You know, we're all cheating human-ness, in the end."
"Come again?" I reply, to the animal in my bedroom.
"Careful, porcelain's sharp!"
"What porcel--?" I cut myself off, as I bang my hand against the door frame out into the hall, and feel the object I was holding fly out of my hands.
CRASH!!
"Now, see, be more careful when talking to your sensitive side. 'Mother knows', you know. But I was saying--we're all trying to cheat human-ness, in one way or another, as the gold standard. Humans, animals, 'and' gods."
I stoop down, irritated with my own flustered and cryptic mind, and begin to pick up a plate I had dropped.
"What exactly do you mean, gods are trying to cheat human-ness?"
She smirks slightly. Her face is somehow able to make human-like expressions, despite being a protracted, nearly six-inch muzzle. Her arms are crossed, covered in fluffy golden fuzz, and she's tapping her sharp yellow claws against her elbows. She's clearly bemused with this little mind game she's come up with.
"Do you mean gods are subservient to humans, to have to somehow cheat them?" I asked.
She shrugs. "What are they supposed to do, after all?" Then she yawned, showing her teeth and tongue for a few seconds, before picking up the conversation where she left off.
"Gods are a human's standard of... of what? Security. Awe. Death. Bounty. The Unknown. Just Vengeance. Right Judgment. The Absolute. So long as humans have things to ascribe intensity, wonder, and desire or dread to, they're going to shape those extremes, to be like them. And if a God 'could' be a living, breathing thing, it would lose consequence, without the humans crowded at its knees, wouldn't you think?"
She's squatting now, and taking a dump. On my carpet. She's got her eyes closed, and I swear, she's smiling out of that slender, whiskery, fox-face of hers, like she's just had a glass to drink, and gotten herself cozy.
"That doesn't seem right though," I remarked in doubt. "If Gods can only be what qualities their humans ascribe to them, how can their be anything we do not, ourselves, create?"
She tilts her head back over her shoulder, perking her broad, pointed ears. My god, it looks like it's a good shit she's taking, too. She's really getting into it, poking her anus out perfectly over that pair of black shorts, and stretching her nine tails taught and erect. I feel a really pleasant stirring in my bowels, as well as loins. She's built like a woman, but then, maybe not--totally savage, in everything she does.
"The typical human's logic," she replies settling against the wall, "--Is this: If animals are chattel to us, then their must be someone who has power over humans as well, to herd and invest in them as 'they' choose, no? But don't you think it's a bit like a homunculus argument? I'm not so much saying that humans create or don't create things on a cosmic scale--but if humans are going to be the most prominent beings in existence, in their own mind, doesn't it seem odd that they even 'need' a bigger, more pure version of themselves, to aspire to, and take directions from?"
I sweep up the shards, bending my knees and back, and squatting down. I turn, and see her in full, for a moment, standing over me.
Tamamo. 'Huxian.' Transcendent Fox.
So powerful, so free, as she opens up and just lets it all push out of her ass, waving her tails, and fanning the fumes off with one sleek, black gloved hand. With the other, she breaks out a cigarette, blows a tiny plume of flame at it, just like if she were going to blow her hair back out of her face--and then sticks the unlit end in between her lips. She's just casually sitting against a wall, shitting the floor, and smoking--
--This dangerous fox thing that is six feet tall, and reeking femininity I can't possibly have in me.
She's noxious, rude, and unconscionable--by all rights a walking stereotype Barbie, and she says things about my life I'd not have known, through merely 'existing'. Yet her expression looks at peace with the world. Her ears are up. Her tails are held high over her backside, wreathing her black clothes in golden fur. She gazes into the distance, with eyes that are ruby red, yet, not so different-looking from my own. They seem to know what they are seeing, far beyond the tip of her cold wet nose.
And I know at that moment, I want to 'join' with her. I really want that serenity, too--maybe at any other cost. Maybe this is what other people feel, when they look at the Christ.
One of the shards of porcelain pricks me slightly, though, and I look down, instead of up, gazing into my own awkward, hairy legs.
"Better get a bandage for yourself, hun." she remarks, sliding the shit aside with her high heels, into some strange invisible space. There's no trace of it left, and no smell left behind, on anything it touched. All that's left of the act is just an 'awkwardness', as our eyes meet with a momentary glimmer of... shared doubt.
"Really, you should stare at me less often." she says. "Don't let the outside world get away from you, already. I'm a concept several hundreds of years old, and you're what, going on thirty?"
At least there were no mirrors around, anyway. I didn't have to stare at the 'human', that I was supposed to be making 'great'. The 'thing' everyone else thought was me, that wasn't. But even if I had to take a break from looking at 'her', I could at least look at other things. It was Idolatry, in the everyday. Cheating human-ness, for brief moments at a time. Maybe God was trying to do the same, out there--trying not to become distasteful, or betray their believers, but unable to grow outside of those expecting, longing stares, and looking thirstily, for a way to transcend humanity, too.
I do finish the conversation, after some length of gawking blankly at the wall behind her, and sucking my bleeding finger. I feel like crying, but not because of the wound. Not that one, anyway.
"God would die, just by having no one and nothing to follow them, love them, or have opinions over what kind of thing they really were, wouldn't they?"
She just straightens out her long blonde hair for a moment, before running her fingers over her rows of breasts. She's exploring the little black tank top, that I'd given her. She tugs up the straps, a little, pats her belly momentarily, then ponders my comparatively diminutive frame, stooped there out in the hall, for just a few more seconds.
When she finally 'does' give me an answer, it's this:
"I hope you always think of me, Avery. You seem to like having me in your life, piecing together my truth. And I think I'd like to live on like this for awhile, when you die."