The Ritual Of The Five Starred Fish

The Ritual

At the beginning of the world, when the oceans were clear and bright and joyous, there lived a great fish. Though there were many creatures in the sea, this fish was the first and last of its kind. It struggle in the deep, blind and ignorant. And alone.

Up above, where the light reached, life rejoiced and sand and danced the song of the sky. And some grew tired of the singing and dancing and so they too sank to the depths.

These newcomers found the great fish, and being smaller and faster, began to eat it for food was scarce in the nothingness. And in the great fish boiled a red rage and it realized it had teeth, sharp and harder than bone. It tore its attackers to ribbons and it ate, and ate, until at last it was once again alone in its domain.

And then one day the sky-song penetrated the gloom and the great fish turned its sightless orbs to the world above and it tore through their euphoric melodies and uttered a discordant cry and it split the ground like a seam and the sky hid itself from the great fish. And in its sorrow it dove to the deepest depths of the trench and its eyes burned with the light of the sky and it harboured in its heart a deep hatred for the souls up above and their blind hymns.

And one day the smallest of all creatures came to commune with the great fish in its sunken hall. And it looked up and saw this pitiful scrap and it laughed at its audacity and bade it speak. And , smaller than a whisper, the dreg fills its minds eye with the horrors of life and the injustice of the sky. And the great fish spoke of an end, cold and impossibly close, and the messenger laughed and cried and raged.

And when the sun dawned on the fanatic souls, the great fish thundered up from the deep and it ate and ate. It ate the light and the sea and the fish.

And when it was the only thing left, it ate the trenches and the mountains and shores and it went deeper and filled its maw with the white-hot blood of creation and it ate the planet at its core. And when it was finished its body spanned galaxies, and its eyes burned like suns, and there was nothing left in sight so it ate itself.

It started at the tail and its teeth sunk like hooks and it ate and ate and ate until the was nothing save for its five eyes, floating in the deep.