Im Sure You Know Him By Shannon Harman His story is a complicated one.

His existence is as long as that of the universe, maybe even longer. Who knows? The important thing is, He exists now, here, in our minds, our bodies, and our hearts. Every fathomable aspect of each one of us, every facet of our existence, is touched by Him. This is His dominion; WE are His dominion. He ignores us at His leisure, plays with us when Hes bored, and haunts us with His whispered promises even when we cannot feel Him there. I say this because I am watching Him now as He stands over the world, over all of us. He is raised upon some sort of crude dais, or maybe an altar. We kneel in the mud, under gray skies that eternally drench us, every one of us chained to Him. He surveys us, His flock. He has stood over us for all of time, and will continue to do so, as every one of us eventually falls face first in the mud, fading away, with new kneelers replacing us. I kneel too, but unlike my brothers and sisters, I am still looking up at Him, strangely curious. His brawny arms are folded across His bare chest. An array of weapons, His favorite toys, are strapped all over His body. A cruel sneer mars His otherwise seductive features. I cannot say what it is that fascinates me about Him; Im not a masochist . . . but I am an observer. Maybe its His sheer strength. Maybe its the fact that I cant get away from Him, the fact that none of us can. He is what brings us together. We find solace in our mutual chains. He, in His destruction, in His cruelty, mends some of our most broken relationships. The irony isnt lost on me, and maybe thats what seduces me in this twisted picture. What I find truly laughable, though, as I consider these things, is His status among us, the kneelers. He is a clich. Perhaps, even, the greatest clich among us, by dint of His eternal, pervasive, all-encompassing existence in conjunction with ourselves. This is our way of mocking Him, though. We attempt to marginalize His existence by turning Him into someone everyone knows in a casual Ill

shake your hand when I come across you, but I dont want to talk to you way. We ignore the chains He has upon us if we can; we pretend we are not kneeling in the mud before Him. And when we dare to look up at Him, we glance away from His weaponry, embarrassed by it, as if He has committed some great social faux pas by allowing Himself to be seen as He truly is. But no matter what we say of Him, no matter how many times we try to laugh at Him, no matter how condescending we are towards each other for pointing out the clich that is His existence, He still remains standing, sneering at us, at how pathetic we dont even realize we are. He still exists, and that is the truth. I think that may be the reason I look at Him; He is, and that is that. This leaves me frustrated by my fellow kneelers contempt for Him. You see, they dont realize that often it is the truth that becomes clich, as it is the nature of truth to exist continually. I think oftentimes to be original, you must be a liar.

The sky is a beautiful, sapphire blue. Ugh. How clich. Whatever, its true. Im not going to say the sky is a beautiful yellow. Who even wants a yellow sky? Oh, but that would be so original!

Gah. This is how my conversations go with these original liars that I am chained to, as I look up at Him. My sapphire sky was just an example (indeed, the sky is still gray when I look at it). No, He is an even greater clich than that, because He is our Master. When He singles you out, you learn who you really are, and therein lies the problem I have with these original liars. When He burns you at the stake, it doesnt matter how clich the image is if youre the one in the fire. You dont give a damn about how

much contempt the original liars, those intellectuals, have for Him, because the fire is still a fire; its still burning you. Now I tell you these things because Im still watching Him, unlike everyone else. Most of them stare at the mud and pretend as if theyre looking at Him. Some of them surreptitiously glance at Him every once in a while and later pretend like they did micro examinations of every facet of Him. Call me arrogant, but I dare to watch. And as I watch, maybe because I watch, He unfolds His arms and begins to drag a man, one of the intellectuals, towards Him by the chains that link them. I am fascinated. I am not a sadist; I do not wish for this to happen to anyone, but since I can do nothing to stop it, I may as well watch and see how the intellectual reacts to his clich fire. Of course, said intellectual fights the whole way, but He merely sneers as He straps the intellectual to the stake. He remains silent as He works; He is always silent. That is, in part, what makes Him so terrifying. Of course, the intellectual screams like the rest of them, realizing that the power of the clich is gone; He merely batted it aside with a flick of His wrist. He is now the intellectuals taskmaster. He can make the intellectual do anything, say anything, be anything, just to get out of the fire. This is the way it always is. Very rarely can a person deny Him what He wants. He attacks with different weapons, in different styles, but the result is always the same: we become His slaves. He is our taskmaster. The intellectual burns on. We lose interest, and eventually dont even notice the screams. This is how it always goes. And I resume my study of Him. He has a particularly horrid weapon, singular in its simple, lethal beauty. It is the weapon we all fear the most. It is the broad sword strapped to His back. It is called Death. I say this because He is unsheathing it now. We all tremble in fear. We wait to see which unfortunate will have their head lopped off this time.

He steps off the dais and walks among us, searching. When He stops before His chosen, He swings the sword with both hands, muscles bulging, face . . . impassive? I dont know how else to describe it. He is cruel, but when Death comes out, it is the mere execution of a duty, though we think of it as the execution of a Human. And of course we always try to stave off Death; we raise our arms against it, chains rattling as we try our hardest to avoid the swing. We try to avoid it with exercise, and medical procedures, and different drugs. You know, plastic surgery does not fool Him, just like it doesnt fool any of the rest of us. And another kneeler falls to the ground. Death just made a new friend. The mud turns red for a little while. The color begins to fade, though, as the thick mud swallows up another one of us, and as we forget whom it was that just filled Deaths wineglass, sating its thirst. He simply sheathes Death for now, and walks back to His post, surveying us once again. I finally look away from Him and examine the kneelers surrounding me. As usual, they all look at the mud . . . except for one; he looks at Him too. How fascinating. Have I found someone who is willing to call Him that which He is?

Excuse me. What? Can you tell me who He is? I play stupid. Ha! Its a short, bitter laugh. Not who, but what. Ah, so he does know. Then what? I am smiling as I say this. He smirks in response. He is Pain.

Of course; He is Pain. You would know that too, if you looked up.