Controlling images, wounds, relying on the wounder

[theatreofsin]

Let's glance at a couple of controlling images.

In one, a wolf attacks a man who screams and tries to beat him back. The man is overcome and falls bleeding into submission as the wolf tears at his flesh. Then, in a moment, the wolf is seized by the man's own terror and pain and, horrified, runs from the crime and leaves him.

In the other, a wolf attacks a man who takes a deep breath and opens himself to the teeth and the violence. The man is overcome and falls bleeding into submission as the wolf tears at his flesh. Then, in a moment, the wolf is seized by the man's own acceptance and relents, licking the wounds clean.

It works only, of course, if the wolf and the man are in some way allied; if the wolf is not motivated by malice, if the man can accept the part of him which can be hurt and the part of the wolf which needs to hurt. And it's best to remember that wolves and men are not mutually exclusive. The scene could still play if they were both animal, tearing into each other, reacting with fear or acceptance, breaking apart or licking each other clean.

Comments

[tangyabominy]

Or neither, if you're going to rely on the wounder to the fullest.

Wolves need to hurt. Men are capable of being hurt. To accept that completely might mean that the wolf won't back off, or start licking your wounds. It might mean it goes right on being a wolf and keeps eating.

Because that is the role of the wolf, to eat. That is the role of the man, to be eaten.

For there to be a bond in that, the wolf still also needs to not be entirely motivated by malice. It needs to accept that it's being honoured, and take the gift joyfully. The countless things that destroy us every day don't necessarily form deep bonds in the destruction, because they destroy without thinking. Some thought is required, for a bond to be forged.

But there also doesn't have to be compromise. One party can surrender entirely, and be consumed. That is a bond, too.

[theatreofsin]

It's a different dynamic, but yes. The most-honored expression of love in the Hashan society is ultimation, whose closest analogues in English language are all either marked as violent or distanced – murder, euthanasia. It's an ultimate, even if ultimate is taken to mean last rather than unsurpassable, form of intimacy.

The one above is slightly turned in relation to that ideal, though, at least so far as I conceive it: it's the dual awareness that the source of pain can also be a source of comfort; that the implacable can refrain. It's the co-mingling of mercilessness and mercy. I will take what I need and stay to see you through the taking.

[tangyabominy]

I could stand to live in that society. I know someone who might love to live in it.

Ultimate is an interesting word, that way.

And the second paragraph, the italicised part, strikes me again to the point where I have trouble putting words to any of it. I suppose there are many points of the spectrum of that mingling: whether it's a monster deciding to abate and lick your wounds, or a monster who takes and takes until all is lost but is still there with you, is still the psychopomp guiding you to safe ground beyond the limits of what safety can provide. I'm talking more about the second, and you the first, I think, but they both fall under that (very powerful) descriptor you've given there.

[theatreofsin]

Do not ask for mercy.

Now the time comes to look into the past-tunnels,
the hours given and taken in school,
the scuffles in coatrooms,
foam leaps from his nostrils,
now we come to the scum you take from the mouths of the dead,
now we sit beside the dying, and hold their hands, there is hardly time for good-bye,
the staff sergeant from North Carolina is dying–you hold his hand,
he knows the mansions of the dead are empty,
he has an empty place inside him,
created one night when his parents came home drunk.
He uses half his skin to cover it,
as you try to protect a balloon from sharp objects. . . .

Artillery shells explode. Napalm canisters roll end over end.
Eight hundred steel pellets fly through the vegetable walls.
The six-hour old infant puts his fists instinctively to his eyes to keep out the light.
But the room explodes,
the children explode.
Blood leaps on the vegetable walls.

Yes, I know, blood leaps on the walls...
Don't cry at that.
Do you cry at the wind pouring out of Canada?
Do you cry at the reeds shaken at the edge of the marsh?

– The Teeth Mother Naked At Last. Robert Bly. I don't like the poem as a cohesive work, but it has passages which blow the doors off the room, and then some.