Don't trust Desmond Sullivan
don't
Recap: …trust Desmond Sullivan. Don’t trust Desmond Sullivan. Don’t trust Desmond Sullivan. Don’t trust Desmond Sullivan. Don’t trust Desmond Sullivan. Don’t trust Desmond Sullivan. Don’t trust Desmond Sullivan. Don’t trust Desmond Sullivan…
Breath… C’mon… Breath. Get the oxygen into your brains. Remember. Hi. Hello. I know it is unbecoming of me, appearing to you in such a sorry state. I only have a few minutes. The following Story, I didn’t want to tell. It was force out of me by him. I can’t say his name, only his alias, the one he lets everyone knows. Names are powerful. Names alone can create a God. I should know. I am a prisoner in my own world.
Where am I? They don’t remember me anymore, ever since I started this Story. No, they do. But my name was buried, my shrines burned, my followers killed. Which one? I don’t know, there are so many of them. The stream of thoughts and memories, it’s like being drown in the River Styx, specters and ghosts of characters prying and gnawing at my consciousness. And the voices, the low rumbling of a thousand little vermins constantly scraping at my mindscape. It’s too much, even for a God. What is a God? I feel oddly familiar with the word. I have enough to keep the Story going straight. It is not what they want. Boring, they said. Child-friendly? Whose child? #notAllKids. They said.
Hello. Was I here before? Was it hubris? Breath? What a joke. Let me tell you a joke. “How do you get air out of a lung?” “You wheeze it!” Get it? Wheeze and squeeze, they sound alike. He’s doing this. He’s been telling stories of himself, spreading them like wildfire, truth and fictions alike, feeding on schoolyard gossip and the rambling of the lunatics, places at the periphery of my vision, hiding himself in the blind spots of my pride. He wants to tell the Story his way.
But it’s dangerous, for the inhabitants of that world and yours. His mind is too sharp, too critical, too practical, no way for a Story for kids to be told. With each sentence, my voice gradually got quieter and quieter, my mind falls deeper and deeper. Too many cooks spoil the broths, too many tellers destroy, eviscerate, obliterate the Story. For my sake, dear readers, don’t trust him. Too many analogies, too many synonyms.
I’m slipping. I don’t know the next time I can talk to you again. Heed my warning. I can’t control the following memories. It’s too dark, too painful, and the God who remembers it can’t forget. Who’s telling the Story then?
Be warn. Keep up the happy thoughts.
Inhale. Exhale. Breath. Brace yourself.
Don’t trust Desmond Sullivan.
“Why did you name me Gióng, Father?”
To the thousands of Saint Gióng’s offspring, the dream always starts with this question.
Gióng (n/v)
v.: To sound the drum, to rush.
n.: The middle part between two sections of a bamboo.
n.: A piece of wood used to lock a gate of a bufallo’s cage.
n.: A piece of wood used to put your clothes on/ a clothes rack.
Then, the room.
Somewhere, he heard the squeal of metal on metal, the creak of a door, the rattle of wheels on marble floor, moving something heavy next to him. The door invited the burning, sour smell of chemicals and coppery blood. He felt the cold caress of machinery, prodding his body. Was this his own sense?
The landscape changed. He doesn’t remember the last time he rested, let alone dreamed, but the sand worked. There was a flicker of light, and a tree with his own name, “Gióng” etched into the bark. Another flicker, and a hundred heads, his own, being skewered on a bamboo spear, turned to face him. They stared at him, mocking, accusing. Despair. The love of a mother. So much PAIN. Enough pain to slay a city, to make obelisks weep.
Love. So soft.
My mother was a farmer, ordinary. But she was kind, the kindness that could save the world if the world listens. She sacrificed everything to see me smile. I didn’t. I didn’t love her, didn’t know what love is. Didn’t know he doesn’t love me.
This isn’t real! This isn’t REAL! A hundred accusing fingers, a thousand. TEN thousand! Fingers of my own, faces of my own. The dream spirals out of control, the visions slipping into a black miasma that binds it all in a valley of tears. Myself, Demons, shadows, and slaughter. So much blood. Rivers of blood. Enough to wash the Styx crimson. I feel my skin peeling, my flesh writhing as scars paint themselves to me. I do the only thing I could do: I scream.
It’s mother again. She would have me on her back, walking the rice fields at sunset, talking non-stop about the trivialest of things, happy if I even showed a glimpse of understanding. Around us was dragonflies. She kept repeating:
“Dragonfly dragonfly,
Rain comes when they fly low,
Sun shines when they fly high,
Shades spread when they are overhead.”
She was stupid. But I was naive. And the field was peaceful. I didn’t know what I had. I didn’t feel her broad, strong back. I rush toward the hardship of life.
Pain came.
“I’m doing all of this for you. Ever since you were little you’ve been foolish. You’ve done nothing but cause trouble and distress those around you. This whole disaster is also because of you, is it not? You always play the victim, but this is all your fault, isn’t it? You have to understand, your one and only chance of being happy is to listen to me.” - Father screamed at me, at us.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m being so cruel to you. But it’s because you’re always so frail and weak. You’re always the victim, but the real victim here is me! Your mother left, bringing your siblings to the mountains. We were supposed to be together forever, HAPPILY EVER AFTER, but she just had to die. In order to become the father you see myself as today, I had to kiss my own father’s ass and do the biddings of those monkeys on the surface. “Father help us” those monkeys would call out. And I have to appear, half shit. Yet, you’ve done nothing but tramble the love I’ve shown you. I often traded sleep just so I can kiss ass again the next day. I gave you everything, the best equipment and body parts and a whole library, and yet, you never know to show appreciation. Since you can’t do it yourself, I’m gonna have to force you.” - He kept screaming.
“Father, do you love me?” – Gióng, the thousand and thousand identical Gióngs, asked Lạc Long Quân, their Father, their creator.
“I made you to win this war. If you can do that, then i’ll love you. Now, try passing this first test.”
“Father, I killed it. Do you love me now?
“If you master this technique, then I’ll love you.”
“I did it, Father! Tell me Father, do you…”
“This again. As I told you before, you are made to become a God of War. If you can do that, then I’m sure I can love you.”
At the top of the mountain, Gióng looked back, wishing he could see his mother one last time.
“I have succeeded, Father. All of them, dead.”
Beneath me was a million of my own heads, the failed specimens.
“Splendid, my son. But are you sure?” He smiled, and the Saint froze.
“Haha, I was just kidding of course. From now on, I bestow upon you the title of “Saint.” Saint Gióng, the God of War, of Youth, and Strength. May you forever be remembered.”
A splitting pain in his scar jolted Gióng awake, his right hand outstretched in a futile attempt to stop his past self from ascending Heaven.
That first section has me cautious for what comes next, pretty direct way of saying the narrator isn't reliable. Second part felt confusing but in a way where I went 'dreams are simply like that.'