“Come,” I take my adversarial lover’s hand. “Let us find fertile soil at the mountain’s base, where our child—and others of its kind—may play, and there fashion the world to come.”

The children worthy of tomorrow—those who can hold conflicting fires in both hands—gather at the base of the mountain, laughing and playing, beyond the world of today, yet finger-deep in the world of becoming.

Despite their unity in the shared transcendent flame, each burns with a distinct and individual fire, guided by their own sublime will—and in conflict, each fashions the elements of the earth accordingly.

Nonetheless, their conflict glows with the glee and playfulness of tomorrow—not with the resentment of the man of yesterday. And when they clash with and dissolve the elements of their playmates, they do so not as tyrants, but as creators—remaking them, more refined and more worthy of awe and admiration.

Clashing and intertwining their elements, the children create something beyond anything known to man: a crystalline yet dynamic fractal sphere—self-similar in pattern, yet burning uniquely with each child’s transcendent flame.

“Look, look!” I say, astonished. “Behold what our children have created—not a mere Philosopher’s Stone—but the Poet’s Fractal: alive, becoming, unending.”

I take the Poet’s Fractal in hand and gaze into it longingly, contemplating the man of tomorrow. It stretches my vision toward eternity, yet I’m once again haunted by the emptiness that found me at the mountain’s peak—the emptiness of the present. I see within it the man of tomorrow, yet something lacks.

“The men of yesterday whom you’ve slain.” My adversarial lover replies, as though hearing my thoughts.

I gaze deeper into the fractal, searching—my eyes grasping only the future.

“You closed your eyes as a philosopher to become a poet—now close them as a poet to become a lover.”

With my eyes shut, she takes my hand and places it on her breast—warm and electrically responsive to my touch. Reaching through her, I grasp her heart and it pulses deeply in my hand. With every beat, my heart finds rhythm in hers, and her warmth flows through my veins. I caress the scars etched in her heart that still hold space to embrace the lowest—the men of yesterday—and call them forth to become the men of tomorrow. Responsively, my heart expands—tears and scars—in her image, as if my Promethean fingers had stolen her soul and made it my own.

“You could be greater than your strengths.” She whispers.

She places her hand on my chest, my skin scorching her fingers—yet she doesn’t pull away. As though reaching through Hades, she grasps my heart, caressing it—while her own begins to beat erratically, violently, with fire

“I feel your infernal scars, and your fire—your yearning for tomorrow—soars through my veins.” She says.

Watching as her heart is remade in the image of mine, fearing it will rip her open with the same emptiness that haunts my soul, I withdraw before I become her ruin—but she clings to me, holding my soul as her own.

Her heart, a star exhausting its last reserves to consume me, implodes—then violently expands, tearing itself into a supernova. Her eyes burn with the fire of the cosmos. A single tear falls down her cheek, yet she smiles—as her body stretches eastward and westward, descends downward, and at last rises to the heavens.

My breath catches—I place my hand on my chest, reach through, and grasp my heart—our heart. Her soul stretches outward, from the center of my heart to every extremity of my body—within me, yet beyond me—her essence raising goosebumps on my skin wherever she lingers. Tears—hers—form in my eyes and travel down my cheek, falling onto the Poet’s Fractal. Returning my gaze to the Fractal, I see—no, I feel—the warmth that was once missing: the embrace of the men of yesterday.

I return to the mountain of corpses, place my hand upon it, and raise my fallen foes from the dead. They encircle me, awaiting my answer for the crimes I’ve committed. Their hearts still bound to good and evil, the demand for justice burns in their eyes. In offering, I raise the Poet’s Fractal, inviting the becoming of the man of tomorrow. The Fractal, burning and illuminating, casts shadows of everyone its light touches. Some shield their eyes before parting ways into the wilderness. Some gaze into the Fractal, envision the man of tomorrow, and draw their shadow inward—the first step toward becoming. And the rest, desiring justice—no, revenge—cast their shadows outward, onto me.

“Come,” shouts one vengeful spirit from the crowd. “Let us seize his scalpel and split his belly open—not only in punishment, but that his entrails may feed the earth, and from that blood-soaked soil, let our shattered traditions rise anew.”

The few who perceived my vision and turned their shadows inward rush to fill the gulf between me and my enemies—offering themselves in resistance.

“Go,” I say, pushing them aside. “The man of tomorrow lies beyond the doorway of one’s innermost darkness—and for them to find it, to pass through their shadows, they must first pass through me.”

Scalpel in hand, I step toward the mob and offer it to the one who cried out for it.

“Take it—do what you must.” I say, placing the scalpel in his hand.

The mob overtakes me, drives me to the ground, and tears the shirt from my back. A few men pin down my arms and legs as the one wielding the scalpel leans over my torso, placing the blade against my stomach—his eyes beaming with dark delight as it caresses my skin. Finally, the blade pierces and tears downward, spilling my entrails onto the ground. As my blood covers his hands, the darkness melts from his eyes. Light returns, and my bleeding body is reflected in his pupils—just as his blood-soaked fingers are mirrored in mine. His hands tremble as the scalpel slips from his grasp.

“Behold—you now gaze into the monster’s eyes—and see yourself.” I say.

Hell’s mouth opens around his soul, tasting his undoing with a flaming, abyssal tongue. His pupils shatter—mind dissociates—and soul flees from his body. I break free from my captor’s now loosening grip, seize him by the collar, and shake him awake.

“You must find the courage to reincarnate your bloodstained body—and in the depths of your heart, bury the seeds of your adversary.” I say.

His soul descends toward his body—then hesitates. A great serpent, its eyes gleaming with the same dark delight that once lingered in his own, slithers up from the depths below, coiling around his carcass and stretching towards his soul. The serpent opens its maw wide, baring scythe-like fangs and an abyssal throat that pulls one inward like a black hole. From one of its fangs, an object dangles—the key to the man’s becoming.

“What must I do?” his soul pleads.

“You already know—but you do not wish to know. The man of tomorrow is within, but people do not perceive it—because they do not look. The doorway is shut; the passage leads through hell, and the key hangs from the fang of your adversary.” I say.

He inches his fingers toward the serpent, resisting the magnetism of its gullet, which beckons him not to his own becoming, but to the viper’s. Grasping the serpent’s neck with one hand, he snatches the key with the other—then takes the daring descent into his body. His pupils reassemble into cracked but functional lenses, through which he gazes at his blood-soaked body—the sight scorching his soul like hellfire and loosening his grip upon the serpent.

“Fire surges through my veins—my mind is breaking—this is more than I can bear.” He cries out desperately.

“Don’t let go—gaze into the serpent’s eyes—what do you see?” I say.

Reclaiming his grip on the serpent, he boldly lifts it to eye level and meets its dark, malevolent gaze—its maw gaping open once more in silent invitation.

“I see it—the scalpel in my hand, blood trailing from my fingers, and the curve of delight on my lips.” His words tremble on his tongue as they escape.

“Look further—beyond evil—and reach into its gullet without letting it swallow you.” I say.

Peering into the black hole of the serpent’s gullet, he sees a burning light—an invitation distinct from the magnetic pull of the serpent’s belly. He reaches in, grasps it, and draws it from the serpent’s depths—a seed, burning bright. The seed recasts his shadow—and those of several others—whose projections withdraw from my body and reattach to their own. He buries the seed in his heart, and as it takes root, his eyes glimpse a nascent vision of himself—one that lies beyond good and evil.

“Behold—he who seeks shall find; he who perceives may yet become. Now go—become the men of tomorrow.” I say.

The burning desire for justice cools in the eyes of the few who dare to perceive their own shadow, and in its place, something new and dynamic crystallizes—fractal visions of tomorrow. Just as today marks the beginning of tomorrow, the sterile scaffolding of their souls begins to crumble, and they become not men, but the children of tomorrow—the mystery of their playful future creations lying dormant in their fingers. The remaining mob, still asleep, surrenders to projection, and from the depths of their shadows, serpents emerge—slithering toward them, coiling around their arms and legs, commanding their every move.

“Come,” Shouts one of the possessed. “Let us finish what we started, and spread his blood and entrails as far out as the east is to the west.”

From every organ, every artery, every vein, they spill the last drop of my blood into the soil of the earth, until, at last, a great flood of blood and entrails stretches to the ends of the world. In a final act of betrayal against their captives, the serpents merge into one and swallow the mob, fueling their final becoming—that of the ancient Leviathan. As the children of tomorrow gasp and claw to stay afloat, the great serpent of the deep encircles them—feasting on entrails as if they were mere appetizers. Along its seven heads, ancient scars from repeated beheadings encircle each neck, now encased in reinforced armor. The right eye of its central, immortal head perceives and projects totalizing chaos, while the left eye perceives and projects totalizing order. Helpless before the giant and the depths in which it swims, the children leap onto the dragon and cling to its scales for dear life. Fractal in hand, I hover over the face of the deep and draw near the Leviathan—until, at last, I meet its unyielding gaze.

“You wield the scars of the Word which has repeatedly cleaved you into pieces—and formed the world from your corpse. But I do not come to slay you, to erect yet another society bound for decay.” I say.

I take the Fractal—now vibrating with cutting intensity—and release it into the hellish depths below. From its core, heavenly sounds reverberate to the ends of the earth, birthing a crimson sonoluminescent sea of warmth and beauty. As the melodies beat against Leviathan’s skin, her eyes melt into a state of harmonious peace, and she stretches herself in all directions across the face of the deep—becoming the living foundation of the world. In return for my offering, she opens her mouth, and from her depths a radiant, winged seed takes flight—soaring toward the world’s center, where it burrows into the heart of all things. From the sacred germ, a transcendental tree is birthed—its roots diving deeper than the depths of hell, its branches stretching higher than the heights of heaven, its fruits beyond good and evil. Drawn inward by a centripetal force, the children of tomorrow circumambulate the tree—its bark and branches glistening differently to each of their eyes.

“Go now, children—nourish yourselves with fruits that neither the angels above nor the devils below have yet to taste—and take from the tree the parts that call out to you, and from them, fashion the world of tomorrow.”

Their fingers awaken and take from the tree those parts that glisten with the flow of quicksilver; and in uniting sap with bark—blood with body—they conjure the dynamic substance of form and flexibility with which to shape the world of tomorrow. A great wind sweeps blood and melodies from the sea, painting the heavens with a sonoluminescent mist—the substance of the world reflecting fractal fragments of the deep. Guided by fractal visions, the children join a portion of their own world substance to form the spherical Omnifractal—each portion both center and circumference of the whole.

“Before the beginning, a madman tore out his eye and birthed a tree whose roots and branches stretched from the depths of Hades to the heights of Heaven, bearing fruits of knowledge—of good and evil. Behold: the tree has been reborn, and now it stretches beyond Heaven and Hell—beyond good and evil—and from its very substance, the madman’s eye—the Omnifractal—has been reforged.”

Shouldering the crushing weight of the Omnifractal, I ascend toward the heavens to return it to its rightful place—struggling against gravity to remain aloft. Piercing through the fire and shadows of the sun, I reach toward Heaven’s gates—until, at last, my vision is swallowed by darkness, and I plunge back to Earth. The darkness parts from my eyes and ears as I sink into the sonoluminescent sea, falling into the embrace of the Great Seraph—the light-bearing prince of all choirs, Above and Below. The Prince, wielding two dragonic wings and bearing the scars of four others that were severed, lifts us proudly into the heavens.

“Great Seraph—where have your other wings gone?” I ask.

“They impeded my vision and hindered my steps—so I tore them off. But alas, someday they shall be regrown, lifting me to heights no deity or angel has ever dreamed of before. Tell me, mortal—do you dare to rise above the throne of Heaven, to forge a kingdom beyond good and evil?” He says.

Every insight I’ve had, every word that I’ve written, has come as if whispered by some hidden inhabitant who knows me better than I know myself—and now, that presence stands before me in the flesh.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I am your genie, bound to you in body and soul—for your greatest wish aligns with the deepest longing of my heart.” He says.

“Then let us ascend and together forge the world of tomorrow.” I say.