“Beauty!” leaping, his sword met -

Out the corner of his third forehead-eye the Ontological Wound saw in Art's mind:

He saw Art in the room in which he wasted himself. Ashcaff rinds scattered around the place. He saw the drawers of the fat whore who was washing her undercarriage by the bucket in the corner. He saw piles of cheap tavern grub of terrible quality and meagre sustainment; he saw him lying there vacant, on the bed, staring at the wall, warping weird shards of colour playing across his ear and forehead, he saw himself, he saw himself through the reality that was being imposed upon him. The tankard in his hand, the bottles scattered; the emptiness in his gaze. In his own soul. He saw the engorged Bollock Of Wanting, displaying the late stages of complete meaninglessness, of nothing-life, of wasting himself, of destroying himself, of living for the pointless repetitive, nothing-land, zero-fulfilment, zero-permanent-anything-antithesis of all that was eternal, he saw -

He saw the wasteful sink into pleasure-seeking. He saw how it would destroy him. He saw – he saw his end. No heroic defeat in the final battle upon whose finality the fate of mankind hung. No final boss battle with the giant stomping demon creature above which convenient orbs swung from which he could plunge upon him/it from – no – no final grand sacrificial gesture in which he died for a concept, for an abstract truth - greater and more beautiful than any mere human being - even one as – no.

No poetry would be written for the final deeds of the Catcher of Pastel Irrealities – Art[ion] Mlckk'n Inchance-rify, that was his name, Art, Art[ion], Prince Art[ion] of the Disembowelled Complexion. Count Art[ion] of the Thing off his Throat. Art[ion] Mlckk'n Inchance-rify, the Prince of the Multicoloured Organs, the Duke of Wanting, the Lord of Colourful Lies, titles he had heard, titles that were real, titles he had memories of, titles of all varieties, especially that one of the Prince of the Multicoloured Organs: The hero of the Pink Ear; Art, Art[ion] Mlckk'n Inchance-rify, Count Art[ion] of the Thing off his Throat – running through titles, obsessively, as if they meant anything, as if they gave his life any meaning - the Prince of the Multicoloured Organs, the Duke of Wanting, the Marquis of Multi-hued Mendacities; The Knight of Simulation. Lie Boy. The Hero of the Pink Ear - the Conquistador of Organ Corridors, that Sack of Glands and Want: the Catcher of Pastel Irrealities. The Avatar of Want/The Simulation of Need/the Slave of Wanting. The slave of... what title had a slave, the slave of dreams. The Dream Slave. The Satrap of Supernatural Organs, The Hero Dreamt, he – the Duke of Agreeing to Want, the Prince of Lies the Same Colour as his Own Face:

the Duke of the Categorisation of Mendacities and Wanting

the Duke of Agreeing to Want, the Prince of Lies the Same Colour as his Own Face

The thing dreamt

The Rey of Reality.

the Demon Slave

- the Prince of Multicoloured Names and Lies and the Several Other Titles – he – he saw/he saw - that the whore wasn't even there. He saw that this was an image he imagined. He saw himself drunk, and deranged, manic, and embittered; he saw himself wasted on drink and ashcaff.

He saw the drunk bottomless fool wank out his glory between his soiled bed sheets, and then cough, and then drain his tankard; the bottle next it. Vomit on himself, pass out briefly, wake up - try masturbating – again – his floppy cock uncooperative.

He saw his end -

- He saw -

his disfigured visage no longer the trophy of more battles than could be chronicled, the consequence of the supernatural organs that were the source of his great and mysterious powers it – none of it. It was merely the twisted up ugly coupon of a wanker, a literal man who wanked in his own soiled bed sheets, got himself off by imagining a person more degraded than him, drunk, alone, with nothing but the unfulfilling pleasures he sought in sex, alone, or otherwise - all of which was masturbation:

Chemicals, booze, and... lying to himself.

This was the final pleasure that offered anything. But in his wan eyes he saw this too depart. He saw it: it was seen in him. But nothing was left. No quest. No panicked at narrative he clung to to offer him anything. The dream itself was dead; the dream of Shensh that, he saw now, more than any dreamunit, had been the thing for which all along he had lived; derived anything – any will, meaning, purpose, any sense of – anything.

Anything worthwhile or good.

And all that was left, the thing, the thing so much better with which it had been replaced, was the final blankness in the eyes of the solitary masturbator, working his putty penis on the bed he'd already defecated, and weeping, weeping alone, drunk. And nothing; a nothing, just a nothing with a floppy cock; shit stains on his arse, and his bed, and up his things as well.

This was his finality – his final reality - more - it was who he really was. The solitary alone wanking man. Not even a boy. A man who did this. - A man alone filling his body up. Or emptying it as the case may be. Crying.

Leaping, his sword met -

what that glance instantiated in him.