Ahriman

Ahriman wants us tired, hungry, itching for comforts and treats, constantly titillated, always short on time, always desperate for more of something. A cranky child up past its bedtime is, in Ahriman's view, the perfect citizen: never happy, never content, never able to moderate his desires or his fears. The complete consumer.

So we scramble to get to work in the morning, and stay up too late at night, and the one thing we never do is wake up without an agenda, stand still at the window in the slant morning light, and think what it is that we're doing with our lives. Stand and consider whether a life devoted to scratching itchy places until they bleed is really what our hearts want. Whether there might not be another way.

Ahriman burns, burns in the sky: stars for knuckles, fires for eyes. He crouches there, ruling an obscure heaven thickened by streetlights, with his swollen tongue and his throbbing eyes. He's bloated, hungry, panting, sweating. This is our God. We've served him faithfully, days and nights without count.

Don't expect to be rewarded. He's not that kind of God.