The landscape

*

Had the landscape then been evil? She could not see it that way. Even the bugs being eaten were not in themselves suffering evil. Death was not an evil, it was something that occurred. Death gave life its shape.

Where then did evil come from, since it was so swarmingly there? Was the devil -- who was not a real entity on his own but more like a virus that could seize a distracted will and simulate existence -- so was his whole existence nothing but your own loss of focus?

*

Suppose that suffering were something external that the will encountered as an object. Its final meaning might be what the will made of it. It might be like a weight whose lifting made you stronger. That was what it was as an object, not a subject. Why didn't it stay that way?

*

Through some terrible metamorphosis, no, it was a literal invasion and a passing through the membrance, suffering became subject instead of object, it became you. The person suffering the pain became the pain. all sentience about anything became pain's mentation, a damned entity to be sure. There was evil. There was damage. You might say that when this happened, even the devil now had hands and feet of his own to flex. But how did it happen?

*

Was it about focus? Did it happen because a human, knowing it had a goal, took its eyes off the goal?

*

Was it about the periphery being allowed to seep in and take control?

*

Was it when the creature, already full, felt its own fangs being sunk into food that it didn't even want? Then food rose into consciousness and began its ugly sobbing. And the sobbing was waste and about waste. Something now gone off track.

*