![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sadoeuphemistJackal is all skull, a massive disproportionate jaw designed to clamp down and never let go. The teeth interlock. Jackal is flayed, strands of musculature and rawhide clinging to a ramshackle skeleton. It bleeds, its eyes are burning droplets of blood. It seems driven forward by the weight and momentum of its skull, its body clattering along behind like a string of abandoned flatcars pulled forward by an engine. Jackal is always, always hungry.
Certain heretical sects say that Jackal is the mother of humanity, that it mistook its hunger pangs for labor pains and bit at its distended belly until it tore itself open, bleeding ulcers and polyps into the world. These were the first men.
You can hear Jackal whispering to you, in an urgent gnawing tone. Bite down, it says. Bite down and never let go. Forget the future. The future is scavengers pacing among your bones, quarreling over them or letting them lie in the dust. Your children will be hunted down and killed. The future belongs to the as of yet unborn. But as for now? For now you taste blood. You will never be loved again, you will never be full again, you will never again have this chance. Savor it, then, and tear apart all who would deny you. So they revile you, so they mock you, so they seek to undermine you. So what? For now you have your teeth around their throats! Bite down, and suck the marrow from the world!
Jackal is a poet god, divine madness. Starve. Go mad with hunger. Corner a squirming insignificant vermin and clutch it between your fingers and bite off its head and drink deep of its juices, and Jackal will bless you with inspiration. You will speak to the hearts of the great masses of men; you will make them love you, you will make them weep. You will kiss them and taste their lips. They will kill for you, if you ask them to. You will ask. Jackal will drive you to it.
Jackal loathes competitors, but is generous to all supplicants. All mouths are Jackal's, all flesh is Jackal's. All those who bite down do so with Jackal's teeth. Jackal devours its own flesh, drinks its own blood. All long to eat and be eaten, to fulfill and to be fulfilled. This is the truth Jackal teaches: the world and all that is in it is but your bloody fevered imaginings, every other person is but a burning fleck of blood in your vision, a burst vein in your eye. Only you can satiate your own hunger.
Here is a story of Jackal:
Jackal roamed the desert, hungry, and finally sat upon his own leg until it went numb. He then set upon his leg, tearing at the flesh, gnawing at the bone. Owl flew down and laughed. You are a fool, Owl said. You are eating your own leg!
Jackal grinned and opened his mouth and swallowed the world whole.
Here is the commentary of the high priests:
Owl sought to mock, and so was eaten.
Jackal's leg bent before him, and so was eaten.
Those who revile you bring themselves within range of your lips.
Those who submit to you will be swept up in your jaws.
Every word spoken is from a throat, every limb is but a joint of meat.
Go then, and devour all.
Certain heretical sects say that Jackal is the mother of humanity, that it mistook its hunger pangs for labor pains and bit at its distended belly until it tore itself open, bleeding ulcers and polyps into the world. These were the first men.
You can hear Jackal whispering to you, in an urgent gnawing tone. Bite down, it says. Bite down and never let go. Forget the future. The future is scavengers pacing among your bones, quarreling over them or letting them lie in the dust. Your children will be hunted down and killed. The future belongs to the as of yet unborn. But as for now? For now you taste blood. You will never be loved again, you will never be full again, you will never again have this chance. Savor it, then, and tear apart all who would deny you. So they revile you, so they mock you, so they seek to undermine you. So what? For now you have your teeth around their throats! Bite down, and suck the marrow from the world!
Jackal is a poet god, divine madness. Starve. Go mad with hunger. Corner a squirming insignificant vermin and clutch it between your fingers and bite off its head and drink deep of its juices, and Jackal will bless you with inspiration. You will speak to the hearts of the great masses of men; you will make them love you, you will make them weep. You will kiss them and taste their lips. They will kill for you, if you ask them to. You will ask. Jackal will drive you to it.
Jackal loathes competitors, but is generous to all supplicants. All mouths are Jackal's, all flesh is Jackal's. All those who bite down do so with Jackal's teeth. Jackal devours its own flesh, drinks its own blood. All long to eat and be eaten, to fulfill and to be fulfilled. This is the truth Jackal teaches: the world and all that is in it is but your bloody fevered imaginings, every other person is but a burning fleck of blood in your vision, a burst vein in your eye. Only you can satiate your own hunger.
Here is a story of Jackal:
Jackal roamed the desert, hungry, and finally sat upon his own leg until it went numb. He then set upon his leg, tearing at the flesh, gnawing at the bone. Owl flew down and laughed. You are a fool, Owl said. You are eating your own leg!
Jackal grinned and opened his mouth and swallowed the world whole.
Here is the commentary of the high priests:
Owl sought to mock, and so was eaten.
Jackal's leg bent before him, and so was eaten.
Those who revile you bring themselves within range of your lips.
Those who submit to you will be swept up in your jaws.
Every word spoken is from a throat, every limb is but a joint of meat.
Go then, and devour all.
