"To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves," – Federico García Lorca, "Blood Wedding and Verna".

3 am, 9th of March, Thursday. 2541. Bristol.

[Cited from "The Eyes" by Jesús Ignacio Aldapuerta]

"Consider the capacity of the human body for pleasure. Sometimes, it is pleasant to eat, to drink, to see, to touch, to smell, to hear, to make love. ...Our voluptific faculties (if you will forgive me the coinage) are not exclusively concentrated here. The whole body is susceptible to pleasure, but in places there are wells from which it may be drawn up in greater quantity. But not inexhaustibly. How long is it possible to know pleasure? Rich Romans ate to satiety, and then purged their overburdened bellies and ate again. But they could not eat for ever. A rose is sweet, but the nose becomes habituated to its scent. And what of the most intense pleasures, the personality-annihilating ecstasies of sex?"

The next part seemed too unnecessary. Of course, there was certain pleasure in the indulgence; but, meetly, it would better be skipped.

"Even if I were a woman..., in time I should sicken of it. Do you think Messalina, in that competition of hers with a courtesan, knew pleasure as much on the first occasion as the last? Impossible."

"Yet consider."

"Consider pain."

"Give me a cubic centimeter of your flesh and I could give you pain that would swallow you as the ocean swallows a grain of salt. And you would always be ripe for it, from before the time of your birth to the moment of your death, we are always in season for the embrace of pain. To experience pain requires no intelligence, no maturity, no wisdom, no slow working of the hormones.... We are always ripe for it. All life is ripe for it. Always."

This, without doubt, pictured the central thesis of masochism, the distant echoes of Schopenhauer's mindset. However, these philosophies circumscribed by societal beliefs and judgement wouldn't fit the modern-day psychological determinism currents, stating that the way of one's behaviour originated solely from their psychological demeanour, akin to the Myers-Briggs and Dekaochtogram types - combinations between each two, and the behaviour would only be transformed by some crazily majestic influence with the power to change the psyche. Howbeit, I was not here to broadcast some cell deviosity.

I am here to talk about pain. 

***

He rose from his seat, the half-full moon bulging its sides in the black starless sky as the meringue clouds, painted anchor grey and sometimes visible amidst the darkness, jotted nearly indiscernible lazy patterns across chessboards of texture and Erebus. They were still. The man refrained from moving as he froze in the same rigid position, with the grotesque upright posture and lifted his head up to the moon, as if a piece of idealistic artisanship concocted by famous architects, of our and pagan times, shoulder-length raven locks falling in cascades, only to unhide and reveal his face.

The intimacy of the mien was conceded, philosophy – unveiled, discrepancy – extinguished. His face appeared to be ascetic, circumscribed by unusual slimness, choked by a grand emaciation of a realization of something intense, or something vigorous enough to blend pale the colour-tones of his skin, make fade the youthful glint that was supposed to grace his face up to a couple years following to such a shade as alabastrine. He had dark eyebrows, dark eyes that glinted black, and his robes – he was dressed in black. He was a tall slender man, with long chocolate-coloured hair and the famous cold black eyes. Now, they weren't hidden behind his hair and gleaming with the characteristic mischievous leader-like gleam that would be more than enough to make one before him bow down to the knees. His stance made it clear that the man wasn't capable of betrayal or cowardice. His face was relaxed, in contemplation.

Everything about him provided that striking contrast between the wrath of Darkness, and the wrath of Light, the two forces staying separated from each other yet making up two beautiful shades, jamás to be blended, but siempre to be together, growing on side by side and illusively becoming grander as one adults and matures to stay in marvel at these forces, sometimes staring at the sky in the middle of the night, looking fixedly into the depth of the tranquil sea far apart, or gazing at the planet through the windows of the dear spacecraft. It was dark, and light, and moonshine.

The man made a move towards the window, which was half open, and opened it to its fullest extent. The cold air filled his lungs. He sighed. The tensile curve of his arched eyebrows lessened even more, his features after the breath expressing a bit more relaxation than they would have been supposed to be expressing. He closed his eyes.

Then, he came out of his trance and again, fixated his gaze on the moon. It shone awfully bright in the pitch-black sky, a pearl blob in nothingness, sometimes adorned by clouds, like a piece of jewellery in a half-closed black case.

The man took a few more steps towards the window and halted, staying there for a while as the icy light admired his figure, and his left hand found its way into his pocket, as he watched, not looking. Upon the palm of his pale hand rested a delicately coal-black object, absorbing virtually all radiance, shaped akin to a pointed blade. This object was Peitho-ianly fashionable, undeniably fragile but at the same time so cogent and powerful its sovereign could be compared to a substance so sharp, but so delicate. So soft... It was the softness of a baroness' wrist; of the soothing mellow of a night, and of the silent mindless trails of time... It was the softness of Gods.

Seconds, like honey, trickled. It felt so mellifluous down there, sensing calls come but remaining, basking in the briskness of the night, the calming of thought and - finally - the tranquil wrath of Darkness. He didn't think himself evil - he wouldn't be a sadist, for that would be immoral - yet ultimately he would agree to Darkness if he ever had a choice. He would always be dark - there were lots of reasons for him to be so - and he liked it - he liked to know the pain of not returning. He did. It would be the tranquilest it would ever be, through life, death and the possible afterlife. Cell mayhem was revolting to him, though natheless, inflicting pain on beings was too much of a sin on him. He wasn't a sadist, after all.

The intricately-designed knife pierced so softly, the cold steel pleasantly lancing the very inside of his wrist. He felt warmth, for this was his most satisfactable place of piercing, and focused on the moon until he couldn't concentrate anymore. This was bliss, the purest relaxation of a soul, bringing a feeling akin to floating away, floating away from life, and basking in the revelation of the magnificence the Universe had shared. This was the thing he most wanted to explain when thinking about pain. 

He wanted to explain how pain equaled pleasure.

But, suddenly, the moon flashed with a strange light; the blood trickled over his wrist; his eyes turned glassy.

***
It was an ICU ward, although there were two big windows and a large bed in front of the back wall. The bed was more technologically advanced, meaning it could lean back, forth, left and right at a moment's notice, and a tall pole with a heart rate meter screen on a little stand near it. The tall pole had an oxygen cylinder and was connected to the patient with an easily bendable plastic tube going to the patient's chest. You could tell it was an ICU ward because of the six tubes that, while piercing the flesh some with necessary nutrients, some to monitor health, were connected to every part of the patient's body, which was the body of a child boy. An additional source of oxygen was connected to the boy by a cannula; however, an emergency oxygen mask was strapped to the pole and two rectangular electrodes used for ICT were strapped and set on a table.

Some medicine and books also lay there, but the latter was too fragile that whenever the oxygen intake increased, the intense sound from the tall pole made some of the paper crumble, and create a little clot of dust by the books.

However, the patient could still speak, despite the heightened intensity of the oxygen cylinder machine whenever he did so.

"Marx?" the one to whom he spoke asked.

"Yes. That's me. Marcassin," the boy replied. But not without difficulty.

"When?"

"Night-time."

"Where were you? What happened?"

"At the station, when you left. They did it."

"Who?"

"A stranger. Led me."

"To where?"

"They said you did it. They said you did it, and that you took all the tablets. You took them all!"

"I have never taken more than I needed, you know that, Marcassin," the one stated calmly, yet in his voice was the worry of the calm before the storm. This time, the storm wasn't his.

"But I'm in a hospital again! The ICU! I had to take them every day, but you took them! Now I have to deal with it again! This pain... I'm sure you know how it is, brother, since you have obviously been in the ICU before and you have had ECT countless times, begging them to stop but they don't, and the next thing you feel is pain, and when you come back it is more pain than before, there is pain in your legs, arms, chest, head, throat, lungs - wherever the tubes are connected to! Your life depends on these tubes, but the only thing you can do with your life is to scream since your body can't make you throw up, fall in and out of sleep and catch the gazes of nurses which are oblivious to your pain, pity you, but don't understand you! I went out yesterday, I was a free person a few hours ago, but the tablets that you stole were keeping me alive! For you they are nothing," His speech came out more and more slurred, sometimes illegible. The nasal cannula connected to his nose twitched furiously, but his fragile child body was absolutely rigid, half-hid behind a blank thin white blanket. 

"but for me they are everything." The boy dropped into unconsciousness.

"Sorry."

The boy's conversant was walking out of the ward, having nothing more to say, but something made him sharply turn around and hear him say:

"I want to die, brother."

***

He dropped the object immediately.

He stopped everything he had been doing. It didn't give him pleasure.

Because how in the world could it?