Mythacus of Icarus

Icarus was far above the sea and rocks and all that ties man to the slave of the land. He was now engulfed in glory far above the known limits of mankind. Was this to surprise him? He was the son of the brightest architect in the world, and he was soon to take over the throne of his father. What was left to conquer but the impossible? His skin broiled, and while not yet on fire, his heart certainly was, as it always had been. This is what made him different. He had a heart that existed far above the rest of mankind, and a soul of pure gold. The fire of the sun and the flame of his desire were destined to each other as North is to South, as man is to woman. Dichotomies that if united, would engulf all, leveling the universe to a desolation far beyond the pits of Hell. Both God and the Devil watched upon daring Icarus as they trembled in the fear of what was to come. The audacity of such bold action against the boundaries of man is both grand and futile.

The tips of his wings singed while bright diamonds of sun reflected from a thin layer of melting wax that united bird and man. Icarus noticed not, his gaze was distant and direct, upon the fiery ball before him. No longer did this heavenly body talk to the half of man that wakes in its presence, it only acknowledged Icarus the brave. Only at this height could one witness the intimate understanding between these two, if you could even consider them as independent beings. Perfection is used loosely, however, it was here that perfection is precisely the right word. Say, perfection is not even quite the right word. My closest approximation would be somewhere between life and death. Icarus and the Sun both were destined to greatness, but the price is death by self-immolation. His skin began to blacken and boil, but the pain and pungent smell of burning flesh were hardly distinguishable in the grandeur of this moment.

Glory does not come without a great fall, as the crest of a tidal wave cannot exist without its treacherous crash that annihilates all life that challenges it. The two divine flames were to engulf each other in an existence comparable to nothing less than the union of all the dichotomies in the universe. Here, man is woman, time runs in infinite directions, and the planets no longer spin but exist in all places at once, from their time of birth till their celestial rest.

Icarus was not aware of the first feather that abandoned him to return to earth. He hardly noticed when his first wing broke free when the wax had completely melted away, and the fiery spiral of the wing evoked fear in all below. It was said by all that he screamed in horror as he plummeted into the ocean. We know this scream as suffering because we have never experienced the pure ecstasy that Icarus discovered in his union with the Sun. His scream encompassed not only all of man, but the vast universe beyond. It rang of the moon and the stars. It ripped across the sky as the darkest places in the universe rip apart the fabric of time to allow for the existence of matter. Icarus, for a brief movement, and all of eternity, understood the pain that comes with perfection, the death that must exist for life to go on.