It is a wave crashing over emptiness. Its origin is lost in time and a cloud of lies. His enemies whisper about forgery, about ugly bareness, hidden scars. There is mockery, flattery, imitation, and aping. None of this touches him. All other insults cut deep—he hurls them back viciously and nurses the wounds in private—but that shimmering veil of gold lays as a protective cloud over his mind.
It was always that way. Perhaps when he had been pulled from his mother’s womb, there had been nothing. Perhaps its nascent form had lain over his infant brow like a wispy ghost, sending metallic tendrils into his brain and promising greatness. No one remembers any more. But ever since he first stepped out into the world, carrying little more than his name, he wore that simple fringe like a crown.
He no longer has to tug it forward. It urges him forward, sweeping him ahead like a tsunami boiling up from his unconscious. It topples cities and raises towers, touching one thing and leaving another, unpredictable like a broom of divine straw. If there ever was a man there, hiding under those locks that stretch lazily towards the sun, he is no longer the master.
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