Humans are so funny. They think I’m bravery, I’m creativity, I’m exhilaration, that I’m helpful. I’m not some heroic feeling. I’m the urge to jump, the deep desire to view danger, the cruel temptation of the unknown. I take humans by the hand and shove the hand into the fire. I push them off cliffs, I guide them through unknown lands.
When they fall, I pick them up, show them another way to fall, and push them towards it. I inspire their descendents to try again, to do the very thing that killed their ancestor.
I have sired many children in the hearts of Man. I once partnered with Ego and now our eldest son Ambition takes hold of many poor souls and our daughter Courage has led so many to their deaths. When I laid with Love, our children, Lust, Vanity, and Envy, fled to every single person who walked upon the Earth. My sister Hope and I created horrific children: Disappointment, Uncertainty, and Failure. Sometimes, however, my children choose to help rather than hinder humanity. Wisdom, Self-Control, Trust, Sympathy, Humor, and Determination are all products of myself, and they lift Man onto their shoulders and fight off my other children, and even myself.
I whispered into the ear of the first man that he should grasp the burning branch, lit by lightning. I told him to touch the fire, to feel it. I watched him burn and I laughed gleefully. Finally, a dumb beast had opened its ears to hear me, to listen to me. Neither cattle, nor birds, neither fish, nor lizards could hear my sweet sultry secrets and my encouraging of dark indulgences.
When seven men and women climbed inside the rocket Challenger, trying to see the universe from a new point of view, I could see their eyes sparkle with anticipation. I cackled, waiting for the right moment. They needed me to do everything, yet I simply sat back and waited for everything to go wrong.
When scientists spent a decade trying to split an atom, I encouraged them. I saw my sister Hope in their eyes, in their confident smiles, and in the flawless equations. They thought it would help bring peace to the world, but oh how they were wrong. They broke down barriers that the universe never meant them to break, simply because I pointed them towards it. When their creations landed twice, killing millions of innocents, I watched them react. I watched their horror, sprung from the havoc they had created. My laughter echoed through the greatest crime against humanity.
Encrypted messages from the enemy led scientists to search for a new way to decode faster and better. Manual power simply wasn’t enough, so I stood beside American scientists as they took simple electronic pulses and signals, and created a computer. They made a brain from metal and plastic. Without me, they would have been decoding by hand and all the decades since and forever more that use the computer would have been primitive and simple.
I pushed people to take to the air as birds do. I was able to convince, merely by suggestion, that they should bolt together a little box of steel and fly miles above the surface of the earth. I enjoy the glee on the faces of children who gaze out at the Earth far below. I smile and I’m glad that I helped them. Then the planes spiral gently down in balls of flame to crash and burn the people inside and I smile still.
When a generation of boys went to war I told them to go. The young boys didn’t know what they were getting into, yet they went all the same. They grew bonds of brotherhood and made sacrifices beyond that which they could have possibly dreamed. I took them when they were wet clay, and hardened them into stones. I fought beside them. Every single battle, I was there on both sides of the battlefield, in the hearts of every boy wondering what a free world would look like, what it would be like to go home and greet their mother. I saw them falling and I wept, for if not for me they would have lived blissfully ignorant lives as primitive apes, without need for war. I saw them finally as more than just my playthings. Seeing the boys fall down, bloody and wounded, the light of Life dimming as Death took them, I didn’t want them to go. After centuries of playing with Man, I realized they were much more entertaining alive, that they held value. It was finally time for me to let go of their hand, to stop dragging them forward and to lead them as an old friend.
I watch the tiny humans go about their lives, naming their instruments for exploration after me. I know that they are who they are because of me. Every death is on my hands, as is every little discovery. Humanity thrives and dies because I burnt the hand of the first man.