666

I saw it rise from the water. In the spirit on dosing day I watched its pitching progress. Belly drag. All fins and stumpy legs.

Aeons. Shifting form. Always the reptile eye. Glinting from the undergrowth; hiding under rocks while extinction rained from the heavens. Emerge ...

Faltering upright. Grows. Overspreads. Instinct in a self-aware veneer.

I saw it kill. Blunt stones. Sharp sticks. Tooth and nail. Nails and iron shot. First, to live; then, to have. I saw it grasp and hate. I saw it reason.

Pleasures it found. Music hath charms to sooth the savage beast. Building and creating thought to think away its animal.

I watched it make a world and create itself a God (How long, Oh LORD, must our souls go unavenged?) Behold, I bring forth fruit from the vine and bread from the earth; I clothe you in the skins of your brothers.

Horsemen came to kneel before it: Pestilence and Famine, War and old blind Faith; rider on a pale horse, Death.

Groping for the Wisdom of Days it brought down fire from the skies. Drunk with its own wonders it raised from the earth an image unto itself. Copper and plastic; web of dripping silicone. All authority was given to the Beast and its Image. And none shall buy or sell who will not bow before it.

Life or death. Blessing or cursing. Love or fear. Behold, I lay them before you. Choose.

Shadow or the heart? Our reptilian brain. Us.

We are the Beast.