26.0, Nothing

Female structure - story of this story. Also, Finnegans Wake.

_The Nightmare 26.0: Nothing_
 
nothing. There is nothing. All to naught, not to be. All before us, dissolve to nothing; all before us, annihilate.
  Thus spoke Zathurhasta, zenith of our society, a gleaming pinnacle of hope in a sea of depravity, the last relic of the world we once knew. He came, unlike the others, through the sky. We cried "sorcery," but he calmly responded, "dreams." We accused him of witchcraft, but he was found guilty of vision, hope, future.
  Zathurhasta then preached of a vision of hope for the future. At first, we scoffed and walked on, ignorant of the floating man above us. Inevitably we tolerated; inevitably we heard; inevitably we listened. Zathurhasta then spoke of a vision of hope for the future. And we listened.
  He spoke of glorious exploration, a world without trespassers; of carving out our own fortunes, a world without theft; he spoke of romantic love, a world without rape; of peace between all, a world without war; he spoke of fortunes for all, a world without greed; of honour and good will, a world without murder; he spoke of utopia, a world without the filth around us.
  Fervently, we held on to those dreams. Desperate to uplift ourselves from the sea of depravation, we began the Work of Zathurhasta. Everything he spoke of we attempted, we simulated, we imitated, we emulated, we accomplished.
  And we excelled. We became a true civilization. We prospered; we were spoiled by riches from tamed lands, honoured by comrades, triumphant in competition. Or so we thought.
  With so many winners within the system, there were bound to be losers, those we included as the filth around us. These were the less fortunate ones. More accurately put, these were the excluded. Where exclusion was, hatred was bred. Where hatred was, will was spawned. Where will was, action was taken. And so the winners were toppled by the losers - no one existed without the weight of poverty and starvation. Nonetheless, the losers became the winners, as they had brought we who had stood above - no, on top of - them to their level. We all existed in filth once more, but still some were winners, and still some were losers.
  It was then, whilst I, once a winner, cracked the bone of a plump rat to suck upon, that I noticed Zathurhasta speaking, as persistent as ever before. It was then that I remembered that he had never faltered in his speech of what we called the Work of Zathurhasta, throughout both revolutions. Even when we had uplifted ourselves, he spoke with the same fever of vision and hope. Even though we had found that future he told to us, he still preached. Was he a broken record player? Or, to begin with, was the speaker never directed towards us?
  Little did we know, we were the "filth." He never meant to speak to us; he paid us no heed from the very beginning. I know for I saw Zathurhasta, within whom we placed our faith, speaking his tales to the birds and the trees and the spiders and the rivers and the clouds. To these, he spoke most sincerely, with the most zeal - even the rats received his sympathies. I knew then that he was a false prophet, a liar, a deceitful soothsayer. I knew then what I had to do.
  When the filth pulled down the sun to form night, my heart was frozen by the desire for vengeance, an overwhelming will that became my devotion to the fall of Zathurhasta. Over the course of one cycle of the moon, I worked away at my plans, staring into the pitch black abyss above me each filthy night, concerning my nights not with sleep but awoken intent.
  I have made the preparations. Everything is in place. Now is the time to act. Now is when Zathrurhasta's blood shall be spilled.
  Now is the time I am upon the roof of the church he hovers so blatantly above. Now is the time that I am holding a knife in hand, my fingernails driving into my palm. Now is the time that, with my fingers wrapped around the ivory handle, the blade shines with my malicious intent in the light of the moon. Now is the time I spring from the corner of the roof at the floating heretic. And I stab him, plunging the human-sharpened tooth of the earth into the base of his neck; and he crumples, both of us shadowy meteors underneath the cloudless sky of filth. Fall from grace, lying one, and speak your last lie whilst lying upon the filthy dirt. You lied to us. I believed you. How could you do this to me?
  The filth below reaches for me. I toss away the rag doll, and I shield my head. Soon there will be nothing. I have ended the nightmares. Soon I will be nothing. All the world will cease and I will find nirvana. I am a saviour, a falling angel. Falling.
  Soon, there will be nothing. There will be nothing.
  I peek through my eyelids.
  There is