September 13, 2010
The Incrementalist came to see me today. His willowy, black body rippled toward me as I sat at my desk…then exploded across the room and appeared point blank in my personal space. His single eye danced over me, shedding its unearthly blue-green light, and his spindly branch-like fingers flickered over my crawling flesh. He never said a word, just silently announced his presence and intentions: he had come to diminish me by another increment, and there was nothing I could do about it.
My blood froze, and my heart pounded with terror. Hadn’t I given up enough already? Hadn’t the Incrementalist and his unholy brethren taken enough of my self and serenity in the name of their twisted mission? Couldn’t they spare this one inch, just this once, to allow me to sustain myself and maintain that tiniest fraction of stability and sanity? Apparently not.
And so he took it. He reached out from where I sat and found one thing, one person who filled out my life. Then, he pulled the plug on that singular soul and laughed as it whipped across the office like a deflating balloon and swirled into his jagged, ragged maw. Just like that, I was diminished by another increment. The only remnant was the chewed-up husk that the Incrementalist coughed up before swiveling off into the netherworlds. His wicked giggle was a promise like a rainbow that he would return to take away more in days and weeks to come, reducing me by increments until I am restored to the joyless, wretched lump of years gone by. Tears fell; why couldn’t he have taken them, too?
