Katabasis

by R.F. Kuang

The way she always forgot she needed rest as she hunched over a pentagram for hours, sometimes days, scribbling frantically away as idea after idea surged through her mind.

How good it felt when she seemed to abandon her body altogether—when she became fully incorporeal, drifting happily in a universe of ideas. She was very proud of the days that she forgot to eat. Not because she had any revulsion for food, but because it was some proof that she had transcended some basic cycle of need. That she was not just an animal after all, held captive by her desires to eat and fuck and shit. That she was above all a mind, and the mind was capable of miraculous things.

And when you have complete mastery of these ideas, when you can hold them in your palm and twist and tease them at will—then you will have stepped closer to God. It will feel meticulous, yes. Petty, fleeting, pedantic. But all the more reason to double your drive, and clutch at every precious wisp of truth you glimpse.”