The Incarceration of Equilibrium

The Prologue:

The day was marked as dark and ill by the oracle who read the future with leaves. She passed the message along to her acolytes. They passed it along to feral animals of various shapes, sizes, and psychological temperaments. They, in turn, hid under stones and in damp grottoes.

The Story:

Ecstasy, Eros, and Equilibrium: three best friends, apostles of the highest order. The bond was strong with them. Their quips and jokes passed off as the stalwart and sprawling philosophies of the day. Seemingly nothing could break apart their triadic brotherhood.

Foreboding clouds gathered. The Dark Riders descended upon Triple E’s camp. The Dark Riders singled out Ecstasy first and chased him with clubs and swords. They managed to cut off both of his arms. Emasculated and defenseless, he ran off to the hinterlands. He vowed to return with a trumpet-of-resplendent-fire, and music that scorched dry no-hearts.

Eros was second. The Dark Riders knocked him unconscious and quartered him. His writhing torso was then hoisted up on a stick and used as a barbarous memento mori.

Equilibrium was then cornered by looming trees of enchantment. “Please,” he beseeched the rabble of cloak-wearing monstrosities. “No more carnage. Turn me into a slave. Turn me into a tool of oppression. Just don’t kill me.”

For some reason, the Dark Riders showed pity upon the pleading Equilibrium. Instead of torturing him or gouging out his eyeballs or taking his scalp, the malefic Dark Riders tied him up and transported him to Sickness Tower. They placed him in the deepest dungeon without food and water. For Equilibrium, the silent and unseen horrors in that darkened pit were hellish beyond measure.

Sickness Tower was the architectural equivalent of disease, distress, and madness all rolled into one. The large, stately spires would spasmodically cough up black phlegm. Inside the confines of the benighted tower, the Dark Riders would play games of disenchantment and dissolution. They would drink poison and blood and the intoxicants of black magi. They spawn devils in cauldrons with their Mephistophelian incantations and potions. They talked about the end of the world, the abject apocalypse, and the dissolute progeny of future eras.

For centuries, Equilibrium sat in a darkened pit while the unruly influence of Sickness Tower spread. Governments became more corrupt, and corruption became more inflammatory. People ripped one another to pieces over reasons not grounded in sanity. The oceans soon filled up with the excreta of industry. Chaos became the compulsory garb of the day. The dress code was destruction.

Oh, the cities burned and burned and burned. Oh, the children cried and cried and cried.

Just when everything appeared to have fully capitulated to the Dark Riders and the malefic presence of Sickness Tower, Equilibrium escaped. Over the years he had dug out a tunnel with his bleeding hands. When he reached the surface of the terra firma, he drank from ash-ridden puddles and ate the discarded remnants of previous meals. After all, he needed his strength. Vengeance required energy.

He took Eros down from the stick, and fastened his limbs to his lifeless corpse. Then he bequeathed pneuma to him via the mouth-to-mouth transference of internal winds. Eros’ eyes opened. “Beautiful world,” he exclaimed. “How I missed you.”

Ecstasy was found by the Bard River. He looked like a zombie statue. When Equilibrium reattached his left arm and Eros his right, Ecstasy jumped to his startled feet. “Gentlemen,” he exclaimed. “How long has it been?”

Their attack on Sickness Tower was swift, calculated, and unrepentant. Ecstasy’s trumpet-of-resplendent-fire torched the black spires with sonorous notes of sweet, sweet revenge. Eros threw jaunty rainbow-bolts at severe-looking windows like Zeus hurling lighting at a retinue of disobedient gods. Equilibrium, for the most part, watched Sickness Tower fall. His mere presence was enough.

The Dark Riders fled the conflagration that had besieged their abode of shadows. Many were covered in flames of justice, love and order. Some even either imploded or exploded when the triumphal notes of the trumpet entered their blackened beings. Some jumped off cliffs.

While watching the smoke rise from the rubble, the three E’s, the superheroes of archetypal time, shared smokes, quaffed victory from a flask, and shared jokes of eternal relevance.

The Epilogue:

The feral animals purged themselves of their fearful hiding places, and returned to the World-At-Large. The oracle saw good omens in her constellation of rustic leaves. Her acolytes went on to write books of enlightenment and prosperity. All of their books alluded to the powers and potencies of the three E’s. All of them became bestsellers in an age of freedom.