To Buffer the Cold; To Defeat Deceit

Deceit is the cruelest season. It is cold. It pierces. It is antithesis to my humanism. It is the defeat of my innocence when self-serving and gainsaying tempt me with ambition.

Deceit is inflammatory. But am I immune?

My innocence does not stand idly by. It puts into play a sequence, a scenario of protection and, it is hoped, repair. But my shielding becomes as ineffective as the severity of my chilling deceit brings on a harsher existential winter. For me, the Earth tilts away from its star in degrees.

Pallor:

Deceit prickles my skin and blanches my circulation, a conspiracy of both nerves and vessels to buffer me--deceptively unto itself--the pain of the cold. There is a lock system in my circulation, buffering my blood flow in grades. Yet, some deceit overwhelms these simple mechanisms of mine. Thus, deceit--deep enough--can make me fade from view in a white-out of false protection. My disappearance is a matter of degrees.

Calor:

I dress and cover my legs, torso, and arms with cloth. But the lie is still flagrant. I clasp myself to render the friction that might raise my temperature. But my deceit easily overwhelms the first layer over my naked vulnerability. I add another layer of skins which have served other species so well through unseasonable cold. No, my lie is colder yet, and I shiver. Shiver? In what? Anticipation? Of being found out? Verily, I tremble in that expectation of discovery. I add more layers of clothing to protect myself in degrees of sheltering.

Rubor:

The warmth of my circulation, defeated by the surface chill, redistributes to in hopes of maintaining the euphony of my deeper vital organs. Some body parts become imbued with the red of engorgement more than others. Some lose their rubor altogether and desaturate cowardly. Others swell with overestimation of my rationale. My vacuous explanations. My excuses. And the dueling of my organs between engorgement and depletion is a matter of degrees.

Dolor:

The cold of deceit hurts. It is painful. My pain is an evolutionary advantage: a warning signal of impending injury. Yet, such pain cannot be covered with cloth or skins or feathers or other insulating materials in hopes of lathering with an effective salve. The cold seeps in and the deceit still hurts. Deceit is a strategy that gains, then loses, for the strategist. My pain from the frigidity is proportional to the degrees of my deception.

Tumor:

The lies can only go so far. Engorgement, de trop, can only reach its limit. Desaturation can only be tolerated so much. Layers of protection can only warm to a point. I swell with internal injury from the external retribution I have invited with my deceit. The bulk of layers--the coats, the overcoats, the übercoats--can only mitigate the coldness of the deceit to a degree. This amassing of layers is a metaphor for the tumor that grows from simple deceit into more layers of dishonesty to protect the lies that came before. One like begets two, to protect the one; two lies beget a pyramid of exponential layers of clothing that are as effective as the Emperor's new clothes. Deceit is a malignancy that spreads.

The chill spreads, as does this toxicity. Ultimately, my absolute value is valued at absolute zero.

That is the temperature at which everything stops.