Morning People by Huinare

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Morning People

Many theories have been bandied about concerning my motives in joining Melkor, all of them self-satisfied and asinine.  The truth, if you would have it, is indeed far more terrible than anything you could conceive of.  Do you really wish to know?  Very well, but what is once heard cannot be unheard.

It all began when we were putting the final touches on Arda.  There came a time when Aulë asked me to help him with some new project, and, being the competent and obliging Maia I was, I did so.  I wasn’t sure what they were going to do with it until they raised it up and Varda started poking at it.  Slowly, the thing began to glow, and my pupils contracted in displeasure, and people around me applauded and sang the praises of Eru while this awful brazen light grew more and more obnoxious.

I was surprised they all seemed to like this light, but what could I do?  So I resolved to accept it in good stride, even when another of the bloody things was installed in the south.  Then they tinkered with the Lamps so that they grew even brighter for a given interval, later to dim somewhat.  I began to get a migraine when the brighter phase occurred, so I betook me to my cozy cave to sleep.

The next thing I knew, Aulë was shaking me awake and saying, “Mairon, it’s time to get to work!” and while he said this there was an insufferable smile of good cheer upon his bearded countenance.

I said to him, “I would rather work when the light dims.”

He said to me, “That’s not an option.  It’s daytime now, dontcha know, and daytime is when people do their work.  During the night is when people sleep.”

“I would prefer to sleep now, sir.”

“Don’t be a grouchypants, Mairon, there’s tectonic plates need subducting!”

I was stunned at this development, but what could I do?  So I dragged myself squinting and miserable to work, where I sounded my colleagues to discern whether any might not be as displeased as I was.  But they mostly raved about the glory of the light.  Even Curumo, whose disgruntlement I could usually count on, wasn’t too upset.  He mused, “It’s not so bad, Mairon.  I reckon there’s a way to break it.”

“To destroy it, you mean?”

“No, no, rather to–bend it, if you will.”

Seeing that I would get no agreement from my own party, I went walking and searched for someone to sympathize with my woes.  Ossë and Uinen were no help: they were dancing vainly around in the surf and remarking about how sparkly the light was on their watery forms.  Aiwendil thoroughly approved, since he said Yavanna Kementári craved light for her creatures to grow.  Really, Aiwendil always was an unbearable toady.  Eönwë and Olórin said that Manwë said that Eru said that light was good, and of course that crowd was all about Eru.  Their yapping about the will and purpose and glory of Eru always did make me want to introduce an acid drip to my ear canal.  But I digress.

I was in a vile mood by the time I returned from work, but when I lay me down in my cozy cave I couldn’t sleep.  My mind started buzzing and chattering with all the interesting, compelling thoughts that take shape upon the unadulterated canvas of deep shadow.  Two thirds of the way though the night, after getting up several times–first to compose haiku, then to deep clean my domicile, and finally to invent the steam engine–I at last managed to sleep.

I must have gotten two hours of rest.  Again, Aulë barged in, letting a stabbing ray of effulgence sneak in behind him, and this time prodded me awake with his boot.  With a broad smile, he invited me to “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!” and my towering wrath could barely be stifled.  Again, I staggered into the daylight, at which a novel and unappealing wish for oblivion descended on me.

That day, on my break, I sought out Nessa’s coffee fountain.  I had never partaken, being disinclined to imbibe a thing to which Nessa credited her grating hyperactiveness, but since I was falling asleep on my feet I resorted to that desperate measure.

Around the fountain there were two types: those who flounced in chirping, “More coffee!  Praise Eru!” and flounced out after chugging–and those who sat and lounged around it, bleary eyes reflecting my own fatigue and resentment.  Chief among these latter were Gothmog, Thuringwethil, Draugluin, Ancalagon and Glaurung. 

To them I said, by way of gauging their merit, “Good morning, colleagues, you’re all looking chipper and radiant as always.”

To which Gothmog snarled, “Get bent,” Thuringwethil made a terribly rude gesture, and the others rolled their eyes.

I perceived then that I had found my folk.

“Folk,” said I.  “I see that you do in fact share my complaint.  What are we to do about this hideous daylight and the nauseating social behavior it seems to foster?”

“Drink at the coffee fountain and kvetch idly,” said Glaurung while his long-nailed hands shook with jittery tremors.  The others nodded and mumbled agreement.  Then I saw that I had to save not only myself, but them, from such a mediocre fate.  But what could I do?

That evening, I again stumbled home exhausted, lay down to sleep as the light dimmed, and found that presently my mind awoke and began again to ricochet happily off my tired skull.  I tried to sleep, but soon I found myself pacing around my domicile and constructing in my head an entirely new language.  It was a rather disgruntled-sounding language.  Who can blame me?

Then there came a soft rap outside the cave, and in came Melkor in some silent, fell shape.  He was terrible to look upon indeed, and such a bloody relief after that searing, soul-scalding daylight, for he was as a shadow given substance.  I therefore stared rather rudely, which he seemed to take as a good sign.

“Have you reconsidered my offer of employment, Mairon?”

“No,” I grumbled.  “And I wish you would stop coming around here.  Everyone thinks you’re still brooding in the outer darkness et cetera.  With all due respect, Mr. Melkor, you’re becoming a liability issue.”

Melkor was unruffled and undeterred.  “I wouldn’t be such if you were working for me instead.  Don’t you care to know why I’ve ceased brooding in the outer darkness?”

“Not really,” I snapped uselessly.

He sat down in my one chair and put his feet up on my desk.  “It is because I have established a dwelling within Arda’s own darkness, under the mountain stone.  It’s quite nice.  No light enters there save that of torch or hearth which may be snuffed at will.  This garish daylight seems but as a far-fetched and incredibly annoying dream, when one treads the dark ways of Utumno.”

I tried not to think about Melkor’s words after he had gone again, but they kept me awake until the daylight was nearly upon me. 

After maybe an hour of sleep at best, I was again beset by Aulë, but this time he woke me by sounding a pitch on a harmonica.  Upon this signal, in a came a troupe of Maiar from the ranks of Vána and Nessa, and these began to caper and sing:

Oh why are you sleeping and why are you snoring?
The lava is seeping, the seafloor needs shoring.
Tra-la-la-lazy, be not over-lazy!  Haha!

To my very great credit, I inhaled and exhaled deeply several times to collect myself, before saying through my teeth, “Did you.  Just rhyme ‘lazy.’  With itself.”

“Pretty clever, eh, sleepyhead?” Aulë beamed.  It was then that I perceived clearly the road that must open to me.  Outrage and horror at the deeds of my fellows deadened any remorse I might otherwise have felt as I strode resolutely away from them. 

“Hey, where do you think you’re off to, Mr. Sensitive?” Aulë called after me.  Yet I heeded him not.  I went to the coffee fountain, and with such fell urgency that none could deny or gainsay me I called for Gothmog, Thuringwethil, et cetera to follow me.

Some time later I was in Melkor’s pleasantly dim office, having first been graciously granted a nap in a quiet and unlit corner of Utumno.  He asked if I’d reconsidered his offer.

I answered Melkor, “And so I have, lord.”  Being rather drunk with gratitude for the nap, and for the absence of the daylight and its denizens, I added with feeling, “I am yours to command forever.”  That may not have been prudent, but it can’t be unsaid and I shan’t be forsworn, you understand. 

In any case, I think it is clear from my tale that I averted a far more cruel and wretched fate.  I am wholly, proudly unrepentant.  You say in your smugness, without attempting once to understand, that I am wicked.  I say, rather, I am not a morning person.

Chapter End Notes

If this was wonderfully easy to narrate from the first person, it's because it is perhaps a wee bit too close to home for the author.

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