DEATH IS ETERNAL #423

3,000 words

This DEATH IS ETERNAL will either bring changes or not. If this one doesn’t bring, then the following will, probably. It all depends on my creativity, or rather, my capacity to come up with things... isn’t that creativity in a nutshell? So, yeah, it’ll all depend on my creativity.

Contents

1. A NIGHT OF SHADOWS

2. Writing: relinquishing

3. Bye!

4. Life (from October 14 to 27, 2024)

5. Reviews #341 and #342: BATMAN: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY by Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo, Mike DeCarlo, and others, and LESSER KNOWN MONSTERS OF THE 21st CENTURY by Kim Fu

6. The end

1. A NIGHT OF SHADOWS

In the shadowy corridors of the Châteu d’Amboise, King Francis I paced restlessly. The grandeur of his residence, with its towering spires and elegant arches, had always instilled a sense of pride and comfort in him. But tonight, comfort was the last thing he felt. His mind was ablaze with the memory of the placard found nailed to his own chamber door.

The king had been informed immediately, and his advisors were in a panic as they presented the small, innocuous-looking piece of parchment. It was not the size of the poster that mattered, but its message, a bold and unrestrained attack on the Catholic Mass and, by extension, the very foundation of Francis’s reign. The affront was unimaginable: how had anyone managed to breach the security of the royal residence, slip past guards and courtiers, and reach the king’s private quarters?

The message was clear in its venom, railing against the papal Mass as an abomination, a corruption of Christ’s Last Supper. It attacked the notion of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, echoing the heretical whispers of the Protestant reformers. Guillaume Farel, the fiery Protestant leader, and Antoine de Marcourt, a lesser-known but equally passionate pastor, had planted the seeds of revolt. And now, it seemed, their followers had acted. The king gritted his teeth, his Catholic heart pounding with anger and fear.

As the hours passed, Francis called for a gathering of his most trusted advisors, including the stout Constable Anne de Montmorency and the sharp-witted Chancellor Antoine Duprat. They sat in a dimly lit room, the flickering candles casting long shadows on the stone walls. The placard lay on the table before them, its words seeming to pulse with defiance even in the still air.

“We cannot allow this to go unpunished,” Montmorency said firmly. His voice was edged with a steely resolve. “To have a poster like this appear in the heart of our kingdom, in your very chamber, Your Majesty—it is an insult that demands swift retribution.”

Francis nodded. He had always been a ruler who sought balance, walking a fine line between the rising tide of Protestantism and the unyielding grip of Catholic orthodoxy. For years, he had been lenient, hoping to foster peace and avoid the bloody conflicts tearing apart other nations. But this—this was a direct challenge to his authority, to his faith. He could not ignore it.

“I have tried to be merciful,” Francis began, his voice low but resolute. “I have shielded these Protestants, protected them from the harshest penalties of the Parlement de Paris. But this act of treason--” He paused, his gaze sweeping across the room, “--this must be met with fire and iron.”

The decision was made. Orders were given for the swift arrest of anyone suspected of sympathizing with the Protestants. The search for the perpetrators intensified, with promises of rich rewards for any who provided useful information. And in the streets of Paris and the provinces, the king’s men fanned out, carrying the king’s fury with them.

In a small, dimly lit room on the outskirts of Paris, Antoine de Marcourt sat hunched over a pile of papers. The air was thick with the smell of ink and parchment, the tools of his trade as both a pastor and a provocateur. He had long known that this day might come. His writings have been banned, his movement restricted, but he has continued his work, driven by an unwavering belief that truth must be told, no matter the cost.

His hand trembled slightly as he folded another placard, his eyes scanning the words one last time. He thought of his followers, the men and women who had risked their lives to post these messages across the kingdom. The night of October 17^th had been their boldest move yet, striking at the very heart of power by nailing the placard to the king’s door. The message was meant to be clear: the Protestants would not be silenced.

But now, in the aftermath, fear crept into Marcourt’s heart. He knew the king’s wrath was coming. Already, word had reached him of arrests in Rouen and Orléans. The first burnings had taken place, the stench of human flesh mixing with the burning hatred of a king betrayed. And it would not stop there.

A knock at the door startled him from his thoughts. He rose, his pulse quickening, and opened it cautiously. A young man, breathless and dishevelled, stood in the doorway.

“Marcourt,” the man gasped, “they’re coming for you. The king’s men—they’ve already taken Farel and others in Neuchâtel. You must flee, now!”

Marcourt’s heart sank. His time had run out.

Back at the Château d’Amboise, Francis stood before a procession of solemn figures. It was Sunday, and all of Paris had been called to witness the king’s devotion. Francis walked under the golden canopy where the Most Holy Eucharist was carried, his face a mask of determination. He held a rosary in his hands, its beads slipping between his fingers as he whispered prayers.

This display was as much political as it was religious. The placards had been an attack on the Mass, on the Eucharist, and so Francis would reaffirm his faith in the most public of ways. The streets were lined with citizens watching as their king walked in humble devotion. Some cheered, but many watched in silence, the tension in the air palpable.

For all his outward calm, Francis’s mind was still consumed by the memory of the placard on his door. The words hunted him, not just because of their message but because of what they represented: a kingdom divided. He could no longer afford to play the peacemaker. The Protestants had declared war, and now, he would respond in kind.

As the procession wound its way through the city, Francis’s heart hardened. There would be no more mercy. The fires of retribution would burn bright, and the Protestants would be purged from his kingdom, one placard at a time.

The end

2. Writing: relinquishing

Photo by Nick Jio on Unsplash

For weeks now, I’ve been sitting at my desk, staring at the same blank page, the cursor blinking like a persistent pulse. I was supposed to write about migration—a theme handed down by the editors of a literary magazine I was eager to submit. I had a story in mind, a personal narrative that would’ve suited the theme, but every time I tried to push myself to write it, the words dissolved into incoherence. What should have been a simple exercise in storytelling became a war of attrition with my own resistance, a battle that I kept losing.

The theme was there, just within reach, like the outline of something familiar you can’t quite grasp. I understood the concept of relinquishing—letting go, surrendering control—but in trying to force myself to shape my personal experiences into a neatly packaged narrative, I found I could no longer write. I’d sit down, open Pages, and stare at it until the anxiety of not producing anything would send me back into distraction. Over and over again, the attempt became a failure. Writing stopped being an act of creation and turned into an obligation, something to muscle through.

I have a story to tell, of course. We all do. But does it matter if I tell it? Does it matter if it fits this particular prompt or magazine? The truth I’ve come to realize is this: personal narrative does not attract me, and trying to force myself to write one because it’s what the publication wanted only made me lose the desire to write at all. When did writing, something I loved so much, become a duty to someone else’s expectations?

Giving up, in our culture, is framed as failure. We are taught to push through discomfort, to endure, to persist. To quit is to admit defeat. But I’m learning that sometimes, giving up is the most important choice we can make. It’s the choice to reclaim our own path, to trust ourselves enough to walk away from something that isn’t working.

Relinquishing this project—this prompt, this forced narrative—was not easy. It felt like betraying the commitment I made to myself. But the harder I pushed to complete something that wasn’t mine, the more I felt like I was losing something essential: the joy of writing, the flow of words that come when I am immersed in a story that I truly want to tell.

I didn’t stop writing because I had nothing to say; I stopped because I was trying to say the wrong thing, in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons.

When I finally decided to walk away from the project, it wasn’t with a sense of defeat but with a sense of liberation. I’ve spent weeks feeling as if I was failing, but in giving up, I realized that failure wasn’t in quitting. Failure would have been in continuing down a path that led to nowhere but frustration and burnout.

There’s something fundamental about knowing when to let go, when to stop fighting against the current. Persistence is a virtue, yes, but so is the ability to pivot, to understand when you’re pouring energy into something that’s no longer serving you. I’m just now learning this, and it feels like a revelation.

We talk a lot about perseverance in writing, and rightly so—it takes dedication to bring words into the world. But we don’t talk enough about the importance of knowing when to give up. Writing, like life, isn’t just about what we pursue. It’s also about what we relinquish, what we allow ourselves to walk away from in order to move forward.

I may not be writing the story I thought I would, but I’m still writing. And that, more than anything else, feels like the right kind of victory.

3. Bye!

Here’s where we say our farewell to the free subscribers. If you want to read the rest of DEATH IS ETERNAL, consider becoming a paying subscriber. If you already are a paying subscriber, first of all, thank you very, very much! And second, I’ll see you on the other side of the paywall.