It starts in a nightclub with Harlequin who says “Remember that one time you…” and recites a dream I had regarding a Tumblrite (though that dream was publicized with his permission, I’m kinda anxious naming it here for some reason).
Harlequin spoke the tale faithfully, and ended it with an observation that “sometimes the stories are not for the teller, but for the told”. A short jig and posturing later, they ask me who is telling the stories I need to be told and why haven’t I heard them all yet. They hold their hat a certain way over their face, and I recognize the unspoken callout.
Yea, fuck you, too. I’m out.
I wind up at the campfire in the Forest of Shadows. Funny how so much can happen in a person’s life in just a few short years. I’m not the person that first came here, neither here nor there.
A shambling rises up from underneath me. It wraps its clay mud body around me but leaves my face clear. We talk of things, and I fall asleep in the predator’s embrace without fear.
The thing with the character of Harlequin, is they could be a stand in for three different concepts of entities. Context is absolutely fucking required. If in a grove or upon a theatrical stage, they are a mask for Dionysus. If in a dark nightclub or outdoor ritual gathering, they are likely a mask for (Ancestral | Clan | Defined Band of) Spirits. If in broad daylight and calling attention to themselves, then they are a messenger (usually from [Planetary] Jupiter) and their colors will identify who sent them.
Last night’s dream is confusing because it starts off in a particular dark nightclub that has been 199.999% Ancestral Fuckery but the dream they recite is Dionysian as fuck. I’m still too salty to tell you who Harlequin mimicked with the hat hiding one eye bit without devolving into a pool of impolite epithets, but I’m sure y’all can figure it out. (That Bastard only plays such games when the stakes are high.)
And it’s important that I understand that scene, because that sets the frame for everything else that followed. Even though all that followed was polite conversation and some necessary reflection about myself and my identities.
Ugh. Spirits. Why y’all gotta be so fucking mystifying and shit.