What are “Tumbled Dreams”? These are the posts I made to my tumblr during the week because I felt they did not warrant a separate post on this blog. However, these “interstitials” often explain some of the backstory to the larger dream posts. For those readers that only read Three Different Ways, they may help explain some of the characters and sudden changes in plot and direction.
~~~
Two new arrivals to the realms of the dead. I was asked to escort them to their final stop. Final for now anyway. It was my understanding they were going to be placed on trial soon.
I picked them up in a black diplomat sedan (why always black) on loan along with a driver. I was in full formal martial gear, and bearing concealed arms. I thought it strange until I saw the two men being escorted from the living world. I recognized one. I’m supposed to escort him alone?
The fight has left him though. What he was (in)famous for while living had fled in the intervening years. He wasn’t even upset to be escorted by a woman. I gave him and the other man “Welcome To Your Afterlife” books. Even though they were written in Arabic script I could read them. The first half of the small thick book was an explanation of the differences between living expectations and dead reality. The second man refused to take it, muttering something about being surrounded by dogs. The first man tucked a copy in the second man’s pocket, apologized for his rudeness, and asked for a moment to quickly thumb through the book for important matters. I conceded him two moments.
We entered the car where I rode in the back facing them. The driver knew to take us to a high security compound. The second man muttered about mistaken identity and not being treated properly. The first man corrected him gently but sharply. “But we are. What we believed while alive is not the truth of things. And now we, like all men, will be called to answer not only for our actions in light of the truth, but our actions in light of what we believed to be truth. It will be a hard trial for both of us, brother. But it comes at last and I am willing to face it.” The second man only sulked harder.
The compound looked like a hotel-resort. The car pulled up to the secure entrance and we disembarked under guard. My instructions were to make sure the two men ate the food of the hotel-resort, are checked in as guests, then pass off custody to the manager of the hotel. The first man accepted my directives well. The second man looked for a way to escape.
“No place to run, brother. You tried three times and were caught three times. Did you not see the weapons our escort carries? You are going to trial, brother. Intact or in pieces. [God] sent an angel of destruction to watch over us. She is gentle because there is no need to be otherwise. Attempt to flee again, and she will slice your soul in two, and you will be cast into the fires in pieces.” He spoke so calmly, so evenly, you would not think that he was under judgement as well. But then again, while alive, he spoke the same.
The second man glared at me as if he meant to attack me. He twitched in my general direction and I extended my arm towards him. Calling forth the feathersword, I also called the fires of the Boneyard. Having a flaming sword tip suddenly at his neck corrected his surliness towards me. The guards around us never moved except for the captain. He nodded in approval.
The second man raised his hands in surrender. I almost recognized him with that gesture. I put the feathersword away and speak to the first about their first meal. Did he have any preferences? The first ordered for himself and the second. A simple meal, more like comfort food than anything fanciful. Spiced meat, plain flatbread, and warm yoghurt-like drink. The second man was angered by the simple meal. The first reminded him that the pleasures of the living is past them both. This was the time to revisit comforts of the soul.
The guards were not to protect the other guests from my charges. They had to protect the charges from the other guests! Their names spread quickly and many people came to praise them or curse them. But the language was foreign to me. I was not able to confirm the identity of the first nor find the identity of the second. I checked them in, obtaining room passes for each. The manager was summoned. When he entered the waiting room, I felt a familiar pressure in my chest. The heavy weight of a mighty angelic presence.
“Angel of [God]! I was told to bring these two to you! They have eaten of the food here, and have been given their personal chambers. They have behaved themselves, though the second man grumbled against me the entire time. He takes offense to my gender. Do you take custody of them from me?” I stood formally before the unassuming angel that was lord over the hotel-resort. My eyes said this was only a senior manager. My senses said this was a commander of a thousand legions.
He looked me over with an amused eye. His gaze lingered over my scars and marks. He smiled a strange smile and I was unable to discern his judgement of me. But make no mistake, I was judged. “I do. You have completed your task, [Weaver]. Thank you.” He formally bowed, an action I reciprocated. And with that gesture, my work was done. He turned to the two men and began barking orders. They were to be stripped, cleaned, and placed in work clothes. Their menial servitude begins at once. The first man bowed and accepted his change of status. The second man began railing at the commander. How dare we treat him this way! He once ruled millions and [identifying phrase here].
On realizing who the second man is, I blanched. He is indirectly responsible for some of my unhealed pain. I stiffened my back and addressed the curiously smiling commander angel. He watched my reaction with interest. “If my work is done, may I be dismissed, Sir? I have no rights upon him, and I do not want to add more marks against me.” The commander angel smiled knowingly.
“Be dismissed.” And I was.
~~~
After being dismissed by the angel, I went back to the lair to wait out the rest of the night. Snake was there and I challenged his behavior. He said where I had to be and what I had to do would have overwhelmed me if I wasn’t deceived.
“Then you were the impotent warrior then. Couldn’t tank for shit. You couldn’t because what we were facing was already beyond your reach, and you had to monitor me for your venom wearing off. So… we were Under The Hill. Where paths cross. And that’s why the note from [Tumblr Person]. Our paths are crossing again.” I wasn’t mad now that I knew the explanation. I was still pissed for not knowing in advance, but hey, I’m used to being manhandled, right?
Wrong. “That was shitty of you. The fuck you start throwing me around like a minion. Knock the shit off.”
“The fuck you keep judging me by your American morals. Knock that shit off.”
“Wut.”
“You keep forgetting I am not a human in snakeskin. I am a snake that does as I please. And what you call morals shifts from human culture to human culture, era to era. I am not your pet, your minion, nor your equal. I used that rod as the entry to your current life. But I am not your Ægis anymore. You know this. But you keep letting your fear take that understanding away from you. Knock that shit off.”
Sometimes, the way he speaks truths hurt worse than a snakebite. My eyes teared up, but he’s right. He asked about yesterday’s reaction. Instead of talking about that, I talked about coffee and addictions and habits instead. I could talk about coffee. I wasn’t ready to talk about chains. Not those. Not yet.
~~~
“I have you. You’re okay. Haven’t seen that since I came back.” I really must look up the name for the style of clothing Snake has taken to wearing. He almost looks like he came out of a certain painting but I do not know the name of that one either. Something about Berbers. He was kneeling on the cold floor of the lair, my head in his lap. The chair was tipped over. My legs were under the table. My hands cramped and my mouth had a familiar taste of burnt wire. I felt sedated again.
“Since the massive blow at the condo, it’s been only little irritating things.” My bones felt as substantial as frozen molasses. My speech was heavily slurred. “I’m… tired.”
He started speaking again. I heard noise from him. Then I heard his voice in my mind. But there wasn’t enough of me present to understand. The electric taste buzzed into my other senses and I melted into nothingness.
I woke later and found myself washed and buried comfortably under the pelts. When did he get so focused on cleanliness? My head throbs with love letters from pain but I was much more aware than I was earlier. A cup of coffee, held by a scaled hand, was placed before my head. “When I needed to be.” Eavesdropper, I loudly thought but cradled the word in mirth and lack of offense. Snake only grunted in terse humor.
If he had not asked about the fit earlier, I would have forgotten all about it. He refused to allow me to do anything more than sit up and sip coffee. So we talked. Of gods and demons and angels and my changing role that really never changed. I’m just being made more aware of it now. We talked of chains and abuse and learned behaviors and innate behaviors and how slavers will teach the enslaved to be ashamed and afraid of themselves to the point of seeking relief from the same person that poisoned them. We talked of myths and stories and why they are still necessary even in this great scientific age of discovery.
He dares me to make the creation myth image public. And confronts the level of panicked fear I have about doing so. And the cultural biases I still nurture despite knowing better. The conversation makes me uncomfortable as fuck.
“You know, if you get a teal [fountain pen ink], you’ll have to write out the Ocean’s myth with it. After all, that is one of the disputed colors between them.”
I just laughed and said I would consider it.
~~~
The two men had made arrangements for their death, long before their death was even suspected. They made arrangements because they knew they would have enemies that would wait, no matter how long, for their spirits to be forcibly separated from their bodies. Enemies that would try to capture their spirits and inflict on them what could not be accomplished during life.
They each made separate arrangements, thinking that in the process of doing so, they would also blind those waiting in the afterlife for them. They would be found justified for all their actions, and would be accepted as sons of their god.
The first man died almost a decade ago. His spirit did not leave the earthly realms for many years after. He wandered some, and was housed some, but as the world went on without him, he realized the ultimate futility of his disembodied ventures. He would have to face the trial, and with it, the truths of all he had done, justified or not.
The second man died a few years after the first. He entered death with all the saved up defiance he had hidden in his last years of life. He too quickly realized that none of his mortal actions would spare him from the trial to come. But instead of accepting it, he ran.
When they came for the first man, those sons of [God] that harvests those souls bound to [God]… When they came for him, he bowed his head and accepted the demands placed upon him. He went with them in peace and serenity.
They had to hunt down the second man. He fled from them, jumping from prepared place to prepared place. As they hunted him down, they destroyed where he had been before. When they finally cornered him, he spoke blasphemies against them. They seized him and dragged him from his last hiding place.
But what is time, to the dead? Though it happened years and years ago, it might as well happened the morning before I entered the story.
…
The liaison was speaking to me about what an unusual honor it was to be chosen for this part of the men’s journey into the afterlife. After all, I was still living. Ke looked at me with a strange mix of curiosity and disbelief. It was well known that [Weaver] was not friendly to monotheism. Of all those that had the capability, why me?
“Is there hostility between me and [God]? Do I need to fear that his sons will seize me unjustly? I tell you, there is a great difference between how the sons of [God] have treated me and the sons of Jehovah. Besides, I’m learning many things, including how not to lay the sins of one entity at the feet of another, merely because of resemblance.” I adjusted my cap over my braids. It’s been a while since I wore long braids, and I had to get used to them again. While I was straightening my martial uniform, the liaison pointed at the hat.
“Remove it.”
“But… isn’t that a disgrace? I am presenting as a woman, after all… and I’ll be in his lands…”
“There is a point to be made, Weaver. Remove it. Not in defiance of [God], but because he asks you to.”
“So… my act of submission to [God], is to defy him? That sounds like a trap to me.”
The liaison laughed. “You are a trap, Weaver. You are a woman, in the clothes of a warrior, but with your womanly form showing quite well. You are armed, and escorted by none. Uncover your head, Woman, because the lord in whose name you are acting has bidden you to as part of your service to him. May his name ever be praised.”
I removed the cap, folded it carefully, and stuck it in a pocket. “I do so, because you are the Speaker of [God], and what you say, you say only because [God] himself has told you to. Let that be a witness between us, liaison, so that if any claim I am offensive, my hands are clean.”
The liaison bowed deeply, accepting the responsibility of my now blasphemous presentation. The sky shone brightly even though no sun was present. In that light, all my scars were exposed. Many of those immortal beings saw flaws and scars even deeper than what I was aware of. Most of them paid it no mind. I was just another human. All humans have flaws and scars.
“Liaison. I am concerned.” The tall humanoid creature, dressed in robes of white light, turned once more to me and cocked kir head in a gesture of listening. “I’m going to enter the realm of the dead. But I am still living. I shall be even deeper in the realms ruled by [God], but I have rejected him as a god over me. Do you see the contradictions?”
“I do. I also see mercy. You were chosen for a reason, [Weaver]. I can not explain to you the thoughts of merciful [God]. I can only say that I am sure you will discharge your duty completely.” As ke spoke, a unit of armed angels appeared. Their weapons were fire and steel. Their armor was light and purity. Their horses were living flame and they brayed loudly in protest of coming to a halt. Their commander came to the liaison and saluted kir.
They spoke in sounds that escaped me completely. The commander’s voice was the sound of wildfire, tornadoes, and floodwaters gushing. The liaison’s voice was the gentle breeze, the wake of butterflies, and the sound of dawning. The commander suddenly looked at me, actually looking at me for the first time. His face was cross in a way that was very familiar to me. The expression asked “What the fuck you mean, this human here!”.
He did not argue, but barked orders at his men. They shouted in obedience and parted so their two captives could be brought to us. The first captive, was bound with his hands in front. He was allowed to walk under his own power. I recognized him on sight. I did not believe my eyes, so I used other senses. I still did not believe it, so when the first man bowed his greeting to myself and the liaison, I called him by name.
“You know me? I am surprised.” He smiled. “History moves so fast, and my ending was so immemorial. Yes. I am he. I would greet you properly, but I am bound.” He bowed again.
The second man was dragged to us. Bound hand and foot, and gagged as well by lengths of flaming rope, he was constantly burned but never to destruction. His spirit had not been handed over to judgement, so as fast as wounds were incurred, they healed. Him, I did not recognize. The furor he exuded was familiar, but not clearly so.
The liaison ordered both men freed from their bindings, to the surprise of the commander. Ke addressed them both in Arabic, but I was able to understand kir completely. “You are no longer among the Living. You are now among the Dead, and there is no returning. This woman has been chosen by the just [God] to escort you to your lodging before you are called before the true and perfect [God] for the trial that all those that have lived must endure. Defy her, and she shall hand you over to destruction. Obey her, and your passage shall be well.”
The liaison now addressed me. “I trust this mode of transportation is familiar to you?” A black diplomatic sedan appeared behind me with an attending driver. “I leave them in your hands. Once you arrive, you must make sure they eat of the food there. Do not leave them until they have. Lodging has already been made available. See to it they are registered there. And the lord of that city will be waiting. Hand them over to him once all else is completed.”
I bowed as I accepted my orders. The liaison handed me what appeared in kir hands as a pair of scrolls. In my hands, they became a pair of small books. “Welcome To The Afterlife: Knowledge For The Newly Dead”
The liaison left. The military unit surrounded us and the car. They were under orders to make sure the two captives would not escape from me. Once they entered the car, their role was done, and mine began.
“Gentlemen! The car door is open. Let the journey continue.”
~~ ~~ ~~
And that is how I wound up escorting two spirits through the land of the dead the other night.
~~~
Gone is the bright emerald green suit. Gone are the gold cufflinks and the vividly new-leaf green tie. Gone are the green feathers hanging from pierced ears. Gone are any visual cues to eccentric corporate America. The flashiness and the pomposity that I am used to, is gone.
When he is in human form, he wears white now. Great sheets of white cloth that drape over him in layers meant to be insulating and protective. They hide his form so that even when standing still, he has the appearance of barely perceptible movement. They cover his feet and the sandals are barely seen only when walking.
But it is the head cover that marks the change as drastic. A white turban, wrapped loosely and tightly at the same time covers his head and drapes over his neck and upper chest. His hair is hidden. The only skin I see of him is his face and his hands. His eyes remain intriguingly emerald, in a hue that has never been seen naturally in a human’s face. But then again, his eyes have the slitted pupils expected of serpents. He makes no attempt to hide them.
His naga form has changed as well, but that hasn’t struck me as deeply as the change in his human presentation.
Just when I thought I knew him, I realize I never did. I am learning what he has become. I would not have been able to remain within arm’s reach of him six months ago. Knowing my luck, by the time I am completely comfortable with him, he’s going to go off and regenerate transform himself again.
~~~
Last night was a blur of physical exhaustion, accidental exposure to one of Snake’s more intoxicating venoms toxins, and mild fitting. In other words, what I do remember, I don’t trust. But I think some folk will get a kick from this snippet of conversation that sticks out to me:
Me: “Gonna bake that bitch a cake. Bitches love cake.”
Snake: “Is sweets her thing though. You better look that up first. That ‘bitch’ has other things closer to her than sweets.”
Me: ~turns around to lean on the table~ ~misses table~ ~continues conversation from floor~ “Good idea. So, if not a cake, a pie! And if she don’t like sweets, then a savory pie! And ice cream for dessert.”
Snake: “Why are you so insistent on some kind of dessert?”
Me: ~slurring speech and familiar tingling~ “‘Cuz… Bitch brought me ice cream. Bad-ass Bitchmaster with a Ph.D. in bitchtastic bitchology brought me motherfucking ice cream. A precedent has been established.” ~heavier slurring and difficulty moving~ “Bitch is metal as fuck and if I don’t step up in kind it will be my ass.” ~difficulty breathing~
Snake: “I’ll remind you of this conversation once you’re sober and not fitting.” ~pulls me into his lap as a fit begins~
So. Yea. Rough night. Want coffee and cake for breakfast now. Can’t imagine why.
~~~
At least I wasn’t a frog fairy again… Ribbit, my ass.
The restlessness of the day drenched the night. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to stay at the lair. I didn’t want to burn off excess energy in a daydream. (Besides, daydreams are never just daydreams anymore.) And I was far too wound up for deep sleep.
I tried to busy myself inside. Plotting where to put a moonstone, should I succeed in making one. How to divide the lotus plants and if to install an aquarium or not. The raven skull mask hung beside Esse’s shield in quiet prominence. I thought about seeing if I had any steel yet to finish the axehead with but realized I did not have the focus to do it properly.
Outside, the fire burned in little old man shouts of cracks and pops. I was barefoot, and feeling the cool dust and ashes between my toes was settling. A slide and a kick later, I found myself shuffling in the dirt. Physical mutterings of a restless soul, I did nothing intentional and certainly nothing structured.
I looked up to see Snake in Berber white, standing across the fire. He had something draped across his back. The dark strap was visually slicing his chest in two. “How far do you want to take it?” No mirth. No teasing. I don’t know why he was severe, or what he was planning, but the intensity in his voice drew me and feared me at the same time.”
“As far as it needs to go.” I’ve been feeling a summons on me all day. And while it felt the window for answering it had closed, I was still restless. I don’t know what he meant by ‘it’, but if it meant dealing with this horrible unease, I was all for it.
Wordlessly he sat with his back to the outer darkness. This struck me as odd. He sat not with his back to the lair or the cliff, nor with his back to the eavesdropping river, but with his back to the clearing that opened the view to a particular monument before the gaze was swallowed by the sky. I thought again of the indistinct summons and just nodded.
He pulled his dark object from his back and without ceremony began to play the ancient hand drum. It has been weathered and worn, repaired and restored, and covered with tension ropes and decorative tassels. It looked beat up and hard used. It looked like something one would scrounge out of a midden. It sounded like it alone was responsible for the making of the world.
Snake did not wait for me to ask questions or prepare. He sat down and began playing. I never heard this rhythm before. It neither intrigued me nor repulsed me. It felt like something you would hear in the background. Something… inconsequential. I didn’t know what to do. I found nothing to hook into.
So I just shuffled aimlessly. My feet found no path to take. My arms dangled uselessly. My back was uncomfortable under the cloth. So I shed the shirt, exposing Snake’s elaborate mark on my back to the cold night air. No bra, no cover, and no fucks for any snoops to see. I was more comfortable, but not completely comfortable. A little wiggle of my hips, and the trousers bloomed into a loose dustsweeping skirt. Much more comfortable, but still not yet completely comfortable.
The rhythm began to make sense to me. It wriggled into my bones and contorted me in smooth movements. This wasn’t a rhythm to move out of rote to. This was a physical oration, a speech spoken in the mechanics of moving joints and deliberate sudden postures. This wasn’t a recital. This was spontaneity. But I wasn’t speaking the language just yet.
The drum bent me over suddenly. In fierce panting and muffled moans I felt it trying to draw something out of me. I felt a struggle between what I thought I should be tonight, and what I felt I should be tonight. The drum clattered. I told my incomplete knowledge to shut up and sit down. The drum squeezed me. My wings erupted out of my back in ink black shoots of blood dipped feathers.
I grabbed two handfuls of ashes from the fire and dusted my bursted wings. In the process of marking them (for the drum said to mark them), my forearms and hands changed as well. Wiping the last bit of ashes on my face, I found I understood the drum’s speech at last. I shrieked in mutual laughter and the night continued on.
There were many witnesses to the spectacle. They came from the river and the sky, from the clearing and the forest. But none came within fire’s light. I could still see them, though. Still feel their variations of presence. Each one had a different reason for watching. None spoke to me, Snake, or the drum.
How far did I want to take it, he had asked. As far as it needs to go, I replied. It went. It went so far, it went beyond my human understanding.
—-
“Tea? My, you have changed.” The scaled hand of Snake’s naga form poured a cup of Assam for me, mixing milk and sugar in indulgent amounts. I teased him for the switch from coffee even as I accepted the cup of consolation.
He smiled in reflected mirth but did not take the bait. In silence beneath the half-dimmed sunstone, we sipped our cups and recovered from the stenuous night. I remembered very little after the wings erupted. I do remember how right they felt, confirming what I was told about them before. Leaning back, I studied the altered ceiling. “So. Moonstone. Yea or nay?”
Two hands held cup and saucer. A third hand steadied against the table as the fourth hand gestured up. “Will it be needed for light? Or as an adornment?”
“Well, the sunstone provides light enough. So as adornment, I guess. To be honest, I don’t think it would go well in here. A static mark like the stars would work. But this chamber has light enough.” I haven’t had Assam like this in a while. I wondered what would it take to bribe him to keep me supplied.
He cocked his head at me and sighed heavily as I giggled knowing he heard my intentionally loud thought. Refusing to take the bait, he kept to the verbal subject. “You have a different purpose for the moonstone than just decoration or mere function.” I nodded.
“Remember the lantern that came with the hammer? I’m thinking a stone along that line of use. Not all my tinkering should be done exposed outside, but certain things require certain light.”
“This isn’t about mere moonlight like how the sunstone emits sunlight, is it.”
“No, it’s not. My homework is leading me away from a mere decoration. But before I get started on the crafting, I wanted your input. You’ve made a lot of changes, and I don’t know if you were relying on any particular inclination from me.” My cup was empty. I placed it upside down on the saucer.
“Why ask me? This is your lair. It was given to you, not to me. Decorate it as you please.” He lifted the cup and studied the pattern the remaining droplets made on the saucer. But he held the cup so I could not see the pattern.
“And you’ve been here from the moment I moved in. Just not in the manner you are now. You altered the ceiling, and took care of the plants. This is just as much your lair as it is mine.” I tried to see around the saucer but he finished his inspection quickly. Placing the cup back down, he slid it, smearing the pattern.
He sat back and studied me, with those emerald eyes set in a scaled cream face. “No. It is your lair. You have merely allowed me great leeway with it. As far as the moonstone is concerned, I agree it is not needed for decoration. Craft what your instinct tells you to craft. I will help if you wish.” As he spoke, his emerald eyes deepened into a dark turquoise. The color shift held my attention.
I was suddenly aware two of his hands were on my face, holding me fast. He was speaking further, but his voice did not register. His eyes shifted to teal, then intensely blue, then a dark blue. The deeper the hue, the less I felt all else around me. My last thought before the depths of his eyes swallowed me completely was to remind myself to tease him mercilessly about all the folktales of mesmerism.
And then I was lost.
~~~
After dealing with some emotionally baited shit in the City, I was on my way out of the district when I heard my name called. A fellow at a small table for two in a grunge themed café waved at me. I had time to kill, so why not. Before I sat down, a messenger from the bullshit I had left caught up with me. I listened to the message then told the messenger my answer.
“Tell him I choose my delusions, and his are rejected. Also, tell him there will be a price for any further contact. If he doesn’t want to find out what it is, he shouldn’t ask. And I suggest your dispatcher place him on the toxic message list. He’s not above using the messenger to pay his dues.” The messenger blanched a bit, but nodded in accepting my words and ran off.
“I remember when you ran messages. You’ve grown. Now I have the great Weaver at my table!” Hipster Man is so totes hipster. Black slacks, black turtleneck, grey scarf, black slouch-cap, black rimmed circular glasses, black finger-less gloves, a big mug of steaming black coffee, a paperback book by an obscure author, and an attitude that could be felt from the street. His disguise was almost perfect. I knew it was just a disguise. Good enough though, that I could not tell who he (or she or ke) is.
“Great Weaver, my ass.” He was very familiar, very comforting. I know him. But I don’t remember him. I settled in the chair and stretched out comfortably. “Just Weaver. What epithet people use is dependent on how much shit I’ve started this time.” I looked at the menu boards. Coffee, alcohol, sandwiches, and snacks. “Is this a café or a bar?”
“Private club. $5 entry for a one night membership.” The bastard waited until I fished out my funds to purchase a membership and a coffee before signalling to the barkeep. He had already paid my fee and anticipated my drink. I tried handing him the cash but he refused. “Weaver being at my table is worth far more than pocket change. Seeing you whole, smiling, and in good spirits has paid whatever debt you think you owe.”
The club is a silent one. Music is broadcast to headsets maintained by the club. Wearing a pair visually declares you a member. Different color headsets for different levels of membership. Mine was a bright sparkly blue. The mark of a one-nighter. His was as black as his soul turtleneck sweater. A lifetime member. You don’t have to listen to the music. You can turn the volume off and wear them as a visual ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. You can let them hang about your neck and hold private conversations instead. Which is what he and I did.
He asked about the commotion I was walking away from. I spoke honestly, surprising myself in discusing nuances that no longer pricked me to speak about. He did not judge me, but just listened. On my describing the latest deception and how it was meant to cast me as a willing servant accepting exile to save her master, he finally openly laughed.
“I think he would be fun to play with. Do you mind?” I did not understand why he had to get permission from me. I wiped my hands of him already. “A formality. You say you have released all claims, but the human heart holds tighter than any fist.” His eyeglasses lens turned suddenly dark, hiding his irises from me, and with them any hope of reading his intention.
“I consider him, the same way I consider a certain house that also persists in fucking with me. History. Not to be repeated. Do as you please.” I raised my coffee to punctuate my words. My conscience was clear of the matter. I was relieved to find it so. I had certain questions to divine, and it would be easier knowing I truly was no longer entangled.
I felt dawn approaching in the physical world. “I must take my leave. No hints to your identity?”
He made a great show of feigning offense and being wounded. I couldn’t help but snicker. “You recognized me as ‘friendly’, and remembered me enough to speak what you haven’t spoken to anyone else. That is all you need to know of me… for now. My table is open to you Liminal Weaver. Even if you do not see me, my table is open to you.”
When I stood up from the table, I found myself in black booty shorts with ragged and torn fishnet stockings underneath, steel toe boots only half laced up, sparkly bra barely containing my breasts, an unbuttoned denim vest, elbow length lace gloves (also ripped) under black leather fingerless gloves with metal studs on the knuckles, and a sharp martial cap with a multitude of scribbled symbols and sigils on it. I looked at my ensemble and looked back at him. He nodded in approval.
“I can’t hide jacque shitte in this.”
“And it is glorious. Only the blind would not see the promise of pain that you are.”
I rolled my eyes in dramatic fashion. His turn to laugh. “What the fuck ever!” As I walked away, the crowd parted to let me pass. Turning back, I saw him and his table engulfed in shadow. He smiled at me, turned back to his book, and melted into the surrounding darkness.
~~~
“How can you exist? You should not be!”
“That’s a big ass question. If you want an answer trim it down to my scope of understanding.”
“Okay. Your heart. It is made of fire? And not just a flame, but a heat that can melt stone? And it beats in your chest and pumps blood without cooking you from within? What?”
“Heh. That’s easy. Very little about that body is actually physical. That’s why it is there as well as here. It’s a matter of perception, identity, and how much of myself I want to share with the viewer. You are still mired in the physical, which only knows physical matters. Of neurons and electrical impulses and chemical reactions and the boundaries of matter. The physical knows nothing about the spirit. So to those that only see the physical, I am pure fiction. But to those that see more than the physical, my heart is unquenchable.”
“Does all physical matter have a spritual component?”
“Wrong question. Does all spiritual matter have physical components? No, not all.”
“Then I’m using the wrong world for my basis of reality.”
“I can’t say either way. Both have their merits. And I’m in both. And even then, saying ‘both’ as if there is only two is a severe error. But I don’t have the understanding to expound on that further. All I can say for sure, is welcome to the mouth of the cave.”
~~~
Didn’t get much sleep last night. What time I did spend over there was passed in the lair with what may become the moonstone. Where the sunstone was a violent and sudden process, the moonstone has been nurtured and coaxed. Even now, after three weeks, I’m not done yet.
I know most folk measure the moon’s age from New Moon to New again. But for me it has always been from Full Moon to Full. I’m still not sure of the how’s and why’s I’m making this and making it in this fashion. Feels like another creation myth barely remembered.
For now, the unfinished moonstone is tracking the physical appearance of the moon. But once finished, I’ll be able to adjust its light the same way I adjust the sunstone. We’ll see come the full moon.
~~~
The [Bear (Of/From) The Stars] walked through the gathered men. No one saw him. No one looked for him. The people had believed the [white men] and closed their eyes and their hearts. They listened to the [white man] standing where the [storyteller] should have stood. They listened, very afraid, for they had lost their spirits to the words of the [white men].
The [Bear (Of/From) The Stars] wandered through, and smelled the scent of a different fear. The fear of someone that saw him still. He followed the fear and found me crouched behind a tree on the edge of the [clearing/village]. I reached for my knife and realized how useless it was. I dropped my knife and knelt before the [Bear (Of/From) The Stars], crying because I was the last to see him and I was about to die. Crying because no one would see him again.
“Are you going to kill me [Bear (Of/From) The Stars]?”
“No. You know my stories. You must tell them.”
“I only know the stories the anthropologists, the [white men] tell. They are incomplete stories and talk of what the blind men see. I am not of your people, [Bear (Of/From) The Stars].”
He laid his massive head on mine, forehead to forehead. “You know my stories. You must tell them.”
I started crying again, because I knew the People knew the old stories still, but they are hoarding them from the [white men]. “There will be no one to tell me if my stories are the right ones or not. I am not of the People. I only know the [white men] stories.”
“You know my stories. Tell them.”
The [Bear (Of/From) The Stars] dissolved into stars and expanded to fill the night sky, the fireflies, the glint of the river, the sparkle in my eyes, and all the places in the dark night where the [white men] say is dark, but is really vividly bright to those that know where to look.
I woke up crying and sobbing from an inconsolable sense of loss.
~~~
“Psst.”
“No.”
“But…”
“Fuck off.”
“It wouldn’t take more than a second.”
“Bullshit. I know how that shit works. Go play Roman Citizen some other place. I’m not giving you either inch or mile.”
“But you’re in the perfect spot! And you don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”
“Your intentions are loud. Louder than I think. I could hear you in the next zipcode, and you’re going to get a nuisance ticket for it if you don’t leave me alone. And by nuisance ticket, I mean a chunk forcibly removed from your ass.”
“But it’s your job…”
“SAYS WHO!” ~throws phantom chair~ “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOUR UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS OF ME! FUCK THE EASY GAMES YOU PLAYED WITH MY HEART! FUCK THE RUTS THAT YOU AND YOURS KEEP TRYING TO DRAG ME BACK INTO! FUCK THE EASY WAY OUT FOR EVERYONE ELSE BUT ME! THOSE BASTARDS DUG THEMSELVES INTO THAT HOLE, THEY CAN CLIMB THEIR WHINY BITCHY ASSES OUT OF IT! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM! I WILL NOT CONSOLE THEM! THEIR BRITTLE AND DELICATE SENSE OF HAPPINESS IS NOT DEPENDENT ON ME AND I REFUSE TO BEAR THEIR BURDENS FOR THEM! SO FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING LEECH BEFORE I REALLY GET FUCKING PISSED!” ~turns attention back to work~ “Also, fuck you. Now, go away before I let my minions loose.”
“… They can’t hurt me.”
“Care to test that theory?”
And with that, I am suddenly left alone again.
~~~
Make of that, what you may.