lightning garden https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/ A labyrinth of dead ends conserved in clear amber Thu, 23 Apr 2026 19:42:22 +0000 Threads https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/threads <![CDATA[Sister Lavyry is young and her fingers are straight, but she has the same hunger in her eyes that I once had, that we all had. I have never caught her in the act but I know she practises the movements when she's alone — she watches me too closely for it to not be so. !--more-- Any contact with a foreign object is fraught with difficulty now, with jolts of searing pain and the sudden weakness which causes the hand to drop what it's holding. Elder Igranor has been learning to write holding the pen between her wrists. It's slow — it takes her minutes to write a single line — but she refuses all assistance even though she can no longer even cut her food on her own. But that is the cost of the gift we all share. The twisting of the bones, the cracking and bulging of the joints, the weakness of the muscle and the tenderness of the nerves, these must all come when one reaches out and pulls the threads. But when I part them and spool them with my ruined hands that can barely hold a cup my warped bone and wracked flesh sing with their thrum and all the pain is forgotten. Eventually — no, soon — I must take Sister Lavyry as my apprentice and begin teaching her. Then she will wrap her own hands as she now wraps mine after they have been lashed by the frayed threads slipping from her grasp through her too-straight fingers, and she will bite back tears and look me in the eye and thrust her chin forward as she asks me to show it to her again, and again, and again, until one day her hands too like mine are twisted and the threads no longer slip past them like water or sand but spool when they ought to and slide when the should. And at length the hunger in her eyes will dim and they will grow cloudy and fragile as Elder Igranor's, as mine will then be. But not yet. Let her hold my hands and ask if it's too tight for a few more nights. ]]> Sister Lavyry is young and her fingers are straight, but she has the same hunger in her eyes that I once had, that we all had. I have never caught her in the act but I know she practises the movements when she's alone — she watches me too closely for it to not be so.

Any contact with a foreign object is fraught with difficulty now, with jolts of searing pain and the sudden weakness which causes the hand to drop what it's holding. Elder Igranor has been learning to write holding the pen between her wrists. It's slow — it takes her minutes to write a single line — but she refuses all assistance even though she can no longer even cut her food on her own.

But that is the cost of the gift we all share. The twisting of the bones, the cracking and bulging of the joints, the weakness of the muscle and the tenderness of the nerves, these must all come when one reaches out and pulls the threads. But when I part them and spool them with my ruined hands that can barely hold a cup my warped bone and wracked flesh sing with their thrum and all the pain is forgotten.

Eventually — no, soon — I must take Sister Lavyry as my apprentice and begin teaching her. Then she will wrap her own hands as she now wraps mine after they have been lashed by the frayed threads slipping from her grasp through her too-straight fingers, and she will bite back tears and look me in the eye and thrust her chin forward as she asks me to show it to her again, and again, and again, until one day her hands too like mine are twisted and the threads no longer slip past them like water or sand but spool when they ought to and slide when the should. And at length the hunger in her eyes will dim and they will grow cloudy and fragile as Elder Igranor's, as mine will then be.

But not yet. Let her hold my hands and ask if it's too tight for a few more nights.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/threads Sun, 02 Nov 2025 14:23:11 +0000 The House with Red Walls https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/the-house-with-red-walls <![CDATA[On the second floor of the house with red walls, there is a long hallway, unlit and dusty and empty but for the faces that hang from one wall. Go ten paces, twenty, more faces; they hang there bleeding, so supple they might flinch, their eyes staring hollow. Thirty, there’s a turn: the corridor goes on. Eventually the row of faces ends, and then soon so does the hallway, fraying into nothing. !--more-- You have already imagined the extraction, some butcher-barber’s workshop, tables of coarse-grained old wood stained deep, the chair with leather straps, an obsidian scalpel to make the first incision and a knife with a bone handle and a scale-thin curved blade to slide under the skin. On the ground floor there is the great ballroom with its black and white chequered flooring. Its walls are the deep red of a blind man’s wine. Bodies dance to unseen music, their limbs arrayed radially, pleated skin skirts swaying. Eyes bead the curved ceiling of the reception hall. The carpeting of the upswept stairs has the texture of a tongue. In the old kitchen something has broken. Blue and purple arrow-like leaves crowd out of the crack. They grow slowly but appreciably. The staff have abandoned that corner. Your bedroom has nothing monstrous to it, just the faint smell of ozone and night air. It gets hot in the summer so you keep the window open. The stiff mauve curtains billow in and out as the house sighs. The walls are the red of something you remember from long ago. From the outside, the spires of the house stab the sky like fingers lifted in prayer. A light is burning in the highest; someone watching. Noöne knows who the lord of the house with red walls is. Only their demands are transmitted in hushes from servant to servant, through carpeted hallway and coughing stair. The gardeners don’t hide their bitterness, spitting and hissing through sparse nublike jutting teeth. They are bent over and bubonic like gargoyles warning of syphilis — they know all of this should belong to them. They whisper soothing words as they trim the fruit trees and softly stroke the peaches’ fur. There’s sometimes guests in the gardens, lost and politely bewildered. Sluggish slow worms slither to warm under the rocks. In the centre of the maze, laid out in three dimensions with bridges and underpasses and subtle slopes, a fern flower blooms as white deer with eight legs line up to drink from the rainwater-filled dry fountain. The moon that rises over the house with red walls is no moon at all. Gusting wind bangs with invisible fists against the roof’s endless black slopes. A guard squeezes into a protected nook and lights a cigarette, then peers through the smoke into the rustling dark. Something is moving there but that’s nothing unusual. The wall behind him has the unhealthy flush of inflamed skin. This vignette has previously appeared in Yuggothic Delusions Ogdo.]]> On the second floor of the house with red walls, there is a long hallway, unlit and dusty and empty but for the faces that hang from one wall. Go ten paces, twenty, more faces; they hang there bleeding, so supple they might flinch, their eyes staring hollow. Thirty, there’s a turn: the corridor goes on. Eventually the row of faces ends, and then soon so does the hallway, fraying into nothing.

You have already imagined the extraction, some butcher-barber’s workshop, tables of coarse-grained old wood stained deep, the chair with leather straps, an obsidian scalpel to make the first incision and a knife with a bone handle and a scale-thin curved blade to slide under the skin.

On the ground floor there is the great ballroom with its black and white chequered flooring. Its walls are the deep red of a blind man’s wine. Bodies dance to unseen music, their limbs arrayed radially, pleated skin skirts swaying.

Eyes bead the curved ceiling of the reception hall. The carpeting of the upswept stairs has the texture of a tongue.

In the old kitchen something has broken. Blue and purple arrow-like leaves crowd out of the crack. They grow slowly but appreciably. The staff have abandoned that corner.

Your bedroom has nothing monstrous to it, just the faint smell of ozone and night air. It gets hot in the summer so you keep the window open. The stiff mauve curtains billow in and out as the house sighs. The walls are the red of something you remember from long ago.

From the outside, the spires of the house stab the sky like fingers lifted in prayer. A light is burning in the highest; someone watching. Noöne knows who the lord of the house with red walls is. Only their demands are transmitted in hushes from servant to servant, through carpeted hallway and coughing stair.

The gardeners don’t hide their bitterness, spitting and hissing through sparse nublike jutting teeth. They are bent over and bubonic like gargoyles warning of syphilis — they know all of this should belong to them. They whisper soothing words as they trim the fruit trees and softly stroke the peaches’ fur.

There’s sometimes guests in the gardens, lost and politely bewildered. Sluggish slow worms slither to warm under the rocks. In the centre of the maze, laid out in three dimensions with bridges and underpasses and subtle slopes, a fern flower blooms as white deer with eight legs line up to drink from the rainwater-filled dry fountain.

The moon that rises over the house with red walls is no moon at all. Gusting wind bangs with invisible fists against the roof’s endless black slopes. A guard squeezes into a protected nook and lights a cigarette, then peers through the smoke into the rustling dark. Something is moving there but that’s nothing unusual. The wall behind him has the unhealthy flush of inflamed skin.

This vignette has previously appeared in Yuggothic Delusions Ogdo.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/the-house-with-red-walls Thu, 30 Oct 2025 02:03:41 +0000 Something is wrong https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/something-is-wrong <![CDATA[Televisions tune themselves to dead channels and something reaches out from behind the snow and crawls inside skulls. Work crews in yellow overalls walk the streets in the early hours, reärranging; noöne knows who sends them. Strange animals and stranger people: everyone sees them but everyone sees them differently. A radio is playing but there is no radio in the room.!--more-- It tells of murder in between advertising mattresses, sex toys, and back alley lobotomies. The sewers are clogged with hagfish. A new political party is headed for a landslide but their members refuse to tell what their platform is. At their events speakers hiss and ramble and gyrate incoherently. Their banner is the wan, sickly yellow of stained textiles, fungal growths, chlorine gas, and pus. Artists’ collectives advance dangerous new forms of art and sex. People put on masks to dance to the new music and when they take them off they have someone else’s faces. Mafias trafficking in strange drugs, yellow nepenthe and the flesh of the giant aquatic centipede. Someone is buying all the vacant land and erecting stone edifices with no doors or windows. Suicide merchants cloak themselves with obfuscating banality. Takeover of mass channels — television radio newspapers town criers divination — by signals preaching the gospel of the heat‐death of all values, the annihilation of ethics, morals, belief, meaning, and hope. Cattle give birth to cockroaches and rats. Purveyors of ultraviolence, vendors of unspeakable psychic amputations. The rain is like liquid methamphetamine. Mental illnesses turn contagious. Delusions, dreams, and psychotic episodes asserting themselves in external reality and waking life becoming mass hallucination. There are people abroad who are not people. They are ghosts, ideas, confusions. They writhe incomprehending and obscene to music noöne can hear but everyone can feel. Something is wrong but noöne is doing anything. Something is wrong and everyone feels it. Something is wrong but noöne knows what it is. Something is wrong and everything is going wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. This vignette has previously appeared in Lunar Miseries Ogdo.]]> Televisions tune themselves to dead channels and something reaches out from behind the snow and crawls inside skulls. Work crews in yellow overalls walk the streets in the early hours, reärranging; noöne knows who sends them. Strange animals and stranger people: everyone sees them but everyone sees them differently. A radio is playing but there is no radio in the room. It tells of murder in between advertising mattresses, sex toys, and back alley lobotomies. The sewers are clogged with hagfish. A new political party is headed for a landslide but their members refuse to tell what their platform is. At their events speakers hiss and ramble and gyrate incoherently. Their banner is the wan, sickly yellow of stained textiles, fungal growths, chlorine gas, and pus. Artists’ collectives advance dangerous new forms of art and sex. People put on masks to dance to the new music and when they take them off they have someone else’s faces. Mafias trafficking in strange drugs, yellow nepenthe and the flesh of the giant aquatic centipede. Someone is buying all the vacant land and erecting stone edifices with no doors or windows. Suicide merchants cloak themselves with obfuscating banality. Takeover of mass channels — television radio newspapers town criers divination — by signals preaching the gospel of the heat‐death of all values, the annihilation of ethics, morals, belief, meaning, and hope. Cattle give birth to cockroaches and rats. Purveyors of ultraviolence, vendors of unspeakable psychic amputations. The rain is like liquid methamphetamine. Mental illnesses turn contagious. Delusions, dreams, and psychotic episodes asserting themselves in external reality and waking life becoming mass hallucination. There are people abroad who are not people. They are ghosts, ideas, confusions. They writhe incomprehending and obscene to music noöne can hear but everyone can feel. Something is wrong but noöne is doing anything. Something is wrong and everyone feels it. Something is wrong but noöne knows what it is. Something is wrong and everything is going wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.

This vignette has previously appeared in Lunar Miseries Ogdo.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/something-is-wrong Tue, 11 Feb 2025 21:24:52 +0000 The Society of Forever https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/the-society-of-forever <![CDATA[There are ways of killing and hurting that leave no mark. Everyone has heard the one about phonebooks; that's not true, but not every blow needs to land in order to hit. There are ways of building that require no foundations, and ways of taking down that leave the walls still standing; ways of hunting and stalking that leave the prey unaware they were the quarry even after they have been eaten... !--more-- No culture has ever denied death as strongly as ours, ever been as singularly obsessed in the reification of its own endless powers of production, seduction, impregnation, yet as nervously committed to sterility. Ageless man-whore baby satyrns with child wives stretched to the sizes of buildings, of nations, made of plastic and neon. It is not true that we fear death or that we grieve it; both of those would be ways of relating to death, and we have none. A memorial to us is merely perpetual life support: wear a poppy, so that they who died will always remain in agony, so that the eye resting on the moment of our victory will never shift and see the carnage unfolded and the hundred years elapsed. We cannot permit the dead to be dead. Graveyards must be paved over and replaced with a thicket of holograms. The beautiful, youthful king falls in love and enters into the Underworld, and we avert our eyes. We cannot deal with cycles; we cannot accommodate the death of a rockstar. There are ways of bleeding out that never spill a drop or stain a solitary fibre. Immaculate forever, clean and shiny like your phone that two years from now will be a landfill. Infinite growth: the line forever rigid and strong. No cycles, no coming; we are a society without orgasm, without deaths petty or great. Infinite lust without fulfilment. Build a shrine out of your lover's bones, O maiden. File your teeth and sharpen your iron nails and wait, for there is surely meat coming down the darkening road. Hyena-men compressed thin and two-dimensional loll their tongues and spectate all the ills of the world, condemn the victims, and vomit outrage at the concept of change. Crawl up the steps of the pyramid made of skulls and kiss the crotch of the twitching near-dead body grasping the reins of power frayed thin like cobweb. We are the greatest society that has ever existed. We are the only society that has ever existed. We will always exist; we will never change. History is our history, the history of hours, and it has ended, it is ours, we contain it, as we contain and containerise all. There is blood coming out of your tearducts. Vomit and spit stain your makeup. Wrap your heart in cellophane and immerse your skull in a bath of resin. Be like us; be forever. This vignette has previously appeared in OGDO III.]]> There are ways of killing and hurting that leave no mark. Everyone has heard the one about phonebooks; that's not true, but not every blow needs to land in order to hit. There are ways of building that require no foundations, and ways of taking down that leave the walls still standing; ways of hunting and stalking that leave the prey unaware they were the quarry even after they have been eaten... No culture has ever denied death as strongly as ours, ever been as singularly obsessed in the reification of its own endless powers of production, seduction, impregnation, yet as nervously committed to sterility. Ageless man-whore baby satyrns with child wives stretched to the sizes of buildings, of nations, made of plastic and neon. It is not true that we fear death or that we grieve it; both of those would be ways of relating to death, and we have none. A memorial to us is merely perpetual life support: wear a poppy, so that they who died will always remain in agony, so that the eye resting on the moment of our victory will never shift and see the carnage unfolded and the hundred years elapsed. We cannot permit the dead to be dead. Graveyards must be paved over and replaced with a thicket of holograms. The beautiful, youthful king falls in love and enters into the Underworld, and we avert our eyes. We cannot deal with cycles; we cannot accommodate the death of a rockstar.

There are ways of bleeding out that never spill a drop or stain a solitary fibre. Immaculate forever, clean and shiny like your phone that two years from now will be a landfill. Infinite growth: the line forever rigid and strong. No cycles, no coming; we are a society without orgasm, without deaths petty or great. Infinite lust without fulfilment. Build a shrine out of your lover's bones, O maiden. File your teeth and sharpen your iron nails and wait, for there is surely meat coming down the darkening road. Hyena-men compressed thin and two-dimensional loll their tongues and spectate all the ills of the world, condemn the victims, and vomit outrage at the concept of change. Crawl up the steps of the pyramid made of skulls and kiss the crotch of the twitching near-dead body grasping the reins of power frayed thin like cobweb.

We are the greatest society that has ever existed. We are the only society that has ever existed. We will always exist; we will never change. History is our history, the history of hours, and it has ended, it is ours, we contain it, as we contain and containerise all.

There is blood coming out of your tearducts. Vomit and spit stain your makeup. Wrap your heart in cellophane and immerse your skull in a bath of resin. Be like us; be forever.

This vignette has previously appeared in OGDO III.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/the-society-of-forever Wed, 08 May 2024 16:02:36 +0000 In the City of the Saved https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/in-the-city-of-the-saved <![CDATA[The train comes like a great crawling hairy worm with its long snout held in a snarl as it twists through the tunnel and clears away the snow that has accrued on the tracks between the platforms. The passengers are things with spindly limbs and torn-open necks and flayed faces… they cluster in awkward queues craning their necks and huddling their limbs swaying back and forth to avoid shoving one another. !--more-- The train opens its mouth and they file in falling on all fours pressing closer like a herd of thirsty pigs… The wind howls between the walls and the metal pipes which break them and cover them like vines and the snowflakes are like haze in the air going in no particular direction painted silver and gold by the few desperate flickering streetlights and the train screams as it goes a sudden jerking undulation of its length propelling it forward... There are monsters out there but it’s hard to make them they look identical to the ordinary citizens up til the moment they unhinge their jaws or unsheathe their claws or unfold their stingers to wet them in gore it is their behaviour that distinguishes them so they don’t know how to queue they don’t walk with a purpose they don’t speak except in short non sequiturs “I would like some ice cream”, “Where is my mother”, “Hello goodbye” and so the Watch must remain on guard clinging to the corners of buildings seeking shelter from the wind peering into the cold squinting their golden slit eyes and gripping tighter their weapons their long wooden shafts and spears and clubs with slivers that seek the flower. I am the Widow and I have nothing to look forward but the continued decline of my estate sinking and spreading out into innumerable burrows and crypts as the processional ways spiral out past the ability of mourners to traverse. My tin knights bow their head as I pass. My skin flickers and I know it must be so as my antimony maids cluster around me like bees fussing over their queen... They permit me to do no thing myself their hands all over me: they dress me and undress me they raise me out of bed and lay me there, dry out my eyes and masticate my food for me… “Mistress, please”, “My lady, let us do this for you”… They send their tongues probing every crevice of my skin and lick the blood from my pores holding my head back so I don’t make a sound. There is flesh in the walls and a thick green film covers the water of the many moats and square pools in the garden. I will not leave; not while there is winter in the air. A trail of silver and lead follows me as I go devour the heart of my husband. This vignette has previously appeared in OGDO IV.]]> The train comes like a great crawling hairy worm with its long snout held in a snarl as it twists through the tunnel and clears away the snow that has accrued on the tracks between the platforms. The passengers are things with spindly limbs and torn-open necks and flayed faces… they cluster in awkward queues craning their necks and huddling their limbs swaying back and forth to avoid shoving one another. The train opens its mouth and they file in falling on all fours pressing closer like a herd of thirsty pigs… The wind howls between the walls and the metal pipes which break them and cover them like vines and the snowflakes are like haze in the air going in no particular direction painted silver and gold by the few desperate flickering streetlights and the train screams as it goes a sudden jerking undulation of its length propelling it forward... There are monsters out there but it’s hard to make them they look identical to the ordinary citizens up til the moment they unhinge their jaws or unsheathe their claws or unfold their stingers to wet them in gore it is their behaviour that distinguishes them so they don’t know how to queue they don’t walk with a purpose they don’t speak except in short non sequiturs “I would like some ice cream”, “Where is my mother”, “Hello goodbye” and so the Watch must remain on guard clinging to the corners of buildings seeking shelter from the wind peering into the cold squinting their golden slit eyes and gripping tighter their weapons their long wooden shafts and spears and clubs with slivers that seek the flower.

I am the Widow and I have nothing to look forward but the continued decline of my estate sinking and spreading out into innumerable burrows and crypts as the processional ways spiral out past the ability of mourners to traverse. My tin knights bow their head as I pass. My skin flickers and I know it must be so as my antimony maids cluster around me like bees fussing over their queen... They permit me to do no thing myself their hands all over me: they dress me and undress me they raise me out of bed and lay me there, dry out my eyes and masticate my food for me… “Mistress, please”, “My lady, let us do this for you”… They send their tongues probing every crevice of my skin and lick the blood from my pores holding my head back so I don’t make a sound. There is flesh in the walls and a thick green film covers the water of the many moats and square pools in the garden. I will not leave; not while there is winter in the air.

A trail of silver and lead follows me as I go devour the heart of my husband.

This vignette has previously appeared in OGDO IV.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/in-the-city-of-the-saved Sat, 23 Dec 2023 15:32:54 +0000 Liquid television https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/liquid-television <![CDATA[Your television is slowly filling with liquid. At first it was only a small blurring at the bottom, easy to overlook. You got used to it so quickly it took you weeks to realise it had been rising. When it had taken over a third of the screen you could no longer ignore it. !--more--You banged on the TV and fiddled with the settings. When you turned the thing over to inspect it from behind, you heard the sloshing. You debated opening the box, letting the liquid drain; but an anxiety set over you and you couldn't. You watched less and less television after that. Occasionally you'd forgot, want to watch the news or catch some programme or just see what was on, and you'd turn it on and see the liquid was already halfway up, three fourths of the way up, four fifths of the way up. You tried to brave it and sometimes you could, being absorbed in some movie or sketch comedy even though you had to watch it as if it was inside an aquarium; but most of the time you eventually got annoyed or scared or both and had to turn it off. Then came the day the screen was full. And after that the day you first heard the gurgling. And after that, the day you realised the screen was swelling. Now it's protuberant like a pregnant belly, a translucent blister ready to burst, sloshing and hissing. It's always on, tuned to no channel, kaleidoscope visions of warped features coming and going past sheets of snow. You know it will burst. You know it. You don't know what will come out — will it be just water? Will it be oil? Will it smell bad? Will it stain? Will it be poison, or acid — will it carry disease? Is something about to be born? Your bedroom used to be on the other side of the living room, where the television is, but you've moved to sleeping on the kitchen table. All your things are in the cupboards or on the shelves. You've surrounded the television with sand bags. You've considered telling the building manager or your landlord or at least warning the other residents, and many times you almost have, but you never end up carrying through, because maybe it's not real, maybe they will blame you, maybe they're in on it, maybe the looks they give you are looks of malicious glee. Maybe they all are in the same situation as you. Maybe when the televisions burst there will be no end to the liquid and the entire world will drown. You wait. You're afraid.]]> Your television is slowly filling with liquid. At first it was only a small blurring at the bottom, easy to overlook. You got used to it so quickly it took you weeks to realise it had been rising. When it had taken over a third of the screen you could no longer ignore it. You banged on the TV and fiddled with the settings. When you turned the thing over to inspect it from behind, you heard the sloshing. You debated opening the box, letting the liquid drain; but an anxiety set over you and you couldn't. You watched less and less television after that. Occasionally you'd forgot, want to watch the news or catch some programme or just see what was on, and you'd turn it on and see the liquid was already halfway up, three fourths of the way up, four fifths of the way up. You tried to brave it and sometimes you could, being absorbed in some movie or sketch comedy even though you had to watch it as if it was inside an aquarium; but most of the time you eventually got annoyed or scared or both and had to turn it off.

Then came the day the screen was full. And after that the day you first heard the gurgling. And after that, the day you realised the screen was swelling. Now it's protuberant like a pregnant belly, a translucent blister ready to burst, sloshing and hissing. It's always on, tuned to no channel, kaleidoscope visions of warped features coming and going past sheets of snow. You know it will burst. You know it. You don't know what will come out — will it be just water? Will it be oil? Will it smell bad? Will it stain? Will it be poison, or acid — will it carry disease? Is something about to be born?

Your bedroom used to be on the other side of the living room, where the television is, but you've moved to sleeping on the kitchen table. All your things are in the cupboards or on the shelves. You've surrounded the television with sand bags. You've considered telling the building manager or your landlord or at least warning the other residents, and many times you almost have, but you never end up carrying through, because maybe it's not real, maybe they will blame you, maybe they're in on it, maybe the looks they give you are looks of malicious glee. Maybe they all are in the same situation as you. Maybe when the televisions burst there will be no end to the liquid and the entire world will drown.

You wait. You're afraid.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/liquid-television Tue, 27 Dec 2022 13:18:54 +0000 The Mistress of the Isle https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/the-mistress-of-the-isle <![CDATA[A high, rocky outcrop reaches over the sea at the eastern tip of the isle. On that outcrop stands a tower, and has stood perhaps for hundreds of years. Its walls are uncut black rock, each piece of a different size and shape, fitted together so snugly that no cracks remain. The tower leans dangerously over the edge of the outcrop and towards the sea. Numerous ropes attach it to the rock and poles support it from below. !--more-- In the Tower lives the Mistress of the Isle, and has lived for as long as anyone can remember. The oldest inhabitants of the isle recall their grandparents speaking of her as of the bedrock. She might be the one who built the Tower, or merely the latest to inhabit it. She does not talk about the past. Once a day, when the tide is low and the sea around the Tower retreats revealing a long, sandy beach, the Mistress of the Isle descends from her tower to walk the beach 'round her Tower. Three servants walk with her: one to her left and half a pace ahead of her holding a parasol to keep out the wind and the rain, another three paces ahead of her carrying a staff and a lantern to show the way, and a third four paces behind her carrying an empty bag. Sometimes, not always, the Mistress of the Isle stops and points at something washed ashore by the sea — a stone, a shell, a bone, a driftwood, a piece of ambergris or amber — and the third servant delicately picks it up and puts it in the bag. More rarely, on those rare few bright days when the winds that whip the isle cease their assault, the sea is calm, and the heavy clouds part to reveal the sun and the stars, the Mistress of the Isle leaves her Tower to visit the villages. On those occasions, she is accompanied by two more servants. One walks on her right, half a pace behind her, and rests their hand on the pommel of a sword. The sword is long and curved, its serrated blade black, shining stone. Its bared only rarely, and only for a single purpose. The other walks behind her, for when the Mistress of the Isle walks the villages, she is followed not by a bag, but a barrow, big and heavy with an enormous wheel in the middle and handles at both ends, lightly laden with objects she has gathered or that have been brought to her. The Mistress of the Isle stops in every village, and the villagers come to seek her justice. Though the Mistress does not demand it, every petitioner brings an offering, which her servants place in the barrow, great or trifling. The Mistress of the Isle listens to all sides in silence, only rarely asking questions; and when all is said, she renders her decision. The law she enforces is her own, and there is no appeal. Only very rarely is she ever disobeyed. The one who has been decided against will, even despite themselves, shift a glance to the sword whose blade is black stone resting in its scabbard, and nod. Often both sides leave the presence of the Mistress of the Isle feeling relieved. When she has visited every village of the isle and given her justice to all who ask, the Mistress of the Isle circles back, the barrow her servants push now heavy with offerings; and when she then stops in a village, those who need it come to her and ask her for a gift, which her servants carefully lift from the barrow and give them. Some receive something useful or precious; others something they did not yet know they needed, or something altogether worthless. None complain. The inhabitants of the Isle praise the wisdom, generosity, and fairness of its Mistress, but breathe a sigh of relief when she has returned to her Tower. In the eastern parts of the isle, where the Tower sometimes is visible through the mists, the people turn their eye away. In every village, the inhabitants bring their quarrels and crimes to her, and in every village, the inhabitants tell their children stories of her to frighten them. Only very few have ever seen the naked blade of the sword which has only one purpose, but all know what it looks like. The Mistress of the Isle has been on the isle longer than anyone can remember, perhaps as long as it has existed. She is as much a part of it as the worn-smooth, dark stones of its shores or the merciless winds that whip it. Its difficult to say if she is loved, feared, or merely accepted.]]> A high, rocky outcrop reaches over the sea at the eastern tip of the isle. On that outcrop stands a tower, and has stood perhaps for hundreds of years. Its walls are uncut black rock, each piece of a different size and shape, fitted together so snugly that no cracks remain. The tower leans dangerously over the edge of the outcrop and towards the sea. Numerous ropes attach it to the rock and poles support it from below.

In the Tower lives the Mistress of the Isle, and has lived for as long as anyone can remember. The oldest inhabitants of the isle recall their grandparents speaking of her as of the bedrock. She might be the one who built the Tower, or merely the latest to inhabit it. She does not talk about the past.

Once a day, when the tide is low and the sea around the Tower retreats revealing a long, sandy beach, the Mistress of the Isle descends from her tower to walk the beach 'round her Tower. Three servants walk with her: one to her left and half a pace ahead of her holding a parasol to keep out the wind and the rain, another three paces ahead of her carrying a staff and a lantern to show the way, and a third four paces behind her carrying an empty bag. Sometimes, not always, the Mistress of the Isle stops and points at something washed ashore by the sea — a stone, a shell, a bone, a driftwood, a piece of ambergris or amber — and the third servant delicately picks it up and puts it in the bag.

More rarely, on those rare few bright days when the winds that whip the isle cease their assault, the sea is calm, and the heavy clouds part to reveal the sun and the stars, the Mistress of the Isle leaves her Tower to visit the villages. On those occasions, she is accompanied by two more servants. One walks on her right, half a pace behind her, and rests their hand on the pommel of a sword. The sword is long and curved, its serrated blade black, shining stone. Its bared only rarely, and only for a single purpose.

The other walks behind her, for when the Mistress of the Isle walks the villages, she is followed not by a bag, but a barrow, big and heavy with an enormous wheel in the middle and handles at both ends, lightly laden with objects she has gathered or that have been brought to her. The Mistress of the Isle stops in every village, and the villagers come to seek her justice. Though the Mistress does not demand it, every petitioner brings an offering, which her servants place in the barrow, great or trifling. The Mistress of the Isle listens to all sides in silence, only rarely asking questions; and when all is said, she renders her decision. The law she enforces is her own, and there is no appeal. Only very rarely is she ever disobeyed. The one who has been decided against will, even despite themselves, shift a glance to the sword whose blade is black stone resting in its scabbard, and nod. Often both sides leave the presence of the Mistress of the Isle feeling relieved.

When she has visited every village of the isle and given her justice to all who ask, the Mistress of the Isle circles back, the barrow her servants push now heavy with offerings; and when she then stops in a village, those who need it come to her and ask her for a gift, which her servants carefully lift from the barrow and give them. Some receive something useful or precious; others something they did not yet know they needed, or something altogether worthless. None complain.

The inhabitants of the Isle praise the wisdom, generosity, and fairness of its Mistress, but breathe a sigh of relief when she has returned to her Tower. In the eastern parts of the isle, where the Tower sometimes is visible through the mists, the people turn their eye away. In every village, the inhabitants bring their quarrels and crimes to her, and in every village, the inhabitants tell their children stories of her to frighten them. Only very few have ever seen the naked blade of the sword which has only one purpose, but all know what it looks like.

The Mistress of the Isle has been on the isle longer than anyone can remember, perhaps as long as it has existed. She is as much a part of it as the worn-smooth, dark stones of its shores or the merciless winds that whip it. Its difficult to say if she is loved, feared, or merely accepted.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/the-mistress-of-the-isle Mon, 24 Oct 2022 12:35:25 +0000 We Hunt them for their Flesh https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/we-hunt-them-for-their-flesh <![CDATA[We hunt them for their bodies, their flesh, their sinew, their bone, their blood, or the fluid they have instead of blood. We don't know why they fall — winged shapes big as buildings, mangled and broken by their descent — only that they do. We set upon them, we the hunters though in truth we are much more like scavengers, as they struggle to stand or crawl in craters filling with their pooling not-blood. !--more-- We pierce them with harpoons and throw weighted nets over them to bind their trashing limbs and the wings that even cracked and dull can still sweep us aside like dust if we're not careful; and we crawl over them like ants, hacking and piercing, peeling away the layers of their bodies whether metallic, crystalline, or fleshy, and cutting out things it's not quite right to call organs. Many things can be accomplished with the things that are not organs, wondrous, impossible things. Their secretions can heal any disease or injury, make people and animals larger and stronger, or transform them in unaccountable ways. The thing we have decided to call a heart, even though sometimes it is in the head, sometimes outside the body, and sometimes seems to be missing altogether, can heat a city or, cracked, destroy it in a flash of bright light. Their bones, glass-like sharp things that seem to sit unconnected to each other, are too tough to be worked by any tool, but the sinew — or perhaps it's a disease, a kind of mould — silver thread found in and around every organ between the skin and the bone, can be spooled and woven to make things lighter and more durable than anything. And if sometimes, for touching the wrong thing or standing at the wrong place or for no discernible reason at all, a person is turned to a mass of dull white dust, or if people who spend too much time among the things that are not the viscera of the beings that fall from the stars turn strange and monstrous, or grow swollen and hungry like our elders whom we keep locked in their cysts deep underground have — is that not a small price to pay? We make our nets from their silver thread, our harpoons from their feathers, and our fiery lances from their eyes. Some say we invite punishment, that one day the fall will stop and the reckoning will come. If it does, we will meet it armed. This vignette has previously appeared in Earthly Delights Ogdo volume 2B.]]> We hunt them for their bodies, their flesh, their sinew, their bone, their blood, or the fluid they have instead of blood. We don't know why they fall — winged shapes big as buildings, mangled and broken by their descent — only that they do. We set upon them, we the hunters though in truth we are much more like scavengers, as they struggle to stand or crawl in craters filling with their pooling not-blood. We pierce them with harpoons and throw weighted nets over them to bind their trashing limbs and the wings that even cracked and dull can still sweep us aside like dust if we're not careful; and we crawl over them like ants, hacking and piercing, peeling away the layers of their bodies whether metallic, crystalline, or fleshy, and cutting out things it's not quite right to call organs. Many things can be accomplished with the things that are not organs, wondrous, impossible things. Their secretions can heal any disease or injury, make people and animals larger and stronger, or transform them in unaccountable ways. The thing we have decided to call a heart, even though sometimes it is in the head, sometimes outside the body, and sometimes seems to be missing altogether, can heat a city or, cracked, destroy it in a flash of bright light. Their bones, glass-like sharp things that seem to sit unconnected to each other, are too tough to be worked by any tool, but the sinew — or perhaps it's a disease, a kind of mould — silver thread found in and around every organ between the skin and the bone, can be spooled and woven to make things lighter and more durable than anything. And if sometimes, for touching the wrong thing or standing at the wrong place or for no discernible reason at all, a person is turned to a mass of dull white dust, or if people who spend too much time among the things that are not the viscera of the beings that fall from the stars turn strange and monstrous, or grow swollen and hungry like our elders whom we keep locked in their cysts deep underground have — is that not a small price to pay? We make our nets from their silver thread, our harpoons from their feathers, and our fiery lances from their eyes. Some say we invite punishment, that one day the fall will stop and the reckoning will come. If it does, we will meet it armed.

This vignette has previously appeared in Earthly Delights Ogdo volume 2B.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/we-hunt-them-for-their-flesh Fri, 25 Feb 2022 15:03:30 +0000 The snake is old https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/the-snake-is-old <![CDATA[The snake is old and very cold. There is only one — or, at least, I've never seen more than one at the same time, or tracks of two different sizes left on the same day. The snake changes size through the year. He grows larger as the days grow shorter and the weather colder, and attains his greatest size after the solstice. !--more-- Thereafter he starts shrinking. When the spring comes and the snow melts, he vanishes. I don't know where he goes. At late autumn when the ground is only occasionally white and early spring when the sun burns bright white and you can hear the murmur and gurgle of melting water as it runs under the snow-banks he is no larger than an ordinary viper. Only his colour distinguishes him, for he is dirty blue-white like thick ice on top of a deep lake. At his largest, I have seen him slither down the slope of the hills in the distance, the end of his tail still hidden by the trees and his head already down in the valley. I know he has been through a field when I see a streak of blackened, bruised, and dead plants where the field otherwise has not known the bite of freeze. Anything that touches him must become as cold as him. He has never bothered me, and I avoid him. I don't know what he eats. He has been here for a long time.]]> The snake is old and very cold. There is only one — or, at least, I've never seen more than one at the same time, or tracks of two different sizes left on the same day. The snake changes size through the year. He grows larger as the days grow shorter and the weather colder, and attains his greatest size after the solstice. Thereafter he starts shrinking. When the spring comes and the snow melts, he vanishes. I don't know where he goes. At late autumn when the ground is only occasionally white and early spring when the sun burns bright white and you can hear the murmur and gurgle of melting water as it runs under the snow-banks he is no larger than an ordinary viper. Only his colour distinguishes him, for he is dirty blue-white like thick ice on top of a deep lake. At his largest, I have seen him slither down the slope of the hills in the distance, the end of his tail still hidden by the trees and his head already down in the valley. I know he has been through a field when I see a streak of blackened, bruised, and dead plants where the field otherwise has not known the bite of freeze. Anything that touches him must become as cold as him. He has never bothered me, and I avoid him. I don't know what he eats. He has been here for a long time.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/the-snake-is-old Sat, 04 Dec 2021 15:04:50 +0000 Every morning is like this https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/every-morning-is-like-this <![CDATA[I wake up and realise I’m bleeding. The floor in my bedroom is not quite level and the blood has sept downward so that the head of the bed is dry and the foot squelching wet. Blood drips steadily onto the floor, fat globulets of it breaking and splattering into the pool that has grown to cover most of the room. I can find no source for the blood, though everything from the waist down is covered in a film of it. It comes right through my skin like perspiration, or condenses on it like heavy, metaltasting dew. !--more-- I wake up and realise I have no teeth. My gums have rotted to mush and when I grind my jaws together in my sleep my teeth have all been broken off or shattered and have fallen from my mouth. I try to fish for them among my beddings but I can’t find most of them and I know they can’t be reattached. I wake up with that feeling of spatial confusion, not knowing where or which way I am, but it doesn’t go away. I don’t know what direction is up or down, front or back, inside or outside. I scream in frustration; I can’t find a way out of bed let alone out of the room. I wake up looking at myself from above and find my eyes have crawled out of their sockets and onto the ceiling. Every time I try to reach for them they recede. I can’t catch them. The floor of my flat is covered in tiny bones. They break beneath my feet and bite into my flesh. I try to clear out a path but there are too many, and it’s like trying to dig through a lake, any hole I can make filled as soon as I manage to uncover an inch of flooring. I have no clothes to wear: they’re all broken, tattered, and grimy, crusty with pus and dried blood from all the injuries I’ve sustained. I try to make breakfast but something has eaten all the food. There’s nothing left and I don’t know where to get more. I decide to brew myself tea but the water won’t boil, it only gets colder and colder until it has frozen solid. Every morning is like this. I go outside, where there are only the birds and the wind, naked and dirty and my hair tangled. I wait at the bus stop for hours but the bus won’t come. It has never come and never will. I decide to walk but every step I take the road lengthens by two. I decide to turn around but by that time the way back has grown so distant, so rocky and meandering, when I get home it’s already dark. I’m broken, freezing, bleeding, and famished. I crawl inside where there’s no bed anymore: it has been replaced by a pile of old, stained cardboard strewn haphazardly on the one dry corner of my bedroom where the blood hasn’t reached. I curl up and pass out. Maybe this is Hell but who am I to say. All through the night the pipes groan and screech. I can hear the neighbours, as clear as if they were standing next to me, yelling, begging, threatening, screaming, moaning, gurgling. I only ever catch glimpses of them: someone’s head being banged against the wall with enough force to shake the lights seen through the crack of a half-open door when I walk past, something heavy and shuffling vanishing behind the corner just ahead of me, leaving a slimy trail of something undefinable. I try to avoid them if I can. Sometimes they knock on my door and demand to be let in. They bang it so hard it sounds like thunder and their voices are hard, shrill, and inhuman. Then I hide and hold myself until they’re gone. Sometimes it takes the entire day and then I know I have missed the bus even though it never comes. It’s new moon tonight though it is always hard to say which one of them is the new one, and the light shines right on me through the walls as I toss and turn on my cardboard bedding. I don’t like the light, I don’t like being impaled on its wan silver pillar like an insect pinned to a box, but I can’t escape it, and so I turn and turn and turn, sweaty and uncomfortable and wanting to sleep. Closing my eyes does nothing for the moonlight shines through my eyelids, too. Finally the moon sets or perhaps the wall ceases to be transparent to it and I am left in blessed darkness. Then I am enveloped in a myriad arms that are like feathers. They caress my face and my neck and my sides and reach between my thighs, embracing me, holding me like a lover. The voices whisper “enough, enough, enough”. And I reply “not, not, not”. “It’s enough”, they say. “It’s never enough”, I whisper. This vignette has previously appeared in Earthly Delights ꙮgdo volume 2A under the title A Bad Day.]]> I wake up and realise I’m bleeding. The floor in my bedroom is not quite level and the blood has sept downward so that the head of the bed is dry and the foot squelching wet. Blood drips steadily onto the floor, fat globulets of it breaking and splattering into the pool that has grown to cover most of the room. I can find no source for the blood, though everything from the waist down is covered in a film of it. It comes right through my skin like perspiration, or condenses on it like heavy, metaltasting dew.

I wake up and realise I have no teeth. My gums have rotted to mush and when I grind my jaws together in my sleep my teeth have all been broken off or shattered and have fallen from my mouth. I try to fish for them among my beddings but I can’t find most of them and I know they can’t be reattached.

I wake up with that feeling of spatial confusion, not knowing where or which way I am, but it doesn’t go away. I don’t know what direction is up or down, front or back, inside or outside. I scream in frustration; I can’t find a way out of bed let alone out of the room.

I wake up looking at myself from above and find my eyes have crawled out of their sockets and onto the ceiling. Every time I try to reach for them they recede. I can’t catch them.

The floor of my flat is covered in tiny bones. They break beneath my feet and bite into my flesh. I try to clear out a path but there are too many, and it’s like trying to dig through a lake, any hole I can make filled as soon as I manage to uncover an inch of flooring. I have no clothes to wear: they’re all broken, tattered, and grimy, crusty with pus and dried blood from all the injuries I’ve sustained. I try to make breakfast but something has eaten all the food. There’s nothing left and I don’t know where to get more. I decide to brew myself tea but the water won’t boil, it only gets colder and colder until it has frozen solid.

Every morning is like this.

I go outside, where there are only the birds and the wind, naked and dirty and my hair tangled. I wait at the bus stop for hours but the bus won’t come. It has never come and never will. I decide to walk but every step I take the road lengthens by two. I decide to turn around but by that time the way back has grown so distant, so rocky and meandering, when I get home it’s already dark. I’m broken, freezing, bleeding, and famished. I crawl inside where there’s no bed anymore: it has been replaced by a pile of old, stained cardboard strewn haphazardly on the one dry corner of my bedroom where the blood hasn’t reached. I curl up and pass out. Maybe this is Hell but who am I to say.

All through the night the pipes groan and screech. I can hear the neighbours, as clear as if they were standing next to me, yelling, begging, threatening, screaming, moaning, gurgling. I only ever catch glimpses of them: someone’s head being banged against the wall with enough force to shake the lights seen through the crack of a half-open door when I walk past, something heavy and shuffling vanishing behind the corner just ahead of me, leaving a slimy trail of something undefinable. I try to avoid them if I can. Sometimes they knock on my door and demand to be let in. They bang it so hard it sounds like thunder and their voices are hard, shrill, and inhuman. Then I hide and hold myself until they’re gone. Sometimes it takes the entire day and then I know I have missed the bus even though it never comes.

It’s new moon tonight though it is always hard to say which one of them is the new one, and the light shines right on me through the walls as I toss and turn on my cardboard bedding. I don’t like the light, I don’t like being impaled on its wan silver pillar like an insect pinned to a box, but I can’t escape it, and so I turn and turn and turn, sweaty and uncomfortable and wanting to sleep. Closing my eyes does nothing for the moonlight shines through my eyelids, too. Finally the moon sets or perhaps the wall ceases to be transparent to it and I am left in blessed darkness. Then I am enveloped in a myriad arms that are like feathers. They caress my face and my neck and my sides and reach between my thighs, embracing me, holding me like a lover. The voices whisper “enough, enough, enough”. And I reply “not, not, not”. “It’s enough”, they say. “It’s never enough”, I whisper.

This vignette has previously appeared in Earthly Delights ꙮgdo volume 2A under the title A Bad Day.

]]> https://wordsmith.social/lightninggarden/every-morning-is-like-this Wed, 01 Sep 2021 15:15:00 +0000