In the City of the Saved
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.