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“You have to go into this show blind.”

So he did. The pain was only temporary, after all.

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As ice melts in winter Enlightenment hurries not But summer returns

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Sometimes being a wandering magician consists of very simple things. I don’t close my eyes. I do not count to ten. I stare into the worried face of a boy of eleven who is neither of those things.

“Not every poem on tumblr is about you. Just as not every post on tumblr is about you,” I add, as we have been over such things before.

“But but but Honcho,” Jay protests.

“No buts. This is what it is, just as you are what you are.”

"But sometimes poems really speak to a Jay."

"And sometimes motes of dust speak to you a lot too. Most things do speak, if you listen. What's important is what you get from it. We can move the air when we speak; your interpretation of that is the real effect."

Jay pauses. It is a very Jay pause. "But I can do more than that," he says, very softly.

"You can. There is power in being able to make people do what you want, but anyone can do that with the right levers. Making people think what they want is real power; making them think it was their idea and not yours -."

"Isn't jaysome."

"Not at all." I smile. "But you are. To know and not to act is the basis of magic. To be a Jay is that, and a lot more."

Jay frowns, studying me. "This is about the coffee, isn't it?!"

"Dry ice and nitroglycerine aren't the same time; Charlie had cause to figure that out," I say dryly. "Not every suggestion you get is one you need to act on either."

He grins, huge and delighted. "Even that one?"

And he vanishes off to tell Charlie how he got me.

I don't know if this attempt will stick. The others never did.

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Walking travelled roads Seeking enlightenment, he's Getting groceries

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“You removed your poem? But it was beautiful!”

“It was. But then I read the comments.”

“Oh.”

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“You have to go into this show blind.”

So he did. The pain was only temporary, after all.

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media resisted the res starting with backstory dumped onto the audience a desperation to prove what they knew again as the people forgot in ways the media had trained them to

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"You ... I mean, I've never been to an exorcism before, but do you normally put a ghost in the microwave and then turn it on?"

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you told me that the freezer had no light because it kept the freezer gremlins at bay

and mom laughed and laughed when i left the freezer door open for six hours to help stop them

all myths have consequences she said and it took me years to let that truth fully thaw

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The vampire reached out, fingers brushing my right cheek, the sensation of leather against flesh. “You seem unwisely brave little mage.”

“No. I’m just hoping you’re old enough for wisdom, or at least wise enough to want to live longer than tonight. I can’t stop you from harming me, but others will come after you if you do.”

“You are very certain of this.”

“I have enemies who would be very angry if you killed me before they could.”

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i don't have words the poet wrote in third person depressive trying a new style claiming the poetry was - as ever - not what it was but the gaps between the words the place were meaning only lied and one could pretend for a moment that there was art in this artifice

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i was afraid but you told me a single fraid wasn't scary and a laugh broke through

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outside the window a parking lot dull concrete and duller vehicles trying to find a poem from clouds seeking nature in stale banality looking for weeds growing in cracks knowing trees grow from anywhere

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Front Desk Jaysome Stories #3

Realities of having Jay as staff at the hotel today:

The hotel flew after someone complained about the location.  

There was no disruption of any services as we arrived closer to the beach. Both electricity and sewage kept working and connected back into the city. 

The beach wasn’t a beach this morning. 

The city inspector was entirely fine with all of this. Somehow.

The phones are prank-calling someone in 1983. I don’t know why. 

He added a dozen extra beds for a customer. One of them ate someone’s luggage. 

There is now a shuttle service to the airport. Any. Airport.  

The parking lot is now both larger and smaller. 

The carpets have unionized. 

Everyone is tipping. 

The laundry machines now do a load in five minutes. And purr. 

Jay was asked if he was a bellhop, so there are now bells hopping around. 

Help.

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Front Desk Jaysome Stories #2

The stranger that entered the hotel was thin and pale as a blade. Stars are still in cold, cold eyes as the stranger is at the desk. Not moving, so much as just being there, and then here.

“Where is he?”

Not words, but it’s the only thing my brain accepts. “Cleaning rooms,” I said. The stranger is a stillness between moments. Silence wraps around us like a wound.

“Hi, Winter!” Jay appeared beside me. The hire. The new – Jay. As ever, I couldn’t think too hard about the things he does.

“What have you done?” the figure snapped, and I heard a sound like distant springs breaking.

“Ooooooh! Some customers were getting all shouty about breakfast not being early so it maybe became earlier and they never even thanked a Jay. But but but! I put the time back!”

The creature stared. “There are rules for a reason,” it whispered.

Jay stared in shock. “Breakfast is more importantable than rules!”

There was a silence at that, more disbelieving than cold. “I see.”

The entity vanished.

A noise escaped me.

Jay blinked, and then hugged me. “It’s totally okay! Winter gets all kinds of grumpy when I change Time even if I put it back really good!”

“You – you don’t need to do everything guests ask,” I whispered.

“I don’t?! But the owner said I should give the best customer service I can!”

“Sometimes people don’t know what they really want,” I replied.

“Oh! That explains a lot. I should go back to cleaning rooms,” and Jay vanished again.

I shivered, despite the power of a jaysome hug, and sent another email to the owner that Jay had done more than enough.

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Front Desk Jaysome Stories #1

“You said you wanted a room with an ocean view?”

“I did,” the man snapped. A Karen; you get to know the type. He hadn’t asked for my manager, probably because he wanted to savour doing what we both knew what inevitable.

Or would have been. On a different day.

“And you have one?”

“I –.” He paused. I was getting used to that pause. “That’s not any ocean I know of. The sea is... red, and there are things moving through the water that left my wife running out of the room!”

“So, you asked to be upgraded to an ocean view and you want to be compensated for that?” I smiled.

“..... no,” he said slowly, walking back to the stairs.

No one was taking the elevator, not since Suzie Dixom has asked for to be faster. I had no idea where it even went now, but it did go there very fast.

Jay appeared beside me. All eleven, all helpful, and working the desk as an apology to the owner for the events of last week.

“I put all the bags away in room 3012,” he said proudly.

I wasn’t aware we had a room 3012. I closed my eyes. Breathed. “And they can get then bags back?”

“They didn’t ask about that part. I should check.” He vanished again. Which was, somehow, normal. For him. No one was commenting on it.

I had no idea what you were even meant to say an eldritch being who was helping you. Thank you had worked so far. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if he stopped being helpful.

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the zombies ate poems starving on haiku alone hunting down slam poets