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[manicanhaus]

Three poems and a short story

 ‘The first time I spoke to her she was listening to Laura Marling. She’s destroyed Laura Marling for me forever. I’ve never even really been a big fan of Laura Marling. I like her music and all, but she’s from the wrong era. You know how it is.’

‘But who is she?’

‘I don’t think it’s relevant somehow.’

‘How can it not be relevant?’

‘Well, I laid eyes on her, and I knew she was everything I’d wanted to meet for my whole life. She’s french.’

‘What does her nationality have to do with it?’

‘What doesn’t her nationality have to do with it?’

‘Who’s to say.’

‘Well, I learnt of her vegetarianism in the breath directly preceding my learning of the existence of her boyfriend, who is apparently on the scene.’

‘Oh.’

‘He’s spanish. She wants to stay in australia at the conclusion of her one year contract that she is currently undertaking. I say, having a spanish boyfriend is useless to her.’

‘You’re probably right.’

‘At the end of the day though, she’s too attractive for me anyway. I could never live up to that expectation. And she seems taller than me, just because she’s slim and brunette and beautiful, but, she’s actually only my height. I’ve never seen her in high heeled shoes, which is good, because I do not find these terribly becoming on women, particularly slim, brunette, beautiful women who are roughly my height but seem taller. High heeled shoes are the scourge of the male gender. Well, the short members of the male gender anyway, and we all know what Bob Dylan says about thin men.’

‘If women choose to wear high heeled shoes surely this is their right.’

‘Yes. But, they blame the male fashion designers for the subsequent health issues that in time arise.’

‘Ah yes.’

‘Yes. I presume you have seen A Current Affair on at least one occasion. But hopefully not Today Tonight.’

‘As a matter of fact, that’s correct.’

‘Yes. Say ……. ’

I trailed off there. This is the story of some love affair. It involves Bob Dylan in some way, and Laura Marling, and Bonnie Prince Billy (in all of his guises), and Scout Niblett, and Joanna Newsom, and Leonard Cohen, and SoKo, and Serge Gainsbourg, and a small city to the north of france that I have never caught the name of due to barriers to effective communication that arise due to the accent of some love of mine. Some love of my life. I also don’t think she wants me to know the name of her city. She has her reasons and all are well grounded. No one wants to be stalked and subsequently strung up by one recently freed from some mental institution. It was only a minimum security facility anyway. I could have quite easily made my escape at any hour of my choosing, but I did my time, because that’s just the type of man I am.

I forced myself upon my true love. Having waited my whole life to find some french girl, any french girl, to lay eyes upon one in such a perfect environment meant that I had to find a way to break in with her. I didn’t see this opportunity for two weeks or so. Even then, I sat down beside her, and she had head phones on, and she was reluctant to take these out. When I kept on talking, she somewhat felt obliged to take said head phones out. She advised me of whom she was listening to. I missed this due to the accent that I had always longed to hear spoken directly to me. Later on, I learned that she had been listening to Laura Marling. ‘Yes, I know Laura Marling.’ At the end of the day though, the best relationships are forged from situations where communication is rendered impossible …. due to any number of reasons.

I don’t approve of the technological device known as the ‘i-pod’ due to a moral high ground. However, my love is in possession of said technological device. Anything my love chooses to do, I forgive. After discovering she was a fan of some kind of Laura Marling, I knew that she had some kind of potential for not only being french but also being worthy of my attentions. I asked her what other artists she was fond of. Perhaps because she was aware that there was a language barrier present, rather than speaking the names of the artists that she was fond of, she showed me their names on her technological device. I like to remember that the first she showed to me was Bob Dylan, but it could just be that this is the first that I recall because the previous few were of no consequence or relevance. It was at that point that I asked her if she was fond of Leonard Cohen, to which she replied, yes, but I have none of his songs on my technological device. She then showed me Serge Gainsbourg’s name, and I knew she was the one. But, everyone in france likes Serge Gainsbourg – I learnt this from her. Well, everyone likes Serge Gainsbourg in france, except some. Her choice of Bob Dylan album was none too impressive, being ‘the essential’, or whatever it is called, but it worked for me. The essential of Bob Dylan is every track that he has ever laid down on record and then some others. This love of mine taught me a great deal about Serge Gainsbourg. Serge Gainsbourg is a demigod in france. I am the most important french artist in france who isn’t french.

I feel more french than I have ever felt australian, but I do not feel french. I am not french. I am some kind of a refugee born to the wrong homeland. Australia isn’t a homeland. Australia is a convict settlement where only those the likes of me can prosper, and if you call my existence prospering, I question your definition. All I ever wanted from life was a french girl and I found said french girl and she was unattainable. As a friend of mine said, someone who I thought may have been an alternative to my love, ‘what’s she with a spanish guy for? That’s not very exotic.’ This girl is also french and vegetarian, and I am taller than this girl. She somewhat has a Melanie Pain look to her. If Melanie Pain offered me her hand in marriage I would gladly accept it. If Emilie Simon married me and subsequently I decided to take her surname, I would be known as Simon Simon. If Emilie Simon married me and subsequently decided to take my first name as her surname, she would not be obliged, through the traditional values of marriage, to change her name. I am tall enough for Melanie Pain but not Emilie Simon, and at this moment in time I am in need of a slice of bread.

It took eight months for me to hear my love say my name. She heard me say her name at least once every day that I laid eyes upon her. This gesture of mine was always less significant than hers promised to be. She said my name indirectly. We were speaking of Emilie Simon, and she said Emilie Simon. I like the sound of my name as proffered by the french and only the french. The following day my love directly said my name, and she said it in a variation of the french way, which was delightful to my ears. ‘Hi Simon, it’s Mona. I can’t come to school today. I’m sick. Please tell Veronique and the french teachers that I won’t be at school. Okay. Bye.’ The beginning of what Mona said is correct. At some point I lost it. I still have the message. It will never be deleted. If ever I need to hear a french woman say my name, that message will always be available to me. If ever I need to hear my love say my name, that message will always be available to me. It was a blessing that I wasn’t around to receive said voice mail message, and it was a blessing that I didn’t see her that day.

I recently heard an anecdote from a girl who was in a brief relationship of about two weeks with a french guy. He had come to melbourne for work and had taken to winning the affections of as many melbourne women as possible. He had some kind of pre-existing lover in france, apparently. So this girl I know, she received a telephone call one night from a french girl, who subsequently took to abusing her for some time. If a french girl ever took to abusing me, I would be happy to say, please continue all night long my dear. If I could, I would spend the rest of my life speaking to a french girl. If one had to choose by whom to be abused, it would be by a french girl – hands down.

Until recently, I somewhat wondered if women found the accent of frenchmen as appealing as men find the accent of frenchwomen. I had been thinking for some time that I only know frenchwomen, and not frenchmen, but then I remembered that my hairdresser is a frenchman. He’s lost his accent though. Anyway, so I met a few french guys at a function that I was at, and one in particular, upon hearing him speak, I thought, yes, that is a nice accent – that would melt the heart of any free thinking, able bodied woman. It melt the heart of me.

‘So what became of this love of yours?’

‘What?’

‘That love of yore, that you’ve been discussing at length.’

‘Oh, her? I don’t know. I never saw her again after the fourteenth day of december. I marked this date on my calendar in august. Call me a morose rapscallion if you must, but I like to know when my end of time is to come to pass.’

‘I don’t call you anything.’

‘And that’s lucky for you, because this could mean nothing for you but hardship and strife.’

‘But, how’s that?’

‘Well, you don’t need to worry do you? If you did, you would have seen the wrath, but not understood the cause.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes.’

This love and I, we spent many good times together, not enough by my reckoning, but too much by hers. Of her, there remained a hope; of her, all hope was lost. The timing of our meeting was highly dubious. The timing seemed too perfect to put into words. I had recently lost something that could never be replaced. This love would not have replaced what was lost, and no love could ever have lived alongside what was lost. Upon learning of my love’s unattainability, I subsequently fell into a state of heartache such as has never been experienced by the likes of me. I drew on that heartache for inspiration for all it was worth, and still do. I also subsequently bid my god one final adieu. Any god that mocks me to the extent that my god mocks me is not worth my time and attentions, of which I proffered little to begin with, by my reckonings. I advised him of this decision, and to this date I still take it upon myself to smile wryly to the heavens on occasion when situations arise of the utter scorn that only he is capable of and of which only he can conceive of. When the day of judgement befalls us, I am in the direst of all situations. God acknowledges the petty atheist. He even acknowledges the petty agnostic, who is even pettier than the petty atheist. This god, in his wisdom, forgives all of the sinners against his parchments. The only soul that this god does not forgive is he who believes in his existence, but refuses him. I accept this lot that is self inflicted, and I welcome my day of judgement. I’ll see you in hell, you old rapscallion.

But earlier this evening, when I was doing the dishes, and I had the SYN TV program on, that I believe is called ‘the 1700’, on my television set, and Laura Marling’s ‘Rambling Man’ came on, I looked to the heavens, with my wry smile, and I said, ‘what a god damned joke’. ‘Rambling Man’ is a great song, but it will never soothe me as it should. It will always bring to my eyes the face of my love, whom I have never seen smile, and whom I have never heard laugh, but of whom I have heard her say my name twice, once indirectly in person and once directly over the telephone. The mockery is ever present, and this god and I share the same sense of humour. Our long running joke stands, and my love did not know SoKo until I introduced them to each other.  

HIS EXCUSES – Pelham

I don’t care for his excuses,

And I don’t care for his sour, stinking breath.

And it tastes like the sour butter of crepes,

And the butter oozes down his face – I am disgusted.

She’s an exquisite thing, and she’s not mine,

And I see you’re wearing the jewels I bought.

And there’s a child on the stair, and it’s Christmas,

And the people ask me what it is, and, I don’t know.

THIS COULD BE LOVE – Pelham

And I am not here to correct you,

And just now, my leg brushed against yours.

This could be love …. or other,

Other it is, as I bid you a regular adieu.

You recognise my foot fall and you flee,

And you’re sickly because we embraced.

No response, no second word,

Ah yes, and why, then, do you sell yourself?

OUR LIPS MET – Pelham

Our lips met, but only in a dream state,

We are rebellious, but then, it only makes sense.

We run when necessary. We’re meek when called for,

And in spite of this we fumble over ourselves.

An update (!) …. unexpected,

I wonder if she recognised me.

The sound of a woman’s laughter,

And henceforth comes the tempest.

[manicanhaus]

high on the the lonesome highway (Charcoal and ballpoint pen) Fin Sorrel (2017) 

[manicanhaus]

Series (found while searching for) Magritte by MARK YOUNG

Reticulate 1 : Is appropriate well for hunting for the approach and the mounting in forest, it is advised in dark weather for shootings remotely moderate. Old standard now replaced by reticle 4.

Reticulate 2 : Invited for the United States "post and to crosshair," it is intended for the shooting of game moving, therefore in beaten, under bad conditions of luminosity. Is not adapted to the shooting applied to long distance.

Reticulate 3 : Called "dowry" in the United States, it is particularly adapted to the shooting moving of game with clear peeling by great luminosity, and represents the best reticle for great hunting in Africa.

Reticulate 4 : New European standard, it is advised for hunting for the approach and the mounting. It authorizes the shootings at long distance, but can be used in beaten.

Reticulate 5 : It tries to cumulate the advantages of reticles 3 and 4. Do not authorize the shootings at long distance because it hiding place is a significant part of the target.

Reticulate 6 : Invited "to crosshair" in the U.S.A., it makes it possible to carry out very precise shootings at long distance in a very luminous environment (desert areas or on snow).

Reticulate 7 : Also called 30/30, it has the favour of many gunners, one can regard it as a reticle "pass key."

Bio note:

Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia, & has been publishing poetry for almost sixty years. His most recent books are Ley Lines, from gradient books of Finland, The Chorus of the Sphinxes, from Moria Books in Chicago, & some more strange meteorites, from Meritage & i.e. Press, California / New York.

He also has two chapbooks in the Moria Books Locofo Chaps political poetry series — "100 chaps in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency."  

[manicanhaus]

Neil

By Abigail George Neil. Neil with the face made of iron. Ripples of light in your eyes. Neil envious of others. Sandra, envious of girls or women in this situation. Envious of the desert, of the sky, of moonlight, of the violent, burnt grass in daylight. Neil’s hand touches Sandra’s neck. Hand itching to touch neck. Neck itching for touch. The cold out is a blue place. A purple sea. It is a marvellous place to behold. Sandra’s body is tangled in Neil’s warmth and shallow breath. In the swimming pool, she’s blue and her hair made of gnarled oak smells like chlorine. Nobody knows of the greatness of Neil’s despair and the tragedy of his hardship from birth. All Sandra knows of Neil is that he’s a journalist. Their making love was just for fun. A game. ‘You’ve ruined me for love for life, Neil. Neil are you listening to me? In the daylight, the sun makes a mockery of everything that was sacred the night before.’ ‘The sun in all of its epic vastness always alters everything in sunlight. Sometimes people can be ghosts. Most people are. Always floating out of reach when you want them to stay.’ ‘Who on earth are you talking about now, babe, Neil, are you okay?’ ‘Neil, Neil, Neil, the superior man. Sandra, the inferior, submissive woman playing the role of the inferior and submissive woman who bathes in the glory of light. Did you like the perfume I got you?’ Sandra nodded her head and smiled at her reflection in the dressing table’s mirror. ‘I’m not boyfriend material.’ ‘Is it because you’re damaged goods, Neil? Did you mother never read you a bedtime story at night, tuck you in and tell you how much you were loved?’ ‘My mother loved men. She loved everything about them. Good guys. Bad guys. Holier than thou guys.’ ‘And your father, Neil? Did your mother love your father?’ Sandra stopped brushing the tangles out of her hair. She stopped looking at Neil’s handsome face and his unkempt, tousled yellow hair in the mirror and turned around to look at him, properly. He was smoking. ‘I didn’t know you were a smoker.’ ‘Yes, yes, I am a smoker. I drink too.’ ‘Well, most men in the patriarchal society that we live in today smoke and drink. Smoke away if it makes you happy.’ ‘I’ll stop. I’ll put it out if it will make you happy.’ ‘No, it’s fine. I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.’ Sandra went back to brushing her hair. Patting her hair. Smoothing a stray curl here and there. ‘Do you still want to go swimming in the hotel pool later on?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know. Must we? Couldn’t we just stay here. Make our own fun.’ Sandra looked at Neil, with a slow smile on her face and a blush creeping onto her face. ‘Neil, anything you want, babe. I don’t mind. I’m easy. It’s too hot to swim.’ ‘It’s too hot to do anything but smoke and have a drink. Should we order room service? Hamburgers or a steak? Milkshakes or cocktails?’ ‘Proper grown up food, you mean? Steak and cocktails are proper grown up food. No, let’s act like kids. Like teenagers on a rampage or a road trip or on a Saturday night. Hamburgers and a pink milkshake for me please.’ Sandra laughed. Neil liked her laugh. He smiled. ‘Hamburgers and milkshakes then. You make me feel like a kid again. A kid in nature.’ ‘I like your laugh.’ ‘I like you Neil. You’re handsome for one who thinks they’re dead cool. You’re funny without being patronising or patriarchal or condescending or undermining me as a woman. You listen. You really listen to me. You’re sweet. I know men don’t really want to hear that one, but you are.’ ‘When are you going to stop brushing your hair and come and sit next to me?’ ‘In a minute. Give me a minute. You should order, anyway, shouldn’t you? Come to think of it. I’m starving.’ ‘Do you like it here?’ ‘Yes, yes I do. Thanks for inviting me.’ ‘It’s only two days. Two days can go buy really fast but it’s really beautiful out here. I love the mountains. Used to be heavy into hiking trails and stuff in high school but now I just come to the mountains for the view. To get a fresh perspective.’ Neil watched her slow, careful hands and a flame of desire for her started to burn within him. He liked her. He really liked her. She was fun to be around with. Like she said, she didn’t really mind if he smoked. She didn’t mind if he didn’t make conversation. Neil thought of his mother. Of just how much Sandra did and didn’t remind him of Gerda. He thought of his adolescence. Sandra was fluent in the language of good clothes and the sexual impulse. She was some kind of model, television presenter and actress. Neil hadn’t seen anything that she in. He didn’t know if she was a good actress, showed any promise or a bad one. She mentioned Shakespeare in Park. Some stage works. That she had always been on the stage ever since childhood. School. ‘Say this, this is mine but I’m not yours and I do not belong to you,’ was the burning issue of Neil’s mind. ‘I am falling then I am numb and then I am dead. Shakespeare sure had a way with words, don’t you think, Neil?’ ‘Whose words were that?’ ‘Mine. That’s how I feel sometimes after I make love with someone new and think that it’s something special. A new relationship that could turn serious. The old me falls away. Simply fades away and I feel like a girl again.’ Her breasts are two pale white stones. She seems to know everything about him. At least when it came to lonely people. Lonely men. She doesn’t believe him when he tells her how wonderful and beautiful and lovely she is. She tells him that she has no self-concept. That all actresses are insecure. That all television presenters have this game that they play. To be relevant and seen. She turns her head away. There’s a tide in her eyes. This confident woman in black whom he first met at an art exhibition of a mutual friend, had a current in her hands the first time she touched him. She’s asleep now. She’s dead to the world, while the man, Neil, smokes another cigarette. Gerda, his mother used to smoke menthols. Pop a mint in her mouth afterwards. The television is on mute in the hotel room. The leftovers of room service are getting cold. In the nightfall, the woman, Sandra, is the colour of moonlight and the bedroom in Hillbrow is neon-lit. Flesh is the prize. The flame of the sexual impulse found in the wilderness of the male beast and the breasts of the female. Gerda had flaws. Neil thought to himself. He wasn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. Son like mother, Neil thought to himself. Neil loved women. Women had always been his weakness. Their legs were like summer. Their perfume sent him into overdrive. Sandra was different from the others. She wasn’t the older, motherly type that Neil usually went for. She was a girl but she could hold him hostage in her arms. Wipe away his tears. ‘You’re more than a man to me,’ Sandra whispered in his ear. ‘if you’re man enough to cry in my arms.’    Yours sincerely,    Abigail George

[manicanhaus]

Princess Senux and The Half-Sun Leviathan

By Paul Edward Costa

THE LIBRARY OF FLIGHTSARCHANIOL CODEX K, WHITE CHAPTER, PASSAGE 0-1010-)(-ON THE KINGDOM OF SENUX’S LAST REMAINS-)(- Cults of worship dedicated to the Half-Sun Leviathan inevitably appear in the settlements and villages of Kolcawtha when the creature’s location becomes a seven day ride from them.If it wanders away, the cults fall into hysterical dogma before vanishing.If it lurches closer, they feel the deepest sadness they’ve ever known as their nature becomes reality.RECORDER: ARCHANIOL WATCHER QY-LIUN*** “You are a malevolent god,” Princess Senux said under her breath. She gazed to the west from an ice shelf overlooking the frozen wasteland of Kolcawtha’s northern shores. Her figure—topped with a horned helm and clad in black onyx armor—cut a shadowy figure against the inescapably white landscape. As Princess Senux began her flight, the end of her kingdom felt more gratifying than reflecting on the cause of its downfall. She held onto her opal trident with both hands. Her weather worn black armor rattled like wind chimes in the sharp, cold, and bitter wind. She struggled along frozen ice sheets. Snowflakes blew across her vision, blessing the flat, white beach and low cliffs with the essence of dream. Princess Senux rose in her tent and emerged from its flaps. She put out her campfire and struck her tent without giving regard or acknowledgement to the phenomenon on the western horizon. The sun rose and became a semi-circle on the final edge of land, casting its faint warmth in long streaks of light over the wintery coast. Against the semi-sun’s hazy orange glow a colossal being rose from its slumber. It puffed out its human-shaped torso and stretched its massive arms towards the dark, navy sky above the dawn. The Half-Sun Leviathan held its face in its hands and shook violently, swinging about the many horns protruding vertically from its skull. It stretched its multiple arachnid legs with restless mania. Continuing its daybreak ritual, it slowed its movement and stared at the earth with massive, white, oval eyes. Its shoulders rose and fell with deep, contemplative breaths. Ice curtains descended by mid-morning and howled as the sun rose to a higher altitude. Both these changes removed the distant monstrosity from sight, just as its legs began moving steadily and its form became slightly larger. With her small camp repacked, Princess Senux again became a nomadic black shadow in the chilling quiet of snowy shores, freezing water, and ice flows blurring the border between the two. She continued walking away from the dawn, hoping she’d reach the fabled end of Kolcawtha and not a continuation back into sunrise. She prayed and pushed such concern from her mind, repeating to herself that she’d soon solve such vexations. The Half-Sun Leviathan did not rage at the sky or move towards the Princess. It instead raised a fiery fist in the air and made hieroglyphic signs, but the Princess continued on her eastward path. The Leviathan hung its head (crowned with horns) and wept silent, molten tears before returning to the purpose bestowed on it by those who fled its eternal flame. *** When evening set and plunged the cold shores of northern Kolcawtha into a subzero night, Princess Senux sat a dozen paces away from her campfire, staring into its glow until all else fell away from her sight. She bitterly remembered the feeling of a fire’s warm touch. She allowed herself−in the cold, dark night−the luxury of removing her helmet and gloves so she might comfortably look upon her bluish, frozen flesh, all covered with patches of black frostbite. She fell asleep outside her tent and woke the next morning in agony. The fire had died away into black ash, but the sun rose and the faint feeling of its warmth raked her exposed flesh with searing agony. She let out a short shriek before she flipped over and pressed her face and hands into the snow to her immediate relief. With her boot covered feet she pushed herself through the snow towards her discarded armor near the dead fire. When she adorned herself once more with the protection of her black armor she lay on her back and rested, letting the intensity of her breathing diminish. She closed her eyes and imagined once more being a child swaddled in a warm blanket, but such thoughts led her to commit the sin of lamenting the inescapable. Even with little sleep, she began moving again. *** Sometimes she felt a heaviness only lifted by a dream purge.That night, she woke at midnight and stumbled out of her tent. Princess Senux stood under the moonlight on the milky frozen wastes. She removed her helmet while still clinging to the last bits of her dream before she lost them permanently. She pulled a rose crystal talisman from her pack and pressed it to her forehead where it absorbed the mythic elements of her hazy mind. She convulsed soon after and dropped the talisman. Her dream of a ceremonial sword floating with foreboding in the corner of every room she stood in—a sword visible only to her— tormented her psyche. The memories of it flooded the forefront of her mind before a sharp scratching began burning her esophagus. She tilted her head back and straightened her throat. The sharp tip of a blade emerged from in between her lips, followed by its thin steel body and short, sapphire encrusted handle. It fully rose out of her mouth. It hovered over her head for a moment before it fell to the snowy ground and shattered into mist. Princess Senux hunched over momentarily before turning back to her camp. She returned to her tent.***After the next morning’s breakfast, she walked down to where the ice met the restless northern sea. She cut off a slab of ice with the sharp end of her trident, impaled it like a bale of hay and dragged it back to the site of her camp. She carved an image into the tablet of a ruined cathedral. She put an inscription below it. It read as follows:“Let the sin be not forgottenWhile its cause passes from mind.”The Half-Sun Leviathan stayed perfectly still during its dawn window of visibility. It stared hard towards the Princess’s eastward path with its white, oval eyes pulsating.*** Princess Senux came across the round top of a tower sticking out of the snow atop an imposing range of seaside cliffs and sheer ice. She realized the tower’s body lay encased within the frozen ice shelf. It once stood on its own, but it had long since been overtaken by the water freezing over and joining the land. She wondered if any undissolved ether parchment scrolls lay inside. The spectral forms of ancient scholars walked in circles on the tower’s round peak with their heads bowed. They took no notice of Princess Senux as she walked through them (they had matters of ether to occupy their ghostly minds) and descended into the tower. Her opal trident glittered and provided her with low light. Inside the tower she found a spiral staircase running along the wall and twisting towards the tower’s base. Frozen bookshelves containing old volumes locked in solid ice lined the walls. Great booming percussions rang out from the shadowy bottom of the tower and shook the stairs. Princess Senux—even with the sparkling of her trident—barely saw the large wooden desk on the other side of the bottom floor, behind which sat Wylar, the Last Librarian, his skeletal head hidden under a swarm of unidentifiable insects and his thin arms emerging from the folds of his rector’s robes. He stamped the ether parchment scrolls unrolled in front of him and giggled with a barely contained glee during moments when the Princess stumbled with dizziness each time he shook the tower by bringing the stamp down. She felt the floor beneath her spin. Finding herself thrown off balance and rapidly losing consciousness, she gave up on stealing a length of ether parchment, and slowly climbed back up to the surface. ***Princess Senux next sought the minstrels of Vaelnyk Valley in the forgotten east (only knowing them from small mentions in old songs) in a last bid for the immortality of her lost kingdom. She hoped the minstrels might preserve the chronicle of her old dominion in a set of ballads that may transcend its material death. Privately, she also hoped the omnipresence of the music in that valley might block out her memories of how she championed the final faith her people practiced, which rose in influence after the tragedy that transpired during the kingdom’s annual Day of Redemption, where all her high priests left the confessionals of their Cathedral and marched silently into the freezing north sea. ***The faith Princess Senux championed advocated the construction of prayer towers facing the horizon where the Half-Sun Leviathan appeared during each dawn. The prayer towers became filled all day and night with subjects releasing thoughts from the deepest, most warped parts of themselves, transferring such thoughts to a being of greater immensity, perspective, and age than they were, who somehow survived and thrived alone in the unexplored lands past the western limit of Kolcawtha. Those who confessed never shared the contents of their released thoughts with each other. Several threw themselves from the towers, but these suicides were accepted as the inevitable few who could not comprehend The Half-Sun Leviathan, whose existence on the horizon became more real to the populace with each prayer they sent in its direction.The sky over the kingdom grew inexplicably black during one particularly bright midday.When it arrived, the Half-Sun Leviathan spoke in the language of the people’s prayers (and they filled their ears with wax to escape its deranged screams). It fulfilled the secret wishes of the Princess’s subjects (who fled into their catacombs as the beast carried out the slaughter each citizen wished on another). However, the tombs where they hid eventually cracked and caved in when the Leviathan manifested their repressed resentment of the sacred. END

Author Bio: Paul Edward Costa has published in Timber Journal, Entropy, Thrice Fiction, The J.J. Outre Review, Peacock Journal, Rainfall Books ("Space Adventures #4" and "Strange Detective Stories #11") and other periodicals. His novella "Dark Magic on the Edge of Town" is available on Amazon from Paperback-Press. He is also a high school English teacher and has founded the ongoing "Paul's Poetry Night" spoken word series in the Greater Toronto Area. Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/PaulEdwardCosta/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/PaulEdwardCostaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/paul.edward.costa/Amazon.com:https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Edward-Costa/e/B01NA0BTR9/Twitter: @paul_e_costa