ndantalion

[ndantalion]

Moving On

(homophobia cw) “A sharp but sensible blow to the head couldn’t hurt.” Millie accompanied this with a gesture that knocked a handful of already-dead leaves from a nearby tree. “Remind him he has something to lose.”

“His brain?” Emma looked concerned.

Millie laughed, “Not that he’s got one.” Then she turned to Emma, face sharp with scrutiny.

Emma said, “I don’t see why you all hate him so much.”

“You’re not seeing him again. Look at my face, please, and tell me you’re not seeing him again.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“You need to answer me.”

“I asked first.” Emma wasn’t actually sure she did, but she was willing to invoke ancient playground law over it.

Their walk had actually would them back to the playground by their old elementary, several times now they’d looped. It was now stripped of its most dangerous elements; the metal slide that was so hot in summer was replaced by already-faded red plastic, and the plank walkways—which couldn’t have been more than a foot or two off the ground—sported sturdy new railings.

“We’re talking about the same Adam Dean? The one who cheated on Sarah, if you didn’t remember?”

“That was in sixth grade, and I’m pretty sure Sarah’s completely over it.” Her second claim was admittedly not based on much evidence, but Sarah had a new boyfriend now so that meant basically the same thing.

“Seventh grade.” Millie could be trusted for this sort of detail. “And it was his cousin.”

“He told me they weren’t actually related. Becky just told people that when they moved here because she thought it was funny, but apparently their families are just really close.” Millie looked ruffled by this news, which had spread through the halls at the start of the school year, well after she had left. Emma decided to twist the knife. “Now she’s dating his sister.”

“Like gay dating?”

“No one’s being bad about it, not even the people you’d expect.” Emma said, ignoring troubling comments she’d overheard some boys saying about how hot it was, especially before the whole cousin thing.

“To be honest, Adam Dean is the top of my list of people you’d expect.”

“No, he’s been super sweet actually.” He even told those guys to cut it out.

“So you have been seeing him?”

“I mean, I haven’t like, lost my virginity to him.” Emma’s phrasing instantly seemed cringey and weird, and she’s thankful to the night for covering up her blush. “But I could do worse, right? It just feels like everyone hates him for no reason.”

Millie didn’t talk for a bit. They crossed over a creek-filled ditch to the old, empty soccer field. “You know, he said some things to me in middle school. Like he didn’t even know the right slurs, but it was still…”

She trailed off. Someone’s truck roared in the distance. “Oh,” Emma said.

“Maybe he’s growing.”

Emma didn’t speak until they hit the main road. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Didn’t want to make it a thing. And you know, you do get overwhelmed by things sometimes.”

And now that she’d called attention to it, the world did seem to be crumbling apart in places, the ground below Emma’s feet insubstantial compared to how it was before. “People are terrible,” she concluded.

Millie nodded grimly. It was clearly a lesson she’d already learned. “We can talk about something else.”

[ndantalion]

The Moon

Without any stars in the city, it’s no wonder the moon distracts me so completely. But my gaze turns resentful when I feel its chill mirrored on the back of my neck. Sheltered kid I am, it takes a second for me to recognize the flat of a knife on my skin.

[ndantalion]

Regret

I think that cats are obviously less intelligent than us, but more spiritually aware. That’s why we think of them as wiser than dogs, who are technically smarter than cats but clearly see no deeper into the universe than we do.

I don’t know how other animals rank. I think there must be something very sacred in the life of an ant or a bee. And the things that soar overhead, they naturally see more than most—especially crows, who even understand fun. I go back and forth on whether anything stuck in place can really be considered sentient, no matter how vast and intricate their root systems can get. And sometimes I think it’s us who are lacking, us moving things, who will never understand what it is to be still.

Or, well, only the once, I suppose. Is it too much to hope that you are only here for a visit?

Believe what you will.

At the same time, I can’t completely deny the evidence. Can you tell me what happens, then?

I can show you. Surely that will be equally meaningful.

Moreso, I concede. That’s the problem of a life like mine. I stay in place and convince myself that reading things, that being told things, that that’s enough to understand them. I’ve failed to really go out and live.

You’ve had your reasons.

Plenty of times I’ve been given the perfect chance to do something and simply not taking it. This hospital thing is recent. And even this isn’t so bad. I can talk. I can read. I can write.

It’s still a hospital room.

It’s still a hospital room.

Is that your biggest regret? Not doing more?

I don’t know. So many times my cowardice has gotten to me and it’s proven itself right. I’ve stayed out of drama. I’ve never gotten in trouble with the law. I don’t think I’ve even had a stern talking to from anyone but Mom and Dad.

I hope this acts like one. Fucking up sometimes is important.

It’s not like I don’t fuck up. I fuck up all the time. It’s just never been disastrous until now, I guess.

Is it possible you’ve just been trying your best?

…

What are you thinking about?

…How…

As much time as you need.

About how much everyone loved me.

…

What happens now?

I take my cat back.

I was wondering where she came from.

I let her wander during the day, but don’t trust her out at night. You were right about them, you know.

[ndantalion]

Evil Twin

I do feel the slightest burst of fear when she says her name, though I’m not eager to let it show on my face. The party my evil twin had been hosting was fancier than I thought, even after I noted the brand of every car in the long and well-maintained driveway. I’m not completely sure why I did that but the spirits are telling me something about names today and though I try not to listen to them about real world matters it turns out I’m easily swayed if something seems important.

My evil twin isn’t actually related to me. He’s just a rich guy who happens to look pretty similar to when I style my hair a certain way. Anyway he loves going on long benders while his wife is out with her paramours and vice versa. Point is, sometimes he plans a party and just isn’t around to see it through.

In a way I’m doing him a favor by taking over for him like this. I always have the most interesting conversations with his guests, and they all leave quite charmed. That’s one of those things no one understands about having spirits. They imagine someone gloomy and sullen, but in social situations, they can be a real help. All of mine died older than me, and they learned a thing or two in their time about interacting with other people.

They’re actually easiest to hear, I think, shouting over me when I’m talking. I know it’s the sort of micromanaging that should infuriate me, but really, I’ve never felt less alone.

Anyway, she says her name, and it won’t mean anything to you but to me she’s the city’s chief of exorcism. And I don’t need the spirits to tell me to run.

[ndantalion]

Chapter One

This didn’t have to be a police are involved sort of problem but my parents made it into one so here I am waiting in a bush for that problem to go away. I may have stolen one thing of heritage booze, a bottle of wine that they’ll get in trouble for stashing in their basement, but I’ll get in much more trouble for having about town. That is, even if I wasn’t taking little sips when no one’s paying attention.

It’s fine though. The Eye of the Sun (long closed) looks stunning lit up at night. The urban sprawl doesn’t reach nearly as high on the neighboring peaks, mostly spilling out into the valley and along several rivers to the ocean far away. Not everyone is allowed up there—not everyone even knows what they go up there for. But there are lights all the time, all the way to the top.

My brother goes up there. I noticed because he’s always been a pretty pathetic guy, but he stopped getting so easily winded. So I asked him directly, “Is that the assignment you’ve been on?” and he just didn’t say anything. He’s the worst liar I know, so he didn’t even try. Maybe one day I’ll see him again and get to ask him, “Hey, so what do they actually have you doing up there? I bet it’s really important?” And if I butter him up enough he might just tell me. It hurts a little bit that I can’t just have this conversation tomorrow, that it has to take place in an unspecified someday, but I’m trying to ignore it.

I don’t know if I’ve had enough to get drunk or what it will feel like when that happens or how much of this is adrenaline but I think that, when I concentrate, that I’m somehow getting quieter? Or the equivalent of that, but for the eyes—they’ve looked right past me several times now.

I read in a pirated pamphlet that other cultures have objects that grant humans powers. Like most of these readings, I could never tell if that was a common mythological motif or established fact—were spirits really more active outside the Spires?

I’m a lot closer to finding out than I have any right to be, because I’m planning on hopping a train. It’s my first time attempting such a thing because it’s not really the sort of thing you get to attempt twice. I’m told it’s best to get a car when it’s on an incline, when the click-click-click of its cog is slower and more regular than when it moves by current.

But I’ve scrambled to the top of a big old hill and I feel a bit of vertigo looking down at the pit the tracks cut into it. I start wondering things like how bad jail really is when I hear the whistle of the train approaching and then the click-click-click-click-click. Like an antique cogwork clock.

I remind myself that this is the sort of things daring teens do to impress their friends, wandering back a few days later with stories that their parents get desperate to sweep under the rug. And I know how easy it is to just tell stories but I deliberately ignore that. The reason I don’t know anyone personally who’s survived this is that Mom would never let me associate with that sort of person, and god forbid it happen to anyone from our family. But I’m not in that family anymore, I guess.

I take a long sip of wine on the top of the hill, where I’m quite exposed but also—I think—invisible. It just feels like I let the light go through me and the wind go through me—it’s cold, but I let it through—and I can’t even see my legs below me, through it didn’t do anything at all to stop them feeling wobbly.

But I jump anyway, because really, worst that happens is I do, and the world doesn’t exactly stop for that. I’m really—in the moment that I’m flying—I can’t say that I feel anything but wise, like I’ve learned some great lesson in moral and physical weightlessness.

I get the landing almost right except for banging my ankle on the corner, which brings me back to my own body pretty quick. I crawl my way through a hatch in the roof before the pain really kicks in, and when it does, all I can be is amazed. It’s what I deserve, so I wallow in it a bit before I look around and realize someone’s there.

She’s no doubt the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, in a transcendental way that leaves me more awestruck than attracted or envious, though I can admit to some combination of the three. She seems surprised that I see her at all, maybe because the inside of this car is otherwise completely dark.

“May I have some?” She asks me, holding up my bottle.

“Okay,” I say, before I’ve processed what she said. I can’t focus on anything but her face—her gray eyes seem sharp but soft, like nothing I’ve seen in the world. I get this distinct feeling that she shouldn’t exist.

She pulls out two polished silver wine cups, fills them, and holds one out to me. For some reason I’m not surprised the wine in the bottle doesn’t diminish.

“Can you do anything about the pain?” I ask, suspecting she is my first encounter with a spirit.

“If you drink, you might forget it.” She downs her whole cup in an instant.

I look down at mine, doubtfully. That sounds a lot like the scary stories I’ve assumed until now were exaggerations, but I drink anyway. I’m not at the stage of my life to refuse an offer like that. It’s warm in a different way from spicy food, and it settles like a weight on my brain. Not unpleasant.

Too late, I look right through my fingers and realize, “I don’t think this is normal wine.”

“What do you mean?”

I try to turn invisible in front of her, even checking in the reflection of the cup, but she seems unfazed.

“You can’t get a drink at all in this city,” she says, pouring both of us more.

“Well yeah,” I say stupidly, “it’s illegal.”

“It’s illegal in every part of the nation,” she says, “but you can still get a drink.”

I look backwards, to where I think the city is. “I’ll just have to believe you,” I admit.

“Aha.” She leans forward. I contemplate kissing her—I think that is the sort of thing you’re supposed to do while drunk—but it hasn’t rendered me quite stupid enough. “This is your first time.”

I nod, and bravely drain about half my cup.

“It’s going to be interesting.” Something about her smile causes me to hesitate.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, don’t stop on my behalf,” she says, eyeing me until I take another sip. “I just mean it will be interesting.”

“More than usual?”

“Maybe. You’re right about it not being normal wine—where did you get it?”

Flustered, I set my cup down. “I don’t think I should be telling you that.”

“Good instinct,” she says. “And in general, my advice is to keep this to yourself. No one needs to know what you’re capable of.”

“What am I capable of?” I ask, though I know immediately I will get no response.

She transforms in front of me, shrinking down into a dull, dusty moth. And she leaves me with the silver cups and the bottle of wine. And I have nothing else to do, and a whole lot of things I would rather forget.

[ndantalion]

Letter Sent Too Early in a Relationship

I remember two birds were sitting on a slightly lower rooftop, a gull and her gray teenage son. It struck me as unlikely that I would ever be there again, ever see the sun dip at quite that angle, down below the red-roofed buildings of wherever in Europe it was. Isn’t it funny that I don’t remember? Maybe it was on the Mediterranean, owing to the gulls, but all I remember is the sun and that I thought they were two different species, the gray ones and the white ones. Someone pointed out that it was a mother and chick and I didn’t even catch who it was, I just filed that knowledge away so I wouldn’t look foolish later. But I wonder, sometimes, if that was you, because you say you were there.

Why didn’t we talk then? Was I too drunk, were you too sober? At times I mourn the years apart. but really, I think I should celebrate them. Think of our lives as lines—would we prefer them parallel, or colliding?

Nearly everyone on the trip was out that night, maybe because it was the only night it didn’t even threaten to rain. I remember more and more every time I think about it and I’m not sure how many memories I’ve made up. Could we see the ocean? I don’t think so. And yet I see the stars—I’m sure we couldn’t see the stars—reflected in the water. The waves are high, and somehow, the stars shine right through them.

And I can’t quite convince myself that I did anything truly noble, like I ever reached out to you or told you it would turn out alright. But I hope I helped you see some of the things I did out there, made you feel in some way like the world was okay. Because I had a lovely time on that trip, to be honest, though I know you did not.

Sometimes I worry about your capacity for wonder. When I propose some new thing to see, you struggle to compare it with staying comfortable and home. And yet, when you do explore, you’re radiant. So maybe it’s not capacity you lack, but faith.

I can’t entirely blame you but sometimes it has me seething. The world is so beautiful, I want to tell you, nothing could be so beautiful. Well—perhaps one thing could come close.

[ndantalion]

The Landlord

I tore down every glowing star off my ceiling last weekend. I just thought I didn’t need comments about it anymore, in any direction. I was starting to realize that everyone who complimented them was younger than me and most of them didn’t even have jobs. The stars left little marks, where I guess the light had faded the parts that weren’t covered. I felt like it was my second chance to make something out of it, to paint around them and preserve their memory. But I couldn’t think of anything, and it’s not like these projects ever turn out well if I over-complicate them. So I followed an online tutorial to prime everything neatly and fixed it all in off-white.

There’s a boy I’m thinking about impressing. He’s new at work—he’s from Australia. Everyone thinks he’s super funny, but I wonder if it’s maybe the accent giving him an edge. Either way I can kill a lot of time asking about all the little ways things are different there and I love when I’m the reason he tells a story that makes everyone else laugh. It’s like I own a little part of it.

All I know is he has a serious job like me, so he probably won’t think the stars are cute. And I can’t imagine staying with someone who doesn’t think the stars are cute, so it’s best to cut out the chance of learning his opinion at all. I guess I also shouldn’t ask him, “What are the stars like in the southern sky?” because what if he can’t answer me?

I hope, for some reason, that maybe a little whimsy would rub off on someone who loved me, but where would they find it nowadays? I still lose myself in fantasy novels, but rarely do I dream myself into them. I just re-read a series from my childhood that everyone agrees is garbage now. It didn’t really make me feel any better or worse.

I sometimes wish that no one had ever believed in me, because now, I feel like I’m doing just as well as everyone expected. I’m too soft to defy any odds or doubts. Maybe because of all the attention when I was young, my life’s always been characterized by waiting for something to happen, for my real important purpose to begin. But now that I’m older even that feeling’s fading. I guess it’s a good thing, because it’s increasingly clear that adventure comes with compromises I’m not willing to make.

I think I’m settling into anticipation-free existence nicely. The money just accumulates. I started renting out my spare room so I could watch it accumulate faster, and because I thought maybe someone interesting would show up. And once in a while, you know, it will be young people up for some concert or event or any excuse to get away from living at home.

They incorrectly think I was one of them because we’re around the same age and they compliment the stars and they try to get me to talk with them about all the ways that the world might magically become a better place. And I’m always secretly thinking, well, you could get a job, your parents might appreciate it. But they all say it’s harder nowadays and I wouldn’t know, since I work for a friend of my mom.

And I can’t explain it but I think they experience the world more purely than I do, so about half the time I do manage to stay, even though I always regret it. They’re less intelligent than I am, of that I’m absolutely certain. It just has to be true, because otherwise, what’s the point?

[ndantalion]

For Obvious Reasons, The God of Bananas Does Not Ask Himself These Questions

The god of apples lives a minced and miserable existence. What—he takes himself apart—what really separates me from any other fruit tree, apart from being common? He does not know what mistake led to him being crowned the fruit of Eden, but he thanks it always. Now and then he receives the reach of a prayer from someone lost in metaphor, twisted by desire and begging him to be less tempting. It gives him a thrill. Rarely does his corporeal form receive such attention.

He is prayed for, of course, like any other food, but what in particular makes him qualify over an equally worthy snack? Why hunger for him specifically? He knows he lacks substances, rarely suffices for anyone truly desperate. And he senses a disdain from some young people for his un-adventurousness, the fact they can find him just about anywhere.

Some, though, crave his familiarity. He has to be the most popular fruit in some parts of the world. Lovely parts, too; he thinks fondly to the temperate regions of the world, hot summers and chilly falls. Probably in the top three overall—that has to count for something.

But the fact doesn’t comfort him, and it’s hard to tell if any fact will. Agriculture is a mess these days, he thinks, it’s because of all that grafting. Does anyone realize how fundamentally broken the average apple tree is? How it feels for your branches to be a separate organism from your roots? Do they consider what this might do to the psyche of their god?

And worst is, he sometimes enjoys the disconnect, sometimes loses himself in the puzzle of putting his pieces together. How much of his worrying is him, or what the humans see in him? Did Isaac Newton grant him gravity?

He wants to recoil from the thought of being human, with his impulses bound to a body and brain of fragile flesh. And yet out of these short-lived lumps of meat come the wishes and dreams from which he was born, one step further removed from reality. Is it really so different?

It’s a big thought, he thinks, and perhaps an important one. But no one goes to the god of apples for those.

[ndantalion]

The Discovery of Magic

The desk was smart and neat and just in front of a window which had a handful of dead bugs trapped between the screen and the pane. But don’t think about the bugs, she thought, look at the ocean. And she did, because it had certainly not lost its charm, and she kept her eyes locked on it like a creepy painting while she cranked open the pane, popped out the screen, and flicked away the corpses one by one. Not enough made her feel small anymore—she imagined all the little problems of her previous life tumbling off the cliff and disappearing before they even hit the churning gray.

It’s gray now, she thought, but will be blue on clear days and golden at sunset. Would she become the kind of person to wake for the sunrise? She looked at her new little bed, tucked in the corner under a thick canvas cover, and it seemed possible.

She ran her finger over the desk and a layer of dust came up. She’d deal with that. Everything had to be like new.

But first she would look at the ocean again, and feel properly small. She suspected that might be the trick of it in the end. She imagined the waves swallowing her, reducing her entire conscious experience to bones against the rocks. It very well might happen, but she didn’t think about that just yet.

The desk slid open with just a little effort. Inside, paper and ink were stacked neatly, like survival supplies. She took a piece out and wrote the first words of her new existence:

Bedding Dust rag

She looked around,

Water

And slid the note through the slot in her door. It was wide enough for food, but the bedding would have to be thin. That seemed appropriate.

She turned away to let her apprentice work, because it wouldn’t do to see another human being. Once everything was in order—the water on the desk, the bedding folded on the bed, she put her hand on the locking mechanism she’d prepared. With a clunking sound, the door bolted in sixteen places, and the latch clattered to the ground.

Now there were only two ways out. If you reduced your count to things that were possible, it was only one. She went to the window again, and the sea roiled in anger.

[ndantalion]

Applying for this Job Also Felt like a Good Idea at the Time

In my ear, I hear a whisper, “Come with me.” I’m not sure if I can obey. My feet are stuck on the marble floor, but she’s likely traveling in a direction other than the real. I laboriously bridge the gap between our minds with woven clouds. “Tracey,” I communicate, “I can’t be tripping on shift.”

I shake my head to dispel the whole construction. “I’m sorry,” I tell the customer in front of my little desk. “Could you repeat that?”

“I didn’t say anything?” He’s a middle-aged man with a small girl (his daughter?) clinging to his shoulder. The notion strikes me that this might be a sad one.

A dove with a message tied to its leg starts clawing at my brain. Boss says it’s important.

Customer says, “I need a spell for my wife.” Then, presumably, watches me pass out on the floor.

I can never get used to existing simultaneously. I scramble to standing but just can’t orient myself to not feel horizontal, or stop twitching my face where it’s pressed against the marble. “What’s wrong?” I ask the void either in front of or perhaps above me.

The world forms into being, a professional sort of business office. Tracey is here too, and we exchange a look. No sign of our boss.

Someone else is here, though, a woman in a suit with impossibly straight hair. “We’ve concluded our investigation into this business,” she says.

“Business?” Tracey takes the lead. Good, because really I don’t want to. “This is a temple.”

The woman knows damn well what we are. “Quite a large income for a temple.”

“Lots of temples raise funds for upkeep.”

“You know this goes well beyond upkeep.”

“A god can have lavish needs.” Oh look, it’s Boss, just waiting for the right moment. He sounds pretty rough, but in the way you’d only notice if you knew him. He’s wearing his last nice suit and it barely contains him. I don’t mean to sound admiring. Gods are always whatever they are to the utmost, and what he is isn’t strictly good or bad but it is undeniably a lot. It’s hard to put into words what it feels like to be around him, but the best I’ve got is it’s something like when you’re drunk and have a very bad idea that feels like a very good one.

The woman frowns at him. I wonder if she has ever been drunk in her life. “We found no evidence any of this temple’s income going towards acts of appeasement. What we suspect, of course, is that the money was used to fund followers.”

“There’s no record because the money went to illegal drugs. I say ‘illegal,’ but since they’re part of my godly domain, I don’t follow mortal jurisdiction. The only followers I pay are my two employees, who I pay for work, not worship.”

It’s not like we hadn’t floated the drugs idea. Like, maybe if you got people hooked enough, they’d count as followers and the godly domain thing would make it a non-issue. But we all felt kind of gross about it even besides the part where it probably wouldn’t work, and went for the direct route. We just thought we’d hidden it better.

“We’ve investigated.” The woman taps a book lying next to her on the table. “No drug deals of that size, and several ‘followers’ with unaccounted-for wealth. You’re selling miracles and paying for worship.”

Boss sighs, and shrugs, and so they take it all down. When I pick myself back off the floor in reality, all his symbols are gone—no chalices, no bulls. Violet light streams through the stained glass, as always, but leaves no recognizable shape. That seems to be where Boss is staring.

Tracey says, “I’m getting a better job.” And I think I see Boss visibly go paler as his follower count got cut in half.

“Good luck,” he says, distantly, when she’s half out the door. Then it’s quiet for a while.

He turns to me, eventually. “It seems you still believe.”

“I’m the last one,” I say. “If I stop, isn’t that kind of like murdering you?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve already had more time than I deserve.”

I choose to ignore him. “It will be fifty years if we’re lucky, Might be enough time to get back on your feet.”

“Fifty years to fuck around, more like it. I’m not even sure if I liked being on my feet.”

“Wish we actually had those drugs,” I say. He heartily agrees.

[ndantalion]

The One and Only Truth

(suicide cw) The only known truth in science is that nothing must exist. Every logical pattern of thought eventually leads to this.

Everything else begrudgingly considered “science” (despite obvious inconsistencies and disqualifiers) is accepted out of necessity, because it is what we can measure. And truths must claw themselves into accepted reality, prove themselves again and again only to be disproved once. This is one of the ways all paths lead to nothing.

Here is my remembrance, the first path to nothing that broke through to me. We all keep one. It is, before I was born there was nothing, and after I die there will be nothing. And yet, time and space spread infinitely in all directions, reducing the fullest extent of my understanding to less than noise. They believe I fully grasped this concept when I was three years old.

My family reports that it was a troubling time. I did try to kill myself—nearly everyone does, and no small number succeed. It is considered our right, but perhaps because I was so young, or because the central office had plans for me, I was prevented.

So I stared into space, and ceased educating myself. Understanding nothing wasn’t the only milestone I crossed early, but I halted progress on my reading to languish about and daydream. I focused on training the vividness of my imagination, trying to hold a taste in my mouth or a flame against my arm until the sensations were real.

That accomplished, I crept back to reading, and to stories. What worlds of fantasy I indulged myself in! By the time I was brought to The Nothing at the age of six, I was well-versed in delusion. I believe this will be their downfall, in the end.

Yes, I have left—and not on good terms. So why do I state their doctrine as fact? Because it is fact, it is true, it’s the one and only thing that is. Once you learn, there’s no unlearning. But, you see, I’ve deluded myself into thinking there’s something noble about fighting back.

[ndantalion]

The Monster they Offered Me

Yes, I am one of those people who want to turn into a monster. The monster they offered me the first time didn’t suit me very well. I would have settled for something small and capable of eavesdropping, and I could spend my life fluttering out of sight and listening and that would be enough. Now that I am older and more patient I’m waiting to be offered a shapeshifter.

I want to stride down human streets alone in places I’ve been taught to shy away from, confident that if anyone bothered me I could tear them apart. If anyone questioned my credentials for being there, I’d need only to let them glimpse my fangs. I want to walk into their stores and buy candies to taste as a novelty, and I’ll make strange faces as I hold them on my tongue. And I’ll go to other stores and be just constantly holding items up in wonder, and sometimes taking them home without paying. Only at big stores, though, where I know it won’t really bother anyone.

Don’t let them know this, but I do still care what humans think of me. That’s not breaking any rules, exactly, but they highly recommend against it for some reason.

The first monster they gave me was this awful sorrowful thing that no one could stand to be near. Sometimes its howls ring at the back of my head and I wonder if I’ve missed the chance to live up to my true potential. But why, why do I care about ringing at the back of human brains?

A monster won’t care. I look forward to it like you can’t imagine.

[ndantalion]

A Woman Screamed

No one heard her. Not at this hour, not in this weather. At times the winds howling drowned out even the cozy conversations of those sheltering indoors. The snow whirled, promising, come morning, a different act of silence.

[ndantalion]

A Dream

(cw torture) Once in a long while you hear a car through the rain. The noise carries far, and it seems to take forever to reach the bend in the road where—for no reason other than its proximity to you—the sound shifts, and the vehicle changes from creeping closer to fleeing away. To your credit, you do let most of them make that change.

Sometimes the change is different. Sometimes it’s simple—a loss of control, a swerve off the road to avoid a figure faintly spotted through the downpour. Over the edge, into your jaws.

Sometimes you draw it out. My car began to slow so far back, and with the rain, it was difficult to tell at first where it finally stopped. And now I know, and feel a certain peace.

How will you change me?

Those who drive by every day find it difficult to imagine anyone staying at the Roadside Inn, situated at such an ugly, barren spot in a part of the country famed for natural beauty. Cars can be heard breaking the speed limit from every part of the property at all hours—at night, they make up for scarcity with an unmistakable increase in volume. Clouds cluster overhead, always, except for the few most rancid days of summer, where tourists take one look at the faded sideboards melting in the sun and come to accurate conclusions about the state of air conditioning inside.

The only weather justifying the Roadside Inn’s presence is rain, which does sometimes fall in breathtaking currents upon the ragged parking lot. Long after the locals stopped recommending the place to visiting friends, a particularly violent storm might push a car to stop.

Most of them leave the next day.

Some rooms are are still set up from the days when guests might book in advance. Anyone paying attention will note that they constitute the bare minimum for a motel—a bed with white sheets, brown curtains, a wobbling lamp. The reviews say as much, perhaps also noting an old smell that permeates everything or taking a wild guess at whether the proprietor is on crack or meth. None make the connection, of course, that the bare-bones rooms aren’t the inn’s primary function.

The proprietor only sits at his desk when it rains. Otherwise, he is in the attic, ear pressed to the underside of the old tin roof, waiting. Begrudgingly, he escorts families and groups to this first type of room. Even the odd single traveler, if they seem like trouble and you have recently been fed.

(Except you do not feed, do you? You listen.)

But most of those who enter alone are greeted jovially. And on the proprietor takes them, to the other sort of room.

Every person has a different reaction to pain. It is often most clear after recovery—once the pain has gone, how do we justify it? Almost everyone tries to assign it some meaning, some worth. While pain is acute, we push it away, but when it lapses even just briefly—

I can tell you’re afraid right now. There are markers, rapid pulse, dilated pupils. I’m not sure why you walked in here. Your breathing drowns out the rain.

Perhaps you’ll sleep more easily knowing this: there will be moments of reprieve. That’s where the stories come from. And it won’t just be the soft reprieve you’ve experienced in life so far, the brief satisfaction of your needs weighed down by the dread and expectation of everything surrounding it. No, you’ll forget what pain is, for a time.

The second type of room looks much like the first, because every time it finds an occupant, the proprietor closes the door behind him and never opens it again. What you do with them is not for him to know. He is used to dreams wandering through his own every night, and they are rarely pleasant. When they are, it’s even worse.

Now he hears your dream, he dreams your dream, your dream overtakes him. Oh, if only you were sensible of my genius. But I sometimes suspect you already knew the reason you found me.

The cars don’t stop in the rain anymore. They don’t even drive past. I don’t mind—your dreams are much more beautiful.

[ndantalion]

A Window Set Into a Plain White Wall; Outside, a Short Dock and Gray, Rolling Waves

The boy asks, “Is there anything behind the clouds?” He is an imaginative child who has only just learned the concept of “behind.” Now he applies it to everything, down the floor to the basement to the Earth, presumably. Soon he will turn it to cause and effect, asking “Why, why, why?” His minders fear this stage the most.

[ndantalion]

The Third Animal

Back home every year on the Fourth of July the library put out this massive carnival. Well, it wasn’t really massive, but it was the largest I’d seen as a kid, with real electronic rides.

The library grounds were kind of weird. The building itself is this pyramid at the top of a hill. The terrain is all uneven around it, so that the shiny gold—it’s gold, too—cuts into the ground sometimes a floor apart in different places, and gives the impression that it just keeps going and going. Down to the bottom of the hill, at least. Maybe even further.

But it just stops there, I think, at the lowest point you can see, or maybe there’s a couple inches for utilities. Me and some friends snuck in there in high school and couldn’t find any trace of a basement. The stairs only went up.

But the grounds, right, they had all these weird sculptures up to the top of the hill with the pyramid, which was itself oriented so that the sun lit up a full side on noon one day of the year. It was the summer solstice or the Fourth, I kind of forget. You’d think I’d remember, since I was there every year.

This particular year I was by this ride, which used to be my favorite. It had these sort of glider-shaped harnesses you strapped into and—once the attendant checked you were secure—the wheel of the machine tilted up and swung you gracefully in circles, up and down. And from the high part of the glide you could see the statues—wait, I should explain the statues.

So the statues are—they’re gold like the building, but less shiny, and made out of these lumpy sorts of panels dangling from thin wires that are crafted to look like two different animals. What I mean is, from most angles they look kind of like abstract blobs, but they’re arranged so that from one very specific angle you see—for instance—a wolf, and from another, a rabbit (they were all predator and prey). And people always commented on how the panels had width, too, sometimes in weird places. So maybe there’s a third animal there, only visible from above or below. I should point out these things are huge, like two humans tall at least, so it’s not something you’d see easily.

But I’d look out for them from the top of this glider ride, you see. I came back every year, even, as if growing taller would somehow help. I did start to think about, after predator and prey, what came next? I learned about microbes when I was like twelve and thought, well, maybe I’ve already seen the third animal, and it was just something unrecognizable.

So I was by—okay, I’ll admit, I was on this ride, even though I was fourteen and one year past definitely too old for this and the ride—the whole fair really—was starting to seem a lot smaller than when I was a kid. And I saw some paint on the top of one of the animals and when I hit the right angle it morphed into my name.

Except as we all know, I’m a John, and so are like half the people I know, even my best friend at the time. So I don’t get too excited. Next I see a heart and I get ready for the girl’s name, Lisa or Suzy or something, but it’s also “John.” And that’s when I freaked out a little, because I kind of over-exaggerated, there were only a couple at the school besides us, and they were wildly different grades, and my parents friends didn’t count.

John of course ambushed me the moment I got off the ride, like the tiger he’d written his name on. Except he had candy, which was surprisingly romantic for a fourteen-year-old, and he didn’t eat me, we just called ourselves boyfriends for a few years until eventually we both realized we wanted to go to college single.

It’s pretty awkward though, since we both went to the same school, so nobody around us thought we had any business breaking up. His sister and me were kind of still friends—she has got to be the smartest person I’ve ever met. Their whole family is smart but she is something else. She won the school spelling bee every year it happened and spelling wasn’t even her thing. I always thought she knew what the third animals were, that she could derive it from some theorem or whatever it is they teach you in advanced math.

Anyways I stopped by right at the end of summer as I was going away and their parents basically trapped me into staying for dinner. They sat us down and explained to both of us how love isn’t a sparkling, shining thing forever, not without grueling effort. And the Dad looked way more passionate about how damn hard everything was than their Mom was, and every time she interjected about how maybe it wasn’t so bad he’d basically cut her off. It really didn’t have the effect of making me want to stay with their son or in general be a part of their family ever.

Except for the one thing I learned later, which is that someone told me after-the-fact that they’re big library donors—not his parents but his grandparents—and if we had just asked nicely we might have gotten the key to the top of the pyramid. That’s where I think the third animals are visible from. You see, all the other ones have certain points where the surrounding animals—predator or prey—all come into view at once. It just makes sense it’s somewhere high, but reachable, right? I tried to look at it top down once but it gets blurred out on maps, and my town has some ordinance against flying drones.

Maybe they know a bit more about the library too—for some reason, whenever I tell this story, someone asks. But I don’t think there’s much to know. It’s just a public library.

Except the whole point of this is what I saw after the John hearts John, and I almost missed it in the panic. Out of the top of the pyramid, which I was just below level with, someone was waving an American flag, and the hand—the whole arm, as far as I could tell—was honest-to-God green.

[ndantalion]

The Magician

(suicide cw)

The magician set the hat between us. “This won’t help you,” he said, “but you’ll want to buy it anyway.”

“I don’t see how this helps—”

“You’ll be begging me to buy it.” His voice was serene, but insistent. “What was your problem again?”

“You know I paid quite a lot to be here—”

“Oh dear, and it will be even more with the hat.”

The hat looked just like the hat on the magician’s head, but scruffier. “I don’t want your hat. I want—” I cut myself off and looked around, as if anyone was with us in this tiny hidden room. Quieter, I continue, “So you can make anything disappear?”

“That’s what my abilities permit.” The magician rocked back in his rocking chair, which was too low for the table and looked ridiculous. “It might not be what you paid for. Let me see, looks like you indicated a creature?”

“Well I picked creature, but I was hoping—”

“That I’d make an exception and do a human instead?”

I couldn’t help appearing guilty. “But I figure it’s different—”

“People always do.”

“—because it’s me.”

The magician paused for a second. Then he laughed. “I’m this close to quitting this business, I swear. There’s a reason ‘person’ isn’t an option on the website, and it’s not because of any silly “moral objection” to erasing someone’s annoying aunt. Easily the number one request I get is people like you who are too pussy to just jump off a bridge.”

I could feel my face turning red. “I can’t. I have people I’m leaving behind.”

“You’re leaving them either way. And why would dead-old-you care?”

“I don’t—I just don’t want to hurt anyone, with it. If I disappear, they won’t even know to be sad.”

“You don’t have at least one friend whose life you just ambiently improve?”

“I think people could take me or leave me, honestly. My parents would be less stressed. My friends have other friends. People mostly keep me around to be nice.”

The magician tilted his head, examining me. “God, yeah, I guess I can see that. Of course, the real problem is that if you disappear, no one fucking paid me.”

I tried to rest my hand on the table but inadvertently pushed myself to standing. I had the impression we were close to done anyway.

“Leaving without the hat?”

“Yes.” I put my bag back over my shoulder.

“You don’t want to know what it does?”

“Not even slightly.”

“Surely you have problems that go beyond our original consultation.” He leaned forward, but with his chest at table height, couldn’t get very far.

“I can think of a few,” I said pointedly. “But none that can be solved by a hat.”

“Well, I did warn you it wouldn’t help. I think I’ll just put it away.” He smiled like he knew something I didn’t.

Later that day I crossed a bridge. And I would always lean over the edge and really consider it. It’s not cowardly, I thought, to have loved ones. And I crumpled the stupid scam of a hat as small as I could and tossed it down to the water without looking once.