velhaeil

[velhaeil]

— event 001 / the vanishing what is your biggest dream?

four aspects of a dream converge down the line into a multi-faceted point. there are three aspects collecting cricket songs, fireflies in a jar, and a fourth remains unyieldingly facing the ground.

the auspicious three bask in the dalliance of drawing up a nonsensical map of insipid instances, several some-things, from a single moment in time. in this aspect, it’s in eating a fresh bag of hazelnuts roasted with sugar during the first snowfall; of having that first taste of potent lifewater infused with cinnamon imperials during the coldest hour—or cramming down a heaping amount of them until the mouth and chest and stomach tingled with the heady warmth of the spice. it’s in this aspect that one watches a parade of explosives ravaging the sky from a different angle; where chocolate melts on the tongue. the aspect of leaving an impression with august eyes and swollen lips. the feeling of magic in the air as it illuminates the lanterns.

the fourth aspect might believe in charnel houses and likes to remember that there’s a fundamental difference between a bonfire and a pyre, both carrying the risk of burn. this aspect has a wooden scent to it lately. it might fancy itself akin a drawbar or a cart on some days, but the stokes have to be placed before the wheel starts turning and this aspect, with the little warm cabin and the little busy workshop bordering a haunted little green imprint on the map, is exactly where it likes to be—

perhaps with the addition of an extremely spicy and very meaty curry on sundays.

[velhaeil]

haeil woke up besieged by the sheer absence of warmth and the ensuing collection of syncopated pains. it had started within the vicinity of his sternum, and it had taken no more than two minutes for it swathe all over his limbs, impossibly even down to the soles of his feet. this is the problem with not having a giant cosmic heater to warm up the planks of wood that compose his cabin and the dirt that rests underneath the floorboards. cold. just dreary, all-encompassing and ever-present cold that stabs at him like a hundred thousand needles, or a bed of spikes.

dredging up bravery from the pits of human tenacity, haeil patiently takes it in stride, grits his teeth until his jaw radiates a new pain, and executes his morning routine with mechanical precision anyway. no use in burning away the metaphorical midnight oil; no use in willing away a pain that won’t stir until he sets himself into motion, until he forces his body to generate the heat for him. besides, if his wristwatch hasn’t failed sometime in the night (afternoon? day?) while he slept (tossed and turned and succumbed to exhaustion), then it’s very early morning. if it’s morning, and he’s in his room, and syllogisms are still easy enough to make even with a barely-awake-barely-working brain, then the electricity must’ve been up and active in his cabin. electricity means that his stove works. a working stove means fast and easy and fast-very-fast heat conduction.

velgrove’s most piping hot breakfast awaits.

his eyes can’t really stand the bright light any more than the cold these days, so it’s by lamplight and memory how haeil navigates (tramples, stumbles, half-dreaming) the layout of his cabin after he slips his warmest jacket on. he pulls the front door wide open first, then follows the action closely with an ungraceful pivot towards his humble kitchen. he sets the gas lamp down god-knows-where (table. he has a table, half obscured by an open wall, hidden in the dark), and sets about with ferociously single-minded focus to brew the coffee and start on the base of a soup.

coffee is ready. time passes. how did that happen? haeil startles into attention when footfalls announce the arrival of someone into his shop. unsurpsringly, he knows who it is. sumyeong cuts an impressive figure in the twilight, and haeil gathers that it’s because of the disturbing combination of poor lighting and the shotgun. not so impressive is the mimicry of death-turned-over on his face. he’s seen that one before—on his own face, actually. awful.  

“good morning, yang sumyeong,” saying the full name grants a bit of solidity, like whatever took their sun will be unable to take any of them if haeil tethers them to the present. behind him, the pot billows out hot steam as it boils, heartily spewing aromatics that arouse his stomach, “you look like you’re about to drop dead at any moment now. care to take a breather before you’re off to duty?”

the vanishing ; the west-ward mill ; sumyeong n @velhaeil

to be vulnerable is to be human. and to be human is the last thing that sumyeong wants to think about. 

his nights have been restless since the sun and moon have disappeared. days were long, nights longer. time stretched thin as sumyeong surveyed olive acre's property lines / listened at night for the farm animals / let stress eat him from bones within like how the crops must have been eating themselves inside out with the sun gone.

a week of the sun being gone. sumyeong wasn't sure how anything would fare any longer. electricity in and out. lamps, candles, fires, more things burning in darkness than before / this is how he finds himself at the west-ward mill, lantern in hand and shotgun on his back. the two items now attachments to his body. stock low, sumyeong had no choice but to make a trip to gather more firewood with the sun and moon continuing to stay out of sight.

the morning chill bites at sumyeong's face as the building comes into view - shrouded in darkness. he doesn't miss the dim light that seeps through the small opening of the door. 

unshaven, clouds beneath his eyes, sunken cheeks, sumyeong knows how he looks. a small part of him hopes that whoever stands on the other side of the threshold won't hold his unkemptness against him. 

[velhaeil]

how does someone get closer to you?

do you know how far and how long light has to travel across the universe in order for any of us to see it? even the tempo of his voice ricocheting off the bone of his skull sounds rather dejected. haeil casts a slow, meaningful look at the lit candle he had set down on the windowsill, did you know that by the time we do see it, that star has already collapsed into itself, crumpled and shredded by the weight of its own gravity?

right. here’s a list of visual cues instead: dust motes in sunbeams. the angle of incidence causing brief white-flashes of caustic curves to dance on top of the lake’s surface. the reddish-brownish-orange-gradients of senescence late in the ripening season. how the color of one’s eyes changes beneath a splash of the sun, and how an amalgamation of the heart manifests with an eerily similar effect.

the shape of a draught board, red and black, in nebulous and flickering lighting, the test to stereopsis in grayscale. haeil moves his maybe-red piece to swallow two of hwayang’s, a corner of his mouth lifting, already tasting the amusement in what he’s about to say, “if you win this round, i’ll offer up half of that information. you can try for the other half if you let me play the black pieces next time."

[velhaeil]

what is something new you would like to try/are scared to try?

“something new to try?” as if echoing the question would make the thought come to him like a revelation, and haeil is certainly not impressed with the timing, what with how busy he is with conscripting every sensible bit of himself to avoid digging himself a comfortable bed in the trenches.

that’s a really depressing thought.

truthfully, haeil isn’t that occupied and, after sparing a moment to openly assess the man, sumyeong seems genuine. possibly curious? at least in the vaguest sense of the concept. there’s no harm in conspiring to start a new fantasy. they all need a little pick-me-up these days.

haeil prepares himself for impact, releases the reins of a rather strange impulse that’s been trampling over his thoughts for what feels like ages, “when you’re hired to work on a very tall building and the thing you have to fix is at the very top of it, journeymen can ask the head of the project to bring in fall arrest, which isn’t always a guarantee. they’re belts—these thick leather belts that you arrange tightly around the middle of your torso, and you secure a sturdy lanyard through the central ring on the back, and they will more or less catch you if you fall—and break your ribs, of course, if you don’t accidentally slip out first—but that was the industry standard. lately, there’s a new assortment of safety measures rolling out in the market and now we have these bright harnesses. body harnesses. they crisscross at the sides," here, haeil mimes the path of the fabric, how its shape would be if he equipped it, "in a way that most of you is braced for safety—shoulders, torso, inguinal region. the fall arrest forces, or more pertinently the kinetic energy at the end of the fall, will spread towards different areas, so there’s slightly less risk to the bone and marginally less trauma to the skin. apparently these braces were inspired by a brand new series of parachutes. long story short, whenever i wear my harness—" yes, i did purchase a few before moving here "—i frankly just start thinking incessantly about trying one of those parachutes. just the once. i’m already used to heights. how terrible could it be?”

[velhaeil]

event 001 — the vanishing (special prompt one)

tw: death, suicide, it’s a little rough so be careful with this one

PROMPT: you are standing at the forest edge where the sea eats at the cliffside unforgivingly. a number of townsfolk line the cliffside. where they stand, you can see their faces illuminated by lanterns. one by one, they jump to the depths of the sea and there is nothing you can do, rooted in place. each night is the same dream over and over again. but each night, the townsfolk switch until you swear you’ve seen every person you’ve known take their turn to leap how does this nightmare end for you, little one?

when you’re standing at what seems to be the impossible edge of the world, what would be the first thought to cross your mind? family? friends? would you get a flash-strike of the most significant bits from the story of your life, colored in sepia? would you think about that first kiss, maybe? would you think of a name, or the lesson attached to it? 

the hardest and most valuable lesson haeil has had to scratch into every vacant corner of his brain was to trust his instincts, unfailingly, every time the frantic and burning feeling of them roiled at the bottom of his stomach. he trusts that the universe might speak in ways that swan beyond the capabilities of description, and that at times all he has to do is listen.

so when he had failed to recall how he had cleaved through the unyielding twilight to stare at the unfathomable waters beyond the edge of velgrove, and that the forest beside him had been alive with sounds that have been utterly and almost painfully absent in the last thirteen days, his instincts told him that he probably would have been better off waking up blind. at least that way he could stand on his own terms to make a choice.

as it is, he watches quietly instead, letting the terrible scene before him play out, and staring unquestioning until the end.

the second time it had happened, haeil thought very little of it. his eyes popped open easily ten minutes to five and, after some severe mental coaxing, had shut right back down for another brief stint at rest. really, what good would it do for him to ruminate over the state of his dreams when his current reality mercilessly threatened the caveats that kept its own existence? the human brain is a beautiful and enormously powerful piece of biological machinery, near perfect by most accounts, and a highly capable one could even fool itself into believing its own schemes. near perfect…until it isn’t.

that day of the second nightmare, despite his reservations and the cold sweat, haeil walks along the obscured but familiar roads of velgrove towards that place where the ocean screams and at finding it bereft of any others, lacking any trace of ritual of mourning or tragedy, he lets his aching lungs fill up with the tanginess of the brine, shrouded in dusk.

it’s fine, see? they’re all fine.  he’s certain to see any one of them—halehealthywholeleaguesabovethesea—again as soon as he retakes his place behind the counter at his shop.  

and he does—see them, he means, with gemstone-facet clarity—when he goes about the tasks of the day; and he counts them; and he pens them on a bright yellow paper, one by one, and slots the name and the face into the capacious filing cabinet of his mind, ready for later perusal.

by the seventh dream, the current edition of his nightmare seethes behind his teeth and he’s unable to get his shoulders to relax anywhere past the flight response, and he feels downright poisonous, or near unraveling, or something like a monocarpic flower overfilled with exuberance and eager to shed every inch of itself at first light, petals-stem-roots-some plants do bleed-

as he’s rearranging the invisible walls around himself over a third cup of coffee and something-like-breakfast, he goes through the list of faces that jumped off this time. he thinks, not very kindly, about the distressing way the paltry lamplight had made their faces look like corpses: hollowed sockets, mouths hinged open, inhuman; and thereafter the thought segues into the way reality would have been if these scenes ever rang true: that there’s no recovering bloated and rotting bodies from waters that wild. that anything beyond that precipice belonged to the ocean and nothing more. that so many solitary rafts would have to set sail out on santhe’s bay, utterly empty.

he feels sick.

by the eleventh—

weakness.

not crumble-down-in-pieces weak, but susceptible weak. willfully-sticking-his-head-under-water weak. wanting-to-not-leave-his-bed-ever-again weak. a fucking-damn-it-all weak. a pathetic-teetering-hopelessness kind of weak; and so, so, so devastatingly weary. the physical exhaustion makes every inch of his muscles ache; the shape of his spine a bowstring drawn tight near breaking; his tendons quake with the exertion; there’s a semi-permanent burn, or an constant itch, slugging underneath the surface of his skin. the conduction of his nerves call a war council on devastation.

he has taken to sleeping like an animal: quick segues of slumber taken just about anywhere he could find some ambient noise away from the gloomy, silent forest, or anywhere with a smidgeon of privacy where he could unfocus his eyes from the shadows. on a couch sometimes, and sitting on the ground with his back to the column of his workshop, or with his head settled on his desk and his body contorted at an angle that he always regretted.

or supine on a blanket at the beach. he has started to think that if he buried enough of himself underneath the soft sand, if he could just stop from thinking about the inevitable futility of the attempt, and by sheer force of will force his heart to take a pause on its excessive race; perhaps try to sleep with his eyes open; and stop the filter of names on top of names from careening incessantly behind his eyelids…

he’s just bone-tired. he can’t stand to look at any lamps today. he can’t even look at anyone without searching for signs of water decay.

by thirteenth… he’s had just about enough.

he feels as though the fundamental tenets of his universe are liable to reconfigure themselves, and he’s numb to it now, isn’t he; and he’s going to let it happen, just like that, won’t he; and he will become a veritable vernal pool for the hungry and impenetrable and untameable dark; and these slowly familiar faces will regress into the staunch unknown after the cliff; and that terrifies him a little bit.

his has been a life of mundane tragedies: a steady and relentless ebb and flow of blessings and misgivings, of swallowing the world’s crystalline jagged edges and sometimes offering the space underneath the blanket in return instead of bile and blood and dreck; of jealously safeguarding the most unhealable and tender portions from the risk of slaughter— and of letting those he holds dear to use them as a feather-stuffed pillow, when the night was kind and beckoned them to rest.

… was this the point to all of it? to drag his tired feet to the opposite end of the hemisphere on the heels of an unimportant question, to file away a new assortment of interesting characters to crowd the shelves of the cabinet of his memories, only to—

to encroach him within the sum total of the worst parts of himself until the very thing that should have stayed untrue became factual? until their edges blurred so much that he’ll be unable to tell them apart? until he’s finally willing to stare at the impregnability of humanity and be able to say with furious conviction that this is nothing that he should care about? that there’s always a leap and an end, and that life goes on regardless?

but all those lessons in trust have taught him to wield his intuition like a bridle and to ride it as long as it remained north-star stable.

he rides on it instinctually. at the end of the thirteenth nightmare, he opens his grime-crusted eyes with some world-ending difficulty; and tastes at the air in his room with a dried mouth, chapped lips, concrete walls; and exhales into the dense silence all the dust of his nightmares and the winding thoughts that walk along with him, as he keeps wielding his intuition like a bridle into wakefulness. the listlessness is overwhelming… but he’s still willing.

it’s fine. he wouldn’t mind sleeping in a little more—sorely needs it, actually—but duty calls, and the houses are getting cold, there’s some cooking to be done; and he’ll have to make his rounds to catalogue the (hale-healthy-whole-leagues-above-the-sea) faces of velgrove, to ascertain reality and light-filled eyes; and some wood needs a bit of chopping, yeah? and they will not be doing that by themselves, right? ah well.

he knows everyone’s names by heart now. that much, at least, is now an indispensable and observable fact. he’ll put it to the test again and the nightmare will be take a break.

[velhaeil]

tw: death

coming to learn about the rafts and the strange ritual velgrove has for the departed had driven a heady and inarticulate sensation into haeil’s chest, back when he had first arrived and had had the chance to discuss a few matters with the mayor. but who was he to question how people observed their dead? he had known of a few other ways already—by fire, by ground, by preservation—and this one was just another notch to add to his collection of particular knowledge, as were the never-ending rumors…

that same shapeless feeling had reinstated its tenure inside of his sternum months afterwards, in the morning that yang sumyeong had come through his door while he was busy tallying his ledger and its accounts, with a unique job and an odd request. holding his pencil at the ends, between both index fingers and thumbs, and idly rolling it as haeil contemplated the town’s favorite rumor-subject, the decision hadn’t been too difficult to make. “yes,” haeil had said, “spare me an hour of your time whenever you can.” and who is he, really, to determine the shape of the handholds on someone else’s nightmare?

so haeil gave sumyeong quick instructions that first day and thereafter the man had just been quick to the uptake, much to his relief. it must have been the workload he has at the farm; a lot to do with the hands, when you’re burdening your shoulders with quite the laundry list of doings. speaking of that farm—

sumyeong, who apparently rarely said anything to anyone at any given time, save for when it was necessary, when it matters, surprisingly does find it within himself to start up the conversation when something mysterious in the air aligns just right.

they’re nearing the end of their day. sitting no further than a meter away from where he had left sumyeong to his task, haeil had been in the middle of wetting the oakum with tar, the bucket settled neatly between his feet, to use as caulking for the exposed crevasses of the raft when sumyeong had spoken up; and as per the rules of etiquette nailed onto every corner of his mind, haeil had subtly shifted in his seat to face him. he’s not certain what to make of sumyeong—not yet, anyway, other than assign a vague shape to whoever he is.

“i see.” he dips his hand into the tar and brings a glob of the liquid to sheath the fiber held in his other hand, casting casually, “are you asking me if it bothers you, to have had the choice taken from you? or do you think that you could've done anything else?”

let’s say haeil did manage to hear some rumors in the interim between his arrival and their meeting; let’s say that there’s a dried-up riverbed within the dreamer’s vale and, at finding it unnatural and dangerous, the people carved out an embankment to fill it up with sweat and tears and curses. with whose? who knows. haeil only has dirt beneath his nails, not the nebulous remnants of an ill-aimed thought.

what does rumor have, in a case like this one?

124GP20 (about a month and a half ago) ; the west-ward mill ; sumyeong n @velhaeil

something hums in sumyeong's veins as he shaves down the bark of the wood piece he works on - careful in how he shapes it with haeil's instructions at the forefront of his mind. it's therapeutic / the back and forth / sun beating on his back as it sets / daily goodbye / come too soon. sumyeong would never have imagined the relaxation that working at the mill would have brought him, but maybe it's the notion behind it that truly grounds him. 

mother, his beloved mother. the mother with cold eyes who looked at him with shame and guilt for his entire life. as much hurt that was there, absence of love and nurture, sumyeong found that a part of him wanted / needed / to help in the creation of her funeral raft. he doesn't know what it is that he's letting go of - the pain, the sadness, or the last dredges of love he ever held for her and his father. but whatever it was, sumyeong knew that the only way to let go was by making the raft that would set her free from velgrove. set her free from their past. set her free from him. 

and maybe, set sumyeong free too.

he appreciated that haeil approved his request to take part in the preparation of the raft. surely, invading the carpenter's space wasn't something that was done often. to let someone insert themselves in a space of craft, a place of business - sumyeong was thankful. though he still had much to learn of the carpenter, it was clear to sumyeong the man had a character that was respectable. 

"i didn't do this for my father." 

the confession slips from sumyeong with surprising ease. maybe he should feel some sort of way / hollow / shame / even a hint of remorse. but all he feels is at ease. 

"but i suppose there were enough people in town who took it into their own hands that it didn't matter if i took part or not. at least to my father." the last part comes delayed, as if sumyeong doesn't know if that part truly matters. maybe the confession was a question in disguise. sumyeong never did understand why outsiders were drawn to velgrove. especially those who stayed.

[velhaeil]

"did you hear that?"

something quiet and severe stalks the shadows; do you lock the door or let it in?

haeil waits, silently willing eudora to perhaps offer up a few more details to minimize the parameters of that query. he’s imagining that she’ll refer to the shuffling of leaves next to natural embankment of the still-glowing lake, or to the distant footfalls of various others stalking away further from this place, towards their proper homes, or to renew a patrol trail— something, anything, that he could try to stick an obvious affirmative on. truth is haeil is not certain that he can reliably confer with his own senses to confirm or deny whatever it is that could’ve caused a loud-enough sound that eudora would’ve picked up on.

having woken up to the same dim room in his cabin, to the same grayscale nightmare that’s laying siege on their small town, with a relentlessly bizarre sequence of dreams chasing away the fraying ends of unconsciousness . . .

well, it convinced haeil that he needs to be ever so preoccupied keeping his hands and his mind distracted with just about any frivolous chore available. thence their current task: to walk back to his shop to fetch an additional bundle of kindle for the library’s temporary residents, and for her to return to her cabin to recover something important.

haeil does not let distraction take over this time, jittery reality be damned. eudora has every wispy line of his attention now and he sidles closer to her until he’s a respectable distance from her; close enough to keep a low pitch on their conversation—all the better to listen, and to keep those supposed ears in the dark out of it. “i’m not sure if i heard the same as you. but we can turn back, or find some cover indoors nearby, and wait it out until we know what it is. unless…” less appealing to logic and coasting more towards unreasonable, he slams the door shut to overt caution, suggests “. . .it’s something you want to investigate?”

[velhaeil]

what is something you regret deeply?

this one is a puzzle piece that he turns over and over at his fingertips, unable to find where it would slot right into place. it is not something that gives by way of realization, or like yawning light burgeoning between the curtains. this thing with teeth and claws likes to rest rancorous in the belly of a shadow; rankles like a gouge-wound; slogs through a nightmare like an old friend. a six-letter word that distends from the center of the chest with its lines blurred and bleeding out, all of its applications willing to be repurposed for murder.

red & sore-mouthed & aching to be peeled open?

silence. in the barracks, in the warzone. a barrel clicks, unlocked. there is void in the infinite spaces, and it doesn’t talk back. leave it there.

[velhaeil]

if you had to pick between the two, would you choose the moon or the sun?

“yang misol, do you not color your hair with sunlight? no? moonlight, then? did you pluck our star from its perch in the sky to add some luminosity on your head?”

[velhaeil]

how does someone get closer to you?

“with time,” haeil might as well be a little honest today, seeing as he isn’t making any headway, all substantive effort and semi-use of his wits, into a well-loved paperback that had some sort of mystical beast with red eyes and red fangs on the cover. there’s a princess in the first chapter. he shuts it, flips it over, gazes at the back of the cover for all of ten seconds, then calmly settles it down on the table; pushes it far, far away—with the full length of his arm, to the center for any other oblivious takers.

he folds his hands, left on top of the right, on his lap, pursuing a wry thought as he angles to face his latest enquirer, “or if you don’t have any time to waste, then a plate of roasted honeyed sweet potatoes would yield the same result.”    

[velhaeil]

what is something you cannot live without?

habit helps keep haeil’s life from unraveling. despite the darkness, he has four letters to send this time. one of them reads:

myung panyn,

hello, you incorrigible demon. i hope this letter finds you smoldering in the pits of mrs. gim’s cow-dung infested backyard now and preferably for the length of your quickly shortening life. i know you’re the one who emptied my pocketbook five months ago. don’t trust your brother with secrets that should be taken to the grave. you owe me a heartfelt written apology, signed in blood, and a fastidiously detailed receipt of the expenses i incurred while you were off sowing hell around the city with your older sister. don’t worry—she will hear from me soon.

now, do you remember when i visited two years ago for your birthday and i brought you that bottle of new dai rice wine that you hounded me every single day for, because you were dying to try it again after your brilliant stint with the race horses, and you vowed to disown me forever if i dared to step foot on the island without it? well, i (joyously) regret to inform you that that particular distillery has been recently shut down for reasons i haven’t had the time nor the care to learn of. consequently, that brand of rice wine will soon taper out of existence.

i suggest—if you’re going to threaten me once again with absolute abandonment or any sort of painful manipulation that falls within that category—that you find yourself a new strange and near-unattainable treat to set your evil little heart on if you want me to bring it next year.

also, congratulations on your upcoming role in that play you mentioned in our call last month. you worked hard.

( and i expect to find your apology with the courier in two week's time if you want me to keep assuming that i still have a baby sister, even if she’s ancient at twenty-five and a fucking pain in my ass. )

break a leg, or an arm, or something, no-longer-your-favorite-and-loving-brother, m. haeil

[velhaeil]

who do you wish you could see right now?

whenever there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow.

as he’s ruminating loosely over that particular sentence, haeil swirls his coffee around his tin cup for a negligible amount of time, forgetting himself into a lean against the wall that had resulted in his left arm partially smothered against the wood of a bookcase. he takes it black, often with a meager serving of sugar if he has any. but the sugar basin was dutifully making its rounds hand to hand, neighbor to neighbor, by the time he required its contents. so, there’s no sugar in his coffee today. it doesn’t bother him. the bowl comes, and whenever there is a meeting. . .

the chatter crests to new high as more mouths join the circle. a light blue woven basket burdened with bread materializes from the ether; joins the bowl in the circuit, concentric purposes relighting the invisible path—hand to hand, friends to friends. a meeting followed by a departure.

haeil politely tunes in to the chatter for about one fourth of its duration, not really having a choice in the matter, seeing as his charges decide on the course of their day instead of him. he thinks he overhears someone mentioning dinner—but they’re hours early for that particular action.

a parting is sure to follow, even if it’s just a thought, or a sliver attention used like a soundboard to nod along when the timing calls for it. but haeil hadn’t even realized he had stopped listening entirely to the din of exchanges, subsequently losing track of the current topic— until misol startles him out his inertia with the question, coming about like that basket of bread to his right; and as he turns slightly to brace a head-on stare to her coltish eyes, something in his stomach makes a humiliating maneuver that painfully resembles a somersault—only with all the shock and none of the delight. it’s ridiculous. how could he not hear her come this close?

he says her name to replace the greeting, expels the thrum of the unexpected approach, says, “you’re really quiet when you want to be.” and it isn’t the first time he’s pinned that observation, but it is inaugural to remark on it outright.

the basket of goods is at hand, the very smell of it is absolutely delightful. her hands are empty, so he grabs the basket by the handle on its side and offers it to her, “did you know that the mind never forgets a face?” he says by way of an answer, dredging up something nearly rueful, next question, “memory doesn’t like goodbyes, or partings, but it’s a conclusion that’s just as sure as breathing. i’m sure you yourself have someone in mind. why don’t you remit them a loud hello? maybe they’ll hear it, wherever they are.”

sea bears foam; the sky reveals the color of the ocean; wherever, whenever, there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow; these observable particularities are tantamount to another fact: that the universe’s favorite shape is the spiral, and the golden ratio determines that while the scale of it could grow in size, the center will remain constant. likewise, people have spirals at their fingertips, and at the crown of their head, and in the molecules that make them human.

beginning at the center with a meeting, how do you perceive an absence when the shape of it, even when magnified in certain parts, remains the same? how do you miss something that spins on itself forever, cradled safely within memory?

go on, yang misol, why don't you pass the bread to someone else.

[velhaeil]

tell me two lies and one truth.

“all right. eudora, was it? one moment—” he’s tipping the edge of the bowl to dredge up the last of his stew into his mouth, still hungry, and exhausted, starving, starving, “in no particular order,” he continues as he sets the bowl aside on the table, plants both feet on the ground to fix his posture, turns to eudora—dark gold, and curious, and foreign—with an amused arch on his brow and a settled stomach “i never lie to the people i love, and i can juggle up to seven objects at a time, and i have never had a drink.”

[velhaeil]

— event 001 / the vanishing if you had to pick between the two, would you choose the sun or the moon?

“do you always wait until the third drink to start the idle chatter?” haeil will humor him, obviously, as he oft does after the tension finally, finally, unzips from his shoulders; as he sits with his legs extended and crossed at the ankles on a makeshift cot he made for himself in a quiet corner, behind the physics section, of the overly crowded shelter. it is a coincidence that the back door exit is right next to him. unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to slip away, back home.

it’s just water in his cup. it’s nearly four in the morning. haeil is still parched and he has not slept a wink—hopes, or expects, that graves won’t mind that he will keep his eyes, red-ringed in fatigue, unfocused for this one. a strange, darkened velgrove is making him act all tetchy, like he’s taking his chances between hellfire and moonlight and the odds aren’t terribly clear on which he will find at the end of the line. he hadn’t recognized his own reflection looking back at him when he had looked into the lake, trailing after the reflection of the sun, hands down under.

so he sits, sits, sits; revises how to make a crude torch out of the leftovers of today’s (yesterday’s?) collection of unusable firewood; thinks on the wounds he left on several of the standing trunks behind his cabin; on the small plates and buckets he left to collect the ooze of resin as the forest starts the mending.

he would like it if he could peer out of the windowpane and see the light splashing carelessly, over all the things that don’t matter.

“i choose the sun,” haeil answers simply, “it helps the silkworms grow into maturity.”

sun, like the little circle scribbles he leaves his nieces right next to their names in the letters he writes to them every month. sun, like the heat of the sand that warms and quenches fire in equal measure. the sun, that which lacks the quality of dreams; lacks absence; that which grows furious and free, far from blindness.

[velhaeil]

do you believe in velgrove's wishing well?

“miss yang. . .” maybe some people really do find solace in the impossible— promoted to improbable, now, on account of the current state of their sky. after an interlude of silence, aiming a rather confused stare to the curls framing her face, haeil approaches her with an extra gas lamp in hand, and he gives it to her without explaining himself; then he uses his newly freed hand to shepherd her towards the library, away from the lakefront.

but it goes like that, yeah? if you don’t look at crisis and assign it a name; if you don’t give a face to calamity, then who’s to say that they’re not all collectively dreaming? what is there beyond the blight in the dark? what is there in the night that can look at them without eyes? what is there at the bottom of barrel, or at the bottom of that strange lake, or at the mouth of that fabled well? a scene on the lid of a sleeper’s eye, that well, haeil thinks and shrugs his shoulders, and insists for her to usher on inside, “you know, i’m tempted to say that i do think it’s out there. when we find it, i think we should ask it to clear the air. now go on before the cold gets you.”

[velhaeil]

A NOTICE ON THE BOARD:

the lumber shop will be operating under a special schedule as the issues with electrical grid persist. it’ll be open from 8am to 12md, every day, including sundays. all major projects will be paused to preserve the stock of kindle and firewood, and no trips will be made further into the interior section of the forest until the darkness abates. whether i’m present or not, feel free to take a few bundles home or to your shelter, as usual, at no cost. at this time, the bundles will be stacked inside, immediately to the right of the front door. the door will remain open; please refrain from closing it.

remember: don’t walk alone.

[velhaeil]

substantiation; waking with a head overgrown as the forest, and using that blank world to reinvent oneself

downtown: @velxgraves, red fox tavern, "make a snake bite its tail". triggers: tba

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if the center of the current world is settled in velgrove, then first to the east, then southwards then to east once more is the eastern metropolis of londai. the slumberless londai impresses its might from any given angle except from the top of the mountain range—an account of which haeil hasn’t had the pleasure to get his hands on yet. anyone knows of anyone that has braved that beastly chasm of the earth? not him. so, by lack of witnesses and stories on paper, barring west, the façade of the city proper is impressive only from the north, the east, and the south. in londai, nestled somewhat off-center of the heart of its wheel-spoke roads, there stands the most imposing cathedral haeil had ever laid eyes on. and if memory serves him true, somewhere along the eastern entrance of the city stands the state university and its corollaries, the residence halls, and its bustling library.

time passes. cogs shift. it’s been four years since haeil last set foot in that vibrant city, and more than a decade since he staggered head-first into his first disenchantment with his craft within those stately walls. he could still remember how stale the air had been, when refuge was a seat in a dark corner of that library instead of the bench near a birch tree; when whittling down the endless hours meant keeping himself hunched over his personal copy of the cathedral’s blueprints, ensnared in a dream and a thought. interrupted by strange, idle conversation, from a face he hadn’t known.

yesterday, haeil had taken a seat at his desk and had brought the phone—a weathered candlestick model left behind by the cabin’s previous tenant that he actually really likes— to rest exactly seven centimeters to his right because he writes quicker with the left, in order to tackle his laundry list of “little things to lose time on”. he had made three calls: to the general store to inquire about the availability of vellum paper and the timeframe for acquisition; to the library, to let them know that he did not, in fact, launch the latest copy of some dodgy romance novel into santhe’s very safe waters after the protagonist died at the end, and that he’ll return it the day after tomorrow; and to one red fox tavern (“grave hands?”, chimed the confused operator right back. “no,” haeil had patiently said, “red fox tavern. but yes, that’s the one.”) to inform its keeper that he would be there by ten thirty in the morning, at the latest.

it wasn’t a lie. haeil was there, armed with a few accruements of his craft (knife in one pocket, pencil in the other), knocking at the door of the tavern at ten twenty three, morning-time, after he had analyzed the property in the two times he had allowed himself to circle it. he plasters on an easy and polite smile that’s a thousand times overused, another tool of the trade, and the slightest edges of it crack when an unknown suddenly becomes known; when a sense of déjà vu gut-punches him suddenly and he has to stand for an abrupt second after that door opens, recollecting pieces of—something. maybe of pattern recognition; and just as quickly letting the mental intrusion trickle away with no consequence.

recomposure comes swiftly, the slight a wisp of marsh gas now, and haeil extends a hand and reintroduces himself. he says, “graves. good to see you. do you have an attic, by any chance?”, he doesn’t say: show me the place where the light flickers first; nor does he spit out a say, now that i’m actually looking at you, have we met before? but he gazes somewhere past the man with the unknown but known face, well-mannered as ever, but reluctant to put the recognition to the test. he continues, “i also have some terrible but not-so-terrible news. ask me about it after you grant me a look inside.”