And if dragons ruled the air, and mermen swam in the seas,
If men flew, and shapeshifters changed from one form to another,
Would we not in time grow familiar with these things,
And wonder that there were no miracles in the world?
Friday, 19 June 2009
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Gypsy Ball
... but of course, that turned out to be a lie.
Sometimes we do want to know the future; we want it now,
Not in 10 years time
(The photos online, how wonderful everyone looked)
We want to know the ending,
The spoiler in a good book
So that we can cry
or feel empty
or smile
or wish that things had been different
Just to know how we should move on, or how we should remain hopeful still...
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Snakeskin
June 24th 10:42 am
I wake. The duvet is heaped around me. I smell of sweat and alcohol. My mouth is dry; my tongue feels awful. What happened last night? I get up, go into the bathroom and swill my mouth with water, splash it on my face and stare at my face in the mirror. Pale, sallow skin, bloodshot eyes. What have I become?
June 25th 11:02 am
I feel strange, like there's a bit of me missing deep inside. I think about you; what you might be doing now, where you might be. The blame is mine, I know this. How I wish I could take back time. I go back to sleep.
June 25th 11:40 am
The alarm goes and I wake suddenly. My sleep was troubled - I dreamed a dream in which naked women twisted and contorted like snakes, hairless men thrusting themselves into mouths and groins alike, and in the midst of it all the witch, dressed in black with her long crooked nose. She reminds me of the wicked witch in that old black-and-white film of the Wizard of Oz, but she looks older, more dangerous. She stares at me, always at me, as though waiting for me to do something, to say something, to make some kind of choice.
June 26th 9:04 am
The feeling of emptiness is growing. It's as though there is a hollow space in the centre of my chest, just below my heart. What did I do last night? I cannot remember anything, just that I went to bed when the Sun was beginning to lighten the sky.
June 27th 9:35 am
The hollow has grown. I can see it now - my chest has expanded around the diaphragm. I feel a pressure inside. I do not go to work.
June 28th
The witch stands in front of me, staring into my eyes. I am naked, but as I look down at my body, it seems unreal. My trunk is rounded and smooth - only the belly button stands out. There is something wrong with my genetalia - the foreskin is not there, and there is no difference between the flesh that forms the top and the shaft. There is no eye at the end of it. It looks like a putty model of what it should be, not the real thing.
The witch lifts her hand, puts one long nail up to the base of my neck, and draws the finger down my chest. The skin opens like the zipper on a jumpsuit, hanging apart like folds of flesh-coloured rubber.
I look down and see the darkness that has been growing inside me. I seem to be staring into a well of infinite depth, as though it extends into some other dimension that mankind is not yet aware of, and it is blacker than any darkness I have ever known.
But as I look, it seems as though even this darkness is not complete. At the bottom of this hole, there seems to be a spark - a single pinpoint of light so intense and complete that the darkness cannot stand its presence, fleeing from it like clouds of smoke whipped away by the wind.
I look back up. The witch has gone. I am alone in my bathroom, my chest hanging open. I look for a moment at my face in the mirror, then into the blackness once more. The spark is still there, and I allow myself to fall forwards into it.
When phone-calls from family and friends, work and the rental agency had gone unanswered for several weeks, they finally broke down the door to the flat. But he was gone, vanished without trace. The reports said that the flat had been neat and clean, everything arranged orderly and tidily, except for a thin film of dust covering most of the surfaces. There was no note, nothing to explain what had happened.
The strangest thing, however, was what the report stated was found in the bathroom. It was what appeared to be the shed skin of a giant snake, dry and crackling and paper-thin, of a species that experts from the University could not identify. It became something of a local legend, and was placed in the museum for all to marvel at, until one day the wardens of the museum entered to find it gone, and all that was left of it was a small pile of ashes in the base of the glass cabinet.
I wake. The duvet is heaped around me. I smell of sweat and alcohol. My mouth is dry; my tongue feels awful. What happened last night? I get up, go into the bathroom and swill my mouth with water, splash it on my face and stare at my face in the mirror. Pale, sallow skin, bloodshot eyes. What have I become?
June 25th 11:02 am
I feel strange, like there's a bit of me missing deep inside. I think about you; what you might be doing now, where you might be. The blame is mine, I know this. How I wish I could take back time. I go back to sleep.
June 25th 11:40 am
The alarm goes and I wake suddenly. My sleep was troubled - I dreamed a dream in which naked women twisted and contorted like snakes, hairless men thrusting themselves into mouths and groins alike, and in the midst of it all the witch, dressed in black with her long crooked nose. She reminds me of the wicked witch in that old black-and-white film of the Wizard of Oz, but she looks older, more dangerous. She stares at me, always at me, as though waiting for me to do something, to say something, to make some kind of choice.
June 26th 9:04 am
The feeling of emptiness is growing. It's as though there is a hollow space in the centre of my chest, just below my heart. What did I do last night? I cannot remember anything, just that I went to bed when the Sun was beginning to lighten the sky.
June 27th 9:35 am
The hollow has grown. I can see it now - my chest has expanded around the diaphragm. I feel a pressure inside. I do not go to work.
June 28th
The witch stands in front of me, staring into my eyes. I am naked, but as I look down at my body, it seems unreal. My trunk is rounded and smooth - only the belly button stands out. There is something wrong with my genetalia - the foreskin is not there, and there is no difference between the flesh that forms the top and the shaft. There is no eye at the end of it. It looks like a putty model of what it should be, not the real thing.
The witch lifts her hand, puts one long nail up to the base of my neck, and draws the finger down my chest. The skin opens like the zipper on a jumpsuit, hanging apart like folds of flesh-coloured rubber.
I look down and see the darkness that has been growing inside me. I seem to be staring into a well of infinite depth, as though it extends into some other dimension that mankind is not yet aware of, and it is blacker than any darkness I have ever known.
But as I look, it seems as though even this darkness is not complete. At the bottom of this hole, there seems to be a spark - a single pinpoint of light so intense and complete that the darkness cannot stand its presence, fleeing from it like clouds of smoke whipped away by the wind.
I look back up. The witch has gone. I am alone in my bathroom, my chest hanging open. I look for a moment at my face in the mirror, then into the blackness once more. The spark is still there, and I allow myself to fall forwards into it.
When phone-calls from family and friends, work and the rental agency had gone unanswered for several weeks, they finally broke down the door to the flat. But he was gone, vanished without trace. The reports said that the flat had been neat and clean, everything arranged orderly and tidily, except for a thin film of dust covering most of the surfaces. There was no note, nothing to explain what had happened.
The strangest thing, however, was what the report stated was found in the bathroom. It was what appeared to be the shed skin of a giant snake, dry and crackling and paper-thin, of a species that experts from the University could not identify. It became something of a local legend, and was placed in the museum for all to marvel at, until one day the wardens of the museum entered to find it gone, and all that was left of it was a small pile of ashes in the base of the glass cabinet.
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