gods and beasts
lagoon
I arrived overnight. The villagers stood about, scratching their heads in the morning sun, wondering how the great pool suddenly appeared. “A mammoth wave?” wondered one; “An isolated downpour?” another.
Ha, no.
They did not hesitate long. Soon, children splashed about, dove down, tried to find the bottom. Sunbathers lounged on my lip. I blinked slowly, lest they see. There was joy; they did not know.
And as long as they do not know, I will remain, content in their content.
flowing
It hangs from the back of his head like the arched neck of a swan. Golden, glowing, vibrant, it sways with each swing of his hips, each stride of his legs.
Does he have legs?
All I see is his hair, its cadence unceasing, a slow carriage ride, a creaking rocking chair on the porch, birds whistling, sunbeams browning my arms, weighting my eyelids.
Does he have eyelids?
The crowd is powder. I blow until it’s just us; he leads, I follow (was my body powder too?), yes, I follow, across Byrggn Square, down the alley where the skeletal statue turns its head, watches him open his door and enter, and his door is wide and black, and he disappears but for his golden hair, and I follow, reach, and he turns, finally, and his teeth glisten and drip as they part and
whale
Long ago, the Verdunkeln’s mist gathered and drifted up into the sky. It was so dense, we could no longer see the forest. A white wall ended the earth.
The fog spread, a neverending cloud, burying us. Once calm men and women shouted as the shadow crawled over the city. To preserve sanity, we ran to the peak of the Old Guard.
There, we reached up and touched the haze. Some spoke of igniting the forest, burning the vapor away.
But then our bones rumbled. The Guardians shook. A single note, deep as a heartbeat, resounded.
Above, a black leviathan swam the mist. We fell to our knees. My chest was a void, and I watched the thing pass from within. A red symbol, many pointed, burned on its belly, poured fire. And all the while, that heartbeat… Gods, that heartbeat…
werewolf
Twig had had enough. The boy had prodded her one too many times. He sneered at her now, his nostrils aflare, his eyes like little dancing deer pellets.
This would be the first time any but her parents saw.
She shivered as her nerves sparked. Bone broke through the tips of her fingers. Her spine stretched and hooked. Waves of red marked the boy’s heat, brightening as the thumps in his chest quickened.
As always, the phosphorous scent accompanied the change.
She took a single step forward. He howled and scurried into the misty wood.
Good. Something else would get him. The guilt wouldn’t be hers.
rats
It’s not the rats that scare me. It’s what they often drag behind them.
Nevertheless, I sit at the fountain in Byrggn Square most nights, feeding them.
They peek from the windy alleys, hurry across the cobblestones, scurry over my feet and up my legs. I run my nails through their crusted fur. Sometimes I bathe them in the fountain.
No, it’s not the rats that scare me. It’s the flesh they bring clenched between their teeth. The shreds of fingers and ears. Once or twice, an eyeball with its pink cord, still revolving, still seeing.
Do they have another friend who cares for them? Someone other than me?
serpent
Harold Quarl lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, remembering the dream.
He’d been looking out the window when the glass trembled. In the distance, the snow-capped peaks of the Old Guard shrugged. For a moment, two great eyes with pupils like black sickles peeled open in the mountain. Though static, they saw all they needed to see in that short time; then they vanished into the shadowed crags.
When a red sun lit Lumen Marcia just enough, Quarl got out of bed and walked to the same window. He stood just as motionless as the great eyes, watching the Old Guard for a long time.
Alien
I’ve heard you’re safer staying inside at night. But you’re not. Not with them.
You can be tucked into bed, as I was, and still they visit.
There’s just a quick vibration in the air—more so than usual, I mean—and they’ll be standing there. A brief phasing, maybe, like there are two of them, merging into one.
They say nothing. They said nothing to me. They just turn their elongated necks and shake their heads slowly. Their eyes glint when they look directly at you.
A snap, and they’re gone.
And you wonder, and wonder, when they’ll be watching again. If they’re watching now, just outside your sight. If next time, they’ll do more than watch.
Pumpkin
I’ve always hated the way they look. What belies their plump, unassuming nature is the twisting strands of viscera, stretched in nightmarish webbing like some caked affliction.
The way they sprout up with such glee… Bulbous tumors, taking all the color and warmth of the world with them.
Have you felt them? They are warm and solid, but the flesh is alive, and a dull thump emits when you give them a rattle. Don’t be fooled, though; they are not empty. I tell you now, they are seeded with intention, finding a way into us all with that sweet smell.
The rats eat of them.
The bats eat of them.
The people of Orleonce ate of them.
My love ate of them.
And that terrible ochre now stains my son’s lips and fingers.
Soon he will shrivel until his eyes are but globular sacks. His toothless mouth will suck on the soil, begging for its riches. When he is naught but viny flesh, his skin will blister until the buboes erupt from his body, heavy and bright and unassuming.
Silence
When Lumen Marcia was still young, the Long God grew enraged.
Thick snowflakes fell as the Ganz Machen battled the titan at the forest’s edge. Cannons and other things flared and rocked the white-powdered earth. The poles sang with use.
Some Lumarcians took to the Old Guard. Others huddled and watched from rooftops. If the Long God broke the line, they were finished, whether they hid or not.
The footprints appeared on the third day. There were six, close together, making their way from the mountains through the city streets, slow, unfaltering.
Those on the rooftops leaned over and watched with open mouths.
As the footprints neared the Verdunkeln, the titan’s roar ceased. Its back heaved as it regarded the snow. The Ganz Machen shouldered their weapons, vapor issuing from their masks.
The Long God sank back into the earth and has kept to itself since.
Visit the drowned church.