I'm a peacock on a road

it's taken a while, but the good memories are coming on

all that cement, and then the stone, scorpions poisoned springs

there were words that were pictures of another tongue

i think of the smiling faces among the barbed warnings

a subset of the females was eager to bring you in

they could announce their thirst with bright scarves whereas the men

were so undercover you might mistake them for border patrol guys

working an angle down at the same bar as the wandering eyes

off the same parking lot as the hooptie-tel and the vittle grill 

you can get your mom across or get off with your cousin's boss

there's dim lights and cold drinks like any dive in the heat sink

a private betting parlor more than a moment to think for a wayside crawler

there's a highway runs through

but it cuts us in two

there's a bridge, but it's costly to use

i'm a peacock on a road

you're the last horned toad

in a place that only we knew

by Silvia

Shouting Moons

The Shouting Moons are simply whichever moon or moons are prominent at the time of the regulatory shouting, which is always conducted during Days of Destruction, which can be announced at any time by the Mthyuh Preservation Society.  

Important shimmering of the regulatory codex happens between partisan representatives either in different parts of heavily wooded areas or at the edges of adjacent cliffs or even sometimes in abandoned bone nests, which can hang from the cliffs as long as the rock can hold them. 

K's peering from the occupied nests lounging in caves or soaring above keep mostly quiet during Days of Destruction. Legend holds that the festival was designed for that reason: to hypnotize Mthyuh's hosts.

They wanted and needed to hypnotize K's not to have a big party but so that they could get done all the doables they couldn't do as random prey owing to the burdensome and costly precautions they had to take in order to take turns in an orderly fashion to calculate who can have a chance to be eaten next, and so on. 

Plus, even a single K's earsplitting HAHAHA and its wingspan against the sun, creating temporary climactic changes and blinding darkness, all of that had an effect on overall sanity, even of pets, and this was the most caring respectful traditional way possible to get Ks to just stop. 

Flekes themselves of course don't make critical inquiry upon their own generational habits and mostly consider the rather low chance of a violent, live blood sacrifice the least of their worries. The specter of living to a very old age is the greater terror.

The partisan fleke representatives shimmer the codex during the Shouting Moons from forest meadow to forest meadow or cliff to cliff and they must conduct the regulatory negotiations only by shouting back and forth as loudly as they can. This tends to keep the messages short and heartfelt. They all know the festival is only a weekend long. But they have needs, which tend to be generously met if they can get them across and back again, sometimes heavily depending on the winds. 

The partisan fleke representatives must wear very bright robes as a sign that they are vulnerable and evocative to Ks and that their spiritual duties always come first. Again, these details are not on their minds at all. It's just another day for them. Some might find all of this fascinating and even life changing if they ever sat down to reflect on or read about it if, no that isn't fair: reading's not a thing for them. Maybe they might talk about it with another fleke on a break or, it is said, share it with their faces only. 

During the Shouting Moons it's very important that you remain as still and quiet as possible. Ks nodding out during DoD can wake up. The whole idea is that everyone cooperate at this time, even guests. Allow Mthyuh's hosts to feel the tingling in their spines and pyncos. They say the regulatory shouting first started when the early flekes figured out how to distract a K for a few minutes by shouting at it simultaneously from adjacent hilltops. Eat me first! That is how that famous chant became part of the fleke daily parlance, especially during volca, when one may shout out Eat met first! and it's never a non sequitur. This wish must be at front of mind. 

More on the communicative skillset

They seem to show one another their teeth and the insides of their mouths a lot. Does this contribute to their violence. 

They're expressing themselves or sending a message. 

False messages with their teeth. How do you know when they'll attack?

You really don't but you have to also send messages with your facial plates and central mouth.

So complicated much more than if i would just be feeding them to Mthyuh.

Our objective is more sophisticated and social not nutrition.

I'll call it diplomacy. For this i can learn their false language. To serve lachama. 

Remember they also know how you taste. 

Yes after cooking. Or they walk around using our scalp thorns as penile implants.

This is the place to air those grievances for now. With me. And thorn farms come from barns and cause no harm.

They come from barns these thorns how so. 

Think sponge sores that grow on cairns or warts on toes. They rear your horn cells in rows and harvest them like corn.

An attempt to talk missy down

Why is it that you lack the basics of physics and so much else?

I went to MPS school. They said our regular subjects were permanently suspended due to end of days. 

The days had already ended? 

Well no silly then it would all be moot. 

Do they still say that in MPS school? 

I don't know. I am here to escort a flock to the end of days. Without looking back.

A flock of. 

Pilgrims. All are welcome but few would survive long without knowing how to work the scripture. 

The pils are born for that. 

They say i was too but i'm a free agent now. Yeah. I take the stipend but that's all. 

Not every crospee gets that. 

Depends on what it is you're half of. Same as all the flekes get. 

That's how they work it. 

Ya. 

You sort of look like a frail old giraffe. 

Well. You have to pay to get here, and my youth was all i had. 

How can i follow you if yer looking back Hank.

Where you wanna go Joe.

I donno yor a taxi not a beacon?

Just another guy on the path Jack.

Then what was all that training for.

I can see the path can you.

No but i don't believe in a path i wanna believe in you.

That's yor issue Sue. 

You seem so smug despite heading for the edge Jed.

Someone's got to occupy the borderlands Jan. 

by Phyliss, embedded [trans.]

Tomorrow at Dawn

The deceased asks that you permanently destroy all and any evidence that this funeral or her life ever took place. Please respect her eternal privacy at this time and for all time. 

If you purchased clothing or jewelry for this day, be so kind as to drop it into the furnace shoot near the exit of mausoleum, which is only a pop-up shop and will disappear also with no trace immediately after the close of services. 

Remember that Donna spent her last living moments trusting you and taking comfort in your pre-mortem agreements. 

How can you be held accountable? There are no lawyers. By your conscience. Idiot. 

That's it? 

Yes what do you think. 

I think you're not dying any more than anyone is. 

And while there are those who'll care...

They won't care more than they would for another bloke. 

This is precisely why I don't think they'll mind signing on.

It doesn't help insulting them in the end does it?

That is my projected answer if any participant touches the How Can I Be Held Accountable icon.

Wouldn't you touch it out of curiosity?

Sure, I'd wonder how she'd had the spunk to assume we'd ask that question, especially if our signatures were so important to her. 

And your answer?

That it doesn't take spunk to know that plenty of folks will touch the icon just because it's there. Right, that part's out of the scheme. But the rest launches as per tradition by smoke signal. Tomorrow at dawn.

And then? 

And then, we wait. 

Sonic remnant trace dump B0003033

Location: Patio
Thought to be: Dr. Thong + "Mike"
by Phyllis [trans.]

Destruction is a door

destruction is a door and so much more

malfunction is but a single way of many

sabotage being other-oriented limits one

may your every thought and gesture from

this moment going on be soulless madness 

not hateful not partisan not with pleasure

may you disestablish disintegrate and 

encourage facial gladness in your peers

the end will come the foretold end of the

foretelling of that which has been foretold

and it can be in you the end is dwelling

and for once the strongest forces ever seen 

will not only not live but also no longer be

except for completely and thankfully

blank in a vast gap at the end of history

Voice of La Chama

cartoon

On the topic of trying to better animate my face, what exercises perhaps or massage schemes would you suggest. 

As you know Missy i am a newly trained hygienist so i do not pretend to assume what will or will not work for any trans-species client. 

You would not carry the pretense of replacing anyone on my nursery team or even my entire nursery team come your first day on the scaffolding. 

I believe we are on the same page then. How about an exercise. 

Ok then. I am all yours-y if you can handle it. 

Remembering that I am not able to receive your thoughts by channel of our minds only, try instead to communicate a thought by moving your facial plates in any way that seems most expressive of those thoughts. 

More likely i could possibly convey an emotion as they do in a cartoon. 

Sure, that would be a great start actually! 

...

Are you doing it now?

...

Oh good nodding, that is a universal signal in the public domain that you can always make use of when you mean either yes or no.

Is that it for today then?

...

Did you get that?

Oh lamthyuh, how could i understand?

But you did. You could tell i wanted to know if we are done with this crap for now.

But how.

I can aim and calibrate my facial plates to your own labyrinth of subtle muscular fascia which totally gives away everything you're thinking,

What happened?

They figured out how to pump cool air up from the tombs. They planted a tree that could only grow in cool weather near the top of the pipe and let it grow into a symbol and they began to worship it. Maybe it was a symbol of the spirit hope resilience etc. The generations started relying on the tree to explain what they couldn't didn't want to. In turn their own growth was stunted. And then the pump stopped working. As the tree died there was social upheaval drunkenness stupidity. Religious factions grew more cruel and warlike. Then somebody planted a native tree in the same place and it thrived without the still frigid air of the tombs so it became a fascist rallying point. It had to be only geological fascism because of the diversity of the community. Then the boundaries of the master plot came into question and many suffered and died lidderly on the boundary line itself so it was hard to tell what side they had been on. 

Trees started popping up everywhere with the accompaniment of fervid claims that it was the original tree or grown from a cutting or whatever of the original replacement tree. Groups described as terrorists started planting even more trees clandestinely until they were basically living in a forest of hearty native trees probably more what it looked like before they had come in and cut them down to grow food. The economy started getting worse because eating of the sacred trees was not allowed and there was no room for other food to roam or grow. Many were imprisoned for trying to lick the trees or strip and boil the bark of the trees even though they had never been grown or developed as food before. Why can't we eat the trees was the echoing question even though everyone knew that the answer was that we can't eat the trees because they taste bad and lidderly cannot sustain life other than their own. 

Then The Crack spilled open like an ugly seed pod and there were actual foreigners everywhere buying up the trees and the land and the tombs. The natives started to lash themselves to the trees live in the trees give them names as if they had always lived together in harmony with these trees and were as one with their heartiness and value. They made a rule that any time a purchase of a tree or a piece of land was made trans-Crack the resident of the property from which the tree grew or the resident living in the tree itself must also be purchased and promised lifegiving sponsorship for life and also for their generations. In this way the natives who had invented the pump and planted the cool weather tree and worshiped the tree until first the pump and then the tree was dead and progressed to fascism and then despair became more highly sought after as living resources than any tree or archeological find anywhere in the Known Crack even though they only degraded all of the lives they came in contact with and lived as idle parasites in many of the worlds for millennia. 

my struggle

In attempting to translate the random pigeonization and often mind-only chatter within the diversity of species and communities that share rhetorical moments behaviors decipherable codes or patterns here in the Greater Chanks Phenomena, I come upon a number of challenges obstacles. 

All questions of believability or or you know unreliable narrator etc. are obviously moot because I am the only person that we know of obviously who can do this and I certainly did not you know want this to be my dream job. 

Right, you might not normally think about me at all, my needs, who am I. That just means I'm doing the work at a good basic level. So please don't even reflect further on this topic. 

But perhaps for linguists or historians, the obstacles challenges can be roughly gathered from among these categories:

The tasteless vs. no-taste spectrum

My own prior knowledge skills or lack thereof in mathematics or the sciences or advanced levels of just about any topic

My own personal disregard, ultimately, for a reader's comfort respect or even understanding

My own vast deficiencies in capacity to understand or accurately describe these anomalies

The temptation to prescribe a template of my/our own value systems to a transdimensional context but what else can I do? 

Rise in affective filter while in MPS restraints. Remote muscular positioning gets me into the seat and facing the mirror and knowing that what i record must be contributive to destruction but my resentment at the mandatory nature of the task the punitive consequences for not carrying it out cannot help but trigger some fog of recreation. 

by Phyllis (embedded)

meditation on a fixed point

lavajraja both predicts and accomplishes total destruction

la vajra is a weapon and a darma and a universal microcosm

she is truth not love or only love of truth but truth for sure

she is everywhere so outside of time but the source of time

the mystery at the center of her spinning is my same mystery

it's not more valuable because it stops because she doesn't stop

there is no recycling of charnel beyond the gastric ministry of

la Mthyuh no afterlife of the soul because the only soul is la

Mthyuh and your precious journey to her bowel is lavajraja

even a dog can say vajraja by flapping its jaw but it does not

live by vajraja it is only charnel and not holy due to ignorance

but he is vajraja and his life need not prove an allegiance to 

what he is already a sentient being who is and can say vajraja

Missy

manual course correction

We're looking at you right now, and it seems pretty obv what the deal is. 

Good because i could tell something was wrong there was a sound i tried to describe when we first spoke, if you remember, like a

Yes i recall that

Ok right that high weeeeeeeeee sound. And am i supposed to veer directly into the path of adversity?

Haha, well it's just that your autopilot is pretty jacked. 

Whut? 

At this moment it is trying to take you places you don't wanna go.

Well what's that gonna cost me?

...

...

It's hard to estimate the costs to you. If you're committed to going forward in this vehicle, it'll mean waking up, looking up, coming up for air, whatever you're doing, and just check in on how things are going and probably including a lot of manual course correction even braking. It just depends on how consciously and responsibly you want to live your life even if it's only yourself you have to take care of. 

I mean what's the charge. What are you charging me for this in shiny coins. 

Oh, no charge ma'am. 

Whu-whut? 

Ya, like i said, it can't be fixed. Just keep an eye out and drive like it's yesterday. 

No, i mean why did you call me ma'am. 

by Reptily-ily

"It's a Take!"
Chukka Chank Screenwriting Festival
Table 12 Leader: Vinnette Cotidiene

She had been devalued by the light of the True Moons

She had gone to the festival like all the other drunken daredevils with their shiv-stained lips and hurricane-party approach. She had stood in the light just as foretold, and she was changed forever. From her own internal point of view. And therefore others climbed on that too. 

It felt like a normal light, as you'd get from a public oracle dispenser on white. But it had another purpose (we can infer for our own purposes despite complete unknowing being the moons' central fact): a purpose to make so clear as to be horrific, hell-like. 

It didn't just illuminate, and it burned, but only inside; it provoked some genetic changes that had been dormant to date. And would have remained so. 

I heard there were those who didn't turn away. 

Ya, there were the ones who stared as if i'd been asked a question i couldn't answer, and then they couldn't stay.

Because they didn't understand what was happening to you? 

No, because they could see the answer. They could see everything. 

So the ones who didn't turn away

The ones who didn't turn away just didn't give a shit i guess. 

Both: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 

No, but I'm saying, it devalued me. The light did. Sure it put me in a pantheon but where the other ones are dead.

So many others were made holy-hideous in the True Moons. 

Mostly flekes and the guy at the festival who was trying to save me. But i already had a place in the temple. I didn't need MPS to create a whole other branch to embrace my disfigurement. 

That's what you say now, Tilly. 

from "My True Moons Story" from "Hangar Hangs With Big Jan"
by Reptily [Phyliss, trans.]

True Moons

3. "True Moons"

The True Moons bring social upheaval across cultures at measurably higher levels than any other moons phase. These five moons congregate to create an intensity of light very close to that of our sun in a very narrow beam on unlucky persons places things, which immediately become too hideous to view, much less contemplate. As the moons wane, insanity can ensue. The beam's inexorable and unknowing trajectory leaves heartbreak and often suicide or land devaluation in its wake.

There is no True Moons festival. La Chama's famous speech named for the occasion is hypothetical, explaining the use of the article "a" instead of "the" to name the phantasmagorical event, as one would cite a fairy tale in a sermonette. 

Instead, lights are out and eyes are shut far before sunset across the Greater Chanks Area throughout this time. Sensitive persons should either take precautions against or heartily welcome deep vein thrombosis and sluggishness during True Moons. 

What seemed to be dead

As bright as any life-giving sun, ours shines a light that's

cold and desolate without the moons' generous translations

And where else but in a context of darkness?

In there we seek and uncover associations and recreations.

Only in the folds of unknowing can we find the space for

deep violet or maroon or escape from tyrannous reason

your dreams are the prisons you make for 

facts that don't fit disappear under examinations.

As the sun sets and the All becomes much more clear

We can shut our eyes and see that there aren't many differences

between what passes for alive and random projections

how what seemed to be dead drives your need for protections

 

by La Chama [Phyliss, trans.]
from "On the Occasion of a True Moons Festival"

Three Same Moons

2. "Three Same Moons"

The Three Same Moons festival, in remote Dubba Berra Chank, is distinct in that tourists, who are almost universally on their way to the Fire Shores Medical Museum & Scarification for a once-only lifetime pilgrimage and either get lost or have to stop anyway, arrive in Swirling Ponde dazed by travel and hunger, and by chance just as the procession toward the towne centre is getting underway, and are taken in by the elaborate costumes and somewhat menacing but compelling bell shaking and drum battering. A highly decorated adult bull would be at the front of the noisy caravan, trying to shake off his own bells, his own flowers. 

Three Moons is also the seasonal festival most likely to be left uncompleted by virtue of the ever-refreshing crowds of guests, how little word travels about the goings on at a sacred spot, and those innocent, bucolic opening moments of what turns out to be a march up to the ancient stupa at towne centre, surrounded by a moat. 

Even before arriving there, it is now known, the bull is goaded into becoming anxious with a rag soaked in menses slapped against his snout. If that were not enough, just as he's getting out of hand (and you might expect a bullfighter or other culturally appropriate heroic mime to play their part here and slay the agitated beast in the most skillful, merciful, cathartic, and beautiful way possible), the towne elder retrieves an olde pistol from a fold in his toga and shoots the dumb innocent proud strong patient vittle box in the head, twice. 

The bells and drums stop at least, and the marching as well, for a respectful beat. Upon starting up again toward the stupa, the merriment is swelling and drunken while the bull gets dragged off to the picnic grounds by dozens of children and a thick rope, and the lovely hand-embroidered designs on the backs of the costumes of the quaint olde country festival cosplayers turn out to be all the letter J, taking their true form at the height of the Jans' beige issue. Even tourists know the meaning of that letter and its legend, but not that it happened in this very towne of Swirling Ponde. 

Where all of the ancient Jan family potters and carpenters from the surrounding hills and the Jan merchants and hygienists and Jan tour guides from the comfortable homes around the center and all of the street Jans and manufacturing Jans, all the Jans, the original towne dads and dad's dads, were being mass-replaced by crusading Pharmsupply employees, who blamed the Jans for their own terrorist attacks against homeless non-compliants and forced the Jans of Jansbuurg to wear these gowns and march to their deaths in the moat around the stupa. 

Spontaneous mobbing of triplets in urban areas are overreported during this time. We now understand that relatively few actual triplets are ever involved in these incidents, but rather that the enthusiasm for being able to act out mass violent social aggression, in celebration of a deeply cultural tradition, on unsuspecting but perhaps naturally wary individuals or small groups, perhaps the kind that knows or thinks they know at some level they are indeed a freak or freaks, the chance to light upon them is irresistible to many youth and may even appear to them to be their purpose as socially responsible and deeply spiritual beings. 

Three Same Moons, or "The Ritual Mobbing Moons," occur when three of our smaller moons, Jan, Jan, and Jan, appear side-by-side in a beige refraction of sunlight and can temporarily be confused as to which is which—as can other random persons, places, and things at this time. 

Under which moons are disasters most likely to happen?

A disaster is a welcome vessel of destruction under any of our moons and/or moon combinations. 

Having said that, we can add that there is consistent albeit anecdotal historical evidence for the convergence of some disaster categories and a seasonal clustering with storied lunal counterparts above Mthyuh. 

1. "Fellow" Moons

When Hank and Joe take on a parallel trajectory coming at Mthyuh just before their divergence around the beginning of Shiv Days, there is the Festival of the Fellows, when naked satyrs dance while holding a medicine ball in place between their chests in the Dance of the Fellows. Since the origins of Peg, according to residents of the Host of the Fellows, Olde Jansbuurg Village, domestic restraining orders and inter-special peace treaties are often broken during this time.

The Known Crack

All the temples and all the shiv joints and hygiene parlors community burning collectives allied Jan Jansdaad Jans of Jansdaadbad fleke hunters associations and flekes who are hunted brotherhoods and sisters of la chama the shabs or followers of the cart and all the cults of illyn and so many more earnest and upright societies dedicated to the furtherance of mthyuh's journey of destruction contributed throughout 70 moons spun their good-luck homecloth cut up vittle sacks and sheets of fine woven flowers fluff from the garment recycle trap under the spinner that deals with all that annoying charnel that still has its clothes on each and every knowing one contributed to the project for a sociological movement to harmoniously doggedly and single-mindedly work together to create a very large adult diaper for Peg, whose internal organs had begun to both age and decrease in age every since The Crack was breached with the new arrival, a Jan, but from another dimension, a previously humble and self-satisfied existence in certainly one of the most uneventful holes in all of the Known Crack, and in breathing this new air, the becoming of an emerging crusher of worlds.

wake of landing

 

SKYCLOCK

Jan is standing frontally against the scaffolding at Missy's original cradle Friends' Hangar. Her lower body technicians are just finishing up on a knee-area scale cleanse. As fellow mixed-species with vastly different results they love hanging out and catching up during hygiene. Jan answers back from a more refined point of view despite the brutality and horror of her appearance. She has been tempered by a traditional Jan-and-kids lifestyle as a busy working mom in the outer chanks. Missy stands at the top of the scaffolding speaking directly into Jan's nostrils with her mind only.

and then they found themselves stumbling around in hissing rubble and my uncle said whut is my family's vittle stop a terrorist no it's the Jan's who are the terrorists

the past is a tawdry and ignorant place

well i wouldn't know i've been on Hopinna-Skipita so long it's all the same to me

so you think our perception of the past is largely dependent on brain chemistry

no more like dependent on whether or not yor on drugs

so you're on that

whut whut's the alternative is there now an exit ramp

no or else how would pharmsupply survive how would they save our lives then

if they thought of cures for everything

correct we would not be healthier we would be dead

because pharmsupply would be dead

no because they would cut their losses and take care of their own only

can i take care of my own only

no

that's a tough fact for me today

do you know the parable of Mthyuh flies on her own as first K

of course but what is it

she invented flight in that moment and she turned her arm in a gesture of nobility and inclusion and it blocked out exactly one half of the sun and the stripe across the lands created The Crack and The Crack created time and it was time the Mthyuh got some vittles jack

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

by Phyllis [trans.]

short longing moment

they're shrinking the bandwidth for regret

and i only miss it in a short longing moment

but these i regard with due reverence 

all the violence demands a meaning lesson

just the yearly sounds of it to jump to the 

heart of it a meta-critical dragnet

pain sure pain was warful lest we 

remember we have a blanket between 

us and the dirt shoulder to lay head on

this happened to somebody who's no

longer me i look up to but down upon

with retrospect and thirsty long teeth 

these foods represent a cultural trajectory

not coincidentally all that was left: the

root of all tradition is primal and pathetic

by Peg

everything must burn, etc.

Although everything must burn

we take comfort that the past too is real

and in a moment yesterday will be

exactly as real as this moment, etc.

but i spit on this moment as it exists

in any past time because i only want

even wanting my stud male body back

isn't about the past at all

a past that's only good or bad if you're

thinking about it now

you already travel there as easily as

anyone will ever be able to do

it belongs to you now only and it

grows until it's in front of you

 

you and the past will be equally real

easy to own to find, etc.

Chamatilly-ily

from The Lost Upanishads

The Gas of Life

I had to think about it again what does it mean to be a living person sitting on a rock

I know what it looks like but that's the problem especially if it's a frozen image because

those don't breathe

 

After a while i guess i just accepted that not breathing was normal because, look

But even blue whales have to come up and gasp don't they? And the best part is

they can, they should

 

They are entitled, and they will, involuntarily they'll take air that belongs or doesn't 

belong to them. Just take it without hesitation. It's not like the proverb about stealing

a smell because

You don't have to smell. Maybe you can or cannot. You are not even entitled to really.

Should you? Smell's a whole other topic, but mostly superfluous. Air is life or life for

a moment more or two

Yet i say it's selfish that air alone is not good enough for you. You begin to favor 

additives and conditioners. They corrupt, and so on. It's not flavorless; it's the gas of life

Now, breathe

La Chama

from "La Vajra, La Vajrasana, and La Vajraja"

trans-species home invasion

 

what happens?

in retrospect, the clouds always told a different story

which was it? can they all be true

to be real, the stories are our projections, and

none of them are true

yet a free thinker might take into consideration

a conscious agency on the part of the clouds

which is not the same as on behalf of the clouds

lets all conscience-havers relax

for gods and storytellers get too much 

credit and blow-back both

while nature carries on with her lies

shows nothing but the opposite of 

 

a moral compass or trajectory

mother is too kind a designation

and belies our own favorite tales

which aren't about nature or the stories she tells

go ahead and match the horrors of mathematics

to the wispy decisions of Her petticoats

a vacuum creates an opposite action or

dead men know all lies those are facts but

uncynically, not exactly what happened

try and reduce a lifetime for example to

a world's longest book of equations and it

just makes you sick

by Phyliss

sky

more tips for men

 

more signs

 

dusky

 

thought we could trail it into a vegetal corner

instead it lay in wait behind a mask of fur

in the purple of the last of a day's minutes

action is counterintuitive to biology

drugs that grow against the sun to scare you in

tho you wander blindly out against your status

everywhere is far

The Jansdaads are speaking with their minds only.

It won't take long, but you'll be risking your life to get there. 

I know, Jan. 

I hope you'll feel Mthyuh. 

You know i will. She'll be right there on the horizon. If i die in the hooptie, her birds will eat me. 

You know there's no guarantee you'll find what you're looking for. 

I'm looking for you Jan.

I know, Jan. I want you to come and find me. 

If i can feel Mthyuh, maybe i can break the Crack, somehow i'll understand. I'll come back and go directly to the air conditioning unit for the temporary classrooms at the Community College of Cement. I'll duck under it, hit my head, that's how some got through. 

My mind is getting tired. 

Mine too, Jan.

bird

 

K shadow, dog

 

 

 

trees

 

vajrasana

PRESENT TIME

Ilyn is rocking violently in a bed of dry peony blossoms at the bottom of his square-wheeled cart. On his back, he watches clouds morph into amazing new ways to tell the same story. Then he becomes aware of burbling waters on the open ground beyond the walls of the cart.

Dare i? I want a drink from this crick. Shab, stop. 

Shab, a very large dog with red eyes and an empty saddle, has been twiddling his legs just above the surface of the otherwise wasted land beneath them. When Shab hears an order to stop, he stops. 

Shab, drink.

Ilyn pulls a lever buried in the flowers. It releases Shab's yoke. Shab walks around to the side of the cart and pulls a rope with his teeth. The side panel falls open, and Ilyn is able to roll down its slope and into the creek, face down. He can lift his head enough not to drown between sips of water, but barely enough to speak.

Shabubbab, dobne. Pbleabse.

Shab takes a few more sips of his own from the creek, then ambles over to Ilyn. Ilyn grabs a bar in the side panel of the cart while Shab lifts with his nose until Ilyn can roll back into the cart. His face sparkles with wet sunshine. Shab dips back under the yoke and waits for Ilyn to pull a cord buried in the flowers. The yoke clicks into place over Shab's empty saddle. 

Shab, take me to Mthyuh. 

10 YEARS EARLIER

Rocking violently back and forth in a bed of marigold chains strung with hemp, Ilyn allows some noises to come out from his throat. From his back, the clouds are telling a familiar story in a new way. 

Kuh. Geh. 

Ilyn can form words, but none are appropriate. Finally, he is thirsty. 

Shab, drink.

PRESENT TIME

Shab is pulling the square-wheeled wooden cart uphill, with the peak of Mthyuh becoming clearer above the clouds. Gravity causes Ilyn to slide all the way back in the cart to an almost sitting position. Now what he sees is Shab's empty saddle and the backs of Shab's furry ears, always twisting on their axes, scoping for any danger or pilgrims. The path ahead is lit only by slivers of moon and the reddish cast of Shab's eyes. 

TWO WEEKS EARLIER

Ilyn is sucking on a shred of ginger root, and Shab is chewing his like a cud. 

Shab, think. Where were we grng to stop crming back thrs way?

Shab has either been forbidden to speak or refused to speak ever since the fabled incident with the Monster Poinsettia and during which the only and last rider of his empty saddle, the Begging Raja, lost both of his hands, and painfully so. 

If you could speak, i think you might tell me there's no point in remembering anything. Or perhaps now, suddenly, you decide to speak, and tell me that i couldn't be more wrong about your view of remembering, how i've underestimated your character not to mention your mood. 

Shab: ...

PRESENT DAY

It's nearly just noon and the violent rocking of the cart makes fiery trails appear in the sky. Ilyn tries to focus on the clouds, which are at the moment just a palimpsest overrun by the side effects of technology. Soon it will be time to stop and ask some woodcutters to hew a new set of wheels for the cart, which are starting to lose their traditionally square silhouette. 

Shab, listen.  I think I can feel my strength returning. I realize you would have started to notice. But we must not let on, must not share any mention of a recovery, not to any pilgrim, not to the MPS, not even to La Chama. At least not for now.

500 YEARS LATER

Ilyn sits up in a deep bed of star jasmine and mint greens. He assumes a vajrasana pose, for greeting pilgrims and children who follow behind. Actually, their normal walking speed would carry them past and well beyond the cart, but they slow down as a sign of respect and humoring to the deities. 

Crowd: We wish you a bountiful banquet of many assorted vittles and then to be eaten first by the sacred birds! May Mthyuh swallow you up before you barely reach her lips! May your rice be soiled in a highway tavern by the survivors of Fire Shore...!

Ilyn tosses swollen, bluish roses from the back of the cart. They are gradually passing a sign for Kareer Kesh. The diving board has hopefully been repaired after a small molten avalanche. Ilyn's hair is soft, long, and flaming copper. 

 

 

 

Phyllis [trans]

vegetal sun hole

vegetal sun hole