Microfiction - Tumblr Posts
You have ridden this train countless times, you know the route, the turns and stops, you can figure out where along your journey you are based on the sounds of the brake as it takes a curve. But this station you do not know you have watched the trees grow along the sides of the track watched as stations age but this station is new. It wasn’t here yesterday and it certainly won’t be here tomorrow. But it is also a perfectly normal station, the same blue sign, the same yellow light the same trash cans, even its name, Mariendorf, is just ordinary. Nothing abnormal, just out of place.
trains will announce you're stopping in places you never knew existed
the first two thousand years weren’t actually all that bad, but after that the laws changed so you had to go to these useless meetings. Originally they were with a group of other liveslongers but that stop when they were reminded why you were sentenced to 10000 life sentences, afterwards it was just you and that god damn (do people still say that) “therapist”. The worst part wasn’t their personality they just wouldn’t die, you’re sure that they got body swapped at some point but they always looked the same (clones? Do those exist?). Of course you escaped a few times it wasn’t all that effective they would just find you again but not having to eat prison food for a few days was nice. The worst was when around year 200,000 when the budget cuts happened, they stopped looking for humans and just put you in what ever body was lying around, not knowing how you next body would work was annoying, especially the ooze generations were weird. Though you guess that got better eventually when the original body laws came into effect, giving liveslongers the right to being a body of their original species definitely improved things. Not being up to date with pop culture is probably the most infuriating not knowing who has won Rupaul the 3256th’s drag race, or the super bowl really hampers conversations. But atleast you have had time to read, you are almost half way through Ulysses.
"You have been sentenced to ten thousand consecutive life sentences. Once you die, we will find your soul and merge it with another body, after which you will continue to serve your sentence. In case of reincarnation, you will be arrested at birth and placed right back into your cell."
look it isn’t my fault that she was the first woman to ask for my hand. Yes she is the Evil Kings daughter but that is just a prejudice, she has a great personality. Honestly some people just don’t know when to mind their business. Look it is even good for our kingdoms an alliance like this will lead to prosperity. Her dad is honestly fine.
As the princess and heir apparent of the kingdom you are the most sought after woman in the whole kingdom, with suitors lining up every day to ask for your hand in marriage. Today you finally accept the proposal of a suitor, causing a massive scandal.
“Wait you can’t?” “No! Again it takes CENTURIES for a member of the Fae to become a deceiver, it’s not just something you can do! I have multiple degrees! I am a professor of deception, at Unseelie University! And you guys can just do this?” “Yes?” “Fucking damnit.”
“Let me get this straight. I, a Fae, have spent LITERAL CENTURIES studying the subtle arts of deception, glamour, deceit, and misdirection, and you, a mere human, can just stand there and say things that are untrue?!” “Yeah, that’s about right.”
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙀𝙣𝙚𝙢𝙮 𝙒𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣
Sleep drops away quickly as I wake to a strange pain. Something is... Wrong... What is this? There is a lump in my side. I slide my shirt up over the tender bulge. It itches. A sparking, insistent discomfort. There is a deep knot of burning pressure welling beneath a taught dome of skin. A nascent infection? No. Something more malignant and protuberant. I pick the sore. It breaks open. Teeth clenched, I tenderly spread the wound. It weeps a turbid fluid. Beneath, a spider-shaped mass of dark matter, metallic and appalling, is embedded and spreading. Wincing, I prod it, and feel it spasm. Black brachiating filaments spread menacingly, a thousand stygian serpents tracing nerves and veins with fabulous velocity. Screaming, I thrash, until overtaken and writhing in terror. Its sardonic pulse syncs with mine until an odd numbness replaces concern. I feel it absorbing me. Is this how the gazelle feels in the lion's jaws? I should be… afraid. I should be… But I am consumed by the amorphous narcosis of conjunction until, pale and drooling, my simian brain is joined in black noesis to tens of thousands more. We have become nodes, synapses assembled into the new organs of an emerging god. As an alien mind awakens the senescent world is absorbed and… I… am… © JM Tiffany
Red Bones
In my vision I flew as I fell and rode a great gray wolf through a vortex of smoldering antlers. My beast steered my thoughts until, like water in milk, we merged and became a singular ghost rushing like wind through the dreaming wilds. I was drawn to a sullen sound and at once saw a young boy’s skull hanging from ghastly strings. There was a mournful chanting nearby, a soft feminine voice that sang wordlessly in the night. I found its source: a young girl who was rinsing her ruddy hands in a starlit pool. She was bare, save for a wooden mask, its brow carved with a pale moon. Nearby, amid the vines and briarwood, a black bear lurked, but the girl showed no signs of concern. I saw then eight arrows of yew, each with a glinting green obsidian point, arranged like the spokes of a wheel on the ground. I looked again at the boy’s skull and saw that it hung amidst his red, excarnated bones. A gentle breeze rocked his remains in the gnarled tree, each bloody bit bound there by his own sinews to its misshapen branches. It seemed to me that he sprouted like macabre fruits from the sleeping, twisted limbs. His luminous flesh caught the light of the full moon and glowed dully in the darkness as the masked girl began toiling to stretch it tightly over a simple wooden rack. With her hands, she caressed his lovely ruin, and smeared the taught flesh with the boy’s own brains. This she did to tan and preserve his hide, but also to work his memories into the skin. “I will wear you in the Spring,” she lamented, “and you will rise again as the Sun.” I think that she wept beneath her mask, though its rough wooden visage was unchanging and stern. When she resumed her singing, I heard the rough sound of ursine breath behind me. As snow began to fall, I opened my eyes. © JM Tiffany 1.2.2024
The Egg
Single-minded, bare feet challenged by sinuous vines, his gentle hands prized one egg of three from a neatly crafted nest. Pale and blue as sky, he placed it in his mouth and gingerly descended the roughly knotted tree to squat at its base amid the tangled brush. Carefully, he dropped the turquoise ovoid from his chapped lips into his small, dirty hands. Sad furtive eyes examined the delicate shell. Turning it this way and that, he raised his treasure to a ray of sun that sliced like a white laser through the dense emerald canopy above. The backlit egg glowed, burning like an amber gem enclosed in the pale sapphire of its thin encasement. Gazing intensely, his keen eyes squinted and saw two ruddy, capillaried shadows: the silhouettes of a naked man and woman bound by threads of blood through the ovum of time.
The blue-amber light of diffused sun sparked a bright reflection in the boy’s dark eyes and he lovingly placed the egg back into his dry mouth. Within him, it hatched, and a bird took flight its broad wings, black and white, bore his sight upward in an ascending spiral. He rose above the world until he saw one great tree with two mighty roots, and a single mind that knew itself only as strangers.
He then saw himself as a fruit dangling from its burning branches where masks were hung in offering to the madness of life. When he woke in his mother's arms, he was crying. Large crystalline streams wet his cheeks as the soft lull of her voice consoled him. He saw his concerned father peering wordlessly over his mother's shoulder and the boy smiled slightly, reassured. Then, suddenly, he shuddered as a wild wind raked wooden fingers across the rain-streaked pane of his bedroom window.
The rest of that night the wind howled through the tunnels of his mind and he did not sleep, though he did dream until the sun spilled its warm yoke through the gauzy curtains of his room.
© JM Tiffany, 2.24.24
In Silent Depths
The way was steep, descending in tight shafts through sedimentary layers into the pulse-haunted quietude of dark spaces below. I hammered my anchors and tested the protection before rappelling deeper. As the rope spiraled away like a thin snake into the aphotic throat of silence, I lowered myself down. My lantern glowed amber, creating a thin blister of light around me that swayed with each movement. Precariously, I dropped further into the depths. I was squeezed through a maze of tunnels, down broad fissures, and out of claustrophobic cracks into wet chambers. Limestone, gypsum, and dolomite took strange liquous forms, carved as they were by the slow flow of water over time. Occasionally, when I raised my lantern, strange fossils and ancient relics would cast worrisome shadows amid the looming stalactites and stalagmites. As my footfalls echoed into the shadowed stillness the warm glow of my little lantern was my dearest companion. In a place that dark and isolated, time passes differently. Without the Sun and Moon to pull one through their days, time vanishes into a permanent Night in which the only stars are phosphene flashes in the optic nerve, the false lights of the so-called “Prisoner’s Cinema”. But I was no captive here. I had come in search of something. Something lost. Something precious. After several cycles of resting and moving (what day was it?) I reached at last a vast chamber hollowed out long ago by heat and pressure into a natural cathedral. My lantern sent waves of light shimmering through a sea of dancing refraction. I shivered in the vaulted womb and listened to the sound of my breath. Eventually, I found it: a low mound of dirt on a bald island in the center of the prismatic chamber.
Though tired and sore, my heart fluttered in anticipation. I set down my pack, adjusted my lantern, and set to work with my shovel. How long I labored there in that crystalline abyss I cannot say. My face dripped sweat and strained muscles weakened as exhaustion set in. On I went, giving myself fully to the task, until at last I uncovered a feminine form beneath the moist soil of that secret place. I was struck with a sudden fear, and for a moment, I was frozen. I could hear the subtle sound of slow moving-water as I set to using my hands to clear away the dirt. It was then that I saw her face. How long had she lain there? Gingerly, I wiped the mud from her eyes, my hands gently clearing the muck from her cheeks and brow. When she opened her eyes I saw myself in them, and taking her into my arms, we wept. When at last she would emerge into sunlight, it would be without me. My body slid neatly into the impression. As I lay motionless in the mucky indentation, I closed my eyes. “I love you,” I said. “I know,” she spoke softly. I smiled as I felt each shovelful of earth add its weight upon my body. It was strangely comforting. Finally, I could rest. I closed my eyes and dreamt of her. © JM Tiffany 2024
Red Hands
It was Fall.
Smoke rose from a squat birch hut that was dug half into the slope of a leaf-littered hill.
The cottage’s roof was piled with heavy mats of green moss, and the lambent orange glow of tallow lights shined through its deep-set windows.
Inside was a hushed voice muttering of the cold and of sad little no-one’s.
A child’s bones were there, wrapped in a swan’s wings and tucked into a nest of sticks.
I heard a woman weeping, her deep sobs answered by a pained voice, dark and coarse, whose wet rasp sounded like dull steel scraped over bone.
In the faint amber radiance of the dying sun, I pressed my ear lightly to the chinking and listened in the chill.
The thing croaked and hissed of things hidden, and, mesmerized, the woman swooned.
It spoke in kennings of the ancient ways, and of the faint life that lives in death.
The wretched wight revealed to her the dim paths that lead into Shadow, prescribing offerings and signs as it instructed her in the opening of the ways.
As the setting sun kissed the horizon, the cottage fell silent, and the mourning woman ground something slowly with a mortar and pestle.
Then, she hummed a sad tune to her strange god, her dead offspring, and I, her lurking watcher.
It was then that I left her to suffer alone in that place the grim tasks of the wight.
I padded away like a wolf. And though I parted as night from the dawn, I left her all the coin in my purse and the haunch of a deer whose blood inexplicably yet stains my hands.
I have never returned to those woods where I came upon the woman and the infant’s remains.
Many years have passed since then, and I am too old and frail to hunt. As you can see, time has gnarled my joints and drawn the color from my beard. But, I have never forgotten what I learned there, in the red dusk of yesterday, and a harsh voice continues to utter black secrets in the darkness of my dreams.
© JM Tiffany
🍂🍁💀
Black Wings
I transformed myself into a murder of ebon birds, their tenebrous wings battering the air as we ascended in a burst of dark feathers.
Up we leaped past heaps of bones to soar over rivers of blood whose garnet depths coursed in jagged veins to a distant sea. We followed their branching paths to this sanguine expanse where we saw, amid the haunted waves, great skeletal beasts sloshing and wailing in the wine-colored swells. Raven-swift, we darted across the raw expanse until basalt cliffs jutted into view.
Beneath this chorus of giant knives, the Vermilion Sea was churned to an agonized pinkish foam, the coast’s tidal orifices flecked like rabid mouths.
Further inland we flew, crossing carnal fields of gnawing flowers whose narcotizing fragrance pulled at our desires and begged us to dream.
There, the tired wind’s laborious breath carried us slowly over the fleshy blooms to a forest of pale trees. Their ruby leaves glistened in the wan light like drops of crimson misery as the smooth flesh of their twisted limbs winked with eyes that bore witness to our passing. Beyond them, we crossed wastes that wept with milky marshes. Pumping our wings in a storm of black pinions we rose higher above their troubling miasma and rode updrafts that bore us toward the crooked shadow of distant mountains. These cut through the haze like a great carnivore’s teeth and gave the impression of being swallowed. Onward we flapped, coming at last to circle about a titanic edifice of impossible antiquity. It gleamed gun-metal-black in the cool, distant light of an indiscernible sun. Dark and ominous the tower loomed, its massive length driven like a spear through the world. We entered the structure in a whispering rush through an organically shaped window. Within was a spiraling labyrinth of iniquitous geometries. Insane corridors of pulsating flesh whose membranous doorways opened onto rooms red and glistening as fresh wounds.
The great tower’s lofty vertex was shrouded in the tattered gauze of lamentable clouds, yet at its peak, which rose just above them, was an open court surrounded by monolithic pillars. Near its center was an august and ominous seat of angular stone.
Upon it sat a niveous vision, her dusky eyes glittering in the anemic light, her full, wet lips the color of blood.
She reclined luxuriously there upon her monolithic throne, bare as a sword save for torrents of jet hair that issued from her exquisite head to coil about her pallid face like dark serpents.
A shadow of my shape surged out of the vortex of black birds who swirled madly, a cacophonous maelstrom whose mass then coalesced before her. Having robed myself in human form, I stepped forward and knelt humbly before her.
“Rise”, she said. I did as she commanded and rose to my feet. “Speak,” she said, “tell me your heart.” Trembling with fear and lust, I spoke, “I have crossed worlds of pain and desire to seek you. I have known you in the night as my lover and my mother. I have known your body in the hollowness of my form and tasted your mouth in the spaces between lives. I would know you if I knew no other. You are the chrysalis of doom, the womb of eternity. I will only to will your will, my Queen.” She smiled and beckoned me forward, “Come here and kiss me”. A storm of joy and terror assailed my heart. Nervously, I stepped forward, suddenly viscerally aware of her presence and the beauty and power that she commanded. Just as light falls into black holes, I went to her. Our lips approached, and, meeting, formed a singularity. Then, she gave me the gift of her True Name, but I found I could not utter it. I wanted to sing it, so glorious it was, but I immediately choked as I tried to speak it aloud. Gasping violently, I grasped my throat and fretted with my tongue, but I was struck mute and cursed to die.
Despairing, I fell at her feet and struggled dismayed. Then, suddenly, the universe seemed to tumble in on itself, as if suddenly unmade, until there was nothing. Not anything. Just absolute, unnamable, unfathomable formlessness.
I was no more. No thought was self, no such concept was there, nor need of it in that perfect aphotic eternity.
And then, suddenly, violently, I was torn from her womb and born into a flowering, effulgent chaos.
In horror and awe, I worshipped her, and she loved me, and by us worlds became.
From us sprang gods, civilizations, and countless empires rose and fell, until at last, all that remained was the glittering abyss and its endless cold silence. I saw myself reflected in her eyes then and knew us to be the same: a luminous self-reflecting void, a dreaming abyss of eternally self-annihilating beauty and terror. As I opened my eyes, space and time expanded, and the darkness laughed as I was filled again with light. © JM Tiffany 2024
hey folks, I wrote a thing and I’m proud of it! it’s a short sad story about a man dying alone in deep space. check it out!
Swordtember is a podcast this year*
It's called Of The Sword. There'll be an episode every day in September – each one is a short story with a unique sword through its heart. It's produced by Tal Minear (of Someone Dies In This Elevator) and Ezra J. Wayne. And I wrote one of the stories, Driving The Point Home; it'll be the episode released on 19 September!
If you can't wait til then, you can get all Of The Sword episodes early and ad-free by donating to Tal's Ko-fi. All cash raised goes to The National Center for Transgender Equality:
Of the Sword isn't popping up in searches in all the podcast apps just yet (too fresh!), but you should still be able to subscribe by copying and pasting the feed address into the search bar: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/ofthesword
For the full episode list and transcripts, head to the Of The Sword website:
*As well as the usual art-prompt Swordtember, not instead of!
Table reads for I Need A Miracle start today! Actual voice actors are going to say the words I wrote! I know from previous theatre stuff that this will end up being massively exhilarating, it always is – getting other artists' takes on the material, finding new meanings I didn't consciously put there, it's energising, it fills you up. But right now in the few hours before we get started, I've never had less confidence in these scripts 😂 The brain gremlin chorus is in agreement that every actor will ask questions I don't know the answer to and I will look foolish and amateurish in front of accomplished artists and creative professionals, and that they will all point out irreconcilable flaws in the characters and story that I am simply too blind to see
Anyway, I'm off to distract myself by casting my vote for Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority – my own little appeal to earthly powers for change I'm too small to enact myself, before the cast and the Wireless team and I start this next stage of producing a series all about appealing for divine intervention when the thing you want is simply too big to make happen yourself.
I wrote this
This is happening
I think some of you here are gonna have fun connecting two points (I've connected them) and others are gonna run the risk of going full wild eyed Charlie Day conspiracy board
Also I'll warn everyone right now, each character is only in one episode, so if you get attached and want more of someone ... there might not be nothing in the other episodes but you'll have to really season those scraps to make them satisfying. If you find yourself in that state then fanfic might be your only avenue
Can any world survive a benevolent god?
Coming Summer 2024 from @foggyoutline and @wirelesstheatre:
(not final artwork)
In this upcoming audio drama podcast, each episode is a prayer, some prayers are granted, and a granted prayer can upend the world.
For fans of
Each episode of I Need A Miracle is a monologue lasting 5–15 minutes. A new character every episode. Never the same character twice. Always addressing a plea to a listening deity – which never makes a sound.
Play god
You, the listener, stand in for a silently listening god. Hear brazen demands for divine intervention and vulnerable, secret pleas for deliverance. Whose requests would you grant and why? Does anyone deserve a miracle?
Play detective
Which pleas are granted? How does the listening being decide? What are the Upheavals that regularly wrack this world? What threatens to rise from the Depths? And can any being with ultimate power truly be benevolent?
Play the heartstrings
I Need A Miracle is all about the many kinds of wanting, and the many ways of asking for help. How would you make your case to an omnipotent being who grants some miracles but not others, based on ineffable criteria?
Coming Summer 2024
Stay tuned for cast and crew reveals, episode titles, trailers, release dates and more:
here on tumblr by following @inyourbenevolence
(you can also follow writer @merelymatt, producers @wirelesstheatre and publishers @foggyoutline for completism)
on instagram:
at the show homepage:
Galactic Grounds
a writing exercise i did in a discord server! lemme know what you thought about it. the goal was to write 247 words within 19 minutes. well, i was a minute or so behind. but here’s the result! tw // suicide
As I looked on from above the galaxies, I realized how little time there was left. I knew that I was correct, because the ever-constant clock ticking assured me of the fact.
Accuracy and precision, that was my supposed motto. With carefully balanced steps, I continued my way. I could see the starting point before me - it was a warm ball of flames floating a few inches above the silvery strand that I walked on. However, it was a distant light, like a tiny speck one would see at the very end of the tunnel. In my case, it looked as though I had barely completed three fourths of the trip.
Careful! Warned my trusted clock. You must not trip!
I smiled. It had admonished me in similar tones to not look down. But, did I listen? Of course not.
And how could I be expected to do such a thing? With such beauty teeming in millions below me, it seemed impossible to resist that temptation.
My companion of a few minutes prior had told me breathlessly: “The ground below us feels solid enough, but once it disappears, you realize how weak you truly are.” Poor dear, she had hallucinations sometimes. Her clock had stopped ticking ages ago; I wondered how she had managed to reach as far as she did.
I had no ground, just the silvery strand that my toes kissed with each step. And why did she fear that ground so much? Why was there such a terrified look on her face when she slipped and fell into that vault of diamonds below us?
I had a smile when I slipped, on the contrary. I didn’t make it to the flame, you see. I didn’t make it to the burning fire of hope and I slipped off the delicate strand that was my life. Death seemed so much more beautiful. I fell into its arms.
I could no longer hear my clock ticking.
GTA 6 Fanfic- Almost Perfect Heist
" Put ya hands where I can see them and money in the bag!"
Two assailants charged into a busy convenience store in one fateful morning. The duo were practically glued to the hip with how they refused to leave the side of the other. Jason seemed to be the leader of the operation from the way he swaggered inside with brimming confidence while his partner, Lucia, faltered ever so slightly. They kept their guns trained on their targets as they made their way to the store's center.
A suffocating cloud of consternation hung heavy in the air, chilling the blood of almost everyone there. Crimes like this were far from uncommon in Vice City. You could hardly walk a few blocks without encountering dried blood caked up on the concrete or the cries of the helpless victim on their last day on earth. The patrons all instinctively knew that no cops would arrive just in time to save them from their darkest hour. If they remained obedient, they'd get to leave with their lives and a hungry wallet.
" You heard the man! Just give us all y'all cash and we'll be on our way."
Lucia walked around the store loading her bag with money while Jason dealt with the cashier. Everyone was quick to hand her their money before they ended up as yet another statistic. Many sobbed uncontrollably while others glared at her with barely suppressed anger. Lucia grinned wickedly as her loot steadily increased. Images of designer purses and shoes flashed in her mind, a collection of which seemed to grow every few weeks. She was about to check up on Josh when she heard IT.
The deafening sound of a bullet leaving its chamber in hot pursuit of its latest victim. Lucia moved to the front the see the cashier convulsing on the ground with a fresh bullet wound in his stomach. Hot tears raced down the cashier's face while he clutched at his wound. Lucia knew the look in his eyes quite well.
The look of someone with their back against the wall with no one to save them. A face that reflected years of pain and regret. She often held that same expression before she met Jason. Before she sold her soul for a life of degeneracy.
" That's what happens when you try to be a fucking hero!" Jason cocked his head in Lucia's direction. " This fool got some mighty balls on him, trying to take my gun like that. He's lucky I didn't blast his head off. Let's bounce."
Lucia nodded and the two dashed out of the store and into a white Toyota Ae86. As Jason burned rubber on the hot asphalt, Lucia's mind drifted to the cashier. She wondered if he too had a loved one who would mourn him should the bullet wound prove fatal. She imagined all the anger, fear, and grief that must be consuming all those customers. Lucia was usually unfettered when she was with Jason, but she couldn't help feeling that all their crimes would eventually catch up with them. Sometimes she pretended not to care and other times those dreadful thoughts kept her tossing and turning throughout the night. Either way, this was the only life she knew how to live and she was damn sure to make the most of it.
Amore mio aiutami
I rubbed my hands together to create warmth and collect the feeling back into my fingers. The brisk air bit at my skin, and I could see the faint tremor of my breath in the cold. I grabbed my gloves from my coat pocket and snugged them on nicely, feeling the immediate comfort of the thick wool. I exhaled deeply, watching the puff of air escape my mouth and dissolve into the night.
The brick sidewalk lining the river was slick with a thin layer of frost, glistening under the warm glow of the streetlights. Each lamp cast a cozy, amber hue, creating pools of light that contrasted sharply with the inky darkness beyond. The river flowed steadily in front of me, its surface reflecting the lights from the opposite bank in a shimmering, undulating pattern.
I peer at the time on my watch and sigh, 20:38. they weren't coming, I assume. I stand from the bench I was sitting on, my back aching from the stiff boards.
I begin walking alongside the river trying to ease off the disappointment melted into my face. Each step felt heavy as if the weight of my thoughts pressed down on me. With the city's ambiance and the sounds of the river below, I notice the matched footsteps behind me. I panic slightly in fear of being followed by a stranger. I grasp my keys in my pocket and prepare myself. I briefly look behind me to only find a familiar face.
My hands relax as the previous events and thoughts quickly disappear into nothing. Relief blooms in my chest. Abruptly, I stop walking and face towards him.
he was a good five feet away from me, standing with a plain yet nervous smile, bundled head to toe. we stay at the distance that separated us. I wanted to walk up to him, but something told me to wait.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, feeling my lips numb.
A quick flash of uncertainty crosses his face, but it's quickly replaced with an uneasy smile. "Just running some late-night errands."
"This late at night? Hmm, sounds great." I laugh at his obvious lie.
I continue, "Were you spying on me?"
His doe eyes meet mine as he casually says, "No, I just happened to be walking alongside the river... where I bumped into you."
I almost believe him, but his body language gives him away. I look at him with unamused eyes as he finally admits, barely loud enough for me to hear, "I just wanted to be sure that you were safe."
I smile at his nature and his plain answer. It was obvious why he was here. I walk towards him and lean against the railing when I’m close enough. I sigh and take in the scenery before me.
I feel his warm presence next to me as he begins to say, "I'm sorry your blind date didn't show up."
I half scoff and laugh, "It sounds pitiful when you say it like that."
"A complete douche bag, I would say." he says completely disregarding what I said.
I roll my eyes playfully, "it's really not that big of deal. It wasn't my idea to begin with."
He hums in confirmation. We stand there in silence, letting it envelop us as our thoughts drift away. My eyes burn with exhaustion, and I lean slightly on his shoulder, letting my eyes flutter closed. I let my subconscious take over, sinking deeper into the moment.
The next thing I know, we’re at my apartment. I’m on his back, and he gently places me on my bed. I smile and mutter a thanks. I remove my coat and shoes, tossing them aside. He lights a candle on the bedside table, casting a warm glow over the small room. The apartment’s warmth soothes me, and the cool comforter beckons me to dive in.
I look across the room at the small window and see the soft blue light pouring through. The waxing crescent moon makes a faint appearance. I clutch the sheets slightly beneath my palm and take a moment to think. I push aside the doubts I had been harboring and say,
"the moon is beautiful, isn't it?"
Three longing seconds pass and I look back at him to meet his gaze. "Yes, it is."
the way the soft glow from the candle shone on the right side of his face, and the moonlight on the left. he was simply charming. his lean body and his posture. I wanted to be near him.
I stand slowly feeling my legs ache. I look up at his expecting eyes, loving how they look into mine. "I'll walk you out..?" I ask.
his eyes shift over my face as he blinks into consciousness. he simply nods and walks out. I follow with soft footsteps. I shiver at the cold floor despite my socks protecting my feet.
we get to the door and I suddenly wish the door wasn't so close. he puts on his shoes without struggle and turns to me.
I blink in confusion, as he blinks back, his lips twitched in interest as if he wanted to say something. he raises his hand to my shoulder where it meets my neck. I enjoy the heaviness of his hand. how it brought chills to my body and made my heart skitter.
but then he sort of withdraws with a hint of regret. my heart clenches in anxiety. I quickly grab his hand and place it back where it was. I step closer to his body and place my hand on his cheek softly. I caress his cheek with the pad of my thumb, enjoying the silence. he didn't react, he just simply waited.
His honey-sweet eyes drew me in every time, and my drowsiness made my head feel cloudy and detached. It was almost like an out-of-body experience; my movements felt foreign, and my thoughts came and went in a haze. By the time I looked down at his lips, a delicate shade of pink, I couldn’t help but be captivated. We finally met in the middle.
His hand settled on my lower back as I stood on tiptoe. I wrapped my arms around his neck, my fingers tangling in his soft, fluffy hair. I felt my heart pound in my chest, the sensation of his warmth and the intimacy of our closeness intensifying the moment.
alas, I felt the love I've been yearning.
He took a drag off his cigarette and looked loningy out the window.
"Is it everything you imagined it'd be?" She whispered softly from the bed next to him.
He looked around the room. It was beautiful, best that Soma Corp money could buy. So much more than a gutter rat like him deserved. He racked his brain thinking about it. This was it: the money, the tech, the respect. It was everything he'd ever wanted. People like him died for this. He had literally killed for this. So why did it all feel so hollow? Why did this room feel as far away from reality as it was from the ground?
"No, he whispered. I fucking hate this city"
"But it loves you, that's why you keep coming back." She said with only the slightest bit of scorn in her voice.
He looked across the room at the hardware on the table. His body armor and rifle and her deck and trodes stared at him the way he stared at the city. In a few hours, none of this would matter, and nothing would probably ever matter again.
"Whether it loves me or not, I'm gonna burn it all down." He said taking his last drag.
The longer I went on, the less I remembered. As I traded parts of myself for processing power, meat and memory for time. I lost parts of my past everyday consumed by the compulsion to keep going.
I still remember us, though. I remember them. I remember the lake, the sun. I remember the way the light made their eyes pop and the way they laughed. I remember their touch and the way their hand felt in mine. But I can't remember their name. I can't remember their face or why it ended. I can't even remember if it was real, but it's all I have left.
I'm a husk, a collection of electrical impulses in a shell of meat. I cling to the thought of them because I loved them. I still love them, but also because it's the last time I remember being myself, being alive.
Ripped Indulgence
Hunting is a raucous profession, that borders on playful, in the same way that a child might skip happily along a cliff edge. But for every drink quaffed and trophy boasted, there is sword that has to be wiped of blood, and a tooth-hole in armour to be repaired.
And while stories are regaled around the braziers, it is easy to forget that the bite you parried was meant for your torso, that your last-moment duck was the difference between a slick movement and your ribcage being shattered. The hefty bounty you just turned in once lusted for your blood, and you owe more to luck than you want to admit.
Because when the palicos run in with their cart, sometimes all they retrieve is a pack with bitten-through straps, or a glaive split like a twig. Or an arm, dropped into a patch of yellowgrass, the armour too thick and fiddly to be worth chewing open.
These are monsters, and it's easy to forget that - right up until your sword is shattered and a claw as large as your leg has pried your armour away, and the teeth that found no purchase on your shield sate their hunger in your body. What was fun and folly becomes the apex of a million years of cruel and merciless evolution, to which your body is kindling and appetizer.
And pray that the tortured anger of a thousand hard-won turf wars is kind to you, does not easily tear your body asunder. Because it nigh-surely will, but perhaps prayer, or hope, or whimpered bargaining will offer a trickling breeze of relief as his highness rips his indulgence into you, and teaches you the finite, final lesson, that eventually all will come to the monsters they hunt.