Frost Flower

Valore was born and raised in a royal vampire family. She was properly addressed as Ist Valore by other vampires. She was 388 years old and has been feeding on the blood of willing and unwilling human beings since the fall of vampire supremacy.

 

When Valore was 150 or so, she witnessed a change in human beings. For thousands of years their crude weapons and glinting steel were useless against the physical and mental strength of a night stalker vampire. Valore was stronger than most, she could break a rib cage even if they wore a steel breastplate.

 

Such strength is useless against the new machines of human beings. The vampire families and society retreated into the shadows. Valore and her family were no different. She could no longer wear her royal garments in public.

They were a red and black satin, fabrics which were never exposed to the light of the sun. The garments were passed down from mother to daughter, a continuation of the royal line of Ist. She hid her family clothes in the secret tomb of her great grandmother, and then did her best to blend in with human society.

 

Human beings were quite itchy to kill vampires during this time. If vampires were discovered, armies were mustered, and they were hunted. Full platoons of righteous helicopters, searching for vampire lairs. Many of the first vampire houses to fall were the most powerful and exposed, having lived many years in the confident authority of their age. Their lairs were full of treasures; gold, jewels, ancient relics, fabrics, and works of art collected from the dawn of mankind. Of course, the moral crusaders would sell it to feed armies, shuffling the rare objects back into private collections.

 

 

Valore lived undetected while human beings set up a new empire of their own order.

 

Like most predators in captivity, she grew bored, and her ancient and cruel intelligence invented new entertainments to pass the years. As a vampire she despised the sun and could occasionally tolerate its presence. She did not need food except human blood, maybe once every week. She was old enough to be able to remain perfectly still for days, her mind glacial and pristine. Like a smooth stone tumbled through the years of experience, her eyes watched unflinching over the storms of human history. 

 

Hunger and survival demanded a certain caution, the years built up like fault lines. When Valore did feed, she preferred willing human beings. She loved them, charmed them, seduced them, exercising her ancient domination. She kept her skills as sharp as her teeth.

 

Most of her ambitions were harmless. She enjoyed flower arranging; stem and leaf, petal and twig, all artfully placed for a table setting. She liked soft blue flowers, red roses, black lilies, thorns of any plant, and stinky corpse flowers. Her favorite plant was Devil’s Tongue; also called Luciferous Crocosmia, a vibrant red and orange flower used to accent the orange petals of flaming dahlias. This occupation gave her a place in human society, and many weddings were marked by her style and beauty.

 

She also delivered bouquets for funerals. She tried to include the favorite plants or petals of the deceased; this meant a lot to the mourners. Valore enjoyed funerals more than weddings, the truth of death was much more refreshing than the lie of happily-ever-after. She watched the mourners and took note who might be dwelling alone. Such isolation meant a fragile heart. Valore would bring a bouquet to the widow or widower, express her vampire beauty, and step into the shadow of their heart, a space their loved one once occupied.

Those afflicted by grief were the easiest to seduce, their proximity to death made love much sweeter. Their blood would seep into thick dreams of anguish and desire, until the heartache was unbearable and Valore would usher them into a cool grave. No one was suspicious, since dying from a broken heart or shortly after a loved one was not uncommon. Nor did anyone suspect the flower service.

 

Valore had another hobby involving the recently deceased. She knew of a secret technique, a preservation method for the bodies of humans. This method prolonged the service of a human thrall. Before a corpse started to decompose, special vampire blood could be added to the eyes and skin of the body. It required a cup of blood, mint, and ashes to create a vicious salve. Then it was applied to the body and left in a coffin for 1 week. After the week, the corpse would awaken, with all their personality, memories, and awareness they had in life, except it was completely obedient to its creator.

 

The limitation of such a simple resurrection, was that the bodies of such servants were brittle. Their skin was as cold as the grave, and their voice hallow, as if the words echoed within before finding their way to their mouths. Valore made and kept such servants when she could, keeping her necromantic art alive through practice. She needed to be careful, because a cold slave would instantly be detected by any human inspection.

 

There were other nuances to the secret technique, and each vampire family had their own method of creating human thralls. Valore’s method was methodical and traditional, but she too added her own stylization. Valore liked having her human slaves very cold, so frigid they glistened with frost and their eyes marbled over with solid ice.

 

Valore found herself quite stable after the collapse of the vampire houses. For many years she lived with human beings, learning about the new human society.

Even with her preternatural attention, humans near Valore started to suspect she was a vampire. Her lack of aging, her beauty, both which were impossible to hide, even when she tried. Over the years of missing people, strange occurrences, and 60 years of the flower artist not showing a wrinkle of age, led to angry conclusions.

 

Valore saw the signs, she saw the suspicion grow in humans like the clouds of winter. She saw the looks, the avoidance, the silence of human fear. Normally Valore would use the fear to lash the village, frenzy them into an ecstatic orgy of love, and drive them into submission through her terrible beauty and power. Such attempts would be responded to with a large army of guns and tanks, something her vampire seduction had yet to obtain.

 

Valore didn’t know how they found her secret lair, but luckily she was able to escape in the night before the mob reached her forest manor, a shrouded mansion left to rot, reclaimed by Valore as her own.

The outside of the lair was covered in trees and flowers. Vines were trained to grow over the expansive house along with briars and gigantic pumpkin plants. The giant squashes spread their leaves over the broken windows and their vines crawled up the walls. The placed looked like it was innocently left to rot.

 

Once the mob finished investigating the structure, their courage drove them inside. The interior was lavish, immaculate, rich and opulent. The walls were filled to the edges with artwork and sculptures with strange design. Paintings of serpents, old vampires, and castles long since washed back into the tides of time, remembered only in the fading chemistry of the canvas.

 

They burst in with a dozen shotguns, shouting to intimidate, shouting to announce themselves. They demanded the vampire’s life. They threw insults at the darkness, even though Valore was miles away, she knew what curses they held in their throats. This was not the first time a mob discovered her lair.

Their insults did not go unanswered. Valore’s cold hearted thralls appeared, rising from whatever task the intruders had interrupted. They greeted the angry mob with kindness. They offered refreshments, food, and hospitality they would have offered to guests in their service to Valore. The mob was stunned, open mouthed shocked. The servants wore the faces from their childhood; grandparents, parents, uncles, brothers, cousins long since considered buried and gone. Their frosty faces smiling and eager to serve.

 

A scream broke the tension, a farmer who lost his wife saw her bringing a tray of fresh cucumber slices to him. He was crying with grief, and his heart shook with adrenaline. The scream was followed by a crash, the farmer took his shovel and smashed the vampire thrall who resembled his wife.

 

It sounded like the falling of a chandelier. The thrall cracked and shattered from the shovel strike and a pressure escaped from within.

The words within her body exploded with a scream; her memories, desires, dreams, were vocalized in the noise. Shards of ice flew out, covering the stunned mob with shrapnel. Icicles shot out and pierced the bodies of the other vampire thralls. They too burst from the force of the blast, like icy balloons of words, pressurized, released all at once.

 

The chain reaction surprised the angry mob. Daggers of ice flew in every direction, and explosion after explosion blossomed as the servants ran towards the townsfolk. Some people reflexively used their shotguns, adding their own black flowers to the bouquet of ice and blood. Like frozen ghosts, the vampire thralls threw their fragile bodies at their loved ones. Some were now trying to hug and kiss their living kin with lethal embrace.

 

The moment lasted only a few seconds, then the ice melted into a red mess of dying moans. There were a few survivors, and they looted the rare treasures and exquisite artwork.

They described the occurrence to others, and years later the violence faded into legend.

 

Ist Valore lived on, she visited other villages and towns. She spent her time searching for the previous possessions of her lair, and she knew where to find them; they would bubble up to the froth of nobility, and she would drink deeply of their blood and riches.

 

She would make more friends and more bouquets, and the flowers of winter would regrow.

Golden Touch

An eye blinks. A small crow rustles its feathers. A nearby screen flickers with a recent entry. The words focus themselves, and the machine adjusts the words. Semantic dilation adjusted to 3.26poV. The machine hums, and bright symbols flash for a near empty room to witness the ancient electronic recording…

 

…I am one of the few remaining who are old enough to remember life before the collapse. I am making this entry for those in the future, and if there no future, then it is for myself. I am occupied by a great terror, a fear. To understand my concern, please understand the world I live in.

 

Civilization collapsed with less bloodshed than expected. The weather forced humanity from the cities and towns.

 

I live in a world of gigantic gray clouds. Weather systems encircle the world in a tyranny of erratic storms.  I am not from anywhere, I do not live within the boundaries of a nation, nor does any national origin matter like it did before the great storms. Governments fell apart and were unable to contain their boundaries from global immigration. The lack of geographic identity has changed many things. We are no longer bound by the chains of tradition. Cycles of ethnic vengeance perished, interrupted. Cultures meshed and blurred their lines, and in the wake of climate immigration our cultures decayed together.

 

Rains and hurricanes poured rivers from the sky. The mountains slouched with muddy faces. Cities emptied, and flood of human beings washed over everything. We fled into the cracks of other cities until the boundaries could not contain us. Sometimes the hurricanes brought garbage from other parts of the world, sometimes toxic, sometimes radioactive. Last year a typhoon rained oil on old Vietnam for weeks.

Luckily, the South Himalayan human-horde was traveling, and avoided the area. Something which would have been devastating in a stationary society.

 

Military weapons were useless against the weather, economies unpredictable, and power fell from one hand to the next. Nothing could contain the flood of immigrants and refugees. We swirled around until we formed hordes; a swarm in transition, capable of sustaining the needs of the horde.

 

In our world, movement is key. The weather demands everyone be prepared to evacuate their temporary housing. Technology is used to accommodate the great migrations. Survival requires constant perception and awareness. Within moments a storm could move into an area and demolish every structure.

 

The collapse of stationary civilization is complete. We are resigned to a nomadic and mobile life. We have adapted our culture to the environment. Our response to crisis has connected us across the planet. We have learned from watching each other face different trials. Whether it be wildfires, floods, hurricanes, or lethal heatwaves. This adaptation is source of my great concern.

 

My fear is that our monstrous intelligence is inheritable through observation.

 

I have only my witness for such a thing. After surviving the collapse of stationary society, I can see the increasing danger of other creatures following in our footsteps

 

The first experience was when the Cascadia horde I lived with scouted the daily migration of millions of crows. We followed them and discovered they had gained entrance to a shipping warehouse.

 

The place contained innumerable black birds, occupying every corner of a sprawling pallet city. They had developed distinct pathways and grids, echoing the rows of pallets and steel beams. The items on the pallets were consumed or dismantled and placed into smaller piles.

 

We found bird-sized shopping carts made of plastic scavenged wheels. I saw crows pushing these makeshift carts around, pecking at the ground, and clearing it of any garbage.

 

The nests were also made of plastic, multicolored nests lined the tops of high walls and the hanging steel. Their order was remarkable. They made all sorts of patterns, some of which looked like corporate logos. There are no mistaking certain trademarks. The thick curtain of crows tolerated us inspecting them until someone tried to take something from a pallet. Agitation from the birds was felt and seen.

 

They voiced their awareness with threatening cries. They swooped us all, treating us as one flock. Their harassment and angry screeches left us no other choice but to flee or drown in black feathers.

 

There were more crows in that warehouse then I have ever seen. They were thriving, a fountain of growing crow society.

 

However, when we returned to the warehouse with more people, the place was empty of any sign of the crows. I was dumbfounded. There were no signs of plastic pallet wrapping, no synthetic nests or makeshift crow-carts. Nothing of their numerous shopping carts remained for us to show the others. Of our original 8 us, only 3 of are still alive who witnessed the crow metropolis.

 

Years later I was able to find some clarity in the occurrence when I witnessed another strange demonstration of animal development.

We were scavenging a shopping mall, a large complex which mostly endured the storms.

 

Again, I was lucky enough to have seen it with my own eyes. We discovered many of the shops within the mall were converted to specialized areas for the rodents.

 

I was amazed at their number, again millions of them traveled the floor in an orderly pattern. Some carried small bags, and calmly walked from one store to the next, exchanging objects with an almost ritualized method to it. I even saw rats playing small drums and shaking little plastic tambourines.

 

I was not immediately worried; they seem untroubled by our presence as well. We took nothing and made sure not to hurt any of the creatures.

 

Rat Town still exists, and you can go see the society for yourself. Coordinates are provided as part of this entry. 

 

To all the humans out there, watch what you do in front of animals, they are watching us, mimicking us, and if we don’t finish the complete destruction of our cities, I fear the surviving creatures will follow us down this destructive path of intelligence…

 

Solar batteries flicker and fade, and the entry dissolves before ending. Nearby a crow caws into the sky, and with a flap of wings covered in small strands of neon polyester, merges into a wind current freeway of an incoming storm. 

Oversight

In the back yard of an abandoned house, another world spins on an altogether different orbit. The sun still rises and sets, except the plants have taken over the front porch. Blackberries were the first, throwing their bodies at the painted wood. Then after reinforced by continuous growth, they pushed in, spreading to every corner of the enclosed porch.

 

Next, or rather within a couple weeks, spiders set up their marketplace. Their webs spread over the thorns and the serrated leaves of the black berries. As the berries grew and rotted, small flies came to transact, and added their bodies to the spiders. The flies gained more from the rotting fruit than whatever the spiders took. The blackberries grew and the small ecosystem rolled into the house.

 

Dust creatures greeted the encroaching mass. Offerings of hair and skin gathered in particular corners and left to move of their volition. They circled around the door, waiting to be displaced, anticipating where the mass of vines would move. It moved into the kitchen, pulling the dishes from their racks, ripping the cabinets down, and crawling into the drains of the sink. Leaves sprouted towards the light, which bathed the kitchen in a light from the mouths of large windows; they twisted and bent themselves to soak the sunlight. Berries grew and fell on the floor where meals were once cooked by human hands.

 

Now mice and birds visited the new expansion.

 

They dined on berries as they cruised the domestic landscape. There were no cats or human beings, no traps or poison waiting for them. They organized the food, separated the packaging, and sampled everything. The mice were the most curious, testing every food thing. The wasps joined late, preferring the carrion of fly bodies. They casually chatted in a buzz of home invasion. They eyed the wood, which would be eaten for new nests, and the vines ripped a few good holes in the floorboards.

 

Then came the wait. A brief pause in the conquest of the human home. The floor gave way to mold and water damage. The supports beneath the floor sunk and disintegrated, leaving a meal for the vines and the creatures of decay to set up systems of chemical commerce. A pile of wet wood bloomed into a silver web of mold, then came the gnats and the ear wigs. Months went by and then finally a year, the house was ignored by a larger world, and the smaller world inched its way into the living room.

 

Birds and mice were regulars now, claiming rooms and hallways as their own. Nests grew in the corners, and the soft gnawing of wood was heard in the walls. Wasps were gathering in greater swarms. They enjoyed the shelter, and with the coming and goings of animals, meant there would be fertile slopes of the food chain. Winged moths also came to the home, a quick visit to try on forgotten clothing. Of course, the clothing fit, and warm closets became alive with the next generation of fashionable insects.

 

Another passed, and the windows relented. The wind joined the vines and spiders and flew into the rooms with a greeting. The wind filled every corner, rustled the webs, and brushed against the vines with a familiar handshake. The wind said hello many times a day, and sometimes at night. The vines continued into the house, wrapping their bodies around the staircases and rails and up the walls of bedrooms. Drinking deeply from their roots, which now stretched into the basement. Pipes leaked with eager moisture, ready to help any growth.

 

A few years passed and still nothing from the wider world intruded upon abandoned house. The water pipes were fully stuffed with roots. The walls turned into a crust as the inner walls were replaced with living plants. The staircase was now bound in the vines to such a degree the drywall and plywood was nearly gone. The support beams held up a couple wasp nests, a racoon nook, and 2 families of squirrels who turned the attic into their nut storage.

 

Latex paint and carpet were sparse by this point, having little defense from the rain. They melted away each month, like artificial glaciers left by an alien race. Their plastic fibers and multicolored skin were replaced by the magenta feathers of hummingbirds and blue jays, who used the staircases as nesting ledges.

 

The pipes were the last to go, rusted and cracked. When they crumbled, the vines of the black berries, trees, scrubs, grasses, molds, and slimes were ready to support the weight. Rooms devolved into vague areas. Without windows or walls, without floorboards or a roof, the shamble of plant life smeared the structure, and it was an indistinguishable mound.

 

Within a few more years, nothing remained of the once inhabited house. No interior paint, factory-built furniture, humming appliances, roof shingles, cotton candy insultation, or anything remaining of the once human occupied abode. The human inflicted order was gone, and the turbulence settled into a low hill, a ruin replaced to vague appear as the structure it once was, its distinction erased, its purpose reclaimed.

 

Elsewhere, human beings attended other houses, keeping them devoid of change, maintaining the Holy order of society. Their walls, which are made of slowly decaying trees, like food in a stomach, are waiting to be digested.

Junkyard Gods

Leftover jambalaya for days,

Hot sauce but no fire,

Thunder gust highway,

Over the tops of cloudy car lanes,

No ramps at 30,000 feet,

No hands in effortless flight,

Shrubs and spite,

All the way down,

Until the worms were made of plastic.

Digestible galaxy,

Shrunk down from inverted radiation.

Accepted evils,

No believers needled,

Tattoos, baboons growling from a cage,

Cheated, back into a burrito,

Drums in the deep house.

I packed my tuna fish before I saw the ocean,

Tremors and commotion,

Small shovels and a big mouse,

Spacious smoke between the dust motes,

Zipping around in anaphylactic pentameter,

Better dreams and a centipede,

No need, no greed,

Bound by rusted bones,

Moldy tomes of family trees,

Flower in fungal bloom,

Roasted on a sugar fire,

Oil, salt, and lime,

Simmer and prepare to dine,

On this sweet metallic meal.

 

Plato’s Cave: An analysis of shadows.

By Moloch the Mephit.

 

I am not a creature of human society, so please excuse any inaccuracies as limitations in my understanding. I am a mephit, a creature which lives within volcanoes deep down in the flow of magma. My wings are made of sulfur plumes, my arms are rivers crawling into the ocean, and my skin a crackles with fire. I rarely leave my volcano, spending much time watching the world nearby.

 

I’ve learned about people and animals, trees and cities. I’ve learned about armies and nations. I’ve learned of an interesting trait about human beings, they keep a history of events from before they were born. They are able to teach and learn, and their minds provide them a method to stand upon mountains and to gaze into the darkest oceans. They record these things on paper, stone, strange devices, voices, dancing, stories, and are able to organize themselves according to the details of these ideas.

 

I have eyes, although not trained to see the small scribblings of human beings, I have taken steps to train my eyes to see words upon the pages of books. I have read and found a small bit of understand in an analogy of Plato and his cave. Plato being known for articulating the thought, it is also likely many humans conceive of similar symbols for their existence.

 

In this symbolic cave, there is a fire, and people see shadows and objects, but cannot determine which are the shadows and which are the objects. Plato claims to be able to leave the cave, to travel into some greater more real reality, if such a thing is possible. Which provides some interesting questions, even for a creature of magma and fire like me living within the heart of a volcano.

 

Can we determine if something is real? Why does something being real matter more than non-real things? I will explore these questions in a short description of personal opinion.

 

The term real and realism infers a couple things. There is a functioning reality on its own without our perception, without a fire or shadows, or any of Plato’s symbols. If you close your eyes, the sun still shines and the moments tick away relentlessly. You can feel the sun on your face, feel the warm of the fire above, even if you are blind.

 

This observation leads to the conclusion of partial knowledge. You can know something about the world around you, but exactly what that something is not clear. Some human philosophers have concluded the ability to conceive of yourself means you probably exist. This is conceited at best, they are many non-thinking creatures, forces, and events which are inflicted upon human existence. Reducing the requirements for existence to an internal process is an escape from the complexity of knowledge which decorates Plato’s symbolic cave.

 

Human beings have also tried to use methods for proving things wrong. Again, they tried and reduce the complex world around them to simple terms, a language referred to as religion, science, psychology, and metaphysics of all flavors. Even Plato thought the cave and its shadows were a symbol for the unreal, a partial truth or incomplete truth. Plato thought escaping the unreal would lead to a sense of beauty, something he considered most harmonious and peaceful.

 

I think beauty and truth are connected, not because there is some weight to what Plato described, but because truth and beauty both provide a sense of order regarding existence. From watching humans they don’t pursue beauty or truth, they pursue something else entirely; power. Plato thought describing the cave and its shadows would give him power, or that truth can grant power, which again, seems only partially true.

 

Which leads me to the second part, why does something which is consider true matter more? This phenomenon was easier to understand for me when I looked at the pages of human history and their brief events. Human beings call things true which they can predict, and prediction is useful. They can predict which shadows are objects and which are empty vapors through trial and error, a behavior valued for its practical affects.

 

Unlike realism and realists, pragmatism excels at navigating this type of landscape. It does so by accepting partial truth rather than absolute truth, accepting partial reality rather than asserting of an authoritative one. Pragmatism does not claim what something is, but rather what can be done with it. Through accepting and discarding practical descriptions, human beings have avoided much of reality.

 

They avoid floods by moving away from the coastline, they avoid violence by fleeing the cities, and they avoid larger creatures to preserve their brittle descriptions of reality. Even within their own crumpled pages of history, they desperately try and avoid their past, where they came from. Which as a mephit I have seen from inside my volcano with my special kind of eyes.

 

I have seen where human beings came from: a tidal pool of extinction.

 

I have seen life spread its net, looking for some creature like human beings, and once found, the environment takes a predictable turn. Life finds its champion, and crowns it with the gifts of death, arms its champion with the weapons of destruction. The shape of the destroyer is different in each age. However once found, the champion creature eats and kills everything. Extinction provides a useful pressure for adapting to a greater world, a momentum to propel life into a greater reality.

 

Human beings are no different and regardless of their attempts to free themselves from the cave and Plato’s symbolic prison of doubt and uncertainty, they remain as much are part their system as they were before such realizations.

 

The existence of systems and prediction, extinction and life imply a greater reality. Yet even as the age of mankind advances, the details of the greater reality are speculative at best, changing from decade to decade. I assert that beliefs, and the language in which mankind views any kind of reality is a reflection of the environment which produces them. They are shadows of the world, a projection of what created them.

 

In my opinion the greater reality human beings are trying to define and navigate is the fire itself, the source of the shadows. Whether objects are truly real, part of reality, or mere shades of darkness on a cave wall, the fire provides illumination.  

 

I live near the heart of fire, deep underground. When human beings think themselves so large, and their shadows to strong, their caves populated with enlightened philosophers thinking they are outside the cave, then it is time. It is time to show human beings how frail their shadows are, and how bright the fire can be.

 

It’s a very simple motion; pressure and release.

 

Then the volcano opens, and I spread my wings and flow down the mountain. I fill the caves with fire and lava, my breath chokes the air, my journey shakes the world, and the violence of my eruption turns all objects into shadows, flickering briefly then silent. The fire rages like a storm made of greater winds, and the ground rolls like water, waves of stone, tides of earth flooding the world in a Holy extinction, divine sterilization. Inarticulate tongues of flame savoring the feast of a greater truth inflicted upon those who seek it.  

 

Perhaps as a creature of fire and lava I see much of myself in these symbols, looking for an easy language to define the motion world around me, to make sense of the conceit of my own existence. While I am a creature of fire, I am not unlike these shadow people.

 

I flow according to my tides, and like human beings, I am helpless to the motion of a greater fire whose hunger is like mine, and whose eyes see my world as a shadow flickering on a larger wall.

Shelia's Corner

Shelia liked the rodeo. She watched a video of herself one last time before giving up. The rodeo was recorded from her 28^th birthday. The cheer of crowds was muffled by an overhead industrial passenger aircraft.  Her house was directly under the airport. Like bees, there was no end to their buzzing. All hours of the morning were filled with departures and arrivals. Thunder greeted Shelia in the morning and nagged her at night.  She despised the noise, not only of airplanes, but of people, cars, trucks, refrigerators, clocks, snoring, crying, screeching, screaming, she loathed all the noises of squirming existence.

 

Tonight, however the airport was beautifully silent.

 

 She listened to the pristine silence and thought about moving to a place with an empty landscape, perhaps a vast desert or some tiny corner of Antarctica. She imagined the cold peaks of wind blowing, perhaps only above a whisper for endless nights, how peaceful such a place would be. She imagined a mirage of wet delusion, like a ribbon binding a gift of quiet dunes.

 

 

Shelia thought about suicide or dying most of her life, it was an intrusive and persistent thought. She tried once but quickly realized the act of killing herself was too difficult. Instead she decided to give up, to stop doing everything. Watching the rodeo was her last willful action for pleasure, the last noise she would make. Shelia laid herself upon the ground and started to let go of everything.

 

She went into a room within her head; a sparsely populated chamber where all her stimulation gathered. Her nose and ears where there, giving her reports on the fragrance of the carpet and the soft whine of the fan of her computer. Her eyes constantly updated her with much annoyance. As she gathered an inventory of the room. Her arms and back told her she was on s scratchy carpet, but Shelia didn’t care, she took all the reports and threw them in a hole in the corner of the room she couldn’t quite see.

 

Then the Internal reports continued to alert her, hunger from her stomach and pressure from her bladder. Shelia ignored those too, anticipating future reports of discomfort. They were a bit heavier, and when the evening arrived, her skin told her the air was getting cold. She shut it all out, and after laying like a pile of laundry on the floor, she fell asleep.

 

 Shelia woke the next morning with more reports, more urgency. Shelia did not care, she kept throwing the reports into the corner.

 

Shelia used to care, but her fuses burnt out a while ago, and the voltage needed to be grounded. The corner of the small room provided the relief to the suffocation of tasks needed to be done. Shelia found a moment to remember the first time she discovered the dark corner. She was after a car accident, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, just watch in slow motion. During those long snapshots of panic, the dark corner rumbled, purring for attention, and offered her a cool breath; to take the emergency, ball the reports from the senses, then roll it towards the corner, and the darkness would consume it for her. Then the report was concluded, finished, no more emergency, poof.

 

Since then, Shelia has been able to give up many things, drinking, smoking, sugar, meat, also bathing, teeth-brushing, hair-combing. and other basic hygiene. She gave up her friends, family, she even stopped saying hello to others, trying anything to avoid more reports coming into the cramped room in her head. She gave up watching movies, eating ice cream, sleeping regularly; doing whatever she wanted when she wanted.

 

However, getting what she wanted resulted in additional reports. Guilt, remorse, self-awareness, floods of new emergencies haunted her. The dark corner purred with hunger as it snacked on her anxieties and doubts, eating them as Shelia threw reports from her senses into the corner. The method worked and the cool breath of a taskless existence gave her peace.

 

Her loneliness was a new pleasure, a new absence she loved to roll around in. Now as she rotted slowly on the carpet, still aware and awake, but responding to nothing.

 

2 days passed and thirst was getting very powerful with its reports. The weight of their urgency was exhausting to shovel into the corner, as was hunger. Her muscles twitched from their painful stillness. There was a banging at the door, and reports describing other people in her home. Shelia threw those reports away, but not until she looked them over briefly.

 

Her family was checking on her and thought she might have had a stroke. They circled around her, propping up her body and trying to get her to respond. Shelia said nothing, watched them with a morbid voyeurism, she felt like she was watching her own funeral.

 

They called an ambulance, took thousands of tests, hooked her up to machines to keep her alive. Sheila didn’t care, the reports were far easier to handle with the strict regularity of a hospital. Her family shed their tears and returned to their lives, leaving her behind the curtain of a sterile hospital room. All evidence showed her brain working properly, yet she did nothing. They suspected a coma and shuffled her off to a dark corner.

 

For weeks Shelia enjoyed the peace of her dark corner. Then a report came to her, it bubbled up from deep within, a place she had never received a report from. The report was velvet, as if cut from a dark and heavy fabric. The words were stitched into the fabric with white silk and recommended a simple action.

 

“Pull the plug, end all the reports, it’s so close now.” The darkness purred again; the corner of the hospital shed no light other than the soft light of the machine. How the soft light seemed to hurt. How the pain of its persistence glowed in the night. Shelia pulled the plug, she shut down the reporting system, she welcomed the darkness and slipped away into the dark corner of the hospital.

 

In the morning, her bed was empty, the machine was off, the alarm was somehow silenced, and the medical attendants could not understand why they were not notified.

Garden of the White Roses

Perhaps it was 30 or 300 years ago, legends are vague with their details.

 

A lonely vizier lived in an iron fortress across a great and perilous desert. Occasionally someone travels across the desert to the fortress. Within the deep halls of the fortress there is a storehouse of iron ore, processed for delivery to some unrealized market. The carts of treasure are prepared yet abandoned. This is due a series of curses; great terrors which caused all to flee the fortress. Their tales and legend inspired treasure seekers and eager warlords looking to sheath their armies.

 

Rumor and mystery grew, promising nutrients to whomever followed the stories. Opportunity attracted a young king seeking the treasure of the iron fortress. He heard there was an ancient evil causing people to vanish, leaving no trace.

He guessed it was disease or superstition, and surely after such a lengthy time, any contagion would have burned itself out like a flame. Times were different now; superstition was something to be challenged, and he considering himself brave.

 

The young king, called Atem Anhenamut set out on a grand expedition to dispel the mystery and perhaps claim a treasure. King Atem travel by night, avoiding the burning sun and the waste of water. He planned a return trip and brought additional beasts of burden. Atem was cautious, calculating, and spent many nights discussing future schemes with his advisors. The stars were their witnesses, and the night hid their secrets.

 

The night dunes were a rainless river, flowing towards the mountains in the east. King Atem was the 10^th of his line, named after a noble house of rulers, who ruled without war. They built many structures and organized the people under geometry and labor.

Monuments marked the passing of each ruler and the name Atem was spoken at funerals, and became to mean the ending of things, the finale, the finishing touches.

 

Loyal servants were rewarded with burial rights, property laws were strict, and trade bloomed.

 

Then uneasiness grew in the stale peacetime. Even though Atem provided plenty of food, they wanted more. They wanted glass trinkets, golden luxuries, works of art from distant lands, unsatisfied with the markets of their own lands. Trade became tense, stretching the demands of a once peaceful nation.

 

For his return he planned to put down whomever attempted to replace him in his absence, and with the treasure from the mountains, he could raise a mercenary army and cleanse any traitors.

 

There would be new construction of an iron gate. No army could break it down, and the king’s laughter would mock any invaders. Atem, like those he ruled was also restless.

 

Atem was terrified of failure. As noble as he was, his life was filled with safe choices. His ancestors ruled wisely from experiences, experiences he didn’t have. Secretly he hoped the grandeur of the treasure was true, regardless of his proclamations decrying the superstition. He was surrounded by councilors, chancellors, advisors, experts, generals, and rarely made a choice of consequence without them.

 

The journey lasted 3 months, and the sight of gigantic iron gates gave Atem Anhenamut cause for celebration!

 

He rode out on a camel, flanked by his 2 closest advisors. He announced his presence to whomever was listening behind the iron gate.

“I am King Atem Anhenamut from across the desert, I have come to negotiate trade from my land, and seek the host of this fortress!” he proclaimed in a practiced voice.

 

Atem didn’t have to wait long, the silence was broken by the turning of gears and the moving of the iron gate, which was far larger than Atem imagined. It rose 300 feet above, and its hinges clenched the cliff face with rusted bolts the size of tree trunks. There was a thin and desperate voice from above the gate, “Hail distant king I am Vizier Baruf of the land of Ix. Welcome, I will meet you in the stables.”

 

Atem proceeded within, his guards surrounded him and prepared their crossbows. The gates continued to open even after the entire caravan entered its halls. It remained open, and the travelers found themselves looking over shoulder at the empty desert, expecting something, but unable to name it.

 

The stables were located near the entrance, and the caravan began preparations of unpacking tents, rugs, and the comforts which became expected from the king during the 3-month journey. A tea ceremony was prepared, and when Baruf arrived at the stables, the king was ready to greet him with an offering of rich tea from his lands.

 

Besides Baruf there were no others in the fortress, and his robes seem like a gathering of spiderwebs. This was due to the decaying cloth of the Vizier, perhaps his robes were once ornate, but time and use reduced them to tatters of sun-bleached white. He walked slowly to his chair, speaking in equal measure; “I am sorry I have no servants to assist you, it has been so long since I have seen another human being.”

 

The king replied: “Tell me of this place, and how you alone live here behind these iron doors?”

 

The old man Baruf took his seat with a little wince of pain from his hip and described the events of the great terror, “First a few servants went missing, I told the king of the reports, and was ignored. Then the iron smiths began disappearing, nothing unusual. It is not uncommon for our citizens to travel, but these smiths were not prone to traveling, and I told the king again. Then another curse came, famine, and many more fled the fortress. The next year another curse came, this time in the form of a green pox, killing many who loyally remained behind the doors of the fortress. This happened many years ago, and only I remain. If my tears were rain, I would have filled the desert. So many lost.” The withered Baruf wept, and the parched cracks of his face ached with the rain of sorrow.

 

The king thought a moment at these events, sipping his tea, then replied; “I am sorry for your grief. However, I do not believe in curses or evils, other than the actions of the living. What remains of this place now?”

Atem was irritated, he had traveled 3 months under the night to find a whimpering man and rusted gates, surely there must be something else!

 

Baruf gathered himself and adjusted his tattered robe reflexively. “Panic took everyone, but they left the treasure, you can find the abandoned holds of our caravans within the hillside warehouse. I will show you of course, I apologize for my emotional display, I may no longer be fit for civilization, as loneliness has given me so much. Let me show you what others have left.”

 

It took the better part of hour for old man Baruf to shuffle to the hill-cave warehouse and instruct the foreigners how to open the locks. What greeted them in the warehouse was nothing short of a fortune. Motes of gold, iron, glass, tin, figurines, swords, jewels, and enough to dazzle the eyes of the king. “Here is what remains, take what you will, I have no need, please take as much as you wish.”

The last words fell empty, no one was listening to the old man. There was a clamoring of intense urgency, cries of orders, chains, boards, planks and ramps rolled in and out of the warehouse. Greed bloomed like a fire, and wild imaginations filled everyone’s heads as they began sorting and preparing the treasure for the return trip. There was so much treasure, it would take at least a few days to process and inventory everything. 

 

King Atem didn’t see Baruf until the following morning when a grim and unnerving discovery was made. 6 camels and 12 servants had fled. Atem’s advisors guessed those who fled were overcome with gold lust and took what they could. The logic was hard to deny, there was quite a large pile of gold to take from. Atem ordered the inventory process to be under guard as the servants moved the massive treasure.

 

Atem was watching the inventory and packing process when Baruf shuffled into his presence. Baruf was still wearing his tattered robes.

The king offered a change of clothes, as the distasteful appearance of decay was in high contrast to the power and wealth he just acquired.

 

“Great king, you are wise to watch who touch your treasure, surely it won’t be the last. If I were a few years younger I would offer my services as your advisor. However, I am old and would not make the journey across the desert.” Baruf seemed to giggle at the idea of traveling. Atem barely acknowledged the frail man, but what he said was true. The king eyed his advisors with new suspicion but said nothing.

 

The next day, the same betrayal occurred. This time one of Atem’s trusted advisors were missing, as was another handful of servants. Their possessions were gone, they left no sign, and no one heard any violence during the night. This time Atem’s advisors were buzzing with speculation. They each had theories and guesses for why the missing advisor would have betrayed them.

Their squawking gave Atem a headache, he walked the halls of the fortress alone to ease his tension.

 

Atem found Baruf in a small room at the end of a hallway, looking out over the desert, humming a soft melody to himself. When he noticed Atem he turned towards him and said, “O great king, I didn’t see you there. I was lost in old memories of other kings who were heroes of ancient battles. I heard your advisors this morning and you were wise to distance yourself from them, perhaps they are not as loyal as they seem.”

 

The king continued his walk, barely acknowledging the old man, who, for some frustrating reason was still wearing the tattered robes, which seemed to be little more than heap of bedsheets stuffed into a human form, speaking platitudes, as if the old man knew any of his advisors, and what trials they had been through together. This was a deep wound of betrayal, not a wise consideration, Atem felt disgust towards Baruf.

The next day, the same occurrence repeated, another missing advisor, and more betrayals.

 

Upon the following day a fearful clarity washed over Atem. After a passionate discission with his remaining advisors he discovered there wouldn’t be enough people left to bring all treasure back across the desert. Atem was at a loss, his followers were fleeing, trusted friends missing, and his dreams were slipping through his fingers each night. He didn’t know what to do.  Atem’s desperation took another form, he became convinced his advisors would return, they wouldn’t abandon him, they would return with more laborers to help him carry the treasure.

 

Then another day passed, and in the morning only king Atem and Baruf remained. That evening Baruf came to the king with a wide smile. “O great king, I am dreadfully sorry for the situation you are in and the death of your ambitions. I can offer you little as you wait for your advisors to return, I can show you a secret.

It is more valuable than gold or iron, it is more loyal than servants or advisors. Please join me, I would like to show you my garden.”

 

The old man led him down a hallway, up and around a tall spiral staircase ascending through rooms of ancient splendor. The walls were covered in ornate paintings, dusty webs of neglect, and the stale air of empty bedrooms. They walked silently to a balcony overlooking a garden of white roses. So numerous were the roses, they covered the ground completely.

 

The briar was a gigantic mass of thorns and flowers, nearly reaching the balcony. The thorns looked like spearheads, and the trunks of the roses were as wide as trees. King Atem was struck speechless and stood in awe at the garden of monstrous vines. Baruf motioned to the edge and pointed at the white roses. “You see king, this garden offers something you cannot purchase or rule, something you cannot own or take. It is life, or rather it is alive with hunger, and because I tend these roses, I also hunger.”

King Atem sensed a threat and drew his blade. His disgust for Baruf overcame him; he wanted to kill the old man, to kill the words from his mouth, to kill the last few days, to kill the pain of betrayal, to kill.  How he hated the old man, in his shredded robes, what a mockery, what a cobweb. He attacked the old man with curved sword of elegant craftsmanship.

 

A slithering sound, and then a scream. The vines restrained Atem before the sword strike finished. Baruf stood unphased by the aggressive action. He watched the vines wrap around the king’s wrists and face. He struggled vainly, as the vines continued to cocoon him in their stalks. Baruf started laughing, and his robes and skin began to change.

 

The silent king was lowered slowly into the garden. Spears of thorns opened his veins over the humungous white petals of the roses. They drank each drop, momentarily turning red, then back to white again.

With each blood drop, Vizier Baruf grew younger, his robes mended themselves, his hair turned from white to black. He drew himself tall and confident with a heavy breath, lifting his young face.

 

“Thank you, great king Atem Anhenamut from across the desert! Your blood is indeed noble, it will nourish me completely, it contains all of the things which make a great ruler; your blindness, your conceit, your naive greed, your inability to think without advisors. You have my undying gratitude!”

Forked Tongue

 

Silence is golden. Silence is compliance. Silence is Holy. Silence is listening to others. Silence is observation. Silence is sacred. Silence is judged. Silence is a building, waiting to collapse. Silence is perching, waiting to strike. Silence is the 5^th amendment. Silence is purchasable for 300 dollars in the form of noise cancellation headphones.

 

Silence is a pillow over your head. Silence is a cloak. Silence is sensory depravation. Silence Is loneliness. Silene is solitary confinement. Silence is a cold shoulder. Silence is the grave. Silence is 20 years of things left unsaid. Silence is the ghost of a parent. Silence is forgetting the past. Silence is the death of culture. Silence is a pause between 2 catastrophes. Silence is broken by the frantic words of reckless people. Silence is a calm before the storm. Silence is a hurricane of pollution. Silence is a muffling smog. Silence is a weapon. Silence is violence. Silence is heavy tension between 2 people. Silence is a curse. Silence is a crack opening to nowhere, in which everything falls through.

 

Silence is a requiem for humanity. Silence is a seething rage. Silence is the future. Silence is stale. Silence is born on the wings of owls. Silence is dreamless sleep. Silence is comedic timing. Silence is a symphony. Silence is music for the dead. Silence is a hungry ear. Silence is the unknown. Silence is ready to break. Silence is the womb of doubt. Silence is pure. Silence is a dusty closet universe waiting to be swept away.

 

Silence is the language of the devout. Silence is a prayer. Silence is the night. Silence is absence of sound. Silence is a rainless famine. Silence is a voiceless choir. Silence is cruel. Silence is turning the other cheek. Silence is neglect. Silence is common. Silence is trivial corruption. Silence is a voyeur. Silence is tolerance. Silence is peace. Silence is nothing at all.

Outpost 23

 

“The path to immortality will bind you to a dying world.

Your mind will unravel into threads carried away by small birds to make their nests.”

                                                                                                -Necromancer Zorgnaut of the 12^th Circle, IC 1101 (Virgo constellation)

 

Currently the known universe holds society together by trade, travel, and the avoidance of deadly cosmic phenomena. There are endless cultures of humanoids, who resemble a common ancestor, the first creature to throw their genetic information into the reaches of space. Years later the fruits of their genetic seeding blossomed into a garden of galactic connections. Terraforming, deep space colonization, stellar engineering, they all created habitable places for life to grow.

 

On the edges of civilized starlight, deep in interstellar voids, another group of creatures live. These are the necromancers, creatures obsessed with immortality. They safeguard the secrets to long-duration biological stasis and leverage this process to keep light-dwellers away. Necromancers avoid photonic light; any exposure degrades their bodies. 

 

However, interaction with necromancers is inevitable if you wish to travel to Galaxy IC 1101 in the Virgo Constellation, with a point of origin of Sol-3 in the Milky Way. You must cross the vast distance, and to do so, you must make a deal, an exchange of goods or services with a necromancer. Their needs and desires can vary depending on the sector and distance. The going rate for 100-million-year flight, with complete resurrection might cost a small asteroid of ionized uranium, or data on exotic stellar formations.

 

The most common method of undeath is a tincture of syrup which slows the traveler’s body into a chemical lock, a state for which no electron exchanges are permitted. Then the creature is smuggled into interstellar darkness, transported through unknown routes of gravitational turbulence, and arriving at the desired location. Then they are resurrected, and hopefully whatever civilization exists nearby is accepting of the traveler.

 

Necromancers are primarily interested in the quest for immortality, commonly called Undeath. There are countless ways to replace or preserve your physical body. The difficult preservation is psychological. Due to the amount of time required for moving around in the universe, certain personalities emerge as smooth surfaces, glassy enlightenment built in darkness.

 

Even enlightenment has a training period.

 

Zorgnaut was a newly stationed necromancer, a fresh face of decay, wrapped in ceremonial preservation cloth. The 12^th circle meant new responsibilities, which meant he would be overseer for 12 parsecs. The promotion meant new access, the Preservation Cloth for example was now readily available. His skin would no longer require constant repair, a task which occupied 6% of his mental focus. Zorgnaut considered metallic replacement for his skull, maybe adding in a few superconductors into the structure, but surgery with his body was too risky.

 

As a necromancer, Zorgnaut displayed enduring obedience to the rules and structure of necromancy; an art with multiple roads leading to an elongated existence. Necromancy is defined by a large variety of methods for enduring the vast stretches of time needed for intergalactic travel. Some necromancers use robotics or nanotech, yet some form symbiotic relationships with bacteria or virus for perpetual existence.

 

Zorgnaut was a stockbroker of souls, a market developed to exchange in partial souls of conscious creatures. A cursed haunt or troubled ghost could be resold on the necromantic stock exchange. A successful soul-hunter could retire to the paradises of Seltris-5 by the age of 1600 without having to interact with any galactic authorities. Soul-hunting is not without its risks, but entities like Zorgnaut pay generously for fragments of anyone’s soul goo.

 

Zorgnaut is unique among necromancers in that his personality eventually dominates whatever soul energy occupies his body. A vibrant personality could last thousands of years, but eventually the wheels of time grind the personality down into an emotionless creature, which then begins to express the will of Zorgnaut.

 

 

The station was called Outpost 23 and had a service frequency of 1 traveler per 15 million years. Zorgnaut would be in his own stasis most of the time, waking to service travelers. They would have to activate the station’s computer personality for the request. The computer would then start the resurrection process for Zorgnaut, and once he awoke, he would trade with the visitors.

 

After 17 million years the first traveler arrived.

 

Zorgnaut was barely awake and had been for the last 3 million years. His eyes were closed, they rarely opened even when fully away to avoid photon corruption of his optic tissues. The notifications and alarms were all audio. The ship waited while Zorgnaut prepared to greet the traveler. He sent over spreadsheets, informationals, travel plans of places he could take the traveler. The flood of information was to allow for a full understanding of the details before opening audio channels.

 

None of this made any difference. The traveler had no need of any of Zorgnauts services. The traveler was a ship, or rather the appearance of a vessel. A black clipper ship in the style of an ocean-travelling ship of ancient earth when vessels used sails and wind to propel their hull across the surface of water. The ship was large enough to accommodate humanoids such as Zorgnaut, and a spectrum scan revealed no emission of light or electrons.

 

The ship had no crew, no electronic signatures, and no obvious means of propulsion.

 

Zorgnaut used a robotic arm to store the vessel in the repair dock, and started looking through communication records, perhaps he forgot an important date or contract. The frantic search revealed nothing, all the loose ends were trimmed, nothing was out of place. He wondered if the ship has been adrift. A few weeks of answerless efforts and Zorgnaut was bored. The ship was ignored, and quietly kept to itself.

 

2 million years later, a marauding storm of xeno-annihilationists star-entities rampaged through the system. Brilliant magnetic storms surrounded the Outpost.  Any escape would be intercepted by the star creatures and incinerated without hesitation. Their destruction would result in 16 parsecs of stellar scantling, ionized clouds, a redshift reset.

 

As the storms got closer to Outpost 23, a telepathic message bubbled up in Zorgnaut’s sub processors, or perhaps a distortion of magnetic turbulence, regardless Zorgnaut heard the words clearly in his brain. “The hull of the ship is beyond the fire. Find shelter beneath the deck.”

 

He had to try something; the fire would soon consume the outpost and him with it!

 

So he hid in the cabin of the black ship, listening to the roar of a firestorm as it dissolved planets both large and small, asteroids, comets, and all the other dust within the parsec. It burned for days, and weeks as Zorgnaut listened to its hypnotic and destructive power.

 

The burn became a static buzz, a humming shoreline made of plasma. Outside the hull of the black ship flaming stars scorched the sky erasing all organization of life, matter, all structures, space stations, colonial satellites, everything burnt into the wind. Yet the ship did not relent, and Zorgnaut lived.

 

Zorgnaut fell into unconsciousness after 3 months within the cabin, and the storm showed no signs of slowing.

 

However, as the thick curtain of dreamless sleep washed over Zorgnaut, a falling sensation was also felt, something exaggerated, elongated, a descent in something distant, something which sounded like a river, then joined by many rivers. The burning choir was replaced with the crashing of waves, and then a single wave rose up in an impossible silence and reflected a terrible noise which could not be contained. The noise bled into Zorgnaut, and he screamed, adding to the avalanche of sound.

 

Zorgnaut opened the cabin door, and the photons of an unknown light illuminated a horizon with 2 suns, a shoreline filled with alien and unknown vegetation. Purple-leafed creatures fluttered nearby.

 

Of the 2 suns, 1 was rising, casting a green sunset over the waves and Zorgnaut’s exposed skin. He resembled a bandaged ghoul; Preservation cloth covered wounds as their edges exposed scars of timeless wounds. The green hue gave him a plantlike appearance, a green lord of the jungle dressed in royal decay. His electronic implants resembling clusters of rotten fruit, and the tubes of neon that of luminous moss. His grimace appeared as a pale plum, pitted with the marks of hungry birds. Beneath his scowl, a nest of ancient experiences stretched into a cruel mesh. His arms like bark, frayed with dry growth wrapped in mummification cloth.

 

With a steel finger placed upon a crystalline button Zorgnaut turned on his proximity shield, shielding him from most of the solar light. Then he attempted to access his soul market for some soul replenishment, some eager personality to drive his corpse around. However, there was no connection, there was no connection to galactic authorities, or any local systems.

 

He did not want to decay further in this strange place, and the cabin of the ship was shelter enough from the green light of the sunset.  Zorgnaut retreated to the cabin below the deck of the ship. He prepared for longer duration sleep, checked his Preservation Cloth, and hid himself away from the land of 2 suns.

 

There Zorgnaut slept, beyond chemical decay, hibernating in the vessel until the world around him changed. Entombed and at the mercy of greater tides, the necromancer fell into undeath, and waited for resurrection.