Morbid Prophecy

I know how I’ll die, buried in a nightmare,

My heart will burst from mundane terror,

Probably a roller coaster ride,

Or creatures crawling in my kitchen,

Nothing bizarre or obscene.

 

The flavor isn’t important,

Life geysers, fly wheels, gyroscopes, all dream dynamos,

47 angels arguing about nuclear drama,

Stone faced men with fevers unable to crack,

The 1-eyed dog with an empty stomach filled with blueberry bugs!

Insects with the heads of birds wanting to be my friends,

Periodic growth, bursting from leather cocoons.

 

The texture is like ice,

Cold and far away, the kind you find in heartbreak,

Grief under the waves, down in the ocean,

I’m worried my ears will hurt,

I’ll lock the weights on my boots,

It’s a slow fall into the dark,

Not like the tops of smooth metal buildings,

Or coarse heavy rope.

 

There will be no sounds,

No screams in my sleep,

My mouth doesn’t work,

When its full of water.

I’ll make a different kind of noise,

Nervous sugar reflexes,

Exchanging flesh for flesh,

With little hungry crabs.

 

How I get there is the mystery,

To that point in time,

When warmth has fled my heart,

But I can see the place,

When I fall asleep.

 

Perhaps it won’t be cold or calm,

Perhaps my spite will shred my veins,

And fall out of my head. 

An angry shadow made of fire,

Dread will push me under,

Wishing for the fall.

 

I won’t know the shape,

But when it comes, I won’t pretend,

I’ll be curled up in a ball.

The Spider Priest

Long ago, emotions and sexuality were repressed within society. Certain feelings and actions were not tolerated. People bottled their emotions up, suppressing their urges and ideas.


This caused all sorts of problems, and over the years society found methods to deal with these emotions. For example, the invention of birth control allowed sex to be less dangerous for women and could be pursued for pleasure and social connections. The same became true for other kinds of sexuality, alleviating the psychological pressures for many. Bottled-up emotions were let out, and society changed.


In the past when people needed to express their emotions and ideas they would go to a priest and confess. Then later in history they would go to a therapist, or vent their spite on the internet, and likewise empty their bottled-up emotions. So perhaps in the far future (or near future, depending on what kind of society you come from), there is a small city at the edge of a toxic ocean. This city has a new social role, like a priest of ancient times.


This new kind of priest is different. Rather than simply listening to people’s emotions, they carried them away with a type of ritual. The most suppressed feeling people had at this time was spite. There were countless unanswered injustices in the world, and many people still were not able to deal with spite. There was systemic inequality, while rich and powerful people were beyond the reach of any consequences. The lack of justice caused smoldering resentment to bubble up in the psyche of human beings. History itself was a painful remainder, and technology allowed every injustice to be seen and felt by anyone in the world.

Generally, spite is not tolerated by society. There is an avoidance of spiteful actions like violence towards others or suicide. However, these actions start small, and little pieces of spite can add up. Every unanswered injustice, every exploitation, every resentful unfairness can be felt. People during this time were just starting to accept that spite was something they needed to express before it built up and resulted in irreversible actions.


This Priest would accept visitors who wished to express their spite without judgment or consequence. They needed to share it with someone, and release some of the pressure within. The priest would listen to their confession, ask questions much like a therapist navigating the conversation. Then they would write down the most spiteful thing they heard, fold it up, then cut it into little pieces with sharp scissors, and finally at the end of the session, the Priest would eat the paper.


After venting people would feel better and go about their day.


The Priest would go home and go into a special room with a dark corner. The corner contained a little creature perched above. Although it resembled a spider, there were some differences. The spider only ate specific kinds of insects. Its legs were made of shadows, and its eyes reflected any light.


The Priest would open his mouth and little dark insects would fly from his stomach. The little pieces of paper would be given wings, and they would circle around the Priest until they were caught in the spider’s web. Then with a satisfying belch, the Priest would leave the room and close the door, letting the spider consume the hate flies.

Everyone would visit the Priest at least once in their life.


Sometimes people visited once a week, sometimes once a month. Everyone experiences different injustices and resentment in different ways. However, if you visited the Priest frequently, you could on special occasion, be blessed.


Like everything that eats and grows, the spider would have children. Sometimes these baby spiders would live in the Spider Priest’s hair.

During a session, it would be a blessing if a baby spider fell from the Priest's dark hair. The spider would be collected under a glass, put into a jar, and given to the visitor.

They would be instructed to find a dark corner and tell the spider their spite from now on. They wouldn’t need the Priest anymore; they could feed their own creature and digest their own spite.