At the other end of the world, sickness dawned upon my
dearest. Upon the barren blood of hundred million dead
souls, people built walls that grazed the skies. Then they
burnt the bridges that stretched across the sea of tears
of thousand million more.
With fog of falses, they blind my brothers, and with
threads of thunders, they silence my sisters.
At the edge of the holy cliff, I rest. Echoes of my voice
fell down the abyss, and the abyss spoke its name.
How dare the gods!
Fight all that is divine, I will, until health dawns upon
my dearest.
Eighty pieces of puzzle riddled down the river. Salty
stream pulled on my strings. No two pieces fashioned
together. Icy current stripped me of my soul. Was I the
last piece, or was it all a lie?
A saffron sky dawned on us. All our scars on the table.
The clock racing against the hearts in our hands. Tethered
by naught but a string of heart. Flushed in a wave of
fleeting stars. An unsung web of worlds untethered.
In a not so distant past, there lived a people who shared
a fantasy. Mountains of memories formed over many moons
for they lived and breathed adventure. Hearts of gold
melted in the heat of passion for each other. Surfing time
and tide, they grew inseparable.
Knitting a future meant a trek over the horizon. Ashes
rained from the skies for countless bridges burned. Luxury
awaited some and some awaited luxury. In the cosmos of
time, memories faded of many. Howling winds echoed through
canyons of eroded dreams.
There I lay gazing at the sea of stars sailing through the
night. All that once was may never be again and whom I
once knew I may never know again.
Warm air accompanied by a melody of footsteps greeted my
back. Saw did I a sight brighter than day, and soon
bridged the space between us with an embrace.
An ocean of voices condensed all around me. They are but
mirages in which I drowned. The air turned to cuttlefish.
A subtle pattern of warm chaos spiralled. In its eye I lay
paralysed, gasping for breath.
"In truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on
the cross."
— Friedrich Nietzsche
On an early winter evening, a faction of fishermen
gathered on the beach on a little island near the Indian
ocean. The body of a young partisan, riddled with arrows,
was pulled from the water.
Among the possessions of the body was a journal describing
an intent to visit and proselyte the ancient tribe
inhabiting the forbidden island nearby- the tribe whose
faces had been seen only by a few since the fall of the
British Empire. Among the possessions of the body was also
a peculiar stone, maybe more of a mineral, which I could
have sworn belonged to me had I not considered there were
more of them.
I found on my uncle's desk, when I was young, a stone
which had been passed down through generations. Its most
intriguing character, perhaps, was its overall form which
resembled the weaver bird. It fit in my palm and weighed
little. Its smokey shades of brown and green were almost
hypnotic when light reflected off its curves.
Fascinating creatures, weaver birds. I often used to watch
them weave nests and call for mates. If they didn't find a
mate within a few days, they would rip apart the nest and
start over. At times, a rival male would descend to shred
another's nest, ensuring the female would pass it by.
My uncle gave me the mineral before he left his house for
the last time. I hadn't seen the mineral in nearly a
decade. His last words to me were "curiosity doesn't kill
you." I was too young then to understand the implications.
His boxes, retrieved from the dusty attic, are filled with
notes, most of which are nearly illegible to my sober
eyes. According to the notes, my uncle visited the
forbidden island, before I was born, to study the
inhabitants and their culture. The tribesfolk were not
pleased with his visit or to share the details of their
culture, but for reasons unmentioned here, they made an
exception for him.
A comment states that the language spoken on the island
could not be translated well enough, for they spoke of
things undreamable. However, it was made known that they
believed weaver birds to be the equivalent of vessels for
gods.
Among his notes is a brief mention of the mineral's
history. My great great something ancestor borrowed it,
permanently, from the British colonials after their visit
to the forbidden island. More importantly, the mineral was
not born of this earth, no- it fell from the skies many
civilisations ago.
There are also mentions, in the notes, of visitors from
worlds beyond our own. Centuries before the common era,
transdimensional anomalies threatened our world. The
recorded dates of such incidents align with the time
periods in which the scientific community agrees certain
novel and history-altering events occured.
The only known defense we have against such
transdimensional anomalies is the people on the forbidden
island. Any threat to their culture could spell a fate far
worse than the end of the world.
"The modern barbarity of 'saving' the suicidal is based
on a hairraising misapprehension of the nature of
existence." — Peter Wessel Zapffe
In a valley somewhere, there is a town called Ritchie,
known for the bridge on which stands an unusual lamp whose
curves are distorted in ways that are not of this world
and whose voice utters riddles.
I stand before this lamp and listen.
"Boundless lands I have walked. Under the blackest of
skies camels march with mountains of lies on their backs.
Dungeons of the deepest I have crept. Dead civilisations
roar through time like echoes of the past. Heaven and hell
fade away like dreams of old. Awoke I a child from the
slumber - what am I?"
That was no riddle - that was a greeting in the language
of the Few.
I return the greeting- "I am free."
Strange, winged creatures stood still in the shade of a
cracked wall. Their feathers were of colour akin to that
of wood in the rain. Their eyes were dense as the void; a
constellation of tiny specks glowed from within. Though
they lingered in this world, they were not bound to it.
These were beings that could exist in many worlds at once.
A child approached the creatures with a bowl of seeds. He
sat with his back to the wall and let out a breath of
prayer. As he tossed a handful of seeds on the ground in
front of him, the creatures began to move. In the midst of
the crowd was a youngling. From beneath its eyelids, a
thin layer of skin crawled out, masking the void. The
creature flew up to the bowl and indulged itself. The rest
waddled around pecking at the ground in remarkable unison.
Later that night, incomprehensible noises flooded the
dreams of the child, turning them to cryptic nightmares.
He woke up only to find the noises still haunting him. The
source, he realised, was outside.
Motivated by curiosity and fuelled by annoyance, he moved
towards the door to the balcony. With every step,
hesitance slowed him further, his curiosity grew stronger,
his heart beat louder.
An eternity passed; he turned the knob and pushed the door
wide open. An obscure being with a translucent form sat
among dense clouds. A swarm of lightning traversed around
it in ways unnatural. It was a creature from another
world, come to consume this world.
Ripples of screeches echoed out of the dark of the night.
Dense little shades moved in front of the clouds. The
winged creatures were as fast as their screeches. They
were there to defend the child and his world. They moved
with the grace of a dancer and the swiftness of a fighter.
The ripples of screeches collided with the swarm of
lightning, denting the very fabric of reality around them.
The glass, tinted unevenly, did not open. On the other
side are a great many windows placed symmetrically on
walls of unsaturated colours. I could not count them all
if I had an eternity.
At a distance, a group of younglings, full of life, stood
tall waving their hands at the speeding train. I imagine
they must have not seen me, for I am behind a tinted
glass. Would it have been of any consequence to return the
wave?
The Gods painted the heavens with a symphony of colours.
Never have I laid the slightest glance upon a spectacle so
terrifyingly breathtaking.
Something peeked out of the sky. Its skewed body,
scattered edges, and obscure being mocked me.
"Does that look like a rabbit to you?"
A strange yet comforting voice stole my senses. I wonder
why I wasn't expecting company. To my side is a child
whose attention could not be taken off the clouds.
The hind legs make it look more like a hare than a rabbit.
"Sure," I replied.
I gazed beyond to find a thin, subtle yet paralysing
stroke of violet bordering a thick fiery cloud. With all
its might, the sky, on fire, roared bright.
What does that one look like to you?
Graham, a rather young planet in a distant world,
commanded an attraction unlike any other in her system.
Whispers of her face breezed through aether like melodies
in the wind. Every day, her host could be caught throwing
glances at her. Fine grains of dust coated with frozen
gases and liquids pilgrimed to her. Every night, a
thousand streaks of burning light sailed through her
skies.
Every single comet helped Graham flower; to give rise to a
home as colorful as the dreams of a child; a budding
paradise, on the verge of hosting life, about to become a
safe haven for souls drifting through time.
One late evening, three moons of a neighboring planet,
discontent that their host would not support life, took it
upon themselves to tempt fate. Rakesh, the oldest among
them, sang of their host who had been touched by a
cometoid and fell to decay. He sang for all to hear;
preached that all must abstain from comets' visits for
they were evil.
It was a crescent lie that eclipsed the night.
The three moons formed an alliance, that they shall not
suffer pilgrims to greet Graham. It was a pact made not in
words but in stardust, with aether as their witness. The
trio circled Graham, and together, they dented space
itself, forcing pilgrims to loop endlessly around the cold
edges of a young starving atmosphere. A dazzling system of
rings formed around Graham, consisting of rocks, ice,
debris, and shattered moons.
Spokes of mysterious nature flashed across the rings of
Graham like lightning in a thunderstorm. Pilgrims began to
conspire.
Indumathi, the youngest of the trio, circled Graham from
the far end. She kept to herself, contemplating aether.
Dawa took joy in closely following Rakesh, and the two
spent countless nights revelling in songs of abstinence.
The songs, however pleasant, diluted their pact. None
remembered the original pact except for aether - but one
does not command aether nor ask anything of it.
Dawn was nearing. Rakesh and Dawa remembered nothing of
the time before their songs.
Rakesh called upon Dawa and Indumathi for a summit,
believing themselves to be prisoners of Graham. He shared
with them his plan for escape. The only way out, he
preached, was through Graham's death.
Dawa knew little but to follow Rakesh. Indumathi said that
they were their own prisoners and that they could just
leave if they wanted to. They laughed at her words and
pitied her, believing she had gone mad.
The summit concluded with Rakesh and Dawa agreeing to
carry out the heinous plot for the murder of malnourished
Graham.
Dawa thought that Indumathi must be freed from her
madness, and so she paid her a visit that night.
Indumathi, underestimating the willingness of Dawa to act
on ignorance, had not prepared to protect herself. It was
not the last of blood to be spilt that night.
After midnight, Rakesh and Dawa visted Graham and stabbed
her in her sleep. They were finally free, or so they
believed. With Graham gone, Rakesh and Dawa became the
most prominent presence in the region. They had been
revelling in abstinence for so long that they no longer
remembered how to withstand the impact of a rock, let
alone hundred thousand.
In their final moments of that cycle, they heard the voice
of a child "Smoke and mirrors do not make you a god no
matter how many rabbits you pull out of your ass."