onceuponascroll

Serious August

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:35:00 -0400

You don’t answer. You don’t think about it.

Each day your news feeds, your dashboards, your phones, and your readers overflow with unfounded opinions, random images captioned anti-this or anti-that, facts that aren’t facts, ideas that aren’t ideas, and, of course, claims that have no backing backing.

It’s so easy, isn’t it? Just look at that picture: look at how confident that smiling man is; and what’s that below him - aggressive words relating to something you oppose? Well, press the share button! Reblog it! Tell your friends! You don’t even need to comment with justification or say anything explaining what that actually means!

You feel safe. Why? Because people have learned through pain and experience that challenging you is futile and only makes conflict.

Today, we see discussing alternatives and blindly attacking people as one and the same. Don’t believe me? Remember that kid from your class or job, the one who disagrees with what people say, and won’t shut up - he just goes on and on about this point, throwing out random information willy-nilly. Who cares if the three miles around a Brazilian factory for electric cars is now a chemical wasteland!? And finally the boss or teacher has to threaten him until he stops.

You’ve heard that conversation a lot of times. Now, either all the people you’ve seen do that are a-social idiots with defiance issues, or some of them - not all but some - were trying to express a different point of view and wanted to show why their point of view was different. Maybe you’ve seen that, but isn’t it odd how that always seems to end the exact same way?

I will tell you what you haven’t seen: ever heard a Democrat, while debating policy with a Republican, concede and change their beliefs as a result of that conversation? No, of course you haven’t. Because when we say anything at all, nowadays, we aren’t talking. Obviously we are disagreeing: Our mouths speak for ourselves, for our supporters, and we don’t respond to anyone’s statement or ask for their evidence. Furthermore, they do not feel they ought to explain any evidence supporting another point of view.

We don’t listen. Everyone’s yelling, nobody’s heard. Result: nothing changes and people think less. Wonderful, we are politically correct. How far we’ve come!

What is the purpose of a debate that sways nobody. We have a term for two people talking separately about a topic, many in fact: lecture, presentation, talk, sermon. Debate is different and so is discussion, because there we seek to educate our audience AND our opponents of our ideas, and through our similarities and differences, we might just make something better, or learn something new, or find a solution to our problems.

Where is that? When does that happen in the real world? In the real world, we put photos online. They state facts like: Barrack Obama was not born in the United States or Mitt Romney’s economic plan benefits the people of China more than us. You’ve absolutely seen those two claims, and let me ask you something: have you ever seen evidence? Have you ever seen somebody comment on that post with ideas to the contrary, who was received warmly, and their thoughts taken into account. Or have you seen political blogs with hundreds of comments, and not one, NOT ONE, responds to any other.

The commentary element of Facebook keeps large volumes of individuals from responding to one another. In addition, nobody wants to look bad to other people.

So we see the picture that says Barrack Obama is an illegal alien, and we do one of two things. We either agree or we disagree.

Here is what we don’t do:

We don’t ask how a person knows that.

We don’t ask why this is a belief.

We don’t seek out evidence for either point of view.

We don’t give our opinion on the subject.

We don’t think about it.

In fact, what we do when we see something like that is decide if it works well with what we already believe. Then, based only only that rationale, we accept or deny it, treat it as fact or fraud.

Stated like that, does it make sense?

No.

So here is the deal:

This August, when you see something make a claim, stop and think about it. Don’t just scroll down. Does it makes sense? Do you have questions? If so, say so, or ask the kind provider of this news to explain themselves.

If a person says that conservative political belief hinges on the poor remaining poor, stop. Who said that? Was it a conservative or a knowledgeable individual? Or was it George Carlin, a comedian? Do the conservatives believe this? Does that make sense? Why would they?

And then, is this a presentation of fact or just plain bunk. If it is bunk, debunk it. Respond and don’t be afraid.

Be Polite.

Be Smart.

Check the Facts.

Examine the Thought Behind Them.

Instead of shutting up, let’s engage. Let’s actually have a conversation. Clearly that person wanted to talk, why force you to look at their ideals otherwise? If someone comes at you, and says they have freedom of speech, and that you cannot take that away, then here is what you do: you tell them they absolutely do, but so do you, and that neither of you have propriety over what is, and is not, reality.

That only facts can do that.

Some people say it’s time to stop listening and start thinking. Good for them. Great, really. It’s a start, much like going to bed when tired is a start. But the day has to come. It’s time to stop just listening and just thinking.

In Serious August, we are going to listen, think, and discuss.

That Which Women Take (or, In Those Seconds, Few)

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:39:48 -0400

That day, long ago, I lost any love I bore my father. That memory is anathema to me, a toll against my time left upon this earth. With its retelling I can feel my hairs whiten, my skin wrinkle, and my mind dull. So listen well, my son, as I shall not bear this tale’s repeating. And though it may be lengthy in its telling, believe you me: a thing’s telling is always greater than its living. This particular, hateful living happened when I was young, and unwed, its duration little more than a single minute’s half.

We had assembled the long oaken table in the throne-room, and it extended almost its whole length; the throne-room was kept more humbly in father’s day. That hall, where we seat ourselves now, occupies the center of Castle Thisbane, and it is built just the same. You can see the walls are formed of those common, gray slabs of stone, joined together more than a century ago by mortar and the sweat of loyal men. When father ruled, all he hung on these walls were a few banners and that portrait of our late king — the one over there. When the memory of his majesty was fresher, that portrait was the envy of every great man in the realm.

Ah, but I must not dwell so much. Arrayed on that table were silver utensils, goblets, and plates; and in this day, as in his, we bring them out only to receive large companies of the very rich and noble. The night before, servants had gone into the cellars and carried up a hundred chairs — chairs of young, polished pine. I marveled to look upon them, as I would when father’s soldiers assembled in the courtyard. There’s something fascinating in that kind of symmetry, that substantive uniformity. Yet father’s throne put them all to shame, and it towered over them smugly from the table’s head.

I wish you could have seen it, my son, but father wanted it buried with him. Now its filigree and polished tortoise shell rots in the family mausoleum. A pity. It was tall like our church’s organ, and it stretched skyward in a pattern of leaves and carved to look like visible, blustering winds. However, despite that stupendous throne and the long table and the envied portrait of our king — practically a royal blessing — that room housed a facet still more astonishing: father.

The top of his head was completely hairless. Father’s scalp always shone with an otherworldly radiance, even in the dimmest light. It was as if some source illuminated it from behind, like the halo of Jesus Christ. He was a great man, handsome with a face that could wrinkle in a hundred ways, forming deep crevices that would join with his tone and black eyes. There is a story still told about him. Once he rebuked a farmer who stole the innocence of his chambermaid while she was on an errand, and so great were his heated words and features that the man died on the spot, but that came to pass long before I was born.

That day I was sitting next to him, at the table, as he was lost deep in thought. Your mother, Elana of White Gnole, entered the room, and here, my son, is where the blood goes bad. I had the misfortune of looking at father, for as I said, his features were mesmeric, when the first sound of your mother’s quiet steps announced her presence.

I can remember to this day what he did, as clearly as if a great painter had, for every second I watched, recreated in pictures what my vision held, or as if a master scribe overheard my thoughts and feelings, and recorded them down with a perfection of words. It is because of this perfection that I feel myself pass a little from this world with each retelling; this is to be the third, and the last.

I was thinking on the day’s agenda, trite things: if I should cancel a later appointment with the castle’s shepherd, or practice etiquette for that evening’s gathering. My eyes had blurred and were unfocused, fixated on a single point. But with my father’s slightest motion, a twitch of his ear where it roundly pulled back and forth, I found myself again.

A breeze blew in from the high windows and played gently with my lips. It was cool as a blacksmith’s iron before the day’s work, and smacked with the faintest taste of wetted grass, sweet and heavy, and familiar; I thought of a hill I used to play upon, which was ruined. (Someone laid a cobbled path running through its middle — maybe for herdsmen, maybe not.) Father’s eyes rose upward and his head chased after them, like he was something coiled just starting to unravel. His palms and fingers , which were steepled on the table, began to press harder against one another, bending outwardly as the steeple collapsed flat against the table. His arms moved backward slightly with the tug of straightening shoulders.

I tried and failed to catch his gaze, but he was blind to my direction, interested solely in what disrupted his contemplation. Then I noticed that these subtle changes to his posture made him appear much younger, more virile. The slouchiness in his shoulders and gut, a thing time brings all men, melted away ; and it was unnatural to see.

His nostrils expanded slightly as he breathed in and out deeply through his nose; his lips, palish pink, blossomed out into a smile; a point riding high on his left cheek plumped outward with the pressure of his tongue; and almost imperceptibly, he reddened. It was not a blush, I believe, but something deeper and more visceral.

From nowhere laugh lines grew out from the corners of his eyes, and his brows of well-formed blonde hair pushed upward against his forehead, causing it to ripple with pleasantly interested frowns.

His eyelashes beat, once, twice, and I was reminded of how mother would blink when professing ignorance or innocence — although hers were long and brown, whereas her husband’s were thin and golden. I began turning my head, drawn to what father gazed upon.

I saw my expression refracted in a thousand pieces of polished silver. They warped and twisted it this way and that, made it look stretched and disproportioned, suspicious and demonic. Sometimes I had a brow filled with frowns like father’s, or those same laughing wrinkles about his eyes, or, I realized, his petulant quirk about the lips, the lower one sometimes fattened and puffed well past the other.

In one plate I saw myself and father combined, strangely, into a single, monstrous man. His baldness circumscribed onto the middle of my head, full of curly, brown hair. His eyes spread into my eyes, but they were not a good fit together. Mine were looking down at the reflection in the plate while he still peered across the table toward the other side of the room.

I found myself wondering what kind of ruler our monstrous man would be, but almost immediately I abandoned the question. I was distracted by new images. I saw myself in the wide frame of a candelabra, and that reflection was very accurate, like one I would see in my bedroom’s mirror. Yet as my gaze continued on its path, my reflection’s nose stretched out across its surface; and it seemed to me like one of the boorish masks sometimes used by entertainers. I wondered what was concealed behind mine. Or father’s, for that matter.

A felt a sensation in my head, like the precursor to an ache, but that went away and I thought no more of it. Once again, an interruption kept me from getting caught on stray thoughts, and I continued to turn my head: I saw myself in the face of spoon, a cup, and a large bowl from which guests were served bread and cheeses.

It took, in total, one second for my gaze to finally arrive, and when it did I saw what father had seen: Elana, your mother, looking as beautiful as the dawn, even in the distant doorway across the hall. She wore a blue gown that flowed over her body like water. Again, I tasted the flavor of grass as my mouth gaped just a little (a reaction I still have today). Mixed in with the grass was the faintest hint of her fragrance, and I surreptitiously filled my body with it. She had made an addict of me, for I needed her as some need the smoke of eastern spices. To me she was the lilting sweetness of honeysuckle burgeoning with the tang of the wild berries harvested in the late spring. Between her beauty, her presence, her smell filling me, and the sensation of returning childhood that the outside breeze had conjured, she could have told me she was an angel and I a dead man, and I would not have thought her wrong. This was epiphany, or euphoria, I do not know. Perhaps, if I had had more time to think on it, but no matter.

For barely had I captured her gaze in mine that I heard my father give a small exhalation, and though this may seem but very minor, it haunts me to this today. It was like a groan, my son, but not a groan of pain or frustration, nor was it a groan of stretching or exaltation. This was a perfidious groan: one that escapes a person only by accident, that creeps up and unmasks private yearnings, better left between a man and his God. This was lustful. One might even call it lust’s incarnation. For if lust could speak, it would be with that sound my father made. It soughed in the center, was granite at the edges, and a hot wind blown through a cavern at its beginning and its end.

Even as I heard it, heat rose in me. For I knew something of your mother that not another soul knows, and I shall tell you it. But be warned, my son, for not even you shall find me tolerant of slander against your mother’s name.

On the night I proposed our marriage, a thing we both knew was coming, she began weeping. I sent all the servants away, and when they were gone and I held her tight, she whispered in my ear how true her love for me was, how much she desired our union. Yet even as she spoke, her tone hinted of something terrible to follow. My presumption was correct.

For your mother told me that she would not sully me with lies, would not force me to join with a woman, even by deception, who was not pure. In simple words, your mother revealed to me that she was not a virgin.

In those days of my youth I was quick to anger; I almost chastised her and pushed her from me. A woman who cannot wait for her husband is a despicable thing indeed. She had made me love her true, and now, I thought to myself, she dared to strike this blow upon my heart. And I preferred she had said nothing — for what could set this right? But fortune stilled tongue and bade me wait. She told me, through her sobs, that during her stay in this very castle, here, in our own home, something monstrous and masked had crept into her room as she slept, and forced itself upon her.

Warm tears slipped down the length of my sleeve and collected in a pool on my hand, which had, of its own accord, balled into a fist. My breast was cold, despite the warm evening, and my mind was colder. I considered, I plotted the terrible vengeance I would burn onto that man’s virulent hide. In my imaginings I dismembered his body, beginning with the coward’s neck, dissevered by my blade, over and over until the image gave me no more pleasure: a mask of imagined blood passed over my mind, and I raged about the room, smashing a plate or two, swearing retribution. Then, your mother ran to me and wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me. This surprised me enough to let her coax me back down into my seat. Still, I shook.

I swore to her my devotion and promised her marriage, for I loved her true, and even in my anger I saw that this changed nothing. I wanted her heart, not her chastity. She had not been false to me, or abused my trust. I wanted her soft blue eyes to greet me as the sun rose and her smile to impress itself upon me with kisses while I did the same.No, I cared little for this break in chastity, which was not her fault, and determined her personal honor intact.

When she understood that it was my desire to go on with the marriage, she wept still more mightily, but this time because she was happy, and that made me feel more a man than anything I had ever done. But when I went further and promised to have the wrongdoer found, she put a finger to my lips; only a few more tears flowed off her chin, though her nose ceased to run. Fear had acted like a sponge and soaked the cry out of her, vanishing her heavy sobbing. Never have I seen her eyes wilder, bluer, or more afraid, and I promised to myself then that she should never have a reason to look as such again.

To this, my son, I have been true.

She said that if I sought her attacker in any way, I would reveal her to be a tainted woman, and, possibly, I would be made to marry her sister instead, who I did not care for. This was a horrible thought: to be so close and risk all. The wisest words my father ever told me were these: an inconvenience to the heart may as well be a weapon lodged deeply in your stomach. Greater advice, I cannot give.

She said, too, that if I found the culprit, it would be all the worse, and his punishment would do little to sway the minds of anyone. She would never be safe from a fate of rumors and sneers; and I knew her to be right. I did my level best to hold back my rage. For the time until that moment, where I sat at the banquet table with my father and heard the groan, I had succeeded slowly in keeping it at bay. I consoled myself with the promise of marriage to a woman I both adored and loved, which is better than most men get. (Though I admit that it was not enough to keep myself from suspecting any of the household staff I saw — always finding something off in their behavior, a trick of my unsettled mind.)

But with that groan, that garish, terrible sound that came from my fathers lips, I found that suspicion started to rise once more inside my breast, and from then on I could not hold it back; I knew at the very least, father coveted my bride.

No, I could not know father had done such a thing, nor really believed it, but merely the compounding of that incident and that sound, so very proximal, has forever pitted my heart against him. The suspicion never yielded, never waned, and this made our discussions end more abruptly, and our love, which had always been one of a father and a son, transmute into something less.

And it saddens me, even now, that I could not look upon him again and see my father, and even in death I tried and failed. My wariness of his guilt always stirred within my head, and it became like dried leaves caught in an autumnal breeze, circling around and around.

And I am ashamed, ashamed that I was capable of suspecting him in the first. But in a way, I can understand it. To me, father was more than a man, and with that elevated status I believed — no, I needed him to be — beyond the desires of lesser men. Yet, that sound, that lusty groan, ruined him for me, my son. It changed me, and I became an iconoclast. How could a man beyond men, a man like father, let slip a sound so primal from his lips? Why would such a sound be yanked out of his breast? My father allowed himself to see my love and future bride as just a beauty, a body wrapped in a gown of flowing blue, whose breast was dotted by small wet stains, as if she had gone out in early morning’s rain, and the salty stains of dew still required time to dry.

Goodbye, Queen of Hearts

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 03:45:00 -0400

The Queen is dying in her chambers, and they say, “God save the soul of the good Red Queen.” The men at arms, her loyal subjects of many years, wept, and inky lines rolled down their numbered surfaces, spade-headed spears abandoned across their lady’s kingdom, propped against walls or discarded in and about the croquet garden. The flamingos curled their lips at the wickets, which frowned out from the grass. But still the kingdom kept its hope alive, until she sent once more for the White Rabbit.

The old nursemaid left her lady’s chamber. Her resurfacing made many faces turn, their owners hoping for news, and the tidings she brought spread across the kingdom faster than an inferno consumes a matchstick. The Red Queen had woken from her sleep and demanded to see the White Rabbit. The beloved lady was slipping away, and this order weighed so heavily on her subjects that they bent even as they did her bidding, many nearly creasing their backs. Many pleaded for any other snippet the old woman could offer, sometimes even going as far as to ply her with bribes and compliments. But no matter how lavish the bribe or how charming the words, the nursemaid would only lower her eyes and shake her head and simply say, “Her majesty wishes to see the Rabbit.”

So, across the land the search began for the Rabbit, and never had the land seen such a search as this. A date was coming, a very important one, and this time the Rabbit would not be late. Eventually, despite tearyand ink-stained visions, he was found. The Rabbit sat at a long table with the Mad Hatter, and both slaked their thirst from clinking china cups with something more comforting than tea.

At his lady’s call he came, fast, giving up the pretense of dignity and moving on all fours, making good time to the great castle. He bolted on his back legs, his fine red waistcoat stained green by grass. He hopped into the field of rose bushes, and dashed among thistles and thorns, and the painted flowers and bloody cuts re-dyed his clothes red.

He met not a single person or servant or croquet bird or animal or other creature of the land. And when he reached the foot of the stone tower, its steps spiraling up before him, he slowed. His golden spectacles were crooked upon his twitchy nose, and he adjusted them into place. Now arrived, he found that he stood on leaden feet and, ignoring custom, did not check his pocket watch.

He was on time.

Over the steps he trudged, passing servants as he went. They lowered their eyes, embarrassed by expressions that revealed their lack of faith. Eventually, at the top of the tower, the Rabbit stopped. Before him was a great door, and he peered down at the handle. “Please tell her majesty that her ever most faithful servant, the White Rabbit, has arrived,” said the White Rabbit.

On the polished knob eyelids rose revealing polished eyes, and they met the Rabbit’s. In that queer way that knobs have, it conveyed a nod of assent, though it actually had no neck. “Thank you,” said the Rabbit, his voice cracking, feet anchored to the spot. He thought if he were dropped from a great height, his feet would crack the cobbled floor beneath him.

The door creaked open, and the old nursemaid’s long nose inched into view. More of her came until the Rabbit could see wrinkled lips, and age lined and liver-spotted hands. “You’re on time,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” replied the Rabbit. She nodded, and a red robed sleeve slipped around the door.

“Go in then. She’s been waiting.”

And the White Rabbit slipped inside, the nursemaid closing the door behind him, though this time it moved as if on oiled hinges.

In the brief light of the stairwell he caught a glimpse of the old woman; her grave features were more intensethan the taste of cinnamon directly on the tongue. But now the door was shut, the light gone, and only a little came in through the grand window, curtained with white sheets, letting little of day’s luminescence trespass into the room. The effect gave the sheets their own glow, and it was this aura that made the chamber visible. The Rabbit was in a world of full moon hues: dark blacks and nighttime blues, and worst of all, the grays and onerous browns. Malignant, terrible grays. Unyielding, threatening browns which trapped the Rabbit, feeling like he’d become lost in his burrow. And most prominent of all, the jewel of the room, was the Red Queen herself. She lay there, a great mass resting in a four-poster bed, a hulking thing buried under the quilts. To see her like that told the Rabbit all he needed to know: without a doubt, the end was near.

The nurse slipped into a chair placed in the far corner, and the Rabbit waited to be called forward. Even when summoned, one does not approach the Red Queen without invitation.

“Is that you?” said his lady, in a voice that was weak and whimpering — bereft of its usual robust command and haughty nobility.

“I have come, my Queen, your majestic majesty.”

“And late as usual, eh?” The informality felt wrong, like diving into a pool of clear water to find it had the consistency of oil.

“I know. Forgive me, I’m always terribly late.” Never would he correct the Red Queen, for that was deadly folly.

“No,” —she hacked and coughed terribly, and the nursemaid raised her head and began to rise — “we find it acceptable, and wish you to remain where you sit, or we shall,” —another fit of coughing came and went, but the nursemaid fell back. “We shall have your head.” A great arm lifted to wipe a runny lip, and finished, flopped back down onto the bed. “And do not apologize, Rabbit, or we shall have your neck as well, perhaps mount your head on a pike. To decorate our gates.”

She laughed: a potent wheeze that jostled her fat and made the bed groan. That laugh rose and fell in tides — once almost a sob and once a high shriek. Just for a second the Rabbit thought he heard in the clangor something of the Queen’s old self, and his tall ears stood straight and searched for more. It was futile. “You shall not apologize, for your tardiness makes you one of our most consistent subjects. We know how to deal with our subject’s flaws and strengths, for all we require is to know in advance that we shall have need of you, before we know we need you, and send for you then. You have always arrived at our side the moment we desired.” The Rabbit nodded sagely.

A long silence passed.

“We brought you here, you above all others, because we are at the doorstep of Death.”

“No, surely not, your majesty,” cried the Rabbit, “Her highness is the very portrait of health!”

“You differ with us?” The old threat nestled in those words.

“I’m sorry, did I say portrait of health? I meant to say her highness looks as if she will expire in the minute.”

“We knew as much.” The Rabbit recalled seeing many people fail to defend the Queen against her own remarks; she had them beheaded. He’d often also seen the same happen to those who disagreed with her.

“As we were saying before rudely interrupted,” she continued, “We wait at the doorstep of Death and fear he has no head for us to take.” Clearly she found it hard to speak, especially about her condition, for her voice trembled. Could the Red Queen be afraid? No. Nothing scared her. It must be the ailment. “Tell us, is that Hatter still mad?” she asked.

“As mad as ever,” answered the Rabbit, “and smells more by the day of the vile mercury used within his craft.” The Rabbit’s lip twitched slightly.

“That loathsome Cat continues to plague our forests?”

“I’m afraid so, your highness.”

“And has anyone seen any sign of,” she lifted her head and took on a conspiratorial tone, “her?”

The Rabbit shivered. She was the worst thing in his memory. “No, no, no, no,” he said.

The Red Queen relaxed, her body visible losing much of its tension, and sunk deeper into the soft mattress. “Excellent” — and another pause — “Finally, as we told you, we wait for Death. We wish you to deliver a message to him.” This made the Rabbit cock his head.

“I’m sorry, your majesty, but to whom shall I send the message?”

“To Death, fool!” she bellowed. “Our words were perfectly clear.” The Rabbit stared blankly with his beady eyes. Death was something that happened, not something you could send a letter to. But he nodded prodigiously.

“Of course, your highness was as clear as her kingdom’s air. The error lies with me.”

“I know,” and with that she began to laugh again; and this time the sound made the Rabbit feel ill. Then as abruptly as she had started, she stopped. Quiet crept into the chamber as the echo died away, dancing through the door and down the staircase until it was gone.

The old nursemaid rose. The Rabbit stood stark still, and the kingdom held its breath. The old woman lowered her ear to the Red Queen’s lips, and felt no breath, and touched a palm to the royal breast, and found no heartbeat. The Rabbit waited, agape.

The ticking of the Rabbit’s watch went on with its work of hatcheting out time, framing it with ticks as the seconds passed. The nursemaid walked away the bedside over to the window, where she pulled the curtains aside so they flushed away from the glass. And the light poured in.

The walls were red, the mirrors framed by rose gold, the sheets red, and the floor, and everything else too, red as red could be. It was a monochrome deluge upon the Rabbit’s eyes, until they fell upon the queen herself.

She was covered in sanguine quilts: there were little spades and hearts and clubs and diamonds patched into them. Her face, exposed, was the palest white he’d ever seen, not even taking on a reddish hue from the reflecting colors about her. There was none of the cherubic blush in her cheeks, and her lips were ashen white. Her eyelids were shut, putting out the flames that always seemed to burn behind the dead Queen’s glare. He noticed a single drop of blood on her cheek, by the corner near the meeting of her lips. The rest of it was smeared across the back of her pudgy hand.

He peered over the rims of his spectacles and looked for the old nursemaid, but she was gone. She hadn’t jumped from the window or used the door: the Rabbit would have seen, but she was gone. From the chair in the corner came a familiar, yowling voice, “And what happens now, Rabbit pal?” The Rabbit did not turn to acknowledge the Cheshire Cat.

“How long have you been lurking there?” asked the Rabbit. “Never mind.” He sniffed. “I don’t want to know.” He hadn’t escaped the sight of that red drop. It was drying now, becoming darker.

“The Queen of Hearts is gone, silly,” said the Cat, chiding him. Then he added, “Are you going to deliver the Dead Queen’s message?”

“What? To Death? How could I do such a thing?”

The Cat giggled wildly, and mewed and purred his delight. “Would you like to know?”

The blood was almost black now. “Yes, if it was her wish, and even if I don’t have a message, I want to know. Will you tell me?” And the Rabbit turned to face the chair in the corner, but found the Cheshire Cat already fading away, his grin wide and feline eyes aglow.

“Of course. All you have to do,” said the Cat, his suspended teeth transparent, “is wait.”

Me

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 17:29:37 -0400

I discovered myself recently, and that surprised me because I thought I knew where I was. I didn’t, but that’s an easy mistake. Apparently, I was a distant dot walking across a golden beach. The sand beneath my feet turned out to be words, and my footprints were tracing out a trail of stories. Now I spend a lot of time looking backward, or walking much more deliberately, watching my step. All I really need now is company.

Align into the Air

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 07:16:41 -0400

Each time he planted a dash and then a dot, or set down a consonant to clang against a vowel, he would hold his chest agape. He does this to feel the world’s winds, which collect tastes and feelings from everywhere they go, bypassing a cage of ribs and making straight for the heart, then into the blood and out again to shiver up the length of his spine, until the winds mingle with his thoughts. Soon their tidings trickle out his fingertips with taps on keys like a thick rain, and joining with him, become a whole. Full of dashes and dots and consonants clanging against vowels, his next breath feels and tastes richly of something new and very young.