as I lie dreaming

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Love Potion No. 9
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:32 pm
Location: Madame Ruth, you know, that gypsy with the gold capped tooth

as I lie dreaming

Post by Love Potion No. 9 » Thu Sep 07, 2017 3:54 am

I am packing my bags, because I am going to go for a walk and it's important to be prepared. My old satchel is stuffed with neatly folded clothes, two water canteens, a tin of dried, spiced meats and a small wax-paper parcel filled of peanut butter cookies with honey filling. I think this is enough. In the big and lonely chamber of my laboratory I hear the constant drumming of the music, my music. The steady heart beat of the metronome wrought from the flesh and blood of those who were not strong enough. Still I see them, wriggling inside their tubes as if freedom could be so easily won.

The drumming floods my ears and makes my head dizzy, intoxicated on the fantasy of exposing my music to that which lies dreaming deep in the earth (but not as deep as me) so that they can awaken and dance as puppets to my cause. Because freedom is not so easily won, I will build armies to win my victories.

I am packing my bags, but there is only one bag because I am only going to one place. I put this bag with the small pile consisting of five to seven other bags I have also packed for this journey.

I've forgotten where I am going but I know what will be there when I arrive; I will emerge from my path a stronger individual an INDIVIDUAL who does not need to be coddled and bowed to and worshiped out of the greed for the social contract but because I have carved my right from the bones of the undeserving.

I've forgotten where I am going but I will remember when I arrive there.

It will be a place where there is music and dancing; but destinations require journeys and all journeys need preparation.

I am packing my bags.

Love Potion No. 9
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:32 pm
Location: Madame Ruth, you know, that gypsy with the gold capped tooth

Re: as I lie dreaming

Post by Love Potion No. 9 » Tue Sep 12, 2017 8:08 am

I've been walking a long time now.

I'm tired and the ground trails longingly after my steps, convincing me that to be consumed by the earth is a kinder fate then enduring the blisters on my feet. I can hear my own wheezy breath out of time to the steady beat of the Metronome's soft four-four beat. A stalactite drips some kind of water into a plumage of fungi and moss (where there are precisely fourty seven purple-white mushroom capes and ten flourscent green gill-fungi) and I wonder if miles and miles above me there is a lake with fish and sail boats.

Left or right?

Two paths, left, and right. Nothing stops me from coming back to this juncture if one path was ineffective but the daunting decision remains overwhelming and final.

Left or right?

If I cared to focus I could tell you that the left cave is a dead cave. It is cold and empty and dark and winding with not a single bio-luminescent fungi insight; but still the soft distant scent of ozone and rainwater taunts my senses with promises of a new world just around the bend. To the right there is a live cave with fungi that feed off decomposing carcasses with mouths full of growing minerals. There is no end I can see in this cave, there are only bodies consumed by the Cycle and the four-four pulse of a heart. The answer should be obvious but yet I am here overwhelmed with my two options.



I wake up to the sound of the Metronome thrumming softly. Asleep at my desk it's soft droning lullaby ferreted my consciousness away from me to be replaced with the fervor of my subconscious. The power sources' organic supply floats in stasis inside the glass stasis chambers, but I swear I see a twitch from time to time. A brief flutter in the rhythm of the machine that pulses to the beat of the organics I've taken and re-purposed would provide further evidence to a paranoid mind but that, is not the quality of my mind.

One of the organics has long blonde hair, 'the color of sunshine' it was explained to me. I spend some time considering this and the quaff of blonde that floats in stasis.

I decide I hate it.

The sound of chairs screeching is deafening my beautiful Metronome as I drag a chair from my desk to the stasis chamber, going through the whole ordeal to break the seal, pacify the parasite and put on my gloves: all so I can stick myugly lanky completely normal arms inside the vat of goo that keeps the organic alive and grab a fistful of it's hair. This is harder than it sounds, because half of the corpse(?) is deconstructed and composed and, any grip too tight might ruin the delicate frame like an errant breath to a house of cards.

My knife is not made for sawing or cutting, but I use it anyway to hack and tear the hair off the scalp of the organic-power supply. Pulling my prize from the vat of goo, the fistfulls of blonde I can feel my grin pulling at my cheeks so much it hurts. Now I have my own sunshine too.

I put everything away the way it was before I became obessed with this minor detail, and bring the sample to my desk. I set it right next to my small pot of long deadsick sleeping grass and a cloudy vial of water.

Now I have my own surface comforts too. They can't take everything from me.

Love Potion No. 9
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:32 pm
Location: Madame Ruth, you know, that gypsy with the gold capped tooth

Re: as I lie dreaming

Post by Love Potion No. 9 » Mon Sep 18, 2017 6:56 am

I float on the airs of my accomplishments.

But they are empty, as empty as the waters in which I drift. The coppery taste of my own blood floods my senses and colors the pool of my vapid victories, unsung and imagined in the fragmented pieces of my perceived reality. Water pours from the mouth of the cliff side, filling the pit of my failures with the Dark Spire's delta of sediment and minerals that are as forgettable as the word --

I float on the water of my empty accomplishments, as empty as the sounds of my silent Metronome.

My fingers root though the bed of glowing stones beneath my floating form, phosphorous rocks that brighten the caverns, masquerade as secret glittering treasures of this unforgiving environment. I feel them, shuffling and rearranging as my digits search for nothing; the sound of the stones movements is deafening until I realize it's not the aquatically muffled sound of rocks readjusting but my own pained wheezes.

I drift in the fragments is my consciousness, vapid as a metronome.

Anatomy training has taught me enough to recognize first degree burns of both heat and acid variety, though I don't think chemical burns are rated on the same scale as heat. The pain is non-existent, replaced instead with a cool fire that runs the length of my lanky, stubby, scrawny, perfect limbs. It is exhilarating, but I hate it all the same.

I close my eyes that are so heavy now. I dream of blood and bones, wails and drums, wing beats and claws, smoke and fire, flower blossoms and interlocked fingers,

Eucatastrophe, that's the word.

Love Potion No. 9
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:32 pm
Location: Madame Ruth, you know, that gypsy with the gold capped tooth

Re: as I lie dreaming

Post by Love Potion No. 9 » Sun Sep 24, 2017 5:02 am

I'm sitting at the dining room table, the endless onyx surface disappearing into the distance where at the end of the table sits my beautiful, gorgeous, terrible, perfect Mother. The rich and deep color of her skin absorbs the light and reflects only her cold visage of certainty and beauty, framed by the wonderfully pure white curls that fall down about her shoulders. Her eyes, the most beautiful shade of silver I have ever seen. For someone not of noble House she is perfect in every aspect of the word.

Though I can't recall details anymore than that.

I take a bite of my mushroom cap, savoring both the flavor and hope that I too would be as beautiful as her.

"Don't you think you've eaten enough this cycle sister?"

The voice that chides me is familiar and invokes a bitter anxiety in my heart; I turn to see my sister. Her smile is sweet like poisoned honey, perfect like she is in sword practice and in reciting the verses and in rites. I glance down to my plate, still full of mushroom caps and steamed fish. I don't notice that her plate is empty.

"Mother says you're starting to get rather fat. Look at your legs! Like oozes they are, jiggling when you walk."

I look to my legs. I feel the whole room looking at my tiny FAT disgusting imperfect unsatisfactory form. I don't notice my sister helpfully take the rest of my meal away for me.

---

I inspect myself in the mirrors. My legs are stubby, short, gaunt,HIDEOUS, disproportionate, exactly 101.44cm in length and have only two scars from lacerations and healing scars on my left ankle. My fingers are long like a spider's legs. I like my hands. I have the physical appeal of a plank of rotten zhurkwood. My torso lacks the curvature of a well developed female and my hair is more of a silver than white. Around my bare neck there are burns in the shape of hands that grasp my throat.

In the reflection of the mirror I see looming over me the cold, listless stare of my Mother. There is no disapproval, there is no satisfaction. There is only certainty. She asks, 'do you really think you should eat another candy?'

I stare at the mirror. I am disgusted by what I see. It wouldn't be so hard. Just a little cut there. A little trim there. The scissors are pulled off my belt- the corner of my Mother's mouth twitches upward. Just a little snip there and my legs will be beautiful like hers. It hurts but that's what beauty is, that's what survival is; pain. I can't see the blood on my skin, but I can feel the edge of the scissors biting into my imperfections. Someone's laughing but I don't know who.



I wake up to find my form curled under a table. The empty white light of the faeire fire illuminates enough to tell me I am still imperfect,ugly, FAT, gaunt, hideous, me. There is a broken mirror against the crates and boxes, a fragment of the reflection exposed to me. I see myself. I see my Mother. I see my sister.

I look them in the eyes as I slide another candy into my mouth.

Love Potion No. 9
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:32 pm
Location: Madame Ruth, you know, that gypsy with the gold capped tooth

Re: as I lie dreaming

Post by Love Potion No. 9 » Sun Oct 01, 2017 9:36 am

From the heavy blanket of my unconscious I awaken in a pool of my own blood and flesh. My imperfect limbs are weak and tired, mutilated by my own hand and that of my enemies. They wouldn't be like this, if I was beautiful. In my fingers I grasp a long slender glass case which holds a single apple blossom flower kissed ever so lightly in frost to keep it alive in captivity.

Hope. That's what it says on the bottom. I had to ask over and over what it meant because I couldn't commit the definition to memory. Even now while I'm staring at the composition of lines and circles to form a word so easily understood by hundreds of other lives to me it remains an alien mystery.

I remember when he almost told me the meaning. He always looked so sad when he looked at me. Like he knows the end of this story. Like he is disgusted with my imperfections.--- WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT


My body hurts, glued to the old war torn floor of the ancient dreugar stronghold. I don't remember how I got here but I remember why. I can feel the need, desperation hunger gnawing at my belly, pulling at my muscles and commanding me like an Ilythiiri possessed by some unholy power. From the floor my limbs pull themselves upward and around me I see the throne room of the now dead King of the angry stone-midgets. Laughter bubbles in my throat that hurts my split lips as it escapes from me. In the end I killed them all. I did it. Just me.

Victory is in my grasp, I can taste it like I can taste the blood in my mouth. Each step is pain; I am an abomination of my own self hatred and obsession and the gods both holy and foul sneer at every inch I gain because I am so close to achieving perfection, beauty, freedom, answers. The portal is just behind the throne. I'm almost there now. I just have to step through. I feel my heart about to explode with spores. I am so close. This is it. The satisfaction to my hunger. This is what I have been craving.

And all at once my pains are met with sharp, soothing ice that embraces all of my ugly, disgusting, broken, injured form. My lungs are invaded by white hot fire that is cold instead of hot, my face cradled by the same horrible, wonderful, perfect, foreign sensation. As awful as it all is, I can't help but smile and take the biggest handfuls as I can of this snow. I rub it on my face and my hands and my wounds because it's so perfect cold it will make me whole. The mountain side does not share in my joy. Winds howl and gasp across the cliffsides and I laugh with it.

I think of the Moon-Dancer and wonder if this is what he meant.

The beautiful,delicate, terrible, perfect, ivory snow is stained with my imperfections. With the evidence in my legacy and accomplishments in scarlet art against the snow drifts. It is red and sticky now instead of white and pure.

But I do not care. I lay on my back, and look at the sky.

A dazzling array of white little specks against a rich blue vortex of royal colors that feels like it could swallow me whole. I am horrified and mystified and I want nothing more than all of this.

For the first time in a long time, I don't think of perfection. I don't think of music or drums. The ideals of revenge and justice don't plague me. I don't think of spiders or mushrooms or the wing beats of hungry wyverns. Instead I think of the beautiful motley of blues and purples sprayed with white glitter like sparks off a fire. I think of the slow encroachment of soft pinks and reds like expensive silks taking over the sky.

I think I know now why he always looks at me like that.

He knew this Hope to be a plague; one that he and all other humans are carriers of. He knew that this delightful, intoxicating plague would take over every mental facility I have and thus, be the end of me. He knew this would happen, which is why he wasn't here now. Which is why no one is here now as I watch the silken ribbons of brilliant pinks, carmines and golds start to take the night sky.

And even while it hurts, to look upon this horrible and unforgiving warden Corelleon has placed here, the white fires that burn out my sight and numb the pain in my limbs I scream and wonder if anyone hears me. I hear nothing but screaming. My screaming. The dawn is the last thing I see.


As I lie dreaming now, I think of poisonous smiles, dazzling colors,. I think of butchered thighs the howling wind against my cheek. I laugh ever so softly to the snow that cradles me because while my concious leaves me for what very well be the last time, I am reminded I am not alone on this mountain top. The old groan and creak of golem defenders herald the investigation of the near by patrol, belonging to the King I just felled.

But that doesn't matter. Because I think I finally know what that word means.

I lie dreaming now.

Please, don't wake me up.

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