"What portion?" asked the sorcerer
just as he always did
his voice as harsh and grating as
a rusty coffin-lid.
Within the garden of the king
where no one else could see
he gestured to the golden maid
who lay there silently.
No record showed the fatal crime
that she was guilty of.
She may have laughed or failed to laugh
or loved, or failed to love.
No record showed her fatal crime
no law, or judge, or pardon
but sentence passed of living death
within this secret garden.
Her name alone has come to us
and few names come that far.
Adompha was the wicked king
and she, Thuloneah.
And she was bound for living death
for in this wicked place
one plant displayed a hazel eye
and one an eyeless face
and others mouths and tongues and hands
that mocked the gods' good will.
All grafted by the sorcerer
from those that he had killed.
The poison in Thuloneah's veins
at last had claimed her life.
"What portion?" asked the sorcerer
and drew his shining knife.
---
"Her hands," the king replied, "were deft.
They knew each carnal art.
Preserve them both, up to the wrist
but not one other part."
The wizard bowed and cleanly cut
her soft and supple hands.
He chanted in the tongue of djinns
proclaiming strange commands.
He summoned spirits of the earth
that all not damned would shun.
He pressed his trophies to the vines
and plant and hands were one.
Though orphaned from their guiding mind
they beckoned nonetheless
towards the king as if they sought
to give a last caress.
Their fingers rippled languidly
like seaweed in the tide.
Remembering debaucheries
now past, Adompha sighed.
---
The wizard took the golden corpse
into his arms and stood
impassively as if he carried
naught but rocks or wood.
Such beauty borne by ugliness
as if he had become
the scarab that the priests declared
the bearer of the sun.
The king had long since lost his soul
for that is kingship's cost
but now he felt the faintest ghost
of that which he had lost.
He felt a thing he could not name
that others know as guilt.
When such as he feels self-disgust
then others' blood is spilled.
The wizard turned his back to bear
his burden to the pit.
Adompha lifted up a rock
and struck a blow with it.
The wizard's skull caved in as if
no thicker than a shell.
His soul went howling to the void
its wretched dwelling fell.
---
For many months Adompha let
the ghoulish blossoms wave
in darkness and in silence over
fair Thuloneah's grave.
He looked for other ways to fill
the endless, listless days.
No cruel, malignant lechery
stayed hidden from his gaze.
Like one who travels many paths
to reach the same abyss
the jaded king found tedium
in each purported bliss.
One night Adompha lay asleep
and had a dream wherein
he stood before the garden and
it opened up for him.
Each plant seemed poised to offer up
itself to him alone
as eager as a virgin yet
as worldly as a crone.
He woke consumed with ardor for
those thaumaturgic blooms
that bore the parts of women whom
a royal whim had doomed.
---
The city lay cocooned in dreams
of evil and deceit.
He hurried to the garden through
the silent midnight streets.
The king unlocked the hidden door
now known to only one.
A hellish heat assaulted him
as of an alien sun.
Half-maddened with his dreaming lust
Adompha scarcely paused
but entered in like one who walks
into a demon's jaws.
Each plant had grown to twice its height.
The air hung thick with scent
that mesmerized the king into
a fearless wonderment.
He saw Thuloneah's shapely hands
that lived though she lay dead.
Her nails were painted bright as birds
in shades from green to red.
He stumbled forward and held her hands.
The nails shone sharp as spurs.
They seemed to yearn for his embrace.
Adompha longed for hers.
---
Thuloneah's fingers grew like trees
like moss upon a tomb.
They held his hands as firmly as
a baby in a womb.
Her fingers grew around his hands
until he stood enmeshed.
They gave no gentle, subtle stroke
but dug into his flesh.
Then hateful faces crowded round
and hands reached from the mud
and snarling mouths spilled vine-like tongues
to gorge upon his blood.
The hungry mouths and grasping hands
of lady, lord and thrall
and others that the king had killed
for reasons weak and small.
For reasons weak and reasons small
and reasons now forgotten.
Adompha smelled the scent of death
heavy, hot, and rotten.
---
Thuloneah rose up from the ground
and watched Adompha die.
She wrapped him in her handless arms
and took him down to lie
forever in her lightless house
among the angry dead
to find no joy, just dark and cold
within his final bed.
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The New Magazine
In the year 20__ a new magazine appeared which only published half-completed stories.
At last, every author who could never finish anything had a place to submit. The stories were the ideal length for those who always stopped reading halfway through.
Its major rival was the magazine that published the last pages of mysteries. This was popular with people who just wanted to find out who did it.
In the end the magazine which only published the well-written parts of fan-fiction sent them both out of business. It had no expenses, since there was never anything in it.
(back to contents)
++++
The Perfect Woman
Once upon a time there was a young man who loved a young woman. For a while she loved him too. But soon she left him. After a time he lost contact with her.
Then he decided he wanted her back. Many times he thought he saw her. But it was always someone else. He searched for her name on the internet. Either she had changed her name, or she had no interest in facebook and the like. He even looked through the phone directory. He wrote to the addresses where she might live, thinking that ringing her might be too intrusive. She did not live at any of those places, or did not want to talk to
him.
He is still looking. In fact she works near his office, and he often sees her buying lunch or walking by. He does not recognise her. She has aged as he has aged, but the image in his mind has not. So the man passes her by without a second look, as if she is nothing to do with what he seeks. As indeed she is not, and never was.
(back to contents)
++++
The Lamb's Speech
"O animal-lover," said the lamb
"Yours is a strange affection.
You eat the corpse of what you love
and see no contradiction."
"O animal-lover," said the lamb
"Yours is an awful kindness
that wraps itself in sentiment
and feeds itself in blindness."
"O animal-lover," said the lamb
"You wear our skin as clothing.
How may we tell your gentle love
apart from bitter loathing?"
(back to contents)
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Legend: The Story of Kevin Marley
One day Kevin was having tea with his friends Chloe Hendrix and Dennis Mix-a-lot. They had the same family problems he did. Suddenly he had an idea.
"I say you fellows!" he said. "Why don't we record an album together?"
"But Kevin," Chloe replied. "We have neither funk nor soul. We lack both beats and rhymes. Such an album would be a travesty."
"Why, that's the entire point. When everyone sees how vapid and plodding we are, they won't expect anything more from us."
---
Across unnameable gulfs of space and time, the demon stirred.
---
With such famous names it was easy to get studio time and a record contract. Sadly the arts section of the New Yorker reviewed the three friends' first CD. They called it a knowing deconstruction of the vacuity of celebrity culture. Millions of goatee-stroking iPad owners bought it, and Kevin and his friends became famous overnight. Soon everyone's expectations were even higher.
"By Jove, Kevin," said Dennis, as they waited backstage to receive yet another award, "your plan has certainly landed us in hot water."
---
Dennis' words were truer than he knew. Barry Hawking and Todd Einstein had been working for months on a glam metal album. It was the crassest and most ignorant collection of songs ever recorded. The liner notes misspelled 'boobs'. The two musicians knew that, at last, the world would no longer expect them to be serious intellectuals. But, only a few days before its release date, Kevin and his friends took the world by storm. No one paid any attention to Barry and Todd's album. Their work was for nothing, and they swore to take revenge.
---
The demon floated in the void. Neither alive nor dead, it waited. Waited for a mortal to speak its name.
---
"Right-oh," said Kevin, "We've only got one more chance. This follow-up album has to be terrible."
"Yes, I suppose so," Dennis said glumly.
"What's the matter old chum?" asked Kevin.
"Well...what if they're right? What if we really are incredibly talented?"
"Chin up Dennis. Just because someone in your family can do something, that doesn't mean you can."
"Yes, buck up," Chloe added. "Everyone says we can do it. Well, we'll just have to show them they're wrong."
"Gosh chaps, I suppose you're right. Why, we could make...a disco concept album inspired by Lord of the Rings!"
"That's the spirit. And all the songs could be parodies of show tunes!" added Chloe.
"Those are good ideas," said Kevin, deep in thought. "But we need something more."
---
Todd Einstein asked his brother Albert to help. But Albert had just completed his Theory of Relativity, which said that he didn't have to help his relatives.
"Ask Steven Hawking," he said. But Steven Hawking was busy rehearsing for his poetry slam.
"Ask Richard Dawkins," he said. But Richard Dawkins said his horoscope warned against starting new projects this month.
"Bah! We've tried everyone in the university Science Department," Todd grumbled.
"Why don't we try the Pseudoscience Department?" asked Barry. So off they went.
---
Kevin frowned, and paced the studio.
"I just...there's a worse style of music. I just know there is."
---
The Pseudoscience Department was on the other side of the university, next to Economics. Their building was the first one in the world constructed using the healing power of magnets. It often fell down, but only because people didn't believe in it. Unfortunately for the two friends the Department used homeopathic teaching methods: the less anyone turned up, the more everyone learned. Thus there was only one professor in the whole building. Barry and Todd explained their problem.
"Well this is easy," said the professor. "You have to implant ideas in their minds using ESP."
"Goodness Professor, we wouldn't have any idea how to do that. Can you show us how?"
"Of course. First, what's the worst idea that this Kevin fellow could have?" The two musicians thought for a moment.
"Well," Todd said at last. "I'd say the worst idea he could have would be to make an album where the music is entirely samples of dogs barking, sped up and slowed down to make a melody."
"Oh, and all the music is Christmas carols," Barry added.
"Very well. Now sit down, and close your eyes. Try and picture him in your mind..."
---
"Remixes that are just the original song with louder drums?"
"William Shatner doing spoken word?"
"No, no. Oh crumbs, something worse than either of those."
---
"I think it's working!" Barry exclaimed. "I can see them! They're in a studio!"
"So can I!" said Todd.
"That's it boys," the Professor replied. "Focus your minds even harder. Think of the idea as an arrow, and think of it flying into Kevin's head."
---
"Of course!" Kevin gave a cry of joy. "We could make an album where the music is entirely samples of dogs barking, sped up and slowed down to make a melody, and all the music is Christmas carols!"
"Hurrah! That's a splendid idea!" Chloe and Dennis cried.
---
The three friends kept the details of their new album secret. They knew that if their record company found out, they might make them change it. Or, worse, they could scrap the project entirely. Then it would become a legendary 'lost album', which the corporate suits destroyed because they didn't understand it.
The secrecy created more expectation than any advertising could have done. Fans camped out for days to be first in line to buy it.
---
In the abyss, the demon's many eyes flew open. It felt ecstasy beyond any in its million-year existence. Someone was speaking its name, yes, and this was delight enough. But it was somehow both one voice, and thousands. It was as if the whole world spoke as one, summoning it into the world to destroy. The demon's blood burned with power. Woof-woof-woof-grr-rowf-grr-bark gave a groan of malevolent joy, and began to manifest.
(back to contents)
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The Construction Workers of Telelee
Once upon a time, a delegation of the women of Telelee went to the houses of all the guilds. They went to the grand lodges of the blacksmiths, and the robot-makers, and the menders of clocks. They went to the modest lodges of the urban mythmakers, and the writers of signs with unnecessary apostrophe's, and the sprinklers of insect parts in chocolate. They went even to the tiny lodges of the consultants, and the promoters of synergy, and the writers of mission statements (t
iny, for the customs of Telelee are strange: such trades are considered to be of little use, and there are but a few who practice them). And to all the guilds the women said the same thing: