Unbeknownst to the deer, its antlers are the reincarnation of an ancient forest. Though their previous form now exists as coal somewhere far beneath the creature’s hooves, they still remember their former magnificence. Each of their prongs grasps outward with the reach of a prehistoric cypress.
The escalator god has very few worshippers, and the same can be said of the elevator goddess. As latecomers to the pantheon game, they’ve been fiercely competing for the attention of a handful of devotees from the confines of their fiberglass palaces. Without a Trojan War or a Ragnarok in which to prove their worth, they’ve been forced to develop a much less glamorous system of competition.
“I’m sure you get this all the time, but I have to ask.”
“It’s about the sound coming from my chest, isn’t it?” Every word she spoke was punctuated by muffled clicking, thumping, and the occasional chime.
“Yeah. Is it a medical thing?”
“That’s putting it mildly.” She took another sip of her martini, then: “When I was fourteen, my left lung and rib were surgically replaced with a fully-functional typewriter.”
I once felt the notion that “all possible universes exist” lacked substance. It dragged along with it human notions of possibility that relied on imagination, while simultaneously ignoring connections between the animate and inanimate. The concept of a “possible universe” seemed tied directly to conscious decision making, yet ignored countless other unconscious relationships between nonliving forms of matter.
Wishing wells have a metabolism which is much like that of pitcher plants. Coins cast into their bowels are digested over the course of several decades, and are eventually left faceless and without luster. The pit then excretes a perfume of willpower into the atmosphere, resulting in subtle shifts in the ways of the world.
Travel far enough to the north, and you’ll find a place where the living and their gods are not so easy to tell apart. Hyperborea has lost its classical syzygy, resulting in strange blends of divinity and mortality. In such a place, the simple act of picking a flower can cause a star to disappear from the southern sky.
I’ve fallen in love with the lady who lives on the seventh floor. I do not know her first name, though her last is written on the doorbell: “Geppetto.” I do not even know what she is, but this does not seem to be a barrier between us. I’ve begun something that I must see through, even if it costs me my humanity.
