“Want to see a cool trick?” She leaned across the table, then whispered: “I’ll bet that I can unzip your whole wine glass without spilling.”
“That you can do what without spilling?”
“Just watch.”
Objects wrought from wood occasionally remember being alive. The circuits of their quiet minds can be seen in the contours of the grain, sleepily churning through memories. No matter how deeply carved, sawn, milled, or polished, there is always an aspect of the original arbor that endures. What remains is no longer alive, of course, but it is more than capable of haunting.
The suitcase orbited baggage claim for three hours before someone finally claimed it. Of course, it hadn’t actually been his to begin with, but he was the sort of thief with eyes for the things that happened to steal themselves. Its label told him that it was meant to have arrived in LaGuardia (LGA) from Athens (ATH), yet here it was in Miami (MIA), scattered among the domestic arrivals.
Gremlins are known to live in the engines of airplanes, the spindles of hard drives, and the pipes of boiler rooms. No space within human industry has ever proven hostile enough to prevent their occupation, making them some of the hardiest lifeforms on this planet. Furthermore, they are notoriously difficult to capture, or even to spot; their presence is only ever known in hindsight, evidenced by chewed-through wires, rust-addled screws, and corrupted data.
“The prism divides humanity into its seven wavelengths,” the angel told me. “Mind, body, shadow, voice, echo, identity, and ghost. Step through the glass, and you shall learn which of these you truly are.”
I thought about what it meant for body and ghost to separate, let alone all of these at once. “Won't that kill me?"
“I can’t answer that question for you,” it replied. “Death is a vague, human expression for things we have other words for. Once you’ve arrived on the other side, you’ll be able to decide for yourself whether or not you’re dead.”
1. An astronaut should be able to subsist for one lunar cycle on nothing but canned sunlight. Only the purest variety will prove their readiness: it should be distilled by the solar panels of low-orbit satellites, then carried back to Earth in the talons of doves.
2. An astronaut should be lowered into a pool of raven’s feathers, then meditate in stillness for three days and three nights. During this ordeal, gravity will tempt them to sink to the bottom, but they must be able to resist through force of will.
If the tales of the old north are to be believed, when the gods created the world, they began by murdering a giant. Ymir, as he was known while alive, was disassembled into his most basic components, then used to sculpt the planet. Mountains were carved from his bones, forests were woven from his hair, and oceans were brewed with his sweat. Once this was done, his eyebrows provided just enough thread to sew the boundaries of reality shut. The last of these stitches marked the end of his usefulness, but also, the beginning of time.
“I’m looking to get my nephew something special for his birthday.”
The witch nodded. “So you are. I take it you’ve heard about the arts that I practice?”
“I have. I was wondering if you could make an alligator for him. It’s his favorite animal.”
“Sure, that’s easy enough. I can make just about any animal that you can imagine."