100 Days And Nights 1000 Years Ago

Headlines for the death of a garden in fall. The subterranean...

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:14:00 +0200

Headlines for the death of a garden in fall. The subterranean voices of spiders. The tragic musical of the year’s last butterfly dance. Married toads who pretend to be pretty frogs, because frogs have the fancier love life. The size of the mosquito-breeding swamps behind the house. What would the bugs do without our blood. What would god do without our endless complaining. And the flowers: do they care if we’re looking? Of course they do. At the bottom of a slimy pond lives an immortal asthmatic fish, who knows all about the end of the world and when it’ll come. He won’t tell anyone though. He’s full of hope himself: in his dimly lit mind, angelic trout let a ladder down into the water. They care about him and make sure that he climbs the heavenly ladder to freedom and safety while behind him firestorms rage through the bright night. He’s never wondered how he’d breathe out of the water or how he’d climb the ladder without feet. Details of his miraculous liberation are of little concern to a being that is privy to the grand plan of creation and destruction. The fish stretches his fins with glee. He feels the approach of a season: another year of waiting is over. The last butterfly stops flapping. The spiders are having a late breakfast on yesterday’s bug fest. I make the necessary blood sacrifice to the giant mosquitos and I wonder where my ichor will flow today. The toad has given up his disguise—it’s easier to survive the winter as yourself.

#100/100 days 2011. Illustration: The Heavenly Ladder, from a 12th century Klimax manuscript. Published as “Winter Garden” in A Baker’s Dozen.

The general came from an old family of warriors who collected...

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:07:00 +0200

The general came from an old family of warriors who collected the tongues of their enemies. He preferred to claim the tongue when the victim was still alive. “The longer he’s dead the more precarious the constitution of his tongue,” he lectured. “You don’t want a stiff or a blue tongue. They’re just right when they’re fresh and pink.” We wanted to know, before we killed him, what he did with them. “They’re spiced and dried,” he said. “The drying process is akin to mummification. My Egyptian slaves, who trained with priests, perform it. It’s a ritual worth watching, because the tongue seems to come alive, as if it contained the soul itself. Whatever it is, it hangs on and writhes wildly. The tongue slips through the fingers of its handler, and when it falls to the floor it tries to get away, like a snake.” We were impressed. “You must think me a terrible barbarian,” he said, “but even if I wanted to, I could not stop severing tongues from the bodies of my antagonists. It’s in my blood.” When he saw that his last hour had come he began to talk quickly, like a madman. His last wish: he wanted to know how it felt to have your tongue cut out when you’re still alive and well. We didn’t do him the favor because we were trying to end the hewing, stabbing, impaling and other bad non-Christian habits. We didn’t judge him, we only wanted him gone. However, on the next day, we were told that the general’s body, when they lowered him in his grave, did not have a tongue. It was gone and with it his entire collection of hundreds of shriveled up glossae. Taken, we presumed, by one of his many relatives. To us they’d looked like stiff, fat slugs, but perhaps the general had been right and the tongue was the last station of the living soul before it went wherever souls go.

#95/100 days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai: “The Tongue Collector”. Published in The Rusty Nail.

«You, father in heaven, hallowed be your kingdom past; you gave...

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:34:00 +0200

«You, father in heaven, hallowed be your kingdom past; you gave me bread and bullets and helped me across minefields; you threw riddles at me daily; express yourself, express yourself, you said, hiding your own manhood behind thick glasses; keenly you looked in two directions at once and you had eyes in your back when I was little; you let me save my face many times over; you pointed a poetic finger at the jungle fever; sadness in your old eyes; I hunt in your footsteps silently, a ghost; I look up at the ancestral tree, the old tree and I stand on its roots firmly; that smile on your face is yours; do you see me still, you with the uninterrupted speech; rambler in heaven, antler for dames who sit by your feet listening open faced their jaws dropped all the way down beyond their sex; your fine hair, too; your cautious step and fear towards the end when you were afraid to leave the house; your tender hugs and, always, that scent of fresh flowers around your lion head; when I’m ill I feel your hand on my forehead, a blue veined cool palm leaf spreading calm; wordlessly I hunt in your wake with the holy harpoon that I sharpened for so many years under your tutelage; now I bend my head; I write.»

#91/100 days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai Metallumai: “Grandpa as a young man.” Published as “A Young Writer’s Prayer For His Daddy” by Sadcore Dadwave.

…On the second day after I regained my consciousness, I...

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:43:00 +0200

…On the second day after I regained my consciousness, I opened my eyes in that soft bed. I suddenly remembered that I’d been a boy from birth, not a girl, and that I had grown up to be a man. But why was I wearing a fluffy pink dress and a ribbon in my hair? Also, I could not move though I was not chained or tied to the bed. My limbs simply would not obey me so that I could not even remove the duvet to check for that part that would settle my confusion. Though, as I said, I wasn’t confused inside any more at that point, only confused about my situation. — In the evening, a man came to me. He sat in a rolling chair which was not a wheel chair and he silently operated a great number of levers. The levers were apparently somehow attached to me, because as he was applying himself at the apparatus, I moved, got up, walked, thrashed around the room, sat down, just as he pleased. I was so surprised that I didn’t even think about asking him any questions. After he’d had his druthers with me for a while, he sighed satisfied, brought me back to bed and went away leaving a smell of burnt rubber behind. He had not used my genital, so that I was still unsure if I actually was a man or a woman or if I only thought I was a man but looked like a woman. Oddly enough I could not remember anything else than the most elementary facts of my life. A long, long time before my waking up in the room dressed like an oversized doll stayed blank, as if whitewashed or covered with some opaque mental material…

#89/100 days 2011. Photo: Bacchus Fountain, Boboli Gardens, Florence, Italy. Published in The Rusty Nail (in “Five Nightmares”).

I saw a fox in the garden hide something. From where I stood it...

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:44:00 +0200

I saw a fox in the garden hide something. From where I stood it looked like a shoe with a foot still in it. I thought perhaps the fox wanted to hide the foot for his brood and he wanted it to rot a little because, who knows, perhaps foxes like their meat somewhat rotten. Or perhaps he liked the shoe and wished to wear it but being a fox he got four paws and needed four shoes and he only got one. And while he waited for more chewed off feet in shoes, he better hid the one he got already, because the bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, you know. While I was having these dark thoughts, a butterfly settled on the tree, a butterfly with green wings large as the ears of a small elephant. It was slowly swaying in the evening breeze and it dampened some of that darkness on my mind. When the fox was gone, I went out and dug up the hole. How silly I’d been! It was nothing but an apple or some round, solid vegetable matter. I couldn’t quite identify it yet because it was covered with black soil, wet from heavy rains. I wrapped it in a cloth and took it with me to the house. It was quite large and heavier than I thought. I put it in a pail and poured water over it to get it clean. It wasn’t easy, but I succeeded. And then I recognized that it wasn’t an apple at all, or a vegetable, or a root. It was the head of a child or a small person with its eyes closed and with short curly hair. I realized that the butterfly was probably an evil fairy or a nasty demon that made things appear and disappear at will to drive you crazy. I decided that I must have been hallucinating and I wrapped the round thing again, put it back in the hole under the tree and covered it as well as I could. I didn’t really have any tools and when I was finished, I breathed hard and my hands were all covered with black earth. It looked as if I’d never get rid of it again, like ever. It began to rain again.

#88/100 days 2011. Illustration: drawing by Taffimai Metallumai. Published in Necessary Fiction.

While I whittle my time away in idle thought and contemplation,...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:05:05 +0200

While I whittle my time away in idle thought and contemplation, empires are gained and others lost. When has this perspective on the world ever made anyone get up from their chair? It is too large a perspective. But what about this: “It’s sunny out. Let’s have a walk!” That will inevitably work. And it is only those interested in the gaining and losing of empires that mind. I knew a norseman who was one of them. He’d inherited a small kingdom and lost it together with the use of his manhood. When I found out about it, we talked through the night and he tried to impress me with tales instead, which did work, though it didn’t distract me from the issue of nonperformance at hand. His manliness stood in a stark contrast to his malfunction. Worst of all, he’d vowed to remain this way until he’d regained his kingdom. I never met a man so bent on self destruction.

#81/100 days 2011. Illustration: Olaus Magnus, History of the Nordic Peoples (from 1555), “On the election of kings.”

…came out to the cabin & the sun came out after days...

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:01:07 +0200

…came out to the cabin & the sun came out after days of rain & suddenly everything was alright & i felt good again. i felt like yielding a hoard! luckily, a treasure map came my way & it looked real enough so that i dropped whatever i was doing at the time. the map indicated that the treasure could be found across the ocean. i found a boat just as easily as i had found the map in the first place—which shows you that sometimes all you need to get what you want is to focus your will—and i started out on what proved to be a veritable girl adventure. it almost turned nasty on me once when i encountered a mighty wave, but i was already so close to the island that even though i lost my vehicle, i could swim there. and there it was: the treasure sat in a chest on the top of a hill, just where the pirates who had assembled it, had left and forgotten it. or perhaps they had been hanged and taken their secret to the grave. there are so many ways in which valuables and information leading to valuables can get lost. the chest contained diamonds and rubies, pieces of golds and pearls, but most beautiful of all a crown with a curse on it: whoever put it on would have to brave even more exciting adventures than this one until she found true love. that was my cup of tea with a biscuit & i crowned myself & swooosh!! off i went like a bullet, like a whirlwind, like a caterpillar shooting out of its cocoon, just like that, just like me…

#73/100 days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai Metallumai “treasure hunt”.

Their ladies behave like peasants: they have no refinement. I...

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:51:00 +0200

Their ladies behave like peasants: they have no refinement. I thought I had hidden my disgust at their common manners, when Zora told me that my face did constantly reveal my true thoughts and that the ladies were offended but hadn’t dared to tell me. She told me that there was much more going on between them and between us than I knew. “There are so many signals,” she said, “and some of them even I don’t fully understand.” Apparently there are signals for the following: when to cast down your eyes. When to speak. When not to reply with words but to respond by levitating. When not to touch. When to bow almost imperceptibly, with a flutter. When to wave your hands. When not to cross your legs. And so on. As it turns out, while I was judging them, they were judging me just as harshly, which is a relief. “What should I do?” I asked Zora, and she said time would heal the rift as long as I kept an open mind. I didn’t know what she meant by that, “keep an open mind”. Was that a local pet? She laughed. Didn’t I know that the mind could be closed—she made a face and indeed, she looked like a smooth stone surface, impenetrable and indistinguishable. Then she opened her face: “Look at this,” she said. Her whole demeanor changed, as if she stepped out of a dimmed room into the light. Now, her eyes said “I will follow you anywhere.” I saw what she meant and I tried it myself. When I unclose my mind now, it includes everybody and everything around me: there’s no space for judgement when I’m busy keeping the gate open.

#72/100 days 2011. Illustration: Philosophy Presenting the Seven Liberal Arts to Boethius (detail), miniature in a French manuscript of The Consolation of Philosophy attributed to the Coëtivy Master, about 1460–70.

The man who called himself the maestro had put eight performers...

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 17:38:00 +0200

The man who called himself the maestro had put eight performers in pairs on a wooden stage. A large banner announced “artifices magni”. Two of the people on stage looked asleep or dead, two others were leaning into each other and seemed to play for themselves more than for us. Two more were stroking each other’s red beards: ginger hair was rare and I knew that the children would have liked to touch it for good luck. The maestro stood behind the last two of the group, who were half naked and dressed as merpeople. It was easy to see that they weren’t actually fish folk. Their tails were tattered and the scales that had been painted on looked worn. Their upper bodies were engaged in slithering movements while they were shaking their tails and juggling small green and blue balls, six at a time. It looked impossible. Whenever one of them slowed down or began to struggle with the ball game, the maestro, a huge man with a golden tooth, who never stopped grinning or shouting to the crowd, nudged them, and they returned to their show strangely strengthened. It was as if the push from their master turned them, just for a moment, from large, mangy mechanical dolls into passionate performers.

#71/100 days 2011. Illustration: the Syrian goddess Atargatis.

I started crying and then the crying turned into a humming,...

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:44:00 +0200

I started crying and then the crying turned into a humming, which sounded like tribal song, though I didn’t know any tribal song, but when you go on your knees, look up and howl, you do feel connected to the Earth in a way that can make you cry, and my wife said to me: what are you crying about, and I said I didn’t know, but as soon as I knew I would put it into a story. She nodded approvingly and said that once I was done putting things into stories, I could put the putting of things into stories into a story. I wondered if this would be the last story, but honestly I don’t think so. All this writing is unwriting, too, putting down roads and tearing them up again, drawing and crossing out, and why would it ever have to stop as long as the sun shines and the stars turn?

#70/100 days 2011. Illustration: Guidonian Hand named after Guido d’Arezzo (991-1050).

A messenger dressed in Egyptian cloth came to me. He announced...

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:11:00 +0200

A messenger dressed in Egyptian cloth came to me. He announced two visitors and handed me two small wooden boxes, one red and one blue. I opened the red one: there was nothing in it but a piece of parchment and the name “Toulouse Conscientia” on it. The other box also had a piece of parchment and the name “Byzantina Nescius”. I was intrigued by their names and their introduction and a little scared. When they entered, they filled the room with scents that I had never smelled before. They aroused and agitated me. There were two women, concealed except their eyes, one in blue and the other in red. They bowed to me and I bowed to them. I thanked them for the boxes, but instead of sticking to the protocol, which would have taken a while to complete, dancing the merry circles of a thousand-year old etiquette, I burst out that I knew that they were both spirit guides, and what they wanted from me, had I done anything, and was I going to be taken away to the Underworld, and more such talk, because I was in a frenzied state of fear at the time. Instead of responding, they unveiled their faces, which were pleasant and smiling. Looking at them sent pleasure down my spine and I calmed. They still had not said a word. They sat down on the stone floor, each of them behind the box in the color of her dress and began to softly hum until I fell asleep on my throne.

#69/100 days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai Metallumai, “Two Sisters”.

“Gentlemen,” said the queen to the assembled warlords, “there...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:49:00 +0200

“Gentlemen,” said the queen to the assembled warlords, “there were five different types of butterflies on a flower in my garden this morning. They were getting along wonderfully. If you asked me which was the best or most beautiful of them all, I wouldn’t know which to pick or how to describe them.” She glanced around the room where the five chiefs stood. They were all at odds with each other and with the crown, and they were meeting to either settle their conflicts or escalate to a full-fledged war. The men were heavy-looking and bearded except for one, who had a long, red, angry scar across his chin. Queen Gizella was known for her eccentricities and her similes. This was the woman who’d bewitched both the Byzantine emperor and the pope, a high-born without the affectations of the nobles, and without falseness. There were a few among those present who envied the king his wife. “It is plain, my queen,” said the scarred squire, “that you wish us to flutter around your face like butterflies, who’re also drawn to light, as we are drawn to your glamour.” This was a moment of dangerous flattery, because the man lied. Surely, Gisela thought, his tongue was black from lies. “But of course,” said the queen, “I thank you kindly for your apt compliment. I merely wished to help you onto the path towards amiable negotiations so that together you can bring peace and prosperity to our land. It is like a garden between high hills, this land.” She smiled at the warriors, who’d already braced themselves for controversy, and were caught off guard by her soft response. Later, when they entered the room reserved for the parley, there were freshly cut, scented flowers on the table, making the butterfly in each of them leap at the sight without them knowing it. They began their talks in an unexpectedly good mood, sobered by the sensations of beauty, and Gisela’s female reign had once again subtly succeeded.

#68/100 days 2011. Drawing: “Five butterflies” by Taffimai Metallumai.

«…with these words, my dear child, I shall leave you to your...

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:57:00 +0200

«…with these words, my dear child, I shall leave you to your meditations: you must honor those who work with you; because to work in the world is to fight bad spirits. To be princely means to be an eye to the world, which sees things through you; it means to speak for the people as if your tongue was made of a thousand tongues. It means making up similes so that your people understand a thing from all sides. It means to be on the side of the poor, the weak and the needy: god is already punishing them and it is you who must help tip the scale towards remission. Whether you’re a woman or a man, but especially if you’re a woman, don’t believe everything the books say: many of them were written by scared, old monks. When you’ve lost your path: look at your feet, because they were made to carry on. Build something whenever you can…» — Gisela closed the book, put out the candle and opened her face to the dark. There was so much out there, so much to know and to see, that it was tempting to close her eyes to it all. Leave it to the more impassioned. Stay behind the walls with the guardians, hire people to think for you, write for you, live for you, die for you. She did not like to think of herself as a little girl. She liked to think of everyone else as being deformed and too large. While she was unsuccessfully groping for certainty, but enjoying the walk through her mind, an image built itself inside her; it was partly disturbing and partly comforting. Her body was connected to every other body. Was it something to do with that duty to build which the nameless emperor had spoken of in his book? Was building the purpose of everything? Was making connections a way of building? Or was it all about the joy of riding on top of a giant Earth worm? She muddled through minor thoughts trying to recover, but it was too late at night. It was fair enough to feel lost looking at creation. It was not all right to get lost and feel sorry for yourself because you were so small, especially if you were a princess. Either everybody was deformed, or nobody. She fell off the high cliff of her consciousness into a careless sleep.

#67/100 days 2011. Illustration: drawing from the author’s notebook.

We’re treasure hunters crossing rivers. Deep digging. Swing...

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:04:00 +0200

We’re treasure hunters crossing rivers. Deep digging. Swing centuries through the air. Fan flaming fires. Nose through documents gathered by the faithful in bushels. Encounter brothels along the way. Distracted, we halt and enjoy multiple views of humanity. Booze flows. Barbaric bellowing in the night. Strength through silence. Weeks later, we still crawl fox-like through underbrush, hurting our knees. We arrive naked at the hut where the shaman greets us, demanding the secret word. We stumble. Swear. Scream senseless formulae found on maps buried in the bellies of sunken ships. Until one of us, a woman, a pirate of the hearts of men, draws the hidden hieroglyph into the air of a lush summer night, and off we go with the gold on our shoulders. But when we return, not a month, but a millennium has passed: the gold is time-tainted. All our riches are worthless because nobody lives whom we loved and no spell will bring them back.

#66/100 days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai: “Gold Key”. Published in A-Minor.

I read my first word today. I said it to one of my men and he...

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 13:36:00 +0200

I read my first word today. I said it to one of my men and he looked at me with a wild expression, as if I’d sprouted a pair of horns. There wasn’t anything else to say. He knew what a word was, but of course he couldn’t read or write. None of us could until I learnt it. We fight and we ride. I didn’t expect it to hit me this hard. It was as if I had left one mankind and joined another. Like becoming a parent. Like falling in love for the first time. Like getting your first tooth. Amazingly, everything worthwhile seems to come for free, through the air, on wings of desire. In one moment, the black lines were just scraggly things. They didn’t make any sense to me though I knew they made sense to someone. I felt blind though I could see. In the next moment, I saw the letters. I felt the meaning rather than knew it. I could see how that word connected me with all of creation. My sixty year old body shook as if I was young again. I felt a great wind carry me away, a wind that I had summoned. I didn’t know where it would lead me, but I readied myself like for a long ride.

#65/100 days 2011. Photo: Saint Gerome reading a letter, by George de la Tour (1629). Prado, Madrid. Published in kill author as “Berg”.

Father Mary goes down on one knee. He looks at me and he...

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:17:00 +0200

Father Mary goes down on one knee. He looks at me and he doesn’t. Right before death, men enter a waiting hall where they see further and deeper than before, I think. A warrior swings a battle axe. There’s no battle here, just a child and a bunch of holy men. The warrior’s axe comes down on the neck of the monk. The head comes off more easily than I expected it would. Mary wasn’t happy with his name, I don’t know why this is important just now. The head rolls around on the forest floor. The warrior wipes his axe and turns to the next monk, who’s kneeling. I don’t understand why nobody is crying or screaming. This might be a dream. Why would a priest otherwise be called Mary? One of the fighters lifts the frock of a monk. He finds another frock under it. He lifts that one, too, but there’s no end to the frocks. Now I’m almost sure this is a dream. I wonder what the pagan will find under the last frock, if there’s one. A foul smell comes out of the fog. This is where I’m going, into a nondescript place, a place wet with red dew. I know this scene is but a bubble of my fear but it doesn’t matter. The future is a scary beast to me right now.

#64/100 Days 2011. Photo: Pagans kill Christians in Pliska, Vatican Library.

My thoughts fill a landscape today, and they are all over the...

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:10:00 +0200

My thoughts fill a landscape today, and they are all over the place; wishes are sitting on the branches of the tree outside my window. I count them: there are forty-two individual wishes, and they’re all equally important; I heard about a monk who lost a manuscript, but instead of scolding him, the abbott kindly asked him to devise his own punishment; I wonder where the sun goes when it hides behind the horizon; it is good to begin the morning with exercises for the body, not just for the mind; I watched a hawk threaten a mouse, who gave the predator a piece of parchment with a poem in exchange for its life, and though I don’t know what the poem said, the hawk chuckled when reading it; do father and mother make children every time they put their feet together and if not, why not; the same question for the moon as for the sun, with the difference that I imagine the moon goddess has a lover whom she visits every day and who makes her belly swell; how many bread crumbs to pave a path to the moon? — In this way, I explain things to myself since either there is nobody to answer them; or I can’t be bothered to ask; or if there is someone, they mostly don’t look as if they know any more than I. This includes many of the priests, alas, though they are good at putting on the air of omniscience. Honestly, I don’t think even God knows everything, because if He did, wouldn’t His existence be terribly boring? And I cannot conceive of a being that would condemn itself to eternal boredom.

#63/100 Days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai: “The Wishing Tree”.

The town was very old and the oldest part was an ancient Roman...

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:04:00 +0200

The town was very old and the oldest part was an ancient Roman bath that was still in use. A mummified horse head hung above its gate. I now began to praise the beauty of the head, and I made up a story about the horse; that it had probably carried a wounded war lord from a far away battle field straight home to the house of his childhood; it had perhaps been a talking horse, the last of its kind, who knew things people would never know, and if you stood under the head and said the right words, you could bring it to life as an oracular horse god. “You sure have imagination,” said the bath keeper, who had looked at the horse as I was talking, “you made me see her in a different way. Because she was special, you know, my Falada,” and his eyes were wet. I understood that there was a true tale behind the tears but I decided that I didn’t need to know it, not now. “Come in for a hot bath,” he said and put his hand on my shoulder. “and let’s have a talk over ale and bread.”

#62/100 Days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai. “Falada” is the name of the horse in the Grimm’s Tale “The Goose Girl”.

«You sit on the top of the world, lord, and yet I wonder what...

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:53:00 +0200

«You sit on the top of the world, lord, and yet I wonder what you can and can’t do. Can you shut down a storm? Can you make a mad man mild? Can you turn ships into fish and fish into fowl? The stories of old suggest you can do anything you set your mind to, because your mind is the world. The stories also suggest that I might find you, a shadow-shaped serpent, where I least expect it. Let’s say I meet you down there, man to god, and I look you in the eye: what will I see? The destroyer of worlds, or a fool in love? Will I see everything that ever happened or all that’s yet to happen? Or will I see nothing but myself, and when I grab you, stand empty-handed and naked? Shall I bring a sword to our meeting-point, or a feather? The stories of old suggest you can turn a feather into a wing and attach it to any one worthy of flying. I am worthy of changing into a free creature, I’m ready to fly through the sky. And if I don’t pray tonight, because I’m too tired, will you overlook it? And if I kill an ant, will you avenge her? And if I stop asking these questions, will you answer me? Can you turn me into someone else against my will?»

#61/100 Days 2011. Picture from: “De sphaera mundi” (On the Sphere of the World). The most influential astronomy textbook of the 13th century. Published in ILK Journal.

I made the worst grimace in the world. A horrible face. I even...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 22:52:00 +0200

I made the worst grimace in the world. A horrible face. I even scared myself: my grandmother always told me that a face could freeze with an expression, which is why one shouldn’t gurn or squint. But I didn’t believe her. I put all my fear and loathing into that grimace. The inside of my mouth turned into a formidable cave. I stuck one hand into it and traveled through my throat, down the gullet, into my stomach and beyond. There I found a small door that I didn’t even know existed. I opened it and stared eyelessly down a long corridor. At the end of the corridor was a glass house. Outside I saw a field covered with mossy tombstones. There were shelves in the glass house, but they were empty and I knew these were shelves for books not yet written. I stepped outside and saw that the names of abandoned ideas were carved on the gravestones. I picked up a magical ring that lay in the grass. I slipped it on my finger, glad to see that it fit. I retreated through the glass palace and the corridor, closed the small door and went back up. When I closed my mouth again I noticed that people were standing around me. A policeman explained to them that there was nothing to see and that they should move on. But the crowd demanded to see the ring I had salvaged from the depths of my digestive tract. I held it up. The people applauded, perhaps for no other reason than that I had obeyed them. “What does it do”, said a man. I shook my head, “I don’t know,” I said. “Is it special,” said another. I shrugged. The mob dispersed and I heard disappointed murmuring. “Anybody can find a ring,” someone said.

#60/100 days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai, titled: ”A bit too scary”. Story published in kill author.