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Blood Spirit, cont'd

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Image by Michael Karcz Uhnhummun the Gracious sat perched atop his prized mare and watched the Untu, whom he protected, ravage the Inwit's village. From his vantage, he could see the ground slip into the sea, the land the Inwit claimed, and watch it burn. "All this you see before us, Umho my most trusted friend, is ours once again." Uhnhummun leaned toward Umho, "and Hthraa will be able to once again sleep." He spurred his horse onward toward the smoldering village. *** I find myself stumbling through the darkness. There is nothing more than a dripping and an echo. I fear it's my body I've lost; I cannot tell. I reach around for a wall, but I do not touch anything. "Ra'gar!" I shout into the unknown, into the humid air. "I would ask you to remain quiet," a vaporous, curling murmur washes over me. A light emerges from a corner just out of my perception. "Who's there?" "Sh, sh sh sh," a whis

For Country

She was known to the villagers as The Widow. Her name was, however, Zafta. She was my grandmother. “It’s pronounced vossNAYick. Vos na ik. It’s Polish. Like you,” she said, her eyes obscured behind her black, hand-tatted veil. Her fingers curled around the elegant goblet sublimely filled with Sambuca while her right hand accentuated the emphases. Her goblet was always filled with a clear liquor, so she could get away with drinking it without making excuses. We ate duck that night. “Your grandfather left us, your mother and me, when she, your mother, was ten, about the same age you were when you got your first bike.” She took a small bite from her plate. For the longest time I thought it was because smaller bites forced us to slow down and savor our food, taught us to not overeat. Later I realized it was because larger bites interfered with her ability to speak during dinner. “Stubborn. Filthy. Handsome was your grandfather. And I was gullible.” Her face revealed little, mainly be

Blue Humans

Often we like to think that we are oceans, that we may constantly revive and resuscitate ourselves, that our blue-green algae provides enough to others around us that we believe they cannot live without us. While that may be true for the oceans, it isn’t true for us. Billions of years from now, the oceans will not lament our loss. They will not fill themselves with sorrow. They will not stop churning for the moon. The blue is not sadness. It is the color of envy. Green is jealous. -JR Simmang

Blood Spirit

It was a decision made by the elders, only by the elders, and one that was an honor, a privilege. Gathan Go’Hallad desired only the brave. Gathan Go’Hallad desired me. H’shap, Elder Cha’kah’s daughter, had birthed unto me a son, Ra’gar, in the dead of winter. A Winter’s Son , it was foretold, would bear the mark of Thana’ Ahun’ de, the goddess of the deep. She watched over the harbor, granted the icy breeze permission to grace the treetops and our faces during our hot season, and spoke softly as to urge the plants and animals to sleep in our winter. In her greed, she took H’shap with her that snow-blanketed night in exchange for the son she left. My son. My heir and my pride. He would, however, always be a child of Ahun' de. Ra’gar grew slowly, as are all things inclined to do when the ground is frozen, though his mind became sharp and clear like the frost-bitten breeze. “Father, where does the wind go when it’s not here?” he’d ask; he knew the answer already. “Father, does

Do Fish See the Way We Do?

The river barely covered our ankles, but it was cold and the summer had begun a few weeks earlier. We stood, you and I, against the running shadows dripping from the overhanging branches and washing to the adjacent shore, letting the pebbles and stones break our feet in places pleasant, thinking they were an army of lovers, -pretending- we were an army of lovers… You said things then; I was listening to you from under water, and that’s the way it usually was, remember? You’d talk, and I’d drown, breathing only as an afterthought. I don’t want to think about that, though. Let’s think about something different. Let’s think about the plans we’d made to return to Italy, to speak another language for a day, to trace the angles of the Sistine Chapel, corrupt and speechless… but the water was cool on our feet, and the summer had only begun. -JR Simmang

Fallstreak

Perhaps, this'll be reworked into something more permanent. FALLSTREAK Personally, I think the shade from the Unknown is quite lovely. The Unknown. I thought we had reached a point where all things in the universe, grand and magnificent as it is, had been identified, quantified, categorized, and classified. Then, seven years ago, this anomaly, this behemoth of a mystery, plots itself above the New Washington Monument and stews. We, myself included, had no word for it, so we called it The Unknown, the abyssal remains of the withering human condition. These are the preconscious thoughts of someone currently in the wax museum railcar just before he wakes up. My eyes are heavy, as they should be, as I had predicted. Nitrous Oxide is a cruel mistress, clad in leather straps and chains, smoking an unfiltered Marlboro Red, waiting on you to cry and beg for forgiveness… “Yipe!” I cry, the barrel of a gun pointed at my face. Behind me, the firmsoft breasts of a woman. I turn aroun