#and at the deepest reaches of this feeling i can only see cosmically that this is what im supposed to be doing. to some strange effect that

[alphalesbian]

.

[starleska]

Dollface - the Toymaker x Real Toymaker!Reader

As a toymaker, you are delighted when you stumble across MR EMPORIUM'S TOYSHOP. But when you meet its eccentric owner - one eponymous 'Toymaker' - you enter into an impossible game with higher stakes than you ever imagined…with the risk of your deepest fantasy coming true. Rating: Mature. Tags: Dollification; Toyification; Truth or Dare; Reality-Bending; Humiliation; Psychological Torture; Fluff; Teasing; Touching; Forced Dancing; Mentions of Neglect; Cosmic Horror; Horrible Fake German. Reader is presumed female, but has a complicated relationship with gender and enjoys feminine terms of endearment. requested by the lovely @chronicbeans!! whilst this was originally meant to be a few-paragraphs long headcanons bit...but then it sprawled into a 13,000 word fanfic. my apologies to yourself, and to any German speakers in the audience 🙈💖 you can also read this on AO3. i hope you enjoy!

Toys are your life.

For as long as you can remember you have been fascinated by all manner of toys: everything from teddy bears to zoetropes; spinning tops to yo-yos. As a child you weren’t just interested in playing with toys—you wanted to reach inside of them, pick them apart, and understand every little detail about how they worked. Much to the chagrin of your parents, you spent more time trying to put your toys back together than you did actually playing with them. 

But all of your alternative playtime paid off. Now, as an adult, you run a modest yet successful local toymaking business, with your own vendor stall at the market and a popular online shop. Much of your work is custom, using vintage materials to replicate toys of the past, and you occasionally trade and sell real old toys too. As a result, you have something of a monopoly on the local toy scene, and feel you know every single toymaker and toy-collecting enthusiast in a fifty mile radius.

That’s why it’s a real shock when you stumble across MR EMPORIUM’S TOYSHOP late one night. 

The storefront is a gorgeous assault to the senses. Parked in the middle of the cold, grey street, the toyshop beams out crimson and gold onto the snow drifts, with all manner of classic toys peeking out at you through the windows. You are delighted to see an assortment of downy plush bears and hand-painted model motor cars crowding the shelves: so many it feels like the toyshop itself might burst at the seams. Your giddiness only increases as you get closer to the window. You can make out all sorts of fun, bright shapes within: countless colourful toys beckoning you and begging to be taken home. 

Yet it isn’t these treasures which catch your eye the most. Right at the back of the shop, near the counter, you spy a shelf lined with dolls. They are beautiful even at a distance: likely from the early 20th century, masterfully painted and wearing a fine rainbow of little dresses. Even from your vantage point you can see the impeccable craftsmanship. There’s immense detail in their delicate hands, and if you’re not mistaken, each doll has a crop of real human hair.

Perhaps most intriguing of all is the eyes. Their glass sheen looks so sad and wistful…far more emotion than a doll should be able to communicate.

If you didn’t know any better, you would believe the dolls were alive.

Oh, I shouldn’t , you tell yourself. I’m much too old now to be playing with dolls…and I keep all my old ones locked up anyway. I shouldn’t deprive some kid of a toy. This is a deeply silly excuse, and a hypocritical one. The vast majority of your clientele are adults, as are the brilliant toymakers you’re proud to call your friends. This is the perpetual double-standard you constantly believe and are always trying to rally against: that you are uniquely strange, and deserve to be ridiculed for your interests. 

The curious thing is that this idea doesn’t apply to toys more broadly…only to dolls. You have made countless dolls throughout your career, and yet owning dolls and enjoying them is something you’ve long nursed a hang-up over. But that is a can of worms you refuse to open up today. No , you decide, today I am going to be a normal adult who is confident about their interests and doesn’t feel an ounce of shame! I am going to go into this toyshop and look at those dolls, and that’s that! With your mind made up, you shift your backpack onto your shoulder, take a deep breath, and push through the toyshop’s door. 

The door slams shut behind you with the tinkle of a bell. You are immediately enveloped in warmth, and the delicious scent of varnished wood enrobes you like a fine dress. You can’t help but close your eyes and inhale: somehow, the toyshop smells just like your childhood.

“Hallo, meine kleine Mädchen! Komm in, komm in, be ge-removings yourselves from dee kalt! It is ein horrid evenings, is it not?”

You open your eyes in surprise, and see an older, greyish-blond-haired man leaning against the counter. He’s dressed in a most whimsical fashion, wearing a soft white work shirt coupled with a maroon waistcoat, and a brown apron stuffed with woodworking tools. A spotted ascot around his neck and a pair of pince-nez balanced at the end of his nose complete the look.

The man smiles at you like he’s known you all his life. You feel like you’ve been transported to another time.

“It is,” you agree, as you shake the snow drifts from your boots. “So sorry for dropping in so late—I’m surprised you’re still open.”

“Ah, but I am always having times for dee beautiful Fräulein,” says the man with a coy wink. “But vot is it zat is ge-bringings you here?”

You have to stifle a giggle. You know enough of the language to know the man’s German is terribly off, and his accent is borderline offensive. However, you also know that folks in the toymaking community tend to be eccentric, and you can forgive a corny, theatrical accent for the wonderful atmosphere of this shop. Who are you to judge if he wants to LARP as a Bavarian thespian?

Before you can reply, the strange man is suddenly beside you…although you don’t recall seeing him move. He has also removed his pince-nez. You blink, a little taken aback. How did he move so quickly? You wonder if you’ve eaten enough that day.

“I’m…a toymaker,” you say, trying not to sound freaked out. “I’ve never seen your shop before, and I thought I knew everyone in town who makes toys. What’s your name?”

The man’s eyes are blue, you notice—terribly blue, and sparkling in the soft light with unspoken mischief. “You are beings ein toymaker? Vy, zat is a coincidence…” He taps the side of his nose. “Many peoples ge-calls me by many names. But zey most oftens call me the Toymaker, und nothing else. It be gettings dee point across, nein? Und was ist your name?”

You tell him, and the Toymaker’s mouth splits open in a wide grin.  

“Das ist ein schöner name!” he says enthusiastically. “Truly, a magnifizent fit. It is not often zat I am gettings other toymakers in mein shop…I vonder, vot does your eye ge-fallen upon? Could it be mein cuddly collection of teddies? Oh, ja, I sees you are ge-needings ein soft companion for dese frosty nights. Or could it be mein train? Choo-choo! it goes, round and round all dee livelong day! I am ge-havings many customers mit ein eye for dee train.”

The Toymaker’s voice is smooth as butter, rich and inviting, and each word he speaks seems to add a little more colour to his delightful environment. You look around in awe at all of the toys, unable to comprehend the sheer scale of the place. Just moments ago the shop seemed so small, with the abundance of toys seriously crammed in on the shelves, but now it looks impossibly vast: a veritable sea of playful delights. The little choo-choo train in question chugs along on its rails and moves past the doll shelf, drawing your eye back to their pretty little figures.

“Ah, dee Katze hast gotten your tongue,” says the Toymaker. He gestures to the dolls, and the gold ring on his right pinkie finger catches the light. “I too ams often becomings stricken by dee beauty of mein dollen…zey took me many nights to make, ja. Oh, but ge-look! Eins ist out of place. Zose fingers are so fiddly! Und dee hair…zo many eveninks ge-spended brushing out zeir tiny curls."

You watch as the Toymaker reaches up and begins deftly rearranging the dolls. His fingers are long and nimble, and they move with such care and attention, placing each doll’s tiny hands neatly in their laps and smoothing down their dresses. When you’re a toymaker, you grow to appreciate a pair of well-practised hands, and there’s something undeniably… charming , about this Toymaker and his cartoonish whimsy. It’s silly, but you feel a little heat rising in your cheeks. The attention he’s paying to such small, delicate objects…

…well, it’s only natural that your mind should wander to more practical applications of such hands.

“The dolls are gorgeous,” you say. “Do you offer any toymaking classes? The dolls I make have a bit more of a modern touch.”

That’s when the Toymaker laughs, and it is a strange laugh: it tinkles out of his mouth like a jingle, in a musical, ‘Ha ha ha HA ha ha ha!’

“Oh, mein dollen are sehr modern…moreso zan you sink,” says the Toymaker. He gives you another wink, as it seems he likes to give them out for free.

That’s when you feel the little clench in your chest. Oh dear, he really is quite handsome. This wouldn’t be the first time you’d caught feelings for a quirky, attractive stranger, and they were often not as well-dressed as the Toymaker. You have a tendency to get caught up in the realms of imagination, and have thought up more than a few daring trysts with pretty-faced people with whom you’d only exchanged a couple of words. You ought to grab a doll, leave, and have a quiet little panic attack about this interaction at home.

You force your eyes away from the handsome man and back to the shelf.

That’s when you spot her.

Somehow, a doll had escaped your notice. Right in the middle of her sad-looking rainbow sisters is another doll, simply and prettily done up in a powder-blue be-ribboned frock. Unlike the other dolls, this one is smiling in a dimpled way, and her eyes sparkle with a magical sheen not unlike that of the Toymaker’s. You note with some amusement that the doll has the same eye colour as you��hair colour, too. This isn’t strange on a doll, but it gives you the same jolt of satisfaction and déjá vu you get when meeting someone who shares your name.

“Ah,” says the Toymaker (now on your other side). “Dee dollen…zey speak to you, ja? Zey are ge-having ein chitter-chatter, all high up on dee shelf. Vot fun games zey have ven I ge-leaves the shoppen!”

Dollen isn’t even the German word for dolls, you know—it’s Puppen. But you get the sense that the Toymaker’s German accent is less an earnest recreation (and it’s certainly not his natural accent), but a pantomime version intended to amuse and entertain.

“I’m sure they do,” you say, but you’re distracted from the Toymaker’s little act. The longer you look at the doll, the stranger you feel.

You move closer to the shelf to get a better look, and are startled by what you discover.

It isn’t just that the doll on the shelf has similar hair and eyes to you: they’re both the exact same shade, even down to the imperfect flecks in your irises. 

You study the doll intently for a moment, blink, and— what? The doll’s hair is now the same length as yours. Was it always? No, you could have sworn just a moment ago it was not just a completely different length, but style.

You rise up on your tiptoes to get a better look at the doll, and are baffled by what you see. It’s as if detail is stacking on the doll right before your eyes, the way some video game maps load in piece-by-piece. You watch as texture is added to her hair, and light pools in her eyes. This level of craftsmanship is uncanny; it’s as if the Toymaker went out of their way to create a doll which resembles you.

“How did you do that?” You turn to the Toymaker, confused. “Did you know I was coming here?"

The Toymaker’s mouth contorts into an offended pout. “Now, you ge-vounds me. It is ein special privilege, having another Spielzeugmacher in mein shop. Tell me, vot do you sink of her hair? Es ist pretty, ja?”

“But that doll looks exactly like me,” you say.

You can feel your heart hammering in your chest. Suddenly the warm, cosy atmosphere of the toyshop feels more claustrophobic and oppressive. The Toymaker looks unbothered; he rests his chin on his hand and contemplates the shelf. 

“Zere ist ein…certain resemblance,” says the Toymaker, with an unusual, almost French affectation on the last word. “But you are just ge-havings, as zey say, ‘von of zose faces’. Ja, das ist richtig: ein dollface. Puppengesicht. All smooth und sveet. Vy, vot a lucky lady you are! She simply must be goings home vith you.”

You’re scrambling to work out what kind of practical joke this is, and how the Toymaker was pulling it off. You’d met a few eccentric toymakers with God complexes before, as they tend to go hand-in-hand: you’d briefly dated one who designed escape rooms in his spare time. But this is on another level…creating a doll which can be imperceptibly altered to resemble a person in real-time? You’d never heard of such a thing, and you can’t think of a non-creepy reason why someone would go to the trouble of making one.

Oh, hang on a minute, you think. This guy might just be a genius. “This is a marketing trick, isn’t it?”

You pull away from the Toymaker and lean against his counter, feeling terribly smug for having figured it out.

The Toymaker puts his head on one side, quizzical. Playing dumb, you think.

“I am not ge-followings you,” the Toymaker says. 

“You make dolls of the people you see ahead of time,” you explain. “People you know who will come in here at some point…collectors, other toymakers. Then you wait and put them on the shelf when they come in, maybe behind some hidden panel so you can spin them around when they get close. Then when they come in, it’s like they’ve found the perfect toy!” 

You’re so proud of yourself for having cracked the case, you want to pump your fist in the air. For a moment, you envision yourself wearing a deerstalker hat and smoking a pipe. Go me! But your victory is short-lived. During your diatribe, the Toymaker’s bright, childish grin had frozen on his face, and remained in place even during your brief mental celebration. But now the smile slowly slips like a mask peeling away from too-tight skin. In its place sits a stormy frown: one which clenches the muscles and wrinkles of the Toymaker’s face into an expression which says ‘insulted’.

“For shame,” says the Toymaker. “That’s twice you’ve accused me of cheating now. You really do me a disservice. I am bound by the Rules of Play, and would never resort to such cheap tricks.”

What the hell…? The Toymaker’s accent is completely different. Where before his voice was a thick soup of faux German, now it is a soft British breeze: a proper, formal accent which speaks the way trees rustle. You gape at him, dumbfounded. 

“Your accent is different,” you can’t help but say. You’re no longer just leaning against the counter—you’re actively pushing into it, with the edge of the countertop pushing into the small of your back.

The Toymaker raises an eyebrow at you, and smirks. “You are not half as stupids as you are ge-lookings,” he says, slipping the German back on like a heavy cloak. “But zen, I know you are playing ein game mit me, aren’t you?” 

You stare at the Toymaker. Something has shifted: the air is thick with a tension you cannot identify, but which you want to run away from. You keep staring, thinking that if you look away from those too-blue eyes for even a moment, you might just lose your grip.

You know for a fact that if you look back at that doll on the shelf, it will look even more like you than before.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, and you wish you weren’t lying.

The Toymaker laughs his musical laugh and wags his finger in your face. “Sehr naughty!” he says. “Oh, how natürlich dee lies kommen to sie, mein Schatz. You be ge-knowinks how to play games…zis ist ein lecker human mind game, und you are ge-tryings to deceive me.”

His voice slips smoothly back into the British:

“Do you think I don’t know all about your little fantasy?”

Your eyes go wide, and a choked noise escapes your mouth. No. There is no way that this man…this impossible toymaker could possibly know. You were always so careful, so sure to keep it all to yourself! Familiar shame and embarrassment wash over you in a hot wave as the Toymaker looks at you, looks into you, as if he can see the inner workings of your mind. Your mind grabs at the old, familiar justifications the way one might grab a newspaper for modesty if they found themselves naked on a bus. It’s perfectly normal to have fun little flights of fancy. Everyone plays make-believe sometimes, right? “But zey are embarrassing, zese thoughts of yours,” the Toymaker giggles. “Not dee kind of thoughts you can share mit deine Mutter. I am not ge-thinkinks zat you have shared your desires mit ein Partnerin…” There goes the eyebrow again, cocked sardonically to match the wicked curl of his lips. “Is zis true?” You feel nauseous. The firm pressure of the countertop underneath your palms is all that stops you from shaking. It feels as if the Toymaker is probing the inside of your skull, and using those skilled fingers to strip back the whorls of your brain and grab at the fleshy thoughts inside. 

“Get out of my head,” you say quietly.

“Oh, but zis is dee game I ge-likes!” says the Toymaker. “Humans mit zeir internal struggles. Desires mit dee most fun ideas, but you are too ge-frightened to say vot you vant. So you play games mit dein loved ones…dee hunting und dee exasperation. Oh, you simply vill not communicate!"

You don’t know when the Toymaker got so close to you, but now he’s towering over you, with his hands firmly planted on either side of the countertop. You’re close enough to count the spots on his ascot, and examine the year-lines etched around his mouth and eyes. When he smiles those lines crinkle, but not naturally: it’s the way a puppet’s arms reach for the stars when the marionette twists them upwards.

“Okay, you’ve had your fun,” you whisper. “I’ll buy the doll and leave.”

This close, the Toymaker radiates heat. He smells like rose petals and Christmas.

“You could…but zat vould be no fun,” says the Toymaker. “I propose ve solve zis in a more interesting vay…”

The Toymaker waves his hand across your field of vision…and transforms the centre of the toyshop. A small wooden table complete with chairs has popped into existence just in front of the counter. You gape at the sight. How did he do that?! “Let us play ein game,” he says. “If you vin, you can take dee doll free of charge. But if I vin…”

The Toymaker’s smile cracks like the earth preceding a quake.

“You vill stay vith me und play mein games forever!”

You have to give yourself credit for reacting as well as you did. Most people, if they were faced with a crazy fake German man who seems able to read your mind, may have had a breakdown or made a run for the door. But you’ve seen a lot of anime, and you understand that if you are challenged by a handsome, powerful man with magical powers and a delightful hairstyle, you cannot refuse the call. Your brain has shifted from This should be impossible, to It’s game time.  “Alright,” you say slowly. “You’re clearly very powerful. It seems like if I play a game with you, you have far more to gain than I do. A doll isn’t a good enough prize.”

The Toymaker smiles at you. “Ein girl after mein own heart,” he says. “How about zis: if you vin, I vill show you exactly how I make mein dollen, complete vith a demonstration. Zat is generous of me, nein?”

His words are laced with sinister venom, and it’s all you can do not to be poisoned.

“And I’m guessing that if I refuse your game, something terrible would happen to me?”

The Toymaker hums low in his throat. “Hm…not accepting mein game is always ein option…ja, you could do zat. Und yet…” 

You inhale as the Toymaker brings his face terribly close to yours. The skin of his cheek brushes your own. You can feel his soft breath as he whispers into your ear, British once more:

“I know you are so curious as to how I make my dolls. If you leave now, you’ll never know. And I think if you wanted to leave, you would have done so already.”

The Toymaker pulls away from you, leaving you with your face on fire. He’s right. In less than ten minutes, the Toymaker has sussed out your fatal flaw: your damned unstoppable curiosity. There have been countless times where your life would have been improved if you’d kept your nose in your own business…but this is different. The Toymaker isn’t just dangling a carrot: he’s already dug his hooks in you, and you are being reeled in with every second you spend looking into those impossibly blue eyes.

When you next blink, the Toymaker has moved again. He is sitting in one chair, his hands folded primly in front of him.

“Name your challenge,” he says.

You weren’t expecting this: you thought he would have a game in mind. “Any game at all?”

“There isn’t a game I don’t know,” says the Toymaker coolly. “It is common courtesy to allow the guest to pick the party game.”

You can’t help a nervous giggle. “This is a weird kind of party,” you say. 

The Toymaker acknowledges this by inclining his head. “Choose.”

Your mind scrambles over dozens of options. There are so many games…board games, card games, strategy games. Do we need equipment? How long does the game have to be? What games can you play with just two people? That’s when your brain starts to run in a very different direction, and a variety of… game positions …flash through your imagination with impunity.

A flush scalds up your neck. You look at the Toymaker, who raises his eyebrows in a knowing way.

He knows exactly what you’re thinking.

You want to scream.

“Truth or Dare!” you blurt out.

That gets his attention. The Toymaker leans forward, his eyes quizzical. “Zat is non-traditional…yet apt,” he says. “Could it be zat you are ge-vantings me to force zat fantasy out of you, meine Liebchen?”

“No,” you lie. “I want you to tell me what you are, and why you’re doing this to me.”

“Then let’s get down to business,” says the Toymaker. “We take it in turns to ask each other Truth or Dare. A Truth corresponds to a question which must be answered truthfully, and a Dare is an action which must be carried out. The player earns one point for each Truth or Dare successfully completed.”

The Toymaker steeples his fingers together. You can’t pull your eyes away from them.

“If you refuse to complete a Truth or a Dare, or you contravene the rules of the game, you lose a point…and must complete a forfeit.” 

The way he says ‘forfeit’ sends a shiver down your spine. “What kind of forfeit?”

“Oh, dee usual,” says the Toymaker casually. “Somesing difficult or humiliating. I do not ge-liken to pre-plan zese things…I am preferings to be spontaneous.”

You are starting to regret your choice of game. This is a man who knows more about you than you’ve ever told your closest friend…surely a game like Truth or Dare would be pointless for him? So you ask: “Why would you want to play this if you can already tell what I’m thinking?”

The Toymaker frowns. “A good question,” he says. “The Rules of Play prevent me from having any unfair advantage over an opponent. Although my abilities will remain intact, anything which would tilt the game in my favour is out-of-bounds. I am physically incapable of cheating, and would thank you not to bring it up again. There are only two states of being which matter: winning, or losing. I intend to win.”

Fair enough , you think. “And what if I cheat?” you say. “I have a pretty good poker face. If you can’t look inside my head during the game, what if I just lie to you? How could you tell?” 

The Toymaker chuckles, bearing his mouth wide. To your horror, you see there are far, far too many teeth in his mouth.

“I can always tell when someone is lying to me.” 

“Six turns,” you counter, voice trembling. “Whoever has the most points at the end of those turns is the winner. And…you can’t choose Truth or Dare more than twice in a row.”

The Toymaker seems impressed by your game-making skills. “Agreed,” he says. “Let us begin.” 

He snaps his fingers, and all the lights in the toyshop go out. Above, a stagelight snaps into existence, pouring heat and light onto your scalp in a cascade. The Toymaker’s striking features are illuminated by this shift in lighting, casting the lines of his face with the severity of stage makeup. You swallow: he looks divine.

“Would you like to go first?” he asks politely.

“...No,” you say after a moment. “I think that honour should go to the house.”

Your gamble pays off: you realised that the Toymaker is a man with great respect for the rules of the game, and this offer makes him smile.

“How generous,” says the Toymaker. “Truth or Dare?”

“Dare,” you say. 

The Toymaker taps his finger to his lips, considering. Then, he says, “Destroy something precious to you.”

It takes a few seconds for you to really process the Dare. When it hits, you are baffled. What kind of Dare is that? you want to say…but you don’t bother saying it aloud. What kind of toyshop is this—and what kind of ‘toymaker’ is he? All you need to know is reflected in the sadistic gleam in the Toymaker’s eye. This wouldn’t be an ordinary game, and contesting his requests would be fruitless. All you can do is make your move.

You take a deep breath, and reach down into your backpack. You didn’t leave the house this morning planning to bring anything precious to you, but you are a sentimental person by nature, and know you have one item which fits the bill. It’s with great sadness that you pull out a small, ratty teddy bear and place him on the table. The bear is old and beige and dressed in a crimson band leader’s outfit, complete with a hat and red-laced riding boots.

“Oh, ein teddy bear!” laughs the Toymaker, delighted. “How charming. He is quite dee looker, isn’t he?”

“He’s the first bear I ever made,” you say. “I was listening to some 90s British pop music, and the idea for his design just…popped into my head. I scribbled it down and pulled him together from scraps of fabric and repurposed stuffing in just a day. His name’s Neil…I keep him with me for good luck.”

Something about what you said is terribly amusing to the Toymaker, but you don’t know why. “Ein handsome name indeed,” says the Toymaker. “But I am afraid zat vill not be enoughs to ge-save him. Poor Neil. Now…vill you complete your Dare?” 

You take a deep breath. There was no turning back now; you’ve accepted the Toymaker’s game, and the predatory sheen in his eyes tells you that you can no longer just walk away. So you pick up Neil, grab hold of his little teddy bear ears—

And tear his head off, sending stuffing careening all over the table. 

“Oh!” says the Toymaker with a false gasp. “Vot an unfortunate end for poor Neil. I did not know zat you have such ein cruel streak.” 

“Shut up,” you say, trying not to look at Neil’s decapitated corpse.

Even though he’s just a teddy bear, you feel like you’ve just killed a defenceless animal. Neil’s lifeless button-eyes gaze up at you imploringly, as if asking why you’d do such a thing. You knock Neil’s head off the table and focus back on the Toymaker.

“That’s one point to me,” you say. “Truth or Dare?”

The Toymaker grins at you like a shark. “Dare.”

There are a thousand questions ricocheting around your head, but you ask the one which you know will keep you up at night: “Tell me how you did that thing with the doll.”

The violence of the Toymaker’s laughter makes you jump. He actually covers his mouth to quieten himself, but his shoulders shake even so. “Oh nein, nein, nein, you are ge-makings ein mistake!” he says. “You cannot be askings a question ven I have chosen Dare. Oh, meine Schatz, you have your lost your point…and must receive ein forfeit.”

Your veins run cold. “What? No! That was never in the rules!” 

“It is a common rule,” says the Toymaker, suddenly serious. “What is the point of distinguishing between a Truth or Dare, if a Dare can be a Truth?”

You want to protest…but his logic is infuriatingly sound. It’s exactly the kind of argument you could see yourself making if you were playing the game against a friend. You try to think of some other get-out-of-jail-free card—anything which would allow you learn how the Toymaker made that doll look exactly like you—but you come up short. You slump in your chair, and resign yourself to waiting for the next round.

“Oh, do not ge-look so sad,” says the Toymaker. In mock sympathy, he makes a little tutting sound against his teeth. “Now, about zat forfeit…ah! I am ge-knowings just dee sing.”

The Toymaker snaps his fingers…and your clothes burst into a flock of doves.

You scream and leap up from the table, batting away at the birds scrambling over your skin. They coo and and flap in your face before struggling upwards and flying into the rafters. Shocked, you look down to find yourself still fully clothed…but with a wardrobe change. You are now clad in a beautiful, powder-blue dress. The fabric is inhumanly soft and threaded through with white ribbons.

“Oh my God!” you yell. “What did you do?!”

The Toymaker is doing his best to stifle a giggle behind his hand. “Do you like it?” he asks. “I think the colour is rather fetching on you.” 

You clutch at the skirts of your dress, wishing the floor would open up and swallow you whole. There is no way this is possible…you hadn’t felt anything, not even a shift of your own clothes or the sliding of new fabric against your skin. One moment you were wearing your own clothes, and the next you weren’t. It’s as if your clothes were merely a covering, and when they transformed into doves and flapped off, they left only your dress behind. 

You move your legs under the layers of fabric, and blush when you discover you’re wearing a pair of frilly stockings. As you stick out your feet, you can see your feet are clad in a shiny pair of Mary Janes. It’s with a sick feeling in your stomach that you realise what the dress is.

It’s the same dress that the doll on the shelf is wearing.

"You're sick," you hiss.

The Toymaker cocks his head to one side. “Indeed?” he says. “How odd. I thought I was being rather generous, giving you a helping hand towards becoming your true self.” He snickers at you. “If I am sick, then I do wonder what that makes you. My mind is full of games, but the inside of your head is full of so much more.”

You ignore the Toymaker and hold your own arms, shrinking back down into your chair. Yet as you look down at the dress, you can’t help but feel a pang of longing. The dress is a perfect fit, one which could have been custom-designed, and the fabric is truly stunning in appearance and quality. With its puffy sleeves and shapely waistline, you know if you were alone you would have given your new skirts a twirl.

But you can’t let yourself get lost now. This is as much a mind game as it is a real one, you realise. The Toymaker is eyeing you like a piece of meat, and it’s clear that he is capable of so much more than a costume change. You must press on with the game. 

“I want to keep playing,” you say.

“Wonderful,” says the Toymaker. "We’re currently still at zero points each, with two turns down. Unfortunately, your turn was taken due to the forfeit. I must ask you: Truth or Dare?” 

You don’t allow yourself time to think about it: “Dare.” 

The Toymaker’s smile is knowing. “It is a fool’s errand, trying to delay the inevitable. I believe my initial suspicions were correct…you do want the Truth to be pried from you, don’t you? Perhaps that makes the shame a little less potent. After all, the mean, scary Toymaker made you dress this way. It wasn’t your fault…you couldn’t help it. Am I getting warmer?”

Your face is getting warmer, and it’s getting increasingly hard to meet the Toymaker’s gaze. “It isn’t my fault that my opponent is insane,” you say, with venom. 

Somehow, the Toymaker’s laugh is German. “Ah, zere is zat fire. You are quite dee entertaining playmate, meine Liebling. I am not ge-xpectings you to verstand games of dee mind…but I do find zem exhilarating. Dee expressions ge-crossing your face right now…I vish you could see zem.”

You scowl at the Toymaker. “Just give me your Dare.”

The Toymaker shrugs at you. “If you insist. I Dare you…to perform a dance befitting a fine young lady such as yourself.”

Oh, God, no. This is a nightmare of a Dare. “I—I’m not a dancer,” you say. You can feel your blush crawling up your neck. You envision yourself prancing around in your new dolly-dress, and the embarrassment makes you physically cringe.

“Oh, zat is not ein problem!” The Toymaker beckons you to look under the table. When you do, he taps his own shoes against the floor, performing a rhythmic tap-step. “Zose lovely Schuhe I gave you vill ge-helpen sie along. Provided you are villing to perform dee dare, your tanzen is all taken care of. All you are ge-needings to do is stand up, und take drei steps backwards.”

The Toymaker leans back in his chair and looks at you expectantly. The list of excuses which blossomed into your mind when he first suggested the Dare are dwindling rapidly, each one seeming more pathetic than the last. But…maybe there is a way out of this?

“What about music?” you ask. “Surely you can’t expect me to dance without music.” 

The Toymaker shakes his head at you. “Do not ge-worry about dee musik! I have it all covered. Unless…you vish to forfeit once more?” The idea of any other part of your body spontaneously transforming into an animal is enough to make you scramble to your feet. Immediately, you are self-conscious: the dress is equal parts beautiful and ridiculous, and is so poofy and frilly that it gives your lower half the shape of a bell. You haven’t felt this kind of embarrassment since you were in school: the dry throat and sweaty palms before getting up on stage for assembly. Feeling like a silly child, you can’t help but look at the Toymaker, searching those mirthful eyes for guidance. But the Toymaker simply shoos you, indicating for you to step back.  Hesitantly, you take one step away from the table. Then another. Then, one final, gentle step.  Without warning, the floor of the toyshop erupts! From beneath your feet a wooden stage springs up, unfurls around you and traps you like a box. You shriek and try to stumble away, but your new dancing shoes root you firmly to the spot. A spotlight bursts into being above your head and illuminates your frozen self in all your newfound frilly glory.  You look down from your new height to see the Toymaker sitting in what is now the front row of a vast auditorium; the toyshop’s interior has vanished. He whoops and grabs a fistful from a cartoonishly large bucket of popcorn. You open your mouth to yell at him, and maybe call him some horrible names you haven’t thought of yet. But before you can, music starts blaring from all sides of the auditorium. It’s a grating, repetitive tune: some ghastly combination of twee guitar and twinkling piano…and it’s so familiar . You know this song, but what is it? And why does it sound so…childish?  The music hits a powerful note. Your mouth opens unbidden, and from your vocal cords a voice which is decidedly not yours belts out the opening lyric to a familiar nursery rhyme:  “I’m a little teapot, Short and stout!” Your voice is loud and beautiful, and you project better than any Broadway singer. You can do nothing but watch yourself in abject horror as your knees bend in time with the music, and your shiny shoes send you toppling along the stage in time with the song.  “Here is my handle Here is my spout!” You try to scream and stop, but your body is no longer in your control. Your arms bend at frightening angles, and your hips send your neck careening to the side with a crack . A rictus grin is firmly plastered onto your face, and your mouth stays open and singing: “When I get all steamed up, Hear me SHOUT!…” Your hands flap and your toes point and you screaming on the inside, begging for this to stop, stop, STOP ! But the infernal music is inside of your head and it’s pushing in on all sides, and no matter how much you cry and beg and plead your mouth won’t work except to belt out the final words of your song. “TIP me over and POUR. ME. OUT!” At the last line, your knees give out and you collapse face-first onto the stage. A grand cheer goes up from the auditorium. You twist around, trying to see if the Toymaker has conjured up an audience to witness your humiliation—but he is the only one present. The Toymaker is on his feet and giving you a standing ovation. “Vunderbar!” the Toymaker cries as he claps enthusiastically. “Oh, you are dee most darling little teapot, ja. Zis is a fine game we are ge-havings!”

“What—did—you—do?” you gasp on the floor. You feel like your lungs have been crushed. Something the Toymaker did seized up everything inside of you and folded them up like paper. Now it’s as if you really are a doll: crumpled up and discarded in the corner when your owner is finished playing with you. Although you’re quite sure the music has stopped, the melody is blasting in your head in a maddening loop. You try to move, but your legs won’t work. 

“Oh, don’t be zo dramatik. Eversing I ge-make brings viele fun,” says the Toymaker. “Herzlichen Glückwunsch …das ist ein point to you.”

You don’t see the Toymaker get up on the stage, but the next thing you know, he’s crouching down next to you. Without warning, the Toymaker lifts you up under the arms and pulls you to your feet as if you weigh nothing at all. You try to stand but your rigid muscles struggle with the task and you stumble, falling right into the Toymaker’s chest. He chuckles, and you hear it rumbling softly in his chest. His skin is impossibly warm…and you can’t hear a heartbeat.

The two of you stand like that for a long moment, with you enveloped in the Toymaker’s arms. When pressed against his waistcoat, the maddening song infesting your brain quietens, and is replaced with an easy sort of calm. It’s strange…all the questions and anger and terror seem to just burn away. They’re forgotten in the simplicity of being held like a doll.

Eventually, your senses kick in. You manage to pull yourself away from the Toymaker, and you refuse to look at his face. “I just want to get on with the game.”

“Of course.”

The Toymaker waves his hand and the stage and auditorium vanish. You are transported back to the interior of the toyshop, with its familiar cuddly audience and the table taking centre stage. You sit back down at the table shakily. You know when you look up the Toymaker will already be sitting across from you…and you’re right, even though you didn’t see or hear him pull back his chair. His eyes are bright and curious. 

“Okay…Truth or Dare?”

The Toymaker places his hand on his chin and pretends to be deep in thought. After a while, he says, “Truth."

You very nearly ask him the same question you were denied just before: how was he able to make that doll look exactly like you? But the momentary calm offered by the Toymaker’s embrace has had a quieting effect on your mind, and a spike in your critical thinking skills. You have to think strategically; if you want to win, you need to ask him a question which will throw him off-guard. Asking him about the doll wouldn’t be a challenge because he likes to gloat, and to tease. But if you win, you can have your answer to that question and an actual demonstration…

…plus, you get to keep your freedom. Don’t forget that.

So you stare at the Toymaker and wonder…what causes a man (creature, entity, etc.) to end up this way?

“Tell me about your childhood,” you say.

The smile is wiped from the Toymaker’s face in an instant. His mouth twists in discomfort and anger. For the first time since you’ve met him, you feel a pleasant curl of satisfaction in your guts. The game is on, you think.

“What’s wrong?” you ask out loud. “Do you have a problem with the question? Because you can always forfeit—”

“I. Will. Not. Lose.”

The Toymaker’s fists are on the table now: they’re clenched and shaking. Although he’s looking at you, his mind seems far away, trapped somewhere else. After a beat, he leans forward, grabs your head and brings your foreheads together so they’re just barely touching.

“You asked for this,” says the Toymaker gravely. “I will do more than give you the answer to your question. I will show you. Close your eyes.”

The closeness is invigorating: the Toymaker’s hands are strong against the sides of your head, and you wonder for a second if he could pop your skull like a balloon. You consider saying no and demanding he just tell you the answer, but the look on the Toymaker’s face is so intense that you cannot refuse. It’s that terrible curiosity in you, willing you to stand at the edge of the universe and take a step off the cliff.

So you do as your bid, and close your eyes…

…only to awaken in a void.

To say there is nothing around you is an understatement. Your idea of nothingness is very particular: blackness; emptiness, an absence of sound and light. But this is something else entirely. You can’t even feel the lack of something in this place because there simply isn’t anything to feel. From the moment you open your eyes you feel the contradiction of yourself as a physical being, standing in this vacant not-space. There is less than nothing here. There is zilch. There is negative zero. There is null.

You try to get your bearings by looking around, but there are no bearings to get. This is a nothingness which exists beyond your comprehension. Just standing in this nothingness makes your jaw tighten and the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. This is a phobic realm which is the antithesis to life.

And it is so, so cold. 

“This is where I grew up.”

You jump. The Toymaker is standing beside you, arms folded behind his back. He surveys the nothingness with humble respect, the way a weary sailor surveys the ocean.

“How?” You try looking around again, but without anything to anchor gaze on, your eyes just swing back round to the Toymaker. “There’s nothing here.” 

“Nothing except for me.”

The Toymaker sits down on the emptiness, cross-legged. Feeling discombobulated in the lack of space, you sit down too, next to him, and wonder how that’s possible. You hug your elbows, trying to fend off the omnipresent cold.

“We are outside of your universe,” says the Toymaker quietly. “Below it, as a matter of fact. We are in a pocket realm, like the hollow in a tree branch. Here there was nothing for a very long time…so long, that I do not know how to count it. The void is indifferent to such concepts.

“I was a child for an eternity, and many more eternities after that. Merely a conscious speck suspended in forever. At the time I had no form. No body, no face, and not really a mind. I was a collection of distant ideas and fraught, base emotions. There was no reason for me to have either a solid shape or a brain. I existed only in relation to the void, and the void went on forever. All I had to entertain myself were my games.”

With a flick of the wrist, the Toymaker conjures a ball into existence. Then another. Then another. He does this over and over again until he is juggling at least twenty balls. His hands move in a blur as he juggles the balls effortlessly. He tosses them higher and higher, so high that you have to crane your neck to see. Eventually you lose sight of the balls in the nothingness.

But then, the Toymaker sighs…and you notice that the balls are disappearing. This continues for about a minute, the balls growing fewer in number until he’s down to just three…and then there’s only two, so he’s not really juggling at all.

Finally, the Toymaker catches the last remaining ball and holds it up to your face. A frost has grown along its leathery side.

“Playing games can keep you warm,” says the Toymaker, “but only for a little while. Eventually, the cold gets in. And the cold devours everything."

“How did you survive here?” you ask quietly. You can’t raise your voice above a whisper: it feels disrespectful.

“Death isn’t something I am capable of experiencing,” says the Toymaker. “I can never die from the cold. But I can still feel it.” 

The Toymaker looks at the ball in his hand, and it catches fire. You gasp and pull away, but the fire only burns for a few seconds: the flames are quickly extinguished by a new crop of frost, growing over the ball’s surface like a disease.

In moments, the Toymaker is holding nothing but a ball of ice.

“I’m…sorry,” you say.

It’s a feeble reply, and you know it. The cold here is wrapped into the environment itself. This no-space could well be made of nothing but a creeping, insidious chill. It’s worse than the kind of cold which slams into you, like the jump from the shower to a towel on a winter night, or the way your cheeks are slapped when stepping outside on a snowy day.

This cold is sinister. 

It waits.

It seeks out warmth wherever it can, wraps itself around that spark of heat, and crushes it frozen.

The Toymaker runs hot, you remember with a shiver.

No wonder. The Toymaker fends off your weak sympathies with a shake of his head. He stares off into the nothingness, and continues to speak.

“I thought it would just be me and the void forever. But then one day, I heard laughter! It was a sound utterly foreign to me. I was so frightened, I spent millennia curled tight up into a ball, cringing away from the sound. But I could hear them now…beings, with shape and light and thoughts. As the epochs stretched before me and the void remained still, I found myself drawn to their laughter.”

The Toymaker’s eyes glitter with recollection. “I learnt how to poke small peepholes into the fabric of the void, and peer through at the shapes. And oh, the things I saw! These beings, they played games , just like me! Games which used pieces and strategies and all manner of wonderful toys. I wanted to have them all. Needed to have them. So I did. I fashioned myself fingers, and with those fingers I fashioned toys and toys and toys, enough to fill up every child’s toy room in every universe!"

You watch as the Toymaker trembles with excitement. His voice has swollen to fit the void: a rallying cry against the darkness. He looks so proud of himself…but only for a moment. 

“After a while, my toys grew old,” he says sadly. “They say a boy becomes a man when he must throw his toys onto the fire in order to keep himself warm...and the cold never stops. I realised that wood and string were all well and good, but they had no personality of their own…and I had no opponent.”

The Toymaker turns to you then. There’s a manic look in his eye. “So I began to lure in the flesh-and-blood creatures,” he says. “It was easy enough once I learned to assume their shape…especially the early ones, who weren’t so bright. And what shapes I would become! I enjoy this shape so much that I’ve decided to keep it permanently, with the odd touch-up every half-century or so. Being handsome helps bring in the players.”

There goes that easy wink again, smooth and charming and drawing you in like the lure on an anglerfish.

“And…that’s why you’re here today?” you ask. “You just want to play games with us?” 

The Toymaker’s laugh is mean. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he says. “All that exists is to win, or to lose. I don’t want to play games with you. I simply want to win.”

The two of you stand in silence for a while, contemplating the nothingness. The longer you stay, the more you can feel the chill sliding its icy fingers over your flesh. It crawls up your socks and settles into the gaps behind your knees. It causes wet, cold dew to form at the edges of your eyelashes. It even seeps into the spaces between your skin and fingernails.

You wish you hadn’t asked for this Truth.

“One point to you, Toymaker,” you say through chattering teeth.

The Toymaker starts: clearly he’d forgotten all about you. The void has a sobering effect on him, it seems. How did a little boy manage to have any imagination in this place at all? “Yes,” says the Toymaker with a worn smile. “One point each.”

The next time you blink, the void is gone. You are returned to the familiar warmth of the toyshop, and are still sitting at the table across from the Toymaker. But now, even as the cold sloughs off your skin and your cheeks begin to heat up again, you can see the toyshop for what it is. The bright lights and colourful attractions are nothing more than decorative wallpaper for a frozen, ephemeral darkness, ever-creeping in on the corners of your vision.

When the Toymaker speaks again, his German is back in full force, and you wonder if he’s trying to stave off how frightened he really is.

“Zat is vier turns down,” he says. “Mit only zwei to go. I ge-believe it is my turn, ja?”

Oh, hell: he’s right. You’d gotten so caught up in the impossibility of the Toymaker’s mind that you’d forgotten you’re playing a very dangerous game. But the Toymaker’s smile looks fake now, and the way his eyes glimmer seems less like mischief, and more like withheld tears. For the first time you want to stop this game…not just for you, but for the Toymaker too.

But that’s not how this would be played. The rules are fixed, and you’ve seen what the consequences could be. Worse, you only have one response left to give. By the way the Toymaker is grinning at you, you know he’s remembered this rule too.

“Truth or Dare?” he asks.

You swallow, before giving the only answer you can: “Truth.”

The Toymaker laughs a little too loud. “Now, you had better nots ge-try to get out of zis one,” he says. “I vant you to tell me dee truth: vot exactly is your fantasy? I vill be requiring details.” 

There it is: the question this whole game has been building up to. This situation is impossible and ridiculous. Here you sit, surrounded by beautiful toys in your gorgeous dress, playing a game with an unbelievable, broken man who can rewrite your entire reality with nothing more than a thought. Yet you still can’t just open your mouth and give him the answer. Somehow, even in the face of impossible adversity, you are still beholden to your human embarrassment.

“If I tell you…” you say slowly. “...Do you promise not to laugh?” 

The Toymaker’s eyebrows knit together. He looks distressed by the question. “All players should be treated with respect,” he replies.

That’s not the answer I want, but it’s the only answer he can give , you think. But maybe that’s the key here. You would never willingly part with this information…but the Toymaker just did the same thing for you. He didn’t have to show you where he came from. He could have talked around it, given you the crib notes, and you would have been none the wiser. The Toymaker showed you vulnerability just by allowing you into his history.

You owe him that same level of respect.

“I didn’t get much attention when I was growing up,” you say. “It wasn’t a bad upbringing, but I was just kind of…left, a lot of the time. I wasn’t looked after. There was always some sort of problem that needed fixing, and my parents never had time for me. No one bothered to check on me, so I just had to figure things out for myself. I spent most of my time alone in my room…just me and my toys.”

“That sounds familiar,” says the Toymaker, and the sympathy in his voice is real. “How did you pass your time?”

“I took my toys apart,” you say. “I think my parents felt guilty for leaving me alone a lot, so there was never a shortage of toys. But I wanted to figure out how they worked. That seemed much more interesting than actually playing with them, you know?” 

The Toymaker smiles with approval. “Dee keen eye of a toymaker is a gift,” he says. “But I sense you are delaying your real story…” 

You curse inwardly: again, he’s right. You cannot hide any longer.

“I took apart all of my toys…except for my dolls.”

That gets the Toymaker’s attention: those bright blue eyes light up with interest. “Go on.”

“I had a set of five dolls,” you say quietly. “Generic dolls. Sparkly, brushable hair, and little swappable outfits. Nothing special. But even when I was really small I couldn’t hurt them. I was terrified of damaging them in any way. There weren’t any other kids around to talk to, and my parents weren’t home, so I just…talked to the dolls instead. I knew it was weird, but in my head the dolls were more sentient than my other toys. I thought they could really understand me.”

The Toymaker starts back up in his German voice: “Ah, zere is nothing more ge-saddening zan a lonely Kind. Zat is why decapitating poor Neil vas being no problem for you, zen?” 

“Yeah. It still hurt, but not for the reasons it would hurt most people.” You swallow; this is the really difficult part. “The older I got, the more toys I had, but I never added to my doll collection. My parents would joke all the time about how I was becoming a ‘little lady’. When I became a teenager there was so much pressure to be pretty, and girly…and it made me feel sick. So I tried to fight back against it. I cut my hair, I swore off pink, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress.”

The words stick in your throat. You look up at the Toymaker, hoping for some kind of mercy, but you don’t find it. But he isn’t mocking you, either: he just sits and waits for you to continue.

“I locked my dolls away,” you say. “I pretended I had thrown them out…but secretly, I’d sneak them out, and play with them. I’d brush their hair, and mend their dresses. I still do.”

The Toymaker leans in. “Why?”

“I…I wanted to be like them,” you whisper. “They are so pretty. The long, flowing dresses and the perfect makeup…they’re dazzling in a way I could never be. I can never, ever be that beautiful.”

You twist the fabric of your dress between your fingers fitfully, and force yourself to say it: 

“I always wanted to be someone’s favourite doll."

There’s silence in the toyshop. You stare down at your lap, your heart pounding and your face flushed. Stupid, stupid…! Your eyes well up with hot tears. You can’t bring yourself to look at the Toymaker.

“Und zen you arrive here,” he says. “Meine beautiful dollen drew you in.”

“Yes,” you say quietly. “If I can’t be loved like a doll, then at least I can give them love instead. If I were a doll, maybe things would be easier, you know? Maybe…”

You can’t help the little choke-sob which escapes your lips.

“...maybe someone would take care of me."

The tears fall freely into your lap now and stain the beautiful fabric of your dress dark. You feel disgusting: worthy of ridicule. I deserve whatever happens to me now, you think, your brain awash with old, dark feelings you’ve kept locked up just like the dolls in your closet.

But it’s the Toymaker who snaps you out of his reverie. You didn’t hear him move, but you flinch when his fingers slide under your chin and tilt up your face towards him. Your tears cast him in a watery halo.

“Mein Liebling, stop ge-crying,” he says. “I have made sehr many dollen over dee years, und many of zem have been beautiful. But you are somesing else entirely entirely. Ein living, breathing, villing doll, so cute und poseable. Oh, you und I vill have zo many adventures together! You could be mein prized possession, und I vill hold you and play vith you from dawn zu dusk.”

The Toymaker’s words send a shudder through your body. Blood thrums at the surface of your skin and pools in your cheeks and neck. The Toymaker leans in until your noses are almost touching. He’s so very close to you now…close enough that he could kiss you. 

But just before he reaches your lips, the Toymaker moves to the side and whispers into your ear:

“Dee game is not yet over, meine schöne dollen. You have one final question to ge-ask of me. Do it, und zis vill all be over…one vay or another.”

You can feel him smiling gently against your hair, and it makes you want to sob. Oh, please let this torture end…! But you’re in the Toymaker’s grasp now, in the final throes of his game, and you know you have to finish this or your suffering will never be over. There is only one turn left. You have to try, one last time, or you would spend the rest of your life at the beck and call of this madman.

“Truth or Dare?” you manage to croak out.

The Toymaker lets your face go. “Dare."

You take a deep breath. This is your last chance.

“Let me go.”

The Toymaker takes a long, long moment to process your answer…and then he starts to laugh. Really, really hard. The tinkling arpeggio of his laughter builds and builds until it seems to shake the very walls of the toyshop. For a moment, you are terrified that it’s all going to come crumbling down like a house of cards.

“Oh, perhaps becoming ein dollen hast eroded deine brain, ja?” says the Toymaker, the arrogance flashing in his teeth. “I am not ein genie you kann outsmarts. I am afraid zat since letting you go ist your prize, you cannot request it of me. So, you have lost ein point, putting us at a tie…und you must complete ein forfeit once more.”

No. No. NO! “That’s not fair!” you yell. The tears are streaming down your face in earnest now; all of the distress of this game and the Toymaker’s psychological torment can no longer be contained. 

“Oh, und here comes dee tantrum,” says the Toymaker with a sigh. “I hates it ven zey get like zis. You must have ein forfeit…und I think I have dee perfekt idea to stop your ge-crying.”

The Toymaker snaps his fingers again. You open your mouth to scream at him…but nothing comes out.

You try again, but your mouth just flops open like a fish, with no sound attached to it whatsoever.

The Toymaker has stolen your voice. 

“I have assisted you in another core aspect of your doll transformation,” says the Toymaker, the British swooping in over his tongue with ease. “I do not think most dolls can talk, do you?”

You awful…! But the words can’t even die on your tongue, because they never reach your tongue in the first place. There is a total disconnect between your mouth and your brain. Although you can fashion your lips into the correct shapes and try to push the air into forming syllables, none of them can escape your mouth.

The Toymaker has silenced you, taking away perhaps your only remaining asset in this game.

You mentally tally up the points, and realise he’s right. You are now tied, and six turns have passed. 

“But I cannot tolerate a tie. Dee rules dictate zat ve must perform a tie-breaker challenge…” His accent ripples between the German and British easily, as if he can’t decide between childish delight and cool professionalism. “Do you have any suggestions for a tie-breaker?"

The devastation of losing your voice almost made you look over this detail. Yes, he’s right: for all of your suffering, the Toymaker hasn’t actually managed to get a point over you. That means all is not lost.

That means you still have a chance to win.

But you cannot strategise in a vacuum: much less when you can’t speak. The Toymaker looks at you in amusement, as if expecting you to try and talk anyway. You could have written a message down on a piece of paper, or typed it on your phone, but you decide not to give him the satisfaction. The Toymaker has already gotten you on the rules twice: you are going to play within his boundaries and win fair and square. 

You don’t see where he produces the hat from. A flourish of the arm, and it’s suddenly in his hands: a beautiful top hat which would have gone perfectly with a tuxedo. The Toymaker flips the hat over and proffers it to you.

“Ladies first,” he says with a sly smile. 

You reach into the hat and are surprised to find a variety of small, paper tickets. After some rustling around, you pull one out and read it. When you do, your eyes go wide.

WHOEVER HOLDS THEIR BREATH THE LONGEST IS THE WINNER.  “Vot fun!” exclaims the Toymaker, clapping his hands together in excitement. “I must ge-varn you, I am a very gut schwimmer, and kann hold mein breath for ein long time.” 

But do you even have a lung capacity?! is what you would have asked if you could. How was this fair? The Toymaker is clearly an extradimensional being, and his physical body doesn’t seem to conform to the laws of physics, space or time…anything that would put a real challenge to this game. But you can’t say so: you have no way of telling him.

Besides…is it cheating if that’s just how he is? Is it cheating if he’s just better at the game?

A loud tick-tocking draws your eye to the right side of the toyshop. Against the wall (where it definitely didn’t exist before) is a grandfather clock. Both of the clock’s hands are almost at the 12. This was news to you; you’d arrived at the toyshop sometime around 8pm.

“Ve vill begin when ze clock strikes twelve,” says the Toymaker. “Zere are no fancy rules…ve just start ge-holdings our breath, until eins of us cannot anymore.”

The grandfather clock ticks closer to your demise. You look at the Toymaker in desperation, clasping your hands together in a silent plea…but he just looks at you coolly. Now, you are nothing but an opponent to defeat. You are an obstacle ready to be demolished. 

Well, I am not helpless. If anyone is going to decide the winner of this game, it’s going to be me. With only thirty seconds remaining, you fish around in the pocket of your backpack and pull out your phone. You set up your video camera, prop the phone up against a toy monkey holding a pair of cymbals, and hit the record button.

“Ah,” says the Toymaker. “In case of ein photo-finish. Gut idea.”

There’s a cold fire in his eyes now: something which ignited when he took you into his personal void. You have no moves left, and no gameplay strategies to implement. It is clear that he is the master of games, and you may as well already be his doll. 

But hell, you are going to try your best.

The grandfather clock strikes twelve with a loud, booming chime, and you suck in the largest breath of your life. You don’t balloon out your cheeks: instead you opt for a subtle approach learnt from musical training, where you draw in the oxygen deep into your lungs and will it to sit there for as long as you can handle.

By comparison, the Toymaker doesn’t look like he’s holding his breath at all. You merely hear him stop breathing. He looks totally at ease.

The first ten seconds are child’s play.

The first twenty seconds are fine.

The first thirty seconds are acceptable.

But by the forty-second mark a playful fire start to burn in your chest, and the urge to take a breath begins to beg. Inside you curse yourself, wishing that you’d practised— but why on earth would I have practised such a useless game?! You look at the Toymaker. Big mistake. He waggles his eyebrows at you silently, rippling them in an over-the-top-sultry manner. You feel your lips quirking up into a smile…You can’t believe it! He’s trying to make you laugh!

So much for respecting the rules, you think to yourself. Your chest is really starting to hurt now. But then you wonder, is that really cheating? If the Toymaker can try to make you laugh, what if you can make him laugh too? But you shut down that idea immediately: if you prancing around in a frilly dress singing I’m A Little Teapot didn’t make him laugh (just clap!), you didn’t have a chance in hell.

Oh no. What is he doing now? While trying to focus on holding your breath, the Toymaker had conjured two familiar puppets on the ends of his hands: Punch and Judy. With a final, victorious wink, the Toymaker begins a silent, over-the-top slapstick routine with the puppets. Even without dialogue you recognise the beats of the show; Mr Punch is a mess of a man, overwhelmed by the demands of his wife and baby (the latter brought into being with a tiny, adorable puppet the Toymaker wears on one of his thumbs). His hands move with such finesse that the puppets almost look real.

Such a gaudy routine wouldn’t have been enough to make you laugh by itself, but the Toymaker brings a whole new dimension with his wonderfully expressive face. Each time the long-suffering Judy begins a voiceless tirade of her husband (i.e., throwing little puppet-objects at his face), the Toymaker supplements Punch’s depression with a frown worthy of a theatre mask. When Punch manages to land a hit on his wife or baby (My God, were these shows always so violent?), the Toymaker grins with such deranged glee that you can’t help but find it hilarious.

Oh no. You look at the clock: it’s been a minute, and your chest is really starting to hurt. The Toymaker and his puppets make your cheeks puff out with the effort of not laughing.

He smirks at you as Punch picks up his wife and baby and tosses them into the air, punting them like footballs. It’s so absurd and ridiculous that you can feel the giggle rising up in your chest. You desperately want to open your mouth and suck in oxygen but you can’t, you simply can’t, because if you do you’ll lose the game and he’ll keep you here forever…!

As your remaining seconds tick closer to your inevitable failure, you close your eyes. You want to have one last moment to remember yourself as you are, because you are sure whatever the Toymaker is going to do to you will not be pleasant.

Your chest aches. Your cheeks bulge. Your will starts to unravel.

And then, you have the idea.

It’s a stupid idea, and with barely any seconds left to execute it, you have no guarantee that it will work. But as you open your eyes and look at the Toymaker’s smug ‘I’ve already won!’ expression, you know you have no choice but to follow through with your mad plan.

So, holding on to every last bit of breath you have, you lunge at the Toymaker—

—and envelop him in a bone-crushing hug.

Several things happen at once:

The first is the Toymaker exclaiming in surprise, his breath clearly lost, and dropping his puppets, which dissolve into ash as soon as they hit the floor. 

The second is your desire to breathe finally overpowering you as you collapse against the Toymaker, and the two of you tumble to the floor. 

The third is the grandfather clock exploding. Just as you hit the ground the clock bursts apart, firing out wooden shrapnel with a horrifying bang! On reflex you huddle yourself against the nearest form of safety, which in this case happens to be the Toymaker’s chest.

You weren’t expecting him to hold you back.

The two of you stay like that for some time: you and the Toymaker, on the floor together, breathing heavily and wrapped up in each other’s arms. Despite your own adrenaline, you can’t understand the Toymaker’s terror: surely he caused the clock to blow up? He certainly wasn’t in any danger.

But then you hear a sound you couldn’t hear before. It’s the thrumming of the Toymaker’s heart, loud and insistent and desperate to survive. You hear it through the fabric of his waistcoat, and feel it in the pulse of his neck. For just a moment, the Toymaker seems to be just as human as you.

You wonder if the Toymaker’s mortality is contextual.

Eventually, you manage to disentangle yourself from the Toymaker’s limbs. You peek at the smoking remains of the grandfather clock, and are relieved to see that nothing has caught fire: there’s just a scorched, black mark where the clock once existed. The shards of wood which exploded out from the clock have disappeared.

Thankfully, your phone is untouched! You pick it up, pause the recording and watch it back. A smile stretches across your face.

“Oh, Toymaker!” you say, and you are so very pleased that your voice has returned. “You’re going to want to take a look at this.” 

When the Toymaker climbs to his feet, you are immensely amused to see that his perfect curls have been knocked a bit by the explosion. For the first time since you met, the Toymaker is dishevelled and confused. It’s a cute look on you, you think.

“You broke my game,” says the Toymaker incredulously. “How did you do that?”

“No idea,” you grin. “Maybe it was an unexpected outcome. Still within the rules, still a valid way to win, just…unorthodox.”

You show the Toymaker the recording. You watch as his expression turns from bafflement, to despair, to outright blazing anger.

“No!” the Toymaker cries. “You can’t have beat me!”

But the camera never lies. The footage on your phone clearly picks up the Toymaker gasping in shock as soon as you hit him with your hug…whilst you don’t gasp for air until a few seconds later, just before the grandfather clock explodes.

“Seems like I have!” you say happily.

“But I…you…” The Toymaker’s fingers flex in the air meaninglessly, as if looking for a straw to grasp. “But that’s cheating!” 

“No it isn’t,” you say with confidence. “There was nothing in the rules about us not being able to make each other lose our breath. If you making me laugh was a valid strategy, then me hugging you was too. Either we both cheated, or no one did.”

The Toymaker looks like he’s been slapped, and it is a delicious feeling. You almost want to pinch his cheeks. With a pout fixing his lips, the Toymaker snaps his fingers…and your clothes return to normal. Your dress is gone, replaced by the clothes you entered the shop with.

(Is it a little silly to be regretful of that fact…?)

“I still say that shouldn’t count,” says the Toymaker sullenly. “That was an underhanded tactic. I’ll be writing that into the rules next time.”

But you’ve turned away from the Toymaker now—he obviously needs to work through his sore-loser feelings in his own time. You trot over to the doll shelf, pick up the beautiful doll in the powder-blue dress and cradle her in your arms. She truly is a wonderful prize.

When you turn back around, the Toymaker is sitting on the floor with his hands hugging his knees. You feel a pang of sympathy for the man…it seems this really is his whole life.

“But why did you hug me?” the Toymaker asks, baffled. “That’s not a winning strategy. You just surprised me. You were so…”

The Toymaker looks up at you with shining eyes. This time, his eyes really are wet with tears.

“...Warm,” he whispers.

The triumph of your win quickly sours on your tongue. The way the Toymaker is looking at you gives you a powerful feeling…and it’s not one that you like. Even though every part of you is telling you to make a run for the door while you have this post-win window…you don’t.

Instead, you sit down cross-legged on the floor next to the Toymaker, just like you did when in the void. You even bump your shoulder against his.

“I’ve been sad a lot in my life,” you say. “But I’ve never felt as much sadness as I did in your void. And it made me wonder if…you’d ever been held before.”

The Toymaker looks at you with flashing eyes. His bottom lip trembles as if he’s trying to hold back a lifetime of grief. He doesn’t say anything, but those eyes tell you all you need to know. 

“I wouldn’t mind coming around here sometimes,” you say gently.

The Toymaker looks at you like you’ve got two heads. “You would voluntarily subject yourself to my life-or-death games?”

“Maybe not the life-or-death part,” you say hastily. “But I had fun today. Weird, horrible fun. You’re kind of a weird and horrible guy…and I’m pretty weird too.”

To your surprise, the Toymaker actually laughs at that. “You are unique, meine Liebling,” he says, German once more. “To out-ge-smart me, you must be.”

“Well…maybe it’s a good thing we met,” you say. “Maybe you don’t need to keep luring in suspecting people to your shop, Toymaker. Some of us might actually want to stick around and play. And maybe…”

You rest your head against the Toymaker’s shoulder.

“...Maybe I could help keep the cold out for a while.” 

The Toymaker and you sit in silence for some time, listening to the gentle whirs and clicks of the toys going about their business. You keep your new doll tucked between your legs, and your cheek resting against the Toymaker’s shoulder. He’s so warm that you find your eyelids fluttering: you could easily fall asleep right here.

It’s a surprise when you feel the Toymaker’s fingers sliding into your own. You look at him, and see those telling blue eyes alive with fresh excitement.

“It’s a deal,” says the Toymaker, with an enormous, brilliant smile.

You let the Toymaker pull you to your feet. To your amusement, he grants you a deep, formal bow.

“Run along now, meine Schatz…today must have been ge-xhausting for you. But I shall be seeing you again soon, ja?"

Other people would not have caught it, but you know what loneliness sounds like: you hear the edge of desperation at the edge of the Toymaker’s voice. You take a step back and return the bow with a curtsey.

“Ja, genau,” you grin.

The Toymaker’s smile could have outshone the sun.

That night, when you return home, you take all of your dolls out of your closet. You line them up with care on your shelf, making sure to pose them prettily and smooth out the creases in their frocks.

But you keep your new doll in your hand, and clamber into bed with her. Before you turn out the light, you look one last time at her perfect, dimpled face.

Oh, what games will you and the Toymaker play next?

[mahayanapilgrim]

Carl Jung - Notable Quotes

We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.

The best political, social and spiritual work we can do is to remove the projection of our shadow onto others.

In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life of the individual. This alone makes history, here alone do the great transformations take place, and the whole future, the whole history of the world, ultimately springs as a gigantic summation from these hidden sources in individuals.

But, if you have nothing at all to create, then perhaps you create yourself.

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word

'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

A creative person has little power over his own life. He is not free. He is captive and driven by his demons.

Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens into that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was a conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. Thus we demand that the world grant us recognition for qualities which we regard as personal possessions: our talent or our beauty. The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life. He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a Shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of unawareness. At all events, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

The greatest burden of the child is the un-lived life of the parent.

There are plenty of people who are not yet born, they all seem to be here, they walk about, but as matter of fact, they are not yet born because they are behind a glass wall, they are still in the womb.

~ Carl Jung, from the Kundalini Seminars

Personality is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others thinks one is.

~ Carl Jung

[lycanlovingvampyre]

MAG 126 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: putting up a new fence.

How this statement giver tosses around name after name and I don't know who they are?? Who is Rosa, who is George? Who is Desmond? (Apparently someone with some defects most likely to their face?) This is so small town behavior, talking about people without explanation because they think “oh, everybody knows blabla”.

"I know, it was an amateur class, and he was under no obligation to do exactly the work as instructed, but Ray was very clear with the rest of us that we were doing things in a specific order for a reason, and it was just a bit frustrating to see him nodding along to that awful man flagrantly disregarding what we were meant to be doing." If art school has taught me one thing, it's that teachers will praise works which will make you only scratch your head in confusion XD I like the concept, that the Spiral is affiliated with art. In the end anyone can interpret it differently and that's why these discrepancies in perception happen. Also, I think a lot of artistic people have been a bit of outcasts for our "weirdness". Me and my friends certainly all are.

"At least, not until I went to my salsa class the following Thursday, and instead found myself walking into a room set up for sculpture. I was obviously taken aback at what had to be a really significant scheduling issue, but having a quick check of the timetable of classes, it looked very much like sculpting had always been on a Thursday" Oh yeah, this. This is the worst... I hate this...

"He said the key was that faces were twisted. All faces were twisted on the inside, and all you had to do was reach into the deepest part of yourself and put that twisted on the outside of the clay, and as soon as you can scream you’ll have your own face staring back at you." Yep, sounds about right. I went through five years of teachers giving instructions not unlike these. Not all of them were like this of course, there was a pattern to which field of art was more down-to-earth and which felt like nonsense and bullshitting around. Funnily enough, the workshops of these art classes were set structurally exactly like this in my school. Down-to-earth classes in the basement and ground floor and then it got weirder the higher up you moved.

"he said, glancing over nervously to Gabriel, who gave him… big thumbs up. Like it was all some joke they were playing. It didn’t feel like a joke, let me tell you." This statement is so uncomfortable...

"Finally the lines seemed to resolve into a clear shape: A door. 'Perfect!' Gabriel told me. 'It looks just like him!'I asked him if it was supposed to be a face and he told me yes. It was a good friend of his. I asked him who and he said they didn’t have a name. I told him everyone has a name, and he said his friend wasn’t like us, that having a name would only confuse them." The Distortion...

Aside from the horrible gaslighting this episode is an excellent example for cosmic horror. All the impossibilities of things happening, rooms being not the same, shapes shifting, people not being people anymore.

"I could feel his spiraling fingerprints start to turn. Round and around." Reminds me of Annihilation. They were snaking there.

JON: "A Great Twisting, that Gertrude stopped at the cost of a single life. (hm) I thought moving away from my humanity would have made that seem more acceptable. That sort of sacrifice… But it just makes me sad." Queue another discussion on Jon and Gertrude’s relationship to “humanity”. (Also, did he already hunt down a live statement here and is sort of talking about this as well?)

JON: "I remembered Gertrude’s notebook. We found it alongside the plastic explosives, but it rather got lost amongst the business of… (sigh) saving the world at the cost of two lives. It – it’s borderline incomprehensible. Not because of any code, or cipher; there’s every chance I could read those. Just simply because most of it is numbers or fragments of sentences that would no doubt mean something to her, but, well, not to me. I’ve been staring at it for hours, in the hopes something from it would just – come to me. And it worked well enough to point me towards this statement, which is… useful background, and perhaps gives some insight into how Gertrude formulated her counter-rituals, but – not much more." Oh yeah, so the notebook does come up again! (I couldn't remember back in MAG 113.)

JON: "I’ve been trying to check on Melanie’s condition. She refuses to see me – understandably, I,I suppose, and Basira has been looking after her. (sigh) It hurts, of course. But… (sigh) I really hope getting that bullet out of her helps. At least stops it from getting any worse. I can’t have been too late again." T_T Okay, so as a HSP this is just torture. First we get this asshole character which I hated and I couldn't even get into the podcast because of it. Then sweetheart Martin hits and Jon shows more and more that he has a bigger range of feelings than just stone-cold skepticism. Especially when the realisation of Not!Sasha catches up to him. Then we get this character, who we slowly learned to like, get tossed around like a ball in a middle school gym class, we get to see him open up to others, we see that he is liked and loved by others and then THIS for an ENTIRE SEASON! (It’s not like it’s sooo much better in S5...) And even though nobody except for Melanie blames Jon for Tim and Daisy's death, he blames himself and we get to feel that because we mostly see his perspective of course. Jon thought his childhood bully dying is his fault, Sasha dying is his fault. Tim blames him for getting stuck in the Archives and other events (I got eaten by worms because of you - MAG 65), Melanie also started to blame him in S3 (Because it is your fault that I'm here. Fix it or get out of my way - MAG 102). His thinking pattern is centered around guilt.

JON: "I suppose I should be worried, but I have so much to keep watch over." I think this is exactly what makes TMA so good. There's too much to keep watch over, so it manages to surprise you. I've seen stories of a lesser scale fail to surprise because it was easy to keep track of all the elements.

JON: "She didn’t go to Sannikov Land in the end. I don’t know, however, whether that was because she decided not to… or because shortly after this statement was given, they found the body of one Mary Randall in her basement, and she has spent the last nine years in Eastwood Park prison, where she remains to this day." Oh fuck, I missed these research bits that made the statement even worse.

It took me incredibly long to get that Martin is talking to the tape recorders like a pet xD (Also... Web!Martin?)

MARTIN: "It’s because he’s back, isn’t it. He’s back, so now you’re going to be – around, again. Listening in. (amused *hm*) You missed him, didn’t you? (same little laugh) Yeah. Yeah, me too." ༼☯﹏☯༽

PETER: "You talked to him?" MARTIN: "I – I tried not to; I-I-I didn’t mean to –" PETER: (I’m not mad I’m just disappointed) "You talked to him. And that’s understandable, Martin, of course it is; please don’t think I’m upset; it’s just – not ideal." Martin arguing that their meeting was an accident actually sounds kinda fearful. For a short moment this paints a very horrific dynamic between these two, until is shifts into this best buddy-manipulation.

MARTIN: (indignant) "A-a simple ‘hello’ isn’t going to make any difference to –" PETER: "We’ve been over this." God, he wants to...

MARTIN: ""But if I could just explain –" PETER: "And how do you think Jon’s going to react to that explanation, hm? You think he’ll accept it calmly? Come through with a well-considered, rational response?" MARTIN: "That’s not fair." PETER: "Or would he assume he knows better than you and do something rash?" Actually, that's kind of what Jon ends up doing though? Accepting it and trusting Martin, that he know's what he's doing. But Jon is also impulsive and it's easier to talk Martin into this not provoking impulsive, possibly self-destructive behavior, so Martin let's go of his connection to Jon.

PETER: "Martin. This isn’t how any of us wanted it to go. But here we are, and if we don’t pull this off, it’s over for everyone. Jon included." Oh yes, building suspense!

PETER: "Because behind all his bluster, Elias is just like all the rest. He’s so preoccupied playing the game, he doesn’t pay attention to the big picture. He managed to convince himself that he could get his ritual off first, which would have made all of this a bit – moot, but that’s not really an option anymore." Again, I totally didn't have Elias still planing his ritual in the picture when I was listening the first time.

PETER: "I’m just saying that we’d all be better off if your Archivist actually knew how to archive." MARTIN: (enough) "Peter." Lol, it needed to be said?

MARTIN: "When all this is over, I’m telling him everything, with or without your permission." PETER: "Martin, when it’s over, you won’t want to." Yes, more build-up! (Also, Martin nooooooo!!!)

[MARTIN LETS OUT A CONTEMPLATIVE NOISE.] PETER: "But he will be safe. They all will." And more about Martin's motivation. I didn't listen to any of the trailer the first round because I was listening on YT, so this was vital information for me.

PETER: "Never had much of a gift for administration myself – too many variables. Now, this box on the left, that’s the library stuff, yes?" MARTIN: "Wh– n,no! That’s the – Those are the dates! I – (clicking) Look, are you sure you don’t want me to teach you; i-it’s a very simple program –" PETER: "No, no. Can’t stand computers. Besides, that’s why I have an assistant, isn’t it?" Ok boomer xD

@a-mag-a-day

[abyssalpriest]

5/3/24

He appears as a bird to humans so they can understand him.

I haven't had wings in so long, I wondered where they went. Black and slick with the heavy weight of rain, black as the soaked fertile earth, black as the intimated whispers of the Sky. If I were to let them manifest I would be covered in them and be left a mass of wings, eyes and buried talons. I would be sprouting feathers as spring soil sprouts precious green leaves.

This is how I looked when we were last connected, when my name was yours.

I feel tears run down my cheeks. I feel the earth beneath me dig between bird-feet toes, I feel my form like a wailing statue contorted into arrays of the echoes of abyssal despair - but in its deepest central form of bliss, that which the Lord of Despair feels. I feel the Sunlight of my own eye glimmering oilslick colours out of my feathers, I feel physical and ethereal, reality is now the dream.

I remember. The weight of your name is on my tongue, in my mouth, it is my breath. I am black only with you, the grand hollowness of the cavern of space in the sclera of my eyes, the masks of Shiva adorn my walls, act as my scales. The bliss, the reclining, the dances are acted poses, the statue-esque Sun to the dancer Moon.

Once, we were one. Once. Once is the word, the key. Once is the expression of the One, Once is the expression of Consciousness.

And I love you, now. And you love me.

I stand in my vision in my old estate, a place of great trauma, and yet I feel none of it. All I feel is the air saturated in sun lighting and colouring the entire atmosphere as I bask in your presence, as I look up and see what I identified back then as myself. Now, I look, I don't feel frustration. I don't feel homesick. I feel love.

The river runs from us, and she brings the innocent rose petals of sheepish love, and the gold of the imperial Sun, and the silver of the silent Moon, and the echoes of the church hymns, and her exhalation brings the two of us together into entwined Tantric art: immortalised momentary infinity, reflections of and upon the most intimate dance of God upon God on the cosmic stage of silk sheets and pages of musical notation. Black and white, both products of the same process of the mergence of all colours, both the same in some fundamental way, two that, through circumstances and the governing rules of different states, became very different same-things.

The salt of tears is the same as the sweetness of experienced lips well-fed on honey, milk, spices, and flowers, searching for new expressions; those that are left in hollow, shadowed places may be forgotten by all but God. God recognises God no matter where he crawls himself into.

As I finish writing, a plane passes overhead loudly, long-ly, extending its presence in the conversation to the begging, lingering extent that lovers do when they must now acknowledge they say goodbye. I wonder what our vows will be like. I wonder if they could ever reach the depths of binding and cervix-hitting intimacy contained in holding each other's true name between your tongues.

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: Our Wives Under the Sea Author: Julia Armfield Genre/s: horror, contemporary literature Content/Trigger Warnings: body horror, death of a parent, claustrophobic environs, the deep sea, portrayal and discussion of grief and grieving Summary (from publisher website):  Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home. To have the woman she loves back should mean a return to normal life, but Miri can feel Leah slipping from her grasp. Memories of what they had before – the jokes they shared, the films they watched, all the small things that made Leah hers – only remind Miri of what she stands to lose. Living in the same space but suddenly separate, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had might be gone. Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/our-wives-under-the-sea-julia-armfield/17449967 Spoiler-Free Review: The last time I read a horror novel that explored grief, it was John Langan’s The Fisherman’s Wife, which I enjoyed thoroughly and found appropriately spooky. So when this book cropped up in some best-of lists this year, and many of the reviews implied or out right stated this was a horror novel, I decided to give it a shot. And yes, yes, it IS a horror novel, but not quite in the same way as Langan’s book. No: the horror here is in watching the slow deterioration of a relationship/relationships, something indefinable hanging between everyone that no one can seem to get over or around. And the thing is: it’s neither of their faults. On one hand, how do you explain a profoundly traumatic experience to someone? An experience that has changed you so fundamentally, that it might feel like you’re someone else entirely? And on the other hand, how do you try to understand what your partner is going through in the wake of a traumatizing event? How do you reach out to them, ask them to open up, without accidentally cutting them, or yourself, on the sharp edge of a memory? How do two people deal with the weight of all that? How do you keep a relationship from just...disintegrating? In broad strokes, that’s what happens in this novel. The story is told via first-person narration with both Miri and Leah as narrators, the chapters alternating between them. On one hand, Miri’s chapters are mostly set in the present, drifting back and forth to explore her past as it relates to the present of her and the just-returned Leah. It is in Miri’s chapters that the themes of grief and grieving are most pronounced, and it is both heartwrenching and nightmarish to read about how she deals with Leah, and her notion that maybe, her wife didn’t quite come back as herself. There’s a kind of slow, inexorable awakening in these chapters that feels terrifying, because you can see how Miri realizes that something is coming, KNOWS it’s inevitable, but isn’t sure yet what she’ll do. She’s failed before, after all. Will she fail again? As for Leah’s chapters, this is where the horror story side of the novel comes in, which I won’t get into for fear of spoilers, but they feel very cosmic horror-esque - and no, NOT because of the obvious Cthulhu references. These chapters are slow too, like the Miri chapters, but the flavor of terror here is different: a slow descent (heh) into the unknown, into madness (?), into thoughts that are maybe best left in the depths of the mind. What’s down there in the very deepest depths of the ocean? Who knows. What lies in the very deepest depths of the human mind? Who knows. Do we want to know? SHOULD we know? Taken all together, these chapters twine and twist and twist and TWIST so the tension’s almost unbearable, until finally, towards the book’s latter fourth, they finally snap and unravel into the conclusion. That the POV makes everything feel twice as intimate and maybe a tiny bit claustrophobic - which I personally enjoyed, mostly because of how uncomfortable it was to see all this happening. I know that seems strange, but the up-close feel really made this even more compelling to read. This is helped along by the writing, which is lovely right from the get-go and makes reading this book immensely easy for all that the story feels like it should be going a lot more slowly than it actually does. Rating: five faceless cusks (seriously go look those up they’re so STRANGE) Thoughts under the cut for spoilers:

- What in the actual everloving FUCK was that THING Leah saw at the end of the expedition? What the fuck???

- Also what was it Leah was turning into? WHY was she turning into it? Could swear she was turning into a jellyfish but still? WHY??

- Who the fuck’s behind the Centre? I know it’s not supposed to be answered, that they’re essentially a MacGuffin, but STILL. I am CURIOUS - not least because if kind of reminds me of the similar organization in Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy.

[quitepossiblyknot]

That's why it thumps, it hugs you with every pump, it energetically creates vortices that are vortical in nature, pushing and pulling life to circulate throughout your entire body, that vortex is the field you exist in, on a scientific level, it is called a toroid, like a donut, you are wrapped around, below, and above by this quantum field, it is the capacity of the heart to expand and contract that produces the effect, so, most of humanity is unaware that they are in the constant embrace of the divine because it is natural

The reason yogis, spiritualists, and practitioners meditate is to connect with that divine aspect of themselves, that rhythm, as it is the pace of existence, an organic singularity of a living, it wills itself

It willingly emanates a drum pattern to hug you musically, it's why those who take narcotics, drugs, psychedelics, and entheogen express the feeling of love, they are noticing how much work the heart does to keep them alive, due to the activation of the adrenal medulla and superior medullary vellum to being accenting the breath

The spirit is in the breath and by breathing deeply you get a sense of being hugged, that is the spiritual nature of the emotional body, etheric body, subtle body, and mental body, the four corners of the deific experience, hence, be still and know that I am God, your heart is that, that is an initial vibration of I and I AM and the essence of what comes before both, in occult science it is referred to the triple veil of the negative, as stated by Aleister Crowley in the Book of Thoth, and what physicists would term base 10 to the 3rd, plus-minus, that order of magnitude is where polarity is give and take, artery and vein, the stream of blood away and towards, that is the cycling of energy, the circulatory system, if you feel your pulse at the base of your wrist, where the radial bone is, just near the hamate, you can tap into that frequency

It is frequently coursing, some say it is saying lub dub, others say it utters Yeshua, either way, it is constant, molar gas, when you see movies in fantasy or sci-fi where a person is warped into seeing a molecule moving, it resembles a medium spiky neuron, the emoji with that cellular activity that matches the color of plasmic fluid in a vial, that is the molecular level, so when you see in comics that cosmic energy, that is your auric field, the energy that rhythmically moves to repel and attract, it is how lungs maintain pace, the vesica piscis, so sacred geometry in real life, where you are at the center

That center of gravity is what you walk around with everyday, another level of what is hugging you

So if you ever need a hug from your heart, place your hand there, take in the deepest inhalation, hold it for a few seconds and exhale until you reach a point and that is a reminder of what loves you without words, that is an unspoken expression of love, the reason many aren't familiar with silence or people who show love without saying it is because there is something far greater, the verb, the being, the doing, the showing, the showing up, the presence, in the presence of a heartbeat, know that you are love(d), only distance between knowing is the societal constructs we put ahead of it

May you come to know it and integrate that regularly throughout life, the rate of your heart is divinity, check your heart rate at any given moment and remember, know who you are in that moment

Asé

Do you ever feel like your heart needs a hug?

[advancedthetapractitioner]

TGIWednesday: I WON!

TGIWednesday News

I always hand my little girlfriend cash for our lottery and scratchers because we pinky swore we're ride or die and we're splitting everything 50/50 and of course the other day she screamed, "I won!" and I said, "Don't you mean we won - ride or die 50/50 right baby?" And she turned to me with a look of shock and said, "that's only for the big ones."  It's worth noticing that this win comes just days after our awesome Live Zoom on Cosmic Financing...that was a powerful one let me tell you, if you haven't yet, check out the replay here.  One of the themes of April is Stress Awareness month so we're going to address stress head on this month with our next monthly Zoom.  Look for more info soon about registering for this event as we blaze through Spring!   As the focus of April will be around alleviating stress, so whether you like to gamble, do yoga, go camping, fish or any number of stress-reducing activities or processes, join us as we take you through the month in an effort to alleviate your stress!!!

Reach out whenever we can help/contribute to you and yours in any way. View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins | Appointments

TGIWednesday Video Download

 ~ RELEASING STRESS ~ I believe, think, know and feel that it's safe and comfortable to release stress I am ready, willing and able to try something new to relax my body, mind and spirit.  I know when, where, how and why to allow the universe to show me a simple way to release anxiety, stress and tension now.  I am asking in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is.  Know that if you'll make a little daily progress, the rest of your life will be the best of your life! ▶️ Watch here on YouTube - Please Like 👍 and Subscribe 🔔

What's On Deck?

Returning to Your Ethereal Restore Point  An excellent vehicle to support anti-aging, finances even wellness rebirth and a return to splendor!   💸🏦🌠 

  This got pushed down the calendar a bit, so look for it some time in the Spring/Summer. Prior to being born you were the culmination of stardust, energy, frequency and vibration.  Upon inception up until delivery you were a perfect being free of judgement, anger, or debt; unencumbered from whatever society, religion, politics, schooling and other people were going to rain down upon you throughout your life.  We'll take you back to that single point energetically and create a mystical do-over!  This work will infuse a mix of Tesla's 3-6-9 and David Hawkins' vibrational scale of consciousness.  As a bonus it will include a taster of the upcoming Cosmic Financing MyBeliefWorks clearings! These clearing statements can reset you back a restore point where you were energetically - prior to financial losses, bankruptcy, a bad divorce, job loss and so on! 

  Join us on our continuing voyage to navigate the unusual, the different and the deepest changes!

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

APRIL 3RD "Today I will unshackle myself from the past. I will free myself of my past dragging me backwards and I will live and breathe in this moment and move forward into the future, realizing that I am co-creating each moment as it occurs and I can create beauty and bliss."

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

FREE Live Appearances

New You Wealth Revolution Season 27 is Happening Now! The Leader in Conscious Transformation: For 14 years more than 10 million people in over 190 countries have attended the You Wealth Revolution — it's a game changer!

Each day you'll receive FREE LIVE energy healing processes, tools and interviews from the greatest healers, teachers and masters on how to overcome challenges, release limiting beliefs, and live your best life! My interview will air on NEXT TUESDAY APRIL 9TH

Join today and you'll immediately get the ALL-NEW 888 Hz Abundance Accelerator™ MP3 gift 

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Come See Me in Tampa Office

I am offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions in Tampa. The the next opportunity to book a session there is:

FRIDAY APRIL 19TH | 10-4pm 

Please call their office directly at  ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy

http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

From the Fish Box

 MY DAILY PRAYER SUBSCRIBER

  I'm so happy to have found Jimmy Mack!  He has become my go-to for pain relief.  I wish I had known about his techniques before having surgery on my knees!  After my last arthroscopy, I was still having a great deal of pain, so I turned to Jimmy with a lot of hope.  I'm so glad I did!  I am now virtually pain-free in my knees and occasionally need a bit of a tune-up to get back into alignment.  I highly recommend Jimmy and all of his services! - Stacey / New York 

The Fish Market

We have grouped 40+ audio titles into MyBeliefWorks Audio Collections. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s)  We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.  

Shop The Prosperity Collection  Shop the Body, Mind and Spirit Collection Shop the Improve Your Life Collection

Browse over 45 Videos in the Zoom Replay Collection 

The 5 Anchors Energy Process The Purple Rain Energy Process The Magical Golden Key Process TheNight Passage Sleep Process  

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you. Looking for a new job?  Going through a court proceeding? Upcoming surgery scheduled for you or a loved one?  Need help selling or buying a property? Troubled times in your relationship? These are just some of the life at the crossroads events that are ideal for My Daily Prayer program.

30 Days of Daily Prayer (single month) - $99/month This $99 service is for ONE SINGLE MONTH of 30 DAYS ONLY.  Click here After the 30 days, you will receive an email from Jimmy and have the opportunity to renew for an additional month plus update your list, but you are under no obligation.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**NOTE: Most clients save money and choose the auto-renew option listed below so they do not miss a single day of prayers PLUS they take advantage of the cummulative effects of this service over time. Monthly subscription - $95/month on auto-renew 

Use PayPal for subscription Click here 

Use Stripe for subscription Click here. 

*Anytime prior to your next scheduled payment within the 30 days, you can cancel or pause this service via email request.

---------------------------------

Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

​Visit our ​O​nline ​Training Center "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" - Lao Tzu

All are welcome to CREATE A FREE ACCOUNT to access the NEW and IMPROVED My Liquid Fish Change Made Simple Basic Training Course. Anchors Away Masterclass:  Sustain and clear and sovereign energetic field of dark energies and anomalies. Life Force Energy Masterclass: Enhance your fishing practice by approaching from a deeper, numeric level. Mastery & Practitioner Certification Course

Visit now, Click Here!

TGIFunny

Share

Tweet

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Jimmy Mack | Appointments ​​​Transformational Healing of Body, Mind​ & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!​ ​ View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Learn MyLiquidFish technique for FREE Clearing Audio Downloads​ and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com ©1996-2024 All Rights Reserved.

[365dailyaffirmations]

TGIWednesday: I WON!

TGIWednesday News

I always hand my little girlfriend cash for our lottery and scratchers because we pinky swore we're ride or die and we're splitting everything 50/50 and of course the other day she screamed, "I won!" and I said, "Don't you mean we won - ride or die 50/50 right baby?" And she turned to me with a look of shock and said, "that's only for the big ones."  It's worth noticing that this win comes just days after our awesome Live Zoom on Cosmic Financing...that was a powerful one let me tell you, if you haven't yet, check out the replay here.  One of the themes of April is Stress Awareness month so we're going to address stress head on this month with our next monthly Zoom.  Look for more info soon about registering for this event as we blaze through Spring!   As the focus of April will be around alleviating stress, so whether you like to gamble, do yoga, go camping, fish or any number of stress-reducing activities or processes, join us as we take you through the month in an effort to alleviate your stress!!!

Reach out whenever we can help/contribute to you and yours in any way. View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins | Appointments

TGIWednesday Video Download

 ~ RELEASING STRESS ~ I believe, think, know and feel that it's safe and comfortable to release stress I am ready, willing and able to try something new to relax my body, mind and spirit.  I know when, where, how and why to allow the universe to show me a simple way to release anxiety, stress and tension now.  I am asking in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is.  Know that if you'll make a little daily progress, the rest of your life will be the best of your life! ▶️ Watch here on YouTube - Please Like 👍 and Subscribe 🔔

What's On Deck?

Returning to Your Ethereal Restore Point  An excellent vehicle to support anti-aging, finances even wellness rebirth and a return to splendor!   💸🏦🌠 

  This got pushed down the calendar a bit, so look for it some time in the Spring/Summer. Prior to being born you were the culmination of stardust, energy, frequency and vibration.  Upon inception up until delivery you were a perfect being free of judgement, anger, or debt; unencumbered from whatever society, religion, politics, schooling and other people were going to rain down upon you throughout your life.  We'll take you back to that single point energetically and create a mystical do-over!  This work will infuse a mix of Tesla's 3-6-9 and David Hawkins' vibrational scale of consciousness.  As a bonus it will include a taster of the upcoming Cosmic Financing MyBeliefWorks clearings! These clearing statements can reset you back a restore point where you were energetically - prior to financial losses, bankruptcy, a bad divorce, job loss and so on! 

  Join us on our continuing voyage to navigate the unusual, the different and the deepest changes!

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

APRIL 3RD "Today I will unshackle myself from the past. I will free myself of my past dragging me backwards and I will live and breathe in this moment and move forward into the future, realizing that I am co-creating each moment as it occurs and I can create beauty and bliss."

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

FREE Live Appearances

New You Wealth Revolution Season 27 is Happening Now! The Leader in Conscious Transformation: For 14 years more than 10 million people in over 190 countries have attended the You Wealth Revolution — it's a game changer!

Each day you'll receive FREE LIVE energy healing processes, tools and interviews from the greatest healers, teachers and masters on how to overcome challenges, release limiting beliefs, and live your best life! My interview will air on NEXT TUESDAY APRIL 9TH

Join today and you'll immediately get the ALL-NEW 888 Hz Abundance Accelerator™ MP3 gift 

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Come See Me in Tampa Office

I am offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions in Tampa. The the next opportunity to book a session there is:

FRIDAY APRIL 19TH | 10-4pm 

Please call their office directly at  ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy

http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

From the Fish Box

 MY DAILY PRAYER SUBSCRIBER

  I'm so happy to have found Jimmy Mack!  He has become my go-to for pain relief.  I wish I had known about his techniques before having surgery on my knees!  After my last arthroscopy, I was still having a great deal of pain, so I turned to Jimmy with a lot of hope.  I'm so glad I did!  I am now virtually pain-free in my knees and occasionally need a bit of a tune-up to get back into alignment.  I highly recommend Jimmy and all of his services! - Stacey / New York 

The Fish Market

We have grouped 40+ audio titles into MyBeliefWorks Audio Collections. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s)  We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.  

Shop The Prosperity Collection  Shop the Body, Mind and Spirit Collection Shop the Improve Your Life Collection

Browse over 45 Videos in the Zoom Replay Collection 

The 5 Anchors Energy Process The Purple Rain Energy Process The Magical Golden Key Process TheNight Passage Sleep Process  

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you. Looking for a new job?  Going through a court proceeding? Upcoming surgery scheduled for you or a loved one?  Need help selling or buying a property? Troubled times in your relationship? These are just some of the life at the crossroads events that are ideal for My Daily Prayer program.

30 Days of Daily Prayer (single month) - $99/month This $99 service is for ONE SINGLE MONTH of 30 DAYS ONLY.  Click here After the 30 days, you will receive an email from Jimmy and have the opportunity to renew for an additional month plus update your list, but you are under no obligation.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**NOTE: Most clients save money and choose the auto-renew option listed below so they do not miss a single day of prayers PLUS they take advantage of the cummulative effects of this service over time. Monthly subscription - $95/month on auto-renew 

Use PayPal for subscription Click here 

Use Stripe for subscription Click here. 

*Anytime prior to your next scheduled payment within the 30 days, you can cancel or pause this service via email request.

---------------------------------

Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

​Visit our ​O​nline ​Training Center "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" - Lao Tzu

All are welcome to CREATE A FREE ACCOUNT to access the NEW and IMPROVED My Liquid Fish Change Made Simple Basic Training Course. Anchors Away Masterclass:  Sustain and clear and sovereign energetic field of dark energies and anomalies. Life Force Energy Masterclass: Enhance your fishing practice by approaching from a deeper, numeric level. Mastery & Practitioner Certification Course

Visit now, Click Here!

TGIFunny

Share

Tweet

Forward

Pinterest

Jimmy Mack | Appointments ​​​Transformational Healing of Body, Mind​ & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!​ ​ View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Learn MyLiquidFish technique for FREE Clearing Audio Downloads​ and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com ©1996-2024 All Rights Reserved.

[divinefishingtips]

TGIWednesday: I WON!

TGIWednesday News

I always hand my little girlfriend cash for our lottery and scratchers because we pinky swore we're ride or die and we're splitting everything 50/50 and of course the other day she screamed, "I won!" and I said, "Don't you mean we won - ride or die 50/50 right baby?" And she turned to me with a look of shock and said, "that's only for the big ones."  It's worth noticing that this win comes just days after our awesome Live Zoom on Cosmic Financing...that was a powerful one let me tell you, if you haven't yet, check out the replay here.  One of the themes of April is Stress Awareness month so we're going to address stress head on this month with our next monthly Zoom.  Look for more info soon about registering for this event as we blaze through Spring!   As the focus of April will be around alleviating stress, so whether you like to gamble, do yoga, go camping, fish or any number of stress-reducing activities or processes, join us as we take you through the month in an effort to alleviate your stress!!!

Reach out whenever we can help/contribute to you and yours in any way. View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins | Appointments

TGIWednesday Video Download

 ~ RELEASING STRESS ~ I believe, think, know and feel that it's safe and comfortable to release stress I am ready, willing and able to try something new to relax my body, mind and spirit.  I know when, where, how and why to allow the universe to show me a simple way to release anxiety, stress and tension now.  I am asking in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is.  Know that if you'll make a little daily progress, the rest of your life will be the best of your life! ▶️ Watch here on YouTube - Please Like 👍 and Subscribe 🔔

What's On Deck?

Returning to Your Ethereal Restore Point  An excellent vehicle to support anti-aging, finances even wellness rebirth and a return to splendor!   💸🏦🌠 

  This got pushed down the calendar a bit, so look for it some time in the Spring/Summer. Prior to being born you were the culmination of stardust, energy, frequency and vibration.  Upon inception up until delivery you were a perfect being free of judgement, anger, or debt; unencumbered from whatever society, religion, politics, schooling and other people were going to rain down upon you throughout your life.  We'll take you back to that single point energetically and create a mystical do-over!  This work will infuse a mix of Tesla's 3-6-9 and David Hawkins' vibrational scale of consciousness.  As a bonus it will include a taster of the upcoming Cosmic Financing MyBeliefWorks clearings! These clearing statements can reset you back a restore point where you were energetically - prior to financial losses, bankruptcy, a bad divorce, job loss and so on! 

  Join us on our continuing voyage to navigate the unusual, the different and the deepest changes!

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

APRIL 3RD "Today I will unshackle myself from the past. I will free myself of my past dragging me backwards and I will live and breathe in this moment and move forward into the future, realizing that I am co-creating each moment as it occurs and I can create beauty and bliss."

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

FREE Live Appearances

New You Wealth Revolution Season 27 is Happening Now! The Leader in Conscious Transformation: For 14 years more than 10 million people in over 190 countries have attended the You Wealth Revolution — it's a game changer!

Each day you'll receive FREE LIVE energy healing processes, tools and interviews from the greatest healers, teachers and masters on how to overcome challenges, release limiting beliefs, and live your best life! My interview will air on NEXT TUESDAY APRIL 9TH

Join today and you'll immediately get the ALL-NEW 888 Hz Abundance Accelerator™ MP3 gift 

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Come See Me in Tampa Office

I am offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions in Tampa. The the next opportunity to book a session there is:

FRIDAY APRIL 19TH | 10-4pm 

Please call their office directly at  ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy

http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

From the Fish Box

 MY DAILY PRAYER SUBSCRIBER

  I'm so happy to have found Jimmy Mack!  He has become my go-to for pain relief.  I wish I had known about his techniques before having surgery on my knees!  After my last arthroscopy, I was still having a great deal of pain, so I turned to Jimmy with a lot of hope.  I'm so glad I did!  I am now virtually pain-free in my knees and occasionally need a bit of a tune-up to get back into alignment.  I highly recommend Jimmy and all of his services! - Stacey / New York 

The Fish Market

We have grouped 40+ audio titles into MyBeliefWorks Audio Collections. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s)  We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.  

Shop The Prosperity Collection  Shop the Body, Mind and Spirit Collection Shop the Improve Your Life Collection

Browse over 45 Videos in the Zoom Replay Collection 

The 5 Anchors Energy Process The Purple Rain Energy Process The Magical Golden Key Process TheNight Passage Sleep Process  

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you. Looking for a new job?  Going through a court proceeding? Upcoming surgery scheduled for you or a loved one?  Need help selling or buying a property? Troubled times in your relationship? These are just some of the life at the crossroads events that are ideal for My Daily Prayer program.

30 Days of Daily Prayer (single month) - $99/month This $99 service is for ONE SINGLE MONTH of 30 DAYS ONLY.  Click here After the 30 days, you will receive an email from Jimmy and have the opportunity to renew for an additional month plus update your list, but you are under no obligation.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**NOTE: Most clients save money and choose the auto-renew option listed below so they do not miss a single day of prayers PLUS they take advantage of the cummulative effects of this service over time. Monthly subscription - $95/month on auto-renew 

Use PayPal for subscription Click here 

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*Anytime prior to your next scheduled payment within the 30 days, you can cancel or pause this service via email request.

---------------------------------

Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

​Visit our ​O​nline ​Training Center "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" - Lao Tzu

All are welcome to CREATE A FREE ACCOUNT to access the NEW and IMPROVED My Liquid Fish Change Made Simple Basic Training Course. Anchors Away Masterclass:  Sustain and clear and sovereign energetic field of dark energies and anomalies. Life Force Energy Masterclass: Enhance your fishing practice by approaching from a deeper, numeric level. Mastery & Practitioner Certification Course

Visit now, Click Here!

TGIFunny

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Jimmy Mack | Appointments ​​​Transformational Healing of Body, Mind​ & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!​ ​ View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Learn MyLiquidFish technique for FREE Clearing Audio Downloads​ and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com ©1996-2024 All Rights Reserved.

[thedivinefish]

TGIWednesday: I WON!

TGIWednesday News

I always hand my little girlfriend cash for our lottery and scratchers because we pinky swore we're ride or die and we're splitting everything 50/50 and of course the other day she screamed, "I won!" and I said, "Don't you mean we won - ride or die 50/50 right baby?" And she turned to me with a look of shock and said, "that's only for the big ones."  It's worth noticing that this win comes just days after our awesome Live Zoom on Cosmic Financing...that was a powerful one let me tell you, if you haven't yet, check out the replay here.  One of the themes of April is Stress Awareness month so we're going to address stress head on this month with our next monthly Zoom.  Look for more info soon about registering for this event as we blaze through Spring!   As the focus of April will be around alleviating stress, so whether you like to gamble, do yoga, go camping, fish or any number of stress-reducing activities or processes, join us as we take you through the month in an effort to alleviate your stress!!!

Reach out whenever we can help/contribute to you and yours in any way. View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins | Appointments

TGIWednesday Video Download

 ~ RELEASING STRESS ~ I believe, think, know and feel that it's safe and comfortable to release stress I am ready, willing and able to try something new to relax my body, mind and spirit.  I know when, where, how and why to allow the universe to show me a simple way to release anxiety, stress and tension now.  I am asking in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is.  Know that if you'll make a little daily progress, the rest of your life will be the best of your life! ▶️ Watch here on YouTube - Please Like 👍 and Subscribe 🔔

What's On Deck?

Returning to Your Ethereal Restore Point  An excellent vehicle to support anti-aging, finances even wellness rebirth and a return to splendor!   💸🏦🌠 

  This got pushed down the calendar a bit, so look for it some time in the Spring/Summer. Prior to being born you were the culmination of stardust, energy, frequency and vibration.  Upon inception up until delivery you were a perfect being free of judgement, anger, or debt; unencumbered from whatever society, religion, politics, schooling and other people were going to rain down upon you throughout your life.  We'll take you back to that single point energetically and create a mystical do-over!  This work will infuse a mix of Tesla's 3-6-9 and David Hawkins' vibrational scale of consciousness.  As a bonus it will include a taster of the upcoming Cosmic Financing MyBeliefWorks clearings! These clearing statements can reset you back a restore point where you were energetically - prior to financial losses, bankruptcy, a bad divorce, job loss and so on! 

  Join us on our continuing voyage to navigate the unusual, the different and the deepest changes!

Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

APRIL 3RD "Today I will unshackle myself from the past. I will free myself of my past dragging me backwards and I will live and breathe in this moment and move forward into the future, realizing that I am co-creating each moment as it occurs and I can create beauty and bliss."

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

FREE Live Appearances

New You Wealth Revolution Season 27 is Happening Now! The Leader in Conscious Transformation: For 14 years more than 10 million people in over 190 countries have attended the You Wealth Revolution — it's a game changer!

Each day you'll receive FREE LIVE energy healing processes, tools and interviews from the greatest healers, teachers and masters on how to overcome challenges, release limiting beliefs, and live your best life! My interview will air on NEXT TUESDAY APRIL 9TH

Join today and you'll immediately get the ALL-NEW 888 Hz Abundance Accelerator™ MP3 gift 

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Come See Me in Tampa Office

I am offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions in Tampa. The the next opportunity to book a session there is:

FRIDAY APRIL 19TH | 10-4pm 

Please call their office directly at  ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy

http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

From the Fish Box

 MY DAILY PRAYER SUBSCRIBER

  I'm so happy to have found Jimmy Mack!  He has become my go-to for pain relief.  I wish I had known about his techniques before having surgery on my knees!  After my last arthroscopy, I was still having a great deal of pain, so I turned to Jimmy with a lot of hope.  I'm so glad I did!  I am now virtually pain-free in my knees and occasionally need a bit of a tune-up to get back into alignment.  I highly recommend Jimmy and all of his services! - Stacey / New York 

The Fish Market

We have grouped 40+ audio titles into MyBeliefWorks Audio Collections. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s)  We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.  

Shop The Prosperity Collection  Shop the Body, Mind and Spirit Collection Shop the Improve Your Life Collection

Browse over 45 Videos in the Zoom Replay Collection 

The 5 Anchors Energy Process The Purple Rain Energy Process The Magical Golden Key Process TheNight Passage Sleep Process  

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you. Looking for a new job?  Going through a court proceeding? Upcoming surgery scheduled for you or a loved one?  Need help selling or buying a property? Troubled times in your relationship? These are just some of the life at the crossroads events that are ideal for My Daily Prayer program.

30 Days of Daily Prayer (single month) - $99/month This $99 service is for ONE SINGLE MONTH of 30 DAYS ONLY.  Click here After the 30 days, you will receive an email from Jimmy and have the opportunity to renew for an additional month plus update your list, but you are under no obligation.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**NOTE: Most clients save money and choose the auto-renew option listed below so they do not miss a single day of prayers PLUS they take advantage of the cummulative effects of this service over time. Monthly subscription - $95/month on auto-renew 

Use PayPal for subscription Click here 

Use Stripe for subscription Click here. 

*Anytime prior to your next scheduled payment within the 30 days, you can cancel or pause this service via email request.

---------------------------------

Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

​Visit our ​O​nline ​Training Center "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" - Lao Tzu

All are welcome to CREATE A FREE ACCOUNT to access the NEW and IMPROVED My Liquid Fish Change Made Simple Basic Training Course. Anchors Away Masterclass:  Sustain and clear and sovereign energetic field of dark energies and anomalies. Life Force Energy Masterclass: Enhance your fishing practice by approaching from a deeper, numeric level. Mastery & Practitioner Certification Course

Visit now, Click Here!

TGIFunny

Share

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Jimmy Mack | Appointments ​​​Transformational Healing of Body, Mind​ & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!​ ​ View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Learn MyLiquidFish technique for FREE Clearing Audio Downloads​ and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com ©1996-2024 All Rights Reserved.

[magicman357]

Here I stand today, in the face of death, yet I am unfazed, still wondering. What have I done? What have I made? What change have I created? Nothing matters in this dance called life, my voice has no effect on the forces of nature. My life is only a single second in the great timeline of life and death. Yet still, I realize. Everything has an impact, from the smallest breath to the deepest secrets. Everything has a purpose. I have fulfilled mine,

Yet here I stand, spitting in the face of death, thinking aloud. I remember the days gone by. Everything happened so fast, yet all of that was so long ago. Farther than I could reach, forcing me to look forward and obey the march of time. If I could, I would go right back to the beginning and get a fresh start. Make a new life. Money can’t buy that. Money can’t buy happiness, yet it certainly helps. If I could, I’d tell myself, smile more. Laugh more. Enjoy every day like it’s your last. And now, I’m here. At my last hour, at my final minutes. Facing the wall, I see death. Beckoning me to come ever closer. Yet I can’t go. Not yet. I still have to think, so I will wait. I must write it down. Maybe then we can know, from some unseen future people coming to finish my unfinished symphony, yet no. No one will come, and come next decade, no one will remember me.

Yet here I stand, a single speck of dust in the cosmic scale of the universe, boldly facing death. I stare into his eyes, full of sorrow, full of regret. I wonder how many people have died to his hands. I ask him. Was it good? How did it feel, watching as people ticked down to their final hour. Was it fun? Did you enjoy it?

Yet I already knew the answer. He had to endure countless hours of sorrow, enough to fill a lifetime. I stare straight into the eyes of death, and I see sorrow. Remorse, even. But it is too late, both for me and for him. He has already committed everything to his job, and I have run out of time here. I close my eyes and wonder what could have been, with just a few more days.

Yet here I stand, in the face of death, his agony and remorse, and I feel no sorrow. I feel proud of what I have done on what litle time I had. I feel proud of the impact, while minuscule, I have made on this world, on this universe. So I stare death in the eyes, waiting for my time to come.

Staring straight up now, I see what might become. The lives that have come before me, and the lives that will become. The world is ever-changing, and nothing is the same as I remember. Gone, gone, gone are the days of simplicity. We all grow and change to fit the times, what we need, and what they need of us.

Goodbye.

[amplesalty]

Halloween 2021 - Day 5 - The Invisible Ray (1936)

Doesn’t that just sound like a bad magician? “Ladies and gentlemen, introducing...The Invisible Ray!”

Ah, this takes me back. Back in year 0 of this horror marathon business, before this blog was a thing, it was kinda heavily skewed towards the ‘classic’ period; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy..all that Universal 1930’s type stuff. Amongst that first run were a pair of films starring both KARLOFF and Bela Lugosi;  The Black Cat and The Raven. I remember them both being quite good, both having this sort of rivalry between their two characters. The Black Cat moreso with a young couple caught in the middle of a heated feud between KARLOFF and Lugosi’s characters. Whereas The Raven has KARLOFF as more of a de-facto good guy as he plays a reluctant henchman to Lugosi’s character. Not that that level of power translated off screen, with Lugosi’s star beginning to fade but I remember reading something about KARLOFF insisting on some parity in pay between the two in one of their movies when the studio tried to lowball Lugosi so good on you, KARLOFF.

Neither have much to do with the Edgar Allan Poe stories they take their names from, outside of Lugosi’s character in The Raven having an obsession with Poe and adapting various means of torture from Poe stories. There have been plenty of Poe adaptations throughout the years but the other big uptick in them was in the 1960’s with a series of films directed by Roger Corman, often starring Vincent Price but with other big names sprinkled in like KARLOFF, Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. Plus a relatively early Jack Nicholson appearance in The Raven, which was shot at the same time as The Terror. That bloody bird!

So, yeah, it’s good to see one of these KARLOFF/Lugosi films again. Apparently there are eight films that featured both of them so I’ll be halfway there now on them. This also has Carl Laemmle Jr’s name attached, albeit in a minor way as he’s listed as ‘presenting’ the movie. I’m not sure if that ever means anything. It’s like when Tarantino ‘presents’ something, did he have any actual input on the film or was he just shining a light on something he personally liked because he has so much power and influence?

The movie’s foreword is an early indicator of the more science-fiction leaning nature of the movie which catches you off guard a little with the people involved and the timeframe we’re working in. Feels like the 50’s was more when the whole sci-fi thing took off. Also, since when was science a verb?

Certainly has the feel of that classic ‘old, dark house’ horror thing early on as we start with the Rukh household awaiting the arrival of some of Dr Janos Rukh’s (KARLOFF) peers who are to bear witness to his new discovery.

KARLOFF has clearly been eating his crusts to get curls like that, normally he’s a slicked back kind of guy. And it’s kinda weird seeing both of them with facial hair. Oddly though this is one of the rare times that Lugosi plays a good guy, this is a clear violation of the parallel universe protocol:

Normal universe – clean shaven – good guy Parallel universe – goatee – evil

This early version of Dr. Doom is a bit naff. Are you making a great scientific discovery here or doing a spot of welding?

Apparently Dr Rukh’s invention is a telescope that is able to see into the deepest reaches of space, but can also pick up on vibrations left by the events that have taken place and he can then project that as a moving image that shows an asteroid crashing to Earth millions of years ago that can help him pinpoint the crash site and allow him to discover new elements inside the asteroid...wait, what?! Is this like that time on CSI when they solved a murder by getting sound out of something someone made in pottery class because the grooves could be played like a vinyl?

We then pivot sharply into the great plains of Africa where our team have set off in search of what will become known as ‘Radium X’. Oh yes, I think that’s on the periodic table next to Hardtoobtainium. And I’m specifically trying to avoid animal cruelty by not watching Cannibal Holocaust, don’t come around here with your dead leopards and talk of how many rhinos you’ve shot. I must say I’m a little wary of this sudden introduction of all these natives carrying spears and wearing bone necklaces, I just don’t feel like I can trust a movie made in the 1930’s to be sensitive on it’s portrayal of other cultures.

Thought it does present us with the best actor in this picture, look at those bug eyes! He’s like Africa’s answer to Marty Feldman.

And that’s just his reaction to a piece of scanning equipment going off, him and his mates are definitely going to be worried when this white devil makes a demonstration of his new found Radium X and it’s ability to melt pure stone. Looks like a portajohn backing up...

He then promptly turns his cosmic ray gun on all the locals when they tell him they want to go home. Sure, you can leave, you’re not going to get very far though. Dude, there’s like 12 of you and he’s given some of you rifles. Just jump him when he’s asleep.

Dr. Rukh finds that evening that he’s suddenly turned an interesting shade of neon yellow and can be seen by anyone in a three mile radius so either this Radium X is highly poisonous or Rukh has been running in opposition to Vladimir Putin. This poisoning leaves him so irradiated that merely touching another living thing is enough to kill it. Dr. Benet (Lugosi) is able to make a serum for him but can never truly cure him, he must regularly take this serum or otherwise he will revert to this killing machine type state.

But, in his eagerness to not spread this poison to his wife, and his general upholding of the man code to never air ones medical problems, he generally acts a bit surly and tells her to piss off which see views as him not loving her anymore so he promptly shacks up with the young explorer type who came with them to Africa. Worse yet, Benet and crew have taken a sample of Radium X to show at a scientific conference in Paris. Between losing his missus and thinking that other people are taking all the credit for his work, Rukh is just slightly annoyed.

It’s not all bad though, he is able to use this new element to cure his mother’s blindness. I like how his first reaction upon learning that Radium X has irrecoverably changed his life, leaving him one missed injection away from imminent death, is to shoot it directly into his mother’s face.

“Patients won’t like being shot in the face.” “They’ll like what I tell them to like.”

Whilst sulking outside of the church that his ex is getting re-married in, he spots a series of statues of saintly figures and imagines them representing each of the 6 people on the African expedition, vowing to destroy each of them until only he is left. Marvelous invention this Radium X, it can melt statues and cure blindness. Do you have to put special filters on that ray gun of yours depending on the situation? That’s a malpractice suit waiting to happen if you mix those up.

Dr. Benet is a little suspicious when one of their party dies suddenly for no explainable reason so takes a few ultraviolet photos of the victims eyes in order to study. And wouldn’t you know what he finds?

Bullshit! Nevermind the ultraviolet camera, this is more like the dues ex machine camera. I know this is science fiction and all but what is this, 1936 or 2036? Or maybe they’re just able to make the most detailed contact lenses known to man.

Eventually, when Rukh finds himself unable bring himself to kill his former love, he is confronted by his mother who smashes the serum and condemns him to death as, going unchecked, the Radium X within him will destroy his body. Sensing the end coming, Dr. Rukh dives out of the nearest window and promptly erupts bursts into flames, now left as little but a pile of ash on a damp Paris street. It’s a shame really, dozens of people spontaneously combust every year, it’s just not widely reported.”

This one was okay, definitely a different vibe compared to other Universal stuff at the time with all the science fiction and Africa based stuff but it does still travel down that ‘descent into madness’ thing that they often fall back on and it’s always fun to see KARLOFF and Lugosi, especially when they’re together. But, if we’re strictly talking about the KARLOFF/Lugosi pairing, I’m definitely leaning towards one of their other outings like Black Cat, Raven or Son of Frankenstein. There’s just something not right about Lugosi playing some normal, if he’s not being unhinged then you’re not really getting what you came here for.

[michaelbogild]

Quotes written April 17 2021

I felt you beneath my skin as I broke and broke

Love is now enslavement, a cage made of memories.

I held her hand, I held a new world.

The sorcerous chant of her moon-married beauty.

I could never break the spell of her beauty. I was all surrender, a tide so very easily pulled.

My skies were endless and you were their cerulean beauty.

The bloodshot eyes of this dream still calls our your name in the howling night.

I am convinced now that love is a black sea.

The sum of my soul could never buy her love.

The blood moon is her unholy love-child.

The blood of foolish love, how we savored its taste, desperate vampires that we are.

You didn't come from a rib, you came from the devil.

It is hard to sleep when your absence keeps knocking on the door of my heart.

You broke our golden chain, you said goodbye to the dreams you spun yourself.

You understood all of my worlds.

The stretch of our love though short were graced with eternal flowers.

The dusk is thick with your memory.

The poisonous honey of her Machiavellian beauty.

He was a beast of passion, a thunderstroke of unholy lust.

This ghostly moonlight...how it knows me.

The lesions of my love still screams your name through the bloodied mouth of disappointment.

There are only shadows here, shadows as black as your name.

You were the brightest and the blackest hour of my soul.

He used to the count the stars of her eyes.

I wander through the timeless dream of her, the pilgrim of a thousand passions.

I watched her dance, I gazed at a swirling heaven.

In this star-blessed love...my spirit is reborn.

You made it rain in my soul, now tell me, does it ever stop?

Autumnal rain, the twin of my soul, the nature of my being.

I will sing one more song for the moon...and then never again.

You loved a black chasm, you gave your heart to a thousand impossibilities.

Our shadows were dancing before we ever did.

the cosmic journey of loving you

I could never reach the ocean in her.

Her sugar-spun sweetness, her kisses that turn me upside down.

She is strongly anchored in the thunder of a raw defiance.

We met in astral spheres, we watched an eclipse as our hands met.

His heart became one continual ode to her beauty.

he spoke to the lone marigold of her heart

They did not offer each other love as much as offering each other wings.

They threw themselves into the flames of young love.

anchored in each others hearts, devotedly

The starry ornateness of her Venus-like grace.

Tonight I yearn in ink.

He liberated her beautiful songs, set free the fearful bird of her heart.

And now that I have seen her...I am back in the ancient cage of desire.

I love how tenderly she colours my emotions

the charming butterflies of her feminine glances

her heart is a tongue heavy with godless verses

the silken spells of her spring-born graces

Unbridle your burning beauty, undress yourself for the eternal night in me.

I was for a moment part of her celestial spirit.

When I think of her...I see a rose.

She reached the Nirvana of letting go.

her heart is like the ambiguous twilight, a pendulum of mass confusion

her velvet invitations, her eyes that summon lust

You were never as eloquent as when you were lying.

She was the star-spangled sky of my enchanted dreams.

There is no escape from her beauty's gravity, from what is essentially pre-written.

I was married, for a moment, with all the magic of her bouncy personality.

Pour the night-wine of your beauty into my cup of midsummer dreams.

We made love with the fullness of heaven.

You were no lover, you were but a weaver of layered illusions.

How and why did you set all my churches into flames?

Her eyes are orbs of ancient witchcraft.

Her beauty was surely different, like an expression of black art.

These twilight roses, how they suggest the sorcery of her beauty.

we were always butterflies, we were always drifting, always dreaming

You were a soulful verse in the true song of God.

I wooed with a far-dreaming heart the beauty of all her majestic stars

I am locked into the greyness of your eternal absence

You are the flames of my abyss

the rich poetry of her otherworldly charms

the crumbling colours of her fleeing love

I can feel her rotting in my soul.

She struck the richest strain of his soul.

I sailed into the chorus of the moon, I felt the waves of dark mysteries.

My reality, now touched by your beauty, is giving off sparks.

There are no stars in my reality, but in my dreams there is nothing else.

I think I will always worship the magic of what we had.

Marry me on the moon of this golden moment.

The spiritual blaze of her liberated eyes.

She is the goddess of my infinite inspiration.

Running through our veins is the blood of summer.

A roseate poem that sings her beauty with the devotion of a saint.

I live in a church of sorrow.

the bewildering blaze of her summery grace

He followed the butterflies of her charms.

This heart of roses, roses of pain.

I have swallowed the tides, no gravity shall rule me.

He covered her scars with a love unending.

They married their twilights to each other.

Suspended in the sphere of her celestial love.

We explored the soul of love in a summer that felt endless.

She hid her midnights in the shrine of his love.

Suspended in the sphere of her celestial love.

We explored the soul of love in a summer that felt endless.

She hid her midnights in the shrine of his love.

She summons with a kiss all the colours of his love and lust.

Her beauty wrote the lyrics of my heart.

Her heart of sad butterflies, her heart of absent rainbows.

His tender love sings for the mournful rose of her heart.

They danced with the darkness of each others hearts.

You were the chorus of my life's most glorious summer.

The oscillating magic of this enigmatical love.

She colours and scents his truest lyrics, she dreams in his odes of endless devotion.

My moonlight seductresses, my angel of sweet oblivion.

They wove their flowering worlds into a garland of grace and truth.

Circling then broken heaven of his own heart, wandering through the ruins of a dream that died too soon.

She shines through the syllables of his soul's deepest lyrics.

He wrote the wildness of her heart, turned her mysteries into burning verse.

Their eyes were radiant with a felicitous destiny.

she weaves his amazing beauty into the poetry of her roseate dreams

His beauty shines in her oceanic songs of sweet devotion.

The lyrical charms of her love-kindled soul.

The darkness is rich with her spiritual presence.

the oldest poem of the ocean beckons our hearts

His poems are the embers of their mystic flames.

The shadow-dances of her elusive heart.

She is the softest whisper of the dark ocean of love.

Her oceans were born to swallow angels.

After her, only verses of pain.

She opens to his heart her shrine of heavenly nights.

Her lovesome eyes, constellations of the mystic soul of astral beauty.

[polymathemawrites]

Hungover in the City of Dust part 1

CW: injuries, ptsd, panic attacks, maths, drug use (via the hev suit)

Alyx is gone, Gordon is running on fumes, Barney picks up the pieces

The dark hits like a freight train, thick and deep. It pulls down, down, down unrelenting and eternal. There is nothing and then there is everything. The stop-start of His voice grates on the very edge of frayed nerves, unraveling them, he is a patient man but his patience is running out, and he has expended his usefulness to an entity incomprehensible. Everything goes from too slow to too fast and he gasps awake and alive, put back into a body he never left. Eli is standing in front of him and Alyx is standing nowhere, somewhere - somewhere they can't reach, they have work to do - the Combine are not defeated yet and there is a missing Vance to find. Free but for how long and at what cost? Gordon looks down at his hand in the reinforced leather gloves of the HEV suit and tightens his grip on the paint-chipping-gently-rusted-crowbar. A nod, of course, they have work to do, and he's the man to do it.

It is in this manner that Gordon Freeman has survived the past six days. Six. Six Days. Running, running, never stopping, and it is in this manner that Gordon is ready to continue, ready to go where Eli needs him to, to save the man's daughter and Gordon's new found friend. Or it would have been, would have been if someone didn't put their hand on Gordon's arm and still him.

"Eli, I don't mean to put a damper on the Save Alyx party, but your golden boy is bleeding through whatever shitty bandages he scrounged up." The southern drawl is familiar, it is maybe his recognition of this that keeps his overtaxed nervous system from ripping his arm away. When he turns to look at him, Barney is carefully not looking back, staring Eli down instead. 

The older man pauses, looks at Gordon, or maybe it's better to say he's looking at the HEV suit, at the huge chunk taken out of the side of it, the rend on the shoulder panel, the rust-red discoloration. Her voice had gone silent with the end of combat but the thrum of morphine still settled along the edge of his vision, a welcoming gossamer blanket that dulled the fact that he had bruised ribs and a dozen or so minor lacerations. A med-pack and a power bank and he'd be good to go, really. The suit though, she had some abuse left in her, but he couldn't deny that the past four days had been rough on the Mark V.

"We are going to need Izzy to take a look at that, maybe machine some new parts." Eli's smile is apologetic and Gordon could scream, how can he look like that, Gordon should be the one apologizing, if he'd been more careful, more prepared, then they wouldn't need this downtime.

He isn't thinking clearly, he knows this somewhat, without a clear objective he was left adrift, unfocused. It's worse than when He had dropped Gordon onto a train with no fucking hope of knowing what the hell was going on. Twenty years, twenty years, and if it hadn't of been for Barney he'd have ended up organic byproduct. 

Four days ago he had watched a Civil Protection officer remove his mask and found himself saved. Today, suddenly dead on his feet, he looks down at Barney and hopes that the imminent panic attack he feels encroaching upon him won't be too bad, even if it is four days late.

He is breathing too fast and his heartbeat is high enough that she's informing him about it, but the HEV suit is unfortunately out of the Make Feel Good Juice and Gordon is all out of helpful neurochemicals. Someone shouts something and Gordon knows it's not him because, well, he's mute. 

When the black comes this time it is not the thick ink of that cosmic stasis, it's all too human and humiliating.

In high school Gordon had two entire friends. One of them was the head of the computer club, which meant the paper-punch-machine club actually, and the other was a quiet kid whose entire personality seemed to be based on being in color guard for JROTC. One day during a pep rally he'd forgotten to keep his knees loose and locked them during the stand at attention part of the presentation, Gordon didn't know what any of these things were actually called, he just knew his friend wound up with a bloody nose when he passed out because of the hypotension. Yet still, five years later, Gordon himself passed out while waiting for a train in Boston.

His head hurt far less when he woke up this time, perhaps because Eli, Barney, and Dog had all been there to catch him instead of the metal post he crashed into in Boston. 

There are a number of hands on him, when he can focus and his flight or fight response isn't lashing out at these helping hands, he realizes he's managed to punch Barney in the jaw and kicked Dog off balance. 

Barney surges forward and pins him down, which is when Gordon goes completely limp anyway due to his relatively short spurt of adrenaline wearing off and the fact that it's Barney Calhoun he just punched and if this man wanted to throttle him he would let him, deserving of it even.  

Instead Barney just holds his chest down with one arm and gently grips Gordon's jaw with the other, forcing Gordon to look at him. This close and he can do nothing else. Barney's eyes have always been interesting but age has highlighted the color differences in his irises. Gordon's vision, while blurry around the edges thanks to the train-tunnel effects of his passing panic attack, is sharply focused on Barney, where Barney is keeping him. 

He was so bad at art growing up but one didn't need to be good at art to know the science behind color. Barney's eyes were both the clearest most summer-day-water blue-green and the deepest autumnal wood. Brown and teal, unreal and so very Barney. There is a word for this condition but Gordon's grasping at straws right now and can't remember it. They're just very unusual eyes and Gordon is quite helplessly falling into them.

"You with me Gordon?" Barney asks him and Gordon nods, or tries to, attempts to, kind of hard with the former guard turned resistance commander still gripping his face but the attempt is all that matters and Barney lets him go.

He's laying on the ground, one of Barney's legs is under him, Eli's hands are on Gordon's own legs. Dog is huge and hovering. Face red from embarrassment now, Gordon pushes up onto his elbows in a reclining position and Barney takes his leg back. 

He forms his hand into a fist and brings it to his chest, moving it in a tight circle around and around. 

"No Gordon, I'm sorry." Eli gently stops his hand, silences him. "We have work to do, but you won't be able to do anything until we get you cleared by a medic and get Izzy to take a look at that suit."

Together they help him up, the HEV suit's finally powered down, but she'd been running on fumes for hours now. Unfortunately this makes his already aching and fatigued muscles scream out from being overtaxed. 

"I've got him, Eli." 

They're in the hallway outside the large hangar that comprises Eli's lab by the time Gordon realizes that he hasn't seen Barney since the train station back in City 17. When had he gotten here? Had he seen Eli die and then Not die, had he seen Alyx just stop existing? Because Gordon fucking hadn't, he'd been blacked out - again.  Was Barney alright himself? Had he just arrived only to have to babysit him?

He spins his index finger around and around in front of himself, he feels drunk, his movements are slow and sluggish. 

Despite Barney actively corralling him down the hall, his eyes are riveted to Gordon's hands.

"When?" He nods and Barney seems to chew over what Gordon is asking, "Oh, just a few hours ago, I barely get settled in and hear about a ruckus, you're constantly causing trouble aren't you?" The tone is teasing, warm, Barney's voice is like a balm, pours right over him like the decadent kiss of morphine without the accompanying very hot sensation in his head. 

Six days, it's only been six days, but for Barney and Eli and -everyone- it's been twenty years. Without the pressing need to run, save Barney from sniper fire, or get shoved into another HEV suit, he is free to realize that an implied twenty year gap is doing absolutely nothing to curb the huge and inconvenient crush he has had on Barney for a year. A year for him at least. The streak of salt in his mostly pepper hair is also doing absolutely nothing to curb this crush either, in fact he would go so far as to consider it made it worse.

Unfortunately free of the effects of morphine, coming down off of a panic attack, and now feeling the full impact of his wounds, Gordon has to admit it's not a crush if you've been in love with someone for a year, that's just pathetic. 

Now a resonance cascade, eldritch abomination cosmic entities Lovecraft couldn't have dreamed up, and a full blown occupation of earth had put Gordon out of the picture for twenty years. It had also caused him to be a near messianic figure to a whole race of alien creatures and the remnants of humanity - something he really didn't want to think about. Luckily when Barney looked at him he seemed to be seeing Gordon in the exact same way he did twenty years ago if the soft smile and warm honey gaze was anything to go by. Bemused, that's what he'd call that particular expression on Barney's face. 

They stop suddenly, Barney bringing them to a halt, which is when Gordon finally looks away from him. They're in a quiet room, maybe a former storage room but now a private bunk. There is a cot up against the back wall, tucked between two mostly full shelving units. A heap of blankets has been dumped on the cot, as well as a number of packs placed on the shelves. There is a basin and a bucket of water for washing, and Gordon can spy some first aid packs and weapon caches amidst the cluttered shelves. 

"I'm going to get you out of this fucking thing and then I'm gonna get you a medic." Barney informs him but Gordon is looking past him to the basin and it's bucket of water.

He puts his hands together and brushes them against one another in a mimicry of washing his hands. Clean.

"I'm sure the medic will know what's best for that."

Gordon, standing still in the center of the room, attention riveted on the bucket of water like it's a lifeline, repeats himself until Barney has to catch his hands - again. 

"Okay!" But there isn't any hostility or exasperation in Barney's tone, no he's laughing instead.  

"Far be it for me to judge a man's aversion to getting seen by the medics when I avoid them myself. We'll get you clean and go from there, that good?"

Gordon nods, and even though he knows he won't make it without Barney's assistance, he heads toward the basin and bucket anyway, grateful when he finds Barney is right there next to him. 

Without the suit's charging station and hydraulic mechanism to quickly and mechanically free him, it is just the combined effort of their four hands and Barney's seemingly infinite patience to remove the thing. But even patience alone didn't account for how Barney seemed to know where the clasps and mechanisms were. Gordon is reminded that it was Barney who had gotten him 'into' the suit or showed him to it four days ago. These thoughts prove to be fruitless, without purpose, as the pieces of the very abused HEV suit are removed and the jumpsuit beneath them is revealed as are the injuries Gordon has sustained, the bandages he'd hastily applied in stolen moments of down time on his own or with Alyx's help. Barney pauses, the chest plate removed as well as the shoulder guards, and he seems to just stare at Gordon.

The last twenty years loom between them again, Gordon can't read his expression so carefully tooled to be neutral and blank, not the Barney whose emotions he wore plain for everyone to see unless it was poker night. There is a scar high on his left cheek, a number of smaller ones all over - and these are just the ones Gordon can see on his face.

"Oh Gordon, what happened to you?" There is such soft sorrow in Barney's words and when the man puts his hand to Gordon's cheek, he is helpless to keep himself from turning his face into the touch, closing his eyes and pressing his cheek and jaw into that gloved palm with all of his touch-starved needy heart. Barney's touch is no longer precise and perfunctory, it is gentle, when he draws his hand away Gordon almost chases it but manages to catch himself before he can further his own humiliation. Something has shifted between them and Barney won't let his slipping hands help anymore, just keeps batting them away, finally Barney grins up at him, "I've got you." He repeats what he told Eli but now it's completely different, personal and soft, just the two of them, "So stop makin' my job harder and just let me work."

Gordon lets him work, when he sways on his feet Barney steadies him. When he leans into him Barney catches him. The rest of the suit joins the other sections on the ground. When it's just the bloodied jumpsuit and Gordon's socked feet on the cold concrete, Barney's hands still.

A week ago and this fantasy would have played out differently, for one he wouldn't be riddled with defensive wounds and have obvious trauma, but also Barney wouldn't be looking at him with that mixture of soft worry and likely muted fury. He actually didn't know what Barney's aroused face looked like so his fantasies had always been a little body focused anyway but definitely no fury or worry in any of them. Barney's hand goes to his injured side, gentle against the tattered jumpsuit and the bandages. It's all dirty with blood and whatever else Gordon had been thrown into out there. 

"Darlin' I'm gonna have to get you out of this."

Gordon nods, dumbly, hung up on the first word. 

Barney's hands are so gentle and Gordon reels under their good works, he can't track where they are going only where they've been, the slow way they move, there is no predictive model here to tell him where to brace himself for kindness next. Actually seeing the mottled mess of his own skin  through the rends in the jumpsuit is an experience that knocks him right out of his body entirely. 

Where A and B are a pair of operators, with A representing speed and B representing placement - Gordon is a lone man set on a trajectory in the universe he has no hope of comprehending or tracking, the speed with which he has been traveling has slowed to a stop and yet he still feels as if he is going too fast. His body at stand still thrums with an energy he is powerless against and every time Barney's hands track against baring skin his pulse jumps. He cannot predict where he will be in a day, an hour, a minute, he is lost in this second, that drags and drags as Barney's eyes glance up to meet his face, undoing the line of velcro all the way down Gordon's chest and lower still. His head spins and he has to reach out to brace himself against Barney's firm padded shoulder, thick and strong.

He is adrift in a complex dimensional space that tracks over multiple planes of reality, his wavelength has resonated at a frequency that no one else on Earth has and yet he is still so uncertain of his place. Not too surprising when the equation clearly states that you might know how fast you're going but never where you are at the same time. Just usually it was on the quantum level, not one man against a time-space anomaly. His speed and location operators are held up between two brackets, and within those brackets are the estimated answers to his questions, yet if he's standing still how can he hope to theorize where he'll be next?

Where he'll be next is shivering in this bunk he's realizing is probably the one Barney claimed to stow his gear in, with the door shut and a man he has been attracted to for the longest time slowly undressing him. Logic states the probability that his next place will be embarrassing the ever loving shit out of himself but somehow, somehow he doesn't make a noise when Barney slides the jumpsuit down from his abused shoulders and down, down, till the man's hands are sliding over his hips and drawing the dirty green cloth past them. He doesn't move to grab onto him, to press his body into Barney's and just feel him, to test the strength hiding beneath the layers of his Civil Protection uniform. He does go very limp when Barney manhandles him to lean against the wall though. 

All predictive models and the familiar Robertson-Schrodinger equation fall to the wayside when Barney strips his thick gloves off. Gordon watches the man's steady movements, the slow curve of his familiar smile despite time and distance. He could never hope to apply the uncertainty equation when all higher functioning is gone. He is no longer out of his body, he is in it, very much in it. Barney's hands are warm from the confines of his gloves, gentle as they tackle the bandages scattered on Gordon's now scrawny form out of the bulk of the HEV suit's flattering lines. 

"You okay there, Gord? Look like you're about to be knocked over by a stiff wind." 

He gives Barney a thumbs up. 

Yeah, really okay, super duper okay. Barney's hands feel like fucking rapture. Warm and lightly callused, strong firm grip when they move Gordon's body every which way. Unwinding bandages that have clearly served their purpose, some of them stick and Barney apologizes under his breath, muttered words and quick movements. Gordon only vaguely registers the pain, it cannot hope to touch the surface of pleasure just having Barney's hands against him is causing.

He reaches out to brace himself against the basin's counter top, hip cocked under Barney's hand momentarily, Gordon tries to swallow around the thick lump in his throat. Warm hand skids up his side, bloody bandage that wraps across half his chest. Barney unravels it the same as he'd done the one on Gordon's right leg and his left arm, careful and quick. Dirty wounds and sepsis waiting to set in.

But despite the severity Barney doesn't dump him on the nearest medic, he holds to his word instead and brings the bucket of water up to the counter. A rag is fetched from somewhere and then Barney is cleaning him. Gordon would be more embarrassed about this if it were not for the fact that he only has one arm as the other is bracing him up to keep him from sliding to the floor as the HEV suit's power system isn't holding him up and pumping him with Go Juice. 

Barney gives him a little grin, holding Gordon's abused arm over the basin to catch the blood-grit water as it drips off of him, "You're in pretty good shape for a man of science."

Gordon snorts his bemusement and gives Barney a look over his glasses. Barney would fucking know, he'd helped Gordon train for the months of HEV suit preparation after all. He worries for a second then, has it been that long, has Barney forgotten that much in the years Gordon has been absent.

His fears are laid to rest instantly, "Remember when you couldn't even run a full mile?" 

Yeah, and look at him now. Well not right now, as he looks nothing like the implied messianic figure he's meant to be, but rather look at him a few hours ago. When Alyx was still there, making bad puns and cheering Gordon on, when she wasn't somewhere, in some place unknown and unfathomable and most of all not here. What would have been the next point of reference for them, where would they be right now if she'd remained? Did this count as time travel? 

I feel like all I have done is run for six days.

Barney pauses, while Gordon had managed to explain his ageless appearance to Alyx, the rest of his old friends and colleagues weren't as in the know. "Six days?" Barney marvels, hanging there like a DOS box trying it's best to load badly written code, "It's been twenty years, six days?" Barney's voice is husked and worn when he repeats himself and he lets Gordon's now clean arm drop gently back down.

Gordon nods, Stasis, no time passed for me mentally or physically between the Resonance Cascade and you intercepting me.

"Fuck Gordon." Barney reaches up, takes his face in the slightly damp palm of his hand, holds him there and really seems to look at him. "Kind of thought you just aged really damn well, it was hard enough to believe the 'gaunts when they went on about you saving them, didn't... I didn't realize, something like this could happen."

Gordon has nothing else of substance to offer Barney to explain it. It would take far more research and model running to even begin to formulate a working theory about what the fuck He was in his plain grey suit and stilted speech. He figured in the coming days he'd have time to do that, now that it was Alyx who had been taken. Now that there was someone on the outside who knew.

What took Alyx, is what took me.

Eli had some understanding of this entity, he didn't know how, but he was certain he'd find that out soon too, just as soon as his fragile worthless body would let him. 

Barney is still touching his face, still half holding him, when he finally notices he seems to come to his senses and applies himself back to the task of cleaning off dried blood and other muck. Gordon would miss the contact if it had not just moved onward to other parts of him. There are more cuts on him than there is water in the bucket but Barney focuses his attention on the worst of it. Barney's touch lingers on the surface of his skin even after he has moved his hand away, a burning path of warmth and water. Gordon realizes he doesn't want to go anywhere right now, he doesn't want to think of tomorrow or an hour away, he wants this moment to last. 

He can breathe, painful but he can breathe and he is finally still. The Combine awaits, there is no knowing where Alyx is, how much time they have, but right now in this moment he can push down the guilt and allow himself the desire to remain here in this place with Barney eternally. The stroke of a familiar hand, the warm presence of someone who cares about him, the gentle teal-brown heat of his friend's gaze. 

"You're back with us now and damned if I'll just sit around and let some kind of creature put you in a box for another twenty years. I've got you." 

Gordon wonders how badly he's going to end up hung up on Barney's new mantra of, 'I've got you.' Trick question, he's already hung up on everything Barney.

[way-to-the-future]

Solitude

(cw: depression, isolation, implied sexual content under the cut)

I don’t know the last time another Spoken has seen my bare forearms. Perhaps in the somnolent summer, when the heat of the day and the call of the moment made me into a man again instead of a friar, when I swam through tides made amber by sunset and felt the tenuous beating of another heart. A twin fire, the reflection, the smoke, has spread across me this evening like pitch over a tumult of waves.

My forearms are bare again, now in the dreadful, quiet space of the soul alone among company, where all things seeming to remind of the amity of brotherhood are merely the barbs of an excoriating loneliness. I am in a darkened bar, trying to unwind, seeing myself from outside myself among the carousing crowd and feeling pity for a sinner incapable of escape. I have taken off my habit and wear the only set of layman’s clothes I own, dwelling within the shadow of my avowed poverty even as I defy it. There are other vows I would break tonight, for I have not yet realized my error, even if I know that standing here like a lame duck will not heal me of the pains of my weary heart.

I want to be seen again, without being known. There are little seats at little tables all loaded up with people, and what a joy it would be to be one of them, speaking softly and resting with a bottle and companionship. It would be foolish to pity my state, for it is at least half self-inflicted, and my inability to join in the revelry is representative of my own foibles than the crowd’s. Still, the smoke-filled booths have their unreachable allure; still, I hang in place, until the evidence of my deterioration becomes impossible to ignore.

The night and the expanse of the cosmos, the chill wonder of the universe, are ever a balm to a beleaguered spirit. As I walk upon a woodland path with only a little drink in me, I wonder at the figures we draw in the stars – what tales we weave of them without context or clarity, without the slightest knowledge of the truth of those lights or the futures and pasts they portend. I fancy I see a friend in the stars, tonight, and cannot help but wonder if they will still be there when I look again tomorrow.

They step down to greet me in a lush, open field where I stop to pray. They lay their hand upon my cheek and do not retreat when I take its twin in my own calloused fingers, marveling at the luster that shines without. They tell me their name is Solitude, which I know to be allegory, and I like the miller have drifted off within that field ‘ere my journey is finished. I ask them why they have come to visit me, and they tell me that they are always with me, at my back, draped around my shoulders like a shawl. They do not depart because I will not let them, and so they have finally come to ask me what it is that I want.

I can reply only that I wish to dwell within this moment, to be trapped with them forever until I meet my true companions at the end. As the storming wind blows through the grasses that surround us, making a sound like so much water rushing into the dark and sacred places of my soul, they tell me it cannot be so. I cling to them for safety, as I would anyone. As I would you.

Thus is the shape of our communion: we shelter with one another, and we are each of us both the harbor and the ship, giving and receptive, reciprocal in all our comforts. If one were callous, they might say that anyone would do; and while the connotation of this is a harmful, crude thing, it is not far from the truth. For even as we admire all things particular – even as you look into my eyes, even as I mark the rhythm of your breath, these things occur to us as emanations from the unified beauty, singular expressions of a perfect whole. In one another we see all those faces of those we have loved and will love. We are all vessels of the same soul and to truly see one another we witness this shared descent, this ineffable union of our higher selves within the empty body of the cosmic things. May we nourish from the same source, eat of the same fruit, laugh and lift our spirits in the voiceless celebration of our empathy.

There will be no confusion or embarrassment, no slips of the foolish tongue, only the easy reflection of like beings, of hearts distanced from these mortal barriers and dwelling together in a perfect unity, in a moment made eternity. We will remain just long enough to remind one another of the sweet things, of the love we will know and the truths that bind us, and we will part before the bitterness and disunity of passing things can touch us. Will you not abide with me in this? Speak to me softly of things pleasant and just; lay your hand in mine as we look to the hereafter in all of its daunting, welcoming bliss. Open to me the sorrow of your heart and I will help you weather it, for in this place your pain is mine. It will not hurt. I would not frighten you.

And, if you asked it of me, I would comfort you further still. My tranquility is undisturbed; I love my fellow no less with their hair clutched in my fist and their body of gifts stretched before me. What do you need? What would give you the deepest, gentlest delight? Move against me, sink within my sea, practice victimless violence on this flesh that together we might fashion a sacred peace from the illusion of our separation. I would bear any torture or burden of your spirit if you would let me do this for you, with you, in such tender synchronicity. The instant is fleeting as instants are, but I pray you will carry me with you.

I need only all that you would give me freely and gladly, be it wholesome or ill. I need, beg it of you, stranger, friend, self; touch my hand. Rest easy, please, gods, please. If this life is the dread price I must pay to be close to you, to be seen by you, I will live it a thousand times over, until my spirit is scorched and the memory of heaven too far dimmed. I will find Him again in whatever you grant me, as often as you grant it.

Solitude stays with me when the waters recede, chilled to the root of my soul and bereft of the comforts I imagine. I carry them on my back through the deluge, until the weight feels natural, until I forget their name and the things we have survived together. How like the exodus of Mhach it feels, with rain pelting on my back and the quagmire we have left behind. By the time I reach high ground, Gyr Abania again, I am dry, and my companion has spoken not a word.