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So I guess if I’m gonna tell you about the ghost, first I have to tell you why I had to go all the way to Mama Tee’s house in the first place. Basically, this one day last summer me and my boys were just chillin in the parking lot of the rec center. We […]
They come on trains; they come on buses; they come on planes to our municipal airport. A handful even arrive on foot, having walked the whole distance to our City with what scant possessions they could carry on their backs—only a few, to be sure. But more than have ever walked away.
I am running out of Words. I stumble down the temple steps, clutching my wounded side. I had been too slow to use my fourth Word and the prison guard’s spear had drawn blood before he choked to death under the weight of my suffocation spell.
You revere your patron saints. Your Marys. Your Joans. Your Catherines. You should fear them. If one ever heeds your prayer, and she arrives stripped of skin, of fingernails, of every organ and every last fuck to give, her halo a boiling crown of furious yellow flames.
As children, we circled the crow chick that fell from its nest. Its wings were splayed heavenward like a saint’s, its brains streaked like veins of quartz across asphalt. Its neck arched back at a fossil-like, impossible angle. That was when I learned how fragile birds’ bones are.
An excerpt from the unfinished memoirs of Sullivan Kingsley. Text was dictated to and recorded by a Kvasir Scrivener™. Any poetic editorializing can be assumed in accordance with the spirit of Mr. Kingsley’s intentions, as interpreted by a conjured instance of the severed hand of Kvasir, Norse god of poetry, peacemaking, and beverage production.
When a human head hits a road at the right speed and the wrong angle, the asphalt will take off an ear like a belt sander. Dogs and bears and chimpanzees rip ears off during attacks. People rip off ears during attacks; in domestic disputes, drunken brawls, and reason-defying misadventures, people relieve each other of their ears like they’re tearing off stubborn pieces of bloomin’ onion.
Gallam didn’t look at the clothes the family provided until he had already prepared the body. “Prepared” was putting it mildly: the man was covered in wounds—blade wounds? Bite wounds? Gouges, rips, punctures, slices. At first, Gallam wasn’t sure the corpse would actually hold together for burial.
The two children regarded Zekelo with solemn eyes. If they were intimidated by the twisting horns jutting from his head or his obsidian claws, they gave no sign of it. “Hello, young ones. Welcome to Zekelo’s Barterhouse & Emporium, the finest shop in all Limbo. Here, we offer phylacteries, nostrums, and rare antiquities from every plane of existence.”
Talis had a problem. They’d copied the spell incorrectly, in a fury, after seeing photos of their ex with a new date in “their” spot. Adelite was supposed to have experienced a night of terrible dreams leading to a remorseful morning after. Instead, he just hadn’t woken up.
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