Archive for the ‘Alex Dally MacFarlane’ Category
On The Stairs, She Realises
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Follow the pieces of me down — yes, yes, bare-footed and leaving toe- and heel-marks behind you like a carpet — follow my steps, let your hand slide down my rail. Don’t stop. Don’t climb, don’t reclaim the things you left behind.
“It is a long way down,” she said quietly, lingering on a step engraved with sirens. “Such a long way.”
Had Suriyen known it would take this long? Had he told her? She could not remember — but that was the point. The spreading gaps in her past made truth of the tales sung by the mountain-dwellers about their magical staircase.
She still remembered Suriyen, and that meant she had descended not nearly far enough.
You’re a feast of stories, my pale-ankled lady. The scandals of a court are variations on motifs — but oh, they entertain!
I will devour the reports your lover-spy shouldn’t have told you, I will help you keep him safe.
Her legs and feet ached, but she continued down. Here the steps were painted yellow and slick with moisture that ran down the side of the mountain. One bore wedge-shaped markings, indecipherable.
She had been ordered to do this. Though she could not remember why, she knew there had been an order, a secret journey from her bedroom to the top of the mountain, a threat followed quickly by a promise.
“If I am ordered,” she said to the stairs, “then I must obey.”
They did not respond. Of course they could not; metal had no mouths. “What is it like to be so silenced?”
So full of your life — I am gorged, pale-ankled lady, crammed with you.
Ahead of her lay grass and tall trees, a stream, and a man standing beside the water. A broad, tall man, scar-faced and smiling, who called out to her.
It took a moment for her memory-stripped mind to process the words. The stairs had left her language, at least. “But so much else is missing.”
“Come on!” the man shouted. “You’re almost done! Four more steps, darling, and we can be together again!”
“But why is so much gone?” Tears ran down her face. She could not remember the reason — just that she felt so empty, stripped of things she had cherished, and it hurt.
“You had to do it, it was for your own good, oh Iya, no!”
Her legs hurt with each step that she climbed, leaving the man — Suriyen, her lover — behind, re-learning her self.
Will you leave me something? You were delicious before I ate too much.
“I will carve mouths into you, stairs,” she panted, almost collapsing onto a step as long and wide as a table.
And I will speak.
Notes – 29/14/106
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
Name: Beeotter
Exterior description: A thin creature a metre long, with another metre’s length in its forearm-thick tail. The whole body is covered in fur striped yellow and black. Its head is flat on the end of the body, with no discernable neck, and is dominated by a pair of black many-faceted eyes. A double pair of translucent brown-orange wings is its primary means of transportation, although the six stumpy legs suggest some motility when it has landed.
I saw the beeotter from afar, resting on the statue in the centre of the Square. I approached it cautiously. If I had learnt anything since my arrival in this place an unclear time ago, it was to never assume benevolence from its peculiar inhabitants.
Gravel crunched under my shoes; it was impossible to walk quietly in this corner of the world, when the crumbled remains of the buildings that stood around the Square lay thickly across the ground. As I approached the beeotter, a spindle-thin building fell and, seconds later, another sprouted up in its wake, like a stone flower growing at accelerated speeds.
When I reached less a metre’s length from the statue, the beeotter leapt from its perch and, wings flapping, buried its sting in my thigh. It moved so quickly I had no time to react. I merely collapsed to the gravel, gasping in shock.
And I heard a voice.
It said: I am a clue.
The beeotter died, stuck into me. I awoke, agonised but with my mind afire.
It occurred to be that this was probably another of the world’s tricks, but I had not entirely given up on hope.
I did what a biologist does when faced with an unknown creature. I laid out my tools from the pack on my back and I dissected.
Interior description: Its innards are laid out in a mess of lines, circles, squares. They intersect, merge, divide–as I watch I see new roads form, old buildings fall. They are confusing. They are a map of this place. There is no exit, no way back into my old world. That door long ago crumbled. But there are places I might like to go.
I pulled the sting from my thigh, cleaned and bandaged the wound. Several days passed where I could walk only far enough to gather stone-fruits from the buildings surrounding the Square. In that time I worked hard to preserve the beeotter–plucking a hollow glass-fruit from the plants around the buildings, filling it with a mix of water and concentrates from my pack.
And then I began walking, holding my map out before me and choosing my path.