It will.

It’ll do far worse.

I stare into the Void at the memory stars of my life and some of them draw me like a splinter from a wound filled with the puss of infection.

Is this why we die, I wonder. Is death just life ejecting us from it like any other intruder to perfection?

I look at the Void and it returns my attention.

I see the memory stars, and each second I see another born.

Memory in the making, this moments thoughts are tomorrows memories.

Radu walks the crystal, I hear him but I do not watch. I see the memory of him in the distance, I see his fierce beautiful roar and fleeing figures. I smile and remember my other friend, the one I abandoned, and the smile falters.

The edge draws me, the memory stars’ beckon.

I appear in none of them of course, the memories of me belonging to others and never to myself. Recordings of myself imprinted within someone else’s mind, outside of my ownership, outside of me by design. We meet almost a hundred thousand people in an average lifetime, leaving perhaps a million memories of us which are not our own. Are there more memories of me out there than in here I wonder?

And if so who owns me?

I see memories of those no longer with us, people who have not walked the world in a decade or more and I wonder…

A million memories of them still exist, even if their own do not.

Are they really gone?

My Grandfather laughs his deep boisterous laugh and my Grandmother shakes her head in exasperation. My mother working, my uncle up to his mischief. Some of them still walking the world, some of them not, but all alive in here until the day I die.

Perhaps longer.

A dream does not exist; we’re told they are just a random firing of synapses that a waking mind imprints meaning on; but is that what we truly believe?

Memory, meaning, dreams…

History, love, existence…

All caught in dreams that have no meaning but those we give them?

Dreams are the flint that lights the spark.

If they don’t exist nothing does.

I see the memory stars grow and shift, ever changing and never still. They move at the speed of dream, faster than the speed of idea; and the speed of idea is swift indeed.

Even these dreams, even my ideas.

Reality sits in the corner of imagination like a naughty child who does not know how to share, while Imagination plays and lives; while Dream watches over them all, the master of all regardless of how they deny its mastery.

Dream does not care; you do not have to believe in it to be under its thrall.

We all belong to dream.

We are the children who look up into an adult’s eyes with awe.

While Dream looks down on us and, like a kind man with deep pockets, it passes its gifts to us; and then we deny it, and still it smiles.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 27

The post #16 – Looking Into The Void appeared first on Neverwhere.

That’s probably the easiest way to describe what the door to the Grand Overlook Suite opened to reveal.

It wasn’t a rope bridge though; it was a glass bridge that looked a little like a rope bridge. Where wooden boards should be there were uneven shards of transparent crystal - though which I thought I could see the twinkling of stars - and where rope should support them there was a kind of crystal vine that crept around it all in a way that suggested life.

That was the first thing I saw.

The second thing was the room.

The bridge arched over nothingness, extending though it to a crystal room that hung from a ceiling of nothingness by chains of glass. It looked like a chandelier in an empty darkened room, but through its crystal walls I could see fires blazing in transparent fireplaces and TV’s flickering with their simulation of life.

Then I saw the view.

It drew me though the door and onto the crystal.

Under me I felt the bridge settle, here and there I heard a crack as if it was breaking under my weight.

Beautiful terror filled me to overflowing, an acid wash that would leave nothing but perfect bleached bone in its wake.

I looked out over what could only be Eternity, what I thought were stars were not stars, but pockets of memory that I could only presume were my own. I could not see them, they were too far away, but still I knew what they were and what each one held. I knew that the bright one to my distant left was of my mother, its distant brightness emulating her distant love for me, while on my right was a closer star with its aura tinged with red that I knew contained my ambivalence towards the father who abandoned me.

I took a further step across the crystal and heard Radu follow behind.

There I saw the memory of my Grandfather, and next to it – almost one with it – were those of my Grandmother. Around it was a little cosmos of dust, each a star in its own right, but each eclipsed by those great dominating forces.

Both of them were gone now, my Grandfather long ago, my Grandmother so recent I was forbidden to visit her deathbed; but here both shined bright.

A rose red star was my mother-in-law, it winked cheekily as she would have in life; and the more I looked the across Eternity the brighter pinpricks of light presented themselves.

I was halfway across the bridge and I had not remembered taking a single step. Behind me Radu urged me forward, nudging me with his nose in a way I’m certain he thought was gentle. It wasn’t, the nudges’ made me stumble forward and step by step the room loomed large, the chandelier turning into an iceberg of crystal.

The first step into the room sent reverberations up my leg to my spine, the semi-transparent flooring beneath me surprisingly solid after the slight give each step gave me across the bridge. Radu’s claws tapped as one, a staccato cymbal beat across the crystal. I looked at the floor in his wake, half convinced I would see the crystal form a spider-web of cracks, but there was nothing.

I looked up, then around, my feet unwilling to move further, for the moment I was rooted and only my eyes wanted to wander.

The walls appeared grown, the floors were like a frozen pond, everywhere was the slight imperfections that only nature could provide. The light was a phosphorescent thing, the light of deep sea creatures or the moss on caverns that never saw the light of the sun, a living light, a light made of breath.

This is what Heaven must look like, I thought, and then I looked out over the void with the memory stars lighting the heavens around me and I wondered if it were more a hell of my own making.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 26

The post #15 – The Grand Overlook Suite appeared first on Neverwhere.

But dream is something else entirely.

Dream is the power house of realities building blocks, without it we would barely communicate in grunts and all our achievements, from the lowliest to those so great we have not yet attained them, would not have even been the spark of an idea.

Dream is the flint that creates the spark.

So by the times the elevator doors opened and Marty hefted my bags, which until minutes ago – in dream time – did not exist, out into the hallway Hotel Radu had transformed into a building of bustle and light.

We walked down a corridor half lined with mahogany over an inch-thick maroon carpet sporting an intricate Persian design. The ceiling was a tasteful cream and in a chandelier hung every ten feet glowed a dozen warm lights that may have been candles, or cleverly crafted bulbs.

Around Radu’s feet the fibres of the carpet looked like grass as his huge paws padded forward. The creature moved like a stalking cat, in spite of his size he was silent and I noticed for the first time that the thick chain around his neck had disappeared.

Fitting, I thought.

Chains are for slaves.

Ahead of us Marty carried three bags, his spindly frame undulating back and forth under their weight. I wondered what was in the bags, what my subconscious had put in there, and whether I had the bravery to open them.

“You’re both in the Grand Overlook Suite.” He stated and turned a corner.

Ahead of us was a short corridor that opened out into a small reception area shaped like half a pie – my mind immediately went to the Cerebellum Café and I had a sudden image of Alannah with her violin wedged under her chin.

Three doors led from the area, one in front of us and one either end of the small room. Marty led to the middle door and placed the bags before it. He turned to me and raised both his hands, in one he had a silver key on an ebony fob – on it was “The Grand Overlook” in silver script – and the other hand was empty.

A tip.

He wanted a tip.

The fanciest place I’d ever been to was a dinner party once when they served wine, so I was out of my depth.

Thankfully Radu grew up here.

He sat up, his head almost level with my shoulder and coughed once into Marty’s hand. Dog sputum erupted like a little geyser, dots of it slapping over Mary’s uniform and arm and a single coin about the same size as a coaster flopped into his palm.

It was an uneven circle on which was pressed a relief of an island.

Was this a dream doubloon?

Marty grinned and I saw a string of dig spit dangle from his chin.

“Thank you. Sir!” He said with genuine enthusiasm, and I could not help but notice he addressed Radu and not myself.

Radu looked at me and I shared his gaze.

The dog looked pleased with himself.

“You’ll have to show me how you do that.” I said and slipped the silver key into the lock. When I pushed open the door I was not quite prepared for what would be in there.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 25

The post #14 – Hotel Radu appeared first on Neverwhere.

I have always loved funerals with the same passion I hated weddings, while one seems so honest the other seems no more than a tissue of lies. So though I had earlier stepped from a room of brain dead joviality I now stepped back into one where each person was weighed down with the weight of their own sins and recriminations.

At last I was one of the crowd and they hated my smile.

Beside me Radu kept at my heel as if he was a long-time friend, his huge head scanning back and forth between the crowd as they stared with wide eyes, stunned at both of our alien awareness.

“Get that horror out of here!” Someone screamed.

“It was locked out for a reason!” Someone else called.

“Radu lives,” I shouted back, “and Radu’s heart beats and this ‘horror’ is as worthy of warmth and love as any of you!”

“We will not stay here with that animal!” A voice called and a murmur of accent rippled through the crowd.

“Then someone must leave.” I replied, my soft tone carrying unnaturally from the eaves above to the board beneath our feet; and I did not know whether my snarl, or Radu’s, was the fiercest.

Radu’s teeth were magnificent curves of beauty, as the roar tore from him his head swept in an arc and they gleamed and seemed to grow. One moment Radu was a teddy bear and the other he was a beast and my heart sang at his wanton rage at the crowd.

The joy began deep down in my stomach and it bubbled and rose until it forced its way out of me in a bark of laugher that made my spine tingle and my lungs ache. Breathlessly I doubled over and roared again and through the roars Radu and I shared I heard the screams as people fled.

Neither of us moved, neither of us even knew who was running where. Neither Radu or I cared, instead we were absorbed by their feckless fear. Fear of what their eyes brought them and their hearts ignored. Fear of that which was different rather than tolerance to that which brings joy.

I fell to my knees and I felt Radu’s huge head nuzzle against me and I thought of a dog that once thought it owned me. She had been tiny as Radu was huge but both carried with them that same love that swept off them in waves.

They would have been friends; as I had been – I hoped – to both of them.

Radu pushed me with his nose and I fell backward.

The room was empty, no longer a wedding or a wake and ready for whatever would fill it.

“Home.” I said before I even knew the word was forming in my mind.

I imagined a counter, and one became real, then an old elevator with a metal grated shutter instead of a door and this became real too.

I sat back and felt Radu’s mighty side against my spine, and then his jaw rested on my shoulder as he looked at the counter as if considering it.

I considered it too.

“Welcome to Hotel Radu.” I said, and the bellboy appeared.

He was tall and narrower at the waist than seemed possible for his survival. His large eyes bugged out slightly and I thought of the character of Igor from Young Frankenstein. Instantly I knew that his name was Marty and so I said, “Show us to our room;” and so Mart did.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 22

The post #13 – Radu’s Transformation appeared first on Neverwhere.

I could hear the music and I had to smile as it was the only piece of music for the moment. Wilson Picket was singing in the hour, and the hour was midnight as it always was in my mind. The door was broader than I was tall and the party was in full swing behind it.

I pushed and it moved, smoothly and without sound.

The music shifted, louder and bolder, billowing down from the tips of the rafters to the spiders hanging behind the wood clad walls.

The people were strangers, but not to each other.

It was like every party I had ever seen.

This was not my world but yours.

Do you remember that celebration? The one you only remember through a happy haze? The one where kisses were stolen and memories were made? Do you remember the person on the edge of it, nursing the same drink all night and looking forlorn?

That was this party and he was me.

I pushed along the edge of the room, all the seats were empty, draped in their coats and inhabited by their bags. Empty glasses decorated the tables, a liberal scattering of food wrappers competing for any empty space.

Someone caught my arm and I looked up into strange eyes, they were rheumy and they did not see me.

Words were spoken, but though they were in my language they were not of it. I broke free and moved on. A door stood half hidden behind the dark edges of a stage. I looked up and saw a man, he saw a figure resembling me but not me. More words, these buried under music, followed by a laugh.

I slipped through the door and into a world of muted sounds and safe distances’.

The building was different here, the spell of glamour not reaching so deep as to have an effect. The stone was crumbling, the wood pockmarked with worm, and the lead of the windows curled by heat. A wooden table, probably eight inches thick, supported a pot as large as a witches’ cauldron. It was long unused and any potions concocted in it had long since dried.

Here and there sections of the windows had fallen free and the wind moaned until what remained rattled in place. The shadows of trees moved, their fingers brushing the time worm glass as if entreating entry.

From behind me the muted music played and from ahead the wind moaned, but it was to my side where a sound drew me. Under the table some creature cried a solitary cry.

The dogs’ eyes met my own and perhaps for the first time in an age I smiled.

He was huge, a Doberman, or my minds mutation of one; a breed I recognised more for its colouring than its actual shape.

It whimpered and I felt the cold of the room and heard the eerie noises entering through the smashed windows.

I reached out a hand and the huge animal lowered its head and pressed its cheek against my palm. As it moved a wrist thick chain at its throat shifted and a nametag the size of a credit card swung into view.

Radu, it read and so “Radu” I said, and the animal’s happiness was a light in the darkness.

I was stood between the muted music of life and the howling wind of the afterlife and I caught Radu’s fear of the strangeness that surrounded him.

We’re in this together, I thought to him, monsters to other people’s eyes or to our own, it makes little difference

Then my smile broadened and I began to hatch a plan.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 20

The post #12 – The Castle of Radu appeared first on Neverwhere.

If anything the darkness around me had intensified, the air cold, then colder still. Over head the trees arched, their branches gnarled, their trunks resembling the distended knuckles of dead giants, leathery fingers reaching from the sodden earth, reaching tip-to-tip over my head.

I wait for them to close on me, a part of me wills it.
Ahead of me is a pit and behind me the tongues slither.

I feel fear walk along my spine, he cold footsteps of a tiny devil that perches on my shoulder. No angel balances him on the other; there is only me.

The voice still speaks but I can no longer place the words. It no longer speaks to me, and if I were to speak to it I know it would no longer hear my replies.

Between the giant and the spirits, I walk alone but for the demon perched at my shoulder; thankfully it does not speak, but I can feel it’s mischievous grin and my lips want to return it.

The ground slopes downward and above the branches tighten, underfoot the ground becomes firm and my footfalls repeat back to me in a weak echo.

The voice is gone now, perhaps banished by the darkness.

Darkness that was more than the absence of light, rather darkness that encompassed the lack of hope itself.

There is no more dirt underfoot and now trees are replaced with uneven rock.

I know where this leads.

I have seen the place in many dreams, I one wrote about it back in my youth, in error seeing it as a place of hope rather than hopelessness.

I thought this place my Midian, my place of exile, that place the unwanted live an I wrote of it such; but I had been wrong. This is the place where the exiled live but rather than being a place I had been exiled myself, it was where I exiled parts of me.

This was the underworld of my mind where creeping things dwelled.

I was not the romantic hero exiled for my faith, but the despot who did it to those with whom he disagreed. Here lay each argument I had lost and each time I had made myself the fool, alongside each was a smiling audience caught forever in witness to my each and every folly.

Some scenes were filled with drama while others dripped melancholy, others still would be nothing more than a tableau to those without the knowledge of its meaning. Others too were not memories but the stories told by others of things of which I had no immediate memory, I had absorbed their tales and my mind had regurgitated them as a mutant child of both; a memory of a tale that contained just enough truth to shame.

This place was filled with those tales I did not reveal to others, but they were tales that others knew regardless. Others often knew these tales better than I did myself, many could navigate the roadmap of my inner self better than I ever could.

The tales I did tell to others told more of me than I knew.

The only person a story-teller fools is themselves, as those who lie often ends up living the lies they spin; after all what is a story-teller but a liar for a willing audience wishing to be fooled?

I walk deeper through my Midian and I wonder how true my juvenile thoughts of the place might be. Perhaps when we exile enough of our sins we ultimately exile our whole selves. More of me is down here, hidden even from my own view than reside in the waking world we foolhardily call reality.

Where is the lie?

Where am I?

Am I merely the shadow of the person I bury over the years or am I the tempered iron forged by such acts?

As I walk deeper I tell myself who I am; and I hope I am fooled by the lie.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 19

The post #11 – Dark Places appeared first on Neverwhere.

I know the green calls because a part of me knows this is where we all come from, in the sludge underfoot our far off cousins’ squirm in their exodus from the oceans. I pause and wonder if I should pay my respects and as I’m thinking of my ancestors my Grandfathers face finds its way into my mind.

This stops me in my tracks as it often does.

I was the oldest grandchild, born in what only be called shame. A mother can work off shame, many times over, but in spite of this it can cling to her and from her it can leap. A first born joy and a fatherless shame, can someone be both at the same time?

I watch the things that squirm and I realise that the dirt through which they squirm in is buried somewhere in my waking mind. They always squirm there, as I work and write and sleep and eat; they squirm in those dark recesses I try to avoid.

Perhaps not all demons have fearsome eyes, perhaps some are soft and their horror lies in the fact that they cannot be easily seen.

Perhaps they horrify because they squirm.

I feel the sodden earth under the soles of my shoes, it squelches as I lower myself to see the squirming things better. My back hurts and again I think of my Grandfather, how old was he when he died? How much older than I am now was he when he took that final surprised breath?

I see the squirming things better now and I recoil.

I was expecting slugs or worms but what I saw were tongues. They slithered and coiled as if trying to speak words from long dead languages. I abruptly stand and see one tongue flop against my shoe and through the leather I feel a disgusting warmth. I step back and shudder.

Why tongues, I thought, is it because I should speak more or hold my tongue more often? A loved one sometimes calls me “the mute” but then others believe I talk far too much; so which is it?

Do they mean anything at all?

I panic and move back, away from the sight.

I have stumbled from my dream self into another place.

This is nightmare.

“You’re not here alone.” I hear and then a laugh follows the words.

I turn and see no one.

I no longer remember his voice but still I recognise it and relief floods through me. For many years we were like father and son, and then – as father and son must, it seems – we transformed into enemies; or were we always such a thing?

I no longer know.

I was a child villain of my mother’s indiscretions; I was born it and it defined me. I sometimes still cry at the thought of it, must I live life as a villain, must I die with villainy on my mind? Or are these fears and thoughts no more real than the illusion I now face?

“Ah!” The voice comes again. This time I can pinpoint the direction, so I follow it. “You were always such a serious one, with thoughts so much bigger than the little man that held them.”

Again I am crying, but this time I know why, and this makes me smile through the tears.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 18

The post #10 – Speaking In Tongues… appeared first on Neverwhere.

Between them I walked, the wooden platform separating from the fall no wider than a child is tall.

In the waking world heights drew me to edges, the plummet enticing me as much as the crack of bone on cement repelled me. I had friends who had died in such a way and a part of me wondered what their last thoughts were as they impacted the hard earth.

I walked with the heavens as my company.

Below a howl wound through the green, a moment later another answered it.

I stopped.

Beneath me the platform ended, its edge broken in a wide curve as if bitten and I cursed myself for my wandering thoughts.

Of course my Dream Self would offer me nothing but a fall, the devil inside me could do little else.

I had always seen him there in me shadow, his smile was like mine and in his reasonable conversation other devils lurked.

Our darker selves knew all the tricks and this one had left me no choices.

“There is only forward.” I said and leapt.

The supports on which the platform sat rushed past me as I fell, a latticework of irregular beams some braced with brass clamps that glistened in the moonlight while other were tied with sodden ropes being pecked by birds.

I fell, the air pushed against me, a cushion repelling me.

I thought of the tale of Icarus and thought perhaps the inverse of his tale might also be true. If flying too close to the sun is in question would a fall to the depths be advisable?

The ground rushed up to greet me.

Before I hit it, the moment before the flesh of my face met the cold grass, I thought of the old wives’ tale about falling in dreams. You always woke before you hit, they said, or you never woke at all.

Time froze.

I hung in the air, suspended.

I reached out and brushed my hand through the grass.

Time is an illusion, dream time doubly so, and my only enemy in here is myself and the demons that inhabit me; and those things were opponent enough.

I climbed from the sky, like stepping from an invisible swing and placed my feet into the long grass. Around me the green rolled in all directions, mounds of earth lay before me, as wide as I was tall and this made me think of a story I once wrote.

Were my stories my demons or where they ways of exorcising them?

Where they a legacy or sorts in lieu of lack of children?

Where they nothing more than a distraction?

When the cold air hit the tears on my face I realised I was crying; but I didn’t understand why so, to distract myself, I walked deeper into the green.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 17

The post #9 – All the Devils Inside Me… appeared first on Neverwhere.

The hollowness followed by its absence was such an abdication of importance I had forgotten about it before I had even ceased hearing it. In the void that replaced it was a hum of life, as if on the periphery of my vision creatures lurked and watched.

The darkness was no less complete, I could make out stars that seemed to be all around me but a shimmer distorted some of them while others seemed obscured in patches of nothingness.

Slowly my eyes adjusted and my ears begun to catch movement. Below me the stars undulated and I realised that they were not stars but merely a reflection of what was above.

My eyes adjusted more and I saw what I first took to be an ocean before me, then I saw trees and shrubs breaking the surface here and there and realised it was not an ocean; it was a patch of marshland that reached to the horizon.

I stepped forward and felt my boots pull free of hungry wet earth, the pits they left were three inches deep.

No, I heard the marshland say, come back; let me embrace you.

I shuddered as I realised I would welcome its cool embrace even as my oxygen starved body cooled amid the roots that formed its base. A part of me welcomed it, perhaps because it was where my species were born, and perhaps because it was the world we would leave behind us when we were finally gone.

The marsh smiled, hearing me; and I felt its smile had teeth like needles.

Through the trees a lantern swung, each time the light penetrated the sodden forest I saw a wooden path raised above the earth on thick wooden posts. It wound its way between the trees and into mystery. I looked down and I saw my feet upon it and my footsteps leading off behind me into the distance.

I’m to walk it then, I thought, knowing the dream would not be denied.

I complied; I walked.

Dream-time was not like waking-time, dream-times connection to real time was no more or less accurate than waking-time, it was just a delusion of one rather than a delusion of many. Time was a construct, and it was only faith that kept it ticking. Age and time were measurements of decay, one of the body the other of the universe around it.

“The most accurate timepiece in the waking world was based on the decay of uranium.” I said into the marshlands. “Time is a measurement of decay.”

I did not know to whom I was speaking; perhaps it was to the God of the Green.

It did not matter; no one answered.

The path angled upward and as I walked I could see the marsh draw away from me as if disassociating itself with mankind.

Wise, I thought and smiled.

The mass of vegetation had more sense than most people I knew. People who were an endless parade of abusers and abuses, and victims both aware and unware.

Tree branches brushed my arms and if I reached out I could cling to their highest limbs. I looked behind me and the path on which I walked disappeared amongst the green shadow, I looked ahead of me and saw the pathway rise into the stormy blue of what might have been a threatening dawn, or the moments after sunset.

But I knew what it must have been; after all it was always just after midnight in my mind. Even though I had to admit to myself, that time was an illusion; so anytime could be midnight.

The treetops fell away, and the path – suspended on impossibly long posts that now seemed little thicker than threads – arced over the marsh like a wooden rainbow.

“There is only forward.” I said aloud to the sky; and laughed.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 16

The post #8 – Marshlands appeared first on Neverwhere.

She walked ahead of me, her dress gossamer and flowing as if underwater. In the wall to our left windows no more than slices in the brickwork sent shards of light across the cramped space. Each time the light hit her I saw her dress crisp and crumble like the wings of a butterfly under the harsh heat of a magnifying glass.

“There is only forward.” She said, and a part of me did not believe her.

I could turn away.

We can always turn away.

She led, and in spite of my thoughts I followed anyway.

Isn’t that what we do?

She pauses and I realise we have reached the stairs summit. There is a door ahead of us, I cannot see it in the darkness but I see a sliver of light as it silently opens. The light is brilliant and caught amid it are undulating colours that dance and mingle creating hues I could not name.

We step out onto the rooftop, the city is a carpet of light and destruction and burning craters dot it like holes worn in a well-trod carpet; but it was the sky that drew my eye.

The stars were a cataclysm of quiet decay, pinpricks of light flared brightly before evaporating into pale dust. Planets collided as the bonds that held them in place disappeared and sent them spinning unhindered through space. Meteors pelted moons and stars swallowed planets.

The universe had seen t day and was entering its own eternal night.

“There is only forward.” She said, and I glanced at her.

Her eyes were cast to the night sky and the colours of destruction painted her face in the beauty only destruction knew. Sadness cast her as a lone heroine, a seer of sights that burned her soul and changed her very being.

Entropy is decay, I thought. The spinning of the planets and the burning of the suns is the universes death throes and throughout its existence humankind had fought and loved on one of the universes dying cells. Playing out our psychodramas within the body of the beast that is existence unheedful of its plight around us.

I looked out over the city, between the fires and through the buildings to the road that led out through the mind-barrens out through to the Oblongata Turnpike and the Cerebellum Café beyond it.

I remembered the beginning and I remembered who I was.

A dreamer in a land of the imagination, lost in a nightmare rather than smelling the sweet perfume of dreams. Around me the world burned and the skies fell and I knew the only one at fault was myself.

The world is what we dream it, our actions are just an extension of the thoughts that manage to fight their way to the surface, growing from the smallest of seeds.

“No,” I said and the woman turned to me, the air around her swept her dress into an explosion of silken fabric around her, the fires of the earth and the stars of the sky shining through it.

She looked like a renaissance painting I had once seen of an angel.

“No,” I said again, “forward is not the only way.”

“Oh it is,” she smiled beatifically, “it’s just that forward is nothing more than the way you are facing.”

I understood and turned by back on the destruction below.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 14

The post #7 – Rooftop Serenade appeared first on Neverwhere.