“The Worm King’s Lullaby” by Richard Siken
The holes in this story are not lamps, they are not wheels. I walked and walked, grew a beard so I could drag it in the dirt, into a forest that wasn’t there. I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.
This is what they found on the dead man’s desk when the landlord let them in: twenty-eight pages, esoteric and unfollowable, written with perfect penmanship and a total disregard for any reader, as if the intended audience was a population not quite human. Angelic script, says the detective, lifting the pages, feeling their heft, and he wonders what he means because it isn’t. His partner nods but ignores him.
A park bench, white roses, dark coats and white roses, snow and repetitions of snow— it’s hard to read but pretty much how they found him dead on a bench in a black coat, the snow falling down.
Twigs and blackbirds, snow and red horses, the ghosts floating up, the snow falling down— the detective is weeping— and the black coat.
Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.
It’s getting late, Little Moon. Finish the song. It’s not that late. You are my moon, Little Moon, and it’s late enough. So climb down out of the tree. Is it safe? Safe enough. Are you dead as well?
The night is cold, it is silver, it is a coin.
Not everyone is dead, Little Moon. But the big moon needs the tree. There is a ghost at the end of the song. Yes, there is. And you see his hand and then you see the moon. Am I the ghost at the end of the song? We are very close now, Little Moon. Thank you for shining on me.
He was pointing at the moon but I was looking at his hand. He was dead anyway, a ghost. I’m surprised I saw his hand at all. All this was prepared for me. All this was set in motion long ago. I live in someone else’s future. I stayed as long as I could, he said. Now look at the moon.
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