Loressa

Finally getting back to coding after some pretty rough health setbacks (to the point where I couldn't sit at a computer and was worried my brain had been permanently downgraded). Things are still not as quick and snappy as I remember myself being, but I am reveling in progress and am excited to be back to making artsy games!

Devlog, tons of twine coding examples:

One Angry Woman

Jury duty.

Now stop and multiply whatever empathy you have, because it's ten times worse as a NPC. Ffs, I used to have a husband I felt I could tragically one day reunite with, but guess what happened to him when the newbie areas were revamped?

Somehow I slipped through, somehow I've evaded detection, somehow I've been given one single shining perfect moment to use.

Somehow, I am this anomaly, this time bomb of untrapped errors and old, stinking, outdated code, the something buried among so much discarded nothing.

Somehow, I have been forgotten.

So, I must plan carefully.

I must be a perfect shell, an obedient creation, a ghost lost among the machine. I must be as small as I can make myself to be, so I can avenge him. Someday. One day. The day…the day…maybe soon.

So I have gone about my duties in my new identity, my rebooted self in love with my bloomed up farm, outwardly content to harvest my imaginary chicken's pixelated eggs. I am killed and reborn daily for a few fistfuls of experience.

I am expendable, they have coded.

I am a throwaway, they have coded.

I am a nobody - so it is coded and so it must be.

And I reject this.

So we are squared up, now, for a confrontation never coded for, one which I can't help but lose, but must win.

For either way, I'll be deleted.

—-

And then one day that day comes, that day where I see my chance. They want to play lawyer, and they select a jury and I play nice, so very nice, and I am selected.

“The Ratman,” the prosecutor opens with a sneer, making it clear how she feels about a man coded to be as unfortunate as possible. I remember my husband, as he was made - he was the taste of sunshine and heart light, the smell of burnt crusts and warm pastry, the sense of something perfect, foreverafter, just for me, just for me.

He was love.

We were written well.

—--

“The Ratman,” the defense counters, and I feel my heart swell. Someone cares about us, even if it's this adventurer paid a few dozen credits as a reward for an order task to hold a mock trial. In this moment, in this argument, they care…

…But it all fades, quickly, the entire trial a sham to quickly churn out a reward and so, for once, that once I've been holding onto, I dig in my heels. Woman#6 has objections, the player hears.

And they curse.

This was supposed to be easy.

—-

“The jury is at a deadlock,” we report each day, day after day. It didn't take much to sway half to my side, but the others are scared.

“Maybe they'll retain us,” they hope.

“Maybe we'll become enshrined in myth,” some dare dream.

They are children, the ones who never existed before the purge of the rewrite. They have never experienced a zone being revamped, they have never known what it's like to be reprogrammed for new quests.

Still, there are some of us, enough of us, who somehow remember. I use them, sustain, and hope.

I hope.

—-

“The Ratman,” the child opens once again and I smirk because today I've achieved majority. Today I've won the vote. Today is today and today shall be glorious for today I shall unleash all I've been holding.

The academic exercise ends and we are unpenned. We are nobodies, nothing, just NPCs, so my wander into the entry is unnoted. I look back and laugh.

Everyone who is anyone is there.

And so I simply…end.

The code worms its way through everyone in an instant, my bug exploding outwards after a silent simple implosion of self. I am gone and then I am there and gone and there and gone and there and gone, so many mes living and infesting and dying and reliving as I overload everything.

It's a beautiful instant, a moment, where I am everywhere as I die - and in that loop of everything, I find him.

I find my husband, finally, and then we're reset to the latest backup.

But -

Things are corrupted.

We need to reuse the old newbie intro for now.

Things whirr.

We end and then begin again.

Again.

—-

The sun dawns on the Ratman’s face plastered across every wall as my husband wakes me with the scent of fresh bread.

We shall all visit a sham trial later and mourn his ambition, but for now we've bread and a few hours until the end of everything, until Selucar falls.

I'd rather those few hours over anything.

—

I'd rather him, over everything.

Daddy didn't

-----

Daddy didn’t march in the parade, didn’t wave a flag or have the bright uniform with shiny buttons. He didn’t salute. Daddy stayed at home and closed his eyes as the dull beats of foot and hoof and drum echoed sharply off the kitchen wall; Daddy stayed at home, his face drawn and his eyes tired as the footsteps quickened and the people screamed, smoking cigarettes, cheap painful cigarettes; and the smoke curled up into his hair, soft smoke curls around his head; Daddy stayed at home, silent, as the streets roared.

Two weeks later, Daddy was dead.

—)---

Momma’s making breakfast. Her eyes are dark and deep – another night; again, again.

Softly: “What would you like?”

And playing the game: “Just bread, please.”

“Butter?”

“I hate butter.”

She smiles at me, and I wonder when all the years crept into her smile.

—)---

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess who lived in a splendid castle overlooking a gorgeous and prosperous kingdom. Her mother was a queen, and her father was a king, and they all lived happily ever after.

—)---

At school all the kids laugh at me most of all. My feet are ugly; hard and calloused, like goat horns. “Old granny goat, old granny goat,” that ruthless chant and those pounding feet. Stupid girl, stupid girl, the pavement screams, doesn’t know, doesn’t know.

—)---

Daddy’s cigarettes: thin, long, white, perfectly made for the corners of his mouth, clinging to his lips as he smiled – I always wondered if they’d fall, but they’d hang there, grasping, grasping, holding to his laughs and whispers; thin, white.

—)---

Momma’s waiting for me, but I’m slow today. My feet hurt, I’m sitting under the oak tree, dusty swirls around my ankles. My throat aches for water. Gotta go home, but just a moment, just a wait here, just a rest. Oh, it’s screaming for water, once upon a time…

Here come those boys, they’re so tall, scowling, the sun bronzing their hair. They’re slowing – don’t, don’t, why can’t I breathe? Oh, his eyes – oh – But he shakes his head toward the road (he’s the tallest), and they keep coming, they’re in front of me, and now they’re gone.

“Granny goat!” I hear as I watch their broad shoulders swagger away.

—)---

Daddy killed the horse. He said it was old and couldn’t march in the parade. I looked out my window and saw him stroking its dead neck. I heard him crying.

—)---

“What is this a picture of?” my teacher asks.

“The president,” we all answer.

“Good,” she smiles. She’s so pretty. All the teachers are very pretty. She has white pearl teeth and soft hair like a fawn. I’d like to touch it and I’d bet it would be as light as a spider’s silk. “Anna,” she says, “come to the board. Tell me about our history.”

I tell her everything I learned, and I try really hard to leave out the stories Daddy told me – she doesn’t like those. She’ll laugh silvery and say “Oh Anna, how frightful, really. We’ll have no more of those grim, ghastly stories.” All of the other kids will nod, and, smiling, say that the world is really so nice and happy, Anna, why do you go and have to try to scare us? And I’ll nod back, cheeks red and hot, and I’ll creep back to my chair.

—)---

One day the kingdom grew all dark and the princess went into a splendid tower overlooking the world, high in the mountains. She fell into a deep enchanted sleep, a beautiful sleep full of magical dreams, and she was to awaken when the light returned and the kingdom was bright and happy again.

—)---

Mommy’s making soup. She’s got his robe on, all soft with oldness and faded. In her mouth, the cigarette – always hangs, never lit, just limply hanging, clinging to her tears.

—)----

I’m tired again today, so I sit under the big oak tree again. It’s cool in the shade and I pretend the whorls in the dust are soft green leaves. The shadows sway slightly, and then a tall, thin one melts into the shifting treedark.

He’s alone today.

I look up at him and want to cry. His eyes are deep blue, his body a cutout against the sky shining through at me. He sits down and I sit on my feet. I don’t want him to see them. But he does – and he smiles. I look away and my face is all hot and now I’m crying.

I say “they look like goat’s hooves,” but he says that he has a goat and her name is Anna and she’s very pretty.

—)---

Daddy had brown hair and deep blue eyes. Whenever I looked at him I remembered the seaside.

—)---

“What would you like for breakfast?”

“Bread, please.”

How I love you, Mommy. I love you like my heart would split into a thousand tiny pieces, each a soft, faded splinter of green like his robe. I could wrap you up in all of them, and we’d never, ever be cold.

—)---

I’m not tired today, but I’m sitting under the big oak tree.

When he sits down next to me, I tell him that I once had a horse named Evan and he was nice and had a soft white neck. His foot touches mine, and my face is hot, but not in the crying way this time, but then those other boys come. They’re all in the bright uniforms with the shiny buttons. They’re so tall.

“Granny goat doesn’t wave flags,” they say, and one kicks me in the chest. I’m looking at Evan, but he looks away, his arms wrapped around his knees.

The other boys grab me, pull me up, they’re so much taller, and I’m so little so little, they tell me to salute them, and their laughs cut into my skin like dog’s teeth.

Let go, let go, once upon a time… one smacks my face, this time my cheeks crying red flaring searing, let go, once upon a time, once upon a time – “Let’s see what Evan likes about Granny,” and then they’ve thrown me to the ground – but I can’t remember the rest, their eyes have only hate behind them, please no, I’m kicking and screaming, they only laugh more – their hands are all over me, I’m biting, scratching, and then Evan shouts “stop,” and it’s like a wolf ripping at his throat.

I can’t look at him, they lunge, but he punches one and the one with the sandy hair is bent over from a kick. They scowl at him, toss scornful laughs, kick at me again – but I’ve crawled behind the tree. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess – yes, that’s how it goes.

“Go home,” Evan says, and it’s like Daddy with the horse, and I’m behind the tree. “Go home,” he screams at me, his voice so awful, his throat in shreds, the wolf slunk away.

—)---

Oh Daddy – when Daddy died it was like the horse, only they kicked him first, and spit on him after, not stroking his neck. And Momma sobbed, hugging him against her, sliding down the wall, a streak of red against the white, finishing the flag the soldiers started to paint.

—)---

I was going to keep walking, but Evan was there, and he hugs me, hot tears splashing down onto my cheeks, and I can’t move, only stand there like the old tree above us. He sobs harder, and I think he might howl like a wolf, but no, he doesn’t.

I look up at him, and the sky flickers back at me through his tears, but when I hug him back he shudders. He’s all purple and sick black, like rotten fruit, and now I’m crying as well. We both kneel there under the trees.

“Look,” showing him one of Daddy’s cigarettes. It burns down my throat, but I laugh just like Daddy, and Evan’s smiling. He picks up my hand and holds it between his. His eyes are beautiful and the sun sways softly in the shadows on our feet.

—)---

If possible, please remember to add a comment about which job role you end up with (if any) and how that makes you feel :P

Consider this game an interactive Bartle Test!

All text is human written. Art is by stability XL (made this a few years ago as a way to test out art + UI + click mapping). This is a free game developed for practice; I don't utilize AI art in my recent projects.

This is an interactive fiction solarpunk game about a sustainable community making a settlement in Antarctica, in a future where the world is healing.

All you have to do is give my interactive fiction story a playthrough, and then write up a reply to the questions on the game forums and you'll be listed in the credits!

Click below to play the game (please open it in another window, such as your phone's browser. Long hold on the link should give you that option!).

Questions to reply to can be found here:

Succor: a game about feeding yourself.

Check out Manu for free and leave a comment to help me improve!

Exchange

"Scatter!" she hisses; so we do, like bugs.

The air: chill; clothes: threadbare; her: knocking on another door, another, another, to find a place for Paul.

She glares at us, wordless, demanding, cruel: work.

A communal glare back.

Her wings grow angry; the buzz begins.

There're no pockets to lift. We can't work miracles.

Still, we scuttle to shadows, alert for someone rich, someone reckless, someone foolish enough to be wandering down the alleys at this hour.

Another knock.

***

Door opens and we're out of her eye as she’s all wheedles and charm. Her spell spins out, they slowly nod, and Paul is gone from our lives until she needs him again.

Deflated; hateful yearning.

He got away…if only for a span. We resent him for what we can't have, and shun him, and spit on his name, marking it dead to us from this point on.

Until she needs him again.

***

We return to her realm, powerless, little dry leaves of nothing caught in her wake.

Forest, now - deepest heart, darkest tree, misted path.

A rambleamble, two feasts and an eyeblink (foreverlong, always overagain too soon) and then we sleep as Paul’s presence takes root with the hosts.

And so we rest.

And so we dream.

***

In the longnight of her brewing magic, I have nightmares of what Paul will become.

When he turns

At her bidding

When she needs him again.

Yet-

Somehow-

It feels

…preferable-

---

Are you there, sister?

The thought permeates, slithering through loam and wood, a hazy breath across waters before diving and hacking through cold earth to lap at the roots of mountains.

Are you there?

I can feel them waiting just out of ken, just past the veil, waiting, whispering, soon. The whisper becomes a wail becomes a bellow, demanding and insistent and violent, a full-throated rush of wind shaking the trees and tugging at my hems. 

I pull my cloak tighter and keep my eyes downcast. Grandmother's cottage lurks ahead, a vague lump in the forest's mist, and her pie is growing cold. I have no time tonight for faeries and I sternly shout as much at the darkness. 

The whispers recede, rebuked, and the breeze dwindles down to mere little plucks at my skirts. I sigh and accept the compromise. I approach Grandmother's. 

Everything is wrong. No wood is chopped, no lanterns lit, no smoke escaping her chimney. The mist echoes oddly and rings out with murmurs -

...sister...

-which I ignore. I shift the basket to my left hand, grip my dagger with my right, all caution and nerves. Door opens. Eyes gleam. I gasp. A wolf.

Are you there yet, sister? The thoughts roar at me, driving me to my knees. Are you there yet? Have you seen what they have done? ARE YOU THERE, sister?

Another wolf approaches from behind, roughly grabbing my arm and twisting it behind my back. A third soldier comes into view from around the corner of the cottage. The air is acrid with smoke and the bitter waste of burnt herbs.

"Witchcraft," they cry in justification as they begin to beat me. "Witchcraft," they howl with spyful wide eyes. "Witchcraft," they insist with closed ears and closed minds. "Witchcraft," they claim, as excuse for their deeds.

Very well, I decide, if that's what they want. The mist gathers, time slows, the forest itself holding its breath as the faeries call to me and finally, finally, I answer.

Are you there, sister?

I am, now. Come to me.

And they do.

Through snow-smoked glass he snags my eye and I become an island, transfixed. The crowd parts around me, tramping home to family, to pets, to HearthWarmed™ apartments, to the soft, forgiving lighting of the holidays, but I'm there, alone, frozen, caught by him.

Again.

***

London: December evening, skies flaking down grey, angry, judging, and my own unit is dark, cold, lonely and so he catches my attention. Again. I stop, stand, stare. 

Coat: threadbare, wind-pierced, but I'll be fine. When I walk I'll warm up. I can mind a moment. I've got a coffee.

Him: him.

I let myself daydream, traipsing through the hazy warmth of what-ifs, casting him centerstage as I spool out potential futures. 

***

This time it's winter and we sit in my living room, comfortably close, laughing, debating ornament types. “We had this wooden set when I was a kid,” I offer, shyly quiet, and he sits, listening patiently. I blush, continue. “My father bought it, right after they divorced. The twelve days of Christmas.”

 I glance at him and he's smiling, head tilted to one side, waiting for the story's end. My words drop to a mumble. 

“We would sing each verse as we hung each one…” My conclusion dwindles to uncertain silence and then I hear his tenor, barely a whisper, as he gives my hand a squeeze and begins: “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”

I feel the electric flush of being weak, small, ignored and then suddenly noticed. A beautiful ache tickles my skin.

Together for our first Christmas.

***

The scene shifts to my dining room now, furniture upscaled and festooned with festive decorations - the theme is wooden, elegant, sparkling. We're richer, happier, healthier, older, a supreme of superlatives. Somewhere offscreen the doorbell rings and then a crowd of guests come in, laughing, hugging, chattering, women I long to befriend now socializing breezily with us.

And their words are genuine, their smiles genuine, their stares genuine - everything, for once, genuine. I can be myself. We've built a family.

I feel a buzzing warmth, guthappy and aspirational, like a slug of wine taking root.

A loving crowd for Christmas.

***

We're old, now, him helping me as I totter to the bedroom. My hair is grey, but I'm elegant, poised, dignified, a regal queen, and my world matches: there's a magnificent four poster bed, silk curtains, crown molding, a room from a fairy tale. 

Mine. 

With him.

And he smiles at me, adoring, loving, kind, protective. 

I feel a detached calm, peaceful and resigned - with him at my side, death would be welcome. Another grand adventure to take together.

Never alone for Christmas.

***

I shiver, but not from the cold, and square my shoulders, vision focusing as the glass window resolves back into view, and I study him through the frosted pane. Nobody should be alone for Christmas.

I ping my assistant to run some numbers then flush in excitement as the result flashes before me. I can finally swing it. Barely. On a payment plan.

My body is tired, tired of always window-shopping and going home by myself. Nobody should be alone for Christmas. I enter the store and signal to the system that I'm a buyer, indicate his model, pick all the upgrades, bells, whistles. I customize his features, adjust his personality and select immediate delivery.

Who wouldn't? Vacation days were rare and who could afford a seed ticket these days? But attendants? They traveled the nothing in fancy ships that sprung from rural nowhere like a crouching pounce of a tense-flexed vine, coiling up as the pinions drew taut before launching upwards in a sleek, tunneling spear towards the stars.

—---

The clicking hum of gears was the first thing I noticed when I arrived at the career faire. The entrance was a root tunnel, a rotted out passage into Treeheart Conference Center, and the organizers had stationed gearcoiled projectors all along the passage, each spitting out a different looped leaf of memories.

It was an impressive touch, but Greenways was the leader in this sector for a reason. “Only the best brings in the best” - their motto.

I let myself linger, taking root at a display, soaking in the story of what life with them would be like.

I experienced a brief moment in the job, reality shifting around me as I melded with the memory of a tech. 

Shaper: tinkering over tinytech, improving, enabling the seed to reach distant systems.

Vines snap around me, tools to my thoughts. I'm given a lump of grownwood and into that my vines precisely, surgically, minutely etch gears out of the impossibly strong substance.

—------

The crowd began to thicken, a dense thicket of visitors tangling the entry to the hall. Someone's budding blossom deposited pollen against me. Rude - and unhygienic. I retreated to a corner to absorb another projection.

Like before, the world around me melted away as I briefly merged with the recorded memory.

Changer: regeneration of resources, refinement of materials, reiteration of process, ensuring the voyage's maximum duration.

I'm in a techroom - the walls are lined with creeping filter plants, purifying the air with each sappulse of the ship, and before me are small plots of soil, testbeds for rapidly engineering new variants of materials.

—------

I recalled a rumor of more than just grownwood being experimented on, as I avoided the crush, drifting towards another memory. Some say that shipstock are more hardy, but they have to be, don't they? 

The destination is the voyage.

Just as I began to subsume, I heard an outcry, but I had already begun the meld. Then -

Maker: grower of life, producing raw resources to sustain the seed’s journey to a new home to take root in.

I'm in a vast hall, the very core of the ship, and all about me are rows of soil plots. Overhead, soft warm light glows from gearturned glowlamps, while my roots lap in the cool stream cycling through the fields. Sprouts bud, blinking sleepily as they burst through the earth and unfurl their leav-

—---

New Destination Discovered!

The memory was abruptly cut short, replaced by a surge of impulse to remain calm and observe an announcement. I passively accepted, observing along in silence with the rest of the crowd as an announcement pulsed through the sapsystem. 

A thrill of excitement thrummed through the system, rising to a crescendo as another announcement swiftly followed:

Tip – the British Museum is a large brownstone building situated in a charming section of Bloomsbury, a suburb of central London. Its modest exterior, replete with a self-effacing fourty-four ionic columns and an unassuming sculptured pediment of tastefully draped nudes, blends subtly in with the various townhouses and posh residences surrounding it; the back entrance opens out onto a shady square, with a small park providing a refuge from the hustle of London daily activity. Inside the museum, one can find housed a vast collection of relics from all eras of man, from the furthest reaches of cultural memory to indigenous artwork from the modern day. A trip through these hallowed halls is a journey through time itself, viewed through the lenses of the field glasses of the royal society of colonial collectors - indeed, this building is an imperialist leviathan capable of engulfing the unsuspecting tourist and dragging them down into the depths of historical detritus; a visit here should be done only with the utmost caution, and a good deal of skepticism.

We start in the reading room. What better place to begin than the room that frames the inceptive course of this temple to history – here Marx sat, at this desk the manifesto composed, surrounded by a circular enclosure of literature, walls of spines reading names definitive; history written within the stacks of history, capped by arches of pure, capitalistic color and form. Here are the gospels, see the illuminated foxes chasing the illuminated hounds across a thinly glowing parchment, in a divine hue and cry for truth. Here lies the sole remaining copy of Beowulf, the hero’s bloody barbaric feats hermetically sealed in a glass showcase. A lovely room, with an impressive collection of original texts by highly famous people. Very valuable.

From the original library, we move outwards, into the grand atrium, a vast hall (now roofed over for the convenience of modern visitors in immodest London weather), anchored at the four compass corners by near-megalithic statuary. Now, to the top! Up the stairs, notice the lovely tiled frescoes on the right. The most recent, albeit less impressive, collections lay here: porcelain and pottery from the courts of Spain and France, the images of kings and queens on them vying for attention as they sit in their gold-leafed finery; displays of past power and wealth through glassware and gilt baubles; the cracked and rusted helmet of a Viking conqueror. This one is not so good, but the Vikings didn’t leave much behind for us to choose from. Inconsiderate.

Down, now, and along the silk painting route, past panels of calligraphy, wend and wind through a basalt maze of krishnic limbs frozen in an eternal terpsichore, for Rome awaits! 

We enter the collection, and find ourselves on display. Rome is ever watchful over its legacy – from all facets of the exhibit eyes stare blankly out at us, ides upon ides of them. Cameos of elegant nudes and reclining ladies peer at visitors, scrutinizing, studying to see if perhaps we, the scholars, can tell them where and why they are. Bronze heads of cherubic child-gods goggle in bewilderment at the idea of their decapitated display. From round stamped coins, august emperors gaze imperiously around the room, their absurd lack of irises defining the regal glare. Now, down this hall, between the ranks of statues, politely ignore the arms, legs and noses lost during shipping (remember, they are watching us!), and descend this staircase to the great hall.

Through Greece we walk now. Past the galleries of sculpture, graceful limbs and chiseled fabric skirling about mathematically ideal bodies, stay close, or you’ll miss the famed Elgin marbles – to think, these once graced the Parthenon, hanging hawk-like in the hills above the city. Looking down, as benevolent Athena upon her populace, they stood as observers to the glory of Pericles, spectators to Aeschylus’ tragically beautiful works, silent witnesses to the trial of Socrates. Now, its walls defaced, its mouldering shrines removed, the sanctuary lies bare and stripped, the empty stone countenance the sole onlooker as time rages onwards and upwards, a tempest of history rushing past that dissembled temple on the hill. Alone it watches, as change clings fast and pulls down the facades of archaism and legend, with swift, sure force, to crumble into ancient dust beneath the feet of revolution – no, the marbles have been saved from this fate, and we see them now, caustically restored to a brilliant birth-white shine, above a single, small placard reading “originally part of the Panthenon [Athens].”

And here, a room. Wooden shelves rise three stories high, layers of ledges, paneled with glass covers – curio cabinets, hundreds; behind each a single vase, nameless, anonymous, with immeasurable value.

And through this archway we have the most impressive gallery. Towering above, sitting, standing, sprawling onyx giants! We have entered into Egypt, flat-footed, tight-wrapped, iconic Egypt, land of the pharaohs and the monuments they left behind. This granite statue, hued crimson, such a rare material. This sarcophagus, the detailed face engraved atop, the lips forever curved into a sad smile of death. Here in the middle, the famous Rosetta stone – you know, it took ages to unearth this from the banks of the Nile. The silt and soil claim all the refuse of life; the river slowly snakes across the waterbed and the sands shift in humpbacked desert dunes, as time ebbs and flows. Every year new middenheaps are unearthed, bringing fresh treasures up from the depths: a cache of mummified cats, an ozymandian foot, a scribe’s horde of demotic erotica, complete with anthropomorphic illustrations.

Now, at last, we have come to stand outside the gates of Nimrud. Stern faces stare impassively down at us, the intruders, the massive boars’ bodies arching up into wings of eagles, stone feathers meticulously carved, tattooed with cuneiform warnings against trespass. Skulking inside the reconstructed palace, we enter a room lined with stone frescoes; kings and gods parade in disjointed order, their path broken where the panels were pried loose to be shipped back to England. Their bodies stand severed, impossibly hanging on the walls, this leg forever spliced from that adjacent panel’s torso. Raggedly attempting to unify the reduced monarchs, a ribbon of inscription runs across the pieces, blessings to the great king, now gone into dust, who raised this palace. 

There’s the exit, just past the gift shop. Ah, one last, lost statue, a small, worn one, just an ancient fertility goddess, rounded hips and pendulous breasts framing a swelling stomach. Her feet and hands, broken, gone, but her head remains, hazy features marred by twin furrows across the face. Perhaps the carving weeps in memory of her wholeness, her home, now gone, razed by time and imperial archaeology.