Paper Piramyds

Somewhere in the dim, two bears lie in slumber. The larger, the mother, protects the cub from the harsh world ever encroaching. They know not of what is outside their narrow slice, but to them it does not matter in the least. The roaring blizzards snuff out any wonder in this sickly white world. It was only a couple weeks from spring, and this year the cub would be learning to hunt. 

When they burrowed out of their slumber, the mother took the cub to hunt for a deer, upon finding the innocent animal, she showed the cub how to kill, biting down on its neck to kill it instantly. She then motioned to the cub to eat with her.

“Mama,” the cub said softly, “why do we need to end lives to survive?”

The mother bear stood there in silence..”wish i knew, kid.”

Time marches on without a care in the world.

The mother walks the snowy expanse with her cub on her back until she sees something and stops, an elk with its back turned to her and its head down as if it was grazing, but off in a way.

“Don’t attack this one,”

“Why mama? Is it dangerous?”

The mother’s mind runs wild of her father encountering…that thing. It wasn’t bloody, but it was quick, and she could never explain it with her feeble words.

“Kid, run. Back home. I’ll handle this…but you won’t ever see me again. Try to make it out alive,”

The cub shivered in fear, slowly nodding and sprinting frightened back to the den. The mother looks back at the elk, the instinct flowing in like water as she knew the words forced out of her throat.

“I am stuck in a loop of humiliating defeats.” 

The elk, now sideways, rose its head up to stare at the mother, with no face…

She could hear it in her mind.

“This time, it’ll be different,”

Time branches again, exponentially in all directions. There is no mother bear, there never was. The elk stares at you.

“Esther?” Malachi spoke calmly but with wonder clear in his light breeze.

“Malachi, focus on fishing for now,” Esther was never one to talk, rather get his business done as he reeled in another small fish.

Malachi focuses hard on this next catch, but still loses it to the violent riverways. “I know, but do you ever wonder if they think about us?”

“Who?”

“The gods,”

Esther just sat there in silence as fish passed by him without a care, nobody cared for silence in this world but Malachi.  “I mean, they might…probably best not to believe that though,”

“But where’s the fun in that?” Malachi said, elbowing his brother and hooking bait onto his fishing rod, it plunged into the river with no sound.  “Great Nashira, make my catch as big as you can!”

It wasn’t a traditional prayer, Malachi never did anything traditional. But it worked, and he almost got pulled into the river by the raw power of the fish, but with Esther behind him they pulled it up. Their catch was a giant sturgeon, the biggest fish they’d ever caught. No words came out, they were too shocked, or at least Esther was. Malachi just looked back with a grin, he knew he was right. They did listen, or at least the water did. 

Esther then was pulled forward a little bit, not from a heavy catch but just from being caught off guard, reeling up a destitute boot with something inside. It was a stone disc, rigid and pallid, carved into its directions to the great Kilimanjaro and a message.

The dual stars, sink ever below the lake’s tatter,

The shadows fade and lengthen as lights scatter in lost Carcosa.

Bizarre ever still was the night where black stars rise,

Strange symbols circle aimlessly through the glowing sky,

But ever stranger is that of lost Carcosa.

Songs only the Hyades know of the words to sing,

Where the tatters flow those of the Quicksilver King,

Shall die unheard in lost Carcosa.

Song of my soul long gone, my voice a whispered dead,

Die thou, unsung as tears ever unshed,

Shall dry blood red and die in lost Carcosa.

Throughout all heavens and earth above me,

They force me to live and birth below me,

Ever fleeting, ever fleeting.

The clouds ripple through broken sky the horrid crows fly,

Their sly beaks poking and prodding at the chained’s eye,

Ever fleeting, ever fleeting.

The devil amidst its plight, cries out in the cold night’s bite,

 “Oh brother Abaddon, mayest thou spare me the Lord’s light?”

So ever he torments me, night after night, Abaddon the same,