Bring your own salt.

The assassin shifted his grip on the hilt, ready to strike, stepped towards the Master. The cowled neck was within reach. His breathing slowed, his mind raced. The crimson figure did not flinch or retreat. It did not move at all. Moment of hesitation: is this creature untouchable? Is it paralyzed with fear? Why does it not react? The Master leered down at the assassin, thrusting that long neck forward. “Decide,” the voice intoned. Before even his eyes could betray him, the assassin whirled his blade in a hissing arc. Its edge devoured the space between, hit something hard, and slid through flesh. But it wasn’t the Master’s neck. Faster than the Chimera himself a crimson arm had shot up in a bar against the Master’s head. The blade jarred against a hidden metal guard, slid along the smooth surface till it slipped past, biting into the soft tissues of a mortal forearm. Immediately there was the twang of wires. Something slammed into the Chimera’s spine, and through hi...

Near the center of the festivities the Tent of Tales was hung glowing against the night, lit from within by lamplight flickering. In it sat a wizened old woman weaving strange stories to a circle of wide-eyed children. Her tales were a curious mix of fact and fiction, slipping between the incredible realm of the Imagineers (as she named it) and that of the Mundang (which paralleled the serious, real world of the Adults). The storyteller would often adapt her characters to take on an uncomfortable likeness to one of the parents hanging about the outside of the story-circle. This delighted her audience to no end, for her descriptions of the denizens of Mundang were seldom pleasant (although always, it was privately admitted, uncannily true). It was one of these unfortunate victims who had first assigned her the name of ‘Wordbag’. She went by many names, behind her back; such as Crone, and Old Spite, but Wordbag seemed to stick, and she appropriated it for herself. This name seem...

Let’s do nothing As it goes Let's do nothing but watch as it drip-drops life   away. Let's do nothing   as languages are lost   faces forgotten    as we become copies Let's do nothing, yes Let's stand by Let's do nothing As our neighbours are murdered, till It trickles red under our doors –   It always starts as a trickle. Let's do nothing   as smoke fills our lungs gathers round our children   our own children   Let's do nothing   As our dogs run away   Howling how could you    Let's do nothing     As the aerials tear from the rooftops Let's do nothing. Let's do nothing, Sit distracted, glance outside as the last leaf drifting, down Dead   Let's do nothing as   a snowflake the final snowflake   melts Away – gone there won’t be another for ten thousand years there won't be another while we –– Ho...

…chronic discontent, a marathon runner restless, a wonderer, his forever struggle drifting past the hills, fearing plateaus. He arrives, desperate and breathless, at another house party: "I need to see a man about a god. That is, a dog." Receive their tinkling laughter. Complicit. Some snide lip curling 'round a cigarette. Kom ons raak a bietjie dagdronk God. Damn. Feel. Good. Feel welcome, here in the company of emotional vultures. Sophisticated. Kak classy . The DJ sets up his beats in the living room, still Outside the one they all wanna fuck strums and sings She's still sleeping her way through the riptide of being so badly wanted, and the consequences of affectation. It's another popularity contest, they say, out there in the Real World, now that school's out, or so I've been told (when they told me so). "When, exactly?" "Oh, did they?" "What time is it?" Her chords jarring now ag...

Yes. There is a common, abstracted Path, the one we all walk. But the way it plays out for each of us, our individual journeys… that is always unique. There are overlaps, but mostly they're messy and inconsistent, like the sketched copy of some intricate blueprint – clumsy fingers hastily trying to recreate what was glimpsed but now gone, those precious moments of revelation. It's comforting to find footprints on some forlorn pass. Those who've been before. To follow them for a while and muse over the age and location of old campfires. It's fun to bump into the travelers along the way; to trade stories and advice, to join forces and walk together for a time. But always there comes a parting of the ways, and each must ultimately tread their own Path. No matter what. And that is painful, but the pain passes, and the joy you've shared always outweighs the loss of a companion. Well, depending on what you choose to dwell on, in your mind, as y...