Tale of the burnt

The tale of the burnt

“Some time ago when I was not so young as you but not so old as myself now I found myself outside a strange city. Surrounded by walls of decaying steel. The sounds outside this city of towers were mythical. Some spoke of litanies that could bring truth to the land. As nonsensical as this was I was ever so fond of pointless fancies and endless pursuits so I went after this psalm. I was brought under the great gray and told I would have to wander all my days. If ever I were to truly find such a beautiful tune. So here I say that this would have been great dismay if not for some fair folk who thought it best to try and wrest control of the breeze from these silly and fanciful seas. Antilles is my name and I journey for change.

I had come bearing crosses and was sent away with scabbards and bruises. I had been a child once. Once.

The city has a way of taking everything from you. Eating away at your insides. Gnawing until all that’s left are the loosed carbon retrofittings of a carcass. I needed to escape just as much as I needed to save…. thats not important

The truth of the matter is I was a coward. I had never once in my life fought for anything and I saw everything around me crumbling and decaying. Just as the fools before me had had happen to them. Yet here I stand now bequeathing you with my story. And I do not ask for your pity nay also to your worry. I would say im dearly terribly sorry that for whatever reason this folly has found its hand in my pocket.

A coin toss between chaos and happenstance.

I had found my way to the city of towers on this day we speak of in dismay. It was hard to purchase a bed let alone a hovel i found myself sitting on a corner and groveling for anything to happen. So then it should be no surprise that, well I being full of lies and blithe truths that all despise brought out the worst in these here words that I do scrutinize.

“Whats the point?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what is the point.”

“Of what?”

“Exactly!”

“You can lurch about while all this goes on or you can do something about it boy.”

“The city inside the walls is on fire and I can get you in.”

The great gray knocked loose an eye and a rat came spinning out. Running at me. Braying.

Some sort of fucked up answer to a prayer to a lost god in a city of lost causes

Id say I jumped out of the way, but I wouldn’t be telling you all this if I had done something that simple. I became the rat running through the gutters and pipes slickling its way down the spires of riveted gardens and rusted enclosures. As quickly as the motion came it went and I found myself inside the walls. I was no longer a rat. I was me. My face was my own, though the whiskers were still there. I looked around and all I saw were cobwebs and bones.

An emptied throne room and a dozen baboons, made of stone or was it jade? It was an odd occurrence, but so was being turned into a rat and then turned inside out from that.

That’s uh that.

“Now we are here. Its been about three years.“

“I know that look, yes I am sincere.”

“it may not be entirely clear, but to those who would like to disappear i have jobs and plenty of gobs to smack too. So when you hear about the great gray take your locket shaped like a heart and give me something less ill thought than a pimple covered in goosemuck.”

I suppose im moonlighting this bar until then