Jonah and Dice

Jonah’s being kind of a dick. I get it, his hands are bloody or something, he’s going crazy but so’s everybody, right?

I’m trying to show him this bird bath. There’s a statue of a raven on the edge, surrounded by a silver cage like a shell.

“That looks familiar,” says Jonah, pointing to this stone girl screaming.

Whatever. He thinks someone’s been following us since the ballroom.

Something hisses in a bush, but I get that itch that I get, so I push down on the raven’s head. The stones around the birdbath descend and become a stairwell.

Awesome.

The Herald

Kelly was the Herald, but she didn’t know it yet. They’d sent plenty of signs: radios changed suddenly, playing songs with messages in the lyrics, and dogs stopped by her and barked in Morse code. The guy who was always outside the liquor store, who talked like a pirate, praised her as the Beacon and the Hope.

Kelly didn’t notice any of it. She was too worried about Chris, about this party tonight and what he was going to say.

She finally took the hint when the stars reshaped into giant glowing letters:

KELLY, YOU ASSHOLE, WE’RE ON OUR WAY.

Bottles

Who takes interest in a man with no interests but bottles and turtles?
Who waits daily by the springs hoping to observe a hopeless cur like me?
He has better things to do, learn and travel, earn and love and live
And if he were not my son, I’d go back to Sicky Lane and I’d give him my advice

Cecil

There is a Hole in the world, and through it dark things writhe, shriek, plot. It’s a thin veil between our mundane lives and ancient evils beyond comprehension, and at the mouth of this blasted cave, in its very maw, Gatekeeper Cecil is rolling a joint.

“Ain’t so bad. Once you figger the voices in yer head ain’t all yours, it’s kinda soothin’,” he tells you. He prods at the pot of beans bubbling over the fire. “They keep me comp’ny.”

From the bowels of darkness comes a sound like a million weeping children. Cecil winks and sparks the jay.

The Capes

“TREMBLE, PUNY HUMANS!” roars Nemesaur. “I HAVE –

“Whoa,” says Unstoppable Joe. “Dial that back. You’re not Spinal Tap.”

“Yeah,” says Kid Stupendous. “Who?”

“Seriously? You don’t know -”

“THE AGE OF GIANTS RETURNS!”

“Give us a minute Nemmy.” Joe stops, looks at the beast. “Wait, is that new armour?”

“IT IS A CHROMIUM-”

“You look like a Zord,” says the Kid.

“That was Power Rangers.”

“Of course.”

“You couldn’t have done Transformers, at least?”

“Sorry gramps, but -”

Nemesaur stomps, gnashes his teeth. “I WILL FEAST ON YOUR MARROW!”

Joe says, “Shut up for a second,” and throws a car at him.

The Shyster Gods

We’ll give them what they want, and then we’ll take it away

Bastion

Shook shoved his hands in his pockets and strode towards the mess, huddled into his jacket against the alternating heat and cold. He walked through patches of dusk and morning and moonless night that skittered across the courtyard.

Rupture and Yank were sharing a cigarette just outside the door. “You don’t want to go in there,” said Yank, twirling the smoke in his long fingers. “Cloister’s holding court. Preaching about our lost purpose.”

“What’s for dinner?” asked Shook.

Rupture shrugged. “Usual. Bits of morale, hope, whatever they can parse out of the heartbox.”

Shook sighed. “I hate this fucking siege.”

The Murk

It wasn’t what he had expected. For one, he thought it would be darker. And colder.

The silt oozed between his toes, and weeds caught in his hair and ribs. Sometimes a fish (eyes huge, glowing) would gnaw at him, so he carried an old rusted hook.

There were others, too, shuffling in the murk. Most kept to themselves, but a few were social. Red Pete could talk an age.

“How’re ye findin’ the locker, Tommyboy?” said Pete.

Tom shrugged. “Could be worse.”

“Aye.” Pete hawked and spat, watched it float over his head. “You should hear poor Jack’s story.”

Occam’s Seed

Theorize, and try to explain all of the props that make the scene
Keep in mind that throughout the acts, your interpretation shifts and sways

Bring back your sheared down sentiments
Things are not as simple as you think

Throw away the razor in hand that you use to simplify
all the thoughts to rationalize the plots, the characters, the stage

Bring back your foliaged ideas
Things are not as simple as you think

Poppets

The reds weren’t afraid, not exactly, but they were worried. Their ship swam through vasty skies just the same as it always had, but thunderclouds were gathering ahead, and occasionally something would streak past them in the endless night that looked nothing like a star. They wished, for the first time in ages, that they could see the ground.

Plus, it was getting crowded. Were there more of them than yesterday?

Crimson checked the receiver protruding from the stern, and she cleared away the frost that had gathered on the orb. Everything seemed in order.

But the clouds crept closer.

Photo courtesy of the indomitable Lisa Snellings-Clark.