“There are only seven kinds of people.”
That’s the type of thing you will hear
if you listen to the oscillographic media.
Maria, whom I rarely listened to, continued.
In truth, people are entropy:
disorder and information. The closer
you look, the more you see.
The planet is cocooned in a hydrolithic sheath,
formed from the vaporized detritus
of ancient modern living.
Its mysterious condensates and fractionated hydrocarbons
hide the Martian battle fleet, hovering above
in orbital geostasis.
~/~
My neighbors came to me on a quiet Sunday morning.
An intervention, they informed me,
because I’d been infected by Deija Thoris.
Previously on Darklight: a traveller, the railway guard Anélia, and the Ibid Bird, have come to the Inverse Realms, where time runs backwards. They found Selena there, and she has revealed that the meeting is her first encounter with the traveller. For her, their time together hasn’t happened yet, it is in her future. Episode one is here.
I was moderately despondent. My odyssey
had finished in a self-referential loop,
my time spent with Selena had caused itself.
Previously on Darklight: a traveller accompanied by the Ibid Bird, and Anélia, a railway guard from the moon, is on his way to meet Selena. They have reached the border of the Inverse Realms, where time flows backwards. The first episode is here.
I would have liked to tell you of the Turnaround,
where time’s pendulum pauses before it reverses,
but every memory of it had vanished from my mind,
if not my body. My shirt had been shredded,
bloodied from the cuts of sharpened claws.
The Goddess Bastet roams that place,
the Ibid Bird informed me, while Anélia
studied her fingernails.
Previously on Darklight: a traveller accompanied by the Ibid Bird is searching for Selena. At Lunar Central Station, he discussed his life with a guard at the gate and found out that she had returned to the Inverse Realms. The first episode is here.
I nodded.
The Inverse Realms. Of course.
The Bird saw through my deception,
and somewhat explained.
Previously on Darklight: on the way to the moon with a bird, a human fell asleep. Through the magic of the mind, he travelled to a rainy reality. After meeting an obsessive future version of himself, he climbed through a broken television set into another dimension. Or wherever. Episode one is here.
Floral avenues bloom in different seasons—
in spring, in winter, on lost days.
Beyond the TV portal, the reception of reality was poor:
analogue strata of land and sea and sky
drifted by beneath me and above me.
As I watched, they sheared and shredded,
tore apart.
Previously on Darklight: a human and a bird were on their way to the moon when the human fell asleep. He found himself in a damp and dreamless reality, where everything was exactly as it seemed. Because of a dead rat, he chose to worship logic. Episode one is here.
I had no destination, but on I went,
along shallow walkway creeks,
up cascading staircase waterfalls,
and at the building’s very top,
I came upon a cavernous laboratory.
Previously on Darklight: a traveller on his way to the moon to find Selena had a bit of a scare. Fortunately, the ibid bird arrived and explained away all his problems. Now he’s back on track. The first episode is here.
In a notional breeze of sleepy air and light bulbs,
the sailing carriage rocked and swayed.
The ibid bird was cooing, roosting in my hair,
and lulled by trickling traces of minds
that once were mine, I awoke
or fell asleep.
~/~
Previously on Darklight: a careless traveller has boarded a sailing carriage on the Darklight Rail. He dreams of finding long lost Selena at one of the lunar stations. Part one is here.
The tracks arched upward, the horizon, far below,
was lost in cloud, my socks were striped
in shades of peach and avocado green,
and the moon shone like a flashlight
that could do with a change of batteries.
Through windows within windows,
made of pixels, made of glass,
made of minds and made of paper,
everyone was searching at the speed of dust,
to ease the burden at their core.
Wishes within wishes, all queued up at dusk,
some saw walls and mazes,
and some were lost inside themselves,
bound to never find another,
and never by another, to be found.
Previously on the Rewound World: four travelers searching for a luminous future beyond the apocalypse were dawdling in a café with very little to offer when the bearded waiter announced that he knew all their secrets. The first episode is here.
The waiter tore off his imitation beard
with flair, uncovering a more modest
beard beneath.
Much more will be revealed, he declared.
Previously on the rewound world: noble Deirdre, overclocked Ada, angel-phobic Paulo, and the irrelevant John P and I were crossing the Nullarbor plain seeking a bright earthstar (not the fungus), with little action and a lot of reminiscing. The first episode is here.
We walked beside the sunset to where
our newer dreams were waiting,
and Ada shared a little deprecated data.
Previously on the Rewound World: while I looked on, four trepid post-apocalyptic travelers wandering in the Nullarbor Plain defeated the internet. Episode One is here.
Over there, do you see?
Ada’s vision was terrascopic.
An effulgence is rising in unsingable blues
and yellows.
The flaring light was visible to each of us
according to our dreams and secrets.
Ada, Deirdre, John P, Paulo, and I were crossing the Nullarbor plain when the internet’s voracious cables rose from the underworld and embroiled us in serpentine data. Episode one is here.
I cleared my throat.
I’m okay, Paulo said.
Deirdre swatted at a social media invite.
This gloomy internet knows that it’s alive,
but it doesn’t understand the counterweight
of living: the partial sum of life, its passing.
The air is curdled and afraid, stinging in my throat.
I fall asleep, return to fantasy that once was truth,
tumble to the world where Moorcock’s misplaced
timeships rest.
Their flickering uncertainty illuminates the overgrowing vines,
and they bleed their forlorn magic to the earth,
creating lesser mammals that frolic for a moment
in a second dawn.
Violeta’s sweeping up the windy sand the sea
has left behind. She sees the dried and frail feathers
of what once had flown on seagull wings,
and now at rest, is thinking:
In my pseudo stasis, I have no purpose,
my birdful thoughts are beakless now,
but a splash of SA30 motor oil and I’d be
scrabbling on the beach.
