Dissection of Memory

I got a text this morning from my friend Crystal, asking if I'd be willing to help her move a bookcase (she's a perfectly competent woman who just so happens to be pregnant and therefore taking appropriate precautions re: moving heavy objects).  I said "Of course!" and that is how I ended up at her house as heavy afternoon light slanted across this unintentionally beautiful little tableau:

There are always lovely things at Crystal's house

Silent Tick

The boy sat in the empty throne room of his empty palace, watching cold white light reflect off the empty, dark silver walls and gleam off the empty pewter floors. The stairs leading up to the dais that held his throne were cut with precision, casting pure black shadows as sharply defined as their edges. Had there been anyone besides himself to walk those stairs, any stumble might have cost them a limb.

But the boy never stumbled.

Day in and day out, he roamed the corridors of this place, waiting for something he had no name for. He ran his fingers across the smooth, featureless walls as he wandered, counted the steps it took to get from one chamber to another, from one floor to another, from one wing to another.

He was always counting.

The numbers filled his head, filled his palace, filled his days- brought him relief from the silent monotony of this place. He remembered no other, of course, but somehow he knew there was meant to be more than this, this endless repetition of nothing.

He was counting now, as he sat. Counting the razor-sharp swords that hung from his belt (three: one short and two long), counting the bars of metal that formed the base of his throne (twelve: all of equal length), counting his breaths in (nineteen this minute), and counting his breaths out (eighteen).

He wondered if he should count until whatever it was he was waiting for arrived- but he was afraid he would run out of numbers, and that thought filled him with panic. He must never risk running out of numbers, for without them what else was there?

He had begun to count the eyelashes on his lower left eyelid (using the mirrored surface of the short sword) when something happened that changed everything-

A door opened.

Of the one-thousand, four-hundred and thirty-six doors in the palace, there was only one that remained closed at all times: it was also the only door that led to the Outside. The boy counted the times he had attempted to open it: seven-hundred and thirty. He counted the times it had opened: zero.

The boy stared at the door. Or, rather, he stared at the figure framed in the doorway, a figure currently so back lit by blinding white that he could make nothing out of it, save that it appeared to have the same general shape as the boy himself.

The figure walked forward, the way it held itself suggesting that it was not wholly at ease here in the palace. It came closer, and the boy saw that it was a she, and that everywhere that the boy was pale and colorless, she was flush with life and color. At her side hung only one sword- but it's hilt held a rainbow of different jewels.

He wasn't sure, but he thought the sword might be singing.

He counted the number of times he'd heard singing: zero. He wondered how he knew what it was.

The girl began to climb the too-sharp stairs that led to the boy's throne. He counted her steps as she came: six, seven, eight... He counted the times she stumbled: zero.

She stopped when she was face-to-face with him, and he realized that if he were to climb down off the throne he would be shorter than her by a good head. He thought she must be older than he.

They stared into each other's eyes, and as they did so, something clicked into place within the boy's chest.

This is what I've been waiting for, he thought, and began counting his heartbeats. Funny he had never thought to count them before... had they always been there?

"Hello, Faucyl," said the girl. "I've come to bring you home."


(Silent Tick)

Seventeen Jewels

She had come so far, she thought to herself as she stared despairingly into the distance. Too far to give up now.

There was only one empty setting remaining- sixteen jewels currently shone in the sword-hilt her father had left her: one for each year of her life; one for each of the tasks she had so far accomplished; one for each enemy she had defeated. The remaining opening was in the crown of the pommel, and she knew that once she filled it the sword Onoriel would return to life. Once the sword returned to life she could use it to free her people from their bondage, to bring peace and prosperity back to the land.

But first she must fill the remaining scar.

Her eyes remained fixed on the structure on the horizon, but her body refused to move. At such a distance any reasonably sized dwelling, even one of palatial proportions, ought to be no larger than the nail of her littlest finger. But this place... it absolutely covered the horizon, stretching up arrogantly to challenge the stars for their dominion over the heavens. She watched as the setting sun glinted fiery orange and red off the bronze gears that formed the structure's facade, casting blackest shadows amongst it's many crevices.

This was the Watchmaker's Labyrinth , and she would find no mercy here.

(An Orange Clockwork)