Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 172

thorns and phoenix eggs

Who is this, who reaches out a tentacled arm toward the land of hours and days?



It is Rosa multiflora, an invincible, impenetrable advancing fairy force, radiant in raindrops.



Thorns beside each jewel. You will not meet it without bleeding. It is a red-stemmed plant.



And elsewhere in this otherworldly tangle, a phoenix egg. The phoenix: it lives five hundred years a day, then builds itself a flaming pyre that consumes it, leaving behind a golden egg, from which hatches, the next morning, a new p...

Miscellany

More Railsea

I was walking along in the rain, mentally correcting things that are Wrong on the Internet, and the swishing sleeves of my coat were saying "quiet down, quiet down, quiet down" to my het-up monkeybrain, and that fact reminded me of the train "clatternames" in Railsea--the different things the train says as it clatters along the rails, things like shrashshaa and drag'ndragun. And that made me recall this marvelous quote about the different types of salvage:

Pitted & oxidized mechani...

Not One of Us, issue 48

I've been meaning to talk about issue 48 of Not One of Us for several months, and now issue 49 is nearly out (ask me how I know: because I have something in it, yay!) and I still haven’t made good on my intention, so I’m going to take the time to do so now.

. . . Even though it’s Friday night. The entry won’t spoil, and with so few people posting on the weekend, it may well be waiting on your friends scroll when you visit LJ next.

Disclaimer Usually I try to talk about works by people I *don’t*...

Silver track, and Railsea

My best friend in the night sky right now is Jupiter, so golden there below the Pleiades.

And here's a silver track. Don't fall off! The ground is poisonous! At least in Railsea.



Railsea, where the train captains lose limbs to the giant burrowing animals, and develop philosophies:

"You know how careful are philosophies," Naphi said. "How meanings are evasive. They hate to be parsed. Here again came the cunning of unreason. I was creaking lost, knowing that the ivory-coloured beast had evaded my...

The afterschool kids and the flute lesson

I was having a not-great day, let it just be said, with no particulars explained. At 4 pm, I found myself in a room swarming with afterschool kids. I was waiting for the healing angel to finish with a flute lesson, and the afterschool kids, they were throwing giant chessmen around and throwing Lego bricks around and playing mancala and waiting for cookies. I saw....

Two boys watching two girls play mancala. It was the reverse of the scene where girls hang around watching boys play video games....

rich and strange

Outside there's someone walking
Someone rich and strange
In a gown all of ermine
With velvet laces at the back
Three gold eyes she has
And twelve fingers of ice
With which she's plucking feathers
From the midnight sky

Offer her holly berries
On a porcelain plate
Offer her honeycomb
On a silver tray
Offer her wine
In an agate glass
Or bar your door and pull your curtains
Sit quite still
And let her pass

Rails and Railsea

I saw newsboyhat off on the Amtrak at Springfield. She got on, and I chatted briefly with the conductor as the very last few passengers embarked. Then the final call came, and the conductor got on and pulled up the stairs. Another Amtrak employee, driving something that looked like a mini street sweeper, said to him,

"So it's official, then. You're alone, eh?"

"Yeah, it's just me. Haven't heard from [name] all week. It's not like him. I mean, he had conductor training, but Holy Christmas. At l...

with no lights on

The ninja girl has been watching early X-Files and drew up her impressions in comic form





(Source of the cartoon on Tumblr)

in life and death

gathering light

The greenhouse was gathering light, and the phragmites were gathering light, and birds were gathering it between the feathers of their wings and a loose dog in the plume of his tail, and me, I was spreading out my fingers before the sun, wishing that I could web the space between each one with light, so I could be amphibious in the solar waters.