Short: The Oracle as We Burn
A little while ago I had a rough writing day, a day where I started a bunch of short/flash projects but never took any of them very far. A day of one-to-three sentence beginnings, where the middles and endings slipped through my fingers. But a lovely treasure of a human being advised me to stitch all these failed attempts into a patchwork of a story, and so I did. What emerged from this stew of beginnings is…well, weird, to say the least. Weird and dark and chopped up. It features non-linear time, characters-as-archetypes (or vice versa), and a strange hunt for The Boogeyman. In terms of linear-event-narrative, well, it’s not the clearest piece I’ve ever written, I’ll give you that. But it’s a bit of fun. Check it out!
The Oracle as We Burn
I can’t remember – it started after we imbued the drugs with magic – the unspooling of ourselves skulls blooming – expanding into each other teeth first – the first time I saw us in the broken mirror – when did the halls here unravel? – how long have we splintered outside of time? – who made the mask? –
she flicks the ash from her cigarette
she flicks the ash from her cigarette
I ask “what does that mean?”
she unseams her lips “it’s just a cigarette, it means nothing”
but then they came for her under blood and not long after they burned the witch
Out there in the woods, a tree unfurls its roots; they are nooses. Its branches are bone. It claws at the clouds until sunlight spills out. Its decades aren’t carried in the rings of its trunk, but in the bodies hanged up unrevenged. How many children have hanged there? How many boogeymen have added to its collection of bones?
The sun slices itself open along the horizon and the sky curdles with its blood. That’s when they came.
we shot up in the corner, beneath the unflinching gaze of digital vitreous
we fell // we fall–
today is forever and the syringe is always full
I can’t remember remembering, memories shuffle together, 52 card pickup. Out there in the woods, gnarls of knotted bark blink their blackened eyes. Overhead, the CCTV blinks its squishy lens. Cataracts, cataracts.
When the Ragged Man comes over the cracked stones, when the skyscrapers drown, when the apocalypse pulls its punch, flip the coin. It tumbles to its zenith upward and pauses and you will know. When the Ragged Man comes over the desert, prepare.
we introduced alchemy to the manufacture of our recreational pills and powders – we studied the dust-dead languages – we stared into the squirming void and memorized the texture of its skin – when fighting monsters, do drugs – do not become, that’s for later – when you stare into the abyss – this overdose is nothing, we have only collapsed into the corner of the next room –
She shrieks with white phosphorous, a flare against the black. The last I saw the Oracle, she tumbled, sparking, into darkness, her last wails the mourning of dead gods.
He didn’t exist until we feared him into existence. We told the stories around campfires and flashlights and flickering candles and the universe heard our whispers and provided. When the first child went missing, I can’t remember.
there is a house at the end of the lane
go there by night, you won’t find it by day
(and when you arrive
we think that you’ll find
you ought to have just stayed away.)
strange attractors, fractal magic, loose change cointossed, observing the zenith; I see him now, we see him, we watch him lumber through tragedies licking his lips; life, uh, life finds a way; Jung, Feynman, Curie, Radium Girl; over a long enough time period, everything does indeed happen—
we midwived the boogeyman by begging the universe to make one
this is sometimes how magic works
sometime after we put the magic in the drugs, we unraveled; I don’t remember
she flicks ash and the molecules tumble like coins through the air.
52 card pickup, the Oracle burns in warcrime flare; she screams the truth and tumbles into darkness like breezecaught ash. She flicks the cigarette. They come to make her into an inferno.
She burns forever because every moment crystallizes into itself infinitely – our teeth are the same teeth, now, and our skin is the same skin, and we exist overlapping each other – our Venn diagram is a circle – we no longer remember – splintering outside of time, we see crystals, moments – memory serves no purpose – it all happens simultaneously, forever – how many hanged?–
52 card pickup, missing children, Oracles, boogeyman, darkness, distance and time, starlight—
what is a Tulpa?
who put on the mask, first? possessed by the whispering dark, who put on the mask? when did the first child disappear? we can’t remember – it happens, y’know?
They came for her under bloody skies as the day killed itself for night.
1967 AD
1967 BC
1945, 2001, 2296 AD
666 BC, 999 AD
the broken mirror and our reflection
when you stand outside of time you do drugs, y’know?
this does not count and Thank God It’s Forever
They came for her as she flicked ash. They came for her under sunlight suicide. She said it meant nothing.
death is nothing at all – it does not count – (we) have only slipped away into the next room – nothing has happened – everything is happening – everything happens forever – in the next room, we splinter – an overdose is nothing at all – the magic in the heroin now – we do not count – the Oracle is in the next room and we scream in phosphorous – this is nothing at all forever, we are the wise ones, the witches burnt – the children missing – the bodies hanged – the boogeyman himself, licking his lips – the truth is –
Our last memory (if “last” exists beyond its placeholder as a mere word, which it no longer does, not to us, but if it did, then our last memory) is a flare into darkness forever, a crystal scream. We burn into a star, time and distance, at daylight’s death. We spasm and jerk and foam around the lips and the magic turns our blood into phosphorous. We are so high forever and now our teeth chatter truth—
will we ever come down? will we know if we do?
the trees claw the clouds until warcrime chemicals rain our wails upon us. we are the witch and we are the ones who burn her. she flicks ash//we flick ash. we say “it doesn’t matter” but the truth –
the first child. the fifty-second child. the scary mask, the oracle, the forever scream of the dying sun. the truth is a wail into dark, a desperate flare against the void. time and distance, every star a shriek. from the shadows, the boogeyman comes. I remember, now, when we put the magic in the heroin. now, under the cataracted glare of the bloodshot camera, which is also then, now. now, we splinter, falling into each other teeth first. our skulls bloom and our meat sprays into rose petals. we go round the prickly pear. we see, now – we are the boogeyman and we are the children he takes away. our house is at the end of the lane. we are in the next room, the room next to you. we splinter, outside of time. you know how it is. you remember. because after we splinter, we fall together again, teeth first.
Share This:
Stalk Me:
The post Short: The Oracle as We Burn appeared first on S. R. Hughes.
