Letters from a Shipwreck in the Sea of Suns and Moons

by Raymond St. Elmo

My dearest K: I have bargained with a mysterious stranger who assures me that he can give this letter to a cannibal tribe that preys on head-hunters who prey on pirates who prey on traders who trade with fishermen who pray with missionaries who fish for men who occasionally find their way here and back again, bless their pious hearts. The missionaries' hearts that is. Not that the pirates and cannibals and head-hunters have hearts less pious. Please neglect to tell your reverend father I said that.

a man arguing truth he feels but can’t put into words, looks too much like a man lying.

A cat is not a good captain for anyone but the cat.

A dead man lies flatter than a live one. He sinks into the ground like he's poured into the earth.

And who the blast steals hay? You can't hide a pile of hay. You can't spend a pile of hay. It'd take a pile of hay exactly as big as a hay pile just to make a profit.

He was angry. Not just ‘very’ angry. He was long past words adding an extra tea-spoon of emphasis. Nor ‘extremely’, ‘incredibly’, ‘heaping’, or ‘truly’ much less any understated ‘rather’. No, Typhon was angry; and his anger was sufficient unto the day that he could be calm and friendly about it all. Your usual metaphors of rage are storms and lightning and volcanos and dragons. But Typhon was born of those things. He'd long left his child toys behind. His expression of anger was a patient smile and a kindly regard, and unless you looked into his eyes you could be fooled into thinking he was knocking on the door to deliver eggs. But it would be dragon's eggs he handed you, lying in a basket wove of lightning. And his eyes were dying suns.