Juniper's Tree, Pt. 1 Quotes

“Defying her immutably kind voice, when Juniper draws nearer, she notices that the woman’s eyes are completely black and without pupils. Juniper gawks at the strange-looking, devilish deity for a long while before the woman, herself, breaks the noiselessness, “Am I so strange that you have to stare?”
― H.E. Rodgers, Juniper's Tree, Pt. 1: Apotheosis

“Oh, poetic misery is only ascribed to the most bacchanal of beings!" Luna says laughingly, “Those creatures who find it miserable to do something beautiful, only do so because they’re in love with the beauty of suffering. While I can attest to the beauty of tragedy, in the end, I just love beauty for beauty’s sake.”
― H.E. Rodgers, Juniper's Tree, Pt. 1: Apotheosis

“Luna’s piercing gaze denudes Juniper, to the point where she feels like she is fused with Tina, naked and violated before the brightening gaze of the moon. Juniper takes two steps back and her breath is caught in her throat. This jovial creature has eclipsed into something entirely perceptive and terror-inducing. Luna’s black eyes are staid and hollow.”
― H.E. Rodgers, Juniper's Tree, Pt. 1: Apotheosis

“There’s a reason that the world is predicated on good and evil,” Śakra responds clearly and gingerly, “in so much that I can say, everyone is composed of those elements. Realistically, there is never a solid good or evil. That's why fictional representations of those tropes are so comforting to the human species. We are split and that torments us, to the point that we lie to ourselves and create an antithesis of reality to go on believing. In all actuality, an audience at a movie theater knows that what they're seeing is fake, but they like to pretend that it's real. Those in the know try to nudge them along––because too quick of a revelation will lead to an existential crisis that will leave the recipient broken, or worse. Nevertheless, evil is universally understood by the general populace, while good is often left up to interpretation. Evil is just as gray, but social constructs purvey a fundamental sense of knowing.”
― H.E. Rodgers, Juniper's Tree, Pt. 1: Apotheosis

“When Tina walks closer, as if smelling her scent––the creature's long neck juts up from lapping at Adam's ale. It has a face that is too wide for a human being's and its eyes are like perfectly round fish-eyes! Its gaze is so terrifying that Juniper arches her back instinctively, but is so scared that she is essentially paralyzed by its wide-eyed stare. Those empty crystalline eyes looking unwaveringly forward!
 
The creature that had once been perceivably angelic is now a walking horror show. Its nose is melded into its face, like a replica of the tender pink nose of a rabbit, and its lips are petite and taut. Drops of dew solidify on its mane, like a fleece of pearls. Juniper feels warm liquid running down her leg. This is the first time, since her dance with near-death, during her early childhood––that she has felt true fear.

It looks straight at her, unblinking, like a deer in headlights would. But––the look isn't comparable to the livelihood of a stag or deer or anything resembling an animal or human! The vacant stare is beyond stomach churning. Even when the daylight's reflection on the water casts a shimmer upon its face: the eyes are endlessly deep and abyssal. Feeling as though they completely consume whoever they cast a glance upon. Consuming all of a person's essence, in a single gaze!”
― H.E. Rodgers, Juniper's Tree, Pt. 1: Apotheosis

“Humans are both comforted and tormented by Nietzsche’s The Death of God parable. Human beings are strange creatures who want protection and worship the idea of a savior but once the idea becomes more than an abstract ideology, they will stop at nothing to crown themselves as the new apex beings.”
― H.E. Rodgers, Juniper's Tree, Pt. 1: Apotheosis

“Imagination is connected to the collective subconscious,” she begins, like a poet reciting a soliloquy, "each person carries the truth within themselves but, in a world full of deception, people often convince themselves that truth are lies... in order to conform to a certain reality. Are you following me?”
― H.E. Rodgers, Juniper's Tree, Pt. 1: Apotheosis