It’s nothing personal, just—a few too many times he’s touched his tongue to the Devil’s lower lip and tasted something waxy, bitter as cheap coffee grounds; let his hand trail down the Devil’s back and had the Devil’s spine turn into the ridges of scales under his palm. Fingertips brushing feathers, or flies’ wings, or bone, instead of skin. Once, he put his hand to the Devil’s neck, and it burned—like Johnny was palming a thing of solid fire, and he’d jerked his hand away on instinct, cursing.
He’s always known the Devil was something else, something not human, and Johnny doesn’t mind kissing that thing. He just also doesn’t want to see it shift and change under his hands. Suspects he might go crazy trying, his eyes burned blind like St. Paul’s on the road.
“Stop that,” Johnny mutters once, tangling his fingers in the Devil’s hair only for his hand to sink to the wrist into something thick and cold—like a knot of rushes in the water, maybe, or melting snow, but trembling. (Somewhere in Johnny’s head is a list of all the things the Devil is like, he keeps adding to it: snake, bird, snow, rain. Blues. Johnny thinks in some odd way it’s inscribing him, the way you search for something lost—he’ll end up finding the Devil in the last place he looks.)
“Come on,” Johnny mumbles. The Devil’s jaw seems solid enough under Johnny’s mouth, but there’s still that strange snow-melt wetness curling around his fingers. “Stay in one shape.”
“You’re distracting me,” the Devil says, a sibilant hiss to his voice; the emphasis skipping letters and settling on dissstracted, just enough that it makes Johnny grin, even with his eyes shut.
He feels the air shift when the Devil huffs, a breath against Johnny’s cheek. There’s a cold-burning spark that trails, deliberately, down Johnny’s spine, a tease of a feeling—Johnny’s response is an outraged sound, and to dig his fingers into that cold, snow-melt thing.
The Devil makes one of those high, decidedly non-human noises. Johnny grins even wider.
“Like I said,” the Devil murmurs after a moment, sounding breathless. “You’re distracting me.”
Johnny tries that again, when he puts his hand on the Devil’s thigh and instead finds himself palming something unyielding, frozen—later he’ll add metallic, because that’s what his fingers smell like afterwards, exhaust and aluminum. But Johnny’s lost in the sensation himself so he just hums, and scrapes a thumbnail across the hard surface.
The Devil makes a sound Johnny’s never heard before. Partly like he’s trying to swallow his own tongue and also singing through gritted teeth, and maybe something else, lower and harsh as the scrape of metal on metal. It makes Johnny shiver and break out in a cold-sweat, every bit of his skin suddenly alive and trembling.
(The Devil doesn’t even have enough breath to tell him to stop grinning, after.)
remnant population:elderly farm colonist decides to be left behind when her family and all her neighbors get transferred to a different planet by the corporation that owns their colony. it’s very genteel and practical and relaxed in its own way and it’s certainly the only book of its kind when it comes to old age and autonomy and love for ones own wild self.
the hidden life of trees:a wonderfully conversational and accessible work about how trees fit together in a proper forest community and the ways and means by which they communicate and care for one another and what that looks like on a molecular level.
the silent gondoliers:a short little sonnet of a book in the same sunsoaked style as the princess bride that deserves to exist purely on the basis of its own lovelorn Niceness.
on the edge of gone: genre fiction trying to start a conversation with its own genre but not in a way that makes you wanna dunk it into the sun. autistic girl gets stranded with her alcoholic mum on the day of the apocalypse and has to contend with a world that doesn’t think people like her deserve resources. remarkably gentle and worthy of your time.
Yes, a deer. A three-day-old baby deer. It was a terrible idea. When the students rocked back up to the field station with it, we told them off for stock rustling, took it to the farmer who was like, what the fuck am I going with that, I’ll have to cut its throat and use it for dog meat, and we were like, uh, no, so we took it to the SPCA, who were DELIGHTED.
I THOUGHT A “FAWN” WAS SOME KIND OF OBSCURE GEOLOGICAL TERM I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND
YOU PUT A BABY DEER IN A BACKPACK
More geology field shenanigans!
Respected professor claims our hydrochloric acid solution is less acidic than coca cola. We dare him to drink it. HE DOES.
Hiking up a mountain on crutches. “YOLO!”
Painting Cambrian-age trilobite fossils with nail polish.
Creepy abandoned fishing villages. So many creepy abandoned fishing villages.
Student finds brachiopod fossils in an outcrop behind said creepy abandoned fishing village. Respected professor gasps and squeaks “Brachiopods??!?” and goes tearing off up a hill to find them.
Students collect so many rock samples that we can no longer see the floor of the 15 passenger van. The van floor begins to develop its own stratigraphy.
Racing the roadside moose in the 15 passenger van.
Respected professor takes both hands off of the wheel of the moving van to get a picture of the moose. Panic ensues.
Mapping an island with nothing but a Brunton compass, a field notebook, and the largest bottle of fireball whiskey money can buy.
Respected Professor singing along to “Man-Eating Trilobite”
Entire class goes to local bar and won’t stop singing local drinking song for about a week.
That one vegan student that survives off of french fries for a month.
Stealing rock samples from National Parks
Straddling the moho
Licking the moho
Peeing on mantle peridotite just to see if it fizzes
Using the same pocket knife for everything. Eating. Scratching rocks. Removing splinters. Seriously, it’s gross.
Hiking down a river only to discover the water level is MUCH HIGHER than anticipated
Nearly drowning in said river but damn it you kept your electronics DRY
“It’s not safe to drink the water. So everyone gets 2 beers per meal”.
Fitting the entire class into a single hot tub
Every lobster is named Jack Daniels. It is known.
That one “Chinese Canadian Fusion” restaurant
*DID* IT FIZZ?
my husband was once Responsible Adult on a geology field course and the highlight was when I was calling him and it was like
Dr Glass: Oh, an undergrad’s just thrown his compass into the sea.
Me: is that… part of the exercise?
Dr Glass: *nonjudgmentally* well…
(an unearthly, animal roar is heard over the phone)
Dr Glass: Ah, now he’s going into the sea.
Me: …To get the compass?
Dr Glass: I think he just wants the sea to take him.
(a peaceable, nonjudgmental silence follows, with distant splashing)
Dr Glass: Well, I think I’ll go get him now.
I wanna know the lyrics to “Man-Eating Trilobite”.
In all seriousness I took a death and dying course in college for fun and that’s when I fell in love with, and began to seriously study, spontaneous or “street shrines”. These are the organic, unplanned placements of items when someone is killed, generally, and the community almost descends on a spot. I am fascinated by that interfaith, inter-spirit moment of connection fostered. What drives someone to leave the first item? Who guides them there? What do we, as humans, seek from the leaving of a memorial on a place that now hallowed? And we know it is, to some extent, even if we’re not spirit-workers. We have this human need to bear witness, no matter who we are, and over and over again it manifests as this need to build some space, some monument that says “they were here, and now they aren’t here, and we, collectively, of all faiths and walks of life, strangers to each other, will remember them”
We take comfort in, and protect to some measure, that space we create with tea-light candles and stuffed bears and flowers and it just feels like the Right Thing to Do. We rebuild these spaces when they are torn down by authority and we keep building them up and that’s beautiful
Street shrines are TRULY universal, too. They are largely non-verbal but it’s like we just KNOW what to do, like something moves inside all of us and it doesn’t fucking matter if we can’t understand anyone else standing at the site, it’s just a Knowing. It’s phenomenal
don’t know if this is as ~deep~ as i think it is, but by all of gaston’s own personal standards of identity/values, the beast is a better man than he is: brawnier, bigger, fightier, & of course every last inch of him’s covered in hair
ohmigod, it’s true though! the beast was basically gaston, and the ticked off fairy turned him into the purest manifestation of his toxic ideals to make him learn to be less of an ass
…..now I really wanna see the version of the movie where instead of dying, the curse passes from the beast to gaston!
except gaston doesn’t have a swag ass castle to sulk in, so he’s out running around the countryside, hiding in forests and stuff, alternately terrorizing the populace and being hunted. it’s a turnabout of his “peerless hunter” backstory– he is now both the monster and the prey.
untillllll he, idk, meets some humble woodcutter(?) that takes him in when he’s wounded or offers him shelter in a storm? and etc, etc, LIFE LESSONS, toxic masculinity slowly vanquished. (ooh, or maybe it should be like–a flower seller or herbalist or some feminine-coded profession he would have devalued to really set up a foil.)
also the gaston-beast needs antlers. terrifying claw-hooked sprawling antlers. antlers for all of his decorating.
hey I don’t think I’ve ever talked here about corn wolves. here let me find a gas station real quick
okay so I’m in the middle of nowhere stopped for gas in a small town in Iowa rn and my Internet is REALLY spotty so I hope this posts but
as people who have followed this blog for longer might know, sometimes I go hang out with this corn genetics lab at school, as in we meet up on friday nights to talk about corn science and stuff. once the corn genetics subject of the week is covered sometimes we go off track and start talking about other stuff. as u may imagine from a corn genetics lab, most of the members grew up on farms here in the midwest, and one night we were talking and a couple of the people started discussing an urban legend that they were taught as kids to keep them from running into their family’s cornfields and getting lost. one of those people was from Nebraska, and the other from rural minnisoda- these were isolated incidents of this urban legend happening, and all of us were deeply engrossed in this. i cannot make this shit up, this is the story:
there are wolves that live inside the corn when it’s full grown. they’re huge, and are camouflaged to hide in the fields. their breathing sounds like the misting of the irrigation systems set up over the corn in these areas for water. if they see small children in the fields, they kill and eat them.
now I’ve lived my whole life in suburban Iowa, and I can vouch that we don’t have irrigation systems like that here; our group came to the conclusion that this must be the reason that from our 7 or 8 person sample size, the corn wolves did not exist in Iowa, the largest producer of corn. I’ve never seen the corn wolves mentioned anywhere else outside that one night with the genetics lab, and it really fascinates me because as a horror/creepypasta person myself, I think it’s a great example of those strange little urban legends that never get written down on paper. the fact that it’s never appeared anywhere else in my life kind of confounds me, because it’s a really cool story. i like to go driving around rural Iowa when I’m home from college, and i always end up thinking about the corn wolves.
neither of the people believed it as kids btw lol
This is a FANTASTIC piece of Americana and cryptic lore. I propose making them a thing immediately.
so while i was in japan i stumbled upon a pop up alien and space museum/art gallery (if you can’t find a thing in tokyo, it probably doesn’t exist) and there were these gorgeous feudal paintings of the tale of the bamboo cutter and it’s a very good story but
what if
it went
a little
differently?
kaguya is the princess of the moon. she is a young child, gangly thin limbs and a plump mouth permanently set in a stubborn pout. she is a beautiful child, even by the moon’s standards, with her cold opal eyes and hair the same deep black as the void of space. she is an unruly, irritable child. she runs from the priestesses who attempt to teach her her duties, and steps on the feet of little princes from far away stars that her parents parade in front of her. she can’t be soothed by sweets, by soft toys, by pretty songs. she is a being of constant want, and nothing in the whole of space seems to satisfy her.
kaguya does not love the moon as she should. she does not find beauty in it’s silvery, iridescent ground, nor in the pools beneath its surface that glint like mercury. she finds her citizens stuffy and annoying, and all the people from the stars think they’re better than them just because they shine a little brighter. it makes kaguya cross – the sun shines brightest of all, and the only beings that still reside on it is a great monster of a dragon that no one dares cross.
the priestesses try to entice her to learn this portion of her duties at least, but she runs from them and plugs her ears and does not listen. there are times when the sun and moon cross paths, and when they do the great dragon of the sun attempts to gobble them up whole. it is only by praying to the god tsukuyomi and erecting a barrier that the royal family can protect their home from the sun dragon.
it is kaguya’s most sacred duty, and she has no interest in it.
she’s simultaneously bored by her home and insulted when others find it lacking, and this contrary rational might be distressing to the logic of an adult, but kaguya is not an adult. she is a child, and being contrary is her prerogative.
she is walking through in the courtyard behind a palace when a shooting star passes her by, then circles back again. it’s s such a little thing, it must have been traveling for a very long time, because it’s burned down so it’s only about half as big as kaguya. this means the star is very old. “child,” the falling star says, voice ancient and crackling, “why are you sad?”
“i am not sad,” she answers, but as soon as she says that she knows it’s a lie, and tears prick at her eyes. “i am always lonely, though i am surrounded by people. i am always bored, though there are many things to entertain me. i am always angry, though there is nothing wrong. i am sad because i am a piece that does not fit.”
“maybe you are simply a piece that belongs to a different puzzle,” the falling star says, “come, climb onto me, and i will i take you somewhere new.”
“will it be better?” she asks.
if a falling star could shrug this one would, but it can’t so it doesn’t. “it will be different.”
different sounds better to kaguya. she agrees, not bothering to say goodbye to her parents or her people, does not take one last look at the beauty of the moon’s surface. instead she climbs onto the falling star, her skin thick enough that she does not feel its burn, and rides it all the way down, until it is a star no longer and only a falling rock, until she goes tumbling onto a whole new planet, and as she falls she thinks that this new planet looks very green.
~
there is an old man called taketori no okina. he lives alone in a great bamboo field, and every day he wakes up at dawn and cuts bamboo until dusk, then he goes home and eats and sleeps and wakes up in the morning to do it all again. when he was a young man, taketori no okina fell in love with a samurai who had laughter lines around his mouth and strong hands, who taught him how to wield blades with a strength and skill that could cut down the strongest soldiers. but taketori no okina only uses it to harvest bamboo. the samurai was engaged to the daughter of a respectable family, and so he left. he left his village not long after the samurai, unable to be there alone in the place where they used to be together. taketori no okina’s heart was so full of love for his samurai that he could not bear to love another, and so he never did.
he is awoken in the middle of the night by a bang that shakes his home and nearly deafens him. he stumbles outside, and a couple miles into his field he sees smoke. he goes running for it, concerns about fire and war – they’re in a time of peace now, but they weren’t always – rushing through his mind as he stumbles through. when he reaches the source, it’s to find his bamboo flattened in a ten foot wide circle and a little girl lying in the center. he falls to his knees beside her and carefully picks her up, cradling her in his arms. she’s pale, like she doesn’t spend enough time in the sun, and has long black hair. her thin chest rises and falls with her deep breaths, and he is relieved that she’s alive. “little girl,” he says, “you must wake up and tell me if you are all right.”
she opens her eyes, two pearls set in her delicate face. “i am well,” she says, and smiles at him. she curls into him, setting her head against his chest, “you are warm. i will stay with you, for you are warm and have a kind face.”
she falls asleep once more, a hand clutching something laying across her stomach and her other hand fisted into his robe. taketori no okina looks at this little girl and feels his heart expand, until it’s straining against his rib cage. he loves his samurai as much as he always has, but now his heart is bigger. it’s made room so he can fill it with love for this little girl, and so he does.
he carries her to his home and settles her into his bed. it’s a small bed, meant only for one, and she is a little thing, but he does not wish to crowd her, so takes the floor. tomorrow he will build her a bed and take her to market and show her the hot springs near the mountain. for now he falls asleep listening to her soft breathing with a smile.
the next morning he wakes up to her sitting on the floor by his side, running her fingers over a pockmarked stone. “what is that?”
“it is all that is left of my friend. she was once a great star but she fell, as all great stars must. she carried me here because i was sad. but now i am sad that she is gone.”
“that’s all right,” taketori no okina says, and she blinks down at him. no one had ever told her that it was okay that she was sad before. “she was very special, so we must put her in a very special place.”
he gets up and builds a ledge across the window with a platform just big enough for the stone to fit. he lifts her up so that she can set what’s left of her friend on it herself. “now she can see you and sky she came from at the same time, and you will always be able to see her.”
“she cannot see anything anymore,” she says, but she likes the idea of it, the sentiment. she feels less sad at her loss now, although she can’t say why, since nothing has changed.
once he has set her back on her feet she looks up at him and says, “i am kaguya. what shall i call you?”
“they call me taketori no okina,” he pushes a lock of her dark hair behind her ear, “you may call me whatever you like.”
she wrinkles her nose at that name. it is too long, and too formal. if she is to call him that, then he might as well call her princess kaguya, and she might as well not have left the moon at all. “i will call you oyaji,” she declares, and it’s not a term she’d used even with her father on the moon, but for this old man who built her a shelf and carried her home and had large, rough hands that touch her gently, she thinks it fits.
~
kaguya quite likes the new planet and her new father. he is man who’s spent a lifetime working and doing little else. he has a tidy savings that he cheerfully depletes on her; he buys her colorful kimonos for her to wear when he walks her to market, and functional kosodes for the days she spends playing in the river and darting through the bamboo forests. he tells her stories at night, of his samurai, of the emperor, and when he exhausts his reservoir of stories about this land, he tells her the tales of other ones – the fire-rats of china, the buddha of india, and when he even those run out he tells her of dragons, of a magical island called horai.
she loves these stories, and she loves him. there are days when she is sad and cross, and on those days oyaji kisses her forehead and tucks the blanket around her shoulder and brings her something spicy from the market for dinner. oyaji just lets her be sad or angry when she wants to be, and because of that kaguya finds that now she gets sad less and less, that more often than not she’s …. happy.
she notices the special care oyaji takes when he talks of samurai, and sees the strength and power in his limbs when he cuts bamboo, and decides she would like to be strong like the samurai in his stories, like oyaji is himself. so she asks and asks, and he’s worried that it’s too dangerous for her. but oyaji loves her like she’s his own flesh and blood, and is unable to deny her anything.
kaguya grows up. she grows up on stories of far off lands and magic, she grows up on warm, simple food made by someone who loves her, she grows up learning to wield blades with the same brute efficiency as oyaji. kaguya grows up beautiful. her skin is darker now that she dances in the sun’s rays, her hair is long and fine, and her eyes are as they’ve always been – pale and beautiful, small versions of the moon she was born on. she moves with a steadied grace that only a deadly woman can master and has the whipcord strength of body from days working in the bamboo fields alongside her father, but all the delicate features of the princess she was born as.
they were left alone when she was a child, when oyaji took her hand and guided her to meat stalls and cloth sellers and bought sparkly combs for her to wear in her hair. but kaguya is a child no longer. she is a young woman, and tales of her beauty spread far and wide. just as when she was a child and princes from far off stars came to court her, now princes come from far off lands. as a child she stepped on their feet, and as a woman she wishes to take her shiny blades and cut them from navel to neck. but she is not a princess here, she is the poor daughter of a poor bamboo cutter, and must act accordingly. she can’t go slicing up arrogant suitors who believe they are entitled to her, no matter how much she would like to.
the most persistent are five princes from lands far from here. she requests a betrothal gift from each of them, and says she will marry the first to return.
from the first prince, she requests the stone begging bowl of buddha.
from the second prince, she requests a jeweled branch from horai.
from the third prince, she requests a fire-rat robe.
from the fourth prince, she requests a cowry shell born of swallows.
from the fifth prince, she requests a colored jewel from a dragon’s neck.
off they go to fulfill her impossible requests, and kaguya rests easy knowing that they will not return, or if they do they will return empty handed.
kototyph 