An online space that will be whatever I want it to be.
(I'm not sure what to put on this page yet, but the layout seems to break if there isn't enough text. So, have some random snippets from stories I've written. The full stories will all be going on this site once I've figured out a sitemap.)
Jade called me Ink, so Ink was my name.
It did not matter that I did not know who she was. It did not matter that this interaction, this bequeathing of something as precious as a moniker, is where my memories begin. Beyond it, there is something like a searing light that I dare not approach.
Perhaps she meant it to be an anaphor - Ink, for my black-as-night scales, for the glossy multitude thereof that spilled from my scalp like rivulets of tar. Ink, from the nature of my thoughts, to the way I walked (slow, painfully slow), to the way I spelled my words (written out with a talon in long, exaggerated loops) into Jade's palm. Ink, black as black could be, swallowing the light from this (nascent) world.
And it was nascent; transient from the moment I woke, deep into the nights where I could not sleep. It felt as if the world (dark, nothing but dark) sprang forth newly-formed each time that I awoke. That it existed only inside my own mind.
My boots break the surface of the ankle-deep water, sending ripples across the flooded courtyard. The distorted reflections of buildings, half-visible through the mist, remind me of wet mornings back home, when I saw my city suspended upside-down in puddles. Captured in a trembling picture, where it could be forever preserved - impervious to disease, or death, or dragons.
I shake off the thought. I've never been one for reminiscing. Here is all that matters; the ruins provide adequate cover, the sun is not in my eyes, and this water is miserably cold.
My parents live on a distant planet. Beyond the reach of the biggest telescopes, beyond the light of dying stars, in a place where time stretches to nothing and black holes roam the streets. They have domesticated one - she spends what they call days (what we call eternity) curled by a fire, purring mathematical contradictions in her sleep.
Click.
I pretend the rifle is a camera as I lift it and point it at her face. Heft the weight, steady it, brace it against the crook of my elbow. Adjust the focus. Stare through the viewfinder. Ensure my subject is in shot.
In the movie, I turn before the order to fire is issued. I take down my commander, and tell the other members of the firing squad that there will be no more violence.
We will find the elusive third way that has been discussed in hushed tones this entire war. We will break the cycle of violence. We will do something poetic and tragic to give the crowd hope before the curtain call.
In reality, my shot is only a little behind the fray.