My little fictions

Scene in a city garden:

2008-10-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

Presented

Smell this flower, so different to the one in your hair.

Innocent touching

Hmm, but what lines your cheek?

Answered

My sadness was removed and it hasn't healed.

Still, just watching

Time passes

Dizzyness

My nose is Roman, yours Grec.

A finger touches the Roman bridge

But my mustache is horsehair, yours is feathers and bone.

Wavering

Your neck is long, mine is long gone.

Not really breathing, near fainting

Deadly flower?

Stillness

Yes

Slurred whisper

Tromp de vous.

Cassidy Severn is a cowboy from Argentina

2008-10-23T13:49:00.001-07:00

With the Aladdin Sane make up still on his face, he walks up from washing in the mountain stream. Purple sprouting from his heels, his shadow grows. Under his right armpit he clutches an inflatable baby Bob Dylan on a string. A swallow swoops with a flower to his arse crack, another flutters to the tip of the pointy gourd that disguises his manhood. His pet black gecko wriggles across his back as he shakes off the well used scrubber made of corn cobs. As he walks past me, laid down frozen to the spot, and wispers Koo Koo in thick south american spanish...

Deficient immunity in a 4D box

2008-10-23T13:48:00.002-07:00

I wipe my face clean. The room is full of gift givers and bug chasers. Every gift giver burns with black fire, arcing from temple to temple. I puke again. I've soiled myself. Some bastard gropes me. I punch as hard as i can. His nose breaks. I think one of my fingers cracked too. Hydraulic rams pump in a 4D box - metal grinds on metal as the walls move in again. We're all forced closer together. I can see every gift giver's tesseract complete with nodding death's head. Every skull targets me. Each empty stare oscillates rapidly between heart and groin. Count the gift givers and count the bug chasers, my only hope now is a surplus of the latter. As I count, right in front of my eyes a disembodied arm appears and offers a Geiselberg Flux Capacitor...

The curse of Amen Lodge near Wolfenstone

2008-10-23T13:48:00.001-07:00

Holding blue gun metal in the moonlight I sit on my elevated veranda and watch the monster patrol the far perimeter looking back in a locked-in gaze. There's something half eaten in his teeth.

All night we do this until dawn is near.

As the sun rises he is slowed. He tracks me (rushing down) with eyes still moving as his neck muscles freeze... I wipe away the blood as it dries on the stone lips of a man.

I sleep in the sun at his feet and dream of the past.

Every time I retreat at sunset after kissing his face. But tonight I wait, as close as I dare in the twilight and watch the stone melt. For a moment between day and night I believe I see You as you once were: 'Remember me' begs a blinking eye... then the blink that wakes the monster.

It charges after me, sharp clawing the air for my neck... Running for my life I grab the shotgun propping open the gate... which slam-shuts under recoil. I collide with the stairs just safe. The monster's foul breath and berserk rage are held back by the steel mesh... I scream at you but you are immune to my feeling. I move closer from my side of the cage. My stillness and proximity serve only to taunt your appetite for the kill. You can't remember me, cursed as you are with blind hunger and endless fury, the cursed unlovable thing.

Spitting the name of the one who did this to you, I finally accept my digestion would produce no feelings of remorse in the wild animal that was once my friend...

Her cage will wrap around you forever. Not me or this lodge.

King Baldwinbritney of Jerusalem St.

2008-10-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

I drew a map of Cambria and sketched your face on it twice.

Pacific Ocean whales and sails.

Forcibly taken to a hospital colony, hidden by white linen and a silver mask.

Ink Drop play the tape.

Surgical scar on the forehead, crows dripping blood, derrière magazine see page 13, main street, pines, cliff pk, TV blue light, good old England, lovely c.a.l.i. get directions to here, from here.

Street names.

Byway.

They do not high five

2008-10-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

I imagine this young cub from the pinups group with both arms bandaged. He looks up. He is pretty in his youth and suits the hipster trend; Deacon specs and flat fringe. He holds aloft the simple little Ship in a Bottle. I think he might be reading the inscription before chucking it to the artist. He cradles the unconscious old man with cropped hair and puggy face (it would appear he is dreaming of swallows). I want to call him Popeye. There's a vague religious connotation, maybe something amorous... Although hurt, the young man jealously protects the slumbery sailor. I'm thinking of Gene Genet now...

On the other side of the book a different young man with a boxer's nose looks blankly into space. The shoulders of his jacket are layered with black feathers, Crow sitting on his back. He's scruffy. He's 'growing it out'. He's thinking of a question. I imagine he's done something that conflicts with his religious beliefs. His slightly prolapsed top lip gives him a sulky inbred yaw. I imagine him as never famous in his own right, the brother of a hollywood actor who has turned to the obscure and untrue in an attempt to define his life lived in the shadow of his younger brother. His name is Nic.

Diva he my Yorkshire is (Deathly Sevens on a Friday night)

2008-10-23T13:41:00.002-07:00

From the long lost county of my birth (the 'in real life' opposite of) a female impersonator of Erin O'Connor stands up and walks away. Christ I hope he doesn't do something stupid. I have answers but they won't be heard. Mustn't forget myself again in all this rejection. Ernie O'Connor scrapes it back tight, does his eyes up like Winehouse and leaves his pencil tashe unshaven. He struts on stage topless in black denim drainpipes and red patent six inch heels. There are plenty of fashion world anecdotes, re-enactments of M&S ads, hat tweaking, magnificent posing and one hell of a sexy gaccent. By the end of the performance he has smoked seven Death cigarettes, and tossed the empty pack to the front row smarmys. He is my Diva, maybees he is, I fucking want him to be, and that's what they used to call me... Stephin reminds me to smile and that everyone i despise will die.

All the tramps in London sing a beautiful song

2008-10-23T13:41:00.001-07:00

It's a sad song about hardships but it's the balm that purifies Our catharsis their rapture All the men in London are crying, all the Women are smashing windows all the Children are dancing all the Dogs walking slowly forwards nose to tail and above the Birds flock together and block out the sun

Man on the tube today

2008-10-23T13:37:00.001-07:00

Crushed in on the tube this morning, and just pressed against the door, looking out the window for distractions. At the first station, where my door window slowed to a stop, a beautiful man with a beard wearing a bobble hat stood looking back. The doors opened, he didn't get on.

At the next station, just where my door window slowed to a stop there was the man with the beard and bobble hat opposite me looking back. The doors opened but he didn't get on.

At the next station, just where my door window slowed to a stop there he was once more...

As my destination neared I pressed my hand against the glass and closed my eyes. The train slowed. I felt the jolt of the breaks. Then the sound of metal sliding as doors draw back, and I open my eyes to step forward.

Not there.

My Leprechaun

2008-10-23T12:31:00.003-07:00

My Leprechaun is a figment of my imagination and that's what i need right now.

He's a filthy, mischievous Chicago-bred Irish American Popeye Doyle who likes a good fight. And he's the size of a canal digger because he's in love (as a race my Leprechauns change size if someone loves them, they use love energy to do many things)... Rainbows are the portal between this world and his. Wherever there's sun and rain he can appear. Rainbows are material things for his control. My Leprechaun is covered in symbols and scars. His tattoos are not drawn with fixed ink, they animate, reflecting his erratic mood swings. My leprechaun is a magician, in the street magic slight-of-hand school... he has a large number of business cards with different messages. Supposedly possession of a full set of Leprechaun cards bonds that spirit to you, they will always be yours. I have thirteen, but i have no idea how many there are in total.

My Leprechaun version long
My leprechaun slides out of the rainbow (from where it's pretty misty).

He walks towards me all bulky full sized and naked save for his snug bowler and black leather boots, which he proceeds to remove, revealing his wooly black socks (right heel gone through and toes poking)...

He looks at me, tips the brim of his hat with his finger which makes his thoughts fizz like bubbles. i can see hearts, flowers, shamrocks and cocks all reflected.

His big legs and arms are as hairy and downy as ever but this time when he bends his limbs the joints move but the bones that should be straight curve a little too.

From the arrow-heart+shamrock tat on the back of his left hand I scan past the blue black dutch wristwatch with 13 o'clock and no hands, past the anchor on the bicep, the fuzzy shoulders, down past the tricolor painted ribs and on to where the filigree snake that wraps between his legs coils and writhes towards his chin.

He waves his arm as if ushering someone on from behind, the rainbow slides up and he sits down on the comfy coloured cushions. As normal i walk forward to kneel. He runs his fingers through my hair and says in his Chicago accent, I'm only full sized not wee, because I'm in love, I am the king because of what we found.

As usual he murmurs all the way through in filthy French slang and lakeside gutter-speak...

Later when we're done he produces his business card by way of slight of hand magic. This time the message is different but my eyes are still blurred, he stands turns and walks back into the rainbow. All the living tattoos and scars and filigree tails move to make words i can't read.

I am alone in the park again, and I have thirteen cards.

Much later: If it's war you want these people wanted war

Heart's upside down, Gamine with fluffy mustache pretends to have a severed hand by holding a bone up her sleeve.

Trying to hold Gamine's gaze i see the deuce drawn down from each eye... pretty people feel sad too says the wax Jagger to my right. As the automata's mouth moves the saftey pin that joins him to Gerritt Van Raam tears his cheek a little more.

There is and has never been atomic weapons. Gamine tuts in bored disgust as Van Raam narks on in his Californian drawl. I draw a little octopus on her left breast. I'm reaching out. I feel like i'm being electrocuted as my hand passes though Van Raam's halo. The little wooden idol is within my grasp. The three of them can do nothing, restrained by fishing wires and feathered hooks. Van Raam's snake body tries to reach me, wanting to coil and crush me. His royal haircut is hypnotising me.

I'm pulling the little wooden idol out of the halo, it feels as if i'm attempting to drag a lead weight through golden syrup. Wax Jagger's eyes glaze roll back and close. Gamine scowls, eyes at 9:15. Van Raam's little nose starts to bleed. I can't breath. I'm surrounded by spicey smoke and the smell of deep fat fried foods. Then shadows, then rainbows and my Leprechaun rushes towards me.

Thirteen business cards are falling from my back pocket

Billion Dollar Arthur

2008-10-23T12:31:00.001-07:00

My nation's ghost appears speaking of American commerce and pure Japanese invention.
Old roses and a tarnished brassy crown carry the words of a new mouthpiece Don't let the sun go down on our empire it's too much to waste. His nipples are gilded (painted-on by a misty virgin) as he looks into the distance, behind him a huge flag billows slowly in the breeze... Hand moves to right breast, every vision he's ever seen replays across his left, and every thought is rewritten down his mannered fingers. Little Mr. Coudy loves Mr. Sunburst as they row across the lake of his left pec. Clondyke? Tatrice? Storz? Hidden in Billion Dollar 12.

The dream of deep rest

2008-10-23T12:29:00.001-07:00

On my back and over me I hold and wait, the weight of you coming down. Your palms press mine. I know every detail of each tapered finger. Every curve and every hardbody part. Us together is my dream come true tonight.

So heavy, so long sad and now just really... wide. It's taken years to get to this moment. Not as bad as you expected then. You never looked so nervously Gae. Under your permission I can see and feel as much as I want.

Physical strength, emotional tenderness, abandoned in this moment. Your phobia block is conquered. So, many more choices: Kiss me like a man, 'kiss me like a guy tonight'... and now you know everything I ever said to you was not a game, a lie, or smoky joe.

Tell everyone.

0:00 all doors are open (i think my LED alarm clock is a multidimensional gateway)

2008-10-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

I wake up, the clock says 0:00
All doors are open, just for one minute, at the reset of every day.

Each 0 is a door that opens to unknown anywheres: To the left of the divider is the hour door. The most powerful in terms of space, time, mass and energy. This will take me the greatest distance. Through here it's possible to visit infinite undiscovered places and peoples. This doorway is the most physical and be warned it is two-way. They can come back through for you. Don't stare at it for too long...

To the right are the minutes: The first numeral represents Truth, the second Wishes. This last 0 is the most alluring and the most fleeting. If you are inside as the 0 changes to 1 you will become trapped within your wish, your body here comatose. The remaining 1439 minutes will be a wish-tricking nightmare.

Nine minutes and 59 seconds of pure truth is a humbling experience. Visit here too many times and a strange side effect occurs; you will develop the uncontrollable ability to analyse all the information your senses receive and process it completely instantly. This is a dangerous way to observe the world, especially people. Read their looks and moves and remember it all. You will discover the desperation of your solitude. Unexpected good things may arise but never where you look for them. Too much truth, like any drug, will destroy... Only the selfstrong and can rebuild, by learning that one must sometimes forget.

One last secret for the advanced reader: This clock can display four numerals. The final 0 is hidden on the far left. If you should find yourself awake at 00:00 you will not be alone. Perhaps you are inside time looking back, but you will see visions of every potential you, how actions taken now could interconnect and resolve in a future you. In this minute of perfect numeric symmetry you may plan your entire life.

Wet faced and solo alone so

2008-10-23T12:26:00.001-07:00

Some people don't cry. They just can't, they're not made that way. This results in people assuming they're always OK, cold, or just really moody sometimes. Sitting there the other day she wasn't sobbing or even aware of what was about to happen. As is usual these days she was self-consciously solo and semi-blinded. She realised her face was wet and her eyes were stinging. It was uncontrollably pouring out of her. A reflex action had overridden her conscious mind's attempt to hold it together. Familiar voices were laughing just out of sight. This felt cruel in an ambient infernal way. She felt weak and embarrassed, so she took herself off and hid for a while at the top of the stairs in the hope that no one would notice.

One wing missing and a feather for each name

2008-10-23T12:25:00.001-07:00

A broken bird with one missing wing transcribes the names of every love, one per turning feather... almost silently these names flutter in the air. These names, written into the very means of flight keep him aloft. These names are high in the sky. Occasionally and without pain a feather is lost. Broken bird looks down as a failing feather drifts away. That feeling is falling. It burns in the sunlight. He hangs on one wing.

A short but fatal science fiction story

2008-10-23T12:22:00.000-07:00

The aliens arrive. We never see them coming. They scan the world. A large city is chosen in the northern hemisphere. Sensors select a medium sized building for it’s average qualities. Straight lines of blue light penetrate the structure and assess the people within. The decision is made and hundreds of employees are abducted in a blinding flash.

Somewhere in the vast interior of the space ship abductees are individually filed in opaque tubes. White light makes the edges of their bare bodies blurry, their skin is tingle. Fear is eased by sedatives manufactured on other worlds. They are induced to state of absolute helpless truth. Each tube contains a communication device. It blinks into life and glows blue. It displays the faces of every other abductee. Each is made to choose three others in order of preference. The persons they would select to survive… the persons they would want to survive with...

Each considers their choice in an addled and basic manner. Some resist and refuse to make a selection. One or two simply have no preference. They are instantly rendered unconscious.

Choices are completed, with angst and guilt breaking through the sedative haze for some. Statistical analysis occurs. Two matching third choices equals a score of six. A score of two signifies a perfectly reciprocal match. Three, four and five represent the varying complex combinations of desire to save. Remaining results, the ones and zeroes, are displayed as a lower priority…

What happens next? More flashes of light, people are redistributed on the basis of the statistical analysis. Many are left alone as they did not receive votes. They are put to sleep. The couples are observed until they kill each other, fall in love or simply go insane. The aliens compare statistical selection data in its various combinations with the subsequent interactions.

Of the 437 abductees three couples make it past three months. Two men support one another through reason and intellect and eventual coupling. A man and a woman drift close to insanity but copulate so as to reconnect with their humanity. Their unborn child is taken before they are even aware of its existence. Two women paired and rated as a weak bond conspire and collaborate, never giving up hope. After an uncertain amount of time one notices a black hairline in a section of their cylindrical cell (little do they know the nuclear pummeling the exterior of their captor’s ship is taking, recently discovered by a team of scientists). The surviving women try to force the weakness… the hairline cracks like egg shell and noxious blue liquid sprays her in the face, burning and blinding with screaming agony, the other rushes to assist and inevitably blue acid smears across her naked body. She watches as soft skin starts to melt and boil… They are both put down instantly, along with the human attack somewhere outside.

Only four remain and last a few weeks more before the aliens conclude the experiment by jettisoning the two couples into the atmosphere as the ship ascends into high orbit and onward into space.

As the they fall they freeze. The man and woman are separated by the brutality of the ejection and suffocate quickly. The two men hold on to one another and last thirty eight seconds longer due to shared body heat and increased drag. The rushing thin air strips away every word before it can be heard. The slimmer of the two expires first. The last survivor hugs tight and watches black skies above turn blue once more as cirrus licks his body. Eyes close now. Prickly silver streaks coalesce on the inside of his eyelids. At terminal velocity they are a vertical blur that smashes into shards on impact.

Equus, Sleipnir and Koda Pen (memories caught in long flows)

2008-10-11T15:24:00.001-07:00

Equus

It's the afternoon of the 15th of September 2004 and I'm walking along Valencia Street in The Mission. With the sun in the west on my right I cross 17th street.

She crosses my path just as she did before. Creepers, tight dark turn-ups, an open red 'n black plaid shirt flaps over a white wifebeater. She's five nine, topped off with a Bryl 50s quiff and such beautiful bones... On the 12th of October 2008 this memory of San Francisco revolves for one moment around a rock-a-billy dyke in the middle of 17th and Valencia in The sunny Mission.

Looking forward I am slowed enough in front of an oncoming Ford to clock Valencia in sharp perspective that draws my eyes straight down to 623 the Community Thrift Store where I will find the one dollar book that sits in the shelf to the left of my bed containing the receipt that allows me to be so precise and remember Corey who served me that day.

Remembering the smell of old books and old curtains I am redrawn to a far right corner bookshelf. Low down strong black helvetica leaps out from the plain white spine of a battered paperback and I read far too tightly kerned 'EQUUS' and 'Peter Shaffer'.

Well used white creases make veins across the black cover smooth in my hand and faded red edges to each of the 128 pages flutter under my thumb. 'A United Artists Film by Sidney Lumet'. This book with Richard Burton's name and the most modern of horse's heads by Brilliant Unknown is mine. This is a 'BARD BOOK/PUBLISHED BY AVON BOOKS... A division of the Hearst Corporation 959 Eighth Avenue New York, New York 10019... June 1974 Seventh Printing... Printed in the U.S.A.'

In London now I hold it as I did then for the first time. On the back 'Gods of Terror in the Mind's Eye'. The dedication page five is 'For PAUL with love'. 'Do you think feelings like his can be simply re-attached, like plasters? Stuck onto other objects we select? Lo'... underlined on page 123.

The story ends with BLACKOUT, and further back the sky-high wall of fog above Cow Hollow just held off at midday that day.

~~Sleipnir and Koda Pen~~

Multi-legged chariot propulsion of Odin, Tjängvide is blood red and limestone blocked out by a medieval holy man, dug up in 1844, photographed by a caring Swede from the Museum of National Antiquities 1987, opened up and scanned by a motorised RGBar at some point in the recent past prior to sizing, level adjustment, export save and upload to wiki. Requested today for the umpteenth time and brightly displayed on my monitor in the middle of the night with orders to make me think of the hunt.

Eight hooves like arrow heads. Small head, gothic neck, engaged rider with spear. The snake that will eat the world coils around a leg and my braided tail is fixed with two conical iron studs.

Monkey dog little man flying boat hut-hall flying dead over the endless knot: Swedish Tjängvide stands behind security glass next to the shapeless stone Koda Pen of the Indian Gonds. I am surrounded by squat kushti wrestlers smothered in wet red earth that drips and then dries to a crust. Life size photographs. The Koda pen stone slowly rotates and for a second from one angle only it is the horse's head adored by hundreds of generations.

~~In the gallery I draw it all frantically then sit on the floor. A retired American man stands above me 'Are those drawings for sale?' I remove two pages before shaking on it.~~

Reborn as horse in battle - Part three

2008-10-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

The kettle descends, grotesque flying creatures attack, they will bring me down. Equus charges on to my command...

I duck and dodge talons. Living shadow is around me and i feel something slice my forehead. An owl's turning face with glowing eyes. A giant bat's wings... I smell shit and rotten food.

Through the smoke and the field hollows unexpectedly, my steed compacts and buckles absorbing the momentum. I am thrown. I land hard. They descend screaming. My reflex is to protect my eyes. Where is my weapon? They are on me biting and clawing through my leather and flesh. Burning pain. I see her happy again, surrounded by many handsome men. I see her in sickness. She is spiteful, she turns and walks away. As she does so all of woman-kind abandons me. I fight, on my back... am I sinking? This earth is soft.

Fight. Off me. I slash at anything that touches me. I scramble and he towers above me 20 hands high. The horse rears and I see the Mark of my Commander... He is a statue, he stamps and one of these vile things is flattened... I stab another, distracted, through the breast... Two are on him, over his head which he cannot protect. The ground here is not good... I roll onto my belly and drag myself up the incline. Something sharp slashes the back of my neck... i cry out loud.

The horse

My front legs thump into soft ground, deep to my knees. The soldier flies forward but the soft ground breaks his fall. The air around me is full of flapping things that i do not recognise... they frenzy at the fallen man. With all my strength I pull each leg up but the earth is like liquid. I try to jump but only the front of my body is in the air. One of the flying things is under my hoof. Then they are on me, at my eyes, my eyes are being torn. I have a wing in my mouth. I buck my head like a petulant foal. My hind legs are sinking deeper, suction coils around them as i try to swim, dragging me down like a sea monster. I am blind. I feel rain on ear tips.

The soldier

Thunder. In front of me in the mud, there is a pistol it's metal washing clean in the rain storm. I grab it and roll on to my back, arms straight out at point blank range i fire. The neck biter's head is gone. The ground is better here, but my steed is half sunk into the swamp.

With three shots from the pistol I pick off another... the remaining two disengage and begin to fly off through sheets of icy rain... I shoot but there are no bullets left.

Blind equus is drowning, my instinct is to move forward but instantly i start to sink, I must move back... The slashed body of the horse is slowly swallowed by the mud, panic subsides, he is noble, he cranes his neck trying to breath to the last moment. I collapse, head in my hands as the last bubbles glug. I see her face. Is she dead. Why am I still alive?

The Commander

I fall back from the light into a sea of black. The sea monster uncoils from my legs. I'm ascending. I am floating. The mud is repelled from my skin in every direction and my skin is washed clean. I am naked. I see a man crouched, head in hands 15 feet in-front of me. I am next to him. My feet touch solid ground. My hand is on his head. He looks up and the rain washes his face...

Reborn as horse in battle - Part two (20 hands high)

2008-10-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

The Rider

Why do the scavenging birds ignore the carrion and chase the living? Their kettle circles. They will bring me down.

The Groom

Equus Boreas stands over me 20 hands high, I must speak his name to wake him from his trance, but any words I have left leak out through my punctured wind pipe. There is fire light around him. He is slow. He stares with glossy black eyes lined by thick lashes. And at the end I see The Mark, as a hoof is raised above my head.

A soldier

This second battle of my sixth campaign is ending in bloody stalemate. Our lines are dislocated. My commander lost. I doubt the regime will be broken. Slow blood continues to ooze from my crown. I hallucinate. I see her face as she fires-off negative statements. I see her happy. I see her in sickness. I see her with many other men. I am alone. I am my own man. 'I am not beautiful'. I surrender to hate. I fight to make real the death of my heart. My vision is clouded.

The shape of a horse is projected by the light of exploding shells onto a screen of smoke that obscures the middle distance. Slowly this horse motions with rigorous takt... And with my master's colours wrapped around me I proceed with caution. The shadows to my right are alive. I proceed with haste. The veil of smoke and dust blows through revealing a grey stallion nearly 20 hands high. He looms in the fumeous twilight. He is hazed by descending shell trails. He points his head towards me like a giant arrow and I rush onward through bullets that aim from those shadows to my right. Hind quarters are defensively repositioned. 'Do not frighten the creature that can save you', and I realise this horse is as stunned as I am. There is after all a mile of warfare on every side...

Reborn as horse in battle - Part one

2008-10-10T13:55:00.001-07:00

I fall back from the light. My eyes open, from the side of my head I look down, a man I recognise as the Adoring Groom lies at my feet shot through, bleeding leg missing. I look into his eyes. He opens his mouth but makes no sound. As dressage demands I lift my foreleg to piaffe, then stamp. I feel the crack and gentle mixing of mud and brains. Lead riddles the air. There are too many sounds. How to choose, where to run..? I see dismembered bodies strung up in trees. There is a fallen horse on rider with her side slashed open... 36 baby Comet trails fall from the sky above my head. The inside of my nose burns. Shadows move in strange ways. There is a live man running to me. His colours slowly flow in the smoke around us... His hand strokes my face, his hazel eyes look into mine, his bloody beard brushes my cheek. In this field of death he is tender, he grabs my hair, i submit, he is heavy, he rides me as his charge as fast as I can without a care for where my feet land. Sometimes sharp things cut me. His legs grip my ribcage, we are in the air. He sinks low the length of him across my back, we cross fields. The brutal sounds behind us do not fade. I cannot look back. Something is shadow above us. My rider grips my neck and I love him. Swooping over us they are closer.