#corpse bloom

[snowibom]

[raspberryspace]

Conservatory of Flower - 7/8/23

It was genuinely hard to be back in here again. As much as I wanted to take pictures of everything I barely pulled out my camera. Everything was blooming.

I saw the same flower that bloomed in 2009 again though. To think of all I’ve lived through while the little plant was collecting energy to bloom for 6 days in 2023 again. Amorphophallus titan. An unfortunate name given to such an alien plant.

[insincereapology]

THE WORLD ENDS IN WAVES ( or how to kill a world )

( there are four steps to this. ) resurrection, they said, was a kind of salvation. it was also the end of days in a way, but this world dislikes any challenge to its immortality too much to have this preached to its inhabitants. this is step one of the apocalypse: write up an illusion that the victim (world) will live forever, and blot out any warning that a last chapter existed for their story. why is this necessary, you ask? it is sweeter to shatter something that believes itself unbreakable. the second step is simply to make the first nothing but what it is in the end: an illusion. take the opposite of life and spell it out plainly for the world to see. repeat it until it becomes a reality. hang it before their eyes ( like a noose ) and let them burn this concept into their memory. this is when the world starts to break. the third step requires a butcher's role. take the knife to the remains and divide them. watch as they bleed ( each other ) out, until nothing else flows out and the time of death is proclaimed. name the world's murderer: itself. step four: separate yourself from this dead thing. declare yourself something otherworldly, or immortal, or deity. bury the concept of the dead world and leave it it to rot. don't dwell on the thought of this murder and do nothing. fill in the new void. create your own world, perhaps. ( and watch as we return to step one. )

[l-achrymose]

lionel elisade x dagan ; for @pasquilante

The two of them sat in the dinky bed of someone else’s truck, watching the world scroll by like it was a 2D game that they had yet to become familiar with. Dagan’s cloak fluttered as it hung at his neck, like butterflies, or the fading breaths of Yonna when they had found her barely alive in the dark— 

“Hey,” suddenly the blond boy chirped. “It’s the ocean!” 

And the highway fell before them, crumbling and giving way to the vast blue; existing as far as the eye could see and beyond. And suddenly nothing mattered anymore.   

[l-achrymose]

There was something soft in her that made the ex-mafioso freeze, would have killed her if this had been a legitimate danger; her heart was still pounding in her chest, threatening to rise up in her throat when she let the gun slip back into her jeans once again. [...] "What do you want in return for the help?"

"A partnership," Caterina suggested, lowering her shaky hands. "We can team up, if you would like. I used to work at a hospital in the city, delivering babies and helping sick people." A truth, but she knew that anyone could lie. 

[insincereapology]

"don't go."

“i guess this is goodbye.”

a nod. zach couldn’t trust himself to reply.

“don’t worry.” a sad, rare smile was painted on the lotus eater’s lips. “we can always send each other emails. letters, even, if you want.”

he knew mere words made of ink and pencil dust wouldn’t be enough, but he didn’t speak even as the announcer reminded the passengers to enter their respective train cars.

luci had soundlessly entered, his dull midnight yukata following along with his luggage that conveniently had wheels for ease of transportation. the lotus eater turned to look at the masked one’s hidden eyes, and smiled a sad smile as he raised a hand to say goodbye.

zach didn’t want to say goodbye, though. he only wanted to say one thing though, but couldn’t bring himself to even open his lips.

​"don’t go.“​

but the train doors had closed, and it began to roll on steel rails towards tokyo, playing a mechanical staccato for zach as it left, taking whatever remained of his hope and happiness with it.

he had no choice to return to his home with only his shadow cast by flickering street lights as his companion.

…..

[insincereapology]

Beside him lay an open notebook– seemingly empty, yet if one looked closer a single line, a sentence, marred the pure white of the paper. A pencil and a ballpoint pen– its ink was black, like the darkness that enveloped the young man– sat next to the open notebook, sticking to each other like two teenage lovers rebelling at the forces desiring to tear them apart.

[l-achrymose]

(i) you thought i was that type: an interview

“i used to think i was a strong kid, ya’ know? then this apocalypse comes around and it just- it happens. it erupts and ya’ don’t have time to think anymore because everything’s either dead or trying to kill you or somewhere inbetween. no more connections and no more gettin’ your way easy outta’ some stupid mistakes, no more poppin’ pretty little bullets as carefree as ya’ used to. 

you just gotta’ get used to lookin’ death in the eye, i guess.” 

i. what is your name?

“Rhys. It’s Rhysling Connors. I think it means either hero, fierce warrior, or enthusiasm, which- I guess, works. Connors, well. Means ‘lover of wolves’, and I try not to look too deep into that.” 

“Um, this one’s really stereotypical, but I go by Red, too. It’s short and monosyllabic and to the point.” [mumbling off to the side] “Dad used to call me Little Red, but no one says that to me anymore.” 

ii. how old are you? 

“I turned twenty this November and it’s not as old as I thought it’d feel. A lot of us are over twenty, and. I’ve been trying to protect the younger kids.” [winces a little bit] “Doesn’t always work out. Especially with some of their attitudes.” 

“My birthday? November... 24th? Yeah, it’s the 24th. Makes me a Sagittarius, ninth astrological sign in the western Zodiac, fire sign, yada yada yada. Apparently that makes me an adventurous and independent woman...?” 

iii. where were you born? 

"I think it was on the couch of a rented hotel room in New York City. My, uh-” [laughing] “-dad isn’t exactly the kind of guy to rush his wife into the hospital. I don’t think he can, but that’s besides the point. I technically didn’t exist in the system- oh, god, this sounds like one of those bad novels already-”

“Yeah, alright, I had a crime boss as my dad. Surprisingly, my mom was a normal person. As in, a completely legal job normal person.”   

iv. talk about your family. 

“Mm. That’ll take long, so I’ll do this in under fifty words or less. Dad? Mafia boss, branched off from his dad’s line, little overprotective. Mom? Bioengineer and research scientist, punched him in the face and he called it love. Brother? Half-brother more like, gay weaboo jerk who dyes his hair because it’s not naturally red. Jake- because Jake counts, of course- underboss, awkwardly shares the name of an ex, cool vodka aunt except as an uncle.” 

“I can’t tell if that was over fifty words or not.” 

 “The closest I’ve gotten to a family now is- ... no one? Well, for all it counts, I thought of Zach and Strider as brothers for a little while.” 

v. what is your first memory? 

“As in the first one I can ever remember? No? The first one that came to mind?” 

“Um, way back when in the early days of the apocalypse, I- uh. I was trapped with a couple of guys in the amusement park we were in when it all first happened. They were cool guys. It was when the zombies were more dangerous than the people, so, it was... I hate to say this, but it was fun. There was less worrying about who’d backstab us and more on how to divide rations. I used to bother people on the radio, the guys who didn’t want to hang out with us. ... They were okay, too.” 

“Oh, right, a specific memory. The first time we ran into a Tank. None of us had any powerful guns- there was a lot of screaming and running as fast as we could, far, far away. A couple of us tried to climb up the Ferris wheel and-” [sheepish laughing] “-trying to get down afterwards, it was like getting cats down from a tree.” 

“There were a lot of cats back then...” 

vi. what hobbies do you have? 

“See this?” [flips a small knife into hand] “I like to spin this around while I think. It helps me calm down, too. Having anything that can kill whatever comes back from the dead suddenly is settling. I also spin guns around, too, when I have them on hand. And baseball bats, sometimes.”

“When I talk to people, I, like. Tend to tilt my head to the side a lot. The degree of the angle depends on the meaning? Like, 80 degrees is a ‘huh’ and a 45 degrees is an ‘ooooh’- y’know? It’s hard to explain-” [tilting head a bit] “-you gotta see it.”