#impossible nomad

[tohakumaru]

anyhow i thought i had lost the bgs for this short but managed to salvage them, so back to wip we go....

[tohakumaru]

making incremental progress but hey!

[tohakumaru]

Wishing everyone a peaceful Moon festival this year.

[tohakumaru]

bit of compilation post to celebrate making it over the 1st half of the project. thank you for sticking around, i know it's not for everyone but it's nice to "play illustrator".

[tohakumaru]

[project page]

>walk away, go with the nomad. i love you.

since you cannot cry, you make an effort to push the stale air out of your lungs, a poor imitation of a sigh - i guess bad habits really die hard. if the nomad has noticed, then it pays you no mind and simply carries on. casting one last lingering glance at the water and the sky above, you dutifully follow. after a short while, it becomes clear that something has changed. the nomad has picked up its pace, moving in erratic strides. here and there, you find it dashing across the sand, beak and head angled upwards, as though searching, or following an invisible thread in the air, one that you can feel, but cannot quite grasp, like a long forgotten name - always on the tip of your tongue, yet never to be spoken aloud. at times, you struggle to keep up. it's so hard, you're so tired, it's too much. your eyes burn with fatigue. you want to scream, to beg the bird-thing to slow down, but the words evade you everytime you open your mouth, and the nomad does not so much as look at you. a hot and bitter pressure builds behind your nose and muffles your ears. once again you feel yourself falling apart - but the blanket wrapped around your frame and the water sloshing in your hollow stomach seem to work against your body's trajectory to disintegrate, two forces swirling inside and all around you, like a wicked pendulum that propels you forward despite, despite.

i won't let you go, should have known that from the start.

---

tenderly her eyes made their pilgrimage across the mounds of glass and steel, mourning perhaps hunger is a cure for insanity, shut-you-up-real-nice knowing full well being alive is a horrendously beautiful thing while the dogs, blood stained snouts dig out the madness, turn it into a five course meal heaving, a still-beating heart melts like butter on their lips as poorly clipped nails fumbled and fussed,

just enough to make a day-ride.

---

in this fashion, you and the nomad dance across the white sand for some time, until a hillside comes into view. upon closer inspection, you are awed to realise it is made entirely of roots. at the foot of this strange hill, a grove - an incredible indent in that tangled mass that is the tree-hill - opens up and presents an even more curious sight: 12 creatures, each bearing the likeness of a bird, but is clearly not one. they stand stock-still and solemn, with multitudes of dried flowers and glittering gemstones at their feet. their faces, elongated and coming to pointy, beak-like ends, are not dissimilar to the nomad, but much more haggard; and so immobile, it is easy to mistake them for statues, has there not been the occassional puffs of dusty smoke and shrill noises, like a kettle boiling over, coming from their beaks and throats that betray any hints of liveliness about them.

the nomad slows its steps, and looks down. it keeps its eyes to the ground as you get nearer to the grove. it occurs to you that it is avoiding the living-statues' gaze. surprisingly, they reciprocrate the gesture. Ever so slightly each of them turn their head, so their eyes fall off the nomad, and onto … you. you, who does not belong you, who comes on a leash, believing it to be choice you, who dies, and nothing changes

to your bewilderment, the statues came to life, all at once. they grovel at the flowers and gems, and toss them in handfuls at you as the nomad leads you through the grove, leaving a trail of petals and stones. when you pass the 12th statue and come to the end of the opening, everything suddenly shifts: slowly, mechanically, the roots shape themselves into a winding stairway, leading you up the hill.

calmly, the nomad signals you to go up.

what do you do?

what do you do?

turn and run, i am not ready for this

please, i don't want to go

i am so sorry

it's so hard, you're so tired, it's too much

climb the stairs, the nomad is with you

Voting ended onMay 15, 2024

[previous chapter]

[tohakumaru]

a reliquary arm and a snake

[tohakumaru]

Brines

this one was enjoyable to write, but took some time. i hope everyone is having a nice saturday.

in a remote country well hidden from the rest of the world, there was a fishing village. like many others of its kind, it was poor and dreary. terse lines of shabby thatched houses lining a lonely coast made up the bulk of this forsaken settlement. even the shore, the only source of its livelihood, had a hostile appearance: cold, dark waters that raged every season; endless stretches of grey sky framing desolate, stony beaches littered with drift woods and shallow rockpools.

in this landscape, the small wooden boats that fishermen rode out to sea in appeared flimsy and pitiful. spread out in the great blue, they seemed like slips of paper thrown about in a gale storm.

yet against all odds, the fishermen had always made it back home, sometimes even with significant catches. of course, there were years when they had gone hungry, but no one in the village had ever died from hunger. surely enough, their lives were that of quiet miseries and endless toils, but they were alive. the little village had somehow maintained their fragile survival as persistently as those wild vegetations snaking their wispy green on the wind-swept, acrid soil.

unknown to outsiders, their secrets laid in a cave boring into the cliffside. the cave was partially submerged, its mouth connected to the clifftop by a single, narrow path treacherously jutting out from the rocky surface (it was incomprehensible how the villagers had walked this way for decades without once falling victims to the height). immediately upon entering its cavern, a grown man would have to bend his head, for the ceiling hung low. he would have to bring along a source of light, for it was always dim, and whatever sun reflected from the water only served to create ghostly lines on the cave walls - light without illumination. at the far end of the cave, on a rocky outcrop was a shrine. due to the water and the low ceiling, the immediate vicinity around the shrine was inaccessible. no one knew how it came to be, or when, but it had a box-like shape, evidently carved out of driftwood as black as coal. over it hung a tattered cloth, which, over time has taken on a membrane-like liveliness. its threadbare weaves shivered in the invisible flows of air, like spidersilk tendrils feeling every disturbance to its peace.

and it was this ghostly shrine in the dim cave that the villagers' life was utterly tethered to. whatever they did, and when they did it - births, deaths and everything in between - were decided through a ritual. the villagers, young and old alike, would travel down the rocky cliff, like a line of piteous black ants. at nightfall, they would pray solemly, leave an offering of fish in a basket at the mouth of the cave, then with haste return to their homes and bolt their doors tightly till dawn. came morning, they would return and look into the basket - if there were fish-heads, all would be well. but if only fish-tails remained, then nothing would come to pass. such was the way of the village since the days of its very first inhabitants. no one had every dared to go against the will of the shrine.

but just as the sea carried the shore away one grain of sand at a time, eventually, fear wore down to tradition, to habit, then to superstition. there came a day, a bright, blue spring day, a young fisherman wanted to marry a girl. the young couple had known each other all their lives, and was as good a fit as any. and so, as was expected of them, when the time was right they went down the cliff to the cave and made their offerings. that night, they talked of nothing but preparations for the wedding, all the people, the clothes, the merrymaking. in the morning, they rose early and returned to the cave, hand-in-hand. in the basket, there were only fish-tails.

furious, the young fisherman clenched his fists and bade his aghast companion to keep quiet. irreverently, he threw the fish-tails into the sea, and sent her home. he would not have it, he had told her. he would wed her no matter what, and would rather be damned that let a dim old shrine tell him otherwise.

so the girl went home. left alone on the cliff, the young man was pacing back and forth trying to think of what to do when he saw an emaciated gull catching a fish. the bird had almost swallowed the fish whole, but then spit out the tail at last. suddenly, it occured to the fisheman that something in the cave must have been eating the fish, all willy-nilly as dictated by hunger, rather than any sort of divine-intervention at all! convinced of this, he resolved to trap this creature, to settle the matter of his marriage, and perhaps all the foolishness of the villagers for good.

the next day, bright and early he got to work catching a basket full of fish. instead of bringing them to the midday market, or salting them to keep as usual, he brought them down to the cave, and, after finding a hollowed crop nearby, hid himself in wait. his eyes and ears were strained on the mouth of the cave, alert for any sounds or movements.

at times, the loneliness of the cliff, its sand-swept stones and solemn height collapsed on him a chill unlike anything he has ever felt, as if telling him to leave, but the fisherman persisted. however, when night fell and the world around him plunged into darkness saved for the silver moon hanging like a phantom in the sky, something strange happened. everything had gone quiet. the winds stopped their howling. even the crashing of the waves against the rocks were muted - the brutish rhythms of the sea retreated, now sounding as though coming from inside a conch shell. before he knew it, the fisherman was sound asleep.

when he awoke, he found that basket wascompletely empty; and likewise, he could not make heads or tails of what has taken place. yet he did not give up. in the afternoon he returned with another basket of fish, and once more laid in wait.

but the exact same thing happened that night, the night after, and then the one after it. after one week, the fisherman was more despondent than angry. he was quite sure now that there was a creature in the cave, but he had caught no sight nor sounds of it, nor even any fish-bones! he thought of telling the villagers, but who would believe him? he thought of giving up, but his pride did not let him.

for some days, although the fisherman resumed his routines and continued to bring fish to the market, always he looked sad and troubled. the villagers thought he was merely pre-occupied with preparations for the wedding, and paid him no minds, but that could not be further from the truth. no, he was no longer thinking of his bride or any wedding at all: on his mind was the cave, the darkness, the empty baskets in the mornings.

towards the end of the summer, one afternoon, as the market ended and the fisherman was making ready to leave, a haggard vagabond approached him to beg for food, which he gladly shared. as beggar ate, he asked the young man what was troubling him, for though he was young and capable, he clearly was very unhappy.

so the fisherman found himself spilling his sorrows to the vagabond. he told him of everything that had taken place, the cave, the eerie silence, his suspicions. when he finished, the vagabond only nodded, and, after rummaging in his cloth-sack, pulled out a dark green root.

take this, he said, and put it under your tongue. when you find yourself falling asleep, bite down and you shall be awake as long as you wish.

the young man took the roots, but did not immediately trust the stranger. he kept this for some time, but as summer turned to autumn and the dark blue sea hardened, he once more longed to be wedded, and decided to try again.

this time, he was more careful than ever in hiding himself. after making sure he could not be seen from the cave, he placed the root under his tongue and waited. like clock work, when darkness descended and silence took hold, the fisherman once again grew drowsy. but he bit down hard on the root. an incredibly bitter and sour juice flooded his mouth and brought tears to his eyes, but it kept him more alert than ever. he held his breath and stared at the cave.

at first, everything was still, deadly still. but then, something moved. from the darkness of the cave rose an extraordinary figure: a silhouette of a thing appearing like a giant mass of seaweed. when it slithered into the moonlight, he saw the monstrous creature with the upper body resembling that of man, but not quite. it had the glassy, hungry eyes of a sea serpent, webbed, claw-like hands and heaving gills on its torso. the lower body was elongated and tapered towards the end, but the flesh was crawling and throbbing like hundreds of centipedes braided together, gnawing on each other. in one claw, it held the severed head of a woman. in another, twelve pairs of hands tangled in a fishing net, clasped as though in prayers.

the monster stood, then lifed the severed head up levelled with its eyes. the head opened its mouth and began to sing as blood gushes from the eye sockets. the voice that came was sweeter than sugar cane, a melody that could bring one weeping, if one was not petrified from the terrifying sight. the fisherman was trembling in fear. he wanted to run, or to dived into the sea and forget all this horror, but his legs did not let him. as if possessed, he dashed out from his hiding spot and confronted the monster.

he cursed and cursed. he spit out vitriolic insults and vulgar words that he was not even aware he knew. he felt like his body was emptying itself of all the filth it held. and then, as sudden as it started, he ran out of words, and all all quiet. staring into the monster's eyes, fear returned to the fisherman. fear replaced every thing. he was quite sure he would be dead, that the monster would eat him whole, leaving neither heads nor tail. an empty basket in the morning.

but the monster only looked on. it was the severed head that spoke, in a voice sweeter than sugar cane.

you don't love her, it said. you just want a wife. she doesn't love you, it said. she just doesn't have anything better to do. very well, it said. try again in a forthnight. i'm tired of fish anyhow.

and the world crumbled under the fisherman's feet. darkness soft and warm. he woke up in his own bed. two weeks later, after a basket full of fish-heads, he married his girl. a year later, they had a child. then another, and all was well.

in the third year, the eighth month brought with it a violent storm that raged for weeks. the village was not harmed, for they had followed their rituals, and knew when to secure the boats, to stockpile fish, and kept stones to hold down their roofs. but one day, they awoke to see a horrendous sight of a massive vessel thrown mercilessly against the cliffs by the waves. helplessly, they watched as the people on the ship wailed and struggled, only to be swallowed by the sea one by one. when the sea calmed again, they ran to the shore, and found a sole survivor - a woman who had miraculously washed ashore.

the villagers took her in and nursed her back to health. the woman was quite different from them. she did not speak their language, and took some times to get used to their way of life. however, she was gentle and agreeable. she quickly pleased the people, and always showed gratitude to them for saving her life. moreover, she was incredibly beautiful.

the beauty of the strange woman was not lost on the young fisherman. they never spoke, but he was quite sure she had looked at him sometimes, differently from when she looked at others. when he lay in bed at night next to his wife, he thought of her graceful neck, how her hair fell across her back, and the way her lips moved when she spoke in her foreign tongue. he found his heart yearning, and soon realised he was in love.

in this way the months went by. spring came again, and as usual brought with it a drunken hopefulness, even to a place as desolate as the poor fishing village. one night, after a successful catch at sea, the whole village gathered to celebrate. the merry-making lasted well into the night. everyone had been drinking and dancing, including the ship-wrecked woman and the young fisherman. eventually, they broke off from the crowd and walked towards the cliff.

a warm wind was blowing from the sea. all was serene and quiet. in the moonlight they stood, and she looked more beautiful than ever. they did not speak. she looked up at him with her clear, beautiful eyes. he gazed at the nape of her neck, the curtain of her hair over her shoulders. his eyes fell on her lips, and he could not help himself. he leaned in and kissed her.

to his bewilderment, she began to laugh. a weightless laught that shook her whole body. then, her skin and flesh from head to toe shrivelled and flaked off from her bones. stood before him was a mount of rotting fish-tails and fish-heads. her hair had tangled into a mop of seaweed that smelled like the foams on waves.

the big moon blinked. in the distance, he heard a faint melody, one so familiar yet he could not quite place his finger on.

[tohakumaru]

carrots flowers

(it is a bit long, if you do read it i hope you fall asleep before the end. not proof-read because i am tired)

long, long ago, when clouds spent their time wandering; and the sun was never in any hurry to rise or set, in a faraway corner of the world, comforted by the low darkness of a deep valley, was a tiny village.

the village was so small that, when viewed in the tapestries of mankind, no-one was certain that it had ever truly been there. yet, some people would tell, with such conviction that one has no choice but to believe it really happened, that to this village, there was once a girl born with two heads. to the front, a dove-eyed maiden as lovely as the dew that hangs on petal before dawn, and slighty off to the left, red-tongued, white-teeth, a plain, black dog's head.

whether her parents had grieved when she came into the world had never mattered the girl. the two heads were best friends. when she cried, its warm tongue would lap up all her tears, and tickled her so that she started to laugh and soon forgot all her sorrows. if the dog whined, she would stroke its ears, and it would nuzzle her lovingly with it soft, wet nose.

despite this harmless existence, their abnormality was not well tolerated by the villagers, who only turned more scornful as the girl grew older. pity, disgust, hatred, they would avert their eyes, but the girl could always feel their gaze burning on her dog-head. the canine tumour, an aberration, a curse, a blasphemy to god. they would never say it, but it was all too loud in the way they clenched the jaws, curled their lips and gritted their teeth whenever she was near.

against all odds, however, the girl was lovely and kind. she was the perfect daughter to her parents, and worked hard in the fields and at home. perhaps she had hoped, that if her faces could not please them, then her devotion would. alas, this is not one of those stories.

as the years came and went, the young maidens of the village one by one found their suitors, and were married. all but the two-headed girl. this broke her heart, but never once did she feel any resentment towards the dog-head. they might have been girl and beast, but they shared the same body and heart, and would have happily lived out their years this way. her parents, however, having been silently dismayed all those years, could no longer bear the dog-head. they lamented her fate; they grieved for their own. grief soon turned to shame, and in time gave way to anger. they looked high and low for a way to be rid of the dog, despite their daughter's pleading. how dare she try to protect that thing? she did not know better - they did. they loved their child, their girl. they wanted the best for her. they wanted her to be married and had children of her own. but the dog! that ugliness! what had they done that was so wrong, to earn them this punishment? for surely it must have been a punishment, having to put up with those looks, those malicious whispers years after years. the humiliation was too much to bear.

that summer, one day, when the air was humid and heavy, in the restless darkness of the midnight, they roused their daughter from sleep, bound her hands and feet, stuffed rags into her mouth and tightly clamped the dog's snout shut. her mother led they way with a flickering lantern, while her father hauled her on his shoulders behind. they ignored her muffled cries, and kept on walking on and on, deep into the forest. the air was eerily still. the trees solemn as if holding their breaths.

they only stopped once they reached a dark clearing where stood a shabby wooden hut. at the door, glaring at them was a woman. her face, so old and gaunt that her skin resembled tree-barks, framed in a wild mass of white hair that ran the length of her body. her back, draped in a thick, dark cloth, showed a large hunch. she sat motionless, but her eyes were sharp and watching them like a bird of prey over pitiful rabbits.

the girl was terrified. glancing at her dog-head she saw it eyes also mad with fear. all the barks and growls that found no way out under the clamped snout foamed at the corner of its lips. for the first time in their lives, both were helpless to comfort the other.

two heads and four eyes could only watch as their parents fell to their knees before the strange woman of the woods. one body recoiled in terror, as they heard their loved ones begged for the dog-head to be taken way, for good, no matter the price.

the old woman groaned out a sound that could have been a broken laugh, dry like pine branches in summer heat. she looked at the hapless creature bound on the ground, and coldly told the man and woman before her that she wanted for naught. certainly, she could rid of the dog-head, but they must hold their daughter still. they must not speak to her, and by no means, no matter what were to happen, what they were to see or hear, could they allow the girl-head to answer to the dog-head.

without any hesitation, they agreed and dragged their daughter into the hut. her father sat on her torso, holding down her legs, while her mother pinned her arms and had her head firmly gripped and bundled in cloth, leaving only a small gap for her nose to breathe. the old woman went after them. wordlessly, she kneeled down and loomed over the dog-head. she lowered her head, then removed the dark cloth, and parted the hair that obscured her body. from below the nape of her neck, where the hunch should have been, out came a terrible black snake with glossy amber eyes and rippling scales. the snake slithered downwards, and wrapped itself around the dog-neck. slowly, the tightened its muscles and strangled in earnest. the dog groaned and whined through its retraints, eyes bulging and blood vessels bursting. then the clamp broke open, but the dog could only gaped its mouth and choked. blood gurgled and splurted from its nose and ears. the purple, swollen tongue lolled out of its mouth, half bitten off in its own panic. all the while it desperately strained and struggled, trying to look for its girl, but its eyes only met the cold amber gaze of the snake.

the girl-head, almost suffocated under her mother's grip, cried and cried. any noises she could make swallowed by the weight of her parents on her. from her neck through her little body shot a pain unlike anything she had ever felt. though she was still breathing, her lungs were leadened as if filled with water. her spine twisted as though being ripped from her flesh. she could feel her dog-head, she wanted to stroke its ears, to touch its wet nose and have its warm tongue tickling her face, but all she felt on her skin was her own tears, or was it the dog's blood running down her face?

when night lifted, the snake loosened its coils and retreated once again beneath the old woman's neck. the dog head was completely gone. on the girl's neck, only a faint birth-mark remained.

strangely, when they returned to the village, no-one seemed to have any memories of the dog-head, not even the girl. she continued to be the perfect daughter, if anything even lovelier than before. her parents alone remembered, the snake, the dog, the blood.

towards the end of that year, a band of wealthy merchants happened to pass through the village. one of them was a handsome young man, who, after only a few days of lodging in the village, had seen the girl and asked her parents for her hand in marriage. he promised them his great prospects, and offered to pay a dowry in gold, a sum much greater than anything they could ever imagine here in the village. however, he wished to be married immediately, and to take her away as soon as the merchants finished their business in that country. he would pay the villagers handsomely to arrange a wedding banquet, and of course, everyone would be invited for their troubles.

the girl's parents and the villagers were only too happy to oblige. with the merchant's gold, they put up a great feast in the village hall. never before had the villagers been given so much food. wine and mead flowed into the night. the cooks brought out endless heaps of meats, breads and cakes.

while everyone made merry and feasted, the girl sat smiling meekly and ate only very little. it seemed her loveliness set her apart from the rest. her groom eyed her from head to toe in her simple wedding gown and felt quite pleased with himself. what a polite and obedient wife he had found! perhaps she was quite simple minded, being from this back-water of a place, he thought, but no matter, there were always other kinds of fun to be had.

when the feast ended, they were lead to their wedding chamber. in the dark room, the girl laid bare on the clean white sheet. she felt him reaching for her. his calloused fingers touched her feet, still a little greasy from the feast, smelling of meat and wine. suddenly, she was struck by a pang of hunger so ravenous that all her fears deserted her. she felt a rumble in her stomach, saliva filling her mouth from the back of her tongue. her teeth longed for all that delicious, delicious food.

now, she could feel his left palm on her thigh. she could not see in the darkness, but something told her he was smiling. he leaned down, gleefully. he ran a hand over her shoulder and thought she was trembling, his lovely little village-wife. but his lips soon found something much sharper than the kiss of a gentle maiden.

when it was pass noon and the wedded couple had not risen, the villagers opened the door to the wedding chamber, only to find half a groom, and no bride at all.