Canthus

stories from the corner of your eye

[erylon]

One of my favorite dynamics: A couple where one of them thinks that their own life isn't worth much, and is willing to sacrifice themself for a larger good and their partner gets pissed when they try to act on that

Bonus points if they're both like this, but the one talks the other around without ever questioning or confronting this thinking in themself

[thecanthus]

I got my Glass Scientists pre-order swag today! The book came in a while ago, but its still very pretty and exciting

I had accidentally deleted my confirmation email of the book, so I thought I couldn't get the pre-order things, but I sent in a request with the book shipment message with the pre-order number. I honestly wasn't expecting to get anything, I thought it wouldn't count and I was too late, so I was overjoyed to have received anything!

[eye-pop-emoji]

[thecanthus]

Do you like comics? Do you have emotions that are sometimes too big and hard to deal with?

Overjoyed is a comic about being an adult with very big emotions that can get out of control.

OverJoyed

"Inside Out" meets "Avatar the Last Airbender" in a short story about coping with extremely strong emotions as an adult.

This Kickstarter is to get Overjoyed printed as a physical book. Its running until March 16th.

This comic is the result of a lot of heart and hard work. Please check it out! Maybe you or someone you know might benefit from a comic about grappling with strong emotions as an adult.

[thecanthus]

The Kickstarter ends March 16th, at 8PM PDT.

Thats only 12 hours. Please contribute if you can, and reblog to get more eyes on it! Every backer tier gives you the printed comic, and some you can get a lapel pin or another printed comic by the author.

[thecanthus]

6 hours left

[thecanthus]

Do you like comics? Do you have emotions that are sometimes too big and hard to deal with?

Overjoyed is a comic about being an adult with very big emotions that can get out of control.

OverJoyed

"Inside Out" meets "Avatar the Last Airbender" in a short story about coping with extremely strong emotions as an adult.

This Kickstarter is to get Overjoyed printed as a physical book. Its running until March 16th.

This comic is the result of a lot of heart and hard work. Please check it out! Maybe you or someone you know might benefit from a comic about grappling with strong emotions as an adult.

[thecanthus]

The Kickstarter ends March 16th, at 8PM PDT.

Thats only 12 hours. Please contribute if you can, and reblog to get more eyes on it! Every backer tier gives you the printed comic, and some you can get a lapel pin or another printed comic by the author.

[thecanthus]

how can I be a writer

when I live in the literal world?

the world of is

not the world of as

where simile and metaphor are foreign lands

I can only visit for short times

and the air there is thin

and all the paths have boulders

that I must push aside

before I can pass

but I do not live in the world as is

I exist in this reality

but I live in the world of starships and dragons

of magic lighting up the cobwebbed and leaf littered corners

of the beings that stand between the stars

these places I live

they are a fire in my stomach

that cradles my heart

and builds a pressure

that demands to be released

but between the fire and you

is me

and the fire becomes only banked coals

on my lips

in my pen

but I am learning and

one day

I will breath flames

[thecanthus]

why do so many scifi writers have zero imagination when it comes to alien sexes and genders?? And the people meeting them! Why do the humans in these stories always seem to have such a hard time imagining anything other than male and female? Its tiring and boring

[thecanthus]

Also! Why the fuck do they have sex at all? That is not the only possible form of reproduction, surely! We are somewhat limited in imagination in this just because of what we have available to study on earth, but I refuse to believe that every possible method of reproduction has evolved on earth. there have to be ways we don't know, so try to be more imaginative!

[thecanthus]

why do so many scifi writers have zero imagination when it comes to alien sexes and genders?? And the people meeting them! Why do the humans in these stories always seem to have such a hard time imagining anything other than male and female? Its tiring and boring

[thecanthus]

"Godspeed, tiny machine"

[thecanthus]

She never grew old. She only grew older.

And her teeth grew sharper

[thecanthus]

"Good Evening, Daddy Long Bones!"

"Hello, children. Have you come to make a request? and what have you brought to barter with?"

[thecanthus]

The Kidnapping - Part the First

    The canyon was large, and deep, and dry. And hot, of course, but all of Jawad was hot. Dry rocks, light brown, striped with red and blue, stretched for all the foreseeable distance, from the top of the canyon down to the bottom. Over a mile in some places, it was said. Bits of shrub and plant life clung on where it could. From where they stood, the pair could see, down one channel, a river, appearing quite small from above, slinking its way through the groove in the rocks, attempting to reach the ocean. Greenery lined it’s entire length.

   Ches reclaimed her perch on Tek, her Genki partner, and adjusted her wide brimmed hat to block more of the sun from her face. Let’s get goin’ she said through their link and Tek began making the climb down the not-quite-vertical wall.

   The informant they’d managed to catch, a man left behind to take care of the house in town who quickly buckled under pressure and would likely end up dead if his friends ever found him, had told them, mostly willingly, where the children would be kept. There was a grotto, of sorts, a night’s ride by horse down the leftern most channel. Not the one with the river. It was a nice little hideout spot. Away from the sun and the worst of the heat and there was, apparently, a spring inside providing plenty of clean water. Being such a distance into the canyon, and the grotto being largely hidden behind some fallen boulders, it wasn’t likely to be found by accident. Certainly not more than once.

It should be easy enough to find, they figured, and quick enough to get the children back to their mother.

   Tek clacked his way down to the canyon floor, his sharp, metal tipped leg-points shunking into the cracks in the cliff wall like pitons. Ches never seemed to get over the stomach churning turn from upright to facing the ground, thankful every time for the straps that kept her in place. Amusement came through the link, You know I’d catch you if you fell, Tek told her.

   Even you aren’t so fast, Ches said, ’Sides, I don’t fancy those spikes of yours in my sides.

   Tek humphed, but didn’t respond, staying focused on the last half of the climb. Before long, the floor was close enough to jump down to, and Tek began down that leftside channel. By mutual consent, they traveled as much as possible in the shade along the right hand wall. Tek’s footsteps clicked and echoed up and down the channel.

   I think we need to put on your booties, Ches said, realizing the noise would notify their target they were coming and any surprise they had would be gone.

   I hate my booties, Tek said, sulking, but stopped, letting Ches off his back, and lifting his legs for her to put the booties on. I can’t climb in them.

   I know, I’m sorry, bud. We’ll make this quick, yeah? Ches said, as they set off again.

   She really did hate to do anything that upset Tek, and she knew he felt the same about her. They’d been together since they were kids. She remembered when he found her; she’d been young, maybe ten years old, acting as a farmhand for her family, helping with the horses when she wasn’t in school. He had come into town during his Travels, the coming-of-age practice of his people. A scary and exciting prospect for a child, Ches thought, to wander around alone, into different environments to gain new skills and adaptations, and bring those back to their people. Most of the time, they didn’t find Partners, but sometimes, they did. In Tek’s case, he did.

   Ches and her father had been coming into town for a shopping trip that day and had been surprised to find a crowd outside the grocer’s, including the grocer. A couple questions floated out from the group, ‘How long will you be here?’, ‘Where’ve you been?’, ‘Do you have any stories?’. When they went to investigate, they found a Genki the size of a pony in the middle of the group - youngster Tek. Genki were a common sight, there were often one or two going through town, and the Genki town was only a day’s ride away. Even the buildings were made with the intent of Genki being able to use them. But Traveling Genki, while they weren’t unknown to show up, every so often, were uncommon, maybe one every four or five years. Ches couldn’t remember any showing up in her lifetime before that.

   Tek was facing away from Ches and her father, and they had business to attend to, so they couldn’t stay long, but Ches wanted to hear the answers to those questions. She had heard that Genki spoke in the mind, and wondered what that was like, and she was genuinely curious about the answers, and wanted to know if he did have any stories. Her father told her she could stay while he took care of what errands he could, while they waited for the grocer to not be distracted by the new visitor.

   Ches noticed that the Genki’s legs ended in spikes and wondered if that hurt on the hard packed ground, or if it was hard to walk on the soft sand of the nearby desert. Before she knew she was doing it, she had asked him just that, and immediately blushed, realizing instantly how intrusive and rude those questions were. He turned to face her, his head, like a horse head if shaped by a spider, leading his long neck. His six legs, each extending up from his oval dark-brown body, then back down to a point on the ground, tick-tocking on the hard earth. His almost humorously short tail dragging a thin half circle in the dust.

   All the air in Ches’ lungs froze, her throat stopped working, as she looked into those eyes so alien to her own, a face that seemed to share no connection to humans in any form, but that drew her in until she couldn’t feel the earth beneath her feet, the sun on her skin. It wasn’t that he was scary, because he wasn’t. Really, it was that there was something she didn’t understand, wasn’t sure she ever would understand, deeper than her thoughts, than her heart, made her want to get to know this being that shared the world with her, this specific entity that appeared in her life. Get to know him and never leave his side. And somewhere, in that space below her thoughts and her heart, she felt the same thing coming from a mind she hoped to one day know as well as her own, the same desire to know and never part.

   A flushing of nostalgic amusement swept through that deeper than thought link, bringing Ches back to the present. I remember that day, too. An image came through, of a small, healthily broad, brown human child, yellow shirt covered by dusty denim overalls and two braids down her shoulders, wide brown eyes staring and shocked. Adult Ches winced, recovering into a chuckle and a smile, We were both dorks, weren’t we?

   The sun had continued on her journey during their reminisces and their shade was quickly disappearing, approaching the time of day without shadows. Tek had adapted to this heat and light, but human Ches needed her long white clothes and broad hat to keep the sun away from her far too sensitive skin. The air, however, carried the heat like water, in under her sleeves and up her pant legs, inside with every breath and drying out her lungs and throat, until it felt oppressive and difficult to breath, forcing her to take judicious sips of water, that she just then sweated out again.

   Small lizards darted away and into hiding as this large creature the dusty color of sun bleached rocks approached, a white cloaked human on his back, dashing out to sunbathe somewhere else, high above them on the jagged cliff edge with a million spots the perfect size for the little things. A few scraggy plants dotted the cliff walls and hid in the shadows under small overhangs and along the dry riverbed that became a large river during the rainy season, and provided cover and food for the grasshoppers that lept up every few steps, rushing out of the way, sometimes into the mouth of a waiting lizard.

   Ches knew there was more life here than was apparent on the surface. Little creatures and tough plants, mostly, spiders and insects and the lizards that fed on them, some rodents that scurried about and dug tunnels under the ground. But not much larger. Very rarely, someone wandering about the canyons might come across a small herd of buffalo or even donkeys, never staying in one place for more than half a day, eking out a living on what green there was. For the moment, the Duo were likely to be the largest thing moving about, especially at midday.

   The sun rose, revealing what had been in shadows and Tek moved them over to the other side of the canyon, to take shelter in the shade that would be slinking back out as the sun resumed its course back down to the earth. They stopped only briefly for food and water and to relieve themselves. Tek’s adaptations to the hot, dry environment meant he could go several days without any of those three things, but it would be uncomfortable and there was no point to, since they wouldn’t be away from town that long.

As it was getting on towards suppertime, the shadows lengthening, they found the grotto they had been told of. Three large boulders, much like any of the boulders they had passed on the way, made a sort of L against the far wall, at a junction where the riverbed split into two streambeds, a fork in the canyon. Nicely hidden behind the boulders was a small opening, little more than a crack in the rock, cool, moist air emanating from within, smelling of water on dry earth and a scent of campfire and cooking meat.

                                           TO BE CONTINUED

[thecanthus]

Miss you

I sometimes dream about you still

That we are Sitting

Watching Netflix

Talking

About our books

Smiling

Laughing

But I wake up

And the hurt is there

And you

Are not

[thecanthus]

The Scream

It gets stuck in my teeth And I swallow it down and It gets stuck in my chest Cling wrap on my lungs

[thecanthus]

Sweet Tea

They eye your McDonald’s sweet tea. “That’s not real sweet tea” they inform you, with their hands on their hips.

“It’s not real” they repeat as you stare at them.

“Not real” they insist as they ignore your warning.

“Not real” they whisper in fear as they finally feel the millions of spiders that have now reached their waist.

“It’s not real” they whimper, as their chest becomes a writhing mass of spiders.

“Not real” they mutter as their eyes, wide, are covered and there now stands a pillar of spiders.

“Not real” the wind sighs, as the spiders scurry back to the places they will be from.

You are alone and you drink your McDonald’s sweet tea.

[thecanthus]

Canthus

She saw it, out of the corner of her eye, and it moved just like a spider. After she climbed back into her skin, she realized, it was not a spider. Nor a bug. Nor even a living thing. It was just a bit of black fluff, being puffed along by a forgotten breeze. She sighed to herself, putting her hand flat on her chest and feeling her heart beat a rapid tattoo against her bones. The bit of fluff blew itself under the counter and she didn’t think about it anymore. Afterall, it was just fluff.

   Once her teeth were clean, her face washed, her bowels emptied, she went to bed and slept fitfully. (She had always had trouble sleeping if she got too warm, and trying to sleep comfortably in the windless Summer nights, without even a working fan to keep cool, was impossibly close to impossible.) Awaking, after 8 hours of near-constant tossing and turning, she felt like her face was stuffed with cotton, which liquified when she sat up, draining into her nose and eyes and leaked down her cheeks and into her mouth and down her chin. Briefly, she considered going into work anyway; there was an important presentation she was to give, but there was no way she could talk her way through a presentation when she couldn’t even pronounce half the words intelligibly.

She called into work. Talked directly to her boss, after having to fumble her way through speaking with a receptionist. He ranted. He raved. He even tried cajoling, but after the fifth time of her breathlessly whisper-shouting “I’m sig!” he finally relented and reluctantly and sullenly agreed to postpone the presentation, though he apparently felt he couldn’t do that without a snide remark about the guests that came from however many miles away or from another country to see the presentation.

As she hung up, she thought for the thousandth time about how she needed to find another job.

She texted girlfriend, asking for chicken noodle soup, ginger ale, and cuddles. There was acquiescence and within a half hour there was a friendly, warm body cuddled up with her on the sofa, a simmering pot of chicken noodle soup on the stove, two glasses of ginger ale next to the giant box of Kleenex on the coffee table with the rest of the two liter in the fridge, and an episode of Cold Case streaming on her laptop.

If she hadn’t been sick, it would have almost been perfect.

They spoke little, it enough to be near each other. Half-way through the third episode, with half a bowl of now quite cool soup in her hands, girlfriend jumped half a foot, then sighed and chuckled. She, thankful that the soup had cooled and she hadn’t burned herself when a large dollop spilled onto her shorts and shirt, looked a question at girlfriend, as she carefully placed the bowl on the table and grabbed handfuls of Kleenex.

Girlfriend looked sheepish and said, “Sorry. I thought I saw a spider, but it was just a bit of fluff scooting along.”

“I dig dat las’ nigh’” She said congestedly, mopping up what she could of the spill. “Dere seem to be a lod of dem here.”

“Probs left over from the previous tenants. Here, I’ll be right back with a clean shirt and shorts. Just stay here and keep warm.” Girlfriend got up, dedicatedly rearranging her pillows and handing her her ginger ale, before heading upstairs to the bedroom.

She paused the program and waited, looking around the room. She had moved in maybe a week or two before, and it still felt odd to know that this was her house, and she could do whatever she wanted in it. It was also daunting to think she could do whatever she wanted in it, or with it. She smiled as she thought about how she could run completely naked throughout the entire house if she so chose and how happy that would likely make her girlfriend. She began plans for something along those lines while she waited.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs came to her ears, followed shortly by girlfriend’s call, “Hey, honey? There’s… a lot of fluffs. Like. I can’t see the floor.”

“What?” is what she tried to call back, but trying to raise her voice brought about a coughing fit. She doubled over, closing her eyes tight as she coughed into her fist. When she managed to regain herself, girlfriend was at the door, a green shirt and black shorts in her hands, but that wasn’t what what caught her attention. The hardwood floor looked like it was covered with an old, irregularly patterned shag carpet, in black, red, green, and neon pink. It was waving gently back and forth in the still summer air.