The Grave of a Driven Individual

You walk into a wing of the library. Lying on the floor is a broken body, limbs twisted in a hundred directions, eyes glazed over by time and the rot of a hundred years. You know exactly who they are- you've been hunting them for the past fifteen years. Their marks have been left across the library, scorches on walls, burnt pages floating through the air like feathers from a shot goose. They have been systematically eliminating something from the Library, and you have finally discovered what- themselves. Their body reeks, not of rot but of drugs. The hops rot of old alcohol spilled on their industrial coat. The skunk-reek of weed in the pockets of their faded jeans. Prescription pill bottles form a story of addiction and abuse that haunted the fool far more. You know exactly what to do.

You collect the pages from the books that have been burned, single scraps you have saved and preserved with your life. As a Protectorate of the Characters, your job is to ensure the metaphysical safety of the literary citizens of the Wanderers Library. The books contained within are all real- they are the collected stories of entire worlds, of the multiple realms that the Ways touch and bring into the fold of the Library's ever-expanding wings. Like an onion that grows into itself over and over, it grows layers, becoming more of itself.

You begin the ancient incantation, one of the many you have written upon the folds of your mind with the graphite of repetition and training. You have done your research, and know exactly what ingredients to use with this body. You enchant the quill, dipping it into your vein. The blood swirls out, flickering like a ribbon as the garlic splits into pieces, pierced by the quill. Seeds of an orange tree sprinkle across the body, beginning to shiver. Roots shoot out, digging into the body. A sprouting rubber plant is placed gingerly in the skull, snake roots shooting into the ocular cavity and beginning to suck away the rotted nutrients in the body. Nitrogen is sucked in, the plant cells quickly invading the bones and breaking them into crunchy chips, beginning to grow in size. You smash the tile floor so the roots can take hold, and trees quickly begin to sprout up, the library beginning to heal. As the tree begins to grow, its leaves rippling with the love of its protector, books begin to drop down, attached to vines, their spines tight and unread, their pages unfaded from the air. You sigh, your wound closing up, the quill returning to its quiver. You sit down and grab a book. You have the time. Why not begin?

Cary's Lessons

Walking into a particularly green grove of the plant growth, you see a series of cookbooks and brochures. Taking one in your hands, you marvel at the soft texture of the cover wrapping, the slight patterns of growth still showing in the new book. On the cover, in a flowy, ornate font, the title sits, awaiting your loving gaze. "Cary's Cookbooks of Chicken, Caviar, and Callisto, a Syncratic Take on Interstellar Cooking." You chuckle, the mouthful of a title indicative of several things. One, that the author was just getting used to publishing works. And two, that they were confident about what lies between the vine-bound pages. You settle into a comfortable cove of plant life, and crack it open, excited to learn some new recipes.

Title	Description	//
Lesson One: Manifeasto	Where it all begins…	S
Lesson Two: Butchereasoning	Well, you knew they weren't a vegan	S
Lesson Three: Procurement	Here I go killin' again	S
Lesson Four: Pale-Fishing	The rod and reel hold great appeal	S

Stygian Blue

Here, a spot in the floor, depressed, the roots tearing it down into the floor. Turquoise water sits, dripping from an elden tree, their branches wrapped tightly around a collection of leather-bound books. Scales cover each spine, slowly dropping away in odd segments of time. As the scales hit the deep pool, which seems to go through the floor and expand into an entire sea just below the copse of literary trees, they slowly morph and change, becoming a collection of beautiful fish. You reach up, and slide your hand along the scales, feeling their delicacy. You pick up one of the tomes and open the cover, and the scent of the sea fills your nose, sharp and salty and powerful, and you begin your reading.

Title	Description	//
Stygian Blue of Eternal Twilight	The twilight sepulchor beckons	S/P
Stygian Blue Moon	The twilight moon beats like your heart	S
Stygian Blue Crashdown	The smashing begins…	S
Stygian Blue Scales	The Winged Beast hunts	S

Tarot Cards

A reading, you ask of the tree. A table grows from hewn wood and ancient cadaver, bones framing a table of living wood polished to a sheen by time and preparation and need. You stand before it, eyes aswance at the branches. Slowly, it begins to doll out your past, your present, your future…

Title	Description	//
Hierophant, Reversed	End of time and lust and need/Anarchy Reigns in a Desperate Screed	S,
Emperor, Flesh	Rip and tear and taste and slate your thirst	S

Harkonnen and Ankulus

The forest grows wild here, with the vines twisting and wrapping around each other, snakes plotting a hunded evil deeds, leaves gesturing like desultory lovers. You approach, and a hundred eyes open in the mire. Th ehallway this growth encompasses is long an ddark, and at the end you hear the crimson roar of a bloodbath, the ewing screech of a dying beast, and the echoing howls of wolves in the moonlight. On a arven pedestal lies an earthen tome, and you reach out to touch it, tentatively. The cover is hide, sewn with great care, and embossed with a triple-pointed symbol that radiates power.

Harkonnen and Ankulus

Slake the dreary winds of time/and see all your worlds collapse

S

Collaborations

Here, other roots intermingle. The lives of others touch and fade and play at the fabric of reality in these moments, intermingling in tapestries lustrous and beautific. How can you take your eyes off of them? They shimmer with possibility. They taunt with fortune. They tease with excellence. Open these pages to find the melding of minds, words playing together like a brackish pool, constituent pieces melted down to meld and mesh.

Art springs here.

Title	Description	//
Pasadena Mascara	me and didion on the trail/riding the high like a white grain rail	S

Miscellaneuous

Across the now verdant ground, many small pieces of grass, wildflowers, and ferns sprout, their leaves fresh and soft to the touch. Each plant has its own shape, it's own look. One is like snow, soft, wet to the touch. The other, prickly, stinging, angry. You thrust your hand deep into a rosebush, and find a pleated pantsuit folded over. You unfold it.

A book falls out.

You begin to read it.

Title	Description	//
A Retail Worker's Soliloquoy	Don't talk to me on break, fuckwad	S/P
The Smoker's Song	Don't talk to me when I'm smoking, douchebag	S/P
It.	How It feels	P
Its.	How Its always felt.	P
Me and the Bottle	Why I get those/jelly roll blues	P
What Am I	Depression shall not defeat me	P
Hark Upon the Yonder Knifeblock	When you sleep… What do your knives doooo?	I
Single Days and Snow Flurries	How the icy Hudson breaches my mind	I
Why He Did It	A man-to-beast meeting	I
Pasadena Massacre	Knife. Wait. Time. Didion.	I
Frank and Francine	Look at all my lil guys.	I
Her, Tree	Ah, trunken glory, brown And hoary	I
Poem for a Hidden Sandcastle	Beach tim ewoes and salt-coated winds.	P

- Code -	-
I	An independent writing piece
P	Poetry
S	Series
WIP	A Piece that will receive edits over time

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