Hey, who are you to talk? It’s not as if...

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 18:00:58 GMT

[NOT FINISHED YET]

Hey, who are you to talk? It’s not as if you’ve been the perfect angel yourself all your l—but I’m going to ignore that. I’m putting that behind me. It’s beneath me.

Things have settled down a little, I guess, sort of. I’m staying with this old—I can’t tell you much about it, in case this does get intercepted. It doesn’t matter that much anyway, so I won’t even code it to write it to you. He’s been telling me stories, and damn, you wouldn’t believe the kind of things they use to get secrets out of you. In the end it feels, he said, as if the secrets were being strained out of your skin. Burned, surfacing like scars, they pick them away again and again and again—hell, he should know. He’s like the mutated baby of Frankenstein’s monster and the Scarecrow from Oz, aged one thousand years.

Hope you don’t mind the method of delivery – the gnome did sound pretty fucking creepy, but it gave me a good idea, and when I told the Sir, he thought it was a good idea. It’s a bridge between two worlds, referencing things that are not and turning them into things that might be. And it’s a hell of a lot more reliable than sneaking into your house and trying to leave you stuff. Your mum has ears like an elephant’s, and I’m not sure if the news has filtered down to your branch of the family yet.

So here we go.

Claudia was looking behind me with the expression of someone confronted with the mess of a very cute dog. (What can I say, I’ve got charm.)

“What,” I said, “have I got something on my face?” But just as I began to turn around, I felt something land on my shoulder, twisting me back to face her.

“Turn around, little girl,” said the voice behind me. Only he said it with an accent: tukrn avround, leetle kurl. Like most creepy accents, the words landed wetly beneath my ear, along with the curling stench, as the atrophy of a thousand civilizations crushed. I wanted to turn around (no, not just because he said not to), possibly break his wrist, but his claws said to me in silence, you are not a little girl. If you decide, just for this second, that you want to be, you are going to fucking die.

What can I say, I like living. I held very, very still.

Claudia said, “Who the fuck are you?” The light shone just above her head, filtered through her hair with an angry radiance that lit the bones of her face, the jutting lines of her brows. She reminded me in that moment, more than anyone else I’d ever known, of the Lady. (Something about the delicate sharpness, the righteous selfishness in the way she moved? Something of poetry, and pain.)

I guess the association didn’t get to the creep behind me, though, because he only made a phlegm-ish noise (seriously, who invented the word Phlegm? Am I the only human who’s ever confused Phlegmish with Flemish?) in his throat. He repeated his words, gripping them between his teeth like stars ground to precious dust, and I felt him sludge a little towards Claudia, who stepped back.

“We are leaving your house,” the creep announced. (Vee ark kleaving guur ouse.) And as he slobbered over to the stairs, knuckles steely, dragging me along, I saw it out of the corner of my eye.

He was just barely human. I say he, because the idea of a girl being that ugly is painful to the aesthetic tastes of a discerning person such as myself. If you gave a bunch of makeup artists and designers an eternity to design the ugliest man on earth, then ran both of these kids for an exclusive beauty contest, the ugliest man on earth would win. Hands down, unanimously. The poet who managed to get down the perfect description of this guy would win prizes, and be shunned for the rest of his life for having a sick and twisted mind. I, personally, favor shoving nails through my eyes rather than look at him ever again. I would rather shove live maggots up my—

His voice was okay – only as if he’d been swallowing mud for a month – which is why my eardrums have not yet started to resemble my earlobes. Because the minute we made it out the door – and we made it out pretty fast, given the amount of people oozing out of Claudia’s in ailing wooziness – he started to talk. I know his name, which will summon him whenever it is spoken. He called it the one of the Ultimate Profanities, because to know it is to have the ability to blind yourself at any opportunity. You could say it in your sleep, accidentally combine syllables together, and he’ll be there if you know what it is.

He was one of the Lady’s lovers, he said, which made me wonder about her taste. She was ice and galaxies intermingling, a mélange of impossibilities, And if the face of this guy was any example, I have no idea how she’s still living with herself. Maybe she did it because there was always the chance that they would choose to serve her when the promised years with her were up – this guy was an excellent guard. He’d tell me the stupidest things in the world, and he wouldn’t need to say anything else because his fingers were saying: run, and die.

Hello, hello!

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 01:10:53 GMT

This is a friends-only community, created specifically for the inedible Pnutty and myself to play the letters game. You are welcome here if you'd like to read, but all further participation must be confirmed with one of the letter-writers. They will probably say no. You will probably weep. Etc.

Do not expect quality here - at least not from me. If you would like to read on anyway and are on the friends' list of either of the participants, join the community: you'll be added back as soon as someone notices. If not, post here to explain how you came by us, and why you're interested.

Obviously, nobody will comment (seriously) on this entry, but it does look nice, doesn't it?

voices shaped out of glass and bone, saying

Hey, who are you to talk? It’s not as if...

Hello, hello!