Sandman: Ghosts of Zion (Pt. 1)

1- Echo

Sister Eidolon, the butterflies have grown
full and thick, filled with nectar and laced
with dark veined wine-- that the colors more
often endure long past their lives
and leave such pretty little scars upon your eyes

Convinced, if only for a very short time,
that after we all woke
when forever only has one season
that we all must possess something of beauty

Sister Eidolon, Midnight-Child;
cached into some yet another
dreamy-eyed oasis, beyond
the fertile boundaries of life and death,
love and those haunted manses
of the moon, over everything else

Convinced, if only for a very short time,
that after we all woke
when forever only has one season
that we still must possess something of beauty

Sister Eidolon, the young mad-hearted ghouls
at the door of your room are beckoning again.
Such as are those enchantments
that will never leave you now-- until you look
up towards the night heavens to catch
a glimpse of what you have become,
and only the stars are there
to leave such pretty little scars upon your eyes

Convinced, if only for a very short time,
that after we all woke
when forever only has one season
that we still must possess something of beauty

When all you really have left for yourself is a dream of you.

2-Savant

We can only dream of ourselves imperfectly...

Her name is Rapture

Drowning within another's dream, woven
into the depths such nobility and depravity...

It was not long after death
that night first began, adrift
among those stars both
profane and divine

At the heart of the pearl is dust,
the newborn soul is an unnatural
irritant of the womb
covered o'er in layers of bone, blood
and flesh--
that undefined image
of innocence incomplete, had it
never gathered its first breath

Real life always begins with a terrible shock of pain.

It was not long after death
that night first began, adrift
among those stars both
profane and divine

Lying unseen amidst the gardens
of St. Perpetua's hallowed ground--
Rapture watches her with those small
dark depths of eyes as the black widow spider
retreats into the petals of a golden rose

With gentle care to keep its world still,
two small fingers gathered beneath the
throat of the bulb and carefully snipped
from the grown stalk and whisked away
into the rough hewn corridors--
images torn from memorae, their
colors breathed into jagged shaped glass

Some of which had never truly lived at all...

It was not long after death
that night first began, adrift
among those stars both
profane and divine

"Thank you Rapture," the Mother Superior
accepted the gift, her brow slightly arched
as she knew where the young orphan child
had found it. Yet, that such a kind gesture
was so rare from this unfortunate creature,
trapped into a silent world that science could,
as of yet, not define...

The Mother Superior's heart rebounded
in her chest as the first sound that she
had ever heard from the young girl, so
curiously named, was a tiny little giggle
as she sped back away towards the door
and ran outside

into the faint light of another day's end.


3- Home

Without farewell, the
fading roll of thunder-
A passing of murmurs
through another indolent creature
of Dream's allure

Indulged upon a moon-maddened caravan
of ambivalent moods and wild-eyed emotions
that crave the warmth of friendly fires

Set nearest to the heart of this coming storm,
alone upon an aerie peak that had been
christened Mount Goodness by peoples, whom
even those that had lived below it all of their
lives-- never truly knew beyond the whisper
of old camp-fire legends, always told and
carried back from other nearby places

The Dreamlord, a'rest upon this community's
namesake, watched silently-- like a night-bird
of prey-- as the two conjoined shadows met
at the edge of the street-lamp's tenable hold
over this dark of night

Grimeyes... memorae had fed them form,
yet it was only by a most powerful and
intimate form of sorcery that they could
be borne here-- travelers, refugees, from
another place set a'far and further than
the mortal soul may have the heart to
travel

Like dreams of the scarecrow, they
had to be created piece by piece, given
something of their creator-- for which
the last, seldom do they survive beyond
a shuddering in sleep, was for them to
hatch and be born unto the living world

Their form only in as to what methods
and ends they were called.

These were not the first horrors he had
seen come from Goodness...

Until rich and thick came a succulent
purring to his ear, his hand moving
without thought or concern to the
feminine feline face, where it hovered
there closely over his shoulder--
suddenly stopped and held, the eyes
of the cat blinked twice as it studied
the open palm before moving away
to sit out on a nearby stone cropping

"Only the more devoted deign consider
obeyance to my desires," Bast smirked--
her eyes set upon him as, aside from that
hand-- Morpheus seemed as if he had
never moved from the point that she
had found him here.

"Do you see them?" he asked, unperturbed
by her playfulness.

"No, but I am not unaware of their presence
either," she turned her eye down onto a
specific place where Dream's eye was held
to those shadows, so set apart from the rest
of the darkness about them. "Is this all that
has brought you here, Dream-King?"

"They are likened to the images of those
two strange travelers that came to Sodom"

"I've heard of it," she turned her gaze
back in towards him. "Dream effigies
do not seem near enough to merit
your attentions, let alone my own."

"Is it all so simple as that, then?"

"It seems it has been a long while that I have
encountered something so simple," the
light scolding in her tone, complete with
a reluctant oblige to consider his own, other concerns.

"It is another community of religious zealots
that call themselves the Hasidim-- in proper
the Sons of Abraham. Is your curiosity now sate?"

"No, but I do thank you for your
attention to my concerns."

"Such as gratitude goes, it will get you nowhere," she smirked.

"Is it insufficient?"

"Sufferable."

5- Adrift Among the Autumn Leaves

Among the grim gray pale ardor of twilight
and a weakening green-ness-- grown frail
in the hue amidst those grim faced old forests
and echoed withering hold of fiery-hearted festivals

Even rebirth is painful for those spirits of seasons,
that it would seem to each incarnation; they are
perpetually dying and grown more prone to those hues

"I am only a little bird, Uncle." The child-like soul flittered
a little lower in those branches, nearer to the ebb
and shadow of a more familiar face than humanity.
Glancing upwards, those dream-laced eyes drawn
toward a white crow-- it's rich full feathers battered,
bloody and torn aware to lay bare gray decaying flesh
and those mostly self-inflicted scars

Morpheus reached up a ghostly pale
hand towards it, and hopped and lit
there upon his finger tips before the older
god drew it in closer to his breast
and stroked distractedly at the back
of this inordinary bird, another young god
of another season past

"I do not think it is safe for you here,"
he said as the spring bird cocked its head.

"I tried to fly south, even that I wasn't sure
where I might s'pose to be... going or
what I was leaving, backwards or forward,"
the bird said, just before it sank it long sharp
beak into its own breast. "Sorry," it said,
near sing-songy, in some response
to Morpheus' disapproving glance.

"filthy, nasty, loathsome little birdy," it grumbled
on distractedly, before its beak sank again
into some untouched part of its plumage
and tore a few feathers loose by bloody nibs.
"Sorry," it said as if it did not remember saying
it the very same way only a few seconds
before.

"Why are you here Bacchus?" Morpheus silented
the sigh of patience (or the lack thereof) with
this mad little bird.

"I eat the dead," it blinked twice, as if it
had just stated something a little too obvious.
"disgusting, horrible, nasty little bird," it said,
before pecking sharply at itself again--
its beak now damp and full of fresh god's blood.

"And that has led you here?"

"Oh yes, I am getting fat now and it is
harder to fly-- I think maybe I was going
to fly south, cuz I was s'pose to, I think.
But there is too much here for me to eat...
a vile, contemptible sort of bird am I.
I have to eat it though, as the other of
my kind will not come here,
on account me I think-- maybe.
Besides, the raccoons are bandits,
with their little black masks and they are
not suppose to eat such unwholesome
meat. I am the law around here.
I keep the animals away and safe
from all evil."

"I see," Morpheus' attention distracted.
"And the dead are where then?"

"In the woods," the white crow blinked again.
"The muddy-puddle man brings them here. I
don't know if he kills them or not, but the
last time I swooped down at him-- on account
that he was making me too fat and I cannot
fly south if he keeps bringing them here. It
upsets me and makes me feel like maybe
I shouldn't have ought to have wanted
to be a bird-- I think that was what
I really wanted to be, back when I was a
stupid little god. Did I do it wrong?"

"Why did you want to be bird?"

"To sing in the morning, but this bird
I am now cannot sing-- I try, and all
that comes out is gargled screech, which
is not very pretty... your son could sing, yes?"

"Yes," Morpheus expression merely remaining
intent upon the Hasidim community of the mystic.

"I bet he didn't eat dead things," Bacchus' wings
flapped as he regained his balance on Morpheus'
sleeve. "That's probably why-- filthy, ugly bird am I."

"Where does the golem go after he leaves here?"

"Back home," the bird blinked. "I thought
I had scair't him off, sometimes-- but he
always comes back when the moon is gone.
I try to stop him, cuz I am the law here
and all that death really can't be right. I
can't eat him though, he's very dirty.
I think maybe he is dead too,
but he just keeps moving--
like he doesn't have any sense.
I tried to talk to him and tell him,
but he really doesn't listen very well.
Nobody really listens anymore, not
even to the birds with beautiful voices.
I know them all by their voices, Uncle."...

"When the birds quit singing in the morning,
will I have to leave this place? I mean, I
do not think the oozy mud man is going to
stop doing what he is doing. I wonder that
maybe he has filthy, nasty-horrible instincts
too-- and cannot stop what he is s'pose ta
do," the white crow plucked viciously into its
own shoulder, and more than a few feathers
wafted downwards in the rise of a night wind.

"I don't want to have to die again, it hurts...
and then I don't want to have to be reborn--
I don't really remember anything before I was
a bird, but I can always still feel it. I do not
really know how much more of this I can take;
which maybe if I can figure out how and where
to fly south, I can stay a bird and
maybe I won't have to leave anymore..."

"Oh ho, do you see him there now?
Creeping like a snake in the grass.
Dumb raccoon! BAD!
You are such a wretched curious
and sneaky creature...
You should never eat dead mortals..."

Bacchus fluttered, a few more bloodied nibs
falling away from his bird body like the leaves
on the trees, before he flew away from
where Morpheus was, and swooped down
at the small masked creature in the brush.

6- The Misbegotten

"MOMMA!" Rapture beat her tiny little fists
bloody against the walls of the dark room,
crying bitterly and angrily as she had seemingly
done most every night of her life.

"Damn you! Damn you all to Hell!"
she screamed up towards the small
window of the quiet time room--
some small scrap of logic telling her
that they could not hear her anymore
than they ever could before

... her voice was not human.
Part of her was, but her tongue
never could not make the sound
necessary for those weak mortal ears...

"Love is blindness...
I don't want to see...
Won't you wrap the night
around me
and take my heart.
Love is blindness."

Rapture spun into a hasty retreat
as the music-laced memorae began
to play within the silence that she
hadn't the voice to break.

"Silence Succubus!" the harsh chords
of a human voice lashed out at her,
like the swinging sear of leather and a
fierce hot pain ignited-- though she
was alone there now... as she always
seemed to be then.

"In a parked car
in a crowded street
You see your love
made complete
Thread is ripping...
The knot is slipping...
Love is blindness"

Long hold to a whimpering cold,
the child that never was closed her
eyes and closed her arms in around
her legs-- trembling lost, trying to
rock some other new sensation and
cling to it beyond where her mind
would seemingly only too naturally
take her back

"Mama," she cried in a weak hoarse
whisper, knowing that it would go
unanswered-- perhaps forever

"Love is clockworks
and cold steel...
Fingers too numb to feel
Squeeze the handle...
Blow out the candle...
Love is blindness."

He would never let her see her,
where he kept her bound within the
circle... but Rapture had figured out
where to find here there, in his
house with many secret rooms.

"Never tell, never tell, never tell"...
the clinging mantra of a few desperate
hours that they were given to understand
one another-- and the so little she seemed
to understand

"A little death
without mourning
No recall
and no warning
Baby...a dangerous idea
that almost makes sense"

She had tried to destroy him
over and over again, though that
night and the opportunity was long
gone

Which was when Profanius took her away...

He was supposed to kill her,
but something in the abomination
that he was loved her... Rapture
never knew why Profanius always
tried to protect her, and how he
would sleep into her room so that
the master would not come in...

Profanius was made of cold earth,
almost like spending her nights in a grave--
where even the Master could not get at her

It was always easier to call him that than father...

"Love is drowning
in a deep well
All these secrets
and no one to tell
Take the money
Honey...
Blindness."

"My pretty little Hellspawn,
whose heart will devour the world."
She wanted to rip out his tongue
and tear out his throat, though his
nature seemed kinder...

Had she loved him once?

"Love is blindness
but I don't want to see.
Won't you wrap the night
around me...
Oh my love...
Blindness."

The song in her head was finally over,
where she found herself lying out
prostrate upon the floor of the quiet room--
something distant, perhaps once part of herself
burning as the rest of her grew so cold

And the darkness around her became
like a grave, reticent of those nights
when Profanius would come and keep
her close and safe within the horrible
numbing cold of his embrace

"Why does he want these
terrible-horrible things from me?"
She asked Profanius again, though he
was not there this time to answer her.

"I don't know," was all that he said then.

"Am I bad, Profanius?" she asked him again.
"Is that why?"

"I don't believe it so," he answered her
distractedly, his body stank miserably
of death and the grave--
Rapture always took comfort
in his presence, and could finally
sleep when he was with her there...

because she knew that no one else
would ever come near her if Profanius
was there to keep her

... almost like a guardian angel.

It was with the sound of his voice
in her head that she closed her eyes,
some part of her never wanting to
wake up-- never again.

7- The Nameless Heart

"By the waters
the waters of Babylon.

We lay down and wept,
and wept, for thee Zion"...

Her voice unrestrained-- forlorn
to the gathering din of sorrows
that shadowed the room

the some affect of death had
touched every portrait kept--
of laughter and youth, and
every other sacred and intimate
candle...

Alit, in the absence of some pure light,
the sluggish eyed creature summoned forth
from the abyss and called Profanius--
there seemed something far too human
within the golem's eye as he listened
to her voice

..."We remember
thee remember
thee remember
We Zion."...

Lulled from the bland faced torpor,
the obscene mask of creature possessed
of only certain qualities of that darkness--
all around them

"She is alive," his lips moved without
a sound, though the spirit left inside
of her could hear every word distinctly

Rapture... she dared not speak
that name aloud, though it was
all that the Magus would ever let
her be called... of all the things that
had ever come out of Goodness,
she seemed the most desperate of all

How had all this happened?
His coming was foretold, though
mostly as some warning to guard
against the use (and most especially
the abuse) of such sorceries...

"Daniel," she spoke the name,
her heart left so long quiet
that she could scantily remember
the woman that had so loved a man

He may have been among the elders,
one day, that day would now only exist
in her own imagination of what, perhaps,
should have been-- before the dark one
had been summoned across
from the realm of the Sheoul

She closed her eyes and let it breathe again
and fill inside of her-- every precious little thing
that had once been her beautiful life

This was her only true resistance
to what she had become-- a
possession of the only true evil she
had ever known in this life and world
gone stark raving mad

She was no longer worthy of it...

It was that thought that drove her away,
back into the darkness of this room--
her heart leapt hard, as if might jump up
out of her throat as her eyes opened
and were filed by some another presence
of a tall, gaunt and dark... new creature
hovering in the air in front of her

Legs crossed, and long black robes
flowing about all of what seemed a frail
pale body of man-- but the eyes that
held her own, full of such unapproachable
depths...

That she would be left to wonder
what damned creature had crawled up from
the abyss to come for her now--
death seemed too hopeful, so this
could only be worse

"Who are you?" it asked her, though
she was afraid to give it an answer.
Even that she wondered at the true
nature-- its voice calm and unperturbed
by all of what the sorcerer had made

"I am merely a servant of the Ineffable,"
she relented, somewhat, to the endless stare.
"A child of the unending light."

"And you, Abomination-- who are you?"
It did not turn away from the
woman as she tried to rise up within
the circle and guarded by a spirit that
neither she nor the golem could see--
but both knew it to be there, all about
them; leaving no hope for escape

"I am called Profanius," the golem answered,
overwhelmed by his own indecision of what
the master would want him to do.
"It is not the only name I remember,
but it is what they call me now."

"Well-well, how nice-- uninvited guests.
It is so good that you could come here
to see me-- Lord of the Dreaming, isn't it?"
A shambling rabble of bones and odious
humors ooze spoke before it moved out
from the darkness-- long thin gray hair
with shears of black waved about a face
that was mostly a skull for which the larvae
and beetles of the grave still worked through
every opening and crevice-- organ and flesh
regenerating as the grave vermin and carrion
eaters continued to feed upon him

Some of the ancient ghost has become
tangible, though this was not the part of
his that had been reborn and let live again
in a world where it no longer belonged

"What a marvelous little bauble you
shall lend to my collection of such
inferior gods than I."

"Yeah, I'd like to talk to you a little minute about that too"...

The back door had opened and in
strolled a short man wearing a purple
cap-- his dark hair drawn away from
his thin olivine features and a pair of
purple-hued spectacles dangling near
the end of his nose. In his jaw was a
cheap cigar.

"A little fu'kin' bird told me
I might find you here.
Somebody might need find a
shovel, cuz it looks there
some fu'kin' diggin' to do--
of all that is good and holy,
what hell-hole did you climb
out from-- you're really
stinkin' up the place."

"What are you doing here?"

"That's my boy out there
hustlin' for scrap-- Whadda
'xpeckt, I am just gonna to say
whatever about it?" He answered
Dream as he stepped inside,
bopping his head slightly as
he glanced around.

"Ah, Dionysus is it then?"

"Was," he turned back in
towards the corpse.
"So like I am in Vegas,
doin' that whole Elvis thing
when I get a call from the
boy's Mama-- Let me tell you
here and now how... unpleasant
she can be, you ought to be at
least a little frickin' happy to see
me instead. True, she's a bit easier
on the eyes, but the mornin'
after can be a real ball-buster."

"Anyways, back to what I was sayin';
now I am not a really good thing. Mind
you I have to sit and lis'sen as she goes
on about how no-account I have been,
which is kind of her version of a boot in
the ass to get me doin' what I gotta do.
You can ask the DK how she can get...
By the Gods, I love that woman.
I can't really help being reprehensible,
it's part of my nature--
but it does have some of its finer moments"...

"Speakin' of which-- say now,
what's a nice girl like you doin'
in a place like this?"

"She is mine!" the ghost nearly spat
as it spoke.

"You could do better, you see what I'm sayin'."
He said as he lifted his thumb to his ear
and his pinky to his lips-- mouthing
the words "[I]call me[/I]" to the woman in
the circle. "You can call me Dino."

"Tread warily, vagabond Prince."

"This guy talks like somet'in fell
outta an Elizabethan scrapbook.
Time to wind your watch there fella."

"For you, I shall hold in the darkest pit
of agony and despair-- and your every
moment will be endured ruing this moment...
My name is Simon"...

"You see DK, he almost had me
goin' there for a minute-- like he
was actually goin' to do somet'in."

No sooner spoken than the creature
called Simon roared, arms drawn back
and the withering body took on a wholly
other form-- shot through the seed of
that corpse body into the more mammoth
and god-like form-- likening of a immense
black moth with a leonine head.

"What are you waiting for?" Dionysus
pitched the stub of the cigar aside. "Applause?"

The creature screeched as rose up
and then over where he stood,
it's jaw rearing wide and the tangled maw
of many rows of small teeth laid beyond
the fangs-- it swooped, the grayish drool
burning every place that it fell and touched
before it closed in over the old god--
that never wavered nor budged, until
the floor gave way beneath him;
and then disappeared as the creature
through its head back, and swallowed him down

"You see, Dream Lord?" the lionish face
seemed to smile through the dark red ichor,
more like wine than blood.

"Do you?" Morpheus blinked slowly,
watching as those huge dark wings
fluttered and then failed, just before
the demon's head was drawn aback and
it began to scream...

Thrashing, bashing its head through the walls
and against the wood and brick of the house
where those curious people once lived that
believed in somewhere else-- yet they lived
their lives within this world...

Falling again... back and upon the
woman in the circle as she prayed
for some kind of deliverance...

"Frickin' Spooks," Dionysus said, tearing
through the quivering flesh and brittle
wings-- rising back up to his feet. "You
put 'em back on the ropes and they slip
right on through your fingers. Still, I figure
that'll release the hold on Junior, and
that creepy walking sandbox over there."
He jerked his thumb over towards Profanius.

"Okay, now that's just tragic. Where's
Sophocles when you actually could find some use 'im?"

Dionysus stared down toward the nameless
woman, her eyes close and her expression
seemingly at a calm rest-- despite
having been crushed under the weight of the beast.

"She's good," Death stepped into
the room. "Well, if it isn't the
black sheep of the family," she
grinned and winked.

"Just for the record, you can only
half-believe anything a poet says,"
Dionysius pulled off his hat
and tried to brush it clean with his hand.
"They're such gossips."

"Who really reads poetry anymore
anyways-- aside from me?" Death shrugged.

8- The Fibber-Girl & the Crow

That bleeds and breeds an unfeeling thickness
of the dormant espiritu-diaboli, a nest
of shades darker than heaven, a deeper scrye
than what devil lurks within the depths of the eye

Dreaming is never wholly a fiction...

Rapture felt every flame- a sensate and
hoary prickling more familiar to her now
than the walls and windows, the screaming
groan of old timbers

Like a Hell storm-- laughing at them as they
fled from what seemed one of the few true
friends she had in this world. Moreso,
one of the most violent extensions of herself
that she had ever managed to discover

"Yes I love you, but you should never
really try to love me back."

Even as she closed her eyes
she could feel it as it were inside of her;
consuming the pathetic and horrible child
and becoming a part of the fire itself--
for nothing touched her so intimately as pain

"Yes Father, I will take it all in--
every repulsive truth nourished
and grown full and terrible inside of me;
and when I let it all out,
it all will be so much worse"...

"What are you?" Rapture turned with
a start at the sound of the voice, glancing
around hurried as her heart hammered in
her chest. She had believed that no one
would find her here, among all these shadows

Until her eye seen a fluttering from above,
on a low and near branch-- and a strange
white bird looking down at her and cocking
its silly head.

"I am a girl," she said, more as a test to
see if what she was thinking she thought
could be real at all-- even if it didn't really
make much sense.

"Well, I can see that. It's only too obvious
what you are supposed to be, but what are
you really?"

"Birds can't talk."

"You must obviously be a fibber-girl then."

"A fibber-girl?"

"Oh, without a doubt.
I've met a few in my day before, you know--
and I can say,
beyond a shadow of a doubt,
you are surely a fibber-girl."

Bacchus said, just before poking his
beak into his breast and pulling loose.

"Why did you do that?" Rapture's brow lowered.

"Do what?"

"Hurt yourself like that?"

"I did not neither-either,
you little fibber-girl."

"You most certainly did,
and I am not a fibber-girl."

"Now how can you say you
are not something when you do
not even know what it is.
That is like me saying I'm a bird,
and then you saying but birds
cannot speak-- when all the while
I am speaking to you all the while.
Are you calling me not-a-bird then?"

"But you are a bird."

"You really do need to make up
your mind, Fibber-girl."

"I'm not a fibber-girl," Rapture growled
and balled up her fists.

"I do have a few tests that will surely
tell whether you really are a fibber-girl or not,
but I really don't see a need to even bother
as you quite obviously are one."

"Am not!"

"Care to prove it then?"

"How?"

"How many times do you lie?"

"Never."

"Be sure to re-add and adjust
your count by a plus one--
now let's try this again,
giving you the benefit of the doubt
that never everything you say is a fib--
which would definitely make you
a fibber-girl; no doubt of that."

"People cannot even hear me when
I talk, so I cannot hardly lie about anything--
you dumb bird."

"Yes, but I am afraid you can, do and have.
One doesn't really need words to lie, you know.
This test really isn't going very well for you."

"How can you lie without talking."

"I don't know as I really want to show you how,
as I am not sure if you are a bad fibber girl
or a good fibber girl."

There was no immediate response to this but silence.

"Oh-ho! Now I see.
You do not really know
if you are good or bad
fibber-girl-- do you?"

"I know," Rapture turned her gaze
away back towards the fire she had
started at the church that
was connected to the orphanage grounds.

"No you don't, fibber-girl."

"Yes, I do. And stop
calling me that."

"The truth shall set you...
FREEEEEE!"

Rapture turned back as she heard
a loud thump, blinking as saw a man
wearing what looked like an outfit
comprised entirely of colorful patches.
His dark braided hair fell around
a face that was strangely black and
white colored-- something like that
clown on the street that never spoke
and pretended to be doing something
that he really wasn't-- like climbing
inside of a box that was not there, or
running into an imaginary wall.

"See now, I never told you I was
a bird, you told me I was a bird--
which makes you the fibber
in this case; but this was an
honest fib-- as you really
thought I was a bird."

"So what are then?"

"I...I am a Bacchus."

"A what?"

"A Bacchus in patches."

"I think I liked you better as a bird."

"Which goes to show you are not
really thinking at all, merely saying
what you could hardly know to be
true," he sighs. "This is what a
fibber-girl does, though not necessarily
a bad fibber-girl."

"You don't know me neither."

"Double-negative, very bad ju-ju."

"Don't call me a Jew neither."

"AH!" Bacchus curled up and
covered his head over with his
arms.

"I should wash your mouth
out with soap," he sat back
up after spinning around on
the ground. "This is my mean-
face talking, such negativity
will not be tolerated."

"What in the world are you talking about?
You are a very strange man."

"See, that is like when you said
that birds cannot speak, presuming
all the while that I was a bird.
I would be a very strange man,
if I was a man--
the strange part is a little irritating,
but I am with you on the account
that I did sort prefer when you called
me bird rather than calling me a man."

"But you are a man."

"You just trying to make me make
my mean face again, aren't you?"

"No," Rapture chuckled, despite herself.

"I don't remember what question I
was on."

"What question?"

"You must be a good and a bad
fibber-girl... I mean like, there are times
that you do not know how to be nice,
but there are probably even more times
that you do not want to be mean...
or something like that. Irregardless, I like
you, though I really don't want to--
because you called me a man and all,
and that wasn't very nice."

"Okay, so what are you really then?"
Rapture sat down a comfortable distance
away from him, as he cocked his head
and blinked-- not so unalike the bird had
done earlier.

"I already told you, I am a Bacchus."

"I do not know what a Bacchus is."

"Aha! And hence the patches,
on account that there are many
times I have forgotten what a
Bacchus is too-- and each and
every one of these patches reminds
me of some part of me that I might
have otherwise forgot and left behind
because maybe I didn't really recognize
myself when I seen it."

"Huh?"

"What's your favorite color?"

"Red."

"What kind of red?"

"I don't know."

"Obviously you know, otherwise
you wouldn't have said
your favorite color was red--
you cannot have a
favorite color I dunno red."

"I mean I do not know the name of it."

"Point to it," Bacchus said as he lifted
his arms away from his suit and turned
slightly that she could see more of the
patches there. "Ah, Maple-red."

"Maple red?"

"Yes, that is one of the colors
that the leaves on a maple tree
shows... it means crisis and change,
everything has to change really,
but the leaves take longer to learn it...
well, the part of it they don't really like
leastwise."

"Part of what?"

"Life, the universe--
and the after-life too I suppose.
It is like saying, I can be beautiful,
don't let me die"...

"It doesn't mean that."

"Fine then, you tell me what it means...
fibber-girl, fibber-girl."

..."It means I am still alive.
I think that, if leaves could really
talk, that is what they mean to say."

"Well, your opinion can be taken
with a grain of salt, in as you
had told me that birds could
not talk"...

"But you weren't a bird...
or aren't, I guess."

"Touche'." Bacchus nodded.
"What do they call you then?"

"Rapture."

"What does that mean?"

"I dunno."

"My mean-face is coming back.
You have been a Rapture all of
your life and you do not know
what you mean?"

"I'm just a girl."

"Preposturous!"

"LEAVE-- HER--ALONE!" Profanius
lurched out from the dense growth,
fists drawn together and slamming
them both down into Bacchus's chest...

In a crashing tingle, his body shattering
underneath the force of the blow
and scattering everywhere

"Are you alright, Bon petite?"
Profanius lowered himself down
to where Rapture sat, blinking
and incredulous at what she had
just seen.

"Why did you kill him Profanius?"

"I did not want him to hurt you,"
the creature spoke, some hint of doubt
of what he had done in his voice.

"Why are you here Profanius?
Is mama alright?"

"Come, let's leave this place."
He said as her head dropped,
her tears having long grown silent--
he drew her up and felt her arms
fall limply around his neck as he
drew her in closer to him... and
then inside of him, before glancing
over towards the fire.

"This is how you cry now," he watched
as the old church collapsed inside of itself
as the fire trucks pulled up.
"Do not worry Chile, I am here now.
No more tears, for a while." He said,
and then turned away back
into the woodlands.

"Ow... ow-ow-owwie-ow," Bacchus'
eyes opened as those dark robes
touched at his face, Morpheus moving
downwards and picking his head up
into palms as he raised the face to
his own.

"It is time to dream again, Bacchi." Morpheus
brushed the back of his finger against his cheek,
catching the green blue tear on his cheek.

"I-I didn't mean... I seen
her colors and I wanted"...

"Hush now, she is well enough
for now. You should not endure
the pain of this incarnation for
too much longer-- it is time for
another's waking."

"Yes... I know. Will I see
you again when I come back Uncle?"

"Perhaps," Morpheus said as Bacchus
closed his eyes just as the first snow-flake
fell-- and those colors on the ground
began to flutter, each grown into a
different species of bird

The head turned a crumpling ash in
Dream's palms as the birds scattered
and flew off in every different direction.

He wondered that he might be able to find
them again next time, at his return to this world.

9- Dream Effigies

Awakening upon this Sunday morn
to the soft destruction of memorae--
one cannot untrain the soul not to
stir when the bells of an old cathedral
beckon with an allure beyond the
finite bound

It is enough to believe that we all must be
in some way wicked
than to lose that sound altogether;
clung heavily to that ledge
of some indeterminate faith or fate

Her name was Catalina...

Blanketed only by those
warmer ghosts of memorae,
and the seemingly more cheery
devotions to a bottle of gin

Dionysus had watched her dancing
alone, though there was no real
shortage of those who had tried to
join her-- in that she had never really
noticed those around her, not even
when they tried to come in, too close

She was never really where or who they
wanted her to be, as all other of those
human pretenses had long vanished--
so lost was she into a mystical journey,
beyond the chemio-electrical sparks that
fired, misfired and bid the body to act;
her senses seemingly immune to the arcana
of the "real world" and its lesser cares
and concerns

There was nothing in her lithe step
that was practiced, though perhaps
some parts of it alluded to some other
dances-- both modern and primitive

All that knew her called her Cat...

She had came into this small, cramped
dark corner of a pub with friends, all
of which had fairly much abandoned her
to other seemingly worthwhile pursuits
of passion-- an unexceptional
and awkward girl who had seemingly
gone out of her own way to dismiss
herself from being noticed

Which, by such affect, was precisely
what had caught Dino's eye--
as what may first appear as timidity
to the naked eye, there was no sullen
outcast feature to her presence that
appeared stricken by self doubt or
grief so much as she watched her
friends leave, one by one. A curious
sort of deeper scrutiny over somesuch
colorful drink as she, at first, seemed
content to merely let her eyes flit
between those faces that she knew,
and those that they had found among
the strays and pecks of this small and
simple bar-room

To admire the bleak within
all these shadows games--
to hold our hands up against
the light and carve them into
something that has no image
of its own

Tossed into a world where the eye
can nearly dream back to life
those past and future souls crying
stillborn in between the steeples
and the smoke stacks

It was not until the house band
stirred up the musica du jour,
comprised entirely of far more
hopeless creatures than she
that had pretty much abandoned
all hope of becoming rock stars;
sate, if not truly content,
to these Saturday nights episodes
of mockingbird piques-- prone to
fashion or frenzy, dependent purely
upon the reaction of the everyday
crowd of common folk that couldn't
have came here to see them-- as they
didn't really exist to anyone beyond
themselves, until and unless they
happened upon one another here
in this small dark corner room

"Driving faster in my car,
falling farther from just what we are
Smoke a cigarette and lie some more
these conversations kill -
Falling faster in my car"...

From the very first note,
near-to-like a serpent charmed,
and coaxed from a wicker basket
by the charm of some melody or
another-- she moved away from
the table and left it empty to
whatever may become of everyone
and everything else in the room
beyond the bleeding pulse rhythm
and the dark spirit song;
broken away from the past
and fleshlessly driven by some
inner primal compunction

"Too much walkin' shoes worn thin
Too much trippin' and my soul's worn thin
Time to catch a ride it leaves today
Her name says just what it means"...

Turned into some other place,
an inner-space for which the
words are broken apart into their
most primitive sounds; yet barely
meaningless as time and need
were a function of some organic
machine-- her own voice becoming
a matter of patterns of woven arms
and the pace her long legs met-- in
slight return, the song merely
a doorway and the musicians themselves
became more electric and impredictable
as they reacted to her-- alone

"Time to take her home,
her dizzy head is conscience laden
Time to take a ride,
it leaves today with no conversation"...

In that place where no one had notice
her before, Dino smirked as he watched
the alpha-male move in closer towards
where she was now-- a swaggering sort
of dance that in no way matched her own;
as being near her had suddenly become
important, a hand turned to reach out
from which she spun away--
another, and then another; each to
be met with the same sort of casual
disregard

The song was not nearly over as the
coarse and muddier tones began to bubble-up
like the breaths of some unseen creature
lain within its depths-- for some that seemed
to pass as harmless and casual conversation

Dino had never known anything much
from either sort of company within
a crowd-herd of such a creature;
just a little too prone to flit or bolt,
and thus create the effect of a stampede
from which anything wholly innocent
too often got trampled beneath

To each of the spurned, a word-step
nerve-tick ego driven maniacal stir,
that, left unchecked, could become like
a mad swarm driven and hellbent on
destroying what had disturbed the status
quo, and that balance of imbalances
often had its more rogue and hostile elements

"Time to take her home...
these conversations kill"

Torn away from her own element
as the song ended, that was the first
time Dino had noticed anything that
may have smacked of self-doubt.
There was nothing obvious to be
concerned about so much as the
silence had left and abandoned her
back into a realm of senses that were
perhaps a little too acute

Dionysus felt an uncomfortably hot
wave rush over him as his vision was
momentarily crowded by sensua-memoria;
and a once beautiful temple lost in
those mad angry flames of contempt
and those dark speculations that it breeds

Her heart hammering, it was simple enough
to wrest her away-- the drugs and booze
that she had ingested were
near enough a common language to him
that he could draw her attention
and lead her off, just a bit further astray
than perhaps she may have intended on her own

His original intentions may have been somewhat
gallant, within those all that nobody really knows
or notices about anyone else beyond the end
result-- seduction wasn't on the game-plan for
evening, but one simply had to learn to adapt
within any modern or current situation--
most especially those creatures that must endure
everything as it truly is before it can pass
through any period threshold of time;
and every new change, along with those
many other several things that never seem
to change at all

A night of unbridled ecstasies,
which was something of a natural
habitat for him, for which sex had
become a near instinctual conclusion--
neither of them really suffering much
from a lack of attention nor some base
driving need to act upon anymore
than those various other idlewiles
they had spent their time, discovering
one another through the intricate haze
emotional fog of yester-gone's youth,
and other fitful dreams

The spirit freed from how it is all
supposed to be, her hallucinogens
something more to the Tao
and of letting be that she had
hardly noticed the blur of realities
that she had always believed must be truth

He fed her every joy...
from sheer unadulterated playfulness
to those grosser intellectual pursuits.
He was content to be taken
as she mindlessly and unguardedly
led him into her world

The history of Catalina would never
be taught to anyone other than those
that she loved-- as with any other place
or space of time, there would inevitably
be those things lost into the unknown,
irregardless of their worth
and an intricate complex formed some
reserve and defense for a somewhere,
somewhen, somewhom pilgrimage of
simplicity

The supernatural came to her as
naturally as breathing, a devote
spiritual sense that Dino had noticed
before that wasn't some closed and
reserved intimate practice of rites and
rituale so much as a daily persevere of
passions deeper than the heart or body

Her mother was a descendant
of the Chiricahua Apache,
her father from Cuidad--
and from two peoples whom
had once hated, warred, robbed
and pillaged from one another;
Catalina was born and named after
a city that neither of her parents
had ever seen

From the first bare touch
her reactions seemed soothed
back into the bed, where she closed
her eyes and opened herself all the
more to this d'sensua.
A small half smile formed on his face
as his hands were gentle upon her-- at first...

He gaged her every reaction to him,
as well as his own-- measured and
deliberately pursuing those inner bounds
of her in minute experiments of summoning
her across inhibition and self-consciousness;
like a gradually forming puzzle
of psycho-sexual imagery

A taste of her, awakened by a spark
as he felt her body tense as his palms
brushed slowly and deeply up her hips--
guarding at lithe stroke of her abdomen
and easing back again as his hands moved
to her sides, and then along her arms

Her eyes opened again as his hands
closed in hers, as if unsure that she
may have done something... wrong

Drawing her up to him quickly,
she smiled as she brought one
arm around him and then a hand
towards his face-- a kiss of some
depth of meaning that Dino wasn't
sure that he truly understood as
he felt her move and guide herself
onto him

What had began with a mixture
of soft touching and longer more
passionate kisses became
more tooth and claw
as the urgency slowly grew

He laughed as she threw him
back and then flung herself
back down on him, her eyes
blinking at the unanticipated reaction
before her own smile bloomed

... falling down and gathered in
tightly against his chest, exhausted
and yet unsure whether she should,
or could close her eyes, feeling him
still inside of her and those curious
scents of his body-- knowing full and
well what she was supposed to do
and feeling too overwhelmed with
exhaustion to act upon even her own
desires, let alone...

Her last conscious and sane thought
being one of comfort as she felt the
warmth of the thick blanket drawn up
over them both

She dreamed of a place that she
had always wanted to see, though
the only hint that she had of what
it might be like were nothing but
soundless and unmoving pictures

Catalina was far more an imaginary
place to her than any pictured moment
that could be taken away from it...

There were times that she was convinced
not having the resources or the time was
something like a necessary evil to be endured--
she had been through many things in her life
already, and finally setting her sights on education
and managing to take a few classes bought
her somewhere closer to where she really
wanted to be

This time, Catalina was different than
she had ever dreamed of it before,
seemingly more tangible to every other sense
than merely the dreaming eye

It was also the only time that there
was anybody else there with her,
this delightfully strange man, whom
she realized only in the dream, that she
had only actually known for one night--
yet it seemed so much longer, deeper than
one could possibly live within a few hours

Tall monolithic buildings, far older than
its oldest citizens lining old Roman roads
that had paved a path of destruction and
reconstruction through a place they had
once knew as Gaul; and the port city
that would eventually be called-- Catalina

She felt herself being pulled along
as her mind desperately sought to
capture it all in an instant of passing--
it was as she seen the open carriage
that she convinced herself he knew this
place far better than she did, and
that everything was too ridiculously
perfect to be real

She almost felt like a little girl
peeking out from beneath his arm,
and a curious scent of wine in his
marvelous coat, that he obviously
hadn't been wearing before,
during or after that whole sexual
miscue-- a subtle pang of guilt,
to wonder what horrid things he
must be thinking about her,
with little regard to her own intention

Her own desire neither pushed nor goaded,
nothing turned out as she had imagined
before it happened, including the not-so-
good parts. She had thought he must
be upset with her, but... well...

She cried out, her back arching
as a sudden and vicious pain struck
against and then through her spine...

Dionysus woke as he felt her blood
spilling down his own sides, instinct
over-taken as he turned away from
the sudden presence of something
darker than the heart would have
want to ever imagine--
he spun them both away and off
the bed, his eyes set on her face
as Catalina stared off from and into
some other place-- her face frozen
in a sudden shock of bewildering pain

With his hand, he drew over her
face calmer and her eyes closed
before rising back up to see them there

"Tell me your name, spirits," Dionysus growled.
"For I want to know what master to return
you all, down its throat until it gags upon
your bones and dies as readily as you three
shall as surely as you thought to invade upon me."

Every modern sense of himself fled as the old and terrible god woke.

"We art the Swords of Judgment."

"Heaven's bastards, is what you're really saying-- right?"

Dionysus lit a cheap cigar,
fighting back the initial compunction
to tear them apart with his
bare hands-- that would be too easy.
His dark hair drawn back and interweaving
into a long braid as his body covered
over with flowing burgundy robes
that shifted and stirred like blood,
or some another viscous liquid
substance-- and a puff of smoke
exhaled before he bit down on the
butt of the cigar, his eyes intent
upon them as his mind wondered
what might become of Catalina's own spirit

"You have been judged, unclean."
the nearest of them spoke, the
aura like emanation about its presence
glowing brighter and then receding back--
the lips of it never moving.

"Everybody is a fucking critic,"
Dino sighed and shrugged as he
moved slowly around the bed,
and closer in towards these
warrior angels. "All those fine
and hoary opinions aside, I really
have no use for any of that real
estate your trying to sell me on.
Unlike yourselves, I am not
some homeless woe-be-screwy
gad-fly who is way to far fucking
self absorbed to even consider trying
to figure out how to play well with
others."

"Now here's the punchline-- you ready?
I just plain and simple do not like you,
not even a little bit-- and I don't
need any rule-books to explain why
it is that I feel this way. All that just
goes to say that you should have aimed
a little lower with that cheap-shot ankle biter--
Cuz now, here comes the horns."

No sooner had Dionysus leapt at them
than a dark brimstone chain shot
through the floor, warped and formed
like collar about his throat and sending
him back crashing through the floor.

"Must we release them now, Brother?"

"Do you doubt the word of our Brethren?"

"No," the the tone of the creature
did not sound so much convinced
as reluctant to say anything more.

10- A Not-So Good Day In Hell

"You still think being shackled up
to me is such a good idea?" Dionysus
seized the creature by the throat
from where it had feel after he had
flung it with a whip of chain against
an unyielding cliff-face.

"Please my Lord! Please-- no more hurts it."

"I haven't even worked through my mean-ness
yet to figure just how badly I am going to start
hurting you," Dionysus' lips curled slightly before
he began to look around. "Looks like we're pretty
much in the right place for that kind of play, so
you have only one breath to explain-- the rest
are mine, if I do not like your explanation."

"She wants it to," the creature gagged out,
Dionysus' brow curling deeply.
"The Dark Heart-Lady commands,
and it mus' obey." The creature's
eyes were bulging and then popped free from
their sockets in it cricket looking head.
"Ow." it said calmly as Dionysus released and
let the creature fall.

"Is he a friend of yours?" Catalina's voice
sounded from over Dionysus' left shoulder,
where he turned to see her spirit had taken
on the form of a coyote with a silver and
black coat.

"I was growing quite fond of him
while I was hurting him, but otherwise--
never met the guy." Dionysus turned
back towards the creature after it pushed
its eyeballs back on the sides of its head.
"Okay Jiminy, you caught a bonus round
of breaths, I would suggest that you
don't waste any of them in telling me
what the hell is going on."

"Lord Dionysus, we mus' hurry,
go- go now, see her now- yes we must."

"Dionysus? You could have mentioned
that before you got in my pants."

"Would you have believed me?"

"No, but that's beside the point."

"PLEASE!" the creature pleaded.

"Remind me to squash you later,"
he snarled without much venom
behind it before nodding towards
Catalina. "You want to go see her too,
or are you going to like go off howling
and prowling on your own?"

"Never let it be said that you didn't
show a girl a good time."

"It could be worse."

"Dino-- we're in hell
and I am, now, an endangered species.
I would really not care to hear your definition
of worse."

"Lucy."

"Who, or what, in the hell is Lucy?"

"Lucy Morningstar."

"Cute."

"Not really. I mean, I may be a
tad adventurous, but even a
god of ecstasies, divine or even
bit further south versions thereof,
has some standards."

"So, you're saying Satan is a woman."

"I never said no such thing."

"She waits! Mus' hurry."

"Satan is a nobody, a word--
the adversary, the enemy, or the shadow;
all the same meaningless drivel really
when you consider that the folk whom
with that term had first been inspired
had more than a few enemies for which to
contend with. The good guys, the not-so
good guys; and then the downright nasty
turns-- back in the day, even you could have
been a goddess."

"I am not sure whether to take
that as a compliment or not."

"Welcome to my world." Dionysus sighed.

11-Betrayal Of the Sun

"En marchant dans ces sentiments j'ai su,
les rêves à la dérive dans le tombeau de ses yeux
la pénétration comme les étoiles d'hiver, qui se conservent
le fait de tomber dans le purgatoire d'une nuit"...

Drawn unto this cold and lain amid the fold
of many layers, cloth sediment-- each their
to their own unique color and awakening,
bitterness is incorruptible through the throat

Rolling through another
note-book of memories
wherein to hide the obvious
infectious mood that you
had caught somewhere else

And you just as soon not talk about
what all of that means to you-
Not yet anyways.

It's just a familiar old road
cutting through the conditions of a heart
turned in a season that never ends
with no place left to go, except back--
and begin again

Drawn and caught within this temple of strings...

A hand with purple fleshy fingers
moving without sight over the deep
worn grooves laid like a fingerprint
road map into the grains of the balsa
as only the soul can lend any kind of
voice to the gibberish of emotions
that cannot be changed--as any contact
from the source has already been broken

Here today, in the heart of the old city
He is known as Pure
though tomorrow it will probably change again
to something more or less meaningless.

Yet nothing is ever as harmless as it seems...

He can feel it then, though he
knows he can never really stop
what keeps happening all around him

Youth will always feel everything so intensely,
while the old and feeble, wrapped in many coats
of such a human conditioning that they do not
even know why it is that keep feeling at all

Pure, despite his absence of mortal eyes
can see all too clearly-- he knows how
many souls will be lost tonight-- whether
the heart keeps on beating or the mind
has turned twisted against it, dreamlessly
believing that it must be the source
of this season that never ends...

that one more insignificant little suffering
might just be enough to put an end to it all

"Où ils tous dorment au bord de rêves
où nous pouvons voir le monde de la vie
d'une autre côte - et le simulent
il n'y a rien pour se souvenir

Sous l'oeil du Soleil"...

"Teacher"...

The guitar fell silent as the old dodger
craned his neck slightly aside, a ringing
still in his ears as he could still hear the
the cries of those that were trying to
leap off from the edge of the world

"Why have you come here, Simon?"
a jangle of old, cold emotion stirred
heavily within his voice. "I have nothing
left for you to steal from me."

"Teacher... I am broken, but
still alive... Nowhere to go, save
to crawl off and die, again. I cannot
go back... please!"

"They do not allow beggars in this city,
so it is best if you are off and done with
whatever fate you have made for yourself...
I can only pray that you have not undone
some other than yourself this time."

"Father! You do not understand...
I wanted... something other for her."

"I no longer accept strays at the
doorstep of my house, nor my heart.
It is something we all must accept,
in time... that even our most precious
things are corruptible matter.
There is nothing more here that I have
want to keep, nor protect."

"I would have made her a goddess."

"She was already a goddess!"
the old man seized the mishappened
form, little more than a skull and bones
wrapped in an old burial cloth.
"She was my blood-line!"

"But she had rejected you Father,"
the skull spoke unrestricted by the
closed clench of the old man's fist.

"Pah!" he said as he tossed him away
violently.

"She did not understand you like I did."
the old man stopped, guitar sagging in
his hand and his back still towards the
wraith-like creature. "She did not
understand the ways of the world and
that you could not act against it all."

"What do you want Simon?"
the old man asked without turning
to face him again.

"I want to bring her back for you."

"Your lies are seconded only by
that what you suggest is impossible Simon.
Do you not believe I had tried as much
before now?"

"But... she is already here."

The old man did turn around at that,
his jaw clenched and his mind set to
turn upon this creature he had once
accepted within his own house and
taught him the arcane art--
more than any other man of his day
and age had right to know, he had
given to him freely.

"I had summoned her up inside
the heart of a child... of my own
flesh and blood. She lives again
inside of her, though she hasn't
the will or want for it. She may
be too long gone for me, and the
child is willful-- she rejects her."

"You seem to have little of that
to lend to anyone, but you will tell
me all of what you have done."

"Restore me, and I shall take you to her."

12- Shade's Nest


"Okay, I give--
What kind of mess have you
gotten us into this time?"
Catalina stared up towards
the still faces that had been
carved into the mountain face,
only some of which appeared
to be human at all.

"Just another relic strong-hold
from back in the day," Dionysus
puffed at his cigar. "Still a tad
more bitter than sweet, but
this was where the rogue Thrones
finally held their ground."

"Uh my God, was Unk ever pissed
when those asses moved in,
really jacked up the neighborhood.
One of those when daddy says no,
go ask mama deals really, and Lady P
still kind of had a soft spot.
Big Daddy P goes "NO! No. no?
Dammit! why do you even ask me
anymore if you're just going
to do it anyways?"

If coyotes were capable of smirking...

"She waits, must hurry!"

"Fricking cockroach.
See what I mean,
you just let some anybodies
move in and look what you get."

"Easy with that, Pal." Catalina growled.

"Okay well, the only reason you
are here is courtesy of a couple
of those same kinds
of whacked out pigeons."

"Were they the good guys?"

"How can you tell them apart?"

"Well, I've heard"...

"Yeah-yeah-yeah,
I know what you've heard already."

"Is it true?"

"What do I know?
I just know every time
one of them shows up,
I have a bad day.
It doesn't even matter
what side they're on."

"We almost there now--
must go"...

CRUNCH.

"What'd you do that for?"

"I feel better already,
except I don't think my boots
will ever be the same."

"How are we going to get
to where ever we were going?"

"What? He isn't gone
for like two minutes and
you already want to stop
and ask for directions?
I got this."

"Okay hot shot,
the trail ends at three gates--
so which do we take, Mr. I-got-this?"

"You have to think like a pigeon."

"Okkkaaay; so how's that
working out for you?"

"If their God is on the right
handed path, and we obviously
are not in Heaven-- think about it."

"I'd just as soon not."

"Time for a new fricking slogan here."
Dionysus tore down the brass sign carved
in strange characters.

"What did it say?" she asked
as she watched him carving something
into the back side of it.

"Abandon all hope ye who enter."
Dionysus answered as he put up
the sign again, Catalina's head cocking
as she seen the same sort of characters.

"What's it say now?"

"Don't feed the pigeons."