M of Witches Town @signalstation@witches.town
so long, witches.town
please forward all scrolls, message crows, and visions to: a.weirder.earth/@signalstation
Thanks to everyone for following a year's worth of my witch-themed microfiction. As this instance sinks into the swamp, please note you can find me over at a.weirder.earth/@signalstation where I'll continue to write the sort of nonsense that used to be found right here.
YARD SALE
Just selling a few things that are starting to clutter the ol' hut. Make an offer
The Mask of Trees - Helps you blend in with trees, make friends with trees, seduce a tree's tree-wife.
The Mask of Illusion - Makes you think you can look like anyone, but that's an illusion. You look like an idiot in a mask that's got no eye holes.
A pile of masks - I forget what these do. Probably cursed.
Even more masks - You know what? I thought I had a problem with clutter but I think it's just these masks, reproducing. Rubbing their fake faces together and breeding.
Come get a mask. Cheap.
Oh sure, everyone laughed when I carved replicas of them out of butter, but who's laughing now? It's my butter friends, and their laughter takes the form of goopy rivers dripping down their cheeks because we're enjoying a day at the The Beach That Forbids the Presence of Doubters. That's the official name, it's on the sign and everything, and you'd know that if you were here or made of butter.
It's Thursday and we all know what that means! Time to grab your Whisper Journals and meet at the town's center to compare notes! What have the Cold Voices hissed at you from under beds, from behind heavy furniture, from under the floorboards this week? Have any names been repeated? Are they still talking about me? If we don't write it all down, we'll never know when the hissing stories align into truth!
Way to go, me... way to not hit enter and alienate folks in the office Slack channel because you think spooky stuff is funny.
While working a Fourth of July event:
So there I was, a weird little clown chugging around on a weird little mutant tricycle.
A guy walks up to me and says, "Nice bike. Give it to me."
I politely said no.
He asked, "Why not?"
Without thinking, I blurted out, "At the moment, This is my means of production. To seize it would be Marxist, and that wouldn't really fit the theme of the day."
He gave me a somewhat confused fist bump and left me to my weirdness.
New from your pal, me, it's LOST TIME INCIDENT 68 - a collection of short fiction pieces all on one page. Hate having to read my timeline or follow me here? Why not ... visit a page instead?
http://www.signalstation.com/lost-time-incident-68-money-and-toast-for-the-rag-picker/
I'm so old I remember when blades could barely trot, never mind run.
Okay, that's all I got. That's the whole movie review.
When I'm not writing odd little bits of fiction, I sometimes string sounds into exactly 45 minute experiences.
Want to hear some Hindi dub, and funk, and Portuguese pop, and beats, and rock, and cut-ups and more? Basically an eclectic collection of tunes?
It's Saturday and we all know what that means! Time for the whole village to grab their sharpest knives and head to the orchard in search of the Apple King. If we find him on his branch, you'll hear the cry of "Justice for the Pips!" as the knives strike home, banishing monarchism again from our fruit pastures.
It's Friday and we all know what that means! Time to walk out into the woods and heed the whispers of the trees. In this way, the Green Bishop tells us which of the villagers should be tucked under a pile of leaves to begin their journey into the Mulch Realms, to learn the secrets of the Worm Council. Should the lucky Chosen struggle, a few persuasive blows with stout branches can do wonders!
Future historical epics are going to feature that traditional 21st century warrior figure: a corporate samurai wearing a bowler hat, clockwork pocket cogitator, and a selfie sword-stick.
The elite of the Late Period Glass Tower People would add a flexible foil antenna to their Selfi Stick, as a religious practice to synchronise their soul with their primitive god, the Wi-Fi, and also as protection from both psychotronic mind-rays and the all-pervading acid rain.
girl did it hurt when you fell from heaven?
actually? yes it did
they severed my wings with burning holy light and I felt the wrath of god herself, then plummeted to the ground, infinity miles below
but what most hurt was my pride, my eternal joy of being of the high kin, erased, never to bask in the glory again, doomed to roam the land of the mortals or worse
it hurt like you will never know, human
now leave me alone with my grief
There's always that one guy in your cult who's always tugging at his robes, saying "this fabric doesn't BREATHE" but when it's time to pay dues for the robe budget, he always forgot his wallet in his other robes, the red ones for sacrifices, and it's like "That's what you said last time, Gary, and we KNOW you had to pay for parking to get here, so what's up with that, GARY?"
It's Friday and you know what that means! It's time to gather your fingerling gems and head down to the A N S W E R S P I T! Every gem you lick and drop down into the pit is one more day The Greenish Lady will sleep down there in the dark, blanketed in jewels, every moistened gem facet a plummeting kiss to her cheek. While she dreams, our children grow and the village prospers. May none of us live to see Her wake!
TOP 5 SECRETS OF THE RECENTLY DEAD (and you won't believe #3!)
1. The afterlife can not be described by words... only by touch. Surrender to the touch of the recently deceased. A cold palm against your cheek. You will know.
2. Coffins are not for containment. They are keys. They open the doors.
3. Where language fails, the self dilutes like salt in water.
4. A kicky red lipstick can reinvigorate your look! Match colors to scarves to really kick it up a notch!
5. The silence in graveyards is a pause in conversations, for your benefit. Move on.
RULES FOR DATING MY DAUGHTER
1) You must venture into the dark woods, unarmed.
2) Gather a pile of stiff dry leaves and shape them into human form
3) Whisper into the ear of this thing-that-shakes-in-breezes an offer of dinner or a movie, animating my daughter of detritus into consciousness, you wizard of crumbling foliage, you romeo of loam
4) Leave me out of it, weirdo
It's Tuesday and you know what that means! It's time to gather the whole family and go down into the caverns as we do every week, drowning our worthless eyes in darkness, slipping into deep cold pools and gnashing cave fish with our needle-like brittle teeth. Fun for all! Except the fish! And the day ends, floating in the subterranean void, false stars of exertion in our vision, listening to the hum of the earth that will one day swallow us again.
WESTERN EXPLORER, CIRCA 1899: Hello! Tibetan natives! We have braved mountains and deserts to learn your ancient brain-melting mysteries! Terrify us with the cosmic insanity of things that simply ought not to be! Our minds are strong! We can handle the ultimate unknowable truth!
LAMA (nods sagely): Ah. You'll be here for the yak butter tea then.
EXPLORER: You have bested us. We will depart and speak of this no more.
Dang! A bellyful of antlers!
Clowns enter a building by the highway furtively, a neon XXX in in the window. They're renting videos of men & women getting pied in the face over and over again. So many pies.
A clown leaves the peepshow booth, then another, then another, a crowd of them, more than could have fit inside.
Behind the building, a floppy-shoed & tired tramp approaches a clown in her car, engine running. The tramp leans in the car window, takes a proffered $20, then pretends to sniff a false flower on the driver's lapel. The flower squirts in the tramp's eye. It's a living.