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tatterdema1ion

From one neural web to another.
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Literature

The Prophet and His General [3]

Lyle grimaced up into at the wristdial he’d tied to his tent’s spine. Morning’s sixth shadow. It was not the first mocking set of runes the dial flashed at him. Nine arduous lifts of his chin from the deep had only dragged him mark by mark through three shadows since he’d woken. Already half-sleep, bristling and haggard, was raking him back down under—his fingers twitched impotently, and he squeezed his eyes closed against the backlash. Heavy. So heavy. His lids could barely lift themselves for exhaustion. True rest only weaved with sickeningly heavy, crunching steps in and out of his skull, sapped him until he w

All

90 deviations
Literature

The Prophet and His General [3]

Lyle grimaced up into at the wristdial he’d tied to his tent’s spine. Morning’s sixth shadow. It was not the first mocking set of runes the dial flashed at him. Nine arduous lifts of his chin from the deep had only dragged him mark by mark through three shadows since he’d woken. Already half-sleep, bristling and haggard, was raking him back down under—his fingers twitched impotently, and he squeezed his eyes closed against the backlash. Heavy. So heavy. His lids could barely lift themselves for exhaustion. True rest only weaved with sickeningly heavy, crunching steps in and out of his skull, sapped him until he w

Featured

77 deviations
Literature

The Mantle

“Gimlet,” Gast says. And he means me, could not mean another so cohered, so bone-tremblingly focused are those two syllables. Our meeting is enfolded, as ever, in the heavy-handed ceremony of all state business, but it is no less ours. Gast appears to me as a projection mounted in a bruised TV screen. Its liquid-gauze contents could pass for a sfamato painting, they’re so full of shifting murk and grey tides. And even those rhythmic disturbances are scattered by breathy impressions of pool-like eyes, of arches that might be the brush of lips or a brow against a veil. All that is clear is the TV’s sound. His sound. The

Short Stories

8 deviations
Literature

Radical Part I

Hindsight is undeservedly notorious. The historian is derided for it, and the simple minds that commit that slander would also have us believe that it brings only regret. The truth, of course, is that hindsight is the most beatific of humor. It brings with it the kind of gut-wrenching laughter that makes tears of joy and pain glide in harmony down rose-pink cheeks. This is true particularly with ideas. The speculation of one generation is the amusement of the next. Doomsday predictions aside, this isn't because the projections that men make are a far from the truth, from their destinies. Far from it, such predictions are usually chillingly

Radical Version 1

6 deviations
Literature

The Prophet and His General [1]

He stands there. Utter's First General, its Grand Prophet's right hand, the second most powerful man in the state. There are few laurels adorning his uniform, little indication of his rank at all. It is a poignant reminder that he need never introduce himself, and one of many subtleties a man weighed by the concerns of Uegyre and all her nations must possess. Yet, somehow, he doesn't cut a foreboding figure. There is a grin ironic and debonair on that face, and it has eyes that have laughed at it all for decades because otherwise they would have shattered. As it is with all men who know themselves, he does not seem wholly serious, even though

Prophet and His General Version 1

9 deviations
Literature

and three ships she did launch

I. You were an earthy flame kindled in the distilled essence of ancient grass and grain, of wholesome, finer things. And would you truly call it selfish that you so easily find place in the yawning 'spance of space, and chused your yoke by humbled grace?   II. Me, I was born in refuse, o’er our terror’d, smog limned pyre-- a chemical, reaction’ry fire sparked livid and sparked direAnd streaking through the heavens a conflagration writhing in trysts and Falls         I…              was…        &

Poetry

9 deviations
Literature

Steerage Drabble

Arrenhius? He’s that man, sitting there with the dark, dark eyes. The one whose skin is as black as the rough charcoal he carries everywhere, and who’s shirt, when he’s not garbed for the ravages of the outside world, is about as white as the bastardized equivalent of paper we get out here. You think I’m talking about him sympathetically—well, I suppose so. It’s me and my mercy that’s got him in this kettle now, and at this point it’s starting to boil. Look, even his brother’s there, brushing past him and knocking his shoulder, and he’s so used to it by now he hasn’t even glanc

Misc.

3 deviations
Literature

Aesop's Last Fable

THE GIRL AND HER DEMON: The girl was pale— so pale that her wan face reflected the jaundiced hue of the light over the dining room table, whose coverlet might once have been white like her skin, but had long since yellowed with age and filth. The girl was also very thin, almost bony. Beneath an untidy frizz of hair she had eyes swollen with fatigue, eyes that burned feverishly as they darted about in astute, fearful scrutiny, sinking ever deeper into their sockets like candles burning at the wick. Her hands were articulate, but curiously bruised over the knuckles. She had a nose and a mouth, as well. But these were small since the frai

Pre-Undergraduate Writings

8 deviations
Radical [Character Sketches]

Doodles

22 deviations