9/6/25: Florida: Key West
We have reached the moron infested swamp. I’m being unfair. The land, Florida, is a remarkable place and I love a romp through the wet, seething everglades. The wildlife is not the issue. Nor is the climate, I can take the heat, and the humidity. It’s the humans here that give me agita, for the most part. Gross deniers of The Mother’s sickness. And then there’s Iahel.
We pull up to her trailer. It’s decked out like the Queen of Woo Woo lives there. Every disparate, appropriated new age sign, symbol, and signifier is affixed to the flimsy exterior, which is, of course, painted pink. I get a gut ache just looking at it. Iahel runs out at soon as we park. Long blonde hair flowing, weird floral robes billowing, scarves everywhere, she jangles like she just robbed all the kiddies at an arcade.
“You MADE it! I knew you’d come. Not a day went by that I didn’t tell the kittens that I knew you’d come.” She blinks deliberately, her eyes are blue. I want to vomit.
She’s like, twenty-three going on old money Boston. The kittens are lolling about all over the place. Twenty? Thirty? I’m hungry just looking at them. Buncha snacks.
I got out of the van first. Like ripping off a bandaid. That sweet bright flash of pain.
“Azazel! Ugh, you’re filthy. Are you thinking about eating my kittens? Filthy abomination.” She turned to Mal next, “Papa, a blank wall as always.” She’s so perturbed at this, hates that he won’t let her read his mind. “Willow! Your mind is always so peaceful!” She scowled at Angor Animi, Calculi, and Cogon, “You three can stay outside.”
Calculi licked one of her knives and Cogon did a handstand, clapping his feet. Angor Animi was checking his vitals, not paying any attention to her.
“Well, let’s inside, ducklings, I have the chiller running just for you. And I ran down to the deli for some victuals. I hope you’re hungry.”
Iahel is a mindreader, a very skilled mind reader. She doesn’t have to read all of us, she can turn it off, she just won’t. Willow and Mal can block it- I cannot. But I have fun with it at least.
Inside, the trailer is just as obnoxious as outside. Incense fogging the place up, dried flowers, tarot cards (which she cannot read, by the way. Not a skill she has), one of those Tibetan bowls, rain sticks, and perhaps the most irritating thing of all, a neon sign that says “manifest” in squiggly font.
We sat in her poofy furniture.
“Papa, I’m so happy to see you. I’m in such trouble down here.”
“It’s been too long, Iahel.” Mal does this thing where he stares right into the depths of your very being instead of asking the question that needs to be asked. Iahel squirmed.
“Well, Papa, the Key West portal is in sincere danger.”
Malphas raised an eyebrow, the Key West portal has never once been in danger. Angels burst in to flames just thinking about Key West. That’s why Iahel is stationed here, she’s useless, but she doesn’t need to be anything else.
“Papa, your goat just thought me useless.”
“Please continue, my lovely Iahel,” again with the ice. He thinks she’s wasting his time, vying for attention. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Iahel shot me a glance.
I showed her my tongue, a sign of peacemaking among goats.
I’ll spare you the rest of the conversation and get to the point. There are new angels in town, but they are not the builders and warriors that we usually see when a portal is in danger, they’re destroyers. Lucifer was once a destroying angel, before the revolution. Destroyers only come into play when something big is about to happen, plagues, natural disasters, world wars, genocide, that kind of thing. The queasy assumption is hurricane, but both Willow and I are prickling at this. It feels bigger than a hurricane. Mal is inclined to agree, though he doesn’t feel the future like Willow and I do.
Iahel is pleased with herself and insufferable.
The circus will be setting up in Key West for the foreseeable future.
At least there’s a lot of half naked men here.
Yoga in Heaven
Evelyn showed me all about yoga this morning. Interesting stuff. She’d carved a perfect circle into the floor of the second study and had then drawn a star inside. One, that one being me, of course, is to lie down inside the circle, much like Da Vinci’s famed Vitruvian Man, with one’s head at the top point of the star and then arms and legs aligned in like manner with the other points. Then Evelyn put black candles in between the star’s points and lit them. She said all of this was supposed to be relaxing, but if I ‘m being honest I was slightly concerned that I’d accidentally knock over a candle if I was called upon to move at all. Evelyn put me at ease, however, and instructed me to remain perfectly still, perfectly relaxed. She then placed a velvet cloth over my eyes that was perfumed with the most intoxicating scent. I insisted she wear it regularly, but of course she made excuses. Anything to avoid pleasing me, her husband.
Now the rest is a bit of a blur, but she cut open my shirt, slashed open my belly and snatched out fists full of my intestines before I could even render suitable protestations. She thus straddled me in the most unladylike manner, and, I perish to write this, she gyrated in a filthy simulacrum of a whore, not at all like a chaste and devoted wife. She then did mad incantations, ate of me, and bit out my tongue before swallowing it whole.
Well.
I’ve let her know that I’ll need a few days to recover before I do any more yoga. Fortunately my tongue has almost regenerated and my intestines were easy enough to stuff back inside before my flesh reformed.
I think I must have done something wrong, however, as Evelyn does not seem pleased.
I wish I could stop thinking about her gyrating while covered in blood. The vision has quite taken over my mind and I was, unfortunately, trying to remember where I’d seen such a yoga star before. But now all I think about is my wife on top of me. Most unsettling.
9/6/25: Deadwater
The husband has returned. He said he missed me. I think he meant it. He brought me gifts, thoughtful ones. He’s so nice. Why don’t I trust it? Is there something there? Or did August just wreck me?
I drank, not too much, we snuggled on the sofa and watched a movie. It was fine. It was better than fine, I liked it. He’s cute, he smells nice. He’s not Mal, but… I get so lonely.
And sex felt, exciting, with this man I barely know who’s known me for over a decade. I thought I would hate it, but, I didn’t. It was like part of me remembered. Some part of me that exists above all the others, in all the planes and all the timelines, She remembered being with him and that made it all ok.
Now I can’t stop wondering, what am I? If I exist in all these places? If there’s an omniscient me, can I reach Her?
Can I know everything I’ll ever go through?
Have I lost my mind?
There are many parts of this write I love; the story line; the quirky rhythm, like this line:
“She blinks deliberately, her eyes are blue. I want to vomit.
She’s like, twenty-three going on old money Boston.”
Great piece! 👏👏👏