9/5/25: Georgia
Motherfucking Iahel.
In Georgia. Last stop Florida. Last stop, The Dragon. The south always makes me itchy. There’s good fighting down here. Among god’s people. I could use a fight. Mal wouldn’t have brought me if he wasn’t expecting one. And I can feel it, violence sits beneath my skin like imbricated razorblades. The more I move the more this shell of peaceflesh is shredded. By Florida there will be nothing left. I will be raw violence in shining sharp communion. My rage a rite. My fists an offering they’ll take with open mouths and oozing eyeballs.
Willow puts a hand on my knee.
Not yet, says her gentle touch, not yet.
I’ve already forced myself into human form. So. Uncomfortable. I feel like a grub. Devolved. Unglory. I see why they try so hard to destroy themselves. Told they’re divine, but feeling like a grub all day, every day.
I have not introduced all the players in this fight. There’s me, Mal, and Willow, of course. Willow the psychic is excellent at hand to hand combat, sees most moves before they come. Mal cheats with magic.
There is also Angor Animi, Calculi, and Cogon.
I’m not sure what Angor is, but he thinks he’s perpetually near death. Looks human, is fucking fearless. Does a lot of the crazy fire and sword swallowing stunts at the circus. Ad-libs a lot, which is- well I, personally, like it -but sometimes the kiddies leave in tears, let’s just say.
Calculi is one of the most terrifying women I’ve ever met. Never stops moving, even now, sitting in the back of the van, she’s fidgeting with sharp things. She’s our knife thrower.
Cogon is fast, he’s everywhere, he spreads, he gives people the creeps to the point where it physically makes them ill, he likes fire. Frequently sets himself on fire… good guy in a fight for sure. For obvious reasons he’s a tenter. But sometimes he’ll do Shakespeare while we light him on fire. He loves it.
Damnit. I think Willow put some snooze suggestion in that leg pat she gave me. Snoozestion? Sleepy.
Heaven is a gift shop
I did get Evelyn to go to the Nazareth gift shop. I was perusing a beautiful Bible bound in regenerating cotton candy… you know, I never did like the Bible… either too dull or too bloody. If the author could have come down more in the middle of things I think it would have been a better book. Cotton candy, on the other hand, I adore. This was one of those King James versions. Capital fellow.
“You know, he was gay,” Evelyn sniffed the cotton candy.
“King James the Sixth of Scotland and First of England was gay?” Balderdash, she was just trying to get my dander up.
“No, it’s true. You haven’t seen him here, have you?”
“He’s in Hell? He wrote a whole Bible? He killed all the witches!”
“He didn’t write the Bible, he commissioned forty-seven scholars to translate it to English.”
“But he was gay?”
“Yes.”
“Balderdash.”
She touched the book, and the mortification of what happened next will haunt me until my… well.
The cotton candy Bible burst into flames. Everyone in the shop stared. No less than three women fainted. Evelyn grabbed a bit of flaming sugar and tossed it into her mouth like a common circus freak. She grinned at me.
“I guess you can take the girl out of Hell, but you can’t take Hell out of the girl.”
“I used to be able to do tricks like that, too. When I was a ghost.” Ashamed of my wife and in a sudden fit of melancholy for my lost power, I turned from the gift shop and left. Evelyn followed. The crowd on the promenade parted like the waters of the Nile for us.
“I think I’ll skip badminton tonight, perhaps I’ll just stay in and… think.” But Evelyn wasn’t listening, she was walking backward with her eyes closed and muttering under her breath.
Honestly, she’s just so embarrassing.
9/5/25
I have, a friend, a confidante, I can’t really remember what it was like. August ate up so much of my life. I’m terrified I’ll lose her now that I have her. Miriam learned how to function without a mother long ago, she’s very independent, self sufficient. She even has an after school job and buys all her own food and clothes. Which is changing, Jesus, she should get to enjoy herself a little. She’s such a serious girl. Rarely is she ever frivolous or fun, on the other hand, she hates authority figures and rebels at every opportunity. It’s not out of willful joy, though, it’s because she literally sees authority as a threat to her autonomy. She’s so certain of herself. She senses that she has a mission, even though she doesn’t quite know what it is. I brought up college, but she just looked at me and smiled.
“Mom, I have important things to do.”
What are those things? She won’t tell me. Or she doesn’t know. She’s very smart, just has different priorities than literally everyone else on the planet. I think she knows her life will never take a traditional path, so there’s not much point in learning traditional things.
She’s obsessed with finding her father now that she knows who he is. She sleeps with his feathers and she says they influence her dreams, give her instructions. She’s still a little vague about it all and I’m not sure if it’s because she doesn’t trust me (justified) or if she’s just receiving vague information. Time will tell I guess.
In the meantime, her brother is confused about our sudden change in relationship, but, puppy that he is, he’s going with the flow and being kinder to Miriam, too. Which makes me happy, but also he needs to learn to make his own decisions, I’ll need to work with him on this.
I mean motherhood for fuck’s sake…
I loved this! the tone and the voice are so fresh. and I love the detail about human bodies feeling like grubs. I do feel like a grub, thank you for seeing me.