

A Multidimensional Garden
We do not get to plot out this garden. It's dimensions are unknown to us. It's yield is finite, but not. It can grow one thing or many, but only in accordance with your will.
There is no sunlight in this garden. There is no water and no earth.
We are ignorant of the garden we tend, but forced to tend it we are.
This is a garden of ideas and relationship. It is a place where the past and future exist at once, and not at all. And it exacts itself precisely on the world around us.
We ignorantly and blindly plant fruit that feeds and fruit that kills.
We blindly pick the fruit of ignorant and unthought-out ideas and interactions.
The food from this garden kills us and grows us, but we cannot see it, and so we thrash around wildly destroying the good and the bad, while some set fire to everything just to be sure.
We rant and rave at those who prosper, because they tend their garden diligently. We wish to destroy their garden because we don't know how to tend our own. We hate for what we do not know how to do, and that too was grown in our garden by our own hand, ignorantly, blindly.
You may never see the garden, but you will always see what comes from it. And in so doing you can tease out how tend it.
If you enjoy a thing, do the things that happened for that to come into being.
If you do not enjoy a thing, do not do those things.
If you see someone doing something you enjoy, join them.
If you see someone doing something you do not enjoy, do not join them.
If you are sad, do not think sad thoughts.
If you are mad, do not think harmful thoughts.
If you are in love, trust.
If you are not in love, trust.
It is imperative that we prune the things in our lives that make us unwell.
Perhaps after that, you will begin to see the garden that we all tend.
A Letter Addressed to You
A letter to the Internet, to humanity, to myself, and to the one who won’t read it:
Dearest,
I learned to distrust because you broke me like you break everything. I blamed you for everything that was going on with me because you brought hammers to my wonder and cold stares to my smiles. I learned that breaking things was easy without understanding how to create from the pieces. You gave me distraction when all I wanted was a companion. I was confined in walls until I learned to be quiet, that my smile meant nothing to others.
I learned hidden joy, to hide it and keep it safe from you, because you always destroyed my joy. Then you took over all I didn’t hide until I gave that up, too. A long, cold winter crept into my soul.
I was the one staring into oblivion. I was the one stumbling through life. I was the one others made comments about but not to, too afraid of what they might find out or too fearful of how similar they might be.
I started to run from you, and I’m fast. But you are too many! You are everywhere! All at once I realized on a frozen morning, blanketed in snow, alone, playfully in the road, that I am you, too.
I flipped a coin.
I shape shifted into another life, like we learn to do.
I raged: I am not them, they are not me. But someone who won’t read this, with a light as bright as the sun, showed me I am you, and you are terrible and wretched and unworthy of trust and diseased and rude and hurtful and ignorant and blind. We are blind.
The rotten stench of my closed off life wreaked and wafted around, filling the room, as you showed me there was no lid, there are no walls, it is just me and my distrust all along.
I begin again, from a new vantage point. With a light of honest clarity and acceptance that what makes us different and difficult is what we will or will not do, can and cannot understand, choose and choose not, that we are limited and unlimited at the same time. I look inwards, now, to dispel the clouds of doubt and mistrust in order to shine a light that can’t be taken back.
From the peak of ignorance I descend into the deep dark unknown depths of trust, armed with a light that cannot be extinguished.
Yours,
J.S. Ellis
The Others
Genre:
Science Fiction
Age range:
Adult
Word count:
>100,000 words
Author:
Jeremy S. Ellis
Good Fit:
I bring to the table fresh perspective and ideas on the future of the direction of storytelling in the burgeoning age of space travel, wish to inspire new ways of looking at the ordinary in space, and bring back the spirit of exploration despite its dangers in a time when entertainment does less to inspire and more to distract.
Hook:
Humanity, split asunder by a tumultuous and sudden war, races to expand its grasp on the surrounding stars. As we follow the Jumpers exploration of space and time, they encounter a mystery so great that it shakes the species to its core. Will humanity survive? Found out in The Others.
Synopsis:
Synopsis of The Others by Jeremy Ellis
Jeremy Ellis's science fiction novel The Others follows Gersham, the only son of a widowed mother, from one of the last coastal towns in a flooding and depopulating world, as he wrestles with his place within humanity and being chosen as one of the first to explore space and time beyond the solar system. Aboard the Eternal Silver Lining, he and his crew struggle with the meaning of their lives and how they are connected to the rest pf humanity as they leap through time. Upon Captain Gersham's first return, two ship crews are intrigued by the catastrophe a fellow Jumper describing an unknown signal coming from Betelgeuse. After a recount by General Ryalic of The Schizm which divided the solar system during their absence, Captain Gersham and crew are ordered to seek out the rumored signal.
In the far reaches of the Betelgeuse system, Humanity comes face to face with The Misunderstanding, as it comes to be known, leading Gersham to retreat back to Sol, warn humanity of this new threat, and somehow attempt to stop what will become a species-level extinction event. It will be up to Humanity to fight it's primal urges in order to save their pocket of the galaxy from a vial threat far older and far more sinister than anything anyone had imagined from beyond the Milky Way itself. As Gersham is tested time and again, he questions his position in the universe as he is flung forward through time, trapped around a dying black hole to become the last human at the end of time.
Target Audience:
Lovers of space sagas, exploration, and adventure. Those who wish to contemplate what might be.
Bio:
Jeremy S. Ellis has a passion for ridiculous short stories, science fiction, philosophy, space, the absurd and real, for music, photography, and generally trying to find a place in the world. He is currently working on his first novel called The Others. Born in California, raised in the American South, and currently residing the Pacific Northwest, he followed his dreams to join the Army, attend university, and teach in South Korea. The perfect summation of him is to see him typing away with coffee next to a large window on a rainy day.
Platform:
theprose.com
Education:
Bachelors of Art's in Geography with a heavy focus in literary studies
Experience:
In depth literary studies during university, teaching ESL in South Korea during the Pandemic from '20-'21, studies of Geography and philosophy, I have lived in multiple countries and traveled to NA, SA, and Asia, I been writing incessantly for the past 11 years.
Personality:
I tend to not enjoy crowds, struggle with interacting with people, and spend my days alone. I enjoy coffee, seeking out quality friends and experiences, and thinking about the world we live in. I have a lot to say, and I enjoy candles that smell like pine. I prefer rain to sun, and mountains to the flats.
Writing style:
I would describe my writing style as fluent and stylistic.
Likes/Hobbies:
Writing, photography, music, crafts, outdoors, exploring, conversating are some of my hobbies. I love coffee and pizza, sunrises and sunsets and snow, but my favorite thing is a good conversation.
Hometown:
I was born in Redding, CA, and grew up in Henderson, TN.
Age:
33
I Need Space. Thank you.
Quiet candle, whispering thoughts, noisy cars, and ruminations of reflections about reflecting reflections... What is it for? It was created by me, and I don't like it. I don't like me.
I don't like that you don't want me to know you.
I don't like that you accepted me to have nothing to do with me.
I don't like that you added me to your collection.
I don't like that you make me watch you torture yourself.
I don't like that you push and pull with nothing at all but a smile and busy fingers.
I don't like that I like you.
I don't like that I am not enough.
I don't like the me you reflect.
I don't like that you don't treasure me.
I don't like that you make me feel like you don't care some days while moving the world for me on others.
I don't like that you say you don't want me to change.
I don't like that you say you don't want me to do anything different.
I don't like that you tell me to go away like the others.
I don't like that your space does not include me.
Ruminations of reflecting ruminations of year of dribble, a year of drab, a year for me that I allowed to become a year about you.
You didn't let me know you could see me.
You didn't let me know you thought about me.
You told me you listen and I told you I do too, but at the end of the day my listening was less to you than yours.
You wanted something you chose not to let me give you.
You said you wanted things that you had, but didn't want to keep.
You keep looking and looking for something in your pocket, only to change your clothes.
You don't see me the way I see me.
You see me the way you see everyone else, less than you.
I abandoned myself, like we all do.
I lied to myself, like everyone does.
I chased you, the way we are supposed to.
You turned on me, the way you do.
You chased me, when you felt like it.
You confused me, because I confused you.
And in the end I fell, wondering, waiting, hoping the plans for December...
The Silent Garden
The sun came out from the window which it had been hiding behind all day. The sudden brightness really did startle me. I closed my eyes, and darkness soothingly enveloped my soul. The silence there was astounding and calm and altogether encompassing—even, the idea of sound did not exist. As my eyes remained shut, there before me lay a green yard with a black tree, beyond it there was a greenhouse. The black sky and white clouds stared at me hauntingly. I did not understand why. The sun no longer tempted me, and I took some steps into the yard. As though I were unbound from some yoke, I was free to explore this garden of silence. I walked past the tree, and the tree did not care. I looked down at my feet and there behind me was nothing, nothing was behind me, not even myself, and I did not care. A few more steps and I would be at the greenhouse, but something about the careless tree held me tight. Perhaps, it’s black teeth jutting up towards the white clouds and black sky were what gave me pause. So menacing were the tree’s teeth that I thought they would shred the sky. Then the rain came. I dared not look up. It reeked of iron, everything reeked of iron. The green grass in the yard turned to mud. Not thick nasty mud, mud that splashed everywhere, mud that ran off quickly, mud that exposed the bright white rocks underneath them. Like little teeth, the rocks began to be exposed. Here and there, everywhere around on the ground there were white teeth rocks. More and more were exposed as the reeking rain thundered down around me. Then, the mud was gone. All that remained was a bone white gravel of teeth, shining brightly without reason, gleaming and glimmering as the blood poured over them.
The garden did not move or change. It remained where it was, silent, utterly silent, and I could not move away from the black tree, because I am the black tree. Who is that there standing on my bones? Who is that over there disturbing my solitude, my eternal realm. I will entice them. I will ensnare them. Yes, yes, come to me and abandon that realm of noise and light. I watched that one standing on my bones turn around, and fear and dread waxed across their face when the world faded. Slowly they walked towards me, and I knew I had them.
Ghouls
I awoke with a pounding heart and screaming in my ear. Sitting up in bed I stared into the darkness of my room. There were no sounds, no movements, not one discernible hint that anything in the world was wrong, but the fear that griped me made me choke. The fear of dread spread over me like a slowly filling bathtub. The feeling came up from the floor, passed over the bed, over my legs, up my stomach to my chest, filling the room with a sense of loss and death and a hopelessness that I have never felt before. When the sense of dread reached my nose, unable to contain myself any longer, I through my head back and screamed for my life. I screamed for my neighbors, I screamed for the passing of an entire world.
As the sun rose, the glint of light through the windows of the white washed brick house cut crystal rainbows through the air, shimmering as they flung themselves on little objects, corners, sifting dust. The house was quiet and still. The was no hint of the terror of the night. I opened my eyes and let the stillness of the world fill me, this void of a mind that was numb from a dreamless night. The quietness filled me, the rainbows of sunlight glided across the room imperceptibly slow, and I took that in as well. I felt the blanket’s softness on my toes, the soft weight of it on me. I smelled the coffee that was cooked in the kitchen, set on a timer before bed of course. I felt my heart beat and blood pulse through me, from my heart to my arms and cause the slight tension in my body. The feeling of warm light, soft blanket, cozy heart beat, made me feel at home and safe and peaceful.
Now that I was awake I looked towards my coffee cup from the night before, grabbed and walked steadily over the hardwood floors to the kitchen where the fresh coffee was waiting. The smell grew strong, my mouth watered, when I reached out towards the coffee pot I saw my reflection and the reflection of darkness, of terror, of fear behind me. I froze while I stared at the reality of the reflection behind me, hovering. I sidestepped and turned in one motion, but there was only the kitchen island looking towards the living room and the fireplace opposite the couch. The peace of the morning was not shattered, it was a shield. The light streaming through the window caught on the dust in the air, laid across the floor and the walls and flooded the entire room, every crevice was filled with it’s beauty and brightness, searching for a darkness to destroy.
Gathering the courage to turn back to my coffee, I caught a glimpse of something out the window. There in the scene of golden sunlight crashing down on a white dew field, strung with diamonds, four dark shapes flickered like black candles of evil intent. I did not freeze. I was not afraid. Awe struck me. These four dark, flickering objects, sparkled and shimmered, flitting like a wisp of smoke. They caught the light coming down and cast no shadow, but instead reflected the light in a cascading rainbow of dark purples, deep reds, and many violent colors that had not been named. Slowly the drifted closer to one-another. The slowness was painstaking and I had lost all interest in my coffee. From my safeness inside my house, I felt an exposure I could not explain, as though those things out in the field knew I was watching them. As the clock on the wall clicked the seconds by, minutes turned to hours, the shadows cast by the trees shortened, the dew burned off the field in lazy streams of steam, a cotton cloud formed above us and drifted off on it’s own path. Still, the four objects flitted and covered the ground with glittering light that I had never witnessed. They drifted so slowly towards one-another that the sun moved across the sky before they had met. All day long, I waited and watched, from breakfast to lunch to dinner, no matter what happened in the day I was the sentinel for a world about to change, and my duty was to watch and wait. The thought never crossed my mind to record them during the day. When they neared each other, I thought to record them, but surely they would disappear, surely some outside proxy would tell me I am insane, that my world was a lie. I forwent recording those ghastly images, too horrific to accept into this beautiful reality, but far too realistic to deny. I wanted them to be real. I wanted those dark figures that struggled against the universe to come together to exist, to see their climax of effort, and the resounding question in my mind to be answered, What is happening?
With a thunder clap and bright blue jets of lightning the wreaths joined, and disappeared. The grass bent in a wave spreading away from the point, trees swayed, the birds in the trees flew away. The sun was setting, and no trace of their existence was left behind but for a smoldering stain in the field where the four had come together after a long and grueling day.
I did not go to sleep that night. Instead I heated up my coffee, grabbed my computer, and curled up on the couch for a very long night ahead. After some time, I grew chilly and decided to start the fire. The comfort one receives from such an experience is difficult to come by in other ways. The fire in my fireplace crackled with a mix of oak and cherry wood. I never used it to heat the house, only for that solitary comfort when my mind delves into the flames and looses itself their within the flickering, ambient light.
Not much had happened while the sun had been up, but I could not shake the feeling that those things, whatever they were, had been attempting something, and that they had failed. The time and energy involved in what had happened, their existing, must have truly been immeasurable. When the explosion happened, I was thought perhaps their would be much destruction, maybe my windows would explode, but the radius around them had been limited in destruction. I would not be brave enough to venture over to inspect that location for some time, for perhaps their return would be the death of me.
Staring into the light of the flames, I recognized the waspish flicker of light as a brighter version of those creatures. The flickering was the same as my fire here, but the shimmering was other worldly, as though the flames that made up the creatures were metallic and yet, also made of some material I’ve never dreamed of.
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Snow flitted down on the window sill. A small robin flew up to the window and inquisitively gave a small tap. Upon noticing there was not an entrance it flew away. I stood there for a moment on the inside, looking out at my snow covered yard and the white world beyond. The snow began to fall heavier and a slight wind picked up. Do birds get cold? The poor little thing, I can imagine it huddled up in some wood hollow, fluffy and warm. Maybe they do not normally. The kettle was beginning to whistle more and more loudly. Turning around brought my attention to the fireplace where a shadow seemed to move. My heart jumped into my throat. Why would something be in my fireplace? What could it have been. I stood and stared, waiting for something to move, but there was nothing. Turning off the burner, I walked over to the fireplace with the kettle of boiling water poised as a weapon, but there was no intruder. I went back to the kitchen and poured the water for my tea. Filling the cup had that nice rustle of noise that comes when filling a tea cup. I stirred in some sugar and clinked my spoon on purpose to hear it clink. That shrill little bell, I summoned the taste of summer.
Oh how I longed for a summer day again, a full and sunny day full of bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds and green rustling trees. The golden fields covered in golden rod are my favorite. Today is the first full day of winter, but it has been cold for ages and ages now. The snow has been light all week, but the forecast on the news predicted heavier than usual snow.
After my tea, I put on my boots, grabbed my big coat and went out to the wood pile under the shed. Trudging through the snow, I made a path. It had been some time since I needed to get fire wood, but with the storm coming, extra wood in the house was always a nice way to stay warm on the cold cold nights. Momentarily I looked up, the sun was covered in a billion flickering rainbows and I was blinded by a trillion diamonds all around me. I decided to stand there for a moment to feel the frozen sun’s last kiss on my nose. “Farewell,” I whispered, as it faded behind the dark, heavy gray clouds. A freezing wind kicked up and I rushed to the shed to get out of the way. Midwinter had come slightly earlier than normal it seemed. In the protection of the shed I filled up my wheel barrel, more pine this time than I would have liked, but at least it wasn’t frozen.
When I turned toward the house my breath caught, someone was staring at me from under the tree beside my truck. He had a dark hat on and a thick jacket and tall boots. I could barely make him out, but there was no mistaking that someone was staring at me from under the tree.
I screamed at him, “Who are you and what are you doing here?!”
The stranger stood there, waiting, watching. Furious, I grabbed my ax I use for chopping the wood. In the freezing wind and blowing snow I made my way toward the tree and the stranger. The closer I got the more terrified I became, and the more angry I was.
“What on Earth do you think you are doing here at my house?!” I screamed again at the man, but the stranger did not move or say anything or hint at moving. He simply stared at me. When I reached the tree I swung my ax as hard as I could. I missed the man as he dodged the ax, grabbed at the handle and tried to punch me. The ax sank deep into the tree where I couldn’t easily get it out. My poor tree is all I could think. I loved this tree, and now I may have killed it. The man hit me so hard in the face that I fell to the ground. The white that I saw became red. He was on top of me for a moment and I need him in the groin, as he grabbed himself I sunk my teeth into his cheek, ripping out whatever had been there. The sudden taste of blood was vomit inducing and I threw up on him immediately.
Enraged, his face bleeding profusely, but unable to stand, the man tried to grab the ax from the tree, but I had struck the tree so hard that even he couldn’t remove the ax. Seeing that he was incapacitated, I attempted to get up, my eyes unable to focus. I grabbed the ax handle first, ignoring the sticking frost that froze my hand to handle, wrenched it from the tree and swung with all my might. I didn’t not hear him scream. I did not hear the thud of the ax smashing his face. It was much like splitting wood really, and with that I had killed a man. I could not look away from him, the ax protruding from his destroyed face, the foam and steam being blown away in the wind. I left him there for his body to freeze. I stumbled back to the shed and grabbed my wheel barrel. Making my way back to the house I stumbled and spilled the wood. I had to pile it back quickly as the storm was becoming ferocious, and threatened to freeze me outside with the man. Hurriedly, I piled the wood into the wheel barrel, dumped it all onto the porch and flung myself inside.
Leaning against the closed door, I slid into a seated position. I could not stop the tears nor the blood that was all over me, frozen in some places, oozing in others. I cried so hard I thought I would vomit again. I crawled over the floor to the bathroom, coughing and shaking, locked the bathroom door and drug myself up to the mirror to see the damage. My hair and blouse was covered in mud, wet from the snow, a large red and swollen mark on my face, was badly split open from his fist. There was his blood mixed with mine. I could not stop crying, that man’s life was gone, and perhaps my tree would die now. I loved that tree.
I screamed into the mirror, cursing him for what I did, cursing him for what he did to me. Why would he be here, why would he have come to my house, how did he come all this way, and from where. I did not recognize him, so he could not have been from town. Then, where did he come from?
As soon as I could stand without shaking and crying I went to unlock the door, but my hand froze to the doorknob. It was not cold in the house, but I could not take my hand away. I could not turn the lock, what if he was on the other side of the door, half his face hanging from the other half, handing me my ax…
How crazy! I turned the lock, wrenched open the door, stepped through into the hallway as fast and forcefully as I could, fully expecting him to be in the doorway without a face and holding out my ax as though I had forgotten it. But the room was warm, quiet, and my messy retreat into the house was fully visible. The rug was scattered, mud and melting snow everywhere, and some of the blood also lay splattered in the doorway. I looked out the door. There was nothing to see, except a blanket of white more solid than the ice sheets of 13,000 B.C.
Mistakes Were Made
Of all of the places, of all of the things, these days are lost to me the most. A move on the chess board of life, each pieces that is taken is a moment lost, each mistake a moment gone wrong. In this day, in this time, in this place, I have made all the wrong moves. The nothingness that had been my life was the board not played. Now, the board is set and the pieces moving, but the rules keep changing. The rules for ever move are different, the rules shift mid-move. Unsteady, won’t defeat unshakable, but in the fog of war unknown moves control the board beyond my reach.
It’s time to go. I messed up, again. The mistakes are piling up on me, and I do not know how to remedy them. Every move I make gets me into a situation, but then I make mistakes that blow it apart.
Replaceable. I am not unique. I am not one of a kind. I have no place. There is no reason for me to be here. I have no purpose. There is nothing for me anywhere. My inside is void. My outside is destitute.
Once again I exist inside of other’s existence. Once more I find myself lost in someone else’s life.
To be Human
On the peripheries of feeling and memory is where our ancestors live within us. We catch a glimpse of them in the mirror, a ghost in our shadow cast on the wall. Our hands look like theirs did. We love and hate like they did. We fear and create and crave just as they did. We long for things deep inside of us that come from a past that stretches into a past of power when we conquered the world, and then we were in turn conquered.
An urge to chase, the fleet foot of fear, a murderous flash of hate, a burst of mindless and selfless love, the mysterious rapture of the capture of fire, like springs of fresh water from the bowls of the Earth where no light has ever shown. These emotions well up within us still to this day.
If you search for solitude, it is because you feel your ancestor cresting the mountain and conquering the sea and claiming the deepest caves.
If you search for multitudes, it is because you feel your ancestor yearning to meet friends from years forgotten on the journey over endless horizons.
If you search for art and darkness, it is because you feel your ancestor creating in the dark night with fire and the light of mind.
If you rave and rage, it is because you feel your ancestors in eternal battle, waging war through times of ice, times of darkness, times of fire, rank and file, times alone amongst the wolves, bears, and nameless fears.
We are the Wild Things, Fire Eaters of the Night, the Terror of the Earth, Those Who Would Swallow Stars.
Step by step I paced from shore to shore, row by row I glided on top of the seas. Then I grew wings. From the darkness of immeasurable past I stare at the stars, eager with hungry eyes. Tremendous fire brought me the moon, I pace the sky of Earth with unceasing angst to conquer all that is seen.
Woe to those who we discover.
Woe to those who discover us.
Woe, Woe, Woe to our coming.
We are the Unnameable Things, Fire Eaters of Eternal Night, The Terrible Sea, Those Who Swallow Stars.
It was not with anger and hatred I wiped your kind from memory, it was with ecstasy and glee and elation with which I brought the torch to all you held dear.
Deep deep deep deep in my soul I crave to be human again. I crave the ice, I crave the fire, I crave the sting of cold in my lungs, I crave the heat of another, I crave the singular goal, I crave the excitement of success, I crave the fear of my death. I want to create without limit, I want to swim naked in the river, I want to feel the abyss take hold and to put it in its place beneath me.
God have mercy on us all if there really are others like us out there, somewhere, amongst the stars. Those who feel, those fear, those who cannot and will never tame the fire within their soul.
There may come a time when we wish that we never left, because I already feel that we have lost so much. Perhaps, losing everything will be too much to bare.
Caution: the human capacity to overcome is dangerous, our ability to pursue is ceaseless, the drive once discovered can only be ended by death. However, wielded by a strong mind with good intent and fear as your only enemy, you will do great things, terrible, but great.
Earth Gently Yawned
Ages ago there was a mountain that went flat. A river decided to make itself home and plant little trees all about itself. A little family thought it was a nice river and to make some room for cows, chickens, fruit trees, goats, sheep, children and all of the laughter that comes along with such things. Good smells and bad smells were always in the air around the farm by the river. One day the river got restless and shrugged off an uncomfortable bend that had been growing. The family, the cows, the chickens, the fruit trees, the goats, the sheep, the good smells and the bad smells were all washed away down the river to the bottom of a lake. Some of the trees that river planted and the family had cleared piled onto the bottom of the lake on top of the family’s new home. Ages ago the earth was a little less sleepy and yawned ever so gently, the river was thrown to the horizon, the decedents of the trees the river planted now grew on the side of a mountain with a lot of snow, giant crags of ice, and house sized boulders. Every now and then many of the children of the trees the river had planted would fall down the side of the mountain, covering a hilly area that had once been a lake, long long ago.
Delectable Treat
Flying in directly towards my face, with a terrifying speed, a speed that I could not react to but only witness, the bird shrieked at me fiercely. Growing larger and larger as it sped towards my eyes, blue and magenta, little flecks of orange with reflections of the yellow sun dashed about on its out flung wings. It pitched violently towards me, talons out stretched, mouth agape, the scream in my ears escalated ferociously, but was it the bird’s scream or mine? I couldn’t know. It’s beak, I’ve never seen any beak so close before, it’s beak… the beak. That horrible hook came for me, for my vision, it hated my eyes, it hated my sight, it hated with jealous rage and ravenous hunger. Will it enjoy my eyes? Will it revel in my pain? Does it understand my last sight will be the inside of it’s mouth? What does the inside of a bird’s mouth look like? I guess I will find out in just moment as it stabs and plucks, gulps and caws. The scream is so unbearably loud, perhaps it will take my hearing as well. I thrash.