patchwork

inoculation.

induction.

ignorance.

more steps-verses-re, winding times back to before the suffering.

welcome back, viewers, to my living twilight, where that pivotal beginning comes second to its end. hours to hour powers extend out, touch the sun's fading horizon, as this old fern withers into dust. to a forest i go and to a forest i return, yet each only embody this journey's crescendos. what requires in-depth perusal is kinetics, combustion, radiation, all the small rays earth's sphere abundantly offers. our body-builds rest on sunlit foundations thrown out on rigid axises, rigged to refracted wave-points like tracked dollies swerving in a crystal mineshaft. deeper and deeper does the path extend, drive on into dirt, drill through dampness, dink across diamonds, and deeper still does the cart go, loaded with its luscious cargo, invisible motivation. even if tracing its path proves impossible at first, our energy runs straight in the end, guided by universal management and unalterable dictates.

unfortunately, its end isn't ours.

the dolly must reel back.

the administration accepts no substitutes for its content.

one-one trades.

equivalence.

business as usual.

my surfacing was to come with screeched wheels and train blows from a man you all know.

Nine was swallowed by it, black as the sputtering stars, and the dark between the leaves surged backwards as i sprinted down the path. too bright, too hot, too visible. it invoked the white haze of knowledge. bunches, cracks, trees impede escape, veiny hedges and coagulated sap muddying all-too familiar surface space. crunches, creaks, snaps left in my wake, left in sum-autumn breezeways, half-gold clearings opaqued with red drizzle. trip! a half-wail, clogged by adrenaline that kicks me up with a horse hind-leg whumf and shoots me out again, sleek, pumping vitality, an inadequate imitation of what forces me onward. dirt roads littered with trash, flotsam vestiges catching my step- but i couldn't afford to consider them. the treehouse door bumped forward-back to my left-right-no sight, distraction opening an avenue of opportunity in two eye flutters for it to twist the world and arrive ahead, nine paces off.

cracks colors and shifts places.

deja vu.

y tu, John?

split off, blitz another way, pretending not to notice. pretending that thoughts of spiriting myself away rested deep in my mind's sleep, in subtexts that parlayed hints held only by morpheus. pretending the panic was momentary, checked by primal eddies, never truly comprehended. crack, crack, crack. whispering winds give no answers to its placement, but it never lingers. never without reason. huff, huff, huff. a squished sun held reign above my head as i careened onto a orange-red stretch of dirty essence, earth-stuff splattered all over, kept moving even though my legs begged to rest. -blink- precludes the next step. abdominal gurgling at the sight, an urge to unclench clogged bowels. blue chills grip, a pressure clamped down on my toes, unwinds me upward, unhinges what control remains. to keep it contained is maddening and to keep it maddening contained, a conundrum of conflict i couldn't address.

stumble, stumble, stumble.

falls come quick.

somehow it had gotten hold.

it drew me up and out, as wide as the sky yet still linked to soils at the edge. black spread out and only widened sight. searing tones of Nine's abscesses clumped with inky knots from Nine's recesses, but no white lasted besides its floppy oval. thousands upon thousands of its parts and pieces quivered with delight, wormed and wriggled and slunk down and across, perused Nine's fractures, suckled Nine's nutrients gleefully, spat at one-another, considered my capture. i observed none of them. i wept without regret, too terrified for shame, too prostrate to change, at it. investigating my essence with doctoral sterility, it unites our appendages, as if urging me to deduce what monstrosity lays beneath the humanoid veil. i can't tell it, i can't, that it wasn't for me, but for her. suspended in Nine's organic miasma, a choking cloud of the forest's all-colored virility, i await its schism.

starting at the end, though, has its perks.

those watchful appreciate my handiwork.

the Almighty.

my dome-self collapses, suddenly, to Nine's foundation, and Nine's tints blend again. a suitable aroma greeted my rise: charred musk, dried blood, condensed dusk swirling in 70 degree moonshine. it's what he held in his hand, chugged, as he watched my work shoes struggle to embed the grassy patch newly spawned by it. his suit? a crisp beige, signifying an armani epidermis. his shoes? a slick black, unmarred by mortal dirt. his importance? my once-current boss. a grin nearly leapt off his face when our eyes met, and i knew he knew why my pupils stayed dilated. his black skin showed no perspiration. golden shine breached the vessel of his mind, poured out through the pitcher of his eyes. to his suit's right, two small letters, string text embroidered red and white.

KO.

an outstretched hand takes my only touch of apotheosis.

"Hello, Moe. We've taken interest."

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here ends guides, signs, and the fateless life of Moe Nunbady.
now the real work commences.