The Rise and Fall of a Sparrow

 The last night I was imaginary 

We lay with our heads to the waterline 

And the sky was crowded with birdsong made light 

You said my voice was completed 

A crystalline thrill of diamond speech 

And I thanked you and adored you 

And left anyway, crushing knives and ashes underfoot 

Before leaving my feet forever

The Belltower of Babel (dreamtime)

    I was back at university with S., on the last day of fall term. So it was bastard cold and the buses and trains were all running late and the floor of the Social Sciences lobby was awash in slush and salt and gravel from outside. And of course there'd been a mixup with my schedule so I was signed up for a 4th-year biochem class, which I wasn't aware of and therefore hadn't been attending, so I had to see the department head to get documentation that I was not actually a BCM student, had not attended a single session of the course, and thus had permission to drop after the drop deadline without academic penalty.  Cue standard bureaucratic bullshit on top of various department end-of-term / Xmas parties and nobody really wanting to get any work done.  In addition, the library (which was still in the former buildings) had now subsided to the point that the main administrative areas were in (unheated) subterranean caves.

    So I'm standing in a huge lineup with about a hundred other people, all clutching bedraggled bits of paperwork and blowing on their hands.  I'd actually acquired a coffee at some point, so that was nice.  But the line was still taking forever, and instead of the standard pylon-and-rope arrangement for managing queues, the line just snaked through a labyrinth of tunnels.

[LATER]

    Still at the university, except this was one of the multiple-origin areas that didn't really resemble any specific campus so much as a mashup of all of them.  I'd parked illegally somewhere and was hurrying to a (meeting / lecture?) in this massive, cavernous space like the hollow cast of a beehive, with a ramp spiraling up the interior and corridors leading off in all directions.  I checked my phone in a panic but couldn't read the time (you'd think this would have clued me in that it was a dream), and I was still dressed in my winter stuff, so heavy boots and multiple layers of clothing topped off with my big-ass cloak. And then this bell started going off, and it was so loud the floor was shaking, so I just ditched the cloak and started running like hell to get to wherever I was going before it stopped.

Maybe Someone Else Should Drive

A face in the clouds

A voice in your ear

The graffiti of bird tracks in dusted snow

Pareidolia does not suffice

When all omens and portents

Drag insistently at your sleeve

A 10-coincidence pileup

Triggered by a running joke played

By the specific at the expense of the typical

Singularity

 You're the sort of person

Who steps off a corner into traffic 

As though the headlights like everything else

 

Were too slow to touch you

 

The last night you were here

 

I never saw you

But your passage was marked by a convulsion of light

As on all sides bright insubstantial chatter

Turned raw and vitreous before rending

 

All you ever leave behind is a lack

Vacancy

 You gave me a picture, once 

Of a winter sun-pale room with a half-open door

 

I watched it steadily, steadfastly

Through racking days of sickness

 

Prayed to it, the clean and solitude

 

With blood on my lips

I never saw who entered

To mourn the hollow space 

Gearing Down Dialing Back (dreamtime)

     It's cold as fuck and the coven (3/5 of us) are hunkered down in the alley behind Dickens.  T. gives me a bit of a hard time about the watch.

    "Right, because nothing says spooky black magicians doing dark rituals like a Donald Duck watch."

    "Look, between the fucking steampunks and collectors, it's getting *hard* to find cheap fully-mechanical watches these days, okay? Beggars can't be choosers. It's gonna be scrap in a few minutes anyway."

    So we throw up a quick circle with powdered charcoal so we can see the line against the dirty snow, fumbling with the lighter and the alcohol, which flares briefly blue but gives no warmth.

    I set down the watch and the roll of caps and fumble for the hammer in my purse.

    "We ready then?"

    T. and M. nod.

    "Alright. Give me a countdown."

    "Three. Two. One."

    "IAO ENTROPY

    YOU CAN'T WIN

    YOU CAN'T BREAK EVEN

    YOU CAN'T QUIT

    (pause)

    BUT WE CHEAT"

    I bring the hammer down on the roll of caps, which makes a satisfyingly loud bang and sends a shock running up my arm. The kids smoking behind the dumpster peer around the corner curiously. I sweep the demolished watch into a small paper bag, pour the rest of the booze on it, and leave it burning forlornly in the middle of the alley. We don't look back as we return to the light and heat and noise.