Samhain 2015

Impossible, they said. Improbable? That one touched by Gaia could give back her gift. That one imbued with anima, could end their meat sentence prematurely. How to do it? How to cut out the bee inside? It took her decades, with little hope to support her. Can you imagine wanting something that badly, sweetling?

Backtrack. Initiate playback. A room. Now windows. Could be anywhere. Could be in Venice. A woman lays on a table. Doctors and mystics go to work. “Is she a compatible candidate?” Heads nod. “Latent occult abilities.” Heads nod. A glass jar filled with firefly lights sits in the corner. Only it is not a jar, and it is not a firefly.

UNLAWFUL EXPLOIT DETECTED! They did a wrong thing, sweetling. They kept a captured bee in that container. They artificially placed the bee in that woman. They made her like you, but not like you. Suddenly she could hear us, and our voice may have not sounded too kind.

Fast forward. Initiate playback. A woman lays in a bed. She performs surgery on herself via dreams. She has seven scalpels, and their names are: Basiphobia, Dementophobia, Gymnophobia, Coulrophobia, Paranoia, Claustrophobia, and a scalpel yet to be named. Sparagmos. The bee came undone.

The Council of Venice has found her, you see. They had made her their agent. They erased the frightful records of her past. But they could not erase the past within her. They did not comprehend. They did not suspect that a terrible drive, given years to work, can do impossible things. How could she live a lifetime knowing what she knew? How could she live forever?

We sing a sad song for Lorraine. We sing a sad song for Callum. Mama duck and little duck. We tried to warn her about the nature of the park. But her ears were not tuned then, you see. She could not hear our shouts. Not back then.