A dark, fantastical tale that is intended to unfold a paragraph, or thereabouts, at a time.
7 Mar 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Jay Lonnquist
Only Umin’s way-weary and thinning boots rasp along in their passage. From out the wood-whorled hall and across a chiaroscuro commons. Here numerous figures lounge. Clad in the commonly caliginous and ample garb - all folds, creases, pockets and fl...
5 Mar 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Jay Lonnquist
A moment under scrutiny, sub rosa. Figures unseen, but their presence, nonetheless vividly apprehended. Quiet words pass before a beckoning wave of the hand. At this Umin makes his furtive way, heart a shapeless burden of misgivings and thirsty cu...
3 Mar 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Jay Lonnquist
Ghostly, she moves into the welcoming gleam beneath the entombing gloom of a door, heavily hinged and ajar. The Hub of Father’s Wheel… Umin squints at the gourd-yellow placard pendant above the portal, mouthing to himself the meaning of silver-frette...
26 Feb 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Jay Lonnquist
Umin is drawn along through an interrupted landscape of swaying, smokey low alleys and cascading architectures, gently and gracefully but with all the inevitability of season or tide. The way winds a while like a crumpled tunnel from out the great ba...
24 Feb 2021 1 minute read 5 comments Jay Lonnquist
Pyna pauses. Hard-by where the market-round breaks into a delta of differing pathways which wander off and into all cardinal directions. Snaking out senselessly into the mushrooming settlement. With a sudden silken-gentle motion, she traps Umin’s wri...
18 Feb 2021 1 minute read 3 comments Jay Lonnquist
Voices swell and soft chatter rounds the broad, rich plaza of deep-sea coral and black basalt that opens ahead of them. A market by all accounts. Umin sinks ever deeper into his enfoldings. A secretive beetle seeking succor in folds of drapery. Py...
17 Feb 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Jay Lonnquist
Umin sinks deeper into the folds of his rough mantle. Plucking up his cowl and pulling cloth over mouth and nose. Experience costly gleaned from a lifetime of larcenous expeditions, exhorting him to appear as small and unremarkable. To seek security...
16 Feb 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Jay Lonnquist
The Gate of Candles, its bulk and thousand spicules of unquiet wax-fire, beetling grim. A great onyx protrusion overhanging the unfolding settlement. Past the way-markers and shrines, low abodes of polished salt and pepper granite and thick-curtain...
13 Feb 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Jay Lonnquist
Here also are the innumerable roadside shrines erected unto forgotten and well remembered gods alike, of the deep, lower pathways. Their stony conclaves ever thirsty for a little blood, a scantle of meat or brass, or the longing whisper of a passing...
13 Feb 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Jay Lonnquist
Their path blends into another well maintained way set with a pale and silty stone which gleams in the murky under-light. Here abreast the road, distempering plinths and eerie way-markers take shape from out the ragged edge of unending twilight. Of...
