sinoniem.

medicine is no exact science,

but Doctor Physician’s patients still always die.



one would think the line between surgery and slice/dice would be less fine.



it takes a steady hand to navigate amalgamous waters,

let alone the use of a scalpel.

the [ ] doctor blames Giles de Tourettes for his difficulties in the OR,

but a playwright would likely pinpoint motivation as the main concern;

sharp objects put into the hands of those with something to prove never bodes well,

and there’s no room at the table for practitioners and their chips. 



and then there’s the mask to consider -
the white gauze which is meant to soften the pronouncements made by the orifice it covers
simply works to muffle it,

and will never conceal his eyes.


those unnervingly blood red eyes.



one is supposed to shrink from the sight of spilling crimson,

not respond to it.

perhaps that’s part of the problem.

Dr. Physician’s ‘patients’ will never know.

omsvep.

mildred has a box.

it’s a big box.

mildred’s box is filled with stones.

there’s a lot of stones.

sometimes, she throws them.

others, she fills her pockets with them before going on long jogs.

& still others, she counts them.

they’re magical stones - overflowing with conundrums.

mildred hates them, but uses them for ID at bars sometimes.

they stay hidden under her bed, tucked safely away in their ebony square,

until someone walks into the room.

then she begins the ‘displaying them proudly with seeming reluctance’ game.

she’s quite good.

yes, mildred has a box of rocks.

or does the box of rocks have mildred?

sanhi.

the clack of her strict black boots delighting her with every step,

Enna circles her charge & puts on her game face.

she’s not being paid to look pretty... er, menacing, after all.

she pats her patient on the rump & lets her hand slide up the girl’s spine & close around her throat. lowering her gaze to match her charge’s, she squeezes.

‘alright, my darling. game time is now over. playtime, however, is just beginning.’

making sure he’s watching,

Enna brings the whip over her head & down on the girl’s back in one swift, clean motion.

the customer’s eyes burn with desire.

the charge utters not a sound,

& faints.

occupational hazard.

kesan.

Enna french inhales & gives the whip a crack for effect -

some fetishes tend to overlap.

the charge looks up at her,

eyes sunken & will-less;

complete control -

it’s a nice job perk.

letting the black leather slither & snake across the backs of the girl’s bare thighs,

Enna moves to check the bindings.

they’re holding perfectly. this one barely struggles at all.

she-bari’s still got it, she thinks, then laughs aloud abruptly at herself.

gotta love a little mental domme-humor to break up the night.

she flicks her cigarette & steadies her hand for a second blow.

[shrug]

it’s a living.

sentim.

Yvaine is collapsing beneath the weight of imploding galaxies.

celestial bodies don’t always dance; sometimes they stumble,

& in the space of those faltered steps, there is a kind of painful silence -

the sort that descends when someone voices a question

& no one knows the answer.

the wrench is gone, or at least, she can’t feel its weight in her palms any longer

& the stars have ceased to consult her before moving on or off their orbital patterns.

a layman’s hands are his welfare,

& so, it seems this month she starves.

(& at the word, Enna cracks a smile)

heavenly bodies may well be the answer to one of these ‘unanswerables’,

but system overload is the main malfunction of this engine;

the diagnostic readout has been screaming it in little red digital rat pellets for days now.

sigh, sigh, sigh.

it never rains but it pours.

gyventi.

The uncertainty is palpable; the confusion is tangible.
It’s all drawn to a point, & now hangs on a zip line, mid-canyon.
We won’t say that it’s waiting for rescue, but,
We’ll whisper that it’s waiting for rescue.
Current status: in a holding pattern.

She used to be a hammer.
She used to be a piece of well-oiled machinery, accustomed to giving commands & seeing them obeyed.
But these days, there’s no follow-through; no one hears when she shouts into the wind.

Now, fallen into disrepair, she sits in her own little corner in her own little chair & listens to the calming cacophony of a cigarette’s crackle on chapped lips.

& she’ll just do it all again when, on the radio, she hears November Rain...

surojas.

The taps in both rooms are running, & the sink basins are unwashed; kitchens are messy things by nature, & the laundry always needs done.

Rolling over, she listens to the sound of another life existing in the next room & momentarily laments its approaching absence.

:Yvaine speaks in parables & lives in rhetoric.

-beauty is true, love is real, & destruction is inevitable-
(they’re called universal truths)

Eurydice paints in red & relief- the bas variety.
(art snob reference for the win)
She’s damn good, too,
but hates her finished works.

‘In progress’is [her element/more her style].

The Rolling Thunder is apprehensive; Yvaine is catching.

...it’s all crazy etc etc...

lamtumire.

The movement stops.

“I think this is it.”

She blinks awake.

He sets her down gently, careful not to jar the splints.
They dither & dally, respectively, as is expected of them: she adjusts herself, he shoulders his pack.
Both finally run out of meaningless actions to carry out- the stage directions have failed to specify further business- so they stand facing one another.

This is where she’d shuffle her feet, if she could.

Seeing nothing to be done for it, she clears her throat & begins the scripted dialogue.

“So. The parting of the ways.”

He sniffs, looks to the west & inclines his head.

“Well. Jolly good, then.”

...and neither move.

“Listen,”she says, & there’s cotton around the edges, “I appreciate, you know, the sack-of-grain thing. Now that I’ve got me this here pair o’busted gams, I’ma have to army crawl the rest of the way. So. Saythankya.”

He smiles, & she catches whiffs of knowing exasperation, affection, & a barely-detectable hint of a strange sort of sorrow.

“Next time, try not to jump off of the prison wall. There are other ways down.”

“Who says there’s gonna be a next time?”

Silence.

“Yeah, alright.”

More implied foot-shuffling.
That poor bush.

“Well then. Okay.”

“Okay.”

They have to have killed the damn shrub by now.
It sits, oozing sap, in the background.

As his form paints itself into the distant scenery, she catches a soundbyte on the air.

“I saw a mountain, & I saw a city, steadily sinking but suspiciously calm; it wasn’t an end, it wasn’t a beginning, but a ceaseless stumbling on.”

Grinning, she shakes her head & shouts after him,

“Applicable upstaging. Classy.”

Pivot.
The movement resumes.

A ceaseless stumbling on, indeed.

vaha.

Yvaine leans against the mast & dances around the subject.

Her motion unsettles her companion.
This voyage was no brainchild of hers & lost what little sparkle it had previously possessed many a windblown league ago.

The exchange of azure waters for dry, dun-colored desert sand was not one she’d ever advocate or willingly uphold.
This pilgrimage, as it could only be called, to a once-great vessel, now landbound & choked with grit, registered as having a worth of zero in her estimation.

Any sentiment here has long since turned to sediment.

She squints up at the sun, calculating the amount of time before it would decide to finish the flesh-roasting process.
This is all so very banal; and, therefore, so very necessary.

To hell with the Gobi; long live Atlantis.

She stands, sweating.

Think like a camel.
Right.

koerant.

Honora: a success story.

Liege: visible, cloak gone.

Chimaera: present, always, but forgiven.

Skeeter: was here, is gone- chased out of the room by M.P.’s better half.

Grier: in town.

Coggs: discovering the joys of collaboration.

The Often Orphan: appears from time to time; watches, silently; disappears.
Fractal follows suit, doppelganger in tow.
It’s not a big deal.

Albertina & The Rolling Thunder resolve their differences, Resolve themselves.

The Banshee has screamed off elsewhere.
Her ghost will haunt, but will no longer hurt.

The Mistress leaves her mess on the table.

Yvaine wears the boots.

Dr. Physician: The Mistress is reflected in his every diagnosis.
She sure is an intimidating act to follow.

The Man With the Blood-Red Eyes dogs her steps & marrs her nights.
When she shivers, it has little to do with the cold.


Day in, day out...

parandama.

Yvaine is replacing The Repair Man.
Yvaine is The Repair Man.
And if there’s one thing her mother gave her, it’s work ethic.
She does not shirk.
She does her job.

Commencing re-storation: now.

Having never seen a single episode of This Old House, she’s Brand New to this.
It’s obvious that the foundation is the first order of business.
Vital organs & all that.

The contractors will hear the news & wait for calls that aren’t coming.

This is her project.
She’s quite determined.
No matter how many times she hits her thumb with the hammer or how often the nail gun turns on her.

The journey begins at the local Barnes & Noble.
Settling into an armchair with her latte, she pulls out Step 1:
The Idiot’s Guide to Home Repair.

maitheas.

The Sound & The Fury are in her ear.
Extinguishing lamps like it’s their job, they walk through walls and talk down balloons with not a thought to the physics of it.


Eurydice is in her every thought.
As a result, she pays the meat slicer a little too much attention.


The Mistress battles most epically.

Dr. Physician just falls and falls and falls.


“I stole your soul, because you said I’d never be able.”

“Second time now, and you’ve done this before.”

“...But all the whole world is still on my string.”


It’s not a new conversation.


But,
Somehow, someway...okay.

She sings.

“Sometimes, I feel I gotta get away; bells chime, I know I gotta get away. And I know if I don’t, I’ll go out of my mind. But I know sometimes I must get out in the light. Better leave her behind with the kids, they’re alright. The kids are alright.“

The kids, they’re alright.
The kids are alright.

suku.

something like word association:


Spirals: present. tribal tattoos are back in.
Triangulation: a pattern, unavoidable? shE thinks not.
Extricate: word of the...day? Life. What she must do. But it’s not bad, we promise- said with a smile. It's healthy.
Explosions: par for the course. A given in any action movie.
Shrug: the gesture of the moment. Not dismissive; nay, indicative of peaceful acceptance. We like shrugs.


something like the setting:

[img src="ground zero"]


something like the circumstances:

They’re all trying.
They’re all abandoned.
They’re all strong.
They’re all weak.
They’re all lost.
They’re all fucked up.
They’re all okay.


something like the Indie-movie ending:

The castle continues to crumble behind her as she walks blissfully onwards.
Reaching for his hand,

“Don’t worry, love. Don’t you worry, dearest. We’ll find our houses by the sea.”

muoto.

The Mistress can’t remember the safe word. 

It’s kind of a problem.
This is no time for short-term memory loss.

Amnesia is so unhelpful.
God damn PTSD.

She edges away from Dr. Physician.

The ones who help are synonymous with the ones who hurt.
[an unfortunate truth]

“This can’t go on.”

^if only the courage existed.
Till then, wishful thinking/pipe dream.

The fun part?
Guessing which is which.

crivo.

Honora commences stumbling home; it seems to be a developing theme.

Dr. Physician resolves to keep an eye on it.
The woman is not unlike a vacuum. 

Stumble.

She needs to find the brakes; she needs to locate her lungs and recall how to breathe.

“The air was thick with false starts and dead ends. She never finished what she began, everyone knew this. The pervasive humidity was drawing to a point, and it would soon rain down insecurities. Fortified by the poisonous precipitation, complications would begin to push through the arid soil, reaching their grotesque appendages toward the acid sky.”

She stares intently at the page.
The combinations and arrangements of letters don’t make sense to her.
Yet.

She’ll study and scrutinize until they do.

Until then, shadows in the corner,
always shadows in the cupboards.

stat.

We’re not sure what Dr. Physician’s motivation is.

We know that when he moves downstage towards The Mistress, it’s supposed to be her treatment.

There’s a spotlight trained on the wicker chair where she’s settled.

Curled in on herself like that, there’s no other way to describe her but as a kitten child.

Which is slightly absurdist...

He stops moving somewhere around center stage.

She stands up.

The pink gel slides off the light; she’s bathed in pure, white glow.

“Stop that. Stop being considerate. If you have something to say, say it. If you want something, take it. Don’t protect me. I can handle it. If I fall, I want to feel it.”

hirmutada.

The patients are silent.

Something must be afoot; the patients are never silent.

The Doctor supposes it must be her presence here.

They don’t like her.

They don’t trust her.

He’s not sure he does either.

She hasn’t spoken a word since she arrived.

Perhaps she simply brought the silence with her.

“...list this woman as armed and dangerous.”

The Doctor flicks off the television, shaking his head sadly.

“This is what happens when treatment goes rogue.”

He forgets where he is.

The passing mumbled admonishing remark elicits a glare from her.

Hate. Then, mockingly:

“I know. The apothecary always knows best.”

He sighs.

There’s much work to be done.

This will be one for the books.