The Nakedness of Nothingness

It is surely a terrifying experience to stare into a mirror and not be able to see your face looking back. It happens to all of the earthbound spirits whose lonesomeness drives them into the physical world, wherein they have not yet a body to clothe themselves with.

This nakedness of nothingness is confronting to such a wanderer - and many seek physical occupation because of it - momentarily or prolonged - imposing themselves in the willing and unwilling bodies of both person and animal from time to time.

This is one mystery amongst many - yet it is embedded here to explain the experience of displacement, such as it can be for the incarnate traveller in this world … for when the portal of heaven dried over and the lake failed to receive and deliver the human souls, a curious occurrence happened upon the earth: the experience of such terrifying nothingness came upon the ordinary men and women who walked the world with their bodies still intact, even though they had their connection to them, and were still very much incarnate. Yet when they looked into the mirror they saw not themselves, they could not see anything.

It is a horror of horrors, a depression deeper and darker - for usually the spirit of a man has a wholesome harmonious and caring relationship with their body, that is both sacred and joyful. If you lose this feeling of connection, your anchor is lost also.

The deprived and depraved then became searching for means to incarnate - all in a vain effort, for the body is not just a composite of blood and bone, it is personal.

When Violet, Peter, Leticia and Bryan went to extraordinary lengths to corrupt and consume others, they themselves had long lost their own reflection in the mirror - to be able to find it - and now through the most terrible of inoculations this disconnect was descending into the minds of the world at large.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

All Tragedy is Answered in the Heavens

Azlan speaks:

Tears are sacred - droplets upon the cheek are always mirrored by those, our angels.

Same it is with the fluid of the womb - tears from true sadness, a sadness that is pure, for all that cannot be changed, yet needs to be changed - this sadness reforms the world, as also the ethers above and below.

For mighty are the thoughts and wishes of men - and mightier still are the unrequited woes. Although it is little comfort to hear this my Son, tragedy, all tragedy, is answered in the Heavens, in the arms of death, to immediately console the suffering - whether inflicted from natural consequence - all pitiable consequence is refreshed and spent and made consolate in death.

Every honest soul is promised this: suffering no more.

For the only pain that continues on is with those who have inflicted themselves upon others.

Hell has no tears to save itself. Hell is the open wound of the soul who has no remorse.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Chip’n the Dale

Jon had the distinct feeling that he had lost most of his life to enchantment and otherworldliness.

His participation in the real world had been but a toe-dip compared to the spirit-world, and then later in the Faerie community of Sherwood Place.

His reluctance towards ordinary life was followed with some meaningful interludes with both spirit and fae - all the while his worldly life seemed to drift or die from him, breathless and wan.

And this was why the calling now to find Zithia persisted so strongly - even after all of this time - yes, he should confront Nathan and accuse him as was fit. Tindle was a disruptor who twice over had brought nothing but ill tides to Jon and soured his love for the world.

The coastal province had been renamed Chip’n the Dale by its Mayor and Chief proprietor: Nathanius Tindle.

Jon was dazed with the industry of the fryers - watching a stout woman who was wider than she was tall, bark orders to her ruddy offspring, and cursing the Celts who were replenishing the vats - silver scales on silver scales - the older boys trimming and scouring, slicing and filleting, then battering and frying.

Vapours of continental oil sweated their way from the cookery.

“Nathan’s not here” came the curt and hurried answer from his surly wife.

“If you please, where may I find him?” Jon asked, sampling a chip from the floor. One of the little ones had dropped it as they stumbled past.

“Don’t know, don’t care” came the curt reply.

“Fair enough dear woman” and as he turned to go, one of the depositing fishermen clipped his shoulder and motioned that they should meet outside.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Astral Faces

Armen Gasparian 

Puck had an uneasy feeling leaving Eve and Jupiter in the little Heaven, but in some instances he knew he could only work well on his own, and this time, time was not on their side for him to to do otherwise. The two now had Goober with them, and he trusted that between the three they could take care of the mumbling satanic four. All of the witches had conveyed their bleak biographies, but disappointingly no-one had really seemed to recall or know any important information, namely: how Romulus could be located.

And so Puck’s first port-of-call-portal was going back to Eve’s apartment house where he intended to search through Violet, Peter, Leticia and Bryan’s belongings for clues about the fiend Romulus.

* * *

Back in the real world, he had found that his golden Mercedes had been keyed - every panel was scratched with either a random occult symbol or a phallus deeply engraved in the sparkling enamel. The cartoons were the kind you see on subway walls drawn with a simplistic ball and stick design. Not wanting to attract attention to himself Puck glamoured the car to hide the damage - a short-term solution as this veil of cover would only last a few hours at best.

When he arrived he found Needles sitting out the front by the entrance, waiting for Eve’s return.

“Have you got five minutes Buddy?” said Puck gently to the forlorn Fae, who seemed to be in-absentia once again.

Pine-Needles adored Puck, and the endearment was becoming mutual. He stood up and instantly the small dwarf’s aura brightened.

“Lets take a look inside” said Puck … “we’ve got some exploring to do … and perhaps you could fill me in on what has happened here?”

Pine-Needles looked centuries younger in an instant. It had been a very long time since he had a friend that spoke kindly to him.

As they entered the building Puck could see a thousand faces or more of the demonic Romulus plastered here, there, and everywhere, up and down the entry walls. Astral signatures - similar to the medallions of old were fastened to the ceiling and floors and fixtures - and, all of these faces appeared ‘alive’, which seemed to imply there was a consciousness staring out from them - each and every one of them. Their eyes followed Puck and Needles, their noses twitched when they passed by.

The small dwarf did not seem to notice, and being an etheric soul it was quite likely that he could not perceive them at all.

“Lady Eve was with you when the white bear came through the door, and then you all disappeared.” He stopped talking, and a tear dropped from his eye. “Is she now dead?” he asked pathetically.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Cosmic Transit Lounge

Eve found herself surrounded by little children who had been waiting in a cosmic transit lounge to connect with their family members.

“Where do they go to?” she asked Goober turning to him to see him gazing above them intently.

Eve looked up too and saw high above her in the violet sky there were two ribbons of light orbiting one another. Their lines would entwine and intersect - and silvery sparks trailed from each, until a perfect and uniform helix formed, when all at once poof ! Fine points of light showered down to the horizon like the most exquisite fireworks.

“What was that?” she asked, quite amazed at the beauty of it all.

Puck did not like to say - but it was actually he and Jupiter thinking together: it's known as the dance of the lights where spirited minds come together culminating in a uni-sonic embrace so perfectly that this meeting energetically expires bright fragments all around.

“Just part of the landscape” said Puck humbly.

Jupiter looked over to him, still freshly invigorated by their meeting of minds. They both knew now what next was to be done.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Pick a Wife

Émile Vernet-Lecomte

It took less than a day for Zithia to leave the company of Tindle. He had been so hopeful about the two of them together, that he had read her all wrong: surmising that she would be amenable to his bed and care - and that as a heathen, she would welcome the protection and shelter and occupation he could offer.

However, in truth, she was terrified of him. Zithia’s mutism had become aggravated by the waves of nervousness that now possessed her - this panic poisoned her blood - and yet, amidst this confusion, she assayed just enough strength to dismount whilst they stalled at a busy feeding station.

This had not at all gone the way that Nathanius Tindle had imagined. He was too practical to see around any corners of possibility - seeing only ever what he wanted to see.

Rather than despairing, the would-be husband very quickly cut his losses, waited for the Lord’s day, and then went to the Cathedral to pick a wife from there. Three weeks later he was married and transporting his voluptuous woman back to the Fish and Chippery of Dearth and Dingle without a casual thought for the heathen he had left behind, who had nothing, and no one to protect her.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Just Peachy

“It goes like this: a peach is a peach, when it is a peach. But when its flesh has broken down and no longer cleaves to its kernel, it becomes something else.”

“So far I follow”: said Eve.

Jupiter nodded, the Goat said ‘Aye’ and Goober remained silent.

He continued: “It may smell like a peach, even though it no longer is a peach. And, at this point, its spirit has left it.”

Eve glanced left and right at her companions, looking for some conformation that the peach had a soul, or a spirit, or whatever.

“You do not have to take my word for it,” Puck interrupted himself - “How do you think it forms itself as a peach in the first place?”

“The ancients used to divide Life into two classes: animate and non-animate. That which is animated, moving, and that which is stationary, not moving - but you see that really didn’t mean much because even the non-anime have been known to have a life of their own.

“The real measure became: does the life have a soul or not? If a soul is present, there is to some extent, consciousness - there is a life within the life that is so divine that goes from the bottom to the top as it were, with an unbroken link to the cosmos - and seen or unseen, it is present in what you have before you. The soul makes all the difference as to the authenticity of that something you find before you - whether it be an object or a person, an animal or a fae - it is all about the soul - if there is no soul, it is nothing more than a ghoulish representation of what was, or what could have been.

“It could also be said that one does not desire to consume the soul of the peach, and so it is quite fitting that once you have eaten of the peach fruit for the soul to have already gone is not a bad thing that you have something a little different.

“Now added to this is something called corruption. Corruption is when the body of that thing has broken down, it becomes no more - it is dissipating, it is dissolving, because the soul is no longer there to keep the plan, the blueprint, going.

“The form has no intention of holding together as before, and although it can take a long or a little while, with corruption, it is the outer forces that enable the decay. The forces which in and of themselves are not in any way malevolent.

“The answer we are looking for is before us, within this lake - you see, this is the problem as I see it: this lake (which has been the very portal to the other worlds), has lost its soul. The soul has gone, and she, or what is left of her, is dying right before us.”


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series