The clock told a joke, but I did not laugh. Its hands moved in peculiar rhythms—tock tick—as if mocking the world itself. Light avoided the forest outside, six in the morning or six at night; it did not matter. Time had no mercy here. Pastel-worn women had raised me, wizened guardians of forgotten knowledge, yet their wisdom had only left me wary. Something restless always swarmed my eyes—time, relentless, ticking in invisible bombs that never slept.
I had once been a maiden, I supposed, in a land where joy wore a name—Jolly Jimbo Josefina. Everyone was a Jimbo or a Josefina, men and women alike, joining in some eternal, absurd celebration. I was different. My insides bore chestnut and mummy-brown; my heart belonged to no age. Not young, not old, but vintage: a solitary countess amid knights who jousted and feasted in lavender-scented halls. I was strange, wise, and utterly alone.
The road called to me. Pills disgusted me, and walking became my sole relief. My footsteps pressed against the earth like a slow drumbeat, and the path hummed oh grace, oh grace, never once calling my name. Thoughts pirouetted in my mind like one-legged dancers in a forest of pruned roses: smoke, blur, purple darkness, childlike and adult at once. I felt threefold, fractured into selves, though only two existed: myself and the uncertain future, elusive and silent.
Ravens nipped at my consciousness, clawing sorrow from its depths. From the midnight caves of the forest, a monstrous raven-seraphim watched me. Twin heads, seeing everything that was mine—except the heavy bag I carried alone. Strain sat nearby, sipping tea from a satin-pink straw, unmoved by my burdens. Convulsions came mid-morning, coinciding with the sea pressing wooden ships into one another, planks groaning under waves. Misery became sweet draughts; the past thrust itself forward like a predator. The road stretched infinite, and I carried all I had and all I had lost.
I longed to disappear. To walk the straight and narrow, though its promise felt alien. Come all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest, whispered a marimba of voices. But no helper came. I reached for none. Hope had abandoned me. If this were hell, at least the company of the damned might have offered me solace; instead, I wandered alone, a child on the edge of manhood, the future unseen, lonely as a dot on π.
The bag pressed into me with regret. My steps were slow. Gods, if they existed, sent fleeting saviours: feathers spun in the air, invisible purity grazing my back. Yet I remained grounded, heavier than any mythic beast. Wings, rebirth, flight—these were denied me. The road curved and straightened, twisted and true. Birds clawed at my disgust, sobbing as they did. My turquoise-browed motmot died in my hands, buried in honeyed earth.
The gods' mercy came as a roller coaster: up, and up, and up. Anticipation burned like fire; fear glistened with lust. I could have fallen with him—the man of ivory-glowing muscles, mischievous grin—but I was not him. Yet he taught me: the grace of motion, the art of seduction, the delicate song of hummingbird chatter. But the dark watched—always.
She—measuring, shaping, guiding, yet unyielding.
At the journey's end, my heart rested in my hands. Literal. Half of it gone. Valentine, the motmot, the honeyed earth—gone too. Mother rejected me; flowers shrank from my touch, leaving only thorns. The river stretched before me: endless, ever wide, ever deep, never cold, drowning hope, desire, and memory alike. Each step carried misfortune. Yet in the purple-dark, I felt warmth. The river led me; I did not lead it.
The world moved in bizarre, relentless patterns: grasshoppers blared, snails wielded forks, lion-headed policemen groaned, Cyclopean laughter filled the skies. Giants with three eyes, men with cracked faces, mistakes and blame scattered like autumn leaves. Above it all, I wondered if I were a goddess simply because I could see all, because seeing itself might be divinity.
Ravens knitted endlessly. My bag tore. Inside, something glowed, flickering like a half-moon, longing for the sea, destined to be a fleeting spark in a vast and indifferent sky. Boars galloped across my path, crashing inevitably. Chess haunted me, yet the knight's move eluded me. And then, at last, I saw it: the door. Emerald-and-silver, sabled with exotic leaves, smiling with sharp intelligence.
Belladonna, whispered the voices. "Beautiful lady," they said, for here on the battlefield, nothing could hide. Shadows clawed, bones jutted, mercenaries hanged in holy halls. Everything was revealed.
I stepped forward. Clay, bronze, and silver shattered beneath my feet, reformed, stared into me, through me, into I.
"Oh my," I whispered. "Hi."
The worms curled in ebony seas. Colours spilled endlessly, never enough. Sorrow mingled with cure. A lily and a fish, a petal and a beast, searching infinity for a finite speck. I invented, erased, rewrote, spiraled thoughts in ink. Perhaps one day, drunk on mystical fruit, I would find the answer.
Perhaps I was a hunchback on horseback, dreaming of a solar-powered Cadillac. Instead, I was an empty backpack, filled with paranoia and strain. Chains tightened with each day. And yet, I walked.
The river did not stop. Neither did I.
And then, in the fading light, I saw her: a shadow at the water's edge, feathers swirling like snow caught in wind. The raven-seraphim, twin heads bowed, no longer a predator but a guide. She stretched her wings, brushing destiny across the river's surface, whispering: move forward, child of chestnut and honey, carry your bag, and do not fear.
I stepped into the water, letting the current embrace me. My bag bobbed, heavy but mine. The river pulled me forward, straight and narrow at last. And as the last light faded, I realized: this journey had never been about the end. It had been about learning to walk with the river, carry my weight, and see all that I had once feared.
I walked. The river moved. And for the first time, I did not feel alone.