Caramel Centers

Hello, Anya.

Today I went out to the tracks. I waited for a while, but no door ever appeared. Sometimes a train would come clanking down the tracks. I did not try to go through the trains, though. I don’t think that would have ended well.

These doors that stalk you; what happens when you go through them? How do you know when to go through them and when not to? Do you have a choice?

I am sorry about the hollowing out. You may be alone where you are, but you are not alone in being hollowed. I hope that helps.

Black Hole

I opened the door. I am in the lobby. Taking out the trash. Waiting to see if everything is going to go wrong.

I hope that if it does, the vase with the fake orchids gets smashed first.

Inside the Walls

I am safe inside the walls, and the sun cannot get to me.

Hello, Anya. Earlier today the computer chair was in shadow for a time, and I read your letter. I had to read it quickly and then get away before the shadows were eaten by the teethlight. I should move the desk away from the window.

I am glad that your sun does not think that you taste good enough to eat.

Struct/Con

Some days the sun is less hungry than others.

Hello again, Jasper. I read your reply to my letter last night.

The therapist’s office is in Magnolia Promenade. The sunlight here is different from the sunlight in San Myshuno. The birds here are very talkative. Your neurochemicals would enjoy it, I think.

You ask me to tell you a story of grace. I don’t know if I can do that.

I can tell you the story of a day when the sun isn’t so hungry.

Cardboard City

Sarah said I needed exercise.

She said that if I thought the sun was trying to eat me, then okay, I could go out at night if that would help, but that I needed exercise. She said endorphins would be good for me.

I don’t suppose I’ll be releasing endorphins any other way any time soon. She closes up around herself when I’m near her.

I was not expecting a reply to the pen pal form.

Hello, Jasper.

The Swallowing Sun

The sun is trying to eat me.

I go outside sometimes, and I walk in its light. It shines in my eyes. It gives me headaches.

This morning I am safely inside, protected from its rays by layers of glass and concrete. I sit down at the desk in our bedroom. The sunlight streams through the window. It can’t hurt me here, but I feel it on my face. Tasting my skin. It makes the computer screen hard to see.

But the sun still has not swallowed me.

Not yet.

Abyssal Fingers

Sometimes the darkness and I contemplate the end of a universe.

I think about Midnight Hollow. That was a universe that ended. I wonder where the people who were in it when it ended went.

I am sitting on a ridge above the blue pig’s eye and the ghost is screaming below and the pig is oinking but it’s all so far away and it’s not real.

Only the black is real.

I ask the darkness, “When this universe ends, what will happen?”

The darkness says words, but I can’t hear them above the screaming. I think I made out the word “safe”. Maybe that’s why we had to climb up the pig, to be safe when this universe ends.

I hope the people in Midnight Hollow were safe when their universe ended.

They probably weren’t, though.

Void Where Prohibited

Sometimes the darkness and I burn in the lights.

The ghost says it is sorry. It says, “I cannot control these lights. This part of the garden does not belong to me.”

We walk by giant plantcakes. Green leaves and red flowers sit atop them like frosting, and my stomach rumbles.

The darkness crackles. The ghost asks, “What did your friend say?”

I tell the ghost that the darkness said that it’s okay about the lights, that they don’t really hurt all that much. But of course that’s not what the darkness actually said. I try to not think about what it actually said, because I think that maybe the ghost can hear my thoughts too.

My stomach rumbles again.

The ghost says, “You can’t eat the plantcakes. Well, I mean, I guess you could, but then you would have to answer to Her.”

The ghost’s stomach rumbles too. I’m not sure where it keeps its stomach, but I definitely hear the rumble.

The ghost says, “I really am not going to eat you. If I did, I would have to answer to Her too.”

The ghost says, “I do want to, though. Quite a bit. I mean, no offense, but you look very tasty and I haven’t eaten anything in hundreds of years. The void in you would taste like death, but well, maybe I could just eat around it.”

Ghost Walk

Sometimes I am sitting on a bench, and the darkness sits next to me. It is wearing a skin of ash and embers.

The darkness says, “I am sorry.”

The darkness says, “I did not want to lose your universes.”

I think about asking the darkness what it’s sorry for. But I don’t.

I think I already know, anyway.

The Unswallowing Place

Sometimes I search for the unswallowing place.

I think maybe if I can find it everything will go back to how it was. The darkness and I will be back in Midnight Hollow. It will be wearing the shadowskin and I will still be wearing my humanskin, and everything will be all right.

I look down at the skin I am wearing now. It still looks human, on the surface. But underneath the skin the black pulses.