a pact

Jotun, jotun, brush my hair, and I will be your Thursi.
Call me night and call me cold and I will warm for you.
Cry out in my arms and I will be your Yagayevna,
witch-daughter and eater of flesh,

praise me and I will sing. Unholy hymns rising in the
air like wisps of fog, surrounding you,
binding your arms, knotted tension and anticipation.
Peel back my skin with tempered wit.

I will take your hand and place it on my throat,
hold a hallowed knife against your spine, press these
words into your mouth by moon-dark and while you
choke on them, I still will sing,

pull you into the tide. I will drink
deep of your lust, your longing, and your adoring
gaze. See me as I am.
Braid my hair into fetters, chain yourself to my broken heart.

Frost-eater, fell and fair, wrap my braids around
your wrists and hold tightly. Call my name
in the night, gasping for breath under my wave,
until we drown together and rise again with the tide.

Brush my hair, long strokes from my crown to my waist
and I will sing for you until you can weep no more.

Menu

An isolated heart is a terrible thing. You can salvage it in several ways. My favorite is sliced, thinly, and grilled. Serve with hot mustard.

If your morning is tedious, you can use this recipe as filler while performing other tasks. After grinding chocolate, throw in the day's spices. Your heart will be much improved with proper seasoning.

One heart cannot serve two without some tricky maneuvering. Be sure that you account for all guests, and have a warm, damp cloth at the ready for each.

Today's recipe calls for the following ingredients:
one heart, washed, pressed, and emptied,
one cup hot chocolate, ground and fashioned from the shards of dreams that woke you in a sweat,
one kitchen, cleared of sharp physical objects,
one knife, rescued from the aforementioned clearance and sharpened, carefully, on your tongue.
Assorted spices, extracts, and impossibilities.

Cut bravely around the heart, severing its grasping tendrils without paying attention to its cries. Pat it fondly and wipe your hands clean. Sip chocolate thoughtfully while you gaze out the window, wondering why the birds have gathered in that one tree, and why you cannot accomplish the things you have set out to do. Grind teeth and notice you have left marks in the cutting board with your fingernails, again.

Set your heart on a figured platter. Figures of Bosch seem appropriate in most cases, but a willow-ware platter can be quite elegant with a few garnishes.

Season your heart thoughtfully. Spice is a very subjective thing, but several testers agree that the combination of vanilla, ground coffee, assorted chiles, and coarsely ground black pepper is a fine and traditional flavor. Do not be afraid to experiment or try something new. Cover the heart with banana leaves and allow to rest in a dim room, with a tolerable red wine and a well-loved paperback.

When you are tired of waiting for your heart to quiet, remove your salvaged knife from beneath the pile of lifestyle magazines and test it by scoring a single line on the wall. Do not lose track of time while contemplating the number of lines indicating every dour morning spent questioning your existence. Set this fever aside, and move on.

Slice the rested and spiced heart into an equal amount of thin strips. Each person should receive the same amount; if an odd number, consume the extras over the sink, silently. Tears are optional.

Arrange heart thoughtfully and with care.
Serve raw, with bread and wine, after the salad. Do not be offended if a guest refuses your heart; after all, it is bitter.

Bitter.

--
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175754

Ordinary Disasters

When the moon disappeared, we were flung headlong into a story. Not one of the good ones, though. The world, wobbling drunkenly across the sky, has a new set of tales to tell.

This is the story in which the Beast tears Beauty into bloody strips and devours her whole; the story in which the Blue Fairy plays cruel jokes on innocent puppets. The one where Sleeping Beauty sleeps, forever, because without true love's kiss we are left with the thorns. They slice like knives and put out eyes and clutch in closer every year.

It wasn't a hundred years before we began to break. It wasn't even one.

Here is the story in which the crane maiden lies bleeding in the forest and no one binds up the wound in her breast. The carven wife never comes alive, the nine-tailed fox is killed, savaged by hunting dogs. Here is the part where Inanna, descending, is stripped bare to the bones and never returns. The sun sets on Hansel and Gretel in the forest, or in the oven, or in the witch's belly, breadcrumbs still stashed in the pockets of the pants that were carefully cut off and discarded in the corner before the grisly feast.

Godfather Death eats and eats and never stops to admire himself in the glass at the foot of the bed. Ella falls to blood poisoning, ashes and lye and glass shards embedded in her battered feet. There are no Seven Sisters, no Penelope, and Oz becomes a dream in the poisoned desert, the fevered ravings of an absinthe drinker.

The moving finger writes, and having written, points directly at its audience in condemnation. We cover our faces with blood-red veils. We tattoo the old inscriptions with ash and mud from the bottom of the lake. We patch up our wounds with paper, the ink mixing with our blood and tears until we are smudged the color of the hole in the sky, black and moonless and bereft. The end is not coming.

The end is already here, crouching beside us in the dark.

--
For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Christine gave me this prompt: "Take a familiar book, story, or fairy tale, and rewrite the ending. Feel free to change the setting, time period, characters, etc., as long as the original story is recognizable." Of course, since that is kind of what I usually do, this became rather more of a challenge.

I gave SAM this prompt: "'You're nothing but a deck of cards!'"

Changeover Cue

Possibly triggering; mildly graphic, domestic abuse, sadism, uncomfortable situations.

What Lies Ahead

Hijacked Frequencies

(begin transmission)

(radio static fades into sprightly music, slightly fuzzy)

"Hello again, everyone, and welcome to this week's broadcast of Cooking with Rye! I'm Rye Ellison, and tonight we're making soup, just like last week and the week before that! Everyone have their rifles handy? Good.

We'll begin by heading out into the backyard and bagging ourselves a chicken. If you didn't have enough foresight to learn to keep poultry and livestock before the, uh, before last year, any carcass will do. The fresher, the better, though--we want to keep all those nutrients in useful forms.

You shouldn't need your rifle for this, but we never go anywhere without one, right? Good.

I've prepped everything in advance; here we have one large onion, some celery, lots of freshly chopped garlic, and herbs from the garden. I like to use rosemary in just about everything, that brightness really comes through, even if you cook it too long. There's some savory, a little sage, and of course thyme, our Old Reliable.

Once you've dressed out and plucked your chicken, or prepared, uh, your meat of whatever origin, no judgment here, haha, you can drop it in your large stock pot. Cover it up with fresh water, and let it cook until it's done. This will yield not only the meaty centerpiece of your soup, but the delicious broth that binds the whole thing together.

Take that meat and broth and set it aside. In your stock pot, now, you'll want a tiny bit of fat, oil, what have you, to cook those onions in. Saute the onions until transparent, then add your celery and garlic. Let those cook gently for just a few minutes, but don't let them brown. Few things will draw unwelcome, ah, guests like the piercing smell of burning garlic.

Now you can pour that broth back in, skimming off the fat if you prefer, but remember: fat equals energy! Tie your fresh herbs into a bouquet garni, if you have string, and drop it into your stock. Leave this going over low heat while you turn your attention to pulling the meat from all these tiny bones.

Now, when you bury your trash later, be sure to save some of your hollow bones. They make great pens and you can even make jewelry out of some of them! Bones from larger animals can be used for ammo boxes, salt cellars, just about anything.

Soup is just such a reliable, high-energy food for people in our, uh situation, you really can't go wrong--"

(footsteps clattering, a lower voice hesitantly volunteers something, mostly inaudibly)

"Oh, hey there! Hey, Peter! Listen, everyone, this is my friend Peter, he'll be joining us for dinner tonight!"

"Uh, hi, everyone--how are you all doing out there?"

"Everyone inside? Wonderful. Peter, you locked the doors, right? Great. So now we pull that stock pot off the fire, and open some bottles of water for a real treat tonight.

Okay, here's our soup! Wow, it smells just wonderful. I'd love to share some with you, but there's really no more room in the bunker, ha ha--"

(glass crashing, the obscene sound of metal doors being bent inward)

"Oh my God, okay, got your rifle handy? This is where we sign--"

(microphone screeching, the clattering of a table being overturned)

"Oh shit, Peter! Peter, are you okay? Peter! P--"

(multiple gunshots, the dull sound of bullets in flesh, a low moaning)

"NO! NO! Oh my GOD, PLEASE--"

(a revolting lip-smacking sound, then something bubbling through thick liquid...someone gumming mashed potatoes, perhaps.)

(increased feedback from the microphone mingled with full-throated screams, an ear-piercing burst of static)

(end transmission)