A Simurgh Anecdote

I noticed the shadow before I could see its shape.

It crept up from around the corner - many-limbed, long shaped, pointed feet stumbling with the creepy clumsiness of a drunk always just about to fall, yet kept aloft by the confusing arrangement of its arms. I watched frozen as it inexorably trudged forwards, each half-fall and awkward step only pushing it closer to the edge of the wall, where it would certainly have see me - if it didn't see me already. Perhaps it already knew I was there, immobile - and instead each of its strange, alien movements were purposefully placed to approach me, to corner me - and I was just waiting for what was inevitable - how could I even outrun something with that many legs? - perhaps I should make it quick - I think I can see its fangs -

The tiny spider emerged from the corner, ignored me, continued on its way.

The light on the ground flickered.

I sighed.

i wana see all the reptlies

The official post-Cohost permanent URL for this piece is https://irenes.space/leaves/2024-09-29-inscrutable

we say that line a lot, along with "our mandate also includes weird bugs"

we would like people to know what we're referencing :)

those characters were amazing role models for a young autistic plural system, so much so that even the gender stuff was bearable

i am fascinated
by the darker side of summer

the way that summer is, in some ways
darker than winter,
because the leafy trees create shadowy places
where barren branches would allow light through,
like the moon getting brighter as it darkens,
by virtue of being engulphed in the bright blue sky

the way summer night,
being later in the circadian rhythm of animals,
feels more mystical than winter night, in both its rarity
and its accompanying haze of sleep deprivation.
to go on a night walk in the deep of summer
means being up late
means drinking the intoxicating,
inky mead of warm darkness
which makes your prey-mind
flinch at stirring brambles
and your thoughts turn bleary, eerie,
faerie, and wary

the blood-green of leaves in deep summer,
leaves the color of the august night around them
leaves eaten by bugs
leaves beset with galls
(a body horror for a body not yours)
summer plants met in alleyways or woods
flowers hung heavy with legends and secrets

spirits walking the earth at midsummer.
the way reality in the summer twilight feels so thin,
so easy to slip into the otherworld,
the way swarms of insects seem as apparitions
ghosts or perhaps gods
stories told by flickering firelight
the robin startles you awake at 4am