Shadow Chatter

Cube Altar

I was given a shovel.

I stood under a sky of ink

On a landscape of gravel

That was eternal in every direction.

Plain, gray chips of stone

Crunching under every footstep

I knelt and prayed

As best I knew how, with eloquent poetic speech.

The ground swelled into the shape of a child.

She told me my prayer was denied

And bade me dig a mound three men tall.

So I dug

The better part of a day, I piled stone upon stone.

And I knelt upon it and prayed.

The mound swelled into the shape of a young girl, and she told me my prayer was denied

And bade me dig a mound five men tall with a pillar.

So I dug

And piled

And dug

And piled

With what little saliva I had

I spat upon stones as I stacked them

until a pillar took shape.

And I knelt and prayed.

The gravel swelled into the shape of a woman with two curved horns

She told me my prayer was denied

And bade me dig a mound ten men tall

With three pillars

So I dug

I lost track of the days I spent

In the haze of thirst and fatigue

Bonding stones with the dry dust of my tongue

Until I sat amidst three stone pillars

I could not kneel, for I was exhausted

And I prayed.

The stones beneath me swelled into the shape of an old woman with five horns

She told me my prayer was denied

And bade me dig a mound thirteen men tall with four pillars.

There was a paste of blood on my gums

I spat it at her cloven feet

I cursed at her in a delirium of rage and fatigue

Her aspect changed to a skeleton of six horns:

Two from the brow

Two from the cheekbones

One from the chin

She told me my prayer was heard

Because I had become the final pillar

She made the sign of the Thistle Crown Before she became a cube of cobblestone

Each side covered in eyes

Two Gray angels appeared beside the levitating cube altar

The one to the right with two straight horns

The one to the left with four curved horns

Both missing their lower jaw.

As if one angel were the reflection of the other, they both placed a candle of marbled blood and fat on the altar.

This they both spoke,

"While it burns, you will know light like never before. When it burns out, you will never know light again."

Hence they disappeared and a light rain began.