Howdy Haunts!
Just released the big AUDIO SIGIL today but wanted to give you an exclusive which is my spoken word prologue of the long-form fiction work, Zozobra. So, just for you, here is the text as-is:
PROLOGUE: Bardo of the Moment of Death
SANTA FE 1924
“Hither and tither.”
A woodworker carving. A surgeon sewing. A man careens over a table, ignited by flashes of firelight. What’s he building in there?
A wooden wand of flesh and bone? A dastardly weapon to ward off the unknown?
No.
His tears lace his face, wincing and writhing as he reaches for the tears of his daughter. Tears caught in an oil flask, luminescent and cold. He sprinkles the bottle on his mangled creation.
“Slither hither and tither.”
Ah, did you see that? Did the light ignite the great work? Did you see the crow entrails thrown about? Or the misshapen mandrake that lay, well, hither and tither?
The man is creating a marionette. A wood, stone, feather and bone marionette.
“Take the ribbon, sew the crest.” He says.
The man takes the ribbon and sews a sigil into the forehead of his marionette.
A hollow voice guides the work. Not of the man’s but of something deeper than the present.
“This abomination will rid the drought?” He asks the figure in surefire desperation.
“Yes,” replies the hollow voice.
“What do we do when it’s done, bury it?”
“Burn it with a face from the gravestone,” says the shadowy figure, “and let all who are affected light it’s tinder.”
Crowds mumble and scurry. The man, head hung low, takes the steps of the mission stage.
“There is no way other way but to consort the godless to be the godless.”
“What the hell are you proposing, brujo?” A concerned mother with silk hair quivers.
The crowd begins to chant. “Bru-jo, Bru-jo…”
“We must, as a town, construct this into an effigy.”
He holds up the scarred and blackened abomination, crow blood still wet and splintery still.
“To appease the dry gloom, we must burn the dry gloom.”
“Gloom?” A worried young boy erupts. “Like the gloom buried in the graveyard?”
There is a headstone in a the old Santa Fe Cemetery. It has no name. Only the date of 1864 and the etching of a crude face. Big eyes, and slanted mouth. As if a child had etched the face of the boogeyman.
“Yes, we must burn ol’ gloom.”
“The directions are simple…”
“You’ve gone mad, son! Don’t waste our time!”
“Let him speak!”
“Boy’s always been crooked!”
“Listen,” the man instructs, “I need you to write your sins on this here paper, and I need you to put them on this here doll. And I need us to burn it, and burn it bright, so that we may be free of the gloom. This gloom has torn us asunder. We have no other options than to commune with the ghosts of this town. They are what keep us dry. They are what keep us hungry. And I have it on good authority all your missteps and lofty notions are what they feed on. The ghosts must burn.”
Haunt On!
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