L, M, V

L M and V were three sisters (their names are withheld for legal reasons) living in Potts Point, who were mysteriously murdered in the 1950s whilst on a picnic. Their bodies were found sitting peacefully in their car which was parked at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. They had been poisoned. No one was ever convicted. Their ghosts now haunt a car park under one of Potts Point's most exclusive apartment buildings.

M: I hate this car park. Its so dank.

L: Are we all ready? I have the picnic basket packed - sandwiches, lemon squash, and gin.

V: You really are fixated on this re-enactment stuff aren't you?

M: She's neurotic.

V: Always with the damnable picnic.

M: And please don't mention gin. It really ruins my day.

L: I want to visit the cliff again. I so love the sea.

M: Well the sea is certainly an improvement on this car park.

L: The sea is divine.

M: As you eat sandwiches on the shore - or in the car overlooking the rocks.

V: As it fades into the sky, as your breath fades into the dark.

L: A cool blue, cold grey, white foam and cloud.

V: In art it means spirit. Or God. Or art.

L: The sea, the sea!

V: The waves crash and its like the car is a seashell.

M: I remember the sound of choking. Oh God for the taste of gin!

V: The more we repeat the events of that day, the better the chance we have of solving the mystery of our murder.

M: Murder? Who said anything about murder?

V: We all do.

L: We all do.

V: It's in the picnic basket.

M: What is?

V: Our deaths.

L: Poison!

M: Where is it? Let's see it!

They all stop short and look around, surprised.

L: I can't see it.

M: I thought you said you had it.

V: Who packed it?

M: I thought she said she packed it.

L: (looking around in shock) I ... don't know...

V: She's hardly likely to have poisoned herself. She's not the type.

M: Isn't she?

V: She's hardly likely to have murdered us both. She's not the type.

M: Isn't she?

V stares vacantly at space as if imagining.

After a pause.

M: A hateful act. To take us away from ... everything.

L: From all this.

V: Just memories. Just the sea.

L: Yes. The sea ....

The varnish of time

It is well known that vampires cast no reflections in mirrors - which, considering what snappy, if occasionally old fashioned, dressers they can be, is a big downside to the whole affair. The elegant vampire commonly suffers chronic neck pain from having to look down at his (if it is a he) cravat, shirt, frock coat or whatever his valet has purchased for him from Armani or Versace.

There is, however, a rare varnish manufactured by an unknown inventor, from ingredients that mix amber, pure gold and the souls of bankrupt movie stars who died in despair, that has a luster so deep, a gloss so prismatic even a vampire can glimpse his or her shadowed image within the shimmering waters of its deceptive veneer.

Some say this image is really an image in time rather than space - that what is seen in the varnish is a window into the past or future of the existence of the beholder.

For this reason M Epoussetez, a Potts Point vampire of some repute, regularly visits a certain room in his large and ancient apartments where he keeps a certain closet. The closet is coated in the special varnish - the varnish of time - and therein he strives to see himself in the swirling patterns of wood encased in the glaze - to see - in effect - what he's wearing and whether it's well-fitted.

"Its so damn hard to tell," he complains to Mrs Epoussetez, "Because there's this whole time travel thingy. I can never be sure if I'm seeing myself wearing something I actually own or whether I still need to go out and buy it. Or maybe its something I no longer own...."

"But how do you usually look?" she asks him.

"Oh quite acceptable generally, as far as I can tell."

Mrs Epoussetez sighs. She stares at a nearby mirror which stares back at her - a crystalline emptiness, an oval void where her face should be.

She imagines the faces of victims - white, terrified, eyes draining with blood-loss.

"There are reasons why we are not able to see ourselves," she reminds him.

"There are reasons why I seldom go out these nights," he adds, "One does not wish to appear tatty you know my dear."

She does not seem to hear him. She stares at the empty mirror, and the tortured faces invisible behind the glass.

Picture: “Rite of Remembrance” by Madeline Von Foerster

Jean and Canne: "Wicked"

Mademoiselle Canne: I am so over Twilight.

Jean Noeud Coulant: So am I.

Yeah well you never even liked it.

So just imagine how over it I am.

Personally, although I kinda like mortal boys I no longer see myself as a female Edward. I see myself as Elphaba - the Wicked Witch of the of the motherfucking West, yeah!

You went to see the musical sigh.

You want to hear me sing Defying Gravity? I do it better than any drag queen.

I can't believe you saw that thing - its about 50 years over now.

Well I don't mind confessing I cried - especially at the end of Act One.

I hope you didn't howl.

I tried not to, on account of the of the other audience members.

That was very considerate of you. And did you follow anyone home for a snack?

Well no - I was kind of with this boy - we were, you know, on a date.

I'm amazed you survive at all as a vampire - you remember - cursed to drink the blood of others - now and then?

I was so emotionally overcome by the musical [breaks off into a few bars of Defying Gravity, then resumes] all I could do afterwards was hold him. It was very romantic. I think he cried also.

He's probably gay.

Because he cries at musicals?

I have to watch Oprah every day because of you. I know these things.

I think you need to close your coffin lid when I'm around....

It gets very stuffy in there you know....

Medusa

Diaphane: to show. A thousand images stared at her: logos, websites, photos, art, ads, porn: "What do you want to do?" she asked. "I don't know", shrugged the images. "What about you?" She with her history of great sorrow and a considerable amount of hard work replied, "I guess I'd like to have some fun for once." Behind her eyes the images glowed. "Yeah, but how?"

They are lost, I feel lost. What are you supposed to do?

Medusa rises - a specimen from an extraterrestrial expedition or something unearthed in the Arctic after a cataclysmic earthquake. She is slender, her skin pearl tinted green by the plasma light. Her face is an elegant triangle. Her eyes that turn all her victims to stone, her mouth and tiny nose are childlike. Her hair of snakes uncoils like a galaxy.

The Internet fridge stormed into the room - models sprawled over its frosted screen - screaming blue flesh. He lunged for it but his foot caught on a luxury synthetic blanket twisted on the floor. He fell head-first into the freezer door, his red wine lips smeared over coloured underwear and red light.

Dungeon

Every now and then - every few weeks or every fifty years, depending - M Epoussetez - a notorious, evil vampire (though forgetful), inspects his personal dungeons, which are situated far below the underground car park of his exclusive Potts Point apartment building.

M Epoussetez unlocks one of the dungeon doors. He peers into the dark. "Anyone in here?"

No reply.

M Epoussetez unlocks another dungeon door and peeps in. "Anyone in here?"

No reply.

He opens a third door: "Hello?"

"Hello! Are you the police?"

"No."

Sounding disappointed: "Oh."

"Sorry."

"Never mind."

M Epoussetez squints into the dark.

"I don't recall you. How long have you been in here?"

"About four hundred years."

"Oh my, that's terrible! How is that possible? How did you survive? Are you preserved? Are you one of the undead...?"

"Its a figure of speech."

"Oh. Erm. So how long have you actually been in here?"

"Since Tuesday."

"Strange, I just don't recall you at all."

"I came to install cable."

"TV?"

"Yes. Special deal on installation, plus you also get it on your PC for no extra cost. Really quite competitive, once you go with the two year option. Your wife spoke to me. She said you already had cable. 'Oh,' I responded politely, 'There must have been a mistake. Sorry to intrude, have a nice day.' 'No need to leave' she replied, 'Now that you're here we may as well use you.'"

"Life can be funny sometimes."

"Please let me go!"

"Ah well that's a bit difficult you see. I wouldn't want to interfere with Mme Epoussetez's plans. Not a good idea. She can be a real fiend sometimes (heh)."

"Tell me about it."

"Anything else i can do for you?"

"In addition to what?"

"Perhaps you'd like cable?"

There's sound that is something between a laugh and a sob.

"Well, it was just an idea."

M Epoussetez closes the door - goes to the next room: "Anyone home?"

The cable installation guy in a muffled voice: "But what about me?"

"I'll have a word with Mme Epoussetez, OK? Geez." He thinks to himself: She is going to kill me.

Jean and Canne: "Hair"

Mademoiselle Canne: What do you think about my hair?

Jean Noeud Coulant: Your hair?

Yeah. What do you think?

Nothing.

You can't just think nothing.

Actually - I can. Especially when it comes to your hair.

But do you like it?

No.

You don't like it.

I don't like anything.

Well what's wrong with it?

To repeat - I don't like anything. Your hair is a thing. Ergo I don't like it.

Ok - my hair is not "a thing"!

Whatever.

And BTW - I'm the one around here who gets to say "whatever". I'm the cool one, remember?

What does BTW mean?

Sigh. It means ... you're a noob.

A...?

The thing with my hair is that I have a hot date tonight - you know, that cute boy who I just can't quite seem to bite. I'm thinking - yeah - the biting and the blood drinking. I should go for it. Then I'm thinking - those puppy dog eyes. Then I'm thinking, does my hair need a refresh? You know - its the same tired old look.

My last cut was a century ago....

I can so believe that. As for my hair? I think it was last Thursday. But that's the thing. Thursday I was in a completely different mood....

I'm thinking I'm getting my headache again.

It was Ok when Interview with the Vampire was on at the movies. Everyone still looked a bit dusty in that. Now with Twilight the pressure is really on. I mean, geez, as a vampire I really am feeling insecure lately. We are all supposed to look like the damn Cullens now or you can forget it. Argh!

Please don't speak any more.

And now there's New Moon. You think that boy will go see it? [looks miserable].

Head ... hurting....

Photo: extensiblecow

Alhazred

Through a vast landscape wanders the Demon Alhazred, contemplating cups of instant soup, grey alleys, pale encrusted stone years of dullness, drunken ghosts staggering swinging jugs of antique booze, battered houses falling away, renovated ... head cramped with alcohol ... the calm clean air of past evenings ... walks to the bottle shop, take away chicken, dried coffee ...

Oh god, moans the Demon with no sense of irony at all, this really is the pits. "I was a great, though solitary, scholar, once. A necromancer and a writer of the fabled Necronomicon. Somehow I screwed up. Totally bad-ass gods of darkness caught up with me. My life has been cursed ever since."

Alhazred yawns. "I've been living in crappy rooms ever since - for a millennium."

Old stairs, doors that never close ... glass opaque with frosted dirt ... glancing figures, the scenery ... music from cheap radios ... vodka, red wine, white wine ... trance of dead telephones ... cheap books never read ... broken furniture snapped up by the sky ... feeble movement of trousers ... hands vibrate ... road signs to dead ends ... eyes broke ... legs thin and pale, black hairs out over sun blank window ... air breathed and re- breathed in abandoned dreaming ... files smeared in shit ... dust covered latrines ... footprints over cardboard ...

"Don't cross the ancient ones," he murmurs, sounding like a crazy hobo.

Home....

Landscape of Alhazred, demon of the lonely.

Picture: The Sun by ladybleedingpoison @ DeviantArt

The haunting

A door opened and M Epoussetez entered a room of shadows and dust, small leaning tables and despondent chairs - everything in a deep coma of lost years.

He stood absently looking about and asked himself, "Oh. Have I been in here before?"

A figure emerged before him - like a pale impossible reflection of the vampire in an invisible mirror - half transparent - a gloomy opalescent apparition.

"Hello!" exclaimed M Epoussetez, surprised.

There was a pause, where no one seemed to quite know what to say.

The apparition finally intoned: "The sugar lumps were poisoned. They wanted my diary but I hid the pages in Kipling. That was a long time ago. You will soon be cold. You will soon be dead."

M Epoussetez stared uncomprehendingly, "I'm sorry - I didn't quite catch all that...."

"Die..." moaned the ghost.

"Just to stop you right there," interrupted M Epoussetez, displaying his pale fangs, his parchment-like skin.

"Ahhhh," cried the ghost with a start, "You ...you are like me...."

"You might say that," replied M Epoussetez politely, "I rather think, though, that I get out a bit more than you do."

"My confinement here is beyond bearing...."

"Yes - and you lack mortals. To haunt, I mean. We have so few here. Live ones that is."

"Ah," sighed the ghost.

"I'll tell you what," said M Epoussetez, warming to his subject, "I've got an idea. I can bring you in a television. We have cable...."

"Its not enough," groaned the ghost angrily.

"Well I was also going to suggest," continued M Epoussetez with a glitter in his eye, "That instead of just watching the TV, you posses it. You know - haunt it."

"You suggest..." echoed the ghost.

"Because then we can sell it on eBay."

The ghost looked blank.

"Its a bit hard to explain, but the point is, we sell it - the TV is delivered to someone's house - then, late one night while they are all watching Letterman or whatever, you emerge, scare the living shit out of them and steal their souls. How does that sound?"

"Steal their souls," repeated the ghost. "You see, it was the sugar lumps ..."

"Quite." M Epoussetez turned to go, "A bit hard to explain? Leave it to me. I will arrange everything."

M Epoussetez turned and surveyed the room. It was possible he was searching for the door. He observed the shadowy portraits, the dusty shelves bearing fossilized ornaments and heavily bound old books that looked like so many aging tree trunks pressed together. "Kipling...," he considered. He stepped forward, then knelt. On the floor was a fallen teacup. He picked it up and examined it.

"Interesting," he mused.

Holding the teacup before his eyes he wandered about until he found the door.

"Don't forget..." whispered the ghost sadly. It was fading now.

"Very interesting indeed..." murmured M Epoussetez, still studying the cup.

Photo: extensiblecow

Jean and Canne: "More to life"

Mademoiselle Canne: I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut these days

Jean Noeud Coulant: Please don't talk, I'm sleeping

You know, I rise up, fly out a window, bite some necks, the its back to the coffin again. Its like - is that all there is?

You never fly - you usually catch a cab as I recall.

Well - the wind ruins my hair. But I mean, don't you think there's more to life?

I don't know. I'm more undead than actually alive. Not sure that counts.

You have such a dreary attitude.

I'm trying to sleep.

Who can sleep? You know, I think I'll open up a knitwear shop

A what...?

You know - knitwear, Its quite fashionable.

Oh god.

I think knitting is cool.

Well go knit something then.

I don't know if vampires really knit.

sleeping sounds - snore snore

Who can sleep?

Its 12.00. Midday. I'm a vampire.

Did you say 12?!

Ellen DeGeneres is not for another hour ok?

Oh right.

Why don't you try lying on your back and looking like a corpse?

You think knitting needles are dangerous to vampires? You know - like stakes?

I'm getting another headache.

What size jersey do you think you'd fit...?

Photo: extensiblecow

Submission (and cigarettes)

To recap - this is an ongoing saga at Vampires of Potts Point - but really its just dinner. Michel Boîte de Pandoras (vampire), Edwina ("Eddie") (servant) and Mme Epoussetez (vampire and hostess) have had dinner followed by a hallucinatory concoction. The night continues....

The potent drug "deQuincy" had worn off. The impression that I was an octopus in a very plush fish tank (that was in fact Mme Epoussetez's boudoir) had, mercifully, faded.

Mme Epoussetez had excused herself to go and do something diabolical.

Edwina and I smoked cigarettes and stared into space.

"So how do you feel about being a servant here?" I asked Edwina.

She replied, "Its Ok. The Epoussetez's aren't that bad - if you ignore their ghoulishness. Anyway, like I have a choice? I can't just up and leave. They're vampires in case you didn't notice."

"Oh very much so...."

"I'm a bit of a masochist anyway," Edwina continued pensively, "In fact, for a brief time I was a Submissive in an S&M relationship. What a let down that turned out ot be! I mean its all very well being a slave or whatever but all that happened was I ended up wearing bad leather outfits and doing the dishes for this balding middle aged accountant who was "in the scene" and who could afford to pay for the lifestyle. Oh god I'm cynical! I guess it was the gothic fashion that attracted me. Big mistake. I'm sorry, but unless its actually in a castle in France with the Marqui de Sade, its just another male suburban dungeons and dragons fantasy."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean. Dungeons ... and what...?"

"Never mind. As a matter of fact working here is pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to that kind of thing anyway."

"Well as to the Marquis de Sade - he tended to rave about things a bit, if you ask my opinion. And his table manners were awful."

"You ... knew him?"

"I occasionally met him at parties. I was like, oh hiii.... And then he's lecturing you on pain and such."

"I should have guessed you were a vampire. Mme Epoussetez rarely has dinner with mortals. Unless she's having them for dinner."

"You should come over some time, Eddie. I'll introduce you to my gargoyle."

"I'd like to - but its not easy getting a night off around here, believe me."

"Well I hope the gargoyle behaves if you do. He's such a grump...."

From the Journal of Michel Boîte de Pandoras - At the apartment of Mme Epoussetez: Part 9

Car

A Rolls Royce parked outside a restaurant. The establishment's tinted windows show well dressed diners picking at their meals - spoilt cats investigating a dead bird. The ghost image of the car is printed over - like a plush advertising stunt. The stunt is for Double Bay's exclusive dream - a dream of tacky, uninteresting family fortunes.

It is a dull evening. The night cloud cover is absolute. You might, in this atmosphere, see aliens, God, the end of the world, shout it out from city street corners to passing pedestrians - but in Double Bay the people settle their annoyed existences into sealed social hang-outs to drink alcohol and ignore. They devour pleasantness like predators.

There is a crack of thunder - a sonic execution of the sleeping air. The Rolls Royce emits a screaming alarm. The images of people printed on the restaurant window continue to eat. The siren cycles on and on - unafraid.

Preparing for the vampire bite, finding the hollow of her throat, the small rise of her collar bone, I felt her eyelashes brush - strong and light like insect wings. There was the crack of thunder - the Rolls Royce howled.

"My car." she whispered.

Car, shit, beg, submit, die.

"Let it go." I sighed.

"I can't just let it go."

We stared from her apartment window to the street below. People walked distracted around the Rolls, passing through the dark and cacophony as if it were a gimmick they felt wiser ignoring.

"Go home if you can't wait."

"I feel like the world is ending." I replied.

"Good,"

"Like one of us might die."

"Good."

The Rolls Royce blared. I felt my skull tightening.

I watched her jeans follow the hall out - the dull blue gripping, my head hurting. Lust to live - lust in cool, white, well paid architecture: the halls and foyers articulated with fine finishes and framed paintings; spacious lodgings; furniture of stone and glass and polished steel; windows with gardens beyond. Once perfected, everything dies. Each item a tomb, sealed by ownership, final and unforgiving.

So, you're a vampire? How lovely!

What can be more real than mockery?

Waiting for her to return, drinking malt, it was like there was no possibility of escape - I experienced the melancholy of vampires, trapped by deathless lust - weary, dreadful appetite. I drank thinking, I deserve a drink. I deserve this from Double Bay. Anyone who's anyone does it.

Where there is no substance, we grow.

The siren lapsed. Silence sighed through my mind. The end of the world was over: cancelled. Plastic outlasts every story I've ever heard. You can only pray for a conclusion.

From the Journal of M Chasseur d'Accrocs

Photo: extensiblecow

Soulless

Sky cloud colourless. Sitting on a wall overlooking the harbour. Felt like 5am. Heart pounding. Model ships nodding.

I saw her approaching along the curve of the bay wall. "Do you know Jesus loves you?'' Nightclub scraps interfere with the answer. I told her no but good luck. She in her wool dress and rainbow tea-cosey - the crumpled face of an Italian saint.

The divine generates spirit. Spirit generates the body. So is the body the divine manifest? Where does the truth of dreams exist? If dreams come from the body and so are divine, then the body, in this case, generates the divine. How can the body do this? From messages. Messages from the outside, which is objects. Objects generating through me this creation. Objects generating my dreams and my dreams generating me - not as an object but as divine.

On the train the window passes a scattered area - single trees, tufts of ragged grass, mounds of stone, pools, stacks of wood and metal rusting, cracked crimson shit, backyards, car ports, fleeting lanes, codes and symbols sprayed on every surface. Life composed of dryness: Australia. Suburbs large and formless behind station placards. Occasionally the continuum ruptures completely, there's just grass or stone, no signs, a kind of stillness I feel within as thought drains like breath. Place of no signs - an end even to sleep.

From the Journal of M Chasseur d'Accrocs

Photo: extensiblecow

Lilith

Lilith is a demon who has been around a long while. She emerges at night and is a real drama queen when it comes to sex.

If there is one thing Lilith loves to target its an unfaithful man.

Well she has no shortage of victims.

Unfaithful men give off a certain aura - its the aura of those who love them, who would prefer not to be crying but who have been forced into a situation of wrist-slashing, floor-hugging, bitter screaming.

Lilith picks up on it. She zeros in. She investigates. She's has NCIS-style analytical skills. And she has no mercy. She prefers, in general, to skin males alive. This is usually after she seduces them - well she has to have her fun. Some might say she has a Black Widow complex. She's comfortable with that.

So if you get dumped or whatever and you later receive an envelope in the mail, you open it and you find - neatly folded - a gossimar-thin membrane that resembles human skin - you can be sure Lilith has come across your situation and resolved it in her own way.

She hopes you didn't mind!

Out of it

To recap: Michel Boîte de Pandoras (vampire), Edwina ("Eddie") (servant) and Mme Epoussetez (vampire and hostess) have just had dinner. Now they are indulging in hallucinatory drugs. Dear me, how typical! For more details click the label at the end.

Edwina and I sat, each cushioned in the gaping mouth of a Venus Flytrap which flew, flapping its leaves, about the room like an insect trapped in a jar.

Below us whirled Mme Epoussetez's salon: the dour roccoco armchairs, the dizzyingly patterned floor rugs, the narrow stooping side tables, deep crimson curtains, shadowed portraits in gilded frames, faintly patterened ancient wallpaper complete with faint bloodstain flecks - the whole layout becoming a vortex as the plant flew wildly in circles.

I held the Flytrap's mouth open with one hand as I felt it trying to chew me. The tendrils on its "lips" were messing with my hair.

"So, I thought you said there would be bunnies," I called to Edwina.

"You don't see a bunny?" she called back.

"No. Erk. Do you?"

Edwina was about to answer when the flytrap mouth she was sitting in closed over her. i saw her black stockinged legs with high heeled red Mary-Janes poking out and kicking.

From the closed jaw I heard her voice: "Not really a bunny, no."

Things got a bit fuzzy then i was no longer in the Flytrap's mouth. The plant was gone and I was sitting on one of Mme Epoussetez's armchairs, with Mme Epoussetez sitting opposite me and Edwina sitting on a third.

"That deQincy stuff has quite a kick," I observed.

"Its not over yet," replied Mme Epoussetez, "Try standing up."

I looked down. Instead of my usual two legs attired in my favourite Armani skater pants, i beheld several large crawling tentacles with suckers.

"Yuk. So what - I'm an octopus now?"

"Still no bunnies," sighed Edwina.

"Can you see this?" I asked her, a little shrilly. My tentacle legs lashed out and started knocking over bits of furniture.

"I'd rather not say," replied Edwina.

The tentacles began to feel their way up to my throat. I brushed them down.

"Care for some more?" offered Mme Epoussetez.

"Actually I rather think I've had enough for now, thank you Mme Epoussetez."

From the Journal of Michel Boîte de Pandoras - At the apartment of Mme Epoussetez: Part 9

Hostel

5am and I'd miscalculated. I needed somewhere to hide before the sun got too high. I had an idea I'd use St Judes - a charitable hostel for the homeless.

Somehwere in this neighbourhood - narrow streets - houses on both sides, abandoned, boarded up to keep squatters away.

I turned left into a lane bordered by warehouses. An old guy lay on the pavement. Torn newspaper curled in the early cold. A fly touched my lips. Down here...further...

I walked to the end of the lane. I passed another old guy with an open cotton shirt flapping over pale hairless chest. The air as sharp as pepper.

I paused. I was extremely tired. I was lost. Air frigid and synthetic as if emanating from a vast factory duct....

I lit a cigarette. Sudden gusts of wind wound over the tar and old architecture, lifting dust and trash and pigeons and rattling whatever was left here to bend: I had to guard my match with one hand.

Small houses on one side. To the right a high wall of brick - the windowless end of a building.

I passed down a narrow smashed concrete cool corridor, the brick giving way to a tall wooden fence crowned with barbed wire. The air in the lane seemed undisturbed. Stale bedroom air.

There was a series of windows - identical elongated slots covered by thick metal mesh.

Passing beneath the first I heard water hissing from showers. Vague discolourations of steam escaped. Men were washing together. I heard a voice - an old growl, half pain, half a kind of yawn. Slow bodies in open wooden cubicals. Clouds, synthetic light, maybe someone singing, maybe talking to God. Mosaics of missing tiles. Smell of chemical soap.

I moved on, passed silent windows. Passed a kitchen window pouring forth the smells of frying accompanied by a loud twanging radio playing church music.

St Judes. A general sleepiness caused by abandonment. A line of old coats had formed at the door to the dining room. Breakfast was in ten minutes. The miracle. And all these guys do is drink wine. St Jude, from a sky of pearl, has gathered them to eat sausage.

People sat and stood. Waiting, but not with intensity. They were lost to a private presence. The Saint himself. Many faces had been relinquished to anguish. They were passive vessels for it. Was my face like theirs? Doubtless. I think I subsist on despair.

From the Journal of M Chasseur d'Accrocs

Photo: extensiblecow