the tree and the dust

chapter 3

The terribly tarnished unicorn strained against the shackles, it’s forelock swinging back and forth before it’s brilliant blue eyes~ it's rider dead~
The chains bolted and welded to the hull of the flat black ship embossed with double lightning bolt insignia, jumping in and out of light speeds kiss
The magnetic hoofs clanked, scratched and slip
The stars wink, shift and change around the skies umbrella~ fall
And sink into the cold rolled steel surface as fire flies slipping into puddles of summer dusk drownings

the machine made to look like a child's toy, barred it's teeth, and seethed under shackle, and saddle

you will show us the way to your world the voice from the decking sighs, slipping into sibilants, a thing roughly man shaped standing just out of reach faces the dying pony~

man shaped, and sized in glittering surprised living cloths, squirming, roiled, a face attached to a head, like a fist shoved in a throat~ with horribly sizzling eye wafted invapored

a hand gestures to the black winking stars~

I'll point~ and you can say when~ this wont take long~is this your home~? the hand like a stick poked into a rotting fruit, carved with a knife points randomly at white red blue green ink spot dots, waving~

one of these stars is YOUR HOME SYSTEM~ MACHINE~ let me ride upon your back ~take me there~i really want to see a world of toys and children, these fields and forests~

let me free first~unchain my legs, get me inside this vessel and i will show you vengeance and take your corpse to hell

a long pony face veined and angered spits evaporated air full of words, the man shaped thing steps forward and points~

your little friend wouldn't hold my hand either machine~ is your world in some childhood heaven for martyrs and heathen~alike ?

the rider bound to the unicorns back, braided to saddle slowly shrivels in vacuum, hair, burning off scalp. flesh crinkling, turning brown, bony checks pulling back from bright crisp tooth, clothing crumbling away to dust and gases, eyes squeezed shut, ears nose finger tips floating off into the startling sunlight in small brown puffs

Sarrow, I'm so sorry the unicorn cries out~ I'm so sorry. . . you have died like this~ in front of this witness

and the tethered unicorn feels unburdened as the girl, seated upon the saddle disintegrates, floats off~forever in fluttering particle

now there is room for me to sit the man shaped thing laughs, would you like some tea, perhaps a party~ now that your master is within death, you are free~show me a star~pick one~ take me there~

and the ship leaps, jumps and vaults six, ten forty, a hundred times

in swirling milky curdles~stops, over a green world, agitated

WE ARE HOME LITTLE MACHINE~ SARROW LOOKED, I FOLLOWED HER EYES, BEFORE SHE DIED, SHE TOLD ME, SHE DIDN'T WANT TO DIE ALONE, HEAVEN'S A LONELY PLACE FOR HUMAN TOYS. she didn't want to tell me, she just couldn't help herself

`

NOOOOO !

the terribly troubled unicorn screams and shatters it's chains lunging at. . .nothing but emptiness

tell the story right, Sarrow squeaks, as a fleck of dust within a mote, awash in tears