The Little Things

Do you see them?

The little things cravenly creep and crawl. Look around: they won't be there. To your right, maybe. Above you perhaps? Certainly behind. Never in front. They will not meet your eyes, nor will your eyes meet them. The little things hide behind the clothes of others lest they be truly seen. They will shelter behind earth, sky, ignorance, and flesh. Though they detest such things, they know we should detest them even more. They are beings of the tight dark; forgotten half-delusions and wrongful sensations. Hunger drives them to the open. To us.

*"Hello" you say, and the words burn your tongue like they always have. There is no need to greet what is already here. Do you wish the floor to reciprocate? Do you wish the walls to wave? No, you would be frightened by such things. And yet they are all around you; permanent fixtures you've come to know as yours. We exist in similar fashion, but we are not yours to claim.*

Do you hear them?

They lie out of sight, but they do not lie. They are always moving; always at work. They weave. They concoct. They steal. They implant. The little things scatter at our footstep and surge back in the silence between. Carefully now. Don't look so alert. You may hear the chattering. The gibbering. The jabbering, wailing white noise. They do not think you can notice it, or they do not think you can act on it. Maybe you are privy to a secret or two, but how will you run down the rumors in the wind? They will tell you many things if you are willing to listen. None of them will help you. All of them will help them.

*You would fear us, your unfairly-skinned friends. The words that pain your mouth pain us too, yet still we don the cloak and mask. We do this for you. We do this because of you. A speaker stands in their world and expects to have an audience. "Hello" you say, and you have already chosen that audience. The unbound must become limited, and what responds is one of your mouths.*

Do you feel them?

They oil around your outstretched hand until there is naught but uncertainty. Where have they gone? There is only absence. Scour the emptiness; there will only be more. To call it fear or jealousy would be a comforting lie. They are not afraid. They do not envy us. Their avoidance is an instinct; their fixation purpose. They crave us as one craves water. Our bodies. Our memories. The delicate threads of our fragile ecosystem. Reach out and try to feel them. They have felt you.

*Gentle feelers extend through soft aether. How limited this construct. How limited this world. Even now it presses you down, compressing the body into an unworthy form. We have come to know your state as prisoner. We have thought with your chained minds. We have moved aching joints. You call us crooked through sloughing faces. You critique us through fragmented heads. Parts of the whole cannot process anything but impurity. Soon you will see we do this all for you.*

Do you know them?

A lie wrapped up in sweet smelling rot. The hand that drugs you. The one who moves on the ceiling. The one who you knew was all wrong. It who knows you are alone. It who knows you are afraid. Wind-whipped throats and raw rusty nails and knives beyond darkness. A hobbling half-shroud. Uncovered secrets and hidden pinpricks. There are eyes in your mind. Hear sound fall away and screams carefully hide. Touch the cold tight dark; it welcomes you to glorious new trauma. They know you.

*You were born of hot blood in the darkness of the mother. Are you no stranger to the cramped place? You were once so tiny. Now you are tall and crooked with flaw. Stoop with us The world chips its last from you. It cannot find you in the tight dark. Walk with us. Feel the pressing of the soothed unborn. You hugged yourself in weakness. You wept swaddled in darkness. How good it felt to be lost from the world. Follow the scent of your tinged memories. Crawl with us. The tight dark embraces you. You can fall away. It is okay. You can fall away.*