Month: April 2023

2023/04/25 #DailyCreatedOOM #WrittenOOM #OwlOfTheMaze

Posted on by Patrick

Owl threw malleus spells repeatedly against the exoskeleton wall: a Standerbuild was filling the round tunnel like the backside of an hourglass spider. This tunnel branched from the regular squared stonework passages like the den of a wagon-sized stone-eating rat; and by now it was the most likely option of their scanty and unlikely choice of ways.

Peri held his book behind him, and tried to find things she could do or help him with among the unfamiliar sections and markings. He had never expected to have someone else shuffling through those pages, trying to decipher his scrawled and jarred notes, his more precise mystic text, and his heiroglyphic or childish drawings. Some of the pages were spotted with blood, some with sweat, some with… tears. No doubt her own book had been the same before it had been stolen. With one book between them they had tried various arrangements, none of which seemed to work.

It was difficult to repeat the malleus spells over and over: as it became more like meaningless sound to one’s mind, it became less of a spell. And he had to cast it at two parts of the creature in as quick succession as he could, or else it would simply turn, absorbing the pounding blow, and advance on them. The barricading hulk’s thin jaws were manifold as the arms of a typewriter, and twitched angrily. Peri’s page flipping was becoming frantic, and Owl winced when he heard one tear. She timidly said sorry, and he couldn’t answer as he continued his barrage.

Peri began a spell she had found, but faltered at an awkward part. He glanced into the book, and, as he recognised the spell (also as it required a pinch of self-heal he had in his belt), he was able to cast it successfully. A bitter and numbing odor came to him as under this enchantment the Standerbuild shuddered to stillness.

He turned to help Peri find something to clear it from their path, only to find that she was being hastened back and around a corner by a creature with a black insectile leg belted around her waist. As she stumbled backwards in the enemy’s grasp she was again searching Owl’s book, desperate to find some way to free herself. If she threw the book to him, he could save her by several means – yet he hesitated to speak, for the pained thought that it would seem he only wanted to save his book and not her.

Darting around the corner, he was in time to see her drop his book and wrestle with another thin leg which was… not a leg, but a jointed jaw and curving sting, which it ran through her.

Owl’s throat seized and his eyes went slack at the sight. He felt heavy rolling coils inside, as if of a snake that struck upward and stung him between the lungs.

Peri, still clutching the black limb, five inches of whose point was buried in her body, spoke in a horribly sinking voice:

“Matha, ktanai, silthei Peri anadan, saterei…”

Forked violet sparks stitched both her and the black-limbed shape that held her, lighting up the horrible tableau of predator and prey – these flares bled a dull orange, and flew apart into honeycombs of fumy lace. The murdering fiend shook on its stinger like a dry weightless leaf on its autumn stem, then it skidded away and rolled over, a stiff and destroyed carcass.

Peri crumpled to the stone floor, pierced, poisoned, and burnt, still clutching the sting that was left in her. Owl snatched his book and knelt beside her. He hoped he had strayed near the veil often enough to lead another poor soul away from it; yet he was no well-master, and here there was no well.

But while there’s life there’s running till your feet leave a trail of blood.

2023/04/25 #DailyCreatedOOM #WrittenOOM #OwlOfTheMaze

2023/04/22 #SabbathPosts

Posted on by Patrick

As if to emphasise the contrast with idolatry, and to show the true purpose of human art, the faith of Abraham worships towards the space between two statues.

“Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth.” Ps 80

The purpose of our creations is to glorify our Creator. If we, his creations, are so foolish as to refuse worship to our Creator, it is the same foolishness to turn and worship our own creations. If instead we rightly worship our Creator, we worship him with our creations.

2023/04/22 #SabbathPosts

2023/04/20 #DailyCreatedOOM #WrittenOOM

Posted on by Patrick

Change is drifting past; we’re staring into our exhaust; the corrugated aerial cylinder that surrounds the hall tintinnates with the drone of voices.

Drop your hand to your side. We’re standing on rough, damp gravel, made of shattered foam concretions, which is sharp under our wooden shoes. The rain is pattering on the faraway roof, but the thunder is coming along inside the hall, from the contracted end. There is a window far, but nearer than the roof, and we cannot see it. Tall arching lines of fine chain, sprinkled in patina and grey, rustle in the thunder wind. A tuft of maroon winds into the lee through a crack in the slide.

As the multiple thousands of spicy conical lights orchard the space from above, and reflect in the dull broken gravel, there flit from end to end boat-shaped ephemera, propelled by hairy bladders like microbiotic squids.

A smell of powdered earth and time seeping out of the skin of the dimension feathers over our faces, and runs at last along the winding corrugations of our brains.

Every working day I create an OOM, to show some of my unapologetic fascination for the OOMlich. ofourmaker.com

2023/04/20 #DailyCreatedOOM

2023/04/17 #DailyCreatedOOM

Posted on by Patrick

Paschendale slippers dank and hide frocks – trembled while the pillions slipped away and shook the foreright. Never the manacled shapes dressed over hand and arm, crushing yet sallow beneath the umber moon cheek. We pried the dart from the cinder teeth, a waking crow for yesterday in clock or collared fames.

Striped on tenterhooks, baled on spiral ridgeways, the head of locks and pools in judgement bright; clear and sharp the fastened door breaks through the morning layers to bury the heap before the bed can move.

Every working day I create an OOM, to show some of my unapologetic fascination for the OOMlich. ofourmaker.com

2023/04/17 #DailyCreatedOOM

2023/04/15 #SabbathPosts

Posted on by Patrick

Earlier this week I posted a quiz: what do Moses, David, and Ezekiel have in common? Something that they alone share.

If you like you can try to think of it; if not, here’s what it was:

They were the prophets to whom God gave the designs of his Temples: to Moses the design of the Tabernacle, to David the design of the Temple which Solomon built, and to Ezekiel the design of the Temple of his coming kingdom.

It’s an interesting group which one doesn’t ordinarily think of together, but apparently God saw a connection between these men. Perhaps the connection was their very dissimilarity, as the root, stem, and flower of a plant are dissimilar, and are in a way connected by their dissimilarity.

2023/04/15 #SabbathPosts

2023/04/11 #DailyCreatedOOM

Posted on by Patrick

Clandestine future slinking through the pipe; blamed it for the blemish that fell from six and more stairheads. Broken was he on the pinnacle rocks, bars of the ephemeral gate. Whether the masters gather in restorative clusters, whether the master gather the seeming or leave them, dwindling materials in nightshade close the ferrous passage temporally lightened.

Time skip: where is the herald? Did he not appear?

Twining ribbands of leather fumes weave them up, dwindling into the lowered sky. On below it goes, never grows, small steps and subtle undercuts; we think of it with bending eyes.

2023/04/11 #DailyCreatedOOM

2023/04/09 #ResurrectionDay

Posted on by Patrick

{For a Resurrection Day post, here is something I posted on Quora, in response to a question some have about Abraham’s testing.}

Q: “Do you think that Abraham was acting morally when he was willing to sacrifice his son because God ordered him to do it? Should he have refused to obey God’s command?”

A: The reason it is wrong to murder someone (or steal from them etc.) is because man is made in the image of God: all sin is a form of blasphemy.

This is why a loving God allows death and suffering and sin. It is the same as a man allowing himself to be robbed. It is sin for us to rise up against the image of God and dishonour it. It is equally wrong for us to speak against God, accusing him of dishonouring himself if he destroys his own image for his own greater glory.

To reject a direct command of God, or to charge him with unrighteousness, is just as unnatural and violent as destroying his image in one of his innocent children.
Another thing to realise about God being the Creator:
“By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.” – Hebrews 11
So here it says that since Abraham knew God would multiply his seed through Isaac, he concluded that God would raise him from the dead. As Job said, “Yahweh gave, and Yahweh hath taken away.” It is he who gave all life, it would be foolish to question when he takes it back.

If God sees fit to suffer a grievance for his own greater glory, it is not for us to tell him how he should be honoured.
“And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said unto his neighbour in the word of Yahweh, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man refused to smite him. Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of Yahweh, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found him, and slew him.” – 1 Kings 20

{To this I would add that some similarly question whether it was moral for God to require the death he suffered on the cross – since they term it as the Father requiring it of the Son, it would be good to first point out that they are one, thus it is something God took on himself, again, a man allowing himself to suffer; who is to condemn him for this? As if we are to teach God how he should seek his greater glory.}

2023/04/09 #ResurrectionDay

2023/04/03 #DailyCreatedOOM

Posted on by Patrick

Goshawk levelled on the graded run, feeling grim in the laced withunder-withover, traditional in very crooked cranes aloft the broken neck.

Cheaper than a soap rod, vaguer than a chilling stride, and bought across the haft of six and two thirds seas. Preying fresh, inside dimpled cages motherwort grows the nicest wirebenders. Make off the trialed stammer first of all, for vaguer never was the growing feather from the avian skin. Straps to pelt them, mitres to measure the block.

2023/04/03 #DailyCreatedOOM

2023/03/31 #DailyCreatedOOM

Posted on by Patrick

{This is for last week-sixth, when I was unable to post in time.}

The distant bark of a dog in the night somehow brought him wide awake with a beating heart, as it had never done before. The house was quiet but for the hum of the refrigerator, and other similar intermittent or constant sounds. Something had gone wrong, as when one’s mother has died, and you wake, feeling that horrible wound throughout and out of your sleep, but do not remember why at first. He got out of bed, went downstairs, went outside. There was little moon, little clouds, no wind. Going through the front door sounded like going from one room to another in the house.

Too much like. There was a sound that continued, even increased, when leaving the house, which should not have. The hum of the refrigerator, or one of the other sounds, a hushed level buzzing. It was not coming from his car, and there were no other cars in sight. The AC and the metre-box were on the other side of the house. It was coming from “out there”, not far off, nor in the sky.

Images that came to his mind, that his eyes now looked for: the silhouette of a man camouflaged against the dark patches all around; the thin, spreading limbs of some spidery being; a narrow pillar with a minute, sinister light.

What he saw he did not see, till it worked into him that it was not as it should be: a lighted area in the lawn where no light shone on it; rather it was like a door left open a crack, with a glimpse of scene and movement beyond. Foreshortened at that distance, he could discern nothing. The interminable buzzing came from there.

As he drew nearer, the hair of his skin became hot with tension; he shook off a fly with a start, but it was a drop of sweat. The buzzing was clearer, but still quiet; it made his inner ears itch. The thing he approached was a round hole in the lawn, cut as if with a knife, covered over with fluttering tatters of translucent membrane, as though something had torn through from that lighted space into this world. A rising of air through the hole kept the tatters in motion, and kept them hiding what was through the hole, where the moving light came as if from inside a building. A fleshy, raw, metallic smell touched him. He took another laboured and slow step forwards.

And he was lying in his bed, with light coming through the window into the bedroom where the lights were still off, like in late morning. He had not wakened, he had not slept: he had been walking on the indistinct grass, and now was lying here looking at his room. His heart was no longer beating fast. Something had gone wrong, and he still did not know what it was. He felt a pang go through him: if he had overslept, was he then late for work? But that could not pierce him with this fundamental degree of fear. He got out of bed, looked out the window: then in the full light he began to weep, to plead, to pray.

What did he see! What was outside the window!

Above the house, below the house, and in every direction, was empty white, infinite and blank as the number zero.

2023/03/31 #DailyCreatedOOM

The Surreal Arm of the OOMlich Hex

Posted on by Patrick

The Surreal is in a sense the culmination of fantasy. Where fiction can express what history cannot, by imaginary events, fantasy can express what fiction cannot, by imaginary creatures, imaginary abilities, imaginary worlds.

In the same way, the Surreal can express what simpler fantasy cannot, by an experience entirely on imaginary grounds: every part of the Surreal may come from the invention of imagination.

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