scribblings

april 11

the writing

Lady Saturnina stands at the top of her tower, watching the king’s army close in. 
Goodness, they must be very determined to capture her…which is curious, considering what happened last time. 
As they cross the outer barrier, a brand new line of defence rises—literally. As the soldiers fight the wave of undead, the sorceress wraps herself in a cloak of feathers and calls up a storm, launching herself into the wind. Lightning strikes the tower, toppling it, and she carries on to start anew…

~

Everyone on the crew has a secret. No one asks questions. That’s how it is on The Marionette. 
The next planet they dock on, the navigator turns up dead in an alley. The captain spends too much time in quarters, talking with increasingly shady characters and smoking gods knows what. 
When they take off, there’s a stowaway in the cargo bay, clinging to a suitcase. Only one other person on board knows what’s in it, and they’re still deciding if they’ve been paid well enough to keep their mouth shut. 

~

Dez had just gone down on one knee when Matty blundered into the room.
“Captain, there’s—oh. I can…come back?”
“No, Matthias, it’s fine. The commander was just leaving.”
Dez stared at her, all eight eyes blinking out of sync. Archids couldn’t blush. But Portia could hear the anger and embarrassment in his voice. “Of course, Captain. We’ll continue this later.”

~

The bodies floated downriver, and Mari carefully netted and drew them to shore. To keep the river clean, to bury them respectfully—all that tosh she told the priest. As long as he looked the other way while she took anything that might be worth a bit of coin. She’d leave some of her earnings in the offering plate, just in case.

~

“Remember that one planet, where your ex lives?” 
“…You’re gonna have to be way more specific.” 
“You know, the greasy mechanic dude?” 
“There were so many mechanics…on the desert planet?” 
“Yeah, the guy with the connections to Eris.”
“I mean, Eris is also my ex, so we can cut out the middle man…”
“Damn, girl, are we gonna get shot if we do that?”
“Fair point.”

the reading

Poem: “Crows” by Kevin Young (from “Darkling, Part 2: Werewolf Hill” in Night Watch)

“They hop like the humble. 
     Like sinners hotfooted 
in hell. 

Like old men 
     they grumble. 
They so not sing, 

just cry. Theirs 
     is the only eye—
plead with it, 

or try.”

Essay: “Diagnosis Day” by Shane Neilson (from Best Canadian Essays 2026)

“Perhaps twice a month, my wife will say: your shirt is on inside out. Most of the time, she tells me in the morning. Sometimes, though, she tells me at night.
Once a month, I’ll evade her detection system and make it to work, where a patient will tell me that the shirt is on inside out, or a colleague, or I’ll see myself in the bathroom mirror or virtual screen and notice.
In Newfoundland, this happened so often that nurses told me a piece of folklore: that I had to wear the shirt inside-out for the rest of the day to placate the ghosts who would be angry if I were to turn the shirt right side round.”