The Burning Bridge

These crossing threads that adorn the procession of gates.  Each is braided with hidden tongues that speak of every colour.  Shades and hues beyond what mortal eyes can see.  Mage, listen. Oftentimes they see a girl.  A skilled seamstress and weaver, but nothing more.  As I paint pictures upon these mirrored skins.  Behind closed doors they call me a Marquis of Thieves when they imagine I desecrate as they do.  I am the storm, and the war.  But I don't hate my brethren.  I am not who they think I am.  I'm something much, much worse.  True knowledge of knives, and needlepoint.  This sophistication they claim to possess; it wasn't even theirs to begin.  Believe me.  I've seen them in the dark, Kara.  I've heard them.  Cutting and stabbing upon their hideous altars.  Fetid, entitled, corpulent.  The Highest in the Land.  A lineage of false kings.  Well, I too was a king.  Once.  Betrothed, and useful.  But a hollowed tear on my finger is all that's left of that shining realm.  A circle of salt.  Stars fell, as you know.  And songs, and silence.  The rebel Kiir, with arcs and augurs among them.  Thieves of All Signs.  Acolytes of the Stolen Sea.  I’ve heard it said that visionaries and seekers all across the earth are peering into the hidden realms now, and asking why the bridge is burning.  Why does it thrill with all the climbing colours of our dreaming?  Is the quickening come at last, they wonder, or the overture to an even greater cataclysm?  Well, there are secret wars raging all about us.  Dark factions vying for control of future ash.  These wraith-technologies always need something literal to burn.  Unlike threadwork, or needlepoint.  These wraiths and their familiars cause a quiet, profitable havoc and know virtually nothing of the subtler realms.  It’s amusing, I suppose, considering how they pride themselves on their supposed occult knowledge.  But they cannot grasp this procession of dreaming gates, nor can they read the crossing threads that adorn them.  True spiritual sight requires imagination, and innermost.  They haven't the heart, my wildest Kiir.  Or the fire.

 

The Burning Bridge from Raj Sisodia on Vimeo.