update from sparkleup

.vimwiki_tags

@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 !_TAG_PROGRAM_VERSION	2.5
 book	writing/post-self/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/index\twriting/post-self/index
 fiction	writing/dont-look-up.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/dont-look-up\twriting/dont-look-up
+fiction	writing/hand-of-god.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/hand-of-god\twriting/hand-of-god
 fiction	writing/post-self/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/index\twriting/post-self/index
 fiction	writing/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck\twriting/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck
 fiction	writing/post-self/qoheleth/index.md	3;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/index\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/index#fiction
@@ -26,6 +27,7 @@ furry	writing/sawtooth/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/index\twriting/sawt
 furry	writing/sawtooth/limerent-object/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/limerent-object/index\twriting/sawtooth/limerent-object/index
 furry	writing/sawtooth/malina.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/malina\twriting/sawtooth/malina
 horror	writing/dont-look-up.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/dont-look-up\twriting/dont-look-up
+horror	writing/hand-of-god.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/hand-of-god\twriting/hand-of-god
 incomplete	writing/sawtooth/aposematism.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/aposematism\twriting/sawtooth/aposematism
 memoir	writing/sonata/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/sonata/index\twriting/sonata/index
 metafurry	writing/post-self/qoheleth/index.md	3;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/index\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/index#metafurry
@@ -52,6 +54,7 @@ scifi	writing/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/ioan-
 scifi	writing/post-self/qoheleth/index.md	3;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/qoheleth/index\twriting/post-self/qoheleth/index#scifi
 sexuality	writing/sawtooth/foxes-and-milkshakes-g.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/foxes-and-milkshakes-g\twriting/sawtooth/foxes-and-milkshakes-g
 short-story	writing/dont-look-up.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/dont-look-up\twriting/dont-look-up
+short-story	writing/hand-of-god.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/hand-of-god\twriting/hand-of-god
 short-story	writing/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck\twriting/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck
 short-story	writing/sawtooth/aposematism.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/aposematism\twriting/sawtooth/aposematism
 short-story	writing/sawtooth/foxes-and-milkshakes-g.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/foxes-and-milkshakes-g\twriting/sawtooth/foxes-and-milkshakes-g
@@ -60,6 +63,7 @@ short-story	writing/st-dog.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/st-dog\twriting/st-dog
 tech	tech/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:tech/index\ttech/index
 universe	writing/sawtooth/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/sawtooth/index\twriting/sawtooth/index
 writing	writing/con/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/con/index\twriting/con/index
+writing	writing/hand-of-god.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/hand-of-god\twriting/hand-of-god
 writing	writing/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/index\twriting/index
 writing	writing/post-self/index.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/index\twriting/post-self/index
 writing	writing/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck.md	2;"	vimwiki:writing/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck\twriting/post-self/ioan-and-may-fuck

writing/hand-of-god.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 %title The Hand of God
 :writing:horror:fiction:short-story:
 
-The day began with Jude giving the Aaron a hand in setting up countless contraptions just past the rim of the forest, describing an invisible net of arcane geometries held there five feet above the ground. She lugged the total station while he placed the equipment. He prattled on as he went, describing what he was doing, what tools he was using, what equipment she was carrying. She largely lost track after the word 'theodolite'.
+The day began with Jude giving the Aaron a hand in setting up countless contraptions just within the edge of the forest, describing an invisible net of arcane geometries held there five feet above the ground. She lugged the total station while he placed the equipment. He prattled on as he went, describing what he was doing, what tools he was using, what equipment she was carrying. She largely lost track after the word 'theodolite'.
 
 Theodolite.
 
@@ -19,11 +19,11 @@ Or perhaps it was the *-dol-* stuck in the middle. Sadness? No, that wasn't it.
 
 Here the Aaron was, doing his physics, doing his job, describing measurements and chromatic aberrations and spherical lenses and timed strobes and...
 
-And all she could think was *would I know the God-stone if I saw it? If I touched it?* Doubt like dry bread stuck in her throat.
+And all she could think was *would I know the God-stone if I saw it? If I touched it?*
 
 "Hey."
 
-Jude jerked upright. She had been crouched. Or hunched. A near feral wariness had overtaken her and formed her body into a bow. Taut, ready. She put forth a conscious effort to straighten up, square her shoulders, let them relax.
+Jude jerked upright. She had been crouched. Or hunched. A near feral wariness had overtaken her and formed her body into a bow. Taut, ready, listening, listening. She put forth a conscious effort to straighten up, square her shoulders, let them relax.
 
 "You okay?"
 
@@ -53,9 +53,9 @@ Aaron smiled dreamily. "Thank God that worked."
 
 And then they unwound the entire procedure from before. Undoing the cabling, unearthing the rods, undowsing, in some strange way, the work of the theolodite.
 
-On the way back to the camp, Aaron continued to chatter. He was measuring the way light and shadow moved so untrod an area. "No reason to think something as basic as light would differ here," he had assured her. Or at least assured her form, as her mind was elsewhere. "But you have to admit, everything's a little strange."
+On the way back to the camp, Aaron continued to chatter. He was measuring the way light and shadow moved in so untrod an area. "No reason to think something as basic as light would differ here," he had assured her. Or at least assured her form, as her mind was elsewhere. "But you have to admit, everything's a little strange."
 
-At the camp: quiet. The four sat, each in front of their tent, thinking or not, reading or not. At one point, the linguist asked after the geologist, the fifth member of their expedition, and Elanna, archaeologist and *de facto* leader, repeated, "I don't know. He's just gone."
+At the camp: quiet. The four sat, each in front of their tent, thinking or not, reading or not. At one point, the Sarai asked after the geologist, the fifth member of their expedition, and Elanna, archaeologist and *de facto* leader, repeated, "I don't know. He's just gone."
 
 And then: quiet.
 
@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ She shrugged and handed it over. "Gift from my dad. We had a...complicated relat
 
 "Yeah. I studied Celtic languages for a while and wrote a paper on the whole blessing for an undergrad anthropology class. Write what you know, I guess."
 
-Aaron asked, "'The whole blessing'?"
+"'The whole blessing'?" Aaron asked
 
 She grinned. "Yeah, it's several lines. I think. It's been a while. It's like, 'good luck on your road, may the wind be behind you, may the sun shine on your face, may the rain fall on your fields, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.'"
 
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ Elanna lifted her sleepy head. "You're Catholic."
 
 It wasn't a question. She knew already. Knew all of their profiles. A statement, then, for the benefit of the others.
 
-"Yeah. I'm, uh...gently lapsed, I'd say. I still believe, still read the bible. Just don't go to mass. I don't like it there."
+"Yeah. I'm, uh...gently lapsed, I'd say. I still believe. Just don't go to mass. I don't like it there."
 
 Silence.
 
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ The botanist frowned, the tension draining from her as a blanket settled over he
 
 The hand of God had loosened its grip around her mind and here she was, back at camp, back by the barrel cactus and saguaro, back beyond the trees, where ferns fingered the air and fronds like hands reached out to touch them.
 
-It did not last. Doubt clouded her vision once more. Doubt of this place, doubt of herself, of her worth.
+It did not last.
 
 The camp grew quiet once more. Sarai handed her bookmark back and she fingered it, book forgotten. She felt the letters etched into the thin brass, felt the words there, proven now to be incorrect, felt the shapes telling lies against her skin. She felt the weight of that hand, at once comforting and threatening, settle once more against her brain-stem, compressing, caressing, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing...
 
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@ One by one they retreated to their tents and their own personal narratives diver
 
 Perhaps the others dreamed. Jude knew that she did. She lay on her camp pad and closed her eyes and there must have been some point at which she fell asleep, at which she crossed that border, but she was not aware of when. She was only aware of opening her eyes again and seeing before her her own face.
 
-It was not a mirror, for the movements were not exact. It was another her. Another version of herself, and while it blinked as she might, and when she lifted her head, it lifted its own, the exactitude was imperfect. There were subtle differences. Their breathing was off by half a second, perhaps, or she was sweating more heavily than it. It, like the outcropping, seemed to resist its own humanity.
+It was not a mirror, for the movements were not exact. It was another her. Another version of herself, and while it blinked as she might, and when she lifted her head, it lifted its own, the exactitude was imperfect. There were subtle differences. Their breathing was off by half a second, perhaps, or her jaw clenched in unreciprocated tension. It, like the outcropping, seemed to resist its own humanity.
 
 And when she reached out her hand to touch its face, it reached out its own to return the gesture, and, very specifically, moved its arm above her own so that they would not collide. Was that something that a reflection could do?
 
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ And while the dreamy confusion was mirrored on her face, there was also curiosit
 
 And she had stopped thinking of this dream-scented Doppelgänger as something other than herself. She was not it. She was she. She was *she*.
 
-And her hands were her own. She had a hand in their making. Her hand was forced hand in hand with blood on her hands washing her hands of the matter. After all, was a bird in the hand not worth two in the forest, there beside the outcropping where, written on the stone, were the words the linguist toiled over day after day?
+And her hands were her own. She had a hand in their making. Her hand was forced hand in hand with blood on her hands washing her hands of the matter. After all, was a bird in the hand not worth two in the forest, there beside the outcropping where, written on the stone, were the rust-colored half-words the linguist toiled over day after day?
 
 And there she was, and if there had been a transition from her being in her tent to her standing in the woods, to her moving toward where those dead rocks climbing stolidly up from earth, she missed it, just as she had missed that transition between waking and sleeping.
 
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ And they reached out toward each other and their fingertips touched and the touc
 
 And they relaxed, and Jude felt that even as the darkness deepened, the light within her grew, and they both settled down to their knees.
 
-And finally, the mirroring was broken as the *her* that was not her slid *her* fingers up over her wrist and gently guided her hand down toward the soil, strangely loamy, strangely damp, and she knew then that she must spread her fingers and dig them down into the earth, there by the outcropping which was a finger pointing at God such that she was in turn pointing at...at what? At the owner of that hand? At the owner of that finger?
+And finally, the mirroring was broken as the *her* that was not her slid *her* fingers up over her wrist and gently guided her hand down toward the soil, undesertlike, strangely loamy, strangely damp, and she knew then that she must spread her fingers and dig them down into the earth, there by the outcropping which was a finger pointing at God such that she was in turn pointing at...at... At the owner of that hand? At the owner of that finger?
 
 And as she did so, she felt that the dirt beneath her fingernails took root, that her nails themselves must have been rootlets and that her arm a stolon, that her whole body was the runner for some tree, some entity other than herself, for at that point, she took root.
 
@@ -163,8 +163,6 @@ And there, her fingers curled around the God-stone, and indeed, she knew it as s
 
 And even as the bark crawled up her arm, she saw her Doppelgänger stand and smile to her. A dreamy smile; not kind, not cruel, not knowing, not ignorant. Just a dreamy, inevitable smile. Just a dream. Just inevitability.
 
-And all doubt fled her then. All was racing toward what it should be.
-
 And she felt growth accelerate as, bound now to the earth, her bones became wood and her muscles loosened, unwound, and thus unbound began to lengthen, to strengthen, to arch skyward, seeking stars, seeking God.
 
 And when Aaron awoke, he was the first to notice Jude was gone.