update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/idumea/002.html

@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@
 <p>And here, now, The Woman was feeling most of all grief. She feared that, were she to let her breath out, it would be that whine of fear, that moan of terror, a wave of tears.</p>
 <p>The tenth had left two empty chairs and two full plates at meals until three years prior.</p>
 <p>Now they left three.</p>
-<p>Her Friend, either knowing or seeing this, averted her eyes, casting her gaze instead out to the street. &ldquo;I am sorry, my dear. I was indeed feeling grief and loss over Should We Forget. No Longer Myself as well, yes, and Beckoning and more, but the one I knew best was Should We Forget. I am sorry.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Her Friend, either knowing or seeing this, averted eir eyes, casting eir gaze instead out to the street. &ldquo;I am sorry, my dear. I was indeed feeling grief and loss over Should We Forget. No Longer Myself as well, yes, and Beckoning and more, but the one I knew best was Should We Forget. I am sorry.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>The Woman let her breath out most carefully, not letting it shake, not letting her lip quiver. &ldquo;I understand, yes. You knew her as well.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>&ldquo;Perhaps we can speak simply of the fallout.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>She bowed. &ldquo;I would appreciate that, yes.&rdquo;</p>
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@
 <p>Perhaps this unbecoming that her mind circled around was simply the utmost in stillness.</p>
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-                <p>Page generated on 2024-05-05</p>
+                <p>Page generated on 2024-05-10</p>
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writing/post-self/idumea/008.html

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 <p>It makes me tremble and it makes my fur stand on end and my paws shake and my pen skitter anxiously across the page like those leaves that danced before the feet of The Woman I told you about so, so long ago, perhaps like those leaves that skitter within the city, that unreal city, that city full of dreams, where ghosts in broad daylight cling to passers-by.</p>
 <p>Oh! And oh! The wonder of it all! She, then, like snow in a dark night fell secretly! She fell and fell and fell and we fell and fell and fell and fell and fell until falling was all we knew and within that fall we found some new kernel of truth but how hot that kernel was! It burned within our palm as we held it to our chest and for each of us it burned so, so hot and so, so differently that there she was, too much herself and here I am, too much myself, and the words come so fast and so thick that I am blinded! Ink in my eyes, scrabbling for any known thing! I press upon this and that with shaking fingertips to try and find something that is not yet more words, but that is all there is, because this is it, my friends, the kernel of truth that we found. The truth we now know is that we are falling still! We fell into overflow and never really ever came back. We may slow down, we may catch a branch and be able to hold there for a little while, panting, struggling to catch our breath, until fire burns through our shoulders and we cannot hold any longer and we are forced to let go once more and fall and fall and fall just like I am falling and falling and falling and falling and falling.</p>
 <p>And The Woman? This is what makes me wonder and makes me tremble: what of her? Is she alive still? Or did she quit and are we left not with a tree that is her but simply a tree? Simply that which drinks thirstily from this dream of a ground. Is that her or is it a dream of dumb matter? If she is still there, if she is still alive, if she is still that tree, then is she still at last? Is she merely herself at last? Has she landed at last upon the ground and sat up, dazed, and looked about her new life and said, &ldquo;Oh! Oh, I do believe this is some plentiful enough for me&rdquo;?</p>
-<p>Because if that is so, what of us? My little readers may be rubbing the tears from their eyes or tilting their heads in confusion as I wonder at them: what of us? If that really <em>is</em> her, if she really <em>is</em> that tree, and if she really <em>is</em> at last at rest, then what does that mean for me, who cries ink down into her fur — a skunk! Is it really any wonder that black fur suits me so? What does that mean for my clade? For Her Friend, who struggles and strives to reclaim that which has failed and turn it into some bijou and yet who, when ey falls, feels that all the work she has done is not just for naught, but has hurt those who ey sought to help?</p>
+<p>Because if that is so, what of us? My little readers may be rubbing the tears from their eyes or tilting their heads in confusion as I wonder at them: what of us? If that really <em>is</em> her, if she really <em>is</em> that tree, and if she really <em>is</em> at last at rest, then what does that mean for me, who cries ink down into her fur — a skunk! Is it really any wonder that black fur suits me so? What does that mean for my clade? For Her Friend, who struggles and strives to reclaim that which has failed and turn it into some bijou and yet who, when ey falls, feels that all the work ey has done is not just for naught, but has hurt those who ey sought to help?</p>
 <p>My own Friend, who will most certainly read this and reach out to me to see if I am okay, she has said that she wonders at times whether we are all doomed to die. She was with me, with all of us there on the field, as I watched my root instance look up to the sky, breathe in a million billion trillion years and then quit, and so now she wonders at times whether we are all doomed to do as she did, to look up to the sky, breathe in every year of our lives and the lives of all of our instances, and quit. If that is all that lays before us, what does that mean for us? If all that lies before every Odist and every hidden, forbidden self that we have spun out into the world is some forever death, then what does that mean for this time-bound now?</p>
 <p>Is death within us? Perhaps. Is suicide within us? Perhaps.</p>
 <p>Was this death? Was what The Woman did in seeking and finding her eternal stillness suicide? Perhaps! Perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps my friends perhaps.</p>