![God spoke to him in a dream: “You live and will die in this prison so that a [sailor] I know of may see you a certain number of times and not forget you and place your figure and symbol in a poem which has its precise scheme of the universe. You suffer captivity, but you will have given a word to the poem.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ledarwbLfS1qfyp97o1_500.jpg)
God spoke to him in a dream: “You live and will die in this prison so that a [sailor] I know of may see you a certain number of times and not forget you and place your figure and symbol in a poem which has its precise scheme of the universe. You suffer captivity, but you will have given a word to the poem.”
The machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of a beast and the simplicity of men.
Will you give me but another tiny glimpse of the trove, dear Mermaid? My astrolabe has become inscrutable. Perhaps it was the eclipse that offset my course. Or was it your wiles? It seems that I have sailed into the 12th century, or so I have read. Where do I go from here?
Submitted by callmebalthazar
I feel asleep at the wheel and dreamed of a green oblivion. I was lost in obscurity. Noah and Jonah were there, and others whose names end in “ah.” In my weary sleep, I led my crew astray. Can you find me again, Levitating Mermaid, and put me back together? Am I seeing rightly, have we truly been trapped? Are these glass walls an illusion?
—Balthazar
Last night on a cold and placid sea I saw a fleet of ships made of green light form a vertical line facing the distant horizon. At first the form of each ghost ship was transparently etched in the phantasmic hue. What on earth is that mysterious green light?
Soon, the ships shifted into a single beam that shone for light years before the tip was stopped by the form of a fleeting meteorite somewhere in our solar system. The entire fleet disappeared within this pinprick of light and I imagined for an instant that the Imaginary Sailor might be onboard, himself now scattered into a billion subatomic particles still chasing the secret letters from one realm into the next.
Did he steer the wheel the wrong way after all?
Have you seen this green light?
In the book of secret letters, a passage from Being and Nothingness:
We should attempt to examine more closely the patterns of bad faith and attempt a description of them. This description will permit us perhaps to fix more closely the conditions for the possibility of bad faith; that is, to reply to the question we raised at the outset: What must be the being of man if he is to be capable of bad faith?
Take the example of a woman who has consented to go out with a particular man for the first time…
On a distant shore the faint outline of a statue overlooks the garden. I move closer slowly to read from the secret book of letters.
“We should attempt to examine more closely the patterns of bad faith and attempt a description of them,” I whisper to the jasmine-scented wind, but she is unmoving.
The vibration of the words ripples across the sea in an imperceptible wave and becomes the slight breeze that even now makes the hair on the arms of the Imaginary Sailor stand on end as he wonders if he’ll ever have a map of the Seven Seas. Will he make it to China? The mystery carries the scent of salt.
The eyes of the woman who offers an entreaty (perhaps even whiskey), are glazed with starlight even across timezones, even during the day, when the stars are destroyed by the smudge of quicksilver sun, a thumbprint on a mirror that turns minutes into centuries and makes her immortal, if only as she sweeps the landscape with a fleeting gaze.
The First Law: The Queen Waq Waq is the ever vessel. The Second Law: The Immortal Kings of Zani rule with absolute authority from New Moon to Full Moon. The Third Law: The Old Kings of Zani are sacrificed on the New Moon, long live the Kings.
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