The stars were reborn in a still clear blue sky-but it was a darkening blue: a navy blue without the sailor's uniform.

The frost's colour, instead of depleting with the light, had seemed to grow whiter in desiccations of daisies. The gra.s.s crackled underfoot, as some of the onlookers heaved bricks from the prehistoric hidey-holes (except it was now known that "hidey-hole" was not the word to describe them) to another part of the meadow, to build their own-and Lope de Vega, who overmastered the campaign, still sat upon the smokestack which teetered further from true the more its foundations were unplumbed by the others. He knew, all knew, that, by night (and many now felt in their bones what was meant by the word "night") he was to die, death being the only real way he could obtain forgiveness for deception.

But he called loudly: How was he to have known they had wanted to be told? They had not asked him to tell.

But they had not known that there was indeed anything to be told that they could have asked him to tell, the others returned in answer.

If he had told, he shouted, they would have been miserable and not gambolled amid the sunbeams.

But at least they would have known (they retorted), and not wasted their precious time in false, longing dreams.

At that moment, the stack began to topple. As did the other stacks.

Many were crushed by the masonry as they rushed to catch Lope de Vega-which carnage was Nature's only sure way of allowing the new hidey-holes to have sufficient room inside for shelter.

By this time, the sky had become a shade this side of indelible inky blue-black and the survivors crouched within their newly created ruins; the shyfryngs of cold thankfully masked the more insidious ones of fear.

Lope de Vega, who had laughed and climbed, could no longer be blamed nor even praised, simply because he was the only character in the legend who was fict.i.tious. They had even forgotten his name, along with their own.

Thus, they who thought themselves elves or selves did not of course expect him to be holed up with them in the bas.e.m.e.nts they burrowed-and indeed he wasn't. They made a few fitful forays into the cold wilderness in search of a nameless one who was lost, but they soon forgot the reason for their desultory quest; they thought it was purely for the stories that could be told later in the benighted huddlecot.

The new season felt both seamless and eternal.

But, wait-that had also been said of the previous season!

One day, the absurdity of it all might make them laugh out loud. But, by then, they would have forgotten what laughter might accomplish.

"We are not our names, not our bodies, not our actions-not our soul or self. Not even a segment of collective unconscious. Just dig and see, haul back what we find. And try not laugh or cry when, from the core of reality, we reveal the fiction that is each of us. Or not even a fiction, but nothing."

Or perhaps it is a fiction that we are nothing, because these non-attributable words at least remain.

Also from Chomu Press: Looking for something else to read? Want a book that will wake you up, not put you to sleep?

"Remember You're a One-Ball!"

By Quentin S. Crisp.

I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like.

By Justin Isis.

Revenants.

By Daniel Mills.

The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children.

By Brendan Connell.

Link Arms with Toads!

By Rhys Hughes.

For more information about these books and others, please visit: http://chomupress.com/ Subscribe to our mailing list for updates and exclusive rarities.

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