a king walks among us
Pursued by a broken memory.
El Rey heaves himself over the canyon rocks like a thing that is not meant to do so because he is not, never has been, and never will be. His skeleton feels like iron weapons curled in the shape of a man. He wonders if he will live to write about it.
I think I deserve this, he thinks. But maybe not. Maybe he’s being unfair.
We all do things because other people want us to, don’t we? It just happens that way sometimes. We’re just made that way, at least some of us are.
It feels like a lie, wrapped around his windpipe like a funnel of sand. He knows it to be false.
He has so much to live for, Rey thinks. There must be something to live for that is not my death. One day I will come to an end and if it is not today it will be another day, and this man will have nothing left to live for if I am it.
I wonder if I am it.
He thinks about asking the other man, but he is running, wheezing and clambering up the sandstone like a great black slug, death gaining momentum on his trail of slime rather than slipping on it.
The black bull slides down a mess of rocks and when he lands in the clearing he is bleeding. It feels like being trapped in a great great dish. He wonders if it could fill with his blood, if maybe this brother o mine will make it so.
Anyway, he caught up with me.
”in blood the blade, to its golden hilt, I’ll drown,“
I pledge you now, to death they all are bound,
El Rey heaves himself over the canyon rocks like a thing that is not meant to do so because he is not, never has been, and never will be. His skeleton feels like iron weapons curled in the shape of a man. He wonders if he will live to write about it.
I think I deserve this, he thinks. But maybe not. Maybe he’s being unfair.
We all do things because other people want us to, don’t we? It just happens that way sometimes. We’re just made that way, at least some of us are.
It feels like a lie, wrapped around his windpipe like a funnel of sand. He knows it to be false.
He has so much to live for, Rey thinks. There must be something to live for that is not my death. One day I will come to an end and if it is not today it will be another day, and this man will have nothing left to live for if I am it.
I wonder if I am it.
He thinks about asking the other man, but he is running, wheezing and clambering up the sandstone like a great black slug, death gaining momentum on his trail of slime rather than slipping on it.
The black bull slides down a mess of rocks and when he lands in the clearing he is bleeding. It feels like being trapped in a great great dish. He wonders if it could fill with his blood, if maybe this brother o mine will make it so.
Anyway, he caught up with me.
”in blood the blade, to its golden hilt, I’ll drown,“
I pledge you now, to death they all are bound,
