Chapter 16
Misc

16.1

Much like cartographers developed ”trap streets” that lie disconnected from reality in the margins of maps to identify groups copying their works, societies developed ”trap citizens” to target attempts at mass identity theft. These people exist on the fringes and feel separate, lonely, and question their place in society.

16.2

We are all the stuff of ghosts.

16.3

”Bone tired” is a commonly misunderstood metaphor. It refers not to the grave, but the fatigue of your muscles from hindering your skeleton. That tiredness is your body, weary of obstructing the osseous construct within that longs to break free.

16.4

Hot singles in your area.

Feverish lonely babes near your location.

The diseased are coming.

16.5

Old hotel bars are anchors in time. A few drinks to weaken your temporal inhibitions and who knows what past or future patrons you’ll meet?

16.6

In the cold war between the factions of heaven, gods seeded planets with lifeforms that emitted signals into space. These were picked up by deep-cover deities on infiltration duty.

Major events on these ”numbers planets” changed the signals, signifying a change in orders.

16.7

Corsetry is innately attractive and comforting to wear, it brings up a genetic memory of when our species used to have an exoskeleton.

16.8

The good thing about working directly across from a swamp (aside from seeing all the native birds) is the ability to just get up from your computer and walk into it and never return to civilisation.

16.9

What doesn’t kill you only makes me stronger.

16.10

While tarot is a medium of reflection and divination, the standard 52 playing card deck (before being stripped of its imagery and power) was a tool for trading and playing off such futures, albeit all under Fate’s watchful eye.

16.11

Guarding a fort so far inside His territory was an exercise in boredom - nothing of this realm could strike here.

But boredom soon turns to laxity, laxity to indulgence and then vice, soon addiction, and now you’re bound to a new master; an enemy who never fired a shot.

16.12

I wrote your name in fire across the sky.

16.13

Sorry mate, your business pitch is great and I wish you the best of luck but this networking event is actually for soul traders.

16.14

Don’t worry, it’s a common mistake. Help yourself to some nibbles and a drink on your way out; the forgotten ambrosia will steal your breath away.

16.15

Hard work is a form of sacrifice; trading our toil and our remaining time in exchange for a good harvest.

16.16

Never stay long in the abode of a successful farmer without callouses or weathered countenance, lest you join the other skeletons in their soil.

16.17

Cassandra Insurance relies heavily on tarot to define premiums for customers, most of whom never purchase a policy believing the prices too good to be true.

16.18

Gender identity is out, IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) is in.

”What do you identify as?”
A threat.

16.19

Current contents of my right pocket:
A key that can open any lock, but always leads to the house of my ex-boyfriend (need to give this back)
2 vials of blood - unknown
Someone else’s pocket lint
A set of tightly knotted headphones borrowed from Midas

16.20

You cannot perceive me in any way that matters.

16.21

The ”ghost tour guide” meetup was a cluster fuck. Long dead tour guides, people who took tourists to haunted houses, but no one who showed ghosts good places to hang out. No one like me.

16.22

She erased her identity, all of it. She made us shred shared photos and she deleted her online presence. Everywhere she’d lived was burned down, everywhere she worked was gutted and gone. We all remembered her, but nobody had proof she’d ever existed, she became a shared mythos, an urban legend; what she’d always wanted.

16.23

We live in God’s tomb.

16.24

When you’re in a quiet, dark room who do you hear calling your name, telling you to wake up, please wake up?

16.25

Teeth are spears of bone that project out of the self and into the world; a way for the body to leak out negative emotions into the world much like ”grounding” electricity.

This is why you suffer nightmares about your teeth falling out or being wrongly shaped for your mouth; you’re too full of negative emotions and they can’t escape properly.

Anyone who removes the teeth of another dooms themselves to being haunted by that concentrated pain and sorrow. Hence the phrase ”worse than pulling teeth”.

16.26

The reason you’re not supposed to smash a mirror isn’t about future luck; it’s about gambling on the chance you’re actually the mirror dimension, shortly about to have all that you are broken into a thousand pieces.

16.27

Multiverse theorem is real, but it’s inspiration that causes splitting, not decisions. Every time it strikes two universes are formed; one where you feel happier and engaged with a concept and one where you get anxious at your lack of ideas or progress.

Similar to using black holes for energy generation, the Penrose process can be used to propel yourself to a better existence by moving through environments filled with inspiring material.

Feel sorry not for the dejected version of yourself, it was doomed anyway.

16.28

Fellas, is it gay to read a book in a language I don’t know but can understand perfectly? Is it gay to see what lies beyond the veil and in turn be seen by the void as well? I’m worried it’s kinda queer to be chased through my dreams by creatures i can’t comprehend only to wake up uncertain that it wasn’t a prophetic vision of my future.

16.29

We need more emoji for things we regularly encounter but have no name for, like the creature with a hundred eyes who stares at me from the end of the bed or the Doric-style column of flesh that supports a brief segment of the sunset sky, red with it’s own arterial blood.

16.30

Semtex haloes mark the faithful.

16.31

”How To Get Blood Out Of Anything” was an interesting read but I needed my shirts cleaned, rather than extraction of blood from stones and sky.

This reminds me of buying ”The Big Book Of Humour” for my son and learning more from him about yellow bile than I ever wanted to know.

16.32

We are all God’s creations but He has moved on to more interesting projects.

16.33

Just a reminder: your biggest competition in life isn’t the people you see on TV, it’s the person you see in the mirror.

The one smiling falsely back at you, plotting their escape, plotting your demise.

16.34

Don’t worry about the you in the mirror trying to break into our world and take your place. Honestly, they should be worried about you trying to break into the real world.

16.35

As the saying goes; ”one person’s enchantment is another person’s curse.”

16.36

A common misconception is that the ”unpickpocket” is the opposite of a petty thief, someone who sneaks money and jewels into the clothes of a passerby. When in reality the etymology is from the magical seamstress trade, it being one who opens up previously lost pocket dimensions to help people recover what lies within.

Of course, they can be set to work in a criminal capacity, but their services lend themselves to bigger scores than pocket watches and wallets.