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fire and brimstone.

One evening in the harvest season I sat in the luxury of the King's Gold Room, listening to the intoners and the pluckers, and watching the dancers. The dancers were especially cubist nymphs, the pluckers were pleasing and mathematic, and all were of a singular slightness.

Upon the following outburst (which I will presently mention), I left the court at once. The King began, and continued, to rave madly to his servants of the taxes he would earn by his new conquests. Needless to say it was the first we had heard of the despicable and wholly unadmirable greed which had gripped our ruler. There was a general movement towards the doors. This was followed by a very specific, uncizivilized rush once the opulent arches had been reached.

Mine tyger followed me out of the city, the fire and brimstone lighting our path through the forest hills. Our genteel mincing step was gradually reduced to a bawdy swagger as our civilization left us. Both mine tyger and I made sure not to look back, having plenty of salt in our bags. I questioned my companion as to the nature of the destruction, but mine tyger only coughed, making a noise like "hubris!"

When I mentioned getting some food, mine tyger loyally devoured me. I asked him, "My friend of many years, why have you eaten me? Have I not treated you with the utmost respectful care?" But perhaps he did not hear me.

wet deserts.

Mine tyger travelled long and came to a land of wet deserts. The air was so thick with moisture that it caught in mine tyger's throat. He choked and choked, and eventually coughed me up. Petting mine tyger, I realized that the deserts were made of water, water so salty it only added to one's thirst.

It was odd on that desert. Every time I looked up, the shore was somewhere else. Apparently, in the shifting sands, one could not keep a straight course. At times the shore was close and you could see every detail of urban life, at other times one was favored only with a distant speck that could have been anything. It would be days, maybe years, before we reached the next city. Together, me and mine tyger rode the desert waves. Mine tyger licked his massive paws and eyed the vast skyline with his massive eye.

illusion.

As the shore approached, growing larger as all shores eventually do, mine tyger, in correlation with the shore, grew smaller. I asked him why he was growing smaller, but if he replied I did not hear it. By the time the buildings could be distinguished, mine tyger had matured into a dainty kitten, and now my hunger and my fear of the city were vast. I ate him in one silent bite, and walked into the equally vast city.

I had been in enough cities to know one in decline, but the diagonal slant of this town was blatant. Even the dirt in the ditch seemed to be in complaint of the grime. Furthermore, youcould not tell the sea in the harbour from the sky above, as each was forced to lend some of itself to the other, something old friends commonly do.

Walking those disheveled streets that had not yet slid directly into the waiting water, I learned that this city had been one of the King's new conquests.

"Ever since the King took our land we have had nothing," a cadaverous man said sparsely, then shuffled away. I did not blame him for hoarding his words, for I had heard that in many quarters, folks had been forced to subsist on consonant soup. I dared not embarass the city's inhabitants by informing them of the King's most certain death in the fire and brimstone, the likelihood that his kingdom was of little substance, or the resultant forefeiture of his conquest.

Before going out of the city, I bathed under a waterfall, which was so disadvantaged it ran nearly sideways. I took care to hobble in a destitute manner, so as not to shatter the illusion of poverty to which the population was clearly faithful (mine tyger always told me: "Con sarn it! Faith makes me feel real!")

traveller.

I travelled long in search of another city or town, but none presented itself. Life, however, persisted obstinately in the animal and vegetable forms. Trees stood stubbornly uncut. Trails kept themselves defiantly thin and unpaved. Rocks lay unsplit and unpiled, crowding my progress around them rather than guiding me on a predetermined path. I felt lost and wanting for a horizon, no matter how far away.

builder.

It finally occured to me that I must build my own city. All through the night I slaughtered trees and cleaved rocks, ordering them as I saw fit. My pace quickened with each breath. I could feel mine tyger leaving my self, but I did not care. My hands and feet froze under the frosty moon. At dawn I looked upon my city, and saw that it was no city at all.

monument.

There were two frozen monuments of wood and stone, frozen because the summer had fled in the night. I was sure I would die of the cold, a monument of Man in front of two monuments of wood and stone. Mine tyger must have abandoned me when the winter wind began to blow. I vowed that I would never build a city again. But when the lightning came and struck the monuments, a great fire was created and the winter defeated. I thawed and became warm by the fire. My monuments had saved me as no city ever could. I knew that the lightning had been no mistake.

king.

In the next town, men called me king, and told me to tell them what to do. I have only know one king, and he fell to ruin by incurring fire and brimstone from above. He became - most certainly - dead. In order to incur the opposite - my prolonged life - I decided to draw a flood to the city. The salt water washed over the town's crop of potato eyes, flooding the land as a good flood does. But the people became hungry and angry. The citizens not numbering more than half a dozen, they satisfied themselves by eating my ears for supper.

I raved madly but no one listened. My castle was in flames and my honor, I suppose, extinguished. Leaving the town, earless and afraid, this time I turned to watch the buildings grow smaller. As the city receded from sight, mine tyger, by positive correlation, grew within me, now as a brand of courage. This was mine tyger's final gift of friendship: whenever I left a city, the courage would come to carry me to the next.

__________________
I gotta use words when I talk to you
- T.S. Eliot

blackswan

Wow. This is a beautiful style and for this story works especially well. It's still sort of mystical sounding to me but that's great...I like wondering about what exactly happened, and there's enough detail to suggest what happened. Good work.