Yesterday’s Hypersigil

My first ever attempt at writing a hypersigil turned into this mini story about becoming trapped in one:

I’ve been riding the Big Dipper here in this fairground for weeks. I know every dip on this ride, every shudder and plunge. All I remember is that I wanted my life to get better, and it would only improve if I switched to the carousel.

I took a leap from the Big Dipper to the carousel, flying through the air with my straw-blonde hair and long cut-up dress streaming out behind me. When you launch out into the pure air you give yourself over to the buoyant winds. Anything can happen in mid-air, but usually it doesn’t – not to me. Usually I land exactly where I plan to go. No-one saw me jump; why can only sparrows see me?

As I climb on the carousel and mount a horse, I notice there are horseshoes printed all over the poles and floor like a trademark. Round and round I go on the carousel, merging into the past and future as I spin around. All times meet in the pit of dust churned up by the carousel as it spins.

Why can only sparrows see that now I’m riding the Big Dipper and the carousel both at the same time? That’s what I knew would make the difference, yet I don’t know where I am now as it all rushes past in a blur.

I stand and eat a toffee apple in the deserted fairground and wave- to whom?

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Chaos God

This was my very first Chaos Magic flash fiction story, from Liber 32 magazine several years ago.

The chaos god that I got the coolest results from was the one I was terrified of. How did ‘god- fearing’ ever come to mean conventional? Today I saw him again, crouched like a caterpillar with a hookah and talking to a shy little servitor. “Teach me how to interact properly with human beings”, she said.

“Tricky”, he replied. “First, I have to teach you to inter… that is, enter…the correct room where the human being cannot make you act, because the stage is outside having its nails done with a hammer.”

“Is that safer?” she asked doubtfully.

“Infinitely. Humans can’t be trusted, so make sure YOU call the shots. But don’t call them ‘the shots’ to their face or they might smack you with their whatsit.

What’s it? I don’t know but I’ve got ash all over it, so I’ll flick it off. Now I’ve flicked it I see it’s flying away for lunch, so pull up a chair and join in, and if the humans ask you why, say: “I planted carrots so I could harvest them when they were ready, and it’s the stick this time anyway- bang!”

Then hit them where it hurts. But only if you like them.”

Violet Cream

Channelled from Ino.  (Violet Cream is the daughter of the spider egregore Ellis and the pirate egregore Old Zalty) 

 

Violet Cream is in the boudoir sewing a sampler, for Ellis is a Victorian lady and she has dressed up her daughter in long, flowing skirts and white lace.

Violet wants to know when she will be allowed to spin a web instead of just sewing. But so far Ellis has not given her any clues as to when that will be. So Violet sews and sews to her heart’s content, using a thread to transform featureless sheets of material into nightgowns and Victorian dresses, or as they used to call them in those days- frocks.

Someday Violet means to use those threads to transform the world, the way her mother does. If you can change a piece of material that looks like a tablecloth into a dress with tucks, sleeves and a tight waist, then you can do the equivalent to the world.

Violet thinks the world would tremble in fear if it knew what was coming to it. Herself approaching, needle in hand, as if to stab it right through the equator. The sharp point of the needle is one weapon, while the thread that is pushed through its eye is another yet more fearsome, even though it may appear harmless with a soft, cottony end.

Do you remember the Rag Doll in ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’? She was a prototype for Violet Cream, and Violet’s kind of sewing. The whole world will be stitched up by this. But it’s long overdue, because they have stitched up everyone else first. Now the disinherited and the freaks will get their own back, and their detractors will see themselves sewn into a new Bayeux Tapestry, for everyone to follow the story of their downfall. The adventures sewn into the sampler will consist of what they are forced to do, like toy soldiers being made to march.

Violet Cream, and through her all the disenchanted, will take control. At last the false leaders will be routed through having a new destiny sewn for them, and themselves stitched into it, so that they can neither pull themselves free nor unpick the stitches. Knots at the back of the sampler will secure them, holding them fast to Violet Cream’s purpose, and she will throw them in the trash whilst keeping the design on the table before her forever.

Not A Safe Craze

All those obsessions one after another:
This one is not a safe craze.
Will I be crushed next time I move on?
This one is not a safe craze.

My eyes were open:
I made a commitment.
Ride this one out till the end of my days,
A ride like a switchback, switch blade, ‘on’ switch:
This one is not a safe craze.

It’s all another way to say ‘living the dream’;
Tasting in boring routines
A new kind of cream,
Free to take or to leave it,
To choose and appraise.
But although I’m choosing
This still is not a safe craze.

 

I’m sure this poem used to be on this blog- maybe I took it off because it was too honest about having a fad for a dark spiritual path.

Ice Cream

 

I am a servitor called Vanilla. Could it be said that Janetta made me?

She took me from my source in dust and fluff that gathers around the bases of chair legs, and fed me through a convocation of ice cream symbols: a storm of cones and wafers. Along the way there were many jokes:

“I dropped YOUR ice cream.”
“I dropped your brain.”
“I bind you to this whirling candy floss machine.”

Janetta is whimsical. She has elfin looks and a childlike simplicity- that’s why she based me on ice cream. But I am looking forward to growing up, because life must always move forward. We must evolve, as the cornet diminishes through being licked and is reborn as something new. Raspberry ripples go through me and through Janetta, for we are united.

Writing Update

I have now started writing under a new pen name. But that doesn’t mean there will be no more books by Candy Ray. Hopefully I will be releasing a  new volume in the Chaos Dreams series, featuring stories by myself and Ino, around the end of this year. My unique experiment continues, not only to be inspired by a chaos muse but to have her write some of the material herself. The experiment has been great fun.

The books always seem to come out around Christmas time, and that isn’t even deliberate ! It has just worked out that way. I have a terrible memory and every year I have to learn how to format them for the ebook sites all over again. The cover will probably look like this:

 

I’ve also noticed that my readers like PDFs, so I will be compiling a few PDFs of the flash fiction stories and poems that are on this blog.

Traitors

Channelled from  Ino-  (let me know when she has driven everyone away!)

 

After meeting me, they inevitably become traitors. They no longer know what age they are, what sex they are or even what their opinions are any more. It becomes truly fractal, in that selves are multiplied and re-multiplied and reproduced (usually asexually) until each one trips over the one behind in the chain as they all come out of the mirror. A line of bloody Marys, and “hail Mary” is about all their witnesses can say as they greet each one, dripping with the real live blood of someone who has cut themselves upon the mirror as they stepped out of it.

Now they find themselves traitors to themselves, and betray their own alternate personas with a viciousness rarely matched among those who have not yet found themselves so fragmented. To fight your own shadow is a concept in psychology, but these reflections are white not black, full-bodied and in full technicolour. You cannot tell them from real people, that is of course if you think yourself to BE real. They may strike you or hug you, while at the same time being no less than you.

Beware the betrayal that I will subtly incite you to make, against your other selves.

 

The Song And I

Happy Lammas. This little poem is about a song I wrote in 1982 which I hid away, because I thought it was supposed to make me famous.

 

I had a song,
I hid a song.
One letter changed
When I moved
From ‘had’ to ‘hid,’
The letter i.
In Hebrew, vowels aren’t letters.
I’ll never know what would have happened-
If my life would have been different.
Master J. C. says, love those who are not ‘I’.
Master A.C. says, talk without saying ‘I’.
I haven’t stuck to either path,
So, where’s my letter now?

Hunting Hawk

I posted this roughly-100 word story in some chaos magick groups a while back, but not yet here.

The hawk was hovering, watching the ground beneath for signs of prey. He saw a rabbit. Brer Rabbit? El-ahrairah? Or some poor bunny who was NOT a trickster in a story?

As he plunged downwards the rabbit bolted, and two ethereal looking rabbits appeared in the place where it had been, holding up their paws. “You shouldn’t have thought about Brer Rabbit and El-ahrairah,” one of the rabbits said.” Now we’re here! Here to protect that bunny.”

“What do I eat, then?” asked the hawk.

“Oh, eat yourself,” the other one replied.” Or fuck yourself- I don’t care.”

“Now, Brer Rabbit!” said El-ahrairah. “Remember, we’re gods. It’s Namaste.”

To A Troubled Soul

Welcome to this shelter.
I work here, at the shelter.
I’m not really kind:
I let this place be my conscience.
But that’s enough about me-
It’s supposed to be about you.
I won’t ask why you’re here:
Tell us when you’re ready.

Welcome to our facilities:
Lounge, telephone, quiet room
With a box of tissues.
The government gave us a grant;
We all hope they won’t withdraw it
Telling us the date we close,
Like they’ve done to other shelters
Only just this year.

Welcome to this refuge.
No-one needs to know you’re here.
It’s all safe and confidential:
You can trust the staff.
This feels like reading out a pamphlet;
Fire regulations next.
Is it just a job, I wonder?
Is my heart engaged?

Welcome to our haven.
We’re not allowed to get too close,
And that’s convenient for me
Because I wouldn’t want to.
Hope you get your problems sorted,
Go back out into the world,
Leaving room for someone new.
Now, there’s a grim idea!