Space for Snacks - Issue #2
This is Space for Snacks, a space for all the small oddments of thoughts and words that don't quite fit in my usual outlets. So, instead, I'm writing them to you!
Hibernating for the Winter
For various reasons, I was too stressed and sleep deprived to really notice Hallowe’en this year. My partner and I were too exhausted to work (well, stream) like we’d planned, so we took the night off and put on Over the Garden Wall instead. If you don’t know the show, it’s very autumnal, whimsical and the perfect thing to watch under blankets and lamplight with a hot water bottle and lemon and ginger tea. Even though I was still exhausted, anxious and had a cold, it was so soothing.
I’m doing much better now - the immediate worries are over and I’ve managed to sleep through two nights in a row - but I think I’ve fully activated hibernation mode. I can feel myself slowing down and craving soup. That urge scares me a little, if I’m honest; for years, since I developed a chronic illness, I’ve had to withdraw when winter arrives, because my fatigue has become overwhelming. I’m still not well, but I’m able to manage my health a lot better now than I’ve been able to in the past and so far, it seems like I might have more choice this year about how much I give in to my urge to hole up in a blanket fort. I’ve been limited for so long that now, it feels like a waste to do less than I can. I’ve learned to value rest by realising how necessary it is. Now it’s getting colder and darker, I want to do restful things for their own sake, just because it’s cosy. I’m trying not to fight that urge.
The Chariot
I want to get better at writing short stories (my natural inclination as a fiction writer is more-is-more, which I'm working on), so I've been challenging myself to try flash and micro-fiction. I'm trying to write one very short thing per major arcana card, because that's 22 prompts right there!
The Chariot tore across the black void; its path, once set, unbreakable. It ran through stars and nebulae alike, bore holes in moons and planets, neither slowing nor ceasing in its quest.
Nobody knew how long it had occupied the skies, or who had set its course. Years would go by without a sighting, before word passed of some distant world destroyed by the unrelenting missile. Its trajectory was impossible to predict.
That night, you sat in the fields, star-gazing as you often did. You wrapped your hands around a flask of some sweet, hot liquid that would warm you and wake you against the dark. Your eyes traced the familiar lines of constellations until they were drawn by a rushing pinpoint of light. At first, you took it for a satellite, but it burned brighter and loomed larger as it flew.
Your heart stopped. The certainty that you were seeing that mythical ship took root in your mind as quickly as the light streaked across the sky. You tried inexpertly to calculate its arc. It wasn’t coming straight towards you; if it hit, you’d survive long enough to know the ruin in your final moments. You thought of your wife, waiting at home, and your body ached to be beside her.
There was no ruin. Your world was not shattered. The light of the ship diminished and was swallowed by the night. You remained whole, with nothing more than a shaking relief and an urgent, unwelcome thought in your mind.
You weren’t the only one to have seen the Chariot as it passed perilously close to your small planet. You weren’t the only one who came home from the cold and dark to hug your friends and family a little tighter. And you weren’t the only one who turned to whatever you could to drown out that pressing thought that stayed with you but was not of you.
We cannot slow down. We cannot get out. Forgive us.
What I’m Enjoying…
Upriver, Downriver has hit its first stretch goal on Kickstarter! I’ve been working on this enchanting, tarot-inspired RPG with the author Ella Watts and artist Max Briar, editing and developing the setting and system, and I’m really excited about it. If you like role-playing games, fantasy worlds and stories about making big choices, please check it out.
I missed its Kickstarter campaign, but I’ve just learned about Wyrd Science and I’ve been wanting this for so long! It’s a quarterly magazine about the TTRPG scene, which actually gives proper space to indie games. I’m so happy to have found out about it!
Wyrd Science Magazine@Wyrd_ScienceJust a reminder that if you want a taste of what we do you’ll find many of the features from our debut issue on our site & there’s a free Quickstart edition of our new issue up on Itch with over 30 pages of the mag… Itch👇 wyrdscience.itch.io/wyrdscience-ex… Web 👉 wyrdscience.online
6:57 PM · Nov 3, 20214 Reposts · 14 LikesI finally got round to listening to The Silt Verses and it really is as beautifully written as everyone says.
I really like playing with drawing and painting, because I’m really not a natural artist, so there’s no pressure to make anything “good” (I won’t) and it really does feel like play. I’ve got some soft pastels and they’re soooo difficult to use without just making a huge mess on the paper. I love it - it feels so much like being a kid, before I learnt that I could be ‘bad’ at something.
