- It’s all about fire! It brings heat and - That’s what they all say.
And they’re wrong! Frozen cubes from a freezer tray - now they could give him extra limbs if the current ones just fell off. Could fire do that? Hell no. It would just burn him to ash. End of story.
Someone born inside an iceberg can’t lounge in the Santa Monica sun, as a frozen dewdrop once whispered to him from the stem of a Venus flytrap. Fire, like that same trap, keeps trying - and failing - to catch him, to scorch him, to turn him into a bronzed hunk from some forgotten ‘80s TV drama. But just having a mane like those sad and long - lost heroes of the past doesn’t mean fire wins.
He’s got a response to all that: it’s not just about the hair. He’s got a mustache too - and its tips aren’t sun - singed, they’re beaded with ice. Suck it, Sun of the Living.
To tear apart the flesh of water with your bare hands - now that’s beyond words. This sponge compresses and smears into something like a liquid powder, soft and delicious. Each sweeping stroke through the lake water aches in his tired joints, but oh, what sweet poetry it is! Free verse, no rhyme - pure lyrical ecstasy. He thinks he hears music from the outside world. If he could, he’d set lyrics to it - words about something long lost in the dark fog of time.
Yesterday feels like today, and tomorrow’s already here - he fast - forwarded to it the moment he dove into these vast depths, places he hadn’t visited in ages. Some weird cicadas up above wanted someone to do this for them, and he figured - well, if there’s only one candidate, it’s got to be him.
Wait… is that the bottom already? That long - ignored silt, finally brushing his limbs. Tiny fish dart around his face, puffing out their gills, gasping for oxygen. They live all year in the algae and tree debris, never coming ashore anymore, not like they did eons ago. Now, he’s their guest.
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- Good day to you, fine folk! - He gurgled underwater and gave the creatures a respectful bow. There was barely any air left in his lungs, and neither the fish nor the bugs crawling over the clay seemed interested in sharing their So he turned his gaze to what interested him least - yet fascinated children the most. After all, that’s what they’d silently sent him here to find.
So, what was down there? Easy to describe, no goose - feather quill required - a stone figure. Something between an idol and a bench, the kind Slavic people might call a Stone Bench - Roughly assembled from stones, jammed together to form something vaguely human.
But why? Who gives a damn about people when there are moths? Or better - the Mothman?
No matter. The guys wanted this statue described, for whatever reason. And he’d remember it well:
A bumpy head with long hair, made from what looked like pale - colored scrub pads. Luxurious curls cascaded down a puffy face that seemed drawn on - probably with pencil. Or something like it. The face held both male and female features, impossible to pin down. That was the interesting part!
Thick frowning eyebrows had been drawn on, just like the lipstick - smeared red lips. The beard was crafted from the same trusty scrub pad material, only now in reddish - orange with flecks of fake gray. The statue had wide hips, and a torso adorned with a single stone breast - the other side left blank. A patchwork being.
He couldn’t study it much longer - the air inside him was shrieking for mercy, fighting back with choking spasms. Before kicking upward like a lamprey toward the greedy, all - consuming noonday sun, he glanced at the statue one last time. The last thing he noticed was this:
A wooden baluster, emerald green, pierced the idol like a spear. It was planted deep in the lakebed silt and stabbed into the bloated belly of this fallen opponent.
A noticeable detail, no doubt - one anyone else would spot first. But he hadn’t wanted to! He’d been trying to recognize someone in that statue - an old friend, Magnus, who sort of resembled this stone freak.
And then it hit him, like a brainquake: It is Magnus (or… is it?!). Now sealed in this rocky body, waiting for the swimmer - - what’s my name again? - for ages, just to invite him over for tea.
Well, that’s settled! Heading back to shore with a revelation like that - much easier than surfacing empty - handed.