dreki

i've been thinking of places on earth that allow human habitation only begrudgingly, wild and singing amoral outcroppings covered in lichens. specifically, the faroe islands. for years i've been dreaming of the faroes, abandoning the city to search out great orms and longneck seabeasts in vain. some deep part of my guts believes in them and i hope that no human ever discovers them. i dream of them rushing alongside a ship for a few moments, the only time in all of humanity's earthcrawling, slick sluicing in the green waves like a pod of dolphins, onward with great purpose and somber urgent roars.
maybe these creatures are the Old Gods. maybe they are reliquaries for all of men's and women's anxieties and guilts and fears and hold them under the water in brown and red kelpy beds so that we can continue to live with ourselves.

in the blue seconds between sleeping and waking, a horse-headed beastie is hauled upwards into my line of sight in a net and it gracefully curves its neck towards me and lows like a steer, with sadness intensely feral and gentle, and blinks its jewel red eyes while the dry salty wind bursts its smooth hide and custard foams from his wounds. then i fully wake.