by Jane Røken
Listen. I'm going to explain everything. They come in threes, like Souzhong tea, sloe gin, and belladonna. We've been subject to a slip of reason. They walk among us already. The malediction bureau is not to be trusted, the distant early warning tapeworms are no longer under our control, and a fair number of surveillance subs have transmogrified into turnip lanterns. Just because we cannot see them, it doesn't mean they're not there. And we've had reports of inexplicable disappearances: riverboats that sail off into nothingness, travellers who vanish while crossing a field. What you see depends on what you think you're seeing. Take for instance the ballroom upstairs. It's the kind of place where things go out of hand after midnight. This is going to be a filthy job, at odds with the drip and drone of humanity, demoralized until the crack of doom. Even in our sleep we emit radio signals. There'll be no patience for evolutionary chaos down the line. We must imagine the things we cannot see. Emeralds, lemons, and blood everywhere. We all have our own secrets to keep.