The gargoyles of the Red City cannot fly; the wings of fossilized coral that they carry on their backs serve as an ever-present reminder that they were built by humanity to surveil in stillness. Even so, they shamble through the streets of the city at night on legs that groan in defiance of their stone composition.
Together, they congregate in what remains of their cathedral. Though their faces are locked in devilish grins, they still manage to demonstrate sincere reverence through the unison of their silent prayer. It pains them to kneel, yet they do so without complaint as they encircle the sphere of black iron that centers their sanctuary.
In this manner, they worship the worldly manifestation of their God's vengeance: the wrecking ball which set them free.
Gargoyles do not obey the same laws of reality as statues.
Some androids choose to become gargoyles upon death.
“This limousine is endlessly long. Were you to reach the front, you would be at the end of space and beginning of time.”
“But there is a driver?”
Before setting foot in the temple, she unfastened her shadow from her boots, then folded it neatly at the base of the stairs. This was not just a matter of reverence, but also one of self-preservation; the lanterns that flanked the entrance had teeth, and the flames within them had tongues.
“Me and the other girls from the power plant, we come here after work all the time. Their special milkshakes are to die for. I haven't found a single flavor that I didn't like."
Together, they drank an indigo wine fermented from Neptune's clouds, and wondered if they'd ever travel so far together.
"I could never do it, my love."
Six men sat down to play Russian roulette, and by the end of their game, seven of them were alive.
"I've seen this happen before," the new player spoke.
Kissing was invented in the city of Thusk, a seaport with thousands of citizens, yet only one dentist. Her services were scarcely needed, for the civic biologists had rendered most of her profession obsolete.
"This telescope was built to accommodate several different modes of operation,” the observatory’s director explained. "For instance, right now, it's set to hermetic mode. That means that whenever you focus its lens on a particular star, the image of that star exists just as far backwards within your mind as the star itself is from your eyes."
When he is seen in visions, Nexorpan, the god of small agonies, has no face: what appears to be a sea urchin sits atop his neck as a surrogate head. Its numerous spines have shredded the torso of his three-piece suit, exposing the raw patches of violet skin beneath. Every morning, his handmaidens bathe him, dress him, and tend to his wounds, yet all of their work is swiftly undone.
He noticed the crystal ball on the oracle's table. “I take it that this is what shows us the future?”
"Nah." Her face flashed briefly into view beneath her hood as she lit another cigarette. "You didn't do your homework, did you? Looking in from outside, the crystal ball shows you the past. Looking out from inside, it shows you the future. Here, let me show you how it works.”
The gargoyles of the Red City cannot fly; the wings of fossilized coral that they carry on their backs serve as an ever-present reminder that they were built by humanity to surveil in stillness. Even so, they shamble through the streets of the city at night on legs that groan in defiance of their stone composition.
"My mother taught me that all of the punctuation marks that you miss while typing build up in your fingertips over time." She held up her hands, revealing that the ends of her digits were covered in black splotches. "So, I haven't used any since I was twelve. I’m chock full of them now, periods, commas, parentheses, you name it.”
While it’s not uncommon for factory errors to result in fortune cookies with blank messages, when Martin split his open, he found that it contained an atypical form of blankness. Along the left-hand side of his fortune, a blinking cursor could be seen, still awaiting user input.
At times she was known as Ararat, at others, Meru. When seen from Greece, she was known as Olympus, and in the time of Gilgamesh, she was known as Nimush. Her peak reached such unimaginable altitude that it could be seen from all the nations of the world, even those that were a hemisphere’s arc away. This summit was said to be the exact point where heaven and earth intersected, and as such, only the holiest among the living were allowed to climb her thousand faces.
FIRST COURSE
paris-style tobacco gnocchi
wrapped in pan-seared dollar bills, glazed with jalapeño jam
“The greatest literature is that which needs neither be written nor spoken. Tell me, Henry, have you ever explored the genre of ‘silence fiction?’”
“Hmm. No, I can't say that I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Are you sure? Some people refer to it as sly-fi.”
When she brought him back to her loft, it was clear that, one way or another, she’d been planning on having company. There was a bottle of Chardonnay plugged into the wall, emitting a faint, amber glow.
By the end of the twentieth century, it seemed to many as though there was nothing that an acrobat could do with their body which had never been done before.
Claudia changed all that: during one particularly spirited performance, she leapt from her trapeze into the pupils of her audiences' eyes, down into the depths of their visual cortices, and landed to loud, sincere applause.
"This is the library's killswitch," she explained. "In an emergency, we can use it to generate a hyperglyphic field that turns the Roman alphabet inside-out within a quarter-mile radius.”
“Christ. What would we ever need to use something like that for?"
The gargoyles of the Red City cannot fly; the wings of fossilized coral that they carry on their backs serve as an ever-present reminder that they were built by humanity to surveil in stillness. Even so, they shamble through the streets of the city at night on legs that groan in defiance of their stone composition.
Few visitors can be found within the walls of the Red City, and among these few, there are none who dare set foot in its Burning District. There is very good reason for this, as its name might suggest; it is a place set aside for destruction to live, so that what remains of humanity’s works beyond might be spared.
Phlebic White was originally marketed to the public as “the world’s first intelligent lubricant,” a slogan which holds to this day. Rather than passively facilitating motion in the same manner as oil or grease, this pearlescent substance does so actively. Every droplet of the fluid contains millions of individual, microscopic cells, which wobble, throb, and vibrate when exposed to heat. They learn from repetitive motion, as well as from interactions with one another, allowing them to become a churning milk of pressurized horsepower.
Around the peak of the Red City’s prosperity, a new dominant currency began to emerge. These coins, known as binari, were wrought from a soft, warm metal, and squirmed slightly when held in human hands. What was perhaps most curious about them was that they were classified not only by denomination, but also by sex. If male and female binari were left in the same purse overnight, more could usually be found when it was opened again in the morning.
The highway’s first head clings to the mountain’s northern face much like a remora clings to a shark. Its face is a mess of steel teeth that have been worn down over the centuries, drills and grindstones that process its host’s tectonic body into liquid stone. Rust and weathering have rendered this process imperfect, and waterfalls of wet concrete drool forth from its mandibles.
The tyrant’s skull is hammered from the same tin as his throne. His eyes are tired rhinestones through which no light passes, but there isn’t much to see in his concrete palace anyway. He cannot rise from the velvet cushions beneath him, for he is held in place by hundreds of thick wires, not to mention the bronze spear that’s been rammed through his battered chest.
The delivery man waits to descend onto the subway platform until its last train has departed for the night. This is a shrewd decision; many of his colleagues failed to take this precaution, and in turn, were dragged down into the world beneath the rails. He’s carrying precious cargo, after all: a backpack full of premium beverages ranging from black neon fizz to carbonated fire. Were he to perish on this errand, his ghost would be liable for the damages to company property, a debt which could take decades to repay.
There’s a crumbling mansion in the Red City that overlooks the marina with sixteen eyes of fractured glass. Although weary from old age, it watches for thieves with unwavering paranoia. It has known the taste of many who have sought its riches over the years, and expects that another will arrive any day now.
The Red City Philharmonic Orchestra disbanded centuries ago. As such, their instruments have grown restlessly out of tune and starved of human touch. The lights are still on in the old opera house where they await their musicians, but dead noise saturates the air to a point of near-total darkness. Cleaning robots have learned not to enter, and dust has cloaked most of the surfaces inside.
Old-fashioned petroleum no longer satisfies the refined palette of automobiles in the Red City. Having gained a taste for artisanal gasoline, they often refuse to be driven if not partaking of the highest quality of fuel. While their habits are expensive, they also seem to have significantly reduced rush hour traffic.
Jukeboxes are unique in that, unlike other coin-operated machines, they do not give up the earnings that they swallow. Dissections by electrobiologists have revealed that their neon intestines digest the various metals used, leaving only their immaterial value behind. It is unclear what becomes of this abstract remainder, but it is believed to return to circulation once this process is complete.