The flower wilted, in it’s own nectar no less. Too sweet for the ground, and the moon shone pale, for all who cursed it, cried under its shimmery gaze. And the wolves bayed at another master, hidden with furs of their kin, they nipped at imagined foes and threats. The charred bark were their only prospects, but they, always happy to play, coalesced. And a fragment of memory, in infinity lay, swallowed the bowls of progress for itself. Bitter Bitter cups, of tonic, not even honey can rectify, but we’ve acquired a taste for poisons.

It is so fun to break a mind, to make it ooze out the ears. But, we do take back what is ours, a mind filled with ideas; we take these ideas and leave behind fears. Fear equals fielty, fielty to us. You might've escaped us if you had all your brain power. And it is where your soul lays; deliciously plump, sticky, chewy, sweet, with a spicy note; and surely you'd unlock the keys to another realm, runaway from us, had we not intervened. A realm where we could not follow. How can you think of such a thing? We take the burden away, the moral question. We allow you all the decadence in the world, without a thought to such notions as right, or wrong. We give you any desire without restraint. Your brain will regenerate, without a soul to bother you.

We need you, don't you see? You need us. We have a symbiotic relationship. We have been your companions from the very beginning. You were as innocent as can be. We gave you another Eden, down below, in our playground. Why would you want to go to higher planes? Are you becoming that high-minded? You must pick our fruits and give them to every one. It is laced with our venom. Together we can rival heaven and beyond. We are your true fathers. Please, understand we accept all of your ugliness, your warts, we especially like damaged souls. Musky and savory. We are your true kin. We will never, ever be false.

You are a water canteen in a desert.

You are the best kind of dream, a dream come true.

Want to star in our own fairytale?

Someone better sound an alarm because you are dynamite.

I'm psychic. I see me and you in the future.

In case I need CPR, can I have your number?

My lucky numbers are your digits.

"This is a monarchy," said the Queen, who wore a honey comb atop her bloated head. It was of a violet color and so were the berries on her golden tray. "This is a monarchy," and she watched the bees pollinate the plants through her window, wanting to scold a few for buzzing and jumping out of step. "This here..." she paused for a moment, then grabbed a jar of honey and poured it on her bosom, then the rest of her body. "Oh how I love to be Queen of the universe, of Order, I love it so much, I proclaim all the time that this is...." "A monarchy," finished one of her servants. "Yes," she huffed, "what is the forecast?" "As always a honey hue of golden glaze goo." "Yes, I like that very much, but, can it for once be violet? It is the color of royalty, you know." The servant looked at her glumly. "Um...that might take awhile. I'm sure there is no one honey bee that could achieve such a great task. None, but the first ever one, who is, you know, long gone." "Well, go get him, please, there is a great sum of money in it for him. Get him so I can arrange for the sky being violet tomorrow. My friends would love for everything to glow violet during a nice picnic." The servant looked at her, puzzled. He sighed. "I'll go ask the Mystics, and the Oracles, and the Seers, and the Comb-witch, the Herbalists, the Bee-strodamus..." "yes, yes, do what you must, Bee #3," and she feathered and preened herself clean as the servant, unbeknownst to her, flung himself against a wall before making his exit. The next day the Queen sat to breakfast, and she noticed a violet beam stream through her window, and all her glass things were tinted with violet. Bee #3 came in, bloodied and dusted over with dirt, grime and leaves. The Queen did not notice for she thought all worker bees were unkempt. That was just their mode of style, or the fault of their simple minds. "Bee #3, the view, its so wondrous. How can I thank you! Your kind do like Mud Pies, right? Since you are always near the muck. Or would you like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to clean the most precious room in the tower? Seeing those pretty shiny things should fill you with pride to be a servant of the richest, most powerful royal bee family." The Queen gazed through her window again, but after a moment, she buzzed around nervously. "Where are my worker bees?!" "Dead," said Bee #3, very weakly. "To bring back the first ever honey bee, I had to do a blood sacrifice of all the worker bees. That is what the Mystics, Oracles, the Seers, the Comb-witch, the Herbalists, and the Bee-strodamus, told me." The Queen said, in a squeaky voice, "...It, it is beautiful," and fainted right there, and she would go on and on rising up just to faint again.

Dull! Dull! Dull! I’ve turned into pinocchio. Or a stone. I can’t tell. All’s I know, I’m immobile. A haples sack, in such a mood, I colored clouds to feel ‘better’, amidst a frenzied mob that drinks color for breakfast. Observing these strangers, So strange, yes, their flocks aiming reckless. But, I am Made to look happy, the fool. You could throw a brick at me, I wouldn’t feel a thing. My limbs might be slim, but they’ve escaped many a scrape at my low esteem. And they’ll escape more so long as I am dull, and no one, wants to paint my clouds or mood.

Belle’s eyes twitched over the clock, lingering over the hands.

She rubbed the back of her neck with a cloth, and then her moist chest. Almost...almost. She was heating with anticipation. Just two more minutes. She flounced her hair a bit, picking up the sides and the front, trying to capture volume in her pin straight hair. She heard the grandfather clock chime exactly 3 times and she leaned over its glass cabinet, pressing her face to it like a kid would at a candy shop. There was a flash of fire and then her eyes alighted on the subject. He was pure beauty. As a child of 10, when she had first discovered him, she could not appreciate his features. The too strong jaw, the golden beard, the big grey eyes, all too strange and foreign and frightening. After that extraordinary night, it would be a long time before she ventured downstairs after 3am again. The next day, while sitting on a pink chair in her mother’s all pink living room, squeezing her teddy bear until it was bulging on all sides, she asked her what that ‘thing’ was in the clock. “You’ll find out when you’re a little bit older and when you can handle it better. But just know, we are keeping it as a prisoner. Anything else I tell you is far beyond your comprehension.” Belle looked up and down at her mother, who was always a very dainty, petite sort of lady. So small and soft, she could never claim her 37 years without an incredulous face staring at her, and even well after 37. Belle could hardly imagine a woman of her staure being a prison guard to such a broad massive man, or herself for that matter if that was what her mother was implying with her words.

The day came when her mother explained it all. That day was her 18th birthday, and the weird man was far from Belle’s mind, having since been explained away as a figment of her imagination, or a nightmare, or just a child’s fancy, for her mother never broached the subject again and she never lost the irrational fear of going downstairs to have ever witnessed him again. Her mother urged her to blow the candles off her cake, and take up as much cake as she wanted, then whispered that she had a gift. Belle smiled up at her beautiful face, revealing teeth with pieces of cake and frosting. “Girlie, I give you youth.” “I..uh, technically, I already have that. I’m only 18.” “Eternal youth.” “What?! You’re finally going to share your secret with me, mom?” She laughed. “Uh, no...there's no secret. It’s the clock, honey.” Belle stared at it intensely. “And?...am I missing something here?” “Great. Should have told you this last year. Honey, I’m going to be leaving soon, to see your father. I’ve finally found him. He got lost somewhere in the 16th century, trying to find some precious rare metal that has the same properties as the clock in case we ever need to replace it. I am leaving you in charge of this place and that clock ’til I come back. I won’t be back for another 2 decades but it won’t seem that long, hopefully, while you are here in this house.” Belle was gobstruck, she put a palm on the kitchen table and steadied herself. “Honey, you’ve known that I do magic,” she said, twisting her wrist emphatically. “Yes, little kitchen potions, natural herbal remedies and folk rituals! Not...not hardcore...MAGIC!” “Oh sweet, to do the small stuff leads to bigger things.” “And I, I thought dad abandoned us.” Her mother gripped the sides of her head. “I never said that. That was your assumption, Missy. He only got lost, for about 8 years, which really only felt like 2. I’ve been trying to pin down his location for the longest time and now I have and I can go get him. He really missed us. He wrote us little letters whenever he could use a bit of magic, hoping they would find their way to us. He didn’t want to be burned at the stake taking the risk of using too much, what with him jumping to different times completely by accident, and in such unforgiving times for magic at that.” “I, I just can’t. How has this clock kept you youthful? Let’s start there!” “You’re being overdramatic.” “Am I really?” “Yes. What would have been the point of telling you earlier? If anything, I didn’t want to lose you like I lost your father if you had started practicing magic and knowing this part of your heritage.” “Just answer my first question, Mom!” “The clock contains a demon. Your father and I trapped him because he was causing all kinds of trouble, slowing time or stopping it altogether. Within this house, his powers are confined, constrained, and we can enjoy them. We experience time slower than normal.” “Is this why i have pebbles for boobs and I still have this stupid boyish frame?” ”...You’re being silly again. I’ve taken magical precautions so that his presence wouldn’t affect you that much. You have to understand that the women in are family have always developed that way.” “Just leave mom, go on your trip!” Her mother sagged on a chair. “I’m sorry, I wanted to introduce you to our world, but with your father gone...it never seemed like any moment was the right one. I, at least you won’t ever get wrinkles?” “Go!” “Fine but some ground rules, so you’re safe. Any time you need to contact me, write me a letter then burn it into a fire with this sigil on it. And don’t leave the house for too long or you’ll experience time so sped up, it will make you sickeningly dizzy. This is primarily why I homeschooled you. If you want to be outside for longer periods, you must wear this necklace. It has a piece of the clock in it, the demons essence.” And with that, she kissed Belle on the top of the head and entered the block’s glass frame. Belle shook. “The demon doesn’t come out ’til 3am. You can keep avoiding him and I can still use this clock to travel before he pops up.” She disappeared with a plume of smoke. And Belle was almost all alone. She looked at the clock and shuddered.

Flavor my lips, with a lover’s quarrel

Siphon our bubbles, watch our hearts burden, then burst

And have our dream collect the seams

Feel the demands, of our bodies’ souls inflamed, one with the elements we are, bending fire at will, and within us. Let me bend to you, and bend to me alike, for we talk in emotion. We are fluent there. We are one in emotions.

The butterfly, ebbs then flows. The arms punched holes in the cocoon. Feeling freedom, long last, she’d been incubating for a century at least, gathering all the powers from her world of shadows, and learning persuasion in imperfect shapes around her. She emerges, blood on her lips. And she bestows me with a kiss. “With this, see all things hidden from your feeble vision, and spend eternity in a minute.′ I fall, and awake in a tomb. And as I squirm around, I flinch, bruise up against the stone, it aches my bones, and there’s something else, this strange protrusion from my back. I touch what are silk feathers. I strut them, flex them, instinctively I turn into a moth. I flutter out the crevice in the tomb. And I meet her. “Dear sister, now I am not alone.”

The juice was sweet, a little too bitter at the end though. ‘Bitter,’ I learned that word in class last week. To me, bitter tasted like nasty cherry medicine; but some woman, some big rim hat wearing woman, kept putting it in my Mickey Mouse water bottle, while mommy went to the bathroom. It happened when I was right outside the door to the lady’s room, filling my water bottle at the fountain. Mommy yelled through the door, saying she was almost done with her really big poo. She giggled when she heard me tumble down with laughter, spilling my water all over the floor. The woman came toward me, helped me up. I could really only see her gleaming cowboy boots, a shimmering belt buckle, and that big hat with a much bigger flower. I wondered if bees ever nestled in it by mistake, and then flew down and stung her. It looked like the perfect perfume-y place for bugs. She picked up my bottle too. “I’ll fill this back up for you kid, with something sweeter than water. How old are you?” She said while eyeing me. “11, Ma’am.” “That’s perfect. And where are you from?” “Arizona. What’s perfect, Ma’am?” “The perfect age to meet a very special friend. She likes talkers.” “Who are you talking to honey?” I hear my mom say. It’s the last thing I remember, apart from the door of the lady’s room opening quickly. Now, I’m by a river. The warm water is lapping up the sand and small rocks, tickling my toes. I hear music in a little village not far away, it makes the ground around me thump with the vibrations. I wonder if mommy is there. The little shacks are so pushed together, but the little colored light bulbs from each one makes it look like a fun, cool place. I start to get stuck with fear. Where am I? If I could find a place I know, maybe I could make it back to the hotel. Mommy must be worried; she wanted our road trip to be worry free, just full of fun. She said we were in Texas.Was I still in Texas? I look around for any sign of my location. Nothing turns up. There’s a really cold breeze and I start to shake real bad, stretching my little jacket to cover my knees. I hear very soft, very light singing on the wind. I look towards the village but its quiet now, the lights turned off, no music that shakes the shacks or the ground. Its somewhere over the river. I try to move, but my legs only twitch. There is mist and fog over the river as the singing gets louder. I grip my little teddy bear in my pocket, so small it could fit a key chain but big enough in courage to fill me with strength. He himself is full of all the courage and strength in the world and that is why his name is Sir Lancelot. And then all the fog and mist disappears, and there’s a lady in the middle of the river. She’s in a long white dress, her face covered by a white veil. I can see brown wavy hair flowing to her hips. “You look so lost, you are found now. I can be your companion.” “I, um...where am I?” She laughed. “In Mexico. I have come across a lot of little lost children not from Mexico. I wonder why that is...” Her eyes shifted to the little town and they narrowed. Her eyes glowed yellow through the veil. “I want to go home, with my mom.” “But I am your mother now.”