Chaos

Men name wars to pin them to paper, fold them up, tuck madness and destruction into a pocket. Forget. Never forget. Gain distance. Relive it. Blame. Ask forgiveness. Tidy up chaos into sentences and chapters. A title. A timeline. Statistics.

True chaos, khaos, cannot be scribed into dots and lines. No. Your people have forgotten that khaos is the void, the abyss.

7 June, 1941 CE

Oxford, England

"Lady Harris?" She heard the words as if she was far under water. The name drifted past, paling to an echo. She barely recognized herself by that name, or any other these days. Cold washed over the exposed skin on her arms and she instinctively drew the cape closer around her. It was more a work of art than a garment.

1953-1960 CE

The City of Clouds-The Village of Ash

Asmeret wandered between tents; her head hurt again, yet she could think. Remember. The cavern of gold, the river, the singing of the ghost animals falling, falling, arrrrraaaaaaaaa, the ravens pulling them from the river where they bumped up against her, the zebra, the rhino—bloody stump where they’d hacked off the tip of its horn—climbing the staircase behind the boar. Her.