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Tears for Europa
*
The flames of burning maps are fed by the whispers of a thousand lies.
The arrival of the new rulers—long prophesied—is heralded by the fall of spring leaves and the shuddering of mountains.
Hearts smoulder with ancient hatreds that centuries of silence could not extinguish.
The snows do not penetrate the canopy of an ancient forest, forgotten now in a deep wilderness that existed merely in the minds of a people who dreamt themselves into the glory of the future—they too were snow, and wind, and rain, and blood, and soil.
They were prouder than their destiny could ever allow—they were chosen to perish and to come again; they are no different to us.
A beggar’s filthy rags conceal the soft skin of a great Countess; her filthy hands—once familiar only with the sheen of silk and the fragility of petals—have grown accustomed to the hard necessity of coin. Behind the crumbling render of a tenement block cramped flats overflow with lost treasures of an imaginary civilisation, the memory of their previous owners fading with each illicit transaction.
In a busy morgue, beneath a blue shroud, a chest still heaves, slowly, painfully; a gaunt young hand shakes free the cloth and points…at you… mourn!
*
The flames of burning maps are fed by the whispers of a thousand lies.
The arrival of the new rulers—long prophesied—is heralded by the fall of spring leaves and the shuddering of mountains.
Hearts smoulder with ancient hatreds that centuries of silence could not extinguish.
The snows do not penetrate the canopy of an ancient forest, forgotten now in a deep wilderness that existed merely in the minds of a people who dreamt themselves into the glory of the future—they too were snow, and wind, and rain, and blood, and soil.
They were prouder than their destiny could ever allow—they were chosen to perish and to come again; they are no different to us.
A beggar’s filthy rags conceal the soft skin of a great Countess; her filthy hands—once familiar only with the sheen of silk and the fragility of petals—have grown accustomed to the hard necessity of coin. Behind the crumbling render of a tenement block cramped flats overflow with lost treasures of an imaginary civilisation, the memory of their previous owners fading with each illicit transaction.
In a busy morgue, beneath a blue shroud, a chest still heaves, slowly, painfully; a gaunt young hand shakes free the cloth and points…at you… mourn!
*
124 pages, Hardcover
First published July 6, 2018
About the author
D.P. Watt
69 books78 followersD.P. Watt is a writer living between Scotland and England in an otherworldly, misty borderland. His collection of stories, An Emporium of Automata was reprinted by Eibonvale Press in 2013, and his second collection, The Phantasmagorical Imperative and Other Fabrications, is now available in paperback. A third collection, Almost Insentient, Almost Divine, appeared with Undertow Publications in 2016 and was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. He won the Ghost Story Award 2015 for his story ‘Shallabalah’ published in The Ghosts and Scholars Newsletter, no 26.You can find him at The Interlude House: www.theinterludehouse.co.uk
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 10, 2019
In TEARS FOR EUROPA, D.P. Watt deftly peels back the delicately deceiving veil of reality to show us the terrifying and awesome mythologies that truly create the fabric of our own personal universes. I have been mesmerized into a trancelike state little by little by these darkly rapturous tales, and I am ravenous for more!
January 27, 2021
“, for a day; a day”
You once lived a day a day to put life in. But, now, to extract it.
I would need to quote the whole text of this most tactilely and emotionally powerful dystopic vision of the containing book’s title and its gloriously rough redness of inner cover to even scratch the surface of its effect on the reader, scratch or brutally tear it with its own built-in claws. The question is whether hope resides in its last five words or even more despair.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of my observations at the time of the review.
You once lived a day a day to put life in. But, now, to extract it.
I would need to quote the whole text of this most tactilely and emotionally powerful dystopic vision of the containing book’s title and its gloriously rough redness of inner cover to even scratch the surface of its effect on the reader, scratch or brutally tear it with its own built-in claws. The question is whether hope resides in its last five words or even more despair.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of my observations at the time of the review.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews