Syd Linders

“It was a lone tree burning on the desert. A heraldic tree that the passing storm had left afire. The solitary pilgrim drawn up before it had traveled far to be here and he knelt in the hot sand and held his numbed hands out while all about in that circle attended companies of lesser auxiliaries routed forth into the inordinate day, small owls that crouched silently and stood from foot to foot and tarantulas and solpugas and vinegarroons and the vicious mygale spiders and beaded lizards with mouths black as a chowdog's, deadly to man, and the little desert basilisks that jet blood from their eyes and the small sandvipers like seemly gods, silent and the same, in Jeda, in Babylon. A constellation of ignited eyes that edged the ring of light all bound in a precarious truce before this torch whose brightness had set back the stars in their sockets.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“It is a drawing of the letter S" said the deep, solemn voice from over her shoulder, and she realized she had stopped midstride. "The letter in question is constructed from six short marks stacked vertically three by three. There are two triangles on the top and bottom. which, along with some diagonal strokes, form a calligraphic S.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Harrow the Ninth

“As the image of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid someone else will erase me by denying me love.”
― Jenny Slate