Skip to main content

The White People

"So I went on and on till I came to the secret wood which must not be described, and I crept into it by the way I had found. And when I had gone about halfway I stopped, and turned round, and got ready, and I bound the handkerchief tightly round my eyes, and made quite sure that I could not see at all, not a twig, nor the end of a leaf, nor the light of the sky, as it was an old red silk handkerchief with large yellow spots, that went round twice and covered my eyes, so that I could see nothing. Then I began to go on, step by step, very slowly. My heart beat faster and faster, and something rose in my throat that choked me and made me want to cry out, but I shut my lips, and went on. Boughs caught in my hair as I went, and great thorns tore me; but I went on to the end of the path. Then I stopped, and held out my arms and bowed, and I went round the first time, feeling with my hands, and there was nothing. I went round the second time, feeling with my hands, and there was nothing. Then I went round the third time, feeling with my hands, and the story was all true, and I wished that the years were gone by, and that I had not so long a time to wait before I was happy for ever and ever."

The White People by Arthur Machen (1906)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Journal of an Airman

I. three signs of an airman: practical jokes nervousness before taking off rapid healing after injury three kinds of enemy walk: the grandious stunt the melancholic stagger the paranoic sidle three kinds of enemy bearing: the condor's stoop the toad's stupor the robin's stance three kinds of enemy face: the fucked hen the favorite puss the stone-in-the-rain three terms of enemy speech: I mean quite frankly speaking as a scientist etcetera three enemy questions: am I boring you? could you tell me the time? are you sure you're fit enough? three results of an enemy victory: impotence cancer paralysis three counterattacks complete mastery of the air lastly but ten it's moving again lastly but nine I forgot the sign lastly but eight it's getting late lastly but seven why aren't there eleven? lastly but six I dont like its ...tricks the maid is just dribbling tea and I shall not be disturbed until supper...
14 comments
Read more

Rising Five

"I'm rising five" he said "Not four" and the little coils of hair Un-clicked themselves upon his head. His spectacles, brimful of eyes to stare At me and the meadow, reflected cones of light Above his toffee-buckled cheeks. He'd been alive Fifty-six months or perhaps a week more; Not four But rising five. Around him in the field, the cells of spring Bubbled and doubled; buds unbuttoned; shoot And stem shook out the creases from their frills, And every tree was swilled with green. It was the season after blossoming, Before the forming of the fruit: Not May But rising June. And in the sky The dust dissected the tangential light: Not day But rising night; Not now But rising soon. The new buds push the old leaves from the bough. We drop our youth behind us like a boy Throwing away his toffee-wrappers. We never see the flower, But only the fruit in the flower; never the fruit, But only the rot in the fruit. We look for the marriage bed...
10 comments
Read more

From an even more defunct blog

Silver in the Moonlight Chapter One “Between the lighthouse and the hills At the crossroads that none can see When the moon is full, through the eye in the stone Turn east to come to me” Tom woke struggling to breathe, as though his sleep had been ended by some large beast leaping on his chest. His room was dark, lit only by the dim starlight through his window, and the only sound was the heaving of his chest. As his panic slowly ebbed away he struggled to hold onto the one thing he knew to be important from the dream that had caused it – the clear, unarguable knowledge that in moonlight blood looked like molten silver. The next day, he rose after spending the rest of the night trying to sleepily sort through the feelings this dream fragment had left him with. Fear certainly, but also a strange kind of exultation, as though he has been given a piece of knowledge that few others possessed and fewer still could use. That idea brought him to a halt as he absently pulled on...
8 comments
Read more