{"id":1787,"date":"2023-10-08T10:55:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-08T10:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1787"},"modified":"2023-10-08T16:07:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-08T16:07:28","slug":"my-curse-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/my-curse-is\/1787\/","title":{"rendered":"My curse is \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t fear death,\u201d said Polypherous, \u201cI fear not being able to say something original about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he sauntered across the freshly blackened road, its newly laid tar still odorous, to Quinit\u2019s bakery on the corner of Beach Street, where the paving stones were still reddened by the blood of martyrs, and overflowing flowers in iron baskets bedecking the sills of tiny apartments filled with shouting boat-wives, hung like curtains, affording cool in the midday heat, he turned to Archegoron walking alongside, and asked him, \u201cDo you fear death, Arch?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do not,\u201d replied his companion, \u201cbecause death is unknown. You could draw your sword and fell me now. Or, and I say this with some justification, I could die in the arms of a temporally distant lover, my straining efforts too much for an ancient heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd that is the problem,\u201d Polypherous said. \u201cI have certainty, yet you have wonder. Does that wonder not stir an element of fear? Aren\u2019t you scared of casting your line into a falling tide, and instead of pulling a full harvest of fish, you reel in slavering death?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor humans, that is the way,\u201d Archegoron stepped to one side to avoid a pile of comarca-horse dung, and in so doing, stepped on a loose cobble, causing him to stumble to his knees. He looked up at Polypherous whose inhumanly quick reactions allowed him to snake out an arm and grasp Archegoron\u2019s loosely flapping gown. \u201cAnd that is my point. I could have pitched forward and struck my head on the kerb, dashing what little sense I have over Quinit\u2019s clean forecourt. He would never have forgiven me and had I not received a fatal blow from the kerb-stone, I most certainly would have from the baker\u2019s cutting board.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI suppose,\u201d Polypherous said pulling a tentacle from the lower boundary of his third mouth, \u201cthat is our curse. Life is an adventure for humans. For we Freyd, standing outside the three dimensions in which you exist, we know from birth our destiny and our end. We have certainty and you have doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a blessing too, old friend,\u201d Archegoron replied. His face fell into dripping sadness. Polypherous\u2019s time was drawing near. \u201cWithout our urge to fill our lives with adventure, I would never have come here, never have crossed the stars, and I would never have found you, my love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnough of your sentiment,\u201d Polypherous gargled warmly, an analogue to a human laugh. \u201cWe have bread to eat before I die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They bought their fill of Quinit\u2019s best, and sat on the stones lining the dockyard, watching the pebble skiffs sail with their empty holds across glassy seas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI could tell you of your death,\u201d Polypherous offered tentatively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would rather not know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVery well,\u201d said Polypherous, reaching for his sword to end the life of his lover as was the secret custom of the Freyd, \u201cthat sadly, is MY curse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know,\u201d Archegoron replied as he unknotted his breastplate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He sauntered across the freshly blackened road, its newly laid tar still odorous, to Quinit\u2019s bakery on the corner of Beach Street, where the paving stones were still reddened by the blood of martyrs, and overflowing flowers in iron baskets bedecking the sills of tiny apartments filled with shouting boat-wives, hung like curtains, affording cool in the midday heat, he turned to Archegoron walking alongside, and asked him, \u201cDo you fear death, Arch?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[695,965],"tags":[977,171,968,251,124,975,8,122,20,12,976,979,9,978,723],"class_list":["post-1787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-695","category-october-2023-the-curse","tag-archegoron","tag-could","tag-curse","tag-death","tag-do","tag-fear","tag-he","tag-him","tag-his","tag-my","tag-polypherous","tag-quinit","tag-said","tag-say","tag-still"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-sP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1787"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1791,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions\/1791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}