Sublime

Each with a job title written on the front. Each, as it turned out, filled with writing. Many, many more than could possibly have been filed by only twelve expeditions.

Words appear there, sentences in English, which seem to be biological, fungal in nature.

Area X is now putting its mark on those humans who enter it rather than the other way around. Its mark may or may not be deadly. But it is always transformational.

Already those initial phrases were infiltrating my mind in unexpected ways, finding fertile ground.

This, too, a kind of distraction from asking certain questions that could only be reached through knowing specific details. But the right specific details, not, for example, that there were six species of venomous snakes in Area X. A reach, yes, but I was not in the mood to set aside even the most unlikely scenarios.

transference

Could there be, even within all of these transitional ecosystems, one still more transitional—at the limits of the Tower’s influence but not yet under the border’s influence?