Nessun dorma

At that point she awoke, screaming hysterically, “Hrochoj Vrotni? Where is the Fierce Mother?”

The nightmare chapter is completed and I am up past my own bedtime. I hope I sleep well. It is a curious thing that I usually sleep easily and well in spite of pondering the most awful things before bedtime.

I think the scene I just wrote is the creepiest and most awful in the book. The idea came to me perhaps two weeks ago, so I knew what it would contain and it was rather easy to write. On the mechanical level, that is. Thank the stars - as my characters would put it - I know the contents of the scene that follows. I much prefer mystical experiences of the deities to nightmares.

All my tales explore the choice between dominion and love (Christ or Caesar?), and stories of the pursuit of power are not pretty, especially in the consequences for others. A narrative on the question of who shall sit on the Lion Throne entails some creative fleshing out of the truth that "war is hell." My stories tend to have happy, or at least "redemptive" endings, but usually at great cost.

Catharsis.

Exorcising my own demons?

As the Redactor's Preface to the first volume of the chronicles says:

Family lore says my ancestors worshiped the stars. Perhaps they still call to me. I sometimes feel as though I wrestle with a demon. Or a god. Jacob at Bethel? My great-great-great-whatever walking into the darkness on Mount Rğan? Who knows? How do you slay a demon or gain a blessing? Where is peace, the tranquil resting place? I have yet to find it.

Sweet dreams, my cheeky chipmunks!



--the BB