crabapples and blood miracles

allaboutmary: An Italian altar in honour of the Immaculate...

Thu, 30 May 2013 22:29:08 -0400

allaboutmary:

An Italian altar in honour of the Immaculate Conception.

week four.

Sun, 26 May 2013 23:20:10 -0400

I want to run away to the big city but I live here

friends, family - I am the internet

four hours

boys, hormones, the weather, the usual downers

sometimes the movie is better than the book

saint hildegard

tall, dark, and Anglican

(in which the prodigal saint caspian returns home after losing the love of his life, and makes up with his best friend)

Fri, 24 May 2013 23:53:00 -0400

Caspian and Daniel found themselves lying in the cool grass after wandering silently around the park, night sky and all the city on the horizon, an endless landscape of purple and lights, backdrop to the first time they’d hung out properly as friends in two years for some stupid reason or other. Caspian had tried to explain where he’d been (Toronto), what he’d been doing (writing, falling in love, the usual), and why he’d left in the first place (oh God don’t even start with that one) but had ended up as usual spilling forth some confused words about how he was probably very sad about some things.

“I don’t want to be clingy, but I’m going to be clingy. Shit happened, you don’t need to know details. I don’t want to talk about details, right now, because I’m still pretty broken. There was someone and now there isn’t, and not because of stupid reasons like us but because he died.” In Caspian’s defense, he was trying really hard not to cry, harder than he’d ever tried at anything; school, personal relations, swimming lessons. But there was a time and a place for details and reassuring pats on the back and long serious talks about trauma and he didn’t want that time to be now because Boston did look so pretty like this and he could always get figuratively lost in cities at night. He’d missed this city, and it didn’t have ghosts; Boston 2, Toronto 0, if he followed hockey he would have made a joke about that. He’d been sleeping better too, since coming back; no nightmares, and the stupid cat finally left him alone, preferring his mother. He was caught up in thinking about the cat, the one remnant that he didn’t seem to mind, that he’d hardly noticed Daniel was talking to him:

“…if you need to talk about anything, I’m here for you.”

“Thanks.”

Daniel was an actual Nice Person and despite his flaws or his bad way of handling things or his bullshit heterosexuality and Caspian loved him for it; they’d been friends for too long and too strong for things to really come between them anymore. If you run away to a different country for – from – someone but can still look them in the eye after, not to mention lie half-naked in a park on a late summer night, like in The Fisher King but with fewer hobos, if you can still have that, you’re probably good. But as such their friendship was still a long way from fully repaired and bursting out with “the only person who has ever loved me as much as I’ve loved him killed himself and it’s sort of my fault in a way, maybe you would like some context?” wasn’t the way to go. And the context was almost equally as painful and involved ghosts and mental health issues and a dozen other things Caspian was trying desperately to avoid thinking about. He was calmer than he had been, but he still felt crazy sometimes, and in a “man some really fucked up shit happened and I was in a daze for a while but just now it hit me how messed up I might be” rather than a “let’s go on a road trip right now my car is running bring your cocaine guess when the last time I slept was hint never” way.

He still kind of wanted to go on a road trip, but he was enjoying sleeping.

Since getting back home, minus the ill-advised whisky on the Megabus, he’d been completely sober apart from prescriptions. It was a good feeling, generally, but often things got very real very fast and without the usual retreats he’d kept his sister up an unforgivable number of nights during the work week. “We didn’t all inherit our boyfriends’ estates,” she’d have said if he’d told her about that. “Some of us have real jobs.” And now that he and Daniel were talking again, he’d probably suffer the same fate. Sometimes Caspian took breaks from feeling bad for himself and felt bad for everyone else, ever. Maybe they could just watch the skies and only do that forever. Tourists would come and watch them and say things like “those two must be really in love” and it would give Caspian feelings but he’d laugh it off and resume his chosen path. But he was too caught up in his own stuff right now to be in love with Daniel again.

There were ghosts and cats and gender (lots of the first and last; at least fifteen gender) and probably a million other things that needed his attention but for now he was content to sit by this person who had come to mean something to him. That in itself was such a simple, pleasant feeling. And he had time now, he realized, time for all of that and more. He was done school, done his book, not working, and sure there would be book tours and sequels and spending all of Corbenic’s savings wastefully (because how could a young adult fantasy novel about homosexuality and spirits not be a hit with the masses?) but for now he could finally pause sort through an attic full of metaphorical boxes of junk before resuming any of it. No more rash decisions; no more seeking geographical solutions to emotional problems, cry into a couple peoples’ shirts for a bit and voila. He had more than enough reason for it, but his life didn’t need to be a mess. Everything might just come up Caspian. He was like a poster in a guidance counselor’s office; “Hang in there! You can do it!” And if he had to be a bit clingy, so be it.

“Really, thank you. For even seeing me again, and for listening as I go on about nothing and everything. You’re the best and I’m sorry I forgot that.”

“Of course, Caspian.” This was the most earnest thing he had ever heard and he was so glad about everything.

In his mind Daniel then took his hand seriously and said: “Caspian, I know you’ve lost someone and I can’t begin to imagine how hard that is, but I think you should come over and watch a movie that’s so bad we’ll fall asleep together on the couch halfway through. In the morning all your problems will be solved, because you have people who care about you and God is on your side (even though you didn’t tell me about any of the weird religious stuff yet?), so don’t worry, okay?”

Because he wrote fantasy or something like that, right? Weird religious stuff and boys and cats, it was all going to be okay, and they watched nighttime rolling in, the last stretches of pink sunlight fading into nothing, it was good to feel loved. Every map he made led him back home in the end and if home wasn’t a small Catholic church in the backwoods of Ontario but rather a sparkling salt-of-the-earth American city at night with bats flying overhead and a cool breeze from the sea, he was fine with that.

week three.

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:08:39 -0400

Pointillism is a stupid movement what even

Anxiety.

Inspiration strikes in the dead of night. Keep a journal by your bed. Music plays in the background as though you’re in a Merchant Ivory film while you scribble down brilliance at 2 am.

Sometimes there is nothing to do but wait.

Never settle.

(Sometimes I dream about us fucking and it’s better than when we have sex in real life.)

I can’t even dress myself today. I swear I’m not always like this.

week two.

Sun, 12 May 2013 01:05:00 -0400

People will try to tell you that there are sensors under the pavement at streetlights, but that isn’t true. It’s probably just another lie the government wants you to believe. Ignore the system!

Bake; eat everything you bake. Even the burnt batches. They are like your children, and you must love them all equally, despite their imperfections.

Torrent all you like. We’re all going to die anyways.

You are not obligated to follow anyone on tumblr. Repeat after me: you are not obligated to follow anyone on tumblr.

Legal names don’t matter. Disregard permanently anyone who tries to convince you otherwise.

Fuck Capitalism. Fuck it right on the dining room table. But seriously.

Today you missed church because last night you stayed up late having sex. God gives you a high five. But later he gives you a look.

week one.

Sat, 04 May 2013 23:15:00 -0400

The strange noise outside your window at night is only a hobo taking your empties. Do not worry.

Wait until your sister gets home tonight; you can watch TV and eat junk food and it’ll be worth it.

Clean your room and talk to the dead.

Avoid smoke; head to the mountains.

Ignoring people who hurt you is okay. No obligations to anything but your own well-being, right?

Six years is a long time.

After church take the rest of the day off. You deserve it.

The next week featured double espressos and a long drive back to the city, through night and through...

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 00:33:51 -0500

The next week featured double espressos and a long drive back to the city, through night and through rain. December had kept them warm but January was cold and wet and February, well, February was a fucker with a hidden agenda and the moment it started snowing Caspian buried himself in bed and swore off classes, work, and most personal relations. Boston had not really been any warmer but he still blamed Canada. It lasted nearly two days before Corbenic asked him to shovel.

So he gradually came back to life, thinking faintly of frogs that freeze themselves completely during the winter and then thaw out, and how amusing a concept that was. What was it like to thaw out? What did frozen frogs dream of? He took long walks by himself to the harbour on any given day to throw stones at the frozen sea and follow other people’s lives, later to scrub salt stains off his shoes.

Look at your life, Caspian. You’re on the verge of being published. You’re having a successful affair with a professor. Granted, he’s not your professor so much as a professor, but it still counts. You’ve let go of shit that happened in the past and you are well on your way to be a fine, upstanding citizen. Stop feeling so empty!

But he did feel empty; if anything, the cold got to him. In spring he was florid, summer lazy, autumn saw him melancholy but poetic. Winter chilled his bones and made him think about cruelty and compassion and suffering, an endless battle between humanism and God. April was the cruelest month but he couldn’t wait for it.

He thought too much.

He had spent months in a reverie mostly unrelated to grad school or relocation or the fact that he was actually having regular sex and it bothered him; he felt gross and pretentious and unreal, not at all his true self or even a person, just an aimless being fighting the sea. But he didn’t know how to talk about it so he wrote; he filled two notebooks in as many weeks and promptly burned them and their ashes. At long last, his thoughts were free.

“I don’t know,” he said, sitting upside down on the couch.

“What?” asked Corbenic absentmindedly; he was grading papers, analyses on the Book of Hours of Jean, Duc de Berry.

“I feel empty but after much thought I think it’s just winter. I’ve always been a spring person; maybe I don’t need to worry. Maybe I should just wait it out.”

“I’ll buy you some seasonal lamps at Ikea.”

“Thanks.” He shifted around and got up, walked over to Corbenic at his desk, played with the hair at the back of his neck. “Let your undergraduates wait. I want to get dinner.”

“They’ve been waiting. You’ve never been a TA, have you?”

“No, I haven’t. I don’t need to work. I have a rich boyfriend.”

“If I die,” said Corbenic, turning to face him and assuming a particularly teacherly air, crossing his arms, “If I die,” he continued, “you will get nothing - no - you will get the cat.”

“Oh God,” said Caspian, matching his partner’s drama. “Very well. You’d better not die, then, because while I’d take her in out of charity I’d resent every minute of it.”

“Mhmm.” The cat in question appeared then, rubbing herself against Corbenic’s leg, pointedly avoiding Caspian. He had tried to get to know her, time and time again, but every time he got close she spooked. His sister had once said that cats could sense spirits and that was why they were such strange creatures who behaved the way they did. But Caspian didn’t feel as though he had spirits around his neck, neither was he sure if he believed in them. He had gone to mass while staying with Corbenic’s family at Christmas, and the experience had some deep effect on him, but believing in ghosts meant that ghosts were real and a thing he had to contend with and this new narrative would have forced him to rethink so much of his life that he was happier in ignorance.

1829 I am forever a flower of the spring,told to me as a child in a mocking tone;told to me now as a...

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:21:00 -0500

1829

I am forever a flower of the spring,
told to me as a child in a mocking tone;
told to me now as a result of my wardrobe.
But spring is about new beginnings and
let us celebrate that in every way that we can.

Would that we sit every day by the river banks and daydream,
eat, philosophize; let me take in forever
how golden the sun makes you; an icon of Byzantine -
forgive me if I speak in blasphemies but it is the truth.
Summer suits you well; you need not resign yourself to fall,

though you look best in her colours:
you are russet and green through and through;
you have a melancholy suited to September and a copper countenance,
though already wisps of silver winter grace your temples
as a reminder lest we forget that

a turn in the winter air brought us together in the first place,
and for that I will always thank this season:
the cold it brings, the icy walks and wild winds
that blow papers from our arms
but bring our hearts together in warmth.

aubrey-maturin (test run)

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 01:13:00 -0500

aubrey-maturin (test run)

to life!

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:53:23 -0500

to life!

your luxury your semantics (you can’t mail a dog; what...

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:47:11 -0500

your luxury your semantics (you can’t mail a dog; what about opium?)

From the desk of Caspian Fox, December the twenty-first, year of Our Lord 2015 Hi Daniel I’m sorry I...

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 22:12:00 -0500

From the desk of Caspian Fox, December the twenty-first, year of Our Lord 2015

Hi Daniel

I’m sorry I passive aggressively deleted you from Facebook and ran to another country rather than work through our problems and that you haven’t heard from me since. I’ve been too busy falling in love with a wide selection of the Wrong People. Also, school’s a butt. It’s paying off, though: I’m about 95% sure I’ve found a publisher. And guess the fuck what? Soon you will be in a bookstore and there’ll be this stupid story about dragons and shit that’s very popular, and you’ll know that I wrote it without even having to check my old list of potential pen-names, and you’ll think, ‘dang, I could have been making out with that rich author RIGHT NOW if I hadn’t made poor choices!’ Them’s the breaks, friend!

Regards, Caspian

(No; scratch that last line out, it wasn’t good form).

(Actually, forget it forget the whole thing.)

He crumpled the paper and threw it into the fireplace, contentedly watching it turn to ash. Why he’d invested in such terrible personal stationary was beyond him. As the letter burned, so did any lingering emotional responsibility from his past life, before he had moved to Canada, before Corbenic Seacoal, MA, PH D. Whoops.

Black and crumbling in the grate, this was not the first attempt at reconciliation with Daniel, a carbon copy of their failure . Caspian prodded it with the fire poker like a kid with a stick and a used condom as Corbenic entered the living room, followed by his persistently stupid cat, Merry. “Working on a new story?” he asked; he knew by now that frustration was a big stage within his partner’s creative process.

“Yeah,” said Caspian, fixated by the flames, blue where a glossy flyer page had served as fuel. He didn’t feel the need to explain the truth; he hadn’t told Corbenic about Daniel or anything much really about his past, he wasn’t trying to be edgy it just wasn’t very interesting. He had been a kid, he had grown up, he had been queer, there had been a boy, but the conclusion of this confusing story was him, lying in front of a fireplace, a cat purring by his side and a man he was crazy about sitting nearby.

That was a good enough ending. He could have embellished it more if he’d wanted, maybe tomorrow, the endless cycle of friendfiction and his own mistakes would be there, same as it ever was.

“If this winter looked like it might let up I would have booked a bus home. But I don’t want to get stuck in the snow banks between here and Boston. Alas. I will stay in Canada and brave your fearsome holidays.”

Corbenic laughed and sipped his cognac.

Wet promise of winter brought recourse to cold. December was grey, brittle-boned but it had kept them warm; lilacs would be bred out of the dead land months early if this weather continued. It had snowed once, if that, and otherwise was just rain on the road.

Still, inside they acted against, lighting their fire to repel the ghosts of frost gently threatening to haunt window panes at night (only if a haunting would be convenient to sir, of course).

Corbenic’s brother Melchior was coming down tomorrow to visit for a few days and then the plan was for them to drive back home for New Years. He was more than a little nervous about introducing Caspian, his transsexual artist of a boyfriend some fifteen years his junior. If he knew his family – and he didn’t – they would try to be kind but it would be vaguely uncomfortable for all. Caspian was a little nervous about going to rural Ontario because it sounded boring, but he didn’t say that. For a while they just sat by the fire with the cat and the cognac and enjoyed the moment; Caspian picked a book from a pile he’d yet to unpack, and read:

Then we upon our globe’s last verge shall go.
And view the ocean leaning on the sky;
From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,
And on the lunar world securely pry.

Caspian didn’t get along that well with the cat but he had made excellent friends with the cognac; living with Corbenic was just really nice and he felt so safe and content. He tried to push his baggage out of mind but only succeeded with the emotional part; they spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and then amalgamating their book collections. Between the two of them they ended up with three Bibles, the complete works of T.S. Eliot, Caspian’s “ironic” C.S. Lewis first editions, and nearly two full sets of the Aubrey-Maturin series. Content. Tired. Happy.

maturin

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 22:45:00 -0500

maturin

i want to live in every glorious cathedral and in every run down theaterprayers echoing through the...

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 01:16:00 -0500

i want to live in every glorious cathedral and in every run down theater
prayers echoing through the rafters and
seats like pews, settling in for your matinee.
i would like to share these adventures and add narrators to this story
a thousand voices can tell a tale better than one

dreaming in a nest of old drapery and dust
cobwebs and gold light in the air
i would invite you but i don’t want to invade your personal space;
i don’t want you to break my heart

always out of my galaxy
dulls by opiates and worn down by sand
you have seen my face before
in time you will remember this

but for now your old bones creak and crack
a giant old horse in abandoned wings
i will sing you a song and
let you go.

Whoa look my stuff's up on my college's historical society website!

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 14:42:57 -0500

Whoa look my stuff's up on my college's historical society website!

Saint George McDonald's

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:25:00 -0500

Corbenic had arranged a number of outdoorsy things for them to do including Queen’s Park at the end of her reign and a walk down to the lakeshore (despite the ultimate importance of the day’s events, years later Caspian would only vaguely remember this as Corbenic’s failed attempts at ‘nature shit’). But nature had other things in store, and during the afternoon it started to snow - first in the season, early and old. He had called Caspian - he had woken up Caspian - who, after a quick glance outside had declared he was unwilling to do anything that required him to go outside or put clothes on, but eventually caved in and agreed to go out for coffee. With horror he realized that he cared about Corbenic a lot more than he’d initially thought - maybe, just maybe, this was becoming a ‘serious’ thing. He’d been happy just to have seduced a professor in the first place - albeit Corbenic did not teach any of Caspian’s classes - but now that just wouldn’t cut it. He had grown as a person.

Five minutes after this phone call Corbenic was waiting for him outside the graduate apartments, as he lived close by. Corbenic tapped a foot dressed in a rather pricey leather shoe against the pavement, impatient, maybe, but mostly anxious. He was still caught up in the terrible whirlwind revolution that was Caspian Adrian Fox, and their relationship was approached tentatively from his side. It was too good to not be cautious, and scared him more than he was willing to admit.

Caspian came down soon enough, his hair messy and his eyes still clouded with sleep, which made Corbenic smile - it was half past four. They walked in silence through the snow, down past the grey shadow of Robarts Library and then up to Bloor. Caspian was only wearing a light coat, and was now suffering for it.

“Where do you want to go?” Corbenic asked when they had reached the museum.

“Inside,” Caspian replied bitterly. Ten minutes into the season and he was already done with winter. “And don’t tell me I should have worn a proper coat, you’re not my mother.” The Freudian impacts of that last remark sat with him for the rest of the day.

They jaywalked as if the world was theirs, and entered the St. George McDonald’s. Caspian liked this establishment, it was clean and interesting people went there and the food, of course, was cheap and far too enjoyable. It was a good place to get writing done. He ordered a pile of meat and, already happier, got them a table. Corbenic got a salad.

Quickly Caspian got to work dissecting the various burgers, nuggets, and fillets and reassembling them into a new creation terrible yet wonderful to behold. He was like a doctor using parts of the dead to create a man - a monster - and therein uncovering answers to the mysteries of life, except with fast food. Corbenic couldn’t help but watch in a sort of entertained disgust.

“What?”

“That cost you over fifteen dollars.”

Caspian shrugged. “We’re all going to die eventually.”

“We’re at a McDonald’s.”

“Pithy words from someone who has never experienced the joys of eating four kinds of animal at once.” He took a bite of his sandwich. His heart faltered a little and he went on. “Anyways, you ordered a salad.”

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Corbenic, newly self-conscious about his Chicken Caesar.

“Who comes to the happiest place in Canada and orders a salad?”

A noble question. Caspian had seen the face of God and Corbenic, being the only believer between the two of them, had no place to doubt this. But he would refuse the opportunity to make out until Caspian had brushed his teeth.

adventures-of-the-blackgang: Thousand Islands from a set of...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 23:49:00 -0400

adventures-of-the-blackgang:

Thousand Islands

from a set of Magic Lantern Slides depicting British Army volunteers in Canada in the early 1900’s.

set of two boxes

The Seven Sisters cliffs, Cuckmere Haven, Sussex, England by...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 14:14:00 -0400

The Seven Sisters cliffs, Cuckmere Haven, Sussex, England by (Paul Grand)

It was late March. Caspian Fox was nearly done his MA in Creative Writing, his thesis, a young...

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 20:06:52 -0400

It was late March. Caspian Fox was nearly done his MA in Creative Writing, his thesis, a young adult fantasy novel clocking it at just over 100,000 words. He had never been to partial to the genre but shortly before his proposal was due he’d had a dream in which he’d been visited by three ghosts - a man, a dragon, and a God -who had warned him of his prodigal, self-destructive ways and the emotional dangers of living on with his then-partner. The dragon had also cautioned the pointlessness of studying writing, but had done so in the voice of his estranged father, and so had been dismissed immediately without question. The other warnings, those against drug use and alcohol, were also shortly forgotten, after his particularly messy breakup.

In the future, well after the “Silent Places” trilogy had made Caspian wealthy enough to forget about full-time employment and given his inactive Twitter account followers in the thousands, he would meet a self-proclaimed prophet and eventually rise to the statue of modern - not to be confused with latter - day sainthood. But for now, he was secular and dismissive of superstitious nonsense. Ignoring the foreboding messages of his dream ghosts, he turned these divine visitors into his protagonists for academic acclaim and eventual profit. In his application letters he had avoided mentioning this source of inspiration, fearing it might be too ~new age~ for the stodgy, serious University of Toronto. Instead he went on about the influence of Tolkein’s world building and Lewis’s prose style on his writing - if there was any truth to this, it was that he’d seen Fellowship of the Ring and thought it was good.

Completing an MA was nothing compared to the move to Toronto; nearly a year later he was still wowed, a similar experience to that of the art professor whose lecture he would shortly find himself crashing. He had been born and raised in a small town in Massachusetts, inconsequential enough not to warrant a railway in the late 1930s but somehow important enough to earn its own branch of the University of Massachusetts. One of life’s great mysteries. He had studied English and his then-partner Daniel had majored in psychology; between the two of them they had taken most of the courses their campus had to offer.

He was a different man in Toronto. While at home he had always, despite efforts, come across as grey and boney, in Toronto he looked like a glam rock superstar and, thanks to the wide availability of various mind-altering drugs, frequently felt like one. It wasn’t his style, and probably should never have been anyone’s, but as a writer, an artistic person, he could get away with it. Why not have fun. As it does to most people who haven’t spent their lives there, the city gave him life.

Or so he wrote to his parents; sometimes, like today, instead of inspiring him it led him to waking up under a bench behind Robarts, the library designed to look like a peacock but more closely resembling a poor attempt at a Thanksgiving display made of gray Lego bricks by asylum inmates. Not so much hung over as confused by his own existence - and last night had seen him introduced to acid by a girl whose entire body was painted silver - artists - he stumbled to his feet before the ten am student rush began. He still had what dignity a dirty shirt and cowboy boots allowed him. He was sweating profusely in his binder - chest surgery was another thing he had intended to accomplish this year, but had so far been unable to come up with the required seven thousand and unwilling to submit any further psychological examinations. He was an American, anyways.

He hated every stereotype his classmates associated with him, maybe because they were true, or because he hated these people anyways, surely their opinions were also worthless. He resented being thought of as a foreign kid flown to a big city by his parents, unable to cope with him any longer. A creative genius washed up on substance abuse. An edgy ~trans artist~ whose work was always heavily coded activism (it wasn’t; his writing was about dragons and hardly ran any deeper). Or worst of all a rich white boy with no actual artistic talent. He wasn’t even white, though understood the benefits of passing better than most. He was talented. He was just not passionate. Years of depression and feelings of inadequacy had left him burdened with crippling self-loathing that often manifested at unfortunate times; he hated himself but he hated everyone else more.

In his late thirties where he’d find himself married and raising his wife’s child from a previous, pre-sex change marriage, he would finally realized just what an insufferable pain he had always been, and resolved that that was dreadful and no way to live one’s life, fuck his brain. His wife would laugh at him for realizing something she’s realized herself soon after college, and they’d go out to the movies.

Sidney Smith is the worst building on the Saint George campus, a desolate block where the pseudo-neo-Gothic architectural ideas that fed the rest of the campus had come to die. But to Caspian it was a blessing, an air conditioned blessing where the lights were too bright. Room 1069 had the lights off, and only after he’d taken a seat did he realize that this was for the sake of the slide show students he hadn’t noticed around him were rapidly copying down, as the professor he hadn’t noticed carried on about illumination styles of medieval epics.

“The Fisher King,” yes, the Arthurian cycles, Caspian had seen a documentary about this story on a plane once. He could sleep through this.

Corbenic’s dreams turned to death, to the exhumed corpse of their childhood, stealing relics,...

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:54:58 -0400

Corbenic’s dreams turned to death, to the exhumed corpse of their childhood, stealing relics, Jacob, Balthus, his parents, Tamson, he was the next link in the cycle, he was certain. Pilgrimage had done nothing for his soul; Saint Anne had done nothing for his legs. He was broken beyond repair, he was the Fisher King and had always been. The grail was lost and there was no one coming for him.