As in the King, so in the Kingdom. But how terrible, then, for the Kingdom if the King has lost the will to live...
Somewhere between waking and sleeping on our journey towards the unfathomable deep, there comes a thin moment where we have one foot in the waking world and the other is in that other world where we relinquish conscious control.
Pausing here and straddled between two planets that drive one another like gears, the attentive traveler will notice a narrow door only wide enough to sidle through.
This is the border of sleep, where imagination and reality are braided together, a chasm in the crust of consciousness, venting the hot pumice of imagery into the irresistible magma of narrative.
Welcome to episode 33 of Stories from the Borders of Sleep, a podcast of curious tales from bordersofsleep.com featuring original stories by your host, Seymour Jacklin.
Thank you to everybody who's contacted me one way or another over the past few months to say how much they're enjoying the stories and to ask for more.
We will certainly be getting some more episodes out to you in the coming months, but keep the feedback coming.
That's great.
You can visit bordersofsleep.com for more information.
Artwork is by Robin Trainor, production by Tim Wiles, and the soundtrack for this week's episode is from Legends Missed by Kourosh Dini and the Once and Future Harp by Cheryl Ann Fulton, and those are available from magnitude.com so if you are ready to journey with me, then I shall begin Thrice Buried by Seymour Jacklin Malleus woke up cold in the hour before dawn, cold because the sheets against his skin were slightly damp and an unnamed sense of dread was feeding on him from within.
He didn't move that would only disturb the grey air, but he stared into the gloom, where a grainy light was dispersed through the unshuttered window.
The outline of a hearth yawned in the wall, bearing the black teeth of a fire grate and a tongue of ashes.
There'd probably be a little heat buried in those ashes if he could just stir himself to go and rake them up.
But he didn't.
He kept perfectly still.
He hoped that sleep might steal over him again.
He was a long way from home.
At home he'd be able to hear birds singing up the sun by now, and his own dear Irene would be breathing next to him, and the ash in the hearth would be of sweet pine and not bitter elm.
Malleus first thoughts began to form.
The dawn was bringing no hope.
It would be another day at court, another day of standing idle and shuffling in the shadows of the audience chamber.