“No kinder season have you brought me, than this one before your expiration,” Luna said to Sol, “for your arms now stretch, at the billiard hour.”
“And yet I curse the fates, my dear moon. For it's only now that my core's hydrogen has been made vacant, and I stare death in the face, that I can finally embrace, your sweet silver skin.”
“Perish your bitter rumination, my dear star—for we are to become as one. Dust to dust, and gas to gas, forevermore in the vast expanse.”
Sol smiled.
Luna Smiled.
Billions of living things on Earth screamed in terror.
— Bastian Espada
“I aimed for the moon, ended up hitting the stars.”
“…”
“Then the stars got angry, ‘tarted looking for me, give me the ol’ one-two. So I had to hide, ya know? Found this place.”
She blinked, twice.
“Look, I’m sorry for secretly moving into your attic and living here for the past couple of years. Let’s start over, alright? The name's John. Glad to meet ya.”
— Bastian Espada
“I do think fear is a seasonal thing,” the woman said.
“How so?”
“You see, when Halloween rolls around everyone is oh-so-scared of clowns.” She lit a cigarette and uncrossed her legs. “Yet once October is over, they vote them into office.”
— Bastian Espada
“What an absurd creature!” the disciple, a pebble, exclaimed.
“Indeed,” said the sensei— a pointy rock. “It spends its entire life fighting two fights: one to overcome entropy, and another one to convince itself that this is possible.”
— Bastian Espada
In the corner of an icy—tenebrous—prison cell, there’s a brightened nook.
Within, a fuzzy inquisitive critter enjoys the company of a tiny book.
“Squeak, squeak, squeak!”
It really seems to be having a grand old time.
— Bastian Espada
“Philosophy is lowkey useless.”
“Well I think that's a fascinating epistemological proposition, tell me more.”
— Bastian Espada
Mama bear and her cub have been paddling for three days straight. Last year she swam three times that distance before she found solid ice.
The cub’s forelimbs seize. It growls, gargles and sinks.
Mama bear glances behind her, then keeps paddling.
— Bastian Espada
“So you wish for more dead children? More destruction? Endless misery? There is such a thing as sacrifices that must be made.”
“What I wish, my dear, is that humans weren’t so.”
— Bastian Espada
“And what’s the point of the world without me in it? When I die, feel free to burn the whole thing down.”
— Bastian Espada
“And here before you, is the brightest lamp in the world,” the guide murmured.
“Truly fascinating, why are we whispering though?” a man asked.
“The mightiest moth has good hearing.”
— Bastian Espada