Their Days Are Numbered is a new year-long project authored by the collective Entropy community. It is a collaborative online novel written by the Entropy community on a weekly basis. A different author will write the next “chapter” each week, to be posted every Tuesday, following the previous post from the previous week, and following a very limited set of guidelines (that each author has one week to write the next piece after the previous week’s installment goes up, that installments should range between 150-1500 words, and that pieces should somehow incorporate a real-life occurrence, current event, news item, or other happening from that week).
Follow the entire “novel” here: Their Days Are Numbered.
The first installment is presented this week by Laura Vena.
I.
It’s the way your feet hit the path, east, along the fork of the river or west along the woodland that determines how deep your melancholy. In that place, there are dried nettles, forget-me-nots. Stunned birds, sweltering days. There are carcasses of willows ripped out by the roots, small, stranded frogs, woody, herbal bushes too dense to climb into for cover. A habitat ill-suited to people or wildlife.
An incoherent city, littered with dust fields and barren lots. Tumbleweeds. Still, maybe gouge at the mass of dirt and debris, excavate a nest hole, a dwelling, and crawl into its abdomen. Maybe pursue the smell of meat, the drumming up above the trees. Maybe rest. There, afternoon glows along mountain ridges, smudged like smoke. The air is peppermint and grey, paralyzed. Anger, appetite, and blood are crushed down deep in chest caves, hidden behind tight lips. Glittering gestures. Every body gulps back its corpse. A violet ballooning of wings approaches; the air is stirred.
