Gnaw Root.

As an exo-botanist, it is often useful to have immediate and plentiful access to armaments of the most destructive kind. This point was most thoroughly evident during my last expedition to the northern Deadwood forests of Tamerdan, where I was commissioned by the good and rightful heir to the Belmeis Throne, the good Prince Cameron Kelveth V, to study and catalog the spread of a particularly vicious invasive species of gnaw root.

The root in question, invasive as previously stated, hails from the dream world. As trans-reality objects go, it is a insidiously stubborn cur, in that it is neither an inanimate object nor unable to sustain itself outside of the dream state. Quite to the contrary. It is a living organism and fully capable of sustaining itself and the conditions needed to reproduce. Reproductive dream fragments, of course, being the capital issue of its migration.

Upon reaching the Deadwood, I was prepared to spend restless months in pursuit of just one such specimen but quickly discovered that once removed from the main trade thoroughfare, one could not only find the dream originated genius in plenty, but one must also battle it unmerciful to remain in an upright and undigested state.

After a hasty and undignified retreat, accompanied by my sweeping grasp of profanity, my colleagues and I established a base camp ring in a bitter dental floss fence.

‘Dental floss’, you may be asking, inquisitive and doubtful of this stories validity as you are. Indeed.

It is long understood amongst exo-botanists that gnaw root dislikes dental floss, particularly floss of the mint variety.

After a fitful night's rest, I emerged from my tent with trowel in hand and grim determination in mind. I did not have to look any further than the floss fence to spot my prey, a gnaw root measuring two feet tall, attempting to drag its bulbous digestive sack under the floss fencing but to no avail.

The dream spawn plant was pulling its way along by means of its mouth, which is comprised of what appear to be two lower mandibles of a human male, one above the other. It pulled in its lower jaw and spiked its upper row of teeth into the ground then flexed its inhumanly long neck in order to pull the rest of its body, chiefy a round sack containing its digestive tract, forward along the ground.

Having pulled its mouth, surrounded with a five o'clock shadow above and below, under the floss fencing, and yet unable to pull its stomach under, was left prone to a swift and, without self congratulation, forceful shove blow, which rend the mouth from the stomach bulb.

With the first specimen collected, though in two pieces, research began in earnest and full. The gnaw root mouth was still snapping and gnashing its grey teeth, so proper precautions were taken in the form of thickly layered leather gloves and chain-mail gauntlets fitted up to, but not surpassing, the elbow.

The first incision was performed with a sterile size XXL scalpel along the gum line to separate the lips from the oral aperture. The gums themselves could be described as infectious, pustulent, ebrated, putrefied, and covered in extemporaneous vascularity. Where the gums divided to allow the growth of teeth, thick layers of silver and grey tarter congealed around the base tooth enamel, as if to protect the roots of the tooth from the plethora of mucus carried contagions of the oral cavity.

The scalpel, though new and sharp, proved inadequate for the task of removing the lips of the gnaw root and three such blades were bent in the process. The lips are apparently comprised of dense musculature, used by the plant to constrict around small animal that wander too close. This leads me to believe that the plant hunts in a similar manner to the revered venus flytrap, lying in wait, motionless, and endlessly patient.

However, where the venus flytrap waits for its prey to trigger its jaws through the stimulation of hair like sensors, the gnaw root hunts by olfactory stimulation, as evident by a ring of nostril like openings encircling the malleable and craggy lips. Indeed, even after the mouth, or heretofore listed head, has been removed, the nostril like apertures continue to cycle air via flexion of air sacks adhered to the interior lining of the esophagus.

With the lips removed it is clear to see that the upper and lower jaws of the dreamborn exo-plant are not connected by a common joint, as is found in most mammalian species, but rather by ligaments. Upon further investigation it was found that the jaws are not actuated by musculature, but rather by means of internal pressure through biological hydraulic tubules powered by the contraction of the stomach sack. At first I found this discovery peculiar in its inefficiency until further examinations of the stomach sack revealed that, without any skeletal superstructure to limit constriction, the stomach sack could produce over four hundred pounds of pressure per square inch of surface area. This, through the mechanical advantage of the gnaw root jaw, results in a bite pressure well exceeding that of an Egyptian river crocodile.

The dangers of such a bite were nullified, quite simply, by placing a ball of mint dental floss within the specimens jaws.

All seemed well with the research process until I was alarmed by a sound. Upon looking up from my dissection of the spine covered tongue of the gnaw root, I realized that other gnaw roots had encircled my camp site and taken it upon themselves to bite clean through the fence posts which held up the mint floss barrier.

I can assure you good friends, that having immediate and plentiful access to armaments of the most destructive kind is quite necessary in such instances. I highly recommend the Silverstein company’s rocket powered sledgehammer.

A full report will be delivered in the coming weeks. As to my conclusions, I believe that the gnaw root issue can be resolved with a liberal bombing of the infested area with mint mouthwash and lemon juice. As for the issue of preventing further dream deaths and the subsequent coalescence of dream matter into our plane of existence, I suggest  continuing the Nightmare Resolution Therapy campaign in conjunction with mandatory anesthetization of minors during the process of oral surgery.

As the old adage goes, “If a one bring the fears of a child into the nightmares of a man, the world must bear witness in the light of day”.

In closing, quell your fears and keep the coffee brewed.

Yours truly, Dr. Pointy Tools Mcthumping Esquire. Sargent Major, Private, Chief, Cheif, and DDS.

My Shadow Crawls

The bus stop lights glared down from overhead, like a teacher suspecting a student of cheating but unable to spot the method. I carried my guitar case by its loose and wobbling handle. It squeaked, long and hard against the bus stops chipped tile walls.

Those black and white tiles made the room feel smaller than it was, claustrophobic despite the wide circles people stepped around me. I didn’t blame them their obvious circumnavigations, my skin; a pale grey, wrapped like tinfoil over a thin frame, quaking fear lurching through my veins, and the unscented smell of looming cataclysm sloughing from the dusky rings around my eyes.

I felt it coming. I didn’t have to use my eyes. I didn’t feel the negative gravity of the thing. I simply pushed my dark sunglasses up the ridge of my nose and felt it.

I held still.

Running was laughably futile. If I couldn’t shake it with three trans-Atlantic flights, a bullet train ride under the English Channel and a cross continental bus ride, than flapping my twiggy legs under my body like some half-pantomimed half-cartoon icon of escape would bare not greater result.

The other bus riders passed by, out of the building, and out into the great wide world of normality that waited for them, leaving me motionless and alone.

My shadow crawls. It’s no bigger than I am, perhaps thinner, elongated, certainly deeper, but not bigger. Size is not required to… do whatever my shadow intends.

The crawling itself was noisy bit of stop motion. As my shadow crawled, across frigid tile and dusty ground, it rasped. Not like the chains of a Christmas Choral ghost, or the rusted hinges of a cemetery gate, but rather like an oily railroad spike across the surface of a bone which has been hollowed of its marrow by jagged toothed rats.

I didn’t have to look. I knew it was crawling.

The sound told me, even before the cold. The temperature drop felt much like a stranger’s uninvited hand, sliding a wet ice cube up my calf, around my knee, and along the inseam of my thigh, undefined intentions mated with unknown motives.

I pushed my dark sunglasses up the bridge of my nose again and listened to the sound of my heels clack against the tiles as I left the bus stop, guitar case in hand.

I play the Apollo Theater tonight. Afterwards, I’ll check into a hotel room, put the needle in my vein, and listen to it crawl to the foot of my bed, then I’ll sleep.

Maps

Here are two maps I created in Photoshop for the new book I am writing, City of Men

Reginal 

 Satellite