Midnight Gateway

1. The Question

grape skin

yesterday, these two off-yellow bird skeletons lit on my window sill and sang a song to me about some big, fat grapes weighing down a vine. the vine, as it happened, was directly out side of my bedroom, so i went to pick the grapes. i had to climb out the window of my laundry room to get to the area of the yard where the vine was, and while doing so i caught the skin of my arm on a nail. maybe if i had noticed this happen i would still have had my skin on by the time i reached the grape vine. but, as it happened, i was without my skin. all the inside stuff fell out of me and i was just a skeleton there, with two little skeleton birds and an over-laden grape vine. together, the four of us sang our favorite song about tall mountains and quiet skies while making new coverings from the grapes for our chilly skeletons. the birds confessed to me that what they had really intended by luring me out of my room was to get me to make skin for them and sing a song about that. they were sorry that i lost my own skin and fillings in the process and hoped that i wouldn't harbor a grudge against them. i told them that it was perfectly fine with me and that i had been looking for some new skin any way.

the God of the Moths

There is a magnificent ruby jar in my back yard, which i obtained from the prince of indochina. the jar is thousands of feet wide by thousands of feet tall and is home to quite a few cedar chips. these cedar chips are the last remains of the cedar trees from the forest of the moth god, where all moths once resided during the day, unless lost. long ago, the king of indochina, a kind and revered man during his rule, was traveling at night through the cedar forrest of the moths, which happens to be on the westernmost border of indochina. the king had traveled to the neighboring land of canadia earlier that day for their yearly celebration of moths. the king liked to take this journey alone, for the festival was something he had discovered while wandering his western realm in his youth, and it gave him time to reflect upon his formative years. his nearest palace was still twenty miles away and the moon was becoming obscured by an approaching thunderhead. now, the only rule one had to obey while traveling in the forrest of the moth god at night was to travel with out a light. not only does light irratate the moth god and his children, the lack of one shows your self-confidence, a trait much admired by the moth community. however, after the rigorous festivities of the day, the king was exausted and his eyes were tired. he kept stumbling over roots and rocks that were in his path, roots and rocks he new the exact location of, but was too tired to recall in his present frame of mind. he thought to himself, "i have honored the god of the moths for many years now, humbly and respectfully. i desperately need a light source in my weary state, surely the moth god would let me explain my situation and let me pass with lighted lantern if the light is of irritation to him." the king lit his lantern and and travlled on in peace for a few miles. unbeknownst to the king, an evil man had recently been terrorizing the moths at night, walking the forrest with a lantern. when the moth centries would approach the man, he would douse them with lamp oil and set them ablaze. the moth god was very angry, but since moths rarely travel during daylight, he was having a hard time finding the perpatrator. on this particular night, not only the moth centries, but the god of the moths himself was patroling the night sky. when he spotted the king's lantern, he shot down from the sky like a rocket, straight for the king. "INFADEL!" he shouted as he burst through the trees. with probiscus straightened, he impaled the king and whipped him up into the sky above the clouds. now, in the light of the moon, the moth god could see the face of the king, and realized the terrible thing he had done. he took the king to his closest palace and explained what had happened to the general of the royal guard. unfortuantely, men of war are often reactionary and think with their swords instead of their minds, as trained to do in battle. in his anger, the general ordered his men to sieze the moth god in a net, and they dragged him to the edge of the forrest. the moth god watched in horror as the royal army hewed the entire forrest, tree by tree, into a massive pile of cedar chips. the moths who could escape flew bewildered to foriegn lands and never returned to the cedar forrest of indochina. the king of moths was left by the pile of his forrest to lament the tragedy. he cried tears of ruby for the red, scented wood of his forrest and his lost people and his friend the king, whom he had wrongly murdred.
the ruby tears formed around the cedar pieces and made a kind of container to protect the last remaining bit of the forrest. once this had taken place, the god of the moths expired, the last of his soul protecting the last of what he loved so dearly. as the moth god closed his eyes and joined the eternal cosmos, a twisted shape appeared on the horizon. as he drew nearer, his pace quickened until finaly he was skipping and jumping for joy as he approched the remains of the moth god. "finally! i have the ruby tears of the god of the moths! i had planed on facing him myself, after i had destroyed all of his children and he was wallowing in grief. but it appears as if someone else has done all the work for me. and here is this maginficent vessle! this will surely bring me great fortune and i will soon live as a king!" but the young prince of indochina, having overheard the story the god of the moths told the general of the royal guard and being more sure of mind, had been waiting for the evil man to approach, for he was certain the villain had something rotten in mind. he and several of his guards jumped out from behind some boulders and siezed the man and took him to back to the palace. the evil man spent the rest of his days planting a new forrest of cedar trees and pondering his misdeeds.
i happened to be visiting the prince several years ago and had taken him seeds from some of the finest oak trees in my country. he told me the story of his father and the god of the moths and gave me the ruby jar of cedar chips as a gift, for it only saddened him to see it. now it rests in my back yard, a shrine to the moth god, the king of indochina, and the cedar forrest of the moths. some nights, when the moon is full and clouds begin to obscure it, droves of moths descend upon the jar in my back yard, their soft weeping a fugue to their departed god.