An Imaginary Repository of Short Stories and Foolishness [Original Fiction, mostly]

Many years ago, when the earth was young and the people of the world had only just begun to peek beyond the dark continent, there lived a curious man in the village of Jordan along the river Malqut. He was called Jonah, and he was the embalmer of the village.

Jonah spent his days in the small fishing village preparing the recently deceased for burials with his scented oils and embalming lotions, which he made from the nuts and plants he gathered in the jungles to the south. As the years passed, he became fascinated with life and death. He began to wonder why men died, even if not from sickness or wounds, and further wondered why men lived, if only to die one day.

So fascinated was he, that he devoted his days—betwixt his normal duties, of course—to discovering the answer to this question none ever seemed to ask. But in Jonah’s time, men did not write as they do now; no, they kept their history through the recitation of song and poem. What was the curious man to do but beseech the elders for any knowledge they had?

However, no elder in Jordan had the answer he sought, nor even an inkling of where he might find that answer. Jonah was not deterred by this and set off to the other villages in the small land of Isajim. There he traveled the countryside for many years and found that all elders in the land were the same as those in Jordan, not a single one knowing the secrets behind life and death.

Crestfallen, Jonah gathered his meager belongings and prepared for the long trip home, bereft of coin and the knowledge he coveted. As he made his way from the last village he was approached by an old beggar wrapped in bandages. Jonah was afraid, for the man appeared to be a leper, but the man shushed him and began to speak.

The old man spoke of a place called the hall of life, where Jonah might yet find why men live and die. Jonah, ecstatic, begged the man to tell him where this hall could be found, and the old man laughed. And then he spoke, mirth in his voice. He spoke of a place deep in the jungles of the dark continent, a place unspoiled by time and man and nature. But, he warned Jonah, it was not a place men could reach easily, and that death would likely come for him if he tried. Jonah, however, remained steadfast in his desires and, thanking the old man, began his journey to the dark continent where man was birthed.

Unlike his journey across Isajim, Jonah found the trek through the dark continent to be an ordeal beyond any he had ever known. Bulls with legs like tree trunks and bodies like stone hounded him for weeks on end; tigers with burning fangs leapt at him from trees and drove him over falls; and the men of the dark continent watched him from behind bushes and in the treetops, and they frightened Jonah with their strange language. It was in this unfamiliar land that Jonah traveled for two more years.

But Jonah survived his odyssey and held fast in his search, looking for that fabled hall the old man told him about so long ago. He slew the bulls; and outwitted the tigers; and learned the language of the people of the dark continent.

And at long last, he found his promised land.

The hall of life stood before him in its resplendence, a great white gate. Jonah stood at the doorway to his answers, and for the first time in his journey he felt hesitance. But Jonah was not to be dissuaded by his own fears.

So he stepped through the gateway into the hall of life. The gate was nowhere to be found after he passed through, and Jonah found himself in a rolling field of emerald grass. Not far from him, he saw a tree whose branches reached far and tall and were covered in green leaves. From the tree hung fruit in numbers Jonah found to be beyond counting, with skin as white as driven snow.

He was astonished at its beauty, the likes of which he had never seen, and so did not notice the man tending to the tree at first. But he soon saw the man and called out to him, for he was confused. Jonah asked the man why he was here, and what he was doing with the tree.

The man walked to Jonah and told him that he was here because it was his job to be here, plucking fruit from the tree. But Jonah only became more confused and asked him why he was tasked with plucking fruit from a tree in the hall of life. To that the man smiled at Jonah, and showed him a fruit he had picked. Jonah was shocked once more, for the fruit was now a dove of purest white.

The dark-skinned man then said to him that this was the fruit of the tree of souls, and that it was to be taken to a newborn babe this afternoon. He told Jonah that his job was to take fruit from the tree when they had become ripe, and set them upon the vessel that they would use.

Jonah only felt excitement, and joyfully asked the man if he knew why men lived and died. The man shook his head and told Jonah that he only knew his duty was to send new souls into the world. But, he said to Jonah, he might find the answer if he went further into the hall of souls. Jonah thanked him and set out past the tree of souls, far into the fields within the hall.

It was not long before he came across a building made from ebony stone. Jonah was confident that this was where he would receive his answer, and stepped into the structure.

Within, he found that he was in a great theater, surrounded by the light of uncountable candles. They gently glowed and flickered and sputtered and he was awed once more. His revelry was cut short by the prodding of a staff, and Jonah turned to meet the eyes of an elderly woman, this one fairer skinned. She asked him why he was here, and he told her that he was seeking the secrets to life and death.


The old woman sighed the heavy sigh only the elderly could manage, and told Jonah that he was in the house of the body, where the ephemeral bodies of men would burn for their whole lives. It was her duty, she said, to keep watch over the candles, and the blow out those who were ready to be unbound from their ailing body.

Before Jonah could speak, she told him that she did not know the reasons why men lived and died anymore than the man tending the tree of souls did, for she only knew her duty and nothing more. She did know that there was one more she may take his question to, and that the only of them left may know that answer.

And with the grumbling of the old lady, Jonah left the house of the body behind and continued on his way. Across yet more grassy hills he traveled, and it was only after the house of the body was long out of sight that he found the last of those who lived in the hall of life.

The man was beautiful beyond description, and radiated a kindness that Jonah did not know a man could give to another. He turned from his duty, tending to a flock of doves, colored in white and grey and black and all shades between the three. Then, smiling an impossibly beautiful smile, he asked Jonah why he had come to him.

So Jonah told him. He told the radiant man of his desire to know why men lived and died.

And the man’s smile grew somber. Then, turning away from Jonah, he spoke with a voice of bubbling streams: “Is it not the duty of man to discover that themselves?”

Jonah was not convinced, and, this time more impatiently, asked him again. Surely he knew?


The man’s smile came to be pained. He spoke again, regret coloring his voice. “If that is your wish, then I will grant it. Do not begrudge me this, dear soul.”

And so he told Jonah the answer to the question that had burned at Jonah’s mind for years.

Soon thereafter, Jonah perished from despair.
Black Blood

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Primarily written from a random urge of wanting to write, really.