Lyrics
He ventured further into the dusk
A boy with antlers waited quietly,
a spirit made from earth and blood and hair.
Soon he heard his mother calling home,
"Boyclay, Boyclay." But he had slipped away.
"Boyclay the fawn." But he was early gone.
She slapped the red, wet clay onto the wheel with a large, rough hand.
She sighed and said, "They always leave so soon."
He ventured further into the dusk
Dusk was not just a time here but a place
It stretched before him in a waking way
He saw a fox, dead with a bloody pelt
"You don't know everything you see and hear,"
It said and laughed a wretched, wheezing laugh
Another laugh sounded, that of the gleeful Chirren.
He could not see them, but they killed the fox
He ventured further into the dusk
A pasture full of radiant white cows
"Mooncalves," he murmured, letting down his guard
One with root beer on her back offered mugs to him
"I grew from roots," said Boyclay patiently
"To drink them would be swilling down my kin
An animal fell from the sky, hissing and spitting. "Don't worry," said the cow. "Cats always land on their feet." It hit the ground with a sickening crunch. "Sometimes," she continued, "they break their feet."
"I am a tree boy, deer boy, of the herd,"
He said and cast a glance toward the sky
A dog fell with a bloody impact near him
"A thing will grow in that," he warned her now.
"Clean up the blood, lest evil takes the guise."
"The rain'll clean it right up," said the mooncalf. Boyclay nodded.
"I have to go," he said, and made to leave
He melted into the ground halfway, until his legs were firmly planted in the soil. His torso elongated slowly, stiltedly, and his arms grew into more arms grew into many splayed fingers. Suns sprouted from his fingertips, and pierced through the gloom above him. He heard laughter.
"Take care," said the cow.
He ventured further into the dusk
"So this is where the Chirren went," said Boyclay, for there they were, throwing cats and dogs down, where the animals were absorbed into the misty air. "What makes you do that?" Boyclay asked.
A Chile eyed him fiendishly. "We like to see what shapes they make, when they splatter."
"But what adult would tell you to do that? Do you regard your parents' words at all?"
The Chile only smiled "We do whatever we want," he said. His thick eyelashes flew up suddenly. "What that you got there?"
Boyclay craned his head backward to see a gray squirrel shivering on his shoulder.
"Can I have it?" the Chile asked.
"You won't hurt him, will you?"
"'Course not. I just want to look at him." He grabbed the squirrel, and took a long stick out of his back pocket. "From the inside," he added with a malicious smile, and poked its eye out.
Voices vibrated around him, in the great dome of the sky,
"O cessate di piagarmi. O laschiate mi morir."
[sorry if I butchered that...]
"In just a minute," Boyclay said in turn,
"I am more than a splinter in your skin."
"They're talking of us," said the Chile, giggling.
"The squirrel is Dusk. Evrything here is dusk
We're killing it and good riddance I say!"
"You cannot kill the Dusk," the clay boy said,
affronted. "It is your lifebreath. You'll die."
Boyclay felt for the voices with his fingers, strummed them. They were tight. They tried to pull away, but Boyclay held on with all his strength.
He ventured further into the dusk
When he let go, he was over a wide expanse of ocean.
Ellen stood at the dock, looking into translucent, shifting blue. Fires in the sky. Solid fires.
Eventually, she began to notice other things. Coarse wood under her hands, black and spindly. Muted at the edges. The waves, shining light blue in the semi-darkness. The warm lights, glimmering on the shore, and the grass, perforating the sand like so many claws.
A man was near her, and he had a fishing pole in his pale, liquid hands. She could see his bones through them, faded and scratched.
He ten
