MUSE ARIADNE

Prompt: Explore how things break, branch, become fractals — where does the importance in repitition or breaking away from it lie?

What is a cycle?
>Work, eat, sleep.

Add another.
>Wake up, work, eat, sleep.

Another.
>Wake up, work, eat, toss and turn in bed, sleep.

Change it.
>Wake up, work, eat stomachache, toss and turn in bed, sleep.

Take something away.
>Wake up, work, stomachache, toss and turn in bed, sleep.

Make it specific.
>Wake up Sleep in till noon, work, stomachache, toss and turn in bed.

Make it hurt.
>Sleep in till noon, work lose your job, stomachache, toss and turn in bed.

Why are we doing this again?
>Sleep in till noon, lose your job, stomachache, toss and turn in bed, I don't know. Is this how it's supposed to go?

No, I don't think so.
>Sleep in till noon, lose your job, stomachache, toss and turn in bed, is there any way to fix it?

Let's try. We have to try.
>Sleep in till noon, lose your job look for something new, stomachache, toss and turn in bed.

That's it. Can we do another?
>Sleep in till noon, look for something new, stomachache cook something, toss and turn in bed.

I don't want us to keep living like this. I want us to be happy again. Try adding something you love.
>Sleep in till noon, look for something new, cook something, hug your spouse (when was the last time we did that?), toss and turn in bed.

Do you have anything else in you to give?
>Sleep in till noon, look for something new, cook something, hug your spouse, toss and turn in bed, I don't know if I have anymore change left in me.

That's okay. We did enough.
>We did?

Yeah. We did.

Prompt: Write about stones as keepers of stories and witnesses to history. What silent wisdom do things like stones have, with their enduring presence?

I was gifted a rock tumbler once.

Clunky, loud, a used junk item my grandma got from somewhere and gave to me as a way to make me go away. I used to pick up stones on my walk home from school, equal parts jagged and smooth, most of which were the same beige color as the desert I grew up in.

I tried putting them into the rock tumbler once. Grandma never told me how it worked, so I just threw the rocks in there with no water and turned it on. And I waited, and waited, and waited.

They never changed.

Isn't that poetic?

What wisdom was bestowed upon me that day? Those stones taught me patience, or perhaps my lack thereof. They taught me disappointment. They taught me that sometimes, even when we think we're doing the right thing, it's not the correct thing.

And when I took the stones back out, and looked them over in the palm of my tiny hand, they bestowed upon me the most important wisdom of all.

Some things are fine just the way they are.

Prompt: Think about the absence of something and how the shape it once filled and now leaves affects things. Is it good? Sad? Bittersweet? Write about it.

You remind me of a tarot shop.

What was your favorite incense again? Patchouli? Lavender? Desert Sage? It's been so long since we've been there together. You always smelled like incense though, burning low and steady, pieces of you constantly breaking off for you never knew when to stop. You used to run your fingers through the assortment of crystals though, your metal rings clinking against them as you perused. What was your favorite stone again? Moonstone? Carnelian? Jasper? Some days I forget who you were entirely; I should've bought obsidian all those years ago—grounding, healing, protective. Helps one to clearly see one's flaws and the changes that are necessary—yeah, hindsight 20/20.

What did those cards say again?

Knight of Wands: Adventure, Flight, Non-conformity. I see you in every yellow light I run, tapping the roof of my car for good luck. I hear you singing when Mazzy Star plays from my shuffled songs. I can taste the chais we used to get at our old coffee shop, before it turned into a Starbucks. Did you know I still haven't found a better one in town? You took the shape of an adventurer, a free-spirit, with flowing shawls and high-top shoes. You flew through life without a care, a type of spontaneity I craved so badly when I found you. Shoplifting makeup, skateboarding to work in the rain, scrounging up coins to afford lunch for the day—you were a warning sign.

Seven of Swords: Trickery, Evasion, Betrayal. Do you remember how we used to stay up late, whispering to each other under the covers about the way pain manifests as stones in our stomachs? Do you still feel them in there, taking up more and more space beneath your diaphragm, your lungs, piling higher and higher until you can feel your heart rubbing against them with every beat? I do. Oh, there's plenty of absence when it comes to you—in the passenger seat of my car, in the old t-shirts of yours I still have, in that damn chai latte over ice—and when it comes to these sharp rocks in the pit of my stomach, labelled after the way you betrayed me? Those are here to stay, too.

Five of Cups: Pessimism, Regret, Self-pity. You once filled an emptiness in my heart that I never knew needed to be filled. I've never had many friends—that type of absence could fill tomes—but you were so special, because you went out of your way to want me around. Losing you, especially the way I lost you, hurt worse than anything I've ever felt before, and it makes me so sad. So bitter. Could I have done something different? Some days I regret ever meeting you in the first place. There are pockmarks littering the surface of my heart, scarred and battered and worn, and you continue on. Transient, carefree, you take the shape of a lovely bird—your songs whistling in my ears, your feathers beautiful and unique, and when the seasons change, you're gone.

Is it nice where you are now?