Page 85 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

to the wonders of my opponent, and perhaps even the wider
game now afoot.
With the dream concluded, I was immediately sad for the
hope I had gained. But this was only a rote response, loath
though I am to admit such occurrences. My entire life had
been filled with moments of possibility, scattered between art
pieces and dreams, affording me the wherewithal to continue
my work, but only enough to persevere. Hope had become
a predictable, even necessary staple to my life, at least as
much as eating and drinking. But like food and drink, hope
is consumed in short order, to fuel the mind if not the body.
And so, the sight of hope was merely the expectation of its
passing, a recognition of futility.
But if what I dreamed was true, and I was reasonably
sure I was, I’d glimpsed a sleeping sliver of the Great
Darkness—Black Molly’s share in it, at least. Here was
something precious and singular—a preserved fragment of
a banished history. I saw what the world had become, and
could perhaps become again. I witnessed the overthrow of
the Dead Queen, her corpulent dullness scattered like ashes
across a world of resurrected dreams. Was this the purpose
of the vision—to advertise a possible reward for a game well
played? Or was it only a parenthetical slideshow of the next
name on my kill list?
Whatever the case, the dream had appreciably lightened
my desire to eliminate the subterranean cannibal, for she was
pure monster—forged from primal forces, mistress to dark
hordes, and hunter of fiends. Alternatively, I was anxious to
meet her monstrous legions and stand before her bleeding
smile, which could easily pass for one of my sisters’. I
would have liked to believe that I had some choice in the
matter, but in truth, I had none. I was in love with the drift of
inscrutable purpose and the power of endless possibility. As
an artist, to see your work actually affect the world was too
wondrous a reward to pass up.

88 | Mark Anzalone