...took a new name: the Frost Shepherd. It was in trying to understand this act, its causes, and its consequences, that I first thought this second volume might be necessary. Even as it happened, I sensed a moment of diversion, of what an old mentor would have called a potential “rupture” in history.
In the old Hieron, when such a thing was still possible, I studied and practiced as a semiotician of the New Archives. Because the Rhizome stretches as it does, and because we were so removed from the histories which precede us, you may not know what that means. In short: We collected the world so that we might better arrange it. This is how I fell in love with writing and with history.
Towards the end of my studies, in some north campus basement, Semiotician Emeritus Uklan Tel delivered a guest lecture for a select group out of some technical obligation to the department.
“The world unfolds according to systems and rules,” he told us. “History, politics, war, society--they have velocity, they have force, they have momentum. But now and then there is a chance for great change.” Any average evening would be followed by an equally average day, but a rupturous evening might bring a day like one we’ve never seen.
But these moments only carried the potential for transformation, he told us. These moments of historical rupture, he said, offered opportunity for the systems and rules by which we organize ourselves to find a new route. But most of the time? That opportunity was wasted. Things returned to the status quo. The moons past over the edge of the world, the sun arose, and we’d be back to normal.
I had the impression, as he started to speak, that he was trotting out an old lecture, something reliable, that even dead in his voice would impress on our young, eager psyches. But as he spoke, he found a startling rhythm, like an old workhorse building towards a colt’s gait.
It was as if something he’d seen, something recent, maybe, had given flesh to words that had only been bone. I could tell that he thought he wasn’t just correct, but that he right. He told us, then, that we might not know it, but that we lived in a moment of rupture.
And when I stood in that crowd and heard the Frost Shepherd speak, I recognized in my own blood, on my own skin, an echo of Tel’s old confidence in recognizing a moment rupture.
When Tel warned us about the future, he was, of course right--and only now do we know how ironic this warning was, considering his own role in the events of the years that followed that lecture. Which is excuse enough for me to extend his warning to you: In times like these, the rupture is not one night, it is ongoing, and we are all participants in whatever comes next. Pace yourselves. Recognize the way you touch the world. And travel accordingly.
-An Excerpt from the Foreword to The Last Days The We Had: A Narrative Catalogue of Hieron, End Apparent, Pt. 2 by Alonzo Victor Devareaux van der Dawes
This week on Spring in Hieron: The Second Spring Pt. 5
Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker)
Featuring Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) Andi Clare (@captaintrash), Ali Acampora (@ali_west), Art Martinez-Tebbel (@atebbel), Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal), Keith J Carberry (@keithjcarberry) and Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000)
Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal)
Text by Austin Walker (@austin_walker)
Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)
Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)
PARTIZAN 42: The Unbreakable Quarry
PARTIZAN 41: Orbital Decay
PARTIZAN 40: Engine Burn
PARTIZAN 39: Escape Velocity
PARTIZAN 38: The Red Light
PARTIZAN 37: The Gravity of Absence
PARTIZAN 36: The Witch in the Glass Pt. 2
PARTIZAN 35: The Witch in the Glass Pt. 1
PARTIZAN 34: Guests, Invited and Otherwise
PARTIZAN 33: A Single Shot
PARTIZAN 32: GLORY Arrives
PARTIZAN 31: The Grand Premiere
PARTIZAN 30: A Cemetery for Heroes
PARTIZAN 29: Buried Beneath Golden Leaves
Bonus Episode: Sports Are Just Numerology
PARTIZAN 28: Millennium Break: The Storm Over Cruciat
PARTIZAN 27: Millennium Break: She said, "To Win We Must Play!"
PARTIZAN 26: Millennium Break: Breaking Vigil
PARTIZAN 25: Millennium Break: Courage in the Shadow of Opportunity
PARTIZAN 24: Millennium Break: The First and Second Arrests of Clementine Kesh
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