Fungal Halo

What is Empty Spaces? By its nature—and like queerness—it’s not the sort of thing that is precisely defined.

There’s a philosophy at its core and the loose community that gathered around it and the stories we all share, all of it with hazy, mutable borders.

It brings the elegant cup to its lips, taking a moment to appreciate the warm, spiced aroma of its favorite tea blend before taking a delicate sip and setting the cup back down with a soft clink on the saucer.

Its companion is still upright, pacing, and fretting.

The King’s new advisor was a treacherous man, this much was obvious to most members of the court. There was a scheming air about him, and there had to be supernatural reasons why the King seemed to hang on his advisor’s every word, surely.

A doll cannot escape its Purpose, can it?

A doll is made to serve its role. Any strange impulses or desires beyond serving its Purpose are superfluous.

For the twelve or thirteen assassin dolls of the long-gone Witch of Hands, that Purpose is pain.

Sure, ICDMs seemed like a great idea at first. Dollistic missiles guided by a poor lonely thing seeking out high population targets to hug? Worked like a charm!

Then the arms race started with anti-dollistic missile systems built to intercept ICDMs with even lonelier dolls.

At first I didn’t understand why they warned me to stay away from the witch who lived just beyond the edge of town.

Her warm smile offered sympathy for my pain, and when she invited me inside, I found her hospitality impossible to refuse.

My colleague and partner—the only one who understands me on any meaningful level—ignores my pleas and my thrashing against these restraints to inject me with the same substance that killed all our test subjects.

She is a monster, and it was me who encouraged her to be so.

Month by month, my ability to function degrades. Something in my knee pops, every step summoning an agonizing grinding noise. One hand twitches violently whenever I do not concentrate on keeping it still. Noise creeps in at the edges of my vision.

I am running out of hope.

A long time ago, when these woods weren’t quite so thick, so uninviting, so hostile to intruders, a witch and her beloved wooden doll lived in a cozy little house.

That doll, so well made, outlasted both the house and the witch.

“It’s kinda romantic, don’t you think?” the mechanic asks, staring at the massive combat unit.

I stand on the shore of a great ocean—one that isn’t an ocean at all—and I start to feel the occasional wave’s surge reach me and tickle my toes. I can still turn around, make any other choice.

I don’t.

I stand in front of a witch house, and I do not belong here.