This fragment opens a passage into the dream logic of The Gates of Horn and Ivory, at the fragile edge where reality and illusion meet.

The world is surface, a shimmery veil of illusion, woven from gossamer and dreams by the Moirae to give the unbound consciousness a home.

Behind this elusive veil, the fundamental action principles of existence, known only to the gods, continuously transform reality, sometimes unseen, sometimes picking at its back and putting waves through its diaphanous fabric.

Its visible side glistens like a mirror, reflecting any consciousness that is there to see it, its ever changing imagery shifting to harmonize with it, an exquisite mirage, poised to fool the senses.

It looks solid and permanent enough, but it’s not, and if you touch it, it shrivels under your fingers like a mimosa plant, contracting into itself and letting you hold on to thin air.

Reality is made of nothing, just like dreams; it comes from nothing and has to return to it eventually, it just does it so much slower than the latter.

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or listen through STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld, a podcast where narratives become part of a growing audio archive.

And if you would like to wander deeper into fragments and reflections, visit The Margins.

The world is surface. The door is open.

For readers who wish to wander deeper into the labyrinth, the complete French transcript now awaits in The Margins.

“I see you’re in great spirits,” Grandmother laughed, pleased to see her little girl happy. “The rain must have cleared away the shadows.”

Claire returned the reply that was expected of her, as she always did when her elder mentioned the shadows. It was like a secret understanding, this exchange of phrases between the two of them, whose meaning, though obscure, had acquired almost ceremonial significance with the passing of years.

“What shadows, maman? There are no shadows other than the ones we cast.”

“And those we have not yet been granted the grace to see.”

Claire had always wondered what that last phrase meant; they were real things, the shadows, and everybody around this corner of the world took them very seriously.

The latter was tall, and her pallid members stood in stark contrast with her long hair, black as night, which flowed freely and draped around her shoulders like a mantle, and the black chiton, tied around her waist three times with a thin golden girdle.

She wore a tri-faced mask, which wrapped around her head, hiding her identity, and on her temples, the silver horns of the crescent moon: the symbol of Hecate.

Whatever her fate, and whatever petty torments Josepha and Bertha devised for her, she was grateful to have been offered a way out of the hell of despair. She didn’t know what she did to deserve it, but maybe it was not about deserving, maybe it was about not letting go of hope.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Who are you?”

Christine looked around, trying to garner some support from the people standing in line behind her and trying to assess whether everybody was in on the prank. The other people looked at her with the indifferent, somewhat aggravated stare we reserve for strangers who impose on our time or patience.

It was not a joke and the atmosphere in the lobby had started to feel a little tense. An undercurrent of sarcasm tried to find its way out of her mind and offer some commentary, but she decided it was not worth the trouble and snuffed it with a deep cleansing breath.

Here and there an earthy seed head or a golden plume of grass moves gently with the breeze, and birds sift snow from the tree leaves above looking for shelter. There are no scents, just the unmistakable chill that fills the nostrils and makes them stick.

It almost seems like nature tries to make up for the cold by providing the most spectacular sky displays, the colder, the more colorful. Since today was not exceedingly cold, we are going with soft pastels. The really frigid days are the ones that sing bright orange, red and violet sunsets.

The sleeping stillness of the garden imposes a weird reverence, one almost feels like whispering for no reason. Snow keeps falling gently, quieting my thoughts.

The delegation left early in the morning, poised to reach the shores of Magna Graecia at sunrise.

Everywhere else Persephone was just another goddess of the Pantheon, but in Locri, she was the goddess.

Two majestic temples were raised for her worship, and the city had bestowed upon her the additional honor of being the protector of childbirth, thus managing to intrude upon the attributions of both Hera and Artemis, and therefore offend them both.

Persephone tried to suppress a smile, and figured out if any of the lands of Hellas were going to have the gumption to question the gods, they had to be Locri.

The city had been founded by the Achaeans and was protected by Poseidon; its citizens were aristocratic and never backed down from a fight.

Their sophisticated, unbendable laws, and their appreciation for athletics, culture and the arts, were supported by the enviable wealth of their thriving commerce.

The women of Locri were very special to Persephone, who favored them as much as they did her.

They were independent and powerful, undaunted by their men’s ambitions, and they didn’t indulge the whims and demands of the latter.

They were masters and administrators of their own homes and wealth, acting like earthly goddesses in their own right, and so they didn’t aspire to gain the favor of Aphrodite, and her enchanted binds of desire, or Hera, the ideal obedient wife, or either one of the virgin goddesses, who had to forgo marriage in order to enjoy their freedom.

For the women of Locri, marriage was a life transforming event, as transcendent as the passing into a new life. 

Who better to foster their aspirations than the beautiful and adored bride of Hades, goddess of abundance and fertility, ruler of the Elysian Fields and of the Islands of the Blessed?

They felt privileged to be able to bring life into a world where men could only take it, and very aware of the fact those new souls they welcomed to their homes were not new at all: they were all sent by Persephone. It was very important then to curry her favor, she who knew the workings of the Moirae, and who could bring healthy and happy new lives into their homes.

“Don’t let it go to your head, daughter,” her mother curbed her enthusiasm. “I assure you Hera is none too pleased about this, but what are you going to do? The people would choose whom they will.”

The city had prepared extraordinary festivities in her honor, athletic games, theatrical performances, dances, the entire city was filled with the exuberance for life the beginning of summer inspired, an ironic welcome for the goddess of the dead, come to think of it.

“You’re not the goddess of the dead right now,” her mother frowned. “Not while you’re with me, multiplying the fruits of the earth and bringing the blessing of children. If you showed better judgment, you wouldn’t be the goddess of the dead at all,” she couldn’t help herself.

Walking into the splendid celebrations, where she was showered with flowers and seeds and rose petals were thrown at her feet, while new mothers approached her to bless their babies, Persephone knew she would never make the world understand, not even her mother, a goddess in her own right, that there was no separation between the living and the dead, other than the shimmery waters of the Styx, as their souls cycled through the seasons, endlessly, from life to death and back to life again.

And all their lives were made to look brand new, so they’d be eager to live them again, while the Moirae spun their predetermined fates, and charted their paths before they were even born.

If there was a difference at all between the dead and the living, it was in intensity, and not in substance.

The living always feared something: loss, poverty, grief, failing their destinies, and coveted a glut of fleeting vanities which they could never carry to the other side, and when their time came to return to life, the merciful waters of the Lethe made sure they wouldn’t remember that.

She wasn’t the goddess of the dead; she was the goddess of souls, and protector of perennial life on earth, both in her role as harvest bringer and that of under worldly queen.

‘Two thousand new souls!’ she buckled under the weight of such responsibility, wondering how many of the mothers, hers included, had any idea those seagulls that had welcomed their arrival in the harbor weren’t birds at all.

“We praise you, goddess of fertility and patroness of the midwives,” woman after woman came to greet her, bringing amphorae filled with wine and olive oil, loaves of bread and bushels of grain, figs, almonds, grapes and honey, and the most special of all, pomegranates, which had been carefully kept in storage from the year before, especially for this occasion.

The horn of plenty had been spilled at her feet, symbolically, of course, since it was all meant to be consumed in the communal feast set to start in a few hours.

The market by the port was stocked to supply every necessity known to man, from fruit, grains and dried meats and fish, to crockery and metal dishes, all enveloped by the intoxicating scent of exotic spices brought from far away on Achaean ships.

It was bustling with people who looked after their own needs, busy and harried like all the living were, rushing so close to Persephone the latter could barely make her way through the crowd.

“Fix your hair, daughter,” her mother demanded, “wait, no, you’re doing it all wrong! Let me!”

They found a little apse out of the way and Demeter re-braided her daughter’s hair, very pleased with its bounce and shine, and straightened out the crown on her forehead, which was made from the wild flowers of the meadows and brightened up by the fiery red of the poppies.

Her heart leapt with joy just looking at her beautiful daughter, who had kept her girlish figure and countenance even after getting married, and reluctantly condescended Persephone’s life with Hades couldn’t be that bad after all.

She couldn’t imagine what her daughter was doing for half a year, wandering aimlessly through the Asphodel Meadows with absolutely no goals, tasks, or progress.

The memory of asphodels reminded her they were late in visiting the apothecaries, which were Persephone’s favorite part of the trip, one she had been looking forward to since they had arrived.

She could spend hours smelling herbs, checking out jars and testing salves, to the exasperation of her entourage, who would have liked to move on to more satisfying activities.

There was no food involved, other than perhaps the tasting of medicinal honey lozenges, no offerings or praise, just shop talk, for hours and hours, until the mind went numb.

What else could they expect from the queen of the dead? They often wondered whether she counted herself among the living at all, but there was no such thing as dead or alive for the gods, which were, of course, eternal. One had to assume most of them identified with the living, judging by their constant pursuit of ambitions and appetites.

“Well,” her mother interrupted, her face blank after hours of evaluating the quality of dry chamomile and assessing the scent of rosemary bunches. 

“Sad as this is, I’m afraid we have to move on. The feast is fast approaching and we haven’t shown our benevolence and blessed the people’s sacrificial offerings.”

‘She does that on purpose,’ Persephone’s mood soured instantly. ‘We couldn’t end one day without blood, could we? Serves me right to be in a good mood.’

“Not if you don’t want to be replaced by Artemis, dear. She always enjoys a good hunt. And she’s good at delivering babies as well, I hear.”

The commentary was meant to poke at Persephone’s pride, since the heavenly twins, Apollo and Artemis, were so popular on mount Olympus, with their good looks and their resplendent confidence, they sucked all the air out of a room and made everyone else, her, mostly, look dull and invisible. Hades didn’t think she was dull and invisible. Hades thought her smile was brighter than all the fires of Tartarus. She missed Hades.

She looked at the beautiful marble statue which represented her and couldn’t help savor the irony of syncretism.

The sculptor who depicted her had taken representative elements from all the other goddesses of Olympus, and from some foreign ones as well, and gave them to Persephone: Hera’s mantle of great matron of Olympus, Artemis’s horned silver crescent, Hestia’s aura of purity and modesty, Aphrodite’s graceful demeanor and languorous beauty, the nubile youthfulness of Hebe.

Most of all, she recognized herself as Isis, proof that the artist had been a worldly man, who enjoyed his travels to far-away lands.

The statue was holding a sistrum, no doubt a gift from the Minoans, probably a thousand years old, which one had to assume had been stolen from Terpsichore.

As if to respond to her inner banter, Apollo slipped past the horizon, to start his nightly travel in a golden cup on the waters of an underground river, Persephone guessed the Acheron.

A giant full moon popped up in the sky to replace him, snubbing the thin horn on Persephone’s brow with perfectly round fullness.

‘I believe many of those seagulls are going to assume their human form tonight,’ she thought. ‘Between the full moon, the dances and carrying jugs of wine up and down stairs, many of my fruitful worshippers will be relieved of their labor.’

It was considered auspicious to give birth during Persephone’s festival, so she let the music take her over and joined in the dances, leaping and swaying under the full moon with the grace and rhythm of the tides.

There is always something to distract us, something urgent, usually unpleasant, so I’m going to say this really fast, before I lose your attention: last night I heard the roar of the planet spinning on its axis, the deafening breath of an enormous creature.

I know what you’re going to say, that Earth doesn’t make noise when it travels through space, ok, so its electromagnetic radiation translated to sound if that makes you feel better. 

It’s not like my life is going to change tomorrow, I won’t go to bed smarter, stronger or more enlightened, it is unlikely that I’ll solve the world’s problems, or even my own, but I will remember to welcome that strange, loud and raspy breath of Earth into my lungs while I fall asleep. 

Music - Found by Stephen Keech

Where the ghost of reality waits in the wings

You’ll be wary and tired of the trouble it weaves,

And you’ll question its timing, and you’ll fail to believe

But as true as it is that you live and you breathe,

Its ghost will show up in the morning.

You will question the standing of unwritten rules

You’ll abide by the past and you’ll feel like a fool

While your life will get cast in a whole different light

And you won’t be excused from the truth that it brought

And whether you protest, you seethe or you doubt,

Its ghost will show up in the morning.

You’ll get mad at the waste that it made of your time

You’ll find people to blame and you’ll sulk, and you’ll whine

And the light will shine brighter in your tired eyes

Revealing realities you can’t deny

And whether you suffer, you run or you lie,

Its ghost will show up in the morning.

You’ll be shamed by the crudeness that’s thrust on your heart

You’ll be naked and scared, have your soul ripped apart

But the truth will be there, universal and hard

It will outlast your life, and your dreams and your pride

And whether you bargained, you feared or you cried

Its ghost will show up in the morning.

Have you ever watched the moon rise on the ocean 

on a bright summer night 

when all the stars are out 

and by their light alone, you see your shadow? 

When the whole world pretends to sleep,

and the air is thick with waves,

and rhythm, 

and the smell of salt and seaweed?

When the sand is cold beneath your feet,

and the breeze brings a shiver, 

and you startle when you accidentally walk past the water line

into a different substance 

you can’t see 

but which warns you 

you wandered into a no-man's-land between the worlds?

If you did, what did the moon whisper to you, my kindred lunatic?

It’d be awkward if it spoke to me alone.

A story of human evolution, discovery, friendship, and the brave insistence on imagining more than one is allowed. 

Join Cimmy on a journey where avid curiosity slowly melts the limitations of her environment, and witness her small acts of defiance turn into breakthroughs that change the world.

Chapter 1 - The Garden of Despair

Episode 3 - Greed

Episode 4 - The Purple Flowers

Chapter 2 - The Garden of Scorn

Episode 5 - Purple Thistles

Episode 6 - Rat!

Episode 7 - Everyone Deserves a Name

Episode 8 - Beyond Confines

Chapter 3 - The Garden of Angst

Episode 9 - The Drought

Episode 10 - Dig

Episode 11 - Open Waters

Can you hear us, friend?

The thoughts at your temples,

the love in your heart,

the will to remember,

the capacity to overcome,

the things you will make,

the paths you will take,

your life from outside of yourself?

one small thing that matters,

even an echo in a canyon, 

even a faint scent on a breeze,

then we haven’t lived in vain, 

have we?

The world is strident,

painful loudness,

a babel of shrieks and disorienting jangle,

inside which that small thing

may be the only music that endures

long enough to seed the chaos 

with the nostalgia of order

after its source was silenced.