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A VISION FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF DEATH'S MIRROR
WELCOME TO THE REALM OF THE GODDESS
A Dark Matter Novel-in-Stories
In progress
GREAT WERE THE DAYS OF HUMANKIND!
But every story, dream and grand design was incomplete. And in that incompleteness, we planted the seeds of suffering, sacrifice and conflict.
This was the price we paid for civilization: to bury in a place of excluded sight all that we could not bear to witness.
That place was called the ISIS CHRYSALIS.
The gods of old, and finally, the one God, presided over visible matter. But beyond this dominion, the goddess of Dark Matter governed the unseen and unperceived.
In dread and silence, her realm surrounded us. These are the stories of how she shaped our history in ways we refused to contemplate.
Finally, she entered the visible realm and broke the Chrysalis.
Follow her journey through time: from her first burial at Göbekli Tepe …
Manuscript Status and AI Usage
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Approximate Word Count: 102,015
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Manuscript Status: Draft substantially complete; revision and additional sections in progress.
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AI: No AI was used to write, edit, or revise the original manuscript, which was written in the 2010s. All current and future creative writing and revision of the manuscript will remain entirely human-authored.
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Website illustrations were generated with AI; this is separate from the manuscript.
Above, against the light, the clumsy herd of jostling shaggy heads recedes. My worshippers lower me into their pit. They have pointed my head toward the setting sun. The vines creak. I commit their faces to memory. No longer animals, the males have become men.
As the moon rises, they work with purpose. I am in the West, in the land of the Evening. I am lying on my left side. The females are singing. They have become women. They scatter flowers over my body. White petals flutter down into the gloom from the silver sky rectangle. The shredded clouds undulate in slow motion.
Shuf-shuf shuf-shuf. Pathetic handfuls of dirt muffle their chanting. The settling mist carries the salt in their tears. I am unwilling to take leave of them, but already I am in the dominion of the worms and the rocks.
The earth has layers of smells: two-million-year-old lava; clay, bridge between non-life and life; and Palaeolithic swamp of reed-mat faith.
The soil loosens around my feet. The wall of the primitive grave crumbles into a gabled cave of luminescent darkness. I take one fragile blossom with me, to remember the beasts who loved me to the point of transformation.
Their ruthlessness surprised me. I offered them a choice. They relinquished me, buried me from their sight, so that they might cast away their animal order and create a civilization. The price they paid! I would not have done it. I would have accepted extinction.
Instead, they released me, built this path to the Underworld for me, a path through the earth to its other side. They took on my chains, my bondage, and let me go free, knowing they would see me again only in some secret times. And for that price, I will bless them beyond all others and change their destiny.
The animals come to life and guard my path into a forest of subterranean crystal trees. Spikes grow above and below as I pass, my light ensnared inside them, trapped forever in darkness. Crystals push up, quartz pink. I dilute them with washes of pale milk. I swim miles down from the cave pools, through underground oceans to their source fountains.
The totems trail me in silence.
THE FIRST BURIAL. THE BEGINNING OF RELIGION.
ABENDLAND MORGENLAND
AN EXCERPT FROM
ISIS CHRYSALIS
They buried me with totems to protect me on my journey: an aurochs, a hart, a leopard, a boar, a bear, a wolf and a raven. I stroke the totems' lifeless eyes and bid their stone muscles move to follow me.
The Collection
PROJECTED CONTENTS
SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Stories from the Past
1. Abendland-Morgenland
2. The Ghost at the Feast
3. The Utraquist
4. Teleon Exquisita
5. Explorer
6. Kingsmere Gate
7. Tickling the Dragon’s Tail
Stories from the Present
1. A Treatise on Human Sacrifice
2. Brides of Isis
3. Dream of Flying
4. Dust from Africa
5. The Life of the Soul
6. Reboot
7. What Time is it in Singapore?
Stories from the Future
1. Son of the Lost Kingdom
2. The Oneiromancer
3. Taratantara
4. Fukushima Lullaby
5. Bliss
6. Question Nineteen
7. Isis Chrysalis
Selected Readings
The Path Up the Mountain
A Reading from The Utraquist (14 Sept. 2025)
The Parliament of the Animals
A Reading from Kingsmere Gate (15 Oct. 2025)