BY THE POPESFOOT

Rasha felt like he was wandering into death’s embrace, the increasingly dank air pressing heavily on his lungs. Faced with uncertain darkness, the stories monks shared about the monastery’s subterranean depths flooded his mind and came to life in his imagination. The monks traded stories and legends like currency at the monastery, and the taboo tales about the monastery’s subterranean corridors were the most valuable. In exchange for a week’s worth of transcribing, one broth

“I do not know your sins against the gods, but surely they wouldn’t condone your destruction amid this torrent,” the older man exhaled through gritted teeth as he strained to help Sufjan out of the obsidian sarcophagus. “You have my thanks,” the younger man said meekly as he struggled to regain possession of himself. As he studied the room from behind the cramped mask he wore, he tried to take everything in and staggered, dizzily, from the overpowering light. “Slow blinks, sl

Joyce Irene Barber was a beautiful, vibrant, funny, and caring woman – and she remained such even as she suffered from faltering health...