48 A TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO THE WORLD OF DREAD by Tiel Aisha Ansari
It’s a desert but there’s a huge river running through it. The water is red and full of skeletal fish.
All the rocks have faces. But only when seen from the corner of your eye. When you look straight at them, they just look like rocks.
The city’s skyline looks like mismatched teeth framed in a diadem of lightning. Mostly it’s hidden by smoke. People here speak truth when they speak at all.
Don’t let anyone ask you to dance.
There’s a man here with stone skin and glass bones. His wife has no skin, but her bones are spring steel. They live in a house woven from shadows of trees they felled before the river turned red.
According to the law of this place, eating while standing is punishable by death. So is eating while sitting. The only safe way to eat is to let no-one see you.
In the market they sell baskets overflowing with nuts and bolts.
These people make what they call music by tapping wood against ceramic. Never ceramic against wood. That’s not music, they say: that’s just noise.
I thought I saw someone walking a giant vinegarroon on a lead, but it turned out to be a wall mural. When I looked again it was gone. This means the street should be safe to walk.
The only way out is through.
