dead pages - Archibald Grey

2026/08/29 fire

I see fire. Not the flicking
tongues of yellow flamexy flutter-
ing gently, licking up at the
dark night sky, I see pure heat,
white hot and terrifying, burn-
ing up and drying out, everyth-
ing. Fierce and terrifying, merci-
less and without pity or remorse.
I close my eyes and it fills the
cosmic blackness that consumes
my sleep. I do not sleep much
anymore. I try never to close my
eyes; I avoid dark rooms; encl-
osed spaces; for fear that the
lights might go out. If my eyes are
full of the light of day, I will
never have to see…

2026/08/29 cosmic

Cosmic is a word I have used in the
It is not a word I like to use; A
it seems grandiose, somehow, preten-
tious, I suppose— and I do not
like to think of myself as a preten-
tious person.

Life is cosmic, and so is death,
these two substances which are noth-
ing, and which are yet the essence
of everything we are.

I won’t ask, What are we? For obv-
ious reasons, I think (see previous
note on pretentiousness).

We are filled with these two substa-
nees, life, death; the former yet
latent and the latter manifest, for
now.

I won’t answer your question: what
are these *substances* which have no
physical form? How can a *thing* have
existence, without boundary or qua-
ntityg? How can…

But I tire of this; leave me now,
please. It is late and I would sleep.

2026/08/29 4am

It began around 4am, the end
of the world, I mean. It was that kind of
an end of the world; no sense of timing
and most inconsiderate. It could have wa-
ited, if it’d had any sense of decorum,
any sense of decency. But no. Always
on its own schedule, always to it8s
own drum, as my mother would have
cliché.

A frisghtful noise it madé, too.
All slamming and burning, hissing and crack-
ling, howling and yowling. Even before the aw-
ful ruckus began, it’d spent the best part
of the previous day warming up. Shaking and sh-
udderigg and carrying on. I’ve never seen aught
like it.

Sometime around dawn, or noontime, I can’t
remeber, the sky went purple; that ewful
gaudy shade of purple that worthless nobles
like to wear when they8re putting on airs and

pretending to be better than the rest of us.
Deep and rich and expensive looking. Who’s
ever heard of an expensive sky, a royal sky,
a holier-than-thou sky?

2026/08/29

Yesterday evening, I rose from bed
to find that the sun had not set.
It has been so long now since I
last saw that great burning eye
that I though, perhaps, that the
apocalypse was upon us at last.

At last... at last...? I had not
realised that I had grown so tired,
so lonely, so resignedly ready for
the end to come.

If you were to ask me how long it has
been, I truthfully could not tell
you. A thousand years? Or half that,
maybe, or ten times so long. I no 
longer have any way to know. The
moon is a faithful companion, but 
a poor timepiece.

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