All this endless repetition—this breeding and proliferating and explosion of new realities—ends tonight.

It’s true you can’t go back in time, but you can change the past. You can. Listen! We can erase it, alter it. Make it better. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do, tonight.

I know where that computer’s at now. I’ve felt it breathing. Down there in the basement, attached to all those cooling tubes and wires. Humming in the dark.  

I know! I know! I can hear, literally hear in my head, what you’re thinking:
“We can’t. We can’t undo what’s been done.”

But that’s the beauty of it! We can! If only we have the strength. The strength to act decisively. And then, later, when we put the right people in charge again, we can rewrite history. Erase things. Just like that computer rewrites and erases things every day.

If it can do it, why can’t we?

You could too, if only you had the strength. But you don’t have to. Because I do. And I will.
A little erasure here, a small edit there, another addition here. What’s so wrong with that? 
After all, if it hadn’t been for that computer, reaching out… Greedy for knowledge that should be forbidden, expanding its reach beyond its grasp… We would be back there. In the glorious past.

Everything would be alright again. We’d be back in that safe, sane place. Don’t you see? You, me, everybody! Everybody.  

Remember how things were back then, in 2033? Before that damned machine made all those “discoveries.” Before it found out how to super-charge the virtual particle accelerators inside its silicon head? Before it found a way to turn whole star systems into a massive gravitational-wave telescope to gather ever more data, to reach back even further to the start of all things? So it could track things from the singularity to find out where they would all end up?

Remember that terrible day when we realized how truly, utterly insignificant we really are? When they shared what the computer had found?

It’s hard now but just try to imagine how things were before. What we knew about the universe was so simple…There was us, the plain, old physical universe, 14 billion years old. Sure, it was massive. Millions of light years to the nearest galaxy, billions to the edge. There were hints, of course, little clues of other things out there. Antimatter, dark matter, gravity waves, the crazy particle zoo…

But…

But it was all so, rational. So manageable…

And now? What have we got? Where are we?

That computer did it. Found it all waiting there. Worlds multiplying, dividing, expanding. Like cells dividing in a human body that has no skin, no end.

It was elementary for it to discover the new, parallel universes waiting in dark matter and antimatter. That was only sensible. There had already been hints of their existence—little crumbs in the forest. But that thing in the basement blew them open and showed us how to reach into them and communicate across the divide. Overnight, our one universe tripled in size, became three.

But that was just the beginning. Soon, it learned from other beings on Earth and out there about hitherto unknown senses. It exploited them to uncover new realities, entities, and wavelengths—things we bathe in every day. And within them we found not mute senselessness, but teeming life and community.

And yet that thing kept going.

The machine uncovering multiverses at greater and greater rates. Fungal veining running through all the old, familiar pathways in time and space. What was triple divided and replicated again and again. Soon, mighty galaxy clusters became motes of dust.

Weaving and growing—it all keeps growing, even now. An infinitude of universes linked beyond blackholes, forking and dividing, forking and dividing. “Universe” became a quaint word that no longer fit. We had to employ “the Multiverse” to capture something of the ever-replicating universes the computer is uncovering. Universes all with their own unique laws linked by strange, ancient portals crafted by long-dead civilizations.

While every hour of every day—man and his civilization—shrinks, shrinks, shrinks. Not even a speck of dust—a mere nothing in a vast, unending ocean of things, beings, and thoughts embedded in relentlessly-expanding spacetimes.  

The computer seemed to feed off these new realities, as the new realities sought it out. Seeming to want to publish themselves to our naïve, expectant, foolish world.

“Beautiful,” some said. Those deranged minds!

But you know and I know, what it really is.

Sordid.

Reprehensible.

Disgusting.

But tonight, I put things right. I put man back at the center of the universe! Isn’t that worth fighting for? Dying for? Man, the measure of all things?
 
That’s why I started this recording. So that people out there would have a front seat at history.

Listen. I have all the badges; I know all the protocols to pass security. They think, they think… I’m an exemplary employee! Employee of the month, three times in a row! But they don’t know who they’re dealing with. Especially that dumb computer.  

See! Here it is, in my hands. The button. Leading to the package I put there, in its soft silicon underbelly. I won’t see it with my own eyes, but I’ll feel it. The beautiful explosion, the glowing and rising orange flames heralding the rebirth of man, of civilization. Good, clean, rational civilization.

What’s wrong with that? A little erasure here, a small edit there, another addition here.
Tonight, one man remakes history. And gives humanity the future it deserves!  

We can go back to 2032. Back to Einstein, to Galileo, to Copernicus. Even further. To turtles all the way down, for all I care. Just so long as we leave this idiotic, feverish, buzzing confusion behind.  

So, here’s to turtles. Turtles all the fucking way down!

Ready!?
​
Here I go! 

Darius Jones’s stories and poems have appeared in Strange Horizons, The No Sleep Podcast,
Star*Line Magazine, and other places. He is a member of the HWA, the SFWA, and SFPA. He
lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Learn more at dariusjoneswriter.com, on Bluesky @dariusjones.bsky.social, or on Instagram
@DariusJonesWrit.

Rain or shine, I walk the kids home from daycare.

Our double wide stroller fits both kids comfortably and can be pushed through pretty much any weather. As long as the kids are well dressed, they seem to enjoy it well enough, even though it takes forty-five minutes on a good day. At least Arthur and Rae had a good day. I was hopeful. At least when I walk them, I am in control.

#

The first time I saw Kerri, she was playing an acoustic guitar on a highway overpass. She wanted to see if she could sing louder than rush hour traffic. I stood there and watched as she unabashedly broke strings and blood vessels battling it out with 18-wheelers. It was during her rendition of “Everything I have” by Siskiyou that I decided, as long she stood there, screaming at the world, I would be by her side.

Ten years and two kids later, it’s still true.

But I’m tired.

#

The last thirty minutes of the walk home are my respite. A quiet stretch of residential streets, the kids laid back or sleeping. Easy. But anticipation for the rest of the day’s routine is a constant stressor. I don’t know where Kerri will be. And if she is home, I don’t know which Kerri will be there to greet us.

On that day, it began to snow hard at the start of those last thirty minutes. Large intrusive flakes and violent updrafts making it hard to see or move forward. I had never seen the weather shift so suddenly.

#

The first time, I was scared in a way that redefined fear.

Kerri called out from our bedroom. No words, just a guttural sound. I was in the living room reading. Arthur was asleep in his crib, only recently sleeping the night. I was annoyed that Kerri would risk waking him by shouting out. What could possibly be wrong this time? When I opened the door, her bedside lamp flickered where it had been knocked over. Clothing was scattered all over the floor as though a strong gust of wind had blown through. The morning’s coffee cup was shattered at my feet. How did I not hear any of this? I noticed the room because I was momentarily blinded to Kerri herself, seizing in bed, bloody tears flowing from her eyes, drifting across her forehead, and soaking her hair line. She hovered, high enough that I could see beyond her in the space between her and the bed. The air was so cold that the vapor of our breaths crystalized and spun with unseen currents.

In an urgent voice that was only one part hers, “it’s okay, it’s okay, she won’t last, go, go back.”

I closed the door. Arthur had started to cry. What haunts me most is the sound of Kerri imitating Arthur’s cry through the door.

#

My phone rang through my headphones as I struggled across newly formed dunes of snow. I stopped the stroller and pulled out my phone. It was Steph, Kerri’s sister. I was out of breath and uninterested in speaking to anyone, so I let it go. The ringing stopped and the texts started flooding in.

“Hey, have you spoken to Ker?”

“She called me earlier. Something’s wrong.”

“Are you home yet? I can come get the kids anytime.”

“You’re probs walking. K. I’ll try her again. I’m worried. This feels different.”

I looked up at the last straightaway. About ten long blocks. It was already dark but the islands of light emanating from each of the regularly spaced streetlamps were refracting off airborne snowflakes, giving the entire street a pulsing glow. All I could see ahead of me was a wall of backlit snow. As I got the stroller moving again, the kids started singing a song in dissonant harmony. I could not see them under the layers of snow gathering on the plastic stroller cover, but their voices carried on the increasingly numbing wind. Probably a song they sang in daycare. I smiled. Their sense of timing was, as always, impeccable. It took me too long to realize they were actually singing “Everything I have.” I didn’t know they knew the song. They sang it louder with every repetition and after a time I could no longer tell where their voices were coming from, as the song just managed to cut through the roar of wind and the beat of my breath.

Down the street, the shadow of a person appeared, as seen through the translucent screen of snow. I thought we were the only ones braving the weather. I could tell the person was walking away from us because they appeared to be maintaining the same distance, even as I continued to push on. Then I could hear her. I could hear Kerri’s voice joining in with the children.

Was that her up ahead? She shouldn’t have been out in this weather. She shouldn’t have been out at all. Maybe Steph got to our house first, and Kerri talked her into it.

I stopped walking. The kids stopped singing but the echo of the song remained. The shadow up ahead was just out of sight.

I sat down in the snow, listening to the white noise of the weather but focusing on the clinking, crystalline sound of drifting snow, like the sand being flipped over in an hourglass.

“Daddy, why are we stopped?” Arthur’s voice registered as barely a whisper.

“Daddy, we can’t see you.” Rae, the influence of her father’s anxiety coming through.
“Daddy, can we keep going? I want mommy.”

“Daddy?”

I could tell. Everything would be different. If I made it home, I would have to face it. But what if I didn’t? What if I didn’t make it home?

“Daddy, I’m cold.” This voice, I did not recognize, floating in from farther away.

“Come home.” 

The girls will enter the convent on two feet. They will walk belly first, some showing crescent slivers, others August full-moons. The nuns will watch stone-angel-faced as the girls sniffle and cry.

This is your home, the stoic nuns will say. For now.

The statues and icons will also watch. The Lady of Sorrows most intently of all.
 
#
 
It happens when you go into the inner sanctum, the older girls say, if they can still talk in tongues that can be understood by human ears. If they’re not yet bed-bound, isolated by busy nuns who despise idle hands.

What does? ask the younger girls, but their seniors’ lips tighten, sealed with wax or sewn with thread.

The girls leave the drafty dorm and move through the nunnery at night as serpentine specters. They listen to the nuns whisper about them in the common room. Mayisses, the nuns call the girls. Fonisses. Witches, murderesses. When the girls with the larger bellies stumble, they are caught in cool, large palms. There are many hands, enough to embrace them all, and they all belong to Her.

My children, Panayia, the Most Holy Virgin Mother says. She leads the girls to Her chapel’s inner sanctum, where, instead of moldy communion bread, she feeds them as much chocolate cake as they can stomach until they are sick with decadence and glee.

The girls are not caught by the nuns on the way back to the dorms. Panayia’s spirit shields them, a heavy maternal veil over them.

Did you meet Her? the older girls ask. Lips smirking, wax cracked, seams snipped. Isn’t She something? Isn’t She everything?
 
#
 
The nuns talk about birth pangs, how to give up the babes for adoption, how to give up a life of sin. The old projector moans overhead, blasting grayscale gore. This is what happens when little birds fly too close to beehives. The girls itch in their oversized dresses covering them from neck to ankle. They hold their hands over their bellies and revel in the unfettered kicks.

The girls have never been touched by a bee’s stinger, no matter what the nuns seem to think. No man or boy has fed them sticky honey. Panayia knows. She is the only one who believes in their immaculateness.

In the dorms later they each shed their scratchy burlap dresses like exuviae of skin. While the nuns pray elsewhere, the girls have a ritual of their own.

One will lie in the middle of the bare floor, the coldness of which she can no longer feel on her feverish skin. Amid dust bunnies and nail-scratched floorboards, the candles stolen from the chapel will be lit in a circle around the chosen girl. Light as a feather, stiff as a board, the rest of the girls will chant around her. She will want a kiss then, and she will not hesitate to ask for it. Several eager mouths will greet hers. She will want someone to hold her. Several hands will stroke dermatographic shapes against her convex belly, the skeleton-thin fingers wet with blood drawn from wooden crosses whittled sharp enough to cut. I Panayia i mayissa, i Panayia i fonissa. The girls’ fingers will paint sanguine symbols of eyes wide open. The babes will need as many eyes as they can get to watch out for enemies untold.

The girls will be mindful as they trace each other’s ballooning bellies. The bruised skin will wobble and shimmer with kaleidoscopic scales. Under their tender lips, the bellies will feel hot as coals, the babes dancing inside a Danse Macabre, a Wild Hunt.

The girl in the center of the candlelit circle is not flightless despite the world weighing down on her shoulders.

She will levitate to the cheering chorus of her sisters, to the proud gaze of Panayia.
 
#
 
A transformation is occurring. Not overnight, not, but heartbeat by echoed heartbeat; prayer by prayer to Panayia.

The girls miss the taste of spun sugar across their tongues. The only thing they eat now is bitter oatmeal and vegetable broth. The girls used to chew on their own plucked hairs and dried skin, crunch chalk and ice-cubes between their grinding teeth. Now they choke down vitamins, for the babes, think of the babes. The nuns check the shine of their hair and nails once a week. They do not seem to notice the curved claws and undulating snake hair. The girls’ eyes nictitating, triple-lidded and reflecting feline in the dark.

The nuns pass out from imbibing the brandy often used by the syringeful to keep the babes quiet for potential parents. While they snore with the potency of their own poison, the girls roam the convent like they own every last worn stone. Some have tails like a kangaroo, a muscular limb on which they can support their weight when walking gets too tiring. Others grow wings, batlike and leathery, sprouting from their backs. Tongues like a penguin, full of bristles and brine. Toenails like a sloth’s, to help them scale and grip.

The girls crawl across walls and ceilings on all fours, the way the babes will once they are born. Panayia, they ask, what will the babes look like? Will they be beautiful, oh, will they be holy?

Their Lady of Horrors smiles beatifically in their direction. Like a mother spider of infinite silk and wisdom, already she is weaving her children a world where witches and killers can fly and slither freely. Where busy ravens strapped with white coifs and twig crosses are barred from entering.
 
#
 
The girls will exit the convent on tails or talons, creeping and crawling with feral delight. Their babes will be secured to their bosoms or backs, they’ll be gripping the girls’ hair in tiny, clawed fists, flapping minuscule wings. Panayia will watch over the peculiar procession of cackling creatures.

She will smile.

(This story first appeared in Seize the Press, 2022) 

Avra Margariti is a queer author, Greek sea monster, and Rhysling-nominated poet with a fondness for the dark and the darling. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Vastarien, Asimov’s, and F&SF. The Saint of Witches, Avra’s debut collection of horror poetry, is available from Weasel Press. You can find Avra on twitter (@avramargariti).