Raphael's Diary - Chapter 2
[A chapter from a diary penned in Raphael's steady, imperious scrawl] Last night I dreamt of a river. Waist-deep I waded it. Rusted hooks curled up from the water like the snaggled teeth of something ancient and diseased and submerged. The moon over the water cracked and fire flew out on the stubby wings of gormless insanely chirping chicks. They transformed into wriggling oblongs like sperm, yet by the time they hit the water they were fish with scales of orange and gold. There came a rushing sound, the dark water ablaze as if the fish were matches and the river a snake of oil. Approaching me out of the flames came the tadpole-infested. There was one among them who spoke for the rest. They gestured to the melting hooks, suddenly glanced my way, and in their face I saw they had the best of me. In waking, my courage has firmed. I progress my plans for the tadpoled even now. I am Raphael. I am not easily bested.