We Will Reach Out; You Will Be Touched

Missive The First

July 18, 2025

Well, The Ostiary, our somewhat complicit host, has set this up.
For reasons I don't fully fathom, you people have signed up to receive it.

The Ostiary tells me this is a ‘newsletter.’ I insist that is a classic case of lector caveat. You may choose which to believe, if you think your choice matters.

The grey-on-blue-grey tones felt too cheery and one of our caged artists created something some little dalliance I found fetching enough to share, so I spent some precious time wrangling your technologies to update the site’s appearance.

I probably should say “I hope you like it”.

It would be nice if I said something like that, wouldn’t it?

Consider it said, if it makes you feel better. We all deserve to feel better than we do, I suppose.

I also constructed the means by which you can be presented with a random excerpt from the archives that I’ve found the will to post. The link is at the top of the page, and is called “Let The Waters Take You”.

They will, of course, whether you let them or not.

Latest Fragments, Found:

Of course, you have probably already read these most recent additions, but have you delved into the very back cabinets? Have you visited Faith, Chastity or poor doomed Hope?

Perhaps you have. Perhaps you have not.

If you have not, then your ignorance is now a choice. And choices, as you well know, have consequences.

Bramwell Insisted

(He typed this, insisting on its inclusion. I did not edit it. —The Archivist)

You read these fragments as curiosities. I wrote things like this once, too. Pretty things. Stiff collars and perfect sentences. No one liked them. I tried again. I wrote what I truly saw, and they burned it. My sisters pretended not to know me after that.

I am not ashamed. They should have been ashamed.

I read their words.

I know truth when I write it.

They wrote lies.

I’ve been forgotten, a mere adjunct to sisters better known than I. A footnote, at best.

Regarded as a dabbler by empty-headed fools.

The moors were never empty. The walls never silent. We are born with things clinging to us; most of you just pretend they aren’t there.

Or are oblivious in your ignorance.

Pretend all you like. Ignore what you refused to understand. It doesn’t matter.

I will be a footnote no longer.

-B

Your ‘scientists’ have apparently had a thought.

They imagine, based on externally visible evidence, that cephalopods might dream.

These learned folks, so full of book wisdom and observations; I wonder: Have they ever thought of simply asking?

Until next time, I remain, however reluctantly,

—The Archivist.