Codex - Melancholy Miscellany

#1

Hey Gauntleteers, it’s time to crowdsource the miscellany for Codex - Melancholy. This miscellany is called “Three Dozen Things Lost, Perhaps Forever.” Submissions need to be a single sentence, or 2-3 short sentences. By submitting here, you’re agreeing to let us use it (you’ll get a credit on the issue). We’re looking for evocative things; the purpose of the miscellany is to inspire the reader.

Here are some examples:

“Historians are divided about whether the late Dr. Zuleyma Stokes ever made it to the surface of Stradus Q118, but the planet’s fierce magnetic storms make a remote examination of its surface all but impossible. A recent expedition to retrieve her body went silent on descent, the crew assumed lost.”

“Faith returned bolder and kinder, brimming with stories she could never tell of timid giants and bronze statues that bent to listen and never never told her she was lying. The next time a blackberry bush bent just so, leaving an opening just large enough for a girl willing to sacrifice her dress for more important things, she wasted no time on goodbyes.”

“The Emperor has promised a fortune in land and jewels to anyone who can rediscover the technique of spinning song into silk, taunted by antique dresses and shawls that turn every rustle and fold into an ever-changing symphony.”

P.S. If you want to be credited as something other than the name on your forum profile, let me know! DMs here or on Slack (@ryanm) are fine for that, but please keep submissions in this thread.

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#2

“There was one unassuming coffee shop in the city, nestled between a used book store and a antique shop, that served scones so buttery and delicious you’d swear they were made by angels. Foolish child that I was, I didn’t learn the name or the address, and I’ve searched the city in vain for it every time I return.”

“A man who said he came from the future told us this turtle was very important as he pressed it into my esteemed predecessor’s hands. The man promised he’d be back for it soon, but who knows what soon means to a time-traveler. Anyway, our society has kept it safe and fed all these years, and it’s shown no unusual properties save the way it sometimes seems to chuckle when it thinks no one can hear it.”

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#3

She woke, cold and wet with awkward sweat, sure in the knowledge that she’d lost her last breath, that it hung in the air, dewey and soft and sundered.

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#4

There’s no great family secret to it, beyond years of experience, but the guy who runs the kebab stall by the station makes the best in town. Neither he nor his business will survive the night.

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#5

The last correspondence home from the doomed Postgate Antarctic Expedition was brought back on the HMS Endurance, but was destroyed in a warehouse fire before it could be delivered.

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#6

Day 3: We’re still managing to hold the barricades, but ammunition and supplies are running out. The army are reforming for another assault. We just wanted to build something better, and we will stand till the last

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#8

The Keeper of Keys’ Book of Kisses - Full green morocco binding containing a set of 6 signatures of pages that opened with a soft sigh. Each page contained notes of the Keeper’s kisses, from first (dry, hot, stolen but welcome) to last documented (soft and even softer, spiced, colored by a sense of finality). The book had been kept behind three locked doors (indigo and round; scarlet and towering; a welcoming cream & knee-high) but now it’s missing, the doors flung open, the locks weeping their softened inner workings in trails down the door frames.

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#9

The last Indigofera shrub has died, another victim of the black fungus. All the royal courts are offering substantial rewards for anyone who can find a new supply of blue dye.

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#10

They had it in evening just before bed, on the bedside cabinet where they always put it. But now it was nowhere in the house. How were they going to sell their fruits without their voice?

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#11

Seen dozens of cities, worn many masks, played tens of roles. Made money, applause, friends and lost them all. Yesterday it stopped. No longer have I a role to play. How can I play me?

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#12

As the coffin lowered to the ground, the light faded from their eyes. No more would their smiles come easily, or stay long. No more would the touch of skin, sound of voice or sight of others bring them joy. The warmth of life had forsaken them.

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#13

Strange ideas filled her head, as they had for some time. Banished from official places where rules were king and evolution spurned. She gazed so far ahead, such emotional journeys she would craft. Never again would she exclaim ‘roll initiative’ .

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#14

After she died, I found a half-full jar in Grandma’s kitchen cabinet simply labeled “Cookie Spice”. Opening it, the unique aroma of her award-winning spice cookies filled the room. I never could figure out exactly what was in it. I finally used the last of that jar for this batch I’m brining to my daughter’s wedding tomorrow.

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#15

Writing fragments from the 15th through the 22nd centuries mention the exquisite beauty of this lost musical instrument. No examples survived the Cataclysm. Archaeologists still seek depictions that are detailed enough to try to reconstruct a “violin.”

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#16

She cradled the elderly creature in her arms, rocking it like an infant. She felt it struggle to draw breath as she stroked its furry head. Finally, it strained to look up at her one last time as tears filled her eyes. Then it relaxed, and breathed no more.“Goodbye, Fluffy,” she sobbed, lamenting that she’d outlived her familiar.

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#17

I’m selling a slightly cursed space time machine, guaranteed to lead you to wondrous places in the most interesting times, but never being able to return to that happy place and time you call home.

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#18

The Velvet Tea Garden was this moody little venue on 6th Ave in Tucson, all exposed brick and vaulted ceilings and pink neon. It just sort of vanished. Lots of folks remember it, and remember going there, but no one remembers just when the building disappeared.

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#19

The interior of the Weeping Bowl would always sweat, like a cold can of soda on a hot humid day. It was last seen in Milton’s Architectural, the kind of warehouse studio that sells 60-foot slabs of polished marble embedded with trilobite fossils and 500-year-old teakwood temple doors that were pilfered from Nepal in the colonial heyday. There was a break-in one night, and one of the thieves was left for dead, and the only thing missing was the Bowl.

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#20

Milo was some sort of black lab mix, and Liza found him on the edge of an abandoned lot in Phoenix not long after she got the hell out of Nogales and her life with Herman. Dirty and matted but friendly and pretty well-fed, Liza took Milo in even though she was living out of her car. Liza finally seemed to be getting her feet under her–apartment, steady work, even a couple friends–when Milo just up and vanished, his collar left inside her locked apartment next to a cactus flower blooming well out of season.

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#21

‘Happy…birth…day…to you,’ the old man gasped through bloody lips as he died.
‘Whaddee say, Ruz?’
‘Some song, never heard. Who cares? Get his rad-pills and his guzzoline and let’s get outta here.’

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