A Good Host

Exclusive Sneak Peek of a New Short Story ~ Feedback Welcome

This is not my typical monthly letter. This is a bonus! *sparkle sparkle* Teasing you with a story and offering you a summer playlist (below!)

I’m one week into my trip to France. I’ve danced until sunrise multiple nights. I may have had THE Parisian Romantic (trademark pending) date!

I’ve also finished two short stories! One was from scratch for a new erotica magazine called Eros Study. The theme for the magazine is holes. Needless to say, I am greatly enthused. *perverted smirk* Stay tuned, darlings.

The second is the one I’ve been working on for a while, and it has sat unfinished and frankly neglected in the dark matter of my “short story” folder for too long, but no more! The first draft is finished. I’ll be honest. I’m a bit nervous about this one. It’s definitely not smut. It’s horror, but it’s also not.

It’s the first time I’ve directly put elements of Enochian magick (largely unexplained, I might add) into my stories. Enochian magick is one pathway of consciousness evolution. Simply put, it’s a practice of contacting a specific sect of elemental angels/beings/energies to aid you along a path to “enlightenment.” I came into this system when I was gifted an Enochian tarot deck several years ago by a black elder in my neighborhood. You can read more about my Enochian Tarot cards here.

If you know me, you know that communication is key to my storytelling. My prose is ensnared in my devotion to an ornate density of dancing sound, complex world-building, and my overuse(?) of weird-ass metaphors. Because that is my baseline, I work hard to make all that oddity accessible. I’m not interested in being only for a small, obscure amount of people who “get it.” If someone walks into my story, I want them to leave because the world they see, hear, taste, and smell is not for them, not because they don’t understand. The worlds will be strange, so their delivery must be clear…but I must also remain true to myself and my swamp-born language of rot and effervescence. It’s a balance, as is everything.

I’ve decided to share this draft with my paid subscribers only because these people have actively said, “Yes, Malachi, we support you.” Of course, most of you do as well, but I also seduce many near strangers into my sticky den of blooming tendrils (hi, new friends), so I wanted to ask for feedback from the enthusiastically committed. Your feedback means everything to me. Don’t hold back. The editing phase is where I come alive!

If you say, “Hey now, I want to read your weird story and give feedback!” You can either become a paid subscriber (only 5 dollars! Whoa, nelly, that’s a right cracker ding-dang reasonable offer by Jove!) or message me directly, and I’ll send you this story. However, you’ll miss out on upcoming paid subscriber benefits such as customized Tarot readings, audio stories, extended 1:1 Tarot sessions, photo drops, and more! Thank you for your support! I am a freelance artist with no familial wealth, so every dollar supports me and my family.

First, a Gift for You, my Children of the Sun

I’ve updated my summer playlist to embody all the complexity of emotions radiating off of you like heat waves on the city pavement.

Look at you undulate—you’re gorgeous babe.

This playlist moves in waves of lightning and the long-slow thunder of summer. It’s drenched and burning, with boiling sorrow and radiant shamelessness.

Summer is giving Afrobeats into international/interdimensional techno into hyper pop and 90’s club sugar rushes into Y2K alt dreamscapes into romantic reggae into 70s funkadelic sunshine into dripping femme rap into the ocean herself, and more darlings, and more.

The playlist ends clinging to September warmth as our axis shies away from the sun.

As always, it’s meant to be listened to in order at least once.

If you think someone else should read my story below and have access to my paid subscription offers, you can send them a gift subscription!

The Story

Synopsis: Interdimensional beings take the form of a deceased girl to bring hope to the world. The results are horrifying.

A swift, looping gif that is zoomed into a dead ant that has a quickly growing, tendril-like fungus growing from its exoskeleton.

Content warnings for child illness and death, neglect, and harm done to a child that also isn’t actually a human child…, brief remarks of fatphobia, colorism, and racism, toxic interracial relationship dynamics, implied eating disorder, body horror

A Good Host

By Malachi Lily

“Welcome back to America’s Good Morning! Are we having a goooood morning America?”

The audience hollers. The audience thunders.  

“It’s Miracle Monday, everyone, where we honor everyday miracles, but today, we have someone truly special.

“We’re sitting here with little Maria and her parents, Claire and Dominick. And if you can believe it, folks, little Maria has returned from the dead!”

The audience inhales sharp together. 

The mother-Claire defined this man as host. A long, greased man, shiny with charisma from concentrate like the juice the mother and father feed the body daily. His pale orange, almost blonde hair sweeps back into an accent on top of his head. He has just a hint of what the mother-Claire calls a “tasteful spray tan.” He works hard to be more than human and ends up less so. Even though the body does not like the artificial way he smells, we are still here for him. We are here for all of them.