Reading: "Sibyl of Doom" from RITUALS of the ANTITHETICAL (A.Glass 2023)




Stepping out from her apartment building onto Mott street, Zabel walks to the corner of Kenmare Street, turning right she continues on walking in the direction of the East Side, looking around at the streets in front of her, as the psilocybin from the truffles she took earlier, begin to take effect. Awesome, it’s kicking in quick, she thinks to herself, crossing over to the left hand side of Kenmare Street, whilst passing a busy cafe with patrons drinking and eating outside, she looks up at the late Eighteen Hundreds gothic apartment block, in its stand alone disposition as it shadows the cafeteria and street below. Smiling, Zabel smells the city, a pleasant scent that she achieves while tripping on mushrooms and truffles. A hard to describe sensation, but to which she has noted many times as an aroma akin to a metallic sweetness. Reminding Zabel of the resonation that she feels within these streets in an around her apartment block. As night falls over New York, the street lights flicker and its colors exaggerated, she walks past a closed up Auto service garage, its shutter pulled down, with graffiti covering its roof and shopfront. In the near distance Zabel notices a van turning right at Elizabeth Street, its headlights illuminate, albeit briefly, a piece of graffiti above the service garage, she looks up at the street art, which flashes in a pulse like manner, representing the Yin and Yang symbol and a tag scrawled beside it, that reads “666”. Zabel continues walking on, as the cusp of her psilocybin trip becomes more intensified, sounds, lights and scent transform into a more prolific experience, so does her perception of the shadows and darkness that surround her. Nearing the corner of Bowery Street, she crosses, checking for oncoming traffic, yet for this time of the evening it seems quieter than usual... 

...Such is the betise of a society's overconfidence. Turning left at Forsyth street, Zabel views the road works on her right hand side, “Did I bring my gun?” She remarks to herself, whilst smiling, as she walks down a darkened part of the street, looking up at the aging apartment blocks, once again she smells that sweetened ory aroma. Studying the shadows that move with the illumination of the street lights, The city is restless, as are the hungry ghosts. I gotta check something out, before the club.
Zabel turns right at Rivington Street, as a warm wind blows in from the East, she continues walking down the thoroughfare, crossing over to its left side, studying the graffiti and shop fronts which have been boarded up, “So beautifully broken,” she says, admiring the dilapidated area around her, she stands in front an empty, yet striking early Nineteen Hundreds building in its Moorish revival style, looking up she studies the circular and ornamented center piece, enclosed within is a symbolic Six pronged axis, angled into a right formation. Stepping closer to the building, she places her left palm on the brick wall covered in graffiti, she closes her eyes. Looking up again, she imagines the middle part of the center piece, moving, akin to Galaxy spinning counterclockwise, to which in her psilocybin state, she watches the Six pronged axis slightly gleam in the dark, even though it is part of an old and vacant Lower East Side synagogue which is over Two hundred years old. She thinks of her mother.
Zabel walks on towards the night club on Eldridge Street.

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Reading: "Sibyl of Doom" from RITUALS of the ANTITHETICAL (A.Glass 2023) 

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