Home

Vortex
Recidivism
Oasis
Moonlight
Buckle
Flotsam
Slicing
Chi
Silence
Virus
Enema
Bittersweet
Rugose
Pennywhistle
Taco
Vermilion
Airedale
Destination

blog
bibliography
email

Rugose

The Bandari tribesmen are known as great cartographers, and they wear maps upon their faces. Through fine muscle control and manipulation of subcutaneous lipid deposits and mastery over their own skin pigmentation, they display the terrain of their country upon cheek and brow.

As the Bandari age and their faces deepen with wrinkles, their maps grow more detailed. What was once just a stream running through a small valley becomes also the date orchard and the blacksmith's hut and the quarry where witches are stoned.

And as the Bandari age, their faces lose the easy fluidity of youth. Their muscles grow weak, their lipids rigid, their pigments frozen in place. The lands they map, however, continue to change with water and wind and parades of footfalls.

There is a word in Bandari reserved for the old, rugose, and dying. Roughly translated, it means "those whose faces hold forgotten lands."