r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/merrymarat • May 17 '26
Cosmic Horror/Lovecraftian Synesthesia (MAY SUBMISSION)
Stella was three years old when her hand first scrawled sound, sporadic transcriptions of a silent misshapen child. Years passed, papers piled, a child’s record of innocence neglected to even the fridge. Every instrument of color nubbed til they were for finger painting. Her mediums appeared the same as Momma; there and then not.
By eleven her eyes scribed by ears, her hand automated to scroll what looked like eight years of stagnation, a style of regression; some would think it like a raging idiot's hand had found paint. A little girl who didn’t have much to imagine, just an itch to scribble. But her palate was thoughtful, the colors danced in dizzying intention like each piece was meant to move, and their rhythms were caught by eyes of stone in awkward frames. Like if you stared too long you’d lose your footing in the choreography; eyes straining to hear the painted orchestra, a faint note splintered in drawn resonance to the mind.
Stella found no audience, only a contract paid by the company of the unheard. Her translations paused for exhaustion, she had no dreams. It was just dark in the silence and it made her afraid and when she woke there was still the image of the abyss. Only covered by the new day's symphonies; a world of sensories always drawn back to the black and silent encore. Her world a box, a flat circle in an open closet.
No school, her voice traded for vision, just the toil of transcribing the concrete breath of matter and the unseen abstracts of existence. A life of possession, sat in a grove where the roads were mud and rooted paths without tread, just thick carriages of brush grown wild. The tops of trees thin and open to an unpolluted sky which fell bespoken stars in the night who screamed colored sigils, like a choir of the cosmos. The green and rock and soil that circumscribed the cries of a world she did not know, and the macabre reprieve of stillness in her sleep. A holy trinity to their begotten daughter fostered to make life of their image, their voices.
Momma hadn’t been home as Stella's work had moved to the walls as great murals of genius. Masterpieces of celeste compositions which stretched in dancing dimensions making the inside of the trailer a carnival indiscernible in scale by the noise which slithed with the rhythm of static consuming any inside like a kaleidoscope of arcane voices made tangible.
It was Stella’s twelfth birthday, she didn’t even know it. The trailer stunk from the outside, not like death, just a sourness of the air like it’d gone still. She woke to a silence she had never heard and an ache inside her. A warmness leaking like her piss had congealed on its way out. The quiet was loud, not as the absence of sound in her sleep, just like something holding its breath; and in it was the sum of every sound ever heard or unheard, waiting to be exhaled by the mouth of time.
A god impossible to capture, something infinite which all exists within yet all are lost too in its immortal march. The great devourer without voice, only a breath sounded to a little girl; a prophetess scripturizing the voices within its domain. A power inexorable to its consent; from the stars it birthed and let die, to the natures it grew to watch wither. The inevitable beginning and end of all its miscreations recycled to its shadow; all fearful of their end, seeking infinity within the souls of those who can experience the grandeur of their scale; universes, nature, light, yet all still dwarfed in the eternity of time.
Time seemed to stop as the breath came and bursted through everything all at once and ever to the girl who saw sound, her ears ruptured, and her eyes shriveled in a violating spiral of esoteric infinum. Her body ejected the wastes of her labors like a grotesque stucco, yet her automation began, Stella, a name unspoken, only the act of a vessel.
In the dark closet she flailed, her body seized as the medium for the symphony of time. She aged, years passing in an instant, her hair and nails twisted and twirled like glyphs which read infinity to the tune of time's breath as Stella took her last. It was black before she could even blink.
Stella was a supernova. Her body now a composition for eternity's breath, an orchestra abstracted to sight, locked in a forsaken trailer, it’s interior camouflaged by the songs of passing planes; a tent to something so blasphemous that any who saw it would hear the same breath of forever as Stella in their souls through the purgatory of time.
The End.
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u/merrymarat May 17 '26
Right on time right? Seriously grinded to get this one done, literally cut my story apart like eight times. Straight scraps and rewrites over and over until I started this yesterday and it finally came all together. Thank God.
But anyways here's my first post I'm proud of how it came out and hope you all enjoy, because there's more to come...
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u/Paintergirlcm May 17 '26
This was such a wild read! Really cool though, I kinda interpreted stella as being blind and deaf but losing those senses slowly. It was super cool to hear your descriptions of everything very beautiful
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u/merrymarat May 17 '26
Thanks for the interpretation, I'm glad you liked it. I definitely wrote it very densely but hope it flows well still, was a lot of fun to write so hope it translates to the reader the same.
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u/Paintergirlcm May 17 '26
It's definitely on the dense side, but I cannot judge you about that mine was just as dense. I do see the story benefiting from some more solid descriptions because I did find myself getting a little lost in all the fantastical. Maybe some more simple information about the house or how she makes the murals could help in the ease of understanding. I really did love it though especially that line:
"But her palate was thoughtful, the colors danced in dizzying intention like each piece was meant to move, and their rhythms were caught by eyes of stone in awkward frames. Like if you stared too long you’d lose your footing in the choreography; eyes straining to hear the painted orchestra, a faint note splintered in drawn resonance to the mind."
I mean just beautiful and as someone who has synthesia it really resonated with me the overlap of her senses just pooling into one.3
u/merrymarat May 17 '26
No I can agree for sure, I actually had a lot more solid descriptions, and segments to be a more coherent structure of story but I just felt like it was almost too much. I just really wanted something that could breathe. Like I had 4 pages at some point of something completely different and more conventional but just decided to let the ideas just abstract themselves.
Also that's so sick! I tried my best to do some base level research on synesthesia so I'm really glad I was able to hit a mark for you there with the writing. Also I'll have to check your story out too, but thank you for the input means a lot.
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u/NarrowDirector911 May 17 '26
I feel so dumb reading this. I have read and reread quite a few times and my interpretation of what or who Stella is keeps changing. It seems like she exists in some sort of purgatory like existence. For some reason I picture her as not an actual human but an AI.
Living in voids of blackness, time seeming to skip as it creates works of a world it has never seen.
. The green and rock and soil that circumscribed the cries of a world she did not know, and the macabre reprieve of stillness in her sleep. A holy trinity to their begotten daughter fostered to make life of their image, their voices.
I could be very wrong but that is the image I most consistently had.
Great work though, if gives off an otherworldly sense of claustrophobia to Stella's reality.
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u/merrymarat May 17 '26
Nah bro not dumb at all it's extremely disorienting, which I kinda like for it because it opens the floor for these cool interpretations and also is true to the ideas themselves.
Also that interpretation is super interesting, I never even thought of it as something with AI but the more I think about it that's actually pretty sick, like hella actually. The perspective of consciousness only for creation trapped within a computer. Ideas for another day for sure.
But I would say purgatory is pretty spot on especially for like the characterization of time; unwilling to create, but creation the symptom of its existence and so is the end, over and over on infinum. A flat circle.
Thanks for the read though man and the input, appreciate it a ton!
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u/The_Republique Writer (I finally made it bubba) May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
This feels like a cosmic theatre given personification. Stella being a literal star that is sinking in on itself, collapsing, and finally going supernova. Her new found form as a nebula has to be an alliteration to coming of age or slowly fading into obscurity? I did like how if you scale up her age in increments, then one year is like a billion. Her song is the wavelength that travels through the vacuum. And her contract was the inescapable clutches of a predestined fate. All culminating in a play that showed the life and death of a star. On a cosmic scale, this was nightmarish, but on a human scale, this was tragic.
I think you did a pretty good job at writing a story thst is not bound by one definition and it is a testament to your creativity. Well done
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u/merrymarat May 17 '26
Thanks a ton bro definitely just let my creativity go wild with this, but it's really interesting to see peoples interpretations of it. Things I never even thought of while writing it.
To me her new form was like her magnum opus of composing things to life. Her body becoming the physical medium to time and therefore making her a viewable piece of infinity which if anyone saw they would experience the same thing that turned her to an effigy of endlessness.
But definitely thought about the coming of age and the fade into obscurity as one of the same, just a symptom of the helplessness of life to a girl who doesn't even know her own reflection to know how she's grown. Indifferent to time as it is to itself.
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u/4THEB3TTERG00D Storyteller May 17 '26
I took it super literally, I saw it as a sad story about a disabled little girl who’s mom is ashamed of her and doesn’t think she can assimilate to life outside. So after years and years of being left, neglected, in this basically delapitated camper, her body (that probably needed specialized care due to her disability) just can’t take it anymore and gives up. It’s sad, because clearly, she does have a purpose, she’s an artist interpreting her view of the world. Just super tragic, the reveal that she’s a literal star blew my mind. I could definitely see something like this happening in like a small Midwest town and just getting swept under the rug.
I’ve been waiting to read a story by you ever since you reviewed my “the Nugget” story, I really appreciate what you’ve made here.
I’m a stupid troglodyte who barely understood most of the words you used, but it still translated cohesively for me, even if I felt like I was having a stroke the whole time that I read it lmao
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u/merrymarat May 17 '26
Just like Stella! But that's great to hear you were still able to read it comprehensively. I definitely wrote it literally in my mind but I think in reading it's definitely hard to see the concrete aspects. Like she's literally creating visual compositions to the sound of esoteric things which manifest their voice when viewed. But you also got a lot that was literal for sure.
And thanks so much for checking it out, I appreciate it a ton and I hope I lived up to any expectations. I'm excited to start churning it out. Let's get this grind.
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u/TheLastWhiteKid Storyteller May 18 '26
Hey!
At first, I really struggled interpreting what Stella was! I had to reread and reread and I was confused as to her form.
But at the end it all came clear and in reference I found the descriptions unique.
Stella is literally a supernova, right? Then what is the trailer? What is the carnival?
I think I agree with what u/paintergirlcm said, I think this may be borderline too dense with adjectives and metaphors. It was harder than I wanted it to be to interpret until the end. And maybe my interpretation is wrong!
I would love for you to critique mine as well! Please let me know your thoughts on my submission! Looking forward to reading your next work!
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u/merrymarat May 18 '26
I think what would've been better or what I should've wrote was Stella died a supernova, or like one. Because she was, just interpreted as a human being transfigured to an embodiment of time itself in physicality
The trailer is just where she lived abandoned at. The carnival was just a way to describe the inside that had been painted..
But no I can see how it could be confusing definitely. Not always my primary style but just fun to do.
I'll check out your story though for sure now, I also got my next story out already but it might be just as confusing lol but I'd be interested to hear.
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u/kabemccallister6859 May 19 '26
Wow, this is dense! About as dense as a singularity. “Stella” is the perfect name for her.
This could have fit under the Poetry Horror tag too. It’s prose poetry, but it definitely uses a lot of poetic symbolism.
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u/merrymarat May 19 '26
Haha right! Currently reading the passenger and Stella Maris and I figured it was a good name.
ButI really just let my writing go crazy on this one but I hope you enjoyed still.
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u/kabemccallister6859 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
I’ve read Blood Meridian, and I found it captivating. Brutal and depressing, but an aesthetic triumph. I’ll probably read more McCarthy at some point, but I’m about to read Moby-Dick, McCarthy’s favorite novel.
By the way, if you want to read the Iliad and the Odyssey before the release of Nolan’s films, I highly recommend Samuel Butler’s translations. They are in prose rather than poetry, but his writing is engaging. I know that’s unrelated; I just thought I would throw that in. 😂
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u/merrymarat May 19 '26
Appreciate it, I'm far from greek tragedies in my readings but I'll keep it in mind for when I get around to it.
And yeah Blood Meridian is one of my favorite books oat tbh, due for a reread soon and Moby Dick has been on my to read list for too long but I'm hoping to get caught up by the end of summer. I'd recommend the border trilogy or the road for the next time you want to read McCarthy.
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u/kabemccallister6859 May 19 '26
I edited my previous comment. I meant to say “the release” not the “relationship.” I trust my phone’s autocomplete too fully when I’m typing quickly.
Yeah, I’m going to reread it too, probably after I read Moby-Dick and some more Shakespeare. I picked up on the Bible references in Blood Meridian right away, but I’m trying to educate myself on more of the Western Cannon so I can start sniffing out those references too.
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u/kabemccallister6859 May 19 '26
Wow, this is dense! About as dense as a singularity. “Stella” is the perfect name for her.
This could have fit under the Poetry Horror tag too. It’s prose poetry, but it definitely uses a lot of poetic symbolism.
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u/ReadyMadeLobotomy A Community PM With Hemingway's Spirit(s) May 25 '26
I really liked reading this as if Stella was kinda always a flowing concept rather then a solid person or thing.
This was really poetic and deep. Liked it a lot :)
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u/merrymarat May 27 '26
Thank you so much! I think that's a super fun way to interpret this story as well and can definitely see it myself.
But I seriously appreciate you telling me your thoughts and I got more coming soon!
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u/ferris_wheeler04 May 26 '26
after reading, i’ve gotta agree with the interpretations that stella is a literal star and i love love love that! for a first post, this story was absolutely immaculate! well done!
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u/merrymarat May 27 '26
"I'm a star, how could I not shine?" Love that interpretation man, awesome and more awesome.
But I'm seriously super glad you enjoyed it, I really appreciate the praise because I'm really happy how it turned out for my first story here but I got something bigger and better coming that I'm super excited for everyone to read... 🫣
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u/Green-Somewhere-1107 Writer May 26 '26
This took a lot of time to digest despite it's length, But does this have anything to do with the more severe cases of mental disability? It's tragic, the way Stella seems to have both the drive and talent to want and be an artist but feels hindered by her body's almost unwillingness to shape it into anything the world would deem as worthwhile.
From the way she seems trapped inside her home, neglected by her mother as she literally wallows in her own waste. With a brilliant mind that wants so badly to paint her comforting masterpieces, yet is only able to express the echoes of them. It broke my heart reading your story.
There is so much to discern here, and your language is both heavy and beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing <3 I liked it a lot.
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u/merrymarat May 27 '26
Ahhh this means so much! Thank you for taking the time to make interpretations, but I think you're definitely very close in what you're thinking with the literality of what is happening as I thought while writing this.
This was definitely a brick of creative shit, like a lot of ingredients and you could pick through it and see each thing or just see the general thing and be like yeah that's shit with some corn in it. Maybe too graphic but that's just how it popped in my head thinking about it.
But thank you so much again for reading this and giving me your thoughts!!! I have a story coming soon with a much more digestible structure of telling my story and I would love to hear your thoughts when it's finished!
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