(align:"<==")+(box:"=XX=")[#The Flowing Milk of The Boghead
]
A text adventure told from within the erotics of wetlands, made out of audio and image descriptions
Content Notes: ritual murder, rotting bodies, and an audio track largely consisting of ASMR recordings of someone very slowly eating a banana.
[[Click to Begin|The Flowing Milk of The Boghead]]Boghead_1: ./audio/Boghead_1.mp3
Boghead_2: ./audio/Boghead_2.mp3
Boghead_3: ./audio/Boghead_3.mp3
Boghead_4: ./audio/Boghead_4.mp3
Boghead_5: ./audio/Boghead_5.mp3
Boghead_6: ./audio/Boghead_6.mp3
Boghead_7: ./audio/Boghead_7.mp3
Boghead_8: ./audio/Boghead_8.mp3
Boghead_9: ./audio/Boghead_9.mp3
Boghead_10: ./audio/Boghead_10.mp3
Boghead_11: ./audio/Boghead_11.mp3
Boghead_12: ./audio/Boghead_12.mp3
Boghead_13: ./audio/Boghead_13.mp3Like the fae, the bog has been disappearing since the dawn of the Industria age. (click: "age.")[
A soft, creaking drip builds into a purr; rumbling as it grows louder, as if it were deep in the back of a throat. It is joined by a chorus of thick bubbles, and a sucking squelch like wet footprints. Together, they form a gurgling, chewed, as if in a mouth. As one, they {
(link-repeat: 'stop.')[
(track: 'Boghead_1', 'stop')
]
}(click: "stop.")[
U look out and see a writhing plane of wet mustard green. Tufts of spiked grass crawl towards the sky like zombie fingers. U follow a faint desire line. (click: "a faint desire line.")[Then another one. (click: "Then another one.") [[Then another one.->lost]]]]]
U get lost in the bog.
{
(live: 3s)[
(stop:)
The bog says:
]
}
{
(live: 7s)[
(stop:)
“Fuck power, all die Here.”
]
}
{
(live: 12s)[
(stop:)
Says: “Get low, as low as
The Otherside and u’ll never come back again.”
]
}
{
(live: 18s)[
(stop:)
Says: “Beautiful is a value judgement.
And, to be frank, I don’t trust u yet.
But]} {(live: 28s)[(stop:)eating me? That would be a different story, because u can’t
Fake digestion.”
]}
{
(live: 36s)[
(stop:)
Says: “Rubbing peat juice on ur junk would be a similar story.
]}
{
(live: 45s)[
(stop:)
Same plot points, [[same arc.->eat]]”
]}
{(masteraudio: 'stopall')
{
(track: 'Boghead_2', 'play', true)
}}U hear: (click: "U hear")[A low, deep, round, resonating gurgling, punctuated by the noise of masticating slurps and piercing spurts. Throughout all, are long, stroking sweeps, like a broom across stone or a palm across leg. Then, a rapid glugging, as if poured from a bottle, and a soft jingling, like a tumble of shells. A voice hums a soft, slow, merry lullaby; as if in response, the glugging and gurgling find their own vocal chords, and join in. (click: "join in")[
Ur now the bog, & everywhere u go u leave bits of the bog in ur wake]]
U see: (click: "U see")[The sky has turned charcoal and the earth a flat pink. The bog waters have shrivelled up into puddles of wobbly green jelly dotted across the ground. In the centre of a pool of the quivering green at ur feet sits a dirty yellow skull. Since sloughing off it’s skin the skull has been fending for itself out here, and it shows. Moulding corn ears grow from it’s eyes. The skull contains a root. Ur pretty sure the skull is urs, or will be. These two masses of corn grow and round to meet each other again, completing a circuit the skull began. (click: "completing a circuit the skull began.")[
As above (click-replace: "above")[our guts] so below (click-replace: "below")[our [[bogs]]]]]
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
{
(track: 'Boghead_4', 'play')
}Hot breath in ur ear: (click: "ear")[A soft, rubber squeaking. The crackling swallowing. The throaty gurgles gargle into wet song, just for one long note or two. It snores, once, then is silent. There is a heavy sigh.]
U smell: (click: "smell")[lemon thyme, brine, sheep death, iron and the sweet ectoplasm of the ghost of a woodland]
On all-fours in the bog. (click: "bog")[
Ur woolen tights soak peat juice to ur knees. (click: "knees")[
Not dry nor as wet as ur need. (click: "need")[
Filthy for the inbetween. (click:"inbetween")[
U lie in the damp and wipe ur sweat on sphagnum [[moss.]]]]]]
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
{
(track: 'Boghead_5', 'play')
}U hear a song and join in (click: "join in")[There is silence. Then u chew, and swallow. The high squeak again, and then u make an owlish chorus of hums, ur resonating on and around one note together with the song, insistent and loud. U all stop, breathe, and begin ur harmony again, while the bogsong squeaks and sucks. The hum holds, u stay with it, longer than a single breath, then longer still, until the air runs out of ur lungs [[at last.]]]
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
{
(track: 'Boghead_6', 'play')
}The wind makes everything hurry and laboured and horny. U see a pool of lindworm green. Bubbles break on the skin of the pool and a crude crown bobs about atop a head attached to a body concealed beneath. Despite the windswept pace of everything around u, the body seems happy to just sit there beneath the surface, in no rush to show itself, but aware u've spotted it and comfortable in ur presence here. It's this part that's where the horniness is coming from. Kinda withholding.
A voice begins to speak [[inside ur head:]]
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
{
(track: 'Boghead_8', 'play')
}They saw me as a troll wife
come to waste the land, to
injure man and beast
To stir up strife betwixt their
kith and kin.
Here was I drowned, and this
Stick carved with runes
Kept me pinned down,
for all my Crown,
My magic arts, my anger,
in this hole,
Where worms in darkness
dwell and, through the walls,
The waters of the bog {
(live: 36s)[
(stop:)
[[seep in]].
]}
{
(track: 'Boghead_8', 'stop')
}
{
(track: 'Boghead_13', 'play')
}Pink intestines border ur vision. A Celtic-knot of spasming guts u can’t blink away no matter how hard u try. They look wet and fit to burst. (click: "burst")[
U pass through gurgles, slurps, the wet chew, the watery choke, the swallow. And a whistling breath passes [[through u]].]
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
{
(track: 'Boghead_10', 'play')
}The sweeping sound again, quiet and quick and rhythmic.
Ur friends meet u at the bog(click: "friends")[, ur friends consist of:
the living(click: "the living")[. A white porcelain toilet rumbles into action to ur right. Viscous luminous green floods it, spilling down the sides and pooling round it’s base, then bursts into a fountain of slime shooting high above the bog, sending gloopy beads in every direction. U hear gentle, slumbering breaths, and that ever constant gurgle in the background. A large birds egg (about 3 quarters the size of the toilet) rocks about on the slime fountains crown.]
the dead(click: "the dead")[. Tacitus called us ‘corpores infames’, disreputable bodies. He imagined a bog death as the greatest slight. But
The bog is a thin place. A sanctuary. A portal. And a home.
All friends of the bog gather round to open the Boghead’s pearlescent gates, a thoroughfare for all those deemed disreputable bodies.
A humming chorus of voices, the tinkle of tiny coins or chains, all layered on top of each other, all weaving in and out. Each slowly fades, to leave only the humming voices, vibrating together.]
and the never-human (click: "never-human")[Soggy peach fuzz undulates all around u. Containing some [[beings]] u call ur friends.]]
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
{
(track: 'Boghead_9', 'play')
}The rumbling has become a snore, that creaks and groans with each breath in and out.
Sodden and metallic.
The winds pick up so u cannot think or walk straight. U see a bubbling pool of lindworm green. Three hands, a foot and a head float in it. Not waving or drowning but a secret third thing. The head is wearing a crown and sticking their tongue out at u, mocking ur limited grasp of life and death. It is the fool’s day.
The sound of soft thick chewing persists beneath it, and then [[ends]].
{
(track: 'Boghead_12', 'play')
}(masteraudio: 'stopall')
The flowering milk of The Boghead [[blooms]]Thank u for playing.
'The Flowering Grace of The Boghead' was written and designed by <a href="https://www.sammypaloma.com/"; target="_blank">Sammy Paloma</a>, as part of her 2023 residency with Vital Capacities.
The score was a collaboration between Rabindranath X Bhose, Sammy Paloma, and Oren Shoesmith, made on the ocassion of Rabi’s solo exhibition ‘DANCE IN THE SACRED DOMAIN’ at Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (10/6/23 - 27/08/23). All audio descriptions featured were adapted from those written by Sarah Barr, Collective Gallery.
All featured paintings and a lot of the audio (shout out to Lottie Poulet) was made whilst on residency at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire (May 2023).
Made using <a href="https://twinery.org/"; target="_blank">Twine</a>,
<a href="https://www.gimp.org/"; target="_blank">Gimp</a>,
and a cracked copy of Ableton.
With Twine support from <a href="http://www.umabreakdown.com/"; target="_blank">Uma Breakdown</a>. {
(track: 'Boghead_1', 'loop', true)
(track: 'Boghead_1', 'playwhenpossible')
}