papery lullaby

A wild flower flickered in the Monkey King's palm—small as proof, loud as a crown He taught it tricks of wind and riddle-speech, to cart the dusk and tumble kingdoms down Its petals rewrote maps: veins as poems, each fold a compass that makes old borders frown So from that stubborn bloom a new legend grew, stitching history to song and earning its own renown

The bloom began to inventory the impossible: receipts for storms, a ledger of vanished streets and small apologies It listed a moon with pockets, a compass that read which childhood you'd be tomorrow, a church spattered in origami birds Rivers were filed under "waiting," mountains cataloged by the taste of their shadows, borders stamped with lullaby signatures The Monkey King watched the list sign

The bloom tucked a giggle into the margins, folding receipts into paper frogs that hopped names like marbles, They croaked corrections—"Turn here, the horizon is on holiday"—and ribboned the borders with jaunty asides, The Monkey King snapped back, assigning mountains to improvise and rivers to practice slapstick by moonlight, Ledger and monarch became a call-and-answer: one lists the impossible,;

He plucked a canyon like a fiddle string; the air answered with a grin. The bloom folded that canyon into a paper bell and taught rain to read jokes. They tossed names back and forth—his wink exploded fireworks, its petal stitched new surnames into passports—so mountains learned to cartwheel. Borders giggled open; alleys redrew themselves, and the ledger, delighted, inked the prank into law.

They folded syllables into cranes—snap, snap—percussive whispers that turned names into hymns Paper birds recited footnotes: fold this alley into a river, fold the river into the shape of a child's memory The King kept the beat; frogs and bell-folds answered in pleated refrains until whole cities hummed like breathing paper The bloom sewed those refrains into the ledger's margins, so every entry,,

The ledger took up a slow, liturgical roll—each entry a cadence, reading petitions like weather reports, Pages bowed into procession: they numbered alleys, confessed lost names, recited recipes for rain until neighborhoods straightened their backs, The bloom stitched refrains along the margins; its needle hummed responses that rerouted quarrels into doorways and mended loose vows, So the Monkey K

ing eased; his crown became a metronome, each beat a small command that taught breath to be careful Pages bent toward that metered hush and began to intone low, tidy syllables that smoothed the city's edges The bloom wove those murmurs into its petals, thread-softing quarrels until market cries folded like careful origami Borders leaned in, listening; ink cooled into lullaby knots and maps stopped

The ledger closed its columns and stitched night into the gutters, a slow, folded song of hush. The bloom curled into the King's palm, its paper laugh turned into a small bell that taught roofs to inhale. Markets folded their laments into cradles; alleys turned their maps face-down and learned to sleep. He laid his crown upon the ledger's spine and walked into the city's exhale—borders dreaming, s