I'm revising soft shroud. I'm glad I held on to it for a while - I can see that it's unfinished.

what I meant at the ending is - the horse (the horse birthed from the egg, which was incubated in the mouth and saved from the lava flow by the upright man who held it aloft while his ankles were stripped)

the horse walks away from the empty grounds and the stagnant pool towards the peak of the mountain. the horse walks towards heat; the mountain is erupting. the lava flows away from the horse; the horse travels up the cool side of the mountain.

this side of the mountain is cool because it is the future already here. the future has its past soft on its back like cool loam and verdant moss, breaking under the hooves.

the far side of the mountain is the present, an eruption which excoriates vomits its hot self out and eats the cone, eats out its whole structure so that it crests and collapses like a wave, on the calming back of which the future has settled.