Kerisl

piles of old books scattered in an abandoned room

Kerisl

n.
the sorrow of imagining the wealth of knowledge forever lost to history—knowing we’ll never hear the language of the Etruscans, the battle cry of the Sea Peoples, or the burial chants of the Neanderthals; that we’ll never read any more than a fragment of the works of Blake, Sappho, Aristotle, or Jesus; or enjoy the untold treasures of so many burned libraries and forgotten oral traditions and unrecorded songs—any of which might have made up the cornerstone of the canon, that we’d all be able to quote by heart and couldn’t imagine living without.

A contraction of Kergeulen Islands. Roughly equidistant between Australia, Antarctica, and Madagascar, they are the only visible remnant of the Kergeulen microcontinent, which was submerged some twenty million years ago. Three times the size of Japan, it was once covered in dense conifer forests, with peaks reaching 2,000 meters above sea level, populated with strange and nameless fauna that must have called it home, before all traces were lost beneath the waves. Pronounced “kair-ahyl.”

Lap Year

several people racing bicycles uphill in a forest

Etterath

a graduation cap and gown on a chair

Spinning Playback Head

silhouette of a person looking out a window

Kerisl

piles of old books scattered in an abandoned room

Inerrata

a hand holding a broken cup

Solla, Solla, Solla

a hand reaching out for plant tendril

O’Erpine

a person looking at a grave

Cullaways

a lone sand castle on a beach at low tide

Backmasking

a woman's face with a double exposure

Present-Tense

a close-up of a stopwatch

Anchorage

a person's arm extended over river rapids

Affogatia

miscellaneous items on a table

Midsummer

a person standing in a garden holding a clock

Heart Of Aces

a person covering their eyes with their hands

Halfwise

a train coming towards the camera shot from the tracks

Fellchaser

a blurred shadow of a person in a dark room

Keta

a hand reaching through paper with a flower drawing

Nowlings

a pile of black and white puzzle pieces

Rasque

close-up of the shards of a broken vase

Fardle-Din

Cover image for the Fardle-Din word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Dorgone

Cover image for the Dorgone word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Star-Stuck

a man walking towards a door with a large question mark

Etterath

a graduation cap and gown on a chair

Jouska

Cover image for the Jouska word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Anechosis

Cover image for the Anechosis word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Latigo

aerial view of a city at night

Aftersome

rows of opaque and clear marbles