Shortstoryathon

A Poltergeist On the Surmised and Misappropriated Betrayal and the Elongated Outcome

2011-10-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

...You see, I once existed in the times and spaces of the Romans. What I did to pass the time only partially relevant and how I was reared, not at all. So I shall dispense with those trivialities. On the hind end of yet another campaign I happened to befriend this one very specific Centurion. The Centurion became a loyal friend of excellent character, promised loyalty with a everlasting sworn oath to protect et al etcetera etcetera ad infinitum. However I had found out rather quickly that the Centurion, over the past ten or so years before the extended skirmish was in charge of what else, but crucifying the accused and convicted alike. Yes, this was found to be a disturbing prospect by me. However, I learned to accept it rather gracefully over time.

Later because of the vengeful self that I was at the time I had been eventually sentenced to death by the very same horrifying method. Why? Ah yes a detail of the story better left unsaid. Let's just say it involved this here sword, a great deal of blood and the brutal death of another while not on the field of battle. In fact, I probably deserved the sentence cast upon me. The deed of mine may have been justified but the how of my execution of the action, arguably inexcusable of course.

No matter. The important thing is that once I found myself at the top of the hill where the scaffold was erected, the Centurion alone was standing there, forged iron spikes in hand. Regardless of our great mutual friendship the Centurion accomplished the duty with swift precision and ordered myself to be held down; but instead of instructing an underling to drive the nails into my wrists and ankles, the Centurion performed the task instead. When I felt the cold metal stabbing through the flesh and snapping apart the bone and tendons I turned to observe the Centurion's face. The expression was impassive, almost drugged. Strange, I thought. However I recalled this same look once before under similar circumstances. Anyway, I was summarily hung and left to die out in the afternoon sun, the odious torment almost too much to bear. The Centurion turned about and marched away, the dust billowing up from the stomping heels. I watched as the Centurion ambled away as if without a care or concern for the one sworn a solemn promise to and instead to left to die.

I happen to be at a loss how I accomplished the feat, but I did it. The long arduous process of working first the wrists then the ankles over the heads of nails seemed almost impossible, implausible. -But there it was, I had done it just as I alluded to in the start of this relation. Perhaps it was the apparent faulty construct of the flattened heads. They did appear smallish upon recollection. Does it matter? The means to the end I mean, when the end meant living and not death. Odd life had become, for I felt at that moment that I would die instead on the barren ground than on the side of the scaffold. Exhausted and spent, I simply clawed my way to the spindly shade of the wooden frame. I blacked out. Every movement was agony and ache. I don't remember how long I had been there: a minute, a day, an hour or two? I cannot say. I suddenly felt the presence of another. My grasp of time was laid waste and I thought to myself I had been found at the exact moment I had been hung. I allowed my eyes to flutter open. Through the slits of my lids I gleaned the form of the Centurion standing there gazing with sadness down on me. My mind awash in bemusement, I could only frown as I never have. I did so even more than what I had permitted in all my days of fighting. I sensed that the Centurion wanted to turn away. Yes, this was the case. I could feel it. Something snapped within me and I managed to bring myself up to standing with a fey sort of quickness. The Centurion's head shook, silently telling me not to continue.
"I have tremendous will," I told the Centurion.
The Centurion in turn looked at me, the countenance shifting to and fro from melancholy to apathy. Alarmed by this I swung my arms around the Centurion and kissed the cheek of its owner.

Is thus found to be abnormal, aberrant, outlandish to the sane mind? I know not. I only know that the wounds from this life's interlude eventually swallowed me, consumed my soul and left me here allegedly wasted to tell this story.

Like I said I have tremendous will. My spirit as well possesses a vengeful heart and lacks a merciful drive. Over thousands of years now I have inhabited the abodes of the original accuser that had ordered my crucifixion and every single damned descendent. I know how to appear benign and innocent but I am anything but. Again I tell you of my tremendous will. I shall leave no blood of the accuser unscathed. I will by God eradicate and erase every one of them from existence within the physical and beyond. Oh yes they're all here with me, even given these thousands of years. They are all, living and dead at the crux of their matter.

As for the Centurion, that is a story untold and lived through an eyewitness account alone. Through the mists of my memory it shall remain, swirling and whirling for me and only me to encompass.

With that he smiled gleefully. His flickering form barely kept into a virtual solid. He leaned against the doorway with the ancient armor still strapped on him, a rusty and bloodied short sword laid across his lap. I let my gaze take in the rest of him. As my eyes wandered they found the deep scars in his wrists and ankles from those spikes he spoke of. The stigmatic marks shown unassuming of which those zealous Christians covet (like the ones I am employed by to dispense of this "evil spirit"). I could not hold him much longer using my methods. After all he had perfected his art over the "thousandsof years" during his so-called existence. I started to acquire the feeling that he was only toying with me, making me think that I was the one in control. This lead me to think about what he had just shared. I don't know why he had related this particular story to me. Was it a lesson for my overconfidence at defeating him? Was it an allegory to justify his unbelievable presence?

"You most definitely did not defeat me," he said in a hollow voice.

His sudden revelation startled me out of my introspection. He had lifted himself to standing to grasp the sword in his left hand. I summoned my strength to hold him back, but he strode forward slowly all the same then chose to stop.

"Let me tell you about my inexhaustible will," he said with an easy grin, his eyes peering from the recess of his golden helmet, it being a battered and broken semblance of better days.
"But there are parts of your story that make no sense," I said.
"And you do?" he questioned.
"What could you mean by that?"
"You are gifted yes. But you are clueless and misguided. What did you hope to gain coming here?"
"You already know I suppose."
"So then you possess the capacity to learn wisdom as well as knowledge. It's too bad really, now such a waste."
"Waste?"
"Worry not. Nothing concerns you anymore. Let go of your mercenary's crusade. Your clients are replete idiots. They always have been since the beginning."
"You hide much in your story."
"You hide nothing in your presence."
"We seem to be at an impasse."
"No, you are at the impasse. I am merely here."
"Who was the Centurion really?" I said, changing the subject.
He remained silent. The smile faded from his face. He looked with a starkness at a place off to my left.
I continued, "I don't get it. Why hide who the Centurion was? You're leaving these pieces out."
He stepped closer to me, his armor clinking at the movement.
He said, "You don't become what I have become from experiences of savage tedium. You must carry with you the wit and will to delve into places you'd never go. You must place yourself at the most uncomfortable position imaginable and remain there for the duration. You only have had the will for a minute taste of what I speak. On your present road you tread, you shall march to a much different place. However, this is the way of things in a normal sense. You are not far from that regardless of you preconceived self realization. Yes your path is mostly skewed from how humans exist in this world, but in the end you will be no different than them."
"But you failed to answer my question."
"No, it is you that fails, in every way. You confidence in your abilities has thwarted you from a certain greatness. I learned long ago as the soldier I once was that confidence in oneself is a fleeting and fickle concept. It leads one to believe that they are something else entirely. No. You must instead be the thing you are, nothing more or less than that. Only then can you ascertain the truth of things."
"Riddles-"
"-Another name."
"Can you not speak plain?"
"You did not come here to speak, but to vanquish. Has your goal changed then? Surely your clients are anxious for a full report disclosing success. Why do you hesitate my friend? You, a 'purveyor of truth and righteousness,' one respected for 'goodness' against the forces of evil, but really an entrepreneur collecting from the highest bidder! What am I to you but the snake to be crushed upon your heel? You stand there wavering and wondering if I shall reveal secrets behind your unassuming feminine façade. What you do not realize is that if I open the floodgates of those sought-out mysteries you would be begging me to dam the flow sooner than you may think. Oh and do you believe I should say, 'I'll get the beavers' to construct a proverbial dammed blockade to protect your swelling mind? I may, yes. Although, it would not assist you. It would be too late."
"Who was the Centurion then?"
"Who is anyone? What does it matter to you?"
"Curiousity."
"Ah yes, so that's it," he said with an edge of sarcasm.
"Who were they?"
"A multifaceted individual. Complex but simple; you have no idea what you ask."
He drew nearer. His form became wispy like a cloud then with just as much abruptness solidified right in front of me. It was almost as if he were human again. The smell of leather, iron, blood, and something else unidentifiable permeated the room. He struck out his hand and grasped my throat. Surprised at its warmth, almost hot, I gasped.
"So you demonstrate your bafflement very well," he mocked with a laugh; then added "and how ironic is that?"
He then held the point of his sword to press into the flesh just above my beating heart. It felt real. It was real.
"So this is it then," I stated.
"You tell me. If you thirst for the knowledge you allude to, then well, the time for talk has ended."
"What?"
"Really, your lack of perception is quite tiring."
With that he stabbed a mortal wound through me with awesome strength, drawing back abruptly before thrusting to skewer with so much maniacal determination. I had no time to react and took the brunt of the blow through my lower ribs. Warm blood seeped out in cadence with my heartbeat. As I fell to the floor all trace of him had disappeared. He had won and I had lost. It was cruelly that simple.

Party time!

2011-05-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

“Wasssssssuuuuuuuuuuuuuup?”
“Really?” A disgusted look crossed my face as Tony sidled into my room. “I mean, really?”
“What? It’s a about time it had a comeback,” said Tony.
“No.”
“Not eve…”
“No. Not even, not ever.” Tony flicks the door closed, moves over to the fridge and grabs himself a beer. “So, what’s up?” I realize my mistake as the words slip from my mouth. Tony shoots me an amused look as he pops the top off of the drink.
“We err, well,” Tony falls down in to the chair across from me. “We might have a slight, err, financial issue.” This piques my interest, but I try to play it cool.
“When aren’t we in financial trouble?” It was somewhat true. We bounced a long from week to week, just making enough money to get by and blagging our way through everything else.
“Well, summer’s coming up, and we’ve run out of options.” Summer was our off season, it was when things were at their worst. In the past we’d always managed to get through by saving through the prosperous winter and spring months.
“What about credit cards?”
Tony shook his head. “We’ve maxed them all.”
“We’ll get new ones,” the look on Tony’s face bore the grim news before he opened his mouth.
“The banks wont go near us until we’ve paid off our current cards and overdrafts.”
“Well.” The single word hung in the air as I ran through the year, trying to work out when everything had gone wrong. “Fuck.”
“That’s pretty much my thoughts.” Tony took a long pull on his Bud.
For four years being a College Party Planner had paid off. I’d been 22 when I first saw Van Wilder and that was inspiration to say no to the corporations, no to suits and ties and yes to sleeping in till noon and getting paid to party. For four years we’d managed to survive. We’d built a reputation, and not just in CUNY where I’d graduated, but through out New York and into New Jersey. For four years my parties were legend.
And they still were. Nothing had changed in that respect, but now budgets were bigger and profit margins were smaller. We’d seen it happen but hadn’t been able to work out what to do about it.
“Fuck,” I said again as the realization of it all began to strike home. “We have a full schedule for graduation week though, how is this possible?” The reason we’d chosen New York was the density of colleges. Only California had more, but they were spread further.
“That will see us good for about a month, but after that we’ve got nothing.” Bringing Tony on board was probably the greatest idea I’d had. He was good with money, investing some here, stashing more away there, turning my one man operation in to something more successful.
“Any thoughts?” I asked. Tony often had a back up plan, it was just the way his mind worked.
“Well.” I could see him working it out. “We could go big.”
“We are going big. That’s the theme of the Hunter party.”
“No.” He drank again from the bottle in his hand. “I mean, massive. Like, Big McLargehuge.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, and this is just me runnin’ free at the moment.” That was Tony’s way of saying that he’d not had chance to go over every minute detail. When he got like this is was something special. “We could throw a party, like a college party, but not for college kids.” I must have looked like a confused dog. “Listen. College parties are cool Everybody is young, free and able to do shit they’ll live to regret. After college, parties just become drinks in a bar or dinner around a table, right?” He was rambling, words flying from his mouth the moment they entered his brain.
“But we could, err, rent, a place. Throw a party there, a college party, but for people our age. Those that have left college but uh, never really grew up.”
“You want us to throw a public frat party?” The words felt dirty, but in the same way the young, half cut blonde feels dirty: in all the right ways.
“Yes, well. You’re over simplifying it. We’d need to pull in something big, like a celebrity or a football team. And we need to throw it where there’s money.”
***
Ten days later I was stepping off of a plane at SFO in a (rented) Armani suit. The Ray Bans were mine.
A chauffeur was waiting for me inside the terminal, my name proudly presented to the world. I strolled up to him, shook his hand and we were off. The first place we were heading to was the library. Well, it used to be a library. It’d closed down a few years back, and it was now unused.
The ancient stone building loomed large on the corner of it’s block. It looked to be four stories high, but a floor plan Tony had found showed it to be only three internally. That meant massive ceilings. It wasn’t until I stepped inside that I really got an idea of how grandiose the building truly was. For what we had in mind, this was perfect. I pulled out my iPhone and started shooting photos and videos to send back to Tony. After a quick half hour tour of the main areas, I was back in the limo.
***
Our palms met and I quickly covered his hand with both of mine, and gave it the old “double pump”. I probably shook a little too hard, his Californian skin gave to my calloused New Yorker hands. Somehow, even in my cushy line of work, I’d ended up with skin like a football.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, releasing his hand and pulling my business card holder from my suit pocket.
“No, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Jeff, I spoke to Tony on the phone.”
“My Tony?” My surprise amused him as he chuckled slightly.
“No, our man in New York state, Tony Ferdanno. He had nothing but good things to say about you.” We moved to some soft leather sofas, a glass coffee table between us.
“Well that’s always good to hear. You obviously know why I’m here. We’re looking to expand our operation, and San Fran is going to be our west coast base.” I cringed as soon as the words left my mouth. Again, Jeff chuckled. This was good, it meant he was after my business. I don’t know who Tony Ferdanno was or what he’d been saying about us, but thank fuck for him.
“It’s alright, everybody makes that mistake. If you want to sound like you know what’s going on, you should just call it San Francisco or the city.” That last one offended my inner New Yorker, there was only one city in America, and San Fran wasn’t it. But I let my poker face do the talking.
“Thanks.” I smiled and shrugged it off. “We’re throwing a party, a big, ‘We’ve arrived in the city’,” a nod to Jeff and he smiled. “It’s going to be big. Bigger than big.” Where you come in is making sure that we have enough beer and spirits to last the night out.”
“What kind of volume are we looking at?” I slid the folder across the table. Jeff opened it and scanned the pages inside. He actually whistled as he read over the amount of alcohol we were asking for.
“What’s,” he slid the folder back towards me, “this number?” I knew without looking what number he was talking about.
“That’s what we’re going to pay you.” Jeff leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. Fun time was over.
“That’s going to be a problem. We’d make a loss if we sold it to you for that.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry, the impression I got was that you were a serious businessman. Clearly this has been a waste of my time.”
“We can dance around this, running figures back and forth, each trying to get the other line with our own ideas, but ultimately, this is what you’re going to charge us. In return, we’ll be throwing 3 parties a week in your direction by the end of our second month here and if you flick to the back page,” the folder traversed the table again, “you’ll see what our projected payments to you will be in a years time.”
Jeff looked at the folder as if it might bite him. I’d clearly caught his interest. After a minute he picked up the folder again and flicked to the 12 month projections. No whistles this time, just a nod and a grin that crept slowly across his face.
“Tony told me you were a shrewd businessman.” I stood, straightening my suit.
“Jeff, I told you that’s the price we’d pay you.”
***
“The venue is awesome, and we’re sorted for for supplies. We still need guests.”
“I’m working on it.” Tony was still working hard back in New York whilst I’d been pressing the flesh. “I’ve been working through our phone book and I’ve got something special brewing. Just, bear with me.”
“I’m starting to think that as busy as you are, that I got the raw end of the deal.”
”An all expenses paid trip to San Francisco versus New York 23 hour work days. I can see how you came off worse.”
“You’re not wearing suits in the 90 degree heat.”
***
The last two weeks had been crazy. But tonight would be the night it all came together.
Or fell apart.
Tony arrived last night and had finally filled me in on the last pieces of the puzzle. He’d gone through everybody that’d hired our services. Turns out we’d thrown parties for future surgeons. Layers, social media experts and entrepreneurs. Tony had come up with a plan to get free flights from New York to S. F. For anybody that bought a full price ticket, all we had to do was comp one of our clients a set of ten tickets. Small price to pay for some of the names we’d got.
As I ran down the list my jaw slowly dropped further. I knew these people by reputation. How was it possible that I’d thrown them parties?
“Tony? When did we throw a party for him?” Tony leaned over, steal fixing his bow tie. “Or her?”
“We didn’t, but you know how rumor mills work. One person here’s about a private jet filled with the young and the rich headed to a party…” I shook my head in amazement. There were no A List celebrities on there, but a few C Listers and a B Lister. Two B Listers.
“You’ve out done yourself,” I said, turning to look at him. “Why are you getting dressed up now? You’ll get your suit creased.” He moved his head over to the closet.
“Tonight’s suit’s in there. But I need to look my part for when I get to the airport.”
“I thought most of the guests weren’t landing until later.”
“True, but the Oregon State Football team are flying in early.”
“Oregon State Football team? The entire team?”
“Yeah, turns out that they don’t get many chances to party up there.” I flipped over the guest list and sure enough, it appeared to be the entire roster.
“You really have out done yourself. Listen,” I rested my hand on his shoulder. “You take it easy. I’ll get the Beavers.”

Proper Attire Required

2011-04-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

"Girls! Girls! Stop your gossipping and finish getting dressed. You're on in thirty minutes!"

Miss St. Clair was always a worry-wart, but when no fewer than four of her actual and an additional five of her honorary nieces were named semi-finalist in the Miss Coal to Newcastle pageant, her tendencies ramped up into full-on fretting. The gauge on her chest, measuring the internal pressure of the boiler which powered her circulatory, respiratory and nervous systems had been well in the red all morning. And now --

"Naomi! What in the world do you think you're going to do with that, that THING?"

"It's part of our costumes, Auntie Pris," Naomi replied, all innocence. "Do you see? It's all the rage on the Continent just now."

"It's hideous!" Ms. St. Clair sputtered. "I can't even tell what it is!"

"It's a hat, silly," Naomi's sister Dolores said. Naomi hissed; Pris St. Clair took even less kindly than most people to being belittled or humored. This could get ugly.

"A hat? A HAT? It looks like it was woven out of dead reeds right out of the swamp!" Miss St. Clair said, snatching it from Naomi's fingers. It crackled like dried vegetation, too, fueling the old woman's argument.

"It reminds us," Dolores said, standing up to her full and lofty height -- towering over her aunt -- "Of our natural, organic origins. It is a token of nostalgia for simpler times. It is too divine!"

"It is too destroyed now," Miss St. Clair said, shoving it and its mates -- carelessly left on the dressing table by the rest of the girls -- into her personal furnace. The hinges to the right of her ample iron bosom creaked loudly.

"You need some oil, Auntie," Naomi said.

"I'll thank you to focus on what YOU need. Namely proper costumes. I shudder to think what ensemble you girls think might possibly go with such hats."

"Aw, you worry too much, Auntie," another niece, whose name Miss St. Clair could not recall, opined. "Trust us! We've been preparing for months!"

"Months? MONTHS? Miss Coal of Newcastle is the event of a LIFETIME. You should have been preparing for YEARS. Whatever were your mothers thinking?

"Well, go ahead, show me the rest of these... outfits."

Miss St. Clair's cries of horror were surely destined to go down in family, if not pageant, history, imitated with glee by future generations. They resounded far beyond the dressing room as her charges modeled their grass skirts and coconut bras (which, when punctured by a freshly enameled prosthetic finger-blade, produced a sparkling stream of coconut milk to be caught in another coconut shell held by the next girl in line).

"This simply WILL NOT DO," Miss St. Clair bellowed. Puffs of steam began to escape the seams around the furnace door in her chest, and from her joints. Her nieces backed away in alarm, crowding up against the far wall of the little room.

"Auntie Pris, you're making our skirts wilt," one complained, looking down at herself in distress. Indeed, the rapidly rising humidity Miss St. Clair's distress was causing was having a deleterious effect on the girls' "organic" attire.

"Be quiet, be quiet, I must THINK!" The rapidly overheating old woman sat down on one of the dressing-table stools, which promptly collapsed under the weight of her mostly-iron frame. So lost in thought was she, however, that she barely noticed this.

"DANIEL! DANIEL MORRAINE! I need you at once!" She said into a microphone in her wrist.

"Ma'am! That's a ladies dressing room, ma'am!" a tinny voice issued from the same place.

"You are not really male, Daniel. You are an automaton. Automatate in here right now!"

"Takes one to know one, you old bat" the tinny voice said, at slightly lower volume, but perhaps not low enough.

"I heard that, Daniel," Miss St. Clair warned.

The girls had barely stopped tittering before the dressing room door opened wide to admit what to outward appearances was a small tank. Steam-powered like his mistress, Daniel Morraine clanked into the room and immediately saw the problem.

"Ma'am, where are their clothes, ma'am?" His voice sounded exactly as it had when coming from Miss St. Clair's wrist -- because it still did.

"They think those ARE clothes," Miss St. Clair huffed. "What can we do?"

Gears clanked and chittered as the two of them pondered the situation.

"Ma'am, what is next door, ma'am?" Daniel asked after a moment.

"I believe it is the gentlemen's dressing room," Miss St. Clair said -- for Miss Coal to Newcastle was an equal opportunity pageant, despite the name.

"Ma'am, I have an idea, ma'am. If you don't mind a little larceny, ma'am."

"Do tell!" Miss St. Clair clapped her iron hands as daintily as she could. The girls watched in horror; those hands could crush a man's skull.

***

"My Daniel has saved the day!" Miss St. Clair proclaimed, bustling back into the dressing room. Her servitor followed close behind her. The arms of both were draped in black fabric with a subtle sheen.

Miss St. Clair unfolded the garments -- for garments they were -- with a flourish. Nine pairs of slim-fitting men's dress trousers, nine dinner jackets with tails, nine white pique vests, nine blindingly white men's dress shirts, nine collars, and nine white ties. A tiny truck-like automaton entered then, bringing black silk socks, black patent shoes, white spats and white canes.

"You'll look enchanting in these. Quickly! We haven't much time!" Miss St. Clair said, shooting her girls a stern look. Rather than argue any longer, they hastened to comply, and soon stood in a smart row. They did indeed look charming in men's evening clothes.

"But what about the gentlemen next door?" Dolores asked. "Ow!"

"They must fend for themselves. They haven't such able folk looking after their interests," Miss St. Clair replied. She rolled back and forth along the line. "Something still is missing. What is it, Daniel? What?"

"Ma'am, I think they need toppers, ma'am."

"Good lord! How could we miss that. Quickly! See what else is in the room next door. Surely there is something!"

"Ma'am, there is, ma'am. I'll get the beavers."

Winter No More

2010-09-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

I am but a shard of flotsam whirling on the surface of a fierce and magnificent maelstrom. How indeed did I achieve this state of existence? I know not. I gaze out onto the fragrant harbor covered in the misty droplets of the condensing moisture; a cooling wave crests over the whole immense span. She is out there, out there amongst the shiny and twinkling buildings, shifting, moving discreetly between them with form and grace.
I feel the tug, the pull of her, drawing me into her center. All I can do is wait.
Wait.
I will now become utterly succumbed to her terrifying but beautiful storm. Her breath like the winds of legend that lowly mariners would resist mentioning even when they found themselves at an un-guessable distance from their beloved sea.
It's like eternity, this presence, the present.
All I can do is await her coming; her eyes of blustery lightening on the brimming whip of thunder that closes in heralding her imminent arrival.
I shall welcome her with all my heart; this heart of mine that has always been so fractured and frayed into the unraveling threads of potential yesterdays. Their tattering remnants nothing of their former full and stretching sails, but more or less writhing wraiths shrieking without power.
Do I hope so much and expect so little?
It has always been like this, until now.
Until now the riveting sensation of dichotomous dread and sweet anticipation ravages at the psyche like banshees of old. It is what it is. I must accept what has been given, and for dire outcomes or not, the consequences.

***

The night felt warm to me, a strange occurrence since I thought I was somewhere else completely. I could discern the slapping of water against something rigid and uncompromising, like those ancient fortresses with walls that could repel even the crushing missiles flung from a medieval trebuchet. I kept my eyes closed, for perhaps I thought I could trick myself into visualizing where I was first before my sight would betray my mind’s eye. First I attempted to recollect the immediate preceding time, but to no avail. Nothing could be extracted from the short term’s memory no matter how deep I delved into those labyrinthine reaches. The outside influence from the unseen ambiance portrayed itself as catastrophic to my failing concentration. Finally, I decided to abandon this course, for I could hear a distant shout invading all thought-process. It sounded off like an order from a superior to a subordinate. The urgency was present, but it did not cast itself in desperation. Nothing followed except the swish of the wind that at times whistled past other formations I could only imagine. My eyes remained shut, for truthfully I wasn’t sure I even wanted my ignorance to subside. The air still felt warm despite the onset of the blowing air that licked at the ends of my hair and picked it up to toss it about. The strong stench of salt-tinged air wafted into my insufflations, flooding my nostrils with that familiarity that piqued at my mind’s reminiscence.

Suddenly I bolted upright from my prone position and took a swift intake of breath. I snapped my eyes open and looked about, trying to understand what all along my unconscious had already determined. I somehow was brought onto a ship. I had been set down along the gunwale, my wrists bound with a rope and my legs clasped from movement at the ankle by the same. I squinted at these bindings in confusion, not understanding what or why I was to be here like this. I was dressed in material of rough weave but loose throughout. My feet were bare as were my hands. My leggings were dark brown and came down to mid-calf and tattered at the hem, as were the sleeves of my black shirt. I turned my right forearm over to the underside and witnessed a crudely needled and inked rendition of a raven’s skull missing its lower mandible with two curved scimitars forming an “X” set behind the ghastly image. As my vision began to clear I twisted my head to and fro scanning the deck of the ship and noticed I was on what appeared to be a three-mast merchant vessel. A deep and dark night loomed beyond making the ocean to blend with the black sky. It was then I could feel the ship’s movement across the water, which was not at all as calm as I first believed. Easy and steady swells about two to three meters high came at the ship bow-wise and slightly to the starboard creating a slight alternating list to the ship. The sails fluttered and flapped in the wind that seemed to crescendo in its strength like a great hammer plummeting toward an anvil set aglow in a blacksmith’s forge. I could make out darting figures, jumping up masts and materializing from below decks, grasping ropes, cinching, loosening, and tightening. A peel of lightening unexpectedly ripped horizontally across a fractured and frayed storm cloud which was all-too-quickly followed by a deafening tumult of thunder causing these figures in white to lash their hands across their ears. I felt a charge of energy course through my body at the onset of this storm. My senses became heightened, and proverbial instincts set themselves alight within me, although I had no idea from whence they originated.
Had I been on a ship before? Did I innately understand and comprehend the workings of such a vessel with its intertwined intricacies that would normally stun the average bloke into cluelessness?

The ship tossed and bucked in the rising waves, the current pulling us in some other direction than what was intended. I could feel this without knowing the actual truth. The sense of defeat aboard as evident as being forced to bite down on a sheet of tin scraped bare. I tried to stand but it was too difficult given the limited mobility of my legs, the ties disallowing my feet to stance outward to stabilize. Things not tacked down on the deck’s surface began to roll and slide back and forth along the topside due to the storm’s ever-increasing rage. One of the white figures fell from above from where I only surmised was one of the sailors attempting to furl the sails so that the masts would not yield and splinter from the sheer grotesque pressure of the howling wind that wrenched at each and every sail. His body struck the deck with a sickening thud while a bare knife was knocked loose from his belt. I could see the man was dead as I coolly swept the knife up from being tossed overboard by the tilting ship as it slid. As soon as I clutched the crude double-edged dagger in my left hand, my heart gave a great cry of relief at the imminent release of my limbs. I took hold of the dagger with both sets of fingers and pivoted the knife downwards so that the blade bisected the span of biting twine at my wrists. As much as I was able to muster, I forced the knife down across the taut rope and pushed and pulled with hardly sufficient stroke bending harshly at the wrist. My avid concentration endured the severe pelting of the storm’s rain, however it could not, would not stand up to what happened next, whatever that was. For right as those bonds were about to break apart having been frayed and sliced painstakingly over much egregious effort, all the world and the consciousness of that fact went irrevocably and utterly black…

***

Sometimes in dreams you and I, we’re on some ancient wooden ship, it’s night under a waning moon, we lie on our backs and look up at the stars that are accompanied by full sails under a stiff wind pushing across a faraway sea. I see your silhouette over me as you twist upwards, you tell me something then place your face over mine, and your hair drapes down and tickles my cheeks, your hand embraces mine, our fingers interlace. I taste your sweet lips pressed hard against my own, then they open slightly to allow a lashing of your warm tongue to stroke softly at me that holds me captive. I dare to whisk my fingers and splay them apart to sweep those long black locks away from your face. My thumbs lightly embrace your temples while the remaining working implements of my hands cling to the nape of your neck. You kiss me more deeply, this time biting down on my bottom lip. I follow suit and latch onto yours, and then what follows is extraordinary; for you and I remain slightly twisting at the necks, hands and arms moving into graceful embraces like undulating coral to the undersea currents. I can feel my very soul become tugged through to intermingle with your corporeal self, and yours into my own. We remain locked in this eternal kiss, as if our lives coexisted only for its sustainment. Then like the waves of a spraying and seething ocean gently receding from the shore, each of us senses the time to withdraw from each other, serene and sublime smiles of enraptured delight cast upon our faces. We gaze at each other as you gradually lay your head down on my shoulder. You nestle there for a moment breathing deep, your exhalations emitting a hum of your sanguine voice. You spellbind me, and all I am able to do is simply listen as I return my eyes to the stars. I imagine us up there in the heavens, sailing across the black unknown rather than across this foamy and swelling sea to wherever we head. At each hum, I am reminded little by little of how your presence waylays my sorrow, of how I somehow am contented in spite of the horrors I’ve been witnessed to, the gut-wrenching grief and painful dea–…

***

The Sun descended its harsh illumination. I squinted against its onslaught. Through my barely opened eyelashes, I saw the moving shadows of an assembled line of men of authority. I thought I distinguished crossed arms, grim expressions, stern countenances, and resolute demeanors. The thud of thick boots against waterlogged decking was unmistakable as was the murmuring of fate itself. My eyes adjusted slowly to the blazing light. This time my back was lashed against a mast, forcing my posture to straight and narrow. My hands behind me, all I could do was look up from a downcast face. One of them held a rolled parchment of a rather large sheaf and flung his arm in my direction. God help me, but I had no clue what was going on in this place. One minute I was left as an artificial semi-mobile invalid in the midst of a tenebrous tempest, and the next lashed ever so carefully to full immobility in a seemingly becalmed sea. The metallic taste of irony laced itself across my waking pensiveness. Why I am here? What could I have done? Who were these men, and what were their intentions?
I glanced back down at my arm where the vacant eyes of that sword-pierced skull stared languid up at me, the unnatural beak’s upper teeth almost appearing as if each were filed to a point. My tongue ran over my own upper mandible as if to reassure itself that the same condition did not exist within myself. An onslaught of melancholy reverberated through me. Why, I couldn’t guess. There was something I was missing; some memory that I constantly attempted to allow a tangible resurfacing but to no avail. Oh God! What has become of me here, on this weathered ship of creaking timber and sun-silhouetted dismal humanoid forms? Why could not I obtain that clear image; that crystalline consciousness and awareness that makes us all differentiated from the mindless animals? I shook my head as if a drunkard grasping at a shred of sobriety, the harsh seaward Sun basking its fiery rays upon my heavy-lidded burned face. Suddenly a man, presumably an officer of this vessel that had been speaking to the man with the parchment marched over to me and grabbed a hold of my chin, pinching it between his clutching fingers. He forced my mouth open, which made me feel like some horse being inspected for some purpose just before the bidding was to start. I made no move, except my eyes focused on his opposing hand, the back of which swiped fiercely from my left to right, until…

***

My mind swims in the rum; that rendered sweetness from the cane so callously cut down and processed by those destitute souls of the local feudal populace. I had gone through about a quarter of the bottle, my thoughts wild and untamed through a fog of near drunkenness. Music plays from somewhere by some merry band of spontaneously arranged sailors, who had gathered most probably for the first and last time. There was never going to be a moment like this ever again. Whatever this scenario, there would never be another like it, or even similar; for death is sure would touch at least one of us at the next juncture, thusly impeding all of time that would pass to come. Somehow I know this; the thought manifests itself strongly despite the rum-laced skew of the immediate surroundings. I go outside myself, looking at this poor pathetic creature that only just looked like me, so sad and despondent with how he had gotten to this point. The rum serves only to numb him from the endless pain he feels, the constant tinge of ache that lays leaden upon his soul. From my vantage above and outside myself, I see with it such clarity, such vivid and lucid realization that it almost seems that all the mysteries of the Universe are related to me with total comprehension before suddenly being slammed back into my own body and being forced to forget that vision of all that would have set me free. Only the loss of this latter item leaves a trace within my reminiscence of the instantaneous deluge of foresight, of which I begin to grieve tremendously. Just as I am within the apex of my lamenting this very thing, she comes up to me from behind and to the right and lays her hand upon my shoulder, her touch soft but yet strong. I turn, to which she uses my momentum to twist me upon the stool to totally face her. Two angular black eyes are turned upwards at me, bright and resolute. They are framed by a thick plait of long atramentous hair parted slightly off to the side that rests and is suspended by a pair of high cheekbones. The corners of her mouth are upturned as her hands take hold of both my upper arms. With bemusement, I raise an eyebrow at her wondering what it could possibly be that demands my attention from my own downhearted introspection. She shakes herself as if in disbelief that I do not comprehend her intention (which I do not). She indicates with her head that we should proceed to the center of the common room, of which turned out to be in closer vicinity to the band of players.
“Don’t you know who I am?” she inquires in thickly accented tones, of which origin I could not identify but was familiar nonetheless.
I look at her more closely, with a severity that did not seem to faze her. Instead she glances over at the musicians, a raggedy bunch that up until had been playing the sort of thing that every privateer here knew and enjoyed, almost upon penalty of death if it wasn’t played, or anything in its place for that matter.
She lifted up her hand and called over to them, “El invierno, no muy.”
“What?” I ask her.
Instead she whips back to me and places her finger against my lips.
“But you know me, yes?”
“I don’t, I don’t know–” I am interrupted by the players who start playing curiously. Their fiddles suddenly and softly toss out these notes at a constant rhythm more akin to those from the mainland assemble into great halls for with all their pomp. The music finally crescendos to an apex where one now transformed “violinist” stands alone amidst those that back him up with that before-mentioned rhythm. Then he drops back and joins his fellows where they all sync back into unison. I feel a tug. She pulls me by the arm off my seat and leads me to the center. She has tears in her eyes looking at me. In turn I am rather astounded, but there is a small part of me that is struck, a region within me that is jolted into some other reminiscence. I could not place it.
“But I do somehow,” I managed to say from a source other than myself.
She smiled sadly, the tears continuing to well like a newly formed spring. All I could do is stand there, dumbfounded. What could I say to her, with the salty warm drops now streaming from her glistening black eyes, the depths of which tore through me, into my very soul? The sensation of this very thing happening before that descends upon me like a crashing wave of the sea, so relentless and uncaring in its reckless power.
“And who do you think I am?” she whispered…

***

“You were the one who led us into the maelstrom.”
The statement was uttered flatly, without emotive issue. It was as if were some non-human, some kind of creature sent from the gods to tear our souls apart for its own pleasure. All I could do was to return his stare as blankly as I could, for my mind reflected a pervading blankness.
“What, you have no rebuttal, no explanation?” the voice continued.
I continued my silence. I thought it better not to say a word. The alternatives, an account of either a lie or a truth would make no difference. Either assertion would be met with the same fate, but perhaps silence would lead them to believe I was a mental invalid, for whatever that would be worth.
“There is no escape from this. You were caught fair and square. You have been identified by your brotherhood’s mark. The fact that you were restrained and captured without the ridiculous ritualistic ‘fight to the death’ adage of your unfortunate compatriots is nothing short of a miracle. However, as expected we have not been able to extract a shred of useful information from you despite our efforts to persuade you to speak. This is your last chance. Tell us. Tell us and we’ll, well I am sure you have been apprised of the potential methods to render your soul from your body?”
I honestly could not recall anything the “un-human” was referring to. The maelstrom, being caught, my so-called brotherhood, a surmised torture…none of it sounded at all familiar to me. The expression of puzzlement must have been implanted on my face, because the “un-human” gazed at me with avid disgust.
“Take him away,” said the voice with a wave of its hand. The “un-human” directly proceeded to the next task on its docket, whatever that may have been. My hands were bound again, and I was led by a henchman with a trained pistol, its bluish metallic barrel unwavering in its intent if I were to try anything outside of the scope of my transport. The door to the cabin opened by someone outside. I stepped out onto the hot ship’s deck under a blazing Sun; where about twenty pairs of eyes gawked at me with unmistakable odium. They had all ceased what they were doing to turn their heads in my direction. They all had expected it, anticipated it.
I felt that invisible cord of my temper slacken, shred and fray. From some mysterious depth of myself, I recognize an inimitable repugnance for each and every one of these men. My own eyes darkened as I was being directed toward a “device,” or implement of putting the condemned to death by cruciation. Why, I cannot say, but I recognized this apparatus. The accused would be hung upside-down by two opposing spikes being inserted into the hips to latch onto the bone, then what would follow was truly horrific: second, a metal barbed prong was to be inserted into the anus of the prisoner to which the barb would grab hold of rectum, then would snap backward to completely disembowel the…

***

“I want to always stay like this,” she imparts in her lovely voice, her embrace as soft as a spring ocean breeze at the onset of the impending afternoon heat in lands of tropical waters. We lay on a bundle of sails wrapped loosely along the edge of the ship’s bulwark. All I could do is nod to her, for the utter rapture she had leaden upon me made me feel as if there is some impending doom, some imminent destruction as a backlash, as an equal and opposite reaction to the absolute Heaven-on-Earth she makes me sense in every part of my being. I feel avid anguish despite the paralleled bliss she bestows on me even now. She leans on her right arm, her body twisted onto her side looking down on me. I gaze up at her, and behind her arrays a diadem of stars as if she were some heavenly angel, my savior from a horrible fate. The night air is so clean and fresh, or is it the fact that she is here so close to me? I always sense this from her whenever I am with her, for she as is portrayed within my mind surrenders all Nature to her, be it completely natural or caused by Man.
“Love,” she says.
“Yes?”
She brushes back my hair from my forehead then leans down to kiss, her lips gently brushing there. I feel as if this is a dream, but the awareness is so severe that I think to myself that is just can’t be. I find the paradox of myself here in this place with her like this staggering. The calm and ease of which she infuses within me so powerful and overwhelming to my customary pugnacious self. My usual infuriated spirit that begets hostile and impetuous violence to a time no longer than in a blink of an eye dissipates from the relative evenness like a diffusing vapor. I am actually surprised. –And surprise is something in my whole terrible life I had hardly ever undergone experiencing. I mean, it was just a few days ago that I took part in a outlawed campaign that included much hacking with the scimitar, many reloads of the pistol cleaving the spirit from the body, to finally relentless torture of the captured to squeeze out every bloody drop of sustenance that they ripped from us, those bastards of the–
“Love!” she exclaims, breaking me out of my brooding.
“I am sorry, it’s just that–“
“Shhhhh!” she indicates softly with her unturned finger pressed against her full lips.
I stop to look back up at her again. My heart swells with a swirl of longing. She senses this, and stretches up so she is on all fours. She lifts her left leg and extends it over my body to sit atop me. She bends at her waist and I feel all her lovely tendrils splaying over my face, tickling my cheeks, eyes, ears and nose. Her breasts push onto my own, the beat of her heart pummels through with an unsurpassed strength into my own chest. The rhythm impinges itself into our prospective worlds, and sets the cadence of my own heart and the progression of the scene. Like music, she plants her lips on my own with melodious sway. Oh God! My mind calls out to my Creator. –For I discern her anima extending out of her open mouth and my own coming out to intermingle, to enter into each other. She twists her head slightly, taking hold of my lips with her teeth, latching onto me and not letting go. The osculation of our lips’ embrace prolongs and prolongs. I close my eyes as I come to a swoon of those most forceful crush. I hear her deep sigh, the air from her exhaling across my cheeks so hot, cooling them for the moment.
She lifts her head, sucking at my bottom lip so that it almost seems like she will take it with her. She looks back at me with a wide smile and climbs off me, twisting her neck to glance back. I lift up and place my fingers on either side of her neck and graze my impassioned lips on her upper back.
I let my hands smooth down from her neck to her shoulders to which she breathes out a fervent purr. She winds her head toward me allowing her long black tresses to cascade down her back. She opens her mouth slightly and narrows her eyes in lustful repose and hums a little question, “Hmmmm?”
The impetus within my being is brought forth and I enshroud her with my wrapping arms across her stomach. Her tongue finds mine, whipping itself into a flurry of delectability. She raises both her arms to reach around and press the back of my head firmly so that we would not lose touch. Her breathing and my own quicken and quicken into a harmonious tempo. She lowers herself onto her side and somehow we never escape each other’s sweet contact.
“Mmmm love, mmmm,” she breathes.
She releases my head finally and turns to lay on her side and whispers, “Love, please, please.” She reaches down between my legs and strokes my hardened cock until it is literally pulsating with fiery desire to enter her. I place both my palms on her breasts’ nipples and lightly stroke in circles to a crescendo of delicious kneading. Her movements and exotic voice enraptures me, for she shakes and shudders and coils herself in response positioning herself higher so that my long stiffened member still being stroked by her sensuous touch would find the imminent, intended, and desirous course.
In turn she lifts her leg just enough into the air and drives her hips into my own. Then holding onto my dripping shaft, she manipulates it so that the head lashes itself on the outside of her pussy that sends writhing and crackling electricity through my entire form. She brings me to the point of total and utter ravenousness and soul-crushing hunger. My head pierces her clitoris and causes a slight wave of her own wet essence that coats my tip sumptuously in lavish lubriciousness.
“Ohhh my lover, mmmm, now love, now,” she hums. She directs the head into her hot and burning self to which I push sweetly and slowly inside. She lets out a gasp to coincide with my own. Never had I felt such heat, such succulent and heavenly sensation.
“All the way lover, all the way…”
So I impel my hips forward so so slowly. She screams and pants in delicious and impulsive melody as I work my way inside, deeper and deeper. When I reach the hilt, to the utter end I try to start to pull, but she follows my motion and pushes backward and disallows me to extract from her.
“No, love. No, let me.” Then she rolls her body forward so that I am out all the way to the tip quite unexpectedly, but just as quickly she rams herself backward so that her ass pounds into stomach. She shrieks with salivating and primal thirst as she repeats and repeats this until we both are brought to that point in time where a white-hot luminescence floods our vision, and we are transcended to…

***

I rested in a pool of my own hot flowing blood, the source of which spewed from my gut right below that lowest arcing rib. Coppery whisks and whiffs took flight into the air that was once still and hushed, but now were stirred either from the disquiet of the oncoming maelstrom or the one that had just occurred in wild desertion of mutiny among men onboard this ship. The brackish water lapped with forceful shuddering against the ship’s hull as I had discerned it. –But all I could make out was the deepening clouds turning from a lead-gray to a blackening slate. It was almost as if the doom they inscribed upon the concave sky canopy bonded in concert with these recent happenings. My mind was a blur, unable to assemble much of any memory yet again. It was as if the very environs in its avid chaos had duped whatever shred of sanity that I possessed, if any. It was then that I noticed my own exsanguinations had blended and melded with so many others. I detected a body close to mine, flies spinning around it in an angry cloud. I posed the question to myself, how could flies be out here in the middle of this churning ocean about to swallow us whole? How absurd I was thinking this given the circumstances of my sodden arousal. Deep and cleaved slash marks had raked themselves across this unfortunate victim, his mouth open what was presumably amidst his death throe. I felt nothing. In fact, I might have felt a tinge of hatred after I let the sight of him sink in. Then I began to budge from my supine splayed position, my left hand instinctively finding the seeping hole in my viscera and attempted a haphazard staunch of my life oozing out. I extracted my fingers just quickly to scrutinize the damage. The fact that the rust-colored droplets fell heavily upon my neck and chest with indecent splashes from my fingers did not seem to give me any impetus for concern. Why, it cannot be said.
I staggered upward to my knees, my right arm unconsciously stabbing the point of a scimitar into the solid wooden planks of the deck. I gazed down at the weapon in bewilderment, not recalling this implement’s first engagement as I clutched it with my fist. The keen point stuck deep into the board as the blade bent slightly to support myself coming to full height. Immediately I noticed the harsh wind and the commencement of pelting rain. I found myself stabilizing myself on the blade more than expected, for the ship began to list to the port with a definite bias. I felt myself go cold, and I could not tell if this was because of the gaping shot wound in my side by which my life poured out or what I witnessed under the ripping thunderbolts just off about one kilometer in the direction of tilt. The shock white electricity would intermittently illuminate an eddying tornado’s upper mouth on the ocean’s surface. Torrid and foaming brine on the roiling façade allowed me to survey the frightening wide expanse of every sailor’s nightmare. The ship had just entered the middle to outer reach of the horrid spiral; in other words the horrendous point of no return. It did not matter, this puncture in my abdomen ripped open by a hot ball of lead, for all our fate was determined regardless of this outcome of win or loss. Nature conquered, the relentless and sensuous bitch that always walloped down her hammer upon the anvil of the Earth whenever and wherever she so desired. –And in this case, the strike’s epicenter was just out the port side, like a great drain it sucked down all the flotsam within its whipping tentacles. I could only lean against the wooden rail clutching my leaking gut as I calmly watched my fate unfold. I closed my eyes for a moment and attempted to conjure those evasive memories that had up until this point eluded me. Through my self-imposed lack of sight my other senses began to sharpen and absorb without the distraction of the ever-present light. The ever-so-slight crackling of distant thunder accompanied by a harmonious splash and swirl of effervesce of the boiling sea. Suddenly memories of the last moments came flooding back upon witnessing the dead corpses that rested upon the drifting shards of the ship in the seething water below. I caught a glimpse of one’s face, its throat slashed open wide and mouth dangled open in what was presumably the last gurgling breath of that hellacious victim.

***

“Love, you must always take care, for if you were to die on me, how is it?”
“I shall not die my love, I–”
“You do not know this. For does not your allegiance to your own brotherhood set upon you a vow to fight to the death, this most ‘honorable’ method to separate yourself from life? No, I fear you are wrong dear heart. I feel within my own core you shall be ripped from me, you shall be snatched so unceremoniously from my aching breast to leave me here all alone. And then love, who knows when we shall meet again? Oh God love, the fairness is always unjust. Fate that brought us together shall also take away what it has given. ”
I do not know what to say in return, for she is right. What can I do, but hope? Hope beyond hope knowing naught else. She watches me with a sorrow that strikes to the heart. I cannot help but to want to walk over and embrace her to absorb all her pain. But this time I find that I cannot. I am overwhelmed with my own torrent of grief. A miniscule trifling of emotion compared to hers. Hers that is so intense, so vast that it radiates outward with unimaginative power. I have known this about her for so many long years. I know her like no other. For I have always found her despite the ongoing passage of time and the shifting of space itself. I cannot explain it. I have felt her lips touch my own countless times, I have held her in my arms in a myriad of indices, I have fused with her over eternity when the stars themselves were positioned differently than they are in the present and the world’s continents slightly less or more eroded, I have at times caught glimpses of her sailing through those very stars so far from this place in gowns of white and sparkling diadems aglow atop her crown. Each of these instances has always coalesced into a perfect poignancy of garish melancholy and delicious delight. For whatever reason our two paths have always crossed from meandering trails through the darkest of forests, through the most barren of deserts, and through the deadliest of thunderous storms to that of a widened road carved through the landscape to wherever it was to lead. We never know, her and I, we never were brought to the complete knowledge of the purpose. It was only understood that it would happen again and again and again irrespective of time and space and the irreverent situation we would both found ourselves within…

***

Yes, he was the unhuman as I had referred to him before. His face had been ageless in life: his eyes a cold and lackluster blue, skin pinkish and drawn taut over his expressionless skull, his hair a curious gray cropped short, his body hardened from the many long and harsh years at sea. I had remembered his voice being a quiet but firm directive, heartless in its delivery. I thought to myself he must have been out here among the far reaches of the world cavorting among the wide expanse bringing horror and detriment to all that crossed him, although his purpose remain veiled behind his impertinent countenance. It was as if a surface of an ancient glacier had ingratiated itself into humanoid form, monstrous in its conveyance but yet raw and feral in its employ. I didn’t comprehend his existence, whatever it may have been. All I could tell was that I was the reason for it cleaving of its soul from its corporeal self. For in my hazy recollection I could visualize the scathing hack of my scimitar raking a mortal gash across its neck, the blood spraying out purplish and thick upon the deck and open door I had been led through.

He had ordered me out of his quarters to be led to “The Device.” I was not going to lie down to be so cruelly dispatched willingly. On instinct from my brotherhood’s antediluvian vow, I countered the growing despair I sensed and stopped short catching my one of the unhuman’s henchman off-guard. I sidestepped and kicked my foot backward upon sensing his shin butt up against my back leg. As he fell to the hard wooden planks, I spun on my heel and aimed a vicious kick to his ribs further incapacitating him. Before the others could react with any sufficient act, I brought my twined wrist bindings against the sharp edge of his belt-tucked sword and sliced them apart. I quickly squatted as one of the guards swung wildly over my head with a sort of crude cudgel. The weapon had passed harmlessly over. I took advantage of the wielder’s overshot momentum and spun him in the direction of his swing by rising and taking hold of his shoulders to push him. Off the attacker went to the deck, rolling with a thud and striking his head against the boards. I quickly swiped up the scimitar from the first henchman’s belt and ran him through the back making sure to pierce him through his heart with one swift motion. The others came at me at once having caught sight of the mêlée. I wasted no time and hurdled over the now dead henchman, and swung the scimitar down with a whooshing blow at the second attacker’s neck, he who was emerging from being stunned previously. His severed head rolled away as I jumped to the left, seeking to enter the cabin where the unhuman dwelled. Blood seeped into and along the cracks of the boards behind me, pooling with a crescendo-like wave to the doorstep of the unhuman’s quarters. I slammed the door shut behind me as I surveyed the room’s interior. Nothing. I could not see or sense any trace of the unhuman. The others began to pummel the door with the hilts of their swords and the ramming of their shoulders. I knew that the latch would not suffice for very long, so I walked toward the desk in the rear of the room. I glanced about the desk, opening the drawers, feeling the underside until my fingers quite by accident caught on a thin lever that sprung with a snappish click. I discerned a rolling of wooden wheels across a carved wooden track from behind me. I turned to see a panel open to a set of descending stairs to below decks. I did not hesitate and proceeded down while closing the panel as a passed. I held my sword in front of me, making my way through the dim light of the bowels of the ship.
What I found was a pathway that lead to the powder room. However, the ship being in a recent and taxing battle most of the armament was spent. What was left as far as I could tell was a quarter keg barrel’s worth of black powder only. I collected enough of the substance to spread a long streak from a pile at the base of the barrel to the cabin secret doorway I had passed through earlier. I grabbed a pistol from the rack and cocked the hammer back squatting down at the end of black powder trail that I had carefully constructed. Just as I was about to strike the flint to the powder trail with a gentle squeeze of the pistol’s trigger that would spark from the flint strike, I heard a click-BANG! of another pistol fire. Before I knew what happened I felt a hot searing pain erupting from my side as I was literally nailed against the wall by the ball of lead that had tore through me. Still, my resolve intact I slammed the gun into the pile of explosive dust and pulled the trigger. The spark from the hammer was frighteningly severe as it ignited the powder. In turn, the black trail lit up like a giant sparkler that headed methodically and slowly toward the barrel. The shadowy figure that successfully blasted a hole through my gut charged in my direction upon seeing that his shot missed the mark. I staggered to my feet scimitar out and ready. At the last second I decided to back up the stairway that lead to the cabin above. I stumbled through the portal after opening the catch then sealed it behind me. I heard the mysterious assailant plunge into the secret door. With utter surprise I saw that the door to the outside was still intact and that the others had abandoned their forced entry. I thought this peculiar. I dragged myself to the door, unlocked it, and opened it a crack. I peered through and did not see any would-be foes lingering outside. I stepped through as I heard the secret door crunch under the crashing weight of the shooter. There was nothing I could do about him, so I crept around the cabin to the right and pinned myself against the wall to keep from being seen. Abruptly, the enemy broke open the door with the force of a charging elephant. It was the unhuman. He halted in his tracks and slowly cocked his head from left to right, as if listening carefully to the surrounding environment. Without warning, he darted around to the opposing side of the cabin toward the stern. My shirt was soaked through with a huge splotch of blood both in the back and front that depicted that the bullet had gone straight through. I felt the weakness encroach, but I trudged up to follow the unhuman despite. He had disappeared, but I still saw the whole crew of men shouting and pointing as something. There was a tinge of bluish smoke that rose from some unseen place. It was then I realized that this must have been the result of the trail of powder I had inflamed.

As I concentrated on what the men were doing, I discerned the click-BANG again of the flintlock and the mast just to the right of me splinter from the smashing of a lead ball. I snapped my head in the direction of the shot and witnessed the unhuman charging at me again. He revealed a hand double-bladed axe in his opposing hand and poised it to strike. Instead of parrying his blow, I ducked below it swinging my weapon at his legs. Miraculously he jumped his legs out of the way from my whistling blade. As I came up from my crouch and unwound at the waist to aim my elbow into his neck before he could recover from his slightly heavier weapon’s inertia. Off-balance, I swiped my sword from left to right and the tip of my blade sliced open the bastard’s throat. I followed my blow with an immediate kick to the dead-center of his chest which sent him reeling backwards. Before his backside struck the deck, an explosion blasted upwards from the stern sending most of the men either overboard or riddled with shrapnel. I was thrown back off my feet from the shock wave, landing with a crushing thud…

***

I watch with increasing blurring vision as the vortex draws into itself that thing, that wretched being from whatever nether region it came from. Of course I am heading to the same place; a comforting thought. I wonder at this very moment if it will be the puncture from that thing or the churning sea that will take my life from me, or will they both intersect in some kind of karmic symmetry. I see the last of it atop the exploded shard of the ship slide off the jetsam and sink tersely into the depths. The wounded ship is surely next, only behind a few more scattered remnants of itself along with the dead. I am the last one. Somehow I have survived despite the mortal wound. The sound is like nothing I have ever heard; so momentous akin to a waterfall, but then more delicate than that; so full of irony which defines this whole episode, this whole summary of experience that lead to this point, this life.
I think of her, so bright and angelic. Her last words to me prophetic, as they always are every time. She always was the wise one without realizing it. In all her long life she speaks so swiftly, her thoughts moving faster than her mouth can keep up, but little snippets of wisdom surface like life rafts from a sinking vessel. I try to tell her this, even repeat back what is said but she always pushes my examples away as nothing other than a lover’s skewed vision. I resolve to scratch out a message to her knowing that in all likelihood, it will never reach her. However, stranger things have happened here, and other spaces of existence. I lurch back to the cabin with its unhinged door, remove a sheaf of parchment from the shelf and remove a quill. All the ink jars have since been broken and spilled on the floor seeping between the boards to the lower hold. So in the spirit of symbolic improvisation I immerse the tip of the writing instrument into the wound in my side, and commence to scratch this desperate message to her, for good, ill, or indifference.

It does not matter my beautiful, for either way I am dead. I am dead, I am dead. All is postponed once more, whatever that may be. Even now I gaze at the maelstrom. Are we for all eternity doomed to this existence? Are we a set of vaporous souls that are set to wander through these random places, haunting the ambiance with our romantic innuendos and sorrowful farewells? Perhaps we shall continue where we left off. Do you think it possible? I know not love. Will I again survive the journey; will I again supersede the constant distractions during those times of naïve wandering to discover you, so familiar and radiant. You, who I always find in these venues of inequity, but so far in contrast with your surroundings such as a single vein of precious ore within a vast useless mine of the hardest stone. You, who when I again first lay eyes on you send a shock through my system. You, who when I gaze deeply into those very orbs bring forth a swirl of worlds, stars, systems, and universes held within your fathomless depths so frighteningly infinite. I am always utterly lost within your extents. I tell you this again and again, but even though you cannot see it within yourself I am the one that is nothing to you. You feel that you are nothing, but no. It is me that is a wanderer with no place, me who has truly nothing. Only in that moment of recovering you do I begin to count, and then it is even a severest question whether my importance is relevant at each end, at each strand that we follow each time; for I am forever the one that quarrels with such intolerance and impetuousness, while you are always the patient, acquiescing, amiable, and angelic. It is a wonder to me love, that you are the one that each time carries me, instead of the other way around. I am forever lost, as I am here, continuously torn away and scattered out across these distant places, these outer vestiges, the ends of all–

El Sigilo Pequeño

2010-07-16T02:50:00.000-07:00

The afternoon was hot, and he could feel the sheen of sweat down his back from the walk over to here. The Sun blazed like a rabid dog, biting ferociously at the ears, nose, arms and cheeks. Tall buildings stretched on either side of him, like giants of old. She told him to meet her somewhere around here like a hotel, wherever that was. She said it was vital that they meet. What, he hadn’t seen her in close to five years, and spoken barely a word in the last two, so why now?
So he walked and walked down the crowded city blocks. He would wipe the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand from time to time, almost now more out of habit than necessity. He turned right and stepped into the old hotel. The pathway leading up to it was of sloping flagstone construction, the surface worn from what appeared to be close to a hundred years of relentless footfalls. The path was girded by white stone rails following the curve in utter exactness. The amount of care taken in the antique construction novel when one would take the time to observe it.
He climbed the ramp and was met by the greeter who said something like, “Fùnyìhng” with a giant smile on his face.
“Mhgòi,” he responded.
He passed through the glass doors and entered, stopping short. He scrutinized the scene. To his left was a semicircular desk with the check-in attendants scurrying this way and that servicing all the newcomers. Beyond the desk he could make out a large expansive seating area, tables and chairs set low to the ground and spread out widely over the area. He stepped forward to head in that direction. He noticed that the place was crowded with people from all over the world. The occidental, oriental, middle-oriental, and so on.
Again he halted his progress and squinted, examining the populace.
“Of course she would meld into the crowd like this,” he muttered under his breath.
A hostess approached with a smile and said, “Néih hóu.”
“Néih hóu,” he replied, “Deuim̀hjyuh…English?”
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“I’m looking for someone I’m supposed to meet here.”
“Name?”
“Uhm, well I knew her as Fiona, but that’s all I remember.”
“Fiona?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm. What does she look like?”
“Well, I can tell you what she looked like from some years back. She is about this tall,” he indicated someone who that came up to just below his shoulder, “and has black hair down to her mid back, pretty, dark features…”
“Yes, there are a few here who resemble that description.”
Looking around he could already see that this was the case. He sighed in frustration.
“So, no one left a name?”
“No sir, but there are many, like I said. Perhaps I can take you through the seating area?”
She did. He looked around the entire place but could seem to find her in the crowd of loud speaking, all the languages blending and melding into a cacophony of sonic tide.
“I don’t see her,” he said scratching the back of his neck.
“I am sorry sir, perhaps she hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Maybe. May I wait right here for a bit?”
“Certainly sir. Can I get you anything?”
“No, let me just wait first.”
“Very well,” the hostess said and slowly strolled back to her post.
Suddenly he felt someone jab him in the side. Startled, he jolted in spastic disarray. As he turned, he saw two familiar eyes flash with glee.
“Is that you?” he asked.
“Mmmmhmmm,” she said immediately slipping her arm into his own and leading him to a table in the severe right corner of the room.
He hadn’t noticed this table before, for it seemed so hidden from the public view. He must have passed this location at least twice without detecting it while being escorted around by the hostess. On the table was already evidence of appetizers and drinks consumed. Two sets. The side that he took contained a half consumed glass of something blue and a hard dry half-eaten piece of bruschetta. The side that she took already contained her handbag looped around the chair back.
The scene that suggested that she had met someone beforehand didn’t seem to phase him. He simply took his seat, pushed back and looked at her. She sat down, adjusting her hair so that it all fell behind her left shoulder while a light grin alighted her face.
“I have a little secret for you,” she started.
“Oh yeah?”
“Mmmmhmmm. Yup.”
“And why in fact is it for me?”
“Well that’s a question better left unanswered.”
“There you go again.”
“Hmmm? What?”
“You know-”
“Really, should I?”
“I meant that rhetorically, but ok.”
“So, you’re not acting like you are particularly interested,” she leaded.
“Really? Whatever gave you that impression?”
“Are you being rhetorical now?”
“Not sure if I am or not. So far I plan on playing this whole conversation by ear.”
“Making it up as you go?”
“Exactly.”
“You always do that,” she stated flatly.
“Who says?”
“I do,” her voice said with a tinge of amusement.
“But of course you do. But then what makes you think you’re the authority?”
Just then their drinks arrived. He looked at her with avid puzzlement, his left eyebrow lifted in questioning poise.
“Uh, what’s this? I am not aware that I ordered anything.”
“I took the liberty of ordering our favorites. Or don’t you recall?”
He took the caffe latte with apt apprehension, which was hot and still steaming while she took a frozen margarita in a long curved goblet. He looked at her take the monstrous pale green drink with her long-nailed splayed fingers and barely gave it a sip through the fruit colored straw. He snickered while the waitress took the rest of everything that had remained away.
“What?” she asked.
“Oh nothing…Hey wait!” he gestured at the waitress, “let me have a tequila with a wedge of lime, ok?”
The waitress stared at him blankly and only nodded to only then reply, “¿Cuál clase de la tequila?”
“Reposado, y sin sal también,” he said, taken aback at the language she used but that he had responded.
“¿Con tu café?”
“Sí.”
“That’s a good question she just asked you,” she observed.
“How is it that she is speaking-?”
“She just is, so what?”
“Well, I just wouldn’t call it a common thing.”
“What’s common about anything of this? You, me, this mix of people, this place, this time, the fact we’re meeting here. Common has nothing to do with it. Anyway, why’d you order that?”
“You’re the one drinking a frozen drink,” he said smartly.
“So? So what if I am?”

“Hmmm…” he trailed as his eyes bounced over to the scene outside a rapidly ascending garden consisting of even stone work surrounded by a shallow waterfall flowing gently over smooth river stones. The garden rose from a stone platform, the sunlight illuminating the well-manicured hedges in a strangely coherent chaos that balanced with the overall order of things.
“Yes, so what if you are. Yes,” he continued.
“Yes, what if I am? But let’s return to you. Really love, coffee with tequila? That just seems a bit of a clash.”
“I disagree of course.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“About what?”
“Disagreeing.”
“Disagreeing?”
“Yes! Disagreeing.”
“What do you mean, in general or specifically?”
“I mean both.”
“That sounds a bit ambiguous.”
“Now, there you go again.”
“Yes, I am aware of this, but you still don’t know why I said that same thing to you before?”
She smiled, raising her eyebrow, her long hair splashed into her face like a flickering shadow. He frowned and shifted in his seat as if suddenly uncomfortable. The waitress returned as quickly as she had left to retrieve it and coldly planted the tequila-filled shot glass on the ornately carved maple table with a definitive knock. This caused the amber liquid to shudder with a mysterious mood that matched the ambiance of the evening. The waitress then turned sharply on her heel, her hair whipping around like an opening fan before falling all at once and fading into failing memory. Her shoes clopped away evidenced from the declining frequency of her departure. The woman seated across from him caught him watching the waitress’s exit.
“You like her?”
“Hmmm. What?”
“I asked, so you like her?”
“Who?”
“Who indeed?” she quipped, snapping her head and chin to indicate the appropriate direction.
“The waitress?” he questioned with a puzzled curiosity.
“I think she’s into you. And definitely does not like me.”
He took his first sip of tequila, then immediately followed it with a giant gulp to finish it off. He then bit down on the lime and literally swooned with satisfaction at the combination of flavors.
“Mmmmm,” he sighed.
She only looked at him expectedly, as if inspecting him for that body language that always gave him away at what he was thinking.
He felt her eyes on him and said, “What is it?”
“You know what.”
“And there you go again.”
“No, there you go again.”
“Well, you have me there, but at least I can admit it.”
“Yes, you admit to everything.”
“I do?”
“You do.”
“I wasn’t aware of that characteristic.”
“Yes, I am aware of that.”
“So you are saying that I am oblivious at being aware, but a master of being unaware.”
“Something like that, but I wouldn’t put it like that necessarily.”
“And this is the part when I ask you how would you put it, right?”
“Another question better left unanswered.”
“This whole conversation so far has been sort of like that, don’t you think?”
“Like what? To me it is perfectly clear.”
“I should’ve guessed that. But maybe I did without articulating it.”
“We’ll never know the truth.”
“Yes, well only one of us, the other will know it. And it will be true. So, after all this time, why now?”
“Why not?” she said with curtness.
He shrugged and pressed his lips together and narrowed a curious gaze at her. She matched his inspection look for look, so he averted his eyes back to the table and squirmed a bit in his seat.
Her drink was starting to melt and define itself into layers, that of solids and that of liquids.
“Aren’t you going to have some more of that?” he asked motioning to her sweating drink.
“You’re changing the subject. Don’t do that right now. What we’re talking about is extremely important, even though by the look on your face you don’t know it yet.”
“This whole conversation doesn’t have a defined subject.”
“That’s why dear beauty you most accurately called it a ‘conversation’ and not a ‘discussion’. However, you are wrong. This is a discussion and not at all a conversation.”
He frowned again, this time staring at his empty tequila glass. He reached out and took his coffee, now lukewarm, and sipped it without expression, except smacking his lips as he returned it to the table. He glanced up at her inquiring face and bit the top of his lip with his bottom-front teeth. Shaking his head he leaned back in the low slung gray leather chair and allowed himself a deep breath. The breeze through the trees outside seemed to follow suit. Their leaves rustled and sang their wavering song in sync with his own exhalations. She in turn never faltered in her examination of his every nuance, never her eyes left his own.
He left his right hand on the table by this coffee cup outstretched, his fingers splayed out into an indecisive array by the porcelain handle. She broke this spell by taking hold of his hand, slowly stroking with her brown soft fingers over his own. She lightly caressed the backside of his own and curled her fingertips so that her long nails slightly scratched his skin, pulling him back up into consciousness of the outside world from the otherworld of his hellacious slant toward introspection.
She leaned in close, bringing her lips to his ear. He froze, held his breath in curious anticipation of the unpredictable.
She whispered, “Hey, I have a little secret for you.”

When the Neutrinos Flow Outward

2009-12-31T23:02:00.000-08:00

Whatever she had envisioned, this was not it. However, this was precisely what he had foreseen through his virile prescience, which he seemed to have acquired along the way to this very point. Regardless, there it lay before the both of them, that singularity of what once was, that ending of what could be considered a horrendous age. He reveled in this horrific scene, while she only sat back in deep contemplation, her ethereal hand turned toward her face, massaging her chin as she gazed out through the view glass, her eyes glassy from the many hours spent on this effort that finally came to fruition.

She turned to her companion and looked up at him in a ponderous pretense, and he responded only by saying, “What?”

“You know what, Jango.”

“Hmmm,” he said, then continued, “no, there aren’t any others.”

“What do you mean, ‘there aren’t’? I thought you had put those we selected in stasis and brought them up on that final run?”

“No,” he replied with uncanny finality.

“No?”

“No, I said.”

“But, why?” her tone conveyed a teetering between sharpened utter sorrow and frustration.

“What’s the point? It has already been established that nothing will ever be learned, that after around a third of a million years of mundane repeat after repeat this whole thing needs to be put out of its misery once and for all. Keeping them would solve nothing. There would be two such people equivalent to us having this very discussion again in the many years to come.”

“I really wish you didn’t put me in stasis like you did-”

“Hey! I put you under for your own good. You know, you are just as responsible for this as I am. Don’t think that you aren’t a co-conspirator just because you were out for a little bit! Remember, you were there from the beginning just like me, and as I recall with quite the level of vehemence that surprised even me.”

Speechless, all she could do was give him a hard look, piercing in its stare but faltering as if she had just come to a pivotal realization of what lay ahead.

“Well, there’s no turning back from it now I suppose.”

“God, aren’t you perceptive. What did you think? That we would start an-all new utopia with the most luscious specimens we found? C’mon, we discussed this many upon many a time. Give it a few generations, and there’d be one that would fuck it all to hell. It’s been done before, and it would happen again. Up until now has been such a farce, such a fucked up so-called experiment, meaningless.”

“Ok, ok, Jango. I hear you. It just seems so final.”

“That’s the thing Sakami, it is final! There is no going back.”

“So you say Jango, so you say.”

Both Jango and Sakami paused and peered back out through the window in exhausted reprieve at the result of their recent handiwork. Jango broke his gaze away to peer at console, made some adjustments to the display and leaned back in his seat.

“Our orbit is holding with a relative velocity of about forty-nine point six kilometers per second, good,” Jango reported coolly.

“What’s our distance, from it?” Sakami asked with a tinge of apprehension.

“One-Hundred Sixty-One kilometers,” he replied, “well enough to stay in a good non-decaying orbit.”

“That feels too close for comfort though to something like this,” Sakami said thumbing in the direction of whatever it was out in Space. “So, somehow I didn’t think it would look like that.” she continued.

“Look like what?”

“Like nothing, like nothing was never here.”

"Well, when you take all that mass and essentially concentrate it to a near point, what do you think it would look like?”

“That could have been us, Jango.”

“But it wasn’t. All went splendidly, yes?”

“Yes,” said Sakami doubtfully, “I guess it did.”

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic at your greatest accomplishment!” Jango said with a sarcastic seethe, “you were the brains behind this. You are the grand architect, and all I am is the technician, the ‘practician’ if you will. You handed me the plan that you ask me to execute, and I did it.”

“I know this Jango.”

“Can’t you evoke the memories of why you started this to begin with? This represents your retribution fulfilled to sated fruition for those ghastly travesties visited upon you by the responsible. You tried to save them with your fail-safe plan of limitless energy, and what do they do? –but pooh pooh you like your some kind of mental invalid, a thing to be used and controlled for their own short-sighted ends and tossed away into the cold, to be imprisoned, tortured, and raped. Oh Sakami! This thing you made is beautiful, I mean look what it did! -The power that it can create from seemingly nothing and the ability to take it away in a microsecond...”

“Jango, did you outfit the ship with Contingency Two?” Sakami asked changing the subject.

“Yes I did,” he replied resolutely after a thoughtful pause.

“Why? There’s no one left as you said.”

“Because, you just never know. Plus, after I put you in stasis I heard rumors that the Janotheresians sent a crack team off-world.”

“What? God I hope not!”

“Let them come,” Jango spit with utter hatred, “their weaponry is no match for Contingency-Two!”

“But why would they send anyone?”

Jango gave Sakami a long measured look, studying her delicate features, her unassuming countenance. Sakami only returned Jango’s scrutiny with a quizzical expression.

“You mean, you don’t know?” Jango questioned.

“Know what?”

“You know Sakami, now more than ever I am ever surer that they all deserved what they got. God help that ‘crack team’ of tin foil hats if they ever came across us. In fact, I am halfway considering a search and destroy mission right now.”

“What are you talking about Jango?”

“I’m talking about erasing memories. I’m talking about the Janotheresian Hegemony attempt at surgically targeting and eradicating your abilities to control the Unifying Force. They also wanted to make sure you couldn’t accurately articulate its workings into something tangible, something to build against like what we did finally. I am suspecting that since they failed, they tried instead to unpeel your memories from the most recent working their way back. Luckily I got there in time before they had much of a chance-”

“Got there in time?” Sakami repeated as a long lost question.

“You see? I bet you don’t remember that, me extracting you, and then putting you in stasis shortly thereafter. Fucking buzzards. I did kill them all, those mindless tin foil hats. The shield you designed worked perfectly; I was totally impervious to their primitive ‘projectile’ weapons. The scaled-down Contingency-Two left nothing behind; like you said, ‘as if nothing were there’.”

“That was unwise to use the Contingency-Two like that Jango. You never know what kind of dynamic instability you left behind.”

“Does it matter now? I mean our plan worked, the BHAG annihilating everything absolutely. It probably swallowed up any kind of ‘instability’ that I may have initiated, yes?”

“Jango, it doesn’t work like that. This is entropy in its purest form that we’re talking about. More entropy piled onto more doesn’t mean a cancellation effect, it means a summation, and depending on the intensity of the disturbance there could be interactions that create a time-based nonlinearity.”

“But we haven’t detected any irregularities in the neutrino flows, Sakami. All is proceeding within the normal levels.”

“No matter. It could be a second from now or a million years in the future when these other effects could be realized. Anyway, which ‘mindless tin foil hats’ are you talking about?”

“The Janotheresian Hegemony’s special elite, they brought them in as guards into their ‘research’ HQ where you were being held.”

“So, you found it finally?!”

“Yeah, it was on the lower-east peninsula of the smaller northern continent in a place called ‘O-town,’ or something like that.”

“Yes, I have heard of the place. –But they were guarding me with their elite?”

“Yep.”

“What was their disposition; was it like the regulars? Were they totally subservient?”

“Oh yes, I’d say they were utterly fanatical. Like the Myrmidons of Greece. They were avid enforcers of Project Lemonade Stand. You remember that particular one, don’t you? Anyway, they not only reacted to Hegemony, but they also were given certain freedoms to carry out their own so-called ‘will’ upon the approved portions of the populace as they saw fit. -Sort of a preemptive measure I am guessing for any of those of scientific propensity. But you know all this, except for the fact that the Hegemony implored these elite in the latest effort for this alleged stamping out of all current technical expertise. Although my original hypothesis of the Hegemony was instead carrying out killings, which turned out all to be an illusionary trick in the end, actually captured and enslaved all identified scientists and their institutions to command in excessively controlled conditions. Hence, your incarceration and suppression of various talents and accentuation of the ones that brought them the most visible glory. Luckily, I don’t believe they were successful in extracting or suppressing your memory or ability for the composure over and detailed design of the BHAG, correct?”

“Yes, that is correct Jango. Ok, ok then, I’ll tell you that I do in fact retain complete jurisdiction over the black hole acceleration generator, and-”

“Hold on! If you do, then what is Contingency One?”

“It’s my original concept for fusion containment and measured energy production which they rejected as heresy since they weren’t able to understand the model in theory and failed in their first attempt at tangible construction. As you know, the ‘Protocept’ as they named it took out twenty point eight square nautical miles of the Capital’s surface right after they announced their glorious prophesy as being the savior over all else. They said that I had deliberately fooled them to undermine their ‘regal position,’ and had jeopardized their rule. Although I don’t see how that could be true, given what you have told me about Project Lemonade Stand.”

“Good, then we know that all that they were able to take away from you is your imprisonment after the incident.”

“But Jango, how can that matter now? You did insinuate that you had initiated the BHAG sequence, yes?”

“You know I did Sakami.”

“But, how can any of this matter? Everyone is DEAD!”

Jango looked at Sakami blankly at her sudden outburst, but then smiled with duplicitous rage.

“That’s right Sakami. Everyone is dead. There wouldn’t be any evidence at all that anything at all here existed beyond your masterpiece. Their corporeal forms transformed back to what it was not even a billion years ago, to that of cosmic dust, which in all intents and purposes is well-swallowed up by the nether regions of the singularity. Well, except for perhaps the rumored tin foil crack team that made it off-planet. -But then even that resembles a minuscule chance since they’d have to be at least six times ten to the minus-six parsecs distant at the initial ‘detonation’.”

Jango almost seemed serenely satisfied at this outcome, his teeth flashing menacingly and eyes sparkling with ecstasy. Sakami gazed at him in wonder, unable to voice anything for the moment.

Finally, Sakami said, “Jango, I had no idea that your idea of vengeance would be so catastrophic, although I did at one time think my own to be. Now it seems there’s been transference between you and I, just like the day we first met. Perhaps now is when we have returned to the truth of ourselves, carried out the inevitable, and-”

The console under Jango’s long fingered hands suddenly gave an alarm interrupting Sakami’s silken voice, a rapid beeping that jarred the duo out from their consuming discussion. Jango directed an intense examination of the arcane instrumentation. The newly fabricated ship was made exactly to Sakami’s specifications, all built upon her fundamental theory of unification. Rather than the old preconceived ideas of “warp speed” and “hyperspace” and even “light speed” she was the only human on Earth that possessed an innate understanding of the Universe and all its workings, and the only one that would ever for that matter. The ship was able to instantaneously travel to literally anywhere within the material plane of existence. Not only that, but it contained state-of-the-art control sequencing more recognizable to classical mechanics, at will shielding and of course outfitted with the Contingency Two: in essence the weaponized version of Contingency One.

“Goddammit!” Jango shrieked, “We have irrevocable confirmation, those fucker tin foils did make it off-planet!”

“Activate the shields!” Sakami ordered, her ostensibly unassuming demeanor abruptly coalescing into a force of pure ignominy.

-But before Jango could make a move the whole the console gave a constant squeal of imminent blare, then the ship was rocked by a pulse wave of concentrated energy.

“It is them!” Jango indicated.

“Jango, they hit us with a missile! A missile! Although the burst was off by a few meters. Forget the shield, target them with Contingency Two!”

“Already on it Sakami.”

“Remember, you must wind up the quantum defibrillator prior to firing, if they’re too close, that’s it!”

“I know, Sakami!”

“I’ll pilot, you concentrate on your objective!”

“What the hell are you doing Sakami, you’re heading right toward the singularity!” Jango pleaded after he noticed their recent bearing change.

“Trust me Jango, you of all people have been the only one thus far. Don’t doubt me now.”

Jango could only glance upwards in slight unease at her before going back to study the console. He could see the enemy craft within the HUD with the great perforated boxes of missile banks on all four sides. Their spherical coordinates were displayed on Jango’s console, the ρ magnitude rapidly changing as θ and φ stayed relatively constant since Sakami directed them down a radial toward the infinitely infant black hole. The enemy, the last of all the Janotheresians: the last of all men, the last of all women, children, infants, the unborn, Terran animals, plants, and perhaps even microscopic organisms of Earth lay in that ship.

“Jango! The QD is fully wound, set them in your sights and lay waste!” Sakami’s voice chafed at air between them in thunderous fury.

Jango flashed his eyes at Sakami, who now stood at the helm, eyes closed, hands and feet on all contacts, her face full of wrath.

“I said, LAY WASTE Jango, LAY WASTE, or I WILL!”

Jango punched the appropriate contact just as their enemy’s ship blasted a foray of rockets right at them.

“Sakami!” Jango implored with flailing panic.

Sakami only smiled. Jango directed his eyes back to the console as their ship shuddered from the flare of eerie unreal potency erupting from the Contingency Two. The enemy ship’s projectiles became as suns, blazing with a photon charge so piercing that the whole of Jango’s console went completely white. Then, before Jango’s eyes could adjust to this conflagration, the light almost seemed to turn direction, and implode upon itself to wink totally out.

“Where is it?” Jango bellowed.

“Where is what, beloved?”

“The ship, the ship, where are they?”

“They are as the light of the nights of old, cast in shadow eternal. Goodbye dear Earth, and good riddance to your memory.” Sakami said in a cheerful reverie.

Jango could find no hint of the enemy ship, or any of the castigated remnants of Contingency Two’s destruction. Puzzled, he looked back to Sakami, who now stared into his own eyes vacant, her skin appeared to split in places to cast brightness forth and then mended all the while she stood still as stone.

There was only one adjective that gave it its proper due: fishy.

The Amazing Death Defying Feat of Allen and the Two Who Almost Watched Him Die

2009-12-31T21:58:00.001-08:00

Whatever they had envisioned, this was not it.

The Allens were really just one Allen. He was the annoying chubby kid that always found his way in to the other kid’s houses, birthday parties and sleep overs when none of them ever really wanted him to be there. He wasn’t really a friend, but Allen was the kid all the other kids kept around so they had some one to pick on. Allen would always come back for more. He never took the hint, or had the self-respect to stop coming around just because the other kids were mean to him.

“Here. Put this on.”

The eight year old boy, named Philip, stretched the item out to his friend Jacob as he instructed him on what to do with it. The item was a flimsy, silvery tin foil hat. It was bent and crooked, but was following a train of thought towards being shaped like an upside down triangle, or a Hershey’s Kiss. A cone of sorts, and when Jacob took the shoddy thing and placed it on his head, it surprisingly fit him perfectly.

Philip smiled and explained the purpose for the thing. “It’s to confuse the Allens. They won’t be able to find you if you keep that on at all times.” Jacob smiled and nodded his head in agreement, as Philip placed his own shiny hat atop his head.

Jacob noticed the brown paper bag that Philip was holding under his arm and asked, “What’s in there?”

Philip smiled and answered, “You’ll see. It’s going to be awesome!”

The Allens was a game they liked to play, where the real life Allen was just one of many aliens that had attacked the planet and had come to eradicate every human on Earth by annoying the pooh out of them. It was actually an excuse to run around the neighborhood looking for the poor unsuspecting boy and play pranks on him. You know, to protect the planet.

As usual, when they found Allen and played whatever cruel prank they decided upon, they could always have a laugh because Allen would always play it off and consider himself lucky to be getting his much desired attention from the other kids. Philip and Jacob never understood why someone would actually want to play with kids that had obviously set out to make him miserable, but it was a perfect way to pass the time on a Saturday afternoon.

It didn’t take long for them to find him. They found Allen in the same place he could always be found on a Saturday afternoon; his lemonade stand. Allen loved his weekly lemonade stands. Even though all the kids would line up and talk him in to giving them lemonade for free. He never made any money from the weekly venture, but it was always a way to get the other kids to come to him and offer friendship and favors in return for a cheaply made drink.

Philip and Jacob hid quietly behind two shrubberies just across the street from Allen. They watched him and giggled for a solid five minutes before Philip revealed his master plan. He finally opened the brown paper bag and showed Jacob what its content was.

Inside the bag were four eggs. “They’re rotten. I took them out of the refrigerator last week and hid them in my closet. They should be nice and disgusting by now.”

“What, we’re going to throw them at him?”

“No, we’re going to eat these for lunch, then go ask Allen to the movies. YES, we’re going to throw them at him. When these puppies explode, they’re going to be rank man. Nasty.”
The two boys laughed quietly about what they were about to do and started planning their attack.

The plan was a simple one. Sneak up on Allen, circle around like a couple of hungry buzzards and wait until they were so close there would be no possible way they could miss hitting him with the spoiled eggs.

So, they crept two houses down, still on the opposite side of the street from Allen. Once they were far enough away and it was safe enough to cross without being seen, they did so. They stayed hidden by crouching down behind trees, bushes and mail boxes, all the while moving closer and closer to their unwitting target.

At last, they found themselves perched behind a big oak tree, watching Allen sit alone on the street corner, waiting for some one to come along. As quietly as he could, Philip set the bag of eggs down on the ground, opened it and pulled out two eggs, handing them to Jacob with a maniacal grin on his face.

Once Jacob had the ammunition firmly in his grasp, Philip slowly reached in and pulled the last two eggs out for himself. They were hunched down on their knees and snuck a peak out from behind the tree. It seemed they were almost close enough to reach out and touch the other boy and it seemed strange to both of them that Allen was so clueless that he still had no idea of their presence.

Philip held his hand up, showing three fingers. He silently counted down from three.

Three…
Two…
One…

The two assailants jumped out from behind the tree as Philip called out to Allen. “Hey chubbo…”

What happened next happed instantly, but it also seemed to bring the moment to a heightened reality, with emphasis on every detail, every single millisecond in time.

Allen jumped at the sound of Philip’s voice and turned to face the other two boys. He was instantly met with a rotten egg to the face. It shattered and spewed its disgusting blend of spoiled odor. The smell spread quickly and seemed to totally permeate the air around all three of them. The scent was actually horrifying enough to have caused Philip and Jacob to have second thoughts about throwing the other eggs. But, it was too late. The other three eggs had already been thrown against what was now, against their better judgment. The second and third eggs splattered in to Allen as well. They hit him, one in the shoulder and the other in his stomach, just above the navel.

The fourth egg, thrown by Jacob was as perfect a throw as there ever could have been. He could have never hit his target so well if he had decided to train for it for months. When the egg left his hand, it fired off towards Allen like a decrepit white laser beam dancing with its own destiny.
Allen was still caught off guard and his mouth was agape at the shock and awe of being pelted with the smelly missiles. It was his open mouth that helped the doomed situation along, as this was precisely where the fourth egg had decided to go. It moved forward like a feather glued to a rocket and as it entered Allen’s mouth it made a quaint little popping sound, like the sound a fingertip makes when it is flicked against an open cheek.

But, the egg didn’t stop at Allen’s mouth. It traveled all the way in to his mouth and down his throat, where it finally lodged itself and came full stop just beneath where his Adam’s Apple would have been, if he had been just a few years older.

Time was no longer moving fast, or slow. Time was now standing absolutely still. Philip and Jacob could not move as they watched Allen grab his neck and struggle to catch his breath. There was noon to be caught, as the egg was completely blocking his airway.

Allen started punching himself in the stomach, in a desperate attempt to perform some perverted solitaire version of the Heimlich maneuver. But, it didn’t work. Then, he frantically started motioning to Philip and Jacob to assist him in his attempt to find new breath. But, the two were still useless. Frozen from the fear of what all three of the boys knew would happen if the egg wasn’t removed from his throat soon.

Suddenly Allen’s face lit up like a light bulb. He made a fist with his hand and pointed it at himself. He took a moment to squint and cringe. Philip and Jacob’s eyes widened as they realized what Allen was about to do. The suffocating boy closed his eyes, pulled his hand back and quickly punched himself in the throat.

The plan worked. Sort of. The egg had shattered inside his throat and made way for Allen to suck in fresh air. But, the starving gasp caused the rotten egg to get pulled down Allen’s throat and before he even had a chance to prepare himself for what was about to happen, it happened.
The taste of the thing was ten times worse than the smell of it. He was torn between catching his breath and gagging from the sickening of it all. It was nauseating. It was repellant. It was repulsive.

Within seconds his stomach was grumbling in an all out revolt against the rotten substance that had just invaded it. Allen gagged and forced a gross sound from his throat. It was awful. Something that sounded like a frog's croak. A low rumble emanated from the rot in his gut. Then everything went silent and the three of them relaxed.

A few moments went by and the three boys started to think all would be well. Nervous smiles came across all their faces and they almost started to come down from Allen's death defying feat of swallowing an egg whole. But, the moment was short lived.

A whole-hearted look of horror consumed Allen's face as a river of vomit shot from within him. A raging rapid of everything Allen had eaten within the last twelve hours came back to haunt him.
The pizza from the night before. The bowl of fruit loops and milk he had for breakfast. The peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich he had consumed for lunch. Even the king sized Snickers bar he had snuck out of his Mom's closet. All of it was now coming back with a vengeance, along with the Grade A Extra Large egg Philip's Mother had purchased on sale one week before.
It was long. It was constant. It was seemingly never ending.

In the end, there was bile everywhere. They were all covered in it. It was in their hair, clothes and mouths. There had been no escaping it and halfway through the fit they just gave up trying. There was nothing left to do, but pray to God almighty that the siege would soon come to an end.

And it did. Eventually.

The three walked home together, but in silence. There was a new found bond between all of them. There was nothing any one could say or do to take back what had just happened. There was nothing that could take back the fact that they had survived “The Egg”. They would never forget it. And neither Allen, Philip, nor Jacob ever ate an egg again in their life.

There was only one adjective that gave it its proper due (anyway)...fishy.

What's IN That Lemonade?

2009-12-31T17:33:00.000-08:00

Whatever she had envisioned, this was not it.

Perhaps it had been her crazy grandmother’s idea of mixing absinthe in with the lemonade she and her sister sold every hot and sultry afternoon at their little stand next to the golf course.

Perhaps it had been their even crazier grandfather’s insistence that they both wear tinfoil hats while they manned – only Twila’s little sister Candy insisted on calling it “womaning” – the stand.

Whatever it was, as Twila and Candy set up their wares, opened the cheerful little umbrella Grandpa had also insisted be covered in tinfoil, eyed the funny spoons Grandma had given them to add sugar to the beverages, and put up their laboriously hand-lettered sign, their first customers were more than a little scary.

“Aren’t you guys hot in those suits?” Candy piped up as two men, dressed all in black except for white shirts peeking out from under heavy black suit jackets, stood waiting, silently, to be served. Their heads cocked sideways, quizzically, like a dog’s might when his master says something that doesn’t sound quite like “walk” or “dinner.” Their heads cocked in perfect unison. They said nothing, just held up, each of them, a thumb and index finger.

“One, two, they want two,” Candy chirped, pouring two glasses. “Ew, it’s GREEN!”

“It’s our Gramma’s recipe,” Twila explained to the still silent men, who hadn’t even doffed their black hats or sunglasses even as they stood in the shade of the giant, foil-wrapped umbrella. “Was that two each or two total, by the way?”

“One, two, they want two,” Candy chirped again.

“I want two,” said the one on the left.

“I want two, too,” said the one on the right.

The girls giggled at this but soon stopped when the strange men simply tilted their heads again.

“OK, Candy, now you put the sugar cube on the funny spoon and drip the lemonade over it, like Gramma showed us,” Twila said, wincing as Candy dropped the first sugar cube on the grass. She winced more when Candy, too fast for her, reached down, picked up the cube, and popped it in her mouth.

“You are wearing tinfoil hats,” the one on the left observed.

“Why are you wearing tinfoil hats?” the one on the right queried.

“Our Grandpa told us to,” Candy said. “One, two, they want two.” Four sugar cubes were now balanced on four slotted spoons, balanced over four glasses of home-brewed absinthe.

“Better let me drip the lemonade,” Twila told her sister.

“No, I wanna!” Candy snatched the pitcher away from Twila, a perfect baby-sister pout deforming her cute features.

“Fine, if you’re gonna be a baby about it,” Twila said, gasping as Candy sloshed the lemonade about, preparing to pour.

“I have to let her have her way a lot because she’s special,” Twila informed their two patrons.

“She is not the special one,” the one on the left said.

“No, she is not the special one,” the one on the right agreed.

“How would you know?” Twila asked.

“We know,” the one on the left said.

“Yes, we know,” the one on the right said.

“Our momma says we’re both special,” Candy said, poking her tongue out in concentration as the first sugar cube dissolved into the first glass.

“Um, right.” Twila said. Some arguments just weren’t worth having, especially in front of strangers. ESPECIALLY in front of very strange strangers.

“What else has your ‘momma’ told you, Candy?” the one on the left asked.

“What else has your ‘momma’ told you, Twila?” the one on the right asked.

“Wait, how do you know our names?” Twila clutched at the top of her foil-wrapped head.

“Did she tell you about your daddies?” the one on the left asked.

The one on the right said nothing, this time.

“Mister, we’re just here selling lemonade. I don’t think –“ Twila began, but Candy interrupted her.

“Our daddies are from SPACE!” she said proudly, handing the first glass to the man on the left.

“Candy!” Twila shot her sister the dirtiest possible look.

“What? They already know. I bet they know our daddies! You do, don’t you? You do, you do!” Candy almost tipped over the spoon-and-sugar arrangement she’d just carefully balanced on the next glass.

“You are a very smart little girl,” the one on the left said, sipping from his glass. “And this is very good lemonade.”

“Yes, a very smart little girl,” the one on the right said. “I can’t wait to taste my lemonade.”

Twila backed away a bit and began rummaging with one hand behind the stand. Gramma had given them a cell phone to use in case of emergencies, and this was starting to feel like one.

“Twila, that cell phone won’t work. Your Grandpa made sure of that,” the one on the left said, pointing up to the umbrella over their heads.

“I can get out from under it though,” Twila said. Quick as she could, she hit the speed dial for Gramma’s house.

Nothing happened.

She walked a little further from the stand and tried again.

Nothing happened.

She took the foil hat off her head and tried again. Still nothing.

“The foil is merely a signifier,” the one on the left called out to her.

“It has no function beyond the merely semiotic,” the one on the right said, as if that would clarify things to a ten-year-old girl, however special.

“Semi what?” Candy asked. A second glass was ready, which the one on the right took up eagerly.

“This is the best lemonade we have ever had,” the one on the left said.

“Yes, the best,” the one on the right agreed.

“And yet, there is something odd about it,” the one on the left, who had drunk half his glass, said.

“Of course it is odd,” the one on the right said. “Consider the source.”

“Oh yes, of course,” the one on the left said, and smiled.

It was the first facial expression that had ever crossed his face, and would be the last, though neither of them knew it quite yet.

“Twila,” the one on the right said, sipping slowly from his glass, “If we meant you any harm, would your sister still be happily pouring lemonade over here right now?”

“No, she would not,” the one on the left said, still smiling. He wobbled a bit on his feet.

“But at any rate, what kind of big sister would leave her alone if she thought she was in danger?” the one on the right, asked, and took a great, deep draught of lemonade, as if he needed to catch up with his partner.

“I’ve got another one ready! Who wants it?” Candy asked, proudly.

“I’ll take it, if you please,” the one on the right said, hastily gulping the last of his current glass.

“Ought we to have ordered four?” the one on the left asked, savoring the last swallow of his.

“You may be right,” the one on the right said, accepting a new glass from Candy. She smiled up at him.

“They’re not scary, Twila. You’re just a chicken!” she called to her sister.

“Bock,” the one on the left said.

“Bock,” the one on the right said.

And both of them dissolved into a fit of giggles.

Twila cautiously made her way back to her chair behind the stand, casting a watchful eye about in case anyone happened along who could help them.

Candy proudly presented a second serving to the one on the left, who gulped greedily at the lemonade.

“Wow, you guys are really thirsty!” she crowed.

“Your lemonade is just so delicious,” the one on the right said, holding up his thumb and index finger again. “We would indeed like two more.”

“Indeed,” the one on the left said, setting his abruptly empty glass on the card table.

“Tell your friends about us,” Candy chirped, busying herself. “Hey lazybones,” she said to her sister, “You ever going to help?”

The man on the right abruptly sat down on the grass. The motion wasn’t quite a fall, but close. Candy joined the men in their giggling. Twila raised an eyebrow and set to preparing the next two glasses with a will.

By the time the next two sugar cubes had dissolved, both men were stretched out on the glass, helplessly giggling. The one on the left had even lost his hat, knocked off in his fall to sit beside his partner.

Candy all but skipped from behind the table to bring them their latest glasses. Gramma’s bottle of homemade green fairy was almost empty and they were almost out of sugar cubes – Candy had been sneaking them to suck on. Twila became nervous as to what might happen when they ran out.

And where was Gramma? Or Granpa for that matter? Twila couldn’t believe they’d been left alone out here for so long. It felt like it had been hours. She glanced up at the sky to get an idea, but the sun was still behind a cloud.

Both men were now hatless and had removed their sunglasses. This did not make their appearance any less menacing, in Twila’s opinion, but Candy thought they were “so funny!”

“Why did you shave your eyebrows off?” she wanted to know. And “Why are your eyes red? I didn’t think people got red eyes?” And “How come you don’t have any hair on your heads?”

Candy was now sitting on the grass next to them, and had even gone so far as to start playing with one of their hats. Playfully, she tried it on.

“Don’t do that, little Candy,” the one on the right, whose hat she had, said. He reached to snatch it back from her, but missed by over a foot. He laughed again.

“No, it’s best you don’t,” the one on the left said, trying also for the hat and missing.

“What’s in this lemonade?” the one on the right said, gasping between fits of laughter.

“WORMWOOD,” a tremulous voice announced from behind them.

“Gramma!” Candy said, excitedly, and ran to hug the old lady.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” Twila said.

Gramma brushed off Candy’s attempts to hug her and strode towards the still-giggling men on the lawn.

“It is Wormwood, and it has done its work. Look, even now, as the sun emerges from its cloudy cage.”

“Gramma’s talking funny, Twila,” Candy pouted from behind her.

“Gramma always talks funny,” Twila said, eyeing the scene with caution. “Come here.”

A ray of sun pierced the clouds just then and shone into the giggling men’s eyes. They screamed, the pair of them, the only sound loud enough to drown out Gramma’s maniacal laughter.

They screamed and clutched for their hats and their glasses, well out of reach thanks to Candy’s curiosity. A smell not unlike when Grandpa burned the bacon on Sunday mornings drifted to Twila’s nose.

“Burn, you bastards, burn, and know that soon I will find a way to make my no-good husband join you,” Gramma boomed. “Come here, girls, you shouldn’t have to see this.”

Candy and Twila did as they were told and hid their eyes in their grandmother’s voluminous skirts as the men’s faces and hands caught fire.

“What’s happening, Gramma?” Twila sobbed.

Gramma stroked Twila’s hair and simply said “For once, one of my plans has worked out. And you two are safe for a few more years, no matter what that bastard, your Grandpa, tries.

“As for you two,” Gramma bellowed to the agonized heaps at her feet, “You will be left here to feed the buzzards and to send a message to your masters. Whatever their parentage, whatever their value, my granddaughters will grow up normally, have a normal childhood. They can choose when they grow up whether – OR NOT – they want to join you in your mad little quests. But until then, you will leave them the hell alone!”

And triumphantly, Twila’s and Candy’s grandmother led them from the lemonade stand, ripping the tinfoil from their innocent blond heads and waving down the buzzards who even now were circling overhead, waiting the inevitable.

Twila followed, but lingered behind a bit to watch the feasting. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about what she had just experienced, or about her grandparents.

For there was only one adjective that gave it its proper due (anyway): fishy.

On Backbiting, Revenge and Fishiness

2009-12-28T17:16:00.001-08:00

Whatever she had envisioned, this was not it.

Sunset's part in the story was supposed to be supporting, the role transitory, taking such a brief amount of time – comparatively – that no one should have noticed her at all.

Except they would notice her, wouldn't they? No one could escape her beauty, even when the clouds surrounded her. Like a pack of buzzards, they would circle around, stifling, trapping, waiting for her to acknowledge them so they could swoop in and steal the light from her. She need merely turn in their direction and they pulled closer, drawn in for their own self-serving purposes. They needed her intensity; the sustenance of her warmth fed the one they served.

At times, the deep colors of their moods made them impenetrable, but there were moments, irritating moments when the stage was nothing but black and yet the technicolor light of Sunset's grace still shone through. Times when she was clearly feeling more sprightly and energetic than usual and was able to tear a hole through their oppression.

For the most part, she was treated as an earthly star – Grace Kelley or Audrey Hepburn or one of the classic beauties. And Sunrise knew, without a doubt, that her twin was favored by many, despite her own impish nature.

Each night, Sunrise watched as Twilight linked his fingers with Sunsets to steady her descent and just before she slipped backstage, pressed a lingering kiss to her lips. His actions had always made Sunrise envious, negating the whispers of affection he had bestowed upon her each morning. The feel of his cool fingers against her warm skin had always felt like the perfect match; the heat transferred from one to the other so complimentary it was as if they were meant to be together.

Or so Sunrise had thought. Then she'd heard the rumors. Twilight had fallen in love with the damned woman. Her handsome prince had turned out to be a duplicitous little rat. Sunrise had tried to confront him, but he had refused to discuss the matter, employing first charm and then silence to press his point. No matter her argument, he would make no commitment to give up his evenings with the sultry vixen.

And now Sunset had beseeched the gods for another role. She had offered to be the Stars, the Clouds, the Wind, the Sun itself...anything other than a fleeting character. She was such an attention hog! Sunrise knew why the gods were quick to grant her request. For her vacillating temperament was as well documented as her beauty.

Their agreement, thankfully, had been conditional. They would grant Sunset an evening in the Moon's role, but only one. If she wanted the part permanently, they'd proclaimed, she would have to shine brighter, be lovelier, draw a crowd the likes of which had never been seen before. Otherwise, she would be granted only the one night and would resume her normal duties the next day. Sunrise intended to see that she failed. She would not allow her estranged twin to win again.

Sunrise watched from behind the curtain as Sunset paced around the floor. She wondered what the woman could possibly do to transform the mundane nightly show. The glow of the fire reflected off of the material of Sunset's gown and she paused, fingers roaming over the sparkle of colors. Her twin was definitely a dazzler, one who had been doing it so often and for so long that it came without thought. Sunrise even found herself caught up in the beauty of the moment and realized she had forgotten all about her plan to sabotage the upcoming performance. Before she had a chance to come up with a plan of attack, Sunset stepped out into Night's dark arms.

Both Sunrise and the Stars held their breath, waiting to see what Sunset would do and for a long time, nothing happened. Then minutes passed and before Sunrise had a chance to glory in the vixen's failure, the sound of perfection rippled from the finite ground of Earth and into infinite space. A wave of murmurs passed over the Stars and their adoration was as visible as the tin-foil hats they wore to reflect their twinkles. Even the Clouds stepped back, awed and delighted by her showing. Sunrise swore under her breath.

Over the course of the next five hours, Sunset moved in slow increments, pulling different angles of light from the Earth so that her appearance was a progression of otherworldly, reddish hues. Humans from all over stepped out of their homes to watch her transformation, their faces, their smiles, as animated as a kid at a lemonade stand making their first sell. Through grinning mouths, breathless whispers spread over the Earth, mixing with the Wind to form an almost musical sigh.

Sunrise knew the gods had heard it, too. But she was granted a boon anyway: for those omniscient beings foresaw something silly Sunset had not – an opportunity not for nightly glory, but for a rare performance. They dubbed her the Umbral Moon and declared her the most beautiful of all time. This time Sunrise cursed aloud.

And realized she had to come up with something new. But who could she turn to for assistance? Even Twilight had been drawn into the glory of the occasion, the slimy eel.

Then it hit her: She would master the tides, become a timepiece to all who tread the waters of the ocean deep. She may not have those nights of sheer perfection, but what was beauty worth, anyway? She would make a comeback – oh, yes! And if her plan reeked of frustration and jealousy, that was just fine with Sunrise. For there was only one adjective that gave it its proper due (anyway): fishy.

Been There, Done Splat-A Twitterized Short Story

2009-12-22T12:52:00.000-08:00

Whatever she had envisioned, this was not it.

Once upon a time, there was an old buzzard named Z. Beelzebubbler who origamied a tin foil hat. She walked......to the lemonade stand with an undying thirst. A meteorite fell from the sky and killed her. The end.

There was only one adjective that gave it its proper due: fishy.

Can't Stop the Signal

2009-10-13T07:36:00.001-07:00

Matilda Barto woke sprawled across the carpet of a Georgia hotel room with the worst headache of her life and no memory why she was there.

Then it came to her. Golf. What the hell did she know, or care, about golf? But a certain swanky east coast magazine was paying her very well to toddle around the Masters Tournament and create another of her odd little semi-poetic, semi-journalistic graphic shorts about her experiences there.

And the hotel room was pretty nice.

She had stayed up way too late last night, fiddling around with her little Grundig 300 mini-worldband, trying to find the same frequencies a distant friend was “howling at the moon” over. “You’ve got to hear this preacher,” he’d texted her. “I can’t tell if it’s Obama or Hugo Chavez who is the antichrist who is bringing down the solar flares in 2012. Your Spanish is better. 13970 or so.”

And so the hours had flown by. She had never found the preacher he was on about, but something much stranger had turned up.

World band radio is funny stuff. Matilda mostly seemed to hit feeds of the BBC or Radio Marti but sometimes she’d strike a rich vein of weird.

Oh, good god – like the signal in the low 10000s that had…

She opened up her omnipresent Field Notes. Yes, she really had drawn that. Herself, convulsed in laughter over a Baptist call-in show, then a bunch of scrawled ascemic-looking something that trailed right off the page.

Voices. They were low and incomprehensible sometimes, high and demented as those in Ween’s “Push the Little Daisies” at others, but always chanting, orgiastically, “Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods.” Then the burst of the most godawful squelch and static she’d ever heard; it seemed to burn right into her brain.

And then she woke up here, like this, on the floor with – bog help her, 20 minutes to get to the Augusta National and meet her native companion, a famous golf broadcaster, his hushed voice a standby in that world, who had graciously agreed to take the time to explain what the hell she was seeing.

She was never going to make it. Matilda grabbed her phone to pass on her regrets. Something was wrong with the display.

Matilda frowned and grabbed her Field Notes. Her phone’s display window and the weird characters she’d written were virtually indistinguishable.

******************************************

Meanwhile, across town, her contact, famed golf writer and broadcaster Cab Coulson checked the time on his own phone, and shook it.

“You. Lackey. Yes, you,” he flagged down a network intern, who was bustling around the network’s field headquarters with no discernible purpose. “Go get Arnie. Something’s up with my phone.” Cab held it out to her to show her.

“All of ‘em are doing that, sir. They work, though. I was able to call my mom a minute ago. Speed dial.” She held up her own phone as proof. Its display looked like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, a slow crawl of incomprehensible symbols.

“And if I don’t have someone on speed dial, what do I do then?” Cab groused.

“Um. I. Have to be over there now,” the intern said, already moving that way before her excuse was fully formed.

Cab jammed his phone into the pocket of his trousers. He stood, arms folded, impatiently at the edge of the network enclosure and scanned the course’s environs for this Barto girl. Someone had claimed she was hot, after all.

Matilda hurriedly showered and jumped, long black hair still wet and piled on her head in a clip, into her car. As she started it up, the satellite radio blared that same horrid squelch that had so fried her brain the night before. Then started up the chant again, in those weird, weird voices. “Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods…”

She had never turned on the satellite radio. She hated that shit.

At the course, every cell phone in the vicinity had turned into a receptor for the same signal that was dogging Matilda. Except now it had added a strange, discordant trumpet riff straight out of – had any of this golfing crowd been hip enough to recognize it – the Residents or Gyrating Bhtch.

“What the fuck?” Cab demanded, clapping his hands over his ears as many others were doing, oblivious to the rather obvious tumescence the constant vibration of the cell phone in his pocket was producing. Had he looked around, he would have seen he was not alone.

“Tiger Woods isn’t even playing this tournament this year” someone started screaming to anyone who would listen. “He isn’t even playing!”

“Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods” all the phones and much of the other sound equipment kept chanting in distorted, inhuman voices.

Matilda finally succeeded in shutting off the satellite radio the old fashioned way – by yanking it right out of the dashboard. The magazine would, she felt sure, compensate the rental car company; if not it would still be worth the hassle. She eased into traffic, suspiciously light on such a big day.

Back in her hotel room, her little red Grundig turned itself on. It cycled through the now-ubiquitous chant for a while, then switched to a new one: “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Tiger Woods R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.”

The Augusta National Golf Club had devolved into utter chaos. Headsets ripped from agonized heads had been trampled into their component parts, yet still emitted that hellish signal. The smartly dressed, the dignified, the Greek-letter sporting, the Arnold Palmer sipping, all fled hither and thither in wild, sweaty panic, faces contorted in rage and incomprehension and agony. The course’s famous landscaping, its gorgeous flowering trees and shrubs, were under an onslaught like no other, trampled, clutched at, torn.

No one seemed immune to the deranging effects of the signal, except for one man.

Tiger Woods, supposed to be absenting himself entirely from the scene this year for personal reasons, walked serenely through the crowd, the cool guy walking away from the explosion in every action movie. With each repetition of the maddening chant his smile grew more beatific, his stride more majestic. He lifted his arms in a strange benediction and those in closest proximity calmed immediately and fell into step behind him.

By the time he reached Hole 12, the Golden Bell, his following was considerable.

His destination reached at last, Tiger Woods turned to face his throng. He raised his arms once again. The crowd gave forth a hushed “ooooh” and broke into a prolonged golf clap.

Matilda came upon a scene like that after an earthquake or flood: utter desolation and desertion. Overturned lawn chairs and tents, tables and chairs, lost shoes and hats, trampled and overturned earth: a golf course completely ruined for its purpose, desecrated, returned to a primordial chaos of mud and tattered azaleas.

Cab, writhing feebly on the ground, spotted her and cried out. Eyes wide with concern, Matilda rushed to his side and knelt.

“Good thing… you were late…” Cab said. “Too…. Bad. You really are hot… Nice…. Tits.” And Matilda was alone with a battered corpse of fame. Quickly, aghast, she sketched the still form of Cab Coulson in her Field Notes and cast her gaze about the desolation.

She followed the massed footprints; a herd of golf fans, tournament officials, who knew who all, had all shuffled off in the same direction.

Tiger Woods had yet to speak. His followers were speaking for him. “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Tiger R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn,” they chanted. “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Tiger R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.”

Matilda stumbled onto the scene, catching herself whispering the same syllables. She fell to her knees and began to sketch. Honey flowed through her veins. Nothing had ever felt so good as being here to witness this glorious moment.

Amidst such a scene, no one was surprised to see a smoothly silver ovoid appear on the horizon and smoothly, soundlessly glide across the grass to where the object of everyone’s strange worship stood beaming.

A door opened seamlessly in its side and out stepped a beautiful, hairless Latino man and a cartoonishly voluptuous woman who seemed clad all in silver until the viewer realized she, in fact, was silver, or at least metallic.

“Ready to go,” the woman asked of Tiger. At the sound of her voice, the crowd broke into another round of ooohs and claps. Tiger Woods turned around.

“I am.”

“Bid your beloved good-bye,” Yectara told the crowd. “He loves you, now why don’t you all love each other? Go on. Show your love. Show how much you love each other.”

The effect was electrifying. Matilda was caught up in the arms of a married couple and undressed before she could protest – then realized she didn’t want to. Tossing her Field Notes into the air, she returned their embraces and fell to the muddy green.

As the sudden orgy swelled to frenzy, Tiger Woods made his way to his waiting spaceship and boarded the onramp that suddenly emerged, a slow, swelling pseudopod from the ovoid.

The frenzied crowd of preoccupied former golf fans never knew what hit them as the fiery plume of exhaust from its rockets incinerated them to a man, woman and excited teenager.

“Your empire awaits, my master,” the cyborg queen said to the former golf star.

“You’re late again,” he said.

Only to Travel in the Blink of an Eye…

2009-10-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

It is the Ninth day of the Eleventh month of the year Two-Thousand Forty-Four of the Common Era, Twenty-Fifteen Zulu

The last time they loaded us on I believe there was a serious malfunction with the autocath, a device I have always called one of medieval design and workmanship. I swear, I have always thought of it as having a barbed end, and upon its perilous extraction it tears out a little more of the urinary tract than it did the time previous. Although, this discomfiture I feel could only be a result of my recent diagnosis of psychosomatic-mania; something I am reminded of by the old lady on more than one occasion for all these forty-three long years. Damn! Being seventy-three years old now and the general state of the times, one would think with all these advances in medicine they could figure out how to improve the inside as well as the outside. –But as it is with everything, (and generally just so you know, I usually hate to use clichés) it always seems so “skin deep”.

So yeah, when they called me to board this last time, everything was so damned efficient, to the point of ultimate exasperation and blessed synchronicity; although I now cannot recall a bit of it! How I long for the good old days of the ‘10’s, at least then the inefficiency at the time seemed downright charming. They would call you by seat row, or sometimes by boarding groups where you would actually bump into people in a long line only to sit down in cushion chairs and remain conscious the entire ride instead of these “padded sarcophagi” (as I call them) with their poking, prodding, and probing protuberances that latch and hook to almost every orifice upon your stripped-down nakedness, like some picture aliens on board their torus shaped spaceships. That Godforsaken nutrionaplant (the NP) keeps coming loose too; but there is no way in hell they will let you fly without it. Can anyone remember at all when they let you actually eat on an aircraft, via the mouth? Now that is only for those affluent enough for hyper-orbit travel (or HOT) where the travel time is so diminutive that all this hassle is incredibly unnecessary, and perhaps even eating itself could be described as such on this upper class of flight. It becomes a luxury, and just to allow the actual exploit to take place, they secure flight plans for a few hundred low-energy orbits. I mean, why not? It costs no more energy to replicate those days of old airline travel through a few more descending looped pathways of decay, at high enough altitude to remain safe and secure for at least 1.260 x 10³ revolutions if deemed necessary. I even hear that they (those lucky fucks, like that ancient retired golfer, what’s his name? Tiger Woods, yeah) are actually able to consume real honest-to-God meat as well; from what livestock farms no one knows, for they keep that kind of sensitive information under extremely tight wraps.

The world is entirely a different place now that I think about it, right down to the yeast strains and their associated yield. I still cannot believe that I actually used to brew my own beer for fun! Ha ha. Makes me laugh.

So anyway, yeah. The “padded sarcophagi”; they have been quite the sore spot (in every sense of the phrase) ever since they came out all those years back. Oh, it was a novelty at first introduction, so revolutionary just as the magnetic propulsion drive these stratosphere airliners patron so enthusiastically. They might be super-slow but they get you there using less than a ground car used to on one whole tank of gasoline. Gasoline, now that is a word I have not heard in a great long while…

So sorry. I tend to ramble nowadays. Tangents are not just used to calculate Coriolis Accelerations you know. Anyway, so I think they all call them “Verticalized Life-Sustaining Capsules, or VLC’s; something like that. A most hated invention. Being enshrouded in them and then hung on auto-portioning inverted conveyor (like those found at old dry cleaning establishments), sedated through the nutritionaplant, transported into nicely and neatly arranged rows inside a giant tube stored under each one of the wings (remember, the whole fuselage is required by the magnetic drive), fed nutrients intravenously down to the micro-joule, all waste excretions evacuated expeditiously through that horribly invasive autocath, and any deliberately hedonistic or delightfully wholesome interactive fantasy piped in through the neural sub-dermal (NSD). Of course, you have to choose this at the time of booking, and the impression of “privacy” possesses only a perfunctory meaning so all are aware of your choices. Not that anyone cares of course. It is all a matter of fact, is what it is, reality, etcetera, whatever. This is all designed so that human transport is made just uncomfortably an aggravation enough to discourage the feint of heart, but not those who deem it irrevocably compulsory. The linked costs for such an event are kept at an absolute minimum per passenger through many logged hours of tedious industrial engineering, whittling away each and every discovered incompetence like a squirrel stowing away its reserves (no one knows what those animals are anymore-and explaining what they are about is beyond the scope of what I am relating here). For instance, not one flight departs at anything less than one-hundred percent at capacity, all reservations and arrangements made via approved network channels unless authorized by Executive Order. You see, the race to get off this rat-trap rock of a planet has superseded any of the expected niceties of individual representation (except if you are savvy enough or more likely suitably wealthy to circumvent the current system). This always makes me wonder about the Orbiters, but then I could even be detained indefinitely for allowing that synapses to transmit; that you know: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

So, what exactly happened to make it like this?

Where have you been anyway, stuck in cryogenic freeze, or even on a faulty mag-air vehicle (MAV)?

Seriously, let me just tell you what happened. It all started when…

Eggmania

2009-08-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

[The following is something I wrote back in 1991 that was actually incorporated into one of many handwritten letters that I would to compose to various relatives, which would actually find their way into the United States Postal System (email was at the birthing stage at the time, and I simply hadn't gotten on board yet). For the life of me I cannot recall the reason for relaying this particular story, but it was probably my way of making some point as I usually do with nearly all things, in the most extreme way possible. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this short.]

Everyone in one way or another hates certain things. The manifestation of one's hate can be directed most severely and intensely. So I hope anyone wouldn't mind if I share this sort of funny experience that illustrates my deepest and most dark hatred; the hatred of chickens.

Well I don't hate chickens directly, just one of their productions one might say. It's not really their fault however; it's just the way they were made. Believe me, anyone reading this will understand completely what I'm trying to say here in a couple minutes. I want to make myself perfectly clear to those who might take this as the beginning of an anti-chicken movement. Don't worry, there is no anti-chicken movement here. I'm perfectly agreeable with chickens. Why, you couldn't get over bad colds, couldn't bake cakes, couldn't eat something better than red meat, and this list goes on. So now that I have the pro-chicken people under control, here's what I'm talking about...

It all began when I was about eight years old. This is when my youngest sister was still an infant, and frowning every minute. The next sister was in the terrible threes and at the time the known as the "Master Snitch", and I have a brother as well, but he did not come into this story. I was a complete adversary to my siblings, having been the oldest and most unwillingly the household built-in baby-sitter. [My mother will tell you I did all these things I'm going to tell you for attention.]

As one might know that exists in my vicinity probably, is that I hate and despise eggs cooked in any way, shape, or form. Quiche, poached, scrambled, fried, omelets, huevos rancharos, you name the egg...I hate it (even brown eggs)! I can't believe I can still remember that one spring morning back in 1979 that I wasn't going to eat eggs anymore. A truly conscious decision I might add, as anyone will be able to see. I was late for school that daybreak, and my mother's irritating scream found its way through my ears, into my brain, down the spinal cord and riveting all my nerve endings.

She yelled at me to, "GET THE HELL OUT HERE AND EAT YOUR 'breath' EEGGGSSS!!!!.”

So I came running out only to see a yellowed scrambled mess that looked like something out of a science fiction book. Without thinking (a behavior I frequently engaged in), I grabbed my fork, shoveled the glop into my mouth, and experienced the most terrifying and horrid occurrence ever known to me (besides my 3rd grade teacher-Mrs. Heinrich-another story though). The yellow died slime, and I mean D-I-E-D, not D-Y-E-D was frigidly cold, an undead cold, an arctic cold, a cold that sucks life forces, a cold that causes clogged brachial passages, a cold so bad, it makes the esophagus do that unspeakable maneuver when it recognizes something is definitely wrong in eating "whatever it was". To sum up, I exploded; luckily in only one trajectory, and yes, I was still in one piece. The vectored scrambled mess landed on the tablecloth on back of my plate.

My mother was thoroughly disgusted at my rebellious behavior and just yelled three words at the top of her lungs "EAT THAAATTT EEEGGGG!!!!"

The sonic waves hit my head with tremendous force inflicting major damage to my nervous system. So I then looked up at my mother defiantly and stifled myself of the growing over resistance. I guess she didn't quite enjoy my snake-like expression and apparent silence, because suddenly with lightening speed she pounced me like a mongoose. Thoughts and master plans raced through my head in order to rid myself of the nuclear waste on my plate along with the female alleged homo sapiens that I believed at the time had acquired lycanthropcy. One of the creature’s talons gripped my lower jaw enabling her to unlock and manually operate my chewing functions. The other talon gripped the ice-cold fork as it was sitting in the “roach food” for a while, and she scooped the phlegm-like substance while unhindering my mandible set. Now at this point, time seemed to slow down to a point of complete and utter insanity: my teeth coming apart slowly, my cruel-creature siblings grinning lavishly like Cheshire cats, and the demon lord's pitchfork with steaming cold sporangium headed on a one way ticket to my digestive system. After hours it seemed the mass finally reached my oral cavity and took greater will known to man to swallow. The evil witch was now forcing my mouth up and down along with those sibling Cheshire cats snickering. My shot esophagus was fighting against my will telling me to wish this was all a horrible nightmare. I managed to win over all these obstacles and became radioactive by finally swallowing "it".

Then the empress roared three words again "NOW EAT IT!!!!"

SONIC BOOM.

At that moment, the King (Empress's benevolent servant) needed a shirt ironed, so my moment of triumph had come. The female demon lord split into the next dimension (laundry room) and left me alone with endless opportunities. I grappled the toxic waste plate, sped to the gracious sink, and chucked the yellow mass directly into the bottomless pit, which had the convenient ability to grind the unwanted thing as well.

From this incident I learned quite a bit about the ninth level of hell: my siblings are actually Cheshire cats in disguise, my dad is secondary in the apparent marriage, and my mother is some sort of vicious demon lord empress queen from planet Glop.

So anyway that's the reason I don't like eggs, and never will until my dying day. However, all the emotional scars from this traumatizing experience are gone, otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it, would I?

"Your Daddy Loves You"

2009-08-08T21:33:00.000-07:00

Trudy stood over the man who had tortured her damn near every day since she was twelve years old. For four years now she had harbored evil hatred towards this man, who had raped her and treated her like a piece of raw flesh that he could do with whatever he liked. She hated this man with every inch of her young body ever since the first night he invited himself
into her room, not three weeks after her mother died.

Her stepfather Earl had never suspected that Trudy had finally decided that his day had come. He had no idea that she had planned this for days and days now. He had no idea what had finally caused her to snap from the inside out. And he had no idea how lucky he was that he was still breathing at this very moment; that he still had a cock and balls. His eyes. A face.

“You’re about to get fucked up daddy”, she practically whispered under her breath.

Earl could not hear her; his ears were still ringing from the blow to the head he had received just moments before. He could not hear her, but he could tell what she had said to him. He saw the anger in the way her face twitched. It was her cheek. It flickered up and down just a little
bit. He only noticed at all because her mother’s face did the same thing when she was furious.

Trudy had been named after her mother. It was a family name and it never really meant much to her until she realized that her great grandmother, grandmother, and her mother all had been named Trudy. She had finally realized that her name was not just a name, but something bigger. It had become a small part of her family history and she was the only one of them
still alive.

Since that time, she had started having fantasies of having a daughter of her own and passing the precious name even further down the line. But, she knew she never would, she never could get there if she could not get past Earl. And that is how the two of them had arrived at this moment.

“You can go to hell you little bitch.” It was the best response he could come up with under the circumstances. But, truthfully, he never had anything smart to say. Not ever, really.

Trudy struck him, even harder this time than before.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself? Is that the best you have to offer me? Go to hell? What the fuck daddy? I gave you my –"

She struck him again. This time between the legs.

Just twenty minutes ago Trudy had been in bed, watching Nick at Nite, when Earl had stumbled home drunk. Anticipating his mood, she quickly turned the TV off and pulled the covers tightly over her body, slowed her breathing and pretended, quite convincingly, that she was asleep. Just before Earl tripped in to the room, with his pants around his ankles, his soggy cock
dangling between his legs, Trudy slid her hand down beneath her bed, to make sure her weapon was still in its place. It was. She smiled on the inside and prepared herself for what she was going to have to do…again…for the last time.

“You in here, Trudy? Come here and suck on my dick, you little bitch.”

With that Earl fell in to her bed and got on top of her. Trudy held true and remained motionless, as if she had fallen in to a deep sleep some hours ago.

Earl reached out with his right hand and shook Trudy’s face back and forth violently. “Wake up”, he said urgently.

Still, she did not move. Trudy laid quietly and felt the persistent chills cover her skin as Earl’s hands began their familiar trip around her body. First, down the length of her inner thigh, towards her foot. Then they pushed back up again, towards the place her innocence had once lived, but no longer.

Earl pulled her clothing off, so that she was naked and exposed from the waist down. She felt his dirty, sweaty hands push themselves into her. Earl had never been a delicate lover. In fact, lover wasn’t even the word for what he was. Trudy had been with other men since Earl had deflowered her all those years ago and he was the only one that ever hurt her when he did it to her. It was way too rough and violent.

Once Earl had crammed four of his fingers inside of her, Trudy decided to wake herself up and get the hard part over with; the part where she allowed him to have his way with her one last time. She stirred slowly.

“Earl? Is that you daddy?”

Earl lost his breath and gasped just a touch, as if the sound of Trudy’s voice saying the word “Daddy” had an enormously erotic effect on him.

“Yeah, baby girl. It’s me.”

Trudy turned her performance up a notch. “Hmmm. I was just thinking of you earlier today.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. I was just thinking to myself, I hope Earl comes home and fucks me sideways tonight.”

Trudy cringed on the inside as she slowly reached out with her left hand and towards his swelling dick. She hated the thing. It was ugly and wrinkled and she felt nauseous as she begun stroking the sweaty thing.

Earl moaned. “Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. Do you know how good you are at it?”

“Yeah. But, why don’t you tell me anyway.”

The darkened room allowed Trudy the ability to use her free hand to reach under her bed for the blunt, heavy tool of bludgeon that she had decided to use on him. While her fingers fumbled below the bed, she continued seducing Earl with her lies.

“Oh, Earl, I dream of it at night. I can’t concentrate in school. I want it all the time.”

She was in no way surprised, but Trudy could tell her seduction was working, because the thing in her left hand was now as hard as the thing in her right hand, below her bed. The one was warm and crooked. The other was cold and smooth and perfect.

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that, Trudy. I had hoped we could learn to love each other. I know I haven’t always…asked for permission. I am glad that you have found it in your sweet little heart to forgive me.”

This stopped Trudy cold. Did he actually think they were going to be together? Did he think this was an apology? Up until this moment Trudy had been on her back with her eyes closed because she hadn’t been sure she could look Earl in the eye and lie to him in this way. Earl had
always had some kind of power over her. Whether if was fear, or control he had trained her with, it had taken hold of her several years ago.

She sat up and looked Earl in his dark brown eyes. In this light, they looked particularly soulless. They scared her. Not so much from fear of the man, or his eyes themselves. But, what scared her now, was that she actually believed him. It felt like he was being honest with her,
for the first time, about his true feelings, no matter how fucked up those feelings were. She almost felt sorry for him.

Then she looked at the erect protrusion violating her personal space and her entire plan flashed in her mind’s eye. After a brief moment, her rage came back to her and she felt like biting it off, which was something she had considered many times. She had thought about it especially when Earl had been too rough and forced it too deep into her throat, gagging her to the point of no return.

Then she remembered just two nights ago, he made her vomit because she could not catch her breath and he would not let up. This was not a man who had feelings for her. He only had feelings for himself and the doubt that was currently welling up inside of her was just weakness.

“Trudy”, Earl whimpered. “Put it in your mouth.”

Trudy slowly leaned forward, trying to give in to the moment. Trying desperately to convince herself that this would, in fact, be the last time she ever had to taste him inside of her. She also tightened her grip on the cold, hard thing in her right hand.

She slowly opened her mouth and leaned further in towards Earl’s weapon, gripping hers tighter and cautiously sliding it up on to the bed with the two of them. She slid her open mouth around his erection and heard Earl let out a pleasured moan.

“Ohhh, Trudy. That’s what I’m talking about. Nobody does that like you do. Not even your mother knew how to suck my dick like that.”

It was the comment about her mother that finally brought the volume of rage out of Trudy required to kill the son of a bitch. She quickly swung it towards his temple and struck him hard. It worked better than she had hoped. Earl fell to the side and off of her bed. He hit the
ground hard and blood gushed from the place where she had hit him.

He tried desperately to stand up and defend himself. But, his pants were still down around his ankles and when he tried to stand up, he just slipped and fell again.

Trudy, however, was able to move like lightning off her bed and stood over him in an instant. She struck him several times as hard as she could. The anger grew inside of her to such a point that she couldn’t even make a sound. She tried to scream as she struck him repeatedly. She
tried to let it all out as audibly as she was physically. But, she could not make a sound.

She finally stopped striking down on Earl’s body, giving herself a moment to catch her breath.

Then she said it. “You’re about to get fucked up daddy.”

She thought about her mother, and the family name. She wondered if her mother knew what Trudy knew about Earl. Should she be angry at her mother for leaving her with this fat, drunk monster?

So, “You can go to hell you little bitch” was the last thing Trudy’s stepfather Earl ever said. She went to work on him and beat him to within an inch of recognition. She remembered every time he had ever forced himself on her. She remembered everything, all the way down to the first
night he had come home drunk, crying and had mistaken Trudy for her dead mother. She remembered the first time she had sex with her first boyfriend he had asked her where she’d learned to fuck like that.

Thirty minutes later, when she couldn’t even hold her arms over her head any longer, she stopped. She looked around and saw the blood, guts and gore spread through out her bedroom. It was on the sheets, the mirror and ceiling fan.

She fell to the ground and crouched down in the corner furthest away from Earl’s body. Her body was shaking uncontrollably as she finally started crying. As Trudy begun crying uncontrollably, she hadn’t even noticed she was still naked from the waist down, wearing only her favorite tube top and still holding the bloody tire iron in her tired right hand.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

2009-08-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

When she had squeezed her large breasts into the hot pink tube top and slid into the skin-tight leather skirt, she never imagined she had selected the outfit in which she would die.

The party was supposed to be the blowout of the year – a celebration of the end of forced education, a last chance for her to be the hottest of the big fish before she ventured out into the ocean of college sharks.

She had planned to flaunt her wares one last time in front of her boyfriend, gaining the attention of more than one part of his body. He was leaving for Northwestern in a little over a week, and she had spent the prior month fretting and worrying over what would happen once he was gone. Who was she, if not his girl?

Not that she wouldn't be able to replace him. Boys adored her – for her sporty but feminine frame, her silky blond hair, her bright blue eyes. They also adored her full, pouty lips, well-formed tits and tight ass. Even a few of her teachers had made advances. Not that she'd given any of them a chance. Not when she had the captain of the football team worshiping at her feet.

And yet despite her looks, she was remarkably insecure, a product of always worrying about the clique of girls that mimicked her every move, continually wondering when one of them would usurp her as the queen of their group. With them, she was ruthless, critiquing every thing about them in an effort to keep them in their place.

She knew her entrance to the party had caused a stir. As soon as the door opened, every eye in the place was on her. Hell, even the bassy music had seemed too quiet once she'd walked through the door. Not to mention the looks on the faces of every male in the room. Even Tommy had paused, beer wielding hand halfway to his lips as she offered a flirtatious smile to the room at large.

“I'm here!” she'd exclaimed brightly, secure in the knowledge that she had everything under control, the world under her thumb. Her daddy had always told her she was the belle of the ball and tonight, she felt it. Tonight she would seal her legacy, give everyone present a reason to remember her.

She had waltzed over to Tommy, the sway of her hips loaded with bold intent, and once she'd arrived, she had turned her head and offered him her cheek, as if she were some sort of goddess and he a mere mortal in her midst.

Tommy had dutifully handed over the requisite kiss, but had snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her close, whispering “come with me” in a gravelly voice. She had answered with the smile of a who knew her fate. Who knew that fate would bend to her will if she demanded it.

He had tugged her upstairs to the hoots and hollers of his minions, tossing them a winning grin. And then they were in his room. Bethany could not believe her luck. She'd spent the last two years holding out – taunting and teasing him with her body and yet never fully giving in – and she had been happy that she had done so. It had provided her with irrefutable leverage, because to her mind, it had become the thing he wanted the most. Tonight she would pull out her winning card and lay it on the table. So he would know exactly what he would be missing should he consider letting her go.

When Tommy went to Northwestern, he wouldn't be interested in those college girls. Because he had her and her smokin' hot body waiting for him at home.

Bethany leaned sensually against his headboard, preening when she bent over to slip off her shoes and caught him gazing at her. She straightened and leaned towards him, asking in as sultry a voice as she could muster “what can I do for you?”

Then he spoke and the conversation she had played in her head a hundred times over the last week – sexually charged banter that brought them both to a state of unrelenting need – escaped her. He had met someone a few months ago, he had said. Some girl who had given him his tour of Northwestern. He wanted to be with her.

He had refused to tell Bethany the girl's name, refused to listen to Bethany's tears or pleading or yelling. She had called him any and every vile word she could think of, had tried every tactic available to her – crying, screaming, even offering him the sex she had withheld all this time – but he had continued to push her away.

In the end, he had left the room. She had remained long enough to tear the room to bits before taking stock of her face in the mirror. She had done her best to remove the streaks of mascara and the redness in her nose and then decided it didn't matter. She was Bethany, Prom Queen, Head Cheerleader, the hottest girl in school.

She had planned on going back downstairs and flirting with one of his friends. Anything to give the impression that she wasn't stunned and distraught at his betrayal.

Instead, she had left, gotten in her BMW and driven like a bat out of hell out the neighborhood. She had cranked the music up loud – she couldn't even remember the song anymore – and had been flying over the pavement at speeds that would have made a race car driver jealous, pouring her hurt and anger out in the agility of her shiny silver beemer.

And then her tire had blown. In a matter of seconds, the car had rolled at least twice before landing on its side in a ditch. She had had her seatbelt on and at the time had thanked God that she had had the foresight to do so.

But if she had it to do differently...

She squirmed a little in the too-tight space, the smell of rubber and fumes seeping through her skin, drifting through her nose and settling in her lungs. Her eyes burned and her body ached, everywhere.

The accident had broken her foot and the airbag's deployment had bruised and battered her face. Her nose and lip were bleeding and her wrist, if not broken, was definitely sprained. She couldn't draw more than a shallow breath, not merely because of the confined space, but because the damned top she'd chosen was tight.

Even tighter now that the flesh beneath was swollen and bleeding.

She had not had time to grab her cell phone before he had come. Before he had dragged her out of her crashed vehicle and into the woods beyond.

She hadn't had time to even scream before she had realized that whatever horrors she had thought she'd endured at the party were nothing compared to what awaited her at his hands.

The man who had rescued her from her car had only been gentle when he was pulling her through the smashed window. She had been grateful to him at that moment, thankful merely that someone had arrived to help. She had wanted nothing more than to find a solid piece of ground to sit on She would have even settled for the seat of an unmoving vehicle until emergency personnel arrived.

But there hadn't been another vehicle. And her feet had never touched the ground. The man had slung her over his shoulder like a cave man and carried her off. Moments later, when panic had gripped her and sent a dose of adrenaline coursing through her veins, she'd screamed and pounded against his back.

And the man hadn't said a word. He'd merely reached back with his hand and hit her hard in the head. She had switched from screaming to crying and for the second time of the evening, to pleading. Except this time she hadn't been pleading for some ridiculous boy not to leave her.

She had been begging for her life.

The man had walked to a ramshackle cabin and taken her inside. He had tossed her down on an old, musty couch before pulling a greasy rag from his back pocket and stuffing it ruthlessly into her mouth.

She had tried turning her head, tried fighting, but he was much stronger than she was. He had grabbed the top of her head, his fingers digging painfully into her temples and forehead as he put a strip of heavy tape over the rag.

She had gagged, as much from terror as from the taste of whatever was on the thing stuffed in her mouth. Memories of being six and eating a mud pie rang through skull.

And then he'd spoke, his gruff voice pitiless. “When the time for death comes, you'll welcome it as much as you fear it.”

She'd thrashed at that point, but it hadn't stopped him from taking everything he wanted from her. All the things she'd withheld from Tommy. This man took things she would never have offered anyone, with brutality and disregard, over and over again until there wasn't a part of her body that didn't clamor for the death he promised.

At some point, she'd passed out. She must have, because she had no memory of being carried to the car, no recollection of being stuffed into the tight space of the trunk. It was small and so packed full of junk that she could barely move.

He had bound her hands and she could do little more than wiggle her fingers around. That didn't stop her from trying. Fight or flight, they called it. And she would do either or both the first chance she had. Her nails scraped against something metal– perhaps a tire iron – and hope surged. If she could escape her bonds, she would have a chance to use it as a weapon. And she would. Though she had never really considered herself capable of killing another human being, she would do whatever she had to to get away safely.

The car went over a large bump, jostling her body and sending a jolt of pain sparking throughout her nerves. She sucked another shallow breath in through her nose and willed her mind to function. She wiggled her wrists, could feel the rope as it dug in, felt the warmth of blood as it made its way out and mingled with the rough material.

The muffled sound of a radio reached her and she could hear her captor's muted tones as he belted out a refrain from Sympathy for the Devil. She had always hated that song.

The car slowed, then stopped.

Bethany's heart started pounding out of chest. She had hardly made any progress in freeing herself. She struggled even harder, fighting a wave of dizziness as her breathing became even more erratic.

The car started moving again, drawing stinging tears of relief to her eyes. She fought even harder against the bonds, crying out as they ripped her flesh. Finally, she was able to free a couple of her fingers, then an entire hand. Of course, it was the one attached to her sprained wrist. She ignored the pain shooting through the swollen muscle and rolled over to tug at her other hand.

Desperate, she scratched at her bonds, fingernails digging between the rope and her skin until her other hand popped free, then rolled her head to the side and ripped the tape off of her mouth. She could feel a layer of skin come off with it, but didn't care. She pulled the rag out, sputtering as bile teased the back of her dry throat.

The car slowed again and the smoothness of pavement was replaced by the rocky roughness of a dirt road. She could hear the sound of the sand as it kicked up against the bottom of the car.

She felt around for the tire iron again, grabbing it with both hands and holding it close, as if it were her only hope. She turned this way and that, trying to find a position that would maximize her ability to swing once the trunk door opened. Trying like hell to imagine where the man's face would be, where she could aim that would cause the most damage.

The car stopped.

Bethany waited, heart thundering in her chest, breathing choppy and ineffective. No one came. Other than the initial feel of his weight leaving the vehicle, she couldn't even hear a sound outside the car. Not footsteps, not movement...not anything.

She gripped the tire iron harder, digging deep for the strength she needed for the upcoming battle.

The smell of smoke hit her, disorienting her for a moment. And when panic made its appearance this time, it shoved aside any sense of vengeance. She pounded against the roof of the trunk, slammed the iron against it, kicked it.

Did everything and anything she could think of to open it, all to no avail. Along with smoke there was now heat and the acrid smell of burning leather mingled with smell of her own sweat. Her wounds stung as salt mixed with her cuts, her flesh screamed as loud as she did.

She coughed and sputtered and grabbed at the filthy rag that had been stuffed into her mouth. She covered her nose and mouth and for the barest moment, she was able to draw a semi-deep breath.

It was the last one she would draw before her body succumbed to the flames. They hit her feet first, scorching and blistering her toes and the delicate arch of her foot. She tried pulling them away, even reached down to try and stop the burning, but all she managed to do was catch the rag on fire.

The flesh of her hands sizzled, the smell ripping through the smoke and filling her nose, turning her stomach. She tried huddling into a ball, but there was no room and the flames were suddenly everywhere, dancing around her tauntingly. They nipped at her skin, offering a searing pain that matched the choking screams emanating from her throat.

Her body was becoming weaker, though it had begun to twitch uncontrollably. Darkness filled her vision and she welcomed it. Abandoned all thoughts of being saved and gave her soul over to the blackness that beckoned her.

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her life flashed through her brain. Not the smiles and happy times, but images of herself being cruel and vicious, prideful and arrogant. The horrible things she had done in the name of ego shot through her brain at speeds that should have exploded her brain, yet each and every moment ambled through in slow motion.

And Tommy, her precious Tommy, looking at her with disdainful eyes. Until even images of the man she loved joined her body in hell.

Who Needs Hemingway When You Have Holy Cannoli

2009-08-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

If I stare at the blank screen long enough, a story should write itself. It doesn’t. Little girl on my lap; she kicks the computer. Scrunching her little toes on top of the laptop and pushing with all her might. She wants to be the center of attention and when she is not, all hell breaks loose. Very similar to an overly endowed woman wearing a too tight tube top. One wrong move and the whole enchilada pops out for all the world to see. So, it is difficult to write a narrative. As soon as an idea for a character or plot-line forms in my head, I want to jot down the skeleton of the story. Unfortunately, sometimes access to a computer is not readily available. Other times, I start typing the backbones of the tale and have to stop to attend to little girl’s needs. By the time I return to the laptop, it’s not what I want to say and I hit the delete button to remove all traces of the concocted narrative.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my life usually. Well, not so much when I have to explain to my monster-in-laws that we were late to Christmas dinner because we had a tire blow on the highway and had to use a tire iron to change the deflated rubber compound wheel while rubber-neckers drive by with their blank faces staring out the window. We arrived late to the holiday repast while being greeted with much ruffling of feathers and exclamations of how, “Dinner was absolutely ruined because we had to wait for you!” I escape to the kitchen for an alcoholic beverage only to see the main course still cooking in the oven. My monster-in-laws have a flair for the dramatic. Especially since the extravagant meal consisted of dry roast beef, boring peas, watery mashed potatoes, and an apple pie that did not rival an “Easy Bake Oven” creation.

There are moments in life when it’s difficult to proceed any further, but you have to continue. My last trip to Europe was filled with tantrums from the moment we arrived at the airport until…Well, until we had our final decent back home. That trip was plagued with bad jujus from the beginning. Driving on the left, hitting parked cars, driving for hours lost trying to find the hotel and that was just the first three hours after the tantrum filled flight. We encountered week long jet lag, bad Irish television, really bad powdered coffee, a bout of food poisoning that infested our “European Vacation” and, of course, there were traffic rotaries. Now, almost a year later, I think back fondly about our trip last fall. I wait in anticipation for our next trans-continental excursion; I even postulated recently, “When are we going back to Europe?”

My life isn’t all that bad. In fact, I live a good life with a wonderful family not including my monster-in-laws and one of my cousins, who seems to blame me for everything. We have enough money to afford to live in a beautiful area surrounded by crystal clear blue water and snow capped mountains. I could complain about the rain, but because of the constant precipitation we have clean air, green foliage, delectable food and fantastic local music. So, I just accept the rain for all those wondrous things, and on the days I can’t there’s always an outlet like http://twitter.com/Holycannoli.

The Attack of the Amaranthus Albus

2009-08-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

The boy suddenly awoke with a start and an inrush of breath, sucking the much needed air through blood drenched lips. The ferrous metallic tang on his tongue stunned him to deeper consciousness and alerted him to the intense pain that seemed to be spread throughout his body like an intravenous drug the police had on display at his elementary school a few weeks back. He chuckled at the memory, remembering his friends’ wide-eyed stares at the white poster board with taped-on paraphernalia, the stuff confiscated from “perps” and the like on those very streets he rode his bike back and forth from his home to school. That little laugh had cost him though, and brought forth an anguish he hadn’t realized, jilting his memory forth of what had happened.

What had happened? he asked himself.

The boy then realized he was laying face down on roughened and overly weathered asphalt, his left arm elevated on a curb while he spat out blood and spit into the gutter. His feet were intertwined with what was left of his stupid bicycle: a sky blue rounded frame bike with a banana seat and god-awful streaming tassels spewing forth like two vomiting worms that were the long swooping chopper handlebars. Oh yes, he put on a good and appreciative face when the bike was given to him on his birthday, but inside he almost had rather have done without. By now the boy realized his mother was more interested in relinquishing her driving duties and purchasing a cheap set of wheels for himself so he could ride the two or so miles one-way in order to cart himself to school. Somehow his younger brother ended up with a cool-ass dirt bike, straight black frame with a “normal” seat and no goddamn (…I am heartily sorry for having offended thee…) banana seat. It just wasn’t fair. His parents definitely treated his younger siblings in an enhanced way, but he’d equal things out for them, being the oldest that’s what he always did.

The boy tried to move, but it hurt too much. His calf on his right leg was being pinched by something that felt like a thorn through his multiple knee-patched Catholic uniform slacks. The boy managed to shift to the side with great effort so he could glance back over his twisted body and assess the situation. Sure enough, he saw the culprit, a great big bramble of dried-out prickly tumbleweed that was arranged there intertwined up into his bike spokes jammed one-quarter of the way through. This was enough to jar his slow recovering memory. He had just been riding back from his school via “The Green Jug” (a convenience store/liquor store/lounge) that he was explicitly forbidden from “visiting” by his mother.

“You come straight home with your brother!” his mother would tell him almost on a daily occurrence..

Yeah right, he would think. Where are you mom? Not here, that’s for damn sure.

So the boy and his younger brother would do what they pleased on the way home despite the “on-high” mandate, and would time their stay at “The Green Jug” just enough where it would just seem like they rode super slow from school. They would take turns playing Joust there mostly, killing off the vulture riding knights, escaping the lava hand, and fighting off that giant bird as if life depended on the outcome. They would usually do this until their quarters ran out (that they would find from in-between davenport cushions and car seats) from either filling the machine or purchasing sour apple Jolly Rogers; or of course if his younger brother managed to beat his score sending his fragile pride into a tailspin (but this was only out of sheer luck of course). When the latter would happen, he’d storm out of “The Green Jug” and take off, leaving his gloating little brother to fend for himself.

“The Green Jug,” yeah, that’s where he was riding from; he had just come from there, pedaled up the hill on “Highlander” by weaving endlessly back and forth leaving him exhausted out of his mind since his fucking bike was a stupid one-speed when that blasted broken off husk of a mobile shrub skipped over the dead-end barricade from the local gust of Santa Ana and launched itself like a missile into his rear wheel, effectively knocking out his whole balancing act upon two wheels he had been doing now for five years.

Clang, clang, clang, Clang, CLANG, CLANG!

The boy just managed to drag himself up onto the curb, his legs splayed out into the street as a gold VW Beetle shuddered to a stop in front of his view. The air-cooled engine finally quit its clunking racket and for a second nothing happened. All the boy could see was a thin and graceful arm tapping long painted fingernails against the outside of the passenger-side door through the open window to music what they called “New Wave,” or in other words what the corporate blowhards were making punk safe for the masses to listen to. The door creaked open and a mass of red hair plumed out followed by a face bent with concern, fresh in a youthful sort of way, but much older than the boy was, by at least ten years.

“Hey! Are you okay?” the redhead asked the boy stepping towards him slowly with her hand out.

“Um, it’s sorta hurts right here,” the boy indicated to his abdomen, trying not to stretch to the side or breathe too deep. The redhead bent at the knees to squat by him and studied the boy. Dried blood now flecked his “rosebud” lips, as she thought of the shape of them, and there existed a claw-like abrasion across his left eye extending up to his temple. She looked over at his bike, now a wrenched light-blue frame of metal bent out of shape. She saw the russet tumbleweed there caught in his spokes and came to the conclusion that it must have crashed into his rear wheel taking him at unawares which skid his bike to a halt and sent him flying with the bike not far behind. She also noticed the issuing streamers emanating from the handlebars’ ends blowing nonchalantly in the wind quite regardless of the tragic circumstance, and she thought to herself, Awww, what a cute little boy!

She reached out with her right hand and took a hold of his chin and lifted his eyes to hers. Blue, blue as the swells in the midst of a violent rolling ocean; oh, they made her catch her breath how fathomless they portrayed themselves. He was a keeper, wasn’t he? -And you know what they say. Finders, keepers… she mulled to herself as she has so many times before.

“Hey! What happened to him?” the driver inquired, a short lissome blond dressed in a red miniskirt and a black and white horizontally striped tube top.

“Oh, looks like he had a little accident involving a tumbleweed. Isn’t that right kid?” the redhead said.

“Yeah, guess so,” the boy responded, laying rearward on both of his arms behind his back, propping himself up so he could scrutinize the pair of females.

Actually, they were both dressed in tube tops and miniskirts, a set of attire that his mother abhorred and would always stop to point out how displeased she was, especially women like these. Both women were also thin with longish hair down to their middle backs; the redhead’s was wavy while the blonde’s was straight as a slow moving waterfall; another set of features his mom would rail against, but the boy suspected rather quickly that his mother was basically jealous of any fellow female considered attractive and often would compare herself to them in exasperating fashion. The tube tops seemed to act as a girdle, pushing up on the women’s breasts and exposing a low cut cleavage meant to show off their wares. Their legs also looked lithe and tanned, like they were at Zuma everyday sunning themselves with glistening oil, although the redhead’s skin was a sea of freckles on a cream colored background mostly on her arms and face, with a little smattering of them on her legs and on top of her…

“What are you staring at, angel face?” the redhead purred.

The boy groaned trying to sit up, averting his eyes from the two, not too keen on the easiness of the endearment’s delivery. The boy wanted to like them, for just by watching the both of them and the nearness of the redhead made him feel a bit dizzy, and regardless of his age of eleven years he felt a curiously odd stir at this exchange, although he couldn’t identify what it was.

“Oh nothing!” he blurted.

“Yeah, sure you weren’t,” the redhead countered.

“C’mon, let’s get him in the car,” said the blonde, winking over at the pair seated on the curb, the redhead now with her arm around the boy’s shoulders.

The boy couldn’t tell if the blonde was winking at him or the redhead, but he protested, “No, it’s ok, I’m ok.”

“Oh no, we won’t take no for an answer. You are too bunged up, and plus the way you’re carrying on with your side I’d say you broke a rib sweetie. Now, let me help you and we’ll give you a ride.”

The boy felt like he was in a conundrum of sorts. He had been drilled by his parents never to get into a stranger’s car, but he was injured, and bad enough that he seriously didn’t think he could make it to the payphone at the park about a quarter mile away. Besides, he didn’t even have a dime to allow a public telephone call since he pissed away all his change on candy and arcade games. Anyway, the redhead was already practically conveying him to the gold Bug while the blonde had opened the passenger side door and flipped back the seat. He really could do nothing at all but allow the redhead to lay him in the back, which was of the kind of vinyl that would leave an imprint on your skin like dragon scales if left on it in one position for too long.

“Ha ha ha ha!” the blonde laughed merrily, “Give him a ride,” she repeated with a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

The redhead glimpsed up at the blonde as she rested the boy’s head on the arm rest against the driver’s side wall, her siren form hovering over the boy in a dichotomy of fascination and incommodiousness at her proximity, her hair brushing lightly against his face.

“Oh hush up, Diana,” the redhead told the blonde, who in return only smirked.

“You’re in for it now kid,” the one called Diana said with another laugh, which only increased the boy’s disquiet into a sort of mild alarm, muted by the pain from his recent fall.

“Um, can you take me home now?” the boy requested hopefully.

“Home?” the blonde posed, almost rhetorically as if she were about to proceed into a poetically stated monologue.

The boy started to become a little frantic, and spun his head down to under the driver’s seat and spotted a tire iron there, but before he could even think about grabbing it he flinched from the driver and passenger doors shutting concurrently. While the boy was momentarily distracted by the doors the redhead held his right arm with a firm gentleness, which he was making the grab the iron.

“Now you don’t want to do that, to sweet ol’ me, do you?”

The boy could only shake his head in the negative, but he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was going to happen next. His heart was really starting to beat like a rabbit trapped and cornered. What the boy thought was really weird is how the one called Diana fired up the engine and screeched out of his accident site leaving his wounded bicycle like a road kill’s carcass while the redhead essentially remained over him failing to return to her previous shotgun position, her countenance shifting into an intense awareness of him.

Soon after the engine roared to life the sounds of synthesizer infused music raved, the bass buffeting the air like little explosions. Then the redhead said something, but he couldn’t hear it.

“What?” the boy asked, tears now forming little beads at the corner of his eyes.

The redhead only smiled, and subsequently crossed both arms in front of her then gripping the bottom rim of her tube top to only stop in what looked like a pause in a movement as if she was going to peel her entire tube top off in an upward direction.

“I said, what’s your name?!”

“J-J-J-Jake,” the boy stammered out.

“Well Jake, you’re officially ‘going for a ride’!”

“Hey Lil’, better save some for me!” the one called Diana shouted back…

Noise Complaint

2009-08-02T20:02:00.001-07:00

Wanda grunted and gave the mound under the covers next to her an experimental shove.

"Don't smell too fresh, does he?" she thought to herself, then paused. Raising an arm, she realized she, too, was riper than a lady ought to be. Furthermore, she had no fucking idea where she was.

The night had passed in a blur of warm cans of Shaeffer's six months past their expiration date. They had started playing "Fizzball" -- a time-honored version of baseball which used "cheap, evil-smelling beer" in place of a ball -- and wound up drinking the balls instead while watching the meteor shower overhead.

When, exactly, had she gotten the idea that going to bed with Wilberforce -- and what kind of a name was that anyway? -- would be a good idea? Had roofies been involved?

No. The sex had been way too good. By which was meant memorable. And yes, rather smelly.

Also loud.

"Oh God," she said, putting her face in her hands. Vague memories of indignant pounding on the trailer door floated to the surface of her mind. An angry fist, a huffy neighbor, a verbal spat, and Wilberforce stepping in between Wanda and the bulb-shaped woman, a trailer park Willendorf, before it got physical. "We'll keep it down," he'd assured the woman -- his neighbor? "Don't you worry."

If only Wanda had known how wrong he had been.

She made her way to the tiny bathroom off the nasty master bedroom, tripping over unknown snags in the pile carpet that smelled vaguely of WD-40. Oh no, had she confessed her weird fetish for that scent to Wilberforce? No wonder she could barely walk!

A few dry heaves verified she had not had any dinner the night before and had long ago puked up the beer. The unspeakable mess in the bathtub probably accounted for that. At least Wanda hoped that's where it had come from. And that it wasn't older...

A loud moan sounded from the bedroom. Was he awake? So much for a clean getaway. Not that she had much chance of that with her clothing strewn God-knew where.

She paused at the bathroom door and looked around. Sweet Fancy Moses, what had they gotten up to? There, hanging from one strangely bent pronghorn horn glued inexpertly to a taxidermy rabbit's head, was her favorite tube top, the red terrycloth number with the white blaze down the middle that emphasized her tits. How had it gotten up there?

Wanda giggled for a moment, imagining Wilber having perhaps fired it like a slingshot. Like he had, oh, Great Bog & Coffee, done with her thong. Yup. Bullseye, right in the center of the battered cork dartboard, dangling from a dart.

Who hangs a dartboard in his bedroom?

As Wanda pondered this roomful of evidence in her personal trial for bad judgment, Wilberforce moved. Not in that sleepy, stretchy, just-waking-up-and-getting-his-bearings way, not in the tossing-his-way-through-a-wet-dream way, but -- was she still drunk? -- floating.

Wilberforce was floating.

So was she.

So was pretty much everything in the trailer.

To say nothing of outside.

Entire car bodies, tricycles, torn garden hoses, lawn flamingos, stolen traffic cones, plastic yard furniture, each describing its own aimless orbit through the abruptly darkened sky, drifted lazily past the bedroom window. In the bedroom, Wanda's cutoffs, platform flip-flops and purse vied with all of Wilberforce's (disgusting) worldly possessions for weirdest hazard to her person as they sloshed -- yes, sloshed -- around the room.

Wanda blacked out.

No one from Boysen Grove ever knew for certain how much time had passed -- Minutes? Hours? Months? -- since the morning gravity had failed them and the sky went black. Nor could any of them account for the fact that they all now had to work much harder just to move around and breathe. At least not until THEY came.

The leading figure wore a Richard Nixon mask and carried a tape recorder. When enough of Boysen Grove's residents had assembled under the disused volleyball net and its array of orphaned sneakers, he extended a misshapen finger and hit PLAY.

Paul Harvey's unmistakeable cadences and tones issued forth from the recorder's tiny speakers. They had carefully spliced together an introductory speech from snippets of his broadcasts over the decades as a kidnapper assembles a ransom note from magazine clippings.

This is what he said:

"People of Earth, you have been brought here to stand trial for your continued disregard of all known standards of decency and respectable behavior," he, or rather the tape, began. The figure hit PAUSE to allow the murmurs to subside.

"You have been issued repeated warnings over a period of over 75 of your years that you are in breach of local noise ordinances. You are also in violation of numerous statutes governing breach of peace and posing a public nuisance."

More murmurs, of protest, of incomprehension, of ire and irritation. Mostly incomprehension.

"Your initial assault in the form of your great spiritual leader Adolf Hitler was bad enough. Your repeat offenses -- No one Loves Lucy, Bewitched was a Bother, and we dare not even speak of the abomination that was Knight Rider -- were intolerable. But then you assaulted us with Defying Gravity and for this... for this you must answer."

"Wait a god-damned minute," Wanda shrieked, forcing her way through the angry but seemingly impotent crowd. "None of that is our fault, you black-suited retards. That came through the TV box."

The figure raised an elegant but oddly proportioned hand to the forehead of the Nixon mask and lowered its head. Its bony shoulders sank.

"You are human. You are at fault. Prepare to be judged," it finally said after a moment.

"What if we don't want to?" Wanda asked, hands on her hips. Behind her, the crowd seemed to wake up, to rally, if timidly, to her cause. "Wait a minute..." she said as they began to mill forward in a group. She held up a hand to halt them. "Wilberforce, is that you?"

"Of course not," a voice said from behind the mask. A voice she was pretty sure did, in fact, belong to Wilberforce, but she had to be sure.

Boldly, Wanda strode forward, reached into the folds of the figure's black cloak, and twisted hard at the nipple ring she found there. An instant masculine salute elevated a fold further down and the masked, muffled voice, said "Jesustitsfucksake."

"It IS you, you toadfucker!" Wanda screamed, then paused. Had she just called herself -- never mind. "Hey Jacob! Hand me that there tire iron!"

The massacre that followed is related only in whispers in seedy watering holes in farway space stations. And no civilzation ever dares go near the second Moon of the third planet orbiting the star rechristened Boysen as a dire warning of the terrible savagery of the transplanted inhabitants of that quarantined system.

The Losing Hand

2009-07-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

The Observer notes the blond, stifling hot sand that was beneath his combat-boot laden feet. Arizona was the last place he imagined he would camp, but after many pints of whiskey and too few winning poker hands, he had no choice. During that friendly poker game, he went all in and his best friend just laughed and said, "That measly ante wasn't enough." The observer countered with “the loser will spend one night in the Arizona desert, the Gila Desert to be exact.” The observer slapped his cards down saying, "I have a pair of Kings." His friend just smiled and placed three aces down on the well-used card table. The Observer admitted defeat with a growl and a whiskey chaser.

For four weeks, The Observer researched “desert camping” in as many places he could find. He perused websites, camping books, spoke to camping gurus at his local, outdoorsy type establishment. Preparations, he determined will keep him alive during that lonely, singular night spent in the desert. His best friend demanded the camping trip be documented with pictures and a written travel log containing as much detail as possible. Apparently, water was a necessity, at least a gallon per day, a compass, and a map; the compiled list was endless sea of gadgets and indispensable supplies. There was something that was bothering The Observer; he kept reading about high mortality rate for backwoods camping in the Gila Desert. There was much speculation about an ominous creature that stalks easy prey during the darkest hours of the night. The observer attempted to dismiss his fears and “get down to the business at hand,” but the trepidation just kept eating away at his psyche.

The Observer drove to the desert and parked his beloved car at the trailhead. He decided to trek about 10 miles and then establish a bivouac for the night. He was hot, sweaty and tired of looking at sand. His hands were swollen from the heat and his skin was salty due to his constant perspiration. The observer pulled out a disposable camera to take a few photographs of the scenery for his compadre who was probably relaxing with a pint or two of whiskey in his rabbit hole apartment. “Damn him and his luck with cards!” The Observer muttered vehemently while hearing a certain rattling sound coming from about 15 feet away. “Oh, crap! Oh, shit! Get me the hell out of here!” He shouted while running as fast as he could to get out of the reach of the potential danger.

The Observer ran for about a half of a mile and slowed down to a stop. Huffing and puffing he reached violently into his backpack with his hand and pulled out his canteen for a drink of water slowly realizing that the danger had past. He took a moment, glanced around the area and decided to pitch his tent for the evening because it was getting late. The Observer found a flat clearing to construct his tent not far from the spoor, but far enough to be private. He busied himself for the next hour by setting up his camp including making dinner. Dinner originated from a bag, which was re-hydrated by adding heated water from the camp-stove. The repast was not appetizing at all, but the M.R.E. contained the necessary nutrients to stave off the hunger.

Leaning on a rock, The Observer scribbled in his compact, black notebook. He wrote furiously that leather-bound journal for a few hours without realizing that so much time had past. He glanced up at the sky; it was a beautiful shade of orangeness, like a ripe tangerine ready to be plucked off a drooping branch. It’s peaceful here in the desert, he thought to himself. He hadn’t seen or heard any other desert-trekkers for awhile. As the night sky loomed over head and the evening radiative cooling would be starting soon, The Observer made his way to the tent to bed down for the evening.

The Observer woke up with a jolt and opened up the tent flap. Looking up at the night sky, he was mesmerized by the moonlight. Out of nowhere a reddish-brown creature jumped on top of The Observer and brought him down to the ground with a crash. The Observer was frozen still with fright; he was staring in to the hazy green eyes of the creature and he did not know what to do to get out of this situation. The creature stood on top of The Observer and started sniffing and drooling massive amounts of slow acting, poisonous saliva over The Observer’s body. The Observer was thrashing around trying to get himself out of the reach of the creature. The creature was too heavy and bulky to push off, but he was able to free one arm and poke the creature in one eye. The creature rolled off of The Observer yelping in pain and The Observer started running away from the creature. The ominous creature was quick to chase down The Observer and quickly sprinted up to him. The creature grabbed a hold of The Observer's hand and bit down hard with his razor sharp yellowed teeth. The Observer pulled back his arm with all his might, but he wasn’t strong enough. The creature severed The Observer’s hand from his body and ran off in the other direction to enjoy his small nugget of goodness and to wait for the The Observer to die to claim the grand prize. The Observer was left alone, helpless and without his hand to become another statistic for the mortality rate of the Gila Desert.

Deputy Whithers' Life is About to Change...

2009-07-17T23:58:00.000-07:00

Cookie

Cookie was utterly flabbergasted at the horrendous sight from behind this one she had her “hooks” into, the one that was playing so hard-to-get. Now, her all her prospective plans were abruptly coming to an irrevocable halt. If it wasn’t for her, with that long shiny indigo hair as if each strand had been carved from obsidian then transformed into silk that draped seductively around her stark but smoothly tanned wistful smiling oval visage, Cookie might have gotten what she aimed to “git”.

Cookie had had him right where she wanted; she knew that he couldn’t resist her wiles: the rising swell of the tops (and sides) of her two juicy “melons” specially powdered and exposed through this über-tight halter that she found at the dollar store (her little secret) for specifically this here implicitly voluptuous evening. “Jakie,” as she liked to endear him, had been studying her with quite the expressionless handsome face, eyes narrowed when she decided to let him know where his remaining evening plans were going to take place; right between her bag tits, and hopefully betwixt her rapidly dampening “lips,” so ready after oh-too-long a time without proper inspiration. She could hardly take the frustration anymore, and just a chance to part those inner portions of her adipose hindquarters all chaffed and charred up from the constant friction from each waddle she took to propel herself forward from one point to another.

The little one that introduced them was still behind her with that rat-faced grin of his, even though Cookie thought he still possessed adequate cuteness that would be good for a round of seconds, or firsts just in case “Jakie” was too drunk from the eleventh shot he was currently working on, just in case. What was his name again? Roger, Robert, Roland, Rumpelstiltskin, Rick…no no, Ray! Oh yes, Ray. Ray, who first noticed her leaning on the bar attempting to gain attention of the bar-hand that was bent down by a kind of glass steamer. Ray, whose sweet words held her heart in enraptured suspension, Ray, who first suggested “Jakie” was a well-endowed prospect much at first to her dismay, but then with mounting and surprising enthusiasm. Ray, who now hung behind her with just as equivalent disbelieving eyes as she, Cookie now realized. How could this vixen, no, this bitch just come out of nowhere with a little yellow sticky note and wrap her skinny “costumed” jewelry encrusted arms around her prize without even acknowledgment of Cookie’s existence.

Actually that wasn’t completely true. Cookie did discern this bitch’s presence as Cookie was making her first moves on “Jakie”. Two cold black eyes had peered at Cookie from the shadows with diabolical interest, and it wasn’t until now that Cookie recalled this fact that the resulting feeling was like she was some kind of prey, something to be stalked for sinister purposes. However, now that the bitch was all over her “Jakie,” Cookie thought she must have been mistaken about that.

Jake

The intense black-haired girl that sinuously emerged from the shadows behind Jake did not speak (at first). Jake was instantly intrigued by that calligraphic script she had revealed to him on the yellow slip of paper, where she must have swiped it off from the ceiling post which was littered with them, and the reason they were there remained a puzzle to be solved. How his name got there he had no clue as well, but it punctuated his thought process to that of an obscure uneasiness.

All thoughts of Cookie and her inane display of ridiculous lasciviousness had vaporized as the black-haired woman twirled around his barstool-prostrated form using his abdomen as a center of rotation, like he was the pole in a rather provocative promenade to catapult herself to his front-and-center. She left no alternative for Jake to observe anything else but her despite the fact that Cookie towered over her from behind while Ray’s unmistakable gregarious mug twisted into an absurd portrait of humorous horror. It was difficult to distinguish, but he realized that the raven haired girl was also swaying to some rhythm in spite of the awful twanging ambient music, but to some other purring hum in synch with a kismet-unnamed, but definitely present in the vicinity although he could not materialize the visual definition within his mind. Although Jake had no memory of it, his hands had found their way to her surreptitiously weaving hips, thus the undulating pulse from her was perceived with his heightened aspect and appeal for her. Meanwhile, her eyes shone like two hypnotic atramentous firebrands aflame, piercing his own and holding his gaze like a long-lost captive undergone complete fossilization. He could not look away, and slowly she lifted her arms from around his waist, dragged her hands up his sides and ended with gripping both his shoulders like she was his coach in soccer as a kid, motivating him to “get out there and be aggressive!” The set of arcane conflicting senses he was receiving from her were working on his will, now shot full with proverbial holes via the nearing pint of whiskey he had consumed thus far and this mysterious one’s innate ability to strip away at the real reason he was here: to get Ray laid.

Ray

Just when Jake’s sour punch line couldn’t have been better timed with Cookie’s crazy hip snap for Ray to be ready and waiting; oh yes, he’d be all geared up to take his bite out of Cookie, mmm, yeah! –that bizarre chick came out of nowhere and interrupted the grand scheme of the night. Ray didn’t set up this gig, spend hours on a cover story rehearsing and finally pitching it to Jake, and then going through all sorts of convincing and begging to have his “wingman” on this wild but sure-thing plan then to subsequently have some femme fatal lunatic come in and mess it all up; no way no how! -But then, Ray saw Cookie’s shoulders slump in defeat as this crazy chick swung around Jake in lecherous prowess, her fantastic body moving with such incredible alacrity and poise that he could barely believe it. She wore this dark brown leather top that pushed up on her smallish (compared to Cookie) breasts that acted more like a bra than anything else, which also exposed her entire bronze-hued stomach that rippled and gleamed as if made from said metallic mélange. Her lengthy thick black hair swirled about her as if it were that ill-defined scattering dark matter that Jake was always trying to convey to him in what Jake called, “being cultured,” which grazed Cookie across the nose that sent her reeling backwards and listing toward the bar edge for support. This crazy chick was astonishing, and Ray was suddenly totally mesmerized. All Ray’s previous thoughts of “the plan” previously had volatilized from the whipping, succulent and wonderfully shaped set of legs dancing about in front of the pronounced astounded face of Jake, unreservedly so unlike Jake's usual “robotic” self.

Unexpectedly, Ray found himself catching Cookie in a near-faint while the crazy chic stripped Jake off his barstool and lead him to the dance floor, somewhere where Ray never had known Jake to ever go, or desire to go for that matter. Despite the crazy chic’s tiny and nimble stature, she possessed this electrifying strength, for she piloted him in such a way that Jake appeared to be floating on a thin layer of dense air below his boots with just one of her lithe arms clasped around his waist as if it were resting there light as a feather. Ray, under the ever-increasing stress of Cookie’s weight, for she had not quite recovered from the hastiness at which Jake was whisked away, was forced to look down and caught sight of her, shoes?

Shoes? They didn’t quite look as such, more like slippers, made from that same leather as the rest of her get-up. What was that word? -Starts with an “M”. Hmmm, he thought.

Moccasins, yes that’s right. Moccasins. Why in the world would this crazy chick wear moccasins to a swank country music joint like this? Ray asked himself. It was an abstruse mystery, but he soon forgot about this mental note for Cookie was finally stumbling to her feet and was coming to, and she was particularly livid.

“Who, who was that Ray? Who was that that took my Jakie away?”

Cookie loomed over Ray, her face red from either drinking, or the fact that her now-wet panties were a futile gesture for this evening’s aptitudes.

“I…I have no idea. I’ve never seen that crazy chick in my entire life!” Ray drawled as he sometimes did when put under unsolicited pressure, reverting to his old habits that Jake was always too happy to point out whenever it occurred.

“You git him Ray! You git him and bring him a’back right on here! You hear me you little weasel?”

Ray was starting to tire of this Cookie lady, and could now see under his quickening sobriety that she was a little “more” than he had bargained for, still…

“RAY!”

“What, what, what, what, WHAT?” Ray screamed.

“Lookit, look it that!” Cookie pointed.

Ray turned and glanced in the direction of where he last saw the crazy chick take Jake. Jake was actually dancing. Jake was dancing with that crazy chick like he was some sort of pro, except both of them weren’t going with the beat of this neo country-pop song that crooned about whistling and “having a beer,” no, they were slow-going according to some other silentious cadence, time signature, whatever. Ray at unawares became entranced with their idiosyncratic movements, especially that crazy chick. What, what was she doing, what kind of moves were those? he thought, bewildered but gradually coming under her spell as well.

The crazy chick was at first moving slow with Jake, totally in pace with Jake as her arms were draped up around his neck, her head tilted back in a bared-teeth smile, eyes gleaming with the multicolored lights glittering from above, then would rapidly slip away and twist and contort in a flurry of blur orbiting about him then would become calm, complacent, meaningful to reflective. She seemed to be suggesting a drift toward the front door Ray envisaged.

“Ray! THEY’RE LEAVING!” Cookie’s imperative could not be missed for its eardrum shattering cacophony, but Ray was already following them anyway. They had already disappeared out into the inky blackness of the late night; through an axiomatic rabbit-hole as if they would never be seen again, and Ray felt this unspeakable urge that he must follow.

Cookie

When Cookie saw Ray putting on his ratty worn-out leather moto-jacket she reached out for own outer wear: a burlap poncho with a long lacy tassel fringe skimming the entire lower edge to create a superfluous circumference. Cookie was not going to let Jake get away, much less Ray, the latter that little scheming son of a bitch who probably set this whole thing up for her humiliation.

“Ray, you wait up, you wait up right-on now!” Cookie hollered in her typifying vernacular.

-But it seemed Ray was only vaguely aware of Cookie calling for him to delay since he kept trudging on and was now rounding out the door frame into the starry night, but at a strange leisurely pace. She broke out into an amplified trot, wanting to keep up with Ray’s persistent gait. When she rounded the entrance, she witnessed the familiar form of “Jakie” and the puny silhouette of that bitch wrapped around his backside as they raged off on “Jakie’s” bike, its tailpipe blasting and wheels kicking up a load of dust as it raced off toward the north. The bitch’s hair was literally streaming out from behind her head, like she was some sinister witch on a broomstick from those old children’s horror-fairytales (Cookie just hated the Brothers Grimm, but that is another story altogether). She saw Ray frantically jump onto his bike and began his kick-start process. She couldn’t just let him leave her here, so she actually sprinted the fifty feet or so toward him, something she hadn’t done, well, hadn’t done since the last time she had whoopee.

“Ray, Ray, hold on. Don’t just leave me here. I’m gonna go wit’ ya. Were gonna go git him together!”

Ray had just gotten his bike started with a mean discharge of black and oily exhaust then looked up at Cookie, his eyes glazed and jaw a bit slack but suggested a meager acceptance. Cookie was a little taken aback at Ray’s spacey expression, but time was a wasting so she hopped on and draped her flabby arms about Ray’s midsection. The whole bike sunk about two inches down the shock absorbers’ cylinders from Cookie’s sheer weight, while Ray nevertheless cranked down on the throttle and popped the clutch. The smallish hog at first just hung there, its rear wheel eating earth and gravel, digging itself a swerving trench when it finally caught and roared after Jake and “that bitch,” who both were now nothing but a red dot on a horizon-less vista.

“C’mon Ray, we gotta catch’em, they’re gitt’n away!” Cookie tried to yell over the snapping detonation of Ray’s ride. However, since Ray was not too large in stature, an undersized wiry man that never grew more past the age of twelve, and his bike was fitted for him only and not really meant for the likes of the gargantuan Cookie to be seated in tandem. While Ray wasn’t able to overtake Jake who must have been close to full throttle with a larger and more powerful older model BMW, Ray was still able to keep Jake’s taillight in sight despite it lessening in luminescence at a creeping rate. Cookie sighed in exasperation, for she finally began to appreciate her “big boned” physique didn’t lend itself to Ray’s bike since her knees were splayed outward and bent at too harsh an angle to get her feet into the stirrups properly lest her heels drag viciously against the two-lane highway.

Ray

Ray had his hand tight on a fully open throttle and in the highest gear, but yet the “ultra-Cookie” pressing her oversized flapjacks into his back and sinking the entire rear of the bike downward weren’t helping matters. All he knew is that he had to keep Jake within his field of vision. It was absolutely imperative that he not lose him, or her for that matter. Ray was feeling a definite pull from the crazy chick, like she was calling to him, dancing for him even though she was clearly working to entice Jake to her every whim, and it seemed like she undeniably succeeded in that initiative. Jake was no longer himself, that’s for sure. Dancing! What gives Jake? Ray was confounded, but then if he were in Jake’s shoes now, he’d know he’d do anything for that crazy moccasin wearing body of a goddess strutt’n wench of darkness. Hell yeah! Ray salivated at the thought, and was only hazily aware of Cookie blurting something from behind. Ray now had bigger fish to fry, “hehehehehe,” he laughed at his own musing and the ironic nature of his mental quip.

Seriously though, what in the world were Jake and that crazy bitch up to? Where the hell were they going? Luckily the desert chaparral out here was all there was, no other lights to speak of besides the ones the road vehicles made. Ray could still make out the tiny pinprick of red that was Jake’s bike in the distance, but if they didn’t stop soon Jake would shortly outrun them.

“Heya Ray? Ray!”

Ray snapped out of his introspection at the grating sound of the “ultra-Cookie’s” voice.

“Yeah!, Whaddaya want?”

“Ray, it’s gett’n cold out here”

“Well Cookie, ya didn’t have to come!”

“Ray, I, ah…”

Ray went back to concentrating; not wanting to pay any more attention to the “ultra-Cookie,” for Jake’s red taillight disappeared to the right. Ray started to question what was going on now, because he knew of no road or path in these parts, so that meant that Jake must’ve went right off the side of the road and was now “humdingering” it out into the chaparral. Ray made for the spot he thought he last saw Jake, his heart thumping at astronomical levels from the severe anxiety. No, no, no, he couldn’t lose him now, after all this effort, and his bike starting to overheat from the compulsive strain of himself and the “ultra-Cookie” riding at full-bore.

At long last he thought he spotted ahead a broken-through old rotted wood fence where he thought of as where Jake ditched the road. Sure enough, Ray’s headlight illuminated fresh motorcycle tracks heading off toward some dark rising mounds off to the left. Ray shut off his cycle so he could set his ears for some listening and told Cookie to dismount for now.

“Hey Ray, thankgod you stopped, I was–”

“SSSSHHHHH!” Ray hissed.

Sure enough Ray could make out the thrumming hum of Jake’s ride just where he thought Jake was going previously.

“Diggidy dog, let’s go!” Ray ordered, jumping on his bike and kick-starting it to life all in one motion. This startled the “ultra-Cookie,” who wasn’t expecting to be leaving so soon.

“Ray!”

“Look Cookie, you want him or not?”

-And with that and without a word, the “ultra-Cookie” jumped back on the bike and they both jaunted off onto the makeshift conduit left behind by Jake and that crazy chick.

Jake

Jake was unable to describe the verve he was under, being totally consumed with the matter at hand; where this girl with just the austere glance of an eye bathed him in a sort of rapture that now held him firm around the gut and in effect melding her corporeal self into his. He would do anything for her, but why? To Jake, it somehow didn’t matter, which went against his grain, the flavor of his soul, and the slant of his mind. Yet, the dry desert shrubbery flew past in a smudge of brownish-black as he made his way off-road up the sloping dusty mound illuminated only by a waning sliver of a moon. He knew he was guided by the girl somehow; a nudge, a shift in weight, a caress, he could not say for sure, but all he was aware of was that she directed every one of his movements in one way or another. The path, which should have been rutted and jarring to the traverse was instead an even and fluid navigation. Jake was only pensively attentive of this fact although it should have surprised him, nevertheless the cool dry night’s autumn air blew by like a hurricane’s gale that should have burned with gelidity as they rode up and up, further and further, but instead they were bathed in a sort of comforting opulence.

Jake knew that Ray and Cookie were following them, but only because she was conscious of this fact and allowed Jake to be also. She had commanded Jake in those unsaid maneuverings that he must proceed swift, but not overly so as to lose them, but not too slow as to make their mutual sagacity of Ray’s and Cookie’s presence conspicuous. Oh, this girl had plans for all of them, and Jake was mindful enough to recognize a certain darkness lay ahead, but just feeling the sweet warmth of her supple form and the occasional whip of her silky tendrils across Jake’s cheek as they caught the occasional backflowing eddy led him to believe that it couldn’t be that bad, this future thing whatever it was.

Before Jake knew it they were at their destination. Jake powered down the bike and everything went wholly silent, like a semi-lucid dream of the much needed respite of the cooling shade of a great allaying willow during a becalmed blaring noon hour. Except here, all was completely in shadow, a few silhouetted bodies drifted from here to there with some predetermined purpose. The girl was off the bike in a flash and twisted into what could only be called a curtsy with an outstretched hand, her silver ornate bangles clinking ever-so-delicately on her arms at her sudden shift in weight. Jake took her velvet svelte hand as she crouched curiously halfway and was led off the motorcycle to a flat crown of the hill where there were makeshift shelters erected reminiscent of teepees crossed with yurts. Jake swung his head to the left, for a giant and methodically latticed wood arrangement lay on the crest of the down in a circular pattern. High above this “cellulose” network rose five carved arched stone-workings to a central apex, from which hung another trellis structure except it appeared to be more of a colossal woven basket. Each of the stone arches possessed precisely spaced spirals embossed outward from the rock, so neatly honed that from a distance it might seem like a robotic machine had crafted them. Jake was able to tell upon passing one of them that no machine made these, evident from the serrated tool marks of the sculptor’s implement within each of the mysterious markings. Jake also noticed some of the girl’s “people” placing perforated crockery in specially organized aeries within the large latticework, and by the look of the bodies’ accompanying strain carrying the pots; these were each filled with something indeed substantial. Jake was not allowed to linger however, and was made to enter one of the teepee-yurts just about twenty meters from all the activity with a clear view of the grand design from the open entrance.

The girl led Jake inside and told him to rest himself on a large king size bedroll. When he laid down his whole body felt heavy, withdrawn, and unspeakably weary. How did I get here? a little voice inside spoke to him, confused and suddenly unaware of his surroundings. He looked up at the girl without recognition, who by now had completely stripped out of her minuscule leather outfit and gracefully convened at Jake’s feet. By whatever means, she had assembled the great cascade of her stygian locks and the angle of her tawny form so that nothing at all except the tiniest of glimpses of her femininity could be differentiated. Jake was utterly stunned by how beautiful she was, and by her almost impossible way of moving.

“How in the world did I get here, and who are you exactly?” Jake slurred, feeling a bit out of sense with things.

“Shhhh,” she indicated, and commenced to remove his boots, jeans, bomber, and shirt. He let her willingly, for his exhaustion was mounting, and the perfume that reached out from her proximity was nothing he had ever perceived before, or would he ever from that point on. She straddled him and placed her index finger on his lips and peered deep into his eyes.

All he could do was return her gaze, though he found it difficult, and the weight of her on him was excruciating despite her petite size.

Then in a willowy and peregrine accent she finally spoke, “I have been called Brrraxxxhhhnah, Jake,” rolling her “R’s” and forming a guttural sound at the end of what Jake could only surmise as her first name, “Brrráxxhhnah Morrr Rrríogain,” she completed. She took a deep luscious breath and continued, “You have ben brrraht herrre for a purrrpose Jake. You should not speak, for nothing you shall say or think shall influence what tis to come.”

So many questions coursed through Jake’s mind, and he decided that perhaps she was correct, for her grip was terrifyingly strong and the weight of her nothing like he ever thought possible. The coolness of her was also startling; however her intimate distance (being right on top of him) kindled an igneous torridness within himself. Detecting that Jake must have sensed this feeling she clasped each of his hands into both of hers and brought them straight back against the blankets above his head and extended both her legs down his own so that each of her feet pinned his ankles to the floor. The ecstasy he felt from her slender and smooth skin impressed upon him literally blinded him from the four other figures that had entered the makeshift room and bound his wrists and ankles with thin but strong rope as the girl called “Brannah” held him fast, her flowing hair tickling his neck and eyes and her serene smile enchanting his otherwise suspicious nature.

Jake was suddenly brought to life from the diametrically opposed searing pain of four large needles being injected into each one of his four limbs at ultra-high frequency by the enigmatic attendants and the writhing and imperious form of Brannah thrusting herself maniacally on top of him, her eyes opening wide revealing two orbs blacker than midnight. With tears in his eyes blurring all vision, all Jake could do was endure this dissonant combination of hellacious anguish and delectable titillation, almost willing his consciousness outward from his body until either one was consummately spent.

Ray

Ray knew he was getting close, but the ride was slow-going and irksome. With Cookie shifting her great weight at every turn, tussle, and tumble they nearly wiped out a half-dozen times. Ray was approaching the point where he’d rather let go of the bike and hike the rest of the way. –But it could be miles from here, and he was just plain too tired to attempt anything of that sort.

“Ray?” Cookie’s now infuriating voice interrupted Ray’s concentration again.

“Whaa-” Ray started, but he never finished, for something lay ahead in the road, a black dark outline was blocking the path, then it quickly jumped away into the side-brush. Ray then realized this was what Cookie was trying to get his attention about.

Almost immediately before Ray could consult his searching eyesight further, a huge growl split into his ears and the entire bike jarred from an immense impact. The whole bike took its final tumble and unexpectedly the engine cut off without logical explanation. Ray had no idea what happened to Cookie besides her deafening screams coming from ahead on the path. Extracting himself from under the bike Ray could barely make out drag marks and large game clawed animal tracks leading away from the bike. Ray ran in the direction of Cookie’s continuing howls and managed to catch up enough to see a great black wolf heaving Cookie by both legs in its jaws at surprising speed, just above the speed that Ray could run. Still Ray ran and ran, trying with all his might to keep up. Finally, Ray could distinguish a flickering light just over the next switchback that was coincident with the wolf’s passing, which in effect was his queue to stop to catch his breath.

However, the growling returned from behind him regardless of the fact that any evidence of Cookie was long gone by now. With horrendous fear taking over, Ray leapt to his feet and sprinted with every last ounce of vigor he could muster. Ray could hear the panting and snarling pursuer behind him, giving an unyielding chase. He didn’t know how, but he knew it was the same lurid wolf that made off with Cookie, and now it was coming for him. This is it, he thought, this is how it ends.

Just as Ray thought he was about to stumble and give up, he saw the source of the light, the start of what looked like a great bonfire with human shapes moving to-and-fro in front of it.

“Help!” Ray yelled. “Help, help, help!”

The shapes stopped and looked up, but he could not see their faces since the firelight was emanating from behind them. Just then he heard no more of the snarling and panting pursuer, but only the shuffling collective gait of the persons walking toward him from just inside a great circle. Ray had just then identified the yelping horrific screams of Cookie, and he could see her great hulking form being thrust into some weaved caged that hung above the just started and spreading fire. Shocked, Ray was only halfway aware of the horde grappling him and dragging his body to the flame itself. About twenty meters from the thatched structure of the firewood was a pole that Ray was lead to and forced up against so that his face was directed toward the fire which was swiftly gaining momentum. Ray saw bubbling pots of steam strewn throughout the firewood, and the pottery closer to the storm of exothermic discharge boiled all the more. The streaming scent from these left Ray reeling and feeling half-witted, since what he was now witnessing just couldn’t be happening. Up high above the licking conflagration Cookie squirmed and wriggled and shrieked as her cage quickly caught fire. She attempted to claw at the furthest point except this caused her suspended prison to list so that she fell to the lowest point. Ray’s captors reminded Ray of their presence by striking his back and chest with a series of barbs tied to the top of the pole via long and thin cords. Screeching at the binding pain, Ray still could not take his drugged eyes off the now exploding corpse of Cookie: fat, muscle, brambles of veins and arteries sizzling in a cooking rain of blood that hurtled whisking down on the firestorm's stirred up wind. Ray caught the sight of three prodigious inky crows amass where most of Cookie’s remains had splattered; just in front of the form of Ray against his pole with now each of the cables drawn taut, his lifeblood streaming from the four points of the barb insertion in his back. The crows feasted on the vestiges of the human carcass, which had inexplicably buffeted on a storm’s air currents still afire and smoking to Ray’s standing position. The four tormentors had returned, and without a word they began their fortuitous work with inserting needles into Ray’s arms and legs at frightening speed. Drugged, traumatized and dull with pain, Ray fainted and dreamed of absolutely nothing.

County Patrolman Whithers

Another boring day out here in the desert, where no one ever comes except for drunks and stupid teenyboppers look’n for a little privacy, Deputy Whithers thought to himself. He’d been out on this docket for what seemed like years now, driving up and down the same stretches of highway without so much as a reckless driving charge in his list of collected citations. Although, last night there were reports from some motorists that some whackos were blazing up an inferno on what Deputy Whithers called, “Nimrod Hill,” as in only a nimrod would ever go out there for anything pertaining to anything. So he did what his boss said and took his dirt bike out there and then never saw no evidence of anything remotely fire-like. Besides, everyone around here was so law-abiding that Deputy Whithers sincerely doubted that anyone from this county missed church service on Sundays, and being that campfires were illegal out here, it was just too preposterous to think about. –But oh no, his boss the sheriff “gots to make sure” that Deputy Whithers is kept in his place and does what he is told.

Except, when Deputy Whithers was on his way back from “Nimrod Hill,” having taken an opposing path since it being a shortcut back to home for a little nip on the flask (that he forgot to bring with him today), tripped up on a find that would forever be recalled for years to come. What he found alongside the two-lane blacktop was so astonishing that he just almost couldn’t bring himself to believe it. Two men, completely naked as the day they were born laid out strewn like dolls, still breathing by the looks of them covered in blue-green paint. One of the men was tall, just over six feet and possessed a lean-muscle build. The other had a beard, but was little and wiry, looking more like a monkey when compared to the first man. Deputy Whithers had never seen the freakish holographic sheen of paint like that though, much less on two naked men out in the middle of the desert. Just before he picked up his radio to call this in and more than likely an ambulance, he bent down to inspect the men a little bit more closer-like, and what he discovered was that both men weren’t painted at all, and in fact both had been tattooed over every square inch of their bodies with shapes of vortices and spirals intertwined and entangled every which way. Deputy Whithers strove to follow the freshly tattooed threads since they seemed to go on and on forever, trying to seek the end of the long tortuous gossamer, but soon he needed to shake his head clear for he sensed a strange and sudden headache sear his consciousness.

Deputy Whithers rubbed his eyes, picked up his handset, depressed the transmitter and said, “Whithers out on route eight. Got two loonies here need medical assistance, possible exposure…”

Something Silly

2009-07-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

Alphabet according to Pint O’Whiskey, A. Rabbit Hole and Mayhem, Inc.™

A is for “Alice in Wonderland” #mayhem #rabbit hole

B is for Buffy the Vampire Slayer “A New Man” #whiskey #mayhem

C is for Cannibal Corpse #mayhem fest 2009 #whiskey

D is for “Dracula” #mayhem

E is for Eire #whiskey #mayhem

F is for flask #pint of whiskey

G is for Grace Slick #rabbit holes # whiskey

H is for “Hair-Raising Hare” #rabbit holes #mayhem

I is for Incendiary Device (Molotov cocktail) #mayhem

J is for Janis Joplin #whiskey #mayhem

K is for Karloff, Boris #mayhem

L is for “The Lottery” #mayhem

M is for Middleton Distillery #whiskey

N is for Netherland Dwarf Rabbit #rabbit holes

O is for “Off with his head!” #rabbit holes #mayhem

P is for public house #whiskey

Q is for Quotes: “What’s up, Doc?” #rabbit holes #mayhem

R is for Rescue Me #whiskey #mayhem

S is for “Shankill Butchers” #whiskey #mayhem

T is for Thomas, Dylan #pints of whiskey

U is for Uisce Betha #pints of whiskey

V is for Vera #mayhem

W is for Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 #whiskey #mayhem

Y is for Yukon Cornelius #mayhem, child level

Z is for Zoboomafoo “Who's in the Hole?” #rabbit holes

Into the Mayhem

2009-07-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

Charles sat on the cold floor and stared at the unopened pint of whiskey in front of him. The bottle stared back, its smooth casing and straight lines beckoning like a siren's song.

His mouth went dry, his muscles tensing almost painfully. Reaching out would be so easy. Just take the bitch in hand and drink her up. Nothing to it. He had done it many times before. More times than he could count.

It certainly couldn't make matters worse.

What about all the progress you've made? Do you really want to fall off the wagon? his infernal inner voice questioned, sounding too much like his wife Grace's voice for comfort.

He closed his eyes and let his head hang forward until it dangled limply off his shoulders.

A family intervention, a stint with Alcoholics Anonymous, months of therapy and then a session with that quack hypnotist, yet here he sat. He scoffed. Real fucking progress. “Can't fall off something you refuse to believe in, anyway,” he grumbled to the empty room.

Yet even as his hands reached for the lid, the hypnotists words whispered through his mind. Just the thought of drinking will fill the air with the smell of vomit. You won't want it. You don't need it.

Charles took a deep, bracing breath, waiting for the smell to hit him. Nothing. He was about to yank the top off and guzzle as much as he could when the phone on his waist vibrated.

He yanked his hands back and slammed the phone down on the floor. No, his mind shouted. Don't answer it.

He pressed his hands over his ears.

The room went blissfully quiet.

He focused his gaze on the bottle in front of him, letting it fill his vision. It would be worth it, wouldn't it, if it blanked out the waves of shit crashing down around him?

His hands shook, his breath came in shallow puffs, his mind screamed hell fucking yes.

She won't forgive you anyway, taunted the amber liquid. It won't erase what happened. But it will ease the pain.

“Shut up! Shut. The hell. Up.”

His screams echoed off the steel walls, bounced back to him in a torturous moan. He exhaled sharply, bracing his sweating palms against the cool floor as memories vaulted painfully through his brain.

A night as stormy as one from a story book, a husband who'd not only fallen off the wagon but had imbibed every drop of alcohol on the way down, a wife's bitter disappointment, an argument as intense as a vortex tornado. A bizarre tangle that pulled his feet out from under him, dragging him six feet underground.

He had not intended for it to go as far as it had. But she had stood on her soapbox of self-righteousness for so long that it had grown roots and lifted her into the sky like a fucking beanstalk. That the fall might very well kill her was to be expected, wasn't it?

After all, when he'd left the office to join colleagues for happy hour, he had expected to choke down a drink or two and go. To eat a tin of Altoids on the way home to get the taste out of his mouth and cover the smell. To find her in the parlor reading whatever book selection her little book club had selected.

What he had not expected was to look over thirty minutes into his evening and find her at a dark, corner table, sucking face with...who the hell was that guy anyway? Apart from the too-long view of his lips moving over Grace's, Charles could barely remember what the douchebag looked like. He certainly had not spared the man a glance as he'd grabbed his wife and dragged her out of the bar.

The ride home had been filled with a strained energy that encouraged malevolent thoughts. The silence between them hung thick with disgust and disappointment, sucking the air out of the car. He could barely focus on the road for the conversation running through his brain. Drawing enough breath to rail at her had been impossible.

All too quickly they had arrived home, but their altercation had been waylaid by the news of an impending storm. “Take shelter before severe weather arrives,” the reporter had instructed. Charles had envied her the concerned – and patently false – smile on her face.

Severe weather, indeed. The storm raged inside and out.

They had barely made it into the shelter before Grace had lit into him. And the storm that raged outside had nothing on the one inside.

Despite Charles's warnings that the issue was not up for discussion, Grace just wouldn't let it be. She wouldn't shut up. Not when he'd verbally threatened, nor when he’d given in to his physical resentment and busted her lip open with a firm backhand. She hadn’t even stopped when he'd grabbed her shoulders hard enough to leave angry red marks.

“Let me go!” she had screamed. “You're acting like a lunatic!”

“You've made me that way,” he'd sneered as he tightened his grip. One way or another he was going to get through to her. She was not going to have the goddamned satisfaction of making this about him.

“Go to hell! That's where you deserve to be anyway! Six feet under, dancing with the devil!!!!”

And so he was. Six feet under.

With her, his own personal Hellraiser. The irony of it was enough to kill a man.

He had never even considered how far into the Earth it was when he'd built the steel bunker. He had only known that he'd spent too many nights during his childhood bundled in a five by ten shelter with his parents, waiting as the wind howled in frustration and tugged violently at the door, threatening to reach in and toss them through the air like helpless little plastic bags. And tear them limb from limb in the process.

“Hmmmmmlll,” a voice whispered faintly. Not, however, faint enough for Charles not to recognize the terror in it.

He looked around the dimly lit room, his chest constricting painfully as his gaze darted from corner to corner.

A group of candles threw threatening shadows against one, the flashlight on the floor lit another. The third held the stairs that led to the outside world. A place he would never see again. He’d already tried. And failed.

Then there was the “other” corner. The one he had pushed Grace into in his violent rage. Thankfully, that corner remained dark.

Dark, but not quiet. It moaned and groaned. It whimpered pitifully.

Charles curled his fingers into the floor, scraped his nails along the cement painfully. And tried like hell to forget what Grace had looked like when she'd hit the wall. What her body had looked like when it was tugged through, limbs flailing in a failed attempt to gain footing. He had reached for her instinctively, had been able to grab her hand and hold on tight.

The action had been just enough to trap her. To pin her between two dimensions. Between the hell of the steel bunker and the hellish abyss of what was beyond.

He still couldn't believe it. If he had not witnessed it with his own two eyes, he would never have believed. Yet he knew – just as he knew how to breathe – that if he shined his flashlight against the blackness of that particular corner he'd see her angled head sticking partially in, partially out of the wall. Her eyes would be staring back at his imploringly, one side of her mouth – barely enough to stuff a bottle cap in – pinched uncomfortably, her lips pursed sideways in a perpetual painful whistle. He'd see everything below the elbow of one arm, he’d see one leg, part of a hip.

A freakish Salvador Dali painting come to life.

She would try to communicate with her eyes, signal to him with her hands. But she couldn't ask for help; she could only murmur out of the bit of her mouth that wasn't caught in the steel. Caught on whatever lay on the other side of the steel.

Charles could hear her breaths coming in stressful puffs, almost as if she were breathing through a straw. It couldn't be enough. She couldn’t be drawing enough air to keep the panic at bay.

He covered his ears and tried to think.

“Use me,” beckoned the bottle in front of him. “I can make it all better.”

“How?” he asked weakly, perhaps a bit hopefully. He might still be pissed at Grace for doing what she did, but he would never wish this on anyone.

“A drink.”

“That won't help.”

“You don't want her to suffer, do you?”

Charles stared at the bottle angrily. He had wanted exactly that at one point during their tense drive home, had even come up with a list of ways to make it happen. But this...Christ.

He swallowed painfully. “She is suffering already.”

“Her suffering has not even begun,” the whiskey warned menacingly.

Charles reached for the bottle, intending to pick it up and toss it against the wall. Perhaps he would be able to think straight without temptation shaking its ass in front of him. His fingers wrapped around, but before he had a chance to grip it with any force, a noise caught his attention.

A scurrying, clawing noise similar to a rat. A very large rat with razor sharp nails. It sounded like it was coming from beyond the walls, from within them.

He turned, shined his flashlight against the steel behind him, the one opposite the wall Grace was stuck in.

The sound was a million times worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. It screeched along the inside slowly, painfully, the high pitched noise ripping through the silence, vibrating through his skull.

Grace began to scream. If one could call it that. What came from her mouth was one part wail, one part breathless beg, a billion parts fear.

Charles kept his flashlight pointed at the awful noise. The steel vibrated hard enough for him to feel it. Which meant...

“Yessssss,” the bottle answered. “Her suffering begins now.”

He whipped around, shined the light of his fury on the amber liquid. It glowed tauntingly in response.

“You know what you have to do.”

Charles prowled towards it, worked desperately to ignore the intensifying clawing of the walls, the aggravated gasps of panic from Grace. A need born of the evening's pressure spread through him, frayed his nerves with every step. A need to end the madness. To find some semblance of sanity.

Grace's muffled screams became unbearably loud as the scraping sound made its way around the corner and headed towards her.

“You can't save her. The darkness wants her for his own. But you can help her...with a drink.”

“Doesn't make any fucking sense,” Charles muttered as he snatched the bottle off the ground. It heated in his hand, sealed his craving tight. He twisted the lid open.

The smell of day old Parmesan cheese filled the air, pulling a gagging sound from his throat. He took a few shallow breaths, then tilted the bottle back and filled his mouth.

The screeching halted, the room settled. Even Grace seemed to calm slightly.

But he couldn't get the liquid to go down. The whiskey-vomit sloshed around in all its chunky, horrifying glory. It was exactly as if he was drinking someone's puke. Who knew that hypnotherapy could be so bloody effective?

Refusing to lose hope, he pinched his nose and swallowed. Hard. The drink blazed fire down his esophagus before landing heavily in his stomach. He leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees in an effort to steady himself.

Bile burned a path to the back of his throat, adding new texture and flavor to the already horrid taste in his mouth. He covered it with his hand, uncertain whether spewing his sacrifice would negate whatever progress he’d made.

A moment later he grabbed the flashlight, pointed it to Grace's darkened corner. Her eyes, wide as saucers, appeared...as paralyzed as Charles felt. Helpless but not lifeless. She wiggled her fingers – a plea for his comforting hand.

He wanted to comply, but he was too afraid. Afraid that if he did, then he, too, would be sucked into her hell. He wouldn't be able to help either of them.

The clawing started again and Grace's eyes grew wider – if that was even possible. The skin around them looked stretched tight, ready to rip open. He prayed the vibrating wouldn’t start again.

The bottle heated in his hand, but otherwise remained eerily mute. Somehow, in the dankness of the evening, he had come to depend on the voice for comfort.

Grace's lip moved in an unintelligible murmur.

Charles tilted the bottle up, mentally preparing himself for the smell, the taste that would permeate the moment. He drank as much as he could in one swallow, then slapped both of his hands over his mouth to hold it inside. The taste was worse this time than the last and by the time he had finished, he was drenched in sweat.

Across the room, his phone vibrated. In the dark corner, Grace thumped and kicked. Distracted, he shined the light her direction. She seemed to be trying to tell him something, but he simply could not understand.

The scraping sound started again, closer, closer to where Grace was trapped. She kicked her foot against the steel, her eyes darting to and fro.

The walls began to pulse, jostling Grace's body. Her fist clenched and her eyes closed as she tried to clamp her disfigured lip together. Desperation seemed to have sunk its talons in deep.

Charles took another long gulp of the whiskey-vomit, this time refusing to stop until the pint was drained. Maybe, just maybe, once he finished it, this nightmare would end.

He doubled over, his body battling against his mind. He tried telling himself that the whiskey was only whiskey, but his mind fought back with a vengeance, patently refusing to believe him. The taste of corn and spaghetti and salad, half-digested and gut wrenching, overtook his senses.

He staggered to the middle of the room. This batch wasn't going to stay down; no amount of mouth holding was going to do the trick. And Grace...oh, God, Grace...if by some chance she was clinging to the hope that he could save her, that by finishing the bottle her terror would end...Charles did not want her to see him fail. To snatch that little bit of hope out of her hands.

He fell on his knees and let his body take over, let all the rancid hope that he'd sucked down find its way back out again. His muscles tensed, tighter and tighter as his system rejected it.

And then a noise other than his own pierced through the din in his head. The sound of metal on metal, loud as a slowing train. Only it did not seem to be slowing. He pulled himself up, fighting against gravity – against a feeling of crushed hopelessness – and grabbed the flashlight.

He aimed it at Grace's darkened corner just in time to see two metal shards spike through the blue of her wide eyes. “Noooooo!” he screamed as he darted to her. He grabbed her hand, felt the limpness of her fingers, the icy cold of death. Laughter echoed behind the steel.

He whirled around, bellowed his loss to the room at large. “YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!!” He thrashed around like a wounded animal, grabbing hold of anything and everything that came within arm's reach.

He threw the flashlight as hard as he could across the room. It slammed forcefully against the steel corner where the candles and their shadows danced, eliminating all light.

Alone in the darkness, Charles grabbed his hair and pulled, falling to his knees in angry desperation. He sat on the floor for a long moment, his breathing heavy as he waited for something he could not imagine...as he watched for something he could not see. A vibrating light filled the room. Not a benediction...simply his phone.

He scurried over on all fours, unconcerned that he looked like a defeated little mouse scuttling towards a crumb of bread. Fumbling through shaking hands, he looked and realized it wasn’t a call, but a message. He stared, unable to believe his eyes.

The words stared back at him derisively.

How had she managed this? She couldn't have typed that without looking...and with one hand, no less.

Save a drink for me.

Then it hit him, poured through his veins like icy dread; she hadn't sent the message once they'd gotten to the bunker. Once hell had thrust itself long and hard into their lives before taking hers.

She'd sent it from the bar. Probably when she’d watched him take his first shot. How long had she been there watching before she'd given up?

Reality crashed down on him. The whiskey...it wasn't meant to ease his pain. It was meant to ease hers.

Charles, however, had no time to regret what a selfish bastard he'd been. The instant the thought popped into his head, he heard a slivery voice. It curled around him, sending a frisson of awareness up his spine.

“Yessssss,” it hissed knowingly, mockingly.

His phone vibrated again and his eyes darted to it, its light and sound a momentary comfort. A new message popped onto the screen.

But Charles barely had time to read it before the screeching returned.

And his hell began in earnest.

Stuck in the Middle

2009-06-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

Click. “This is the Captain speaking. We will be making our final decent into O’Hare at this time. We hope to have you on the ground in half an hour where the local time is 6:30 pm and the current temperature is a toasty 15 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Ha Ha Ha! Just a wee bit of humor from the flight deck.” Click.

Dear Lord! I thought desperately. Will this flight from hell ever end? First of all, my reservations were lost on the information super-highway somewhere because when I ran to the ticket counter to confirm my first class ticket, there was no record of my purchase. After speaking with a supervisor, I was placed in coach in a middle seat since first class was full. At least they refunded the difference. Next, we were sitting on the tarmac for what seemed like hours, 3 to be exact. The wings had to be de-iced with that pink, fluffy unknown substance 4 times. Finally the plane was in motion and we had a near picture perfect take off and a glorious view of New York City from La Guardia Airport. Alas, that perfect take off was the last flawless service this damn airline had to offer.
I was stuck in 32B and yes, thank you very much; it was the row in front of the restroom and flight attendant galley. No rest for the weary, except for Mr. 32A, a portly man, who stomped onto the plane and plopped into his seat with a harrumph. He had waxy, almost grey colored skin with blood shot eyes and yellowed teeth. I almost chocked on the water bottle that I had to purchase at the gate because of the heightened security rules. He truly and irrevocably resembled a Zombie. Yes a Zombie. Okay, I did stay up late watching “Army of Darkness” last night, but still, he looked and even smelled like fresh earth. So Mr. 32A will henceforth be known as Mr. Zombie 32A. Mr. Zombie 32A promptly burped (which smelled like bologna and possibly cigarette butts) and fell asleep for the duration of the flight.

Miss pimply-teen 32C was on the other side of me with her fashion magazines, brightly colored laptop and bright blue painted fingernails. She was actually verbally quiet and did not want to do the requisite polite chatter on the flight. The only noises that came from Miss pimply-teen 32C was the constant snap of her clown headed Pez dispenser and the tap, tap, tap of her fingernails on the laptop’s keyboard. Yes, it was excruciating similar to having your fingernails pulled out with tweezers. She put on her headphones and stared aimlessly at her monitor watching some romantic comedy on her computer. It was quiet except for the snap of the Pez dispenser.

Click. “Please make sure that all seatbacks and tray tables are up and your seatbelts are securely fastened. It is time to stow all carry-ons to under the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. All electronic items should be turned off at this time. All of us at Big Apple Airlines would like to thank you for flying with us and hope your stay in Chicago or whatever your final destination may be is pleasurable.” Click.

Damn Skippy, it’s going to be pleasurable in Chicago after spending way too long on this tin can without any edible food or more than a thimble full to drink. Really, does it cost that much to provide adequate liquid refreshment? How about a restroom fan that actually works to prevent the back of the plane from smelling like a sewage plant? Thank you Big Apple Airlines for making this trip memorable.

Mr. Zombie 32A has arisen from the dead looking no more alive than 3-day-old road kill and Miss pimply-teen 32C has stopped snapping the Pez dispenser. It must be time to land.

Click. “We have just landed, please stay in your seats until we have reached the gate and the seatbelt sign has gone off. Your baggage can be picked up at carousel 14. You are able to use your cell phones at this time. Thank you for flying Big Apple Airlines and Welcome to Chicago.” Click

Yes! Right on time…

Particulated Encephalopathic Zygotitis

2009-06-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

Particulated Encephalopathic Zygotitis – n. A disease acquired by the bite of an animal (or loved one) that calls to a human instinct for meat of an unnatural variety. Characterized by unparalleled cravings for the neurological pulses found in brains, and absurdly, by the ability to sense when said pulses are absent and therefore not worth eating.

He rolled out of bed, his hand moving to stroke a tender part on the back of his neck the moment his feet touched the icy floor. He remembered little about the previous night, apart from drinking...heavily. The Deadline that had plagued him his entire workday had seemed immensely easier to swallow once diluted by multiple whiskey shots. In the early light of morning, the prospect no longer seemed daunting, or at least not as intimidating as the aching head he had to contend with. Not to mention a neck screaming for a massage and muscles that hurt every time he took a breath.

He stood, pausing for the barest moment while he considered calling in. Damn it, he couldn't. In the back of his mind, The Deadline snarled at him like Tara Reed would a bartender who had the audacity to reach for her nearly empty beer bottle.

He forced his feet forward, forced his body to accept the first step in his morning routine. Take a leak, take a shower, take his vitamins, grab a slice of toast (yuck, might be time to switch that up), a cup of coffee, his little black journal, his pen and – holy shit is that the time? - apparently hurry like hell to make the bus.

He knew if he didn't, he'd face the self-inflicted torment of riding on the subway in a rear-facing seat next to some fat fuck he didn't have the energy to put a name to. Not on this bleary morning, anyway. Not with his brain hurdling through his to-do list while his body growled in protest. He scurried as fast as he could (which was not really all that fast at all, comparatively speaking), moving through the initial leg of his journey like a zombie trying to figure out how to open a Pez dispenser.

Once he reached the platform, he eyed the commuters around him, the pain in his head working like hell to rip through his thickly veiled interest. The conveyance rumbled up and he lumbered on, feeling worse with every step he took.

The heat pouring through the stuffy cylinder might be enjoyable if it remained simple heat. Once it swirled around, mingling with the mutinous odors of his fellow man, however... He spotted a forward-facing seat in the back and willed his body to reach it before one of the slithering worms surrounding him did. For the first time since he'd gotten out of bed, luck – and speed – was on his side. Or perhaps the world around him had also taken solace in liquid comfort last night.

As soon as his cheeks hit the seat, he reached for his pen, opening the book where lived his arsenal of observations. All the words, the rhetoric he wished he could launch like cannonballs from his lips lay snuggled between these pages.

His eyes darted surreptitiously to a buxom blond hanging on to a nearby pole. Poorly colored eighties hair, tits the size of overripe melons and a pear-shaped ass peered back at him, each of them wiggling and jiggling as if independently waiving to get his attention. Matters made worse by poorly hidden cellulite that announced its presence in ripples of spandex each time there was a shift in momentum. He sighed disgustedly as his pen scratched over the page, Bag Tits: she's probably got enough low-density polyethylene in her bra to keep Target in business for years.

He chuckled at his own joke, then bit out a curse when the gargantuan behemoth of a man next to him jostled, causing his pen to nearly rip through the page. Frustrated, he snapped his journal shut and tugged at his tie. When did it get so bloody hot in here? And for the sake of all that's Holy, what the hell was that smell? Some mixture of sweat, vomit, old shoes and even older sex.

His gaze drifted uncontrollably back to Bag Tits. She was leaning into her pole as if she expected dollar bills to be stuffed in her spandex. As if even a single one would fit between the tight material and the city of pulsing flesh beneath. She reached up, parting her hair to rub her head.

He watched, suddenly riveted as she did so. The moment stretched...the sight of her fingers massaging her scalp held him breathless. He waited in muted obsession, every inch of him poised, waiting for some unnamable thought to step out and make itself known.

His stomach growled.

***************

The day's events drifted through his head as he headed home. Except this time, instead of hurdling through at full-throttle, they stumbled around, disoriented and warbled, recognizable only because he'd been over them a million times.

He'd had a meeting, no, two meetings, both with people who put the pomp and circumstance into Superior Ass-dom. Pompous, ridiculous fucknuts, the lot of them. And all the while, throughout self-indulgent “wah-wah-wahing” reminiscent of a Charlie Brown episode, he'd been aware of only one thing – he’d been hungry. Not for the slim pickings of the fruit tray or the decaying salad or wilted half-sandwiches laid out before him. He'd wanted something heavier...something meatier.

The craving hit him full force when a teenage girl squeezed into the seat next to him, her thigh pressing against his, her arm momentarily grazing his jacket as she pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen into her eyes. She kept her gaze trained forward, which was probably for the best since he was fighting a near uncontrollable urge to...to...to what?

TO CHOMP DOWN ON HER BLOODY HEAD is what.

He shuddered and his breath caught, mostly because he was disgusted, but also because the desire to act on his thoughts was tearing through him slowly, painfully, calling out every iota of strength he possessed. His hands gripped the edge of his seat, but he could not stop his head from tilting closer, his olfactory senses taking in the smell of the delicacy concealed beneath the shiny black. Those senses screamed, squeezing his lungs and locking his muscles tight. Forcing his eyes elsewhere was worse than any torture imaginable. Salty distress beaded off of his head and down onto his neck. A stinging pain shot through the spot and he winced, his hand moving to rub the spot, too slow, too slow. What the hell was wrong with him? Yummy Girl let out a sigh, yanking his startled gaze in her direction, her brow crinkling in frustration as her brain worked overtime.

The smell of meat hit him again, this time with enough force to snatch him out of his seat.

“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” she asked, eyeing him as if he were a lunatic.

Was he? He certainly hadn't felt like himself today. Had he somehow stood too close to the edge of darkness and unwittingly toppled over?

The previous night rushed back to him, mingling with the sounds of the screaming subway and the horrifyingly delicious smell of raw sustenance. Entering the darkened bar...waiting for a co-worker who never showed...doing enough shots of whiskey in the meantime that the bartender left the bottle on the bar with a knowing smirk...his wife - acting odd, but dressed like the devil in black leather and sporting an upward tilt to her lips that indicated she was game for a mischievous night...more shots...both of them staggering out into an alley. Gentle pawing that turned into a bite.

One that brought with it cravings that could no longer be denied. Not in the flickering light of the ride home, anyway.

“Dude! What the fuck are you looking at?” Yummy Girl screamed.

Only then did he realize he was leering at her in a manner less lewd than homicidal. And as her voice, shrill with anger, blew past him, all he could think of was the pulses of neurons it took to transmit the signal from her eyes to what was cased inside her skull.

Meat, raw and still pumping with blood, the rarest of rare. He fought against the need inside him, calling on every excuse he could conjure up as a reason not to act, to give into the desire to rip through that hard casing and tear out what was rightfully due to him. The public setting, the disinclination of the woman in question, the lack of humanity involved.

All excellent excuses that failed miserably in the face of his cravings.

Once, he had been offered monkey brains. He'd not even hesitated to try them. After all, exotic foods generally just tasted like chicken, right? But monkey brains had been horrible. Not at all chicken-y, not even meat textured, if he were honest.

Not like a slab of steak. Or the brain of snarky, screechy Yummy Girl.

If he could just get her alone, out of the path of civilization, he could coax her into a position of giving. And if that didn’t work, he would tear it out of her, heedless of her pleas to stop, ignoring her screams of pain when his fingers dug in and ripped out the deliciously pulsing matter.

He looked up, expecting his hungry stare to be met with resistance – or at the very least to have a barrage of invectives flung at his head. She was gone. They all were; the sweaty commuters, the subway and its platform-cum-soapbox, even the daylight.

His eyes searched suddenly altered surroundings. When had he made this journey? How had he gotten from point A to point B without remembering, without being cognizant of his body shifting through time and space?

He swiveled around - slowly, of course. That seemed to be his modus operandi for the day. A house – his, thankfully – caught his eye. He trudged up the sidewalk to the front door, steps unhurried and only slightly off-balanced. For the first time since he'd gotten out of bed, his physical movements seemed in steady rhythm with his mental ones. The feeling was simultaneously comforting and disturbing. Or at least it felt like it should have been disturbing.

His feet pulled him through the living room, dragging his fog-like head and bog-like body over hard-wood floors that clamored to announce his every step. At length, he reached the dining room.

She stood facing the table, her back to him, hunched over almost protectively. He could see her arms stirring. No...not stirring, stroking. Patting? Holding? Pressing?

He called out as he prowled towards her, his voice sounding foreign, even to his own ears. She turned and faced him, putting her hands behind her back as she smiled.

“I invited your mother for dinner.”

Deep inside, he was aware they weren't speaking English – the sounds did not resemble a language at all – it was more like an indecipherable moaning and groaning whose syllabic fluctuations and oscillating accents created a mellifluous noise understood by a select few. It was a sound reminiscent of several bad B-movies.

The scent of meat filled the air, distracting him from his thoughts. His stomach growled at the exact moment the table behind her shifted slightly. He peered over her shoulder, taking in the woman strapped down at various points, her head on a plate, her eyes staring up at him, wide with fear.

Some semblance of a grin tugged his lips up into a snarly smile as he leaned over her, the upside-down view rending her features almost circus-like.

“Hello, mother,” he murmured and stepped around his giggling wife to stare directly into the woman’s frightened face. Her black eyes were pleading, fearful, angry.

He felt…nothing, saw the exact moment when his mother realized that no amount of begging, rationalizing or scolding would save her from her fate.

She opened her mouth to scream – or tried to – but instead of hearing the nasally whine to which years of childhood had acclimated him, the sound was ripped from her throat.

Literally. Blood spurted from the wound, the trachea flung to the side like a forgotten chew toy. Garbled wheezes filled the air as the last bit of life choked its way out of her body.

“I've been wanting to do that for years,” his wife said, smugly satisfied as she tilted her head to one side and surveyed her handiwork. “I would say 'dinner is served,' but I'm beginning to think we should eat out.”

He chuckled. She followed suit as he threw his arm over her shoulder and tugged her towards the doorway.

“Wouldn't have been enough for both of us anyway,” he added with a laugh. “But fear not, dearest. I know the perfect place for take-out.”

Ňerîèļ

2009-05-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

Mr. Scott David lay dying in his four poster bed. Luckily for him he was able to do so, to arrange to do so. The privately hired hospice staff had just left, “and all too quickly,” he duly noted. Mr. Scott David wasn’t easy to get along with, but then he thought, “that’s how one succeeds, is by being the son of a bitch, not just a, etcetera.

His curly iron gray hair lay around his head like a mane; a lion’s mane is what he liked to think of it as. He was the King after all, the “Chief,” as his underlings called him at the workplace, recollecting and smiling to himself.

He was doing a lot of that these days, recollecting; now that the doctors had finally come out and said a little too matter-of-factly that yes, he had maybe two weeks, a month but no more. Growing up he lived comfortably in the County of Lake, in the State of Illinois USA. His father owned a piano business, his mother stayed at home to raise him and his siblings directly. He loved to collect Pez dispensers, and feast on the grape-flavored ones. He would often trade almost anything for those grape goodies, unable to resist their explosive and pungent flavor.
He was always interested in things, material things. How these things were put together was the main question, but never why. No, that question never entered into his one-track mind; it was too ominous that potential answer, too beleaguering to be dealt with, plus it solved nothing to his advantage as far as he was concerned.

His mother would watch him fondly with pride as he spent hours upon hours in his bedroom taking toys and the such apart, tinkering and tinkering. She would later report to Mr. Scott David’s present wife on this childhood obsession, but she never used that particular word even though deep down she must have thought it. Oh yes, she most certainly did.

He ended up going to Northwestern not too far away studying at the Kellogg Business School. He had no problems financially making his way through the tuition, books, board –all those school items necessary to excel. His life had always been comfortable in this respect, provided for in a frugal manner but still never need of want.

Although in the passage of time that would vent like the stack heat from sky rise buildings he would downplay this reality to people, explaining much more meager fundamentals to gain sympathy for his ultimate goal, which when described in unflattering terms amounted to, “whoever dies with the most toys, wins.”

Luck it seemed was always on his side (until now). Always, he happened in the right place at the right time. No one really knew why this was, but everyone knew that it just was. He made his first millions suing his employer that originally gave him his first real break, at the crest of the tide of time when making substantial gains in the courts was just getting noticed as the perfect mode for personal profit. –And in fact this was his primary cash cow all throughout his life. Oh, he was good at other stuff, self-styling himself as a brilliant engineer, delivering mediocre ideas to the marketplace in a proliferation of patents, which gained only the interest of copiers that thought they could improve on them. These would forthwith be handed a lawsuit that in the end would deliver him even more millions. His actual front business never made him any real money compared to the offices of civil justice in the Federal Courts of the USA, no that was just an enterprise into an ultra expensive hobby.

CREAK!

The door to his room slowly opened to the fathomless darkness beyond it. It stopped just about twenty centimeters off the frame, not nearly enough distance for a body to fit through. He couldn’t for the life of him ever remember seeing such blackness, and he thought for a second that it must be the symptoms of his rare neurological disorder that he had been diagnosed with where tunnel vision as well as physical paralysis in the joints could be experienced. The paralysis of course was the worst, and would at times put a suspension to his fanatical overseer-ship on those underlings at the “office” where he played “company,” which was located within walking distance from his posh penthouse overlooking the Sound. To keep up appearances, he would tell his business associates and “employees” that he suffered from the gout of all things, which may have produced similar symptoms to his “disorder.” An outright lie, yes, may detrimentally affect his business relationships and then therefore ultimately reduce his chances to feed his compulsive avarice, oh a definite affirmative. The tri-jet, the pretentious living space, the luxurious extravagance bestowed upon his already alimony rich wife in the form of multi-carat diamonds and pure yellow gold and trips around the globe could all come falling slack around him. That just wouldn’t do, and since he regarded himself as the supreme mind to anyone within the vicinity, he thought that fortress about his secret invincible.

CREAK, TIC TIC tic tic

This time the door opened fully, and the caliginous obscurity belched forth from the growing opening at a frightening pace.

“Hello? Damn it, who the hell is that?” he demanded.

Whispers were all that he could discern in return. Frustrated, he fought to sit up, and when he did at last situate himself to fully view the entrance to his room, Mr. Scott David was astounded at what he saw, but would never, not ever let his fear show even though he pissed a gushing stream of glowing yellow urine at that very moment into his pajamas.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mr. Scott David screeched, sucking in snot as was his customary mode of dealing with the excess.

“You may call me Ňerîèļ, Mr. Scott David. And in case you did not notice, you are no longer of this life.”

~~~

The truth was is that Mr. Scott David did not believe a word this Ňerîèļ said, or the asinine costume he was wearing. How could anyone be so insolent to invade his home and mock his sickness, his inconvenient mortality, HIM of all people! Mr. Scott David was going to make sure this idiot got what was coming to him, to pay for such rebellious and criminal behavior. After Mr. Scott David had the courts done with this fellow (probably one of his disgruntled employees, bunch of ungrateful clods), he’d verify that every cent the guy owned was stripped away and that any possibility of future livelihood was banished forever by placement of this doer’s name on the so-called illegal global employment blacklist. –For Mr. Scott David’s luck preceded him and was considered legendary, and it didn’t stop at his unscrupulous business practices either.

Ňerîèļ however stepped forward into the soft light of the plush room. He (as perceived as being masculine) at length stood by the side of the bed, erect and terrible in outline, imposing in aura and overwhelming in sight. His head clearly inhuman and difficult to depict; his facial features of mythical proportions, eyes that burned a sapphire blue offset by crimson licks of fire that encircled his brow in a flowing and shifting crown. Ňerîèļ’s expression on his hawkish face was somber, and appeared to gaze upon Mr. Scott David with appraising disparity. Utterly confounded, all what Mr. Scott David could do was to stare blankly at the remaining parts of what made up this entity named Ňerîèļ. A smooth matte-black stained armor encased Ňerîèļ’s entire federation, if one could call it that. What materialized to be broad human arms ended with scaled and talon scripted hands, one of which gripped an immense double bladed scimitar, which seemed to become a swirling wisp of black smoke one moment then as solid and sharp as all those ancient Kitanas Mr. Scott David loved so much on his many trips to the Asian Continent.
Ňerîèļ’s lower limbs extended to raised arches so that he walked upon the Earth on the balls of his bare feet, reminiscent of those jade dragon carvings he found almost so preposterous; but then Mr. Scott David was witnessing a living being just as those statues suggested as prescribed truth. Ňerîèļ’s feet ended in a set of three long toes terminating with crystalline claws seemingly carved from volcanic obsidian. A forked tail whipped behind him, almost as if imaginary bloodsucking flies were pestering his two and a half meter tall frame. Finally, Mr. Scott David glanced upwards back to Ňerîèļ’s face, unadorned by the same armor covering Ňerîèļ’s body, only it was exposed represented a dichotomy of beauty and repulsiveness to look upon.

“What, who are you?” Mr. Scott David asked in tones reserved, attempting to conceal the earth-shattering fear he felt to the very core of his body.

“You should be afraid,” Ňerîèļ said, “for I am the eradicator of weeds, the surgeon of life, the antibody of strife and pestilence, although most in your position consider me otherwise, as you do so now.”

“You mean to tell me I am dead?”

“Yes Mr. Scott David, it is truth you speak.”

Ňerîèļ poured the unholy bluish light from his eyes into Mr. Scott David’s own, and it seemed to Mr. Scott David that he must accept for once on faith that this creature, this demon did tell rightly what had come to pass.

“I am no demon Mr. Scott David. I am no lackey or servant of your master, even though you deny it to yourself. Your confusion is rather the cause and not the effect of the delusion you feed yourself. I am only a reflection of what you choose to see, or put another way, what you are capable of seeing. You already are aware of your fate, though you hope for an alternative. Too late Mr. Scott David, too late.”

With that the beautiful décor of the room fell away as if it had never been, and transformed into a blasted landscape rife with murky pools of stagnant odor, scorched grasslands otherwise ending in a horizon of dark mountains that defied any known concept for height.

Mr. Scott David suddenly fell into a rage, “What the hell is this absurdity? What did you do, drug me into hallucinating? I will not tolerate this, I shall not sit here and take this from a, from a-”

“Angel.”

“What?”

"I am what your kind calls an angel, albeit misunderstood totally by the majority. You see Mr. Scott David, I am neither separate from whom you call ‘God’, nor is whom you call ‘God’ divided from myself.”

“That is simply ludicrous and impossible. Who do you think you are, coming here and-”

“I will not debate with you Mr. Scott David, for you have already demonstrated your incapacity at anything generally deemed as pertaining to wisdom.”

Mr. Scott David was filled with a second fury at this way of speaking that made him to look like a complete fool. He could not stand for this, he could not allow such…

“That is quite enough,” Ňerîèļ said, and with his free hand grabbed Mr. Scott David quite abruptly. Mr. Scott David then had the momentous wrath wrung completely from his being, for all his thoughts immediately gleaned on only one thing, and that was the tortuous pain he felt throbbing from Ňerîèļ’s brutal clasp, for each talon burned passionately into his neck and shoulders. It was then Mr. Scott David noticed that Ňerîèļ was on the move, carrying him like Mr. Scott David was nothing other than a bug impaled upon a spike on Ňerîèļ’s armor. Mr. Scott David saw that they were heading towards the closest of the ranges, its towering altitude rising and rising in surprising velocity.

“Where are you taking me?” Mr. Scott David managed to choke out.

“You are already aware of that Mr. Scott David. –But if you are in need of an answer, perhaps you can wait a little longer to look on it to judge for yourself.”

With that, Ňerîèļ dropped Mr. Scott David on a stony flat boulder which faced a sheer cliff going up and disappearing into oblivion. The sky only returned an insipid burnt orange luminosity, without depth or dimension disallowing any proper verdict for actual distance. The face of the cliff was a gray glittering white, with streaks of shimmering purple. Ňerîèļ pointed at Mr. Scott David imploring him to stand up and face the cliff. Still resistant, Mr. Scott David put his back to the cliff, not wanting to take his eyes from Ňerîèļ, but at the same time, unable and unwilling to find Ňerîèļ’s own fiery orbs.

Unspeakably, and without warning, for Ňerîèļ did not cast a readable countenance, Ňerîèļ raised his sword to strike Mr. Scott David, to cleave him down the center. Mr. Scott David, always the master at feigning bravery crumbled under the imminent blow, and cringed revealing the absolute cowardice he had honed to perfection all his life.

There was a bright and blinding flash following the whistling of the black blade through the air, for instead of slicing Mr. Scott David into two equal parts, Ňerîèļ had plummeted with what could only be a supernatural force into the cliff wall, using the sword as a vanguard and his draconian armored structure as a hammer to craft a hole large enough for a woolly mammoth to pass through. Ňerîèļ worked so swiftly that he was again standing silently next to Mr. Scott David directing his eyes sorrowfully through the breach before the dust had settled.

What Mr. Scott David witnessed upon peering through this newly constructed portal was something so horrific that the words that usually came all too easily stopped short somewhere between his breast and throat.

“What you see,” Ňerîèļ explained, “is what you could call a feast, or in other terms is very analogous to the molecular process of ion exchange. Simply put, it is a course of action which is necessary and prudent, and possesses the indispensable potential to do so, hence you. It is a balance, the order of things.”

“But what are they?”

By “they” Mr. Scott David was referring to what could only be recognized as two sets of humanoid forms. One set contained the appearance as someone like himself, but would all too soon be attacked without mercy by a second set, which possessed a pale gray appearance in the general scheme, broken and fat varicose veins bulging through elastic and translucent skin, their gaping and salivating mouths red and drenched in what could only be identified as human blood. Their stench was noxious, monstrous, and movements slow and methodical. –And despite the many formidable barriers their force of will prevailed in all cases, and much too excruciatingly unhurried they would skin their victims in millimeter wide strips in a spiraling pattern, starting from the toes and ending with the top of the scalp. They performed this ritual holding the ‘soul’ down and ripping the skin off with their dullish teeth. The shrieking and screams of the damned was too much to take even for a microsecond; and to top it all off after the skin was totally removed, the perpetrators of pain would then unravel each fiber individually of muscle, vein, artery, bowel, organ, and the brain, consuming all. Mr. Scott David realized that if he were alive in the moment that he most likely would have fainted, but there was no such relief here in this place, this ethereal vista of doom. Mr. Scott David turned to run, pleading, “NO, NO, NO!”

-But before his first leaping stride could fall upon the dusty floor, Ňerîèļ had grasped him by both wrists and wrested Mr. Scott David’s arms against his back and turned him to face the portal.

“But wha-” Mr. Scott David whispered.

“They are not souls. They are not alive. Like I explained, they are as the atoms, guided by forces that have always been established. You call them zombies Mr. Scott David, for that would be the only word you possess to adequately describe them. They are inanima, machinations, nothing more.”

“And the others?” Mr. Scott David asked.

Ňerîèļ sighed and shed tears, tears of the most debilitating melancholy, but never once releasing Mr. Scott David in his lapse from the pervading stoicism.

“Like you, Mr. Scott David. They are the ‘Pez’, and that,” indicating the portal, “is the dispenser. You should count yourself lucky Mr. Scott David.”

And as Ňerîèļ said these last few words, he gave Mr. Scott David a vicious shove through the opening.