Mysticus Literatum

Good/Evil

2008-04-08T00:57:00.003-04:00

Below is the first page of a book I've been writing in a coffee shop before I go into work every day. Right now I'm about 200 pages into it and am enjoying it a lot more than the last two I wrote (but never published). I've even been considering shopping the synopsis around to see if I could find an agent. The basics are that a group of angels and demons are conspiring together to con both god and the devil out of a lot of money and get out of heaven or hell and enjoy life on earth until the Apocalypse. This first page is just a quick conversation between two of the main conspirators, Leviticus (an angel) and Mestopholes (a demon).

Leviticus and Mestopholes

“What about the end of the world?”

“Already in place. There are omen’s and prophecy’s all over the place. That and Freewill International has their hands all in that mess. It’s already 400 years overdue and has at least a millennium of litigation ahead.”

“What about the Superman virus?”

“Are you retarded?”

“What about a minor catastrophe that we engineer, get funds approved, over estimate the expenses on our respective ends and pocket the excess?”

Leviticus stood motionless save for the stroking of his beard. “How bout we make it look like there’s a minor catastrophe, over estimate, pocket it all?” he said.

“What about getting exiled to Earth? That’s merely enough to send us to Purgatory till The End. A 1000 years in Purgratory? I’d rather get sentenced a mortal life in New Jersey!”

Leviticus looked around nervously, looking for eavesdroppers. “Damnit Mestopholes, watch your mouth. How bout we get a Prophecy and an Omen so that it arranges the appearance of the catastrophe. That’s more than enough to get us exiled.”

It was Mestopholes to stroke his beard, had he one to stroke. “Hmmm. It’d definitely do what we need. Only problem is getting the Omen and Prophecy. We have to get majority votes on both shareholder boards.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to work something out. Why don’t we get back together in 20 years and iron out the details?”

“Can we make it 25? I got a thing in Africa. Civil war, genocide, Ebola…whole nine yards” said Mestopholes.

“Alright, 25 years. But don’t be late.”

The two shook hands is disappeared into separate smoky poofs.

Nicholas Mortem - part i

2008-03-28T21:10:00.000-04:00

The door opened with a broom-like swishing sound. A brilliant shaft of white-yellow light broke into the black. A small bed glowed in the corner with the radiance of the sun and then disappeared with the same swishing as the door closed. A faint, barely perceptible blue glow came from a small air vent. The blue glow only came on when the inquisitor visited. The glow revealed the bright white of eyes, teeth, and a priests collar. “Do you confess?” asked the black giant who I knew was no priest, despite his attempts to assert the contrary. His deep voice and South African accent was warm and inviting, but there was a rough, military edge. The glow revealed whispered outlines of muscles far too developed for an Earthbound messenger of God. “Do you confess?” the voice boomed, a hint of anger and impatience. I manage a smile despite the cuts, bruises, and broken jaw. A flash of anger is quickly suppressed with a smile of his own. A smile I’m sure he thinks is fatherly, warm, and understanding. It really shows his excitement at what happens next.

As the punches come, I can’t help but moan and scream. It’s not me screaming, merely my mouth. While my body is being beaten I am half a world away in the warm embrace of my wife and kids. When I come back to this cell I will hurt, and I will no doubt cry when the inquisitor leaves, but for now I am warm and strong. No matter how safe I am here with my family though, I still catch a blimpse of him from the corner of my eye. That ragged grey wolf with his tongue hanging, the hunger in his eyes. I seem him peering out form the tree line with sharp yellow eyes. He is my worst fear. Not death, for my death here is certain and almost welcome. That wolf knows my weakness. He knows where my children play. He knows where my wife works. He holds the secret to me breaking; my worst fear.

I close my eyes tightly, in hopes of keeping the priest from seeing the wolf. I will not break.

Black Elvis

2008-03-13T00:42:00.000-04:00

The dashed yellow lines slid by in a syncopated rhythm. They created a faint yellow glow as each one passed by; a soft, subtle strobe effect. Just when you got used to the beat, it would change. It was an old road and hadn’t been painted in decades. At times, twin dashes would fly by; the evidence of a poor touchup job. The lines seemed to go on forever, farther than the headlights could see. They were old headlights, which cast a warm glow that was some distant relative to the color of the lines on the road. A road that went on straight for hours. It was straight from sunset to sunrise. There was an absolute blackness to everything outside of the hazy shroud of the headlights that made the glow of the dividing lines that much more pronounced. Every so often he would see the reflective green-yellow glow of an animal of in the distance. The headlights catching the eye of a deer or possum that happened to glance up at the odd noise of the old pickup breaking the perfect silence of that perfect darkness. The man had stopped an hour ago, driving a half hour down a side ride when he had seen some lights off in the distance, only to find out that it was a Klan rally running late into the night. Drunken, hooded men standing around a still bright bonfire. A podium had been placed at the end of a natural banquet hall of a clearing. The trees had parted like it was inviting people to hold secret meetings. The hoods and confederate flags had been more than enough to get him to turn around. He wasn’t so desperate yet to associate with that kind of person. There was plenty of Mississippi left between Atlanta and Memphis for him to find a place he felt safe enough to stop for a short nap.

Off in the distance, just a speck at this point, was a soft white glow. It grew slowly for nearly an hour. It never seemed to get much closer, and then suddenly it was upon him. It was a lone, brand new gas station. It had 2 pumps, but enough parking for a dozen cars. It was large, especially for it to be hours from anywhere. He pulled off the rural highway and into the parking lot, next to a truck that, hard to believe, was more beat up than his. It had hundreds of bumper stickers plastered all over it. The only clear space was the license plate and windows. Stickers even encroached onto the lights on both ends. They had saying about guns not killing people, and real mean wearing cowboy hats. There were decades of NRA stickers, and what seemed like a timeline of NASCAR by way of driver’s stickers as they changed from one car and sponsor to another. The beat up tag on the back said GITRDUN. He took a deep breath and opened the door, which creaked and protested as he forced it open. A small bell jingled as he opened the door and a man older than time startled a bit as he was ripped from his sleep, sitting on a barstool behind the cash register. “Evenin’ there stranger.” said the old timer in a Deep South drawl. He nodded at the skeleton of a man, preferring to keep quiet if possible. “So what brings you way out here this late, friend?” asked the living corpse, eyeing him suspiciously. He just pointed to the bathrooms. “Them’s for paying customers. I’ll be taking your patronage before you’ll be taking my shitter.” Said the old man, his suspicions that this man was trying to get one over on him somehow confirmed. He just shrugged and walked over to the Drink Cave and picked out a soda and threw down two singles and walked back to the bathrooms again, leaving the money and drink on the counter.

He looked at himself in the mirror and sighed. His eyes were bloodshot with dark, heavy bags underneath. His face looked worn years beyond his age. Stress had taken a toll on him over the last few days. He splashed some water in his face and slicked his hair back. “This shit is gonna kill you.” he said to himself. He looked at the wall where there was a dispenser. It had a variety of condoms, colognes, and painkillers. He stuck in three quarters stacked on top of each other and gave the knob a firm turn and a single serving packet of god strength painkillers slid out. He washed the two dime sized pills down with water from the sink and said down on the toilet, seat down, just to stretch out. The fluorescent lights flickered slightly, and hummed a bit, mimicking the sound and strobe of the road. He heard the tinkle of the bell on the door and the old man mumbled something about “stranger”. He tensed up. If they had caught up with him already, then there was no way he would ever make it. He reminded himself that he had a day’s head start on them and relaxed. Then he heard the tell-tale sound of a guns slide being pulled back and released, and then the racking of a pump action shotgun. He sighed again, and stood up, and pulled his GLOCK from his back holster, underneath his denim jacket. He pulled the slide back just enough to verify there was one in the chamber, and slowly slid it back. He put his finger on the trigger, rubbing the built in safety on the trigger. He had a small callous building on his index finger from this recent habit.

He took one deep breath, paused three seconds and let it out slowly. He took another, paused, let it go. He took a third, held it, and pushed the door open, storming out low and ducking behind the end cap of an aisle of chips. A scattered blast of buckshot ripped through bags of chips, sending sprays of fried potato into the air, causing small cracks in the glass doors of the Drink Cave. “We’ve got you outnumbered Elvis.” called out a familiar voice. He could see clearly in the reflections of the drink fridge doors of the Drink Cave that there were only two people, at least inside there was only two. “You know they called us in from Texas? Told us to jump on the next plane. We landed in Atlanta 4 hours ago and hopped into a rental. Nice, big SUV; sunroof, those mirrors with the blinkers on ‘em, and get this…a little TV screen in the dash with directions and traffic updates. You know much traffic there is on US 78 west towards Tupelo? Not a got damn bit.” The man was talking while he motioned to his cohort to duck down and go down the aisle farthest from him. The large man with thick mutton chops ducked down and tried to do a crouched SWAT walk down the aisle. He had his GLOCK pointed at the end of the aisle, waiting for the large roughneck to pop out. He kept checking the reflections to keep tabs on the other gunman, a tall, lanky skinhead. The Arian was following suit and ducking down and SWAT walking down the aisle next to him. Big Hoss was near the end of his aisle and the Arian was halfway down his when he turned and moved quietly down the middle aisle. He heard a gunshot and ran for the door. “Got damnit, Hoss! It’s me you dumb fucking ox.” screamed the Arian. “Where’s the bastard at?” asked Big Hoss at the same time the bell on the door jingled.

Elvis ran to his truck, pulling the screaming door open, causing it to pop in addition to its normal protests. The truck started in a single crank and he rammed the shifter into reverse, grinding it a bit. The rental SUV was sitting at the pump, big, black and shiny. Elvis stuck the gun out the window and shot out the passenger tires as he gunned the gas and squealed the tires as he slid onto the highway and pushed the needle as far as it would go. He saw the redneck, bounty hunting version of Laurel and Hardy barreling out of the convenience store. The Arian was holding his left should where it seemed Big Hoss had grazed him in his anticipation to shoot Elvis. Hoss took a couple pot shots, missing wildly, before the Arian put his hand on Hoss’ shoulder to calm him down. Elvis imagined that he was saying something along the lines of “Don’t worry Hoss, we’ll catch him. That nigger can’t hide from us forever.” Elvis sighed at the thought that the Arian’s imaginary comment was probably right. Regardless, he had to get as much distance, and gain as much time, as possible to delay their next meeting. The soft flashing glow strobed faster as the speedometer pegged out at the registered maximum speed of 95. The highway loomed on, but Elvis could see the gloaming giving way to a soft purple of the dawn coming at him from behind. Memphis would be his salvation if he could only get there before sunrise.

Necessary Evils

2008-03-12T19:09:00.001-04:00

It's an ancient question. Why do we do bad things? Are we bad people, those of us that do the bad things? Are we the dark side that lies dormant in each person, made manifest through some imbalance or torturous childhood? Are we simply God's way of balancing the scales? For every action, are we the equal, but more sinister reaction? For every old lady helped across the street, does some karmic force make a busy executive drop his coffee and burn himself? For every life saved in an act of selfless heroism, is another taken in brutal butchery? Or are we simply just bad people?

Bad people have existed since there have been men to be bad. Sure, there are bad women too, but to avoid playing the pronoun game, let's keep it simple. These bad men have spent tens of thousands of years perfecting the bad things humans are capable of doing. We have found ever increasing, and intricate ways of being bad. We've moved from the myopic concept of evil of the dark and early ages of clubbing a man and stealing his food, to the grandiose designs of bombs and synthesized diseases. We've exponentially increased our ability to cause pain and suffering from a single person, to millions. But these are the obvious evils. The evils that hang over our heads in black clouds that we see every day. What about the evils that walk amongst us, brushing up against up, even shaking our hands?

In every man is the capacity for evil just as there is the capacity for good. The problem with evil is that it rewards up front, and only punishes later on. With good comes a struggle, and the rewards far off. With evil, we can put the thoughts of what is to come to us in the end off until we can ignore it no longer. By that point, we are far beyond redemption. We have lied, cheated, stolen, and even murdered our way into a sinister trap designed to lure us like an angler fish, only to gobble us up, swallowing our souls. But it is always there. The evil is always waiting for the weaker willed of us to walk by and answer its hushed call. And some of us follow it all too willingly into the dark alley, and take its mantle as our own. Before we know it, we are that shady figure whispering to the weak lamb at the back of the herd.
In the end, what does it all mean? To be good? To be evil? Is there a reckoning? I am the one with all the answers. And I am the one with the riches, so willing to bestow them on you, if only you would do a small favor. Do you look for glory? Do you look for power? Come here. I have something I want to show you…

The Strange Brothers

2008-03-12T19:07:00.001-04:00

Mr. Strange looked at Mr. Strange and shook his head. The other shrugged and walked on. They had been walking in the near dark for over an hour and had seen nothing but each others faces, heard nothing but each others footsteps. Finally, a gust of wind blew out the candle and they knew they were in the right place. In the pitch black, the Brothers somehow knew each other was smiling a wicked smile. They had found their prey and were close to victory. The Strange Brothers prided themselves on an unblemished record. They had never lost a marker, and this one would be no different.

"She's close" said one Mr. Strange. "Very." said the other. Ulysses and Artemis rubbed their hands together in glee. Despite the pitch blackness, they functioned without faltering. One removed his pack and began pulling out pieces of the apparatus. The other unrolled a travel tool kit and began arranging his utensils like a surgeon prepping for a delicate procedure. Their movements were precise, fitting the pieces of the device together with a minimal margin of error that would please a Swiss watchmaker. Ulysses would pull a brass shaft out, sliding it in place, and Artemis would have the pins and screws in place by the time Ulysses came back with the next piece.

Finally the device was complete, or mostly so, and the two Mr. Strange's clicked their tongues together in satisfaction and excitement. "After you, Mr. Strange" saidUlysses. "Why, thank you!" said Artemis, who pulled a leather pouch from his pocket. A burst of brilliant white light burst into the darkened sewer, sending rats and insects scurrying to safer places. Artemis slid his half of the stone into the small chamber at the center and bottom of what looked like a brass framework skeleton of a telescope. It was polished to a high shine, sending sparkles of rainbowed light across every surface, and warping in and back off of the murky water. The bright white smiles of the Strange Brothers were clearly visible now, but their eyes now closed in unison as Ulysses took out his half of the stone and created a complete whiteout of light as he put his piece into the device. The chamber then closed with a loud clicking as each other Brothers snapped a latch on the door, locking it shut.

At one end of the telescopic frame was a small crank that Artemis began to turn in small intervals, clearly expecting a certain reaction that he wasn't getting, but continued trying. On the opposite end, Ulysses turned a pair of small knobs that rotated the frame on a horizontal and vertical axis. After several minutes of trial and error, the two found the combination and result they had been looking for and a small iris in the chamber opened, releasing white light into the center of the telescope frame. The light hit a pair of mirrors that shot light down to each ends of the tube. At one end, the light turned blue, and yellow on the other. Then the light bounced back to the center, where the mirrors had now lowered and the two stone halves, now making a whole, raised to replace the mirrors and became green. The entire shaft then glowed green, and then shot a pinpoint of green light out and down the tunnel.

Instead of disappearing into the darkness, the tiny line of light stopped in midair just a few feet away from the end of the telescope device. The light seemed to build up and slowly grow into a small splash of light now hanging in the air. The two Brothers opened their eyes, looked at the splash of green, and then looked at each other, tipping their bowler hats towards each other as if in greeting and they started off towards the mark, with a slight skip in their step. They would skip at seemingly random intervals, but always in unison. They both leaned in towards the glowing light, staring at it, and then at each other. "Marvelous!" said one. "Indeed." said the other. Then with devilish greens, they both reached into a hole in the air at the exact point of the light, their arms disappearing up to their elbows. You could hear the Brothers cursing and grunting as they seemed to struggle with something. One jerked his hand out to reveal that his index finger had been bitten off up to the first knuckle and was now bleeding profusely. The bitten brother did not seem to mind too much, as he stuck his injured hand back in, and then smiled once more, both of the Brothers now completely calm.

The struggle had apparently ended, and the bitten brother pulled his hand out to show a small winged humanoid figure in his bloody grip. He turned the fairy over to reveal a bright red tattoo on its back, the marker the two had been looking for. "Marvelous!" said the one brother who hadn't said marvelous earlier. "Indeed." said the other as he unbuttoned his waist coat and then his dress shirt to reveal a small cage embedded in his chest. He took a small key from his pants pocket and unlocked the cage door, into which the other brother shoved the small creature. The brother with the cage in his chest buttoned his shirt back up and put his coat back on. "The Sir will be most pleased." said Artemis, holding onto his bitten finger, which was no longer bleeding, and no longer bitten, but now completely whole. "Indeed." Said Ulysses as they began to pack up the device and walk into the darkness, leaving a small glow of slowly fading green still in the air.