Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Can You Write The Blues?
Can you? For those of us who never learned to strum the strings, we can still hum the tune. Our collars may be different colors but we drink the same gin. Everyone looks for words when there's nothing to say. Sighs and shaking heads accompany the songs. The musician bellows an anthem for the crowds to hide behind. He tells us of woes we've all felt. Woman leaves, tap runs dry, the kids don't remember your name. We clap between the songs but we mean them half-heartedly. No one feels much like joy. Not here. And when the musician leaves, will we not be able to make our own words and sing them out of tune when no one's watching? To Hell with the godly string-pluckers. They've ascended nowhere. They play to drink just as we steal to eat. When they've lowered themselves among the squabble from off their throne, they'll have the same amount of Blues as anybody. Everyone's got 'em. Kids got 'em. Some people sing 'em, some people draw 'em, and some people write 'em down. But everybody's got the Blues.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Last Call
Porter stains the counter top. Lights flicker between the fan blades. And the short sparks of light reflect in what's been spilled. The jukebox is quieter now, it's become a background noise to lost conversations and last call relationships. It's 2am and the doors get locked from one side. "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here" gets echoed around with stocky laughs like it's the first time it's ever been said. The staff sweeps drunks outdoor like the cooks mopping the kitchen. The air is brisk and sharp to breathe in November. Car doors and car engines rattle around the blocks. Lights edge around houses and speed off to join the pin-dot lights in the hills and the roads get a little less safer. At least it doesn't rain tonight, and the grey thoughts join the clouds overhead with the question, "How long will that last?" Sharks wait in the shadows to change drunks' destinations from a warm wife and unsoiled sheets to a plastic bench and a new portrait. Boots thump on the sidewalk over the roots eager for new rain. The buses don't run this late. Not for the crazies. And for all the people drinking warm in their hovels, only the ones to venture outside past midnight are the crazies. No matter. There's couches of friends not far. And luckily, for the times there's no response to the rough knocks and ringing phones there's still the Saints that leave their couches by the mailbox and give the weary a place to rest. Invisible men are pissing somewhere in the shadows. Someone's had a run-in with a dog two blocks down. Clumps of blankets stacked against the doorways hide the tramps. They'll be awake in a few hours with the joggers to dig their breakfast from the cans before they're on the clock and ready to work beside the exits. And me, I'll be somewhere near home with an excuse and stumbling feet like weapons quick on the draw.
Plagued: The Hunters Three
The air turns in a soft whirlwind around the flame. The sticks kick over and the embers roast and cool gently into the the branches above. I keep much to myself. I let the three hunters opposite me pass the story between themselves to shake the silence. I had walked through the thickets for days now. For how long or where I was now I was unsure. There were times I lumbered in the dusk before blinking my eyes and reappearing in the dawn. I was losing hours at a time to the rot. Meaningless to track the time, all I can say is somewhere in the void, there was a glow. I walked toward it, my sword as a cane, to a fire in the clearing. The campfire was long in my watch before I looked away, to notice three men that sat still in my presence. They were shocking to behold, I must admit, as stone-like as they were. I begged their pardon that I may join them, if not for warmth of fire then warmth of companionship. They didn't seem odd to the request and obliged heartily. They apologized to me for not having the manners to offer food or drink as an offering. They claimed to be hunters and unsuccessful ones at that. Their belongings lay matted in the dirt beneath them. In the dark they seemed raised on thrones. I speckled questions between their tales, never listening to their replies, but to fill the absence of noise in the forest. The more I inquired into their hunt the more they dotted their eyes to one another. The reflection of the fire moving with their glares. So I stopped. I let them carry on with their tall tales of parties and women and war. And I pretended to listen and laugh along.
I awoke when the sun stretched her fingers through the trees, and felt the hot breath of dawn. The hunters were gone, their belongings absent but for the footprints they left in the soil. My sword was several feet from me, perhaps feeling the weight before realizing it was too heavy to steal and I was too worthless to kill. I loosed myself from the dirt, carried my companion, and continued toward the sun. At the time the day had passed me overhead and heated my back, I claimed for rest against the bark. I smelled the burning pitch before I saw the soft silk of smoke lingering over the forest floor. I brought myself on even ground with the horizon, my sword as a crutch. The walk wasn't long before finding the source in a decline in the ground.
The forest floor took a sharp dive several meters down before relaxing into even ground again. In the middle of this new land, the vines conquering their way up the crater of the scarred earth, was a shell of clay. Round, no larger than a hovel, and smoke stack beaming with putrid air. A hut in the middle of nothing, with one circular window staring up at me. When my focus glared into the dark insides of the forest home through the window, I gleamed a shade of black, changing colors from within. Someone had shifted their weight. Not a moment later, a robed figure slid to the outside and around the back of their home. My curiosity fueled my feet to tread around the rim of the small cliff, my eyes focused on the round home in the center of the precipice. The cliff-face sloped slowly downwards, the edges on each side creating a raised horseshoe shape with the ends sunk into level ground. As I neared flat ground I could see the other side of the home where the robed figure was... and noticed I was alone.
While I stared at the nothingness, I noticed a second window. Yet again the shades changed but this time in opposite contrast. The shade turned dark before a bolt lodged itself near my collar, just beside my windpipe. I dropped into the vines that littered the forest floor, down among the tar smoke. Were there two people leading me to a trap? Or only one? If there was only one person, how did they get back inside their hovel if I had eyes on the only door? No, there must be two. My eyes watered from the sting in the air and the sting in my chest. Through the decomposing fog I saw the door open again and the same hooded figure as before step through. They brandished a dagger like a badge and stepped cautiously through the weeds. How did they appear back inside the hovel? What did I follow? An apparition? I worried these meaningless thoughts as death grew near. Each breath flexed my throat and cut against the edges of the bolt. I managed to gasp a swear at the figure before they knelt. They answered back in kind.
"Son of Lilith," she said, "hunting me will lead to nothing but corpses. You want to sport my head like a trophy, and I'll use yours to feed the flies."
Half-aggravated by her deduction at who I was supposed to be, my reply was both explanation and insult to her demeanor. "I'm a king."
She quickly let down the knife and let up my head, pulling the bolt from my neck roughly. The shock nearly hastened my life. "What did you say?"
I gasped for anything I could breathe that wasn't tar smoke. But she waited while I could explain. Not in finest detail, but enough to not stutter her belief. I tied together all my tales by saying "And so we met. You greeted a king with an act of treason. Needless to say, a spot of wine and a fur to lay would not be an unjust start to an apology."
There was no fur, only a bed of sewn straw. And there was no wine, but the ale did its job well enough for her to close my wound with hot pitch and tell me of her woes.
"I'm a witch, so they say, and nothing more can be said to change a peoples' minds. I'm unwed, poor, and speak not for a belief in God."
I shook with pain from the scalding. "What is this liquid pestilence?"
"It can serve as many things. Mostly I use it to fix any damages that befall my home in the storms. And apparently it can work for any man."
"You weren't sure?'
"The smell keeps others away, let's them not discover me while they believe they've loomed into a mass grave, unmasked by landslides." She dipped her blade into a boiling pot of tar, sliding the excess back into the brew with the edge of her knife. I could not brace myself for the heat, as much as each time I think I could.
Between chattering teeth I spoke. "What were the charges? Why here?" My interest waned from the moment she first spoke, but I had to keep my mind occupied as she pressed the side of her blade against the wound to flatten the tar and declined my tolerance for pain.
"I moved away from Southern lands. Illness took my family. The towns here had heard word of the sickness and granted no access past their gates. I made this hut out here for shelter. Rudimentary at first, its walls became thicker and the outside smoother. I stole and continue to do so from the town that left me to die. As new sicknesses spread, they remember that I was the last to survive the old ones. To them it counts for nothing that I'm the only one to not live cramped amongst their filth and livestock. They only see the witch from the wood." And what to do with the Son of Lilith? "He's become a self-titled judge as the builders of law die from plague or The Son's own assassinations. Now that the law belongs to him, to be built in his image. He's brought back the old ways; with magic beliefs and bounties on undesirables."
"Being far from civilities shouldn't make you immune to illness. Death will catch up to you."
She walked away from the bed and took with her all her devil's tools. "I doubt that. I've stayed in one spot for so long waiting for so long I've grown to believe that Death doesn't exist."
* * *
I could've slept a season, had it not been for the pitch smoke setting fire to my lungs. The cries of violence was a simple thing to slumber through, but the stink and taste of the fog filling the small hut was too vile for my liking. I awoke to the window from which I was shot from staring darkness back to me. I twisted my body 'round once I heard a repeated shout, realizing it wasn't from a dream. The way I rolled my shoulder did something to my forgotten wound that shocked my entire body. I stayed close to the cold ground once I recuperated there, until I realized the fog coming from the kiln was heavy and sinking fast to where I was.
I scrambled to the door but found it fastened shut. The round window above the bed was too small to climb through, as was the other, and offered no support to my shrinking lungs. I could only see hints of the turmoil outside, but cared not for the resolution. I had to leave. I covered the smogging kiln with random bits of furniture, eventually knocking it and the vile liquid over. Whatever good it did at this point mattered not. The hut was now a shade of black an arm's-length around me. I ran at the door, trying to bust it down, and saw what jammed my exit was the body of a man on the other side, wildly stabbed, chest left open. I tried to muscle my way an opening, but the smoke had drowned me for too long, left me weak. This felt an unfitting end, if this was a way to die.
Between the yells, I heard a trickle from the other end of the hut. The spilled kiln was leaking its contents under a clothing chest and down some drop. I shoved my way across this wretched home and tossed the chest to the side, finding it empty and weightless. A hole was dug underneath, large enough for a person to crawl through. The kiln spilt its contents down the hole and left itself in the way of my escape. I found an exit, and the Lord was testing my will. I pushed myself down the slope where the fog was thickest. The gunk that was brewing was left in a pool on the bottom of the hole before curving upward again to the outside. I slid my body into the bile of this dirt stomach, scalding my skin with the tar. I raised up, out of a false ground, covered with vines and bits of wood, on the outside of the hut, the opposite side with the door. Now I knew how she disappeared to arrive back inside her home. I exited her escape hatch and shook with wild breaths.
The cold air steamed from my body. Patches of tar spotted my skin and matted my scalp. My eyes watered away the blindness as I drew another breath and stared at the moon peeping from above the wooded canopy of branches. My eyes drew downward, led by a straight line that cradled gently. It was a rope. And leading at the end was the witch, kicking for leverage. Two spectators watched. I stood waist-height in the hole, my tongue leading my mind. "Hey!" I shouted for attention. My lungs as black as they were, the word came out more as a guttural yell. They turned around and watched as I picked myself from the hole, the tar still covering my flesh and the steam trailing. I marched towards them.
Their eyes grew wide and the width of their legs further apart as they prepared to fight or flee this monster. One made some primal sound of surprise. The other readied the crossbow already in his hand and the knife in his belt, unsure of how to handle such a situation. I lumbered forward, grunting with dead breaths and shrunken lungs, realizing I'd forgotten my sword inside. My hands can do plenty. The hunters stagger in their steps, not sure what to make of me. The moonlight serves as the only light to the garden floor. Through the slivers of light they see the towering golem march before them. The one with but a sword steps to the side of his friend, who through his courage, raises a bolt to me, fires, and misses. The same man, an animal afraid, cries out in a broken yell and raises his dagger above his head. My hands go out to where I think he'll strike-- down towards my heart-- before I feel the blade's edge cut and stick to my throat. The tar had hardened thick against my skin. Though I feel the cut, the knife refuses to slide away back into the hunter's hand. He pulls away shocked by the way his knife has absorbed to my skin. I jut the blade off my neck myself. I barely bleed but they know not what they really see. "Swing for its head!" the bowman calls as he steps back to load another bolt.
It was the turn of the other hunter, his eyes glinting with fear and apprehension. He yelled nonsense to boost his courage, his knees stuttering to launch his body forward. Nothing in his mind worked in tandem. By the time he ran up to me it was then that he realized he hadn't cocked his sword to strike. He stopped a few steps away before drawing his sword back behind his shoulder like a delinquent about to bat a window. I reach out and plant my left hand on his face, gripping his skull at arm's length like you would a child. The knife I'd held onto was returned, further than his throat, 'til I felt the point click against the vertebrae. I felt tears warm my palm before I dropped him, just as the other hunter raised his crossbow before me.
He knew this was his last chance to slow me, as did I. He released his held breath and the night listened just to him. I held my own, as did the trees, as did the hung witch whose shoes stopped tapping against the trunk. The fire spread through the witch's hovel, the heat and smoke building, trapped. The clay structure could deal with the tensity no more. The roof caved with a powerful sound, startling both the hunter and myself. While he's distracted, mine own eyes never leave his. I jump closer to him before he realizes his mistake, my hands already wrestling the crossbow from his arms. His grip tightens as the bolt is released. He yelps and shoves me away before stumbling away to the woods. I see the bolt sticking through his side before he ducks behind a trunk for rest. I use this time to quickly drag the blade from the other hinter's neck to saw away the rope that hangs my benefactor.
They tell you tales of witches floating about the ground. Their toenails graze the floor and their feet tap against the stairs on their way to the children's bedroom. This witch didn't float. Her body thudded to the dirt, bouncing against the roots roughly. I could still hear the panicked breaths of the hunter not far from us. As I picked the witch up over my shoulder, I could hear his breathing becoming sharper, ending in groans. Familiar, I thought, He's attempting to loose the bolt from his side. I've heard it from the wounded before. If he were wise, he'd leave it where it lay. That bolt is the only thing to keep him from death.
Flame struck through the witch's den, crumbling her home and history. Smoke funneled through the trap door thicker than clay. I huddled with the witch's body against the cliff-side, behind the fire. A wisp of the putrid smoke swept across us. Strong in scent, the tar-smoke must have pulled the witch from Hell, for she sputtered a breath before rolling away from me to her side, falling away to dream. The flames and smoke were thick enough for me to conceal myself. I knew that if the huntsman was back on his bloodpath, he'd have to get fairly close to volley his shot. My blade was still licked by flame inside the chaos, nowhere to be seen. My hands were my only weapon. So we're even.
* * *
The flame cooled away with the morning sun. The smoke stopped stinging the senses long ago. And the witch twisted her limbs throughout the night in her rest, letting me know she lived. At some point while the stars were overhead, the hunter quieted his pleas. Perhaps he rested. Perhaps he died. If not, I was to make it so. I got bored in my complacency, picking my second skin of tar clean from my flesh. I sifted the soot and ash, finding my sword once the Hellpit had cooled. I waited for no fair fight. I planned to take the huntsman's head for companionship until I find the nearest pile of shit to allow him final rest.
When I treaded to the trunk that should've hid my newfound friend, I found nothing but a dried spot of blood. No bolt lay on the vines. He was wise enough not to unsheathe it, was he? No blood to track as well. But the bushes were stomped in the direction of the hills. However, I cared not to track vermin over hills and fields. I am no huntsman. With one look over my shoulder I saw the witch, pretending to sleep, but her heaving shoulders gave her away. And so with only my sword to follow, I walked again toward the sun. Borne from the ash, smoke, and earth I tread. Looking for a God to stop me.
I awoke when the sun stretched her fingers through the trees, and felt the hot breath of dawn. The hunters were gone, their belongings absent but for the footprints they left in the soil. My sword was several feet from me, perhaps feeling the weight before realizing it was too heavy to steal and I was too worthless to kill. I loosed myself from the dirt, carried my companion, and continued toward the sun. At the time the day had passed me overhead and heated my back, I claimed for rest against the bark. I smelled the burning pitch before I saw the soft silk of smoke lingering over the forest floor. I brought myself on even ground with the horizon, my sword as a crutch. The walk wasn't long before finding the source in a decline in the ground.
The forest floor took a sharp dive several meters down before relaxing into even ground again. In the middle of this new land, the vines conquering their way up the crater of the scarred earth, was a shell of clay. Round, no larger than a hovel, and smoke stack beaming with putrid air. A hut in the middle of nothing, with one circular window staring up at me. When my focus glared into the dark insides of the forest home through the window, I gleamed a shade of black, changing colors from within. Someone had shifted their weight. Not a moment later, a robed figure slid to the outside and around the back of their home. My curiosity fueled my feet to tread around the rim of the small cliff, my eyes focused on the round home in the center of the precipice. The cliff-face sloped slowly downwards, the edges on each side creating a raised horseshoe shape with the ends sunk into level ground. As I neared flat ground I could see the other side of the home where the robed figure was... and noticed I was alone.
While I stared at the nothingness, I noticed a second window. Yet again the shades changed but this time in opposite contrast. The shade turned dark before a bolt lodged itself near my collar, just beside my windpipe. I dropped into the vines that littered the forest floor, down among the tar smoke. Were there two people leading me to a trap? Or only one? If there was only one person, how did they get back inside their hovel if I had eyes on the only door? No, there must be two. My eyes watered from the sting in the air and the sting in my chest. Through the decomposing fog I saw the door open again and the same hooded figure as before step through. They brandished a dagger like a badge and stepped cautiously through the weeds. How did they appear back inside the hovel? What did I follow? An apparition? I worried these meaningless thoughts as death grew near. Each breath flexed my throat and cut against the edges of the bolt. I managed to gasp a swear at the figure before they knelt. They answered back in kind.
"Son of Lilith," she said, "hunting me will lead to nothing but corpses. You want to sport my head like a trophy, and I'll use yours to feed the flies."
Half-aggravated by her deduction at who I was supposed to be, my reply was both explanation and insult to her demeanor. "I'm a king."
She quickly let down the knife and let up my head, pulling the bolt from my neck roughly. The shock nearly hastened my life. "What did you say?"
I gasped for anything I could breathe that wasn't tar smoke. But she waited while I could explain. Not in finest detail, but enough to not stutter her belief. I tied together all my tales by saying "And so we met. You greeted a king with an act of treason. Needless to say, a spot of wine and a fur to lay would not be an unjust start to an apology."
There was no fur, only a bed of sewn straw. And there was no wine, but the ale did its job well enough for her to close my wound with hot pitch and tell me of her woes.
"I'm a witch, so they say, and nothing more can be said to change a peoples' minds. I'm unwed, poor, and speak not for a belief in God."
I shook with pain from the scalding. "What is this liquid pestilence?"
"It can serve as many things. Mostly I use it to fix any damages that befall my home in the storms. And apparently it can work for any man."
"You weren't sure?'
"The smell keeps others away, let's them not discover me while they believe they've loomed into a mass grave, unmasked by landslides." She dipped her blade into a boiling pot of tar, sliding the excess back into the brew with the edge of her knife. I could not brace myself for the heat, as much as each time I think I could.
Between chattering teeth I spoke. "What were the charges? Why here?" My interest waned from the moment she first spoke, but I had to keep my mind occupied as she pressed the side of her blade against the wound to flatten the tar and declined my tolerance for pain.
"I moved away from Southern lands. Illness took my family. The towns here had heard word of the sickness and granted no access past their gates. I made this hut out here for shelter. Rudimentary at first, its walls became thicker and the outside smoother. I stole and continue to do so from the town that left me to die. As new sicknesses spread, they remember that I was the last to survive the old ones. To them it counts for nothing that I'm the only one to not live cramped amongst their filth and livestock. They only see the witch from the wood." And what to do with the Son of Lilith? "He's become a self-titled judge as the builders of law die from plague or The Son's own assassinations. Now that the law belongs to him, to be built in his image. He's brought back the old ways; with magic beliefs and bounties on undesirables."
"Being far from civilities shouldn't make you immune to illness. Death will catch up to you."
She walked away from the bed and took with her all her devil's tools. "I doubt that. I've stayed in one spot for so long waiting for so long I've grown to believe that Death doesn't exist."
* * *
I could've slept a season, had it not been for the pitch smoke setting fire to my lungs. The cries of violence was a simple thing to slumber through, but the stink and taste of the fog filling the small hut was too vile for my liking. I awoke to the window from which I was shot from staring darkness back to me. I twisted my body 'round once I heard a repeated shout, realizing it wasn't from a dream. The way I rolled my shoulder did something to my forgotten wound that shocked my entire body. I stayed close to the cold ground once I recuperated there, until I realized the fog coming from the kiln was heavy and sinking fast to where I was.
I scrambled to the door but found it fastened shut. The round window above the bed was too small to climb through, as was the other, and offered no support to my shrinking lungs. I could only see hints of the turmoil outside, but cared not for the resolution. I had to leave. I covered the smogging kiln with random bits of furniture, eventually knocking it and the vile liquid over. Whatever good it did at this point mattered not. The hut was now a shade of black an arm's-length around me. I ran at the door, trying to bust it down, and saw what jammed my exit was the body of a man on the other side, wildly stabbed, chest left open. I tried to muscle my way an opening, but the smoke had drowned me for too long, left me weak. This felt an unfitting end, if this was a way to die.
Between the yells, I heard a trickle from the other end of the hut. The spilled kiln was leaking its contents under a clothing chest and down some drop. I shoved my way across this wretched home and tossed the chest to the side, finding it empty and weightless. A hole was dug underneath, large enough for a person to crawl through. The kiln spilt its contents down the hole and left itself in the way of my escape. I found an exit, and the Lord was testing my will. I pushed myself down the slope where the fog was thickest. The gunk that was brewing was left in a pool on the bottom of the hole before curving upward again to the outside. I slid my body into the bile of this dirt stomach, scalding my skin with the tar. I raised up, out of a false ground, covered with vines and bits of wood, on the outside of the hut, the opposite side with the door. Now I knew how she disappeared to arrive back inside her home. I exited her escape hatch and shook with wild breaths.
The cold air steamed from my body. Patches of tar spotted my skin and matted my scalp. My eyes watered away the blindness as I drew another breath and stared at the moon peeping from above the wooded canopy of branches. My eyes drew downward, led by a straight line that cradled gently. It was a rope. And leading at the end was the witch, kicking for leverage. Two spectators watched. I stood waist-height in the hole, my tongue leading my mind. "Hey!" I shouted for attention. My lungs as black as they were, the word came out more as a guttural yell. They turned around and watched as I picked myself from the hole, the tar still covering my flesh and the steam trailing. I marched towards them.
Their eyes grew wide and the width of their legs further apart as they prepared to fight or flee this monster. One made some primal sound of surprise. The other readied the crossbow already in his hand and the knife in his belt, unsure of how to handle such a situation. I lumbered forward, grunting with dead breaths and shrunken lungs, realizing I'd forgotten my sword inside. My hands can do plenty. The hunters stagger in their steps, not sure what to make of me. The moonlight serves as the only light to the garden floor. Through the slivers of light they see the towering golem march before them. The one with but a sword steps to the side of his friend, who through his courage, raises a bolt to me, fires, and misses. The same man, an animal afraid, cries out in a broken yell and raises his dagger above his head. My hands go out to where I think he'll strike-- down towards my heart-- before I feel the blade's edge cut and stick to my throat. The tar had hardened thick against my skin. Though I feel the cut, the knife refuses to slide away back into the hunter's hand. He pulls away shocked by the way his knife has absorbed to my skin. I jut the blade off my neck myself. I barely bleed but they know not what they really see. "Swing for its head!" the bowman calls as he steps back to load another bolt.
It was the turn of the other hunter, his eyes glinting with fear and apprehension. He yelled nonsense to boost his courage, his knees stuttering to launch his body forward. Nothing in his mind worked in tandem. By the time he ran up to me it was then that he realized he hadn't cocked his sword to strike. He stopped a few steps away before drawing his sword back behind his shoulder like a delinquent about to bat a window. I reach out and plant my left hand on his face, gripping his skull at arm's length like you would a child. The knife I'd held onto was returned, further than his throat, 'til I felt the point click against the vertebrae. I felt tears warm my palm before I dropped him, just as the other hunter raised his crossbow before me.
He knew this was his last chance to slow me, as did I. He released his held breath and the night listened just to him. I held my own, as did the trees, as did the hung witch whose shoes stopped tapping against the trunk. The fire spread through the witch's hovel, the heat and smoke building, trapped. The clay structure could deal with the tensity no more. The roof caved with a powerful sound, startling both the hunter and myself. While he's distracted, mine own eyes never leave his. I jump closer to him before he realizes his mistake, my hands already wrestling the crossbow from his arms. His grip tightens as the bolt is released. He yelps and shoves me away before stumbling away to the woods. I see the bolt sticking through his side before he ducks behind a trunk for rest. I use this time to quickly drag the blade from the other hinter's neck to saw away the rope that hangs my benefactor.
They tell you tales of witches floating about the ground. Their toenails graze the floor and their feet tap against the stairs on their way to the children's bedroom. This witch didn't float. Her body thudded to the dirt, bouncing against the roots roughly. I could still hear the panicked breaths of the hunter not far from us. As I picked the witch up over my shoulder, I could hear his breathing becoming sharper, ending in groans. Familiar, I thought, He's attempting to loose the bolt from his side. I've heard it from the wounded before. If he were wise, he'd leave it where it lay. That bolt is the only thing to keep him from death.
Flame struck through the witch's den, crumbling her home and history. Smoke funneled through the trap door thicker than clay. I huddled with the witch's body against the cliff-side, behind the fire. A wisp of the putrid smoke swept across us. Strong in scent, the tar-smoke must have pulled the witch from Hell, for she sputtered a breath before rolling away from me to her side, falling away to dream. The flames and smoke were thick enough for me to conceal myself. I knew that if the huntsman was back on his bloodpath, he'd have to get fairly close to volley his shot. My blade was still licked by flame inside the chaos, nowhere to be seen. My hands were my only weapon. So we're even.
* * *
The flame cooled away with the morning sun. The smoke stopped stinging the senses long ago. And the witch twisted her limbs throughout the night in her rest, letting me know she lived. At some point while the stars were overhead, the hunter quieted his pleas. Perhaps he rested. Perhaps he died. If not, I was to make it so. I got bored in my complacency, picking my second skin of tar clean from my flesh. I sifted the soot and ash, finding my sword once the Hellpit had cooled. I waited for no fair fight. I planned to take the huntsman's head for companionship until I find the nearest pile of shit to allow him final rest.
When I treaded to the trunk that should've hid my newfound friend, I found nothing but a dried spot of blood. No bolt lay on the vines. He was wise enough not to unsheathe it, was he? No blood to track as well. But the bushes were stomped in the direction of the hills. However, I cared not to track vermin over hills and fields. I am no huntsman. With one look over my shoulder I saw the witch, pretending to sleep, but her heaving shoulders gave her away. And so with only my sword to follow, I walked again toward the sun. Borne from the ash, smoke, and earth I tread. Looking for a God to stop me.
Plagued: Dirge Of Humanity
I... had no idea I didn't publish this one already. Dear God I've been slacking. But for good reason! I've been working really hard on getting more stories out into the thickets. And the best way to do that is to leave me alone to the music and the drink. Not a lot of music or drink around these parts, however... Ladies and Gentleman, on with the show:
The wood becomes home again. I stay close to the thick trunks; they become the walls of my cave. The spires of my campfire create dying stars in the night. And for the first time in several nights, I eat. Don't mind what, just know I've had feasts more grand. The morning rolls through the trees and I hold spite to know that when I pass the days will toil on just the same. It will even lay claim to my property, without the utterance of a word, and with no one to fight against it. I've grown used to the warmth in my blanket of earth. My wakefulness to the songbirds. And the taste of my own blood since the night. I walk the edge of the wood that corners the castle Murray, hoping to find both the least occupied entrance and my courage. My feet sift through bramblebushes, long-forgotten to react to pain. I find the road less-traveled, and begin my trek. When I was met with fate and the pride to swallow, I made my way to the West gate. All through my life, a chorus would sound when I walked the procession to my throne. My walk to the gate through the hardened ground... naught but the birds sang for me now. Dogs crowded the carts selling meats and nipped the hooves of horses. Soon the flock of scavengers got wind of old blood. Me, a thing yet living, who smelled and looked of a corpse. Their bark melted slowly into the still of the air, and the carts followed the dogs' stares, and pulled away to let me pass. The shirtless, bootless man with a lancer's sword drug behind. The road quieted, and the birds sang into their second verse.
The four guards at the gate, donning the Murray colors, follow the parting ways of the crowd. Surprisingly, they see me as no threat 'til already I see the polluted whites of their eyes. They halt me, and ask me of my business. I tell them that I have slain enemies beside the Murray name before, and wish to seek counsel with their king. They laugh, as anyone would, and continue to do so as I name the battlefields in which I bare my proof. My mind is tired and wags my tongue as if it juggles coals in my mouth and my words begin to stumble. I'm pulled backward, a guard I did not see. When I look from the ground, I see contemptuous stares from those who laughed before. "Leper!" they cried and the people tore from my way more. "He carries the sickness with him!" They must've not seen my spots before, until one walked behind to inspect the hysteric they claimed I am.
"The mark of death bares upon him!" I hear the familiar insults. The recognizable stares. The choir of birds break into the rising notes of children. I look up at the guards. One yells at me while the rest throw a chain upon my neck. His helmet splits at the top and hangs down-- much like a jester. The others come 'round to him. They no longer bare the colors Murray. They bare mine. I look around to meet the stares of dogs and men. Familiar faces all. When they pull the chain, it comes studded with jewels. Ones from my crown. I fall onto the ground, carpeted like my courtroom, and am dragged from the West gate. As I choke for air, raked across the stones, I watch the sun get brighter, the choir louder, and my body colder.
* * *
I stare at the wooden gate, scarred from the scratches of the dying. Those left alive scatter from the streets. I've been quarantined from the rest of the kingdom, along with the other ill and infirm, and sectioned into an abandoned part of the city. The dead are piled higher near the door from which I came than they are in the gutters along the road. People who have attempted to flee when the guards open the doors to bring a new arrival no doubt. It takes no second look to see that this is some quarter of the kingdom to wall-off only the infected. Murray has made himself a city of the dead. Peasants with open sores bleed through the streets and into the alleyways. Their clothes and rags stretched tight around their otherwise naked bodies. I stand alone in the quiet of the road. Not even the birds sing here. The muffled sounds of the rest of the healthy population rise in a wave over the large, stone, battlement wall and echoes between the derelict buildings. They dangle the freedom of these prisoners in the form of a broken and battered gate. It focuses their attention from both sides. All my thoughts tell me to find another way out, away from their distractions. I turn around and face the long road ahead of me. I know this place. Visited often after battle. I've been here, myself.
This is what they've called "Pleasure Square", now littered with the coughing and groveling of bounded strangers. As the day went on more people would dance in the street. Now the wind is the only thing moving with grace. The dead mark along the roads where the women sold their flesh. The streets are long with the dead and grime of those left to the gutters and rainfall to wash the meat from their bones. There were people in the gutters then, too. They laid among the piss and trash. Though not as many were dead as there are now.
It's harder to navigate the roads when it isn't filled with people standing. And yet I know exactly where I'm going. Even without a sword holstered in my palm, the infected stay to the walls and let me pass. I skirt the wall leading to the inner city, passing the puddles of blood and piles of filth. The masses of what I assumed were the dead move and speak here and there, always garnering surprise. It's not long before the purple royal flags of Murray, draped over the upper bannisters, draw me like a beacon to the house against the barrier wall. The roof nearly comes to the top of the mortar, just barely out of reach to anyone dreaming escape.
It was a large enough building to house the legions or rather their ghosts inside. The door clicked against its own broken hinges. This place was long-since ruined by the ill masses that couldn't accept their fate. Curtains were thrashed from the walls. The kegs were split in desperation long ago. The ale had dried since, warping the floorboards and draughting a molding scent. No one lived here. It's been abandoned for the next target, something else that's reminded them that happiness and freedom was ever such a thing. No candles to light my way upstairs. Only through the broken windows can you see what kind of air you breathe, what floats in it.
Bundles of clothing and rags carpet my walk through the upper hallway and softens my footsteps. The doors lay away from the privacy they used to hide and banished to the floor. My curiosity does not wander to the other rooms, for my intent is clear-- I will escape through the last door on the right. The room is punished in every manner, just like the rest. The bed is gone, the window shutters fallen to the street, the clothes and costumes of whores thrown and torn to the wayside. Of all the furniture destroyed, the large oaken wardrobe still stands.
This room is far and away the largest room in the whorehouse. Royalty has slept here. Myself among others. But there's reason to not be seen entering such places. The wardrobe was always our in. Today it marks my way out. Frustrated at not being able to tip the wardrobe away from the wall-- and for good reason-- the rioters cut into its sides with pokers and whatever else they found to chip away at the wood. But the proud bastard still stood. The doors were gone, like all the rest. I stepped through the rib cage of the leviathan and felt to the back of its throat. The back panel slipped away silently, folding itself inward to the dark passage behind. The draft of old air smelled as good as mountain's breath after the death I've walked through. A discarded brown blanket lay among the scraps of others next to the wardrobe. I swiped it and with a last look to ghosts' past, continued through the tunnel and shut the way behind me.
There's a gap between the false back of the wardrobe and my escape. About ten meters I walk through the foundations of the building, through the battlement wall, and through the walls of the building on the other side. Wide enough to carry a soldier in full armor, or a king in all his elaborate garb. I opened the false backing to the wardrobe that connects me to the inner city and stood in its emptiness. But the doors to the wardrobe itself wouldn't budge. It wasn't more than the thought that I might be truly trapped in a dead city that urged me to break shoulders and forearms against the closed doors. I didn't care if someone heard. You must understand, I was desperate. A mere 4 centimeters of wood between myself and freedom. The walls closed in as if I was already buried. When I heard the wood crack and splint I half-expected my mouth to fill with dirt. With a final shove, I fell through the doors and onto the floor of a dark and forgotten room. The taste of dust was all but a relief, as good as fruit.
I jutted my head upward to make sure I didn't seal my fate with all the noise. This house was used for diplomatic hearings. A courthouse of sorts, but for matters off the written record. Souls were sold between the murmurings of generals and colleagues in little more than a private library. Now it appeared to be abandoned. The wardrobe I was birthed from had been boarded, and left to someone else's responsibility. What furniture was left in the place was held unceremoniously against the walls or turned in no special or remembered way. I was alone. At least in this particular room. I froze my movement and listened hard for anyone coming to inspect the sound of my abrasion. I hadn't listened for the sounds of the crowded streets since I entered the whorehouse, but I now realized the roads were quiet since I broke free. Was I so loud the whole town stopped to listen? Stumbling my feet on my brown robe, I huddled myself against the wall near a window and peered out. The streets were empty. I cared not to find out if the rest of the building was occupied. The sun had now baked its color against every building, coloring the road a stark white against the stones. I walked out onto a nearby patio and hung myself over the rail before dropping down back to the ground. I was free again. Practically naked and without a weapon, but free to roam. My instincts and curiosity fought at the front lines of my brain. Should I leave this place? Or should I sate curiosity and find where everyone, seemingly the whole town, has gone?
The sounds of shouting crowds pull me down the empty streets. Nearly all are gone from the many doorways and gardens that line the way. I pull the brown cloth tighter around my face the closer to the noise I become. Dotted colors wave themselves about toward the end of the street-- a crowd gathered and shouting exclamations of both anger and joy. In the back of my mind I believe the riot is meant for me. I don't long to see the unmuzzled hatred from crowds again. So I join their ranks instead. I meld myself cautiously to the backs of the shouting masses. Their shouts bound off the stage in the middle of the open courtyard. The executioner stands strong, as if to say, "Bring me your sins. I absolve all." The crowd shifts as a man is led up the steps, the cries for murder echo off one another. My eyes take awhile to settle on the accused and the executioner and the third man met by cheers before I realize they all wear royal robes. So it's a revolt in the upper echelons. Treason? Hearsay? Nothing is said by the judge that is heard over the interruptions or the distance. I don't wait for the axefall. I've seen my share. Instead I voyage to the West gate, passing few people on the way. Talk of the execution finds its way to many of them. The crime seems small-- a writ against the king's line. Apparently the accused claimed his innocence before he stood for the trial and sentencing of his blood. No one seems to mind whether he's innocent or not, just that the punishment is served. No one spoke for him. No one cared. It seems my search for honor in death was unjustified. And I no longer know if it's what I want.
The walk to the gate is daunting, with me thinking I'll be discovered through my disguise and offered as a second course to the jackals at the center of town. Every child that skips the steps past me takes a moment to stare. The meddling cut-throats. Reaching the final roadway that leads to the large, wooden, open gates I notice a lull in the noise. The town falls silent. And an uproar tumbles over the rooftops to fall upon me like a hushing wind. The royal prisoner is dead. And the songbirds sing their dirge.
What with the world's population contained in these walls centered at its core to watch the death of another bug, only two guards stand at the entrance to the West gate. Neither pay me mind. Neither thinks twice about a stumbling cloak, a drunk who could afford to do so, until my hands are already upon the face of the guard nearest me. You must understand, I'm no monster, but I refuse to leave without what's mine. Conversation was long past. They tied a chain to me and drug me like bait. Like my life meant nothing before I was already an empty husk. And here, now; yes we could've conversed. We could've bickered and argued and gambled and parted ways amicably for what was given me. But you must understand, I didn't want to. The new invigoration to live surged through me, and turnt itself from a divine gift to a weapon of newfound hate.
His head turns quite easily and the neck follows suit. It's luck that the other guard doesn't yell at first, he simply stammers and charges for me in a straight line beyond the body of his fallen friend, too shocked to understand the correct actions to take. He's too close to draw his sword effectively. He's young and in a blind rage. So I stick my thumbs in his eyes and blind him for good. This is when he finally finds a voice. What few citizens are around stop to stare. They don't see the danger they're in for themselves until I pluck the knife from the soldier's belt and thinly drag it across his throat while he kneels before his judge. The people flee. It means nothing all the same. They can find the nearest guard if they wish, I'll be long gone into the thick of the wood by the time they investigate.
I unfold myself from the blanket with unclean hands and disarm it to the mud around the wheel tracks in the road. The small guard post welcomes me, an invitation to not forget my things before I vacate the town. Inside is any small number of contraband, none of which concerns me but the lancing sword I've grown to care for like a friend. It stands up against a table, straight-backed with good posture and gleaming with tales and rumors. I leave without hurry. Together we walk down the road past the shocked eyes of many, and across the fields to my cathedral of trees.
I hear the commotion at the gate a league behind me. The shocked questions and the hurried answers. As I step back into the bramblebushes and into the shadows of the wood, the noises of civilization are drowned by the choir of nature. The crackle of trees reaching for sunlight, the hushed silence of wind. But the songbirds, they no longer sing for me.
* * *
The wood becomes home again. I stay close to the thick trunks; they become the walls of my cave. The spires of my campfire create dying stars in the night. And for the first time in several nights, I eat. Don't mind what, just know I've had feasts more grand. The morning rolls through the trees and I hold spite to know that when I pass the days will toil on just the same. It will even lay claim to my property, without the utterance of a word, and with no one to fight against it. I've grown used to the warmth in my blanket of earth. My wakefulness to the songbirds. And the taste of my own blood since the night. I walk the edge of the wood that corners the castle Murray, hoping to find both the least occupied entrance and my courage. My feet sift through bramblebushes, long-forgotten to react to pain. I find the road less-traveled, and begin my trek. When I was met with fate and the pride to swallow, I made my way to the West gate. All through my life, a chorus would sound when I walked the procession to my throne. My walk to the gate through the hardened ground... naught but the birds sang for me now. Dogs crowded the carts selling meats and nipped the hooves of horses. Soon the flock of scavengers got wind of old blood. Me, a thing yet living, who smelled and looked of a corpse. Their bark melted slowly into the still of the air, and the carts followed the dogs' stares, and pulled away to let me pass. The shirtless, bootless man with a lancer's sword drug behind. The road quieted, and the birds sang into their second verse.
The four guards at the gate, donning the Murray colors, follow the parting ways of the crowd. Surprisingly, they see me as no threat 'til already I see the polluted whites of their eyes. They halt me, and ask me of my business. I tell them that I have slain enemies beside the Murray name before, and wish to seek counsel with their king. They laugh, as anyone would, and continue to do so as I name the battlefields in which I bare my proof. My mind is tired and wags my tongue as if it juggles coals in my mouth and my words begin to stumble. I'm pulled backward, a guard I did not see. When I look from the ground, I see contemptuous stares from those who laughed before. "Leper!" they cried and the people tore from my way more. "He carries the sickness with him!" They must've not seen my spots before, until one walked behind to inspect the hysteric they claimed I am.
"The mark of death bares upon him!" I hear the familiar insults. The recognizable stares. The choir of birds break into the rising notes of children. I look up at the guards. One yells at me while the rest throw a chain upon my neck. His helmet splits at the top and hangs down-- much like a jester. The others come 'round to him. They no longer bare the colors Murray. They bare mine. I look around to meet the stares of dogs and men. Familiar faces all. When they pull the chain, it comes studded with jewels. Ones from my crown. I fall onto the ground, carpeted like my courtroom, and am dragged from the West gate. As I choke for air, raked across the stones, I watch the sun get brighter, the choir louder, and my body colder.
* * *
I stare at the wooden gate, scarred from the scratches of the dying. Those left alive scatter from the streets. I've been quarantined from the rest of the kingdom, along with the other ill and infirm, and sectioned into an abandoned part of the city. The dead are piled higher near the door from which I came than they are in the gutters along the road. People who have attempted to flee when the guards open the doors to bring a new arrival no doubt. It takes no second look to see that this is some quarter of the kingdom to wall-off only the infected. Murray has made himself a city of the dead. Peasants with open sores bleed through the streets and into the alleyways. Their clothes and rags stretched tight around their otherwise naked bodies. I stand alone in the quiet of the road. Not even the birds sing here. The muffled sounds of the rest of the healthy population rise in a wave over the large, stone, battlement wall and echoes between the derelict buildings. They dangle the freedom of these prisoners in the form of a broken and battered gate. It focuses their attention from both sides. All my thoughts tell me to find another way out, away from their distractions. I turn around and face the long road ahead of me. I know this place. Visited often after battle. I've been here, myself.
This is what they've called "Pleasure Square", now littered with the coughing and groveling of bounded strangers. As the day went on more people would dance in the street. Now the wind is the only thing moving with grace. The dead mark along the roads where the women sold their flesh. The streets are long with the dead and grime of those left to the gutters and rainfall to wash the meat from their bones. There were people in the gutters then, too. They laid among the piss and trash. Though not as many were dead as there are now.
It's harder to navigate the roads when it isn't filled with people standing. And yet I know exactly where I'm going. Even without a sword holstered in my palm, the infected stay to the walls and let me pass. I skirt the wall leading to the inner city, passing the puddles of blood and piles of filth. The masses of what I assumed were the dead move and speak here and there, always garnering surprise. It's not long before the purple royal flags of Murray, draped over the upper bannisters, draw me like a beacon to the house against the barrier wall. The roof nearly comes to the top of the mortar, just barely out of reach to anyone dreaming escape.
It was a large enough building to house the legions or rather their ghosts inside. The door clicked against its own broken hinges. This place was long-since ruined by the ill masses that couldn't accept their fate. Curtains were thrashed from the walls. The kegs were split in desperation long ago. The ale had dried since, warping the floorboards and draughting a molding scent. No one lived here. It's been abandoned for the next target, something else that's reminded them that happiness and freedom was ever such a thing. No candles to light my way upstairs. Only through the broken windows can you see what kind of air you breathe, what floats in it.
Bundles of clothing and rags carpet my walk through the upper hallway and softens my footsteps. The doors lay away from the privacy they used to hide and banished to the floor. My curiosity does not wander to the other rooms, for my intent is clear-- I will escape through the last door on the right. The room is punished in every manner, just like the rest. The bed is gone, the window shutters fallen to the street, the clothes and costumes of whores thrown and torn to the wayside. Of all the furniture destroyed, the large oaken wardrobe still stands.
This room is far and away the largest room in the whorehouse. Royalty has slept here. Myself among others. But there's reason to not be seen entering such places. The wardrobe was always our in. Today it marks my way out. Frustrated at not being able to tip the wardrobe away from the wall-- and for good reason-- the rioters cut into its sides with pokers and whatever else they found to chip away at the wood. But the proud bastard still stood. The doors were gone, like all the rest. I stepped through the rib cage of the leviathan and felt to the back of its throat. The back panel slipped away silently, folding itself inward to the dark passage behind. The draft of old air smelled as good as mountain's breath after the death I've walked through. A discarded brown blanket lay among the scraps of others next to the wardrobe. I swiped it and with a last look to ghosts' past, continued through the tunnel and shut the way behind me.
There's a gap between the false back of the wardrobe and my escape. About ten meters I walk through the foundations of the building, through the battlement wall, and through the walls of the building on the other side. Wide enough to carry a soldier in full armor, or a king in all his elaborate garb. I opened the false backing to the wardrobe that connects me to the inner city and stood in its emptiness. But the doors to the wardrobe itself wouldn't budge. It wasn't more than the thought that I might be truly trapped in a dead city that urged me to break shoulders and forearms against the closed doors. I didn't care if someone heard. You must understand, I was desperate. A mere 4 centimeters of wood between myself and freedom. The walls closed in as if I was already buried. When I heard the wood crack and splint I half-expected my mouth to fill with dirt. With a final shove, I fell through the doors and onto the floor of a dark and forgotten room. The taste of dust was all but a relief, as good as fruit.
I jutted my head upward to make sure I didn't seal my fate with all the noise. This house was used for diplomatic hearings. A courthouse of sorts, but for matters off the written record. Souls were sold between the murmurings of generals and colleagues in little more than a private library. Now it appeared to be abandoned. The wardrobe I was birthed from had been boarded, and left to someone else's responsibility. What furniture was left in the place was held unceremoniously against the walls or turned in no special or remembered way. I was alone. At least in this particular room. I froze my movement and listened hard for anyone coming to inspect the sound of my abrasion. I hadn't listened for the sounds of the crowded streets since I entered the whorehouse, but I now realized the roads were quiet since I broke free. Was I so loud the whole town stopped to listen? Stumbling my feet on my brown robe, I huddled myself against the wall near a window and peered out. The streets were empty. I cared not to find out if the rest of the building was occupied. The sun had now baked its color against every building, coloring the road a stark white against the stones. I walked out onto a nearby patio and hung myself over the rail before dropping down back to the ground. I was free again. Practically naked and without a weapon, but free to roam. My instincts and curiosity fought at the front lines of my brain. Should I leave this place? Or should I sate curiosity and find where everyone, seemingly the whole town, has gone?
The sounds of shouting crowds pull me down the empty streets. Nearly all are gone from the many doorways and gardens that line the way. I pull the brown cloth tighter around my face the closer to the noise I become. Dotted colors wave themselves about toward the end of the street-- a crowd gathered and shouting exclamations of both anger and joy. In the back of my mind I believe the riot is meant for me. I don't long to see the unmuzzled hatred from crowds again. So I join their ranks instead. I meld myself cautiously to the backs of the shouting masses. Their shouts bound off the stage in the middle of the open courtyard. The executioner stands strong, as if to say, "Bring me your sins. I absolve all." The crowd shifts as a man is led up the steps, the cries for murder echo off one another. My eyes take awhile to settle on the accused and the executioner and the third man met by cheers before I realize they all wear royal robes. So it's a revolt in the upper echelons. Treason? Hearsay? Nothing is said by the judge that is heard over the interruptions or the distance. I don't wait for the axefall. I've seen my share. Instead I voyage to the West gate, passing few people on the way. Talk of the execution finds its way to many of them. The crime seems small-- a writ against the king's line. Apparently the accused claimed his innocence before he stood for the trial and sentencing of his blood. No one seems to mind whether he's innocent or not, just that the punishment is served. No one spoke for him. No one cared. It seems my search for honor in death was unjustified. And I no longer know if it's what I want.
The walk to the gate is daunting, with me thinking I'll be discovered through my disguise and offered as a second course to the jackals at the center of town. Every child that skips the steps past me takes a moment to stare. The meddling cut-throats. Reaching the final roadway that leads to the large, wooden, open gates I notice a lull in the noise. The town falls silent. And an uproar tumbles over the rooftops to fall upon me like a hushing wind. The royal prisoner is dead. And the songbirds sing their dirge.
What with the world's population contained in these walls centered at its core to watch the death of another bug, only two guards stand at the entrance to the West gate. Neither pay me mind. Neither thinks twice about a stumbling cloak, a drunk who could afford to do so, until my hands are already upon the face of the guard nearest me. You must understand, I'm no monster, but I refuse to leave without what's mine. Conversation was long past. They tied a chain to me and drug me like bait. Like my life meant nothing before I was already an empty husk. And here, now; yes we could've conversed. We could've bickered and argued and gambled and parted ways amicably for what was given me. But you must understand, I didn't want to. The new invigoration to live surged through me, and turnt itself from a divine gift to a weapon of newfound hate.
His head turns quite easily and the neck follows suit. It's luck that the other guard doesn't yell at first, he simply stammers and charges for me in a straight line beyond the body of his fallen friend, too shocked to understand the correct actions to take. He's too close to draw his sword effectively. He's young and in a blind rage. So I stick my thumbs in his eyes and blind him for good. This is when he finally finds a voice. What few citizens are around stop to stare. They don't see the danger they're in for themselves until I pluck the knife from the soldier's belt and thinly drag it across his throat while he kneels before his judge. The people flee. It means nothing all the same. They can find the nearest guard if they wish, I'll be long gone into the thick of the wood by the time they investigate.
I unfold myself from the blanket with unclean hands and disarm it to the mud around the wheel tracks in the road. The small guard post welcomes me, an invitation to not forget my things before I vacate the town. Inside is any small number of contraband, none of which concerns me but the lancing sword I've grown to care for like a friend. It stands up against a table, straight-backed with good posture and gleaming with tales and rumors. I leave without hurry. Together we walk down the road past the shocked eyes of many, and across the fields to my cathedral of trees.
I hear the commotion at the gate a league behind me. The shocked questions and the hurried answers. As I step back into the bramblebushes and into the shadows of the wood, the noises of civilization are drowned by the choir of nature. The crackle of trees reaching for sunlight, the hushed silence of wind. But the songbirds, they no longer sing for me.
Friday, August 18, 2017
Tea Party
It's hard to say how all eight of them met. They shared no backgrounds, went to different schools, and even lived in different cities. One was from Paris, in one case. Taylor was a repairman at the theater, Clariss was a teacher for the deaf, Adam taught Sunday school. Each had a different income, and each had their own way of getting there. Some by car, one by bus, and one had walked from at least the neighboring town. What is known is that each filled the meter, and locked their doors as if they expected to return.
The one later identified as Chris Spent, an accountant hailing from Ottawa, was said to have been there since early in the morning by joggers, standing tall with a folding table under his arm, a stack of eight chairs by his side, and a box at his feet. He stood tall in the cold breeze and the ever-creeping sun, meticulously checking his watch, and waited for the tide to wilt away. About an hour after low tide had shrunk to the horizon, the table was set with all chairs surrounding and the box of dishware laid before him. Soon the rest of the company filtered in. They all wore suits and dining dresses tailored with materials each could afford. They arrived at more-or-less the same time and shook hands with smiles and greeted each other as if this were business. Did they somehow meet before? Friends of friends of friends of friends? Regardless the circumstances, the rest is known.
From eyewitness accounts, we know they were about a half mile from shore. And while the tide slowly slid back to its original line of fortitude, the tea party never altered. The crew of eight stretched and arched their backs as they sat, good posture and all, and tipped their cups against one another's high in the air in solute. No toasts were made. No grand speeches. They talked amongst themselves as the first signs of the returning tide whetted the soles of their shoes. The firm ground on which the table stood began to slope on one side. As Mary tipped back in her chair, closing her eyes to feel the wind and smell the sea, she, too, slowly sunk backwards in her chair.
The water tossed itself over their laces. Their shoes and chair legs grew firm in the sinking sands. But they held their cups to the salted air with cheers and made their declarations to many things. They nodded in agreement to the laughs and shouts of one-another. Boats drifted on the distant waves, unaware of the tea party on the shore.
Some got up to dance in the waves as a new incoming tide swept past them. The others parted from personal conversation to smile at the spectacle. The power of each wave twisted and warped the plastic of the chairs with each hit, and soon the group had to stay planted in their seats to make sure their thrones weren't sailed away. The suck of the ocean pulled at each of them. They hooked their ankles and tied their laces around the chair legs to stay in place. Water collided around the edges of the table and coasted tea doilies closer to shore. Amanda grabbed the tea pot, now nearly gone except for the sea water, before it drifted from the table. The chill of the water would have given them pneumonia after a time, but none shivered. They continued to laugh and shout conversation across the sunken table and the roar of the ocean. They acted like drunks, warm to the idea of death.
As the water rode through their hair and between their lips, the people on the sands of the shore became less and less sure of what the spots of color were they saw flickering in the water. The tide came slow, and spectators came and went, sure that someone else would stop them or they would surely stop themselves. By the time the sun inched its rosy fingers back behind the hills, conversations had all stopped. People were cut off mid-sentence and punchlines left unresolved.
Soon it was Chris who was the last one whose head peaked above the water. His last few breaths were breaks of laughter. He toasted to the stars as they peeked through the blue. As the water rushed over his head and muffled his laughter, Chris' arm stayed erected high, his cup overfilled with the sea. It stayed still against a rushing current, like a testament fought against the grain.
No notes were found at their residences, no circles on calendars or hints left to friends and colleagues. Nothing but eight cups washed upon the shore.
The one later identified as Chris Spent, an accountant hailing from Ottawa, was said to have been there since early in the morning by joggers, standing tall with a folding table under his arm, a stack of eight chairs by his side, and a box at his feet. He stood tall in the cold breeze and the ever-creeping sun, meticulously checking his watch, and waited for the tide to wilt away. About an hour after low tide had shrunk to the horizon, the table was set with all chairs surrounding and the box of dishware laid before him. Soon the rest of the company filtered in. They all wore suits and dining dresses tailored with materials each could afford. They arrived at more-or-less the same time and shook hands with smiles and greeted each other as if this were business. Did they somehow meet before? Friends of friends of friends of friends? Regardless the circumstances, the rest is known.
From eyewitness accounts, we know they were about a half mile from shore. And while the tide slowly slid back to its original line of fortitude, the tea party never altered. The crew of eight stretched and arched their backs as they sat, good posture and all, and tipped their cups against one another's high in the air in solute. No toasts were made. No grand speeches. They talked amongst themselves as the first signs of the returning tide whetted the soles of their shoes. The firm ground on which the table stood began to slope on one side. As Mary tipped back in her chair, closing her eyes to feel the wind and smell the sea, she, too, slowly sunk backwards in her chair.
The water tossed itself over their laces. Their shoes and chair legs grew firm in the sinking sands. But they held their cups to the salted air with cheers and made their declarations to many things. They nodded in agreement to the laughs and shouts of one-another. Boats drifted on the distant waves, unaware of the tea party on the shore.
Some got up to dance in the waves as a new incoming tide swept past them. The others parted from personal conversation to smile at the spectacle. The power of each wave twisted and warped the plastic of the chairs with each hit, and soon the group had to stay planted in their seats to make sure their thrones weren't sailed away. The suck of the ocean pulled at each of them. They hooked their ankles and tied their laces around the chair legs to stay in place. Water collided around the edges of the table and coasted tea doilies closer to shore. Amanda grabbed the tea pot, now nearly gone except for the sea water, before it drifted from the table. The chill of the water would have given them pneumonia after a time, but none shivered. They continued to laugh and shout conversation across the sunken table and the roar of the ocean. They acted like drunks, warm to the idea of death.
As the water rode through their hair and between their lips, the people on the sands of the shore became less and less sure of what the spots of color were they saw flickering in the water. The tide came slow, and spectators came and went, sure that someone else would stop them or they would surely stop themselves. By the time the sun inched its rosy fingers back behind the hills, conversations had all stopped. People were cut off mid-sentence and punchlines left unresolved.
Soon it was Chris who was the last one whose head peaked above the water. His last few breaths were breaks of laughter. He toasted to the stars as they peeked through the blue. As the water rushed over his head and muffled his laughter, Chris' arm stayed erected high, his cup overfilled with the sea. It stayed still against a rushing current, like a testament fought against the grain.
No notes were found at their residences, no circles on calendars or hints left to friends and colleagues. Nothing but eight cups washed upon the shore.
Sunday, August 6, 2017
Shiver
There's a wall of dark in the woods around you. The flashlight cuts a tunnel through the pitch 'til you can see all the trees around. They act as support beams, holding up the sky so the stars don't come crashing down. You ask yourself when you first noticed the noise. Not when it started but how long you've been standing there while the low droning carried itself closer. It's loud but it barely sounds above a mumble.
Since when was the dog barking? You're afraid to turn your back on what's coming but what if you already have? Your whole body turns, your feet still glued to the dead pine needles thrust in the grass, to see your dog shaking and yelping and pissing on the porch in the dim light of the outdoor lamp. It's too late. You made your decision and turned your back to the dark. You can see the breath fog your vision in front of you, but you've been holding your breath for just how long? The mist tickles the back of your neck and the air smells of dirt freshly dug.
Your legs spring forward and your heart beats so loud nothing else can be heard. Just losing senses one-by-one. In one arm you have the dog, sopping-wet, and you dropped the flashlight to slam the door behind you in the other. Your back is to the door, the dog has run off, and you're sitting there on the floor 'cause your legs won't stop shaking long enough to stand. The dropped flashlight on the other side of the door shines in the crack underneath and lights your shadow against the living room wall. In a blink the shadow fades into everything else. The flashlight turned off. The droning sound has stopped. The air is so still and quiet that nothing chirps. Nothing speaks. Not even the trees. Not even the dog.
The kitchen light is still beaming around the corner. The porch light outside hints around the edges of the house and you're stuck darting your eyes between the doorway to the kitchen and the windows looking for shadows. Did you lock the doors and windows out of old superstition or did you tell yourself you were truly alone in these woods and throw caution to the wind? The low hum was loud enough to rumble your eardrums but nothing in the house shakes.
Just you.
Since when was the dog barking? You're afraid to turn your back on what's coming but what if you already have? Your whole body turns, your feet still glued to the dead pine needles thrust in the grass, to see your dog shaking and yelping and pissing on the porch in the dim light of the outdoor lamp. It's too late. You made your decision and turned your back to the dark. You can see the breath fog your vision in front of you, but you've been holding your breath for just how long? The mist tickles the back of your neck and the air smells of dirt freshly dug.
Your legs spring forward and your heart beats so loud nothing else can be heard. Just losing senses one-by-one. In one arm you have the dog, sopping-wet, and you dropped the flashlight to slam the door behind you in the other. Your back is to the door, the dog has run off, and you're sitting there on the floor 'cause your legs won't stop shaking long enough to stand. The dropped flashlight on the other side of the door shines in the crack underneath and lights your shadow against the living room wall. In a blink the shadow fades into everything else. The flashlight turned off. The droning sound has stopped. The air is so still and quiet that nothing chirps. Nothing speaks. Not even the trees. Not even the dog.
The kitchen light is still beaming around the corner. The porch light outside hints around the edges of the house and you're stuck darting your eyes between the doorway to the kitchen and the windows looking for shadows. Did you lock the doors and windows out of old superstition or did you tell yourself you were truly alone in these woods and throw caution to the wind? The low hum was loud enough to rumble your eardrums but nothing in the house shakes.
Just you.
Saturday, June 24, 2017
A Shot In The Dark
The shot calls out in the dark and hears its own voice echo back. It sounds like someone pounding a stone on a steel drum to anyone but me. The muzzle flash is quick and sharp. It's so black out here I can't tell which way the gunfire glistens. I'm looking right at him and I can't decide if he really sees me behind the concrete barriers or if he's bluffing. Every time the gun flashes, the light imprints in my vision and goes purple and blotches out all the little pinhole lights across the river in all their pretty colors. I see whole sections of the city pressed against the hills go dark in the silhouette of the shooter as he moves around for a better angle on me.
Or does he?
Does my eye glow and reflect the pinhole lights?
Does the barrel of my gun?
Can he see the glint of steel against all the porchlights and street signs and bars blinking neon?
His shots are wild and afraid. I'm scared, too. But I'm scared stiff. It takes all my concentration to move my arm with the blacked-out lights as it dances with the popping fire and deadly sounds. Takes all my concentration not to shake. And my gun thunders. And in the light of the shot I see the gunman's loose surprise. And the silhouette drops like a curtain to reveal the skyline of the city hills unblemished. My ears ring until they fall on the noise of sirens. The voice of the wailing little light parade grows steadily closer. Underneath their cries, I hear the labored breaths of a dying man. His breaths sound a lot like the times you blew bubbles in your drink through a straw. His teeth click and grind and I can hear his breaths take the air so sharply between his clenched jaw it almost whistles. And he sees me against the color of the sky. And his breathing gets faster. So fast he gurgles and mutters curses from the pain. I want to know if he can feel the air push out of his punctured lung. Can he feel the warm current lap against his insides? But what I want to know the most I know he won't be able to answer. I lean in close enough to smell his sweat. I have so many questions.
Do you know why I've hunted you all these days?
Do you know how I found you everywhere you ran?
Do you remember how they trusted you? Or who they were at all?
Even against the screaming cries of the sirens, I whisper close to him because I know he can hear. All my questions, they boil down to "Do you remember who I am?" And the sound of my voice breaks mountains inside him, and he shudders in fear with the last of his breaths. His head knocks back and rolls a little against the ground. I stand as the patrols zip across the country roads, trying their best to reach the docks. The red and blue makes a light show between the branches and leaves. I can take my time before they reach the shore. So I follow the lights and the line of the river, the gun tucked in my pocket, knowing the sirens will never catch up to me.
Or does he?
Does my eye glow and reflect the pinhole lights?
Does the barrel of my gun?
Can he see the glint of steel against all the porchlights and street signs and bars blinking neon?
His shots are wild and afraid. I'm scared, too. But I'm scared stiff. It takes all my concentration to move my arm with the blacked-out lights as it dances with the popping fire and deadly sounds. Takes all my concentration not to shake. And my gun thunders. And in the light of the shot I see the gunman's loose surprise. And the silhouette drops like a curtain to reveal the skyline of the city hills unblemished. My ears ring until they fall on the noise of sirens. The voice of the wailing little light parade grows steadily closer. Underneath their cries, I hear the labored breaths of a dying man. His breaths sound a lot like the times you blew bubbles in your drink through a straw. His teeth click and grind and I can hear his breaths take the air so sharply between his clenched jaw it almost whistles. And he sees me against the color of the sky. And his breathing gets faster. So fast he gurgles and mutters curses from the pain. I want to know if he can feel the air push out of his punctured lung. Can he feel the warm current lap against his insides? But what I want to know the most I know he won't be able to answer. I lean in close enough to smell his sweat. I have so many questions.
Do you know why I've hunted you all these days?
Do you know how I found you everywhere you ran?
Do you remember how they trusted you? Or who they were at all?
Even against the screaming cries of the sirens, I whisper close to him because I know he can hear. All my questions, they boil down to "Do you remember who I am?" And the sound of my voice breaks mountains inside him, and he shudders in fear with the last of his breaths. His head knocks back and rolls a little against the ground. I stand as the patrols zip across the country roads, trying their best to reach the docks. The red and blue makes a light show between the branches and leaves. I can take my time before they reach the shore. So I follow the lights and the line of the river, the gun tucked in my pocket, knowing the sirens will never catch up to me.
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Plagued: Rescue And Redemption
I come to reality. Away from my fever dream. And as my senses return, so does the pain. Needles prick the back of my eyes and I hope it's one last sensation before death. I've saved a people. Not all, but enough to deserve my reward. I sigh in my rest, and my breathing becomes a moan.
"He wakes!" A soft cry from a child. Boy or girl, at such an age it's hard to tell.
"You hear that?" The voice is familiar. A rasp on the air.
It takes maybe a minute to realize no matter how hard I think of it, release won't come so easy. I open my eyes and turn my head to my unwanted benefactors, much to their surprise. The boy gasps and quickly looks away. The old man lifts his head in a start.
"So the dead rise," he says.
I turn to my side and lift myself onto my feet. Or I try, at least. As I twist my body to its side, I accidentally lay across the wound in my flank, remembering just in time that it's there. At the same time I feel a lesion in my back pop and a warm ooze trail my spine. Feeling numb to everything and then feeling everything at once, I yell a sharp noise and fall to the ground. It's here I also rediscover my head wound.
"I have a feeling Lazarus had a little more grace," the old man says. He and the boy wait a while in silence, perhaps to hear if I have a retort, but I just lay on the packed dirt floor and shiver. After a moment of silence, they motion themselves by each of my arms and unstick me from the earth. The old man mumbles incoherently and I stutter back. A conversation between imbeciles.
I'm thrown like a cadaver back onto the stone slab, ready for dissection at the hands of the butcher. Though my muscles decay and my organs melt, the boy still has trouble placing me on the cold altar. The shivers die as they bring the flame of a torch closer. The torch lights the lines in my face and I flinch from the brightness. The old man's uncut nails pry at my eyelids. He peers deep into the nothingness. "You too then," he says. "Dead like us."
The fever dreams sweep in and out of my vision with the flame. Images of waves crashing, the sea black with ink... crowds of people lining up, taking turns to prod me with jagged hands.
He moves the flames away: "You'll need to leave soon. Stay to wither or follow, I don't care. But the grain in our fields were planted too late into the winter to live. Our first harvest was taken from us. Our farm hands have left town to survive elsewhere."
He moves the flame close to me: "I only ask that if you find the strength to walk out of here and stay within our step that you bury us, should we die first."
I will not spend my last days at heel with a pauper to bury him in his grave. "I will not spe--spend--" I cough and grow cold again. As I lift my body from the slab I find the strength to exercise my words again. "I won't bury you. I wouldn't expect you to do the same."
"You're not planning on dying here, are you? There's nothing left, and you have some days on you yet."
"I have more than days." The air passes through the door and divides between us. Awkwardness fills the void. Snow kicks its little fury into the room. I watch it melt for a time. I wait for someone to break the silence. The way I look, they're waiting to see if I expire. My voice booms in the thick of the dark and they jump, fully expecting me to keel where I sit. "Your people left, and they expect themselves to live?"
"It's happened before," the old man says, "Never the same group of people you met last time. Sometimes someone familiar will pop up. New clothes, new wounds. In the last town they farmed, in the next they delegate the courts."
"You're nomads?"
"Well we don't mean to be. We're forced to be. Nomads of ghost towns. We occupy the spaces left behind."
"By that man in the stolen life? The horse that wasn't his? The sword that wasn't his?"
The man rose his voice as if I couldn't hear him. "You act like you've never seen a thief before."
"A thief?" I muse, "A thief has decency. At least enough to leave the town when their prosper is gone."
"Not in this world. They stay to loot the corpses as well. The one you met-- the one you speak of... he's just as bad as the rest, he just happens to be our particular cancer... Named himself The Son of Lilith."
I can't hold the chuckle over a title so ludicrous. "I'm willing to bet he's a Matthew. Never have met one that wasn't a colossal ass."
"Don't take anything of the sort lightly. You're liable to die by one's blade if the illness doesn't kill you first--"
"Enough." I rise to my feet. They stay planted this time. The muscles are more rigid, the mind more focused, the lungs rasping still-- but the job be done. "I won't die here. And I refuse to die by the steel of a lesser."
The old man jeers and lowers his torch to the ground, grinding the flicker into the dirt: "Well I'm happy you made up your mind then." I walk towards the door, set to wander after salvation. Shall the snow freeze my veins, or anything more rewarding, I'll seek it. But I'll do so alone. "Wait a moment, wait a moment." The old man leaned to the other side of the slab I've lain on. "Might as well take this. It's of no use to anyone else. You've infected the damn thing with your blood." He raised-- so much as you could call it that, his strength ebbing from sickness-- the sword that Son of Lilith let fell to his side, and dropped it on my resting place. I walked back and looked at the workmanship. The man spoke again as I studied the craft, and my own branding of dried blood at the point. "I'm not sure your games, but it seems to me you aim to die whilst acting the world isn't already set to ruin. You'll find that outside of your pampered walls there lies a hatred in all men. And they don't look at the abhorrence in themselves to fight, they look to fight those that have what they don't."
"I have nothing," I said to him.
"You have the luck to stand with courage to tyrants."
"It's a learned trait. Why did you say I came from 'pampered walls'? What do you know of me?"
"Your pants, for one. You may be some shirtless heathen from a distance but no one wears linens like that unless you were going to bed. People around here don't have beds. And frankly you don't smell like shit like everyone else."
"I noticed." I picked up the sword, heavy in my hand, but a blessing to feel that weight again. It belonged to a soldier, for that I'm sure, but the blade was long. It seemed to be from a lancer-- someone to cut from the height of his horse. As far as I knew, The Son of Lilith got his steed and steel from the same man. I turned to the boy but spoke to his senior. "You've taught this lad well. You don't feed him as much as yourself but you taught him manners at least. He hasn't spoken since I woke. He knows this is conversation between men. Rare to see civility in these parts."
The old man furrowed his brow and leaned as if hard to hear. "You're mistaken. Since you woke? He hasn't spoken at all. His tongue has swollen from the illness, and can no longer converse. Same reason he's so thin. He can't eat but simple broths." The boy stood against the wall and would not look at me, only at his compatriot. The old man spoke again as he stepped a stride closer: "You hear voices and-- tell me-- do you see things that allude you, too?" I turned away from his accusations. "Your mind, my friend from privilege... has it rot?"
I lis't to his words no more. In part from my humor that there would be a possibility that I've fallen so far in so short a time, and in part of my fear that he prophesied truth. I strode out the door. In the time since I arose in that hovel, the snow clouds had passed. I stopped in the street to breathe the smoking air. "I thank you for your kindness, as lacking as I was in want of it. But tell me, where is the nearest kingdom?"
He and the boy poked their heads from the threshold of the hut. The old man asked, "To do what? No one will let you in their gates. You wander like anyone else on the outside." I repeated the question. The truth is, I have hopes to speak my name and be treated as equals to a diplomat. I have had dealing, and have fought alongside, many kingdoms in the past. Rarely have I met face-to-face with other men of royalty, but our respect was always traded between consuls and clergy. But I would not tell this to the elder and the young man. Dying stragglers will show me no gratitude at their walls. Finally, with thought, he listed the towers one sees on horizons and the names the locale give to them. Within the names I chose one. Murray, whose armies I've supplied in the past, and heard tales of their victories from my throne.
I sniffed at the air again to feel the rattle in my lungs, and walked with sword drug at my side towards rescue or redemption.
"He wakes!" A soft cry from a child. Boy or girl, at such an age it's hard to tell.
"You hear that?" The voice is familiar. A rasp on the air.
It takes maybe a minute to realize no matter how hard I think of it, release won't come so easy. I open my eyes and turn my head to my unwanted benefactors, much to their surprise. The boy gasps and quickly looks away. The old man lifts his head in a start.
"So the dead rise," he says.
I turn to my side and lift myself onto my feet. Or I try, at least. As I twist my body to its side, I accidentally lay across the wound in my flank, remembering just in time that it's there. At the same time I feel a lesion in my back pop and a warm ooze trail my spine. Feeling numb to everything and then feeling everything at once, I yell a sharp noise and fall to the ground. It's here I also rediscover my head wound.
"I have a feeling Lazarus had a little more grace," the old man says. He and the boy wait a while in silence, perhaps to hear if I have a retort, but I just lay on the packed dirt floor and shiver. After a moment of silence, they motion themselves by each of my arms and unstick me from the earth. The old man mumbles incoherently and I stutter back. A conversation between imbeciles.
I'm thrown like a cadaver back onto the stone slab, ready for dissection at the hands of the butcher. Though my muscles decay and my organs melt, the boy still has trouble placing me on the cold altar. The shivers die as they bring the flame of a torch closer. The torch lights the lines in my face and I flinch from the brightness. The old man's uncut nails pry at my eyelids. He peers deep into the nothingness. "You too then," he says. "Dead like us."
The fever dreams sweep in and out of my vision with the flame. Images of waves crashing, the sea black with ink... crowds of people lining up, taking turns to prod me with jagged hands.
He moves the flames away: "You'll need to leave soon. Stay to wither or follow, I don't care. But the grain in our fields were planted too late into the winter to live. Our first harvest was taken from us. Our farm hands have left town to survive elsewhere."
He moves the flame close to me: "I only ask that if you find the strength to walk out of here and stay within our step that you bury us, should we die first."
I will not spend my last days at heel with a pauper to bury him in his grave. "I will not spe--spend--" I cough and grow cold again. As I lift my body from the slab I find the strength to exercise my words again. "I won't bury you. I wouldn't expect you to do the same."
"You're not planning on dying here, are you? There's nothing left, and you have some days on you yet."
"I have more than days." The air passes through the door and divides between us. Awkwardness fills the void. Snow kicks its little fury into the room. I watch it melt for a time. I wait for someone to break the silence. The way I look, they're waiting to see if I expire. My voice booms in the thick of the dark and they jump, fully expecting me to keel where I sit. "Your people left, and they expect themselves to live?"
"It's happened before," the old man says, "Never the same group of people you met last time. Sometimes someone familiar will pop up. New clothes, new wounds. In the last town they farmed, in the next they delegate the courts."
"You're nomads?"
"Well we don't mean to be. We're forced to be. Nomads of ghost towns. We occupy the spaces left behind."
"By that man in the stolen life? The horse that wasn't his? The sword that wasn't his?"
The man rose his voice as if I couldn't hear him. "You act like you've never seen a thief before."
"A thief?" I muse, "A thief has decency. At least enough to leave the town when their prosper is gone."
"Not in this world. They stay to loot the corpses as well. The one you met-- the one you speak of... he's just as bad as the rest, he just happens to be our particular cancer... Named himself The Son of Lilith."
I can't hold the chuckle over a title so ludicrous. "I'm willing to bet he's a Matthew. Never have met one that wasn't a colossal ass."
"Don't take anything of the sort lightly. You're liable to die by one's blade if the illness doesn't kill you first--"
"Enough." I rise to my feet. They stay planted this time. The muscles are more rigid, the mind more focused, the lungs rasping still-- but the job be done. "I won't die here. And I refuse to die by the steel of a lesser."
The old man jeers and lowers his torch to the ground, grinding the flicker into the dirt: "Well I'm happy you made up your mind then." I walk towards the door, set to wander after salvation. Shall the snow freeze my veins, or anything more rewarding, I'll seek it. But I'll do so alone. "Wait a moment, wait a moment." The old man leaned to the other side of the slab I've lain on. "Might as well take this. It's of no use to anyone else. You've infected the damn thing with your blood." He raised-- so much as you could call it that, his strength ebbing from sickness-- the sword that Son of Lilith let fell to his side, and dropped it on my resting place. I walked back and looked at the workmanship. The man spoke again as I studied the craft, and my own branding of dried blood at the point. "I'm not sure your games, but it seems to me you aim to die whilst acting the world isn't already set to ruin. You'll find that outside of your pampered walls there lies a hatred in all men. And they don't look at the abhorrence in themselves to fight, they look to fight those that have what they don't."
"I have nothing," I said to him.
"You have the luck to stand with courage to tyrants."
"It's a learned trait. Why did you say I came from 'pampered walls'? What do you know of me?"
"Your pants, for one. You may be some shirtless heathen from a distance but no one wears linens like that unless you were going to bed. People around here don't have beds. And frankly you don't smell like shit like everyone else."
"I noticed." I picked up the sword, heavy in my hand, but a blessing to feel that weight again. It belonged to a soldier, for that I'm sure, but the blade was long. It seemed to be from a lancer-- someone to cut from the height of his horse. As far as I knew, The Son of Lilith got his steed and steel from the same man. I turned to the boy but spoke to his senior. "You've taught this lad well. You don't feed him as much as yourself but you taught him manners at least. He hasn't spoken since I woke. He knows this is conversation between men. Rare to see civility in these parts."
The old man furrowed his brow and leaned as if hard to hear. "You're mistaken. Since you woke? He hasn't spoken at all. His tongue has swollen from the illness, and can no longer converse. Same reason he's so thin. He can't eat but simple broths." The boy stood against the wall and would not look at me, only at his compatriot. The old man spoke again as he stepped a stride closer: "You hear voices and-- tell me-- do you see things that allude you, too?" I turned away from his accusations. "Your mind, my friend from privilege... has it rot?"
I lis't to his words no more. In part from my humor that there would be a possibility that I've fallen so far in so short a time, and in part of my fear that he prophesied truth. I strode out the door. In the time since I arose in that hovel, the snow clouds had passed. I stopped in the street to breathe the smoking air. "I thank you for your kindness, as lacking as I was in want of it. But tell me, where is the nearest kingdom?"
He and the boy poked their heads from the threshold of the hut. The old man asked, "To do what? No one will let you in their gates. You wander like anyone else on the outside." I repeated the question. The truth is, I have hopes to speak my name and be treated as equals to a diplomat. I have had dealing, and have fought alongside, many kingdoms in the past. Rarely have I met face-to-face with other men of royalty, but our respect was always traded between consuls and clergy. But I would not tell this to the elder and the young man. Dying stragglers will show me no gratitude at their walls. Finally, with thought, he listed the towers one sees on horizons and the names the locale give to them. Within the names I chose one. Murray, whose armies I've supplied in the past, and heard tales of their victories from my throne.
I sniffed at the air again to feel the rattle in my lungs, and walked with sword drug at my side towards rescue or redemption.
Handle With Care Issue 4
PANEL:
JACK and JILL stare down at the viewer,
deep inside the box.
JACK
I
don't think it takes requests, Jill.
PANEL:
Same shot, JACK squints and JILL as she
drops toy money down at the reader.
JACK
I don't think it takes
bribes, either.
PANEL:
JACK continues looking inside the box.
JILL walks away from it, throwing her hands up to the air in
distress.
JACK
Even if it did, I'm not
sure it accepts plastic coins.
JILL
It's not fair! The last
adventure stunk! I didn't even get to be a princess!
PANEL:
JACK turns away from his sister,
longingly looking at a temporary tattoo he has on his forearm as he
lifts up his shirt sleeve. JILL looks at his with a raised brow in
the background. The tattoo depicts a horse with a rainbow.
JACK
Well I didn't
exactly get to be a knight, either.
JILL
What's that?
PANEL:
JACK quickly pulls his sleeve down and
turns back to JILL.
JACK
UM. FLAMES. AND
DAGGERS.
PANEL:
JILL digs into her pink purse.
JILL
It's hard to know what to
pack when you don't know where you'll end up.
JACK
[OFF-PANEL]
What did you pack?
PANEL:
JILL holds up a couple of plastic guns
with rubber bands loaded onto them as JACK looks on.
JILL
Well, rubber band guns..
JACK
Good...
JILL
...a baggie of the
marshmallows cereal minus the cereal...
JACK
...very good...
PANEL:
JILL holds up a bottle of kids glue.
It has a couple of “rad” kids on the cover, with backwards hats
and sunglasses, one rides a skateboard. The bottle has a big logo on
it that says “DA BOMB GLOO”.
JILL
[OFF-PANEL]
… and this glue.
JACK
[OFF-PANEL]
O...kaaayyyy...
PANEL:
JACK holds the bottle of glue as JILL
explains herself.
JILL
Think about it. The
rocket ships, the flying machine... We can never escape because our
stuff keeps breaking.
JACK
Good point.
Why do they
have to try and make glue seem appealing to kids, though?
PANEL:
JILL walks towards the box with
shrugged shoulders. JACK looks at her with wide eyes.
JILL
Gee, I dunno, Jack. Does
it look tasty or something?
JACK
THAT'S A CRUEL RUMOR.
I NEVER DID THAT.
PANEL:
JILL brings one leg over the side of
the box with a smile. JACK looks at her defeated.
JILL
Yeah, I'm sure mom
spread that rumor all over school.
JACK
Mom told you?
PANEL:
JILL stands in the box and smiles at
JACK. JACK just stares at the bottle in his hands.
JILL
C'mon!
PANEL:
A silent panel, same view as the last,
with JILL now frowning.
PANEL:
Same view again. JILL is now rolling
her eyes.
JILL
Okay I'm sorry about the
glue thing, but you have to admit--
JACK
It's not that, it's
just...
Maybe we shouldn't go?
PANEL:
JILL stands with her arms spread out
and a furrowed brow. JACK walks towards the box holding the bottle
of glue.
JILL
Are you on this whole
“we'll die” kick again?
JACK
Sigh
No.
PANEL:
JACK situates
himself over the edge of the box as JILL grabs a flap to close.
JILL
Who
knows? Maybe we'll have a cool mystery story.
JACK
Yeah,
okay.
PANEL:
The box flaps are
being closed. JILL smiles as she closes her end, her arm
outstretched like she's reading the title on some grand marquee.
JACK squats in the box and angrily frowns at her.
JILL
“The
Case Of The Missing Glue”
PANEL:
A silent, dark
panel.
PANEL:
Another dark
panel.
JACK
How
do we know when it works?
PANEL:
And another one.
A low rumbling onomatopoeia cuts through the panel.
JILL
Wait!
What's that rumbling sound?
JACK
And
that actual rumbling?
PANEL:
THE KIDS'
silhouettes shine through the window as they open a small curtain.
PANEL:
A large splash
page of THE KIDS' amazed faces as they sit in a stagecoach, which
speeds through a mesa. The horses trudge on as their riders fire
rifles behind them, towards a group of five or six horseback riders
firing back with their pistols.
JACK
AND JILL
Woah!
PANEL:
JACK and JILL
collectively poke their heads out the window, holding onto their
hats, smiling. They're dressed in ragged cowboy clothes, bandanas
tied around their necks. JACK has a 5 o'clock shadow. JILL looks
back toward the Sheriff and his deputies, while JACK looks at the
driving gang of bandits.
JACK
Cool!
Cops and robbers!
JILL
Yeah!
Get the bandits!
PANEL:
JACK looks over in
JILL's direction, squinting at the law. JILL, still holding onto her
hat, looks up at the brim with wide eyes as a hole appears.
JACK
Kinda
looks like they're shooting at them.
JILL
KINDA FEELS LIKE
SHOOTING TOO, JACK.
PANEL:
THE KIDS duck back
inside the safety of the stagecoach. JACK stretches out out his
bandana with one hand and feels his rough cheek with the other. JILL
holds her hat in front of her, poking a finger through the hole in
the brim with wide eyes, staring at JACK.
JACK
Oh
jeez! We're dressed like bandits!
JILL
That's
no fair! We didn't even get to flip a coin!
PANEL:
JILL stares at
JACK with terror as he strokes his 5 o'clock shadow with a grin.
JILL
What
are we supposed to do?!
PANEL:
JILL glares as
JACK as he continues to stroke his chin.
PANEL:
JILL slaps JACK
very roughly.
JILL
Snap
out of it, Jack! You have 30 years yet!
PANEL:
A large hole is
shot through the back of the stagecoach, blasting open bags of money
and coins, spraying the currency out the back.
PANEL:
A large figure,
THE BANDIT BOSS, pokes his head through the sunroof of the
stagecoach. He looks gruff and probably hasn't bathed in some years.
THE
BOSS
Quick!
PANEL:
THE KIDS yell,
JACK holding onto JILL's shoulders, hiding behind her, while she
clenches her eyes tight and and throws her hat.
THE
KIDS
AAAAHHH!
PANEL:
The hat hits THE
BOSS in the face.
PANEL:
THE BOSS just
looks at them indifferent. He takes off his hat.
THE
BOSS
Good.
You still know our gang sign.
PANEL:
THE BOSS' hat hits
JILL square in the face while JACK snickers.
THE
BOSS
[OFF-PANEL]
Now
we're almost to the hideout. But we still have to shake the law.
PANEL:
THE BOSS drags his
finger across his throat.
THE
BOSS
Otherwise...
PANEL:
THE BOSS leans his
head back out of the stagecoach as THE KIDS look at each other.
THE
BOSS
I
believe in you!
PANEL:
JILL
grabs JACK by the shoulders and shakes him fiercely.
JILL
Do
your cheater bubble, Jack! We need your force field to keep us
alive!
JACK
Stop
calling it that! It's a science!
PANEL:
JACK
stretches his arms out and has a straining look as he tries to
materialize his force field. JILL anxiously watches in anticipation.
JILL
Hurry!
JACK
I'm...
PANEL:
A
closer look at JACK's face as he strains harder, his eyes popping and
biting his bottom lip. JILL nags him behind his shoulder.
JACK
...trying!
JILL
This
is no time for poop faces! We're gonna get shot!
PANEL:
JACK
gives up and worryingly looks at his hands. JILL yells in
exacerbated motions.
JACK
It...
It didn't work!
JILL
WHAT?!
PANEL:
JACK
and JILL run behind the bags of money, piled at the back near the
hole in the stagecoach. They strain to push them with all their
little kid might.
JACK
We
have to get rid of this stolen money! Maybe then they'll stop
shooting at us!
JILL
Puuuuush!
PANEL:
The
money slumps out the back of the stagecoach and spills onto the
desert floor. THE KIDS look on out the back of the hole as the
stagecoach speeds on.
PANEL:
A
closer view of THE KIDS at the back of the stagecoach. JILL squints
with one hand over her brow to look closer at the action. JACK turns
his head to look at her.
JACK
Did
it work?
PANEL:
The
same panel, but with both JACK and JILL wearing widened eyes. “BAM”
and “ZIP” line the page as bullets graze past JACK's face.
PANEL:
The
same panel again, but with JACK looking towards the horsemen and JILL
looking at JACK's half-shaved face.
PANEL:
JACK holds his
hand out to JILL, with refreshed terror, as she digs around in her
purse.
JACK
Quick,
Jill! Get the guns!
PANEL:
JILL stops digging
in her purse, staring straight ahead with wide eyes.
JACK
Jill?
JILL
At...
at least we have glue to hold together our friendship...
PANEL:
JACK and JILL yell
at each other.
JACK
YOU FORGOT THE ONE
THING THAT COULD KEEP US ALIVE?!
JILL
Well
at least we won't die with empty stomachs!
PANEL:
JILL holds up a
feedbag for horses up out of her purse.
JILL
Here!
I'll eat from the—the--the feedbag (apparently)
of marshmallows--
PANEL:
JACK is tossed a
small wooden barrel with a fuse coming out of it from off-panel.
JILL
[OFF-PANEL]
--and
you can have your favorite snack!
PANEL:
JACK holds the
small barrel in his hands, the logo has a cowboy with sunglasses on
it. The logo now says “YE GLOO BOMB”
JILL
[OFF-PANEL]
Maybe
if you eat it it'll keep your mouth shut!
PANEL:
JACK grabs a box
of matches from out of his shirt pocket.
JACK
Shut
up a minute, Jill. This might work!
JILL
[OFF-PANEL]
What
are you doing?
PANEL:
JACK lights the
fuse.
JACK
This
is Da Bomb Gloo. Maybe it'll act like a real bomb and harmlessly get
the cops stuck!
PANEL:
JACK starts
pushing at the sacks of money, straining himself while bullets buzz
by.
PANEL:
JILL watches over
JACK's shoulder as he tosses the glue bomb out of the hole in the
back of the stagecoach with a smile.
JILL
How
do you know it'll work?
JACK
Kid
logic!
PANEL:
The bomb rolls in
between the group of horses.
PANEL:
The bomb explodes,
sending the horses flying.
PANEL:
THE KIDS look on
out the back of the stagecoach with horrified expressions as the
Sheriff and deputies scream in agony.
DEPUTY
#1
[OFF-PANEL]
AAAAGH!
DEPUTY
#2
[OFF-PANEL]
WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN
MEEEE?!
DEPUTY
#3
[OFF-PANEL]
MY HORSE! MY
LAW-ABIDING HORSE!
DEPUTY
#4
[OFF-PANEL]
AAAHHHHH!
PANEL:
The stagecoach
rolls away towards the canyon pass, while a figure looks on in the
foreground, shakily standing up.
THE
FIGURE
Gah!
There's hot glue in my eye, dagnabbit!
PANEL:
THE FIGURE stands
with a hands over one eye, steam stretching between his fingers. His
big, shiny badge reveals he is THE SHERIFF. Grand mustache and all.
SHERIFF
I
will have my revenge!!
PANEL:
The sun
begins to set as the stagecoach pulls up to the top of a cliffy mesa,
the darkness begins to loom over the desert.
JACK
[FROM INSIDE THE STAGECOACH]
Okay,
I dunno what we're gonna do, but we have to act casual.
PANEL:
JILL
has her hands upturned and clawed, grasping for answers with a
worried expression. JACK reflects her worry, with a hand under his
hat, scratching his head.
JILL
Casual
how? These are bandits! Should we eat glass or
something? Is that bandit casual?
JACK
I—I
dunno. Let's just... act tough.
PANEL:
JACK
and JILL exit the stagecoach toward the reader, with crazed looks on
their faces, attempting to be “tough”.
PANEL:
THE
KIDS are immediately hit in the faces with four thrown hats.
THE
BANDITS
[OFF-PANEL]
YEEHAW!
PANEL:
JACK
and JILL are picked up under their armpits by smiling BANDITS. THE
KIDS scream in terror.
THE
KIDS
AAAAAHHHHH!
BANDIT
#1
That
was some of the finest misdemeanors against law enforcement
I've ever seen!
BANDIT
#2
That
oughta teach the gubbermint to stick their faces into our charity
work!
PANEL:
THE
KIDS are put down and confusedly look to each other.
JACK
Your—Uhhhh...?
PANEL:
THE
BANDITS all high-five and throw their fists into the air in
celebration. JACK and JILL watch them in the background.
BANDIT
#3
Now
we can give the schoolkids the lice checks they deserve!
JILL
Um.
THE
BOSS
And
clean drinking water for the town's folk!
JACK
Uh
oh.
BANDIT
#2
And
braces for Carter, the town leper.
PANEL:
JACK
grabs JILL by the shoulders.
JACK
Jill,
these guys aren't bad at all. They're like illiterate Robin Hoods.
PANEL:
THE
BOSS walks to the back of the stagecoach with a smile, where peering
into the hole, the reader can see straggling bits of coin and bills
on the wooden floor. JACK and JILL rush over to him, just a little
too late.
THE
BOSS
Alright,
guys! Let's unload the cash and get on down to the ice cream
social--
THE
KIDS
Wait!
PANEL:
THE
BOSS glares inside the darkness of the stagecoach with shaken terror.
THE KIDS look at each other with equal worry on either side of him.
THE
BOSS
Whu—What
happened?
JACK
Gulp
PANEL:
THE
BOSS looks down to JACK and JILL with a bit of sadness.
JILL
Well
the cops were after us and we forgot our guns so...
THE
BOSS
You
didn't...
JACK
We
did. Make no mistake.
PANEL:
JACK
and JILL look up at the reader in horror as four shadows loom over
them.
JILL
Wh—what
are you gonna do?
PANEL:
THE
BANDITS collectively close their eyes and hang their heads in shame.
One even holds his forehead in his hand and lowers his hat.
THE
BOSS
We're...
just... so disappointed in you guys.
PANEL:
JACK
and JILL continue to look up, no longer in horror.
JACK
That...
PANEL:
THE
KIDS look to one-another, heart-broken.
JACK
That
hurt worse.
PANEL:
JILL
fervently throws her hands in the air and shouts to THE BOSS, who
continues to hang his head in disappointment. JACK angrily talks at
JILL's side.
JILL
You're
not gonna hang us high?
THE
BOSS
No.
JILL
Or
have us drawn with quarters?
THE
BOSS
No.
JACK
Stop
trying to convince him, Jill!
PANEL:
THE
BOSS looks at them with saddened eyes, but manages to upturn a smile
at them as well.
THE
BOSS
Y'all
did us proud out there, regardless of the mistakes you made.
PANEL:
THE
BOSS walks towards a newly-kindled fire, away from THE KIDS, as THE
OTHER BANDITS do something to each others' arms. One blows on a new
tattoo.
JILL
I've
never had a compliment make me feel so bad.
THE
BOSS
Come!
We must initiate y'all into our gang. Tattoos for the new kids!
PANEL:
BANDIT
#2 holds out pieces of cut-up paper in his hands with a smile. JILL
freaks out with her hands outstretched, pushing away the offer.
JILL
No
way! Tattoos hurt! Mom says they lead to low income!
BANDIT
#2
Don't
you worry. They're temporary.
PANEL:
JILL
curiously looks at the selections with a smile. BANDIT #2 holds up a
finger.
JILL
Ooh!
Can I have the ones with sparkles?
BANDIT
#2
Yes
you may.
PANEL:
BANDIT
#3 lifts up JACK's shirt sleeve and his arm, revealing the horse
tattoo he hid earlier, much to JACK's horror.
BANDIT
#3
Hey,
check it out! He's already got one!
PANEL:
THE
REST OF THE GANG closely inspect JACK's tattoo with interest. JILL
just amusingly glares at JACK close to his face while he
embarrassingly shies away from her.
BANDIT #1
Looks
like a Clydesdale.
THE
BOSS
Are
you from the Chicago chapter?
JACK
Uh...
No! That's just a-- just a symbol of love lost or something.
PANEL:
JILL
smiles with evil intent close to JACK, who looks up and away, trying
to come up with something on the fly.
JILL
What
was her name?
JACK
Ummm...
Suzy. You wouldn't know her. She goes to a different gang.
JILL
Where?
JACK
Canada.
PANEL:
JILL
leaps towards the rest of the gang, pointing a finger at a horrified
JACK.
JILL
HA!
Jack
has a girlfriend! Everyone do the song!
PANEL:
JACK is
center to the panel. He looks on in horror as THE REST OF THE GANG,
JILL included, border the panel and amusingly sing.
THE
GANG
Jack
and Suzy sittin' in a tree--
JACK
No.
PANEL:
Closer
on JACK as he puts his hands to his cheeks.
THE
GANG
K-I-S-S-I-N-G--
JACK
NO!
PANEL:
Close
on JACK's face as he screams in terror.
THE
GANG
First
comes love, then comes marriage--
JACK
NOOOOOOO!!
PANEL:
JACK
sits alone next to the horses, still tied to the stagecoach. He
glares at THE REST OF THE GANG and JILL as they sit around the
campfire, munching on marshmallows.
JACK
They
don't understand me the way you do, Thunder.
PANEL:
JILL
looks up next to BANDIT #1 as he glares longingly into the campfire.
JILL
So
what led to your war against, law, order, and soap?
BANDIT
#1:
Well,
I used to be a teacher...
PANEL:
JILL
puts a hand on BANDIT #1's shoulder and hangs her head in sadness.
JILL
Bad
from birth...
BANDIT
#1
I
liked my job and the job liked me. Lunches in the park, readings
from Shakespeare, town lynchings at 4...
PANEL:
JILL
leans closer with an attentive ear.
JILL
So
what happened? Was the school struck by lightening? Washed away in
a flood?
BANDIT
#1
No.
Measure 94 cut our funding.
PANEL:
JILL
lowers herself back to where she was and looks into the fire,
disheartened.
JILL
That's
anti-climactic.
BANDIT
#1
There's
no worse villain than a politician.
PANEL:
JILL
leans over with renewed hope to BANDIT #2 on the other side of her.
He, too, stares into the flames.
JILL
What
about you?
BANDIT
#2
I was
a local firefighter.
JILL
Did
you like starting fires more than putting them out?
BANDIT
#2
No,
gerrymandering in our past elections led to district lines being--
PANEL:
JILL
grumpily cuts a look over to THE BOSS, sitting on the other side of
BANDIT #1.
JILL
UGH
And
you? Are you here because of lobbyists?
THE
BOSS
Yes.
PANEL:
JILL
looks across the fire at BANDIT #3.
JILL
And
what's your story?
BANDIT
#3
I'm
just interning here for college credit.
PANEL:
JILL is
no longer upset. She takes a genuine interest.
JILL
Oh
neat. What's your major?
PANEL:
BANDIT
#3 smiles in self-worth as JILL grows grumpy again.
BANDIT
#3
Political
Science.
PANEL:
JACK is
propped up-against a sleeping horse, tied to a post. JACK himself
sleeps. JILL has one hand on JACK's shoulder and lightly shakes him
awake.
JILL
Jack,
wake up!
JACK
What's
up?
PANEL:
JACK
sits up and tubs his eyes. JILL kneels beside him and explains her
situation.
JILL
Jack,
we can't go through with this robbery they've got planned. This
isn't who they are.
JACK
Really?
Who are they?
PANEL:
JILL
looks over towards THE GANG, sleeping next to a dying fire as the
sunrise begins to push its head above the hills.
JILL
Well,
okay. They're bandits, but they mean well and I don't think they'll
do well in jail.
PANEL:
JACK
sleepily looks to JILL as she raises her arms in the sky in
frustration.
JACK
Why
don't we just ride the horses out of here and do something else
instead?
JILL
You
can't always give up when you don't like the story, Jack!
PANEL:
JACK
walks to the back of the stagecoach with JILL in tow.
JACK
Am
not! But real quick follow me.
PANEL:
JACK
has his eyes closed as he kneels on the floor of the stagecoach.
JILL wanders in through the hole with a questioning look. The
outside light shines in.
JILL
What
are you doing?
JACK
Ssssshhh.
Just sit down and close your eyes.
PANEL:
JILL
mimics JACK's sitting. They sit across from each other in silence,
eyes shut.
PANEL:
JACK is
slowly getting up. JILL peeks one eye out at him.
JILL
What's
supposed to happen?
PANEL:
JACK is
walking away from JILL. JILL has an aggravated look.
JACK
I was
trying to have the box take us home because I don't like this story.
But fine, we'll do it your way.
PANEL:
JACK
holds the reigns of a galloping horse as JILL sits behind him,
shouting over the noise of the rushing wind. She holds strips of
paper in the air. The sun is now fully risen.
JACK
So
what's your plan exactly?
JILL
The
bandits are planning to rob the bank. But I noticed on this
newspaper they've been using as toilet paper that that same bank has
four job openings! If we can stop the bandits ahead of time and put
in a good word at the bank, maybe we can turn their lives around!
PANEL:
JACK
turns around inquiringly.
JACK
What?!
Like, two days ago you couldn't read!
JILL
Kid
logic!
JACK
That's
not how that works!
PANEL:
THE
BOSS has his hands on his hips, staring out over the mesa cliff into
the desert, looking proud. BANDIT #3 walks up behind him.
BANDIT
#3
Hey,
Boss. Where're the newbies?
PANEL:
BANDIT
#3 joins THE BOSS in looking happy.
THE
BOSS
Not
here! Took a horse, too! I bet they're getting' to the bank early
to help set-up the heist!
BANDIT
#3
What
a bunch of go-getters!
PANEL:
JACK
and JILL are held roughly by their shirt collars, forced to stand.
They have multiple guns pointed to their faces. JACK has a tired
look, while JILL yells in his face.
JACK
Jill
why did I think you knew how to read? You're five.
JILL
Hey
that's no fair. I'm smart!
PANEL:
A
shadow looms over THE KIDS. JACK retains his fed-up look.
JACK
You're
five.
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF stands looming over the reader. His head blots out the sun.
SHERIFF
Well,
well, well. I see we finally caught up to the deadly lives of The
Perilous Princess and Glue Boy.
PANEL:
JACK's
eyes are wide. JILL looks over to him with reserved feelings about
the insults.
JACK
Glue
Boy?
SHERIFF
[OFF-PANEL]
A.K.A.
Pasty Pete. A.K.A. The Glue Bandit. A.K.A. Glue-Eater. A.K.A.--
PANEL:
JILL
erupts toward THE SHERIFF while JACK wells with tears.
JILL
Alright
c'mon, it's only funny when I do it.
PANEL:
THE
SHERRIF gets close to their faces.
SHERRIF
I
want no words from you, li'l miss. I haven't forgotten what you
did...
JILL
Sure
you have. You're old.
JACK
Did
what?
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF points to his eyepatch aggravated and leers at THE CHILDREN.
SHERIFF
MY DAD-GUM EYE!
Y'ALL BURNED IT OUT
WITH HOT GLUE!
PANEL:
JACK
points a finger angrily at THE SHERIFF and JILL joins in on the
yelling.
JACK
You
should always wear eye protection and gloves when handling hot
decorative supplies! It says so on the box, stupid! Look it up!
JILL
Ask a
parent or guardian before going online!
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF pulls both kids close to him. They are afraid.
SHERIFF
You've
given away your friends and their plans to rob the bank! I say we go
pay them a little visit!
PANEL:
Switch
to the bank, mid-robbery. THE BOSS looks off into the distance with
an admiring look, his gun toted over his shoulder. BANDIT #1 picks
money up off the floor and into a bag. BANDIT #2 points a gun over
the counter into a patron's face. BANDIT #3 hops over the counter
towards THE BOSS in the lobby, his gun in one hand and a sack full of
money on the other. People are on the floor with their hands on
their heads.
BANDIT
#1
Doesn't
look like the newbies were here, Boss.
THE
BOSS
Didn't
you see? The floor was recently swept. Bet they came in here and
made the heist real clean for us.
BANDIT
#2
Mighty
kind of 'em.
BANDIT
#3
Buncha
go-getters I tell ya.
PANEL:
THE
SHERRIF yells through a rolled-up newspaper towards the bank. Like
previous, THE KIDS are held with guns on them, towards the background
with the deputies.
SHERIFF
Alright,
you robbers! Come out with your hands up and we'll shoot you quick!
We have a couple of your cohorts here with us and we're not afraid to
shoot them first!
PANEL:
THE
GANG hides behind the cover of the bank walls, peering slightly from
the windows.
THE
BOSS
Dang!
They've
got Princess and Glue Boy!
BANDIT
#2
What'll
we do, Boss?
PANEL:
THE
GANG walk out of the bank with their heads lowered and their hands in
the air.
THE
BOSS
Honor
among thieves...
PANEL:
THE
GANG quickly pull out their guns with smirks and smiles and begin
firing into the crowd of deputies.
THE
BOSS
Psych!
No honor among thieves!
PANEL:
A gun
drops from the top of the panel from a shot deputy into one of JILL's
hands. JACK sprints forward holding onto JILL's other hand while
ducking one of his own hands on top of his head.
JACK
Quick,
Jill! We gotta get out of here!
PANEL:
THE
KIDS hunker down as JACK runs with JILL hand-held close behind.
Bullets skim over their heads.
JILL
Try
the force field again!
JACK
I've
been trying this entire time! Nothing is working! You do
something!
PANEL:
With
crazed eyes, JILL fires wildly off-panel.
JILL
YAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH--
PANEL:
JILL
looks at the revolver, which only carries 6 shots, with
disappointment.
JILL
--aaaawww,
jeez. Out of bullets already?
PANEL:
JACK
and JILL rush behind some barrels in the background while THE SHERIFF
and THE BOSS stare each other down, fumbling with their own guns,
doing specific maintenance and reloading as they quarrel. THE REST
OF THE GANG and THE DEPUTIES do the same elsewhere in the panel.
JILL
Old-timey
technology stinks.
SHERIFF
Soon
as three minutes pass where I can reload my gun and fix this firing
pin, you're a dead man!
THE
BOSS
Oh
yeah? Well so long as you stay within 10 feet of me I'll hit you
first!
BANDIT
#1
Best
10% accuracy money can buy!
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF and THE BOSS are almost face-to-face with their sneers. JACK
and JILL pop their heads out from behind the barrels in the
background as JILL yells to them.
SHERIFF
I
hate your guts!
THE
BOSS
I'd
hate yours too but you're just too dang gutless!
JILL
Punch
him in the throat!
PANEL:
THE
BOSS looks over to THE KIDS questioningly.
THE
BOSS
What?
PANEL:
JACK
has his turn to shout while JILL gives a thumbs-up, not smiling.
JACK
Just
punch them, dude!
PANEL:
THE
GANG scuffle with THE LAW, landing the blows all over them. THE KIDS
cheer from the background.
THE
KIDS
Yeah!
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF slumps to the ground in front of his horse. The horse has
something long wrapped in a blanket strapped to its side. THE BOSS
stands over him with clenched fists.
THE
BOSS
I'ma
finish what I should have finished on that playground 30 years ago,
Sheriff.
PANEL:
THE
KIDS throw their fists in the air and cheer.
JILL
Yeah!
JACK
Kick
his bottom, Boss!
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF glares and wipes his chin with the back of his hand.
THE
SHERIFF
Oh
I don't think so.
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF's hand clasps around the blanketed object on the horse.
PANEL:
The
blanket flies off in the wind as THE SHERIFF swings a large
broadsword close to THE BOSS' face. THE BOSS backs away, spooked.
SHERIFF
YAAAH!
PANEL:
JACK
and JILL stare in, wide-eyed, in confusion.
JACK
What?!
JILL
The
heck did he get a sword from?! That's--
PANEL:
THE
KIDS look up as the sun is blocked out by a large shadow.
JILL
--cheating...
PANEL:
In a
long panel, the silhouette of a dragon blocks out part of the sun.
PANEL:
A great
wing sweeps by THE KIDS as they duck with their hands on their heads.
A gust of wind rushes by them.
PANEL:
THE
BOSS is on the ground, his arms raised in defense, as THE SHERIFF
holds his sword high. Both look in sheer horror at the dragon that
zooms by.
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF yells to his deputies as THE BOSS runs to THE REST OF THE
GANG.
THE
BOSS & SHERIFF
[TOGETHER]
DRAGON!!
PANEL:
THE
BOSS picks THE KIDS up under each arm and runs for his life. The
dragon breathes fire and flies behind him.
JACK
WHAT IS GOING ON?!
THE
BOSS
DRAGONS HAVE RULED
THESE PARTS FOR GENERATIONS!
JILL
THAT'S NOT RIGHT!
PANEL:
THE
BOSS and THE KIDS run away far below the reader, as the dragon soars
up in the sky
JILL
YOU CITE YOUR SOURCES
RIGHT NOW!
PANEL:
THE
BOSS dives into a nearby barn without THE KIDS, into a pile of junk,
as the dragon flies by.
THE
BOSS
Oof!
PANEL:
THE
BOSS turns around out of the pile of junk.
THE
BOSS
Good
thing we got away from that dragon! They say the worst thing you can
do is keep running in his direct line of fire!
PANEL:
THE
BOSS continues to look up to the sky, alone.
PANEL:
THE
BOSS looks around him, waiting for an answer.
THE
BOSS
Did I
mess up?
PANEL:
THE
KIDS run away from the snarling dragon, JACK in the lead, holding
onto JILL's hand tightly as she practically flies behind him.
THE
KIDS
[TOGETHER]
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF kneels on the ground, tying his shoe laces in a panic.
DEPUTY
[OFF-PANEL]
Sheriff!
Get away from there!
The
dragon's coming right for you!
SHERIFF
Running
with untied shoes will kill me faster if I don't be careful!
PANEL:
JACK
takes a running jump off THE SHERIFF's face and into the air, JILL
still towed from behind.
JACK
Out
of the way, nerd!
JILL
Should've
used velcro!
PANEL:
A gust
of fire burns through THE SHERIFF, leaving him a crispy shell.
PANEL:
THE
BOSS holds his hat to his chest, looking sorrowful. THE GANG behind
him does the same.
THE
BOSS
I...
I don't think they made it.
BANDIT
#2
They
were the best bandits a gang could ask for.
PANEL:
The
same panel, but now BANDIT #1 looks up with wide eyes.
BANDIT
#1
Waitaminute.
Look!
PANEL:
THE
KIDS ride on the back of the fire-breathing dragon, ecstatic. They
have wide smiles and are making the “horns” sign with both hands.
THE
KIDS
[TOGETHER]
METAL!
PANEL:
The
dragon swoops by in the background as THE GANG watches, matching
their excitement.
THE
BOSS
They—They
did it! They're alive!
THE
KIDS
[TOGETHER]
METAAAAAAL!
PANEL:
THE
GANG hit each other in their faces with their hats as the dragon
rides further into the sun.
THE
BOSS
Good
luck on your adventures!
PANEL:
The
dragon continues to fly blindingly into the light.
THE
BOSS
[OFF-PANEL]
We'll
name the next charity fundraiser after you!
PANEL:
The sun
turns into a ceiling light.
PANEL:
THE
KIDS tip over the box and fumble onto the living room floor.
THE
KIDS
[TOGETHER]
AAAH!
PANEL:
From
the box's point of view, THE KIDS lay on the floor and look into the
darkness in the box.
JACK
Jill...
JILL
A
dragon? We didn't even get the story resolved! And why couldn't you make a force field?
PANEL:
From
behind THE KIDS' heads, we peer inside the darkness of the box.
JACK
What's
happening to the box?
PANEL:
The
world of darkness now has a soft glow to it. It rains softly on
marshy lands. THE SHERIFF gets up from the ground and rubs his head.
SHERIFF
Uuuuhh...
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF stands before a might castle, the gates stand 50 yards from
him as he marvels at the sight.
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF knocks on the wooden gate, shivering.
SHERIFF
H—Hello?
PANEL:
A voice
booms from behind the gate.
VOICE
What's the password?
PANEL:
THE
SHERIFF guesses wildly.
SHERIFF
I...
hate...
children...?
PANEL:
A
silent panel, staring at the gates.
PANEL:
The
gates open, there's nothing but darkness inside.
VOICE
No, but... I think we
have room for one more.
TO BE
CONTINUED...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)