precocious

Some claim April rain
brings the blossoms of May, but
trees here are hasty.


This is the opening stanza of this month's format challenge over at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads. We're writing a renga together, and I'm so excited to read the finished result.

Changeover Cue

Possibly triggering; mildly graphic, domestic abuse, sadism, uncomfortable situations.

Valentines

"Attention Barnes and Noble customers, the time is now 8:45. Our store will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your final selection and head to the register."

This is my cue to squat down behind the shelf marked "Computer and Technology" and look absorbed in the latest edition of XHTML for Dummies. The remaining stragglers, a few tweens in the Graphic Novel section that are trying way too hard to be different, begin to file down the stairs to the first floor and the long counter full of registers. Behind each register is a grim-eyed employee, smiling as hard as they can manage in this economy. They may hate their jobs and every customer they have to deal with, but they love that meager paycheck.

Heath is in the queue for the fifth register. The girl he's crushing on, Tish? She's six people ahead in the line, same as every Tuesday night for the past two months. I've watched every time. They always run into each other in the Science Fiction section. Once, Tish's hand lingered on a copy of Heretics of Dune just a few extra seconds, long enough for Heath to reach awkwardly for the same one and brush her fingers with his. This is what they do instead of dates. Neither of them are socially competent enough to even ask the other's name, let alone invite them for a cup of coffee, or Christ, to raid a dungeon with the other's guild.

It's okay, though. It's Valentine's Day, and Cupid is here for them.

I hunch behind the shelf and make a few necessary adjustments to the pistol crossbow in my coat. Ten minutes. If any employees are going to make a final round of the upstairs before closing, this is usually the time. I pull out a copy of Javascript and JQuery and bury my face in it, trying not to giggle at the stilted writing. I wonder who gets hired to write these things. Engineers, probably.

I read some incomprehensible programming instruction for five minutes, waiting for the next closing announcement. No one else wanders by, so I pull out my lovely little crossbow and take aim. I am a very good shot.

I have excellent timing, today--chubby, spotty Tish crumples lumpily to the floor just as her turn comes, and when Heath hikes up his ill-fitting pants to run to her side, I put my second gold-tipped bolt in his head. He falls flat on his face next to her instead, his sweaty hands flung out to her even as he's begun the involuntary shaking and jerking that follows massive brain trauma.

People are screaming and ducking for cover, but I've already made it down the stairs on the opposite side. I put my hands to my face and yell, "Oh my God," a few times. That gets me to the side of the building with the cafe exit, and no one's watching me anymore. They're watching Heath and Tish bleed out in unison, hearts pumping as one, together forever.

I adjust my coat and start whistling discreetly, but it's just too good, so I start to sing softly. "I've got you under my skin, hmm hmm hmm, I've got you deep in the heart of me. So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me..." I even do a little soft shoe to the Sinatra in my head on my way out the door.

True love is such a beautiful thing, I think to myself. I amble through the parking lot, in search of the next lucky couple.

--
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Lance challenged me with "At a Barnes and Noble book store in Daily, Georgia, Heath Dipolo is standing in line behind Tish Bejerano. Have them fall in love in 600 words." and I challenged M. Hunter with 

"'C'est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent!
Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas;
Chaque jour vers l'Enfer nous descendons d'un pas,
sans horreur, à travers des ténèbres qui puent.'

--Charles Baudelaire, 'Au Lecteur'"

Bolívar 1444

Buenos Aires, 6:00 AM
She wakes up all at once, eyes snapping open in the cold morning. Her eyelashes are clumped with mascara dried into spiders' legs, glitter and char smearing her puffy eyes. The delicate skin under her eyes is swollen and dark. Her hands are still covered in blood, half-dry but tacky enough to leave prints on the white linen as she shoves her way out of the bed. The pliers make a clattering sound when they hit the hardwood floor, even cushioned by the wayward duvet.

She stumbles toward the bathroom, but appears to hesitate, detouring left into the dining room. She picks up last night's half-empty bottle of whiskey and continues toward the kitchen, trailing her sticky hand along the waxed and polished surface of the dining table, burnished red-gold. The scent of lemon oil hangs heavy in the air. The pile of silver and broken china in the corner has a nacreous gleam.

She turns on the coffee pot and sinks down to the blue tile floor. She takes a pull from the whiskey bottle and sets it gently beside her. Her face is blank, inquiring, the face of a younger girl rediscovering a long-cherished piece of music. The burbling of the coffee pot punctuates the heavy silence and she cocks her head to the left, seeming to listen intently to a whisper that penetrates her personal fog.

She stands decisively once more, leaving the coffee and the whiskey to deal with themselves, striding into the bedroom to recover the pliers. She takes them into the music room, uses them to smash the enormous blue-patterned vase in the corner, then tosses them indifferently atop the leaking bundle of flesh slumped bonelessly in the center of the room. She scrabbles at the shards of porcelain without regard for her own skin, pulling from the mess a wad of cash and a wallet stuffed with rail tickets. She takes these into the bedroom, throws them in an open suitcase, then heads into the bathroom for a long-overdue shower.

She is gone by seven-thirty, and is never seen again.

9:00 AM
The fog of the morning is beginning to burn off already. The house is nearly silent, a dim retreat from the vague rush of the traffic outside. Sometimes people walking by are caught by its distinctive architecture, its inviting glow.

There are broken bits of teeth scattered on the floor next to the pieces of the vase, and they gleam in the new sunlight. The record player turns, ceaselessly, the restless scratch of the record's ending a whisper in the noise of the city. The house breathes, drawing in cool against the heat of the day.

Two weeks later:
The body, eventually discovered by the cleaning staff, is wrapped in black plastic and shuffled off to the city hospital. This case is all dead ends, and the police force is already overworked. No one can bring themselves to care about a pair of vagabond foreigners.

The file is put in the records room, the body cremated. It is a cold case.

The story sinks like a stone into some hidden trench, deep into the black. There is no publicity. The house is cleaned thoroughly and becomes just another rental property. This is not the first time the real estate agency has needed to employ a renovator known for his discretion.

When new couples come to view the house, it puts on its most inviting display.


--
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Amanda Lynn challenged me with "a shattered vase, a pair of pliers, and two tickets" and I challenged Brad MacDonald with "After the wave."

Eightfold Path

There are too many people in this world. People everywhere, cars spewing out a thick coat of invisible poison, factories and furnaces, killing the skin of the world we inhabit. They're everywhere, hemming us in on all sides with squalling infants and trash and terrible little clouds of germs. Particles. Maybe spores. You never can tell.

It's mostly the noise, the clashing and creaking, the wails and grunting that play marimba on my spine. I creep around in my apartment because, upstairs, the man who plays bass in some terrible cover band never takes off his shoes. I hear him thumping around every hour of the day. It doesn't bother me as much now that I don't sleep.

I hear voices through the walls, whispers and murmurs of people who might be alive or dead or somewhere in between. I never see my neighbors if I can help it. Everything I need can be delivered, except the gun. I had to buy that from a wizened little man in a bad part of town. His eyes were shark-cold and black, blacker than the hole in the muzzle of my new handgun. He never asked why I wanted such a thing, of course. I imagine someone in that line of work would rather not know his customers too well.

There are footsteps outside my door again, people running up and down the stairs. I think they tread as heavily as they can on purpose, hooting like monkeys who have finally discovered acoustics. There are people everywhere.

Before, I practiced avoiding notice. I tried as hard as I could to become invisible. I think it's worked; cabs don't stop for me, but then again, in this city it would be more of a surprise if I managed to catch one. At night I meditate instead of sleeping, holding a full clip in my loosely cupped hands, waiting to look into the void of empty mind. Without desire, I can achieve anything. The trick in that, though, is that I long to accomplish something great. I have not reconciled these emotions, and I will not reach nirvana in this way. Of course, I can't believe I will reach nirvana with all this noise around me.

Sometimes, in the holy hush of three in the morning, I walk down to the river and watch the lights in the water. Sometimes, yes, even then, there are people in my way. The people in my way at such an hour are never, ever missed.

I wish everyone would disappear, everyone in this city, leave me alone and let me meditate under the wide window, open to the sky. I would never become a bodhisattva and that is okay. Let them all vanish into smoke and dust and ash like the girls in the incinerator.

I could go out into the world and sit under a tree until another homeless man stands too close to me, offering drugs and requesting things I don't have to give. I could walk to the park, if another thoughtless young woman with a stroller too wide for the sidewalk wouldn't simply shove me aside with its nearly-armored sides. I am running out of places to put the loud, the rude, the hapless, and the damned.

I will stay in here with the candles and the bits of unburned bone until I hear silence out there, or until another knock on my door signals the loss of my invisibility. Or I will go out and remove another piece of trash from my city, one bullet at a time, one more splinter of annoyance pulled from under the nailbed of my soul.

The incinerator is the only quiet thing in this building. Sometimes I go into the dark and lie in front of its iron mouth, whispering sutras into its heat. Sometimes I see the faces in the fire and I am so grateful they are silenced forever. Sometimes when I blow out the candles on my windowsill, I make a wish, but then I remember that desire is the enemy. Is a wish the same as desire?

I cannot escape the prayer for silence, the great and sacred responsibility that has been laid upon me. I wished to be of use, I wished to remove obstacles from my destiny. I wished to live in an empty place, for an empty mind, for the peace of perfect enlightenment. If I could just quiet the voices, I could get there, but people are everywhere. So, one person at a time, I strive. When all is silent I will reach again for the truth, set out upon the eightfold path that promises detachment from these earthly desires.



For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Tobie challenged me with "Make a wish and blow out the candles." and I challenged Wintervixen86 with "Pierrot and Columbine".

Things We Never Said Out Loud

Dig my way down, I dig, one hand over the other. Like a baseball bat. Let's not talk about the baseball bat, though, let's leave that for last. Oh, love, let me lull you to sleep with my songs. Sit here with your head upon my knee and see the stories I spin for you, always for you and your silent stone heart. Shovels are uncomplicated things, thrust them in and let them do their work, one hand over the other and a growing pile of dust, of dirt, of mud and clay. I could almost sing to you while I work, almost, if you were listening, send you a message that meant more than this.

I never bought that plastic tarp. We laughed about it, oh yes, how we laughed. It's funny until it happens to you, and then you regret all the quicklime and chainsaw jokes. Or so I'd suppose.

Who knows? Not me, I am so quiet and kind. I make toys for the children in my spare time, trains on tracks and racks of gently smiling dolls. Never mind the noises from the basement. Hammer and nails, lashes and tongs, bits of chain and leather thongs. Tools of the trade, you might say.

I don't know why you left or where you went. It was always for you, the weight of the sledgehammer handle socketed firmly into my fist, the scissors and the baseball bat, the broken glasses, the plates. I've waited beside you, oh, waited, wondering why you closed your eyes that night and never came back. Now I can hear your dresses decay in the dark and drop dust-bunnies onto the closet floor.

I have missed you less, before; but this is a joke. I never miss. One last kiss, and into the dark you go. I'll lay you next to your beloved cat, cover you gently with your favorite quilt. Throw in the pieces of the baseball bat, and tuck you in--and that is that.

The Albatross

"Look, kid, this is ridiculous. There are no lamps out there. It's physically impossible."

"I know what I saw, Anchormaster," the boy insisted. His ragged sailcloth leggings rustled as he shifted uncomfortably. "I know I wasn't supposed to be in the ambassador's quarters, and I'll take the lashes for that, but I am not lying. Was a man, on a cobblestone street, bold as brass, true as iron."

The anchormaster looked down at the rough-sanded planks, considering. The boy's bare, calloused feet scraped quietly as he shifted position again. "Report to the whipmistress in the morning. Five for trespassing. I will speak with her as to the rest of your sentence after I visit the ambassador. You will take the night watch on C deck and keep the whole thing quiet until I finish my investigation. Is this clear?"

The boy saluted and left hastily, perhaps afraid the anchormaster would change his mind. Punishments were not usually so lenient aboard this particular ship.

Anchormaster Lenn walked toward the foredecks, glaring at his timepiece. The ambassador was in one of her meetings for at least another hour. Plenty of time to check her quarters and make sure the boy hadn't interfered with anything important. He could even be back to his post before the Captain made her rounds. He headed into the lodging corridor, moving as quietly as he could. Too many people on this trip kept odd hours. He thought how glad he would be when this shipment was over, and of the spiced coffee he would drink when they made planetfall. It had been far too long since his last shore leave.

All his musings were cut short when he noticed the door to the ambassador's quarters hanging open. His mouth compressed in irritation and he mentally added two lashes to the boy's punishment for leaving the corridor unsecured.

Annoyed, he strode into the lodgings, less concerned now about the noise than about the potential security breach. The automatic lights shifted on, and a quick survey of the suite yielded no visible problems. He stood in the center room for a few moments, listening for any movement. When the silence remained, he headed into the receiving room, where the boy had claimed to see his latest impossibility. Two steps into the room, he froze.

There, in the port window, silhouetted against the infinitude of space, it was clear. A section of cobblestoned street, a wrought-iron streetlamp, and a man where no men should be, framed by the bulk of the planet looming over them all.



For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Kat challenged me with "I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw him standing under the street light..." and I challenged GUS with "Malachite and amber, mother of pearl and stars."

Netjeret

The harbor was a green and fragrant place, a bulwark against the dusty gold of the desert. There were fish and markets, scribes and antiquities. The sheep's-wool and wide-striped coarse cloth of the desert tribes sharing stall-space with the mist-weight silks and fine light linen of the river people, the tumultuous embroideries, sinuous animals and flowers of thread that had traveled from a strange and distant empire.

The scent of the market, nearly indescribable, a riot of offal and onions, thick cakes soaked in spiced honey, studded with nuts and dried fruits. Horses and baking bread, grilled meats and carefully tended vegetables. The endless perfume of flowers mingling with cones and piles of exquisite incense, precious scented oils, attar of rose, balms and fragrances and beeswax candles, the dry scents of papyrus and reed baskets, dried black figs and purple-dyed linen.

The sounds of happy people, amused or wry, light and pleasant, in many languages. The merchants and their customers alike, fat with good living, joking in slippery Greek or dark-spiced Egyptian, with so little of the solemn speech of Roman citizens, and less of the vulgar Latin of the sharp-faced legionnaires.

It was always a mystery, to him, to walk among them and remain unrecognized, to speak to the people in his clumsy Greek without terrifying them into silence. When the sun fell sharp behind the crimson slash of the horizon, and the night rose like a curtain all around us, we drank wine like madder velvet from silver bowls, drank deep. Our lips and fingers stained with pomegranate. Those nights are gone, torn like wet papyrus into shreds against the howling desert wind.

Today my harbor is full of quinqueremes and libernians and there is no bulwark against the legions. Our armies have joined with Octavian's. The remaining men mutter lies to my husband. People fleeing in the streets squeal that I have betrayed him. Hissing like snakes, their whispers tell him that I have abandoned him as I have abandoned all my husbands, condemning him to a traitor's fate. I cannot be here when he returns; how could I face that pain, the wrath of perceived righteousness?

I built the two of us a tomb. I wanted to sleep there with him, forever, the safest place in Alexandria, filled to the roof-beams with the treasures of Egypt and the Ptolemies, the pharaohs of Upper and Lower Egypt, buttery gold and carnelian. Malachite and lapis gleaming in every corner, jasper and turquoise and the silver bowls that once held our wine. I can send another messenger to my husband, can bid him come, meet me in the home I built for our long night together, but will he listen?

I pull away from the wide window, kohl-dark tears smudged along my cheekbones. The view of my desecrated harbor is spur enough to order my maids away, to pull my last pieces of jewelry out of trunks.  I look in the mirror and see, truly, at last. The Pharaoh of Egypt must always descend into the underworld, must weigh a heavy heart on golden scales. I will go to my tomb alone, though it is the last thing I ever wanted to do. I will await my husband, and we will prevail or die. We have no choice.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Kurt challenged me with "It was the last thing I would ever want to do, but I didn't have any other choice." and I challenged Mary Terrani with "King of Pentacles".


This is tagged "well-mined myth" for a reason. I wouldn't even call it "historical fiction".  Can't hit a home run every week, I suppose.

Harbinger

She's killing baby cockroaches with disgusted glee in her shitty third-floor walkup, for what seems like the eight millionth time, when she hears his familiar step on the wrought-iron stairs. She smiles to herself as she washes her hands in scalding hot water from the tap and grabs her good bottle of gin from the top of the refrigerator on her way out the door.

"Hey," she yells down to the second landing, "didn't I tell you I never wanted to see you again?"

He stops dead in his tracks and looks up at her, blue eyes wide and startled in his face as his mouth drops open. "I recall something like that, I guess," he says, unsure but still game.

"Well, I suppose this gin won't drink itself. Got any cigarettes?"

He doesn't answer, but holds up two packs of her favorite. It's a peace offering, of sorts. She grins down at him and slides her bare feet into a pair of ridiculous cork-heeled sandals. She pulls the elastic out of her walnut-brown hair and runs the fingers of her right hand through the locks, primping for just a second while he's still out of sight. She smooths her oversized sweater down over her skirt and then bounds down the last flight of stairs, gin in hand.

He's still waiting on the second-floor landing, holding two cigarettes in his mouth. He watches her run down the stairs and lights both, holding the second one out as she skids to a stop just inches away.

"Hi," she says, leaving a multitude of words unsaid, reaching out to take the cigarette he's offering and smiling up into his endless blue eyes.

"Hey," he replies, and wraps his arms around her as she smokes silently, the two of them leaning on the railing. She pitches the cigarette butt over the side and turns back in, pressing her face into his chest.

"Let's go for a walk," she says, muffled by his jacket. She grabs him by the wrist and begins to pull away, lacing her fingers in his even as she starts to head down the stairs to the street. He finishes his cigarette, flicks the butt away, and lights two more. They walk close together, hands linked, arms touching and shoulders pressed together, until they leave her block. Then they let go, in case someone that knows them might see.  Although it's not so much her friends she has to worry about, but his, or worse, his girlfriend's.  They walk a few blocks in silence, passing the bottle back and forth.

"Could be trouble," he says, finally.

"Could be," she replies, and takes a long swallow of gin.

Eurydice at Dawn

 "'Oh, I don't know,' he said. 'Πελλαίου βοῦς μέγας εἰν Ἀίδη.' This was something to the effect that, in the Underworld, a great ox costs only a penny, but I knew what he meant and in spite of myself I laughed. There was a tradition among the ancients that things were very cheap in Hell. " --Donna Tartt, "The Secret History"

I know all the things you've never told me. I know the late nights and the gnawing feeling in your chest, the dreams from which you wake, clawing your way out of tangled bedclothes. Gasping for air.

I know the jobs you've taken and the ones you've refused. I know the desperate twin chains of inertia and fear, the fear of hurting someone who truly cares for you. Sitting up at night, you think of me, but only when you can't distract yourself. I'm still waiting, though. I've been down here a long time, but I'm doing okay. Getting around only costs me a penny, and everyone in this place knows just what I'm going through. I'd never leave you if I had any say in the matter, you know.

Some nights I think you'll find your way home to me, follow your heart down here. Then I could make my escape. I could touch your hand and all the years we've been apart could dissolve into nothing more than the swirling rainbow film on a puddle of water in the parking lot. I could make you remember. I could make you forget.

I remember you, upright in that leather jacket. I played at vegetarian disgust and secretly longed to be folded into your arms. I didn't actually care that you were wearing a dead cow. I have this thing for writers and percussionists. The craziest guys come down here, and it's true, I have my fun. You're not here, so, it's true. Every time I close my eyes, though, it's you. Always you. I wake up from my dreams in tears, muffling myself in the pillow so I don't disturb whichever one is in my bed this time. They don't matter, only the dreams. I dream of you and your hollow days, pushing on in denial. Other times it's of the past, of the comfort of apples, the weariness of love.

I think you are refusing my calls, refusing to believe that I could still be here, burying yourself in the meaningless pursuits of the upper side. Cowardly, clinging to the sunlight you never loved. You don't even play your music anymore. You never write to me, for me, of me. I think you've given up hope. I think you've sold the dream for her scraps of passion, and worse.  Even in a Hades market, I think you're selling the dream too cheap.

--

For this week's IndieInk Writing Challenge, Billy Flynn challenged me with "Selling the dream cheap", and I challenged Diane with "Old Scratch and El Salto del Colacho.  Make it funny if you can--if you can't, make it terrifying."

There is an interpretation of the Orpheus myth that colors him a coward, afraid to die to be with Eurydice forever.  Instead, he defied the gods to retrieve her, because he wasn't ready to leave the upper world.  I find this rather less romantic than you might think.

The Lazy Fisherman

In a certain place, at a certain time, lived a fisherman and his wife. They were a poor but happy couple whose home was quite near the Imperial compound. The only characteristic that marred their marital bliss was the unfortunate fact of the fisherman's laziness. The fisherman's wife did her best to keep it a secret, but the neighbors all knew, and pitied her.

"What a hateful thing, O husband," she would wail upon his return each night. "Today the noodle vendor told me of a thing that I would believe impossible! And yet, it is true." The fisherman's wife would tell her husband of a different celestial punishment visited upon the lazy each and every night, until even her deep well of invention began to run dry. It made no difference, alas, and her husband continued to be known all through their village as the lazy fisherman.

At the same time, gossip reported that a small pond in the shrine next to the Imperial compound was close to overflowing with large and fat fish, the likes of which had never been seen. It was said that this was proof that the kami favored the masters of the shrine, and that luck was sure to follow those who visited and paid their respects. One afternoon, as the fisherman remained abed, he heard a conversation from outside.

"So many fish I have never seen in all my days! The smallest one was as large as my forearm," said the noodle vendor, whose forearms were wide and bulging with the exercise of pulling the stock of fresh soba and udon. "I offered a coin to the shrine and on my way out, an enormous carp leaped into the air, its golden scales shining like the sun."

"I, too, visited the shrine last week," interjected the salt woman. "The fish were leaping in greeting, and the shrine maidens were dancing with joy. A more beautiful sight I have never seen."

The lazy fisherman sat bolt upright. The long walk to the lake in which he was usually forced to cast his nets would be no more. If only he could find a way to fish in the shrine pond! He was not a man who was much concerned with the gods, and not one to think about consequences.

The fisherman leapt out of bed and began to check his nets for holes. His wife, startled by this unusual flurry of activity, hurried out of the kitchen.

"Husband, you have risen! And a full two hours earlier than usual! Can it be that you have decided to honor the gods and live a more fulfilling life?"

"Cease your intemperate noise, wife, and sit with me. We must repair all these nets by sunset. I go to fish in the shrine's pond this evening, and with such a heavy catch, they must remain well-knotted."

His wife sank to her knees, her mouth agape. "Have you lost your mind, O husband? If you dare to kill the living luck of the shrine the gods will surely curse us all!"

Scoffing, the lazy fisherman continued his work without her help. He repaired his nets long into the twilight, while she wept and wailed about ill luck and disaster. When the moon rose, he bundled his belongings upon his back and set out on the short walk to the shrine, still ignoring her warnings.

At the top of the hill, where the road split between the forest and the shrine, a large rock marked the fork. As he passed the rock, he began to hear a soft weeping, and turned in surprise to see a beautiful girl sitting in its shadow. Her soft black hair swept down in long waves around her slender hands, which were pressed against her face as she wept. The fisherman shifted his weight from side to side as he thought about the large catch awaiting him at the shrine, but his conscience, usually so silent, spurred him to stop for a moment.

"What is wrong, O maiden? Can I be of some service?" He was careful to address her respectfully, as her clothes were of the highest quality. He began to wonder if she had accidentally wandered out of the Imperial compound. "Though I may be unworthy to speak to you, I do not wish to leave you unattended in the night. Pray, O maiden, lift your head and let me know how to serve you," he begged.

The girl turned away, still weeping into her hands, and her shoulders began to shake even harder. "I cannot tell you, fisherman, for I see you are on your way to a heavy catch," she whispered.

The fisherman gritted his teeth and attempted to sound insouciant. "I have more time to help than I have to fish. Please tell me what is wrong."

"Very well, O fisherman, I shall reveal to you my secret," she spoke, only a little louder than before. "I mourn for the fish you are about to slaughter, for I am the guardian of the shrine pond!" As she said these words, she dropped her lovely hands from her face, and the fisherman fell back in horror, for the front of her head was as smooth and featureless as an egg. With a shriek, he dropped his nets and ran for home.

As he dashed down the main thoroughfare of the village, his feet tangled in each other and he fell, sprawling, at the feet of the man who ran the ramen shop.

"There, friend, where do you run with such speed?" The ramen vendor reached down to help up the lazy fisherman, his wide, friendly face round and smiling. "Your wife has been weeping and worrying all night. Come into my shop and rest before you go home, or you will frighten her even more!"

"Oh, thank you," the fisherman panted, unaccustomed to such exertion. "You will never believe what I saw tonight!"

The ramen vendor placed a bowl of soup in front of the fisherman, soup so hot and fragrant with red chili oil that the comforting aroma drove away the fear in the fisherman's heart. As he sipped the soup, he began to tell his strange story, slowly relaxing under his friend's familiar gaze.

"Your wife warned you about intruding on the peace of the shrine," the ramen vendor laughed. "And you were lucky enough to meet with the guardian before you killed the fish, weren't you?"

"Well, yes, but have you ever heard of such a creature?" the fisherman asked.

"Oh, my, yes. I've heard of a spirit who can take on the face of a familiar person and one who can wipe it away. There are many spirits in these hills, you know," the ramen vendor continued. A strange feeling began to rise in the fisherman's throat. 

The man's hand rose to stroke at his chin as he began to tell a tale of the vengeful Noppera-bō, the faceless ones. The fisherman watched in dread as, with each stroke of the hand, the ramen vendor's once-familiar face disappeared before the fisherman's horrified eyes.

The fisherman fell backwards out of the ramen shop, still-hot soup spreading across the counter, a red sheen of oil staining his hands and clothes. He scrambled away crabwise as the ramen vendor approached slowly. The faceless one drifted closer, his feet no longer seeming to touch the ground, and a low moan emerged from the blank skin.  Just before it came close enough to touch, the fisherman's nerve broke completely, and he jumped up and ran home.

He collapsed onto the porch, where his wife was still sobbing about ill-luck and curses. His heart was pounding in his chest like a taiko drum and he was covered in the dust of the street and still-fragrant chili oil. His wife arose in a hurry and ran to comfort him, but upon hearing his tale, jumped away. 

"You failed to heed the guardian of the shrine?" She raised her hands to her face in shock and it melted away like cold fog on a sunny morning. A shriek issued forth from the pale and empty oval of her suddenly formless skin, and the fisherman's heart finally gave out.


This is a famous Japanese folktale, though I've cobbled together a few iterations of it.  Editing help was kindly given, when I ran into a pronoun situation, by Maren and Wendryn of IndieInk.org.  Our forum rocks. Thank you so much!

Ex Machina

"There was nothing for it. I could see them approaching, exactly as I expected! I simply had to act on my impulses or else I'd--"

I shook my head impatiently. "Computer, stop program. Run diagnostic level theta six."

The computer chimed quietly. "Level theta six diagnostic complete, Ben. No errors detected."

"Well, that can't be right! Listen to the dialogue. Run diagnostic again."

Another chime followed. "No errors detected, Ben. Program has not degenerated. Dialogue intact."

I jerked my head out of its resting place atop my arms and glared, hot-eyed, at the terminal. "This is ridiculous, computer. Find the source of the dialogue and retrace." As my desktop hummed quietly, I pulled out my hard-copied notes. I'd gone over these a million times but this time, a footnote caught my attention. Gregor Samsa, The Metamorphosis. By an auteur designated "Franz Kafka". "Never heard of 'em," I muttered. The computer heard me and thrummed expectantly.

"Source confirms dialogue's accuracy. Continue playback?"

"Oh, fine--yes, computer, continue playback. Please."

"There I go again, being overtaken by an urge. What now? Will I really? But then, won't I become nothing more than a criminal? But just what is a criminal anyway? And--"

"Seriously?"

"I don't understand the query, Ben."

"Computer, identify source of current dialogue."

"Yes, Ben. Source of current dialogue is Web user Drusil Renfield, ID 2308/507WWIA53233, designation GregorInsekt. Affiliation unknown. On lockdown until 41013.7 for assault on a senior officer. Your file is cross-referenced with the prisoner's as a result of your position as counsel for the defense. More?"

"Thank you, computer, I am well aware of my reasons for having to listen to this tripe. I still think it's gone garbage somewhere in the copying. Skip to the end and let's get this review over with."

"Last paragraph, Ben. Going to record of defendant's testimony. Voice and video available."

"Yes, computer--show the video, instead. It's not that you don't have a lovely voice..."

"Affirmative, Ben. Video replay beginning."

The screen leaned haphazardly against my wall, waiting for me to install it properly. Its serene blue glow was shortly replaced by the visage of a deeply unfortunate-looking human. Unfortunate-looking, how, I couldn't tell you. It was something in the skewed geography of his face, the planes under his skin, maybe. 

 His grey eyes bulged impossibly from his face, and his skin was patchy and coarse. His hair frizzed out at all angles, and his mouth gaped horribly, silver drool collecting in the trough of his wasted lower lip. I could see no humanity in this man's eyes. He looked like a burnout, or worse, a spaz, a person so invested in life on the Web that he'd let his real life shrivel into nothing. 

 He was talking, I guess, but it was more like a string of unrelated words. Not gibberish, exactly, more like very convincing lorem ipsum, and every few words, a flood of saliva spilled from his mouth. He'd jerk his withered arm up and swipe at his chin, the clawed hand affording him a few dry moments and a few more mouthfuls of outlandish statement. He jabbered through all of the paragraphs the computer had already read to me, and the computer was right--there was no degeneration in the file. It was all in this creep's head.

"If desperation comes knocking on your door...what wouldn't you do to keep yourself sane? If indeed, this could be called sanity. In this world of chaos, busy laneways and cobblestones, anything could be called sane," he pointed out.

It seemed this was the end, and I was leaning forward to key in a rewind, when his butcher's eyes snapped forward, as if they were focusing directly on mine. Disconcerted, I jerked back and fell awkwardly into the chair. I felt his gaze like a punch to the midsection, so real that it took my breath. That was the end of the cast, though. Wincing, I thumbed off the screen, resolving it into its normal calm glow. The computer hummed quietly on the desk behind me, and I found myself convulsively wiping my chin.

"Anything could be sanity," I said. It felt different, voicing his crazy diatribe, letting it take shape on my tongue for a reason unknown even to myself. The more I parroted it, the farther it penetrated. It felt plausible. It felt familiar. I looked down at the notes on the desk and smiled for the first time all evening. 

I'd been freed from the computer and reborn into a new host. In this world of chaos, anything was possible. Even me.

For the Indie Ink writing challenge this week, Tereasa Trevor challenged me with 

"There was nothing for it. I could see a person approaching exactly as expected. I simply had to act on my impulses or else I'd...

There I go again, being overtaken by an urge. What now? Will I really? But then, won't I become nothing more than a criminal? But just what is a criminal anyway? And if desperation comes knocking on your door...what wouldn't you do to keep yourself sane. If indeed, this could be called sanity. In this world of chaos, busy laneways and cobblestones, anything could be called sane."

I challenged  Reinaldo Martinez with "the physician of last resort".

Eternity

"My hairbrush is gone again," she said, through a mouthful of bobby pins.

"Hmm?" He wasn't really paying attention to anything but the squat glass in front of him, squarish and green with numerous imperfections, cradled in his hands with a pool of slowly warming, caramel-colored whiskey nestled in its base.

"My brush. You know how I just bought another because I thought I'd lost the first? Well, this one's gone, too, and--"

She was off on another tirade, probably about the maid service or his brother or any stupid thing. I could see the careful lack of expression on his face from my hiding place in the corner. I remembered that expression. I knew it well from all the times I tried to speak to him as soon as he returned from the office. She was fighting a losing battle here. I could almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

She stabbed the last pin into her chignon and kept talking. It's really quite marvelous, I think, that he keeps picking these tiny tank-like girls, who are so adamant in their organization and their requirements for attention. Do they remind him of me? I don't think I was ever quite so needy, but they say everyone is blind to their own faults until we see them in others.

"And then Elizabeth said that she'd seen a girl who said that her cousin used to work for you and your second wife, the banker, right? Anyway, this cousin said that your second wife's belongings went missing in the exact same ways while she worked here, I think she said her name was Maria? Well, they're all named Maria, aren't they? And you switched maid services and she lost her job, yes, another sob story but I was wondering..."

Was that all in one breath? He's not even looking in her direction and she's talking like she'll be paid by words per minute.

Finally he looks up from his drink and I come out from behind the vanity. I know he sees me. He always has. His hands tighten around the glass, nearly hard enough to break it, and he tosses off the last swallow of whiskey in a rush. When he sets his glass down, hard, on the corner table, I drift over to stand next to him. I smile at him, and staring deep into his blue eyes, I begin to unbutton my dress, the high neck and ribbon collar sweeping down over my collarbone, the livid rope burn still standing out like a brand on my pale skin. It undulates like a finger of seaweed in a tidal pool with my silent laughter, moving up and down across my vocal cords.

It does still hurt, God knows why, but it's all worth it, every long night of moving stupid things around, all these years of having to stay so close to the man who threw me off the twenty-third floor with a nylon rope knotted clumsily around my neck.

It's all worth it, then, because his jaw tightens and in the next instant he interrupts her neverending flow of words and questions to bark, "I don't believe in ghosts." He's still looking at the mark around my neck and the best part is, she wasn't even talking about her missing hairbrush anymore, she's moved on to the weekend's social flurry, and now she looks as if she's wondering if the stories might be true.  If the suicide of his first wife might have driven him a little crazy.  Or if the other stories are true, and it wasn't a suicide at all.  

I steal a couple of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and touch him on the back of his neck.  He jumps slightly, and the sweat starts to bead on his temples.

"I'm going to the bar," he says, cutting her off again, and nearly running for the front door.  She just stands there with her well-bred little mouth clamped shut, and I pick up a lighter from the hall table, because after all I've been through?  At least I don't have to worry about lung cancer.   

a letter home

You don't sweat in the desert, not as much as you'd think. You're hot and grimy and you feel that drop of moisture begin to roll down...and then it's gone. It's a creeping feeling, wrong in all the ways we learned in our youth, though at least the bugs are a good deal less.  It is never humid in these mountains, and we have not seen rain in months. We have to be careful around the tribes here, careful of the roads and paths and water rights. The right of a goat to drink before a man has caused more than one confrontation.

At night, we march. We set up camp in the bone-colored light of the desert dawn and it's then I have time to write to you, before the sun fully rises and we can do nothing but try to sleep in the oven of our tents, the sour wine and tough flatbread of our daily ration furring our mouths as we grope after dreams under a molten-silver sky.

I know you wanted me to resign after the last campaign. I hope you've forgiven me by now. I spent only six months in Persia, made such a tiny contribution to our new homeland...well, I wanted more. I want to heap glories on the name I've asked you to share. I didn't know I would be here so long. I don't regret coming, but I do regret our parting. It can't take much more than a year in this wasteland; the great Alexander rides as if Athena herself were at his side.

I wish I could have brought you instead of all the wine in the supply train, though the women of the camp would make you poor companions. They are desert women, draped in their fortunes, with hawklike grins hid behind a number of veils. The odd, muted clashing of their robes and coins reverberate in the silent morning as they go about the homely tasks of making bread, pressing the cheese from the whey for our nightly meal. The complaints of the goats, and the odd tribal tongue in which they are addressed, have become our lullabies instead of the poets in your courtyard.

I think of you constantly, and wish to have you by my side. I cannot see you here yet. Perhaps in the new Alexandria we will build upon the river, the one they call Oxus. The desert people have already named it in their own tongue as well, Ai Khanoum. I am told it means "Moon Lady", a fitting tribute to the future home of my own maiden. May Artemis guard you, my love, and Hera Teleia guide you soon to my side.


It took the army of Alexander the Great six months to conquer Persia (present-day Iran), and something like THREE YEARS to subdue what is now Afghanistan.  The pre-Islamic history of the country is fascinating, and something I think a lot of people forget about, which is a shame.
This week's Indie Ink challenge came from Kevin Wilkes, who gave me this prompt: "Write a story about a soldier in Afghanistan".
I challenged Amy LaBonte with the prompt "You only love me when you're leaving".

Green Harvest

"Jesus said, 'I am the vine, and you are the branches,' but I am in a position to tell you this statement was not entirely accurate. The Old Testament brings up vines a lot, the Chosen People being vines and wheat ears and, I don't know, whatever else the writer was eating for lunch that day. Ridiculousness. Even if you leave the Eucharist out of this, we still go back to the Greeks, all the way back to whichever tribes settled down and planted. I probably don't have to tell you about wine as the sacred blood of Dionysus--unless they lost or dropped that aspect of the Mysteries? I don't keep up with current events in archaeology, to be perfectly honest. Even with the internet, I've been so wound up with business for the last forty years that I only have the sketchiest of ideas about what you people think you know. Not even mentioning the amount of sheer physical effort that running this place still takes.

I mean, it's a big family, it's not like I have to do it alone, but someone has to be in charge, right? Well, I've always been assertive. It was one thing when we got here to build the vineyards and kick back, and another one entirely to start harnessing all our fruit and manpower to manufacture this business. Of course I'm proud of it. My whole life's tied up in these vines...

...Pressing the grapes for the first time was hard. It was like raising children specifically to take and sell, a slavery of sorts..."
                        --from the final interview with Moriah Landsdown, 1996

She is, or was, a thin brown woman with eyes the color of the underside of a leaf on a stormy day. She looked (or looks) about forty, and had for the last six hundred years. She said that she settled on forty because she was tired of being harassed by so-called gentlemen, and at that time, hitting on a forty-year-old woman was like molesting your grandmother. She was arrested and tried as a witch approximately sixteen times, due to occasional mistakes with the neighbors or knowing things she shouldn't, failing to take part in searches for missing persons, and the general run of "she cursed 'em" accusations. Of course, this was a long time ago, and records would show that it's not the same woman we spoke to, because that would be impossible. Regardless, these days, the only neighbors are all closely related.

The Landsdowns own most of the parts of California, Arizona, and Nevada that the government doesn't. The P&A vineyards are not the sort of wineries that give tours. You can call ahead and see if they'll show you around, and if one of the daughters (it's always one of the daughters) is not out in the fields, she'll talk to you for a while about irrigation and terroir, hybrids and tannins. She'll talk to you about inconsequentials long enough for you to get bored, drink some wine, and thank her profusely. Then she'll talk to you all the long walk back to your car about the details of winemaking, shake your hand in both her strong, blunt-fingered ones.  She'll stand in your wake, wave good-bye, smiling widely all the time, and you'll go home vowing never to set foot on their property again, lest they talk you to death.  You go home as fast as you can.

Unless you don't. A surprising number of visitors to the family vineyards immediately decide to move away, to take jobs overseas, go on spiritual retreats, take holy vows. Those visitors abandon their previous lives quickly and quietly, and most are never heard from again. Wine can have that effect on some people.

The vines in their vineyards are not the scraggly, stick-like things you see tethered to posts in other vineyards. They're green, more green than you would ever believe, and they are unbound. They run riot, winding in incestuous tangles all up and down the hills, all coiled snakelike in the field, their violet-black grapes modestly covered in brilliant leaves and guarded by the swirling of the vine. They make a wine as rich and dark as sin, red as blood. It's salt and slick in your mouth and ends thick, burning caramel on your tongue with lingering sugars. The family jokes about a superstition that if too many visitors come onto their lands, the wine will become thin and bitter, and they'll tell you, this is why they discourage tourists.

They're pretty good at staying under the radar. They've been producing wine as Peel and Ampelos for centuries, the family growing and extending tendrils across the globe. It's nothing new to them, the wine business, and the matriarch of the family usually heads up advertising and publicity. When Moriah gave her last interview, they were able to keep most of the controversial stuff out. Though, as it turns out, it didn't really matter. She'd been called crazy long enough that the interview was heavily edited, and all the incriminating bits were laughed off, or worse, pitied as the first signs of dementia.

It was easy.  There's no reason to believe she's sane if you do hear the original. She talks about leading the missing people into the field under the dark of the moon, allowing them to lie down beside the vines. She talks about the sound the vines make as they draw the people into their embrace, the sighing sound. It's so clear, the way she imitates it.  She can tell you about the ecstatic moans of the visitors as they are absorbed into the rich dark soil, or the occasional shriek of terror as they rouse from the afterglow of their orgasm only to realize they are being consumed. It's an odd thing to listen to, the longing in her voice. It's a compelling thing, that interview, her café au lait voice reaching through the tangle of websites that sprang up when she disappeared. You can still find clips of the oddest parts of her diatribe, the pain and pleasure parts, mostly dubbed over S&M videos by fetishists and disseminated through forums and porn sites.

Every now and then, she'll become a sample in an indie band's song, the near-whisper of her explanation being pushed further into the grasp of myth, the lascivious anticipation in her voice raising the hair on the back of your neck or the ghost of a nipple against your t-shirt, right before the drums crash in tribal ecstasy and the guitars begin to wail like cats in heat. She draws that kind of music. Some people just have that gift.

I still have the tape that she spoke so clearly into, her dark green eyes boring into mine as I took notes, simultaneously terrified and aroused by her clear interest in the pale skin showing above my too-low neckline. I went in thinking I shouldn't have taken the assignment, and I was right. I never took another. I never told anyone that I kept the original tape, that I mailed in a copy out of some obscure desire to hold on to that sultry whisper, to keep her in my hands.

Me, I don't know what happened to Moriah Landsdown after that interview. I don't want to find out. I stay in the Midwest on the shores of dirty lakes, far from viticulture, deep in city centers and industrial pollution. I erase myself from the internet religiously. I am learning to avoid notice by example, using tactics from the very competent family that became Peel and Ampelos International.

Last night, I read that 75,866 km² of the world is dedicated to the cultivation of grapes, that the area dedicated to vineyards is increasing by about 2% per year. I tossed and turned all night, thinking of white bones desiccating under a riot of grapes, feeling the sweat rise on my skin at the thought of her voice only to shiver when the chill of unsought knowledge turned my own hands, hovering at the juncture of my thighs, into the grasping of her many daughters' sweetly callused fingers.

I don't want to go back, I don't want to go to their home place. I don't want to go into the field at the dark of the moon, but I have these dreams, you see.

The Flood of the World that Was

"Hail to thee, O Nile!

Who manifests thyself over this land, and comes to give life to Egypt!

Come and prosper!
Come and prosper!
O Nile, come and prosper!
O you who make men to live through his flocks and his flocks through his orchards!
Come and prosper, come,
O Nile, come and prosper!

Hail to thee, O my god, Hapi of the North and South, lord of fishes and birds of the marsh, husband of Meret, Naunet, Nekhebet, Wadjet, father of our beautiful Kem, king of Ta Mery, hail. Hear us, great Hapi, and have mercy. Have you been detained in the world of the dead? The black sweet mud of your banks is drying to blow out over the red lands, and our people cry out their bone-deep hunger. We have given you jewelry and meat, sent our children to call you home. We dry into hollow reeds, hard and old, suffering the lack. Hap-Meht or Hap-Reset, god of Ta-Sheme'aw and Ta-Mehew both, attend your people, do not let the flood fail-- "

The tablet ends there, its voice silenced forever by events unknown. Iterw, Neilos or Nilos, the Nile we know today is not the same, never the fulsome blue god with overflowing breasts, rising from the Elephantine Isles, traveling through the world of the dead to bring life.

Kemet is no longer Herodotus' gift of the Nile, black shining jewel of the desert, the fruitful land. We have traveled deep into the red lands of the desert and cannot return. Hap-Meht or Hap-Reset, papyrus or lotus, Upper or Lower, neither now will hear us over the growing roar in the lands below, the sharp sounds of missiles and airstrikes, machine guns and hand grenades, factions and fundamentalists.

There, in the mist and the silence that hangs over the yearly inundation of the great delta, the relics of the father of cultivated lands are hidden in the mysteries of other gods, hidden under centuries as heavy as damp wool blankets. Now we are Egypt. Now we are Masr, and the glyph of our name that meant not only "precious blackness" but also "the ending of things" is hidden forever beneath the Greek and Arabic and English of the future tense.

This week's Indie Ink challenge comes from The Drama Mama, who left me a fragment: "...because the river runs through it, an even divide, the old world on one side, the new world on the other like a mirror of past and future."  Which seemed very sad to me, in the context of ancient civilizations and rivers, and who better to articulate this sadness than the prototype for all desert river civilizations?  Hence, my elegy to the world that was.  The fragment of a hymn that is the first paragraph and the names of the ancients are as accurate as I can make them--everything else, I made up.

At any rate, my challenge went out to Kerri, and you can read her response here.

Saturday Night

"Dude! Here, quick! Enter the code!"

Eric grabbed the proffered controller, hands trembling slightly, and punched in the cheat code. He'd discovered it by accident, trying to enter the Konami code and getting the order wrong, and now he was the most famous guy in three counties.

The group of thirteen-year-olds erupted in cheers as the main character, an extremely well-endowed half-elf warrior princess, favored them with a striptease, complete with some seriously nasty bumps and grinds. Eric's friends gathered around the television as he began to run the last dungeon, his half-elf warrior still running around in the nude.

"Hell yeah, go! Run that bitch!"

"Shit, look at her titties bounce!"

"Look at that sweet ass!"

Eric frowned, trying to concentrate on avoiding the last orc, who was invariably armed with the Misericordia morningstar, a high-damage weapon with an attack radius wide enough to take out not only his elf princess but half the dungeon behind her. He held his breath as he mashed the buttons frantically, ignoring the hooting of his classmates and squeezing the elf through the tunnel to the boss fight. This was trickier than it looked, especially without her armor bonuses, but he'd done it a million times before. He leaned into the controller and tuned out the increasingly graphic comments. Here was the gate. Now all he had to do was jump to the ledge above the Eldritch Oak, get in its branches, drop a vine noose, and choke the everliving fuck out of the Moribund Skelpy, captain of the Vermilion Seven.

"Oh my GOD, dude, she's fucking the tree!"

"FUCK YEAH she is, take it, slutbag!"

Eric shook his head and ran the elf to the other side of the ledge, dropping her even lower and extending the noose. The skelpy ran straight into it, and he hit X triumphantly. The room got even louder as the elf princess spread her legs and dropped, wrapping her green thighs around the skelpy's neck.

"Holy shit, was that bush?"

"NO WAY! I missed it!"

"Aw, man, is there instant replay on this shit?"

Eric rotated the analog stick thirty degrees to the left and the elf arched her back, breaking the skelpy's neck with her thighs. The loot began to drop and he relaxed slightly, looking around at his audience. "Anyone else want a turn before I re-equip her armor?"

His friends began to fight over the controller and he leaned back against the couch. Up until last month, he'd thought he might want to be a writer when he grew up. After the Slut Code, though, and his corresponding uptick in popularity, things were changing. Writing was for nerds. Naked video games, though? That would be one kick-ass business card. And he just knew the Penny Arcade guys would have something to say when his game hit it big.

Oh yes, it's Indie Ink writing challenge time again.  This week's challenge came from Binaryfootprint, who instructed me to "write a fun, full of life story of how one dream path ends and another begins".  While I'm pretty sure my idea of fun is different, no one can say thirteen-year-old boys aren't full of...uh, life.  Oddly enough, she also ended up receiving my challenge--so hopefully I will get a response this week.

Taxonomy

Scrawled on the sidewalk in an unsettling shade of electric blue, I read, "Laughter is the best medicine". I walk as fast as I can past it, looking neither left nor right to see who might be watching. At least it was spelled properly. Gotta concentrate on the big picture, because if you zoom in to look at all the details, you'll lose it. Reading the newspapers or mags or TMZ in the last few days of human civilization was detail. Making sure I had enough food for a while, weapons, all that stupid preparedness shit? Detail, no matter how necessary. A lot of people I met back near the start of all this said they concentrated on the details so they wouldn't have to focus on the big picture. Me, I can't work like that. I think it has something to do with my job. Had? Hard to say. I was, am, a veterinarian.

I don't really know which tense is appropriate now. I'm sure there are other doctors left, there are a lot more people left than you'd expect. I haven't met any lately, though. Headed out of Denver last week, I saw a little group being escorted back into the city center. One of them was wearing a white coat, but lately, that just means they're about to bite it in some particularly awful way. One white coat seems to stand in for every hairspray-testing motherfucker in the history of our species.

I'm confident, though, if anyone, any human, needed medical assistance, I could still provide it. Vets have done a lot more for human medical advances than anyone might feel comfortable knowing. Still, you'd think we would have noticed, before the dogs started barking commands, you'd think we would have noticed the growing communications network.

Squirrels, man. Squirrels are everywhere, and their teeth are huge. Pigeons, you know, every city's winged rats, not to mention the actual rats. Draft horses are bigger than fucking cars. Cats don't give a shit about anything. Fucking gulls, even urban opossums. The dogs, those were the worst. When even the dogs turned on us? There was no way we were getting out ahead of this.

I pass weird graffiti like this every day on the road. I don't know if it's our version, the human version, of the old hobo signs, or if they're learning, the new animals. That sounds unbelievable, I know. I've seen shit I don't want to believe either. Like the men who traveled from town to town, docking ears and tails, rusty knives in briefcases and hotel bathtubs full of blood, they're still around too. Most of them can still get around like those horror-movie guys, the limbless beggars on skateboards, but they don't live very long. I don't think they even care, or that they have any life left in them. They're only left to us as a warning, their lips cut so carefully back to show the teeth, ears just ragged holes. "Declawed" people or neutered ones, hands and balls both just cauterized stubs. You can tell because they aren't left any clothes, just the collar. If these sidewalk scrawlings are human graffiti, I can't understand it. I've been left out of the loop and I don't think I'll ever get in.

Vets have been freed, sort of. The good ones, the ones who really cared for our patients, with soothing voices and careful explanations. We aren't kept in the cities, in the kennels. We keep moving, place to place, treating the injured and guiding the lost to their flocks or packs or herds. I don't know if I'm a prisoner or a collaborator, I don't know where I'll have to be tomorrow. I don't know where I'll even be allowed to sleep tonight--a plush pillow by some gentle cow's fireplace, a dirty blanket in an abandoned sheepyard, an old farm dog's slat-sided shack, hunkered down in the dirt. I refuse to think too hard about the future. Today I have to assist at the birth of a new litter, and that is enough. I ignore the details and keep just an eye on the big picture, because the big picture is I'll have to work like this until I drop. They'll see to it, just like we used to, just like they saw to the quick elimination of any dissent. And it's for damn sure they are not going to accept a platitude like "laughter is the best medicine".

It's Indie Ink challenge time again.  This week, my prompt came from Sunshine, and as you may have gathered, it was a saying I particularly hate:  "Laughter is the best medicine."  The original title of this draft was "Must Love Animals", but I think I am saving that for something even worse.  

My challenge went out to Katri, who will be posting her response any time now...I hope.

Gratitude

Mama told me, oughtn't hunt the ravens. She told me, flat out. Mama's off the boat, though, and won't look sideways at a sausage even if she don't know what it's made with, and we were so hungry that month. Where she's from, I guess the ravens still speak to the old priestesses. Come straight down and whisper all the Morrigan's secrets in any ears'll listen. You'd think She'd be glad of the flock getting thinned a bit but Mama says no, girl, mustn't, never.

Mama brought my bow over the wide sea, brought it through steerage and customs and immigration, safe at the bottom of her little pasteboard valise. She taught me how to string it at five, and how to track the same year. Learned pretty good, I guess, 'cause she always took me along after that. In the hills ain't much to do but look for food, do chores, pray. The women of our family don't have much to do with prayer, but no one round can say we don't keep our end of the bargain. The year I turned fourteen, it was a dry year, a dusty time, and it was my turn to take up the hunt.

That day burned over the hills like a bonfire. Early mornings are best for hunting but by the time I've had my coffee all the mist's burned off. So I find myself slogging up the foothills in what might's well be noon, according to the animals. It's okay if I'm just checking snares but if I'm gonna do the real tracking I just stay out all night. So, this particular day it was hot, and bright. Felt like a dream of the desert, only with more trees. The hills were dried to dust and dirt and rubble, and scree kept rolling out from under my feet. I'd been in the shade for most of my hike, but sweat was still rolling down my face like a river tryin to get back to the sea.

Mama told me, the snares, girl, snares'll do the hunting when you're still laying about. So I set seven, or maybe eight, along these little scratched-thin paths where rabbits and squirrels were like to scurry without too much mind, and I'd drink my coffee and make biscuits for when Mama woke up. Anyway, this day nothing was going as it should. Line after line was coming up empty til I was bout to sit down and have myself a little drink near the crest of the hill.

Well, I'll be damned if I'll go home empty-handed, so I thought, Saoirse my girl, let's stroll down the crick and see if we can't scare up some trout for supper instead. Just as I capped the waterbag and stood to head downhill I caught a little rustle from the other side of the hawthorn. Sure enough, when I poked my head around the bush, I saw it clear as day, trying to be stealthy so's I would pass on by and it could figure its way out of my trap.

"Fox," I said, "ain't no way you're getting out of that, I tied it just so. And we don't eat fox, no matter how hungry we are. So hold still and I'll let you go." She was a big vixen, I saw, with a flaming brush as pretty as autumn itself.

"Girl," she said, "I never heard your family putting mine in the cookpot, so I'll tell you this--just over the ridge, your snare's got a fat rabbit." I smiled wide with relief as I worked to untie my special nine-knot.

"Which you were gonna swipe from the line, no doubt?" Fox just sniffed and held her paw a little higher so I could pull the rope away.

I was winding the line and headed down the hill toward the next one when I heard her bark, "Girl! Don't you eat that rabbit! Let it get away so you can follow it home. You hear me?" And I was flat put out with that, good supper going to waste because I been taught to listen when an animal's making sense. So I'm sure I came over the ridge looking like a thundercloud, but sure as anything, there was the fattest rabbit I've ever seen in my snare. It slicked its long ears back and crouched down as far as it could when it saw my mad face.

"Girl," it said with a little tremble in its voice, "girl, let me get back to my family and quick, there's a fox been sniffing around your lines, you'll wanna catch it before it do some real damage, yeah?" Well, I was still pretty cranky about losing this guy, what would've made my supper that much sweeter, so I didn't say anything, just leaned down real close to start untying the knots. "Girl," the rabbit said, "you won't regret this, this just go to show how the world repays kindness! You follow me on home, girl, and we'll show you something for sure. Yeah!" I just nodded at it and wound up my line as it shook off the pressure of being bound all morning.

Well, we were headed through the scratch and prickles of the blackberry canes along the crick when we hit along my last snare, and wouldn't you know, there was a damn raven tangled up in my line. "Rabbit, you go on ahead and leave me a marker, I've got to get this raven out of my snare before I catch up to you."

"Girl, you best leave that raven where it is and follow me, I can't leave you no markers on account of that fox."

"Well, I can't, so you are just gonna have to remember what you owe me," I snarled, and it took off in a fair hurry. And now I was in an even worse mood, so when that raven rolled its shiny bead eyes at me and croaked a warning, I just told it to shut up. I sure didn't want to hear any more lip from animals that day.

Then when the fox burst out of the canes behind us and took off after that rabbit, my rabbit, I knew for sure that this was how kindness was repaid in the world. That my sweet-talkin fox was headed to eat up my rabbit and all his kin...well, I was so riled up I strapped that raven to my back, headed home, and when Mama finally woke up? We had fried chicken for dinner.

This week's Indie Ink Challenge comes from The Drama Mama, who sent me this picture for inspiration.  It comes from Beth Moon, and I am so grateful to have been led to these pictures, thanks!  Saoirse, the Sibyl of Eastern Tennessee, comes from my staggeringly long Appalachian-folktale mishmash (still unnamed at several thousand words), and her origin story just seemed to scream straight out of this image.  I challenged Bewildered Bug with a little window into my psyche, and can't wait to read what she does with it.  

For any other folklore nerds that might be following along, this piece was loosely based upon Type 155, Ingratitude is the World's Reward.

shuffle

"The Hanged Man," Elise breathed as she turned over the last card. "Not much of a surprise."

"What? Why do you say that?"

She shook her head, smiling a little at his affected nonchalance. "Well, you're not the most relaxed person I know," she said. This was not an understatement. The man sitting across the card table was still in a three-piece suit, disregarding whatever license eleven p.m. might bring, collar pin and watch chain sparkling relentlessly in the dim light. He shifted a little in the chair as she continued to look at him through her lashes.

He sighed. "Are you going to finish my reading or talk about my shortcomings?"

Her smile widened. She let her eyes flick across the greater pattern and deepened her breath. "The Tree of Life, Thomas. It's an overview, a set of guidelines. Not something you can plan your life around." She pointed at the top right card and began reading down and to the left. "The point of your exercise in belief, the point of coming to me instead of going to mass or synagogue or learning to handle rattlesnakes for Jesus? It's lost unless you pay attention to the things I tell you. Your mind is open to the idea of things you don't understand, but not so open that you actually believe me when I give you advice. Your company is fine. Your home life is, well, adequate.  For now. Your future is uncertain," she said, frowning a little at the cards, "but so is anyone's, I guess. Free will, you know. The only certainty," she finished, pointing at the Hanged Man again, "is here."

"I don't get it. What does that even mean? It doesn't look like a very positive card," he muttered.

"The Hanged Man is packed full of so many symbols it could take me days to completely explain it, but the high points are the most important here. The subject is suspended by one foot, but look at the blissful smile on his face. He is bound to a tree, with a crown of light on his head. His number is twelve, same as the wheel of the year. You were born on the twelfth, weren't you?"

"Huh. December twelfth. But hanging? Still not seeing the positive aspects of this card."

"Acceptance, Thomas. One of the most misunderstood cards. It's an important one, too. Inner harmony coming from a new point of view. I think it's a lesson you should consider." She swept the cards into a pile, destroying the pattern and shuffling them back into the deck. "Same time next week?"

"Yes. I'll be here. I'll need to give this session some thought, it seems." He smiled, finally, his face opening a little. "Thanks for being patient with me. I know it might seem kind of weird, but this helps."

Elise stood to see him to the door, helping him maneuver between the velvet curtains and the card table, holding his coat in a conscious reversal of chivalry as he shrugged into it. They clasped hands for a moment, his fingers wrapped around her delicate wrist, lingering against her soft skin. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, blushing a little more than usual, and he left her studio with a smile that held more than a tinge of blissful confusion. He tugged his hat down a few degrees and shoved his hands in his pockets, his face settling into its comfortable stern lines as he contemplated the evening's discussion. His bootheels made authoritative sounds on the nighttime sidewalk, sirens in some other part of the city figuring only distantly in his thoughts, other sounds registering not at all.

When the pack had him surrounded, the smallest one moved in from behind, the knife gleaming in the poisonous yellow of last generation's streetlamps. It was a reach, considering the difference in their heights, but the blade was long enough that it didn't really matter. The others moved closer to pick over his body, snarling, fighting over his coat and shiny accessories, but she crouched, slender haunches settling to the ground just beside his face, fastidiously avoiding the spreading pool of blood.  She picked her way around the mess, nestled in the curve between his outflung arm and his ribcage, and set the knife aside.  Then she leaned in close, breathed in his last sputtering exhalation, watched his eyes slowly lose focus, wondering at the smile on his face. 

Elise isn't much of a psychic, hmm?  Oh well.  This week's Indie Ink challenge prompt came to me from A Lil Irish Lass, who instructed me, "Select your favorite quote.  Do with it what you will."  My challenge went out to Alison Newton, whose blog has a name that invites me to slap on a trigger warning.  So, unless you have euphemistic food problems like me?  You should click that little link to read her reply.  

What's that?  You want me to tell you the quote that inspired this story?  

"You may wonder about long-term solutions.  I assure you, there are none.  All wounds are mortal. Take what's given.  You sometimes get a little slack in the rope but the rope always has an end.  So what?  Bless the slack and don't waste your breath cursing the drop.  A grateful heart knows that in the end we all swing."  

--Stephen King, "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet"