Tag: speculative

The Leap of Faith Principle – I’m Still Here (+ “Lindsey’s Dream”)

Did you know that giant tarantulas will often keep frogs as pets? Apparently they’ll keep them safe from predators and in return the frogs eat insects that would threaten the spider’s eggs before they hatch.
I guess that means Aragog probably chose a toad for his Hogwarts pet, huh?

Happy Tuesday, everybody!

I don’t know where you live, but in the areas around my neighborhood, people put up these signs in their front lawns a lot. They’re black signs with white lettering and they all sport famous historical or motivational quotes. One of my favorites is by poet and activist Maya Angelou, which says:

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
-Maya Angelou

I guess in that way, her quote has a lot in common with Papa Kratos (check out the last post for the reference). It’s terrific because it, like Kratos, doesn’t expect perfection, doesn’t even expect success. It just expects that you’ll apply yourself the best that you can – The. Best. You don’t need to apologize for failure or coming up short, you can keep your apologies and save yourself the time and words. Instead, observe what’s happened, the effects of your efforts, and fold that experience into your next try.

Because of a lot of life events recently (short version: helping my mother renovate her house, retire, and move), I’m still feeling pretty sensitive to motivational sentiments. So that’s what today’s post is. Like some others, this one came together a while ago in probably a single afternoon on the back of a napkin one day at work. We’ll get into more in The Take.

Without furter adieu, I present:

Lindsey’s Dream

I was standing on a cliff by the ocean. There was a rocky precipice about twelve feet out and there was a small crowd of people standing on it. They all looked happy, fulfilled, and whole. I looked down at the space between our places and saw bodies. They were lifeless, broken, bobbing with the ebb and flow of the waves against the rocks. They were the people who had jumped and didn’t make it. I looked behind me and saw an ocean of people. They stood dressed in rags like me, cold, shaking with anxiety and fear. They were the people who never jumped because they had also seen the waves.

I wanted to jump because I wanted to be where the happy people were, but was afraid because I didn’t want to fall. I looked down at the waves again and, this time, saw something I hadn’t noticed before. It was a hand, then another, then another. They were people who had survived the fall and were climbing back up. So I stood and I watched. Not every climber finished, many fell, but one made it and stood next to me.

“What will you do now?” I asked him.

Breathless, he answered simply: “Rest and jump again.”

And he did. He was old and gaunt, he saw there was reason to be afraid, but he jumped. The man fell short, but he clung to the side of the rocky precipice. Eventually, he pulled himself onto it and was folded in among his new peers. I decided to name him ‘Murphy’.

That was when I jumped too. I had seen others jump with a timid step and that lack of conviction made them slip. I jumped with strong legs and a clear mind, but still I fell. The waves were hard, shocking with the cold, and threw me with overwhelming strength. I saw the lifeless forms around me and felt the seduction of giving into the waves. But I remembered the man’s conviction. It was that conviction that drove him to jump, fall, and yet never drown. I looked to the cliffs. The rock up to the precipice was impossible – sheer, flat, and held an imposing slant. The climb I witnessed the old man make was jagged and sharp, but doable. It started with grabbing the first hold.

So it was that I jumped, fell, climbed, and would jump again. Now those sad faces were watching me. Some were silent, others bid me cease my efforts and join them by their heatless fires. I shuffled off their hindering grasps and made another leap. I had learned. I knew how to run, where to step and where not, and which rocks to spring from. I reached my hand out as I had so many times before, but this time found purchase on the precipice. I allowed myself a smile at a few of the successful who took notice, but the rock I held broke and I fell.

This was the first time I’d felt so frozen by the waves in my many leaps from the bluff. I had done everything correctly. I had made my leaps, I had learned from my falls, I had persevered the pain, the cold, the rock. Yet this time it was the rock that had let me go. It was not my fault, but I still fell. So I began to sink, and as the deep blue grew darker the seduction of the bidding cold returned. I felt my feet touch the inviting, slick, uneven bottom and the light began to close in around my vision of the precipice I had been so near.

I would have let the water take me to join the other fallen if I hadn’t seen it. There, from the bottom of the waters at the base of the cliffs, I saw handholds hidden in the flat stone column of the precipice. They were folded, narrow slits in the stone like gills on a fish, only to be seen from an angle the bottom of the water provided. So, I pushed off the bottom, ascended toward the light, and took a filling breath after I broke the surface. The air tasted of old salt, but I had a love for it. I swam to the base of the column and placed my hands upon it. It was flawlessly smooth, like the surface of polished marble, and it was warm.

I soon found the small pockets hidden in the stone, scarcely wide enough for my fingers, and began to climb. It was terribly demanding, but not unlike what I’d endured in my efforts anyway. I climbed, with aching muscles, burning lungs, and quivering joints, but I climbed. I made it to the edge of the precipice I’d leapt for so many times and pulled myself onto it.

“I knew you would make it,” came a familiar voice. I turned and saw Murphy standing there. I smiled in return, looked about my new peers, and was confused. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“They’re the same,” I said.

I inspected the community atop the precipice. Everyone stood dressed in rags, and while there were those who wore a contented smile like Murphy did, many others frowned or shook with their own cold. I walked between them, wondering what could bring them displeasure when we had made it. I wondered this until I came to the other edge of the precipice and saw.

I looked around me and saw many with discontented faces. I looked down and saw still bodies, bobbing with the ebb and flow of the waves. I looked up and saw another precipice with a small crowd waiting on the other side, all with happy, wholesome faces.

“Will you stay?” Murphy asked, who had followed me.

I looked at him, then back to the precipice. I smiled at him, placed my steps carefully, and I jumped.

FIN

The Take: “Lindsey” is really kind of an arbitrary name for the perspective in this. Ultimately, what it comes down to is the picture of the various aspects of a leap of faith. I think it originates from an old military turn-o’-phrase, but: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Back in September of 2018, I left a comfortable manufacturing job to write full-time and put myself on a sabbatical. About two weeks after my last day, my mom got sick, and since then, it’s been a lot of hospital visits, phone calls with insurance, realtors, etc etc.
It was a leap of faith and that turned from coffee-house-bohemia right to dumptruck-of-life-events very quickly, but that’s what a leap of faith is. I think that’s what I’ve come away from this having absorbed, mostly because of this: I’m still here.
I’m still here, my mom has seen better circumstances but I think she’s happy, her house is coming along, I love my family and friends probably now more than ever, and writing has been a lot of wheel-spinning, but it’s gathered bits of traction here and there (check out Hidden Histories by ThirdFlatiron Publishing now and keep an eye out for my episode with the NIGHT LIGHT podcast coming soon! *plug plug nudge nudge*).
It began as a leap of faith, has NOT gone according to plan, but that’s alright. And I guess just try to bear that in mind the next time you’re faced with a choice that comes with a jump (or if you’re in one now). People treat it like a coin toss with Success/Failure being like Life/Death and I just don’t think that’s true. Especially because even though this jump’s come up Tails, a lot of good has come from it and I can always jump again.

Anyway, that’s enough lecturing. I’ll catch you guys Thursday!

Ciao.

…

Today’s Fable Fact source: https://roaring.earth/tarantulas-and-frogs-are-friends-with-benefits/

Amwren Origins IV: Tsal Maveth, Host of Bu’ul the Ravager

Happy Tuesday, everybody!

Did you know that the name for “Haagen-Dazs” ice cream was actually created by a Polish Jewish couple who immigrated to the United States in 1921 and made the name up to sound Danish-ish? The more you knooooow!

Anyway, right down to it.

Today’s is the fourth installment in the Amwren Origins series (duh, by the title) and it’s the one that I probably put the most time into. We’ll explore just why that is more fully in The Take (below), but for now, may I present:

Tsal Maveth, Host of Bu’ul the Ravager

Tsal awoke with a gasp. His head pained him terribly and his wrists ached. Turning this way and that, he saw only darkness, as he could feel the cloth of a blindfold covering his eyes. His breathing quickened as his mind searched for answers to his many questions. From what he could tell, keeping himself from panic as best he might, he was chained in some sort of prison with manacles clasped about his wrists. He felt cool, rough stone against his back, and the air was moist and gave him a chill. He noticed the pain in his shoulders and, at the same moment, realized he could move his feet freely, meaning he was suspended by the manacles the held him. Tsal strained his ears, but heard nothing more than a soft drip and his own breathing to break the silence. He tried to think through the pulses of pain and remember how he’d come to be in such a circumstance.

He’d been in his stall back home in Calypso, keeping up his work as a wheelwright, when Dabjorn, his adoptive father had called for him. He remembered setting his tools and rag aside where he’d always set them and left out the cabin’s western door. As he crossed the small homestead where the two lived, he recalled taking note of how low and full the moon was set in the sky. Crossing the threshold of he and Dabjorn’s home, he saw his father sitting by the fireplace with his back to the door.

“Father,” he had said to announce his presence, but the man by the fireplace didn’t stir. Tsal repeated himself as he crossed the room and, with a hand on the man’s shoulder, shook gently to rouse him but yelped with shock as Dabjorn’s head fell limply back to reveal blank, white eyes. Tsal’s heart raced and a hooded figure leaped quickly from the shadows behind him. After that, he awoke here.

The sound of a heavy wooden chamber door interrupted his thoughts. He heard the shuffling of several pairs of feet and, after a soft clattering of chain, collapsed to the ground as his legs suddenly took on his full weight. He opened his mouth to speak, to question his captors or saviors, but was swiftly struck and silenced. While he was dragged through what felt like winding halls and across steep stairs, he heard those that carried him speaking in a tongue he did not recognize. He could tell he was being handled by men, but the language was guttural and sounded as if to come from abyssal, nightmarish creatures. He heard the sound of another heavy door opening, this time into a chamber full of chanting voices. The air grew hot and he was forced onto his knees. His mouth was forcefully opened and stuffed with a cloth gag. There came a flash as his blindfold was gruffly removed and his eyes adjusted to what light there was.

Tsal looked around in a panic to take in his surroundings. He was encompassed on all sides by tall figures in robes of deep red and embroidered black trim. There were perhaps a dozen of them in the room and they wore tall headdresses and dark veils over their faces. Amid the many robed figures that surrounded him, there stood one dressed more elaborately than the others with a skeletal mask on its face in place of a veil like the others. It carried a scroll held tightly to its chest in one hand and a wand of darkened bone in the other, held at its side. The room Tsal was in was actually a small cave, perhaps the size of a tavern’s common room. It was dimly lit by candles of dark wax and, looking up, he saw the ceiling had been made into a mirrored surface. There also was a hole in the cavern’s ceiling that gave a ray of moonlight to a central altar, before which he had been made to kneel; however, it was what adorned the altar that dominated Tsal’s vision and would plague his dreams for years to come.

It was a man also on his knees and restrained with rope about his wrists, his arms outstretched and held wide by those tethers, and a sack over his face. It looked to Tsal as though the man had suffered lengthy torture at the hands of their captors. What rags he wore about his waist were filthy and his exposed body showed bruises, burns, and cuts both deep and shallow. As Tsal looked on in disgust and imagined what sort of methods had caused such harm, two of the robed ones stepped up to the altar and removed his hood. As the man on the altar was revealed, Tsal gave a unintended shriek into his gag. The man looked exactly like him – the same eyes, the same nose, hair color, brow, everything – a perfect likeness, as though looking at his reflection.

The two locked eyes with equal horror and Tsal’s heart began to beat faster and faster until it raced as though meaning to break from his chest. Tsal saw the other man cough in pain with him as he felt himself torn from the crown of his head to the pit of his stomach, an excruciating, ghastly pain that reached his very soul. And so the two stayed for several long moments, feeling their existence wrenched from them, before the masked one barked orders and the other robed figures assembled from the cave’s edges to a circle around the two Tsals, their chanting growing more intense.

The collective voices hummed and reverberated off the cave walls, assaulting and wracking Tsal from all sides. He looked up and the two men once again locked eyes. The pain intensified and they saw one another’s form begin to shift and leave them, each other’s outline swaying from them like a shadow cast from a flickering fire. The droning chants of the collected mages, as now Tsal could only assume they were mages of the occult, hummed steadily on and a deep red glow began to emanate from behind his other self. The figure with the wand once more barked orders in the same infernal tongue and two followers moved to the man on the altar. Together they held a long, sleek dagger which they raised high above the man’s head. One last look was shared between Tsal and his ‘other’ as a third follower approached and forced the man’s head low.

The red glow grew brighter.

The chanting ceased.

The knife found its way driven down the man’s back and into his heart. His body fell limp and lifeless, there came several red flashes that filled the room with a dreadful light, and Tsal felt a force assault his body and fill it as if with hot coals. He wailed with agony and writhed against those that held him. They loosed their grip and he fell to the floor on his back as, internally, he wrestled with this foreign, burning presence. Tsal felt the pain of claws raking him as the chanting returned and he saw his reflection in the ceiling above. Glowing runes of deep black and brilliant ruby were carving themselves onto his torso. When they’d finished and the pattern complete, they covered his body in the fashion as one might where a cross harness. The glyphs on his body soon lost their glow, but the agony remained. His mind dazed from the ritual, the next several minutes Tsal would only ever recall as a panicked blur.

The chanting abruptly halted and the door to the ritual chamber crashed open. Soldiers in decorated plate mail flooded the room, brandishing shields that depicted a golden flame and glistening swords. The skirmish between the two groups was as intense as it was terrible. Bolts of hideous arcane energy cracked the air and cries sounded from those that fell to the sword, with the splatter of gore and gnashing of bone to accompany the screams of both sides. He had no idea how he’d managed to escape the halls during that time of madness, but the next sensation Tsal would remember was the brush of soft grass about his legs and the breeze of cool, midnight air on his arms.

…

Days later, Tsal wandered the streets of Kolbath, unsure and with no memory of how he came to be there, so many days’ travel from his home. His only thoughts when he tried to recall the days since his capture were of tortured unrest or plaguing, nightmarish dreams. He walked amid the poor and collected himself the best he may, a crescent moon adorning the high sky, when he heard the muffled cries of a young woman. Following the sound, he came across a woman being battered by a stumbling man that stank of sour ale. A finger to his lips signaled at the maiden, he crept up being her assailant and, finding a loose brick in the wall to his right, struck him.

The drunk fell to the ground, motionless. Tsal moved to drop the brick, but found himself strangely unable to. Rather, he held it in hand and, staring at the man’s chest rise and fall with unconscious breath, felt a strange anger begin to churn in his belly. He gripped the brick tight, dropped to a knee, and began to strike the prone form again and again well after the man had stopped twitching. Tsal looked up from the fresh corpse and, looking the frightened woman in the eyes, felt the foreign rage subside as they locked gazes. The woman’s expression slowly lost its edge of shock and fear and became one of a strange softness and allure. He dropped the brick and approached her.

“And what is your name, m’lady?” His words’ sound was sweet to ear, but held an acrid taste.

“Lydia,” she replied with a coy smile.

He gripped her gently by the waist, pulled her close, and intimately they knew one another.

…

“It’s a late hour that finds you here, m’lord. What can I get you? Look to me like you could use a drink and a bed.”

“Stiff drink, soft bed,” Tsal replied. He tossed a pouch of coin onto the bar.

“Very good, sir. The key. And that drink’ll be with you shortly.”

Tsal found the batterer from the alleyway hadn’t much on him once he’d sent the young lass on her way, but there’d been petty coin enough for a drink and a room for the night at the Hewn Heart, a local tavern and brothel. Tsal felt he didn’t like the innkeeper very much. He didn’t quite know why, he’d known plenty a man like him back home in Calypso, but tonight the man’s features annoyed him. His balding head, pockmarked face, clammy complexion, and unkempt beard all repulsed him very much. He took his drink and key and moved to a table across the way, far from the innkeeper. At that time, a man in lavender robes entered the tavern, seeming to look around the room rather frantically. Tsal was just lifting his mug to his lips when the robed one laid eyes on him and swiftly approached.

“Are you Tsal Maveth?” he asked, breathing hard.

“And who wants to know, pretty boy?” Again, the words that came were not his own.

“My name is not for you to know,” he said, pointedly, “but I come on behalf of my master and the Order of Bokonon. I come to you on purpose of summons, as you are called for a matter of great importance.”

“Right,” sighed Tsal, intent on moving tables, “I think you have the wrong guy.”

As Tsal made to stand, the man in lavender robes waved his hand briskly through the air and Tsal felt his muscles tense, unable to move. The priest gave a sad sigh.

“I see that I was too late. I’m sorry, friend, that I could not find you before…well, before this.” He reached into a fold in his robe and produced a pendant on a thin silver chain. The jewel set in the necklace was a deep colored amethyst and when the priest laid it on Tsal it gave a soft flash. Immediately, Tsal gave a deep, desperate gasp and fell forward, clawing at the table. Other patrons, as well as the innkeeper, looked across the room at the commotion, but with a look and a hand from the lavender priest, they each went back to their own business. Tsal continued breathing hard, but this time with thanks, not struggle. He looked down at the pendant and saw it now held a soft glow, and deep within it something stirred, like a mass swimming on the bottom of a murky lake.

“Th-thank you,” Tsal stuttered. “What did you do?”

The priest seemed to give a soft sigh of relief. “It will ease your struggle, but I’m afraid it won’t remove it of you. For that, I’m sorry as I was too late. It will, however, protect you from their sight.”

“From what?”

“We have been watching you, Tsal Maveth. I’m aware of your ordeals of late. You-…we are very fortunate that you escaped, but I’m afraid so did a handful of your captors. When they finish licking their wounds, they are sure to pursue you.”

“Pursue me? Why? I haven’t done anything to them. I haven’t done anything to anybody! Why would they want me?”

“You’re a foreigner in these lands, friend, and a very valuable one at that.”

“I’ve been to Kolbath before. I know people here and my homestead’s only a few days ride-”

The lavender priest gave a soft, sad smile and a shake of the head.

“In the days to come, you will come to know my meaning. You sought a place in your world from your first steps. Now, you will feel that ever more strongly in this life.” The priest searched Tsal’s expression and his confusion before continuing. “There is much to explain, and understanding your new place takes more time than we may afford. You must come with me to my order, in Tallin. Here, for supplies,” the priest offered him a small pouch that clinked with coin. “Rest tonight, and we must leave with the rising of the sun.”

Desperately confused but with little other recourse, Tsal acted as he was bid. In the morning, the two supplied and made ready for the two day journey to Tallin. While Tsal had many questions that longed for answers, their march was a largely silent one. Though, as they walked, something changed with Tsal. As he looked at the roads they walked, the fields and people they would pass, there came a sensation that would not leave him. Everyone he passed felt like a stranger, whether he would know their face or not. The land he walked, though familiar to him from travels past, felt foreign and may as well have been the Scythian tundra. The longing for answers, he knew, would eventually drive him to madness.

After a few days of walking and meditation with the priest, the crested a hill in the road and Tallin lay before them, the City of Temples.

FIN

The Take: I always really liked this one. Life wasn’t kind enough to let it play out quite as imagined in the actual, living campaign, but it stayed a favorite anyway. Prepare yourself for some woo-woo, because the main idea at work was this:
Tsal had been kidnapped by a group of blood mages from a parallel plane, stolen from his home plane to theirs. Their goal was to abduct a vessel from another plane because that person’s substance would be…loose, in a foreign plane compared to someone who is existing on their home world – kind of like the separation from one’s home plane leaves microscopic cracks in the fabric of their being, cracks that a summoned demon could then fill (like water filling a sponge).
From there, they proceeded to take him to face his alternate self who was of that world and ritualistically sacrifice that Tsal, since the same being cannot existence twice in the same time and place, and therefore binding Tsal Our Hero to this foreign plan.
That’s why the ritual plays out as it does, as well, explains Tsal’s uncharacteristic behavior when first in Kolbath.

Anyway, I know this one was dense, and while I don’t expect it, I rigorously welcome any hardcore fantasy nerds to comment, message, or email me with questions or comments. And if you missed any of the previous chronicles of the Amwren Origins series and wanna get caught up, I encourage you to spend some time and meet Revan, Cerlina, and Aldis. We’re nearly there to having the whole gang together!

Otherwise, I catch you all Thursday. Ciao!

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here (and tell ’em Evan sent ya!): 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source:  https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/haagen-dazs-fake-foreign-branding?utm_source=reddit.com

Amwren Origins III: Aldis, Hunter of the Scarlet Pact

Happy Tuesday everybody!

Did you know that the Issus coleoptratus is the only known insect on the planet that has gear-like joints? They synchronize its joints for even jumps. Neat.

…yup. Don’t have much more of a cheeky intro than that, so let’s dive on in.

Today’s is another installment of the Amwren Origins series, introducing Aldis, this time. Perhaps the group’s most somber character – though certainly well within his reasons – I always liked him for the way he kept his compass straight, if that makes sense.

Oh! And bonus points if you can spot the homage to Kurt Vonnegut running through all these.

Anyway, may I present:

Aldis, Hunter of the Scarlet Pact

Aldis spent his younger years in the small, unremarkable town of Zylast. His childhood days were passed avoiding chores brought to him by his mother and father. Instead he chased the caravans that would come through on their way to Faraday or the bands of fighting hopefuls off to the desolate lands beyond Neven. As he watched, his mind would fill with dreams of his own adventures: the monsters he would slay, the duties he might perform, the women his tales would woo. Years of these thoughts aged him restlessly, and he grew eager to make them real. A few moons after his seventeenth birthday, he stole away into the night with naught but his clothes, the spear his grandfather had gifted him, and a farewell whispered to his sleeping sister, Talia.

The road to Stettin was straight and relatively safe, but stretched far. After weeks spent connecting with caravans headed in the same direction and foraging for what food he could not barter for, he crested a small hill to see the capital city’s walls on the horizon. Making camp, he new that defining days lay upon his near future.

Through the outer villages and eventually the towering city gates, he parted from the caravan with whom he’d arrived and sought out to earn his stay within the walls. The size of the walls, crowds, and deafening noise overwhelmed him at first, but he soon grew to quite like the buzz that the city offered. Knowing his goal, he searched for the city’s recruitment office and barracks of the capital guard. When he approached, he was laughed away by what soldiers were present and waved away by the attending officer. Sullen and dejected, but no less determined, Aldis found himself in the dark, unlit streets of the Stettin Warrens.

From his left, he heard a small clatter, and as he tensed, a figure leaped out at him from his right. A club struck him in the shoulder from the right and he felt the piercing pain of a dagger to his left thigh from his flanked side. Surprised and frantic, he thrashed with his arm and caught the knife-wielding figure on the chin with his elbow as the other man made for his head once more with the club. Aldis barely deflected the strike with the butt of his spear and spun around as he had practiced back home. Now facing his assailants, he was slowly backing away down the alley. They poised to attack again. Aldis turned and ran down a side alleyway.

Dodging under beams and leaping over refuse, he ran with his pursuers hotly behind him. His foot caught the edge of a hole in the cobbled road and he was sent into a tumble. On the ground, he turned around as the knife-wielding man leaped at him. Aldis closed his eyes and screamed, expecting to feel a sharp sting to the chest. What he felt instead was a warm spatter of viscous fluid across his cheeks. He opened his eyes to see the man with the knife, mouth agape, shocked, and slowly dying on the end of his upraised spear. As the man fell to the side, Aldis saw the other man standing in the street, looking on as his friend lay there dead. Slowly, he peddled back then turned to run away, apparently determined not to meet the same fate. Aldis breathed a sigh of relief that was cut short when he heard a voice not ten paces behind him.

“Well done,” it said, the speaker behind a veil of shadow.

“What do you want?” shouted Aldis, expecting more trouble.

“Me? Nothing. The question might be, though, what is it you’re looking for?”

“Listen, I don’t want anymore trouble here.” Aldis stood up and braced his spear. The man speaking to him was dressed in scale mail that shimmered against the moonlight, but his face remained hidden.

“That kind of attitude might mean you’re in the wrong part of town.” The man stepped forward so Aldis could now see him. He was tall and may have at one time been handsome, but had clearly seen years of conflict and weathered many adventures as his visage was now marred and rough. “But, you show promise. How’d you like to learn to use that thing?”

Aldis breathed slowly and, after several long moments’ silence, gave a soft nod.

…

Aldis’s first days at the Fighters’ Guild in Stettin were difficult, but justly rewarding. There, he worked hard under the tutelage of the man who’d found him, whose name, Aldis learned, was Hommin. He worked for his keep, scrubbing the dishes the fighters used, assisting the guild hall servants, working to maintain the guild members’ practice gear, and polishing the warriors’ weapons and armor. In return, he was taught the rudimentary lessons in movement, placement of one’s self in a fight, sizing up one’s opponent and analyzing them for weaknesses to exploit as well as strengths to be wary of. He learned to use his spear and weapons of its like, how to fit and dress one’s self in armor, and how to attend to wounds to some degree.

After some months spent in this manner, Hommin approached Aldis and told him to gather his things, saying that his days at the Guild were over. Hommin quieted his Aldis’s protests and as the young man was stepping out the door, his mentor caught him by the shoulder with a powerful hand.

“Where am I even supposed to go?” Aldis objected, fervently still.

“Go back to the recruitment office.”

“They wouldn’t take me!”
“They will now.” Hommin handed Aldis a rolled up piece of paper with the seal of twin swords across a rook tower, of the Stettin Fighters’ Guild.

…

Aldis walked the streets of Stettin, now on patrol for the city’s Honor Guard as an apprentice. He accompanied two pledged members and he felt a little out of sorts as his armor was brigandine under the light robes and the badge on his chest that marked a trainee, while the armor of pledged guards was a shimmering plate mail. They walked the streets, keeping order where it was needed, and as these days wore on, Aldis became quite accustomed to the unexpected as the matters of the job presented him with all manner of strange goings on – fights, brawls, drunks, occasional small riots, missing persons reports, even reported sightings of monsters and illegal wizards.

This experience could not steel him for the arrival of his sister, however, late one evening. He sat at a table in one of the Market District’s taverns that catered to the guard, The Bronze Toad, when she came through the door.

“Talia?” Aldis exclaimed, nearly covering himself in ale he coughed out his nose.

“Hello, brother.” Her voice was soft as heather and her smile was wide upon seeing her estranged sibling.

The two sat and spoke to the late hours over what he’d done since coming to the city, what their family had done in his absence, and, of course, what she was doing there.

“I’m pregnant,” she explained, “and soon to be married to Patryck. You remember him, from the Feishod farm? Ah, no matter at all. Anyway, I’m here with father to meet with an associate of mother’s to see about a wedding dress. Can you imagine? From a tailor!”

“Let me go with you! I’ll ask to make it a part of my patrol tomorrow. Not every day you come around, after all.”

“It might be. Patryck’s pursuing an apprenticeship under a master cobbler near here in Market Square. We’ll be close again.”

With that, each smiled and agreed to meet the next day at high sun in front of the shoemaker’s building.

…

“What do you mean, ‘nothing to be done’?” Aldis screamed. “We have to catch the fucking whoreson that did this! We have to find him and catch him! Kill him! We can’t let him get away with this!”

Aldis knelt beside the limp, mutilated body of his sister. It was the early morn, and her body was reportedly discovered not an hour ago. Dark dried blood ran from her still eyes and the corners of her mouth. There was a deep depression in her chest, a sign of a ritualistically removed heart, as well as dark tracks along her arms and neck which indicated she’d been subjected to chemical or magical paralytics. Most horrifically grotesque of all, though, was the viscera that ran from between her legs into the street. It was apparent to the examining officer present, as he would explain to Aldis and the other guards at the scene, that the goal of her attackers was the attainment of the unborn child she had carried; towards what purpose, he couldn’t say, but the work was indicative of skilled Blood Mages.

“So we do nothing?” Aldis exclaimed, standing. “This man or group of men are a menace and they have to be dealt with!”

“That’s not your call to make, boy,” reprimanded his accompanying guard.

“He’s right,” continued the officer. “Blood Mages are a dangerous ordeal, true, but from this it seems they’re targeting pregnant women, which is a far cry from a wide set crisis. Their target group is a small, temporary minority, and a harvest like this will keep them and their work busy for some months. It’s better that we not address this immediately while we have the time to do so.”

“We do nothing,” repeated Aldis solemnly.

“I’m afraid so.”

Aldis looked down once more at Talia and knelt beside her again. He looked to her neck and saw the opal necklace he’d given her when they were children. He’d found the stone at the bottom of a small river and thought of no better purpose for it. He’d almost drowned getting her that damned stone. He took it from her now and closed her eyes. With it, he turned his back and walked away.

“Where do you think you’re going?” called one of the guards.

“Let him go,” calmed the officer. “He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

Aldis would not return to Stettin’s walls. If those blind, pig-headed fools in the guard won’t do anything about an atrocity like that, he thought, then he would.

…

For months, Aldis traveled the countryside. He hunted names and chased rumors that had anything, even remotely, in line with the arcane nature of what had befallen his sister. One night, while in a tavern in the town of White Tower, he drank away his frustration as his most recent trail had gone cold. The doors to the establishment opened and a man walked in, dressed in robes of light lavender. The man approached Aldis and, without so much as a word, extended a hand offering a rolled piece of parchment with a seal that held an emblazoned ‘B’. While confused, Aldis cautiously accepted the parchment and the man, giving a warm smile, turned and left the building. The parchment sat on the table for a long moment before it was opened.

The note was addressed to Aldis personally by a man named Alistair, of the Order of Bokonon in Tallin. The parchment offered him details of his own recent life, from his training in Stettin to the murder of his sister, as well as his investigations since then. It warned of a matter of great importance coming to the world and his role to play in it. As a measure of good faith, the letter bore a name and promised it meaning in his search: Morvanna.

Without hesitation, the next morning, Aldis rose with the sun and traveled due west to the city of Tallin, the City of Temples.

FIN

The Take: Looking back on this one was cool, if strange. Since it was meant as a backstory for a D&D character, it was already pretty detail-rich for what it was. Given what he has happen, though, it would have been pretty well served in a longer form; especially the confrontation with the officer towards the end. The guard has a pretty calloused reasoning for handling the situation the way they are, and while they rationalize it, Aldis doesn’t accept it. Call it naive, call it moral or emotional, it’s a revenge story at its most classic.

See ya Thursday!

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here (and tell ’em Evan sent ya!): 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source: 
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/this-insect-has-the-only-mechanical-gears-ever-found-in-nature-6480908/

Literary Dim Sum: The Life Best Lived, n’ All That

Happy Thursday, all.

Did you know that hippos can’t actually swim on account of them being too muscled? They just sink, so rather than swim, they just run along the bottom of whatever body of water they’re in. (No joke this time, this one’s just cool on its own.)

Short and sweet this time, and we’re going to do a two’fer. Both are…I’d call them excerpts, but there was never anything more to either of them. They were just thought experiments (but even that’s loose), mostly dialogue between two mostly-unnamed characters, that I wrote out forever ago in a form loosely called prose and gave titles.

First up:

The Why of It

“I can’t stop thinking about that man you killed back in Raen.”

Vrok shook and bobbed his head in response.

“Because he didn’t know why,” explained the warlock. “I think that’s the saddest thing. We all live stories and it’s important to know how and why it ends. Whether that’s living to a natural conclusion, dying for a war’s cause, or because the armed man wanted your money, at least these ways you understand your last page. It’s a pretty ubiquitous sentiment, I feel.”

Vrok grunted.

“Well, to most of us. I think that’s why most minds agree it wrong to harm small children and animals that were domestically raised. I doubt they understand nature’s crucible of hunters and prey and what side of the line they fall on; so there’s no way for them to know why it’s happening. Violence with reason is a means to an end. Violence without it is just cruel and cold.”

Vrok ruffled his feathers and patted his beak with massive paws.

“The why of a matter is the heart of a matter. Next time, show restraint. Just because we can look into his past and see his crime doesn’t mean he knows that’s the reason for his end or that he even remembers it. It isn’t fair.”

Vrok loosed growled bark.

“You’re right. I doubt he’d even heard of an owlbear before.”

FIN

The Take: This one could have been used for more, or been a part of something larger, but I think at the time I just wanted to get out there the idea of understanding one’s end and the importance that holds. Dunno, felt fun at the time.

And secondly:

Earth Everlasting

“We’re not destroying this planet, don’t fool yourself. She’s too large and too grand for that. We’re simply making her shell inhabitable for ourselves. She will regrow what we burn, rake up, or poison and she will live on while we die. But it will be by our own hands that we die.”

“But what about the responsibility we owe our children, or the animals whose homes we certainly do destroy? Human expansion is responsible for so much loss of life.”

“True, our kind is far from blameless, though I think it ignorant to believe this the first time it’s happened. Life ebbs and flows yet exists as consistently as the ocean’s waves. Don’t think the view gained from our tiny slice of time here to be the entirety of it; that our constructed time-line encapsulates the earth’s whole story. The clues of lost times and histories were long ago reclaimed, their ages set to equilibrium as ours inevitably will be.”

“I don’t understand how you can be so heartless and without empathy. How can you not keep in mind our children, or their children after them, or those uncounted future generations? We will be those to blame for the apocalypse they inherit from our actions. You see that, don’t you?”

“I don’t see the reason in fretting for those who haven’t life yet. Though, still, they should be so lucky,” she chuckled.

“What makes you say that?”

“My dear, people have for thousands of years believed themselves and their generation significant enough to be worthy of the End Times. That you and I stand here today having this conversation shows that to have been self-aggrandizing fantasy. For a people to experience a monolithic event that was dreamed of and preached by their ancestors for millennium, never mind the earthly horror of it, there would be a beautifully bleak privilege to it. In some sense, perhaps, that cosmic shedding could be seen as a gift.”

FIN

The Take: It’s surprising actually how often this one’s come up in my own life. I think it came about right when I was personally becoming privy to the whole Climate-debate at large. This isn’t the place to get political and I’m not about to, so I don’t expect that. I will just say that it provided a handy example, an anchor to combat a lot of the nihilism out there.

Aaaaand that’s it today. We’ll dive back into the series of Amwren Origins again Tuesday, so see ya then!

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here (and tell ’em Evan sent ya!): 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/04/flight-of-the-hippopotamus/524343/

Amwren Origins II: Cerlina, Voice of the Dawn

Sweet Tuesday evening to you, everybody!

Did you know that upwards of 150 wallabies roam the wild forests near Paris due to a jailbreak zoo-escape in the 70’s? Definitely in the running for most adorable jailbreak in history

Hopping straight into it, tonight’s tale is another of the Amwren Origins series. This one introduces Cerlina, a young half-elven girl, born into poverty and strife, but she holds her head high through it all and emerges as something…different.

Also, if you’re sensitive to foul language and racist attitudes…I mean, maybe just read over those parts.

(And in case you missed it, check out Revan’s origin story here:
https://thelightofday.blog/2019/04/30/amwren-origins-i-revan-of-the-crossroads/)

May I present:

Cerlina, Student of the Dawn

Born to an elven mother and a father unknown, Cerlina spent her early years enduring the cold gazes of man and elf alike. She and her mother, a woman fit of body but of waning mind, lived with Cerlina’s aunt, Maydene, in a communal living circle on the outskirts of the small town of Zylast. The circle was primarily composed of elderly women and their husbands who were, like Maydene, though a widow, practiced spinsters and herbalists. Cerlina’s childhood was but a glimpse as at age six, old enough to carry a pail, she worked tirelessly about the community, doing chores that the elderly could not and caring for her mother to the best of her ability.

This was the life she knew until her early teenage years when there came an unusually harsh winter. The cold air bit one’s skin, killed what few crops could manage the earth, and even hearth fires faltered, lashed by the chill. Inspired by the danger it proved to the old and frail, Cerlina made the march to Lomas, two day’s journey with a caravan, and appealed to the local baron. Despite his people’s stores of plenty, the man haughtily denied Cerlina’s call for aid and dismissed the poor peasant girl. That night, she found herself wandering the paved Lomas streets, kneading in her mind how she would word her disappointment to her aunt and her mother.

“Hey, half-breed!” she heard called out from a group of boys by the town’s central well. “Oi! You ‘ear me? I called to ya, ye prick-ear’d bitch!”

Resolute not to provoke any conflict or to make a scene, knowing Fenrici prejudices against elven kind, Cerlina quickened her pace. She soon heard several pairs of shoes smacking the ground behind her in pursuit and so she broke into full flight. She rounded a corner and squeezed down a tight alleyway, leaping over piles of refuse and sidestepping stray beams. She broke out the other side as footfalls echoed off the walls behind her. Making the mistake to look back, Cerlina’s breath escaped her as she was tackled from her blindside. From there, her memory of the clash was blurred.

The sound of approaching shoes.

The cold, stone street against her cheek.

The taste of blood in her mouth.

The next clear memory Cerlina had left her always with a strange blend of gnawing regret and anxious pride. She looked down after the frantic scramble at three boys laying in the street, bloodied and moaning, while two others fled so quickly the wind removed their hats and neither stopped to catch it. “Animal! Bloody she-devil!” they called behind them as they ran. Cerlina suppressed an embarrassed smile and looked back to the squirming bullies. The flash of a ring caught her eye and her pride turned to fear. She recognized the crest as the Halwin family sigil, the ruling family in Lomas. Fearing reprisal and punishment, Cerlina couldn’t wait until the morning caravan and instead set immediately to the dark night road alone, to Zylast. In two day’s time, she sat by the fire with her aunt and mother, relaying the news of the unhelpful baron.

“Well,” sighed Maydene after a long moment’s pause, “it may be time, if only too soon, to recognize what we must do.”

“I’m confused, Aunt May,” Cerlina said softly. “We already appealed in Lomas, the wood’s running out and our axe is broken. At this rate…”

“We won’t last the winter, I know, dear. We’ll be fine.” She smiled sweetly and looked into Cerlina’s eyes for a long moment before continuing. “What I was talking about was you. We planned this quite some time ago, but we wanted you to grow and, well, we still needed the help. But now is as good a time as any, and when opportunity knocks, you don’t turn her away. Those bruises you came home with are evidence enough that you’re ready.”

“I still don’t know what you’re-”

“We’re giving you to the temple of Idun, dear. Perhaps there, you might learn the healing arts, escape this life, and maybe one day…” Maydene’s voice trailed as her eyes moved to her sister sitting voicelessly by the fire. “Well, one day you might find us again and show us all what you’ve learned.”

Against her initial protests, Cerlina was taken to Tallin, the City of Temples. Once there, she was greeted by the head priestess with a knowing smile and quickly inducted into the order. Her beginning weeks were full of learning. She was set to rigorous study under the head priestess herself, Ana Salde, and in that time she spent long hours in the central cloister learning the basics in the proper use of herbs, natural remedies, and the rudimentary beginnings of spellcraft; though it was not to last.

After three weeks with the priestesses of Idun, Cerlina lay in her room, modestly furnished with only a small cot to sleep, a candlelit desk, and small stool, looking out her window at the passing clouds. Her wandering thoughts were interrupted by calls of commotion and protest from the cloister. She moved to investigate the sounds but was met by three armed men at her door as her feet touched the stone floor.

“Ah, there you are,” spoke the first, his comrades behind him holding back Cerlina’s classmates. “Took us a lil’ long to find you. Now,” he produced a scroll and read from it with mock elegance. “Under the authority of Lord Hammel Halwin his’self, Baron of Lomas, we’re to bring you in for the mistreatment of Lord Halwin’s firstborn heir, Ulfric Halwin.” The man rolled the scroll back up and smiled at her nastily. After a long moment’s pause, Cerlina quieted her peers and accompanied the soldiers with no more than a scornful frown.

…

Four years and untold lashings later, Cerlina sat in the corner of her cell. She was listening to the soft, familiar drip coming from a crack in her ceiling when she heard the clack of approaching boots. She slowly rose and stood up straight with her chin high. The years had been hard, but it had been a test for the resolve her aunt had taught her. “Don’t forget where you come from, child,” Aunt May had instructed. “People will scorn you, mock you, try to hurt you for your lineage. Never, never fall prey to their low thinking.” The jailer rattled his keys in search of the correct one and, upon finding it, opened the heavy door with the dull thud and grind of iron.

“Today’s your lucky day, little fairy. Free to go. Go’on, get out.”

Cerlina said nothing. Eyes closed, she emptied her lungs and then filled them with a strong breath before gracefully stepping forward and out of her cell. Her footsteps fell silently as she walked the hall toward the exit.

“What the…” muttered the jailer as he inspected the inside of the cell. What had been at one time a small, featureless, stone cell now had a bed of thick moss and was framed by a modest hanging gardens with bulbs in the beginning stages of bloom, all lush green despite there being no sunlight.

“Fucking elves.”

…

Cerlina sat in the shade of a grove on the outskirts of the city. She held in her lap the belongings she received upon leaving the prison, and among them was a package of letters. They were dated through the years of her stay. The first was a pardon from Lord Halwin for the “mistreatment” of his heir. She scoffed to herself and folded it behind the others. The rest were from her family in Zylast. In them, she read of her relatives’ lament for what had become of her, the close of the harsh winter which had taken her there, the success and failure of crops, various celebrations that had been held in town, as well as other general news.

As she read, kissed by the gentle southern breeze, Cerlina would smile, laugh at tales told by the page, until finally she came to the last letter, dated by eight months. It told of her once-widowed aunt remarrying a well-off man from a far away land whom her healing herbs had saved from sickness, stating his wishes that she and those close to her move with him to the city of Hallendren.

While she wished with all her heart the best for her aunt, Cerlina could not deny the pang of loss that she felt and of renewed loneliness, even now free from her cell. She made her way home to the community where she’d lived and toiled, finding her aunt’s now vacant cabin. Inspecting the outside of the cottage, it seemed everything was in place and as she remembered it.

“There were looters,” said one of her neighbors, a beanpole of a man whom Cerlina recognized as one of the younger husbands in the circle. “But we chased ’em off. We figured you was comin’ back some day and, well, wouldn’t feel right to let it happen. All you’s done for us, that is.”

“Thank you,” Cerlina replied sincerely, a soft smile adorning her lips.

The man bunched up his lips and offered an embarrassed nod before resuming his work.

She laid her hand on the door’s handle and left it there for a lingering moment before finally pulling it open. The inside of the cottage was not as she’d expected it. All the furniture and family possessions were as they were when she’d left, but beyond that, the cottage felt lived in, not abandoned. There was a fire in the hearth and she was surprised she hadn’t noticed smoke from the chimney. Her eyes eventually fell upon her mother’s chair and she gasped silently.

“You there,” she announced. “What are you doing here?”

The man stirred, as if from a gentle nap.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he yawned looking over his shoulder at her. “I had wished to be awake and ready to receive you but it appears I dosed off.”

“What are you doing in my home?” she repeated.

“Looking after her, of course.” He stood and now Cerlina saw that he was not a vagrant but some manner of priest, as indicated by his lavender robes. As she came slowly closer, she heard the scratching of dull claws on the wooden floor and she saw a large dog rising also to its feet. “She came here seeking shelter once your family had gone. I thought it only right to take care of her until you returned.”

“No, wait. How did you know I was coming back, or even gone, for that matter? Who are you?”

He smiled warmly. “I am from the Order of Bokonon, in Tallin. That is who I am and why I know you, Cerlina. I trust Ana prepared you properly, despite your time with those of Idun being short?”

“Are you why I was accepted?”

He gave a soft nod. “We did so because you’re needed, Cerlina.”

“Needed for what?”

“There is coming a time of great strife, a time you’re to play a role in guiding. Come to the Temple of Bokonon in a week’s time at dusk.” With that, he nodded and moved gently by her to the door. “Please, gather what you need and I hope to see you then.”

“Wait,” she called.

He stopped.

“What about your dog?”

“Her? She isn’t mine.”

“But,” Cerlina looked down to the dog who was looking back at her with large, gentle eyes. “Then who does she belong to?” she asked, but when she returned her gaze to the man in lavender, he was gone.

“Well,” she sighed to herself, looking to the dog again. “What do we call you, hmm?”

The dog cocked her head to Cerlina’s words and barked.

“What about ‘Alma’?”

She clacked her paws against the wooden floor and wagged her tail.

“Great! Alma it is, then.”

Cerlina and Alma spent one more night in the house they’d both known to call home and, rising with the morning sun, gathered what provisions they each might need. Together, they put step to path and journeyed out, returning to the City of Temples.

FIN

The Take: Much like Revan, I really like Cerlina. She’s born into a pretty crappy hand of cards, but uses what she’s given to the best of her ability, does what needs to be done, and doesn’t complain while enduring the world’s prejudices. Even though she’s treated unfairly, she doesn’t mire in that. She’s hardened, but she isn’t stern – a virtue I think resonates with a lot of us, because it’s such a difficult balance to strike: strong enough to steel against hardship, but not so jaded by that one’s guard never lowers.
Also like with Revan’s story, you might notice some similarities. They both start a little impoverished and they both also wind up speaking to a man in lavender robes – that’s a theme that will continue through the origin stories; albeit, in various forms and for various reasons.

Anyway, see ya Thursday!

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here (and tell ’em Evan sent ya!): 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11763787/Up-to-150-wallabies-living-wild-near-Paris-in-Rambouillet-forest.html

‘Hitchcock and Grayson’

Happy Thursday evening, all!

Did you know that a female turkey can, in the absence of any males, reproduce all on her own?

-snaps fingers “Don’t need no man” style-

That’s weirdly topical because of today’s story. It’s an excerpt from from a longer work that I wound up scrapping, but thought was really fun on its own. It might make a revival some day in one form or another, but the basic gist was about a kid sorcerer named Samson that ran a magical detective agency/law firm inside his own head called “Hitchcock and Grayson’s”.

The name came from a trip to Oakland my girlfriend I went on some years back. We went to the Morcom Rose Garden where we met a house cat with a little name tag that informed us his name was Grayson (the name tag, not the cat – though that would have been pretty cool too). As well as a (presumably wild) turkey that we named Hitchcock for the shape of its neck and jowls. Thus, ‘Hitchcock and Grayson’s’ was born! (In name, anyway.)

Without further adieu, may I present:

Virgin Mental – Hitchcock and Grayson’s

Phelp Harris stood outside a door in an alleyway as a clock somewhere struck midnight. He breathed out of his nose as he shivered and watched the cold turn his breath into wisps that danced in the air. Should be in and out in twenty, they’d said. Forty minutes ago, he’d believed the guy. Personal Protective Services usually meant a lot of standing around looking tough, but not in the freezing goddamn cold. This job was supposedly easy money, though. They didn’t expect any trouble, so They said, and just wanted some muscle with a background in brawling if the situation called for it. Maybe a shady pitch by a shady character, but for what They were paying him, Phelp felt it was easily worth it.

The soft clapping of footsteps sounded at the edge of the sidewalk by the alleyway. Phelp straightened his back and puffed out his chest as the sound came closer. Showtime, he thought. Standing in the bubble of bleak lighting offered by a single exposed light bulb, the approaching figure was smaller than he’d expected, silhouetted against the distant streetlight. “Hey, can I help you, kid? Doesn’t seem like the kinda place you ought’a be.”

Stepping into the pale light was a boy, no older than maybe twelve or thirteen with light, woody brown hair, hazel eyes that blinked more often than they should, and a space between his front teeth big enough to fit the right Lego piece if you tried. He was dressed in a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt under a puffy red vest, jeans with holes at the knees, shoes just a size or two too large for his feet, and a backpack. “Is Danny home?” he asked.

Phelp blinked his eyes in confusion. “Kid, I don’t think you heard me. You don’t belong here, understand? Now run along and find your parents, or something.”

“If they were around, you think I’d be in a back alley with some perv at midnight on a weekday?”

“What the? I ain’t no perv, kid,” said Phelp defensively.

“Just sayin’. You’re the grown up here with an unsupervised eleven year old. It’s the dead of night, no one knows where we are. Kind of fits the formula wouldn’t ya say, PedoBear?” The kid pulled out his phone and made a show of pretending to tweet about it.

Oh, a wise ass, huh? Time to turn this up a bit. “Listen kid,” Phelp said pulling back the flap of his jacket to reveal the handle of a 9mm Glock. “Like I said, you need to go. Ain’t the place for you.” Phelp gave a half guilty smirk at the kid’s startled reaction. It soon faded as the boy’s sobs became hiccups and then a full fit of the chuckles.
“Listen, Harris- can I call you Harris?” began the boy. “Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it.”

“Hang on a second, kid. How’d you know my name?”

“You’re wearing a name tag.”

“No I’m not.”
“Yeah, ya are.”

Phelp looked down and saw a ‘Hello, my name is’ sticker on his chest that he knew sure-as-shit wasn’t there a minute ago. “What the…?”

“You want some gum?” offered the kid, already chewing.

“What? No,” he said, inspecting the sticker with his name written on it. Looking at it more closely, he could smell it had been written with scented marker.

“Suit yourself.” The boy chewed for a moment and, after a look of eye-crossing focus, blew a gum bubble through the gap in his teeth. “So, what d’you say? Wanna make some money?”

“Look, kid,” Phelp said, discarding the sticker. “You really gotta get outta here. Not safe for you. You don’t go, I’m gonna have to make you.”

“Ooo-hoo-hoo!” sang the boy. He did a little dance in place pretending as if he was scared.

Strike two, you little prick, thought Phelp.

“You seriously don’t want to take the bribe? I thought bribes were like, like hotcakes to bouncers n’ hired goons. Seriously, I can pay.” The boy reached into a pocket in his vest and produced a roll of bills which he undid and counted out eight hundred dollars.

Phelp stood in place with eyes wide as the youngster handed him the money.

“Who the hell are you, kid?”

The boy smiled coyly and said, “Your worst nightmare.”

Before Phelp could react, there was a bright, silent explosion of color. A massive rainbow of light spouted forth from the kid’s open palm like a snow making machine, enveloping the surprised bodyguard. When the effect ended and the lonely bulb resumed its monopoly on light supply in the alley, Phelp was left dazed and stupid on the ground beside the door, froth dripping from the corner of his mouth. The kid blew another bubble through his teeth and wore a proud smile.

He stepped over the crumpled body that was Phelp and tried the knob on the, frankly, shack door to the building. It was locked. The boy gave a short huff before laughing to himself with an inspired tap to his noggin. He bent over and closely scrutinized the door’s surface. He reached out and gave it a light flick of his finger. The face of the solid door rippled like the disturbed surface of a still pond. The boy looked down at Phelp before stepping through.

“Oh, or just Samson for short.” And with a wink, a name tag appeared on the front of his vest before he disappeared through the once solid door.

FIN

The Take: This one was really fun. I think it was one of the first little doo-dad’s I wrote where I got to use magic. It was a bit of a hump getting over those jitters and realizing it was sort of okay to say something happened “because magic”. Anyway, edited a little bit because the sentences were, upon review, pretty damn run-on-y, but I left in the dumb PedoBear joke that I still think is pretty cringey. Overall, it was a fun little scene to put together with magic, character, n’ goofs.

Anyway, happy Thursday and I’ll see ya next week. Ciao, for now.

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here: 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source:
https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/t/Turkey_%2528bird%2529.htm

Amwren Origins I : “Revan, of the Crossroads”

Happy Tuesday, everybody!

Did you know that some Chinese police stations deploy guard geese instead of guard dogs? I guess remember that next time you spy a gaggle at the park.

In my heart, I’m a fantasy nerd first and foremost – that means I’ll take enchanted swords over lightsabers, fireballs over laser beams, and spellbinding elixirs over chemical compounds. Which is why I find it kinda funny that, to date, the stories I’ve successfully sold have been, in order, an historical fiction and a speculative horror (coming soon, NIGHTLIGHT podcast, get ready!).

So, stemming from that love as it should, naturally I ran a D&D campaign (questionably) for a couple of years. Today’s tale is the origin story of one of the players’ character concepts: an orphaned street rat with a curious mentor that helped him nurture his adventurer skills. Bravo!

May I present:

“Revan, of the Crossroads”

“Catch him, dammit! Catch him!”

Revan smiled as he darted down the alleyway. Diving over piles of refuse and sliding under a fallen beam, he looked back to see the angry merchant stumbling to the ground in failed pursuit. He loosed a proud snicker but stopped short to see a patrol of town guard entering the other end of the narrow path with clubs in hand. Wasting neither momentum nor thought, the young elf deftly leapt to his right, planting a step on the wall by the closest guard’s shoulder and vaulting to a low roof on his left. Three quick, bounding paces and he was lowering himself to the street once more on the building’s other side. Revan closed his eyes and took a quick breath as voices approached the alley fence on his right. He locked eyes with the guard between the fence boards.

“Hold right there, you thievin’ rat!” the guard commanded.

Looking shaken, Revan held his hands up and slowly reached into his tunic to retrieve what he had stolen. From it, he produced not the illegally procured item in question, but his own middle finger, which he showed the guardsman with jovial fervor.

“I’ll have your hide you dirty…”, was as much of the guards’ howling that reached Revan’s ears during his fair escape. Being Market Day as it was, he was easily lost in the crowds that pervaded the bazaar stalls of Faraday. At the far end, he stood atop a barrel between the tents of a seller of trinkets and a local apple farmer scanning the fringes of the crowd. A few moments later, he saw the band of guards appear from around the lane corner, breathless and red-faced, throwing their clubs to the ground in frustration. Good thing those plebs can’t run for shit, Revan thought as he dismounted the barrel and was lost amid the alley shadows.

“Oh yes,” said the seller of trinkets to a young woman that had approached his tent. “I have a fine array of bracelets that would fit a lovely maid wonderfully, but for you I’ve just the one. Ah, well now. Um, damn. I beg your pardon, I seem to have misplaced it.”

Revan half-danced as he jauntily strode along to the sounds of the Market Day minstrels. He took one final crunch of his apple and tossed it to the ground beside a small ant hill. Eat up, fellas, he thought as he held his wrist up and admired his new bracelet. It was a twisted rope and leather band set with small non-precious stones. Still though, it was nice. The sounds of music faded more and more into the distance as he made his way to the outer edge of town and the caravan park. He skipped between the wagons and carts, dodging the odd pile of horse shit here and there, until he found the one he was looking for (wagon, not horse poo).

A young woman in her early twenties with fair hair and rich brown eyes sat on the bench of her wagon with its reigns in her lap. She sat with her back to the green painted wood of the covered wagon looking with tired eyes over the rest of the caravan park. Many of those in the area were guards keeping watchful eyes on their claimed spaces or merchants who, like she had, arrived too late to set up a proper stand in the full market. She was just convincing herself to get to work when her wagon shifted with an added weight. “Hello, Revan,” she said without looking.

“How did you know it was me?” he asked from the wagon’s roof.

“You’re not as sneaky as you think you are.”

“Oh, I think I am. How was the road, Nora?”

“Hot, dusty, full of shit. Nobody woke me. I only arrived a short while ago.”

“Ah, that’s crap. Almaran with you, or he snooze too much too?”

“Haven’t seen him just yet. But he should be here soon.”

“Mind if I wait with you?” His lied down and let his head hang over the side, his long hair hanging like a horse’s tail.

“You can wait, I need to go set up. Just keep an eye on the wagon for me.”

“Oh! Here, take this with you, so the day’s not a total bust.”

“Hmm, this is pretty Revan, thank you. Where’d you get it? Are these rubies?”

“The market and probably not. Now go on, get! People need potions and things and, well, whatever else it is you do.”

“I’m an enchantress, dear,” she said with a sarcastic flutter of her eyelashes.

“And I am a prince,” replied Revan regally.

“Oh fuck off.”

So in the meantime, Revan lay on top of the covered green wagon, twiddling his thumbs and playing games in his mind with the clouds that passed overhead.

The wolf, the maiden, the toad, he called them out as they shifted with the wind. The toad became a…snake…or a duck and…went up the maiden’s dress. And the wolf, oh the wolf got fat…and ate the maiden…no, humped the maid. No, yeah, ate the maid. And they became…one, big…cloud. Where the hell is Almaran, the old tit!

*

Having been born poor and orphaned at a young age, he’d had no family business to assume or apprentice under nor the albeit rare opportunity for education of any kind; and so, Revan had learned to make his living as a light-fingered street urchin. Almaran, as Revan had come to know him, was a traveling arcanist and storyteller whom the young elf had met as a child.

One evening making his rounds about the market stalls and purses of through-wandering travelers, he noticed a new face with a crowd of other children about him, enlightening and emboldening them with strange tales and gestures. Sparks flew from his fingers as he spoke of the ancient, mystic fey wilds; glyphs and sigils danced in the air in colorful patterns as he told the ways of the wizard; and fierce, kaleidoscopic flames sprang high into the air with the tales of elder dragons. As Revan approached the mob of children, he was invited by the kindly old man onto his humble, carpeted stage to help reenact the Tale of Two Dragons.

The bond between the two quickly formed and throughout the years as Revan grew, Almaran would visit on his passage through the caravan town. Through his stories, Revan heard tales of famous swashbucklers, legendary archers, cunning rogues, and dashing explorers. In the time between visits from the old man, Revan put these tales to practice and began to emulate them to the best of his ability, impressing his mentor always upon his return.

*

While he mused, the sun had parched the skin on Revan’s forehead, accustomed to the shadows of the night or the shade of wavy bangs as it were. Sunburns peel something awful, he thought. I bet Nora has something for that sort of thing, being an “enchantress” and all.

With the impulse, he rolled off the side of the wagon, landed with the grace of a cat, and opened the back latch on Nora’s wagon. Inside he found crates and cupboards of all sizes and odd shapes containing a myriad of strangely colored jars, vials, flasks, jugs, bottles, and pouches. The colorful array of elixirs was matched in its visual impression only by the powerful odor that emanated from so many alchemical mixtures so closely packaged – smelling much like a spice shop that was home to a giant wet fish. Truly unsure which vessel contained the ointment which would sooth him, Revan started on his left and reached for a short cylindrical jar. He struggled with the tight lid for a frustrating moment before he felt the lid pop and the seal crack. Inside was a paste of deep blue, the thick fumes of which swiftly and somehow gently placed Revan face first in the dirt, quite unconscious.

…

The young elf awoke several hours later, his forehead no longer of primary concern as he groaned his way to consciousness and nursed his bloodied nose.

“Quite a fine tumble you took,” called a gentle voice. “Looks to me to be Athelas extract, well spoiled now so long exposed to air. In doses, it heals aches and its leaves can be smoked to sooth anxiety. Ho-ho! Though, that batch appears quite concentrated!”

Revan looked over his shoulder to locate the source and saw a man, his face hidden by the wide brim of the hat he wore, dressed in long lavender robes and driving two donkeys pulling a covered wagon painted a happy mustard yellow. “Almaran!” called the young elf with a smile. “About damn time you made it. What was the hold up?”

“Ah well,” came the mature, gentle voice of Almaran, “I was held up along the road by a poor fool who’d driven his cart into a tree. Service to one’s fellow man and so forth.”

“That took you all day?”

“Ah, um, well no. But turned out the man was suitably versed in Robes and, well, you know how much I do enjoy a game or two.”

“Or several, apparently. In any case, how did the road fare for you?”

After a deep breath, the robed one lifted his head and said, “Uneventful, besides,” and it was now that Revan saw not the soft, rounded features of the face of the man known as Almaran, but the sharp jaw, high cheek bones, slight nose, and bright eyes of a young man in his middle years. “Yes? You look surprised, my boy.”

“Well that’s because I am, a bit,” Revan admitted. The magician had, many times before, demonstrated illusory antics for the sake of his storytelling. “This a new character you’re trying on?”

“In a manner of speaking, but I’ve not brought riddles and tales for you this time.”

“Ah, what’s it, then?”

“Direction.”

Revan stared gormlessly at the man known as Almaran, the light of the wagon’s lantern reflecting in his sharp, elven eyes, his brow ever slightly furrowed in contemplation.

“What?”

“Oh gods,” sighed the wizard. “To speak simply, you’ve outgrown this town, Revan. You’re ready for bigger things and brighter horizons. And moreover, you’re ready for the greatness those travels will bring you. Ready yourself as you may, but by Market’s end, make your way for Tallin. There, you will meet-”

“Why’s your face different?”

“What?”

“Why’s your face all…different?”

“Really?”

Revan shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Magic.”

“Oh.”

“May I go on?”

“Sure.”

“Well, yes. Um, right. Go to Tallin, seek the Temple of Bokonon and begin your way.” The wizard smiled.

“My way where?”

The wizard’s smile dropped. “Have you listened to any-”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Revan dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Go to Tallin find the Temple of Bollocks for some such. Sure.”

“Bokonon.”

“Right.”

“Well,” began the wizard, straightening his robes and composure. “That was about a difficult as I’d thought it might be, though for different reasons.”

The young rogue gave a cheeky smile. “You know me. Oh! I got you something.” Revan’s hand disappeared into his tunic and returned holding a small parcel wrapped in brown cloth and twine. “Do you know what this is?”

“Looks to me to be a phallic effigy of some sort.”

“Close!” Revan cheered, not fully grasping Almaran’s vocabulary.

“Ah,” the wizard worried aloud as he unwrapped the parcel with caution. “Oh, this is a lovely pipe, Revan. How did you come by this, if I might ask?”

“Dishonest means.”

“I’m proud of you.”

…

And so, the two shared a night together beneath the stars as the Market wound to an albeit boisterous close. The man known as Almaran dutifully instructed Revan in how to find the Temple of Bokonon within Tallin and Revan quite passionately ignored him as he made up his own constellations in the nighttime sky. When the old sage was content that Revan would correctly find his way there, the two delved into sharing stories of the time each had passed since their last meeting. Eventually, Revan gave voice to a thought that had been irritating the back of his mind.

“Are you really Almaran?”

“Not exactly.”

“Hmm,” nodded the young elf. “Are you a friend of his?”

“Yes.”

A silence hung between them above the crackling of the campfire.

“Do you trust me?” asked the stranger known as Almaran.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Why?”

“You laughed at my fat princess joke.”

“It was a good joke.”

“Thanks.”

In the morning, Revan was equipped with suitable gear provided by Not Almaran and he set boot to path on his journey to the city of Tallin, the City of Temples.

FIN

The Take: Of all the backstories I’ve written, I think I’m putting out one of my favorites here first. Revan’s cheeky, kind of dumb, impulsive, street-wise, and naive. All together, he makes for a good scoundrel and that came together well in the campaign. While it didn’t quite get to play out, he also unknowingly harbored quite the unique secret (more on that later).

And that’s all for now! I think I’m going to make this the first installment of a series that covers the whole gang, just ’cause they were fun. See ya Thursday!

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here (and tell ’em Evan sent ya!):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130725-geese-guard-police-china/

Do You Think You Know You?

Happy Thursday everybody!

Did you know that at one point the Vatican offered people time off purgatory for following the Pope on Twitter? Neat.

Today’s piece of buried treasure is a weird one. Rather than introduce it, I think I’m just gonna roll right into it.
I present:

The Stories we Tell Ourselves

-door opens and closes-

-raincoat is set on hanger-

-buzz of lights flickering to life-

“Well, let’s just get right to it, shall we?

“I would call myself a smart man, perhaps even a poetic one; but I’m no genius. Still, I imagine that when someone reaches that point of breaking the genius threshold, it must come with complete, anarchic chaos for them internally for a time. Especially nowadays, most of the genius ideas that draw from simplicity have to have been taken. I mean, we won’t know until someone comes up with the next one, but that’s beside the point. The point here is that nowadays, genius is determined by invention or mechanical or technological innovation. That’s right, my friends, long gone are the days where our brightest minds generated ideas for the betterment of their neighbors. The Enlightenment is over! Now, genius sells for a profit to a crowd of hungry dummies; but again, I digress.

-pacing footsteps-

“When a mind breaks into the realm of greater intelligence, it isn’t a clean break, especially it being their debut for that kind of prestige. No, the universe’s workings are too messy and our proud understanding is too small for things to go off without a hitch. This all brings us to this man, a Dr. Dennis P. Ramchoff, a former head of retentive neuroscience and pharmacology at Terminus Inc. Some of you may know Dr. Ramchoff for his accredited founding of the ‘Hypothetical Yielding of Potential Non-Occurrences’ – or H.Y.P.N.O. A drug that allows its user to, for a time, relive as a conscious experience a personal memory; only, under the drug’s effects allow you to act independently during the experience, altering it however you may with your subconscious adapting it for plausibility’s sake. It’s easy to think of it like lucid dreaming, but with more serious consequences.”

“What kind of consequences, sir?”

“Well memory, to perhaps a greater degree than dreaming, is a strange thing, son.”

“How do you mean?”

“For one, haven’t heard of too many cases in my day where folks get chemically addicted to dreaming. With HYPNO on the other hand, you can usually spot an addict. Hallucinations, delusions, long and short term memory loss, even some accounts of Alzheimer’s disease found in 30-year-old’s have been attributed to overuse.”

“Makes you wonder if it’s worth it.”

“Mmhm, well, when you approach it philosophically, it isn’t hard to see the temptation. Relive any personal memory, truly relive it? We’ve all had daydreams where we think back to a time or event we wish had gone differently, but it’s always still abstract and strangely intangible. Even if just inside the shelter of your own mind, it can become real if you’ve access to the drug. At the same time, similar thinking can illuminate the graver angle to the pill. You much of a reader, son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know who Thomas Nagle is?”

“I’m sorry sir, but no I don’t.”

“Quite alright, quite alright. I suggest you read him, but the short version of what you’ll come to understand is that, truly, all you have is the present moment and all you can be sure of is the contents of your own mind.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Believe me that’s fine. You see, what makes the idea of memories so strange when you think about it comes with accepting those two things, and that takes time. It goes something like this: you know the past exists because your memories tell you so and because those memories help to explain the world around you at present, sure, but since your memories don’t exist outside your own mind, you argue yourself in a circle trying to confirm that they exist externally. You know those events happened and exist separately from you because you remember it, but using what’s in your mind to prove what has happened outside your mind, you get nowhere. And if the present moment is all that exists, then your memory is an unprovable record of something that doesn’t exist, but is still relied upon day-to-day. Any better?”

“I think a little, go on.”

“Excellent. Well, that’s where HYPNO comes into play and can make a world of trouble. When you use the drug relive a memory alternatively and create that experience, to the user it still creates a new, valid memory of that experience. All you have is the present to draw connections as to which one is authentic. For example, four years ago you were at a social engagement where you became intimate with the woman who is now your significant other, and without that occurrence, the two of you may never have gotten acquainted on that level. Say that you use HYPNO to relive that event and become intimate with a different individual at that same event, some fantasy you wanted to live out. When the drug wheres off, you now have two valid memories of the same event that have drastically different endings, yet you may be comfortably certain of which occurred in reality when you find yourself still romantically engaged with the first woman and not the second.”

“Even that small example seems dangerously confusing.”

“And that’s just the beginning. If one should generate enough memories through the substance that their mental space gets cluttered it can become extremely difficult, nigh impossible, to separate earthly history from your own because to you it’s all real.”

“Why not keep records? Notes to yourself as to which memories are the real ones?”

“Seems a little obvious, don’t you think? It isn’t that people tried, but simply put: doubt kills it. It can begin simply enough to separate two memories by using notes or physical reminders. But should those reminders be misplaced, lost, destroyed, or, even more sinister, tampered with, what then? Or should the idea enter your mind that the anchor you’ve left yourself was itself a misremembering, suddenly you can’t trust your own evidence. It’s doubly true if the duplicated experience was of an event in the distant past; the alternative remains fresher in your mind than the original, easier to trust as a result. These possibilities are all under the law of the mind-body problem; to attempt proving external reality via internal evidence gets you no traction whatsoever.

-beat-

“You’re being quiet.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. It’s just a lot to consider.”

“Mmmhm, making genius doesn’t give the pleasure of a clean break, as I said. Something always gets overlooked with something this revolutionary and something so inchoate as our understanding of consciousness. Isn’t that right, Dennis?”

“Excuse me?”

“When an addict should create so many alternative experiences that authentic, natural memories are lost, where does identity lie in all of that?”

“What did you say?”

“Personhood remains as immeasurable as it ever has been, but our past thoughts, decisions, and actions are what help the ego shape it. What should happen to that system if a mind becomes so muddled in a quagmire of fabricated experiences indistinguishable from reality?”

“I’m speaking to you!”

“Near as we can tell, and what the practical man will tell you, as the mind dreams we consciously experience it delving into itself while the body sleeps. Whether this is the case or whether dreams are the self’s recess from a mortal casing is ultimately uncertain. Regardless of which explanation you prefer, it is, in the end, a conscious experience that is only shown perspective up waking.”

“Let me out of here!”

“After years of addictive use, fabricated memories being compiled and compiled atop those of an earthly history but all of them real to the mind in which they reside, attempts at keeping authenticating records having long since failed, allow me to ask: where are you right now?”

“I said for you to let me go.”

“And I asked you a very simple question. I will resort to harsher methods if pushed, Mr. Ramchoff.”

-a drawer opens-

-something heavy is set on the table-

“Where are you right now?”

“Being held in your classroom.”

“Yes, and why is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you? What is the date today?”

“I don’t know!”

“Come now, think. I’ll give you a hint: it’s mid-November. Hmm, anything? Anything at all? I asked you a question, Dennis.”

“November eighteenth, two-thousand twenty-five.”

“Mmhm, and what makes that particular day special?”

“It’s the day I got the idea that started HYPNO.”

“Yes. Bright young man striding toward an equally bright future in biochemistry. How, oh, how did you find yourself in an introductory philosophy class?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“We’ve been over this, the subconscious adapts according to the user’s actions. So, tell me, why am I here? Hmm, tell me. Come on, speak up.”

“Because you gave me the idea.”

“Good.”

“I was looking out that window while you lectured about ontology. I wasn’t ignoring you, just listening and thinking.”

“What about?”

“The park across the road.”

“Doesn’t sound like listening.”

“I was remembering a time Fiona and I were at a park that looked a lot like that one. We’d just met a few weeks prior and it was the spot we shared our first kiss.”

“Very sweet.”

“The point was I was remembering it. It may have been your lecture, but I started contemplating the existence of my memory of that moment, most everything you said earlier; how it was something unique to my own mind, something no one else had. The further away in time the moment got, the more the dreams of it faded and the more I wanted to hold onto it.”

“I’ll bet you never imagined what HYPNO would do.”

“It was a selfish design over a selfish want.”

“You open the world to something of that caliber before it’s ready and you sunder it. Political corruption more chaotic than ever it was before, with false memory claims being slung this way and that, seizures and strokes spiking in audiences of all ages of the unprepared, and an almost complete dissolution of the study of history. My boy, when you sever a people’s connection to its past overnight, you stir a typhoon of their present.”

“You’d mentioned once an old religious saying: ‘You can’t step into the same river even once’. Of course going to mean that the river is truly ever-changing, completely fluid, never exactly in one instant is it the same form; and the human experience is no different, right?”

“You’re certainly not the same man you were when you came here. Guilty conscience looking for where you went wrong?”

“It’s odd…startling…to look back and realize it was altogether a different person in that seat. If our selves are defined by our memories, asking who we are is unanswerable. What, then, does that make us? Stories?”

“Now you’re getting it.”

FIN

The Take: This one’s from early 2016 and I guess I was feeling really, really, really philosophical at the time and if I remember right, the title comes straight out of a quote from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. The result wound up being a pretty dense brick of text with a fun idea attached. While the construction was clunky and the idea of H.Y.P.N.O. was basically just super lucid dreaming in a pill, it was fun to come up with the acronym and think of the consequences stemming from something like it.

Anyway, that was fun. See ya Tuesday!

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here: 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/16/vatican-indulgences-pope-francis-tweets

Dawning of a New Era

Okay. First post, starting in three…two…

…

…now.

Did you know that in Rock, Paper, Scissors, 80% of people will throw Scissors first?

Phew. Well, that wasn’t so bad. Now that the ice-breaker’s out of the way, I guess we can be polite and move onto introductions.

Hey all, name’s Evan. I’m an emerging author out of Northern California. What’s that mean? Means I’m an optimistic git that left his day job to write fiction full(ish)-time. What’s that mean? Means I don’t have exactly forever to make me a prolific figure in literature.

That’s where this operation – and YOU – come in. I write new stuff all the time and while that’s happening, the “old stuff” piles up. I’m calling this “The Light of Day” because I’m, in part, making it the spot for all those scribblings that wouldn’t see it otherwise (*snarf snarf*). I’ve described it a bit like my rookie card that will be really cool when I hit the Big Leagues.

But for real, this is where I’ll post previously tucked-away stories from workshops, thought experiments, and old concept work-up’s (with commentary, for that sweet cherry on top) that all need a comfy display case. Plus some true stories from my own life that I love telling but don’t have the heart to honor with an open mic set. And I’m sure if I’m not careful, it’ll be a fun place to learn about US copyright law.

Anyway, let’s get to it. First up, an old one and first jump into a fully allegorical work.
I present: The Heron.

The Heron

Kyle groaned as she slowly awoke, her eyes painfully fluttering open as they took in the light. Though this wasn’t the first time she’d lost consciousness like that while in this place, she gasped once fully awake. The vast distance between herself and the ground still unnerved her despite its practiced appearance with every new waking. As she hung there, her head pounded and her fingers felt bloated with their prolonged suspension. She began wondering how long she had been out as the Heron made another pass a short distance away. The gust sent from its powerful wings made her sway ever so gently and brought a pulse of pain from her ankles.

The Heron. Kyle’s gut told her the Heron meant her no harm, though she felt certain it was aware of her presence. At any point, she knew, the giant bird could glide by and pluck her from the sky like a grape from a vine. But every time she awoke, the bird flew by. And every time it let her be.

It would come make its passes every few hours – at least it felt like hours between the great bird’s appearances. There was no sun in this place and no moon by which to judge time, only the blank white void of open space on all sides, the ground far, far below, and the door high above her. Reminded again of her goal, she looked to her feet which ached, bound at the ankle by the Cord that tied her to this place.

The Cord. She had no memory of coming to this bizarre, empty place, and while it felt foreign, she sensed an elementary familiarity from the Heron that watched her and the Cord that bound her. It was secured tightly about her ankles at one end, while the other extended high above to the upper surface of the sky where the door waited. It taunted her at times, boasting the vast distance it crossed while at others it offered hope, being the means by which she might escape; though this knowledge brought with it a thought that gnawed at the back of her mind and recalled her attention to the blade tucked in the small of her back.

The Knife. She didn’t know how she’d come to have it, but that seemed to fit – it felt like a part of this place rather than something of hers or her past. What she did know, what she could feel, was the tempting offer of release it carried: a release from the pain, release from this struggle, a release from the door and the thirst of it for which she suffered. At any time she could use it to cut the Cord and fall rather than face the climb before her.

Kyle shook the thought from her mind and breathed deep. She blinked rapidly and looked about her, twisting and turning her body to scan her unchanging surroundings, but mostly to limber up. As she became more lively, the memory of her last attempt before blacking out weaved its way into her thoughts. She’d begun to climb and made it some distance but lost her grip on the Cord and fell, dislocating her left hip. She lightly patted it now, as it had returned to normal, the way her injuries always did upon waking.

Her eyes caught sight of the Heron in the distance and though the thought of the overwhelming pain troubled her as she considered the climb again, its sway over her felt strangely muffled as she focused on the great bird. She felt another breeze on the wind from the Heron’s wake and the chill made her skin tingle, her hair raise, and breathed a renewed life into the her ember spirit. She looked to the Cord now with new purpose.

With a grit to her teeth, she folded her body over and gripped the Cord just beyond her feet. She bent her knees as she pulled the cable in and straightened her body once she’d made enough progress that she might support herself with one standing loop for her feet and another about her forearm. A sigh of relief fell easily from her lips as the blood drained from her head and the pressure faded. She looked up at the few hundred meters of cable between herself and her goal. Sounding a grunt to start, Kyle began pulling cable and started her climb.

The journey upwards was difficult. Her muscles burned and her breath came hard. She had grown wiser since her previous failures and learned to collect lengths of cable with her climb and fashion holds with them that she might earn brief respite between climbs. Still, even with this new strategy in place, she experienced little more relief than when she had hung far below. Often, her mind drifted to thoughts of the Knife, but she fought them off as best she could. The strain made her bones ache as she pulled herself skyward and yet they wracked whenever she paused idle for breath. Kyle rested and turned thought to how long she had been fighting when saw the Heron once more, though this time much closer.

She could see its muscles contort as it used its wings and watched its noble blue feathers ripple with the motions of flight. The bird made only the soft sound of wind as it keenly sliced the air about her. Kyle felt its eyes upon her as she admired its course through the void and soon met them with her own gaze. Her world slowed as the two locked eyes and for the briefest moment she felt nothing but the wind. In that moment, the Heron had made her a promise. She slowly nodded and looked again to the door. She was surprised to find how much closer it was. So much focus had been on her hands, technique, and the Cord before her, she didn’t notice the distance she’d come. She breathed a small breath of thanks and tensed herself for the final stretch, intent on earning the bird’s promise.

As Kyle continued her ascent, she noticed the bird didn’t stray as it usually did. The beast continued its watch during her final hours of contest with the Cord and rose through the sky with her. It pumped its wings more and more and would squawk whenever she slipped or faltered, as an attentive parent or coach. The closer Kyle came to her goal, the more excited the bird’s movements also grew. As she took her final pulls and laid her hand at long last against her goal, she looked to the Heron and whispered her thanks. With the last of her strength, she pushed the door open and lifted herself through.

She collapsed on the other side and fell into the soft grass of her Elysium as the manacles of the Cord vanished from her ankles, leaving the thick rope to fall. She lied breathless of weary exhaustion. Kyle rolled to her knees and turned her face to the sky. She screamed with the strongest emotions she’d ever felt until her lungs could give no more. The tears she earned slowly rolled down her cheeks and burned as they fell. Through her blurred vision, she could see the Heron high above, dancing through the sky. As a smile came to her lips, her eyes fell closed, and for a moment that seemed a blissful eternity, she felt nothing but the softness of the wind.

FIN

The Take: This one’s from waaaaay back in 2015 and I think it came together in a single evening. The whole idea came together when, at work, I saw a spider hanging from a line of web. It was right there in the middle of the room with high ceilings at about head height and it struck me as weird. To me, it’s just a spider that happens to be near my forehead. But the spider is basically at the end of a 300-meter rope and its options are climb all the way back up or fall. Obviously it’s different since it’s a friggin’ spider, but the idea of being in that same circumstance, suspended in a vastly open space like that, with those options – felt like food for thought. Interpret it any other way you’d like, but to me the Heron was always determination, the Cord is the challenge, and the Knife was capitulation (“giving up” – the way out that’s always there). I think any of us that’s had a goal, heaps of struggle that came with it, but pressed on to realize it anyway – however big or small – can relate to Kyle.

Aaaaaand that’s the gist. This should be pretty cool. (I hope so, at any rate, ’cause I’m gonna charge forward with it whether it is or not.) Keep a look out every Tuesday and Thursday for new stuff, see the progression unfold as I monkey with this new toolkit, plus links to where you can check out my other published works (anthologies, e-zines, podcasts, etc).

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Ciao, for now.