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 Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:25 pm
Officer Brian Watterly had not specifically settled back to setup a speed trap, but sometimes these things just worked out for you. Something about this stop was odd, though. As the blue Pruis had approached him and taken to the other lane it had been traveling at a completely acceptable rate of speed. Now, drivers tended to behave when they saw the blue and red unlit on the road, but apparently not this young woman. Brian saw her as a shock of messy blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail and a pair of pale blue shoulders before she sped up. It was almost like she was trying to race him with the rate at which she had accelerated. In a moment the blue Pruis was exploding down the street and he flipped on the lights and sirens, chasing her down.
The woman in the Pruis only sped for seconds more before she slowed and eventually coasted to a stop at the side of the road. With a sigh, Brian stepped out of his car and approached the Pruis. He glanced into the back seat and saw nothing else but the shape of a medium-sized dog wagging its tail. He offered it a smile. As he came to the front windows he saw that the woman sitting in the front seat was no older than thirty and seemed a bit dazed; her brown eyes were fixated somewhere down the road and lingered there even as Brain approached.
"Ma'am," he said when he reached the front door. Was she on something? Booze? Drugs? Was she mentally ill? Was she planning to run? You had to be careful with everything going on in the country these days.
The woman turned to him, but her eyes were wide, and he had a feeling it wasn't for his presence.
"Ma'am, are you alright today?" Brian asked.
"Oh... yes. I... yes. I don't know what came over me," she replied. Finally she offered the usual traffic stop gentle smile. Her pupils didn't look dilated.
"Do you know why I pulled you over today?" Brain was giving his best stoic cop-face, trying to not seem too concerned nor too cold. You never knew when someone was going to need your help
"I don't, no, Sir." It was a good move. If you admitted to speeding, the officer had to write the ticket. It made it easier for him for certain. Most people knew that trick, though, and denied they had any idea why they'd been stopped.
"License and registration, please?"
"Of course." The woman turned, her back to Brian as she went into her glove box.
It was then that it happened; the dog barked. It didn't sound like the K9 units did when they were ready to take down a suspect, but it was low and loud and commanding attention. The dog was a handsome pit-mix from the look of it, shiny grey with a jagged white line of fur coursing down its chest. Its tail was still wagging. There was something strange about this dog, but Brian couldn't place it. In fact, when had the woman opened the rear window? The dog barked again.
"Brian."
The officer stepped back defensively, not so far as to put himself in the road but far enough that he removed himself from the immediate vicinity of who ever had said his name. The dog barked again, a few times in a row this time.
"Brian, I know that you can hear me."
What in the Hell?! It sounded like... words? The dog was just barking, it didn't have any conveniently CGI-ed lips to enunciate properly, but he was sure he was hearing something beyond the guttural noise. Then he heard it... by God he heard it chuckle! The dog looked amused, its floppy lips pulled back in what people liked to call a smile, but was more like excitement or panting.
"Brian. It is I. Zeus."
Brian swallowed and his lower jaw juddered with words he couldn't manage. Was this it? Was he losing it?
"No, Brian, no! ZEUS!" A bolt of heat-lightning blazed across the sky, crashing into the field just beside the road and causing a cacophonous boom that rumbled the ground. Brian's heart rate was beginning to pick up, but he refused to panic. He simply conceded to listen.
"I have chosen you," the dog 'said' as it barked nonsensically. How was he hearing words?! "If you accept my blessing, someone will come within the week to recruit you, and you will accept. The world is so much larger than you imagined, Brian. It is much more magical than you would believe. Accept this offer, Brian, and they will open your mind to all of the world's wonders." Far-off thunder rumbled again.
Brian was trying hard to form some words to respond or at least radio in when the dog's barking seemed to lose its human candor. The window was up now, creating a shield between himself and the happy pet, but he hadn't seen it rise. What in the world?
"Oh, don't mind him, he just wants to play," the woman in the Pruis suddenly piped up. She had her papers in her hand. "Sir?"
Brian was still slightly fazed, looking to the dog and through their surroundings briefly. Had anyone else heard that? Had anyone else seen it? Life around them was carrying on without a stutter-step. It was as if a dog hadn't just been--
"Thank you," he said then, face turning stoic once more. He took the woman's license and registration, saw everything was up to code, took down the necessary information, and began to pen a written warning. The woman's face dropped.
"No, no," Brian said with a little chuckle, "I'm going to let you off with a little warning today. You were speeding a bit back there, but you did pull right over. Be sure to pay attention to the road signs in the future, ma'am. We're in a forty. You have a good day now." He ripped the paper from the pad and offered it to the graciously smiling woman. He offered her a smile back and a nod and he headed back to his car. He waited for her to drive off then then simply sat there a moment, his finger at his lip while he leaned on his elbow. Zeus, huh? Everything else seemed normal. He didn't feel strange, and his pulse was only barely elevated when he checked it.
Well then, he thought, what harm could it do? If he'd had a little emotional snap, it wasn't like anyone could hear his thoughts. If it happened again he'd just go find himself a doctor. A larger world, magic... what could he lose in agreeing? The officer sighed and shook his head.
Bring it on, Zeus. Bring. It. On.
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Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 12:40 am
The room was brightly lit, casting a stark block of light out of the door into a dark hallway. The only sounds besides the slide of her pen against the scratchboard or the rustling of her clothes was ticking clock and the natural shifts of inanimate objects as they fell prey to gravity (or well, the friction that was keeping it from shifting stopped being enough to keep it still, gravity and its pull on the object hadn’t changed). Erica didn’t really notice these things though; they were part of the normal environment of her workspace late at night. She tried not to be a workaholic, a part of her resented her dad for his dedication to his work when they didn’t need the money, but sometimes her work demanded it and she always answered.
It was a replacement illustration, bringing new life to an older exhibit. The butterflies and moths exhibit was filled with tried and true illustrations of the specimens the museum owned. Butterflies and moths were conventionally beautiful, easy to appreciate, so while she loved them as much as she loved other insects, they didn’t need her work like other arthropods did.
The moth was pinned down under her microscope, the drawing tube attached. Her desk was scattered with a variety of preliminary sketches on paper, each showing a different detail of the moth.
She rubbed her eyes before leaning up slightly to peer through the eyepiece of the microscope. Committing a small portion of a small portion of the moth to memory, she sat back down to turn memory into quick, practiced strokes that became the soft detail of the moth’s wings. She leaned back up to double check her marks against the specimen and—
She blinked. That was nothing like what she had drawn. She quickly glanced down at her drawing before looking through the eyepiece again.
What she was seeing was definitely not what she had drawn. She squinted; there was no way that she had messed up so spectacularly. She didn’t get hired because she made such drastic errors.
Leaning back and rubbing her eyes, she took a breath before pulling the moth out from under the microscope. Taking another breath, she looked down at the moth and that’s when she realized the pattern wasn’t just off. It simply wasn’t the correct patterning at all and even worse she was seeing words in the moth’s wings.
Looking around the room to see if she was seeing weird things anywhere else, she frowned when it seemed that her mind was choosing only to mess with the one thing (well one of two) that she needed to be able to do her job. She didn’t really want to indulge her hallucinations and read the words on the moth’s wings, especially not when it was probably due to a lack of sleep. She pushed the moth away from her and leaned away from her desk to stare at the clock. She was about to put the moth away and go home when, against her better judgement, she decided to actually read the words she was seeing.
Erica Li.
Erica almost laughed, closing her eyes. She was self-centered, but this was taking it a little too far. But she was curious, what other stupid things were her mind conjuring for her in protest of drawing something conventionally beautiful (she was allowed to think things like this because she liked other arthropods, despite, yes, having a huge tattoo of a moth on her back).
I am Artemis and I have chosen you.
How did that even fit on a moth’s wings? She propped her head up in her hand, staring down at the moth with amusement. Artemis. What was her mind even doing, telling her about Greek gods when she was an agnostic Chinese American woman. The words shifted in front of her eyes (definitely a hallucination).
There is beauty you have yet to see, though your dedication to my realm is worthy of notice. Accept my blessing and I will show you what your eyes cannot currently see, a reward, perhaps, for trying to help others to see that which they have chosen not to.
Erica snorted, she wasn’t looking for some sort of award for her work and she certainly wasn’t doing her work out of some goodwill for others. Lowering her head to her desk, she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw stars exploding in the darkness. When she looked at the moth again, the words were gone. She closed her eyes and the opened them, double checking that she was no longer seeing words where there could be none. Nothing. Good.
That meant she could get back to work.
Word Count: 791
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Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 7:21 pm
Davor decided that today, he would frustrate himself.
That was how he'd come to think of it as, because that's how it always ended up. If there was any improvement in his playing, Davor missed it completely as he tossed everything back into storage -- only to inevitably pull it back out again before it could even begin collecting dust, when he began missing the music. As he did now.
Everything was retrieved in the usual manner: stand balanced over his shoulder, case in hand, and the music book carried as daintily as possible in his teeth. His other hand was occupied, of course, by being no longer attached to the rest of him. In its place instead was a specialized prosthesis Davor privately called the mantis arm, thanks to a comment his younger brother had made in one of the rare instances he'd acknowledged Davor's work. He'd also called it grotesque, but, well.
Stand set, music placed, and case open, he opened the music book up to a familiar page before taking his violin and getting into position. His arm was the bow, held over the strings, right hand at the fingerboard. Not the position he'd grown up knowing, but despite that, he began to play.
One wouldn't have guessed Davor had been playing for years, with how slow and halting his playing was now. He moved past every mistake with his usual impassive expression, the only indication that it actually was getting to him in the increasing tightness in his jaw with every wrong note. And, like a crescendo, it built until he exploded into swearing, dropping position and scowling at the piece that used to be one of his favorites.
He'd lost all the coordination he'd had to struggle to learn, forced to play violin the standard right-handed. It wasn't enough to have to relearn playing with a prosthesis -- he had to learn to handle the bow left-handed, as it should have been in the first place. Even now, as he looked down at the violin gripped tightly in his hand, he could imagine the fingers that no longer existed fingering the strings to play the notes no problem, no problem at all.
But thinking about that wouldn't help. The phantom pain was something he always had to distract himself from. Regaining his composure, Davor began flipping the pages of the music book again. He'd been stubborn to always try attempting the more advanced pieces first, as though he might find he'd spontaneously relearned to play the violin. Wishful thinking. It was just another inner embarrassment and reminder of of how set back he'd been, to have to resort to the beginner practice.
But resort he did, opening the book to a simpler piece of music named -- Davor Kirilovich Kozel.
He blinked, quickly, sitting up in surprise. That was his name when it couldn't have been, a piece of music composed by -- You have been chosen. Davor stared for a moment. Closed his eyes tight. Opened them again. They were still there, a piece that never existed and didn't really make sense, honestly, because there were no notes on the lines. Only letters.
He sat back, frowning at the music book. So he was finally going insane. This was the real deal, everything finally coming to a head. Davor was at last losing it. Alright. They all expected this. It started with feeling what wasn't there, his amputated arm throbbing with a pain that should have long subsided, and now he was seeing things, too. It made sense. Yet Davor felt his blood run cold when the thought occurred to him.
He stole a glance down quickly, before he could think to stop himself, but no. No, his prosthetic was still there. Then he looked over the music stand, around at his room, everything the same as it always was. But the music, the music was wrong.
The notes were still letters, a message written on the lines he had to force himself to confront. No longer will you be defined by what you lack. I am Hephaestus, and I will give you the greater purpose you seek. Open yourself to the opportunity that will come to you very soon, someone seeking to recruit you, and you will find your place.
Well that sounded all fine and good, didn't it. Davor calmly learned forward and closed the book. Opened it again. Pursed his lips at the very simple piece of music he'd meant to fumble with. The words were gone, yes, but the message stayed with him as he closed the music book for good.
Maybe that was enough violin practice for tonight, actually. (Word Count: 785)
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Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 9:21 pm
The office was lonely late at night.
Ernst couldn't really blame everyone. They all cared. That was why he'd hired them, instead of, well, anyone else. But there was always a limit, and there were plenty of things he could do as an unmarried guy in his mid-twenties, that they couldn't with families. He considered himself pretty vocal about the right to reasonable working hours, so it'd be just hypocritical of him to demand more. That and, well, this was really his baby. If anyone needed to be here, it was him.
They weren't really in a rush. They'd already gotten their festival submissions in, and actually the film itself had all its cuts picked out and they'd at least begun coloring. They'd gotten the second edits of the soundtrack last week, which meant now they just needed to mix that. And all of that...all of that, Ernst could trust to someone else. He was the producer, which meant he needed to delegate - something he had never been great at. He liked having the power, he thought, watching Nikki's bountiful tresses flutter through the frame another time. He ran his hand through his own hair - fluffy, seafoam-colored today - and groaned.
He really did need a walk. And to close up - he had a lot of cash, sure, but his line producer would murder him if the budget ran too high. He'd already had the lights turned off elsewhere, but he knew it wasn't really the lights that ran the budget high. Still - they had a lot of overnight renders, so it wasn't like he was taxing their budget too much...well, that was what he told himself every night, anyway. It sucked, a little bit, that he loved this so much, but then there was the joy, too, from a job well-done, or a film that brought tears to someone's eyes or memories to the forefront of their mind. Something that inspired them to take action. That would be the real reward, and it would come.
"Work hard, play hard, hm?" said Nikki, shaking her hair out. That, though, was not an appropriate line for this scene, which was a subdued discussion about marriage laws between her character and her character's husband in their bed, and in fact Ernst couldn't remember when it'd been included in the script at all. He'd have thought it was an ad lib - he let those happen - if it actually fit the mood at all. Had he clicked wrong? Was this the rejects reel? Ernst rubbed at his eyes. No - no, it was titled...it was titled Correspondence with Dionysus - Ernst Nzikobankunda.
That was completely unrelated to this project at all. Greek gods? Maybe it'd been someone's idea of a prank, though. Going through all of this again to make sure the files were named correctly would be killer. He hurried to get his hand back on the mouse and clicked pause, but had to double take when Nikki kept moving, even as the rest of the scene - even the camera - froze all around her. "Gotta say, it's all admirable if it's in the name of art," she said, shaking her head. She pulled her hair back. "Name's Dionysus." She reached her hand up, and pointed at the window's title bar. "Like it says."
Ernst just stared, at a complete loss for words.
"Don't worry," she grinned, and the familiar face - his lead actress was full of faces like that, in her time off - sent shivers down her spine. "I don't always look like this. But what better time than now, hm?"
"I need sleep," said Ernst.
"You can have that, and more," Nikki - Dionysus, according to his current delusion, replied. "Look, I'll get to the point: I've chosen you." She pulled herself into a sitting position, and the covers up with her. The camera followed her, even though Tom was still eerily frozen in the bed beside her. "You're already making pretty great films, but you could do so much more. Someone will stop by in a few nights to recruit you." She gathered her hair together, then glanced up at him coyly. "You're gonna say yes," she said, voice smacking of finality. "And you're gonna learn what real movie magic is."
If only, thought Ernst. There was no way - he had to...he needed more sleep. He'd always told himself it was for the weak, but sometimes his directors told him that sleep made for good art, too. Less mistakes, for sure...
"See? I do know you. You love this too much to say no," she smirked. "You can get this done in the morning. Get that precious slumber, Ernst...you're in for a wild ride."
His monitor went to sleep. Ernst jolted into action, tapping furiously at the space bar until -
Nikki and Tom, frozen in a tableau of two long-married lovers, talking huskily long into the night. Everything was exactly as it should be. It was late, and he needed to close up. He wouldn't get much done without more sleep.
Maybe he should go do that, then.
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 3:58 pm
Songtao checked her watch while she ground out her cigarette stub, wondering if she had enough time to smoke another while her group ate lunch at the cafeteria. She'd already wolfed down a sandwich and some coffee from a thermos, having tired of the cafeteria food about two months into the season. That, and her clients just would not leave her alone. She sighed, decided to live on the edge, and lit another cigarette. Normally she would hang out with the bus driver while she smoked; a grizzled, middle-aged man who, most importantly, did not scold her about her habits. But recently he had bonded with one of the tour group over some scifi novels and had been eating lunch with him. Not that it bothered Songtao; she preferred to smoke alone (she reminded herself).
Suddenly feeling oversmoked, Songtao stubbed her cigarette before tossing it in the special recepticle. (It seemed to be a uniquely American device. She had mixed feelings about it.) Maybe she'd go with a couple of the other guides tonight to one of the bars in town. They always drew attention, non-whites being few and far between outside of the park, but she felt like it was worth it today.
"Only you can prevent forest fires."
Song whirled around at the voice, surprised that she didn't hear the approacher's footsteps crunch on the gravel. Before her stood a woman, older than herself but Song wasn't sure by how much (probably from her tour group) smiling beatifically.
"Hello, ma'am," her xiaojie persona snapped into place almost instantly, "How may I help you?"
The woman stepped forward, taking Songtao's hands. They were warm hands, like earth heated by the sun, with calluses softened by oils and time. The moment their skin made contact, the distant and sporadic birdsong that Songtao had barely noticed before became almost deafening. Wind rushed through the pine trees that now filled the fire break. The woman's eyes were a deep, lush green that reminded Songtao of her mother, even though her mother had brown eyes just like herself.
"Zheng Songtao, I have chosen you."
Songtao's brow furrowed briefly before her working-with-the-public attitude reasserted itself. "Of course, ma'am. We at Double Luck Wilderness Tours are always honored to be chosen to serve."
The woman continued, though her smile shifted slightly from beatific to amused, or perhaps smug? "I am Demeter, Goddess of the Grain, of Fertility, of Growth and Life. Join me, and you will achieve so much."
Now Songtao realized the woman wasn't speaking in Chinese, or English, and yet she understood the woman's words perfectly. The woman never raising her voice above a soft tone, and still the sound cut through the noise of the woods around them. Almost subconsciously she tried to jerk away, but the woman's grip held fast.
"Someone will come to you, to bring you to the Prytaneum. Tell me, Zheng Songtao, that you will accept."
Songtao swallowed, then nodded. When she realized the woman was still waiting, she whispered, almost breathlessly, "I will."
The cacophony of birdsong and wind rose to a crescendo, until Songtao had to close her eyes against the leaves and debris flying throw the air. And just as suddenly, it all stopped. When she opened her eyes again, the woman was gone, though she could still feel the warmth of her hands on her skin.
Songtao paused and looked around carefully, knowing a little better than to start calling out for the woman. She sighed, ruffled her hand through her hair and then pulled out her phone to wiki "Demeter".
[603 words]
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 7:15 pm
It chugged the hell out of her battery, but Izzy kept the Lemonade movie running on loop while she studied, the whole entire hour of it over and over again. It was her companion as she studied here in the library, her phone propped up against her PINK gym bag, and a stack of books protecting Izzy like a wall, even as she sat at a long, filled table of other college students. The books, bag, and her heavy headphones were enough to help her shut out everyone else in the library, but the music took her to an entirely different place.
Lemonade’s music was catchy enough, and the message was good. But Beyonce herself was the best. Izzy absently ran her hand through her own highlighted hair as she watched the woman sing and stalk her way through an idyllic looking urban street. She looked so beautiful and strong at the same time. Izzy’s eyes followed the proud diva from scene to scene, and for a moment she thought about herself, and where she could improve in comparison.
While studying, Izzy just listened to the music and looked at it out of the corner of her eye sometimes, but now her attention hung on the video for a few minutes. She propped her chin up with her hand, and sighed as she watched. She had been chewing through these scientific journals for hours now, making notes of what she needed for later and absorbing every bit of knowledge she could. If her focus drifted now, maybe she needed the break.
In the next scene, Beyonce posed for the camera, grinning, her arms casually bracing a weathered baseball bat over her shoulders. But something was incredibly wrong, and Izzy noticed it immediately. The singer’s usual heavy earrings didn’t shine with gold - they shone bright silver. What the-
“Do you dream of making an impact on the world one day, Isidora?” Beyonce grinned, and tilted her head to the side. This wasn’t Beyonce though, not her eyes and not her voice. Something else spoke through her. “Or would you rather take the chance right now?”
Izzy shot to her feet, slamming her hands on the table. Her mouth hung open, but she was too shocked to speak. A row of a dozen other students glared at her, but none of them ever had the guts to say anything. She ripped the headphones off her ears, but still, perfectly, she heard what the woman on the screen said next.
“Is that not what you want the most, girl? To leave a mark on the world, and for the world to know it was you that left it?”
Izzy spoke to the woman on her phone screen in a curt whisper. “Who are you?”
“I am Artemis, of the hunt.” She smiled, cocksure, and spun the baseball bat around to point at Izzy. “Of the moon, of purity, of all creatures upon the Earth. And you will run with us, Isidora.”
“Sorry, lady. I won’t be told what to do.” The young woman’s response had been thoughtless and immediate, the same response she’d give anyone who tried to command her. Izzy lifted her chin high, staring down at her phone in challenge.
This woman, the one who wore the proud guise of Beyonce, smiled nearly ear to ear now. She reached her hand towards the camera and twisted it around, as if turning it upon the camera crew. Yet there was no urban downtown anymore, no musicians behind her. It was a forest. It was in front of Izzy, simply on her phone screen, but then the scent of pine and thrush washed over her.
She had never been in a forest in her life, but her senses were overwhelmed quite suddenly. She closed her eyes to the phone screen, but the sensations got even stronger - soft grass under bare feet, an autumn night’s chill ripping through her flimsy athletic shirts. Her ears pounded. It was like she could hear everything within the forest, from the scared shuffling of a rabbit to the rustling of branches as birds hopped about. And the smell! Of churned earth and the creatures squirming beneath rotting leaves and logs, the damp fur of deer. Her fingers twitched, begging for a weapon suddenly. Her muscles were all made of electricity, screaming at her to bolt through the forest, to join in the hunt-
Izzy tipped forward, and her hands hit the plasticy wood of the library desk. Her eyes shot open, and darted to her sides. But she was only standing in the library. None of the students nearby seemed to pay her mind - none of them smelled the fresh grass as she had, or heard the distant howling of the wolves. Technically, Izzy must have not either, because she hadn’t actually gone anywhere. But she breathed hard, and sweated like death itself was upon her.
“Accept my blessing.” The video’s camera was focused on the image of Beyonce again, standing again in the middle of the street. Artemis spoke in a smooth, certain tone, of a woman who always received what she wanted. “I will send one of my hunters for you, and you shall be outfitted with weapons and in time, magic. And then, I will give you prey worth your time.”
At any other time, Izzy would have had something smartass to say. But her mouth was dry and her mind at a blank. What the hell was going on? She had no idea what any of this was, what she was seeing or feeling, and why nobody else seemed to notice. Izzy pressed her palm to her hot forehead. What did it mean to run with “us”? What prey did this woman have in mind?
Was this Artemis waiting for an answer? Then, would saying yes help clear up any of this? Because Izzy slowly felt she had no other choice - she could pursue this new, strange possibility and understand it fully, or she could spend the rest of her life wondering about her own sanity.
“Fine.” Izzy meant to speak with bite, to show that even though she might go along with this, she would not be a docile lamb. But before the sharp gaze of this Beyonce-goddess, all of Izzy’s words felt trite, stupid. She grabbed up her phone and shook it, as if to reassert her dominance over the situation. “Tell me what you mean by magic. And prey? What is going on?”
“Don’t cause a scene.” Artemis winked, and then started singing again. Izzy blinked, and it was Beyonce, going through the same song and dance as always. The music drifted out of Izzy’s earbuds, but she smashed the mute button, and discarded the video.
Still standing, Izzy tore through her phone, looking for any hint it had been jacked, that some idiot casted a stupid video on it somehow to mess with her. But she did this more to find a reason to doubt what she had seen, rather than from any real doubt she felt in her heart. It was ludicrous. Her books before her was about science and the known universe, and here she was, believing in some made-up delusion in her head.
The grass had smelled so sweet.
She couldn’t sit here in this cramped library. Izzy’s muscles twitched with energy, her hands rattled as she scooped her books into her bookbag. She was already wearing her workout gear. She’d just toss her bag in her dorm and go, run as far as she could get on her two feet before the sun went down. And then hopefully be too exhausted afterwards to remember that something so insane had happened to her. And that she had agreed to it, without fully understanding what it meant for her. Signed herself over. That made her the most furious.
There were no forests in Arizona, only the desert. But that would have to be good enough.
(1323 words crying )
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Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 7:16 pm
The coins were warm in his hands, cheap metal from a fortune telling kit but they worked well for what he wanted. He ran them over his knuckle, watching the metal flash before tossing the three up and waited for them to land. He calculated the revealed symbols, two for each side with two symbols, three for each side with four. An eight, he drew the broken line representing young yin and continued till there was six lines on the paper. Two eights, three sevens representing young yang, and a six at the end representing old yin and rearranged them to fit the hexagram. First roll on the bottom and worked his way up.
Made of the trigrams Open and Bound, the resulting hexagram was Conjoining, the 31st of the 64 that made up the I ching. Lex shifted on the pull out couch, sheets bunching slightly as he considered the implications. Conjoining was at heart to bring together what belong together. A call to action and with the transforming line being six above… an action of words. Certainly nothing he was feeling yet. A thing to come perhaps?
Relating figure was 33 the hexagram for Retiring, and well, that was what he was doing now wasn’t it? Lex ran a hand through his curls, eyes half lidded. Should have listened to his gut on that score, but at least the resulting break up has been just harsh words and storming out. There hadn’t been tears or anything violent, and he wasn’t choked up at losing them… well, more on losing the comfortable bed in her apartment.
That thing had been sinful.
Instead he was camped out on his mother’s couch, asking the oracle what next. Hidden was number 44, Coupling, possible sex, but also just intense personal encounter. Didn’t have to lead to sex, there was more things to a relationship then that. Though that was mostly what the last relationship resolved about. Fun as it had been. Depressing though.
Last one was Connecting to Center, number 61, and suggested something much more spiritual then a simple one night stand.
Okay, Oracle. Thank you for that. He sighed and slipped out of bed, heading towards the kitchen. He hummed, walking to the ipod resting the the speaker dock and ran through the songs, finally settingly on Zeal and Ardor’s Come on down. He hummed slightly, going through the fridge, settling on left over mozzarella sticks and cherry soda beer.
“I can’t see no devil in the field, just many trees and papas many seas,” and where was the bottle opener? He rummaged about, and popped the cap. “Come on down, come on down.” And mozz sticks into the microwave.
“Don’t mind if I do.” A voice murmured and that wasn’t his mother or sister. His father was dead, thank those that were listening.
Lex turned and paused, taking in the slight man on his counter before shrugging and offering the open cherry beer. “Beer? Mozzsticks are going to be a moment.” He grinned as it was taken, if a bit bemused by the sudden guest and dug out his own from the fridge and opened it, clambering up on the counter, settling next to his guest.
“I take it you are not surprise, I am here.” The stranger replied, dressed in something fine. Lex was rather sure it was silk shirt and linen pants, with sandals that appeared to have wings and a tiny symbol on the breast. Curly black hair and beardless and rather fine. Sort of glowy.
“Oracle said something… didn’t really expect you.” Lex gave a half shrug. “Lex,” he said, offering a hand.
“Hermes, god of thieves and eloquence and luck.” His hand was cool and dry in Lex’s and the eyes held promise and depth. “I’ve chosen you. If you accept.”
“Do I get to ask chosen to do what?” Lex questioned, raising the beer to sip. Crisp and cool, cherry with a hint of hops and most importantly real. So his drink was real, and there was a god in his mother’s house.
Cool.
And nice laugh. It was warm and honest, and the eyes crinkled, tireless and ageless. “To learn, to be gifted, I have chosen you to be blessed, to have magic in your life, if you agree to it.”
Lex paused, turning it over in his mind, fingers spinning the neck of the bottle. “Cool, I’m up for the heroing, quest and magic promises.” Because there was no way, he was being given something for nothing.
“Someone will meet with you in the week to explain things thoroughly, and recruit you officially.” Lex hummed, watching the god push off the counter and disappear into a flare of light.
He finished his bottle and moved to get out the cheese sticks from the insistently beeping microwave. He bit into one, chewing the bread and rich cheese and paused, looking at the counter. There was just one beer bottle, the one he set down. He opened the fridge and closed it. Certainly down two bottles.
Hmm, well, next week was going to be interesting.
(WC 852)
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Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2016 1:51 pm
Lark
Lark sat in the rays of a pleasant winter sun at her desk, surrounded by the various bits and bobs she needed to work on her latest work of art. It was a simple thing, just a seasonal piece to wish her subscribers happy holidays with a splash of hot cocoa. Her camcorder was sitting atop its mini-tripod to capture her work as she painted. It would take at least an hour, but the video itself would only be a few minutes. Almost nobody wanted real-time art, and that was fine.
She was setting down her colors now before the consideration of lines, smiling at the reds and browns and cloudy greys. It was nice to do something for herself every so often without any expectation of art books or commissions or special requests. The young woman hummed to herself as she painted, knowing that the audio would be replaced later by some pleasant music and perhaps a voice-over. Lark was all alone in her pretty little world, bundled in a sweater with the sleeves pushed up while her heater hummed softly.
It was time to switch brushes, though, and the artist reached up to retrieve a smaller one from the window sill. How it had ended up there she wasn't sure, but there was no harm in it. Unfortunately when her arm came back, her elbow bumped against the cup of murky water she had been washing her brushes in. It was too late by the time she noticed it, and the glass toppled over and splashed cool water across her desk. Immediately she picked up her paper and held it over her head to rescue her work from the destructive force of gross water. All she could do was watch it spread across the surface and wonder how long it was going to take to clean everything up.
The water was a transparent sort of grey-brown, like the tub after you gave the dog a bath, and-- well, actually maybe it was more red, come to think of it. Or... purple?
Lark's eyes widened as the pigments that had been set and mixed into the water began to separate. Red and violet and yellow and blue, turned primary and secondary and everything in-between in spidery branches that crawled across the surface of the desk. The water around the outside edge was now crystal-clear, and the colors within began to form shapes. By God, Lark thought, those are words. With her paper still hovering above her head in her hands, she leaned over to see. Was she going insane?
I am Dionysus the words read, I have Chosen you. Accept my blessing and someone will come for you.
The moment she had finished reading those words, a new set whirled in the water: Say yes, and it will mean magic in your life.
The young woman's breath came in short pants now. Either she was experiencing a side-effect of insomnia or something very, very strange was happening. Magic? Who didn't love magic? She thought of the novels and comics she had read, the ones she preferred, where some average Joe was suddenly urged into an incredible adventure. She reached out to touch the water just as the pigments fled back into it, mixing to the usual murky brown. She laughed. What in the world?
It wasn't until later, when she checked the footage of the incident, that she realized that the camera hadn't caught anything at all. She heard the glass tip and hit the floor and saw the brown water spread, but none of the swirling pigments remained. Even lacking evidence, though, she would say yes, and as she swept the water from her desk and dried her tools and paint pots, her anxiety turned to excitement. Even if she was just nuts, that had been one heck of a hallucination, hadn't it? It'd fuel pleasant dreams, she was sure. It would be the inspiration for a hundred new pieces of art and perhaps even a brand-new story. Maybe it had been its own sort of magic, she thought, but she had no idea what it would truly bring.
(614 words)
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 12:08 pm
The “bushel of cabbage” his grandmother asked him to prepare was more like a shipping container of cabbage; so, Elias worked from sunrise to mid-afternoon chopping and peeling.
Every twenty gallon pot, fifteen to be precise, was filled to the brim with cabbage that would be used for bigos, golabki, and to replenish the supply of sauerkraut. His cousin Izaak was the oldest of his generation and the announcement of his marriage to a woman he met in Warsaw sent the family into frenzy.
After a hearty lunch of hunter’s stew, Elias set out to find Izaak’s starka. Somewhere in the few acres that the Bronislav family owned, was a sixty gallon barrel filled with thirty-seven year old vodka and cousin Izaak’s name on it. He found cousin Nikolai’s 1993, Ferdinand’s 1984, Gabriella’s 1989, and his Aunt Irena’s, which had been buried in 1963 and would probably stay buried. He knew where his was interred; he found it last year during another wedding barrel hunt.
It was a brisk 52 degrees in Stillwater, a pleasant turn in a normally dreadful Pennsylvania winter. If he didn’t stop for a cigarette break, he stayed rather warm, but his soft hands felt raw and the occasional break was necessary. Elias hoped his grandmother picked up a can of Working Hands; his fingers were going to need it. It was nearing supper time, and the pit he had dug himself into was growing darker.
“Elias.”
He heard his name, but Elias was certain he found the barrel of vodka and raised the shovel in reply. Gently, he drove his shovel in the dirt and heard the glorious echo of wood filled with liquid. A strange, marvelous, hollow sound. Now that he had found it, his cousins could pull it out, he had done the grunt work. He lit a celebratory cigarette, the last one in his pack, and grabbed on to the edge of the hole. The sooner he could shower the better.
“I see you found the starka.” His grandfather tossed down a rope, and a fresh pack of Marlboros. Elias tossed the shovel out of the hole, and leaned against the dirt wall to light a cigarette. “We have to pick pieczarka, Eli. No rush, smoke.” His grandfather stood above him, holding a large knit sweater, smiling with his toothless grin. Elias noted that one day he would get a Find My Dentures key fob for him. “I will have Nikolai fill the holes, or your Baba will give flak. Happy wife, happy life.”
“Pieczarka?” Elias mouthed the word, playing with it in his mind. His Polish vocabulary was awful; his grandparent’s wanted him to focus on learning English, so they tried to limit their native tongue. His grandfather slowly lowered himself to the ground, hanging his feet into the hole. “You should get Nikolai and Ferdinand to pull this out,” Elias proposed. He wiggled the barrel from the muck, sitting it upright. He wound the rope meticulously around the bottom and sides, tying it tightly at the top. Elias handed Jajee the slack.
The word finally came to him. “Mushrooms, right. Ja, your English is failing you in your old age.” Elias chortled, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He shook his head to the offered handkerchief, had given up his fight with the mud hours ago. Elias did take his grandfather’s hand to pull himself from the depths.
“Age is information failure, the body loses fluency.” Jajee let out a huff, and dropped his chin to his chest. Elias slowly turned to seat himself next to his grandfather, watching him carefully, processing the quip; he wasn’t sure if he should run or laugh. Jajee was a serious man, with a comical flake, and you never knew if he was joking or going to throw his spoon at you. There was a twinkle in his eye but the moment was lost, so he offered Elias a cuff on the thigh. “You have no humor, Eli. This is why you will not find a wife. You must have humor. Laughter is the best medicine.”
“I will not find a wife because I’m always out here digging for decades old vodka.” Elias retorted and returned the gesture, patting his leg over the sweater.
“You do too much, Eli. You should be go out, meet women, drink, fight. Go to school, travel, find magic!” Jajee handed Elias the handmade sweater, and gestured out towards the surrounding forest. Chirps and trills responded, bird song filling the clearing. He patted Elias’ shoulder, and then used it for leverage to stand. “Fate throws fortune, Eli, but not everyone catches. You must catch.”
An old proverb he had heard time and time again, so often in fact he had memorized it in Polish: “Los szczęście rzuca, ale nie każdy je łapie”.
“I left you a bag---“
“Mushrooms, got it.” He didn’t intend to be so curt, but he was tired of hearing about his fate. Elias wasn’t upset about the opportunities he had missed: relationships, travel, schooling. What mattered was his family, and he had his heart's fill of family. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and his ever doting grandparents. He pulled the cable-knit sweater over his head, coiffed his hair, and lit another cigarette. Time to go mushroom hunting, he thought, stuffing the grocery bag into his pocket.
“Elias.”
His grandfather was out of sight, probably in the house smoking his pipe or pestering Baba with his flirty antics. And the voice was too feminine, too trill to be his eighty year old grandfather. Elias did a double take, looking to the house and back to the woods. He pushed through the brush, finding a path that would hopefully lead him towards the rotting wood pile.
“Elias.” Spoken directly into his ear, Elias turned, only to find a peacock sitting low hanging branch.
He stumbled back, falling on his backside. The bird’s plumage was a stark contrast to the wintry forest, but what was more troublesome were its vivid green eyes that were much like his own. Too human-like for a bird. It was looking down on him, curiously bobbing its head.
“I am Hera, and I have Chosen you.” The bird seemed to glow as it spread its tail. “If you accept my blessing, someone will come by within the next week to recruit you, and you will say yes, because it will mean magic in your life.” The peacock winked, closing its tail. With a burst of color it jumped from the tree, gave Elias a final look over, and began to wander down the path out of sight.
Elias was too shocked to move, he followed the bird with his eyes for as long as he could, till he couldn’t see any more movement. He sat up, crossing his legs and resting his elbows on his thighs. It wasn’t impossible for a peacock to be wandering around, but it was improbable for a peacock to speak. And the human eyes, the wink, Elias couldn’t comprehend. He knuckled his eyes and looked down the path. Still glowing, a single peacock feather sat on top of a tied grocery bag.
The bag was full of mushrooms.
info Jajee is phonetic for Dziadzi which is grandfather in Polish, Baba is an uncommon pet name for grandmother's (1187 words)
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Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 1:11 am
Lukas Volkov - Ares
It had started a month ago. The dreams that he could not quite remember, waking up in a sweat that felt different than his war dreams. The movement just on the edge of his range of vision that made him whip around on high alert. The bare whisper of an echo that sounded almost like words in the wind as he walked the perimeter of his land. The longer it went on, the more dangerous it got. He knew this. Lukas had a temper and counted himself lucky that he lived alone and far from others.
This whole feeling of being watched? It was bullshit.
Rolling his shoulders, Lukas turned on his heel and headed for the refrigerator. Maybe a beer would help. He opened the door, bent into the refreshing chill, and searched over the options on hand. He felt Tank pushing and leaning at the back of his legs, eager for a treat. He grunted a laugh and, balancing on one leg, he stretched the other behind him to give the enormous Rottie-mix a gentle shove with his foot. “Outta the way, knucklehead. You’ll get dinner when I get dinner. You know the rules.”
He turned his attention back towards the six pack on the fridge shelf more firmly. Tank merely leaned into him again and Lukas did not bother hiding his grin at the rough affection.
“Join me.”
Lukas stared at the jar of mayonnaise. Did it just talk to him?
“Join me.”
Maybe it was the mustard? He shook his head and straightened, drawing his head from within the depths of his refrigerator. Frowning then, he closed the door with slow deliberation. “Okay. Great. PTSD. Fantastic.”
***
“Join me.”
Lukas lowered the tumbler of scotch from his lips and frowned at the television. That voice again. It sounded like it came from the television but that was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? For one thing, it was definitely a masculine voice and his modestly sized screen was filled with the decidedly non-masculine features of Scarlett Johansson. In black leather. Her, he would join but…
“Join me.”
He scowled at his drink, drained it abruptly, and then bent forward to set it on the coffee table where he had his feet propped. He picked up the remote instead and lifted it to point at the receiver. “Yeaaahhh, maybe I should cut back on my drinking.”
With a firm push of a button, he shut the television off.
***
Lukas sat in the screened and covered portion of his porch the next day, the low table from the little seating area drawn close and covered with a soft cloth and bits of a disassembled gun. He sat comfortably, relaxed even. His heavy boots and flannel shirt and heavy-lined leather bomber jacket kept him insulated. The scarf draped loosely around his neck just served as extra precaution. Tank lay at his feet and snorted contentedly. A faint smile curved his mouth as his calloused fingers worked over cleaning the deadly machinery in front of him. It was almost like meditation, really, he thought. It was probably a bit too cold to be outside doing this and his bare fingers already protested each touch of the icy metal and he knew it was not entirely healthy for the gun but there was peace in the silent surrounding woods. Every so often a bit of melting snow fell or a bird chirped. Then Tank would snort in his sleep and twitch.
Suddenly, Lukas froze, his hands closing on the pieces tightly. He never lifted his eyes from his work, however, and the pause lasted only the span of two heartbeats. Then he proceeded to finish sliding a piece home with a sharp click. “If you’re looking for town, you took a really bad wrong turn,” he announced.
“Join me.”
The voice was the same from the previous times and Lukas finally lifted his eyes to look at the interloper cooly. The other man was taller than him but not so broad and he kept his hands tucked in the heavy coat he wore. Lukas’ mouth thinned with displeasure even as he noted the stance. Soldier. A soldier with hidden hands. That was rarely a good thing. He picked up the final piece of his pistol, the clip, and pushed it into place. His eyes never left the other man.
Not even when the man’s form wavered slightly as if he was being observed through super-heated air. Lukas felt himself tense unconsciously, remembering other sights seen through desert air. Very slowly, he sat back in his chair and brought the pistol to rest on his knee. The man’s hat was gone now, his coat different. What the hell was going on?
“Buddy, I don’t know what your game is but I’m past the joining stage of my life.”
The other man scowled, drew his hands from his pockets, and held them out in front of him. Another shimmer flickered and Lukas fought the urge to blink or look away. Especially when the shimmer appeared to solidify into a sword. The man glared at him. His grip tightened on his pistol. “Look, man, I don’t know who you think you are…”
“Lukas Volkov.” The voice, the same voice, cut him off roughly, angrily. The power in the words shook him and he felt in his gut that, if he didn’t shut up, he would hear some ear-shattering hollers. “Lukas Volkov, Hades take you, you are not hallucinating this and you will listen to me.”
The other man drew himself up further, seemed to grow impossibly tall, and pointed the sword at Lukas. “I am Ares and I have Chosen you,” he announced in solemn, implacable tones while the ex-Ranger stared at him before narrowing his eyes again. “If you accept my blessing, someone will come by within the next week to speak with you and you will say yes because it will mean magic in your life.”
“What? Like rabbits out of hats?”
A feral growl echoed from the so-called Ares’ throat. Lukas forced himself to ease the grip he had taken on his pistol. His expression dead-pan and revealing nothing now, he watched as Ares strode to the edge of the porch. “You will say yes.”
The words fell like lead on the ground and Lukas suddenly realized he knew the tone and the rhythm of them. It was an order. It was a boot-camp cadence. It was his life before this cabin and his self-imposed near-exile.
It kind of felt a bit like home. ******** up as that was.
Slowly, Lukas smiled at the other man. “Fine, whatever. ******** you, sure. I’ll say yes.”
After all, what else was he doing with his life at the moment? He could always say no later… Or get kicked out of the special magical club. Whichever.
(WC: 113 cool
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