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Wild Thoughts Before High Tide on Aberystwyth Beach by Bel Roberts

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition 2016

Why can’t I end my life just when I choose

without regard for others   ̶  my carping clan,

false friends and those nosey next-door neighbours?

Why can’t I vanish without trace  ̶   no 999,

blue flashing lights, dogs sniffing woods for clues

I won’t have left, and pushy, news-starved Press?

Now I have reached the brink and think, ‘Stuff it!

Enough’s enough!’ that should mean it’s enough.

It should be possible in this computer age,

to click on Exit or Delete and quit,

purging my profile from all memory.

I shouldn’t have to flirt with fate, or stock-pile pills,

or hone a knife,  or drop a careless match or two,

or buy a gun – where would I, a woman, buy a gun?

Learn how to load and aim it  ̶  and not miss?

Birth was slick, a kick against the womb,

a glide from gloom to freedom with a cry,

no comfort-caul to curl back into. Why?

Water, the staff of life and stuff of death,

laps at my thighs, licking life’s raw wounds,

its current coaxing me out of my depth,

into the arms of a brighter horizon.

My mind is not disturbed  ̶  it’s clearer than

the element I’m in and just as cold.

Three fearless steps are all it needs for me

to take and shake oblivion by the hand,

but, dare I trust the ocean’s fickleness?

Sink all my faith in its destructive power?

updated by @americymru: 11/24/16 05:59:30PM

Driftwood by Bel Roberts

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition 2016

Morning tip-toed coldly by and saw you

lonely, carefree, wandering along the shore,

curling your toes against sand’s suck

and shell spike, gazing at the sea’s grey frown,

pleadingly.

Then….

lying on its side, bleached by the sun’s haze

you saw it, half-submerged and you stopped

and stooped to lift it:

Driftwood.

And with the memory of a primeval passion

you held its form against your face

and prayed you had not come too late.

No stir of former life; arboreal strife,

and you could sense the waste, regret the

stark honesty and vain isolation of its ending

and wonder bleakly why, wave-warped,

it had weathered, whittled by time’s tide.

You yearned to give it definition, meaning,

but, expressionless, it gave no hint of past

purpose, only present passivity, future nothingness.

And so you grasped it firmly, in strong hands,

and vainly tried to make it matter to itself.

Then you, the master craftsman, begged the chance

to carve it into myriad shapes of fancy;

alter its form; remould its texture,

to shape it to suit your psychedelic whim;

to use its energy to kindle you some warmth,

or hurl it savagely against the killer of your joys.

You even thought to break it in one move across your knee.

You held it, petrified.

I am that driftwood

That bobbed and sank on tides of chance,

floating past your eyes quite unaware

of your creative impulse, all unprepared

for your firm grasp and practised kiss of life

that falsely offered buoyancy and freedom.

Give me the time to settle on the shore.

Give me the space to rest there, unopposed.

Give me the peace to splinter with old age.

Or fling me back and let me drown again.

updated by @americymru: 11/24/16 05:57:05PM

Journey’s End: At the Hospice by Bel Roberts

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition 2016

At five to two exact, the daily bell

alerts us patients to assume bland masks

to fool our worry-weary visitors,

who suffer in their health to make amends.

You bustle in with bags, bouquets, or books,

to keep me posted on the outside world,

to lay a treasure trail straight back to you,

whom routine rigmarole shapes quick and fit.

You brush my cheek, then stare behind my eyes

for hint of fight, or victory, or both,

while mouthing urgent mantra in my ears,

to hone my will to want to wager on.

You, who know nothing of pain’s whittling knife

that scrapes bones clean and makes the senses screech,

are deaf to Death’s seductive voice,

frigid to promised bliss from His soft hands.

`           You speak a language I can just recall,

name shadows I once knew; attempt a joke,

persuade me gently that it’s God’s great plan

my rich expression is reduced to mime.

Please, leave me now.  My smile is tired out

and longs to sag into a sadder pose.

Your presence strives to pull me from the edge

with love and hope that I would rather lose.

Rejoin the world beyond my bed!

Save your salt sorrow for the plight out there;

for I have leapt the Chasm of Despair

and landed safely on the other side.

 

updated by @americymru: 11/24/16 05:54:43PM

Keep on, Keeping on Mingzhao Xu

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition 2016

I didn’t want anyone to know that when I watched American T.V. shows, I didn’t get all the jokes. I relished “I Love Lucy” on Saturday mornings and Warner cartoons on school nights after chores and homework. I smiled, imagining myself working in a chocolate factory like Lucy or digging a tunnel through the Earth like Bugs Bunny. They were easy to get mostly, until the audience in the show roared with laughter. What did he just say? Why was it funny?

People on T.V. were white and wore crazy clothes. The kids had their own rooms with boatloads of toys. The girls went out on dates with boys and kissed them on the mouth. The dogs sat on the living room couch like kings. No one yelled. No one cried. It was all fun until that pause, then the entire stage shook with applause and I’d feel alone.

If Sally, my American neighbor, were watching with me, I’d laugh along. Once, she rolled her eyes and accused me of only pretending to get it. I told her to shut up.

“What was so funny then?” She asked.

“Well what did you find funny?”
“The part where he slaps the girl on the butt.”

“Yeah, me too.” Then I felt nervous; my heart pumped faster with each lie.

My parents didn’t watch these shows. One, grown-ups were boring and two, their English sucked. My mom’d even turn her nose up at the loud and unladylike women in shows.

I’ve been keeping scratch paper near the T.V. If someone said a terrible cuss word or an insult, I’d jot it down. At school, I used it against the kids I didn’t like. Then I’d watch their faces and wait for their comeback. It was a tough world. If people thought you were stupid, they’d walk all over you. In a fight, the best insults won. I’d keep on keeping on until one day, I’d know more than Sally.

updated by @americymru: 11/24/19 06:16:51PM

TESSELLATION by Robert Feeney

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition 2016

The tiled flowers of the church floor are blooming. From my limited viewpoint, they number forty seven in total. Each one is an orange hexagon, with six square white petals extending from the sides. I have always thought of them as flowers, but not with any sense of pleasure. When in one of my darker moods, before I met you, my sandals would crush them as I strode up and down the aisle. The incense from the thurible was a pesticide. When the congregation departed, I would raise my sole, and brush off the remnants of corollas onto the floor, to decay and die. Lying here now, decaying in turn, that enmity is diminishing. I am interested to find out if they have a scent, but my nose no longer works. All my senses have become inert, bar sight, for some reason. My eyes, unmoving, unblinking, continue to see. I do not know how long they will do so.

If only he had shot me from the front. Then the angle of descent would surely have placed me on my back, so that I could take in the sight of the ceiling. The fresco there shows a group of ragged men, reaching out their hands to touch the cosmos. The men represent unenlightened humanity, and the cosmos divine knowledge. Or, at least I think that is what it shows. You were the one who told me about its history, one morning when we walked in the piazza. You laughed at my ignorance regarding my own church. The truth is, I rarely looked up when working here. I was afraid of catching something looking down at me. That fear is also diminishing. If possible, I would turn my head towards that fresco, even if the devil himself were sat upon my back.

I have read somewhere the suggestion that dying does not hurt, that the spirit vacates the body in anticipation of its end. Yet, my spirit, or whatever this is, remains. I have read in more erudite texts the notion that, even in a violent situation, the brain would shut down before any pain reached it. A sort of defence mechanism. I know that now to be incorrect, at least initially. You and I have both remarked in the past that our local practitioner of dentistry must have been a butcher’s apprentice when he was younger. You told me you cursed God more in his hearing than anywhere else, and I knew that to be no idle boast. Well, the shot that felled me felt like our butcher was trying to force a newly removed tooth back into the raw gum it came from. It felt like that for a few, long seconds, and then I stopped feeling. I had fallen onto the tiles by then, the force and pain of the shot spreading me out like a rug. With a view of the floor, these forty seven flowers, and little else.

Here I lie. In the grave before my time, and far from the age of Christ. At least my murderer did not close my eyelids, that final movement of sympathy. I did that for my father, when his breath stopped misting. It was early in January, and a mounted procession was passing under the bedroom window, a lavish enactment of the kings' visit to Herod. The hooves on stone rang out in celebration, but inside there was only the sound of his breathing. Although the Christmas fast was over, he would not eat, and as the sound of the horses drifted away, so did he. There was enough energy left for some final words. The holy trinity hung above the bed while I listened to his wish. I made my promises, then ran my fingers over his blank eyes. I wonder now if I condemned him to darkness by closing them, or, worse, a view of two thin folds of skin. At least my murderer did not close mine.

I wonder if he is still there. It is difficult to know how much time has passed since the shot. Long enough for the tiled flowers to become my friends. With nothing else to do but see and think, I would imagine time passes relatively slowly. I wonder if he remains, looking at me now, feeling anger or remorse. Maybe he has taken a seat to catch his breath, the smoking pistol in his lap. I wonder if he is sitting in the same spot as I did, on my first visit to this cold church. Barely two years ago now. I was angry myself then, realising how much I had sacrificed my desires, thinking that this place would be a stone cell for the rest of my life. I told you about that moment, as we walked among the towers, and you helped me dispel some of its strength. I was angry back then, but not now, not even with my murderer. I find my thinking is becoming cooler. It leaves my head and becomes clear in the winter air. I wonder if he would risk being discovered, just to look at my ruin. He has ample reason. And how large is the risk? The shot was loud, but the walls are thick, and it is night.

I have no doubt it was Epifanio. I was his friend and priest, and betrayed him doubly. That discovery must do something evil to a man’s mind. Perhaps you were racked with guilt, and told him earlier, or his honed senses found a clue somewhere. A hair on a pillow. A hidden letter. We were careful, but not enough to fool an officer of the law. I am trying to imagine the scene. No shouting, the knowledge rendered him speechless, and he was never an emotive man. He took the gun from the bedroom cabinet, stormed out, and then came here. He hoped to find me in the clergy house, to avoid spilling blood on sacred ground. Or perhaps his mind was not working so logically. Unfortunately for him, I decided to spend this night sweeping the church floor of dust and insect carcasses, collecting them in a corner with the petals. The activity sometimes helped to clear my mind before sleep. If only he had discovered us in the height of sin, then he could have ended it without desecration. I am sorry for Epifanio. He was a man of faith.

I do not blame you for telling him, if you did. You were in an impossible situation. I recall one morning playing chess in the courtyard of your home. I had angled the board so that the rising sun caught Epifanio's face and distracted him. The strategy had come from an old Indian text. The game did not proceed well for him that day, and at one point I looked up from my move to catch an expression of childish bewilderment on his face. At that moment, I wanted to confess my guilt to him, to kneel on the stone and take his hand in mine. But I did not. I could say that love played a role in that decision, and cowardice too. The sun was in my eyes.

So I do not blame you for telling him, if you did. I just hope he did not hurt you as well.

I do not blink, so my vision must be affected. The tiled flowers are taking on other shapes. My thinking wanders into the carpel, which has become a hexagonal chamber, and the petals six adjoining rooms. In one is my father, lying on his bed, beckoning me closer. He tells me that God has a plan, and that I must fulfil my part in it, for his sake. The horses are leaving without him, and he is so dreadfully afraid of damnation. In another room, my old teacher, a severe Benedictine, is flogging me with the cane. Instead of reading my bible, I have been studying mathematical writings from Germania. I plead guilty to the misdemeanour, but he only flogs me harder. The third room shows me this church, as I saw it two years ago, empty and cold. I could not bear to see God there. When I pretended to pray, I saw my father’s sleeping face, and then later, yours. I walk into the fourth room, and I am in the confessional box, hearing you speak for the first time. I can still remember the scent of the inappropriate perfume you wore. You tell me of your life. Although your face is broken into squares by the grille between us, your voice carries the powerful and familiar intoxication of sadness. How can I resist? We are destined to be each other’s shepherds.

These must be the flashes of the past we see before death. I read about it in a book somewhere. But the memories linger, like a taste upon the tongue. I have all the time in the world, or none. As if on cue, a black dot appears at the edge of my vision. I wonder if this is the final darkness, then gradually it resolves into an antenna, and then mandibles. A cockroach has come to bear witness. The feelers are so close I can see them click together, but in a terrible slow motion, and realisation clicks into place with them. Time has actually slowed down. I do not know how long I will lie here, trapped behind my eyes. The uncertainty should be maddening, but I accept it quickly enough. In fact, it is strange how my situation has impacted so little upon my mind. I find I care little about the future of my consciousness, whether I shall discover the reality of hell, or a supremely forgiving heaven. I am more concerned about this cockroach entering the gape of my mouth. It senses the lingering heat there. Where once it would have seen the crushing descent of my sandal, now it sees only a meal. It will enter and feast upon my thoughts. It will chew on my tongue. Oh God, how powerless I am! But what can be done for defence? I remember stories where ghosts made themselves known to the waking world. I must manifest myself, and scare off this devil. But the knowledge of how to do so was never elaborated on in the books that I read. The only thing I can do is focus my will upon it, and urge it to move elsewhere. Three tiles over, there are what appears to be the remains of a communion wafer. There will be more sustenance to be gained from that than inside my head. The beast will see sense. Surely. Please.

Its head wavers. It may be just the effect of this abnormal time. No, its direction is changing. Slowly, it moves away. A small miracle. I am calmed again.

Perhaps I can achieve other things with a similar force of will. I could manipulate my hand into writing Epifanio’s name into the dust. But it seems petty to use the last of my strength to condemn a man. I could write you a parting poem, but I am not sure I remember very clearly anymore how things rhyme. Besides, it would only further desecrate these sacred tiles. I could turn my head to heaven, as I previously wished, but my enthusiasm for the sight of the fresco is slipping away. You never liked it anyway, its patriarchal vision. I do not know if I could do any of these things in reality. The cockroach may have changed course of its own volition. I can only hope. If I truly have any control over my body left, then I think I would like to look behind me.

He is not a bad man. You do not love him, but that is more a reflection on your father than him. It would be difficult for anyone to make a truly happy home out of a forced union. Epifanio has his good attributes, like all of us. I remember, upon first meeting him, being impressed by the scope of his reading. In such a small town, it is unusual to happen upon an officer of the law with such an extensive library. When he learned that I was also a bibliophile, in desperate need, he did not hesitate to show it to me. There was pride in that, but also kindness. He allowed me to borrow what books I wished, even though they were precious to him. He would run his finger down the spine of one as he discussed it. You told me he loved that library more than you. I do not think so now. But he did love it. I treated his books well, and returned them promptly, not wishing to feel the wrath of his justice. His abilities as a strict enforcer of the law were much talked about in the town. That is also an admirable thing, to be good at your job. I returned his books, and borrowed more and more, and returned them quicker. Epifanio saw it as an admirable hunger for knowledge. But he did not see the look exchanged during that first visit, you in the kitchen preparing the primo, and me in the library preparing my compliments. A gaze can hold so much.

I imagine him sitting on a pew. The pistol has fallen onto the floor. The barrel, still hot, lies in perfect alignment with the wall of the square tile. He looks towards the altar, one blink flashing defiance, the other seeking absolution. He does not look at my body. He does not want to see my lying face. That is why he shot me from behind. His hands shake with adrenalin. He will wait to be discovered, because that is the right thing to do. He cannot move his legs. They are empty skins. I imagine this, because it is the way I felt when I heard you in the confessional box, and I saw the body of my past laid out before me.

I loved you. Why do I say loved? The fervour drains with my blood. There is some of it now, the edge of a red sea, beginning to flow over my chambers and rooms. The colour of your dress at sunrise. You said that no plan was flawless, even God's. Especially his. I nodded, thinking on my own history. My father, the Church, Epifanio. I sacrificed them for you, with no regrets. For the first time in my life, I knew what I wanted. And you felt the same way. I am sure.

A thought occurs. Is it you sitting in the pew behind me now? I wish I could say that frightened, or comforted, or did something to me. I have read somewhere that no two snowflakes are alike. Surely we had more in common than most. Our fathers forced us into loveless situations. It was only natural that we sought each other out. We were a perfect intersection of sadness, two patterns identically arranged and melded together, no gaps or overlaps. But perhaps you saw a flaw in this design. Perhaps the flame of your faith reignited, and your guilt burned too strongly. Perhaps you took Epifanio’s gun from the bedroom cabinet drawer, walked the familiar route to the church, and shot me in the back. Did he force you to do it? Did you just want rid of me? Why will you not answer?

No. It does not fit. We were the shepherds, not the wolves. The tiles speak the truth. If a man could create a perfect floor such as this, then a perfect love should also be attainable. I am sure.

I ask forgiveness, and recognise there is nothing to forgive. Or rather, forgiveness is irrelevant. All there is for me, now and forever, are forty seven flowers. One is red, another black, and the rest have aged to grey. They stretch out before my eyes in perfect rows. I know all of them intimately, their repeating vertices. There is a larger pattern to the floor, but I am too close to see it.

I hope you are asleep. I am fine

updated by @americymru: 11/24/16 05:01:29PM

The Green Mile by Mike Simon

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition 2016

Billy-Rae leaned over the hood of the hearse and vomited a torrent of something green and chunky.

I felt the bile rise in my throat and quickly turned away. Unlike Billy-Rae and Merle, both of whom never broke a sweat during the embalming process, bodily fluids never greased my wheel. But averting my gaze didn’t ease the frustration. “Goddamn it, Billy! If you spewed on––”

“Relax, Davy.” Despite hanging over the chrome grill, he managed a dismissive wave. “I got perfect aim.” He used a dirty sleeve to wipe driblets off his chin.

Holding my breath, I walked around the front end. “You splashed the sidewalls.”

He grinned. Like a zombie in a B movie, bits of undigested food remained wedged in his teeth. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll run through a few puddles on the way to the boneyard.”

Shaking my head, I returned to my seat on the steps of the church. Merle gave me a bemused look before spitting tobacco juice against the crumbling foundation. “Messy?”

I tucked an errand stand of blonde hair behind my ear. “Must have been a slow night. It’s half the usual amount.”

Merle chuckled. “Your father would tan his hide if he dirtied that car.”

The 1954 Cadillac Landau had shuttled the county dead to their final resting place for three generations. It listed and belched like an old sailor but could probably make the trip without a driver, not that Billy was much of a driver. His talents started and stopped at the local Legion.

A white picket fence surrounded the clapboard church, and beyond that, the meandering road crept westward until it disappeared behind a wall of evergreens. I knew every pothole and crevice, every dip and turn like the back of my hand. Ever since I was old enough to carry flowers, I helped Pa with the business, just like he had helped his dad.

“I hear they’re finally going to repave it,” I said.

Merle smiled, revealing a set of brown-stained dentures. “They say that before every election. Truth is the road was smoother before they slapped asphalt on it. The dirt got packed down and even in rain we had grooves to follow.”

“Pa remembers when caskets were hauled by horses.”

Merle leaned back. “Really? I recalls when your granddaddy used to hook up two plowhorses to a wagon. After a spell, he painted the wagon fire-red. Now that was a sight.” He paused. “Reckon you’ll be looking to take over the business at some point?”

I shook my head. “I got plans for schooling in the city.”

“Ah.” His eyes twinkled but he said nothing more.

As the noon hour sun beat down and mosquitoes searched for the next blood meal, we listened to the off-key musical notes leaking out the dilapidated front doors. Later, as the congregation spilled into the weed-infested churchyard, we pulled solemn faces and silently loaded the casket. Billy started the engine while I jumped into the back seat with Merle. After a night out, Billy’s breath could be registered as a lethal weapon.

I swear he aimed for every pothole. The casket jumped and lurched like a rabid coon. We could hear the body flopping against the padded wood.

Halfway to the cemetery I asked Merle, “Why do they call it the Green Mile? I measured it last week and it’s almost two miles.”

Merle spat of wad of tobacco juice out the half open window. “I asked your granddaddy the same question years ago. He said the road was straighter back then, before the river floods.”

“But why green?”

“Comes from the saying, grass is greener on the other side. In this case, the afterlife. Hence, Green Mile.”

I gripped the seat as the car bounced over a particularly deep rut. “Billy, we still on the road?”

He flashed a smile in the rear-view. “Almost there. Say, you want to come to the Legion tonight? I’m flying solo.”

“Thanks, but I’m only sixteen.”

“So, I started when I was twelve. That was, uh––”

“Forty years ago,” I said, not wanting to see him struggle. I glanced back at Merle, but the old codger was gently snoring.

                                                                #

The paper called it a terrible tragedy. Ten-year-old twins found by their mother in the backyard pool. Whole county turned out for the funeral. The parking lot was filled with everything from Audis to rusted Chevy half-tons.

“That settles it, I ain’t ever getting a pool,” Billy-Ray declared as he fiddled with his collar in the Caddy’s side-view mirror.

“You mean if you could afford one?” Merle asked, snickering.

Billy-Ray eyes narrowed. “Laugh if you want, old man, but no one ever drowned in the local swimming hole.”

“They say the second twin probably jumped in to save the first,” I said quietly.

Merle shifted his gaze to me. “Then it’s a double shame, Davy. The deaths, and the fact them were good kids.”

We listened as the mass came to an end. Under the red-rimmed eyes of the congregation, Merle and I squeezed two small caskets into the hearse. The parents looked whiter than the sun-bleached tombstones in the cemetery. I watched Pa walk up to the father and whisper something in the man’s ear. The father‘s shoulders straightened, like a small weight had been lifted. Pa’s gaze fell on me and he nodded toward the mother who was sobbing quietly behind the hearse. On instinct, I picked a flower off one of the bouquets and placed it in her trembling hand.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Billy-Ray led the procession down the Green Mile at a tight five miles-an-hour.  Pa took the front seat, and for the first time in years, Merle didn’t fall asleep.

                                                          #

Billy died on my seventeenth birthday. The doctor wanted to do an autopsy but the sheriff said it’d be a waste of taxpayer money. Everyone knew it was the booze that killed him. I drove Billy down the Green Mile and even shed a few tears on his tombstone.

 We advertized in the local paper but few townsfolk applied for Billy-Ray’s job.

“Most aren’t cut out for this business, Davy,” Pa told me as we hung up our suits after an afternoon funeral. “Modern folks have lost the compassion God gave them.”

“Last fella seemed to be doing okay,” I pointed out. “Why’d you let him go?”

Pa placed his polished black shoes on the closet floor. His hooded eyes and sad expression reminded me of the night mom left. Back when I was eight.

“There’s a certain compassion that’s required for this job,” he said. “An ability to listen and answer questions that have no answers. Most folk spit out the wrong words at the wrong time, or worse, mumble sentences that have no meaning. I swear they should teach a course in school.”

“You never took a course, Pa,” I said. “How’d you learn?”

He looked me up and down. “Some people are simply born with it, Davy. It’s just there.” He tapped a finger against my chest. “And believe me, it’s quite a find.”

Puzzled, I rubbed my chin. “So, you have to find it?”

“Oh, no,” he smiled, shutting the closet door. “It finds you.”

                                                             #

A stroke killed Pa the week after my high school graduation. Merle sat beside me in the front pew of the church while the priest read the benedictions. He kept a calloused hand on my shoulder as I drove the hearse to the cemetery.

That summer I ran the business and made a dozen runs up the Green Mile. Old Merle and I worked like a well-oiled machine. He took care of the embalming and Griffen, the new fella, did the grunt work. I began to look forward to the drives. At a strict pace of seven miles an hour, I found the rides peaceful, even soothing, the road unwrapping like a Christmas present on a snowy morning.

It was amazing how families hung on my words, the pale utterings of a naive teenager who had never stepped foot out of the county. And yet I could measure their effect; a cool balm on an open wound. Steadfast reassurance for tortured souls. I pressed a fresh flower into the palm of every widow, hugged grieving parents, and waited until the last mourner had left the gravesite before driving back to the funeral home. The business flourished.

On the last Sunday of August, I passed a comb through my short-cropped hair as the notes of the final psalm seeped out of the church. Griffin stood and opened the back door of the repainted black Landau.

“Come Monday, it’ll be September,” Merle said, chewing on a weed. He sat on the steps, watching me intently. “Whatcha gonna do?”

I shrugged, gazing at the heat waves rising off the cracked asphalt. “I think I’ll stay another month, till Halloween, and then decide.”

Old Merle’s eyes twinkled like liquid sunshine. “Good answer,” he said.

                                                                               ###

                            

updated by @americymru: 11/22/16 12:10:47AM

Marionettes by Mike Simon

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition 2016

Somewhere in the predawn haze an Artic Tern chirped. The upbeat notes slipped through the woods like a warm spring breeze, and yet failed to crack our grim demeanor. Since strapping on the skis, neither of us had spoken a word and the scraping of fiberglass over hard-packed snow served as the only reply to our feathered friend.

At the crest of a small rise, James, the former used car salesman from Vegas, abruptly held up, and I slid to a stop. Using only his elbows to balance on his poles––a skill he would never have mastered in the Nevada desert––the big man carefully opened the black plastic case that hung around his neck and raised a pair of binoculars.

I waited silently and watched the swirls of morning fog dissipate between stunted trees. The Yukon was still a primitive land. A rising sun peeled back the darkness like a curtain being raised, revealing a bleak and forbidding coastline. Our last stand.

The hill sat two miles south of our cabin and provided a full view of the western approaches, the only way onto the peninsula that poked out into the Beaufort Sea. After two months, the daily trek had taken on religious overtones.

“It’s not just cloud.” His matter of fact tone carried an ominous edge, and confirmed my worst fear.

“Are you sure?”

He turned and showered me with a look of distain. Even after all these months, those cold blue eyes gave me the shivers. Having ridden roughshod over frailer humans his entire life, James despised weakness. It was a mistake to appear vulnerable in his eyes.

He shoved the glasses at me. “See for yourself.”

My hands trembled as I took the binoculars.

Gray clouds rolled across the sky in an endless procession, propelled eastward by screaming arctic winds. But what caused my stomach to lurch had nothing to do with the cruel and inhospitable weather. Rather it was the faint silhouettes of figures framed within those vast cumulous clouds. They looked the same as I remembered; hazy and contorted, advancing relentlessly forward.

Nightmarish memories surged out of my subconscious. “Bastards,” I whispered.

Two years ago they appeared off the coasts of every continent. Scientists and pundits stared into the sky and declared the legions of marching figures the beginning of a new age. Experts affirmed them to be enlightened aliens making first contact or, at the very least, telepathic greetings sent from across the cosmos. Religious leaders proclaimed the second coming and people stayed glued to their TV’s, or made a beeline for the water to watch the revelation firsthand.

“Like bloodhounds,” James said. “Sons-of-Bitches found us.”

I didn’t reply. In truth, there was nothing to be said.

The BBC described them as ‘rows of crude marionettes marching forward in coordinated, spasmodic steps, the actions a parody of human movement.’

The coverage was 24/7 and we watched for three days as the minions advanced robotic-like toward the coast, their outlines growing larger, and yet fuzzy in the pale Californian sky. The faces, surrounded by a soft, reddish hue, remained blank and expressionless. Finally, after hours of intense anticipation, their long shadows touched land.

And people began to die.

They fell by the thousands. Anyone touched by the shadows succumbed in seconds. Like an expanding fireball from a nuclear detonation, the marionettes left entire communities barren. Nothing could stop the advance.

Most victims passed quietly, slipping peacefully to the ground as if settling into bed. Others vanished into nothingness in the blink of an eye. But what riveted everyone’s attention was what happened to select individuals. Those unfortunate ones, scattered across different lands, became engulfed in flame or saw their skin slowly peel off their torsos in a slow motion death sequence. Before the last television station faded into static, survivors got a good look at the charred and flayed corpses twitching in the middle of downtown streets. Their screams may have lasted only a few seconds, but the death cries reverberated around the planet.

Our civilization, in the making for thousands of years, descended into chaos. Throngs of terrified people surged inland. Cities burned. But the legions of marching marionettes, oblivious to the carnage, trudged relentlessly forward, sowing death and destruction with every clumsy step.

Inside the cloudbank I could discern the familiar voluminous shapes, the same jerky movements. I suddenly found it hard to breathe.

“We’d better get back,” James mumbled, sounding both angry and frustrated. “The others would want to know.”

He waited until I swiveled my skis before following me down the hill. My thoughts had seized up, my mind a blank sheet as I retraced the path to the cabin.

#

“Christ!” I exclaimed. “I haven’t seen this much food since we broke into that school cafeteria in Regina.” The wooden table overflowed with steaming pots of soup, and plates of pasta and vegetables.

Maggie wiped her hands on her apron but frowned in my direction. “I’ll thank you for noticing the work, young Calvin, but there’s no need for swearing with young ears around. You will mind your words in my kitchen.”

Offering her a chagrinned smile, I slid into the seat next to the woodpile. Maggie’s daughter Rachel made a show of rolling her eyes.

“I’ve heard swear words before, mother.”

“Not in my house.” Maggie tucked a lock of greying blonde hair behind her ear before taking another bubbling pot off the cast iron stove.

I winked at Rachel. “That’s what mothers are for,” I whispered. “They act like word police.”

She smiled back. The thirteen year old had a crush on me ever since James and I pulled her and Maggie out of a burning car on the outskirts of Juneau nine months ago.

Maggie was initially apprehensive about her daughter’s infatuation until she saw where my values lay. I may have only been six years older but Rachel and I were separated by a lifetime of experience.

The corollary was that Maggie treated me like a long lost nephew and even though she was nearly forty, it was hard to think of her as anything but family.

I marveled at the irony. The end of the world and I’m living with two unattached females, one entering puberty and one acting like my mother.

The chair jostled next to me, interrupting my musings. Wilbur and his ever-present smartphone took his seat at the table. If he noticed the feast over the beeps and whistles of his game he gave no indication.

We picked him up several weeks after finding the girls, the last surviving member of a group that made a stand just north of Fairbanks. Botulism corrupted their canned food, and Wilbur got to witness his family’s final hours of poisoned agony.

He told us his name but not much else. Even after six months he rarely uttered a word. He managed to hook his up game to a warped solar panel on the roof so he could play practically nonstop. Needless to say he didn’t interact with the rest of us much, choosing instead to cloister himself with the handheld in whatever corner of the cabin happened to be free.

“Everyone sleep well?” Maggie tossed the question over one shoulder as she shifted pots on the stove’s only burner. Everyone understood the unspoken question; did anyone actually get any sleep, or did we pace the confines of our small rooms like convicts the night before the scheduled executions?

A chorus of ‘ayes’ answered her.

She smiled and shoved a log into the side of the stove.

“Can’t be much left in the storeroom,” I said. “Considering what we’ve been eating the last couple of days.”

Her pleasant expression never wavered as she carried a steaming bowl to the table. I swear that women could smile through a root canal.

“Getting pretty empty,” she admitted and then winked at her daughter. “Don’t worry, I’ve saved the last chocolate bar for us.”

Rachel giggled.

I realized at that moment none of us would be making another run into the village for food.

Maggie squeezed Rachel’s cheek and exchanged a meaningful look with me. I didn’t say another word.

Three days had passed since James and I returned to the cabin with the news. Oddly enough, the group took the report calmly. No hysterics. No crying. I wondered if, after two years, we were simply tired of running.

To her credit Maggie fed us like kings. Wilbur remained occupied with his game and I watched the marionettes grow larger in the sky. Like a well-heeled army, they were advancing on our humble abode in a grim and determined fashion.

The screen door screeched open and the large, familiar frame of the car salesman filled the archway. He carried a melancholy mood at the best of times, but the unsavory look he brandished about the room was harsh even for him.

“Shadows have reached the village,” he announced brusquely. “Road’s cut off.”

His face hidden by the handheld, Wilbur snorted. “As if there was somewhere to go. We’re at the edge of the world for God’s sake.”

The tips of James’s ears turned red. I knew when it was time to interrupt. “Wilbur’s got a point. Short of swimming across the Arctic Ocean, this is as far north as we can get.”

The big man turned his glare on me. The amount of vehemence in that look required a lifetime of practice. “So what now, college boy? You going to just sit back and accept it? Or spend the last few hours talking about the good times and our last road trip?”

He was intimidating but I learned long ago not to back down. His kind dominates the meek and mild. Still, I had to talk around the lump that formed in my throat. “You asked me the same questions in Colorado after the nuclear plant went critical and the fallout almost got us. And in those hick towns in Montana and Alberta . . . you remember the discussion we had at the church when we arrived the morning after the fire.” I shivered at the memory. James tensed even more, like a lion about to spring.

“Not to mention Juneau, Whitehorse and, damn, how many other ghost towns? Each time we picked up and, unlike the corpses festering in the streets, moved on. All the way from California . . .” I took a deep breath. The parade of memories created a tremor in my voice and the girls stared at me wide-eyed.

“James, dammit, there’s nowhere to run! The sea is at our back and now the road is blocked. Even you can’t outrun those demons across the tundra. Unless you’re Moses in disguise and plan to separate the seas.”

“Bah!” He threw off his parka and stomped across the kitchen. “I should never have saved your sorry ass in the first place.” His voice trailed into whisper. “Silver spooned college boy . . . ” He used a napkin to wipe the sheen of sweat off his forehead. “Freaking weather is unnatural,” he declared.

I hid a smile, recognizing his familiar ploy of changing topics when he felt cornered. “Look at me; I’m sweating in the bloody arctic,” he said. “It’s sunny for the four thousandth day in a row.”

Wilbur snorted again, this time in obvious agreement. Then again, they both had a point. Since the initial sightings it had been nothing but sun and cloud. No rain. No snow. Nothing. It was if someone housed a giant weather machine in their attic and pressed the pause button before stepping out. Two years ago.

The bluster went out of the big fella and he slumped into the chair at the head of the table. His eyes seemed distant for a few moments before he noticed the feast. His gaze flicked to Maggie before coming to rest on me.

I shrugged.

Maggie found space in the center to lay down a final plate of rolls. She removed her apron and invited everyone to dig in.

Wilbur paused his game and grabbed his utensils.

It was Rachel who asked the obvious question. “Are they are getting closer, Mr. Kennedy? The shadows I mean, are they’re coming this way?”

James was ready to spit back a caustic remark when Maggie’s sudden throat clearing made him hesitate. “Er, yeah . . . well a little. There are questions about direction––”

“Now, Rachel.” Maggie leaned in to ladle some split pea soup into her daughter’s bowl. “Let’s remember our manners. Mr. Kennedy just got in and needs a few minutes to catch his breath. There will be plenty of time to talk about shadows later.”

“Yes, Mother,” Rachel murmured.

We ate in silence until Wilbur’s game started beeping.

“Battery’s low,” he mumbled, pulling away from the table and hustling out of the room.

“Where’s he going?” Rachel asked.

James grabbed a roll. “Haven’t you been paying attention, missy? He’s climbing up the roof to reconnect his do-dad to the solar panel he’s got taped to the smoke stack.”

“How’d he know how to do that anyway?” I asked. “He’s got about ten different wires connected to that . . . phone.”

“Easy,” Maggie said. “He was in university like you, Calvin. Third year electrical at MIT. Must have been doing well too because he mentioned something about an internship at NASA.”

“How’d you know that?”

“How else? I asked him.”

I blinked. “Well I’m glad he talks to someone around here.”

“Why does he keep playing that game all day?” Rachel asked.

James snickered. “Because he’s acting like an ostrich burying his head in the sand. He’s hiding from––”

“Carrots, James?” Maggie thrust the bowl under the man’s nose. “You look like you could use some fiber.”

“Huh? Uh, thanks. I was just speculating . . . ”

By the confused look on Rachel’s face, she had no idea what he was getting at.

“Maybe Wilbur’s still in shock,” I said. “We did pull him out of a tight predicament.”

James sneered. “You show me anyone here who hasn’t survived a bad situation. We’ve all lost family and friends, and that’s not the worst of it.”

His voice trailed off but I could tell he wanted to say more.

An awkward silence followed as the four of us made an effort to keep eating. But without an actual appetite it was hard to do.

#

Side by side, Maggie and I leaned over the deck rail and stared silently into the sky. Legions of fluffy white clouds swept across another pale blue morning, beautiful sirens of death. High above them, the indistinct forms of shuffling mannequins marched inexorably forward.

The wooden rail under my arms felt cool and rough, but the sight of those marionettes had me sweating. It was a relief to drop my gaze and stare at the weathered decking.

Maggie rocked slowly on the balls of her feet, using her elbows to pivot against the wood. “Mr. Kennedy says the shadows will reach the cabin tomorrow,” she said quietly.

I caught her eye and nodded. “He told me.”

She started to tremble. I wanted to comfort her, like a real friend would do. But I was too young. “How’s Rachel?”

She forced a smile. “I found an old cryptogram book in the closest. She’s busy working on the puzzles.”

Like a normal thirteen year old.

“That’s good.” I wasn’t sure about the next question but I sensed she needed to talk. “What are you going to do?”

A sudden sob escaped her lips and she hurriedly put a hand to her mouth. I started toward her but she waved me back. She took a moment to regain her composure.

“I’m okay.” She inhaled a deep breath. “I knew this day would come. We couldn’t hide forever. I tried to prepare but,” She wiped a tear away. “It’s not something one can practice.”

“I know.”

She smiled at me and her eyes twinkled. “Calvin, you’ve been a real gentleman these last months. I wanted to tell you that. In fact, you’ve been the only sane person around. Wilbur has been a deaf mute twenty-three hours a day and Mr. Kennedy has been, well, himself. I’m glad Rachel took a liking to you.” She paused and her expression darkened. “That by itself saved me some of the worry . . . some of the pain.” She turned to stare at the apparitions in the sky.

“Tomorrow I’m going to take my little girl to that hill just west of here, the one with the pretty blue flowers poking through the snow. I’m going to sit her down with her back to those . . . things. Then I’m going to tell her about the day she was born and how excited her daddy was. I’m going to describe how she learned to ride her bike and what she wore on the first day of kindergarten.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She made no attempt to wipe them away.

“We’re going to have a mother daughter day, for as long as it lasts.”

A lump of fear formed in my gut. I had to ask. “Maggie, aren’t you scared? The way some people died––”

She shook her head. “I believe they were the evil ones, Calvin, those who lived outside His Blessing. The vast majority passed on quietly. We have nothing to fear.”

“Are you sure?”

She took my hand in hers. “After forty years you learn a few things. I’ve led a boring life, some would call a safe life. And Rachel, well, she’s just a kid. We’ll be alright.”

We stood there for a long time, hand in hand, staring into the abyss.

#

When I walked back inside the only thing that had changed was Wilbur. The computer nerd had moved from one side of the room to the other, the game clicking and beeping happily in his grasp.

I shook my head.

Hours later the sun drifted down the western sky as afternoon gave way to evening. The snow crunched under my boots as I wondered aimlessly among the trees. My teenage body seemed full of useless energy. I patted together a snowball and threw it at the nearest tree. If I were ten years older they’d call it anxiety. I called it fear.

I bent down to grab another handful of snow when a sudden cry rang out. I dropped the snow and bolted toward the sound. In seconds I entered a small clearing and spied James carrying Rachel in his arms.

Eyes wide, he looked just as shocked to see me.

“You bastard!” Through a red haze I picked up a broken tree branch. As I stepped forward, the car salesman carefully put the girl down. She looked flushed and shaken.

He held up one hand. “Wait, Calvin.”

He was half a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier but I didn’t care. I hefted the thick branch in both hands.

Without warning, Rachel turned and hugged him. “Thank you, Mr. Kennedy.” Then she waved at me and ran back toward of the cabin.

I stopped in my tracks. What the hell?

James cleared his throat and fiddled with the sleeve of his jacket before meeting my glare. “I, uh, I was out walking when I heard her call for help,” he explained, pointing. “I found her up that tree. Apparently she was trying to catch a squirrel when she got stuck. It took me ten minutes to convince her to jump. That’s when you decided to show up.” He swallowed. “Calvin, I swear I would never . . . I know what you people think of me. Hell, I brought it on myself. I always have. But, honestly, I only wanted to keep you guys safe. Even acting the way I did, being an asshole, I just wanted to protect . . . ” His shoulders slumped as the words fell away.

The moment felt surreal. After traveling with this guy for two years, through cities and towns spun from Dante’s Inferno, I was seeing him in a new light. I finally understood why the big man from Nevada was running so hard. He was terrified. Terrified of suffering the fate of so many undesirables.

But I could see straight into his soul. Though deeply scarred, it retained a golden core. There was honor there.

I grasped his hand. “You’re going to do fine tomorrow, James.”

He looked at me, eyes wide, hopeful. He wanted to believe. Needed to.

“Don’t worry,” I repeated. “It’ll be okay.”

Our hands dropped and I turned back to the cabin. As I trudged through the snow, I knew he was staring at my back, and counting down the minutes.

#

Sunlight filled the room when I woke up.

A spasm of panic shot through me. How long did I sleep?

I hustled into my clothes and, still buttoning my shirt, barged into the kitchen.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Anybody here?”

No answer.

On the kitchen table, cleared and clean, sat a small glass of flowers.

I smiled. Mother and daughter were on their way to scale a certain hill and Maggie had left a parting gift.

“Bye, guys,” I whispered. “See you soon.”

I withdrew the last container of OJ from the icebox and drained it.

“James, Wilbur,” I called.

Only the soft rustle of branches outside the window answered.

I tucked in my shirt and stepped outside.

To my surprise Wilbur sat in the old rocking chair, feet perched on the railing. The game was nowhere in sight.

“Wilbur?”

“Mr. Kennedy left for town about two hours ago.” The bespeckled young man didn’t take his eyes off the clouds. “He said he couldn’t wait for lazy college kids.”

“He went into town?” I stepped closer and he looked up. Wide, dilated eyes betrayed his inner thoughts.

“He left a message for you.”

“Yes?” James had headed into town?

“He said he’d be waiting on the other side, and if you were wrong he was going to kick your ass.”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. The big man had decided to face his fears head on.

Wilbur stared at me, his eyebrows knotted in confusion.

“I see you’re not playing anymore,” I said.

He shook his head. “Finished twenty minutes ago.”

“Finished, or decided enough was enough?”

“Finished. All twenty-seven levels, all on the impossible setting.” When I didn’t look impressed, he continued. “Nobody here knew it, but back at school a few friends and I actually designed the game. It was cutting edge, incredible graphics, humorous, challenging, customizable . . . Apple bought the distribution rights. It was going to revolutionize the gaming world.”

I didn’t follow. “So you wanted to play it till the end?”

“We engineered the settings so anyone could play, from three to ninety-three, from kindergarten to genius. Impossible was the ultimate. We put it there as a joke knowing it couldn’t be beat. No human could defeat our computer. The math was perfect.” His gaze turned inward. “After watching my family die, I knew I needed more to keep on living. The only way I could do that was by playing this stupid game, and beating it. I wanted, no, I needed to prove that science is not always the answer. Sometimes there’s faith.”

In my mind, the fog lifted and I suddenly understood. “And now?”

The old wood creaked as leaned back in the chair. “Now I’d like to sit here for a while and watch the clouds.”

I smiled and descended the steps leading off the porch. Above us, the figures loomed like mountains, moving limbs fantastically huge. My knees began to shake. “Wilbur, I’m going for a walk.”

“Good bye, Calvin.”

I walked away from the cabin. My destination was a foregone conclusion.

“Calvin!” Wilbur leaned over the railing.

I looked back.

“Thank you,” he said. “For taking me in.”

I waved and he disappeared into the shadow of the porch.

My legs took me north. I wasn’t quite in a hurry and yet I dared not stop. Something terrifying nipped at my heels and the fear of the unknown swept across the snow. The trail to the sea was fairly straight but it still took the better part of an hour to reach the rocky coastline. The winds picked up and I realized I should have brought a jacket.

Turning around to gaze at the advancing marionettes was in itself a test of courage. I had not created any separation. They towered over me, omniscient and threatening.

I noticed something else. Instead of numbering in the thousands, as they did on that very first day, there were but four figures left in the pale blue sky.

My brain drudged up the analogy. Four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

I traced a path along the shoreline before coming to an extended point that stabbed deep into the bay. Our small canoe lay on its side in the wild grass as whitecaps and icebergs dotted the green sea. Strange how the sky remained clear, the air warm, and yet the snow refused to melt.

I noticed it immediately. Only two figures remained in the sky.

“Maggie, Rachel,” I groaned and fought back tears. My last true friends. “Be safe.”

At the tip of the point, the wind rustled my hair and pelted me with frigid spray. I watched a large iceberg drift close to the shoreline.

On impulse, I pulled the canoe into the water and paddled for several minutes. Then, putting down the paddle, I watched the land drift away.

The breath caught in my throat when I realized there was but one apparition remaining. Wilbur was gone. Only one human left on the planet. Mankind’s reign was ending.

Waves battered the side of the canoe. My hands trembled. Shivering, I watched the last shadow draw closer. We had hidden for two years, but it was relentless.

It had a job to do.

As the sun began its final descent in the west, and the golden hue of vermillion clouds faded from the sky, the winds were stilled as by an unseen hand.

The waters of the Arctic Ocean settled into an unnatural calm.

The apparition bent towards the water, its descent making it appear even larger. Soon it blocked out the entire sky. A dark stain, like a consuming plague, drew swiftly across the stillness. Heart pounding, I watched it close on me.

A fraction of a second before I became one with the darkness, I saw the eyes of the marionette twinkle and sprinkle the sea with beams of golden light. Somewhere in the distance, trumpets sounded and a voice whispered, “The time of waiting is over. The Gates have been opened . . .”

###

updated by @americymru: 11/22/16 12:09:07AM

Grampy Spinelli’s War Story by Brian Kirchner

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition 2016

My grandfather, Johnny Spinelli, was a master storyteller. Every Saturday I would visit Grampy Spinelli, as I called him, and listen to his stories: cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, knights and dragons. He always swore the stories weren’t made up. I knew better, at least most of the time.

One thing, though, that he never told me about was the war. Grampy had served in the Army during World War Two. He had been in combat. I knew this because he had war relics stashed in an old wood box in his little house across town from ours. He had a German Mauser pistol, a combat knife with a swastika emblazoned on the handle, a German soldier’s helmet with a bullet hole through it, and a dozen or so similar items. He showed them to me exactly once, and told me he had picked them up from European battlefields. After that one time, though, Grampy never brought the box out again. And he never told me any war stories, either.

Except one.

-----------

“Gonna stomp you, Spinelli! Ha! Gonna stomp you if you don’t say ‘I’m a queer-ass faggot!’ Say it, Spinelli! Say it!”

Chris Siemasz and his posse of thugs stood around me as I lay on the ground. Chris had one huge foot on my left arm and the other lifted over my abdomen. I could see the thick waffle tread of the workboots he always wore. There were clots of brown playground mud stuck in the rubber. I struggled to free my arm, but Chris only pressed down harder, making me yell in pain.

“Noooooo, I don’t think so, faggot,” he said, laughing. “You’re not getting up yet. Say you’re a queer faggot! You got five seconds!”

He began counting down from five. I stared at the bottom of his boot, imaginging what it would feel like if he brought it down into my exposed belly. When he got to one, I yelled out.

“Okay, I’m a queer faggot! Now let me up!”

“About time you told the truth!” said Chris triumphantly, and stomped me anyway.

The pain was enormous, but worse than the pain was having every last ounce of air forced from my body. I struggled to breathe. My diaphragm felt paralyzed. I began to panic.

Chris and Company watched and laughed. At some point, they drifted away to find new entertainment.

Finally, blessedly, I drew a huge, gasping breath, savoring the sweet air as it tunneled down my windpipe and reinflated my chest.

I rose slowly and began to trudge toward the main office. I would have to call my mother and have her bring me new clothes. I briefly considered telling the lady behind the front desk about who had done this to me, then rejected the idea. That would just get me in more trouble with Chris, one way or another. I didn’t have the guts to take that chance.

-----------

“Charles Spinelli! Who did this to you?”

My mom looked at me from the driver’s seat of her Buick. We were on our way home, winding through the outer Detroit suburbs.

“Never mind, Mom. It doesn’t matter.” The fact was, though, I ached to tell her who had done it. I desperately wanted to tell her everything – that Chris and his buddies had been picking on me all year, ever since he’d discovered I made an easy target because I never fought back. I wanted to tell her these things. But the words stuck in my throat.

“It most certainly does matter!” she said, glancing between me and the road ahead. “I want that principal, that Mr. Dunning, to know what’s happening to my son in his school. I want whoever did this to you to…to suffer the consequences!”

I didn’t say anything. I just stared out the window.

“Charlie! Are you hearing me? Why won’t you tell me who did this?”

I still didn’t answer. I couldn’t, even though I wanted to. She just didn’t get it. She didn’t understand that any adult intervention would just make things worse for me.

I pressed myself into the corner of my seat and stared out the window some more. My mother’s pleading faded into the background.

------------

For a few days after the Great Stomping, all was quiet on the Blockhead front, and I began to think maybe I might get to holiday break without further incident. It was mid-November by then, and the six-week vacation was coming up fast. But I didn’t get off so easily. Chris and his posse of lunks outdid themselves in the Charlie Spinelli humiliation department three days before school ended.

It began, as these things so often seem to, in the locker room after gym class.

------------

“Hey, Charlie Brown!” This from the Head Lunk himself, standing with a towel around his considerable waist in front of his open locker. I was just stepping out of the shower room. I froze. “Yeah, Charlie Brown! C’mere!”

I didn’t move.

Chris had two members of his posse with him. They sauntered over, scattering smaller kids out of the way like bowling pins.

“What do you all think?” said Chris, looking at his two Assistant Lunks. “A little rat-tail action for Charlie Brown here?”

The Assistant Lunks snickered like Beavis and Butthead. (Come to think of it, they bore a passing resemblance to those two cartoon gentlemen.)

“Gimme your towel,” said Chris, pointing at Beavis. Beavis stopped snickering and shook his head.

“No way, man. I’m not gonna go naked in front of this little faggot.”

Chris immediately dope-slapped Beavis in the back of the head. Beavis reeled.

“Ow! You motherfuck-“

“Shut up,” said Chris matter-of-factly, and yanked Beavis’s towel off his waist.

I will never forget the look of pure embarrassment that came over Beavis’s pimply face, or how his dick looked like it was trying to crawl up into his belly.

But that’s not what started me laughing so hard I couldn’t stop.

What got me laughing was how hairy his entire crotch was. Dense, dark hair covered practically everything, and extended in a trail up his lower abdomen to his navel. I realized in a flash that Beavis was a lot older than his fellow fifth graders. Beavis was repeating fifth grade for at least the fourth time. I found this extraordinarily funny.

So, I laughed. I pointed at his crotch and stared and laughed my stupid head off. Beavis spluttered with rage. He grabbed his towel back from Chris (who was also staring at Beavis’ crotch, but with a befuddled expression, like a bull staring at a flying saucer that just landed in the pasture) and wrapped it around his waist. Tears were running down my face and it felt like my ribs would split. The other boys gathered to see what the joke was, which only made Beavis’ humiliation worse.

“You want me to rip your fuckin’ balls off, Charlie Brown?” Beavis screamed. “Keep laughing!”

I never even saw the first punch coming, because it came from Chris and not Beavis. Pain exploded from my left temple all the way through my head. A second later, Chris kicked me in the gut.

I collapsed onto my side, naked except for my rubber shower shoes. Chris and the Assistant Lunks carried me to the back of the locker room. There was a disused emergency exit back there that hadn’t been connected to an alarm for years. Kids sometimes ducked out of this door to smoke, because it gave on a little blind brick cul-de-sac behind the school, formed by the intersection of the gymnasium wing and the library.

Did I mention it was November when all of this was going down? The outside temperature was probably in the twenties that day.

The door opened and a wave of arctic air hit me. They tossed me out the door and slammed it closed.

There was no handle on the outside of the emergency door so I pounded on it and yelled. Nothing happened.

“Shit!” I yelled as a blast of wind hit me. My fingers, toes, and ears were already numb. My teeth chattered uncontrollably. They were banging together so hard I was afraid I’d knock some loose.

“Shit,” I said again, and left the cul-de-sac and began walking around the school to the main entrance. I was freezing, stark naked, and parading past any number of classroom windows. Faces pressed against windows. Teachers stared in horror. Finally I reached the main doors and pressed the buzzer to be let in. When the doors clicked open I scurried across the lobby to the main office.

The school secretary, a severe woman named Mrs. Dinsmore, stood up as I walked in. She was unfazed by my nudity. With quick movements she took a long coat from the lost and found box next to her desk and gave it to me. I wrapped it gratefully around myself, sticking my hands into my armpits to try to thaw them out.

“Where are your clothes, Charlie?” she asked.

“In the locker room,” I said.

Mrs. Dinsmore picked up the phone on her desk and dialed a number.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s the front office. Please go to the boys’ locker room and fetch any clothing you find there. Yes. Thank you.”

She hung up. “The janitor will have your clothes here in just a minute, Charlie.” She looked at me then, and I saw what appeared to be a hint of compassion on her face. “Now, what happened? Tell me everything.”

And the thing is, I really wanted to. But just like they had with my mother, the words stuck in my throat. As much as I wanted to spit them out, something in me had thrown up a roadblock and those words simply weren’t going to come. Partly it was the risk of everything getting back to Chris. But there was more, and I didn’t figure this out until I was much older. I needed to deal with Chris on my own, without adult help. I needed to know I could stand up for myself. So I said nothing.

But there was one grownup I could tell, and I knew he would keep my secret safe.

------------

“These guys sound like triple-distilled assholes!” Grampy Spinelli barked laughter and blew stinking smoke out his nostrils. “God damn, Charlie! What’d you call them? The Blanket Gang?”

“Blockhead Gang, Grampy. Blockhead. Maybe you need a new hearing aid.”

“The hell I do,” he said congenially. “Charlie, I wanna show you something.” He reached into a drawer in a little side table next to his chair. He withdrew a small metal cross with a purple ribbon looped through a hole at one end. The cross had flared ends. He laid it in my hand. It was heavy.

“That’s an Iron Cross. Highest honor a German soldier could get back then. Now have a seat. I’m going to tell you how I got that chunk of metal. It’s the only war story you’ll ever hear from me. I’m telling it to you now because I think it might help you with those assholes at school.”

He picked up his cigarette and took a long drag. I waited, perched on the loveseat, gripping the cross in my hand, relishing the anticipation of finally hearing about the old man’s war years. Then, at last, he began to speak.

-----------

“It was Christmas Day, 1944. Battle of the Bulge. Coldest goddam winter northern Europe had seen in decades. Men losing fingers and toes to frostbite. A royal goddam mess.

“I was part of the 101^st Airborne Division. We were defending Bastogne. That’s a pretty little town in Belgium. At least, it was pretty before it got bombed to shit. Anyway, the Krauts had the town under siege. We were hungry, tired, cold, and running low on ammo.

“My platoon was holed up in a bombed-out café. We’d been there two straight days. A Kraut unit, two dozen men maybe, had us pinned down. My platoon was down to ten guys. We had orders to hold our position at all costs.

“So we held our position. Goddam, but we held it. Two straight days with no food and no sleep, and getting shot at every few minutes and assaulted every few hours. But by God, we held ‘em off.

“But then, around noon on the third day, we get new orders over the platoon radio. The brass wants us to go on the offense. They want us to break cover, leave the café, and go after the Kraut bastards.

“Now, you gotta understand something, Charlie. I wanted to go after them. We all did. There’s nothing worse than being pinned down in combat, knowing there’s a bullet out there with your name on it. At least when you’re on the offense, you’re doing something. So we wanted to go after them, but we knew it’d be suicide if we all went out into the open.

“We needed a plan. The one entrance to our café opened out onto a little plaza. On the other side was a huge rubble pile that used to be the town wall before it got bombed. The Krauts were hiding in that rubble, fifty yards from us.

“Our platoon sergeant, big Irish fellow named Gorman, he calls all of us together. ‘Boys,’ he says, ‘those goddam Krauts have us in their crosshairs. Only way this is gonna work is if we flank ‘em. Come at ‘em from the sides, where they ain’t expecting it.’

“Now, I’m standing there listening to Gorman, and next to me is my buddy Corporal D’Angelo. Suddenly D’Angelo raises his hand. Like he’s in school or something. Polite son of a bitch, D’Angelo was. I swear I heard him say ‘Excuse me’ once when he shot someone.

“Gorman, he stops talking and stares at D’Angelo. ‘Yeah?’ he says. And D’Angelo says ‘Well, Sarge, I’m just wondering. I mean, what if those Krauts have a sniper waiting for us to show our faces?’ Gorman keeps staring at him. Finally he says ‘D’Angelo, you dago asshole, you want me to go over there and ask ‘em about it? Hey there, you Krauts! Excuse me, but would you mind telling me if you have any snipers around? Gee, I sure would appreciate it. That what you want?’ And D’Angelo doesn’t say anything back, just sits there with his face turning red. I wanted to slap the sarge for that. D’Angelo was just pointing out the obvious.

“But I think what D’Angelo was saying must have sunk into Gorman’s thick head, because he says ‘Okay, who’s the fastest runner we got?’ And everyone turns to look at D’Angelo. Mike D’Angelo was a skinny guy with long legs, and we all knew he’d been a track star in high school. Gorman points at him and says ‘D’Angelo, you’re gonna sprint out that door and zig-zag like hell until you get to the wall over there.’ We all knew what he meant-there was a section of town wall that was still standing, maybe seventy yards from the café. It was the only cover around besides the café. ‘The rest of us’ll lay down suppressing fire,’ the sarge says. ‘If there are any goddam snipers they’ll shoot at you, D’Angelo. And they’re gonna fuckin’ miss, right? ‘Cause you’re the fastest motherfucker around, right?’

“And D’Angelo, he just stares off into space and says ‘Yeah, sarge. Ain’t nobody faster than me.’ But the look on his face told me he already thought he was a dead man. But what choice did he have? What choice did any of us have? We had our orders.

“So D’Angelo crouches down just inside the doorway, with the rest of us next to him. Gorman says ‘Run, you son of a bitch!’ And D’Angelo blasts out of that doorway, and the rest of us open fire on the rubble pile.

“It was like the gates of Hell had opened. Fire poured across the plaza in both directions. The sound was like one big, long explosion that wouldn’t stop. The Kraut machine guns sounded like chainsaws. Plaster exploded all around us.

“Once D’Angelo was out the door he began zig-zagging like a madman. And our suppressing fire seemed to be working. All the return fire was coming at us and not him. I started thinking he was gonna make it.”

Grampy stopped talking and pulled out a packet of cigarette papers and a pouch of tobacco from a side table drawer. I sat as patiently as I could while his arthritic fingers slowly rolled another smoke, then lit it with a kitchen match from the same drawer. Then he took a long drag on it, and blew smoke out in a satisfied cloud.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Did he make it? D’Angelo? Did he make it to the wall?”

“No, Charlie, my buddy didn’t make it. Turned out there were snipers, at least one, because when D’Angelo was about fifteen yards from the wall I heard a single shot. Don’t ask me how I heard it over the ruckus, but I did. And D’Angelo dropped like a lead weight. He didn’t even twitch when he hit the ground.

“We charged out through the doorway in a blind rage. Even Gorman was right there with us, screaming like a demon.

“One by one, every single man in my platoon was cut down. Gorman got it first, from one of the machine guns, I think. Ripped his head clean off. By the time we’d been in the open for maybe fifteen seconds everyone but me was dead.

“Then a hammer smashed into my left leg, down below my knee. I sprawled out on the ground and started rolling. I knew if I laid still I was a dead man. So I rolled. My bad leg flopped around. Bullets smacked the cobblestone all around me. Seemed like every gun in the whole goddam German army was shooting at me.”

“I kept rolling until I banged into something, and I realized it was the piece of wall that D’Angelo’d been heading for. I got into a crouch and looked around. I could see those Krauts in their little hidey-holes. And the best part was, they hadn’t seen me. I’d rolled clean out of their line of sight. And the sniper, wherever he was, I guess he hadn’t seen me, either. Or he’d missed me.

“You know what enfilading is, Charlie? It’s the worst thing that can happen to an infantry unit in a defensive position. It means the enemy has gotten on your flank and is firing on you from the side. It’s like stabbing a crocodile in the soft underbelly where he isn’t protected. Well, I was in a bang-up spot for enfilading those bastards. All I had to do was lock and load my rifle, and pick them off as fast as I could.

“When I popped the first one, the rest of ‘em jumped out of their holes like the devil was after ‘em. They couldn’t find me, all hunkered down like I was. I kept firing until my clip was empty, and I nailed a Kraut with every single shot. Then I shoved in a fresh clip and got a couple more before the rest of ‘em finally decided to skedaddle.” Grampy Spinelli barked a harsh laugh. “Boy, you shoulda seen ‘em. Like jackrabbits they were. Bouncing up out of that rubble and running for the hills.”

I was gripping the Iron Cross hard enough to hurt. “But you got shot, right? In the leg?”

“Damn right I did. Kraut bullet tore clean through my left calf. Hurt like goddamed hellfire, once the adrenaline got out of my system. I ripped away my trouser leg below the knee to expose the wound. Ugly thing, all clotted up with drying blood. I used the scraps of trouser cloth to bind it up. Couldn’t do anything for the pain, though. All the platoon’s medical supplies were gone. So I gritted my teeth and took it.

“I got up and started walking back across the plaza. Hobbling, actually. My leg was in bad shape. I needed to get to HQ for proper medical attention.

“Well, I hadn’t gone but twenty steps when suddenly a Kraut pops out of a nearby building. His rifle had a scope on it. I was looking at the sniper who’d taken out D’Angelo.

“How does a grunt with a bad leg beat a Kraut sniper who’s got the drop on him? Sheer goddam willpower. You know what I did, Charlie? I stood up straight, squared my shoulders, and I looked that damned Kraut sniper dead in the eye, just like I’m doin’ with you right now. Didn’t say a thing. My eyes did all the talking. And my eyes said, ‘This is one Dago-American you ain’t gonna fuck with, you Kraut son of a bitch. Don’t even think about using that rifle, you’ll regret it for the rest of your short, pathetic life.’

“Of course, I didn’t think for a second this bullshit would actually work! It was a desperation move. But as I stared into that Kraut’s face I saw that it was working! He started kinda shifting his eyes around like he wasn’t sure what to do. His hands started shakin’, too. His rifle jittered. I started walking toward him. Slowly. As I got closer, he got more scared. He still had the rifle pointed at me, but I could tell he just didn’t know what to do anymore. He was psyched out, like you kids say.

“When I’d gotten close to him, just a few steps away, I unslung my Garand faster than you can say ‘Heil Hitler.’ I squeezed off two rounds. They went right through that Kraut’s chest. He dropped like a ton of bricks.

My eyes were bugged out and my jaw was hanging open. I snapped it closed.

“Before I left I noticed an Iron Cross pinned to his uniform, the same one you’re holding. I grabbed it as a souvenir. Then I busted ass back to HQ.”

The Iron Cross had magically gained weight during Grampy’s story. It sat in my palm like a living piece of history. It practically glowed.

“So, Charlie, here’s why I told you all of this old stuff. This here’s the most important part, so listen up.

“The next time those assholes at your school try to mess with you, you remember your Grampy Spinelli and those Krauts, especially that sniper. You remember how willpower and guts can beat any bully, no matter how big and mean he thinks he is. The next time they come at you, you think of me, that sniper, and that Iron Cross. And you stare ‘em down like you’ll tear their goddam balls off and stuff ‘em down their throats if they so much as touch you.” He pointed at one of his eyes. “It’s all in here, Charlie. It’s all in how you look at ‘em. That’s all you need.”

---------------

You’re probably wondering right about now whether any of this actually worked for me. Whether Grampy’s eyeball method actually solved my bullying problem.

Well…it did. For a second, anyway, which was long enough.

I began carrying that Iron Cross in my backpack to school and hanging it in my locker, where I’d look at it between classes, just to remind me of what Grampy Spinelli had said. And the next time Chris and the Blockhead Gang came after me (back in The Bog, on the frozen mud, less than a week after Grampy told his story) I faced them down and stared Chris dead in the eye, just like Grampy did with the sniper. I didn’t say a thing, just stood my ground and put all of my willpower into that stare. Chris stared back, and suddenly, amazingly, I saw uncertainty flicker across his face. That was all I needed. In that split-second of hesitation I delivered a solid kick right into Chris’s balls with my heavy winter boot. He shrieked and collapsed. The rest of his posse looked down at him in utter disbelief. They looked at me. Then, just like Grampy’s Krauts, they hightailed it out of there like a bunch of scared jackrabbits.

They never bothered me again.

------------

That could have been the end of the story, but I can’t wrap this up without telling you about something that happened about six months later: Grampy Spinelli’s death.

It happened in late May of that year, and it happened fast. Massive stroke, the doctor said, he probably never knew what hit him. The doctor was also of the opinion that the stroke was more than likely brought on by his smoking habit. Those foul home-rolled cigarettes had done what a Kraut infantry squad and a Kraut sniper couldn’t. They had killed the bravest man I knew.

Later that day, when relatives were over at our house offering condolences, I found myself sitting next to my dad in the living room. He looked shell-shocked and tired. We sat in silence for a few minutes, then I gamely tried to get a conversation going.

“Grampy sure had some war stories, huh? I mean, all that fighting he was in? The Battle of the Bulge, Bastogne, all that stuff? Crazy.”

My dad looked at me with a funny expression. “Battle of the Bulge? What’re you talking about, Charlie? My dad wasn’t in that fight. Where’d you get that idea?”

“He told me all about it, Dad. Last winter when I was at his house. It was that weekend when it was just me there. He told me a kick-ass story about how he killed a bunch of Kr-er, Germans. And how he stared down a sniper! Crazy stuff.”

My dad shook his head and smiled a little. “I don’t know where he came up with those stories. He always had an imagination, didn’t he? Charlie, I hate to disappoint you, but your Grampy Spinelli was never in the Battle of the Bulge. He spent his Army years stateside. See, he got hurt during basic training. Not bad enough for a discharge, but it disqualified him from front-line duty. So the Army kept him at Fort Benning, where they trained paratroopers. He helped pack chutes, schedule training runs, that sort of thing.”

“That’s not right,” I said. I was offended that my father would try to lay this on me right after Grampy’s funeral. I didn’t know what he thought he was doing, but it made me mad. “I saw all of his war souvenirs! He even gave me the Iron Cross he took off the sniper. Look!” I pulled it out of my pocket.

“I guess he showed you the Mauser and the helmet and the knife and all the other stuff too?”

“Yeah, he showed me everything.”

“Charlie, Grampy bought all of that stuff at flea markets and auctions after the war was over. Most of it isn’t even authentic. I remember your Grammy getting angry at him for spending so much money on useless crap. That’s what she called it: useless crap. He bought that Iron Cross just a few years ago on eBay.”

I shook my head. “No way, dad. No way.”

Very gently, he took the Iron Cross from my hand. He turned it over, and suddenly I realized I’d never looked at the back. My heart sank. I didn’t want to see what I knew was there. And yes, there it was, stamped into the metal in tiny letters:

OLDE TYME REPRODUCTIONS, INC.

MADE IN CHINA

My mind flashed back over all of the stories Grampy Spinelli had told over the years, each one more detailed and exciting that the last. He’d been a yarn-spinner, a teller of tall tales, and I’d loved him for it. So much so that I hadn’t recognized it when he told his tallest tale of all.

----------

So that’s it. Was I angry? You bet I was. I was furious at Grampy for, as I saw it, duping me.

That is, until I figured out what he’d really been doing with his war story that day. And this realization didn’t come until many years later. When my daughter, Emma, was four she became terrified of the monster in the closet. It didn’t matter what my wife and I did: leaving a light on, closing the closet door, leaving it open - nothing worked. So one night, in desperation, I sat down with her on her bed and began to tell her a story of my own. It was all about a brave knight whose job it was to visit little kids’ rooms at night and protect them from monsters. This was the knight’s only job, I told her, and he was very, very good at it. So good that no kid had ever been hurt by a monster, not even a scratch. She slept soundly that night, and the next, and never mentioned monsters again.

Did I lie to her? Did Grampy Spinelli lie to me? Not in any way that really matters. What really matters about those stories, about any story, I think, is not whether it’s factual. What matters is whether the story is true for the person who hears it. And for a story to be true, the listener has to need it to be true. Emma’s knight was true for her because she needed a knight. Grampy’s war story was true for me because I needed courage to stand up to my bullies. And Grampy, God rest his soul, knew exactly the right way to deliver it to a credulous fifth-grade boy just learning how to stand his own ground.

updated by @americymru: 11/20/16 03:15:07AM

Parallel Perspectives by Tasha Teets

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition 2016

"This can't be real."  

     I squeeze my eyes shut until bursts of color flash behind my closed eyes, but when I look again nothing has changed.  I'm in a prison. Granted it's large and outdoors, but a cage is a cage is a cage.  Cells line up on each side of a black tar road. Every one erected in military formation; black and white uniforms immaculate.  Cheap plastic trees are planted at random intervals; ugly toys in comparison to the real thing.  It's sick, this prison that seeks to imitate a normal neighborhood; as if the unparalleled joy of freedom can be bottled and cloned at whim.  It suggests a casual cruelness; pain acknowledged, but callously disregarded as inconsequential. They just don't care.  

"You’re killing me."  

     The sun continues to rain down UV rays designed to suck up all your energy and leave you begging for reprieve, but too tired to do anything about it.  Just the way They like it. Time passes in reflections instead of minutes; from the gritty path beneath my feet to the ring of cells creeping closer within my sight. I can feel my white T-shirt and sweatpants start to cling to my skin, a few drops of sweat lingering at my hair line clumping together the short brown strands. Dirt and dust mars the fabric, a memory of crawling under a fence passes through my mind before it fades away, trivial thoughts discarded. The socks were probably a bad idea, bright yellow with strips of white on the bottom.  Not the worst thing I've ever wore; I believe that prize goes to a white jacket that I inherited, by deed instead of birth.  It never fit right. The sleeves were too long and it must have been ancient because you had to tie it closed.  How long have I been walking?

"I have to escape." 

     The inmates here are too happy; they smile and wave to each other in passing without a care in the world.  Are they blind, do they not know what kind of place this is? Do they not see the microscope that hovers above their heads? The scalpel begging for a chance to bite, to peel back skin and exclaim over the secrets held within.  I can't help but feel sorry for them; trapped in this sinister parody of life; a farce that has sunk so deep into their subconscious that they don’t remember what it was like before, when the world was still bright and new. Is this whole thing some twisted experiment, are They brainwashing people now? 

Children are imprisoned here, little kids running around without a care.  I watch a little boy trip over the cracked cement and fall to his knees. Blood spurts from torn flesh, red stains eroding white skin.  An adult that appears to be in charge walks over to inspect the damage.  The little boy has tears trembling on his eyelashes, but he is told to walk it off, it’s just a scratch.  He stands, wipes the tears away and lip trembling, runs off the join the others.  

"Don't look, don't look."  

     I narrowly escape a guard passing by on the other side of the black tar divider.  He's dressed casually, attempting to blend in, but I know the game.  Hat pulled low and sunglasses larger than necessary; I've seen so many faceless bodies, all artfully styled in this mutilated masquerade. They can't fool me.  The German Shepard (Rottweiler, Husky, Doberman, who knows) he has harnessed inspects the ground, head down and tail flicking impatiently. That wet nose searches the area for a trail and I can only hope it’s not me, an interloper to this web of lies spun for no valid reason that has them searching tirelessly. Guard and dog continue along the path, something more important leading the K-9 further away from me. I let out the breath I must have been holding in a gusty sigh, keeping quiet to ensure their attention remains elsewhere.  Despite the distance spreading between us, I constantly feel their eyes. Those eyes are cold and stern, watching from up close or behind glass, every hour of every day. Piercing. Probing.  They always stare.  

"Is this the end?"  

     I've been walking for miles and blisters throb in protest from my scarcely protected feet. Halted abruptly, my path is hindered by a yellow diamond planted into the concrete by a steel spike, held aloft for all to see.  The yellow appears to glow, the sun glinting along the edges and for a split second I worry about radiation poisoning. Unlikely, but the low probability of traumatic events has never stopped them from occurring on my behalf.  Despite the heat, a cold chill trembles down my spine. The instinctual fear of death and captivity paralyzes me; for there in bold black letters my fate is sealed.

DEAD END. 

I can feel my muscles twitch, struggling to remove me from such an unsecure location, but once again, my minds betrayal has me staked to the spot.  From the corner of my eye, I can see various inmates gathered in groups, conversation taking place behind lax hands; guard and dog stand apart with cell phone flashing. Whispers pass from group to group, any actual words disintegrating within the space between us.  I can hear sirens, They are coming.  

"Please, not again."  

     I manage to force my body to turn around, to face the horror that is drawing closer; sirens blaring against my ears. It’s the monsters from my nightmares. My fear made tangible, a day I prayed to never repeat. A large truck is approaching, garbed in sterile white. It wades through the inmates and comes to a stop. Smaller blue cars, lights flashing, surround the truck; a barricade and taunt in one gesture. I can see the gaps in the formation, but I’d never get through. Guards in blue exit their vehicles and proceed towards the inmates; postures cautious and deliberate. 

Three guards spill from the double doors in the rear with quick feet and large hands; they are not dressed in blue, but the same white as the truck.  One pulls a bed on wheels from the back while the other two walk calmly towards me; hands raised, palms facing forward with their fingers curling in my direction.  I take a step back, preparing to spin on my heel and run, but I should know better by now.  The one on the left lunges and grabs my arm before I can turn, grip firm and unyielding.  He spins me into his body and takes hold of my other arm. I'm trapped.

"No!"

     I fight his hold, body straining to break free, legs kicking back into his shins; he doesn't budge, not even surprised. Jagged, bitten fingernails score lines into his skin. The man merely grunts at my ineffectual resistance. I can’t go back; They won’t let me escape a second time.   So focused on the one behind me I forgot about the one in front.  He appears suddenly, far to close, hand wrenching my head to the side while a needle slides into my neck; jabbing, tearing, foreign oppressors invading.

"NO!"

     My bony heel connects with the knee of the villain holding me tight and he stumbles to the right, curses spewing from pain pinched lips. Finally, my arms slide through his meaty paws and I take one step before the world starts to tilt.  The ground rushes to meet greet me, but I don't feel any pain; can't feel anything at all.  I lie on the ground, face pointed toward the side of their truck; black spots eating away at my vision.

"no"

     The last thing I saw was a blue star, the symbol that is supposed to guide the lost and weary, but has now been corrupted.  Beware the treacherous snake lurking within, for he is the deceiver.  He will steal your soul and leave behind an empty shell, a puppet sacrificed upon Their staff.

“…a preliminary report, but sources say that a patient from Blue Valley Mental Institute was found wandering around a small cul-de-sac outside of Churchill County. Authorities were called to the scene and the patient is being re-admitted to the hospital. Tune in at five o’clock for the full report, back to you Todd.”

updated by @americymru: 11/19/16 08:56:22PM

Desire by Chandradeep Das

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition 2016

It’s difficult to narrate in melodic words,

Every moment I feel I tread on shards,

Whenever I espy you wandering all alone,

My heart gets pierced by the eeriest of drone

Dreading someone will charm your heart away

And my heart tears itself apart in dismay;

To think of a life where you have no say,

To kiss and wake me up on a bright summer day

Or saunter along together amidst a chilly mizzle,

Not a bower nearby to conceal us from the drizzle.

Or on a wintry night to catch you by the fire,

Weaving thoughts of untold passion and desire;

To nuzzle at the mole on the curve of your nose,

See you shyly smile and watch your eyes close

And droop over my chest, my hands pulling on your tress,

You tremble and softly squeeze, as we slowly undress

And lay on your bed frozen in time and in space,

Forever encased in a fiery embrace.

It’s difficult to endeavor and make you feel,

How such longings and wishes make me kneel

And pray to a cosmic force unknown, unsure

To connect us two souls where the warmth is so pure,

Where emotions run high and the fervour abound-

A love so eternal, so ethereally gowned, will hardly ever be found.

updated by @americymru: 11/19/16 08:47:16PM