Tales From Beyond the End of the World

Self-Inflicted Wounds

2012-03-15T08:18:00.000-06:00

A dull roar, threatening to turn to a scream, fills your ears. You can hear the occasional pop! or some cacophonic ring of something shattering. All around is a study of reds, yellows, oranges, and choking blacks and grays. The heat is unfathomable.

Escape. It’s the only option. An all-consuming goal.

Someone once told you glass was a liquid. It just moves very slowly. Imperceptibly. You jump, hearing it shatter all around you, the shards tearing at your naked flesh. If glass was liquid, why does it rip and tear and cut when one dives into it?

Before you realize you’re on the other side, someone is covering you with a blanket. Maybe it’s to retard the burning sensation you still feel. Perhaps it’s to conceal your nakedness. In the heat of the moment you scarcely realize what’s happening.

Then there’s the screams. Someone’s calling for help. Calling your name. You spring up, ready to dive back into the inferno.

“Sir! Stay here!” Someone in a uniform is shouting at you. “We’ll get her out!”

“Get your fucking hands off me!” Your fist connects with a jaw.

And you’re forced to the ground. Something cold and metal and biting is fastened to your wrists. Someone is holding you down. You can still hear the screams, but there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

“Geoffrey! Please! Help me!”

***

Your eyes open to pitch blackness. The desert night is frigid cold. Yet heat radiates from you. Your dark skin shines with sweat.

Slowly, you sit up, rubbing your bare arms. The scars stand out in stark relief to the rest of your skin. Sometimes, you’re convinced they glow upon your flesh. Tattoos, neither request or wanted.

You pull yourself from the bed and fetch a glass of water. It helps wash away the heat. Your body temperature matching that of the chill outside. The idea of trying to sleep again is terrifying. You sit down to meditate.

Focus...breathe in...breathe out…

Focus...remember that Emptiness is everything...all is Void…

The main point of such exercises is to still the mind. To focus single-pointed on one thing. Sometimes it’s nothing; just the sensation of breath. There are instants where it’s a single, simple moment. This time, it’s a kaleidoscope of memory.

***

“Why is he in cuffs?” Lawrence MacAleister’s voice is asking. The heat has been replaced by a cold that rivals the airless void between stars.

“For his protection; he tried to run back in,” someone answers. “He hit one of our officers.”

“You idiot!” Lawrence snorts. “Do you blame him? I’d have done the same thing. Take those things off him now!”

The cuffs are released, which allows you to relax your arms. Not that it matters. The one thing you would’ve focused your strength on lies in ruin before you. Nothing matters anymore.

“Geoffrey,” Martha’s voice speaks to you across a chasm of torpor. “Geoffrey, look at me.”

There she is; regal and compassionate. Her severe blonde hair and striking blue eyes make her the second most beautiful woman you’ve ever known. Despite the affection she’s lavished on you as one of the family, you’ve always felt unworthy to meet her gaze.

“Geoffrey, what happened?” She asks.

You want to tell her. You want to tell her how you tried to go back, but the men in uniform stopped you. All you can do is shudder and sob. If your own father was here, he’d beat the holy living out of you; men do not cry. For all the words you want to say, only two come out;

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Martha wraps her arms tightly around you. She rocks you back and forth, like a small child, encouraging your tears. Every so often, she coos in your ear;

“Shhhh…it’s not your fault.”

***

You open your eyes again. It’s gotten closer to dawn, but it’s still dark. Disgust pulses through your frame.

Why do you do this to yourself? Do you think if you relive the nightmare enough times it will change? Would Martha and Lawrence blame and hate you, like you think they should? Would you have been able to go back in? Would it have ended up being you screaming through that dull roar?

Speculative questions and no answers. Only nightmares and constant reevaluations of something far beyond your power to change. You sicken yourself with the practice.

In front of you, on the mantle, is the black lacquer box you received. With a heavy sigh you stand up to inspect it. For the first time since receiving it, you open the lid. The contents of the box cause you to shudder.

What’s in Pandora’s box?

Obviously something you were never meant to have…

Retriement?

2012-03-13T09:51:00.000-06:00

The instance of IVS reminded me, that whilst he still acts so puppy-like, Whistler is, in fact, just over thirteen years old. The eldest of the three. It'll be two years, this coming autumn, Chevy retired from long walkabouts with me, the sentence of arthritis making walks around town and jaunts to the Lair of the Boogieman with my daughter the limit of what he can do. The Bull's Head was his last hoorah.

Whistler will recover. That's the way of it. Over the last few days since the initial incident, he's started to regain his balance and walk more normal. It's the odd stumble, which reminds me he's still a little off. Sabina postulates if this has happened once, it could happen again. It would be unfortunate to have it occur out in the bush.

The Bull's Head hardly qualifies as a walkabout. There's climbing about the rock formation and the ruins of the Diamond Mine. Some of the locals do the trail daily instead of jogging, since it can be completed in an hour, at most, if one does not stop to take in the views or eat an apple. Be that as it may, that's where we're heading.

It's disheartening to contemplate this might be Whistler's last real walkabout with me. Our trip to another set of mine ruins, two days before the incident, was fraught with adventure. I consider just watching his recovery and hedging my bets. Be that as it may, here and now, I make sure there's plenty of treats in my pack for him. After all, up on the Bull's Head could be his retirement party.

Mud

2012-03-12T12:18:00.000-06:00

The mother and daughter were apparently from Boston. There, they had plenty of pairs of hikers, of which they could not be bothered to bring at least one pair to the High Country of Colorado's pointylands. Investing in a new pair, or even renting, seemed an imposition. These circumstances created a joke motif as the mother asked me where one could go for a walkabout in either running shoes or Uggs, and not encounter a lot of snow or mud. My finger pointed east.

"Down where it's flat," I said. "It's probably drier there. You've arrived just in time for mud season here."

The idiocy and outright hubris of travelers confounds, amuses, and frightens me. Miguel Loco and I still have a hearty laugh over the Newfoundlander who was convinced he could climb one of the nearby fourteeners in shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers. He planned to grab trees and use those on his ascent.

"But there are no trees up there!" Miguel Loco will chuckle.

"We should've let him go," I might add. "Alpine Rescue could've used his bones as a cautionary tale."

Though marshy, I am reminded once more there is grass around the House of Owls and Bats. For the first time in half a year, I fired up the grill for the night before's dinner. I kept hoping to hear a hummingbird on the breeze, but it's a little early for that yet.

My mudding boots have earned their moniker when I've headed out into the bush. The trails, the dirt roads, are all but glacially flowing rivers of soaked-to-the-point-of-squishy. My gators are worn to keep my pant legs clean and dry. The snow I've encountered is slushy and dirty looking. Although the resorts are starting to ketchup on their snow-packs skiers and boarders bitch about the texture.

The equinox may still be almost a week away, but it would seem mud season started a a week ago. A friend of mine spoke of seeing spring omens on a recent journey down below. Meteorological prophecy foretells of warm weather for at least the next five days. There is a certain excitement to this; the last vestiges of cabin fever being cast off like a snake shedding its skin.

My eyes track outside. Slight breezes tickle the trees. A warm suns shines from a immaculate turquoise sky. I have no pressing obligations for the next to days. The mud from my previous walkabout have dried upon my boots. I find I am possessed of the urge to alter that circumstance.

Pandora's Box

2012-03-09T19:27:00.003-07:00

It’s a hot day. The very air seems to be blown from either a blast furnace or the lungs of Hell itself, although, that may all be one and the same. Sweat beads upon the brow and driving with the windows down and no shirt does not help. Perhaps it’s time to invest in something with an air conditioner.

Looking out the windshield at the mirage-shimmering roadway, you remember how someone once said glass is, in fact, a liquid. It just moves very slowly. Imperceptibly. You always wondered, if that was true, then why did this liquid rip and tear and cut when one tried to dive into it?

You pull into the general store’s lot. The only sort of grocery for what seems like a thousand miles in any direction. Maybe, if the day was cooler, you might drive further, in search of somewhere else to stock up. Somewhere with a bit more civilization. The very thought gets you to laugh. You’ve not had much use for civilization for a very long time now. Coming down for supplies and whatever’s the PO box, to maybe grab a beer at the cantia, is about as close to civilization as you can stand.

As you get out and grab your shirt, you see the only package you received for the week at your PO box; a beautifully ornate black lacquer box. The box alone is enough to upset, stirring up things you try so very hard to forget and zen away with meditations out there in the desert. It’s the note that came with the box, which made you feel blindly angry;

Geoffrey,

It took quite some time to find you. We’d ask how you’ve been over the last five years, but maybe you’re not ready to talk to us again. That would be unfortunate. We did decide you needed to have this. Please, PLEASE, PLEASE, contact us soon. We miss you and worry about you. Five years is far too long. You’re in our prayers.

Love and health,

Martha and Lawrence MacAleister

The note is crumbled on the floorboards. You wanted to burn it. You wanted to punch the man who handed you the parcel, just because he was there. Rationally, you know neither of those actions would’ve helped. The package would’ve still been there. As you look at it, all you can think of is classic mythology.

What’s in Pandora’s box?

Pain. Pestilence. Suffering. Death.

Annabelle Leigh Schultz is standing outside the general store watching you pull your shirt over your sweat-soaked trunk. She’s barely sixteen and fascinated by your build. By the scars that crisscross your arms, chest, and back. She once got bold enough to ask you how you got them, and you told her everything from a street fight to being attacked by a dragon to a scarification ritual you did to be accepted by the natives.

“They don’t do scarifications, Ryddle!” She exclaimed.

“How do you know?” You asked her.

“’Cause my family’s been here forever, and my grandma woulda told me,” she reasoned.

You let it drop. Annabelle Leigh likes to help you get your things. She likes to ask you questions. Sometimes, you might give you an answer, though it’s rarely a straight one.

“Shara Little Feather calls you a trickster, Ryddle,” Annabelle Leigh told you once. “She says you’re Anansi.”

That memory of that gets you to chuckle. Anansi; the spider-trickster of west-African folklore. It’s especially ironic, thinking about it, when you think of how Shara’s hands are so spider-like when she shuffles the cards in an attempt to tell the future.

“Anansi,” you chuckled when you were told. “must be a black thing.”

Annabelle Leigh laughed uncomfortably. Only because you did. She was afraid of being seen as a racist. Sometimes you almost tell her it’s okay, and not to be so high-strung around you.

“Hello, Miss Schultz,” you say as you approach the door. “You going to help me shop whether I want it or not?”

“You bet!” Annabelle Leigh shouts. She starts to reach out to touch your arm, but hesitates. The scars there seem to stand out because of the sheen of sweat.

You indulge her, because you want to forget about the package you received in the mail. More to the point, the note attached to it. Maybe, if you’re lucky enough, when you get done with the stocking up, you’ll find someone will have broken into your truck and taken the package.

When everything’s been bought and bagged and you start back out to the truck, you see that no such luck exists. At least not for you. Annabelle Leigh looks into the cab as you toss your shirt in. Her eyes light up with youthful curiosity at the sight of the box.

“That’s really pretty,” she says.

“You don’t want it,” you tell her.

“How do you know?”

“Because I know what’s in there,” you reply with a little more edge in your voice than you mean to. Annabelle Leigh shirks back a little, like she’s afraid you might strike her.

“What’s in there?” She asks in a small voice.

“Dead dreams and other nightmares,” you say, and then you hand her some money, so she can get herself ice cream as thanks for her company on a hot day. You smile as she skips away, almost forgetting about the package waiting in the truck for you.

Musing the Oracle

2012-03-06T16:00:00.002-07:00

“Soul searching breaks you down

you’ll never learn,

Annihilate yourself

all things must burn...”-The Tea Party

***

Focus...breathe in...breathe out…

Focus...remember that Emptiness is everything...all is Void…

***

The cards dance, appearing and reappearing in the manner of a stage magician or a street huckster. Her hands move with the speed and agility of two ravenous tarantulas chasing after the same frightened insect. Her eyes are closed as she shuffles, humming some arcane tune in an esoteric accent. Just watching her is an exercise in fascination.

Her short black hair is covered with a multi-colored scarf that doesn’t exactly go with, but does not necessarily clash, with her simple white tank-top and multi-colored skirt. For mockery, the raiment is referred to as gypsy drag. A gold and black scarf hangs from her neck and, when she shifts just right, it removes any mystery as to whether or not she’s wearing a bra. Sometimes, this arousing. Her scent is that of cinnamon and places more far-flung than this. Perhaps it’s her taste as well.

“Select a card,” she says in that esoteric accent of some forgotten place that never was.

The card is lucky number thirteen. A grinning skull, bedecked in blackened armor stands over a mound of corpses, its sword held high in one hand, and the standard of a white flower in the other. In the background is a ruined tower with a rising moon and sun. It almost looks like the cover of a fantasy novel. Perhaps one featuring Conan or a group of elves.

“Death,” she says stoically. “Traditionally, change. The ending or beginning of a cycle. Rebirth.”

“I had a Rider-Waite deck once, but who didn’t?”

She slams her hand down on the card, covering it. With a deft flick of the wrist, the card is back within the embrace of the deck. In another flash, the entire deck disappears altogether. Slight-of-hand, a neat trick. There are some who would say what she just did is the hallmark of a trickster, like Coyote.

“Why do even bother asking for a reading?” She inquires, her eyes narrowed.

“Why do you bother indulging me?”

Her nose, small and spriteish, crinkles. A smile, mysterious, frustrated, amused, and annoyed appears across her lips. Her eyes, intense and unflinching, shimmer, like pools of liquid mercury.

How many have gotten lost in those eyes, never to be seen again?

“You’ve come from far away,” she begins.

“Aside from the McDermontts, Schultzs, Santiagos, and the natives, who hasn’t around here?”

“You burned bridges and buried memories,” she continues, undeterred.

“I’ve told you too much about myself. You’ve probably figured out some by simple observation; reading your mark.”

“A skeptic to the bitter end,” she says teasingly, running her tongue across her teeth. She reaches out, her touch is warm and inviting. “Don’t worry, you’re not so easy to read.”

What does her tongue taste like?

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“Then why are you here?” She asks again, her gaze intensifying.

“Why were you willing to indulge me?”

Back to the same set of questions. It’s like this whenever an oracle is requested; talking in circles. A mutual game, which is as amusing as it is frustrating.

“Always unable to give a straight answer,” she muses.

“Maybe straight answers also falsehoods.”

“There are those who believe the truth will set you free,” she says.

“Truth is a point of view. Besides, that kind of freedom brings its own set of chains to enslave the uninitiated.”

She giggles, reaching out again. A warm hand against the cheek. She leans forward, lightly planting her lips upon the brow. The desire for more is almost overpowering, but, if she really could read minds, she’d know that. Maybe she does, but the future she sees taking that road is not so bright.

“You live up to your name, Ryddle,” she says.

“I don’t believe in the power of names.”

“The ancients did,” she says. “In Egypt, if your name was wiped out, so were you; you did not exist anymore.”

“I don’t want a name. I guess that makes me a ghost.”

“No, it makes you someone who wants to make their own way without the traditions that have existed since the first words were ever spoken,” she says. “That is why you came out here in the first place. It’s why your dreams sometimes bother you so.” She looks away for the slightest of moments. “But one day, you’ll learn.”

A shudder. What little gesture or bit of posture gave away the stench of nightmare? She couldn’t have guessed.

Learn what?

“I have to go.” Standing, walking to the door. Outside is hot and dry. Saliva evaporates in the mouth.

“I know you do,” she says. There is something, which might be sadness in her shimmering liquid mercury eyes. “But I’ll see you again soon.”

“Maybe. I’ll buy you a beer.”

“And maybe then you’ll be more willing to talk, Ryddle,” she says. “Willing to share your secrets.”

“They wouldn’t be secrets then, would they?” The door closes before she can say anything else.

Small World

2012-03-04T17:56:00.001-07:00

To the gregarious and those addicted to social media sites or going to their high school reunions, I realize my the way I sometimes react to my past might come across as more than a little queer. Basically, that past is past. A quirk of wiring leads me to believe that if I've lost touch with someone or something from back in the day there's probably some kind of reason. Namely, personal evolution; be it my own or someone else's. Despite interests in history and archeology, those are bones I'm particularly anxious to excavate.

Given how I am about time, considering it a dubious abstract, I can see how one might perceive this peculiar. Perhaps even hypocritical. I have no problem admitting my hypocrisy knows no bounds. Maybe something some of those who know me; Sabina, my daughter, my father, Jezebel, would use as bases for their argument of me being plain contrary, if not just a little paradoxical, but I repeat myself.

I wonder if this idiosyncrasy of mine is nature or nurture. Being bullied a lot growing up and learning to mistrust the half-bald primates who called themselves Man, even going as far as to have once said I gave up on the species when I was eight, the idea of putting temporal distance between myself and those who hurt me seems quite sane. Putting myself anywhere near their company, even as a where-are-they-now-did-they-get-their-comeuppance? does not. There's also the fact I am rather solitary, even though I do so enjoy watching those half-bald primates, but I like to watch. The one paradox I'll not only own up to, but brag about, is that of my misanthropy. I once told someone my daughter and Sabina were the only two hominids I could be around constantly and not entertain murder thoughts at one point.

Once, a week before the ten year reunion, I told someone I graduated with that I left high school with express purpose of never, ever, setting foot there again. Someone I went to school with was certain they recognized me, but, sociopathic as it was, I really had no problem telling him he was mistaken, never mind what his sister and I did on his bed. Those were my last encounters from the high school phantasms, and I cannot be convinced to feel bad about it.

This has made occasions I perceive as going back rather awkward for me. I become uncomfortable in my own skin, getting agitated, and perhaps a little too willing over-imbibe in something intoxicating. I seek escape routes and the excuses to leave come quickly. Past is past, after all.

In our Sahel the unwritten and dubious rule seems to be that you and yours have lived here since the halcyon antiquity of the mining days or you're a drop-out from the world, coming to this pocket of nowhere to forge a life in the in-between. Whilst I've yet to run into a direct ghost of my past, I've recently had a few moments that remind me just how small a world it is in which we all live.

The first time involved a retired magistrate of my acquaintance. Somehow, my maternal grandparents, and the fact they were county commissioners of some note, came up in conversation. It was quite the surprise when, upon mentioning their names, he told me how he knew and respected them. I wonder how that affected his perception of me; this tall, lanky thing with big eyes and long hair being related to someone with a park posthumously named for him.

But then it happened twice in one day...

It started in an artifacts boutique, after discussing the selling and purchasing of artifacts, conversation and ketchup ensued. The proprietress mentioned a particular name, the same as that of our family's vet before we moved from Colorado to North Carolina. Sure enough, it was that cat. In fact, the proprietress, probably ten years older than me, at most, grew up only a few miles of where I lived from ages four to thirteen. The names she mentioned were ones I was familiar with, if only by overheard conversations of my parents and grandmother.

Not but a bit later, I was visiting with Miguel Loco. Seeing as he and the proprietress of the artifacts boutique are rather good friends, I was asked to deliver hellos, and mentioned how I discovered what a small world it was when it came to her. When I asked why, I mentioned how we apparently grew up practically next door to one another.

"Where did you grow up?" Miguel Loco inquired and I told him. His dark eyes widened. "Holy shit!"

That's when I found out Miguel Loco, someone else ten years my senior, grew up maybe a mile from that place I lived from four until thirteen. We apparently went to the same elementary school, and I did my seventh grade year at the junior high he finished out at.

"My brother from another mother!" Miguel Loco proclaimed, giving me a high-five.

"Holy shit," I whispered to myself, perversely fascinated, but also a little rattled.

A few years back, I might have been inclined to go in the general direction of away from these individuals under that rationalization of past is past. But I see no reason to do that now. Perhaps that means something I've yet to fully realize. Although, none of them phantasms from my past lives. It could be the moments of small world and past is past are horses of different colors. Be that as it may, it does get me to wonder what I might do were I run into one of my ghost here and now. Would I stay or would I go? I can own up I am in no hurry to answer that question.

The Postcard

2012-03-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

For all its ups, downs, side-to-sides, and French-film-complications; ours has always been acquaintance of words. Poems, stories, quotes, and the occasional song lyric. Secrets, conversations, whispers, proclamations, and cocktail-laced rants. Obvious and subtle messages, some real, some imagined, embedded in our manipulations of language.

I always saw how you spoke in the non-liner tongue of Burroughs, whilst I would try and speak in the riddle tongue of dragons. Somehow, we didn't require translators. Although, there were moments of mutual kangaroo? in what we did with the words.

You always sent the postcards. Notes of your travels along the jetstream and temporal dreamtime nexuses between worlds. Suppositions of what could come to pass. Mournful tones of what would never be. Chronicles of a life, perhaps one of the most interesting stories of all, and I am a sucker for a good story. Even a bad one, if it grabs my attention.

I've read and re-read them all, as I've done with any of your words I've had access to. Those postcards always get a reaction from me. Joyful smirks at hearing from you. Hopeful smiles and fearful thoughts. Anger and sadness toward the perceived forlorn. Comfort as your life moves apace, and, no matter the distance, you still include me in it.

Snake chases its tail, and things come full circle. I receive a postcard from you and the excitement wells up at hearing from you; reading where you are these days. Your messages, no matter how brief, have always illicited a reaction from me. After all, the nature of our acquaintance has always been the nature of words, and there's just no escaping that.

You speak of jumping off the ends of your world to come visit in the spring. You mention your daughter, and I find myself floored at how quickly she's grown, struggling to remember how long it's been that I've been where I'm at these days. It was lifetimes ago when we'd exchange words face to face over coffees or whiskeys.

And, yet, it was yesterday. Ain't that the way? I always do go on about time being an abstract, and I did fuck off for a place where time is even more of a dubious proposition, where the fantastic is said by some to dance upon earthly feet.

Be that as it may, I've read and re-read your latest postcard, as I am always wont to do. Your wish of spring has illicited a reaction of excitement. We'll get to see one another soon, get to exchange words in the realms of the flesh. Sooner than we think, though perhaps a little later than we hope.

Caged

2012-02-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

The gypsy's mother most likely has locked-in syndrome. The lights are on and someone's home, but not. It is more imprisonment. The stuff of penny-dreadfuls and nightmares. Ensnared in a breathing cage of flesh, bone, and sinew. It is rare as hen's teeth to walk away from something like this, and whether living or dying is preferable is a matter of aspect.

The gypsy tells of how her family does not look for paperwork stating what her mother's wishes were one way or the other. She speaks of her father's blinding rage, how he thinks some fairy-story deity will heal his wife. Blood drama; that, which is not as easy to walk away from because it involves blood, and blood is a funny fucking thing. I know this; not as well as some, but better than most.

Perhaps telling her what will happen will happen is a little caviler, but I did abstain from throwing in one of my favorite lyrical mantras of Roll the Bones. Besides, I have neither the gall, or outright idiocy to pretend to be psychic. That's just not my way. Be that as it may, what is sometimes called a gut feeling, but I've sometimes called the whisper in my ghost, is not positive on this matter.

There is a distinct possibility she'll be kiting to her homeland much sooner than the annual trip to visit family and renew her work visa. I offer my condolences and counsel, though I sometimes fear any conversation we have on the subject might end up being monopolized by my own emotional baggage over the loss of a parent. Still, just as there's a chance she might be returning to her homeland much sooner than usual, I suspect there's a chance I might be venturing down below to get drunk with her whilst we mourn the loss of our mothers. Although, I doubt anyone can even guess how badly I want to be wrong about that.

Oasis

2012-02-27T08:06:00.000-07:00

Not all oasis are in the desert and made of sand. Some are located in other in-between pockets of nowhere, composed of dirt and rock. Some of flesh and bone. Some of song and emotion. Something to bear in mind. I once marched out of the desert badlands into an African night to collect a kiss. That was my water and ambrosia, but my thirst has yet to be slaked.

The sun rises and sets regardless. The universe continues whether or not you're there to witness it. Possibilities are endless. Something or nothing, some might say. I'm not very good with black and white absolutes, instead seeing the beauty of Grey. The twilight and varying degrees of light and shadow. Some say my third eye is open, but I know it occasionally hallucinates. It makes me wonder who the more damned is; the one who sees all things and phantasms? Or the tragically blind? But perhaps it doesn't matter.

Shift

2012-02-25T09:47:00.001-07:00

It's getting to be that time of year when there's a certain sense of change in the air. A shift, which is almost imperceptible. Suddenly, the chill does not carry the same bite as deep winter. The light cast by the sun does not seem quite as harsh.

Back when I lived down below, I would wax euphoric at the realization that spring was just around the corner, and started looking for the seasonal omens to validate my belief. I used to think I could predict the way a season would be with a fair amount of accuracy, and maybe I could in that particular environment. Perhaps I was just too impressed with my intelligence, and, generally, when that happens, I tend to get a backfist of perspective, which I sometimes actively seek out.

Up here, I am more mindful of the chaotic weather patterns as the jetstream serpent slithers along the high peaks. The idea of making a prediction is almost as absurd as believing a politician's promise. I know, despite the chronological location of the vernal equinox, spring, in the flatland perception, for us is at least another month off. Maybe more, but that's just the way of it.

It has not been a bad winter in terms of cold, wind, or severe storms. In some ways, it's seemed almost like an extended late autumn interspersed with bits of early winter for spice. It's been a horrible winter in terms of snow. This late in the season, ski resorts are finally getting decent bases on their runs, but snowshoers complain the conditions are less than satisfactory out on the the trails. On walkabout, I've worn my gators, but hardly needed them. There have been omens of thaw, and I sometimes wear my mudding boots when walking to check the post. Mud, being mountain for spring.

As always, when I catch that shift, I become excited. Visions of hummingbirds and long warm days and shorts and sandals and afternoon rain dance about within the walls of my skull. I think it's the auspice of change. The cliche of renewal.

I can make my guesses of how soon it will be spring, and what the season might be like, but I've learned to not be so emphatic in my predictions. Those backfists of perspective keep me from getting too impressed with my intelligence. Here and now, the statement I'll make with confidence is the shift has come, and it is no longer deep winter.

The Almost Snow Day

2012-02-23T10:49:00.001-07:00

"How did you get here?" sempi asked when he first saw me.

"That's a question philosophers and theologians have been debating that since time immemorial," I started.

"I meant here, smartass!"

"I am in possession of an invention called an automobile, a horseless carriage, if you will," I replied. "I did this new-fangled thing called driving."

"But the Road..." sempi protested, the look in his eyes was somewhere between amusement and a desire to slap me for some peculiar reason.

It was then I checked with the Department of Transportation. Sure enough; the Road had been closed. As far as official people in official costumes were concerned, our Sahel, and, a forty mile stretch in either direction, was snowed in.

"Well, ain't that annoying?" I asked rhetorically, but then shrugged. "Mei fei tsu."

The snowstorm, heralded by strong winds for days prior, didn't really give us much in the way of accumulation, which has been a bit of a problem this season. At a guess, there was been four and five inches of fresh powder at the House of Owls and Bats. Of course, men have been known to exaggerate about measurements and women can't tell six inches to save their lives, so perhaps true accuracy requires a ruler and something beyond such gender bias.

Two hours later, the Road reopened. So it goes. A snow-day-that-wasn't in the mountains. The idea of a lot of traffic seems dubious. Local media outlets wax doomsayer anytime so much as a flurry occurs, which gets the travelers to stay in. When you live in a place that puts a fair amount of its economic faith in travelers from the world over, this can be frustrating, if not frightening.

I shrug and watch the traffic cams, listen to scanner, and wait for the few brave souls who do traverse the Road to perhaps swing by so I can tell them where to go and perhaps suggest what they do when they get there. Part of me is annoyed at the weather; the drive up and down the hill in the name of leaving or going home, the barometric shifts hurting my twisted skeleton. Despite that, I do catch a smile a seeing the fresh powder, grateful for the four, five, or whatever objective amount we got.

Wind-Day

2012-02-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

My wind-chimes sing in a cacophonic symphony as gales banshee howl down from the high peaks of the Roof of the World. Tibetan bluster in my own land furthest west, like Morocco. A girl in a carnival mask once told me we all have our own Africas, much like my concept of Kashmir; one's place in the world. Home. Perhaps it's funny, or at least interesting, that my Africa, my Kashmir, is in its own Sahel, far and away from the Mother Land. Although, there are those who would say this is an example of a paradoxical nature I supposedly have.

That girl in the mask? I about wanted to marry her for that bit of prophecy, but perhaps we were both drinking, and maybe even to excess, at the time, although I've always found that a chickenshit excuse. It would later play out it was just her mask talking, not her. Aside from that, she lacked the fortitude to contemplate whiskey with me, but that's another story.

This is a day I normally go on walkabout if the meteorological omens all line up. Having gales that blow with the intensity of a maelstrom, I find myself not so inclined. Out in the Backcountry, the avalanche danger is so stupid-high a mere sneeze could prove fatal, and finding out the exact limits of my mortality does not sound amusing, despite the itch to go wandering.

With a resigned sigh and big gulp of tea, I realize I'll be holing up for the day. The sky is deceptively clear, but that otherworldly choir of wind and watching the trees and my prayer flags sway reminds me of why I've not bothered getting my pack ready. There are documentaries I can stream and the latest issue of National Geographic arrived in the post, making this my favorite day of the month, despite the bluster. I reconcile there will be other days, when the meteorological omens will line up in a more conducive manner. It will be those days I'll be out walking, and a message can be left at the beep.

'Member When?

2012-02-13T12:37:00.001-07:00

If someone had told me, years and lifetimes ago, that I'd be sitting in an Adirondack lawnchair sipping cocktail-hour wine kept chilling in a snowbank on mild midwinter's day, all after a walkabout with a striking woman of regal bearing, I'd have probably told said cat they were smoking crack through a light bulb. Being an aberration, I don't usually get picked for this sort of thing. To this day, I'm still amazed I didn't have to drug her.

I can remember the night we first met vividly. Actually, I was looking for another girl at the time. Sabina, who I would half-jokingly refer to as the Vampire Queen-even sometimes to her face-was holding court with her then boyfriend and smoking a clove. One of my friends was talking to one of her courtiers.

"Can I get one of those?" I asked her, in reference to the clove.

"Oh, sure," and she handed me one. I lit up.

"Thank you, Ma'am," I said politely and with a slight inclination of my head.

"No problem."

"Cool shirt, by the way," I said to her boyfriend at the time, noting his Motley Crue shirt.

"Thanks," he said, somewhat dismissively.

Vampire snobs. The gothic aristocracy. What are you going to do?

And I slinked off into the juke joint shadows to monkey watch and maybe find that girl I was looking for. It was probably another six months before Sabina, who wasn't much of anything to me way back then-we weren't even rightly acquaintances, let alone friends yet-and I exchanged a single word or acknowledgment of presence. So it goes.

That was almost ten years ago. Quite amazing what came to pass in nearly ten orbits around the sun. How much has changed. Where we were then compared to where we are now.

I remember finding her one night in a vampire den looking tired and burned. Her relationship with the musician was in its death-throes. I'd spent the better part of a year trying to help her salvage it, despite the fact the whole relationship was built upon facades.

"You need to get away from here," I said.

"Why?"

"Because you look like a fucking burnout," I growled. "You're going to die like this; if not here than somewhere just like it."

I remember the first time she kissed me. It seemed as though it was done on a dare. I was giving her a hug goodnight when she planted a peck on my cheek. We both looked at each other in utter shock, as though a taboo had just been broken. That final line between friendship and something else entirely being brushed away.

"We all have free will," she said to me as she climbed into her vehicle, her eyes never leaving mine. "What are you going to do with yours?"

I remember our first kiss. Our faces were not very far apart. Her scent was that of fear, anticipation, and pheromones.

"What are we going to do?" She asked me, and I used dialog for a story I would tell years later.

"I don't know, but I think we're both doomed."

I was lips and she was tongue. Her breath tasted like wine. I liked that a lot. Especially when I kissed her.

I remember when she picked me up after I got back from North Carolina after I'd help my father put his mother in the dirt. That day in the artifacts boutique. The time she told me I made her feel more alive than she had in a very, very long time. When she told me she feared elves and the fey might steal me away and that was why she insisted on holding my hand. That first time she played a song on the radio for me. The first cocktail hour as well as our first breakfast on the porch of the House of Owls and Bats. I fell in love with her all over again when she was standing at the front gate, taking in the view and the house chanting;

"Mine! Mine! Mine!"

I remember when she was first moving to what we called Nostalgic New Orleans up on the Hill, and we were speaking of all the things that lead up to that. By now, her relationship with the musician was ashes and ghosts, and, like a phoenix, she was rising from the ruin. We spoke of light and dark and what needed to be done. I almost growled at her at one point.

"I will not be thanked or blamed for any of this you realize," I said. "That's the deal."

"The only thing you ever did was tap me on the shoulder and say; 'wake up,' " she said. To this day, I'm not sure if I want to believe that.

Once, mentioning that, she had the audacity to say I rescued her. Me. The aberration; being too tall, too skinny, with eyes too big for the rest of my face. Nothing. I am not saint or a superhero, but, I guess to her, I must be something.

Some

2012-02-12T10:31:00.002-07:00

Some attempt to grow and change. Some stagnate and fester in the security blanket of it's always been that way. Some going walking after midnight, listening to mournful acoustic African songs in the half-light of firefly lanterns. Some proclaim their affection for another in invisible ink and poems written in the riddle tongue of dragons.

A minstrel mantra;

"Some got to go,
Some play the role,
Some scream in horror
just for show
Some got no reason,
Some got no hope,
Some like it loud..."

There is the rising and setting of the sun. Building and dissipating clouds. The movements of the stars and halcyon days. The snake's tails and rabbit holes. The passing of great storms and times of smooth sailing. Moments of true goodness and unspeakable fucking evil, all seen through the subjective eye. A stairway to Heaven or highway to Hell. Two sides of the coin. Sit under the bodhi tree and figure out the Tao. Either kiss the face of the Divine or hit the downward spiral.

I'm not a joiner, but all the same, I might just be going up or down, side to side, with the rest of you...

Flame Dance

2012-02-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

To say it is fascinating to watch fire would probably invoke insinuations of being primitive. Of course, I have been accused of being either American or rustic primitive before. I'm not sure if such attempts at labels were meant as insults. In any event, I tend to let it slide, labels being oh so limiting.

Watching the flames as they tickle its fuel is something primal. There are thousands of stories, which supposedly answer how, when, and why hominids got fire. Some of these tales are quite entertaining. Despite superstition, apocrypha, and other forms of mythology, I tend to think of the lone, or pack of hominids, finding a literal burning bush; set alight by lightening or perhaps a volcanic eruption somewhere in the Rift Valley of eastern Africa.

Light. Heat. Protection. It gave an interesting taste to the food held over it. Predators would not come near, for fear of the flames. Those primates had come across one of the oldest magics.

Fire, and the manipulation of it, is what sets the hominid genus apart from other species on this planet. The civilization and technology has been built upon this knowledge. A 'puter and the ability to finally step off-world, to touch the very stars themselves, comes from that time in Africa, gathered around a literal burning bush.

When stoking a fire, I sit for several moments, captivated by the flames consuming the fresh wood. I feel like I'm in Africa, millions of years before the first kingdoms of Man.

It's hard to believe fire is not alive, but I have read that scientist say since fire does not evolve, it is not alive. I have encountered people who do not evolve. Interesting.

For not being alive, fire is the womb. Destruction and creation. Equal sides of the cosmic coin. Flames of wild fires have laid waste to entire continents. Yet, on the other side of that cosmic coin, were it not for that moment in Africa, around the literal burning bush, none of what has been accomplished, good or ill, would have ever come to pass. Those flames are one of the oldest magics.

Skid Row

2012-02-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

This is an old one. Positively ancient. At one point, I considered rewording it slightly to use as a song in one of my stories, or even the self-published book I did once. As it stands, this is what I purged one night in black India ink at the old Saint Mark's coffeehouse within the monoliths of downtown of the greater metroplex.

Coffee and cigarettes
cloak the air,
Steamy jazz rhythms
play in the background

Young lovers fucking
on rusty stairwells and in back alleys,
Desperate copulation
pleas for affection or attention,
First time?
Last time?
What's the difference?

The smell of rotten apples
and cinnamon sex,
Muffled cries
and whispered promises,
It's all forgotten by morning...

Neon and moonlight
methane and steam
Forgotten faces-
Forgotten promises-
Broken dreams

Does the sunlight
wash it all away?
How easy is it
to hide from our sins
during the day?

Until then
try not to think about it,
It's just another neon night
here along skid row...-7, February, 1998CE

Serenity

2012-02-03T20:07:00.001-07:00

Despite all my questions, evolutions, arguments, hints, allegations, and things better left unsaid about the matter of faith/belief, one thing has remained a bit of a constant; belief is what you feel head, heart, and gut. Things like temples, holy days, and ceremonies are stage props. The dog and pony show one engages in to make sure others, and themselves, know, they are are getting in touch with the Divine.

Curiosity drove my theological studies. Curiosity has driven a great many things in my life. Curiosity has gotten me into all kinds of trouble and led to grand adventures, but that's a whole other set of stories. It is said curiosity can kill a cat, but I've often figured since a cat has nine lives, a single death can hardly be scary.

Once, during my initial delvings into Buddhism, but when I was also reading the Quran, I asked Jezebel if my spiritual nature bothered her. I know how I felt about those who seemed overly religious. Jezebel, being my friend, just snickered.

"You haven't got a spiritual bone in your body!" She laughed. "You're like a mad scientist. You want to dissect and know how everything works, and that includes philosophy and religion."

Mad scientist sounds so, well, angry, and I do so try to avoid the concept of anger. How about ironic scientist? That sounds good. I would say paradoxical scientist, but that would invite baseless accusations of me being contrary, of all things.

But the fact my very bestest friend in the whole of creation said I wasn't spiritual was probably one of the reasons I found myself inserting the prefix of heretical into my theological descriptions...

It was curiosity that got me to meet Gen Kelsang Losal. Oh, I had read about sitting meditation. I was well versed in the theory behind it. The application of this theorem was a horse of another color. Often, I have said my mind does not shut off, and the whitenoise and psychobabble would continue when I was focusing on the sensation of breath and trying to skinny-dip in Nirvana.

Oddly enough, I've always been able to do walking meditation without effort. Exercising in Mindfulness is the term Gen Kelsang Losal used when I told of her of this. This is certainly one of the reasons I find going on walkabout one of the most zen of activities.

So, I went to sit before sangha to learn how to sit. I'm sure there's a joke or a blues song in that. It was during those classes I was invited to take my refuge vows. Curiosity keep me going to classes, and subsequent visits to the Avolkiteshvara Center over the years I lived within the greater metroplex. Curiosity got me to take my refuge vows. After all, outside of meditation classes, I'd never been to a Buddhist ceremony before.

***

I have not seen Gen Kelsang Losal in half a decade now. Once a year, I go on pilgrimage to, I joke, get my heretical Buddhism reset at the Great Stupa. For the most part, my meditations occur when I am off wandering the trails of our Sahel, getting holy out in the bush. But, sometimes, I go through my phases, and I attempt to sit.

This is not without its comedy...

It usually starts with the hounds; Chevy has to remind me he was once a therapy dog, and crawl his massive frame into my lap. Whistler will chase him away, but wants to either have me pet him or sit very, very near me; as in nearly knocking me over. Milarepa just wants to make sure my face is clean, and will therefore lick every bit of dirt, real and imagined, off.

Then, the cats get in on the action; both Luna French Kitteh and Shuja wanting my lap, since Chevy was oh so kind to warm it up. It's not unusual to hear a slight mother-son growling match. Eeeva Tiny Voice often decides this is the time to show me that she can actually meow at octaves above a whisper, thus belying her moniker.

My contemplations seem to focus on whether the quadrupeds have Buddha-nature or are they just fucking with me...

"Thank ya'll very much," I say once I have finished with my attempt at sit-down meditation. "I was almost to perfect serenity, but every single one of you just had to fuck it up."

They all look upon me with a serenity I have yet to achieve, unable to fathom they could've been doing something wrong...

Parts

2012-01-31T10:49:00.001-07:00

Although the dimly-lit room was all but marinaded in a cologne of antiseptics, there was still something absolutely filthy about it. An initial impression of a truck stop water closet along the road to some far-flung jerkwater its own inhabitants had never even heard of. A room, which tried entirely too hard to be clean and sterile, yet unable to hide the grime that lurked just below the observable surface.

The shrouded lump on the cold slab added to a certain penny dreadful motif of the room. Every horror film and spook story and nightmare you'd ever encountered made manifest in this one dingy chamber. Although the environmentals were set at acceptable levels, it was still cold in there. Like a meat locker. I kept expecting to see clouds of breath despite the sweat beaded upon my brow.

Next to me, bedecked in stained powder-blue surgical scrubs, stood a doctor; clipboard in one hand and a fine ebony fountain pen in the other. The thick glass of spectacles reflected the light in such a way I found myself questioning whether or not he actually had eyes. He seemed both nervous and agitated, as though my presence was an imposition.

"It's all been taken care of," he said with notable impatience.

"She was supposed to be a donor," I said, a slight growl in my voice. In a past life, I argued with and interrogated more than one doctor, sometimes thoroughly enjoying it.

"Her eyes," he nodded. "Already seen to."

"Cute."

The door opened and the rest of the surgical team entered the room. In their possession were sharp things with icy shines, almost blinding in the dim light. The doctor, whose eyes seemed a dubious proposition, shot me a sidelong glance and a smirk as his masked henchcreatures pulled away the shroud. I did not wince at what I saw laying on the slab. Part of it was fortitude, but part of it was simple defiant spite.

"You don't need to see this," the doctor said.

"Bah!" I snorted. "I grew up on a farm, I have seen birth and death in many and varied forms many times over. I danced with the dead for money and heard tales of disease and brutality that could make Nazi death doctors cross their legs and blush. This ain't my first rodeo."

"This time is quite different," the doctor said. "And you know that."

"It should be cathartic," I growled. "An aspect of letting go."

"That's a lie," the doctor hissed. "You wouldn't be here if you were letting go."

There was the sound of a buzz-saw. My attention was drawn to it slicing into flesh and bone. There was blood and gore flying wild, and the stench of offal and disease crawled into my nose and took up residence. The henchcreatures were busy at work, parting out the lump on the slab like a whole chicken. I can part out a whole chicken in minutes.

"Doing this makes cremation easier," the doctor said coldly. "If the body's in smaller parts, it burns up quicker." He then reached out to take my arm, his grip was strangely warm. "Come along now."

***

And I shot up into the small hours shadows. It took a few heartbeats for my eyes to adjust to the ambient darkness, to realize where I was. Certainly, it could be argued what I'd just experienced was not real; a nocturnal hallucination. However, I could still smell that room, something, which half-made me regret no longer smoking, as to get another scent in my nose.

"Fucking perfect," I growled to myself as I laid back down.

The images were still vividly burned into my mind's eye. I could still smell the filth and blood and offal and disease. There was still the sensation of feeling cold, despite the sweat. With a soft growl, I shut my eyes once more, figuring I'll not be eating meat for awhile.

Solar-Powered

2012-01-28T18:47:00.001-07:00

You really don't understand how solar-powered you are until you end up somewhere without sunlight. Or even direct sunlight. Those who live near the poles and in mountains can dig what I'm talking about easier than those at lower latitudes and in flat places. Once upon a time, I would've taken my opening statement as the rambling of the mad.

You really don't understand how solar-powered you are until you're away from artificial light sources. Camping is the easiest way to remedy that. Getting far and away from cities. And I do not mean hanging about in some public campground surrounded by RVs with all the comforts of that safe and cushy home back in whatever urban place you decided to get away from for a weekend.

No, I mean camping. That John Muir keeping-it-real, Into the Wild-sans the death part-going out into the rugged bush and getting down and dirty with your inner Cro-Magnon. When the only light you might have after the sun sets and stars are out is a fire. It doesn't matter how well-rested you feel beforehand, mark my words, it gets full dark, and you're sleepy. Dawn comes, and you're up, ready-set-go! with a spring in your step.

The first time you truly experience this, it's the queerest thing. Believe me, I know. Until then, it's easy to think such things only happen to crazy people who live in the in-between places, read too much National Geographic and are perpetually dressed like they're on a walkabout. Crazy talk.

In the deep winter, it can be twenty-eight quaint 'merican degrees on the fahrenheit scale with a slight breeze making it feel like it's maybe twenty, but, if the sun's out, that's somehow not so bad. Somehow, a sunny day, no matter how brisk, is so much nicer than a gray one with similar conditions. Just seeing the slivers of sun through snow clouds after a storm can invite a smile.

We are solar-powered beings, and the sooner you accept it, no matter your nocturnal facade, the better off you'll be...

Once more, the sun has peaked over the ridge line, giving the house the benefit of direct sunlight. As with every year, this is cause for excitement. It may be deep winter, but, suddenly, it's not so horrible. I can step out my front door and catch the sun on my face. Suddenly, the world seems just that much brighter.

100 Words; Going Back

2012-01-23T23:37:00.000-07:00

The party was a rare case of going back. It seems, the ghosts I encounter with most frequency are those of memory. There, they were legion; vampires, punks, and try-too-hard-hipsters. I was invited. Baited, albeit unintentionally, for a trap.

Things change. Things stay stagnantly the same. Perhaps I am just too critical.

Someone said seeing me in an urban enviroment, so many years on, was the money shot. Legend. Apocrypha.

It was a fluke and invite; going back. Accidental time travel. See, as much fun as it could be to fuck with the quantum, the only constructive way is forward.

A-Muse-ing

2012-01-21T19:31:00.001-07:00

The three muses decided to pop by my place the other night. They've slept off benders in my parlor. I set one of them up on a blind date with Mara once, though she's not bitter.

To be fair, one met me at the train station and walked me home amongst the snow and queer comfortable temperature of an after storm evening. Her hair was the color of spun and polished copper. Her eyes were like that of hardened amber. She had frozen suspended spiders for pupils.

As we walked, she listened to me meditate and rant in the High Speech of demons, not trusting myself to speak in the clumsy tongues of the half-bald monkeys that call themselves Man. Like my a sage, some years before, she made comment that the things I come up with when sober can be far more impressive, if not frightening than what coalesces in my skull when under the influence of an intoxicant, thus proving not all great works are done by drunks and drug addicts. She said I saw things and that it sometimes rattled the gods.

Her two sisters were waiting at the door. They wanted cocktails, but I was only offering tea. I was none too keen on sharing the bottle of wine I planned on having a glass with come dinner, there was sake for an occasion I had yet to designate, and touch my whiskey without my consent could result in pulling back a bloody stump if I was feeling gentle. Needless to say, the other two muses, ink black and ice white hair, ruby and sapphire eyes, were disappointed. Perhaps even a little bored.

I had my dinner with a glass of wine. Read comic books and listened to music whilst having tea. The muses watched. Two of them wanting to seek there pleasures elsewhere, because I was not in the mood for their reindeer games. The other one, the one who walked me home, was watching me intently. Were I an arrogant man, I'd say she might have been nursing a bit of a crush. After all, I did catch the whiff of pheromones.

Finally, they left. Mister Excitement, who lived three doors down, with a first name of either Juan or Etzer, was throwing a party. Exciting, of course. Far more entertaining than the creature reading comic books and sipping tea to the soothing stylings of Alice in Chains and Andrew Bird. The bored sisters left without a backward glance, the one who walked me home lingered for just a moment longer.

"You walk between worlds and through dreams," she whispered to me.

"I've heard that line before," I said. "A lot of things have been said about me. Both true and false, good and bad, from both gods and men. It's always been this way."

"You see and know things," she said. "And the gods find you most terrifying when you have a moment of clarity that you whisper into the dark."

"Ain't that the way?" I pointed to the door. "Go now. See to your sisters. Someone more worthy than me can benefit from ya'll's mojo."

"Someone can," she agreed. "But that's because you don't need us."

With that, I walked her to the door. I was raised with manners. She blew a kiss to the spot where the third eye is located and I bowed respectfully. No further words passed between us. I watched her walk three doors down to go hang out with Mister Excitement.

Smoke and Mirrors

2012-01-17T09:27:00.001-07:00

A poetic attempt from a few years back I recently came across and felt the need to inflict;

Gazing into the smoke filled shadows
marionettes on severed strings,
A reflecting pool
of liquid mercury,
While away the phantasm moments
for a single glance,
A puppy dog
looking for a bone

Whispers in the snow
warm thoughts on cold nights,
Hopes and dreams
written in invisible ink on bare skin,
In a single moment
the whole of eternity is beheld
All it is
is a series of moments,
Time is smoke and mirrors
glitter and glass,
Grasp too hard
and it will slip past

Hide and wait
hope and prey,
That's the deal
that's the way...-17, January 2007

Miguel Loco

2012-01-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

When I talk about Miguel Loco I will say he knows things about the Backcountry I do not, which is legion. After all, he is the master, I am the humble student. It is from him I have acquired most of my gear and learned of a great many of the secret places within the borders of our Sahel.

We lament the decided lack of snow this season. He chides Sabina and I for not at least going on an overnight last summer. Over a map he speaks of places with names straight out of High Country mythology; Hell's Hole and Bobcat Creek. I promise to speak with him on the subject with more sincerity come spring.

"When you're ready, come see me, and we'll find the perfect place for you to go," He says. There is a glint of whimsical madness in his eyes and a big cheshire cat's grin on his face. "You won't regret it."

I don't doubt him for a second...

Sabina's eyes track toward the high peaks, which mark the outback of our Sahel. The woodsmoke scent on the wind carries the taste of campfires, wilderness, and stars miles away from anything else that walks upon two legs. Spring is sooner than we think, but perhaps later than we hope. Neither one of us can hardly wait.

100 Words; Past Lives

2012-01-13T09:26:00.001-07:00

In your past life; you were a principal across the world. Places in Africa and Asia. I 've heard your stories over beers and tequila. You say the women of Ethiopia the prettiest, in Thailand, the skankiest. Tales I listen to with rapt attention.

You hold public orifice, but won't run for reelection for the brain damage. You aren't in charge at his place of employment, but you'll tell anyone-including your overseer-what to do.

I am in awe of your past life. Be that as it may, what you're doing now is a little more important, by virtue of now...

Diamond Drought

2012-01-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

On a moonlit night, the snow across the mountainsides glitters in the manner of diamonds. On the last full moon, we had just received a fresh dusting, which caused the landscape to glow in supernatural ways. Had the wind not started to pick up and it had not already been down in the single digits, a moonlight walkabout may have very well been in order, although something like that may still happen this season.

"Where's all the snow?" Has been a popular inquiry amongst travelers, and it's not to be flippant. There's not a lot of it about.

I've been on one snowshoe this year, and could've gotten away with just my boots. My daughter and I had to go off-trail to justify the wearing of our snowshoes and pants. On walkabouts up the Bull's Head, Butler's Gulch and the 730, I've worn my gators almost as more of an aside than out of necessity.

Depending upon the ski resort, the powder level is not quite two feet to just shy of three. In deep winter. From what I've observed, those totals are more the norm early on, not midway through the season. I do not ski or ride, finding no thrill in going down a mountain very fast with a board, or boards, strapped to my feet, but I do know the winter tourists have been a little more than disappointed. My sister, an armchair snowbum when she's not mothering my nephew, has certainly grumbled over the decided lack of white gold. I'm willing to bet the powers that be at the resorts are willing to sacrifice a virgin for more snow, though it would require finding one.

Down below, which normally depends upon the snowfall in the mountains to fill its reservoirs and water its farmland has received more snow this year by virtue of upslopes, which have been too weak to reach the Roof of the World or beyond. It's been amusing to visit the greater metroplex and see bigger drifts there than around my own house. I've taken to saying around our little Sahel that it's more like March, sans the mud, which comes with the first thaw.

When the trained meteorologists call for snow I find myself becoming increasingly cynical. Well, for one, those city oracles get a little too melodramatic about a dusting, which keeps any tourists from traveling through and visiting, and when you live in communities that rely heavily on such traffic, such an over-embellishment just will not do. Even when the snow does fall, it snarls up the Road for a few hours, or a day, at the most, and then everything goes back to being khaki and crusty.

I fear drought and tinderbox and river rafting companies starving come summer. Even if skiing and riding holds no appeal for me, I am concerned for the resorts. The cats there have their own bills to pay and families to feed, after all.

On a recent walkabout, gazing up into the turquoises blue sky, I caught myself wondering if there would be a truly righteous blizzard this season. One of those storms that closes roadways for a day or more and leaves us digging out for just as long. The type of snow, which is the stuff of great works of literature and crappy 1970's era pop songs. As much of a pain in the ass as it would be to dig out from a storm of that magnitude, I can certainly see where that much snow might be appreciated to say the very least.

Of course, it is only deep winter. The two snowiest months for the state of Colorado are still a few months off. Trying to predict the weather in this part of the world, even and especially in the mountains, is as much of an art of of fortune telling as it is chaos math. It could be before it's all said and done and summer's here that the snow will glitter in great mounds of white gold abating any potential drought before it starts.

100 Words; Wake Up Call

2012-01-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

They were together again; same house and life. False smiles and civilities. The relationship couldn't have been more about convenience if there was a soda fountain and jerky rack in the bedroom.

I jarred her awake to say farewell. Obligations. She threw her arms around me, almost terrified to let me go.

"Thank you. You woke me up."

We'll have known each other ten years come high summer and have been more to each other a little more than half of that come spring. This isn't the first time she's thanked me for waking her. That bit of gratitude's mulilayered.

Maelstrom Noir

2012-01-07T08:17:00.001-07:00

I found a friend of mine in the midst of a maelstrom. Twisted up, tangled, tired, frightened, angry, confused. He was looking for shelter. For answers. For the eye, so he might just catch his breath.

Please, just one breath...

I was there, noting the time of transition. The obvious observation that he would survive it. How, the end result, what would come, I had no answer for. Even the wise cannot foresee all outcomes. Besides, prophets don't know everything, and oracles can be wrong.

Perhaps the words I offered were those of lobotomized sangha. Maybe I told my friend everything. It could be I told him nothing. Yet, are those not one and the same?

I do know I truly got his attention when I quoted the sutra of a celluloid monk;

"'Are you going to freak out? Or are you going to eat an orange?'"

My friend was sent home. To a warm place. Encouraged to eat a sandwich and get some sleep. Whether any of the words were heard, or even remembered, hardly matters in the here and now. It could very well be years and lifetimes before the intricacies of all those lessons coalesce. Be that as it may, I know my friend will be alright.

And consider eating an orange. You can see, smell, taste, feel, hear, and understand the whole of creation if you pay attention. It might be the worse day of your life, but that might be the best orange you ever ate.

Dissections

2012-01-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

Watching a young couple at the bar, I could tell they were on a date. She was relaxed, and vaguely open, yet at the same time, tentative. She dug her companion, but she's played these games before, and doesn't want her heart, or any other piece of anatomy for that matter, to be used as an appetizer.

He was slowly inching his way in. False smiles and pretty lies. All the things the girlies like to hear. He's in it to get his dick wet, and if she won't play, than he'll find some other split-tail who will.

Voyeuristic visual dissection and speculation on a scene of softness. A bottle of beer and mood music. Just a few of my favorite things. More fun than going to le cinema.

Perhaps, were I inclined to care, I would tell my monkey watching victims not to be offended at my half-starved ally-cat's gaze from dark corners. It's completely benign. Sure, I might whittle off a piece or two psyche of what I see for my stories; the ones I write out, and the ones I tell myself in my skull, but in some dysfunctional way, am I not making some anonymous simian immortal?

A Mourning Ramble

2012-01-03T09:31:00.002-07:00

We stood in my grandmother's old house. It was said she was either crazy or masochistic for staying there after my grandfather died. The house became a museum to her mourning, sometimes terribly cold, and you could get yelled at for touching things that had been left just as they were the day he left.

I was telling my mother how my father had to leave that house out in the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of eastern Colorado. Without her there, the isolation and loneliness was all consuming. Had he stayed, he woud've acted out one of my worst fears; that, with her gone, he'd have crawled into a bottle and never come back out.

My mother nodded, understanding my father's need for dynamic over my grandmother's need of stasis. There was a look of sadness in her eyes, though; leaving all that land and the all the other creatures they shared that farmstead with. The quiet and the immense scope of the sky when you get out somewhere that flat. I felt for her, but it was all over now.

The sound of movement pulled me away. Two of the cats were running and playing through the house. Milarepa was making sounds indicating she wanted to join in the fun. Sabina made some half-awake sound, which warned me of grumpiness should she awaken right then. I was back in the mountains. My mother was gone. It was time to face the day.

I got up and threw some clothes on. Took care of the hounds and ushered the offending felines outside to continue their mayhem elsewhere. I put on Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain, because it's the album I listen to on this day at one point or another, and thus it has been for the last couple of years. I listen to Bunny Bergman's version of I Can't get Started on the anniversary of my grandmother's death. So it goes.

There was tea. Jasmine. Once upon a time, it was said hot jasmine tea cold fix anything, even that, which was not broken. The Bruja showed me what a bunch of who shot john that was. Back when she was going, I was all but mainlining tea, and I still had to help my city friends bury her. When my grandmother was walking on, I drank a fair amount whiskey. With Jibril getting sick I was quite fond of cheap beer. With my mother it was water and the occasional glass of wine. One thing this has taught me is the drinking of anything does not help, but it does very little to hinder as well.

Over the last two years my sense of belief has been in a state of flux. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke; how do you get a heretical Tibetan Buddhist to question his dubious faith? Being glib, I could say the heretical adjective is a good start, and dubious helps explain a bit too. The more serious answer has to do with this recent double-whammy of mortality I've dealt with, because there is no statue of limitation on grief, and anyone who'd tell you different is daft or try to sell something.

I believe there is magic, but it's nothing like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. There is divinity, but it's certainly not some anthropomorphic entity that keeps tally of the monkey-made concepts of naughty and nice like fucking Santa Clause. Realizing that in the face of universe filled with harsh and unforgiving beauty and tossed along by the winds of chaos often keeps me screaming.

My mother has been gone two years to the day, and I am obviously still trying to figure out how to approach the subject. I sip my hot jasmine tea and listen to Miles Davis. Later, Whistler and I will go on walkabout to the Bull's Head. There I will leave a tattered string of Tibetan prayer flags, more out of habit than anything. I have never preyed, unless it's been in the context of the foodchain.

Her ashes are scattered in these mountains, not very far from my house, though up on the tundra. In that, I find a queer sort of comfort. It's as though she's close in more than memory. Perhaps, if I allow for the superstition, as I wander out into the bush to get holy on this somber day, I'll hear her voice on the mountain wind, singing to me.

Deux

2011-12-29T08:27:00.001-07:00

Two years ago, I began by telling a story of my concept of Kashmir. It was an old in its context, and it went unnoticed, but I sometimes feel awkward when I am the focus of attention. I have purged words from my skull forever and a day. One of my friends calls this a rare gift I should share. When I've referred to it as a curse, another of my friends tells me not to be so melodramatic.

Some things are started with predefined goals, whilst others it's a case of seeing where one ends up. I tend to think this was the ladder rather than the former. Although, to paraphrase someone I used to know; I think I was looking for a new mythology. See, I'd self-published a book a few years back. A angsty dark thing that was great for my twenties and early thirties living within the borders of the greater metroplex, but I was neither that age or in that location anymore. Unfortunately, there were a few cats I knew who could not or would not accept that I wanted to move on. Somehow, I was betraying them.

But, perhaps it was a matter of context. By the time I started purging words my skull here, I'd lived in the mountains for a few years. Different geography. Different reality. I wanted to tell stories about being out in the in-between places and exploring deeper into the American Maghreb. Sometimes, starting out, I would joke were I crazy, or stupid, enough to try for publication once more, perhaps it would be upon the pages of the Mountain Gazette.

That day I vomited out my first story here, my mother was languishing in a sickhouse. Five days later, my brother and I would be standing over her body, trying to reconcile the very harsh reality that she was lost and gone forever, and ever, amen. I did tell stories about losing her and trying to come to peace with it, but, at first, not here. I didn't want to drag any random strangers from across the spider's web of cyber into my mourning. That lasted for four months, and then all bets were off.

I told stories about my mother. About helping my father move from the Rub 'al Khali of the badlands of Eastern Colorado. Stories about living in the mountains, walkabouts through our little Sahel, and observations of the weather. Tales with my daughter, Sabina, and the other species of quadruped we share our tiny house with. I started telling other tales again, ones spoken in the tongues of fiction as well as fact, because it's all true; even and especially the lies.

Somewhere in there, I think I found the shape of this, even if I've not found the words to articulate that particular concept. At its simplist; this is mine. My little bit of terror and shock and awe I inflict upon the rest of the cosmos. The simple fact anyone else looks is really quite humbling. Once upon a time, I thought it would be cool to be famous for the words I purge from my skull, but then I remember how mortified and uncomfortable I became in my own skin when someone announced, quite loudly, how I'd published a book to a room full of strangers. That's when I learned I'll never be a rock and/or roll star.

I've just finished a story arc and have been queried as to what I might do next. Rest assured, it's just as much of a mystery to me, but that could be half the fun of it. A very long time ago, I once told someone that some stories write and/or tell themselves and the storytellers are just along for the ride. It's a bit of wisdom, cosmic in its significance, perhaps, that I truly believe.

Epilogue; The Last Hot Day in September

2011-12-26T08:06:00.001-07:00

Her nightmares began right after she found Bear dead. These were horrible black things, which often involved staring into cold amber eyes before waking, unable to scream. She would lay there in the dark, deafened by the sound of her own heavy breathing. After a few minutes, what felt like far longer than forever, she would realize how utterly alone she was and would cry herself to sleep.

She dreamt of the rocks crashing down and being tied up. This time there was no rescue. Her tormentor came back. The last thing she saw was a triumphant smile and those reptilian eyes just before a rock was brought down upon her skull and it all going into a wet, crunching black.

Her eyes flew open into the darkness of a warm room. She could hear her breathing and feel a thin glaze of sweat upon her brow. At first, it was like waking up from any other nightmare until she realized there were arms around her. There was someone else breathing next to her, and it sounded like the purring of a big cat. With a sigh, and perhaps a smile, she pulled herself in closer to the slumbering embrace allowing for the waking safety she was yet to achieve in her dreams.

***

Of course he would disappear. He was Lazarus Lankin. The first time it happened, despite every story and every fact she was told about him, Sydney found her feelings were hurt. Her grandfather’s barn cat, back when she was a child, was like that; curling up in a bed with her one night, and then disappearing for a week or two before the sun was even up.

“Lazarus is Lazarus,” Bast said to her one afternoon at Ira Milligan’s café. “If you think he might be someone else, or try to make him into somebody else, he will turn on you.” She leaned closer, predatory gray eyes narrowed. “And I think you’ve seen quite well what happens to those he turns upon.”

“I guess I might have to learn a new way,” Sydney mused. “That seems to be what I’ve needed to do since I came to Marrakech.”

“I’m optimistic,” Bast said.

“Your brother said that too,” Sydney quipped and Basted smirked in the manner of a sphinx that knew the answer to the riddle from the time of the dinosaurs.

“Did he now?”

The nursery rhyme of Humpty-Dumpty became a strange mantra for Sydney the rest of that summer, as she worked to pull herself back together again after five years of harassment. She found a newfound sense of freedom living in Marrakech and not all but hiding in her little apartment above Ira Milligan’s. The freedom of being somewhere new and finally really starting anew. There was the freedom of not being followed and tormented, though she still fought back the nightmares and the urge to constantly check over her shoulder. The freedom of knowing Darcy was going away for a very long time.

Sydney found freedom in her acquaintance with Lankin. Sometimes she would find herself at the last house on Lovecraft Lane. There were times they would go for a hike or to shoot pool at Magpie Jack’s and part ways with nothing more than a hug and a peck on the cheek. Sydney joked she never thought of herself as a cat person, but for him, she would try to make an exception.

“My sister observed a defiant streak in you,” he told her one night. “Perhaps it is that, which intrigues me.”

“Or maybe you just actually like me,” she teased.

“You’d find that answer boring, Just Sydney.”

“Only from you.”

***

In Levant County, it was said the inhabitants of Marrakech had an innate sense of when the last truly hot day was before the chill of High Country autumn, and ultimately, winter, was going to set in. It inevitably a day in September, and, most always, a day when the aspen leaves had hit their peak, turning the mountainsides into tiger-stripped veins of green, gold, orange, and red. On that day, the atmosphere at Magpie Jack’s was that of the most festive of parties, and everyone in town, as well as from nearby, stopped by for at least an hour.

Sydney sat out at a patio table with the warm sun on her face. There were loud voices and the sound of a game of horseshoes being played. Something fun was being sang from the speakers. Her vantage point allowed her a spectacular view of Gaia’s Backbone, including the Death’s Head and Hell’s Watchtower; both mountains she had finally been able to summit.

At the table with her was Desdemona, Bast, and Marty. She was enjoying the company, and the fact she could have friends now and not worry about having them poisoned and stolen away from her. This new life she found herself in, despite the lingering nightmares and occasional old fears, was shaping up to be fairly good.

“I must say you look much better than when I first met you back in June,” Bast observed. “You look more vibrant.”

“I’ve been up on the tundra a few times this summer,” Sydney said. “Someone once told me going up there can be quite cathartic.”

“Sounds like someone rather wise,” Bast said with a smirk.

A round of cheers erupted from inside. It was the type of ruckus that was made when an important point was scored during a game. Bast leaned back in her wheelchair and Sydney stood up to peer in the open patio door. By the bar was a familiar angular figure sipping a glass of red wine.

“Well, well, we will need another chair,” Bast chuckled. “Look who’s coming to dinner…”

“Natty Dreadlocks,” Sydney finished with a smile that might be described as either excited or expectant.

100 Words; Idle Hands

2011-12-24T19:05:00.002-07:00

There was really nothing to do. No victims. The travelers wanted to get where they were going. I got a little punchy. But I insist it wasn't my fault. Idle hands and all.

Images were sent. My sister couldn't stop laughing and my father enjoyed it. My daughter said I was her hero. Sempi said the model never looked better.

For some reason no one believes me when I say the Devil made me do it, even if I might've meant it. Queer. I wonder if it has anything to do with what I once said about the Devil's wife?

A Question of Safety

2011-12-24T09:35:00.001-07:00

“I have a cousin who lives out on the plains and a brother down in Texas,” Connelly mused. “Both of them are ranchers. Cowboys. With cowboys, the last thing you ever want to do is mess with their horses.” He then leaned forward to lock eyes with the Darcy, swaying side to side in her handcuffs across from him. “Up here, well, anywhere you got people who enjoy the outdoors, the last thing you want to do is fuck with their dogs.”

“You shouldn’t have killed the dog,” Lankin echoed coldly, his gray eyes narrowed.

Sydney sighed heavily at those statements and leaned her head on Lankin’s shoulder. Darcy, seated between two Levant County sheriff’s deputies, would glare daggers, but, for the first time in five years, it didn’t matter. This was the beginning of the end, although it wasn’t the end Darcy had envisioned. The thought got Sydney to smile. It was as though a weight was lifted. She closed her eyes and relaxed, subconsciously rubbing Lankin’s rope-burned hands.

Word travels fast in rural counties with small communities. It was joked in Levant County that rule was doubly so. Upon entering Magpie Jack’s that night Lankin and Sydney were greeted by a tide of cheers and pats on the backs and shoulders. Someone, as a joke, put on Queen’s We are the Champions. Grizz showed them to dimly lit table just past the pool table. There was a bottle of beer and bottle of wine already waiting for them.

“On me,” Grizz said. “So’s your dinners, in case you were wondering. And, Lazarus, if you don’t start another bottle tonight, I’ll be insulted.”

“Then I’ll endeavor to get half-drunk, Grizz,” he replied with a respectful inclination of his head.

Sydney found that Lankin was not exaggerating when he said Grizz made the best elk steaks. They ate well and shot a few games of pool. Every so often, she would allow herself to get closer to Lankin. Although he maintained his usual feline aloofness, it also seemed he was receptive to her advances.

“You certainly more relaxed, Just Sydney,” he said at one point. “I told you going up on the tundra would work wonders.”

“Cute. Although I’m a little leery now of your definition of ‘cathartic’” she snickered. “It’s strange, though, knowing that Darcy’s being taken care of after so long. I don’t know if I can explain it, but in a way I think I’m safe now.” She took his hands and pulled closer. The look in her dark eyes bordered between fear, relief, and simple desperation. “I am safe, aren’t I?”

Lankin reached up, cupping her face in one hand. She squeezed it and nuzzled his palm, planting a few light kisses along the red marks he’d acquired from the rope earlier. The look on his face was pensive.

“Not completely,” he said, a single finger tapping her temple. “She’s still in there, and she probably will be for a very long time. It’s something I can neither protect nor save you from. You’ll have to face that down and make peace with it on your own.” He then leaned forward and gently placed his lips on her brow. As he pulled back there was a compassionate smile on his face. “I am, however, optimistic.”

Sydney found there was nothing she could say. Instead, she merely nodded, and with a smile, she squeezed his hand once more and planted another kiss along his palm.

Crime and Punishment

2011-12-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

Just beyond the rockslide was a drop-off overlooking mounds of scree just above the Abyss. There were several crevasses in which a body could easily be swallowed, never to be seen again. Darcy liked to believe if An Interested Party had not been crushed by the rocks, he had fallen, to either be dashed upon the scree, or devoured by the mountain itself.

Still, she wanted proof. In her encounter with him in Leeds it was obvious he was possessed of some cunning. She found this both intriguing and intimidating. Most of the men she dealt with, even those who looked after her when she was locked away, no matter how intelligent, could be manipulated after some time. It was a matter of figuring them and out and knowing how to play the games necessary to achieve her ends.

An Interested Party, upon first impression, seemed impervious to such things. In fact, Darcy felt the only reason she came away from their initial encounter was because he allowed it. That he was quite dangerous in his own rite. The very thought of which, no matter how likely, was sickening.

As she scrambled about the crevasses, she thought she heard the distant thwok of a helicopter. At one point she thought she heard the jackrabbit speaking in a raised voice. This got her attention. It occurred to her she wasn’t going to find a body, because there was no body to be found. With a frustrated hiss, she turned herself around to finish what she started five years ago.

She was nearly back to rockslide when movement along the Abyss caught her eye. At first, Darcy could only stare in disbelief at the sight of the jackrabbit heading back down the trail at a brisk pace. She almost screamed in rage as she moved closer to edge for a better look.

At the edge, she felt her balance wane for the briefest of seconds, as if something behind her moved her ever so slightly forward. The lower tiers of mountain seemed to reach up for her momentarily as she struggled to right herself. Then, she felt something, someone, gripping her very tightly about the waist.

“It’s all right. You’re okay,” Lankin whispered into her ear. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

Darcy watched her prey disappear down the trail with a scowl. When she tried to struggle, his grip merely tightened. The turned her head to be face to face with Lankin and spat at him. He regarded the action with feline detachment.

“You should let me go!” She snapped, and he merely shrugged, as if unsurprised.

“Perhaps.”

And she was flying, hurtling toward the rock a few hundred feet below her at incredible speed. At first, it didn’t seem real; that he would let her fall. But, there she was; cold air screaming in her ears as the ground rushed up. The scree yawned before her in the manner of broken teeth and jagged talons, ready to embrace her.

Then, suddenly, she stopped. Something jerked tightly about her waist. Darcy looked down to see it was the very climbing rope she had used to bind the jackrabbit. She was suspended just above the scree. First, she started to laugh manically and she found herself crying at the realization of what happened. Her bladder and bowels loosened and she was only partially successful in restraining the urge to vomit.

The thwok sound seemed to be closer. Something about that worried her. She felt the rope pulling on her waist and realized she was being pulled back up.

“I am afraid it’s not going to be that easy for you,” Lankin called down to her.

“I hate you!” Darcy screamed.

“If I was here solely for you to like than we’d both be disappointed.”

“Just let me fall!” Then her voice became plaintive; “Please!”

“No,” he said softly.

“No?!?”

By this time she was dangling just a few feet from the edge once more. Lankin stood firmly, his wiry arms as knotted as the rope around her waist. His gray eyes were narrowed in predatory concentration, but there was a slight look of amusement playing across his lips, like that of a barn cat with an especially fat mouse.

“You’ve been building up to this for years,” Lankin said off-handedly. “Torment, torture, and ultimately murder someone you decided was the source of all your misery, then kill yourself so you could be with the fantasy of someone who left you fifteen years ago.” He pulled her closer to the edge, a smirk forming. “But you’ve been a naughty, naughty girl, and naughty girls need to be punished.”

With that, he gave a mighty tug, sending Darcy hurtling past him, onto the bare rock of the Death’s Head. It took her a moment to realize she was back on solid ground. Even before she could move, Lankin’s booted foot was jammed into the small of her back. He was using the rest of the rope to tie her hands behind her back. His trek pole ran behind her, making her feel as though she was being trussed.

“And your punishment is you get to live!” Lankin growled as he pulled her to her feet forcefully. Then he whispered in ear in a voice that was far removed from anything human; “Now, you see you’re not the only one capable of abject cruelty.”

Darcy felt defeated tears begin to flow as she was made to start walking along the trail. The thwok sound of the helicopter was very close now. Both of them turned to see the vehicle coming down along side them. There were official markings on it and men in uniforms could be seen riding in it.

“Lankin! We’re here!” Connelly’s voice was amplified by a loudspeaker. “We’ll land at the usual place and wait for you.”

“Dammit, Connelly!” He shouted back, although there was a smirk on his face. “We were going to be down by tonight! Did my sister ask about me?”

Nine Lives

2011-12-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

This was what true defeat felt like. Sydney was convinced of it. No matter where she went, what she had, or who she met, Darcy was there to ruin it and then take it all away. It was an inescapable as the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. This was what it was like to truly be broken, to be utterly powerless. A lump formed in Sydney’s throat and she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.

With a deep breath, she fought back the urge to weep. She might be defeated. This might be the end. But she wasn’t going to make it easy. She resolved to kick and spit and fight until the very end. Darcy saw her only as prey and Sydney was going to prove that was not the case.

From behind, she felt someone working with bonds on her wrists. She was being pulled to her feet, slowly, and gently, which puzzled her. Darcy had gone on to inspect the rockslide more thoroughly. Her other quarry was a wily one, she said, and she wanted to make sure he was properly dealt with. She hadn’t come back yet.

“This is good rope,” Lankin said softly. Sydney’s head whipped around in surprise to see him, not even dusty from the rockslide, working on untying her. “It’s climbing grade. I can always use something like this myself.”

The tears almost sprang up again. She started to shake. As she started to open her mouth, Lankin pressed a single finger to his lips.

“Remember that little tall tale I told you that the old-timers say about me and this hill?” He whispered with smirk. “Even if it’s not true, this is the Death’s Head, and it’s not my first rodeo.”

The rope was pulled away and Sydney turned to regard him fully. It occurred to her that there was only one way Darcy might’ve known where they were. Her cheeks flushed with anger at the thought. Once more, she started to open her mouth, and, once more, Lankin, anticipating her words placed a finger on his lips.

“If you do not like how I’m dealing with this, then you should’ve handled it back in Prague,” he growled, his eyes narrowing, his face suddenly screwing into predatory harshness. “But instead, you brought this misery into my backyard.”

“What now?” Sydney asked finally. She hated how small her voice sounded.

“I am afraid we’ll have to take a rain check on the rest of our trek,” Lankin replied with a disappointed sigh. “It’s too bad, really. I wanted to at least show you the summit of the Death’s Head. But there are some people who cannot understand good advice when it’s given, and I must speak with someone to that point.”

“Lazarus!” Sydney’s voice raised a little louder than it should have. “No! Please! Let’s just get out of here! We can go where she’ll never find us!”

“You need to get back down the mountain, Just Sydney” he continued as though she hadn’t said anything. “Back down to Marrakech. In fact, meet me down at Magpie Jack’s for dinner tonight. If memory serves, Grizz just got in two cases of my wine and he’s grilling up elk steaks. He makes the best elk steaks. Probably because he hunts and carves them up himself.”

“I’m not going to leave you up here alone with her!” She snapped.

Lankin reached out, grabbed her shoulders firmly, and shook her. His manner was that of a big cat on the hunt. For a brief moment, she became worried for her own safety, and Darcy had very little to do with it.

“You will get your ass the fuck down the mountain and back to Marrakech, or I will forget that I ever wanted to do anything to help you!” he growled. “And you will do right fucking now!”

He released her and stepped back. Sydney realized she was seeing the Lazarus Lankin that rescued hikers from mountainsides and recovered bodies from avalanches. Here was the barely human creature she would here about in stories. Someone who carried themselves like a big cat ready to eviscerate its prey, but not before having a little fun and games first.

Before she realized what she was consciously doing, she threw herself at him. Something very primal told her she needed to kiss him at least once. At first, he reciprocated, drawing her in so close it seemed as though he would consume her. Then, in the same moment, he pushed her away. When she opened her eyes to see him once more he was standing with his arms folded across his chest and his feet planted firmly on the rocky ground.

“Now go,” he said harshly.

“You better be at Magpie Jack’s tonight,” Sydney whispered. “Promise me!”

“Of course,” Lankin said, cocking his head to the side inquisitively. Slowly, he licked his lips. “After all, it seems we have something to…discuss.”

Sydney caught herself blushing slightly, but found there were no words. All she could do was nod before turning and heading back down the trail. Lankin watched her disappear down the slope toward the Abyss with a sigh, grateful she was leaving. He reached down to grab the climbing rope and start gathering it up. Despite himself, he found himself softly singing a mock-song he would sing with his sister when they were children;

“I’m looking over

My dead dog Rover,

That I overlooked before…”

100 Words; A Little Night Music

2011-12-18T17:48:00.003-07:00

Something from awhile back...

About every three weeks, the Music Geeks meet...

One brings the prog rock, another the grunge. I handle the African/world/punk. Sabina does folk with one Rush song, because. There's Icelandic and electronica; all of that Knob.

I'm not an open fan of the Knob, but I groove to it; a guilty pleasure...

The context speaks to me of after dark in the most neons of downtowns. Places I have been before, though lifetimes have passed. I groove on it when the Geeks play. See, it is so rarely after dark, when the neon comes up I can indulge.

***

This was partially inspired by the 100 Words posts from Mister London Street and a bit from the soundtrack of Tron; Legacy of which I blame one of the Music Geeks for playing at one of our gatherings...

Snake, Rattle, and Roll

2011-12-17T09:35:00.002-07:00

The Death’s Head, outside of Marrakech, Colorado…

Sydney drew a sharp breath as she took in the view of Gaia’s Backbone from just above a place Lankin referred to as the Abyss. She noticed a sadness in his eyes at mentioning the place, and knew there was perhaps a story behind it. She opted to hold back on inquiring. There would be time. It felt as though there was all the time in the world.

She really was enjoying herself. Remembering back to the afternoon in Glasgow, Lankin did make a wonderful outdoor companion. Although, as they climbed up the Death’s Head, she would notice him disappearing either ahead or behind her. He seemed simultaneously distracted and deep in monk-like concentration. Sydney dismissed this as how he must get when climbing a mountain. The same mountain, he mentioned the old-timers were convinced he was born on, and was the only thing in the whole creation that would decide when it was his time to die.

The bright sun was finally beginning to warm mid-morning air. The occasional chirp of a pika would interrupt the otherwise profound Backcountry silence. Below them, the tundra spread out like a patchwork quilt before meeting the Krumholz sentinels of tree-line once more. The Death’s Head itself was bald rock, which shot up imposingly across Gaia’s Backbone, to only be dwarfed by its neighbor, Hell’s Watchtower. Lankin mentioned some hikers would climb both mountains in a day, daring the Abyss to do so.

He had just reappeared and was nonchalantly sipping water from his bottle and hooking his trek-pole to his pack. Sydney wanted to make a remark about how much she was enjoying herself. She found there were a lot of things she wanted to say to him. There was a combination of fear and his detached manner, which caused her to hold her tongue. Perhaps, she felt there would be time to say all those things too. Up along the Death’s Head, it was as if there was all the time in the world.

“We’ll break here for a minute,” Lankin said finally. “You probably need to catch your breath.”

“You’ll notice I’m doing a fair job of keeping up with you,” Sydney remarked. She caught herself smiling playfully.

“I have,” he said with a smirk. “Impressive.”

There was the sound of movement. Sydney noticed how Lankin cocked his head to the side inquisitively. She couldn’t quite read his expression as he began to walk, almost unconcerned, in the direction of the noise. Part of her wondered if it was a marmot or maybe even a mountain goat. It was only as he got further away, closer to the edge, that she found herself feeling anxious.

Rocks, small at first, began to come down, scattering around his feet. Dust began to rise up, making Lankin’s angular figure hard to distinguish. It did look like he turned to look up just as large boulder came crashing down.

Sydney was running toward the rockslide frantically. Her voice caught in her throat, but she wanted to call out. She wanted to cry for help. She wanted to call out for Lankin, hoping against hope he would answer back.

Before she reached the slide, something landed on top of her. She was being pushed to ground. It took her only a heartbeat to realize this was not a rock landing on her. She felt her arms being pulled savagely behind her and her wrists being bound. Shock, fear, anger, and betrayal played across her face as she turned her head to see a set of familiar cold amber eyes.

“End of the line, jackrabbit,” Darcy hissed triumphantly. “End of everything.”

***

Levant County Courthouse, Leeds, Colorado…

Bast slowly opened her eyes and noticed her hands were shaking. This was understandable. With a deep breath, she worked toward steadying herself. Trembling would do no good right now.

Slowly, she turned her wheelchair back around. Connelly was standing on the other side of her desk, waiting. No words passed between them as their eyes met, just a mutual nod. With that, Connelly spun his heel and moved purposely out of the archival office, the whole time, furiously dialing into his phone.

Parlay of the Predators

2011-12-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

Darcy watched the tow truck pull into the post office parking lot with a jaded fascination. Something was happening. Something, which was quite curious. The driver, a young man with straw-blond hair began hooking up a familiar jeep to the tow chains. The owner of the jeep was not there. In fact, she had seemed to disappear into thin air just a few hours before from the Leeds library.

Most likely, the jackrabbit had help. As Darcy followed her through the afternoon streets, she noticed the panic in her prey’s eyes. Something, which she found exhilarating. She enjoyed the levels of fear she caused. The jackrabbit deserved every bit of it and more.

But she had been eluded, and this would not do. It didn’t take long to figure out her prey did not actually reside in Leeds. There were other places nearby to start checking. The jackrabbit’s five month respite was going to come to a very abrupt end.

Darcy decided she would start with the tow truck driver. He might be willing to tell her something. Men liked to do things for her at first, getting lost in her eyes, if not her cleavage. Such simple, predictable, creatures. It was only after some time passed that her male prey items became uneasy around her, her hypnosis not working quite as well.

It was what happened with her Jacob. If she had just a little more time, she might have been able to seduce him once more. But she was locked in that cage for a few years, before she convinced those who needed convincing she was perfectly well. By then, Jacob had been stolen by the jackrabbit and had gotten sick and died.

These thoughts passed through her head in lightning flashes of rage as she started to walk toward the post office parking lot. The tow truck driver would give her some answers, she was sure of it. Adjusting her top and adopting playful smile, she began to walk toward him.

“The owner of that jeep isn’t going to be coming back any time soon,” a voice behind her said casually. “And Curtis there doesn’t really like girls that much.”

Darcy spun around, barely concealing the scowl on her face. He was perched on the hood of her car in the lengthening shadows of a mountain dusk. His head cocked to the side inquisitively and an amused smirk played across his lips. She felt a shudder pass through her, recognizing his manner as predatory, having seen cats with similar bearing just before the pounced.

“Who are you?” Darcy inquired coldly.

“An interested party,” Lankin said simply, his grey eyes not wavering as he pulled himself from the hood of her car.

“’An Interested Party’ is a rather odd name,” Darcy mocked.

“I believe it’s Swahili, but it might be Diné,” Lankin remarked. “And you’re Darcy McCellan. Come all the way up from Prague, New Mexico.”

“You apparently know things.”

“I’m a likable sort, so people tell me things.”

“You’re the one who helped her at the library.”

“Indubitably.”

Darcy walked closer, swaying side to side. Lankin stood firm, his arms folded across his chest. Their eyes remained fixed on one another, neither willing to break their gaze. Such an action would spell defeat.

“You should stay away from her. She is not what she seems.”

“Which makes her all the more interesting.”

“She’ll break your heart.”

“Preposterous! My heart has no bones.”

“She’s a whore and a thief,” Darcy whispered, her voice almost sweet, despite the venom carried upon her words. She placed a hand on Lankin’s arm.

“You are a stalker and a dog-killer,” he said coolly. “So far, you New Mexico girls seem to be anything but virtuous.”

Darcy’s gaze hardened and she withdrew her hand as she backed away. Normally, her charms would have achieved their ends by now. This one was more of a challenge than most men. In fact, the only interest he seemed to have in her was that of an adversary.

“Then I am dangerous,” Darcy stated, adopting a colder tact. “If I could kill a dog than I could be considering killing you right now.”

“You most likely are,” Lankin said dismissively. “But it would be rather embarrassing for you to try.”

“You seem to think I would fail.”

“It’s a given.”

She began to walk closer once more. This time, there was more of a predatory stride in her movement. Lankin let out a heavy and disappointed sigh as he uncrossed his arms. His gray eyes narrowed and something that sounded like the growl of a mountain lion rattled in the back of his throat.

“I promise it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

Darcy stopped cold. For the first time she could ever remember, she found herself standing completely still. She found herself looking down at her feet, ceding the primal and predatory challenge that had existed between them since they started speaking.

“Why are you here, An Interested Party?” She asked.

“I came to make you an offer.”

“Of what sort?”

“Sydney Pollack is no longer in New Mexico. She’s nowhere near the places your mutual dead x’s remains lie. In a sense, you’re victorious.”

“So?”

“I’m offering you a chance to walk away now,” Lankin said plainly. “Go back to New Mexico happily knowing you won.”

Darcy started to laugh. It was a twisted, mocking, hateful sound, which had gotten those hearing it to shiver in the past. Lankin listened impassively, simply folding his arms across his chest once more.

“You don’t understand!” She spat.

“You’re the second girl from New Mexico to say that to me today,” Lankin shot back. “Are the boys down there a little less bright?”

“It’s you who should walk away,” Darcy hissed. “You should run.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“We’re going for a wander,” Lankin said. “The Backcountry around Gaia’s Backbone. Up the Death’s Head, to be specific.” It was then he turned and began to walk away, melting into the gathering shadows, but added over his shoulder; “Don’t be here when I get back.”

Opal Labyrinth

2011-12-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

Her hair was spiral sequins, which framed the face of porcelain doll. Eyes, the color of opals, took in every tiny detail. Her skin was bronze and copper with a hint of cream. She dressed in second-hand store eccentric and was possessed of the knowledge of thousands of lifetimes. When she spoke, her sing-song voice carried an accent of a faraway warm land, perhaps south of the equator, by way of the bygone European empire. Her scent was that of cinnamon.

I had occasion to talk to her in a coffeehouse as she puzzled and poured over Arabic poetry, trying to decipher the riddles she found therein. Her stories played out like untitled blues songs, sang in nameless and forgotten gin joints beyond the ends of the world. The very fabric of reality shifted around the table with every tale. Sometimes I caught myself being lost within the labyrinth of her gaze, not caring if I was found.

She seemed equally fascinated with my stories, though I didn't think any could compare. Perhaps it was the way I perched in my chair, or the simple fact of being something of a curiosity. Whatever it was, she listened with rapt attention, even saying she was hanging on my every word. At the time, I didn't care whether or not she was lying. She was exotic, and I can easily become entranced and fascinated by such things.

We parted ways under a full African moon. I never asked if I might see her again or sucked up the courage to even try to ask for a kiss. The very idea seemed impolite at the time. Perhaps somewhere, sometime, we'd run into each other again. Share more stories. Until then, there are the memories. A recollection of getting lost in a labyrinth of opal colored eyes.

Breathe

2011-12-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

Every so often, she was able to lose herself in the moment; the smell of burgers grilling and her cold beer. The sun was divinely warm on her face, and she found herself shutting her eyes and soaking it in. There was a playful breeze, perfumed with pine, which ruffled her dark and curly hair. The voices and laughter of the others would bring gentle smiles to her lips.

Then she would remember her jeep was still parked at the Leeds post office and it all came spilling back; the façade she’d built up around her life for the last few months was torn apart. The monster she’d run from had found her once more. Memories would come back in flashes; the moment of across the street eye contact, predator and prey through the business district, being grabbed in the library, and crying for what felt like days in a set of strong arms.

Upon recollection, she found herself wanting to start crying again. The feeling of defeat was as palatable as the taste of bile in the throat. Then the anger would come; anger at being chased so far, at running, at feeling like a victim.

“I do not see you as a victim, Just Sydney,” Lankin told her as they drove back to Marrakech. She found his statement of little comfort.

Her mind flashed to when they first pulled up to Desdemona’s and Marty’s house. She was almost afraid to get out. Visions of Darcy standing just behind Lankin’s vehicle, watching and waiting, strobbed across her mind’s eye. It was enough to make her nauseous.

“It’s okay, Just Sydney,” Lankin said gently when he opened her door. “Come on.”

“I don’t know,” she said in a small voice. “I’m still rattled.”

“You just need to relax. Breathe.”

“Easy for you to say,” Sydney muttered.

“Easy to do,” Lankin said, leaning in so close the tips of their noses touched. “Here, let me show you; in…out, in…out, in…out. Just like that.”

She wasn’t sure what to call the feeling, which caused her to all but greedily gulp at the air as she looked into his gray eyes. There was similar confusion when she exhaled, the sound coming out as more of a sigh. Lankin smiled broadly at her.

“See? You can do it!” And with that, he pulled away and started to walk toward the house. “Come on, we’re expected.”

“I’m either falling in love with you, or I’m discovering you’re just a thorn in my side,” Sydney whispered to herself.

“Well, flip a coin and tell me what the decision is,” Lankin called glibly over his shoulder, not even bothering to turn back and notice how she deeply was blushing at the realization he heard her.

A few hours and drinks later, in last bits of warm daylight, the burgers were served. She was amazed how hungry she was. Back when she was making ready to leave Prague, her appetite vanished. From the standpoint of sheer vanity, it was great to lose twenty pounds. But knowing what caused it reminded her there were far better ways to diet.

They talked about jobs and families. Small town and country gossip and tall hiking tales. What happened in Leeds seemed to disappear again. The spell was working quite well until Sydney looked out into the drive and saw Lankin’s vehicle; an ancient mud-splattered thing that looked like it was more suited for going up the steepest part of mountains than driving on pavement. Her face flushed as she remembered where her jeep still was.

“Fuck!” She grumbled perhaps a little too loudly. “My jeep…”

“We’re going to take care of that, Syd,” Desdemona said. “Don’t worry. It’s fine.”

“Great, rescue me like I’m some fucking damsel in distress!” she spat. “All because of that bitch. I thought this was over, and now, she’s fucking here!”

“She doesn’t know you’re in Marrakech,” Dessy observed.

“For now,” Sydney argued, finishing her beer and starting another one.

“My sister says when you run away, your monsters will chase you,” Lankin mused.

He was sitting away from the others, thoughtfully nursing a bottle of wine one slow glass at a time. Since arriving, he would disappear for extended periods. When he was around, it was at a distance. His bearing was pensive, like that of big cat on the hunt.

“Of course she was going to chase me!” Sydney snapped. “She’s got it in her head she needs to ruin my life! You think I wanted to fucking run? Do you think I fucking enjoy this?”

“That’s not my place to say,” Lankin remarked with a smirk. “However, I’m enjoying listening to you talk dirty.”

“Fuck you!” She turned away, but not before noticing how he raised an eyebrow at her.

“Oh, you two,” Dessy broke in, hoping her amusement at their interaction wasn’t too obvious. “Syd, please calm down. And, Lazarus, perhaps this isn’t the best time to be joking.”

“If you think I’ve been joking around, Desdemona, than you need to reassess how well you think you know me,” he said with a sudden narrowed-eye seriousness that got them both to shudder.

“Any brilliant suggestions?” Sydney asked in a mix of defeated cynicism and desperation.

“You need to breathe,” Lankin replied. “And you need to clear your head.”

“That’s easier said than done, given what’s happened.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Lankin said with a shrug. “I know for a fact you have the next couple days free from your job, Desdemona told me. To that end, I say we go for a little stroll.”

“’Little stroll’ in your world means a day-hike, Lazarus,” Dessy giggled.

“I am proposing we go up the Death’s Head,” he continued, unphased. “I could even take you up Hell’s Watchtower if you think you’re up for it.”

“I’m up for anything you have to offer, Lazarus Lankin,” Sydney said defiantly.

“That’s the spirit!” He raised his glass and took a hearty gulp, before refilling it.

“But do you really think it’s going help?” She inquired.

“Immeasurably,” he said. “I assure you, being up in the tundra can be quite cathartic.”

“You should trust him,” Dessy added.

“I think I do.”

“Wonderful! Desdemona, why don’t you take Just Sydney to get her gear and have her stay the night with you and Marty?” Lankin said. “I think we can all agree it would do wonders for her peace of mind if she had some company overnight.”

“Of course,” she said. “And you?”

“I should get myself ready,” Lankin replied making to leave. “We’ll have an early start, after all.” He stepped over to place a firm hand on Sydney’s shoulder. “Get plenty of rest tonight, Just Sydney. Tomorrow promises to be a big, big day.”

100 Words; Deception for a Friend

2011-12-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

The gypsy's mother is in the sickhouse. Brain bleed. There will be surgery when the swelling goes down.

I am told these things because we're kindred in more ways than one; she's an ICU nurse, I used to dance with the dead for money. We've had closeness with our mothers. My mother's last seventeen days were around this time of year.

I tell the gypsy I'll do whatever I can. She's my friend and I've been where she is. I'm thanked, but I'm really lying.

I might do anything for her, except tell her about the bad feeling I have...

Rohatso

2011-12-08T22:34:00.003-07:00

Rohatso is supposedly when the Buddha had his ah-ha! moment in the shade of the bodhi tree. I noted the passing of the holiday with a belly full of bar-b-que. Then again, I am a heretic. A fact I not only readily admit to, but sometimes all but brag about.

It was ten years ago to the day I took my refuge vows, the Buddhist equivalent of baptism someone once told me. My sangha was a lovely British woman who looked Sinead O'Conner in saffron robes. It was fantastic. Even and especially when she broke it down in Sanskrit. I found myself getting both theologically and linguistically erect when that happened.

I started calling myself a Buddhist when I was twenty-two, just before my daughter was born, but didn't take the vows for another seven years. That Rohatso, Jezebel asked me what it was like to be a real Buddhist. With a shrug, I told her it wasn't any different than the prior seven years. That night I went out drinking with some punk-rock friends.

Being a heretic, I've never been under any obligation to be a good Buddhist...

Daymare

2011-12-06T13:45:00.002-07:00

Sydney did try to confront Darcy once. It was right before she left Prague. As rationally as she could, she asked why; Jacob had broken up with her when they were both just out of high school. Darcy was institutionalized for years after that, and it was ten years after the break-up that Jacob died. Another five years had come and gone since then. There was no reason for this. For Sydney’s attempt at inquiry Darcy nearly smiled a condescending smile, the whole time swaying back and forth like a snake about to strike.

“This is obviously beyond your simple comprehension, jackrabbit,” she hissed. “Don’t worry; it’ll all be over soon. For both of us.”

When she first got to Levant County, because of Desdemona’s mom, she was able to get a post office box in Leeds. Another effort to throw her tormentor off the trail, should she ever be tracked to Colorado. In the months she since lived in the High Country, she had began to feel safe, that her attempts at misdirection might have worked. She began to wonder if with leaving Prague, leaving New Mexico altogether, Darcy had decided to give up the hunt, perhaps feeling victorious.

Seeing her standing across the street in the downtown shopping district of Leeds, smiling that condescending smile shattered the delusion Sydney had allowed herself since the end of February. Although Darcy still sometimes appeared in her dreams, this was the first time in months she had been so tactile. A nightmare made flesh, staring at her from across the street in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.

Sydney’s phone buzzed, which got her to jump involuntarily. It was Dessy. There was a small amount of comfort in that. There was at least one person in the world who was willing to help, although Sydney was starting to worry about what might happen when and if Darcy found out who her friends were.

“Help is on the way,” the message on the screen read. “Go toward the library.”

“And what? Throw a book at her?” Sydney responded.

“Trust me,” came Dessy’s response.

Darcy was still watching her from across the street. With a resigned sigh, Sydney put her phone away and began the walk toward the library. Looking over her shoulder, she wasn’t surprised to see she was being followed. Part of her wanted to collapse on the sidewalk and just start sobbing. She felt quite defeated, after all. No matter where she went or what she did, Darcy was there, the very incarnation of nightmare, passed on unintentionally from Jacob, slowly coming for her.

Sydney took her time going to the library, stopping in a few shops. Perhaps it was one last attempt at misdirection. Darcy was never far behind, which added to the feeling of a nightmare in the middle of the day. Back in New Mexico, before Bear was killed, she’d not been so predatory. There was a look Sydney caught in her amber eyes that told her things had changed; Darcy was through with her games. The pain she meant to inflict now was more immediate.

A rush of cool air greeted her as she walked into the library, almost slamming the door behind her. Darcy was not far behind, but Sydney was hoping for somewhere within the labyrinth of bookshelves she could hide, if just for a moment, so she could catch her breath. There was sweat trickling down her neck and beading up upon her brow. She had just ducked down a corridor of musty tomes from the mid-nineteenth century when she heard the bell over the door jingle, announcing a new visitor. This time, she didn’t look behind her. She knew exactly who it was.

Passing by some ancient editions of Shakespeare she felt someone grab her, pulling her into another aisle of shelves. She wanted to cry out, but something stopped her. The grip on her right arm, strong and sure, pulled her deliberately, yet somehow gently, through several aisles. She found herself disoriented, not even sure if she was still on the ground level of the library or if it was still the same Tuesday afternoon that her daytime nightmare had began anew.

A door opened, the basement side one, and she was outside again. It was a deliciously warm late-June afternoon. The sky was the tint of blue she had seen on Colorado postcards Desdemona used to send for birthdays and Christmas. For a moment, Sydney felt like she had just woken from a dream; her reason for being so rattled, soaked in a thin sheen of sweat, and being pulled through a maze of library bookshelves could not have been real. Just another of her nightmares she’d had since leaving Prague.

“She’ll be wandering around in there for hours,” Lankin’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. “Enough time for us to be back in Marrakech and have had dinner.”

“Lazarus…?” Sydney was shaking, trying to get her bearings still. He offered her a quick, sphinx-like smile.

“Come along, Just Sydney,” he said. “Desdemona said you still need to pick up dessert.”

“You bastard!” She screamed, lashing out to slap him. He caught her hand effortlessly. His head cocked to the side inquisitively.

“This is the second time in as many weeks I’ve pulled you from a rather awkward situation, Just Sydney,” he remarked. “And I must say, you have a peculiar way of showing your gratitude. Will you be buying my breakfast at Ira Milligan’s place again in the next few days to make up for it?”

“You don’t understand! You said it yourself; you can’t save me from this! You’ve never had to deal with her!”

“It would seem I just did, after a fashion,” he said calmly, releasing her hand. “How did you think you got out here instead of having a face to face?”

“Lazarus…” tears were forming in Sydney’s dark eyes. “You really don’t understand! If she finds out that you know me…”

“This is not New Mexico, Just Sydney,” he said. “You seem to keep forgetting that.”

“Goddamn you, Lazarus Lankin…” she was beginning to cry. He wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t want her to find out about you.”

“Stop it now,” he whispered. “Hush…”

“Goddamn you,” Sydney sobbed, burying her head in his chest. In that moment, she was both comforted and troubled by the strength of his embrace. “Goddamn you…”

Sidewinder

2011-12-02T19:24:00.002-07:00

Darcy McCellan was a woman who was described as having a strange beauty. Everything was put together in the right places and in a pleasing fashion, but something just always seemed off. Perhaps it was her way of slowly swaying side to side, even when she was supposed to be sitting perfectly still. There was a certain kind of coldness to her manner, which was borne of nothing mammalian. Her amber eyes were cold and distant, even in the heat of passion, and her smile was that rattlesnake as it coiled to strike.

Jacob was the one who described her in such serpentine terms, and he’d once been in love with her. That was before the break-up. Before she tried to strangle him with a telephone cord. They were both barely eighteen at the time. She hissed proclamations of how they were mated for life, and how he could not, how he would not live without her. Years after the fact, he would sometimes shoot up out of bed screaming, gasping desperately for breath.

He pressed charges and testified in full, exacting, detail as to what she tried to do him. The defense showed that Darcy was possessed with some sort of mania with an exotic sounding name, which absolved her trying to murder her supposed soulmate because he wanted to break up with her. It wasn’t her, after all. There was a monster behind her reptilian eyes that needed to tamed, if not caged, altogether. If anything, Jacob was at fault for being unwilling to try to help her.

So convincing was the defense’s argument that Darcy was sent to an institution. Maybe after a few years and some intensive therapy, her illness would be under control. Jacob made it a point to move away from Taos. He hoped to escape the coils of her madness and try and live a normal life once more, even if the persistent nightmares and constant urging to check over his shoulder prevented it.

Some five years later, in the small town of Prague, he met Sydney. Her dark, dark eyes were so much easier and more comforting to look into than the amber orbs of his x. He found himself willing to open up again. To love, which they did in abundance.

But Jacob was sickly. Having survived a bout of Hodgkin’s Disease in his early teens did not mean he would be so lucky as an adult. Sydney stood by his side, doing everything she could for him, as the disease devoured him. In those last weeks before his death, his nightmares intensified. He would tell her he was having visions. One of the last things he said to her was a plea; get as far from New Mexico, and from wherever he was laid to rest, as possible.

Until the memorial, Sydney had not completely believed in Darcy. Sure, there was the bad x. Everybody had at least one of those. But she sometimes wondered if the stories Jacob would only tell when drunk or stoned out his mind on morphine during his last days were not just a little over embellished. Darcy, it seemed, was more of a bugaboo meant to frighten small children into behaving than an actual flesh and bone human being.

At Jacob’s memorial, Sydney would later say, she met the Devil, and the Devil was a woman named Darcy McCellan. She did not walk in straight line, but moved in a zigzag pattern, like a sidewinder across the desert sands. Her cold amber eyes focused on Sydney with a sort of predatory intensity that only spoke in cold honesty; Darcy saw Sydney as nothing more than prey. Something to be destroyed.

“You did this!” She whispered in accusatory tones. “If it hadn’t been for you, he’d have waited for me. He’d have never gotten sick and died.”

“But…” Sydney wasn’t sure how she could talk reason to someone who was supposedly so unbalanced.

“You took him from me! And for that, you will pay!” Darcy hissed. “Take a good look, jackrabbit; this is your life…and I will take it from you. One piece at a time.”

Afterward, it was easy to dismiss the encounter as surreal. The memorial and high emotions and people from the past, certainly, strange and intense things would be said. Darcy disappeared again for almost a year.

But, then she was back; infiltrating into Sydney’s life in subtle ways; her job, taking an interest in men she might find attractive. Little bits of conflict, annoying drama at first, began to surface. Then the conflicts got worse over the next few years; her workplace becoming increasingly hostile. People in the circles she traveled started referring to her as a whore and questioned whether or not she was completely loyal to Jacob, even and especially once he became very, very sick.

Bear was the last straw. Bear, Jacob’s thirteen year old Australian Sheppard whom had also adopted Sydney as one of his people. Bear, whom would go with her on treks into the mountains and canyons and deserts to scatter ashes. Bear, whom she found lying dead on the kitchen floor one night after being so healthy and vibrant that very morning.

“Shame about the dog,” Darcy whispered the next day at work. “Jacob loved that beast the way I loved him. I’m sure you loved him too, jackrabbit, just as you did my Jacob. It’s so terrible when the things you love are stolen from you.”

If Sydney ever had any doubts about the stories Jacob told of Darcy’s malice, her words about Bear’s death dispelled them. From the stories, she knew asking for legal intervention was worthless; somehow, Darcy’s mania could be used as a defense, and she would just have to go into a hospital for a few years while Sydney would be portrayed as the villain. There had to be another way.

With her life in Prague being slowing destroyed, Sydney had been talking more and more with Desdemona. Colorado, Levant County, and, ultimately, Marrakech, seemed like a far more promising option. To throw Darcy off, she sent of her things she once shared with Jacob to a storage unit in Santa Fe. Then, she packed everything else she could fit into her jeep and a trailer for her drive to Colorado.

The things in the trailer got left at storage unit in Trinidad. Desdemona had arranged the place above Ira Milligan’s café. It snowed heavily that first night her new home. Sydney curled herself up in heavy blankets that still smelled of Bear, and even faintly of Jacob, and cried herself to sleep, hoping beyond hope the nightmare down in Prague was now over.

***

Lankin accepted wine being poured into his glass from Marty with a smile. A lazy summer afternoon on the porch surrounded them. There was a mention of grilling buffalo burgers in another hour. Desdemona mentioned something about getting a salad together, as well as appetizers. Apparently, Sydney was shopping for dessert down in Leeds.

“Funny she was called a jackrabbit,” Lankin mused. “I told her she acted like a frightened rabbit once.”

“I know,” Dessy said. “She told me about it, and it kind of hurt her feelings.”

“Snakes eat rabbits,” Lankin continued, ignoring what he was told.

“Which is why you saying that bothered her,” Dessy persisted.

“Probably,” Lankin finally acknowledged. “But I’m neither her dead boyfriend or his bad x.”

“I know.”

“Does she?”

“I don’t know, Lazarus,” Dessy started, but then her phone began to buzz. She looked at the screen and smiled. “There’s our girl…” she said as she hit a button, suddenly, her eyes widened. “Oh, fuck me!”

She pushed the phone into Lankin’s face. His eyes narrowed and something resembling a growl escaped his lips as he read the all-capital letter message on the screen in front of him;

“SHE’S HERE!!!”

Breakfast with the Big Sister

2011-11-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

Like her brother, Bast wore her rust-colored hair in a set of dreadlocks. It was said this act alone showed how laid-back, and, in some ways, liberal, Levant County was, since she was the archivist. Like her brother, she seemed more feline than human. Although, the older Lankin was more of the domestic variety, not straying very far from Leeds most of the time, where as the younger was considered more feral, disappearing into the Backcountry on such a regular bases.

It was the accident up Deneb Gulch, five years ago, that kept her closer to home. The rollover left Bast paralyzed from the waist down. Timothy, her fiancé, had not been so lucky, being ejected on that brutally cold and snowy night. His broken body was recovered from the river of which it landed in a week after. There was speculation he may have actually survived were it not for the hypothermia.

Some of the old-timers, like Grizz, expressed concern for Lankin. The accident, and subsequent recovery of his potential brother-in-law, had a profound and devastating effect. It was whispered the last time he had gotten like that was when he recovered the body of Bethany Tabor, some years earlier.

Bast shocked everyone, including her brother, with her recovery. The Denver doctors were continually shocked by her obstinate refusal to chained to her wheelchair. She worked on her upper body strength, and was able to use a pair of crutches to drag herself along within six months. On any given early morning in Leeds, she could be seen pulling herself along through the town park.

“I’ll summit the Death’s Head by the time I’m fifty!” She would defiantly proclaim. Some asked her brother if he thought if it was possible.

“Even if I have to carry her,” was his response.

Bast offered Ira a sphinx-like smile as she refilled her coffee. The jingle of the bell over the café door got her to turn to see her younger brother strolling toward her with his sense of predatory purpose. It was back in mid-March when they had last seen one another, and late April when they’d last spoken over the phone. Given their natures, the estrangement between them that others perceived was hardly noticed, and, were it to be, it would be embraced.

“I wasn’t sure if you were having coffee or tea this morning, Lazarus,” she said nonchalantly as he pulled up a chair.

“And I was hoping you’d surprise me with one or both,” he returned in a similar tone, sitting down. “I hope you at least ordered us something to eat.”

“Of course, our usuals,” Bast said before leaning closer. “Miss Milligan says you’ve not been disappearing as much, even though it’s warmer.”

“Ira Milligan is ancient and should not be counted on for facts,” Lankin shot back. “At her advanced age, her ability to recollect anything is suspect.”

He might have said more, but the ringing of the bell over the door got him to turn. Desdemona and Sydney walked in, chatting quietly amongst themselves. They both cast looked over at Lankin, and it was hard to tell which woman’s glance lingered longer. With a growling curse under his breath, he turned back to meet his sister’s amused smirk.

“There’s why,” she observed. “Although Dessy and Marty have been married for twelve years, she still nurses a bit of affection from your time with her. And what of the dark-haired girl? She appears to have a defiant streak to her.”

“It’s nothing,” Lankin said quickly.

“Maybe we should invite them to sit with us?”

“Piss on you, Bast!” Lankin snapped before looking up to Ira, who had just returned to their table. “May I have some mint tea, please?”

“Of course, Lazarus,” Ira replied. “And Sydney wanted me to let you know she’d buy your breakfast if you’re willing.”

“That’s splendid!” Bast exclaimed with child-like glee. “Ira, please send those young ladies to come and sit with us.”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” she said with a wink and a smile, although it was up for interpretation as to which Lankin sibling the wink or the smile was for.

“I want a divorce.”

“I’m your sister, Lazarus, not your wife.”

“There’s probably some law somewhere saying a brother can be released from his cantankerous sister,” he shot back.

“I wish you the best of luck finding it,” Bast said wryly as her gray eyes tracked across the café. “Now behave, our guests are arriving.”

“Morning, Lazarus,” Dessy said as she sat down. “And Bast, thank you for sharing your table. I swear, it’s been at least a year.”

“At least,” she echoed before turning her attention to the dark-haired, dark-eyed girl sitting down across from Lankin. “And you’re…Sydney, the nice girl who’s buying my little brother breakfast?”

“Yes,” She said somewhat bashfully. “I feel like I kind of owed it to him after the other day.”

“Oh, dear, what happened?” Bast’s inquiry, while polite, carried an edge to it.

“I stopped her from falling face-first into the Fitzpatrick,” Lankin said in a low voice that let his sister know there might be more, but not to press.

“Exactly,” Sydney said quickly. The look in her eyes seemed to one of gratitude that what happened at Magpie Jack’s was not being mentioned. “Breakfast seems so insignificant for someone who saved my life.” She allowed herself a slight smile and an unintended giggle. “My knight shining outdoor gear.”

“You give me far too much credit, Just Sydney,” Lankin said, noticing how Bast and Desdemona were exchanging glances.

Breakfast arrived quickly, which put an end to the invasive inquiries. Almost before she was completely through eating, Sydney offered to pay, saying she had to get to work. Lankin watched her leave with feline detachment, though he cast a quick glare toward Bast when he heard her snickering.

“She really does like you, you know,” Dessy said as she stood up to leave. “Just give her time.”

Left alone with Bast, Lankin sat back with his tea. He kept his eyes riveted to the outside, not wanting to meet his sister’s gaze. The idea of disappearing up into the tundra for the remainder of the summer suddenly seemed infinitely appealing. In his mind, he began to catalogue what he would put into his pack.

“What do you suppose she’s running from?” Bast asked finally.

“Most likely a who,” he muttered. “Someone who she hopes never finds her.”

“That someone might be coming, Lazarus,” Bast said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“It’s really not my concern.”

“Liar.”

His head snapped around, gray eyes narrowed. Something looking quite like a snarl rolled across his lips. Bast gave a small smile and placed her hand on his.

“If, or when, that happens, she might just need you,” she said. “And you’ll be there for her before you even consider it.”

“You’re pretty sure of that.”

“Of course,” Bast chuckled. “You’re my brother, and, besides, it’s what you do, and there’s no escaping it.”

Fragile Monsters

2011-11-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, I can admit to a bit of possible sadism; seeing Sabina's reaction, all but screaming at the sight of small spider is something I find really fucking funny. I march over and take the arachnid, turning it loose, where it can scuttle off. This isn't done to save Sabina from her irrational fear of something hundreds of times smaller than her as much as the spider, which many Homo sapiens would outright murder because of some addle-brained primal fear and zoological racism. The ultimate hate crime.

So, I watch the itsy-bitsy spider clamber away, fascinated by its movements. Something I remember from when I had tarantulas as pets. Any biped would've been more than a match for it. Size not withstanding, spiders have no coagulants in their blood; with a simple nick, they can bleed to death. Few know this. They are actually quite fragile monsters. I cannot fathom why any monkey would be scared of one.

There was something I heard once, which I think is a grand backfist of perspective; you think a spider is scary when you look at it with two eyes? Imagine what it sees when it looks at you with eight...

The Ballet of the Frightened Rabbit

2011-11-25T17:12:00.001-07:00

Three beers in, Sydney realized the giddy feeling she was having might be exacerbated by a buzz. Maybe, had she not spent the afternoon exploring the ruins of Glasgow and other related trails, she wouldn’t have wanted to drink so much beer so fast. Perhaps, were it not for the company she was keeping, she wouldn’t have been so eager.

To her frustration, Lankin, for all the fun he claimed to have had during the afternoon, was calm, cool, and collected. He drank his red wine, the first glass in a gulp, but, the second, patiently, and seemed completely unaffected. If queried, he may have given one of his aloof looks and mentioned something about living at altitude. She wanted to punch him to get a reaction. She wanted to kiss him.

She wanted …

They were shooting pool. Lankin ordered food, though Sydney could scarcely remember what it might have been other than something to eat. Having something on the stomach besides trail-mix and jerky might be a good idea. Something that resembled hunger pulled at her belly, which conflicted with the other sensations running through her body as she played pool with him.

He was just…Lankin. Nothing else. Up on the trails, out in Glasgow, Sydney tried to get a little further, but it was akin to asking a sphinx for a glass of water in a burning Egyptian desert; an enigmatic smile, if that, but little else. One had to content themselves with the riddle.

Food arrived; burgers, fries, and salads. Lankin made a gesture to eat, but said nothing. Instead, he watched, patiently, predatorily, as she gorged herself. She felt like such a pig eating like that in front of anyone. If he was offended, his gray eyes betrayed no reaction.

He ate slowly, almost in a reserved manner. Every so often, he made a motion offering Sydney more, which she declined more out of not wanting to appear gluttonous, than not being hungry. Lankin cleaned the plate, his manners nothing short of immaculate.

Their pool game resumed. From the speakers, a song from Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers came on. They both smiled. Lankin mouthed along flawlessly with the opening lyrics;

“Will you be my Mary Magdalene?,

Would you be my American dream?
Will you mix your perfume up

from diesel fumes and gasoline?”

With a wide, unthinking, smile Sydney’s hips began to sway. She found herself dancing, pulling herself closer to him. It seemed so wonderful to be dancing up on him.

In that same moment, something else happened; something deeper and defensive became aware. She was dancing up on some strange man in a small mountain bar in a small mountain town in the middle of Colorado’s High Country. Suddenly, her situation became very dangerous. She needed to stop. She needed to pull away.

“Baby ain't we a beautiful disaster?”

She was blocked. An arm; Lankin’s arm, came down over her probable escape route. Her gaze met his; her deep, dark eyes showing a primal fear she could neither explain rationally or try to talk about otherwise. His gaze showed only that damnable feline curiosity of his.

“You would like to get closer, but something holds you back,” Lankin said as if he noticing the outside weather. “Strange.”

“Lazarus...?” Sydney tried, feebly, to start.

“It’s likely someone,” he continued, unconcerned. “Someone has given you reason to want to run like a frightened rabbit when you even think of wanting to get close to anyone. It’s why you ran away from Prague.”

She shuddered. There was nothing she wanted more than to get past his arm, even if she knew how strong and sure his embrace was, which was something she remembered with fond reassurance from Glasgow. But, there at the pool tables in Magpie Jack’s, all she wanted to do was run.

“I am not that person,” Lankin stated flatly. “Neither is anyone here. It’s rather unfair of you to put that on anyone other than the offending party. You need to remember that, Just Sydney.”

Without warning, he pulled away. He was walking away from her, grabbing his pack from one of the nearby chairs, and moving toward the door. At first, she was too shocked to react.

“Lazarus…!” She cried finally.

“You know I love

to watch them angels
fighting over you,
Heaven knows

they left me long ago…”

He spun around. The look in his eyes was that of when he pulled her from the Fitzpatrick Mine Shaft; one of anger, frustration, and disappointment. She felt very small under his predatory gaze.

“Please?” Was the only other word she could manage.

“What?” His gaze held her. “I could tell you I’ll look after you, that I’d never let anything bad happen to you, but that would be a lie. I’ve lost more than I want to count on my watch.” It was then he stepped forward. His movements ferocious and feral in their purpose, it was enough to get her to jump back. “But I cannot protect you from everything.” She almost fell over when his long finger pointed toward her brow; “I cannot save you from that.”

Twelve

2011-11-23T23:35:00.002-07:00

Back when you were twelve, it was perfect. When you were twelve, there was Adam Warlock, Spiderman-back in black from the Secret Wars-Elf Quest, Cystar, Robotech, Dreadstar, Thundercats, Transformers, and GI Joe. Everything made sense when you were twelve.

There was zoology and archeology. The Galapagos Islands and the must-even to this day-go to Africa. Staring at the stars and wanting to see the edges of the cosmos. Twelve was magic and mystery and kook-koo-cachu.

When you were twelve, it was established that Darth Vader was the Devil, but what a cool Devil he was. He was dressed head to toe in black and was really tall and could barely breathe, but he could choke anyone with a glance. Just because. You were always tall and had the asthma. When the bullies, those you would later call the si li nan jen, would hurt you for being different-freakish, they might say, at best-you wanted to hurt them with a glance, if not more. Darth Vader, the Devil, was your hero, and nothing could take that away, even what happened to Darth Vader long, long after you were twelve.

Back when you were twelve, your best friend's hair fell out. There was a lump on his neck. You would find out he had something called Hodgkin's Disease. Your best friend, when you were twelve, who would only be your friend when no one else was around. Outside of the neighborhood, he called you all the names all the other bully-boys, all the other si li nan jen, called you. When you were twelve, you were the only one who went to see him in the sickhouse, to wish him well. He was your friend.

Years later, when you saw him again, he still dismissed you. Is it strength or weakness that so many years and lifetimes later you wonder whether or not he's still alive? Will you ever answer that riddle?

Does it matter?

When you were twelve, thirteen was really, really, really, fucking scary. Thirteen meant you were that much closer to getting old. Old meant that much closer to death. Lights out. Nothing more. So many years away from the immaculance of twelve, the concept of lights out still terrifies you, and no amount of Buddhism, or anything else, you've surgically studied can change that.

You're still twelve; afraid of the dark. Afraid of the unknown. Afraid of not getting to know what happens next.

So it goes...

When you were twelve, it was immaculate. Halcyon. Everything was so prefect.

It was so complicated. Your best friend was only such when no one else was around; after all, you were so weirdly tall, and so skinny, and your eyes were so big. Owl-like. There was the bit of Hodgkin's, showing we all might only be immortal for a limited time, though it wasn't until you were eighteen that you heard that lyrical mantra.

Twelve, for all its perfection, was the precipice. The borderland between childish innocents and the ugliness of adulthood. Twelve was a Sahel. Childhood's end.

But maybe that's not quite right. You grew up on a farm. You knew what death was in its cold, hard reality by the time you were six. A film you saw when you were twenty-one proclaimed childhood was over the moment you knew you were going to die. You figured out that back when you were six, which is half of twelve.

So, why twelve?

You have the benefits of years and lifetimes of history, memory, and stories, but yet, the answer eludes you. It is its own riddle; why was twelve so bloody perfect? You can dissect those memories down to nightmares you bury any other time and still the answer evades you. A tormenting phantasm. To you, who so hate surprises and otherwise being caught off guard-despite your lover's embrace of chaos-this will not do.

But, admit it, boy, you've gotten used to the erotica of the mystery. Twelve was one of those times, perfect, for all its flaws. There are a few other times in along your quantum stream that are the same. Pristine, but not. You know the ways past the veils, and you have inspected every chink and flaw with reptilian objectivity. Those flaws make the perceived perfection infinity and paradoxically interesting.

And you were twelve, it was perfect. When you were twelve, there was Adam Warlock, Spiderman-back in black from the Secret Wars-Elf Quest, Cystar, Robotech, Dreadstar, Thundercats, Transformers, and GI Joe. Everything made sense when you were twelve.

And you mourn for that sense of halcyon. Those days. The innocence. That sense of perfection, in which everything made sense.

But, you know now, the flaws, the chinks in the pristine armor, is where things get really interesting. And you, being you...would not have it any other way.

100 Words; The Argentine

2011-11-22T16:52:00.005-07:00

Whistler standing all majestic mountain-dog like at the ruin of Pavilion Point...

***

Once, it was part of the narrow-gauge railroad, which snaked up Leavenworth Mountain to what are now the ruins of Waldorf and beyond a bit. The tracks are long gone now. If you know how and where to look, you'll see the remnants of railroad ties.

The grade is under hard-pack. In a month, month and a half, it'll be perfect for snowshoeing. Today, I wear gators over my boots.

"Ready to go?" I ask Whistler.

He gives an approving chomp and lopes ahead of me. We can reach the one ruin in an hour, and I know a shortcut.

Lady Wore Red

2011-11-20T11:09:00.000-07:00

The lady wore red and had a predator's gleam in her eye. She was hunting, but it was not for a mate. She was out for blood. A sacrifice, like the old tribes in the primitive parts of the world. What she required the sacrifice for was anyone's guess. She offered no answers.

It was beautiful and terrifying to watch. Her movements sleek and graceful. The way she would sniff the air for her prey. Every step and movement was deliberate. Cold methodical calculation showed in her huntress eyes. When she licked her lips, there was nothing erotic about it. She could taste the blood of her victim.

Once she found her prey, and the hunt was joined, there was no stopping her. An intricate ballet of circles and straight line pursuits, to wear her victim down. She wanted blood. Needed it. A sacrifice.

Her victim stumbled, fell, and it was all over. She sprung with the ferocity of predators told of in nightmare stories. Her prey only had a single chance to look up, to see her feral eyes.

There was rending, kicking, clawing, gnashing, biting, and punching. Blood sprayed everywhere. Ran in thick rivers along walls and the ground. She licked her lips in satisfaction, tasting the blood, holding her victim's heart like a trophy. She raised the organ to the sky, her sacrifice fulfilled, just before taking a bite of it.

Then she disappeared into the night, leaving behind the mutilated remnants of her sacrifice. Blood was smeared everywhere, yet she was spotless. Immaculate. The lady wore red. It helped to conceal the bloodstains.

In Pendleton's Shadow

2011-11-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

And then there comes the day when sun's rays, peeping over the southern ridge line of Mount Pendleton, do not chase away the long cold shadows of winter. It is as unavoidable as day and night. Part of the cycle. The long dark, which lasts until deep, midwinter, has begun.

I, for one, welcome the perpetual mountain shadow and borderline seasonal-affective disorder. Much in the same way, sometime in the very latest days of autumn, I start to look forward to the longest night, marking the winter solstice. Why? Because it means there's that much less time before the sunlight returns and our little place beyond the end of the the world will warm once more.

Sabina finds this rational irrational, and gives me a look as though I have descended into the type of madness spiced with psychosis, instead of the happy kind, flavored with whimsy. But, I have seen her praise the first day of winter, much like I have, under the auspice of the days beginning to lengthen once more. Sometimes, there is even a smile on her face because of the fact.

For us, winter means fewer walkabouts. Sometimes, it is just too cold, no matter the layers, or the winds whipping down from the high peaks and mountain passes are that of the great maelstroms, which have leveled coastal cities without a by or leave. Out there, in the bush, the danger of an avalanche can be much more intimidating than the thought of some other half-starved predator looking for an easy mark.

That is when we hole up with a fire. We have mulled wine or hot tea. Those are the days when we might play more African or reggae music and have a more tropical-flavored meal, in blatant defiance of the season all around us. Fun times.

It is effectively winter in our little Sahel and has been for nearly a month now. I do not foresee the snow melting from the high peaks and north-facing slopes anytime soon. In our funky little township, the dusty streets have become quiet, and the river starts to freeze over. The last of the seasonal residents have fled to their warmer climbs, only to return with the trill of hummingbirds and the whistle of the train engine as it echos across the valley.

Mei fei tsu. This is the way of things. The snow. The long dark. It is unavoidable as the one star visible during the day and the billions visible during the night.

I accept and embrace these aspects of the cycle. After all, it's a matter of balance. Like fire and water, chocolate and peanut butter, one cannot exist without the other. It's not only weakness to try and deny the existence of one of these aspects, but also kind of boring. A lesson I learned myself long, long ago. I take in the long dark and winter with a bit of a death's head cheshire cat's grin, perhaps a sign of that madness Sabina occasionally worries about in me.

It's okay, though. See, I know things. One thing I know quite well is a bit sooner than a bit ago, the light will return and our little place beyond the end of the world will start to warm once more.

The Days of Ghosts and Omens

2011-11-18T07:16:00.003-07:00

This song was written after Neil Pert lost his daughter in an accident and his wife to cancer within the span of eighteen months. He also wrote a book of the same title in which he chronicled his grieving and healing and journeys all over. I lost my mother to cancer and one of my best friends to accident within the span of ten months. Although I neither wrote a song or a book, I've done a fair amount of wandering out in the bush and those badlands of the tundra. Perhaps there is only a parallel because I want there to be one.

Anyone playing along at home has come to realize how am about the abstract of time that I really shouldn't have to go on about it again. This instant is one of those that validates my view point of time, but also some legalities. In some parts of the world, one is considered dead once brain function is declared non-existent, whereas, in Colorado, death is official with the cessation of the heartbeat. My stint dancing with the dead for money taught me these things, though it hardly matters; dead is dead, and you rarely get to walk away from that.

The day after my daughter's birthday, to a degree, her birthday itself, has been tainted by the death of the bruja. Although the date the pulled her from machines and her heart stopped is a few days off, for me, her death date will always be the day the rollover happened; the day after my daughter's sixteenth birthday. Fucking perfect.

The bruja was one of those cats who felt the words I purged carried a certain kind of magic. As I visited with her family, my old friends from down below, and her battered shell that only drew breath by virtue of mechanization as a formality, I was vividly acquainted with the fact there are limits to whatever mojo I possess. None of my stories could bring her back and make her better. I couldn't find the words to magic the incident into the tongues of fiction. It was all sickeningly spit-shiny real, and there was no way around or through that.

Don't think I didn't try...

It's been a year, nearly two for my mother, and Humptey-dumpty has been slowly putting himself back together again. Although, I never bothered to ask all the king's horses and all the king's men for help. Perhaps I am obstinate like that; I heal, I find salvation or damnation on my own.Within that space of ten months and the subsequent year since, in which psychic the fallout has settled, I've worked to reestablish my sense of equilibrium and reconcile my sense of belief, heretical though it is. It goes without saying, and I'd not recommend it to anyone, even if they wanted to sadistically test themselves.

Like my mother, I see little reminders of my beautiful friend everywhere. These omens of memory can get me to smile. To restrain tears or growls of psychotic rage at the very chaos, which permeates the universe. To remember. To wonder what if.

But mei fei tsu...

Those what if's and if only's that can drive you mad if you let them. And they hardly matter. She's gone now. All I have are the memories and the stories, and that will just have to do because she's not coming back anymore.

I meditate upon whiskey and wine. Beer and tequila. Coffee and tea. A thousand cigarettes and a million laughs. Those memories and stories. Secrets, shared and kept. Good and ill. Chaos and acceptance.

It's been a year since the bruja walked on. Almost two for my mother. Because of the proximity of such events I am still more walking wounded than I'd like to be. Than I'd ever admit to, other than maybe to those psychic demons that show up late at night for tea. But I am stitching myself back together. Slowly but surely. I'd like to believe they'd have both wanted that, even if it's vanity and hubris to second-guess the dead. I find on days like this and times like these, it's the very best I can hope for.

And hope is one of the most precious of commodities, far moreso than rubies or even glass beads...

Buying Happiness

2011-11-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was bemoaning to an acquaintance how it was a day I wished I could've been born offensively wealthy, instead of devastatingly handsome. The acquaintance laughed and stated the tired cliche;

"Money can't buy you happiness."

I had to call bullshit and upped the ante with some who-shot-john. Coming from someone who despises money, this naturally came as a shock. My acquaintance asked me why I would say something like that. To which, I entreated them to a particular memory.

Years ago now, a Lee and I were leaving a concert hall along infamous eastern strip of Colfax. On the street, we saw a woman, professional in her bearing. She was talking to a man, a client, as it were. His name may have even been John, but I never got a chance to ask. They were haggling over rates of exchange for goods and services. The woman, professional in her bearing, introduced herself to the man as Happiness.

"So you see," I concluded with a demonic smirk. "It is indeed possible to buy happiness."

Glasgow

2011-11-15T09:26:00.002-07:00

There were only two ways to the old town site of Glasgow. The most common was a rutted four-wheel drive road, which tested the mettle of drivers and the axles of their vehicles. From the eastern end was a small trail that eventually led up to the western spur of the Death’s Head. Surrounding the remains of the town were several abandoned mines.

Although it wasn’t a grouping of Anasazi ruins, Sydney decided she wanted to check it out. It was a warm day in mid-June, and the snow drifts that had choked the four-wheel drive road had finally melted into great puddles of chocolate colored water. The road itself was muddy, giving her jeep a temporary paint job of brown splashes. She took this circumstance with a grain of amusement, remembering her grandfather’s lesson about such vehicles; they were not meant to spit-shiny clean. Anyone who kept one that way certainly didn’t deserve it.

She reached Glasgow before eleven in the morning. The sky above was a brilliant blue with only the slightest hint of puffy clouds. There was no threat of rain. Tying her long curly brown hair into a pony tail and grabbing her pack, she got out to explore.

The few old buildings still standing were certainly interesting, but she knew they had been picked over long ago. There were a few discarded beer cans and carved names in rickety walls. She made her way up one of the slopes toward a head frame she had seen on the road as she pulled into town proper.

It stood lone and imposing on the top of an outcropping. The tailings around it were grayish, a sign it had once been a silver mine. Sydney wondered if the any of the old-timers or the county archivist knew the name of it. As she got closer, she noticed there was an open shaft going straight down. Most of the time, she’d heard, the old mines were either gated, collapsed, or backfilled after a point, but the agencies that oversaw this process only had so much money and there were that many more holes. It was perhaps impossible to cover them all.

She came to the edge of the shaft and looked into the yawning and expectant dark. Grabbing a rock and throwing it, she listened carefully for the sound of impact. Counting well past twenty, she heard nothing, which she found exciting and a little scary. It was enough to get her to want to step closer.

Her foot slipped on some loose tailings, and she felt herself pitching forward. The gaping maw of the open shaft suddenly seemed that much wider, drawing her in. She wanted to scream, but even as she opened her mouth to do so, her breath caught in her throat. In just a heartbeat, she would be over edge, tumbling into the darkness.

Something stopped her. Strong arms encircled her waist. Now, she yelped; a combination of surprise and relief as she dangled on the edge of the shaft.

“It’s all right. You’re okay,” A voice whispered in her ear. It took her a few seconds to realize it was Lankin. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

“Where the hell did you come from?!?” Sydney exclaimed, her eyes were still riveted to the expectant darkness.

“This is hardly the time for such questions,” Lankin hissed. “I need you to start stepping back, unless you’d rather want fall into the Kirkpatrick here.”

“No thank you. Really.”

“Okay then, step back,” Lankin ordered. “One…now two. Good. Three. We’re almost there. You’re doing good. Four and five.”

He then let her go. Despite the circumstance, Sydney found herself somewhat disappointed by that. His embrace had been so strong, so safe. There was no doubt in her mind that he wasn’t going to let her fall. As she turned to thank him she was greeted with a vicious scowl.

“That was foolish, Just Sydney,” he chided. “Walking up on an open shaft like that? Men are usually that kind of stupid. And what exactly were you thinking doing something like this all alone?”

“This coming from someone who disappears into the woods by himself for weeks at a stretch?” She fired back, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment and resentment. “Fuck you, Lazarus Lankin! I’ll have you know I’ve gone out plenty of times on my own before.”

“You’re no longer in New Mexico,” he said firmly, folding his arms across his chest. “Different environment, different dangers."

“I’m not one of those inexperienced daytrippers you rescue from the side of a mountain!” She snapped. “Give me a little bit of credit.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Lankin said. A slight smile played across his lips as he cocked his head to the side. “By the way, has anyone told you you’re a kind of cute when you get defensive?”

“Keep us this self-righteous scolding, and you’ll see me get really fucking adorable,” Sydney grumbled.

“Fair enough, Just Sydney,” Lankin said as he started to turn away. “But do be careful. I might not be around to save you from the next mine shaft.”

“I’d like to believe you would be,” she said, and immediately scolded herself for her choice of words. He spun around to regard her with a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and annoyance.

“Contrary to what Grizz and some of the old-timers around the county might say, I am not a superhero,” he growled. “It was luck I was here and saw you. It was luck I grabbed you in time.”

“That’s all you believe in?” Sydney inquired. “Luck?”

“I believe in the mountains,” Lankin replied. “I believe in the power of the summer thunderstorms and the fury of the winter blizzards. I believe in the stark tundra and the gentle streams.” In a flash, he closed the distance between them, leaning in close. “The Backcountry is my god and my devil, and it does not play favorites.”

Sydney found herself speechless. The look in Lankin’s gray eyes was that of predatory intensity. This was not the man she met at Magpie Jack’s and shot pool with a month ago. Here was the feral creature that only looked sort of human of whom she had heard of in the stories. She was frightened and fascinated and excited, because she felt like she held this creature’s attention.

“Since you don’t think I should be out here by myself, do you want to stay with me?” She asked finally. Her voice sounded very small, and part of her wondered if he would start laughing at her.

His head cocked to the side and his gaze shifted to that of being inquisitive. He folded his arms across his chest once more as he considered her offer. She was right; she wasn’t inexperienced at being out in the wilderness, even if it was the Colorado High Country and not New Mexico.

“I was trekking down from the Death’s Head,” he said finally. “It’s still two hours on foot back to Marrakech. Although it’s good exercise, I suppose a ride back down wouldn’t be so bad.”

“You can buy me a beer instead of gas money when we get back,” Sydney quipped with as much confidence as she could muster, which got him to chuckle.

“And I was worried I’d have to buy dinner,” he said off-handedly. “Beer is far less awkward.”

Knife Blade Vindication

2011-11-13T13:44:00.001-07:00

Back when I was an adolescent and was growing my hair long and listening to that thar heavy mental and punk rock music, my mother decided I must be doing drugs. Maybe it was guilt by association, given the looks and actions of some of the cats I'd sometimes run with. Perhaps she just figured I was my father's son, he'd been dancing with Mary Jane as long as I can remember, even though my mother would remind him the substance was illegal. During one of our discussions on my presumed drug use, I double-dog-dared my mother do a blood or urine test on me.

"My, my," my mother said somewhat condescendingly. "Thou doth protest too much."

It was then I figured out how that game was played. When you got defensive, when you tried to justify and do damage control, you were guilty. I should've figured this out before that debate with my mother by virtue of what was on the television screen; evangelical preachers being caught red-handed fucking their whores of Babylon whilst parting the gullible from their cash, the whole time denying it until their tearful confessions were squeezed from them like filthy sponges. I would observe the same things with politicians and show-trial murderers.

When I was eighteen, I was coming home from a night out. My parents in the parlor, having fallen asleep attempting to watch whatever film together for the umpteenth time. It being a rule in the household at the time, I announced my presence.

"Did you do any drugs?" My mother asked me.

"Whatever, Mom," I said. "I'm going to bed."

My mother might have been ready to say something, but then my father, having been awaken by the exchange, jumped in;

"Goddammit, woman! Back off!"

Apparently, I won that little game. With my father's words, I was vindicated. My mother never questioned whether or not I did drugs ever again.

***

Ever since I was somewhere between eight and ten, I've always carried a knife of some kind on me. Sometime, during my adolescence, when I was growing my hair long and listening to that thar heavy mental and punk rock music, I somehow gave the impression that I might know how to use such an object as something other than a tool. I'd not read Sun Tzu yet, but, as someone who had been horrifically bullied growing up, I found nothing wrong with perpetuating this particular bit of deception. Maybe that's sociopathic of me, but I still find nothing wrong with it.

"You always look like your ready to cut someone's throat when you pull that thing out," one of the waitress at the restaurant I once cooked at remarked once whilst she was watching me break down boxes with my knife at the time. Some almost fifteen years later, another lifetime away, the sempi made a similar observation as I broke down boxes with my present knife.

"Usually I'm convinced you're one of the most gentle souls in world until I see you pull that thing out," he said. "Then I wonder if you're not one of those scary guys who collects knives and dreams of eviscerating people."

"Just dreams?" I said with a smirk, letting him wonder. Sempi has heard some of my being bullied stories and knows I have The Art of War all but memorized.

***

I could've handled my break-up with the jewel-eyed girl better. Even shortly after the fact, I realized that, but I was much younger and not nearly as clever as I solopsticly gave myself credit for. The first time I saw her in a vampire den, Madam Lung took me aside and implored me to not sleep with her.

Even though the Dragon Lady was one of my best friends and my adopted grandmother, I was impetuous. Copulation with the jewel-eyed girl was infrequent in the waning years of our relationship and I was jonesing. Besides, Madam Lung had once waxed erotica about the fun of x-sex and I decided to ride that bit of snake's tail for all it was worth.

Some of my nightmares stand as testimony to the price I've paid for my hubris...

When it all came down between the jewel-eyed girl and I, the air between us was that of tigers and cobras. There was broken glass and me forcing her out of my home whilst phoning the constabulary. For my trouble, I spent an hour in manacles whilst the men in uniform tried to decide if the one who called for help was at fault. After all, I was the male. I have long hair and tattoos and hoops in my ears, and both of us were more than a little drunk. Besides, the social construct of reality dictates it's always the boy's fault, even when it isn't, and who would dare question the social construct of reality, let alone defy it?

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name...

During the altercation, the jewel-eyed girl became cut on the broken glass. The same glass she tried holding to my throat as I slammed my door. As someone who cut herself willingly in the past, it wouldn't have surprised me if it was a self-inflicted wound. Maybe she fell down, because she was drunk. I honestly do not know. I only closed a door.

First, her story was that I pushed her. Then, because I've carried a knife of some kind on me since I was somewhere between eight and ten, that I stabbed her. There was a certain number of friends I gave my side of the story to and then let lie. Strangers who had at least the courtesy to ask would get a curt no and that was it. Remembering that lesson I learned from my mother about protesting too much played heavily into my approach of being thrown smack in the middle of a game of Machiavelli. Madam Lung advised me on a tactic I was already taking; don't rise to the bait, but rise above.

One night after the juke joint with Dragon Lady, I did vent. All the anger about the circumstance of the break-up from the jewel-eyed girl and its subsequent shrapnel bubbled to the surface in a beer and whiskey-lanced rant. Madam Lung for the most part just listened, allowing me to purge my ire to small hours shadows.

"And I didn't fucking stab her," I growled.

Madam Lung gave me her soft and sardonic smile as she reached over to draw me in with a tight embrace. It was then, from the mouth of a dragon in tones of liquid silver, I received one of the most profound statements of vindication I've ever had;

"It's okay. We all know you. You wouldn't have missed."

Prologue; The First Warm Day in May

2011-11-10T20:26:00.001-07:00

It was the first really warm day in May. One, which brought with it the promise of the season to come, even if there was still snow glittering atop the Death’s Head, Hell’s Watchtower, and down along the north faces of the surrounding mountains of Gaia’s Backbone. As far as anyone was concerned, it was the first day of High Country spring, and that was cause enough to celebrate.

Sydney moved to Marrakech toward the end of February, when the air was at its coldest and the snow at its most frequent. She would go to her job over in Petra and get her groceries in Leeds, but, otherwise, kept herself holed up inside her new home above Ira Milligan’s café. The climate of Colorado’s High Country was a little bit of a shock after living in New Mexico her entire life.

It was Desdemona who convinced her to move up. They had been friends since college, and Dessy was the only one who was privy to all of what was happening down there the last five years. She convinced Sydney it was best not only to leave Prague, but New Mexico altogether. Dessy was always going on about how Colorado was a pretty neat place, especially the small High Country town called Marrakech.

Because it was the night of first warm day in May, Dessy all but dragged Sydney out to Magpie Jack’s for a few drinks and an attempt to get her past the depression of having to leave New Mexico and the self-imposed cabin fever she’d been in since the end February. For a Thursday, the place was packed and the atmosphere was festive. Dessy explained the weekends were more for tourists anyway. The weekdays were when the locals had their fun. Sydney accepted this new paradigm with a smile that only widened when she heard one of her favorite Devil Makes Three songs playing from the speakers.

But I don't come 'round here

to meet nice people anyway.

And what the hell am I doing

drunk in the middle of the day?

And I can feel the departure

of all of my hard-earned pay,

But with the shades drawn

everything just drifts away…

As they sat down with their drinks, Sydney overheard one of the old-timers telling the story of someone named Lazarus Lankin, a name she’d heard once or twice since moving to Colorado. In her estimation, apparently, this man was somewhere between a rockstar and a mythological figure around the entirety of Levant County. When she would hear his name mentioned, she would shake her head and chuckle, thinking how one of the locals were talking about their own Paul Bunion.

The particular tale that was being told involved a nineteen year old Lankin disappearing into the Backcountry around Gaia’s Backbone for three weeks. Outside of a sister in Leeds, he had no family to speak of, but someone got concerned and convinced mountain rescue to go looking for him. Somewhere around the Death’s Head, William Connelly, the head of the county’s rescue, fell, breaking his leg along the scree. He was still tumbling toward the edge when someone grabbed him. Connelly looked up to see it was Lazarus Lankin.

“And you know what Lankin said?” The old-timer queried his audience. “He says; ’I was going to be home tomorrow. Did my sister ask about me?’”

“It was after that, nobody ever worried about Lankin again. I even told him I wanted him on my rescue teams,” Connelly, who was standing by the bar added. Laughs resounded throughout Magpie Jack’s.

“Jesus Christ,” Sydney muttered with a slight smile. “Who is this guy?”

She was starting to look out the window, sipping her beer, when she heard another commotion erupt from the bar. The old-timers were whooping and hollering as though a game-winning point had been scored during a very important game. She looked up to see a man with chin-length rust colored dreadlocks grabbing a glass of red wine.

“Natty Dreadlocks,” Sydney mused loud enough for Dessy to hear. Pointing, she said; “There is bravest and most secure man here; drinking wine in a mountain bar.”

“Sydney, my dear,” Dessy began with tone suspended between admiration and arousal. “That is Lazarus Lankin.”

Perhaps the shock was obvious, because she could hear her friend giggling at her reaction. There was something to Lankin, this much was true, but he certainly didn’t come across like a rockstar or Paul Bunion. His angular features gave him an almost otherworldly appearance. He seemed to view the gathered parties at the bar with a sort of feline detachment, only responding when it seemed to suit him.

“The man behind the myth,” Sydney said, trying to regain her composure. “Not too bad, and I generally don’t find dreadlocks attractive on someone with his skin tone.”

“You and every other girl in Levant County’s found him a looker,” Dessy said. “I’d wager even Ira Milligan’s had a crush on him at one point.” She noticed how Sydney was looking at her. “Hey, Marty and I haven’t always been married.” She paused again to take a deep, almost excited, breath. “Those eyes…”

Sydney felt those gray orbs burning into her before she glanced over to notice that Lankin was looking right at their table. He excused himself to the bar with a quick smile and the slight raising of his wine glass. His movements were fluid and sure. Predatory, in their purpose. He closed the distance between the bar and the table effortlessly. Sydney found herself thinking of Himalayan documentary she watched once featuring snow leopards as he approached.

“Desdemona,” Lankin began as he came to the table, reaching out an arm to scoop her up in a hug. “It’s been a bit. How’ve you been?”

“Since right before it really started snowing, Lazarus,” she said as she reciprocated his hug and stole a lingering kiss along his darkly bronze-colored cheek. “I’m happy to see you.”

“Better watch it, Marty might get jealous,” he quipped. “The fact he’s not here to accompany a lovely young lady such as you is nothing short of a shock.”

“Poker game with Orin down in Leeds,” Dessy replied. “Enough of an excuse for a girls’ night out with an old college pal.”

“Whose name is…?” Lankin’s gaze focused upon Sydney. She wasn’t sure if she should feel flattered, Dessy’s level of excitement, or fear at the intense curiosity directed at her.

“Sydney,” she said, gingerly extending her hand. “Sydney Pollock.”

“Nice to meet you, Sydney, Sydney Pollack,” Lankin’s grip was firm, but strangely friendly.

“Oh, it’s just Sydney,” she giggled without even thinking about it. The heat in her cheeks told her she was blushing.

“That’s a very exotic name, Just Sydney,” Lankin teased as he slowly released his grip on her hand. “Where are you from?”

“Sydney,” she insisted, catching herself giggling again. “I just moved here from New Mexico. A place called Prague. Doubt you ever heard of it”

“I’ve been there,” Lankin said with a sort of off-handed civility. “A lovely place. Great canyoneering.” His gaze became suddenly even more intense and predatory as he cocked his head to the side inquisitively. “What is it you’re running and hiding from?”

She felt herself go cold. In the stories she’d heard, Lankin possessed a certain knack for figuring things out. Secrets were supposedly impossible to keep from him. Some locals guessed it was because his sister was apparently psychic, though Lankin would dismiss such things as mere luck.

“I needed a change,” Sydney said defensively. A lie neither she, Dessy, or her inquisitor believed.

“The way you’ve holed yourself up in one of Ira’s apartments all winter would speak to the contrary,” Lankin said as if he was discussing the weather. “But hopefully the coming of warmer weather will draw you out.”

“And what about you…?” Sydney began.

“My name is Lazarus Lankin,” he replied, almost unconcerned. “But I’m sure Desdemona already mentioned that. You can call me either Lazarus or Lankin. I don’t really care.”

“Well, what about you, Mister Lankin?” Sydney started again in a formal tone. “What do you do?”

“Many things,” he said, his eyes locking with hers’. “Amongst them is giving straight answers to direct questions.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Dessy broke in. “As much fun as this is to watch and all, do you two want to go shoot some pool? There’s a table open, and, Lazarus, Sydney here could give you a run for your money.”

“How could I possibly turn down an invitation like that, Desdemona?” He inquired rhetorically before returning his inquisitive gaze to Sydney. “And yourself, Just Sydney?”

“I’d love to,” any defensiveness she’d felt previously melted into anticipation. If nothing else, she wanted to get to know this man behind so many stories.

“Well, I require more wine,” Lankin said, finishing his glass. “I’ll get your next rounds as well, unless Grizz decides to.” He started to walk away, pausing only briefly to look over his shoulder at Sydney. “Rack them up, Just Sydney.”

She watched him walk back to the bar, purposeful and predatory in his movements. Her face was flush and she found herself trembling slightly, although it had nothing to do with fear, either old or new. A hand on her wrist, Dessy’s, got her to jump unintentionally. There was a look on her friend’s face she recognized from back in college; one of playful knowing.

“You’re doomed,” she giggled, like a very young girl privy to a very big secret.

100 Words; Assam

2011-11-08T16:06:00.001-07:00

You introduced me to assam many, many years ago. It was the last autumn my grandmother was alive. Back then, I would imagine a civilization that was tiered and terraced. Ancient, but perhaps not.

I return from walkabout and put on my whore-red kettle. She screams to me whilst I whip myself a bowl of daal. Assam steeps in the boiling water. It seems to be in context.

These days I live somewhere tiered and terraced. Ancient, but perhaps not. I still have assam now and again. My grandmother has been gone a very long time now.

Same as you...

Getting On

2011-11-04T18:21:00.002-06:00

It must be getting on to be winter. The snows have started to fall. Along the highest peaks, in the shady spots of open areas, and on the north faces there is a base coat of white, which will last until the earliest days of summer. There are places up on the tundra where it never, ever melts, and that's just the way of it.

My daughter thinks I delight in frightening tourists. Perhaps this baseless accusation comes from when I've spoken to some of them during a snowstorm. It's always someone from somewhere that snow is something seen on screens and told of in fantastic stories. They think it's supposed to be all fluffy and pretty like some greeting card. The idea that snow could have a more menacing aspect seems unfathomable.

"It was so slippery and scary driving in it!" One might all but cry. "I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life! You should tell anyone that thinks to get out on the roads to turn back or take tranquilizers!"

"Maybe," I say off-handedly. "But there's always the next storm."

Their eyes widen and their jaws go slack. Sometimes, you can almost catch the scent of urine. A sadistic man would find this amusing.

"You mean there's more?" They'll ask, like our conversation is some sort of infomercial. I may or may not chuckle. I might or might not growl a little, the sound crossed somewhere between a feral snow leopard and a very hungry crocodile.

"There's more!" I say. And, despite remarks to the contrary, there has never been a demonic smirk on my face when I've uttered that phrase, because I am not a sadistic man.

It must be getting on to be winter. Fires are a daily occurrence. The scent, and, on cooler days, the sight, of wood smoke is as expected and the khaki coloring of the south faces between the evergreens. Heavier coats and sweaters are worn with more sincerity. Only the truly eccentric and woefully unprepared are seen about in things like shorts and flip-flops. Those of us who experience pains through our frames become increasingly aware of the shifts in barometer and temperature. My own twisted skeleton snaps, crackles, and pops like the foundation of an old, old, house and brittle old black widow webs.

It must be getting on to be winter. The cast of light has changed. Gone is the softness of summer's glow. The daylight seems thin and distant and brief. As the world tilts upon its axis with the shifting of the seasons, the sun hides behind peaks longer and longer. Where I live, it will not be long at all before the sun does not emerge from behind the ridge line for six weeks of long dark. This is the closest I will ever come to living in Alaska, and I know there are friends of mine from back in that past life of the greater metroplex who are convinced I am insane because of this.

It must be getting on to be winter. My thoughts turn inward. More philosophical and introspective and metaphysical. Out on walkabout, I can feel the Divine much more intimately than when curled in front of the fire with a hot cup of tea. It is not that during winter I feel detached from it, but I am not out in the bush as much. My meditations are different. Colder. Darker.

It must be getting on to be winter. I find myself thinking more and more of the dead. The first anniversary of the bruja's death is in but a couple weeks, and what would've been Jibril's forty-first birthday is at month's end. The second anniversary of my mother's passing and eight years for my grandmother occur in the deepest of winter. Depending upon the year, Jibril died right before, or on, the vernal equinox. It will always be winter to me. I can think of others who have walked on during the cold times; my great grandmother, my grandfather, and my father's mother. Yet, hypocritically, I find it difficult think of the birthdays of those I care for who still draw breath; my daughter, my father, Sabina, Madam Lung, the gypsy, and Lee.

But perhaps my hypocrisy knows no bounds...

It must be getting on to be winter. I catch myself wanting to sleep more, despite how often my biologics will only allow for a few very short and fitful hours. Hibernation holds a certain sense of eroticism to those with fucked up sleeping patterns, or maybe that's just me, and I'm a different breed of cat.

It must be getting on to be winter. There is anxiety. I worry we'll freeze. That we'll starve. The warmer times are so bountiful, whilst winter is the lean time that tests you; not by blood and fire, but by ice and sheer force of will.

All of us, even those ardent snowbums, wonders at one point or another if it'll ever get warm again. Spring, summer, and autumn are all so finite. Winter is much like the dark and airless void behind the stars; vast and infinite and cold and unforgiving.

I pull away to look out the window, catching the sky as it shifts to the deepest blue of evening. There is another storm on its way. I can feel it down to the marrow of my twisted skeleton. As I take a sip of tea, every joint from my shoulder down snaps, crackles, and pops. With a growl and chuckle somewhere between resignation and acceptance, I lean forward once more.

It must be getting on to be winter. But so it goes. It is getting on to be time to hunker down.

Eyes of a Stranger

2011-11-01T12:47:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, I like to joke I've always been Buddhist, but the realization didn't dawn on me until my early twenties. With that joke, I've gone as far as to say Siddhartha stole my perceptions, therefore breaking one of the precepts. Never mind that, if there indeed was ever such an individual, he was around some twenty-five hundred years before I ever drew breath.

Thinking back, my first meditative zen moment was probably was probably when I was seven or eight. I was sitting in class at that private school I went to for whelps with special needs. Retard school, the neighborhood si li nan jen called it. I was seated by the window on what was either a nice autumn or spring day, watching the clouds.

At that age, clouds to me where these landmasses, which lumbered across the sky that sometimes resembled shapes. On this particular day, I noticed a puffy one, which kind of looked like a ram. Suddenly, right before my eyes, I saw it start to change shape. To dissolve, and, finally, fade away altogether. I was mystified. It was the first time I beheld impermanence. I began to watch the other clouds, noticing the same thing, and began to lose myself in the singular moment between the memories of the past and the dreams of the future.

A sharp tap on my shoulder broke that moment. My teacher. I had been staring out the window. Daydreaming. It got me in trouble. Still, there was a calm I felt, a similar sense of peace I would get during moments afterward, the larval stages of my reptile zen, which no one, not a teacher or even the si li nan jen could take away.

"You saw god," a neighbor kid, of more religious upbringing than I, told me later when I described the moment.

As a child, god, well, the Christian one, bore a striking resemblance to a puppet on one of those children's telly shows. King Friday, as I recall. Even as a kid, it was more than a little difficult to take that deity seriously.

Now, when I saw the film Clash of the Titans, and beheld Zeus for the first time, I saw a god I could at least be a little leery of. By molding clay, he could turn a mere mortal into something that looked like a satyr. I found that to be pretty impressive. Sort of like how Darth Vader could choke someone with just a look. It was the first time I found myself wondering if there might be more than one god, and some of them might be far badder than the one I thought looked like a fucking sock puppet.

But, I have always had a questioning streak of heresy in me, so I have never been god-fearing, no matter what deity it is. And, nowadays, the idea of one, or many, anthropomorphic beings that look upon Homo sapians with kindness, malice, or indifference is laughable. We would hardly rate in that kind of context.

Ever had one of those moments, looking back, when what you think was you is a total stranger? When you wonder how or why you were where you were or why you did what you did? Sure, it looks like you, but you cannot identify with that being whatsoever.

I have. Sometimes, during those moments when reality shifts and warps and reforms on me. I see that stranger, who looks frighteningly like me, and wonder just what in the name of almighty fuck happened. How or why. It feels like, from the standpoint of a perpetual watcher, I am observing someone else's life and trying to make sense of it.

Of course, there was a lesson and story in it. Those what-was-I-thinking-and/or-doing? moments helped shape this monster that is me. It was all important in some form or fashion. Part of how the story goes. I have long since let go of the concept of guilt. Guilt, like anger, is something, which can feed a dragon.

"What if I'm not the same person you met five years ago?" Someone asked me once.

"Isn't that a given?" I wanted to say, but it was a cold night. The words, hot in the back of my throat, froze and caught at the tip of my tongue. But perhaps those words did not need to be said. Such a concept should simply be understood.

In looking through the eyes of stranger, through my waxmoon reptile eyes, I realize the phantasm of self. During such meditations, I realize, in the singular moment between the memories of the past and the dreams of the future, it is kicked the fuck down to make way for a rebuilt and reinvented construct of the illusion we all call me. Such an insight gets me to give a little more allowance to the shape-shifters and chameleons of the world. They do the same thing all of us do in the cycles of samsara, just on a larger scale.

I can never be that little boy who was so amazed by a changing and dissolving cloud ever again. The one who thought there might just be many gods after seeing a film. The being who first purged these words will be slightly different than the one who proofreads and revises them. Such is the way. Every moment brings a new incarnation and perspective that wasn't there a moment before. We all revise and renew with every heartbeat and breath we take.

All things change in a dynamic environment. Even those who so stubbornly cling to a rose-colored incarnation, lifetimes before. They change too, as their ch'i rots, slowly drifting toward entropy. Unfocus your eyes, even if they are the eyes of a stranger, and, in the singular moment between the memories of the past and the dreams of the future, you will see it.

Winter's Foreplay

2011-10-26T14:25:00.001-06:00

Not that I'd ever accuse the media of overreacting, but when I saw the headline; Worst Storm in Two Seasons, I could not help but roll my eyes. Certainly, the first major snowstorm of the season, even and especially when it inundates the greater metroplex, can be a bit of nut-kicker as we all work on getting our snow legs again, but it is not the harbinger of a new ice age. By deep winter, at least in our little Sahel, if not the entire mountains, a snow like this will hardly be noticed.

At least I got to break in my new gators going to check the post, I told a friend via correspondence. Any old excuse to field-test recently acquired outdoor gear. We all get our kicks where we can.

At both our residences, my friend and I estimated about a foot of fresh powder. One of the young punk-rockers next door excitedly loaded up his snowboard to take full advantage of the day. There was the most wicked grin of joy upon his barely twenty-one year old face. With more of a resigned shrug than anything, I brewed my first infusion of lapsang souchong of the season. The beanie Sabina picked out for me, African in its coloration and design, does a good job of keeping my head warm. Whilst the cats elect to stay inside, the hounds enjoy romping through the snow.

Just the day before, I was out on walkabout in hiking shoes and a fleece vest, as opposed to the fleece coat, hard shell, and boots that it became a good idea to wear upon stepping outside. Two days prior, down below, in the metroplex, the temperature broke an eleven year old record. There were still dandelions around the house, and that red columbine, which I'm convinced is immortal, was standing tall. Though once the snow melts I'll find out whether or not that theory of the deathless blossom holds water. I could wax flippant about the cliche of what a difference a day makes, but I live in Colorado; the weather in this part of the world is given to being wacky, and in the High Country near the Roof of the World, doubly so.

As the day has progressed, the clouds have lifted a bit more. I can make out Mount Pendleton's twelve-thousand two-hundred seventy-five foot summit once more. There's just enough of a glare reflected from the snow I require darker eyewear when stepping out. The snowflakes, whilst still big and steady, do not fall with such urgency as they did earlier. Because I have nowhere I am required to be I can gaze out the window and find the ascetic of the day kind of pretty.

I find myself wondering if we will look back on this particular snow event as the first day of High Country winter or just a little foreplay of the coming season. One cannot be sure, and I learned a long time ago marking the shedding of seasonal skins around equinoxes and solstices to be more than a little silly. The landscape sloughs when it sloughs, and that's just the way of things. Trying to affix an annual date on a calendar stands as testimony to the hubris and folly of a species of half-bald primate that calls itself Man.

Topeka

2011-10-23T10:40:00.000-06:00

I was fifteen when I met her at a party, and it was love at first sight, or at least what passes for such a thing at fifteen years old. She had red hair, which she always insisted was strawberry blond and aquamarine colored eyes that shown like brilliant stars on a new moon night. Her complexion was that of cream with a light dusting of tasteful freckles. There was something within her, which just seemed to radiate. How could I have not been entranced?

The shyness I've had when it comes to girls was much worse then. After all, I am an aberration, being too tall, too skinny, with eyes too big for the rest of my face. Be that as it may, I had to say hello.

Now, even in a small southern town in rural North Carolina, with fuck all to do, drinking under twenty-one was illegal, and I have never ever broken that law-honest, no really, stop laughing. However, there was remarkable sweet drink called liquid courage. I may or may not have had quite a bit of this when I finally sucked up the courage to speak with her.

So, I introduced myself with, my full name, and asked her to marry me. She giggled and told me I was cute. We got to talking anyway. She was a year and a grade older than me, and wrote poems, short stories, and song lyrics for the local bands. It was a nice conversation, and I realized, despite being in love, or what passed for such during adolescence, at first sight, nothing was going to happen that night. Maybe not ever. Everything was going gay and fine until her possessive redneck boyfriend came up.

"That's my girlfriend," he said. I was fifteen, full beans and maybe or maybe not a lovely drink called liquid courage. My mouth got the better of me.

"I saw her first. Why don't you go and get your own?"

Then the switchblade came out. Whilst it's mostly faded away, I still have a small nick reminder mark of that on the left side of my chest. My friends jumped and handled the possessive redneck boyfriend, and she drug me into a water closet to make sure I wasn't severely damaged for talking to her. She broke up with that cat two days later.

It played out she was dyslexic too, and ended up in some of the same special-ed classes as the fucking indian and I. We all got to be friends, although there was always something a little deeper between us. She would help the fucking indian write ballads for his band whilst I was known to throw him a couple lines here and there on the more aggressive and darker tunes. My friend from China and her would talk about philosophy and psychology.

Although I was very much in love with this girl, and she did love me back, it was as if never really got our chance. Circumstances were never right, it seemed. Boyfriends and girlfriends. Wacky shit in between. It was intense, but I confess, it also sucked. Always just a kiss and grasp away, but right fucking in front of me.

Well, I should take that back, we did get a few days. In a sense, just once, we got a shot. How it all came together I no longer exactly recall. I do know I had my parents' house all to myself and took full advantage of it. Although, to this day, I maintain my heart is unbreakable, when she left, I did sustain a hairline fracture.

When I did run into her again, she was with a boy. I was with the fucking indian and my friend from China. She tried to whisper something sweet to me, to make me feel better about her being with someone else.

"Honeychild, we've always been together. We'll always be together."

I was seventeen at the time. My feelings were hurt. I Stiffened and growled and rose to my full height.

"Forgive the fuck out of me for wanting more."

And I walked away. In high school, a month can be a lifetime or more. That's how long I avoided her. The fucking indian used to joke we'd all find our special ones, soulmate is often the term used in modern parlance, in some greasy spoon diner in Topeka, Kansas. I'd never had the means or occasion to go there back then, having never lost anything in Kansas, but during that period, I was hoping someone would drop a nuclear weapon on it. If I'm miserable, so's everyone else.

When I did finally suck up the courage to speak with her again, I had every intention of apologizing. I had lost my temper and behaved badly. She once told me I was a southern gentleman, despite having been born in Colorado, and, in a single moment, I'd been a yang kuie tsu-a barbarian, as my friend from China would say. When I started speaking, working toward the apology, she placed her fingers on my lips.

"It's okay, don't worry about a thing."

I moved back to Colorado. We kept in contact, lost touch, renewed bonds, and so on over the years. We would sometimes joke we were lovers, in a weird dysfunctional way, which baffled most, but we were also very dear friends. There was a promise of staying in touch.

Sometime around when I got married, I found she was dating my friend from China and was nothing short of ecstatic for the both of them. How could I not be? A year later, when my marriage had decomposed to ash, I was told they were betrothed.

My friend from China died. The details behind that are another story. It crushed her. Someone told me that her finance and I were the only two men she truly loved. One, time and place and circumstance always prevented it. The other was now gone. One of the last things I ever heard from down south before my father's mother died, was on a bitter cold winter's night getting on sixteen years ago. She had been killed in an accident, although it was speculated it might have been on purpose.

Topeka, Kansas, never seemed so fucking distant...

She was my first love, although we never really got a proper chance beyond those few days at my parents' house. To this day, I am a sucker for a southern accent. Not the hill billy hump-your-cousin-drawl, but that southern belle voice. When I hear honeychild or dearheart, my knees still can get a little wobbly.

Now and again, I get nostalgic. I think of my first love and smile. Just like I think of the good times of past relationships, no matter how they ended, and do the same thing. Supposedly, it's natural. Even if it wasn't, I have a hard time thinking it's wrong.

Sometimes, I think of that joke of a greasy spoon diner in Topeka, Kansas, and how many times I've used that jokes on cats I've known in the years since I first heard it. I muse dream girls and the fact that whilst I've met girls in greasy spoon diners, it was never in Topeka, Kansas. After all, I didn't lose anything in Kansas, so why would I need to go there to find something?

Sabina and I met in a vampire den within the borders of the greater metroplex. It took us a few years before we even noticed one another like that. We went out to coffee on more than one occasion, but it was more often than not coffeehouses like Paris on the Platte and Michelangelo's instead of greasy spoons. And yet, when I mentioned jumping off the end of the world and going into the mountains, she was right there with me. Sometimes being more fanatical and aggressive than I.

When my father and I drove back to North Carolina to collect the last of his mother's effects before the southern relatives vulture-carved up the estate he'd been denied we passed through Kansas. Neither of us were overly pleased with this circumstance. Be that as it may, remembering an ancient joke from my adolescence, I could not help but chuckle as we drove through Topeka. My mind skipped the light fantastic, remembering a girl with aquamarine colored eyes that shown like brilliant stars on a new moon night who had, by then, been years gone, and the girl with doe eyes that glittered like prisms and abalone shells waiting for me back in Colorado when I finally got back home.

Firestorm

2011-10-19T09:59:00.000-06:00

Although the song is about nine-elven-and one of the more profound tunes upon the subject-it's being playing within the walls of my skull since waking, and I found it to be in context...

I am looking out at the sweeping vista of a cyberpunk cityscape. The monoliths of downtown gleam in the soft afternoon light. Outside is warm and the sky is clear. I really wish I could be outside to enjoy the day. Maybe even have some ice cream. It is just a day or two before Americans mark their independence by detonating low-grade explosives. Occasionally, the whistle or pop of a firecracker echoes through the streets.

But then there is one whistle that doesn't sound like any firecracker I have ever heard. My eyes are drawn to the window and the sky above the monoliths. I didn't notice the fighter escort or the...bomber...before. It would be cliche the describe the sudden chill running down my twisted spine or the sinking feeling of dread in my belly.

First there is a bright flash, then, the boom!, which rattles me down to the marrow. And then, I see it...a column of smoke and fire and brimstone raising up like a great serpent from bowels of the earth. A mushroom cloud. The monoliths are blasted to shrapnel and ash in the blink of an eye. There is a marching wall of fire advancing beyond the initial blast-point.

"Holy fuck..." I somehow manage to say, my eyes riveted to unspeakable carnage I'm witnessing.

And I'm running. I can feel the heat at my back. A gale that sucks the air from my lungs. I Skid behind a pillar and curl into a ball, moving on pure instinct of fight or flight. With what's coming, this might be the one safe place.

The building around me disappears. Stripped away in the rapist tearing of sound and fury of violated steel, concrete, and glass. I can hear screaming, but whether it's me, the other victims of this firestorm, or the fire and shockwave itself, ripping by at supersonic speeds, I don't know.

... All Hell's a'comin'...

My eyes fly open. It's dark. The small hours. There's soft breathing next me, the warmth of another body in the bed. I stare into the darkness for what feels like forever, trying to get my bearings. Trying to figure out which is the waking and which was the dream.

I sit up, still shaking. Whistles, explosions, and screams still echo in my ears. I can still feel inferno heat. My eyes flit to the clock, and I see it'll still be a few hours before the dawn.

So I get up. My, naked form chilled by sweat and autumnal atmosphere, and go to the loo, splashing some water on my face. It's been a few years since I've had this dream; but it's shown up every-so-often for as long as I can remember.

Sometimes, when I've had the dream, I've had to go find someone. Usually a family member, friend, or lover. Sometimes, I'm just looking up at an inferno sky, feeling the supernatural heat whilst poison snowflakes rain down. I wonder if I'll be able to make it to some place safe, or if such a place even exists anymore.

One ten pence dream analysis I once came across suggested such visions are harbingers of chaos. I've had the dream during stable periods in my life, and no great chaos came to tear it asunder, casting doubt on that theory. Besides, I've learned to accept chaos, if not sometimes embrace it like a phantasmal lover. I wonder if it's a byproduct of the environment; I grew up during the tail end of that ice, ideology, and phallus-waving war-that-was-not-a-war between the American Empire and Soviet Union. It seemed there was almost always the pall of an exchange of fire and brimstone between the two powers. Even nowadays, doomsayers might bring it up, but from other nation-states or even shadowy fringe groups. Maybe it doesn't matter, because the dream is always terrifying.

I come back to bed, taking a liberal gulp of water from the glass I keep by my side of the bed. An effort to wash away the dry sensation and the cobwebs in my throat that prevented me from screaming in my sleep. The sights, sounds, and smells of the dream have faded a little, but are still there, like residual hauntings at the edge of consciousness. Phantasmal demons waiting for me behind the wall of sleep.

Still, I lay back down. I get as comfortable as I can, given the circumstances. My joints ache as though I was curled into a ball. I close my eyes, but I realize the futility of it. I had the dream. It's rather doubtful I'm going to sleeping again any time soon. In fact, it may be days before I sleep once more.

Epilogue; Forever Regain'd

2011-10-11T16:07:00.002-06:00

Hell’s Watchtower was a jagged citadel of bare rock, which loomed over the Death’s Head by nearly seventeen hundred vertical feet. Though it was considered an advanced climb, one that some would even call suicidal, the view at the summit was all-encompassing. The Backcountry wilderness area surrounding, which some of the county locals called Gia’s Backbone, seemed to stretch out forever and then some. On a clear day, the view seemed postcard and calendar quality.

It was one of those spectacularly clear days. For the last week, there hadn’t been any of the usual afternoon thunderstorms. Even if a storm suddenly did manifest, he’d been on Hell’s Watchtower enough times to know of several places he could shelter, riding out perhaps any storm, although, he knew better than to have such arrogant thoughts.

Tarot was quite accommodating when Lankin asked for a small amount of Donavan’s ashes. The only reason he gave was a private matter between the two of them. Shortly after Bethany’s death, Donavan requested Lankin scatter both of their ashes off of Hell’s Watchtower, since that was where they were trying to go when the storm hit. Lankin offered to take young Jimmy when the time came, but Donavan shook his head.

“This is between me, you, and the memory of Bethany, Lazarus,” he said. “If my boy never goes up that rock, I’ll be happy.”

From his pack, Lankin pulled the bag that contained the little bit of Donavan’s ashes and then a jar, which contained Bethany’s. Both looked like fine grayish powder. He smiled bittersweetly as he poured the bag into the jar, replaced the lid and began to shake the ashes together. Everything mingled almost instantly and the sound of shaking ashes was that of forever.

The night before they left on that fateful, and fatal, hike, Bethany told Lankin she hoped if he ever decided to retire, he would just go off into the Backcountry and never come back. In her mind, that was where he truly belonged. With a smile, he mentioned perhaps both she and Donavan belonged out there just as much, if not more, than him.

Upon the summit of Hell’s Watchtower, he found himself making good on markers; the funerary request of Donavan and Lankin’s thought that Donavan and Bethany belonged in the Backcountry as well. With a heavy sigh, he once more opened the jar, stepped to a ledge, and began to scatter the ashes to the tundra wind. The sun was warm upon his wiry frame as the memory and matter of his friends floated along breezes that whispered of forever. Despite the melancholy of the moment, Lankin found himself smiling. He had gotten his friends home.

Starlight, Star Bright

2011-10-09T10:28:00.000-06:00

As long as I can remember, I have loved watching the the stars. Those celestial candles , as I sometimes call them to myself, afforded me my first bits of reptile zen. On a warm summer's night, not too long ago, over a glass of wine and a chiminea, I told Sabina we were gazing upon the hieroglyphs of the Divine. Although what exactly those hieroglyphs are saying is a riddle that has puzzled far more bipeds than me. Through my watching of the stars, I've able to hop-scotch the quantum and travel time, knowing the days of dinosaurs, dragons, and titans, just by looking up. The first story I ever truly told was based upon the stars.

I could give a list of things I disliked about my ten years in the greater metroplex that shrinks or grows, dependent upon the day. There was only but one thing I ever really hated about my time there, and that was the amount of stars I could, or more to the point could not, see. Perhaps one needs to be a child of the wild, having seen the celestial candles beyond the monkey lights of cities to understand what I'm on about.

Lifetimes ago, the fucking indian and I were listening to hair metal. Which band, or bands, dwindles in importance as I get older, since oh so many sounded oh so much the same. We were smoking cigarettes and listening to music. The fucking indian was telling darker tales of his not-so-nice childhood before the death of his parents and being taken under the one wing of his grandfather, who was one of the most amazing storytellers I've ever encountered. My waxmoon reptile eyes were transfixed on the deliciously clear and starry night before us. The musics, his dark tales, were incidentals. Backbeats to my observations of the heavens.

"You're not even fucking listening to me!" He growled at one point, and to a sad degree, he was right.

"Look there," I said, after a long drag of my cigarette and pointing to the sky. "The whole of human existence has happened there. Empires, kingdoms, tribes, and religions have risen and fallen. The greatest of accomplishments and the grandest of failures. All of it, under the celestial candles. Look up! No matter what's happened down here, they've stayed the same. That, elder brother, is maybe our constant. The one thing, no matter what, you can believe in."

The fucking indian took a long drag from his cigarette and exhaled his poisons in a cloud of dragon's breath. I knew his temper, and feared he might just hit me. Instead, a smile formed across his face.

"You sound like my grandfather, you know that?" He said.

"That's about the coolest thing anyone's ever said to me," I said, but then I pointed at the sky. "Look up now."

And we said nothing further, but just watched the stars, trying to ascertain the riddles contained in those hieroglyphs of the Divine...

The White Gold

2011-10-08T08:55:00.002-06:00

My sister, an avid skier, calls it the white gold. Although, in its fresh form, even and especially under a full moon's light, I always think of diamonds. Or perhaps the silver, which was mined by the ton from these mountains back in antiquity.

She hopes for a boon of this substance for the coming season, whilst I shudder at the prospect. Last year was a record; fifty feet measured on Loveland Pass alone. During the runoff, and subsequent early monsoons, I helped fill and place sandbags for some neighbors along more low-lying parts near the river. An experience I'd rather not repeat any time soon.

It goes without saying skiers, boarders, and other forms of snowbums are touching themselves in their no-no places over the local meteorological prophecy, and/or, like me, looking out their window...

I was up early with the hounds and a shovel whilst the kettle boiled. It was an opportunity to field test some recently acquired outerwear. We have ideas of places to go snowshoeing, though I was hoping to wait a bit longer. At least a month.

When the time came, I imagined I'd be brewing lapsang souchong for the circumstance, but I do not. At least not yet. I start my day with Kenyan black. Defiance. It may be autumn, coming into winter here, but it's springtime, coming into summer in parts of Africa.

Handing Out a Brick

2011-10-04T18:55:00.000-06:00

Magpie Jack’s looked very much the part of a small mountain bar in a small mountain town. The décor had not been changed in at least ten years, but it may have been longer than that. At certain times, mostly during the winter and some weekends, the staff would still allow smoking-of various substances-inside and those scents were prevalent, along with those of beer and grease from the kitchen. There was a group of regulars who looked as though they had occupied the same barstools since the sixties, and, in the case of Grizz, who was also partial owner of the bar, at least a decade, but maybe even longer than that.

It was a quiet Tuesday night when Lankin, accompanied by Tarot and Whisper, walked in. Only Grizz, and his closest circle of old-timers occupied the establishment. Aside from being Marrakech’s bar, it was also one of the main restaurants and social gathering spots. Although law dictated those underage should leave by nine at night, everyone knew who was of age and not, and, therefore, who got served. In a small mountain town with no law enforcement outside of the county sheriff in Colorado’s High Country, often the rules were bent to the point of near breaks.

There were glances directed at Tarot, which was far from surprising. Everyone knew who his dad was. Lankin pointed for his young companions to go sit near the pool tables as he walked toward the bar. Frank was bartending. Without even asking, a glass of red wine was poured and pushed in front of him.

“Haven’t seen you in awhile, Lankin,” Frank said politely. “How’ve you been?”

“As of this moment, incredibly well,” he replied, taking a sip of wine. His eyes scanned the bar, taking note of the unpaid tabs. There was one that held his attention. “You can take that tab down, Franklin, you know.”

“Not until it’s paid, that’s the rule. You don’t like it, talk to Grizz or Jack.”

“Oh, Grizz,” Lankin called lazily over his shoulder. “I’m going to pay a dead man’s tab because of your rule.”

“That’s fine. By the way, your next glass and whatever the kids are getting is on me.”

“Thank you, Grizz,” Lankin said, taking a look at the tab that once belonged to Donavan. “Fifty dollars…” his gaze focused on Frank. “I’m amazed Donnie was able to come in here and drink again owing you all that much.”

“The son of a bitch came in here, already three sheets to the wind, swearing he had money.”

“So you served him?”

“Sure, why not? I was on my own and it was a slow night,” Frank said.

“So he paid up then?”

“No!” Frank snapped, his fist slamming down on the bar. “The fucker drinks another twenty’s worth of booze, and that’s all he’s got in his pocket!”

“Maybe you should’ve asked for the money up front, Franklin,” Lankin mused. Over by the pool tables, Tarot paused from the game he had started with Whisper.

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” Frank muttered. “As you can imagine, I was pretty pissed. The bastard had pulled one over on me.”

“Of course,” Lankin said casually. “Is that when you started spiking Donnie’s drinks with antifreeze?”

Frank’s face hardened into a sneer. His fists clenched and unclenched. Without even trying to be subtle, he reached under the bar and grabbed what often called the drunk-be-good-stick, which was part of an old pool cue. Frank began to smack the stick against the palm of him hand. Lankin’s head tilted to the side, inquisitively. His eyes narrowed slightly, and a rather predatory smirk began to cross his lips.

“What are you accusing me of, Lankin?” He hissed.

“Nothing. I’m merely asking you a question; when did you start feeding Donnie antifreeze?”

“You the fucking sheriff now? A new credential for the great Lazarus Lankin?”

“You’re getting rather defensive, Franklin. An innocent man certainly wouldn’t be whipping out the drunk-be-good-stick at the mention of feeding Donnie Tabor antifreeze, now would he?”

The drunk-be-good-stick was slammed down on the bar, knocking over Lankin’s glass of wine. Frank rattled it against the bar two more times, causing everyone in Magpie Jack’s to focus upon the exchange. Lankin seemed unconcerned about Frank’s attempt at intimidation.

“You spilled my wine, Franklin,” he remarked off-handedly.

“And?”

“And I’d like another glass, on the house, of course,” Lankin said, his tone both cold and exceedingly polite. “And while you’re pouring, you can tell us all why you decided to poison Donavan Tabor and be so damned sloppy about it.”

“Fuck your wine!” Frank shouted. “And so what if I put antifreeze in Donnie’s next few drinks? I was doing everyone a favor. Even you know that.”

“You killed a man over fifty dollars,” Lankin said softly. “And because he pulled a fast one on you.” His gaze intensified as he leaned forward. “Really, Franklin, are you that fucking petty?”

Frank raised the drunk-be-good-stick over his head. The look in his eyes was that of someone with very little left to lose. Lankin held his gaze, a smirk, which might be like that of a mountain lion before it pounced, was painted upon his lips.

“You don’t want to, Franklin,” he said calmly. Then, his gaze shifted. “And neither do you.”

During the exchange, Tarot had snuck behind the bar, his own pool cue in hand. He had brought it up, ready to strike Frank without a second thought. Lankin reproaching him caused him to lower his impromptu weapon instantly.

“But, Lankin…” he started.

“Tarot, listen to him,” Whisper said from the pool tables.

Frank turned to Tarot with every intention of hitting someone with the drunk-be-stick. In a flash, he found himself being pulled across the bar and all but thrown into a barstool. The drunk-be-good-stick was in the hand of Lankin, and it was held against Frank’s Adam’s apple as though it was an afterthought.

“I believe I said you didn’t want to, Franklin,” Lankin growled. “Of course, I might have said it to you in Latin or Swahili. That happens on occasion.” He then turned his attention to Tarot. “Jimmy, go call dispatch and have them send someone up here yesterday and tell them it’s because I fucking say so.”

“Okay, Lankin,” there were understandable tears forming in Tarot’s eyes as he went to make to the call.

“I should fucking kill you!” Frank spat.

“I think one person a summer’s more than enough, Franklin,” Lankin said coldly. “Be grateful I’m giving you to the sheriff.”

It was then that Grizz approached them both. Frank smirked, thinking he might be saved. Into his early eighties, Grizz was another bear of a man who had worked in mines and been a lumberjack. Despite his age, he’d lost none of his vitality. As he walked up, Lankin began to calculate the possibility of confrontation, knowing the other few old-timer’s reactions would hang directly on Grizz’s action.

The old man stepped behind the bar and picked up Lankin’s spilled glass. He filled it to the top. With a bitter smile, he handed Lankin the glass, which was accepted with a similar smile and the inclination of the head.

“You spilled Lazarus’ wine, Frank,” Grizz said.

“But…”

“You killed a man in my bar!” Grizz roared.

“I was helping,” Frank said weakly.

“Bullshit!” Grizz snapped. “Everybody knew Donnie was drowning and with a drowning man, you throw him a rope.” He paused long enough to pour himself a shot of whiskey and press it to his lips. “But instead, you handed him a brick.”

100 Words; Down Below

2011-10-03T15:45:00.002-06:00

We take in a museum by virtue of gifted tickets. Free is my favorite price. Dinosaurs, mummies, and dioramas of Africa.

In our Sahel, the aspens are at their peak and lookie-loos the world over come to marvel. The scent of wood smoke perfumes the air.

Down below, the foliage is still green. Shorts and sandals. The omens of autumn haven't manifested.

I can sometimes get a little nostalgic for the city, despite the claustrophobic crush of concrete, steel, and glass. There were some good times down below. But then I get back to my mountains, and the nostalgia fades.

***

In giving credit where credit is due; the100 Words concept comes from Mr. London Street. Although, a few other storytellers of whom I admire have been given to doing it as well.

The Speed of Suicide

2011-09-29T20:14:00.002-06:00

Tarot’s head was spinning. He wasn’t sure if it was the second glass of wine or what Lankin had just told him. Maybe it was a combination of both.

He could remember his dad taking him camping once, when he was six. It was in the forests just below tree-line on a clear day during High Summer. They were not too far from the Death’s Head and Hell’s Watchtower. Tarot remembered staring quite intently at the two features as his dad set up the tent.

“Can we go up one of those, Dad?” He asked.

“This is the closest I’ll ever take you to either of them,” Donavan replied, upon recollection, there was bitterness in that answer.

“Why not?” The younger Tarot was hurt his dad didn’t want to take him on such a grand adventure. “Doesn’t Lankin go up there all the time?”

“He does,” Donovan said coldly. “But Lankin has nine lives. You and I don’t.”

“But…”

“That’s the end of it,” Donavan stated firmly.

“But…”

“I said the end, James!!”

They never went hiking or camping again. Although he didn’t know the details, he knew his father’s problems with the Death’s Head and Hell’s Watchtower had to do with his mom. Lankin was tangled in there too. In the years to come, Tarot would watch his dad drink more and more, slowly committing suicide with every sip.

“It’s not fair,” Tarot muttered, sipping his wine.

“Fair?!?” Lankin snorted. “Fair?!? I’ve recovered the bodies of hikers that make me look like an amateur because of a simple misstep or because that day their heart decided to just stop working. Once, I came across a man from New York coming down off the Death’s Head in shorts, a tank-top, and flip-flops, acting like it was a stroll through Central Park and looking at all the other trekkers like they were stupid for having their gear.” He poured himself another glass and slowly brought it to his mouth. “Fair…there’s no such thing.”

“When I saw Grizz, he said my dad had been drowning,” Tarot mused. “Ira said something like that too.”

“Pretty much,” Lankin said absently. “Grizz would talk about throwing Donnie a rope, and I think anybody who cared about him did once or twice.”

“Obviously, he didn’t take them,” Tarot muttered.

“Oh, he might dry out on occasion for a month or two. You probably saw that.” Lankin replied. “But he was pretty bent on being in that bottle.”

“Well, he finally did it. He finally killed himself.”

“Maybe not.”

Tarot’s eyes widened. Lankin leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. A slight scowl formed on his lips.

“I was going to come and find you if you hadn’t come over,” he started. “It would appear there was antifreeze in your dad’s system when he died.”

“Antifreeze?”

“Yes, antifreeze,” Lankin repeated. “Neither a pleasant or particularly quick way to die, and it wouldn’t have fit your dad anyway; he was pacing himself on his suicide.”

“You think my dad was murdered?”

“It seems pretty likely.”

“Who do you think would do that?”

“It hardly matters,” Lankin replied in an almost off-handed manner. “Almost everyone in this county has wanted him dead at one time or another. That includes the distinguished Ira Milligan and even myself.”

“Well, I want to know who did it!” Tarot exclaimed.

“I’ll help you, Jimmy,” Lankin said calmly.

“I thought you said it doesn’t matter who did it,” Tarot’s voice carried sarcasm and desperation.

“It doesn’t” Lankin said as he sat back and sipped his wine. Then, his gaze hardened into an expression of predatory concentration. “But why matters quite a bit. And that’s what I want to know.”

Forever Lost

2011-09-26T14:46:00.002-06:00

They decided to treat it as their second honeymoon. It was the first time in three years either of them had been up on the Death’s Head. There were other camping and hiking trips, but this part of the Back Country had been neglected. Lankin harassed them about it, saying becoming parents made them soft. He didn’t believe either of them when they said their excursion had nothing to do with spiting him.

Jimmy was with Bethany’s mom for a week, so they had plenty of time. Aside from the Death’s Head, they wanted to climb Hell’s Watchtower as well. The original plan was to conquer both in the same day, but the dark clouds began to build early that day. Despite that, they were filled with a feeling of accomplishment.

“You think we’ll beat the rain down?” Bethany asked.

“I hope so,” Donovan said. “And I guess we’ll do the Watchtower tomorrow.”

“It’s a date, Mister!” Bethany said excitedly, giving a kiss that tasted of accomplishment and uncounted adventures waiting to be had and forever.

Between the Death’s Head and Hell’s Watchtower is a saddle of rock with a seven-hundred foot drop on one side down to jagged scree, known as the Abyss. It was here, still above tree-line, that the sky opened up on them; one of those storms with very little warning and a great deal of savagery. There was no choice but to press on.

“There’s that little cut in the rock on the other side,” Donavan yelled over the wind and rain. “We’ll hole up in there.”

“Not the way I imagined snuggling with you in the rain, Donnie,” Bethany called back.

“I imagined us snuggling on top of Hell’s Watchtower and it not raining.”

They inched along. The wind and rain seemed to intensify with each step, making their movement across the wet rock slow and precarious. Donavan took a small amount comfort in the fact he could see the cut they were going to shelter in. It wasn’t that much further.

There was a blinding flash and its accompanying roar, which echoed through saddle between the Death’s Head and Hell’s Watchtower. Donovan heard a loud pop and something that sounded like either a yelp or a scream. As he turned in its direction a scent filled his nose that reminded him of overdone meat that had been forgotten on a hot grill.

Bethany was staring at him in smoldering disorientation. Her skin was burned black in several places and blistering in others. The clothing that wasn’t melting onto her was slowly burning even as the rain put out the last fires across her small frame. She took one drunken step toward him before pitching sideways.

“Donnie…?”

And she toppled over the edge, taking every dream, every hope, every promise of forever with her. At first all he could do was stare in disbelief. Her body plummeted, the last remnants of embers winking out as she raced to the bottom.

He didn’t remember how he got to the edge and not fall off himself. His screams were muffled by the wind and rain. He searched along the bottom desperately, trying to see where she landed, but the rain obscured his vision.

Another flash and another roar brought him back to the situation at hand; he was above tree-line, out in the open, in the middle of a rather brutal thunderstorm. The next bolt of lightning might very well get him. There was still little Jimmy to think of. His young son was all Donovan had left of Bethany now. With that resolve, he pushed toward the cut in the rock on his hands and knees, blinded by the wind and the rain and his own tears.

***

Lankin stood looking at the scree-field that marked the belly of the Abyss. Perhaps at another time he might have found the differing perspective at least a little interesting. As it stood, he found the scene in front of him quite repellant. The hurried footsteps and labored breathing was authored by someone he was not looking forward to talking to. With a deep breath, he turned around.

Donovan Tabor was not a small man. Some of the old-timers likened him to a bear; slow to anger, but of incredible strength. He could be a fierce protector and could survive a good long time in the Back Country by knowing when to forage and when to hunker down.

Lankin, by contrast, was the cat; enigmatic. Aloof glances and sphinx-like smiles. He was solitary, often disappearing for long stretches of time, only coming back right before anyone really considered worrying about him. Down at Magpie Jack’s, Grizz would tell stories, with perhaps a little whiskey-lanced embellishment, but the moral of the stories were all the same; Lankin was an odd one that no one in their right mind would want to tangle with.

Bethany had been the glue between the two men; this willowy, almost sprite-like girl with ash-blond hair, whose three year old son was almost her mirror image. Lankin loved her like a sister and Donavan as his wife and mother of their son. Bethany, as with a great many things between the two of them, was the reason they stood facing one another in the belly of the Abyss.

“Did you find her?” Donavan wheezed. Lankin slowly nodded. “Well?!?”

“I’ll take care of it, Donnie.”

“Don’t I get to see her?” He felt himself tensing. There was a look in Lankin’s eyes he did not like.

“You don’t want to.”

With a roar, Donavan pushed his way past, although, it was not as if Lankin offered up much resistance, which might have seemed out of character if any rational thought was given in the heat of the moment. Blindly, he was running to the scree. It was only at the edge did he catch sight. In that moment, Donovan’s legs gave out from under him. Something low and primal that tasted of bile and lament clawed its way of his throat.

Her charred body was carelessly splayed across the rock like a ragdoll. He had two days from when he got down and got help to prepare himself for the sight, and had reconciled himself to the burns and broken bones. It was the fact her eyes were now empty sockets and some of the unburned flesh had been picked at by something, most likely a raven, that brought him to his knees. There was still the disoriented look on her face he remembered from right before she fell. A look that seemed to beg questions;

Why? What about forever?

He was crying. For what felt like days, he laid, curled into a ball on the tundra, being wracked by long sobs. Finally, he shakily brought himself back up and turned to see Lankin watching, his head cocked almost inquisitively to the side.

“I tried to warn you,” he said with as much warmth as seemed possible for Lazarus Lankin.

Donovan lashed out, his fist connecting firmly with Lankin’s jaw. His head spun around and returned to its original position in a flash. Single trickles of blood began to ooze from his left nostril and the corner of his mouth. His eyes narrowed, but did not waver.

“Do you feel better now, Donnie?” Lankin growled.

Once more, he pushed past. Tears again began to flow. He found himself blindly running away from the scene letting out a bellow of lament that caused the mountains themselves to shudder.

***

“They both died up there,” Lankin muttered as he took a hearty swig from his wine glass. “The difference being your mom may have been the lucky one.”

“How can you say that?” Tarot inquired in shock.

“Because, relatively speaking, with your mother it was quick,” Lankin replied. He paused briefly to drain the rest of his wine in a single gulp. “It took your dad fifteen years to catch up.”

Bad Belly Dance

2011-09-24T09:22:00.001-06:00

One night, years and years ago, a tribe of belly dancers were moving all succubus-like across the floor in the room of portraits. The movements of serpents and ferrets under a Lennon Moon. There was something about it that almost bordered upon obscene, and not that happy sort of obscenity, which one finds amusing to watch.

No, this was a bit vulgar...

It's a sad thing to say. Generally, I enjoy the sight of a good belly dancer. Even a few bad ones. Women I know lust after rockstars and film actors, I appreciate belly dancers. It's like that.

It wasn't the case that go around. I was queerly offended, even a little traumatized, but I was not sure why. For some reason, it seemed cheap and dirty. That was how I felt watching it.

I hid myself in alcove, with decent lighting, to transcribe what I saw on to bamboo paper. An artifact from an exotic land, wrapped in a leaf, which I'd gotten from some random shop along the way, so I could purge just that much more, when the muse grabbed me.

The first thing I spewed out was about the belly dancers, and how they seemed rather unlady-like. I had to get the words out. Try to make sense of it, though that moment of understanding has not yet come. I was offended by a tribe of belly dancers.

I don't think I've ever quite recovered...

An Eventful Wedesday

2011-09-22T09:26:00.001-06:00

It was a painfully slow day at the Gas n’ Grub. Of course, in Marrakech, Wednesdays were never known as particularly exciting. It was worse in the winter. Tourists rarely stopped in, even to use the bathrooms of whichever of the few businesses of town until the weekends. Locals made their plans for recreation during the week, when out-of-towners didn’t clog the trails and waterways. Business happened on the weekends. But Wednesdays in Marrakech were a day of rest.

Tarot normally worked the swing shift, but Orin had some sort of business all the way down in Denver, which required him to be occupied until much later in the day. It worked out, after his shift, he was going to go with Whisper over to Petra to look at a potential place, and then they were going to head back to Melbourne, to a mutual friend’s, to get a little stoned and play some video games.

After staying the one night with Lankin, Tarot had been crashing at Ira’s house. She went as far as to offer him a permanent place to stay once he and Whisper got hand-fasted. It was a sweet offer, but Tarot wanted his own space, not just a rented room in someone’s house. Ira smiled sweetly at this, saying perhaps he was a little more grown up than the almost nineteen he actually was.

With it being a Wednesday in Marrakech, and an hour before the end of shift, Tarot was a little shocked when he looked up from the magazine he probably shouldn’t have been reading to see Bill, Orin’s partner with Gas n’ Grub, standing over him. The older man was dressed for work, and didn’t seem offended at the fact Tarot was looking at a magazine when he could have been cleaning or stocking. The confusion he felt must have been obvious on his face.

“You got a visitor outside, James,” Bill said. “In fact, you’ve got the rest of your day off, with pay.”

“Th…thanks, Bill. I owe you.”

“No, you don’t. Trust me on that, kid.”

Tarot walked out to the lot to see Lankin waiting pensively for him. Next to him was Whisper, her big dark eyes were walls of liquid as she tried restrain tears. Despite his curiosity, Tarot could feel the bottom of his stomach dissolving.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“They found your dad, Jimmy,” Lankin said gravely. A few tears ran down Whisper’s cheeks.

“Found my dad doing what?”

Lankin’s gaze hardened. There was something even more predatory about it than normal. It was as if Tarot’s ignorance was somehow brutally offensive.

“Your dad was found behind Magpie Jack’s, slathered in vomit and not breathing,” Lankin hissed. Then, his features softened into something disturbingly human as he reached out. “Jimmy, I’m sorry, your dad is dead.”

Tarot pulled away. He took a deep breath, his fist clenching and unclenching. Without even thinking, he began to draw back. He noticed how Lankin merely stiffened, preparing to receive the blow.

“Go ahead,” he said so softly it could barely be heard. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

That’s when Whisper wrapped her arms around Tarot. She was weeping softly. He found his own tears coming free. Within her embrace, he collapsed like dried pine needles against flame. He gripped onto her tightly and began to sob.

“Take your time,” Lankin said gently, walking toward the end of the lot. “I’ll be here once you’re ready.”

Tarot really had no idea how long he had been there, sobbing like a five year old with a skinned knee, in the lot of the Gas n’ Grub on a Wednesday Afternoon in Marrakech. He supposed he should’ve been grateful it was a Wednesday. Any other day of the week, there may have been far more witnesses. Not that anything else really mattered at the time; not the potential place over in Petra or getting a little stoned with friends in Melbourne. Good to his word, Lankin was standing at the end of the lot, waiting impassively.

They went to go see the body. There was no doubt about it; that was Donavan Tabor. Although, there was something cartoonish and grotesque about the corpse. Tarot found it odd how uneasy Lankin seemed. The official in the room seemed to notice it too.

“I know this must be difficult.”

“I help find and bring down a body from up high at least once a year,” Lankin said. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”

“This time’s a little different, Lazarus,” the official said. “And I think you know that.”

***

A few weeks later, Tarot found himself visiting the last house on Lovecraft Lane. Lankin had just opened a bottle of tempranillo to let it breathe. His dad was cremated and Tarot wanted to find out a few places that might be good to scatter the ashes.

“Anywhere. There was a time your parents were the only ones around here who’d been over these mountains more than me,” Lankin said. “That was before your mom died and your dad started drinking so much.”

”I ran into Grizz the other day,” Tarot mused. “He told me my dad was a good man.”

“He was.”

“Well, I didn’t know that!” Tarot snapped. “He was drowning in the bottle as long as I can remember!”

Lankin cast Tarot a look, but didn’t say anything. The boy had lost his father, and getting after him for lashing out so soon after the fact would’ve been incorrect. Instead, he sniffed the open wine bottle, trying to decide if it was ready to pour.

“Did you ever hear why your dad started drinking?”

“It has to do with my mom, I know that much,” Tarot said.

“Do you know how your mother died?” Lankin asked.

“I only know it happened up around the Death’s Head and Hell’s Watchtower,” Tarot replied. He looked Lankin dead in the eye and his gaze hardened. “Didn’t you find her body?”

“What was left of it.”

Lankin reached over his wine rack and pulled out another bottle. Courtesy dictated he showed Tarot the vintage. Silently, he opened the bottle and set it on the counter. In the same fluid motion, he retrieved another glass from the cabinet and filled them both.

“Better get that other bottle breathing away,” Lankin said as handed Tarot a glass, his gaze predatory in its intensity. “It would seem I have a lot to tell you.”

Darktime Drive

2011-09-20T12:03:00.000-06:00

They traveled across the badlands in the deep darkness of the small hours between late night and early morning. Father and son. The father drove and the son watched the dark and quiet world go by. The stars were bright, allowing one to see where the universe began. There was no moon. Not a word passed between them. It wasn't necessary.

The ancient vehicle was loaded with cargo and contraband. Old songs played from an even older radio. There was the smell of motor oil, diesel fuel, cigarette smoke, and whiskey. Rust and metal rattled as they moved down rickety roads, on their way to their final destination.

On occasion, they would see lights of other vehicles. The father would reach for a gun he kept by the seat, mindful of bandits along the way. Sometimes, when they saw more than one set, and they didn't worry about marauders, they were given to illusion of being near some manner of settlement. This mirage was shown for the phantasm it was by the next curve or hill.

The roads were composed of dirt and cobble stone. Broken pavement and ruts through sand. There were times, when it seemed there was no road at all, and the father was driving by memory alone.

As the darkness deepened, getting closer to dawn, mist began to rise. An impression of wandering spirits or passing through the territories of angels. Fog and dust shrouded the headlights. The son found himself wondering if since there was haze, if the sun would ever rise again.

"Think we'll make it?" He asked his father. His voice was scratchy. Those were the first words he had spoken in hours, perhaps days.

"It's fine, son," the father said, his voice was clear and warm. "Everything is okay."

The son leaned against the passenger side window and shut his eyes. Sleep was coming for him. He lost himself in the old song playing on the older radio. His father said everything was okay, and in that, he took great comfort.

Autumn Rust

2011-09-19T13:51:00.000-06:00

We sat in the kitchen after the walkabout, with scents of a roasting chicken and root vegetables perfuming the air. It was cocktail hour. Outside, it was raining. At higher elevations, we'd seen the first heavy, wet snowflakes of the season. By the time we had reached our destination, the upslope storm, which was backed up against the eastern face of the Roof of the World, began to spill over. The fog reduced visibility on the tundra to maybe twenty feet, and that was with a wrinkle, a squint, and giving a benefit of the doubt.

Our companion was telling us about deals and steals he'd gotten at his local farmer's market. He spoke of making pestos and freezing peaches for cobblers later, in the deep winter. Ways of preparing for the coming season. As he spoke, my glance tracked across the valley in the pouring rain. The clouds hung just over the Bull's Head, just a few hundred feet above Rue Main. It was in those moments I found myself coming to grips with the realization that summer was over and done with.

For the next four days it was close-toed shoes and socks. Jackets and layers. Thankfully, the dusting we saw upon the high peaks never came any further down than a little lower than ten-thousand, but there was still the nip in the air, letting everyone and everything know autumn had come to the pointy lands.

A popular question amongst the tourists this time of year is when will the aspens change. Whilst I agree the changing of foliage can be quite striking-we even have a festival about it in these parts, but us kooky mountain folk will use just about any old excuse to throw a party-there's something about traveling distances just to watch the trees rust that seems a little silly. It seems a little later this year than others, but over the last few days I've seen more and more omens of the season, the autumn rust.

"I'd like it a lot better if it didn't mean winter was so close," Sabina lamented when I pointed out some fading green.

Normally, I rather enjoy autumn. I accept the coming of winter, because that's part of the cycle. Besides, living in the mountains, one has to deal with it for at least half a year.

This year I find myself not as thrilled at the sight of autumn rust. It was a hot summer, and that was quite enjoyable up here. Of course, given it snowed pretty well through spring, making it winter, the sequel, there was a consensus among a good many of us that we should get an extended summer. Of course, as the old song says, you can't always get what you want. Mei fei tsu.

I watch the trees rust, figuring in the next few days the mountainsides will turn the colors of spun gold, flames, and emerald. My layers are ready, but, in the High Country, you never really put away your cold-weather clothes. You just fetch your raiment from another section of the wardrobe. I hope for an indian summer, but work on accepting the fact autumn is here, and the first snows are not far behind.

Non-Birthday

2011-09-14T07:20:00.000-06:00

A shot taken from Brown's gulch, about five miles and three-thousand vertical feet above home across the valley at the outback of our Sahel; there's Guanella pass, Waldorf, Mount Bierstadt, and the Sawtooth Ridge. Waldorf is where my mother's ashes are scattered...

You would have told the world you were sixty, but I would've argued the fact. You were well over four-thousand years old. That fact was established when your eldest grandchild, the only one you ever got to meet, was two. Some parents tell their children lies about Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy. I told mine her grandmother was over four-thousand years old. I have a hard time seeing anything wrong with that.

It is a year to the day since we scattered your ashes. Since I read your requiem over your immolated bones. Dad, the man who taught me boys don't cry, wept, and I got some of your ashes on my hiking boots when it was my turn to do some scattering. I left Tibetan prayer flags strung in that tree we'd all picnic under. I didn't think you'd mind, but perhaps it is idiocy or hubris to second-guess the dead.

You didn't get another birthday after the one two years ago, shortly after you found out your only daughter was to be expecting your second grandchild. Whether it's tragedy or mercy you did not live to see your grandson be born is conjecture. The family marked your proceeding birthday upon that mountain spot. I mark it now by spewing words across a spider's web made of cyber, and I don't know if it makes any difference.

From the back of my house, I can see one of the ridge lines that frames Waldorf. Often, I whisper unspoken hellos to you. I am going on walkabout, because that's something I do. I'll be making Moroccan-style chicken for dinner. It'll be a good day.

But, I know at some point, I'll wander out back, whether alone or with companionship, bipedal or quadrupedal, I neither know or care. I'll have a tumbler of whiskey. It's then I'll toast your memory in barely audible words;

Happy non-birthday, Mother...

Burning Napkins

2011-09-11T10:41:00.002-06:00

He sat in a smokey gin joint, drinking, as one is wont to do in such establishments, and writing on napkins. The words were poems and love letters he burned in the ashtray before ink dried on the paper. In his head, he recited a single name over and over. Someone he could not forget, no matter how hard he tried. No matter how much he drank.

Then he looked up and saw her standing in front of him. At first, he was sure he was dreaming, or at the very least, hallucinating. All he could do was stare, looking into her soul whilst she read him like a book.

He was afraid to speak. He'd been drinking and writing on napkins. There were so many things he wanted so desperately to say, but feared any words would be muddled by the accent of intoxication. It was embarrassing enough she had to see him like that.

But she knew him well and smiled. Gave him one of those looks he so loved her for. She took his hand and squeezed.

"I'll never leave you again," she whispered. "Let's get out of here."

Then she kissed him. He realized he was very wide awake, sobriety coming back in a flash. They walked out, leaving a half finished drink and a napkin smoldering in the ashtray.

The Last House on Lovecraft Lane

2011-09-08T09:21:00.002-06:00

The afternoon thunderstorms can come quickly and without much warning in Colorado’s High Country. Tarot was reminded of this fact when the sun disappeared behind the clouds. There was a quick, bright, flash followed by a roar of thunder, which seemed to echo forever across the peaks, and then the sky opened up. Just like that. He wasn’t even halfway to his destination when he was soaked to the bone by wind-lashing rain, his Misfits hoodie becoming a cold weight around his slight frame. His teeth were chattering, but he pressed defiantly on.

Ever since he was sixteen, he found it funny that Marrakech had a Poe Street and Lovecraft Lane. Someone, from way-back-when, really loved horror writers. There were no Poes or Lovecrafts in the town cemetery. As he passed the intersection between the two roads, Tarot breathed a chilled sigh of relief. His destination was the last house on Lovecraft Lane, and it wasn’t all that far, even if the driving rain seemed to be slowing everything down.

The house itself seemed to sit on something of an island. There was the footbridge and driving bridge over the river. The back of the property ended abruptly at cliff, which overlooked Marrakech Gulch and the remains of the old silver mine on the other side. The other side of the property butted against the aspens, pines, and shear rocky southern face of Mount Marrakech.

Like many places in the rural mountains, there was something ramshackle about the house. At first glance, it looked like a strong breeze might just blow it over. Only after looking closer did one notice the sturdy construction that had withstood several blizzards, wind, and thunderstorms. Tarot smiled, noticing a few lights were on against the dark of the storm. It made the house at the end of Lovecraft Lane feel that much more inviting.

He knocked on the door out of courtesy. There was a vehicle out front and the lights were on. Someone was home. It was only in the bigger towns in the county, like Petra or Leeds, that people actually locked there doors, just like the big cities. The front door swung open almost immediately. At first, Tarot didn’t see anyone as he pulled his rain-soaked and chattering frame inside.

“You look like a drowned rat, Jimmy.”

Lankin was standing off to the side and slightly in shadow with his arms folded across his chest. Despite himself, Tarot jumped. Often, he would tell people, that if a big cat decided to dress up like a human being, that cat would be Lazarus Lankin, because there seemed to be so very little that was human about him. His mannerisms were decidedly feline, and his gray eyes, which burned with such feral intensity, did not seem to belong in the skull of a person. A set of chin-length rust colored dreadlocks framed his angular face and his skin was the color of polished bronze.

It was said he could be dropped into the Back Country in a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, sneakers, with only his pocket knife, and, a week later, he would show up in a bar, none the worse for wear, for a burger and a glass of red wine, before taking the long way home, that being at least a two week excursion through the tundra. The fact he drank wine didn’t phase anyone. Old timers, who would make fun of any other man who drank anything less than beer or hard liquor, were known to buy him glasses. Tarot would say it was because he was Lazarus Lankin. The men respected him and the women loved him, even if, or perhaps because, he carried himself like a big cat endlessly stalking its prey.

“My name’s Tarot now.”

“Sure it is,” Lankin seemed unconcerned. “Are you trying to give yourself hypothermia?”

“I thought I’d get here before the storm,” Tarot muttered.

“Take that off and stop trying to be fashionable,” Lankin ordered. “Remember, cotton kills.”

Reluctantly, Tarot did as he was told. The hoodie was almost a security blanket for him, even if he wasn’t even born when the Misfits first came out. Upon the removal of his saturated hoodie, he felt a blanket being placed over his shoulders. It didn’t even register that the front door was open until he heard it being closed gently behind him.

“I hear you want to get married,” Lankin said.

“Ira Milligan already tried to tell me I’m too young,” Tarot snapped.

“Is your wanting to get married the reason you’ve been kicked out of your house?” Lankin asked. “Or did you steal your dad’s cheap rotgut?”

Tarot was shocked. Lankin had been up in the tundra for almost a month. When he turned to look at his host, there was an expression Tarot imagined a mountain lion might have right before it eviscerated a deer.

“You’ve been couch-surfing all around Melbourne’s trailer park,” Lankin continued. “By the way, do you want some tea?”

“How the fuck did you fucking hear that?!?” Tarot exclaimed.

“Why, Jimmy, you silver-tongued devil, we live in a very small place and secrets are very hard to keep,” Lankin chuckled. “Ira Milligan’s really worried about you, but thinks you’re too busy being rebellious to even think of asking for help, and, by the way, when were you going to tell your beloved?”

Tarot hung his head, feeling defeated. He should have known; of course Lankin would know what happened. He was Lazarus Lankin, after all. All of the cool lines Tarot rehearsed in his head for days faded away like the mist clouds along the peaks after a storm. He was in the last house on Lovecraft Lane in the presence of Lankin, any attempt at a front would be ripped apart for the façade it was.

“You never answered me about the tea,” Lankin said. There was a slight softness to his voice.

“Please,” Tarot replied, knowing he couldn’t even joke about getting something stronger. Not with his dad’s reputation. That man wasn’t allowed in any place that served alcohol within a hundred miles until he learned how to pay a bar tab and not get into fights. “And is it okay if I stay here? At least for tonight?”

“I was going to extend the invitation,” Lankin said, his smile was eerily warm. “And I wasn’t going to accept a refusal.”

Lunar Memories

2011-09-06T10:23:00.002-06:00

When I look at the moon, I catch myself thinking of you. During the course of our acquaintance, there were so many times our phones would ring, our voicemails would be full of excited messages of having seen the moon. Sometimes, after a night out, we'd gaze up at that bit of celestial magnificence and just smile. We didn't always agree, sometimes we hardly got along, but we always had the moon.

You were always so desperate for attention. Poor me trips that could move me to obvious disdain and subtle nausea. One of those who loved to play soap opera and Machiavelli whilst protesting too loudly how you hated drama.

When it all came down, you tried oh so hard to drag me into your soap opera, and I moved to rise above, as opposed to rising to the bait. Harpy screeches and murderous glares. The gypsy would feed your dragons, which I found vexing. I still maintain if you two hadn't constantly antagonized one another so much, using me as the excuse, the situation would've resolved itself much sooner.

I know why you hated me so then; blood. Blood is a funny fucking thing. If it had been one my siblings, I'd have probably wanted to eat your liver. If it had been my daughter, I would have.

Madam Lung asked your sister to put a leash on you whilst she promised to try and control the gypsy. That's when things started to stabilize. Not long after, I started seeking my entertainments elsewhere. The last time any of us saw one another was at that one funeral. We were all civil. I was sincerely concerned when you mentioned you'd been diagnosed with malignancy, the same type that ate my mother alive. I envy you your survival, and I know what a terrible thing to even just think, let alone put into language. But there it is, and I can't take it back.

There are a great many things that cannot be taken back...

I sometimes wondered how much shit you talked after seeing me. I wonder if you still harbor that murderous hate, despite the fact your sister gave as good as she got, and it wasn't all my fault. I wonder why I wonder.

But when I see the moon, I think of you. I remember all the times, all the calls, all the messages. That excitement we shared of seeing different viewpoints of the same object of celestial magnificence. For a time, no matter the state of our acquaintance, we always had the moon. When I look up and take it in, there are times I almost call you. Then I take a deep breath, step away from my phone, knowing it's for the best, and just gaze into the silver eye of the moon.

Prologue; After Lunch Coffee

2011-09-01T20:14:00.005-06:00

Ira Milligan knew she was old. One of her customers would joke she was a millennia if she was a day. Not missing a beat, she would say Methuselah was quite heartbroken when she turned him down for a date to a dance back when they were both teenagers. No matter how many times she repeated the joke, no matter how familiar the audience, she got a round of hearty guffaws.

Her long, wavy hair was the color of the first snow of the season and her eyes the deepest green of High Summer in the tundra meadows. Her skin was as smooth as silk, and strangely devoid of wrinkles, making her the envy of women half her age. Though she dressed in the manner of a bygone age, told in whiskey-soaked stories by some of the old-timers, she carried herself with a sense of elegance that had many convinced she was descended from royalty. There were those who called her the Queen of Marrakech with nothing but reverence.

She was humming an ancient tune to herself as she finished the lunchtime dishes. Hummingbirds trilling around the feeders kept time with her own music-making. It was a lovely High Summer day, though a little too hot for her liking. The building clouds to the west promised to change that. It was the way of things this time of year; beautiful clear and cool mornings, a warm early afternoon, and then the rain. Almost like clockwork. She would tell tourists who happened upon her café that the storms started promptly at two and it was up to the whims of the weather as to whether or not they ended at four or stayed on for the six o’clock encore.

The sound of a coffee cup being set upon a saucer reminded her she was not alone. He was small and pale with ash-blond hair, though he attempted to look tougher in his all black clothes and fledgling goatee. Although he wasn’t old enough to legally buy beer, he somehow landed a job down at the Gas n’ Grub. Probably because Orin really had no sense of ethics. Especially when it came to money.

“You seem a little jumpy today, Jimmy,” Ira said softly, grandmotherly. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

He winced at the use of his childhood name. That wasn’t him. His name was Tarot, and had been since he was sixteen. Well, at least with strangers and his peers. The older people still called him by his given name. Although, he took a little less offense to James than Jimmy.

“Not really, Miss Milligan,” he replied in a small voice. “Thank you.”

“Someone told me you asked Mari to marry you,” Ira remarked.

Again, Tarot gritted his teeth over the use of incorrect names. It was Whisper, and they were going to get hand-fasted, which, depending on who you asked, was not exactly liked being married. Well, not unless they chose that.

“So?” He tried to temper the youthful defiance in his voice with respect for whom he was talking to. “She’s twenty and I’ll be nineteen next month. We’ve got jobs and I’m moving out of my dad’s.”

“You’re still awfully young, Jimmy.”

“I thought you had your first kid right after you turned eighteen.”

“That was a very long time ago,” Ira said. “Lazarus Lankin would say at least a thousand years back.”

“Lankin says a lot of things,” Tarot muttered, maintaining the defiant, yet respectful tone.

“And a great many of those things are true, Jimmy,” Ira added.

He said nothing, but sipped his coffee. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the building clouds outside. It would rain soon. In some ways, he found comfort in that, the rhythm of the season.

“What has your dad said about you wanting to get married?” Ira asked.

“I don’t want to talk about my dad,” Tarot said, the tone in his voice sounded almost defeated. He then looked up at his host. “Is he back?”

“Is who back?”

“Lankin.”

Ira smiled softly. Finding out about Lankin was the whole reason for Tarot’s visit. In some ways, this saddened her, remembering when he would come and spend hours keeping her company. That was before he stopped calling himself Jimmy and started wearing black and reading books about the occult.

“He was in earlier for breakfast,” she replied. “After that rescue on the Death’s Head, he decided to spend some time up high.”

Tarot sipped his coffee and shook his head. The Death’s Head and Hell’s Watchtower were up high in the tundra. He wondered if the cartographers that named those pieces of geography were issuing a challenge to hikers and climbers the world over to test their mettle. There had not been a season without at least one rescue, and, most often, one of the party was brought out with a blanket over their lifeless face. This did nothing to deter another season’s batch of foolhardy from making the ascent.

“Just curious,” Tarot said, finishing his coffee and fishing his pockets for money.

“He asked about you,” Ira said. “Probably knows you’re looking for him.”

“Lankin knows a lot of things.”

“And he’d tell you doesn’t know anything.”

Tarot put his meager coins down on the counter. He felt bad that he didn’t have any more than for his coffee. Ira smiled kindly at him, her unspoken way of letting him know a tip couldn’t be less important. She always enjoyed his company. He still looked forward to hanging around her, even if he didn’t show it.

“I guess I’ll get going. Got to walk, you know,” Tarot said. As if on cue, the first peel of thunder for the day sounded off in the distance.

“Better get to walking then, Jimmy,” Ira said. “There’s a storm coming.”