Winter's Foreplay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 out 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.”