Gestalt Brains, Supplementary Intelligence

April 20, 2012 in creative nonfiction | No comments

In between creating distance between me and everybody in my life, except my kids, I like to think about things. Big things. Important things. Then I forget them.

A thought that self-realized in my conscious the other day is the fact that scientific endeavor has been boosted into the realm of super-intelligence via the globalisation of the scientific community. If there was an apocalyptic catastrophe that localized these communities again to the point that they had to “begin again”, scientific endeavor would struggle to be effective. Even in select isolated communities with a high median IQ, not being able to dip into the greater hive brain of the global scientific community would have a “glass ceiling” effect.

Does this mean, that with current levels of globalisation in the scientific community, that our gestalt super-intelligence has hit the pinnacle of its advancement?

Is this were Artificial Intelligence will come into the fore in our society? As Supplementary Intelligence?

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“I Fucking Love You”

March 17, 2012 in poetry | No comments

She just wants,
to hear him say,
I love you.
An I love you,
while they fuck.

She just wants
to hear him scream
her name as he
cums on her.

She just wants
to gaze at him,
his eyes closed,
her legs open,
her heart beating,
right in time,
with his. Panting.

She just wants,
to hear him say,
I love you,
She loves to
hear it when
they fuck.

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Bebe Runs The Risk

January 7, 2012 in story | No comments

Eating pigeon pie, sipping French wine and munching on dark purple grapes and blue cheese, Bebe Stephens looked her companion in the eye.
“Skilled negotiation is an imperilled skill,” she said, resting her fork on her plate.
“I don’t really care that much about it,” he said taking a swig of his merlot. “I just want the job done right.”
Bebe looked at him again, sizing him up. His beige suit, his leopard print tie. The salt and pepper beard and the neatly slicked hair. The beard hid any weaknesses in his lower jaw. Did he normally simper over pigeon pie? Or was his jaw line hard with determination? Again, she looked him in the eye. The deep lines around his eyes and the deep furrow between his eyes displayed his stern nature.
“An American warship is not an easy target,” Bebe said, wiping her mouth with the cafe napkin in short pats. “That’s not really open to argumentation.”
He said nothing for a moment, just gazed at her. If they weren’t in a public setting Bebe imagined what he could do to her. Finally he gave a deep sigh and leaned slightly forward in his chair.
“I expect so. I consider this a win-win situation. We can both come out ahead.”
“Would you please tell me how you can say that,” Bebe said, snapping the words off sharply to demonstrate her own certainty, “when there are currently five zodiac boats zipping around in that bay. Full of armed guards. There are snipers on the radio building there. And another one there. And another one across from that restaurant in the clock tower?”
“We could go about this in lots of different ways. We can just make a choice. And make sure it’s the right one,” he held his glass by the stem, swirling it slowly, watching her like a hawk. But she had been watching him like mountain lion, waiting patiently for him to land.
“Part of what we’ll do is set a standard on our evaluation of the situation? Get a good understanding of our weaknesses and hence their weak spots? Horse shit. French horse shit. You nationalists are all so high on your own double-speak that you’ve lost sight of your own meaning let alone your double meanings,” Bebe leaned back in the chair, shuffling her feet, not pretending to get ready to leave as a strategic measure but really leaving now. She took one last lingering look at the warship in the bay before them. Normally, a view of Parisian shops and restaurants and little tourist shops greeted her when she conducted business here. Today, a hulking behemoth of dominance sat there. And in a moment of clarity, as he popped another of the dark, purple grapes into his mouth. His neat white teeth breaking the skin and bits of pulp peeping out of his dry lips. Bebe realised that she was the dominant participant at this table and always had been.
Bebe had been travelling around the country following Douglas, meeting his minions and winning them over one by one. Twin trails of destruction spinning across France. And it had boiled down to this. An audience. An offering of a challenge. Take the risk and he would know for sure that Bebe was authentic. Bebe had just wanted to convince her adversary. She had wanted to run this risk: to judge the value of their enmity. To bestow her respect as an opponent. But now she was afraid she had been misled. This was a zero sum game. She felt that she must lose in order to win. She must suffer to achieve her results. She had wanted certainty, and now she was no longer uncertain. Douglas wasn’t the enemy she had been questing for.
“By the way Douglas,” and she saw him start at the use of his real name. Another sign of his weakness, displaying his surprise like that. “You never eat grapes with wine. It’s just poisoning your own pleasure.”
She turned away from him, away from the American warships, away from the armed guards of both, knowing full well that he would be watching her leave and wondering if the grapes were poisoned when all she really meant was that he wasn’t worthy of being her arch-nemesis.

700 words. Entry for Writers Cramp.

pigeon
France
an American warship
dark purple grapes

Totally random writing. Just trying to produce something. Medium range probability that this sucks but I’m trying to amp up my production rate of crap stories in my portfolio.

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“Belly of the Beast (I am the Beast, I am the Belly)”

December 25, 2011 in poetry | No comments

Sleeping dragon,
He awaits.
Hungry dragon,
He awakes.
Here be dragons,
He’s awash.
Hirsute.

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No Rest For The Wicked

December 23, 2011 in story | No comments

this is my next piece in an interactive zombie story. http://www.Writing.Com/main/campfires/item_id/1832624-No-Rest-for-the-Wicked
It almost stands on it’s own however. It was fun writing it. I was actually able to organize my thoughts and slow down my brain to sit down and write it without getting overwhelmed. .

Grits felt he was too young to be losing his teeth. Oh sure, he wasn’t surprised. Not with his diet and his problems. He remembered when he lost his first one. Not his baby teeth, or the teeth he lost playing high school football or the time he had one of his molars chipped by a pair of home made knuckle dusters in a canteen fight when he was in prison that time. No, he remembered the first time one of his teeth fell out after the fall of society. The fall of society was what Grits had heard other hobos, for that was what he was: a hobo, call it and it suited Grits to call it that too. It sounded intellectual. It sounded poetic. It sounded metal. It suit them all, no matter what pigeon hole they still rammed their pontificating heads into. Grits called it the fall of society, because that’s what had happened. Society fell. Whether you liked that or not.

The return of steam trains was one thing that the straggling dregs of humanity like Grits liked more then most. After a year or so, the pseudo-government – the Man – had put the trains back on the train tracks. Like iron angels visiting purgatory, their steam whistles giving hope like trumpet calls to the desperate. God knows what the damned thought of the damned steam whistles. But Grits knew, Grits had seen the hope and tears these trains brought to once thriving –now-isolated communities stranded by the fall . No diesel air horn could do that. Fill the belly’s soul like that.

The first time he lost a tooth, it was after 6 months of abject poverty worthy of a boat refuge. Six months of consisting on nothing but dog bone soup, broiled and rebroiled and eaten when he dared. First time he lost a tooth he thought it was maybe radiation poisoning and that was what had killed all his cronies, his parole officer, the cops who beat him every week, and even the goddamned social worker who dealt heroin on the side, not for the money but because she was a left-leaning, socially conscious sap. But no, then he realised that was just the zombies. The zombies killed and ate all those people, not radiation poisoning. And even Zombies didn’t make your teeth fall out. Unless they bit half your face off with it.

Grits looked at the mangled thing before him. It was caked in filth, brown and stinking. Dry, brittle. The first couple had been sharp as daggers but these days, when his teeth fell out they were weak, gnarled imitations of the real thing. Frankly, Grits thought he’d be better off without them. Without this process. But Grits had liked his teeth. So had the girls. Grits had lost many things over these few years and made many hard decisions. Survival wasn’t cheap in this world. And really what was one more lost tooth in the bevy of lost souls surrounding his existence? Still, Grits knew he was dreading his final tooth, and after that no teeth. He might as well be one of them. A fucking zombie.

“You fucking dickless bastards!” Grits yelled and hurled, ineffectually really, the dead tooth off the moving train carriage roof at the milling zombies. “You fucking no good smelly dead beats!”
“Yeah! Yeah man!” Grits looked over at his current hobo-brother. His current travelling partner of the tracks. He called himself the Snakepit Man. Said he was a salesman before the fall of society, the fall of autumn as /he/ called it. Grits looked at him. The thing with travelling partners was you had to keep them in check, let them know who was in charge, who came first in the pecking order. And when you had Grits problem, you needed someone you could rely on. The only way to get somebody reliable in this world was through fear. Grits wondered if the Snakepit Man wasn’t too stupid to be ruled by fear. Or maybe it was that he was too smart. He didn’t have any teeth, and that showed he’d survived a lot longer then Grits, and on a lot less. Cunning as a shit house rat, Grits decided.
“Give me your hat.”
The Snakepit Man stopped guffawing.
“What do you want that for? It’s my hat.”
“Give me your fucking hat, for I take it from you,” Grits spat on the ground, away from the other hobo. No need to be too confronting.
“Aww, now Grits,” the SnakePit Man said, already cowed. “No need ta be like that. I’ll give ya my hat, if that’s what ya want. No need to be like that.”
Grits watched narrow-eyed, never taking his eyes off the other. Grits didn’t even think he’d have to snarl to get the big dope to do what he was told.
The Snakepit Man took his hat off his head and carefully held it out to Grits. Grits looked at the Snakepit Man one last time. Gave him one last narrow-eyed look to show he meant business and gently took the hat.
“I know you like this hat SnakePit Man,” Grits says. “You can have it back after I manage my sleep. You can have it back after my nap. Nothing happens to me, nothing happens to this here hat. You got that?”
“I know Grits. It’s okay. You look after me. I look after you. That’s how it is with us. You’re a real good fighter Grits. And a real good problem solver too. You’re tenacious, is what you are. Tenacious. You like that?”
All the time the Snakepit Man has talked, he hasn’t taken his eyes off that hat. Grits turns the hat over and over in his hands. Watching the hat. Watching the Snakepit Man. Watching the hat.
“It’s a nice hat Snakepit Man.” Grits says, looking at the hat but not looking at the Snakepit Man. “It really is. What do you think it was made of? You think it was one of them imported hats from Italy?”
The Snakepit Man smiles at that. He likes that idea, Grits knows.
The train carriage is really whistling along the tracks now. The fields were once wheat fields, Grits knows. Now they are overgrown with thistles and weeds and other detritus. Like the milling dead.
Grits grins and throws the hat.
“Hey now!”
Grits doesn’t throw the hat.
“Geez, Grits. Don’t do that. That’s my hat.”
Grits throws the hat.
“Jesus goddamn it Grits. That’s my favourite hat. Don’t do that to my hat. You said you was gonna look after it,” the SnakePit Man stomps his foot, a dangerous move on the roof of a moving steam train.
Grits stares at the SnakePit Man.
“I’m gonna take my nap now. Manage my condition. You look after me, I’ll look after your hat. “
“Grits, you know you look after me. I look after you already. It’s how it works when your budd-“
Grits throws the hat.
“Keerrist Grits! Okay, okay. You have your bleeping nap. I’ll watch your bleeping back. Befor e you know it we’ll be at the cross roads and I’ll wake you up and we’ll get some supplies. Have a look around. Keerist, Grits.”
Grits puts the Snakepit Mans precious hat in his rucksack. Props it up against the air vent and shifts around until he’s comfortable.

It’ s a tough world. Made tougher still when it’s a world full of zombies and humans who’d poke you in the eye as soon as let you look at them. You don’t survive being a narcoleptic in this world without being one tough little bugger yourself.

Grits is dreaming before his eyes are even shut.

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Paroxysms

December 21, 2011 in Comix | No comments

20111221-234848.jpg

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Kami Brings The Hellfire

December 20, 2011 in story | 7 comments

produced this gem tonight using the software at www.writeordie.com If you stop writing for more then 30 seconds it deletes your work!

Please don’t read this if you don’t like extremely coarse language and jokes about bestiality! You have been warned!

I’ve taken to cowering under the bed. It’s the safest place I’ve found from him. He’s still out there. I don’t need to look. I can hear that evil bastard. He’s hardly being quiet. Every now and then an electric blue light sweeps the floor of the bedroom. This is when I know he’s peering through the window. Trying to find me.Trying to see me. That blue light is no effing torch light. It’s the effing eldritch fires of hell that flicker around him constantly. They keep him afloat. They allow him to blow things up, like my car. Spinning out of control. Like my balcony. I barely made it back inside that time. God. This is insane. God? Insanity? Kami. What the fuck are you?

He’s out there screaming that he’s going to rip the words right out of my skull. That every word I’ve ever uttered, that I’ve heard, that I’ve seen. Every one of them he is going reach inside my brain and pull them out.

He did it to my poor cat, the bastard. It was a quick death for her, but he’s promising me I’m smarter then I look. That I’ll be surprised what he extracts from me. It’s not the coherence of the words that he’ll torture me with, but the great slabs of information I have accidentally digested through my life.

I say I’m sorry, he’s saying it’s too late. I discovered his secret and exposed him.
It was only facebook, I cried. It was a joke!
“Michael.”
God, he knows I’m here. Jesus.
“Michael.”
“Michael!”
Shit.
“What?” I offer.
“You suck at telling jokes,” he lisps.
Oh god. I’ve got an evil lisping demon at my window.
I’m starting to shake again. I don’t know if it’s shock, or cold, or fear.
“Every breath you take, every slippery convulsion you make, I’m addicted to all the things you do.”
I pause. Then I venture: “Isnt’ that a song by Saving Able?”
“You. fucking CUNT Michael! You’ll regret this you fucking faggot hack. Do you think it’s a cheap fucking thing to sell your soul? Do you think magic like mine doesn’t come at a price? A. really. Fucking. steep. price.”
“How was I meant to know that all those years spent selling serial killer and murderer memorabilia – would – would – fuck Kami – what /did/ it do to you?”
“Look down, look down below, it’s crumbling. Look up, the stars are all exploding Michael.” There was so much raging anger in his voice and actions before, but now there’s a hollow despair.
“Kami, that’s not your poetry.”
“You worthless worming CUNT Michael! ” Okay, maybe a gritted anger. “You spoiled it! You took it from me! In my dreams, it’s the yacht. Of the world. And you belong to me. In my dreams. You hold me closer then I ever remember -”
“Kami – I barely fucking know you okay? I’ve never even touched you alright? I’ve never fucking held you!How the fuck was I meant to know that you really did sell your soul for your incredible dark poetry that wins awards and puts normal men to shame!”

I’m not looking at him. I’m sounding brave, yes. But I’ve got my effing head stuffed in my arms and my arse in the air. But, I’ve never been able to put out a fire. I always have to fan the flames.

“I’m sorry Kami. Okay? Don’t kill me or eat me or tear the words from my soul. I don’t care if you really are a dark poet. There’s a bit of blackness in us all isn’t there?”
I pause. And then I venture: “I let a cat lick milo off my penis once.”
“You spinele- wha – you let a cat lick milo off your dick? That’s not dark that’s fucking depraved!”
Actually, it was stupid. Cat’s have sand paper tongues. Luckily they don’t like chocolate. Past the first taste.
“I’ll still gonna rip you apart and feast on your verbage Michael. Those serial killers and satanic maniacs I corresponded with … made introductions … to … to … I’ve … I’ve lost my power to transform words, to resonate experience, to reach into my talent. My. Dark. Fucking. Talent. That. Makes. Men. And. Women. Swoon!”

He’s off again, the blue light is gone in a flash but I don’t effing move. Even though I know it’s not a trap. He’s lost it again, I can hear him ripping trees out by the root and screaming in … norwegian? I thought Kami was short for Cameron. A scottish name?

The window rattles in it’s pane, lightning explodes across the room. I screech and roll over, out from under the bed and slam into the far wall. Cold sweat is pouring from me. I can feel myself sticking to the plaster behind me.

“Michael! Michael! I know you’re there Michael! Straight to you. Now I’m rolling home to my lovers arms, this much I know.”
“Kami!” I yell. “KAMI!”
My neck hurts from the force of my cry. My throat is raw. I think about what he wants to do to me and now I’m crying.
“What?”
“Stop doing the poetry thing okay? You’re just making it worse for both of us.”
“Bastard.”

The light dims but doesn’t disapear. I’m looking right at him. His bald head covered in eldritch fire, his eyes are deep, heavenless tunnels. His little goatee seems hard. Rough. Razor sharp. Like it would cut me to pieces if he whispered in my ear.
“Okay,” he says. “The poetry thing’s hurting us both. I get that.”
I’m breathing again.
“Please Kami,” I whimper.
“Do you know what it’s like to dream a dream? To realise you’ve been shown heaven … your own talent … and then have hell come offering you the good stuff?”
“That’s…That’s…That’s not more poetry is it Kami?” I’m still looking at him across the room. The bed is still there, between us. And the window is still intact. I’m not questioning that he hasn’t been able to come inside. Has only been able to hurt me when I’m outside. I’m not questioning any of that, because, well – I’m effing grateful for the small mercies I have in this situation and I’m not certainly not going to bring it to his attention by asking any stupid questions am I?

“No Man. That’s my own stuff. My own work,” he raises his clenched fists in a gesture towards his chest. It’s eerie. We’re two stories up. He’s on fire. He’s been blowing stuff up with the power of his mind and ripping trees out of the ground. I saw him tear all the words my cat had ever heard and understood from her poor little belly. Like “food” and “dinner” and “stop purring on my cock” “no, don’t stop.” But that little act, demonstrating that he’s not actually holding onto anything out there. It sends chills down my spine. Terrible chills.
“Can’t you just go back to Adelaide? You flew here didn’t you? Just fucking fly back.” That’s my version of pleading.
“The internet Michael. You posted it on the fucking internet. On my fucking facebook page where all my friends could see. I’ve got friends all over the world Michael! I used to own a naughty book shop that fed the minds of the counter culture of South Australia for years. I’m a DVD and music reviewer. I write pub reviews for Ralph magazine. And all those people know me as the dark poet of the streets , Kami. I’ve got fucking hundreds HUNDREDS of facebook friends Michael! Because of you my life has changed, because of you I feel no shame … no hang on, I do, I do! Ah, internally, I’m so confused by my love for you and the joy you bri-”
“Kami! Jesus!” And brighter then any demon fire from the abyss has ever glowed in my life previously, an idea sparks. A wonderful, loving idea full of hope and … oh god. Betrayal, I guess.
“Kami, I didn’t post it on your wall. I posted it on mine. None of those people would know. Shit, I only posted it twenty minutes ago man! Half of the world probably hasn’t even seen it yet! I’ll just delete it! And I posted it under a filter anyway, so half my facebook friends wouldn’t have seen it anyway.”
I lean onto the bed, letting it soak up my extra sweat. I’m looking him in the face, he seems uncertain. It’s getting hot in here.
“A filter?”
“Yeah, I have my Adelaide friends under one filter; my workmates under another; my old school friends; my melbourne friends. I like to mix it up y’know. That way if one group of friends has a witty response to something I post: I can post it under a filter for another group of friends and make the witty response myself!” I smile, like it’s that simple. That this situation is that simple.
“You really are a weird cat.”
“Well…” I gesture at his head, at the flames.”I’m not awash with demon fire you know?”
“Inside, you have a whole different kind of hell.” He shakes his head. Great. I mean it is Great. It’s looking good. It looks like he might not devour me. But still, I’m getting judged by an evil lisping little bloke who keeps reciting commercial radio songs. “So, you can really do that? Filters and shit. I didn’t know that. So only Adelaide people would have –”
“Only MUTUAL adelaide friends Kami. Only Mutual Ones. Like Watto, Like Rik. Roundy. Um. Kerryn”
“She knows already.”
“Figgers. That George Clooney stuff being fucked with a broomstick was just too good.”
“Oh no. That’s ALL her..” We laugh together. Things are good, things are looking up.

“Kami,” I say, the voice of calm reason now, not the voice of shitting my panties. “I can delete it, post the video again with a different comment. a nice comment. And we can go our merry ways. I can even block you as a friend so it doesn’t happen again.”
“Nah, nah, don’t do that! Okay, okay. So only a few know. That explains why even though my power is diluted I’ve still been replicating some quality song lyrics.”
He doesn’t see me roll my eyes.
“I just kill Watto and Rik and Wees and Roundy … and that’s it. Back to business.”
I feel a twinge.
“Well, you don’t have to kill them do you? Devour them or anything? Just give them some absynthe and tell them it was all a trippy dream.”
“Heh. Yeah, I’ll do better then that. I’ll tell them it was them who sold their souls to the devil, not me. Sold their souls to the spirit of dark poetry to enable one man to go forth on a dark journey. And that I’m grateful for their sacrifice and shit.”
“Hell yeah, if that works.”
Twinge gone. Guilt averted.
“Okay Michael. Okay. Tell you the truth after digesting the cats words about the purring and your confession about the milo…”
“It wasn’t the same cat mate, it -”
“Like that matters you sicko! Haha. I don’t wanna be the one to break it to ya, but you are one messed up man. I’m gonna be the one to break it to ya: I didn’t want to digest the words that formed the intent of the whole milo on your cock thing, man.”
“If you’re not gonna devour me, just go Kami okay? I have to go bury my cat.” I might get a fluffier one.

The demon flames intensity fires up as Kami rises slowly in the night sky. He looks down on me and I can’t help whimpering. He is one evil looking mother fucking dark poet. With a lisp.
Barely another word to me is uttered; he turns in midair and flies into the night sky. Heading back to the City of Churches no doubt.

He’s gone. I sigh and sag against the bed. I close my eyes and push my face into the bedspread. As I start to sob I hear the fading of his final poetry reading beating in my ears.

“Please believe in the rest of my healing, no diseasing, get up, get up on the dance floor, do what the old mans asking for, can’t no body stop the juice, oh what’s the use. it’s getting hot in here, so what? so take off all your clothes.”

Poets. Jesus. I need a moet. And don’t I know it.

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Walking the Crystal Mountain Path

October 2, 2011 in story | No comments

Completed this as a writing prompt flash fiction challenge on http://www.writing.com. The prompt was: crystal, mountain, path. It seemed natural to make that one phrase. I didn’t have a plan in regard to the story, it just came along. Had a bit of trouble adding some conflict but hopefully I covered that.

The crystal mountain path shimmered in the thin, crisp air. I walked my mule alongside it’s translucent surface but I could not resist walking on it myself. My deerskin boots crunched with every step and little puffs of atomized quartz marked their way.

Once or twice I raised my head to sight the landmarks; largely I let the mule lead. Ive lived in forests all my life. I’ve travelled across mountains before. I’ve even seen the sea once, many years ago. But I’ve never seen such a thing as a crystal mountain path, and I am wan to take my eyes off it.No matter how old and sore and rheumy they are today.

I don’t know anything about minerals; I am no quarry man. I do not know how such a thing came to be. If the crystal mountain path was made by the hand of man or if it’s way was made of it’s own accord.

Because I was so intent on the mysteries underfoot, I failed to notice the fork. While I may have navigated my way off the cliff top and down to a broken death, my mule was not so wont to be caught dreaming. This time.

I ran my hand along his grey streaked neck. To the west, the fork of crystal mountain path travelled for a further thirty yards and then seemed to meander through some trees. I could not discern their type from such a distance. To the east, the crystal mountain path forked sharply down, no doubt it would eventually leave this mountain and if followed would lead to a valley. Perhaps verdant with good growth and soil, a boon for any farmer. Or perhaps verdant with more of the strange crystal, perhaps reefs of gleaming rock beading in the thick morning air.

“And ahead? What of ahead of you old man?”
I turned my head slowly, puzzled.
“Long journeys we have had. Mine, not as long as yours. But still together we have travelled here to this crossroads. ”
My old eyes watered and my old mule swam in and out of focus. For surely this was he who was now conversing with me? We had not seen another soul for weeks.
“Old mule?” I quested.
“Yes Old Man. Old mule. Old friend, my way is ahead but yours is west or yours may be east. Up or down Old Mountain. Away from or always within. ”
“Old mule! Ahead is a broken death,” I gestured grandly. “A mule such as you can walk himself through terrible terrain, or for leagues on end….but…”
Here I faltered as the vista before me cleared and my vision, hampered by age and human frailty, crystalized.
“Old Mule to Old Man, goodbye.” He dipped his great whiskered head and touched my shoulder, nudging me, and I gasped as his hoofed feet walked the rainbow bridge. His hooves skated graceful and no damage to the rainbow bridge could I discern.
“Old mule…”
“Old Man?”
“…”
“I would get going if I was you Old Man. You know how your knees seize and your hips ache if you pause too long.”
True to his telling, a dull aches slow beat in my right hip was in it’s infancy.

I looked again at the forks of this crystal mountain path, east and down or west and up. Away or within, Old Mule had said.
I did not muse as I turned to the left away from the pain in my right hip and followed the crystal mountain path west. Walking, traveling, with no destination but a journey of steps. Not struggling lost in a marvelous crystal miracle but enjoying it’s enveloping light.

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Last of the Knucklemen

September 25, 2011 in poetry | No comments

inspired by the classic aussie film from the 1970s starring Gerard Kennedy.

Hard up for a fuck,
We tumble onto,
The flatbed truck.
The sun beats down,
On our boredom
On the way to the
Caravan of whoredom.
But it beats beating off,
In the shed after lights out.
The boys shout and carry on
Seventeen miners,
All over eighteen,
Except for Wally,
the wog cooks son
who has sneaked on,
in an effort to prove
to his father
he has more in his eyes,
than dust.
Seventeen miners,
Tomorrow some will sport shiners,
Especially Wally, the minor
At his fathers hands.
He only wanted to prove
that he was a man.
The dust settles over the horizon,
As the truck finds its groove.
It is a long ride to town.
and a short one when we get there.

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They Shoot Zombies Don’t They?

July 28, 2011 in story | 1 comment

Once upon a time the valley had been verdant. Now its dusty slopes were barren. Where once a mighty brick veneer home had stood; where once machinery sheds and barns had stood; where once proud farmers had stood and worked the land: there sat nothing but a shambles.

“Here chicky! Here chicky!” A voice that aches with cuteness carries lonely through the valley.

Under the parched sun, a bedraggled girl scampers out from a fallen shack. She is chasing an equally bedraggled hen. Both are skin on bone: scraps of clothing, scraps of feathers.
The girl runs from demolition job to demolition job and a sort of order can be made from these once confident homes.

“Janie! Janie!” an older voice cries.
“Granma!” the girl squawks in reprimand. “The hen got out again.”
“Git back here girl. Git back here! It’s not safe without your Uncle here!”
“Aw Granma. We got to git that hen! She’s not safe out here! A fox might get her … or a … or a…”
Now Granma comes into sight. She’s sprightly but she looks old. Her hair is grey and her face is wrinkled. Her skin is red and dirty and caked with grime. Yet she stands strong and straight. She carries a long stick. Not to walk with but to brandish.

“C’mon girl. C’mon. She won’t go far. We’ll get her later. When Uncle and the Boys come back. Quick.”
And now Granma gives little Janie a fearful look. Half exaggeration, half real desperation. She raises the stick. Only it’s not a stick. It’s an old rusted rifle. A relic.
“Granma!” squeals Janie.
“Now Janie, you know I don’t like to use this club on the likes of you. I love you like you was my only child. But we gotta get back to the bunker before…”
“The bunker’s too hot,” the little girl whines.
“… before they smell us.”
Janie stares out over the hills. She seems to study them. She seems to be considering that under each and any of those rocks, those burrows or behind those gnarled stumps… danger lurks.
“I wish they wasn’t here.”
“Me too child,” Granma says as she firmly palms the back of Janie’s matted hair. Impulsively she hugs the girl to her side. “Me too.”

—

That night, Uncle and the Boys slip back into camp announced only by the short squawk of the hen.

Granma and Janie are huddled together under Grandma’s heavy filthy blanket. The girl sleeps fitfully.
“Well?” hisses Granma. Her steely gaze flashes in the twilight.
The stars above what once may have been a hay shed shine on Uncle and the Boys as he rustles in his sack.
“Just the three. Not much meat on em o’ course. Mighty hard to catch the fatter ones.”
“I killed one Granma!” a lean, skinny boy hisses harshly in the dark. His limbs are long and his face is dotted with clogged skin and filth from the earth and other places. The other boy, younger if size is anything to go by, nods his head eagerly and interrupts.
“I chased it! I almost got it! Only I couldn’t hold it…”
“I held it…”
One boy grimacing looking at his clenched hands regretfully; the other strangling the air mirthlessly.
“ …I held it /tight/ Granma.”
“Good. Good,” Granma nods. “Cooked?”
“Yes’m” Uncle says. “Far away from here. They’s a little dry now but they’ll do us for a week or so.”
“Boys, come get some sleep,” says Grandma sweetly. And one by one they slink over to her; allow themselves to be covered by her blankets embrace.
After a silence Uncle hesitantly offers his opinion.
“These boys are turning into mighty … mean little critters…”
Grandma opens her eyes and stares intently into the darkness between them.
“They got to be Uncle, “she implores him. “ If they gonna survive this world. If Janie is gonna survive this world. They got to be the meanest, toughest critters in this wide brown land.”
“Ain’t no heroes after the apocalypse,” Uncle whispers.
“Yes lad, ain’t no heroes after the apocalypse. Only survivors,” she hisses. “Survivors Uncle!”
Uncle looks up at the sky. His face is wet now and he wipes it with his grubby sleeve.
“Pimple.” He mutters.
“C’mere.”
He hunkers down at Grandma’s feet and she covers his body with the heavy, grimy, dust trodden blanket that is their only solace. His hands lay on Grandma’s calves and he rests his face upon them. His breath evens out.

The noises of the night lull him.

Suddenly, his eyes open.
“Grandma.”
A pause.
“You remember before the world turned to shit, don’t ya? You remember when we had houses and cars and we had guns and we could meet new people and …”
“Shh. Shh boy” Grandma soothes. Her knuckles tighten on the stock of the old rifle, her club. “Yes Uncle. I remember all that.”
In the darkness a wolf howls. A sound like a wolf yearning to be a man.
“I remember all that and more.”
The dusty slopes are alive with more than memory.

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