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I am still hard at work, writing. I just don’t post up as much on here because I am petitioning publishers and they usually want the first rights to the stories.

I love the world because it is sad

Tags

Poetry, stand-alone

I love her because she is sad.

Not sad like sobbing.

Not sad like rain hitting a window.

Sad like watching your childhood home burn down

With your favorite stuffed animals inside

And all you can do is make jokes with your neighbors.

Because sobbing won’t bring them back.

Sad like barely being able to eat,

But still forcing your 

I love him because he is sad.

Not sad like I’m going to kill myself.

Not sad like I cut myself last night.

Sad like suicide is more optimistic than reality

Because no one knows what the afterlife is like.

Sad like starting a fist fight

and it just being brushed off as another guy drunk in a bar.

Rather than a cry for help.

I love them because they are sad.

Not sad like poetry about nightingales.

Not sad like draped black cloth covering every mirror

Sad like having no one show up to a party you were hosting

And having it sting as much at 40 as it did at 4.

Sad like dragging yourself to work 

Even though your limbs feel like lead.

And no one realizing you are hollow on the inside.

It is said that sad people like poetry

And I suppose that much must be true.

But I also think that sad people like songs

And sunshine

And stuffed animals unburnt by fires.

Because it’s not like you suddenly change when you are thrown down into a well

Other than having more bruises.

I love them for being unapologetically sad.

Not forced mandatory happiness on a work day.

Not smiling at every person you meet and trying to be 

The light, or whatever the fuck that means.

Sad like the truth of emotions being raw and unfinished.

Sad like coming to grips with reality that things will not change.

Sad like the small things in life 

That exist to make you human.

Sad like happiness isn’t the baseline for humanity,

even though that doesn’t make a good sound bite

Or something witty you can post to instagram.

I love the world because it is sad.

Trapped

Tags

cyberpunk, Fiction, Prose, Sci-Fi, stand-alone, Writing, Written in One Sitting

Word Count: 382
Prompt: A short story written with the prompt that only single syllable words could be included. So I wrote a cyberpunk story in 30 minutes to test myself. I think it bore fruit. I might continue it, albeit without the single syllable limitation.

“Come back”, she cried with tears the size of golf balls fall- no pour- no wait…she was full of joy.  Not Joy , the real thing. The tears were joy.  Joy on your –no our- find…find.  What did I find?

Shit.  My bad.  I’m new at this whole corp. prod. thing.  I blanked on the fact that it reads thoughts.  Not used to there are ‘trodes on my head.  Which I’m sure you could tell from my shit words.

You know how it is, you make a deal and get in debt to some corp big boss and think it will not come back to you.  Preem.  All good.  All gold. Live large.  Flash cars.  Flash shoes.  Flash all.  Don’t think ‘bout it.  Years pass.

Then it does.    Come back that is.  Then it is like.  Shit. No. Not here.  You run.  Hearts race.  You hide.  They find you.  Then it is all Not her.  Not her.  Please for the love of Fade not her.  I’ll go.

Tale as old as time.

So yeah, I’m here to help you.  Corp. Prod. at your service.  I’ll help you write your tale, file your certs., and make sure the big arm of the gov stays off your back.  Then when you are done with me, I go back to their base.  They will know what do with me then.

What then?  You mean for me or for you?

You?  You go about your life.  Hack the world.  It is yours.

Me?  I go back to deep ice.  I stay on deep ice til they need me next.  They take ten off my debt.  Leaves a shit ton left to go. They won’t tell me how much. Just that it is not done yet.

How long have I been here?  Don’t know, but when I went in chips just got made.  Like made for flesh, not built by corps. for the first time.  That was three years before the Freeze.  The Freeze was ten years ‘fore I got put here.

You want to help me?  Sure.  Your loss.  I hear tell I am a lost cause but you can try.  I just won’t get my hopes up.  Been a few good souls ‘fore and the corps. all shut them down ‘fore they got too far.

Dark

Tags

clip, Fantasy, modern, Prose, superheroes, Writing

Word Count: 1042
Prompt: A mole person whose powers get stronger when they were confused. Elapsed writing time 30 minutes.

Dark.  The first thing I was aware of was that it was dark.  Not like, I forgot to turn on the lights in my room and I gotta find the bathroom dark, but that deep dark you get when there’s not a shred of light in the room.  Confused, I waved my hand in front of my face and though I felt my arm moving I didn’t even see the ghost of a shadow.

Shit.

I wasn’t supposed to be here.  I should be in my room, sitting there with my boyfriend and watching Netflix.  That was it, no running for my life and definitely no deep dark shadows in the pit of who-the-hell-knows where.

Desperately I combed through my memories, trying to look for a trace of what had happened to me. I was sitting in bed with Vash, that is my boyfriend Vash, and we were getting ready to put on some slasher horror film from the 80s.  Then there was the brilliant white hot flash of light and the breaking of glass falling like fucked up confetti from the wall right next to our bed.  I looked out through the wall of flames and saw some face there glimmering in the darkness.  I swear to fucking god is smiled at me.

I felt angry, I felt confused and the world lapsed into darkness.

A darkness which, apparently, I still was not out of.  I felt forward gently with my feet and felt nothing but dirt there.  No cliffs, just dirt.  I extended out a hand forward and felt more dirt.  Hazarding a guess I reached upwards with my hands.  You guessed it, more dirt.

But I had to get in here somewhere.  It’s not like a solid block of dirt just forms around someone.

Wait.

If I was surrounded by dirt, how the hell was I supposed to get out of it?  The thought should have brought me more panic or a sense of worry, but instead it was just a mild puzzlement.  Like contemplating what you should have for dinner that day.  Oh you know, just have the roast chicken and dig straight upwards.  No problem.

I didn’t even realize my hands were moving til I felt the dirt hitting my face.  I combed through the dirt, letting instincts take over and my hands dug through it like I was casually swimming through a pool.  In fact, it felt kind of cool and refreshing as the rocks and sand hit my face.

With a small giggle I tried to do something unusual, I tried to do a flip in the earth.  I was able to, just it wasn’t the same as a pool.  It’s more like making a large square or turning in a go-kart.  Still was fun though so I did it three more times before remembering that I needed to actually get out of here and find out what happened to Vash.

I dug upwards for I don’t know how much longer, but eventually the breeze hit my face and I crested above the surface of the earth with a rough gasp and immediately regretted all of my life choices that had led me to this point.  The world was too big, too bright.  Sounds that were blasted out of loud speakers made it feel like my ears were on fire and the lights, all of them were too bright.

I recoiled, wrapping my arms around my eyes and ears the best I could but mostly looking like I was hugging my own head, and covered dirt over myself like a child hiding underneath a blanket.  Pain rang in my ears, in my head and it was all too much.

But I couldn’t really sit underneath the earth forever, now could I?

Maybe if I took it slow, gently.

Rock by rock, handful by handful I shook my eyes free from the dirt first.  The light was still too bright, but eventually my pupils adjusted and it faded to more of a “sun on the water in the middle of summer” type of glare that I could power through rather than a “sun shining directly onto a dilated eyeball” type of glare.  Next came the ears.  Every sound came to me, too strong and too many.  I let them all fade to the background, just one giant group scream, rather than trying to make sense of it all.  Nothing they had to say was that important anyway.

Slowly, I pulled my body from the earth and felt the heaviness settle in on me.  My bones felt too brittle, too little to support my weight.  I walked forward on wooden feet, taking a few cautious steps before trying to make sense of my surroundings.

There was a bench, some streetlights.  The metal squeak of swings that were a little too old and uncared for.  It looked like there was a paved pathway up ahead.  Some trashcans that smelled positively delicious tonight.

Instinct once again took over and rather than heading for where I thought I was heading, you know the road, my feet decided to lead me towards the garbage can.  I looked in and it looked like normal trash, but it smelled.  Oh gods it smelled just like the best carnival food I had ever smelled, all sweet and savory all at once.  I didn’t want to take a bite, you understand that right, but my hands had already shoved the halfway eaten hot dog into my mouth before I had paid attention to it.

I didn’t vomit it up though.  I’m sure a logical part of me wanted to.  Instead I gulped it down and found two more.  What?  Digging up through many feet of dirt burns a shitton of calories!  Don’t judge me.

With my animal appetite being satiated, I finally began my trek to the road.  Inwardly I practiced my hellos and explanations for where I had been that night.  I couldn’t damn well say that I had been underground or how I got there, though clearly I had been through hell given the amount of dirt that clung to all of my clothes and skin.

Maybe I could just say I was an actor and they would believe me?  Worth a shot.

Senseless

Tags

ficition, gothic, gothic horror, historical fiction, Horror, novel clip, Prose, victorian, Writing

Title: Senseless

Word Count: 870

Summary: An excerpt from a gothic Victorian novel I am working on, this takes place after a murder most foul as someone tries to dig through the scene after the police have gotten there.

The floral designs on the yellowed walls which were normally something he thought of with fondness when he thought of his aunt now seemed to be a pale travesty in the dim morning light.  They stood, almost mocking in their simple beauty as great spatters of blood slowly seeped into the paper and changed the yellow to a muddled brown. Ferdinand looked away with disgust, but he wasn’t sure that the view in the rest of the room was any better.

The room, normally a neat picture of Victorian maximalism, was a wreck.  The dozens of small statuettes that stood upon the book shelves were knocked to the ground, some smashed and others lying placidly like ships at the dock in the rapidly congealing puddle of blood.  The trunk which normally kept her sleeping robe and dress for the day on top of it was completely on its side. The blankets on the bed were thrown aside, stuck midway through a fall under a great weight and completely coated in the thick red slurry that coated most of the room.  Something, perhaps a bit of lung, was hanging off the bed post.

That was enough to send Ferdinand over the edge.  Bile rushed into his mouth and he went to the wastepaper basket and loosed his lunch.  The wastepaper basket innards looked, blessedly, normal.  No renegade knives or stray bits of blood.  Just a few letters that had been crumpled up.  He made a note to pour through them later and see if there was some sort of proof of what had transpired here, that is if his own expulsions did not destroy them.

This all, of course, noted while ignoring the elephant in the room.  That is, the slowly rotting form of his aunt that was splayed spread eagle in the middle of the bed with her ribcage torn in twain.  Her face was twisted into an expression of terror, stuck forever in rigor, and claws had torn up her dress and the shoulders underneath making large flaps of skin that moved a little in the breeze.  Her throat as torn out with teeth, by animals they had said, though how animals had gotten into the second story of this house in the middle of the night was a question in and of itself.  Nothing was taken from the room, at least nothing they could immediately identify though with how cluttered the room was it would take weeks to truly tell.

The police told him that there was no heart left and Ferdinand trusted their judgement on that one.  Hey told him that they would get the body cleaned up and he trusted their judgement on that one.  They told him that it was only a matter of time before they caught the killer and he did not trust their judgement on that one.

A lot of people had been going missing in the city of London lately.  It wasn’t entirely a surprise, it was a big city and big cities often had a lot of people going missing.  But they didn’t have at least three brutal deaths attributed to a lack of heart on their record.  That was remarkable to say the least.

With a sickening twist he felt his stomach about to rebel again and he walked out of the room in a great hurry.  The winter was cold and thankfully the body had not begun to smell, but it was all too much.  The blood, the obscenity of it all, the senselessness all rang awful.  He needed to hire someone to deal with all of this, but who could he trust with something of such delicacy?

He knew his friend Franklin was in town and was somewhat of a scholar.  He wasn’t a doctor, but he did have a doctor friend and a private investigator that he had gotten to look into his missing daughter.  Perhaps he would know someone who was up for hire and had the stomach for such bloody work.  There was something not right about what happened.  Obviously it was a grisly murder, but there was something more that stuck in the back of his mind and wiggled uncomfortably.  Something he just could not put his finger on that felt…magical? 

He almost laughed at himself for the absurdity of the statement, yet it still rung true enough for him to not let go of it.  Maybe it was the pack of animals in the middle of a London house, maybe it was something else.  Maybe it was the way there was a smell that smelled like dirt all over the room or the fact that just being in the room sent a god-awful chill down his spine.  Either way he didn’t think his stomach was strong enough to do a proper investigation on his own, even if it was mere mundane violence that robbed the world of Aunt Lara.

How could it be?  What foul creature would expect him to be able to dissect his own family as coldly as he could a stranger?  It was one thing to sew together a living stranger’s flesh like he did, twas quite another to do so to a face he had grown up with.

Tis I, the Prince of Demons

Tags

comedy, demons, Fantasy, Horror, Prose, urban arcana

Title: Tis I, the Prince of Demons

Word Count:296

Summary: A brief experiment in over the top comedy where the Prince of Demons just can’t seem to be menacing.

Cinnamon Roll. That was what they called him.  It was infuriating, really.  Oshii was the youngest son of the Prince of Demons but that didn’t mean he was just a sweet thing.  He was menacing!  Terrifying!  He would prove it to everyone!  Including his dad!

He had baked cookies, something that they expected a cinnamon roll to do, but there was poison in them.  A dizzying poison that would kill the entirety of the office.  At least the entirety of the office who wasn’t demon blooded.

He rubbed his long, red nails together and laughed manically over the baking cooking.  His long pink hair was tossed back over his shoulders as he craned his head back and laughed towards the sky.  His neighbor knocked on his wall to get him to quiet down, but he chose not to listen.  Like a rebel.

The next day he entered into the office, deadly cookies on his ebon black plate.  They dripped with his hidden surprise and he tried his best not to grin as he handed them out to people.  Soon they would pay.  Soon they would all pay.

He listened at the edge of the cubicle of his coworker, waiting for the inevitable choking and writhing that came with a poisoning.

“Mmmmm, Oshii, really does know how to cook!” exclaimed one.

“Yeah.  I think he put booze in these cookies, but the balance is just right.”

Booze?

He took out his phone and did a quick search of the internet.

What?!  Humans actually ate poison that made them dizzy for fun?  And they cooked with it too?  All they did was get amplified emotions and feel a little warm from it?!

Once more he cursed his luck.  He would have to try another time to smite them.

Svierre and the Library, part 2

Tags

Fantasy, Fiction, library, Mythology, Prose, Writing

Title: Svierre and the Library (part 2)

Word Count: 2,665

Summary: Years after his first encounter with the enigmatic Librarian, Svierre stumbles back across his path. This is a continuation of part 1, found here: https://adrehel.wordpress.com/2019/04/25/svierre-and-the-library-part-1/

The years passed by.  A scholarly child, Svierre excelled when his family saved up the funds to be able to send him to the schools in the big city of Vioholm.  Never was he far from a library, though sometimes he would remember that frightful childhood dream of wandering through a maze of books and meeting a mysterious man in the darkness and shiver just a little at its memory.  He knew that a dream should not affect him so profoundly yet it is hard to shake the fear we felt as a child towards an event even as we get older.

Svierre was already well into his young adulthood, a graduate from college and an advisor, and accountant, to a local lord by the time that he would be reminded of the reality of that time.  It was a cold night in the middle of autumn and storm was getting ready to roll in.  Svierre had busied himself about the lord’s house making sure the shutters were closed tightly over the window lest the branches smash themselves through the glass as they whipped about.  The house had just about been shut up when the young man saw in the front yard a frail old woman walking in circles.

“Hey, better make sure that you get home.” He cried to her over the grass, puzzled by her appearance but not making it a focal point as she wasn’t bothering any of the servants that rushed about to get to safety as the wind picked up, “The rain will be starting at any minute.”

The woman looked up, casting her gaze around as if she had just realized where she was.  “Indeed it will.  I cannot leave until I deliver my message, sirrah, though.” Her voice sounded as if it would blow away in the wind so Svierre walked closer to hear her.

“A message?  For who?” he asked as his black hair whipped in the wind and he struggled to keep it out of his eyes.

“For the whole city, I suppose.  But I can start with Lord Opthal.” She said, nodding sagely as if her words made a sort of sense to her.

“Fine.  I’ll try to get him.  Just please come inside first.” Svierre said, feeling the start of the rain hit his face.  She slowly began to shuffle towards the wide open front doors as leaves whipped by them.  “Who might I say is calling?” he asked her, guiding her gently to the door.

“Lady Prudence of the House of Dragonthorn.” She said and Svierre had to work to conceal his surprise.  Dragonthorn was quite far away from Vioholm, half a continent away.  To think that such a delicate old woman made the journey from there was hard to believe, but he would let his lord be the judge of whether or not she had a legitimate cause to call upon him.  The middle of a storm was not a time to be standing upon social graces and questioning people outside of the house.

He guided her into the receiving room by the front gate, motioning her to sit on one of the couches with carved dragon claw feet and handrests.  “Please, the Lord will be right with you.  Get warm by the fire.”

As if cued by his speech the rain began to fall in earnest, slapping the windows with harsh ferocity.  They had barely made it to safety.

Svierre left her to tend to herself as he went up the stairs to Lord Opthal’s study.  It was Svierre’s favorite room in the house, despite the fact that he was rarely allowed to set foot in it.  The rows of books held rare histories about the world and at times in the middle of the night Svierre would sneak in to take the knowledge without his master’s permission.  It was a victimless crime as no knowledge was lost if he read the books and most of the time no one save for the servant who dusted the shelves even paid attention to most of the volumes.

“My Lord, you have a caller.” He announced, standing pin straight and waiting the customary fifteen steps away.

“Who is it?” asked Lord Opthal, not bothering to look up from his papers or stop the motion of his quill.

“She did not give a name, but she comes from Dragonthorn.” He repeated.

The name of Dragonthorn was enough to grab the Lord’s attention away from the tedium of his work.  He put the quill in its rest and turned the chair to face Svierre, “Dragonthorn?  You are quite sure?”

Upon receiving verification from his servant he rose up and commanded Svierre to follow him.  They returned back to the waiting woman, who sat upon the couch staring blankly forward.  She turned her head as if it was on a hinge, cocking it to the side before turning it to face him.  The customary introductions were given and still she sat, making no effort to rise to meet him.

“You are the Lord Opthal?” she croaked, “May we speak alone?”

The Lord, being a business-like man but nonetheless humoring towards his elders, agreed to her request.  He dismissed Svierre and all of the other servants.  Svierre retired to his room and left the tending of them to the other servants, content to forget about the whole thing.  Yet something in him would not rest, there was something unusual about the old woman and her story.  Try as he might to assure himself that it was none of his business, something in him still sought the answers that he was not allowed to have.

Restless, he got up from his bed and made his way back to the house intending to try and eavesdrop.  As the fates would have it though, just as he got back the meeting was ending.  Lord Opthal exited the room, his face pale and drawn.  In the halls he met Svierre, nearly colliding with the young man.

“Oh, Ah!  Sorry, milord.  I was just looking for the priv.” Svierre stumbled his way over his words, for getting in trouble for spying was more

“Tis just as well.  I was about to summon you.” Lord Opthal’s voice was tight, strained and his gaze was distant as he saw futures he dared not to discuss dancing before his eyes.  “I need you to go to the library.  This is a matter that cannot wait til the morning.  I need you to go there and look up everything you can find about Dragonthorn.  Their exports, which kings succeed which kings –anything at all that might be remotely relevant.”

The young scholar took all of that in, absorbing as much of it in as he could with a nod of his head.  “Right away, milord.  May I inquire about why?  I do not need to know, mind you –“

“And so you shall not.  Bring me the information. That is all.” Lord Opthal motioned him to begone with a careless wave of his bejeweled hand.

So Svierre wandered through the halls, his curiosity burning more than ever in the back of his mind.  Finding the information about a kingdom as well known as Dragonthorn would not be a feat by any means, but the why was where his mind’s curiosity truly came to rest.  The whys are what made the world go round.

The library of the castle was grandiose in every way.  Tall bookshelves went up several feet and were covered with leather bound books that filled the air with their scent.  Some books were locked away behind golden gates that he had to sneak around in the middle of the night to be allowed to read.  Others glittered with covered that were bejeweled or were bound in human flesh.  Sometimes when he wandered among them he liked to believe he was wandering through the library that he had dreamt up when he was little, when he wandered through that house of books and saved the town from a dam about to burst.  Of course, it had to be a dream.  One didn’t just meet gods casually, such things were reserved for fanciful tales told by naïve children.

So distracted was he by his memories of the old days that it took him a few moments to realize that he didn’t recognize the shelves he was wandering around in.  The shelves still were covered in leather books, but the covers seemed far older than anything that Lord Opthal had bothered to stock in his collection.  These weren’t books on politics and exports, but poetry.  Some were books, others were scrolls that were half-way crumpled and painstakingly smoothed out.  Others were spare bits of napkins, but words that were beautiful were scrawled all across them.

Eagerly, Svierre read as many of the titles as possible trying to record them in his precise brain so he would remember them for later.  All at once the dream he had as a child felt more real than it had in years.  In fact all the years he had spent working as Lord’s aid seemed more distant than that dream despite the fact that it was mere moments ago.

“I told you I would call upon you again when I needed you,” came a familiar voice from behind him.  Svierre turned his head and before him was the man he had met many years ago.  He was not old, nor was he young and the brownish goatee was still the exact same length.  Today the robes were shades of green that were the color of newly sprung leaves and they were bright despite the dimness of the space between the shelves.

“I’m sorry, have we met?” Svierre grinned, trying to be kind but only having the dimmest recollection of who this person could be.  He felt familiar, yes that much was true, yet he had no memory of ever meeting the man. 

“Once, many years ago.  I am not surprised you don’t remember, “ The man gave a chuckle that bore very little mirth, “You were quite young.  Yet you did agree to a deal.  Do you remember what the deal was?”

Try as he might Svierre could not for the life of him remember what it was.  Surely if it was that important he should have been able to remember, yet wrack his brain as he might nothing came to mind.  He shook his head, “No sirrah, I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

The man chuckled, a knowing laugh that seemed to say he expected that answer, “Come with me, I will explain.”

As much as he wanted to follow, Svierre paused.  “Sirrah, I want to but I have business from my lord that I must attend to.”

The man turned to him, looking over his shoulder for a moment before continuing his pace, “You may try to go about your business with him if you wish, but I do not think you will have much luck.”

“Why not?” the young man asked, following after him with hurried step to close the distance.

“You may find that these tomes become a regular labyrinth.” The man’s gaze was pointed forward.

“So you’ve trapped me here then?” Svierre felt panic begin to rise in his throat.

Slowly the man shook his head, a few unseen chains jingling lightly against the cloth of his robes, “Not a trap, no.  But you do have your end of a bargain to uphold.”

“A bargain I don’t even remember making?” An even temperament was something that Svierre prided himself on, yet even he felt his bile begin to rise.  This was a stranger, demanding things of him at knife point.

“You stole from me, years ago.  This is you repaying a debt.  I assure you that you will not be hurt in the process, nor will anyone connected to you.” A table was ahead of them, long and wooden.  Around the table, standing like sentries, were rows and rows of filing cabinets.

“But you will not accept no for an answer.” Svierre stated it, reading from the man’s expression that this was not up for debate, “A deal I made as a child that I cannot remember even making is a binding contract?”

“A deal was made.  It will be fulfilled.  Mortals forget things all the time and yet they still agreed to it.” The man took a seat at one of the long tables, “Do you remember the dam when you were little?”

“Of course I remember that.  Village thought I was a prophet for a good year or two after.” Slowly ghosts of memories started floating back to him, talking to a man much like this man about the dam.

“We met on that day.  You were stealing from me and I showed you mercy.  You agreed to help me one day when I called upon you.” The man tapped the wooden seat next to him and Svierre obliged him.

“I thought I imagined that.” Svierre ran a hand over his chin, trying to reel in the realization that his memories may not be perfect.  Tis often a brutal thing when one realizes that even their memories are fallible, even when they are not stuck in a place they recognize only from dreams.

“Twas no dream, young one.  Now I do call.”

“So what is it?  Blood sacrifice?  Taking my name? Drinking my memories?”

The Librarian gave him a long even look, looking over the edges of his spectacles in a way that judged him harshly, “Nothing quite so crass.  I am no Slayer or Huntress.  I am a Librarian.”

The mortal man felt rebuked, looking elsewhere in the library in his embarrassment, “My apologies.  I did not mean to so insult you.  I merely know legends of the creatures beyond this plane that some have had interactions with.”

“Creatures are one thing, but gods are another. Let that be your first lesson.” The Librarian motioned to the room with a wave of his hand, “I suspect you will learn many in your time here.”

“And I am not allowed to leave?” Svierre queried, “For how long?  What do you want of me?”

“Do you want to leave?” The question was so plaintively spoken that it caught Svierre by surprise.  Did he?  Or did he just feel obligated to want to leave?

There was a pregnant pause as Svierre turned his options over in his head.  There was no compulsion to stay, but he owed a debt.  To reneg on that would be to shame himself and his family.  Not only that but it would anger a god –one of the Sacred Six!  Even if he were to reject it the sheer knowledge that somewhere out there a being capable of creating a place would have it out for him would haunt him.

And there was a part of him that didn’t want to leave.  There were tomes here that no living soul had ever read.  He would be working, yes, but also there would be many nights that he would be left to read the books.  All the whys that lingered in the back of his mind would be answered and then some and there would be no ribbons of politics to bind him up and get in his way.  After all, who would stand against the gods?

“No, I don’t think I do.” Svierre answered at last and the library itself seemed to approve of his choice.

“Then from this day, til the end of your contract, you will be my Archivist.  The whole of the library is yours to explore and learn from, but if someone comes looking you help them find that which they seek.” The Librarian extended out one hand. 

Svierre grabbed it and felt a rush of power enter into his mind. Memories and dreams that he had forgotten about for years all came flowing back all at once.  The world spun around him and his vision blurred.

Traces

Tags

detective, detective harris, investigation, murder, novel, Prose, Sci-Fi, Writing

Title: Traces:

Summary: an excerpt from a novel set in a sci-fi crime investigation unit as Detective Katherine Harris digs through the diary of a victim of a murder.

I don’t want to write a damn sestina. 

The words were angrily scrawled across the top of the paper where a school assignment should be.  It was such a delicate, commonplace thing that for a moment Detective Harris paused in her investigation. 

I hate them.  They don’t even really work outside of French.  Nothing I write with them sounds even vaguely poetic.  They are just words.

Strange how young this man was, young enough to still have diaries that he kept in high school still in his bedroom in plain view.  Granted many things were scattered about this room and it was likely he forgot that it was even there, but it wasn’t packed away in a box somewhere.  The art world had been lit on fire by him over the past three years and judging from the dates he couldn’t have been more than 21.

With her left hand she clicked the button on her wrist that engaged the protective field for her gloves before she thumbed through the pages.  Writing about hating bullshit assignments, which teachers he hated, a few dates that he went on.

Drugs were there too.  Not entirely surprising.  The artsy types often liked to indulge in drugs, claimed it made their art better or some shit.  Huh.  The reasoning was a bit odd though.

Took the Feathers and all at once the visions shut off.  It was silence, blessed silence, that felt like floating in a world where everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

Feathers.  Weird sort of hybrid drug that filtered in from some wind genos.  Numbed out the senses and made you feel all warm and fuzzy.  Hard to make to so only the rich really got to indulge in it on a regular basis.

Detective Harris made a note to tell forensics to run for Feathers in the tox report.  Despite the mess that was everywhere and the three room apartment, the boy was loaded.  Last year one of his paintings had sold for 90,000 and there were five paintings in that collection.  The whole thing had been sold out.

The writing got a bit wavy after that. Writing while under the influence was highly unadvisable.

When words failed him there was a lovely drawing of a man in a tornado with his eyes torn out that was scrawled at the bottom of the page.

Charming.

To an Angel From His Demon

When I did spy your long, wings torn; grace fell

And I along with it, regret flowed forth

For as I tumbled down, I knew the knell

Of love was upon my shattered, cruel worth

For no sight could dare compare, eyes well

For grace that would be now denied henceforth,

My tears then spattering the floors of Hell,

Torn asunder by God, shutting the porth

Treasure the moments, held to breast

Yet for now I must hide, held tight by fear,

Lest angels tear me from burning nest.

Please hold my image close, my precious dear.

Demons are not oft seen as more than pest,

And your kind gaze dost brighten damned spheres.  

As a note the last line should say Damn-ed but I cannot figure out how to get the accent.

To a Demon from His Angel

Tags

heaven and hell, Poetry, sonnets

To a demon from his angel

Once I did meet you upon distant shores

Long hair in wind, with robes long ‘bout our feet

I shrunk from gazes, before eyes did meet

Extending out a wing despite known lores.

A demon’s work is full of blood and gores

We all know how they work, Heaven does bleat

To bathe in Hell, punishment: pain replete

Clos’d forever to them are Heaven’s doors.

Yet I do see a new potential start

In eyes that glint with gold and suits of black

A life untamed where I may know pure glee.

A messy, wild, uncontrolled act of art,

Where I can allow calm with guard gone slack,

A blessed freedom that you can give me.