I am of course referring to the words “werewolf” and “haiku.”

Ryan Mecum’s poetry is like if a kick to the nuts felt exactly the opposite of how it really feels. Its that good. In doing a little more digging I found he has also composed books of Vampire Haiku and Zombie Haiku as well. I know what you’re thinking and yeah, that’s pretty much a trifecta of awesome.

Read “Werewolf Haiku” here on Scribd.com for free, and be jealous you didn’t come up with the idea first. Happy Friday, strange ones.

Bindleswill grunted with the effort of turning the heavy iron wheel to unlock the door. He could hear the acid rain already hissing off his thick black rainslicker. The storm would arrive any moment.

With a final aged groan the wheel pulled the locks free and the door moaned open. Bindleswill hastily slipped inside, jerking the heavy door closed behind him. The first peal of thunder rang out as he slammed the door locks home.

Storms hated Bindleswill. He had meddled in their affairs far too often as a young man, and the weather had a long memory. He hoped his descendants, if he were to ever have any, would not be held accountable.

Descendants. He chuckled at that. He had past sixty winters by his reckoning; far past the age where a man can catch the eye of a lass. Women were hard enough to come by, and childbearing twice so. He had long given up hoping to afford one one day.

He pulled the clasps of his heavy rubber coat free of each other, shaking it as best he could to clear the acid off of it. Still wearing his thick rubber hat he lifted the coat to the nearest hook. Under the sudden strain the hook gave way, the rust in the walls long having eaten it’s anchor, and his coat fell to the floor in an unceremonious flop.

“Bollocks,” Bindleswill grumbled, reaching carefully around the still-damp exterior to grasp what he could of the inner collar and lifting the coat to another hook.

“Back so soon?” Grellis’ voice called out from somewhere around the entryway corner.

“Aye. Storm came up too quick. Barely had time to fill a bag with beets.”

Grellis’ came around the corner wiping something red and wet on a towel long since stained pink. He was the thinnest man Bindleswill had ever met. His eyes bulged from his sallow skull like a fighting fish. His spindly arms were abnormally long, with his fingertips almost reaching his knees. As Bindleswill regarded him at that moment, he decided that Grellis was easily the ugliest man he had ever laid eyes on.

“Weatherman said this will be the worst storm of the year,” Grellis commented, leaning back around the corner to toss the towel back wherever he’d got it from and then straightening again. “I really wish you hadn’t meddled with the storms. It does put a kink in things.”

“You knew what you were getting into when you moved in with me. The door’s there whenever you want to go,” Bindleswill replied, hanging his hat next to his coat.

“I meant no ill by it. I’m only saying…”

“You’re only saying that you wish you didn’t have to be the one to make the trip to the market in it.  I know. But here in Henge, that’s how it goes.

Grellis regarded him silently for a moment.

“Your’e quite cantankerous this evening, do you know that Bindleswill?”

Bindleswill heaved a sigh.

“I’m sorry Grellis. You’re right. Just disappointed in the haul is all. I meant nothing by it.”

“Right. No harm done. Still have all my limbs,” Grellis patted himself down and smiled. “I’m off then. There’s food in the cellar when you’re hungry, and wax on the stove. It should have another thirty on the fire before it’s ready for the wicks and to set.”

Bindleswill nodded absently. Grellis donned the black rainslicker and hat and rested his hand on the wheel to the door.

“Anything you want from the market?” he asked.

“Books if they’ve got any. Or a goat. It’d be nice to have cheese again.”

“If you wanted cheese you shouldn’t have eaten the last goat,” Grellis chided. “Besides, there’s no way for me to get a goat home in this.”

Thunder rumbled outside.

Bindleswill nodded.

“Just books then.”

“Just books then,” Grellis echoed. “Be back later!”

Bindleswill completed his transformation from traveler to homebody by slipping on a pair of soft leather moccasins. Stomach rumbling, he shuffled down the long hall, taking a plate from one of the inset shelves that former the cupboard. He rubbed it clean deftly with the cuff of his sleeve until he got to the cellar door. Then, taking the plate in his teeth, he twirled the wheel of the pressure door to unlock it and headed inside.

The “cellar” was not really a cellar. Rather, it was a deep hole Bindleswill had dug into the earth through a breach in the iron floor over a period of months, storms permitting. He had sunk it over eight meters deep and extended it’s walls to almost twenty before some falling dirt from a particularly close lightning strike encouraged him to stop.

Within the cellar against the wall was Bindleswill’s beet distillery, where he made a form of alcohol  that was one of his best sellers at market. He ignored it and instead approached the center of the room which held six glass aquariums, all but one filled with rich dark earth. Bindleswill grasped a wooden handle which hung mounted to a chain which continued up to a system of pipes and shower heads that were mounted above the aquariums. He pulled the chain and water began to pour out of the collection of shower heads into the aquariums. He allowed the water to run for a span, then released the handle and reached for a pair of tongs which hung from a curved rusty nail sunk into the table side.

“Come on up you beauties,” he said, snapping the tongs.

Earthworms, driven to the surface by the water, began breaching the loam in every aquarium. Bindleswill carefully chose this one or that, pinching them with the tongs and placing them on his plate until he had a squirming heap. Returning the tongs to their nail, he then covered the worms with a generous helping of a mashed tomato sauce Grellis had brought back from market one day and began shoveling the mess in hungrily.

He returned to the area of the home he and Grellis referred to as the ‘living room’ and settled into a beaten stained overstuffed chair with a contented sigh.

The storm outside rumbled its irritation.

“Aw, hush up!” Bindleswill shouted, banging on the nearest metal wall with his fist. The noise reverberated throughout.

He paused to listen. The hiss of the rain on the skin of the submarine sounded like radio static. He shoveled in another mouthful of worms and sauce and harrumphed his satisfaction.

A sudden staccato banging, coming from the door, made him jump and yelp through his mouthful of food.

Could the storms have learned a new trick? Bindleswill strained his ears anxiously.

The banging came again; a series of taps in rapid succession. Bindleswill set his supper off to one side, eyeing the heavy iron door suspiciously.

“What’s that?” he hollered at the door.

“Please, can you help us?” a muffled voice, barely audible over the noise of the storm, asked. “We’ve come for the Stormspeaker.”

Bindleswill’s mouth twitched.

“No Stormspeakers here!” he shouted back. “Just an old man and his dinner. You lot ought find shelter!”

“Please! Ah! Have some compassion! We’ve heard it told the Stormspeaker lived in the iron home at Henge! Please let us in!” another voice shouted.

A feminine voice.

Conflict squeezed Bindleswill. It was cruel to leave anyone outside in a storm, especially the worst storm of the year. And the chance to lay his eyes on a woman, a REAL woman, of any age? Still, they had come seeking a Stormspeaker; that in itself was dangerous. Not all men cared for Stormspeakers, and the first voice had clearly been male; there was no telling how many might be with them.

“Ah! Blimey!” another yelp came from outside the door.

“Bloody hell,” Bindleswill grumbled. He reached behind his chair for his cricket bat, notched and mustard-colored with age, and headed for the door.

Thunder cracked overhead the moment Bindleswill threw the locks and pulled the door open. Three rubber yellow shapes, amorphous in their raincoats and hats, stood huddled together so close to the orifice that they nearly toppled inside the second the door gave way. The acrid rain hissed where it found purchase on the entryway carpet.

“Inside now! Quickly!” Bindleswill rushed them. Off to one side, lightning struck one of the huge standing stones. The concussive roar of thunder almost threw Bindleswill off his feet. One of the strangers, the taller one, leapt to his side and together they wrestled the door closed with a decisive clonk.

Bindleswill fingered the pommel of his cricket bat absently as he watched the strangers shed their stormclothes. The one who had helped him with the door was a stocky man, shorter than Bindleswill but with shoulders nearly the width of his girth, with a bushy beard in the style of the men of the north (Bindleswill had met a few), and, more concernedly, the hilt of a sword sticking up from a scabbard at his side.

With a glance at the other two travelers, Bindleswill stood transfixed as they shed their raingear. BOTH were feminine, though Bindleswill was unable to judge their age. Each were curvaceous in form, one broader of bust while the other more shapely in hips. Both wore the simple leather jerkins of the northern people, and both had heads of thick auburn hair, shot through with waves.

The man harrumphed loudly, and Bindleswill tore his gaze away from the two girls, wondering when his mouth had dropped open.

“Ah, Stormspeaker. Hello. My name is Toomas, Toomas  McDandry from the north. These are my two daughters, Adileweiss and  Adalaide,” the man spoke haltingly, as if reading a speech he had only practiced twice. “We have traveled many miles that you might train Adileweiss to speak to the storms.”

“Train…? What?” Bindleswill’s eyes darted between them in confusion. His grip on the cricket bat tightened reflexively.

McDandry crossed his thick arms in front of his chest and sighed heavily.

“Our stormspeaker died. Adileweiss was her apprentice, and will be our new one. You will train her and send her back to us.”

Bindleswill’s head buzzed. He could barely comprehend the absurdity of the situation.

“You mean to tell me you came all this way to ask me to train one of these girls? To…to…” he stammered over the words as he spoke through his confusion, “to show them how to control the weather when I can’t even go out in it anymore?” A peal of thunder outside resounded it’s agreement. “Mister McDandry, I…”

“Thoomas,” the man interjected.

“…Thoomas,” Bindleswill continued, “I don’t speak to storms anymore. I haven’t for quite some time. I’m sorry if your storm speaker was too shortsighted…”

“She was my wife,” McDandry said, eyes narrowing.

“…I… I’m sorry for your loss. At any rate I can’t just…”

“Stop your yammering,” McDandry said, making it clear by inflection it was not a request.

Bindleswill fell silent.

“You’re the closest stormspeaker for a thousand miles. The elders said to take the girls to you, so I take the girls to you. Now here they are and I’ve been gone too long already. I don’t care what you do with them. I’m leaving.” McDandry stepped deftly past Bindleswill and practically wrung the wheel from the door.

“Girls, do what the man tells you to,” he said.

“Yes papa,” the girls said in unison.

The door slammed and the locks moaned shut, and McDandry was gone.

Stunned, Bindleswill stared at the door for a full 30 seconds before comprehension sent him dashing for his rainslicker. Recalling vaguely that Grellis had taken it, he wrapped himself as best he could in one of the girl’s hats and coats and dashed outside, hollering for McDandry. The storm swelled at his sudden presence, sheeting it’s burning rain down and loosing bolts of lightning to divot the earth around him. His yells lost to the roaring thunder, Bindleswill skidded and slipped on the soppy earth, barely making it back inside.

The girls both stood where he had left them, hands clasped in front of them, eyes downcast. Bindleswill muttered curses as drops from the ill-fitting coat stung his hands and razed new holes in his thick woolen sweater as he replaced it on a peg.

“Not a man of much patience, your father, eh?” Bindleswill asked over his shoulder.

The girls cast sidelong glances at each other.

“No sir, not really,” one said.

“He was anxious to get back to the farm,” the other offered.

“Right. The farm.  Well then,” Bindleswill clapped his hands together and rubbed them absently. He was at a complete loss at how to handle the situation. “Out with it. Which is which?”

The taller of the two spoke first. “I am Adileweiss. I am to be your apprentice,” she said, raising her eyes only slightly to look at Bindleswill before returning them to the floor.

“I gathered that from your father. And that makes you…” Bindleswill snapped his fingers in forgetfulness.

“Adalaide, sir,” the second girl offered.

“Adalaide. Sure,” Bindleswill nodded as he sank into his tattered overstuffed chair. He looked to where he had set his supper. Several of the worms had crawled off the plate already, leaving tomato sauce trails on the table & rug. Bindleswill grimaced.

“Have you two eaten already?” he asked the girls.

“Yes stormspeaker. We had some tack yesterday morning,” Adalaide answered.

Tack. He had tried the northerner’s bread before. More like eating dried mud than biscuit. Bindleswill’s frown deepened.

“There are some pickled beets in the jars around the corner there. You’re welcome to them for a meal.”

The girls exchanged a look between them.

“Thank you stormspeaker. Your generosity is greater than is spoken of you,” Adileweiss said. She took her sister’s hand and disappeared around the corner.

“Don’t call me that!” Bindleswill hollered after them.

Clinking of glassware and drifting  murmurs told him they had found the beets. Bindleswill reached for his pipe and leaf. He needed some smoke around his head to think this through.

Women. Girls, really. Bindleswill couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a woman. Must’ve been, what? Five years ago now? At the market in Furl? And now here were two, delivered to his doorstep. He puffed smoke at that. Two girls, both of breeding age. Both easy on the eye. One could bring a man the wealth of a king. But two? If he sold them both he’d be the richest man in all of Scottsland.

But…he formed a ring of smoke and watched it drift lazily… There was the matter of their father. Clearly a man not to be trifled with if their short exchange were any indication. And that man wanted his daughter trained as a stormspeaker and returned to him. That pressed Bindleswill’s mouth into a line; the presumption that Toomas McDandry could waltz into his life and tell him what to do. After all, there had been a time when he had been Speaker for the king!

He blew another mouthful of smoke. Two kings had passed since that time, neither employing stormspeakers. The hope of the people now was that the weather would forget their meddling. No, Bindleswill concluded, there would be no protection from the king. Or from anyone else. He was a relic from a different time, one people wanted to erase.

He was so lost in thought that he jumped reflexively at the sound of the door banging open. The roar of the storm cut through the room in an instant as Grellis came stumbling back inside, throwing himself bodily against the door to get it to close.

“Crikey!” Grellis said, spinning the wheel to latch it shut once more. “Its like world war four out there!”

Bindleswill shook off his surprise. “Back so soon?” he asked Grellis.

“Forgot the strongbox,” Grellis replied, shaking the slicker hat out onto the pitted carpet. “Can’t sell the beets if I can’t make cha…” his voice trailed off as he noticed the two slickers already hanging from the coat pegs.

“What’s this now? Are you actually entertaining someone? And in this?”

Bindleswill frowned. How could he explain it to Grellis?

“We have… guests,” he explained awkwardly.

“Do we now? And who would…” Grellis trailed off, leaving his question unasked.

The girls had come around the corner, each with a steel plate piled high with pickled beets. They had been whispering amongst themselves, but at the sight of Grellis they froze.

Grellis stared at the girls. The girls stared back at Grellis. No one spoke.

Bindleswill became uncomfortable with the silence. “Right,” he said, “I suppose introductions are in order. Grellis, these are…”

“Bindleswill, what are these mongrels doing here?” Grellis’ voice was tight, as though he were speaking through an injury.

Bindleswill looked from Grellis to the girls and back, lacking comprehension.

“Mongrels? Grellis what are you…”

“Quiet Bindleswill. You’re in more danger than you can know.” Grellis’ hand had slowly drifted around his back as he spoke. “How did they get here?”

“Their father. He… He arrived soon after you left. Said one was to be trained as a stormspeaker.” Bindleswill glanced at the girls. Both held Grellis’ stare cooly. “He stormed off before I could even argue.”

“Was he a northerner?” Grellis asked.

“Aye. He was. Grellis what…”

“I heard talk in the market last week. Flannery was deep in the shine, and showed no signs of stopping. Telling everyone who passed by his stool about the things he’d heard. Things from up north.”

“Stormspeaker, who is this…”  Adalaide started, but Grellis cut her off.

“Flannery said the northerners had killed his cousin. Cut up the whole clan of them into pieces. Said people round those parts said the northerners were doin it to all sort of folk. Said they’d lost their stormspeaker and had turned to the blackest magics they could find. Flannery said,” Grellis grimaced so firm his lips went white, “they’d called the storms down and bound them to two girls with their magics; stuck them to the girls like a demon to a pig. That they’d given themselves soul and skin to the storms to save themselves.”

Bindleswill looked to the girls. Both were smiling slyly now.

“You’ve heard much, meatwalker,”  Adileweiss addressed Grellis. She stepped slowly to the side, putting more distance between herself and her sister. “We come for the stormspeaker, not for you.  Leave now, and we will speak to our sisters outside. You have no need to be tormented by them so.” Water inexplicably began to course from her shoulders, running the length of her arms and dripping from her bent elbows.

“Only the stormspeaker,” Adalaide echoed. Her eyes glowed blue-white and her hair began to rise, till it stood on end. Sparks crackled between her fingers and the plate she held.

“He hides in his iron home, and our sisters cannot reach him,” Adileweiss continued. A furious crack of thunder echoed outside. “But we can. We can go where they cannot, and we can give them what they cannot have.” Water pooled and poured from her eyes. Her hair was damp as it trickled down her neck.

“The head of the stormspeaker!” Adalaide shouted. Her skin had become pale as ivory and beneath it arcs of electricity crawled and climbed like Bindleswill’s dinner.

“Bindleswill, listen to me. Talk to them. They are storms, like any other. Talk to them.” Grellis had slid his other arm behind him while then girls had been speaking. Bindleswill wondered what he grasped.

“Faol om…  faol om slog on…” Bindleswill stammered. It had been long since he had curled his tongue around stormspeak, and his fearful confusion heightened his stuttering.

“Silence him!” Adileweiss screamed.

With a scream of her own Adalaide hurled the plate she was still holding into Bindleswill’s face. It’s edge caught him in his teeth sending him stumbling back across his chair, blood fountaining with spittle. Grellis brought his hands from behind his back in a sweeping motion, fingers threaded with knives, which he threw in deft grace at the girls. Adileweiss opened her mouth in a scream and raised her arms together in an arc, sweeping the knives headed for her from the air with a sudden jet of water that she then turned on Grellis. Adalaide, crawling with arcing electricity, raised her own hands toward Bindleswill, but Grellis’ knives found their mark, two sinking into her abdomen and one glancing off her skull. She fell back, lightning sparking from her mouth, fingers, eyes; her whole body luminescent. Electricity crackled and burned the air, dancing around the the room seeking purchase. The table burst into flames as did the rug. Grellis howled as the very floor became electrified, searing him instantly and sending his smoking body flopping forward, carried by his diving momentum. Adileweiss hissed and steamed as the lightning found purchase with her as well, cauterizing holes through her even as she gushed and fountained.

Adalaide’s body hit the floor. The electricity searing the air ceased with her fall. Bindleswill, his hand covering his aching bloody mouth, gingerly touched the floor; no shock. Adileweiss stood staring at her sister’s body, momentarily distracted. Seizing his chance, Bindleswill leapt to the door and wrenched it open. Adileweiss’ frustrated scream behind him told him he had succeeded it surprising her.

He had made the decision, even as he had fallen, that tangling with the storm outside was a much better idea than tangling with the banshee Adileweiss had become. Even as a torrent of water caught his back and tossed him out into the storm, he already felt better about his chances.

His skin was instantly alight with pain as he tumbled out into the acid rain. Scrambling to his feet he tore the heavy plastic tarp from the woodpile and wrapped himself in it like a cloak, being mindful to keep the dryer interior towards his skin.

Lightning flashed and thunder cracked almost instantly. With the brief glimpse of the landscape whitewashed into his vision Bindleswill trudged as quickly as possible over the soggy earth to his target: his small dirigible, his tool in stormspeaking for the king and his parting gift when he left the service (and to insure no one else attempted to use it, no doubt.)

He threw himself into the basket even as a gushing of water caught it’s side and fountained over him; Adileweiss had caught his scent. He pulled his pocketknife, chipped and dingy with age, from his pocket and sawed at the anchor rope that held the dirigible to the earth. It sprung free and began to rise even as the basket rocked violently from another blast from Adileweiss. One of her hands curled over the lip of the basket and Bindleswill swiped at her fingers wildly with his pocketknife. He didn’t recognize the language she screamed in but he was sure it was a curse all the same.

Without Adileweiss’ weight clinging to it the dirigible climbed quickly. Bindleswill hunkered down in a corner of the basket as it was rocked repeatedly with fountains of water. As these lessened with altitude the storm rose to the occasion, buffeting him with wind and rain, and slashing at the sky with lightning. Storms had terrible aim and Bindleswill knew it; but he waited until he knew he was well in the air before standing in his makeshift cloak and starting oily kerosene engine.

It took him seven pulls to get the old engine to fire up, rain stinging his hand each time he tried. Once it coughed to life he positioned himself over the control stick that rose from the floor so he could use his free hand to pilot.

He didn’t know if his plan would work. He had gambled with it the moment he took escape in the dirigible over running for the hills. (Although he knew he would never have outrun Adileweiss.) Bindleswill held the rudder steady, gathered his resolve, and began to speak.

He spoke to the clouds and the wind; he called to their rolling aggression, their never-ending thirst, their desire to cover the planet once more. Then he spoke to the lightning and thunder of their desire to crush, to burn, to glory in the destruction of it all. He called for his voice to be heard over it all in the tongue he had known for birth; Bindleswill challenged it, he accused it, he mocked it, dared it to sublimate him. And as he did, as he felt the pressure of the storm begin to creep across his body and enter his mind, he plunged the control stick forward.

Even as the dirigible sank he continued to bellow in stormspeak. He could feel the storm bend around him; feel the rushing energy of it’s torrent. He could make out Adileweiss on the ground now, thrashing as though taken by seizures, even as he felt the sparks crackle through his veins. He was more than power; he was destruction incarnate. Fury itself bottled and barely contained behind flesh. He was…

The basket shattered upon impact with the standing stone, carving new gashes into it’s millennia-old edifice. Bindleswill ricocheted off it to tumble barely conscious to the ground. He felt the pain of his bones breaking and tearing his flesh only for the briefest of moments before unconsciousness claimed him.

The light hurt his eyes.

Light?

Bindleswill squinted against the brightness as he cracked open his eyes. Sunlight fell through the open window he faced and beyond the glare he could see a sky bluer than he could ever remember.

The soreness came the moment he tried to move. He groaned against it, finding himself immobile which was probably for the best as it seemed he could feel every inch of his body, and all of it hurt.

“Ah, you’ve returned to us,” a voice said from behind him. He heard footsteps and then a man with a darkened lamp on his head came into his field of view. The man wagged a pencil towards Bindleswill. “We all wondered if you would pull through, if it was even worth the effort. But the king insisted. And now here you are. Welcome back.”

“Where am I?” Bindleswill asked. His mouth tasted like he imagined licking a tomb clean might.

“At the castle, in the infirmary. The king sent his men to check on you when the storm broke. He thought you might be up to your old tricks. Instead they found the kings man he had sent to keep an eye on you burned to a crisp, two girls no one has seen before, one with Grellis’ knives in her and the other with holes burned through her. That one died from a broken neck but she looked as though she’d been thrown down a mountain first,” the man took a pen light from his pocket and shined it first in one, then the other of Bindleswill’s eyes. “And then there was you and your crashed dirigible. To say that people have questions for you would be the understatement of the century. Looks good,” the man turned the pen light off and replaced it in his pocket, “no concussion at any rate. The king asked me to let him know when you were awake so that he could question you personally. I’m off to do that now. Try not to break anything else while I’m gone. We had a hard enough time getting you back together in the first place.”

The man strode out of Bindleswill’s field of vision, and he could hear his footsteps gradually growing fainter. Bindleswill turned his attention back to the day outside; so crisp & vibrant he could almost feel it. And faintly, a single note of thunder crawled across the cloudless sky.

(Picture used with permission via Creative Commons. Original by Michel Filion)

I’m still not sure what this story will be called, so we’ll all be surprised come Friday!

Once upon a time there was a girl named Lillian. Lillian was 14 years old.



One day while at school, Lillian’s stomach began cramping while in her science class. She also began to feel a slight wetness between her thighs. Her mother had prepared her for this day, and she knew what was happening: she was getting her first period. She raised her hand and asked to be excused to the restroom.



When she arrived at the bathroom she rifled through her purse looking for her maxi pad her mother had made her start carrying. She found it and unwrapped it, discarding the wrapping in the small trash can that sat between bathroom stalls.



When she pulled down her pants down to sit down and apply the pad though, she found something she didn’t had not expected; instead of bleeding, she had begun excreeting a thin string of silk.



Lillian was terrified. She was some kind of freak!! She hurriedly pulled the strand of silk free and flushed it down the toilet. She pulled her clothes back on and returned to class, resolving not to speak about the incident to anyone.



But the silk didn’t go away. There was more the next morning, and the day after that. Lillian’s thighs began itching constantly and it was all she could do to keep from scratching them in public places.



Other changes began to take place as well. She began to be hungry all the time and began eating constantly. But no matter how much she ate, she still wanted more.



A month passed. Lillian packed on the pounds, much to the chagrin of her mother, a former cheerleader and beauty queen. Her mother begged her to stop eating, but Lillian ignored her. She was having a hard enough time hiding all the silk she was now producing.



At school she would ask to be excused to use the restroom every class. Between her sudden weight gain and her constant bathroom trips the kids at school began to whisper about Lillian behind her back. And although she hated it, the silk came so often and in such large amounts that it was the only way she could keep it from creating bulges in her pants.



For two months Lillian struggeled with the horrors the changes her body was undergoing caused. She had gained close to 80 pounds. She had to sneak trashbags full of silk out to the trash can while her parents slept. She thought it couldn’t get any worse.



Then, Lillian began sleepwalking.



The first night wasn’t so bad. She woke up on the floor of her parents bedroom with no memory of how she got there. Her mother told her she had come in and lay down some time in the middle of the night. Her mother also clearly frowned at the fat that had built around her daughters midriff, but said nothing concerning it.



The second time it happened, Lillian woke up on the balcony outside her window.



It was the third time it happened that she began to get scared. Lillian woke up to the sun in her eyes. This confused her, because she always closed her shades before going to bed.



Opening her eyes, Lillian was immediately disoriented and frightened. Not only was she out in her front yard, she was also hanging upside down by her legs in their small tree. She quickly righted herself and snuck back through the open front door, hoping that no one had seen her.



That night after school, Lillian became I’ll. She began running a fever and got the shakes. Her mother was worried, but Lillian insisted that she didn’t need to see a doctor.



As her family slept, Lillian began sleepwalking again. Only this time she didn’t stop at her front yard. Out the door and down the street she went, walking the empty streets barefoot and unconscious, until she arrived at the park. Once there her sleeping form climbed the tallest pine tree it could find, and curled itself around a branch deep in it’s boughs.



When Lillian awoke, she thought she had somehow crawled under her covers. Fabric pressed against her face and held snugly to her body. She struggled to move her arms at her sides, but it felt as though someone was holding her blanket down.



Lillian yelled at whoever was holding her covers to stop, but there was no response. Struggling against the pressure, she tried to wiggle a hand up in front of her. Suddenly there was a tearing sound and light flooded her eyes. With a gasp she realized two things: she was vey high up in the air, and she was also now falling.



Lillian screamed as the ground rushed up at her with incredible speed. Instinctually she threw her arms out in front of her, as though to catch herself from falling. As she did, muscles in her back clenched and flexed. With a yelp she jerked to a halt in mid-air.



Lillian was terrified. She hovered 40 feet above the ground. Breeze caressed her face. A soft foomping sound came from behind her. Fighting her screaming emotions, Lillian slowly turned her head to behold what she already knew she would find; reaching out behind her flapping rhythmically, two brightly colored wings stretched to either side, holding her aloft. Softly illuminated by the suns early morning rays, the wings were primarily a deep shade of azure, with small yellow dots sprinkled around each one.



Lillian shook with emotion. Everything she had repressed as she struggled to cope with the silk and the weight gain came rushing to the surface. Unable to contain herself any longer, Lillian screamed. She screamed for the horror her body had become. She screamed as the life she had dreamed of died before her eyes. And she screamed for the normalcy she would never again have. Overcome, her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted.



The aching woke her. Her whole body hurt. From somewhere nearby Lillian heard a faint beeping. She slowly opened her eyes.



Sterile white walls and hospital machinery broke through her teary squint. Her mother sat in a chair by the door, crying softly.



Relief washed over Lillian. It had been a dream! The whole time she had been asleep in the hospital, sick or injured! She wasn’t a monster! She opened her eyes, grimacing against the pain of her protesting facial muscles. “Mom?” Lillian croaked.



“Sweetie! Oh baby!” lillian’s mother was at her bedside in an instant. “I’m so happy you’re awake! The doctors didn’t know when… If…” her mother sniffed back tears, “when you would wake up! How do you feel?”



“Terrible,” Lillian croaked out. “I had such horrible nightmares.”



“Well don’t worry,” her mother wiped away tears and put on her bravest face. “we’re going to get through this together. I’m going to find the best plastic surgeon in the world and we’ll cut those horrible things off.” Lillian’s face twisted in horror as her mother smiled. “you’ll be beautiful again in no time.”

(Photo used courtesy of Kjunstorm via Flickr)

And don’t forget, you can have your STRANGITIES in meatspace as well! STRANGITIES: Volume I is available for sale now! See the nifty button up there in the right hand corner? Click it! Buy it! Love it!

Also, STRANGITIES: Volume I will also be available on the Amazon Kindle & in its respective bookstore this week! Get those iPhones, iPads, & eInk readers fired up!

Let’s get something cleared up: I am not a pussy. (Although I do enjoy it when available.) I did try to help the bums before they got eaten, and I did try to help the dude in the car before he ripped his face off and tried to mandibilize me. Those are both very non-pussylike behaviors. I understand that with my pink hair and “petite” rockstar frame you might be inclined to be drawing an unfavorable conclusion concerning my bravery as a result of my tales up to this point.

Let me and my aluminum baseball bat assure you that that would be a very poor conclusion to jump to.

Its been almost a month since the mouth-thing ate the bums (or dragged them off.) I still have no idea what was happening to me those two days I was seemingly unconscious. They’re a total blank. They did, however, serve to raise me to new heights of paranoia that heretofore I had thought unattainable.

For instance: right now my arm itches.

Specifically, my right forearm itches exactly where one of the blue circles of my tattoos reside. I don’t remember when this itching started and so I wonder… is this the result of something that happened to me while I was unconscious? Or is it just dry skin?

And how can I know?

Couple this with the fact that Klay is in Peru and I’m working sixteen hour days at the studio all by myself, surrounded by snow-covered trees straight out of “The Mothman Prophecies” and you’ll understand that I’m a little jumpy. As a rule I dislike nature, and so having the already shitty Detroit covered in a thick blanket of “hides-tracks-and-bodies-conveniently” is pretty unfavorable to me. (As is: having to dig my car out; constantly losing traction on the roads; avoiding the wildlife that has been induced to suicide-by-my-bumper by this lousy city; fucking cold in general.)

So yes, I’m in an unpleasant mood.

Which is why when the manager calls to tell me I just landed four tracks in various forms in a new Luc Beeson picture, I decide to celebrate with a little “La Femme Nikita” rental from the mom and pop video shop I hit up here. The Stahlimobile practically roars to life in anticipation. (That is to say my base-model Honda Civic finally starts after six tries.)

I used to think urban abandonment was cool. You’d get these awesome photographers that would do pieces on things like “The Abandoned Amusement Park of Chernobyl” or “Ghost Town Movie Theaters” and the shots were incredible. But here, having to drive through a constantly eroding landscape of failed factories and empty neighborhoods, its just depressing. (And tempting to my directorial urges. But you don’t go out exploring said places unless you’re wearing multiple high-caliber firearms and special forces body armor. Neither of which I own. So I keep my principal cinematographer urges to myself and drive as straight as the ice allows to the rental place.)

In the rental place (cleverly named “Family Video”) browsing row upon row of movies brings up good memories of weekends with friends growing up. There were countless times we’d pass out at 4 AM to Twilight Zone reruns after an evening of gratuitous violence. (An experience I think is healthy for every eleven-year-old.) I pass over Hackers and Event Horizon, (the old stand-bys,) and go straight for some French assassin goodliness.

Which is where my evening takes a turn for the worse.

Standing in the “Foreign” section reading the back of “La Femme” is a dude who looks like a bad “young Bill Paxton” clone. His hair is greasy and slicked back, shaved on the sides. He’s got the three-quarters black leather trench, the tweed pants, and the silk yellow shirt tucked into them. The thick horned-rimmed glasses are the only thing that throw off the illusion; if it wasn’t for them I would have thought I was suddenly in Predator 2.

“La Femme Nikita. Such a great movie” he says, casting a sidelong glance at me. “One of my favorites. You know why I like it?” He places the box back on the shelf and picks up the one next to it, continuing his description perusal. “Nikita is never really a hero. She’s just a girl who gets caught in a bad situation and has to deal with it. There’s no moral lesson or destiny. Just a poor lost girl and a fantastic experience.”

I nod, hoping my lack of movement and enthusiasm indicates he might be in my way. He doesn’t get the message.

“You know what I’ve always thought would be a great plot for a movie?” He continues, returning the film and retrieving another, “You take this kid. Good kid. Nice kid. Works hard. But then something happens. He sees something he can’t explain. Like a monster or something. Flips him right the fuck out. What does he do? What CAN he do? Go to the cops? They’ll throw him in the looney bin. So he ignores it. Tries to move past it. Figures it was something maybe supernatural. A ghost or a demon or something. Maybe he’s seen some stuff before this that gives him a certain inclination. Whatever.”

“Thing is… and this is where the movie gets good… that thing he saw? Its REAL. Sure it wasn’t supposed to be where it was that night he saw it. But its real. See, what happens is,” he puts the movie back on the shelf and turns to me now, clearly getting excited, “there’s a lot of people out there. Smart people, dumb people, people with money, people who ain’t got shit. So what happens when the people with money hire the smart people to figure shit out? Like, not your normal run-of-the-mill shit. I’m talking craaaaaaazy shit. Like, ‘what happens when you sew two monkeys together,’ or ‘make me a two-hour movie of black people getting killed by electric eels,’ or ‘make me a real sphinx for a pet,’ or…” he pauses for effect, “what would the result be if you pumped a human subject full of heavily modified arachnid RNA. You know… just to see what would happen?”

He gets this queer little half smile on his face. “Anyways, the monster gets back to the scientists that made it. See, they’re holed up in some abandoned factory or warehouse or maybe some empty neighborhood. They started moving in when people started moving out. They’ve been doing it for decades; following wars and natural disasters and stuff. When societies start really crumbling, when they reach this state of civilized anarchy, where its bad but people are still trying to act like it isn’t, that’s where these scientists go. It lets them work in peace without having to worry about cops and governments and stuff. They can grab people right off the street. No one notices.”

He licks his lips. “But our boy, he doesn’t know any of that, right? All he knows is he saw a monster. But anyways,” he swipes his hands through the air like he’s throwing baggage at the airport, “the monster goes back to these guys, and its seriously fucked up. Like, to get away our boy pulled some serious shit on it.  So it goes back to these guys to get itself patched up. And its PISSED. It wants blood. But the scientist guys are like ‘no you’re too fucked up, you can’t go,’ so they send ANOTHER monster out to get the kid. But that doesn’t work either. So now our boy is twice as freaked, and the scientists are running out of subtle ways of doing things, you know? Running out of ideas. So they switch tactics. They try diplomacy. Send a dude out to talk to the kid, try to see if he’s cool. Dig?”

Oh, I’m digging alright. I’m dug right to fucking China. I nod.

“Tell you what, lets get some food. You like Chinese? Wait, you’ve got great taste in movies, of COURSE you like Chinese.”

He pulls his trench aside to flash the butt of a gun shoved in his waistband.

Yup.

Expected that.

“You’re paying.” I tell him.

He laughs. It sounds like one of those tiny dogs thats only good for kicking.

Snow has started falling outside again as we walk from the video store to the little Chinese joint thats in the same strip mall. I’d like to say my mind was racing with MacGyver-type solutions to my current predicament, but truth be told I’d been abandoned by all smarmy mojo.

The Chinese place is warm and generic. He orders pepper beef and chow-mein. I order lo mein chicken. And sure as shit the douchebag pays.

“I love places like this,” he tells me as we wait by the pickup counter. “Just tastes so much better. I don’t know if its the rat meat or what its just… better, you know?”

I shrug.

The perennially pregnant girl behind the counter smiles at me as we take our trays. I’ve been in a couple times before and I’m guessing I’m kind of hard not to recognize. What I cant figure out is how she’s ALWAYS pregnant when I come in, despite the fact I’ve been patronizing the place for two years now.

My buddy clears it up on his own.

We’d just sat down in a laminate booth when he takes a huge shovelfull of his beef and chow mein, points at her with his chopsticks, and through loud smacking says “She’s one of ours.”

I look back at the girl who’s now on the phone resting her hand on her belly, and then back to my new friend.

“Incubating,” he says. “I’m not really sure what.”

This guy was incredible. I mean, I’ve waded through more than my share of human refuse since third grade. But this guy was on a whole different astral plane of asshole.

“You pay her for that? Cause I could use some extra dough.”

He laughed his yippie dog laugh again.

“Not exactly.”

We eat in silence for a bit, him enjoying his food and me watching for an opportunity to sink one of my chopsticks into him lobotomy style.

“You know,” he pipes up, “I really think you’re dealing with this well.”

“Guy flashes me a pistol, how else am I supposed to deal? Now, toss the cannon out that door and we’ll revisit how well I’m dealing.”

His face gets a sort of “you shouldn’t had said that,” look. I was able to recognize it from mom making that face a million times growing up. He throws his chopsticks into his empty bowl

“Alright fine. Down to it then,” his voice gets real tight, “the people I represent are offering you a truce. This is a one time, walk-out-that-door-and-its-gone, offer. The terms are simple: you keep your dumb mouth shut about anything you’ve seen or might see henceforth. In exchange, we refrain from allowing a certain level of retribution to be meted out and we’ll endeavor to keep from involving you any further with our projects. Straight and clear. Do we have a deal?”

A deal.

That starts nagging at me something awful.

A deal.

Nag nag nag.

What!? Why is that so important brain? I’ll just say yes and they’ll leave me alone and life can go back to its hideous shade of normal.

A deal.

Why?

Why… a deal?

Why would they offer me a deal?

It starts to come into focus. Why would a group like this offer me a deal? Ok… think this through quick. The first time the spider-thing tried to eat me was evidentially an accident. The mouth thing was intentional. So what changed? From what this jerk says they make people disappear all the time. Its not like the world would really notice if another two-bit musician dropped a couple of tracks and then evaporated from the scene. It happens all the time. So what about me was so important that they COULDN’T  just off me now and this was their preferred option? A sudden streak of benevolence?

I look back at the pregnant girl.

Nope, not that.

So… what then? And how do I figure it out?

“I’ve got a different idea.”

His eyebrows go up and he smiles like a dog that just got caught eating its own shit.

“This ought to be good. Shoot.”

Oooooh fuck, Bret. Here it goes.

“I want to join up.”

He bursts out laugh-barking. Makes the pregnant girl jump.

“You?” he keeps laughing. At least someone is. “YOU want to join up?”

I nod.

“Call ‘em.”

He stops laughing.

“You’re serious?”

I point at his jacket where I hope he keeps his cell.

“Call ‘em.” I tell him again.

He stops laughing. And smiling for that matter.

“Outside,” he says, thumbing at the door.

I follow him toward a late eighties navy blue Ford Taurus in the parking lot. He pulls his cellphone out of his inner jacket pocket (way to go me,) and dials someone while we walk. I obviously eavesdrop.

“Yeah its me. Let me talk to Injin.”

He waits for a few minutes with his back turned to me. I check the ground several times for something to glance off his skull but the snow has conveniently hidden anything I might use as a weapon. Thanks again, Detroit. The one time your garbage-ridden streets could have helped me out…

“Injin. Its Ben. I’m with the Stahli kid. He says he wants to join up.”

He gets quiet. I’m guessing Injin is talking.

“Uh huh. Uh huh,” he pulls his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door of the Taurus.

“Right. Ok,” he opens the car door.

“Alright. I’ll tell him. Yeah, bye.”

He slaps the clamshell shut on his phone turns to face me. He’s clearly irked.

“They want me, don’t they?” I ask with a smirk.

He frowns more deeply at that but nods an affirmative.

“He told me someone would contact you in a couple weeks.”

“So… that means you and I are on the same team then, huh?” I have to admit, I’m enjoying the turned tables.

“Yup, thats what it means.”

“Well then I guess I’ll be seeing YOU later, partner,” I cant resist giving him the two-finger guns.

Then I accidentally bump the open door of the Taurus, slamming his fingers in it.

I hope La Femme isn’t rented yet.

The moment all three of you have been waiting for has finally arrived! STRANGITIES: Volume I collects over 20 short stories featured here at STRANGITIES.com into paperback for the first time ever. Several trees were violently slaughtered in the creation of this tome of the fantastic and bizarre, which features such tales as “Stuffed” and “The Dream Chemist” as well as collecting the first three episodes of the popular noir “The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli” into one place. If you’re what people refer to as a “weirdo” you should probably own STRANGITIES: Volume I. So click here! Buy it now!

Those of you who are common visitors to the site will no doubt have noticed that the “Stories” category to the right is a whole lot emptier than it was yesterday. ‘So where did all the awesome free short stories go?’ you ask. And my answer is this: “They’ve all been included in STRANGITIES: Volume I.” This is to make room for all the NEW short stories that are coming your way, starting with the third installment of “The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli” which I’ll post here, for free as always, on Friday, June 18th. (Or, if you can’t wait, its available NOW in the special edition of “Corner,” the most recent single from Blue Stahli. Catch up on Episode I here, and Episode II here.) Each short story I write will be posted as its completed, just like you’re used to, and each story will be free to read here at STRANGITIES.com, just like always. And to help you keep up with when new stories go live, I’ve added an RSS feed for you to follow, the “contact” button to the right will get you onto the STRANGITIES email list, or as always you can follow my inane 140 character ramblings via Twitter.

With its release I’ll be taking down most of the stories included in it, so this will be the last week you can read the majority of them for free here on the site. “The Dream Chemist” “Stuffed” “Chains” and “The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli” will still be sticking around, and I’ll be releasing the third installment of “The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli” in a few weeks so stay tuned!

“I don’t understand Magistrate.”

“There is nothing to understand. The ruling is passed. This notification is merely a courtesy. Your estate and its lands are forfeit. You have seven days to remove yourself from the premises, or you will be removed by the authorities.”

“But Magistrate… I was not even allowed to defend my case. Surely there must be some recourse, some sort of appeal…”

“I will not hear of it Mister Cisneros. What you are dabbling in is unholy. Unnatural. I don’t like it. This Quorum doesn’t like it. And most importantly the Governor doesn’t like it. You are deposed sir. I suggest you spend your last seven days as a member of this city saying your goodbyes and preparing what effects you can carry with you. Because in seven days you will be put outside the walls of this city, and may the goddess have mercy on you.”

The judgement sphere came down with a crack.

Dim Cisneros pushed his spectacles up onto the bridge of his nose and shoved his fists into his longcoat, leather creaking at the shoulders. Dismounting the steps of the Imperial Courthouse he ignored the hansoms parked along the curb, electing instead the long walk home to think.

Deposed. The cruelest judgement that could be passed. Typically reserved only for rapists and murderers. And now he, Dim Cisneros, savior of Heatherdale, would be put outside the dome he created, left to the elements and the constant meteor strikes.

A death sentence.

How had this happened? How had it gone from parades and celebrations, from drinks on the house and his pick of the women? He watched as a passing mother pulled her two children closer to her, averting her eyes.

He had gotten bored. That’s what had happened. Creating the dome and its shields had brought him celebrity. It had brought him wealth. It had even brought him a treasured estate in the much-coveted countryside. But it had not brought him satisfaction.

After the completion of the dome, he had found himself with nothing to do. “A brilliant mind left to rot under the weight of its accomplishments,” was how he had seen it.

A low, resonating peal rang out as a particularly large meteorite rang off the dome’s shields. He stopped and looked up toward the roof, using his hand to shield his eyes from the intense irradiated lamps that served as Hetherdale’s sun and moon. There, in the haze of distance he could just make out the massive gears of the Cisneros Sentry Shielding System. Dim watched as they slowly grumbled to life, pulling the damaged plate away from the exterior while sliding a new plate into place. He knew that high up along the dome’s peak the damaged armor was being drawn by powerful machines into the foundries to be melted down and reforged into a new armored plate.

Conflict swirled within him. He took great pride that his machines worked so well. Indeed, his inventions had saved every life in Heatherdale. The interlocking armor system, inspired by the scaled hide of his golden thorntail lizard ‘Chesapeake’; diverting the river that divided the town to dead-end into a natural fault, giving them the endless geothermal power necessary to run both the entire city as well as the gargantuan machines of the CSSS; using the naturally occurring copper and tin veins running throughout the city’s foundation to demonstrate that bronze, not iron, would be the superior material for the interlocking scales of the shield; and all of these by age 25. And yet it was not enough. He was driven still – to create, to discover, to explore. And so he turned to the only unexplored reaches he could find: the chemistry of the mind.

A hansom drove by, horse hooves and banded wheels clattering loudly on the cobblestones as a half-heard insult drifted from its window. Dim had grown used to this kind of treatment the few times he had appeared in public after he had begun his research. People always feared what they didn’t understand; he knew that. He had long ago rejected the church and its taboos, but the majority of the city didn’t share his distain. They followed the words of the priestesses devoutly, and the priestesses said that dabbling in the sciences of the mind were the holy calling of the clergy alone. To experiment in such things without the calling or anointing of the goddess was the work of warlocks and heretics. And so as Dim’s work progressed, more and more the word began to be whispered around that he was violating the sacred rites.

And indeed, he had been.

The equipment had been the hardest part. Even with his immense fortune he had been unable to persuade any abbey, large or small, to part with their mixing apparatus. Knowing well he had already begun rumors by his inquiries, he turned instead to obtaining a copy of the sacred instructionals. This proved almost as difficult, until Dim had found an old priestess, long out of ministry. She lived in near-poverty at the heart of Heatherdale, forgotten by her younger more imminent sisters. He offered her millions (what was money in exchange for discovery?) and she had turned over the holy writings he would require to create his own sacrament machine, albeit with a warning:

“I urge you to reject the path you have chosen my son. The heart can always be relied on to break; the will to falter, and belief rot to doubt. If not in you, then in those around you. You are beginning a road that can only end in much grief.”

Dim had thanked her for the warning, and then left with the manuals.

Abbey bells began tolling throughout the city, and Dim grimaced at the sound. Irritated with himself now at his decision not to take a cab, he looked up from his thoughts to take in his surroundings. He was somewhere near Raven Street and Lakewood Avenue, placing him towards the outskirts of the city proper. Buildings were closer together here, newer built than the city center but much more real estate-minded, growing up instead of out. Alleyways snaked between buildings, constantly dark from the shadows cast by the brick edifices around them.

He had seven days left.

He resumed his walk at a quicker pace, hoping to escape the city confines before too many parishioners filled the streets. He was sure by the evening the news of his deposition would have reached the ears of the whole of Heatherdale. Better to be home before that happened.

After he had collected the books from the old priestess he had barely been able to contain himself. Life again became how it had been in the early days of Heatherdale. Back when it had been a much smaller city of a much larger world. Back when Dim had been young and life was filled with honors school. Back before it was discovered that their moon was dying, and barring a miracle the whole world would die with its destruction.

Seven years. That had been the conservative estimate of the lunar geological society. Life had seven years before their satellite began to break up and rain debris down, pulled into the atmosphere by the planet’s gravity. The impacts would be catastrophic. Dust would block out the sun. Oceans would boil and evaporate creating violent storms and intense climate change. Billions would die unless mankind discovered a way to counteract it. So man began to search for an answer. Every school and learning institution commissioned its best and brightest students to the task. Think tanks formed around the globe, and stratagems set forth. Domes, such as the one surrounding Heatherdale, were quickly set upon as the best protection against the approaching doom, allowing cities and their inhabitants to be enclosed rather than requiring an entirely new form of dwelling to be created from scratch. A few of the intelligensia disagreed, arguing that inhabiting subterranean cave systems and waiting for the violence to subside would be the best way to ensure survival for the species. Both alternatives were hastily pursued, with domes going into construction immediately. As the world descended into chaos and governments collapsed it became clear that only cities that had access to all the materials required would be able to complete the projects in time.

It had been then that an eighteen-year-old Dim, already in his third year of graduate schooling, had proposed the Cisneros Sentry Shielding System to a collection of city leaders and officials, outlining how the city dome could be covered with a series of interlinking armored plates using the abundant natural resources that existed within the city limits, making Heatherdale impervious to the coming destruction. Sweeping change would have to be made to lifestyles of its citizens, but life, at least in one city, would continue. Dim had worked night and day, architecting machine designs on the fly, calculating power consumption ratios, until at last the shielding was in place. Six days later the moon had begun to break up and radio communication was lost with the outside world as all exterior portals were sealed.

But Heatherdale was saved.

And it was all thanks to Dim Cisneros.

There had been talk of renaming the city after him but he had refused, saying he wished to retain what heritage remained in memory of the fallen world outside. He had, however, accepted a sprawling estate in the little bit of countryside that had been preserved within the dome. The rolling fields were the most wide open space that could be come by within the city, and they quickly became a coveted commodity, one that Dim valued greatly. As he had begun his new pursuits the property in the countryside had been a valuable lure to the downtrodden and destitute that he needed for his experimentation.

Yes, he acknowledged, his experiments had eventually required him to take some liberties with Heatherdale’s citizens. None of them had been permanently harmed, of course. And all had been handsomely paid. But the mind had proved a tricky thing, a much greater advesery than Dim had anticipated and there had been some collateral damage.

The parts of the sacrament machine had been easy enough to come by once Dim had re-copied the diagrams from the sacred texts without the accompanying mumbo-jumbo. It had been a simple matter to have each piece fashioned by a different craftsman, thereby keeping rumors and suspicions at a minimum. Once his machine had been assembled, Dim had begun studying how to operate it. This had brought to the surface the first real difficulty with his plan when he realized that unlike the priestesses, he did not have a library of thoughts to choose from. While they moved freely through the hospitals, taking a sampling of the first thoughts of every child born in Heatherdale, he had begun his work with none to work from. And without thoughts: hopes, dreams, fears, desires… he had nothing with which to operate the sacrament machine.

Without thoughts his new pursuit would die in its infancy and he couldn’t abide it. So he improvised. Creating a design garnered from reverse engineering aspects of the sacrament machine, Dim constructed a padded table with a “thought extraction apparatus” attached to it. The table allowed the subject to lay face down comfortably and still breathe, while the triple-jointed arm of the extraction apparatus allowed Dim to position it correctly no matter the height of his subjects. It’s surgical forked “tongue” would enter the subject slightly above where the spine meets the brainstem after a powerful local anesthetic was administered. (Having them unconscious would muddle the thoughts that were extracted.) When activated the extraction apparatus would monitor the subjects as Dim read them a series of questions, recording their responses to a chemical mixture that was then labeled and stored for use in the sacrament machine.

His first tests on his house servants went flawlessly. The vials of thought filled up, black and crimson and a purple so deep it was difficult to tell from the black. Dim mixed a small amount from each one, eight in all, into the retaining bowl of the sacrament machine. With trembling hands he had poured the mixture into a newly acquired syringe and then injected it into his arm.

A rock glanced sharply off his head, breaking his train of thought. Dim turned to see five or so boys behind him, laughing and hollering at their success. Another wound up and threw, narrowly missing his ear. Pulling his longcoat up around his ears to shield his head from the projectiles Dim began to run, cursing himself for not taking one of the cabs. After a block the boys gave up their pursuit and he was able to resume walking, head still throbbing form their direct hit.

After he had collected the first samples from his household servants and experienced his first real sacrament, Dim had been hooked. He had quietly gone about the city at night, hiring vagrants and the poorer families to come to his estate. Each spent a hour or sometimes two upon the extraction table, and every one was handsomely paid. The problem, he had discovered too late, was that the destitute were also the most prone to rumormongering. The whispers that had begun during his inquiries about the sacrament machine grew into open questions from the media first and city officials later. As Dim struggled to build his thought library, word began traveling around the city. He had gone mad; His experiments were unholy; Children had disappeared after entering his home; all manner of rumors spreading like a fire. After all, the only thing more exciting than a celebrity to a closed populace is a celebrity’s fall. Volunteers became harder and harder to find as pressure mounted from inquiries.

He broke from the confines of the city onto the wide open space of the country road that would take him home. Conflict swirled within him. Seven days. What could be done with seven days?

And then… inspiration.

The thought darted in and then out, like a pesky insect. He lunged for it mentally.

Comprehension snapped shut, devouring it whole.

His heart quickened. Could it be possible?

He sprinted the last half mile to his soon-to-be former estate, too excited to give thought to his body’s protestations. It seemed an eternity between the key’s insertion into the door and its tumbling of the lock. Still longer to shove the doors of the estate open wide.

“Millicent! Millicent!” Dim yelled.

Millicent Polifunnel, chief stewardess of the estate, came bustling onto the upstairs landing visibly upset. “Mister Dim! What’s happened? Are you alright sir?” She was used to Dim’s typically calm demeanor, and his shouting was very uncharacteristic. She was visibly shaken by it.

“Oh yes yes, everything’s alright. Well…. I’ve been deposed, but that’s not important right now.

“Deposed?!” Millicent’s hands shot to her mouth in surprise.

“Yes. In seven days the magistrate will remove me from the estate and put me out of the dome. But that’s not important right now. We don’t have the time. I need to you get me the following…”

“Deposed! Mister Dim, I don’t understand….”

“Millicent! You’re not listening to me! I can reverse it!”

“Reverse? Mister Dim what are you talking about? Deposed? I don’t understand….”

“Millicent Millicent!” Dim grabbed her by the shoulders, smiling broadly. “Have you ever understood a word I’ve said? Rarely at best. Now I need you to focus, dear woman. I’ve figured it out. Dim Cisneros has done it again.”

“Done what sir? What are you going to do?”

“Millicent, I’m going to reverse the whole process. Start to finish. I’m not going to take people’s thoughts and mix them into a sacrament.”

He paused, distracted by the fiery ache he was just beginning to notice coming from his legs.

“I’m going to mix myself IN. Into the sacrament mixture.”

“I just don’t know, sir. I mean, deposed? You? The hero of Heatherdale? You saved all of us…”

“Millicent, now isn’t the time. I have too much to do. I need a list, er, I have a list of things I need you to get me. I’ll be down in the lab. I don’t have much time.”

And so he began. Dim didn’t sleep at all the first night, or the second. By the third day the only way Millicent and the other servants convinced him to rest was with the argument that he was losing his edge. His mind raced; new ideas crawled from every recess of his brain all begging for a chance to be borne into the world. He workshop became more and more cluttered has he worked feverishly, discarded brass housings and sealing screws creating a dissonant symphony as he shuffled through them from workbench to workbench. It was the old days reborn, with the fires of creation burning bright in his eyes as Dim flew from test to test.

The fourth and fifth days rose and fell. On the morning of the sixth day, Dim pushed himself back from his workbench with sleep-dry eyes and beheld his handiwork.

“This is it, Millicent. This could be the greatest thing I’ve ever done.”

Millicent, asleep with her husband in the servants quarters at the rear of the house, didn’t hear him.

He stroked his fingers lightly along the brass scrollwork of the outer housing of the cylindrical body of his invention. Dim had sacrificed his best brass fireplace screen to make it, but he had not had another container large enough and of similar dimensions to create the proper housing, so he had heated the screen until pliable and then wrapped it around the entire device. One halved brass banister sphere now formed the domed top and bottom of the casing to complete its armored shell.

“What to call you?” Dim mused to himself, scratching absently at the stubble threatening to claim his face.

His fingers traced the top cap, caressing the hose that protruded from the end and following it up to what he called the “harness,” a wide leather collar that contained a tight round collection of needles set on a small brass housing. One side of the collar was much longer than the other, allowing the wearer to cinch it tight around the neck with only one hand. The needles were positioned on its interior so that when the collar was tightened, the needles would penetrate the skin and sink partially into the brain stem, making the vital connection.

“The think tank?” Dim snorted at himself in amusement. “Ah well, maybe another day. We’ll have all the time in the world to think about it, wont we? And now, to fill you up.” He set the container back onto the workbench.

Dim unhitched the heavy lock he had kept on his thought storeroom. Only half of one of his twelve shelving units were full, bringing a disappointed frown to his face. He had hoped to crowd the room from top to bottom one day.

“Dreams best left undreamed,” he sighed to the storage room.

He began checking each laboratory tube label, casually hoping something would jump out at him, occasionally scribbling a note onto his clipboard. He was still thusly engrossed when Millicent came and announced that brunch was ready.

“Its an impossible question,” he told Millicent between bites of ham steak. “How can I possibly choose? I have one day to to create the perfect mixture, my own personal heaven. And yet, What will I need? Its agonizing.”

Millicent nodded, dusting a bust near one of the dining room windows.

“Do I simply fill it with happiness? Then what of triumph? And if triumph and happiness, what of love? And if happiness and triumph and love, what measure of each? AAAHHHH!” Dim threw his knife and fork crashing to the china in frustration. “Its impossible,” he said again with finality.

“Begging your pardon sir, but impossible or not you’ve only got till tomorrow morning,” Millicent reminded him. “The magistrate said…”

“Oh I know what the magistrate said,” Dim growled at her. Then he sobered. “I’m sorry Millicent. I know you’re only trying to help.”

“What if you mixed in equal amounts of each? Minus the bad?” She asked.

“I suppose thats what I must do,” he conceded with a sigh, “yet I can’t help doubting its the right mixture.”

“Course, with NONE of the bad, there’s nothing for you to conquer,” Millicent, clearly lost in thought now, said.

Dim considered that. “You’re right of course. What do I love more than a challenge?”

“Then maybe that’s it, sir? Mix this moment. Right now. Everything you’re feeling and each in its measure.”

Dim looked at Millicent, speechless and dumbfounded.

Millicent, seeing his look, cast her eyes down. “Begging your pardon sir. Just the ramblings of a foolish old woman.”

“Millicent….I….thats…” Dim stumbled over the words as his mind raced.

She was right. His nirvana didn’t come in the form of euphoria or wealth or power or past successes. It came in the fight; in the conquering of foes to great to be beaten by anyone else. He was Dim Cisneros: Master of the Impossible; he would only be happy if he had problems to conquer.

“…That’s brilliant.”

Returning to his lab, Dim cleared away everything on the workbench except for the sacrament machine, his new device, and a single sheet of paper with a pencil. Perching on his work stool he began to write, noting each emotion he was feeling and in what amount he though best represented its intensity. Using this as a recipe, he began shuttling back and forth between his storage room and the workbench, carefully measuring each amount of thought mixture into the receiver of the sacrament machine. It took him until dinner time to complete the concoction, and when it was done he carefully poured it with shaking hands into his new device, sealing its airtight container shut with clamps. Millicent joined him briefly to help hold the device upright while he poured. When he was done, he wiped away the sweat he hadn’t realized was there from his forehead and stepped back to regard his device.

Millicent patted him on the shoulder, “Dinner’s ready sir. Shall I keep it warm for you?”

“No, no,” he started towards the door and then looked over his shoulder at the device once more.

“I’m coming.”

Banging on the door woke him, and the thought came before he opened his eyes.

“Today is the day I die.”

Dim climbed out of bed, listening to the muffled voices downstairs as he got dressed in the clothes he had laid out the night before: his favorite gray suit with matching vest; a freshly pressed white shirt; a thin tie the color of ripe apples; his best loafers; and, of course, his spectacles and brown leather longcoat.

Millicent knocked on the door gently just as he finished adjusting the knot of his tie in the mirror.

“Come in,” Dim said.

“Magistrate’s men are downstairs sir. They say they’re here for you,” her eyes were already filling with tears.

Dim walked over to here and took her by the shoulders.

“Thank you Millicent. And thank you for putting up with me these past years.”

She quickly threw her arms around him in an embrace, a choked sob escaping her. She let him go just as quickly, face red with embarrassment and sorrow.

“Twas always a pleasure serving you sir. You were a good master.”

Dim tugged at his jacket to straighten it out.

“Right. Now then. Lets see to my guests.”

The magistrate and a few members of the Quorum stood waiting in the foyer as Dim descended the staircase. A constable stepped forward with irons, but Dim waved him away.

“If its all the same to you Magistrate, I’d like to go willingly,” Dim said to the gathered men.

The constable looked to the Magistrate who nodded an affirmative to him.

A stalemate of sorts hung in the air. The Magistrate crossed his arms in front of him. A member of the Quorum coughed nervously. A constable fingered his baton absently.

“So… what happens now?” Dim asked with raised eyebrow.

The Magistrate cleared his throat.

“Dim Cisneros, you’ve been found guilty of sacrilege and questionable actions taken towards the people of Heatherdale. The time allotted for you to prepare your affairs has passed and it is now time for the judgement of deposition to be enacted. You will be carried from the estate in a constabulary hansom to the dome’s edge where you will be escorted outside the protective walls of the city as punishment for your crime. At this time you are allowed one final request, should you choose to make it.”

“I have chosen my request, Magistrate,” Dim said with no hesitation. “I request that my final invention be allowed to accompany me outside the dome. It is neither weapon nor treasure and has no value to anyone save myself.” Dim motioned to his new device which sat on an otherwise bare entryway table.

The Magistrate eyed the contraption warily, focusing on the cluster of needles protruding from the collar.

Dim saw his trepidation and continued.

“If you like I can wait to put it on until we reach the dome, and it can ride under the care of the constables.”

The Magistrate nodded gruffly.

“Very well. Your request is granted.”

The constable who had sought to put him in irons stepped forward again.

“Constable Furler will take your invention sir. If you’d please follow me?”

Dim followed the constables out into the drive where several hansoms sat awaiting their passengers. Constable Furler took Dim’s invention up with him to ride next to the driver while the other took Dim around to the rear and opened the barred door.

“Inside if you please, sir,” the constable motioned to the sparse interior. “Any bench will do.”

Dim climbed in, stumbling over one of the thick eyelets sunk into the floor.

“Those is for the chains, when need be,” the constable explained, hoisting himself up after Dim and taking the bench opposite.

“Didn’t see them,” Dim replied. “Its my first time in a constabulary wagon.”

“And your last, as I understand it,” the constable retorted, making a show of removing a gold charm on a chain from under his collar where it hung hidden and allowing it to lay across his chest.

Dim noted the charm was a common one amongst Heatherdale citizenry: the Hands of the Goddess.

They rode to the dome wall in silence. As the hansom jerked softly to a halt, Dim noted the quiet murmuring of voices outside; like he was two doors down from a cocktail party. The heavy lock turned and the door swung open revealing Constable Furler and Dim’s invention. But the Constable was far from the only one there.

In addition to the Magistrate and the Quorum, a large crowd had gathered around the airlock. Dim saw several members of the press, flashbulbs beginning to fire even before he exited the hansom. Faces young and old met him everywhere he looked; a sea of people, all owing their lives to him, and all come to see his ended. It was a rare day indeed when a celebrity was deposed; much less the savior of Heatherdale.

Dim climbed down the steps of the hansom, ignoring the questions shouted from the press, opting instead to take his contraption from Constable Furler and slide it on. He tightened first the leather straps that went around his shoulders and his chest, and then the collar, grimacing as the needles dug into and then through his neck.

Two constables stood at either side of the pressure wheel to the airlock door. At the Magistrate’s signal they deftly spun it open and slowly pulled the thick door open. The constable who had ridden in the handsom with Dim took him by the elbow.

“I’ll be walking you out, sir.”

Dim nodded at this and walked with the constable toward the portal. The sound of the crowd grew louder as they walked.

“Any last words?” one reporter shouted.

“How do you feel?” shouted another.

Dim paused at the threshold to the airlock and turned, looking at the crowd. Quiet descended as they strained to hear what he would say.

“Its been a long time since I’ve seen the sky. I’m looking forward to seeing it again.”

The constable pulled the inner door shut behind them and stepped to the outer door, twisting the pressure wheel until its locks released.

“This is it. Off you go lad,” he said with a grunt, shoving the outer door of the dome open.

A fog of dust blew in with a howl, coating them both instantly. The constable made a vain lunge for the outer door as the wind caught it and threw it open to crash into the bronze outer dome. Dim threw his arm over his eyes in an attempt to shield them from the grit that whipped around them.

“Go on then! Out with ya!” the constable yelled over the wind, grabbing a woven strap from the wall that was attached to the outer door. The strap was designed to allow someone to pull the door closed without exiting the relative safety of the airlock.

Dim coughed and pressed himself into the wind, striding forward in what he hoped was a courageous manner. He could hear the zips of small meteoric debris falling from the sky at incredible speed. This close to the dome’s edge the millions of tiny impacts sounded like it was raining bells. He passed the threshold of the airlock and the constable began the arduous task of pulling the door closed.

The wind tore at his longcoat, throwing it out wildly behind him. Dust choked his nostrils. Through squinted eyes he could make out the bleached and splintered bones of those who had been deposed before him littering the ground; none had made it far from the door.

The world was the color of rust; The ground, the sky, almost seamless in its separation. The dust and the wind obliterated everything from view. There was no sun; only a dull glow dimmer than the UV lamps of Heatherdale. Dim could make out no horizon, the blowing dust formed an impenetrable wall only yards from him. He remembered the mountains that surrounded Heatherdale before the breaking of the moon, but they were nowhere to be seen.

He knew he had only moments; flaming stones fell from the sky all around him, each singing its own demise. Dim raised his arms to the heavens, pulling in a breath choked with dust, he screamed in defiance of the sundered world around him.

His shout cut short as a meteor blazed through his skull, cauterizing the wound even as it tunneled through him. It happened at such speed that Dim was aware of the impact as his body began to fall.

He was gone by the time his body hit the ground, already riddled with holes.

“I don’t understand Magistrate.”

“There is nothing to understand. The ruling is passed. This notification is merely a courtesy. Your estate and its lands are forfeit. You have seven days to remove yourself from the premises, or you will be removed by the authorities.”

“But Magistrate… I was not even allowed to defend my case. Surely there must be some recourse, some sort of appeal…”

“I will not hear of it Mister Cisneros. What you are dabbling in is unholy. Unnatural. I don’t like it. This Quorum doesn’t like it. And most importantly the Governor doesn’t like it. You are deposed sir. I suggest you spend your last seven days as a member of this city saying your goodbyes and preparing what effects you can carry with you. Because in seven days you will be put outside the walls of this city, and may the goddess have mercy on you.”

The judgement sphere came down with a crack….

Cover Image originally by Jennie Faber. Used with Permission.

]]> http://strangities.com/?feed=rss2&p=246 0 http://strangities.com/?p=245 http://strangities.com/?p=245#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 15:06:53 +0000 Strangities http://strangities.com/?p=245 Slight change to the publishing date for STRANGITIES: Volume I. Looks like it’s going to get pushed back to Friday, June 4th, rather than being on the 1st as I had hoped. I’ll still be posting the newest story “The Dream Chemist” here this Friday, so that will have to hold you over.