Category: random

“Before you is a box and key,” the tribunal inquisitor said to the newest ten initiates, “You’re to keep both with you at all times. Guard your box with your life. Do not unlock it, open it or even look in it. Those are your instructions. The Great Society shall see you again in 40 days.”

On the fortieth day, the ten gathered before the tribunal, each with their box in hand. Nine of them were dismissed immediately, which left the tenth initiate confused as he had violated all the rules given him regarding entrusting of the box.

The greatest infraction was having unlocked, opened and the looking inside of the box.

“Were you disappointed?” asked the inquisitor.

“At first,” answered the initiate, “But after some reasoning I realized that the hand-hewn stone is meant to convey a meaning and I understand that meaning to be ‘foundation.’

“That is correct, but why did you open the box in the first place?”

“Curiosity. I needed to know what was so important that I was told to guard it with my life.”

“And did you think it was worth it, guarding it with your life, I mean?”

“No.”

“And why is that?”

“It is merely a symbol of something that can actually be torn down and reformed again.”

“That’s an interesting observation. So any other thoughts regarding what you found in the box?”

“Yes, imagination.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I used my imagination to unlock it’s final truth.”

“And that would be?”

“You rely far too much on man and not enough on God,” the initiate returned.

“Very good!” the inquisitor exclaimed, “Now that we have put your membership to a test, we shall put the same to a vote.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Why?”

“Because you have nothing more to offer me.”

“That is quite insulting, sir!” the inquisitor exclaimed.

“Perhaps,” the initiate countered, “But what beyond ‘curiosity,’ ‘reasoning,’ and ‘imagination,’ can you offer me in your Great Society? A place? Position? Wealth? Those things I can find for myself.”

The chamber remained stunned and silent as their would-be initiate walked from it.

Their neighbor Kelly came over for a visit, something that was severely frowned on. It was the sixteenth day of a 40 day quarantine, where everyone was supposed to remain a certain distance from each other and to isolate in their homes, save for the trip to the store for the essentials.

“Thought you said your husband was out in the garden,” Kelly commented.

“He is,” Sarah replied.

“I don’t see him,” Kelly returned, as she looked out the kitchen window once again.

“I promise you, Kelly,” Sarah stated, “He’s out there. You jus’ gotta dig a little deep is all.”

Quickly becoming my dogs. Get yelled at for getting too close to strangers, falling asleep on the couch at all hours, wandering pointlessly about the house both day and night, getting excited about car rides, constantly searching for food and staring out the windows.

I can remember when it was easier to get laid during the AIDS crisis than it is to talk to anyone during this COVID-19 epidemic.

He had slipped out with the intent to be gone through nightfall. He knew all the roving patrol schedules and found that he could avoid their detection in the early hours of the morning and evening.

He crawled and slid his way across the open fields, between the many compounds, until he slipped into the treeline and up the shallow hill and into the open desert. Once there, he’d begin his hunt to put extra food on their supper table during this ‘saison de quarantaine.’

In the depths of winter on that Friday morning, he found himself tracking game along an unfamiliar, but heavily used animal trail. He nocked up an arrow and sat down to wait.

Down the path, he heard the sounds of movement; the cracking of twigs, bushes and such. Assuming it was perhaps a wild boar, he drew the arrow back and held, waiting to see his target.

Something flitted between the openings in the darker underbrush. Then, like the archer he knew himself to be, he loosed his deadly arrow.

He heard the thing strike its target with a knowing thump. This was followed quickly by a scream of pain from a beast whose cry he did not recognize.

Slowly, he moved to where the animal should have fallen, another arrow already nocked up and ready, but there was nothing to be found. Then a low angry rumble began behind him, followed by the slow blink of a pair of yellow eyes glowing from inside the thick brush.

His skill, he knew, may not be enough to save him and that supper might be late, if supper came at all.

Dis bez Toms puppers…I’s rehomin’ my hooman, free to goods famelly, has paperz, likes long walkz, telbishon, sleepz, butt no liks chasen sqirls, barksen at pos-peples or pupperz takn hoomans for walkz.

The sea was at low tide and I could see the jut of rocks a quarter mile out, sticking up from the surface. It was these that I decided would make a good point to swim towards as I entered the chilled Pacific waves.

Invigorated, I climbed from the water and found that my perch was much larger than I could have seen from my vantage point on the sand. Amid the clefts and jags of this perch sat a woman, or what I believed to be a woman.

She turned to look at me and I immediately knew this was no woman in the literal sense of human. No, she was a mermaid, bare breasted, scaled and finned from the hips down.

I gasped in shear fright as she smiled a shark-toothed grin towards me.

“Poor darling,” she said in voice that sounded quite beautiful and very calming, “The tide comes in and you’ll soon drown or you may try to swim back and I’ll drown you. Either way, you become my day’s meal.”

Slightly to the south of me, I saw a small boat. I waved my arms and screamed with great panic for help.

As I did this, the thing heaved its body towards me with tremendous speed, knocking me down. It held in it’s hand a bone knife that it stabbed into my left shoulder twice and with quick succession.

Waking as the two fishermen lifted me into their boat, I struggled with them, thinking they were my eldritch attacker. Once they hauled me aboard, they quickly motored for land.

One of them told me how they had seen the seal lion attacking me. They’d seen how it had knocked me down and how I acquired the deep puncture wounds to my upper torso and how fortunate I was that they happened along.

I objected strenuously to this recreated version, before fading into unconsciousness once again.

Once ashore they said I was suffering from a fever brought on blood loss and fright attack. And they attributed my loose-tongued hallucination to these, meanwhile confirming it had been a large seal lion that had battered my stricken body.

But I know better, as later that same day, a woman and her dog were ‘swept from the nearby jetty by a rogue wave,’ while the surrounding ocean remained calm.

If my dogs could talk, they’d say, “And now you understand our boredom, it’s why we chew shit up, Tom!”

“The Moon is in Cancer,”
The horoscope read.
No wonder it looks
Sickly and pale
Each full night
After it has risen.

https://soundcloud.com/sierra-tom-darby/in-20200401

He knew that it had to be a spell. His mother could not be here and Brady shook his head hard to make the image shift into its real self.

The thing then, whatever it was, shot straight into the morning sky and disappeared from sight.

Suddenly others like it came running from over the rise in front of his property. He had no sooner drawn his Colt than the first arrived, springing at Brady, who blasted it with a single shot.

The battle lasted long enough for Brady to empty his gun and resort to his long knife. Brady’s horse was not so lucky.

The beast had instinctively raced to his human’s side, but had been gutted for it’s trouble. The animals sank to the ground after the fight and settled, as Brady knelt beside it.

There was only one way to ease the animal’s pain. The revolver’s blast reverberated through the stillness of the morning.

On a nearby fence post sat a lone raven, looking over the horrendous scene. The bird, Brady could tell, had but a single-eye, the other a darkened hollow and covered in scar tissue.

The connection was instantaneous as the raven and Brady became a single force.

The unlikely pair picked up the creatures’ trail late that evening and tracked them along a narrow road, which eventually split in three, the greater number of tracks moving to the left.  This is the path Brady took as well.

Soon enough, he heard the rise and fall of singing. He also recognized where the ungodly prints had lead him.

The hovel. The same place where he’d found the dozens of bodies, slain and butchered; the same place he first heard the singing and from where he’d back away knowing he was ill prepared for a battle.

The bird flew above the dwelling, as Brady entered, his Colt blazing and long knife flashing. Those that found themselves outside of the half-buried hut, ran into the raven’s talons and beak.

As the raven rested on a nearby branch, Brady collected, then stacked nineteen heads in the doorway, leaving the message clear: they were going to kill them all.