turns out the 21st century
was full of psychopaths
and sociopaths
running society
but no one seemed to care
absolute scoundrels
pulled government levers
and polluted the air
the environment a victim
of bloodlust and greed
struggling to breathe
in the toxic system
where has paradise gone?
so long ago
when the earth was young
during creation’s dawn?
-30-
Hello. I’m the greeter
Some people call me Saint Peter
Every soul that comes through
just wants to know what to do
and if this dimension is heaven
and if am I here for confession
I tell them one and all
no matter how big or small
this is just another step in your evolution
and not the final solution
that their soul’s journey has more
challenges in store
-30-
there’s a tale about a young girl
in the early 19th century
in the state of Tennessee
her name was Dory
and she could dance
all day
according to the story
old men would say
watching her whirl
made their day
Dory could dance anywhere
keeping rhythm to any tune
with flowing long hair
whisking through the air
it’s no wonder
the old boys would stare!
To this very day
some people say
Dancing Dory
never went away
-30-
Lost in a maze, adventure turns surreal and haunting.
There’s nothing funny about being lost in a maze. Especially on a moonless night that was darker than a Raven’s wing. The cold monolithic walls of giant blocks carved from black tourmaline were damp to my touch. They were so high they disappeared in the stygian sky.
I cursed myself for being an idiot for the thousandth time.
I should have just ignored the guy’s challenge, but they kept calling me a spoil sport. The beer flowed freely and George and Freddy kept buying rounds for all of us at the Lucky Bar last Friday night. I have to admit that it doesn’t take a lot of alcohol to get me drunk. My senses slow down and my speech slurs after my sixth beer. But I’m always game. The guys at the bar know this. When I show up on Friday nights the betting money flows like a green stream as people place their wagers on the results of a challenge, I accept that evening.
Most of the challenges were laughably easy for a fit guy like me. 100 pushups in three minutes? No problem. I could do a one-armed headstand on the bar while clutching a mug of beer in the other hand. I’m not just all about brawn, however. I still hold the record for eating the most pickled eggs in five minutes. Even when my brain is pickled with alcohol, I still have a semantic memory involving general facts and knowledge.
So why expose myself to the risks involved with endless challenges coming from drunken co-workers? The attention is nice. But it’s something else that’s harder to explain. Recognition? Maybe. A shallow victory in a life of drudgery. A way to transcend my daily mediocracy. All of them and more.
It was Bob who brought up the maze challenge. I heard him and Freddy talking about a maze deep into the country that was ancient and explorers were always disappearing while attempting to navigate the snake-like corridors. George said it was an old wife’s tale and then gulped the rest of his beer down like he was making a point. One of the younger guys, Lewis, bragged he could find his way with a compass. I couldn’t help myself and casually asked if anyone wanted to bet that I wouldn’t get lost and in fact could map out the maze for future visitors. Joey the bartender could barely keep up with all the bets that poured in that night. It was agreed we’d all hike out to the maze that weekend.
None of us could believe something that gigantic existed so near to where we lived. There were legends. I think National Geographic did a piece on the mysterious maze a couple of years ago, but the details were sketchy. At least that’s what Freddy said. We all walked up to the entrance and could see the light from the sunshine fighting to illuminate the black tourmaline walls that echoed with age.
We all agreed that if I didn’t come back in 24 hours the rest would seek help. We passed a bottle of good scotch around to take the chill off of the morning. I checked out my watch, compass, flashlight, and cell phone. Bob offered me a canteen of water which I appreciated. At that moment I felt alive. I was rising above my meaningless existence to go on an adventure.
The compass worked great at first, and I was able to tell that I was going in a southerly direction. Then something strange happened. The compass started spinning and wouldn’t stop.
I looked at my watch with its fluorescent hands and discovered only an hour had passed. The lighting above shifted as I followed the endless corridors that twisted sharply at times. I finally got the urge to call Freddy and whipped out my trusty cell phone. No signal. At first, it didn’t register in my brain. How could that be? Then my flashlight fluttered like a wounded bird as its glow danced erratically on the rough black walls. No, I muttered. This is not happening.
Then I saw a light at the end of a long corridor and walked towards it and saw long dead family and friends who greeted me happily.
From the Universal Travel Headquarters:
Alpha Centurian Sector Monthly Report
“Another male human has passed through the portal,” the chief operator wrote in the thick travelog.
“The relocation seems to be slowing down lately,” he sighed while checking the control panel for new activity.
-30-
in the dead of night, the crickets crawled across the graves taking care not to rub their legs together and disturb the stillness and soundlessness of the ancient graveyard
at the end of the road a dim figure strode towards the last resting place for humanity taking care not to upset the serenity of the humid night
the moon slowly rose in the sky above the place where people went when they died
silhouettes of lost souls strolling in the eerie quietude of endless tombstones overgrown with mantles of moss flitted through the overgrown grass unaware of the stranger
phantoms of the past paraded over the marble mausoleums of the rich and famous with impunity born from being deceased for millenniums
the young husband approached the recent grave of his young bride, while raising a pistol to his head and calling out her name though she was dead
The silence suddenly screamed…
-30-
when the Book of Life opened one day
worlds of words streamed out
causing religious men to pray
as words dripping in blood
told mankind’s story
every word told a tale
of human folly
and war
never-ending sagas
in legends and lore
when the Book finally closed
it was forevermore
-30-
Bodie Stark urged the black stallion on to greater speed as the red demons closed in and he could hear their guttural screeching shredding the brisk night air.
He looked back once and saw the three nightriders whose skeletal skulls were beaming with an eerie light that made their feathers glow beneath the full moon. Their eagerness to catch him was palpable as they screamed curses and lashed their hell-seed stallions on to greater speeds. Suddenly Stark came to a dead end – a cliff. He turned to face his tormentors and drew his Bowie knife from its leather sheath for the final confrontation. Then he was tumbling into a dark ravine before he knew what happened. The darkness closed in…
Stark woke, like so many other times recently, shouting “Stop!” The nightmare was getting worse in the last two weeks and his nerves were frayed to the point of breaking and going insane. Opening his eyes cautiously he looked around the bleak room. A nightstand and a table with two chairs completed the scene. The wooden single bed he was on was covered with two gray horse blankets. He lay on top of the blankets trying to blink the nightmare away in the light of the day streaming through a single window’s glass panes. His thoughts drifted back to a month ago when he and his three comrades discovered the gold mine. Stark, being the most experienced woodsman among the group was following the river when he started spotting some gold nuggets that grew in size and quantity as he worked upriver. His partners got more excited the further they went until they came to a waterfall where two large gold veins were exposed beneath the cascading falls. The four men danced for joy. They had found what surely was going to be a massive gold payload.
The first day they camped in a clearing near the waterfall and celebrated their fantastic find. The whiskey bottle was passed around until the four men emptied it and passed out on the ground in the large tent, they’d put up the day before. No one stayed up to watch for unexpected visitors. It was a careless thing to do out in the wild and in the middle of the Appalachians in 1888. But their luck held, and their sleep was undisturbed. That morning, they had some black coffee and hard tack with strips of cured venison. As they ate, they agreed to split up into two-man teams and scout around the area before coming back and panning for gold in the crystal-clear waters of the river. Stark and the youngest man, William, went up stream while the other two men, John and Henry, circled around the site east to west looking for signs of humans. In particular for signs of the Cherokee people whose land they were trespassing on.
What needs to be said is that four explorers weren’t paragons of virtue and they were all greedy men with little or no consciences. They were rough and hearty men of their time surviving the wilderness for years on their strength and cunning. Each man had different ideas about what to do with his unexpected wealth. The only thing they were unified in was agreeing not to tell anybody about the location and sticking together until they got back to civilization. After that it got a little vague.
After scouting around Henry and John were heading back to camp when they heard a bird call. Then another from another location in answer. When the Cherokee war party burst through the forest in the waning light they fell upon the two unfortunates and promptly killed them and took their scalps. Stark and William had made it back to camp and were building a fire as the sun went down. They both knew it wasn’t a good sign that their partners weren’t back yet. The two men sat back-to-back near the campfire clutching their Winchester rifles and wondering when the attack would come. The night hours drug on as they both fought exhaustion to stay awake fearing for their lives. Stark should have known better. Most Cherokee bands didn’t like to fight at night unlike the Comanche who traditionally raided Mexico during the full moon so they could see at night. Just before daybreak the men gathered their processions and saddled up their horses. They lingered for a couple of hours and panned for gold, both quickly filling up little leather sacks of nuggets and stashing them in their saddlebags. They didn’t bother making coffee and satisfied themselves with water and some venison jerky while they rode back to the little mining town they had left from days ago. Both were lost in their thoughts when the arrows came! One struck Stark in his right shoulder. Then William suddenly looked like a porcupine as several arrows pierced his chest. His body collapsed and fell off his horse awkwardly. Meanwhile Stark recovered enough to pull out his Winchester and start firing point blank at his pursuers. Two immediately tumbled off their horses and the third managed to stay on his horse for a hundred yards before falling off with a bullet in his heart. Stark didn’t linger. He drove his horse hard as he left the chaos behind him. When he got to town, he found the doctor in the second saloon he searched and convinced him to tend to the wound. He’d broken the arrow off, and the stub burned like hell.
Stark took another swig from the near empty whiskey bottle in his hotel room and wondered how he could make the nightmare go away. He pulled the two leather pouches out of his jacket which hung on a hook on the door. He slowly walked over to the table and pulled a chair back and sat down. He placed the bags of little gold nuggets the size of human teeth before him and stared at them as if seeking an answer to his problem. He hadn’t shown anyone his gold since coming back to town. After considering everything he decided the gold was haunted and if he didn’t return it to the river, he’d never have any peace. It was a crazy idea, but he was desperate. Having to live through that death race every night was just too much to bear. He was tired but set out for the golden waterfall hoping for an end to the misery his nights had become.
When Stark was knee deep in the crystal-clear waters of the river he emptied the contents out of each pouch. He watched as the gold nuggets joined the others on the riverbed and took a deep sigh. He knew the nightmares would end now. And he was right. The next day some Cherokee warriors came upon Stark asleep and promptly brained him.
-30-
The village folk all knew Juniorsky was special. It wasn’t because he looked like a stork with his long neck and pointy face. It wasn’t because his eyes often looked dull and vacant and that he drooled constantly.
It was because Juniorsky could tell the future.
You may laugh and scoff at this wild claim but allow me to relate what I’ve seen with my own two eyes. There’s a village in the Carpathian Mountains in the Czech Republic whose residents both fear and adore a young man named Juniorsky.
In the course of my travels, I recently came upon a rural little village (which I later learned was called Kyselka) and I met a rather peculiar fellow who the residents called Juniorsky. I was sitting in a quiet hospoda having a warm pint of Pilsner Urquell served up with beef broth and goulash when a man sat down across the table from me with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. At first, I tried to ignore his rude behavior and took a healthy swig of beer. But when I sat my mug down, he was still there…noticeably drooling out of the right corner of his thin mouth.
“Well now chap! What can I do for you?” I politely asked.
His dull eyes seemed to light up and he quickly pointed at my beer.
“Pivo!” he excitedly exclaimed while wiping away his drool with his dirty sleeve.
“Very good. Servirka!” I called out testing my rudimentary knowledge of the Czech language.
When the waitress appeared she immediately nodded towards Juniorsky and clasped her hands together in a praying position. There was a look of awe on her face that puzzled me. I knew something was odd as I ordered a beer for my uninvited guest. When she returned, I asked if she knew the man across the table from me, and if so, would she be so kind as to formally introduce him to me? She smiled and said his name was Juniorsky and then skittered off toward the bar giggling along the way.
I couldn’t help feeling like I was the butt of some private joke, and it made me uncomfortable. We sat in silence. Me, eating and drinking. He, drinking and drooling. This went on for nearly two hours. I ordered two refills for him during that time. Finally, I decided to call it a night as he wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and it was nearly midnight. Standing up I put my hat on and my great coat that was draped over the back of my chair. I wished Juniorsky well and started for the door…
“Wait!“
The high-pitched voice came from Juniorsky who had stood up and awkwardly shuffled up to me. He was the most animated since he sat down and wanted a beer. His screechy voice both fascinated and disgusted me for some odd reason. I felt a little dizzy but attributed that to the beers I drank.
“Do you want to know your future?
I was stunned by the question that just came up out of thin air. What was happening? Was I being teased? Were the villagers all laughing about the stupid stranger? Was this all a game? Juniorsky was no seer. He looked more like the village idiot than someone who could forecast the future. Despite that I decided to call his bluff.
“Sure,” I said with a tinge of mockery.
Ignoring the steady stream of drool that turned to spittle when he spoke Juniorsky said, “Follow me.“
The full moon shone on the ancient cobblestone street as I warily followed him down an alley that dead-ended with a ramshackle two-story house in such a state of disrepair it didn’t look inhabitants lived there. One of the steps leading up to the front door was partially missing presenting a hazard to the unwary visitor. Juniorsky nimbly trod on one side and bounded up to the porch. A rickety rocking chair feebly vibrated with each step on the landing as I approached. I slowly sensed something ominous about the house. I wondered if it was haunted. I never discounted stories about ghosts, but I had never seen one. The front door was unlocked as Juniorsky swept it open and plunged into the dark interior. He reappeared moments later holding an oil lamp that threw shadows that danced across the living room as I entered. There was a small wooden table with two chairs in the center of the room. Juniorsky gestured to sit down as he joined me. His whole demeanor had changed. The drooling had ceased. His eyes were now a bright brown, and I could sense a hidden intelligence behind them.
“Do you want to know what your near future holds?” he asked me again in a deeper voice than before.
My skepticism had drained away and I felt awe as I replied that I really did want to know my future with no sense of mockery now. He studied me briefly as if sizing up how serious I was.
“Somewhere in this house there’s a secret room that will provide you a glimpse of your near future. You have until daylight to discover this room before losing your opportunity to see the future. Not everyone is successful. I wish you well.“
He stood up (straighter than before) and walked out the front door. I looked at my watch. I had about four hours until daylight. Not wasting any time, I headed up the large staircase to the second floor. The odor of mold and rat droppings forced me to pull out my handkerchief and wrap it around my nose and mouth. Holding up the oil lamp that Juniorsky left I looked down the long hall and counted four rooms. None of them were locked and they were all empty. One had a broken window that let the night breeze in past tattered curtains. Getting concerned I went back downstairs and checked out the ground floor for a secret door. The time was running out. In less than an hour any hope I had to see my future would be gone. Frantically I started tapping the walls looking for a hidden room. Then I found it. As the wall slid open on silent rollers I peeked inside. In the center of the room there was what appeared to be a dentist’s chair with two headphones on the seat. Across from the chair there was a large white screen. A sheet perhaps. I allowed my instinct to take over and put on the headphones settling down in the reclining seat. After carefully pulling them on two things happened simultaneously; a picture appeared on the screen and there was sound.
The car I drove to Kyselka in, an Avia, appeared on screen and I could see myself driving down the twisting one-lane highway that led to the village. My car was suddenly picking up speed as I pumped the brakes that had completely given out! I managed to keep the car on the road for a couple of moments before it sailed off the road and down the cliff!”
“No!” I screamed out loud as the first rays of the day filtered into the once dark room. It was so real, I knew it had to be true. Before even eating breakfast, I visited the village mechanic and asked if he would check the brakes on my car that was parked outside the only hotel in Kyselka. I went inside and ordered two poached eggs and a cup of tea while I awaited the verdict. It wasn’t long in coming. The mechanic informed me that my brake pads in the front were very thin and one looked like it was metal on metal. I thanked him and arranged for him to fix them. I safely drove back to the airport (where I rented the Avia) and flew home.
You may think I’m just crazy, and this story is a stupid fantasy from a fertile imagination with nothing better to do. Not so. If you ever get a chance to visit Kyselka be sure to buy Juniorsky a beer. You won’t regret it.
-30-
Let reality fly away
but not suffer Icarus’s fate
like a morality play
meant to recriminate
freedom of fantasy
gives us wings
and virtual reality
that imagination brings
let our visions soar
with inspiration
and passion
to fuel fascination
and creativity
before the altar of curiosity
*****
step right in to a writer’s dream
and visit a fantasy store
where imagination is the central theme
story ideas from A to Z
are carefully separated
for all to see
tomes full of wizards words
nestled alongside fairy tales
and legends of Thunderbirds
rows upon rows of fantasy
inspirations from famous scribes
throughout history
there is no end in sight
you can go on forever
with the speed of light
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Epic fantasy & military sci-fi author.
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