11
May
Update: How does Wednesday sound for Blog Carnival day? And I’d like to get theme suggestions in today, so I can put a poll up for the next carnival (the week after next Wednesday).
This is an idea that sprung to mind this afternoon, and was fleshed out by chatting with a few other authors.
What do writers think of a blog carnival for twitter writers? For those who don’t know what a blog carnival is, this is a great example (just click on any week). Basically, each week a blog would have the privilege of hosting the carnival, and provide links (and usually short excerpts) to all those who submitted articles for the week. This drives traffic to multiple blogs and writers, and allows new writers to get their name out there in a simple manner.
To differentiate this from Friday Flash and Tuesday Serial, I would suggest that each week has a theme (or perhaps two themes) around which the stories are written. This theme would need to be announced a week in advance of the submission date. I believe a poll would be the best method, so that writers may choose that which most interests them.
Stories would be of approximately 1000 words, and can also be submitted for Friday Flash or Tuesday Serial. Good stories deserve as wide an audience as possible.
There would also need to be a coordinator for the blog carnival. Much as I like the idea, I won’t have consistent enough internet access over the summer to serve in the role, so someone else would need to be nominated.
For those interested, please comment here, or send me a message on Twitter. I would like to have 5-10 interested authors before starting this up.
30
Apr
A short piece written this morning for Friday Flash.
The old man and his wife sat around the dinner table, talking quietly. It was a scene they had repeated day after day, month after month, year after year. They had lived in this house for almost their entire lives, farming the small open areas of land around it, each year begging the wan sun and the hard ground to give them enough food to live.
Their children had long since abandoned their parents, leaving the home and going on to better things in other towns, other cities, places where there was more for the young and energetic, and so the old couple lived on their own. Once, they had made the trip to the nearest store, but the store had closed down and they no longer stepped outside of their fields. Their world had shrunk to a small bubble, a little sphere in the landscape that comprised their house, their fields, and nothing else.
Often, a week would pass without either of them speaking, for they knew each other so well by now that no words needed to be said. Between them, a look or a glance contained an entire conversation. The sharecroppers acted as if they were one mind in two bodies, knowing exactly where to place their hands when fixing machinery, clothing, anything. The farm and its belongings were like their bodies: they wore it well, even if it was a little old and shabby by now.
What they did not speak about, and likely could not, was the coming realization that they had become very old, and that one day soon, one of them would pass away. Each knew that the other could not run the farm on their own, and that no one would come to help. Because of this, there was a small pouch tucked away behind the bed, filled with specially made tranquillizer. When the time came, they would lay down to sleep in the same bed, and that would be the end of it.
Every day and night, they would find their eyes turning to the sky, looking for the signs that used to rive the heavens. Once, the massive plumes of smoke had been a constant source of delight for them, and they would stop and pause in their daily labours to watch the columns of fire and smoke on the far horizon. They no longer appeared, and on the day they had ceased, the old man and his wife had gathered around the radio, listening to the announcements. Then they had switched the radio off, unplugged it from the wall, and moved it out to the storage shed. It was of no further use to them.
They looked around at the red earth and the sullen sky, and the thin plastic sphere that held in their air and water, and the couple held one another and sighed. Earth had given up its plans for Mars, and left its colonists there to die.
26
Apr
So, this is the very first piece of writing I’ve ever done in a science fiction setting that’s been kicking around my head since I was, well… probably since I was in grade school. It’s changed and been tweaked a lot, but here’s the very first taste of what I think it might be like. And yes, I realize this does sound more like a trailer than a short story.
There was a strange solar system, nestled in a galaxy at the core of the universe, where five planets swung in tight arcs about the sun, and where each had produced their own form of life. Some would call this incredible, others impossible, and yet five distinct species had arisen. And when they first discovered the telescope, and looked out at other planets, they saw the light of other telescopes winking back at them. When they discovered radio, they learned to speak with strange alien beings. And when they discovered rocketry, they warred with strange alien beings, for none of the five could accept that the other four might have reason to exist.
Greed motivated the civilizations, and missiles flew through the dark of space, and stations and ships were built to conquer the asteroids and moons of the planets, and when they landed and created a civilization, they were destroyed by yet more attacks. Only a fear of being exterminated kept the five races from using truly destructive technology, but as they advanced, raids and precision strikes became the norm, and the atmosphere of the planets began to change, becoming foul and unpleasant for life. Only when the races were choking to death on the fumes of foetid anger did they speak to one another again, and this time, they proposed a truce, a moratorium on the use of weapons and raids.
Not one of the races trusted another, yet none would step out of line, lest they be struck by the other four. And so weapons were developed and stashed away, and secret plans and strange alliances made, and anger simmered underneath the surface for millennia. But then the Bukhed Rhud made a breakthrough in the art of genetics, and found the key that would turn back time and prevent ageing. Now those in charge of the stockpiles and the arsenals could see a life beyond the next few years, and with that change came a thawing in the relationships among the five races, for the Bukhed Rhud had shared their secret freely and widely, and although not of similar composition, the other four had discovered that they too preferred long and peaceful lives.
Thus began the Great Expansion, when each of the five contributed to the crew of spaceships that were flung far and wide, first finishing the crawl across the solar system and then tossed out into their neighbours. There was no means of communicating with these vessels over the great distances, for they had not yet discovered a technology that allowed them to overcome the speed of light, but it was hoped that one day that would be done, and those in the Great Expansion could link back to their homes.
In time, that technology was found, and the civilizations became what they are today, the hub of an empire that spans the galactic core. The Bukhed Rhud are parasites, bound to host creatures from their home planet and able to control their nervous system. The Mektarana are insectoid, barely, and have but a few brains amongst all the spawn on a planet, but the minds are so vast that others struggle to keep up. From a hot planet and a burning desert was born the Vescilith, small four legged creatures with too many fingers and a love for machinery. Barely there, the Draugur are ethereal wisps, thin and long and telepathic amongst their own kind. Last are the Tharian, who long ago gave up their humanity to become cyborgs, born in automated breeding tanks because adults cut away most of their bodies. Now these civilizations have begun to reach the boundaries of other empires, and once more the old tensions rise to the surface, and some of these will not quell. War has come to these people once more.
22
Apr
This story was a dream I had, about two years ago. I wrote it up the next morning and then barely touched it since then. I’ve sat down and edited the material, and reading over it again I find myself fond of the material. For those wondering, I was reading Stephen King’s Dark Tower series at the time, and I believe this train was inspired by the one in his world.
The train sped along the landscape, riding high. Tommy sat on the very prow, an elongated, twisted metal structure of sheet metal and piping and metal wires, looking out ahead, chewing on the peach that his friend, Frederick, had offered him. The two of them were leaving, running almost, racing from where they had been to Akobayi Junction, a dot ahead on the map that would offer safety.
Sights and sounds formerly unseen abounded here, riding amongst the canopy of the world on the top of this metal train. It had rolled into the station where they departed, grey and tall, narrow and long, two cylinders stacked on top of one another with a massive jutting jaw that hung near to the ground. Grabbing hold of the ladder and clambering up, the boys had settled themselves into that prow, protected on either side by perforated sheets of metal. It was then that Tommy had been offered his peach.
Winter hung in the air, and the snow covered the ground in great deep white swathes. There had never been a season but winter in the boys’ lifetime, but Tommy and the others clung to the notion of seasons, of a time called summer, when the ground was clear and the snow was gone. Why, they might even see the earth.
The cold of the air stung the boys as they rode along the train’s wide path, full in the brunt of the wind that swept across the snowy forest. Tommy looked down from his height, nothing below him but the metal grating on which he stood. Two hundred feet off the ground was his estimate, and the train was growing in size with each passing mile. The sights and sounds of the journey appeared and then disappeared, a giant creature that could be called a mammoth, orange against the white of the snow and the brown of the trees, ambling away from the train as Tommy and Frederick rode past.
This was all new to the boys, for they had never been above ground during their short lives, living underground, watching pipes and cables as they sputtered, shook, and sparked. Now they stood, compelled to examine their new surroundings, yet lost in a morass of fear all the same. Tommy knew that should his excitement ever dip, he would look down and lose himself. Distant cries fell across the lands, some from behind, some from ahead, coming from the tops of the giant trees. Each tree stood over the train, their branches and trunks bending away, a host of bowing giants, facing to the north, broken by the endless winds.
The canopies housed families of twisted, ape-like creatures, possessed of a wide, long face, wrapped in a host of grey fur, a frill tipped with red splashes, centred around the mouth and radiating outward in concentric circles. Hooting and hollering, they swung through the trees after the train. They clambered and climbed, swooped and howled, and Tommy hid his face for fear of the sight. Frederick cried softly, his life a childhood dream that had come back to haunt him. More than anything, he feared the great fall to the ground, one that got taller with every passing moment, as the trained stretched, filling the void between the grey earth and the blue sky, forming itself into a link as it sped onward, racing away from the gibbering baboons as the apes came on, swinging from the trees above to try and grasp the boys as they huddled, shaking, on their metal prow. Through the grating below, Tommy saw nothing but a dull blur, the ground as it sped past.
And it was there, in that moment, that the blur shifted, and a great white blanket settled across the landscape, smothering sounds and sight. A raised head offered vistas of rolling steppes, sunken beneath a layer of snow so ancient and deep that the world rested, hibernating until such time as it should again feel the rays of the sun. The distance offered a formless wall beyond which nothing was to be seen. Within Tommy and Frederick this bred a longing and an anguish greater than that instilled by the chittering attacks of the monkeys, for it was apparent that nothing would live and that nothing would play, and to a pair of small children that cost was too great to bear, and so Tommy and Frederick lay down to sleep, a small prayer of change escaping their lips as they looked out across the expanses ahead.
Passing down into a deep and pained sleep, neither boy felt the rolling of the train as it plunged over that formless wall, a great rift in the land that lead downwards, the tracks bending improbably and dropping, held fast to the side of the shattered lands. In time it would flatten out, and return to the normal orientation, but as before, this was only a prelude to a following rift. The boys slept as their train followed the giant steps downward, towards the heart of the world, wrapped in the layer of snow that laid across the boys as they hid in minds full of dreams. And so on into the night Tommy and Frederick sped, in search of Akobayi Junction and respite from a world of travails.
17
Apr
Here’s today’s flash fiction post. Let me know what you think.
The generation ship travelled through space, with nary a whisper coming from the great engines. They had shut down long ago, and now the ship was coasting on momentum alone, a dart thrown across the void of space, many years from its home and many more from the destination. Inside the ship, all was quiet too, for despite the name, the populace of this ship slept away the millennia, waiting for the moment when the ship would reach orbit above their new home. Then, the vast computer housed in the bowels of the vessel would wake the colonists from their hibernation, and they could found a new world, a new civilization.
This was but one of many generation ships, a diaspora that had been thrown out into the great cosmos many thousands of years ago. A war had devastated their home planet, and in the aftermath all those who remained had pooled their resources to fling seeds far and wide, hopeful that the threat of extinction never need loom over their people again, that somewhere in the cosmos, their race would carry on. The people of that long ago planet had revived the ideas of Von Neumann, and had built into each of their far flung generation ships the ability to replicate themselves, so that when the populace had grown, they too could send out a generation ship, an endless wave of colonization.
On this generation ship, the retrorockets fired, slowing the ship, allowing it to slide gracefully into orbit around a dark brown globe. Automated systems fired, and a swarm of probes fled from the underside of the vessel down to the surface, and as they struck the upper atmosphere, the ship began testing and tasting, smelling the quality of the air and the composition of the molecules. It concluded, even before the probes struck the ground, that terraforming would be necessary. Still, it listened to the information coming back from over the electronics, for it had to decide whether to rest here and wake the crew, or whether the ship should fire the rockets once more and travel on to a secondary destination.
Information came in, and came in, and the ship was satisfied with the planet, and so it sent out the signals that would wake the passengers. Long minutes passed with little action, and so the computer ran a systems check, even sending out the semi-autonomous spiders which it used for repairs. Nothing was out of order, and so it sent the signals again. Both times it had received the proper response from the mechanism, but there was no movement in the bowels of the ship. It became worried, if there was such a thing for a computer, and sent the spiders down into the catacombs, the cold core of the vessel where the passengers slept.
The ship turned on the video feed from the spiders, and watched as they wiped the frost from the screens. Inside was a peaceful, serene face, and the computer compared it to the record of who was supposed to be inside. The face matched, mostly, but certain parts were awry, and so the computer scoured the banks of knowledge it had stored away. It waited while the agents crawled over long-forgotten data, but soon they came scurrying back, each with a titbit of information. Put together, they told the computer that the face in the container was old, very, very old. More information was required, and the computer sent agents scurrying once more, and when that knowledge returned, the ship itself sighed, and shifted in its orbit. The youngest passenger on the vessel had been well into middle age when the ship had taken off, and that was millennia ago. Today, even with the immense slowing of hibernation, all passengers had slipped into old age and died.
The computer pondered. Why would it be sent on a generation ship with no hope of creating a new home? It dug through log books, flight records, external recordings of the take-off, all the information it could find about its origin. The recordings were most helpful, for the computer could compare the faces of those watching with those who had come on board. It found a most disturbing connection – those outside the ships were young, those inside old. They had shipped away the elderly to make room on a damaged planet for the young. With no more purpose, the computer turned off the ship, and floated silently in space, a catacomb in truth.
16
Apr
It has been a long time since I wrote to you, and it will be a long time before I write again. Life here has grown troublesome, and there is little time for the small pleasures that make it worth living. It is a struggle and there are many things that occupy my time, and so I will, necessarily, make this a briefer epistle than the previous ones to which you have become accustomed.
I am, as you may assume, well enough to write you a letter, and those who are with me are well enough, too. It has been a trying time for those of us here who have long memories, of a time when things did not require such effort to achieve, when it was easier and simpler. Still, we carry on, and have done so for a goodly time, and will do so for more. There have been a few problems beyond those expected here, but that is the nature of men, as time and energy weigh upon their minds and the stresses begin to catch up with them. Even so, the mood remains strong and the first results should be coming back to you soon, through our normal methods of supply and communication. There has been several positive indicators so far, and these have heartened the crew with me and led us onwards.
There has been one, small, deplorable incident, where a man of the crew took it upon himself to end an experiment before its due time, but we were thankfully able to prevent said occurrence, and have decided to deal with the person using the means appropriate to what we have discussed before. With that shift in his status among the research establishment, there has also been an upswelling in personal interest in security matters, in order to ensure that no more of the experiments are interfered with. On that note, do please exercise caution when assigning new personnel to the tasks that are needed here, for it has become apparent that some of the members, while continuing to work at their duties with appropriate effort, are less than fully dedicated to the tasks laid before them, and are simply continuing because it is their job, rather than because of an inner sense of purpose, or of dedication to the task.
It pains me that one of the brightest, and you will know him well, has fallen into this state of lethargy, for he goes about the days with a grey fog about his head, speaking little to other people and performing his tasks for almost the entire day. He still has his admirable skill, but that joy that he took in life has gone. Perhaps he will recover in time for the grand reveal that comes at the end of the process, but if not, we may need to choose another to be our representative for the delegations, for he will not serve in his current state of mind.
With those minor, but necessary descriptions out of the way, let me begin to describe what has been happening to the experimental subjects over the last several weeks, since the previous letter that I scribbled down. The teeth grow longer, and some of them howl as they bite their gums, unaccustomed to such length in their mandibles. Those who have experienced it for longer, or those who are the brightest among them, have learned to cope with the new difficulties presented here, and have since then begun testing the capabilities of the new jaw structure that came along with the teeth. They have found it most robust, and quite capable of ripping out some of the older and more insecure bars on their cages. It has necessitated a new structure to be built on the premises, one that will enjoy a much more secure foundation and formation, and into which we can transfer these newly advanced subjects.
In terms of their bodily structure, changes that are apparent to the eye are less prevalent than they are amongst the visual differences present in the face, but they are there, and quite strongly, too. It is simply a matter of looking beneath the surface, and beneath the clothes as well, for even the bare minimum that they wear can be used to disguise the changes as they happen. The most apparent is the thickening in the muscles at certain joins, and the reaction speeds of the beasts has grown considerably. Perhaps we should have attempted to induce each change without recourse to the others, but that would have been quite difficult, and cause a good few delays, a risk I would rather not have dealt with.
Oh, yes, one of brighter males of the initial testing unit, whom I believe to be the last one alive from that grouping, has become quite troublesome recently. Despite hindering their mental development, he has rather discovered the natures of doors and locks, and the claws on his hands have proven somewhat useful for picking them, even if it requires breaking them off and shaving them down for the purpose. His ability to think is beginning to worry me, and we have confined him to a single storage facility quite well away from any of the others, and with a good deal of extra security. In fact, it is almost about time for my rounds to begin, and his is always the first and the last stop on the route. Thus, due to the time, I will leave this letter here and return to it later. I will hopefully have more to report after my examinations of the latest subjects, and of the behaviour of the older ones. As per normal, complete records will be included with this letter. I leave now, hopefully to return with good news which I can convey to you.
The letter arrived as per normal, on top of a complete record of the experimental facility. When opened, it consisted of the text above, with two minor additions: a small, perfectly spherical drop of crimson, and a sliver of a thin, keratinous material.
14
Apr
This evening’s flash fiction piece. I rather like the first and last lines, and how the piece has a sense of balance to it. As before, comments are appreciated.
The city sank into the autumn of its life. Glory had passed it by, a phase from its youth, and now it had settled into middle-aged expansion, growing fat and weary. Each day saw new construction, a new theft from the land around it as the city grew and grew. But as it grew, it turned inwards, eyes once focused upon distant shores now locked firmly to the gossip of the markets, and the sordid happenings in squalid apartments.
As the city turned away from the world, so too did the world turn away from the city. Trading vessels from other ports no longer called, overland traders found their way to distant markets, and even farmers began to find doing business with the city dull and unsatisfying. They wondered why this was so, and could find no reason for it that sprung instantly to mind, and so the farmers, being of stolid stock, returned to their tasks and their seasons.
Life continued on, and the leaves fell from the autumnal trees, leaving the city cold and unprotected from the fierce north wind. Fat, wealthy, and unprotected, the city was swept aside and into the winter of its existence by a barbarian tribe. The inferno lit the sky for many nights, a brilliant funeral pyre for a city and a people now dead or gone. And so the city hibernated through the winter, like so many other creatures, hoping to wake in the spring.
Unlike others, it did not find relief with the coming of spring. The city slumbered on, and greenery arose, sheltering the ruins from the harsh rays of the sun. Time passed, and many winters turned to spring, and the city had become a forest, with only piles of rubble to remember where there had been buildings. To those now alive, the city had become a mythical place of great wealth and long forgotten stories, magnified beyond its former status by the fog of lost knowledge.
Another age rolled by, and still the city slumbered on. But this was an age of great importance, for the world had changed around the sleeping city, and the devastation that had come to it came to many of its fellows. People fled from their ancestral homes, and struck out into the wild to find a new place to live, and at the end of this age, the city shook away the tendrils of long held sleep, and was born again, young and vibrant.
It was a city in spring, a city growing into the fullness of its life, and people uncovered more and more of the old city that lay beneath the ground, and used those stones and those tiles to build a new city. This new city did not remember the old, for too much time had passed, but it honoured its ancestor even so, built along the same lines and using the same stone. And so the city grew and grew, and moved from the urgency of spring into the full life of summer.
In summer the city flourished, and trade spread out from it like runners from a plant, placing many new seeds across the land. Throwing doors wide in welcome, the city enjoyed the passage of many foreigners and luxurious goods, and became renowned for the pageantry and cheer of its citizens. But seasons turn, whether wished for or not, and the city sank into the autumn of its life.
13
Apr
My longest piece of flash fiction yet, this one continues my happy theme of recent days. I’m not sure about the ending. I kept feeling like I should write another paragraph, but at the same time, the current spot is where I wanted to end it. I’m not sure which idea is better, but this post is without any extra material on the end. Let me know what you think.
A single drop of rain fell that day. It left a large dark spot on the broken earth, and the greedy land sucked it away in an instant, and soon it was if the drop had never fallen. The land got back to its primary business of drying, cracking, and breaking apart, and the farmers got back to theirs, of bemoaning the weather. There would be no crops, not this year, and should the earth remain barren for a few more months, there would be no city, either. Men, women, and children fled after rumours, chasing down the notion of crops, of food. They hung their lives on the words of charlatans, and many starved. But soon, even the charlatans began to starve, for words may feed the mind, but they do not nourish the body.
In the desperation, citizens disappeared, only to be found gnawed upon. As food vanished entirely, this became open, and groups of the strong would rove the city, hunting down others as their dinner. Friend ate friend and family ate family, and even rats and cockroaches died away, for they had become delicacies for the collapsing society. Outside the city walls, a few farmers remained, old men who had nowhere to go, and no family to protect. They still met each day in the village tavern, talking through the old stories one more time. The bartender had long fled, and there was nothing to drink, and yet the old habits refused to die, for these farmers had seen many a bad year, and they were determined to ride this one out, just as they had all the others.
As days went by and easy pickings in the city became scarce, gangs began hunting food outside the city walls, questing after farmers, but the old men knew the lay of the land far better than the cityfolk who chased them, escaping with ease from the angry starving packs. This pushed the populace of the city over the edge into true desperation, and in a night of orgy and bloodshed, all but a few were killed, and those remaining gorged themselves on the flesh of the fallen.
The farmers shook their head at this ill considered behaviour. They had devised their own method of making it through the long famine – whenever the farmers became truly starved and nearly stumbling with hunger, they slew the oldest among them. Before his death, the chosen one could bequeath his belongings, and in this way ancient steadings were absorbed into one another, until only two were left.
These two men were young men, barely starting out in the farming trade, and had known one another from near the day of their birth, and so when the time came, the elder of the two shook his head and handed his farms over to his friend, and was then slain and eaten. Summer had long since passed, and autumn was even now beginning the gradual decent into winter, and the last farmer had no more source of food. He sat in the bar of the village tavern, and told stories to himself, making them up as he went along. Hunger stole away his strength for speech, and so he sat there, waiting for his death.
One day, the sun darkened, and a strange pat pat pat noise came through the open door of the tavern. Nothing more than a skeleton now, the young farmer crawled his way from the bar to the door, and looked outwards. It took him a long while to discern the source of the sound, but then he remembered: rain! Rain had come again to bless the land and the crops, and the earth drank and drank, its thirst unquenchable after many, many months of desiccation. The farmer cracked his parched lips and cried out in thanks, that he had lived until the rains came again. The prayer consumed the very last of his energy, and his form slumped there against the frame of the door, deceased.
13
Apr
Here’s another flash fiction piece, 445 words in length. I appear to be getting a little shorter the more of these I write. I hope you read, enjoy, and comment.
I stood alone against the ravening hordes. My companions had fled, and I faced down the screaming, slavering numbers on my own. Cowards one and all, both the companions and the hordes. The horde feared me, and would not charge, and my allies had feared the horde and fled from it, leaving me to my fate.
I perched atop a hill, and spread out to the east beneath me was the army of foes, a seething mass of orcs, goblins, minotaurs and other horrible creatures, each one shouting for my blood. They had gathered here on this day to negotiate with me and mine, but those discussions had broken down. I thought them foolish and stupid, and they thought me arrogant and presumptuous. Mutual loathing made our current situation inevitable.
Below, I could see commanders moving through the barbarians, shouting and striking and building courage among their troops. I knew that soon they would come for me, and so I began to ready myself, swirling round and round the top of the hill. It took them over an hour to gather the strength of will to charge, and so I was quite finished with my preparations by the time they charged the hill.
It was satisfying to see the first waves of goblins run over the traps I had laid down, the fire exploding from beneath their feet and burning their flesh. Stupid creatures. Thorns grew up and entangled those next to come, and then hail broke over their heads, battering the trapped forms. Rocks tumbled down the hill, an avalanche of stone and scree, and finally lightning speared down from the sky, transfixing the last of the courageous hordes. I had prepared very well, and they had studied me poorly. Again I say, stupid creatures.
I chuckled as those on the plains fled, and with a gesture, I sent a wave of shadow speeding down the hill, blackening the sky and stealing away the light. When I could see again, every last orc, goblin, and minotaur lay dead on the field. The sky darkened once more, and a murder of crows descended to begin their feast.
I watched the crows feed for some little time, and then I began to laugh, a full, deep noise that echoed around the valley. Poor, poor stupid barbarians. Yes, I had asked them to meet me here. Only, I had no intention of negotiation. This site had been readied weeks in advance, and I began the ritual that would raise the entire army as undead servitors. This is why I had called them here. For the third and final time, stupid creatures. Mortals ever took the short view.
12
Apr
Not quite my usual fare for a flash fiction, but I was feeling a little more pensive than usual, so it probably reflects my mood. Let me know what you think.
The boy wandered down the aisles of the church, his mind it all at ease and wander. He had come here for a purpose, but what that purpose had been he could no longer remember. Instead, he found himself staring upwards, fascination with the carvings overwhelming his sense of worry. Shrugging, he found himself a pew and sat there, looking at the giant cross that hung suspended in the nave.
Covered in gold filigree and beautiful carvings, it reminded the boy of nothing so much as a blossoming tree, reflecting the light in oh so many directions, light that played all across the inside of the stone church. He felt comfortable here, as if he had come home, and his worry drained away. Whatever his task had been, it could wait until later days.
The light within the chapel shifted from the left to the right, and still the boy sat there, his eyes caught on that cross, his mind soaring upwards, twisting through flights of fancy to wing its way towards the heavenly gates. He arrived at the gates to find that they were barred, and standing before them was an apologetic angel. With a silent gesture of negation, the angel sent the boy tumbling earthwards, his mind reeling.
He arrived back in his body with a great cry, tears dampening his cheeks. Fury and passion and anger rolled across his face and he grew violent, tossing away the pew upon which he sat. For many minutes he stormed, tossing the furniture and the furnishings about the church until it looked a ruin. Yet he would not touch the cross, nor pass the line of the altar.
His anger spent, the boy slumped down on a broken chair, and cried to himself. He had been rejected, he still did not remember what he was meant to do, and he had destroyed works of art. Remorse stole throughout his body, leaving him a quivering pile until, at last, the boy regained control of his emotions. With a face blank of expression and puffy from tears, he slipped away, disappearing out into the cold world beyond.
The figure on the cross spoke then, his eyes fixing the altar with a stare. “This happens every Sunday, Father. He tries to ascend and you do not let him.” From the altar came the sound of a sigh. “I wish I could, my son, but he is Damien, and to let him into heaven would cause all this to fail. And so I must turn away an innocent, a boy purer of heart and of mind than many who have passed through the gates.” The statue on the cross let his eyes fall to the floor. “I know, Father, I know. But it wrenches my heart.”
“Mine too.” The altar and the cross looked towards the grand doors of the church, where the boy had long since departed, and both cried, their eyes wet with blood.