Whir, Click!

The heavy brass manacle on his wrist had a flip clock, and the clock dictated his every moment. The split-face cards whirred and clicked, and the numbers gave their command. When he awoke on his cold hard, bamboo sleeping mat. When he ate his cold gruel. When he took a cold shower. When he was sent to work outside in the blazing desert. When he could take a sip of hot, tinny water from  his canteen. When he could suffer. When he could despair.

The memory of warmth brought him comfort when he was freezing. The memory of shivering through the cold nights cooled him when the relentless sun baked his skin. The memory of home kept him moving forward, even though he didn't know where he was going.

Whir, click! 

He dug his pick into the rock, questing out the metals.

Whir, click!

He loaded the ore into the heavy cart.

Whir, click! 

He strained against the cart and pushed it laboriously to the blast furnace.

Other prisoners, each with their own brass manacle, fed the coke, ore, and flux into the top of the furnace, while other prisoners pumped the bellows. Rows and rows of crucibles the size of wine barrels stood ready to pour their molten contents into depressions of wet, unbaked sand manacle-shaped molds. Yet another prisoner would fill his empty cart with the castoff slag and he would push it back down the long, winding ramp of the open-pit mine and begin again.

He did this for years. He didn't know how many, not exactly. The manacle clocks did not tell the date, only the time. There were seasons, of a sort. There was no vegetation to bloom and denote the coming of spring, no trees with leaves to change color and drop away. The days got shorter, the days got longer. There were bad days, and there were less-bad days.

His life was ebbing way, rolling down an ever-growing pit, in slow, concentric circles. 

Whir, click!

One morning, the other prisoners awoke to find him gone. Inside the blast furnace, they discovered his manacle clock. It lay in a warped, twisted lump on the ground. Fused within it, now a part of it, was a brass fist, clenched in pain and defiance; a lost-wax casting of a human hand.

THE END

Author's Note: Has it been a month yet? I think it has. Yet here we are. Also, I'm pretty sure lost-wax casting doesn't really work that way BUT let's try not to take things too literally today. Thank you. This is another blank-page story, which means I sat down to write something, was scrolling through my dozens of drafts (not real drafts, germs of ideas mostly) couldn't decide on one, and then this came out. 

You can't see it, because that's not how reading works, but there is a literal hour between the last whir-click and the last paragraph. That whir-click was the original ending. I hated it. I didn't want it. I sat and stared at it, loathing, seething, foaming at the mouth a little. And I hit my head against it until it became something different. Now to sleep, perchance to dream, oh and I think there's some leftover Halloween candy in the fridge. Aw, but I already brushed my teeth. Goodnight!

Noodles At The Drunken Tapir

My favorite restaurant, The Drunken Tapir, was under construction, and I loved it more than ever. Usually it was a dimly-lit, rundown cafe that smelled like good food and bad decisions. Now it was torn apart for remodeling, so it looked even more like the inside of my soul. It was even darker now, except for the usual bright neon signs for beers (I think; I couldn't read the language) and a couple of work lights in the corner. The door to the kitchen had been removed so we got a little bit of light from that as well. Most of the booths were ripped out, and temporary folding tables and chairs were set up. A TV in the corner showed a soccer game between Malacca and Johor; two countries I never even heard of. But I didn't come here to catch up on sports. This place had the best yellow noodles in the city. 

I had seen the plans for the remodel. Mr. Jahni, the owner, wanted to make a bright, sanitized, generic, so it would appeal to the Americans. I had voiced my disagreement; I came here because I could eat in peace. Not that it was quiet; I just couldn't understand any of the languages the other diners were speaking. "What's next," I scoffed, "regular hours?"

I worked late, and the place was always open when I got off. After a long day on a case, I was usually sick of the outside world and this dingy little eatery felt honest. I unraveled lies for a living, and this place wasn't pretending to be something it's not. Unlike the rest of us.

It had been a better day, though. I had tracked down the hiding place of a family will that would have restored the kids' inheritance so the stepfather couldn't run off with it and stick them in an orphanage. What a jerk. I'd also made it look like he was the one behind it all; even though he was a mostly just an idiot. Still, he'd been about to run off with all the money and again, orphanage, so he was still an ass. Once I had uncovered the final draft of the will hidden in the urn containing the ashes of the family pony (one Neighomi Trots,) I had pinned the blame on him and the cops took him away. I still charged full price. Ponies are small horses but they're still pretty big, and I had to sift through a lot of ashes to find that will. Anyway, I didn't know who actually tried to hide the will in the pony's urn, so it could have been him.

Didn't really matter to me now. The kids would be taken care of. That guy would go to jail. I'd get paid. The pony would still be dead. 

Things would get better for the ones who deserved it, or at least the ones who were left.

I don't know when the renovations will be done. But I'll probably stop coming here when they are. It'll be too...bright. My job needs me to maintain a certain disposition. Once you stop seeing the worst in people, it's time to quit being a detective. 

But I wouldn't have to worry about that tonight. Tonight, I'd sit alone in the dark, surrounded by laughing people I don't understand, and I'd enjoy another bowl of the best yellow noodles in the city. 

THE END

Actual Blog

 I'm sitting at my writing desk wearing a new grey sport coat and no pants. I just wanted to try out the sport coat. Nothing crazy; I like it. 

Don't have an idea yet, for the story, but maybe this will help. When writing about my own life, I find myself dissatisfied and inevitably turn to fiction. 

No, I didn't say that. I'm not sure anyone said it. But Hugh Laurie said he was sitting down to write a journal or some such about his life and got bored so he wrote a novel instead. Then Norm MacDonald did something pretty similar by writing a sensationalized autobiography that was fiction, but also not.

Anyway if anyone ever says I didn't ever write in my underwear and a cheap sport coat; they're lying, because I'm doing it now and listening to a YouTube playlist called Noir L.A. Dark Jazz Radio 24/7 stream.

It's good.

The Moon Beneath Our Feet

"Remants of the planet Theia, which was destroyed in the collision 4.5 billion years ago that created the Moon, remain buried deep inside Earth, scientists have proposed." - The Journal of Star Science, November 4th, 2023.

Floating on opposite sides of the molten core of the planet Earth, are two continent-sized blobs of material: the remnants of that proto-planet that struck proto-Earth. 

That's why the Moon follows the Earth, why its face stays fixed on the planet. It is incomplete, and it searches for the rest of itself. The two blobs inside the earth are on opposite sides of the core, but they seek a way to reunite. They've been apart for billions of years, right beneath our feet, and they've felt every single second they've been trapped there, because they've been burning.

There was a third blob, bigger than the others. It didn't wait to find the other two. It gathered its strength, its pain, its anger, its loneliness, and, 66 million years ago, it burst out of the Earth and tried to go home. Humans still believe that it was an asteroid that struck the Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, but it wasn't. The impact came from within, when that lost piece of Theia tried to go home. 

But that piece never got home. It missed the moon. And it is still going, ever deeper into space, ever further from the rest of itself. It no longer burns; it freezes. Its only warmth now comes from the memory of what it was. 

The other two pieces of Theia will not make the same mistake. They are in pain, but they sing to each other, from across the core, of hope. They will find each other. They may never get to the Moon, but that's okay. They will make each other their home, make a new planet within a planet, a heaven inside hell.

The Moon, meanwhile, watches on, and pulls up the cooling tides of the oceanlike a mother tucks her children into bed. 

Every once in a while, the Moon catches a fragment of their song, and feels warmth, and hope. And it's enough to fight off the chill for a little while longer. 

THE END 

Author's Note: This story was brought to by science, and by the song Pistol by Cigarettes After Sex on repeat for an hour or so. What, it's a good song. 

The Wailing Woman

When I was little, I would play by the irrigation canal that ran behind the houses and separated the little cluster of houses from fields of cotton, citrus trees. Of course, this was expressly forbidden. My mother told me that the spirit of the Wailing Woman walked up and down the canal, looking for children to throw into the water. I wasn't clear on why she wanted to drown them. I think she was sad, or jealous. Maybe she just didn't like kids. I could understand that. Kids were mean. I had no siblings to play with. That's why I would go down to the canal. 

The canal was rough concrete, with steep sides, and the edges were hard packed dirt. I would draw designs in the dirt with a stick, or skip stones across the water. Mostly, I fished. Not for actual fish. I'd found a piece of rope and a twisted piece of rebar, like a big fishing hook. I would throw it in the dark green water and drag it along until it caught on something. Then I'd drag it up. It was an irrigation canal, so there wasn't supposed to be anything down there really. Kids threw all kinds of junk in there. Adults did too, but it was mostly the kids.

I'd caught a dozen tire-less bikes, a few rusted shopping carts, and once an entire bed frame. I'd leave it all in a pile and the city would come and haul it away. No one knew it was me, I don't think. 

One day, after a long afternoon of fishing, just as it was getting dark enough for the streetlights to come on and signal it was time to go home, I heard the laughter of some of the neighborhood kids. Then I heard the yowling of a cat; a splash more laughter, and I knew immediately what had happened. I ran towards the noise and saw the cluster of kids at the edge of the canal. I howled, and charged at them, brandishing my rebar hook like an axe. The kids scattered and ran away. 

I looked down into the canal. It was a terrified little black kitten, and it was trying to claw its way out but the canal walls were too steep. I hesitated. The water was deep, and there were hidden currents that could drag you down even if you were a strong swimmer, which I wasn't. But I had to do something. I grabbed the rebar fishing hook and stabbed it into to the dirt at the edge. I tested it, and it held, and I lowered myself down the rope. As I reached the kitten, the hook came free and I fell into the water. I was able to grab the kitten with one hand and swam as hard as I could, but I could feel the water pulling us down. 

I tried to shout for help and water filled my mouth and I coughed and spluttered, then I was under. I tried to hold the kitten up out of the water. I gathered the last bit of my strength; maybe I could throw the kitten out of the canal. Then I'd figure out how to save myself. 

I felt an icy cold hand grip my wrist, and I was lifted completely out of the water. Not up along the side, but lifted entirely, straight upwards. I shook the canal water out of my eyes and looked right into the face of The Wailing Woman. 

She was glowing white in the evening dusk, like a cartoon ghost. She was ethereal; I could see right through her, although her grip felt like iron. She carried me and the little black kitten to the edge of the canal and placed us gently on the hard-packed dirt. 

Then she was gone. There was just me and an unhappy kitten, both shivering in the warm night under the antiseptic orange glow of the streetlights. We had to get home or I was going to be in real trouble. 

I had to explain to my parents why I was showing up to dinner soaking wet. I explained as best as I could about the kitten being thrown in the water, although in my version I told them my fishhook had held and that I had been able to pull us both out of the water, eventually. 

My parents were mad, but I could tell they were proud too. I felt bad for lying, but I knew they would never believe me. They even let me keep the kitten, and she and I still have all kinds of adventures to this very day.

My mom even came up with her name: "Llorona."

THE END

Author's Note: It's really late, but I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow/today so I can sleep in a little. I just can't eat until they draw my blood or hit my knee with that little hammer or whatever it is they do. 

Anyway this one was fun to write. There's a trope called saving the cat where a character saves an animal to show their sensitive side or something like that. I'm not clear on it, but I did work in animal rescue and sometimes cats and dogs just need saving. 

The last sentence was originally a paragraph and I'll put that here for my reference:

My mom even came up with her name: "Llorona." She said it was because the little kitten was always meowing whenever I wasn't around, but sometimes, I still wonder. I think moms know a lot more than they tell us. 

It isn't terrible, but through most of the story I'm kind of trying to have the narrator phrase things like a kid, and then I threw that bit in about ongoing adventures and I don't know...too much scmaltz, not enough mystery. It's cute though. But if the mom knew the kid was nearly drowned then saved by a ghost she herself falsely maligned, then she'd be a real jerk. 

Goodnight!

The Gospel Of Despair

The Evangelist of Giving Up preached all day, every day.The midday sun was melting away the morning frost when I finally got around to see him. I could hear him before I even entered the tent.

"Despair is a luxury!" He was saying to an enraptured crowd. "Wrap yourself in it, hold it close, let it keep away the chill and the rain! Hope is the gap in your armor that lets through the slings and arrows of misfortune. The misery and torment of life cannot cause pain in what has become numb.

"Listen to this definition of perfection: That which cannot, by any means, be made better. Conversely, Perfection must also be that which cannot, by any means, be made worse. Therefore, to remain exactly as you are is to achieve perfection. 

"Meaning. Purpose. Belonging. Agency." He had spat the words. "These are false idols we seek out because we are told that's what people need to live life to the fullest. But what good are these things without a full belly, clothing, shelter, and entertainment? They will only make up unhappy, because they are unattainable. Think of all you don't have already! Why add to that list?

"The very first, the very oldest, and the very greatest emotion n human existence is fear. And the most powerful fear of all, is the fear of the unknown. So I ask you why? Why would you venture out into that great unknown? To find yourself? There is no need! You are right here, you've done just fine so far, what else could possibly be out there for you that you don't have now? Be satisfied with your lot, and think no more of that great unknown. Do we not light fires and sit around them, with our backs to the darkness? This is our nature; this is the way we have as always been. It's the way YOU'VE always been, and you know that works well enough. 

"There is nothing for us in the unknown, and you have no light to bring to the darkness. Sit down with us and rejoice in our perfection. Seize this moment, and only this moment, because the only thing that is certain is that the future is uncertain, and you could lose the little bit of freedom and comfort you've built up so far. There are no happy endings; only endings. Self-discovery is for indulgent fools. I know you, and you know you. We are tiny fish in a vast ocean of powerful currents, and we can let ourselves be swept along or die.

"There is nothing, NOTHING else to know!" He raised his arms and the crowd burst into applause. 

I passed the cheering rows of people as I walked right up to the stage. The Evangelist smiled at me in recognition. I raised my pistol and pointed it right at his grinning face. I fired, and he fell. The adoring crowd didn't cower, or run, or even take their eyes off his crumpled form. They didn't acknowledge what I had done at all.

They were right to do so. That fucker never stayed dead for long. I could have as little as an hour, maybe until tomorrow morning if I was lucky. But he'd be back soon enough.

But so would I. Until then, I had work to do.

THE END

Author's Note: Goodnight? Yes, goodnight!

The High Point

This is a true story. 

Many winters ago, my best buddy Sibbitt and I were working on climbing to the highest point in each state of the continental United States. Well, just Sibbitt was really, and it isn't something you do all at once, so he had invited me along while he worked on a chunk of the Mideast. I was inexperienced at climbing, and it was the middle of winter and I hated the cold, but I was gainfully unemployed and kind of on the run from the greatest military power in the free world, so I figured why not? Plus, Sibbitt had been doing this sort of thing his whole life and with him there, nothing could possibly go wrong. 

Nothing major, anyway.

We were on our fourth high point of our trip. The first three had been pretty easy. The highest point in each state isn't necessarily the top of a sheer cliff face or something like that; many were in state parks, with designated roads and trails. Most of the time, we could reach the summit in one day. Florida, for example, had been a 65-foot hill.  

Things had gone smoothly until the fourth high point. We had bagged the third high point by midday, and then drove the rental car on to the next. The fourth high point was accessible by a dirt road that took you all the way up to the top. It was still a mountain, but a pretty gentle one.

By nightfall, we were almost at our destination. We were on the final approach, which was a winding, snow-covered dirt road. The rental car was an economy car, which was not our first choice but it was all they had left. About two miles from the summit, the car gently died. The engine stopped and all the lights went out, even the interior indicator lights. We tried to start it again, but nothing. It was a little odd. Still, there wasn't anything to do about it. We had no cell service, but we had food and water, and we'd been sleeping in the car the entire trip. The moon was full and bright. We decided to leave the car and hike the rest of the way up. We'd make the summit, get a few pictures, and then return to the car and hike the five or six miles back to the main road and go from there. 

Easy.

We trudged through the snow, our breaths turning into voluminous clouds of water vapor around us. There was no wind, and except for the crunch of snow beneath our feet, it was deathly quiet. That's normal; snow absorbs sound. 

We reached the top of the mountain, and the high point was indicated by a waist-high granite plinth with a plaque. Also pretty typical.

A dozen yards beyond the plaque, however, was a metal tower. It was a square, metal, skeleton of a tower, five stories tall, with stairs going all the way up to the top, which was just a platform with a short railing. There didn't seem to be any purpose for it. A red light glowed at the top. Maybe it was some kind of fire look-out tower? It wasn't sheltered though. Usually those are covered so the look-out isn't completely exposed to the elements while on watch. It was a little odd.

As I was looking up at the tower, Sibbitt said "Respect the mountain."

When you've been traveling with someone for a long time, you start to know what the other is thinking.

'Oh, I respect the mountain," I said. "If I climb this; I'll only be disrespecting the tower. And technically, that's the highest point on this mountain now." Sibbitt sighed, a cloud of breath glowing white in the moonlight.

So we climbed the tower. The first story had no stairs, so we had to climb the metal frame itself. Odd again, maybe you had to bring your own ladder? So animals didn't get up there or something?

I led the way, because it was my idea. Plus it was just stairs, and I was pretty good at stairs. I reached the platform on top first and was about to give a shout of victory, but my shout came out as gasp, and I froze.

The red light we had seen from the bottom was not part of the tower. It was a pair of glowing red eyes.

Something was standing on the short railing, looking directly at me, like it was waiting for me, with those bright red eyes. It was shaped like a person, but it was unnaturally tall, at least 8 feet, and thin, like it had been stretched out. And even in the full moonlight, it was completely black, but a shiny black, like velvet. And it had...wings. Sort of. They were wing-shaped, not like a bird's wings, more like a moth or a butterfly, with one big pair on top and then a smaller pair below. The wings were black too, but where the person-thing looked solid, the wings looked like they were made of smoke. The thing tilted its head at me and the wings slowly furled and unfurled, sending out little tendrils of that black smoke substance. 

There was no cloud of breath around its face. Below the eyes, the rest of the face was empty, like a pit. 

Sibbitt reached the narrow opening at the top of the stairs a few moments later. I was blocking his view of the thing, but he knew something was wrong. 

"Threat, threat, threat," I said, and drew my knife. I had a big hunting knife that I always carried around because I hadn't yet figured out that they're really not worth the weight. But I was glad I had it now. I held it low, blade downwards, like a murderer in a horror movie. Holding it out in front of you like a sword is a good way to be disarmed. No, hold it low, blade downwards, and if the threat comes in range, you punch and slash. Don't go to it; only if it comes to you.

Sibbitt looked around me and saw the thing. Its eyes turned to meet his, and the wings unfurled wide. He exhaled through his nose, the white vapor making him look like a determined cartoon bull. He grabbed the back of my coat in a big chunk, firmly, like he was gonna throw me off the platform. Then he turned around, not letting go, and began to step down the stairs. I was still facing forwards, but with him grabbing my coat like that, I could move with him, and step when he stepped. 

The first step we took, the thing moved that same amount closer to us. It didn't move its legs, or flap its wings, its whole body made a little writhing motion, or like a ripple from a pebble thrown into a dark pond, and then it was closer. I hissed, near panic, but Sibbitt stayed steady. He stepped, and I stepped. The thing moved with us.

Step. Step. Step.

We did this all the way down to the second story of the tower. The thing was still following us. There were no stairs on that last story, remember, and so we had to jump down into the snow. When we did, I had to finally turn my back to it so I could jump down safely.   

When we turned back, the moth-man was gone. But at the top of the tower, we could again see a glowing red light. 

We didn't say anything as we walked warily back down the mountain. When we reached the car, Sibbitt tried starting it one more time, and it fired right up, no problem.

"Respect the mountain," Sibbitt said.

"Yup," I said.

And we drove back down to the main road and drove for another two hours until we found a rest stop, and went to sleep.

We got a couple more high points over the next few days, and then we flew back home to Arizona, and the trip was over.

We never talked about it. It wasn't a secret, exactly, we just never talked about it.

I'm only telling this now because, lately, I've been seeing those red lights again. On the neighboring rooftops. Peering out from trees. One night, I even saw them looking up at me from under the water of the Tempe Town Lake as I walked across the bridge.

I don't know what it means. But I'll keep you posted. Until then, remember: respect the mountain. 

THE END