BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations having nothing to do with each other. Duality and such …

* * *

Torment

The meeting so annoyingly interrupted was penultimate to the release of the wildly anticipated new product certain to make them both renowned and rich. Surely among the most important events in modern history. Every painstaking attention to detail had to be perfect prior to release. The team huddled together, he right in the middle of it, concentrating so hard under the florescent lights and on such little sleep he had a headache, which he ignored. Now this! Right at a critical point! His secretary tried to be discreet as she cracked the door and silently extended her right hand with the pinky and thumb out to indicate a phone call, but once she got his attention she got everybody else’s along with it.

“Take a message,” he told her.

“It’s an emergency,” she said sternly, forcefully, almost as an order, reflecting the company’s philosophy that ‘secretaries rule the world’ and hired only those capable of taking charge.

He sighed. Somebody said, “We need a break anyway.”

“Some of this will take until tomorrow at least,” somebody else said.

He signed again. “Fine,” then, because he was team leader, “We’ll reconvene at eight-thirty tomorrow.” As they filed out he gave his secretary the ‘what-the-hell’ look, to which she gave him the ‘pull-your-head-out-of-your-ass’ look back.

“There’s a problem with your father,” she told him. “Line three.”

It was that nurse at the assisted living facility again. Had to admit she sounded more frantic than usual. “Okay, I’ll be right over.”

The nice thing about driving at this time of day was that traffic was lighter. The bad thing, he cursed, is that what traffic was out was slower. Much slower. He weaved and diced his German sports sedan in and out and between the other vehicles like a bat shooting itself at insects and made the trip in 35 minutes. He found his dad poised in front of his easel, brush in hand, glaring at a painting already judiciously illustrated. The nurse pulled him back up the hall.

“He’s been like that for three days,” she said. “He hasn’t eaten, hasn’t slept, or if he has he did it standing up. This morning we found he had soiled himself and he fought and cussed us as we got him changed and cleaned up.”

“He’s just been standing there like that?”

“Once in a while he seems to dab at something, but, yeah, just like that.”

He went slowly into his dad’s room and around where he could see him. Still took several seconds before his dad noticed him, and when he did he said in his most annoyed tone, “Oh, Jesus Fucking Christ, they called your ass, didn’t they?”

“Uh-huh. They’re worried.”

“They’re mother hens! I haven’t been working that long.”

“You’ve been here for three days, and you haven’t eaten, and you haven’t slept, and this morning you shit your pants.”

He looked directly at his son for the first time, a little disbelieving but acknowledging it was probably true. The nurse appeared in the doorway, holding a food tray. “Well, good god damn it!” he said angrily, wiped his brush and put it and his palette down and moved stiffly towards the little table next to the window. “Bring it here, then,” he barked at the nurse and she placed the tray in front of him. It looked like chicken noodle soup, a cheese sandwich, and orange Jell-o. “Jesus,” his dad shook his head at it. “I’d like to order crawfish etouffee with key lime pie instead.”

The nurse said, “We don’t serve that.” Then added, “And you know it.”

“Get the hell out of here and let me eat.”

He sat down opposite his dad and told the nurse, “I’ll stay with him for a while,” so she’d leave them.

“God damned interruptions,” his dad cursed, but picked up the spoon and slurped the soup.

“Yeah,” he said, “Speaking of interruptions, I didn’t exactly have time for this. I’m in the middle of creating something new myself. Something important. Something that will matter to a lot of people.”

His dad snorted. “Will it be obsolete by this time next year?”

He thought of the ‘update’ planning meetings already on his calendar to follow the launch. Shoot, he thought, it will be obsolete in three months and updates would start rolling out a couple months after that. “Maybe,” he hedged.

His dad, ladling the soup down rather rapidly now, pointed at the painting with his spoon,. “That won’t be,” he said.

The painting seemed to be an abstract portrait of a woman; he didn’t recognize the subject. The paint flowed in long, vibrant ribbons from the top. His dad had used long, thick brush strokes to apply the paint; the texture broke the illusion that it had been pulled down by gravity. Instead, it almost looked like it had been applied by a shotgun, then smeared or allowed to drip. Vibrant colors edged in contrasting pastels. He had to admit, he found it compelling.

His dad said with his mouth full, “People will be studying my art long after that ‘product’ of yours has been replaced ten times over, so don’t talk to me about interruptions.” By now the soup was gone and he had moved on to the sandwich. “I guess I was hungrier than I thought.”

He asked his dad, “What do you call this painting?”

His dad replied, “Torment.” Then added, “I may change it to ‘Annoyance’.” Finally he gulped up the Jell-o and looked at the tray as if surveying for another morsel. For the first time, his dad looked tired to him, his concentration broken.

“Why don’t you lay down for a minute.”

His dad nodded and lay awkwardly on the bed. He covered him with a blanket. “Just for a bit,” his dad said, but in short order he had fallen fast asleep.

He sat with him for another 20 minutes before rising and moving towards the door, pausing to study the painting again. He found himself hoping his dad could finish it.

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations having nothing to do with each other. Duality and such …

* * *

Electric Bliss

When the Event ended she retreated to the observatory’s small breakroom a couple hours later than she normally would have. Quarter-to-four in the morning; the Event had postponed things, and now her belly was rumbling, though she didn’t mind it. She should have minded it, she thought, and she shouldn’t even be hungry. She should be crying. She should be terrified. She should be on the computer, on the phone, screaming to every other astronomer she could think of, trying to get the word out, trying to find out who else had seen it, trying to get confirmation. Instead, she calmly opened the little plastic container with her salad in it and began crunching on a slice of radish laying on top, dabbed with the French dressing she loved. Rather than despair, the warm, calm, lovely glow that had enveloped her these past few days would not be dissuaded.

Why should it, she thought, pulling a saltine from a sandwich bag, scraping a little salad onto it with her fork, crunching away as she looked at the bare walls. There were no windows in the breakroom as it was deep in the observatory’s interior. The cork bulletin board was crowded with announcements and staff schedules, according to which another astronomer was generally with her for the shift, but he’d awakened with a sore throat and decided to stay home. There was a maintenance guy puttering around somewhere; they’d rarely said three words at a time to each other. There was a tech person on call, but only for real emergencies. That was all the little campus-based observatory had funding for, and only that much because her study of Wolf-Rayet stars, in particular Eta Carinae. drew enough science foundation money to pay for observations at this time. She considered her solitude and concluded it was perfect. Other people at this moment would only disturb her mellow. She took another small bite of salad, put the fork down, and absently rubbed her abdomen where right that second, right under her warm palm, after years of trying, her child was growing.

She and her husband had tried for years. She’d had issues, then it turned out he had issues, they tried this, they tried that, she was injected with something, he was injected with something else, doctors suggested this thing and then that thing, some of those things costing ridicules sums of money they didn’t have. Nothing, nothing worked. She was out of time. He was out of Hope.

Then it happened by accident, no science, just passion.

The memory of telling him last week made her smile. The look of sheer, shocked joy on her husband’s face when she revealed her doctor’s confirmation – he hadn’t suspected anything was up until that moment – was pure gold. A rush of electric bliss. Enormous tons of anxiety and sadness evaporated. She’d been floating ever since, happy inside her bubble, shielded from all discontent. Her husband was too, but he would dissolve into intense darkness, she thought rather off handedly, when she told him about tonight. She would leave him to it, and she didn’t feel guilty about that. Maybe she just wouldn't say anything to anybody.

When the Event began, she didn’t think about her husband. She thought about a scumbag ex-boyfriend who had verbally abused and humiliated her until she could escape him. She thought about him because one of his favorite movies, which she’d endured six times, featured George S. Patton telling a colleague that the thing which scared him most was the idea of a bullet coming straight for his nose.

A bullet coming straight for her nose.

She’d looked into her telescope monitor tonight at the star system Eta Carinae which contained two stars with five million times the luminosity of the Sun. At 12:16 PM the stars collided and collapsed as a black hole. The combined matter of both stars swirled into a high-density accretion disk that fell into the hole, drove relativistic jets along the rotational axis which broke through the stellar envelope as a tightly focused gamma ray burst containing more radiation than the Sun would emit during its entire 10-billion-year lifecycle. It had all happened in a split second from 7,500 light years away, and at 12:16 PM that night it struck the lens of the telescope and was immediately identified by her instrument as gamma rays.

Many gamma ray bursts are detected for less than two seconds. Most for a little more than two seconds. They emanate from billions of light years away. None had been observed sparking within the Milky Way Galaxy. But Eta Carinae is in the Milky Way, a relatively close 7,500 light years away, its gamma ray burst was pointed straight at Earth and lasted for 11,308 seconds. 3 hours, 14 minutes, 11 seconds.

She chewed her salad and knew that the moment gamma rays struck the atmosphere oxygen and nitrogen molecules began forming nitrogen oxide and then nitrogen dioxide gas which would reduce ozone by up to 75% making it ill-advised to go outside. The gas would create photochemical smog blocking sunlight and triggering a cosmic winter. Finally, toxic levels of acid rain would fall. These effects would last for years, long enough to produce global level extinction. It had happened before, 450 million years ago, when a gamma ray burst causing the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction ended 85% of life on Earth.

And she didn’t care. She didn’t. Not a whit. Satellites equipped with senor arrays would have detected the burst, reported it, and the world would collectively freak out in a few hours. She calmly ate her salad with the divine French dressing. There was life inside her. She had created it. She glowed with it and would not be discouraged of it. The rest of the universe could take a flying leap.

- CH

* * *

Writer’s note: As we have become a society easily seduced by conspiracy theories and catastrophes of all manner, lest I contribute to the foolishness let me quickly say that scientists believe the events of this tale are extremely unlikely. Gamma ray bursts are not only exceedingly rare and too distant to cause the Earth lasting damage. They are also very tightly focused beams and even if one were to occur closer – have to be within 8,000 light years - it would have to be pointed right at us to do any harm. Further, theories that the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction was caused by a Gamma ray burst are not only just theories, they are only minority theories. Even if one were to occur as described in this story, the radiation signatures of Gamma ray bursts vary so drastically that the effects can only be guessed at. I’ve used it here simply as a counterpoint to the powerful rush the lead character is experiencing.

Perhaps a better story line – humans knew nothing of gamma radiation until the first nuclear blasts, and we knew nothing of cosmic gamma ray bursts until we developed sensors to detect whether or not the other guys had tested new weapons. So it was the development of life-ending technology that led to the discovery of an even more powerful life-ending force of nature to remind us how puny we are. So proceeds the branches of The Tree Of Knowledge. Now bite this apple …

* * *

Rumble Butt

“Oh, man, this just plain sucks ass!” the private moaned, but only to the other private with him.

“Uh-huh,” the other private agreed, though with considerably less rancor. He’d arrived a couple weeks earlier and was used to it.

“I didn’t come over to sit here and freeze,” the private sort of looked back over his shoulder, over the top of the hole, back through the thick trees and snow towards the platoon’s shelter at the old farm 150 yards back. With every word, every breath, a cloud of vapor exited his body and froze before his eyes. Eventually he might learn everyone expected grumbling and didn’t care what he thought. Might.

“Yeah, well, this is only your second night doing it whereas it’s my 10th,” the other private said, teeth chattering, “So …”

The private rubbed his gloved hands together vigorously for what good it would do. He sighted down the machine gun barrel for the thousandth time that night. They were on a rise that overlooked a fair piece of semi-open ground, but for the thousandth time all he could see in the dark was trees and snow. “Will you listen to that cold friggin’ wind!” he sneered, buck toothed, all gung-ho extroversion.

The other private had been too busy shivering to notice, but when he turned his attention to it, yeah, wind in the treetops seemed to have picked up. “Just another hour,” he clutched his arms around his body, head tucked, as introverted in posture as in temperament and as sick of the private’s would-be warrior schtick as he was the freezing cold. “We’ll be relieved, and we can go back and get warm.”

“I hope they’re not late again.”

“They usually are.”

“That Lieutenant has got the platoon pretty snug in that barn back there, like he expects us to be here for a while.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I still don’t understand why we don’t just go charging off in that direction,” the private waved a hand off towards the ground they were covering, “There’s nothing to stop us.”

The other private said, “I think it has something to do with supply lines. Anyway, the next platoon is a mile that way, so we’re not exactly massing for an attack. We’re more like on guard duty.”

“Guard duty for what?”

“We’re just watching the line.”

“Watching the line for what,” the private was disgusted. “They’ve given up.”

The other private didn’t say anything.

“Damn war was over before I even got here! Veterans back warm and cozy in the barn got to have all the fun, now they send us out to do the shit work.”

The other private said, “They don’t act like they’ve had any fun.” He noticed that the sound of the wind in the trees seemed to have picked up and sounded funny.

“And they really treat us like crap. Hardly talk to us. Won’t even learn our names.”

“Well, I think some of them have lost some buddies. Actually, I think they all have.”

The private looked back over his shoulder again, this time checking carefully that no one was back there, and lowered his voice. “Do you think they’re scared?”

The other private considered that. “I suppose, maybe. Shouldn’t you be?”

The private ignored the question if he’d heard it. “They should turn us lose; we’ll show ‘em!”

“Uh-huh,” the other private said. He noticed the world had lightened just ever so slightly. Dawn was sneaking up on them. More details ghosted through the dark. He looked into the treetops and noticed, despite the wind, he saw little movement by the frozen branches in their tops. It seemed to him the wind had picked up even more, but it wasn’t gusting; it was a constant howl, and more like a rumble. Then he felt a vibration in the icy ground that came up through his butt. “Hey…“, he started to say.

Then the world around them exploded. Shells smashed into the earth to their left, to their right, behind and in front of them, tops of trees shattered and rained down. Both terrified privates threw themselves deeper into their hole screaming and tried to will their bodies deeper into the ground. The first shots either had heard fired in anger and it was somebody else’s anger. More shells, closer, farther, all around and above them. The private peed his pants but didn’t notice. Neither was sure how long it went on, but when it stopped they were half buried in dirt and tree branches that had been blasted into their hole and the wind, the rumble, was even louder. They peaked over the rim of their hole and saw, less than a half mile from their position, a wall of German tanks, seemed like dozens and dozens of German tanks, moving towards them fast with German soldiers trailing in their wake.

“Oh, crap!” the other private screamed and grabbed the machine gun, pulled back on the cocking lever and fired off several rounds before being tackled off it.

“Are you nuts!” the private screamed, “They’ll see us! We have to get back to the platoon!” He began pulling the other private out of the hole.

“The machine gun,” the other private reached for it.

“Leave it!” They heard bullets striking the trees around them.

“My rifle!”

“Leave it,” the private pulled the other private over the lip of hole and they began running, almost in different directions. “This way!” he shouted. “The barn is this way.” And beyond it, Bastogne.

The other private shifted direction and followed. As it happened, not in the direction of the barn.

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

The Ride

When he smelled the ocean he was disappointed. He had thought it was further away, though it was a trick of wind and atmospheric conditions that he could smell it that far inland, and the scent lasted for only an instant. In fact it was still quite way off, he still had some time, but it was close. He could slow down and milk every mile as much as the family and friends he traveled with would let him. He supposed he might veer off to the north or south. They had veered one way or another before, of course, but always as a group, and if he did it now on his own he would most certainly be leaving people behind, and he couldn’t bear that. He wondered if he might simply turn around and go back. If it were possible to do that would he meet the same people moving in the other direction? No, it was too fanciful a notion. He further supposed he might just stop. Just stay right here as if suspended, and let the rest go on without him. That struck him as intolerably lonely, perhaps even cowardly. He decided whatever direction he tried to turn would eventually lead him to an ocean, and if he tried to stay there the earth over time would crumble away, and the ocean would come to him. So he smiled and strapped on his helmet, put on his favorite tunes, kicked the bike into gear and into motion, coasting for the most part, eventually to glide up to the wide sandy beach and blue water and brilliant sunset on the horizon and the journey’s end.

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

Turns Out It’s My Fault

“It’s my fault,” he had laid his head back on the deck chair beside the pool and closed his eyes behind his sunglasses. “My god, I’m to blame for this!”

The younger and nearest of the two women with him looked up from where she dangled her feet into the cool blue water and asked, “What’s that, darlin’?”

“My fault,” he shook his head and had real lament in his voice. “I just didn’t realize.” This caught the attention of the older woman working a crossword puzzle at a small table with a large, sun-blocking umbrella sprouting from the center of it. She was just slightly more than half the age of the man in the recliner’s nearly 80 years and, between the two women, came closest to constituting his partner.

“What’s your fault, dear?” she asked.

He said, “Ever since stuff like the ‘X-Files’, all the scripts of government conspiracies, surveillance, secret programs, black helicopters and drones, corrupt police; I never thought anyone would actually believe that crap!” he fidgeted and jerked his arms.

The older woman had been with him in one role or another for a dozen years and knew him well enough to see when he was truly agitated and right now was one of those times. She looked to the younger woman, leaning back on her arms, long dark hair tossing with the wind, topless, bottomless but for a few strings, barely 25, who said, “People are stupid, darlin’, it’s not your fault.”

No, no,” his voice was rising, “I put ideas in their heads, I’m to blame!”

“Baby,” the older woman rose from her table and walked to him, “Let’s get out of the sun.” She looked to the younger one and said, “Put a shirt on and help me get him in the house,” then again to the man, “Baby, let’s get inside where it’s cool and have something to drink.”

They each took an arm – the younger one had pulled on an oversized T-shirt – and steered him towards the sliding doors into the mansion. He didn’t fight them. The cool, filtered air rushed over them as they left the bright, Beverly Hills sun, and they wadded into it, past the study where the man displayed a score of Emmy’s attained by decades producing television shows, many about just the things he was describing. Half dozen Oscars for producing movies were also on the shelves, plus a smattering of Golden Globes, People’s Choice Awards, Bafta’s and other sundry hardware. The older woman called for staff to bring him a large pineapple juice on ice. They got him into the drawing room with the big, north-facing windows, dark woods and cool stone, and sat him in a fluffy armchair. They sat on the couch to his right. The pineapple juice was brought. He still seemed agitated. The older woman reached over and took his hand, looked kindly at him with her soft, brown eyes. He seemed grateful for her affection and seemed to smile slightly at her but was still trembling.

“I just didn’t know,” he said. “The Cold War was over, so couldn’t blame things on the Russians. Cowboys and Indians hadn’t worked for decades. War movies were passé. Gangsters were overdone; there can only be so many Soprano’s. There were no clear villains. Viewers need villains, they need a clear sense of right and wrong, good and bad. Blaming things on the Arabs seemed racist, plus we were getting so much money from them. Horror movies worked, but only with a certain audience. Thank god for zombies. So for everything else we made stuff up. Alien bodies hidden in a warehouse, classified government plots, mass murderers sneaking over the border, exploitive corporations. Any institution of any kind we could make into a heartless autocracy out to get the little guy. It worked! Hell, we even had the Vatican hiding the Holy Grail! Plus, conspiracies are fun! Everybody loves to get lost in an imaginative conspiracy story, especially when it draws from silly superstitions or fears. It was so easy; it was like printing money!

“But people actually bought into it! That fake, supposedly unscripted reality TV stuff didn’t help, it made people gullible and believe what was on TV must be real. Thank god I didn’t produce any of that crap! Those dumb asses that stormed the Capital, they actually believed they were overthrowing the government and that asshole was going to march in with an army and take over. They believed it even as that asshole was abandoning them! They STILL believe it!”

The older woman had taken his hand in both of hers by then, and was squeezing it and shaking it lightly, “Baby, Baby,” she spoke softly, trying to pull him out of his anxiety. She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed it. “Baby,” she said again.

He said, “We thought we were giving them an hour or so to escape their troubles. We ended up creating alternate realities, alternate ways of thought that let them rationalize every stereotype and prejudice hiding in their souls. I created all this. It’s all my fault!”

“There, there, my love” the older woman stroked his arm, half out of the couch so she could be closer to him, fairly certain and worried she wasn’t getting through to him. “It’s not your fault. It’s not! You’ve brought people so much happiness with your stories.”

He shook his head.

The younger woman, watching and listening to a scene far too serious for her, said, “I know what you mean, darlin’. I meet so many guys who think I’m like I am in my porn movies. I mean, how dumb do they have to be?”

And he looked at her with wide, horror filled eyes, understanding full well, even if she didn’t, that he was one of those guys; that’s why she was there. “Oh, dear holy god,” he cried, “What have I done!”

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

Smugglers

“If I’m going to help you, you’re going to have to give me some answers,” the Chief Inspector said, low tone, expression mostly hidden in the dimness of the bar, tucked away like the corner booth in which they hunched over their bourbons, leaning slightly towards one another to prevent their words from wandering. “It’s time for the truth.”

“The truth,” the Agent repeated slowly, lifted the glass to his lips and sipped, expression as hidden in the din as the Chief Inspector’s. Then he asked, “What would you like to know?” And just enough of his eyes were visible, just enough tone sounded through his voice that the Chief Inspector knew ‘the truth’ was exactly what he would get; they had moved beyond their conflict and subterfuge and had reached a fundamental moment of clarity. Each needed the other or both were ruined. Neither would live through the week. Unless they helped each other; unless they came clean.

“Why are you protecting the woman,” the Chief Inspector asked, “Why shouldn’t I throw her in a cell right now.”

“She is not who you think,” the Agent said. “Not what you think. And she did not kill the director.”

“She was seen. There is a gun with her prints.”

“The man she killed,” the Agent told him. “Was not the director.”

The Chief Inspector’s eyes widened. “His body has been identified …”

“Not him.”

“His body is stinking in the morgue right now!”

“Not him.”

“Then who!”

The Agent took another sip of the bourbon; a cheap bourbon that grated his throat on the way down. The pause, he knew, would slow the Chief Inspector’s anger, return their conversation to an equilibrium. He said, “A duplicate.”

The Chief Inspector gaped at him, speechless.

“You said you wanted the truth,” the agent said, “And you should know the truth, now. But in this case, the truth will not set you free. Rather, what you are about to learn, while perhaps forestalling imminent doom, will only immerse you in more serious problems.”

Now it was the Chief Inspector’s turn to pause, take a sip of his bourbon, slow the emotions of the moment down. “If I do not arrest an assailant within the next 48 hours, and in so doing find the money the director stole, then the people from whom the director stole the money will come for me.”

“They will assume, given that everyone believes the woman killed the director and that you appear not to have found her, that you are in fact in league with her. You can see how they would reach that conclusion.”

The Chief Inspector acquiesced the point, changed directions. “Her prints on the gun …”

“They’re her's, absolutely. She definitely killed the man in the morgue. She is not squeamish about extinguishing life.”

“But the man in the morgue is not the director.”

“The man in the morgue is a duplicate brought in to provide access to the department.”

“And the money?”

“Oh, the director did indeed steal that, but had he not been replaced he would have done what he needed to do with it and returned it from whence it had come. The corruption within your department is legendary,” the Agent seemed to crack a smile.

The Chief Inspector waited. This was all a confusing circle. If the truth was coming, it had to be now, and he knew the Agent was aware of that.

“Your world is not alone. The duplicate, and at least another full dozen who have replaced members of your department, was to begin collecting human beings for ‘consumption’. Your director has likely been consumed by now. These beings duplicate and replace humans they come in contact with. Parts of their world is starving and, although they are unsanctioned, smuggling fresh, delicious humans is quite lucrative. Your department provides perfect cover for gathering human beings with a minimum of fuss, at least in the short term. They will take what they can and move on.

“It is my job to stop them. But to do that, I have to find them, and I can only do that with your help.”

The Chief Inspector stared at the agent, mouth open and eyes wide, not believing but not having another explanation for the things he’d seen.

​The Agent nodded, placed his hand flat on the table between them. “Watch,” he said, and the Chief Inspector saw the Agent’s hand slowly fade away, gone, nothing, then slowly fade back. “I didn’t replace anyone,” he said. “I’m more of a projection. But I needed something more substantial to neutralize the duplicates, and that’s where the woman comes in. She did replace someone – someone we identified as having special skills. An assassin. That’s what she is.”

“How does this help me?” the Chief Inspector asked after taking a deep breath.

The Agent said, “The advent of your director’s theft is a complication, but perhaps a fortuitous one as it brought us in contact. I can provide evidence that the gun with the woman’s prints was planted by one of the duplicates. Then he will be eliminated. I can also replace the money the director stole. End of problem; well, that one.”

The Chief Inspector looked carefully at the Agent, fully cognizant that, all this being true, he was not staring into human eyes. Only a facsimile. “Where is the woman?”

“In the car.”

A moment. There could be no alternative now. The Chief Inspector asked, “You implied additional problems.”

The Agent said, “There are many more of these cells you must help us find. And I believe they intend to introduce a virus …”

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

The Living Yeast, C’mon, Man!

There was still no definitive answer as the monk understood definitive answers to be, as he understood messages from God were so received. But he was young for an abbot, so perhaps he had misunderstood how it was supposed to work. Or perhaps, he wondered, Father Franciscus had misrepresented the clarity with which God spoke with him. He considered such speculation to be spurious, unworthy of him, and extensions of his own weakness and insecurity. This was his first real decision. It must be the correct decision. It must be a decision which justified his appointment. It must not be warped by blaming someone else for his own sin. And thus he prayed, and meditated, as the single dim candle in the chapel melted and withered to nothing, its flame occasionally buffeted by the draft which ghosted through the old structure.

He felt an answer derive from a thought which wasn’t an answer and wasn’t about the problem at hand. His determination to make the right decision could in fact lead to the wrong one. The arrogance and ego inherent in the desire to be perfect; no human can be perfect. No human is without fault, without sin. That so fervently seeking God’s help in a decision so human in its nature for the simple reason that a correct decision would feed his ego was a far worse sin that stumbling in his humanness and choosing a course that was not entirely perfect.

He blew out what tiny flame still lived by the nub of the candle and left the chapel. Dawn was just fading in, just casting its first glow in the east. He walked slowly towards his dormitory, the cool morning breeze against his skin, his hands behind his back. He stepped over the place where the sidewalk had crumbled and sunk. It reminded him of the repairs so many of the monastery’s buildings required. There were leaky roofs, there was bad plumbing, there weren’t even enough working light bulbs. His decision, which at this point he’d made because, after all, he knew what the right thing to do was, would mean they would all have to scrimp by for a little while longer. But just a little while, he thought, and it is the right thing to do. Just another month, and the abbey’s reputation for its good works would remain strong, and then they could address these earthly issues. So foolish, he shook his head, to have lost an entire night to worry when he knew all along the right course. He had been, after all, a master brewer before becoming an abbot, so the answer had already been given to him. He hadn’t needed to engage in overt theatrics. He only needed self-confidence. And then he thought, well, this was a good lesson for a new abbot, and in that he saw its value.

He announced his decision at breakfast. He said, “We will not yet sell our Trappist beer in Westmalle as it has not yet sufficiently aged. We shall pray for strength and set our sights on five weeks hence. However, from now on we WILL be keeping an extra five percent of each batch for ourselves. I mean, c’mon …”

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

Coyote Road

The narrow, 3 a.m. blacktop road was as deserted as the inside of an empty box, vacant as far as the eye could see ahead, clear in the mirror behind. He went scooting along west with the top down, warm air scented by mesquite blowing through his hair, music wafting from the speaker in the dash. Dead in the middle of a seven-hour drive through the high desert he’d decided to make at night under the glorious full moon. He’d dropped the ragtop after the first hour and felt ecstasy, gliding along through a night that glowed ethereal in the moonlight, seemingly as removed from the travails of Planet Earth as the surface of Mars.

Great, until the tire blew. Even then, he had a full size spare and a jack and should have been fine. What he lacked for whatever reason was the lug wrench necessary to take the blown tire off and put the good one on. The car sat lifeless now on the side of the road, left rear tire dangling as if something behind him had reached out with its claw and just managed to snag a piece of him. His cell phone had a 75 percent charge, and no signal. No lights in the distance suggested a town or even a farm; flat and barren landscape towards mountains miles and miles to the north, desolate desert of nothing but sage brush all the way the edge of the world (or possibly just the horizon) to the south. Somewhere far off a coyote howled. He was stuck until somebody drove up the blacktop, somebody that was willing to stop and help, probably not until the sun came up and scorched away the dreamscape.

Snagged between what was and what would be.

A tiny point appeared in the desert to the north. He thought he just hadn’t noticed it at first, except it grew ever so slightly larger, larger, moving closer, closer, and he thought it might be a human being. He took a step or two out into the desert knowing he shouldn’t – snakes and whatnot – stood there watching for a moment; yeah, that’s a man, walking towards me; what was anyone doing out there at this hour? He retreated back to his wounded vehicle and watched, and at about 100 feet the approaching man called out, “Need a little help?”

He nodded. “Sure,” he called back. The approaching man wore a faded red shirt, blue jeans, and had crossed the desert to him in sandals, and not substantial looking sandals at that. He had copper colored skin and long grey hair that the wind tossed about and he carried a homemade looking backpack of some sort.

He came nearer and said, “I thought so.” He went around the car, straight to the wounded tire as though he knew exactly what was wrong, pulled a lug wrench from his pack, dropped to his knees, and went to work. “Where are you from?” he asked as the first lug nut came off.

“Well,” he said, “A city back there where I lived until a few days ago.”

“Uh-huh,” Copper Man nodded. “Where are you going?”

He said, “Somewhere that way. Don’t truly know for sure yet.

Copper Man smiled, set the tire aside for storage in the trunk. “Roll me the good one, would you?” The man did so, and Copper Man lifted it onto the wheel. “Not many people pass through at this time.”

“Yeah. I thought it might be nice, driving through the desert at night. It is too, with the full moon.”

Copper Man worked the lug nuts. “You’re right about that, there is magic in the desert. The spirits come out on nights like this. Do you feel them?”

“Actually, yeah, I think I do.”

Copper Man finished, put the lug wrench back in his pack, began jacking the car back down. He nodded at the blown tire. ”Mą’ii.”

“Huh?”

“Mą’ii. ‘Coyote’ to you. Very annoying. Wants to hold you back,” Copper Man said. “If you had a woman with you, he’d be screwing her right now. Trick you into letting him. That’s what he does.”

He was confused but looked back up the road behind him despite himself. “There was a girl …” he trailed off.

Copper Man said, “Someone else is making love with her now.” A statement, not a question. “And still tried to hold you there. Used the magic of this night to find you.” He stood, tossing the pack over his shoulder. “Now you can move on.”

He tried to pull money out of his wallet as Copper man walked back into the desert. “Wait! Let me …”

“I can’t use it,” Copper Man said and began walking back towards … nothing, Hundreds and hundreds of square miles of nothing.

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

“You’d never be able to pronounce it,” Copper Man called back over his shoulder, then pointed to the full moon falling closer towards the mountains. “Get out of here before Coyote finds you again.”

He seemed to fade back into the desert faster than he had appeared.

The man watched him disappear. He felt an eerie sense of malevolence stalking him. The ethereal moonlight seemed more ghostly, less like a dreamscape than a prelude to a nightmare. He threw the blown tire into the trunk, jumped back behind the wheel, floored the accelerator, and blew out of there like the wind.

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

Bob And The Alien

Bob created an alien. He made him short and stout with a big nose and sarcastic but loveably so. He made his favorite breakfast food ‘one freshly squeezed cat’, then realized he had just created Alf. He deleted the entire passage, not by highlighting it and hitting ‘Delete’ once but by whamming down on the Delete key one letter at a time over and over like a machine gun, increasing the force and anger with which he struck the keys as he went, thinking about his girlfriend, who was no longer his girlfriend because she had dumped his ass, whom he believed correctly had always loved her cats more than him.

Bob murdered his alien. It didn’t help.

He left the apartment for a coffee shop up the street, had a mocha latté, read his newsfeed, and was depressed by it. Everything he tried to come up with, the conspiracy nuts came up with crap even crazier. He had an impatient publisher and no new ideas. The girlfriend with the cat kept happening, albeit with revolving girlfriends, and it bothered him. Bothered him such that he kept stumbling over it. He had to get away.

An overnight bag, his laptop, his butt behind the wheel of his car and he drove for the next 10 hours, off the Interstate after the first two, mostly with the top down, straight into the boonies. Stayed that night at a cheap motel god knew where, got up at dawn, ate a vending machine Danish, drove for another four hours on two-lane roads, stopped at a café in a tiny little town to go to the bathroom, and decided to have something like lunch there. A BLT. And coffee. Sitting in a booth by the window.

The alien arrived as he nursed his second cup of coffee.

“You’re Bob”, she said and sat down opposite him without waiting for an invitation. “Yeah. I know who you are.” She was slightly portly with shoulder length hair died a weak blue and tipped in purple at the ends. Her face had piercings in one nostril, one eyebrow on the opposite side, and in three places in both ears. Piercings always made Bob feel weird. Vivid, abstract body art on her arms convinced him she had similar all over her body.

He asked, “And you are?”

“I’ve read your novels,” she said, “And seen you on TV. I go by Inev.”

“Inev?”

“Short for Inevitable. It’s my artist’s name. You’ve seen my work.”

“Have I, now?”

“You have one in your study. It’s the one with the blue and purple swirling sunset. You bought it at ‘Leann’s’ over on 48th. I saw it hanging in an interview you did there.”

He knew exactly the painting, and indeed he had bought it at Leann’s Gallery on 48th street. Leann seemed to specialize in finding emerging artists. He recalled the scrawl ‘Inevitable’ in the lower right corner. He’d thought it the title. “Okay,” he said.

She asked, “What brings you out here? Can’t be here for a signing or a lecture, there aren’t any bookstores.”

He measured his response. “Just driving around.”

She looked carefully at him. It was the first time he’d gotten past her piercings and body art to notice how large her eyes seemed, and how phenomenally ice blue they were. “You’re blocked aren’t you?”

He shrugged.

“C’mon”, she began climbing out of the booth. “You’re not going to get unblocked here.”

He said, “You’re not going to break my legs and hide me in the basement, are you?”

She smirked. “We’re going to my studio. There is no basement.”

It was a converted shed on a derelict farm off a gravel road. It was stuffed to the gills with paintings ranging between just started and finished and had a sink and small stove and a commode and a bathtub on one end and a double-size unmade bed on the other. It smelled of paint and solvent. “Have a look through these,” she waved at the paintings. “I liked your novel about the frigate gone aground best. You create a very complete world in that one.”

“Yes,” he said. “That one reviewed the best.” He browsed the canvases, found himself more and more enthralled by the abstract landscapes and lighting, and found himself fixating on a work with bright orange and yellows and turquoise rectangles, a city spread along a burning ocean.

She moved very close to him, touching him. “Let yourself fall into that one,” she whispered.

Three weeks later he had enough of a completed manuscript on his laptop to submit a first draft to his publisher. He stretched next to her in bed early one morning and said, “I’m going to have to get that back to the city.”

She smiled at him half asleep and said, “You have to return to your planet.”

He embraced her, felt himself drawing contentment off her warm body like a magnetic charge. “I’m glad I found your planet.”

Suddenly awake she grabbed him with her eyes, draped one leg over him, left no doubt who was in command. “No,” she said, and she meant it, “This is just my spaceship. And I found you.”

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

Partially

“What the hell was that?” he said, his coworkers in the old courthouse basement with him equally wide-eyed after the concussive jolt.

Thing is, he also remembered not saying it. Getting out only “Wha…” after the concussive jolt before it was followed by the shockwave and the world around them exploded as shrapnel. He remembered both saying it and not saying it and he remembered all the details that followed both, seconds, minutes, days, weeks, years and years, as though the splitting atoms split his life into two versions that he led simultaneously.

He said, “What the hell was that?” and Molly across the basement suggesting a second later, “Earthquake,” and Ed, near him by the wall next to the file cabinets just shrugging. Ed was pissed. The judge had sent all three paralegals to the basement to excavate a century old brief that may or may not have been digitized and may or may not still exist and he wanted to see the original if it did. The three of them ran upstairs all the way to the third-floor law library where they could look out the big windows with the rest of the courthouse staff and see the smoke and a little bit of fire from just a block away. A seditionist whose ideological leader had been removed from office had loaded a small plane with explosive but was a crappy pilot and lost control and crashed into the street before he could do anything worse. “That was close,” Molly would say when the facts emerged, but at the moment they simply gawked at the scene for fifteen-twenty minutes and went back to their lives. He got married that fall, just like he’d planned, and in another year finished his juris doctorate and joined a small firm with offices just up the street. He opened his own practice a few years later and built a sterling reputation representing not-for-profits and citizen’s groups in civil proceedings, winning a few landmark cases. He was elected as a state representative a couple times, then as a circuit court judge which he liked a lot better. He and his wife had a daughter who played the piccolo and became a starting point guard in high school. They moved into a large house on a tree lined avenue and restored its historic character. They entertained friends often in their backyard garden with its fountain and fire pit and fragrant honeysuckle. His wife liked gardening and decorating, and their home was a constantly evolving kaleidoscope of color and pattern and imagination. He loved cooking, especially grilling on the patio, and perpetually treated his family and friends to succulent dishes that made their mouths water. They immersed themselves in love and affection, sharing everything and giving back as much as they could, and their lives were full and rich and purposeful. Years and years on he sat on a chair next to the bed on which his wife was soon to die peacefully, and as he held her hand she looked contentedly at him and said, “Thank you for my life.”

But he remembered saying only “Wha…” before the world exploded in shrapnel. When he regained consciousness after he’d no idea how long he found Ed crushed by the file cabinets he’d been next to and Molly shredded by the debris. He was seriously burned, had a perforated ear drum and a concussion, but was alive. He looked up and saw daylight; two floors into the basement of a five-story stone and brick building and he could look up and see the sky. The seditionist hadn’t just carried explosives in his small plane, he’d carried fissionable material in a crude bomb that he detonated one-thousand feet above and a little to the north of the courthouse. Total megatons were only about one-third Hiroshima, but it was intensely dirty. Everything in a quarter-mile radius was flattened, and everything a quarter mile beyond that was burning. He spent the rest of his life seeking, and getting, revenge. He finished his juris doctorate but couldn’t get married as planned because his intended wife had been among the thousands and thousands fried outright or incinerated by the blast. He became a prosecutor and went after everyone even remotely associated with the seditionists, their families, friends, the ideological leader himself and associates, and when he could, anyone who had ever voted for him. He went after them in criminal court. He went after them in civil court. He went after them economically by organizing boycotts, disputing permits and licenses. He was driven by hate. He could not bear the thought of sharing or giving back in anyway that might benefit anyone who had ever sympathized however briefly with the seditionists. He never married, never again formed an affectionate relationship. His hobby was compiling lists of people he could go after and crossing them off once he felt he’d sufficiently ‘got’ them. He cultivated his hate morning, noon, and night. When eventually he lay on his own death bed, succumbing at last to radiation poisoning, memories of BOTH lives swirled around his brain like an acid-fueled spiral. Which was real? Had his psyche imagined a life filled with love to compensate for the hate he felt, or had a hate-filled nightmare been his motivation for filling his world with love? He remembered both lives so vividly. It made no sense, not the least of which because he lovingly held his wife’s hand on her deathbed a decade-plus after bitterly lying on his own, as though time itself moved differently depending on which emotion it flowed through, gliding easily along through one and furtively slogging through the other. And he knew too that once his wife’s hand slipped from his, that life would go on, sadder but still propelled with love, whereas lying on his own death bed he knew he had been partially dead his entire life.

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

First Shift

He concluded it was the scotch when he thought about it later before dismissing it, if never, the rest of his life, ever quite forgetting it. He’d had a couple or three single malts at the hotel bar before grabbing a sandwich next door and taking it back to his room on the fourth floor. He figured on gnawing at it in front of the ballgame while sitting around in his underwear, but first, before he turned on the TV and after tossing the bag with the sandwich in it onto the bed, he stood at the window. And shifted.

He equated the feeling to watching a movie about the past. Ancient Egypt, maybe, and there on the desert plain is the half-constructed pyramid of Giza, a couple guys riding camels, other people milling about, as the sun was setting. A serine scene of the past that could only be experienced in the future, detached, through a lens, untouchable, and long vanished.

LIKE what it felt like, but not IT, because through the north facing fourth floor hotel window he looked down at his own time and all he could see was traffic. The Interstate moving rapidly east-west, the busy thoroughfare across the overpass north-south, the sun already set, no buildings of note, no landmarks, just crowded headlights of moving vehicles bathed in a yellowish hue of mercury filled high pressure sodium streetlights. A modern pyramid in motion.

And he wasn’t there.

The world before him could exist only for a brief flash of time and he had shifted out-of-body, watched it like an archeologist examining a fossil, utterly removed from the reality of it and emotionless. Snapshot of fleeting technology, economics, and sociology; lives lived radically different from their parents and hopelessly obsolete from their children. The person he had shifted out of was in there, and he had been removed into some future being, looking down, seeing the past, recognizing existence as a fleeting monolith destined for demolition and reconstruction and feeling zero ownership of it because it wasn’t him. He existed somewhere else, in some other time, far in the future, in a completely different life.

But suddenly he couldn’t bear it. He wasn’t sure later how long he had stood there, seconds or minutes, likely felt longer than it actually was. Something in the scene yanked back at him. It was as though his mind had stumbled onto non-linear perception senses waiting right there to be accessed, and the rest of the brain quickly suppressed it, like a psychosis blocking memory. An ability he had not sufficiently evolved mental acuity to interpret sanely. He felt dizzy. He could feel his feet on the floor with the sensation of pins and needles. He laid back on the bed, his head swimming.

The scotch, he decided. Just a little drunk. That’s all.

As his linear life continued, the sensation would occur briefly again, but never as profoundly. And having shifted before it became less frightening, even to the point he would try to bring it on at will, at which he had limited success. He began to consider – again, fueled by scotch while home sitting on his deck or in his study – that life indeed was not linear, but the ability to perceive such was limited by evolutionary progress. Just as different creatures had different abilities to see or hear or smell, perception of time was relative. He began to consider that, properly evolved, it was possible to shift into other time periods as easily as walking into other rooms. He imagined the mechanics of shifting, theorizing it couldn’t simply occur in thin air but required other beings to shift into and out of. That each shift required two or more beings sharing their perceptions across time. He wondered if shifting required shared acquiescence, or if, as it must have been that first time with him, it was sometimes imposed, or perhaps simply an accident. As the scotch flowed, he wondered if he had actually experienced his own life, or if it was someone else living through him. Or if, in fact, it was he who had shifted and confiscated another’s life in another time, and he was in fact somewhere else, in some other time, far away.

On this first shift, however, whether accidental or not, it was all too much. So he shrugged it off, lifted his butt off the mattress so he could strip down to his underwear, turned on the TV and began gnawing his sandwich. And tried to forget about it.

- CH

* * *

​BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

This work was captured a couple years ago, and I’ve reworked it using newer techniques in advance of exhibiting it in an upcoming show …

* * *

Time’s Thorn

She loved her roses. Even though she considered them dangerous. She wore the thickest gloves she could get away with and still feel her fingers to prune and nurture them. She loved the colors of the various Old-World varieties she grew. She loved the way her seven plants were framed against the short, white fence next to the sidewalk. She loved how they made her modest home seem rich and lush, manifestations of the cultured people who lived there. Mostly, though, she loved them because her husband did. And he loved them because they were dangerous.

Summer evenings when he returned home from the machine shop he liked to take a beer onto the front porch and look at them as he sat, appreciative of how immaculate she kept them. She might join him there for a minute or two if she could get away from the stove while dinner cooked, and he would always compliment her. “Did a thorn catch you today, my dear,” he might ask in his German accent, and he would kiss her exact finger that had been jabbed if one had. “Such beautiful and dangerous flowers,” he might say, “And my sweet must contend with such hazards to bring forth their beauty.” He was always so kind to her. Music from the little record player would be wafting through the screen door, always Beethoven or Bach or sometimes Wagner. ‘What a rich life,’ she might think to herself. No children had come in the fifteen years since their marriage in 1947, since he’d seemed to appear from nowhere once the war had ended. Still grieving and empty over her brother, killed on a Pacific atoll, and he mourning the loss of all he had known in the bombings; his parents, his home, his country, fleeing to an America with only the clothes on his back. Now, she felt, they were both so full and happy. He treated her like his most precious rose, and she treated her roses like children.

One evening as she stood with him she noticed a man in a fedora and a tan raincoat walking pleasantly along the sidewalk across the street. “Do you know who that is?” her husband asked her. She had not seen him before and said so. “I’ve seen him walking there the past three nights,” he said.

“Perhaps he has moved in up the street,” she suggested.

“Perhaps,” he said. Then after a moment, “Does he look Jewish to you?”

Every now and again her husband had brought up something Jewish in just that sort of noncommittal way; never anything bad, never ranting. Just flagging it, catching her off guard a little. “I can’t tell,” she told him, which she’d actually told him when he’d brought it up before.

He shook his head slightly. “How can you not.” But that was the end of it.

The following morning as she knelt over the roses she glanced up to see the man in the fedora approaching up the sidewalk, smiling broadly. “Good morning,” he said to her. I’ve been noticing you have lovely roses. Do the thorns ever stick you?” He had his own German accent, she noted, and ruddy cheeks weathered by life. He had stopped just across the fence and she stood to meet him.

“You are German,” she said. My husband is German.”

He removed his fedora. “Austrian, actually, but, you know, I am acquainted with your husband.”

“Really!” she smiled, very interested.

“Yes,” he said, “Horst and I met during the war.”

“Oh dear,” she shook her head. “I’m afraid you are mistaken. My husband’s name is Miles. He came to this country just after the war, fleeing the destruction.”

“Really!?” the man said and studied her reaction for a moment. “I could have sworn I knew him.”

She shook her head. “Miles and I met through church after he fled. He told me the war had destroyed everything. So horrible.”

“Huh.” He said and placed the fedora back on his head. “Well, my mistake, then. I’m sure you know who you married. Good day to you, madam,” then strolled off.

She thought nothing more of it and might have mentioned it to her husband as they sat on the porch again that evening had he strolled past again. Instead, a long black sedan pulled to the curb in front of their house and the ruddy man in the fedora got out of the back seat. “Good evening, Horst,” he called out happily as three other stern men in dark suits got out of the car with him. “Do you remember me?”

Her husband's expression darkened. He said, “I am Miles Neumann, and I have never seen you before.”

“Oh?” the man said, and swung the gate open and moved closer, his three companions following.

“I never invited you in,” her husband threatened, his voice rising.

The man approached and said, “Captain Horst Richter of the SS and late of Dachau,” he held his arm up and pulled up the sleeve of his coat, revealing on his forearm the blackspot discoloring of numbers that identified him, “Maybe you remember now. Or am I just a blur to you?”

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

Yep – same capture as my most recent work but finished very differently. Abstract color vs. abstract noir (well, mostly noir; I left just a trace of color). Which do you prefer?

* * *

Why Should You Be Any Different

Thirty-six marines tossed their breakfast as their Higgins Boat lurched every which way and one of them, a private of course, actually told the grizzled sergeant next to him, “I’m scared’.

“Why should you be any different,” the sergeant snarled, then noticed another fool private a little in front of him trying to stick his helmeted head over the side of the craft for a better look, and the sergeant grabbed him by the collar and yanked him down to the puke covered deck. “Head DOWN, asswipe, if you don’t want to lose it!”

But the thing was, they didn’t hear battle sounds; no bullets banging on the sides or artillery splashing and exploding into the ocean their craft plopped forward through. Just the loud diesel engine of the boat and the crash of ocean and the constant, violent back and forth and up and down that had sea sickened most of the platoon within sixty seconds of leaving the troop transport. This had the sergeant just a little curious as he knew from discussions with officers there were thousands and thousands of enemy combatants on the island. Surely they weren’t going to let them just waltz in. His was not the first landing craft in but wasn’t far behind. The young officers wanted him there soonest because they trusted his tactical judgment more than they trusted their own, or certainly each other’s. He was a twelve-year veteran of the Corps, had seen action in Central America and had served under General Howlin Mad Smith in developing methods and training troops in amphibious landings. He instilled the most fear and trained the best men and was widely respected for knowing the difference between a well-executed plan and a cluster-fuck.

“30-seconds,” the boat pilot shouted down to them and the sergeant hollered “On your feet! Get ready!” and to a man they clutched their rifles up around their chest where they could quickly swing to a firing position if necessary and crouched just a bit so their legs could spring them forward all the faster. And the 10-foot-wide bow ramp splashed down in four feet of surf, twenty feet from the beach and they all stormed out and then … nothing. Platoons that had landed in front of them were gathered in small groups seemingly just shootin’ the shit. “Welcome to paradise,” some private grinned, his rifle slung over his shoulder and holding a halved coconut he’d been sipping. The sergeant got right in his face and the grin went bye-bye, toot sweet. “Where the hell are the officers?”

The private pointed. “Drop that fuckin’ nut and get to your unit – you think the enemy isn’t watching your ass?” He did a quick visual scan, then grabbed one of his corporals. “That stand of trees thirty yards off the beach – get the men there and get them DOWN. I’m going to go find out which end is up.”

That corporal grabbed another corporal and between them they got the flustered platoon where the sergeant wanted. There was just a slight rise, and the corporal had enough presence of mind to get the platoon prone to the beach side of it, stealing quick glances above to scan the ground beyond. He didn’t see anything. Twenty minutes before the sergeant rejoined them, a lieutenant in tow. The sergeant made a quick assessment of the platoon’s position – nodded to the corporal that he’d done OK. Behind and to their flanks they could hear the barks of other sergeants pulling their platoons into something resembling a military force. The lieutenant had a map, and the sergeant motioned both corporals closer.

“The assumption,” he began, “And you know what happens when you assume, is that last night’s crappy weather let us creep up on the landing beaches – they just didn’t see us coming until we got here, and they hadn’t time to get their defenses into position. We’re here,” he pointed to the map, “Here’s the airstrip, our main objective, and we think the enemy has pulled back into the jungle roughly here. Recon reports the airstrip more or less clear, but there’s likely field artillery that will target it as we move in. Main force is going to move this direction,” more pointing, “To that airstrip, then set up a perimeter past it. We’re going to cut this direction, along with a few other platoons. to here, to cover the flank We’re going to move out in three loose columns; I’m taking center with the lieutenant and I want each of you leading the two aside me. Watch for stragglers. Keep us tight, but not too tight. Don’t lose sight of each other. Low and slow. We’re aiming for this creek,” pointing, “Here, snug against the ocean on our left so nothing gets around us. Questions?”

Both corporals nodded not. But one was clearly intent on studying the map and pointed at the spot himself. “What’s the name of this place?” he asked.

Sergeant said, “That particular topographical feature, Daniel Boone, is ‘Alligator Creek. And this is Guadalcanal.”

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

I’m going to be working on portraits this year, and abstract portraits at that, when possible. Portraits are not a genre I’ve done much with previously, so this will be a process …

* * *

Lasting Impressions

He walked onto the field on a warm March afternoon under a painfully blue sky, tentatively but nonetheless with confident airs. Some of the established players, the ‘stars’, sneered as he did, and he knew they did, but he ignored it. Once he determined where the ‘walk-ons’ were to report he strolled across the field like he owned it, a slight smile, to the coach holding the clip board, logging players in.

The coach stared at him like he was nuts. He was short, slight, skinny, walking in shoes likely also used for everything from yard work to attending class and carrying a worn mitt that looked barely heavier than cardboard. He gave his name as “Smith”. The coach asked if he had a position. “Up the middle,” Smith told him, “Short and Center.”

“Those are tough positions,” the coach told him. The team’s two best players, both conference all-stars returning for their senior years, played short stop and center field.

“I got ‘em,” Smith said, and he meant it.

The shortstop and center fielders heard that, nearby tossing a ball back and forth, and traded malevolent smirks. They’d both already been embarrassed by Smith since he showed up at school just a few weeks ago. His family, they thought, were some kind of migrant temps, living in subsidized housing. Smith sat himself two seats away from the shortstop in algebra class on his first day when a test was scheduled, and the teacher told him he didn’t have to take it as he just got there and hadn’t studied, but he did anyway. The shortstop hated math of any kind. His mother had helped him study the night before, as much as that was possible given the shortstop’s wandering attention. When the grades came back the shortstop had a C-minus. Smith had an A-plus. “Have you already had this class at your last school?” the teacher asked him.

Smith said, “Not this exact one, I just like math.”
 
The same sort of thing happened in an economics class with the center fielder the next week, a pop quiz, which the center fielder flunked, which Smith aced, and the teacher embarrassed the center fielder by asking if he’d been paying attention at all, at which the center fielder made the class laugh by telling a joke. Which Smith had ignored.

So the check-in’s accomplished, the dozen returning from the year before and the score-plus hoping to make the team, the coach set up fielding trials. Right off, Smith began gobbling up ground balls like a terrier sucks up treats. A shot up the middle, to the other side of second base, and Smith was right there. A roller into the hole under the third baseman’s mitt and Smith gathered it from the outfield grass, spun and threw a bullet to first in one motion and the assistant coach actually dropped his glove and rubbed his hand in pain after catching it. Coach and he traded glances. “You can play center too?” coach asked, and without saying a word Smith trotted out there. Coach tossed the ball into the spring-scented air and whacked it with his fungo bat. It towered deep to the warning track, and Smith sauntered over and camped under it like it was nothing. Coach began spraying the ball all over the outfield; Smith caught every single one. Basket catches, over-the-shoulder jobs, diving grabs, covering huge swaths of ground with incredible speed. Smith seemed to contort his body into whatever form was necessary to get the ball to fall into his mitt. The ‘star’ players watched with mouths agape as Smith demonstrated what none of them could accomplish. “Throw this next one home”, the coach called and hit it deep into center. Smith caught it, took one step, and fired a rocket on a straight line back to coach. By now both coaches were salivating – a natural player and a straight-A student they wouldn’t have to coddle. “Can you pitch?” the coach asked.

Smith said, “Of course I can pitch. But maybe I’d better hit first.”

Coach, who’s spent a couple years in the low minors as a pitcher, moved to the mound. Smith picked up one of the heavier bats, so coach’s first pitch was an 88-MPH fastball coach expected Smith to swing late on. Smith drilled it over the left field fence; not only not late but almost too early as he’d pulled it down the line. Now coach’s mouth was gaping. A couple more fastballs, same deal over the fence, and Smith had adjusted his timing and sent the balls over the center and right field fences as well. Coach tried inside, outside, high, low. Then he sent Smith a breaking pitch; Smith let it go by, let the bat casually swing off his shoulder as he reset, and smirked. Coach delivered another breaking pitch but used a different spin and sent it a little outside, only it hung just that little bit. Smith sent it into orbit. It finally came down a hundred yards beyond the center field fence and bounced onto the boulevard beyond, barely missing passing vehicles.

The team’s ‘stars’ traded terrified sideways glances. It was the end of their worlds. They’d spent the cold winter believing they were the best players in school, cocks of the walk, destined for the Majors, and now in the warmth of Spring sunshine they cast only ordinary shadows. Egos deflated. They were supplanted on the field; they were supplanted in the classroom. Would girls be next? Nothing was real, now. Things would never, ever be the same again no matter what happened, even if the ground opened up and swallowed Smith whole.

And, in fact, that night, it did. When Smith returned to his family’s subsidize home, his father was waiting to announce he’d found a new position a state over, and by 9p they had packed their belongings, loaded their old vehicle, and rolled out. They never saw him again.

- CH

* * *

​BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …

The idea behind this kind of prose is that it is indeed small, as in shorter than short; less than 1,000 words. A complete story in barely more time to read than to take a few breaths. And, theoretically, nothing hanging, though perhaps whetting the reader’s appetite for more.

This one goes a little beyond that word limit. Sometimes the boundaries have to bend a little …

* * *

The Wyoming Express

The man liked The Kid but didn’t really understand him. The Kid showed up a couple years ago with a backpack over one shoulder, said he was a good mechanic and offered to help part-time with the bigger, more complex jobs on a cash basis. The man ran an old, one-bay garage in a little town down in Reynolds County with no more than 150 people stretched out mainly along a single two-lane and over an hour from anywhere with a Walmart. Inside it was grimy and cluttered with old highway signs from forgotten roads nailed to the walls. Two old, analog gas pumps sat in front. He serviced old cars with old tires and sputtering engines that kept people just barely mobile enough to get to the little store up the street for their beer and cigarettes.

He tried The Kid out on an old Dodge pick-up with a shot fuel pump and a suspension that would barely hold it up and was astounded at the job The Kid did. Using salvaged parts and ingenuity he’d brought it back to nearly new, or at least what he envisioned ‘nearly new’ to be having not really seen it for himself for years. So, yeah, he said; let’s do it. There were never formal paychecks and he never had an SSN or other personal information about The Kid in a drawer. Calling him ‘The Kid’ wasn’t accurate as he was clearly in his 30’s, but as the man was now pushing 70 that age seemed inconceivably young. The Kid was certainly affable, and the man knew his name but beyond that nothing else. Didn’t know where he was from or what he had done prior, though due to his own Marines background he suspected something military just from his muscular build and the way he handled himself. He knew he lived somewhere back in the forest. Whether a cabin or an old trailer or a cave he didn’t know. He always parked his old Jeep around back, where it couldn’t be seen from the road. And that backpack he walked in with was always close to him. Even when he was working underneath a vehicle it was never out of reach. “It’s just a habit,” he’d said.

He was working on an old Mustang when the black Tahoe pulled up and three stern men in dark suits jumped out. “Feds”, the man thought as he watched in the office from behind the cash register, but the way they fanned out and reconned the area told the man this was something much different. The Kid, he noted, had suddenly vanished. Two of the dark-suited men began moving towards the office. The older of the two, with greying temples, adopting a premeditated, sinister smile.

“Good day,” the older beamed. All of them seemed to be looking everywhere. “What a gorgeous part of the world!” He continued to make small talk, which the man tried to answer courteously without encouraging him. “Say, listen,” the older finally got to the point after several minutes, “We’re looking for someone. We’ve got a pretty good idea he’s around here.” Then he described The Kid to a tee. The second man moved closer to peer into the garage, and the one outside moved to just in front of the open garage door.

The man told him, “Sounds the way a lot of people look. What’d this guy do?”

“Why, nothing,” the older man smiled slyly and malevolently, “We’re friends of his. Not like he’s in trouble.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” the man said.

“Doesn’t, huh?” the older sneered and glared such that a chill went through the man. “Well, gee. This is sure a colorful old garage and me and my friends really like places like this. Mind if we look around? Might see a sign on your wall we want to buy.”

The man said, “Yeah, I do mind,” but couldn’t say it with any authority and feared his voice was shaking. “None of my stuff is for sale.”

“Oh, don’t say that, you don’t know what we’re offering,” the older one told him in just a degree short of a threat. By then the second had moved a step into the garage, as had the man outside.

Then The Kid reappeared. He moved and fired an enormous weapon in the same motion. It was biggest handgun the man had ever seen, and it exploded with a deafening BOOM. The man outside was blown all the way back against the Tahoe, an enormous hole in his chest. Instantly the second crouched and moved to his left and sprayed the garage with an UZI pistol pulled from his jacket, but The Kid had already shifted. From low behind the Mustang’s right front bumper he fired another thunderous round that nearly severed the second man’s leg at the thigh. He fell back against the wall and tried to raise his UZI to fire, but The Kid was already coming at him and another round blew out the back of his head.

The older had dived over the counter and pulled the man down with him, his own gun out. “What the hell is that, a mouse?” he snarled, but that was just as The Kid delivered his head shot to the second, and the older’s eyes went wide. He pushed the man away and tried to peer around the end of the counter with his finger on the trigger, ready to spray whatever moved. The Kid had already shifted again, knowing the position of his final assailant. Before the older’s eyeball cleared the corner, The Kid sent a bullet through the counter that caught him in the shoulder. The older gasped, tried to hold onto his gun, but The Kid had come now over the top and shot down at him; another head shot. That ended it.

The Kid emptied the five spent shells from his massive gun – the man would later know it as a .500 Wyoming Express when deputies helped him identify it – put the shells in his pocket and loaded five new ones. He left the building; the man rose high enough to see him peering into the Tahoe and looking around the sides of the building, before coming back. “It’s okay,” he said, “That’s all of them. You can come out.”

The man stood cautiously as The Kid returned his gun to his backpack. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said. He had no reason to believe so, but the man sensed he was in no danger from The Kid.

From his Marine days the man thought he recognized a little of what he had just seen. “Special Forces?”

“At first, but it became something more covert. And I left. I had seen enough.” He waved his hand towards the older. “They started in Special Forces too. They didn’t like that I left.”

The man asked, “You deserted?”

“No. You can’t desert something that doesn’t officially exist. But to their way of thinking you can’t leave it either. You’re there for life. I just didn’t see it that way anymore after the things I’d witnessed.”

And then, “If you think we’re all on the same side, you’re wrong. We’re at war with ourselves”.

The Kid reached into his backpack and retrieved what turned out to be a cellophane wrapped brick of $100 bills, which he tossed to the man. “For your trouble; that’s $10,000. Hide it before the sheriff gets here. If he gets here in the next ten minutes, which I doubt, try to be too much in shock to tell him anything for another 20. Otherwise, give me 30 minutes before calling them.”

The man watched him move to the door. He wouldn’t have to try too hard to feign shock. The Kid paused just outside. “I could’ve been content here,” he said. “Almost was.” Then he was gone. The man looked at the bullet holes sprayed across his garage. Then he looked at the older splayed on the floor blocking easy egress from behind the register, the huge bullet hole under his eye and his brains scrambled out of the back of his head, and threw up.

- CH

* * *

BTW: The photo art and prose included in any given post are separate creations and rarely have anything to do with each other. Duality and such …