A Branch from the Devil

(A Murder Mystery, along the Thames)




Chapter One
Katita’s Formative Years

Katita whose Christian family name will not be mentioned here, for it would at once, draw attention, unneeded and uncalled-for attention to the family, her father had abandoned her mother at a very young age; the period of his death, which forms the initial subject of my heretofore, narrative to be. At this exact point, Katita’s mother received a pension—for the most part, on behalf of her daughter, to care for her and her education, until she would turn twenty-five years of age. At the age of twelve years old, her mother died, in a like manner of her husband, drowned, and found along the hard rock and cemented shores of London’s Thames River, and so we see the inheritance of Katita’s father goes to her, and her guardian (whom is of little significance in this narrative, but nonetheless, I shall mention her name, Claudia Belmont, a small structured woman, of a very old age, a relative, Godmother, to the child).
She, Katita’s alluring and great beauty, was accepted by the young spirited, charming and at times folly of her personality, even at an anticipative angle, she become awake to the latter part of it, and while at the edge of it, acquire a profound terror.
There was no serious investigation into the drowning of her father and mother (that took place over a seven year period), in London’s Thames, River—that is, up to one fine morning when the policeman came knocking on her door, she replied to all his questions—the investigation officer being Thomas Harding—with a perfect alibi to the death of Juan Parra de Roule, her Latin lover from the Andes of Peru (drowning in the Thames): thus, the offence died away, even forgotten by Miss Katita.
His corpse, Juan Parra’s was found; along those cement walls of London’s Thames River, at the point not far from Cleopatra’s Needle, the ancient structure that over looks the river, brought to London in the 1880s. Matter of fact, this is where all three bodies were found, if not next to it, nearby it. Evidently, and according to Harding’s’ theory, the bodies either floated away from the needle, or remained by it because of the debris the tourist threw in the river, and it collected on the banks underneath the needle, whatever the case, he was convinced the murders—yes indeed, he referred to them as murders, took place right there.
Katita now was twenty-two years old, and thus far, the murders would have spanned a 17-year period. And to his theory, they all connected to the same murderer, the atrocity of all three marched to the same beat, and so it was at this juncture Thomas Harding came to view these murders and its victims connecting to Katita herself, but absent was a clue to the mystery, yet Mr. Harding was sure there was an assassin, that these were not simply coincidences. No one doubted it was a devilish mystery, but as described and the murders being in a seventeen year span, nothing was brought forth to light.

Chapter Two
Mr. Harding’s Investigation


To Mr. Harding, it was obvious, the three corpses did not drawn, positively so, they had too many bruses to indicated otherwise. Strange as it appeared to everyone, Harding kept the case open, although having—reluctantly—to discharge the only suspect he had, Katita, for she had passed and passed before his and, but the wise inspector simply could never procure a perfect scenario for her murdering the father, and he knew without a doubt, the assailant was linked to all three.


Chapter Three
Concluding Facts

In respect for the supposition of Mr. Harding, who died not knowing the facts, the complete facts to his case that is, or not taking them into to account, if indeed he knew them, and overlooked them, this explanation, to the facts, that took place, at its latest date being, his death in the Thames River in the summer of 1974, when Mr. Harding was found drawn, a few years into the investigation. I shall give him the credit, for his everlasting endeavors.
Had Mr. Harding taken the time, or kept an open mind, and not overlooked certain things in his overview of the case important miscalculations, —henceforward, he might have found his error, which produces at length the results only a loving father like he might have missed. For in regard to youth at its briefest point, it has its most variance for evil or good. Perhaps a branch from the devil can sway it, and in this case I think it did.
While visiting her father along the Thames, in 1952, at the age of five years old, Katita seemingly appeared to have embedded thoughts altogether apart from her own, to be fully entertained, pushed her father, gently, and he fell to his death, there on the cemented gradated bank, rolling the rest of the way into the river, as he had turned away from the needle, to enjoy the tranquility of the water, the motive, the rupturing of the family, he was guilty of many sins, and among them, threatening his wife, Katita’s mother.
In a like manner, and again at the same location, in the same way, in 1959, Katita’s mother died, the motive was, she, was to bring her daughter to an orphanage, convinced the young girl was consuming too much of her life, to a point she had no free time for herself—perhaps dating was included. In any case, by the shake of the dice, and a new voice in her head, and reflection, which appeared obvious, she had committed her second murder, exactly the same way.
Exposed within these limits of murder, she marched forward and killed her boyfriend, for adultery, so she claimed, and killed him in her old style of execution, but this time with the help of a small baseball bat she kept under her car seat.
And I suppose at this point, you readers can guess how she killed her last antagonist, Mr. Harding.



Note: “A Branch from the Devil,” written after lunch at “Mia Mamma’s” restaurant, the afternoon of, 10-14-2008, in El Tambo, in Huancayo, Peru (I had a nice Steak, with bone and fat, and Split Pea soup for lunch, three bowls, coffee and coke, and the wind came and blew the umbrellas wildly about as my wife and I sat outside in the open part of the Café, and perhaps all this food and wind and then the sun inspired me to write this story, and thus, came a branch into my mind, and of course, who else could do such evil deeds as drowning so many, but the devil himself. The name Katita, came from the little girl who was eating over by me under another umbrella with her mother, the previous day, I had met her before, she came and kissed me goodbye, and thus, the little angel got into my story, I do hope if she ever reads it, she not take offence. And so I shall dedicate this story to her, the little beauty, so she pardons me for using her name.)

A Branch from the Devil

(A Murder Mystery, along the Thames)


Chapter One
Katita’s Formative Years

Katita whose Christian family name will not be mentioned here, for it would at once, draw attention, unneeded and uncalled-for attention to the family, her father had abandoned her mother at a very young age; the period of his death, which forms the initial subject of my heretofore, narrative to be. At this exact point, Katita’s mother received a pension—for the most part, on behalf of her daughter, to care for her and her education, until she would turn twenty-five years of age. At the age of twelve years old, her mother died, in a like manner of her husband, drowned, and found along the hard rock and cemented shores of London’s Thames River, and so we see the inheritance of Katita’s father goes to her, and her guardian (whom is of little significance in this narrative, but nonetheless, I shall mention her name, Claudia Belmont, a small structured woman, of a very old age, a relative, Godmother, to the child).
She, Katita’s alluring and great beauty, was accepted by the young spirited, charming and at times folly of her personality, even at an anticipative angle, she become awake to the latter part of it, and while at the edge of it, acquire a profound terror.
There was no serious investigation into the drowning of her father and mother (that took place over a seven year period), in London’s Thames, River—that is, up to one fine morning when the policeman came knocking on her door, she replied to all his questions—the investigation officer being Thomas Harding—with a perfect alibi to the death of Juan Parra de Roule, her Latin lover from the Andes of Peru (drowning in the Thames): thus, the offence died away, even forgotten by Miss Katita.
His corpse, Juan Parra’s was found; along those cement walls of London’s Thames River, at the point not far from Cleopatra’s Needle, the ancient structure that over looks the river, brought to London in the 1880s. Matter of fact, this is where all three bodies were found, if not next to it, nearby it. Evidently, and according to Harding’s’ theory, the bodies either floated away from the needle, or remained by it because of the debris the tourist threw in the river, and it collected on the banks underneath the needle, whatever the case, he was convinced the murders—yes indeed, he referred to them as murders, took place right there.
Katita now was twenty-two years old, and thus far, the murders would have spanned a 17-year period. And to his theory, they all connected to the same murderer, the atrocity of all three marched to the same beat, and so it was at this juncture Thomas Harding came to view these murders and its victims connecting to Katita herself, but absent was a clue to the mystery, yet Mr. Harding was sure there was an assassin, that these were not simply coincidences. No one doubted it was a devilish mystery, but as described and the murders being in a seventeen year span, nothing was brought forth to light.

Chapter Two
Mr. Harding’s Investigation


To Mr. Harding, it was obvious, the three corpses did not drawn, positively so, they had too many bruses to indicated otherwise. Strange as it appeared to everyone, Harding kept the case open, although having—reluctantly—to discharge the only suspect he had, Katita, for she had passed and passed before his and, but the wise inspector simply could never procure a perfect scenario for her murdering the father, and he knew without a doubt, the assailant was linked to all three.


Chapter Three
Concluding Facts

In respect for the supposition of Mr. Harding, who died not knowing the facts, the complete facts to his case that is, or not taking them into to account, if indeed he knew them, and overlooked them, this explanation, to the facts, that took place, at its latest date being, his death in the Thames River in the summer of 1974, when Mr. Harding was found drawn, a few years into the investigation. I shall give him the credit, for his everlasting endeavors.
Had Mr. Harding taken the time, or kept an open mind, and not overlooked certain things in his overview of the case important miscalculations, —henceforward, he might have found his error, which produces at length the results only a loving father like he might have missed. For in regard to youth at its briefest point, it has its most variance for evil or good. Perhaps a branch from the devil can sway it, and in this case I think it did.
While visiting her father along the Thames, in 1952, at the age of five years old, Katita seemingly appeared to have embedded thoughts altogether apart from her own, to be fully entertained, pushed her father, gently, and he fell to his death, there on the cemented gradated bank, rolling the rest of the way into the river, as he had turned away from the needle, to enjoy the tranquility of the water, the motive, the rupturing of the family, he was guilty of many sins, and among them, threatening his wife, Katita’s mother.
In a like manner, and again at the same location, in the same way, in 1959, Katita’s mother died, the motive was, she, was to bring her daughter to an orphanage, convinced the young girl was consuming too much of her life, to a point she had no free time for herself—perhaps dating was included. In any case, by the shake of the dice, and a new voice in her head, and reflection, which appeared obvious, she had committed her second murder, exactly the same way.
Exposed within these limits of murder, she marched forward and killed her boyfriend, for adultery, so she claimed, and killed him in her old style of execution, but this time with the help of a small baseball bat she kept under her car seat.
And I suppose at this point, you readers can guess how she killed her last antagonist, Mr. Harding.



Note: “A Branch from the Devil,” written after lunch at “Mia Mamma’s” restaurant, the afternoon of, 10-14-2008, in El Tambo, in Huancayo, Peru (I had a nice Steak, with bone and fat, and Split Pea soup for lunch, three bowls, coffee and coke, and the wind came and blew the umbrellas wildly about as my wife and I sat outside in the open part of the Café, and perhaps all this food and wind and then the sun inspired me to write this story, and thus, came a branch into my mind, and of course, who else could do such evil deeds as drowning so many, but the devil himself. The name Katita, came from the little girl who was eating over by me under another umbrella with her mother, the previous day, I had met her before, she came and kissed me goodbye, and thus, the little angel got into my story, I do hope if she ever reads it, she not take offence. And so I shall dedicate this story to her, the little beauty, so she pardons me for using her name.)

The Drug Mules and the Hell Lords (Short Fiction)

The Drug Mules
And the Hell Lords


A Demonic Hell Lord


Long before they did what they did, they knew man; they knew his nature better than he knew himself.
Long before the old man (the victim) Mr. Santana, heard the sound of the engines to the 747 jet in Lima, Peru, in route to Miami, he knew the dangers that surrounded his journey. He did not need to rise from his straw-mattress bed, pretend he was not one of the many caught in a bee-hive, so dense with tenements, few if any survived the trials and tribulations that go along with it, with the business at hand, accordingly, tongueless and dreadfully he boarded the jet, anxiety ridden, merged with health problems, henceforward the 67-year old man went and sat down quietly in his seat, as the jet took off, and the night faded on.
He had been raised in a mountain city in Peru, called Sapallanga—in fact, he was dreaming of going back after this one last delivery; if only he could (he had remembered as a boy the legends of the sighting and visualizations people have had of the Holy Virgin of Cocharcas, on the hilltop of the City. How he’d climb the hill during the fiestas, and like so many others, making his pilgrimage, his homage, he’d give his respects to the Virgin). If only he cold get out of the hands of the Hell Lords (the Drug Mules).
He was among the doomed men—of his kind, his dealings, his trade, which he appeared to have gotten it by blind chance, and bad luck. It had become visible one day as a lustful echo in his brain, and then a golden apple in his lap—then it all died away, left were the chief demons that were already disgorging his soul.

Evil, sin, cowardliness, repentance, guilt, bravity, lust: the Hell Lords (Hela, Pluto, Mephisto), they all believed in them—and hoped the men and women they were after, to be put into their eternal dens: of madness, misery and spells, put into their death-dens, would not come out of the darkness until they acquired their rude awakenings. Yes, they all believed in them, and hoped man did not, and did not become capable of such beliefs, they gave them promises, affirmed them, not needs, but wants, wishes, then they’d flee for a little while, putting them into the loneliest experience of all, into the land of darkness, slowly as if boiling them alive like a frog. That’s how it is done.
To believe, not in anything, to enter the sphere of emptiness—then escaping into one’s past, future, seeking out the promise, the one given, but to really living it, became another thing: or to have the chance to live it simply become an obsession. This was Mr. Santana’s actuality, truth, yet he was hanging on as if he had an unaccountable time period to get things right, a time he set to do what he wanted to do for himself, not quite knowing he needed to do it sooner than later, sooner than he thought. Yet in the back chambers, a hidden chamber in his mind, he knew nobody in this business really could escape his fate (so he confirmed with the source, the ones that put him into this dilemma).

There he sat in his seat, morning was breaking, and he could see it through the porthole next to him, the dark rainbow of purple and orange, a new horizon. The seat to his right was empty. There he sat in his seat doing nothing in particular, the only thing left he could do was breath and dream, and he was tired of dreaming, and he was starting to get tired of breathing, and he had to go to the restrooms. And there he sat, with fifty-packages of heroin inside of him (so the autopsy would read).
He got up from his seat, walked to the back, on his way, to the restrooms, someone’s foot was strangely laying in his path, as if extended, as if it had an extension on it, as if it grew outward from a hip, like a stem, into his pathway, and the old man tripped, stumbled trying to balance himself as he fell, but was tripped and fell nonetheless over that unidentified foot, it was still somewhat dark, and inside that darkness—down that aisle, the old man fell on top of the tip of the black shoe, that encased a foot (or a hoof) which broke open two bags inside of him, of heroin, split them open as he fell deep—sunk deep into the tip of the shoe, and its substance escaped and when he awoke (dead), there they were, the three Hell Lords waiting!


Note: Partly written 10-8-2008, completed, 10-10-2008
Dedicated to Enrique Herrera

The Short Story Book of Mayhem (by: DL Siluk)

Index

28-Short Stories by Dennis L. Siluk, written over a seven-year period; FF (Flash Fiction); SF (Science Fiction)
●Indicates, Peru
●●Indicates a Minnesota story

♦

The Poem: ‘The Sweeper’
(Somali’s Three-day War, written 8´2008)

♦

●●Plague of the Dead Crows
(a Minnesota, riveting story of eschatology) Written 9-27-2008 FF

●Demons of the Pit
(Written: 9-18-2008, at the Café, “Mia Mamma,” in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru) About the Pacific War

●The Silent Plea
(Written: 9-19-2008, at the Café, “Mia Mamma,” in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru) About the Pacific War

●Night Ride to Huancayo
Suspense, Written February, 2008

●●The Quick-fire Killer
(Drama, written August, 2008) Inspired by actual events (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

The Cadaverous "Wind Scorpions"
((The Camel Spider) (the Matevenados)) Written: August, 2008 FF Eldritch Suspense

Switched to Gravity
((Chasing the Caribou, Alaska) (Drama, written: August, 2008)) FF

The Porn Star x
((Drama) (FF) Written August, 2008

●●Clotted by a Python
(Chicago to St. Paul, Minnesota, suspense) Written August 2008 Inspired by actual events FF
Published by …?

Valentina
(FF) written August 2008 (…and the Violent One; San Francisco) Drama & Suspense

A Virulent Death in Buenos Aires x
(Suspense, Eldritch Horror) Written August, 2008 (Historical Fiction)

Elephant Killer x
(Fever of Revenge in Chad, drama and Suspense) Written 2006; inspired by actual events

Mount of the Moon
((The Gypsy from Czechoslovakia) (paranormal, suspense)) Written August, 2008

Iron Vampire Bates of Haiti
Supernatural Suspense/written July, 2008 (The author visited Haiti, in 1986)

The Basilisk-de Notre Dame
(Supernatural Drama) Written, 2002 (while in Paris)

●●The Ghost Stalkers (FF)
(Part two, to “The Hermit’s Ghostly Dilemma” Out of the Minnesota Woodlands) Supernatural Drama
Part one written 2007, part two, July, 2008

A Stranger in Augsburg
((West Germany) (SF)) Written 2007

The Legend of the Diabolical Rajah of Jaipur (India)
Drama and suspense/written 2004 (lost for four-years)

The Yellow Planet
(Science Fiction) Written July, 2008

An Account in Guatemala
(Drama and Suspense) Written 2003

Fireside of the Yellow Planet
(SF/FF) Written August, 2008

●●Tunnel of Stone
(Supernatural, demonic; St. Paul, Minnesota; written 2004)

The Major’s Secret
(Vietnam War story, 1968-71)FF

▼

● Murder at Puno and Real
(Huancayo, Peru) FF

Self-diagnose x
((A Skeptic Autobiography Sketch) (Flash Fiction))
Written at “La Mia Mamma,” Café, El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru during the afternoon of 9-17-2008

●Condemned in the Valley
(Written while at Café “La Mia Mamma,” in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru, 9-17-2008)

●●Last Chance
(From a morning dream, Minnesota story: Mall of America) Written while in Huancayo, 9-21-2008; FF


●A Stranger in Huancayo
Science Fiction/Demonic Written 9-16-2008, at “Mia Mamma,” Café in El Tombo, Huancayo, Peru

♦

Plague of the Dead Crows
((A riveting story out of Minnesota, concerning Eschatology) (Flash Fiction))


Perhaps some people did notice him, he stood alone, and along the upper part of the pier, holding onto a railing, with both hands, overlooking the Mississippi River (in St. Paul, Minnesota), this Sunday Afternoon, in hot July, of AD 2016. And they could have noticed him, simply because he stood there so long with only a few simple movements, turning about slowly, hand movement, eye activity. There he stood, standing beside the railing, looking at the few people walking by, at their feet, their faces—when not staring at the river— listening to their footsteps, looking quickly onto the next set of feet, and faces, as they passed him.
But I doubt anyone really noticed him to remember him; nobody except the crows, the ones that were coming. The flock, horde of steadily flying crows, some had already entered the city, but it didn’t faze the inhabitants, in mind and spirit, their anxiety yet to be tested. A few of the scouts, had died, lay nearby the iron railing along the docks of the Mississippi, some along the roads, Robert Street, Jackson Street, up and down 4th street.

By two o’clock, they had arrived, news reports were on the radio stations and television city wide, it was as if there was a mutiny, within its leadership, and all the crows, perhaps a million or more, attacked everything, and everybody in sight, they appeared to arrive in regiments, and then dispersed in a wild, insane attack on humankind, their supreme target, the man by the railing looking down upon the dock, himself, appeared to have chosen his fate, he remained where he stood, as the crows continued to pour into the city (and would into the night).
The dust of the city filled the air, along with wings, and the smell of death, as the crows attacked without stopping, coming even on foot, clumsy, in crowds they attacked young women, children, old men, everybody, and anybody, standing at bus stops, folks trying to get into their cars, while others stood scanning the faces that they planned on attacking, faces that were strained and tiring.
The word was that, the crows had previously attacked towns and farms, outside of the city, but not to such an extent, or on such a large scale as now, and after their attack, like male bees, after their sting or intercourse, died—because of that fact, a horde of crows, remained in the air, during each attack, as if they knew, there was a threat of execution.
It would have come into view to an onlooker at this point, that this man on the upper part of the pier, whom the crows seemed to be sightless to, by sheer blind chance and luck, he was saved from such an ordeal, of the ongoing attacks, and certainly, he would be the next, but he wasn’t.
The city folks, little they knew that when they left their homes this day, they would learn desperation and terror, something they never met—face to face, often overlooked, but now overtaken by the crows whom refused to stop their assault.

(It was as if symbolism out of the Bible was coming to pass, alive, as if the Pale Horse of Apocalypse—in the Book of Revelation—was let loose; Pestilence arrived in the form of crows; as if God himself, took one of the Seven Bowls of Plagues, and poured this one on the city: painful and ugly sores, were pecked into, onto the flesh of the people of the city, and blood poured freely from those wounds, got infected, many died).

The crows had not failed in their task, and had simply been immune to anything mankind could do to intimidate them, to alter their attack, and this made everyone outside enter buildings, homes, seek cover under bridges, everyone hid, and the crows kept coming, as if designated to perform, and then give a deathly ritual; impairment became inescapable for those left outside under the open skies.
Many of the city folk, found themselves alone, with this sudden moil and rage of activity, which darkened the sky with dense crow-underbodies and wings that loomed and beaks (bills), sharp as knifes, fast as gun-bullets, lurched, and hurled onto the enemy.
There the tall, broad shouldered man stood, arms now folded, quiet and docile, he seemed to be isolated. Above him, a line of crows flew by; some perched on phone wires, as they faced him as if he was their commander and chief, the general commanding a division.

And then, someone appeared from the steps that had lead from the lower river bank, up to where he was, overlooking the river, he evidently had been hiding under the bridge (the Robert Street Bridge), he asked this man, stranger standing by the railing, “Who are you?”
Said the unfamiliar person, in a deep voice that seemed to come from the bottom of the river, in a rippling form—an echoing tone,
“I am the 8th Angel of Revelation, and have cast my censer (container), filled to its rim with plagues and so forth, unto the earth, and now this city…!” and he said no more, and disappeared.


Written 9-27-2008 (Written during the evening, in El Tombo, Huancayo, Peru)

Demons of the Pit
(San Jeronimo, Peru during the Pacific War Years)
Flash Fiction


There was small arms firing (guns and riffles) going on between the Chilean soldiers and the folks of the mountain city, San Jeronimo, in the Mantaro Valley region, in the Andes of Peru (the Pacific War, was going on). Civilian, Angel Mayta Rivera, with fierce eyes burning red, with sparks of yellow, several shooting revolvers and riffles stacked up on a wooden box by him, he shot one round after the other like a madman, like a crazy demon, like a machinegun, he was killing Chilean soldiers one after another, as if he was shooting birds out of the sky, the Chileans fell one after the other.
There were other Peruvian civilians fighting, along with the soldiers, but none as aggressive like him, Angel.
Several of the soldiers nearby him, looked amazingly at his proficiency, and daring, if not reckless shooting, but with results.
One soldier telling the other, “He must be some new volunteer; I’ve never saw him before.”
Because of his accuracy in shooting, and bravery, blood poured like wine on the streets of San Jeronimo, over the brows of the Chilean soldiers, screaming with wide open mouths, and yellowish teeth, yet like a wildcat, he would not stop. The Captain told two of his soldiers to go and guard the rear that this civilian soldier, appeared not to need any of their assistance. This would prove a wise move, killing the Chilean soldiers whom circled about, to find a weak entrance into their trenches, and other battle arrangements.
In the far distance, both Chilean and Peruvian soldier lay helplessly wounded, visible by one another, none allowing the other to rescue them. Behind the enemy was an old adobe house, It seemed to the Captain, as he looked at this daredevil, civilian fighter, he was shooting every soldier that tried to enter it. Hour after hour, soldiers half naked, the sun on top of everyone, the battle continued; dogs being shot, while running here and there in the way, as well as horses and chickens, all lay dead among the human flesh rotting in the sun.
Then, both sides unable to win the other, the Chilean commander retreated, to fight another day, left the city, and the dead where they lay.

It was at this point, the Peruvian Army, mostly civilians, regrouped, and were accounted for, all except that wildcat of a man who shot perhaps, and killed fifty to a hundred enemy. The Captain looked here and there, asked soldier after soldier if they had seen him, but no one did after the retreat.
Then, commanded the Captain, “Let’s take over the adobe house over there,” pointing to where the soldier had killed several men trying to enter the premises, needing the house perhaps for a headquarters. Thus, the Captain and three solders went to talk to the owner, if indeed there was one left.
They entered the adobe house, and saw an old man dead, blood all over his face, on the floor, then looking at a ladder, and up into a loft, saw a woman with a child, perhaps six-months old, holding it firmly against her breasts, then appeared a man, the father of the child, and the Captain caught his breath, continuing to look up into this attic like refuge at what appeared to be the madman, the one who was shooting everyone, who really forced the Chileans to retread. He had no blood on him, not a spot, not a hair out of place, no dirt on his face, not even a weapon in his presence; the Captain grateful for his man’s work, was even a little fearful as he stood there speechless for a moment.
Said the Captain, in a strange almost echoing voice,
“Were you not just out there fighting?”
The man looked at his wife, his wife said, “No, he’s been right here by my side all the time, since the fighting started, why?” Then she pleaded, “Please do not take him into your war, I need him here with my child and me?”
The man never said a word, but looked straight into the captain’s eyes, the captain not really seeing his eyes, but remembering the eyes of the madman, the fire in them, then said, “Although we could use a hundred like him, Mrs., I think he has dune his duty—at least to my satisfaction.”
Then the captain and his soldiers left the premises, all somewhat mystified, and went to another home to make their headquarters.


Written at the Café, “Mia Momma,” in El Tambo, Peru; 9-18-2008




The Silent Plea
(Near the City of Junin, in the Andes of Peru, 1879)
Flash Fiction


The first part of the battle was over, only ghosts, and the dead remained silent. The stretcher-bearers stopped looking for the dying, the wounded, the ones that had shown some life were all abandoned, a few officers in the far distance disputed this, but a new battle was ensuing, and the dead and dying, the unusable were considered a less priority (unable to walk, fight or shoot), thus, they were abandoned, and would get their due respect, if the battle was won. Hence, I repeat, the unusable soldiers, were left where they lay to be buried or cared for another day.
In the first battle, several officers and sergeants were now walking aimlessly to and fro, in a temporary stupor, lost, in shock, all trying to find direction, their squads, and companies. Sergeant Manuel Tito, and Major Perez—childhood friends, most always agreeable, even with their difference in rank, had both went from the first part to the second part of the battle, outside the city Junin, which even lead into the streets of the city at moments, skirmishes and so forth, Peruvian solders and civilians fighting the Chilean Army in the ongoing Pacific War.
They were both, 27-years of age, both had been raised near one another in the city of Junin, went to the same schools, climbed the same Andean hills, trees and mountains, chased each other down and along the Mantaro Rio, and perhaps there were a few differences in their youth as well as with their rank, being it so wide, one an officer the other a sergeant, but not to the point the Major overpowered his long time friend, or his long time friend, being scornful of his comrade over ranking him.
The General of the regiment gave the Major an order to move forward to the front, to take the enemy’s position. It was a trying day to say the least, and to force their troops—which were under fed, unpaid, lacking sleep—to push forward and then to attack—was merciless. He knew the General didn’t like him, but to this point the Major disputed his order saying in essence: it was suicide to do as he commanded. In doing so, the General simply commented, “I’ll relieve you of your command, and appoint your second in command to take charge, your Captain,”
Therefore, the Major agreed, perhaps out of pride and stubbornness, although he thought of shooting the General because of his insanity, and careless judgment, but he didn’t. And the remaining Peruvian troops went forward, as did his friend, the Sergeant.
The battle went on for several more hours, after the battle, the Major found his friends body, amongst the ants, creepy crawlers; his flesh torn open, as if rats had ripped at it, defiled it. The Major looked about, then up in the sky, dumfounded in horror, he witnessed several condors, wide-winged (several feet) evil-eyed condors circling above him, nothing less than demonic-condors, thought the Major (the General in his large tent, reviewing the results of the battle over a bottle of whisky, coffee, and a healthy breakfast.)
The Major looked again at his childhood friend, his body mutilated by the overhead demonic beasts, knowing war in its general sense did not kill him, but the lack of compassion by its leaders did, by allowing these monstrous condors to reach his wounds. He then noticed the medics coming to investigate, way to late, and then he noticed written in the sand by near his index finger: “The Beasts, they keep coming, hour after hour!”

Written at the Café, “Mia Momma,” in El Tambo, Peru; 9-19-2008



Night Ride to Huancayo

(Revised Version)(Extracted from the four part story ‘The Cadaverous Journey,’ out of the book, “The Jumping Serpents of Bosnia…and other short stories”)



(The Apparition) “I know you,” I stared deeper in the direction of the voice, went for my gun at the same time (along side my bed, on the lower part of a table I keep my pen and paper on, in case I have to write in the middle of the night, everything in arms reach). I hesitated, focused more, then saw a form within a light mist—my mind saying it was reflective of something I had seen before, and the voice said, confirming my mind’s conjecture,
“I'm the New Arrival, I’m a little lost, and I'm being chased by a few unfamiliar spirits (he meant demonic beings).”
Its voice was almost sincere, even had a tinge of anxiety in it, I thought: what can I do. He was of another sphere, of a light vortex form. Then my wife Rosa woke up, exclaimed:
“Is something wrong?” (At that, the apparition disappeared.)
“No,” I said plainly to my wife Rosa, adding, and “I'm still living a part of my nightmare I think.”
I then got up out of bed, asked why she wasn't swimming, and she said Margot (a lady friend) didn't show up, had to take her boy someplace I guess).
“Oh,” I said, and she got up and made coffee for me, and this day went on as usual, lunch in the afternoon on our rooftop under a large umbrella, with pork and some other kind of Chinese dish.

(The Car Ride) It was shortly after that event, I was driving our Volkswagen out of Lima (Peru), to Huancayo, I usually do, when summer is over in Lima, summer in the Andes in the Mantaro Valley of Peru, is just beginning then, opposite of each other. It's about a seven-hour car ride, towards the east. At night the mountains along the slim roads, can be very dangerous, I have to drive up some 16,500-feet and come down to the valley which is 10,500-above sea level. There are no street lights through the Andes, a few small towns in between (far-off the main road, and there is only one road), a miner's area lit up called La Oroya, but for the most part it is a long dark ride, unless there is a moon, and bright stars, in the sky overhead, otherwise you get only your headlights.
In the mountains, the higher you go, the thinner the air, and clearer the sky often times, the farther away from the Lima’s ocean you head that is (from the Pacific ocean to be more exact), and it gets cold. And this day, the first week of July of 2008, I was driving through the Andes, with my wife, and Goddaughter, Ximena, she was in the back seat of the car (16-years old), taking movies with my camera.
As Ximena was taking a movie, Rosa was talking to her, and me at the same time, saying something to the effect: why not put the camera down, but I was enjoying the attention she was giving taking the pictures, and it was breaking the boredom of the long ride, and so Rosa left it alone, and she caught Rosa's face on the camera a few times, along with our headlights showing some of the side views of the mountains as we drove along (to be shown at a later date of course) and past them, then we saw a figure, a lady walking, a blond haired woman, so it looked, she didn't have the traditional dress of the Peruvian people in this area on, rather dressed in western style garb.
Accordingly, my headlights had shown a thin figure. I stopped the car, put it in reverse, and drove backwards to give her a lift, we were close to the high part of the Andes, 16,500-feet, and Ximena opened up the door, and she got in slowly, smiled (the camera taking her picture along with ours), and the young lady, perhaps in her middle twenties, thanked us for picking her up. We then drove off.
A few seconds went by, perhaps twenty-seconds, the camera still going capturing her and Rosa and the back of my head, and hands on the steering wheel, and I asked,
“Do you speak English?” she looked Caucasian and either American or European. She remarked,
“I'm European, German, from Augsburg, and yes I do speak broken English!”
I had spent a year in Augsburg, in 1970, so I thought we had something in common, but I said nothing of it, instead, I asked a question,
“Why are you out in this dark in the middle of the night?”
“I hope to see my husband; I have had a feeling I may tonight.”
I hesitated; it didn't make sense, “Out here...?” I said, bewildered.
“Where does an infant go...” she asked “if it dies?”
“Hum,” I moaned, then replied, “Right to heaven,” I said, surprised at the question (the camera still going), “it does not have formal reasoning and therefore, is innocent, plus King David in the Bible has indicated that.” She seemed relieved. Normally I would not get into such statements, but often times, I was asked that very same question from girls in prison, when I was a counselor, and they wanted to know where their infants went, when they had an abortion. So I was kind of waiting to hear where the connection was.
We drove a little further, she pointed to a bend, I was about to take, she said,
“There, right there, that is where I died!”
And we all looked at her and the car crashed (and the camera was still going), and when I awoke, she was gone, and Ximena and Rosa had been thrown halfway out of the car, as I had been, with one foot left in the car. I pulled them from the automobile, and tried to wake them, and they did awake to a fogy here and now, not quite all together. I lost a shoe someplace and started looking for it. My headlights were still on. When we all got our composure back, we headed back to Huancayo, the car was running rough, the fenders were bent inward, and that pushed the headlights inward, and the hood was pushed inward and upward, and the front glass windshield was cracked, but the car run, the muffler was separated slightly from a pipe or two under the car, so it made a clamoring sound when I drove off.
When we had gotten to Huancayo, I went to the Newspaper (‘Primicia’) to find out if there had been accidents in and around that area anytime in the past few years and there was, right there at that bend, a German girl was killed, along with her child and husband.
But somehow I seemed to have related this with the “New Arrival,” in my so called nightmare, not sure why, sometimes I just get that kind of intuition, a sudden, sense, as if you won it and now own it, and now it belongs to you, even if you cannot make heads or tails out of it.
And so I looked a little closer into this happening, and found out there had been a child that died in the accident and a man, the woman's husband I presume, and I reason she was coming back to see what might have taken place (she was perhaps unsettled with all of this), or perhaps she needed to feel the essence of the child, and perchance I was suppose to have let her know what I did tell her, that her child was in heaven. However, I kept thinking of her husband, was he the apparition and did he got to meet his dead wife, and did they both get a chance to put a closure on this? Maybe they were both one in both, I don't know. I'll never know the whole of this, but somehow it is all linked together, and I’d like to believe they did.


Notes: ‘Night Ride to Huancayo,’ revised version (9-5-2008); parts one and two of ‘The Cadaverous Journey,’ which ‘Night Ride to Huancayo,’ is part four of, was written in February, parts three and four were written in March of 2008, which ‘Night Ride to Huancayo,’ was the last part to be written, the last week of March. Originally published in the book, “The Jumping Serpents of Bosnia (and other suspenseful and eldritch short stories),” 2008.





The Quick-fire Killer

There’s a reason for most things, and there was a reason no one could catch the killer…, let me correct that, no body could keep the killer long enough to secure him safely in a jail.
Bell Edwards Lynn, he was no Jessie James, but he killed almost as many as Jessie did. Born 1947, in Minnesota, wanted by the FBI since, 1985, and no one have ever caught him, or kept him long enough to serve over 18-months in anyone jail.
Why? This is the story of killer, his victims, and why he has never been confined (and there is much truth surrounding this story).
His motives for his spree of killing, loose at best, but that is for you to decide, to me they were mostly—not all—what I’d call accidental. My name is Henry Lowell; I worked for the Bureau of Prisons, in Minnesota, where this all started many years ago, and lingers on to this very day. And I had him for a client once and only once, while working in a halfway house as his psychologist, along with the other forty clients there, on a work release program.
I worked in Minneapolis, on Lake Street, in those far-off days, that are all I can say, and I worked there from 1978 to the 1986, and thereafter went into private practice.
Mr. Lynn, he was brought to the halfway house for three months, for pretrial waiting to go to court. That is when I counseled him. He was trying to make bail—in-between, his hideous crime he was dating a 25-year old girl, this being in 1984, he was 37-years old then, they were on their second date, she tried to avoid his sexual advances, parked in downtown St. Paul, over looking the cliffs, a few hundred feet up. Below the terrain was rocky, and a little further out, the Mississippi river, and he threw her over: the alleged crime at this time, and under investigation, but he ran, and that is when it all started.

In February, 1995, some ten-years later, he was spotted, allegedly, and I drove down to Huntsville, Alabama to identify him, he was in the county jail on new charges, and I was the only one that had a picture of him, besides the FBI, who borrowed mine, this time he was in jail for rape, witnesses saw him, calling this young girl to the car, and he shot her several times when she approached, but the day before he had been put into jail under an alias name, for raping this girl, and had served 18-months at the work farm. The next day he got his revenge.
By the time I got there, I identified him, and when they walked him to the court house, he escaped, like a fly ready to be swatted, he was gone.
But this did not stop there, in 1999, in Columbus, Ohio, in the month of January, he shot a security guard after a dispute over a woman, he was trying to rip off her fur coat. This time he escaped the moment the police showed up, as if he had antennas in his head.
In June of 2004, he was involved in a shooting of a male family member, a nephew, in Portland, Oregon. They still don’t know how he escaped, they were ready to put handcuffs on him, and he disappeared like a flash. I mean, he didn’t really disappear, like a ghost, but with a blink of the officer’s eyes, he had swiftly, made his escape, and all the several officers were dumbfounded.
I had went to see the Chief of Police, Marty Wheeler, and tell him what I thought was the problem, but he said, “We don’t need psychologists, we need alert police,” and he put all seven of those officers on suspension for neglect of duty.
It was in 2006, in Falstaff, Arizona, in December; the next sighting of Bell came about, his victim this time was an armored car guard, shot and killed outside by a movie theater, witnesses said, it was purportedly Bell, and after I looked at the video they had, I confirmed it was, still I was working in private practice, but this case haunted me, and seemed to follow me, and took on a life of its own, with me. So I followed up on every clue I ever got.
The last sighting was in San Francisco, May of 2007, during a robbery, a tourist was shot to death, they thought the cameras had picked up another—female— accomplice.

Well, you might think, this was the end of the story, but it wasn’t, I was called into the FBI office, and asked, by one of the agents,
“You once were going to give some advise on this person’s behavior, that might help us catch him, unfortunately, the Chief of Police, Marty Wheeler didn’t care all that much, but we’re willing to listen. I had found later, that Wheeler had called the FBI up to ask me that very question, he was embarrassed and grieving, for the person shot in Falstaff, was his nephew.

I explained it in the following manner, to agent Michael Bair, and his assistant, Richard Fitzgerald:
“Bell is a peculiar human being, with exceptional qualities, that he can often be one step ahead of his aggressors, it is not a matter of finding out where he is, or even catching him, but holding on to him, if indeed he wants to be in a defense mode. One out of ten-million people have this rare asset, if you read his IQ scores, and his Army background, and so forth and on, and the way he escapes, you will come to the conclusion, or you should, he has what I call, quick-fire intelligence. Once he senses you, he automatically goes ahead and creates a plan. He quickly calculates the location of the threat, and an escape plan, this all happens in 100-milliseconds of spotting his aggressor, and thus, positions himself, body, arms, legs, the route he will take. He is not magical, but has a rapid brain, that processes sensory information faster than the average man can think. Therefore as you are trying to subdue him, or thinking about what you are going to do next, he has already made his planned movements prior to take-off, his body is in position, he sees where the worse threat is, and the weakest points; this happens the second he notices an approaching risk, and now that he is a fugitive, his skills are sharper, and he sees all bodies as a threat. He knows somehow, the large or small postural changes needed to be made for his pre escape; he even corrects his posture as you are standing in front of him.”
“So,” said Agent Michael Bair, “it all has to do with anticipation, and flight?”
“Something similar to that!”
“How would you suggest for us to capture him?” asked his assistant.
“As I said before, you folks seem to get him, he just escapes, next time throw a net over him,” and that was the last time I heard of Bell, or the FBI. But who knows, that was only a year ago.

Written: 8-29-2008


The Cadaverous "Wind Scorpions"
((The Camel Spider) (the Matevenados))

The Camel Spider



They had just finished a skirmish in the Afghanistan Desert, with the insurgents (a group of Taliban soldiers), it was a hit and run and suicide style tactic, for evidently they didn’t have any more capabilities. But there was much firing of small arms, and perhaps twenty-five of the insurgents, to a platoon type squad, of Americans, numbering a twelve, Josh McCord, an American Soldier, Buck Sergeant, was left for dead, and the platoon hightailed it out of there as they saw reinforcements coming to the rescue the—already, outnumber insurgents.
Two other American Soldiers were shot, out of the twelve, evidently they had time to pick them up, and drag them into their vehicle, but the Buck Sergeant was too far out into the open (several of the insurgents were killed also). Everyone—alive in the platoon that is—agreed, the three shots the sergeant took to his chest, were fatal, and even Staff Sergeant Garrison, said: “No man could survive that, he didn’t even have shirt on, he just had gone mad and shot several of the enemy to pieces, before he fell, we’ll come back tomorrow and pick up his body.”

When Josh McCord woke up, it was to a hot empty desert, no enemy, no friends, only twenty large six inch Camel Spiders, known as wind scorpions, surrounding him, and in the distance twenty more running as fast as a dog, perhaps fifteen, if not thirty-miles an hour, to see what their comrades were interested in. He had been shot once in the shoulder, once in and hip, and ones in his arm, bullets went through his body, like paper. Now he looked at his chest and arms a second time, it had spider bites on them. He knew they were usually not deadly to humans, more so poisonous for animals, but as he looked, he murmured, “Twenty, at least twenty, and there they come, another bunch.”
Lt. General. Martin Dempsey, acting commander of U.S. forces was in the region, and so most likely, the roads would be deserted, insuring his protection, so he didn’t expect any help until the following day, he was on his own, and now staring at over fifty of these wind-scorpions, he dreaded even to make a move.
He looked about, it was getting dark, how long he asked himself did he sleep, he figured with the bites he had, ones that hurt now, but didn’t before, the reason being, the giant insects inject an anesthetic into him, they did that to numb their prey, as it was injected into him, he didn’t want to fall back to sleep, if he did, the spiders would start all over again, and now they had him cornered, no need to search or hunt for him, only to wait, and when he fell to sleep, chew chunks of flesh out of him.
This was worse than war, he told himself.
All of a sudden, one large spider jumped three feet in the air, over his body to the other side of him; he perhaps was one of the several that bit him, for blood was on its front legs. Then he laughed, said aloud exclaimed,
“…maybe you think I’m a camel (ha-ha, ha!), and you want to eat my stomach dry, that’s why they call you Camel Spiders, yaw? They eat the stomachs out of Camels (ha-ha ha!)”
Once he slept, the spider would gnaw on him he concluded, and he’d not even notice it, wake up dead in hell or heaven, or to a body that looked like hamburger.
‘Why didn’t they check for a pulse,’ he angrily cried, ‘just assume I’m dead so you can get out of here and see that general, and have a hot meal.’


For the Buck Sergeant, it was the Day of the Dead, he knew these creatures normally did not choose to fight, unless provoked, so he remained still, and he also know, they had formidable jaws, so he had to be cautious in every movement he made, lest he get some of their painful bites, awake instead of sleeping. Either way he was fighting for survival. He also concluded they were attracted to light, so as soon as he could he had a plan, a flimsy one at best.
He lay there for several hours more, and then came twilight, and dark, he took his flashlight out turned it on, tossed it several feet from him, all fifty creatures circled it, and slowly he got up, he figured they’d hunted at night, so it was between the light, and sucking juices out of him or other creatures when they decided to hunt.
All of a sudden a lizard, ran past the Sergeants foot, and several spiders heard, and chased the lizard, capturing it, sedating it, then several move moved away, as if they were looking for dinner, rodents and perhaps perched birds on rocks or shrub about.
Now the sergeant was on the dirt road, he had made it without having the creatures attack him, although he couldn’t see what was behind him, and lucky he did not, it would have been heart failure or sure, only the moon above him for light, and the herd now more than a hundred followed the shadow he left. There, on the roadside, feeling weak and safe, he fell to sleep, and slowly the creatures surrounded him, numbed him so he could not feel what they had planned.

In the morning, Staff Sergeant Garrison came back to pick up the Buck Sergeant’s body, chasing, and running over the many spiders on the road, and then they saw the Buck Sergeant, and several soldiers jumped out of the vehicle, chased the uncountable number of spiders away that surrounded him—only to find him alive, but his legs chewed up, nibbled to the bone, and the sergeant covering his face with his hands, which were also bleeding bad from bites.

Written: 8-28-2008


Switched to Gravity
(Chasing the Caribou, near Barrow, Alaska)

(Suspenseful Flash Fiction)


(Advance: Summer of 1996) He put his nose straight forward, straight down, less than one-hundred feet from the surface of the tundra, the Russian pilot was chasing caribou, over the wide open spaces between Barrow, Alaska, and Point Lay, alongside the Chukchi Sea, then inland two-hundred and fifty miles we went, then back to Barrow.

We had just left Point Lay, now was further inland, in the interior of this isolated region, he spotted a herd of caribou, descended from five-hundred feet to one-hundred, watching the caribou herd running in a sedate circle across the brownish tundra of June.
He had showed his flying skills earlier by doing some loops high in the sky, spun from 2000-feet up, and dived to five hundred, now one hundred. The good thing was that there were no poles or trees to get in the small plane’s way—thank goodness.
He closed the throttle, was right in back of the caribou, and then opened it again climbing, frightened the animals some, for me it was a high.
“All right,” he said to me, “you got what you wanted, was that close enough, I mean, I almost rammed into them, matter of fact, don’t tell anyone I got so close, I could lose my license over this.”
“It was close, almost too close, but I got to see them, instead of seeing dots, underneath the plane’s wheels.” I commented.
He was now smiling, almost laughing, and doing some thinking, didn’t give me the impression he digest all I said; next, he was now turning the plane around and chasing the herd again. I could almost touch their tails, and then he checked the gauges, and made a last turn upwind, over their heads passing them like a huge eagle.
“For gad’s sake, stop chasing them,” I said, “I think you’re scaring the daylights out of them!”
“Right,” he said, “let’s get along,” and he pointed the head of the plane towards Barrow, north.


It was a drowsy hazy day, he slid slowly beneath some clouds, shifting slightly, rising and falling.
He, the Russian Pilot, was coming just to the right of the small narrow airstrip at Barrow, Alaska, the plane fishtailed, trying to land, overshooting a little, not having the extra speed and height he needed, he cut the switch, raised the nose of the plane, his tail was down, the landing was seemingly fine, my stomach went up to my throat—blood filled my nose, then went up to my head, so it felt, as my head hit the front of the instrument panel, then I heard the roar of wind as he opened up his window and flicked his cigarette out,
“It’s a crash,” he said, “hang on,” and that was all the time he had left to say anything, and had he not switched to gravity—who knows? The adjustment saved us from a fatal crash.



Note: There is more truth to this story then meets the eye, on the white and black, perhaps it should be called historical fiction. Taken place June, 1996; written August 27, 2008; most everything I write has historical fiction in it, or some kind of experience I’ve had. I usually do not pull it out of my head unless it has been there.



The Porn Star
(Flash Eldritch Fiction)



He couldn’t stay married so he simply stopped getting married after his forth marriage. It was most difficult to keep a romantic relationship, romantic, ongoing while living this lifestyle, he’d tell you up front, even his wives he told up front,
“It's very hard, extremely complicated, if indeed, possible, matter of fact, statistics are against you, that is to say, the greater part of marriages no matter where you go around town, the state, the country, and perhaps around the world, maybe not including Bangkok, don't work, they just don’t work. Sad but true.”
“Why?” said his new and youthful girlfriend of 23, he being 57-years old at time.
“Very rarely do they ever last a long time,” he exclaimed.
“Because of your age?” she asked, realizing it took a lot to get him going, if not using Viagra, that is to say, he was limp at times: their relationship being less than a year old, it never dawned on her it could be familiarity. He emotionally got going, but physically it could be troublesome, if not at times a hard strain.
He was like the old Greeks, the Romans, the Asian societies, feeling man was not made to have one ongoing physical-sexual relationship, why in heavens name he picked out a heavy duty Judeo-Christian, with strong cultural values in that area, was beyond everyone scope of reason, matter of fact it bothered us some at the studio to have him select such a person. Not criticizing her, rather him, he knew better, I mean when he told her the truth about him, it was crushing, and what did he expect? What he thought he should have, he tried, that alternative lifestyle, he had the attitude, but now he wanted a mate to fit into it, when it wasn’t him.
He never felt guilty, that was not him, not at all, and she felt guilty for falling in love with him. He told her he was a porn star, and the cut, petite,
Spanish girl, stood in shock, just staring, said, “What does that mean?”
He said, “I love you to piece, every part of you, I adore you, and love looking at you naked, and want to marry you, and I know I have taken you before marriage, with the intention to marry you, but I had to tell you first of my profession, I have made five-hundred porn movies, and perhaps because of this my genitals, even at fifty-seven seem to travel in all directions, and I don’t want to stop, we can marry and let me stray, my heart will remain with you.”
Then she said, “Then it shouldn’t matter if I stray?”
He thought about it “Isn’t that against your values?”
“Yes,” she said, “but I am pregnant!”
“What does that have to do with the statement you made on straying?” said the porn star.
“I don’t know, I just said it,” said the Judeo-Christian, Spanish girl.
“We’ll get married than with the understanding we both can stray?” he said.
“But it isn’t your child,” she commented.
He stood there in shock, dumbfounded, “What do you mean it is not your child?”
“Your producer came over one night when you were gone, and asked for you, evidently you were bragging you hand a virgin, and he wanted to see me, he told my of your business, and rapped me.”
Before she could say another word, he was out of her apartment, and on his way to the studio. He was so mad, when he walked into the studio, he hit Carlos, the director so hard along side of the head, and he killed him; and was sentenced to twenty-years in jail.
The only thing she ever said to him was at the courthouse, when they were taking him away, “Jealousy is a hard thing for me to understand, perhaps as hard as a physical and emotional monogamous relationship is for you.”
The Spanish girl never showed up to see him while in prison, never wrote him, never wanted a thing to do with him thereafter, and was never pregnant. And he died on August 27, 2007—at the ripe old age of seventy-seven years old, with all those prison inmates, his new buddies.


Written: 8-27-2008


Clotted by a Python
(Flash Eldritch Fiction)



(Intro :) His body was swollen, lumped, inflamed looking, bruised, and his last feelings were that he was deserted, clotted by a python, and this was going to be how he died, what people would read in the morning paper the following day.

“The young man was only 23-years old, discovered at the Como Park Zoo (in the summer of 1957), he had let an eleven-foot python out of its glass and steel bar cage, in the little stone zoo building, built sometime in the 1930s. He was an intern from Chicago, living in St. Paul, Minnesota, a Biologist. He worked the night shift, cleaned the cages, fed the animals, and insured all was well. There was a security guard also who walked the ground the grounds, in particular, over in the Midway area where they had all the rides for the kids. It was now 2:00 a.m. All was quiet.
“The Intern, took the eleven-foot python from its habitat, and carried him out into the zoo atrium area, where in the morning visitors would come through to see the twelve cages, that held lions, and tigers, and large snakes, and monkeys, and two wolves.
“He, the Intern, was playing with the snake, put him around his shoulder, held him by the back of the head, but came the moment the python got irritated, had rolled upward a tinge, from his shoulders to his neck, no longer playing. The Intern, drew in his breath, tried to, it was difficult, as the viper had already crept downward towards his left wrist, and sunk its teeth into it, holding onto it with a solid grip, as the snake’s lower body, had previously risen, from underneath his light coat, it had already circled upward and doubled around his neck, forming a lump, a knot or loop, around his collar (and neckline), he tried to draw in his breath again, and found out it was next to gone, and he went to shout for help—the security guard was circling the midway area—but all you could hear was a whimpering sound, by the intern.
“With his powerful arms and shoulders, the young intern couldn’t pull the snake away. He heard the whistle of the Security Guard, which indicated all was right in the Zoo area, and the intern knew he was close by; so close, yet it might just had been a thousand-miles away: an adult, helpless as a child he was, with urgent eyes moving, looking for help, a way out, battered overalls, in a world now that was deaf and dumb to his whimpering petition.

“The snake, now head to head, stared at his victim, it had risen slowly to eye level, as if it understood it was going to take the intern’s life, and wanted to showoff. Perhaps revenge for keeping him cooped up in that jail they offered as its new home.
“Now it was rapid whimpering, then the intern fell purposely, to the floor, there the scuffle continued, to no avail.

“In the morning, the janitor found the snake outside of the building, the intern on the floor, inside. His overalls half torn off, as if the snake and intern had a great battle. All that was left now was for an epitaph to be written.”


Written 8-26-2008 (Reedited, 10-6-2008)




Valentina
(…and the Violent One)


Valentina was a young cute, petite woman of twenty-three years old, where she was from no one quite knew. But she was young and a woman of ingredients—you might say—of that present time anyway. It was said, and we all kind of guess it to be more right than wrong, she was from Peru, living in San Francisco: from poor stock, as they say. She had never married, and had she it would have been someone who owned a business, or a thousand acres of land, and was educated, and could take care of her in a lively and interesting style. But as I said, she was not married, and really had no intentions to for the moment. What she wanted was not what she needed, but what she sought after and got. We in San Francisco, up around Castro District, had listed to her talk in several of the nightclubs (this was back in 1969), she could be a little more than loudly of her adventures, and she had many, and those of us who befriended her, had looked upon her a little coldly and a little suspiciously for a ruthless girl, who said she was from the mountains of Peru, but at other times, she said she was from, a city within a large Valley of Peru, as she told us her tales of those men who took her here and there, both white and black men she met of means, until she met the violent one.
Let me explain, she, Valentina, had little money, worked for Lily Anne, a dress designing company, down by Market Street, and she would flirt with the designers, and supervisors, and she’d tell us, she simply would touch a person’s hand, flirt a little, knowing in the back of her mind she was after something she wanted, not needed, and was more than willing to use socioeconomic currency (her body), she called it ‘a form of evolutionary psychology’ and it worked—well, most of the time.
The main manager, was Jewish, they called him Absalom. He was married, but went to Paris often without his wife, for the owner of the fabric factory, to buy textiles among other things. She herself was a seamstress on the third floor with Mr. Green.
Valentina, had been worn by Mr. Green to keep everything at work business, meaning, not flirting and on and so forth, but she did anyhow, so when he left home, Absalom, without his wife, she went along as his secretary, but we all knew, from her boasting at the bars, she had bartered her body for the trip, a form of business perhaps, and she called it, ‘a just progress,’ and smiled, he got sex, and she got a trip to Paris, paid in full, and for him, the company simply used it as a tax write-off.
She looked at those men whom attracted her, not for good looks but who were smart, good providers at home, thus, these were the ones she was attracted to, for the part, there were other reason she was attracted to me other than that and I shall tell you that in a moment.
Matter of fact, she even told me one day in the bar, “Touch my hand, or let me touch yours,” and I let her touch mine.
“There she said, we’ve made physical contact, now all I need to do is flirt a little more, and most likely we will end up in some kind of an agreement, exchange for your needs vs. mine.”
She once invited me over to her apartment; it was on Dolores Street, a ways away from the Castro District. There we watched TV; she only ate and drank and watched TV, on Sundays at home, and she walked about with her pajamas on, and said, “You see, even you and I can come up with a need, and being mature, simply both can watch TV.” And she laughed.
“Why,” I asked “are you laughing?”
“Because you are thinking now, what do you have besides your item, which I need, so you can take me to bed?”
Well, she was right, what could I say?
Anyhow, I walked around the house like a camel in heat, and then she asked me to come into her bedroom, she was lying on her bed, her legs up, arms crossed and resting under her head, asked me,
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Not really I said.”
I kind of felt at this stage, she knew men more than they knew themselves, in that she figured it out, the way man was programmed for the last ten-thousand years.
She didn’t think of me as beautiful, nor even loved me, but I had something she wanted because she pulled me into her and we had sex. I asked her,
“What did you get that you felt you needed from me?”
I mean to say, I hadn’t but a few dollars to my name, no car, a steady job, and a few bucks in the bank. I studied Karate at the Gojo Kai-Karate dojo, in Castro, when I wasn’t working, and seldom dated for lack of money.
“You do have a rough quality about you, like a mild brute; women like that, and you’re educated somewhat, and you have a job, but not much money, that is why our friendship will take over our sex lives, I’m afraid I enjoyed you but, there will not be a second round.”
“Fine,” I said, adding “after this, a friendship is just fine,” and we both laughed.

On the day she died it was learned that she had been fishing with a bellboy at a hotel here in San Francisco, in the downtown area, of all people to meet, she met a Peruvian from the Amazon. Being a mountain girl, she was far from the Amazon of Peru, and thought it to be quite mysterious, so she told me, “I have a craze to go there, if only I could talk this plain looking Peruvian man, of fifty-years old to take me. His wife died some time ago, and says he wouldn’t mind going to the Amazon with her, and he’d pay her way, as long as she gave him sex. And we all learned here in the bar, she went with him, and he and she never returned, he went back to Lima, where he was from, so it is said.
Anyhow, what took place was death. They went camping for two weeks, he taught her many things, she’d call back home, even up here at the bar and said, “Guess what I’m doing, eating and catching those little fish that eat people, piranhas.·”
None of us here were surprised to learn that she was doing what she was doing, beyond that we were, when we had learned of the final blow, that she evidently fell into a dark water tributary, fell off a rowboat, more like pushed off it, if you ask me—off into the Amazon River, and she was eaten up—flesh and blood, to the bones, by these little critters.


A Virulent Death in
Buenos Aires



The furnace, 9th of July Street

Death Alignment



(July, 2007) “All right,” he said his eyes slanted towards the floor, emotions zigzagging across his chest, bowed head, neck out of alignment, arms crossed, and so he took one less sight of her—“All right!” Then the frustrating dialogue stopped, the dusty chatter ended, her eyes crystal clear, her protest to him had been sterling, authentic, but meaningless, only words that shot through him like bullets, pellets from a muzzle an inch from his brain, knocking down doors inside his cerebellum, he wasn’t coherent, he wasn’t anything, not human, not sensible, stagnant thinking, and even as it was, instead of walking away, he came out with a burst—like a guerilla, it was as if somebody, or thing inside his brain had beaten it to pulp, pounded it to mush, his brain was under a meat cleaver, ready to be chopped up, and hung on a hook, like a dead hog ready to be cut up on an assemble line. He held his head, then a second burst came out of his mouth, he stood up, tried to balance himself, he felt like falling, the studio apartment was but one room, and a bathroom, that was it, but he didn’t fall, he rested his two hands on a wooden chair. Out the window he noticed the obelisk he saw it many times but today it had different shapes, the tall famous obelisk on the widest street in the world, in Buenos Aires, was like a rocket to him, then he turned to his girlfriend from North America, some New England state, he a resident of Argentina. They were having a week long drug fiesta, in his apartment.
He looked at her, loved her deep blue eyes, milky white skin, and she had been attracted to his bronze skin, and dark hair, some mysticism in it, one from the North the other from the South, but now his looks would have stopped a police dog in its tracks, had he been outside walking with her, his bitterness on his face reeked all the way to kingdom come, and with a sudden undefined malice to it—
‘Wallop! Clout…! Whack!... thump …thump, thwack-thwack!” … a fully eight-inch German grade carbon stainless steel carving knife, extremely sharp, perfectly balanced, wide blade, full tang—sunk into her chest—out came a virulent smell of burning death.
“Get it out,” she shouted, “you can’t kill me!”
He looked at her, pulled the knife out slowly, ripping the knife sideways so he could puncture all he might inside of her, trying to find the heart, in particular.

He had taken drugs, smoldering, stinking with them, she had her share also, but not to the point she didn’t know what was happening, or free from pain.
“No thanks I want you to die,” he said, and he wanted to watch himself do it, “it’s alright he told her,” as if to comfort her on his second plunge into her chest with the knife.
By one leg, he pulled her into the bathroom, grabbed her by her hair, stretched out her thin neck, across her shoulder he put the knife, rested it, and with a thrust and whack, beheaded her.

“Wait,” he told himself, “I better take her down to the incinerator,” looking now at the head, he placed it on the toilet seat, as he pulled the body over the bath tub, like a sack of potatoes, with two hands and two legs, and his German made knife, laying on the side of the bathtub.
“Alright,” he said, “the incinerator” knowing now he’d have to chop up the body, its limbs and all, find a suitcase and bring it down to the cellar, and toss it into the incinerator.
“Of course,” he said, he had to undress the rest of her body, and he did. Then after cutting it all up, suitcase nearby, he put the head back onto the torso, to see how it looked, fit, as he had placed it on the toilet seat for that purpose.
“Perfectly balanced,” he said, “hurry up,” he told himself, “I’m hungry, I want breakfast.”
He grabbed the heavy suitcase, rushed down to the basement with it, the door was locked, he looked through the peephole, there was a fire in the furnace, it was July, and it had snowed, it was cold.
Now he was on the sidewalk that paralleled the ‘9th of July Street,’ claimed to be the widest street in the world, he was pulling the suitcase now, his arms, the muscles were getting knotted up. He knew the police wouldn’t bother him, they never did, they were too busy taking bribes from those they handed out tickets to, or looking the other way if a crime was happening so they didn’t have to do all that paperwork, or getting paid off for looking the other way by teenage thieves. And so he dragged the suitcase down the street unhampered, past several buildings and several policemen, and a few restaurants, in which he wanted to eat, but it was time for brunch, no longer breakfast. And so he stopped, left the suitcase outside, sat in the restaurant, had ham and eggs, coffee, and a young thief came up to the suitcase, paced a bit to see if anyone was looking, saw that it was clear, grabbed it, ran with it, but it was so heavy he fell, and it opened, and everything unraveled, everything inside rolled out, and the police did stop for once, and for once they chased him down the street, he, himself still in shock, this young thief, and lo and behold, he was caught the robber caught and accused of the crime; oh he swore up and down it was not his crime, but whose then, asked he police? And the real assailant finished his breakfast, went back to the Casa Rosada, where tourist often came, found himself a new gringo girl from England this time, and they started dating. He told himself it was the drugs that made him do that horrific crime, and thus, he’d never use them again, but he lied, as all drug addicts and alcoholics do.

Written 8-5-2008




Elephant Killer
(Fever of Revenge in Chad)



Advance (Cairo to Chad): “It’s all about tusks,” he said to me, but what it was really about was risk taking, for a high, money, or dollars, and he was good at it, and he was not quite forty yet, in good health; myself, more like fifty-two, I was not young either, and about to be married (again), and just got back from Java, and was sitting in a bar in Cairo, and he was sitting by me, and he smiled, and I smiled, and you know how that goes: where you from, where you going, stuff like that, and he pulls out a card, it reads “Gun for Hire,” I almost laughed, thinking it was a joke, you know like back when I was young and I watched that television show: ‘Have Gun Will Travel.’

Well, just about when I was going to say: is this a joke, he said,
“No joke, but I’m expensive.”
Fine, that is how it all began, AD 2000, in Cairo, Egypt, I’m Lee, and I suppose I could leave it at that, and that I’m kind of a traveling
Adventurous, and Tourist Archaeologist part time, and at other times I suppose I could be called an opportunist everything in moderation though, that is to say, to an undersized degree, nothing big.
I had just visited the pyramids, went to Alexandra, visited the Suez Canal, was up in my 9th floor apartment at the Shelton in Cairo, and thinking about going back home to St. Paul, Minnesota, in the good old USA in the next 24-hours, but things would not work out quite that way.
“Come with me,” he, the gun for hire said, “to Chad (Central Africa).”
He said that towards the end of the night in the hotel lobby, after meeting he and I, met the Mayor of Cairo, a merchant introduced us to him, and a lot of talk about Chad of course preceded this invitation, in-between meeting the mayor, and drinking in the bar and walking in the lobby. Fundamental speaking, no matter if I’d go or not, he was headed to a campsite outside a national park that exist in within its boundaries. He had shown me pictures of what he does, awful, horrifying pictures of cut-out faces of elephants, he explained to me how he killed them first, then, next, he’d cut off their faces, before the rangers would appear—how ugly I thought, but then I had heard and seen a lot of ugliness in this world, in war, on the streets of many big cities, this was perhaps one of the top ten on my list of ugly and dirty deeds of man, infecting the world.
“Usually…” he said, “some strays came out of the refuge, and when they didn’t,…” he’d go in after them; if indeed the rangers were not following the herd, which often times had certain routes, and he knew them all of course—by heart.
I am not sure why I would want to go and see this, I told myself at the time, until he said:
“I’ll pay for the whole trip, you write down what you see, everything,” and I did, but I never published it until now, I suppose the reason being, it was too horrifying to me to publish. He simply wanted a witness, and he was willing to pay for it. A dangerous trip of course, but I had been in Vietnam, and Cambodia during the early ‘70s, and war and such things were not new to me, just dangerous, and as I was about to say, a wife to be, waiting in South America, to meet me in a few months in Guatemala. Nonetheless, I agreed, and although I leave out names and direct places, it is for the better I think. Now I shall explain in a more direct narration.


Flesh Death

[In Chad, outside base Camp. vicinity, by Sahara area:]


I knew this area where I was, in that it was a most dangerously and vulnerable area for an attack on elephants, I saw a few days ago a few Armed guards in the far distance; with Ralph’s binoculars, I asked Ralf Zimmerman, “The Matriarch…” [He referred to these elephants as the woman leaders, if not grandmothers’, whom the families, portions of the herd, or larger herds can turn to for leadership, a position of dominance in the herd, if not head of the family]:
I asked him,
“The Matriarch searches for food, the wise elephants, or older females, whom are usually the leaders, do they have certain routes they know by heart?” (Thinking was the elephant really that smart.)

This was the mongo rain season, and so out of nowhere, unpredictable, a light shower of rain would fall here or there, especially night, but that was really the worse of it, it not the rainy season as it comes in June, and as we proceeded on our journey, noticed scattered about, dotted throughout the land, dead elephants, some eaten by lions, Ralph told me, and baboons perched in trees over our campsite at night, and giraffes in the distance, it was, if anything, a spectacular, adventure, except for the death, the flesh death, I came to calling it.
I said nothing to him of my disgust, being a retired psychologist, I understood one thing, the only reason I was on this trip with him was because he trusted in me not to portray him as evil (my past integrity would overcome this ugly sight of an existence) that is, the evil man incarnate, and he already knew he was. He wanted me to do what I was doing, witnessing, almost like a death wish, and without partiality. Perhaps he had a premonition, I didn’t know. But like in my practice, people tell you many things you want to scream at them for, but you can’t, you got to keep a flat face, no smile, empathy they call it: and hope you can bring them back to a whole person, somewhere, somehow, sometime during your sessions with him.

Base camp was several miles from the boarder of the refuge. This was my sixth day here, and basically the terrain I came over with the jeep, was riverbeds dotted with occasional pools, the heat was all around us, under us, even the wind was not cool, and terminal-a trees about. The closer we got to the boarder, the more trees I witnessed, and elephants were crowded under the shade they provided for them. If they didn’t get the shade from the trees, they got wind from flipping their ears about (sometimes turning over), cooling their bodies, or at least trying to. I came to love these animals, and here I was witnessing Flesh Death! I cried the sixth night, I couldn’t hold it back anymore, what was next, I asked myself, and it would be a surprise.

Ralph said on the seventh day, following a herd, turning towards me in his jeep, ‘…beyond the boundary line,’ as he called it, “…they will avoid trouble spots Lee, trails you could say, wise old females they are …they know where the danger lies and they know me, and they know were the food is and where it will be next month, and in-between seasons, and they know I know all this.”
“If they are all this wise how come they are not wise to you, I mean, how come they can’t out hide you, or kill you?”
(After he answered it, I thought, why did I asked such a dumb question, but my subconscious knew why.)
“It’s a rhetorical question,” he said, “not really worthy of you Lee, but what you really wanted to ask, is how come I can out maneuver them, when you already know, because I already told you, but I will add this, they are running for their lives when they see me, I am running for my dinner when I see them, and a few other things. I can think straight, and have had lots of time to think about what I want to do; they are only protected by an imaginary fence, called a refuge, and are limited in reason. Does that answer your question?”
I thought then, but didn’t say: pride comes before destruction, then I nodded my head yes, because he gave me more information than I needed, but sometimes you got to play dumb to get the innermost secrets in the man’s soul, the core of his soul. I think he wanted, was waiting for the elephants to out smart him. It all turned into a game for him it seemed, in time…


Fever of Revenge
(Elephant Revenge)

We were now outside of the Southern boarder of the National Park, of Chad, it was the month of May, we had waited there all day for the herd of elephants to come, and it did, just like Ralph predicted it would, the head elephant a giant bull was spotted, with 3500-elephants behind him, I wanted to skedaddle, get out of there, I told myself, standing by him, he had a rifle in hand, and two guns in his belt, a knife around his ankle.
“Now what!” I said, in an almost panicked voice.
“This may be the day,” he said to me, I didn’t know then what he meant, but of course I do now.
He shot the leading elephant, the huge one, dead, and it dropped and shook the ground around us; I think the elephant wanted to give the herd time to move away from his guns, as a result, giving up his life,
“Quick, get under the jeep,” he commanded with an almost evil eye, and rustic voice—but now that I think back, it was more out of desperation for me, so I wouldn’t freeze (which I never do), but not knowing what to do, I might have jumped behind him, expecting the elephants coming to drop like fly’s or detour into another direction, but they simply slowed down to a walking pace, yet I did as he said.
He was now looking over the giant bull, and the large herd had stopped, completely stopped, while some of the females approached, looking downcast at the carcass of the bull which lay by Ralph’s feet (I think Ralph was surprised the elephants did not turn, but almost surrounded him), I could smell the death of the beast, urine of the beast, he was now cutting out the tusks, cutting the face off the elephant. Several large elephants stepped ahead of the large herd, almost creeping, as Ralph was cutting fast, and faster, and the Elephants were approaching closer, and closer, slowly, but closer, with ever cut of Ralph’s knife.
Everything now happened very quickly, the leading elephants bolted towards him, and the 3500-followed behind, dust filled the air, faster and faster they ran, little ones behind their parents’ tails, flapping in their faces, hitting their trunks, it was a stampede. Ralph stood firm behind the bull and started shooting pummeled the bodies of the nearing female elephants, bullets sinking into thick skin. Lodged into their muscles, bones and they fell; he looked at me, smiled, and then 14000-elephant feet stomped all over him, as he was wedged in and crushed between the hung elephant—smashed like mashed potatoes, in a favor of revenge.


Written: 3-14-2006/Reedited 8/2008



Mount of the Moon
(The Gypsy from Czechoslovakia)


Palmist) (Czech)
It was told her at a young age, by her gypsy mother, she had the strongest looking mount of the moon near her wrist any psychic ever had, meaning in terms of a palmist hand, her abilities could be quite developed, and at an early age, she could read hands and faces, and fingers, in an instant,

One dollar and five cents; that was all they had. All of it was in pennies. Pennies saved after paying the heat bill, the gas invoice, it sucked all the money up, that implied he was next to broke, he was going to go buy hotdogs with it; he had a wife and two kids, stuck in Erie, Pennsylvania after visiting his sister, and then he and his family thrown out of his sister’s house because they were tired of their company, yet they had invited the foursome from Minnesota to Pennsylvania to live with them, so Monica would have company. Roman had to find a job quick, and did, but this week’s check only left one-dollar and five cents, and tomorrow was Thanks Giving.

There was clearly not a thing he could do but lay back in his living room chair and wallow silently over his misery. So his wife, Delia got involved; which might tell the reader women when they are wronged seem to get their revenge in a subtle way, and often in the process can be deadly, in the world of human hearts, that is.
Her plan did not exactly beg for an elaborate description, but it certainly had that finger of doom attached to it.
Joy Li, was the landlady, who had in the summer told Roman and his wife, to pay an extra $20-dollars a month (it was 1972, twenty-dollars was a lot), so when the winter months come, the heat would be paid, and so they did willingly without signing an addendum to the rental agreement. And now winter was present, and Roman got his first heat bill, inexpediently, and after the rent, there was only that one-dollar and five cents left.
Roman now had finished his cry, and blew his nose thru a hanky, threw it at the cat, who ran out into the back kitchen, and out the door, which was slightly opened, he didn’t care for cats they were too sneaky, but his wife did so he put up with them, all fifteen of them.
Tomorrow was the holiday, ‘Thanks Giving,’ and Delia knew they had to pay the invoice today—their gas, or heat would have been turned off (in 1972, they were not required back then to provide heat, if indeed, the bill was not paid), and therefore, this left her family with only hotdog money for one day, and she knew this should have been a happy day preparing for tomorrow: and usually they had plans, but none were arranged this season.
In a nutshell, had Roman known this in advance, the gas bill was forth coming; he could have cumulated this into the expenses. Although I must add to his, he did his fair share of drinking, and smoking cigarettes that might have helped save some money, but again I emphasize, that would have been needed to have been carved out in advance, Joy had surprised them with the additional bill, and like many people, Roman and his family lived from pay check to pay check.
Oh yes, Joy was sterling with her cleverness, a little near worthy of being outright shrewd, especially at another’s expense. But by and by Delia who was of East European origins, from old Czechoslovakia (from a township called Visegrad), a palmist Gypsy, had married Roman in 1971, he was twenty-seven years old, she only nineteen, they had two boys, twins, now were a year and a half old moved from Minnesota to Erie, Delia had been visiting Minnesota and when they first met, they got acquainted, married and now were here. She had met Joy, outside her apartment, a redbrick building with four apartments in it. She insisted she should read her, palm Joy’s palm: Joy feeling, Delia already knew something was there, allowed it, for she was reading not only the palm, but the shape of her hands, fingers and nails, mounts, other formations in the palms, she had read within a moments glass, her enemies, her strong sex drive, her clear thinking ability, and that she liked to work alone, perhaps that is why she had apartments, and she had small hands, indicating she did things on big levels, or tried, and it was hard for her to forgive injustices, a high vitality, and energy level, and told her to call immediately a certain number, she had an inheritance waiting.
Joy feeling this gypsy had her peculiarities, but it would do no harm in investigating, and when she did, it was at a bank, and she had a large sum of money coming. So cheerful, and thankful, was Joy, she called Delia up on the phone, telling her of her good fortune, and asked if her and her family would come over for Thank’s Giving Dinner. Exactly what Delia was hoping for.


“Here is my humble home,” said Joy Li, with on Thanks Giving Day smile, opening up the door to her home, as the Delia’s family entered one by one, she gave way and greeted each one with a kiss, and the greatest of hospitality and immediately gave out reasonable refreshment. The sum of her inheritance was so great, she had intentions later on to see if she could persuade Delia into giving her another reading to see what other riches were in store for her, and perhaps even a Tarot readings .
And so the dinner was set, and they were served with the greatest of care by Joy’s cook, and often time’s, comforter. She saw the Negress waving her hands as she walked by her side, she had two fate lines, two careers; from her mount of Jupiter, she was not generous, her thumb told her she had courage, and fighting spirit. Joy saw Delia reading her hands almost in detail, big hands, that done intricate things, that is what Delia thought, and she knew what they were up to. Here was a person who liked to lead, but was being lead, who could not, an injustice she would not forgive. Who had a heavy sex drive, like Joy, like to like; two lesbians, whispered Delia, two strong sex drives, two unforgiving persons—and now she knew, what her intuition told her before she even entered the house, she something, but not the whole of it, and now she put two and two together.

And so the dinner went forward, refreshments and some hosted ham, a bottle of wine.
“Eat, drink and be merry, I am indebted to you,” she told her guest, having inherited a fortune. One that she would not have known about had not Delia not told her, but Joy was wondering also if there was anything else, more money laying about that is.
Delia knew every foreign woman living in another country needed to be shrewder if they wanted to compete with those in their environment, and so not to spoil the dinner she did not tell Joy everything.

She had taken the future of Joy, in her hands—her personality was embedded into those fingers and palm, and she knew what was to happen should she respond a certain way, saw the money stored away in a bank vault, and had created a long conversation in-between, called a diversion to get her senses correct, and now the invitation, a bazaar situation, that she got a free meal out of.
The earth, solar system, even the universe seemed to flow through her palms, always feeding her, and now she and her family were finished at the dinner table, and she wanted to leave quickly. And Joy was a bit surprised, not quite putting two and two together, but sensing something was wrong.
And so Delia and her family left, and Joy sat back at the long dinner table doing a manicure on herself, her hands.


Now before I go on with this story, it is worth a sentence or two to say that, this incident about to take place this scene could not have been witnessed and perhaps for the better of the reader, and the characters, only Delia could see it, and it is best left that way, but it is not insolvable, I will piece this part together for you.


As I have said, the family, Delia’s family had left, and she, Joy started to give herself a manicure, her long dark hair glowed and reflected in the chandelier, lights duplicating it a hundred times over, she must had been thinking I would guess, of the great sum of money she had gotten, or would get, it was already verified it belonged to her, it was just a simply task now to go pick it up. She was, as we often all do—starting to spend the money inside her head before she got it within her grips. Her feet were even tapping a joyful tune on the floor nervously, automatically. And as she looked out the widow beyond the table, she noticed night had fallen upon the house in a deep dark hush.
Now everything quiet in the house—her maid cleaning up the kitchen, her thoughts started wandering into a different arena, not once did her maid come out after Delia had looked her in the eyes, read her swaying palms. She picked up the phone, her maid, whom she did not see, was watching from the crack of the door. Delia answered the phone, surprised to hear Joy’s voice,
“You left so quickly,” she began, “thought I’d give you a call, I never did get to ask you if there might be some bad news in my life, near or far?”
“Why yes, there was, but everybody has bad news, I try to avoid that area, people get so panicky, and don’t enjoy the moment,” said Delia.
“Oh, but you must tell me dear, it is most important to me, I will make it worth your while,” she commented.
Said Delia, with an apprehensive voice, “I’m not sure if that is possible.”
“Why, of course my dear that is,” said Joy, almost with a chuckle as if it was silly.
“Well, if you insist, please take a piece of paper now, and write down, you owe me $2000-dollars, and put it underneath the doily of the table, so no one can find it.”
“Oh, how silly that is, it must be great news, good or bad” commented Joy, but she did it, and then said, “ok, it is done,” and somehow, Delia knew it had been done, said, “Now sit back and listen and do not get too excited: between the red cabbage and the stuffed green peppers was the item, odorless and tasteless poison was injection into those foods, that is why your cook only brought out enough for you, and of course that is your favorite dish, and the cabbage that was left, I told the kids and my husband not to eat it before we came to the table, I told them it was too spicy for them, and they’d get sick stomachs.”
“Oh my gosh,” she screamed, “What can I do! Who did this?”
“Look in the crack of the kitchen door, you will see your maid’s eyeballs watching you (and she turned to see, and she was watching, and staring right at her), oh yes, yes she is…!”
“I see you dead in the next five or six minutes, she killed you, you know, and she is hoping the poison takes effect quick, so you can not retaliate, you have willed her everything you know. So I’m sorry to tell you the bad news, you will not be inheriting that money, but your maid will.”
“But why did you not tell me this before?” asked Joy.
“Simple things to some folks are major things to others, had you not billed the heat bill to us, we would not have needed your dinner, we would have had enough money to buy our own turkey. And you would have been poisoned anyhow, and I would not have known it, to tell you because I would not have found the need to read your palm, and feed my family…” and Delia went on explaining to her how she felt, but Joy never heard the all of it, she was already dead.

It was a week later, Delia received a phone call from the police, saying there was an IOU, under the doily, and that the maid, would be paying her the sum on the note, as soon as she collected the money from Joy’s will.

Note: Written; 8-4-2008





Iron Vampire Bates of Haiti
(Or, the Ape men’s Bludgeons)

(A Science-fiction short story on—mutations)


The Haitian Citadel, in Haiti

Vampire Bates:

The so called Revered Master Gordon, who lived in the Citadel (1986) in the hill country of Haiti, some three-thousand feet on top of a mountain was gone, it was an the usual hour, and George Huntington was deep into the bowels of the fortress, the night tingling with eldritch shadows, movements in quest all around me, like bats, and stretched out arms, I hid around one of the many pillars surrounding me, stared at the beasts, thinking how I might handle these ape like men, with their iron bludgeons in hand, they saw me hiding, they must had seen my shadow from the brightness of the torches within their iron sheathes and metal clasps nailed into the walls. They looked wild as they swung those clubs recklessly about, coming towards me, I looked for an exit, then a gate, then I saw those bat shadows again, but this time they were not shadows, they were bats, and they came in swarms, and bit me here and there all over my body, as I tried to beckon them off (vampire bats, and my body started to pain me, a tingling sensation in the feet followed, and the beginning of paralysis, and I felt a few drips of water on me leaking from the roof, and it seemed to draw a fear into my cerebrum, and my body was starting to get rigid, I knew this was the preliminary diagnosis for rabies, but what could I do, they had iron like teeth and jaws, when they bit, like a piranha, pulling out flesh.

Anything would do I felt at this juncture, and so I rushed forward at them, those ape brutes, I knew there was an entrance behind them, if only I could get to it before these symptoms killed me, thus, I ran through the twenty ape-man—and they snagged me like a bug in a web, that was the last avenue I had to my liberation.
I did tell myself silently, we simply don’t listen to our little voices inside our head, it’s there warns you, like a second part of your soul, or perhaps an element of residue inside the soul, it warns you, and my warning was do not go into the fortress at all, the monetary as it was being called while the Master Gordon of this scientist cult, ended his stay, he was working on a mutation experiment, and I was interested what it was, I worked for a small newspaper out of Minnesota, and I had been in Haiti before, to this very location, and in Port of Prince, and Cap Haitian, and Rankette, a village up and deeper into the mountains.
This fortress was built in the time of Napoleon, a time of stress for Haiti, built in fear his navy would try to enslave Haiti, and this fortress high on the mountain top was ideal, yet it took 20,000-slaves to build it, and something like four-years, and thousands of deaths. Some have called it the 8th Wonder of the World, but Master Gordon has called it his experiential lavatory, and has paid a good sum for privacy of the fortress, for several months. This is where I come into all this.

And as I was saying, instantly I was snagged like a fly caught in a web, I suppose I was surprised of the wild scene I never would have expected of myself, that before my own eyes as I sized up a moment ago, and in shock I did the insane act; next, the largest of the ape-man, grabbed my shroud, the cloths that covered me now covered with blood and bite holes from the Vampire Bates, they were naked and as hairy as any ape in the Congo, might be, but here I was in the deep dungeons of the Haitian Fortress, next to the Caribbean Sea, it was blistering hot outside, but cool in these dungeons.
And the large ape-man named Maraud, I had heard his followers call him that in their grunts and groans, I dimly stood my ground in front of him, as he looked at me restored to some kind of happy ignorance, and wound his hand up like a baseball pitcher, and whapped me in the face with that iron club, and bashed it again against my thigh, back and I caught it the fourth time with my first, then figured I had to reply disjunctively to him, that without a doubt, I was comparatively more knowing than he.

He itch his head as if trying to figure out my unusual smile, after he astoundingly pounded on me like a kid might with a toy he wanted to wreck out of anger it wouldn’t work properly, and I ran to the Monastery garden. I was dying I knew, from the bate bites, and the severe blows of the ape-man; it was just a matter of time.
Then the so called Master came in, a high priest of some sort, and scientist of another nature, “Thank God you’re alive,” he commented, adding “these ape-man are really unworthy to be among us, they are confused half the time trying to figure out if we are a man-seraph, or a man-god, or just a weak man in general, and perhaps a man-bat. I keep them fooled.” And he laughed.
The man called Master Gordon was carrying an embryo, an animal organism in the early stages of growth, looked related to the ape-man.
“Come with me he said!” and I followed him to a cell in the dungeon, the ape-man watching carefully, nearby.
“Trust me,” said the Master, “they will no longer harm you. This embryo is the fruit of my long enduring work, I am trying to create a dispensation, a miracle you might say, and plant it into those ape-man, this conquest with enable or bestow upon man and ape alike, one of higher intelligence, the other with higher in strength. Thus making one new human being with two intertwined matures.
“It all comes under unthought-of new faculties for the new human race. This will neither be the first, or neither second, nor even the third hypothesis in this case, for man is really an experiment, individually, abstractedly and more potent than he knows.”
The Master now was unavailing to my mind, he was not convincing me of his good intentions for mankind, or the universe, then behind me an iron club hit my head, and I passed out.


(Three days later) When I woke the mysterious providence of who I was, was told to me, that being, the Masters quest, was part of it, I looked in the mirror, and I was inside of Maraud (the ape-man), we were a team now, connected for life, I remodeled, in my thoughts, and I was flooded with Maraud’s thoughts, I had to learn how to decipher between his and mine, and tell him to shut up, and let me try to form words, since his mind did not have the capability. I found out I could dominate him, at times, and when his brute team came into play, when they were guarding at their posts inside the fortress, he would approach them, hit them in the head, and start a fight, that is when I went silent, I did not know how to handle such tides of anger, he went like a rocket in high gear, and my strength was (or his strength, now part of mine) twenty-fold from what it used to be. He took a lot of blows and so I taught him (which was part of me now) to duck, and kick, and jump away, in this process of fighting, he became even more dangerous because of that.

I had walked back into the operating room, I paced the room, I noticed there was a fire in a heath, my body was in it, burning up, thus, there was no future escape, if I did, it would be in my new body and that was too monstrous to walk freely on any streets in the world without finding someone’s bullet to put me back into some zoo cage. The Master had his triumph.


Written: 8-8-2008, modified 8-9-2008




The Ghost Stalkers
(Part two of two)



I stayed there that night, in Josh O’Hara’s hut, in the Minnesota wild (Hibbing), thinking perhaps I could come to some conclusion what took place, and I felt as the uncanny night went on, death stalked it, I mean the ghosts that he so readily feared stalked it, so, he had a good reason to fear, I was not believing in his story at first, I am no detective, nor need I be, but they were out there, in the darkness breeding as I was breathing, and pacing within his timber hut, such insights, come too late too often. And then I heard footsteps, especially with the light footsteps outside, my ears trained to hear such things from war, I could hear the grass being bent, as if trampled through, reminding me they were there, they the stalking ghosts, and maybe they were even dragging Josh’s residue spirit through it, for I heard his voice in agony, him being dead meant nothing at this moment to me, I was shivering in the over heated hut, my veins like ice, step by step, I heard the stalkers laughing, like spies, trapping a mouse, that is how I felt, I being the mouse, they heard my breathing it seemed, I walked to the right side of the hut, the footsteps outside the hut walked around the hut to my side, a vicious network of intrigue for them, for me a desperate, and dangerous game I wanted to get out of. Why they simply did not come into the hut, was beyond me, perhaps they were forbidden to desecrate, or violated with their malicious hearts, the place of the dead, code perhaps among them, because they didn’t want their death beds dishonored, like to like I always say.
The burring logs in the house the dead feet, I simply wanted it all to end this terror that came loose on this cabin, getting on out of it, out of this night, this never to be forgotten night, it all was trying on my system, it was as if my immune system could no longer hold itself in place, it was cascading from the inside out, my mind blank, then I passed out.

(Twenty-years later) Suddenly at 2:00 AM, it happened again, like it happens every night, has happened every night, since that long night in the cabin in the woods in Hibbing Minnesota, at different times of course, since I spent that evening in Josh O’Hara’s hut, those voices in the woods came back to me, come back to me, out like wild boors through my head, it was an eerie gripping horror again, I cannot tell you the full story of this supernatural happening, no more than what you already know, fantastic as it is, but I lost my hearing that night, I think the ghosts, slowly, very slowly during that evening murdered something inside of me. It is as I said, 2:00 AM, and I hear those eerie gripping voices, and that was twenty-years ago, I was in O’Hara’s hut, but I must stop writing down these notes, I’m tired, I need to sleep—; it’s 3:00 AM now… yes, it starts all over again!...


Notes: Part one of the two part story “The Hermit’s Ghostly Dilemma,” (The Hermit) was written 4-18-2007; part two, was written (The Ghost Stalkers) on August 8, 2008. Here is part two.



The Tale of:
The Basilisk-de Notre Dame


It would give the impression that there is no more to be written about this great cathedral, called: Notre Dame de Paris—but put aside such talk, I have brought to the table a strange, and tale of tales, and more truth to it than fable, even perhaps a bit overwhelming, hard to digest, but I was up on top of Notre Dame, in its Bell Tower, and here is my story, perhaps a tragedy you may want to call it, nonetheless I will tell it as I lived it, and let you be the deciding factor of if it could have been, might have been, or let it lay as simple a tale of tales.

It would look as if, to me, if not an imamate revelation I speak of, surely the first time one has taken notice to it in a courtly manner, although it has been there, right in front of our eyes all the time, for a thousand years if not more. This creature [or being] I am about to tell you about—mythical to many (in its unearthly shadows of the night)—is but a linking element in the demonic world: this ox-eyed demon who gazes at one with vindictive glares, one might say, and yet some have claimed, by and by, he is from the lower part of the lower world. It has also been said, and I shall say it here: he is working on behalf of heaven's door; in a manner of speaking that is, proclaiming to be a soldier in the upper world; the one you and I live in.
It is characteristic of this jaunty creature, that he pursues no man beyond his will, lest he brings God Himself down upon him for immediate judgment. And so, in this peculiar story of stories I will relate to the pursuit and escape as we await the rising tide. And so we stand on dangerous ground, do we not?
Where we are standing now, a bit more frightened I would say, or we should be, as the shades of this long lost mystery come to light! You see, it is said if he were to leave his post [place of duty] his fatal breath and glance could kill at will.
Furthermore, this creature I am referring to seems to have knowledge of men and their motives, strictly by instinct; far beyond the common, endowed human capabilities, they also have a rashness to danger, and a desire for longevity (like mankind), and of course the pleasures of life, I am not completely sure of but they seem to be present within their beings.
This creature, resides high up, guards as a spirit within a solid structure, stone, with life and a bitterness rising from its bosom-and yet it also has a gentle sadness upon its moored face. Moreover, he is from a long line of friends, being of a serpent form of sorts. He is said to have been given birth by a cock's egg.
I have seen him many times, high up in the corner of the church; the great Notre Dame is what I am speaking of, of course. But one time I saw him eye to eye, yes oh yes, eye to eye-should to shoulder, as if he was part of the gallery of the gods. I stood but a few feet away from him, almost enchanted with disbelief. He is the: Basilisk-de Notre Dame; some call him the Cockatrice. Without a shadow of a doubt, we connected-I began to fear even with my Irish blood, mythology seemed to come alive for that very moment.
The Basilisk stands tall on a corner of the great cathedral, Notre Dame in Paris. He is made of stone: --as big as a small woman, but his body is only shown to his belly. He has no horns, nor tail. And I would guess he cannot fly, for lack of not having wings, which would be my best guess. But his head has the makings of a dog. His forehead is indented; eyes set back far to paralyze his prey-yet I call them ox-eyes, for they are deep rooted. His mouth curves in with a beak like form at its end. And its tongue is all of four or five inches long perturbing from its long mouth, which is as wide and long as its head: as if it were a dying bull, a purple tongue of rage. Its neck is that of a serpent, with muscles linking to its arms and chest; and a spine that protrudes outward like the ocean waves all the way up to its ears which almost start from the corner of its eyes and exceeds its spine in length. This was my demon, and Notre Dame's gargoyle's guard.
One cannot help but learn as he looks at him in the twilight; it, casting a gentle sadness with its deadly stone composition, he learns not to be impetuous, rather to look calmly and yield its rational and resolute heart. But no more than that, for fear that he is rebutted and tragedy be brought to cover his pride.
If I were to talk flippantly about him, people would hold me to account. Even though I have the highest respect for him, [him being: the stone creature: Basilisk], not quite a reverence, but respect,--better put: regard for; matter-of-fact, whosoever mocks such a creature it is well to know, you may very well seal your own fate, as I have already tired to imply; for in the past many have.
But what is he guarding? You may be asking. As I have asked, and asked I have over twenty-five times, --yes O yes, over twenty-five times I have walked to and fro, and through the doors of Notre Dame de Paris, over twenty-five times I should say-looking, simply looking up at the heights of the cathedral, the doors below my eyes, the statues that ascend upwards to the creature: Basilisk: '...what are you guarding?'. He has been there for a long, very long time, centuries. Some say he guards the courtyard. But then I think, "Does Satan cast out Satan?” What for? Have I not heard one does not work against himself this way? Has this creature been created in the name of God? to protect man against the demons that may enter this glorious church? No more than a creature of stone, he is, is he? Or what spirit lies within its carved stone. Oh yes, yes, yes, leave him alone cries the gibbous spirits, and the hunch-backed shadows of the night. And so on and on and on he remains; as I do, looking up, as he looks down.
I have heard it said, 'Do not destroy the foundation of a great church by name or deed, for lack of knowledge,' and so I have left well enough alone. Let Satan and his hordes see this great church, it will do them well, if not please God-Himself. Yet it does not appease me, for I still want to know why he guards this holy ground, for I doubt it provokes him.
Yet it tells me a great story, on how hard man worked to build it, in praise of the Lord (our Savoir Jesus Christ). There is power in this monument, this shrine to the Christ I know. Is it not a great reminder to all worlds, to include heaven, hell and earth, the ones we know of, of God's glory? But I do not tell myself he is not there for that reason, nor will I fool myself into believing so. There is more to this mystery of mysteries than meets the eye. Yes indeed, and perhaps, just maybe he found a prosperous tide in the form of an investment. He is there watching, counting: reporting, and in my mind's eye, as in humanities mentality, there is always self-interest involved: this should be no different.
Oh yes, maybe this creature is reporting, reporting what, to whom is the question, to whom? Yes, yes, yes, what could this creature, demon form, what could its coverage be? -many, just many things, I suppose such as: what could have been, should have been, the likelihood of something-or someone, and other such things; all this is conjecture of course-just thinking out loud. Like a spy in the middle of the White House, the Kremlin, the Roman Forum. Like a crook about to still the Monte Lisa at the Louver. That is who he may be, a spy. He is part of a worldwide conspiracy maybe, possible, without a doubt!
Oh yes, the great conspiracy, to many, so many conspiracies that when a real one comes, we all say: 'wolf, its phoney'; but the conspiracy you and I are in, we just don't know about it, otherwise it would not be a conspiracy, now would it. I can mention a few conspiracies you do not know about: The one the Mantic-ore, demon commander of a legend from the underworld has taken to the upper world; the one the Tiamat knew was coming, Mother, of Demon 10,000-years ago, yet, this one is being drawn out; the one God foretold, forewarned us about in his book called, Revelation, through the eyes and hands of Saint John. You see, we are in several of them and we do not even know it. And this one, possibly one, has to do with reporting I think.
You may be asking the question by now my curious friend: why have I brought you to this corner of Notre Dame, to this part of Europe. And where am I going with all this, where am I taking you: to a plain slab of stone, inscription, spirit filled. Hang on I have more, you are about to find out. You see, this creature can not fly, I know I kind of told you this, that was implied before, but he can control the air around him; meaning, he glides through the air with only a touch on sold things at speeds beyond any mans run; like a snake in high gear you might say. No, don't get this mixed up with the comics, the Superman thing, or the Hawk man, no, no it is not a supernatural made up creature by me, it is made up by time, legend and folklore, and supernatural, yes it is by all means. I just happened to be around at a time when it manifested itself. No more than that, no less.
And so I was told, his look can paralyze a person, and I believe this now, for he has insured me he could (as others have whispered to me), he did not put me in harms way though, at first anyway. His will is stronger than the Manticore's [the demonic creature, with a beastly body and a man's head, as mythology would have it]. And his breath is from the depths of the abyss, that is: the pit [with odours and smells likened to a decomposed body, old and musty, and suffocating, at best]; in such a place I doubt mankind could not live, nor would a demon want to, and if he had to it would be a grave punishment indeed.
Again, I was not put to the test on this subject, but I feared in him not keeping his distance, in the black mist that surrounded him, that canopied the twilight of the night overhead of him, all-in-all, somewhat, somehow protected me from his harm. But other than the Cathedral, where did I meet him [if this is your question]? And it possibly could be mine, if I was you, in consequence, it would be circling in my mind until I received an answer, or created one, or imagined one I suppose. And so I must have one for you to read.
After he had seen me in March of 2002, he followed me, only one night though. It was 3:00 AM. He knew where I was. Many a demon has tried to embrace him I do believe, for his powers, to do their dirty deeds, but have failed; he likes his position, that is why I do not know if he is demon, evil spirit, a lesser spirit, imp, angelic in nature, or what. But, as I was about to say, he followed me. And that is where I want to take you, or where I am leading you, to our connecting. Oh his short little journey where he escapes from and to is but around this area of the Great Notre Dame, and its island along the Seine [otherwise known as, Old Paris] its beautiful river waterway, which is more of a cannel than a river I'd say, or so it seems to me. And so having said that, let's look at this chase a little closer.
The Glance and the Chase
I never stared into his eyes; I seemed to have avoided them automatically; nor got that close to him when he was chasing me to catch his breath, and with good sense. But it was late at night when he showed up, appeared for the first time. My wife was sleeping with the window open, the breeze flowing through her covers. She was like a little angel asleep. I was outside pacing, for some odd reason; it was a sleepless night undeniably. Sometimes, possibly most times, it is hard for me sleep when spirits of any kind are nearby. Instinctive I seem to know when they area. It is that my body signals me. That is to say, I am quite ripe, or sensitive to the invisible world's brilliant but unstable transparency; in consequence, walking to and fro, like a confused farmer, waiting for the black-crow to show up and take the farmers corn, this is how I felt outside pacing. In this case, what would be his fancy?
As it is now, 5:12 AM, as I write this-making my notes as they come to me-four days later, I want to say I love Paris, almost as much as I love my hometown of, St. Paul, Minnesota, where I live, and almost as much as my wife's hometown, Lima, Peru, where I have a home also. In Paris I have only a small studio apartment, along the riverbank, only but three blocks from Notre Dame, in point of fact, so this tells you I love Paris also. I reside here once or twice a year, for a few weeks of down time, as they call it now-a-days.
As I was saying, or about to say, I was pacing the outside grounds of my dwelling, whereupon this creature of sorts showed up. He tried to make a deal with me, oh yes, oh yes-a agreement, or transaction. I thought for a moment, my wife's life was at stake, knowing she was alone, but she was not his fancy, for the window was open, and this creature in a black-stone like configuration standing but a short distance away, in a shadowy mist not far from her did no harm, and I presume he could have. But again, thank goodness, it was not his prize or price. But I'm sure he didn't mind me believing it. Somehow fear, be it man or beast, seems to arouse a hidden pride in us, a pride in that we have the power to instil this fear, in spite of, if we want to or not. But I noticed in his voice, his posture, his distance, I think he feared he could lose his position, had he threatened my wife; that is, had he threatened my wife and I cast him into the pit in the name of Christ. If anything he did yield a key to his mind set. But it was me he wanted none-the-less, me and me alone, not her. Motives yet were not known to me.
I took off to avoid him using his fear, of endangering my wife, thus having me under his whim, so I ran off, through alleys and side-streets, in a few old buildings, and hallways: not sure why I ran through them, I could have ran around them, he was casting from a distance odd looks at me as if to say: '...what are you running for,' as if I wanted to, I could have you, but as I said before, I wanted to create a distance from my apartment, for our meeting, so he could not completely overpower me. And surely he could have overpowered me.
The hotels would not open their doors as I pulled at them, and so I jumped over and around a few car-bumpers in my way. I ran to the river, and the grass along the park outside the church of Notre Dame I stopped. Then I thought, '...every time I had stopped he was but five or six feet in front of me, or in back of me.' What did he want I asked myself each time, as I tried to catch my breath? Standing still, like a stone in front of the Cathedral, I started to laugh, profusely, as if I was a bit off balance.
I tried one more time to escape his shadow of sorts-a shadow that really was not a shadow, it was him, the shadow, for he had no replacement other than him; hence, he again cornered me, seeing but a black mist again, a heavy configuration within the mist, I lowered my head in coughing, being quite short winded at the time, to catch my breath. I made no solid glance through the mist, as my breath came back to me. He was not yet talking (but I knew what-if not who-he was: The Basilisk-de Notre Dame).
I asked, "Where now?" kind of huffing and puffing from the run. A joke, but it was all I had in me to say [I figured if he wanted to do me harm he could, or put another way, if he could do me harm, he possibly would have by now]. He stepped back a ways, almost covering his shadow like figure, possibly to protect me from them legendary eyes, and breathe. Sometimes I find spirits are as curious about us, as we are about them; especially those who were never human beings at any given time.
"Take this," he said, with a whisper, slow calm voice-almost soft; he wanted me to destroy something, somebody, I thought, possibly him. I stood there; palm-hand on a car, catching my breath, up and across the street was Notre Dame, and the walls that guarded the river, you could see the river-walk. On my side of the street not all that far away was "Shakespeare And Company," an English bookstore, a place I stop at every time I'm in Paris.
It was a weapon of sorts, so it looked, as I looked down at the gift, or whatever it was, something to harm someone with I would guess, is what he was trying to hand me. Did he expect me to pull the trigger on him, if so would I destroy him, and commit a cardinal sin or would it be a more promising sin. Was he bored [came to my mind]? Was I the only one that looked into his eyes when I was on top of Notre Dame that gave him attention in a thousand years or so? Was I his salvation, his way out, and if I killed him with this funny looking gun, of black volcanic stone, or so it looked, would I be stone. Was he the tempter, or the tumult? I had learned a long time ago, sometimes you can simply go with the flow, or die trying to explain a dimension of something that is beyond you. A world you cannot look into, yet they can look out of.
I took the weapon, and, and then all of a sudden there was a whisper telling me to use it on him, or myself, it said either way. Then there was a long pause, a very long pause-he, then, simply wanted it back. Not sure why. His fingers I remember where long, pointed, almost disjointing, strong and fearsome: as he extended his hands to me, and through the mist, to get to the weapon I was now holding. I asked myself again: was temptation his high?
Then he spoke: he said he had fought in a great battle, and upon his death, he refused to go to Hell, or the pit, or even leave the earth, that being in solid stone was better as a spirit than to face the everlasting realities of either of the two places I mentioned, or so he thought. That this time he was speaking of, was a time before the time of Adam and Eve, he was a mason in a far off distant land, of another era-a time when jaguars were almost ruling the world, whereupon God stepped in and again, saved mankind from extinction. And when he rejected God, the true God, for idols of Jaguars of that time-as gods, in the haze of battle with these beasts, and upon his dying breath, he asked for mercy, to be left in stone that he'd guard over God's throne on earth. And so he has, but not without a price, that being boredom. But should he seek death, he'd go to Hell. Should he remain on earth, at a holy site, guarding it, and harm no one, he would go to paradise, between the great gulfs-which separates Hades and Paradise. But like all of us, he was lost in his own self pity, and at the last minute, stopped a suicide attempt (or I should say I stopped it).
I tossed the weapon back to him, and ran to my wife (for he could not kill himself for some reason), to see how she was. He was there again, outside, looking in our apartment window-looking in from at distance, as if he were in a tent in an open field-with black mist around him. I comforted her. And lay close to her. I suppose he was missing someone to talk to, the comfort of a loved one you could say-is it not true, happiness is shared, and he shared a moment with me, in how many centuries I do not know.
And so I left him be, and he me. I personally had no control of the other world I knew of, or him. I knew one way or another he wanted death by desire, but again as before some 10,000-years ago, he chose life, as we all would most likely d-I think. But I couldn't give it to him, nor take it from him. If anything he and I were simply a distraction for one another.
My wife awoke, asking what was wrong. I told her nothing of any importance, but I lied I suppose, it was of importance, for him, and such a memory as I write now, she will see, see that it was quite a night, more so than what I had her believe it was; in any case, during this time, I looked out the window, he was nowhere to be seen, he had vanished out of my life as fast as he had come in. My wife turned about a few times, asked in a drowsy way, if all was well again. I said I was feeling a little affectionate, not able to find any other words, or for the lack of a better term, along with a little insomnia.
Now if your asking: 'Why me,' another blank, but it is not the first nor I am sure, nor will it be the last blank to come my way in my little life time; yes, I know, another question to a dead answer. I guess he wanted a piece of both worlds? He wanted to test me under fire in my world (and God allowed it) also I do believe, to see if I was as strong as him, possibly to bring the case up to God, get His attention, but I think he got the message, that he was already under God's grace, not to play with it. If I meet him again, maybe I'll ask him a few more questions, but I'm in no hurry to do so.


Notes: written while in the Cathedral and on top of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and in the bell tower and the story written out thereafter in length, March, 2002; It was my forth trip to Paris, and my last trip, it was a rainy few days; reedited in 2007 and 2008.





The Yellow Planet
(An out of sequence, ‘Cadaverous Planet’ Sketch)






The trip was nasty, packed like bananas in a cargo bin, hurtling though space like an asteroid. Siren, and her two comrades, Tangor and Rognat, were with her, and they were for once not in the Black Galaxy, rather next door to earth’s solar system. Which consisted of the planet Moiromma, which her mother was born on, and Ice Cap, its moon, and Cibara was nearby and the comet Sedna as large as earth’s moon, and the unexplored planet called the Yellow Planet, which was on the same rotation as Cibara, in which it crept through the asteroid belt into earth’s solar system, and past Jupiter, so fast it was never seen as a planet, but rather as an asteroid or comet, but it was a planet, about half the size of earth’s moon.

“We have landed on the Yellow Planet, my feet just touched solid ground,” said Tangor, for the records, the commander of this flight being Rognat, his long time friend, and Siren, known as the liberator of the planet of SSARG, in the Black Galaxy (or often referred to as the Dark Galaxy).
It had all the amenities Earth and SSARG hand, as far as life support goes, such as: air and green growth, and a brilliant blue skies, and a laborious sun and it speed seemed to some kind of another force radioactive. It was a particular destination, one they didn’t really plan on making because rumors were, it was a god-forsaken planet, and for the record, yet it was in their path way, between Jupiter and Moiromma, and unexplored by anyone.

The air was moist as us two men, myself Tangor, and partner Rognat, walked out of the spacecraft, the atmospheric pressure, density was shown to be fine, it simply had a little too much oxygen on hand, and too much moist air, and the temperatures were above 90F.
When we had landed, Siren stayed behind, looking through the glass observer, a kind of porthole, a kind of peril-glass, it showed how high the radiation level, the suns emission discharge of energy onto the planet was, and what within its view might be harmful to our bodies, or infected by its substances within the environment. Rognat and I were excited to explore, and take the risk, Siren, as always, was thinking, planning and digesting everything insight.
It was a yellow nightmare, all the vegetation was yellow, and the atmospheric moister that fell was yellow condensed, not much green in the living plant life, but some. A lush tropical yellow forest, with tints of green; swamp-like growth raised all about, and the mud was even yellowish-brown, fertile yellow:
“Let’s go,” said Tangor, yelling and waving at Siren, but she remained on ship, and the two tall bull-like men, weather-beaten from the trip moved forward. They never questioned Siren, she was not one to do that to, they simply left well enough alone, if something was too dangerous, she’d let them know.

And so the two hunters, warriors, space travelers started their interspatial exploration of the planet, without Siren. He already had his coat of arms in the form of a flag, in the ground, and used as a marker of sorts. The ground under them got softer, the farther into the woods they went, oozed with yellow mud as they stepped further into forest’s swirling mist, hardly seeing what was ahead, flagpole now behind in the mud, he did say, for the record, “I claim this body of land in the name of Siren the Great!”
Tangor and his partner were famous throughout parts of the Black Galaxy and earth’s solar system, and Moiromma´s solar system, but Siren was feared everywhere, and so it was best to implant the fear sooner than later, and those who wished to challenge her right later let it be so.
The slimy ooze of mud crept up like a living force, as they sank down the further they stepped into the woods.
“Curse this mud,” said Rognat, “this planet is for the birds and who knows what else could survive here.”
“What is it,” asked Tangor, Rognat was kicking something, some kind of slimy creature out of his way.
“Looks similar to those vipers on planet SSARG, you know, the ones that live in the tall grasses, and are everywhere, the one Siren fought with, that Blaze, giant viper, but this one was just an eighth of the size we encountered there. Meaning this viper, a one tooth viper a great saber tooth viper, was perhaps only four or five feet, and about the circumference of his waste, which was about forty-two inches round, he was not fat, he was almost seven feet tall, and two hundred and sixty pounds. Tangor and Rognat were about the same age, the same built, except Tangor was more the warrior, the savage, the man with the spear, long hair, bloodshot eyes, silver bands around his upper arms, and Rognat was more the space adventurous person the more princely looking combatant, with a mustache and goatee (a small dark trimmed beard that went to appoint), eyes like a vipers, and he often wore a green flat had covering the top of his head, and long hair, brought back around his ears (where as Tangor´s hair was long but straggly). The ship belonged to Rognat; it was his ship they were on. And for those who know the history of these three characters, Siren gave birth to Rognat’s daughter, but that is another story, for another time.





Tangor (The warrior) & Rognat (Space Traveler)


“Here’s a dry spot,” said Tangor, suggesting they might stop for a moment and gather their thoughts, “I don’t like the looks of things, maybe it is good Siren remained behind, incase we get into a jam!”
And then Tangor gave Rognat a look to go forward, peering over to his sides apprehensively.
“Thought I saw something big move up ahead of us!” remarked Tangor.
The two followed the glance; they couldn’t find a thing once they got to where he spotted the movement.
“Perhaps I’m mistaken, but let’s keep an eye out,” Tangor said.
Rognat grinned, and followed by suggestion and Tangor’s lead.
“I think Tangor,” said Rognat irritated, “this mud, at least the yellow part of it is alive, if undulated it might form something like tentacles, because it keeps pulling at me, or the intent that tentacles do, or can do. Now that I think of it, when the snake had that yellow substance on it, with the mud it had energy, when I kicked my feet, and the mud came off, and the snake’s yellow mud rolled off because of the moisture, it left, it lost its energy source, its get-up-and-go spring.”
Then Tangor wiped the mud off his boots, and stopped, to rest, and took some leafage and wiped his gloves with them, and the leaves with the branches of the tree they came off of, started to grab him as if it was living, a living force had entered it, an entity; plus Rognat went to rescue him, but he had a lot of yellow mud on his hands, and when he pulled the branches and vines away from Tangor, it just replenished the energy within the tree with the yellow mud Rognat put back onto it, they were both fighting to free themselves now.
The harder they fought, the more mud they kicked up, the thicker the branches become until they turned into claws like on a wild cat, pressed close to heir bodies, monstrosity flooded their cerebellums with the substance within the mud, the yellow death, and they both screamed for Siren.

“Help! Help!...” Tangor shouted for the umpteenth time, then lost his energy, as did Rognat; they were several miles into the forest of death now.
They both became dizzy, their ankles tight with the tentacles of the trees, and the snakes now kicked their bodies about trying to feed the tree more of the yellow mud-substance, to keep its strength thriving, so it could kill the two invaders, and now both Tangor and Rognat, were next to fainting, from the heat, exhaustion, the lack of water, and the horror they found themselves in, the nausea from the mud and snakes alone was too much to bear, and now the creatures were trying to bite them them, and their faces become distorted from the infection that was entering their bodies, but the creatures only had one tooth, like a needle, they plunged it into the legs of both invaders, a saber tooth, long and thin, but it only sunk into the flesh an inch or so, the boots wee thick.
“What are you doing to my leg?” said Rognat, the snake was trying to rip his boots off, because only the end part of their tooth was harmful, pricking the skin, was not killing them, and they wanted to infect it deeper.
The thing must had broken its tooth off, the one main snake that would not leave the two astronauts, it indicted it was hurt from the driving force it used on Rognat; he, Rognat could see the inside of its mouth, deep in the fatty tissue, it was bleeding, discoloration appeared, and it turned about and died. Thus the loss of the saber tooth of the viper was a death sentence.
Tangor shook his head, “Put some antiseptic on it when we get back,” and they both laughed, as if they had lost their senses, but not their sense of humor.
Rognat was not the beast Tangor was, and Tangor was not the thinker Rognat was, yet Tangor knew it and told Rognat, “Be strong, we’ll get out of here yet, Siren knows we’re in some kind of trouble, we’ve been gone a long time, she’ll come, I’m sure she’ll come, we’re not going to die this way, not on this loathsome planet.”
For the first time Tangor noticed Rognat was really scared, he even heaved from his mouth, although he did not say a word.

That was hours ago, of course, he is resting now, as I write this for the records, he, being my companion Rognat is still not awake yet, he’s in the ships hospital bed. The three of us will leave the planet in a few hours: what had happened was this: something in the yellow mud, the chemicals of some kind had gotten into our blood stream, killing us slowly, as the trees and the snakes and this whole deadly planet started killing us slowly, Siren sensed something fomenting in the atmosphere, something that changed the compound of the mud, making it yellow, and infectious, some chemically which by way of the mud got into our blood-stream, and is in almost everything on this planet to a certain degree, and when this mud touches whatever it touches, it creates chemical reactions with the system it touches, be it mud, or foliage, or animal or human, or alien, and that put us in to harms way, frightened Rognat into a childlike behavior, psychologically, I blustered into fatigue myself, and Siren having witnessed the grotesque horror after making her body an antidote to the planet’s madness came searching for us, I suppose she was for a while one third-human, one third-Moiromma, and one third Yellow-planet, her system that is, and she smashed through the dead and pouring awful yellowish mingled cells of the veins, and mud and rescued us like a storm trooper, like I told Rognat she would.
I see Siren now, she’s grinning at me as I write this down into the annuals of our adventurers into space, to be read by humans and all those other alien forces out there, another day, she just whispered, “Lie a little…!”


Note: of the many sketches and short novelettes, and stores this author has done pertaining to the Cadaverous Planets, this story here was not meant to be part of the sequence, that was written over the past five years, although it is in relation to the characters of that series, and of the solar system the author has used, being that near his infamous planet Moiromma. 8-6-2008

The Legend of the Diabolical
Rajah of Jaipur

[The Sorcerer and the Rajah; in the Hall of the Winds]

The Crown of Krishna



In the City Palace, is the chamber of the Harem, its original intention was to allow royal ladies to observe everyday life in the street below without being seen, also known as Hawa Mahal, or better known as “The Hall of the Winds.” Our story takes place in Jaipur, India, in the year 1799, within these walls, they were constructed of red pink limestone, and are five stories tall, and the palace has the most beautiful face in the world for a structure and stone art.



(AD 1799) Baklha, the adopted son of the Sultan of Jaipur, had a ruthless disposition by nature, was not impressed either with the luxury that his father surrounded his youthful life with. Cruel and deviant and malicious, he was, and was despised by his country men, for that very reason; and was to the contrary of his step-father, who was wise as an owl, and his son foolish like a lamb. As a result, his two sons far from complimented one another, and all the more put emphasis on the other’s flaws.
Rajah Baklha, like King Solomon, ruler of the Jews of a bygone era, like Solomon, the Rajah was a lover of wine, women, song and twilight: and let us not forget the deep roots of enchanting arts, or those mystic and ever possessing black arts better known as Necromancer. His step-father in spite of all his efforts to tame his son’s spirit, left him alone to content with them himself, to continued suffering on his rocky course of mendacity, and invidious behavior.

At about this time there came a soothsayer: a necromancer (he was said to have learned his black arts from an ancient Mu-man of the old continent of Lemur, in the Pacific), he came into what is known as The Pink City, for the city was all painted pink, as well as the legendary Palace of the Winds, with its beautiful façade for all to adore in the mornings, and at nights, all to curse as one stepped over beasts and human bodies sleeping on the grass and roadside; for poverty was prevalent.
And so it was, the sorcerer made his presence known throughout the city, as he showed his skill in spells and enchantments, in fortune telling, and herbs, healing and philosophy, in prophecy of future events to be for; and so this was how he made his living, his, money and goods, a barter he was to be included; all throughout India no other city had such a man of quality, in those far-off days. He traveled from Delhi, to Agra to Lucknow, then onto Jaipur, on an elephant’s head, and when he made his appearance, he was greeted with and by the most respected of the city.
The Rajah, hearing of his arrival within the city, made haste to have his company, sending a servant to find him, and set up a meeting. The sorcerer was in his own right a warlock of a supernatural demonic type, class (and with high rank in the lower world), or so it was claimed, and by all appearance no one questioned it, whom bore no fear of Sultan or Rajah in all the lands of India, lawless or not, and he knew of the Rajah, and so he would meet his match perhaps, that is to say, the Rajah would equally be matched, in a diabolical way.

—The servant having cast his eyes upon the sorcerer, simply had a hard time digesting his presence, in essence, it was tough to fathom what a great man of his status would look like, that this to say, what a great man in reality would look like, from an imagined one he once had, one builds such images, no man could live up to them: he, the sorcerer being short and plump, humble and soft spoken, with a curve to his smile, thin legs holding up that chunky torso, and a eeriness to his composure, although it was relaxed, too satiate, and astute, greeted the servant with the most respect and regard he had ever received from anyone.
With little uncertainty, the servant now within his presence, knew he was the necromancer, oh yes, yes indeed, without a doubt, it was all in his laughter, his eyes of amber, warlock eyes, vanishing as you looked at him, vanishing as if a flame inside of them were blown-out. There was also a needled coldness to his presence like a glacier—taken hold of his hand, as they greeted one another.
Said the servant, “I am the servant of the Rajah Baklha, and he has sent me here to make arrangements, and payment if need be for your services. He wishes to know what lies ahead, the future, if it be destruction or promise.”
“Oh yes! Awa, yes, I wish to serve him if infect I can; I have heard of his scarlet runaway temper, and his pan-like strains of malefic-behavior…much like mine when I was young and foolish. But I am an old prophet of long forecast and I can help him now, perhaps better than before, before being in my youth. And for you, it might be wise to serve another master, lest you tie your fate to his.”
The servant did not know what to say, this advice was it a warning, or just advise by way of knowing his master’s reputation.

Then without another thought, or hesitation, like a serpent gliding by on his belly, they withdrew to see the Rajah immediately.

Within the palace guest chamber, sat the Sorcerer and the Rajah, across from one another—it was as he, the Sorcerer liked it—wanted it to be, commented to the Rajah, in a thanking manner, that it was set up as he would have wished it to be, for it was dark and gloomy in the room, as he recited incantations, in a peculiar tongue uncommon for the understanding of the Rajah; chants that seemed to sewed together spells in the air, tying vapors that appeared out of nowhere, and shifting shadows as if someone or thing was shape-shifting amongst them, ghosts perhaps, therefore, thought the Rajah: what is my future, but says nothing.

The Sorcerer seeing the uneasiness, the impatience of the Rajah, said in a smooth, slow, and calming voice:
“Three diamonds, two rubies, and one large gold coin, which will do for my payment.”
The Rajah looked strange upon the Sorcerer, for he had asked exactly what was in his pockets, and so without any a due, he pulled out the items and handed them to the seer, fascinated that he knew exactly, perfectly the correct amount and items, for he had told no body, nor given any clues to his servants on what he had in those deep pockets of his.
Moreover, both remained seated, facing one another, as they had continued in a silent manner for several minutes, watching and listening, meditating the Rajah in particular, observed a shape-shifting ghost as it fled from one corner of the chamber to another, and onto another, as it went in circles, thinking: why did this warlock bring a ghoul with him? Looking images came and left, looking images that looked out at him, and then reburied themselves within themselves.
Of the other images, he saw people being killed, city walls falling, wars going on—all such images were coming out of the vapor the ghost had seemed to produce as it went in its so called circle, producing imagery upon descriptions of future time.
But the Rajah did not manage to decipher these images, and again said nothing as if he were bored and waiting for a translator. But this was his future, had he looked hard enough.
“The shapes you’ve seen are locations within the sub-continent of India who have come and gone and to be;” said the Sorcerer with a tangy tone to his voice, waiting for the Rajah to say something. Then suddenly (again) a vapor appeared, and molded into a thulium-shadow, with forms that were—seemingly—trying to grab at the Rajah, with a shadow of a knife; it was appeased when the young Rajah leaned back into his chair, as if he was no threat. At this moment, the prince gave the seer his grievances and demanded he focus on him and his future, his empire to be. Yet the images kept coming in the form (now) of animals—attacking.
Now the sorcerer stood up, presented his petition: that should he let the Rajah live he would do a big injustice for the city, his step-father, the Sultan, of whom was to become ill, and the throne given to him, for the Sorcerer had seen this within the empires that had come and gone within the vapor-shadows the Rajah did not want to acknowledge. They were his doings, the wars to be, the turmoil in the city. Hence, the Sorcerer pulled out a knife from his tunic, unexpectedly, and he stabbed the Rajah to death; at that very moment the old Sultan had walked through the door and said, “Job well done,” and paid him a handsome sum.

And you could see instantly, the absolutely rigid body, of the Rajah, he died absolutely stiff, as if he was dead already, had been dead, as if he had died over night, laying on the floor, his legs drew up. The young Rajah, should never had known what was to be, had he not requested the Sorcerer, for the old Sultan, learned as well his legacy, should he pass it on to his son, he was watching from an unnoticeable distance, in the darkest place of the chamber.


Written Oct/Nov., 2004; Edited 7/2008, the author spent some time in Jaipur in 1997.

This story was original written for the Mango Tree Press, a literature magazine of out India, that gave the author some insight on how the story should proceed, but the magazine folded up, in the last months of 2004, this story being written, and unedited, and lost all in, October, of 2004, and dedicated to its editor at the time, it was lost since then, and found 7-28-2008. It now has been edited, and what was going to be put into the short story can no longer be substantiated, and therefore you get the story raw, and as it was before the editor responded to the author.




A Stranger in Augsburg
((A short paranormal story out of Germany) Part One of Two))



It was 1970 now, I was lost in the beautiful city of Augsburg, the streets I was not familiar with yet; I was assigned to Reese Compound, US Military stock, the 1/36 Artillery, to a Battery unit, of some forty-four men, I was twenty-two years old then, a Private First Class, and it was a weekend, and I was moseying about.
Being lost in this city, was not a big thing to me back then; I could simply jump in a taxi and be back at my unit in fifteen to twenty minutes at any location in Augsburg.
Accordingly, it was early afternoon, on a Saturday, and I was standing nearby this shanty of sorts, which was in-between two stores, and a small park, not sure exactly where I was as far as identifying the streets, but there in front of me come into view a small creek, in a park close by, with a bridge that crossed it, perhaps it was more on the order of a canal that found its way throughout the city and park system. In any case, I wanted, or intended to anyways—to cross it, but got interested in a view of an old man however, so I ventured closer to the old man’s shanty, nearer the park and onto the bridge, elbows on the bridge’s wooded railing, looking over towards the old man again, the old German war veteran I presupposed, or so I invented he was. He appeared to be doing something intimate when I looked his way I just did not concentrate on what, but had intentions to.
The old shanty had but three walls to it—if you looked through the front window, to its back you could see there was no back, the only reason I could figure he had the back tore off was because he had intentions of rebuilding the whole place, the front door being opened. In any case, I didn’t venture across the bridge, I walked to the edge of the park, his shanty across the street, sat on a tree stump, and pondered his business, like a peeping tom, I suppose you could say. I watched him doing whatever he was doing; I simply could not get a clear picture of what he was doing. He mumbled to himself in some language, it didn’t sound like German to me, and it wasn’t English for sure, or any kind of Spanish I was familiar with, and I knew all three languages quite well, and I reconfirmed, he was not speaking them—period.
He looked as if he had lived a long life, a hard lived life, and now, in a word, an awaken drunk, so I thought because of his behavior, he was clumsy, awkward—slow moving. He had a haggard look to his bone structure, kind of droopy, as if he was inside another person’s body trying to stretch it out because he was too huge to be in it, in the first place.
He had charcoal and olive colored skin, some sore like blotches here and there, huge shoulders, and tall, perhaps close to seven feet; an unsavory look, a villainous composure, eyes hard—steel hard. Curiosity to him—so it appeared—was a thing of the past, he paid little to no attention to me, or the people walking by, or standing about waiting for buses, taxis and so forth: ‘…an old warrior,’ I said to myself, indeed he must be; WWI, yes, what else.
As I had now gotten closer to the shanty, and the old man, his cloths was like a scarecrows; he must had been all of ninety-years old, or at least that is my guess, not sure why I say ninety, but that is what came to mind, him being wrinkled up like a cooked tomato and so forth, but he was agile, and strong looking, he could have been younger or older I assume.
He then pulled these old looking rags out from behind a stove, from a hole in the wall it looked to be, where he kept them evidently, and then he chopped them up, and I got a better look by taking a few more steps towards him, gazing over the edge of the sidewalk, I was in the street, and he nailed them to the wall as if to dry, and he had some already drying, and now the rages, that I thought were rages, were not rags at all, but some kind of substance, bird, wings, that is what I saw, funny I thought, I was now more curious.
Fine, I told myself, then looking sternly at his operation and now on the sidewalk, I noticed he was boiling something, it was that substance, the wings, the birds, whatever, because he pulled some of them out of his pot, a cooking pot, those chopped up, whatever things he hand, and a few he swallowed whole.
After about thirty more minutes of stretching my neck, it got to me, and I was as close to him now as any neighbor could be, what he was boiling on that small gas stove still remained a mystery. My instinct or sentries said they were something eatable that was not supposed to be eatable, and therefore, somewhere in all of this, resides a mystery, so I took a few more steps closer, looked closer and began to bethink —this was none of my business, or was it? I was no perchance, ten-feet from him.
Anyhow, my observations quickened as I approached, the old man’s eyes, five feet from him, had a yellowish crust look to them, one I had never came into observing before, not at least in any human.
There seemed to be no danger as I now stood in front of the shanty. Accordingly I began to look at the wall, what was in the boiling pan, the hole behind the table that held the little gas stove on top of it, in the corner, and on the table where he was doing the chopping, where there were droppings of blood. He really paid no attention to me, as if I was not even there. Then seizing the moment, I asked the old man if he knew what he was doing? Not sure why I asked it in such a blunt and rude manner, but I seemed to have taken charge of the moment, and somehow expected him to adhere to my request, and somehow I figured he would.
“Yes,” he echoed, as if the sound came from his feet, not his head, adding, “cooking leftover meat from the butcher shop across from my place.” I think in essence, he meant, he had friends like him, anyhow, I looked closer, into the boiling water, then on the wall, on the table, and what was hidden behind his coffee cup, perhaps not hidden, but laying there.
I held my mouth, as if to vomit, for a moment closed my eyes hoping when I opened them I’d not confirm what I had just validated to be, indeed I was seeing right. An unholy sense came upon me, and I said as nonchalantly as I could,
“Sir, I hate to tell you, but you are cooking some species of bat.” (a species I had never seen before, a thick head like a rat, and long wings, the whole bat perhaps being a few pounds.)
He looked deep into my eyes, as if holding me in a trance,
“I’m eating my food from my planet, it’s traditional, ice-bats…!” so he said, his eyes deep dark as the bats wings—the center yellow like a wolf’s. I next took a moments rest, there on the floor behind him was a heap of bats, reeking with a foulness of death, I mean to say, a pile, twenty or thirty.
“Take a look around if you wish,” he said, as if he was harmless and so was his abode and way of life. And I did, I took a quick scanty view, of the small shack.
The bed, his bed, the only bed I saw, was of rags and straw. Other than that, it was a pig’s haven, messy and stunk to high heaven.

I had been to Bali, and other places where there is bats galore, and seemingly sacred to certain groups, even stood under a bat temple, which was an open large cave, with over a hundred thousand bats above my head, but never, ever have I seen them boiled as to be used for a stew, or so huge.

—One thing never left my mind those ten months I spent in Augsburg, Germany, which was the name of the butcher shop next to the old man’s shanty, it was called, “The Moiromma Special Cuts.”
I would later on in life put two and two together, it was discovered (yet untold to the general public at the time) the adjacent solar system to Earth’s, that there was a peculiar planet, among the so called ‘Cadaverous Planets,’ which formed this new solar system, called Moiromma, a strange planet indeed. And perhaps I should add, I was fortunate enough to have met a visitor from another local such as Moiromma.


Written: 4-19-2007 ((Part two, not provided here, “No Eyes to Weep With”) (there are 26-stories to the
Cadaverous Planets series along with three long novelettes. And three other short series, interconnecting))



An Account in Guatemala
(Summer of 2000)



“She said dead is dead, no one could bring him back to life…,”
and that it was really an accident, and it was really a joke that led into a fatal accident you might say, but an accident none-the-less I suppose. Where would justice take this, to what level? I do feel bad, yet he is known as a rapist now, you know there’s a bad stigma to it, a cursed label one might say. But again, dead is dead.
“Why you telling me, or are asking me for something?”
“Not sure, you were always a good listener, gave advice. You see I really do not want to be married to her. I’d rather help her out with her career, give her some money, and be done with it; she’s always gone during the day, and once a month goes to the states to make movies, but I never see her in them. I feel haunted, and she likes that damn hotel room also.”
“Advise haw, I think you already know what you want to do, it is just how, when, and where.”
“Am I wrong Lee, you know, for wanting to get out of this situation?”
“You mean out of the marriage and into a divorce?”
“I guess that’s part of it.”
“To be frank with you, you both were wrong from the word go, and that other guy didn’t help things out.”
“Not that it matters, I mean she’s a real attractive redhead with nice full breasts—pâté and cut, like a doll a healthy one I might say.”
“They almost seem like a team, made for each other. Where’s he buried. I suppose they took him home to—wherever?”
“To be quite honest, he is buried here, right here, or I should say, out there, outside to the city in the cemetery. She wanted it like that, so his family wouldn’t investigate.”
“That’s odd.”
“Odd…why’s that?”

(Lee pulled out a can of coke from his coat pocket opens it up and started to drink it down feverously—gulp it down, the heat was almost on top of them, although his hat kept his face shaded somewhat from the Guatemala sun, in the old plaza area.)

“Odd, means abnormal, or you could say: weird, or you could say—strange, eccentric, bizarre, take your pick.”
“Why is that?”
“Why is what?
“Why do those words come to your attention?”
“In a like manner, why don’t any of them come to yours?”
“I think Lee; you are doing one of those old psychological tricks on my head. Speak up and tell me what the eye-opener is?”
“How much money did you give her?”
“She’s my wife; she has my bank account, whatever she wants I suppose, she says she takes money for this and that, you know the normal things.”
“Checking account, with an ATM card…normal things?”
“Well—, I have one, ATM card…if that is what you’re asking.” “Borrow me $300…that’s a statement my friend not a question.”
“Why, I, I mean sure, let me go to the ATM and get it.”
“I’ll wait here, bring back a receipt, I want to see how much you got in your account—you see I got instincts also (he looked at me strangely, or was it eccentrically…not sure).”

(Twelve minutes pass)

“Well?” “Lee, I think something is wrong…!”
“Now what could that be?” (Jonathon looking over his $300 dollars and slip from the ATM.
“I mean Lee, I keep a (another pause), oh I guess I can tell you, about $750,000-dollars in my checking account, and my savings has $1.3-million. Here it says I have $7,900; can’t be right.”
“Jonathon! Sit down, we’ll talk a bit more, first of all it can be right, and you are just hopeful it isn’t—does a kangaroo jump?”
“Yes…I mean I don’t know what I mean.”
“Dead is not always dead. I seen a group of people walk into the café down the road a bit—before I met you today, that’s why I asked you for the descriptions of the dead man, and your wife. I would guess they are drinking a beer right now in that cantina. And I’d guess your savings is depleted, meaning my friend, the slip is right, they’ve been living high off your money, as they are now.”
“No, no I don’t believe it.”
“Of course you don’t, it’s hard to swallow, swallowing it all at once that is; it would be like a snake trying to swallow a cow whole, all at once, and it takes time. Take your time, we got all day to swallow, and all night, and if you need more time, tomorrow you can swallow some more.”
His face was red; tears were filling the corners of his eyes.

That was the last time I saw Jonathon, He went racing down to the bar; I guess he did find them both having a drink. I’m not sure what took place, what happened in that bar, I never saw him come out, and I never went in looking for him. That was that, but I heard tell when he got into the bar, a police officer saw him, and mistook him for a robber, and shot him dead.


Notes: Written 12/23/03; originally the first part of this was from a dream, 12/18/03. I kept the original name; I had also spent time in that area described in the story [reviewed and edited, 5/2004]. Revised, 3/05. Modified, into a short version, into a Flash Fiction story, from about 1400 words, to 1000, 8-25-2008; renamed.




Fireside of the Yellow Planet
(The Russian Account)

(An out of sequence, ‘Cadaverous Planet’ Sketch)


If someone is reading this, then it means you have been to the fireside of thee Yellow Planet, or you know someone who has, someone who may have access to the journal account of the first mission to that side of the planet. Read this carefully if you plan on going there, because it is a living and dangerous planet, all sides of it. Historically, this is the second time humans have been on this planet, recorded anyway, and the first time human eyes have seen the fireside.
Tangor recorded the first mission here, and he had left a warning for all those whom may follow, and I have just given it to you, in my own words of course.

“Never mind about the warning,” said Igor, the others three on his expedition, nodded their heads ok, but the warning was to the point, not the less the three along with Igor would have tier first mission, the first part of their mission, into the deep woods as Tangor ventured.
Talcoss, David, and Ximena, the captain’s crew, of the Russian Space Federation, walked into the thick of the forest, the same one Tangor and Rognat had, and was subdued by the leafage just like they were, by the living organisms thereof. (Had it not been for Siren, and her quick thinking, it would have been curtains for them two.)
While Igor was within the forest, he also got drowsy, and over heated, and saw his three comrades barely standing, and ordered them to go back tot the ship, and he quickly went back to the ship also, perhaps taking into consideration, Tangor’s message—a bit too late.

He had left a bottle of natural medicine in the ship, once on the ship he drank it and lost consciousness, when he awoke, he discovered his three partners were all dead, his medicine had soaked into his bladder, saturated it, saved him, whereas it was just the other way around, the deadly fumes from the leafage on the planet, its yellow mud, soaked into the bladders of Igor’s shipmates, and killed them. Why he didn’t tell his mates he had the medicine was because it was costly, and there was only enough for one person’s recovery. He was foretold of the plants deadly vapors—not quite believing it—but what was more important he survived, and believed I now. And for the moment, this was priority for the Federation: how to survive on this deadly planet, and then to go to the opposite side, the fireside and bring back a description of it, for it had never been seen by human eyes, not even Tangor’s or anyone from the United States, Russia would be the first. This was part two of the mission.

As the space craft, circled the planet, and Igor attended to his anxiety, that is, his close call to death, the ship orbited closer to the planet’s surface.
After collecting his thoughts, he sensed something was wrong, only to discover he was right, the roof, the space craft’s front head, was leaking, yellowish moist mud had started to eat it way through the ships metal structure: a substance that was plentiful where he had just been, and it was growing stem like tentacles.
As he looked out his port window, he could see the fireside of the planet, it was all it was made up to be, the sun seemed to be baking the planet alive, no moon to provide shade, and the water on the planet, as he could see from his monitors, was boiling, in streams and lakes and so forth, no waterways untouched by the sun’s rays. He wanted to land the space craft, and scrape the living mud off his ship, evidently, the faster the ship went, the tighter the mud molded into and through the ship’s outer metal. But if he landed, it would have to be in a boiling lake of fire. Perhaps that would kill the substance on the outer surface of the ship he thought, because he couldn’t see a living green thing below. He couldn’t turn the ship towards earth; he’d never make it, especially with holes in his ship.
He had to think fast, before the yellow mud ate its way all the way through into the ship’s inner guts, crippling it.
Other thoughts came to his mind were: on one side of the planet, there was much oxygen, he felt on this side there was very little, and if a hole was in the ship, he’d lose what he had, and would be forced to land. His best scenario for survival was to land the craft, and let the heat to the work for him, and hope he can reach orbit again, if not, he had other plans, not good ones, but plans nonetheless. Thus, his conclusion was to land in the lake of fire.


Note: of the many sketches and short novelettes, and stories this author has done pertaining to the Cadaverous Planets, this story here was not meant to be part of the sequence, that was written over the past five years, although it is in relation to the characters of that series, and of the solar system the author has used, being that near his infamous planet Moiromma. 8-6-2008. (This is the second story of the Yellow Planet); modified 8-25-2008.




The Stone Tunnel


This morning when I woke up, dawn was spreading itself out like a carpet over my backyard, here on Albemarle Street in St. Paul, Minnesota.
I had wakened up from my sleep, I looked outside through a corner of my curtain, and day had broken. I went to see Mr. Hampton next door. I had a dream this morning, eyes somewhat open at the last or third try—I say try, because I had the same dream three times it seems. Woke up three times, went back to sleep three times to finish it. Psychic Vampires in my dream I think, the Crown Prince of Hell tried to send his natives to find me, haunt me I assume. Everything is, ‘I think,’ for some odd reason, peculiar today, this morning, as if some thing is going to happen, I sense something, a sixth-sense if you will, save for the fact, I didn’t know I had one, sixth-sense—that is, until recently. What is a ‘Psychotic Vampire,’ you ask? Simply one who drains another of his or her vital energy; no more, no less—I feel drained.
There were braggarts in my dream also, maybe the Psychic Vampires; ones that are—those folks I say—that are with large egos, or in need to satisfy his/her larger ego; ones with impoverished egos, and in need to feed them. I know who they were I think.
—I have now stood here for the longest moment one can call a moment, he, Mr. Hampton, is eighty-six years old—
—I just opened his door, walking into the darkness; I’m standing in his living room [a long pause]. Now, now I’m in his bathroom, he’s on the floor, pants half down, he was trying to dress himself, must have had a stroke, heart attack, something of that nature; it happens all the time—: he is a bit warm, but dead. His face is waxed a tinge, possibly been dead an hour, maybe two, possibly three— His death produces room for another here on earth: that is what just went through my mind. Room, we need more room, but couldn’t God just make a bigger world; oh well, God has His reasons.
I’m trembling now, not sure why, but its cold in here, and it shouldn’t be, should it? My mind: ‘we’re like waves in the sea are we not, here then gone.’
I see dirt on the floor, kind of wet dirt, a path of it, leading down into the basement. Now, I’m taking it step by step, creeping down these stairs. I can hear voices in the background, voices of vengeance, producing echoes.
From the stairway, and a few steps beyond, I can see some great black slimy shapes rising from the entrance, a wall and stone like entrance leading into a stone tunnel. There is vomit all about the entrance, like a struggle had taken place, and the person was dragged the rest of the way.
The shapes appear delighted in their work; that is, having to have had to break down the stone walls to created an archway for their tunnel, now refilling it to its original form, with bricks and sand,; it’s that sixth sense I was talking about I have, my body absorbs their pulses, impulses, also their diabolical dark laughter, as they work and hold their stomachs, craving more diabolical dark laughter, the dreary doom inside their shadowy make up, their fragmented appearance knowing they have their pry, their soon to be stale bread, Mr. Hampton. They are dragging him like a synthetic doll, smiling from ear to ear, wholesome disorder; he is whimpering as they drag him into down the corridor of the tunnel.
“Oh come forth in the name of Abandon,” says a voice, a voice with a smirk, a humorous jeer to its face, with its haunting like shape, shadowy shape, adds, “come and feel the hot winds of Hell, from inside the tunnel?”
He’s looking at me, with his skull like shape, empty skull with large eyes, and fire in them.
My throat just went dry my lungs sting like a bite from a scorpion. “Hail Satan!” the voice of a huge shape just said [backed up by other shapes looking at one another]; another shape, an uglier dark shape at that, says: “We are all the same, I and we, my and ours—all the same.” Then they all laugh at once, and continued to do their labor.
They speak to me in narcissism, the only language they know, demons and devils, imps and ghouls; they are the leftovers of the anonymous, lost world.
For Mr. Hampton, the season of life here on earth, I see is over, he is perhaps thinking, ‘I wish I could be born twice,’ yes that is what he is thinking.
A voice comes now echoing back from afar within the tunnel—I can hear it, it sounds like a million miles away; a million voices, turbulent voices as one—its funny, out of the mass, how can I hear a single voice [Mr. Hampton’s I think] out of the mass, it sounds like he’s being rapped, torn apart by those beings. I can hear him sobbing, with moaning undulated pitch as his teeth chatter; there is demonic shapes stretch along side of him; now the shapes in the basement have just patched up the last part of the wall—resealing it. The last brick is now going in place, wait, I hear,
“We go in hate, and we wait for you, in anticipation, life tilts backward and forward, until we meet again!”

Now a voice comes from one of those creatures, through the tunnel, through the wall: he calls me ‘a poor dumb animal,’ and said, ‘we have the noose for your head, and when you come to die we’ll be there; to take you my friend, the same way, to the same place.”
This makes me all the hungry for Jesus.
I do not need to ask for understanding, when you see or experience things, unrehearsed like fish jumping out of the water, you don’t forget.
The hissing stops, the last bricks are solid in place; they have gone.

I had passed out evidently, for when I woke up Mr. Hampton’s floor in the basement was full of my sweat—I must have lost twenty pounds: my cloths wet, the floor wet, the carpet I was on soaked, and there I was laying; it was now evening, I could see through the small windows of the basement, outside; yes, it was all dark, but I knew I had remained in the cellar but there was no indication a tunnel was behind that wall in front of me. It was all a dream, was it not? Or so I asked myself. I would ask you but I’d get no reply, so I am of course, just telling the story. I went back upstairs to see about Mr. Hampton’s body, it had not been moved, it was cold now, not warmth anymore, not like before. I called the police, but I was too afraid to tell anyone about the Stone Tunnel, that is, anyone but you.


Written in May of 2004 (St. Paul, Minnesota, USA); revised and edited 8/2008; originally called “Tunnel of Stone”


Blood-glut I
(Kill of the Great Gray Wolf)





(December, 1967) Who could kill such a beast as the huge great gray wolf of Wallace Fields, the same fields that were haunted by the ghosts, the dead who walked aimlessly, until Death won its victory back, and took them from their helm, but someone was left behind, someone with an ugly spirit, that was when the wolves came back, as if the demonic world got vengeance over Death for wiping clean the fields, the plantation fields outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina, it was the Winter of 1967 and it went into the Spring of 1968, the year young Langdon Abernathy would join the Army. But already this Gray Wolf, had acquired a deadly reputation, he had killed Cindy Codden, while on the Stanley Plantation, and ran free across the fields of the old Wallace plantation, and into the woods, over the back hills that extended the length of all three plantations, the Abernathy’s, Stanley’s and Wallace’s. It ran none stop, across 1200- acres. Folks said that the wolf, was a giant gray demon, not only a wolf over two-hundred pounds, four feet to its shoulders; deadly eyes, of yellow rustic marble, he stood still and stared like a machine, as it readied to attack its prey, like a soldier, at attention, then battle ready it would attack mercilessly; fangs as thick as a man’s thumb and as long as his index finger, and as sharp as razor’s blade, pure evil incarnate. He had killed the German Deceive Hans Gunderson, a well trained hunter, and it had killed—at will, bums and tramps, and railroad track men, down by the tracks over the hill, where old man Pike, had his heart attach a while back, unproven—but who else could have tore to shreds human flesh in such a way.
Langdon Abernathy, still in his teens, and ready to go into the Army, taking his training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, not far from his Plantation, had a dream, he wasn’t sure if it was a gift, or a sentence, a gift to test his courage, or a death sentence. But he saw the beast, the huge gray wolf, he saw his domicile, it was in the woods, under a great tree, under the tree’s roots, the hole was as big as their stove, in it he slept, around him, human, rabbit, squirrel, every kind bone, one could find in a living and breathing, mammalian forest, everything of that nature was among his collection. He was a loner; no other beast dare keep him company. Langdon saw all this, wrote it in his diary, one he put under his mattress, for future reference (that is why this story can be told).

He Sat up, 2:00 AM, up on his bed, sat looking out his window, waited, an hour passed, he heard a noise that indicated he had company, he prayed, “Oh, Lord give me strength to rid the fields here if this killer beast comes,” Langdon was a man of faith, sometimes reckless faith, and I suppose his guardian angel had a enduring journey with him, and he then stopped praying, walked to the window, he heard footsteps, on the side by the house, then on the wooden porch, up its steps, back and forth on its porch, like it was for Cindy Codden, who fell to sleep on the Stanley porch one evening, and got torn to shreds by this lone beast. Now muddy and chilled, it was hungry; it needed flesh, protein, and blood. Langdon asked himself, if he was afraid, and he was, but wasn’t. Something a man never knows until the very moment of action; for he got up, walked silently towards the sounds that reverberated through the wood into the floor of the house, the wood, not Langdon, trembled. An animal knows when you fear him, and the wolf has its scent in it toes, he now could smell the flesh nearing him, he could actually hear Langdon’s heart beat, and Langdon could hear the beast’s difficulty in breathing, it was hungry, weakened from the cold and hunger, perhaps weakness took possession of him, though Langdon, but if it had, he would have to grab an opportunity, he noticed the beast through the window, it closed its eyes for a second, as if to refocus, perhaps perplexed in that his prey had turned into a hunter, he knew that now, and perhaps the beast was sincerely happy about this, unspeakably glad I might say, it had a thinking equal: one by my necessity and instinct, born with the killer in him, the other by, a notion he was a born soldier, for war, or at least so his brain told him, both having courage, and he too was born with thirst for blood.
Langdon picked up a lamp, heavy lamp, dropped it, the animal didn’t move, but he heard noise upstairs, in his father’s room, perhaps he was waking up. Thus, he had to kill the beast quick, or surprise would no longer be on his side, and the beast would fight out of necessity, not out of anger, and angry he was not at the moment, necessity was better, he was hungry needed flesh. Langdon started to think, a huge thought came to mind, “I don’t have a weapon, am I still somewhat in a sleeping mode!”
The father was upstairs, unable to think straight, he put on his slippers automatically to see what that noise was, half in a daze, asleep. His mother, Caroline, has pulled her husband by his pajamas, “Get back in bed,” she says, “Langdon’s taking care of it,” she didn’t identify, couldn’t identify why she said that, nor did she know the half of it, had she known, she never would have said what she said, but it perhaps saved his life, for had he gone down those steps, the beast would have charged through that big bay window he was staring through, saw the helpless man, and window or not, he would have charged through wood and glass and over furniture, to get an arm or more.
Langdon drew his arm quickly back, touched the heavy metal standup ashtray feeling its iron heavy glass in the middle of it, with his fingers, nine pounds of iron, with a dragon at the top end of it, extended out like a wolf’s face, long and slender, he put his fingers around it, tightened them, and was ready to do battle with the wolf, but he got surprised, the wolf sensed something, not fear not defeat, but something, perhaps some kind of unsolved danger that makes a man, or beast stop whatever his evil intentions might be, sometimes even God puts a giant in front of you so you do not do, what evil tells you to do, and the beast ran off, off into the woods, across the fields and into the wooded domain of his.
And although conscious effort was made to figure this out, Langdon dumfounded for an explanation, mumbled aloud: ‘I got to be more prepared next time, the creature will return, he has my scent, and knows the hunt better than all of us.’


It was a week later when Langdon had another dream, he was in the arctic circle deep near Barrow, Alaska, it was a hundred years ago, maybe more, Eskimos were all about, living in the wild and he was with a group of nomads, and they killed wolves, and seals for food, and polar bears, and he got thinking, and thinking, and woke up: ‘blood’ he said, ‘excessive blood’ he mumbled, ‘it is the blood that the wolf craves, like a man craves alcohol, or the fat man food, or the drug addict, dope, or the gambler, the compulsion to chase his loss, and the man-whore, women; therefore, it is the wolf who craves blood. And he remembered his dream, it was a bloody dream.

He looked out his window, there was the lone wolf again, as huge as ever, he looked a the clock, it was 2.15 AM, he knew, or was compelled to think so, business with him would not be over until one, he or the wolf were dead. And so he devised his plan:
He went out that morning, 8:00 AM, and with his 22-caliber rifle, shot him a rabbit, it was a cold, cold day, for North Carolina, it was abnormally cold, it was 15 F, with two inches of snow. For Langdon, it was perfect weather for his plan. He went into the kitchen, got out a slim butcher’s knife, cut the rabbit open, drained his blood, put it in the freezer to chill it, poured blood over the blade of the knife, took the handle off, broke that part of the stainless steel knife, and let the blood freeze on the knife, then, in another hour, he dipped the razor sharp blade into blood again, and froze it, it froze in a matter of minutes now, and he dip it again and again, and again, until he had a popsicle stick, similar to a popsicle with a thin knife in its center, and the smell of blood reeked from the popsicle. There were perhaps fifty layers of blood over that knife, and it took all morning to freeze it, into the afternoon, but the blade was hidden well within the bloodsicle.
That night, Langdon hid the bloodsicle out near a tree under an inch of snow by the house. The wolf came that night, Langdon never went to sleep, he waited for the wolf, and he came at 2:10 AM, but his sense of smell took his mind away from Langdon, and found the bloodsicle, and licking it, he found it profoundly appealing, the taste of blood was more powerful than the taste for the game of the hunt; Langdon noticed he enjoyed every second, every lick of the bloodsicle, he couldn’t get enough, and the weather was numbing to his tongue, he couldn’t really feel his tongue after a while, because it was exposed for such a long time in the process of licking. The frozen bloodsicle was slow in belting on his tongue, and then the knife became exposed, but he kept licking, unknowing the sharpness that penetrated his numb tongue, and he started bleeding from his own tongue, and tasting his own warm blood upon the cold blood—all being blended into one, and it all was so enticing the brain did not decipher what was happening, he was getting an endorphin rush, better than morphine; consequently, it cut and cut and cut into his tongue, until blood flowed freely, yet the wolf did not move, thrilled he had found such a magical unending pleasure, natural sense of well being; now the knife was fully exposed, but it was too late, the beast collapsed on top of the knife. And there he would lay for all to see in the morning, and no one lost anymore sleep in the fields of the three plantations, and Langdon, went into the Army, to find his war, and that is another story.


Note: Part Four, to the book (presently in Manuscript form) “Cradled by the Devil,” written in June, 2008.



Murder at: Puno and Real
(A Story out of the Peruvian Andes)


The Roads, Puno and Real, passes by the Plaza de Arms in the city of Huancayo, Peru, the streets go back to the days of the Inca’s, now modern with smooth hard concrete, and dusty on this early Saturday morning. Surrounding this city are the Andes, high mountains, green and brown.
At the corners of Puno and Real are two wooden huts, each having a woman proprietor inside them, selling several different newspapers; this Saturday morning, the sun was dropping down over the mountains onto the city, the altitude 10,500 feet above sea level.
Outside the city, in the valley of Mantaro, are several villages, with adobe houses, and hard dirt streets: children and parents, doing their shopping, and so forth. Women on their roofs washing their babies and hanging cloths, dogs on the roofs barking, men on the streets, and in the side empty lots playing ball; some men just sitting on chairs by shops against the building walls, smoking and drinking beer.
Back in Huancayo, at Puno and Real, a garbage truck just stopped, two men run to the local shops, collect trash, some of the trash is sitting out on the sidewalk, near the street. There is a crowd of people in the plaza, gathering up for a wedding in the cathedral. And an old man has come up to the street corner carrying a suitcase, He’s looking about for a place to sit down or so it seems, he looks uncomfortable, and tired.
A kid asks him if he wants a shoeshine.
He handed him his suited case said, “Look after this.”
“What did you say?” asked the shoeshine boy.
“If you would guard my suite case while I find a place to wash up and so forth!” said the old man, somewhere in his mid seventies.
“Isn’t that a bit dangerous, I’m a stranger to you, I could run away with it, most kids around here would,” said Johnny, about fifteen years old.

The sun was taking the chill out o the air; it was bright and fresh, with a little breeze.
The old man was looking up the road, when the boy made his statement-question. He looked at the boy out of the side of his right eye. Keeping a view up the street, then he pulled his collar up, and hat down, covering his face somewhat.
“Maybe I’ll get them yet,” the old man mumbled. “They’ll kill us both if they see you with me.”
“Well I don’t know what you’re talking about old man, do you want a shoeshine or not?” said the boy.

The chill in the air was now gone, the old man’s eyes was boiling, looking at the boy annoyingly and suspiciously up the street. He started to grind his teeth. There was a new quiet between the boy and the old man, a kind of bubbling curiosity for the boy,
“Lad,” said the old man, “sorry but it is called self-preservation.”
For a block or two, the road was flat, and then it went down hill, that is when he saw the three men, one after the other, their heads appearing over the hill onto the flat road.
“They’re not going to stop,” he said to the boy.
“Stop it,” said the boy.
The old man grabbed his suite case back out of the hands of the boy, untied a rope he had tied around it.
“You better go before you get into trouble,” said the old man to the boy, and handed him a dollar bill, but the boy remained standing where he stood.
“What do you want?” asked the old man.
“Nothing,” said the shoeshine boy with a face that said, perhaps the old man is having a walking nightmare.
“Why not?” said the old man, trying to see how close those three men were getting to him, talking to the boy, but not looking at him.
“Not sure why, old man, do I need a better reason?”
“Then thanks for your company, but get on out of here there’s going to be trouble.”
“Well,” said the boy, and stepped back a foot or two.
The old man smiled a beautiful Peruvian smile, holding on to his half opened suite case, looking at the boy, and then the three men coming towards him.
“Wait,” said the boy, “I’ll talk to those men; tell them not to hurt you.”
“Don’t bother, they came to kill me,” said the old man.
The boy thought, he must had really got mixed up in something bad, awful. He reached inside his suitcase, pulled out a white towel; the three men walking across the street now, twenty feet from the old man. No one said a word, nothing. The boy wondering what the old man did,
The old man looked at the boy, said, “I was trying to get out of town, and I double-crossed those men, it now is them or me, now you know what it is all about.”
They were now all at the same street corner, Puno and Real, and looking at one another.
The boy said to the three men, “He’s just an old man!”
“You better step back boy, before you get hurt,” said the taller man of the three.
The old man dropped the suite case on the ground,
The short fat man, one of the three, said, “He’s gentle as a lamb,” and they all started laughing. At that moment, the old man pulled out a silver plated 38 revolver, from under the white towel it was wrapped around, said as he started shooting ‘Well, good-night boys’ and within seconds all three men were dead on the ground.
The police were up the street, at the other end, two women directing traffic, one across the street guarding the bank, standing outside of it, leaning on its stone structure, another police man at the far end of the plaza, they all pretended not to have listened to the shots, and continued to do whatever they were doing with out interruption.
The old man then walked into the Plaza area, sat down on a bench, and told the boy, “Ok, now give me a shoeshine.”

Written while in, Huancayo, Peru: 9-12-2008


Self-diagnose
((A Skeptic Autobiography Sketch) (Flash Fiction))



He was endeavoring self-diagnoses, trying to figure out what he was, or had become, for the first time in his life, he had taken the time, as if he was forced to take this opportunity, this moment in time to look at himself, perhaps he was one big leg, I mean that is what he saw moving to and fro, or a limb—as to an arm on a body, that also seemed to flash here and there, before his eyes. All conjecture of course, but nonetheless, motives for his self-diagnoses, reasons or grounds to be cultivated, looked at.
His life was busy, had been busy, so much so, he never had the time, or took the time to see where he was going, he just went—perhaps this was part of his make up, he didn’t really know, nor did he ever take the time to categorize, where he was at, because wherever he ended up was simple where he should be—so he thought, no second thoughts on the matter ever, except for now, and now he was having all these second thoughts, tribulations (troubles if not problems on trying to analyze who he was and perchance end up with a prognosis). Making a diagnosis (an opinion, conclusion to which he was might settle a big issue, why he was so fatigued, and why he all of a sudden got this reasonability, something he never had before). He wasn’t sure why, I mean at this time and stage of his life, but if he could figure a few things out, perchance, he could have that so called forecast, prediction, projection of just how he stood on this planet called earth; if not his mission.
As he was thinking these thoughts, he actually felt somewhat idiotic to even think what he was thinking; he told himself: maybe I’m in a dream, but couldn’t really identify a dream, what it was, exactly what it entailed, he had heard the word, and it was abstract to him, yet he felt—figuratively speaking, nonrepresentational at this very moment.
He presupposed, he could be eaten up by a ghost maybe, not really knowing what a ghost was, only that it did and didn’t exist, and therefore, becoming like all those voices he heard around him, just voices not sure where they were coming from, his guess would have been from those arms and legs that were walking and swinging, for now he was forced to hear and take note of these voices around him—before the voices were just one big slur in the atmosphere.
He could no longer move, it was as if his body was paralyzed. He knew he no longer needed sleep, and was instantly brought to this new mindset, that appeared to come out of nowhere. He wasn’t even sure if it was a good thing, or if anything, he was becoming aware of everything. He did acknowledge it was becoming peaceful. But like so many other things in his past life, they just were, he never reasoned them out, or couldn’t until now, and even now it all was distorted, it wasn’t a matter of reasoning out—for the most part, but rather, something more so, something inside of him was saying: you are part of something, a expansion, undoubtedly due in the future, and to be managed with by a higher race: this higher race, having an all more important role; at any rate, he returned to his insisting on who he was, through his self-diagnoses.
This new awareness, confined his mind to thinking about all his insignificant past, but he could not make out any events, nothing, a kind of accumulated disorderedly nothing, a blank memory, an undisturbed mental picture, one he lived with evidently for a short or long while, who knows, time was not a past detail, he simple engaged in it, unaware of it.
He was surprised he wasn’t really hungry at this very moment—with all this thinking, for it took a lot of effort, but then he wasn’t sure when breakfast was, he never gave the matter much thought, he simply realized before hunger, there was a sensation to eat, musing at what he could find eatable, henceforward, coming to a conclusion—because for pain, or other factors, perhaps caused by hunger in an awkward position that he was indeed, in need of food, almost purely imaginary (in awareness), but that is how he lived, gradually he’d eat and most likely be dispelled by other factors that crept into his life that said: stop what you are doing or you will start the process of dying. There was no explanations, just a directed gaze from other things, condemned him, in his naturally naked state.
He told himself, “I’ll get to my purpose yet” and he said this in a way that seemed he was chewing on his own tongue. He didn’t know how to scream, if he had, he would have done so: yes, of course he would have, anyone would have in his position.

He didn’t like being put on the spot, not quite able to touch on what he was feeling, thinking, not somewhat able to identify what he was, where he was, where he was going, why he was where he was at this very moment and time. In simple terms, he was saying, or trying to express anyway, his new found deeper voice, in saying: “what’s going on?”
Then he heard a loud whistle, and a voice say “All aboard, who’s going to Seattle!”
Then he heard footsteps around him, and some woman say, “Be careful honey, don’t step on that big squashed bug on the next step, it’ll mess up your shoes.”


Note: Written in the afternoon of 9-17-2008, at “Mie Mamma’s” Café, outside, on a sunny day; revised, 5:00 a.m., 9-18-2008, after waking up from bed and thus, then able to finish the Flash Fiction. By Dennis L. Siluk©2008



Condemned in the Valley
((A Skeptic portrait of a Peruvian Soldier, 1879) (Flash Fiction))


The execution of Jose Sebastian, a Peruvian Soldier of the Pacific War, 1879, in the Mantaro Valley of Peru, was to commence immediately for disobeying an order from his commanding officer. Sergeant Sebastian stood accused by this bright-eyed, young officer; Jose being in his 40s, the young officer in his early twenties, with small thin wrists, and ankles, slumped shoulders, and slightly balled. Jose, wide-eyed, broad shoulders, thick fingers, and a dark shadow, even after he shaved upon his face. He was a whisky drinking, fighting soldier, but he had a kind heart, and cool head.
There Jose stood, high upon on the wooden gallows, his body swollen, neck red, bruised, pale like face, almost ghostly, from the abuse the Commanding Officer thrust upon him prior to his execution, as if he was no higher in evolution than a hog; but Jose stood there as if, after the hanging he had another purpose, and with all his hate and anger inside of him, he just as soon be hung quickly, to get on with unfinished business—thus, he stood there silently staring into the air, a glance and smirk at his Commanding Officer now and then.
The Executioner stood behind the condemned soldier, as he readied the final preparations for the termination of his life.
A ladder had been placed alongside the gallows, and along with the Commanding Officer, stood several other soldiers, and civilians, in the back fields of Huancayo, that someday would be named, El Tambo.
The Executioner cited his grievance, and a little drunk, stumbled toward the lever which would open the trap door under the feet of the sergeant, and, as a result, be hung, until death subdued him.

There was a woman amongst the crowd, a witch of sorts, or so many of the soldiers and town-let folks, said, proclaimed she was, one whom was befriended by the Peruvian Soldier, one who had pulled her out of the ensuing battle, that was took place earlier that day, a kind of uprising in the small town of Concepcion, in its plaza area, by Chilean soldiers, near the cathedral, deep in this Andean Valley. Yes, of course, she was saved and did not forget this good deed the soldier did for her.
She ran to the ladder, started to climb up it as if to save the Sergeant, screaming and yelping, “let him be, free him, he is a devoted soldier…” and the Commanding Officer, pulled her back down by her skirts, tumbling her to the ground, and then picking her back up like a rag doll, and pushing her back toward the gathered crowed.
“Curse, I curse you,” said the old witch, as she faded into the mass, “may the dead spirits take revenge upon you, may this soldier’s spirit join them in eating and haunting your soul, may you die with no rest, lest you set this soldier free, whom disobeyed an order, and saved my life in doing so!”

The Commanding Officer, cast a glance to the Executioner, made a vague sign to him, and thereafter, he, the Executioner released the lever that would open the trap door, leading to the Sergeant’s death. But the door seemed to be jammed for no reason. It was at this moment, this very second, the Commanding Officer saw three ghosts behind he condemned man, ludicrous he thought, but nonetheless, he saw what he saw, they were negotiating who would get to join in on the retribution of the reckoning of the soul, the dominating of his spirit within the Commanding Officers fleshly frame.
It all unfolded so quickly, it was almost over before it started, or so it appeared; then he noticed by the lever, a forth ghoul, holding the lever so it would not release the trap door, holding it tightly until the negotiations were over, he was not about to allow the Executioner to go about his business unhinged.
At that very moment, the Officer jumped onto the ladder, “Stop! Stop!” he exclaimed, “don’t pull that lever…!”
But it was all too late, the Executioner had pushed his weight on it, and it went automatically: so easy he thought, in comparison to a moment ago.
It was not a pretty scene thereafter, but I will try to describe it: all four ghosts, along with the spirit of the soldier, entered the Officer, as he inhaled, it was like black smoke entering an unoccupied frame: these apparitions, entered as he inhaled the cool musty air, whispering to his mind, “Condemned, condemned, condemned!” And the Officer held his stomach, his head, his throat, yelping: “Get them out of me!”


Written in the afternoon, at the café “Mie Mamma,” in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru, 9-7-2008




Last Chance
((A Minnesota Short Story) (flash fiction))


Davis Morton, had made friends with Tony Robbins, Tony’s father was a retired actor, whom now was taking any kind of job he could, the golden days of the cinema were over for him but in his heyday, he was well known. Robbins, had found a job in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Davis was from St. Paul, Minnesota, just a few miles difference, perhaps four, a bridge that crossed the Mississippi, separated the two men, both now friends, had met in a bar, and chummed about for several months now.
It was in the third week of September, they were at the Mall of America, when Davis, sitting on a bench, somewhat kidding said,
“Could you get an autograph for my collection from your father?”
Robbins, looked at his friend a tinge strange, but with a half smile, the other half of his lower face, the other side that is showed a somewhat annoying grin, he cried in a squeaky voice,
“No we don’t, we don’t see eye to eye on things anymore!”
Said Davis, with compassion, a sympathetic voice, and to the point, “You must make up with him, who knows what can happen in life, I never had a father, but if I did, I’d not want leave this earth wondering why I never tried.”
During the process of young Davis’ giving his friend advice, Johnny Langdon, a friend from his old neighborhood came by, one he had not seen in years, was sent to prison—as far as Davis knew—some years back, said as he walked by,
“Troubles on the way,” and kept walking.
Then, Thomas Redding, stopped by, someone Davis didn’t know, but evidently Langdon did (perhaps friends in some kind of scheme to take place at the mall, it would appear to be so, in that there are a lot of thieves that pace the mall), they both overhearing Robbins anyhow, and Redding seemingly, had taken sides with Davis, he stopped, sat down by Robbins’ side on the same bench as they, pulled out a thin sharp knife, about four-inches long, put it next to Robbins’ neck, ready to cut, to slice open or out, a part of his flesh, his eyes widening, almost in a frozen stance, and almost simultaneously with Davis’ actions (but with Langdon asking,
“What are you doing with your right hand under your sweater?”
And Davis saying, “Nothing my stomach hurts!”
But no less than a second or two after the knife went to Robbins’ neck, Davis hand his 38-revolver pointed at Langdon’s forehead, said:
“Drop the knife, now!”
Surprisingly, he did what was asked, with a laugh, saying,
“I almost proved your point, Davis!”
And then Langdon stood up, Davis at the same time giving back the knife to him.
A police officer had saw a portion of this happening, and thereafter came hurriedly to the incident, asking quickly, why he had drawn his revolver, and to show him his permit,
Said Robbins (as Davis was pulling out his permit), “A stranger had pulled a knife on me, and if it wasn’t for my friend here, Davis, I’d perhaps be dead, you are questioning the wrong man, and to be frank, where were you when the knife’s tip was next to my vein?”
In other words, after the fact, and without the culprit, he was acting pretty brave to the victims.
The police officer could no longer see the head of the assailant, but quickly rushed off down the corridor to find him. Robbins, just looked at Davis, as if to say: was this a coincidence, or sham, perchance he was in shock, trying to piece the moment back together, but Davis never said a word on the matter.

Written 9-21-2008, in the morning (from a dream)





A Stranger in Huancayo
(or, the Crash)

((A Supernatural Skeptic of an ill ridden Alien) (Flash Fiction))


The Crash

Part One
The Stranger

In some worlds, on some orbs, within this vast universe animals are endowed with human like reasoning, exposed to society’s nervousness, and its individual time-consuming, everyday, tiresome, behavior, that is to say, never-ending negative actions, or rounds of idiomatic psychological dependencies, obsessions, never nor ever really being satisfied, coupled with inferiority complexes, paranoia, like humans, these mysterious beings have what we might call, breaking points, or better known on earth as, breakdowns, just like you and I can have, there is therapy of course for us humans, but the question had come up on planet Toso, “Is there therapy on earth for our kind, dealing with mental illness, for there is none on Toso?”
On planet Toso, in the past, the mentally ill beings are exterminated, they are considered useless, a drain on the economy, a danger to society, and beyond resurrection to a full and wholesome life, thus, never quite being able to give a contribution to society.
And so, having said this, the question comes to surface, as was asked by Dr. Lee, “Why did Iratel (now renamed Alfred), come to earth, and to the city of Huancayo?”
I’m sure if you asked him, Alfred, he’d not care to answer, not that he didn’t know or even have the answer in his brain, just that he didn’t care, and therefore, I shall answer for him, and for anyone who might know Doctor Lee.

Doctor Lee, was approached by what I called the Horde of Toso, Toso being the planet the beings were from, which is deep in the Dark Galaxy. There they do not have psychologists, but wanted to experiment with Iratel, to see if he was curable. To my understanding, it was because of some protests (or so I gathered) on their planet that they were not doing much, if anything, for the mentally ill. And thus, was forced to bring back solid data to the planet’s medical community, which all was hopeless, and old traditions carried on.
The suggestion was made, that the alien, looked more like a bulldog demon, than a being as we know them to be inhuman form. I will described him in a moment, but first let me say: he was an embittered, alienated, withdrawn, patient for Dr. Lee, had a freaky kind of glance, one likened to wanting to eat you, rather than talk to you, or be listened to, or even addressed in any manner.
He spoke several dozen languages, English and Spanish among them. On his planet he had no friends to speak of. He hung around with what he called the faded horde on the planet, the dead spirits, unwilling to let go of their past. He faced daily humiliation for his illness, harboring a mountain of shame.
“But why Huancayo?” you may be asking.
Well, his kind had read my fifty or so articles on Huancayo, how nice of a place the Mantaro Valley was, how tranquil it was for retirement folk, and this is why they choice this region on earth, a place for tranquility where the sun came out most every day, and food was healthy and the air fresh, and Dr. Lee, being a psychologist, they figured—one is just as good as the next so why not Dr. Lee, who is also a writer part time.
So you see it was not a most difficult process in the alien’s picking out Dr. Lee for the task. He therefore, got the job; five-hundred Toso dollars a month, which I’m still not sure what he could have purchased with the money.
In point of fact, for this reason, he took upon himself, this task, to try and sort out Iratel’s paranoia, to reset his thinking, to help him over the gap, as Dr. Lee, call it, between false thinking and logical thinking, depression and anxiety, along with manic behaviors; to help create a state of going stability.

During these months of trial and error, of trying to reach Alfred, whom was as if in a state of disassociation much of the time, but was also trying to mimic the behavior of those around him to no avail (social comparison) little, if no progress was made, and he’d send these notes of Dr. Lee’s, on him, progress notes that is, transmitting them forward to his home planet; the machine he used, Dr. Lee, had never seen before, where by a simple box, and an electrical current running from one post to the other, gave out a kind of electrical beam, a beam of light, ray type almost, as he read the transcript (notes), they were immediately received on Toso; amazing to say the least.
During these years Dr. Lee had shared his house with his patient, Alfred, learning he had no real love, for mankind or for even his kind but was not—for the most part—aggressive; sex he was indifferent to, death to him in away was an escape from reality, he thought about it, just figured he’d let someone else do the dirty work, when they were good and ready, and with his other obsessions /(of which he had several, one being, being around too many people, another being obsessed with having everything balanced perfectly, and so forth and on), he expressed little, for on Toso, there was no psychologist, and no one in particular, trained in listening, and now Dr. Lee was seeing why.
Dr. Lee had expressed his sympathy with Alfred, concerned for the lack of progress, even with medications, hypnoses, and ongoing talk therapy, psychoanalytic therapy, Operant Conditioning (response and reward), but gave him no explanation for his flatness of emotion: that being, no emotion expressed on nearly any subject, and no pattern of responses for rewards. Furthermore, his expressionless eyes, and barely breathable air, he had expressed to the doctor, in no subtle terms, death would be welcomed.
With the lack of success, and Alfred remaining in a somewhat withdrawn state, Lee felt he should perhaps, send him back to his world, but fearing it would not favor him in that he would be disposed of. It was a death sentence, belatedly so.


The Crash
(Part Two)


As Alfred continued to hide his tail, in his pants, wear a mask to hide his dog like face, and kept his paws inside his jacket pockets, all that was in appearance that was human was his posture, his erect, upright walk.
He lived a disorderly life, went to insignificant events, so as not to be too noticed, he wished to live undisturbed, a sad mental picture indeed.

Then a momentous event came about, Hyde, a female massage therapist, from Huancayo, whom usually the doctor used to relieve his tension, had her work on Alfred. The doctor had learned in life, and on earth, no matter how ugly, bad or selfish a human male is, he can find a wife, it usually is just a matter of time, and familiarity on the females behalf, if indeed the male is patient, and Alfred was (although not human), and Hyde saw him week after week, day after day, and then throughout the day. She was now—if anything—used to him, conceivably not even seeing his dog like appearance.
He said little, complained not at all, and had little interest, if any with her companionship, but it was welcomed, if not often overlooked, an odd couple to say the least, but they engaged with one another and even married.
They of course did not have a big wedding, matter of fact, they did not invite any family members, or any of her friends at all, and it was just those two, the preacher, and the doctor present. Hyde knew this is how Alfred would prefer it, although her family was discontented with the ruling.

Hundreds of times, if not nearer the thousands, the authorities on Toso tried to contact him, but Alfred—after the wedding—never sent another progress report to them, although the doctor gave them to him to do so. Perchance it was because of the lack of progress he made indicated in the reports, or he did not wish to inform them for personal reasons, or he was just in a long, ongoing depression, and they triggered even a deeper one. Whatever the case, it alarmed the Toso government, in that, what they had feared was actually taken place, the intermixing of races.

On the 23rd day of September, of tenth-year of Alfred’s therapy, and his first complete year of marriage, a spacecraft, from Toso was lying in the wait for Alfred, after contacting the doctor, and there was really no escape for the doctor to lie, it was easily enough to have read his memory of notes inside his mind, by some form of telepathy a member of the spacecraft had had (a gift some of the Toso beings had and mastered), yet the doctor explained the truth of the matter to them willingly, saying,
“Hyde cannot have children.”
None the less, this was what they considered to be hopeless therapy for their race as a whole, which they had expressed before allowing this experiment to precede, thus proving what they had already know, and expected. Yet it had to be documented, and given to the protesting authorities on Toso, that their genetically ill patients, or off balance Toso beings, whom were considered to have abnormal behavior to them, needed to be destroyed lest it infect future generations.
For the most part it was an experiment, one parenthetically called for to show their society it was helpless to help these individuals. That it was not a lack of compassion, or sympathy for them, but rather, one of consideration, in allowing such people to be put to the: ‘crash.’ A form of disposing their kind with mental illnesses, a way of death for them, and so they brought Alfred onto their vessel, and upon liftoff, Hyde, seeing this, grabbed onto a rail attached against the side of the vessel, by the door, hanging on tight, Alfred looking out the window at her, as the vessel started to ascend, higher and higher, perhaps at this moment, forty-feet high, she pleaded for him to open the door, no one even by him (so therefore he could have if he waned to) and she cried for him to take her with him, but he just looked blankly into eyes through the porthole glass, as she had to let go of the bar by the door, and fell to her death, he had whispered as he went to sit in his seat, for the long journey back to their planet, where he would be pushed out of the vessel at 20,000-feet to this death, over the Dead Ocean, to feed the deep inhabitants, he said, to the waitress who was behind him, several feet, who could have saved her also, whom was his guard, “Thank you for reading my mind, I wanted her to fall.”
He had not a tear in his eyes, although she did.


Note: Written at the Café “La Mia Mamma,” September, 12, 2008, originally, “A Stranger in Huancayo.” Dedicated to Ximena Herrera, whom happened to walk on by as I was writing this story, and finished lunch, written on a napkin

۩





Dennis and Rosa at the old Ruins in Tunamarcia (700 to 1200 AD),
in the Andes of Peru; picture taken in 2007, near the Mantaro Valley.


Introduction and end of book synopsis: In “The Short Story Book of Mayhem,” Dr. Siluk’s forth book of short suspense stories, the three time Poet Laureate, brings out much of his travels, and studies in psychology, eschatology, and military career (a decorated war veteran) to convey to his readers some very ominous stories. Seven Stories out of Peru; Six Stories out of Minnesota; and other stories out of: Africa, Germany, San Francisco, Vietnam, Central America, South America, Paris, Haiti, India, Alaska, and more (all places the author has visited if not lived); twenty-eight haunting stories from the dark genre. Some taken from dreams and experiences, others taken from actual events (historical fiction), inspired and transformed into themes and plots, the reader my never forget. The book is also illustrated by the author, with twelve of his drawings.