Intersection
Crossroads. Intersections. At these places paths were chosen, deals were made and people passed each other for a fleeting moment.
The girl almost an adult now at the age of 17, in the black leathers approached such a crossroad that rainy night. The night was black as pitch, the clouds above obscuring the moon and stars. The girl looked a down trodden Joan Jett. Her raven colored hair was plastered together by the rain.
A shiver passed through her and she pulled her soggy biker jacket which had been a gift from her uncle around herself. That shiver didn't come from any amount of rain or the unknown that lay ahead of her. It instead came from the memory of what lay behind her.
She stood there shaking like a leaf with rain dribbling off of her. She looked absolutely pitiful. She didn't know where she was going.
What little money she had had already been exhausted three days back. Her feet ached and her body cried out in agony for nourishment it hadn't had for 48 hours.
Yes, the poor thing stood at that crossroads felling hopeless and abandoned by all, exposed to the predators both four-legged and two-legged that lurked in the shadows. She stood there looking ahead & from side to side uncertain where to go.
Was that a motor? Was that headlights. Yes. The semi came to halt on the the path to her left and she shield her puffy eyes from the headlights that illuminated her. The driver door opened and a stout man in jeans, a dark gray shirt and a baseball cap jumped down. He was in his late forties with salt and pepper already present in the well groomed beared.
She should run but she knew she'd not get very far she was about to collapse from exhaustion. "Can I offer you a lift little missy?"
She was hesitant. This was stupid. She asked, How do I know I know you're not a rapist or a serial killer?"
"You don't."
The bluntness of his answer made
her put her gaurd down just enough to climb into the passenger side of the 18 Wheeler. "Where you headed, Missy or don't you know?"
"My names Chloe and no I don't know I don't have a %÷+*ing clue."
"Tell you what. I'm making night deliveries to a distribution center for Package Express; that's my job.
I'm going to Jacobson. That's two hours away. It'll be Six AM when we arrive. I know a shelter there. I'll drop you off there."
"Whatever."
Chloe was too tired to sleep. So she just looked out the window but that was mostly just a formality. "My name's Trevor." The trucker stated.
She said nothing. All was silent except for the sound of the behemoth moving down the road and the rain hitting the vehicle. "How about some tunes?"
Again silence. Trevor didn't say anything after that for a while. Chloe noticed he occasionally frowned when looking at a picture of a woman and young girl around five maybe tapped to the dashboard of the truck.
She deduced the people had some significant meaning to her benefactor but it wasn't her business and she didn't ask. His wife and daughter, that's who they were or at least used to be. The ex lived California now, the wierdo capital of the USA. She took good care of little Chrissy and made shore to poison her mind against her father.
Trevor had been staring ahead for a century when he opened his mouth again. "I don't what you're running from, Chloe but it must pretty bad for you be soaking with rain water and accepting a ride from a stranger."
"You don't seem like a killer."
"Chloe, what does a killer seem like? Ted Bundy worked for a suicide prevention hot line! People aren't always what they seem."
"I know!"she snapped I know that dame well! I thought my mom would always have my back no matter what but she turned out to be a bitch who grounded her daughter for lying about her new husband just because the daughter didn't want a stepfather!"
Wow! He hadn't expected that. At least the poor bedraggled girl was opening up.
"What's this big lie you supposedly told?"
"That her Sir Galahad married her just to bang me. He told me on so one night when the two of us were alone and he---"
She didn't finish nor did she need to. Trevor vowed if he ever met Chloe's stepfather he'd slowly castrated with his grandpappy's rusted bayonet.
"Why not go the cops?"
"Yeah great idea. My mom totally wouldn't tell them I was lying or anything."
Trevor let the matter rest. Chloe eventually fell asleep. That was good. She woke up 25 minutes later when he stopped at a 24 hour greasepit. He returned with a brown paperbag containing two breakfast sandwiches. He was honestly surprised to find his passenger still in the truck. He was glad she hadn't vanished into the drizzle. He said grace and using a pocket knife he cut his sandwich in half and gave a portion to Chloe with her own whole sandwich.
"You need that more than I do."
She didn't protest.
Finally around six. Trevor dropped off the packages and drove Chloe to the shelter. He gave her some money. Enough for a hotel room and a change of clothes.
"You'll be in my prayers Chloe."and he drove off into the lush orange sunrise.
Crossroads. Intersections. At these places, deals are made, paths are chosen, and people pass each other for a fleeting moment, people like a lonely trucker and destitute runaway.
Head Long Plunge
It's no secret that the world seems to crumbled more each day like a wooden bridge in an adventure movie! I plunge as swiftly as Michael Phelps into a pool of words. My words or other people's words it matters not. Reading and writing help me escape. My job keeps my mind busy but working everyday with children and teens screwed over by society and parents alike makes me want escape more.
So whether it's the sound and philosophical fury of Metalica or absolutely mind numbing creature features or the written word, I get by as best I can... waiting for that better tomorrow I've heard so much about.
Spring Anew
The temps have risen pleasantly.
The birds have sung gaily.
The grass has greeted up again.
Spring is back.
God's blessing of rebirth after winter.
The cycle has sprung anew.
The Robin's fly.
Newborns come forth.
Recreation and procreation.
The birds and bees.
Proposals and marriages.
Friend's move away.
All things new.
Welcome back, spring.
Grandpa
The truth is often said in jest. That little slice of wisdom come from HG Welles at the end of War of The Worlds!
I recall the night I was telling my visiting grandparents a story from my Boy Scout trip. It was a campfire tell and how much of it is fact I don't know. Anyways, each time I tried to tell it my grandpa would interupt wanting more details: what was his skin color, did he have a gold tooth, things like that.
He was of course doing this to mess with me. But now that I weave a tale now and then I understand how those little details my grandpa demanded to know make the difference.
Love Sucks
I managed to beat the wrap via “reason of insanity.” I suppose it did seem insane to those folks in the court. I escaped after the trial, for I couldn't be confined to a loony bin because I have work to do. It started when I met an absolute bombshell of a woman! She was my lover but no more.
Sarah Fillion and I met beneath the canopy of a bus stop while trying to avoid the pelting deluge from above. She had sensual, curvaceous hips, a very full bosom, hair like blackened smoke. Her eyes were dark and seemed to radiate shyness. Between the shy eyes and thin sexy lips was a regal nose that could have been at home a sculpture of a Caesar. She seemed almost too good to be true and that was perhaps the first sign that she was!
While it rained the proverbial cats and dogs we struck up a conversation; it was better than standing in awkward silence. We discovered we had much in common and that chance meeting was the first of many. What impressed me most was her trove of historical trivia. I'm a history buff and she talked vividly about some events and battles and political intrigues as though she'd been there. She was almost…. hypnotic.
Ours was not a whirlwind romance, it was closer to a full blown hurricane. Before either of us knew it we were hitched and let me tell you the wedding night was absolutely blissful.
Now that we were together we had to make some adjustments. I worked days at the local middle school. She worked the night shift at a 24 hour retail store. Still we found time for each other and for love making. As I said before it was too good to be true.
I ignored the first warning sign. One night I was really under the weather and couldn't get in a lick of sleep. I heard water running in the bathroom and hurried to investigate. My wife was standing over the sink and I saw a significant amount of blood. She told me it was a nosebleed. I had no reason not to trust her so I went back to bed and once I felt her icy feet beside me I fell asleep.
The blood. I should have been concerned especially with the numerous reports I'd seen in the local news about people who'd been attacked and killed in the night, having their necks ripped open. At last one day I stumbled onto the terrible truth about my near perfect lover & that was by accident. She normally slept during the day. It quietly walked into the bedroom and decided to peek outside. The sun beamed in and I heard a sizzling sound followed by an ungodly scream.
My wife sat up in bed. I saw a burn on her leg. Her eyes changed colors and as she breathed heavy breaths I saw fangs. “Wait this means you're a…”
“Yes lover. I'm a vampire and there is one last formality for us to deal with. I must turn you so we can spend centuries together!”
I was in a panic. The woman I'd laid with and wedded was a blood drinking she-fiend. Desperate, I flung open the curtain and the sun hit her full center. So I watched either in shock or stoicism as she burned to a crisp screaming.
That's the part they would not believe. They thought in a fit of insanity I set her on fire. It's OK I escaped. Now I'm a fugitive but I can't stop until I've done my holy work. There's more of her kind out there and I must slay them.
Sugar Coated Spectre
There is a ghost that occasionally haunts my mind and it has done so today. It's barley one thread among my tapestry nay my crazy quilt of memories. It does not visit me often but it's done so today and still is even now. The phantom in question just refuses to be excorcised.
This memory though small and briefe can still be painful. So one minute I'm minding my business and the next I remember it, the birthday cake.
It was large and rectangular and dang delicious. My sister had painstakingly frosted the top of that celebratory pastry as was tradition in those sweet juvenile days when I'd have themed birthdays!
All of this has come to my mind all day long. I also remember my birthday that year was the only time I got to eat it.
The cake was massive and there were plenty of leftovers. Unfortunately this all occurred when my mom went on some half crazed health kick that even drove a wedge between her and my father( over pizza). I still carry those ghosts in my mind's graveyard they pop out to haunt me now and again as they are today, right now!
My mom tossed out those left over slices of cake. Never again did I feast on them. She asked me first and I told her what I knew she wanted to hear. No I wasn't actually fine with it. IT MY BIRTHDAY CAKE!
I don't normally condemn people to the Abyss but if I had too it would be all those television doctors my mom watched I blame them for setting this in motion.
That's how a birthday cake can leave a scar burned into the psyche. That's how a scar festers and the mind becomes a haunt for a ghost of the past. The memory will pass but for now I must bare it!
Death Throes
The sun is blotted out.
The flames rise.
The harlots moan and writhe,
But not in pleasure.
Judgement is here.
The die has been cast.
The carrion come to feed.
Flames burning hot.
The porn the child abuse.
The whordom
And putrid iniquity.
It's over.
Every investment and power play,
Means nothing in the end!
The Creator has turned His back,
To his creation.
The Father shuns his children.
With destruction prayers are answered.
But not water no.
There in the smoke choked sky,
Promise still hangs.
To an ancient man who bulit a boat.
This time it's with flames.
Fire from heaven above.
Fire from hell below.
Everything burns.
We begged for penance.
God like the raven,
answers "nevermore."
Not even I who pen these bleak words will escape the end.
Mind’s Eye Blind
I knew not what the old man had done to me but there was something familiar about him and his eyes pierced my being. Now I stood in the blinding white void! "Show us then!" What did that mean? For some reason I felt it had something to do with my new blessing or was it a curse? I'd created the promenade & now set about weaving the tapestry of my new reality. I thought "Let there be light,"and there was light and it was good.
The coarse, ruff sand I replaced with grass. I populated this new world with people and animals and spectacular colors. I had crafted from my mind an untainted world, the kind of which that I had screamed to God most high about in the lowest depths of my melancholy states suchlike the one I'd been in prior to gaining this new power.
I walked through my domain for what seemed like centuries ridding myself of the void. But something was wrong when enough time passed my creations would fight, war steal, and become debased. How many times did I wipe them out and start over?
There was no Ark no prism of light hung as promise in the sky just destruction and creation over and over. Then one of the worlds I had created erased its ownself and I stood in the void again. I saw the man from the beach he had two legs now and was clad in a glowing white robe. He approached me. "Who are you?" I demanded.
"You already know that I am and that is enough. I challenged you to show me you could create a better less depressing world. You can't, for you too are imperfect.
"I am perfect and my Creation was ment to reflect that just as your creations reflected your imperfections. It was the Adversary and the choices of my first two mortals that made it not so.
"Go now and be grateful for the world around you. If you want it to change be the change and walk justly, doing right by your fellow man. Remember Charity covers a multitude of sins."
Then He pushed me without touching me and I blinked and was back on the beach. Listening to the waves crash and the gulls cry out.
Echoes
Life like music contains ostinatos, repeated patterns. These patterns are habits, cycles or even our day-to-day routines that melt into a monotonous sludge. Some patterns -- such as the water cycle--have echoed throughout the ages.
Her name was Sonia. She wandered the wastes that had marked the culmination of savagery and decadence carefully concealed in the shadows of neon delights and television screens.
The woman woke up and sat on a large rock protruding from the sands. Groggily she ran a gloved hand through her mess of fire colored locks. Said hair was cutshort and swept over to one side of her face. It was always unkempt.
The sun kissed the parts of her body left bare by the sleevless leather top she wore. It exposed her arms lower torso and back. In truth the thing was more some leather version of a sports bra than a shirt. Completing her look of a lone survivor was a leather arm gaurd over her left appendage that ended in a metal gauntlet, a glove and shoulder pad on her otherwise bare right arm and tattered pants. Over the right knee was hole that revealed old scars. Over the other knee a spiked knee pad, its mate lost somewhere among the ruins of everything.
Sonia whose face had been made older than her 32 years adjusted the straps of her leather boots and swigged down a beer from a glass bottle. In a world with polluted water such things were a luxury with the questionable marketing ploys of a certain brand having ceased to be relevant long ago if it ever was in the first place! She looked down at her traveling companion, the cybernetic dog curled up in hibernation mode at her feet. "Up & at 'em boy!" She said.
The dog sat up immediately among a clicking of gyros and pistons. Sonia strapped her long-sword with the ornately forged hookended blade to her back and the apocalyptic duo to took up their journey once again to a destination somewhere on the horizon, an ebony tower barley discernable in the distance.
Daily she could feel it or someone therein calling to her. "You've walked these roads before in ages lost. Numerous yous have made the same never-ending journey."
"Numerous mes? What are you talking about; who are you!"
"Come hither if you'd have that answer, Daughter of Man."
And she saw the image of that stygian citadel bathed in a mystical aurora. For weeks she'd trekked toward it, knowing the way by some wierd instinct. Along the way she'd faced many hazards and many men had fallen to her weapon. She was quite proficient with that blade and though her female body may not have had the physical advantages of most of her opponents she never tried to out fight what she couldn't out think. This had brought her victory and survival.
And many hundreds of years ago a much different Sonia clad in chainmail and hide leathers and helmet, brandishing an axe walked through a desolate forest with her wolfdog toward a mysterious cycle of death and rebirth that would echo throughout untold ages.