Writings – Page 5 – …these grains of sand

Nobody Quits

Another new story in response to a writing prompt. A shorter text this time, though. Feel free to leave comments.

Saturday night. A slow paced ordeal in this sleepy backwater town. A lazy rain raps listlessly at my window and the cheap coffee in my cup is too weak to keep anyone awake. Apart from the rain the only sound is made by the Freddie Mercury clock sitting on the wall, overlooking all.

The news pieces in today’s paper are old, having already taken several beats around the net before at long last reaching the printing press. I read them anyway, savor them, even. I am able to read subtle truths in the short notices that I can never find in modern crime novels. However, being in the know is probably the only perk that comes with having led my kind of life – especially since I decided to leave it all behind.

I have almost reconciled with this existence. It’s the price I have had to pay for breaking free of all the things that once weighed me down. That, and the disgrace of soon standing in front of a jury, testifying against my old allies. I just wish living within the federal witness protection program was not so goddamn boring.

The rapping of the raindrops on my window is suddenly accompanied by a far more substantial rapping on the door. Freddie Mercury looks just as surprised as I when I turn to him for an explanation. It’s almost midnight, and I expect no visitors. I seldom do nowadays. Slowly I fold my paper and walk towards the door to look through the peephole. I’m not really afraid of strangers, I don’t think the people who want to hurt me can find me here. But even so, the sight of the man outside the door makes me freeze. I know him very well. He knocks again. I open the door.

”I see you weren’t expecting me”, he says as he lets himself in.

I close the door. ”No, but I don’t see how it is logically possible that I weren’t.”

He is wearing a hooded sweater with its sleeves rolled up. His arms are covered in large, dark tattoos and his face in metal. He also has a huge tribal across his entire back, and an ugly scar disfigures his left thigh. I know this only because I had that very tribal tattoo painfully removed five months ago, and that old knife wound still pains me after long walks. The rain composes a monotonous backdrop to our silence as I stare at him. As he stares at me. Then he walks into my living room.

”So this is what I’ll sell everything out for? I don’t believe it…”

I stand in the doorway, watching him as he pulls out my books and scrutinizes my sparse furniture. ”It became too much. You will see in time.”

He looks up at me. ”No, I won’t. This will never happen.”

I shake my head. This young man has much to learn. ”How old are you? Eighteen?”

”Nineteen, actually”, he says and I suddenly remember getting that snakebite piercing on my birthday that very year.

I nod knowingly. ”Many things can happen in seven years. Feelings change. People change.”

”I won’t change”, he says. ”I refuse to change. I refuse to become… this.” He makes a gesture that encompasses the entire room, and it’s not until now that I realize that he is holding a gun.

I take a step back, but he reacts faster. I stare at the cold piece of metal in front of my eyes just as intently as he stares at me. Fear. All I can feel is fear now, and my entire body is starting to shake.

”They told me that I am going to rat on them. That they can’t let me into the organization for real because seven years from now, I will sell them out. Don’t you see that you have ruined everything? I’ll never be anything, and it’s all because of you!” He puts the gun to my face and forces me to my knees.

I almost cannot breathe, let alone speak. But still I force myself to say something between the panicky sobs. ”But… I am you. For fuck sake, can’t you see that? My choices are your goddam choices. You can’t be serious about this. Please…”

”They have given me one option, though. If I find you and whack you before you go to that fucking trial and ruin everything, they’ll let me in. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. Nobody quits.”

I wonder who ”they” are. I wonder if this can really be happening. I wonder what will happen to me, to him, if he pulls the trigger. ”Fucking idiot”, I say as he readies the gun. ”Don’t you rea –”

The echo slowly dies. Only Freddie Mercury watches on in shocked silence as the impossible unfolds, but being a clock he will never be able to tell anyone. And the slow paced Saturday night wears on in that sleepy backwater town.

All Lost In the Mail

Another story in response to a writing prompt. This one turned out a little longer than the previous ones – I just couldn’t help it, sorry 😉 Feel free to leave comments!

Sometimes when I passed by the old Foursquare on my daily delivery round I allowed myself to fantasize about how it would look with a fresh layer of white paint and some refurbishment. It must have been beautiful once, with its huge garden and inviting dormer windows. I used to wonder who once lived there, if children had at one point run laughing down the slight slope in the lawn and what boring office positions those children held now. Of course I also wondered what had once caused the old building to be so thoughtlessly abandoned. There was no one to ask, however, since the house had stood empty for as long as anyone could remember.

Imagine my surprise, then, when one day I found in my delivery bag a bundle of envelopes, cards and parcels clearly to be delivered to this very address. I thought about returning it to the post office for redirection at once, but then I thought better of it. I reckoned I should at least try to make the delivery before dismissing it, as was the policy. To be honest I was also secretly excited about finally having an excuse for taking a closer look at the mysterious building.

It was autumn, and the leaves rustled under my feet as I made my way up the garden path towards the structure. The grass, trees and bushes had not seen proper care for a very long time, and the season’s added effects didn’t do them any favors. I considered making a beat around the house to sate my curiosity, but decided against it. For some reason I felt as if the dark windows were silently watching me, and I felt the excitement from only minutes earlier drain from my body with every step I took. I wanted to be done here, I realized, and looked forward to returning the letters to the office and continuing on my round. To houses more inhabited, friendly and alive.

The porch creaked as I stepped on it. The sound sent shivers down my spine and I stopped and listened. Nothing. One of the dusty lite panels in the front door was broken and the wind made the worn linen door curtain ripple on the inside. I knocked, first cautiously but then decidedly. I would be accused of neither cowardice nor negligence.

”Come in”, a faint voice said, and my heart almost stopped. I considered running, but duty and curiosity got the better of me and instead I opened the door.

Inside, the house was silent and calm. Dust drifted through the air like particles of memory, and the homely but dated furnishing spoke of love and dedication long past. A grey layer covered everything, as if this place had been frozen in time decades ago.

”Anybody home?”

”Here.” That faint voice again, cracked and hollow as that of a phantom – or a very old person not accustomed to using it.

I wound my way through the house and found myself in a small bedroom. The pattern on the wallpapers matched the dried flowers on the windowsill, and everywhere I looked there were old photographs in ornate frames. On the bed lay a woman, her hair white as snow and the shape of her slight body barely showing from under the heavy covers.

I looked down at the bundle in my hand and read the faded address on the topmost envelope. ”Mrs. Lapwing?”, I chanced.

She looked tiredly at me and nodded. ”Yes”, she rasped. ”Are you from the police?”

I shook my head. ”I’m from the post office. I have some letters for you. Where can I put them?”

She smiled faintly, but it was a sad smile. And that’s when I realized she was not looking at me at all. ”Mr. Postman, I’m sorry but I will not be able to read your letters. I’m blind, you see.”

”Oh”, I said, not knowing what to do. ”I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.”

”How could you?” She reached out towards me. ”Maybe you could read the letters to me? That would be wonderful, dear.”

”There are many letters”, I said while quickly thumbing through them. ”Maybe Mr. Lapwing can read them to you? There are letters for him here as well.”

Her hand dropped, and the smile disappeared. ”My husband has been gone for many years, Mr. Postman. He ran away with another woman thirty years ago.”

The silence lasted for several seconds, but for me it felt like far longer than that. ”I’ll read them to you”, I said and sat down in the chair next to her bed. What else could I do?

”Thank you, dear”, she whispered and seemed to relax.

I opened the first envelope and reacted to the old letter stamp. This letter should have been delivered several decades ago. A quick investigation of the rest of the bundle revealed that this was the case with all of them. I cleared my throat.

”These letters are old”, I told her. ”I don’t know why they haven’t been delivered already. This first one was sent back in 1951, and it is from your sister, Ruth.”

”My sister died in the war”, she said blankly.

I skimmed through the letter, the handwriting was not all that easy to read but I managed. ”Well, no. She writes here that she is – was – well and that she’s living together with a kindly man, a fisherman, in Sweden. This is the first letter she has dared to write, and she would like to know if you are alive and well. She wants to come visit you.”

She shook her head slowly. ”Are you sure? Are you sure it is from Ruth?”

”It says so here. And she asks if you remember the kittens, says that she has gotten herself a new one just like the ones you had as children.”

Mrs. Lapwing’s unseeing eyes filled with tears. ”I didn’t know”, she whispered. ”All these years, and I didn’t know.”

”There are more letters from her here”, I said, not knowing what to do. ”She writes that her children are starting school, and that they are moving into a bigger house. She thinks about you often and would love to hear from you.”

The old woman said nothing, so I opened more letters. ”In this one her daughter is getting married. She wants you to be there, but she is afraid that she’s writing these letters to a person long gone. The last letter is not that old, actually… Five years. Well, I guess that’s pretty old as well under these circumstances.”

”Read it”, she mouthed between the tears.

”Here she… Oh.” I paused. ”She is in the hospital. Cancer. The doctors have given her a month, and she’s writing mainly to force herself to accept it. She thinks that you are dead, and she’s glad that she will soon be able to meet you again. This is the last letter from her. I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Lapwing was silent for a long time, her milky eyes staring blindly in front of her. ”What’s in the rest of the letters?”, she said finally.

I didn’t want to do this anymore, but I couldn’t leave her like this. ”There’s one from someone called Becca…”

”My daughter. I haven’t heard from her in twenty years or more.” There was wounded disappointment in her voice.

”It’s from fifteen years ago. To the day, actually. She writes that she has tried calling so many times now that she thinks it’s on you to contact her, if you want to speak. She wants you to know that she and Felicia are happy together, and that no matter what you think about that, she hopes that you will be happy to know that you will soon become a grandmother.”

”A… grandmother? She is having a baby? Together with that woman?”

”I would seem so. There is a phone number here too, if you want to call her.”

”She hasn’t called”, Mr. Lapwing muttered. ”That’s all a lie. I haven’t received any calls for several years.”

I bit my lip. ”That might be due to the… reminders of unpaid phone bills I have here…” I browsed through them. They were old as well, and the final one should have been delivered almost twenty years ago. I felt sick when I realized what this meant. ”The phone company cancelled your number in 1981, you had not payed your bills.”

”But I didn’t get any bills!”, she protested weakly. And she was right. She hadn’t gotten them.

”I’m sorry”, I said. ”There must have been a terrible mix up in the delivery. With all these letters. Of course you will be compensated for –”

”Just read the rest of them, will you Mr. Postman.” She looked defeated, and I guess that’s exactly what she was.

”This one is a letter for Mr. Lapwing. Sent in the early seventies.”

”Around the time when he ran away and left me, then.”

”Well… maybe. Yes, that seems right. The letter is from someone named Susan Green, and it’s very short. She writes that she can’t meet him at the station after all. That she has decided to stay with her family and that it’s over between them.”

”So he didn’t run away with her?”

”No, it doesn’t seem so. But he still sent you divorce papers, they’re here in the next letter.”

”I won’t sign them.”

”No, you don’t have to. Here’s a parcel from the police here as well. They got no answer at the door and couldn’t reach you on the phone. It’s from 1985. Mrs. Lapwing, I’m sorry to say it, but your husband is dead.”

”This whole time? Dead?”

”I’m afraid so.” I lowered my head, but then remember that she couldn’t see me.

”There’s only one letter left. Do you want me to open it? It’s from last year.” She nodded, and I tore open the envelope. ”It’s from Becca.” This instantly caught her attention. ”She writes that everything is great and that she’s starting a new job. There’s a photograph in here, too. It’s of two women and two children. The kids seem to be in their early teens. They are all smiling. One of the women has long, brown hair and –”

”That’s my Becca. Oh my God, that’s my little Becky…”

”There’s the same phone number at the bottom of the page. You could call her.”

She reached for the photograph and I gave it to her. She caressed the glossy surface with her pale fingertips and tears again started falling from her eyes. I knew she couldn’t see the picture at all. ”My little Becky…”

I had no letters left. I rose hesitantly. ”Mrs. Lapwing, I’m sorry but I have to go. I hate to leave you like this, but I have many other houses to visit. And I’m terribly sorry these letters haven’t reached you until now, I understand how horrible this must feel…”

She just continued stroking the picture, and I slowly backed away. ”I will make some calls”, I said. ”I will tell the phone company to come here and fix your phone. And maybe someone from the social services too. To, you know, come check that everything is okay with you. Help you out with things around here.”

I paused at the door, but got no response. ”Of course I will report this terrible misconduct to the post office, too. Things like this shouldn’t happen. Ever.”
I hated myself when I turned my back on her and left the house the same way as I had come, my delivery bag much lighter but my heart significantly heavier.

I borrowed a phone in the next house over and made the calls I had promised to make, and some more I came to think of as I did so. Mrs. Lapwing had suffered terribly at the hands of the system. It was almost as if the entire establishment had gone out of its way to conspire against her. But now, finally, everything would be put right. I had seen to that.

I completed my round in less than an hour, and decided to double back on my route back to the office. I wanted to make sure that someone had heeded my reports and gone to check on the poor Mrs. Lapwing. And quite correctly, when I approached the old house I could see several police cars on the driveway and by the street in front of it. There was also an ambulance, and I was instantly worried.

I ran up to one of the officers. He had just finished a phone call and put the phone back in his pocket. ”Excuse me”, I said. ”But I was the one who called earlier. About Mrs. Lapwing. How is she?”

The officer looked me up and down and frowned. ”So you’re the one who called? Good, I know some people who would like a serious word with you. We got the impression that the woman was alive.”

My worry and guilt peaked. ”Oh my god, isn’t she? I was only gone for a hour, and –”

”What are you talking about?”, the officer said. ”It’s good that she was found finally, but we don’t appreciate being lied to. This woman has been dead for several years. If you would please come with me here…”

I followed. And as I did so, I again let my eyes wander towards the old house. The dark windows watched unblinkingly and in silence as the covered stretcher was carried out into the autumn air, leaving the house again to its quiet calm, memories of laughter and sorrow and long forgotten secrets.

Securing the Family Business

Another short text in response to a writing prompt. The prompt kind of gives it all away, so I recommend reading the text before clicking the link. Feel free to leave comments!

”But you must surely understand that this is not the medieval anymore?” Mr. Caralhaw adjusted his glasses and shot his client a skeptic look.

”I know, I know”, his client sighed. He had expected this shit, nobody understood him anymore. ”But nobody understands me anymore”, he said. ”They don’t know what they’re getting when they buy into my brand. It’s almost like they think I’m into mindfulness or something these days.”

”Well, aren’t you?” Mr. Caralhaw sounded genuinely surprised.

His client fixed him with his coldest stare. He was quite proud of it, actually. Had taken him several hours in front of the mirror over the years. ”No, I’m not.” He decided to change the subject. ”Anyway, I’m fine with getting the crazies, I’ve always liked them. But recently, I only seem to attract the most narcissistic crazies, those who don’t do any worshiping and hardly even burn churches anymore. Can you imagine?” He was visibly upset now.

”Yes, unfortunately we seem to have had a steady decline in the worshiping and burning of churches since the eighties. Those inclined to adoration of the supernal seem to have moved their activities in more… celestial directions. Things are not what they used to be.”

”You’re not kidding”, his client exclaimed. ”I thought that I could take some time off to prepare for the new baby, but obviously that was asking for too much. After all this time and work…”

Mr. Caralhaw dared a faint smile. ”Well, yes, parenting often affects the career negatively, I’m afraid. But let’s focus on solutions now…” He looked through his papers again. ”I have created a suggestion for a PR-model that I think will appeal to the target group’s sense of self worth, while still leaving space for the acknowledgement of higher powers. Would you please have a look at –”

”No”, his client said sharply. ”I will not cater to those megalomanic good-for-nothings anymore. The customers of the rivaling firm at least remained loyal to the brand while the CEO was on infant care leave. Never mind that they slaughtered the brat later. My own clients wouldn’t even cut me that much slack. So much for that allegiance…”

”So… what will you do?” Mr. Caralhaw was frustrated to see two weeks’ worth of work being thus brushed aside without the slightest consideration, but of course he concealed his feelings carefully.

”I will leave them to their deluded practices for the time being. I’m needed elsewhere, I have to take care of my family. But when the baby has come and I’m back at the office, I will conduct an exhaustive revision of the organization. Ineffective people and programs will be weeded out and replaced. I will rain fire upon my so-called followers and slaughter them in their beds. I will tear down their puny altars to themselves. And then I will start from scratch.” He rose from his chair and collected his jacket and his briefcase.

”Are you sure you want to engage in such a thorough re-organization? It will require both time and funds, and –”

”Yes, I’m sure. This will soon turn into a family business, and I want to be able to pass on something solid to my son. Good day, Mr. Caralhaw. Thank you for your time.” And with that, Satan opened the door and left the office.

Mr. Caralhaw remained behind his desk, wearily looking down at all his futile work and wondering, not for the first time, why he even bothered.

The Silence of Her Voice

This short text was written in response to a writing prompt that said “Write a love story where one of the characters has some disability”.

I have never heard her voice. I will never be allowed to learn to distinguish between those small, subtle differences in tone that tells whether she is happy or sad or disappointed or a thousand other varieties of what we call emotion.

What I do know, though, is that every morning her hair is tangled in the most lovable way, like the branches of a new sapling in spring. That her face lights up every time I touch it, even when I can still see and feel the teardrops that traced there only moments before. I know the rhythm of her warm body when we dance to songs only she can hear, as she smilingly guides me through them. I know the blue of her eyes that can see all the way through all my walls, and I know the heat of her lips.

I tell myself that I don’t need music, and I almost believe it. Until I see her smile as she absentmindedly mimes along to the radio, and it hits me that I will never hear her sing. The thought saddens me more than I want to admit. I want to share everything with her, and yet I can’t.

There are parts of her life that I will never be able to understand, that I will never be able to share. Sometimes I feel jealous of other people, I cannot help it. They share worlds with her where I cannot go.

But then I lie in my silence and think about loss, and she comes up behind me. And she traces patterns on my skin. Soft, rhythmic patterns with fingers and lips and breath, and I realize that this is music, this is song. It is her song, and i can feel it. I let myself be swept away by the perfection of it, let myself sing along. And that’s when I understand that ”silence” is just another word, and I have never had any use for words.

So I have never heard her voice. I will never be allowed to learn to distinguish between those small, subtle differences in tone that tells whether she is happy or sad. But I don’t need those because with her, there’s music in everything. And that’s all the music I will ever need.

The Giant

This is another of my older texts. I wrote it back in 2007, and I think it was the first semi-long text I ever wrote in English. It inspired me to continue working on a short story collection on the same theme, and to be honest I’m still working on that project. I still like it, and I hope you will as well. Feel free to comment!

He could not tell from where the light really came; was it from the starry sky, barely visible through the semi transparent veil of clouds? Was it from the wet rocks, ever glittering by the force of the recently fallen rain? Or was it, by some ancient magic, the silvery autumn branches high above, with their last stubbornly clinging silver leafs, that cast off the fairy illumination? He could not tell, and he guessed that it was just as good he didn’t, as the question, unimportant as it might be, helped him greatly by keeping his thoughts off more important and frightening matters.

He struggled to stay in line; it was hard as the others, his captors, were so much smaller than he ever was, and saw a grave trespassing in every small inch he happened to move outside the given route. The dark forest was full of eyes watching, but it was the wrong kind of eyes; nowhere did he ever glimpse the lilac radiant glimmer in the night that he so wished to see, and thus he understood that he should harbor no hopes of rescue from these fierce monsters that kept him stumbling down the narrow trail in the middle of this godforsaken night.

He understood, as he had done from the beginning, that the puny magic of his people, wonderful though it was, could put up no threat to these villains. He had beheld his family getting brought down on the cold forest floor with blows of ugly dark weapons and spells of a kind he never saw before, when they refused to give him up without a fight. He had no idea of their fate now – if they were still alive and if the village had survived the fire that he had seen licking at it when he was carried away, half conscious, into the unknown darkness.

He had been very much beautiful to them, his people, in the same way that they were beautiful to him. He could vaguely remember a time in his life, distant from now in the past, when he had not been so much bigger than them as he was now. His memory did not, however, cover any time at all when he had been just as small as them.

But he was well aware that memory could be a tricky thing (he even had, laughably enough, some silly imaginary memories from long ago when the world around him had not been only trees and trees), so he understood clearly that he must have forgotten about the time when he, also, had been small and feline. Just like he had forgotten totally about the incident which his people had been so reluctant to tell him about until this very night; the incident (or accident, for that matter) that had in some magical way caused him to start growing in size to such a degree that he was now some kind of giant of the woods.

He wondered now whether he would grow even more, maybe to the tallness of the trees, so that he in time would be able to look down from the drifting clouds and see all the forest of the wide world. He hoped not, because then he might accidentally happen to step on some animal or friend of his, and that wouldn’t be very nice, would it now? Anyway, he thought, his people had accepted, loved and adored him (even though they had had to fly up to the first branches of the leaf carrying trees to look him in the eye) and they had thought him beautiful.

These misshaped creatures, on the other hand, did not love him and to them he was most certainly not beautiful. This they let him know through kicks and blows whenever they got the chance, and through yelling at him in a language that was not of the forest and which he did not understand. Every now and then, though, they assured him of their standpoint towards him by throwing into their hysterical shouting some occasional word in his own language, the language of his people, with the general meaning of “ugly” or “giant”. So if he in the past had been a creature of wonder and beauty, that was no longer the case. In this twilight world which he had now been robbed into, he was no more than a freak show, and to his captors he was no more than an ugly giant.

They kept their pace for all of the night, never stopping to let him catch his breath or offering him to drink from their bottles. When they stopped to rest every morning, just before the hour when the horizon would turn red had they been able to see it through the trees, he was tied to the ground by the use of some evil magic, and forced into an uneasy sleep by some strong liquid they made him drink against his will. He never woke before the twilight hour, and thus his world became one of night. He did not see the sun for many days.

In his restless sleep, forced upon him by the witchcraft of these fiends, he again and again relived the night when he had been snatched from his peaceful life among his people. The colors of the dream were always distorted, as is the case when you sleep with a heavy fever upon you, and the voices of everyone, friend and monster, were warped and twisted and he was always afraid during those dreams.

He again and again experienced the hour just before twilight, the night of the autumn feast in the village. He again and again looked out through the little window in the small cottage they had built for him (which was just big enough for him but already starting to feel a bit narrow as he continued to grow with the changing of each season), to see his pretty little family and his friends hurrying this way and that, trying to get the banquet ready before sundown when the festivity would begin. They called to him and smiled, and asked him to put the decorations on the taller branches which they themselves could not reach easily. He smiled back at them and climbed out of his little house, ready to assist. His little sister was on his shoulder now, and whispering told him a secret he had now forgotten; something about the way the birds fly when the winter is nearing, and why they do that. He walked up to one of the trees surrounding their glade village, about to braid into its lowest branches a garland of tiny, glittering sparks made by his cousin.

Now time slowed down and the fever dream made him relive these last moments of sense in some kind of slow moving pace, at the same time as reality shifted colors and every sound was stretched, as if to mimic some infernal singing of the fish in the brook.

From every direction now, surrounding the glade, crawled dark shapes out of the descending twilight. The creatures had teeth just like the predatory, four legged animals of the woods that his people so shunned and feared, and dark red, cunning eyes.

They carried iron rods, sharpened and darkened by night, and chanted in low voices an evil rhyme the words of which he had never heard before. His people started in horror at this sudden attack, and gathered around him in the middle of the glade, fearfully gazing in each direction and singing protective spell songs to ward off the approaching demons (if this was to protect him or seek shelter in his presence, he could not know).

But the fiends had stronger magic, even though they were no larger in size than the forest people, and continued to approach until they had closed in and surrounded the circle.
One of them started to speak to the forest people in his strange language, and the chanting grew louder. This part was always cloudy in the dream, and he had a hard time remembering what happened afterwards. Through a dreamy haze he could see his people trying to fight back the intruders, using sticks and magic. He felt himself starting to fall, as if some evil spell of sleep had been cast upon him, and as he lay there on the ground he could do nothing but hope that he had not fallen on some of his friends. He could not move anymore, and his vision grew blurrier every split second.
The last thing he saw though the descending fog was fire; fire everywhere. And his brothers and sisters, all his people, fighting the demons and failing. He could not help them, he could not protect them. And so utter darkness engulfed him, and he knew nothing.

He could not remember awaking from that darkness. The only thing he could recall was that suddenly he was striding along this row of foes, the dark forest the only thing around and no familiar stone or landmark anywhere. Thus he had no idea how long had passed since this terrible incident that was maybe the end of his village, and fierce beating was the only answer he got, did he dare to ask his captors.
Every night when he awoke from his spellbound sleep he cried bitterly. At first he had refused to stand up and obey when they beckoned him to rise each night. This had resulted in a lot of pain, both from their weapons and from their spells. They had shouted at him and beat him until he was covered in blood and he could take it no more. Then he must struggle on through the night with aching limbs and bleeding scars all over, until next morning when he was finally allowed to lie down again. When again he woke, some magic had always caused his wounds to heal – uselessly, since his refusal to cooperate at once made them bear down on him again as soon as he started to strain.

After a while, though, he grew numb.He no longer fought them and no longer cared. His soul he hid deep within his weary body, and he no longer thought of anything but where he put his feet. They still beat him all the time (even more and even harder when they, to their frustration, noticed his lack of concern), but he didn’t notice it much. He felt the pain in his body, but his soul was out of reach.

Many, many nights after this they wandered. The landscape grew sparse of vegetation and finally no moss or twigs longer covered the ground. They passed over a fence made out of silver thread, and after walking some distance everything was changed. The rocks that he knew to always be round and uneven now spread out before him in a strange flat kind of way; the ground was covered with them, and they were no longer round or raw but square and very much flat under his sore feet. Wherever he looked were strange, heaven high buildings with sharp corners made out of both wood and stone, and they had glittering squares of light fastened to their every side.
He was totally unprepared of this powerful vision of strange wonders, and his wall of protection crumbled to nothing; he let out a gasp of awe, and stood as bewitched gazing up towards the towers of light that stretched endlessly before him.

The demons that held him captive glared at him and dragged him down on the ground so that he was at their level. Evil eyes were fixed at him from all directions, and then they spoke. He was amazed beyond words as they did so, for suddenly and without any further explanation, he understood them!

“Don’t try to find your way back over the silvery fence”, they growled hatefully. “You will never find it again from this side of the world. And even if you did you would not be able to find the trail we walked. You are changed now. Changed back, from what you should never have been in the first place.”

And with those last words they turned their backs on him and started back the way that they had come. He rose to his feet to hurry after them before his road was closed forever, but lots of new noises surrounded him and he was no longer sure of what it was that he had to return to so much. He stood a second in confusion, and when he again came to his senses, they were gone without a trace. It was as if they were never there in the first place, and surely they did not fit into this gleaming world of fast passing, bright colored vehicles and burning sunset towers of the whitest marble. After a while he was not even sure that they had really been there.

Then he saw the creatures of this magical city of light, and he almost fainted from the realization; they were like him! He was not taller than most of them, and they were of all kinds. Some where smooth and vigorous, while others had skin like crumbled fruit in the autumn and walked leaning on sticks or other strange apparatuses. No one looked twice upon him.

He was totally at loss with this situation. His memory of where he had come from was slipping from his grasp even now, and he was surprised that he understood everything these creatures, so alike him it was almost frightening, said to each other. He looked around for somewhere to go, somewhere to hide – and his gaze fell upon a lightning square, a window, where he suddenly laid eyes upon the most wondrous and beautiful sight he had ever beheld in his whole life. More beautiful was it than the golden leafs of autumn, or the gentle crystals in the air at winter. More wonderful a sight than the wild and musical swirling of the brook at spring, or the flight of the most daring of blue birds in the time of summer was it. Much more than all of that.

It was a girl. She was slowly and carefully combing out her golden hair, sitting at the window but not looking out. Her curls gleamed beautifully in the last light of the dying sun, and she was dressed for the night in the whitest silk, decorated only at the edges with purple lace ribbons. Her skin was white and smooth, and he in some strange way knew that she was very much like him. Her window was far above him, and even then he could behold all this.

After that he knew nothing before he stood in front of her door, in an echoing stairwell, reading the small letters printed at a pretty, decorated sign in the level of his eyes (and yes, he really could read them). She had such a wonderful name!
He carefully pushed the white little button next to the door, and a melodious ringing sprang forth inside the closed door. Footsteps fell on some soft surface inside, and soon she stood there, right in front of him, and looked into his eyes. She truly was beautiful, more beautiful than he had thought when he stood in the darkening street gazing up at her.
He thought for a second of how her eyes had something slightly familiar about them; something in their color reminded him of birds and magic. They twinkled like radiantly lilac little stars, and for a moment he was utterly confused and taken aback.

She smiled in a way that somehow indicated recognition, and then a name came to him. His name. And it was not a fairy name or a giant name, but a human name. The name of one of these creatures that were his size. His kind. He spoke his newfound and newly re-remembered name out loud, and she smiled again and thought that it was the most wonderful name.

He still stands in front of that door now and then, but now he has the key and does not have to press the doorbell, and the decorative sight in level with his eyes contains now not only her beautiful name, but his as well.
He is happy together with the girl with the radiant eyes, who knows not more than him about the forest and small villages with tiny people, or dark demons from the night.

But sometimes, at the end of summer when twilight comes earlier with each passing day and the shadows grow longer, he finds himself waking screaming and crying from a restless, sweat drenched dream where small, pretty figures stand around him in a darkening glade, speaking words of strangeness to menacing creatures with dark red eyes,
who answer them in a language that he can now understand clearly.

He always stays in the dream just long enough to hear one of the demons speak to the pretty people: “We are here on behalf of the Agency of Switch-cases. Hand us the changeling! He is not of yours; he is to be taken back to where he came from! Give in freely or we shall take him by force, with no concern of the consequences!”
And as the devilish voice of the imp-creature dies away, leaving not complete silence but the din of battle and death in its wake, the dream vision fades away and he feels himself falling down, down into a deep foggy darkness.

It is after such autumn dreams of another world that he wakes crying and twisting in his bed, without knowing where he is or why, half expecting the agony of sharpened iron rods brought down on him any second. But then her hand is on him, reassuring him and loving him, and he is again who he is; a human creature just like her, completely safe in her embrace from all the horrors of the dark.

They are very happy together, and soon she is to tell him that they are expecting a little one of their own into the world, and he will be so filled with joy. And as time goes by, as it inevitable does, memory of past lives grow bleacher and bleacher, until nothing remains but now and then a dream about a clear autumn evening ending in tragedy. Just a dream.

But once a year, on the day that he eventually guessed to be the day of his birth or the day of some other important event in his life, he finds on the hallway carpet, infallibly, a card decorated with golden leafs and strangely twinkling sparks, covered with words written in a language he can no longer understand.

But he nevertheless keeps them close at heart and stores them carefully in a beautifully decorated wooden box that he has made himself, and takes them out every now and then to look at them and try to remember.
And even though he forever fails to do that, he is very, very happy.

The Hotel

This is an older text, written some years ago. Can you guess where I got my inspiration?

Driving through the desert, Liam wondered – not for the first time – what could have driven his old friend to leave everything and just disappear. His had been a great employment at a fancy magazine, and from what Liam himself had gathered in the way of clues and information, there had been no shortage of beautiful company to kill the time in between assignments with. But Patrick was gone, there was no question about that. The fact that his disappearance had left a job open for Liam as a photographer at before mentioned magazine did not help keeping his thoughts off the matter.

The police hadn’t found anything that would indicate a crime, and had dismissed the whole matter as just another case of young-man-running-away. Liam hadn’t been as sure about that diagnosis when he had returned home after several years abroad just to find his childhood pal missing. In any case he would want to find Patrick and try to help him out of whatever shit he had gotten himself into during Liam’s absence. So here he was, driving alone through the autumn twilight along the desert highway where Patrick was last spotted, wondering.

He had not planned on stopping for the night until he reached the next city, but suddenly he felt his eyelids getting heavier and his thoughts going all dreamy and disconnected. Before he had any time to wonder about this sudden sleepiness, he saw the light in the distance. Faintly shimmering, the warm glow woke him up a little – just enough to close the distance between himself and its source. When he got closer he saw that the building had three floors and was surrounded by several smaller sheds, garages and quite a large, well kept lawn decorated with some apple trees and surrounded by a small fence.

The light did not come from any of the windows, which were all dark, but from a small candle flame in the hand of a woman standing in the doorway. She was the first detail Liam noticed – not until he was right in front of the opening in the fence did he notice the sign that announced the building as being a hotel. Dazed, he drove up and parked his car in front of the house. The woman had an eerie beauty about her that was kind of unsettling, but he pushed those thoughts away as he approached her on slow moving legs.

“My name is June”, she said. He thought that she was smiling, but he wasn’t sure. “Welcome to the hotel, we have plenty of room!” And before he had a chance to answer, she disappeared into the darkness. He had no choice but to follow her inside. Somewhere along the way they passed a reception desk, and he was made to sign his name in a tome-like ledger.

She showed him the way up some stairs and into a long corridor, and he thought he heard the voices of the other guests somewhere further on. They stopped in front of a door, and she unlocked it and handed him the key. “Your room”, she said.

“Thank you”, he replied and looked inside. The room was large and contained a spacious bed, a bathroom and a table with an old telephone on top and some chairs. No television set. “Have you by any chance had a guest recently who went by the name of Patrick Day?”, he asked absentmindedly. But when he turned his head towards her again, she was gone.

He made himself at home as best as he could in his room, and noticed several things. The first was that the room had a balcony, overlooking a small courtyard at the back of the main building. The second thing was that the room actually had a television, but a small one in black and white hidden away in a closet. The third thing he discovered was the thing that disturbed him the most (not that the balcony was in the least disturbing, but the bad quality TV certainly was): taped to the underside of the table was an envelope that seemed quite modern. Written on it was only this: “Patrick Day, 21/6”. Liam froze when he read this – the date indicated that Patrick had been here not two months ago, just around the time of his disappearance.

Uneasily he brought the envelope with him out on the balcony and sat down in a wicker chair. With not so steady hands he started opening it, as he began hearing faint music from below. He cast a glance down, and saw to his surprise that there was light streaming from all the windows now, onto the courtyard. Even in the windows of the smaller buildings there was light. The yard was really quite beautiful in this light, with roses growing on espaliers along the brick walls and garlands of ivy spanning the air above the courtyard. The music sounded live, but he could not detect its source. What he could see, though, was that the other guests had come out to dance to it in the last twilight rays of the sleepy sun.

They were all young, as far as Liam could see, and all male. Maybe some kind of bachelor party out here in the middle of nowhere? He opened the envelope at last, and read the letter inside. It was not written for him, but that wasn’t surprising. However, it didn’t seem to be written for anyone else in particular, either. “To whoever reads this”, it was addressed. Liam’s eyes widened more and more the further he read, and when he was finished he just sat there, staring at the piece of paper in his hands. Patrick had come here at will, investigating for his magazine a spree of disappearances of young men on this particular stretch of highway; this hotel had caught his attention when he passed it. The letter told Liam that the hotel was not in any tourist guide, but that it had been – several decades ago. He now suspected that someone was using it as a blind for some other kind of activity – possibly of the more sinister and illegal kind. Perhaps the disappearances had to do with people passing through by chance, and happening upon something they weren’t meant to see?

In any case Patrick had felt uneasy about staying at the hotel, and had suspected that someone was on to his investigation. He had caught the other guests (and the sparse staff, even) casting him strange and ominous glances. Were they all in on it? Patrick urged whoever read his letter to tread with the outermost care, since he would have removed the hidden envelope himself if he had ever left the hotel.

Liam put the letter inside the envelope again, and turned it over thoughtfully. And there, written in the same handwriting but much more hastily, was this: “The portrait in the lobby.” Quickly he stood up, overturning the chair in the process. Tucking the letter inside his pocket, he grabbed his camera bag and hurried to the door. There was a story here, and if he could not find his friend he would at least uncover the circumstances behind his disappearance. Just as he got to the door, though, there was a knock on it. Without really thinking about it, Liam opened. Outside stood an old man, dressed all butler style and holding a handkerchief and a fancy looking notepad.

“Can I get you something to drink, sir?”, he asked monotonously in a voice that made a little chill crawl down Liam’s spine.

“Uh… Sure”, he answered, anxious to be rid of the man. “A glass of wine or whatever would be nice”. He started to push past the old man, when he suddenly saw the tired smile on his face.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we haven’t been serving that kind of spirit here since the master passed away several decades ago. I would recommend our fine champagne, though, if I may, sir.”

Liam paused for a moment, overcome by this sudden strangeness, but got himself together finally and answered quickly “Yeah, champagne will be fine, yeah. Excuse me, I’ll just…”, and the man moved aside for him to let him leave the room.

After several episodes of trial and error, he found himself back in the hotel’s lobby, staring at a huge painting of what could not be anything else than this very building; the sign even read Hotel in spindly brush stroke letters. In front of it were painted two people, a man and a woman. No, not a woman. The woman. She who had let him in earlier. They looked happy at first glance – this was obviously a wedding portrait – but at closer inspection he could see that the woman wasn’t really smiling but just pretending to smile. It was something in her eyes… Then he noticed the date in the lower right corner, where the artist’s unreadable signature could also be found. June, 1969. Then how come the woman looked exactly the same still? And was the man the diseased master the porter had been talking about?

He turned around at a sudden noise behind him, and started in fright as he found himself face to face with the mysterious mistress of the house. Even now, in the light of this strangeness, he found her eerily attractive – and there was no doubting that this was really the same woman as in the painting, not a day older.

“I can explain”, she stated in a soft voice that made him believe her – that made him want to believe her. The music was still flowing in from outside, but Liam didn’t really care about anything else but her deep blue eyes.

She brought him back to her chamber, where the porter was just finishing setting a table for two with high glasses of pink, sparkling liquid. They sat down, and the porter left them. This was a much larger room than his, with beautiful (and probably expensive) furniture and, as he noticed, a ceiling completely covered in mirrors that cast the light from the chandelier all over the place.

“Drink”, she said, and he did. He kept throwing longing glances in the direction of the large bed, secretly hoping they would end up there, but in the end he was all but lost in her eyes as she seductively compelled him to tell her all about himself. He didn’t know how much he had told her, when she finally began to speak again in that calm, flowing voice he could not help but fall in love with.

She told him about her husband, the owner and master of the hotel. She told him about the wedding, about the summer they had spent together running the place and about all the ways in which he had failed to please her. Then she told him about her others – her secret lovers, all young and beautiful. She was so unhappy, couldn’t he see? It was no wonder that in the end it had gotten out and her husband had been furious. She told Liam about the fight that had started autumn and ended everything. About how her lovers had gone in between to protect her from his wrath at discovering the secret, and about how in the heat of the battle someone had drawn the first knife. A candelabra had turned over. The fire had broken out.

“The fire?”, he said. For some reason he felt quite groggy now. What was he drinking? “But nothing seems to have gotten burned…”

Then he happened to look out one of the huge windows and saw, down on the ground and hidden behind one of the smaller buildings on the premises, a fiery red Mercedes Benz. Patrick’s car.

“We’re all prisoners here”, she said dreamily. “Prisoners of our own device.”

The room started to spin around him, and Liam felt himself falling from his chair. Not champagne…

He awoke to the sound of screaming. There was something in his hand, and he didn’t feel all too well. He turned his head, and had to steel himself for what he saw. A man was lying on the huge bed, surrounded by half a dozen robed figures and screaming as they plunged their gleaming daggers into him, again and again and again. As one of them raised it’s bloody hand for yet another blow, the hood slid back just a little and Liam let out a scream in alarm. Patrick turned his head and looked at him, a zealous smile on his otherwise expressionless face. Then he turned again his attention to the grizzly work at hand.

Liam scrambled to his feat and lunged for the door in a fear frenzy. In the action he struck a tall candle holder by mistake and felt the intense heat as the flames instantly caught a velvet drapery and started to consume it. The fire was roaring deafeningly by the time he reached the door, just as if it had only been waiting for the chance to break out. The last thing he laid eyes upon before he threw himself out of the room was a feline figure standing in a corner, watching it all with a cruel and satisfied smile on her beautiful face.

He had to find the way out, but he hadn’t been paying attention when the woman led him here. After an eternity of wrong turns he finally found himself back in the corridor where his own room was. He considered making a dash for his luggage, but by now the whole floor was filled with smoke and he knew that where there was smoke, fire would be soon to follow.

Down the stairs he ran and was soon back in the lobby. The large painting had already caught fire and in it the red brick building was going up in flames. How come he hadn’t noticed all the scars on the groom’s face the last time he looked at it? Desperately he stared at the painting, and first now he remembered he was holding something. It wasn’t his camera – it lay on the floor before him. A voice behind him brought him back to reality.

“Please relax, sir”, the butler-like porter said. “Anything I can do for you?”

Liam turned to stare at him. How could the man act so calmly? “I’m getting the fuck out of here!”, he exclaimed, but was still quite unable to move. Why in hell am I holding a knife…?

“Certainly, sir”, the porter answered, moving to go get the heavy ledger. “You can check out any time you’d like, but I’m afraid you can never leave.”

I am wearing those same fucking robes…! The heat and smoke was starting to get to him and the lobby started spinning before his eyes. Then darkness.

When he woke it was to the sound of live music from the courtyard. He sure felt like dancing.

The City

This very short story was written in response to a writing prompt that said “Begin and end your story with this sentence: ‘And yet, the city remained.'” I wanted to make something else of it than the apocalyptic theme that immediately came to mind, and decided to write it more like a fairy tale. Feel free to tell me what you think!

And yet, the city remained.

I sighed, rolling my eyes as I did so. This was getting troublesome. I drew in a deep breath and let it out in a gust of wind so strong as to make birds fall out of the sky – and they did. The spires and towers, however, swayed back and forth but seemed to be constructed to hold through storms. And the city remained.

I resolved to try the trusted old rock throwing method. I scooped up some promising boulders and hauled them at the congregated buildings. Windows shattered, walls broke down, but by and large nothing much was affected. And the city remained.

Growing increasingly frustrated by the minute I lowered my hand into the ocean and sent a gigantic tidal wave crashing into this man built atrocity. Streets were flooded, people were carried away. But more remained, and these quickly repaired what had been broken. And the city remained.

There was only one thing left to be done. I set fire to it. Searing flames were sent dancing through the streets, eating away at the buildings and the people inhabiting them. Screams of terror and pain drifted through the air and I smiled contentedly. Finally there would be peace. I didn’t even mind the fact that I burned myself slightly in the process, this was for the greater good.

I was just about to roll over and bask in my success, when the screams changed into something else. Song; the people of the city were singing. I turned my eyes back to the burning inferno, just to realize that it was not burning anymore. The flames had been put out, and the songs were those of victory. I stared. Nothing I had thrown at it had made the city go away. I had ravaged it with storms. I had flooded it. I had crushed it and I had burned it. And still it stood.

Slowly did it dawn on me that nothing in my power would make it go away. The buildings and the people in them were just too stubborn. I was spent, tired and burnt. I had to rest, and was there really no way for me to get rid of the uncomfortable buildings that littered my side, then so be it. The ground rumbled and shook as I, the huge mountain, adjusted myself to enter the sleep of stones. And yet, the city remained.

2015-10-15

How to write a definite bestseller

After quite a miserable life Mr. Collins was sent to Hell to atone for his sins.

It so happens that no matter how long is the period of time you actually spend in that steaming place, it is perceived by all on the inside as at least thirty years. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know why.

Anyways, it so turned out that for Mr. Collins, the Purgatory was really not that bad. Not worse than the stinking life he’d led on the surface, at least. So while the torture and burning and lashing and flaying wore on, Mr. Collins used the massive amount of relatively passive time to think. And after years of thinking he got the idea for a book. A book so innovative and fresh thinking that it would without question be the best book in the world – if it was ever written, that is.

Decades after his arrival in Hell, a plump man in a gray suit approached him on the rack. He wore an apologetic look and insisted on shaking hands, even though Mr. Collins’ hands were rather… sticky. He explained that regretfully, there had been a minor misunderstanding concerning Mr. Collin’s lodgings, and that of course they would see to it that he was properly compensated for his unnecessary suffering. Obviously this situation was very embarrassing for the family company, and they would appreciate it if he didn’t speak of the incident to his friends.

It was arranged so that he was sent back to earth with a full refunding and a promise of a long and pleasant Second Life as a small but oh, so well meaning apology for the conceivable complications caused by this error on the company’s behalf.

Mr. Collins shrugged and went home, only to discover that his house had been sold in an executive auction during his absence. So he checked into a hotel and started writing his book by hand on copier paper. Three weeks later he finished and could conclude that it really did turn out the best book in the world. The hotel porter, after a quick review, could confirm that this was unquestionably the case.

The manuscript was sent to several major publishing houses, all of which returned within short, completely afire with enthusiasm for what they labeled “the potential bestseller of the century”. All made Mr. Collins juicy offers, but he settled with the one that, among other things, offered him a lifetime subscription of the New York Times and a well bred puppy of his own choice. He didn’t have very high demands on his Second Life.

He moved into a nice villa overlooking Toluca Lake and lived very happily there for the rest of his life. He attracted many fans who had read the Book, and met more women in one year than he had talked to during the whole of his First Life – but he only married one of them. He never wrote another book, and he didn’t go back to Hell.

***

Ms. Morris found a copy of the best book in the world lying on top of her kitchen table one day. She read it in lack of better occupation, and then read it again. And again. She felt that it really fulfilled its promise about strengthening the reader in taking hold of her own life and granting her the tools to follow her own dreams. That’s why she sneaked out of the house the next day and headed for the city.

She had a clear picture in mind of just what parts of herself she wanted to change and how, and it didn’t take her long to find the people who could help her with that. The kindly doctor at the plastic surgery clinic was careful to let her understand that they usually did not do cats, but that for such a charming lady as herself they would be sure to make an exception.

A few hours later she walked out of the clinic, happily testing out her new, very own, dashing woman’s legs. Dressed in some borrowed clothes she set out to explore the city from a somewhat higher point of view than usual. She attracted many impressed looks and would soon find that her new life was to be a pleasant one. The only thing she would have to work a little on was her skittish and feline nature, that seemed not always to fit in with the way that humans expected a young woman to behave. Except for that, she was very happy with her decision to change. And all thanks to the best book in the world

***

Chris Larkman was a sorry figure until he passed by the bookstore one rainy day by chance, and happened to pick up a copy of the best book in the world. He was a slow reader, but a week later he quit his job as a public toilet cleaner and started working on his very own solo album as a singer-songwriter. It just so happened that the owner of one of the major record companies had finished reading the very same book only the night before Chris’ ill recorded demo was sent to him. The book had touched him in a weak spot, and had made him decide to start taking more risks with new talents instead of just betting on the safe old horses. As it turned out, this was a very profitable bet. You have probably heard of Chris – under another name, of course – since he is now one of the leading pop musicians of our time. To think that we would have missed out on him if it weren’t for the best book in the world!

***

Mrs. Louis drove her car to work every day. Until the day she read the best book in the world, that is. After that, she sold her Ford and instead bought herself a nice, blue bike. Now she goes by bicycle to work everyday, and is starting to consider participating in her area’s big bicycle race next summer. She doesn’t even know she was running a high risk for diabetes before she started exercising, and now she will never have to find that out, either. Thanks to the book.

***

Ted was being bullied at school by a boy a year older than him. As a last resort to cheer him up, his mother borrowed him a copy of the best book in the world from the local library. He was a lonely kid, so he finished it in one day. The next day he went to school hell-bent on striking back. Funny thing is, though, that the bully – Jim, he was called – had been reading the book too. He answered Ted’s wallop with not another blow, but with an apology. Today they are best friends. What a great book, huh?

***

Ms. Jamieson finally got herself an apartment of her own. Jack Finnings broke up with his abusive wife and started dating a top model. Simon Curtis chose the police academy instead of the safer but more boring economy program that his parents recommended. Lisa Watson started her own fight club, went to jail for it and met the love of her life behind the bars. Jill practiced for weeks and at last managed to beat the district record in Counter Strike. Mrs. Henrikson finally finished the oil painting she began when she was in junior high, forty years earlier. The book changed the lives of all who read it, and always to the better in some strange way. It made everyone happy that it came in contact with.

***

Except, of course, for God. God started worrying when his angels began complaining about job scarcity, and when even the easy-going Raphael mentioned that he’d been suffering from boredom lately, God decided to look into the affair. It turned out that the phrase “God helps those who help themselves” doesn’t really work out in practice – at least not for the heavenly party. Well, it certainly makes Heaven’s work a whole lot easier if some people just stop complaining and do something about their problems themselves, but it is another thing completely if all people suddenly decide to help themselves. That makes God feel obsolete and supernumerary. And that isn’t a good thing. Unfortunately, that is just what the best book in the world managed to accomplish.

That’s why God banished the book from Earth and let his vengeful angels throw it into Hell, lest they go on strike and force the Lord to go into the troublesome business of sorting out a celestial rising.

The best book in the world was returned to where its idea was first conceived, ’cause even though its contents was very much in line with the supernal, it was also doing its work for it. Nobody ever read the book again, except for the sorry souls in Hades, of course. And I’m sure they found it very useful. But the lives that had already been changed by it remained so, and the Nether Family Company greatly enjoyed this little haphazard consequence of their precedent malpractice – that was by the way completely forgotten thanks to this chain of events. So advantageous was the minor chaos caused by the book, in fact, that they did not back away from the possibility of some day staging another, similar, practical joke on Heaven.

Who knows where next year’s top ranking novel was written?

Queen Mother

Golden walls in this palace, perpetual twilight atmosphere. Countless hexagonal windows overlooking the grand hall, overlooking the Queen’s court. Patrolling this place are the young maidens, armed with black swords, dressed to kill in the name of their mistress. They have yet to see the introduction of the male knights, but rumors abound.

In the great throne room sits the Queen Mother, goddess and matron of all. She knows them all by name, because they share one and are one. She expects them to serve, just as they expect her to ensure their survival. It is not protection they need; in the way of the sword they all by far exceed her. But she carries a divine endowment that none of them share. The spell of life’s creation.

Audience in the throne hall. The walls shiny with hard earned glory, the throne a monument to all the courtiers have ever known and worshiped. Mistress of all, queen and mother. The goddess speaks to them, beckons them closer. Black swords sheeted, heads bowed in silent reverence.

They all see the signs, and know a brooding yet inexplicable sensation of impending doom. The voice in their heads. The goddess is expecting, what joy. But there is foreboding in her ageless eyes, she knows the truth as well.

Sun in their faces as they move out, wind under their crystalline wings. Is the air colder now? Death and violence to all they encounter. Where they just recently dug for gold in the name of their Queen, they are now murdering and abducting in the name of her coming children. Word spreads like wildfire. Their prey, the commoners, try to hide, try to run. But they are the royal guard, the shield maidens of the Golden Palace. Nobody escapes their fury. And in their wrath, somewhere deep inside, they harbor a vain hope that somehow these horrible deeds will keep their mistress from dying.

Returning to the Palace, this castle they themselves helped build in their youth, the army carries with it not gold but living and breathing game. Merciless slaughter next, pouring blood in the sacred halls. No remorse in their hearts, only the Queen’s voice in their minds singing the song of righteous deeds. This will surely save her.

The screams have long since died out, no echoes between the mute castle walls. Only the Queen herself voicing her woe as she walks from room to room, preparing and reviewing each and every recess before the birth of her children. Her guards waiting silently, anxiously, for the point of no return. They cannot know what it means; they have never been through this part of the cycle. But they can feel it in their hearts, the truth of generations come before, the truth of the beginning of the end.

Queen, goddess, mistress, mother. Their sacred divinity is dying. Attending her night and day the honor guard stand helpless before the cold reality. Come autumn, the subject of their devotion will be no more.

Hate in their hearts for the new brood, princes and princesses young enough to be eligible of no odium. Nevertheless sorrow did not enter the palace until in company with them. Feasting day and night upon the carcasses brought from out this secluded haven they grow stronger and stronger. And the thing most vexing to the knightesses, apart from the explicit order not to harm the young ones, is the unignorable fact of the heirs’ beauty. Never, apart from in the presence of their matron, have they seen creatures so fair as these. Their golden hair lush with life, their dark eyes filled with death.

Time and summer passes. One little princess, randomly chosen from the lot, wanders alone in her mother’s castle. Guards everywhere, jealous, spiteful glances in the eyes of many. But the princess has grown. She is not a child anymore. She knows her mother will not outlive the sun, but who will take her place?

On the balcony, feeling the wind in her golden hair, almost blowing her away. Soldiers here, too, but no men. Why is that? Only her brothers, but they are acting strangely. Always striving to leave the palace. Not old enough yet, though. Her sisters just like her, longing for safety. But are they not safe in the palace? Something telling her it is not so. A red leaf blowing past…

Another sunrise, another dawn closer to the fall. One little prince has taken off. Just as well, says the Captain. Only misfortune in their wake. More will go soon. The little princess stands on the balcony, watching him leave. Maybe he will find what he is looking for. Will she?

Colder days, longer nights. The Queen has not much time left, they all know it. The Captain chases the remaining princes away. Some of the young princesses leave, too. One little princess goes to see her mother, but is not let in. Filth, she is, death for the Mother. The little princess runs away, crying.

Out of the palace, over the fields. The Captain said she would be killed did she remain. No wish to die, has she. Safety gone, no home and no Mother. Only the black sword that is her inheritance. An old tree gives her shelter for the rain and the darkness. Wild animals in the night, and angry spirits who wish her harm for what has been done in her mother’s name. The little princess does not remember eating all that flesh.

Dawn upon the dew coated world. Or is it maybe melted frost? A voice on the wind, singing her name. Does she really have a name? Now she does. A young man, not much older than her, climbing onto her branch. Beautiful eyes, fair hair. She sings, too. Gives him a name. A prince from a faraway land he is, and in accordance with all princes’ vows of love he bears no sword on his golden armor. Still he knows her pain. The song goes on and on; the day and summer ends.

All the way back, hastily. Time passes in a rush in the eye of bliss, almost no leaves remaining. Joy and excitement, Mother will surely want to know. The prince, the prince, has gone away. The little princess wonders where. But somehow it does not matter. In some way she feels complete now. A destiny fulfilled.

The Golden Palace ahead, but a darkness brooding. Was it this way when she left? Dark windows, dark clouds. No guards at the gate. Anxiety rising inside her.
She enters. The gold is gone, the first thing she notices. The second, the guards not on their posts. Noises. Screaming. Crying. Further inside, fear getting a grip. Now she sees it. Madness, madness. The guards have gone mad. Crying, screaming, tearing down the walls. Hatred as they look at her, hatred that she is the one responsible.

Confusion, fear. She reaches the throne room. Mother? But woe, Mother does not answer. Lying on her throne, in the golden room. Countless windows overlooking. The little princes approaches her Queen, goddess, mistress, mother. Time stops. The Queen’s eyes are empty, her body devoid of all divine spark. Tears for the princess, the mother is dead.

The guards reach the throne room, start tearing down the walls. Gold falling everywhere. They reach the throne, tearing it down as well. Princess crying, screaming, pulling, fighting. No avail. They refuse to see her, hear her. The roof is coming down. Flight.

Hearing the mad screams of the guards dying in the Palace, a little princess flies across the fields. Sun is setting on this first day of fall. Where to hide? Where to break? The sound of crumbling gold far behind her. The prince, where is he? Calling, singing, searching.

She finds him on the ground, under the tree where they first sang. Cold, dead, already partly eaten by smaller creatures. Shock, tears. The breaking has begun. Did he lie here all the time, fallen from the branch as she slept? Dead all the time after their coming together in the canopy? Could she have saved him? Selfish, selfish princess. No mother, no lover. Only one princess with a terrible, joyful secret. Nightfall.

A tree becomes her shelter as the first heavy flakes of white start to fall from the heavens. Winter, the season of death and hiding for creatures like her. Tired she is, tired of it all. Once loved, once hated. Now, no one remains to grant her those feelings. Death all around. Only sleep remains.

One little princess, randomly chosen from a brood of many, sleeps silently inside a hollow tree as the world turns white and quiet. She is not found by hostile beasts, but her dreams are troubled. In time, though, they give way for other dreams as the smaller lives inside her grow and take hold. The new dreams are of spring, of awakening to a world newly born. Of rippling creeks and sprouting seeds, of a sun returning at last to it’s rightful realm.

And on that first day of spring awakening, she dreams, a little wasp princess, hair golden and eyes black, will crawl out of her tree. She will fly high in the warming sunshine, heavy with the seeds of new beginnings given her by a dead prince, looking for a place suitable for the building of her own Golden Hive Palace.
And there, finally, she will find peace and safety – Queen, goddess, mistress, mother.

Well, why, because of the mummies of course.

Hello, past!

Once upon a time there was a being not quite a tapir but somewhat similar to one, that invented something extraordinary: an inflatable parking lot to use during rush hour the day before Christmas. Imagine – just unpack, inflate and park. Inconceivably practical! The tapir was nominated for the annual tapir Nobel prize and lived happily ever after. Oh, and before it died from old age and cirrhosis of the liver caused by extensive drinking, it also invented the human race.

The human race turned out to be quite the bomb and quickly became very popular, especially with children and young teens. It also turned out to have inherited some of its creator’s inventiveness and caused quite a buzz when it discovered Fire, Wheel and subsequently Electricity. Tapirs love electricity. It turns them on in some perverted way, those kinky bastards.

Anyhow, electricity was a handy little thing to say the least. You could use it to cook, heat your humble living quarters, light up the night to avoid being eaten by horrible, carnivorous beasts and to power your Crazy Daisy Moving Lawn Sprinkler ™. The technology developed and evolved and what was first generators fueled by burning disgusting stuff quickly became slick, shiny, highly modernistic and super safe </sponsored ad> nuclear reactors and everything was awesome. Then there were a couple of catastrophes and some people died or were born with seven toes.

“Well, back to the drawing table”, said the human race, and went back to the drawing table (and yes, the table was from IKEA. Jeez…). It soon became clear that to make up for the closing of the nuclear power plants and avoid unnecessary WoW level-capping due to repeated blackouts, something radical had to be done. After some experimenting with alternative power sources, solar power turned out the unquestionable favourite. It didn’t disturb the neighbours with its subtle but oh-so-infuriating engine noise, and it sure as hell didn’t sabotage the river fishing. The progress was slow, but some ten years ago (OK, two years into the future since you’re in the past, loser) it was decided that solar panels were to be installed on every ineffective surface in the world. This included the Sahara desert, and this is also where things are about to get interesting. Why, you ask? Well, why, because of the mummies of course.

And now you ask about the mummies? Seriously? OK, well: “[a] mummy is a deceased human or animal whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions” (Wikipedia, where else?). Ah, so you knew what a mummy is already and what you were really asking was “whatsupwiththosefrigginmummiesdude?” Well, I was just about to tell you. Calm down.

The mummies, of course, were sleeping in their fancy tombs beneath the desert sand, enjoying the natural, convenient and completely free warmth that seeped down through the sand and into their customised postmortem state rooms while they chilled and dreamed of past glory and other things that excite the well preserved dead. So you can imagine what a fuss arose when that same heat source was thoughtlessly blocked by thousands upon thousands of slick, shiny, highly modernistic and super safe </sponsored ad> solar panels. To put it mildly, the conserved corpses awoke, and they were quite cranky. And as all respectable retirees faced with despicable injustice, they got together and climbed out of their chambers and crypts to exact merciless vengeance upon the establishment which had robbed them of their well deserved eternal sleep in a cozy environment.

The mummies marched across the solar panel covered desert until they reached civilisation, and then they kind of ate everybody. Well, or they didn’t exactly eat everybody. They discovered quite quickly that their digestive systems, together with all their other innards, had been left behind in their perfumed jars at home, next to the glasses with their dental prostheses. So after some embarrassingly iffy first attempts to devour the Earth’s population, the mummies settled for ripping their throats out and leaving them to die in growing puddles of their own blood. Some of them collected spines, but you shouldn’t judge every mummy because of that.

Anyways, it turned out that as soon as one of the mummies managed to secure a humanless area of about one square kilometer, it simply lay down in the middle of said area and slept. Some of them dug in, but not all of them. This seems to be a matter of taste amongst mummies and has nothing to do with outside temperature or air pollution. Luckily, even way back when the mummies were being “made”, so to speak, resources were wryly allocated between the population, and thus only a select few had been able to afford the somewhat exclusive and expensive treatment. Thus there weren’t an endless number of mummies, even though that number alone was proving troublesome enough.

So at the end of the day the lion’s share of the world’s continents ended up depopulated and covered in soundly sleeping mummies, and the extensive solar cell project proved quite superfluous since mummies don’t know how to handle a microwave oven and wouldn’t care for dubious gastronomical debaucheries anyhow. So the world ended up rather quiet and restful, even though the occasional Crazy Daisy still disrupted the peace of the undead and caused them to go on a rampage amongst those poor souls who had managed to stay alive by keeping away and not provoking the mummies in any way. I am one of them, as I’m sure you had already gathered by now.

And that brings me to the reason behind me writing this text and using another piece of excellent tapiric invention to send it back in time to you: please, please, please do your best to ensure that silly garden sprinklers that run on electricity don’t become a hit! They’ll just go on and on and on and on ad infinitum and wake the mummies up long after you have all had your throats ripped or your spines stolen or whatever. Having them run on water is more than enough. It is easier to cut the water supply to any given suburb street than cutting the power. Believe me. And I’m tired of crazy dashes over picket fences and through unkempt gardens to turn off one of these stupid flower thingies before it wakes up a morning tired mummy with murderous tendencies. I’ve had just about enough of it. So I implore you, dear sir or madam, to, if nothing else, refrain from buying one of these lawn decorations if they run on electricity. That’s all I ask of you. Just. Don’t. Do. It. Thank you.

P.S. Oh, yeah, if the above didn’t convince you enough: sprinklers with electrical components are also highly hazardous for everyone, including but not limited to children, pets, mailmen, dolphins and cute old ladies with their cats in baskets. So they are just plain stupid. And you are, too, if you buy them. And people will likely sue you. And then you will go to hell – if the mummies don’t eat you first, that is. So. There. I hope you are now irrevocably convinced and stuff. Have a nice life. Bye. D.S.