Tag: connection

Happy Valentine’s Dead (1)

As always, she delivered. There was never a trace, never a mess.

Honestly, I don’t know how she did it, and I never cared to ask.
She came referred to me by someone she used to work for; they parted on bad terms, and she shot him in the knee, but even then, he admired her work.

“Best I ever saw.”

“Rate?”

He told me. It was up there, but workable.
”All right.”

 

*****************

 

She came in looking like new pearls; guess that made me the swine.

Short red dress, body like a tight spring, killer legs, not too made up, soft perfume, the whole nine, then nine more.

Now I realized why he kept her after she shot him; she was the kind of woman who could do that to a man and be forgiven instantly. Hell, I forgave her, then and there, and she never even took her gun out.

She crossed the killer legs, let me look my fill and travel my way up; when I finally got to her eyes, they were amused, and she was smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

“Do I pass…inspection?”

“With flying colors.”

She uncrossed the legs and leaned forward, eyes no longer amused, and told me her terms.

“I work alone. No cops, no tails. If I get wind of anyone, anyone, I’m giving you a refund, but I’m coming after you.”

I sat back, steepled my fingers, intrigued.

“You shouldn’t tip your hand so early.”

“I don’t care; I need to get to Mexico.”

“Why Mexico?”

She looked at me as I’d just fallen on my head and changed color.

“Why not Mexico?”

I shrugged. “Why not?”

I told her the job, and gave her a down payment, the rest to be paid upon completion.

“So, just to be clear, I work for you now?”

I held out my hand: “You can always give it back.”

We locked eyes for a few moments, before she brightened, smiled, and winked, all flirtatious play, like a shark bumping a hole in your sea cage.

“See you later, boss” she said, and left.

She did it in two days. No trace.

I paid her double.

 

*************

She went on to do a few more jobs.

I liked her sass; you didn’t see girls with sass anymore; in my day, I might’ve held her for a bit, but she’d have burned me like acid.

I’d have melted away a happy man…

“My money?”

“Right there, Valentine.”

I pointed to the briefcase.

“Yes, they’re not marked, blah blah,” I said waving a dismissive hand.

“I trust you, Kent.”

“You should. How long we been together now?”

She smiled. “A gentleman remembers her birthday, never her age.”

“Ha, listen to you. You’re still in diapers, and you didn’t make that up.”

“I read, peasant.”

I laughed.

“Anything else for me,” she said.

“Might be, Valentine. Gimme a day or so.”

“You’re the only one that calls me ‘Valentine,’ Kent. Everyone else says ‘V’ or ‘Val’.

I got up, stretched, yawned, then said to her, “I ain’t everyone else. I like the way your name sounds. I like you, and I’d love to…well, if you’d let me, but that gets…”

“Expensive?” she teased.

I cleared my throat, then answered her.“Costly.”

She laughed then. “Charmer.”

She picked up the briefcase.

“Til next time, lover man.”

“If you’re ever feeling lonely…”

“I’ll call you.” She turned and blew me a kiss. “Promise.”

I never saw her again.

When they found what was left of her, I bawled like a kid.

Waves at Twilight

They sing a timeless song, these waves

of harpooned whale and gleaning gull

They batter a bitter beat, these waves

against the rocks that say, “no farther.”

They gleam with diamonds of sunlight, these waves

that shimmer and glide under the azure sky

They guard the souls of drowned slaves and sailors, these waves

and wash the flesh away from buried bones

And in the gathering gloam of

crepuscular dusk

You  and I watch them, these waves

gently crash and foam and sizzle

at our feet

inviting us to

frolic

buoyant

across their seamless surface

And reaching for my hand, you lead

And taking your hand, I follow

And we are received by them, these waves

holy water

incessantly blessing

pure love.

 

Within

smithaw50's avatarBeyond Panic

Within the world

we wandered

and walked without

a care

Within our hearts

we reached

and opened them

so they were bare

Within ourselves

we wondered

at what the other

sought

Of that bare heart

within us

we offered without

thought

And so within our love

without the world

we left behind

Without a backward glance

we closed the door and

drew the blind

And deep within each other

we put our trust and fears

and then discovered real love

is not without its tears

And so without you

now I live within my memories

The tears within my eyes will stay

I’ll live without love, please.

© Alfred W. Smith Jr.  2015

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And Yes, I Still Believe in Love

smithaw50's avatarBeyond Panic

And yes, I still believe in love
I still believe it’s there
It’s trembling out there somewhere in
the frosty winter air

Or trapped inside a mountain cave
from which it can’t escape
because it fell while running out
and gave its knee a scrape

Or floating on the raging sea
and looking for a light
to guide it safely home to shore
before it’s out of sight

Perhaps it’s on a city street
outside at a café
You didn’t hear it call your name
and hurried on your way

Perhap it’s somewhere crying
it cannot find a heart
that seems to want to keep it
not tell it to depart

So when we say we ‘look for love’
that happens to be true
I still believe it’s out there and
it’s looking for us too.

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Leiko and the White Wolf (5)

5)

 

As it often happens when in a strange place for the first time, Leiko couldn’t sleep, and got up to skulk about the monastery to explore whatever piqued her curiosity, which was just about everything.

The dark halls with single torches intrigued her most, but she knew the monastery was likely labyrinthine, and didn’t want to risk getting lost.

She decided to see if Akira was up; perhaps he could make some sort of sleeping tea for her, if he wasn’t too angry at her behavior during dinner.

A bit peeved to find that she cared what he thought of her, she figured it was best to go apologize; he’d been kind to her, all things considered, and she hadn’t, as he’d promised, come to harm.

There was no threat here, at least not from the Brothers, but she could also sense an undercurrent of contained power, controlled, but almost throbbing like a heart, inside the walls, under the ground, a vibrancy running like a warm current tickling the fine hairs on her arms.

It was a sense of gathering power, and it gave her an excited, anticipatory fright.

If that was what they were going to teach her to harness and wield, she dreaded the learning of it, and never desired anything more.

Some of the doors were open, and she looked in to see the men packing large satchels. When they saw her, they hurriedly looked away, almost shamefaced.

She stood in the doorway of one, and the monk came over to close the door, but she wouldn’t leave.

“Leiko, I need privacy.”

“Are you leaving? Did Hakurou send you all on a journey? A mission?”

She saw his face change at the words ‘journey’ and ‘mission,’ and something clicked into place.

“You’re leaving.”

“Please…” he pushed the door at her again, not hard, but firmly, and she had no choice but to back away or let it hit her bare toes.

The lock clicked, and she heard him shuffle away.

They’re leaving because of me.

Disturbed, she went in earnest to find Akira, and ask what problems she’d be facing with them now that she was living here.

 

****************

“Come in, Ko.”

She went in, saw Akira standing by the small window, looking out at the yellow moonlight on the green grass, giving it a bluish cast.

“You knew it was me?”

He chuckled, but didn’t turn to her.

“No powers needed there; the brothers aren’t prone to knocking, and they’re a ham fisted lot if they do.”

“You called me ‘Ko.’ Hakurou changed my name. You call him master, but you defy him by using my old name.”

He turned to her then, looking at her intently; her observations were keen for one so young. Tigress by the tail…

“Between you and me, you will always be ‘Ko.’ That is the name I found you under, and the name in which you branded your father’s cheek with your spittle.”

She reddened at the memory, and looked away.

Good.

“It is also the first cord of our bonding, and I will only call you ‘Leiko’ when Hakurou is around.

“Are we agreed?”

She nodded, not wanting to speak yet, fearing her voice would squeak.

“You are not asleep; tomorrow, Hakurou’s going to start your training in the path of the Rei.”

She sat on the edge of his bed. “Some of the men are leaving because of me. I saw them.”

Akira inwardly cursed them for cowards.

“There is nothing to be done for it, Ko. Those that remain…”

“Those that remain…?”

He shook his head. “What is it you want?”

“Besides returning to Iwai? I’d like a sleeping tea, if you have any.”

“I do. I will even join you. Any later, and we will both see the sun before we topple.”

 

*****************

 

Hakurou’s voice was low thunder.

“I am grieved…so grieved I can no longer call you Brothers.

“You are craven, useless dogs.”

“You said to consider carefully, Hakurou. We all have—“
“No spines!” Hakurou’s fist slammed the large table they were sitting around, and they all jumped, blinking at the sudden fury of the motion and his expression.

Another monk spoke. “Maybe you shouldn’t issue edicts you don’t mean then, Hakurou.”

Hakurou sat down, the blood slowly leaving his face as his hand worried at his beard.

“You’re right. If you didn’t leave now, you’d prove a weakness in the fighting, and run, or die. Either way, you’d have the witches victorious, and this is not the time for people like you. I would say ‘men’, but that doesn’t fit you.”

The monk who first spoke stood. “I’ve had enough. You said we could leave. We’ve done our part, and served our gods; we want to go on serving them. We don’t want to die.”

Hakurou gave a bitter laugh.

“And if the witches win, pup, do you think they’ll leave you be?”

That gave them pause, and some of them remained sitting.

“He’s turned you? With that simplistic question, he changed your mind?”

One of sitting monks sighed. “He’s right, Brother Milal, there is no place to run they won’t find us.”

“But there’s a chance they won’t; there’s a chance we’ll survive, and as long as it’s there, I have to try. I have to take that chance.”

“Best be leaving then,” Hakurou said. “The sun is up soon, and Leiko’s first session will start at first light.”

They stood, and filed out in silence, giving the old wolf at least that much respect, dropping their pendants and rings in a reliquary beside the main doors.

 

***************

Leiko and Akira saw them leaving, and before Akira could react, she was off, running toward them.

“Wait! Please! Please wait!

The monk who spoke to Hakurou first stopped the rest of them, watching her wild eyed approach.

Seeing he was the leader, she went up to him.

“If you leave, sir, you weaken the monastery. You weaken us all.”

“I have no part in this war. It will be a bloodbath, and none of it theirs. You seem like an intelligent child, for a peasant’s daughter. Demand Akira return you to your homeland.

“Dosojin Monastery will be destroyed in the battle to come.”

“Are you a seer, now?” Akira interjected.

Milal looked at him as if he’d just bled on a hymnal.

“No, I’m a realist.”

“If you believe your god is real, ‘realist,’ then why don’t you stay and ask for victory? Your brothers need you.” Leiko said. “And I need you.”

He looked at her, incredulous: her rudeness knew no boundaries.

“He is not a god of warriors, you fool girl, he is a god of the temple. He watches over us in peace and in life, if we should so pray.”

She looked at him a long moment. He was bristling, but dared say nothing in front of Akira. He was shifting his feet under her gaze, and not making eye contact, but summoning backbone to stand straight and say:

“If there’s nothing else, child, we must go.”

She stepped aside, and as they filed past, the leader stood glaring at her, and she calmly bore it until it was his time to step forward on the path of stones.

As he passed her, she murmured so only the three of them heard her:

“Pray hard then, Milal.

As Akira began to close the door, she the fear in Milal’s eyes, but his pride wouldn’t let him capitulate.

He swallowed, and turned away from them, and walked out.

As the lock clicked, a roll of thunder resounded in the far distance.

 

 

 

Leiko and the White Wolf (3)

Ko stopped looking around her; the day was as damp as her spirit.

Perhaps the sun would be out another day, but she knew that places by water were often clouded of a morning, depending on the surrounding countryside.

She and Akira walked in silence, their own footsteps soft on the streets.

There had been no one to greet them when they disembarked, no horses for travel, no wagon.

Akira had taken back his robe, but not before asking if she was warm enough.

She said she was.

“Good. I cannot appear before my master unclothed.”

Having seen something of Akira’s power, she was surprised that he used such a word as ‘master’ in such a nonchalant manner, and didn’t want to think about the man who might be stronger.

“Who’s your master?”

“You will meet him when he sends for you.”

“When will that be?”

“When he feels like it.”

She didn’t feel like playing the slippery eel word games Akira seemed fond of, at least with her.

Perhaps if I were a boy he’d share more freely.

“Akira?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you seek me out, and not a boy?”

“Gender did not matter, Ko; it was a matter of other things.”

“But I-“
“Enough, Ko.”

He said it calmly enough, but she knew better than to answer.

“All things, in time,” he reminded her.

“All right.”

“We are here.”

Ko looked up at the monastery, on the summit of a medium sized hill, shrouded by yet more fog, with torches burning like captive, dying stars above the crenels.

A bell pealed, signaling their arrival, but Ko saw no watchtower.

“How do they know we’re here?”

Akira smiled down at her, and gave no reply.

I want to stomp on his foot Ko thought, and instantly regretted it, not knowing if he could read her thoughts.

If he did, he gave no sign.

A monk in a dark red robe with gold piping opened the doors, and two more in similar garb stood in the middle of the entrance, bowing from the waist to Akira.

“Welcome home, brother,” the monk on the right said.

“Welcome to our guest,” the monk on the left said.

Akira stopped, and greeted them with a slight bow of his own.

Ko followed his lead, and the monk who greeted her grinned.

“We part here, Ko. Brother Koji will take you to your quarters. I will meet with you again at evening meal.”

Ko felt a shot of anxiety rush through her; she said she didn’t trust what Akira said, but she trusted Akira.

He said no one would harm me, and time would prove it true.

“This way,” said Koji, and Ko followed, feeling the eyes of the other monk and Akira watching her.

Another test. I mustn’t look back or he’ll know I’m afraid.

She quickened her step until she was beside Koji, and felt the weight of their eyes lifted.

 

**************

Brother Koji had a kindly face, clean shaven and rotund, like his body.

To Ko, he looked like a barrel with legs, and she smiled at the image, but didn’t laugh.

“A pleasant memory, young miss?”

She blushed, as if he’d heard her thought out loud, but the lie came easy enough.

“Yes, Brother Koji. I was just thinking of home.”

His eyes grew soft in sympathy. “I hope you will see it again one day, young miss.”

Ko felt bad about the deception, but what he said actually got to her, and she felt the hot sting of tears pop up.

“It is my only wish,” she said, mourning that her father was a coward, and her mother as shadowy and vaporous as the dark corners she seemed to prefer dwelling in when they were indoors.

“Well, while you are here, I hope you will come to find some pleasantries to keep your days fulfilled until then.

“Here we are.”

He opened the door for her, and stepped out of the way.

Her room at home had been small and cheaply furnished, but that room was a palace compared to this one.

There was a bed, with a thin blanket, thin mattress and flat pillow, and a nightstand on which sat two pieces of bad pottery that were a pitcher and cup, and a ceramic vase of dubious use tucked into a shadowy corner.

A wooden chair and desk occupied the wall opposite.

“Welcome, young miss,” Koji said. “I will return for you when it is time for the evening meal.”

He bowed, and walked away.

Ko wanted to cry, scream, and faint all at once, but the fight was out of her, and she merely sat on the edge of the bed, her mind numb and her vision blurry, until the events of the day overwhelmed her, and she threw herself onto the mattress, and wished herself dead.

Her eyes only granted part of her wish, and merely closed.

 

************

“Hakurou will see you now, Akira,” the monk who greeted him said.

“Now? I thought he would wait until after the evening meal.”

“As did I, since that is what he first ordered, but upon your arrival, he saw no reason to delay.”

They arrived at a set of large, black marble doors with bronze, vertical handles shaped like swords, though the edges were dull to prevent cutting.

“Thank you, Brother.”

He left.

Akira opened the door; his master had no need of guards.

He walked in on his master pouring a second cup of something brown and potent, and he turned and smiled, waited for Akira to finish his bow, and offered him the cup.

They drank in silence, though Akira felt the weight of the elder’s power observing his face, as if deciding whether or not he would take the life of a spider that landed on his last piece of bread.

“Another?”

Akira coughed, and waved his hand.

“Ha! You would be sober for vespers, then. That’s good. Ever the faithful monk, you are Akira.

“How fares our young charge?”

“Her father handled things poorly, and she spit in his face as she left him behind. Of course she was scared, and sullen at first, but seemed to resign herself to things soon enough, and peppered me with questions I had to stop. Also, she is quick-witted, and not easily frightened.”

“You did not tell her why she was chosen.”

It wasn’t a question, but Akira answered to assure him.

“No.”

“Good; leave that to me. Spitting in her father’s face, though, shows rebellion.”

“Rebellion is often the outcome of betrayal, Hakurou. Is that not why we need her?”

Hakurou finished his second drink, poured another, and under his silver white mustache, Akira heard his voice deepen almost to sorrow as he let out a heavy sigh, nodding.

“It is.”

 

 

Leiko and the White Wolf (2)

2)

 

In time, her captor’s robe did its job, and Ko was settled into it, wrapping it up around her shoulders, and over her head. The weight of the wide, waterlogged hat had grown heavy, and it now sat on the bench beside her.

She saw the small crew sneaking glances at her, though what they could see with her hidden inside the robe, and with the thickening fog, she didn’t know.

They seemed content to do no more than that, since, as her mysterious captor told her, the journey was not long.

He’d abandoned his post at the stern, and now stood in the bow; those mysteriously bright eyes were probably piercing through the fog to watch for the shore line.

Ko, feeling more relaxed, more due to inactivity and the receding of the adrenaline from her father’s betrayal than being comfortable, decided to stretch her legs, and join him, and perhaps get some answers to some of the questions she now had.

When she stood beside him, he acknowledged with a brief look, and turned his attention back to the unnaturally smooth river.

“What do I call you?”

“I go by many names.”

“I just need one.”

He smiled at her sarcastic quickness.

“Akira.”

“Akira…I like it.”

“I am pleased.”

“How much longer, Akira?”

“I can see the coastline now.”

“Through the fog?”

“Yes.”

“How?
He turned to her. “Are these the questions on your list?”

She shook her head.
“Then I am under no obligation to answer them.”

“That’s rude.”

“Yes, it is.”

She looked up to see if he was joking, and thought she saw him just barely hide the trace of a smile.

“Hold your questions, Ko, until we are both warm and fed, and you have settled into your quarters. I will reveal things to you as you need to know them, and not before.

“Do we have an understanding?”

Considering there was nothing she could do to force anything, she nodded.

“Say it.”

“Yes, Akira. We have an understanding.”

“I am pleased.”

“Land!” the front oarsman called. The word reverberated, but the fog muffled it; it sounded strange to Ko, as if a ghost had shouted.

Akira offered them no guidance, and Ko, who couldn’t see anything, felt a little flutter of worry, but with the familiarity of long years, the oarsmen guided the boat into the city harbor with alacrity.

Ko took her hat, and shook off the loose water that remained; it was no longer raining, but it was still too damp for the hat to dry.

Akira placed a small sack into the front oarsman’s hand, and Ko could hear the clink of coin inside it.

He nodded once to the oarsman, who bowed from the waist, and shooed his crew off the boat to disappear into the fog.

He reached for Ko’s hand, and she took it; his hand was warm, and her own felt like a nestling in it, somehow safe and warm, and the weariness of recent events began to tire her now; she didn’t want to relax, wanted to stay on her guard, but Akira was making it difficult.

“And what do I call this land, or does it too, go by many names?”

“Only one: Dosojin.”

“Dosojin…the god of roads.”

“You don’t like it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It is named such because there are many paths.”

“Paths to what?”

“To your destination.”

“Where is that?”

“That is for you to find, Ko. I am only a guide, but you must tell me where you want to stop.”

She shook her head, her voice edgy now, frustrated with the seemingly constant evasion.

“I don’t understand, Akira.”

“I don’t expect you to; you are trying to force what should come naturally. Look, I know that what happened to you was traumatic, and you feel more like a plucked weed than anything else, useless, therefore without value, but I also understand the weather is inclement, and the circumstances surrounding your selection cannot be easily explained in the span of a ferry ride.

“There is much for you to learn, and much more to think about, and I have told you no harm will befall you.

“And as much as that frightens you, you must take me at my word, until time proves it true.”

As they walked, she fell silent, and looked around her.

The city, town, village, whatever it was they were walking through, wouldn’t give up its secrets.

The streets were empty, and the shops dimly lit.

The fog seemed to have an oppressive quality, almost as if its ethereal weight had strength and substance.

She had no impression of color, or structure, or design; the fog sat like a cosmic toad over everything, and Ko soon gave it up as a lost cause.

Akira, for his part, seemed lost in his own thoughts the closer they came to where she was supposed to be.

So, father, you have sold me to Dosojin…the god of roads…of many paths.

But I see only one way out.

 

 

 

Leiko and the White Wolf (cont)

Ko walked down to the ferry, the mud squelching under her feet, pulling at them when she went to take the next step, as if the ground didn’t want her to leave.

The man who’d stopped her merely watched her board, watched her father skulk away in the pouring rain, soon lost even to his sight.

He took note that Ko never turned to watch him go.

She stood with her back to him, saying nothing, her hat her only real protection, and her hands bunched up her clothes as she swaddled herself, trying to keep in what little warmth remained.

A weight fell across her shoulders, a shimmer of color, and she realized the man had given her his own robe, a bit too long, but warm with his own heat, and a tinge of something between musk and mandarin, not unpleasant….but not her father.

She murmured a ‘thank you’ over her shoulder, still not moving.

He gave the order to move, and the ferry creaked and groaned and listed slightly.

Ko grabbed the rail for balance, and stumbled a bit as she got used to the motion.

The current seized the boat, and it swerved, then straightened, and glided across the water as if there were no rain at all.

Realizing what happened, and not wishing to know, Ko watched the river water spackled with fat raindrops rush past them.

“You are using magic to make the ship resist the current.”

“No, Ko. Magic is in another realm; I am using power.”

She turned that over a moment, then told him the truth.

“I don’t understand.”

“That is why you are here.”

“I am here,” she sighed, “because my father is a poor fisherman.”

He chuckled, to her surprise.

“That is a level-headed conclusion, but not entirely the truth; I sought you out, Ko.”

She turned then, watched him, though he was still looking out over the stern of the ferry.

“Sought me out?”

He turned and walked toward her; he was slender, but strong, and moved with confidence on the wet deck.

His face was kind, but authoritative; he was handsome, in a way the men of her homeland were not. His skin was darker, and age had stamped a seal of authenticity to it that he would probably die at sea.

His facial hair framed the lower part of his face, neatly trimmed, and tinged with gray.

His eyes had radiance to them, not natural, but a soft light seemed to emanate in the whites of his eyes. Ko couldn’t be sure if it was real or her imagination.

“There is much to explain, but the journey is not long; take your ease under the awning, and think on your questions. I will answer them all.

“You have nothing to fear, Ko, not from me, or any man on this ship, or where we are going.

“Do you believe me?”

She sensed this was some type of test, and knew what he wanted her to say, but she decided not to say anything anyone wanted to hear; she was the victim, after all.

“No, I don’t.”

He said nothing, but inclined his head, looking at her in a new way.

A small smile flashed across his lips, and he went back to looking over the stern, as she went underneath the awning.

Sitting down, she watched him watching the past, his bare torso pelted by the rain, as she sat shivering, not entirely from the cold, under the awning, and wondered what her future held.

Justice = Just Us

So as a cop, you don’t even have to engage the tween with the TOY gun in the department store. No criminal record, no threat to you, himself, or anyone in the store, but he never even got a ‘drop your weapon.’

Just pull up, and bang.

When we’re innocent, cops plant evidence.  Alabama ‘police’ did it for 10 years. Where’s the outrage from #ALLLIVESMATTER?

Make up your mind:

Don’t want us ‘thuggin,’ but won’t hire us.
Don’t want us on welfare, but don’t want us educated.
Don’t want us holding political office, but it’s okay if it’s a ball or a microphone we sing and rap into, as long as we’re not decrying supremacist / oligarchal bullshit disguised as ‘policy.’

Then redline the districts to remove black representatives, and put them in districts where prisoners can’t vote.

Then talk about ‘reverse discrimination’ when it used to be called ‘hiring on merit’ before.

Worried about terrorism? Guess it takes one to know one.

Time to segregate, on our own terms, for our own reasons, to rebuild ourselves, our youth, and our communities. Stop celebrating Kwanzaa for a week when we’re not living out the principles 24/7/365.

We weren’t brought over here to live, but to work, and as long as we’re not turning a profit for anyone else, we can ‘go back to Africa.’

But let’s get back to Black Wall Street instead. Let’s build schools where our youth will excel and begin to invade the halls of power: science, law (and its enforcement),  finance, technology, and trade, in the same numbers we seek to invade the NFL and NBA.

We’ll be talking about a different country then; help is not coming from the outside, and for damn sure reparations are not coming for slavery. You’re paid less for the work you actually do, as opposed to the work you didn’t, where no one was paid at all.

Stop rapping about money and hoes and guns and drugs, and pull your pants up so you can stand up and man up. You do know by now that showing your ass means anyone can screw you, and screw you over?

If you ‘love your hood,’ stop poisoning its people with drugs imported from countries that don’t like you either, and shooting your brothers, and impregnating your sisters with babies you can’t take care of from behind bars. You leave them vulnerable, like Tamir was vulnerable.

Stop riding around in expensive cars through neighborhoods that look no better than bombed out Syria, talking about ‘I got mine’ before the cops add it to the Criminal Forfeiture fund to pay for their bodycams, which they’ll turn off the next time they aim for your heart.

Poverty is a mindset; it just manifests as an economic factor.

Wake up. Strap up (your mind first, your home second).

The revolution has started, and it’s not only televised, it’s being broadcast all over the world.

Resolve in your spirit, now, to answer this question:

How long are you willing to remain a target?

Overmorrow (6)

6)

I waited just outside the Summoner’s door as once again the yellow, green and blue eyes of the night creatures flecked the darkness as they came to watch me and wait for the ideal opportunity.

In time, as they eyes crept closer and closer, Jirus appeared at the top of the rise; his eyes were still that pale blue.

“Mitre Harkin.”

At his greeting, the eyes began to recede into the trees.

I walked up the rise and he took my hand.

“Vilus is back at the camp, and the meat is cooking. Did you do what you needed?”

“I did.” I stopped, and since he held my hand, he stopped with me.

“I may need your help later. I’m afraid that the Dark Wood won’t be spared this time.”

He nodded.  “I didn’t think it would be; with the departure of so many, there are holes in its protection, and what magic remains has faded, or weakened, to the point where we’ve been vulnerable for some time.”

We began walking again.

“We’ve been relying on reputation to keep out intruders for some time. The truth is, Mitre, you wouldn’t have been able to get as far as you did if everything was still intact.

“The original barrier prevented travel through the last of the hill country, and you were very lucky to survive.”

That was a sobering thought, but I let it pass.

“So no, we won’t be spared, and we’ll help in any way we can.”

This time, he stopped, and looked up at me with a rather fierce expression.

“But I’ll not put Vilus in harm’s way for you.”

I was taken aback, and said so. “I would never ask you to do that.”

We started walking again.  “War makes men do all sorts of things they’d never do.”

I had no answer for that either.

We arrived at the camp, and Vilus ran up to me and hugged me.

“Were you able to help her, Mitre?”

The most expedient thing to do in the moment was lie, one of the first things I vowed never to do when I donned the temple’s robes. Already what Jirus told me was proving true.

“Yes Vilus, I was.”

She smiled.

“The food’s ready,” Jirus called.

As we ate, they regaled me with some of their more dangerous hunting stories, and while they weren’t exactly feral children, if their exploits were true, they were relentless in their pursuit, and brutal in their killing.

They said nothing of their family, or how they came to be alone, much less survive, in the woods all these years, and nothing of how they gained their hunting prowess, and why the animals feared them so.

Something told me that if I asked, I would lose them, so I didn’t.

That’s a tale for another day.

It was what my father often said to us when we’d ask him for another bedtime story because we didn’t want him to go, and we didn’t want to go to sleep. Sometimes he’d indulge us, but when he didn’t, that’s what he’d say.

I felt it applied here.

Soon time and quiet exacted their price, and the light in the children’s eyes was flickering as their lids closed as they too, fought sleep; but as the fire died, their stories trailed off into light snores

Knowing I was safe as long as I stayed close, I watched the unfed fire dance across the embers, and darken, and took what rest I could in the remainder of the night.

 

*****************

In the morning, Vilus woke me.

“Mitre Harkin, it’s time to go.”

I woke up, rubbing my eyes, my face, as I looked about to see Jirus not in the camp.

“Where’s your brother?”

“He got your horse.”

“He found it alive?”

She smiled. “Yes, and it’s already saddled for you.”

She took my hand.

“It’s not dark, Vilus.”

“I know.”

She gave my hand a little squeeze.

Friends again.

 

******************

Jirus held the reins as I mounted, and I gave the bag with the rest of the gold.

“That’s very generous, Mitre.”

“You’ve more than earned it. I only hope you find it of some use before the demons come, before their masters gain more power.”

“I wish we met under better circumstances.”

“Well, we have a chance to make them better before we meet again.”

“I’d like that.”

“Me too,” Vilus said. She handed me my crossbow.

“Thank you. Both of you.”

“Until we meet again, right, Mitre Harkin?”

“That’s right, dear Vilus. That’s exactly right.”

I turned the horse, who took off at a gallop, eager to be back on familiar ground.

I didn’t bother turning around this time, because I didn’t want to see the empty space.

The sun was rising.

Overmorrow had now become today.