Tag Archives: Short Story

Hunter/Woodcutter

A pair of eyes burn through Anatoly. Alexandre is angry; the last of the venison is gone, and he, Anatoly, caught nothing on his last outing. The old man’s face is devoid of love. No line drawn across his wrinkly skin whispers the merest token of kindness. A great black beard over it resembles a black forest one enters, but never leaves. The fire crackles softly in the stone hearth, barely disguising the banshees wailing outside outside of their cabin. Tonight the storm kills anyone foolish enough to step outside, but Anatoly does not hear its cries of misery; his eyes lock to Alexandre’s fiery black coals. The young man feels so alone.

“You little idiot!”, Alexander hisses and takes half a step forward. Calloused hands rolled into balls, taut and shaking. “Why do I let you stay?” A fist the size of a dog’s head slams over a rickety wooden table, sending splinters and two empty clay plates crashing down on the floor below. “Tell me why!” Alexander’s voice rises above the night’s maelstrom caging them.

Anatoly’s gaunt frame flinches, covering his face with thin, delicate hands. He can hear Alexander grinding his teeth, reminding him of the grain mill from the village down the mountain. I am the wheat, dear God. Trembling from head to to toe he rallies whatever is swimming at the pit of his stomach, pushing past the bile rising from his throat. “I…hunt…you cut wood.”, he finally manages to say in a whimper.

“Precisely.”, Alexander snarls, spittle falling down his black beard. “I cut wood. You hunt food. And you can’t even do that right!”

“But, but…surely God will provide a miracle. We must hold faith!” Anatoly tries to sound optimistic, even courageous, until a log in the fire behind him cracks, making him jump.

“God?” Alexander’s face darkens, “God will not listen. This storm makes Him deaf. This storm that is trapping us. This storm…”, the old man picks up a particularly thick-looking log with one hand. Alexandre roars like like a black bear, flinging the log at Anatoly, “…will swallow us!”

“Wait!” Anatoly yelps, barely sidestepping the log, which hits the wall behind him and clatters on the floor, rolling past where he was standing a second ago. “Please Alexandre, wait! For the love of God!” His voice rises to a shriek. “Give me one more day! I can…I can…” He can’t finish, the wailing outside is eating his voice away.

Alexandre takes two long steps and strikes him with the back of his hand, knocking Anatoly over. The young man screams and falls to the floor. “The season of storms is here, idiot!” Looking down at the simpering figure, Alexandre’s mind is pierced by a thought he’s tried to hold back all evening: they are dead men. “God is not here. We are alone, and we will die.” In an instant, rough hands yank Anatoly to his feet from the scruff of his shirt. “I’ll kill you before that.”

Something flashes in the dim of the cabin and Alexander howls in agony, feeling the sharp bite of steel in his gut. His grip loosens and Anatoly falls to the floor again. A dark spot begins to form on the left side of Alexander’s brown coat. “You stabbed me!” Alexandre’s voice is no more than a whisper, his eyes seem to have lost some of their focus.

Anatoly holds a large hunting knife with trembling hands, he tightens his grip as hard as he can until it hurts. The tip is dipped in blood. “God forgive me…” His mouth hangs open, he can barely believe what he did. “Alexandre, it was an accident, I didn’t mean…!”

With a bellow, Alexandre jumps at Anatoly, before the young man can even react, he is pinned down to the ground by the neck with one hand, while another smacks the knife away. He can feel Alexandre’s grip, unyielding, like one of Anatoly’s snares for catching rabbits. Anatoly can’t breathe, he panics, at first kicking and flailing trying not to escape, but to breathe. Soon he starts to move less, and less. Then he stops moving altogether.

Alexandre is in a daze. Somehow, his hands are holding meat again that his teeth tear greedily, raw, letting the warm blood kiss his lips and wet his cheeks. Anatoly’s knife carves it with ease. So juicy and tender; there is no more of Anatoly’s womanly mewling. Once he’s had his fill, Alexandre cuts up and parcels the meat from his companion’s body, hoping it will be enough to keep him alive until the storms pass. Afterwards he will go down to the village, buy more food, find someone else to hunt. After all, he only cuts wood. Only wood. As soon as he opens the door outside the storm’s whip of sleet and snow hits him on the face. Covering it with one hand, while with another he carries a soiled bundle of bloody bones and soiled clothes, Alexandre steps out into the darkness.

Hide the body, hide it. Any hole he digs will be good, but he needs to be fast. He can barely see more than a few feet ahead of him, but the snow has already piled high to his knees. Each step is a feat, feeling heavier the more he walks. Just a little more, around the cabin. Alexandre considered burning the remains, but the thought of Anatoly’s stench, fresh or roasted, at least at that moment seemed…unbearable. It did not matter now; he will bury the remains, he will survive. Much harsher storms have come and go, and Alexandre was left standing. He just realized he’s stopped walking, but is on his knees, with the snow almost to his mid-stomach. How odd, Alexandre thinks, realizing how tired he really is. Despite the freeing cold wrapping him, he feels an odd warmth spread across his body, making him sleepy, so sleepy. Alexandre’s eyes feel too heavy to keep open any longer. If he could just rest for a bit, then he will take care of things, yes he will. He just needs to rest. Just for a bit…

From the blackness of the storm they came, desperate and hungry. Saliva freezes and melts on their elongated snouts, tongues lolling to the side as clouds of hot breath are blown away by the storm. They were stumbling when a light appeared far ahead. They followed it and now prey lies on the snow before them. The leader, twice as large as any of them -almost as big as the body lying in the snow- paces slowly towards it. Black fur ripples with white from sleet as it edges closer to the unmoving mound, mostly covered by the snow now. A tentative nip is given with fangs that crave the warmth moisture of flesh. The mound does not stir. The leader gives out a victorious howl that the endless cries of the storm drowns, but the others join nonetheless. Tonight, at least, they will not starve.

Snow In Shibuya

The cup warmed Christobella’s hands as she took a sip, letting the tea comfort her; it was her favorite brand of green tea. It had snowed yesterday, but the streets of Shibuya were already cleared up to let traffic flow at its regular frantic pace. “Shibuya is always lively, so many places to see that your head will spin!” Signore Yoshimura had told her long ago.

The lights of a nearby electronic billboard were advertising a new video game. A young Japanese woman, probably in her late teens, danced enthusiastically. She was dressed in a school uniform -skirt above the knee, no less-, brandishing what appeared to be a pink AK-47. “Happy lucky adventure, yes, yes!” The young woman’s voice was chipper and high-pitched, a cute doll wrapped in plastic. Years of living here and Christobella could still be surprised, or at least amused. Japan, never a dull moment. She smiled at the young woman made from a million tiny lights, now fighting what appeared to be a three-headed dragon.

Was the woman Satsune slept with a school girl? Christobella mused, taking another sip of tea. She did look rather young. Or maybe that was because Satsune looked old at her side. His arm around her waist. Christobella had seen them walking out of the love hotel one evening she was returning to their apartment from the supermarket. The tea started to feel a bit too bitter, Christobella set down the cup and pushed it away. Glancing outside the window, she saw the image of a smiling geisha on another billboard, she bowed while holding a vacuum cleaner that looked more like a spaceship.

Japan had been a land of contrasts from the moment she arrived. High-rise buildings of glass and steel sat side by side with small wood and stone temples. On her first day there, Christobella remembered a pair of geishas walking demurely on their wooden getas among the throngs of office black-and-white suits and skirts; a drop of color amid the monochrome. Both had smiled at Christobella with their snow-white faces. There had been less electronic billboards back then.

Satsune had been one of those contrasts that had seduced her. A man of quiet gestures and distant gaze, yet he would always have a compliment for Christobella that did not feel forced nor trite. Though a a serious business man, there had been something lyrical about him. As with Japan, it had been love at first sight. They tied the knot and made their perfect home for fifteen years. Until one day she took a left turn, instead of a right. The coincidence had been too perfect, she remembered thinking absentmindedly when she saw Satsune walking side by side with his lover. She would have laughed, but she didn’t. Not then, not now; it made her think of her parents. Another unhappy thought.

Her father had also chased after some young skirt back in Rome when she lived in her native Italy. Her mother, Vittoria, feigned ignorance instead of confronting him about it. After his death from a fatal car accident, she confessed to Christobella about her father’s infidelity, but only after she had switched back to her maiden name. Christobella was twice hurt. A father who went behind her daughter and wife’s backs; a mother who covered his lies for the sake of comfort.

Of course Christobella confided to signore Yoshimura. The older gentleman simply nodded once in silence, his brown eyes looking at her, holding some of the sorrow she did not, could not, feel. Back then, there had only been a deep feeling of being betrayed. How different things would have been if signore Yoshimura had been her father. Not only did her violin instructor, back then in his early 60s, teach her how to play, filling her head with wondrous stories about his country. He also spared the time to listen to Christobella; her fears, her dreams, her desire to visit Japan one day. Signore Yoshimura had died three years after she left, it was the only time she had considered returning to Italy. She would make the time to pay her respects at his shrine in his old home back in Rome.

Vittoria, you fool, she thought, alone in the apartment’s living room. Something tightened inside her chest. The telltale prickling sensation behind her eyes made her reach to rub them, but it was too late: she blinked and down rolled a fat tear over soft olive skin, already wrinkles adorning the edges of her eyes. They had phoned her all the way from Italy, some distant relative whose name she had already forgotten after she hung up. Her mother had died suddenly two days ago. Massive heart attack. She was 73. Twenty more years of life than her bastard father.

“Christobella?” Satsune had walked in the living room and was standing there, shifting from left to right. His voice was soft, almost tender. Of course he knew about her mother. “Do you need anything for tomorrow? I can have the chauffeur drive you to the airport.” He was not quite looking her way. Their divorce papers still had to be signed.

Christobella made no excuses for her father’s betrayal; she would not make them for Satsune’s. It had been her who filed the papers; that was that. They had settled terms quickly: she would receive a very generous alimony payment each month. He could afford it, seeing how he practically owned half of Shibuya’s buildings already. Satsune got to keep the apartment. She did not want it. Christobella had several planes to catch back to Italy to attend the funeral —her relatives could hold it off for a day, two tops. “Don’t bother. I’ll call a cab.”

The man who had been her husband for the past fifteen years nodded, standing there like an actor who just forgot his lines, then simply left without another word. Good, she needed to start packing. It would be a very long day tomorrow.

And Then, There Were None.

“The Lord giveth…”, the words, they were not right. They were lies. Lies, and yet Roland had repeated them over and over, for all of his life -he knew them by heart, they were his shield. The corpse of a young woman, the miller’s daughter, was still warm, his blade had pierced her flesh as easy as when he tore his bread when he broke fast each morning. She looked so small, crumpled there on the earthen floor of the hut, eyes closed. A red stain spread under her body, soiling her simple cotton dress. Roland’s tongue felt heavy, thick, with the Devil’s nonsense. Gripping the hilt of his sword, Roland slowly staggered towards the door, like a man heavy in his cups. Fresh air.

“The Lord also taketh away. Over and over and over. What a capricious fellow, wouldn’t you agree, Roland?” It was the smallest of whispers, probably one that no one would have heard, and yet each word reached the knight’s ears clearly.

Roland stopped, feeling the air escape his lungs. A taste of copper on his mouth made him realized he was biting his lip rather vigorously. The knight took a step forward, as if unsure if the ground could hold his weight.

“Ah, ah…one should take the time to admire their handiwork. Gives us pause for…reflection.” The whisper tittered.

He had killed her, and now regret showed its head all too late. “Forgive me, Father.” A sob shook Roland. The sword leaned dangerously forward, trying to hold on to his master’s weight. From the corner of his eye, barely at the edge of his vision, he saw someone…tall, dressed in red, smiling. He could not tell if they were man or woman. The knight had faced death countless times in his life. A soldier of God, he was used to it, but this…”Get behind me, Satan!” With a growl, Roland straightened up, holding his sword in both hands.

More tittering. The hut started to feel cold, as if the snows of early Autumn were just falling out on the countryside, draping everything in white. “Brave knight, gallant knight. Serving God and country; no sin is too big for thee.”

With a roar, Roland swung his sword around, slashing at air, only to find himself staring at the young woman’s corpse looking back at him from the floor. Where did they go? Was he losing his mind?

“Just your soul.” The whisper breathed softly on the nape of Roland’s neck, a chill pierced it. Then darkness.

Simulacrum in G Minor

Oshora knows the feel of ivory. Her slender fingers barely brush the keys of the black piano, only enough for her sense of touch to be set alight. This. This feels like a dream. The room is large and bare. There are no flat walls, only a long, uninterrupted, curved wall that wraps the place in its cocon of plaster and white paint. Cracks on the surface spider at random intervals, creating rivers of decay between large swaths of pristine nothingness. The room’s domed ceiling is made of glass. Light pours in, washing the room’s centre with its radiance. The piano is the black hole at its center, swallowing the light so the edges of the room are bound by shadows.

It suits Oshora. Her mind is at the tip of her fingers, dropping thoughts over the piano’s keys. A melody stirs awake from some corner of memory, untangling itself from the bondage of her own forgetfulness. Air is slowly sucked in, the dust motes stir in the air as the light shows their ceaseless dance.

The piece begins to unfold itself from the piano and out into the room. Oshora’s heart beats with each note as falling light shimmers over her slender figure and, for a brief moment at least, nothing else matters.

“Oshora?”

She abruptly pulls back from the piano. Gasping, her chest rises and lowers as she stares at it. The keys still move, continuing to fill the space with melody for a moment and then, as it began, it stops. Timidly, Oshora half turns.

“I was just playing a bit…no one else was using it.”

An older woman dressed in white metallic robes looks at Osha with narrow eyes. “You know the rules: you need a healer to be with you at all times in case you need assistance.”

“Sorry…”

The older woman’s eyes become less narrow and some wrinkles form on the corners of her mouth.

“It’s such a lovely day outside, and you need your fresh air. Come.”

She turns around and glides smoothly across the floor. Oshora follows her, glancing back briefly to the now-mute piano.  As she steps out of the room, her arms flicker then disappear.

Mementos from Sufrida Street: Love is a Four Letter Word

“Love makes the World go round, baby!”
 
His smile was like liquorice in my head. I hated liquorice.
 
“Love’s also a bitch.”
 
The trigger offered no resistance when I pulled it. A gunpowder orgasm mixed a a cocktail of noise and lighting that filled the room. Grey and red painted a Pollock on the far brick wall.
 
One second my revulsion made man, the next, a crumpled dead thing on the floor. His face looked better now. The neon buzzing outside the room’s window drilled my head after the ringing in my ears stopped.
 
Saturday evening and nowhere to go. Love kills, baby.

Brief Destiny

Obornusk walks in a straight line. Not looking back nor to the sides. He only sees the backside of another like him, also walking in a straight line. At the far distance there is a glow and an endless roaring. He continues to walk like all the rest. That is his purpose.
 
Mastraton watches from his dome at the worms below. They shuffle towards the slaughter in perfect complacency. How he detests them for their meek and insignificant nature. Still, they are necessary fuel for civilization’s motor. The drink on his hand is more sweet today than yesterday.
 
Vastrashla knows the truth. She will set them all free, and those above will crumble and fall. Power to those below. The spark begins now, and its fire will cleanse the world. A smile is how the revolution starts today.
 
A rogue comet impacts the planet at 0645, reducing the planet to cosmic dust. The Universe continues to expand.

His Muse

Alphonse sat in the middle of the small square room, on a chair that looked like the skeleton of a new species of vertebrate. It mas made of wood, curving to the shape of his back, painted white, but already there were signs of wear; chips in the painting showed a dull gray underneath.

The rest of the room was empty. Four walls, ceiling and floor, all painted black. He was facing the door, also black. Above was a lone lightbulb, making a low buzzing sound as it shed its sickly, fried-egg yellow light over Alphonse’s head.

Of course he was wearing his brown tweed jacket, all buttoned up, with brown pants, it all had to match perfectly when she came in.

“My muse.”, he whispered to no one in particular. The door opened up with a creaking sound that made him grit his teeth. Upon the door frame, wearing a red dress that flowed like a waterfall of blood over her body, bald, with hazel eyes that kept Alphonse’s own watery-blue focused on them.

Gorgeous, gorgeous. My muse. Dried lips were licked; it almost hurt to feel how chapped they were. Alphonse didn’t care, she was here now. The muse sauntered lazily over into the room and stopped a few inches in front of him. In one fluid motion she bent forward until her nose barely touched his. Both pair of eyes had not strayed away from each other.

“Every time your father fucked you, you wished it had been your sister instead.”

Yes, yes. He couldn’t help himself but grin sheepishly. “How much?”, he almost moaned. The muse simply smiled, showing pearly-white teeth.

“Five years less.”

She then opened her mouth, showing razor sharp knives and swallowed him before it all went dark.

Alphonse gasped while raising his head from the desk. Breathe, breathe.

“Jesus…”, a hoarse whisper, who said that? Oh…me.

The room was a mess, clothes strewn around, the bed unmade for days now, a few styrofoam containers with remains of food lay next to his chair. On the table he was sleeping he had a typewriter, the final page of his latest work was there. There had been an idea. Feeling groggy.  One by one, Alphonse placed his fingers over the typewriter’s keyboard, trying to ground himself. His head was still swimming in molasses; he noticed the syringe on the left of the typewriter. His muse, always his muse. Waste not. The keys began to pound.

Ice and Iron

 
In a land of endless frost, a man stands tall above dead fields of white. His eyes wash over the emptiness, seeking for something, or someone. He wears an iron dressm like a fallen flower whose petals are cast down, his features seemed to have been chiseled with still hands. No emotion betrays his face. Eyes brown as dead leaves seek with purpose until they spot what they seek.
 
The distant white horizon holds a black minuscule spot, then two, then three, then it becomes a line, and it expands and grows. They come. Relentless, thirsty for blood, hungry for war. Without breaking his stance, the man in iron places two fingers inside his mouth and blows. A high pitched whistle echoes across the dead ice fields. Nothing happens. The black line takes the shape of black figures, clad in darkness and spikes, thousands of them. He hears the distant rumbling of their footsteps, but there is no fear on his eyes, only the look of one who waits.
 
Ice cracks next to him and a figure clad in white burst forth. They wear scales that shine bright under the pale Sun’s light, like a peacock’s tucked tail. More cracking of ice, more figures in white burst out. Soon, the man in iron is surrounded by an army in white. The faintest of smiles draws on the left corner of his mouth. Today is a good day for war.

Hungry Strings

Ansalda plays her violin in the deserted central plaza at her town’s centre. Wearing a simple white dress, her red hair flutters with the Autumn wind. Invarguntosh, the name of her town, a place where crows, of plumage so black they swallow the Sun’s dim light, hang heavy on bent, crooked trees. Here, no leaves ever bloom. She plays alone, a mournful tune that no one but her own weary soul, hears and laments.

The sky is dim
And I have come
With no more tears
My life undone

The furtive shadow of a stray, brown cat darts furtively back and forth among the statues of the plaza. It was the only curious companion that would dare thread upon the cracked  floor of tiled stones, dotted with monuments erectec to dead men, long forgotten.

Yet a smile remains
In my wounded heart
We shall rise someday
From this endless dark

A smile plays placidly over Ansalda’s lips and with a flick of her wrist, the melody of her music shifts to something more lively, more pleasant. Now the plaza begins to fill with a bit of color and candor. In the distance, birds chirp and sing back to her strings vibrating, wings beat and rush the milky-white sky.

Come my friends
Our time is counted
Death will come
But not today

Several birds of red, brown and blue, circle around the plaza, a blur of color and sound. They home in and land on the heads and arms of the statues that laid abundant there; Ansalda’s song pleased them as chirps of excitement filled their small chests, jumping back and forth with screeching delight.

Not today
Not today
We celebrate
Today today!

The plaza slowly grows in attendance as the forest surrounding quiet Invarguntosh begins to heed the call of Ansalda’s violin. A pack of grey and brown wolves, tongues lolling, pad their way close to her, keeping a distance as their orange eyes pierce her with curiosity; mice and squirrels chitter and dart across the floor, keeping away from the wolves, while forming half a circle next to Ansalda, jumping in uncontained joy, even the great grizzly bear, the black death around these parts, lumbers entranced, until it rests a few meters from Ansalda’s small figure, she is already spinning while she continues to play. More animals came, the forest chorus grew. Her violin was laughing with every note. Bringing joy and unity to the animals that had gathered. Ansalda’s smile grew a bit more, a ray of the pale Autumn sun glinted on her mouth, two fangs peeked briefly, as her smile grew some more.

Yet on your wake
Many will wonder
How did this pass?
A tragic ocurrence

Ansalda reached a fervent pitch in her song, as all the animals gathered frolicked and reveled in frenzy abandonment. The tune had touched their savage souls.

Never forget
Always remember
A wolf lies in the corner
Waiting always to devour

The violin screeched to a halt and just like that, the spell was broken. All the animals, at first confused, were startled to find themselves among other species, in the middle of a human settlement, before they noticed her, and how she had changed. With roar, screech, yelping , they all flew off, scampered, ran, jumped and some even buried themselves underground. But they were always too late.

The worm digs deep
The dragon flies high
Now you know for sure
Winter is here to stay

When she is finished, no animal was left alive. A mountain of bones of all shapes and sizes now rests on the grassy ground, bleaching under the Autumn sun. Ansalda gives her lips a satisfied lick, blood smeared over her face. Her appetite was satiated once more; first the townpeople, then these animals. Soon, she would grow hungry again, but that did not matter now. Still smiling, she resumes her playing.

All is gone
We are dust
No one left

To cry for me.