Once upon a time, there was a boy.
Aidan opened his eyes, as the woman arrived at his window. Brother Sean had come around half an hour ago to check that Aidan was not awake, not getting up to mischief, not putting idle hands to the devil’s work, and if he were, to beat him into the arms of sleep. Beatings were a part of being an orphan; If your own parents didn’t love you enough to keep you, you could be bloody certain that no one else would.
I stood before the great sequoia. I tilted my head back, one hand on the back of my head to keep it from falling off. The great tree towered, nearly three hundred feet tall, more like the pillars holding up heaven than a living creature.
Continue reading “When We Do Wrong Chapter 4: Treading in Dogshit”
I watched as the rain fell upon the moor, washing down across the heath. Tears of angels, perhaps, weeping for the woman being lowered into her grave. I stood a long way from the mourners, near-hidden by the mist and the rain pouring down around us. Bare from the waist up, my arms crossed, my eyes on the men. Loch MacClain stood at my back, the shore barely containing the lake as the wind whipped the water to stiff peaks, spray filling the air, the sky and the water together seeming to blend. I stared down at the mourners.
Continue reading “When We Do Wrong Chapter 3: Really Cool People”
“God, not another one.”
Continue reading “When We Do Wrong Chapter 1: Grievous Bodily Harm”
“It’s a demon. David, it’s a fucking demon.”
Continue reading “Lambs Chapter 3: Sheep in the Midst of Wolves”
There are a lot of reasons why you might find yourself on a bridge, ready to kill yourself. Some of them might even be good reasons. I was willing to bet someone in history had thrown themselves off a bridge because it was really the best choice. I wasn’t going to be one of them. This was just another cry for help.
Continue reading “Lambs Chapter 2: An Army of Sheep, Led by a Lion”
“God is dead. And should we not follow his example?”
Continue reading “Lambs Chapter 1: Resolutions in Favor of Vegetarianism”
The entire time, that whole ten years I was journeying home, my wife was in my mind. There were other women, a fact of which I’m not proud, but whenever I considered giving up, whenever I considered accepting my fate, I thought of my Penelope, my Telemachus, my Argos. But history has never favored me. Most countries, most mythoses, have favored brawn over the mind. There is a reason it is the Illiad, after all, named after Achilles and his boundless valor. There is a reason that I was despised by the Romans, and by the Italians. I preferred craft and cunning.
1890
I stood on the hill, watching as my people died. Chankpe Opi Wakpala continued to flow. The Ghost Dancers continued their shuffle in the name of a messiah who would never materialize.
hellskitchensink 