Life Bursting Out All Over

The trees dances, their branches throwing up flocks of leaves that flew, spiraling on the breeze.  We walked down the street and the grass was waving and it tickled my legs and Kat laughed and laughed.  The cars shouted and the windows opened to breathe in the air and the pollen. 

It was springtime.

Then Kat stopped.  She clutched at my hand, tugged so hard it almost came off.  She pointed.  A leaf was drifting along the road, brown and curled.  Moving with the wind, not against it.  Just drifting.

“Look,” Kat said.  “Oh, look, the poor thing.  It’s dead.”

Higher Concerns

The god sat on a hill outside of the city, which was on fire as a direct result of the god passing through.  The hill wasn't on fire yet.  They sent me up to talk to him.

"So," I said casually, "handing out some justice, huh?"

He looked at me.  It hurt.

"Lot of... sinners down there?" I managed.

"You are fragments of nothing, wrapped in emptiness, spinning very fast," the god said.  "What you do with yourselves is not my concern."

"Well," I said, feeling blood trickle from my ears, "it's kind of a big deal to some of us."

Six Feet Down, Widely Spaced

The trees and vines grew in chaotic abandon, stretching outward from the cemeteries and lichyards, from the fetid soil beneath metal and stone.  Branches like pale bones clutched at the cities and artifacts of the living.  Cold fruit burned blue-pale in clusters among the shadowed leaves.

All throughout the land, panic and terror reigned.  No one had prepared, for all the talk of preservation, of memory and honor, of resurrection.  They had obeyed the rituals without thinking.  They had not paid heed.

One does not bury only the dead in the feverish warmth of the earth.

One also buries seeds.

Eternal Repose

The body lay face-down on a small patch of dirt, clear of vegetation.

"I dare you to touch it," Ellen said.

Chris shook his head.  "Nuh-uh."

"Poke it with a stick."

"Wait," said Mark.  "Look."  He pointed.

A fly buzzed in gentle circles around the outstretched hand.  It landed, and abruptly froze.

"Flies do that all the time..." Ellen started to say.

The fly toppled over, legs curled, wings stilled forever.  All around the body, they realized, was a ring of chitinous forms.  The body itself was perfectly preserved, untouched.

Chris paled.  He turned on Ellen accusingly.  "You touch it."

Stagnant

It never rains here, but the puddles are always there. From my perch atop the battlements, I can see them stretching away to the horizon, a glint of reflected light turning each pond into a winking, burning eye.

Every pool has its tutelary spirit, souls bound to the water as they once were bound to flesh. Those who drink from them gain something of the spirit within, some wisdom or skill, a touch of beauty or a taint of utter horror.

The water never replenishes, only dwindles.

My stomach roils against the chill liquid within, but it is too late.

Document in Safe Deposit Box 0005

MOTHER –

AM SENDING MESSAGE UPON ARRIVAL AT DESTINATION AS REQUESTED STOP

UNFORTUNATELY MUST REPORT DID NOT ARRIVE SAFELY CAUSE UNCERTAIN BUT EXTREMELY FATAL STOP

AM FORWARDING MESSAGE FROM AFTERLIFE BUT ENCOUNTERING TEMPORAL COMPLICATIONS NO CELLPHONES NO COMPUTERS ONLY TELEGRAM OPERATORS AT OWN POINT OF ARRIVAL STOP

ACCOMPANYING MESSAGE TO ANCESTORS LAYS OUT DETAILS FOR ENSURING TIMELY DELIVERY GRAMMA'S HEIRLOOM SAFE DEPOSIT KEY NOW LESS MYSTERIOUS STOP

DO NOT WORRY LOVE MIKE STOP

P.S. PLEASE LOOK AFTER CATS WHO HAVE ARRIVED PRIOR TO ME SEE PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED TEMPORAL COMPLICATIONS CATS REPORT YOU WILL PROVIDE ADEQUATE FOOD BUT INSUFFICIENT EAR SCRITCHES STOP

One More Sunrise

Sunrise comes every twenty-eight minutes. The tin can I'm in spins around and the sun rises in the viewing window, pretty as a postcard. About the same size, really. Two dawns an hour.

At that rate, I've got about two ersatz weeks before the air gets too thick to breathe. I couldn't figure out how to shut off all the alarms, so I just cut the wires. Except I cut too many, and now my only light is my distant sun, drifting now up beyond my line of sight. I watch it go and count, waiting for one more sunrise.

In Potentia

Origamists speak of the multitude of forms inherent in a single sheet of paper. Writers both speculative and pragmatic think of the words that can fill a page, uplifting the soul or communicating useful information. A stack of paper is a world of limitless potential.

The god of paper waits beside each of these constructive dynamos, wringing his hands. He knows what is coming. The terrible hands reach, grasp, select; printers hum, pens click, lips are moistened in preparation, and the god of paper weeps.

There must be use, else all is meaningless. The fate of paper is to die.

Not Exactly Express

The train slithered into the station in near-silence, pallid and gleaming like a mushroom. I checked the schedule; the next train wasn't due for six minutes. Through the conductor's window, I glimpsed white bone and empty sockets.

The doors creaked open, and the man beside me started forward. "Hold on," I said, grabbing at his sleeve. "I don't think that's the regular run."

The man called to the driver, "You going east?"

A shadowed nod. "We go everywhere, eventually."

"Good enough." He tugged his arm free. I watched the doors close behind him, and the train crept forward into darkness.

Beauty and the Beast

She was beautiful. She knew that. It was the source of the whole problem. A beautiful girl must have a suitable death. Long illnesses were unacceptable. Mere traffic accidents, unthinkable. Violence was potentially viable, within certain limits. It was the lack of control, the variables, that made it risky.

Ideally, she would stand on a great height, face down a monstrous presence, scream dramatically, and fall to a tragic end. And now, at last, she was ready. She stood atop the skyscraper, watching the tiny people below. The ground trembled, as under the impact of a mighty foot. She smiled.

Toll Booth

You see lots of weird stuff in this job. Tons of naked college-kid butts, of course. But weirder stuff, too. Like the time a five-year-old came through on a plastic tricycle. Had correct change, even. Bands on tour sometimes hand out swag; t-shirts, tickets, y'know?

Last night, a big, black tour bus picked Tyson's row. No band name. I couldn't see in, but I could hear, like rattling. And scratching. Tyson's face was white when the bus rumbled away, belching black smoke.

"What'd you get?" I called.

He showed me a little cardboard square. "My return ticket," he said. "Pre-punched."

Renewal

The world was being perfected. The gleam of gold and stainless steel cracked the old cities. The sand on every beach was pure white and smooth. Every roadway was immaculate, clean enough to eat from.

Except no one did much eating, or anything else. There was no room in perfection for change.

Their quest ended in a dank, swampy wood, perhaps the last one remaining. The edge of perfection was miles away, but advancing inexorably. The temple still stood here, the place of defilement, of death and filth and muck, the throne of the Rotlord.

He was their only hope.

Consummation

It will be tonight.

After work, his time is solely devoted to primping, dressing, dressing again, and a few careful dabs of cologne. It has to be perfect.

The light spills into the room as he opens the door. From outside, he can see only hints and edges, gleaming, polished, and sharp. She is a most elegant construction. He closes the door. It's better with some mystery to it.

He slides into the place meant for him. "I love you," he whispers to her.

As the blades slip into him, he knows, utterly and perfectly, that she loves him, too.

Cherry Blossoms in Springtime

He holds a kitten in his hand. It mewls and tries to knead at the unyielding surface.

Warmth and softness, he understands: heat and topography. As an atemporal being, he perceives that the kitten once was not and will not always be. He sees the limping, the coughing, the stillness, and later the bones and dust. They are always crying when their pets die. Why? It cannot be a surprise...?

He focuses, looks at one moment apart, as a separate unit of time, but without losing his knowledge of what must inevitably be.

He holds a kitten in his hand.

Prompt: Stalked by the Avenger of Blood (Numbers 35:16)

Inspired by a prompt from Loren Eaton

---

He who kills a man with a metal weapon, he will meet me and I shall pierce his heart. He who kills a man with a stone, he will meet me and I shall sink him down. He who kills a man with a wooden tool, he will meet me and I will crush his bones.

Metal, stone, and wood; you have touched none of these. You said nothing. You did nothing.

You have murdered with nothing. You have killed with words.

You will meet me, and I will speak your name.

I am blood. Hear my voice.

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God of War

It took seven days for the crying voices to stop. Three more until the groans ceased. By that time, the ground had dried to a mottled brown. Strange things would grow from soil that drank so deeply. On the eleventh day, everything was silent save for the croaking of the carrion birds.

Only then did the scarred man rise and heave his rucksack across his shoulder. It looked heavy as sin, but he handled it as though it were a balloon.

“I told ‘em,” he said. “I told ‘em what’d happen.”

If he sought absolution, the battlefield made no answer.

Dead Inside

“I look at the trees, green and growing, and I see a ruin of skeletal limbs, black bark against a stark white sky.  Winter, forever.  Or, worse, just a stump.  Nothing left at all.”  He wouldn’t meet her eyes.  “It’s the same… with everything.  Inside, there’s a death, clawing its way to the surface.  Inevitable.”  His hands wrung each other, pale fish writhing in a sunless well.

“Look deeper,” she said.  She held out the bit of spongy wood she’d taken from the trunk.  The soft white bulb of a mushroom clung to its surface.  “Just a little deeper inside.”