dancing like a fool
all but content with his role
dead gods can do that
Set adrift again
Seeking to remain unbound
Finding pain and doubt
World looming so large
Insignificance bears down
Tears blur light and dark
The Wife of the Oni spent her days wandering the forest, near an ancient temple that was long abandoned and untended.
She often sat gazing at the moldering doors and unwashed stones, the sagging beams and cracked tiles.
Perhaps there was a sadness about her when she contemplated the faded scrollwork of a bygone age.
The Oni had told her tales of the monks who built the temple, of the wars that had ravaged the lands around them, and the spirits who had finally brought ruin to the beauty of this place.
Tales of the region’s beauty had been told for centuries, but the most sought after features lay not in the land or beneath it, but in the offspring of the land’s residents. The beauty and intelligence of the children of the region was the stuff of legends. Warring lords from across the land sought wives and concubines, adopted warriors and philosophers from among the families of the region, and so, the region prospered from the fruits of their labors and lives.
Such legends reached even the world where spirits reigned.
The Oni had no name, but all who knew of him knew him to be a terrible Lord, though just and fair.
As such things go, a woman in the human world gave birth to a girl child. By her second year, the child’s speech and kanji were on par with her parents, and her exceptional beauty flowered by her fourteenth year.
Her parents knew a Lord of great stature would be her fate and celebrated her as a gift from the Gods.
When the suitors began to arrive, the girl became distant, though she engaged and suffered through the formalities, she did not engage in a way that permitted courtship.
Her parents were dismayed at her lack of interest, and brought her to the temple in their village, seeking the wisdom within.
The monks were well acquainted with the story of her beauty and intelligence, but were unable to fathom her reticence and could not explore deeper as she would never open her heart to any man.
A neighboring village was said to have a man of such intelligence and empathy as to enable him to see into the hearts of any human, the temple priest called for this man, but he would not travel, so they sent her to his home.
When only words
words and more words
When only words are present
words can be present
When indifference is present
indifference
When words are indifferent
indifference opposes love
When love leaves the words
pain through indifference
What hatred words can offer
words can be hateful
What pain words can offer
pain through words
When love left the words
love left
When words left no love
words and more words
David eyed the youth before him; he bore the mark of perhaps eighteen years upon his body. The malnutrition had kept his frame small and bent his legs, but his scarred face spoke of many years of determination and his long-sighted stare bespoke a hardened eye for the cruelties of the world.
When he spoke, the youth had the habit of making direct eye contact. David admired him for his simple honesty and his brazen confidence. The youth reminded him of himself.
“What is your name, young man?” The youth turned quickly, startled, but recovered and look directly into David’s eyes.
“Jason, sir.”
“Heh. You needn’t be so formal around here, we aren’t in the military, boy. My name is David.”
“Sorry, sir, I mean, David, I just have never seen such a gathering of men.”
“Not men, kid!” Martin was grunting from under the stalled halftrack vehicle, “Mercenaries!”
A chorus of rough, quiet chuckles came from the circle of armed men around the fire beside the dirt path that masqueraded as a road.
“Aye, mercenaries.” Jason turned to look directly into David’s eyes again. “What I really mean is, would you be recruiting?”
Another, less jovial laugh went round the orange lighted semi-clearing. The jungle erupted into its own chorus of barks and shrieks from beyond the shadowed vegetation – shadows that had the cruel curves of some wicked ceremonial sword and shifted like a wary enemy.
“Sir… David… What can I do to help you?”
David smiled slightly, relaxing his stare. “I will find a use for you, young man.”
A genuine laugh shook the men around the clearing for as long as they could afford. This time the jungle did not answer.
The youth was dragged away by Luther’s rough grip; he would not find rest anytime soon.
David’s desire to make all wheels spin together, to move all things forward at all times made everyone around him feel a portion of every move… In truth, they were.
“Martin, how long?”
“At least another hour.” Martin moved his dolly from under the vehicle. “David, we need a more reliable vehicle. I’m making a temporary structural fix. This beast will lose its legs, and we will be up a creek.”
“Fine technical form, old man,” David smiled broadly. “Take your hour and we will acquire a new mode of transportation in the city.”
Martin scowled and stretched as he went back to his dolly and slid under the broken halftrack. “If we make it in this I will be impressed.”
“We’ll make it, Martin. We have no choice.” David turned to the north, deeper into the dense vegetation, no hills to provide a line of sight over the canopy, too dark to be able to use one. Then he slowly turned to look at his men. If we must travel blind, he thought, at least we travel prepared.
The oldest of the three, Daniel was the deepest thinker. He had dwelt introspectively for decades while pursuing and devouring studies of every aspect of the mind of man. His was the power of farseeing; trends and activities drew themselves into the horizon for his eyes like pieces of a complex puzzle reduced to a simple pattern.
The middle son, David was a man of action. Sparse with the many languages he commanded, but concise and efficient. He drew his strength from the ability to read the language of the body and mind before him as plainly as one would a book.
The youngest son, Alexander was the planner; the strategist; the leader of men. His older brothers were the perfect inner circle for a man who would bring civilization back from smoldering ashes and teach Mankind to rebuild what he had destroyed.
The now is simple enough. People want, people need, rarely do the latter arrive in abundance to the former, but when the stars rejoice over a newborn, the world is as a playground to the newborn’s growth.
Such was the world of this man. although he bore simplicity sometimes as a shield, his description would be anything but simple. He was graced with a swimmer’s body, all lean muscle, tightly cropped blond hair. His eyes were a deep green, almost going brown. His intellect was as keen as the fabled monomolecular knife.
In his time, the world would go through what history refers to as “growing pains” for mankind as a species. A species intent on merging physically, despite philosophical distances which proved harder to span than any land or water.
He knew only that life should be not so barren for all… that equality is a natural function of a soulless world, controlled by logic and the logical.
Such was the world of this simple philosopher, this man grown from all the world had to offer, delivered into a new millenium. What some hoped to be a new world. Hoping against the withering stark truth of a past which mankind thrust out in naked defiance of all things logical and the logical.
When the first device was released, we lost most every bit of electronics that was powered up. Naturally, the bastards knew we would have the ability to turn on more, so they waited a full month before letting the next one go.
I had a layman’s knowledge of what electromagnetic interference could do before the wars, when airliners rained from the skies and electronics seized up like rusty old bolts…
Now, it simply doesn’t matter. Internal combustion, steam, hell even coal power are the norm again. I use a Savage 30-06 to hunt for food, and keep my land free of fools who still think their cellphones will come back to life.
“The satellites are still there!” They insist.
I don’t usually have the heart to mention the meteor showers that immediately followed the second device.
I’ve heard all of the scientific information about how there is no way anyone could have a device with enough power to do the job, but the fact remains… It happened.
The hardest thing for everyone now is not trying to win the argument, it is fighting to survive.
Fortunately for me, I have an edge. My father was a Marine. Not a Marine of the new millenium, thank you. A Marine from the mid-Twentieth. He fought fourteen wars no one ever heard of, then went to VietNam, three times. Then he came home to raise his kid. When I was eight, my old man took me to a pistol range… I learned how to shoot straight with a .22 before most of my friends had graduated from GI Joe with the Kung Fu grip. By then, I was also drown-proof, so said the United States Marine Corps lifeguards who trained children on the weekends at the base pool.
Where hills stand like gods Wreathed in worshipful mist, A veil of heaven's silken vapor Brushed by the breasts of Earth. Where the waters of Earth's blood Spring forth from Her navel, And Her children float free Over Her Mystery.
The Pennsylvania hills were monolithic gods with clouds at homage obscuring their deities within the veil of worship.
The mists in the Pennsylvania hills seemed to promise rain but never delivered. The view from the farm on the mountainside was like looking out upon a forest as the European settlers would have seen, and evoked the same sense of wonder and desire to take root.
Of course the high tension lines could detract from the scene if they were allowed to intrude upon the idyllic vista…
I think that’s a clause in the contract of life.
Where I learned to smoke a pipe was a utopia of nature. No matter that man intruded, no matter the beasts he brought, no matter the boughs he broke, the land was as it had been since before his birth and would remain so long after he departed. Primal, primeval — cliché compared to the reality. Natural, eternal — despite the best attempts by her visitors to render her otherwise, so she remained. And when these guests were departed, there would again be giant forests and pristine waters — even should their departure be heralded by the unquenchable flames of their most infernal machines of holocaust.
How could anything so endurable be brought to its knees? And how could we do it?
Ask the neighbor who cuts down a tree in another’s yard out of spite. Ask a man who feels hatred for another without knowing his face or the faces of his fathers. Ask the leaders whose agendas bear resemblance to the ravings of those most mad. There is the quest for destruction; there is the geas of the Opposer.
But for now, the land bides its time. Unhindered, growth will return. Unencumbered, the land recovers. Even the thirst of the suns released upon the Mother of All Known Life will slake one day. Then there will be new life — which is the way of things. And always has been.
When the wars began it seemed a documentary of some distant catastrophe. What suffering I witnessed seemed so far removed from my reality that I thought myself a dreamer in a sea of fantasy, very dark fantasy.