Con Artist

It’s a peculiar thing indeed to find yourself sitting behind a table selling things you worked on, put your heart into, and are now hoping that someone is going to validate you by buying something.
What a weird damned sorta thing that is.

It’s a thin line to walk, the line between commerce and art, the line between doing something for passion and doing it for a dollar. It’s a line that more, and better people have rambled on and on about and that I’ll spare you from this time. It’s not that I don’t have an opinion but more that that takes me away from what I wanted to get to, and that’s the strange feeling of selling your work face to face to someone. For me, the magic of doing this is that it always reminds me that, in the end, if I am ever to write as more than just a hobby that I will always have to be selling. This does not mean that I have lost sight of what drew me to writing and what keeps me doing it – the magic that exists between my hands and my mind, where the story really comes together. It’s a sort of dead area where things shake out, take shape, and where they become stories.

I have been doing conventions since I was in my early twenties, and they’ve never stopped being the most amazing and boring things around. Amazing because meeting other people with similar passions to your own and my god, you can’t imagine how many damn hours you sit around trying to lure people to come see your wares. Conventions have been the best and most inane experiences of my lives. I remember my first, when I was there with friends pimping what was to be our one and only issue of a magazine that went natiional. We’d begun as ‘zine nerds and suddenly we were on the brink of, well, who the hell knew but it was awesome to be there as guests. It was a comic convention near Detroit and the feeling of wandering into the ‘green room’ whenever we wanted to get snacks was awesome. It was like we were big shots. Well, the magazine never went past issue one and all of a sudden we were paying customers to the comic convention but the experience had taught me something that has stuck with me and that is that in the end, if people aren’t interested in what you’re doing, then you’re not apt to do it long.

When my publisher went down into the deeps I found myself holding a great mass of books with very few options to sell them. It’s a crummy thing to learn that most bookstores, indie or otherwise, aren’t as excited or interested in indie writers as they may claim. I can see why, I mean, you’d get anyone who can get access to a copy machine putting out these crazed missives about how their cat killed JFK so, I can see why you want to be leery of who you let onto your shelves but, well, damn, give a guy a break. There’s the internet, sure, but, unless you can get people to wherever your books are, and get them to BUY them, well, it doesn’t  mean a hell of a lot. You’re another ‘writer’ (or artist or photog or poet or musician or whatev) on the web, doing your thing with no one watching.

And here’s my thing – I love writing and to some degree always will. It’s in me and I am into too many forms of it to not write BUT…when it comes to stories, I am a story teller and a teller is only as good as those he is telling to and when you’re telling stories to yourself, well, you don’t need to open your mouth. The stories take power from those that hear or read them and without the people, well, the stories don’t need as much so, for me, I write for me, sure, but I post and publish and tell for YOU.

Anyhow, I needed to get my work out there and I suddenly realized that, damn, there’s that comic con thing that would be PERFECT to sell my books. Well, yes, and no. It’s a great idea, going to a convention where there are so many indie people into indie things and selling their indie good but, alas, being the only kid on the block selling lemonade when everyone else is selling Coke don’t exactly make you a big seller. So, I never sold much at the conventions but each year I learned a little more and sold a bit better and each time out I met more great people and that was the real value for me – getting to make connections with other people with passion for something.

Recently I did a horror convention, which was the first chance I had to sell books to as close to ‘my people’ as there are apt to be. I mean, hell, I write dark stuff that isn’t for everyone and, darn it, it’s as close to horror as you can get usually so, that was the best place to peddle my wares. This time I was also selling some silly art as well, something I have never felt confident enough to try, to be honest. I had similar results to what I have before but, bit by bit, I am finding 1. how to sell my works and 2. the places to do it. Inch by inch I am getting my work out there.

Sure, I want to be a guy that publishes work and can focus on that and not the sales, I dunno anyone who wants it any other way but, alas, that isn’t how it is. Really though, I love the excitement of seeing the person who is going to give my work a try, the people who are giving ME a chance. I’ll never claim to be an artist with whatever I am doing just because I feel like I just do what I like doing, but I don’t think that my selling would take the art away from what I have done and, honestly, there’s a bit of perspective in seeing that there’s a difference in making art for yourself and in making art for others because, if you do it right, there shouldn’t be a question of who the art is for, just that it’s art, it’s passion, and the rest works itself out.

Now, I got boxes and boxes of passion, books called Back From Nothing sellin’ for five bucks a pop.

Who’s game?

c

My Flint…

More (fake) blood, less peas

Couple other random blood pics. Whoooo! And yeah, the blood is very fake. This guy has a weak stomach when it comes to the real stuff, which is funny, seeing as how I love horror stuff and all but, really, I can MAKE fake blook, I gotta poke, prod, or stab something to make, you know, REAL blood, and that’s gross.

Random sorts of drawings, paintings, and suchery

So, I used to draw, when I was a kid. I loved it, loved it, really; as much as I love writing now. I gave it up though adn have never really gone back much. Sure, I’ll doodle from time to time but I never really got into it as much as I used to. This past weekend I did Motor CIty Nightmares and, as I sat there rockin’ the table and its bone chilling candy with my special lady, I put pen to paper and started to doodle. It was like finding a lost old friend after years and years. So, here’s some random as hell crap I have drawn, or painted, or crapped the hell out of late. The first five were colored in Photoshop by Miss Amanda, as I have no damned idea how to use that bloody program. I threw in a couple newer paintings as well, to round it all out.

Er, uh, enjoy?

chris

Unhinged – photography

This is just me playing with some fake blood I made up. I needed a model and well, I was available. HAHA.

Horror Anonymous

Ladies and gentleman, I write horror stories.

I can tell from the hush in the crowd that I have offended some of you, and for that I apologize.

It shouldn’t have taken me this long to offend you.

I need to try harder.

Truly.

It’s strange, this tag system we have as humans, where we label every thing we see so we can better define and understand it. I mean, I get that our brains work that way. That’s swell. Hell, our minds work the way they work, what can ya do? The thing is that those labels can become cages for the labeled and the labeler, which is why I, and most people who do any art, avoid them.

Sometimes we try to hard to avoid them.

Over the past weekend at the Motor City Nightmares I got a chance to speak to some writers who are part of a writing group that focuses on horror and supernatural stories and I found myself saying the tried and true – I don’t write horror necessarily. As soon as I said it I regretted having said it because it sounded so pompous and like something every asshole that drives me crazy says – oh, horror, no, no, no, I don’t do horror. As if horror is something negative or bad. Bah! For me, it isn’t that at all, it’s that what I write is close to horror but isn’t necessarily horror. It’s a close friend and neighbor but not necessarily the thing itself. Ah, but there are exceptions. See, I do have stories that are horror, and nothing more or less, it’s just that I don’t consider them very horrifying personally. I try but I can’t tell you if I succeed or not. That’s up to you or some other person to say. But I, like most people, don’t want to think that all I write is horror. Take Stephen King, a hell of a writer who gets a lot of crap because a lot of what he writes takes a walk on the darker side of things. The thing is, so what? He tells stories about vampires and monsters and ghosts and stuff. So the hell what? Why is his stuff less valid than anyone else’s? I don’t get it at all. I have read some overrated crap that is considered brilliant when I found it dry and dated, but I won’t tell you or anyone that that work is invalidated as art, same thing should go for King, or me, or anyone.

The rub is this – no one should be JUST this or that. You should never want that and, I don’t think that anyone IS that. Even if you only write about space ships and martians, there is something deeper at work, even if it goes unseen by the writer themself. There is is always more, even to the simplest of stories. Running from the label though isn’t much an answer though because it’s just another trap. It’s a shame, too, because you’d think it’d be enough to write a story, a good story, and people can figure out what it is and what it means along the way.

Alas, no.

The crummy thing too is this – in the world we live in, you sorta have to fall into a category to be published because that makes it easier for publishers to know whether they have experience with or interest in what you do. Crap does it get depressing though reading – no horror – as they call for literature. And I laugh because I wonder if even they know what literature means other than that it reminds them of some other writer that was called literature. Me, I dunno what I write, other than the silly ‘dark fiction’ title I give it all so I fall towards horror just because I don’t figure I write lit.

What do I know?

I hate labels, even as I label things myself. If I have to have one though, I can live with horror. Between you and me though, I write dark literature. Keep that to yourself though.HAHAHAHA.

…c…

Weapon

My body is a weapon, a breathing, bleeding, seething thing waiting to be freed.

My body is a weapon, sucking life from me; my body is a weapon, its beauty mine to see.

My body is a weapon, a promise yet fulfilled; this body is a weapon, with many more to kill.

In me breathes a monster, ticks a bomb, lives a weapon that sucks my life from me moment-by-moment, day by day. A dreaming death clock that has decided all that is to befall me save the day it is to come. In me has grown a vampire, from seeds sown deep in me, a grim black thing that sucks days from me like blood and can never be sated.

I fought it, and fought it hard, as can be seen in my eyes; or rather the circles dug beneath them like moats. But you can never fight this thing, not fight it and win. It craves your struggle, gets stronger the more I fight it, so I stopped fighting, gave up is what the people that loved me said, but you can’t give up a fight you can never win. You have to have had hope to give up. Hope’s a thing I never had.

Hadn’t had since, oh, oh that was so very long ago, when I had hope.

I was seventeen, it was in fact, the day I turned seventeen, the day I lost hope.

Oh yes, but perhaps I get ahead of myself.

Perhaps.

But then that happens when there is a time bomb within you ticking off how much time you have left.

But lying.

Telling you you have more time than you ever can.

I believed the lies, you have to if you want to see any other days past the one on which you hear those words, hear the pronouncement of your sentence. And so you believe them, the doctors, the counselors, the friends and parents. You believe them when they tell you that you can beat this, that you are strong, that they will find a cure.

But the vampire knows better and laughs at all of this as it drinks deep of your life. Laughs as you struggle to hold on, to find an answer, a reason, a cure. And it’s that laughter that haunts your nights, taints your dreams, filling your heart and head and pushing everything away, as if you are floating out to sea.

And they tried, god how they tried to save me. To help me. To love me. But the vampire doesn’t allow that. And they could never see that. Could never see that it was me that was turning away from them, was pushing them away as this thing raged in me but that it was it that did it. That made me say the things I did. Tell them what I had done.

And god the things I have done.

But maybe I need to go back.

So far back.

Some friends had thrown me a party, a birthday party, and it was amazing. I couldn’t believe how many people had shown for it. And sure, most came for the beer, came because everyone else had come but still, to think that even some of those people had come for me. Because of me, it was something a bit beyond wonderful. And so was the night.

Until…

I was the belle of the ball, was talking to people I had never spoken to before, that I had never even seen before, and they all listened, all smiled, all responded when I spoke. And the more I drank the more I did speak, and the more they said back. And whenever my hand was empty in it sprang another drink, as if by magic, and I drank it down and there was another. And why not? It was my birthday.

But the later it got the more things seemed to slow down for me, and the slower I felt, as if I was in quicksand, and always there was a drink in my hand, even when I put the cup that I had been given down, always there was another, and behind that cup was usually one of two faces, two guys I had seen at my school, and always they were there, smiling. Giving.

But I had had enough. And then my friend Jamie floated into my view and took my hand and led me to the back of the house, to the guest bedroom. She said I looked sick, that I had been drinking too much. I wanted to answer, even tried to answer, to tell her that it wasn’t me, I wasn’t even getting the drinks, I was just drinking them, but I couldn’t even speak. I tried but I couldn’t. So she laid me in the bed and kissed my forehead and turned the light out and told me she’d be back soon.

But she never came back.

And so I sat there in that darkness, awake but not conscious, just floating, everything feeling fuzzy like it does when you are sick with fever.

Then there was light for a moment as the door was opened and then closed again, and then came the voices, two voices, and I knew them, I knew them because they were the voices of the guys from school, the ones behind the drinks. And I wanted to tell them I was sick, that I wanted to be left alone, I didn’t want company, but I couldn’t speak, found I couldn’t even move, and then they just started laughing, laughing with each other as they started taking my clothes off. Stop it, please, please stop it, but they wouldn’t, they went on, and suddenly I was naked and I felt their mouths on me, their hands, and then their bodies and god how I hurt, I could feel the blood running from me down my legs and pooling beneath me as they, as they, as they…and it went on forever and all I could do was lie there and wait for them to be done. I blacked out before they were done though, blacked out and awoke the next day when my friend Jamie was asking me what had happened, why there was blood on the bed and why I was naked.

And I told her.

Told everyone.

But no one believed me.

Even if they had said they did.

I saw it in their eyes, all of their eyes, I had wanted it, had been drunk and horny and had wanted these men to fuck me, the perfect birthday present.

And so nothing was done.

And I had to face them, those boys, in the school halls for the next three weeks before graduation. I was trapped. No one believed me. No one would do anything to help me. And there was nowhere I could go with three weeks left in the school year before I graduated.

And that was when I lost hope.

And from there, well, the bottom wasn’t very far at all.

Nothing mattered, not the name, not the face, just what was behind it all, and when I was done with them I was done. I didn’t need a thank-you, I love you or goodbye. I needed them gone so I could be alone again.

I don’t even know if I felt anything from any of it, I was so far gone by that point, I just wanted to stop the hurting and thought that might do it.

It never did.

And it never cured the loneliness, not even when we were fucking, they always thinking they were special, were the one that would break this ice-queen’s shell.

Would rock my world.

But they all were turned away and in the end I was alone.

And so was I.

I found out three years ago.

Safety had never been the first thing on my mind, not even worrying or caring if I got pregnant, just seeing the darkness in me and wanting to fill it, so I can’t say I should have been surprised.

And maybe I wasn’t.

But then again we never see our end, even when it is right before us.

And by the time I found out, a matter of luck as much as anything else when my doctor asked me if I had been tested for it and then telling me I should do it to be safe, to be sure.

And the rest you know.

The vampire, the weapon was in me, was strong and had been there, within me, silent, waiting, for an untold time.

It could have been anyone.

It could have been anyone.

Does it matter though?

Does anything but that night so long ago?

The night they pushed me down the path that lead me to the vampire the lives deep inside me?

I have lain awake for months wondering that very thing, does it matter? And it does.

It does because, because…

Again, does it matter?

In the end I am alone. Alone with my curse, my vampire, my weapon.

They wanted to help me, wanted to understand what I was going through and wanted to help me but they could never save me and they never saw that.

No one can save me.

The Damned have no Savior.

And all that matters now is that the weapon is ready, the vampire is hungry, and I am almost out of time.

You can’t see it on my body, still slender, still smooth, but you can see it in my eyes, can smell it on my breath.

Death.

But they won’t see anything. Won’t smell anything.

And that’s what I am counting on.

That’s what I am counting on.

The funniest thing about it all really though is that they never seemed surprised to hear from me.

I had had to track them both down, not that they would go far, few like they ever manage to leave their old stomping grounds, do they?

But they they have the absolute gall to not be shocked to hear from me is something I hadn’t expected.

A hidden bonus I suppose.

I laugh now to think about it all.

Me, dressed in heels, thigh-high nylons, short black skirt and no panties, waiting like a vulture for the meal to arrive, and them coming to this shitty flea-trap thinking they are about to re-live their greatest night.

Are about to re-enact their great achievement.

Thinking all the while what all of their kind think she wanted it, I knew she wanted it.

And I am more than happy to let them think it.

Let them believe it.

As long as they show up.

As long as the evening ends with the four of us in bed, naked to one another – them, my vampire, and me.

It’s eager to meet them.

To meet the men that helped to create it.

And I am more than happy to oblige.

More than happy.

I fought with myself about this.

Wondering if it was right, if it wasn’t murder, if it wasn’t playing god.

But then the laughter fills my head and all doubts are gone and all that are left are the vampire and I.

Me and my weapon.

And there’s the knock I have been waiting for, and it takes so much not to smile, to laugh as the vampire laughs.

And I can’t wait to tell them the news, can’t wait to tell them of the gift I will have given them, and oh how we’ll laugh together.

Oh how we’ll all just laugh and laugh and laugh…

…csr…6.2.02…

The Lightning People – story

The day changed. Changed in a matter of moments, seconds, the sun being eaten alive by a rolling mass of clouds that stained the sky and changed day to night. The day was stolen and replaced by night’s grim façade but the two girls, like night and day themselves, are ignorant to what is happening outside the house they play in. The dark gray belly of the sky rumbles with thunder, a deep resounding bass that shakes the windows of the small yellow house and raises a startled cry from the girls within. An instant later and the sky’s seams are burst and a shard of lightning cuts through the humid darkness and makes a jagged cut towards the ground. Within a moment there is a nearby explosion and then all is black, all lost to the grim nothingness of the storm. The entire block severed from the twenty-first century. The girls shriek again in horror.

“The…”

“No!”

The darker girl-shaped darkness barking at the other girl, not even wanting her to utter the words, to name the terror that lives in that storm; things that lurk in the lightning. Suddenly both girls feel hot, burning up, their guts twisted over and again, their mouths suddenly deserts, feeling so very alone and desperately wanting their parents. The silence between them weighs a ton and each feels it on their budding chests. The silence is broken by another ominous roll of thunder and the spell of the darkness is broken, replaced by an icy panic. One girl shaped dark form moves to the door in a blur, her shadow stretched and crooked in a sudden spark of lightning. She grabs the door and throws it open and is about to exit the room when her friend’s voice stops her cold -

“No, Maizey, don’t, please…don’t leave me here, don’t let them get me…”

“I can’t, my brother’s home alone, all alone, I gotta get to him, I gotta go. Now. I’m sorry…”

She takes the stairs two at a time and has to wipe the tears from her eyes as Cammie screams after her, pleading with her, desperate to stop her. Maizey swings the heavy main door open and looks back up the stairs and sees a small shape standing at the top, its head in its hands, sobbing. Maizey steps out the door, pulls it closed and scans the yard and street wearily. Both are empty but there is a feeling of unease in her belly that can mean only one thing and her heads begins pounding with fear and paranoia. Another slash of lightning splits the sky and on its heels is another crash of thunder. Above her Maizey hears a high pitched shriek that is cut off too abruptly and that is all she needs and she is off at a run down the street and toward her house and Marcus, the tears running down her face lost to the night air.

“Cammie, I am so sorry Cammie…so sorry…”

As she runs she watches her neighborhood flash by her, the hard bullets of water battering her as the world blurs by. She can see the Anderson’s, the Matz’, the Lipnoli’s, all these houses she had been in, all those people she had known and had spent time with, and all she could wonder was did they know? Did they know what was happening? Who was coming? Were they hiding? Scared? Her tiny frame is another shadow in the darkness, her shirt starting to cling to her as the ever-increasing rain soaks it through and blurs her vision even more. There is another thunderclap and lightning lights the night and street up as if it is high noon and Maizey shrieks as she sees what lies before her. Them – The Lightning People. Their frames dark shadows, their forms nothing but vague outline, not even the glimmer of an eye to delineate one from the other. They stand in a row less than fifty yards before her, their arms outstretched as if awaiting a hug. She cannot tell how many there are because before she has any chance to try to see more any detail the flash of lightning is gone and the darkness has returned, hiding them again. Maizey is frozen, her heart almost as loud as the thunder itself, her eyes scanning the houses, the yards, desperate to find a safe path. More thunder and the rain falls harder still, hammering against her small body, soaking through her shirt, her jeans, pasting her hair to her head, flooding her senses. She can sense the lightning about to strike again and sets out before they can close in on her and is off across the Rillin’s lawn, the rain standing in pools in their yard. This time the Lightning People are behind her, standing where she had just stood but a moment before, their arms not out now, but at their sides, knowing she has eluded them. Maizey turns away from them and in the brief glimmer of light that sets the night ablaze sees a shadow in the Rillin house become engulfed in the embrace of a darker, larger shadow that was waiting in the darkness for it. Maizey turns her head away as the darkness descends again and tries to pick her course. She can’t be far now can she?

NO!

Maizey looks up in time to see the Rillin’s newly installed fence and smashes full-tilt into it, her head suddenly enclosed in fog as she falls hard to the muddy ground. As she lay there dazed more thunder rolls and there is another flash of lightning and god she has to get out of there, and now. They will know where she is and come, and when they come they will take her away. Take her where all lost people go. To the darkness. To whatever place they come from. She tries to sit up but falls backwards onto her back hard, the thunder in her head rolling now. Her head is pounding in time with every heartbeat and her nose is radiating with pain. She puts a hand to her face and can feel something warm coursing from there down her face to mingle with the rain and mud and grass. More lightning and she can sense them, almost to her, atop her. With a grunt and a struggle she tries to sit up but falls back again. NO! Her entire head is on fire with pain and god, all she wants to do is sleep, to let the darkness come and to ride it out to sea. To let the Lightning People take her with them, to see what lies beyond the lightning, beyond the thunder, beyond the beyond.

“NO!”

And she is up, rising to her feet slowly, her hand on the fence, a bright red stain being slowly washed from the it, the image of her brother at home alone flashing through her head. She was supposed to be there. Was supposed to protect him. Watch over him. But she just had to go to Cammie’s to see her new dresses, despite her mother telling her she wasn’t supposed to, and now it was all her fault. Whatever happened to him, to them both, it was her fault. She had been selfish and she just had to go, to show her parents they couldn’t tell her what to do, but now… And now she prayed for him, for them both, prayed for the storm to pass and the sun to shine again. She had to get moving. But before she could move the lightning gutted the sky and there before her stood the Lightning People. How many she couldn’t tell, they were linked together, one organism, one shadow with many heads, all of them reaching for her. She saw no eyes, no mouths, just the hands. They were only feet from her and had surrounded her and their darkness seemed to glisten, to sparkle within, calling her. Her heart sank for beyond the ones directly in front of her there were more, so many more, standing in groups, watching her from their darkened shapes. And there was one that stood apart from the rest, one with brilliant white eyes that seemed to sparkle like stars, and it was that sight that sank her heart completely.

“Oh Marcus, oh Marcus no…”

But just as they were about to touch her, to embrace her and swallow Maizey body and soul they were gone. The lightning flash that had lit the world of Krane Avenue up nothing but a memory on her irises. But they weren’t gone, not really, and she knew it even though she couldn’t see them any longer. They were there in the darkness, between moments, in the world of nothing, waiting for her. She ran. She punched through the space where they had been standing, still were standing in some other place and moment, and when she did her skin crawled. Ran with goose bumps as if she had stepped through a cobweb. She ran on though, feeling their eyes on her, feeling their arms reaching for her, she ran.

She passed the Dawn house and more lightning rained on her and there they were, to either side of her, in the houses, on the street, in the parked cars, they were there waiting, watching, reaching. And so was the one with the eyes. And god did her heart sink when she saw that one, saw it and thought she saw it smile as it stood in the doorway to her own home, the door flung wide. And she ran at it as hard as she could, the rain splattering against her, determined to, if nothing else, destroy this thing with whatever strength her poor body could muster. But she knew in her heart her fight wouldn’t last long because her chest ached from running so hard for so long, and her nose hummed with anger, but she ran on, hate replacing her fear. Her dread. And from her mouth rose a war cry, a rant, a rage against all of these things that had come for she and her brother –

“You motherfuckerassholedickassshitbuttfucktitscockpussyfart…”

The words flew from her mouth in a spray of spit and as each one passed her lips she picked up a little more speed, balling her hands into tiny fists, almost within range of the thing. But just as she was about to throw herself at the thing standing before her the darkness stole through the night again taking the thing and its legions away. Maizey slowed and then stopped, slipping in the mud, twirling in a circle, searching for the Lightning People, knowing they were still near. Sensing their eyes on her, their hate of her. Hating her for her life, for having what they had lost. Remembering her grandmother’s words too well as she had told Maizey of the Lightning People, about where they came from, where they went to, who they were, and what they wanted, and thinking this a chill ran down her spine. Marcus.

Maizey pushes the door open completely and searches the darkness for any sign of her brother, anything. She sees nothing. He was probably hiding, that was it. Yeah, hiding. “Marcus, Marcusssss?” She calls, hearing nothing save for more thunder. Her heart jumps, they are here, in the house with her, now, oh god… Maizey ran deeper into the house, to the kitchen, and threw open the utility drawer. She pulled the flashlight out just as the lightning struck a tree nearby, maybe in the yard, and turned it on. Nothing. The batteries were dead. Oh god no. The lightning flashes and there they are surrounding her, the one with the eyes in the lead, its eyes a beautiful shade of jade now, twinkling as she looked at them, feeling herself going numb as she did. Wanting suddenly, strangely, to go to them, to their embrace. She dropped the flashlight and took a step forward, then another, and another, and she swore she could almost hear them calling to her, inviting her to join them. Her eyes feel heavy and she can smell their ozone stench as she comes within their reach. The one with the jade eyes reaches for her and she can feel its touch on her arms, burning with cold as it pulls her to it and was just about to embrace her when the lightning was gone and darkness bleeds in again. Maizey stands dazed a moment before falling hard onto her ass sitting there motionless, the eyes still in her head, burned into her, the touch burned onto her.

She shook her head to clear it, trying hard to concentrate on Marcus, on something. She pulls herself up slowly and looks down at the flashlight – no good. More thunder rumbles and she turns and stumbles to the stove and just as the lightning blazes she turns the stove on and up rises a single flame. She hears a hiss from behind her and turns to see a pile of ashes fall to the linoleum and what looks like three forms burned onto the wall. She smiles and pumps her fist in the air once. She stumbles to the drawer again and this time pulls out her dad’s old lighter, flicks it, and up rose another flame. The lightning ends and she moves from the kitchen and makes her way slowly out into the living room again, the lighter held near, shielded from any breeze. The lightning flashes again as she makes her way into Marcus’ room, toys littering the floor like shrapnel, and as soon as it comes she can feel them behind her and turns to face them, her back to his little bed. They arere there, at the door, but as soon as she faces them three of them hiss and disappear into ash. The Lightning People step back and put their arms down. There would be no asking now. There would only be taking. The one with the eyes steps forward, unafraid, its eyes now a deep crimson, and Maizey holds the flame out even further, but this time to no effect. She steps closer but still nothing. She imagines the laughter in its eyes and hates it more than anything. She waits for the lightning to end but it doesn’t, and the world is lit up in a brilliant white – she was in their place now, in the in-between place. A chill ran through her and she said a silent prayer, holding the flame in a little closer. The shadow with the eyes turns to its companions and they all nod slowly, in unison. God there are so many of them. So many…

The one with the eyes turns back to Maizey and points to the bed, Marcus’ bed, its eyes now white, empty. Maizey stands frozen a moment, not sure what to do, worried it’s a trick, but unable to resist the curiosity, needing to know what it was pointing at, and so she turned. And there, on Marcus’ bed, the bed still unmade, lay his favorite bear…surrounded by three tiny drops of blood. Maizey’s eyes fill to overflowing with tears and her stomach drops into nothingness. She feels dazed. Dead. They had gotten him. Oh no, oh nononononononononono… She spins back to face them again, to make them pay, but they are gone. Gone.

NO!

Maizey runs out into the house and after them, sensing they are still near. She enters the living room and sees them on the lawn, moving away, fading away, the lightning almost spent now. She runs to the door and screams at them, rages at them madly. The lighter at her side now, the flame licking at her hand unnoticed. They fade away, their mass slipping away to nothing. All but the one with the eyes, that one is standing on her lawn, facing her, watching her, its eyes blue now. Serene. Sad. It weakly holds one hand out to Maizey, holds it there a moment and then disappears as well. There comes a loud crash of thunder that shakes the house, the world, and then a lightning bolt tears through the night and splits the driveway in two, sending snakes of electricity along the ground that die within a few seconds.

And they were gone.

And the rain slowed to a drizzle and then died. And the thunder moves noisily away. And Maizey stands alone in her doorway, the lighter falling to the ground, her hand blistered and bleeding. Down the street there come screams and cries for help but Maizey doesn’t hear them. She hears nothing, her ears ringing, her eyes burned with the image of those blue eyes, of the teddy bear, of the blood, of Marcus. Maizey falls to her knees, her body aching, her heart turned to ash, and then her rains begin.

Do you wonder where the Lost go?

Ask the Lightning People for only they know…

…csr…9.11.00…

Welcome to Thunderdome

Well, not really but that sounds way cooler than – welcome to my blog of words!

Or…

Welcome to my interweb word orgy.

See, no one likes to go to word orgies ’cause they’re gross. You lose track of which is a pronoun, which is a noun and, in the end, you end up with your participle dangling.

Oh my!
So, welcome to the bloggy. I have the My Space page, and there are some rad-a-roo stories and such there but I use that to generally talk arty stuff and booky stuff and more arty stuff and here to post stories and some pictures or art. Both sites are friends, this one is just the prettier of the two (just don’t tell the My Space page I said that).

So, my name’s Chris, what’s yours?

I write stories, I take random spooky pictures, and of late I have gotten the art bug in my brain and draw or paint once in a while. Here though, more than anything is a place of stories, so enjoy. As to what I write, I’ll let you decide. Some things are dark, some are funny, some are scary, but to me, they’re all just aspects of me, and just reflections of things I see.

If you like what you read, check the My Space page (www.myspace.com/grimringler) for info on purchasing my collection of short stories Back From Nothing. I also have some prints for sale, some small story samplers for sale, and am world kickboxing champ three years running (that’s an outright lie, I was just trying to impress you. Sorry about that.).

Well, what ya waiting for, read away…

….c…

So It Is – a story

this was inspired by a story a friend told me about someone’s pregnancy and the story haunted me and this was the result.

So It Is.

The sky meets the ground, the ground meets the sky and I am trapped in the heart of the blue, twisted and caught in it and pulled down below the surface. I struggle and stretch and find my place in the blue and let it take me, have me, be me and then there is nothing but the stillness of the twilight as it fades into darkness.

I breathe in.

I breathe out.

I breathe in and hold it, hearing the echo of my heart and then it’s lost to the sound of the rushing darkness that fills the blue. I close my eyes and wrap my arms around my own darkness and see the shadows moving, ebbing and flowing like waves. I hear crying in the distance and open my eyes and can see little of the skyline and only know I am still on the ground because of the dew.

I look into the sky and am among the stars, entranced, lost, my thoughts finally coming apart and spinning into the darkness. The air catches the first bite of coolness that will turn bitter in another hour, now though, now it cools the heat of my mind and stretches this bliss. The dark is so deep though, so deep and I am unsure of myself, of how well I can swim and here, here there is no wading out safely, there is only jumping in.

So I jump.

I close my eyes and the darkness is warm, not cold, and the grass, starting to weep, tempers that heat. In the distance is the honking of a car but it’s like a fog horn heard from miles away and seems like a ghost in the sea. When it’s gone there’s only the silence of the sea and its weight is heavy on my chest and grows heavier still now that there is only me and my thoughts and nothing else.

I run my hands over the grass and stain them with its tears.

The world is so big and we so small and I wonder how deep this ocean is, and what things hide beneath its surface, teeth ready to chew, gnash, gnaw, and devour.

I shudder at the thought and hear another horn moaning out, in heat.

I slip my shoes off and stretch and lie out on the grass and feel as if I am in a tub now with the world so close and pushing in as the sound of the city creeps up the hill. The darkness is fading as the city lights belch brightness into the sky and I can feel that this waking dream is almost over, ocean turning to sea, turning to tub, and after that the cold night.

The sounds in the darkness begin to get louder.

I hear crying and it is me, finally, finally, finally letting it out, here, alone but for the weight that waits in me. I run my hands over my belly and feel no bump but know what sleeps there, patient and doomed. The tears roll down my face and link me to the grass, to the earth and the Mother comforts me as the city pushes in. I roll onto my side and let everything out, everything, and it comes like vomiting, shaking me into convulsions.

Unnamed, it will go unnamed, not because it doesn’t deserve a name but because no name would ever be good enough for what it is, what it was, what it could have been.

I won’t name it because it deserves to be untouched by the awful world that push, push, pushes at me to make a decision I can’t make.

But I know my name, and I know his name, and it feels like dying must to know he’ll never know this secret I have kept from him. That he can’t know or it would break him to learn of three that we were and won’t be in a matter of days. I only knew about the weight for a week, a week, before the rest of the tests came back and told me I had to make a choice – it or me.

Me, or it.

It as if it was nothing but pulp and prayers when it means so much to me. Like a promise unkept. Like a whisper unheard. Like…an angel without wings. It is hope without a heart and in the morning I have to say goodbye.

The darkness is slipping, fading and I close my eyes as tight as I can, clinging to it, and in those fading moments I see a face, I hear a name, and then it’s gone and when I open my eyes I find the darkness gone as well and I am alone on a hill, bathed in the false sun of street lamps and headlights, and surrounded by the gods of commerce. I lie there and feel the dirt beneath me, barely covered by the thin grass, I feel a cigarette butt, and I feel bottle caps and the other garbage people always seem to leave behind. I close my eyes and the darkness is gone.

Time’s up.

I sit up and run my hands over my belly and feel a kick and I wonder if twenty three years are enough, if that’s enough time to have lived, to have loved, to have seen, to have felt. I wonder if it’s enough time to do everything I ever wanted.

I rub my belly and the questions resurface, all of them gleaming with hard edges, clean and ready for work.

Me or it.

It or me.

Her or him.

Us…or them.

I take a breath.

I breathe in.

I breathe out.

I breathe in and hold it, and hold it, and hold it.

Another kick.

We’re in this together.

I rub my belly and smile as the tears come again. Decision unmade but ready to face the light.