Capsize

The mast creaked and the ground shook. The captain shouted “Raise the sails faster you monkey’s cousins!” The Mihra – a ship of twenty guns –was being tossed in the storm like a box of matches. But at least it wasn’t on fire.

The next wave came over the prow; Samuel Gladman felt the rope tremble in his grasp. Shipmates screamed as they lurched over the side, into the water below. The water surged over the deck covering it with a green slime. The waves towered from above. Gladman stumbled forward. Lightning flashed; wind howled; the sail ripped.

The world slowed for a moment as if dazed from the mighty roar of the tearing sail. With the crack of thunder it sounded as if the sky itself had been rend apart. The water stopped surging over hte deck pausing for a moment to drip over the vessel’s side. The ropes stopped sliding, vibrating in the silence. The sky brightened, and bells rang. Gladman thought of his home: to a quiet field by an old stone church where the sun always shone and the bells rang; for a single, crystal-clear moment the world stopped moving.

The boom crashed down onto the cabin deck. The planks broke like twigs beneath its weight. The sails flapped wildly as the spin spun round. A wave struck the side of the boat. Thrown off balance, Gladman held onto his rope for dear life. A man caught his arm and the pair swung out over the see. With their arms locked, they looked at each other. The vessel pitched. The pair’s eyes met. The ship toppled over; the man sank into the depths below.

Mice and Men

Mice in mazes look for cheese. Their noses lead them to their prizes. They look through endless rows of dead ends for the nugget of gold: their dinner.

Adventures in mazes look for treasure. Their brains, brawn, and luck lead them to hidden vaults filled with golden nuggets; at the end of the maze they get paid. At the end of weeks in a soggy dungeon, days eating stale rations, and hours of fleeing from beasts summed from the pits of hell they get paid. Yet sometimes, they don’t.

Plavius stepped out of the trapdoor. He looked down at his once red boots and shook his head. They were never going to get dry. He left wet footprints on the ground as he walked into the abandoned cellar. It was dark except for the small lantern that he carried. On every wall the fine white lines of mortar sparkled with the thin silvery strands of spider’s nests. Spiders. Lots of spiders.

Plavius looked wearily at the hole as a round head came into view. A mass of bones and muscles followed it, covered with an ample amount of skin and hair. Gaius: the brawn of the team. He wore a shirt of chain. The bottom row of links were rusted and on his chest a few holes were punched out of the chain revealing a bloodstained shirt underneath.

“Bloody spiders.” He bemoaned to Plavius and stepped away to allow the last member of the team to enter the cellar.

Triminius looked around, saw the webs and his face drained of color. He sat down at the edge of the trapdoor and breathed deeply. The edges of his tunic were soggy. A small pack was slung over his shoulder. A thin copper tube hung at his belt, maps for the sewers.

Plavius glanced over at him and drily said, “I guess your map didn’t have any of these webs on here either?”

Triminius looked back raised his hands in the air and said: “I thought the map was joking when it said ‘Here be oodles of spiders.’”

Bagels, a definition

Bagels: hot, warm, and tasty, taken from the oven and laid out in the sun; cold, stiff, and bland, hidden in cupboards wafting to be eaten. A doughnut-shape of flour and water baked till hard. A torus of fruit and grain cooked in an oven. A breakfast of kings, lunch of paupers, and dinner of students in one delectable treat. Whether guillotined in half, or eaten whole; with cream cheese or lox; freshly baked or a few days stale it matters not. A physical representation of S1xS1, a subset of R3, a wonder for the mind both mathematical of gastronomical. Oh bagel! it was for you they said: “less is more.”

Poetical Birds

“Arma Virumque Cano,” a tunic clad poet sings. A green wreathe rests on his head; a small wooden lyre rests on his knee. Around him, people watch. A patrons lie on a dozen couches which line the walls; the poet sits in a single chair in their midst. Behind him a tapestry hangs on the wall. The cloth displays a fleet of ships rolling through stormy water. One of the ships rolls down the waves so and men fall over its prow. On another the wave casts a ship up into the air it’s keel freed from the watery depths. The sky, painted in an array of gray and silver threads sparkles in the fire light just as the crackle of lightning illuminates a stormy sky.

“Musa, mihi causas memora,” the poet’s voice strengthens as the music speeds up. Everyone in the room listens to him. Dressed in tunics and togas these statesmen and their wives sit in utter silence, as the poet’s voice fills the hall. The remains of a feast is spread out before them. A platter of grapes and grape vines lie on a small table. The bones of a dozen different animals sit on one plate. An idle hand picks at a bowl of nuts.

“Urbs antiqua fuit, Karthago,” the poet calls out, his voice slow now, his words beating to the notes of the lyre. The windows high up are cast in a smoldering red and the darkness fills the air. Fires flicker in casting the tapestry above in shifting lines of light. The patrons’ faces dim and brighten as a slow breeze rolls through the room and the flames flicker. The poet’s face is cast in ever shifting shadows, and the lyre’s notes ring through the empty hall. The sound of the ancient poem drew in two finches from a far. Sitting upon the windowsill they gaze down at him, and so enraptured they were with his voice that they dare not speak fearing to mar the poet’s sweet song.

When I good Gentlemen came to the Bar...

Annalise looked at the door, then to the cook and then back at the door. She shook her head, and picked up the plate of steaming steak and potatoes. Half a dozen tables spotted the room, each made of the same beige wood as the ceiling, and each having stood the abuse of being danced on, turned over, and thrown over course of a night’s revelry.

She sat the plate down next to a small figure huddled up on the rug besides the roaring fire place. He was wrapped in a thick gray blanket and sat with his knees right next to his chest. She left the plate of potatoes beside him on the rug, to which he glanced up and murmured the vaguest thanks, and turned back to the counter for the next load.

Beer this time. She grabbed up the two mugs and walked over to the laughing pair. Both of them looked as if they had seen their fair share of cows in their life. Their hands were raw and their hair pulled back into tight knots. Their boots were muddied and their trousers filthy. The only thing clean they had on were faces, which Annalise imagined, their wives had vigorously scrubbed moments before they left the house. They turned to her as she set down their beers and one of them joked: “I’ll give ye my two best cows if you marry my son, young lass.” The other laughed at his comment, she smiled and turned away.

The other five tables in the bar were empty; the sun hadn’t yet sunk beneath the horizon. The door swung opened banged against the wall. Where it used to be, a man now stood. There are a few schools to thought to door opening, this man was apparently of the let-the-entire-world-know-where-you-are school, Annalise though. He stood in the door frame, and at least according to Annalise wanted to make sure the entire world knew who had so viciously conquered over the mighty force of the door handle. No doubt the other four patrons were cowering in fear at this awe inspiring master who had cleverly discovered how to turn the handle and push! He shouted: “Give me some ale!” And promptly sprawled out into one of the chairs.

One brawler in. A few more to go. The door opened this time, a well dressed gentleman, his back straight as an arrow. Without a callous to call his own, he sat down full of poise and looked ahead at the roaring fire. While the man who walked in front of him slouched onto the chair, his body girded with thick muscles, ready for the nightly brawl, the man who just walked in sat straight up in his chair, his skin hanging tightly onto his bones, and his body ready to run at the first sign of the brawl.

Before she could take his order, the shouts of men drifted in from outside. The door opened just as the last rays of the sun drifted down from the hill and a band of soldiers came walking through. Six of them, each as primped as the one before him, came in sporting red tunics of the king. They laughed and sat down at the tables calling for food and ale. They were going to be the meat of today’s brawl. Annalise considered them for a moment and decided, they were the meat of today’s brawl: the people who kept the fight going.

The door opened and closed and a man stood there and on his head stood a hat with a single feather on it, tipped to the side. He walked with a slanted gate as if he had a sword hanging by his side. With only a single glance at the inhabitants of the room, the six soldiers, the blacksmith, the state’s man, the two farmers, the fellow by the fire, the cook and Annalise, he walked over to the empty seat by the gentleman’s table and sat down next to him. His walk remained Annalise of someone she had once known. A long time ago a general had walked into to town. He walked just as this man did: confidently and boldly.

She started at him for a while not able to get his face out of her head. She felt like she knew him from somewhere, yet she couldn’t place where. As he sat there talking to the gentleman in hushed tones she thought about it for a while. Then she knew it. She walked up to the cook and said: “To coppers on the fellow who just walked in.” She slipped the coins onto the table. You always bet on the guy with the funny hat.

Morning Glory

The crisp notes of a bell shook the dusty rafters. Some birds startled by this morning’s calamity starred up from the beams in fright, flying out an open window. And from far above the red and purple glass of the window shined outlining a wooden cross. The floor was filled with two straight rows of pews, yet only a dozen people sat there. The flickering of candles cast shadows on their faces as they stood, their heads bowed in prayer. The click of the Parson’s staff echoed as he walked down the isle: as he walked towards the altar.

As the parson reached the alter the entire hall fell silent. He bowed their heads as they did and let his lips form the familiar words of prayer. Wordlessly he prayed. The wooden cross loomed far above. Its form was marked out in the dim haze of candle fire; its wooden body seemed to writhe in shadows as the candles flickered beneath it. A muted cough was the only sound that broke this silence, and the world was frozen in a divine tableau.

The sun broke out the chains of far flung hills and it’s light shattered the penetrating darkness of filled with candlelight. The parish’s once shadowy faces were filled with a new pure light shining in from the windows above that paled their visages in a uniform radiance. The image of a cross was projected from the window above. A multicolored halo of pale red and purple girded the black form. Each of the parishioners looked up to the Parson in unison. The Parson let his gaze wander over the dozen people standing between the wooden pews, raised his arms, and called out with a voice that resounted more vigorously then the sounding of the bell: “Let us pray.”

Muffins!

The smell of muffins wafts out of an oven. The morning sun glimmers off its beige surface. The walls in this sunlit kitchen are marked with lines of yell and green which glow in the morning air. On one wall a window adorns the striated wall, and outside lays a field of green. A boy and a girl play with a small ball throwing it back and forth, their shouts come in the window as bellows of laughter or shouts of frustration. The ceiling fan turns in a loose circles, its gray blades slicing through the warm air. Four wooden chairs lay at the corner of the room surrounding a small table. A white table cloth girds the edges of the table and hides all but the four wooden legs. On the wall a clock ticks away each minute, and below that a black and white picture hangs. Four persons’ visages are embraced in the heavy set lines of wood. A mother smiles while her hands rest on the shoulder’s of a young girl. A father his face a stern scowl, and besides him a boy mocks his father’s expression with his own scowl half turned into a boyish grin. The ceiling fan turns again and… the oven beeps.

Causi Sui

Somewhere above this world, a star shines brightly. Far above the winds and the rains, in the dark heavens, it lies. Jupiter is girded with a belt of comets; this star is girded with a belt of clouds. Clouds of all shapes and sizes swirl and dance in this belt of fluff: big red ones with a rusty hue, small green ones that carry a sickly taint. Once in a while two of these behemoths collide sending celestial dust into space.

If by chance, as this dust falls on the earth, it is shaped like a dog, then in some home far away a puppy is born. With coffee brown fur, floppy ears, and soulful brown eyes it pleads with the passing families to be adopted. And if by chance it is shaped like a bird, then far away a young blue jay squeaks out its first chirp. The chick calls out to its mother, among a nest of its siblings, wanting to be fed.

Yet if by chance it is a boy or a girl, then a baby is born. A mom and a dad snuggle. In their arms they carry a child swathed in wraps of blue cloth. A fire crackles in the corner of the room, but another fire glows in their hearts. The father’s face melts from an icy scowl into a warm smile. As the mother coddles the child, in her arms next to her heart, her eyes glisten with tears.

If by chance you wonder where you come from, just gaze upwards and two clouds strike again sprinkling the world with a shower of dust, a shower of life. That is where you came from.

Sunset

One day I sat upon a slab. White granite speckled with black grains. Below me I heard the sounds of people playing and people talking. Harsh hurrahs and rolling chortles. But more then that I heard the wind as it whistled through the trees and the bells as they rung in the air. From far behind me a clock chimed, its solemn notes bouncing off every surface. Before me the hill spread out covered in mighty oaks and leaning pines. The entire world was shaded by the shroud of dusk. And far in the distance the horizon glowed

A yellow dimmed into a deep orange, vibrant in the cold night air. These rays of light seemed to play off the clouds above, illuminating them in a lining of gold like some golden treasures in an Egyptian tomb; these clouds glimmered with a silver lining.

Even as the light dimmed, the sky glowed on. Dark shadows cast on the edges of the clouds, painting dark lines across their golden bodies. And as the sun sank into the bay before me, the yellow light hidden by the water’s edge, the reds in the sky dimmed as if in respect. The air above me glistened with radiant beams with one more hurrah of light. The clock struck once more. The red melted into the dimming hills and the stars began to shine.

Howling Gales, Part Three

Two sunken eyes peered from under a dark hood. the darkened visage was bowed as the winds billowed past him. The fur lining bristled in the winds of the storm. Little shards of ice stuck to the fur clinging to its warm embrace. The hood billowed out catching the wind and if his head erred up his robes threatened to sail away like some oversized burlap kite. Far above the, heavens scowled upon this poor figure. The storm clouds had grown black and they loomed over this wondering shape. His steps left little craters in the snowy ground lasting only moments before a new batch of snow filled his tracks. His robes dragged behind him, sweeping just barely above the ground, the tattered edges a testament to days of sharp rocks and snowy vales. The staff in his hand, knotted and well worn plunged ahead marking its own small steps in the snow ground. The world was white around him. The misty fog of snow was marred only by the black of drop offs and of cold sharp rocks. As those sunken eyes swayed over the never changing landscape, the wayfarer picked up his foot and dented the icy snow once more.

Icy Prayers, Part Two

He bellowed forth crisp words. With every breath left in his frigid lungs he shouted a curse to the howling winds. All around him the snow billowed and they sky scowled an inky black. Below him massive crags spanned their way down this peak, and large drifts of ice pilled here and there. The shout reverberated off a distant mountain. Unseen in this wild weather of wind and snow, the mountain responded with a muffled crash as another rock lost its lofty footing and tumbled into the waiting world below.

As if in some weary stupor the clouds above him seemed to shape and turn, rolling through the expressions of some massive faces as they laughed at the poor victim beneath him. The black clouds above him offered icy white gifts of snow as homage to the prayer this weary traveler gave to their awe inspiring might. As if in some lonesome desert where the hot sun beat down and the winds tossed up fine grains of sands into whirlwinds of dust, the snow themselves seemed to twist in the shifting winds creating their own cyclones of ice as they carved a path around the mountain top. And just as a row of pointing spears might cause the hearts of the bravest horses to tremble in anticipation, this poor man’s hearts shuddered as he gazed at the grim outlines at the ghastly tow of peaks far in the distance.

And if by chance some loathsome deity laughed at this poor wretch, the chortle was lost in the clamor of the winds and the storm as the traveler hiked another step up this grisly summit.