Fiction Vortex - November 2013

by Fiction Vortex

  But at the same time it was lonely. It was solipsistic, which is why not everyone did it. I’ll explain: Imagine you have the option to change the universe you’re in. You can go back to a point in time, or forward. But it would be a different universe. Your parents would look enough like your parents, but you’d know they were not the same ones. They were similar, but not the same. Would you do it then?

  It’s tough to imagine and tough to explain. It was a scientific miracle, but also an existential nightmare. So people mostly left it alone.

  The option was open for only tens-of-thousands of dollars. For some, it was not feasible. But once you started to accumulate savings it hung in the back of your mind.

  For me, it would have been easy. I’m an idealist. I like to keep things in order: real, parents, real life, reality. I’d done a pretty good job at coming to terms with my past. My parents’ divorce was inevitable. My love life was stable. My career was above average. I’m pretty grateful, in general.

  It would have taken something tragic to make me consider time travel. There are no guarantees. It could be worse, even — who knows what’s really out there?

  It was last summer that our son drowned. It’s taboo to speak about what could have been. People offer condolences. People cry. People mourn. It’s normal. It’s human. Nobody says DON’T think about it. Nobody tries to deter you from anything.

  “What about two people?” my wife asked.

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “Can two people go back?”

  I told her it was unethical. She said nothing. She was in bed most of the time, in those days. But it latched onto her like a disease. In everything we did it was there. When we were silent watching TV it was there. What if?

  What if?

  She started researching. I knew she was but said nothing. She’d watch me and hope I’d mention it again. But I stood firm. It was a fleeting thought for people. Something bad happens and they consider time travel. Then, they resign themselves to reality.

  That’s when she started to leave the house. She had meetings with experts. She had consultations on the possibility. She went to conferences overnight. She would return and I would say, “I won’t do it.” She continued.

  It appeared that she had stopped. The conferences and consultations became less frequent. I thought she had finally adjusted when she approached me, smiling.

  “I found someone who will do it.”

  “What?”

  “For both of us.”

  We have it scheduled. It’s marked on our calendar. The rest of the pages are blank. We won’t need it anymore. We mark off the days. I look at it each morning. I marvel at the shrinking squares.

  Joe Marchia is an author of fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in Instigatorzine, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Citizens for Decent Literature, and numerous other publications. His website is Joemarchia.com

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  Nightingale

  by Tyger Schonholzer; published November 9, 2013

  If you think the small, insignificant bird that landed on your window and tweeted so sweetly triggered your homesick longing, you weren’t paying close enough attention.

  It is an easy mistake to make. Although the modest brown Passerine astonishes with its warbles, trills, and gurgles, it does not wrench your heart. What soars beyond it is the true source of your pain and is the sole reason for the small bird’s nightly call.

  If you could understand the songster’s language, you might hasten to close your window, pull the covers over your head and pray. If you could heed his warning, you might save yourself from slicing your wrists with shards of broken glass and watching your life pulse away onto the stone floor.

  You call him Nightingale, yet the one who bears that name lurks in the shadows and rides the autumn winds. The bird is only its herald. Listen to his lovely call at your peril. Danger follows behind him. Do not linger at the window if you mean to live into the next year.

  Nightingale swoops not from the sky but from the depths of Yffern. Its wings are not of flesh and blood, but spun from darkest despair. You will not see it against the night sky, yet its many-colored, shimmering coat confounds and taunts the eye like a three-dimensional illusion.

  Its name hints at its true nature, and was given by distraught sailors eons ago. Storm-battered prayers rising from trembling lips begged mercy. “Do not let us perish in this tempest. Do not let night fall on us in this gale!”

  And yet, night fell and men drowned while Nightingale sucked life from their souls and blood from their bodies. Did they hear the bird sing, just before the horrid creature struck? Perhaps they did, but we shall never know.

  Last night, the warbler sang behind my home. I ran to close my windows, lock my doors, and light my white candles against the dread that would surely follow. My gratitude to the small bird for his warning! I am still alive today.

  Outside my door, my true love lies sprawling, his eyes broken. His hand clutches a letter still, yet his wrists are sliced and the blood has long since stopped flowing.

  Did he ring my doorbell? Did he try to speak to me?

  I cry out and with shaky fingers dial the paramedics, although I know that his life is already spent.

  In the morning sun, a tiny brown bird raises his wings. He does not sing today.

  Tyger Schonholzer is a respiratory therapist and writer who lives on a small farm in East Texas. Her short stories were published by Bewildering Stories and The Writer’s Desk, her poetry in Sol Magazine. She blogs irregularly but passionately. Her poetry chapbooks are available at Lulu.com and her novel, ‘Once Upon a Rape’ is available as ebook from Amazon. Her personal website provides links to her activities: www.tygerschonholzer.weebly.com

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  The Countess and the Bard

  by Kyle Rader; published November 12, 2013

  The moment he first set foot in the home of Countess Morana, Regent to the King of Mesa, the Bard knew it would be the death of him.

  The home was not in any state of disrepair. No cobwebs or dastardly looking servants with hunched-backs and bright eyes reflecting their bitter hatred to the world were milling about. It was the feel of the entire locale that sent foreboding chills down his spine.

  He was of a mind to turn on his heels and head back for the docks when a single trumpet announced his host’s arrival.

  “Good morrow to you, Sir Bard.” Countess Morana greeted him with a thin-lipped smile that indicated she meant him anything but.

  “Ah, so this is the renowned Countess that every sailor this side of the world holds lust in their hearts — and loins — for!” The Bard took the woman’s hands, kissed both, then clasped them together with his per the custom of the land. “The crude etchings carved into the ceiling of my ship’s cabin do you no justice, Milady.”

  “I see the rumors that preceded you are accurate enough,” the Countess said.

  “Oh?” The Bard feigned shock at the compliment. It was a dance he did every time some noble hired him to perform. Wear a coat of false modesty and let the silly person think they are the first to compliment your greatness. “If these are the rumors about a certain incident with a band of pirates, I must admit they are exaggerated. I slew only fourteen of them. The last one simply fell over-board.”

  Countess Morana laughed without smiling. “You have a golden tongue bestowed upon you from one of the Gods. Will you walk with me, Sir Bard?”

  They walked through the manor for a time, speaking of the Bard’s travels through the eight Kingdoms of the land. He shared the most succulent pieces of gossip from the numerous noble houses in which he had been hired, while she regaled him of the house’s history; of how it was carved directly out of the mountainside, and of the marble columns her Father imported from across the sea to complete the colonnade down which they strolled.

  Their sojourn ended in an open portico overlooking the sea. The Countess took a seat on a small fur-lin
ed sofa. A serving girl shuffled over and filled her goblet with wine. “Maelian wine,” she said in between sips. “Simply astonishing. A bit costly, but the flavor alone is well worth the price. Join me, Sir Bard?”

  “What kind of a bard would I be if I refused freely offered wine?”

  “As engaging as tales of House Morana may be, I think perhaps you are wondering why I have called you here. After all, the Kingdom of Mesa is rather far from home for you.”

  “A bard owes no allegiance to any one location, Milady. Our only true home is located within the words that we speak. Those words take us on adventures far from our places of birth and allow us a wondrous opportunity to drink in the poetry of the world.”

  “I envy your perspective of the world, Sir Bard.” The Countess smoothed her fine green gown and gazed at the ocean, watching the waves crash against the black cliffs. “Tell me what you know of our kingdom.”

  The Bard drained his goblet and signaled for a refill. “It is said that Mesa’s ports allow for fast shipping of various goods and — according to a rather loquacious fisherman I encountered — the purest whale oil in the world is harvested in its native waters.”

  “Tell me what you really know about this place.”

  Icicles of contempt bored into the Bard from the noblewoman’s blue eyes. Clearly this is a woman whose tolerance for flattery goes only so far, he thought. He sipped his wine and shifted his position on the couch, which had suddenly grown as uncomfortable as a mossy stone.

  “There is a saying throughout the lands. ‘Woe be unto those who linger in Mesa. For it is a land stained so thick with blood, the tides themselves cannot cleanse it.’”

  “The saying is not inaccurate. Since its inception, Mesa has been in a near-constant state of revolution. The damned aristocrats declare war on each other if one happens to have prettier flowers than the other. It occurs so often, it is an amazement that there is any kingdom left to battle over. Roasted almonds?”

  A servant presented the plate of still-smoking nuts before the Bard. The aroma was tempting, but he waved the girl off, preferring to get to the point. “Countess, if what you say is the truth, and I have no doubts of your integrity, why summon me? I am just a simple poet, nothing more. A hundred warriors would be of better use to you than I.”

  “In any other instance, you would be correct. Fortunately for us all, the kingdom is enjoying a relative period of ease, thanks to the eighty-eighth king, King Randall the Splendid.”

  The mention of the king’s name created a clammy ring of sweat around his neck. He dabbed it away from his suit-collar with an orange cloth. “Mist from the sea,” he lied with a smile. “Must be difficult to keep any linen of value here.”

  “What do they say of King Randall in the outside realms, Sir Bard?” she said, shifting her gaze from him to inspect the golden paint on her thumbnail.

  Under any normal circumstance, I would consider her to be breathtaking, he thought. But, her face is devoid of anything resembling human emotion.

  “If I may answer your query with another, Milady. Why do you ask things to which you already know the answer?”

  The Regent rose from her sofa and walked to the parapet. “You are a bold one, aren’t you? King Randall has seen his share of your sort before. Every time, the same tragedy is performed. You come with your boastful ambition, thinking about nothing but the favor you may gain from the silly nobles who hired you. In the end, it is your blood that the tide cannot wash clean from our streets.”

  The Bard stood and bowed low from the waist. “My apologies, Countess. I meant no offense by my trifle. It is the curse of the bards in that we speak far too freely, for our love of words outweighs that of even our own necks.”

  Morana waved the apology off with two skeletal fingers. The ocean waves crashed against the obsidian bluffs fourteen times before she spoke again. “King Randall has held onto the throne for ten summers and winters. The second longest reign was that of The Gull King, King Lucas, which lasted six years before revolution claimed his life. This feat is rather unprecedented in Mesa, you understand, and as such, the king wishes to join the nation in celebration of his achievement.

  “For you see, King Randall believes that his rule is divine and plans to have himself declared a god during the affair. It shall fall unto you to present his highness with a poem worthy of deity.”

  The desire to leave deluged the Bard. His legs nearly betrayed his refined sense of decorum and sent him running down the hall. “Why, Countess,” he said, clearing his throat. “I thought you sent for me to perform a difficult task.”

  “Your audacity teeters on the precipice of arrogance, Sir Bard. Still, it may yet serve you well in our kingdom. Come! Stand with me and watch the sea.”

  The Countess interlocked her arm with his and rested her head against his shoulder. Her breaths were in tune with the tide; her bodice rose and fell with each crashing wave.

  “Sir Bard? Would you be so kind as to look to the east wall? There is a sight that is absolutely breathtaking at this time of the day. You simply must witness it.”

  “It must be a vision sent straight from the heavens!” he said, freeing his arm from the Countess’s embrace. He found himself missing the warmth of her body after only a few paces; the way her perfume enhanced the salt permeating the air. “Perhaps I shall craft it into such a song that it will turn to legend after only one recit—”

  You’ve traveled into a realm of lunacy, you fool of a bard!

  A dead man hung upside-down by an iron chain and a thick rod driven through the poor soul’s ankles. The man had not died well. A bolt from a crossbow protruded from between empty eye sockets. The same calming winds that massaged the Bard’s face stripped rotting skin from the dead man’s bones and left them to flutter free like leaves in autumn.

  “Where are your manners, Sir Bard? Say hello to the last of your ilk to grace our kingdom with his presence.”

  Now would be the opportune time to make a strategic exit. The Bard turned only to discover his path blocked by two guards holding crossbows. Their faces were hidden behind leather masks of blue and green, but the sadism they intended to reap upon him churned in their eyes.

  “He was still alive when they tossed him over,” the Countess said, trailing behind the Bard like a specter. “The gulls came at low tide, taking his eyes and tongue first. The beasts seem to favor those as some sort of delicacy. After that, they flayed him until his highness granted the poor soul leniency.”

  “Leniency? What possible crime could he have committed to justify such wanton barbarism?”

  “Virtue, I am afraid. Per our arrangement, he was to create a song honoring King Randall the Splendid’s victory over the demonic hordes that had infested the kingdom. Alas, your colleague took umbrage with this task.”

  “Demonic hordes? Milady, surely one as learned as yourself knows there is no such thing.”

  “Quite so. Yet, King Randall does not.” The Countess looped her arm back underneath the Bard’s. There was a chill to her touch. A soullessness, he thought. Any part that lived has long since fled her.

  “The story goes that my liege was being bathed by a serving-girl. A tow-headed peasant woman working off her father’s debt to the Briny Throne. Whereas we all saw nothing but a frightened girl, the king saw pure evil, with serpents for eyes and rot pouring from its mouth.

  “Hence, the Great Purge began. Those of golden-white hair were rounded up and cleansed under the holy wrath of our king. He personally oversaw the righteous deaths and rebirths of over four hundred souls. Their tainted blonde blood was ankle-deep when all was said and done. There is a statue — you will see it in the square during the ceremony — dedicated to our liege’s selfless defense of the realm. Fear not, Sir Bard! The days of the Great Purge are long past us now. Besides, the crimson hue of your whiskers will protect you from such demons.”

  The Bard wanted nothing more than to be rid of this foul woman’s touch, to be free from the poisonous fanatic
ism towards an insane despot. Yet, he knew that to flee would be to die. The guards’ tight grips on their crossbows served as a stark reminder of such folly.

  “Oh, look at the turn of the tide! I do apologize, but there are other matters of state and country that require my attention.” Countess Morana slipped free from the Bard and crossed the room with such speed that she appeared to float. “These men will show you to your quarters and provide you with scrolls and accurate accounts of the king’s deeds. Everything you require to create the godly poem that I know dwells within your bosom.”

  The guards edged behind the Bard until their foul, fish-smelling breath trailed down the nape of his neck. “I don’t suppose that I can decline this position?” he said.

  “Oh, it is far too late for that,” the Countess called over her shoulder. “Your decision was made for you the very moment you stepped onto our docks.”

  “So, that’s it then? Write an epic celebrating a maniac or face death?”

  The Countess’s joyless laughter reverberated off the black cliffs. “My dear Bard, this is Mesa. You could be put to death if the King doesn’t like the length of your tunic.”

  ~~~~~

  “Kill the heretics!”

  “Burn them! Rip them apart!”

  Charming lot, the people of Mesa. The Bard looked over the crowd as they watched the king’s guard march out another cadre of prisoners. The spectators gathered early in the newly completed courtyard of the Royal Palace. The standard fixtures were present: the drunken revelers, the scared children throwing stones that their equally frightened parents handed to them. The truly enraged — though few and far between — were also present, lurking just under the surface of the monster made of a thousand faces.

  “For acts of treason against the divine rule of King Randall the Splendid, First of his Name, these souls are condemned to the slow death of evisceration,” announced the master of ceremonies, an unpleasant, shrill-voiced man named Huntzinger.

  The crowd erupted in cheers, but there was a hint of something in their tone that the Bard noticed. Any bard worth his salt knows when an audience is not all that captive, he thought. This crowd is merely doing what is expected of them.