He made the process as complicated in his mind as he could, to absorb his chaotic thoughts in the order of a multi-step construction. The goal was to block out anything that wasn't part of his project.
Then a giant rock fell from the sky and landed on his trellis, crushing it into exploding splinters. The pieces flung away like tornado debris into the surrounding garden. More boulders crashed down from the imaginary sky, wedging him in tighter and tighter. He was corralled into a tiny space and couldn't move.
It became clear that Ethan was no longer in control of his own mental exercise.
His pulse accelerated, because he knew what was going to happen next. The failure of his garden construction had been overrun by the memory of a familiar horror. It lived just out of range, in the periphery of his memory, even though he tried repeatedly to banish it. It was too strong.
from Three Magic Tales:
Grownups will find ways to not tell certain stories to their children. Oh, of course they'll tell tales of swimming ducks and dragons, talking chess pieces and royal princesses who began as scullery maids. But not the stories that are absolutely harrowing, nor those of frightening things, which live in darkish places so evil that to speak of them would surely stop the hearts of the stoutest men. Those are the secret tales not told to children, and rarely spoken of between adults. Those are the things parents pretend do not exist, so they won't have to think on them.
One such story concerns a bridge, just beyond the village of Borläuge, made of weathered timber and pounded pegs the circumference of cheese wheels. This bridge has stood as long as any remember. It crosses a ragged cleft in the mountain, with steep sides that fashion a deep gorge trapping rapids at the bottom that bubble in summer. In wintry months, the turbulent waters of the Piteälven River slide dark and dense beneath buckled crusts of ice.
In those times, when the sun would drop behind the ancient and broken mountains, the bridge became unfamiliar and cast a stifling pall on those who dared cross. Even to this day, it is said traversing the bridge alone at the end of a winter's day is to invite frost demons. This is what adults tell each other. Then they laugh, and hoist mead or mulled wine in heavy mugs and whisper 'fairy tales,' at the oft-repeated warning. Yet their eyes dart and their tongues lick cracked lips and they share the secret conviction that perhaps labeling something a 'fairy tale' is not the same as labeling something untrue.
To their children, they warn, 'Stay off the bridge at night, it becomes slippery and hazardous and you could fall in.' Because frightening their little ones with vague danger may yet be kinder than telling them the truth. Come spring thaw, the villagers performed a grueling duty. Working down from the shadow cast by the bridge, just past where the waters of the Piteälven slow and join with the wide lake, the adults gathered for their grim task. Using long poles with hooks, they set out on their tethered rafts in a search for something they prayed not to find. Each winter, a few folk from inside or outside their village that didn't harken to fairy tale warnings disappeared, and their bodies danced in the darkened waters under the ice, while the village slept on, unaware.
from The Mortuary Arts:
My father's acquaintance stepped in behind the undertaker. He quickly made a point of retrieving his flask from me. He was disappointed to find it absolutely empty. Probably he never expected a young woman like myself to down it all. Politely, he said nothing. Afraid to curse in the company of the undertaker, apparently.
There was no funeral, fancy or otherwise. There was no money. My parents were buried in a potter's field, a place for the poorest of folk. I left that business to my father's friends and strangers to arrange. I was unable to concentrate for long on the details necessary.
They held an impromptu wake, befitting a working man. More like a drunken cartwheel. It began at the pub and found its way to our house in the shabby row of them, stuck together like teeth along the road. Men with roughly scarred hands and stubborn faces came to fetch me along with them back to the pub. I was the last survivor of the family of the man they admired, so they wanted me there as a symbol. I attempted to beg off, but they heard none of it. Fearing they might toss me bodily on their shoulders and carry me if I continued to refuse, I relented. But I did not drink that night at the pub, in spite of attempts to coerce me.
There was dancing, and an old man playing a fiddle. I saw men twirl the barmaids in time to the music. None thought to offer me a dance, sadly, nor took me firmly in hand. That I might have done. It was even more pointedly disheartening to be so openly reminded of the impossibility of suitors.
Oh, there were plenty of menfolk about. Men who spoke to my forehead, avoiding the bottom of my face. They regaled themselves with fond and coarse stories of my father, his adventures. It seemed heroic almost to hear them retold. What memories my mother and I shared were so depressing and bleak.
No mother any longer. Only me.
I was unable to rise (or sink) to their level of celebration. They may as well have been talking about an unknown explorer in the deepest darkest Africa.
When they cared to introduce themselves, I lost the names, drifting by me in the night. I smiled wanly when it seemed required. I was abandoned on the periphery, not quite a participant in my own father's wake.
This story is independently published.
All rights are now retained by the author, John Gregory Hancock.
The author calls his enterprise of writing and design Artsprocket
The Antares Cigar Shoppe (The Endless Sea of Suns Book 1) Page 4