Posts
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Elliot Grace had the most clever celebration for hitting 100 followers. I even made it into the post, along with a cast of dozens of fellow bloggers.
Check it out :
http://elliot-grace.blogspot.com/
***
{"We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call;
no way out,
just the upstairs window to look out of
while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it."
- Tennessee Williams.}
{Only I, Samuel Clemens, ghost, am left "alive" to tell the tale.
Roland's strange journal tells what happened after he walked through the cursed Door of Nasah to save McCord,
a fictional character he had breathed to life, from the death in Hell he had written for the man.
Typing these words that I read in Roland's journal, I have come to realize that there are more kinds of Hell than one . Let Roland's words carry on from here ...}
Chicken Little was wrong. The sky wasn't falling. It was on fire.
The sky was midnight black. The clouds were rolling tumbleweeds of flame that howled and crackled with the fury of the seething inferno at their hearts.
If it hadn't been for the illumination of their passing overhead, I wouldn't have been able to see the black sands upon which I stood, hunched over from the buffeting of the hurricane-like winds.
I was on a small rise in an endless horizon of black, steaming sand. There were round humps scattered randomly on the floor of Hell.
In my novel I had called this place "Kol Basar," ancient Hebrew for "the end of all flesh." I had left it for the reader to decide if it were truly hell or not.
I saw all this in a flash. Flames burst from the sands upon which I stood. The other sands merely steamed. I leapt and hit the sands in a roll.
No good. Wherever I hit the sands, they burst into flames. Damn. It seemed my body ignited the sands. The fedora tumbled from my head and flared into a tiny explosion of flame.
Bogey's trenchcoat. It didn't burn.
I bounded to my feet, more flames shooting up from where I now stood. I threw down Marlene's saber and fumbled off the trenchcoat in wild fear, flinging it onto the sands in front of me.
No flames.
Snatching up the saber, I jumped on the trenchcoat. No flames shot from beneath my feet or the trenchcoat. I gushed a huge sigh of relief.
I beat out the flames on my jeans with protesting, seared hands. I straightened slowly. Safe. For the moment.
Then, I saw something impossible.
I saw Gypsy, my cat.
She was off to my left, all wavering like some desert mirage.
I started to call out to her, but a split in the very fabric of reality zippered in front of her before I could.
She bounded through the portal. I looked beyond it and into the world past it. I stiffened.
The ghost of Ernest Hemingway.
He was in my apartment -- and very not dead, for a ghost, that is. He was sitting on the floor, rubbing his jaw.
The ghost of Raymond Chandler was standing over him, a blackjack in his right hand. Gypsy leapt to my bed. The portal suddenly closed.
And in that moment, I heard Gypsy howl as if she had been gutted. What the? What had just happened?
{Samuel Clemens here. To find out what Gypsy had been doing in Hell and why she was wailing go to these two posts :
1.) http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/07/gypsys-tale-you-call-this-safe.html
2.) http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/08/chandler-hereghost-of-chance-overtureno.html }
I started to go towards where the portal had been. I placed a foot on black, steaming sand -- and froze in sudden fear of my stupidity.
No flames. I frowned.
My bent notepad jutted painfully into me from my pocket. What had I written? That I would become as tough, as strong, and as fast as whatever I met here.
The mother of Gypsy and daughter of Bast, Mesmer, had told me Gypsy was no ordinary cat. I made a face. I tapped an unburnt foot on the sands of Hell.
Not ordinary? You think?
A horse's scream of utter pain pierced the strange night from behind me. I turned.
I had expected to see another endless horizon of smoldering black sand. Not for the first time, I had been wrong.
A city.
A strange walled city, appearing like something older than Troy, more cursed than Sodom.
Odd runes were etched large in the cracked marble of its towering walls.
Looking at it sent icy prickles just under my scalp as if I remembered it from those nightmares I had flung from memory upon awakening.
I shivered.
A terrible shrill wailing pierced through the howl of the hellstorm. I looked up.
Huge flying boulders, aflame with electric blue energies, angled towards the sands beyond me from up high in the midnight sky.
I ducked instinctively, then laughed at myself. It was obvious they were going to miss me.
But not by much. Their impact staggered me from the reflected force of the strikes. Hell certainly wasn't turning out to be boring.
I made a face. Not that I had expected it to be. Truth in advertising and all.
The horse screamed again. It had come from within that strange city. I picked up Bogey's trenchcoat and hurriedly put it on.
Another wail of agony from the horse. I bent and picked up a steaming fistful of black hellsand with my left hand.
I twirled Marlene's saber in anger. Somebody was going to do some regretting besides me for a change.
I headed to the cracked marble walls of Hell.
***
no way out,
just the upstairs window to look out of
while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it."
- Tennessee Williams.}
{Only I, Samuel Clemens, ghost, am left "alive" to tell the tale.
Roland's strange journal tells what happened after he walked through the cursed Door of Nasah to save McCord,
a fictional character he had breathed to life, from the death in Hell he had written for the man.
Typing these words that I read in Roland's journal, I have come to realize that there are more kinds of Hell than one . Let Roland's words carry on from here ...}
Chicken Little was wrong. The sky wasn't falling. It was on fire.
The sky was midnight black. The clouds were rolling tumbleweeds of flame that howled and crackled with the fury of the seething inferno at their hearts.
If it hadn't been for the illumination of their passing overhead, I wouldn't have been able to see the black sands upon which I stood, hunched over from the buffeting of the hurricane-like winds.
I was on a small rise in an endless horizon of black, steaming sand. There were round humps scattered randomly on the floor of Hell.
In my novel I had called this place "Kol Basar," ancient Hebrew for "the end of all flesh." I had left it for the reader to decide if it were truly hell or not.
I saw all this in a flash. Flames burst from the sands upon which I stood. The other sands merely steamed. I leapt and hit the sands in a roll.
No good. Wherever I hit the sands, they burst into flames. Damn. It seemed my body ignited the sands. The fedora tumbled from my head and flared into a tiny explosion of flame.
Bogey's trenchcoat. It didn't burn.
I bounded to my feet, more flames shooting up from where I now stood. I threw down Marlene's saber and fumbled off the trenchcoat in wild fear, flinging it onto the sands in front of me.
No flames.
Snatching up the saber, I jumped on the trenchcoat. No flames shot from beneath my feet or the trenchcoat. I gushed a huge sigh of relief.
I beat out the flames on my jeans with protesting, seared hands. I straightened slowly. Safe. For the moment.
Then, I saw something impossible.
I saw Gypsy, my cat.
She was off to my left, all wavering like some desert mirage.
I started to call out to her, but a split in the very fabric of reality zippered in front of her before I could.
She bounded through the portal. I looked beyond it and into the world past it. I stiffened.
The ghost of Ernest Hemingway.
He was in my apartment -- and very not dead, for a ghost, that is. He was sitting on the floor, rubbing his jaw.
The ghost of Raymond Chandler was standing over him, a blackjack in his right hand. Gypsy leapt to my bed. The portal suddenly closed.
And in that moment, I heard Gypsy howl as if she had been gutted. What the? What had just happened?
{Samuel Clemens here. To find out what Gypsy had been doing in Hell and why she was wailing go to these two posts :
1.) http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/07/gypsys-tale-you-call-this-safe.html
2.) http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/08/chandler-hereghost-of-chance-overtureno.html }
I started to go towards where the portal had been. I placed a foot on black, steaming sand -- and froze in sudden fear of my stupidity.
No flames. I frowned.
My bent notepad jutted painfully into me from my pocket. What had I written? That I would become as tough, as strong, and as fast as whatever I met here.
The mother of Gypsy and daughter of Bast, Mesmer, had told me Gypsy was no ordinary cat. I made a face. I tapped an unburnt foot on the sands of Hell.
Not ordinary? You think?
A horse's scream of utter pain pierced the strange night from behind me. I turned.
I had expected to see another endless horizon of smoldering black sand. Not for the first time, I had been wrong.
A city.
A strange walled city, appearing like something older than Troy, more cursed than Sodom.
Odd runes were etched large in the cracked marble of its towering walls.
Looking at it sent icy prickles just under my scalp as if I remembered it from those nightmares I had flung from memory upon awakening.
I shivered.
A terrible shrill wailing pierced through the howl of the hellstorm. I looked up.
Huge flying boulders, aflame with electric blue energies, angled towards the sands beyond me from up high in the midnight sky.
I ducked instinctively, then laughed at myself. It was obvious they were going to miss me.
But not by much. Their impact staggered me from the reflected force of the strikes. Hell certainly wasn't turning out to be boring.
I made a face. Not that I had expected it to be. Truth in advertising and all.
The horse screamed again. It had come from within that strange city. I picked up Bogey's trenchcoat and hurriedly put it on.
Another wail of agony from the horse. I bent and picked up a steaming fistful of black hellsand with my left hand.
I twirled Marlene's saber in anger. Somebody was going to do some regretting besides me for a change.
I headed to the cracked marble walls of Hell.
***
I loved rereading those two posts. If Gypsy ever wants to go on vacay, she's welcome here!
ReplyDeleteI love your descriptions but I worry they come from experience....
Hmmmmm. I have an idea about that city, but I usually am wrong, so not posting my suspicion.
That said, I'm excited that he is going to make someone else do some regretting! Bring it!
I can't imagine Hell could be boring. I'm glad someone else is going to do some regretting:) It's high time!
ReplyDeleteFun celebrating with you over at Elliot's, by the way:)
Who'd think hell would have cracked marble walls? Nice visual. I like Chandler's trench coat! Great touch.
ReplyDeletethat rebel, Olivia