THE LIGHT BEYOND THE TEARS

Donna suggested in a comment here yesterday to publish a chapter a day of FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE. A nice compliment.

But if I do that, I won't be able to sell first publication rights to a publisher. Ouch. Other friends have emailed me, asking to read of McCord's first meeting with the mysterious Meilori Shinseen.

I thought I might give everyone a bit of what they wanted and show a scene that occurs in the third chapter of RITES OF PASSAGE :

CHAPTER THREE

THE TEARS OF A PHOENIX

"Dreams drift like clouds,

I reach to touch the moon,

I grasp but empty night."

- Lady Meilori Shinseen.



Tugging down the Stetson low over my eyes, I walked out of the cabin. As if to prove I still had some skill after the fiasco of the bathtub, I wrapped the threads of night around me. Crewmen, passengers, stewards, all failed to spot me as I moved silent among them. But the victory was too little, too late.

I felt empty, lost. Instead of going to where I heard the strains of classical music, I found myself heading up to the main deck. The night was calling to me. And something else within the darkness pulled at me :

An utter sadness so deep it was actual pain.

Someone was crying bitter tears up there. I felt its hot ripples like waves of acid breaking upon my spirit. Though a pitiful excuse for one, I was still what the Apaches called a diyi -- and something both less and more than human.

The Demeter was the most luxurious steamer upon which I had ever traveled, not anything like the cramped quarters of the Great Western. Aboard that vessel, I had shared twelve wearisome days in the close berth with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. When the man in the next cabin died, I had quickly switched to it.

The pain up on deck stabbed at me with increased strength. Moving along the wide, shadowed deck, I followed the faint sounds of barely suppressed sobs. I walked cat-quiet along the empty promenade deck. I noticed that besides the three smoke stacks, there were two huges masts with billowing sails.

The Demeter it seemed was a hybrid -- like me.

I slowed as I spotted a woman, sitting right on the wooden deck by the railing. She was huddled over something. I wrapped the threads of night tighter about me and stepped closer. The faint smell of jasmine tickled my nose. She was in a long, flowing scarlet and black Victorian gown.

I stiffened as the fog thinned enough for me to make out her slanted eyes, not quite Japanese, not quite Chinese, but a beautiful blend of the two. Another hybrid.

Her long black hair was styled up; her eyes were cast down. She was stroking a dead seagull, its slender neck bent awkward. I guessed that it hit the rigging in the fog, killing itself and tumbling to the deck.

The woman spoke, and it was as if her vocal chords were velvet. Her accent. It sent shivers through me. It was like human speech itself was a foreign language to her. What was I getting myself into?

Her words were almost lost in the night. "Poor little creature of air. Like last month, I came upon you too late. Too late."

She spoke as if the two words were a summing up of her whole life. She was one of those haunted-eyed women you attached your own hidden fears and silent sorrows to. Close-up her eyes weren't cold jade as they had seemed farther away.

They were filled with echoes of regret. The coldness had just been a bold front to hide the fact that they'd lost their way a long time ago. Maybe mine looked the same.

There were disturbing depths of sadness in those eyes. Depths in whose darkness swam the monsters which drive us or haunt us or both. Those depths whispered of age more ancient than the Aztecs, more dangerous than even my past. They both called and warned at the same time.

She kept on stroking the dead bird. "Whyever did I listen to Inari and come to this accursed vessel in the first place? I had foresworn vengeance and death long ago. Now, look where breaking my vow has led me."

She stroked the bird's head tenderly as if afraid of waking it. "Oh, to be able to go back to that world of wonder I had before I became wise and unhappy."

She held the limp bird up to her breast and sighed,

"Dreams drift like clouds,

I reach to touch the moon,

I grasp but empty night."

I felt like I was intruding, but I couldn't force myself to step away as she placed the bird back down to her lap and whispered in an accent even stranger than the one before, "Little creature of air, I came upon thee just in time to see thee die. Thou art a symbol of my life, a symbol of the futility of all my days."

I couldn’t take her pain any more and dropped the threads of night to step forward. "Not futility, ma'am."

She hushed in a breath as if to scream, stared at me for long silent seconds, then forced out, "I - I did not see you -- Westerner."

"I'm a Texas Ranger, ma'am. We don't learn to move quiet, we don't live very long. I mean you no harm."

Her face became twisted with self-loathing. "You could not harm me any more, mortal."

"You're right there, ma'am. I couldn't bring myself to muss a hair on your head - which is why I couldn't just walk away back into the night before I told you the truth."

Her lips curled bitter. "And just what is this truth?"

"That you came just in time to give that little bird a precious gift."

She sneered, "And what gift would that be?"

"It got to die in the arms of one who cared and cried over its passing. How many of us get to die that loved?"

Her face flinched as if I had slapped it. "Not ... very ... many."

I tugged down on the brim of my Stetson. "Yes, ma'am, not very many at all. You weren't futile. You were a blessing."

I turned to go, and she called out to me. "What is your name, Ranger?"

Something told me to keep on walking, but I turned back around, my loneliness overcoming my caution. "Samuel, ma'am. Samuel McCord."

Her face grew haunted. "Samuel, from the Hebrew Shemu'el, 'God Has Heard'."

Her eyes searched mine. "Is your coming a portent that He heard me last month?"

"He always hears you, ma'am. The trick is are you listening?"

Her smile flashed briefly like the gleam of a knife slashing from out of the darkness. "And do you listen, Samuel?"

The way she said my name was like no other way it had ever been said. Her voice sent tingles along the scalp at the back of my neck. I rubbed it self-consciously.

"Me, ma'am? No, I'm too stiff-necked for that."

"Please stop calling me ma'am. It makes me feel my age."

"Well, ma-, Miss, what is your first name?"

She stiffened like I had stepped across a taboo. And most likely, I had. I cursed myself. Of course, she was a fine lady of some Oriental court or some such, and here I was just a weathered, landless lawman.

Her face closed like a fist. "Those, who are permitted, call me Meilori."

Pain flickered in her green eyes. "Meilori, Beautiful Laurel. Did you know, Samuel, that laurel leaves were used in Ancient Rome to fashion victors' garlands?"

Her full lips twisted in bitterness. "Even my name is a cruel jest on the emptiness my life has become."

"Or maybe -- Miss, it's just a promise pointing to the victory your life could become if you don't give up."

Her eyes became hot jade. "And have you never wanted to give up?"

The knife of remembered despairs rammed home into my heart. “Too often.”

I shrugged. "But I could never find the place where you could go to do it."

She stiffened, and so did I, expecting a harsh comeback. But she just sputtered in a burst of sad laughter, born of pent-up tension and pain. It sounded like a rippling brook given life.

"Oh, Samuel, it is you who are the blessing. A Trojan Horse that held more than the death and shame I had first supposed. And ... call me Meilori."

A voice both silky and dangerous spoke from the darkness to my right. "Laughter, Meilori? I have not heard that from you in so long I believed I never would a--"

The tall woman in the green and gold Victorian gown stepped out of the fog and stopped in mid-sentence. Her fingers went to the odd necklace of tiny, elegant mirrors about her neck.

She stared at me. I stared back. It might have been impolite, but it wasn't every day you saw a lady whose shadow told the truth behind the illusion.

Behind her head was a shadow, not of a woman’s long hair, but the wrinkling muzzle of a fox. I forced the shock and fear from my face. She wasn't the first Animal Person I had met in my travels. But Elu had taught me in the Pajarito Mountains that the fastest way to get dead was to show weakness or fear in front of them.

I sighed. Elu had tried to warn me this hunt was different. But I never listened - until it was too late.

The fox-woman pulled herself up stiff and bristled, "And what do you think you are looking at?"

Obviously, she had woven some spell that disguised her from humans. Unfortunately for her, I wasn't human ... not anymore.

But there was no point in letting on I could see through her disguise, though her look said she had guessed I could. Best to keep her guessing.

"Reckon I'm looking at the Lady Inari your friend mentioned."

I saw her feral eyes narrow. I sighed as I looked deeply into them. Though they glittered with the promise of violence, they held depths hollowed out by pain and grief.

She cocked her head at me, her eyes opening in more ways than one. "Compassion from a human?"

"Has that really been so rare, ma'am?"

"Yes."

I nodded. "For me, too, for what it's worth."

Lady Inari husked, "And how have you handled it, fleshling?"

"Badly. Got tired of being hurt, of being let down by hope. So I've retreated deep inside myself. Deep down where my spirit can't be destroyed completely."

Meilori asked low, "And does it work?"

"Not really. I got what I wanted but not what I needed. My blood-brother warned me if I keep on staying deep inside myself I’ll go blind."

Lady Inari frowned, "How blind?"

"Blind to all the things that make life worth living."

Meilori said, "I would like to meet this blood-brother of yours."

"He ... passed on."

She whispered, "Then, you, too, are alone."

Inari's head jerked up at that, and to keep things from getting out of hand, I said, "He's always with me."

Meilori nodded and looked tenderly at Lady Inari. "As with me as well."

That looked like it pacified Inari some, and Meilori turned to me. "It ought to be different for beings such as we."

"There is no ought," I smiled sad, "Life just is. You often time will find that things don't turn out the way you had planned."

The two women looked at each other. The twilight grew darker around them, closing me out. They seemed to be born to live in the night. "Twilight Women" Elu called them. He warned me to stay away from such.

Inari twirled the mirror-necklace around her slim, too long fingers, and Meilori sighed, "When will you ever put on another necklace? You have worn that dreary thing for thirty years now."

"A mere heartbeat for such as we, sister. But I must say you look better than when we parted but a moment ago."

Meilori flickered her eyes towards me briefly and blushed slightly. "I do?"

The Fox-woman smiled cruel, "So, Meilori, have you changed your mind about this cruise then?"

Meilori's eyes became chips of cold jade. "No, I still find no pleasure at the thought of killing fenced cattle."

It was my turn to frown. Meilori ignored me and rose gracefully to her feet, making a swam seem clumsy in comparison. Still holding the dead seagull, she walked to the railing, held out the dead bird, and dropped it into the ocean.

"May your spirit fly free and happy, little creature of air."

"Amen," I whispered.

She turned to me, smiling sadly, "You are a strange man, Samuel. Where one would expect roughness, there is a strong gentleness. And your eyes hold such sad wisdom. What brings you to this accursed vessel?"

I felt Lady Inari's feral eyes on me as I said, "Long ago, I ... lost my sister. Some years back, I delivered a tiny baby in a home being attacked by Comanches. The dying mother had me name her daughter."

Meilori's eyes seemed to bore into me as I continued, "I named her after my sister. Watched her grow into a fine young woman . Then, last month some monster killed her and sliced off her face. I've trailed the murderers to this ship."

Meilori went pale and husked, "Do you plan to kill them?"

"That depends on them. But I mean to get her face back. Set her spirit to rest. That much at least."

Meilori walked slowly to me and pressed her slender hand against my chest. "No, Samuel. You do not know what this ship is. Leave at the next port. You must. If this Rachel loved you, she would not want you to die."

I went cold. I hadn't mentioned my sister's name.

****************
And the song that reminds me most of Sam's and Meilori's love is this one from the Japanese animation GHOST IN THE SHELL 2 : INNOCENCE. And a phrase is mistranslated in the lyrics. It's "follies of the night" not "fun years of the night."

BAD BOY BLOGFEST/AMONG THE BONES YOU FIND ON THE BEACH, THE ONES THAT SING WERE MINE

It's already been a 12 hour straight, 320 mile day -- and I'm still on-call. So while I have a breather, I thought I would post my Bad Boy Blogfest entry. I'm on first call all weekend plus filtering, most of it solo duty. Whew!


Tina Lynn is hosting the Bad Boy Blogfest http://tinalynnsandoval.blogspot.com/2010/05/bad-boy-blogfest.html

Go check it out.


My entry is from RITES OF PASSAGE set in the Gulf of Mexico in 1853. The manner of speech back then was more courtly and this is reflected as best I could without hindering the enjoyment of the story. A note : Rasha is ancient Hebrew for "one who delights in cruel wickedness."


As the entry begins, the undead Daniel Webster and Samuel McCord are standing in front of the Grand Saloon of the Demeter. Inside a most unfriendly ball is being held. Samuel's friends inside will die unless he enters what promises to be a certain death trap ...



Daniel Webster stood brooding beside me. He wore gloom like some kings wore purple. He arched an eyebrow at me.

"Do you have a plan for this evening?"

"Kind of."

"And that would be?"

"I plan to make this Gray Man or DayStar as he's calling himself now as angry at me as I can."

Webster's face became tight.

"A threadbare plan, sir."

"Yeah, I'm all fired up about it, too."

At my words the golden doors swung silently inward. I sucked in a breath. The insides of the Grand Saloon had changed even more than its doors. Mists, cold and black, trailed up in weaving snakes from the blanketed floor.

Dancers swept one another along the huge chamber to the tune of some ancient melody that sounded somehow like it belonged in the palace of the damned.

And judging from the flat eyes behind the masks of the dancers, that was just where Webster and I were. True to his word, he slipped away from me, as if wanting to be clear of any fire drawn my way. Even though it was according to my plan, I still felt naked against the night.

I stepped light-footed into the chamber. As I walked, the dancers slowed, eyeing me hungrily. The golden doors closed shut behind me with a loud thud. The music stopped.

The dancers lined up on either side of the enormous chamber. The decor of the room had changed, too.

It looked ancient Egyptian with jackel-headed black stone guardians holding golden spears along the way. The mirrors to the walls were still there, but they were trimmed with cat-headed women.

A rich voice, like the tolling of bronze bells far off in the distance, laughed from the shadowed end of the chamber, "Dear followers, you have come to me, pleading to learn the pleasure of life and the ecstasy of passion. And perhaps I will teach you those."

Hollow laughter rose then faded. "But first, I choose to teach you this night something even more wonderful : the meaning of pain and sorrow and their beauty."

I kept on walking, feeling the lack of my Colts and knife even more than before. The mists thinned, and I spotted the bait to my trap. Meilori, Inari, Peter, Aziza, Cora, Greeley, Sir Lionel, and Count de Morny.

They were all seated in thrones of black iron, their wrists clamped down tight, their necks collared with razor-sharp nooses of diamond string. Bright tears of light gleamed from the tiny mirrors of Inari’s necklace. Blood trinkled down from the ivory throat of Meilori as she called out.

"Stop, Samuel! We are already dead. Flee while you still can."

"You should have spared your lovely throat, Lady Meilori," laughed the ghost-bell voice. "There is no escape for anyone tonight ... least of all McCord."

I didn't understand what the voice meant, so I just let it hang in the mists like the hot air it sounded.

"Well, DayStar, I can tell you like hearing yourself talk. Probably one of your greatest pleasures. I should've brought the plant from my cabin. All the manure you been tossing around would have been good for it.”

I stopped talking as a figure slowly appeared from the boiling clouds of black mist.

Tall, slender but muscular, he walked with the grace of a stalking lion. Dark gray curls frothed on his head, down upon his wide pale forehead. High cheekbones. Sensitive, soulful eyes. A young woman's dream - until she looked deeper into those glittering predator eyes, and her dream became a nightmare.

As DayStar, also called The Gray Man, smiled knowingly at me, I sighed. He looked so damn young.

When had all the people around me become so young? It seemed only last year that all the criminals I had hunted had been weathered and hardfaced. Now, all of them were children. Cruel, selfish, heartless children with rabid smiles and vulture eyes.

I looked about at the shifting, eager-eyed masked predators watching me as if waiting impatiently for a steak to cook.

These undead children made me want to take a bath all over again. Brittle sophistication, surface polish, and no insides at all. Just an unreasoning, never-satified hunger.

I studied DayStar. I had expected someone older. And as I looked, it seemed a veil was lifted, and I saw his youth was just a mask.

His eyes seemed to deepen, and they began to reflect an ancient weariness and deadliness, older than death and darkness, and echoing the longing for an ending to it all. I suddenly felt a kinship with him.

And that scared me even more than his children of endless hunger.


He laughed in hollow ripples, "Behold the Man. Man, bah! An endangered species from the very beginning. Not particularly fleet of foot - unless chasing another man's wife. No large teeth. No claws but his tongue. A wonder that he has survived this long."

I shook my head. "If you're expecting an argument from me, you've got a long wait."

He smiled at Meilori, who looked like she was going to be sick. "Listen to him prattle. Ordinarily, I would have little patience with his drivel. But tonight .... tonight, I sense the coming of the storm."

He gazed off into horizons only he could see. "I keep trying to persuade myself that it is unimportant that this Age is soon to come to an end. But when I think of the sheer pleasure of it all ...."

He shivered slightly. "Whole races exterminated by greed for gold, by gas oven ...."

His pale blue eyes sparkled. "It simply leaves one breathless."

He turned back to me. "Ah, man. What a hapless creature. In the strange twilight of the mind, man searches for himself, and when he has found his own image, he cannot understand it."

I nodded to my imprisoned friends. "I understand this : you give a lousy party."

He broke into real laughter. "I like you, McCord. What you lack in perspective and insight, you make up in sheer stupidity."

"Careful, you'll make me blush."

"There is no insulting you, is there?"

"You obviously have too much free time on your hands."

His eyes became deeper. "You have no idea."

"I have a few. Let my friends go."

He turned merrily to an even paler Meilori. "See, my little Rasha, behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul."

He turned back to me. "The end of a man's life is not action but contemplation. See, McCord? I give you the clue of this night, if you but have the wit to grasp it."

"My mind has slippery fingers."

He laughed as if his eyes would tear up. "Ah, you speak so true in jest."

His face grew even happier. "I trust you will not hold the rest of this evening against me, McCord. I but murder to dissect the truth."

"The truth of what?"

"Why, the truth of you, of course."

His gray eyes grew cold. "Where there is pain and sorrow, there is holy ground. In but moments, this marble will be holy indeed."

"Let my friends go."

"Why, of course. But first, surrender your weapons."

Meilori cried, "Samuel, do not!"

I pulled back my jacket. "I didn't bring any."

For the first time, surprise etched across his face. "McCord, can it be that there is actually a brain under those white locks of yours?"

Meilori, her eyes desperate, spoke loud, "Samuel, there is nothing wrong in what you will do tonight, but there may be wrong in what you become."

The Gray Man twisted just a bit to her. "Little Rasha, I would hate to terminate your existence. Do not task me."

I cleared my throat to draw his attention my way as I spotted Webster undoing the diamond noose about Lady Inari's throat. "You said first, just now. What's the second thing I have to do to get my friends clear of your little party?"

His eyes went straight to Lady Inari's bare, free neck, then back to me. "Nothing horrendous. Nothing bizarre. Something merely entertaining ... for me."

"I don't do party favors."

"You will if you want your precious friends to go free."

DayStar laughed, thoroughly enjoying himself. "I am beginning to get bored, McCord - which is dangerous for those around me. Bah, this stale chamber makes me yearn for fragrances fresh as the flayed flesh of children. Do not keep me waiting."

DayStar's pale gray eyes became openly insane. "I am growing increasingly bored. You have not given me your answer."

"Well, you haven't told me what hoop you want me to jump through either."

He brought up a hand to his lips like a child caught napping. "Indeed, I have not, have I?"

His eyes seemed to sink deeper in his mask of a face. "In honor of your Native American enemies, I propose a gauntlet."

Meilori sucked in a breath, and he went merrily on. "All you have to do is make it all the way down this sprawling dance floor in one piece ... more or less, and your friends will be released."

"If you aren't lying."

His smile got wider. "If I am not lying, that is correct."

He studied me. "I do not see where you have a choice."

"There's always a choice, DayStar.”

“The delusion of all mortals.”

He expected me to stall for time. I could see it in his face. Instead I snapped, “ Let's dance!"

And then, I ....

You'll have to read my novel to find out what happens next. Besides, this is a "Bad Boy" blogfest not a "hero" one. Hopefully, you were entertained a bit. If not, blame my light head and weary body. Have a great weekend.

WE GUESS WITH OUR FEARS

Dear Author :

Thank you for thinking of us. Unfortunately, this is not quite right for us. Better luck with it elsewhere. Your day will come. You can watch it from heaven. Your lucky numbers are : 9 - 12 - 21- 35 - 42 -54.

Form rejections.

You hate them. I hate them. We all get them.

Basically, it's silence from the agent's end.

And when you receive only silence from someone important, you're left to guess why. And we guess with our fears. And I've usually noticed from other areas of my life, what I fear usually isn't even in the same galaxy with the truth of the situation.

I would wager that is true with the silence of form rejections. But a wager is just a fancy word for a guess. And we've come full circle.

We've heard the truth before : it isn't personal. And it truly isn't. You're not paying the agent a cent. She is under no obligation to teach you how to write a letter or a novel. We're job applicants. Period.

Play turnabout. What would you want in a query if you had to read hundreds a week? No brainer. Short ones. All right, then. We have our first requirement : make that sucker short.

Short means no fluff. No Hamlet introduction. Just straight to the point. What would you want next if hundreds of queries surged in a rush of cyber-diarrhea into your inbox?

Something different. Something catchy. Written by someone who didn't have a chip on her/his shoulder. And the tone?

Not misleading. Not written in a funny vein if the novel is a tragedy.

O.K. Write the query short, with a hook up front, and in the tone of the novel you're submitting. We've getting a better idea now on how to write our next query.

What else would you want in those thousands of emails a month? Short paragraphs. Well-written ones without errors that grate like nails on the blackboard.

Ones easy to reject in a second :

Ones that are illiterate. Ones that query for genres you don't handle. Ones that query for carbon copies of hit sellers. Ones that whine.

All right. Now, we have an idea of what NOT to do.

What do we do next?

Look at your query. Does it do your novel justice? Would it make a total stranger want to read your novel with "Wow, that sounds neat! I gotta read this."

Is there building tension in your summation? Are the stakes primal : threat to survival, sex, or family? Is your hero likeable, clever, funny? He/she better be.

Even a detailed letter of why your query was rejected would still leave you wondering, without a true direction to follow. One agent's take is not gospel. Trust your instincts.

You are a reader. Try reading your query as an agent would. Try reading your novel as a stranger would. Then, as my friend, Heather, suggests : read it aloud. You'll hear flaws you never would find otherwise.

And now a word from Neil Gaiman {courtesy of http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/1065561 }

By now you're probably ready to give up.

You're past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You're not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end. You're in the middle, a little past the half-way point.

The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from all the typing. You don't know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you're pretty sure that even if you finish it it won't have been worth the time or energy.

Welcome to the club.

That's how novels get written.

You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Writing is a continual search for the word that will fit in the text, in your mind, on the page. Plot and character and metaphor and style, all these become secondary to the words.

The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.

The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent.

I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist.

And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm---or even arguing with me---she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, "Oh, you're at that part of the book, are you?"

I was shocked. "You mean I've done this before?"

"You don't remember?"

"Not really."

"Oh yes," she said. "You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients."

I didn't even get to feel unique in my despair.

So I put down the phone and drove down to the coffee house in which I was writing the book, filled my pen and carried on writing.

One word after another.

That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it's the only way to do it.

So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.

Pretty soon you'll be on the downward slide, and it's not impossible that soon you'll be at the end. Good luck...

Neil Gaiman


Hope this helps in some small way. And here is a beautiful melody in an equally beautiful music video :

SAM IN A FLASH/THE DREAMER'S PUNISHMENT

Donna Hole in her Wednesday post on her blog : http://donnahole.blogspot.com/ had a prompt for flash fiction for her guests :


The prompt: Your character has been invited to a party. When you arrive, the house appears empty... What happens next? Do you go away? Do you look in a window? Maybe you turn the knob and the door mysteriously opens! What then?


I've never done flash fiction. I love words too much -- and building up tension and atmosphere. But Donna is a friend, and Samuel McCord is a sucker for any request from a lady -- so I wrote one for her blog.


I have my doubts about it. I think you have to know Sam's history and world for it to work. But fortunately, most of you know that. So here's my first flash fiction. But first a relevant quote from Oscar Wilde for Tessa :



“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”


Samuel McCord :

The house is dark, its empty windows more like vacant eyes than dirty glass. They give the building the look of some huge, discarded skull of a lost god. I don't like this.

Lt. Trifle (yes, that's her name, and the main reason she got a black belt in Karate) called me out here in the middle of nowhere.


Nowhere being on the outskirts of Metairie -- which is on the outskirts of New Orleans -- which, itself, is on the outskirts of Hell if you listen to some preachers.

She said I was needed out here and then hung up. Or got the phone snatched out of her hand. I came as soon as I could.

Was I in time? Time. I could stop it for awhile -- if I was willing to pay the price.

I was. It hurt like hell. I deserved worse. Ask a thousand widows what Captain Samuel McCord deserved, and they'd tell you the same thing.

The time-snared air felt like heavy invisible water pressing in against me. I endured. It's what I do.


I made my way to the back of the house. I tried to cat-foot in out of instinct. Reality trumped instinct. The weight of frozen time made each step feel as if I were lifting the weight of the world.

Cat-footing was out. Lumbering like a dinosaur with arthritis was all I could manage.

I smiled like the wolf I felt. Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time. And time was mine. For as long as I could endure the pain.

The house of shadows was deserted. No furniture. Lots of needles. Lots of spoons. Discarded rubber tubing.

A crack house.

I made it to the front room. It wasn't empty.

A young punk had Trifle dead to rights. Mostly dead if I didn't act fast. How he got the drop on her was obvious. She was cradling a shivering, feverish girl. Trifle's heart had blind-sided her.

I released time. The addict yelped in surprise. He jerked his gun towards me. I smiled and spoke low.

"How young can you die of old age?"

"What the fuck?"

Sad last words. I answered my own question. I sped up time all around him. He squealed, squirmed, shouted, then wheezed into raspy coughing. He aged into an old man in seconds.

As he fell, he crumbled into dust right in front of Trifle. The moon caressed the hot sunset of her hair as she looked down in horror. The mound of dust started to disappear in the faint breath of the stale breeze. She turned hollow eyes to me.

"You're a monster."

What had Oliver Goldsmith written? It came to me : Silence gives consent.

I left without saying a word.

********************************
Here are some photos of Sam's and Meilori's last visit to Paris together :

THE MUD OR THE STARS?

“Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.”
- Frederick Langbridge

There are epic events in each person's life. What we make of them determines what we make of our lives. Amanda Sablan and VR Barkowski have awarded me and tagged me. Ouch.

For one, I have to tell 10 things you don't know about me, and for the other, I have to answer 5 questions with 5 answers about myself.

I thought I would combine the two. Probably won't work. But hey, it could be fun. I think Custer said that same thing about that infamous stroll through some valley.

Question One : WHERE WAS I FIVE YEARS AGO?

Five years ago, Hurricane Rita was a category 5 hurricane. I spent the morning running rare blood to scrambling hospitals. I drove back home to wolf down a hurried lunch. A mandatory evacuation was issued. I went downstairs.

Someone had siphoned the gas from my car. All the gas stations were shut down. I was stranded in the path of a killer hurricane. Alone.

Or not so alone.

Freddie, my supervisor, called checking in on me. He offered me a ride in his car as he drove beside his wife's car containing his two children. So with the clothes on my back, my laptop on my lap, and Gypsy in a carrier, I rode with my friend into the darkness.

The highways were shut down. We drove the back roads, the cypress trees bending down over us in the blackness as if listening to our whispered voices. Freddie's eyes were hollow.

As we passed his wife's car, I saw she was frantic, on the verge of panic. I winked at the pale faces of Freddie's two children, Allison and Abigail, pulled Gypsy out of the carrier, and picked up her front paw as if she were waving at the two girls. They giggled. And the grip of panic on their mother seemed to break. She waved back and gave a valiant smile with a thumb's up salute.

Freddie said, "Dude, you're like Job."

"How so?"

"I mean you got your gas siphoned out of your car just when you needed it most."

"I bet a lot of people did."

"Yeah, but if Rita hits Lake Charles, this will be the second time you'll have lost everything. You lost it all when your home burned. And before that you closed your business. Your mother died before that. And before that your fiancee died. And your childhood best friend died before Kathy. Damn, it's like you're Job."

I nodded, smiling sadly, "As I recall Job ended up pretty well."

"You've got a strange way at looking at life, dude."

"You're not the first to say that."

We made it to Baton Rouge where I worked delivering rare blood to all the hospitals reeling under the impact of Katrina. I drove to the hospital of Metairie, the first suburb of New Orleans. (It is a French term for a tenant farm.) I saw people who had only thought they knew what having nothing meant. I smelled the stench of decaying human flesh on the breath of a too silent city. I saw young boys in uniform trying to be men under impossible conditions.

Late at night I typed the first draft of FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE, alone in the spacious suite afforded me by the blood center for which I worked. It had been leased for the board of directors to oversee the new center in Baton Rouge. So for two months I slept in a prince's suite. Gypsy was, for once, satisfied with her accommodations, she being a princess and all.

I barely saw the suite. I was always driving it seemed -- down long, unfamiliar roads to strange hospitals protected by hollow-eyed young boys with automatic weapons and dry mouths. Finally, the blood couriers were allowed back to our devastated city. It was like something from a post-apocalyptic movie. But these ruined streets and gutted homes I knew. Our city has never truly recovered. But my friends are a hardy bunch.

Me? I just fake it.

And there you have at least 10 things you didn't know about me. And I've answered only one of the five questions. Like Freddie says, I tend to talk a lot. But he smiles good-naturedly when he says it.


Oh, and that time in Baton Rouge was the first time I saw my soon-to-be Viking friend, Eric.

And another thing about me : Each time I enter my apartment, Gypsy pads to me in greeting, and I say, "The Force is with you, young Gypsy, but you are not a jedi yet." She seems unperturbed. And here are some scenes you will not believe from George Lucas' new creation, THE OLD REPUBLIC :

CHARACTER INTERVIEW BLOGFEST : WHAT THEY CAN SEE THEY CAN KILL

I'm starting another 8 day straight work gauntlet with half of that being on call. Also life is offering me an opportunity to be wiser and stronger than I feel. So I'm entering Sangu's intriguing blogfest a day early.

It is time for the CHARACTER DIALOGUE BLOGFEST hosted by Sangu :
http://sangumandanna.blogspot.com/2010/05/character-interview-blogfest.html

I want you to know I had to drive all the way to the French Quarter to do this. And while reading and writing horror can be fun, living it is quite another thing :

It was twilight. Lean as a hunting wolf, Samuel McCord was walking beside me. His whole body seemed coiled like an overwound clockwork mechanism.

Despite all that, he seemed to glide though the shadows as if they parted for him lest they touch his cursed body. I glanced at the reflection in the store window beside him.

I went a little cold. A tall Apache dressed in buckskins was reflected, not Samuel. His dried-apricot face looked my way. I tried to swallow and couldn't.

There was fresh war paint on the Apache's face. He shook his head in silent reproach. Lightning split the angry skies above me. Did he cause that?

In a voice of distant thunder , Sam said, "Elu's not happy about this, partner."

"Why?"

"We're going into Meilori's."

"Yes, I need to ask some questions of my characters who come to life only inside your jazz club."

"Son, you need to breathe, eat, and sleep. The rest is negotiable."

He suddenly stopped at the corner of the French Quarter street we'd been walking. My mouth went desert dry. I was about to see something I had only written about.

By day, the corner of Royal and St. Peter houses the majestic Royal Cafe. At dusk, the corner mysteriously transforms into Royal and Rue La Mort. And Meilori's stands revealed to the night and its children.

Words. Just words. Sight hollowed out my chest.

My vision blurred. My head became light. Reality stretched as if it were taffy being pulled by an insane demon-child. The world looked as if I were seeing it from the wrong end of a telescope.

Ghost demons murmured hollow promises to my ears. My legs went all weak. I felt as if I were about to topple off the street and fall into madness. Sam took my arm gently.

"The first time's always the worst," he said low.

Meilori's stood towering over me. Torch-lit iron lacework balconies stretched up high into the foggy night. I couldn't make out the building's top.

Leathery wings sounded up high in the thick fog that masked the remaining balconies. I heard the thud of a heavy body, the ear-aching screech of talons against steel, and a husky laugh of hunger about to be fed.

I tore my eyes away before I saw something I'd have nightmares about. I saw the weathered sign hanging above the door : Here Be Monsters. I saw the gleaming window in front of me.

In strange, flowing script was the one word : Meilori's. The letters were rippling into different designs and fonts. My eyes seemed to stretch along with them. I saw, not my reflection, but Elu's. He spoke in words low and grim.

"Inside you will see those of whom you write, Scribbler. But more. They will see you. And what they see they can kill. You may walk in. You may not walk out."

Sam smiled crooked, "Of whom? Elu, you're showing off that education of yours."

"I am trying to show the Scribbler the path to life."

"I mean to keep him safe."

"You have meant to do a lot of things at which you failed."

"Tonight won't be one of them. Roland and I have already talked about this. He'll be safe."

"Let us hope so for the Scribbler's sake."

The scribbler in question was scared spitless so I didn't say a word. Sam took my arm and led me through the swinging wooden doors that reminded me of an Old West's saloon. He saw me glance long at them.

"Yeah, I took these from Hicock's saloon in Deadwood. I thought it might make him feel more at home."

"Will we see him inside?"

Sam smiled sad. "Let's walk in and find out."

We walked in, and I hushed in a breath. It was like something out of a Sherlock Holmes movie or an elite West End bordello. Victorian portraits hung on walls draped in crimson velvet. Chandeliers spun, shimmering down their soft light upon tables with people in clothing from wildly different eras : samurai drank saki with Vikings guzzling mead. Mobsters from the Roaring Twenties played cards with French Musketeers. A toga clad emperor flirted with Marie Antoinette.

How could I tell? The fine stitching all around her slender alabaster throat. And the royal look of scorn she daggered at both me and Sam.

"Come," rasped a voice that had it been a face I would have slapped. "Sit with me."

A tall Nazi in the black uniform of the S.S.

"Major Strasser?," I frowned.

"The very same." He looked past us to the still-swinging doors, then back to Sam. "It is the year 2010 out there?"

"Yes," said Sam softly.

"Then, you know how the war ends?"

"Yes," Sam nodded. "Everybody loses."

A tall woman with skin the color of milk coffee swayed up to us. I tried to keep my face calm. But she was dressed like a buccaneer in a skirt so short it qualified as a wide belt.

She smiled impishly. "Keep those eyes on my legs any longer, and I'll have to charge them rent."

Sam chuckled, "Be nice, Toya. Roland's a guest."

One thin eyebrow arched. "You're that Roland? You knew about this place and still you came?"

"I'm not that brave, Toya."

She led us to a round, gleaming mahogany table where three people were already sitting. "Or that smart either. I'll bring your ice tea in a minute."

"How did you know I was going to order ice tea," I stammered.

A velvet voice spoke in strained tones, "I told her."

I looked down upon a face that could have had pacifists starting wars and saints embezzling orphanages. It looked oddly out of place on a woman in nun's robes. Magda. The gypsy who two thousand years ago had stolen a centurion's nails at a very infamous crucifixtion.

And that meant the priest sitting next to her was Renfield. He was so skinny I could almost smell his bones. And he was so tense I almost expected him to vibrate in place. And I didn't blame him.

Renfield and I both looked at the tall man sitting far from him and Magda. Though no shadows should have been masking his body, they were all around him. It was as if they radiated from him.

"Hello, DayStar," said Sam low. "You weren't invited."

In a hollow voice like the ringing of distant ghost bells in the night, DayStar chuckled, "And since when has that stopped me?"

Gray eyes burned from out of the darkness as they evaluated me. "So you think you know me well enough to portray me, talking monkey?"

I forced my throat to work. "The question is do you know yourself?"

His long right forefinger nail etched a childish drawing of a gallows on the surface of the table. I smelled sulfuric acid. Elu had tried to warn me.

DayStar murmured, "If you're going to answer a question with a question, things will get ugly for you and amusing for me."

Sam stepped slightly in front of me. "He's a guest, DayStar."

"And you will stop me just how?"

"Like this," Sam smiled, and he pinched the hell out of my cheek.

"OW!!"

I sat up straight in bed, rubbing my throbbing face and letting out a long sigh of relief. Sam had been right. It was always safer to visit Meilori's in dreamtime.

Gypsy, my cat, was curled by my pillow. Her green eyes opened, seeming like windows into mysteries humans would never understand. Proving the magic of dreamtime was still in the air, she purred in spoken words.

"I don't know about you. But that scared the piss out of me."

*************************************

Hope you were entertained by that as much as I was writing it. Here's something stirring to end it all with :

CHRISTI'S 106 FOLLOWERS CONTEST/EYES OF DEATH AND LOVE

The ever-funny and intelligent, Christi Goddard, has a 106 FOLLOWERS CONTEST. The link is here :

http://christigoddard.blogspot.com/2010/05/106-followers-contest.html

The Rules:

She hate rules. Therefore, hers are simple.

1. Blog about it. Why? Advertising rocks. Anything extra you'd like to do is appreciated mucho.

2. Be a follower. Why? It's the polite thing to do.

3. Short story, roughly 500 words. Why roughly? Because she won't disqualify for over or under, so long as it's a complete story. She'd enjoy it if it's 1000. She'd be disappointed if it's 100. It can be any genre.She'd prefer funny or incredibly tragic. She's like that.

4. Email it to christigoddard@gmail.com because she wants to consider them privately, not as posts. If you want to post on your blog, that's cool, but still email her.

5. The deadline is July 4th.

The prizes, you ask? Capitalism rears its head. This is also simple. It's up to you.


1st Prize: $40.00
2nd Prize: $30.00
3rd Prize: $20.00
4th Prize: $10.00
Honorable Mention: $6.00.

Why? Because it's the 106 followers contest, so she's giving out $106.00. She's not foolish enough to send cash in the mail, so these will be in the form of gift certificates to anything you choose.

Doesn't that sound cool?

{Now, before we go to my entry, there is a brave, loving woman, Karen, who is struggling with her school in Africa. Now, who says that the good are boring? Visit her blog, why don't you?
http://mylifeinafrica222.blogspot.com/ }

Now, for my entry in Christi's contest entitled, "Eyes of Death and Love." It's from my Native American/Celtic fable for kids at heart everywhere, THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS :

Estanatlehi, The Turquoise Woman, studied Hibbs who had stopped walking beside her. As so often with the bear, his present had been swallowed up by his past. No longer was he in Eire nor even a grown bear. And instead of the wet smell of spring, the crisp chill of Autumn tickled his wrinkling nose. But he was still walking beside a long-striding Estanatlehi.

It was his first week in the Valley of the Shadow -- long before he knew it well enough to be cautious of what lay within its dark corners. And he wasn't exactly walking beside GrandMother.

Rather he was bouncing all around her, filled with the energy and wonder of all young cubs.

The Turquoise Woman was frowning at him as he skipped and leapt in a circle around her. "I hate to see you so sad."

"Oh, GrandMother," giggled Hibbs. "You're so funny."

Estanatlehi smiled faint. "I do believe that you are the first to say that of me."

"Truly? Wheee! I'm the first. The very first. I bet I'm the first bear to explore this wonderful valley, too."

A thin arch of lightning rose skeptically over one turquoise eye. "Wonderful? I do believe that once again you are the first to call this valley that as well."

Hibbs did a hand-stand as he bounced around The Turquoise Woman. "What a day of firsts! It's great to be an explorer, isn't it?"

Estanatlehi sighed, "True, there is something to be said for heading into unexplored territory --- Uffff!"

Hibbs had collided into her side as he miscalculated his next hand-stand. She stopped suddenly and gestured. The young cub froze upside down in mid-air. Twin turquoise eyes narrowed as she bent and placed her face right next to the face of the frightened bear.

"But there is also something to be said for knowing where you are going."

"Wanunhecun, (mistake in Lakota)," muttered Hibbs out of a dust dry throat.

Turquoise eyes narrowed further, and Hibbs managed to get out the one word, "S-Sorry."

Snow suddenly started to swirl around the upside-down cub. "Better."

Hibbs let out a sigh of relief. Of course, he had misunderstood her as he so often did. And The Turquoise Woman reached out and sharply tweaked his nose.

"N-Not better?"

Estanatlehi murmured in words of winter, "No. Not 'sorry.' But 'better.'"

Hibbs' eyes widened. "Oh, you mean -- don't be sorry. Be better."

Long ivory fingers gestrued gracefully, and the cub landed on his head. Hard. But Hibbs merely giggled and rolled to his feet, hugging the startled Turquoise Woman.

"Got it right that time, didn't I, GrandMother?"

And feeling the warmth of the young cub's trusting embrace about her legs, Estanatlehi lost all her former anger. She reached down and gently ruffled the top of Hibbs's furry head. All the tension left her voice as she spoke.

"Yes."

Her eyes sparkled with something that rarely touched them -- amusement. "And no."

Hibbs looked up with such nose-wrinkling puzzlement that Estanatlehi had to laugh. "How can it be both 'yes' and 'no' at the same time, GrandMother?"

This time her fingers were gentle as she tweaked his nose. "Oh, Little One, sometimes it appears that your whole life is both 'Yes' and 'No.'"

"Truly?"

"Truly."

She reached down and gently tugged on his small right ear. "Come, and I will show you."

Though he felt like he would burst from just simply plodding along, Hibbs forced himself to walk beside GrandMother. His steps were so small compared to her long strides though that he happily found it was necessary to skip to keep up. Estanatlehi shook her head in wry amusement.

"This path is much different in summer than it is now in Autumn. These gentle slopes, so pleasant to walk upon in summer, turn slippery and dangerous with winter snows."

Hibbs squinted this way and that as he tried to imagine the trees and grass about him covered with the magic of first snowfall. The brittle leaves of Autumn tickled the bottom of his bare feet, and he fought a giggle. A hawk cawed high overhead, and the young cub strained to make it out. But it flew high into the clouds too quickly for him to pick it out against the utter blue of the sky.

Estanatlehi tugged a bit sharper on his ear to snare his ever-wandering attention. "Yet in winter, we could safely walk over this very spot where in summer rattlesnakes love to hide."

"Yikes!," squealed Hibbs, slamming hard into Estanatlehi's left leg as he leapt in fright from the imagined attack of slumbering rattlesnakes rudely awakened by scampering bear feet.

The Turquoise Woman sharply gestured with long ivory fingers, whose tips sizzled with sparks of black death. Yelping in fear and surprise, Hibbs was lifted bodily high in the air by the threads of Life until his eyes stared unhappily straight into eyes which had blasted the very flesh from the bones of Lakota warriors foolish enough to anger her.

"Does the air feel like summer to you?"

"I know it is Autumn, but --"

Turquoise eyes narrowed dangerously. "Autumn. Not summer. So by my very words, you know you are safe."

Hibbs swallowed hard and managed to get out, "You wouldn't say that if you were on my side of your eyes."

Estanatlehi stiffened, then laughed long and deep. "Oh, Little One, whatever did I do before you?"

As he was lowered gently to the dry leaves, Hibbs rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Probably walked without getting your feet stepped on."

Her head cocked slightly, and long, cold fingers gently ruffled the fur on the top of his head. "But I never laughed. Never. I believe a bruised toe or two is a small price for me to pay."

She tugged sharp on his right ear. "Now, what have you learned from all this?"

Hibbs looked up lovingly into her face and wanted so hard not to see it grow cold again. He thought and thought and thought. The obvious answer would only raise storm clouds again. An eyebrow of living lightning rose slowly.

Snakes in summer. Slippery tumbles in winter. The same path. His furry brow wrinkled as his tiny eyes squinted in hard thought. His eyes suddenly widened, and he smiled big.

"Different seasons make for different paths, even on the same spot."

The eyebrow of lightning kept rising, and Hibbs stuttered, "U-Uh, and -- and --- I guess that means that no one walks the same path twice even though it is the same road."

Hibbs heaved a sigh of relief as Estanatlehi's full lips slowly smiled. "I believe the end of the world must be near."

"Wh-What?"

Full lips struggled to be sober and lost. "It is written : there shall be plagues, floods, and famines. Little Hibbs will actually learn a lesson. Then shall the End come."

"Oh, GrandMother, you scared me."

She gently stroked the top of his head. "It is a natural talent."

Hibbs couldn't think of anything to say to that which wouldn't end up with him becoming even more scared, so he just hugged GrandMother's legs. Icy fingers patted his cheek. Hibbs smiled wide. For once, he had chosen the right path.

And abruptly, Hibbs was back in the present. And yes, he was still smiling but it was a sad smile, nonetheless, with echoes of loss and beckoning darkness. He looked to GrandMother and saw her lips twisting up in the same smile.

"The right path," he whispered.

Estanatlehi's hair of living lightning shivered as she nodded. "So you still remember?"

"I remember each of our walks, GrandMother."

And the air was heavy with the haunting song of memory and the dark call of Destiny.

**************

Well, Christi, that's hardly two pages. Sorry. But I tried. Have a healing week, everyone. Gypsy is demanding her chicken finger. I buy her one all for herself. Her paw just went to my leg. I have a princess to feed.

***********************************

My mother told me my totems were the bear and the wolf. She was wiser than I. Who am I to say different :