Lane, a traitorous dragon to her own kind, is turning dragons against men, and men against dragons.  She longs to usurp the throne of Cerras, hoping to destroy the Giant God with his own power. Yet fate lies with Charlie Underhill, a nine-year-old boy who – since the collision – harbors a special kind of magic all his own.

Told from the point of view of Justin Silas of Amberlye, a dragon from Paramis, When We Were Dragons is an original, heartfelt, and imaginative tale for all ages.

Alice and Jacky-boy are the best of friends. For a year they embark on fantastic adventures, most born from Jack’s relentless imagination. Though as each season draws to a close, another opens with its own special mystery, revealing timeless, unexpected events even Jack and Alice could have never imagined.

Castle Juliet is a timeless tale for all ages, for girls and boys, men and women, the young and the old. It is a story for the child in all of us who refuses to die. It will leave you mystified and enchanted, but most importantly, it will leave you wanting more.

*

“How many stars do you see?”

In the meadow, earlier that summer, Masie and Seth lied on their backs gazing up at the night sky.  Masie, who often felt spirited, would grab Seth’s hand, pulling him out the back door, and into the meadow just as the first stars appeared, where they’d plop onto their backs and gaze into the heavens.

Green stars twinkled in the black bowl above, a crisp, warm night, the ground cushioned by the mountain brome.

Seth thought about Masie’s question: Millions?  Billions?  More?

Threads of dark blue wove through the sky.  The Milky Way was a vast, illuminated stretch of nebulous light.  Seth felt like a speck of sand looking up at it.

A shooting star appeared, then winked out of sight.

What would the color be without the stars, he wondered?  Would it be pitch black?  Like a cauldron? 

“You can’t count them,” he answered.

“Mmm,” Masie said.

They spoke in whispers, as though awed by the timeless mystery of the universe.

“Do you think God’s up there?”

Seth shrugged.  “I guess.”

He thought about God sometimes, but only seldom.  The Auburn’s were not a religious family, and he didn’t always understand Masie’s love for Him when she didn’t read the Bible or go to church.  It was just a part of her.

Seth was surprised how much he treasured these rare magical moments with his sister, though.

“I think about flying,” Masie said, as if to herself.  “With butterfly wings, you know?  Soaring as high as I can go, anywhere I can find Him, wrapping my arms around Him, telling Him how thankful I am.  This whole world.  Wow!  Under us and above us.  Everything we need.  Everything and more.  Do you believe that, Seth?  That we don’t understand and don’t know what we really have?  We could build castles in the sky, find Atlantis, touch the face of God, if only we knew how.  Just because we don’t have wings, doesn’t mean we don’t know how to fly.”

She didn’t talk this way around her friends, Seth noticed, and he never questioned the things she told him.  She wanted him to think about the deeper mysteries, he supposed.  He had an important role to play in the vast, star-filled universe.  She was only reminding him.

“He wants us to find Him.  That’s the challenge, I think.”  Her voice quieted, soft and reverent.  “It’s not about worldly possessions or big, fancy cars.  I think we have it inside.  We have to recognize it.  God lives inside of us.  Right here.” Masie tapped her chest.  “He is beautiful, all the good thoughts, good feelings.  If we pay attention and respond the way He wants, I think we’ll find out what life is all about.”

“Like now,” he said.

He was amid the stars, spiraling through them.  Light coalesced between his fingers and toes, his eyelids.  His ears, for a moment, turned superhuman.  He could hear every sound, the deeper intonations of the wind moving through every leaf, bending every blade of grass.  He heard the slight hum of traffic on Main Street two miles away.  He heard Masie breathing softly.

Magic was real, and his sister proved it.

No matter how small he felt, Masie told him he was big enough for the universe.  What he felt and thought made a difference.  What he believed.  What he believed, in fact, was more important than anything.  He was important.  The meadow was small, the lofty crags in the distance, but Seth was bigger than the meadow and the mountains beyond.

“We’re lucky, Seth.  If you never forget anything in your life, make it that.  That we’re very lucky.  See how important your place is.  How important you are.  Okay?

“And that your big sister loves you.  Remember that, too.  You are incredibly important and your big sister loves you.  Don’t forget.  Okay?”

“Okay,” Seth said.

I fell in love with horror long long ago by having this older brother who used to scare me until I cried in cold, stark-raving terror, and he started laughing to the point of gut-wrenchingly wetting himself.  This was side-splitting laughter, roll around on the floor, bust-a-gut laughter.  I remember the dummy he and my other brothers (they were more along for the ride, I think, and duped into my older brother’s master plans) rigged into the closet once.  This was in El Paso, Texas, where my dad lived at the time.  And I began to look back on these summers as, Summers of Terror, because that was what they were.  The dummy they had rigged up was a figure in jeans, a shirt, and a nightmare mask.  We all shared one room and my two brothers by blood, and my step-brother, were all in this room at the same time.  I was lying on the floor, and the lights were off, but there was enough of the moon’s glow from outside to illuminate the room.  They told me to watch the closet door, which was one of those fold-out things, and when you opened it, it looked sort of like and accordion.  They had a string attached to the handle I couldn’t see, and so—geniuses that they were, engineers of modern design, technology, and special effects—the closet doorway began to open on its own, and this nightmare figure in a monster mask hung there in the dark space, illuminated by the moon’s glow.  Little Brandon Boy began to scream and scream at the top of his lungs!  Proudly, I must say, I had some healthy pipes, and I could scream like any 13-year old girl down the block.  She had nothing on me.  Along with the screams, of course, was the sound of that side-splitting laughter, that roll around on the floor, gut-busting, tear producing laughter.  Of course by then I realized it was just a dummy, and I calmed down, and my screams turned to humiliation, and eventually flat-out hatred.  I wanted revenge.  This was the usual cycle of emotions for a boy like me being easily terrified.  Those summers were not always the best.  I remember the bathroom in Arizona (my dad was transferred a lot) with the light switch outside the door, so they could lock me inside and turn off the light and tell me they weren’t going to let me out until I said that ever famous, “Bloody Mary” five hundred times while looking into the bathroom mirror (even though it was pitch black), which would result (God bless ’em) with scars on my face when I woke up in the morning.  You can imagine the hellish, nightmare catcalls I must’ve produced in those moments.  There was also the Thorn Lady, which says enough on its own, I think, and there was the time we went to see One Dark Night and later, after the movie was over when we were walking through the parking lot, my brother and his friends decided to bolt off and abandon me to walk alone through the dark night.  Luckily, Big Tim was there, one of the guys form the neighborhood, who remained by my side, and perhaps didn’t think it all that funny to terrify a boy of my age, let alone leave him to walk on his own.  I am still thankful for Tim in that moment for not joining the rest of them, and making me realize I had nothing to be afraid of, no matter where he might be now. There was also the moment I was standing in the kitchen with my step mom, and my brother was outside during the night, doing that creepy, wide-eyed, lunatic killer thing, and jumping into view every now and then, just enough to freak me out.  The list goes on and on.  But honestly, I like to think there was some good that came of those moments, and maybe they helped me become a better writer, or at least appreciate the reason for fear, terror, and things that go bump in the night.

My second initiation into horror, I believe was, when my dad and step-mother took me to see The Shining when I was just eight years old.  And as anyone can tell you, Stanley Kubrick is probably not the most wholesome director for an eight year old mind.  In fact, he can be quite jarring (I’m thinking about A Clockwork Orange, which aired in the house quite often as I grew up and only fueled my dementia).  I’m proud to actually say I’ve seen this film on the big screen, though; The Shining, that is.  And little Danny Torrance was the character I related to.  That and that freaky, creepy music didn’t help, either.  All that blood coming out of the elevator, just gushing and gushing without end, certainly scarred me in its own right, and made me cock my head in that ‘I’m-never-gonna-be-the-same-after this’ sort of way again.  Mix that with the two twin girls slaughtered in the hallways, their blood painting the walls, and I have finally begun to see why I love what I do, why I do what I do, and why I’ve had the issues I’ve had (Lots of therapy, for sure).   Sometimes, though, something chooses you, and as much as I still love speculative fiction—fantasy, anything imaginative, the classics, and try my hand at dabbling in it all—horror was the door that opened first.

That night, after The Shining, we spent the night in the backyard of all things, and my brothers had a field day with me.  For a long time, I was simply too easy to terrify, until something happened along the way and a good friend of mine said—as we were watching Phantasm, and I was getting spooked— “It’s just a movie.”  Sound advice, but for some reason, that simple phrase did the trick.  A shift took place inside, and I realized why my brother had so much fun terrorizing me, and I realized there was nothing to be afraid of if you could just tell yourself that simple phrase.  Like Tony telling Danny in The Shining.  “It isn’t real.  It’s just like pictures in a book, Danny.”  And suddenly, after all the screams, the terrors, the horrors, I began to see how it wasn’t anything to be scared of.  In fact, it was even something to laugh at.  It was fun!  And terror, even scary films and books, in their own right, have that same sort of fun attached to them, at least some of them.  You have serious horror, horror that is like The Shining, jarring, mood-setting, serious, and flat out disturbing in many ways, and you have fun, amusement-park-ride- sort of horror.  Those are great to take your first date to because she will clutch and grab and claw and want you to be with her for the rest of the night because she is soooo scared.  That’s the good horror, the healthy sort of horror, the kind of horror that puts a big ol’ shit-eatin’ grin on your face and makes you feel like a kid again.  I have never been averse to either kind, because I think they both have their place in fiction and entertainment.  And when it comes to a good scare, to getting the blood going, they both are necessary.  There are many other kinds of horror, too, of course, but I’ll leave those alone for now.

For that reason, the stories I post here on my website, on my blog, and my collection, Body of Immorality, on Amazon, are dedicated to my brothers.  I hope to create more for them along the way.

So, long after the antics, and the shows that constantly aired on television while I was a kid (both my parents were fans of the genre, even though they’d divorced when I was very young) contributed to my appreciation for the cryptic, and thus, my journey—or descent if you will—into the dark began.  As a teenager, I took a creative writing class in high school, and began to read Stephen King, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, and many others, while also introducing myself to Lovecraft, Poe, Hawthorne, and James, all with nothing short of absolute zeal.  I loved them all with a love I’d never quite felt before.  I was late in coming to the show, perhaps, but it was a world I desperately wanted to be a part of, one I loved with my whole heart, and one I wanted to learn more about.

And I have never looked back since.  Except, of course, to glance over my shoulder every now and then at the shadowy beasts with claws and fangs gaining on my terrified heals as I run and run and run…

3AM PROWLER

Outside, the world sleeps on, pretending to be a part of something unreal.  Worlds don’t exist.  How can they, I think?  But they see me.  In their dreams, they know I’m there.

Standing in the doorway of my apartment, I take a drag of my cigarette, blowing the smoke above me.  The wind takes the smoke and disperses it in fragments throughout the dark.  Mounds of snow melt all around.  Spring is coming, and the snow turns to water, dripping from the roofs of houses.  Even at this hour, it is all I hear.

I take a drink of beer.  Despite the booze and my tired mind, I cannot sleep.  I look at the dark houses and think about their normality, their constant routine.  Is it constant?  Is it routine?  I think about couples walking hand in hand (not at 3 am, of course) laughing—everyone paired.  I think about how long it’s been since I’ve felt a hand in my own, but I ignore it.  I have more important things to think about.

Not a single car drives by, and at 3 am, the fog rolls in.  The wind, the occasional rustle of dead leaves, adds to the sound of dripping snow, a whisper in my ear.  The snow melts, making pools of water.

I wonder if anyone else is doing what I’m doing—silent watcher, 3 am observer.  What’s to observe at 3 am?

What do I care?  For me, it is just the world and I.  Nothing else but the quiet early morning, the cherry on my cigarette.

“Slip away,” I whisper, loud enough for only me to hear.  “Bring back what they never gave you, what they are not capable of.  Take them and bring them back to me.”

A shadow emerges from my physique, not black.  It’s the color of fog, a smoky, tendril-like form much like me, but indistinguishable from my countenance should anyone wake to see it.

A beautiful girl lives next door, and my shadow slips into her dreams.  I can see through the eyes of my ‘other self’, of course.  It might as well be me in there.  My shadow slips away, and I stand outside smoking, knowing it’s having all of the fun.

It is me from next door, I tell the girl without her hearing.

I go into her boyfriend’s mind.  I’ll take that, too.  I smile because he’s more fragile and sad than I’d thought, jealous and possessive.  Guys look at her all the time.  I think, ‘You should be lucky she attracts that much attention.  You deserve it, you know?  You’ve done it to yourself.  She decided to be with you, didn’t she?  You think she doesn’t know?  Why do you think she wears those tight jeans?’

In her boyfriend’s mind, I turn my shadow into a monstrous, scaly beast.  It slavers on the floor.  It pours, oozes.  Mucus, sweat, and blood glisten.  It roars at him, reaches out a massive claw, and grabs him by the throat.  The shadow throws him violently against the wall.  The boyfriend is now a ruined, crumpled heap on the floor, wearing only his jockeys.

I smile and crawl hideous and revolting into the bed, drawing the covers over me and the girl.  I am now with the shadow, and I can see through its eyes.  The girl snuggles closer, burying her face into my thick, hairless chest.  My skin is not human.  I run my claws through her hair, and we dream for the rest of the night.  They are pleasant dreams, romantic.

The next day I walk outside to have a cigarette.  I did not go to bed until five, so I don’t get up until after eleven.  At the house, the door opens.  The girl and her fragile boyfriend emerge.  They don’t say anything to each other.  She’s always tight and firm as usual.  The boyfriend looks pasty white.  He’s frowning.  He always looks pissed off.  I wonder if the girlfriend is attracted to guys who look pissed off.  The girl, however, steals a glance at me, seeing the smoke out of the corner of her eye.  She looks at me quickly and smiles.  She knows that smoke.

I have shared you sleeping, I think.  I have always known about you.  You have always known about me. 

Getting in her car (he does not drive, and she makes him wait until she’s in before she unlocks the door from inside), she looks at me one last time.  The boyfriend is not paying attention, still bound by the confusion of his nightmare.

I wink at the girl as fast as I can, without Fragile noticing.  The girlfriend smiles, reversing the car, and backs the magenta thing into the street.

I watch them as they drive away, taking one last drag, and put my cigarette out.  I flick it into the bushes, smile, telling my shadow it’s time to come home.

ALL THE GODS AGAINST ME

(The Story of Clarence Manning)

by

Brandon Berntson

He knew full well that man can never attain ultimate knowledge of anything and that the mystery of beauty was no less than that of life—nay, more, that the fibres of beauty and life were intertwisted, and that he himself was but a bit of the same non-understandable fabric, twisted of sunshine, and star-dust, and wonder.

‘After I’ve ben workin’ like hell all week, I just got to booze up.  If I didn’t, I’d cut my own throat or burn up the premises.’

—Jack London (Martin Eden)

It is hard to be a god

—Ovid

BOOK I

UNDER THE GREAT BLUE INSTITUTION

CHAPTER I

Trujillo, the Blue God, watched Clarence Manning from the edge of the world.

Not the edge of the world, of course, more the rooftop of the paint store from across the street.  It could be any place in the known universe, if Trujillo were so inclined.  But this was a good vantage point, and Clarence had plenty of windows.  With all of them open, he was practically inviting the god inside.

Clarence amused Trujillo; that was certain.  The man was one of a kind.  Something interesting, even fascinating lay under all that cynical, hardened apathy.  Plenty of people like Clarence Manning populated the globe the world over, of course, but Trujillo saw something different in the man.

It was like looking into a mirror.

Trujillo smiled to himself, putting his chalky blue chin on his palm, and watched the evening unfold.

*

Clarence Manning held the man by the scruff of the neck, then dropped him into his gaping maw.

Stars were bright all around, blinding him.  He pushed them away, his hands in front of his eyes, as though the stars were too painful to look at.

Planets and asteroids came next, and he grabbed these, too, holding them in front of his face, then gobbled them down like grapes.

Another wailing soul was plucked from the face of the earth, and he held it above his mouth.

My purpose is chaos, he thought.

He opened his fingers, and this one, too, plummeted, screaming on its way down…

Clarence Manning awoke with a jerk.  He looked around, trying to re-orient himself, and rubbed his eyes.  The bus droned on.  He’d forgotten where he was for a moment, the dream already beginning to fade.

Chaos? he thought.

His fellow passengers stared at him, their faces vapid and empty.  The same slaughter and decay, the constant, merciless grind mirrored his own: soulless slaves working forty hours a week to an American enterprise.  The Dream Sapper, as he liked to call it.  It was in the eyes of every man, woman, and child, every fallen comrade he rode home with on the bus.  On their brows, Doom. 

And I am right here alongside them, he thought.  Should’ve stayed in school.  Gotten a degree, something…

That was wishful thinking.  Not everyone had the stamina, the structure for college.  Education didn’t guarantee a goddamn thing, let alone a decent career.  How many people did he know with college degrees, crushed with student loans, who worked alongside him for lesser pay?  The usurping power had beaten him down and everybody else, apparently.   Clarence didn’t feel he had the strength to go on, as though he were too busy working his ass off to make his dreams come true.  Buddhism called it samsara, the vicious cycle of life.  Beauty—if only he could find it—remained elusive, and thus, his search began.  It was only a matter of perspective, perhaps.  All he had to do: find something beautiful…

A single light to shine upon me besides this blistering sun, he thought.  And my purpose for chaos will come to an end.

Apathy warred with empathy.  Cynicism combated hope.  He’d understand what it meant to be human, what it meant to be alive, if only he could gain some insight.  If he did that, he’d get a foothold on this thing called, Life.  As it was, he was losing, or so it felt.

A woman with three kids was at the front of the bus now.  The children tugged on her sleeves, tried to crawl onto her lap, demanding candy.  She reprimanded them harshly, making them cry, and Clarence cringed at the sight, wishing he could go back to sleep.

Consumerism was idolized above relationships and family values, he reflected, the reason the children wail.  This thought led him to others of equal hopelessness: politics centered on the middle class and wealthy but hindering the poor.  What is best for the citizens of America instead pads the pocketbooks of the elite.  Athletes wanting more than millions despite their millions galore?  Bulldozing people out of their homes to make way for pavement?  Money hungry greed.  Demand exceeding supply.  The Almighty Dollar orders, “Bow down and worship me!”

That is the world we live in, he thought.

His own was no different: they’d just raised the rent again; food prices continued to soar, his hours at work were getting cut, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a raise.  He could hardly feed himself these days, and he was the lowest of the lot, the last in line.  It was more than he could take to just get out of bed anymore.  Perception wasn’t just his own.  It was the Doom on every brow.

Suddenly, he understood the dream he’d been having.  He wasn’t the one doing the eating.  The world was the giant maw, and he was the helpless soul being eaten alive.

Dear God, he thought.

He reached up, pushing the bell for the next stop, and the bus began to slow.

Some bother not to dream, he thought, making his way to the door, all the eyes, it seemed, boring into him.  And maybe that is where I am.  Lost dream.  Lost life.  

The August heat in Denver was enough to scathe him when he stepped off the bus.  Blinding reflections off windows and metal stabbed his eyes.  He put his hand up to shade his brow.  A coat of sweat stuck to him like an added layer of slime.  Most of that was from The Grease Spot, where he worked, an appropriate name for an appropriately disreputable restaurant on Capital Hill.  Cooking for the pretentious public, he always thought, trying to laugh about it.  For Clarence Manning, it was just another layer to a life of already layered shame.

Yes, it’s because I haven’t a dream at all.  No dream anymore. 

The thought depressed him to such an extent, he wanted to cry.

Jesus, get a hold of yourself, he thought.   

He walked down Logan Street to his complex, letting himself in at the security door.  He got his mail from the silver box, then walked upstairs to his apartment, number 9.  The oscillating fan stirred stale, hot air back and forth when he stepped inside.  He’d left it running during the day, hoping it would cool the apartment down, but it only seemed to make things hotter.

He set his bills on the counter: a collection notice from the IRS demanding back taxes for the years he’d claimed exempt.  He’d needed the money, but when it came time to pay it back, he’d still been broke.  He liked to imagine a random check coming, a sweepstakes entry he forgot he’d entered telling him he’d won $10,000, a letter from a lost love who’d tracked him down, perhaps.

Ah, you have dreams after all, he thought, and managed to chuckle.

Clarence grabbed a beer from the fridge and took a slug.  “Life isn’t all bad,” he said to himself.  “When all else fails, turn to alcohol.”

He took another swallow, almost draining it, and instantly felt better.  The tension moved out of his shoulders.

He scanned the fridge, wondering what to have for dinner: a block of cheese, a half-gallon of milk.  Trying to salvage a meal would be interesting.  He had some noodles and hamburger, so it wasn’t a total loss.  Food wasn’t as much a priority as alcohol.  He could eat little, but drink had become a necessity.  He felt he’d cut his own throat otherwise.

Closing the door, Clarence opted for a cold shower.  He’d go to the liquor store, make sure he had enough booze, then worry about dinner later.

He just wanted to relax, watch a baseball game, nurse several beers.  Forget Life was nothing more than an unconscionable beast, and he’d call it a successful day.

Clarence chugged the rest of the beer and made his way to the shower, content he had something to look forward to.

But a knock at the door halted him.

*

For the last several weeks, he’d been putting up with the couple down the hall.  Every day, they came over hounding him for milk, bread, sugar, coffee, too lazy to go the store and get it themselves, he presumed.  At first, it hadn’t bothered him.  He’d been happy to oblige, felt neighborly even, but now it was all he could take.

Clarence shook his head and sighed, going to the door, and pulling it open.  It was the wife this time.

“Hi,” she said, a dumpy, dark-skinned girl with her hair tied back.  She was pretty when he’d first met her, but he couldn’t stand the sight of her now.  “You got any peppa?”

“No,” Clarence said.

“How about some bread?”

“I don’t have any bread, either.”

“Got any milk?”

He took a deep breath, cheeks flushing with anger.  Adrenaline pumped through his veins.  It was as though he could hear a voice telling him to be careful, and in reply, he told it to shut the fuck up.  Already, his palms were sweating, and unable to take a moment more, he lashed out:

“You got to be fucking kidding me, right?” he said.  “Why don’t you just come in and raid my refrigerator while you’re at it, lady?  Take my television, too.  Need a V.C.R?  It’s no DVD player, but it plays.”

The woman winced and took a step back, her eyes going wide.  She looked scared, and, he had to admit, it pleased him.

“Every day you come over here,” he said, unable to stop.  “Do I look like the neighborhood Wal-Mart to you?  Do I look like I make a lot of money?  The grocery store is across the street, for crying out loud!  You sit in that apartment all day doing God knows what, eating my food.  You got two people living there, and your rent is less than mine.  I’m here all by myself.  Does that spell it out for you?  I don’t come over asking you for every little goddamn thing, do I?  I get up off my ass and go to the store like everybody else.  I don’t need you coming over here asking me for every little goddamn thing because you’re too lazy to get off the fucking couch.   Don’t come over here again.  I’ve had it!”

He slammed the door in her incredulous face, breathing heavily.

Another rap issued seconds later.  Clarence opened it.  It was the woman’s husband this time.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“You got my wife crying, buddy.”

The man was a short and stocky.  Clarence wasn’t worried.  He had a baseball bat behind the door.

“Yeah.  Well, I got plenty of tears myself,” Clarence said.  “My cupboards are a barren-fucking wasteland.”

“Now, look here,” the man said, holding up a finger, as though trying to make a point.  “There’s no need to take that kind of tone.  You don’t have to swear—”

“Hey, fuck you, pal.  I’ll tell you the same thing I told her.  Don’t come over here ever again.  I’m tired of it.  I don’t work my ass off just to support the entire fucking community.”

“Now, look here—” the man said, again.

Clarence grabbed the baseball bat and brandished it, officially losing control.  “You look.  Not one more time!  Understand?  I’ll break both your legs and your spine!  Got it?”

“Don’t you threaten me—” the man said, getting angry.

Clarence’s teeth were clamped so tight, he thought they’d shatter   “So, help me God, I feel a I would love to take a big fat swing at you, mister.  And when I do, you’ll need a helluva lot more than some bread and cheese when I get down with you.  You catch my drift?”

The man must’ve seen something serious in Clarence’s eyes, because he ran down the hallway, slamming the door to his apartment.

Clarence closed his own door and tried to catch his breath.  He shut his eyes, putting a hand to his brow.  Disgust, anger rose at his own behavior.  How come he hadn’t just let them borrow what they needed?  Hadn’t he been talking about that, thinking about it just seconds ago, the problems with the world?  He could’ve bestowed a little charity and been all the better for it.  Instead—

I’m at war with my neighbors.

He could almost hear laughter, applause.  “Well done, well done,” coming from a voice he’d never heard before.

Clarence shook his head and went to the bathroom.  In the shower was a letter on the bottom of the tub.  He frowned and stared at it for a long time.  His name was written on the front, inside a robust, pink heart, as though some high school sweetheart, had, in fact, found him, snuck into his apartment, and put the letter—of all places—here, then disappeared before he came home.

He blinked, and in that second, the letter was gone.

*

The Rockies had lost to the Cubs.  He’d opted for bland noodles and bread after going to the liquor store, and was now walking the neighborhood streets looking for stars in the night sky.  That always made him feel better. 

The dream seemed to have turned against him, leaving him with nothing but a husk to motor around in, but it was his own fault.  A man created his destiny, and if he was unhappy, only he could change it.  That was the maxim on the streets.

So much for beauty, he thought.

Clarence wondered if he’d ever had a dream.  Maybe his perception was jaded.  Weren’t there others with poorer attitudes but with nicer homes, families, bank accounts, and fancy cars?  Why did he always feel like a pariah in the eyes of society?

He’d never had a passion, a goal worth striving for, a career choice he fought with all his heart to obtain.  He’d never found anything that suited him, that he loved to do, as though some higher force were pulling him toward failure instead of success.  He’d been wondering about that for years now.  Hadn’t he been a happy child?  Hadn’t his mother told him how often he used to giggle and laugh?  How far back did his memories even go?  Sometimes it seemed he could barely remember his youth.  No wonder he felt so lost.

Still, despite wishing for the fairy-tale, he’d failed at some crucial understanding: happiness, what it meant to be human.  His intentions were at fault.  Behind them, underneath whatever supposed hope he’d been clinging to, an entity, a diabolical force was raging to get out, playing him like a puppet without his consent.  Life had become a beast buried beneath his flesh, hell-bent on his own destruction.

He’d longed for some benevolent act, an awakening, a higher form of consciousness, even.  Maybe he just wasn’t looking in the right places..

Who are you, Clarence Manning, he wondered?

The night hugged him with black arms.  He walked the streets, relishing the air.  Signs in bookstores, head-shops, bumper stickers, met his eye—positive motivators—signs of spirit:  It’s a Planet, Not an Empire.  Be the Change You Wish to See.  Goddess Bless.  Coexist.  Choose Love.  He failed to see the meaning was all, a single sign of comprehension.  Dear God, he was doomed!

But you can take salvation in the night, he thought.

True.  That had to count for something, didn’t it?  He loved the night, and thus his search for beauty ended.  The air was cooler than it had been earlier at least, the reason he had chosen a stroll at this time in the first place.  And didn’t everything look cleaner, more beautiful at night?  Night—like freshly fallen snow, clean and pure?  The city was like that now.

He looked to the sky.  No stars that he could see.  He hadn’t been walking long.  He had to give his eyes time to adjust.

There were clouds above, but the glow from the streetlights wasn’t helping.  The sky was a muddy, cloudy mess.

He stopped to gaze anyway.  No, he did see, just between the copper color of the clouds.  A light: blue!—or was it green?—but yes!  One was visible!

A cloud moved in, covering it quickly.  He was too intoxicated, something in his eye…

He looked for a second or two longer.  It was only a glimmer of something to his right, the streetlights reflecting off a metal bumper.  He had taken that glimmer and thrown it into the sky out of hope.

You’re a magician.  You take anything that shines and toss it into the night sky, one glimmer to unravel every constellation, make them visible.  I am the mantle of darkness, and under my cloak, the night, which I throw above me to rain upon all humanity. 

He smiled at the thought.  Try hard enough and something good was bound to find you.

Still, despite his disappointment, he put his hands in his pockets, and continued down the street.  His bout with the neighbors earlier had left a lasting, negative effect perhaps.

It was a puzzle.  Redemption had its own road, along with truth.  He had not been structured for success.  His parents had not reared him well enough.  If anything, they’d seemed indifferent to his needs.  He was a thirty-two year old man with no direction.  His life had become a stale routine.  Up by 6:00 am, slightly hung over, work by 7:00.  Come home, imbibe long enough to forget, find a moment’s peace, then off to bed.  Pass-out, wake up, and do it all over again.

And there are a million others like you, he thought.

Others were like him.  It made him feel not so lonely at least.  Maybe he could build an army, he thought, start a rebellion, a surge to tear down democracy, create a more balanced world where everyone could pay their bills on time, more food in the refrigerator, free air-conditioning.  That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?  Everyone had a right to dream.

The city came to life, electric and humming.  Lights upon lights.  Streetlights, lamp-posts.  So many lights, unfortunately, it killed the natural hue of the sky.  Still, there was an energy, a robust feel to the nightlife, the hurry of traffic.  The streets teemed with life.  He could hear televisions from open windows, stereos, laughter, a few arguments.

A street bum sitting against the wall of a laundromat, his belongings scattered around him, grunted.  The pungent stench of piss and alcohol, enough to make his eyes water, wafted toward Clarence, as though caught on a night breeze.

“Looking for Divinity?” the man said.

Clarence shook his head and patted his pockets.  “Sorry.  Haven’t got any.”

The man scowled as though not believing, muttering something vulgar.  Clarence frowned and walked on.  For a second, he’d…

Wait a minute…!  The bum hadn’t asked him for change.  He’d said something else altogether.  It took him a second before he realized it.  He had expected the bum to ask him for change, but he hadn’t.  Instead, he’d asked him…He’d asked…

He asked you if you were looking for divinity?  What the hell does that mean? 

He must’ve misheard the man.  When he looked back, the bum was oblivious, leaning his head against the wall, not paying attention, as though the bum hadn’t realized he’d spoken at all.

Clarence took a breath, turned, and walked on.

Rose petals, he thought.  That’s what the world needs, more pleasant aromas, gardens, color.  Life.  More sustainable life, more appreciative life. 

Instead of rose petals, a tinge of smoke hovered on the night air.  Something was on fire.  A siren wailed to life blocks away, shattering the stillness.  The din made him cringe.  Clarence winced, unnerved—his once easy calm broken.

Trying to recapture what he’d lost, despite the sounds, he turned to the sky again.  Maybe some peace was afforded in the Heavens.  He just wasn’t looking hard enough.  He had to concentrate.  There!  A constellation?  Orion’s bow?

Just as quickly, it vanished, and he collided into someone walking by.

“Jesus, man, watch where yer goin!”

“I’m sorry…I…” Clarence stammered.

A black man stood inches away, the strong stench of whiskey wafting over him, eyes glossy red in the lamplight.  A paper bag was in his hand, the neck of the bottle exposed.  The man’s equilibrium was in obvious jeopardy, and he staggered and stumbled one way then the other, trying to right himself, then looked up angrily at Clarence.  “Why don’t you pick a better spot to star-gaze, asshole!”

“I said I was sorry,” Clarence said.  “It was an accident.”

“I’ll decide if it was fuckin’ accident!” the man said, losing his temper.  Spittle flew from his lips.  He stumbled toward Clarence, liquid spilling out of the top of his bottle.  “I’ll kick your ass right now!”

“Jesus,” Clarence said, taking a deep breath, and turned away.

Why had he taken a stroll?  To get some fresh air, see a star or two?  Look for beauty—that was it!  Instead, he’d been scowled out, almost assaulted, and virtually ripped out of his own skin.

He turned and hurried back down the street.

“Yeah, you’d better run!” the man shouted.

*

On his way back, he took some time to regain his composure, breathing deeply.  Chalk it up as one of many bad days.  What had he expected?  Peace, love, tranquility?

“Keep dreaming,” he said.

Eventually, he managed to calm down.  Stopping near the end of his block, he looked up into the sky again.  Were those rose petals falling through the air, or just the rain suddenly?  Several drops plopped onto his face, but they did smell strongly of rose petals.  How was that possible?  Was he wanting to imagine something so badly, that he was creating it with his mind?  He’d heard about that before, that the mind could produce hallucinations on its own without chemical dependency, even aromas if you imagined hard enough.

When he looked down, he saw it was only rain spotting the pavement.  The smell, too, was wet, not flowery suddenly.  Clarence looked into the sky again.

The clouds had come, combined with the lights of the city.  The sky was hardly visible.

You had the night, the cool, dark night for one split second.

He should’ve sought something simpler.  Flowers, trees, maybe.  Something obvious.  A cat or a dog.

Would you change it all if you could?  Would you wipe it all away and start again?  Rebuild the world from the ground up? 

He wasn’t sure.  The idea held too much responsibility, something he didn’t want to accept.  What would an ordinary mortal do with such a monumental task anyway?  And where had a thought like that even come from?

It seemed obvious to him.  He was a Jonah, doomed to wander listlessly through life.  The idea made his heart crumble, and a shadowy specter, a dark, voracious beast stepped closer to the foreground.

There is power in belief, and if you believe anything, not matter what it is, then it will come true to some extent.

He was living in a world of artificial flavors.

Natural beauty?  Was there such a thing?

Tears gathered in his eyes, surprising him.

“Goddamnit,” he said, his voice heavy.

He hated when his emotions got the best of him.  A man could try, do all he could do, but sometimes, it just didn’t seem to matter.  Life, the world, was more powerful, the beast too big and indestructible.

That you feel, he thought.  That is your beauty. 

He didn’t know this voice, but didn’t want to listen, let alone, believe it.  Feel what, he wanted to know: pain, hardship, confusion?

Barely perceptible, on the night wind, the smell of roses surged to life under his nose, and that was when the miracle happened.  He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the fragrance with every ounce of breath he had.  For a minute, he was lulled into a trance.

But that couldn’t be…

When he opened his eyes, the air ripped apart in front of him, as though the fabric peeled away, revealing another dimension, ironically in the shape of an eye.  Vast distances of space, brightness, and galaxy after galaxy of brilliant stars revealed themselves to him in a blinding, fiery array of color, lights, and…

Beauty, he thought.

The eye blinked, and in a second, it was gone.

*

Just before letting himself in the security door, something caught his attention from the paint store across the street.  A man on the roof, he saw.  For several seconds, their eyes locked, and the man smiled and nodded in Clarence’s direction.

Too much drink, he thought, but knew it was a lie.  He wasn’t prone to hallucinations.

Clarence turned away, letting the door shut behind him and walked upstairs.  He shook his head.  Too many events had happened he had no explanations for.  All he wanted was to lay back with a drink.

He was getting old, perhaps, or going completely insane.  The latter seemed a more plausible explanation.  Yes.  He was going completely insane, he told himself, or there were aliens in the city, a nearby Halloween party despite it being August.  Someone had laced his beer with LSD.  Who hung out on rooftops at night anyway?  A trick of the light?  No, he was definitely going mad.  What else explained the man’s dusty, chalky shade of blue skin?

Desperation has found a home here lately and is no stranger. Completely new is what it feels like now, tie a ribbon on it, new paper, new life, new eyes. You always hear about how its a change in perception, and I think this is no exception. I have prayed for that, too, when I wasn’t even sure what to believe in. So much for faith, I said, when I have no faith. So much for prayers, when I’m not so sure what to believe in. But if that’s the case, why does the sky look the way it does? Why do all those stars I’ve seen a million times before look so different to me now? What is this feeling inside, this lack thereof of anger and resentment? Nothing elegant, poetic, or prosy about it. It’s just the way it is. Maybe it’s all the books I’ve been reading, the letting go, the change of heart. Certainly this is such a thing. A change of heart. Only I hope it is not a temporary thing. Please, dear God, do not let this be a temporary thing. Let this be a permanent thing, a lasting, staying, comforting thing. It has been the same old way for way too long, and I would love to see things the way You do, the way You want me to. And I do not mind being proven wrong by You, if this is the result. Prove me wrong again! Purge my sin again! Could this be the love I’ve read about? Is this just a piece, a hint of the love I can have for myself and others? No, please do not let this be a passing phase!

There is a house down the street I would love to show you, a tasteful, pretty Christmas thing, down by the pizza shop, across the street from the High School. Maybe this is the reason I was seeking, the reason this desire has ebbed and flowed, to be here now and go beyond, because surely this is only a taste, just a glimmer of the more it can be. I can be greedy about this and have it be okay. I can desire this and know it’s real, that there is more truth in this moment than there has been in forty years before. And that is fine by me. I welcome it, in fact. It makes all the dying, the crying, the pain and caterwauling that came before, perfectly worth it. Give me my sin again! I am Romeo in love! She doth teach the torches to burn bright!

This is like having no weight, when the weight of ghostly chains felt permanently consigned to me, Marley’s Ghost times twelve or thereabouts. Clank. Clank. Rattle and Chain. Shackles to my skin. Penetrate my chest with a two-ton safe. A truer, deeper, more meaningful, even joyful self is housed within. I am laughing for no reason! My smile stretches wide, letting go of all this ghost-skin. Release comes to mind, old conditioning washed away. Bring those waves to the shore and pull all that sludge back out to sea. I am ready for this. New carapace. New sights. New dreams. New philosophies, awakenings, story-lines, things to write about, things I never thought before, seen before, felt before, my pen a fury of unending scratches on a thousand sheets of paper, my hand a tired, tendon-strained claw trying to keep up with it all. Yes, this is the good thing. This is passion with gusto, with bubbling, boiling vehemence! I am in a frenzy! I am turbulent! Intensity! This is fire, violent wind, and hurricanes!

Beyond. Beyond, I see. What lies beyond. To think this is just a hint, just a taste, a subtle flavor, not the whole thing. Not complete. I would explode otherwise. He is just giving me a taste, just a little, a transformation, a shift taking place. I welcome my humility. I confess my sins. I don’t care to be proven wrong anymore, not like this. I could care less what others think. I will learn to love them regardless. Resent no more. Anger, be gone! Flush me down the universal toilet and watch me come out sparkling clean HAHA! I am mad with delirium! I am Ebeneezer on Christmas day! I have come to my senses, Bob! I have been visited by the past, the present, and the future! The spirits of all three will thrive within me! (I always wondered why the story appealed to me so much.) They can do anything they like. Of course they can! Too long, too often, I have held this prideful grudge upon the past. Too long I have tried to make my opinions valid with self-justification. Too long I have been enslaved by the bondage of my own skin and egotistical wants and needs. I demand restitution! I demand infinity! Show my my immortal soul! Let me dance in glory and rejoicing! Let me capture my soul in flight, this moment in a photo, or here, perhaps, upon this page, because that is all I have in the moment! Clean the sludge from out my filthy brain! Cure me of this disease!

Cheerily! Cheerily on, I say! I can finally see the happy ending, the reason for all this confusion and darkness and why there must be a victory in the end! Because He is all. He is the complete package! I see the reasons for change, the constant suffering and sorrow, the sadness and pain piled up forty years behind me. I see why stories have to end the way they do. You cannot deny truth. It is that simple. People need good things to hold onto.  It’s called hope.

Solid but weightless is my skin. My heart open, no longer closed, just a day, a simple day. What a difference a day makes! The clouds shift and pass, and all I can truly hope is that they come together above my head and create a little snow to bury this town. That will make the lights look better!

Time for some hot cocoa, I think. a lighted candle, and A Christmas Carol, the old black and white one, mind you! Seventeen thousand viewings is not enough for me. Not by a long shot!

Everything breaks. I just don’t care anymore. Resentment, anger—this is who I am. Therapy, medication, prayer, meditation, even scripture didn’t cure it, and I am tired of asking for it to be taken away from me. People don’t know what you go through in there, how hard it is just to stay positive, upbeat. It hardly seems worth it most of the time. I thought I should be established now, and I suppose I am, only not the way I thought I’d be. Let’s face it, I am not obligated to you, and you are not obligated to me. We don’t have that kind of commitment, so fuck it. Fuck it all. Fuck everything. Visions? Dreams? They’re forgotten just as easily as they’re conceived. I thought, or hoped, that there would be more to it than this, but I was wrong. If there is a God, surely He must know my thick-headedness, my doubt, my despair. You’d think He’d be able to cut through all that if He gave a shit, go beyond where I could hear Him speaking, know without a doubt where it came from. Maybe I just don’t have that faith, and that’s why all is silent. That actually makes sense to me, so maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just not a good writer, and those dreams were like most writers who realize they suck and they’re dreams and their ideas are shit, so what’s the point, and all you really wanted was to share those shitty ideas with people so they could tell you how great they were. Maybe a little of that was just your prissy little ego needing to be spoon fed, and this was just the world’s way of saying, you need to be humble, motherfucker. So, poof! That’s cool. I can dig it. I can be thankful I have an artistic temperament at least. Maybe that actually makes me an artist, a real writer, but I know that’s bullshit, too. Just another excuse to chalk up another flighty excuse that doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. It’s just moodiness. Depression, maybe. Feeling sorry for your bitch ass self, not seeing the good things, cause the bad are like ink spilling over the bright blue day like a beast with a huge, ropey tail. Expectations. Nothingness.

You’d think with as many times as I’ve prayed, asked, pleaded, begged, wept in mercy, defeat, anguish, sincerity, and yes, even authenticity—those contrite fucking tears—that some light would shine through somewhere and I’d be able to see it, without a doubt. I’m alone on the fence, perhaps. I just can’t think straight anymore. For the life of me, I just don’t know what it means to be happy, to be alive, to live. I sincerely don’t get it. It’s like I just don’t have that gene sometimes. Falling gets so tiring. Others seem to laugh so easily. I know how to cry real well, take things personally, assume the worst. Maybe they award points for those things. Who wants to read about a bunch of sorrow anyway? Who wants to read this thick, heavy crap when the world’s in the state it’s in? Who cares about one man feeling ill for himself, when the world could care less and nothing shines here anyway? Who? That’s my point. Exactly.

Sometimes, I think there is just no such thing as Destiny, in meaning, in purpose. The expectations are too high, too much pressure to live up to, for oneself. I would kill to be proven wrong, of course, but the repetition, the constant cycle, is loud, loud and hurtful even. Some win. Some lose. It’s that simple. I had a few glimmering moments. Small sparkles in memory. But they were fleeting, and I have been cursed with an insane amount of forgetfulness. These days, it seems, you have to pray for every little technicality and detail. Who wants to go through all that? How exhausting! Joy does not inspire me. No one ever taught me the meaning of love. I’m just an angry, resentful child in here, in a too-full grown body, and I don’t see the sand of the sea, the sun on the horizon, or winter snow, or hear children sing. I try to tell myself that it doesn’t have to be this way. Most of the time I just want to be alone anyway. At least I understand myself, know what I need, but I don’t know what it’s all about, or why I had to be made this way, or what caused it.

I close my heart. I have nothing I want to share, when at one time, I wanted to share everything. My ideas won’t change the world; they will not rearrange the fabric of fiction. What a pompous ass to think those thoughts anyway. Someone told me it was okay to dream big, so I tried. It made sense at the time.

Fact is, there are much better men, and much better writers doing good things, beautiful things, imaginative things. There are more nobler, stronger, emotionally stable, humorous, loving, romantic, even spiritual practitioners than I. I’m too oppressive. I get it. No one wants that. I tried not to conform. I tried not to sell out. But that’s where the freedom is. That’s where the money lies. And well, I just thought I’d try to be different. Maybe a vampire, werewolf love story would have been the thing, and S&M sort of disaster involving a dishwasher and someone’s toupee, a hairdryer, a set of handcuffs, a champagne bottle, and two sets of keys. Maybe a bunny rabbit and super-hero, and of course, some classic novel turned zombie that hasn’t been done yet, like…oh…The Scarlet Letter, retitled The Scarlet Sweater, because there’s blood all down the front of it from having your brains chewed out.

I simply feel too much. That is the weight, the strong coil you bear yourself, Ebeneezer. My hope lies in one idea arrayed around a universal death. That is my only hope, and the irony tells me all I need to know about my heart.

Yes, there are stronger, nobler, and more romantic men by far. They have succeeded where I have failed. They have shined and shimmered where I have dimmed and paled. They have laughed and triumphed where I have fallen and wept. And who wants to read about someone constantly weeping and feeling sorry for himself and crying up some goddamn, pouty river?

Exactly.

No one.

No one.

Not even me.

He was better made for darkness, a true, devout warrior of Cain and greed. Eternal woe shaped his heart, and he understood the beauty of his own suffering, confusion, and pain. Nothing ever changes, he realized. Nothing. How can it be this way? It explained why he liked the things he did: dark nights alone, the cold, bleak, barren winter, gray clouds, and shadow. These things were all beautiful to him, eligibility for his recruitment to the Army of Shadows. It was important to belong to something, even if it was the losing side. At least he had a place.

His tears spill like black ink. He knows the darkness well, has studied it for years, and knows all the nooks and crannies. Apathy has found a home inside him, burrows deep, making a deep excavation in his chest. This is where cold, jagged rocks are formed by the wind. Apathy is going to stay a while, he realizes. He has only wanted to understand why.

Why this? Why am I this? There must be a reason, some torment, some past deed, some past life perhaps. How unfair to suffer for something I cannot even remember, but that is the only thing that makes sense. Where do I go to pray for forgiveness? If I have no name, no voice, what echo of mine can possible be heard?

Nothing. He hears nothing.

They say darkness will never win because of the light, but is it so bad playing for a losing team? At least there, he has purpose, reason. Otherwise, he is like dust, less than shadow. Ah, he knows these lonely thoroughfares, these stop signs! Wouldn’t he feel different if he were meant for greater things?

No one needs you, he hears. No one cares how you flitter away like dust and sand. Why do you think you live the way you do? You are meant for darker dreams, the chaos of all things, the undead, the dying. Take some knives why don’t you and strip away your flesh piece by piece, see what you are made of.

He kneels to the darkness, feeds it little scraps of his own flesh, and it comes running up to him, tails wagging, like little black barking dogs. He pets them, pats them on the head, tells them they are good boys. After they eat his flesh, they run off and play.

From the looks of things, there is no end to the desert sand, this lonely, endless sea. No light touches his brain, cracks his understanding open, allowing him to see clearly. Confusion and pain, frustration mounting, sobs from an already dying brain. Alone. Alone. What desperate act will he commit if any? Cold to his bones. Lift a spear and drive it through me!

Keeper of a loveless heart, he thinks. It does not bleed anymore. At one time it used to, but not now, not anymore. It has dried up. It does not bleed; it does not beat. He throws it to the ground at his feet in disgust. Despite the scant portions the desert provides, even the living things fail to feast.

What kind of purpose is this? This cold and rocky place? I have tried unerringly, have I not? Am I mad? Is it simply not to be? Is it just the way my mind works, this empty heart within my chest? I have tried to reach out and found only dust and shadows that dwindle beneath my touch. Shadows swell, move, and swallow me whole. I am not redeemed. My efforts are wasted. Nothing ever changes. It is the same old dying thing. I am not a man. A man is more than this. I am nothing more than some vaporless trail, a drifting thing evaporating into space and particles of ash. I am dust and stone at best, comforted by my own words of sorrow. Sadness knows my name, the tale I told. How can I be more than this when I am already a friend to no one? What light leads my way? Can I turn these rocks and shrubs from the desert floor into a happy home? Can I be anything other than this? Do you accept my challenge?

Only the silence meets him, the cold desert wind, a cavern, an excavation, opening wider on his chest forming rocks by the wind. He is shaped by isolation, coldness, and doom. Perhaps it is simply familiar to him, and that is why he keeps coming back.

He has no home, no destination. Nothing calls him by name. He begins to tear away at his flesh, piece by piece, until every dripping, bloody chuck falls to the desert floor. I do not need knives, he thinks. He is determined to find out what he is made of, what lies underneath all this. Lost voices echo in his ears. He is too numb to even feel pain at the moment.

Vanish from my sight! he cries, tearing into his skin. Never come back here again! Leave me be!

But there is nothing underneath. There never has been, but empty space, cold to the bone. He has no heart to continue. He falls upon his knees. Even the Army of Shadows has rejected him, a failed recruit. They did not need him either. He has no heart for anything anymore. He has turned to shadow and disappears upon the wind, forsaken, his questions why gone unanswered.