Sunday, May 4, 2008
Everything Big Happens in Manhattan by Rex Horner
EVERYTHING BIG ALWAYS HAPPENS IN MANHATTAN
Issue 1 - The Beginning, The Origin
SCRIPT BY REX HORNER
Page 1 -
Panel 1 - A sprawling, overhead view of a quaint town. Something out of the fifties, on the edge of industry, but still with a heap of old-fashioned values. It's nighttime and bright out but shadows still manage to wash across the pine-filled hills.
CAPTION
The tallest building in Durham was the water tower. . .
Panel 2 - Swoop in over the town green. A lone teenager drags off a cigarette, a wisp of smoke clouds over him.
CAPTION
The once-a-year fair drew more customers than the Durham's entire population.
Panel 3 - The fairgrounds. Abandoned, farmhouse fences this way and that, the beer-hall, a rough, log cabin building. A slew of beer bottles, some broken, litter the ground and tables.
CAPTION
Drinking was popular. . .
Page 2 -
SPLASH - The water tower shooting up towards us, and a gnarled, man-like creature huddles atop the tank, looking down a steep hill towards the bulk of Durham. It is too dark to make out anything concrete about its features, besides its nakedness and stringy, taut musculature. The moon acts as a sentinel perched up high, surrounded by its army of vibrant stars.
CAPTION
The thing crouched atop the tank, not under the stars but over the city.
CREDITS - THE BEGINNING, THE ORIGIN; Issue 1; Kenneth Rex Horner - Writer
Page 3 -
Panel 1 - A teenager's room. Posters tacked to the walls, lyrics, and other phrases scrawled on the walls. Things scattered everywhere, clothes carpeting the ground. A bed fills the middle of the room, headboard pushed against a wall. A centerpiece. A boy and girl clutch at each other, no clothes on, and the sheets wrapped around their lower halves.
CAPTION
The bed was like a slaughterhouse. Drained fluids spilled across the bed covers.
Panel 2 - Close on the girl's hand draped over the edge of the bed, glistening with sweat. A beaded bracelet and a few rings are still attached.
AMY (O.P.) [the girl]
We have to go soon.
Panel 3 - Close on a hand massaging a muscled shoulder.
JOSH (O.P.) [the boy]
Sure.
Panel 4 - Vantage point from the ceiling, a string with Chinese lanterns bobbing along it crosses the panel. Amy and Josh swing off separate sides of the bed.
Page 4 -
Panel 1 - The teenage boy on the town green drags on his diminishing cigarette. He stares at the looming pine tree in the center of the green. He wears a black blazer over a half-buttoned cowboy shirt, not tucked into his black jeans. His studded belt shows a bit.
Panel 2 - Amy and Josh plow out of the darkness and Josh bumps against the boy. Cale, the underage smoker, loses the remnants of his vice. Now dressed, Josh wears a polo shirt and Amy, a skirt over jeans, and a plaid shirt covering her chest, nothing else. She wears a necklace or two, seen through the unbuttoned shirt front.
CALE
Hey!
Panel 3 - Amy and Josh stop, turning to look back at Cale. They're anxious to get out of there.
AMY
Don't sweat it. We didn't see you.
JOSH
What do we have against you anyway?
Panel 4 - Cale searches the thick grass, squinting his eyes. Amy and Josh squirm impatiently.
CALE
My cigarette. . .
Panel 5 - Focus on Josh's face, his eyes pointed off the panel. His brow is furrowed.
JOSH
You'll have another. They come in packs of twenty, you know.
Panel 6 - Focus on Amy, running a hand through her hair.
AMY
And when did you smoke?
Page 5 -
Panel 1 - Cale stands with his hands shoved into his pockets.
Panel 2 - Amy and Josh dash back off into the darkness.
Panel 3 - Cale meanders down a paved road off of the green.
Panel 4 - Shoot up into the sky, to see the terrain in full. Cale is a miniature, walking beside a graveyard that sprawls down a slope to his left. Houses line the right side of the road, mingled with trees and a steep slope just beyond the meager backyards, heavily wooded. The green's behind Cale, and the paved road surrenders to countryside further down.
Page 6 -
Panel 1 - Seen from the interior of a living room, Cale pushes open the front door. It's a family house, toys in the corners, big sofas, and a sizeable TV. Hank reclines on the sofa, square features, and dark hair, classically handsome with a big frame. He's Cale's age and his good friend.
HANK
Everything you hoped it would be?
CALE
The cigarette? I couldn't walk straight.
HANK
Dunno why else they keep you comin' back.
Panel 2 - Cale smiles, lodged against the doorway into the kitchen/dining room.
CALE
It's always this or that.
Panel 3 - From inside the freezer, the door open and Cale peering in, grabbing at box nestled next to the ice packs.
HANK (O.P.)
It's not a good habit.
Panel 4 - Cale pulls the frozen taquitos from their box, a few already on a plastic plate laid on the linoleum countertop.
CALE
How many years for you?
Panel 5 - Hank plays with the TV remote. He has a wry smile on.
HANK
I prefer to count them individually.
Page 7 -
Panel 1 - Josh and Amy are leaning against pines deep in a forest. They stare each other down.
JOSH
We did it.
AMY
Yeah.
JOSH
Show it to me.
Panel 2 - Amy digging through her jean's pocket.
AMY
What do we do with it?
JOSH
Christ, Amy. Everything. We're gonna do everything. We may even get out of here. Can you imagine that?
Panel 3 - Close on Amy's soft face, as she grins.
AMY
Yeah, Josh. I got the picture all straightened up.
Panel 4 - Josh shifting, agitated.
JOSH
Come on! Tell me you have it.
Panel 5 - Close on Amy's open palm. A gold, shining Rolex watch rests there. Their stolen treasure.
AMY (O.P.)
See?
Page 8 -
Panel 1 - Amy and Josh startle and dash off into the deeper forest, hand in hand.
CAPTION
A delicate snap of brush set the fledging thieves on edge, but it was the heavy steps of two others that sent them running.
Panel 2 - Hank and Cale cross the same spot moments later. They each have a cigarette, Cale's pressed to his lips and Hank's held between two fingers at his side.
CALE
The water tower? Why the water tower?
HANK
You've never look out over the town until you've done it smoking.
CALE
Are you sure she didn't hear us go out?
Panel 3 - Swoop back, showing a full view of the slope Cale and Hank ascend. Past the dense trees that cover the incline, sits the water tower in a clearing atop the hill. The gnarled, man-like creature still rests atop the tank, and casts a long shadow across the clearing and down the slope, over the trees.
CAPTION
“Yeah.”
Page 9 -
Panel 1 - The man-creature stands atop the tank, stretching its arms towards the sky. We stand just behind it, seeing the same view it would. The slope slides downward before the creature. A maintenance shack sits at the edge of the clearing, then gangly brush thickens into an arboreal haven.
CAPTION
It sees the town not as a playground, but more of the way a Persian conqueror looks over a bustling city from his perch atop a mountain pass.
Panel 2 - Through the crook of the creature's neck we see an outstretched arm and a hand tensed and curled as if grasping an invisible sphere. The creature's back is riddled with pronounced veins.
CAPTION
It wants to hold. . . control. . .
Panel 3 - Move closer towards the hand, the forearm filling the foreground. The thumb and index finger form the shape of a claw with the cratered moon positioned between the fingertips.
CAPTION
It doesn't quite know why, some primal urge. . .
CAPTION #2
It wants to clutch. . . caress. . .
Panel 4 - Now the contorted hand fills the entire frame, tightened into a fist. The moon can't be seen past the ridge of jutting knuckles and bulging fist.
CAPTION
Possibly destroy.
Panel 5 - Small frame, centered on one eye of the man-creature. The lids are pulled way back, almost unnaturally so. The eye is a searing array of cataracts and lighting streaks. Muscles clench all around the socket and the bone structure is extremely prominent.
CAPTION
Almost certain, actually.
Panel 6 - We look up at the man-creature. It's splayed awkwardly in mid-air, after a lunge from the water tower. Wicked looking wings framed by knotted bone ridges and strands of muscle blossom from the creature's shoulder blades. Leathery flesh stretches across the framework, dotted with dark feathers here and there. Almost a sinister bat and almost a soaring falcon. Thorny protrusions line its fingers and palms. Blades resembling scythes run on each side of creature's calves.
CAPTION
It flies.
Page 10 -
Panel 1 - From the ceiling, we see a man in jeans and a creased t-shirt pacing his bedroom. It has a log cabin feel, a lot of wood surfaces and handcrafted furniture. The alarm clock is the surest sign of the times in the room. It reads 7:00, with a glowing dot next to the PM stamp.
CAPTION
Yesterday.
CAPTION #2
“A creature needs. . . lost love, terrible fate. . . something that really sets it off. Throws it over the edge.
Panel 2 - Close on the man's face. The narrator has angular features, straw-colored hair that behaves like a wild shrub. He has a hand rubbing his chin, covering his mouth. He bears a look of deep thought.
CAPTION
“A creature needs. . . conviction. Motivation. . .”
Panel 3 - The man sits on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, hands in his hair. The bedding is a patchwork quilt.
CAPTION
“A creature, above all, needs to be horrifying. I mean that. I really do. If you think the creature is anything like yourself, then it's just another human.”
Page 11 -
Panel 1 - Hank holds a lighter to his cigarette, his head turned, looking at Cale.
HANK
What?
Panel 2 - Cale offers a wry smile.
Panel 3 - Hank gestures with his lit cigarette.
HANK
It's a pre-game smoke. A warm up for the water tower.
Panel 4 - Cale now looks alert, eyes glancing to his side.
HANK
Come on. . .
Page 12 -
Panel 1 - The newly emerged tail of the man-creature slides its way between tree trunks and foliage.
CAPTION
A slight whisper.
Panel 2 - The scythed legs of the beast claw against the bed of leaves and dirt of the forest floor. The legs are barely touching the ground.
CAPTION
Reverberations.
Panel 3 - From behind, we see the transformed man-creature. Its wings are tucked close to its body, one gnarled arm outstretched, and the other thrown back. The man-creature's tail leaves a swath of upturned leaves in its wake.
CAPTION
A rush of blades, flesh, and air.
Panel 4 - From close to the ground, Hank throws his hands in front of himself, protecting against the man-creature that half soars, half sprints towards him. His cigarette tumbles through the air, a fiery ember. Cale is in mid-leap, desperately wrenching his body out of the thing's path.
CAPTION
It meets its firsts.
Page 13 -
Panel 1 - A hand taking hold of a tree root, clenching franticly. The hand is smeared with dirt and grime.
Panel 2 - Looking down at Cale, as he pulls himself up the steep hillside. His clothes and face are smeared with dirt, his shirt ripped.
CALE
Hank!
Panel 3 - From behind, Hank in a leaping sprint, head turned back to face us with wide eyes
Panel 4 - The almost human face of the man-creature, its pupils are dots, and its jaw is contorted in the way a wolf would raise its hackles.
Panel 5 - The man-creature's wing unfolds and catches Hank full in the chest.
Panel 6 - Hank is almost on his feet again.
Panel 7 - The man-creature tries to execute a quick turn, but its bulk and momentum make it slide pell-mell on the slick forest floor. Its wings beat furiously, working like a parachute.
Page 14 -
Panel 1 - Wide frame, with Hank pressed against a rock wall, looking up at Cale, perched on the precipice feet above Hank's head. The sheer rock extends for yards along the hillside. Hank has no time to traverse the slippery terrain before the man-creature pounds its way back up the slope.
Panel 2 - The man-creature manages to gain purchase and tenses its haunches, extends its forearms, starting its rush.
Panel 3 - Cale extends a hand down to Hank, lying on his stomach.
CALE
Come on! Get the hell up here!
Panel 4- Hank makes a mighty leap.
Panel 5 - The boys' hands clasp.
Panel 6 - A big frame, as the man-creature crashes against the sheer rock, feet below Hank's dangling body. Cale struggles to hold the weight of his bigger friend.
Page 15 -
Panel 1 - The man-creature holds itself upright against the sheer rock, head thrust back and a growl on its face. It searches the slope for the boys.
Panel 2 - Two pairs of feet strike the ground.
Panel 3 - Hank and Cale rush towards the maintenance shack by the clearing where the water tower stands.
HANK
Get inside!
Panel 4 - Hank and Cale have their backs leaning against the door to the shack. The walls are cluttered with tools; the floor is covered in bins of spare parts, nuts, and bolts. A steel girder leans against the back wall. The shadows are heavy.
CALE
Can you hear it?
HANK
No.
CALE
Your mom's gonna have to wait the night out all alone.
Panel 5 - Hank and Cale have relaxed somewhat, but are still holed up in the shack. They sit against walls opposite one another. Cale has his arms on his knees, curled up to his chest. He holds a cigarette in one hand. Hank leg's are spread out, his arms at his sides, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
CALE
Christ. What was that?
HANK
Huh. Well here's our smoke. Not quite how I imagined it.
Page 16 -
Panel 1 - A panoramic view of a high school. It's set atop a hill, four buildings scattered on the sides of the quad, where students congregate. Trees line the edge of the campus, giving way to a stretching forest. There's a soccer field, baseball diamond. It's early morning.
CAPTION
The Academy. Not a private school. It's just called that. The sun is new in the sky, and sleepy looks pass between all the students.
Panel 2 - In front of the gymnasium, a two story building that doubles as a cafeteria and home to the basketball team. Students converge on the glass double doors, and two single doors that flank the main entrance on each side. Hank and Cale are towards the back of the crowd, shifting along slowly.
CALE
I don't want to be here.
HANK
It's assembly. Just sit peacefully, let them tell you they're putting their foot down on parking, warn you that snowball season is ahead and that'll get you a detention. . .
CALE
Right.
Panel 3 - Inside the gymnasium, Hank and Cale climb the steps towards the faux assembly hall. The architecture is in the New England style. A lot of brick, some of it painted and rusty colors. A teacher stands by the door into the gym, a stern look on his face. He's in his late fifties, graying hair, and a peppered beard, just a little more than five o'clock shadow. He wears khakis and a plaid button-up. A wool jacket tops off the outfit.
CALE
Fenton looks grimmer than usual.
HANK
Prolly doesn't want to be here either.
CALE
There's no harm in retiring.
Panel 4 - The bleachers are pulled out across the shiny wood panels of the basketball court. Students dot the benches here and there; most of them still standing and conversing. Hank and Cale take seats in right corner of the gym, away from the stage, where the Dean of Students stands alongside two other teachers.
CALE
Dean's never here this early.
Page 17 -
Panel 1 - The Dean stands tall in front of all the seated students. His arms are folded.
DEAN
There's been a tragedy in our community.
Panel 2 - Hank and Cale share a curious look.
Panel 3 - Close on the Dean.
DEAN
Close by, a member of the community has been reported missing.
Panel 4 - The look Josh and Amy share, a few seats down Hank and Cale, is much more shifty. Almost worried.
Panel 5 - A wide frame of the assembly. The Dean's hands are in his pockets.
DEAN
There is no firm explanation for his disappearance, but police investigation points towards suspicious circumstances. I'm telling you this as a warning. Be cautious of your surroundings and keep on the lookout. The law would be indebted to anyone who can be of help.
Page 18 -
Panel 1 - Hank and Cale sit next to each other in Fenton's class. The teacher gesticulates with a stick of chalk from the board. Arrows point this way and that, formulas accompanying the diagrams. “Newton's Laws of Motion” is written and underlined atop all the writing. Cale slides a note to Hank.
Panel 2 - Hank looks down at the note, while Cale feigns attentiveness. Fenton continues his lecture.
FENTON
The second law of motion. . .Come on. . .
CAPTION
“I saw Josh and Amy last night. When I was out.”
Panel 3 - Josh and Amy sit a few rows behind the boys. They too look conspiratorial and distracted. Amy plays nervously with a lock of hair. Josh drums a silent rhythm with his pen.
CAPTION
“Smoking? No way. What were they doing?”
Panel 4 - Cale's hand scrawls on the scrap of notebook paper, below the reply. “Running.”
Panel 5 - Fenton strikes his chalk against the board. He's still wearing his wool jacket.
FENTON
The rate of change of momentum is proportional to the resultant force producing it and takes place in the direction of that force. Write that down. Resultant? Let's see some hands.
Page 19 -
Panel 1 - Back to the abode of the unnamed man. He's back at his pacing, hands on his hips. The vantage point is from the ceiling fan.
CAPTION
“Lightning. Flashes of hot white, forks of blinding daggers, heading right at the timid heads of our ancestors.”
Panel 2 - Looking through the window of the house, as the man stares out through the panes of glass.
CAPTION
“What must they have thought? Gods, most likely. Or demons. Something supernatural, not human, I'm sure. Did they think: Lightning is an exclamation of solar particles, charged to the breaking point?”
Panel 3 - Close on the man's features, his face buried in an expression of intense belief.
CAPTION
“It was a phenomenon. It was not a static charge. Tumbling electrons and protons.”
Panel 4 - The man points at us, imitating the men who walked the earth millions of years ago, marveling at the jagged darts of lightning. His face mirrors the amazed expression the men must have had.
CAPTION
“It was decidedly marvelous.”
Page 20 -
Panel 1 - The Academy, on the quad. It's lunch and kids are spread out on the grass. Hank and Cale stand in front of another student. A typical high-schooler. She's slouched, dressed snazzy with a backpack hanging off one shoulder.
STUDENT
Josh and Amy? Yeah, they're down at the woodlot. It's for Forestry. I wouldn't interrupt them, though. They're prolly. . . You know. In the teepee-thing.
HANK
Thanks.
Panel 2 - Hank and Cale cross the quad, heading toward the main entrance to the Academy. Beyond the two-lane road is a slope, heading to a ridge of forest. A man-made path winds its way into the woods, towards the woodlot.
HANK
She's cute.
CALE
Yeah. . .
HANK
No red-haired beauty of course.
Panel 3 - Cale looks over his shoulder to a group of students walking the opposite direction.
Panel 4 - Move to the group of students, particularly a tall-ish girl wearing a flowing skirt and red t-shirt. Her auburn hair flows over her shoulders and down her back. She has emerald eyes.
Panel 5 - Cale gives Hank a stern look.
CALE
Hey. . .
Page 21 -
Panel 1 - Inside the teepee, at the woodlot. The Rolex sits on a stump between Josh and Amy. They give the watch suspicious stares.
AMY
It's just a watch.
JOSH
No! It's not our watch. So it's not just a watch. It's our dirty little trinket.
Panel 2 - Hank and Cale approach the teepee, steeping over fallen tree trunks, and axes lying across the path.
CAPTION
“At least the sex was really fuckin' good.”
Panel 3 - From inside the teepee. Hank peels back the flap, peering inside. Josh launches at the Rolex, hoping to hide it. Amy is caught in a pose of surprise.
HANK
Flashy.
Panel 4 - Amy glares daggers at Hank.
AMY
Get the hell out. Now.
Panel 5 - Hank puts on a wry grin. Cale looks through the flap from behind Hank.
HANK
Where were you last night Amy?
Panel 6 - Josh looks livid.
JOSH
Fuck Cale. I told you I didn't have a problem with you. So you had to go tell the jet-black hulk here, didn't you?
Page 22 -
Panel 1 - Cale enters the tepee.
CALE
Someone's missing. You heard that? So just tell us what you did. Screw the cops. Let's just get this straight.
Panel 2 - Josh is just as angry.
JOSH
Really? Someone's missing. No way. Why do you care so much anyway?
Panel 3 - Hank and Cale look at each other uncomfortably.
Panel 4 - Hank squats and stares at Josh and Amy.
HANK
Listen. Alright? We were going up to the water tower last night. . .
CALE
For a cigarette. . .
Page 23 -
Panel 1 - The four kids, Josh, Amy, Hank, and Cale trudge up a dirt road, bordered on both sides by heavy woods. Hank and Amy shine flashlights through the darkness.
JOSH
Why do we have to go up here?
HANK
Things like this don't happen everyday.
JOSH
Doesn't mean we need to get involved if they do.
Panel 2 - Amy trails behind the rest of the group. She has a funny look on her face, like something's just a bit off in her perception.
CAPTION
1687. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Sir Isaac Newton's coup de grace. A lanky man with a wavy mane of light hair. He had those eyes that looked so profoundly aware.
Panel 3 - Amy stares at her hand by her waist. It swings slightly and a blur follows its movements.
CAPTION
Law, the first. A physical body will remain at rest, or continue to move at a constant velocity, unless an outside net force acts upon it.
Panel 4 - A wider frame of Amy alone on the road, jerking slightly. Each limb has a blurry trail behind it.
AMY
Guys?
Panel 5 - The three boys are in the foreground, looking back at Amy. Her entire body appears evanescent. Scattered about the road are three imprints of Amy, floating in the still air. Her dialogue balloon comes from the three ephemeral bodies and the solid one.
AMY
Something's happening. . .
Page 24 -
Panel 1 - Josh runs towards Amy. He's frantic, scared. Hank and Cale look in awe and disbelief.
JOSH
Amy!
Panel 2 - Josh throws his arms around Amy, but it's one of the transient bodies. It dissipates when Josh comes into contact with.
Panel 3 - Josh whirls around, the real Amy in front of him. She's holding out her arms.
Panel 4 - Josh and Amy embrace.
AMY
I'm here.
JOSH
Wh-why?
Panel 5 - Focus on Hank and Cale. The dirt around Hank's feet swirls in bizarre patterns. Cale eyes the miniature whorls out of the corner of his vision.
CAPTION
Back to 1687. Law, the second. The rate of change of momentum is proportional to the resultant force producing it and takes place in the direction of that force. Curious. . .
Panel 6 - Hank picks up his foot, wary of the dust storm surging about his tennis shoes.
HANK
Huh.
Page 25 -
Panel 1 - Hank stands beside Cale. Leaves, dirt clots, and branches gravitate towards, and around Hank. Josh is posed as if he was about to put his hands on Amy's shoulder, but the girl is falling backwards.
CAPTION
Law, the third.
Panel 2 - Amy lands on all fours, the fleeting haze streaming around her.
AMY
Hey Josh! It's still me.
Panel 3 - Josh looks down, surprised, palms displayed outward in a position of innocence.
JOSH
No. I didn't mean to. I just wanted to hold you.
Panel 4 - Amy looks almost angry.
AMY
Well you didn't!
CAPTION
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. . . Horse pulls a rock on a string, and the rock pulls back with just as much vigor.
Panel 5 - Everyone stares at Cale, standing bemused.
HANK
What about you?
Page 26 -
Panel 1 - The abode again. The log cabin. The man has his hands spread outward.
CAPTION
“A chimera.”
Panel 2 - The mythological beast, on its hind legs, letting out a mighty roar. It stands atop a jut of rock, clouds wreathing the blue sky.
CAPTION
“A lion's head protrudes from the neck, and down into the forepaws, followed the ragged fur of a goat, and an awkward, blatting head of the mountainous cross between an antelope and a sheep.”
Panel 3 - The beast stares us down, licks of flame curling at the corners of its fanged mouth. Gouts of smoke spew from the goat head's flared nostrils.
CAPTION
“And from the tensed haunch of the immortal creation, a scaled tail emerges, topped with the lean countenance of a snake, a brilliant emerald green.”
Panel 4 - The chimera throws its forepaws at us, drawing its maw wide, and releasing a furling spit of flame.
CAPTION
“Birthed by the tumultuous Typhon and the scathing beauty Echidna. Instead, I see a different history.”
Panel 5 - The man swings his arms around, like a propeller. The ceiling fan follows a similar cyclonic motion above him.
CAPTION
“I see three animal friends, a goat, a lion and a viper. They crawl about each other when a mortal stumbles into their clearing. The animals turn at his entrance.”
CAPTION #2
“From the man's angle, he sees one creature, something surely from beyond his world. The lion skirts his paw across the ground, breaking a natural deposit of sulfuric gas, and igniting it with a spark from an unsheathed claw struck against sheer rock.”
CAPTION #3
“The mortal runs back to his village, his assessment confirmed by the maelstrom of fire that appeared to issue from the lion's mouth.”
CAPTION #4
“I mean, things are confused like that often. You just don't know what you're seeing. Could be this. . .Could be that. You never know.”
Page 27 -
Panel 1 - The house Josh and Amy invaded earlier looms in front of the four. All the lights are out. It's built against a hill, in a rustic, farmhouse style. Crimson clapboards line the walls and simple, stained wood sills sit below the windows.
CALE
What do we do?
Panel 2 - Hank strides up the cobble stone path to the front door.
HANK
We go inside.
Panel 3 - Shadows coat every surface. The interior is a mirror to the bedroom in the unnamed man's abode. Wood surfaces everywhere and a lack of extravagant decor.
AMY
It's dark.
JOSH
Where's the light switch?
HANK
Figured you'd know. You've been here before.
JOSH
Shut up.
Panel 4 - Illumination floods the living room. Cale stands by a light switch, his finger still one the flicker.
CALE
Found it.
Panel 5 - Josh turns his head, attentive to a faint sound.
JOSH
Shut up!
Panel 6 - Cale turns on Josh, agitated.
CALE
I found the damn switch! This isn't your little con now either, so just cut ─
Panel 7 - Hank puts a hand on Cale's shoulder. Hank's forefinger is at his lips in the “shush” gesture.
HANK
Listen.
Page 28 -
Panel 1 - The frame fills half the page. The front door bursts off its hinges and is tumbling through the air. The man-creature pulls itself through the front door. Its tail is poised like a scorpion's above its head. Its face is a mask of revulsion and anger.
MAN-CREATURE
HOME!
Panel 2 - Hank backs up, keeping his gaze fixed on the writhing man-creature.
HANK
Oh no.
Panel 3 - Amy is out of the frame save a bracelet-laden hand trailing behind her. The evanescent remnant hangs suspended.
Panel 4 - Close on Cale's face. He's terrified, turned away from us, about to make a leap.
Panel 5 - Josh steels himself, facing directly at the man-creature.
JOSH
Come on. . .
Page 29 -
Panel 1 - The unnamed man looks out his bedroom window. A flashing ball of light floats towards his window, slightly bigger than the stars.
MAN
Well, here you are.
Panel 2 - Focus on the ball of light, growing larger through the window.
CAPTION
“I've been waiting and who knows what you've been up to.”
Panel 3 - Shafts of light shine through the window and fill the bedroom with ricocheting beams of luminescence. The clock reads 10:00. The man opens his arms in submission.
MAN
Yeah, go ahead! I'm all ready!
Panel 4 - A vague silhouette hovers through the bright light, approaching the man.
CAPTION
“Damn Flyers. I knew you'd come.”
Panel 5 - The windowpanes shatter, spraying against the man. He keeps his arms open. His face is warped in anger.
MAN
What's the worst you can do?
Panel 6 - Back at the water tower. A funnel of light washes over the tank, the man-creature descending within it.
CAPTION
“What have you done to me?”
Page 30 -
Panel 1 - The man-creature rushes at Josh, who remains determined, hands at his sides. Amy looks on in horror.
CAPTION
An equal and opposite reaction.
Panel 2 - The man-creature crashes into Josh, beating its wings furiously. Josh puts all his weight against the creature.
Panel 3 - Both the man-creature and Josh fall backwards. Amy is jetting her way towards Josh, who looks stunned.
Panel 4 - She catches him, and dashes away just as the man-creature breaks the wood floor with a strike of its clawed forearm.
Panel 5 - Hank swipes his arm at the man-creature, intense with concentration.
Page 31 -
Panel 1 - The debris from around the shoots at the man-creature. The unhinged door hits the thing full on the side, leaving a wing limp at its side.
Panel 2 - Cale stands in a corner of the living room, tormented he can't join the fight, and feeling helpless.
Panel 3 - Hank, Amy, and Josh unite in front of the man-creature. They all have fierce looks directed at the beast.
MAN-CREATURE
HOME!
Panel 4 - Cale pulls back his blazer's sleeve, gazing at his bare wrist.
CALE
The watch. . .
Panel 5 - Cale runs towards the three, his bare wrist outstretched.
CALE
Josh! The watch! It's all about the watch!
Panel 6 - Josh turns, just as the man-creature flails its tail, catching John across the chest.
Page 32 -
Panel 1 - Cale holds out a hand. Amy runs towards Josh, who looks like he's been through a wood mill. Hank stands the man-creature down, both hands thrust at the creature, sending lances of splintered wood forward.
HANK
Get back!
Panel 2 - The man-creature catches one of the wooden lances in its chest, and kicks Hank with a scythed foot, screaming out.
Panel 3 - Close on the Rolex around Josh's wrist. His other hand is sliding it off with a hooked finger. The hands are stopped on the 10:00 marker.
Panel 4 - Josh throws the Rolex across the room with the rest of his strength.
JOSH
Cale!
Panel 5 - Cale takes a mighty vault over a pile of debris, the Rolex falling into his grasping hand.
Panel 6 - Amy streaks in front the man-creature bearing in the collapsed Hank and Josh.
Page 33 -
Panel 1 - Amy launches a blurred punch at the man-creature's leering face.
Panel 2 - It gazes at her through a trickle of blood with mirth and a raised eyebrow.
Panel 3 - Cale's on the ground, cut, and struggling to his feet.
CAPTION
Einstein. The universe is expanding. Time dilation. Even weightless rays of light bend in the presence of a gravitational field.
Panel 4 - Cale stands, the Rolex clutched his hand.
Panel 5 - The man-creature rears back, grasping its skull in anguish. Fingers pry at its eyes.
CAPTION
For it, the man-creature, only absolute darkness is seen. Every beam of light veers away from the thing's straining pupils.
Panel 6 - The man-creature slams its fist against a wall blindly, the other hand still clinging to its useless eyes.
Page 34 -
Panel 1 - The man-creature retreats through the ruined doorway. The four kids stand side by side among the wreckage of the living room. Amy and Josh have their arms around each other.
CALE
I found mine.
Panel 2 - Josh runs a hand through his hair, staring at the gaping doorway.
JOSH
Where's it gonna go?
Panel 3 - Hank and Cale stand near each other. Hank pats Cale on the back, head turned toward Josh.
HANK
Dunno. I figure it'll be back.
CALE
It said “home.”
Panel 4 - The four kids pick their way through the wreckage and out into the night.
CAPTION
The four walked under the stars, towards the city that was more of a town. They called it home.
Page 35 -
Panel 1 - We see the woods trail from overhead; the Academy nestled in the edge of the frame. Four figures stand next to a wooden railing, talking.
Panel 2 - Swoop in, the four figures are Cale, Hank, Josh, and Amy. Hank and Cale are smoking.
CALE
What do we do now? I mean with these. . .powers. . .
HANK
When it comes back. We keep it at bay.
Panel 3 - Amy takes a drag from Hank's cigarette.
AMY
What do you mean us?
Panel 4 - Cale gives her a smirk.
Panel 5 - Josh takes the communal cigarette.
JOSH
I liked things before.
Panel 6 - Cale grows serious, looking at Josh.
CALE
You didn't like it here anyway. You wanted out. Now there's a better reason to stay in town.
Panel 7 - A wide frame of the four kids. They all stand separate, unique, but united. Cale takes a drag from his cigarette.
JOSH
I guess I'll stick around then.
CALE
What about that water tower Hank?
Feather by Frank Vasquez
I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t help this feeling any more! Sitting way up here, my head touching the clouds and fingers smearing dirt on the clean blue canvas of sky, I feel so ready to end my life. I look down and see that nice patch of grass I can lie upon. Aside from my own thoughts, all I can hear is the wind and the whispers of intangible Heaven’s invisible angels.
“What are you doing here, small one? All the way up here! You’ll fall,” a female-voiced angel hisses softly into my ear.
Below my feet, there is a tiny cloud. I do not answer the angel. The roof of an impossibly tall tower of a magnificent and forgotten castle in the high mountains north of Nowhere is where I sit. I dare not answer her for fear of damning myself. After all, this castle had heard and seen all of it. One slip of my tongue, and I’d surely be held in contempt and thereby jeopardize any currently unforeseen chances for salvation.
So, I dangle my feet over the edge and kick gently so as not to disturb the little cloud. I can hear the tower blinking, its many eyes slamming their shutters open and closed. I can see the walls of the tower shrinking behind me, trying to get closer – hoping to somehow get a better listen. I can smell the swiftly decaying corpse of the hours-dead princess from here. She’s been dead for forty-one hours.
“What use is a knight that fails in his chivalrous duty?” I mutter.
My hands are still sticky and dirty with blood. I’d slain the dragon! Yet, I had failed to save her. I am a terrible hero. No comforting words for me, though. Oh, no, that’s not what I deserve at all! Not all of this blood belonged to the dragon, after all. That girl had put up quite a ferocious fight for herself. Neither of my naked weapons tasted her delight. Instead, there had been only blood and tears, and then she was dead.
I’m not much of a knight. The angels up here know it. They know me.
“You should fall now. Do it,” an angel whispers sweetly. “If you’re too heavy with sin, then we shan’t catch you. If you’re light as a feather, then you’ll go to Heaven.”
Something warm and yellow waters the top of my head. I hear the anything-but-damned things snickering behind me, and all around me. They say angels are in God’s favor. They are what you become when you are taken to Heaven. The truth is, angels, despite their enlightened wisdom and invisible ways of infinity, are actually quite stupid. Angels say and do things without realizing. They aren’t necessarily sinful, so much as they… well, their heads are up in the clouds – always on high.
I would not believe this to be true, were it not for the fact that I am witnessing the validity of this heresy for myself. These angels are urging me to kill myself, and this causes me to smile. Ending my life intentionally will send me to Hell. Having raped that princess will send me there, anyway. My fate is completely in their hands. I can hardly keep my eyes from tearing with joy.
“Light as a feather, eh? Try and catch me, then!” I exclaim as I push myself off the roof.
“Wait, Sir Knight! What is your name? We must have a name for your grave!” an angel cries out.
I laugh as I fall ever so slowly from very up high, and answer, “I am Sir Feather! Sir Feather of the Castle Bird.”
The angels catch me and bring me to Heaven’s Gates.
“You are disgusting,” one of them says, and he spits on me.
I grin, and lick my lips. There, I can still taste the yolk of the dragon’s eggs. My one regret in all of this, as my feet dangle in the air below me, is that I never got to scramble one of those delectable dragon delights! The mommy had woken to my coughing as I had choked on a bit of shell. It had scraped my throat all the way down until it reached my belly. Before I could open my eyes from wincing through the pain, the big ole Mama Lizard pinned me beneath a great scaly paw and bellowed in my face:
“You are going to taste disgusting!”
Her breath singed my hair a dirty dirty blonde.
I was then swallowed whole, but not before calling out, “Oh, I know it.”
Dragons don’t have hearts. Well, I mean, they do, but they don’t. This is difficult to explain to anyone who has never encountered a dragon. This, as I am sure is obvious, speaks for the vast majority of the human population. You see, dragons breathe fire- a magical fire. Before they are of age to roast you on a stake, dragons have hearts that pump blood. Upon reaching that certain age, their blood boils and, by some property of providence bestowed by God upon this otherwise insignificant-in-all-things-but-its-size lizard, turns to flame. This flame fills the lungs of the great beast (hence the smoke that emanates from its nostrils) and can be ejected in much the same way as a burp, though not necessarily the same concept… I hope you’re following me, as this is difficult to explain. I am doing my best.
Now, the heart of a dragon can be likened to a furnace, of sorts. What I did was cut my way to Mama Dragon’s heart and, well, follow me here, I smothered the flame. I tossed my cape over it and stomped it out. The heart, I mean, I extinguished the furnace that was the heart. The dragon’s flame died out and changed back into blood. I, needless to say, not willing to stay where I was, hacked my way out of the dead dragon. Heading for the stairs, I had a feeling I knew what was next. I mean, this was for the girl – for me!
Now again, as I am dumped on my face before Heaven’s Gates, I have a feeling I know what I’m in for. Picking myself up off the cloudy floor, I take care not to look around. My eyes remain shut as I brush myself off. In doing so, I realize very suddenly that I have left my pants behind. Muttering a profanity, I lift my shirt over my head and cast it down to Earth. After all, it’s only going to get in the way of my wings. Shaking the hair out of my face, and putting on a big smile, I finally look up and ahead at the Gates.
There’s a girl in the way.
I crane my neck leftwards, to look past her. She takes a step to the right, impeding my view. I lean to the right, and she shifts accordingly.
“God damn… Never mind,” I growl. I shove the girl aside. The skin on my palms smolders and melts the instant I touch her. I cry out sharply, and give her a look. That’s when I recognize her.
“Hello.” She picks herself up as I glare at her. “Why do you look at me like that? What have I done to you? Hmm?”
She carefully stands upright, her golden curly locks bouncing at the every tilt of her chin. She must be naked, but one can never know with these angels. Some, present company included, seem to enjoy casting that awful bright light about their bodies. So bright is their glow, their body seems to become the light itself.
“You,” I say flatly.
“Yes, me. Happy to see me? I’m saved!” It’s fairly obvious she is being ironic, especially as she spreads her angel wings to show off her newly established sanctity. The light about her dims to a mere halo over her head. She is naked, but never mind that. There’s eternity for it, later.
“Yes, well, I must be on my way. I get my wings next.” I move to walk around her.
The girl admonishes me, once again stepping in my way as she does so, “You bastard, Feather. You raped me! Killed me!”
That’s when I remember. Call it Enlightenment, because there’s no other way I could have realized. I flash back to my stepfather’s court and the shiny crown on his thick skull. He is not favoring me with a smile. The castle is empty, or so it would seem in this vision. I guess you could say only the most significant aspects of the moment were being revealed to me. Still, as I grit my teeth in pain of this memory, I can’t help but wish my little cloud friend were here to distract me. The King of Castle Bird and the Nestlands of Nowhere, my stepfather, is charging me with my mission. My mother, the Queen, sits in the lesser throne before him. The vile, treacherous woman! I didn’t need a ghost to tell me just how little the current monarchy deserved my trust and respect.
“Feather! Do you hear me?” my stepfather bellows.
“Mhmm…” I murmur.
“You are to bring her back here to her father!” he repeats.
“And my mother returned to her son,” I glare at them both as I say this. In retrospect, so to speak, this was not so significant a thing to say as I had intended it to be.
The King rolls his eyes accordingly, “Okay, Hamlet.”
“You -”
“- Are not in a Shakespearean play. Your father died of natural cause. Your mother married me to keep her power, and so I am king. Now, go -”
“- Rescue,” and I say this as I return to the present eternal, “my daughter. God damn me.”
“You are disgusting.” My half-sister, the princess I’d raped and killed, spits at my feet.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you angels are, too?” I remark airily. I take a step off the edge of the clouds and begin to fall slowly. That little patch of grass is down there somewhere. Perhaps I’ll at least pass through it on my way down. I know I’ll see my little cloud, and this, at least, makes me smile.
“Go to Hell, Feather!” she calls down from above.
“I’m going, I’m going.” I mutter.
“What are you doing here, small one? All the way up here! You’ll fall,” a female-voiced angel hisses softly into my ear.
Below my feet, there is a tiny cloud. I do not answer the angel. The roof of an impossibly tall tower of a magnificent and forgotten castle in the high mountains north of Nowhere is where I sit. I dare not answer her for fear of damning myself. After all, this castle had heard and seen all of it. One slip of my tongue, and I’d surely be held in contempt and thereby jeopardize any currently unforeseen chances for salvation.
So, I dangle my feet over the edge and kick gently so as not to disturb the little cloud. I can hear the tower blinking, its many eyes slamming their shutters open and closed. I can see the walls of the tower shrinking behind me, trying to get closer – hoping to somehow get a better listen. I can smell the swiftly decaying corpse of the hours-dead princess from here. She’s been dead for forty-one hours.
“What use is a knight that fails in his chivalrous duty?” I mutter.
My hands are still sticky and dirty with blood. I’d slain the dragon! Yet, I had failed to save her. I am a terrible hero. No comforting words for me, though. Oh, no, that’s not what I deserve at all! Not all of this blood belonged to the dragon, after all. That girl had put up quite a ferocious fight for herself. Neither of my naked weapons tasted her delight. Instead, there had been only blood and tears, and then she was dead.
I’m not much of a knight. The angels up here know it. They know me.
“You should fall now. Do it,” an angel whispers sweetly. “If you’re too heavy with sin, then we shan’t catch you. If you’re light as a feather, then you’ll go to Heaven.”
Something warm and yellow waters the top of my head. I hear the anything-but-damned things snickering behind me, and all around me. They say angels are in God’s favor. They are what you become when you are taken to Heaven. The truth is, angels, despite their enlightened wisdom and invisible ways of infinity, are actually quite stupid. Angels say and do things without realizing. They aren’t necessarily sinful, so much as they… well, their heads are up in the clouds – always on high.
I would not believe this to be true, were it not for the fact that I am witnessing the validity of this heresy for myself. These angels are urging me to kill myself, and this causes me to smile. Ending my life intentionally will send me to Hell. Having raped that princess will send me there, anyway. My fate is completely in their hands. I can hardly keep my eyes from tearing with joy.
“Light as a feather, eh? Try and catch me, then!” I exclaim as I push myself off the roof.
“Wait, Sir Knight! What is your name? We must have a name for your grave!” an angel cries out.
I laugh as I fall ever so slowly from very up high, and answer, “I am Sir Feather! Sir Feather of the Castle Bird.”
The angels catch me and bring me to Heaven’s Gates.
“You are disgusting,” one of them says, and he spits on me.
I grin, and lick my lips. There, I can still taste the yolk of the dragon’s eggs. My one regret in all of this, as my feet dangle in the air below me, is that I never got to scramble one of those delectable dragon delights! The mommy had woken to my coughing as I had choked on a bit of shell. It had scraped my throat all the way down until it reached my belly. Before I could open my eyes from wincing through the pain, the big ole Mama Lizard pinned me beneath a great scaly paw and bellowed in my face:
“You are going to taste disgusting!”
Her breath singed my hair a dirty dirty blonde.
I was then swallowed whole, but not before calling out, “Oh, I know it.”
Dragons don’t have hearts. Well, I mean, they do, but they don’t. This is difficult to explain to anyone who has never encountered a dragon. This, as I am sure is obvious, speaks for the vast majority of the human population. You see, dragons breathe fire- a magical fire. Before they are of age to roast you on a stake, dragons have hearts that pump blood. Upon reaching that certain age, their blood boils and, by some property of providence bestowed by God upon this otherwise insignificant-in-all-things-but-its-size lizard, turns to flame. This flame fills the lungs of the great beast (hence the smoke that emanates from its nostrils) and can be ejected in much the same way as a burp, though not necessarily the same concept… I hope you’re following me, as this is difficult to explain. I am doing my best.
Now, the heart of a dragon can be likened to a furnace, of sorts. What I did was cut my way to Mama Dragon’s heart and, well, follow me here, I smothered the flame. I tossed my cape over it and stomped it out. The heart, I mean, I extinguished the furnace that was the heart. The dragon’s flame died out and changed back into blood. I, needless to say, not willing to stay where I was, hacked my way out of the dead dragon. Heading for the stairs, I had a feeling I knew what was next. I mean, this was for the girl – for me!
Now again, as I am dumped on my face before Heaven’s Gates, I have a feeling I know what I’m in for. Picking myself up off the cloudy floor, I take care not to look around. My eyes remain shut as I brush myself off. In doing so, I realize very suddenly that I have left my pants behind. Muttering a profanity, I lift my shirt over my head and cast it down to Earth. After all, it’s only going to get in the way of my wings. Shaking the hair out of my face, and putting on a big smile, I finally look up and ahead at the Gates.
There’s a girl in the way.
I crane my neck leftwards, to look past her. She takes a step to the right, impeding my view. I lean to the right, and she shifts accordingly.
“God damn… Never mind,” I growl. I shove the girl aside. The skin on my palms smolders and melts the instant I touch her. I cry out sharply, and give her a look. That’s when I recognize her.
“Hello.” She picks herself up as I glare at her. “Why do you look at me like that? What have I done to you? Hmm?”
She carefully stands upright, her golden curly locks bouncing at the every tilt of her chin. She must be naked, but one can never know with these angels. Some, present company included, seem to enjoy casting that awful bright light about their bodies. So bright is their glow, their body seems to become the light itself.
“You,” I say flatly.
“Yes, me. Happy to see me? I’m saved!” It’s fairly obvious she is being ironic, especially as she spreads her angel wings to show off her newly established sanctity. The light about her dims to a mere halo over her head. She is naked, but never mind that. There’s eternity for it, later.
“Yes, well, I must be on my way. I get my wings next.” I move to walk around her.
The girl admonishes me, once again stepping in my way as she does so, “You bastard, Feather. You raped me! Killed me!”
That’s when I remember. Call it Enlightenment, because there’s no other way I could have realized. I flash back to my stepfather’s court and the shiny crown on his thick skull. He is not favoring me with a smile. The castle is empty, or so it would seem in this vision. I guess you could say only the most significant aspects of the moment were being revealed to me. Still, as I grit my teeth in pain of this memory, I can’t help but wish my little cloud friend were here to distract me. The King of Castle Bird and the Nestlands of Nowhere, my stepfather, is charging me with my mission. My mother, the Queen, sits in the lesser throne before him. The vile, treacherous woman! I didn’t need a ghost to tell me just how little the current monarchy deserved my trust and respect.
“Feather! Do you hear me?” my stepfather bellows.
“Mhmm…” I murmur.
“You are to bring her back here to her father!” he repeats.
“And my mother returned to her son,” I glare at them both as I say this. In retrospect, so to speak, this was not so significant a thing to say as I had intended it to be.
The King rolls his eyes accordingly, “Okay, Hamlet.”
“You -”
“- Are not in a Shakespearean play. Your father died of natural cause. Your mother married me to keep her power, and so I am king. Now, go -”
“- Rescue,” and I say this as I return to the present eternal, “my daughter. God damn me.”
“You are disgusting.” My half-sister, the princess I’d raped and killed, spits at my feet.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you angels are, too?” I remark airily. I take a step off the edge of the clouds and begin to fall slowly. That little patch of grass is down there somewhere. Perhaps I’ll at least pass through it on my way down. I know I’ll see my little cloud, and this, at least, makes me smile.
“Go to Hell, Feather!” she calls down from above.
“I’m going, I’m going.” I mutter.
The Suffocation of Chastity by Frank Vasquez
Subtle breasts supplying milk
in the lands of rape and money.
Victimized periods, vicious blood-letting
on the carpets of holy exonerates.
And all of this and the name of the Lord
in the name of the Lord:
There are hymens broken upon his word –
his children the sword.
The subculture chastises chastity
and oppression becomes the adopted policy
as humanity aborts its own mothers,
we say we don't need the Father or the fathers.
Blessed are the children:
the first to betray the chaste.
In the lands of milk and honey:
supple breasts, sumptuous rape,
On the carpets of forgiven sinners:
violent periods venerating bloodshed.
In the name of the Lord:
all of this is the face of the Lord.
There is hope in believing his word,
and the child is the sword.
The culture endorses chastity
but oppression is the actual policy
a man may be a woman may abort a mother.
We know we need the Father.
Cursed are the children.
The chaste are the first to betray.
in the lands of rape and money.
Victimized periods, vicious blood-letting
on the carpets of holy exonerates.
And all of this and the name of the Lord
in the name of the Lord:
There are hymens broken upon his word –
his children the sword.
The subculture chastises chastity
and oppression becomes the adopted policy
as humanity aborts its own mothers,
we say we don't need the Father or the fathers.
Blessed are the children:
the first to betray the chaste.
In the lands of milk and honey:
supple breasts, sumptuous rape,
On the carpets of forgiven sinners:
violent periods venerating bloodshed.
In the name of the Lord:
all of this is the face of the Lord.
There is hope in believing his word,
and the child is the sword.
The culture endorses chastity
but oppression is the actual policy
a man may be a woman may abort a mother.
We know we need the Father.
Cursed are the children.
The chaste are the first to betray.
Undercover Vagabonds by Elizabeth McLister
We’d steal beneath those pitted cloaks of night,
Outdoors from fence to rails our bedgowns shone,
Never wondering whether we were right
To amble into pregnant brush alone.
So spryly we, wee weetzie bats would sift,
Eyes peeled to pluck some treasure off the tracks.
Discerning clumps of fur and knotted guts,
Pressed coins, touchstones, and bones, and old shoe scraps.
When seeking mystery in daylight hours
The dregs from those excursions left us cold –
So every month we’d rise above feigned sleep
To tramp along the tracks, intrepid-bold.
Before first light sent us to snug cocoons,
We’d stockpile cool caches beneath ripe moons.
Outdoors from fence to rails our bedgowns shone,
Never wondering whether we were right
To amble into pregnant brush alone.
So spryly we, wee weetzie bats would sift,
Eyes peeled to pluck some treasure off the tracks.
Discerning clumps of fur and knotted guts,
Pressed coins, touchstones, and bones, and old shoe scraps.
When seeking mystery in daylight hours
The dregs from those excursions left us cold –
So every month we’d rise above feigned sleep
To tramp along the tracks, intrepid-bold.
Before first light sent us to snug cocoons,
We’d stockpile cool caches beneath ripe moons.
Darjeeling by Anna Kongs
The blue rail cars cut the desert into uneven halves.
Somewhere a child is dying
and the women are plucking white blossoms for their funeral robes.
Even the river stones are washed white.
They took salt from the earth
and sweetened their sorrows with the weeds on the dirt road
staining their palms with the sugary grain.
A lone musician offers his notes to the canyon walls
a lowing croon, a half-hat, a b-flat blue.
This is where they wash their hands in the ash –
devote their flames to multi-coloured gods
and bow their necks in devotion,
a serving spot for blessings.
Somewhere a child is dying
and the women are plucking white blossoms for their funeral robes.
Even the river stones are washed white.
They took salt from the earth
and sweetened their sorrows with the weeds on the dirt road
staining their palms with the sugary grain.
A lone musician offers his notes to the canyon walls
a lowing croon, a half-hat, a b-flat blue.
This is where they wash their hands in the ash –
devote their flames to multi-coloured gods
and bow their necks in devotion,
a serving spot for blessings.
The Boy who Loved to Collect Things by Frank Vasquez
Once, not so long ago, there was a boy who loved to collect things. He was not specifically into any sort of collecting, not stamps and not bottle caps. The boy simply enjoyed collecting whatever he found lying about. More specifically, he had a penchant for collecting important things people left behind or otherwise forgot about. The boy’s room was filled with other people’s forgotten valuables that he had collected over the years. There were shoelaces and ribbons, string and nail filers. There were broken watches and Swiss army knives, lockets and keys, and coins and receipts. The boy collected everything, and left nothing behind. He would fill his brown sack until he could no longer lift it over his shoulders, and always cram anything extra into his pockets and up his sleeves. Not only was the boy’s room filled with the collected, but his basement was as well.
Now, the dear boy’s parents were awfully ashamed of their boy’s hobby. This was a thing for them to shake their heads in disappointment over. “What a burdensome, lackadaisical child I have for a son!” his father would protest every time his son would return home with his brown sack. “Why can’t you just play sports and tease girls like boys did when I was your age?” the boy’s mother would whisper when she snooped through his room. The boy’s parents blamed the boy’s friends for his peculiar fondness of salvaging other people’s lost items. They told the boy he was never to speak to these children again as they were “not friends but troublesome influences!” His mother had “half a mind to write an angry letter to their parents about their boys’ lunatic behavior!”
In fact, the boy had no such negative influences as friends in his life. He did not have friends because his collecting left no time to make friends. Not only that, but children his age often kept away from the boy because he was always collecting. The boy had no friends, but had considered making one or two, and had hopes that he would one day, until his parents told him he was not to have them. The boy was saddened, but not for very long. He did not know what a friend was, and collecting was friend enough to him. His parents took no notice of this, however. They simply gave up on their dear boy, because “The next one will turn out right!”
In truth, there had already been two “next ones” in the last five years. The boy was nine, and his siblings were just as strange as he was. Both children developed their own weird habits at early ages, and both times the parents rejected the child as their own. All three siblings, being so wrapped up in their little hobby worlds, took no notice of each other and barely acknowledged one or the other’s existence. The boy was growing up alone, except for his collecting.
Now, one night, it turned very cold and windy. The clouds that had accumulated overhead during the day began to flake off snow. Pretty soon, those flakes of snow turned to sheets on the ground. Those sheets layered up into blankets and then to quilts. The snow fell straight down, very hard and very quickly. The wind seemed to be blowing down from the clouds themselves. Each gust blew a man’s hat down on his face rather than off of his head. The boy, feeling colder and colder by the hour, peered out his bedroom window to view the layers that had fallen to the ground. “There will be no school tomorrow. There will be plenty to collect, and there might even be some already! I should go have a look!”
It may have been one o’clock in the morning, but the boy did not seem to notice or care. He pulled on his blue winter jacket and red knit cap. He wrapped the red knit scarf around his neck and wriggled his feet into his snow boots. He left his fingers glove-free, in order to collect from the snow without the troublesome bother of his bulky gloves. Taking only a moment to locate his brown sack, the boy was soon out the door. He took no heed of his mother, who was busy arguing with his father over whether or not there would be a “next one.” (“Damn it, woman,” his father was saying as the boy left the house. “Maybe this one will make us proud.”)
The boy set out into the high snow with the brown sack protecting his fingers, at least until he found something worthy of replacing his precious digits with in the sack. Somewhere, not too far off, a wolf bayed as the boy looked up, through the clouds that were breaking up, at the moon. He walked along for a long while, until he spotted a slight indentation in the otherwise untouched snow ahead of him. He headed straight for it, eager to make his first collection of the night.
As he approached it, he became acutely aware of a bad odor that hung in the air. This was strange. The cold night air usually made his nose so numb he could never smell a thing. The boy reached the indentation in the snow, and reached in to pull up… a finger. It was shriveled and purple, and yet seemed to pulse softly and weakly with life. The boy decided to keep it, after some deliberation. He slid it into his pants pocket and continued trudging through the snow, avoiding the stinking crater the finger had been found in. He walked briskly, and so did not know that the bad odor wafted after him.
The boy had not walked very far from that crater when he saw a strange sight. It made his eyes go wide and his jaw drop, but only slightly. The boy did not believe what he was seeing, and thought about ignoring it and moving on. He turned to his left, though, and headed for the spot in the snow where the crater dripped blood up into the sky, where it collected in a red puddle between some stars in the night sky. The boy blinked several times, and rubbed his eyes. “This can not be real,” he told himself, but he knew it was. With shaky hands, the boy reached into the pit and pulled out a severed arm. Closing his eyes, almost as though wincing in pain, the boy deposited the arm into the brown sack and turned back to go in the direction he came. He turned around too quickly to notice the puddle splash back down into the hole in the snow the arm had been bleeding from. The odor had not quite caught up yet, but the blood snaked its way out of the hole and was right on the heels of the boy.
Almost an hour later, a wolf cried out again. The boy was shivering with cold, and very much regretting not having taken his gloves along. He was sure that at least one of his fingers was frostbitten, and was very much afraid that he had lost all feeling in it for good. “I’ve done enough collecting tonight. A bloody arm! That beats all, and I’m going home!” And, so, he turned around, but stopped as still as death when he did so. He saw the trail of red that was following him, and noticed that the blood was now soaking the snow around which he stood. Crying out in feverish alarm, the boy ran and struggled through the snow. He was now determined to put the arm back where he had found it. He was even more hell bent on getting back home and hiding under his nice, warm, blue blankets.
The boy had not gone more than ten yards when he hit the smell that was following him. It made his eyes water, and so blinded him. He stumbled on, until he tripped over something in the snow. “Oh, no! What now?” the boy mumbled through the snow in his mouth. He stood up, and looked around. The green gas cloud that was the odor hovered pervasively about his head, making his eyes water and head foggy. The trail of blood had soaked up at his feet again, warming his cold toes and feet in a sickeningly sticky way. Worse yet, now there was an awful low, and haunting, hum in the air. The source of the noise was in the pit of snow the boy had stumbled over in his blind and frantic dash.
The boy looked down into the pit, and then leapt back in horror. “What is all of this? Why is this happening?” he exclaimed. Now the trail of blood had soaked itself into a puddle that filled the pit to its brim. The nauseating odor cloud swirled and danced above the pit of blood. Bubbles began to surface in the blood pit. They popped in above the surface in a loud and messy way, spraying red on the boy’s blue coat. From the shallow depths of that bubbly blood pit, an emaciated corpse began to rise. The stinking and rotten carcass rose slowly, as though it were being raised on a platform. The boy felt something itch on his leg, and the arm he had collected began to flop around inside of his brown sack. The boy dropped the sack, and turned away from the blood pit to escape the one-armed, stinking, wasted corpse that was stepping out from the blood.
“Michael, stay!” it called out, and the boy stopped dead in his tracks.
“How… How do you know my name?” Michael turned around, suddenly unafraid.
“My arm… bring it to me!” it ordered, and the boy obeyed.
The boy looked away as the corpse-thing reattached its arm. It made a horrible squealing noise as it shoved it severed part back into its rightful place. Watching out of the corner of his eye, Michael saw the gas cloud circle the corpse-thing’s shoulder until it caused a dry patch to form like a scab over the reattachment site. The corpse-thing then patted the blood pit’s liquid onto the scab, and caused the mark to disappear. It flexed its four fingers and rotated its arm at the shoulder. It bent its elbow and wrist, and, apparently satisfied (not appalled) by the gross crunching sounds these made, sat back down into the pit. Hearing the sploosh, Michael turned back to the corpse-thing.
“Who are you?” Michael asked.
“Not who. What,” the corpse-thing hissed.
“Fine. What are you?” Michael was beginning to feel that something about this corpse-thing was familiar.
“A collectable,” and at that the corpse-thing let out a long, shrill laugh. The masculinity in its voice was lost in this laughter, and Michael, who had until now believed the thing was a male, was now unsure. “I’m one of your collectables.”
“No you’re not!” Michael whispered.
The corpse-thing laughed again, but stopped suddenly. “Come here, look in here!” it said to the boy. Michael obeyed, and approached the blood pit and the corpse-thing. The boy peered down into it, not knowing what to expect. Suddenly, the thick red blood was not so thick anymore. In it, Michael could now see people and things. Everything was moving so fast, he was growing dizzy but was so hypnotized by what the blood was showing him that he could not look away. So, he did not notice when he began to age, and barely blinked as his teenage years came and went. Michael did not notice, then, that the corpse-thing had its hand on his head. Slowly, Michael became aware of his shaking knees and long white beard. Michael realized his skin was not young and smooth, but old and wrinkly. The boy was an old man, but the corpse-thing was now a beautiful young woman.
“Why?” Michael croaked as his body decayed into the same rotting corpse the beauty had been before. “Why have you done this to me?”
“Oh, Michael, little boy.” Her voice was the soft tone of gold-winged angels. “Don’t you see? You’ve spent your whole life collecting, you worthless little shit. Now, you are a collectable, just as I was to you.”
Michael, the old man/little boy, gasped at the hideous serenity with which she said these words.
“Don’t look so surprised, boy. It was either you or me,” she hissed. “There is no ‘why’ or ‘how.’ You facilitated my rebirth, and I gave you your death. Imminent.”
The way she spoke, the boy was reminded of his parents. Was this the only way the world knew to treat him? He wondered, silently, if his name was just another means of saying “worthless.” Thinking back to all he had collected in his room, Michael began to cry. Tears crept and crawled over the wrinkles that creviced his face. An embittered thought came to him: They were not just collectables.
“They’re not just collectables!” Michael bellowed. “They were left behind, left alone! They mean something to me, and that means they are not worthless.”
“Who cares?” The corpse girl cocked a sleek eyebrow. “You’re about to die, and, with your death, your meaningless sentimentality –”
“Over meaningful things,” Michael felt his thigh pinched, and he then remembered. He takes a hold of the collected in his pocket, and speaks firmly, “You’re still a collectable. You’re mine, though you may mean nothing more than just what gives me the right to care about myself.
The boy pulled the finger out of his pocket. She screamed with terror as the old man/boy fused the digit to his left hand with the odor cloud and scabbed it into place with the blood of the pit.
Now, that boy has long since decayed and his skin and muscles and organs have rotted away. His skeleton remains though, and so does she, the once corpse-thing. She writhes and wriggles at the boy’s skeleton feet, begging for her freedom – begging to use her beautiful and youthful body again. He won’t answer her, and refuses to release her. So long as he has her finger fused to himself, “the treacherous woman is a collectable. And, oh, how I love to collect things.”
Now, the dear boy’s parents were awfully ashamed of their boy’s hobby. This was a thing for them to shake their heads in disappointment over. “What a burdensome, lackadaisical child I have for a son!” his father would protest every time his son would return home with his brown sack. “Why can’t you just play sports and tease girls like boys did when I was your age?” the boy’s mother would whisper when she snooped through his room. The boy’s parents blamed the boy’s friends for his peculiar fondness of salvaging other people’s lost items. They told the boy he was never to speak to these children again as they were “not friends but troublesome influences!” His mother had “half a mind to write an angry letter to their parents about their boys’ lunatic behavior!”
In fact, the boy had no such negative influences as friends in his life. He did not have friends because his collecting left no time to make friends. Not only that, but children his age often kept away from the boy because he was always collecting. The boy had no friends, but had considered making one or two, and had hopes that he would one day, until his parents told him he was not to have them. The boy was saddened, but not for very long. He did not know what a friend was, and collecting was friend enough to him. His parents took no notice of this, however. They simply gave up on their dear boy, because “The next one will turn out right!”
In truth, there had already been two “next ones” in the last five years. The boy was nine, and his siblings were just as strange as he was. Both children developed their own weird habits at early ages, and both times the parents rejected the child as their own. All three siblings, being so wrapped up in their little hobby worlds, took no notice of each other and barely acknowledged one or the other’s existence. The boy was growing up alone, except for his collecting.
Now, one night, it turned very cold and windy. The clouds that had accumulated overhead during the day began to flake off snow. Pretty soon, those flakes of snow turned to sheets on the ground. Those sheets layered up into blankets and then to quilts. The snow fell straight down, very hard and very quickly. The wind seemed to be blowing down from the clouds themselves. Each gust blew a man’s hat down on his face rather than off of his head. The boy, feeling colder and colder by the hour, peered out his bedroom window to view the layers that had fallen to the ground. “There will be no school tomorrow. There will be plenty to collect, and there might even be some already! I should go have a look!”
It may have been one o’clock in the morning, but the boy did not seem to notice or care. He pulled on his blue winter jacket and red knit cap. He wrapped the red knit scarf around his neck and wriggled his feet into his snow boots. He left his fingers glove-free, in order to collect from the snow without the troublesome bother of his bulky gloves. Taking only a moment to locate his brown sack, the boy was soon out the door. He took no heed of his mother, who was busy arguing with his father over whether or not there would be a “next one.” (“Damn it, woman,” his father was saying as the boy left the house. “Maybe this one will make us proud.”)
The boy set out into the high snow with the brown sack protecting his fingers, at least until he found something worthy of replacing his precious digits with in the sack. Somewhere, not too far off, a wolf bayed as the boy looked up, through the clouds that were breaking up, at the moon. He walked along for a long while, until he spotted a slight indentation in the otherwise untouched snow ahead of him. He headed straight for it, eager to make his first collection of the night.
As he approached it, he became acutely aware of a bad odor that hung in the air. This was strange. The cold night air usually made his nose so numb he could never smell a thing. The boy reached the indentation in the snow, and reached in to pull up… a finger. It was shriveled and purple, and yet seemed to pulse softly and weakly with life. The boy decided to keep it, after some deliberation. He slid it into his pants pocket and continued trudging through the snow, avoiding the stinking crater the finger had been found in. He walked briskly, and so did not know that the bad odor wafted after him.
The boy had not walked very far from that crater when he saw a strange sight. It made his eyes go wide and his jaw drop, but only slightly. The boy did not believe what he was seeing, and thought about ignoring it and moving on. He turned to his left, though, and headed for the spot in the snow where the crater dripped blood up into the sky, where it collected in a red puddle between some stars in the night sky. The boy blinked several times, and rubbed his eyes. “This can not be real,” he told himself, but he knew it was. With shaky hands, the boy reached into the pit and pulled out a severed arm. Closing his eyes, almost as though wincing in pain, the boy deposited the arm into the brown sack and turned back to go in the direction he came. He turned around too quickly to notice the puddle splash back down into the hole in the snow the arm had been bleeding from. The odor had not quite caught up yet, but the blood snaked its way out of the hole and was right on the heels of the boy.
Almost an hour later, a wolf cried out again. The boy was shivering with cold, and very much regretting not having taken his gloves along. He was sure that at least one of his fingers was frostbitten, and was very much afraid that he had lost all feeling in it for good. “I’ve done enough collecting tonight. A bloody arm! That beats all, and I’m going home!” And, so, he turned around, but stopped as still as death when he did so. He saw the trail of red that was following him, and noticed that the blood was now soaking the snow around which he stood. Crying out in feverish alarm, the boy ran and struggled through the snow. He was now determined to put the arm back where he had found it. He was even more hell bent on getting back home and hiding under his nice, warm, blue blankets.
The boy had not gone more than ten yards when he hit the smell that was following him. It made his eyes water, and so blinded him. He stumbled on, until he tripped over something in the snow. “Oh, no! What now?” the boy mumbled through the snow in his mouth. He stood up, and looked around. The green gas cloud that was the odor hovered pervasively about his head, making his eyes water and head foggy. The trail of blood had soaked up at his feet again, warming his cold toes and feet in a sickeningly sticky way. Worse yet, now there was an awful low, and haunting, hum in the air. The source of the noise was in the pit of snow the boy had stumbled over in his blind and frantic dash.
The boy looked down into the pit, and then leapt back in horror. “What is all of this? Why is this happening?” he exclaimed. Now the trail of blood had soaked itself into a puddle that filled the pit to its brim. The nauseating odor cloud swirled and danced above the pit of blood. Bubbles began to surface in the blood pit. They popped in above the surface in a loud and messy way, spraying red on the boy’s blue coat. From the shallow depths of that bubbly blood pit, an emaciated corpse began to rise. The stinking and rotten carcass rose slowly, as though it were being raised on a platform. The boy felt something itch on his leg, and the arm he had collected began to flop around inside of his brown sack. The boy dropped the sack, and turned away from the blood pit to escape the one-armed, stinking, wasted corpse that was stepping out from the blood.
“Michael, stay!” it called out, and the boy stopped dead in his tracks.
“How… How do you know my name?” Michael turned around, suddenly unafraid.
“My arm… bring it to me!” it ordered, and the boy obeyed.
The boy looked away as the corpse-thing reattached its arm. It made a horrible squealing noise as it shoved it severed part back into its rightful place. Watching out of the corner of his eye, Michael saw the gas cloud circle the corpse-thing’s shoulder until it caused a dry patch to form like a scab over the reattachment site. The corpse-thing then patted the blood pit’s liquid onto the scab, and caused the mark to disappear. It flexed its four fingers and rotated its arm at the shoulder. It bent its elbow and wrist, and, apparently satisfied (not appalled) by the gross crunching sounds these made, sat back down into the pit. Hearing the sploosh, Michael turned back to the corpse-thing.
“Who are you?” Michael asked.
“Not who. What,” the corpse-thing hissed.
“Fine. What are you?” Michael was beginning to feel that something about this corpse-thing was familiar.
“A collectable,” and at that the corpse-thing let out a long, shrill laugh. The masculinity in its voice was lost in this laughter, and Michael, who had until now believed the thing was a male, was now unsure. “I’m one of your collectables.”
“No you’re not!” Michael whispered.
The corpse-thing laughed again, but stopped suddenly. “Come here, look in here!” it said to the boy. Michael obeyed, and approached the blood pit and the corpse-thing. The boy peered down into it, not knowing what to expect. Suddenly, the thick red blood was not so thick anymore. In it, Michael could now see people and things. Everything was moving so fast, he was growing dizzy but was so hypnotized by what the blood was showing him that he could not look away. So, he did not notice when he began to age, and barely blinked as his teenage years came and went. Michael did not notice, then, that the corpse-thing had its hand on his head. Slowly, Michael became aware of his shaking knees and long white beard. Michael realized his skin was not young and smooth, but old and wrinkly. The boy was an old man, but the corpse-thing was now a beautiful young woman.
“Why?” Michael croaked as his body decayed into the same rotting corpse the beauty had been before. “Why have you done this to me?”
“Oh, Michael, little boy.” Her voice was the soft tone of gold-winged angels. “Don’t you see? You’ve spent your whole life collecting, you worthless little shit. Now, you are a collectable, just as I was to you.”
Michael, the old man/little boy, gasped at the hideous serenity with which she said these words.
“Don’t look so surprised, boy. It was either you or me,” she hissed. “There is no ‘why’ or ‘how.’ You facilitated my rebirth, and I gave you your death. Imminent.”
The way she spoke, the boy was reminded of his parents. Was this the only way the world knew to treat him? He wondered, silently, if his name was just another means of saying “worthless.” Thinking back to all he had collected in his room, Michael began to cry. Tears crept and crawled over the wrinkles that creviced his face. An embittered thought came to him: They were not just collectables.
“They’re not just collectables!” Michael bellowed. “They were left behind, left alone! They mean something to me, and that means they are not worthless.”
“Who cares?” The corpse girl cocked a sleek eyebrow. “You’re about to die, and, with your death, your meaningless sentimentality –”
“Over meaningful things,” Michael felt his thigh pinched, and he then remembered. He takes a hold of the collected in his pocket, and speaks firmly, “You’re still a collectable. You’re mine, though you may mean nothing more than just what gives me the right to care about myself.
The boy pulled the finger out of his pocket. She screamed with terror as the old man/boy fused the digit to his left hand with the odor cloud and scabbed it into place with the blood of the pit.
Now, that boy has long since decayed and his skin and muscles and organs have rotted away. His skeleton remains though, and so does she, the once corpse-thing. She writhes and wriggles at the boy’s skeleton feet, begging for her freedom – begging to use her beautiful and youthful body again. He won’t answer her, and refuses to release her. So long as he has her finger fused to himself, “the treacherous woman is a collectable. And, oh, how I love to collect things.”
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