Kneel......Please?

   “This is a call to arms,” emanated an eloquent disembodied voice. There was an audible collective intake of breath and then the earth began to rumble. Street lamps raddled in their glass cases, trains were derailed, snow shook from the highest mountain tops and dormant volcanos erupted. Was this Armageddon? No, this was Tom Hiddleston.

                

    In Spain, the running of the bulls was substituted by way of ravenous fans running through the streets with gold horns on their heads, squealing with glee. England sent riot police to protect the Queen in Buckingham Palace as “Hiddlestoners” milled about in Loki getup holding up signs that said “Make tea not war”; sharing fresh biscuits and tea with the riot police. Hollywood flashed a large search light in the sky (which looked suspiciously like the bat signal with horns on it).

                

   It appeared that this was a peaceful uprising……. yet the mainstream public did not realize that something more infinitely seedier was afoot. Two days later CNN broke the news that Josh Horowitz was missing. 

Mercy Brown

Colliding with the ground, the force of the horse’s hooves disturbed the layer of fresh snowfall concealing the lane ahead. Gliding swiftly through the bleak stillness, a phantom black carriage rode steadily; nimble light darted from the swaying sliver lanterns illuminating the gloomy path.

A distinguished gentleman rested his prematurely graying head on long deft fingers, gazing forlornly out of the carriage window. Well-used, a black leather medical bag was placed on the seat next to him. Illnesses were a common occurrence, now however the small town of Exeter was being afflicted by a mysterious wasting disease. Inexplicably healthy men and women were dying rapidly, entire families were being extinguished.  Dr. Brown could not stop the tidal wave of death.

Unexpectedly the horses reared back in terror. The driver pulled hard on the reins to keep the carriage from toppling into the ravine below. Jarred from his morbid contemplation, Dr. Brown unbolted the carriage door and stuck his head out into the cold austere evening. Furious he opened his mouth to protest and then froze.

Movement was visible beyond the outer perimeter of the lantern. With unnatural movements a pale figure dragged itself into the light. There was something very familiar about the young woman who drew closer. Long brown hair shrouded her face; a thin full length lace gown barely brushed the ground as bare feet padded onto the path in front of the horses.

Once again the horses reared back in sheer terror, their eyes rolling. Crimson droplets dripped onto the virgin snow as the figure stood in front of the horses.  Dr. Brown gasped in horror as her head slowly rose revealing deep pools of black nothingness; rivulets of blood spilled from her mouth.Even though five years had passed since her death; Dr. Brown would never forget the face of his beloved daughter, Mercy. 

Thing(s) I Believed As A Child

-I was quite certain when I was a kid that when people had bad days it started with one person and like Domino's it was a chain reaction. I believed if I could find the one person in the world who was having a bad day at that moment and make them feel better before they were able to realize their bad attitude, that there would be no more bad days in the world.

-I had quite an active imagination (and still do). I never minded spending time by myself. One of my favorite things to do at night; just before bed, was to sit at the window in my room and wonder what everyone else was doing in the world at that exact moment. From the neighbor across the street, to the farthest reaches of the world. I would wonder where I fit in the big scheme of things. 

-I used to believe that witches lived in my closet. Like the witches in the opening scene of Shakespeare's Macbeth "Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble." My Uncle Jason is responsible for planting this idea. 

He loved to scare my sister and I by opening closet door at night and telling us the witches were going to come out and get us. He also told me that there was a Grey Lady and the ghost of a little boy who had died in a fire. Needless to say all my toys and stuffed animals barricaded the closet door.

-That time was a further distance than the actual distance itself. 

-I used to pretend that Belvidere Mills was the Shire(Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit). If you have ever been you would understand and if you have never been I suggest you visit the area. Very beautiful.    

Through blurry hot tears, struggling with the lump in her throat:
"You weren't there. When I needed you, you stayed in the dark
shadows with the rest of the wolves; cold eyes calculating,
watching as my life fell apart. Jeering as I struggled to keep
my head above the swell, drowning and calling for help."

Snow Day 1996

“Hop on your motorcycles and roar on down!” Grandma yelled cheerfully from the bottom of the stairs.

It was 6:00 a.m. on a bitterly cold school morning. Slowly, my eight year old self opened blurry eyes adjusting to the soft light from the night light that filled my room. These were the days when getting out of bed like a jack rabbit on crack was easy. I threw on my overalls and a sweater and was ready in a record 10 minutes. I looked out my bedroom window. There was a blizzard outside. “Yes!” I thought “Maybe school will be cancelled today!”

Jordan (my kid brother) came to the door of his bedroom in his white long johns, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“Kaye”, he whined “Can you help me; I don’t know what to wear.”

“Just put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt BORP,” I replied, enunciating his nickname, abandoning Jordan in his plight.

I ran to the top of the stairs, trying to beat my older brother Joseph to the bathroom, so I could brush my teeth before he “set up camp” in there.  Just as I got to the top of the stairs Joseph came running out of his room; pushing me aside and barreled down the stairs, slamming the bathroom door.

“Hey! I yelled, hot on his heels.

On the door of the bathroom was a wooden sign:

“One knock, impatient query”

“Two knocks, hurry man hurry”

“Three knocks, I say don’t bother, bathroom door knocker.”  

I banged on the bathroom door annoyingly, with the mallet that hung off the sign. It seems Joseph beat me today.

“I don’t know what to wear!” Jordan cried sorrowfully from upstairs.

My hand froze in mid knock as Grandma came around the corner from the kitchen. “Get dressed Jord!” she snapped from the bottom of the stairs. “Joseph!” Grandma yelled at my older brother in the bathroom “hurry up; others have to use the bathroom!”  

Giving up my mission for the time being, I followed Grandma into the kitchen. On the stove was a big pot of chocolate Malt O’ Meal, my favorite! KCUE played in the background.

“And now you know, the rest of the story,” said Paul Harvey.

“Here,” Grandma said placing a bowl of Malt O’ Meal in front of me “Eat”.

Jordan came downstairs grumpily, his sweatshirt inside out, wiping at his runny nose.

Grandma placed a bowl of Malt O’ Meal in front of Jordan. Jordan wrinkled his face in disgust.

“Eat your food!” Grandma snapped “It will put hair on your chest.”

“I don’t want it,” Jordan pouted.

“There are starving children in China, you should be thankful you don’t live in China!” Grandma snapped again.

I looked at Jordan and grinned smugly. Watching Jordan get fussed at was one of my chief pleasures.

Jordan caught me grinning. “Grandma, Kaye’s looking at me!” he bawled.

“Jordan stop your bellyaching, Kaye stop looking at Jordan.” Grandma intervened.

I waited until Grandma looked away and then turned to Jordan and mouthed silently “Ha aha ha hahah ha!”

“Grandma!” Jordan cried “She is still looking at me.”

“Knock it off or both of you will go straight to bed after supper.” Grandma threatened.

This was an awful sentence, which meant no playing in the fresh snow tonight. We immediately shut up.

The bathroom door opened and Joseph strutted into the kitchen. Sitting down at the counter he asked “Grandma, will you make me some bacon and eggs?”

“No,” Grandma replied “you will eat what I made.”

Joseph sulked.

The announcer on the radio interrupted the polka fest and said “I have a list of School Closings. Zumbrota-Mazzeppa, closed. Pine Island, closed. Red Wing, closed.

“Maybe school will be closed today?” Jordan asked cheering up.

“No, no, no” said Grandma “There will be school, you love school.”

Just then the announcer said “Goodhue School….two hour delay.”

We all let out a collective groan; our souls rankled with the injustice. We could not face the prospect of the neighbor kids, who went to Red Wing, pointing and laughing at us as we stood at the bus stop.

“Start getting your stuff around for school,” Grandma said, not able to mask the glee in her voice.

With heavy hearts we began to gather our book bags, snow pants, boots, scarves, mittens, jackets, and hats.

The announcer came on the radio again “I have another school to add to the closing list. Goodhue Schools, closed.

There was a lot of jumping up and down, whooping for joy.

“No school?” Jordan asked sitting on the ground putting his boots on. “No school?” he repeated. Then he let out a giggle which eerily resembled that of SpongeBob.

“What?” Grandma said, her face falling as I stood in the middle of the dining room and did a little butt shake in my winter gear.

“I was pretty sure they would call off school,” Joseph said in a confident air, “The snowplows haven’t even gone through.”

“Aren’t you sad there is no school?  Grandma asked baiting us.

Hahahaha, hell no! Joseph and I were not stupid enough to repeat this to Grandma though.

Jordan on the other hand took the bait and piped up: “No, I HATE school!”

You never told Grandma you hated school. “Then you don’t need to go outside,” Grandma said threateningly to Jordan “You can stay inside and study.”

“No I don’t want to,” Jordan bawled.

“Then don’t say you hate school,” Grandma snapped.

After the snow let up some, Bruce Alms (or “Mr. Man” as Jordan called him) plowed his driveway. This was awesome because with the amount of snow that had fallen that meant huge snow piles!

As we started to put on our snow things, the neighbor ‘Mac’ or Mackenzie came over. He rang the doorbell to the back porch. 

“Is Smokey Joe there?” he asked as I opened the door.

Joseph pushed me aside. I didn’t stick around to see what Mac wanted and proceeded to run outside so I could be the first to climb the snow piles.

This was great fun because we made snow forts and had snowball fights. Sometimes we would sit in the forts and talk about life from a kid’s point of view. The mystery of the itchy butt hole after eating snow. We would take our snow discs and make paths down the side of the snow hills. 

When Grandma was upstairs putting the laundry away and not looking, we would sneak into the house and take cups of water outside so we could make ice ramps. I think that was prohibited by Grandma because she didn’t want us to get hurt by busting our tailbones. We did it anyway.

Occasionally we would have to help Jordan out of the snow because he had a bad habit of falling down and not being able to get up. Most of the time he would just lay there like a lump and cry until someone helped him.

The snow hills were “ours” and we were very territorial over them. ‘Mac’ had immunity because he was friends with Joseph. However, say if the neighbor girl, Emily came over (and she was definitely not one of “us”, she would also eat all the snow we had set aside for our eating) we would go into a full on armed attack, showing no mercy. 

The Lamentable Tale of Maddoc Murray

    In a small white washed cottage on the edge of Loch Rannoch, lived a middle aged bachelor named Maddoc Murray. Preferring to live on the fringes of society; Maddoc was a shy, eccentric Scotsman whose only interaction with the local took place on Wednesday nights when he made his weekly trip to the Whiskybae Pub.

                

    Wednesday evening, when the water of life flowed; gossip of the day was conferred with classic Scottish flare. A drunken dispute over who invented the game of golf was resolved over arm wrestling; a game of “Maw” and an incoherent rabble rousing chorus of ‘Donald Where’s Your Troosers’ rounded out the jamboree. It was sometime after midnight when the pub regulars trooped home.

               

   Maddoc was in a rather jovial frame of mind as he started out on the two mile journey. A harvest moon shone bright in the sky lighting his way. As the footpath wound through the woods that bordered his property, an eerie flesh crawling realization dawned on the intoxicated Scotsman. The comforting sound of the nocturnal beasts had gone quiet; a warm breeze carried the sour putrefying stench of rotting flesh.

                

    To the right of the path, rustling came from the underbrush. Peering into the long shadows cast by the trees, Maddoc could not find the source for the noise. Hastening his steps, he jogged nervously for a ways. Nevertheless whatever was following him remained out of sight in the brush; keeping pace with the frightened Scotsman, the odor of decay persisted.

               

    The end of the footpath emerged in the distance. Just beyond that was the shelter of the white stone cottage. Maddoc knew that if he didn’t gather his inebriated wits and make for the safety of the cottage, there was a good chance the creature in the woods would cut him off in the clearing ahead.

                 

    With all his capacity, Maddoc took off like buckshot through the woods; just as before the thing followed in close pursuit. Filled with dread, the Scotsman entered the clearing……and nothing materialized. He turned and cast an eye over the woods; the night had again gone still. Breathing a sigh of relief, he walked the rest of the way to his small house.

                

    The moon shone through the south window facing the woods, casting shadows throughout the one room cottage. Draping his cloak over the back of the chair by the front door, he set about securing the shutters and drawing the latch across the door; Maddoc proceeded to build a fire in the fireplace. Underneath the south window a bed was situated. From sheer exhaustion, he flung himself across the bed and passed out.  

                

    An hour or so later, he awoke from a fitful slumber to “Thump, thump, thump.” Opening one eye, he noticed that the north cottage window had become unshuttered, the shutters gently swaying in the breeze. The guttering fire in the hearth threw irregular shadows throughout the room. Closing his eyes once more, Maddoc tried to go back to sleep, but he was interrupted again by a “Thump, thump, thump.”

                

   Sitting up, he saw that the shutters were still. “Thump, thump, thump,” in the darkest corner of the room, something moved. The smell of rotten flesh pervaded throughout the cottage. Terrified, Maddoc hid under the covers as the thing emerged from the shadows. His heart beat loudly in his chest as the thing got closer and closer. The smell was so overpowering he thought he might vomit. It stopped beside the bed, paused for a moment; and then tore the covers away.

                

   Maddoc’s eyes bulged with horror. Opening his mouth, he tried to scream, the sound never left his throat. Standing next to the bed was a fearsome creature with one arm and one leg. Rotten, grey skin hung from its frame, maggots bore holes into its flesh. Thin black hair stuck to the scalp; a singular clouded, bloodshot eye glared down at Maddoc.

               

   Wednesday evening came and went, and Maddoc Murray did not make his usual appearance. This set tongues to wagging; perhaps he had fallen into the loch and drowned or some other horrible mishap had fallen upon the eccentric bachelor. Curiosity is a strong motivator. The proceeding morning Alphin Lockhart; a regular at the Whiskybae Pub and probably the only person who might be considered a friend to Maddoc Murray, set out for the cottage near the Loch Rannoch.  

                

   When Alphin reached the woods that surrounded Maddoc’s property, he saw a figure walking ahead in the footpath towards him. The cloak was similar to the one his peculiar friend wore; so Alphin yelled, flagging down the figure. As Alphin drew closer, the strong odor of decaying flesh surrounded him.  

                 

   Abreast with the figure, Alphin realized the individual was a head shorter than his friend. Bidding the stranger ‘Good Morning,’ he noted the odd manner in which the stranger kept his face hidden in the cloak; it was equally as hard not to notice the smell which permeated the strangers being. ‘Good Morning’, was the garbled reply, as the stranger limped past Alphin.

               

   Alphin continued in the direction of the cottage. As he crossed the clearing, the small house in the distance had an air of abandonment. Knocking on the front door, Alphin called out to Maddoc without any reply. He pushed on the door and noticed it was still latched from the inside.

                

    He walked around to the north side of the cottage; the shutters of the north window were open. Curious, Alphin peered in and then stumbled backwards away from the window. Taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, he held it to his nose and mouth to help mask the smell of purification.

Looking in the window once more he saw Maddoc Murray lying on his bed; or what was left of the Scotsman’s bloated decaying body. Everything from the left side of his body had been removed, like he had been cannibalized. What remained of the right side lay at a strange angle, as if he had struggled until the very end.  His glassed over eye stared up at the ceiling in terror, his mouth frozen in a horrified scream.

               

Westside/Eastside Garden (A Gnome Soap Opera) by Beth & Kaye Warren

 Continued......

“I’ll see your shoe snake (no relation to the trouser snake) and raise you a Rose Nicolson,” squeaked Doolius Boozler, pushing forward a stolen ID card. Gnomes play Texas Hold’em with items stolen from the “Non-Gifted.” Gnomes really don’t know how to play Texas Hold’em, they couldn’t even find Texas on the European map.

                

 “What trickery is this!” squealed Fartrell Cluggins, thrusting his finger in Doolius Boozler’s face.

                

 Taking offence, Doolius Boozler protested hiccuping “Do you know who I am?”

                 

“Doolius Boozler; The Drunken Sneak. Whose mother was born on the Eastside,” sneered Fartrell Cluggins.

               

 A scuffle broke out, poker rocks were being thrown and nose biting ensued.

                 

“That enough of your rumpus” roared Burly Toeskin breaking up the fight, grabbing the rabble-rousers by their toes “You will answer to The West himself,” he avowed.

                  

“Not Quakadilly Blip,” Fartrell Cluggins and Doolius Boozler yelped, eyes round with fear.