Michael Davies's Blog

Secrets

“John!”

“Yes?” He signaled for the room to go quiet as he answered the phone.

“I can’t see you. I’m at the cinema.”

The word used to describe the look of realisation that crossed John’s face isn’t appropriate for public consumption.

Neither is the word for the look he received from those he was silencing.

Valery, however, knew he had forgotten. She knew he would not be standing in line to watch the movie he had promised for months that they would see.

She also knew he was not working late as he was about to claim.

And she knew the name of the person he was silencing but whom she could not see.

Jennifer. The pretty blonde she had used to call her friend. Who thought she still was her friend because she didn’t know Valery had discovered the pictures John had forgotten to erase from his phone.

What John didn’t know was that Valery also was not at the cinema.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

John looked at Jennifer as he quickly threw off the covers. Who could that be?

Words are also not appropriate for the curse Valery gave John when he answered the door.

Greatness

“Why does Saul look down on those who serve?”

Tristan put a hand to the hollow of his back while the other firmly grasped his walking stick, gnarly wizened eyes staring back at Petras. “Because he values something else.”

“Power,” Said Petras.

“Go on.” The teacher urged his pupil to continue as his robed form began to slowly walk, student by his side.

“He wants others to serve him.”

“Yes.”

“Because he is greater.”

Tristan let out an audible sigh, “You still think like a child though your body is growing.”

“You do not believe him yo be greater Master Tristan?”

“I ask you Petras. Who is greater? He who plants the wheat? He who harvests the wheat? He who grinds the wheat, or he who bakes the bread? What about he who sells the bread and he who serves the bread? Why do you think only of he who eats the bread?”

Petrov fell silent, chastened by his mentor. “Perhaps it depends on how they do their task?”

“Go on,” the teacher prodded one more time.

“If each does it glady then perhaps each is the greatest?”

“You are starting to get it. It is the heart, not the action, that defines greatness.”

A Man’s Best Friend

I played catch today. I threw that old raggedy tennis ball up in the air as high as I could. Watching as it faded into the clouded sky and then rocketed back towards me.

Thunk.

Another catch.

Another day gone by without you.

I ran tonight, mindful of the shadow I cast upon the fading track. This time I passed the trail into the nearby woods, a brief wry smile eclipsed by the sudden aching pang of loneliness.

I arrived home to a loving wife and excited child. But there was no panting at the door. No wagging tail to thump thump thump against the floor. No huge brown eyes and pawing at my chest. No “down boy, down” as I pushed you aside.

I fell asleep tonight, comforted by the heat of my life partner, but missing the loud herrumpth and sigh from the bottom of the bed.

My life is still full. But you are missed. You always will be.

Loyal. Faithful. Trusting. Always there.

Partner and friend.

A month of missing posts

Dear readers,

I apologise for the last months worth of nothing. I committed to blogging again this year and at the very least you should receive from me a weekly writing prompt while I work on book 2 of Pangea.

The last five weeks I had some unexpected day surgery, doctors appointments and diagnosis that have just set me back a little more than expected. As of the coming Monday you can expect my weekly posts once more.

Michael.

Weekly Writing Prompt – Instance

To the tribal, to the child, to the ‘native’ it has an almost face like structure. The wise laugh at the notion. They think themselves better, advanced enough in their science they can now throw away the childlike ideals of the past.

The wise laugh from their ivory towers and floating alchemist laboratories as the inhabitants of the land dare not pass beneath the arch. The natives draw marks in the sand, pictures of fading moons and rising suns.

The wise cloak themselves in their learnings and magiks. They wander through, not heeding the echo of the ages. An echo so deeply infused within the confines of this cavernous hole that it has shaped it as if to be the dead face of a wise man looking out upon the world.

The wise would have been wiser still if they had heeded the cry of the child, the tribes and the uninitiated. For the strange structure, thought at once to be a fanciful construct of the winds erosion, while also a source of fear to those who lived within its shadows, was in fact more than it seemed. Things always are – and it is the first step of the wise to admit it is so.

For the wise, thinking themselves greater than those who had inhabited the land for long millennia, did what the tribal people would not. They passed beneath the arch. In so doing they triggered the greatest folly of the era.

For the arch did guide and protect from the transforming energies it confined – energies unleashed by the pulsing heart of the creatures that strayed.

In an instance, the world was changed. In an instance, gone was the stable geo strata of the earth. In an instant, the wise unlearned all that they had once known, the earth shook and life began again.

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Weekly Writing Prompt – Survival

If the visions are true then this is it. As Europe put it, “We’re leaving together but still it’s farewell.” A few fortunate souls have no doubt made it to the moon base. Maybe a couple of the ships sent out over the last decade will even make it to Mars or Alpha Centauri. The reality though, is when they try to contact the mother land there will be nothing left. Humanities hope rests only in the colonies, small as they may be.”

So Jennifer and I, we’re finishing on a high note. Our favourite take aways, favourite people and memories of our favourite moments. Saved on a flash drive incase at some point in the next thousand years someone does dare to step foot on earth and sort through the radiation, dust and ghost towns.

Knowing how much we like our archaeology I have to think that much alone must be true.

I look at Jennifer. She’s as beautiful as ever. Does she see the same guy she fell in love with when she looks at me? Hard to say.

We both look at the sunset through the open pale blue curtains of our living room balcony. It’s orange, tinged with red. The sky serenading us with one last beautiful moment.

Our last sunset. The worlds last sunset.

Tomorrow will no longer be for us. Only for them, those brave few, the remnant.

Weekly Writing Prompt – Sky

Day 39

It is a curiosity that once during each of the large lunar cycles, the larger moon eclipses the smaller so that it can seem to the untrained eye that what one is peering at is in fact the earth sky.

It is not.

Note, the lack of stars due to the thickness of this atmosphere.

Note, the almost imperceptible calm of the trees. Photographs do not show it, but they never move, even in the wildest winds.

Note: the grey on the horizon, a glimpse at the dessert of metal which covers more than one third of this planet.

No. This is no green earth, a feature the black and white photographs I sometimes send will often obscure.

There is little sunlight though the moon provides enough visibility for all purposes of all days. Neither I, or the others are sure why the moon provides so much light and the sun so little.

To date there have been zero clouds, waters come up from the ground once every two days. Great spurts of them.  This may be seasonal, I do not know, only time will tell.

Tomorrow I will venture to the metal dessert once more and take my readings. Until then I am signing out.

Weekly Writing Prompt – Dragons

Truthfully, the first died of old age but you can’t very well walk into a village declaring you’ve saved them from a dragon, when in fact the terrible beasty just died of natural causes.

Can you!

So I lopped off its head, faked a few claw marks on my own body, dented my helmet, and strode forward victoriously.

The second I did kill, but I didn’t go looking for it. It was the offspring of the first and who knew that dragons mourn? There it was, head draped over the pool into which I threw the body of the first – they give off a foul smelling odour, enough to wake the dead – when up came me.

Well, I was behind it as I approached the sight of my first victory, leading a trail of village people behind me. They were here to see my accomplishments. Running would have thrown off the whole charade and I had a career planned.

So there was the dragon.

I grabbed the axe of the fellow behind me, ran as fast as I could, and before the critter knew I was even there attacked its mid section.

Yes, I was as surprised as any when it dropped. Now I know that all dragons have a soft underbelly. I didn’t then. It was just pride that happened to work out well for a change.

The third I stole from the poor guy who gave me the idea to be a dragon slayer in the first place. “Osbourn the third.” He was sleeping, I was fed up with my lousy pay. Left that night and took the dragon head, along with a satchel and two sets of clothes.

So there you have it really. I found the dead dragon three weeks later, walked into the village, came back and slew the dragon’s offspring. Moments later I’m proclaimed “St George the Dragon Slayer.”

The rest is history.

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Weekly Writing Prompt – Vegas

Everyone’s familiar with the slogan that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Usually it’s associated with the totality of human sin that is the cesspool of greed, lust and gluttony. It’s just another cover-up.

Any illusionist will tell you that slight of hand is all about misdirection. What better way to misdirect the whole entire world than with their own worst behaviors. Everything they wish they had left behind but haven’t.

So we paid off their businessmen and bankers with refined metals of purest gold and silver. Worthless really, yet they value them for some reason.

We used these to buy the land and erect monuments to hedonistic pleasure.

Meanwhile, beneath the surface, we tunnelled to the core and created enough energy to move the whole planet.

It will become starport 113 in less than one solar year. As always, we created this museum piece in their memory.

Las Vegas. The place humanity killed itself due to its own shortcomings.

Weekly Writing Prompt – Wizardry

Most believe wizards derive their secrets from books, dark arts and mentorship.

Alas, if only the mundane were so true. Then it would have a little more life to it and more might reach the pinnacle of Wizardhood.

Reality is often more down to earth and therefore less believable in the minds of those that do not truly understand the arcane.

The humble cookhouse is where we all begin. Learning character and eventually magik in all its forms – but often by trial and error.

Where regular mortals see herbs and spices we see long life and explosives.

Where they see chicken, we see new ideas. Where they a la carte we see a selection of particularly ripe adages which may have surprising results for the taster.

Only now in the informational age do mere mortals begin to realise what we wizards have known for so long.

You are, truly, what you eat.

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