What I'm Working On. Enjoy...
@font-face { font-family: "Georgia";}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Georgia"; color: red; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Georgia"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }One bright day in the middle ofthe night, Two dead boys got up to fight.
Two dead boys faced off. One dead boy stared from where he satat the end of the bed. His wildmane of blond hair glowed brightagainst the room's darkness. Theother dead boy squirmed and gasped beneath thin and damp sheets. Throat burning. Stomach cramping. Dying, slowly.
That's what it felt like,anyway. He didn't know how longhe'd lain here, damp blankets twisting around his legs, night sweats slickinghis skin. Time had lost meaning. He floated in a haze of fever andnausea, sweats and chills and spasms. Curled fetal, hands clawed against chest, his world had contracted intoa bright pinpoint of agony.
Shadows loomed over him. Murmured. Tried to get him to sip from a straw. Someone occasionally wiped his browwith damp rags. The cool liquidfrom the straw had made him gag and vomit, because even as it soothed his rawthroat, it cramped his guts.
They'd given him nothing forawhile.
Maybe they'd given up.
Given up because he was dying andthere wasn't anything left to do. He didn't want to blame them, but hated them a little, regardless.
He whimpered. Felt like he'd swallowed broken glassthat had dug into his throat and stayed there, tearing flesh with each newswallow.
The dead boy sitting at the bed'sedge spoke his name. He lookedaway. Didn't know how longthe dead boy had been sitting there or what he wanted, but knew the boy sittingat the end of his bed was dead. Had to be. The shadows thatloomed over him and whispered and smoothed back his damp hair...
(mom and dad and the doctor)
...never saw or spoke to the boysitting at the end of the bed. They must not be able to see him, he must not bethere...
(today I went upon the stair andsaw a man who wasn't there)
...and if he wasn't there thatcould only mean he'd been dreaming the dead boy or the dead boy had come fromfar a away place that lingered close now, that the boy had come...
(from the drift, a cold placefilled with hungry dead things)
He didn't like looking at the deadboy, whose wide eyes yawned like twin black holes, empty and bottomless, whosehair shimmered so brightly white.
The dead boy spoke his nameagain. He refused to look, glancedupwards instead. Scanned the darkceiling where shadows and light danced, where something flowed in sinuouspatterns.
A circus oozed around the upperedges of his bedroom walls. Lankand grotesquely thin clowns with big red mouths and wide eyes bulging fromfish-belly white faces capered. Rolled and jigged. Prancedamongst screaming horses flayed alive by the lashing whips of men wearing tallblack hats as they pulled misshapen carriages hiding secrets that thrilled andrepulsed.
Squat, ape-faced dwarves lurchedalongside. Staring blindly nowhereas their knuckles dragged along the ground. Cadaverous sword-eaters paced the screaming horses andprancing clowns, plunging their scimitars down their throats, pulling them outagain. The swords gouged out theirbacks. Misted red over the dwarvesand screaming horses. When pulledfree from the engorged throats, thick with red ichor, they winked back to agleaming silver. And were plungedback down again and pulled free, over and over.
The dead boy at the end of the bedspoke louder. Tone sharp andharsh.
He didn't listen. Only stared at the circus marchingaround his room. Something insideknew this couldn't be real. He wassick. Dying. His fever made thecircus wallpaper border march around the top of his bedroom. It wasn't real, it wasn't...
(something that had slipped freefrom the drift; a cold and dead hungry thing)
He was sick with a fever. Was dreaming and dying. The circus wasn't real.
It wasn't.
Yet there it was. Dancing and spinning and rolling. Clowns with leering red mouths gobblingup dwarves and chewing them into grisly pulps. Horrible men in tall black hats flaying their screaminghorses alive while they pulled behind them pulsing, oozing dead monstrositieson lumpy wheels. Sword-eaterswhipping their swords from their throats in gushes of blood, hacking away atthe men in the tall black hats, the horses and dwarves and the rolling,gobbling, leering clowns while something else shifted and flowed behind them,something black and slick and viscous, something long and coiled, something...
(dead from the drift)
It twisted amongst the clowns andscreaming horses and men and dwarves and sword-eaters, connecting them,dissolving them and consuming them...
Everything flickered.
Like a filmstrip jumping itstrack.
The circus started over from thebeginning. With rolling clownsleering with big red mouths. Overand over it ran, with him dying and the dead boy talking but he still didn'tlisten or look at the dead boy as the wet black thing slithered just behind thecircus, pulsing and swelling and coming closer...
Two dead boys faced off. One dead boy stared from where he satat the end of the bed. His wildmane of blond hair glowed brightagainst the room's darkness. Theother dead boy squirmed and gasped beneath thin and damp sheets. Throat burning. Stomach cramping. Dying, slowly.
That's what it felt like,anyway. He didn't know how longhe'd lain here, damp blankets twisting around his legs, night sweats slickinghis skin. Time had lost meaning. He floated in a haze of fever andnausea, sweats and chills and spasms. Curled fetal, hands clawed against chest, his world had contracted intoa bright pinpoint of agony.
Shadows loomed over him. Murmured. Tried to get him to sip from a straw. Someone occasionally wiped his browwith damp rags. The cool liquidfrom the straw had made him gag and vomit, because even as it soothed his rawthroat, it cramped his guts.
They'd given him nothing forawhile.
Maybe they'd given up.
Given up because he was dying andthere wasn't anything left to do. He didn't want to blame them, but hated them a little, regardless.
He whimpered. Felt like he'd swallowed broken glassthat had dug into his throat and stayed there, tearing flesh with each newswallow.
The dead boy sitting at the bed'sedge spoke his name. He lookedaway. Didn't know how longthe dead boy had been sitting there or what he wanted, but knew the boy sittingat the end of his bed was dead. Had to be. The shadows thatloomed over him and whispered and smoothed back his damp hair...
(mom and dad and the doctor)
...never saw or spoke to the boysitting at the end of the bed. They must not be able to see him, he must not bethere...
(today I went upon the stair andsaw a man who wasn't there)
...and if he wasn't there thatcould only mean he'd been dreaming the dead boy or the dead boy had come fromfar a away place that lingered close now, that the boy had come...
(from the drift, a cold placefilled with hungry dead things)
He didn't like looking at the deadboy, whose wide eyes yawned like twin black holes, empty and bottomless, whosehair shimmered so brightly white.
The dead boy spoke his nameagain. He refused to look, glancedupwards instead. Scanned the darkceiling where shadows and light danced, where something flowed in sinuouspatterns.
A circus oozed around the upperedges of his bedroom walls. Lankand grotesquely thin clowns with big red mouths and wide eyes bulging fromfish-belly white faces capered. Rolled and jigged. Prancedamongst screaming horses flayed alive by the lashing whips of men wearing tallblack hats as they pulled misshapen carriages hiding secrets that thrilled andrepulsed.
Squat, ape-faced dwarves lurchedalongside. Staring blindly nowhereas their knuckles dragged along the ground. Cadaverous sword-eaters paced the screaming horses andprancing clowns, plunging their scimitars down their throats, pulling them outagain. The swords gouged out theirbacks. Misted red over the dwarvesand screaming horses. When pulledfree from the engorged throats, thick with red ichor, they winked back to agleaming silver. And were plungedback down again and pulled free, over and over.
The dead boy at the end of the bedspoke louder. Tone sharp andharsh.
He didn't listen. Only stared at the circus marchingaround his room. Something insideknew this couldn't be real. He wassick. Dying. His fever made thecircus wallpaper border march around the top of his bedroom. It wasn't real, it wasn't...
(something that had slipped freefrom the drift; a cold and dead hungry thing)
He was sick with a fever. Was dreaming and dying. The circus wasn't real.
It wasn't.
Yet there it was. Dancing and spinning and rolling. Clowns with leering red mouths gobblingup dwarves and chewing them into grisly pulps. Horrible men in tall black hats flaying their screaminghorses alive while they pulled behind them pulsing, oozing dead monstrositieson lumpy wheels. Sword-eaterswhipping their swords from their throats in gushes of blood, hacking away atthe men in the tall black hats, the horses and dwarves and the rolling,gobbling, leering clowns while something else shifted and flowed behind them,something black and slick and viscous, something long and coiled, something...
(dead from the drift)
It twisted amongst the clowns andscreaming horses and men and dwarves and sword-eaters, connecting them,dissolving them and consuming them...
Everything flickered.
Like a filmstrip jumping itstrack.
The circus started over from thebeginning. With rolling clownsleering with big red mouths. Overand over it ran, with him dying and the dead boy talking but he still didn'tlisten or look at the dead boy as the wet black thing slithered just behind thecircus, pulsing and swelling and coming closer...
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