It was at this point in the story that I took it on myself to interrupt.
"Wait, wait, wait," I cried out. "You're just gonna gloss over that whole thing where Odin just sat down and let that little punk kill him? What kinda goose droppins is that?"
The ghost of the meth zombie scratched his dirty blonde hair through his trucker hat. "Well, I was gonna, you know, work it into the story there somewhere. I was thinkin maybe there'd be this big dramatic meetin between Hiroki and his gang and the leaders of Clan Platypus where they'd be all 'Oh, Hiroki, you're so powerful! How did that happen?' and then BOOM! he'd tell em what he saw in the book."
"Naw, naw," I just shook my head, "it's gonna be crap if you tell it like that. Take it from me, I've told a story or two in my time. What you gotta do is just tell us now, so we ain't waitin the rest of the story thinkin 'What the heck happened there?' and cursin your name like we was watchin some overly dramatic movie starring the latest pretty boy actor in his 'break-out role' but it's actually just three and a half hours of people talkin quietly about stuff that doesn't really matter."
"What, you mean, like, just TELL you what happened?"
"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm sayin. I ain't standin out here in this scorched wasteland under this freaky blackened sky talking to an army of former meth addicts what has been turned into ghosts for my health, you know. I'm just tryin to make sure my home doesn't end up the same way, you know?"
"Well," he spat, "I guess if that's the way you want it."
"Sure do."
"Well, allrighty then. It turns out that what Hiroki had seen on that paper was a recipe for breaking what was called the 'narrator spell'. I ain't gotta spell it all out for ya, but, in short, it was a spell that trapped a person in a story. And the writer of the story could get that character to do whatever in the heck he wanted him to do. The Grimoire of Necrography had cast this wicked thing on the first person who'd wandered by it in almost 30,000 years, which happened to be Hiroki. The whole trip to the world tree and the burning and everything was all a plan by the Grimoire to get Hiroki to do his bidding. You see, the book, being just a book, couldn't get all the ingredients it needed to make the spell permanent. Apparently, and I ain't no kind of wizard or whatever, to make a person under that kind of spell do what you want, you gotta write it in blood, which wasn't really a problem for the Grimoire. It just chewed up a couple rats that were wanderin the shelves and used their blood. But, to make the spell permanent, the caster had to write the victim's name in god blood, which ain't easy to acquire.
"So the book concocted the whole scavenger hunt for ingredients to help heal Tommy, the deaf, dumb and blind pinball wizard. What the Grimoire didn't count on is that Odin, whether in a story or not, is a crafty old codger who's always lookin for ways to twist the fabric of fate. He also knows everything about anyone who eats and drinks in his hall. So, when Odin took Hiroki for the feast, he found out that he was under the narrator spell. Odin knew the Hiroki was gonna need god blood from somewhere, and on that tree, there was really only three choices.
"Knowin all this, Odin contrived to hide for a bit and then follow Hiroki back to his master. When he saw it was the Grimoire, he knew he had to destroy the thing. He'd had some dealings with that awful book in the past, and knew it was evil from cover to cover. Well, except the title page. That was just bureaucracy.
"Turns out that, a couple thousand years ago, Odin used that very book and the narrator spell to lock up his brother, Loki. They'd always been at odds and Odin was always pickin on Loki, cause he was the younger brother. One day, Loki decided he'd had enough and went to Baldr to ask for a hammer. He was plannin to nail the door of Odin's hall shut. It was just gonna be a little prank. He wanted to catch Odin comin out the window of his hall and was hopin his pants would snag on a nail or somethin and come off as he was comin out.
"Baldr wasn't the brightest sun in the sky, though, and he thought Loki was askin him for a warhammer. He got to makin the hammer, but his muscles got tired. So, he set everything aside and went to bed. Going to his forge groggy in the morning, he got to thinkin about how his muscles were sore. He kept chanting to himself 'Sore, sore, sore" as he stoked the fire. Eventually, that turned into 'Thor, Thor, Thor'. And he convinced himself that he'd been making the hammer for Thor.
"Needless to say, Thor was a little surprised when his uncle brought him the greatest warhammer ever created. When he asked his uncle why the gift, Baldr responded 'Oh, that's right! That was for Loki! He was gonna use it to get back at your dad!'
"As you can imagine, Thor was pretty shocked. He went straight to his dad to tell him about this. Odin, being the totally level headed and rational being that he is, pulled out the Grimoire and wove the spell that would make Thor kill Baldr and get Loki blamed for it. Then, to make sure no one would undo the spell, he ripped out the next two pages of the book, which conveniently explained how to do just that.
"And that's how those Norse gods got themselves locked in that terrible cycle they were in. Then, when Hiroki came along, Odin saw a way out for himself and his family. So, he got the two pages he'd ripped out of the book and, as I said before, followed the young ninja back to the Grimoire.
"So, he sat himself down in that chair and showed Hiroki the way to undo the spell. The only way, according to the book, was to put a period on the narration. Sounds easy, but the catch was that the period had to be made with fresh god blood. When Hiroki hesitated in this, Odin let the page slip and showed him the narration spell that had been written for Loki and Baldr.
"When he saw that, Hiroki knew that he wasn't just doing this for himself, but for Odin, too. Naturally, he didn't know where in the book the Grimoire had written his story, so Hiroki put all his might into the blow and drove the staff, with its flat, round end, all the way through the book, effectively putting a giant period on each page.
"So, there ya have it, that what was goin on with the book. Satisfied?"
"Almost," I said, thinkin. "What about that explosion, though? What happened there?"
"Oh, that?" He seemed surprised I'd asked. "The Grimoire of Necrography, being one of the oldest dark magic texts in the universe, contained a whole lot of magic in its pages. When Hiroki destroyed the book, all that magic was released at once and formed, as magic will, a fiery hurricane."
"And it didn't hurt him none?"
"Not one bit. The staff, being made from a magic tree and soaked in the blood of three gods, brothers no less, soaked up all that magic and became one of the most powerful weapons ever known. And that's what you need."
"Super," I said, "and where do I find this staff?"
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Two months for two pages.
When Hiroki came to, he felt as if months had past. His mouth felt like a whole army of tooth gnomes had been in there pasting up Andre the Giant posters, got tired of that, and then decided to carpet the place in thick, deep, green 70s shag. You know, the kind of carpet you'd expect to find in the back of a van if it had a viking warrior riding a horse/motorcycle hybrid jumping over a tank full of vicious narwhals with laser beam eyes painted on the side. Which is, coincidentally, exactly what the young man had been dreaming about. And he was pissed that he was awake, laying in his dusty cold room filled with weaponry and poison instead of riding his horseocycle.
"mmmmm" he mumbled into the floor.
"What was that?" asked the grimoire. "I didn't quite catch that."
Hiroki cleared his throat. "I said no."
"No?" shot back the book. "No what?"
"No," said Hiroki calmly, sitting up, "no, I won't do this. I won't be bound like some animal put out for show. All my life, I've been told what to do, who to be, who my father was, how to be him. Well, I'm sick of it. I'm sick and tired of being tied up, and I won't do it any more." As he said this, he rose unsteadily to his feet, using the staff to prop himself up.
"What do you propose to do?" questioned the book, full of snark.
"He'll do what he has to do," came a low voice from the corner of the room.
Hiroki turned around to see Odin standing behind him. He looked older, much older than he had a week ago. His face had lost all the friendliness that Hiroki had seen when they first met. But, too, it didn't hold any of the anger he had expected to find there. Just, what, peace? Resignation? Whatever it was, it was solid as a marble statue sunk in amber and frozen in time.
Hiroki bowed formally to him, knowing that the god could sweep off his head at any moment. "Sir," he stated, "I am sorry for the damage I have caused to you and your family. I know there is no way to make amends."
To his surprise, Odin waved him off. "Bah," the old god almost shouted, "they were all gonna die anyway, eventually. Actually, I should be thanking you. Now I don't have to go through all that who-killed-who rigmarole again. Tell ya the truth, I'm pretty darn sick of living that cycle and I'm pretty excited to see what this one has to offer."
"Don't listen to him," whispered the book, "he's up to no good."
"You know what I love best about stories, boy?" Odin asked conversationally.
"No, sir," Hiroki responded, wrinkling up his brow.
"What I love best," continued the god, wandering around the room slowly, "is that each time you tell a story, you can tell it different. Sure, the gist of the thing still needs to be there, but you can change the little details. After all, a story belongs to the teller, and the teller can do whatever he wants."
"Don't trust him!" shouted the book.
Hiroki stood looking back and forth between the god and the book.
"Problem is," continued Odin, as if nothing had happened, "people think that once something is written down, it's gotta be the same way forever. But that's small thinkin."
He turned towards the table on which the grimoire lay.
"Don't let him get too close!" yelled the book. If it could have sweated, it would have. But Hiroki stood and did nothing.
The All Father went on, laying a hand on the book. "That's just the short view. In reality, books may last a little longer, but in the end, they ain't any more permanent than a story, or even a character in a story. I mean to say, a book's gonna break down eventually. They get passed around from hand to hand, sometimes a page or two falls out. In the case of a smart book, maybe it makes sure a couple pages fall out."
He picked up the book and opened it up, seemingly at random. "Oh, what's this?" he asked, false surprise in his voice. He laid the book open on the table and turned it towards Hiroki, who didn't move.
"He lies!!!" shouted the book.
"It's ok, boy," said Odin reassuringly, "come have a look." He waved the young ninja over.
And so Hiroki came, and looked at the book. He didn't know what he was looking for at first, so he read over the pages. Then he saw it. He looked up at Odin, an expression of concern on his face. "It jumps from 1488 to 1493," he said.
"That's right," Odin nodded. "Seems to me, two pages musta fell outta that book somewhere along the way, and gotten lost to history. Course, if a man knows where to look and who to talk to, maybe he could find those couple of pages and maybe, if one were to see those two pages, there could be a way out."
"And do you know where to look and who to talk to?" asked Hiroki.
"I didn't trade my eye for nothin, boy," said Odin gruffly, reaching into his vest. "You see, I just happened to be carrying these with me for the past couple months or so," he pulled two pieces of yellowed paper from his pocket. "And it also just happens that these pages are marked, let's see..." he pretended to read them. "Oh, lookie there, pages 1489, 1490, 1491 and 1492. Isn't that amazing?"
"Run!" Yelled the book to Hiroki. "Get away from this man! He will destroy us all."
"Not quite," Odin said. "I think maybe, if a boy was smart and had the right tools, he could maybe read these couple of pages and then decide for himself what he wanted to do. And it also seems to me that anyone that wasn't willing to let him make up his own mind was maybe manipulating him into things. What do you say, boy?"
"SAY NO!!!" Yelled the book, almost deafeningly. "SAY NOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
But he didn't. Hiroki nodded, ever so slightly. Odin smiled a small, sad smile, and put the two pages back into the book. There was a moment of blinding light, and a sound like a frog being stepped on in reverse, and then the pages lay in the book as if they'd always been there.
Strangely, the book was silent as Hiroki leaned over and read the two missing pages. Whether the two pages or fear had silenced the book, Hiroki couldn't say, but he didn't much care. When he'd read the two pages he simply nodded a bit.
Then he looked up at Odin. "You're sure about this?"
"Sure," responded Odin. "Seems like maybe couldn't be worse than the alternative."
Hiroki thought for a moment, sucking on his lip a bit. As he did, Odin grabbed the book and sat down in a chair to read it. He made hmmm and awww and aha noises as he thumbed through it. He barely felt it when Hiroki's staff punched through his chest and buried itself in the book.
Odin's head dropped back to regard Hiroki one last time. "Freedom," he whispered.
The firestorm that followed will live forever shrouded in legend and mystery. Some say that ghosts tortured the residents of Clan Platypus headquarters for months. Others say that they were surrounded by fire that never burned and never consumed. Others say that they were plagued with laser-eyed narwhals that were kind and offered to clear the dishes after every meal. Regardless of what happened, at the end of it all, Hiroki stood in his room, his hair gone completely white, holding the staff still in his hand.
His weapon now thrummed with a steady power. It was hard to say how it was felt. It was something like a warmth and something like a pressure, but not at all like either. He breathed deeply but steadily.
"Holy cow! Hiroki?" Yelled his companions from his door. "Is that you?"
"Yes," he said to the wall, "it is me." He turned to face them and they all gasped. The storm, in addition to turning his hair all to white, also took one of his eyes.
"Are you....are you all right?" One of his friends asked.
"Better than all right," he stated, plucking an eye patch off the end of his staff. "I'm free."
"mmmmm" he mumbled into the floor.
"What was that?" asked the grimoire. "I didn't quite catch that."
Hiroki cleared his throat. "I said no."
"No?" shot back the book. "No what?"
"No," said Hiroki calmly, sitting up, "no, I won't do this. I won't be bound like some animal put out for show. All my life, I've been told what to do, who to be, who my father was, how to be him. Well, I'm sick of it. I'm sick and tired of being tied up, and I won't do it any more." As he said this, he rose unsteadily to his feet, using the staff to prop himself up.
"What do you propose to do?" questioned the book, full of snark.
"He'll do what he has to do," came a low voice from the corner of the room.
Hiroki turned around to see Odin standing behind him. He looked older, much older than he had a week ago. His face had lost all the friendliness that Hiroki had seen when they first met. But, too, it didn't hold any of the anger he had expected to find there. Just, what, peace? Resignation? Whatever it was, it was solid as a marble statue sunk in amber and frozen in time.
Hiroki bowed formally to him, knowing that the god could sweep off his head at any moment. "Sir," he stated, "I am sorry for the damage I have caused to you and your family. I know there is no way to make amends."
To his surprise, Odin waved him off. "Bah," the old god almost shouted, "they were all gonna die anyway, eventually. Actually, I should be thanking you. Now I don't have to go through all that who-killed-who rigmarole again. Tell ya the truth, I'm pretty darn sick of living that cycle and I'm pretty excited to see what this one has to offer."
"Don't listen to him," whispered the book, "he's up to no good."
"You know what I love best about stories, boy?" Odin asked conversationally.
"No, sir," Hiroki responded, wrinkling up his brow.
"What I love best," continued the god, wandering around the room slowly, "is that each time you tell a story, you can tell it different. Sure, the gist of the thing still needs to be there, but you can change the little details. After all, a story belongs to the teller, and the teller can do whatever he wants."
"Don't trust him!" shouted the book.
Hiroki stood looking back and forth between the god and the book.
"Problem is," continued Odin, as if nothing had happened, "people think that once something is written down, it's gotta be the same way forever. But that's small thinkin."
He turned towards the table on which the grimoire lay.
"Don't let him get too close!" yelled the book. If it could have sweated, it would have. But Hiroki stood and did nothing.
The All Father went on, laying a hand on the book. "That's just the short view. In reality, books may last a little longer, but in the end, they ain't any more permanent than a story, or even a character in a story. I mean to say, a book's gonna break down eventually. They get passed around from hand to hand, sometimes a page or two falls out. In the case of a smart book, maybe it makes sure a couple pages fall out."
He picked up the book and opened it up, seemingly at random. "Oh, what's this?" he asked, false surprise in his voice. He laid the book open on the table and turned it towards Hiroki, who didn't move.
"He lies!!!" shouted the book.
"It's ok, boy," said Odin reassuringly, "come have a look." He waved the young ninja over.
And so Hiroki came, and looked at the book. He didn't know what he was looking for at first, so he read over the pages. Then he saw it. He looked up at Odin, an expression of concern on his face. "It jumps from 1488 to 1493," he said.
"That's right," Odin nodded. "Seems to me, two pages musta fell outta that book somewhere along the way, and gotten lost to history. Course, if a man knows where to look and who to talk to, maybe he could find those couple of pages and maybe, if one were to see those two pages, there could be a way out."
"And do you know where to look and who to talk to?" asked Hiroki.
"I didn't trade my eye for nothin, boy," said Odin gruffly, reaching into his vest. "You see, I just happened to be carrying these with me for the past couple months or so," he pulled two pieces of yellowed paper from his pocket. "And it also just happens that these pages are marked, let's see..." he pretended to read them. "Oh, lookie there, pages 1489, 1490, 1491 and 1492. Isn't that amazing?"
"Run!" Yelled the book to Hiroki. "Get away from this man! He will destroy us all."
"Not quite," Odin said. "I think maybe, if a boy was smart and had the right tools, he could maybe read these couple of pages and then decide for himself what he wanted to do. And it also seems to me that anyone that wasn't willing to let him make up his own mind was maybe manipulating him into things. What do you say, boy?"
"SAY NO!!!" Yelled the book, almost deafeningly. "SAY NOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
But he didn't. Hiroki nodded, ever so slightly. Odin smiled a small, sad smile, and put the two pages back into the book. There was a moment of blinding light, and a sound like a frog being stepped on in reverse, and then the pages lay in the book as if they'd always been there.
Strangely, the book was silent as Hiroki leaned over and read the two missing pages. Whether the two pages or fear had silenced the book, Hiroki couldn't say, but he didn't much care. When he'd read the two pages he simply nodded a bit.
Then he looked up at Odin. "You're sure about this?"
"Sure," responded Odin. "Seems like maybe couldn't be worse than the alternative."
Hiroki thought for a moment, sucking on his lip a bit. As he did, Odin grabbed the book and sat down in a chair to read it. He made hmmm and awww and aha noises as he thumbed through it. He barely felt it when Hiroki's staff punched through his chest and buried itself in the book.
Odin's head dropped back to regard Hiroki one last time. "Freedom," he whispered.
The firestorm that followed will live forever shrouded in legend and mystery. Some say that ghosts tortured the residents of Clan Platypus headquarters for months. Others say that they were surrounded by fire that never burned and never consumed. Others say that they were plagued with laser-eyed narwhals that were kind and offered to clear the dishes after every meal. Regardless of what happened, at the end of it all, Hiroki stood in his room, his hair gone completely white, holding the staff still in his hand.
His weapon now thrummed with a steady power. It was hard to say how it was felt. It was something like a warmth and something like a pressure, but not at all like either. He breathed deeply but steadily.
"Holy cow! Hiroki?" Yelled his companions from his door. "Is that you?"
"Yes," he said to the wall, "it is me." He turned to face them and they all gasped. The storm, in addition to turning his hair all to white, also took one of his eyes.
"Are you....are you all right?" One of his friends asked.
"Better than all right," he stated, plucking an eye patch off the end of his staff. "I'm free."
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Returnin from a road trip
You ever been on a road trip? Sure ya have. Everyone's been on a road trip. Well, maybe not everyone. I bet there are some people somewhere that ain't got no roads or ideas of what a 'trip' is, and they prolly don't take a lot of road trips. They prolly also wear gourds over their junk and hunt with sharpened sticks, which is cool for them. I mean, I prefer wearin layer after layer of cotton and silk over my junk and I prefer huntin with a dull stick, but that's just my thing, you know?
Anyway, if you ever been on a road trip, you know that it always starts out as fun, you and your buddies got a cooler full of fried chicken and pasta salad, a week off work, and the open road stretchin out before you. The cool wind of freedom is blowin through your soul and you feel like anything's possible. Maybe you'll drive to Vegas, break the house, spend all your earnings on a fleet of racing cars and C4, go out to the desert and blow the crap out of a pile of McClaren F1s and, just to spite all those suckers who had to work, you ain't gonna take pictures of it. Or maybe you'll drive out to the coast, swim in the ocean, get caught up in the undertow and find yourself getting dragged down to a mysterious underground bubble city where the merpeople make you their king for a week and then you'll meet a beautiful mermaid who falls hopelessly in love with you, but you gotta tell her you gotta go back to Iowa because, as beautiful and enchanting as her undersea world is, it just ain't your world, but you primise you'll write, and you will, for a time, but it will slowly drop off until a day comes twenty years from now when you're wondering whatever happened to her and, just then, your doorbell rings and there's a boy of about 20, who looks to be 3/4 human and 1/4 fish callin you daddy and explainin that he just got accepted to Iowa State and could he stay with you for a bit while he gets his feet wet, no pun intended.
Yeah, that first hour of a road trip is filled with hope and dreams. Then the farting starts. The guy sitting in the back sleep, lulled by the heat and the hum of the tires on the road starts drifting off and losing control of his methane. At first, you try to pass it off by laughing. After all, you ain't gonna let a little butt bubble get in the way of your pile of explodin cars or aquatic love child. But as he slips deeper and deeper into his car-induced trance, his breakfast of last year's cottage cheese mixed with a finely aged durian comes back to haunt everyone else on the trip. So, you gotta make a compromise and roll down the window, which changes the air pressure in the car and blows out everyone's ears. Now, there's no way to listen to the super awesome road trip mix tape you put together but you daren't roll the window back up for fear of vomiting in your own lap. And the sound has woken up Mr. Backseat, who is now all grumpy because his nap got disturbed. So he starts yellin about how it ain't fair he's gotta be stuck in the back seat and the two people in the front seat start yellin back about his fartin and a fistfight breaks out. Then you get pulled over by a cop for runnin over some endangered species of goose while you were takin care of business with Farts McPoot in the back seat and you find yourself in jail. And, because you don't want to give up the dream of the greatest vacation ever, you try gettin the other inmates into singin "Don't Stop Believing" but they're just not into it. Finally, you get released on your own recognizance when you've only got 12 hours to get back home so you can go back to work. So, the whole drive home is a bitter, sullen prolonged silence and, when you finally stumble back into your digs, all you want is a shower and a nap.
That is exactly how young Hiroki felt when he got back to Clan Platypus' headquarters. All he wanted was a shower and a nap. So, usin all his ninja skills, he snuck back into his room. Being the prodigy he was, he avoided being spotted by the guards, the patrolling evil spirits and even the super advanced sentry robots. But, no matter how quiet and cloaked in shadows he was, he couldn't sneak past the Grimoire of Necrography, which was laying on the table of his room.
"Did you get it?!" shouted the book as soon ad Hiroki stepped past the sliding paper doors.
"How did you get in here?" asked the young ninja, knowing that he'd left the book in the library.
"Perhaps I didn't make this clear before," the Grimoire stated, "I am THE GRIMOIRE OF NECROGRAPHY!!!! BOW BEFORE MY POWER MORTAL!!!!!"
"No, no," Hiroki said, holding up his hand, "you made that clear. I just...I mean...you don't have hands or legs. Physically, how did you move from the library to here?"
"Oh..." mumbled the Grimoire, much quieter, "I...well...promise you won't tell anyone?"
"Sure, whatever," sighed the ninja.
If the book had eyes or a head, it would have looked around to make sure no one was listening. "I got someone to carry me."
"Oh," Hiroki nodded, "I guess that makes sense. I don't see anything wrong with..."
"BUT I'M THE GRIMOIRE OF NECROGRAPHY!!!!!!" interrupted the book.
Hiroki held up his hands again. "Shhhh. I know you are. You made that crystal clear before. Why is it a big deal if someone carries you? I carried you."
"YES BUT..."
"Shhhhhhh" Hrioki hushed the book again.
"Oh, sorry, *aherm*" the book continued softer, "I'm the most powerful book ever created. I create and destroy kingdoms at a whim. I am used to commanding, but you ninjas, you're all about politeness. I actually had to say please to get someone to carry me. ME! I said please!"
"Oh, gee, that's too bad. I'm so sorry you had to say please to someone to accomplish something." shot back the ninja.
"Are you being sarcastic?"
"Who, me? Nooooooooo. Well, yes."
"That's not nice," scolded the book. "You wouldn't understand how hard that was for me."
"Don't talk to me about hard!" insisted Hiroki. "I killed two gods and burned a sacred world!"
"I know."
"You know?"
"Yeah, I know."
"How did you...how do you know?" asked Hiroki suspicously.
The book sighed, "Open to page 458."
The young ninja was taken aback. It couldn't be possible, could it? All that Loki said about being trapped in stories and unable to get out? He proved that wrong, didn't he? Loki was dead and so was Baldr. Lokie couldn't kill Baldr like the story said because they were both already dead.
Hiroki's mind was racing as he flipped through the book and, at the top of page 458 saw
"Then I am not responsible," said Hiroki standing, "for this!" He swung the saw in a wide arc, catching Loki across the throat. As a bright rooster tail of blood shot from the god's jugular, his eyes went wide with surprise.
Then he fainted.
Anyway, if you ever been on a road trip, you know that it always starts out as fun, you and your buddies got a cooler full of fried chicken and pasta salad, a week off work, and the open road stretchin out before you. The cool wind of freedom is blowin through your soul and you feel like anything's possible. Maybe you'll drive to Vegas, break the house, spend all your earnings on a fleet of racing cars and C4, go out to the desert and blow the crap out of a pile of McClaren F1s and, just to spite all those suckers who had to work, you ain't gonna take pictures of it. Or maybe you'll drive out to the coast, swim in the ocean, get caught up in the undertow and find yourself getting dragged down to a mysterious underground bubble city where the merpeople make you their king for a week and then you'll meet a beautiful mermaid who falls hopelessly in love with you, but you gotta tell her you gotta go back to Iowa because, as beautiful and enchanting as her undersea world is, it just ain't your world, but you primise you'll write, and you will, for a time, but it will slowly drop off until a day comes twenty years from now when you're wondering whatever happened to her and, just then, your doorbell rings and there's a boy of about 20, who looks to be 3/4 human and 1/4 fish callin you daddy and explainin that he just got accepted to Iowa State and could he stay with you for a bit while he gets his feet wet, no pun intended.
Yeah, that first hour of a road trip is filled with hope and dreams. Then the farting starts. The guy sitting in the back sleep, lulled by the heat and the hum of the tires on the road starts drifting off and losing control of his methane. At first, you try to pass it off by laughing. After all, you ain't gonna let a little butt bubble get in the way of your pile of explodin cars or aquatic love child. But as he slips deeper and deeper into his car-induced trance, his breakfast of last year's cottage cheese mixed with a finely aged durian comes back to haunt everyone else on the trip. So, you gotta make a compromise and roll down the window, which changes the air pressure in the car and blows out everyone's ears. Now, there's no way to listen to the super awesome road trip mix tape you put together but you daren't roll the window back up for fear of vomiting in your own lap. And the sound has woken up Mr. Backseat, who is now all grumpy because his nap got disturbed. So he starts yellin about how it ain't fair he's gotta be stuck in the back seat and the two people in the front seat start yellin back about his fartin and a fistfight breaks out. Then you get pulled over by a cop for runnin over some endangered species of goose while you were takin care of business with Farts McPoot in the back seat and you find yourself in jail. And, because you don't want to give up the dream of the greatest vacation ever, you try gettin the other inmates into singin "Don't Stop Believing" but they're just not into it. Finally, you get released on your own recognizance when you've only got 12 hours to get back home so you can go back to work. So, the whole drive home is a bitter, sullen prolonged silence and, when you finally stumble back into your digs, all you want is a shower and a nap.
That is exactly how young Hiroki felt when he got back to Clan Platypus' headquarters. All he wanted was a shower and a nap. So, usin all his ninja skills, he snuck back into his room. Being the prodigy he was, he avoided being spotted by the guards, the patrolling evil spirits and even the super advanced sentry robots. But, no matter how quiet and cloaked in shadows he was, he couldn't sneak past the Grimoire of Necrography, which was laying on the table of his room.
"Did you get it?!" shouted the book as soon ad Hiroki stepped past the sliding paper doors.
"How did you get in here?" asked the young ninja, knowing that he'd left the book in the library.
"Perhaps I didn't make this clear before," the Grimoire stated, "I am THE GRIMOIRE OF NECROGRAPHY!!!! BOW BEFORE MY POWER MORTAL!!!!!"
"No, no," Hiroki said, holding up his hand, "you made that clear. I just...I mean...you don't have hands or legs. Physically, how did you move from the library to here?"
"Oh..." mumbled the Grimoire, much quieter, "I...well...promise you won't tell anyone?"
"Sure, whatever," sighed the ninja.
If the book had eyes or a head, it would have looked around to make sure no one was listening. "I got someone to carry me."
"Oh," Hiroki nodded, "I guess that makes sense. I don't see anything wrong with..."
"BUT I'M THE GRIMOIRE OF NECROGRAPHY!!!!!!" interrupted the book.
Hiroki held up his hands again. "Shhhh. I know you are. You made that crystal clear before. Why is it a big deal if someone carries you? I carried you."
"YES BUT..."
"Shhhhhhh" Hrioki hushed the book again.
"Oh, sorry, *aherm*" the book continued softer, "I'm the most powerful book ever created. I create and destroy kingdoms at a whim. I am used to commanding, but you ninjas, you're all about politeness. I actually had to say please to get someone to carry me. ME! I said please!"
"Oh, gee, that's too bad. I'm so sorry you had to say please to someone to accomplish something." shot back the ninja.
"Are you being sarcastic?"
"Who, me? Nooooooooo. Well, yes."
"That's not nice," scolded the book. "You wouldn't understand how hard that was for me."
"Don't talk to me about hard!" insisted Hiroki. "I killed two gods and burned a sacred world!"
"I know."
"You know?"
"Yeah, I know."
"How did you...how do you know?" asked Hiroki suspicously.
The book sighed, "Open to page 458."
The young ninja was taken aback. It couldn't be possible, could it? All that Loki said about being trapped in stories and unable to get out? He proved that wrong, didn't he? Loki was dead and so was Baldr. Lokie couldn't kill Baldr like the story said because they were both already dead.
Hiroki's mind was racing as he flipped through the book and, at the top of page 458 saw
"Then I am not responsible," said Hiroki standing, "for this!" He swung the saw in a wide arc, catching Loki across the throat. As a bright rooster tail of blood shot from the god's jugular, his eyes went wide with surprise.
Then he fainted.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Mr. Wilson
I only flew through space once. And when I did that, I was on a spacey pirate ship. You may remember that, it happened about a week before me helpin myself to wage war on this here meth planet, which is what I'm doin right now. I feel like I may have digressed from that story just a smidge, and I'm gonna get to tellin you how that whole mess went and got itself resolved and everything, but first I gotta finish this here thing with Hiroki and that stick he took away from the world tree that he burned right up.
Like I was sayin, when I flew through space, I had myself some time to think. I ran into a little problem with that. You see, I don't much like thinkin. I prefer pontificatin or combobulatin or the occasional fancyin, but I don't hold no truck with none of that thinkin. So instead, I played me some cribbage. It's a great way to pass the time without thinkin. Some people will tell ya that a tv is the best way to have no thinkin time, and others will tell ya booze or other drugs is the best way to have non thinkin time, but they're wrong. In fact, they couldn't be wronger if they bought a wrong sized wrong directly from the wrong factory in Wrong, Virginia, paid for it using the wrong credit card number and had it shipped to the wrong address. All that stuff does is give you brain cavities.
Cribbage, on the other hand, is the game of kings. Sure, they're drunken, belligerent kings that make up the rules as they go along, but they're still kings. It allows you to hone your wits and counting skills while you zone out and think about other stuff, like a bikini made out of donuts. The thing about cribbage, though, is that you need a partner to play it with. You can't play cribbage with yourself because you'll cheat. You know you will. You'll tell yourself that you're gonna play each side like you would play a normal game, not knowin the other hand. But you won't. You'll do as much as you can to give yourself the best hands possible just so when you're down at the local waterin hole, you can talk about the time you got a 23 point hand.
I only ever knew one person who overcame that difficulty; old Mr. Wilson from over in Westerville. He'd grown up on a pig farm and so didn't have what you might call a refined sense of smell. He one time ran over a whole family of skunks on the road and got them lodged up under his car, sittin directly on his muffler. For a whole month, whenever he drove anywhere, people in a 30 mile radius could be treated to the delightful scent of hot skunk. But Mr. Wilson didn't know anything about it until his ol hound decided the skunk had been properly cooked and got himself up under the truck. Mr. Wilson had to go into town to get himself some fertilizer. So he walked out to his truck, saw the hound's fat tail waggin from under the truck, grabbed the dog and yanked. He pulled out one happy hound dog with a whole pile of skunk in its mouth.
Well right then, he solved the mystery of why Sheriff Tom had caught him speedin, turned on his lights to chase, and then turned 'em right back off. No sheriff in his right mind was gonna approach that truck to write out a speeding ticket. I mean, his eyes would be waterin so much he couldn't see the ticket book anyway, so it was an excercise in futility. Ol' Mr. Wilson wasn't about to give up that kind of power, so he put the skunk pile back under the truck, and threw some pig slop on top of it in order to glue it down. Then he strung some chicken wire round the running boards of his truck to keep the hound out. And with that, he had himself legal immunity from most minor traffic offenses.
Of course, the downside is that ol' Mr. Wilson, after spendin months drivin around in a cloud of baking skunk and pig effluviva, was havin major problems findin himself a cribbage partner. He tried playin fairly by himself, but fell into the same cheatin trap we always fall into.
Always resourceful, Mr. Wilson thought himself up a plan. He'd play with himself, but between switchin hands, he'd hit himself in the head with a hammer. That way, he'd forget what the old hand was, and sometimes, his name as well.
Mr. Wilson kept up his single game of cribbage until the day he, bein a little confused after playin 20 straight games, hit himself with the wrong end of the hammer, shut down his higher brain function, and wandered off into the woods, where he was promptly eaten by a bear. At first, we couldn't believe it. But we waited a couple days and the bear passed the hammer and the stinkiest pair of overalls you've ever seen, giving us definitive proof.
Once we had the proof, we had to legally declare that Wilson was eaten by the bear after hittin himself in the head with the wrong end of a partially blunt instrument. As a consequence, the judge declared the bear to be the new legal owner of the Wilson pig farm because of some quirky law that's been on the books for an eon. It wasn't all bad. That bear has a knack for pig farmin and he stinks a whole lot less. We still see him down at the co-op sometimes and listen to him complain about the price of feed and how the politicians are ruining things for bears in this country.
I guess what I'm tryin to say here is that, when you're in space, you got a lot of time to think. Hiroki found that out as he drifted back to his home planet. Like I said before, he was sick of bein told what to do, and especially sick of livin in his father's shadow. He needed to make a plan. He needed to get his head together. Most of all, he needed a vacation.
**********************Author's Note***********************
I didn't want to put this as a seperate post, but I feel my readers deserve an explaination about the drop off in post frequency in the past couple of months. I've been meaning to say something for awhile, but you know how it is. If you're not interested, it's cool, you don't need to read this part. There won't be anything that affects the story. You know, except for the part where I tell you Hiroki is actually a woman and can shoot lightning out of her fingers. But, seriously, besides that, there's not going to be anything important for the story.
The simple fact is, I've got a lot on my plate right now. My wife and I are expecting our first child in October or November. We couldn't be happier, but it does require me to do some more around the house. Second, I am in the process of getting another bachelor's degree. We really want to raise our child in the US, but there are really no jobs for someone with my particular set of skills. Let me amend that. There ARE jobs, but nothing that is willing to pay me a salary that I could live on. With that realization, I need to get myself a different set of skills which can get me a job which will allow me to raise my child in decent surroundings. Finally, I have two other projects I'm doing. I am seeing some small success in DJing as well. It's not huge, but I have gotten residency on an internet radio station (Boost.FM) and I'm playing shows there twice a week. I also have a weekly podcast I do with a friend of mine (Kings of Effin Awesome (adults only)). If you're interested, you can subscribe to it in the iTunes store or at kingsofeffinawesome.blogspot.com.
With all that going on, I haven't had the time to spend on Pat that I would like to have. Also, to be honest, I keep trying to get to the end of this story line so I can get Pat back to a place of storytelling that suits him much better. I tried going big with this whole meth-world thing, and it seems to have gotten out of hand. However, because I read a lot myself, I'm not willing to kill a story in the middle and leave people wondering what happened. Right now, I'm sort of stuck in a position where the voice of Pat isn't being used right, but I need to bend the story back to a place where it can be used right.
I honestly don't know if I'll get back to posting with the frequency I was earlier. I've been trying to post once a week, but we all know how that has worked out so far. In the end, I still want to write Pat, and I want to write other things as well. I just have to get through what Ken Keasy called "the suck" in order to get it to the level it needs to be at. You deserve in and Pat deserves it.
Oh, and Alistair is secretly a robot. Take THAT giver uppers! :)
Like I was sayin, when I flew through space, I had myself some time to think. I ran into a little problem with that. You see, I don't much like thinkin. I prefer pontificatin or combobulatin or the occasional fancyin, but I don't hold no truck with none of that thinkin. So instead, I played me some cribbage. It's a great way to pass the time without thinkin. Some people will tell ya that a tv is the best way to have no thinkin time, and others will tell ya booze or other drugs is the best way to have non thinkin time, but they're wrong. In fact, they couldn't be wronger if they bought a wrong sized wrong directly from the wrong factory in Wrong, Virginia, paid for it using the wrong credit card number and had it shipped to the wrong address. All that stuff does is give you brain cavities.
Cribbage, on the other hand, is the game of kings. Sure, they're drunken, belligerent kings that make up the rules as they go along, but they're still kings. It allows you to hone your wits and counting skills while you zone out and think about other stuff, like a bikini made out of donuts. The thing about cribbage, though, is that you need a partner to play it with. You can't play cribbage with yourself because you'll cheat. You know you will. You'll tell yourself that you're gonna play each side like you would play a normal game, not knowin the other hand. But you won't. You'll do as much as you can to give yourself the best hands possible just so when you're down at the local waterin hole, you can talk about the time you got a 23 point hand.
I only ever knew one person who overcame that difficulty; old Mr. Wilson from over in Westerville. He'd grown up on a pig farm and so didn't have what you might call a refined sense of smell. He one time ran over a whole family of skunks on the road and got them lodged up under his car, sittin directly on his muffler. For a whole month, whenever he drove anywhere, people in a 30 mile radius could be treated to the delightful scent of hot skunk. But Mr. Wilson didn't know anything about it until his ol hound decided the skunk had been properly cooked and got himself up under the truck. Mr. Wilson had to go into town to get himself some fertilizer. So he walked out to his truck, saw the hound's fat tail waggin from under the truck, grabbed the dog and yanked. He pulled out one happy hound dog with a whole pile of skunk in its mouth.
Well right then, he solved the mystery of why Sheriff Tom had caught him speedin, turned on his lights to chase, and then turned 'em right back off. No sheriff in his right mind was gonna approach that truck to write out a speeding ticket. I mean, his eyes would be waterin so much he couldn't see the ticket book anyway, so it was an excercise in futility. Ol' Mr. Wilson wasn't about to give up that kind of power, so he put the skunk pile back under the truck, and threw some pig slop on top of it in order to glue it down. Then he strung some chicken wire round the running boards of his truck to keep the hound out. And with that, he had himself legal immunity from most minor traffic offenses.
Of course, the downside is that ol' Mr. Wilson, after spendin months drivin around in a cloud of baking skunk and pig effluviva, was havin major problems findin himself a cribbage partner. He tried playin fairly by himself, but fell into the same cheatin trap we always fall into.
Always resourceful, Mr. Wilson thought himself up a plan. He'd play with himself, but between switchin hands, he'd hit himself in the head with a hammer. That way, he'd forget what the old hand was, and sometimes, his name as well.
Mr. Wilson kept up his single game of cribbage until the day he, bein a little confused after playin 20 straight games, hit himself with the wrong end of the hammer, shut down his higher brain function, and wandered off into the woods, where he was promptly eaten by a bear. At first, we couldn't believe it. But we waited a couple days and the bear passed the hammer and the stinkiest pair of overalls you've ever seen, giving us definitive proof.
Once we had the proof, we had to legally declare that Wilson was eaten by the bear after hittin himself in the head with the wrong end of a partially blunt instrument. As a consequence, the judge declared the bear to be the new legal owner of the Wilson pig farm because of some quirky law that's been on the books for an eon. It wasn't all bad. That bear has a knack for pig farmin and he stinks a whole lot less. We still see him down at the co-op sometimes and listen to him complain about the price of feed and how the politicians are ruining things for bears in this country.
I guess what I'm tryin to say here is that, when you're in space, you got a lot of time to think. Hiroki found that out as he drifted back to his home planet. Like I said before, he was sick of bein told what to do, and especially sick of livin in his father's shadow. He needed to make a plan. He needed to get his head together. Most of all, he needed a vacation.
**********************Author's Note***********************
I didn't want to put this as a seperate post, but I feel my readers deserve an explaination about the drop off in post frequency in the past couple of months. I've been meaning to say something for awhile, but you know how it is. If you're not interested, it's cool, you don't need to read this part. There won't be anything that affects the story. You know, except for the part where I tell you Hiroki is actually a woman and can shoot lightning out of her fingers. But, seriously, besides that, there's not going to be anything important for the story.
The simple fact is, I've got a lot on my plate right now. My wife and I are expecting our first child in October or November. We couldn't be happier, but it does require me to do some more around the house. Second, I am in the process of getting another bachelor's degree. We really want to raise our child in the US, but there are really no jobs for someone with my particular set of skills. Let me amend that. There ARE jobs, but nothing that is willing to pay me a salary that I could live on. With that realization, I need to get myself a different set of skills which can get me a job which will allow me to raise my child in decent surroundings. Finally, I have two other projects I'm doing. I am seeing some small success in DJing as well. It's not huge, but I have gotten residency on an internet radio station (Boost.FM) and I'm playing shows there twice a week. I also have a weekly podcast I do with a friend of mine (Kings of Effin Awesome (adults only)). If you're interested, you can subscribe to it in the iTunes store or at kingsofeffinawesome.blogspot.com.
With all that going on, I haven't had the time to spend on Pat that I would like to have. Also, to be honest, I keep trying to get to the end of this story line so I can get Pat back to a place of storytelling that suits him much better. I tried going big with this whole meth-world thing, and it seems to have gotten out of hand. However, because I read a lot myself, I'm not willing to kill a story in the middle and leave people wondering what happened. Right now, I'm sort of stuck in a position where the voice of Pat isn't being used right, but I need to bend the story back to a place where it can be used right.
I honestly don't know if I'll get back to posting with the frequency I was earlier. I've been trying to post once a week, but we all know how that has worked out so far. In the end, I still want to write Pat, and I want to write other things as well. I just have to get through what Ken Keasy called "the suck" in order to get it to the level it needs to be at. You deserve in and Pat deserves it.
Oh, and Alistair is secretly a robot. Take THAT giver uppers! :)
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Bustin out all over
"I believe this is your branch," said Loki to Hiroki.
Hiroki just nodded his little head, bent down and got to work cuttin that branch. And let me tell ya, nothin clears existential dillema out of your head like a little bit of wood cuttin. I remember back when I was 18 or 19 or somewhere about there. I got myself hired down at the shoe factory, puttin the paper in the toes of the shoes. Of course, this was long before all that kinda stuff was outsourced to 2-year-old Chinese robots or whatever. Anyhoo, there was this guy named Tony who worked at the factory as a box polisher. He'd been polishin them boxes in 12 hour shifts for neigh on 15 years, so he was a little loopy in the head. People said he took the polish home at night to drink it, but I don't think that was true, because I figure his farts would be shiny if he did and, even though they smelled like turpentine, they sure as poop on a pringle wasn't shiny. Regardless of the reflective properties of his gas, this Tony was a real well read sort. He told me once that he had himself a PhD in literature or some such thing, but didn't want to deal with all the politickin of a university job, so he polised boxes, read and wrote criticism in his spare time. At the time, I was gettin mighty interested in readin, but I could mostly only get my hands on old newspapers because I'd been banned from the library for reasons I won't go into right now. When Tony heard I liked readin, he gave me a couple books he said were like to blow my mind.
He gave me a couple books by these guys Niet...Neechee....no, wait, there's a 'z' in there somehwere. Good lord, that boy's name is right hard to spell. Anyway, he's this guy who talks a lot about Superman for some reason and says God gone and died. Then he gave me this other book by this Kafka guy. He wrote this story about a guy wakin up as a giant bug one day and his family gettin all mad at him because he can't go to work no more and feed them. Also, they don't seem to like bugs too much from the beginning. At first, I thought he was there when I went through the whole hullaballoo at the library, but then I read the intro and saw he had written that book quite a bit before the library thing, so either he was psychic or he was really writing about the plight of the working man in a society that only cared about his ability to produce wealth for the elite and then discarded him as soon as his productive days were over, showing that, in an industrial society, man has no inherent value as a person, but only as a means to an end. I felt this reflected somewhat on my position as a shoe stuffer. I started feelin like I wasn't nothin but a cog in this big machine, totally without control over my own actions. So, you know what I did? I cut down a tree. With a rock. Then I killed a rabbit with a piece of the tree I'd just cut down and roasted the rabbit with the rest of the tree. In short, I got right back to my primitive roots, where I was in control of my basic survival. It was right then I decided to forgo the whole shoe stuffin business for a couple years and light out for the territories, as it were. That when I got into all the alligator wrestlin mess and all that I believe I've gone over before. But if you don't remember, let me sum up. I wrestled alligators for a bit. There ya go, all caught up.
I guess what I'm tryin to say here is that, when you feel like you ain't nothin but a tiny little piece of a great big ol' machine, ain't nothin better to cure your malaise than cuttin down a tree. Barrin that, you could cut off part of a tree that it roughly tree sized. So, based entirely on my own experience with ennui, I woulda said that Hiroki would have gotten his mind straight in sawin off that tree branch and then woulda gone out to wrestle some alligators for awhile before goin back home and accepting his place as a tool of the corporate machine. I guess in this case it would be a literary machine, but that don't matter none. But instead, he did somethin crazy.
He was sittin there sawin at the branch and he asked, "So, whatever action we do has been chosen for us, right?"
Loki nodded.
"And so we our actions are not subject to our own will, but some sort of fate made by the story teller?"
Loki nodded again.
"Then I am not responsible," said Hiroki standing, "for this!" He swung the saw in a wide arc, catching Loki across the throat. As a bright rooster tail of blood shot from the god's jugular, his eyes went wide with surprise. Now, like I said, I may have wrestled an alligator or two so I could assert my independance and get in touch with my personhood, but I never really considered deicide as a valid option. I guess I was wrong. It worked out pretty well for Hiroki.
Something had come loose in the boy. He was tired of everyone and everything telling him what to do and who to be. All his life, he was the son of this or the member of that. He was used as a tool by Clan Platypus and would never be anything more, if they had a say in it. And what was his rebellion? Pizza. What the heck kind of rebellion is going for pizza and playing pinball? That ain't hardly no rebellion at all. And now, now that he was thought he was doing something on his own, something good and kind, he was used as a tool by the gods. Gods, for god's sake! Well, he wasn't havin none of that. He cut down his tree limb, covered both ends in Loki's blood and went on the hunt.
First, he went to Al's cabin. He kicked the door of that sucker in so hard that splinters flew across the room and killed the unkillable pig. Spinning his new staff just like he'd learned when he was three, he went whirling and twirling through the hall of the undead warriors; a compact, woody tornado of death. And because his weapon was made from the world tree, those whom he killed stayed dead. There wasn't none of that "risin in the evenin to drink and carouse" stuff they'd been doin up until then. Many of them warriors, not realizin what was happenin, just drank and laughed, waiting for their turn to be slaughtered. Some jumped up and started swingin swords and axes just because they enjoyed doin that sorta thing. Sides formed in the room and the battle was joined full force. But Hiroki was his own side. He waited until one group of Vikings would form up behind him, hoping to press into the enemy ranks, then the turned and slaughtered those nearest to him. Thinking he was pulling a brilliant double-cross, the enemy side would group up behind him to press back, but they got the end of the stick as well. All the warriors in the hall died that day. Their souls did not move on to some better, more perfect world. They lay in the spilled grog and pig drippins on the floor of that hall, never to move again.
After the slaughter of the Einherjar, Hiroki went to visit Baldr. The lame god saw him enter and attempted to arm himself. But, god or no god, it's right tough to move faster than a ninja when you got two bum legs. Hiroki's staff met him in the teeth and mingled the brothers' blood for the first time since they were in the womb together.
But the killing wasn't enough. He needed to wreak a destruction such as had never been seen. Hiroki tore the shirt off of Baldr and wrapped both ends of his bo in rags made from the dead god's clothes. Then he spotted an oil lamp on Baldr's shelf. He smashed it with one end of his staff, covering the rags in the oil. Using his lightning ninja speed, he twirled the staff 180 degrees before the oil had time to splash on the ground and soaked the other end. Then he thrust both ends of his oily q-tip into Baldr's forge, lighting up the former tree branch with the fire of the gods.
With his new firey stick of death, Hiroki ran through the tree, killing all those who came in his path and setting the limbs on fire wherever he could. The fire spread slowly at first, but when it reached the thinner outer branches, it ballooned. Before Hiroki could find Odin, the smoke and the heat began to overwhelm him. He took one final breath, held it in, and jumped off the planet. As he was slingshotting around the sun, Hiroki got one last glimpse of the space tree, lit up like the worst Christmas imaginable. He knew that Odin would be coming for him and he would be prepared. After all, he was master of his own destiny now.
Hiroki just nodded his little head, bent down and got to work cuttin that branch. And let me tell ya, nothin clears existential dillema out of your head like a little bit of wood cuttin. I remember back when I was 18 or 19 or somewhere about there. I got myself hired down at the shoe factory, puttin the paper in the toes of the shoes. Of course, this was long before all that kinda stuff was outsourced to 2-year-old Chinese robots or whatever. Anyhoo, there was this guy named Tony who worked at the factory as a box polisher. He'd been polishin them boxes in 12 hour shifts for neigh on 15 years, so he was a little loopy in the head. People said he took the polish home at night to drink it, but I don't think that was true, because I figure his farts would be shiny if he did and, even though they smelled like turpentine, they sure as poop on a pringle wasn't shiny. Regardless of the reflective properties of his gas, this Tony was a real well read sort. He told me once that he had himself a PhD in literature or some such thing, but didn't want to deal with all the politickin of a university job, so he polised boxes, read and wrote criticism in his spare time. At the time, I was gettin mighty interested in readin, but I could mostly only get my hands on old newspapers because I'd been banned from the library for reasons I won't go into right now. When Tony heard I liked readin, he gave me a couple books he said were like to blow my mind.
He gave me a couple books by these guys Niet...Neechee....no, wait, there's a 'z' in there somehwere. Good lord, that boy's name is right hard to spell. Anyway, he's this guy who talks a lot about Superman for some reason and says God gone and died. Then he gave me this other book by this Kafka guy. He wrote this story about a guy wakin up as a giant bug one day and his family gettin all mad at him because he can't go to work no more and feed them. Also, they don't seem to like bugs too much from the beginning. At first, I thought he was there when I went through the whole hullaballoo at the library, but then I read the intro and saw he had written that book quite a bit before the library thing, so either he was psychic or he was really writing about the plight of the working man in a society that only cared about his ability to produce wealth for the elite and then discarded him as soon as his productive days were over, showing that, in an industrial society, man has no inherent value as a person, but only as a means to an end. I felt this reflected somewhat on my position as a shoe stuffer. I started feelin like I wasn't nothin but a cog in this big machine, totally without control over my own actions. So, you know what I did? I cut down a tree. With a rock. Then I killed a rabbit with a piece of the tree I'd just cut down and roasted the rabbit with the rest of the tree. In short, I got right back to my primitive roots, where I was in control of my basic survival. It was right then I decided to forgo the whole shoe stuffin business for a couple years and light out for the territories, as it were. That when I got into all the alligator wrestlin mess and all that I believe I've gone over before. But if you don't remember, let me sum up. I wrestled alligators for a bit. There ya go, all caught up.
I guess what I'm tryin to say here is that, when you feel like you ain't nothin but a tiny little piece of a great big ol' machine, ain't nothin better to cure your malaise than cuttin down a tree. Barrin that, you could cut off part of a tree that it roughly tree sized. So, based entirely on my own experience with ennui, I woulda said that Hiroki would have gotten his mind straight in sawin off that tree branch and then woulda gone out to wrestle some alligators for awhile before goin back home and accepting his place as a tool of the corporate machine. I guess in this case it would be a literary machine, but that don't matter none. But instead, he did somethin crazy.
He was sittin there sawin at the branch and he asked, "So, whatever action we do has been chosen for us, right?"
Loki nodded.
"And so we our actions are not subject to our own will, but some sort of fate made by the story teller?"
Loki nodded again.
"Then I am not responsible," said Hiroki standing, "for this!" He swung the saw in a wide arc, catching Loki across the throat. As a bright rooster tail of blood shot from the god's jugular, his eyes went wide with surprise. Now, like I said, I may have wrestled an alligator or two so I could assert my independance and get in touch with my personhood, but I never really considered deicide as a valid option. I guess I was wrong. It worked out pretty well for Hiroki.
Something had come loose in the boy. He was tired of everyone and everything telling him what to do and who to be. All his life, he was the son of this or the member of that. He was used as a tool by Clan Platypus and would never be anything more, if they had a say in it. And what was his rebellion? Pizza. What the heck kind of rebellion is going for pizza and playing pinball? That ain't hardly no rebellion at all. And now, now that he was thought he was doing something on his own, something good and kind, he was used as a tool by the gods. Gods, for god's sake! Well, he wasn't havin none of that. He cut down his tree limb, covered both ends in Loki's blood and went on the hunt.
First, he went to Al's cabin. He kicked the door of that sucker in so hard that splinters flew across the room and killed the unkillable pig. Spinning his new staff just like he'd learned when he was three, he went whirling and twirling through the hall of the undead warriors; a compact, woody tornado of death. And because his weapon was made from the world tree, those whom he killed stayed dead. There wasn't none of that "risin in the evenin to drink and carouse" stuff they'd been doin up until then. Many of them warriors, not realizin what was happenin, just drank and laughed, waiting for their turn to be slaughtered. Some jumped up and started swingin swords and axes just because they enjoyed doin that sorta thing. Sides formed in the room and the battle was joined full force. But Hiroki was his own side. He waited until one group of Vikings would form up behind him, hoping to press into the enemy ranks, then the turned and slaughtered those nearest to him. Thinking he was pulling a brilliant double-cross, the enemy side would group up behind him to press back, but they got the end of the stick as well. All the warriors in the hall died that day. Their souls did not move on to some better, more perfect world. They lay in the spilled grog and pig drippins on the floor of that hall, never to move again.
After the slaughter of the Einherjar, Hiroki went to visit Baldr. The lame god saw him enter and attempted to arm himself. But, god or no god, it's right tough to move faster than a ninja when you got two bum legs. Hiroki's staff met him in the teeth and mingled the brothers' blood for the first time since they were in the womb together.
But the killing wasn't enough. He needed to wreak a destruction such as had never been seen. Hiroki tore the shirt off of Baldr and wrapped both ends of his bo in rags made from the dead god's clothes. Then he spotted an oil lamp on Baldr's shelf. He smashed it with one end of his staff, covering the rags in the oil. Using his lightning ninja speed, he twirled the staff 180 degrees before the oil had time to splash on the ground and soaked the other end. Then he thrust both ends of his oily q-tip into Baldr's forge, lighting up the former tree branch with the fire of the gods.
With his new firey stick of death, Hiroki ran through the tree, killing all those who came in his path and setting the limbs on fire wherever he could. The fire spread slowly at first, but when it reached the thinner outer branches, it ballooned. Before Hiroki could find Odin, the smoke and the heat began to overwhelm him. He took one final breath, held it in, and jumped off the planet. As he was slingshotting around the sun, Hiroki got one last glimpse of the space tree, lit up like the worst Christmas imaginable. He knew that Odin would be coming for him and he would be prepared. After all, he was master of his own destiny now.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Tales within tales
I'm gonna admit right up front here that I ain't got much experience in the whole "gonna go do somethin that is gonna get someone killed and even though I don't wanna do it I've been told by a couple gods that I gotta do it so I'm sorta resigned to bein complicit in murder, but that's prolly ok because I have been raised by ninjas, after all, but I still want to understand what's going on and is there really such a thing as fate" thing. I have, however, had quite a lot of experience with chicken wings, which is sorta the same thing. I been sittin on my porch of a Saturday afternoon thinkin to myself that what I could really go for is a whole mess of chicken wings, some fries and a pitcher of frosty barley pop while I'm watchin whatever's on the game. At that point in time, it's pretty well assured that I'm gonna find myself in Ed's Chicken Shack and Discount Record Store in a couple hours with a veritable charnel ground of chicken bones heaped up before me like I'm the barbarian who conquered the chicken yard, one or two fry ends sitting among a field of salt, a forest's worth of orangified, greasy napkins strewn about like the petticoats of a fast woman in the 50s and a quarter pitcher of my favorite ale sweating on the table as I work up the courage and stomach space to polish that sucker off. I know this is gonna happen as soon as the thought pops in my head. But I also know that I will wake at 1:30 am the following morning with a family of starving flame beavers attempting to chew their way out of my body, lower end first. So I sit there in my rockin chair, whittlin away at whatever project I'm currently on, and debate myself. I say, "Pat, them wings is mighty delicious." Then I retort, "I ain't denyin that, Pat, but that hot sauce ain't gonna do your stomach a good turn, and if you spend too many more nights sleepin in your recliner, your back's gonna be so twisted and deformed that you'll be able to sit a magazine on the toilet tank while you're doin your business and read it just fine. And you know you're gonna be doin a whole lot of business after them wings." Then I'll shoot back, "But PAT! They're delicious!!!!!" And so it goes. Before I know it, I'm sittin right where I knew I would be from the beginning, pile of bones up to the ceiling, leanin back in my chair and burpin fire, gettin ready for the pain to come.
So, even though it ain't never led to anyone dyin or anything like that, I know a little somethin about inevitability. I bet Hiroki was feelin a little like confused-over-chicken-wings Pat when he was given the magical saw and sent off with Loki to get himself a piece of the tree.
That's prolly why he started askin questions like, "Are you really going to kill him? Baldr, I mean?"
"Oh, no," replied Loki, "I couldn't possibly kill my own brother. There's almost nothing worse than a fratricide. I'm going to have Thor do it for me."
"But why? You're going to be chained to a rock and then destroy the world!" Hiroki was shouting by now.
Loki lowered his eyes, "I know."
"Then why do it?! Is a hammer so important?"
Loki sighed, "I don't have a choice. And neither do you." Then he wept a little.
The young ninja wrinkled his brow. This was very unexpected. "What do you mean?"
Loki pulled himself together with visible effort. "I love my brother," he said. "And I hate seeing him die, but it happens over and over and over, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm just a story, that's why!" He shouted, throwing his arms into the air. "I'm just some words, some pictures in someone's head! And so are you!"
Hiroki was taken aback. "I am not a story, I am Hiroki Hatayama, son of Tetsuo Hatayama, member of Clan Platypus, and I am a real person."
"No," Loki replied, "no you're not. You are naught but words and imagination, Hiroki. So are my brothers, so is this tree, so is all of it."
"It can't be true," Hiroki gasped. "How do you know this?"
"A little birdy told me." Seeing that this answer didn't satisfy his audience, Loki went on. "As you may know, my brother Odin once hung himself in a tree for nine days, as a sacrifice to himself. During those nine days, a raven came to him and offered him omniscience in exchange for his eye. As you saw, he took it."
The ninja nodded, "That's in the Havamal, I believe."
Loki chuckled, "It is the Havamal. But yes, you know the story. What's not in there is that, in gaining omniscience, Odin learned something he could not bear alone. So he talked me into sacrificing for the knowledge as well."
Hiroki looked at him askance. "You still have both eyes."
"Smart kid," Loki shot back. "The raven didn't want my eye. I had to sacrifice something more. And so Baldr dies, I get chained to a rock with water dripping on my head for thousands of years, and when I get out, everything gets destroyed. And what do I get in exchange? I get to know that we're all really just stories.
"Listen, boy, I know you don't like to hear it, but it's true. This place we live in, it's not as it appears. We're just words and images. And the nature of our universe is such that, when a story is told or remembered, it becomes real. So just now, when I told you of Odin in the tree, that was really happening. Somewhere out in a far off corner of the universe, there was a real Odin hanging in a real tree somewhere.
"And me, I can imagine a man standing on a planet speaking to an army of ghosts about this very story and that is real, too! And maybe that man imagines, I don't know, a man sitting at a magic box where he presses some buttons and makes all those stories come to life, something crazy like that. Even that is real. It's all real. And we're all imagining each other and making it real. We're all products of each other's imaginations, you see.
"So whenever you read a story or tell a story or even remember a story, it becomes real all over again. Each time you read about me getting my nephew to kill my brother, it has to happen somewhere. But I'm omniscient from that first sacrifice and so I know that I do it over and over and over again. I have no way to stop it or to not know about it."
Hiroki fell to his knees. "Can it be true? Am I nothing more than some ink, some words?"
"It's true," said Loki.
"Then how can I go on? What meaning does any of this have?"
"That's a good question, boy."
So, even though it ain't never led to anyone dyin or anything like that, I know a little somethin about inevitability. I bet Hiroki was feelin a little like confused-over-chicken-wings Pat when he was given the magical saw and sent off with Loki to get himself a piece of the tree.
That's prolly why he started askin questions like, "Are you really going to kill him? Baldr, I mean?"
"Oh, no," replied Loki, "I couldn't possibly kill my own brother. There's almost nothing worse than a fratricide. I'm going to have Thor do it for me."
"But why? You're going to be chained to a rock and then destroy the world!" Hiroki was shouting by now.
Loki lowered his eyes, "I know."
"Then why do it?! Is a hammer so important?"
Loki sighed, "I don't have a choice. And neither do you." Then he wept a little.
The young ninja wrinkled his brow. This was very unexpected. "What do you mean?"
Loki pulled himself together with visible effort. "I love my brother," he said. "And I hate seeing him die, but it happens over and over and over, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm just a story, that's why!" He shouted, throwing his arms into the air. "I'm just some words, some pictures in someone's head! And so are you!"
Hiroki was taken aback. "I am not a story, I am Hiroki Hatayama, son of Tetsuo Hatayama, member of Clan Platypus, and I am a real person."
"No," Loki replied, "no you're not. You are naught but words and imagination, Hiroki. So are my brothers, so is this tree, so is all of it."
"It can't be true," Hiroki gasped. "How do you know this?"
"A little birdy told me." Seeing that this answer didn't satisfy his audience, Loki went on. "As you may know, my brother Odin once hung himself in a tree for nine days, as a sacrifice to himself. During those nine days, a raven came to him and offered him omniscience in exchange for his eye. As you saw, he took it."
The ninja nodded, "That's in the Havamal, I believe."
Loki chuckled, "It is the Havamal. But yes, you know the story. What's not in there is that, in gaining omniscience, Odin learned something he could not bear alone. So he talked me into sacrificing for the knowledge as well."
Hiroki looked at him askance. "You still have both eyes."
"Smart kid," Loki shot back. "The raven didn't want my eye. I had to sacrifice something more. And so Baldr dies, I get chained to a rock with water dripping on my head for thousands of years, and when I get out, everything gets destroyed. And what do I get in exchange? I get to know that we're all really just stories.
"Listen, boy, I know you don't like to hear it, but it's true. This place we live in, it's not as it appears. We're just words and images. And the nature of our universe is such that, when a story is told or remembered, it becomes real. So just now, when I told you of Odin in the tree, that was really happening. Somewhere out in a far off corner of the universe, there was a real Odin hanging in a real tree somewhere.
"And me, I can imagine a man standing on a planet speaking to an army of ghosts about this very story and that is real, too! And maybe that man imagines, I don't know, a man sitting at a magic box where he presses some buttons and makes all those stories come to life, something crazy like that. Even that is real. It's all real. And we're all imagining each other and making it real. We're all products of each other's imaginations, you see.
"So whenever you read a story or tell a story or even remember a story, it becomes real all over again. Each time you read about me getting my nephew to kill my brother, it has to happen somewhere. But I'm omniscient from that first sacrifice and so I know that I do it over and over and over again. I have no way to stop it or to not know about it."
Hiroki fell to his knees. "Can it be true? Am I nothing more than some ink, some words?"
"It's true," said Loki.
"Then how can I go on? What meaning does any of this have?"
"That's a good question, boy."
Friday, May 28, 2010
Back to Bob's
Hiroki got hisself up, said goodbye to the large, hairy men who he'd been havin his dinner with, and followed the two btohers out of the grand hall. When he got outside, he was right confuzzled for a second. He'd been in there so long that he'd plum forgot that the whole eating and drinking hall was nothin more than a broke down shack on the outside. He was fixin to ask his hosts about it, but they was engaged in a furious, but very very quiet, rhetorical contest of some sort, complete with hand gestures and not a little of subtle pushing.
The two brothers kept their heads bowed next to each other the whole way back to Bob's shack. So Hiroki didn't get much of a chance to ask the questions that was buggin him so much. He weren't no fool, that Hiroki. He'd done all his reading about mythology in his ninja propaganda classes. You see, mythology was a required area of study for all ninjas bent on world domination (and I imagine others bent on world domination would benefit from it as well) because it's a whole heck of a lot easier to dominate a culture when you can prove their god/gods/angry sea trolls approve of what your doin than if you just went in there with your fire and your swords and your crazy new language and food that smells like fish that's been wrapped in raw egg and sat in the sun for a good week before you went and threw it into that well. Heck, even the Romans knew that much about conquering stuff. But anyway, because he knew his history and his mythology and everything, Hiroki was sorta uncomfortable about the situation he found himself in.
Despite Al's protestations to the contrary, our young antagonist was pretty durn sure the one eyed guy was Odin, the king of the norse gods. And with that bein so, that would make "Luke" prolly Loki, Odin's brother and a trickster. Finally, that would mean that Bob, who was makin the saw, was most likely Baldr, the third brother. Now, it didn't bother Hiroki so much about them bein brothers and all, but he was pretty uncomfortable about what was about to happen. Near as he could remember it, in the story Baldr was impervious to all weapons except those made out of Yggdrasil, the world tree.
But there was all this jelousy that Loki was harboring because Baldr had made a super cool hammer for Odin's son, Thor. It's sorta like when your friend gets himself a brand new fishing rod that's got all the spinners and knockers and whatever other contraptions that they're puttin on them rods nowadays, and you really want to have one just like it but you've just lost your job down at the shoe factory and so you gotta go easy on the funds for awhile because, even though you've got some money saved up from that time you did pretty well in the lottery, you don't know how long you're gonna need that money to last and you're just hopin that you ain't endin up old and alone in a home somewhere with a giant guy everyone calls Chief because you think he just may bust out of there when the guy from that movie where he had the gay neighbor and that little dog and he was seein that waitress who was in that other thing about tornadoes or whatever with that guy who played the president a whole bunch for awhile there gets a chunk of his brain taken out and things just ain't gonna be the same again. It's a whole lot like that feeling you get then, except in the case of Loki and Baldr, it was a whole lot more murder-ey.
And along with this, Hiroki also knew that Loki got himself a piece of the world tree, fashioned an arrow out of it, and tricked Thor into killing Baldr. For that, Odin chained Loki to a rock for the rest of time and turned his sons into wolves. Then, when Loki finally got free, it started the end of the world. So, you can see how our young ninja, who was in this thing in order to help people, might be a tad uncomfortable playing an active role in the end of all the world. I know I've seen some ugly stuff comin down the pipe, like when I'm asked to buy a cake for Aunt Edna's birthday, and I don't much care to participate. I could just imagine if that cake was full of suffering, death and destruction. Usually it's just strawberry cream, though, so I'm lucky there.
Well, the three went on over to Bob's shack. As soon as Bob saw Loki, he dropped his forgin hammer and took up some super heated tongs, which he tried to use to beat his brother about the face and head, but "Luke" managed to dodge all the strikes. Now, I don't wanna sound like I'm disparagin the differently abled or anything like that cause Lord knows I got problems of my own, but when a guy with whithered legs is swinging at you, it ain't that hard to dodge, especially if you're young and in shape and a god to boot.
In his rage, Bob was just swingin and swingin away, but he didn't hit nothin but air. If he'd been ragin against the oxygen molecules wanderin around his head, he coulda felt right satisfied that his work was done. But, sadly, he was ragin against a target that was a) seeable and 2) movin around, so he didn't get himself much satisfaction. And the whole time, he was yellin "No! I ain't doin it again! You hear me? It's NOT happening!"
Eventually, the poker went cold and, since it wasn't tempered right, the end broke off in Bob's hands. Then Al sidled up to him and started whisperin in his ear. It went a whole lot like the conversation between Luke and Bob in the hall went. It started with a whole lot of no's, then some silence, then quiet aquiescence.
Bob turned to his forge and grabbed the saw blade he'd been working on. It was carved all over with runes that glowed slightly blue. Other than that, it looked to be a pretty normal hand saw. He turned back to his brothers, tossed the saw gently into the straw at his feet, and then spit on it.
"Here," he said bitterly, "take it. And gods damn you both."
Al nodded to Luke, then picked up the saw saying, "We're already damned, brother. Some of us just don't know it yet."
Luke turned then to Hiroki. "You want your staff? Get that saw and follow me."
The young ninja looked to Al, who nodded and held out the saw.
"I know what this is," declared Hiroki. "What if I refuse to take the saw?"
Al shook his head slowly. "Don't matter. It's gonna get done somehow. It's all gonna get done. Only thing that changes is you getting what you came for."
"I don't understand," said Hiroki. "Are you saying it's fate?"
"Not exactly," said Luke. "Take the saw. I'll explain on the way."
Hiroki stood still. Not believing he was a part of all this.
Al shook the saw a bit. "Take it son. It's gotta happen."
The ninja looked to Bob, who sighed. "He's right. It's gotta happen. Take the saw."
And so Hiroki reached out his hand and took the saw. Luke clapped his hands together and giggled gleefully. "Great! Now follow me."
Hiroki nodded and followed the young brother out of the shack. At the door, he turned back to Al. "Why did you lie to me?" he asked.
"How did I lie to you, son?"
"You told me you weren't Odin," stated the young ninja.
"Not true," replied Al, "I just told you I was sick of hearin the question. Don't necessarily mean that I ain't him."
Hiroki nodded, slowly, realizing that he'd been played like an accordian made of poker cards. Then he turned and left the cabin behind.
The two brothers kept their heads bowed next to each other the whole way back to Bob's shack. So Hiroki didn't get much of a chance to ask the questions that was buggin him so much. He weren't no fool, that Hiroki. He'd done all his reading about mythology in his ninja propaganda classes. You see, mythology was a required area of study for all ninjas bent on world domination (and I imagine others bent on world domination would benefit from it as well) because it's a whole heck of a lot easier to dominate a culture when you can prove their god/gods/angry sea trolls approve of what your doin than if you just went in there with your fire and your swords and your crazy new language and food that smells like fish that's been wrapped in raw egg and sat in the sun for a good week before you went and threw it into that well. Heck, even the Romans knew that much about conquering stuff. But anyway, because he knew his history and his mythology and everything, Hiroki was sorta uncomfortable about the situation he found himself in.
Despite Al's protestations to the contrary, our young antagonist was pretty durn sure the one eyed guy was Odin, the king of the norse gods. And with that bein so, that would make "Luke" prolly Loki, Odin's brother and a trickster. Finally, that would mean that Bob, who was makin the saw, was most likely Baldr, the third brother. Now, it didn't bother Hiroki so much about them bein brothers and all, but he was pretty uncomfortable about what was about to happen. Near as he could remember it, in the story Baldr was impervious to all weapons except those made out of Yggdrasil, the world tree.
But there was all this jelousy that Loki was harboring because Baldr had made a super cool hammer for Odin's son, Thor. It's sorta like when your friend gets himself a brand new fishing rod that's got all the spinners and knockers and whatever other contraptions that they're puttin on them rods nowadays, and you really want to have one just like it but you've just lost your job down at the shoe factory and so you gotta go easy on the funds for awhile because, even though you've got some money saved up from that time you did pretty well in the lottery, you don't know how long you're gonna need that money to last and you're just hopin that you ain't endin up old and alone in a home somewhere with a giant guy everyone calls Chief because you think he just may bust out of there when the guy from that movie where he had the gay neighbor and that little dog and he was seein that waitress who was in that other thing about tornadoes or whatever with that guy who played the president a whole bunch for awhile there gets a chunk of his brain taken out and things just ain't gonna be the same again. It's a whole lot like that feeling you get then, except in the case of Loki and Baldr, it was a whole lot more murder-ey.
And along with this, Hiroki also knew that Loki got himself a piece of the world tree, fashioned an arrow out of it, and tricked Thor into killing Baldr. For that, Odin chained Loki to a rock for the rest of time and turned his sons into wolves. Then, when Loki finally got free, it started the end of the world. So, you can see how our young ninja, who was in this thing in order to help people, might be a tad uncomfortable playing an active role in the end of all the world. I know I've seen some ugly stuff comin down the pipe, like when I'm asked to buy a cake for Aunt Edna's birthday, and I don't much care to participate. I could just imagine if that cake was full of suffering, death and destruction. Usually it's just strawberry cream, though, so I'm lucky there.
Well, the three went on over to Bob's shack. As soon as Bob saw Loki, he dropped his forgin hammer and took up some super heated tongs, which he tried to use to beat his brother about the face and head, but "Luke" managed to dodge all the strikes. Now, I don't wanna sound like I'm disparagin the differently abled or anything like that cause Lord knows I got problems of my own, but when a guy with whithered legs is swinging at you, it ain't that hard to dodge, especially if you're young and in shape and a god to boot.
In his rage, Bob was just swingin and swingin away, but he didn't hit nothin but air. If he'd been ragin against the oxygen molecules wanderin around his head, he coulda felt right satisfied that his work was done. But, sadly, he was ragin against a target that was a) seeable and 2) movin around, so he didn't get himself much satisfaction. And the whole time, he was yellin "No! I ain't doin it again! You hear me? It's NOT happening!"
Eventually, the poker went cold and, since it wasn't tempered right, the end broke off in Bob's hands. Then Al sidled up to him and started whisperin in his ear. It went a whole lot like the conversation between Luke and Bob in the hall went. It started with a whole lot of no's, then some silence, then quiet aquiescence.
Bob turned to his forge and grabbed the saw blade he'd been working on. It was carved all over with runes that glowed slightly blue. Other than that, it looked to be a pretty normal hand saw. He turned back to his brothers, tossed the saw gently into the straw at his feet, and then spit on it.
"Here," he said bitterly, "take it. And gods damn you both."
Al nodded to Luke, then picked up the saw saying, "We're already damned, brother. Some of us just don't know it yet."
Luke turned then to Hiroki. "You want your staff? Get that saw and follow me."
The young ninja looked to Al, who nodded and held out the saw.
"I know what this is," declared Hiroki. "What if I refuse to take the saw?"
Al shook his head slowly. "Don't matter. It's gonna get done somehow. It's all gonna get done. Only thing that changes is you getting what you came for."
"I don't understand," said Hiroki. "Are you saying it's fate?"
"Not exactly," said Luke. "Take the saw. I'll explain on the way."
Hiroki stood still. Not believing he was a part of all this.
Al shook the saw a bit. "Take it son. It's gotta happen."
The ninja looked to Bob, who sighed. "He's right. It's gotta happen. Take the saw."
And so Hiroki reached out his hand and took the saw. Luke clapped his hands together and giggled gleefully. "Great! Now follow me."
Hiroki nodded and followed the young brother out of the shack. At the door, he turned back to Al. "Why did you lie to me?" he asked.
"How did I lie to you, son?"
"You told me you weren't Odin," stated the young ninja.
"Not true," replied Al, "I just told you I was sick of hearin the question. Don't necessarily mean that I ain't him."
Hiroki nodded, slowly, realizing that he'd been played like an accordian made of poker cards. Then he turned and left the cabin behind.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)