Drifter [fragment]

Below is a snippet from a very cringy story I wrote in serialized style starting back around 2002. Above is an upscaled and modernized version of the cover that I had designed when I still had illusions that I would publish this tripe. Mind you, this is one of the best sections in the some-200 pages I wrote and, while I can see some salvageable elements, it is still pretty awful in my estimation. It is a tale full of not very clever stuff that I thought was clever at the time and includes one thing I have grown to detest as I get older: an evil overlord.

Drifter has a problem — he turns people to ash quite unintentionally when he touches them, he has a wafer-thin evil overlord pursuing him, and can walk through walls. Evil overlord wants to use him to stop a young lady who can keep the apocalypse from occurring — which the evil overlord would find annoying.

In this scene, Evil Overlord sends his minions, Glum and Treacle, to make sure Drifter picks the right side in the global affair.

It’s all very silly.

I am publishing this solely because Tara Caribou dared me to post something awful I had written. As I warned her, I have very little shame. Some light edits are involved. I have a modicum of pride, even if I have no shame. You can throw blunt objects at her if you read the following. I am innocent.

You may want to skip this post.

The scene setup is that Drifter is being woken from a dream of the beach with his lost love. She was complaining about the birds breaking clam shells on the rocks as the tapping begins.

Tap.

Tap tap tap tappity tap.

Tap.

Continue reading →

Burning gods

The Drifter added another god to the roadside bonefire blazing under the dying desert sun. He even feigned reverence until the sky grew red laced with seared violet because that is the kind of thing one does during such events.

It was necessary, however bittersweet.

As gloaming seized the sky in earnest, he turned on a well-worn boot heel and stepped up into the lonesome road of broken asphalt, walking to a rhythm without a source, but one always with him.

He nodded in welcome to the rising pregnant moon casting pale shadows across the growing night. He was not alone, as a lone coyote offered her own welcome to the pale goddess of the night skies.

winter threads

with window eyes
razor teeth sharp
captured songs
for the lost
winter threads
trailing off into
tomorrow

a bespelling

a game of muse
laying naked riverbank lawn
and chickadee song
fingertracing body dew
breathing perfume
laughing waters dancing

mad teas and biscuit
half consumed
a'wytching bespelled
indigo eyed you

ancient granite

twilight with rain
time slips away
no leave given
or required
to fall stone fall
out of my skin
into the musk
beyond aura
past sour and stale
old oak tallman
drinking me roots
pushing me
under ancient
granite songs

carry worlds

i carry worlds
in my cranebag

forest floor needle brown
night feather scry skies
wood ring words taut
my fungal heart gills
and waves tow tide under

songs immigrant
riding skiff at dawn
to kiss the sea
burning red

tucked inside
all

crystal

in the caves

in the caves

in

the

crystal caves

waters mirror
ancient faces
and i hear
the grey songs
echo and calling
me bandaged eyes
home
beyond the veil

enthralled

i am bound
enthralled
she walks tall
over reaping fields
and, there, i follow
a crane bag of
obsidian quills
collected in her wake

wraps and rags

my drifter mind
seduced by saudade
wanders lengths of
abandoned streets bound to
melancholic memories
of neverwere
the cloying scent of
oblivion tugging
at the ragged edges of
sleep

One step beyond

I have been standing here, staring at the edge of the world.

People imagine that place to be on the precipice of an abyss filled with void, tumbling out before them — a cascade of nothing.

That’s not the edge of the world.

The edge of the world terminates where another begins: one of dense old growth trees and sunlight struggling to reach eager young plants, and where mycelium chatter over a mystic telegram of spores, electrical impulses and chemical lovemaking. Where thing rot and are reborn in the shadows, and leaves mask the rich soil below.

I am unmoored, unhomed, lost the thread of the tether save for the few gossamer tendrils threatening to break like spider silk under too much strain. I am a drifter trying to find a way back to the heart buried past the edge of the world, a wayfarer and pilgrim, blind with fingers reaching out to feel my way past the blinding brilliance of chrome and corrupted alchemy. I am wandering, here, at the razor thin slice of reality, wondering on which side I actually stand.

Drifter: my everywhere is home, but never do I belong.

Taking up my walking staff, my third leg grounding, I step into the shadows, leaving something behind.

A journey. An echtrae. One step beyond.

Tag: drifter

Drifter [fragment]

Like this:

Burning gods

Like this:

winter threads

Like this:

a bespelling

Like this:

ancient granite

Like this:

carry worlds

Like this:

crystal

Like this:

enthralled

Like this:

wraps and rags

Like this:

One step beyond

Like this: