The Maiden & The Wolves

Three brothers are walking in a field,


When they see a maiden surrounded by wolves.


The eldest brother charges in to rescue her with his bare hands, and the wolves tear him apart.


The middle brother sneaks in to rescue her with his silver blade, and he slices up one or two wolves before they find him and tear him apart.


The youngest brother decides to rescue her with his hunting rifle, and he shoots down the rest of the wolves before they can tear him apart.


When the shooting ends he glides over expecting a kiss, when she punches him in the face.


“What was that for?” he asks.


She yells, “For killing my wolves!”

Recent Poems (March 9th)

Say Something

Say no if you want

Say yes if you like

Say thanks but no thanks

Say sorry but not sorry

Say what you need to say

Just say something, please

This silence is rotting me out




Guts

A heart of stone

An iron lung

Nerves of steel

Guts

All this, and more,



I lack

White Dima and Scary Jackson

White Dima and Scary Jackson sit on a black bed. While the snow piles on the night, they crowd around a tv, watching Moscow hockey. Dima knows he is sure to lose his bet, and fears it. Jackson knows too, and smiles. He might as well fish the money out of his pocket right now. He thinks of that blue cred card, ready to pay off his debts to the Finnish. Dima thinks of his children, and which one would be most appetizing to the Finnish: maybe that could buy him some time, and another gamble. Dima breathes in as the hockey puck glides across, inches from victory, seconds from defeat…

And when the aerial finally breaks, and the signal turns to snow, Jackson cries out, and Dima cheers to God.

The Dead of Leningrad

photo credit: Chelsea Marie Hicks

A man's statue

Above the graves

Where brave men lie

And cowards too

But that man

The man who sent them to their graves

Lies elsewhere

How must they feel

The dead of Leningrad

Stalin remembered

And them, forgotten?

The Machine's Final Torture

He was a sorcerer from the blackest parts of Germany.

I sought him out, to study under him.

He said what he knew could not be taught,

Only learned.




He had a machine.

In the corner of his rented room at a disreputable inn, he had a machine the size of a shoebox. When I asked its purpose, he would smile and say it was for his enemies.




I grew impatient with him. He whispered secrets of the greatest caliber under his breath, but did not give me their context or meaning. Angels and demons would visit him in the night. He would treat one like a dear friend one night, and a total stranger the next. Sorting through his letters, I saw the names of kings and thieves, all asking his advice, all asking for an answer.

I was lost in a sea of cosmic intrigue.




When he was out on a walk, I took my chance and examined the machine. There was no lever or button, no cracks or gaps. But I heard ticking and grinding within, and it had a true weight to it.




I made no progress with it. So I watched him, and I poked him with questions about it. Not direct ones, you understand. I worked in implication and subtext, as it is the only way you can work with a sorcerer.




But one day, he figured me out. I moved too fast, asked too precisely. He said nothing, until I fell asleep.

When I woke, he had locked me into his machine.




I have known no pain greater than that place. Fields of burning grass, oceans of acid, freezing tundra, existence turned to suffering. T’was worse than Hell, for in Hell you hold out hope the devil will rise up and take back heaven.




I spent centuries in there. I learned the name of each ache and tear it gave me. I now know patience, and what fuels it.

Revenge. Hatred. To see your enemies choke out your name through a throat filled with blood.




Soon, I learnt how to unravel this place. Through the force of my hatred, I stripped the world bare. I annihilated the hostile lands, the horrid beasts, the pain and the humiliation.




I took away the worst of the machine.

And I was left with a paradise.

For the fields had grown up with poppies, the tundras had melted and become forests, and the oceans rolled calmly across the horizon.

A realization came across me.

I made this world.

I was its mother.




Then, he appeared before me.

Even as my hatred boiled, I was too shocked to say anything.




“You made a mistake,” he said. “The same as mine.”




“This place is beautiful,” I said. “What trickery is this?”




“There are no tricks,” he said. “This is your greatest creation. A land without pain. And if you are like me… You will destroy it all.”




“Why?” I say. “Why would I do that?”




“It is what I did,” he said. “You learnt well. My former teacher locked me in this very machine. I did exactly as you did. When he appeared before me, I escaped and locked him in. It returned to a nightmare, and he died in agony.”




The sorcerer grinned at me.




“Now is the question. Is your love for this place stronger than your hatred for me?”




Considering I am speaking to you, the answer should be obvious.

No matter how old I grow, I still feel the fresh air on my face, the glowing meadows, the smell of new life. I cannot forget it, and I cannot forget what I did to it.

That is the machine's final torture.

The Industrial Maiden

Thousands of stories haunt the car plant tonight.

Take the thumb taker. It's a huge box, a laser for oversized parts. You open it up, slot it in, and cut it down to template. Problem being, you hold the part in position with your thumbs. If the safety bar doesn't engage, the laser will remove them.

I cut a threaded lock, observing the shadow of the safety bar. Unlike Turnkey Tommy, I know to watch for it.

But if it does not kill me, some other story shall.

Someone sawed a girl's limbs off, then left her to die of exposure on a night just like this.

People didn't do anything about it, except close the factory and put everyone out of work.

That's just this town.

Walking the vacant floor, my steelie boots clacking, I click the threaded lock into the gas tank of a fresh campervan.

It is done.

The factory's last vehicle.

Our village is hard to justify. The sea’s too cold for fish, and the dirt’s too frozen to farm.

Here. Make a car manufactory. That's a reason to remain.

But they ended it. Everyone has left. Not me. I guide the van down the belt toward the train cars. The vaulted ceilings echo the squeaking of the tires. No-one but me. Not Two Cup Karl, not Turnkey Tommy, not even Johnny the Rat.

Johnny the Rat was the caretaker, and he got his name by the bathroom wall. They wrote JOHNNY IS A RAT on the tiles in marker pen. You see, he saw the girl, he talked to the management, and it got him no job, same as anyone.

Who else will remember his name?

Just me, and the limbs scraping the ceiling.

The van stops at the belt's end. The door to the traincars a few feet away, snow blowing in out from there. I get the planks lying against the wall, make ramps onto the car.

With a pull of the lever, the vehicle rolls off the belt and rolls up the planks. I think, it won't make it. And for a moment, I pray I will be as Sisyphus: I shall forever push the van up the plank, and watch as it slides right back.

But it doesn’t. It goes into the train car.

Bitter, I slam the doors shut and signal the robot in the locomotive. The train hisses and pulls away.

That's it.

It's done.

I'm done.

The door slides shut behind me. I move through to the fuse box and start flicking off the lights. Each row goes dark across the floor.

The thrum of industry has left, with only the howling wind and her breath on my neck as company.

She lays three razorfingers on my throat. It's a professional job. A fine replacement.

I did not saw her legs and arms off, I did not pretend she was already dead when they finished, I did not stay silent during the police investigation.

I watched.

I watched, and I remembered.

The Industrial Maiden slices my neck open, and all the memories spill out.

Explanation for Snow Rapt

Source

When I write stories, sometimes I like to imagine them taking place in the same place. Some dark corner of the world that people forgot for various reasons, and where strange things grow. Like mushrooms, in the dark and damp.

Snow Rapt is one of those.

All these stories take place in the same post-soviet arctic village (similar to Pyramida or Dikson), sometime in the near future. Things are not going well. In a land where night can last for months, and stepping outside without proper protection can kill you, living is difficult enough. When industry and purpose departed, the town began a slow but steady decay. The people who have not moved out to brighter pastures stay, relying on their addictions to fentanyl or moonshine for comfort in an uncaring and cold world.

Light a fire, my friends, and warm up while it burns. Strange things happen out in the dark, while the blizzards blow.

If you like listening to music while reading, here's a Spotify playlist of songs that inspire this setting.

Source

She's Junkie Cold

She’s junkie cold.

In here, his apartment, she sits on the leopard rug under the music cabinet. Faux-crocodile boots and tiger-print skirt. Her face is a trainwreck, all jagged edges.

She waits for him while the bastard waits for death, his body swallowed by snow, dying by inches.

Why is it so cold? She is as close to the stove as human endurance may allow, but snowflakes still form in the bones.

She wants to think she loves him but he hits her too hard. She loves the fentanyl. Even the thought of it gives her warmth followed by want. That patch getting slapped on her skin right now, it's enough to make her down below wake from death.

God, please, a cigarette. Anything to stop thinking. But he doesn't smoke because he's a doctor and he knows no joy.

The town doctor. What a catch!

Every time she glances at the clock it lies to her. Barely five minutes passed? This is a century of hell.

Why the hell isn't he home yet?

She wasn't cut out to be a housewife. Chores drained her, the silence maddening. He would come home to dirty dishes and dusty floors. Then he would beat her, for mother didn't know his wrath.

She wishes she could arch her back so far it would crack. End this nonsense. Instead she writhes and mews on the rug, like a poisoned rat.

When he arrived home she learnt to wear the costume. He didn't want a wife. He wanted a slut. A Moscow slut. But the weather wasn't made for streetwalkers, so she provided.

To please him.

Fuck him! She pushes herself off the rug and runs over to the cabinet, starts rooting through his record collection. There has to be something somewhere. She will find the patches. She'll slap on a dozen at once, and doze forever.

The patches made it easier. He was right. Getting fucked out of your head on fentanyl solved many domestic issues. Everything seemed profound, from the angle of sunlight off the vacuum cleaner to squeaking of the dishrag against glass.

But now the bastard left, and she empties his shitty records all over the shop. She picks up a James Brown vinyl and throws it against the wall, watches it shatter. No joy in it, she knows she must clean it. A weeping fit consumes her.

Fuck, fuck it all, fuck them all, and above all, fuck her. Fuck her for getting herself into this.

She must have done something.

But then.

An aurora, bright as sunlight, beyond the window.

She approaches it, watching the strange dance of energy across the dark sky.

Fucked on fentanyl, and not one patch.

She clasps her hands together, and prays to Him, like she is a child again.

Please God, please,

Whatever you must do, do it,

But don't let me get the junkie cold again.

Trainyard Angel

The kids freighthopped, sure, but they never took suicide cars.

They'd take a gondola with a wide welcoming trough, where the wind tears your eyes out, but never a suicide car. They had no floor. You crouched: legs stretched and arse on the bar, watching the ground rush under you. One slip, and down you went.

You have to be desperate, to hop a freight train. Beaten down by life, hopped up on dreams of the mainland. You’d try anything, except suicide cars.

So why did this kid try it, ponders Trainyard Officer Gorsky.

It’s midnight dark at high noon and his shift just ended. His poker game is minutes away. But he’s freezing his balls off in the trainyard, in the midst of blizzard.

All alone, for the trains are automated now.

He misses the drivers, misses talking to them. He's a bull alone in the yard, the last human in a world of dumb machines. But those dumb machines are bright enough to detect warm breath in the cold air. To stop the train and give him a call, with their telemarketer voices.

He shines his torch over the virgin snow: footprints leading away. The car holds no clues, no bags or stubbed out cigarettes. He sighs, knowing in his bones that the Transport Authority shall give him absolute shit if he just left it.

Can’t leave a kid to freeze.

TO Gorsky’s steelcapped boots crunch on the snow, sinking him up to his ankles. In the white wilderness he is a dark blip, an alien in many insulating layers. He follows the trail. The edges of the yard are lit up with floodlights, but he still can’t see a fucking thing in this weather.

The footprints grow shorter and shorter. Long strides become little steps. Handprints join them as the kid begins to crawl. God willing, he is too late.

But then his torch spotlights a beautiful man amongst the snow,

With a pair of feathery wings.

TO Gorsky should fall to his knees in supplication.

But, he’ll only be ten minutes late for poker if he left right now.

On the walk back, he reasons it was happy where it was, but he doesn’t know what he’ll tell his friends.

“You won't believe what I saw,” he says, practicing. “In the trainyard, I saw this guy… Not a guy. He was a… A trainyard angel…”

GUN HEAD THWACK

THWACK


I've impaled my hand with a nailgun.


Finishing touches to the gazebo's walls. A spot to read insulated from the cold. Distracted for one second.


I’m screaming. No-one hears me. Not my wife not my children not anyone at all. I am alone for miles. This is what I wanted: room to work on my projects.


My hammer will save me. But my fingertips come up short. I twist and dig the nail deeper but it won’t work.


The nail has crucified me. I bend and sob, it remains. I try pulling it out but I lose consciousness, it hurts too much.


I wake up pale. Blood loss. The cold doesn’t help.


The sun sets. Wolves howl. Perhaps if I had the shotgun in the basement or the rifle or the pistol on my bedside table, but all I have is my nailgun. Perhaps I could press it up against a wolf's neck and THWACK kill it dead.


Of course I would have to be very quick and very lucky.


The wind. From inside the house it helps me sleep. Out here it is the beast's roar heard from inside its belly.


My hand throbs.


I look out at the half-finished swingset. My wife persuaded me over the phone that one of these days my children could visit. Toys were required. I treated it as another project but prioritized below the gazebo.


If it was done I wouldn't feel so bad staring at it.


I black out again. I see things in the mist like the story my wife told to the children a hedgehog out to meet his friend the bear. I think he got lost on the way. A horse was involved.


I wasn't listening.


I wake again. Out here is no hope, unlike my dreams. I have nailed my hand to the wall. It’s done. The fence the woodstove the birdhouse the swings. The cabin I refurbished. The lake I didn't make.


This is all I wanted.


Fgures in the distance. Perhaps the ghosts of my past possibly wolves drawn to feast most probably exsanguination-induced hallucinations.


I'm going to die and will never see my loved ones. This is terrible.


“Oh shit” I say.


Not enough.


“Oooh shit” I repeat.


I feel nothing.


I lose consciousness.


An angel.


Open my eyes to figures closer than before I’m bleeding manages to seem even less finished the gazebo was a bad idea in the first place the cabin is blocked or I got it wrong start again the cabin blocks the lake no the lake blocks the cabin from the gazebo or


I lose consciousness.


Night.


Figures outside gazebo.


They're calling me.


I lose consciousness.


There's no escaping here.


I take the nailgun, it falls.


Lose consciousness.


There is no escape.


I grab the nailgun. I lift it to my head.


Lost.


No escape.


Nailgun. Lift head.


Visions.


Escape.


Gun. Head.





THWACK