Instalment Fifty Four

I bring grave tidings Sir. Attacks continue on all sides. To the East, The Fountain Gate is all but overrun and will soon breach. News is worse out west. Adelaide Queen of Churches has turned, marching her army ten days and ten nights to attack, her numbers swelling each day with all the savages and Barbarions she passes joining her ranks. They say even God’s Angels are marching with her. The West Gate has fallen under their weight. It will be at most a day, before they are amongst us.

Raise the Royal Guard, have them escort Queen Melba to the Abbot’s Fort, there she will be safe. Be wary though, of those that dwell in the Colling Wood, loyal to none but their own, they will likely lash out as you pass. Surely this is the work of our cousins to the North, The Jealous City, for too long we have tolerated their spite. You say God’s Angels march with them? We will wake The St. Killer to our defence. Fear not but be prepared to die my brothers. We are all the sons of Melba. We are Melba born, for Melba we fight and for Melba we die.

Instalment Fifty Three

The last weapon ever invented did not shoot or stab, it did not harm people at all. The Doubt Grenade didn’t need to, it was far too devastating. Lobbed in battle, the Doubt Grenade caused those exposed in the blast radius to question whatever action they were engaged in. “Why are we fighting?” they would ask, setting down their weapons. The genius of it was no one was sure it had even gone off, such was the cloud of doubt. They didn’t know they had been exposed. Sure, the experimental Truth Bomb could’ve been used but confusion is far better in an enemy that enlightenment, it was war after all.

Wars were finished, over without casualty.

But this was simply the beginning.

The Doubt Grenade made its way into urban warfare, a terrorist dropped one at customs enabling him to walk onto the plane carrying a second, which he dropped at the cockpit door. The pilots no longer believed they could land and circled till the fuel ran out. Guilty defendants dropped them in courtrooms, jealous ex-lovers rolled them down the aisle towards waiting happy couples, boardroom meetings halted.

I don’t know if we should do anything about it though?

Instalment Fifty Two

I used to know a girl who had perfect memory. I don’t mean a good, perfect, never forgot a thing. Now I’m not often wrong, if something important happens I try to flick the record button in my head. She had no button, she was always on record. She said it was a curse. She would tell people that something happened one way and they remembered it another. This makes people angry. It’s confronting, suddenly you feel you aren’t experienced the world right.

She could play her memories, projected as film onto the canvas of their real-life locations. Replaying a good memory, she’d experience the happiness anew, so clear that remembering became its own fond memory. When I think about times we spent together, all I have left are hazy mental snap shots. We had a picnic in that park, I think, but what we wore, ate or said are gone. Looking at my blurred snaps I think they were happy ones but is that true or what I have decided looking back? She would know if we were happy or if we weren’t. Maybe we weren’t. Maybe that’s why I no longer know her. Maybe that is a curse.

Instalment Fifty One

You know those cut along the dotted line lines? With tiny silhouette scissors working their way down the dots? He had those tattooed on his wrists. His girlfriend had stocking seams tattooed on the back of her legs from heel to buttock. An odd choice really. That’s something women did during the war when they couldn’t get nylons due to rationing, when stockings had seams, laying claim to a suffering she didn’t endure. But it looked fantastic. It had started when her mother had ‘P.T.O.’ tattooed on her back and ‘Please Do Not Resuscitate’ on her chest. She wasn’t trying to be cool, it was a legitimate medical concern of hers. But it set them off. He got a tombstone with his name on it, she upped that with a tombstone with her date of birth and date of death, provoking him to add the same date and a cause of death to his, the trump card being he wrote ‘Murder/ Suicide.’ By the time they had registration and calibration makes tattooed on their chests, the kind you get for lining up radiation treatment for lung cancer, it was all over. False and Faux no longer even fooled each other.

Instalment Fifty

Choose your own 200 Word Story

You don’t know where you are. It is dark. Do you:
A) Run away
B) Cry for help.
C) Explore your surroundings.

A) You run. You don’t know where as it is too dark to see. You run with your hands out in front of you like a demented zombie. You trip and stumble, falling to your knees, skinning your outstretched palms. Do you:
D) Raise your bloody hands above your head and howl.
E) Get up and keep on running.

D) Raising your hands over your head you begin to wail. Noooo! You moan. Nothing happens. So you start to crawl. On your hands and knees you inch forward, grinding dirt into your open wounds. Just as you start to lament your situation, your left hand misses where the ground should be and keeps going. You regain your balance and grope at the ground. A hole is in your way. Working your way around the edge of the hole and finding what feels like a rough stone wall, you continue crawling on your way. Good thing I didn’t keep running, you think, I might have fallen down that hole and died, glad I tripped and fell. You are Lucky. Go to Y)

E) Standing up, you start to run again. Bleeding and blind. Your front foot steps through where the ground should be. A downhill slope? No. You fall down a hole. Falling and falling and falling. And falling. This must be a very deep hole. This is typical you think. Why am I always doing things like this? Running blindly was never going to be a good idea and yet I did it anyway. And when I fell over, that should have been a warning but nooooooo you had to get up and keep running without stopping to think. And now look at you, falling down an endless hole. Just like that time with the toaster, although there is no safety switch for falling. Maybe this hole ends up over a lake? Maybe. You are Stupid. Go to X)

B) The sound of your crying echoes back at you. HELP. HELP. Help. help. help. help. Do you:
E) Call out again.
F) Say put.

E) You cry out again. HELP. HELP. Help. help. help. help. Silence burns your ears. Help you? Floats out of the darkness at you. I died here, whoooooo! Do you:
G) Scream.
H) Chat with the voice.

G) AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH! You scream.
You shouldn’t do that, the darkness tells you.
This only makes you want to scream more. So you do. Louder.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
I am warning you, says the voice, your life depends on it.
A. A. Are you a g-g-g-ghost?
Yes, says the voice, whooooooooo!
You are Terrified. You scream again and again.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
A Ghost, I’m going to die.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
Your voice echoes around and around, bouncing back at you getting louder and louder.
Going to die.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
Going to die.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGAAAHHHHH!
You hear a loud crack from above.
Your fear will be the death of you, says the voice.
W.W.Why? you questions the darkness.
You’re in a very old cave full of stalactites and you have disturbed them, much like you disturbed me.
Crack
Go to X)

H) Hello, you say. Do you need help?
No one has never asked that before, the voice replies, I died here.
You are never really dead if people remember you and you live on in their hearts, you say.
I never thought about it like that before, floats from the darkness, I guess I must live on somewhere then. You are Kind.
How did you know that? Yes I am Kind, you say.
Step this way, the ghost says, some friends also need your help.
Sure but I will have to get going soon as people will miss me too, you say.
As you follow the voice in the dark for foot seems to miss the floor and you tip forward.
But you can never leave me.
Go to X)

F) You must be somewhere big judging from that echo. And cold, you suddenly notice the cold, chilling you down to your soul. You wrap your arms around yourself to help combat the cold but it doesn’t work. You start to shiver and your teeth chatter. Things are looking bad, you think, it is cold and dark and you am lost. Your shivers get bigger but not from the cold. What if I die, you think. Do you:
I) Flail desperately.
J) Wait for death.

I) You flail, waving your arms in a desperate manner. Your left hand brushes your pocket, hitting something.

My lighter! you say.

Clumsily you pull out your lighter. Whilst trying to open it, it slips from your hands, falling to the ground.

You are Feeble.

Dropping to your knees you find it.

Awkwardly you try to light it again and you succeed! But you somehow burn your hand, throwing the lighter as you do so.

It lands in a pile of dynamite.

Go to X)

J) It’s just too hard, you think, cold and lost. And a bit hungry.
I wish someone would help me, you whimper, Why does no one ever help me? I always have to do everything.

You sit down on the cold, hard stone ground, wrapped your arms tight around yourself and begin to rock back and forth.

Days pass.

Why me? you sigh.

Weeks pass.

This is typical, you think, why do these things always happen to me?

You are Pathetic.

Go to X)

c) Reaching into your pocket, you take out your trusty lighter, snap the lid open and spark the flint. As the flame flickers to life your surroundings become clear. You are in a cave. A very large cave with two paths leading out either side. Looking up you see stalactites, hundreds of them and they look like they are ready to crumble.

Glad I didn’t call for help, you think, I might’ve caused them to fall!
You see a box with a roll of paper on it. The box has TNT stencilled across the side and some sticks of dynamite have spilled out. You pick up the paper and unroll it. It is a map! It reads “Map of the Haunted and Holey Caves.”
The map shows the two paths you have in front of you. One says danger and shows pictures of a ghost and a large pit with spikes. The other path says Way Out. You walk towards the path marked Way Out. You are Smart.
Go to Y)

X) And now you are dead.

Y) You round a corner and see the light at the end of the tunnel. You are free.

Instalment Forty Nine

I turned 21 in prison, doin’ life without parole.

Outta the gate was 17 lookin at the chair, too young to vote but Judge thought old enough to die. The Governor agreed wit him, pretty rough seeing how we aint never met. Some bleedin hearts took up my cause, said I wa slow and couldn’t be killed. I don’t know bout being slow but if being quick means talking like them fruits well I’d rather fry. Still they had their way so on the day I became a man I was starring at life, straight up, no pardons or nothing.

On ma birthday ma pop paid his only visit. Ma’d not spoken me since I’d got arrested. Pop’s not much for words but before I got to that visiting room he musta poured sugar in that guards ear cause sitting on the table was two beers. Not cold or nothing, given the drive pop just made but sweet Jeaysus it was the finest brew I have gone tasted.

“I never liked you,” he mumbled. “My daddy was in here the day I turned 21, I’m glad I gave you his name, you’re as much a Culprit as he ever was.”