Stories

These are some of my prose writings, or 'stories' if you will. Acutally I like 'stories' better than 'prose'. See, I'm not a pretentious arse after all, am I? If, after reading this deluge, you're still hungry for more short stories I recomend Edgar Allen Poe's 'Tales of Mystery and Imagination' or Sylvia Plath's 'Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams'... if you're either too cheap to pay for a book (and too lazy to go to a library) or for some reason wan't more of my stories, head over to Elfwood for Fantasy drivel.

Do you find me mad, doctor? I do not doubt that you do; indeed it does seem rather natural that you would. After all, here I sit before you, bound up in a straight jacket, within this padded room, wherein your most reputed colleagues have placed me. No less, you have doubtless heard of how I was brought down in the street by officers of the law, bawling and raving of tickings and tockings. None the less, good sir, I pray that you will lend your ears to me and hear my tale, as I plead my case for you to hear. 

'Twas some two years past. The clock was striking five. Oh, how I hated that clock! How I loathed, despised and reviled that accursed ticking, chiming monstrosity! Most often, in my waking dreams, I would take a large axe and destroy it, savoring each and every stroke as one might a sumptuous feast. The hideous thing had been a wedding gift from my wife's decrepit, senile aunt. She was ghastly in herself, though she was not nearly as downright diabolic as was my mother-in-law, the old Hell Devil! 

The thing was ornamented into obscenity, plastered with imitation filigree and carvings; intended as cherubin but in truth seeming more akin to imps or some other denizen of the abyss. Atop of the monstrosity stood what had been intended to be an angel, with wings wide outspread - the form telling of the lechery and deviance of its sculptor, and in truth seeming more succubus than seraphin. 

You see, there was I: wrapped up within the luxury of our drawing room. We had everything we might ever have yearned for, and much more besides that. I was awaiting the return of my better half. I sat glaring accusingly at the clock, as it ticked. Oh that infernal, vile ticking! The villainous timepiece seemed to conspire and plot and scheme against me; slowing the passage of time that I might be kept waiting longer.

The minute hand dragged itself forwards slowly. Oh, so agonisingly slowly! I looked away from the ghastly face, seeking in vain to tear and rip my mind away from that diabolical, hellish ticking.

Another tick. My eyes wandered aimlessly about the spacious, luxurious and yet oh so very uncomfortable parlor. I gazed upon the large bronze statue of Apollo which graced the corner of our room, the arrow knocked in the deity's bow aimed squarely at me, a symbol of our wealth more than anything else, for neither one of us appreciated the fine art with which it had been sculpted to any great length. I looked upon our shelves, laden with ceramics and pottery; all icons of our prosperity, decadence and self-indulgence, for we were not overly fond of any of them - most we had purchased simply because they were costly - because we could afford to buy them!

My eyes finally came to rest upon the large, ostentatiously framed lithograph of my wife and I, taken upon our wedding day, as the fiendish clock taunted me with yet another tick. Damnable clock! I found myself staring at myself, and my wife. There we were. The bride and the groom. She all bedecked in purest white, save for the band of blue around her wrist; in accordance with the superstition, and I in the finest hand tailored suit money could buy. Cutting our lavish wedding cake. Smiling.

Tick. A single tear rolled down my cheek as my thoughts wandered back to our perfect, fairy-tale wedding. Everything had been planned meticulously. Every last detail was accounted for. No expense was spared. I had arrived to the cathedral in an automobile, a fancy new-fangled thing if ever there was one, she in a beautiful horse drawn carriage, hauled by stallions. The rings were made of the finest twenty-four carat gold, incrusted with diamonds. As I say, no expense was spared. "My darling one," she had said to me on that very day "Since first I laid my eyes upon you, and you yours upon me, our souls have been forever entwined. Today, and forever more, our hearts, our souls, our lives shall be as one." 

Tick. Still I sat. I gazed upon the captured image of my beautiful, blushing bride. My angelic princess. Half of a smile, nay a quarter, spread itself across my face. She was exquisite! She was flawless! She was divine! Her mesmerising emerald eyes, her shining raven locks, her milky soft skin - ah, she was captivating! She was perfection made flesh! 

Tick. The dreadful clock brought me from my adoration. Oh foul accursed machine! Abomination forged by imps and demons in the boiling pits of the Hells themselves! Damn you! Excuse me sir, for these must seem the outcries of a madman, and I claim myself not to be such, do I not? Forgive me, for the recollection is most painful to me, but what does one do when all his memories are razor sharp knives which scar his soul and maim his mind? I assure you, though, that I am in full command of all my senses. 

As I was saying, I was in the drawing room, awaiting the return of my wife from the home of her parents. She was a dutiful daughter to them, as she was a wife to me. Perhaps this loyalty divided was a factor in the distance that had grown between us. Oh, we loved each other dearly, this is true. At the very least, I loved her with all my heart, with all my soul, with every fibre of my being. Oh beauteous creature, masterpiece of God! She had told me she loved me to: "Sweetheart," she had said "Since first we met, I have always known that my life would nevermore be as it was before you came into it. You have shaken the very core of my world, and greatly changed it for the better." 

I digress again. You see, I was waiting; my only company the abominable ticking of the frightful clock. She had been due home at five o'clock, and the ghastly chiming had told me of the coming, and the going, of that hour some fifteen minutes ago, nay, 'twas twenty if my memory serves me true. She had not arrived. The telephone machine, yet another sign of our immense wealth, had not run. My patience was wearing thin. "Where are you!?" I cried out, though I knew she wouldn't hear. 

Tick. I waited. Oh, how I waited! Where was my wife? Oh, where could she be? My mind raced a thousand possibilities of fates most foul which might have befallen my beloved danced in my head; hideous images from the very depths of my darkest imagination. 

Tick. Tick. Half an hour had passed since the demonic timepiece struck the hour of five. Half an hour! Oh, where was she! What had befallen her! "Where are you?" 

Tick. Tick. Tick. The ticking, oh the ticking! Oh foul, devilish clock! Oh the pain it caused me, twisting my poor mind and slicing through my thoughts and dreams ... I could stand no more. Blinded by a flash of crimson rage, I rushed from the room, out the backdoor and down the garden path to the shed. I found what I seeked - the axe. Long had it laid in disuse, but I found it just as sharp as was required for my purposes. 

I re-entered the drawing room, walking slowly, gripping the axe-handle tightly. The revolting clock still was ticking, oh it taunted me mercilessly! Fiendish machination! I swung the axe, still the foul thing ticked! Cursed thing! "Die, abomination!" I cried as I swung again! Tick! "DIE!" Again I struck it! Tick! Tick! The adrenaline coursed through me, the red mist blinded my eyes and I swung again and again, finally - the ticking stopped. The thing had been destroyed. "Yes...dead...gone..." 

I let fall the axe and the mist began to clear. I smiled. Sweet relief! I had slain the accursed ticking monstrosity! Victory was mine! Mine! I gazed in quiet awe at the ugly face, the last time the clock would ever show - fourteen minutes before the hour of six. 

My senses returning to me, I did hear the ring of that newfangled telephone machine. Rushing to answer it, I found a gentle voice on the other end carrying grave news, and here sir is where you might think I went mad, but I promise you that I present no danger to myself or society at large. You see, the news the caller gave me was grim indeed:  "Sir," it began "It is my regretful duty to inform you that your wife has passed away."  "But...how..." I stammered in reply “She fell under the wheels of a tram, she was severely wounded." I knew then that her wounds would match those I myself had inflicted on the clock... 

My wife, she that I idolised, worshipped as a goddess and had devoted every fibre and sinew of my being too had slipped off the mortal coil, a motor accident. She had died fourteen minutes before the hour of six, the very time the clock had ceased to tick. Tick. I heard that dreadful, fearsome ticking once more, echoing within the bone cathedral of my skull, and I knew that from that moment on, I would forever hear it echoing through the chambers of my mind.

A bitter wind sweeps through the mountains as the warrior, his cloak pulled closely about him as a rather ineffective shield against the elements, clambers ever upwards towards the summit. Though the gale blasts his face and blurs his vision, he peers onwards and wonders, fleetingly, if he sees a figure standing at the peak: awaiting his arrival.

             Soon, he has covered the final steps of his journey. He cannot help but glance over his shoulder, unable to see very far through the falling snow and knowing that, even if he could, he would be unable to see his distant home even from this dizzying height.

             Many miles have passed beneath his feet since he set out, many months ago, to return to this desolate mountain top. The same mountain top where, some ten years ago or more, he heard his god speak to him.

             Now, there is only the sound of the whistling wind to break the silence of his loneliness. In a moment of insight and prescience, he realises that he will probably die here, on this mountain top, one way or the other. He grips the hilt of his sword, though his fingers are too cold and frostbitten for him to wield it effectively… and even if he were able, what use is steel against a god?

             “Why!?” he calls out, to the deity who saved his life all those years ago, falling to his knees as painful, stinging tears well up in his eyes. The single word, the question that he has travelled over land and ocean to ask, echoes back from the empty walls of the nearby mountains, and he slumps forward, barely managing to throw out his hands to stop his face smashing into the rock beneath him, and asking again – in a hoarse whisper – “Why?”

             Still, the god who was so vocal a decade ago is silent now. Perhaps, the warrior wonders, he is dead? That would explain the unheeded prayers that had fuelled such rage within his soul that he has journeyed all this way to call his god to question. He slumps down, and rolls onto his back – staring up through falling snow into the infinite.

             “I don’t really know what sorry means”, says a familiar voice on the wind, with a gentle, fatherly tone “I know that is how you would like me to be, but I do not understand it. I understand procedure, I understand war, and I understand rules and regulations.  I don't understand sorry."

             The voice of the deity seems to breathe new life into the man, who snaps up to a seated position and from there springs to his feet, drawing his sword and swinging with all the bloody rage and fury of the hells themselves at the figure that stands before him, only for the blade to pass clean through, like a ship through the fog.

 “You killed her, you bastard! You took her away from me! Why!?” the warrior screams out, his rage refusing to subside and his sword flailing back and forth wildly – although it cannot strike at the god, ethereal as he is.

“No, Jonathan, death comes to all. I have no part in it,” he speaks softly, but firmly, his voice seeming loud despite the roar of the wind and the snow around them as they stand atop the peak of the mountain. “You should not lament the loss of Lydia, she is at peace now, and you should not fear death, for it is a part of life.”

“You feel nothing!” Jonathan roars, his sword clattering down on the rocks at his feet as he once more sinks to his knees, defeated and week, though he still wells up with rage as he looks up through tear-filled eyes at the serene visage of the god. “You did nothing for her, even as she bled out her last on the sacred stones of the temple I built for you, with my own hands!”

“Do you not think that it hurt me to witness her end, Jonathan? A more devoted priestess I have never had.” comes the reply, gently spoken and yet cutting like a rusty blade. “She was a good woman, pious and pure, but it is not the part of man, or god, to change the fates that are written: even the fates of those we love, as we both loved your wife.”

“You dare…” Jonathan splutters, his body shivering not from the cold, but from the sheer force of the rage that has reached a crescendo in his breast “You dare to claim that you loved her, after you watched her bleed to death on a goblin’s blade and did nothing, though you had the power to do so! You dare to claim you loved her!?”

And with that, the warrior lets loose a primal roar of anger and leaps up, fingers outstretched as though they bore the claws of a tiger or a dragon, teeth bared as though they were the fangs of a wolf, eyes burning with all the fury of a rampaging demon. That same scream echoes throughout the mountains as he passes through the incorporeal form of the god’s sending, and plummets to a bloody end on jagged rocks far, far below.

“Yes, it is not the part of man or god to change the fates which are written,” says the god mournfully as he looked down at the final resting place of his prophet, tears rolling down his cheeks “Even the fates of those we love with all our hearts.”