This story is called "Angel of Mercy" and was part of a project for a club I'm in. We were supposed to use our favorite song as a starting point but I have too many to pick just one so I used one of my friend's favorite songs instead.


Angel of Mercy

“Yes, I think I’ve lived a fortunate life”, said the old man to me.

I nodded my head and said, “Go on sir. I’m glad you’ve let me interview you, after all you are a living legend these days and I just wanted to let you know that I’m honoured.”

He looked at me and said, “Do you know the reason why I chose you for this interview son? It’s not because you’ve got connections, it’s not because you’re a powerful person, or even that you’re a good writer. No. It’s because I understand that you are an honest writer who cares about the story and respects the wishes of those that you talk to. As such I want you to know that everything that I’ve done and everything that I’m going to tell you I tell you because I want to set the record straight. What I am most well known for, the things that seemed to be incredible feats of daring or cunning, all of these things that you have heard my name from I did not do.”

“But surely that’s not true! You are Andrew Walker, the man who fought in three wars, including the War of the Great Depression, the man who brought countries to their knees and won not only glory but also respect for our now mighty Alaganda. You-”

“Shut up and listen.”

And so I listened, and this is what he told me.

“Yes I’ve lived a fortunate life. A very fortunate life. I guess you could say that, for many of the things I’ve done I had a guardian angel. An angel of Mercy if you will. And this angel, now gone, helped me become what I am now.”
“I suppose I should best start from the beginning, as all good stories should. I’ve never liked a story that starts in the middle and goes back to the beginning, they take away from the main story.”
“When I was young, a child no more than ten years old, I knew how to fight. I had grown up on the streets and fighting was all I had known. There were no programs for sheltering orphans back then, or places where those without income or homes could go to be out of the cold. Everything those of us, unlucky enough to fall beneath the government’s radar, earned we earned through teeth and blood.”
“I had a sister. A younger sister, two and a half years my junior, and I loved her dearly. Whatever I managed to scrape together from menial and difficult jobs I would give to her. And she was precious to me. She had a necklace that she had kept from our mother. It wasn’t a valuable thing, I would not have even called it pretty, but she treasured it as if it were the last lifeline she had. And in some ways, it was.”

As he said this, his face softened and a tear began to form in the corner of his left eye. It did not fall though.

“As we grew older it became more difficult for us to survive on the meagre amounts that we were given. In order to help Angela, my sister, keep growing and stay healthy I took up with a gang of street urchins. We were not called the Red Ravens but that will do for the purposes of this story and it is not about them. I learned pick-pocketing and lock-picking and all manner of unseemly tools of the trade. And I became quite good at them.”

I nodded, many of the stories had mentioned how, using only a bit of soap he had escaped from one of the most impregnable prisons on the Swasiri coastline.

“I was never quite as good as Angela though. Even though I tried to keep her away from these things she would always tag along behind me, happily watching and silently learning. We became quite a team near the end. I would distract people and she would go around and collect ‘donations’. I never quite figured out how she managed to do it. I guess her size helped her. She was quite slight, even frail sometimes if the light hit her right. But she was fast and nimble. A far better thief than me.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt sir, but you said you were ‘quite a team near the end’. What did you mean by that?”

He looked at me, calculatingly, and he sighed.

“Mmm, yes I did say that didn’t I? Very well. The Red Ravens were doing quite well for themselves, by children’s standards. We had even gotten enough money to rent out a place, it was cramped for 40 odd children but it was better than the sewers any day. We kept watches, as we always had. A child an hour while the others slept, four children, one watching each side at all times. But I fell asleep.”
“As it turned out, the local mafias had been watching us too. They felt that we were beginning to become a nuisance as both the child gangs that they supported were no match for us and many of their members were victims of our crimes. They were, unappreciative, to say the least.”
“They attacked us at two o’clock in the early morning. I should have seen their cars but I had fallen asleep against the pillar I was at, my sister sleeping by my side. They drove along my side and sprayed the building as they went past. The shattering glass gave me this scar and badly injured my sister’s leg as several shards went through her calf muscle.”

He indicated on his own body where his sister had been hit, three places in the lower leg with shards of glass that ranged from three inches to one inch in width.

“Bullets chipped pieces off the walls and broke the few beds that there were. The leader of our gang was killed in that. The chairs looked as though they’d simply fallen apart. And the sound, the sound of gunfire as it zoomed past us. Each car unloading its weapons and then moving on. It seemed to last forever but it took mere seconds. Then, as the last car passed us, something shiny and metallic hit the ground in front of me. It looked almost as a pineapple would.”
“I acted reflexively, of that I have no doubt. I had heard about grenades before and I knew what would have happened if I didn’t get it away from me. More importantly though, my sister would have died, if she was not dead already. So I kicked it away from me. Unfortunately the only direction open to me was to kick it towards the other gang members, still recovering from being woken up so violently.”
“One of the members, a boy called Mickey, realized what it was that I’d kicked over and began to scream. He didn’t get that far. The grenade detonated and brought the whole building down. It was only a one story thing in the slums but it was still terrifying. I was quite lucky that I was behind a pillar, my sister had told me to keep watch there because I would be less visible. Another example of how my sister saved me.”
“After the building finished collapsing, some men came in through the remnants of the window that I had been supposed to keep watch out of. I was about to try and escape when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was my sister, pale and dazed as she was she could still recognize the incredible danger that such a move might make. Which was demonstrated when Mickey, or what was left of him, got up and shambled towards the light from that window. He was cut down in a hail of bullets.”

At this the old man began to brood, lost in his own dark thoughts. I cleared my throat.

“Ahem, what happened to you and your sister sir?”

“We escaped of course. We waited for the men to finish their sweep; every time they found a child with signs of life they shot them. I prayed silently to whatever gods there are that we would not be caught. My sister, ever practical, passed out and left me to pray for her well being as well. When the men came around to us I shut my eyes and played dead. I hoped that it was convincing and it appeared to be since they left. After five more minutes of agonized waiting, expecting the bullets to come my way and end me then, I opened my eyes.”
“Every child was dead except myself and my sister, and she would have died very quickly if I didn’t get some help. I picked her up in my arms and peeked out into the street. There was no-one to be seen. Slowly and cautiously I made my way around the wreckage to the side alley that would take me to the hospital, and I felt a sense of urgency that I haven’t felt for a long time. I began to speed up, still unsure whether it was a good idea to run. That is until I heard the gunshot and a bullet buzzed over my head and pinged on the metal wall next to me. Then I ran like a bat out of hell.”
“It was three miles but I ran all the way and collapsed from combined shock and blood loss just at the entrance. When I regained consciousness I was lying in a bed next to my sister in the intensive care area, which was the majority of the hospital since at that time the streets were quite vicious. And the hospital staff were good people, although the administrators were corrupt. They patched up my sister and I and let us stay there for a while.”
“There was a hospital worker called Cynthia, a psychiatrist who often treated those with trauma, who was especially nice to my sister and I. She let us stay in the staff room or in her office at night when there weren’t many patients she had to see. She would bring us food that she cooked herself and we were grateful for it. It was better than we had ever eaten, and I still haven’t had anything better than her Lasagna.”
“This lasted for about a month before she asked us where our parents were. I told her that they’d left us to die in the streets and that I hoped they were crushed by a building falling on them. And then Angela began to cry so I took back what I said. At least, I took back having said it out loud. And so Cynthia adopted us. Sort of. Since there were no official adopting agencies she pretty much just put us in her house and took care of us. And we were a family for a while.”
“It only lasted four years, but it was the best four years of my life. She taught us so much in those four years that I don’t even know where to begin. She taught us how to be human, how to be kids.”

The old man’s face turned up at the corners and a spark of amusement reached his eyes.

“I remember when she bought a fire-truck toy for me to play with. I kept trying to figure out what the point of putting fires out was! And Angela, bless her small heart, she began to smile again. She had the most beautiful smile, and a mischievous heart too. She never quite gave up her old habits of thievery. She once replaced one of the patient charts with a cereal box and nobody realized it until they began trying to figure out the medicine given to him!”

He laughed at this but quickly began to darken again as he recalled what happened next.

“It didn’t last though. On June the third Cynthia was shot by one of her patients for having told him he had an Oedipus complex. We were told by police that she had been shot and that we had until that afternoon to leave her house as it belonged to the state now since she had no children. And because we weren’t officially her children, even though she had treated us as such, we had no rights to anything that she had owned.”
“Once again out on the street we began to give in to bad habits. We stole, and we mugged, and we did all we could to survive. We stayed out of the way of the mafias as much as we could and the same with the government. We ‘lived’ like this for another two years, sleeping on the streets in the remains of the building that had been such a slaughterhouse so many years ago.”
“But then I got stupid. I saw the daughter of one of the dons, she was eighteen and she was very well proportioned. And even though my sister warned me that it was stupid I tried to meet her.”
“With my sister’s begrudging help I was able to get into the don’s estate and I posed as a gardener. She was lying by the pool, no one watching over her, after all who could get into the compound? I ‘worked’ as a gardener for two weeks and for those two weeks my sister had to fend for herself as I couldn’t get back out easily.”
“I apologize, I seem to have skipped over a part that will be important later on. I shall explain to you how I got inside the compound.”

He took up his pipe and lit it with a match. Then he drew in a deep breath and blew smoke rings.

“The compound was exceptionally well secured on the outside. The people that worked there were not allowed to leave so there was no chance of a ‘replacement’ getting in. The compound was surrounded by an electrified fence with barbed wire at the top and armed guards that patrolled the walls behind. There were two entrances, one main entrance and one side entrance that was used for deliveries. Both entrances had cameras and intercoms, two metal doors that were each a foot thick and twelve feet high, two towers on either side with armed guards who were both required to open the doors, and an additional three guards on the ground who would check the vehicle for anything dangerous and make sure the driver was who he said he was. It was, for all intents and purposes, impregnable.”

“So how did you get in sir?”

“Well, my sister got me in. She helped me study the schedule of the guards, one that was supposed to be irregular but she discovered a pattern that repeated every two and two thirds weeks. From that we found that the guards were unable to watch the corner closest to us for about ten seconds every second week in their schedule.”

“Ten seconds! So this is where you learned your precise timing then sir?”

He looked at me and shook his head.

“It was never my timing to begin with.”
“My sister and I used fertilizer and gasoline in a wheel barrow. Knowing that this town was quite violent we understood that, while a full on attack would create quite a stir on the walls it would not have too much of an effect on the people kept inside. In fact the only chance we had of a distraction was to cause a lot of damage. So we stocked up. We used the cigarette lighting apparatus and a car battery to light it and we replaced the metal struts with wheels we had also stolen.”
“We were especially lucky as well. While we were planning this, there was another don who was planning to attack his stronghold whose plans coincided with ours timing wise. He had sharpshooters set up on the sides perpendicular to where I would approach from and he was set up to do some damage. Unfortunately for him our plans collided.”
“I learned later, from my sister, that while I was waiting to make my dash she was finishing up with the wheelbarrow. We had designed it so that when the wheelbarrow hit something it would ignite and explode so that we wouldn’t need to get too close. I heard gunshots and the guards that were on the sides of the walls must have been shot because the guards on my side thinned out as several headed to the sides under fire. My sister pushed the wheelbarrow down on its course and was hit by an armoured car, which itself had been carrying explosives. The wheelbarrow detonated and blew the car off its intended destination and it went onto its side. Then it exploded with a much greater bang than we had intended causing all of the guards on my side to rush away to where the fighting was. I took this opportunity to run down to where the fence was and climb over it using rubber gloves and boots. I then used a jury-rigged grappling hook made up of girder steel from the wreckage of our building to climb the fence and I was over.”
“In all the chaos nobody really noticed me and so I hid for about a day until things calmed down inside the compound and I went to work in the garden. Buried my tools in the bushes beneath where the girl’s window was and I began ‘gardening’.”

“That’s still quite impressive sir. And it explains how you escaped from those prisons during the wars.”

“Impressive, ha! Stupid is more like it. I was a fool blinded by youth and hormones. Not to mention being lucky as sin I didn’t get killed then. Might even have been better if I had.”

I decided not to press him on the subject and redirected him back to his story.

“So what happened with the girl sir? The one that was the reason you went through all this?”

“Ah yes, the girl. As I believe I mentioned before, after a few days things had settled down significantly. On the inside of the compound at least. From what I’ve heard there were brutal massacres as the two don’s fought each other in the streets. But I wouldn’t know about any of that.”
“She was lying out by the pool sunning herself and I spent a while simply staring at her, trying to work up the courage to actually talk to her. Oh, I should probably mention that, since the pool was in a separately fenced area I had climbed up a tree, with some shears so that I could use pruning as an excuse. And while I was busy trying to convince myself to talk to her she stood up and reached behind her back. I didn’t think much of it at the time until I realized that she had removed her top, and indeed she had removed everything else as well and she was skinny-dipping.”
“Well, me being young and stupid, as I’ve said, I tried to get a better look and ended up going further and further out along the limb I was on. That is, I did until the branch broke and sent me tumbling down.”

I smiled at the image of this great man falling into the water while peeping.

“What did she say when you fell?” I asked with a smile on my face

“I don’t know. I landed face first on the concrete. Knocked me dead cold.”

At this the old man burst out laughing, either at the memory or my expression, I am not sure.

“But I woke up and she was fully covered up again by her swimsuit and she was quite visibly upset by what I’d been doing. She kept on telling me how I would never work again and Didn’t I know who she was. Well, she did at least until I told her that I knew she was the don’s daughter and that I wasn’t working here, that I’d snuck in because I’d seen her from the building across the road while I was stealing things from it.”
“And at this, she laughed. She asked me how I could possibly have snuck in and so I told her, which impressed her.”
“I spent the rest of those two weeks with her, but I couldn’t stay.”

“You needed to see your sister?”

“Nope, the don caught me in her bed and banished me from the compound.”

“Wow, that’s very lucky. He sounds like he would have easily just shot you and been done with it.”

The old man then looked at me with a wry grin that made him appear twenty years younger and said, “Mmm, well he was very nice about it. Apparently he lost quite a lot of the male staff that way.”

And as he said this there was a knock at the door and his manservant entered and informed us that it was six o’clock and that I should best be getting back to my family as it was late and his master needed his evening meal.

“Nonsense Jeeves, he can call his wife and tell her where he is and what he’s doing and I’m sure she’ll understand. In the meantime, set a place for the young journalist as well. My story isn’t done yet.”

“Yes master”

“Now go on young man, call your wife and I will meet you in the dining hall. Jeeves will come collect you.”

And with that the old man left me to call my wife. I dialled the number and waited for her to pick up.

“Hello?”

“Honey, I’m very sorry but I need to work late tonight and I’m not going to be home for dinner.-”

“Jonathan? What do you- you’re seeing that tramp again aren’t you? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you sneaking away at all hours of the night to be with her! Honestly how stupid do you think I am? You didn’t even give me an excuse this time, you must be losing your ‘journalistic touch’ or are you spending it all on her these days?”

“Marsha! Look this is not the time for this. I am currently standing in the home of Andrew Walker, that’s right the Andrew Walker. I have an interview with him and he has asked me to stay for dinner so that we may continue the interview. Now I apologize that I’m not going to be there for dinner with you but this has nothing to do with that so-”

“Oh yes, that’s rich. You have an interview with the most famous and influential man in the world? And he’s invited you for dinner, how marvellous. Well you just go ahead and have a good time with Andrew Walker or whatever you’re calling her these days and let me deal with raising our children good and proper. You bastard.”

She hung up and so I put the phone down. I turned around to wait for the manservant when, to my embarrassment, I realized that he was standing behind me.

“If the young sir is ready to go I shall show you to the dining hall” he said and indicated the door.

“How long were you standing there?”

“I just arrived sir.”

“Ah, right. Well then carry on Jeeves.”
“…Jeeves, that’s a rather unusual name. Is it Swedish?”

“I have no idea sir. My name is Martin.”
“The dining hall sir.”

And at this I was presented the dining hall. It was long and with an equally long, and quite intimidating, table centred in it. The food was served and I asked the old man,

“Why do you call your manservant Jeeves?”

“Oh, I call him that because I know it annoys him and it’s fun. But enough about Jeeves, eat and I’ll continue my story when you are finished.”
“So, how is your wife?”

“My wife sir?”

“Yes, your wife. The woman I believe you called on the phone.”

“She’s fine. Slightly upset that I’m not going to be home but that can’t be helped.”

“Did she believe that you were interviewing the Andrew Walker?”

“Uh, you heard that sir?”

“Of course. This is my house after all, and you two weren’t holding back.”
“I take it you have a mistress.”
“Jeeves please help the man, I believe he’s choking.”

“Wha-cough- what gives you that impression?”

“Well, I will admit that I’m somewhat old fashioned so I could be wrong on this but I assume that your wife was not referring to your daughter in that conversation when she thought you were going to see someone.”

“You- you were listening?”

“Oh be quiet boy and listen. I’m going to put your wife on speakerphone in a minute but before I do I’m going to impart some wisdom towards you. Should you find someone you want to marry then remember why you wanted to marry her. Having seen some pictures of that woman I would be very surprised if you were having an affair because she was ugly so you’d best make sure that you aren’t being a fool. There’s a reason they call it fooling around and take it from me, affairs are worth as much as the scum on your shoes.”
“Now, am I talking to Mrs. Marsha Archer?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“My name is Andrew Walker and I am currently having dinner with your husband. I apologize that he was not able to make it to dinner with you, I really do. It’s a shame when a man misses out on having dinner with his wife. If you would please forgive me however this interview is rather important for the both of us and I can not say with certainty that your husband will be home anytime soon. In the meantime I believe he has something to say to you.”

“Jonathan?”
“Yes Marsha.”

“That was Andrew Walker.”

“Yes Marsha.”

“The Andrew Walker.”

“Yes Marsha.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yes Marsha.”

“Jonathan?”

“Yes Marsha?”

“I- I’m sorry. I love you.”

“I love you to.”

“There, now don’t you feel better? Now I believe that dinner is finished so shall we return to my study and continue the story?”



“Hmm, where was I?”

“Uh…you had just left the mansion?”

“Ah yes. Well, I was taken outside and beaten of course. You can’t get away with sleeping with a don’s daughter without some recompense on his part. Even if she slept with pretty much everyone on two legs.”
“My sister found me and brought me back to what had become our home and it was while she was taking care of me that I saw how much of a toll this lifestyle had taken on her. Because I hadn’t wanted to cope with the real world I had dragged us both down to the sub-life that we led. She stole and she knew it was wrong. But she had to do it because we needed to survive. And watching her as she did whatever she needed to in order to make money I knew what I had brought her into.”
“I enlisted with the army when I was healthier. And of course, she followed me as she always had. She had no rank and she was not considered a part of the army but she was just a useful as anyone. Even the officers in charge of our platoon were pleased to have her around to help.”
“She was an excellent marksman, far better than I, and she quickly became known for her prowess with a rifle. In the competitions she could get a perfect bullseye at five hundred yards. And of course she was good with not being seen. She became our best scout quite quickly, despite her limp; she could find flaws in the enemy divisions within minutes of observing them during the exercises. She would have made officer in a matter of months if she was actually part of the army.”
“Of course she wasn’t, but she was alright with that. She told the officers that she wanted to stay with me and that if they would let her she would serve just as well as any other soldier.”

And his face, full of pride, became dark once more as he said,

“And then the first war came. We fought in many battles, her and I. I would go frontline and she would stay back, out of sight, and ensure that I was okay. And no matter how far or fast I pushed, she was always somewhere watching over me. Just as I’d done for her.”
“When we stormed Stromgrad she was on the Melon Mountains taking down enemy snipers within the town. My platoon was ordered to flank the enemy and cut them off from retreat but we didn’t anticipate the additional forces they had.”
“I’m sure that you are familiar with the accounts of that battle. I have certainly read my fair share. But tell me what you learned of that battle.”

“Well, my understanding was that your officer was shot within seconds of sighting the enemy forces and that you proceeded to take command because the second officer in charge was incompetent and crying. Something for which he was later court martialled and you were commended and promoted to lieutenant for.”
“You split your platoon into two groups, one group was given all of the heavy weaponry and they were told to use as much firepower as they needed to keep the enemy force pinned down. You then took the other group, armed only with pistols and explosives, and laid a trail of explosives which you then sent both groups down to draw the enemy into. You had the group with the heavy weaponry set up to the sides with the other group entrenched at the end with several machine guns as bait. And you massacred the enemy.”

“Well done. That was very well remembered. But that’s not entirely what happened. My sister fed me the co-ordinates and movements of what the enemy force was doing and she instructed me to command the troops to set up a trap. When I created the explosive trail she told me to set up gunners on the sides of the corridor and that was what undid the enemy force. My explosive trail was useless until they brought in tanks much later in the battle, drawn there once again at the direction of my sister.”
“What about the battle of Leyarviin? What do you know about that one?”

“That it was a difficult fortress to take, with no visible weaknesses and heavy artillery in positions either side of it where you could not take vehicles to deal with them. You orchestrated guerrilla tactics to great effect against the entrenched positions, dealing heavy casualties against them by hitting them with their own captured artillery positions. Closely followed by capturing the other position and using that as a bargaining chip. I didn’t learn how you captured the artillery though.”

“No, not many people did. I recalled that the guards from the don’s compound had been so busy with fighting on the one side that they had neglected to keep sufficient watch on the sides. I had my sister climb up to the edge of the mountain for the first artillery while I assaulted the second. She, along with a small group of soldiers that believed they were capturing the facility, took that artillery battery by the soldiers providing a distraction with lots of gunfire while she snuck into the facility and reprogrammed the artillery fire. The forces that my team were fighting had placed themselves in an open position, they weren’t expecting to be shelled. They perished and we advanced on the facility without any more opposition. I ordered the other team to cease fire and pretend to retreat and my sister disappeared into the scrub. The enemy force that had been fighting them returned to their artillery to identify why it had shelled the other side. They were all eliminated by traps that my sister had set up.”

“Then what about the battle of Hero Valley?”

“It looked like I made the impossible shot with a pistol and killed their leader. Indeed that’s what was reported. But it was my sister and her skills.”

“And Helsing Caverns?”

“My sister brought them down with explosive rounds.”

“What about when you were caught and imprisoned? Was that your sister rescuing you then?”

“Yes and no. She sent me a message telling me when she would assault the facility. I didn’t want her to get hurt though so I picked the lock and made a break for it through the prison yard. She sniped one of the tower guards, who dropped his weapon, allowing me to deal with the guards in the yard and, using one of their grenades, broke out. She was angry with me afterwards but by that time we needed to escape.”

“So every victory was because of your sister and none of them were reported as such because nobody knew about her?”

“All but one and she preferred that nobody knew about her, it gave her an advantage she said. The last battle was different.”
“I assume you are familiar with the battle of Knopf Beach?”

I nodded.

“Good. Then you know that we were storming a beach where the odds of surviving, let alone winning, were infinitesimal. Well, we stormed them all right. This was one battle where my sister couldn’t hide in a forest or a mountain or a jungle. She was in the thick of it, just like me. We were fighting an enemy that was making their last desperate stand. They had nothing to lose and so they were willing to keep fighting when they would otherwise have simply died. Those soldiers fatally wounded waited for one or more of our troops to go past them and then they would drop a grenade and laugh to their death.”
“We lost half of our force before we even landed to artillery. We were lucky we made it to the beach. But I don’t think that was luck. I think it was payback.”
“We landed and surged forward. We lost many to mines buried in the sand but we pressed on, using whatever we could for cover. Unfortunately a lot of the cover was put there as traps by the enemy. My sister and I fought hard and got to decent cover. We took over one of their bunkers and took a moment to wait for other troops. But none came.”
“We were in a situation where we could either give up and be captured or keep fighting. I should have given up but I didn’t. I was stupid and full of myself, by then I was nearly a general. Indeed I was made one after that battle. That final battle. My sister and I made a move for the next bunker, she watched the palm trees for snipers and suicide troops, I watched the ground for their normal troopers.”
“I failed to notice him. That man behind the broken jeep. I failed to notice him and he shot my sister. I grabbed her and fell behind a rock to keep us safe. She had a stomach wound and I had no medic to save her.”
“She told me one thing before she became delirious with the pain, too weak to talk or even understand anything. And it drove me. Her last words and her death.”
“I’ve been told that in that final battle I seemed like a man possessed and in retrospect I probably was. I wanted revenge for my sister and nothing was going to stop me. Not pain, not bullets, not even death.”
“The man who had shot my sister I couldn’t find. It turned out later that he was the enemy commander. But he hadn’t left us alone either. He had sent a patrol of troops after us to make sure we were dead.”
“I killed them in my fury. I shot the first two with my rifle held in one hand in their heads, the best shots I had ever made unfortunately. The remaining four were taken down by a grenade from the other hand. A gun flew past, propelled by the blast from the grenade and I grabbed it from the air. I wanted blood. The blood of that coward who had shot my sister, my life.”
“I advanced on the next bunker, not caring about what happened to me. As long as I got my revenge it didn’t matter. I caught them by surprise. The first two in the bunker went down to my bullets and the third one, who had been gunning the turret fired at me and missed. I pushed him through the turret hole.”
“I continued along the trenches, killing as many as I could along the way. I was shot several times, but you know that. They say I took thirty seven bullets. They don’t say how much shrapnel hit me. Even I don’t know that one. I have enough still in me that I can’t move more than a shuffle without pain. Not that it really matters anyway.”
“I came to the last bunker after what seemed like it had been forever. It had only been three hours. A man jumped from the tree above me, ready to stab me and with an unpinned grenade in his other hand. I cut his throat with his own blade and threw his body down the slope. I was facing less and less people as I approached the bunker, they were running away instead. I don’t blame them, I must have looked a mess. I can’t look at an inch of my body these days without seeing a scar anymore.”
“I stormed the bunker alone. I saw the commander trying to hide behind a desk. He told me he surrendered. He kept telling me that, screaming it, as I tore him from behind the desk and I stabbed at him. I kept stabbing him over and over as he screamed at me and I screamed back. Eventually he stopped screaming, but I didn’t. Nor did I stop stabbing him. Everything went black from there.”
“I woke up from a coma a day before they were going to pull the plug. They’d already gotten a posthumous medal for me. It’s there on that wall. Apparently I had single-handedly won the fight. But that didn’t matter to me, not then. Not anymore.”
“They gave me my medals and promotions and I retired. All I wanted to do was hide away, which is what I’ve done.”
“Thank you for letting me tell my story, my sister’s story. It’s late now and you should go. Write it up for me and tell the people who their saviour was. Not me.”

He wandered over to his cabinet and pulled out his old service pistol, still immaculately well kept. He set it down on his liquor table and poured himself a drink.

“What did she say?”

“Who?”

“Your sister. What did she say?”

“She said I forgive you”

“Oh”

“Goodbye Mr. Archer”

And with that I left. I heard the gunshot and I felt tears come to my eyes. He had been called a hero and while he denied it so much it was still true. To have lived with such a burden, what else can he be called? I can not think of any word more fitting than ‘hero’, and I believe that it must have run in the family. Now that my duty has been done and I have recorded the last words of the late legend, Andrew Walker, and laid his spirit, and that of his equally great sister, Angela, to rest. I think I shall go home and kiss my wife goodnight.

The Godfather

Having read over it once more it strikes me that my previous story, The Tolling of the Bell, was perhaps slightly gruesome. In order to make up for that I shall post something a bit lighter instead. I thought this particular story up when I was pondering, as I do, the word "Godfather". I then couldn't help but wonder what would happen if say God himself was your godfather and so "The Godfather" came about.

THE GODFATHER

Josh was looking forward to picking up Hannah for Prom. They’d been talking about it since the start of the year. She had been anticipating it ever since it had been announced but she’d been getting more concerned and anxious as the date had gotten closer.
‘Just nerves I guess, after all Prom only comes once right?’ Thought Josh.
Yesterday at school she’d completely freaked out at him because he wasn’t going to be good enough for her Godfather. Well, he’d prove her wrong. He’d win over her godfather and do it with style too. He’d rented his tuxedo, complete with cummerbund and bowtie, and he was pretty sure that’d appeal to the old guys fashion sense. It wasn’t like she was a member of the mob and her godfather was ‘The Godfather’. Her dad was a pastor for crying out loud! He knocked on the door.

Nothing happened.

‘Hmm, maybe I’ll try the doorbell instead.’ He thought.

A chorus of Hallelujah sounded, complete with bells and peals of thunder.

‘Surely that’s overdoing it, even for her dad. We all know he loves god but that’s a bit much.’

The doors swung open and a great light shone through, illuminating Josh. It was almost exactly like a spotlight.

‘Sort of like Angel Rays.’ He reflected.

A deep baritone voice rang out and demanded “ARE YOU JOSH?”

Somewhat uneasy from this display but determined not to let it show and to make a good impression Josh answered.

The light faded and revealed a small-ish man who did not look like he was as short as he appeared. Indeed he looked like he could have been a giant trapped in a man’s body. Josh blinked until the strange vision went away. He wore a white suit.

“Come in Josh, I’ve been waiting for you.”

The volume of the voice had died down but it still seemed to resonate as if it were being said from a thousand miles away and yet it was still so clear.

“Er, thank you. You must be Hannah’s godfather I take it? After all, I’ve seen her father and you look very different from him. Sort of…”
“Bigger?”
“Yes, in a way I guess. Um, is Hannah ready yet, do you know?”
“I know many things, everything in fact. And no she is not ready. She doesn’t know you’re here. You see, I’ve been watching you Josh and I plan on making sure that you behave yourself tonight. I look after many people and my Goddaughter is very special to me.”
“You’ve been watching me?”
Josh tried to laugh it off but he was becoming still more uneasy. It was becoming much harder for him to continue his unintimidated demeanour.
“With respect sir, that strikes me as being a little rude watching someone and not introducing yourself.”

The man burst out laughing. It was a very pleasing sound to hear. Like cherubs playing harps.

“Very bold young man, very bold. Be careful that your boldness doesn’t show too much tonight though otherwise you might be surprised at what you receive. Ah, here she is.”

Suddenly a girl appeared on the staircase down. ‘Funny, thought Josh, but I never noticed that being there before. In fact I can’t remember this house even having a second fl-’ But that was as far as the thought got before his brain shut down and his jaw hung from his mouth as he noticed how she looked. The girl that he had known had never been accused of being pretty, let alone being beautiful but the girl that stood before him on the staircase was positively radiant.

Her once dulled honey coloured hair now shone golden, reflecting the light that shone down from the top of the staircase. Her skin, once somewhat pallid now glowed with vitality, the colour of fresh peaches, and her dress showed off a body he had never imagined that she had. It curved in all the right places and tucked in all the right ways. It had a rose the same colour as her eyes tucked into the lapel. And oh her eyes! They had always been the things he liked most about her, their unusual violet hue that seemed to both take his breath away and give him reason to keep breathing, had now obtained an incredible intensity in their hue. ‘Probably because of the pink near the edges’ thought a small part of his brain before it got shouted down and told to shut up so that the rest of him could keep enjoying the sight.

“Josh! You didn’t tell me that Josh had arrived! I’m not even in my dress yet! Why didn’t you tell me, oh God.”

And with that she ran back up the stairs to finish getting ready and the light disappeared.

“Close your mouth boy you’re starting to drool on that nice suit you’re wearing.”

Josh’s jaw snapped shut while his brain continued jumping through hoops and missed them badly.

“She…her hair…her eyes…that…who??” Was all he could manage.

“Ah yes, I’m glad you approve. I made her that dress you know. Of course it works much better with the complete ensemble but I think you’ve gotten the gist of it alright. Gabriel was always good with hair. Oh stop looking like you’ve been slapped by a haddock. She’ll be back and if that’s what she does to you half dressed ‘I’ know what effect she’ll have on you next.”

It was as much the odd phrasing that had been used in those last sentences as anything else that finally brought Josh’s rapidly spinning mind back into any semblance of normalcy.

“Slapped…what?? And what did you mean by ‘I’…”

“Hello Hannah, I apologize for not informing you about your escort’s arrival but you were with Michael and you know what he’s like when he’s fitting and gets interrupted. Almost as bad as my son with his woodwork that one.”

Once again Josh was met with the sudden beauty that was apparently his girlfriend of two years and, having had time to adjust from the first meeting, was much more capable of admiring the work that had obviously gone into making her such. The jacket, if it could be called that, covered her dress from before and was a powerful emerald green that was so deep you could get lost in it. It had gold piping along the seams, which had the effect of flattering her new hair colour very well. And the hair, now that he had gotten used to the difference of colour was tied in a very sophisticated, upswept manner with a red ribbon that was inlaid with silver and black patterning. The rose was still visible in the lapel and it still put his corsage to shame. It was full of life and seemed almost as if it would jump off and dance if asked. She had a tiara of pearl ensconced with opals and she had white gold earrings that you almost wouldn’t have noticed unless you were looking at them. They were in the shape of crosses. Her purse was a silky, pearly colour and it had been decorated with gate designs.

Josh couldn’t understand how ANYONE, let alone her pastor father, could have afforded such magnificent garb. Then he looked at her Godfather again and noticed the quality of his suit. Well at least now he knew where the quality came from. But it still must have been enough to bankrupt an empire.

“Bring her back by midnight Josh and remember what I told you. There’s a time for boldness, and this is not it. Bye Hannah! Have fun!”

‘Wow, weird godfather, wait…where did that limo come from??’ Thought the now thoroughly confused Josh.

“Oh Josh! You got a limo! Thank you!”
“Um, er, right yes. Limo…”
“Well? Stop staring at it and get in! We’re going to PROM!”

So, despite his extreme bemusement (which he was still hiding admirably well), he got in and shut the door. The limo was extremely well furnished, even by limo standards. It had soft, red leather cushions that were very comfortable to sit on as well as a drinks station that served no less than 15 different sodas. It even had a small table that must have been magnetized because no matter how hard a bump there was not a single drop of cherry soda (Hannah’s favourite) spilled. Not that there were any bumps to demonstrate this, the ride was so smooth that if they hadn’t been able to look out the windows they would have sworn that they weren’t moving.

When they pulled up outside the building, there was not a single person who was unimpressed by Hannah’s dress. And there were even fewer (at least amongst the men) who didn’t look at Josh standing beside her and envy him.

Tom, the leader of the football team and one of the guys who picked on Josh the most, stepped up to him and thumped him on the back. Hard.

“Moving up in the world ‘ey John? Care to introduce us to her?” And as he said this his eyes moved meaningfully up and down Hannah. “Maybe you should ditch this loser and come with us ‘ey babe. We’d show you a good time wouldn’t we boys?”

At this prompting the group of guys behind him began laughing and hooting while the girls that were with them rolled their eyes and prepared to give them an earful as soon as prom was over.

John and Hannah left the guys while they were too busy nudging each other to realize that the girl they’d just been calling out had disappeared. Nor did they realize that there was a large, almost invisible hand descending from the sky towards them.

The inside of the party was in full swing with music and dancing and food and drink. Sometimes as in the case of Gertrude, the girl who had once liked Josh but now secretly had feelings towards Tom, these things were all happening at the same time. The poor man who had been unfortunate to get roped into going with her was being neatly tossed around in what might have been a parody of the waltz but looked more like a whale trying to breach. If the whale weighed only 65 pounds and was being forced to perform by its 230-pound girlfriend. She snapped one look at them and then continued on with hurling her poor escort like a sack of potatoes.

“Care to dance?”
“Oh Josh, I’d love to but there’s so many people and I don’t want to damage my dress!”

Just as soon as she said that the lights went out and a spotlight shone down upon them.

“And now for the winners of the best dressed competition to show off their moves to a slow dance!”

“Josh! We’re in the spotlight! And everyone’s moving so we can dance, oh how romantic!”

Josh would have replied but he could have sworn that he recognized that voice. He didn’t have time to think of who it was anyway, he was with the most beautiful girl in the world slow dancing. Life couldn’t get any better.

‘Well, that isn’t necessarily true’ thought Josh, ‘After all, we could always-‘
“I’m watching you Josh McGinness”

He almost jumped but managed not to, he wouldn’t have gotten very far anyway since Hannah had him held so tightly he could feel her-No! Now wasn’t the time to enjoy that. Someone had said something but nobody had opened their mouths and no one, not even Hannah who was standing next to him, seemed to have heard the warning. He would not let on that he’d heard it either then, he decided. But there was still the thought nagging at the back of his head.

They finished the dance without further incident when the principal got on the microphone.

“Congratulations everybody, that was a wonderful dance. Now I want to thank each and every one of you for coming out tonight and celebrating Prom…”

At this point his voice was drowned out by the cheering from the crowd when Josh noticed that Hannah no longer had her purse. He took her hand and led her away from the noise.

“What happened to your hand-bag?”
“My hand-bag?”
“You know, your purse.”
“Oh my gosh I must have left it in the limo!”
“Come on, I don’t think the driver left the school grounds yet. He’s probably at the front parking lot, the one near the flagpoles. We’ll go get it there.”
“Okay.”

They made their way to the parking lot, making sure not to step on the wet grass so that Hannah’s dress didn’t get dirty.

“Oh my gosh look! Josh up there on the flagpoles! What happened to them?”

For hung up on the flagpoles by their underwear were the guys that had made fun of Josh before when they’d left the limo. And they looked like they were in pain.

“Hung up by their jocks”

He grinned at the thought of the school jocks hanging from the flagpoles by their jocks. ‘Wait, who said that?’

“They look pretty funny hung up like that but that can’t be comfortable, maybe we should let them down…my purse! That one has my purse! How dare he!”

Josh looked where she had pointed and indeed the poor man was holding the strap of her purse as it dangled just within reach. Hannah strode out and took it from the man, pulling down harder than necessary causing the man’s underwear to break and him to fall to the ground. It also elicited a very pained groan from the now very prostrate man, whom she kicked once for good measure. ‘That stiletto had to hurt’ thought Josh who couldn’t help but feel a pang of pity towards the man.

“I wonder where Tom is though?”
“Who?”
“Never mind, come one let’s get back inside.”

They returned to the hall to discover that it had changed completely. The principal had been bound and was being carried out in the direction that they had come from screaming about the dire consequences facing the now-no-longer students and threatening whoever it was that had spiked the punch with extreme measures in which the police would be called on. The school band had been replaced by a motley group wielding guitars and drumsticks like weapons and belting out various rock songs. The trombonist could still be seen hanging from the ceiling trying to regain his trombone, which had lodged itself in the rafters. The students themselves had devolved into a singular moving mass with various groups in the shadows either making out or simply unconscious. Sometimes they were both. In fact Gertrude seemed to have lost her original escort and had found Tom, who was thoroughly knocked out, and she was very vigorously enjoying his company. Josh couldn’t help but smile again.

“Come on Josh let’s get out of here. Everybody’s drunk and it doesn’t look like there’s even any real dancing going on anymore.”
“Yeah, probably a good idea. Let’s get the limo to take us to the overlook”
“This isn’t the time either Josh.”
“What was that Josh?”
“I said let’s take the limo and go someplace else.”
“What about home?”

Suddenly disappointed he couldn’t celebrate fully he agreed to take her home. In fact he was very surprised that it was so late. He hadn’t thought that it had been two hours already and he was still hoping to spend some more time with her. In fact, he was really starting to like this new, assertive Hannah.

They got into the limo and began the route home but instead of taking a right at the corner of St. John’s Cathedral the limo pulled into the parking lot and sat there.

“Not that I’m complaining but I don’t think we’re home yet do you?””No, but I remember this place. It’s Saint John’s, I wonder if he’ll mind if we stop by and say hi?”

Not knowing what to say to such a remark Josh merely agreed that they could stop by and that they wouldn’t have much issue. Although he was slightly worried about the time since it was eleven thirty already and he didn’t want to face the consequences of explaining to her angry godfather why exactly she had been late.

“Oh, it’ll be alright. He won’t mind the church. He loves spending time in them too you know.”

So they wandered into the cathedral and Josh was amazed that it was open. And that there was actually someone standing at the altar as if he had expected them.

“John! It’s so good to see you again, of course you know Josh. He was the one I was telling you about before, you and Paul.”
“Welcome Hannah, Josh, to my humble abode. Please make yourselves comfortable. Feel free to sit and pray.” And then he began to whisper to the air. Josh didn’t catch all of it but he heard small snatches. It sounded like latin.

Hannah sat in the middle of the third aisle; Josh took fourth. From this angle he saw how beautiful she was. As she sat there with her head bowed in silent prayer she looked almost like he imagined an angel would. And the more he looked at her the more he could see her in the future. He saw them buying a house together, raising kids together, growing old together. And while the thought might have scared him before he was delighted to notice that he had no problems with it. In fact, it felt right. And he realized that he was in a holy place, a cathedral, and that it was the most romantic place he’d ever been in. He continued looking at her and thinking about their future together and about how much he loved her when his hand began to move, almost as if it were being guided, down to his pocket in which he found a single diamond ring.

“Now is the time for boldness.”

And suddenly he knew what to do. He stood up and walked down to the end of the aisle crossed himself and then walked up to Hannah. He kneeled down and when she looked at him he said

“Hannah, I love you more than life itself. I would move the earth and the heavens to be with you. You are the most beautiful and incredible girl that I have ever met and I want to spend my life with you. Will you marry me?”

And the tears welled up in her eyes as she took the ring and nodded her head as she began to smile and in that smile, Josh could see all of heaven laid out before him. He could hear the angels singing and the bells ringing and the harps playing and the thunderous applause of thousands clapping at once and as one.

John performed the ceremony there and then and the hall filled with a light so bright that they had to shut their eyes as they kissed and when they light faded there stood a small-ish man. But he wasn’t small, he was a giant and he filled the room and the world and the universe over. He wore a white suit. He smiled at them and blessed them and to Josh he said this.

“Josh. You have brought her such happiness and I know that you will bring her more every day for the rest of your lives. You are a good man and a fine man. I know you will take care of her and that you will care for her like no other man could. You will stand up for her when she is weak and you will support her when she is strong. You will stand like a mountain and you will forever more keep her safe.”

And the man began to fade and when he was nearly gone from view Josh heard one last thing.

“And you’re welcome for those boys.”

And Josh smiled. He had a beautiful wife and a bright future ahead of him.

The Tolling of the Bell

I promised a short story and a short story I will give. This particular short story I thought up while I was at university in a psychology lecture dealing with hallucinations, and then afterwards I began to think a little bit of Mr. E.A. Poe and Stephen King, some of my favorite writers and well...my brain gave me this little toot.


The Tolling of the Bell

Stan was a man. A practical man. Stan, being a psychology major, believed that every instance of what he called “supernaturalism” could be explained away by logical thinking. He was tall and thin, with raven-like features and piercing eyes that he enjoyed using to find out peoples secrets. And of course he loved to challenge their superstitious nonsense.

The clock was an interesting clock certainly. It was a great grandfather made of polished ebony with ivory trimmings on the base and on the exquisitely carved clock face, a pendulum of brilliant brass swung slowly beneath it as it ticked away the time.

It lay at the top of a staircase in Stan’s uncles house, it was nearly a mansion save that he didn’t have the garden, which used to belong to Stan’s grandfather. It was surprisingly dark, full of shadows but that didn’t bother Stan, he was unafraid of ghosts and ghouls. Since it was close to campus he’d decided that he’d live in it and probably spruce it up too. He liked his sense of style and thought it was a pretty good one to have, even if not everyone approved, he as happy with it. The boxes were piled up haphazardly all around the front hall and he was glad that his friends, Mike and Steve, had been there to help him. Mike was on a sports scholarship, playing rugby, but he had dreams of getting into medicine and becoming a doctor. God knew,
haha that’s a laugh,
that he was smart enough. And Steve was a musician to his heart. He didn’t have the strength or stamina for sports but he made up for it by writing the most beautiful music for his cello. He was so good in fact that he regularly did concerts at the local hall to help fund his college. They were Stan’s two best friends, indeed he loved them more than family seeing as how his family had done little to help him with his college dream and they were all superstitious fools anyway. His friends had always been there for him, ever since grade school all the way up to college, and he was proud of them for it.

The clock rang at quarter to seven that night. “Bloody nuisance” thought Stan, “never runs on time”. And he went back to his nightly schedule of studying and drinking scotch while his dog, Dinky, slept by his feet. Stan liked scotch.

He woke up the next morning with the beginnings of a hangover but at least his work was done and he wouldn’t have to worry about his schedule for his next exam. He fed himself and Dinky and then he settled down to read the mornings newspaper and do the cross-word since his psychology lecture didn’t begin until eleven. At half past nine his door rang, a haunting, mournful tone that would have been more appropriate at a mortuary than at his house. It was Steve, who looked like a man staring at his grave. “What’s wrong man?” asked Stan.
“He’s dead. Mike’s dead. He was hit in rugby and never got up again and now he’s dead.” And at that they both began to weep and mourn their good friend, who had died of a stroke while in a ruck during his game at seven the night before.

Stan missed his psych lecture that day as they arranged to bury Mike at his favourite spot, none of them believed in church, on a hill that overlooked the medical facilities, but only after they had donated what organs they could to the medical faculty. Mike would have wanted it that way.

That night Stan sat down with Dinky and stroked the dog. Sometimes he thought that Dinky might be smart but then the dog would do something like chase her own tail and that dispelled that notion. He looked at his scotch cabinet longingly and the dog nudged his hand with her nose. She knew him well and she felt when her master was in pain, the bad smelling drink seemed to make him happier and so she fetched him a bottle from the bottom shelf.

He woke up the next morning badly hungover, and took a drink to help ease the pain. Then another, and another. By his sixth scotch he was able to walk, if a little unsteadily, to where he kept his books. He hadn’t done the work but that was okay, he’d catch up with it tomorrow when his head didn’t hurt so much. He was just leaving when he heard the clock strike again. It was only nine o’clock.

He tried his best to concentrate but couldn’t. The clock was starting to unnerve him
that’s absurd, it’s only a clock!
and the death of his friend was still fresh in his mind. He caught a couple of words but ended up leaving early.

The uneasy feeling did not abate when he’d returned to his new home. If anything all it did was get worse.
Stop it! It’s just a clock, you’re scaring yourself over nothing. Associating a traumatic event with a coincidence, you learned that in first year! It’s not real!
Despite himself he was thoroughly drunk by that evening when he heard the bell ring again. This time it was a man and a woman. They were in uniforms.

The police sat him down and explained to him that Steve had been setting up for a concert at ten when a man, hopped up on drugs, charged in with a loaded firearm and proceeded to beat him and then shoot him. They had caught the killer and they wanted him to know that they would press charges, but the man thought that the killer had a good chance of escaping conviction on grounds of temporary insanity induced by mind altering substances in his system. Apparently the man had so many drugs pumping through his system that it was a minor miracle that he was alive. They didn’t tell him that though.

After the police had gone Stan broke down and cried for the first time since he was a child of four and his dad had beaten him. He wept and he mourned and he drank until he knew no more. His last thought was how much he hated the clock.

He continued drinking for the next couple days, missed all of his lectures and labs, and soon received a letter informing him that if he didn’t improve his grades he would have to drop out of the course. Of course Dinky was there for him the whole time, his last friend in the world, and he loved her so dearly. He held her and cried himself to sleep and all throughout it he thought about that damned clock
It’s only a clock
and what it had done to his friends
Nothing!
and if he was next
Impossible!


Four days after he had received the letter he was starting to feel better, he still cried and had nightmares but he knew how to cope with nightmares. They weren’t real and he could rationalize them again. He began to think about perhaps taking a vacation, he’d been working too hard and he’d been through some traumatic experiences that had certainly taken their toll on him
The bells…
possibly Hawaii, or maybe Tahiti, or maybe something in Europe. Yes Europe, and he’d take Dinky with him too. Maybe take some time in Paris to visit the Eiffel Tower, or up to Britain for the Tower of London
Tower of death…
No, not London. Maybe Piccadilly, he could spend some time shopping. With Dinky. His beautiful, beautiful dog.
Dinky….
The clock was ringing…

Without even thinking about it, at least not where he was aware of it, he ran to her room just under the stairs. She was gone. He checked the house and saw the front door open. He bolted outside, could he hear yapping? He could, he followed the noise and turned the corner where he saw Dinky. She was chasing a butterfly and had wandered into the local junkyard. He watched in horror as, unable to move or even speak, she caught her foot on some junk in the compactor. And then he heard the whine of the machine begin
Dinky!
He tried to get to her to help her out but by the time he had gotten there her back half was already inside the rapidly
Too rapidly
closing machine. He heard her painful whining and yelping and he tried to release her, he grabbed at the junk that was holding her and then when that failed he grasped her paws and tried to pull her free through sheer force.
DINKY!
She was three quarters of the way in the machine then and he could see the life dying in her eyes, her loving, devoted eyes looking back at him as he struggled to save her. She licked his face once and then was gone. Into the machine.
dinky…

He had nothing
Nothing
Nothing at all
Nothing
Nothing except that clock
That cursed clock, that evil clock
Yes, the clock was evil, it was cursed. It had robbed him of his best friends
Mike.
Steve.
and his beloved dog
Dinky…
It had ruined his life, once so passionately filled with care and joy for his work and his sanity.
Oh, he was sane. So very sane. He was so sane he was in it. In sane hahahahaha!
He didn’t care about the tears coursing down his face, all he felt was the agony of loss and he was going to make it pay.
Pay for what it had done!
Oh yes, it would suffer as he had suffered and it would hurt no one ever again!

He walked to the hardware shop after all he had all the time in the world now. He had no life anymore
What life?
No friends
What friends?
And all the time in the world to make that clock suffer. It had ruined his life but it would not ruin him. He would destroy it and his torment would end. He’d be free.
So free!
He bought an axe and, other than a surprised look by the cashier because he was still crying, went unmolested in his task.

He entered his home
That cursed home
With the axe in hand
That bastardized piece of clockwork would pay
And he could feel the loathing fuel his efforts, his anguish and torment fuelled his rage and he would use that rage to annihilate that damned, fucking clock. He’d turn it into kindling and then he’d burn it, it and the entire home, and he’d be free!
He took his time up the stairs,
after all he had all the time in the world
but as soon as he saw it he felt a sudden urgency to hurt it, to get the job done as if it was as distasteful to him as his beliefs had been. He swung the axe hard.

The clock tolled one more time and his hand slipped and he buried the axe-head in the wall next to the clock. He struggled to free it, all the while terrified of the tolling of the bells in the clock.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls…
He ripped the axe free but the effort was too great to control, he slipped and fell down the stairs, flinging the axe up to free his hand to stop the fall but it was too late. He tumbled down the stairs and when he looked up and saw the axe and heard the bells
It tolls for thee.
He knew no more.



The police, having stopped by to investigate reports of a gibbering madman entering the property, found the body lying at the foot of the stairs with a broken back and an axe buried in his chest. They deemed it an accident based on the damaged wall at the top of the stairs. They ruled that the death was caused by the fall and that the axe had perhaps simply slipped from his hand. But they couldn’t be certain which came first since the axe-head had been completely buried in the poor man’s chest, almost all the way through, and they couldn’t understand how it had gotten the force with which to nearly pass through him.

The house went up for auction, seeing as his parents had passed away and he had no next of kin. The house was sold to an old gentleman who had worked for the college and was looking forward to retiring. He liked the clock.

Well, Here I Am.

Wow. My own blog. I feel like I should do something to commemorate this and yet I can't think of anything. I suppose I'll just explain briefly why I chose to set up a blog. I like to write, no that's not adequate, I love to write. I love it even more than I love to play games. I guess that's because with writing I can change anything I want, not merely what a programmer, planner, or GM will let me change. I've been writing for a while, at least in my opinion, four years or so. Many things I've written I've deleted almost straight away, and those things I didn't delete invariably would get lost in the hopeless clutter that is my floor. But recently I've taken to writing things up more often on the computer and I must say that it is far more helpful to me at organizing than files or journals. All I have to do is look up the name of the story on Microsoft Word, the old one thank you (I don't know how anyone can understand that new release version they did), and there it is at my fingertips ready for any alterations I may feel like making. And as for creating this blog all I can say is that I would like to share some of my "Short Stories and Other Brain Farts" with the world. Well enough of my senseless jabbering, as it is with the stage, so shall it be here in this virtual stage. On with the story!