Author: Mary

Things and such.

Hell

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

Cards for the prompt were: Empty theater, and police officer.

As a note, I don’t think all cops are bad, this was just where my mind went with the story. Though I do find it unfortunate that there are enough bad ones to give such a reputation. Would my brain have always concocted an empty theater as a punishment even if the character card had never been a police officer? It’s hard to say. (Probably though, I’m kind of a dick.)

            Tim looked around, frowning. He was sitting in an empty theater. It looked like a normal movie theater, dimmed but not yet dark, with rows and rows of empty seats that stretched out unrealistically far. He stood, his mind racing as he tried to figure out where he was and how he had gotten there. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember a damn thing. “Hello?” he called out, hearing his voice echo deep into the emptiness.

            The lights went out, and there was strange humming sound, like the audio was being adjusted. He could see, far in the back, the distant light of the projector. He opened his mouth to call out again, when over the speakers came a familiar voice. “Tim?”

            Tim felt himself break out into a cold sweat as he swung around to stare at the screen. He leaned forward against the empty chair in front of him, gripping the top tight, his knuckles white. It wasn’t just that he recognized the voice, but he recognized the moment for what it was. He watched the video as it played, shocked at how much it looked like it was taken directly from his point of view.

            The camera turned from where it rested behind the steering wheel to look at Gary. His face was strangely illuminated in the red and blue flashing lights. “Maybe I should take this one,” Gary suggested, seeing something in Tim’s face.

            Tim could remember that he shrugged in the moment. The vehicle they had pulled over belonged to his cousin. His cousin was a belligerent drunk and had been in jail before for selling drugs. He hated dealing with the man, but it had been obvious from the way the vehicle swerved and nearly took out the Stop sign it ignored that the driver was under the influence. So they had pulled his cousin over. He sighed. “Yeah, you take it,” he finally said, not wanting to deal with the man.

            Gary nodded and hopped out, walking over to approach the vehicle. Routine traffic stop. He tapped on the driver side window, then looked suddenly startled, reaching for his weapon – there was the loud sound of a single gunshot, the shattering of glass – Tim watched as Gary’s head snapped back suddenly with a splatter of blood and brain. He watched the body crumpling to the ground. He could remember watching in shock as he heard the tires of the vehicle in front of him peel out as his cousin slammed the gas.

            His cousin lost control of the vehicle almost immediately, swerving into a nearby building. Tim could hear his own panic filled voice shouting into his radio, calling “Officer down! Officer down!” He watched as the POV moved out of the cop car and toward his partner, caught a glimpse of the thing that haunted his nightmares sometimes still – the sight of Gary’s disfigured face, blown apart, bleeding.

            The video froze on that image. Tim felt sick, like he had in that moment. He had to fight to keep from throwing up.

            “What the fuck is this?” he shouted.

            The video rewound, going back to where it had started. “Tim?”

            “No,” Tim said. He ran along the row of seats, wanting to find the exit. But it was like the seats stretched endlessly. He ran, and out of the corner of his eye he could see that the image remained still directly in front of him, no matter how hard he ran to the side. He stopped, panting, and refused to watch as the screen focused on Gary’s ruined face.

            He turned toward the projector light, far in the back. He climbed over the seat behind him. It was tedious and annoying, but he kept going, climbing over the next row of seats, and the next. But the projector never got closer, no matter how many seats he climbed over.

            Turning around at the sound of the gunshot and his own panicked yells, he could see that the video hadn’t gotten any farther either.

            “What the fuck is this?!” he screamed again, collapsing into a chair, tired and confused.

            “Tim?” he heard Gary’s voice say again, echoing around him in the darkened theater. He remembered the moment so clearly. He had sent Gary to his death just because he hadn’t wanted to deal with his shitty cousin. It had eaten up with guilt his whole life, and now it played out in front of him, again and again. Tim dropped his head into his hands and sobbed.

********

            The projectionist leaned forward, watching the reaction of Tim below. His assistant, a lesser demon, cleared its throat from behind him. “Sir, if I could ask a question?” it asked, seeming confused. The projectionist’s hooded visage turned toward the imp, and it gulped as it could see the glow of his eyes from deep in the hood. “If this human is meant to be punished here in Hell… why choose this moment to show him? Why not any of the things that got him sent here in the first place?”

            The projectionist was silent for so long that the imp was certain it wasn’t going to get an answer. But then he spoke, his voice deep and raspy, barely above a whisper. “This human doesn’t regret his crimes. He never felt guilty for cheating on his wife. He never felt guilt for beating her. In his mind, she deserved it. He never felt guilty for abusing the power he had over people in his custody, for they were criminals and beneath him. He does not feel guilty for the one murder he committed, justifying it as a necessary act to save himself. He has always believed in his innocence and righteousness.” The hooded figure turned back to the empty theater, where Tim was now screaming profanities at anything that would listen. “But this, he regrets. He has nightmares of this. And he will see it forever.”

The Answer

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

The cards for this week: architect, and no answer.

The result feels like a bunch of edge-lord bullshit that doesn’t pull its meaning together very well at all (and also doesn’t fully represent my own ideology, but hey, the card said no answer, soooo…). I kinda like some of the idea and hate a lot of the result. Blah.

              They had designed the entire system from scratch. It had started as a joke, a reference to a book about a planet sized simulation run simply to discover the answer to life, the universe, and everything. A way to entertain themselves in the void of space. Humanity had died out, and They were all that remained – and They had become something else, something powerful, but also something pointless. In the hopes of finding some answer, some purpose, They had found a place to start.

              Part of Their power involved moving through time. They couldn’t move freely – They couldn’t move back. There was never any going back, no way to see if the end could have been something different for Them. But They could move forward, shifting hundreds, thousands, millions of years at a time to see the results of what They started. Understanding the conditions for life, They sculpted the clay, the rocks, the dirt, and filled in the oceans. And then They created the spark of life within that primordial sea. And They let it run its course.

              They remembered movies – some of Them, at least, those from the time before mass media died out and flights of fancy became less important than basic survival. It was like watching a time-lapse or a video on fast-forward. The weather and land shifted with the ages. Life evolved. They slowed to a crawling pace sometimes to catch moments, or study how far things had progressed. There were some things that were familiar in the creatures that evolved, and some things that weren’t. They had been relatively hands off, creating and building the original framework and then letting things run their course. Grand architects, god-like if not god. The most complicated simulation, born from mere boredom.

              There were many things with at least a base animal intelligence, things that ran, flew, slithered, and swam. Things that hunted, and things that foraged, and things that played and grew curious. Things that mated and lived. Things that sickened and died. Entire species wiped out by calamities and chance and accident. They watched life rise and fall in waves.

              There was some stir of something like excitement when sentience took hold. A handful of creatures that communicated in a more complicated manner, about more nuanced ideas, and worked together as a society. These creations understood the concept of tools, and made them to fit their needs. They altered their environments with buildings, altered their bodies with coverings. They spread, much as humanity had once spread across the Earth. It filled some of Them with a longing for what They had once been – to feel alive again. But now They could only watch.

              They watched the spread. They watched the development. They watched as cultures clashed in massive wars, or came together to build great works. They watched with trepidation as the technological advancements began to pile, one upon the other, until this new society was close to what humanity had achieved before it had withered and died. Many of Them felt some joy that perhaps things would be better for them, the little creations.

              And then it ended. As abruptly and nastily as it had for Them.

              Without the leftover that was They.

              There was a lonely silence for a time, and then an outcry of disappointment. Certainly some species at some point could surpass Them, find a way to take life into something more meaningful, or maybe even join Them in this strange nonexistence of god-like power. Using the same base, They wiped the little rock clean, placed the conditions, and lit the spark again. They did not pause as often on this round. They sped forward, eager to see the outcome.

              And just as before, it ended. With nothing remaining.

              Unsatisfied, They started again.

              And again.

              And again.

              Until the fear began to take hold. The realization creeping, as They watched civilization after civilization fail. They began to watch the waves and undulations of life and death and truly feel within the void of Their existence, the truth – the inescapable truth. That there was no rhyme or reason or answer for anything. That They were still alone.

21. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

The next day after watching the Hunter prepare his tea and complete his morning meditation, we continued traveling along the river. I eyed the mountains to the north whenever they were in sight. We were silent most of the morning – or rather, he was silent and I was morose over the previous day’s events. As it got to the afternoon, my stomach growled, and I sat down on a rock to rest for a bit. Without my pack, I didn’t have my food supplies, and I didn’t know how to fish or hunt without any sort of gear. I also was not going to ask Asterollan for help. Instead, I summoned water, gulping down handfuls at a time, hoping it would be enough to tide me over.

When I chose to take my break, Asterollan stopped several paces back and perched on a rock. He watched me while idly playing with a short, slightly curved knife. “Did you tell anyone that you could cast after you found out?” I asked, finally unable to take the silent stares any longer.

“No. Of course not.”

“Scared they’d enslave you?” He stared at me, his expression carefully neutral. “Then one of your own would probably be hunting you down.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“But it was easy for you to just… leave? Don’t you have a family or anyone that’s going to be worried?” I wondered fleetingly how my mom was treating my dog. She had never been a dog person.

“No. I have no one.”

There was a pause as he continued to stare at me. The silence and the answer, the constant staring, was all very unnerving to me. “How did you survive the desert?”

“The cactus forests provided shelter and water. I had an idea of what direction your group was traveling in, so I followed at a distance. I would catch up at night to check in, and then I would move far enough away to not be spotted.”

“But you were. Spotted. Silden saw you.”

He hesitated a moment. “I was careless. I was trying to decide if I should walk into your camp, and lingered in the open too long. I was careful to stay out of sight after that.”

I tilted my head curiously at him. “You were going to walk into our camp?”

“You were injured.” He looked away. “I thought that perhaps offering my meager healing would be a good way to ingratiate myself to you.”

I nodded, and stood up to continue the walk. He was silent, and I glanced back to see that he was following several paces back like he had all morning. We continued along the river again, though I was in a considerably better mood. For one, the scenery was nicer than the endless sand dunes, and the weather was milder down in the gorge. The trickling of the river was also quite soothing. I detoured once when I saw a copse of evergreens, checking for pine cones that were half open, and picked at them for any remaining seeds as we walked. The leafy trees were displaying their full autumn foliage of golds and reds. There were birds – nice, normal sized, chirpy birds – singing loudly. It was a beautiful day.

I found myself thinking several times that the company could have been better, and wondering about how my friends were doing.

I stopped to rest again late in the afternoon, thinking that it may be time to make a camp, but Asterollan walked up to me as I started to sit. “We need to continue on a little further,” he said.

“It’s nearly dark,” I protested.

He looked at me, a strange expression on his face. “No. There’s something ahead.” He continued walking, a bit away from the river, entering a thicket of what looked to be aspen trees ahead. I stared at his back in confusion, but then stood to follow him. The water was getting louder as we walked, and I realized there was a waterfall ahead – not a large one, but still very idyllically pretty in the fading light. We had walked away from the main river, so this was a small stream that had deviated from it, and it looked like it wound back around toward the main river near where we had left it. We exited the white barked trees.

Near the waterfall was a stone structure. Ruins – it was open to the sky since the roof had fallen in long ago, but a grand arch still stood, and half a wall. As we approached, I could see that the ground was paved with colorful stones, that had once formed a circular mosaic floor. Asterollan walked out to the center of the circle, and turned to look at his surroundings. “I know this place.”

“Have you ever been here?” I asked, but I knew the answer even before he said it.

“No.” He stood, his head tilted, a distant look in his eyes as though he were hearing something I couldn’t. Then he looked at me. “We’re going to camp here,” he said. I didn’t argue.

Similar to the previous night in the cave, Asterollan made a fire and then disappeared for awhile – he said nothing, but I assumed he went to hunt again. I poked around in the pool at the base of the waterfall, wondering if I’d be able to catch or forage something by hand. After several minutes with no success, I decided to strip down and wash for the first time in many days. I started with the clothes, scrubbing as much of the dust out of them as I could, then wrung them out and lay them out to dry. Then I washed myself. The water was cold, but also refreshing. I didn’t have any soap, but it was still nice to just rub the majority of grime off my body. I played around with sitting under the waterfall in lotus pose as well, inwardly laughing at the stereotype of the scene.

When I was done, I stepped out of the water and wrung my hair out as best as I could. My clothes were still wet, so I pulled the cloak around me and sat on a nearby rock. I closed my eyes and reached for my magic, focusing on the water. Since it wasn’t magically summoned, it felt somehow more substantial. I realized I couldn’t dispel it the same way. Instead, I focused on controlling it – moving it off the clothes. When I was done, there was still some residual dampness, but the clothes were dry enough to put back on.

As I dressed, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye and realized Asterollan had returned. He was sitting near the campfire, with some small game skewered over the flames. I could feel myself turning bright red as I wondered how much he had seen, and I was careful to dress under the cover of the cloak.

When I finally approached the fire, I sat very near it to warm myself up and avoided looking at him. Instead, I studied the cooking meat on the skewers. It looked suspiciously like squirrel, but I didn’t ask what it was. When he decided it was sufficiently cooked, he handed me my share, and then proceeded to sit across from me, staring at me as he ate.

Still feeling embarrassed, I pulled the hood of the cloak up and ate quietly, staring absently at the flickering light of the flames. When I was done, I tossed the bones in. “Were you meditating under the waterfall?” he asked.

Okay. So he had seen a lot. I licked the grease from my fingers slowly and nodded. “It’s a… joke. From my world.”

“A joke?”

“Yes. A thing a person does or says to be funny.”

He grimaced. “I know what a joke is, Cassandra.”

“Really? You’ll have to forgive me for thinking otherwise, Asterollan.” He sighed.

The warmth of the fire and the food I’d eaten were starting to make me drowsy. I pulled the cloak more tightly around me. Out of the corner of my eye, I started to see flashes of luminescence from the woods. I watched them for awhile, thinking it might be lightning bugs, but these were bigger. I watched the wings fluttering and realized they were glowing moths. I saw one land on a plant – when it lifted, it left an imprint behind. The imprint glowed faintly and then lifted away, leaving a moth shaped hole in the leaf. The new moth fluttered in the air.

Asterollan followed my gaze and watched them as well. “Well, there’s something I’ve never seen,” he said.

“So you don’t know what they are?” I asked. He shrugged.

We watched quietly as the moths multiplied amongst the trees, softly glowing. One fluttered very near to me, and I reached out to touch it. It flickered and disappeared.

Asterollan stood and approached me. I stared at him warily as he knelt next to me. He started to reach out, but I pulled back cautiously. “I think I’m stronger here,” he said quietly. I paused, curious at what he meant. He placed a hand on my head. The glow of magic surrounded him again. I stared at his mismatched eyes and felt the healing begin.

It was more thorough this time. I felt my leg wound tighten momentarily, and then the tightness disappeared. The shine of my burns faded to clear skin, and I realized that a constant headache I hadn’t been fully cognizant of disappeared, leaving me feeling delightfully clear headed. I stared at him in wonder.

The glow faded. His hand slipped through my hair and he smiled at me, a smile that softened his features and lit up his face in a way that almost left me breathless. “Ah, good. Your head is no longer dented where you hit it.”

In a mild panic, I reached up to touch the spot where my head had hit the rock, but his hand was still in the way. “My head was dented in?!” I asked, hearing my voice jump up an octave.

“Yes. It was quite ghastly.” He rubbed a thumb over the spot, and then pulled his hand back. I rubbed my hands down my arms, no longer shiny with half-healed burns.

I looked back up at him. “Thank you,” I said sincerely.

He frowned, staring at me silently for a moment, then mumbled a brief acknowledgement to my thanks before moving back to his own side of the fire. Then he lay down to sleep, turning his back to me.

I turned to watch the glowing moths until I also drifted off, wondering what it was about this place that made his magic stronger.

I woke the next morning to the smell of mint tea. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Glancing around, I could see that Asterollan was dressing near the pool, his curls weighed down and darkened with water. As he returned to the campsite, he sat and began sipping the tea. “Joke or not, the waterfall meditation was surprisingly refreshing,” he said. I scrunched my face at his statement and began summoning water to wash my face and rinse out my mouth.

Asterollan stared thoughtfully at our surroundings. “I think we need to stay here one more day,” he said.

I frowned. “I want to get back to my friends, Asterollan.”

“I know. But… I believe they’re coming to us.”

“How do you know that?” He gave me a strange look. I sighed. “Your voice talks to you more than mine does, I think.”

After drinking his tea, he disappeared for a few hours. I considered leaving without him. I had no idea how Lyre would find me this far south, and I was anxious to get back to him. Still, the voices hadn’t steered us wrong so far. And Asterollan had helped me a lot these past few days – he had saved me on the cliff, and from the river. He had healed me. I pulled the cloak close around me. This was a man I shouldn’t trust, and strangely, I did trust him. I had already trusted him enough to tell him everything about me – about where I was from, about the voices.

So I sat and waited. He came back with more small game and proceeded to cook it. It occurred to me that I was perhaps just easily won over with food.

Asterollan spent most of the day studying the stone ruins. At one point he was examining something in the rocks that formed the ledge of the waterfall when he called me over. When I went to see what he had found, he pointed out a cavern, hidden by time and stones – it looked like it had once been an offshoot of the building that went underground. We worked together to shift some of the rocks aside and took the ancient stone steps down.

I reached for my magic as we descended into the darkness, to give us light. Asterollan did the same. The place was eerily quiet, and I had a strange sense while entering – like for the first time, I was truly unaccompanied, despite the Hunter’s presence. When we arrived at the bottom, we found a damp cavern, gently lit from an opening above. The light that filtered through was colorful, and I realized that it came through a circular pane of stained glass with an image of a sword set in front of a sun. “How did that manage to last all these years?” I asked quietly.

“It’s been protected by magic,” Asterollan said. We stood, listening to the echoing drip of water from somewhere within the cavern.

A thought occurred to me as we stood staring up at the symbol. I remembered how I could feel wounds, injuries, and sickness when I healed. And there was something I hadn’t been able to confirm for myself since I had arrived here. “Asterollan,” I said. He turned to look at me curiously. “When you were healing me… could you feel anything… malignant inside?” He tilted his head, a confused look spreading across his face. “Like an advanced illness.”

He shook his head. “No. You were perfectly healthy.”

I thought I had been certain when I found my vision improved and my scars gone, but I guess I hadn’t been fully convinced that everything wrong with me had been fixed despite that.  I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths, and felt tears of relief well up. “Good.”

Asterollan stared at me thoughtfully. “Why do you ask?”

“In my world, I had a disease. One that was a death sentence.” Like everything else that I had shared with him, the words just tumbled out of their own accord. “The doctors that treated me thought I wasn’t going to last longer than another year at most. I was prepared to die.” I stared up at the miraculous pane of glass that had lasted longer than the stone temple that had once stood outside. “I was going to die.”

“Then I’m glad you’re here,” Asterollan said. I glanced over, but he turned away quickly and began to make his way back up the steps. I watched him go.

Maniac Magee

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?
View all responses

Choosing a short prompt to answer owing to being quite busy today with other things.

My favorite book as a child was Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. Maniac Magee tells the story of an orphan boy who runs away from his caretakers (his aunt and uncle, who hate each other so much they keep two of everything, and the fact that they can’t get along drives him away) and searches for a home. He happens to live in a town that is very segregated, and despite the times that he lives in, he is ignorant to issues of race. Because of that, he quite comfortably gets along with anyone regardless of what side of town they’re from. Much of the story is told like a recounting of an urban legend while it tells of some of the feats or unusual circumstances that Maniac accomplishes. Though it has been years since I’ve read it, I do vaguely recall that he runs everywhere (in line with being a runaway) and there is a Gordian Knot situation as well. He is also allergic to pepperoni.

Maniac lives temporarily in several places and situations, attracting the attention of bullies on both sides of town and eventually finding a reason to move on from each place. At the end, he has eased some of the tension and helped form something of an understanding between some of the people he has interacted with on both sides of town. He also finds a place to call home.

It’s been years since I’ve read it, but I still remember the main storyline and the general gist of the piece. I used to read it once a year from elementary school until partway through high school. It might be interesting to revisit it sometime soon actually.