Death

It began as an accident. The Mongol invaders had planned to bring death to the Arabs, but they did not plan to cast it among their own armies. Death came anyway, and took nearly all of them. However, Death did not win that battle.

Instead the army invited Death to join their armory, and they catapulted him from one camp to the other. First, fortresses fell in Deaths wake, their guards succumbing to black sores, pale skin, and fever. Then ships came and carried Death as a stowaway, as some say. Others says the crew tried to take Death prisoner. Either way, Death sailed across the Black Sea and conquered Europe.

First Turkey fell, then Italy, then the Alps, then France, then Germany, and then Brittan. Death planned to push up into Poland and Russia, but he lost steam. Or, as some theorists say, he lost the motivation to continue. Other sources say he retired and abdicated his empire to a worthy opponent.

Louise Cornwall

Inspired by Spoon River Anthology
I lived on the outskirts of town,
Between the quarry and the river.
I lived in a one bedroom house,
Once I moved to Spoon River.
My bedroom had a twin bed.
My kitchen table had one placemat.
I lived in Spoon River twenty years,
Alone.

I worked on my garden,
With a ring on my left hand,
Playing along with the rumors
That I was the cause of my his absence.
I wasn’t.
She was.

The Story to End All Stories

We started up Humbug Crick early that day, our rigs and crummies growling before we were halfway up Butte Road. It was an old logging road; Ben never been on it before, and neither had Johnny. That didn't stop us, as we climbed out with our saws and our axes hanging from our shoulders. Our crew piled out behind, ripping and roaring to drown out the sounds of the woods. Johnny heard a hum, or maybe a buzz that seemed to come from the sun itself.

We worked all morning, only breaking for lunch by the rig. Pulling out our coffee, we heard the drone crescendo until it got in the way of our conversation. Chuck stood up first, and left his lunch behind. No flies went after it. Walking a little up a ways, Chuck stopped in front of a large rock.

"Hey guys! It's louder over 'ere!"

Eventually the rest of us made our way over there. Ben was the first to climb the rock to find whatever made that crazy noise. When he saw it he nearly fell off the back of the rock.

"What is it?" Johnny asked, scratching his arm.

Chuck stood up a little straighter and climbed down the other side. "I'm gonna find out."

The rest of us waited until we heard a loud squeal and the sound of human bones being sawed in half. We didn't wait to find out what did ended Chuck Reister. Ben thinks its a bear. Johnny thinks a cougar. Dan thought it was an alien, but no one listens to him anyway.

Tiramisu

Pick me up
with sticky fingers,
with clouds on the tip of your tongue,
the sting of coffee in your nose,
and chocolate in your eyes.

Snapshot

Aunt Flo never married, though she kept a house of two cats. In a drawer of hers she has a snapshot, the only one that's never been put in a scrapbook, photo album, or picture frame. It's black and white, if not a bit grainy, and careful fingerprints grace its corners.

A man in an army uniform, with his hat off, sits at a coffee shop somewhere in Europe, toying with his lighter and ignoring his coffee. No one joins him at the table, and in fact only a few human shapes are visible in the background. It's dim, in the morning, between the time residents go to work and the time they return for lunch and tea.

On the back Flo wrote a date, and possibly a name, but she later scratched it out without saying why.

Burden of Truth

He carried his burden on his back.
She carried it over her body.
Every bruise begged for candy,
every word called for geese.
Each misplaced fold told a story,
the day her man lost his job.
Each wrinkle of hers whispered
of the times he'd been rejected.
"Sorry, hon' I've been havin' a hard time"
She ate his apologies for dessert.

Shanty

The schooner turned coastal barge underneath a blanket of sand until one February. For over a century the ship hid, safe from the worms, fed by salt and water, until a storm found its sanctuary. Storm by storm they pelted the shield, shifting the sand until the poor shipwreck lay exposed. Soon the iron bars bubbled with rust and worms threatened to eat every piece of Douglas Fir until nothing remained. No man alive could save the ship in time, so they left it alone. Two deceased experts, however, readily took on the job of saving the C.A. Smith.

"Really Sean, you sh'd know better 'an to drink on yer watch." The first caressed the wood gently, almost reverently. The barge would never carry wood again, but it might serve for a decent ghost ship.

"Aw, Rich, how was I s'pposed to know that a storm w's comin'? I only had a little." Sean crawled up the dune, surveying the work ahead of them.

"You were drunk off yer arse, and you know it." Rich leaned close to the ship, as if to kiss it, and blew a small layer of sand away.

"I was sad. M'girl lef' me! Wot was I s'pposed to do? Sail sober?" Sean picked up a shovel he'd stolen from a dairy farmer. Hopefully the farmer wouldn't miss it.

"You sailed against the wind, you buggerin' bastard. If it weren't for you, we would have made it past the jetty! But noooooooooo."

"I said I was sorry."

______________

The next morning the BLM showed up to look at the shipwreck again, but they only found the hole, quickly filling with sand, that once held the keel close. With no other answer but a couple of stolen shovels, the BLM blamed it on the storm, at least in their reports.