The Trap

"I know it's a trap, Jeremiah, but it's our only lead. We have to go."

"Man, that's the dumbest cliche ever. That would be a pretty bad reason to die."

Martin paced the room in frustration.

"What we should do, martin, is set up a counter-trap!"

He stopped, and his eyes lit up. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that? It's brlliant! Trap the trappers!"

He paused.

"Unless...That's what they want us to do. In which case they'll have counter-measures."

Jeremiah's face hardened. "A trap to trap us trapping them?"

"Exactly. it's simple logic. Stay one move ahead of your opponent and you'll surely triumph."

"That's some Sun Tzu type stuff right there, Martin."

'It's a good book, you should read it."

"I will, Martin."

There was a moment of silence.

"We have only one option then. Set up another trap. A snare to catch the hunters who seek to trap us capturing them in the act of ambushing us."

"But they'll just trap us trapping them trapping us trapping them trapping us-"

"Are you having a stroke, Jeremiah?"

He smiled to himself. "Maybe. A stroke of genius. Here's the plan-"

--- 18 Hours later, at the rendezvous point ---

Concentric circles of hidden people, thirty tiers at least, all set up to trap trappers. All waiting for Martin and Jeremiah; as well as their inevitable meta-traps. The clock ticked, and the tension grew. They would come, and it would be soon.

And then they heard a sound. A subtle droning far above them. If it hadn't been dark they might have seen a blur falling from the sky. But as it is the first thing, and the last thing, that they saw was the flash of light.

My Shadow

My shadow walks with me, when no one else will. And even if he is hidden by the darkness, I know that he is still there. He comforts me, he is my companion.

But now the unbearable brightness of a thousand suns beats down on me, and even my shadow flees from me. Under the glaring light all of my flaws are laid bare, and my virtues are shown in all their flimsiness. I am undone. One by one the people I have known throughout my life come and bear witness against me. If it was false witness I think I could bear it. But it is all true, every fragment of the evidence. Their statements are factual, blunt and unemotional. The weight of it strikes me to my knees.

And then, in my darkest, clearest, brightest hour, my shadow comes back.

He takes the stand, and for a moment I am sure that he willing bring the most damning evidence of all. But he does not. He states the facts, he goes over the territory again. But from my perspective, from my position. He shows my weakness, yes, but he also explains how I struggled against it, and was just not strong enough. He displays my cowardice, but the courage that led me into the situation that I most feared. He walks through my life, with me at every step.

But the raw fact of my weakness remains, and in this I am surely doomed. Until my shadow goes back, way back, to the beginning. And here he shows how strong I once was, and the plague that sapped and undermined me. It was not my fault that I caught the plague, no, I was born with it. He spoke of my faith, my faith in my family, my talents, and my shadow.

And only then do the lights cease to pierce me, and my shadow returns to my side. it is a new world, a new chance. And my shadow is with me.

Put the needle down.

"Put the needle down." he said quietly, dangerously, with a contraction of the frontalis muscle. This was his favorite song. To interrupt it was a deep personal insult. But this is what I had just done.

I held the needle in the air above the record, and looked at him, smiling slightly. "You played this record nearly 230 times in the last week." I said. "You've just about driven me crazy." I said. "Crazy people can be dangerous." I said. He said nothing, but began walking slowly toward me. I think it has driven him slightly crazy too. In fact, this whole apartment building is a little mad from it.

"Put it down. This can end here. It doesn't have to be this way. Nobody has to get hurt."

My left eyelid twitched perceptibly. "It's gone much too far for that." I muttered.

As he approached he seemed to become less and less threatening, but more desperate. He had seemed so tough a few seconds ago, but now... I detected a certain weakness in him. A certain fragility. As if any real impact or mishandling would damage him permanently, or even break him.

My eye twitched again, and his did the same. I began to lower the needle and he relaxed a little.

And then, with a sweep of my arm and a little wrist action I scratched the record.

The scream of the record found an echo in his throat. His eyes rolled backwards in his head, his knees began to buckle. And with a final hiss, he fell to the ground, stone dead.

"Rock on." I said coldly. "Rock on."

The Box

"Hey, uh, bro. What's in the box?"

The grizzled man turned lowly, shifting the box slightly on his knee as he did so, to fix the speaker with a bright blue eye. The other eye-socket was covered by a surprisingly posh looking eyepatch. A grumbling mutter with the timbre of an imprecation bubbled forth from the scraggly beard.

The curious man moved a bit closer, uncowed. "Look you look pretty hungry, I'll give you five bucks to show me what's in the box?"

Silence.

"Ten?"

A subtle change of posture, nothing more.

"Twenty? Look man, that's good money-"

Suddenly the man reared forward and spit, mostly on the solicitor's shiny shoes. This elicited little response.

"Wow man, it must be something pretty snazzy in that box."

The bearded man turned away a bit, but nodded his head slightly.

The younger man walked away, his curiosity unsated. He'd always wonder what was in the box.

Bells

The bells tolled slowly, one after another. It was no funeral that they proclaimed this time, nor a marriage. It warned of death, and a union that could not be stayed, The dark valley echoed with the sound, its dark trees seemed to sway slightly in the harmony. The sun had long set, but the moon was full and high and the clear sky. The cobbled streets were empty, even the animals had been taken away in the exitus.

The time had come again, it had long been anticipated but the specific time of its coming had been a shock to the denizens. No life stirred in the shadowy windows, no people came and went through the many doors. No cattle lowed in the barns, the sound of the bell went on and on, uninterrupted and uncontested.

For one had stayed when all others had fled. It was his duty and his vocation. He must warn of what would come, and warn he did. High in the churchtower he swung on the bellrope, pulling with a rhythm he had learned long ago.

He had kept few of his belongings, sending most of them away with the others. He kept an old letter, addressed to him and clearly written. That was all.

There was one more soul in the church that day. One that long ago found himself on the wrong side, on the side with the bell. Now was his chance to return to his place, though a home it was not. Long had he waited for this night.

The two worlds were coming together, as they had before and would again. And those with shadows must remember their names, their homes, their old lives. Or they would lost in the fog and the wandering souls. The wanderers must recall that they had none.

But the warning must be given. The bell tolled on.

Truth

A silhouette in an old fashioned hat leaned outside the brightly lit window, smoking an obscure brand of cigarette. The man's nonchalance was remarkable, considering the climb he'd had to make to attain the seventh story fire escape. Within, his reward seemed to be in the offing.

"The job on Mark Cedars went off like a charm. We just went with your plan and it was smooth as a baby's bottom."

A cough followed. These brainy types do not object to the cash of their inferiors, but talking to them was often a burden.

"Of course it went well, moja podruja, my plans always do." He could almost picture the uplifted eyebrow of the man within. One man wondering whether "moja podruja" qualified as fighting words, and the other wondering at his own patience.

"Well Professor, your money will be deposited as planned. Seeya around!"

The door slammed loudly. There was the tinkle of beverage preparation and a sigh or two from the lone man within.

"I wonder," the professor began, talking to himself as he often did (finding himself the most intelligent and remarkable man of his acquaintance), "when I should do away with that little man."

The silhouette finally stirred, shaking out the match of second cigarette, and spoke. "Perhaps another day, Professor. I believe much of your calendar will be filled for the coming years."

A gasp, a smash, and the splash of displaced alcohol. A scramble for a a gun, perhaps.

He stepped into full view and tapped his cigarette on the intellectual's windowsill, the ashes fluttering down to the rich carpet inside. "You pull that gun and I'll give me an excuse to drill you right between the eyes."

The drawer closed and he flopped back into his chair, a beaten man.

Ashes

I was once the brightest star in a flourishing empire. My warriors were innumerable, my lands were wide beyond wide. My craftsmen were brilliant and ever advancing; I was clad in mail and girt with sword that far surpassed my contemporaries. Yet I was not alone in my glory, I too was under the emperor, I too had both masters and servants. There was one man and one flag to whom I must bow my head.

Long I was content with this, and my star burned brightly among its companions, and under the one highest star of all. After a time I began to suspect that this fire above me was not far lighter than mine. Indeed, some nights mine shone the fairer of the two. Both waxed and waned, as do all celestial things.

When the nights were darkest, all the barons stood with the emperor, our armies acted as one and none stood before us. But in the milder hours, such vigils did not hold. We would speak among ourselves of small things, and each would try and outshine the others.

The fire burned on, and the empire spread far. Mountains, cold and high, rivers, wide and swift, jungles, dense and foreign to us; all of these we overcame, one by one. But the more we conquered, the more we saw there was to conquer. This is a wide world.

But as a fire spreads, it often weakens, or separates into many smaller fires. The emperor waned as we waxed strong with battle. His flame flickered, and many thought to blow it out that their own lights might better be seen. But of its own accord, in its own time, it fell and did not rise.

Then all the flares and blazes on the distant borders of the realm whirled back to the center from which they had sprung, long ago. In our very capital our armies clashed, drew back, and clashed anew. The northerners in their white mail, the jungle fighters with their paint and their battle cries, and my own men, with their gold lances and high horses.

That day, all the fire burned down to ashes, and that was all that remained.