Check out my newest blog--assuming anyone still checks here

I have joined a creative poetry writing class, so I have made second blog for that place. I will be placing the link as the subheading of the blog main blog title here. I will also put it here for you if you would like to check that out. It it'll be all poetry though, so be ready for that.

THIS IS DAVID THE MATHIS, SIGNING OFF!!!

THISISMYNEWBLOG!!!!

More Sci-fis!

This explores the Prearch--a whimsical commander who is never predictable. Ever. Enjoy.

The War of All Wars

From the Desk of the Silver Sun

By: David Mathis

The room echoed with the clasping of a door. The Prearch sat down in the tallest chair at the head of the table; his bright white robes seemed to glow in the low light and all eyes were on him. The high-backed chair squeaked as he shook his leg slightly—as he leaned forward, all eyes drew to him and he opened his hands in a welcoming gesture. His hands were covered in fine white gloves woven intricately.

“You all know why we’re here today, right?” The Prearch’s voice came out strongly and carried a tone of severity, but even as he asked, heads were already shaking in mild confusion.

“Prearch, we just had a major meeting yesterday, I had to fly all the way out here from Earth just to meet—I’m exhausted. What’s happened?” His tired eyes drooped with piles of wrinkles like clothes thrown on the floor and forgotten. The Prearch opened his mouth yet again to speak.

“The Silver Sun bi-annual barbeque is coming up next week and I need to know who will bring what for the event. I already have myself down for chips.” He rubbed his gloved hands together as he pulled a pad of paper and a pen from the inside pocket of his pristine robes. The pad had a logo that appeared to be the Silver Sun logo inside a large pig logo and ‘BBQ’ printed in big bold letters across the top. He looked around expectantly, but the entire board was dumbfounded. Finally someone spoke up—his Chief Star Admiral.

“Sir! This is ridiculous—we’ve been worked to the bone lately, and you call us in for talks about a barbeque? I am afraid I’m going to have to leave I—“ but he was cut off as the Prearch waved his hands and began to speak over him.

“And I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to cook the ribs—you make the best ribs. Now, you sit down and calm down, we have a lot of stuff to sign up for—Commander Briggs, are you here?” A tall, thin man raised his hand wearily. “Good, you normally make pulled pork—can you make pulled pork this time as well?” The man nodded his head, and the Prearch wrote something on his notepad—the commanders sitting next to him would later claim the paper was bacon scented. After much despair from the commanders around him, the Prearch sat the pad down, and pulled his chair a bit closer to the table.

“Now that the important stuff is out of the way, I have a plan that I wanted everyone to see real quick before we went on our ways.” He snapped his fingers, and one of his personal guards came to his aid, setting up a projector and aiming it at the far wall. The Prearch clicked a button, and an image popped up on the screen. Every single commander leaned forward to see it better. Chief Star Admiral Alderman stood up again in exasperation.

“No! What is that?” The Prearch turned to Alderman with a very serious look.

“My plan. Sit down and I’ll explain it—we’re going to take a chunk of Earth with us.” The room was floored. Every single commander stood or sat with mouths agape as the Prearch fired slide after slide of plans detailing how to take an entire chunk of Earth. Again Admiral Alderman stood.

“Sir! I refuse to make contingencies for this sort of plan—this is outrageous—and that’s being generous! Who’s in for this plan?” A few of the commanders raised their hands, but most kept them down, but the Prearch stood next to the projector screen politely while his Chief Star Admiral continued to shout and gesticulate wildly, referencing the plan liberally. As he stood there, he readjusted his gloves, making sure that each finger was properly sheathed. When his admiral had spoken for a bit, the Prearch raised his hand for silence and stepped forward again.

“Gentlemen, please. You’re all being ridiculous. I have everything set for us to go tomorrow. Alderman, you get to lead the operation.”

“Sir! You’ve lost your mind! What are you thinking?” Alderman began to back away from the table, his eyes wide with fear and rage.

“Alderman, you’re my best star admiral. You’ve gotta’ run this. I have it all set up and everything. Can you do it?” Alderman slumped to the floor, head in his hands as he slowly nodded his head in defeat. The room looked from him to the final slide still flickering on the screen—a diagram of a massive artificial titanium planet heading away from Earth with Washington DC securely nestled inside.

It was only after the meeting left that anyone but Alderman had anything bad to say about the plan, but the general tone was amusement that Alderman had to be sent out to retrieve a piece of the Earth in what was possibly one of the greatest bluffs of all time. The last still image of a massive sphere with Washington DC inside it would haunt Alderman’s dreams that night, but when he rose the next day, he rose ready to take a chunk of Earth home with him.

WHOA!!!! NEW CONTENT!

Alright, so I know I already posted some stuff from this whole OBSIDIAN TRIUMVIRATE thing, but I wrote more because I've been reading a lot of Arthur C. Clarke (The dude who wrote 2001 A Space Odyssey) and Orson Scott Card. It influenced me to write Sci-fi some more, so get over it. I like sci-fi and if you don't, then I'll kill you with kindness until you're dead. S'there.

Tales of the Obsidian Triumvirate
Stories of Treachery and Triumph

By: David the Mathis

Thunder rumbled on the edges of the horizon. Commodore Sam lazily batted some kind of bug from his face that he could not see in the failing light and clicked a button on the arm of his chair. Immediately, the whooshing sound of cooler air surrounded him and his fellow commander—Sirith. Sirith was sweating under the thick humidity of summer and was grateful for the cooler temperatures. Sirith looked out from their high terrace on the side of a tall, steel-grey building. The tiered courtyard below was full of trees that were imported straight from Earth and never originally existed on the planet—people walked through the large Red Dragon insignia on the courtyard floor, busy with last minute shopping for the day. Commodore Sam smiled at the sound of another burst of thunder as it echoed across the courtyard.

“You certainly picked a beautiful planet for this meeting.” Sirith leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. He looked to the sinking sun as it ignited the horizon with sharp greens and blues, shaded the bottom of the clouds with soft purple and lavender.

Commodore Sam took a drink from his glass—the ice sloshed together in a rattle.

“I’ve conquered my share of planets and taken their technology. I’ve glassed a lot of worlds, but there are some that are too beautiful for me to break,” he took a long drink, rattled the glass again and stared out across the courtyard before he continued. “I called you out here because the planet is far away from most of our interests. Nobody will look for us here.”

“And yet,” Sirith paused, stood up and gestured towards the people walking around, several stories below. “I have men in that courtyard. And so do you.”

Rain began to fall softly. Commodore Sam lazily touched a button and a weak shield fizzled to life, casting a faint blue glow over the terrace. The rain sizzled softly as it contacted the shield and burned away before it could ever penetrate.

“When you go to the bathroom, you have men stand guard outside that, Sirith. In your older age, I think you’re getting paranoid. I don’t have any men with me today.”

Sirith pondered the thought for a moment as the rain began to come down in droves. Stark white lightning illuminated Sirith’s uncharacteristically gaunt features—bringing the black edge of shadow to creases Commodore Sam didn’t know existed within his ally’s visage. At length, Sirith let out a sigh clouded in thick condensation from the dropping temperatures and settled into his chair, but kept his back straight and his shoulders squared. Commodore Sam lazily played with the handle of his revolver—the ridged endurorubber grip had long since lost the crisp lines of its freshly manufactured state.

“What’s eating you?” Commodore Sam looked to Sirith curiously. His hands moved from his revolver to the arms of his chair and he sat back, propping his feet up on a glass table between the two of them. Sirith stood up again, walked a couple laps between the wall and the table. Finally, he stood before the open side of the terrace, reached slowly towards the shield. His hand intercepted the flow of energy with a slightly uncomfortable sizzling sound and then his hand was through to the other side. When he pulled his hand back, it was dripping with water droplets.

“Being planet side during a non-combat situation gives me the jitters. I’m too used to hull plating and artificial gravity. Breathing real air flares my allergies and rain always feels strange. I still like the sound though. I may be paranoid, but I have reason to be: most human colonies at this point mark me as their number one most wanted after that attack on Earth. And now, we’re going to be marching on the largest human colony in existence: Lexicon III. No human wants to see my face these days. I’ve been considering cosmetic surgery to avoid assassin bullets.”

Commodore Sam made a vague gesture.

“Don’t let people wanting to kill you get you down—there was a time when I would have put a bullet through your head too.”

“There’s been more than one occasion that you nearly did. That revolver hurts.” Sirith grinned for the first time and held his chest where Commodore Sam had shot him years before.

“So,” Sirith started, finally settling down into his chair a little more than he had been “what did you think was so urgent that we had to talk away from the metal hull of a ship with cameras and guards around every corner to overhear us?”

“Voldorf was too far out of the area to come by this location, but I have set up a meeting with him elsewhere. I have reason to believe that our information is being leaked by somebody. a stealth ship was observed through telescope imaging orbiting the sun yesterday. We believe that it is trying to get a good look at our watchdog base. We’re afraid—“ Sirith cut him off with wave of his hand.

“Let them look. We knew building it inside Sol airspace would gather attention faster than anything else. They probably picked it up on telescope imaging themselves.”

“No, we think they’re going to wait for the right moment during construction and strike it while it’s still being built.” Sirith smiled at the news.
“Good. And while they’re busy destroying a bunch of steel beams, their fleet will be preoccupied. What would happen if we took Earth for our main base? Used all the already established defenses, and took the whole thing as our main location? Yes, it would be an unpopular decision, but I think all pretenses are gone: Earth will never really have its full infrastructure back. We will have to pull a greater number of aliens into our ranks, but in the case of the Vratch and the Rantikans, I would have to say between the two, they could overpower a human army any day. As far as I know, our enemy still uses almost exclusively humans.”

Commodore Sam looked mortified at the news. He sat up in his chair slowly, put his revolver on the table, lazily spun it in slow circles. He cupped it in his large, gloved hands and lowered his already impressively deep voice to talk as he leaned in. It sounded like the rumble of a crumbling mountain formed words from an ancient, molten tongue and spilled those words out in hot, red magma.

“I don’t know—aren’t we still in the Earth Reconstruction Project with King Kaskel, Commander Carver, and whatever he calls himself—Prearch Bishop? It is prearch, right?”

“It is,” Sirith smiled for the second time as he chuckled to himself. “I don’t know what it means, but I imagine he picked it because it sounded cool,” Sirith’s features snapped back to rigidity before he continued with his answer. “But yes. We are in the Earth Reconstruction Project. Perhaps it has run its course. It seems more prudent to withdraw from the arrangement and set up Earth as a military state. It would be nigh uncrackable.”

“We would have to talk it over with Commander Voldorf in the room with us first.”

“Of course. The Obsidian Triumvirate acts as one. We cannot leave such an important matter to only the two of us. But I believe it is time to act.”

The rain droned on with a soft sizzling sound on the light shield array. By the time it stopped, the sun was down and the inky clouds hid swaths of stars from view. Somewhere out there, Sol shone bright and hot, but Sirith couldn’t pick it out amongst the countless available. A small, sleek cruiser was observed leaving the area later that night, but only for an instant. Observers would later say that it melted to water before their eyes and became invisible. A warship broke orbit and if one blinked, the fact that the dreadnaught whisked away could be missed very easily.

You may have seen me mention the Shibb Sharb in the long story I posted. This is a picture I made of a Shibb Sharb a long time ago, just for a better visual. ENJOY!!!

Hands

This is the last of my final portfolio for Creative Writing. From here on out, it'll probably be all new stuff. I hope you guys are all excited and such. I know I am. You ready for this?

DRAFT: 4

Hands

Banana hands—yellow like a green thumb. Earthen, old, timeless. Without time. A conception of human thought. Ticking hands mark circles, circling roundabout. A sphere. A web of hands could catch a sphere—or just a single hand. Facilitate the process. Twist, turn, burn, sun. Fusion. Power wrought through nature. Spider—natural killer kills naturally—dew encrusted web-jewels, gems, diamonds. Coal. The industry churns out thick smoke—Smaug. Belching glittering treasure. Hands. Grasp a handful of coal stars, strung out like ducks, all in a row. Wooden, tied together. Tied, bound, gagged, thrown in a trunk or some trunk. Certainly not my trunk. Tree trunk—vines that entangle, clasped like hands. Lovers, standing still, erect for all time. A light rain may wash them both. Bathe, behind your beautiful hands—assuming you’ve a pair. Blood and flesh, flesh and blood, woven, intertwined—a string of hands could reach ‘round the world. The world—vast; oceans abound. The water falls from the skies like fire in the second coming. Fire. Brimstone. Roasts in flames the tongues like hands. Dogs like licking them. Slick, wet, warm, fingers dripping—webbed fingers. Flapping fingers flock—float. Spines nay, quills—prickles and pokes. They pierce the land—flesh and blood-rivers flow forth. A pier—it stretches, groans and moans—the gloom recedes. Hair. Hair recedes as the hand combs. Comb the beach—can’t you feel the breeze? Febreeze. No odor here; the hand that feeds brings the bacon. Sizzles, cooks. Bacon. And it is brought home by feeding hands, splayed and flayed—like a banana.

Pangaea

DRAFT: 4

Pangaea

Long ago when the Earth was stardust

The world sang with cold heat

Frozen and gleaming.

The moon belonged to Jupiter

All manner of other planets swirled

Cracked and Separate.

Those spheres tumbled through paths

Unknown and then it happened:

Kittens and life.

There are doors that lead places. They do not share

An exit. Once entered, Sights and colors

Are fabricated.

On a day that billows

And tumbles like water

Lungs will fail your body.

Something you might recognize

I think you might recognize this poem if you've kept up with my blog long enough to know what my first post was... this is that poem, but updated. The last post is the longest short story I've written in years, and I'm actually somewhat proud of it in places. Well, here goes...

Rumble (Now bigger and better)

by: David Mathis

A bright-shining flare sparked the depths.

Four men pushed deeper into receding blackness;

Shadows slithered away from the light and into cracks like

Tails formed of tremendous earthen serpents.

Down the four men spiraled—through twisted caverns.

Inky blackness billowed around them, fighting the

Bright heat of the beacon, struggling with weak,

Colorless arms to embrace just one of the four.

The walls grew algid and smooth as the inside of a conch.

Each of the four felt a shiver; bleached and dull,

The walls were as coral and the ceiling was full of stalactites.

They bore down like hundreds of rows of jagged teeth.

The flare choked and died—the four men were plunged into darkness.

One of the four fell, gashed against the salty rocks.

Tendrils encircled, squeezed—he struggled—his insides tore.

A trident thrust, a shriek, the striking of a match.

The four were two, an island amongst the red foam.

Fear washed over them, rocked them like boats.

As they clutched their spears, they stood stricken,

paralyzed, their eyes darted and their feet sloshed through the damp ground.

The torch fell silent, the room murky and dark. Serene.

A calm quiet passed over the two remaining men; a gentle

Feeling of soft undertow pulling them to something. The smell of grassy meadows warmed

Them as they shivered and slipped beneath the waves of consciousness.

The dark of night engulfed the two men.

A roaring filled the air, receded, roared again.

Their bodies became brackish and calcified as they tumbled in the wake

Of what once was and what would never again be.

There is no way that Fish likes Cake

DRAFT: Final Draft

There is no way that Fish likes Cake

Unless it does, in which case, you should give it some—for the sake of science

The day was bright and hot and only about halfway through. Ash held a muddy arm to her face to block the sun and squinted, legs spread wide to brace herself in the face of a harsh wind that had been sweeping through. Clouds of dirt billowed past, stinging her bare legs, and the field rippled like vast green waves in dire need of a good weed whacker. A dirt road coiled around the hill on which she stood, lazily making its way back into town. Going in the opposite direction, it stopped at the muddy shores of a small lake. The lake was caked in thickly stacked clods of dirt packed in tight rings as if the lake used to be bigger, but was shrinking daily.
Ash looked back at the water, baked brown like the land around it—it rippled gently—Ben was splashing around in the shallow part, leaving dark splatters across the cracked, dry banks. Ash had been sent to be a lookout for adults on the hilltop, but nobody ever came down the road anymore and she wanted to get back to the lake. The wind was drying the dark mud plastered to her arm into a light dust that itched more with each second. She decided to go back down the hill, sliding down the steeper parts—she didn’t use the road because it would be easier and therefore not as fun. She got to the bottom of the hill to find her path blocked off by a shirtless Ben. His arms were packed with the whipcord muscles of youth.

“You’re supposed to be the lookout—you’re not looking out.” His skin was caked in mud, but where it didn’t cover, red sunburn welts were already showing.

“Nobody uses that road nomore anyways. And you told me that you’d let me play in tha’ lake,” Ash crossed her skinny arms against her chest and stood with her dirty, ragged dress flapping in the breeze like a forgotten flag. “Sam gets to play in the lake. Why can’t I?”

“’Cause you’re a girl and I don’t let girls play in my lake.” Ben pushed Ash with both hands and she tumbled into the hillside with a dry, grassy thwump. Before Ben could turn around and walk away, Ash was up on her feet and she lashed her fist across his face with a quick, fierce motion; Ben stumbled back, cupped his face in his hands as he growled something too muffled to understand, and when he pulled his hands away, bright red blood was pooled in his palms—a crimson lake, dripping slowly like a fountain down to the dry earth. The blood splashed and intermingled with the crusty dirt, was churned into it with the stomping of his bare feet.

“What was that for?” He looked horrified, bloody hands shaking as he held them out for protection—his lips shimmered with the flow of fresh blood. Ash kept coming though: she punched him in the face again before pounding into his soft belly. She threw him into the muddy lake with a fierce grunt. It was at this point that Sam noticed something was going horribly wrong and, as was normal, proved himself to be a bit slow on the uptake.

“What are y’doing?” Sam looked positively befuddled. He just stared at Ash and Ben as sharp, bony elbows and tiny clenched fists hammered into Ben’s flailing body. The muddy water was churned into a frenzy. “Are y’fightin’ or somethin’?”

It was about this time that a rather large, black fish poked his head above the water in the center of the lake. Ben and Ash didn’t notice because Ben was too busy trying to keep his head above water, and Ash was too busy trying to keep Ben from keeping his head above the water. Sam noticed though. He looked out over the small, choppy waves, and saw the fish swimming towards the group with his matte black scales and his face that seemed to form a small smile. Even though Sam was slow on the uptake, he managed to remember that fish could not smile and that perhaps he was imagining the smile in the first place. However, the fish kept coming, and so he thought he should probably say something to the group.

“Hey, whatever you’re doing, that fish is swimming right for you. It’s creepin’ me out.” Ash stopped mid-swing to see a large black fish swimming straight for her. She stood up, wet dress sloughing off water, the fabric sticking to her thin, bony legs. Ben wobbled to his feet trying to steady himself by grabbing onto Ash, but she shoved him and he stumbled before regaining balance and standing up. He stared at the fish as bright red blood continued to pour down his face. The fish was still smiling and swimming, but as it approached them, its mouth began to open and close with slight pop noises and the kids began to back away. The fish finally stopped a couple feet from them before he spoke, startling Ben into falling over again as he tried to get away.

“Hi,” Said the fish in a deep, but cheery voice.

“You’re a fish.” Sam had spoken his disbelief and even though he had known of the fish’s existence long before the others, he still had difficulty grasping the magnitude of a talking fish.

“I am a fish,” The fish agreed. He spoke simply, but when he did so, the water rippled around him and Ash could swear the breeze picked up. She stared at him for a few seconds before she had the courage to ask him something.

“How d’you talk?” She leaned forward as if to make sure her senses were not deceiving her.

“Same way you do. Except I can speak the future.” The fish splashed the water lazily with a pointed fin. Ben still sat where he had fallen, dazed, but he managed to get back on his feet and pose his own question.

“If you can tell the future, what will I be when I grow up?” he sneered at the fish who turned a lazy, unblinking eye to Ben.

“A failure,” stated the fish.

“Oh yeah, well what do you know? You’re a fish!”

“And what do you know? You didn’t know a fish could talk until just a few minutes ago,” Ben was taken aback. “You’re just angry that a girl beat you up and that she’ll beat you up again soon.” Ash cracked her knuckles at the mention of this. Her long hair fluttered in the breeze. The ends dripped tiny water droplets into the air.

“When do I beat ‘im up?” Ash continued cracking her knuckles as she asked the question, giving a menacing glare at Ben.

“Right about the time he punches you in the back of the head,” The fish seemed to be getting bored of the questions presented to him. “I think I’ll stop taking questions now.” He began to swim away, but stopped when he heard the expected objection.

“Wait! Y’can’t go. I want to know more!” Ash yelled all this as she wadded deeper into the brown lake. Ben followed, but Sam stood in place.

“My lake will soon dry up and I will die. Get me something to make me enjoy my final days in my lake, and I’ll answer all your questions. As many as you want.” He dipped below the surface and didn’t come back up. Ben and Ash stared at the ripples as they spread out from the last known location of the fish. Disappointed, they headed back to the shore. When they were almost back to Sam, Ben slipped on the muddy bottom and fell. He reached out for Ash, grabbed her hair. And instead of balancing himself, he took her down with him as he fell. When Ash had regained her bearings, she turned sharply to see a mortified Ben.

“NO! I didn’t—” but it was too late. He already had a face full of fist. Sam stood by, watching, but out the way. He would occasionally try to interject his disapproval, but Ash didn’t listen—she was too busy flailing her arms with vengeful fury and Ben was too busy trying to stand up so he could run away.

It was much later, when the three kids were sitting around a campfire in the setting sun. Ash was continually turning like she was a hunk of meat on a spit, trying to dry her dress. The humidity made it difficult to breathe at times. Sam was relaxed against a tree near the fire, humming a song that sounded a bit off-key. Ben was glaring at Ash.

“I don’t like you very much,” growled Ben. Ash stopped her spinning. The fire glinted faintly in her eyes and outlined her in an intense orange. The sunset stacked its pink hues across her lithe body and she looked for a moment like an image of the Painted Desert. A smile cracked her face open to reveal her sharp canines.

“Nice black eye. Wher’d you get it?” Ben turned away, hiding his battered face.

“Shuttup,” he mumbled. Ash continued her spinning.

“What are we going to get that fish, anyway?” Ash was still spinning as she asked the question.

“Shuttup. That fish was stupid. I didn’t even punch you in the back of the head.”

“Did too.”

“Shuttup. I fell. I grabbed your hair. I didn’t punch you.”

“Y’fell? Yeah, right.” Ash’s lilting giggles filled the air like a swarm of butterflies.

“I said shuttup! Don’t you know what that means? It means shuttup!” Ben had enough. Silent tears streamed down his face as his clenched fists shook. “Shuttup, Shut up! It’s just a stupid fish! Fish can’t talk and they can’t tell the future!” Sam looked up from his position at the tree trunk.

“Calm down, what’s wrong?” He stood up on his sturdy legs and went over to Ben. He seemed to be at a loss as to what to do, so after some deliberation, he awkwardly held his arms out to hug his friend.

“What’re you doing? Get away from me, you freak!” Ben shoved Sam with everything he had—Sam fell to the ground with a grunt and stayed there, staring at Ben as if he had only just seen him for the first time. “I’m tired of you two! I’m tired! Leave me alone, I never want to speak to either of you ever again!” Ben wandered off into the black shade of the trees. The sun sank below the horizon, and he didn’t return. Sam and Ash didn’t talk. They sat as the fire creaked and popped slowly.

They slept on opposite sides of the fire that night. Ash kept looking up at the trees, etched golden brown by the flames until they receded into darkness—it reminded her of a cave. Sleep didn’t come very quickly or very easily for either of them and the flames had died down to smoldering embers by the time Ash fell asleep. Her last glance at the world before sleep took her was of the trees above, now gently etched in crimson around the edges, receding into a darkness blacker than pitch, like the eye of Satan glared down on her from above.

Sam and Ash awoke with the sunrise—an ability that seems unique to youth. They quickly found Ben not ten steps from the outside of camp, curled into a ball and sleeping. They woke him up and as he rose, he seemed to be pretending that nothing had happened the night before because he was relatively cheery for the early hour.

“So… what are we gonna’ get th’fish?” Ash asked pointedly.

“I heard that fish like cake—maybe we could get some cake.” Sam looked hopeful as he talked about the cake.

“It’s just a fish. His lake is dryin’ up. He’s a loser.” Ben said the last sentence with such conviction that he bit his tongue in the process, but he didn’t let the others know. The taste of copper coated his tongue. He spat and kicked the hot ashes from the last night’s fire fiercely with a bare, calloused foot, scattering them harmlessly. He didn’t flinch when hot coals leapt up to nip his bare legs.

“We can bake a cake at my house,” Ash finally said. The three set out through the woods to Ash’s house. The house was several hours in the opposite direction of the lake, through thick briars and across a few rivers. They had to wade through a creek or two, helping Ben across, who sunk his foot into a particularly deep hole in one of the creeks. He screamed and thrashed until Ash and Sam pulled him out, but wouldn’t admit he was ever stuck afterwards. Finally, Ben—tired and angry—stopped walking.

“How much farther?” hot sweat poured down his face and his pants were cold and wet from the creek that he had not fallen into.

“Shuttup,” intoned Ash, mimicking Ben’s grouchy voice. “Stop bein’ a baby. It’s not far.” Sam chuckled silently to himself and the group set off again in the direction of Ash’s house.

Ash’s house was in a clearing, on top of a hill. Wildflowers grew all around and the sunlight seemed warmer and sweeter the closer they got to the house. The smell of honeysuckle came with each cool breeze. Soon, the trio arrived at the door to Ash’s house and she opened the big, green door without unlocking it. A mailbox next to the door read “Ashley” in red letters.

Inside, the walls were covered in chalk, paint, and pen work. Clothes littered the floor. They could see into the living room from the doorway, and splashed up on the back wall was a huge monster, splattered in black paint. The ribs were open, revealing the black bones beneath and a bright red heart dripping blood. The beast’s tongue dangled down past its chest and came to a point. Short-cropped horns poked out of its head and its red eyes bore down on a small fuzzy kitten done in white chalk pastel. The monster was labeled in loose, sketchy pen work: Shibb-Sharb.

“Don’t mind the mess. I haven’t cleaned in a while.” Ash stepped directly on her clothes as she walked down the hallway and disappeared into the last doorway before the hallway opened into the living room. Sam and Ben stood speechless. The quietness of the inside of the house made it seem like a sanctuary after the incessant chirping of birds and bugs outside. The house was cold too compared to outside. There was something serene and protective about the house, even though all the windows were thrown wide open and paint splatters filled every inch of the floors—even the carpet. Ben and Sam slowly followed Ash into her kitchen. She was wearing a frayed apron with a painting of what appeared to be a black rat’s head with sharp white teeth.

“What’s that on your apron?” Sam asked while pointing.

“Sarcophilus harrisii,” Ash murmured as she slid a book over to Sam without looking and opened up a cook book. Sam couldn’t read the first line, and so he handed it to Ben, who groaned, but read anyway.

“Sarcophilus harrisii—commonly called Tasmanian Devil…” Ben read. He looked over at the apron and then up to Ash’s face, twisted in concentration. She read from the cook book.
“1 cup white sugar, ½ cup butter, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, 1 ¾ teaspoons baking powder, ½ cup milk. I have all of that.” She turned to Sam. “Y’sure fishes like cake?” He nodded. He seemed to be getting more and more uncomfortable in Ash’s house, but she was too busy whisking a bowl with harsh strikes to notice anyone backing away from her or their mortified expressions. She threw a pan full of batter into the oven when she was done. She clapped her hands together, flour dust rising and billowing.

“We hafta’ wait until the cake’s done. S’now what?” She looked to Ben and Sam, but they didn’t say anything. She crossed her arms tightly and continued to look from one to the other. When neither one of them talked, she finally gestured for the boys to follow her; she went out to the living room, and then out the living room window.

Outside, Ben found his voice again.

“I don’t know why you’re making a cake. Fish don’t even eat cake. How’re you even going to get it back to him?”

“I’ll carry it.”

“You’ll drop it.”

“I’ve never dropped a cake before.”

“Have you ever had to cross a river with a cake?” Ash stopped talking for a second at this question. “Didn’t think so,” said Ben.

“What if we put it in a box?” asked Sam. Ben and Ash looked over at Sam—Ash with a grin, and Ben with a deep scowl.

“That’s stupid. You’re stupid. Fish don’t like cake.” Ben glared at Ash. “They don’t,” He added for emphasis.

“D’you have a better plan?” Ash put her hands on her hips and took a menacing step closer to Ben. This time, Ben didn’t step down. He looked down at the Tasmanian devil apron that she still wore, and then up to her eyes—they shimmered like rubies in a pirate’s chest.

“Yeah—leave the stupid fish. It’s just a fish. Your house is creepy. I’m leaving.” He stood up to leave, but Sam blocked his path.

“Don’t you want to know the future?” Ben paused for a moment, seeming to have problems deciding if he wanted to know the future or not, but then he remembered his boasts. He sneered.

“Fish can’t tell the future.” Sam grabbed him as he tried to leave.

“Please—don’t leave me with her,” He pleaded in a whisper. Ben looked into Sam’s eyes for a second before breaking his gaze and nodding his head in a defeated fashion. He walked back over to the house and sat down with his back propped against an outer wall. After some time, Ash sprang up from the grass.

“The cake is done!” She dived straight through the window to get back into her house. She came back out with a steaming cake in a box. Sam looked pleased, but Ben still sat against the house. The sun was shining overhead, and as Ash came and joined the boys, it went behind a large puffy cloud, casting a shadow on the hilltop.

“Looks sorta’ like a raincloud,” Sam stated simply.

“It never rains here but it snows sometimes—in the winter,” Ash stated matter-of-factly as she stared up at the sky. Her pale skin was covered in shadow, giving her eyes a sunken, purpled look.

“We should head back to th’lake before it gets dark,” she said this as she looked back up at the sky again. The trio headed down the hill, looking back on the cheery house and admiring the smell of honeysuckle. Ash held the box of cake close to her bony chest as they moved into the woods. Ben grumbled to himself about fish not liking cake as they crossed the creek that he had never once fallen into. Thick clouds came rolling in while they were about an hour away from the lake, and it began to make the scenery darker and harder to distinguish.

The group trudged on as the sky opened up and began to pour thick raindrops. They began leaving deep footprints in the mud. Ash shivered as her nearly fatless body was wracked with cold rain but Sam showed no signs of noticing any precipitation. Eventually, they came to a log bridge. Ben went first, followed by Ash. Ben was busy trying not to slip on the wet moss, but to no avail: he began teetering back and forth, flailing his arms wildly. Ash tried to back up, but Ben knocked the cake box out of her hands, and it fell into the river. Ben regained his balance and looked over at Ash. She was livid.

“Go get it,” She managed to work out before rage choked her voice off. Ben groaned and took a dive into the river and tried to swim fast enough to get the box. The current was fierce in the rain, and he had a hard time avoiding rocks. Eventually, the box drifted out of sight, and he had to pull himself up on shore, dripping wet and cold. Sam and Ash joined him.

“I couldn’t swim fast enough. I couldn’t do it.” His words came out in ragged panting sounds. With the day mostly gone, and the rain coming down harder than ever, the group had no choice but to make camp for the night.

The fire was warm even though the temperatures were dropping. Ash sat, staring. She kept an eye on Ben, eyes squinted to show her anger. The only sound that could be heard was the soft buzzing of insects and the popping of the fire. It would have sounded warm and inviting if it had not been for the clear tension in the air.

“The fish was right. You’re a failure,” puffed Ash.

“Fishes can’t tell the future.” Ben growled as he hugged himself to try and keep warm. The river had been colder than he expected. They were silent for some time, listening to the sounds of the woods and the sounds of the fire.

“I heard once that what makes a boy into a man is when a boy owns up to his mistakes and fixes them best as he knows how.” Sam interrupted the quietness with a shaky voice. Ben looked over at Sam with contempt in his eyes before he lay down on the damp earth and turned over—away from Sam and Ash. Again, the only sound was the snapping of the fire. Ash looked up. This night, the trees held a different pattern than last time—the red-orange trees receded into twin pits of darkness like a set of eyes peering down through hellfire. Ash turned over and fell into an uneasy sleep.

With the cold, damp morning came the realization that Ben was gone. Ash shook Sam awake who immediately grasped the severity of the situation and got up to help look for Ben. They tumbled through underbrush and through bushes. They climbed trees to try and find Ben, but as the hours ticked by, they became increasingly disheartened. Finally, Sam suggested they go to the lake because maybe Ben had gone there. With no other options, Ash agreed and smiled at Sam’s simplicity.

They finally broke out of the tree line and saw the lake bed—it was completely dried out. The cracked, grey earth seemed warped like the sagging flesh of an elephant. What had been the outer edges of the lake were almost black now. The sun beat down on the lake bed relentlessly and the wind roared its fury, sending shivers down the long grass all around the hill country as far as the eye could see. In the center of the lake, there was a lone figure, crouched down. It was Ben—shirtless, barefoot, and looking at something on the ground.

Ash got to him first. Sam ran about as quickly as he thought. When she got up to him, there it was—the matte black fish lying in a red puddle in the center of the lake bed. The dry earth was already hungrily sucking the blood in. Ash stood there until Sam caught up. Ben stood up on his feet, looked Ash straight in the eye.

“Fish can’t tell the future.”

“Is that all y’do? Y’just push people around? Kill fish?”

“If that fish knew the future so well, how come I killed it?” his fingers were dusted with small amounts of dried blood.

“That’s not how you fix your mistakes.” Sam looked again as though he had only just at that moment seen Ben.

“You’re both stupid. I’m th’one that doesn’t listen to talking fish.” Ben said this with his now characteristic sneer.

Ash was at her limit. She screamed and the last thing Ben saw before he passed out was a tangled mass of hair and two glinting eyes blazing into his soul. He fell into the pool of still-warm blood—the cracked dry earth accepted him hungrily, just as it had already accepted the fish. Two red, glaring eyes bore down on him from above, but they were surrounded by long, matted locks. The eyes receded into blackness more complete than any since before the Earth was born.

Announcement

For all concerned:

I am going to keep my blog going even after the creative writing class, so anyone interested in keeping theirs up too, just post down here and I'll make sure I'm following you. I'll keep the poetry and prose flowing as long as I can for you guys. I'll even review your stuff still if you want. Just saying.

Thanks for all the great stories and fantastic poems. It's been fun.

<3 David the Mathis ^_____^

Junkyard, bro. Dig it.

Time for my favorite part! JUNKYARD!!!!

1 - "Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads."
-They Might Be Giants (We want a Rock)

I was listening to one of the greatest bands of all time earlier today--They Might be Giants. Their song "We Want a Rock" states that everybody wants prosthetic foreheads to wear on their real heads, which is when it hit me--if anyone on this Earth is more in tune with me than the entire group of They Might be Giants, then I haven't met them yet. This is awesome for the sake of being awesome, so pay some respekts.

2 - "Man, those some NUTTY-ASS brownies, dude!"

-Me, talkin' to Lucas-

After my 9am class that I have with Lucas on Friday, we ended up talking for a lot longer than is normal and eventually, the conversation began going in strange directions as it is bound to when either one of us is talking. I don't even properly remember how it came to be that I decided this was an appropriate response to whatever it was Lucas said, but damn if it didn't make me laugh.

3 - "How about the power to kill a yak from 200 yards away? With Mind Bullets? That's telekinesis, Kyle. How about the power to move you?"

-Tenacious D (Wonderboy)-

Lucas and I also talked about Tenacious D, where I brought up this, one of my favorite parts of any Tenacious D song. The quote doesn't do it justice. Go listen to it--I dropped the song name and everything. Fuckin' rock out to some Tenacious D. Now.

4 - "You can mine my chandeliers if you want. This isn't my real world, so I don't care what happens to it."

-Nick Bruce, aka Shanky-

I have picked up Minecraft. If you like games, and you haven't played Minecraft, then you should play it. Anyway, Nick and I managed to get the server application running so that we can host Minecraft on our computers and we can then play in the same world online. Nick has managed to mine enough diamond to make four giant diamond chandeliers in the castle he built, and if you've played Minecraft, then you know that having enough diamond for four upside-down pyramids of diamond blocks in your castle means you have a shit ton of diamond.

5 - "I've decided to only eat what I FUCK! That was the worst cheese danish I've ever."
-Jhonen Vasquez-

He twittered this one day, which reaffirmed my belief in Twitter. If you don't know him by name, he made Invader Zim, and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and for a time in my life, I probably worshiped the man. I think I will plan on adopting his life model sometime in the near future.