Post by Screem on Feb 19, 2018 16:24:48 GMT
He looked panicked as his eyes opened from sleep. And then he focused on my face, and then his expression softened.
“Isolde?” he whispered with surprise, and brought a hand up to caress my cheek only to see it pass through my face. And then he erupted into tears before he slowly turned over onto his back and lay there panting before sitting up to nod and grimace and hold his eyes shut tightly.
“I’m sorry,” I responded and crouched in front of him to let my icy fingers soothe the sides of his beard.
He shivered and sucked in breath then looked above and past me. This was how it was with him ever since it happened. Our conversations grew lopsided till they became solely me giving unheeded advice to a man that was once my best friend, and my lover, who could now no longer look me in the eyes without weeping. I gripped his face gently and forced his eyes to meet mine and wondered as I had for some time whether he could hear me.
“You have more than earned your rest, my love. Please stop fighting before it consumes you. I forgive you, my love. I forgive you.”
His hands clenched and unclenched continuing his bout with grief before once more looking away, out the side of the parking garage where he had been sleeping, out over the water reflecting city lights and the moon and then stood up, right through me.
I gulped away bitterness and watched him pace, as he had for years when he faced insurmountable problems he intended to solve back when he could touch my face without weeping. Wilhelm Screem, my husband, the man who would not give up on most anything, had given up on my presence as a comfort. I pained him. And so I watched him snatch his fur jacket up off the concrete and put it on. I moved to fix the lapels, but he turned away, and stood bathed in the somber yellow light of the building lights.
“My God, I have embarked on a new journey. May I have your blessing?” He stood, and eyed the cement ceiling of the parking garage where a few cars sat parked overnight and received no response.
“There are no monsters left, my God. Those that did not die of their own free will met their end at my hands. I have felled all you put before me. And now, I have through what earthly contacts I have made, reached out and signed a contract of temporal uncertainty with a company that sponsors fights. Fights with humans, I hope you approve. It is an organization calling itself the Factory. I seek your blessing and guidance in this endeavor, my God.”
He searched the ceiling, the heavens, looking to the lights that shone down upon him, seeking a sign. Moments passed before the shimmer of a gleaming, flashing sword appeared within the crossfire of beams of the overhead lights. And the voice boomed and trumpeted.
“There are always monsters, Wilhelm.”
In reverence and awe, Wilhelm dropped to a knee, his head bowed, refusing to glance upon the countenance I could see but barely in the amber light. The blade of a sword with runic inscriptions upon it hovered there, emanating the voice.
“What shall I do, my God?” Wilhelm humbly asked.
“You have chosen wisely.” The voice sounded well pleased. “Rise and address me as my brother.” And Wilhelm nodded, lifting off his knee to gaze upon the glowing, flashing sword hovering in mid air, glimpsing the faintest outline of a hand massaging the sharpened edge.
“They have given me notice of my first fight, my God. It is not against a monster. But if it is, as you say, then perhaps this man Anna Badstreet knows where to find the evil so that I may root it out. He will die by my hand, if you will it.”
There was a laugh, hearty enough to shake the walls of the parking garage were the voice fully inside of this particular plane of existence.
“My child,” the voice of the God guffawed, “You face no man, but a woman.”
Wilhelm frowned.
“A woman…? A human woman? That's ungodly.” he quietly mused to himself. Another laugh.
“You have much to learn, my son. You are in the right place, but a man out of time. And, indeed, you have much to teach. There are many monsters still ahead of you. I’ll point them out. Go. Train. Prepare yourself. I will light your path and make smooth roads for you to follow.” And the shimmering sword, with the hint of a man’s outline behind it glimmered out of sight leaving Wilhelm standing there satisfied with his communion.
“Wilhelm, please. Don’t.” I reached for his hand but could not hold it. “Be at peace. For once. If not for me, for our—“ He shut his eyes tightly once more. And then he set off walking, and I knew I couldn’t stop him. Just like always.
Street lights shone, and Wilhelm felt they led him to a hole in the wall he remembered from years earlier.
Inside, the bartender, Mack, built like the truck of the same name leaned along the lip of the bar and watched Wilhelm order ‘ale’ and smirked at the novelty of the man wearing some kind of fancy fur armor and a set of the most serious eyes he’d seen outside of an impending criminal investigation on television.
“How about a beer,” Mack smirked and poured a glass from the tap. “$5.50.” Mack smirked, watching Wilhelm, with the heavy beard and mildly auspicious air reach into the pocket of his fur coat and slap down a set of gold coins. Mack’s eyes traveled from the gold on the wood of his bar to a group of men seated at a nearby table and exchanged unspoken words.
“Where’d you get gold like that?” Mack asked, sliding it along the wood into the palm to inspect it under the light. Wilhelm huddled over his beer, sniffed it then took a drink and sighed.
“There’s a cave in the Black Hills of South Dakota where few venture, and even fewer come back from should they find it.” Mack eyed his patron bemusedly, but with a piqued interest, once more glancing to his friends in the booth behind Wilhelm as he pocketed the gold coins.
“And you’ve been there, huh?” Mack pretended to be interested in cleaning the inside of one of his pint glasses. Wilhelm nodded stoically.
“And barely escaped what was inside,” he took another drink, and shuddered, remembering the cold whispers of that which could not be killed, and held sway over riches this bartender, or all the greedy men in New Jersey could barely fathom. Mack leaned once more on the lip of the bar.
“So you got more of that gold, huh?” Wilhelm looked at Mack following his glances to the men behind him.
“I’ll tell you what,” Wilhelm stated, finishing his beer and hiding his distaste for it. “Find me a gym where I can train in a manner befitting that of a fighter who intends to fight mortal men, and I’ll draw you a map to this place, and you can have more gold than you could ever hope to steal from me.”
Mack’s shook his head with a laugh.
“Training, huh? You a fighter?”
Wilhelm nodded half-heartedly.
“Something like that. I have a fight coming up I’d like to prepare for, but I’m not used to fighting humans. I need to know what I'm up against.”
“Humans, huh?” Mack chuckled, once more glancing to his friends in the booth behind Wilhelm. “You for real, hombre?”
“For real.” Wilhelm stared at him soundly.
“Just so happens I got a gym in back. I got some friends who are used to fighting humans. I bet they’d be happy to help a man like yourself out.” Mack's smirk seemed friendly enough.
“For a price?”
Mack smirked wider, enjoying the sport of this man staying ahead of him.
“Not much gets past you. We'll make it real friendly. You put some of those gold pieces on the line for each fight. You win, you keep your gold and I pay you equal value. You double your money and you get a good night’s worth of real training. We win, we get to keep whatever you put up. How’s that sound?”
“Who’s we?” Wilhelm asked, and heard the sound of 4 heavy set men leaving the booth they’d been seated at and stepped in behind him.
The gym in back of Mack's bar was dinghy and not well lit. Wilhelm loosened the sleeves of his dress shirt and felt the the largest of the four men he’d agreed to fight bounce from one foot to the other in the center of the ring watching Wilhelm prepare.
“Ain’t he cute?” He asked Mack and the other 3.
Wilhelm ignored them and glanced around the gym then looked to Mack.
“Where are the weapons?”
“You want to fight with weapons?” Mack asked, smirking to his friends who’d only grown more cocky as they got a better look at Wilhelm’s easily dwarfed 6’2, 200 pound frame.
“What do you have in the realm of enchanted swords?” Wilhelm asked.
“Let me, uh, just check in the tool shed, You wait there.” Mack responded stifling laughter. Wilhelm agreed heartily, and turned back to his corner only to feel the heavy fists of his opponent slam down onto his back, driving him to the canvas, and then the sharp, heavy kicks of a practiced brawler aiming to break his ribs.
Wilhelm could feel the meaty hands gripping his neck, lifting him to his feet and slamming his shoulder into the ring post, and then the shock of electricity running through his shoulder like a bolt of lightning after the impact. For ten minutes his opponent taught him about the brutality of humans. Wilhelm tasted the copper of blood in his mouth, and could feel the drilling pain in his head after each punch and kick, then the throb of his heart as he lay on the canvas. And the sound flooded back into his ears after a moment or two.
“He’s done,” said Mack. Wilhelm roiled around to glance at me standing there with concern at the side of the ring.
“He favors his left leg,” I whispered softly to him, having watched the large man limp after bearing too much weight for too long during his beating of my husband. And then my beloved rolled onto his back and glared at the men scooping the gold coins from the pocket of the fur coat I had made for him.
“Fight’s not done,” Wilhelm croaked, and struggled to his feet. His opponent, the big bruiser turned to see him coming and shook his head, ready to declare himself the victor. Stone-faced, Wilhelm cracked a kick into the side of his opponent's knee, busting it in sideways and Mack and his now 3 friends looked up from their theft of Wilhelm's gold, into the ring at their friend whose shattering scream was enough to make them cover their ears. Wilhelm spat some blood from his mouth onto the canvas.
“Humans aren’t so different from monsters,” Wilhelm decided aloud and slammed a stiff knee up into his opponent’s jaw. For ten minutes he returned the favor, because fair is only fair.
Afterward, Wilhelm leaned on the ring ropes and glared at Mack who could only stare back stunned, his hands shaking as he grudgingly gave Wilhelm back his gold pieces and ordered one of the three men to go to the register and get him some money to pay Wilhelm, as promised.
“Now for the next fight, could you show me that tool shed of yours? You don’t happen to have a Vorpal Blade? Something sharp. Your friends don't fight fair.”
And for the rest of the night Mack wished he'd taken the map to the cave instead.
“Isolde?” he whispered with surprise, and brought a hand up to caress my cheek only to see it pass through my face. And then he erupted into tears before he slowly turned over onto his back and lay there panting before sitting up to nod and grimace and hold his eyes shut tightly.
“I’m sorry,” I responded and crouched in front of him to let my icy fingers soothe the sides of his beard.
He shivered and sucked in breath then looked above and past me. This was how it was with him ever since it happened. Our conversations grew lopsided till they became solely me giving unheeded advice to a man that was once my best friend, and my lover, who could now no longer look me in the eyes without weeping. I gripped his face gently and forced his eyes to meet mine and wondered as I had for some time whether he could hear me.
“You have more than earned your rest, my love. Please stop fighting before it consumes you. I forgive you, my love. I forgive you.”
His hands clenched and unclenched continuing his bout with grief before once more looking away, out the side of the parking garage where he had been sleeping, out over the water reflecting city lights and the moon and then stood up, right through me.
I gulped away bitterness and watched him pace, as he had for years when he faced insurmountable problems he intended to solve back when he could touch my face without weeping. Wilhelm Screem, my husband, the man who would not give up on most anything, had given up on my presence as a comfort. I pained him. And so I watched him snatch his fur jacket up off the concrete and put it on. I moved to fix the lapels, but he turned away, and stood bathed in the somber yellow light of the building lights.
“My God, I have embarked on a new journey. May I have your blessing?” He stood, and eyed the cement ceiling of the parking garage where a few cars sat parked overnight and received no response.
“There are no monsters left, my God. Those that did not die of their own free will met their end at my hands. I have felled all you put before me. And now, I have through what earthly contacts I have made, reached out and signed a contract of temporal uncertainty with a company that sponsors fights. Fights with humans, I hope you approve. It is an organization calling itself the Factory. I seek your blessing and guidance in this endeavor, my God.”
He searched the ceiling, the heavens, looking to the lights that shone down upon him, seeking a sign. Moments passed before the shimmer of a gleaming, flashing sword appeared within the crossfire of beams of the overhead lights. And the voice boomed and trumpeted.
“There are always monsters, Wilhelm.”
In reverence and awe, Wilhelm dropped to a knee, his head bowed, refusing to glance upon the countenance I could see but barely in the amber light. The blade of a sword with runic inscriptions upon it hovered there, emanating the voice.
“What shall I do, my God?” Wilhelm humbly asked.
“You have chosen wisely.” The voice sounded well pleased. “Rise and address me as my brother.” And Wilhelm nodded, lifting off his knee to gaze upon the glowing, flashing sword hovering in mid air, glimpsing the faintest outline of a hand massaging the sharpened edge.
“They have given me notice of my first fight, my God. It is not against a monster. But if it is, as you say, then perhaps this man Anna Badstreet knows where to find the evil so that I may root it out. He will die by my hand, if you will it.”
There was a laugh, hearty enough to shake the walls of the parking garage were the voice fully inside of this particular plane of existence.
“My child,” the voice of the God guffawed, “You face no man, but a woman.”
Wilhelm frowned.
“A woman…? A human woman? That's ungodly.” he quietly mused to himself. Another laugh.
“You have much to learn, my son. You are in the right place, but a man out of time. And, indeed, you have much to teach. There are many monsters still ahead of you. I’ll point them out. Go. Train. Prepare yourself. I will light your path and make smooth roads for you to follow.” And the shimmering sword, with the hint of a man’s outline behind it glimmered out of sight leaving Wilhelm standing there satisfied with his communion.
“Wilhelm, please. Don’t.” I reached for his hand but could not hold it. “Be at peace. For once. If not for me, for our—“ He shut his eyes tightly once more. And then he set off walking, and I knew I couldn’t stop him. Just like always.
Street lights shone, and Wilhelm felt they led him to a hole in the wall he remembered from years earlier.
Inside, the bartender, Mack, built like the truck of the same name leaned along the lip of the bar and watched Wilhelm order ‘ale’ and smirked at the novelty of the man wearing some kind of fancy fur armor and a set of the most serious eyes he’d seen outside of an impending criminal investigation on television.
“How about a beer,” Mack smirked and poured a glass from the tap. “$5.50.” Mack smirked, watching Wilhelm, with the heavy beard and mildly auspicious air reach into the pocket of his fur coat and slap down a set of gold coins. Mack’s eyes traveled from the gold on the wood of his bar to a group of men seated at a nearby table and exchanged unspoken words.
“Where’d you get gold like that?” Mack asked, sliding it along the wood into the palm to inspect it under the light. Wilhelm huddled over his beer, sniffed it then took a drink and sighed.
“There’s a cave in the Black Hills of South Dakota where few venture, and even fewer come back from should they find it.” Mack eyed his patron bemusedly, but with a piqued interest, once more glancing to his friends in the booth behind Wilhelm as he pocketed the gold coins.
“And you’ve been there, huh?” Mack pretended to be interested in cleaning the inside of one of his pint glasses. Wilhelm nodded stoically.
“And barely escaped what was inside,” he took another drink, and shuddered, remembering the cold whispers of that which could not be killed, and held sway over riches this bartender, or all the greedy men in New Jersey could barely fathom. Mack leaned once more on the lip of the bar.
“So you got more of that gold, huh?” Wilhelm looked at Mack following his glances to the men behind him.
“I’ll tell you what,” Wilhelm stated, finishing his beer and hiding his distaste for it. “Find me a gym where I can train in a manner befitting that of a fighter who intends to fight mortal men, and I’ll draw you a map to this place, and you can have more gold than you could ever hope to steal from me.”
Mack’s shook his head with a laugh.
“Training, huh? You a fighter?”
Wilhelm nodded half-heartedly.
“Something like that. I have a fight coming up I’d like to prepare for, but I’m not used to fighting humans. I need to know what I'm up against.”
“Humans, huh?” Mack chuckled, once more glancing to his friends in the booth behind Wilhelm. “You for real, hombre?”
“For real.” Wilhelm stared at him soundly.
“Just so happens I got a gym in back. I got some friends who are used to fighting humans. I bet they’d be happy to help a man like yourself out.” Mack's smirk seemed friendly enough.
“For a price?”
Mack smirked wider, enjoying the sport of this man staying ahead of him.
“Not much gets past you. We'll make it real friendly. You put some of those gold pieces on the line for each fight. You win, you keep your gold and I pay you equal value. You double your money and you get a good night’s worth of real training. We win, we get to keep whatever you put up. How’s that sound?”
“Who’s we?” Wilhelm asked, and heard the sound of 4 heavy set men leaving the booth they’d been seated at and stepped in behind him.
The gym in back of Mack's bar was dinghy and not well lit. Wilhelm loosened the sleeves of his dress shirt and felt the the largest of the four men he’d agreed to fight bounce from one foot to the other in the center of the ring watching Wilhelm prepare.
“Ain’t he cute?” He asked Mack and the other 3.
Wilhelm ignored them and glanced around the gym then looked to Mack.
“Where are the weapons?”
“You want to fight with weapons?” Mack asked, smirking to his friends who’d only grown more cocky as they got a better look at Wilhelm’s easily dwarfed 6’2, 200 pound frame.
“What do you have in the realm of enchanted swords?” Wilhelm asked.
“Let me, uh, just check in the tool shed, You wait there.” Mack responded stifling laughter. Wilhelm agreed heartily, and turned back to his corner only to feel the heavy fists of his opponent slam down onto his back, driving him to the canvas, and then the sharp, heavy kicks of a practiced brawler aiming to break his ribs.
Wilhelm could feel the meaty hands gripping his neck, lifting him to his feet and slamming his shoulder into the ring post, and then the shock of electricity running through his shoulder like a bolt of lightning after the impact. For ten minutes his opponent taught him about the brutality of humans. Wilhelm tasted the copper of blood in his mouth, and could feel the drilling pain in his head after each punch and kick, then the throb of his heart as he lay on the canvas. And the sound flooded back into his ears after a moment or two.
“He’s done,” said Mack. Wilhelm roiled around to glance at me standing there with concern at the side of the ring.
“He favors his left leg,” I whispered softly to him, having watched the large man limp after bearing too much weight for too long during his beating of my husband. And then my beloved rolled onto his back and glared at the men scooping the gold coins from the pocket of the fur coat I had made for him.
“Fight’s not done,” Wilhelm croaked, and struggled to his feet. His opponent, the big bruiser turned to see him coming and shook his head, ready to declare himself the victor. Stone-faced, Wilhelm cracked a kick into the side of his opponent's knee, busting it in sideways and Mack and his now 3 friends looked up from their theft of Wilhelm's gold, into the ring at their friend whose shattering scream was enough to make them cover their ears. Wilhelm spat some blood from his mouth onto the canvas.
“Humans aren’t so different from monsters,” Wilhelm decided aloud and slammed a stiff knee up into his opponent’s jaw. For ten minutes he returned the favor, because fair is only fair.
Afterward, Wilhelm leaned on the ring ropes and glared at Mack who could only stare back stunned, his hands shaking as he grudgingly gave Wilhelm back his gold pieces and ordered one of the three men to go to the register and get him some money to pay Wilhelm, as promised.
“Now for the next fight, could you show me that tool shed of yours? You don’t happen to have a Vorpal Blade? Something sharp. Your friends don't fight fair.”
And for the rest of the night Mack wished he'd taken the map to the cave instead.
You know you can't switch accounts without turning it off?
I feel cool
