Bastard Out of Oklahoma

I was there the day Chaos

was born: bastard out of Oklahoma.

the Great Plains breed these rag-tail

sons of bitches like shady businessmen

breed money-heavy bad deals, and

this deal could be the worst of them all.

Deception was his mother's name:

to all appearances sweet and mild,

cycling into another beginning,

bright and beautiful to behold

lady in waiting, waiting...impatient for lovers

to violate her and impregnate her,

filling her empty womb with savage life.

Heat was the first who came calling

and he enveloped her

neatly, trapping her in a tight

embrace from which she could not escape

and he tormented her body like an oppressive fever

and left her sweltering,

dripping with sweat.

It was then that Breeze

entered the scene, following

closely on the heels of Heat-

so they both shared her bed

stirring her passions. In this moment

her First Children were

born: white and chubby-cheeked.

smaller, subtler indications

of the greater labor to come

Afterward her next lovers: Energy and

Entropy crushed her beneath them

in a violent fury of assault

she cried out in protest and in pain

but they held her fast, penetrated her depths,

rising and thrusting,

thrusting and rising

in a swirling frenzy

to the place where her Children

rushed together and Amalgamated,

leveled off: flat, dark-skinned and boiling

and shuddering with intensity,

the rape nearly complete

The collective mind of Amalgamation

stirred. It rippled, crackled and seethed.

and Mother's ripe belly continued to swell

as the Amalgamation grew there 


along with the Bastard Child, who 
was waking slowly

from his slumber.
 Mother was nearly obliterated

by them all and they hung heavy and damp and brutal,

thick with ripening entropy

In the nether region of the Amalgamation

a furious tide could no longer be stemmed

and on the underside, as black-green Mammatus bubbled

with Energy, moisture-laden breasts to suckle a hungry beast,

at that moment

a vortex was forced open and

born into the world was Absolute Horror

a hideous breech birth, branching out

bleeding down from above

touching the tentative tendril of its

God-awful tail to earth, digging in with massive, clutching claws

beginning his short, violent life with a wail

that sounded as if booming

from the depths of Hades.

And thus the Bastard, Chaos, was born

and he bore many, many other names

as well: Apocalypse and Armageddon,

they called him Ahriman and Azhi Dahaka,

Kalki, the Destroyer, on his solemn steed

the snake of Midgard, rising from Ragnarok

poisonous and drunk from the blood of gods

and Charon, the boatman, ferrying death and

destruction, as icy-hard stones

rain down in torrents

to cover broken land like dead men’s eyes,

Celaeno, the dark one, and her evil sisters

swiftly churning, End-Of-All-Things and Judgement Day.

Chaos bore all of these names

and he bore them well, but not for long.

but while he reigned over the plains,

all things fell and were crushed before him...

plant, animal, bark and steel...

all were consumed by his ravenous maw,

masticated and spit out into the roiling air.

Even brick and concrete block

felt the pain of his passing.

and the people who were out of doors only

felt a growing uneasiness and heard

screaming thunder as he approached,

a rain-wrapped and terrible vision

they could not see.

For thirty minutes he rained down death

and it took another thirty for him to die,

the cycle closing down, a calming inward intake of breath

as Mother opened up her arms and the bastard

roped out and ascended back into her bosom,

becoming gray and harmless once more

waiting for another day, rife with heat and breeze,

energy and entropy, the four-corners that

make up the Alley Proper, to breed another

Bastard out of Oklahoma.

The Curse of the Little Green Hybrid

This story was published in 'Soft Whispers' anthology titled "Un-luck of the Irish" on March 17, 2010

My family lived on the hill behind the O'Riley farm (if you can call it that--a few acres of inferior soil that was barely fit to grow potatoes in).  We sort of looked out for their clan and my Da helped them when he could. 

He also helped himself to the attentions of Margaret O'Riley, the youngest girl. Their tryst caused quite a stir, for it wasn't often that our two races pitched woo. 

And so...I entered the scene. 

My name is Larry. I’m a leprechaun. 

Well, half-leprechaun, really. My uncle Morvay called me the "little green hybrid."

There's a legend, nasty as badly-brewed poteen that a witch put a hex on the O'Riley family. An upstart of a young woman tried to curse the witch. So, the witch cursed her. 

She wrote it in goat's blood, on the side of the girl's hovel, and the words have never worn away.

"The blood remains upon this wall

That ye might be a curse to all

Since ye cursed me, with thy foul tongue

Let then on all thine flesh be hung

The power of death in all thine speech

Wheresoever ye tongues may reach."

The O'Riley's tried many times to remove it, even with fire, but to no avail.

So the wall was avoided. When additions to the house were made, they were constructed around the wall. 

 

It was said that the old witch refuses to die, but remains ever close, watching her curse in action. 

I first saw evidence of the curse when I was a wee lad. Uncle Pat came to our house drunk after a night of carousing, and became angry when Da refused to let him in. 

"May the devil take ye, elfin bugger!" He pounded on the door. "And may ye shrivel up and die!"

"Yer witch-curse won't do for me!" Da yelled. "It's a man's curse and on'y on a man will it do!"

Da was right. 

Pat's curse rebounded. The next day, they found him in a ditch less than a mile from his house. It was difficult identifying him, though, desiccated as he was.

Afterwards, I began to wonder. Would the curse manifest itself in me since I was only half O'Riley? Would my leprechaun blood protect me and keep me from making terrible oaths? Was being a "little green hybrid" a good thing? 

I wanted to know. 

About that time my Aunt Esmerelda moved in with us. God, she was old. Positively prehistoric! 

She crept up on me behind the house while I was trying to hex a snail. 

"Do ye love the curse so much that ye seek to destroy innocent creatures with it?" she snapped. I spun around, shocked by her sudden appearance. 

"No...Aunty, I..." 

"What, then?" Her dark, brooding eyes flared. 

"I wanted to see if the curse skipped me, because I'm half..."

"Leprechaun?" she asked. I nodded. "Would ye be happy if it did?" 

I nodded again, "And relieved."

She smiled; a hideous, toothless grin that split her face like an old scar. "If ye don't want the curse, mind yer tongue. Don't say words in anger. Or even in jest."

"Have you ever been affected by the curse, Aunty?"

"Only once," she said. 

I decided to try an innocent curse on a person. Not entirely innocent, because a curse by its very nature is bad. 

For the target, I picked my mum. I watched her by the cook fire and thought: "Itch." Then: "Scratch," "Feel an itch," "May your skin prickle with the sudden urge to scratch yourself and then subside," and all other variations of "itch" and "scratch" that I could think of. Nothing happened. I felt relieved. When I turned around I saw Aunt Esmerelda in the corner, watching me. My face flushed hot and I fled the room, wondering if she knew what I'd been trying to do. But she couldn't read my mind. Could she?

Some years later, Da passed and Mum was forced to turn the tenant farm over to her brother, Peter. She decided to immigrate to America, and I was going with her. So was Aunt Esmerelda.

The voyage was dull, cramped, and cold. The Atlantic winds howled, but the ship rolled smoothly along the waves. There were other leprechauns on the vessel, though none of the non-Irish humans could see them because leprechauns have the gift of invisibility-at-will.

I took up with an Irish lad named Devon and together we sneaked onto the first-class decks and peered out at the waves. 

"We're gonna make good time in this tailwind," Devon said. 

"Aye. If we don't get hammered by the sea and go down to the deeps."  

Devon shook his head. "Nah. T'is the best ship ever built, don't ye know?"

"Bollocks! If she's a ship, she can go down and she probably will," I laughed. 

A sudden strong headwind whipped around as the breeze changed directions and a chill prickled the back of my neck. We turned to head back below to lower class and I saw her. 

Aunt Esmerelda, reclining in a lounge chair, was watching me scornfully with her hard, black eyes.

By now you may have guessed. Our voyage abruptly ended in the wee hours of the morn, amid screaming and ice-cold, watery death. But I don't look that old, you say? Trust me, I am. The blasted leprechaun blood in my veins has kept me youthful beyond endurance. Or maybe it is that final curse. I’ll get to that later.

Mum died that night. And Devon. And countless, innocent others. 

Esmerelda and I escaped on a lifeboat with as many of the Irish, human and leprechaun, that we could find. Some survivors would later complain that they saw boats adrift with few people in them. They probably couldn't see the leprechauns. 

I sat shivering in the boat with my head bowed. Sometimes, I would look at Esmerelda. She bored holes into me with her black, knowing eyes and grinned in that awful way.

Once we were aboard the Carpathia and counted among the living, I found the wireless op and sent a message to Peter, breaking the news about Mum and asking questions that I hoped wouldn't make him think I'd gone mad. 

We were living in a New York tenement when his return message reached me weeks later. He wrote of his sorrow at mum's death and confirmed my fears. I wasn't the first to suspect what I then knew to be true.

Now that I've told this much, do you believe it? You haven't even heard the worst. 

I burned the wire from Uncle Peter and tried to wipe all references from my mind so she wouldn't discover my treachery. 

After thinking long and hard, I discovered how to end the curse. It was a way as horrible as the curse itself, but it was the only way the carnage could finally be brought to an end. So, I lit a candle one day after Esmerelda had gone shopping, and made the first of many horrible utterances. 

A few weeks later, word reached us that Uncle Peter and his wife had died of consumption and that many others in the O'Riley family were also stricken and were not long for the world. Esmerelda frowned when I read these letters to her, but said nothing.

As for myself, I volunteered to help in the hospitals, caring for those suffering from tuberculosis and other dread diseases, like dysentery and influenza. 

Eventually, I received news that the last of my O'Riley kin had died in Ireland. The home was to be razed to plant corn. 

"Good luck," I said, putting down the letter. I meant it both about the razing and the corn. I hoped that both would be possible soon. 

"What are ye on about?" Esmerelda muttered. We were sitting at the kitchen table.

"Nothing," I said. I coughed and put my hand to my mouth. A drop of blood appeared on my palm. I gazed at it and smiled. 

"I'm the last," I said. Esmerelda didn't say anything."What happens to you when I die?" I asked her. 

"I'll die too," she replied. "At last." She smiled her toothless, evil grin. 

"Why the devil are you smiling then, witch?!"

"Because I'm cursed, too. Cursed to watch my own evil." She laid her hand on my arm.

"Of them all, you're the only one had the guts to end it."

I flinched, twisted out of her grasp. "I had to curse my own family to do it!"

"Yes. And I'm sorry for it."

I looked up at her in surprise. "You're sorry?"

"When the obituaries started coming, I knew what you were doing. I could've saved you the trouble, but I didn't."

"What do you mean?"

"I removed the curse after the shipwreck. Those miserable souls; dying, screaming. It haunted me. I long for death now, and I'll die soon. But you don't have to." As she said this, she placed her bony hands over my chest, murmuring words in the old tongue. I felt the pain in my lungs disappear. My head began to spin and everything went black. 

When I came to, she was gone.

"You expect me to believe that crap?" the youth said. He ran his greedy hands along my 32 inch HDTV. 

"You said you'd buy it for two, if I told you my story."

"It's B.S.! You 'aint no half-breed leprechaun and you didn't sink the freaking Titanic. I'll give ya fifty bucks." 

I was down on my luck and soon to be evicted from my apartment if I didn't come up with some rent, which was why I was having the yard sale in the first place.

I reluctantly accepted the fifty and helped the punk load the TV into the backseat of his convertible. 

"Nice car," I said, making small talk. "Is it new?"

"Yeah..." He got into the drivers' seat. "It's a little green hybrid, just like you." He roared with laughter and slammed the door. "See ya around, Larry Leprechaun!"

He drove away. 

I watched the car speed down the street. "And may the road rise up to meet your greedy head."

I started to turn away, then grimaced as I heard the distant clamor of screeching tires,  shattering glass and fiberglass. 

The dawning horror overtook me that the curse, and its progenitor, still live.  Remembering her final curse, I grew cold with terror.

Somewhere she is watching...grinning. Forever, unless...

I hurried to my apartment and took my sharpest knife with a trembling hand. 

I grasped my tongue between my fingers...

Comfort

This story is rated R for sexual situations.


“He’ll be good for you,” Darren said, squeezing my hand lightly in his.

“Don’t...” I replied. “I don’t want him. I want you.”

Darren sighed. “I want you to be taken care of. Bill will be a good provider. Promise me...promise...”

The words rang in my ears over and over as Bill grunted above me. He was nearing his climax and I could only feel numbness. And this was our wedding night. Bill cried out in ecstasy and when he finished, rolled off me and put his arms around my waist, breathing his warm sighs onto my neck.

“Was it good, baby?”

“Yes,” I lied. Darren was right. Bill was a good provider, but he would never be the great lover that Darren had been. Darren died three years ago, and I still grieved for him. Silently...but I mourned him, nevertheless.

I reached over and turned off the light.

Bill fell asleep quickly, our bodies meshed together as we lay on our sides, our knees bent, our legs intertwined. ‘This, at least,' I thought, 'is familiar.'

Later that night, Bill woke me up for sex again. Looking at him in the dark, he looked so much like Darren, with his curly hair and strong jawline. I fantasized that he was Darren and felt the first stirrings of passion since Bill and I had become lovers.

“Oh, baby...” Bill sighed.

I put my finger to his lips. “Shhhh...”

“Do you want me to turn on the light?” he asked, pausing in our lovemaking.

“No,” I murmured. I thrust my pelvis up and he began moving again, rocking into me with increasing motion.

“Oh, Darren!” I cried as I orgasmed, realizing my mistake too late.

Bill never said anything about my error that night. He has never mentioned it at all, though, I felt him wince when I said Darren’s name, so I know I hurt him deeply.

I think I fell in love with him then.

But I know his love for me is not as strong as it was before that dreadful slip. Still, Bill is loyal to me and is a wonderful, caring husband. And even though now I call out his name in the throes of our passion, he remains quiet.

His silence is the sad price paid for my comfort.

A Coin from a Fountain, Lost in Time

(to “Junkets,” I would love you, if I could travel back to you)

You took me by surprise, my lover

I knew you were waiting patiently by the fountain

for me to come to you, as you knew I would

both of us slipping quietly away from 

our alternate lives, bound and chained by time

in servitude to the lies we see

as reflections in the mirrors we pass through

as we leave our promises behind us

like ashes from long dead fires

smoldering softly asleep.

I gasped as I felt your arms

encompass me in the dim light of the street torch

your lips burning like sweet poison 

everywhere they touch

and they touch everywhere

and I think: if we should be discovered

at this moment and be killed for our indiscretion

then I would die content

but the street is happily deserted

the tinkling fountain and our sighs the only sounds.

The larkspurs by the fountain are drooping

the hour too late for their lovely faces

You dip your hand in the shimmering pool

and pull up a piece of shiny gold...a coin

of some foreign mark: a bright, thin thing

and you whisper, “Make a wish on it, my love

And I shall throw it back in!”

“No,” I cry. “Let us both wish on it, then

leave me have it so I can 

wish on it always and wish for you!”

So we wish. And I take the coin from him

and leave him there. And through my silvered

mirror I pass again, back to my own age

my own time, my own space, 

my realm of utter unhappiness and as

I wait under electric street lights by fountains

I pull out the coin and wish, wish, wish

I’ve gone back through the mirror many times

Yet, I’ve never seen my lover since 

the night we didn’t throw the coin back in.

Welcome to Risky Fiction: A Disclaimer

Welcome to Risky Fiction.

And yet another blog. I created this blog out of a need to showcase my not-so-kid-friendly works of fiction and poetry and post my Twitter #FridayFlash stories.

Warning: Here there be some nasty stuff.  This is not for the kids.

You will run across some foul language on this site. There will be some violence and scary stuff. You may run across some sexual situations, although I always try to keep sex to a minimum in my writing, unless it really adds something necessary to the story.

That being said, welcome.

I hope you enjoy the ride. It will be wild, I can promise you that.