If EZine vs the World

I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off yesterday trying to figure out what to blog today. My good friend and partner in crime J. Ho suggested I make up a few church signs using the sign generators so prevalent on the internet these days (here's the one I used). He even gave me a few ideas to get me started. About an hour and a half later, I had 15 of these little suckers. I'll be posting them all on the If EZine Facebook profile as well as the If EZine MySpace profile.

Enjoy.

Any take a look at J. Ho's SketchBlog. It's nifty.






And be sure to visit ifezine.com, home to If EZine, the Free Online Magazine of Thrilling Speculative Fiction!

BONUS POST! In Search Of... Leonard Nimoy and The Amityville Horror!

Be safe this Halloween!

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Old School Cartoon - banned in some parts!

This was one of the few cartoons Walt Disney personally animated. It is the first Silly Symphony.

Titled "The Skeleton Dance", it was released in 1929 and at the time garnered a lot of criticism. The criticism was, in part, due to the 'graphic' nature of the cartoon. Before you judge, put things into perspective a bit: this cartoon was, afterall, quite possibly the first time the public had really seen skeletons rising from the grave and dancing. That's quite a frightening prospect even today! But in 1929 it was unheard of and resulted in many theaters refusing to carry the cartoon. It was even reportedly banned in some parts of the world!

Today it is normally hailed as a masterpiece of early animation. In 1994 it was voted (by a panel consisting of 1000 people working in the animation field) as #18 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time.

Have a safe and happy Halloween.





The Skeleton Dance on Wikipedia

The Skeleton Dance at Big Cartoon Database

How-To Halloween: Ideas to Help You Celebrate The Holiday

Here's some how-to videos with ideas to help you celebrate Halloween. Enjoy!

How-To Halloween Spooktacular with Madeline Merced - Part 1


How-To Halloween Spooktacular with Madeline Merced - Part 2


How-To Make Your Own Tombstones


How-To Make Your Own Floating Head Effect


How-To Make Monstrous Eyes in Your House


Brought to you by If - E - Zine(tm). Remember Issue 9, The Special Halloween Edition, is NOW AVAILABLE and it's FREE!!!

The Mummies!

Just a reminder that If - E - Zine(tm) Issue Number 9, the Special Halloween Edition is now available and it FREE!!! Check it out here.

For this week's post I bring to you the legendary garage surf punk rock band The Mummies. They were founded sometime in 1988 or 1989 and have been going fairly strong ever since. This video is from a cable access show. The song is their take on "Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen (which, if memory serves, was last popularized in the movie Back to the Beach starring Pee-Wee Herman aka Paul Rubens).






ADDITIONAL STUFF:

Pee-Wee Herman's performance of "Surfin' Bird" from the movie Back to the Beach

The Mummies perform their classic song "You Must Fight to Live on the Planet of the Apes". I didn't post this video because the sound quality isn't wonderful, but it's not horrible.

The Mummies website

Related Band: The Ventures

Enjoy!

BONUS POST! D&D song

Always fun to watch.

BONUS POST! Viking queen exhumed to solve mystery!

SLAGEN, Norway (Reuters) - Archaeologists exhumed the body of a Viking queen on Monday, hoping to solve a riddle about whether a woman buried with her 1,200 years ago was a servant killed to be a companion into the afterlife.


As a less gruesome alternative, the two women in the grass-covered Oseberg mound in south Norway might be a royal mother and daughter who died of the same disease and were buried together in 834.

"We will do DNA tests to try to find out. I don't know of any Viking skeletons that have been analyzed as we plan to do," Egil Mikkelsen, director of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History, told Reuters at the graveside.

READ MORE

a mind full of things spilling out of the mouth and dying

I've been tired as hell lately. Writing and editing have been on my mind but I've not had the energy really to do either. Money matters weigh heavily on me. So much to do.

Luckily the writing bug is infecting me. Or so it seems. At least, that's what I'm hoping. My mind has been on two tales in the last 2 or 3 days. Those tales include a throwback hardboiled pulp noir set in the 1940s-ish in a traveling freak show. The other story is a neo-noir futuritic cyberpunk mafia deal.

As for reading, I'm doing a little. I'm struggling through Something Wicked This Way Comes by Bradbury. I'm struggling through it not due to the material, but due to my lack of energy and concentration. The book itself is beautifully written and had I read it at another time I'd probably be voraciously flying through it.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to return Hamlet to the library and I've got another book to pick up, waiting for me. The book that is waiting for me is Look Homeward, Angel. It's Thomas Wolfe's first novel first published I believed in 1929.

Very, very tired.

BONUS POST! Creepy Carnivals

Dead Clowns



Something Wicked This Way Comes

Women Dig Cavemen

Here's this week's post. Enjoy!




Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Thu Aug 23, 12:35 PM ET

Guys with bulldog-like faces have been chick magnets throughout human evolutionary history.

A recent study of the skulls of human ancestors and modern humans finds that women, and thereby, evolution, selected for males with relatively short upper faces. The region between the brow and the upper-lip is scrunched proportionately to the overall size of their heads.

Among the men who fit the bill: Will Smith and Brad Pitt.

In a past study, researchers found a similar facial pattern in chimpanzees, with males having relatively shorter and broader faces compared with females, controlling for body size.

Men with "mini mugs" might have been most attractive to the opposite sex and thus most likely to attract mates for reproduction, passing along the striking features to the next generation and so forth, said lead study author Eleanor Weston, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London.

"The evolution of facial appearance is central to understanding what makes men and women attractive to each other," Weston said. "We have found the distance between the lip and brow was probably immensely important to what made us attractive in the past, as it does now."

Whereas past studies have suggested facial symmetry and facial masculinity play roles in this game of desire, none have provided evidence of an evolutionary shaping of male and female faces.

"I think it's a very nice approach," said Randy Thornhill, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico, referring to the study. Though not involved in it, Thornhill agrees with the finding that certain facial features evolved due to sexual selection.

Facial coordinates

The researchers calculated certain facial coordinates on 68 males and 53 female skulls from a contemporary native southern Africa population ranging in age from infant to 30 years old. Measurements included distances between the point between the eye brows and upper lip and from cheekbone to cheekbone.

Weston and her colleagues also examined facial data from fossil hominin skulls dating back to 2.6 million years ago, unearthed in Kenyan deposits as part of the Koobi Fora Research Project IV. These skulls represented five species: Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Paranthropus boisei, Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus. These facial coordinates were then compared with the contemporary coordinates.

In spite of their bulkier bodies (about 15 percent more massive than women's bodies), and similarly broader faces, men have upper faces similar in height to women's faces, the scientists found. But compared with the rest of the head, a guy's mid-face is compressed. The differences held throughout human history.

A simple ratio of upper face length to broadness could serve as a proxy for facial attractiveness, the scientists say in a report on their research published in the online journal PLoS ONE.

Masculine appeal

The scientists are not certain why today's distinctive male face and its proportions evolved.

"A shorter upper face does serve to exaggerate the size of other face features such as the flare of the cheeks and the size of the jaw, but this might not be why it developed," Weston told LiveScience. "Rather the shorter [and] broader the male face the more ‘masculine’ and the less ‘feminine'—based on biological face changes that take place during growth and development—the individual becomes," she said.

Also, this facial development was accompanied by a shrinking of guys' canine teeth, so men appeared less threatening to competitors, yet attractive to mates.

While the scientists who authored the current study examined skulls and did not specifically study how modern faces fit the findings, the Natural History Museum press officers applied Weston's findings to a "quick and dirty" survey of photos of celebrities.

They came up with a list of stars with masculine faces, listing them from most to least masculine according to facial dimensions: Will Smith, Peter Andre, Justin Timberlake, Thierry Henry, Brad Pitt, David Beckham, Johnny Depp and Kanye West.

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view.

SOURCE

BONUS POST! The Last House on the Left

Some fun old skool 70s horror.





And remember: Rob Zombie's Halloween comes out August 31st!

BONUS POST! For all my cyberpunks...

BONUS POST! Space Hotel

BARCELONA (Reuters) - "Galactic Suite," the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.

Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.

During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Company director Xavier Claramunt says the three-bedroom boutique hotel's joined up pod structure, which makes it look like a model of molecules, was dictated by the fact that each pod room had to fit inside a rocket to be taken into space.

"It's the bathrooms in zero gravity that are the biggest challenge," says Claramunt. "How to accommodate the more intimate activities of the guests is not easy."

But they may have solved the issue of how to take a shower in weightlessness -- the guests will enter a spa room in which bubbles of water will float around.

When guests are not admiring the view from their portholes they will take part in scientific experiments on space travel.

Galactic Suite began as a hobby for former aerospace engineer Claramunt, until a space enthusiast decided to make the science fiction fantasy a reality by fronting most of the $3 billion needed to build the hotel.

An American company intent on colonizing Mars, which sees Galaxy Suite as a first step, has since come on board, and private investors from Japan, the United States and the United Arab Emirates are in talks.

PLENTY RICH ENOUGH

If Claramunt is secretive about the identity of his generous backer, he is more forthcoming about the custom he can expect.

"We have calculated that there are 40,000 people in the world who could afford to stay at the hotel. Whether they will want to spend money on going into space, we just don't know."

Four million dollars might be a lot to spend on a holiday, but those in the nascent space tourism industry say hoteliers have been slow on the uptake because no one thought the cost of space travel would come down as quickly as it has.

Galactic Suite said the price included not only three nights in space. Guests also get eight weeks of intensive training at a James Bond-style space camp on a tropical island.

"There is fear associated with going into space," said Claramunt. "That's why the shuttle rocket will remain fixed to the space hotel for the duration of the guests' stay, so they know they can get home again."

In an era of concern over climate change, Galaxy Suite have no plans so far to offset the pollution implications of sending a rocket to carry just six guests at a time into space.

"But," says Claramunt, "I'm hopeful that the impact of seeing the earth from a distance will stimulate the guests' urge to value and protect our planet."


SOURCE

Zombies, Robots and Conan... What More Could You Ask For?

Here's this week's post. It's a three-fer. The social robot video is from a Nova ScienceNOW episode on PBS. The Conan video is from an up-coming game for the next-gen consoles called Conan (please note: this is NOT the MMO Age of Conan). The last video is the official E3 trailer for Resident Evil 5 which debuted last month. Enjoy!

BONUS POST: Warhammer 40,000

The intro to one of my favorite games on PC. This is Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War




Anyone got any cool mods?

And So Begins Something New...

Hey folks,

Welcome to the new Atomic Swan Serials. Herein you will find my usual rants, raves or general nerdiness, but you will also find the main focus of this newly revamped blog to be serialized speculative fiction.



My intention is to post every Friday with the occasional random post in between whenever the mood strikes me or if I find some oddment in the news concerning science and/or science fiction and monsters. If I somehow find myself not currently working on any serial I will still post every Friday some video or music or thought of the moment in relation to science fiction, horror, monsters or speculative fiction.

As luck would have it, I am currently not working on any serials. But we need to kick this thing off with something. Enjoy the video.

~ charles


P.S.: Please let me know if you like the new look and direction of this blog. Even if you don't like some aspect of it, please let me know. Every little bit helps.

~ charles

"Simple Simon"

Originally published in If - E - Zine(tm) in October of 2006, this short story is number 7 of 13 weekly essay or short story posts. Sorry that it was delayed a bit. Had some comp troubles for a brief moment. Enjoy.

**************************************************************************
"Simple Simon"
by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved.


The moon glowed blue, bathing the landscape in dispirited monotones until every blade of dying autumnal grass arcing to and fro in evening breeze, every bough bowing to howling winds, every stone, every scurrying mouse and cricket seeking underground shelter, every fallen leaf, every bit of September life was dripping sweetly with twilight. The blue light of the moon danced in and out and around hills, trees, homes; shocks of shadows went flying skyward, having spent their day buried beyond the topsoil, while shocks of corn tied to porch posts in celebration of harvest season crinkled and cracked, crying softly, naturally in the whisking wind, whispers of the dying time.

Still other shadows danced with their moonlit partners, hand-in-hand and cheek-to-cheek, in an odd waltz set to the tune of oncoming winter storms, music unheard yet played within the bones of every living thing in the countryside.

While winds chanted shadows swirled forming ghostly shades moving to trick the eye, forming dark creatures dodging between trees. And there, there! Beyond rolling hills, on the highest and farthest hill sat a structure creaking and moaning, moving with nature’s rhythms despite being man-made. Whispering winds, breath of the dead, pierced the sides of the old barn and flowed over its broken wooden back and through its broken wooden teeth to give it a howling voice. The barn groaned under its own weight. Its coughs and shudders sickly as color drained from cheeks, its red paint chipping away under chiseling ghost gusts.

It was a grand, glorious old barn surrounded by a graveyard of headstones made up of the foundations of other buildings long ago fallen and forgotten. While other homes still stood in this country, none were near in age or location to the old, dying barn, dying from a broken heart. It served little use to anyone any more. Except… once a year…

On or soon after the first of October every year Mr. Mulahey would come out to visit the barn with family or friends or farm hands, taking ever deeper breaths, pulling vital air into themselves so they may take up hammer, take up nail, take up broom and breathe life anew into the exhausted barn in preparation for the annual Mulahey Halloween Barn Dance.

The Barn Dance had been an affair for the good people of this part of the country for more than sixty years.

Look now! Beyond the horizon! Just past that ridge! Between those trees! Do you see it? See it coming on at us? A light! You do see it! A small glow… distant, distant… glowing like the moon, glowing when the moon hides behind gypsy clouds… it grows nearer! It comes to us. Closer still! Like an orb, a ball… like a will-o-wisp, don’tcha think? And as we watch it weaving, weaving, growing, glowing, approaching, causing the land to light up white, it descends slowly, disappearing into the old barn.

* * * * *

“How long ya been doin’ this?”

“Over sixty years.”

“No. I meant how long you been doin’ this?”

“Oh,” Simon, dressed in a long-sleeve checked shirt and denim jeans and work boots, said, “Tha firs’ year was ’88. I guess this one here will make it nineteen years.”

“Thassa long time.”

“That’s a long time,” Simon echoed.

Milo Silas, the questioning young man, was of ordinary size and looks. He wore a plain white t-shirt turned gray with work and sweat, jeans and cowboy boots.

“Every year,” Simon said as the two headed across open fields towards the barn, “I think I’m never gonna make it out here ta have another dance again. But then every year, ‘bout the end of September, when the winds shift and the sun cools and the cats seem more riled up, when I breathe in that autumn air it brings into my lungs something a little different, a little more fun and a lot of tradition. I think we need our traditions, ya know? Rituals. Holidays. Fourth of July has long gone and the aftertaste of summer hot dogs has faded. Something happens to the earth and we have to mark it somehow. Do something to show we know.”

Milo silently nodded in agreement.

The noonday autumn sun made the men glow orange as if they had eaten a few too many pumpkin pies, the lands glowed golden brown and the winds swept off the final heat from the land. It was as if the whole world had sighed in its relief from the hot summer sun.

“And I can’t help but ta feel good when I see people smile as they come on inta my barn. People dress up cuz they can. They smile at themselves with painted goblin faces. And somewhere out in that barn between nightfall and home, between punch cups and pumpkin carvings, we secretly, maybe unknowingly, conjure up some kinda magic. We make voodoo. We have fun.

“Now I ain’t sayin’ I’m saving lives out here or nuthin’. But makin’ people smile can’t hurt no one.”

Milo again agreed silently.

Approaching the barn Milo felt he was making a pilgrimage to a holy sanctuary, a piece of the past left standing by the magic Simon fondly spoke of. A caern, an apothecary of candy smiles and a Stonehenge of country living. This old barn wasn’t just a piece of the Mulahey family history, it was a piece of everybody’s history that ever walked through here or danced here or was invited to celebrate here. It was grand and generous of the Mulahey’s. It was grand and generous. Milo smiled.

The two men entered the rickety barn and stopped, staring. Staring up. Staring beyond the two lofts, up into the rafters.

“By God,” Simon whispered. “How’d he get up there?”

Plump and purple from the rafters did hang by his neck a dusty old man in weather-torn clothes.

“Dear God,” Milo whispered. “Who is he?”

The old man’s head, noose about the neck, hung to one side oddly, crookedly. He was ugly and stained with death, dangling like an overripe berry from a vine.

“Who is he?” Simon repeated Milo’s question.

“Who was he?” Milo corrected Simon and himself.

“Get that ladder,” Simon instructed. “Then run along and get Doc Dearborne.”

* * * * *

A few people had made the trek to gather in the barn, Doc Dearborne and Sheriff Arker among them. Daisy, Simon’s wife, had also come when she heard from Milo some tragic thing had happened out at the old barn. Milo had refused to return.

“Who is he?” Simon asked.

“Some hobo named Dusty Jim,” Sheriff Arker answered. “No clue as to a family name. He’s been through this area before. He loved the hard whiskey. One of my deputies talked with him a little last time he was through here, oh, I’d say about early last summer. Lost his wife near on a decade ago to a younger man. She took the kids. He never saw them again. Lost his job soon after. He was a mechanic or worked in a machine shop or something like that. Told my deputy he was killing hisself with booze cuz he couldn’t work up the nerve to eat a bullet. I guess he finally got the nerve.”

“Why here?” Simon asked. “Why my barn?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe cuz it’s away from everything and everyone.”

Eyes watched as an ambulance crew tucked Dusty Jim’s body into the back of their vehicle. Eyes followed as the ambulance slowly made its way across the field. It was in no hurry. No lights were blinding them, no sirens blared.

“Yep,” the sheriff said. “Cuz it’s quiet out here. Far from everything. The rope was here. The rafters. Nice, quiet, safe.”

Doc Dearborne explained, “Looks like he climbed up in them rafters, tied the makeshift noose and then either jumper or fell. Snapped his neck completely.”

“Dear God,” Daisy gasped. “Simon, we can’t have the barn dance this year. Not now. Not after this.”

“Ma’am,” the sheriff spoke, “It ain’t my place but I say don’t let some train-hoppin’ hobo ruin your plans.”

“They’ve already been ruined,” she said. “No one will want to come out here now. No one will come.”

Simon shook his head. “In all my years, this barn has seen many things die. Coupla cows, chickens I remember. Lord only knows how many mice and bugs. Even had a goat die out here once when my granddaddy still used this barn. But I don’t remember ever hearin’ a man losin’ his life out here.”

“I best go,” said Doc Dearborne. Simon shook his hand and thanked him before he left. Then the Doc disappeared out across the field much like the ambulance had.

“I best go, too,” said the sheriff. “Happy Halloween.”

The barn emptied out. Only Simon remained with his wife.

“No one will come,” Daisy whispered.

* * * * *

Alex was a local farmer, much like Simon, but every year he planted a new patch of pumpkins for the Halloween season. Simon bought all his pumpkins from Alex. Like Simon, Alex had inherited his land and occupation from his family. He was tall and young and hard working. A few freckles still spotted his face while age lines hid deep below the skin, waiting to burst out. His red hair blazed and mixed in, fitting in, with the autumn sunsets.

Every October, Alex would load his pumpkins onto a flatbed trailer, pull them out to the side of the road that ran past his house, placed a coffee can with a hole cut in its plastic top and a sign taped onto it that read:

PLACE MONEY HERE

THANK YOU

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

He never asked much for his pumpkins and he always sold a lot. Simon was his biggest buyer. So when Simon pulled his old pick-up alongside the pumpkin-laden trailer, Alex came out to meet him.

“Simon! How are you?”

The two exchanged handshakes and smiles.

“Good, good. And you?”

“Can’t complain.”

“How many you got for me this year?” Simon surveyed the landscape of pumpkins across the flatbed.

“Same as every year: As many as you want.” Alex smiled and smiled.

“I think I’ll take the usual thirty.” Simon lowered the tailgate of his truck and the two began picking and loading pumpkins.

“How’s Daisy?” Alex asked.

“Good, good. How’s Marlette?”

“She’s fine. Inside with the kids teaching them to bake pumpkin pies from scratch.”

“God, I love Marlette’s pumpkin pies!”

“Why ya think I married her?”

The two men shared a laugh.

Then Alex said, “I heard what happened out to your barn.”

Simon thumped a pumpkin and smiled at it. “Yeah.”

“It really happen?”

Simon lost his smile. “Yeah.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“Me too,” Simon placed three fat pumpkins onto his truck to Alex’s one.

“You expectin’ the usual crowd?” Alex asked.

“Not so much, maybe. People get funny about things.”

“Yeah.”

The two worked on, loading plump gourds one after the other.

“How many you expectin’?” Alex asked.

Simon stopped. “I dunno really.”

Alex and Simon exchanged glances.

“Simon,” said Alex. “How long we been friends?”

“Well, I been buyin’ from you since you started growing these things when you was six. That’s what, nearly twenty years? It’s been mostly business between you and me but after twenty years I’d gotta say somewhere along the way we’d had ta have become friends.”

Alex smiled, and then frowned. He picked up another pumpkin and Simon began loading again. “Simon… I don’t think I’m gonna make it out this year.”

Simon kept quietly loading.

“It’s not you, or even the suicide,” Alex explained. “It’s just… my kids got wind of it and it might spook ‘em out right to be there. This year, least ways. But next year… next year you sure can bet I’ll be out that way! We all will!”

“I can understand that. Especially with young’uns.”

Simon loaded a huge, fat, round pumpkin onto his truck, patting it. “This one’s a beauty.”

It glowed fire-orange and had a golden stem with a clean face. It seemed about to burst into smiles without a carved face, smiling while waiting for a smile to be carved. Simon smiled back at the gorgeous gourd.

“Simon,” Alex broke the enchantment the pumpkin had been weaving. “I’ve talked to folks. I… I-I don’t think hardly nobody’s gonna go to the dance this year.”

Simon frowned, patting the pumpkin. His voice grew soft, serious. All the drywall housing that collects and protects a man fell away from Simon’s heart. “What do you suggest I do?”

Alex hung his head. They loaded on the last of the thirty pumpkins. Simon dropped some bills into the coffee can.

* * * * *

For the next three weeks Simon worked alone on the barn. He layered the dirt floor with fresh straw, set bales about for seating, got a big wash tub for apple bobbing, set up tables for food, secured a pulley and rope for a jack-o-lantern piñata; he did everything that needed to be done. And he did it alone.

“No one will come,” Daisy would tell him every morning. “No one will come,” she said every night.

“No one will come,” she said as he went out the front door of the house on All Hollow’s Eve. “No one will come!” she yelled after him as he drove off in the truck, headed for the barn.

* * * * *

Boris Pickett sang on the boom box. The fresh straw crackled under his feet. Oil and battery-powered lamps set the mood. The last few weeks were some of the loneliest Simon had ever spent. Now he stood in his family’s old barn. Alone.

Simon sat on a stool at one of the tables, pulled the big, beautiful pumpkin that smiled before having a smile close, dug in his pocket for his jack-knife and carved.

Early wintry winds howled outside the barn. An owl sounded his night sounds, a moaning, questioning voice carried on and stretched out by winds in ghost tones. Shadows grew into witches dancing, prancing upon a landscape going dead from the great Fall. The barn glowed from within, sending spears of light into the heart of darkness, bubbling blackness troubling the moon, chasing it to hide behind clouds.

And look! A sphere, a sphere, a will-o-wisp bobbing, exiting the barn. Turning, turning, glowing, growing smaller with distance until at last it disappears between trees, behind hills, beyond horizons.
***************************************************************

© copyright 2006 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author(s) and artist(s).

"Chamber of the Sun"

It's week five of my essay or short story postings. This week I have yet another offering from If - E - Zine(tm) from Issue #1 originally published in August of 2003. Enjoy.

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"Chamber of the Sun"

by Charles Shaver


This work was originally written and dated 9 October, 1994.
© 2003-2006 Charles Shaver

********************************************************

The gate slammed shut behind me with a thunderous clang that was sent echoing throughout the chamber. My hands were filled with pools of sweat that soaked through the sleeves of my jacket. The chamber was cold and dark and dank with moss and dew. I stumbled in the dark to find the little bench in one of the four corners. I laid there on the little bench until I was finally able to sleep.

I awoke some time later, but how much later I do not know. I struggled to sit up. Leaning against the seeping wall, I looked up to have my eyes meet with the first rays of sunlight entering the tiny window high above me. I wanted to see the beauty of the sun, so I stood to cross the chamber floor. As I did, a loud screech pierced the silence and wafted up into the space far above. The tiny rat scurried from under my foot squeaking in agony.

I laid myself against the wall and looked up once again to see the window. I wanted to reach up and touch the sunbeam and have its fingers caress my hand, but my hands and arms were bound. It was that damnable jacket. Why in God's name did I need to have it on, anyway? Why was I being tortured by these people? What had I done?

"Nothing!" I screamed. "Not one damn thing. And yet they still torture and rape my soul and penetrate my body with those instruments of death. I should kill them all! If only I had that freedom."

I could see that the rays of light had descended to rest upon the wall just above my head. I trembled with anticipation and delight at the thought. For the first time in what must have been several weeks I would be graced with the sunlight. This must be an act of God.

"Oh, please," I prayed, "Please bless my being with the warmth of your love from the sun's blast of rays." The light of the sun moved so slowly. Then it came. The slight cringe of metal on metal from the lock on the chamber's gateway.

"No!" I cried out. "Dear God, no!" I tried to jump to have my face splashed with the light, but fell instead into a tiny pond of mud and moss below my feet. Two men picked me up, checked the straps on my straight jacket, and carried me off to the darkness where I would continue to live in the shadows.

"Redcloud"

It's week four of my essay or short story postings. This week I have another offering from If - E - Zine(tm) from Issue #2 originally published in October of 2003. Enjoy.




"Redcloud"
by Charles Shaver
Inspired by Serrano and Brule Sioux legends.
© 2003-2005 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved.

**********************************************************

Dana Redcloud screamed in pain. Blood flowed quickly and easily from her. Jason Redcloud held his wife close.

"It'll be alright," he whispered into her ear. She screamed again. Jason looked to the end of the bed where a doctor sat, intent on his task.

Jason looked back to his wife. Her eyes met his and frosted over with the chill of death. Jason held his wife closer still, unknowing of what to do. Jason felt something leave his wife's body. Her spirit lingered near her husband. And then, something departed from Jason. The doctor held Jason's newborn baby in his arms, clean the young one off.



* * * * *



In a small trailer, just inside the door, a small shrine had been built up around a photograph of Dana Redcloud. Each night, like tonight, Jason sat in front of the shrine and prayed.

"When the hell are you going to give that up?" Jason's mother scolded. She was a haggard woman whose face had been cut and scarred by the knife of time.

"I will honor the spirit of my dead wife." Jason replied.

"And what of your son? When will you honor him with your presence? Or are you going to wait until he's dead, too, to pay any attention to him?"

Jason breathed deeply, his eyes closed.

"I will honor the spirit of my dead wife," he repeated.

"It's been three years, Jason. Do you expect your sister to raise your child forever?"

Jason breathed deep once again, ignoring his mother. He began a ritual chant.



* * * * *



"Are you okay, Jason?" Stan Barris asked. He was a big, burly man. The perfect kind of man to be a police officer on a reservation.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I guess I was just day-dreaming." Jason replied.

"We can't have our dispatcher day-dreaming," Officer Barris said. He took a seat next to Jason's small desk. "I know what it is. How long's it been?"

Jason hesitated, contemplating playing dumb, then decided to answer Barris straight. "Three years today."

"Jason, you cannot go on like this. Have you gone to see Chance Crow Dog?"

"I haven't seen him since she died."

"Go see him again. Maybe he can give you some medine," Barris urged.

"Nah, I'll be okay. Besides I got work-"

"I'll call in Lewis. Get him to come and cover for you today. Come on, Jason. At least go home. You're no good to us here if all you're going to do is let your mind wander." Jason saw that Barris wasn't going to budge on the matter, but decided to stay at work despite the officer's stubborn and stern manner.

Officer Barris stood to leave. "Thoughts of the dead will drive a man crazy. Thoughts of the dead will conjure the dead." The officer left Jason alone at his desk.



* * * * *



Grandmother Redcloud gathered many of her neighbors. Together they hauled away all of Dana's things, including those of Jason's shrine, and took them to a nearby caern. There they collected brush around the pile of things and set it all aflame. Offerings were made and prayers chanted. The smoke of a deceased woman's belongings filled the air.



* * * * *



Jason Redcloud stepped into his house later that day. with one look he saw the emptiness, the sace of nothingness that was once his whole life.

"Where are my things?" he demanded immediately.

"Come, have dinner," urged Grandmother Redcloud. She lay two plates on the fragile little table.

"Where are my things?" he demanded again.

Grandmother Redcloud continued her task of setting the table as she spoke. "We put that poor wife of yours to rest, like you should have."

"What are you talking about?"

She stopped finally. She stared at Jason. "We laid her things to rest. We took them down and did the ritual. Now come and eat."

"I can't believe you did this! How dare you! You had no right!"

"We did it for you! You were making yourself ill. Thoughts of the dead conjure the dead." She said.

"Shut-up! Who cares! It's my wife!" Jason turned and left the little trailer home, slamming the thin door behind him.



* * * * *



Jason Redcloud knew where he had to go, but he took his time getting there. He wandered the outskirts of the reservation avoiding contact with others. he wandered and wondered what had happened within history for his people to have to live like this. He wandered and wondered what he had done to deserve the life he was given.

A couple of times Jason stopped to watch the other little Indian families in their nightly rituals. He watched children play in the mud near the well that provided them with most of their water. He watched elders sitting on crickety old porches as crickety as them, gossiping down the sun whose figure took on a shabby shape in the distanced horizon reflecting off the wavering shabbiness of the world around him. He watched men return home from what work the could get that day to their little shacks and mobile trailers filled with families. He watched as men who couldn't or wouldn't find work open up another bottle of hope.

All of it made him miss his wife and son. All of it made him want to get away from here like his sister now living in New York with his own son. She was lucky enough to have found a white man to marry. They didn't live the high life, but then they weren't living here, either. Thinking of his sister he thought again of his son. And Jason felt alone.



* * * * *



Hours passed. The sun had set and the moon was now hanging high in the sky. Jason stepped into the circular caern. A pile of black and white ash lay at its center. Jason knelt before the ashes. A small tear came to him. Everything he had of his wife was now gone.

The air grew quiet. Everything came to a moment of stillness. Jason hated nights without a wind. He found it comforting to hear the nature about him rustling, speaking softly. Nights like these also brought an air that was warm, sticky and uncomfortable. So when the winds picked up again, Jason was quite relieved. The cool night air brushed his skin and gave him some relief from the days' happenings.

When the ashes rustled before him, Jason opened his eyes. The ashes blew around in a small circle. Some of them whipped close by his face almost playfully. Then the winds picked up, becoming fierce. Strands of Jason's hair thrashed about his face and nurturing the whirling whirlwind. The ashen whirlwind before Jason grew and grew until he became almost overwhelmed by it. He staggered to his feet as it attempted to engulf him. The windswept ash became a creature of air. And then, from within the devilish swirling beast stepped out the one person Jason never guessed he'd have a chance to see again. From within the whirlwind stepped out his wife, his love, Dana Redcloud.

"Dana?" Jason asked in a whisper.

"Jason, my dear," she answered with a sweet smile.

"Oh, how I've missed you!" he fell to his knees and embraced his wife's waist.

"I've missed you, too, my dear," she said.

"You've come back to me," he said.

"Because you need me," she answered.

Jason smiled. "Come. Let's go back home. Everyone will be so happy to see you again."

"No," Dana said firmly. "I cannot go with you."

"Why?"

Dana shook her head, her eyes focusing distantly looking for an answer. "I cannot... cannot stay."

Jason's smile disappeared. He stood before his wife. "I can't go on living like this. First you are taken from me. Then you come back, but only as if to tease me because now you tell me you will not stay. If I can't be with you in life, the I will join you in death." Excitement grew in Jason's voice as he grasped his wife's wrists, "Let me go with you back to the World of the Dead!"

Dana's face grew bright with a smile. "That we can do. Follow me." She left the caern, Jason following close behind. The landscape was dark around with the inky blackness of night. Soon, though, Jason realized his surroundings were being splashed with an odd glow of red light. The horizon looked like a distant forest fire at night, bright red and dancing. The voice of nature quieted. Trees quickly shriveled and charred black as soon as they came into Jason's view. He grew more and more frightened. But then his wife, Dana, turned and gave him a soft smile. "Come," she said as she led him. "It's not too much further."

She lead him through thick brambles. Jason found it tough to get through field. Yet, he noticed, his wife glided smoothly through it all. Once to the other end of the field they came to some foothills at the base of a large mountain. A single, small path skirted along the cliffs of the mountain. Jason followed Dana as they slowly made their way up along the path. Loose gravel and stones fell off the path and down the mountain to their right every step of the way.

At one point Jason stopped. Up ahead, perched precariously above the path, was an enormous boulder rocking back and forth ever so slightly, ready to fall down upon any passerby. Dana noticed that Jason had stopped. She, too, stopped and looked over her shoulder. "What's wrong?" she called back.

"That boulder. I know what that boulder is. It is the Stone of Judgment, isn't it?"

"Yes," she replied. "So?"

"If I've lived a good life, I'll pass safely. If not... i-it will fall on me and crush me."

"Jason, my dear," Dana said soothingly, "Trust me. It will not fall."

Jason could not bear the idea of being crushed under the immense weight of the boulder, but when his wife gave him a gentle smile his resolve changed. If he was to die on this night, what did it matter how he was to die? He crept slowly forward. After some small steps, he passed safely under the boulder and rejoined his wife at their previous steady pace. Long was their journey to reach the other side of the mountain. When at last they made it, they found a deep valley that had been carved by a trickling river of blood. The river ran deep and wide.

"I don't think we can cross this river," Jason said.

"You cannot," Dana said. "No living being can and you are not yet dead. But I can carry you on my back."

"B-but, I am so much bigger than you," Jason replied.

"That does not matter. Things that make sense in the Realm of the Living do not hold truth here in the Realm of the Dead." She explained.

Dana had been correct about the Stone of Judgment, so Jason let himself trust what she was telling him now. Despite Jason being bigger and heavier, as he climbed upon his wife's back she held him firmly and carried him easily. She simply walked into the river of blood. The river at its deepest came up to her neck, but never did she stop or slow in pace or show any sign of fatigue. It was not long before they were both on the other side of the river with nothing more than a layer of blood caked upon their skin to show for it.

Before them lay a solitary path surrounded only by darkness, as if it were suspended in the black void of a starless space.

"We must walk down this path. Once we do, there shall be no returning for you. They'll know you're not one of them," Dana told Jason.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Just because you're in the World of the Dead does not mean you have to be dead. You're not dead. Not yet, anyway."

"Will this cause a problem?"

"Some will ignore you, others will want to eat you. Almost all will want to kill you," Dana explained.

"Eat me? Why?"

"To consume your lifeforce. Some of the dead seek power and the only power we know is the consumption of the dead for their lifeforce."

"Well, why will almost all want me dead?" Jason asked.

"Jason, my dear... In the World of the Living, how often did you see spirits?" Dana asked in return.

"None until you," he answered.

"And how did seeing me make you feel?"

"Happy, of course! And a bit sad because it served as a bitter reminder that you were still dead."

"And?" She urged Jason to explain more.

"And hopeful that maybe you'd returned to me," he replied.

"And?" She coaxed once again. Jason withheld from answering. "Jason, my dear, I already know. You're only keeping the truth from yourself."

"I-I was afraid," Jason knew he couldn't lie to his wife. "I'm ashamed to admit it."

"Do not be ashamed. It is natural. Spirits are everywhere in the World of the Living. They are in the rock, in the sand, in the tree. Our ancestors, too, are always present. They are in the air. Yet we do not always see them. They rarely reveal themselves. There is no reason for them to do so. They are just there, existing, and that is all that is needed of them.

"When they finally do reveal themselves it is always with good reason and they must take care to do so. Most people have so little contact with the spirits around them that when a spirit does step forward the living become quite frightened. This is a perfectly natural thing due to a lack of contact and understanding. Therefore the living often fear spirits.

"It is the same in the World of the Dead. Not many living creatures have wandered this far. The spirits in the World of the Dead have legends of visits from the living, but few can claim to have had experiences themselves. When the spirits see you they, too, will become frightened just as you became frightened of me. Some who have lived before might envy you. Whatever the reason, as I said, most will try to kill you. Not all, but most."

"If it is so dangerous for me to walk down this path that lays before us, then why did you bring me this far?" Jason asked.

"Because that is what you wanted me to do. Loved ones fulfill the wishes of those they love, no matter the potential cost." Dana explained. "If you wish to be dead, then join me and walk this path where they will take your life."

Jason hesitated. "What of our son?"

"Your sister has done well by him and will continue to do so," Dana paused. "Though she cannot truly do all that he will need. In some areas, it will be best if you would take care of him. You can do it, my dear." Dana stared at her husband. For the first time, Jason did not see her as his wife, but as the spirit of her wife. A misty memory.

"You would make a good father," Dana said. The she added, "Trust me."

Jason looked over his shoulder across the thickly flowing river of blood. He looked down the narrow and deadly path with the precariously dangling boulder. He thought of the razor-sharp field of brambles he had to walk through. He knew he could trust his wife. He turned back to her. She smiled and pulled him close. His eyes closed as they kissed.



* * * * *



Jason's eyes snapped open. He was once again sitting in front of the ashes in the middle of the caern. A slight breeze shuffled the ashes. Jason was covered with caked blood, scrapes, cuts and bruises. Jason looked to the ashes, then to the sky. His wife was somewhere in the air. He smiled.

Jason got up off his knees and walked home.

Fun with Meez