Scott C. Wyatt's Blog
August 22, 2013
Excerpt #1 The Timeless Parables of the Lizard Men
Krueleig arrives each morning in the Remote Guidance Space Propulsion Laboratory shortly before third hour three twelve. He prepares himself for the day’s work by canistering warm liquid stimulant in a thermo-controlled container which he will wheel carefully to his workstation, trying not to tip it over as it is tall and heavy and has small wheels. He will also gather a breakfast container from the employee lounge, and then check for amended work assignments on the board. This is a useless step, as are many of his day to day “tasks,” as the passage of time “on project” are rarely under five generations. Changes are always slow coming and predictable. When he finally completes all the preparatory tasks necessary to begin his day, he plops himself down on the metal post at the center of the circular console that is his workstation. Krueleig is a cephalopod, and the post has a large metal ball at the top to which he is able to both restrict the leakage of black ink from his internal glands, as well as hold himself in place for the 37 and three tenths hour shift that is his normal workday. Some days the RGSPL pitches around quite wildly.
Before impaling himself on his post, Krueleig must first report each day to Silian, the overlord of his department. Silian is a Lizard Man that Krueleig despises with passion on account of the degrading way he continues to suggestively tailgate Krueleig’s wife, Leona Staufferengina. It is particularly annoying to Krueleig that Silian seems so lavishly to enjoy the idea of getting a little too drunk and following her around for the entire evening at the formal social events which the Science Lab throws every light-year tenth dot. Leona has always denied to Krueleig that there has ever been any inappropriate action towards her from Silian. But Krueleig had witnessed firsthand a long trail of black ink oozing from Silian’s pants leg at the seventh equinox party of the lord of Umbra. Krueleig had, sometime later, caught Silian smelling his tail (a disgusting practice) and leering directly at Leona from across the room. Leona, who was dancing with a group of female Rowshe, her best friends in all the galaxy, caught him looking and inadvertently, in her apparent nervousness, sneezed an ink blot all over the dance floor, quite nearly soiling the pants-leg of Major Queequeg Van Shippensburg, as he danced obliviously with a svelte manatee in a tight fitting spandex muumuu. Krueleig grew, predictably, even more suspicious then, but as yet he has not been able to lay down definitive proof of impropriety. In the meanwhile, Krueleig would choose to leverage every scrap of doubt that he could use to console himself. For her part, Leona explained away the splatter of ink on the dance floor by calling attention to a long standing sinus infection in her right third armpit combined with a case of the nerves relating to how important it was to the career of Krueleig that Silian find her, and therefore Krueleig (by association), kindred spirits to his cause of advancing the enlightenment of the Hoard Injustice philosophy throughout the galaxy. This explanation (rattled off in one - lung defying sentence), Krueleig accepted acrimoniously, wanting it to be the truth although quite realistically, the margins were slim.
All the same, Krueleig hates Silian, feels justified in doing so, and retaliates in the only practical way that he knows how. He has denied revealing to Silian the discovery of a new life form in the galaxy, a pitiful race of dry, dusty, small-eyed beings inhabiting the third planet in orbit around a small G2V class Hydrogen star out in the 14th Delphnine sector. Krueleig has not reported his discovery, the discovery of his team leader actually (as Silian will certainly be awarded full credit – as well as the free four parsecs supply of liquid dish detergent and putric cesspool scented fabric softener), a man too self-absorbed to do any more than strut round the remote star vehicle’s command center gazing at himself in the large eye pools of the skein of cephalopods that are the true backbone of the organization. (Of course, the term backbone in this description is somewhat ironic, as there are fewer than seven actual backbones in the entire inter-galaxy department of unassigned life form acquisitions). A move that could potentially result in getting him sentenced to being rolled in abrasive quartz and salt crystals, backed into a tight fitting mason jar and placed on a shelf in the overlord pantry next to similarly packed (but exquisitely colored) sea cucumbers (sad pathetic creatures).
At any rate, Krueleig has come to work every day for the past three weeks and steered his remote drone, the Quepdo, across this tiny solar system as an invisible taunt to the self-centeredness of Silian, not so much as scorching the surface of the tiny planet of humanoids with opium soot or even doing as little as playing them the Bagdasarian national anthem, a tune so erotic that it has been known to triple the population of Black Robe Bi-Pedophiles and Second Mile first-responders on any planet that it is played in the general direction of. No, instead, Krueleig has simply gone about the business of docking with a small ice moon that is circling a drearily colored gas giant. The giant has its own cone-of-shame style rings of ice which give it the general appearance of malaise. It was attractive to Krueleig only because he had decided fill the Quepdo’s storage holds with repugnant and worthless chunks of what really amounts to no more than frost buildup freezer ice. When the expedition finally makes its destination in the Pleistocene quadrant, they will lose a full shift of indentured slave labor hours cleaning out the stinking mess, and Silian will look, for all intents and purposes like a publicly elected, and liberal, socialist senator.
Before impaling himself on his post, Krueleig must first report each day to Silian, the overlord of his department. Silian is a Lizard Man that Krueleig despises with passion on account of the degrading way he continues to suggestively tailgate Krueleig’s wife, Leona Staufferengina. It is particularly annoying to Krueleig that Silian seems so lavishly to enjoy the idea of getting a little too drunk and following her around for the entire evening at the formal social events which the Science Lab throws every light-year tenth dot. Leona has always denied to Krueleig that there has ever been any inappropriate action towards her from Silian. But Krueleig had witnessed firsthand a long trail of black ink oozing from Silian’s pants leg at the seventh equinox party of the lord of Umbra. Krueleig had, sometime later, caught Silian smelling his tail (a disgusting practice) and leering directly at Leona from across the room. Leona, who was dancing with a group of female Rowshe, her best friends in all the galaxy, caught him looking and inadvertently, in her apparent nervousness, sneezed an ink blot all over the dance floor, quite nearly soiling the pants-leg of Major Queequeg Van Shippensburg, as he danced obliviously with a svelte manatee in a tight fitting spandex muumuu. Krueleig grew, predictably, even more suspicious then, but as yet he has not been able to lay down definitive proof of impropriety. In the meanwhile, Krueleig would choose to leverage every scrap of doubt that he could use to console himself. For her part, Leona explained away the splatter of ink on the dance floor by calling attention to a long standing sinus infection in her right third armpit combined with a case of the nerves relating to how important it was to the career of Krueleig that Silian find her, and therefore Krueleig (by association), kindred spirits to his cause of advancing the enlightenment of the Hoard Injustice philosophy throughout the galaxy. This explanation (rattled off in one - lung defying sentence), Krueleig accepted acrimoniously, wanting it to be the truth although quite realistically, the margins were slim.
All the same, Krueleig hates Silian, feels justified in doing so, and retaliates in the only practical way that he knows how. He has denied revealing to Silian the discovery of a new life form in the galaxy, a pitiful race of dry, dusty, small-eyed beings inhabiting the third planet in orbit around a small G2V class Hydrogen star out in the 14th Delphnine sector. Krueleig has not reported his discovery, the discovery of his team leader actually (as Silian will certainly be awarded full credit – as well as the free four parsecs supply of liquid dish detergent and putric cesspool scented fabric softener), a man too self-absorbed to do any more than strut round the remote star vehicle’s command center gazing at himself in the large eye pools of the skein of cephalopods that are the true backbone of the organization. (Of course, the term backbone in this description is somewhat ironic, as there are fewer than seven actual backbones in the entire inter-galaxy department of unassigned life form acquisitions). A move that could potentially result in getting him sentenced to being rolled in abrasive quartz and salt crystals, backed into a tight fitting mason jar and placed on a shelf in the overlord pantry next to similarly packed (but exquisitely colored) sea cucumbers (sad pathetic creatures).
At any rate, Krueleig has come to work every day for the past three weeks and steered his remote drone, the Quepdo, across this tiny solar system as an invisible taunt to the self-centeredness of Silian, not so much as scorching the surface of the tiny planet of humanoids with opium soot or even doing as little as playing them the Bagdasarian national anthem, a tune so erotic that it has been known to triple the population of Black Robe Bi-Pedophiles and Second Mile first-responders on any planet that it is played in the general direction of. No, instead, Krueleig has simply gone about the business of docking with a small ice moon that is circling a drearily colored gas giant. The giant has its own cone-of-shame style rings of ice which give it the general appearance of malaise. It was attractive to Krueleig only because he had decided fill the Quepdo’s storage holds with repugnant and worthless chunks of what really amounts to no more than frost buildup freezer ice. When the expedition finally makes its destination in the Pleistocene quadrant, they will lose a full shift of indentured slave labor hours cleaning out the stinking mess, and Silian will look, for all intents and purposes like a publicly elected, and liberal, socialist senator.
Excerpt #2 From Wax Dragon
They were hiding at the front corner of a wood sided house. The house had wildly overgrown shrubs – the bad neighbor – all around it. In the corner was an enormous bush and they slipped into the low space below it against the house. There was little space for them both –crouching – but Daniel felt it a good spot for a short time, they could run in a number of different directions as needed – if they needed to. He was thinking. Not far off they could hear the truck, occasional shouting, and then they could hear a second truck. Daniel resisted the urge to run again. If there were many of them they would hold the upper hand right now. They waited. Five minutes, fifteen, half an hour passed. Occasionally they heard shouts. The shouts hopped around the neighborhood; popping up first far out, then near, to the left, then off again. The truck seemed to be running up and down the outer drive, but had not been tracing up and down the smaller streets. Isobel began to fidget. She was growing uncomfortable and Daniel grew angry towards her. His legs were screaming in a cramp and he had been suppressing the need to move.
She began to shift. She was first trying to peer out of the bushes and then trying to find a place to stretch her legs. He closed his eyes. He forced her out of his mind. The burn was shooting up his thighs. He opened his eyes and looked at her, her eyes were pleading. He nodded. She showed relief. They began to wiggle slowly.
He was in agony. His muscles were on fire. He wanted to move quickly out, but resisted the urge and unpacked himself slowly. He rolled forward, crawling out of the bushes along the side of the house, away from the street. When he had moved part way and stopped he felt her slipping over him, crawling over him slowly to emerge first. He let her come, buying time to allow his pain to subside. She passed him and crawled out first. He followed.
They didn’t emerge fully. They both stopped in a small strip of shade underneath the large shrub. They were exposed, but not out of cover. She turned to him with a worried look that transformed quickly into a look of relief. He smiled and blinked. A warm smile spread across her own face.
Their expressions sank simultaneously. A low swishing sound in the grass in the lawn before them – footfalls – were nearly on them. Dread filled Daniel in a rush of heat and sweat. They froze – both of them. Daniel was lying on the shotgun. He had allowed it beneath him while he crawled. The swishing stopped; footfalls were on them now. They looked up. Ed was standing over them with a rifle in his hand. He was holding it, not brandishing it. They all regarded one another without moving, seconds passed.
“Ed.” A whispered call from behind him floated in. Ed shot his hand out behind him in a ‘wait’ signal. He didn’t move his head. He was looking at Isobel, but he cocked his head funny.
“Ed.” The whisper, lower. Ed turned back angrily and held up a finger. He gave a stern look and then turned back slowly towards them. He looked at Isobel, coldly at first, and then his expression changed to sadness. He looked at Daniel for a flash – a blink – but turned his eyes back to Isobel. They watched him struggle with himself. It was a painful wash of emotions, visible in his eyes. He held his ground for thirty seconds, forty-five.
“Ed, what do you see?” The whisper was urgent, pressing.
Ed turned. “I thought I saw a fucking rabbit, you asshole,” Ed said to the man in a low whispered, angry voice. “Not that I’d ever get the fucking chance to shoot one,” he breathed. “What with me chaperoning Mrs. Peterson’s fucking third grade class on a god damn field trip to the petting zoo today, you fucking idiot,” he berated the man coldly. “Bobby, what the fuck are you doing on my side of the street?!” he asked angrily. “Will you be able to do any single fucking thing that I tell you at some point?”
“I just…,” the young man warbled.
“You just nothing, you fucking retard,” Ed went on, “get your ass across the street and try to find whatever or whoever the fuck we are looking for!”
“Ed,” the young voice pleaded again. “Ed, I don’t want to find those people.” He was earnest. “I ain’t up for this shit, Ed. That guy killed Cody fucking dead as Sunday fucking dinner, and beat John Ray all fuck shit so you can’t hardly recognize him – face all smashed…,” he sputtered, “swollen up like a damn cantaloupe.” The boy had fear in his voice. “I think the very last thing in this whole world that I want to have happen right now is for me to stumble across those people. I ain’t into dyin’ today, Ed. I just want to get done and get back in one piece. I don’t give a shit about some random folks hiding out in this fucking backwater town…”
“You shut the fuck up, Bobby. Parker hears shit like that come out of your mouth he will sure as hell shut you the fuck up for you.”
“Ed I ain’t….”
“Bobby, shut your trap!” he told him “And get your ass back to the truck!”
The young man, who they had not seen, turned and hurried away. Ed stood watching the boy, and then he turned to Isobel, looked at Daniel and then Isobel again, drew breath and then followed the young man away.
Daniel and Isobel shrank in relief. – Thank God for unrequited love.
Wax Dragon
She began to shift. She was first trying to peer out of the bushes and then trying to find a place to stretch her legs. He closed his eyes. He forced her out of his mind. The burn was shooting up his thighs. He opened his eyes and looked at her, her eyes were pleading. He nodded. She showed relief. They began to wiggle slowly.
He was in agony. His muscles were on fire. He wanted to move quickly out, but resisted the urge and unpacked himself slowly. He rolled forward, crawling out of the bushes along the side of the house, away from the street. When he had moved part way and stopped he felt her slipping over him, crawling over him slowly to emerge first. He let her come, buying time to allow his pain to subside. She passed him and crawled out first. He followed.
They didn’t emerge fully. They both stopped in a small strip of shade underneath the large shrub. They were exposed, but not out of cover. She turned to him with a worried look that transformed quickly into a look of relief. He smiled and blinked. A warm smile spread across her own face.
Their expressions sank simultaneously. A low swishing sound in the grass in the lawn before them – footfalls – were nearly on them. Dread filled Daniel in a rush of heat and sweat. They froze – both of them. Daniel was lying on the shotgun. He had allowed it beneath him while he crawled. The swishing stopped; footfalls were on them now. They looked up. Ed was standing over them with a rifle in his hand. He was holding it, not brandishing it. They all regarded one another without moving, seconds passed.
“Ed.” A whispered call from behind him floated in. Ed shot his hand out behind him in a ‘wait’ signal. He didn’t move his head. He was looking at Isobel, but he cocked his head funny.
“Ed.” The whisper, lower. Ed turned back angrily and held up a finger. He gave a stern look and then turned back slowly towards them. He looked at Isobel, coldly at first, and then his expression changed to sadness. He looked at Daniel for a flash – a blink – but turned his eyes back to Isobel. They watched him struggle with himself. It was a painful wash of emotions, visible in his eyes. He held his ground for thirty seconds, forty-five.
“Ed, what do you see?” The whisper was urgent, pressing.
Ed turned. “I thought I saw a fucking rabbit, you asshole,” Ed said to the man in a low whispered, angry voice. “Not that I’d ever get the fucking chance to shoot one,” he breathed. “What with me chaperoning Mrs. Peterson’s fucking third grade class on a god damn field trip to the petting zoo today, you fucking idiot,” he berated the man coldly. “Bobby, what the fuck are you doing on my side of the street?!” he asked angrily. “Will you be able to do any single fucking thing that I tell you at some point?”
“I just…,” the young man warbled.
“You just nothing, you fucking retard,” Ed went on, “get your ass across the street and try to find whatever or whoever the fuck we are looking for!”
“Ed,” the young voice pleaded again. “Ed, I don’t want to find those people.” He was earnest. “I ain’t up for this shit, Ed. That guy killed Cody fucking dead as Sunday fucking dinner, and beat John Ray all fuck shit so you can’t hardly recognize him – face all smashed…,” he sputtered, “swollen up like a damn cantaloupe.” The boy had fear in his voice. “I think the very last thing in this whole world that I want to have happen right now is for me to stumble across those people. I ain’t into dyin’ today, Ed. I just want to get done and get back in one piece. I don’t give a shit about some random folks hiding out in this fucking backwater town…”
“You shut the fuck up, Bobby. Parker hears shit like that come out of your mouth he will sure as hell shut you the fuck up for you.”
“Ed I ain’t….”
“Bobby, shut your trap!” he told him “And get your ass back to the truck!”
The young man, who they had not seen, turned and hurried away. Ed stood watching the boy, and then he turned to Isobel, looked at Daniel and then Isobel again, drew breath and then followed the young man away.
Daniel and Isobel shrank in relief. – Thank God for unrequited love.
Wax Dragon
August 9, 2013
Excerpt from Wax Dragon
The two men relaxed on wooden chairs in the yard near the cooking station. They kept a licking fire going, and although it lacked the charm of a campfire, the light was welcome against the unfamiliarity of the land. The boy had gone to bed in the tent some thirty minutes earlier. John had offered Daniel a place in the tent that he shared with the boy but it was from politeness only and Daniel declined it with a plan to sleep in the barn. The two men were satisfied with the arrangement and, the evening’s business concluded, sat in thoughtful silence before the fire.
Daniel was the first to break the quiet. “Can I ask you…” His voice travelled off. He considered the questions he wanted answered, and the possibility that he didn’t want to know. “You said this place belonged to friends,” he switched. “Will you stay here?”
John regarded him as if he was picking through an assortment of words like puzzle pieces, seeking specific pieces: the corner pieces, or the edge pieces.
“Don’t know much about what happened,” John began, answering the real question. “I missed most of it: all of it really. The boy is the only person I know of so far that wasn’t sick through it, and he’s hardly said a word since. He won’t talk about it if I ask him, and because I don’t blame him, I haven’t pressed. If he has something to tell me about it, I guess he will… in his own time.”
“You were sick, too?”
“I was,” John answered. “For quite a stretch of days.” John began a methodical and patient telling. “Wife got it first. She was feverish in the morning as I left home. Stayed in bed all day while I went to work. Lot of call-ins that day, nine people at work out of thirteen. It was Friday. When I got home she was asleep on the couch, feverish and damp, nothing alarming at that moment. I got her a cool towel and made dinner for the children and sent them off to bed all. The two older kids were cranky and I’d had enough of them by the end of the meal. Wife wouldn’t get up to move to the bedroom and I couldn’t bring myself to disturb her – seemed unkind to. Didn’t even turn the television on that night. Went on to bed feeling ill myself: aches and pains, stuffy head. Not unusual for me in spring to have hay fever. I didn’t wake up again for days. It was the ninth when I knew my surroundings again – Thursday! Wife gone, two children gone in their beds.” John paused and breathed deeply. The fire crackled absently. Daniel held his silence. “When I was well enough to stumble around the house I found my boy…” John looked over his shoulder to the tent behind him, his elbows were on his knees and his hands wrapped around one another – clasped in prayer. “…in the backyard in his pajamas. He was…” John’s voice hitched suddenly with emotion. The two men passed some minutes in silence. “Boy never got sick,” John finally contributed. Daniel ignored his eyes that were full and red. “He sat by and watched as the Good Lord took my wife and my other children. Watched all of mankind and everyone he knew get taken away.” His voice tailed off. John struggled to compose himself. Time passed.
“I don’t even remember getting sick,” Daniel finally injected. “I simply came slowly around after days of it. Took me days to even get my mind around the fact that something was really wrong. I haven’t talked to a soul until now. So I have no idea what happened. No television, haven’t seen a newspaper yet. Was at a truck stop that had a newspaper stand, but the headlines were about random local events and it didn’t enter my mind to take one.”
John looked searchingly at Daniel. He seemed to be holding back his message. Finally he spoke. “I hope you don’t mind if I tell you Daniel that I believe that God called his people home.” He let the sentence hang in the air with the night.
“The Rapture?”
“I believe it,” John returned confidently. “I believe that the Rapture occurred and God has called his faithful home. That those of us who remain now face the Tribulation, the time when the Devil will rule the earth for seven years.”
Daniel sat quietly, pondering. He knew he would not be able to support an argument against John’s claim. He thought of the killing on the highway, the sudden disappearance of nearly every being, and lack of plausible alternatives. These things would lend themselves to John’s conclusion. But in his mind the Rapture was a simple impossibility.
“I know you are skeptical, Daniel,” John comforted. “I know that you do not accept that Jesus has come down to the earth and called home the faithful. But I would tell you to seek Him and allow Him to come into your heart. It is you and I that He calls for now: those who are well meaning and good but who haven’t opened their hearts to Him.”
Daniel forced a smile for John’s benefit. He did not intend it to be condescending, but it was so. He considered his words. He had appreciated John’s generosity. “I know you are a good man, John,” Daniel began. “I think maybe you have seen some, or enough, evidence to support what you say as right. For my part I know I have already witnessed evil. But I am not convinced that we have seen the Rapture. I won’t deny that, in the end, I may have to change my mind. The evidence may present itself, but the evil I witnessed was not the work of the devil but rather the kind of cruelty that exists in some people who thrive when there is a collapse of authority. People who cannot govern themselves properly and can project only suffering.”
“You only need to look around you, Daniel.” John had a hint of pleading in his voice. Daniel paused, not answering him. “Tell me,” he continued, “What reasons would you have to doubt Him, at this time, and under these circumstances. Even without using the word ‘Rapture’ you can hardly ignore the profound spiritual implications of what’s happened.”
“Don’t you doubt?”
John flinched. “I have doubted, Daniel,” He carried on. “It is why I am here, I think.” He dropped his eyes and gathered himself together. “My wife was a good woman and she had a strong faith. She took our kids every Sunday to church while I stayed home and mowed our lawn and ran errands. Fixed things.” He looked to Daniel – an appeal. “I’m not at all unlike you, Dan. I doubted. I put forth little effort for religious things. I believed, you understand, and in my heart I felt that I believed truly, but I wasn’t committed. I gave no real effort but to things I could touch.” John stroked his face, covering his eyes in a downward sweep of his hand. “Everything is changed for me. I know that I was left behind on purpose. I don’t know what that purpose is yet. But I believe that my soul hangs in the balance for it. Maybe the soul of my boy as well.” John paused in the firelight and seemed to try to draw himself together from the darkness.
“I believe that I have some role to fill.” He went on. “I am afraid of it. I am afraid that I will fail, that I will fail the boy, or that I will fail my wife. I am afraid that I will fail God.” John was talking to himself now. “I woke up one morning to find the world and nearly everyone in it had died in the night. The bible says that Jesus will take his followers like a thief in the night. I believe that’s what happened. Maybe not just like the bible said.” He paused. “You see, I had teased my wife sometimes about her faith. The bible says 144,000 will be called home in the rapture. I used to tell her. Hell, there are 250 million souls alive in America alone! If the rapture came,” I reasoned, “You’d no more notice one hundred forty four thousand than you would notice the day-to-day wear on the souls of your shoes!” John huffed out an embarrassed laugh, remembering. Daniel returned a sympathetic smile.
“’You don’t know everything, John’, she used to tell me. ‘Don’t question the mind of God.’” John watched the licks of fire, his mind on distant memories. The two men sat quite a while in silence.
“So what will you do?” Daniel finally asked him.
John glanced quickly at him with a serious eye. He placed his hands together flatly and gently rubbed them north to south against each other in thought.
“I will take my boy and walk into the wilderness, Daniel. I will turn my back on the world of things and of men and turn towards God. I know how to live off the land, and right now I feel like we are in this mess because we forgot about the land. We forgot how to be IN the world He designed for us and instead lived ON it; making it over in a way that suited us and was in no way similar to the way He intended.”
“So why not stay here?” Daniel wondered to him. “It is a farm after all, and you could set up to live pretty well, I would think.”
“Have you ever noticed that in all the bible stories anything of consequence happens either in the mountains or in the desert? Noah lands the Arc on a mountain. Moses gets the commandments. All these happened in the mountains. Moses wanders the desert for forty years. Jesus is tempted? What ever happened in a city? The Passion and crucifixion? The money changers in the temple? Those are all terrible things. Mankind has failed God, and God has rendered a judgment. I can’t do anything about mankind. The world, I believe will run according to the prophecies that have been laid out for it. I can only answer for myself.” John turned his head around towards the tent again as if he needed to acknowledge the presence of his son. “He and I – my boy and me – have failed Him in some way that is as deep as the ocean and I feel that God will guide me if I allow it and my faith in Him will reach a place where I can regain salvation. I want eternal life, Daniel, and what these events have proved to me is that our God is a powerful and fearsome force, but I know also that He is a just and loving God. I have been a fool in my life because I worked for a lawn free from weeds, a nice car and a wide screen TV.” John held out his hands. “In the face of this kind of power? I used to let my life revolve around making payments: mortgage, car loan, taxes. What does God have to do with those things? I owe it to my boy, and my wife and children that the Lord feels we’re ready to join by His side, as they were. My eyes have been opened, and I am ready to look into the light.”
Daniel eyed him in silence. There is nothing to say to a man who knows what he believes, and knows the course of action he needs for himself. He pursed his lips and gave John a nod.
“Why don’t you come along with us, Dan?” John asked finally. It was a heartfelt and an honest request. “You would be better to stay away from the madness that’s about to descend on the world.”
“I have to find out about my own family,” Daniel answered him. “And they are a long way from here, and nowhere near either a mountain or a desert.” He smiled, refusing John gently. “I agree with you that the world, what’s left of it, will come across troubled times, but I also know that I believe that evil consumes itself. I’m more afraid of stupidity. What I need, right now, is to know the condition of my family. I have a daughter who is just becoming an adult and she will need me. Hell, I need her. She’s my family; it’s all that I have left.”
John nodded to him sympathetically. The two men fell into silence.
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Wax Dragon
Daniel was the first to break the quiet. “Can I ask you…” His voice travelled off. He considered the questions he wanted answered, and the possibility that he didn’t want to know. “You said this place belonged to friends,” he switched. “Will you stay here?”
John regarded him as if he was picking through an assortment of words like puzzle pieces, seeking specific pieces: the corner pieces, or the edge pieces.
“Don’t know much about what happened,” John began, answering the real question. “I missed most of it: all of it really. The boy is the only person I know of so far that wasn’t sick through it, and he’s hardly said a word since. He won’t talk about it if I ask him, and because I don’t blame him, I haven’t pressed. If he has something to tell me about it, I guess he will… in his own time.”
“You were sick, too?”
“I was,” John answered. “For quite a stretch of days.” John began a methodical and patient telling. “Wife got it first. She was feverish in the morning as I left home. Stayed in bed all day while I went to work. Lot of call-ins that day, nine people at work out of thirteen. It was Friday. When I got home she was asleep on the couch, feverish and damp, nothing alarming at that moment. I got her a cool towel and made dinner for the children and sent them off to bed all. The two older kids were cranky and I’d had enough of them by the end of the meal. Wife wouldn’t get up to move to the bedroom and I couldn’t bring myself to disturb her – seemed unkind to. Didn’t even turn the television on that night. Went on to bed feeling ill myself: aches and pains, stuffy head. Not unusual for me in spring to have hay fever. I didn’t wake up again for days. It was the ninth when I knew my surroundings again – Thursday! Wife gone, two children gone in their beds.” John paused and breathed deeply. The fire crackled absently. Daniel held his silence. “When I was well enough to stumble around the house I found my boy…” John looked over his shoulder to the tent behind him, his elbows were on his knees and his hands wrapped around one another – clasped in prayer. “…in the backyard in his pajamas. He was…” John’s voice hitched suddenly with emotion. The two men passed some minutes in silence. “Boy never got sick,” John finally contributed. Daniel ignored his eyes that were full and red. “He sat by and watched as the Good Lord took my wife and my other children. Watched all of mankind and everyone he knew get taken away.” His voice tailed off. John struggled to compose himself. Time passed.
“I don’t even remember getting sick,” Daniel finally injected. “I simply came slowly around after days of it. Took me days to even get my mind around the fact that something was really wrong. I haven’t talked to a soul until now. So I have no idea what happened. No television, haven’t seen a newspaper yet. Was at a truck stop that had a newspaper stand, but the headlines were about random local events and it didn’t enter my mind to take one.”
John looked searchingly at Daniel. He seemed to be holding back his message. Finally he spoke. “I hope you don’t mind if I tell you Daniel that I believe that God called his people home.” He let the sentence hang in the air with the night.
“The Rapture?”
“I believe it,” John returned confidently. “I believe that the Rapture occurred and God has called his faithful home. That those of us who remain now face the Tribulation, the time when the Devil will rule the earth for seven years.”
Daniel sat quietly, pondering. He knew he would not be able to support an argument against John’s claim. He thought of the killing on the highway, the sudden disappearance of nearly every being, and lack of plausible alternatives. These things would lend themselves to John’s conclusion. But in his mind the Rapture was a simple impossibility.
“I know you are skeptical, Daniel,” John comforted. “I know that you do not accept that Jesus has come down to the earth and called home the faithful. But I would tell you to seek Him and allow Him to come into your heart. It is you and I that He calls for now: those who are well meaning and good but who haven’t opened their hearts to Him.”
Daniel forced a smile for John’s benefit. He did not intend it to be condescending, but it was so. He considered his words. He had appreciated John’s generosity. “I know you are a good man, John,” Daniel began. “I think maybe you have seen some, or enough, evidence to support what you say as right. For my part I know I have already witnessed evil. But I am not convinced that we have seen the Rapture. I won’t deny that, in the end, I may have to change my mind. The evidence may present itself, but the evil I witnessed was not the work of the devil but rather the kind of cruelty that exists in some people who thrive when there is a collapse of authority. People who cannot govern themselves properly and can project only suffering.”
“You only need to look around you, Daniel.” John had a hint of pleading in his voice. Daniel paused, not answering him. “Tell me,” he continued, “What reasons would you have to doubt Him, at this time, and under these circumstances. Even without using the word ‘Rapture’ you can hardly ignore the profound spiritual implications of what’s happened.”
“Don’t you doubt?”
John flinched. “I have doubted, Daniel,” He carried on. “It is why I am here, I think.” He dropped his eyes and gathered himself together. “My wife was a good woman and she had a strong faith. She took our kids every Sunday to church while I stayed home and mowed our lawn and ran errands. Fixed things.” He looked to Daniel – an appeal. “I’m not at all unlike you, Dan. I doubted. I put forth little effort for religious things. I believed, you understand, and in my heart I felt that I believed truly, but I wasn’t committed. I gave no real effort but to things I could touch.” John stroked his face, covering his eyes in a downward sweep of his hand. “Everything is changed for me. I know that I was left behind on purpose. I don’t know what that purpose is yet. But I believe that my soul hangs in the balance for it. Maybe the soul of my boy as well.” John paused in the firelight and seemed to try to draw himself together from the darkness.
“I believe that I have some role to fill.” He went on. “I am afraid of it. I am afraid that I will fail, that I will fail the boy, or that I will fail my wife. I am afraid that I will fail God.” John was talking to himself now. “I woke up one morning to find the world and nearly everyone in it had died in the night. The bible says that Jesus will take his followers like a thief in the night. I believe that’s what happened. Maybe not just like the bible said.” He paused. “You see, I had teased my wife sometimes about her faith. The bible says 144,000 will be called home in the rapture. I used to tell her. Hell, there are 250 million souls alive in America alone! If the rapture came,” I reasoned, “You’d no more notice one hundred forty four thousand than you would notice the day-to-day wear on the souls of your shoes!” John huffed out an embarrassed laugh, remembering. Daniel returned a sympathetic smile.
“’You don’t know everything, John’, she used to tell me. ‘Don’t question the mind of God.’” John watched the licks of fire, his mind on distant memories. The two men sat quite a while in silence.
“So what will you do?” Daniel finally asked him.
John glanced quickly at him with a serious eye. He placed his hands together flatly and gently rubbed them north to south against each other in thought.
“I will take my boy and walk into the wilderness, Daniel. I will turn my back on the world of things and of men and turn towards God. I know how to live off the land, and right now I feel like we are in this mess because we forgot about the land. We forgot how to be IN the world He designed for us and instead lived ON it; making it over in a way that suited us and was in no way similar to the way He intended.”
“So why not stay here?” Daniel wondered to him. “It is a farm after all, and you could set up to live pretty well, I would think.”
“Have you ever noticed that in all the bible stories anything of consequence happens either in the mountains or in the desert? Noah lands the Arc on a mountain. Moses gets the commandments. All these happened in the mountains. Moses wanders the desert for forty years. Jesus is tempted? What ever happened in a city? The Passion and crucifixion? The money changers in the temple? Those are all terrible things. Mankind has failed God, and God has rendered a judgment. I can’t do anything about mankind. The world, I believe will run according to the prophecies that have been laid out for it. I can only answer for myself.” John turned his head around towards the tent again as if he needed to acknowledge the presence of his son. “He and I – my boy and me – have failed Him in some way that is as deep as the ocean and I feel that God will guide me if I allow it and my faith in Him will reach a place where I can regain salvation. I want eternal life, Daniel, and what these events have proved to me is that our God is a powerful and fearsome force, but I know also that He is a just and loving God. I have been a fool in my life because I worked for a lawn free from weeds, a nice car and a wide screen TV.” John held out his hands. “In the face of this kind of power? I used to let my life revolve around making payments: mortgage, car loan, taxes. What does God have to do with those things? I owe it to my boy, and my wife and children that the Lord feels we’re ready to join by His side, as they were. My eyes have been opened, and I am ready to look into the light.”
Daniel eyed him in silence. There is nothing to say to a man who knows what he believes, and knows the course of action he needs for himself. He pursed his lips and gave John a nod.
“Why don’t you come along with us, Dan?” John asked finally. It was a heartfelt and an honest request. “You would be better to stay away from the madness that’s about to descend on the world.”
“I have to find out about my own family,” Daniel answered him. “And they are a long way from here, and nowhere near either a mountain or a desert.” He smiled, refusing John gently. “I agree with you that the world, what’s left of it, will come across troubled times, but I also know that I believe that evil consumes itself. I’m more afraid of stupidity. What I need, right now, is to know the condition of my family. I have a daughter who is just becoming an adult and she will need me. Hell, I need her. She’s my family; it’s all that I have left.”
John nodded to him sympathetically. The two men fell into silence.
Visit my webpage at: www.scottcwyatt.com for some free reading.
Wax Dragon
May 15, 2013
Wax Dragon - Themes
The story pays homage to the Homeward Journey trope and is organized around some key elements of the Odyssey. It goes to some pains to re-focus the Homer epic through a set of modern filters; exploring the random influences of personality in isolated groups; and the power shifts that can occur based on who controls the security or resources. It also observes the interdependence of modern society on technology and our linked infrastructure from food stuffs to communication. Paramount to the story is the underlying exploration of gender roles in contemporary society. It identifies the shift of the male role in the marriage and family and his awkwardness in the new family paradigm. This new class arrangement is present in a culture in which women have gained ground following the defeat of the ERA amendment, and the decline of the entitled white male in the face of the emerging woman.
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A principle theme repaints the role of Odysseus as he is contrasted against the image of the faultless Penelope. Neither character can withstand the idealistic nature of their character trope and fail in their roles in predictable ways. Throughout history Odysseus has paid little to the debit of his transgressions against his marriage. In this story, Daniel as Odysseus must account for the fact that; only as a failing husband would he rather trundle off to war and adventure. In the story, Daniel is not an apologist for the new man, but rather he is clinging to the masculine role of man who is, at least, cognizant of the idea that male and female roles have changed. Daniel is rather critical of the new prescription as he doesn’t feel that it was as attractive to women as they thought it would be.
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The story is written from a severe singular First person perspective. The narrator is not the stories protagonist, but is trapped in his perspective throughout the story. The narrator does not always know what is in the characters mind, although his thoughts occasionally bleed through and into the telling as though he were watching the transcription and speaking over the author’s shoulder to limited effect. This method demonstrates a departure from many dystopian storylines in which the conditions are presented to the reader from an omniscient perspective on one hand, or hidden prejudicially in others. In the best of these stories; Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood hides the nature of the depopulation of the world from the reader, but in fact, Snowman has full knowledge of the history of his current condition throughout the telling, sharing the whole story only at the end. More likely to the common man in this scenario, the main character must struggle along with the reader to uncover the full details of his own story. In Oryx, Snowman is a convenient narrator. In this telling we encounter a common man who can only decipher the story with the evidence he is able to uncover, and without collusion, this task would become insurmountable.
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The story is set in the present day.
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For more information please visit my webpage at www.scottcwyatt.com
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A principle theme repaints the role of Odysseus as he is contrasted against the image of the faultless Penelope. Neither character can withstand the idealistic nature of their character trope and fail in their roles in predictable ways. Throughout history Odysseus has paid little to the debit of his transgressions against his marriage. In this story, Daniel as Odysseus must account for the fact that; only as a failing husband would he rather trundle off to war and adventure. In the story, Daniel is not an apologist for the new man, but rather he is clinging to the masculine role of man who is, at least, cognizant of the idea that male and female roles have changed. Daniel is rather critical of the new prescription as he doesn’t feel that it was as attractive to women as they thought it would be.
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The story is written from a severe singular First person perspective. The narrator is not the stories protagonist, but is trapped in his perspective throughout the story. The narrator does not always know what is in the characters mind, although his thoughts occasionally bleed through and into the telling as though he were watching the transcription and speaking over the author’s shoulder to limited effect. This method demonstrates a departure from many dystopian storylines in which the conditions are presented to the reader from an omniscient perspective on one hand, or hidden prejudicially in others. In the best of these stories; Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood hides the nature of the depopulation of the world from the reader, but in fact, Snowman has full knowledge of the history of his current condition throughout the telling, sharing the whole story only at the end. More likely to the common man in this scenario, the main character must struggle along with the reader to uncover the full details of his own story. In Oryx, Snowman is a convenient narrator. In this telling we encounter a common man who can only decipher the story with the evidence he is able to uncover, and without collusion, this task would become insurmountable.
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The story is set in the present day.
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For more information please visit my webpage at www.scottcwyatt.com
