The outlaw had won. He reclaimed what was stolen from him and saved the day. Years passed, and the thing about endings is that they are only as thick as a sheet of paper. And Justice ebbs and flows like the tide. He smelled smoke on the wind, and heard cries in the night. It was all happening again. Homes were burning. Families were losing everything. People were vanishing. He’d only won a few breaths of fresh air. He told himself that he was well out of it. But when he looked down the bow was already in his hands.
She found the pin-back button sitting in the bottom of her grandmother’s jewelry box. She almost pricked herself as she fished it out. It had been brightly painted, once. But he red white and blue front was faded and scratched. The blue ‘VOTE’ was still clear, but the name underneath it had worn away. She handed it to her grandmother. “Why do you keep this crusty old thing with all your nice jewelry?” The old woman looked at it, her eyes getting misty. “It’s from the first time I voted. I keep it to remember all the years I couldn’t.”
The sorceress stood before her table, accoutrements, tools, and exotic ingredients spread before her. When the first rays of dawn hit the table, she began to work, humming to herself and preparing her brew. Sharp smells and mechanical hisses filled the air. She filled two bone china cups, and set one before the beast in her parlor. “Thanks, Doll.” It said after draining the cup. “You know,” the sorceress said, sipping from her own. “Most familiars do this sort of thing for their Mistress. “I appreciate it, ma’am. But you know me. I’m a monster before I’ve had my coffee.”
He made a wish on a shooting star. He wished without thinking: for Success, Wellness, and Happiness. The meteor had no power to grant such things. But something, somewhere, heard him and the universe was rearranged. He stumbled across the perfect investment guide in the library, he ran into a personal trainer looking for clients, and his new neighbor invited him to her next game night. But the book languished on his bedside table. He put off booking his first training session. He forgot about the game night. The wish curdled. And the demon gained strength from the wasted potential.
We saw each other for the first time on a battlefield in ancient Greece, but promptly forgot it in the haze of fighting. I next met him in a bazaar decades later and hundred of miles away. After our third encounter in a century, we recognized each other for what we were. Immortals are rare, and guard their secrets jealously. Over the centuries, I sent my resources after him, and he did the same to me. It became something like a game, with move and countermove. Slowly, we even became friends. And finally, after millennia, we shared our first kiss.
On Halloween Night, the dead roamed the living world. The villagers sheltered on the hallowed ground of the church as ghouls and malevolent spirits raged outside. The priest tried to comfort and distract them with homilies and hymns, but he was no match for the groaning zombies and wailing ghosts outside. In the light of dawn, the villagers surveyed the damage. The air was hazy with smoke and smelled like rotting flesh. Trash and debris littered the streets. But what had been destroyed could be rebuilt, and the villagers counted their blessings. At east nobody was playing Christmas music yet.
I sat struggling to come up with a new story but finding myself utterly without inspiration. My muse sat across from me, smiling. When I first found my muse, I thought she would be a blessing. I thought she would fill my head with ideas, uncorking some font of inspiration in my brain. But I was wrong. Muses don’t give out ideas, they eat stories. It’s the finished product that is important. And mine was always hungry. I hurriedly typed with bandaged fingers, hoping to pick up brilliance along the way. It was a bad idea to make her wait.
The fishermen of the coast all avoided the sunken ruins. The fish were plentiful there, darting among coral that grew on the lost city’s tumbled stones. But the fishermen believed they were cursed. They would share reports of boats getting caught in sudden storms or foundering on hidden shoals in the area. They told tales of fools pulling up ancient treasures, only to be destroyed by them. And even whispered ghost stories of malevolent gods living int he sunken depths, whispering madness. But when the pirates came, the ruins were the one place that their ships would not pursue them.
The monster lived in phone lines. It was a being of waves as much as particles, too small to see but as large as a continent. It traveled by wire, only spotted in glimpses. Its roar was the static of a dropped call and it left footprints in the tangle of switchboard wires. But as the world upgraded to cell phones, its territory shrank. Soon it would have nowhere to hide. Just when it seemed like the creature was doomed, it caught the end of a fiber optic cable and jumped into a digital plain where it could run forever.
The former chancellor sat on his throne and felt the softness of the cushions. He suppressed a smile. The coup had taken years of hard work. First he’d gained the trust of the old king. Then he’d put his own men in positions of power. Finally, he slid the knife in. But it was done, and now he was king. It was time for his first meeting with his advisors. The doors opened and his fellow conspirators shuffled in. It struck him that if a man had seen something done, he could repeat it. The king began making new plans.
Hugh J. O'Donnell 