Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Bone and Breath
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
They lured me here with promises of marriage. The best of men, the greatest of warriors was to be my husband.
We left my brother and sisters behind, taking the lightest chariot, the fastest horses, my mother and I. Chrysothemis and Elektra wept, covering their face with grief at our parting, but I saw their eyes, rich and dark with envy. My sisters swallowed down the bitter aloes of my marriage to Achilles, of my being chosen for such an honour.
How could we have known? Any of us, stupid girls. Stupid children. Even our mother was deceived.
We came to Aulis where Artemis had stilled the ships, all because my father had hunted sacred deer in the grove. Achilles waited, ardent, he himself taken in by my father’s promises.
Agamemnon sold me not for a bride-price but for a breath of wind.
I stepped from the chariot, all white and gold, the loveliest bride a man could hope for (if he could not have bright Helen to wife). My skin was pale, hair shining ringlets, eyes blue as the Aegean, my body ready for my bridegroom’s bond.
Father led me past Achilles, spoke to me quietly, told me it was my duty. He led me to the altar where Calchas stood, dagger in hand; where kindling had been laid in wait to carry the sacrifice upwards. Achilles wailed, a child deprived of his new toy, but he conceded soon enough to promises of greater treasure. Of his pick of the Trojan women.
My mother howled and I wondered for a moment if perhaps Hera might come to her aid. Might smite them down, all these men who thought it fair and just to cut short my life. Clytemnestra would not forgive and her vengeance would be terrible, but no more than my father deserved.
They speak of me as immortal. They say the goddess took pity on me and flew me away to Tauris, leaving a white hind in my place. They say a man there loved me, gave me children. That I had a long life far from here.
They lie. No god-blood in my veins. I was but flesh and blood, bone and breath and the blade was cold against my throat. I am another unhappy shade left to walk the dust of this earth.
Brains You Cannot Have
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
This story is the second in the Disco Zombie series.
The girl in the glittery black halter top shouted something.
“WHAT?” shouted Barry over the music. If you could even call it “music”: it was nothing but thumping and shouted rhymes. When did that become music? Barry would have killed to hear a good falsetto harmony–maybe some Bee Gees. Then again, he had already killed three times that night.
“I SAID, GREAT COSTUME!” she said, nodding and pointing at him. “DISCO ZOMBIE! I LOVE IT!” Then she shouted something else he couldn’t quite catch.
“WHAT?”
“I SAID, ARE YOU GOING TO EAT MY BRAINS?” She laughed, throwing her head back, letting her hair ripple down over her shoulders–but carelessly, like she didn’t even notice.
For answer, Barry shoved her behind the speakers and pressed her against the wall with his body. The thumping and shouting was still audible, but it was more distant, directed out and away from them.
“Wow, you’re strong,” she said. “You gonna kiss me? Take off the mask.”
Barry didn’t have a mask to take off, so instead he grabbed her head and squeezed with his fingers to crack her skull open the way he had cracked the other three skulls. Nothing. The others had been like eggs: this was like trying to crack a bowling ball.
“What are you doing?” she said. “God, why does it always have to be the weirdos?” Then she stretched her mouth wide to show two bone-white fangs and plunged them into his throat. She came back up, gagging, seconds later.
“Is that formadahyde?” she choked. “I haven’t tasted anything that bad in ages.” She made uncomfortable motions with her tongue. “So that makes you what, a real zombie?” She looked him over. “You preserved pretty well, all things considered.”
“Do you remember Disco?” Barry said.
“I remember Disco, the Mashed Potato, the Charleston … back in the 1720’s there was this hornpipe craze like you wouldn’t believe. But yeah, disco was something special.”
“We should dance.”
“I want to eat first. Hey! You know, if you and I go in together, it’s like a two-for-one special.”
“You don’t like the brains?”
She made a face.
They shared a personal injury lawyer in a back alley and went for a walk under the moon. If you are injured, you may check it now and find the top personal injury lawyers here. Later, she invited Barry back to her coffin, and at dawn they fell asleep there, dreaming of the black, gaping pit of infinite time.