Michael's tribe was one of warriors. Their magic was rooted in guttural blood-lust, the feeling of knife ripping into flesh and the enraged satisfaction of wound infliction, the tear of teeth in sinew. Their magic made them strong and fast and unafraid. T…

We had no neighbors. That was by design. Dad didn't like people. I didn't much care for them myself. So it was our livestock that died first. Dad hadn't even had a chance to step off the porch with that second post before the cows started keeling over. Th…

Doom fell from the sky that next day. At least, that's where we assumed it came from. There were mutterings in that cloudless expanse -- and rumors of mutterings. We had listened to them all that night and assumed they were the last breaths of the god-t…

"Son," he rasped, laying in his bed, sweating through the sheets.

"I'm here, Dad."

"Son, I need you to make the delivery."

"Dad, I'm not part of this family business! I made my life elsewhere!"

Coughing erupted from the old man and lasted for a full 30 se…

When I was younger I used to sneak up into my grandparent's attic to where they kept the old records. Next to the old wobbly bookcase was a wooden crate that held all of my grandparent's favorite songs. I would sit up in that attic listening to the reco…

Forbidden freshness cools beneath the boards

Unwilling hornets sting the burst balloon

And gnaw the captured heirs with sated swords,


Projected slowly into sprightly tune.

It's just as if he'd never left the stage,

The flaccid vaccination of the ill--

W…

Story is marked as mature

The third post, well... the third post didn't actually exist. Not in any way that mattered. It was an idea, if you will -- a concept, a metaphor. It was a lynchpin of belief. It was, of course, all hot air and bluster and metaphor, a puff of wind as insub…