.
“It never rains, but it pours.”
The sea of stars over head beckoned me to come outside and play in the night.
Saturn awaited.
I could go outside of the ancient cabin, hop about on the surface of the moon for a while and explore, and when I was done exploring…
…take one huge leap towards the prettiest planet that ever existed.
I pulled away from the vastness of eternity and saw my own fraught face in the window pane. The lamplight flickered and I wavered. I was going away.
Time was short for me here.
I looked over to where Sean lied on the old wooden table.
Glinty had his back turned to me, which indicated trust.
I could see his backbone poking against the old, worn shirt. He looked quite frail at that moment.
He rummaged through a silk robe hanging from a nail in the wall. He brought out a pipe and a sack of tobacco and then went over to the hearth.
I followed him over to the chairs that faced the huge moonstone fireplace, with the black bear rug on the floor before it.
Glinty finished stuffing his pipe with tobacco and then he grabbed an ember with his fingers.
He pulled the pipe to his mouth and used the ember to ignite.
Then he turned around and exhaled. He nodded and smiled as I sat in one of the stuffed easy chairs.
He came and sat in the other one, and handed the pipe to me.
I shook my head.
He insisted, holding the pipe out further to me.
I abided, and smoked, and then he spoke.
"Art has no enemy except ignorance:
Better to bend than to break.
There are none so blind as those who can not see.
Blood is thicker than water.
Talk softly, but carry a big stick.
Clouds are lined with silver.
In the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king.
Fear is stronger than love.
Better that the foot slips than the tongue
It doesn't rain...
...until it pours...
...It never rains, but it pours."
Then he went on...
= = = = = = =
Tellesco missed his new girlfriend.
“Dance with me across the ocean floor.”
Tellesco sped off to Sean to get some direction from him. Sean would tell him what to do. He wanted help to find out why his new girlfriend had left him.
His wipers created a smear in the crashing rain and the blur of watercolor paint from only two hues in his headlamps:
Fear and Desire.
Such a dangerous combination.
He felt the easy glide of his fat tires with the chunky mud treads on them and heard their loud rumble moan as reassurance that everything would be ok as he sailed along in the black water.
All he wanted to do was dance with that pretty girl with the golden hair. She beckoned him.
He had never felt such a way before for anyone at all. She had an effect on him.
It seemed like she might have some answers.
All Sean did was protect him, and that was great and all, but sometimes, well, he felt a bit over-protected.
Kinda smothered or something.
Maybe this new chick would smother him in a different way.
He could use some mothering.
He felt it in his bones.
She had something to offer him.
When he was around her, he chust didn’t feel so sad.
+ + + + + + +
The smoke cleared my eyes.
I handed the pipe back to Glinty and eased back into my own easy chair. The fire crackled lazily in the absence of air in this ancient cabin on the surface of the moon.
In the back of my mind, I knew that time was short, and that Something Very Bad Was About To Happen, but I took this moment to relax and let it all slip away.
Glinty wanted to ease my troubled mind for the moment.
In my head, I saw the rings of a certain planet come closer, and then I landed on the innermost one.
All them particles, and I could stand on top of them.
Saturn loomed above me so huge that I almost fell over backwards.
I almost lost my footing. I would fall and spin off, away, into the emptiness.
That planet of pastel colors looked like it was painted by the retro chic artists of the 80’s.
Saturn: much larger than our tiny blue marble, Earth.
If Saturn was a bit larger, and had more mass, and it could be a star in its own right.
It is a star.
At least, that was what I was thinking when Glinty spoke again and brought me back to the easy chair in front of the fireplace.
I was back again, on the Moon. Fuck.
He said, “Good to see you relaxed. Now, not to harsh you, but I have to tell you thomething. You ready for it?”
I looked over at him from the hypnotic flames and nodded. My eyelids felt a bit droopy.
He went on. “You young men got a world of pain ahead of you. I hope you can bear it.”
Dayam. Way to kill a buzz Glinty McFlintlock.
I said, “We already feeling a world of pain.”
He nodded. “That’th good. It meanth you are alive. When you dead, you feel nothing at all.”
Awww fuck. I shook my head and closed my eyes.
= = = = = = =
Fat Jerry ignored the lights in his rearview mirror and the hunger in his crotch. Such a friggin animal. A troglodyte. A hedonist. A devil for pleasure, in a world of Mayhem.
He was going to collect the first Lump, pleasure be damned. Good for him. He would never have any Mettle at all, but this sort of thing was as close as he would ever get to showing compassion or rightful action.
It was all because of the debts he had incurred along his path. There is a difference between the price you pay, and the cost of it to you.
The value is inherent, but can only be ascertained when you have lost it.
+ + + + + + +
Tellesco saw another color enter into his watercolor painting.
It was the color of Death.
Death awaited him.
He sped along, oblivious to it all. The watery girl was gone, and Sean had all the answers.
At least, Sean usually held all of the answers.
= = = = = = =
Glinty shook my arm. I opened my eyes and he was standing over me. He looked angry. He said, “You wake up here and now! Don’t go away yet! We ain’t done talking!”
He grabbed my body up and shook me with his bony fingers. He was still quite strong, for a hundred year old ghost.
“Uh, Wha?!” I opened my eyelids. It seemed like the sandman had placed wet sandbags over them. “I want to go back to Saturn…”
Glinty shook me again. “You need to hear me out, boy. We ain’t done here!”
He dragged my body over to the kitchen table and dropped me up on the long, wooden bench. I propped my elbows up on the table and put my chin in my palms.
My eyelids drooped again.
I felt a smack against the back of my head and heard the ringing of church bells in my ears from it. “Oww! What the fuck?”
I stood straight up with my fists clenched, looking to take a swing at him. I would smash his skeleton body into a rain of teeth and ribs.
He jumped back and laughed. “Good! You are awake again.
"It ain’t that pipe that making you feel that way.
"You going out boy. You going down.
"Now look down at your buddy here.
"...And hear me out.”
He went around to the other side of Sean’s prostrate body and leaned over it.
He pointed at Sean’s head. “He gonna be off a bit when he waketh up. You need to pay attention here, boy. I thaved you twice, and now you have to do it for him oneth.”
I had no clue what the hell he was talking about. So I listened to his word.
He went on.
“When you have a brain injury, you may not come back completely. You can be changed. You won’t be the thame.
"Wherever we come from, whatever we are or were before we got born, we are cut off when we get born. And, an injury will cut you off even more.
"Thith boy will be different. You gotta lead him now. I need to hear you tell me you will do it.”
Huh.
I nodded.
Glinty reached over and smacked my cheek with his boney hands. “I Thaid I Need To Hear You Thay It!”
I felt the sharp sting and heard them church bells anew. I was getting preached to on the Moon, by an old, angry cowboy preacher who had died a century ago by a bullet that shot out his eye and entered his brain.
I glared into the black hole, the abyss where his eye had once been.
I shouted. “I will fucking lead this poor muthafucka where ever we have to go you sheep-raping fucking asshole!”
Glinty leaned back and he roared with laughter.
God Help You.
God Help Us All.
---willies out.
.
I publish these tales here on this site every weekend as mental escape. Enjoy them, but do not steal them. If you do, I will come to your window while you are sleeping, my friend.
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