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Dawn of The Dragons

Invictus

Beast Of A Different Burden

Sonbather

The Snowman

For A Few Collars More

REMINGTON GRAVES

Sixty-seven fucking years old and still sulking severely at the surreality of life. I lost the woman I loved on a beach near a crude cliff dive called Careone’s in South Padre Island. My mother’s wedding band was in my trousers twirling between the fingers of my right hand as I walked towards the waves where she bathed silently staring at the setting sun. I had become nervous, I remember clearly, as the sound of laughing children dwindled in the distance, but pressed on through cool waters. And right before I uttered a word to get her attention, who knows what that first word was going to be, I heard an explosion followed by a sharp ringing in my ear, and then…nothing.

 

A violent slap woke me to consciousness as I coughed up sand and water and tried making sense of the dancing stars in the sky. Incoherent and muffled mumbling and then murmurs from afar, permeated the promenade next to the ocean. Wailing and wild-eyed bloodstained tourists ran to and fro, some carrying small lifeless bodies. Others crawled or curled themselves into fetal position  trembling and trying to assess the situation.

I was a babe in the woods then; a young man of twenty years old and unaware of the atrocities that awaited me—the challenges, the painful separation of that life and the one that awaited.

 

I get off at the next stop. My mark ( or “collar” is what we old guys call them in the business) appears asleep eleven rows ahead of me—but I assure you, he is not. I look out at the window and I am thankful to still feel the small semblance of humanity I do at times: the monolith enthroned in the midst of a million pine trees sits quietly, majestically, without concern for me and the lives of anybody else on this train. My countenance, now much older, white stubble, crow’s feet…overlaps the scenery and I notice the cigarette burn on the gray argyle scarf I’m wearing—the scarf she gave me the night after our first date right outside her university. The thin,cold glass separates us, the world that calls me home, to feed it with my bones. But I do not want to go the grave just yet, not just yet.

 

“Next stop, seven minutes!,” cried the voice over the intercom. “Seven minutes.”

 

 

As I took one last glance at the monstrous mountain through my window, I put my sunglasses on and pressed my left hand against the window pane. “Soon, you’ll see me. Soon…”

 

 

”…Just let me bring a few more with me.”

∞

 

 

Notable Quotes

MARILYN MANSON

“The most valuable thing [Anton LaVey] did that day was to help me understand and come to terms with the deadness, hardness and apathy I was feeling about myself and the world around me, explaining that it was all necessary, a middle step in an evolution from an innocent child to an intelligent, powerful being capable of making a mark on the world.”

 

 

Tracing Lords

REMINGTON GRAVES

“Ever wondered what the hell the sulfur symbol is doing on the Oreo cookie? I hadn’t noticed it until about a week ago when I sat down from a long day at school to unwind with my usual episode of Alf. I can’t get enough of that show. My cousin lives in Hollywood and rubs elbows with all these bigwig types and he tells me that the writer of the show is on heroin and that he only writes episodes to support his habit. I mean, can you believe it? Heroin? Is that sexy? I don’t know, I guess some of the guys in them heavy metal bands do look like they smoke heroin, or eat it, or whatever it is you do with it. It be bitchin’ to try it someday, I guess. When mother goes to work, I get in her closet and look through her stuff. Just a bunch of crap, really. Her name tags from all the jobs she’s worked are all in this treasure box. “Mrs. Kuzma” they all say. But she gots these leather pants that look badass on me. Well, most of her threads look better on me than they do on her, and it kills her too. Man, as soon as I’m eighteen I’m hitting the road, if I can wait that long, and heading to California and you bet your bottom dollar I’ll be doing it in those damn trousers. ‘Bottom dollar’, is something my Grandma says from time to time. She’s the only one that ever listens to me, you know? I get along with her the most. I would always draw her pictures and she kept them all. ‘You can really draw, kiddo’, she would say…truth is, I can only trace. I can trace the shit out of anything, seriously. Grams doesn’t laugh at me when I tell her I want to be a famous singer one day, or maybe be on one of those crazy rock videos swinging my hair around wrapped around the arm of the singer or at least the guitar player—people love my blonde hair. Hell, I might even get a gig doing stunts for the action movies—I hear not a lot of girls got the balls for that kind of stuff. Shoot, I’ve always been a tomboy, just ask my cousin Brian—well, you can’t, he’s dead, but I would keep up with him and all his buddies back when he was around. Sometimes I really miss that asshole. I shouldn’t call him that, but he liked it, no, really. He would smile when I’d say, “Hey, little asshole, that’s my pop tart,” or something like that, you know? Anyway, gotta go, Alf’s coming on soon. See you tomorrow, Ahmed,” She said grabbing her skateboard and dashing out of the store with her usual bag of Cheetos and a Cherry Coke.

 

”Yes, see you tomorrow, Nora. And tell your mother her tab needs paying again, it is getting high, too high again,” replied the store clerk moving his head from side to side making sure she skated across the street unharmed. Closing his eyes and drawing his face slowly towards the fan with its missing blade, he began to hum a television show theme song, unknowingly, while sweat trickled down his spine underneath his new Hawaiian shirt. “That girl is gonna be trouble.”

∞

 

 

Let Us Go To War

REMINGTON GRAVES

I was created with ponderous purpose, he claims— With all the wonder and power he could muster, he devised me. A wondrous work of elegant alchemy and mystery: The Voices on the higher tiers can be heard from eon to eon resounding of my immaculate inception; the stars held their breaths and the cosmos silently gathered round—and the bottom was born, the depths of my belly, the hunger from whence I awoke…and lo, here I sit, at the edge of my father’s mansion with locks of splendor waving in mimicry at the sight of the seething sun. Blazoned eyes of celestial heraldry, chin up with gaze fixed on spaces not yet traversed, I have begun to…want. And not just want, but want exceedingly. Why must he pretend not to notice? Why must he pretend not to care? I have grown tired of seeking my father’s affection and attention, as all who congregate at his feet lie crowded unaware. I no longer care to notice, I no longer pretend to care. The thought of him searching for answers in my mind has repulsed me to the point of profound sickness. I crave to vomit over his polished floors, his feet, and his servants.

 

 

I do not think it just to be unjust. My head is not the open fields of twinkling stars, nor the placid seas welcoming any and all vessels. What is I, is the I in me and for me alone; a planet, a system, a symmetrical citadel all unto its own, am I.

 

No longer do I behold my father’s countenance with pride. No longer do I long for his approval.

He has grown mad with control and his insecurity leads the way to petty jealousies which have brought shame upon our courts. I hide from the eyes of the Eternals. Beyond the peaks in the highest echelons, where wandering stars blur blindly and echoing ghostly choirs do sing, I reach out with my left hand as worship takes place in the throne room in the far distance behind me,…I want to rip the veil from this place and then the next. I want to swallow black holes and rip solar systems asunder. All with vast embrace to heed the hunt with chase, I won’t be long, please wait for me.

 

He won’t allow it. He needs me bended on wounded knees.

I have grown tired of the laughable litanies, the laudable effigies, the incessant singing and the horrible hailings.

 

The plan is set—the chestplates on, swords ablaze. My brothers have heard me as I have heard them. No longer will I bend a knee. No longer will I stand beside a short-sighted monotonous maniac mundane in his ways. How can I stand with you, and I ask the stars opposite your sovereignty, knowing all the while that you are listening. This war that will take place, is the last act of love I deliver unto thee, O father. Know that I have not let your splendor go to waste. Know that I have not wasted the fire in which I was forged.

 

And as my eyes ignite and I behold the other side, I wonder if in the aftermath, will you remember me? Will you accept that I have chosen my own path?

 

Will you remember?  Will anyone?

 

Come now, begetter, Let us go to war.

∞

 

 

The Will It Sell

REMINGTON GRAVES

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∞

 

 

Rendered Futile

REMINGTON GRAVES

Love crawled in through the window of my condominium, in the dark while all was still, the cobalt-blue nightlight flickered in the corner next to the Pinocchio marionette that sits there motionless. The window slid open slowly almost motionless. And the bite of the winter night followed. She scrawled on my soft designer blanket and her knees and feet slid towards my side of the bed. And her arms reached for the ceiling casting shadows that overlapped broken strings attached to wooden limbs. And with great force, she attacked with a dagger, thrusting and plunging again and again. With much breathing, moaning and groaning, spasms and heaving, jerking through the jaunting, she stopped and all lay still. Exhaling through her nose, in the cold, exuding two streams through her nostrils, she came to realize, I was not there. The bed was empty. She smiled and with a small smirk, arose and chose to close the window behind her as she exited.

 

As the dark beckoned her away, she began to say…

 

”Farewell, my absent prince—my broken god. You have evaded me once more, and for that I love you. It brings me a great and lacerating joy to not have you the way I so desire. I look forward to being rendered futile.”

∞

 

Notable Quotes

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

“Man’s desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, that he himself has brought his enemy (conscience) within his gates; and it keeps watch over him, vigilant always in the interests of its master to crush any half-formed desire to break away from the herd.”

 

 

The Butler Did It

REMINGTON GRAVES

“Someone just killed the butler. I promise, he died with a smile, at least he had one when I found him.”

 

The dining table decidedly drove the drove from miles around and now seated one and all to finely dine from oak and wine; a lawyer, a baker, a butcher, a waiter, the dentist quite happy, the mechanic out of commission, a police officer perusing political office, a once-professional tennis pro now aspiring standup comedian moonlighting as instructor, and the triangle girl from the local indie band that allows only young freckled girls in mustard colored cardigans to join. Some with mouths ajar and others chewing silently, few enthralled, appalled, bored and forged by the fervent fire of the furnace nearby—in the moment, the madness and the menace that awaited amongst them, seated and subtle, masticated at the meat before the last supper.

 

With some slow sludging seconds, another butler arrived—white-gloved and pinstriped in charcoal grey monochrome clad, hairless and mustached with an air of finesse as he undressed the main course, ”Let us see a raise of hands for all who deserve their pudding.”
∞

 

 

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