Ahead of them on on a high podium sat the councils leader, sitting defiant of his form and revered by all before him. A penguin crafted of faux fur and likely stuffed with plastic beads and polyester filling. On his brow, a crown of exotic feathers so elaborate and vibrant as to put to shame the headpieces of all else present, around his neck a number so large as to defy reason and the very physics of the small laminated card it was writ upon.
When He spoke his words came out in the high squeaky voice of a muppet...
"HEY, guys! This is a VERY important day for all of us, JUST LIKE YESTERDAY!"
The murmurs of the crowd hushed as he plainly intoned.
"Here and now, then and always! HA HA HA!" Was the crowds unanimous response.
The old man jammed his elbow into my side and leaned in for a hushed whisper...
"Don't let there appearances fool you, they take this form as to not shatter the minds of any mortals present, each is a fierce, and oftentimes unimaginably horrid, God of the Realms..."
The head of the council went on to speak of matters that I could not follow, more or less understand, often lapsing into various languages that were alien to me, but still spoken in the ridiculous accent that was a cross between kermit the frog and big bird. The old man, taking advantage of the focus on the head of the council, reached out with his foot and nudged one of the clay figures off of the shelf, and as it struck the ground it imploded into a small and nearly silent display of purple-yellow light.
He took this moment to stand before the council, and speak. His words came out in harsh guttural tones completely different from that of the muppet king, but the meaning of them were lost to me behind the barrier of language. I could only hope it was going well.
Curious of the nature of his actions, I peered over the objects on the shelf before me. One appeared to be a plastic replica of a futuristic weapon of some sort, no more than a toy. I reached out my foot and nudged it off the shelf, and it fell with the same affect as the previous. The old man gave me a subtle smirk and winked at me, though I knew not what he meant by it.
This went on like this for some time, I caught only brief segments of the preceding, of the old mans insistence that I live, and various others arguing for either my demise, or for no action to be taken at all.
"HERE AND NOW, THEN AND ALWAYS!" The crowd spoke in unison, it appears the session had come to a close.
The old man rose from his seat and took a small bow before exiting the room, me following close behind. We walked in hushed silence towards the elevator and when we reached it, he glanced over at me and appeared to remember that I was there at all.
"OH! Perhaps I should tell you, you've been given a second chance, as I had hoped..." He said with a smile, "But it wont be easy, you are to be dropped from the wall of the acropolis at sunrise, and must fall through time and place to your destination, the moment and location of your passing... with some MINOR alterations of course." That last sentence was hushed and followed by him clearing his throat...
"How... how did I die?" I asked hesitantly...
"OH! No small matter, a twist of fate landed an insurgent suicide bomber out of place and time at the Virginia renaissance Faire, and at the VERY booth you then occupied. It seems he was very disturbed by the whole matter, confused as well, and set off his explosive device the moment he saw your boots..."
I then wished I hadn't asked...
"I need you to punch in the code for the acropolis please," He asked as if it were no small feat.
I starred at the ever shifting keys of the elevator and as I lifted my hand it gravitated towards several buttons of its own volition. We entered through the door and began the long trek upward through time.
Back at the acropolis, surrounded by the ancient stone pillars and rough cut ruins he took me to the edge and placed his hand on my shoulder.
"You know, you could stay... I could use someone like you on my staff." He asked hopefully.
"I don't know, I think I'd rather just go home."
"Very well then, but remember, as you fall you fall not just through space, but through time as well. The sensations will be very disturbing, but do not fear. I've created a platform of sorts minutes before your demise for you to "land" on, and you SHOULD survive the fall."
It was the word 'should' that had me worried... but I didn't have chance to object, as his hand on my shoulder then shoved me over the edge and into madness.
Falling through the clouds that rung the stone edifice was one thing, I had never been skydiving but I'm sure that this was not much different,but one through them it were as if I were plunging down passed an elaborate and ever changing skyscraper crafted of neon light. All around me the world reconstructed and deconstructed and while it would at one moment seem i were falling, at another seem I were being lifted or thrown across space. bellow me a prismatic shimmer grew close, then further away, then closer still and it seemed often that I would miss it all-together, until in a rush I collided with the moment in time I had left. Time rushed to catch up with me and I could see myself reforming from decayed matter and progressively aging backwards to the moment I had left, and as it reached it I fell to the ground as if struck by my future selves.
I got up off of the dirt and saw a familiar sight, the vendors tent I had been in when this all started, only the rack of boots was conspicuously missing, and instead of the swarthy looking man stood a common bar wench who approached me.
"Are you al'right me'lord?" She said, ever in character, thanks gods for the staff of the ren faire, ever dutiful.
"Yeah, I think I will be..."
THE END!
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Monday, April 16, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
God Complex, Part: One
The air was crisp a clean, a perfect spring day, a mixture of heat a cool so sublime that it tickled the senses and made you want to inhale the air through your nose with every breath. I say was, perhaps IS, maybe never... My mother, sister, and I stood in an open field surrounded by a bustling medieval marketplace, but its all a facade, just over the hill sat a parking lot filled with suvs and hybrids and clunkers alike. We stood at the cusp of time, between what once was and what would be.
Allison fiddled with her garb, trying to get the complex series of chords and eyelets to hold and hold comfortably, my mother simply took it all in, and me? I was ready to browse. I took off on my own then, looking for a vendors tent by the name of "A simple Peddler" where the online merchants list promised a variety of medieval and renaissance goods ranging from swords and weaponry, to leather mugs and straps.
I came upon a hill and asked one of the friendly, always in character staff if anything was going on behind it, if there was more to see and do. He told me no, but I ventured forward anyway. Above the hill stood a pavilion peopled by the staff of the Virginia renaissance faire, discussing the ins and outs of the days events. I didn't stay long, still eager to find the prizes I sought.
Further beyond stood the tent I awaited, lined with garb and jewelry and various nick-nacks of the lives of those in the yester-years. I spoke with the woman running the tent as she arranged various items of clothing on a circular wrack.
"What size are you?" She inquired, but enthralled as I was I hardly heard her.
"Huh?"
"What shoe size hunny, we carry a variety of boots and footwear." Was her curt response to my confusion.
"Oh, size eight..."
She then quickly shuffled through the wrack, pointing out which boots she had in my size, and which she did not. It was all very commonplace, nothing out of the ordinary for that day, for ren faire day. Our conversation went on like that, her showing me her wares and me, beginning to ponder if I had withdrew enough money for that days festivities, until an odd man approached where we stood. He had the look of a gypsy and the eye of a comical villain, dreams are so literal sometimes. I dropped the large chunk of segmented amethyst I was holding at the time and a portion of the puzzle fell behind the shelve it had been sitting on. As me and the shop-keep struggled to move the shelf to get at the interlocking piece behind, a flash of white light overtook me and my surroundings were suddenly and incredibly changed.
Before me and miles bellow me stood a rising acropolis, pillars of stone in rings where each circle rose higher than the last, and on top of all of them sat entire cities crafted of living rock. I soared through the air, arching down and around this scene as rain filled the air around me and water poured from every crevasse of this impossible structure. At its apex stood a pump-house, with an old but strong man furiously primed a hose in an attempt to spray clean the surface of the buildings around him. He was bald on top with an almost anachronistically large beard hanging pendulous from his chin.
I "landed" near him, and without a word began to aid him in priming the pump as he set awash the stone structure with niagra falls levels of torrents of water. Suddenly the pump locked in place, and as it did so the rain that fell before ceased. The old man dropped the hose he held and leaned against a stone pillar, seemingly exhausted.
"Where am I, is the usual question..." The old man said to me then.
"I'm either dead or dreaming..." Was my quick response.
He looked at me then, bushy grey eyebrows arched noticeably.
"Smart man, come with me."
As we walked down a series of staircases and across rough cut stone walkways he explained to me my plight, which it seemed we shared.
"You've died prematurely..." He said to me,without hesitation. "and this is a problem for me, because great men are had to come by."
I merely listened...
"The thread of your fate was cut short, and thus those of all you WOULD have affected or altered altogether. Without this, my design is all but ruined."
The word "design" had me intrigued, while I had always hoped for a grander scheme to things, lingering thoughts of chaos plagued me.
"I have to take you before the Council of Gods, and argue for your continued existence, give them reason to believe you are integral to all our survival. It won't be easy, more than half of them have fewer followers than I, and they would LOVE to see my schemes fail."
He spoke of such this with a conniving simplicity that it betrayed years of belief in me, he was just as much a man as any man, and less a god than a great manipulator, a politician working the pantheons of mans deities.
He took me to a grand elevator, reminiscent of one standing the the lobby of an archaic office building or hotel, only the numbers on the lit panel shifted position and changed from numbers to letters to symbols I could not discern. He quickly punched in several of the ever moving digits and a loud hollow ding issued forth from the smooth reflective doors. The grinding of machinery could be heard from behind and the doors slid open, he then quickly pulled me in just before they slammed shut behind us. The girl from eponena played out in monotone musak tunes from all around us as we were lowered through the bowels of creation. All around our secure confine unknown sounds boomed and crashed and rumbled as a sense of displacement took hold of me, a feeling of being in several places at ones but no-where at all. The unsettling sensation passed and the doors again slid open, and out I was pulled the doors again shutting far too fast behind us.
The lobby we entered was different in every sense from the stone pillars and ancient edifices we had left behind, I found myself in what for all intensive purposes was any hotel lobby in America. As we quickly walked a long I noticed a black sign with individual letters clicked into a perforated background, it read:
"Council of Gods!
In session: Today and always.
What was, what could be,
and what will be,
sometimes, ARE!"
Outside a large doubled doored entry way sat a folding table with several feathered hats placed upon it, each with varying numbers and colors of feathers. The old man took a hat with several earth tone feathers of impressive size, and gave to me a leather strap with a single feather rising from its center. He tied the head piece onto his brow and I did the same, never questioning the validity and reality of the situation I had found myself in. As well as doing this, he pulled a laminated card out of his robes, that contained a rather large series of numbers prominently displayed on it and hung it from his neck.
We entered through the doorway into a large chamber lined with wooden bleaches, and in each chair sat a plush penguin, all of them wearing a feather headdress, all of them with a number card like the old mans hanging from there necks. We sat at the far end of the chamber near several large racks containing an odd assortment of random things, from old action figures, to discolored lumps of stone, to seemingly organic carvings of things my mind couldn't place but recognized as the works of intelligent and creative designers.
Everything seemed about par for the course according to what had already occurred, that was until one of the toy penguins began to speak...
Allison fiddled with her garb, trying to get the complex series of chords and eyelets to hold and hold comfortably, my mother simply took it all in, and me? I was ready to browse. I took off on my own then, looking for a vendors tent by the name of "A simple Peddler" where the online merchants list promised a variety of medieval and renaissance goods ranging from swords and weaponry, to leather mugs and straps.
I came upon a hill and asked one of the friendly, always in character staff if anything was going on behind it, if there was more to see and do. He told me no, but I ventured forward anyway. Above the hill stood a pavilion peopled by the staff of the Virginia renaissance faire, discussing the ins and outs of the days events. I didn't stay long, still eager to find the prizes I sought.
Further beyond stood the tent I awaited, lined with garb and jewelry and various nick-nacks of the lives of those in the yester-years. I spoke with the woman running the tent as she arranged various items of clothing on a circular wrack.
"What size are you?" She inquired, but enthralled as I was I hardly heard her.
"Huh?"
"What shoe size hunny, we carry a variety of boots and footwear." Was her curt response to my confusion.
"Oh, size eight..."
She then quickly shuffled through the wrack, pointing out which boots she had in my size, and which she did not. It was all very commonplace, nothing out of the ordinary for that day, for ren faire day. Our conversation went on like that, her showing me her wares and me, beginning to ponder if I had withdrew enough money for that days festivities, until an odd man approached where we stood. He had the look of a gypsy and the eye of a comical villain, dreams are so literal sometimes. I dropped the large chunk of segmented amethyst I was holding at the time and a portion of the puzzle fell behind the shelve it had been sitting on. As me and the shop-keep struggled to move the shelf to get at the interlocking piece behind, a flash of white light overtook me and my surroundings were suddenly and incredibly changed.
Before me and miles bellow me stood a rising acropolis, pillars of stone in rings where each circle rose higher than the last, and on top of all of them sat entire cities crafted of living rock. I soared through the air, arching down and around this scene as rain filled the air around me and water poured from every crevasse of this impossible structure. At its apex stood a pump-house, with an old but strong man furiously primed a hose in an attempt to spray clean the surface of the buildings around him. He was bald on top with an almost anachronistically large beard hanging pendulous from his chin.
I "landed" near him, and without a word began to aid him in priming the pump as he set awash the stone structure with niagra falls levels of torrents of water. Suddenly the pump locked in place, and as it did so the rain that fell before ceased. The old man dropped the hose he held and leaned against a stone pillar, seemingly exhausted.
"Where am I, is the usual question..." The old man said to me then.
"I'm either dead or dreaming..." Was my quick response.
He looked at me then, bushy grey eyebrows arched noticeably.
"Smart man, come with me."
As we walked down a series of staircases and across rough cut stone walkways he explained to me my plight, which it seemed we shared.
"You've died prematurely..." He said to me,without hesitation. "and this is a problem for me, because great men are had to come by."
I merely listened...
"The thread of your fate was cut short, and thus those of all you WOULD have affected or altered altogether. Without this, my design is all but ruined."
The word "design" had me intrigued, while I had always hoped for a grander scheme to things, lingering thoughts of chaos plagued me.
"I have to take you before the Council of Gods, and argue for your continued existence, give them reason to believe you are integral to all our survival. It won't be easy, more than half of them have fewer followers than I, and they would LOVE to see my schemes fail."
He spoke of such this with a conniving simplicity that it betrayed years of belief in me, he was just as much a man as any man, and less a god than a great manipulator, a politician working the pantheons of mans deities.
He took me to a grand elevator, reminiscent of one standing the the lobby of an archaic office building or hotel, only the numbers on the lit panel shifted position and changed from numbers to letters to symbols I could not discern. He quickly punched in several of the ever moving digits and a loud hollow ding issued forth from the smooth reflective doors. The grinding of machinery could be heard from behind and the doors slid open, he then quickly pulled me in just before they slammed shut behind us. The girl from eponena played out in monotone musak tunes from all around us as we were lowered through the bowels of creation. All around our secure confine unknown sounds boomed and crashed and rumbled as a sense of displacement took hold of me, a feeling of being in several places at ones but no-where at all. The unsettling sensation passed and the doors again slid open, and out I was pulled the doors again shutting far too fast behind us.
The lobby we entered was different in every sense from the stone pillars and ancient edifices we had left behind, I found myself in what for all intensive purposes was any hotel lobby in America. As we quickly walked a long I noticed a black sign with individual letters clicked into a perforated background, it read:
"Council of Gods!
In session: Today and always.
What was, what could be,
and what will be,
sometimes, ARE!"
Outside a large doubled doored entry way sat a folding table with several feathered hats placed upon it, each with varying numbers and colors of feathers. The old man took a hat with several earth tone feathers of impressive size, and gave to me a leather strap with a single feather rising from its center. He tied the head piece onto his brow and I did the same, never questioning the validity and reality of the situation I had found myself in. As well as doing this, he pulled a laminated card out of his robes, that contained a rather large series of numbers prominently displayed on it and hung it from his neck.
We entered through the doorway into a large chamber lined with wooden bleaches, and in each chair sat a plush penguin, all of them wearing a feather headdress, all of them with a number card like the old mans hanging from there necks. We sat at the far end of the chamber near several large racks containing an odd assortment of random things, from old action figures, to discolored lumps of stone, to seemingly organic carvings of things my mind couldn't place but recognized as the works of intelligent and creative designers.
Everything seemed about par for the course according to what had already occurred, that was until one of the toy penguins began to speak...
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