Simply Symbolic

"Simply symbolic."

"I beg your pardon, sir?" The man had not been the same since the Knights of the Thorn were pushed back into the keep.

"Do you feel as if the gods are watching now, smiling as our enemies take what is left of our spirit? Look there. The barbaric devils have torched the royal library and stand basking in the warm byproducts of sacrificed knowledge. Where do we venture from this pit of heavenly wrath? A world that was once a bright beacon of hope has become a funeral pyre for empire. Do the night stars shield mockery in their twinkling eyes? Are we the victim of a great celestial joke?"

"Sir, you speak nothing but blasphemy."

"Perhaps, but I feel assured that my sins will all be purged in the same fire." The soldier glanced at his companion, her loose hair, eyes of some tormented beast caged in a face of innocence.

"Can you imagine such sins?"

"What trangressions do you speak of?" In her mind played visions of erotic mistresses in exotic locales. Velvet window drapes, brown liquors, opium clouds ricocheting off crystal chandeliers. Laughter and dancing and self-medicated merriment. All the joys she imagined men were allowed to achieve while ladies were learning to embroider. "Nothing temple-worthy, I imagine," she sniffed.

"Not these temples, never." His hands made a sweeping gesture to mask their trembling. "These gods are dead, or at the least, they have abandoned us. Death is our sole god now. He speaks his teachings of Darkness through his messenger, Silence. I will visit him soon on broadsword sings. His sins, they spread more evenly through my soul. The murder of boys who have yet to lie with women. I have cut down countless children because these Neanderthals try to pass them off as men. They are but sacrifices to my great god, but they have not quenched his thirst. Still he yearns for more blood and will soon overtake me."

"Sir, you talk in tongues too unseemly for civilized conversation."

"My lady, you are lucky that my god allows us to do anything other than foam at the mouth and spew spit the times are so mad. However, what I fear is the worst black strike against me is this, Death peers into my damaged soul and knows that if he chose to visit me, I would offer to send you in my stead." The man fell to Silence after this confession and left her to Darkness. She pondered the man's passing away to his god and the simply symbolism of the feathered arrow that he rode. The man had appeared villainous at first, but she wondered if this was because she was so unaccustomed to survival in its purest form. Her enemies were now dancing around their paper fire, happy, for the moment, that they had so well-appeased their primitive gods.

Smoking Is a Southern Thing

"Smoking is a Southern thing. The soft hazy feeling of gentility can only be described by an association with this region." The basement was dark. The light of a cigarrette smouldered between them.

"You are so full of shit."

"Hardly. You have an obligation to believe so because your upbringing has taught you that all ideas which rely on a person's reputation to be true are frivilous and outdated. You, for instance, believe that my emphasis on the sanctity of breaking bread is pointless." Candlelight danced on the board in their laps and illuminated the letters that ran downward slant in an overly ominous fashion. They were waiting once again for that most powerful of hours to begin their sacred ritual. A long silence filled the air and forced them to sip at their Kool-aid and awkwardly watch the cheap candles flicker. As the time crept nearer, the atmosphere took on a persona, such an oppressive nature that it began to overpower them.

"This is a bad idea."

"Scared already?" The dog sitting beside her lifted its head to stare with half-interest at a shadow on the floor. There were so many haunting the room that one was barely noteworthy to superior human minds.

"Some forces in this world are too much to be controlled by my will. There are things like death and suffering that I don't have a damn bit of say in whether they happen or not. It is presumptuous and sinful to try to communicate thoughts beyond the veil of the grave. What if we channel the agony of someone fated for Hell? What if we turn God against us with this sorcery? It is blasphemous to think we are capable of handling such pain outside of God's blessing."