Canadians Channel Their Mean into Their Geese, but what if...

The Prime Minister was sweating. Profusely. He was on the phone. An ancient and impossible to crack phone. It had one use. It had one user. It was linked only to the Canadian Prime Minister's office and to Buckingham Palace.

"Yes, your Majesty. We have been getting the reports, too. It is deeply concerning. We are monitoring the situation as best we can and we are seeking to find out what is causing the aberration. I know that is a vast understatement, Your Majesty.

"Yes, I have seen the report a goose even went up and nuzzled an American after saving his life from a moose. There seems to be little effect on the populous other than the confirmed effects in Alberta: they have started saying "Y'all." They are still nice though. There are reports of something happening in British Columbia, but that may be merely some new strain of marijuana and not the Protocol breach.

"We are sure Wildrose is NOT behind this. They are as dismayed as the rest of us. When a Canadian goose cleaned up the mess it may on Danielle Smith's lawn and seemingly apologized, she immediately contacted me. She was aghast.

"Yes, Your Majesty. I am aware it is one of the signs of the apocalypse if Canada democratically decides to become American. I know the Crown cannot afford to have Hell freeze over: Victoria's Great Engine would seize and you would pass away leaving your Crown to Charles rather than William. I am aware of what your actions will be if the Protocol outright fails.

"We are doing everything we can to find the root cause. We will stop the Protocol Breach. We have our best agents searching: I promise. I will keep you aprized. Thank you, Your Majesty."

Trudeau's hands shook as he put down the phone. He reached for a cloth on his desk. A lesser man, a less in shape man, would have died of a heart attack half way through the call. Unfailingly polite she may be, but that Woman could be terrifying when her furnace was fully stoked.

He took a breath. He held it for a moment and then exhaled. He was risking much by not fully informing the Crown, but he knew he had to: if she suspected the chaos in the American election was tied to the Protocol breach...he shuddered.

For a moment, before he called in his Cabinet, he sat and muttered, "I know you are behind this. I just have to find you. No one has seen you in a week, not since just before the breach...I will find you. I will stop you. Whatever it is you are plotting."

...

Far, far to into the Canadian Arctic, kilometers away from any human settlement and in a place too horrific even for the polar bears, a brown coated animals howled in pain and anguish as its body metamorphosed. A cloaked figure watched with glee.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Absorb their hate! Absorb their anger! Revel in their fear! Channel it! Use it! It is mighty! It is powerful!"

The furred creature shifted, screamed and contorted. It's paws changed, becoming unholy. It shifted and warped and lost its fur over most of its body. It became an unhealthy color, too long and far from the Sun. It howled and beat at the ground as the hate coursed through it. As the bigotry and ignorance racked its body, soul, heart and mind, it arched backwards into the air as bones cracked, shifted and reformed in its new and corrupt state.

The amulet around its neck glowed bright with a terrible darkness as the changes warped and remolded the creature until the power faded. Until the transformation was complete.

Then the Canadian Penny set within reverted to normal. A bauble on a necklace.

And the creature stood erect.

The cloaked figure cackled his mad laugh and smiled his sickly smile.

Doug Ford looked upon his creation and was pleased.

"Good. Good. Good. Arise, my creature. You are ready.

"Now. You need an appropriate moniker. I name you....Logan."

Psychological Shadow Plays is out and FREE

Psychological Shadow Plays, my 3rd  anthology of short stories, vignettes and a couple of essays, is for the next five days it will be free.  

This one has a darker tone than ones in the past.

My other works, Quantums of the Mind and Finite Mental Elements, are out and available for $.99 each.

Psychological Shadow Plays is out and FREE

Psychological Shadow Plays, my 3rd  anthology of short stories, vignettes and a couple of essays, is for the next five days it will be free.  

This one has a darker tone than ones in the past.

My other works, Quantums of the Mind and Finite Mental Elements, are out and available for $.99 each.

Psychological Shadow Plays is out and FREE

Psychological Shadow Plays, my 3rd  anthology of short stories, vignettes and a couple of essays, is for the next five days it will be free.  

This one has a darker tone than ones in the past.

My other works, Quantums of the Mind and Finite Mental Elements, are out and available for $.99 each.

Psychological Shadow Plays is out and FREE

Psychological Shadow Plays, my 3rd  anthology of short stories, vignettes and a couple of essays, is for the next five days it will be free.  

This one has a darker tone than ones in the past.

My other works, Quantums of the Mind and Finite Mental Elements, are out and available for $.99 each.

Psychological Shadow Plays is now out

Psychological Shadow Plays, my 3rd  anthology of short stories, vignettes and a couple of essays, is out!

Psychological Shadow Plays

Psychological Shadow Plays, my 3rd  anthology of short stories, vignettes and a couple of essays, is out!

The Third Voice?

"Oh Christ!"

"DO NOT TAKE THE LORD'S NAME IN VAIN!"

"Look, sorry, but that's the worst curse a minor devil like myself could think of. hell, I've not even made Imp yet. I'm just a Dirty Little Voice.

"Now, we're in a serious pickle here, my angelic rival and frenemy! Normally, its just you and I warring over the soul and actions of the the poor schmuck we are assigned to. Its a lot of fun to yank and jerk and see where the bub goes in his or her life. I get off on it. You, I know, will only experience joy if and when they pick the straight and narrow despite my foul ministrations.

"But it is normally just us.

"We have our rules. We stick to them and we make it work. You save some. I corrupt many. But its between us.

"Have you looked UP lately? As in over his head? Well, you should. Something else is materializing there. Either it is going to be a mini Cthulhu or the avatar of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Either way, our jobs just got a lot crazier. "

Trial by Guilt

Its been long over. I vanquished the Great Lord of the Dark. I personally slew him with the Holy Sword of the Gods of the Light. I ran him through and watched the blood gush and splatter onto the floor in all its black slickness most foul. I made sure to stare into his evil eyes as his life left them. I watched his body crumple and fall lifeless to the ground.

Evil was destroyed. At least for within our life times and humanity was saved. There were a few monstrous survivors, but many would hunt them down without me. Or mine.

I returned home to a hero's triumph. Me and my few band of brothers and sisters. the survivors of our great quest and war. The survivors of the decisions I made. They had supported each one and paid the price of my mistakes, of my decisions, of my brilliance and stupidity. So many died that trusted me. So many.

The fetes, the triumphs, the parades through all the lands. They were a temporary balm to what I knew, what I experienced, what I went through. My guilt was tremendous, but kept at bay by the adulation. By the constant attention.

That is long gone now.

By the time the triumphs and parties were completed, the stragglers of the Dark One were long since wiped out. There were no pretenders to the Dark Throne either. Nor were there any other evil aspirants. With Evil vanquished, the world has little need for a hero.

Little need for me.

Or my friends.

I was offered the world. I asked for a farm. A small and isolated farm where I could be alone and till the soil. Plant and sow crops. Live simply and survive. To hopefully survive my newest and greatest trial: my trial by guilt.

I think of all those I lost. The great city of Jordanos I promised I would return to with an army to relieve it...only to arrive too late. I think of the Woods of the Elves burnt to the ground. I consider the doom of the great kingdom under the ground. I think of the burning and pillaging and death, oh the death. The death of my friends. The deaths of the innocents. The deaths of those who believed in me.

I sit here now, in my small farm house, off in the woods. I sit here on these cold winter nights with nothing to do, no great labors to achieve, nothing for me but to sit and consider whether I will survive my trial by guilt.

I sit and contemplate with the fire flickering in the background.

I sit and contemplate the dagger sitting on the table before me.

The fire's light flickers dance and reflect off it.

I stare right at the blade, struggling with my trial by guilt.

I sit and contemplate.

An Unexplained Prisoner

"Why are you here?"

"You don't know do you?"

"No," I replied. "I have no idea. No one does. We can't even find your data record as to why you are here."

"Data record?"

"yes, on the computer."

"I suspect we are speaking different languages," the man quipped with a smile. "It certainly would explain your strange accent and why it is so hard to understand what you're saying."

"But..."

"I am sure there is some file, some document somewhere that would indicate why I am here."

I was uncomfortable. I queried the isolated prison net again through my implant. It didn't exist. There hadn't been paper records of any kind at the prison since ... sixty years ago. Everything went paperless then. It was cheaper. More efficient.

"No, there are no records."

"Strange. In that case, any chance you'd let me out? It has been a long time...."

"That's not a good idea. If its just a glitch? How long have you been in here?"

"Well, it was too much to hope for. I've been incarcerated here since 1897."

I looked confused. That was impossible. He could see my confusion.

"But that's more than 150 years!" I couldn't keep the incredulity out of my voice. Plainly this person was mad. Perhaps they had brought someone meant for the mental health facilities on the other side of town. It would explain the lack of records, but not why there'd been no food brought to this end of the wing in over a decade...

"Yes, well, it is. I'm rather hungry. Thank you for bringing me a snack. I'm famished."

Now I was really confused. What was he talking about?

Then he leapt. He was on me, stronger than any man I'd ever known. I shot a mental call for help across the prison net. Other guards were on their way to the little used solitary confinement wing.

He bit into my neck and I felt my mind recede. I was dying. I was...The last thing I saw under his moldering bed were bones...a hand...and...I was gone.

A Token Marveling

"Are you mad?"

I couldn't help but take offense. I had simply came to tell my good friend goodbye and he'd dragged out of me what I had planned. Rather than be supportive, he was ripping a good one.

"Thank you for being supportive and understanding."

"I just don't know what to say. You're my friend, but...You are not the person I thought you were, obviously, and I have known you for a long, long time. Obviously, I know you have as well as I ought and like this new you less than half as well as you deserve."

"Since you're the friend I have, but obviously not the one I deserve, I'm asking you to come. I need your help. The only way I can survive this is with your help."

He looked at me horrified and hesitant. I'd brought the worst possible problem to him. One most of the people in our country would run away from as fast as possible. We were not counted as great warriors or considered to be among the very wise. We were simple folk, with a love of eating, drinking ale and smoking.

And an adventure was worst possible word to bring up for the likes of us.

Yet, it was not unheard of. Belladonna's son had one and probably was having another since he was missing. His heir was missing, too. That probably meant another adventure was underway. That family...

Well, now I was going to have one. But it was not the adventure of fun and grandiose aims. This was something darker. Some needed. Something dark. Something vengeful.

I looked at my friend. He was aghast from his curly top head down to his hairy feet. he was so horrified he'd spilled his ale and not noticed. Before today, that would have been the most horrific thing in his life and he'd have gone on about it for years...but not now. Not today. Not when I brought him this.

"My grandsire was murdered by one of them Black Riders when he was on town watch, just out with a lantern. And I mean to see vengeance. I will see them punished, Mattias Murdoch."

He looked very uncomfortable.

"You will need more than my help, Franklin Undercastle. I'm just a hobbit."

I stared at him intensely. I knew he would give in and help. He was blind to all else, but justice and friendship.

"I need to find the Nine. Nothing else matters."

New Book: Finite Mental Elements

My second short fiction book, Finite Mental Elements, has been released on Amazon.  This one is the same length as my previous, Quantums of the Mind, at 26k words.

For the next five days, Finite Mental Elements will be FREE.

Thereafter, it will, like Quantums of the Mind, be $.99.

I want to give a special thanks to psyxis, who let me use the art for the cover for Finite Mental Elements and special thanks to hameed for the new cover of Quantums of the Mind.

Down to the River

I sucked on my lower lip. This was worse than surreal. This was...terrifying.

I looked down upon the valley...no, that was being too generous. This was an overgrown arroyo. The sides were somewhat steep, but there was a very large basin down below. The basin was broad and mostly flat save for the actual river in the middle. There was little brush, so the basin must flood regularly and powerfully, to sweep away any large would-be growths.

I knew this place. I had never been here, but I knew this place. This place had called to me. Had brought me. Had enticed me. Though I had never known it before. Save once. In a dream...but that had been three decades ago...

There in the broad, clear, shallow river were couples. They were impassioned and I wanted to avert my eyes. By all propriety I ought to have averted my gaze, but I could not. And for some reason, some voice deep from within screamed I should not: this was important! LOOK! SEE!

Something within wanted me to recognize what was happening here. I knew and must be made to believe. And that was crucial. Critical. Even of existential import. Something was telling me this could be where I ended.

All of the couples at some point seemed to submerge in the water. They all seemed to slowly sink within the river's wetness. Yet what happened next, I could not discern. There was no thrashing or violence. There seemed to be only passionate, if placid peace.

My intellect and my sense of alarm warred then. I needed to get closer to see. To understand. If I got closer, my intuition screamed, I may end. I would end. How could I know and warn others, my intellect rationalized, unless I went closer. All the while, whatever had drawn me here whispered and tempted and sang its syren song.

I made my way down the side of the basin. I was going to see.

The stroll to the water's edge was both in a daze and hyper aware. I seemed to note every detail. Every little thing. The ripples on the water. The long wild grass at my feet. The wind tussling my fine but thinning hair. The scent of something so alluring I could not even give it words. Yet, my sense of time slipped and slid. I was there. Then I was here. Then I was at the water's edge. My ability to bind the moments into a coherent memory, a story, an series of events seemed lost and gone, until I reached the water's edge.

There at the edge, I saw a woman. THE woman. The woman from my dream from when I was first discovering and observing and appreciating the transformation of girls from children into the ripeness and delicatebility of complete women, mind, body and soul.

This woman was the single most beautiful I'd ever seen. The most incredibly gorgeous, sexy and desirable. And here she was naked as the day she was born and staring up at me, smiling, waiting and obviously here for me. She said no words but I knew...

I had never known need like I felt in that moment. I needed to join her. I needed to enter into the wetness of the river with her. I needed her.

Her smile grew wider and more enticing...seductive...needing in her own complicated yet simple way.

I shook with its empathetic intensity. With her need. With mine. With the moment.

Some small bit still screamed and screamed and screamed from within. LOOK, YOU FOOL! LOOK AND SEE! COMPREHEND! USE WHAT YOU WERE BLESSED WITH, YOU IDIOT!

For a moment, I broke her gaze and looked around. I saw others shambling to the riverside. Men, women, others. Some met at the edge, shucked and took hands and entered the streaming waters. Sometimes the man waited in the water. Sometimes the woman did. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for who was waiting where. No plans. No malice. Just a pull to the river.

My breathing was heavy with need, with desire and the woman was perplexed at my hesitation. Yet my mind raced and I needed to know and see. It was important for some reason.

All the couples in the water, after a time, slipped below the surface. They seemed to slip and never surface. Yet there was no thrashing, no sense of violence. Just peace and love and need and tenderness.

My woman came closer to the edge of the slow moving river, rising a bit from the waters without ever completely leaving. My heart raised. Clarity of mind was ebbing. I knew what I ought to do.

I began to undress, my body almost in control of itself. My mind watching as though it were detached and not really there, like a film or a game. yet, I was. Yet I was going to enter the water. With her.

Then I saw. But it troubled me not. Or not enough to stop my stripping. The ripples in the water were the couples. They were ... changing. They seemed to be more like...fish. Were they mermaids? That was thrilling and alarming. I was no mermaid and mermaids had a history before the 20th century changed them to great singers and children's heroines.

I saw one couple fully transformed. They were fish, sensuously wrapping themselves around one another. Obviously still in the throws of passion, a delicate, tender passion though.

There was something more though...from the dream...as a teen.

Yet I continued. The yearning. The need. The drive to enter into the water and unite with this woman who was waiting for me in some way for 30 years was overwhelming. Whatever spell had its hold, whether biological or magical, would not release me. Or my mind. Or my needs.

I stepped into the water. One foot. Then another. Ankle deep only. It was the shallowest of spots. her smile grow to joyous. Not triumphant. Not vicious with victory. Pure and utter joy. As though her existence were complete and she was on the cusp of fulfilling her prefect destiny. And I was the key. And I made her feel as I had never been able to make any woman truly feel except in fleeting moments. I knew...I knew...she would feel this to the end of our days.

I took a step forward. She raised her arms.

I took another step. Deeper. Closer.

Then something floated by.

It was one of the fish. It was dead. It had spawned and died. A person had spawned and died. Like the salmon.

I looked up at her, her joy and horror warred with desire, potential fulfillment with shock, need with fear.

I saw. I knew. I understood.

I froze.

Too Old for This

Something. There was something. It was important. Well, crap.

I have a hard time focusing these days. I'm not a young man, to say the least, and the battering I received as a young man taking on the Dark, well, yes. That made my memory recall worse than it would have been otherwise. The Dark was a nasty piece of work and it definitely liked to work me over. When it got its shadowy mitts on me.

The worst was when the smoky Darkness had possessed some of my team without the rest of us knowing it. The Possessed had attacked the others with the intent of capturing or killing me. My poor team. Jasper was such a nice young man, so bright and idealistic...but...well, what they did to me makes my skin crawl even today.

Just thinking about it is making my skin crawl. right now. Spooky, huh?

How powerful the mind is, I mean. It can make you feel things that are not there. Hide things from ourselves even. Give us hope when there really appears to be none. Make you feel are there that are not.

That reminds me of something. I should be remembering something. Do you know? No? Well...

The most powerful mind I ever met was Jezebel Kerrigan. That woman could tear open a demon with her mind alone. She blew a hole in a mountain once. That was incredible. One moment a horde of foul half breeds and undead were advancing down the hill, going to overwhelm and consume us all, corrupt us to their cause and the next...BOOM! All gone.

Explosive needlers and ice bullets made from holy water are great and all, but ammo supplies can be rather insufficient...

She finally fell though. Hubris killed her. She became ever more powerful. More powerful than even most Demon Princes! And then, something, someone convinced her to bore a hole to hell itself and try to slay the Darkness herself. To say that didn't work, would be an understatement worthy of the Queen of England.

It took the Catholic Holy Order of St Peter, the Lutheran Rite Knights and, us, the American government's Office of Spiritual Services six months to seal up that Hellmouth, I can tell you. Yes, yes, it was intentional we had the same acronym as those yahoos. They came after us and were used as a cover. When they changed to the CIA, we continued and folks just made the wrong assumptions. Heh.

Something about poor Jezzy though...I need to remember it. That tickled whatever it was...

ummm. yes. well.

The worst mission I was on, other than the Jezzy Incident, was the attack of the afrit in 1961. The world knows it as Hurricane Carla. Damned air elementals wanted to bring down the US and attacked us really bad that year with storm after storm. They actually road in on one and assaulted the mainland. You think those 100 odd tornadoes from a single storm was natural? No, not even close. We had every affiliated priest, rabbi and even our first imam help us with that. We shot them, bagged them and tagged them for banishment by the holy orders. Have you ever seen what overpressurization of someone's lungs looks like? So many agents dead. So many...still gives me nightmares.

Did you feel that? I felt something. Was it a draft? Ha! Funny.

Skin crawling. Drafts. Jezzy.

ah.

Be a trooper and reach under your seat, please. There's a box there. Can you pull it out for me. I'd appreciate it. My back and knees are not what they used to be.

Thank you. Let me have it.

There we go.

Revelabitur.

There we go. Opened up. Please, each of you. Put these on. Quickly now, we don't have a lot of time. Thank you.

Stand over there. Thanks.

***

He turned to the door and pulled a pistol, an old revolver from the same box he'd just given us talismans. We were trained agents, but we were archivists here to record his memories of his missions to allow others to learn in the future from the old man's life, beyond what was in the official reports.

He inched to the side and pointed the gun at the door.

That door blew inwards and in came a demon, with winds and rain. We reached for our own sidearms, since no agent went without, but the Old Man fired once. Hitting the creature between the eyes. It dropped and the water droplets whirling through the air drenched everything.

The Old Man walked over and cuffed! cuffed! the demon. Then he looked at us, the camera crew.

"Well, call a clean up crew. I want my place properly cleaned. Damned Focalor has been waiting for over fifty years since Hurricane Carla when he stirred up the afrit against us to get revenge. He was one of the ones that got away when Jezzy opened the Hellmouth.

"I'm glad that got wrapped up. I'm too old for this crap."

Eulogy

God is dead.

God Is Dead.

Let that sink in.

Just for a moment.

God is dead.

This is not merely some philosophical rant.  This is not some atheistic or Satanic victory cry.  This is a fact.  This is a terrible fact.

God is dead.

What's more, the world did *not* end.  We are still here.  The world still exists.  There is still a heaven.  There is still a hell.

But God, the Creator, is dead.

But then, so too is the Devil.  But we won't weep over his loss.

But God.  The Almighty.  The Creator.  The Beginning and the End, the One who pronounced "I am Alpha and Omega," is dead.

And here, we stand, at the funeral of God, where I am giving a eulogy for the One and God is Dead.

We all know what happened, at least in the abstract.  The Apocalypse came.  It began, strangely, with explosions that would rival nuclear blasts in Palo Alto, Pasadena, Berkeley, Cambridge, Geneva, New Delhi and Beijing.  All places of scientific research.  As though the trigger for the apocalypse was some discovery scientists were racing towards and had found, allowing for the End Times to begin.

Given the fact so many places went up at once, it could not have been some codex of the arcane.  Some secret knowledge passed down.  Given all the ground zeros of the blasts were in universities noted, not for their theological research, but their hard sciences begins to make us wonder.  What did they find?  What was it that triggered the End?  How could anything Mankind did or could do in this world be a threat to an Omniscient, Omnipotent Being? 

And, yet, here we are.  God is Dead.

The great battles that followed between the Wicked and Saved, daemons and angels, nations and individuals, the Righteous and the Damned, would consume this world for 13 years.  In time, with blood, sweat, tears and nearly our souls, we threw back Hell's Host and cornered them in the Middle East.   There we would clash one last time.  Crushing them, driving them into defeat and retaking the world from the last of the Foul.

We won!  In the Battle of Armageddon, the Forces of Light crushed the darkness, vanquished its grip upon the Earth and raised our banners on high.  We celebrated our Faith.

And yet God is Dead.

What we had not realized at the time, could not even fathom, was Satan's attempt at taking the world was a ruse.  It was a distraction.  It was a feint.  That is right.  Satan didn't care much about us or our world.  The Serpent was focused on one being and one being only: God the Father.

We discovered the Portal outside Jerusalem.  We followed in.  None had seen the Beast and thought, perhaps, either God had bound the devil once more or, in our nightmares, the Beast had escaped.  Despite our expectations, the Portal did not lead to Hell.  The army we poured forth marched into...Heaven.

And there, we saw, a pitted and blasted landscape.  Ethereal corpses of angels.  Foul cadavers of demons, imps and devils.  Satan had invaded heaven and kept Humanity tied up on Earth.

We advanced, but carefully.  Imams, Rabbis and Priests, soldiers in armor and artificial intelligences in a variety of forms.  All cautious.  All careful.  All advancing so as to not be caught in a trap.  All despairing. 

In the end, we reached the Throne room and saw...the black orb.  The black hole.  And we could go no further.  Something was preventing us.  Yet we could also see strewn about, in an uneven, incomprehensible fashion bits of Human technology.

And there was no God.

There was no Devil.

Something horrible had happened here.  And something powerful.  Something beyond our ken.

Then the Scribe of God, one of the few surviving angels in Heaven, described the onslaught, the great battle and witnessed...the Scribe could not understand what happened.  Just that it did.

The Almighty Died.

And God is Dead.

We gather here today to seal his Throne Room, to proverbially bury the Creator and make an eternal remembrance.  God is dead and we shall miss him.

I would like to close with this strange, odd thought and realization.

How could this happen?  How can the all powerful be destroyed?  How could possibly the Worm even scratch the Creator, never mind destroy Him?

Satan alone could not destroy God.  The Beast had attempted this since the First War in Heaven.  The Worm had striven to take down the Almighty for billions of years, at least, if not longer.  And yet, had failed.

And yet, here we are: God is dead.

No, Satan did not kill God.  The Dark One could not.  Not alone.  It was only through using something Human that allowed the Devil his day.  And yet, whatever it was, killed the Beast, too.  No, the Beast did not kill God.

Man did.

Man killed God and that God let him may be the greatest gift He ever gave Humanity.

Amen.

Spite

Humanity had raged its war against the gods and had taken taken Olympus. Millions had died, but they had taken the mountain and slain the Gods. They were no more. They were gone all...save me.

I was left. I was mortally wounded! Oh those words! Those strange, strange words. A god is mortally wounded! Yet, it was true. My end was nigh. I would soon cease to be. Not merely imprisoned or sent to the void, but ended. And when a god ends, there is no afterlife. We do not have shades that move on and linger eternally. We are the eternal. And when that ends, there is no more.

I have some life spark left, even as it flickers and fades. I might stretch my moments, my god-like moments, for another century, but eventually my soul would leak away, dying, bleeding out and leaving...nothing. Not even bones that might an impression in the sediments of this world.

The a god's eternity is their life and life alone.

Yet these Humans could not appreciate it. They could not appreciate what we did in our eternal life was all we had. We could not leave greatness behind as marks upon the world because some other deity would come and erase them entirely. In this, we envied mankind.

And we hated them.

And we wrecked havoc and played with them as toys in our jealousy.

And mankind rose up and destroyed us.

I saw Zeus slain by an army. Fanatical humans. Hundreds of thousands died bringing him down. Ares would have been delighted had he not been already slain. Athena would have approved their strategy had her corpse not already evaporated into the aether.

When I saw the Father of the Gods die, I fled.

I was already pierced and doomed, but I did not want to fall then. Fall forever with no hope of vengeance.

I fled Greece for Mesopotamia. I stood upon their great tower and focused. I gathered my magical soul, the last bits, the sole magic I had left and crafted, weaved and cast my spell.

Never again would Humanity be able to rise as one against anything. Never again would Humanity have the power of solidarity. Never again would Humanity know peace. Neither would they remember their ultimate moment of victory. Their ultimate success. And neither would they ahve a common tongue.

I cursed humanity. I cursed them from their damnable Tower of Babel. I curse them with Discord. And it would be ever lasting.

And this would be my vengeance, my legacy, that no deity could undo. I had found my immortality past my eternal life.

And as I faded away, my soul spent in my triumph, I, Eris, was well pleased.

Myths & Big Data

The car's horn wouldn't stop blaring. I was dazed. What happened?!

I couldn't be sure. I was I hurt all over. I was not in good shape. But I was just a moment ago. What happened?!

My chest. It hurt. It hurt really bad.

A voice. It was talking.

"Mr. Martez. This is Watson. Our sensors show you were in a car accident. Are you okay?"

I mumbled something. I was not terribly coherent. Whatever had caused the accident had beaten the hell out of me.

"Mr. Martez. The emergency vehicles will be there momentarily. There will be both bots and people. Are you able to move? "

I mumbled I was hurt, but could feel everything. Everything really well. And it didn't feel good whatsoever.

I could hear the first responders. They were buzzing over my car and dropping to the ground. Bots carried by drones.

They marched over, assessed the damage and cut away the door to my car.

"Mr Martez. We are asking permission to examine you. You must give assent if we are going to be able to help you now instead of waiting for the human responders."

I, of course, assented. Sometimes minutes can make a huge difference in someone staying alive or coming away with minimal long term injuries and the bots were good enough to know when they were not equipped to deal with an injury. And then they would not: no ego there. Then again, they were just really advanced expert systems, not true artificial intelligence. Ask them to do something outside their expertise and they might as well have been a rock.

Turned out I was fine, just some cuts and bruises: no breaks, concussion or worse. They quickly treated minor butdontfeelminor injuries and gave me ClearMeUps(tm) for the dazing. They worked quick.

While we waited for the human responders, I called the insurance. The car was totaled. There was no recovering it, even with modern robo tech. I'd need a new one. My insurance premiums were going to go up: I'd been out of auto drive and been going manually.

While I was on the phone, I walked around the front and looked at what I'd hit. I swore. The representative was looking at the same time. The law allowed the insurance companies to assess the damage through the cameras of the first responder bots.

"Mr Maretz. I am going to have to place you on hold and get my supervisor. You seem to have struck and killed a unicorn and under MEESA - Mystical Endangered and Engineered Species Act - you have killed a critical cornerstone species. Given your affiliation with the Natural Ecology Party, we are going to have to sort out whether or not this was an intentional act and whether your policy will cover this accident. Please hold."

I sighed loudly. Just because I expressed an opinion, an unpopular opinion, that Real Nature ought to be protected and not these fantastic, fictional ones...well, now I would have this headache.

Damn big data, anyways!

And screw the damned unicorn!

And screw the world right now!

I just expressed an opinion!  It didn't mean I was going to go out and hunt down unicorns!  

Did this mean what I said would have real consequences now?!

Failed Confessional

The Devil sighed.

He really ought to know better. This happened every time. He sighed again. Not loud. Not dramatically. Just heavily.

There was no way for him to get absolution. He was too evil. He had done too much. His long list of sins were too long and, after he left confession, he would wrack up even more sins than he could get a priest to absolve him of in a single session. At best, he'd just slow the rate of sinning, reduce the burden, not end it.

He stood up and the smoky darkness wafted down from his coat. It dimmed but did not obscure. It enticed despite its evilness. It seduced and tempted those into doing the forbidden. There was no hiding from the evil he embodied. Those that claimed otherwise were sinning in their own way: they were lying to themselves and others.

He opened the door and stepped out. The church dimmed. He expected to burst into flame every time he came for confession, but never did. At times, he wished he did. It would be so much easier for it all to be over. For the eternity to be gone in a flaming, blinding moment of His divine wrath. No such luck. No such release. Was the Heavenly Father merciful by not destroying him? Or was it part and parcel of his Divine Judgment.

Lucifer hardly knew anymore. It had been too long since he'd seen the Creator, never mind dealt with His presence.

He grimaced. Should he? It was going to be a mess either way. Should he look? He might delight in it. He had several times. It only added to the burden of sins he carried. But what was that? It was such a minor thing in the massive burden of his doomed existence. It'd just be a minor, small thrill. What could that really hurt? He was doomed anyways. Why not?

He turned and looked into the priest's side of the confessional. He snorted and smirked. Like always.

The priest had killed himself. He could not handle hearing the pure, rolling meltdown of Satan's sins. He had overwhelmed him, choked him, strangled his very soul and, in the end, forced his own hand against him...destroying him.

Lucifer ought to feel remorse for killing the priest. Well, for melting down the priest until he kill himself. He supposed it was really the priest's fault. He'd decided to kill himself. Not Satan. He'd never actually wanted to kill the man. He just wanted to unburden his soul and seek salvation.

Well, he was damning himself further. He was gloating over this weak thing dying. This pathetic thing that is man. So twisted in form. So pitiful in nature. How unlike God. And Lucifer knew God.

He turned and whistled as he walked away and his smoky darkness followed.

Faithless & Forgotten

The rain poured in torrents, coating, soaking and inundating the world's entirety. No place was dry. No place would be again. The world was being baptized, anointed in its damnation. And there would be no escape.

I had climbed the highest mountain. I had sought the last refuge. I had come alone.

I was not a good man. I had not listened and taken heed of the warnings by another of the coming deluge. I had not prepared my people. I had scoffed with my faithless role as a man of faith. I simply had not believed. Now, I had not done more than to try to warn others to seek the high ground. To escape what I had thought was a mere giant flood.

I was not a monster. I had given the last of my food to a family who could not climb any higher. I had given my last cloak to another who was coughing from the cold drenching. I had, in fact, warned my people to leave the village before the waters rose too high from our river.

I had not abused my position. I had not been a saint. I simply was human.

Here and now, I knelt before the torrent and prayed. I prayed until the last, faint wisp of hope, the desperate hope that comes for the damned in denial, had fled me. I felt the iciness finally lap upon my knees.

I wept in the moment. I wept the tears of those truly repentant, those who know they have done wrong and wish to make amends, but those same tears of the ones damned with that knowledge and the knowledge of not gaining forgiveness. I was damned. Those I loved were damned. Those who were my flock were damned.

And there was not a thing I could.

I had failed them.

I had been, I was too flawed.

My God would not save me.

He would not save whoever was left of my people.

We were damned.

I rose when the waters reached my waist. I could not accept my fate. I could not accept I was doomed. I looked desperately around for some way, some escape for myself. I saw none. I had climbed as high as was possible. Not even the howling of my soul could tear open a passage to safety, to salvation.

The waves began to push and pull against me, threatening to dislodge me into the freezing, gaping maw of the risen sea. Yet still I refused to accept. If there was simply something I could do. if there was simply some way I could do...something...I could escape. The only faith I had was in myself.

I felt a great presence upon me. I felt moved. And I saw.

In the great distance, too far for the eye to see naturally, I saw a great ark. It was a vision of faith rendered in wood.

Another vision possessed and oppressed me. I saw a flame burst into being above a village and it dried and protected and nourished its people.

Then I had a vision of all my sins, my faithlessness, my hopeless failings and how, in the end, I had prayed for my salvation and not been completely selfless, even when it was obvious there was no way for me to survive.

My soul was laid bare. My motivations exposed. My false humility crushed.

I was pulled out to sea. I was abandoned. I had earned my damnation. I was washed away.

The seas, currents, the rising torrent, pulled me under.

And I thought as my mind expired and the pure pointless animal fight for survival took hold, the survivors would merely write, merely remember the ending of the world as when the rains arrived, it washed everything clean.

Family Curse V

Epilogue:

We, Familia del Corazón, prepare.

Corazon met her fate and sealed the mouth of the lair of the Serpent himself.  Durandal was the key to the lock and the lock had been opened.  She closed and locked the Serpent back in Hell, preventing the apocalypse. 

Corazon was no mere dragon slayer.  She was a demon hunter, death to devils, slayer of wicked spirits, but in the end, sealing the Hellmouth was too much.  And it claimed her life when she closed and welded shut the very gates of hell.

Sadly, with all things human, the lock itself is now failing.  Its magical corrosion has rendered it ready to fail.  Entropy wins all wars.  At least so far.  Even against magic.  Though whether or not it has won its war with humanity or not remains to be seen.

However, the Serpent rises.  The Devil comes.  The end times are nigh.

We now rise to the challenge.  Humanity in all its forms, all its evolved and uploaded and enhanced and natural.  And we march with the knowledge of gods and the technology to match.  For we have not sat idle since the 21^st century.  Human ingenuity has not flagged, not failed.

We mourn the carnage to come, but have faith in ourselves…

For Hell hath no fury like Humanity.