((‘The Huancayo
SF Analects’)
(Ten-Science Fiction Vignettes))
By, Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c.
Poet laureate
‘Out of Time Warps & Space’
((‘The
Huancayo SF Analects’) (Ten-Science Fiction Vignettes))
11/2015 Copyright
© By Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c.
. . .
The Author has given out 38,000-Chapbooks
total (along with over a 1000-standard international books, paperbacks and
hardcover in Peru alone; this is his 30th Chapbook, he has written
for Peru, making for a total of 47-chapbooks, to include those prior to Peru;
along with 48-international books, of which eight of those books being of
Peruvian Culture, along with 40-on other subjects: novels, short stories,
poetry, Chemical Dependency, etc. His writings can be ordered on the Internet,
or at any books stores in the United States, throughout Europe, Asia (to
include Japan and China), and behind the old Iron Curtain, or Eastern Europe.
In South America, they can be ordered through Amazan.com, b.n.com, Abe.com and
most any larger bookseller.
Dedication
Index
Science Fiction Vignettes
(The 10-Huancayo SF
Original Vignettes written in November of 2015)
The Author’s
Interlude was taken out of the Manuscript
. . .
1—the Mummy
from Huaytapallana (White
Mountain)
2—Charon (The Listeners)
3—Enceladus’
Dilemma ((The Account)
(Year: 2035 A.D.))
4—the Inmate
from Mercury ((The Pen Pal)
(Year: 2095 A.D.))
5—Flung from Pluto (Quantum
Ripples in Time)
6— the Ahesor Comet Report (2020 A.D., ‘The Toad People)
7— Far Boundaries of Gravity (Silas Caine)
8— Black Moon Widows
(The Kerberos Narrative 2048 A.D.)
9—Pluto Waiting! (The Primitive)
10—the Hidden Scrolls of Mars (Earth time, 100,000 B.C.)
Commentary
on the Ten Vignettes
(…Also
considered: ‘The Huancayo SF Analects’)
. . .
(…and Two Weird Tales)
The pride of: Marquis d’ Belphegor
((Arch Devil) (In Poetic Prose))
.
EndOsmosis
((A Strange Tale) (Extract from MS; Chapter One))
Ten Science Fiction Vignettes
. . .
1
A Very Short SF Vignette
The Mummy from Huaytapallana
(White Mountain)
I am a part time, tourist-archeologist,
somewhat familiar with the Inca Civilization, having lived in Peru ten-years,
and visiting it five years before sporadically, in particular, being interested
in the Inca predecessor, the Wari Empire, thus I have some knowledge, and
presently live in the Andes.
The Wari blood is near extinction among the people of Peru and Bolivia.
Epidemics caused much of this by way of the European presence, via influenza,
centuries ago.
I was recently on an expedition outside the ancient Inca City of
Huancayo (the city’s real name meaning: City of the Holy Trinity, a city
450-years old). And to my amazement came upon a mummy, unearthed by the snowy
mountain called Huaytapallana, or White Mountain.
My comrades in the expedition, had matched the DNA, which produced a
mysterious lineage, suggesting anthropological characteristics of the
Neanderthal, along with the Wari (perhaps dating back some 40,000-years), yet the
mummy was only 700-years old.
Being an amateur in this field, I was not sure what this meant, if
indeed it meant anything at all. Knowing three percent (3%) of the human race
is said to carry such DNA of the Neanderthal, and its traits; be that as it
may, when they concluded a part of the genome, let’s call it the third part, once
unwound, was found to be alien, meaning two things: 1) not of this earth 2)
Unknown to science data; thus I knew then we were on to something.
As weeks went by, my comrades with their connections, again unwound another mystery, perhaps more profound, the mummified remains—that is, what the mummy
was covered with, was red clay, or dirt, mixed with salts, hence implications
suggested from that they had beyond a doubt, after the chemical identity was
assured: came from Mars.
To what end this shall lead, who’s to say!
#4923/Written:
11-22-2015 (7:55 p.m.) Huancayo, Peru (The Story: 306-words)
2
A Very Short SF Vignette
Charon
(The Listeners)
The explosion had taken place outside the
Kuiper Belt, those being on Pluto’s moon,
called Charon, one of five, had heard it, as did the Great Scientist Alanxdro from Earth; thus
in his lab the green light went on indicating, predominantly the strange and
wonderful had taken place, an opening of communication between Charon and Earth.
Perhaps a neutron star very dense burnt–out; or the merging of black
holes took place but all were guesses; yet Louisiana’s Space Center was
listening as was Dr. Alanxdro was doing likewise listening in his lab.
This happening created gravitational waves (GW), which created an
opening for Dr. Alanxdro to be heard by Charon; hence, the warping of space and
time took place, he conjured, what may be called an astrophysical phenomena.
The explosion, perhaps a supernova, took place some place in the Milky
Way Galaxy, he concluded, with the assistance of the Space Station.
The GW, a ripple in the fabric of space and time, came at the speed of
light (176,000-miles per second), at which time Louisiana’s Space Center, was
talking and being heard by whomever was on the other side, on Charon, as was
the old scientist. It was as
if there had been a tunnel created for Earth could hear the voice from Charon,
or vice versa.
It was the first time mankind had hard another voice that belonged to an
alien race, some four-billion miles away.
Then after a few utterances, and static
impinged, both earthling, and alien, turned the knob on their radios, they
reflected on the atonal sounds each made, trying to figure out their meanings,
but it was impossible to interpret them, nonetheless contact was made, and
whatever created this opening, it now as closed.
Written: 11-21-2015 (4:00 a.m.) #4917 (Word
count: 290)
3
A Short SF Vignette
Enceladus’ Dilemma
((The Account) (Year: 2035 A.D.))
I glanced through the new telescope, the
largest in the world, I was told. Far did I see in the depths of space; for
hours I searched our solar system, focused
toward Pluto, and beyond, some five billion-km. The telescope was
incredible, connected to another telescope some 200-miles above earth. Somehow
I found myself fixed on Enceladus, Saturn’s moon. (—First
let me say this before I continue, point of fact: physics alone cannot explain
reality, if it could it would explain
God, and since it can’t and can’t take God out of the equation, without having
it collapse, they have to conclude there are alternate realities—with this in
mind, I proceed with ‘the account’)
So what did see exactly with this newfangled telescope?
A man in a boat, or on some kind of platform, on ice or stilled water. I
glanced at him swift, surprised. He was the size of a sparrow. At second
glance, I adjusted to enlarge in size, a typical sort of thought came--:
nothing in the astronomy books on what to do on delusions verse reality; hence,
was this a delusion, or reality? I was
over tired, several hours had passed by; surely the psychologist would adhere
to this, delusional syndrome before reality. At third glace the item was
sharper with more magnified details. Now he looked more like a giant size bird,
let’s say vulture, with shark details sort of!
A man with a head and wings, and legs, or could they be some kind of
wing looking oxygen tanks? I asked myself: how does one rationalize this, then
I looked for the camera equipment, and could not find the panel, which comes
under: lack of instructions.
Enceladus I knew was a rich moon, being an amateur astrologer, my dear
friend Hkanat a dear friend, whom name is not Hkanat, —I shall leave out his
real name for better or worse—who allowed me into his astronomical temple, had
only expected me to observe, like one would at a museum, or a fish aquarium,
and had to leave me on my own, pending other duties. But as I was about to say,
Enceladus is a most promised place to find life, if life is to be found
anyplace in our solar system, in particular beneath its icy crust. Should this moon, warm up, it would be one
large ocean I have confidence in.
Consequently what was I seeing? I mean, really seeing? I knew in advance
there was found years ago, molecular hydrogen, also hot vents on the rocky
ocean floor, this all proved habitability; perhaps like Earth’s deep-sea beds. Thus, Enceladus like Earth—was
both like to like—in this manner. In all speculation, until now, now one could
prove this moon could support life. Not knowing all that much about the
Saturnine system, I could see in the wink of an eye, this underwater wrinkled
terrain, picks of mountains above its atmosphere, my indeed had done just that,
and seeing this extraterrestrial being, or otherworldly being, as not being a
delusion, mentally my puzzle was being put together rapidly. Perhaps a portion
of this moon had been, was in a process known as serpentinization. With more adjustments I could see rocks rich
in iron; my awareness of Earth’s micro-organisms—through which this same
process was a source to drive its Earth’s metabolism, like protein drives a
man’s metabolism, why not here on Enceladus, like the sun does for a reptile?
And then it happened, at my next glance, I felt helpless, dread, which
in the years yet to come would I dwell upon. Did I depict an overlapping of
time? In other words, did I survey time past as in a second print. A silhouette
in the ripple of time past? That was still outlined, definitely in the mind of
the universe? The question begs to be answered: why did not anyone else see
what I saw, especially my amigo? Disregarding the present. As if in death, man
is said to be able to reflect all his past events, how is this possible? Again
I must say, like to like, God’s universe has preserved it somehow. In any case,
when I explained this to my colleague, he said:
“Different realities are possible, in cosmic time,” and he left it at
that. I took his statement to mean: what
is fretfully unexplainable doesn’t mean there’s not a reality to fit it.
Written: 11-22-2015 (#4922) reedited,
12-24-2015
Copyright © Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c.
4
A Short SF
Vignette
The Inmate from Mercury
((The Pen Pal) (Year: 2095 A.D.))
Letter One (July, 2093 A.D)
“Dear Harry Harvey, here in my prison cell
on Mercury, it gets between 300 to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Which for Mercury as you may well know, is
normal. So with your letter I had to read it behind special glass, it was for
the most part evaporated, in fragmented form. Therefore I am sending you some
special chemically protected paper we use here on Mercury, use it and your
letter will be more legible.
“I have never visited Earth but I’ve heard it was beautiful, and
confrontational, or warlike. Also, it
has over ten-billion people.
“On another subject, the heat on Mercury has never been a real problem for
me, even at 500 F, it is pleasant. At eight-hundred, of course it gets
uncomfortable. So you see, I am not a hydro-carbon life form. And to be frank
your letter was sent to me by accident. Let me explain: my number here is M:
4651, the M stands for Mercury, and I’m the four thousand and six hundred and
fifty fist inmate, out of 5000-inmates here on Mercury.
“I repeat myself, I’m elated the letter came to the likes of me, an
inmate who has been unjustly incarcerated, please continue the correspondence.”
Yours sincerely, M: 4561
. . .
Letter Two (September, 2094 A.D)
“Dear Harry Harvey, I received your first
letter, I mean second letter, and yes there is a way to lower the radioactive
body, in particular mine, to 150-degrees, but it comes with a price in that it
would affect my flow of energy, and none of Earth’s cities would allow me to
step onto its surface.
“I am now fifty-years old, and have twenty-more years to serve of my
sentence, my race has a lifespan of 150-years, thus, one third of my life is
now gone, and by the time I leave, one half will disappear.
“However our race is a superior to yours, as you well know, we also
carry what you call a high atomic weight.
The race that has incarcerated me, is similar to us, but superior to us.
They have used us as slaves, liken to the days of Athens, 450 B.C., when there
were more slaves within the population than citizens. Anyhow, for 25,000-years we have been their
mining tools, compared to 15,000-years ago, when we were sent to dig out the
gold from mines in Peru, gold being a universal substance used in all
spacecraft’s.
Asteroid Sedna
“Turning to my imprisonment, I killed an engineer on a maintenance crew,
which stopped the mining on the dwarf sphere Ceres, inside the asteroid belt.
The pintsize planet, is about 800-miles wide, it has quite a lot of irregular
shapes and craters, most interesting to our Masters as they prefer to be
called, and I worked in one of those crater-mines.
“We quarried for an assortment of materials, minerals, along with the
many salt mounds on the surface. And several of us rebelled, and we called it
war, and they called it terrorism, and the stronger is always in the right.”
Sincerely, Inmate, M: 4651
. . .
Letter Three (October, 2095 A.D)
Dear Mr. Harry Harvey:
“Just a brief note to answer your question
if you will send a letter to the warden of this prison to lighten my sentence,
this is not unusual, they take all letters very seriously, as to keep a cordial
relationship with Earth, and the mining that they do throughout the solar
system, since we are originally outside it.
“We are as you know quite advance in the history and development of your
solar system. My father won his freedom after his allotted time in the mines as
all our kind must serve, one fifth of our life doing, during his free time he
was allowed to earn his doctorate in the astrophysics, stellar phenomena, and
ancient mythologies pertaining in particularly to your solar system. I will try
to tell you what he said in a nutshell, if indeed it fits:
‘Comets are an ancient creation by the god’s of evil, trying to
duplicate God Almighty’s great creation of the stars, which we know as suns.
Our race found a comet, a rare one that would serve our purpose it was older
than Earth’s solar System, and our kind implanted molecules of oxygen in its
clouds of gas. The comet within its orbit, reacted with other planets within
Earth’s solar system, as it was forming eons ago. Along with its most common
gases, others formed around the comet, such as: water, vapor, carbon monoxide,
and carbon dioxide, and so on and so on. It all remained in its unique form.
The oxygen froze, trapped in clumps of other materials and was released during
this formation of your solar system, as the comet made its long journey around
Earth’s sun, and beyond.’
“The comet is often referred to as “The Devil Comet” actually we
still do refer to it by that name. The reason being, no one knows how it got
here in the first place. And so, as my father inferred, by dropping what he
called seeds, Earth formed a beautiful and thick atmosphere, which produced
materials and minerals, and then life.”
Sincerely, Inmate M: 4651
. . .
Letter from the
Warden to Harry Harvey (December, 2095 A.D)
Penitentiary Mercury
Reference to: M: 4651
Dear Mr. Harry Harvey: “If it looks like a dead fish and smells
like a dead fish and it comes from Denmark, that’s exactly what it is, and that
is what you got for all your time writing M: 4561; my best advice is don’t eat
it! He’s been fishing for someone like you for a long time.”
Sincerely, the Warden.
Written: 11-22-2015 (#4921) reedited,
12-24-2015
Copyright © Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c.
5
Flung from Pluto
(Quantum, Ripples in Time)
I live in the present as most people do here on earth if not
everyone, which can be referred to as pragmatism, or logic, although I have
experienced, as have my countrymen, what is theory to humans, and common
practice to us: stemming from the present into the past, as well as into and
perhaps the future. I am stirred for the most part by the here and now¸ what
I’m accustomed to, even though I have come to realize
the present and the future are well-appointed by God. Let me explain where what
I am leading up to:
Through a ripple of time, a ripple in space
and time, nearly 1500-years ago, our spacecraft landed on Earth. We traveled
15.5 billion km from Earth’s sun, in a matter of hours, not at its likely
occurrence of several years. It was the year 488 A.D., when we came.
As I meditate and think back, the year now
being 2015, the Picks from upper Scotland invaded Britain, as did in time the
times of the Angles from Sweden and Denmark, and the Saxons from East Germany.
Back then the land mass wasn’t divided as it is today, this is to my best
recollection.
Back
then I still recall the limping, the hungry, the thirsty, the grim, the dusty
and the sentimentality of the age, —notwithstanding, the horror of Warlike men
from the North, now called Vikings in and around 790 A.D., and then after 828 A.D., when England became united, thus they were much like the ISIS are today. Both Godless,
swollen with the devils breathe, bands inhabiting earth, with no rules,
indifferent to their fellow men, no limits, or discipline. Which leads me to my
next thought:
I
am a prudent being, I’m also impetuous, and jour mission was to investigate the
ripples in time and space. But as you may have already figured out I was left
behind, and once left behind, there was no escaping Earth’s gravity, its
several layers of atmosphere. We are a long-lived race that had come from a
planet half the size of Pluto, as I say in nearly the speed of light. All the
same, I have always yearned to be reunited—yet on the other hand excluded this
possibility of being reunited to the underworld of our little planet, although
I’ve just read a scientist has discovered V774104, this is my world, a tiny
oval dwarf planet, Pluto minor, it could be called and would stand up to that
name.
I
made my way hobbling through the centuries, as if they were a descending
staircase. But how this all came about was: one evening I had fallen
to sleep, after having several horn-cups of sherry, when I awoke, it was a
mid-summer’s nightmare. I looked around in vain for my spouting friends, I had
come with. And they were glowing in a heap of fire, as if they were the fuel.
In a word, those who did not escape on our spacecraft, were roasted alive, and
I had but a moment before I’d be lain outstretched before those cannibalistic
mongrelized primitives.
Since then I have learned to look like humans, disguised
myself somewhat. Now I am old, about to die of old age, and I shall explain one
of the mysteries our race discovered, or think we have, we can put it into the
basket of Quantum Theories, if not plane physics, we learned everything that is supposed to
happen in the Universe, has, it is all written, done, in the ripples of space,
should you be able to scrutinize one you would be able to step back to let’s
say: 790 A.D., or to the end of time. The end of time is simply a mathematical
equation in light-years, which stretches from one boarder to another. If we are
to stay in our time, or Earth time, then time is 2015. And in week it will be
2016. But at the end and beginning of God’s light-years, it is quite different.
#4915/11-20-2015
(Revised, 12-26-2015)
6
A Very Short SF Vignette
The Ahesor Comet Report
(2030
A.D., ‘The Toad like People)
The beings, to my
understanding were no more than three-feet tall, with skin
roughened similar to a toads, all naked reddish flesh, having little squinty
pig eyes and albino hair, if any at all, for most were hairless. Beyond this
description, they are for the most part nondescript, although plague-ridden in
those latter days of their existence.
There had been—two groups of them—both groups living on one side of the
Comet Ahesor, totaling perhaps twenty-five in all; the larger group was
called: Odlaforp.
The disease was termed: green leprosy, and tenanted by doom; thus,
they faced a dimmed lit grotesque reality.
The planet they were born on, and then taken from is to my understanding
some 39-lightyears from Earth—take or give a few either way—so indicates my
report; time in space for light to reach earth, at such a distance is
phenomenal if not phantasmal, in that this penal colony of two infected groups
of what has now been established as ‘The Toad People’ of Ahesor, took place
26,000 B.C. This year being 2030 A.D. The planet I am referring to is much like
Venus. A rocky planet 370-trillion km, out in interstellar space, with about
half it’s roasting in solar winds and heat storms sporadically throughout its
lifespan. Back in 26,000 B.C., according
to the report, it had and maintained a substantial atmosphere, liken to Mars at
one time, perhaps its sun burnt it up to its present atmospheric thinness, and
if there are life forms still there, they have not been seen from its surface
thus far.
The comet is presently maintaining its ancient orbit, and is two lobed,
perhaps it formed that way billions of years ago by some contact binary.
Furthermore, as the report reads this comet circles the earth’s sun and perhaps
in the past has released in material or substance form, unknown ancient disease
that have found its way to earth, causing plagues, who’s to say? A new, if not
old theory being revised at this very moment.
To the best of my knowledge, this comet is 650 meters thick, it has a
gravitational field, and looks as if at any moment it will split in half. It
also takes six-years to orbit our sun, and by all means was a spacecraft for
those two small groups, now long gone.
The mass, or frame of the comet has been measured at ten-billion tones,
the volume 21.4 cubic km. The larger lob is 4.l km. It has been deduced, that
the two groups lived on that larger section of the comet, for a brief period,
perhaps starving to death long before their disease would have killed them. The
comet itself is 75% empty space. And to the best of my knowledge, the
temperatures range from - 93c to -43 c.
What more can I tell you, but to sum
up: our Resources Bureau in Lima, calls
this unnamed far-off planet of the Toad People, Venus II. They assume it has
cooled down some, but the counsel in Lima has moved ideas, they say Venus II,
left the comet a prison, to abandon their kind, to their own fate in fear of
something more epidemic I suppose on their planet, during each beings embryonic stage. Our feedback from our
interstellar probes, are still transmitting the data being sent to us, and our
dialectology department is making their interpretation of this data at present.
#4918/11-21-2015 (Reedited and revised
slightly, 12-26-2015)
7
A Short SF Vignette
Far Boundaries of Gravity
(Silas
Caine)
The planets, move around the
sun, and the sun with all its planets and moons, thereof, revolve forevermore,
or so it appears on their straight and narrow orbits, as the universe pours out
with care its widespread gravity, like manna. Gravity, the thing that keeps our
solar system activated, our galaxy in motion.
In essence, the universe’s black energy, black matter. Should a star
collapse, we know it’s an act of gravity, to a certain extent, as then a black
hole is ready to be created if not already created, to swallow that dead star,
whole. Yes, the hand of providence has provided a waste basket, for its
surplus. Put another way, gravity shapes space and time, has energy, creates a
reaction, produces a black hole, if not a wormhole that may develop into a
black hole, or a black hole acting like a wormhole.
This
must be explained before we go on with the story lest we get fragmented along
the way, and we lose sight of Silas Caine whom is the antagonist of the story.
We have
talked of gravity, now wormholes, and travel, then the full story, since the
title is “Far Boundaries…” it should fit. What is faster than the speed of
light? Nothing, scientists say. But if
you step into Quantum theories, physics, there is something perhaps! Traveling
through a wormhole which I shall define shortly. To make a long theory short, a
traversable wormhole, let’s say with a notion of an intra-universe connection,
the wormhole being similar to a black hole, more on the order of a shortcut connecting
two separate points in space and time, you know, like a tunnel, with an
electromagnetic field of energy. In essence, as Einstein has inferred: a
wormhole bridges, in this story, two different universes; —we’re getting into
general relativity, —the wormhole might allow superluminal light speed, faster
than light travel; the speed of light is
176,000-miles per second, this again is more into Quantum theories;
meaning, hypothetical, unseen, unproven, not experienced, but probable.
Now a
third thought into this story before we get into the story: since we have taken
care of Gravity, and now Wormholes, which we may come back to—that are much
like a hole in a cylinder, and if we can stretch our imagination we can
envision it being used for communication between parallel universes. A side
thought, wormholes cut 50% to 99.9% percent of travel time, or put another way,
a billion miles can now be measured in feet, we are on the right path to
knowing how Silas Caine got to Earth in the first place, from that far-off
universe.
So the
next step into the story that I haven’t yet told, is time travel, like a time
machine. In wormholes, time is not the same as outside it. We are now going
into Quantum effects if not general relativity: Black Holes are of course
Stephen Hawking’s expertise, and we have and shall mention them time and again
throughout this account. But it makes no difference, what is, and what is
theory, is perhaps possible, there are many realities we know nothing about. In this case, and a possible case indeed, and
for the story, a particle case, the wormhole is a time machine, call it time
dilation, or contraction. We are traveling from one universe to another, faster
than the speed of light—even though the light in the wormhole will beat us to
our destination, and let’s say we are carrying energy from one time to another,
from one place to another, the wormhole has to adjust, or once on the other
side, something has to. Now we are ten-years in the past, or perhaps 1000-years
in the past, or we are from the future visiting Earth in its present, we now
are looking at time warps, or twists, or time like curves. All this and a
little more, concerns Silas Caine’s altercative activity!
Silas Caine
And so what we know
of and what we don’t know of, moves unless balance is held back by another
force, but when someone can trigger a force against another, than what? When
perturbation accrues, when a traveler or
something physical, a system can be disturbed, even planets taken off their
orbits, is when there is an interference; Silas Caine knew this, and used his Severity Machine,
as it was referred to, he brought
from another universe to do just that: why? To see if it would work, and then
return to his own universe, via wormhole, and let his countrymen on his planet
know of his experiment; what for? He
wanted the Nobel Prize of that Planet, which was called, the ‘Quantum Award.’
Two forces fighting one another,
and thus comes balance or chaos. What we don’t know God holds back from mankind
as a father would hold back a grenade from a child’s hands, we’re not ready for
it, and man is quite predictable, for obvious reasons, but when an outsider
sneaks into your solar system, and onto your planet, predictability changes,
and thus indifference takes precedence for the invader. So the question may
arise: what does he know that we know, but live in pretense of not
acknowledging to know? A riddle? Perhaps not.
Extra-terrestrials are out there? For good or bad, who’s to say, and
what is on their agenda?
The
breakdown of gravity is power. And so it was in the year 2036, there appeared
such a man by the name of Silas Caine, who had built a machine—to repeat
myself, an awful machine that revised the pull from the iron core of the Earth,
allowing Earth’s atmosphere to be heated, polluted, scorched, and thinned, and
there it faded into the empty space between earth and its moon, like clouds.
Where
did he come from, how did he build that machine? Some say he just appeared out
of nowhere, others say, he came through a wormhole from another universe, that
he came from the future and brought with him, his own energy from that far-off
place. And now man devoid of weight, started to become like fiends, ghosts.
Slowly
he evaporated 50% of earth’s atmosphere, its global oxygen, carbon all the
emanating elements that form the timid and mysterious invisible atmosphere,
that took billions of years to form around earth; consequently Earth now was in
a state of loss, as was earth’s electromagnetic energy field.
In a
short period of time the oceans were lowered to the point ships could no longer
navigate them, and the world powers became uneasy with one another thinking one
another had some kind of conspiracy going on; and so Silas Caine, to Earth’s
once thick and luscious layers of atmosphere, nearly all was cast out into the
black matter of interstellar space? And no one could find, or stop Silas Caine!
Thus
came, underground sanctuaries.
He
could have controlled the world, if that was his mission, he had the power, but
that was not his mission, as we all know.
And
before he departed earth, he did leave something in tack, earth’s culture. But
let me back track to those latter days…
The
underground vaults of earth vomited up all it had. Billions of voices screamed,
and ascended into a cosmic death. Satan’s demons had a great feast, and long
laugh over all this, they didn’t even know who Silas Caine was, or where he
came from, but was as if he was there Antichrist!
Did
Silas Caine want to get even with God, so the preachers and clergy summed up,
when all other reasonable thought fell into a black hole? Logic would say he
had no God.
“Alas!” What now?” were the words being uttered daily in the newspapers
commentaries, on the talk shows of television, on the radio programs. Was Silas
Caine as they said, ‘A lunatic?’ How could they stop that machine, when they
couldn’t even find it? Then puff, he
was gone, liken to the way he came, with that darn machine.
#4916/11-20-2015 (Reedited and revised
slightly, 12-26-2015)
8
A Short SF Vignette
Black Moon Widows
(The Kerberos Narrative) 2048 A.D.
Kerberos, orbits 60,000-km
planet Pluto; Pluto which has five moons, and in comparison in distance, Earth
being 93-million miles from the sun, Pluto, is 4-billion miles from Earth. But
Kerberos is where our story leads us. It
is the most obscure of the five moons I do believe, all being nearby the Kuiper
Belt. Kerberos’ largest lobe is but 8-km across and its smaller lobe being only
5-km across.
Because of its isolation from the other moons, and its small size,
asteroids being larger, this dwarf moon has a weird inhabitants—and perhaps for
good reason was selected over the other four moons, and not by accident. They
harbor the Black Moon Widows (spiders as large and some larger than those old iron frying pans my
mother used to use when I was just a lad of ten; you could cook a whole chick
in that frying pan, it weighed six-pounds, no kidding).
The moon is so infested with them, they
constantly are bumping heads, so the last report read coming from the
spacecraft, Enceladus, named after Saturn’s moon for whatever reasons. So comes
the information, via, to me from the Space Center in Louisiana.
The Narrative
The moon’s light indicated to those of the
spacecraft Enceladus I (Earth Time, 10,000 B.C.), that it was to a certain
degree a living moon, and thus, provided an atmosphere, thin as it was, there
was one. Although the moon has darkened over time, a result of chemical changes
triggered by sunlight, cosmic rays, and the mass of Black Moon Widows, or
spiders, those that have survived the invasion to multiply in the ten-thousand
years since Enceladus I, dropped those creatures off, to its astronomical
figure of one billion now, and now being the year 2048.
Let me
say, and in saying, get ahead of myself, which will do this account no harm,
that the Widows, they kill their male mates, for a song and a dance, and when
hungry, are a strain that contaminates wherever they are, whatever they touch,
and like a hard-shelled cockroach, hard to kill, and therefore could not be
allowed to remain on the far-off planet beyond Earth’s solar system by the crew
members of the spacecraft Enceladus I.
It
might be of interest to the reader, this spacecraft that was being monitored by
the Louisiana Space Center Enceladus II, now in the year 2048 A.D., came from
what is referred to as the Dark or Black Galaxy; via, a wormhole. The planet is
referred to by its acronym, SSARG, which has two moons.
That
said, it was horribly ominous for the Captain of the Enceladus II, and the
spacecraft’s crew, after 10,000-years down the road to go back to that moon,
like opening up a can of worms, or like opening and closing of a funeral, long
forgotten, —what did they expect to find? Other than, spider corpses. I mean,
we have a 10,000-year separation a huge gap in time, one thousand spiders (dropped into what
they thought was an endless well, that was really a deep pitted crater, with
explosives caving the walls in on the Widows) had turned into one billion in that gap of time.
Interplanetary breeding, that was not the plan, but for the spiders to die, and
they didn’t, perhaps one hundred escaped, and colonized the moon, by
cannibalization perhaps.
Had
you asked the Captain of the spacecraft, Enceladus I, 8000 B.C., that this tiny moon would contain a billion
spiders of this size, he’d had said,
“It’s not believable” but we must now stick with Enceladus II, and the year
2048.
The
Enceladus II, had returned as what might be called a routine trip, to
investigate this tiny moon, for future possibilities. At this juncture, the
spacecraft’s captain knew nothing of its inhabitants, blotted out by all nearly
all light now, and only shadows reflecting of the moons higher or more
pronounced geological structures, such as craters and mountains, and valleys.
Hence, the dark Widows covered per near every inch of the moon, making it even
darker, as if the terrain was of some dark soil, or rocky material. With the
knowledge of the previous voyage, and the rock hard surface that it was, they
landed. Instantly there came a clambering, on the ship outer surface, a
horrible droning and hammering, it brought a chill to the crew of astronauts, a
deadliness overwhelmed them.
Henceforward, the Captain seeing only the dark mass as gravel outside
his porthole, weapon in hand, life
support suite on, threw open the door—and the Widows had a feast, and the spacecraft,
still remains in Limbo.
#4926/11-22-2015 (Reedited and revised
slightly, 12-27-2015)
9
A Short SF Vignette
Pluto Waiting!
((A Primitive Story) (in Poetic Prose))
I live, on the planet
Pluto.
I live like mist, vapor in a kind of impregnable
bright bubble, as thick as the old walls of Troy.
Waiting, I’m always waiting, it is all I know.
I see the cold stars of night and the glitter of
the sun—
At times I see the blue planet called Earth, it is
nearly as old as Pluto.
It is hard for me to explain who I am, when I
really don’t know what I am, or how I came about.
I need comparisons!
And I know of none!
Thus, I cannot explain.
I am lonely and old, I know that.
Sometimes I feel like the thick ice on Pluto, numb.
The atmosphere drifts off the planet like someone
smoking a Lucky Strike in an open bar, I got that information from listening to
old radio waves—
I sense the cool silence of the long days here, as
long as Earth’s week!
Perhaps today is the day I will no longer have to
wait?
A question to myself.
I see a metallic object from a distance.
I hear metal clashing with debris.
I can hear and I can see.
And I hear voices from afar, four-billion miles
away.
“All right” I say, Earth voices are commanding the
object!
Some of the words are familiar, can this object
send a living being down?
It has an insignia on it.
If it lands I will look like a big eye to them.
But the object is just circling Pluto.
What are they doing?
It is a tireless task waiting.
Its construction is weird.
It took seven years to get here!
I’ve waited 10,000-years for this?
Now I know who I am! I think?
And I am nothing like them.
I don’t breath like them, and I am per near
inexhaustible—
Perhaps that’s the price one has to pay for
longevity.
I hear pain and fear and sorrow in their voices,
some rejoicing.
I hear they get sick too, I don’t.
They have happiness that of course is a byproduct,
you need to make someone happy to be happy, it takes two, and this I don’t have
either.
Their probe didn’t even see me, I wonder if I’m
even visible to them?
I think what I am is some gravitational collapse of
what was once a sufficiently compact mass form of something, and I’m the
leftover, but what?
#4914/11-20-2015 (Reedited and revised
slightly, 12-27-2015)
10
A Short SF Vignette
The Hidden Scrolls of Mars
(Earth Time, 100,000 B.C.)
The Scrolls
“I hope, nobody finds
these writings! If one does, it means someone else between Earth and Mars or
some other planet has been here, and God help them if they have no way off this
planet. That is to say, they’ll most likely have to face these awful solar
winds and storms which you will find out are quick and intense. They have
stripped away most of Mars’ atmosphere, edged rock formations, rivers. I am the
last person left here, most of us left, escaped to earth a decade ago. Earth is
quite primitive to our race yet it is rich with life. We look more like the
Cro-Magnon, and they, well, only time will tell, I venture to say, an earlier
stage of mankind.
From my
radio reports, some of our spacecraft had an emergency landing on an
asteroid. What their fate will be, time
will tell.
I am
Commander Mruts, I stayed behind, voluntarily, for the simple reason—if not,
then what? And someone had to man the last of Mars’ stations, and monitor what
needs checking, watching, observing.
Although I get updates from Earth and the Asteroid.
They
have now been gone five years. I am
writing these scrolls out, for posterity, should anyone find them in the
future. I do understand our astronauts, and those civilians on those
spacecraft’s, were hurled through space, it turned out to be a nasty trip, with
a comet nearly shifting the ships courses as it orbited by. The Asteroid, will
not allow the Martians to live much longer I am told, their supplies are down,
as is their fuel, and there appears to be no escape, or launch ability.
We
call Earth the blue planet, and Mars the red planet. At one time Mars was
shrouded in thick gases which supported our presence, and we had much water on
the surface, many rivers. Like Earth, at one time our presence of air, I mean
its content was antiquate, our Co2 level & O/O2, level within the atmosphere was like Earth’s is today ((the oxygen
within the air consisting of 21% of the atmosphere by volume) (a diatomic
gas)), today on Mars that number is less than 5% of Earth’s, and our water
supply on the surface is completely frozen solid. And the atmosphere is so
thin, being removed from high, to higher altitudes yearly, through interactions
with the sun, we have built underground abodes, which supply most of our daily
survival needs.
On the
other hand, as I have been informed, Earth has a global magnetic field that
continues to operate and protect the life within its climate system, but I
suppose it could in time be altered in a very similar manner Mars’ has been.
Should their moon be kicked off its orbit, or an asteroid half the size of
Pluto tumble outside its belt, sideswipe it, and move it a foot here or there,
consequently, their moon protects them quite well from the sun, and its orbit;
yet at present, makes it favorable to light the night, and shade the day for
Earth, how fortunate, God has been gracious to the Earthlings.
On
another subject, we must mingle with the Neanderthal, which we call their
primitive race, and what will we get in the future is any man’s guess. Perhaps
we’ll all die out, and God will take a few of our DNA, and their DNA, and
implant them into a new kind of man!
Who’s to say?
Again
I stress, I hear oxygen and carbon dioxide are plentiful on Earth, this is
important as is water for the planet life overall, which keeps this balance
between mammals and vegetation and flora.
I must
say, alas, our magnetic field is crushed, so there is no coming back to Mars
other than for old time sake, and so here goes 4.5 billion years of history, to
a nearly unusable, unstable, unpredictable planet, other than holding down a
station for whatever purposes. I mean we are 50-million miles from Earth, and 43-million
miles from the sun, kind of lost in the Gobi Desert of space.
I hate
going out to the surface, hard to breath, and the temperature is above 150c at
present. But reader, do not dismay, I volunteered for this, someone had to.”
Update
In the year, 2050 A.D., the scrolls of Mars were
found, during an exploration of the planet by none other than an old space dog
and his astronaut master, Staff Sergeant Hector Hecker, of the U.S.A
Independent Space Continuum, (privately owned by Donald Frump, a billionaire), whom was from St.
Paul, Minnesota; the dog, weather-beaten went by the name Max III; Max’s great
grandfather fought in the Afghanistan War, and thus, Max III is now in the
annals of Interplanetary Space Exploration. As for the Staff Sergeant he didn’t
do the finding, and well, —dogs have their rights too.
#4919/11-21-2015 (Reedited and revised
slightly, 12-28-2015)
Note: The original ten SF Stories
called:
‘Out of Time Warps & Space’
(‘The Huancayo SF Analects’) 11/2015
Copyright © By Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c.
Commentary on the Ten SF Vignettes
(…Also considered:
‘The Huancayo SF Analects’)
While up in the
Mountains of Huancayo, Peru, the Andes, in November of 2015, there was a few
weeks I was ill, and boredom crept in; not being a SF writer per se, but
interested in physics, and Quantum theories, and the cosmos, I figured I knew
enough to write a few tales of SF. During my 10-week stay I had written a
little over a hundred poems, and I had dog-eared myself out on poetry, and so
these ten vignettes came to me night and day, for three days, between the 20th
of November, and the 22ed. Thus, they
came to mind, one after the other, and for the quick and short reader, these SF
Vignettes might be your cup of tea, for each story is a quick read, as they
were meant to be. And vastly different; I hope imaginative. Being not my genre,
you may have to look over a few incidentals, like: details, and
description. But the storylines are
interesting, entertaining.
Also intertwined within these Vignettes,
are bits and pieces of Theology, Anthropology, Archeology, Ecology, Earth
Science, Eschatology, perhaps a tinge of Philosophy, Ecology, Zoology: sciences
the author adheres to, along with extra-terrestrial life. D.L. Siluk
…and Two Weird Tales
. . .
The pride of:
Marquis d’ Belphegor
((Arch Devil) (In Poetic Prose))
The Arch Demon, Belphegor
The old demon, Marquis d’ Belphegor, placed his
yellowish-green shriveled fingers upon his lip—
An oscillating lip, and with a quarter-malicious
grin, “Hush!” he said, adding:
“There might be humans in the way—silence!”
The Devil Commandant had then looked over the
rooms!
“You never trod on a Christian, lest by and by
you’ll be bound.
“You put your foot on them as if you were stepping
on velvet.
“But contrary is it for a Muslim, save you spoil
them, of course this is your call!
“Do remember, Islam is already lit in fires from
their Qur’an, to do vile, as each human superior commands, or changes his will
within the Qur’an.
“Thus, prepare yourselves.
“I will not be here to instruct you often, so take
your training seriously.”
But there was one young demon not paying attention,
by the name of Sama de Diablo, and hence, the Marquis d‘ Belphegor, with a
stretched-out arm, of twenty feet,
started to bat him down in the most shabby manner—
“You squander my time,” said the Commandant, who
now perched himself like a giant Mosquito—in an instant metamorphoses—on the
side of the library wall, as:
Giant Mosquito
The young Sama, simply strutted and swelled like a
turkey-cock to and fro, humming and singing in gay tunes, throughout the
bibliotheca…
His hands in his pockets, on the red flush carpet
his feet danced in twirls;
Stopping now and then to arrange his hair, looking
into the glass windows to see his reflection—
The commandant and his three other students
watching him all the time.
Said Belphegor to his students: “ We lose souls
to…” and couldn’t speak of His name, and continuing added: “because of pride
and consequence, “even if it is a demonic trait, we must learn to control it,
bar we end up, not “bearing fruit!
“And the Commander and Chief, Satan (also called Lucifer and the “Dragon),
wouldn’t like that.”
Therefore, teasing the young joker, Sama, now
half-mad and ashamed.
. . .
All Tartarus is ruled by a
hierarchy, bound in dread and fear, if not in pride and indifference, all live
among one another in a frightened manner, who knows at any moment, Satan the
Great Dragon, could and did and would, like to make his spontaneous visits to
his great dons!
For nobody above the face of Tartarus, and all of
Hell’s chambers, and the dungeons therein, can say a demon has freedom: I
should think not indeed!
“Where is young Sama?” inquired Satan, upon an
impulsive appearance.
“All I can say,” replied Belphegor, “is he went as
he came.
“And that is all about it.”
“Why so?” exclaimed Lucifer.
As the commandant fumed and fretted, then
furthermore, Lucifer abruptly said, in a languisher voice:
“What makes you so imprudent, so prideful in front
of me, when you are no more than a pest under my heel, and to a certain degree,
a pain in the “open neck?...”
For Lucifer’s pride was above all, touchy.
(There was a long moment of silence)
Lucifer did enjoy a good laugh over it, watching
the commandant as one would look at a crab, or a boiled lobster ready to hang
himself.
And the Commandant, then and there swallowed his
superiority, his arrogance, his overconfidence; and likewise was shamed, like
Sama.
. . .
Now Lucifer
self-satisfied with admiration by the side of himself, not out of
disappointment, for he was a cat, a pacing dragon, as he was known—
But it was as if this all conferred a favor on
authority, and his show of dominance to the students, that not even Belphegor,
Arch Demon, a Marquis and henchman of his legions: stick his noise into the air
when he was there, as if he wished to touch the clouds.
And he wanted to show, and he did show, in his
uneasy manner, and by and by it would be remembered by the students, his
behavioral instruction that nothing escapes Satan! Nothing, nobody!
Agaliarept, Satan’s Henchman
Lo! What did the students learn this day?
Much, that like the cat stalks a sparrow, Satan
stalks his henchmen, his students, his teachers, he even adores watching them
squirm; chilled to the bone over his greatness, his presence.
That the show of power and resistance with
Belphegor was tantalizing, if not a conviction, Satan was nobody’s friend,
confident, or cohort.
That as a leader, Satan goes off script, or can be
a loose cannon, pacing and wanting to devour for the sake of boredom.
That he sees and hears from the periphery more than
from the center.
That Lucifer can read a well-developed thought, and
he knows mankind’s problems, and that even in Hell, and its full and complete
underworld strata, devils as well as humanity—cling to belong to someone.
And this is given through love, with care, with
time, listening to others, playing the game, giving them what they need, and if
that doesn’t work, like the Romans, through fear—
He used this as one uses tools, as a machinist
might twist and drill and shape and polish his main piece, and places it
accordingly, to fit into whatever, whenever, for whomever …
And it was so, here Lucifer, gave to the students
his gratefulness; for he forgave his Marquis of his insolence, and read from
the Qur’an, saying:
“These three things I had selected for Muhammad
personally, and my “henchman, Agaliarept who assisted me in the charade of
Gabriel the Arch Angel in writing the other books within, to insert and never
forget, to call “me Iblis, which is the same as Allah; to call Christians,
Nazarenes not “followers of Jesus Christ, and that these were Divine Words I
told Him…;
“The last and most serious, and most literal, Jesus
Christ is not the Son of “God, emphatically that it is to be considered
blasphemous to the Muslim, “that Christ is no more than an apostle, only a man!
“You students will find it in Sura 43:59 of the
Qur’an, feed this to everyone “who’ll listen!
“Read the Bible, the Qur’an, know verse for
verse…like the Jehovah “Witness and the Mormons: be ready for attack!
“Do not slack beck or spasm!
“This is the Unpardonable sin! Tell them!”
And all the students shirked at his voice, for he
hated the Messiah who had cast him out of heaven, to which he fell for nine
days, airborne, headfirst to earth!
One student spoke up, had a question:
“Wasn’t there innumerable eyewitnesses, both Jesus’
friends and enemies, saw him die on the cross?”
The Chief Devil took his final glace at this young
student:
“In Islam, there is no compensation for sin,
neither is there in Tartarus, “remember that.
“And a sin against me will never perish, spoil or
fade, keep this in mind “also, my little lamb students—
“God would have forgiven you, but I won’t!”
No: 4967/12-19-2015 / by Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c., Copyright ©
12-19-2015
EndOsmosis
(A Strange Tale: an
extract from MS, Chapter One)
A
Chapter Story
(An
Extract from the MS, Chapter One)
It
started off
as a gradual unconscious process of assimilating, or absorption. as Wendell
Wormwood awoke one evening from an
alleged nightmare, only to find out it was a real live demon espousing himself
like a sponge into his flesh, —sitting on his torso—as if it was in the process
of demonic possession, osmotically. The conjecture was to Wendell, that the
demonic rapscallion, was in the process of the middle stage, or phase of
osmosis, that to him, being a form of transference was in operation (in essence, osmotic pressure exerted by the
flow of one substance through a semipermeable membrane of another, separating
the two…; that is to say, to defuse his substance into Wendell!)
Wendell continued to lay on his back as
the terrifying creature moved to his ribcage, feeling the weight to be liken to
a hundred pound sack of potatoes, in actuality no more the size of a bulky imp
resembling that of a miniature triceratops. The nose of the imp—like a ski
jump—much smaller than his horn like
appendages but widely spaced across his cranium, far above his lips, and having
an excessively wide mouth. Wendell
lifted his head some as to see the creature more restored, he had a beer-belly
as they say, brown and flabby, with droopy earlobes through deep hollow insides
as if it might produce a shell like echo. Thus, with chicken-like legs and hawk-like
feet, he was trying to slide himself completely into--through Mr. Wormwood’s
pours—his body, like sweat pouring out on a hot summer’s day, or smoke being
absorbed in, while clearing a cornfield with fire and smoke. And his tail was
long with a little shrub at its end, a pitifully thin looking lariat, in
contrast.
As he moved to center himself better,
his tail got caught on a spring under the bed’s mattress, in consequence,
jiggling, and twisting about like a stuck cow in barbwire trying to free
itself, and that was when Wendell woke up, and there before his eyes, lo and
behold was the netherworld creature called Botis, in: mêlée, mayhem, and
bedlam.
“What in tarnation is going on?” yelped
Wendell, eyes bigger than a car’s headlights. He was in the path of
amalgamation of course.
It was no nightmare, alias, it was
reality.
His bedroom was rather small, too small
to roll about in, so Wendell tried to pull and push the demon up, off and out,
by hanging over the side edge of the bed. Then sitting upright the invader
pushed deeper beyond his forearm into Wendell’s ribcage, and as a result, it
vanished. Wendell’s eyes seeing this, turned crimson.
No one in the house could hear the
little hunchback scalawag beating on the upper section of Wendell’s body to
make him stop, or if they could, no one came to the rescue, —yet his screams were quite mortified,
loud—wherefore they should have heard, but did not dare to intervene, calling
it intrusion?
He was worn, and became more warn and
more contemplative by the minute: was this a dream or reality? He was mentally
still in deliberation.
“What malarkey is this,” he exclaimed to
the creature looking straight into his stout ugly face, his mouth appearing
wider than his forehead, with a goatee shaped—something or another—that dripped
from the edge of his bottom lip to the end of his neck that ended up laying on
his bare chest.
It was most difficult to turn right or
left in his present condition, which normally he slept on his sides,
nonetheless he found himself rocking and rolling to which he fell onto his left
side after several tries, accomplishing it with a triumphal thump, shutting his
eyes as he did from the horrid face of the demon that nettled him, yet still
the demon struggled with his tail and you could see on his face a faint dull
ache, with a cynical looking demeanor, evidently he had never encountered such
a trial.
“Oh Lucifer,” cried the imp
emphatically, but only a figure of expression of course, for he didn’t really
want the attention of Lucifer, lest he be boiled alive for his inefficiency,
his unprecedented slipup, “what a grueling job you’ve given me,” he mumble
unconsciously. Such was his workday, this day, and throughout the night. Although
it was better—he had told himself on
many occasions: ‘Better than the actual business in the warehouses of Tartarus,
counting black sheep, day in and day out’ which they called the new arrivals.
Even though his present job—earthbound as it was—was constant traveling and
worrying about if the subject was going to wake up, for seldom did they, but he
had heard of such cases, this was his first— “Devil forbid!” crisis, so he
cried.
Lo, all of a sudden, Botis felt a slight
itching on his belly-button; slowly he let go of his left arm firmly attached
to Wendell’s shoulder, and as soon as he did, Wendell pushed the demon back
nearly all the way out of him, which caused an impediment for the ungodly
creature (there was no
discourse or dialogue between the two, and to be frank that tail was causing
the imp to lose his repartee, likewise, Mr. Wormwood’s wits where coming to its
end, both now struggling without thinking).
Quickly Botis identified the exact spot
of the itch, and scratched it with his
long talons as thick and long as an
owl’s, and a cool and relief shiver run
though him, and then he mumbled in a gibberish tone, “This getting one’s tail
caught in a bedspring makes a demon look stupid,” contemplating his comrades
controversy should they find out in Tartarus, which they’d never see as a
mishap, rather a screw-up, —for eventually he’d have to go back to make out his
report, or better yet, his account,
while sitting down around the breakfast table telling his story (…to which everyone would be chewing on a
good portion of fried cow guts, or pulling legs off of spiders, to entertain
themselves listening to the interlocutors. This being a fact, for they had
century after century accustomed themselves to this during long conferences, most
being unamiable towards one another, in that they all were seeking rank within
the dark ethereal kingdom of Hades; they said it was good for the memory—in
essence, it was good psychologically, to resist the paroxysm amid them, for
their patience could be angular, —so the
total health of the demon race of earthly spies to make them averred, consisted
in eating this cuisine and gulping it down like fish do water, or one lugubrious play with spiders among other
variegated antipathy insects that might cross their table. Those repudiating
bugs’ humans have little tolerance for. I repeat, that was the ideal for their
health so they believed, even if they said otherwise... this was also
said—amongst one and all—heretofore, to disinfect their horrible breath! They
also ate this until their bellies were tight and unguent like, and their navel
would pop out, agreeable for the long journey ahead. Then after picking their
teeth with a pig’s trotter, and their dismal prolix chatter complete, and the
dice put away and the stack of cards hidden in some dry place, they’d go back
to work hunky-dory like...).
In
any case, as I was saying, or about to say: while sitting down around the
breakfast table telling his story, that is to say, Botis telling about his
encounter, this present encounter: over and over to each and every one of his,
pals, his chums, his comrades in arms, they would by all means gossip, like
demon love to do, like bees to honey, and honey to bears, that is: to pile lie
upon lie, invention upon invention, with propaganda stretched to the moon,
until it is so unreal one becomes the pun and the laughing stock of Tartarus,
for eons! And throughout Hades, and the crust of the earth.
‘If only I didn’t have to scratch my
bellybutton, who can tell?’ Botis thought; furthermore he contemplated: ‘Say
what you will, what is done is done,’ he needed to remedy the situation, and do
it quickly.
Then Wendell aimed with his right fist
at the imp’s chest, and knocked the demon from end-to-end of the bed like a
boomerang, falling eventually onto the floor, while one hand still holding onto
the end railing of the bed hanging on for whatever reasons, surely not for dear
life! His tail being released with a sudden jerk, and shredded from the pull
and thrust of the tumbling over the end-edge of the bed.
“What a trying upset,” mumbled Botis, as
if his pride was badly wounded, his composure and face now in disarray.
The old grandfather clock read:
half-past three o’clock, in the morning. Accordingly he figured it was still
early enough to quietly move on from Wendell’s house, and should anyone ask,
who would be the wiser of his misfortune, which was really an anathema
catastrophe. Matter of fact, every piece of furniture in the house was old, so
old it would fit into the category of relics, should they be able to find an
antiquarian.
So Botis, quietly leaped from his loss,
leaped from the balustrade of the bed like a Bagdad Thief with stammering lips,
a sneer at Wendell, through the dim tears that bathed his face, and all the better for Botis, save, by and by
he’d have his revenge another day: thinking, what is lost today may be gained
tomorrow, and then he’d have something to boast about; consequently, he seized
the brimming windowsill with a cantankerous look, raised his strength up into
the air with outstretched arms and then looked down as if towards Hell itself,
bellowed with Machiavellian-eyes: “To you, ye gods hidden beneath the
earth,” expressing with surprise his quick and cunning escape: leaping into
the broad midnight, moonlight, in odium.
Botis the Demon
The weather piercingly warm, yet feeling
somewhat fresh and active, trying to put on a pleasant look to his face as not
to look suspicious to his employer, or one of those Secret Service Demon
and/or, Women (agents of
the netherworld) of
Tartarus, should he bump into one, such as the Viper Queen, as she was known,
and Bit Bertha, both Machiavellian-demon-nesses, otherwise known as the
quadrilateral-sisters, whom were always looking for emoluments, for them to
look the other way, lest they make a nasty report on him. Nay, what then? (it
was game time, and I’ll tell you what games they played if they got bored, Bit
Bertha and Viper Queen, they played the old Tartarus games called: ‘Slash and
cut’, or ‘duck your head’ or ‘who’s got the fatter derriere’ or ‘catch and eat
the brown beetle’ or ‘whip the sow,’ or ‘fork the toad’ or ‘who can spit
thicker’ or ‘shooting feathered darts at cats and rats and dogs and hogs and bates.’
And then they’d stretch, weep, yelp and try to sleep, and knowing good and
well, they never could…!)
Bit
Bertha
It struck the family members at the
Wormwood home that it had been quiet, too quiet in Wendell’s room too long, as
they had previously been conversing to one another for some time on if they
should or should not become more aware of what was going on in his room, having
been standing by his doorway and previously pacing the hallway alongside the
bedroom, much aware of some kind of commotion that had taken place, (although they were there when it was taking
place also). They unconsciously
exchanged glances… and one member of the family asked loudly for Wendell to
answer: “Is it safe to come in?” There was no answer, no reply, Wendell had
fallen back to sleep, and the family members dare not open the door, err, they
could wait until morning and let Wendell tell the tale as they had time to drum up their own tale; thus, the obtuse
family members—all three—conniving and undermining, to support their inaction—
Ah, it all was rather justification of
their own phenomenal cowardice; all pretentious, it was an impediment of their
character, where they had relied on Wendell for safekeeping, as they had always
told one another, as well as for his monetary support; dimwitted in some ways
all three were, yes, but also taciturn in their diabolical self-serving
cleverness, silent in that he never was quite aware of their envious and
pugilistic souls towards his, always in resistance, especially concerning the
older brother, “…we’re in good hands with Wendell,” he said more than once.
Therefore to their amorous whispers, Wendell was left to his own, had been left
to his own. All had the same obsession, all
the same cynical smile, an expressible something or other that appeared to be
like a trial, something too trying to try, — should they have opened the door,
and then what? And so no one tried anything, and of course doing nothing, is
doing something, which is allowing whatever took place to take place, which was
from the sounds of it, obstreperous. And so they would wait for the results
come morning, for the better or worse. And if need be, put it down to
absent-mindedness, should the issue arise; perhaps moderately express ‘I have a vague idea of what you mean, I
think!’ Put it all down to detachment, why not, hitherto, he was passive to
them, why would he change? He was an absolute, one who cherished his beliefs,
though not like him, not like Wassermann Crassus Wormwood, who was a strange combination
of Platonism, mischief, and doubt, who could not understand—being the elder of
the family now—age was respected, but achievement was revered. And perhaps
Wendell could not understand, had he washed his hands of his siblings, for
their incipient laziness, loquacious conversations, narcissists egos, and so
forth, he could have sat with kings, and ate with elders.
. . .
It is better when a
man fails alone, Botis was like that after his first defeat over Wendell, but
his teaching from Ani, a demonic goddess from Africa, whom had been newly
assigned as a professor for the University of Tartarus, where Botis attended,
fortitude and stubbornness and fear of failure had made him listen dearly to
her words, and he treasured them.
Botis
knew his catechism well—he retrospectively found himself daydreaming,
remembering—while sitting in class—what his teacher taught him, Ani: ‘Since man has learned to worship
the true God, within the Trinity, now called Christians, praying unceasing
without missing a day, and some not an hour, thus, we must likewise learn, to
bombard coaxingly, day if not hour to hour’ and ‘you cannot tell a ripe corn by
observation you must unwrap it; plus, don’t forget Christians are like wet
paper bags with a holes in them which wheat grains fall through, if the best
you can do is neutralize them, it is
better than nothing. Learn how to kill a man’s spirit.’
Copyright © Dennis L. Siluk /Written and edited: between:
5-17-2015 and 9-5-2015/Short Story: No: 1082“Endosomes” (A Tale Told
Only Once) Note, the story: 15,420-words/#1104
