The Final Case for Detective Jones (part 2)

           It is a good five minutes before Detective Jones can stand again. When he does, Jones kicks a trashcan at the door while muttering a string of profanities. He walks to the car and grabs his bag from the trunk as well as another pack of Marlboros.

            When he reenters the bar, Jones pulls a lantern from the bag and, with a match, lights it and his cigarette before hanging it from the ceiling (the lantern, not the cigarette). It casts an odd glow on the room, or rather a spotlight on only the things worth looking at. Obviously the two bodies are illuminated, their magical wounds glow the brightest. Around the room several other spots on the wall also glow. With a digital camera he photographs the wounds, making sure to capture the blue glow. He jots a line or two into his notebook. Typically Jones would take better notes, but he has no interest in the case before him.

            Instead Jones thinks about spell signatures: that glow on the wand that occurs when a spell is cast. How they are different down to the slightest hue. How they vary from one magician to another. How no two are exactly alike: like snowflakes; like fingerprints; like striations on a bullet.

            Jones jumps into his car and drives down the wet streets of the city. He drives with the radio off. Distractions prevent people from noticing their world, or rather the magic that lies hidden within it. Most people (or New Men as Master Grim calls them) don’t even perceive it exists, but it’s there. They avoid the supernatural, allowing things like The Recession, The War, The Climate Change to consume their thoughts. They flood their senses constantly with devices like their iPods and cell phones so much that they don’t even notice the magic all around them.

            During this drive though, Jones distracts himself with thoughts about spell signatures, bus fires, and Master Grim.

The Final Case for Detective Jones (part 1)

Four men walk into a bar (it sounds like a bad joke, but that’s what happened). The first man, older than his companions, pauses at the door having been there an hour ago. His bodyguards (the next two men) pause with him. The fourth man, middle-aged and lacking the magical abilities the other members possess, pushes through and takes in the scene without breaking his stride. He circles the room twice, once looking only at the two corpses and the second time to examine the rest of the room.

“What am I looking at here?” Jones says after he finishes inspecting the bodies. He lights a cigarette, his only vice besides drinking, gambling, and anything else he can drown his sorrows in. Jones looks at the older man he’s been told to call Master Grim (or else), head of the House of Grim. He’s dealt with magicians and their secretive nature before. So secretive that they forbid giving their real names to those outside their House in fear that they could lose their powers. Jones, unfortunately, has a problem with those who do not introduce themselves properly (along with a customary handshake, of course). Besides, he doesn’t normally team up with magicians, but rather deals with them through the barrel of the .44 magnum he holsters inside his trench coat.

Master Grim looks at the younger man with a sneer. He hates involving himself in such mundane tasks. Honestly, the only thing he hates more is involving New Men in the affairs of The Arcana. New Men, he thought, with their lack of magic and their focus on science. They aren’t even able to perceive the magical world of The Arcana right under their noses anymore.

Master Grim points at the two bodies on the ground. “These two magi are from my House, the House of Grim. As you know someone is murdering the magi of the Four Arcana Houses. Due to the trust issues between the Houses, we have selected you as the neutral party to assist us in this investigation. In three days you will present to the four Houses your findings and thus allow us to deal with the matter. If you fail, it could mean another war between the four Houses,” says Master Grim. He straightens out his tie and jacket as if he’s sullied himself from just speaking with a New Man.

Jones flicks his cigarette at the feet of Master Grim. “I still don’t see why I should help. A mass genocide amongst you magicians sounds perfectly fine to me.”

Master Grim refuses to reason with a New Man. Instead he pulls his wand from under his coat. It’s not as elegant or fancy as one might expect a person named Master Grim, Head of the House of Grim, to own, but it is still effective enough to get Jones to shut his mouth and focus his gaze upon it. “Test me again, boy, and I’ll make certain you don’t live to see another day.”

Jones’s eyes grow wide as if he sees a ghost, or perhaps his life flashing before his eyes. In fact, he sees both. The apparition of his mother smiles at him, unknowing of the fate that lies before it – or rather the fate that it already experienced. It’s the only case Jones has yet to solve, the death of his own mother. Once again, like so many times before, there is a flash of green as flames engulf the illusion. The delusion lets out a soundless scream, a scream which pierces Jones’s soul rather than his eardrums and he vows once more to find her murderer.

Jones awakens from his hallucination and remembers the threat in front of him. He’s never been one to back down from a challenge. Moreover, he will die before he allows a simple magician to prove him a coward. Jones lets his ego do the talking by drawing his own revolver from his coat and he plays with the cylinder, clicking the chamber with every turn. “I’m saying that maybe –”

Master Grim, however, is also a man of action. “Wretched, refusal.” Master Grim’s wand glows green as an equally green aura surrounds Jones. The more he alliterates (he likes the “r” sound, though no one knows the reason), the brighter it glows, the wand as well as the aura. Jones lets out only a slight yelp, but soon enough he falls to his knees, breathing heavy and sweating profusely.

No one in the room sees any change on Jones’s skin – no bruises, no cuts, no broken bones – but everyone knows what’s happening. The brighter the green aura glows, the more pain Jones feels. Like needles, like daggers, like flames. After a minute the aura outshines the fluorescent lighting of the room, blinding everyone including Master Grim. Jones withers on the ground, his gun falling out of reach. He lets out a scream that tears at the eardrums of everyone in the bar. Master Grim stops and puts the wand away.

Jones lifts himself to all-fours, slowly, panting. He sees his gun and tries to crawl toward it. Master Grim delivers a swift kick to his ribs, flipping him onto his back. “I’ll see you in three days, Detective Jones.” Master Grim and his cohorts walk out the door and vanish in the sunlight without a second glance from a passer-by walking down the street, headphones in his ears.

Third Wheel, or Kent Tells a Tale

Tom and Lily sit on the soft sands of the beach, their images lit by the white glow of the moon. At their backs sits the fading nightlife of a city readying itself to finally turn in for the night. In front of them is the dark mysteries of the night wrapping itself around the vast emptiness of the ocean, its waves trying desperately to lick at their feet. Lily slips free from Tom's embrace to inch her way closer to the shoreline. Tom tries to pull her back to him. Both finally concede to the other and get close enough for only the most determined waters to wet their naked toes.

Kent grabs a pebble and flings it into the ocean, watching it disappear into the shadows of the waves. Tom and Lily have now become a single creature in his drunkenness, communicating in whispers and hushed voices. How many bars did we hit tonight? He looks around again. And where the hell did everyone else go? He pulls apart the Velcro of his wallet. How much did I drink?

Kent trips over the shadowy mass of Tom and Lily, planting his face firmly in the sand. He gets to his feet and dusts off what sand he can.

Tom, having taken the brunt of Kent's drunken assault and forgiving, asks, "How you doing dude?" His hands slide upon Lily's tanned arms, pulling her back into his embrace.

"You know me," Kent says with a slight sway to his stance, "just buzzing like a bee."

Lily laughs at his unconscious rhyme and so do the other two. Taking this as a cue, Kent bends into what can only be described as a drunken bow of aristocracy and begins

"The light of the moon shines upon the beach.
The lovers walk alone upon the sand.
The stars, they glow just out of reach.
The night moves just as it was planned.

"The lovers walk alone upon the sand.
The waves ebb and flow on the shore.
The night moves just as it was planned.
A classic tale since the times of yore.

"The waves ebb and flow on the shore.
He says to her and she whispers to him

"Wait, you're just repeating lines now," says Lily, what looks to be a pout upon her face.

"I think that counts more toward style than it does cheating," Kent says with a smirk on his face. He notices the tracks in the sand, his footprints, circling their little area. He tries to stand in place, at least he tries.

"Could you make your story more about us?" Tom asks and no one can tell if he's joking, not even Tom himself, but they all laugh anyways.

"Will it get me to best-man status?" Kent says, and once again no one can tell if he's joking, but he probably is.

"How about you write the best man's speech for him," Tom says, just to be safe.

"Tom and Lily were childhood friends.
Who would've thought their stories would end
With them embraced hand in hand,
Staring out to sea sitting in the sand"
Jeez that last verse is looking really bland.

"Under the stars they drunkenly dance
A simple sway as if in a trance
At each other's dishevelment they glance
And feel the feelings of romance."
I'm so drunk I can't keep one stance.

"Each glance puts into words
Neither could speak true
Since the images they paint
No words could do.

"In a minute they fall down to the floor.
Standing again feels like a chore.
Drunken bodies all out of sync
Cannot respond to the thoughts they think.

"And under Tom's jacket the two embrace,
Cementing a love time cannot erase.
He says to her and she whispers to him.
While my chances of getting home are looking grim."

"Dude, what the hell are you babbling about?"
"Yo hand me a cig. I seem to be out."
Tom tosses Kent his pack and a lighter as well.
If he wants them back, Kent's too drunk to tell.

Kent inhales once and his head starts to spin.
There's no telling now what kind of trouble he's in.
Kent sprints down the beach as his head starts to whirl.
His knees hit the water as he starts to hurl.

"Dude, are you okay," Tom says from afar.

Kent pulls his head out of the waves just long enough to respond and give the two a thumbs-up. He stumbles back to the two of them and collapses on his back without care of the sand which would follow him into the car in the morning. Through all this, Kent still continues as if possessed

"They stare at the stars,
They stare at the moon,
Knowing too well
This night will end soon.

"They embrace each other
And lock their lips
The beauty of it all
Will all but eclipse

"The majesty of the sun
Or that of the sea.
But I just wish
You were here with me.

"How the smell of your hair
Overpowers my smoke.
How you always choose Pepsi
When I only drink Coke.

"The sound of your laugh
At all my bad jokes
Especially in public
Your embarrassment it cloaks.

"The feel of your skin.
The way you drive clutch.
Its too simple to say
I miss you so much.

"Your presence in my mind
Is all that I need-"

"Yo, Kent! We still got time before last call," Tom shouts from the street, one arm around Lily's waist as his jacket hugs her shoulders.

Kent walks off the beach and dusts the sand from his clothes. Why not, he thinks as his eyes focus on the couple silhouetted against the neon lights, Maybe one day they could be us

The Woods

Free time or just need an escape from your life? Sit at the edge of the woods one day. Just sit and stare into the trees. Through the trees. See the birds, the squirrels, a fox? Do you see a clearing? Keep on watching.

You'll see them, only a glimpse, to let you know that their realm still exists - that they are still real. Who? The ones lost in the woods of course. Don't tell me you've forgotten them and their fairytales already?

Don't go into the woods. Don't try to follow them. Our people left the woods behind long ago. Its not our place, not our home, not anymore. We cannot survive the tests and trials of the woods no matter how much we want to. We can't go back to believing in the same magic that defeats a gingerbread witch or helps a red-clad girl escape from a wolf. A magic allowing them relive, again and again, their own happily-ever-after forever. A magic lost to the world we created outside the woods in the realm of adulthood.

Its the same magic which stops them from learning calculus or holding a minimum wage job. It binds them to the woods left behind from our diaspora to the outside world. Our stories take place in cities now; towering trees replaced by towering buildings, cruel trolls swapped for cruel bosses.

And you may hate it when you go back to the city and leave the woods in your rear-view mirror. You may dream about going back and leaving your life in the city behind. You can't. Some have tried and instead polluted their own imaginations, corrupting the pristine landscapes and fables of childhood.

So just sit and watch and remember. Later return home. Unlike the ones lost and left behind in the woods, you still have just a single story to bring to a close. One day you'll return and look for hours into those same trees, not hoping to catch glimpse of the fantastic, but merely to search for why it was that you used to come here so long ago.

The Cliff

Could I stand at that ledge forever, lost to time, just watching the waves crash upon the rocks? It wouldn't be right to turn back after climbing so high, but its still terrifying to leap off.

So why climb, why aspire so high in the first place? We are taught that to achieve what we want we must climb. But what if we don't find another mountain to conquer on the other side to take us further skyward, but rather a cliff to halt our progression? Unable to climb further, I seem to have plateaued and the only safe bet is to turn back, to try another path to achieving success.

And yet I can't seem to turn back yet. I've worked so hard to get here I don't want to give up. At least I'd like to enjoy my own personal glory for a bit. Have you ever tried to accomplish something only to stop when you knew that you couldn't go any further? To see that no matter how hard you work at it, you still can't climb any further because your path is gone. The only thing left on your ascent toward the sky is the blue sea stretched below. Its vast and rough and you know that if you fall it'll swallow you whole and spit your tattered corpse onto the rocks.

But if you stand long enough at that cliff you'll eventually need to look up to see the goal stretched above you. That was my desire anyway - to reach the sky. And I see the birds, the masters of the sky, as they soar from the mountain into the heavens. And I realize how the great ones really climb to the heights we find them today. The trail becomes, not a test of survival, but rather one of devotion. And to get to the very pinnacle you need complete devotion: to give yourself entirely to your aspirations. But there's still the dread of falling as I stand at the ledge. To make that last leap only to find failure - that is what's truely frightening. To know that once I jump its all up to Chance to stop me from crashing onto those jagged rocks. Chance, Hope, and a little bit of Luck.

Because the best don't climb after all. They fly





so ends another Tale from Blood Talon Cove

My New Year's Resolution

Dear Marlboro,

We've had a long run together (can you believe its been almost a year and a half already?) but we both knew this was coming. This has been my longest relationship to date (except for the one with X-Box, but that's still an on/off thing). I promise it isn't because there's someone else though I guess you have some right to be jealous. I know I've been having weekly rendezvous with College Football Parlays but that relationship brings more pain than pleasure. Besides, I've only hit it once so it shouldn't really count, right? I also know I've been neglecting you for Alcohol more times than I can remember, and I seem to have developed a thing for Irish Car Bombs but it feels like another one of those passing phases. I will admit to you that Johnnie Walker and I are close but no matter what we will only be co-workers.

Though this is goodbye, let's not forget our long history together. Our families had known each other for a long time already. Your cousin Now was always there to greet me at the door everyday when I got home from school. But its been 5 years however since he and my dad have spoken to each other and I guess that shows just how much times have changed. My family was not happy when they found out about you and I. Some of my friends even went to extreme efforts to try to separate the two of us, sabotage what we had. Do you remember the time Allison tried to drown you that night we all went out drinking? You were good to me during that time of my life but now I think its time I make a decision that's best for me.

I know we will always be friends, maybe even hangout every once in a while and I may even one day realize I've made the biggest mistake of my life and come, literally, crawling back to you. Until then I just want you, need you to know that we can no longer be what we once were. Please don't make this any harder than it has to be for the two of us. No silly games to catch my eye - a different streak of color across your carton or change in blend for a smoother taste. I know we will see each other again - across the counter at the 7-11 or at parties, you with new flame. And whether it is a good or bad memory that strikes when we lock eyes, let's just leave us at that, a memory.





fuck, now I want a smoke...

a respite from the actual stories that matter

I try not to write about my own life on this but nevermind that. Its winter break for about another two weeks until school starts so hopefully i'll actually have something written to show for it. Seems like its just been limited to the writing i can get done either in my car before i start work in the morning or sitting in a single lamp-lit room with a glass of johnnie walker around midnight.

if anyone actually enjoys reading this, I can guarantee I'll have something next semester since I'll be taking two fiction writing classes

in the meantime ponder this "I'm trying to beat life, cause I can't cheat death." found it scribbled in a bathroom stall