#alfydade

The air felt eerie even though they'd lived there for nearly three months now. Maybe it was the intense silence, of the sort that makes one whisper just to make sure one still hears. It was, he supposed, to be expected in a dwelling of this age, the walls were very thick indeed. She hadn't been quite as accepting. She felt there had to be some paranormal explanation, but that was typical for her. “How could a house this old NOT have some proverbial or even literal skeletons in‽” she'd always say. To him such thoughts were silly. She deferred to him and they got on with their lives, ignoring the strange feeling. That night, after a particularly exciting and raunchy session of lovemaking, post-coital hunger hit hard. She wanted him pressed up against her, but she needed the leftover slice from the fridge too. He of course would be happy to oblige, on both counts. He contemplated how much she meant to him, how she had made him a better person, and how perfect they were together. He placed one foot in front of the other, slowly making his way further, and further, down an unlit hallway to the kitchen. He felt the warm afterglow of sex spread through his body, it made his extremities tingle. He wondered why they fucked nocturnally and why most did the same. It didn't make much sense to him, but  He paused. What was that‽ A slight glow slowly grew greater. It shone from beneath a stone step. A frightening color, and an impossible one at that, for no light resided there. It was a strange sky blue. The man craned his neck, looking at the stairs, trying to decipher its origin. At the join of one stair he spied a luminous triangle. He wasn't sure what to do. It was likely a reflection, or his mind playing a nasty trick, but what if it wasn't? Just a shape cast by moon or streetlights through the scantily dressed window. He was surely being silly, right? He realized the only way to dispel his fear was to touch the cold stone step. That would prove nothing was there once and for all. Carefully, he reached down, his index finger extended.

“Matt, mate, she's shit.” said a girl who looked to be a year 13.

“Shut up you stinky cunt”. The response came from a significantly older man.

The woman, who spoke so vehemently, was taken back and did just that. Her jaw hung. A plain white tee dangled off her shoulders. Ratty blue jeans and mossy-oak colored sneakers covered the rest.

“Get a tic tac! Eugh, have you brushed your teeth yet? You failed my test.” The father figure who said the words wore a serenity blue jacket of worn leather. Canyon-like cracks covered its weathered surface. A pale natural color peered through them, making it more pastel still. His pants were leather too, but unlike the jacket, they were new. They clad his legs in slick, shiny, skin. “How dare you with such stinky breath smelling of most putrid death my very name defame‽”. Matt brought a hand up to the sunglasses propped up on his nose. He threw them clear across the room. The cheap frames bounced off the wall and landed in piles of unknowable muck. In the room there was no bin. His anger was evident. “Go and brush them!” he shouted.

8 boys had fallen only two were left. They ran through pockmarked field desperately charging a wall of thick gray smoke. With reckless abandon they swung their fists wildly through the air, clutching their wooden sticks tightly. They hoped more than anything to connect, to hit something. To win, to live. One of the boys was older, though not by much, a mere year or two. At their age though that difference meant much so the younger boy listened to the older one, he obeyed each stout command. “Charge!”. The older boy had felt much fear before but now that too was gone, only desperation stayed. They charged on the hot steel barrels which flew through the air in a dervish's spin. The barrels popped and bucked, spewing a torrential blast of lead. The boys charged harder still even as they heard violently torn by the deadly hail. The charging boys caught glimpses of shiny brass between each thick plume of smoke. Percussion came not from the guns but from the dancing metal. Each bang reverberated through the two boys, making them feel its terrible vibrations. The older boy went first, running headlong into battle. Behind him the younger boy, whose shorter legs could carry him far less quickly, scurried to catch up. The younger boy didn't even notice as he stepped over the older boy's form in the thick gray smoke. The older boy's now still face did not smile. It could not for he had tasted one of the flying chunks of lead firsthand. He had run, with his eyelids willed open, as fast as he could to avoid just this. As luck would have it though he did not. He was maybe 8 or 9. His jet black hair was glued to his scalp by the grimy syrups war provokes. His upper teeth arced in a horrific smile. His lower teeth and jaw lay pulverized among the grass. The force of the impact had torn his face. Skin hung loosely just above his cheek's ridge, its edges tattered by dire force. There was a line down to his nostrils and back up past his eyelid on the other side. Below it, ghastly bones, and brains, and meat. Above it soft young skin and frightened eyes. His upper gums stayed intact, what little of his face was left stared up in a most ghastly frightened jeer.

Nine danced around a mound of upturned earth. No grass rose, no life at all. From the dirt - a simple wooden cross. Its thin arms reached out to the sides against the dark gloomy sky whose whistles brought no music – only a harsh winter wind. The glint of the tin roofs that so merrily did cheer in light now too was a dull sombre gray. Roosters whose squeaky turns pointed sails were eerily still. A man held him hat to his chest while another spoke kind words of blessings. He shook his cane, onto the dirt leaving a gooey white film on the dirt. The man with the hat took out a bottle from behind his grey suit jacket. He too made noises of remembrance and dour mourning before he upturned the cloudy, slightly yellow bottle, wetting the mound.

The fiery liquid soaked the dirt and sank down through it to be drunk by another. The nine that danced danced harder still. Music accompanied their scornfully rhythmic steps. One of the nine held in her hands a cylinder which boomed. She pumped it into the air and down, it bellowed all the while. The dance sped up. Notes rang out as the man with the hat turned the bottle on himself. Battling tears he emptied it. The nine danced still. More tears were cried and more notes filled the air. As the nine danced the hours away their prancing feet dug channels in the quickly desacralized earth. The mat with the hat could bear no more so he left. The man of words instead bled, his own skin to bits. Red cells flooded the dirt, darkening it. Soon though he could little more so he left too, just the nine stayed still. Or rather they danced. As hours melted into each other so too their movements seemed to do. The austere skies stayed gray, defying the nine who danced. They did not care, harder and faster they went into a shamanistic trancelike state. Each one lost control of their own limbs and did instead as they were forced to. So they danced harder and faster still, fighting back crocodile tears. Instead vegneful joy they sought to find.

As the noon turned into night and the night turned into day the nine who danced did not stray. The skies whose sullen appearance had cast doubt now opened, finally jovial too. The sun's bright light shone on the upturned earth. By now that liquid that he'd poured was gone and soon green buds would sprout anew. The nine did not stop for just as they could not in the past so they would not now. Below them vibrations made their 'father's wrist budge against the dirt. He'd always wanted them close and now they were, and they would stay with 'daddy' just like they had back then. He always liked them on top, so he'd like it now too – but this time not alone, no together they jumped and danced and stomped. They did not stop even when their cheerful notes did, quietened by their electronic mortality. No, they danced. They danced through warm and dark and bright. They danced through the cold, the wet and the windy. Whatever they did they would not stop. They had sworn once they'd known to dance this was together and so they would, until the time came.

First it came for the eldest daughter. She felt the urge and went to work. She stepped onto the now beaten mound of upturned earth and squatted. She left daddy dearest a present, just the sort that he deserved. Then the twins, together as usual. The other twins after, normally too, in their case quite apart. The dearest, the clearest, the smartest and the prettiest. Each one in turn left present, quite large.

The sun shone more brightly now than ever, baking the goods and the mound into a great big chocolate chip. The nine skipped away, joyed and free at last, as vultures and wolves which emerged from trees and bushes sought now, as different ones had in their childhood, to feast.

TWO

Her tooth bounced off the floor one final time and came to a halt, spinning. The palm which he had hoisted upwards just moments ago now stayed frozen in the air. Like her face, the back of his hand began to redden as the blood rushed in. A torrent of emotion washed over them both. First the anger which had driven him so brutally mad entered her. She said nothing, she did not cry. She just stared at him shocked. Her eyes began to water though as the all consuming rage started to build up as the realization of what had just happened set in. She clenched her teeth, imagining that his face was between them and that she could just bite him out of pure spite. How dare he do something like that, how dare he hit her? His expression stayed frozen and emotionless. What he had done hadn't sunken in yet. The moment it did was visible to all, especially her. The anger which had betrayed her and taken over him so violently just moments ago now dissolved into a pathetic look which pleaded for sympathy. He would receive none. Though his hand stood down and by his side its damage had been done and would not be taken back. She shrieked with anger. In her fury she thought to kick, knowing well her heels' might. The blunt but small stiletto point rapidly pushed and then pierced his tough skin. She kicked again and again, aiming each heel's point at a different fleshy part of his cruel violent legs. His look of sympathy turned to anger once more and he began to kick back. Each impact of his foot against her body sent drops of blood flying and splattering onto the floor. Each one screamed at the other with furious vengeance. Each wanted to hurt, to punish and destroy the other. So they did "Why can't you just take me for what I am... she screamed at him through her hoarse pained voice. “Maybe you're just like my mother... he said, punctuating the sentence with a forceful kick to her abdomen which elicited a crack and a yelp. ...Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold... his voice boomed. He punctuated it with another kick...Maybe I'm too demanding, why do we scream, why?” he said, slowly breaking down from anger. But the wrathful injuries he had inflicted on her could not so easily be forgiven. His pleas, pathetic as they were, angered her so much more. With all her might, through all his gifted pain she stuck her stilettos into his leg once more, making sure to twist this time. He could feel the flesh of his leg being pinched and pulverized between the two wooden spikes and so fell to his knees. He squealed when the twisting spikes were violently pulled out by his fall.

Angrily, he fell to her side and they held each other, mournfully cooing. She reached into a chest pocket, brought out a fiery gem whose dazzling interior burned with furious flames, and dropped it on the ground between the two of them. No tears nor words were left.

Once upon a time there was girl. She lived in a picturesque Tudor cottage at the edge of a wood. The wood was big and it was scary. It was often dark and adventures through it could become quite hairy. The girl lived alone because of her cruel cruel queen. The girl was young, but not too young, no. Indeed she had four and twenty years of lore behind her in those days of yore. The cruel queen had ended the lives, all too abruptly, of her once lovely family. Her brother and mother, her aunt and her uncle and even her sister too, all impaled on spike at the castle's foreboding walls. The girl had not approached the castle in a long time, she feared still. The girl often wondered why they had not bowed when the queen had asked but fear kept her from questioning too much. They had all been killed in the summer, those lively green leaves, like their shining smiles were now gone. Instead barren branches rose up against a pale blue sky. The girl's family had been poor, they had very little and lived mostly off the land. Their power, their strength, came in numbers. The hunter. The gatherer. The cultivator. The carpenter. The smith. Each member with their skill contributed to their almost singular life together. There was only one thing that they all worked on together, the family's flock of geese. When the cruel queen had come she had demanded most of their lives too, dictating that only 6 be left for the girl to live, for she had bowed as she had been told to.

The girl looked after those six geese for they were now all the family she had left. She had little other choice. Day in and day out she worked to feed and care for her geese. She chased off foxes, falcons and  other predators. She made sure that the geese were fed, she made sure that they were warm. In return the geese lay eggs for her. Each day each goose lay at least an egg or two, a miraculous production. So the girl sold these eggs. She cut a tree and made some planks. With ground white stone and oil she made a sign to sell her eggs. She gathered the eggs and stockpiled them, selling them in great numbers to many nobles. The money she received in trade she used to live, what little was left went to the geese again. So productive were the geese that she never needed more, relying only on those six. For six years this went on. Each day six eggs awaited her, until one day things changed.

One day she went out to the goose shack and found not six great white goose eggs but instead egg shaped balls of shiny metal. Her jaw dropped at the sight of the gilded eggs. She had heard the legends and stories of a strange Greek slave's goose who'd lain golden eggs but those were just stories, this made no sense. She stood still at the entrance to the goose shack. Her eyes vacillated between the geese and their eggs until they gently shut for her to say a prayer of thanks. So she began to keep those eggs.

As time went on the geese lay more and more golden eggs, eggs which she hid to keep her secret safe. She stockpiled them, until she had a great room full making sure she would be set to live or indeed to rule, that the cruel queen might get her just desserts. When the time came she took a table to her geese with a great deal of feed. She grabbed one of her geese by the neck and began to force figs, exotic fruit for which she had paid a great price, down its gullet, then another goose. Thrice a day for seventeen days she did this until her geese could barely even walk anymore. She knew she had to for if she didn't and the queen discovered her geese the queen would have her head and the goose eggs too. This way she would not, could not know.

Finally when she knew they were fat enough and that she had sufficient gold colored eggs she brought a sharp blade to the throat of the geese to end their lives. It was with some sadness she did this, knowing their history and how those six geese had lain enough for her to live. This had to be done though. She knew the price she could fetch for their livers to the queen. She knew the queen could not say no, but she knew too the value of this most exotic and rare fare. So once they died she sold their livers.

With her sack of gold in tow, returning to the place of her family's demise where she went to sell, she came back home. On her way she met some bandit men who made very certain to lighten her load for they “could not leave such a lady to carry such a load.” The girl shattered to lose her gold, but she knew her secret, the eggs she still held at home.

She hurried back to her cottage, bracing herself against the winter's cold biting air. She rushed to her hidden eggs and took one out. The floor beneath them seemed to dissolve slightly, but she paid this no heed believing it to be nature's will.  She beamed gleefully when she looked at it, baring her teeth in a wide smile. She hid the egg under her outermost layer and rushed out once more. Finally she reached a jeweler.

“How may I help thee?”

“I wish to sell this golden egg!” the girl said.

“Let's see here”. The jeweler reached out to touch and look at the great and heavy egg before him. Gently and with great care he examined the seemingly valuable object and then burst into a most raucous laughter.

The king sat down at the great table which seemed to stretch in front of him for miles. Of course it did not truly stretch for miles, if it had it would have not been able to bear the great weight of the manifold dishes which lay on it. Each one was more succulent than the last. A great goose was in the middle on an immense silver platter. The King's guests could barely believe their eyes – there was more food on the table in front of them than some of them would see during an entire month. Ostentatious displays of wealth dotted the room. A pile of saffron, next to a pile of gold which in turn was next to another pile of spices. Proof of the King's divine mandate. Guards stood unmovingly near the piles, staring at them, waiting for some fool to try. Of course none would, the penalty was death. After what felt like an eternity all the guests sat too. It always felt long but was of course never too lengthy. Each guest was more ornate and more decorated than the last. Each guest wore velvety robes of fine fabric and brilliant color. All for one.

One bucked the trend, indeed he was the king's special guest. Instead of beautiful, colorful fabric, he worse rough fabric. The rough undyed wool fought an itchy battle with his skin. The King's special guest tried to be still and not fidget, especially not now, but it was hard. However, he won, for it was his willpower that was the very reason for his invitation. The special guest looked over to the King who was in the midst of exchanging some words with a scholar. The special guest knew the man was a scholar for sure for on his back bright crimson robes flowed to the floor. They contrasted beautifully with the golden robes the King bore. The special guest raised an eyebrow when he noticed that both king and scholar kept furtively glancing at him. Around him all the nobles had dug in and were already partway through stuffing their gullets with swan and goose. Hens had been cooked and baked in a Norman style.

Each Christmas the King had ordered three. Each Christmas they had come from the special guest's family farm. Each year the king had chosen each hen. Each year but this. This year the boy, now the King's special guest, had said no to him. Nobody had ever denied the king before. The King's posse thought it ludicrous and were ready to smite the boys head from his shoulders. The King sneered, but would not let them. Instead he offered his invitation, on condition. “Bake me, boy, a pie of four and twenty blackbird. Tis a dainty dish I wish to dispatch. Bake it for Christ's Mass and you'll even keep your head boy”. He let rip a hearty laugh. When the last “ha” came out, much more docile than the first, the king turned about face and made his way away. The posse motioned to the boy that his head would be theirs.

The scholar to whom the king spoke turned to face the boy and walked to him. The boy, whose appetite was weak, breathed in sharply. The time had come. He stood before the scholar and bowed. Wordlessly the scholar turned and walked. The guest followed the crimson robes right to the King's feet. He could feel, as he walked, the stares and gazes of nobles who thought him unworthy for their banquet. They would see.

He kneeled to the king, bringing his head far below and kissing his blessed hand. The king nodded, giving him permission. The boy backed away slowly and went to a solitary pie on a solitary table quite far from all the others. Gingerly he grasped its sides and carried it to his King. Gently he placed the pie in front of the King. The King stood and with a sole cry for “Silence!” there was. The King held out a small token of his appreciation, one commensurate with his guest's station, a small piece of rye bread from the King's plate. Gratefully the boy put it in his pocket. The Queen was nowhere to be seen, she was admittedly strange and often was quite late. As he stood next to the king the lowly peasant boy spied the maid, his love, outside hanging up the King's braies and the Queen's breastbags. “How unfair” he thought as he glanced down at her. Soon it would not be though.

The King picked up his knife, ready to cut the pie. In that split second the boy ran. Spying an unlit mantle he ran to it. The guests all stared at him in silence, stunned by his actions. All but the guards. They rushed to the mantle, but the boy had disappeared seemingly up the chimney. The king regained his senses after a moment's shock and ordered the guards to stand down. It was not the time, he told them, the betrayer would be hung drawn & quartered later. Now though twas time for pie. In the long, dark smokestack the boy braced his body against the walls, covering himself in soot. Slowly he shuffled upwards to the castle's roof, anticipating the ending.

The King pierced the crust with the point of his knife. The pie seemed perfectly baked. The guests all looked on in anticipation to see the king's reaction. From within the pie streamed out four and twenty lively, healthy, loud, blackbirds. The birds began to swarm, flying faster and faster in that stone room.  The guests swatted at them, so did the guards, but to no avail, they were too fast, too precise. Suddenly the flock of birds flew to the highest point of the room and then straight down. At the last moment each bird flew a curve and took a pair of eyes from out a head. The blackbirds' sharp talons grasped around and pierced the eyeballs, pulling them from their sockets. These birds, unlike most blackbirds, were quite strong. They eyeballs came out, still attached, but they pulled and pulled so hard with their beating wings that each eye's connecting nerve snapped. The guests all cried out in agony as did the guards. The King's gold robe now bore streaks of dark reddish-brown. The King just lay face down in his food, unmoving. Those sharp talons which had stolen light and color from so many had cut just right on the King's neck. It was not the boy's head who the King had had but rather his own.

THREE

“You idiot!” her harsh words rang out. Immediately she knew what she had done and thus speedily brought a palm over her mouth. Her eyes widened in shock, in part at herself in part at the rest. In a moment's twinkle her mother's hand rose and left her face as scarlet as her dress. The girl in the dress did not react much, she just bowed her head and apologized instead. “You are going to your home! You must be respectful; you must be careful! Do not disobey your husband!” her mother said in swift rebukeful words. “Yes Mama, forgive me.” His parents were still aghast. She bowed, ashamed and embarrassed.

His father flashed her a look of disgust before returning his expression to that demanded by the occasion. His mother shook her head as she frowned with deep sadness. She understood, but it did not matter. His father rebuked the servant, clearly he had failed in his job, the pathetic fool. He would be punished, truly and surely. The egg which now lay where moments ago a cock had stood baffled the families. The servant had scrambled to remove the decorated cock. Its red scarf had fallen to the ground when it had jumped from his uncle's grasp. The servant chased the cock around the room. Each person stifled their laughter.

It was not too hard to do so, no, for below the laughter lay pain and heartache. Upset and sadness. They were all there but he was not and would never be again. Finally the now haggard servant captured the quick cock. Grasping the bird in his hands he rushed out of the building, embarrassed of his failures. The egg which the bird had lain stayed on the floor. They had thought it a rooster, but it seemed not to have been. All were wary of the egg so none approached it. Soon enough the servant had returned holding a new birds in his hands. It looked like a new rooster.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FRENCH

The servant's cock was bigger now. Its red crest stood to attention, crowning its cream colored head of feathers. Like an old sage the cock had a long dark beard. Rust colored feathers layered themselves over ones with blue and green metallic hues. They shone slightly in the soft light which streamed in through the paper windows. Its proud tail reached upwards. The cock looked confused in the servant's hands. Its beady eyes scanned the room as its head swiveled around and around. With some finesse, but little grace, the servant quickly bent over to grab the red silk scarf which still lay on the floor. The confused cock crowed crassly.  

Soon enough the red scarf was around the big ornate cock. Soon enough too it was back in the hands of uncle. Int he commotion and kerfuffle that had just taken place all had forgotten about the last ones egg. It just lay there on the floor, inconspicuously. The absent man's uncle held his cock instead as a placeholder. The guests began to shuffle uncomfortably as their bodies began to sweat, slowly, but surely, under the hot mid-July air. No guest wished to be the one with stains, and no guest wished to ruin such good clothes with so little thought. The ceiling creaked. Some guests looked up. But most didn't.

Instead they looked at the bride and her uncle's cock. It too was growing uncomfortable in the heat. It crowed no more, now it struggled to free itself since it sensed extreme danger and peril fast approaching. This failed though and just made the uncle hold on tighter. The tighter he held it, the more his cock thrashed about. It did not take too long for it to start pecking and scratching at whatever it could reach. The cock shut its beak hard on a piece of the man's skin which peeked through his green silk robe. The cock jumped and ran. The servant gave chase again. The bride started crying.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------