Read Online Dreams That Burn In The Night by Craig Strete - Free Book Online Page A

the wind of the great things yet to come.
    And the splendors
therein did rival the painted face of Young Woman Mountain. Great buildings rose like peacocks,
housing the mighty and the profane. And always there are those who loved her, who built webs of
jeweled veils through which they might always peer at her face.
    One city rose as if
it would live forever, only to die as another grew out of its ashes. Her stone heart nursed them,
challenged them to greater heights and deeds as if they courted her favor with each dazzling new
civilization. The hands of Kings caressed her face and, for a time, believed that they captured a part of her terrible beauty. But
it was not to be so.
    She was fashioned
out of a great mystery and none could tame her, none could truly possess her. Perhaps not even he
who had made her so mysterious as she became in the night of her life.
    The Kings had their
season and then they were no more. New ones came, and like those who had gone before, they too
tried to possess her.
    It was not to be
and in time the Kings grew tired of seeing that uncaring face which would not surrender to them
and their caresses turned to blows. Their hands fell heavily upon her painted face and they tore
great wounds in her body. They tun­neled deep into her belly, seeking the uncaring mysteries of
her heart.
    They cut pieces of
her and took them far away and fashioned strange buildings and devices of her skin and
sinews.
    Ragged gashes and
scars appeared on her sides, but through it all, she smiled her secret and terrible smile,
staring into the sun­rise at things her desecrators could not see.
    In time her
strangeness became too much even for the Great Spirit. What was once loved, now became an enemy
to him who had made her. In her uncaring stone face, the Great Spirit saw that he had failed in
the making of her and in his dreams he be­gan seeking ways to destroy her.

LOVE LIFE OF THE LEGLORN
     
    The little
purple-headed boy of summer squatted in a semi-mili­tary position beside the path and watched the
ants falling down the sides of anthills. He had come before daybreak to sit by the path in the
hopes that he might speak with the master. His little purple head was filled with visions of
material gain.
    If he brought his
master the tongue of a human being, would not his master be pleased? Would not his master give
him a won­drous gift if he could bring the master a naked lizard shaped like an aircraft carrier?
Rappi's head was full of such thoughts. Most of all he desired to please the master, which was
not an easy task.
    First one had to
meet him. In order to do that, it was necessary to hide in the bushes beside the path, keeping a
sharp lookout for the master, all the while hoping to catch him in a good mood. When the master
is ugly from the toes up, you will be underfoot, was one of the sayings in the village. The day
the nine-legged horse steps on the master's foot is not a good day to kick the master's dog. That
was another saying in the village. When one dealt with the master, one had to watch
out.
    The ants were
busily engaged in dragging stuff up the anthills so other ants could push it back down again.
There was a saying in the village, as busy as an ant and twice as nuts. The village was full of
good sayings. Rappi was trying to turn an ant over with a dead cone pole snake he had found in a
bush by sitting on it.
    There was a wild,
crashing noise off in the distance. It sounded like two semi-elephants mating through a knothole
in a wooden fence. It sounded like a flamenco dance troupe being raped by a Salvation Army band.
It was loud and seemed to be heading in Rappi's direction.
    Rappi jumped with
fright and dove even farther back into the bushes. Perhaps it is the whistling moose that
swallows little boys, thought Rappi. Perhaps it is the big old wild man of the moun­tains, the
toothless one who gummed little children to death whenever he caught them.