Read Online Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories by Steven L. Campbell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Steven L. Campbell
Tags: sorcery, witches and magic, magic spells, ghosts and spirits, love and friendship, witches & magic, monsters and magic, spirits and ghosts, dragons magic, telepathic powers
Ads: Link
rabbits? Or will the hemlock hide
my body as I rot away, and will my death erase all evidence of my
foolish ways?
Did I cry just now or was it the hungry wail
of my empty stomach?
There is a tear in my eye. No. It is snow
melting and running like tears. Snow assaults my eyes like large
white gnats trying to blind me of the images from the past that
haunt my tortured mind and torment my conceited soul. Is this my
salvation? Regret is my pardon! Is there no limit to my
delusion?
Rabbits are near. The elder towers above me
and looks with his laughing eyes upon my broken body. He mocks my
anguish. He knows I am dying and he sneers at my torment with his
taunting round face. White and smiling, always smiling, the great
white rabbit runs across the sky, mocking my ruin. He has traveled
quickly to pull the blanket of night over me. He is right to laugh
at me, to taunt me of my predicament. I would chase him away if I
could move. His children made me strong and my strength made me a
leader. Now I am helpless, waiting to return to ground. I wonder if
my bones will make a good meal. Or maybe man will use them instead.
I’m sure my teeth would make a beautiful necklace.
Cold bites deep into my wounds. I have not
lived the length of time it has taken me to survive this day. Did I
cry just now, or was it the sound of my empty stomach?
I smell deer … and rabbit nearby. Man cooks
the meat of their families tonight. I smell it in the smoke coming
from the cabins. They will bury some of the bones in their yards,
just as they do every day. That is why I stopped being a hunter.
When the rabbits became too fast for me, man made it easy for me to
become lazy. I robbed from their graveyards and dined on the old,
cold bones of the dead.
Did I cry again? Or is the rabbit elder
laughing with the stars. How many of them are dead, yet living to
shine on me still? When I rise without a shadow, I think I will dig
up their bones and chew on their marrow for days to satisfy my
hunger. And when my strength renews itself, I shall once again be a
strong and mighty hunter. I shall…
I have never been aware of death until this
very hour when I have looked upon my birthplace and my gravesite
with the same eyes. When I was young, I never thought about death.
It either came swiftly and nobly to a warrior fighting bravely for
his prince, or slowly and with pride, honoring grand old champions.
But my death mocks me and threatens to leave me remembered as a
fool, one that chose to live near man. It would be best for my
family to forget me, allow me to become nothing, not even a
memory.
Time … season … night … is late. It marches
onward, never slowing, never stopping. Or does it? Has it not
slowed for me tonight and made me live an eternity? Will it finally
stop when I take my last breath? Or will time and I continue
somewhere else, with me in some conscious form still subject to the
rules of nature?
Is this daylight, or am I dreaming? I thought
I saw dead rabbits running through the summer grass. It must surely
be a dream. Dead rabbits don’t run. They can’t.
Or can they?
#
In
the Wake of Annihilating Kings
THE BANQUET HALL was large and windowless, which, as
banquet buildings go in the land of Nortepius, north of Ridgewood,
was simple in design and customarily uncared-for. The dark and damp
interior was carpeted throughout in fungus. A single candle, nearly
spent and lumped upon a mountain of wax vaguely encasing an ancient
gold candelabrum, lighted its dreary center. Suspended by dry,
twisted hemp sooty and black, the waxy mountain sprouted long
spidery arms of wax that descended and attached themselves to the
top of a long rectangular oak table. Faint yellow light flickered
as the candle flame threatened to extinguish itself. A groan came
from a dark figure scaling the northern side of the waxy wattle. He
had a new candlestick clenched between his teeth and he was
exerting his unpracticed body to reach the dimming flame
my body as I rot away, and will my death erase all evidence of my
foolish ways?
Did I cry just now or was it the hungry wail
of my empty stomach?
There is a tear in my eye. No. It is snow
melting and running like tears. Snow assaults my eyes like large
white gnats trying to blind me of the images from the past that
haunt my tortured mind and torment my conceited soul. Is this my
salvation? Regret is my pardon! Is there no limit to my
delusion?
Rabbits are near. The elder towers above me
and looks with his laughing eyes upon my broken body. He mocks my
anguish. He knows I am dying and he sneers at my torment with his
taunting round face. White and smiling, always smiling, the great
white rabbit runs across the sky, mocking my ruin. He has traveled
quickly to pull the blanket of night over me. He is right to laugh
at me, to taunt me of my predicament. I would chase him away if I
could move. His children made me strong and my strength made me a
leader. Now I am helpless, waiting to return to ground. I wonder if
my bones will make a good meal. Or maybe man will use them instead.
I’m sure my teeth would make a beautiful necklace.
Cold bites deep into my wounds. I have not
lived the length of time it has taken me to survive this day. Did I
cry just now, or was it the sound of my empty stomach?
I smell deer … and rabbit nearby. Man cooks
the meat of their families tonight. I smell it in the smoke coming
from the cabins. They will bury some of the bones in their yards,
just as they do every day. That is why I stopped being a hunter.
When the rabbits became too fast for me, man made it easy for me to
become lazy. I robbed from their graveyards and dined on the old,
cold bones of the dead.
Did I cry again? Or is the rabbit elder
laughing with the stars. How many of them are dead, yet living to
shine on me still? When I rise without a shadow, I think I will dig
up their bones and chew on their marrow for days to satisfy my
hunger. And when my strength renews itself, I shall once again be a
strong and mighty hunter. I shall…
I have never been aware of death until this
very hour when I have looked upon my birthplace and my gravesite
with the same eyes. When I was young, I never thought about death.
It either came swiftly and nobly to a warrior fighting bravely for
his prince, or slowly and with pride, honoring grand old champions.
But my death mocks me and threatens to leave me remembered as a
fool, one that chose to live near man. It would be best for my
family to forget me, allow me to become nothing, not even a
memory.
Time … season … night … is late. It marches
onward, never slowing, never stopping. Or does it? Has it not
slowed for me tonight and made me live an eternity? Will it finally
stop when I take my last breath? Or will time and I continue
somewhere else, with me in some conscious form still subject to the
rules of nature?
Is this daylight, or am I dreaming? I thought
I saw dead rabbits running through the summer grass. It must surely
be a dream. Dead rabbits don’t run. They can’t.
Or can they?
#
In
the Wake of Annihilating Kings
THE BANQUET HALL was large and windowless, which, as
banquet buildings go in the land of Nortepius, north of Ridgewood,
was simple in design and customarily uncared-for. The dark and damp
interior was carpeted throughout in fungus. A single candle, nearly
spent and lumped upon a mountain of wax vaguely encasing an ancient
gold candelabrum, lighted its dreary center. Suspended by dry,
twisted hemp sooty and black, the waxy mountain sprouted long
spidery arms of wax that descended and attached themselves to the
top of a long rectangular oak table. Faint yellow light flickered
as the candle flame threatened to extinguish itself. A groan came
from a dark figure scaling the northern side of the waxy wattle. He
had a new candlestick clenched between his teeth and he was
exerting his unpracticed body to reach the dimming flame
Similar Books
