Here's one of my old ones, but slightly revamped. Enjoy!
......................



She'll come again tonight, I'm certain of it. Pools of wisdom reflecting the streetlights from the nearby road and that
steady breath pluming into the last evening of October. And she's a big bugger too.

It's getting cold and I wish I'd bought those fishermen socks from the jumble sale now, damn I wish I even had the
money to buy them. But that's the problem with a quest, the forced-reality from my supposed betters hinders wonder
and stifles free-thought, just like these leaf-bare alders defuse the wind that dances high above me.

Still, she'll be here soon and the tedious verity I endure will become a leg-flinching dream that sometimes stumbles
across a dusty unwanted memory. The levy required by society can go to hell, I left school in the same manner I was
bundled into it and now a future of unemployment, being in debt for the rest of your life and the age-old trial of
keeping up with the Joneses holds no passion for yours-truly. Certainly not like the fever I have for her.

My Ma will worry of course. I guess there'll be nights when she'll finish mopping the floors at the school for kids with
special-needs and ignoring the stench of hot bleach, she'll look out of the window and ponder the vague shape of
someone she once knew. The bright fluorescent lights will hinder her study of course, and all she'll see is her
doleful reflection staring back.

But her class-bridled mind will pose the question she will ask from this night forth... 'where did my son go?', when her
appeal should really be where did she go. Not long now, the darker in the dark near her favourite tree. A union that
shouldn't be, but a love that defies nature itself.

My Pa won't miss me, if I'm not at the bottom of a bottle. His concern will only floret when he's too-drunk to walk home
and needs his work-shy runt-of-a-kid to support him home. He won't miss me. There are movies where fathers and sons
toss a ball to each other or pass a mutual smile between each other as they finish building a fence on a hot afternoon.

Yeah, Hollywood. They ask you to deposit your harness of reality at the brightly-lit kiosk where your ticket awaits.
But as the credits roll and the crumbs of popcorn are wiped from your duffel-coat, those cigar-puffing rich fellas
never mention is the heartache when you have to pick up that damned burden and step back onto the path of
banality.

The boffins in their white coats and stupid spectacles say this land is too small to hold such substantial creatures.
They were the weak ones I hated at school and the ones I envied when the teaching stopped. But who's the smart
one now? Not enough food, no physical evidence and mere wishful-thinking of the internet, who's the smart one now?

I have a sister, and even though she attends the place where my Ma washes the floor every weekday evening, she's
special beyond her needs. If there's a regret to what I'm leaving tonight, it's her... the only one who can still hold the
magic.
...................................................................

There she is, all hair and nervous muscle. I will not sully what my heart feels by describing the forest-queen that will
take me to her world of herb-aroma and night-silence. She is woman, although not my species. She wants me and
I need her.

A passing car throws a fleeting curtain of light across our leaf-littered rendezvous and for a moment I glimpse her
heavy breasts and agitated gaze, she wants to be away and ideally, with her man. Arms of hard sinew sway back
and forth in her skittishness and hands of leather clench their chagrin for the delay.

Praying for no twig-snap or the snag of a bramble, I step forward and with air trapped in my lungs I stride towards
my future. The promise of sanguine survival awaits and a chance to know how this world really turns.
No more frowns from parents and no more mocking-eyes from those beyond the wood.
Oh, if those clever-ones at school could see me now.

Her presence is commanding, a brute to some and a ghost to others. Her scent whispers of wild roaming and slumber
in undergrowth. Unkempt hair hides her sex and denies the weather, she represents the truth that cinema moguls can
never capture. I stand in her company and breathe in her savage majesty.

Then with an outstretched arm, I'm taken. Like bromidic academia tells us, neanderthal wedlock involved the physical
accruing and turning towards the shadows, I'm thrown over her shoulder and our honeymoon begins.
Like a ribbon from my sister's hair, that tenuous veil of reality is discarded to the night-wind.

That world that demands procedure, that snarls conventionality as a pressing imperative for humans, is now behind
me and twisting my head, I see it fade as the streetlights disappear and smile.

Through ploughed fields and under a crescent moon we travel. Hedgerows and barren copses, forgotten places and
obscure knolls, the terrain of my beloved carriage. An owl hoots at our passing and somewhere in the ferns and bracken,
a mouse thinks to itself -that at least for one night, it's not the design of the night-killer.

My fingers touch the pumping tendons of her great back beneath her hirsute pelt and I believe her pace is quickening.
A clan or a solitary grotto awaits...? I care not for such human concerns of prospectiveness. It is meaningless when
you take the contract to live in the real.

Then my ruminations stop. That world of pungent wild herbs and Autumn-morning foraging, that Arcadia of breathing
the Summer evenings and admiring the textures of a dwindling wild, my fingers find a reality I had never foreseen.

A zipper.

Quote:The Story of CARRIER X In the days just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the American people are asking "Where is our navy? Why doesn't it fight?" Gravely weakened by the disaster, the US Navy comes up with a plan to trap the Japanese by using one carrier to imitate a fleet in order to deceive the Japanese Navy into heading for Midway, where they will be attacked. Meanwhile, on the carrier charged with the mission ("Carrier X"), flight commander Bingo Harper is in charge of the bomber crews that shouldered the burden in the desperate early days of the war. He is tough and sticks to the rules, while his young pilots behave more like youngsters and do not always understand his thinking.

Very decent discussion on those who want to ban guns and the current catch and release Justice in America...

Well, folks, my favorite time of the year is upon us. In the spirit of Halloween, as the power of the connection between us and the supernatural builds in intensity I also just found this.

Partial lunar eclipse during this year's full Hunter's moon on the 28th.

Looks like we are in for an especially spooky Halloween this year.

I'm not exactly sure why, but I have been really excited about the upcoming holiday festivities. Halloween always has the coolest stuff to do. 

https://www.space.com/partial-lunar-ecli...0Oct.%2028.
The lunar eclipse will be fully visible from Africa, Europe, Asia and parts of Western Australia. The eastern tip of South America will get a small glimpse of the eclipse at moonrise, but don't expect an incredible view from there.

The partial lunar eclipse of the Full Hunter's Moon will begin at 2:01 p.m. EDT (1801 GMT) on Oct. 28. The most striking parts of the eclipse should occur around 3:35 p.m. EDT (1935 GMT) as the moon enters the darker part of Earth's shadow, known as the umbra, peaking around 4:14 p.m. EDT (2014 GMT). The eclipse will end around 6:26 p.m. EDT (2226 GMT) as the moon fully emerges from the lighter part of Earth's shadow, known as the penumbra.

Enjoy!

A few years ago I was led to an area of thought I never would have imagined I would be exploring. One thing leads to another and two years later I am deep into studying things like dark magic, evil spirits, and demon possession/oppression. 

There aren't many places I can discuss topics such as this, but I would like to present a theory of mine on demon possession, and how I believe we have an over-sensationalized image of it. I think these possessions are more common than we realize, and we have been thinking about them wrong all along. Thanks to Hollywood imagery.

We all have an image in our minds of what demon possession would look like. I always think back to The Exorcist movie. I think of that girl's head spinning as she vomits like a waterfall all over the room, her hideous appearance, bed levitating, and so on. 
But what if demon possession was a more subtle-looking event? What if it was, in fact, so subtle that we don't even notice it; especially for what it is? 

In the New Testament accounts of Jesus' ministry people were always coming to him for healing. No matter where he went people always brought the demon oppressed to him, and he would cast out the demons from the people. "Many people" were brought to him for this. No matter where he went he would heal the sick and cast out demons. This means that a lot of people were walking around with demons back in the days of Jesus. 

I believe it is the same today. I believe that many people are demon-oppressed, but simply don't realize it. We think if we aren't vomiting pea soup with our head spinning as we are levitating then we don't have a demon latched on to us. I do know there are some cases where the possession is so bad that supernatural things happen to the individual who is possessed. But from my research demon possession/oppression can be as subtle as a voice in one's head. A small voice that can be extremely influential. I also think of things like hate, greed, and strife to be "spirits." The Bible refers to "fear" as a spirit. Fear can come over us and cause us to do, or not do things we would never do in a stable state of mind. If fear is a spirit, then it is an "evil spirit." If we apply this same approach then could we classify something like depression as an evil spirit? Couldn't we use the same frame of mind when considering someone who has serious clinical depression as being "oppressed by an evil spirit?" 

I have looked deep into this thought, and I do. I believe we are dealing with more of the spiritual realm than we realize. 

I think Hollywood, TV, and movies, have given us a false image as to what demon oppression looks like, and plays out like. 

What if demon possession and oppression were much more common than we think, and what if it is much more subtle looking than we have been programmed to believe?

Any thoughts or comments are welcome here. There simply aren't many places one can go and have a civilized, out-of-the-box conversation about these matters. I figured I would finally see what you all thought about this.

This was the first ever short story I posted at ATS and I thought, perhaps, another audience may appreciate it.

Old Scars.

Scars. Old Scars. They don't hurt anymore. Hell, not even new ones do it seems. They just ache. Achy, old scars.


Laying in the dark silent room. Internal clock estimates nearly an hour of sleep. That's a good nights rest anymore. I draw a deep breathe thru the oft broken, slightly mangled nose on my face. The cold air makes the crushed nasal passages throb. Creaking, popping ribs, sharp pangs here and there. I'm pretty sure the three on the left are cracked. Nothing to do about them now.

I roll my burning eyes under sandpaper eyelids. Neck and back twisted up like an old lightning struck tree. A slight roll of my shoulders brings the familiar feeling of crushed glass grinding in my shoulder joints. Hips, knees...easier to check off what doesn't ache.....well, that's a short goddamn list. Time to get moving, Death rises with the dawn. People are going to die today, a lot of them. Ours? Theirs? Me? Doesn't matter too much in the Grand Scheme of things.

I set my feet on the splintery floor. I recall it's covered in nails, broken glass and bits of shrapnel...meh, new scars. I shuffle across the floor in total darkness in the direction of the can, familiar bite of foreign objects tearing into my soles. I'll have to remember to pull them out before booting up. I turn on the dim, flickering light and catch myself in a dirty, cracked mirror. Bones poking at odd angles. Skin just a mass of old scars stretched across muscle and bones.

Just old scars.





The end?

It was the second night of November in 1966 on the dark rural backroad of Interstate 77 leading away from Parkersburg,
West Virginia, when two glowing eyes of light pierced the shadows from the overhanging leafless trees. Mr Woodrow
Wilson Derenberger was trundling along to his home after a business trip to Marietta, Ohio and was musing on the
device sitting in the back of his panel truck.

His destination was the small town of Mineral Wells, a title that had always been a point of light debate with his waiting
-at-home wife -Ruby. Some used two words, whilst others called it 'MineralWells'. Still, with headlights of Woodrow's
truck penetrating the darkness of the country road, he wasn't dwelling on controversial municipality identifications, the
thick-set fifty year-old was thinking if some adjustment should be required to the household appliance behind him.

You see, Woodrow was a sewing machine salesman and he had high hopes that he could expand his vending practice
out of West Virginia, something the resident of Wood County believed could make Ruby either hesitant or happier about
their future. Resigning himself to the itching censorious voice in his head that the sewing machine needed some tweaking,
Woodrow slowed his truck, pulled over beneath the stark trees and got out to perform his nagging task.

With his fastidious undertaking accomplished, Mr Derenberger climbed back behind the steering wheel and peered out
into the blackness of the November night. Ahead was something that hinted he might not be alone, illumination that
Woodrow took to be another vehicle and from the volume of the unusual radiance, he guessed that it maybe a big rig.

Driving on and thinking the lights could belong to police officers attending a crash, the salesman heading for home suddenly
found himself arriving at a situation where discussions on Mineral Wells' correct moniker would certainly take a backseat...
along with his sewing machine.

Woodrow would later describe the oddly-shaped effulgence-emanating object as certainly not any conveyance usually
seen on these provincial routes. He was stated the floating craft was like “an old-fashioned kerosene lamp chimney flaring
at both ends, narrowing down to a small neck and then enlarging in a great bulge in the centre” laid on its side. A shape
that some would suggest was similar to what was photographed near the planet Mercury by Scott C Waring in 2018.

To many, this bizarre encounter would be enough, but Mr Derenberger's night was just beginning. That was when a door
in the side of the craft opened, a humanoid appeared and walked to the right-hand of his truck and asked Woodrow to kindly
wind down the window. “He looked perfectly natural and normal as any human being” Derenberger would relate to Ronald
Mains during an interview on WTAP-TV in Parkersburg, West Virginia, on the day after the encounter.


Woodrow Derenberger.                      The shape seen near Mercury.

However, considering the nocturnal situation, the extraordinary craft in the road and the arrival of a shadowy stranger in
a dark topcoat beside Woodrow's truck, one might think these were not an amusing circumstances. But the salesman's
visitor was grinning. Keeping his hands hidden beneath his armpits, the cheerful newcomer requested for the window
to opened via -as Woodrow declared, telepathically.

During this short parley, Woodrow believed he could see some kind of garment beneath the Stygian garment made of
glistening greenish material almost metallic in appearance. Maybe this distraction was the reason Derenberger didn't ask
the stranger why one needs laminated glass to be removed for extrasensory communication.

“He asked me to roll down the window and I done what he asked...” Derenberger would say during the WTAP-TV interview.
“...And this man stood there and asked me what I was called and I know he meant my name and I told him my name." As
the grinning pedestrian surveyed the anxious driver, he then asked  "Why are you frightened?", adding "Don’t be frightened,
we wish you no harm. We mean you no harm, we wish you only happiness"

Gazing at the incredible hovering craft waiting over the road and soaking in what this genial figure was saying, Woodrow
learned the stranger's name. “My name is Cold. I sleep, breathe, and bleed even as you do” he advised the perturbed
salesman from Mineral Wells. It would be later that Woodrow would learn his grinning night-visitor's full name and where
he was from. Indrid Cold, a space-traveller from Lanulos -which as most of you know is 14.6 light years from Earth and in
the Ganymede galaxy.

..............................

After reporting his encounter to the Parkersburg police the next day, it wasn't long before the local media enthusiastically
grabbed the story and cajoled Woodrow to elaborate on his previous evening. Accompanied in an interview for WTAP-TV
with members of the state police, representatives of the Wood County Airport, the Parkersburg Police, and surprisingly
a representative from the Wright Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio, Woodrow Derenberger endured a thirty-minute
bombardment of questions regarding the grinning man who only wished happiness with thought-waves.

When the interview aired, some viewers and listeners came forward with claims that they had also seen a figure matching
Mr Derenberger’s description of Indrid Cold. One caller reported that a man matching Mr Cold’s description attempted to
flag him down, but he was too afraid to stop. Other people claimed to witness lights and “fluttering vehicles” on the same
road Derenberger said he talked to Cold on and several witnesses reported they had seen Woodrow talking to a man on
the same road.


Woodrow in an interview.                                                                               The smile says it all.

Ruby Derenberger would be reported to have explained: "You should have seen him when he got home. He looked awful.
I thought he’d struck and killed somebody with the truck. He loves to play with the children, but not that night. I had to
shoo them out..." Continuing, Ruby added after Woodrow arrived home that night: "...He just sat there in the kitchen,
grey-coloured and saying, ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy,’ and ‘you’re going to laugh at me."
When told what had occurred, his wife did not laugh.
..............................

Alas like many news articles, the media brouhaha calms down and the microphones get packed away. But for Woodrow
Derenberger, Indrid Cold hadn't finished with him. The grinning man with hidden hands began to visit the sewing machine
salesman's rural home and with his new-found connection with the fourth estate, Woodrow regularly reported the sojourns.

As the months rolled by into 1976, his family would admit that they too had seen Cold and other odd happenings around
their home. These events included inquisitive locals showing up on the Derenberger looking for signs of the mirthful visitor
from beyond the stars. Eventually the toll of harassing phone calls and ridicule led Derenberger to seek medical attention
and it would have certainly been a relief when Woodrow's physician gave him a clean bill of health and found no evidence
of chemical imbalance.

With painful headaches and depression being a familiar companion for Woodrow through the following years, he decided
to write a book on his November night with the grinning Indrid Cold. 'Visitors from Lanulos' elucidated on the habits of the
Lanulosians and how they have no need of clothes and generally walk around naked, they have a fifty-six-person Guiding
Council whose members are elected every six months and on one occasion, took Woodrow to Venus where the residents
also shunned clothing.

Needless to say, Ruby divorced him and soon after, Woodrow felt it prudent to move away from the area to escape his
notoriety. We cannot verify whether the disintegration of their marriage was due to Woodrow's out-of-this-world belief
structure or Ruby just didn't like her husband patronising with jovial off-worlders who allowed their privates to be on show.

Which ever, Indrid Cold has a lot to answer for.

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I see my avatar transferred from the previous site. New to this one. Hello everyone. Good to be back. I see some familiar faces already.

Untitled


I reached slowly to you
you felt my touch
I know you realized then
I loved you so much

I spoke slowly to you
you heard my every line
I know you heard me then
and knew a love like mine

I called slowly to you
you seemed to pause a bit
I know our life came back to you
those years were but a minute

I pleaded softly to you
but did you hear my cry
I know you didn’t then
but felt no reason why

I shovelled softly now
the neighbors must not know
you left me sometime in the night
I don’t know where’d you go.


Written on January 22nd, 1991.



I wrote this while going through a divorce from my first wife.

Newbie here.  I found the short stories forum.  That's a start.  I write only one page stories.  So, they're short. I've rarely shared any of my writings.  This is kind of a first.

SHE WALKS ALONE

She walks alone.  People moving swiftly by her, but not seeing.  The glare of a concrete jungle assaults her senses.  What have we, humans, done to ourselves?

The blanket of night is falling swiftly, filing up empty crevices that hide between the city's structures.  Shadows of the night, twisted shapes, formed by scant street lights, become the living.  A life of secrets, and the unknown.

Safe, she feels safe when she can't be seen, when she can't see.  She feels safe and alive in the darkness.

She walks alone.

Down familiar streets, past now darkened store front windows, with ghostly mannequins distant in their own thoughts.  A car rattles by with its man-made sound of metal, and rubber on a paved road.  She prefers the eerie, but natural sounds of night creatures screeching from alleys, and their rat-a-tatting claws on pavement.  The night is alive.

She hears a baby cry from behind a glowing curtained window, a drunk's roar of sadness, and passionate lovers moaning their song.

She walks on.

The air dampens and whirls around her as she moves nearer the ocean shore.  Waves lap and slam their power in continuous rhythm against the sandy beach.  Seagulls squawk to each other in the unseen distance as if they're squabbling over a midnight snack.

A pier juts out through darkness above the moving darkness beneath it.  A lone light, at the end of the pier, seems as if it's floating high in the sky against a dark background of scattered clouds, and distant stars fighting to be seen.

A single figure stands below it.

He walks alone.

A love story.