BY JAMES CALLAN
Copyright is held by the author.
SOMEWHERE FAR off, he thought. Somewhere beautiful. Somewhere worth resting in a long, long while. The criteria for an end to all days, the termination of his being — by whatever means, the idea of death brought more spark to his soul than the ongoing and tedious condition of life.
There was a glade that he knew of where the forest parted, almost with intent, where the grass rose high to flower, attempting to kiss the sun with its tiny, purple buds. No wider than a sports field, perhaps an acre, only the roots of the trees and their overhanging branches infringed upon the clearing. Like an island amid a thick, green sea, an emerald lake, the lidless eye of the forest itself, or, without flourishes, the literal truth: a woodland glade. It would make a lovely, final resting place. It had the makings of a comfortable deathbed.
Winning the lottery should have turned his life around, and in a way, it did — in the wrong direction. The money cleared his debt, which was like a glorious blank slate, but it also wiped clean any sense of responsibility. Suddenly, there was ample ammo for gambling, visits to the card table and a means to fulfill the thrill of risk. What seemed inexhaustible dwindled with astonishing rapidity. The fall of the cards led to the fall of good fortune, a plummeting spiral ending in the sinking depths of a familiar financial mire.
Before winning the lotto, there had been a measure of assessment, budgeting to keep his various addictions afloat. After the big payout, however, a vast reservoir fell from thin air to provide the fuel to keep those fires burning, his compulsions wild and rife. It was a flame that seared, left scars, and ultimately burned away all the cash that fed it, the health and happiness of the man that played too near to it. His behaviour drove away his wife. His dependencies lost him his children. His chosen path led away from his friends and his family. It lost him his home and his health.
So now, with nothing but an overwhelming burden of shame, a catalogue of foolhardy choices, and luxuries tossed to the wind, he walks under a moonlit sky obscured by a black canopy. He stumbles in the dark, guided by a vague, sixth sense that only awakens with need, with tremendous desperation, finally arriving at an unencumbered swathe of open land, a clearing in the forest. Bathed in the light of a thousand stars, one giant, pregnant moon, he undergoes a nocturnal christening of cold, astral illumination, a reverse awakening of sorts, an inverse blessing. Etched in lunar emission, the blade glows silver in his trembling hand, awash in dark crimson, as he tallies the sharp edge across his bared, white flesh.
The exposed earth drinks in the vitality of a man who leaves the world behind. The tall grass is pinned down under the weight of his abandoned shell. The tiny, purple flowers sway. Crushed, they lie horizontal. Above, an unblinking eye observes it all. Among the clearing, everything is touched by the cold, discerning moonlight.
***
A man envisions himself virile, robust, an intrepid sort, as he holds his head high, pretending, leading a young lady deep into the dark, foreboding forest. His headlamp is feeble, almost useless, and the full moon is well covered by a meandering network of overhead branches and copious leaves. A nocturnal soundscape occupies the claustrophobic gloom; hooting and howling, buzzing and shuffling, a chill wind whistling along to an eerie, nighttime melody. He holds her hand, tugging her along, assuring her there is nothing to fear even as he masks his own discomfort, his growing anxiety and lurking trepidation.
Who isn’t afraid of the dark? He thinks, justifying that irksome worry that belittles his manhood. Here, in the forest at night, who wouldn’t be a little bit on edge? He asks of himself, then shrieks like a maiden, screams out Eek! as the taut gauze of a silken web breaks across his face in the momentum of his stride. Everything OK? She asks, behind him. Just a sneeze, he lies, saving face, and cleaning it too, removing the cloying, sticky spiderweb that adheres to his beard, which is a work in progress, another affectation of manliness.
His headlamp fades, fizzles out to nothing, but by luck, the timing could not be better; mercifully, they have reached a clearing. The forest opens outward to a patch of treeless meadow blanketed in a generous glow of welcoming moonlight. Whatever fears had been simmering, threatening to boil over, they now subside, no longer rising to brim over the edge of his cool demeanour. With relief, the young man leads his lady to the center of the open space, pulls her in for an embrace, and speaks to her as if a small child, assuaging her fears, though in earnest, beating back his own.
Together, they pitch the tent, which she proves far more efficient at. It’s the dark, he excuses his uselessness. She smiles, nods, looks up to the sky and shields her eyes from the severity of a bald-faced satellite. It’s so bright, she remarks. I guess, he concedes, and stumbles through the nylon flap, pulling her inward behind him.
Inside the cramped space, the temporary lodging of virgin campers, a budding couple struggles to find adequate comfort. They shift and wiggle, amazed by the unforgiving contours of the earth beneath their asses. His tailbone makes contact with something hard and unyielding — a sizeable rock — so he shifts it away with the heel of his palm, roughly unearthing it with a grunt and a curse. Then, as if a stopper unplugged, the disturbed stone releases a malodorous vapor, a malignant vibe that hovers, almost sighs, as if an exhaled breath set free to disperse and freely taint the enveloped atmosphere.
Under the radiant sheen of a pockmarked goddess, Selene, sister of Helios, there lies a human skull bleached in crystalline light, grinning upward to the stars above. Its cavernous sockets, unblinking, devour the astral light. It turns, unaided by a neck, by any body whatsoever, to oppose the realm of possibility and gazes where it will, without a means beyond whatever ill-intent inhabits its hollow casing. A wolf cries out in the distance, dampening the almost inaudible laughter from just outside the tent.
From within, trying to stay warm, the close proximity of two young people arouses the primal urges of the flesh. Despite the cold, layers are shed, clothes tossed to the corners of a limited space where two bodies squirm and entwine. Usually tepid in bed, a kink-devoid, vanilla, cautious type, the youthful man finds himself wildly impassioned, frisky, and unrestrained. Somewhat against his will, almost alien, he glances down to his own body engaged in sexual enterprises he would not typically dare to perform. His bold moves are well received, however, so he lets go, unleashing whatever has come over him, something vigorous from without, now supercharged from within.
Without much for comparison, it is easily the best sex he has ever had. While he can only speak for himself, he gauges by the moaning of her unfiltered ecstasy and decides it wasn’t half bad for his lady either; memorable, and hopefully to be repeated, a series of sequels in an enduring franchise of lust. Spent and breathless, they sprawl onto their backs and perspire, heaving, laughing, kissing, eventually growing cold, clothing themselves and cuddling, a warm embrace beneath a two-person sleeping bag, underneath a shameless, observant moon.
Sleep takes them both as the moon finally becomes veiled by cloud, descending, drifting, sinking to dip below the horizon. Somewhere between the realm of the dream world and the reality of a new, fresh morning, a particular, foreign vivacity leaves a camper behind, departs from his otherwise lukewarm soul to once again lay dormant in a vacant, cranial compartment submerged in the unfettered grass.
Overnight, a seed of unworldly passion has been planted, germinating within its host, thriving inside her fertile womb. Beneath her navel, a tiny invader sleeps. Deep within, a new life begins, and with it, the foundations of what will start off as a long, healthy marriage, decades of joy, familial bliss. This, the interlude before the decay, before slowly corroding away, almost imperceptible, until a child matures, a fledgling takes flight to abandon its roost, leaving his parents to no one but themselves, where the slightest wind or mildest of earthquakes will topple everything over, tear everything asunder.
A couple packs away their tent, smiling in the golden warmth of the new day’s sun. Hand in hand, they walk onward through the forest. The beginning of the end.
***
On the edge of a moonlit glade, a mother owl swoops down from its nest of owlets to snatch a vole, a respectable meal for its blind, voracious brood. The undergrowth critter abandons its morsel of bark so as to avoid becoming a morsel itself, retreating into the unoccupied eye socket of a weed-encrusted human skull. Deep within, it presses hard against the backdrop of calcium phosphate. It looks outward from an eyeless cavern, seeing the world as a human might once have done before it bled out to wither away. Through the circular frame of a vacant orbital socket, the furry prey sees little beyond the feathered predator, its own image reflected back in a wide, eager, yellow eye.
Pecking, scratching, screeching, a desperate mother tirelessly labors to seize the small rodent just out of her reach. Smothering the tenanted skull, talons groping under the shadow of a formidable wingspan, a bird of prey endeavors to take home the bacon, bring home the vole, which escapes, unnoticed, a silent retreat under a blanket of dead leaves.
Frustrated and frenzied, heavy handed with exhaustion, an owl waylays a restful soul, awakens a sleeping demon. The bird cries out with effort, with irritation at its failure. Then with one final push, it cries out again, this time in fury, in tortured dismay, in desperation, and in loss. A mother owl flies away, but is no longer a mother, no longer an owl. Embodied by a man who has died long ago, a bird of prey soars across a moonlit sky, abandoning a trio of owlets that cry out into the night.
Somewhere far off, he thought. Somewhere beautiful. Somewhere worth resting in a long, long while. The criteria for an end to all days, the termination of his being — by whatever means, the idea of death brought more spark to his soul than the ongoing and tedious condition of life.
There was a glade that he knew of where the forest parted, almost with intent, where the grass rose high to flower, attempting to kiss the sun with its tiny, purple buds. No wider than a sports field, perhaps an acre, only the roots of the trees and their overhanging branches infringed upon the clearing. Like an island amid a thick, green sea, an emerald lake, the lidless eye of the forest itself, or, without flourishes, the literal truth: a woodland glade. It would make a lovely, final resting place. It had the makings of a comfortable deathbed.
Winning the lottery should have turned his life around, and in a way, it did — in the wrong direction. The money cleared his debt, which was like a glorious blank slate, but it also wiped clean any sense of responsibility. Suddenly, there was ample ammo for gambling, visits to the card table and a means to fulfill the thrill of risk. What seemed inexhaustible dwindled with astonishing rapidity. The fall of the cards led to the fall of good fortune, a plummeting spiral ending in the sinking depths of a familiar financial mire.
Before winning the lotto, there had been a measure of assessment, budgeting to keep his various addictions afloat. After the big payout, however, a vast reservoir fell from thin air to provide the fuel to keep those fires burning, his compulsions wild and rife. It was a flame that seared, left scars, and ultimately burned away all the cash that fed it, the health and happiness of the man that played too near to it. His behaviour drove away his wife. His dependencies lost him his children. His chosen path led away from his friends and his family. It lost him his home and his health.
So now, with nothing but an overwhelming burden of shame, a catalogue of foolhardy choices, and luxuries tossed to the wind, he walks under a moonlit sky obscured by a black canopy. He stumbles in the dark, guided by a vague, sixth sense that only awakens with need, with tremendous desperation, finally arriving at an unencumbered swathe of open land, a clearing in the forest. Bathed in the light of a thousand stars, one giant, pregnant moon, he undergoes a nocturnal christening of cold, astral illumination, a reverse awakening of sorts, an inverse blessing. Etched in lunar emission, the blade glows silver in his trembling hand, awash in dark crimson, as he tallies the sharp edge across his bared, white flesh.
The exposed earth drinks in the vitality of a man who leaves the world behind. The tall grass is pinned down under the weight of his abandoned shell. The tiny, purple flowers sway. Crushed, they lie horizontal. Above, an unblinking eye observes it all. Among the clearing, everything is touched by the cold, discerning moonlight.
***
A man envisions himself virile, robust, an intrepid sort, as he holds his head high, pretending, leading a young lady deep into the dark, foreboding forest. His headlamp is feeble, almost useless, and the full moon is well covered by a meandering network of overhead branches and copious leaves. A nocturnal soundscape occupies the claustrophobic gloom; hooting and howling, buzzing and shuffling, a chill wind whistling along to an eerie, nighttime melody. He holds her hand, tugging her along, assuring her there is nothing to fear even as he masks his own discomfort, his growing anxiety and lurking trepidation.
Who isn’t afraid of the dark? He thinks, justifying that irksome worry that belittles his manhood. Here, in the forest at night, who wouldn’t be a little bit on edge? He asks of himself, then shrieks like a maiden, screams out Eek! as the taut gauze of a silken web breaks across his face in the momentum of his stride. Everything OK? She asks, behind him. Just a sneeze, he lies, saving face, and cleaning it too, removing the cloying, sticky spiderweb that adheres to his beard, which is a work in progress, another affectation of manliness.
His headlamp fades, fizzles out to nothing, but by luck, the timing could not be better; mercifully, they have reached a clearing. The forest opens outward to a patch of treeless meadow blanketed in a generous glow of welcoming moonlight. Whatever fears had been simmering, threatening to boil over, they now subside, no longer rising to brim over the edge of his cool demeanour. With relief, the young man leads his lady to the center of the open space, pulls her in for an embrace, and speaks to her as if a small child, assuaging her fears, though in earnest, beating back his own.
Together, they pitch the tent, which she proves far more efficient at. It’s the dark, he excuses his uselessness. She smiles, nods, looks up to the sky and shields her eyes from the severity of a bald-faced satellite. It’s so bright, she remarks. I guess, he concedes, and stumbles through the nylon flap, pulling her inward behind him.
Inside the cramped space, the temporary lodging of virgin campers, a budding couple struggles to find adequate comfort. They shift and wiggle, amazed by the unforgiving contours of the earth beneath their asses. His tailbone makes contact with something hard and unyielding — a sizeable rock — so he shifts it away with the heel of his palm, roughly unearthing it with a grunt and a curse. Then, as if a stopper unplugged, the disturbed stone releases a malodorous vapor, a malignant vibe that hovers, almost sighs, as if an exhaled breath set free to disperse and freely taint the enveloped atmosphere.
Under the radiant sheen of a pockmarked goddess, Selene, sister of Helios, there lies a human skull bleached in crystalline light, grinning upward to the stars above. Its cavernous sockets, unblinking, devour the astral light. It turns, unaided by a neck, by any body whatsoever, to oppose the realm of possibility and gazes where it will, without a means beyond whatever ill-intent inhabits its hollow casing. A wolf cries out in the distance, dampening the almost inaudible laughter from just outside the tent.
From within, trying to stay warm, the close proximity of two young people arouses the primal urges of the flesh. Despite the cold, layers are shed, clothes tossed to the corners of a limited space where two bodies squirm and entwine. Usually tepid in bed, a kink-devoid, vanilla, cautious type, the youthful man finds himself wildly impassioned, frisky, and unrestrained. Somewhat against his will, almost alien, he glances down to his own body engaged in sexual enterprises he would not typically dare to perform. His bold moves are well received, however, so he lets go, unleashing whatever has come over him, something vigorous from without, now supercharged from within.
Without much for comparison, it is easily the best sex he has ever had. While he can only speak for himself, he gauges by the moaning of her unfiltered ecstasy and decides it wasn’t half bad for his lady either; memorable, and hopefully to be repeated, a series of sequels in an enduring franchise of lust. Spent and breathless, they sprawl onto their backs and perspire, heaving, laughing, kissing, eventually growing cold, clothing themselves and cuddling, a warm embrace beneath a two-person sleeping bag, underneath a shameless, observant moon.
Sleep takes them both as the moon finally becomes veiled by cloud, descending, drifting, sinking to dip below the horizon. Somewhere between the realm of the dream world and the reality of a new, fresh morning, a particular, foreign vivacity leaves a camper behind, departs from his otherwise lukewarm soul to once again lay dormant in a vacant, cranial compartment submerged in the unfettered grass.
Overnight, a seed of unworldly passion has been planted, germinating within its host, thriving inside her fertile womb. Beneath her navel, a tiny invader sleeps. Deep within, a new life begins, and with it, the foundations of what will start off as a long, healthy marriage, decades of joy, familial bliss. This, the interlude before the decay, before slowly corroding away, almost imperceptible, until a child matures, a fledgling takes flight to abandon its roost, leaving his parents to no one but themselves, where the slightest wind or mildest of earthquakes will topple everything over, tear everything asunder.
A couple packs away their tent, smiling in the golden warmth of the new day’s sun. Hand in hand, they walk onward through the forest. The beginning of the end.
***
On the edge of a moonlit glade, a mother owl swoops down from its nest of owlets to snatch a vole, a respectable meal for its blind, voracious brood. The undergrowth critter abandons its morsel of bark so as to avoid becoming a morsel itself, retreating into the unoccupied eye socket of a weed-encrusted human skull. Deep within, it presses hard against the backdrop of calcium phosphate. It looks outward from an eyeless cavern, seeing the world as a human might once have done before it bled out to wither away. Through the circular frame of a vacant orbital socket, the furry prey sees little beyond the feathered predator, its own image reflected back in a wide, eager, yellow eye.
Pecking, scratching, screeching, a desperate mother tirelessly labors to seize the small rodent just out of her reach. Smothering the tenanted skull, talons groping under the shadow of a formidable wingspan, a bird of prey endeavors to take home the bacon, bring home the vole, which escapes, unnoticed, a silent retreat under a blanket of dead leaves.
Frustrated and frenzied, heavy handed with exhaustion, an owl waylays a restful soul, awakens a sleeping demon. The bird cries out with effort, with irritation at its failure. Then with one final push, it cries out again, this time in fury, in tortured dismay, in desperation, and in loss. A mother owl flies away, but is no longer a mother, no longer an owl. Embodied by a man who has died long ago, a bird of prey soars across a moonlit sky, abandoning a trio of owlets that cry out into the night.
***
James Callan is the author of the novel A Transcendental Habit (Queer Space, 2023). His fiction has appeared in Carte Blanche, Bridge Eight, White Wall Review, Mystery Tribune, and elsewhere. He lives on the K?piti Coast, Aotearoa New Zealand.
