 The section of this site labeled “Chrysalis” is completely fucked. I have tried many times to fix it but it’s a loss. The posts still exist and I am currently using many of them as jumpstarts to write full length works—the previous post “Soteria Road” began its life there. When I first created the Scintilla project, the idea was to write very short pieces—accompanied by art or photographs—that somehow stood on their own in either esoteric or pragmatic ways. Admittedly, as they sit now, the majority read as simply incomplete. However, there are a few that work as they are now. Descent is one of them. When I reread this for the first time in a few years, it, pleased me to discover its elegant completeness. There are dogs on the trail. I count their prints while waiting for her to change clothes. I suggest the hike can wait until after lunch but she insists. I gesture to the silt on the path. She stands for a moment with her head aslant. I can’t see her face. With an abrupt sling of her wrist she tells me she’ll be fine. She says it’s time to move on. The very words her brother told her a month ago. We stride on our heels in descent of the soft rail drawn in a seine wave across the face of the cliff. The beams of the young sun burn opaque and appear supported in space by the spear tip shapes of the pines. She is ahead of me. I’ve spent much of the hike focused on her ass in the denim shorts but also checking her composure. There’s no trembling. No skittishness. Until the bark. It echoes through the cathedral of the ravine as if uttered from something supernatural. She freezes. An ocean tide of air moves the trees then fades into a silence as still as her pose. Another bark. She turns to me, the wig out of place just enough to be noticeable, and she shakes her tears at me as if she fears she will never be able to move again.
 In that black place on the river where even the full moon does not penetrate, Jacob stood knee deep in the current near the bank. He gripped the backpack with his thumb between his shoulder and the strap. The administration would be calling the authorities soon. He had to start moving but reflection heaped on him the importance of this moment.
This act could never be undone. A new and inescapable beginning lay before him and he stopped for a brief respite, not hesitation but recognition. Reverence. Dr. Scott had shown him the scripture and explained the flaw in the theology, the thousands of years of misinterpreted text. Hell did not exist. Not for humanity at least. It was a fabrication run amok and the result opened for Jacob the clearest picture of reality he had ever known. If the result of sin was oblivion then he would gladly let his lust for revenge hurl him there. Destruction struck him as a weak and toothless punishment. Destruction meant rest. A satin riot of hot color shimmered on the young eastern horizon as he kicked water from his pants and wormed deeper into the ribbons of fog marbling the floodplain. A two lane highway lay some three miles ahead. If his navigation held, a gas station and bus stop wouldn’t be much farther. The mixture of coins and cash he stole from the lockbox under the auditorium stage would get him close enough to his final destination. By the time his eventual pursuers found him, it would be too late. Too late for everyone.  Jack White is last of the greats. The last of the uncompromising incomparables.  He’s got nothing to lose now. He doesn’t require a splinter of approval from a single individual or organization. He has nothing to fear now. What remains to be seen is where his instincts lead him. That is the true terror.
 I’ve read it twice and have now listened to it. The different narrators achieve a perfection I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t heard it. Phenomenal.  This is a 5 1/2” crack in the draft/center sill of a hopper car. This is not a weld crack but actual parent metal. Bad news… |
Archives
November 2024
Chrysalis, a growing collection of very short fiction.
That Night Filled Mountain
episodes post daily. Paperback editions are available. My newest novel River of Blood is available on Amazon or Apple Books. 
Unless noted, all pics credited to Skitz O'Fuel.
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