|
Duke by Daniel G. Snethen My first dog cost me $3.00. He was
part Collie and a mix of who knows what
other breeds. Duke was territorial and protected the
home front. His bite, literally was worse than his bark. Duke never
bit family, but everyone else was an intruder. I trained
him in basic dog obedience for 4-H and we
received a purple ribbon, but we were forbidden to advance to the
SD State Fair because Duke was prone to biting. Typical
dog, he loved chasing cars. We discouraged
this by
chaining him up at night, but you have to
give a dog some freedom. One evening, the neighbor girl’s boyfriend went zooming
past our place with rags locked
into his hubcaps. Duke chased and grabbed on. The next
morning, I found Duke— dead on the
shoulder of our township gravel road. At fourteen,
that was likely more grief, than I’d ever
before experienced. And my mother was livid with an
anger I’d not seen in her before or
since. Mother
looked up at God and said, “Damn him, Yahweh!” To my
knowledge she never swore again. A year
later, on
a hot humid summer afternoon, the neighbor
girl’s boyfriend drowned, while swimming in a stock dam.
Freedom by Daniel
G. Snethen What next? She
was naked and free. Covered in blood spatter like the bathroom
walls. He lay on the tile floor, prick-less
and dead. Blood still flowing from whence his
member came. The straight razor still clenched
in her right hand. She, still in shock, wondering what next?
Fly Collector by Daniel
G. Snethen Blue-bottle
blow flies & sarcophagic flesh flies neatly mounted—skewered
with nylon-headed Bohemian pins, by the thousands,
filled tens of dozens of professionally made Cornell entomological
specimen drawers. On display, neatly dispersed, throughout
his country cottage. Filled with expertly pinned, captive-raised
flies. Nurtured from blood-fed maggots collected
at crime scenes. Each encasement a sacred mausoleum: a
genetic gene pool of human DNA, labeled with taxonomic information; locality; date;
collector nomenclature and corpus delicti identification.
Pickles
Butte by Daniel G. Snethen
Named after a farmer's dog,
the highest point in Canyon County,
Idaho is an ecological treasure. Black-tailed
jackrabbits
play tag and chisel-toothed
kangaroo
rats leave tail drags
in ancient volcanic ash. Rear-fanged venomous spotted
night snakes and desert hairy
scorpions venture out after dark
in search of xerarch sustenance. Giant turquoise blue centipedes
slither
and slink like many-legged
diminutive serpents overhauling
slower, often larger prey, killing them with venom before dining. Black
widows spin high tensile
strength silk over lava creating
sticky traps for ensnarement. Rock wrens, woodrats, lizards,
ground nesting hawks and mound-
building formicide ants thrive
on barren rock devoid of water. Jerusalem crickets and Mormon
ones too,
eat what vegetation
there grows in this dry wasteland,
predated upon by habitat-destroying
dirt bikes and four-wheel drive trucks. But
the strangest creature,
to sojourn across this magma-
hardened bluff, the solpugiid,
or camel spider, looks like
a tailless tarantula-scorpion hybrid. An odd arachnid, inviting
the heat
of the Idaho sun to get hotter
and even hotter, parching every other
living thing as he crawls unimpeded through
the moisture-less Idaho dust hunting undeterred for whatever
prey he can capture in his massive hideous
exoskeleton crushing jaws of death.
Native American Male
Kills Caucasian Teenager at Hardee’s: Rapid City, SD by Daniel G. Snethen “The
court finds the defendant Maȟpíya Kimímila Lúta
(Cloud Red-Butterfly) guilty of third-degree manslaughter and hereby sentences him to 10
years of imprisonment.” And, just like that, the 19-year-old Indigenous teenager
from Potato Creek, SD, was sent off to the state penitentiary. Eleven
months earlier, Cloud had entered the lobby of the 6th & St. Joseph
Street Hardee’s near downtown Rapid City, SD. What Red-Butterfly didn’t realize
is that he was walking into the midst of a clandestine anti-bullying campaign. What he
first saw were three non-native teenage males picking on an overweight native girl. “What’s that on your
fish, baby? “Looks
like tartar sauce—bet you wish it belonged to me—don’t ya?” Another
grabbed a handful of her fries and with a mouthful, exclaimed, “Damn bitch, these
sure taste good—just like you, I bet.” The third spit a wad
of chewing gum into her Dr. Pepper. The girl started to cry. The
surrounding patrons appeared to be a bit disturbed by this blatant display of disrespect
but ultimately chose to ignore it. And the bullying antics continued. But as the clientele
began to unwrap their sandwiches, they seemed to become more and more agitated. Finally,
they started to approach the front counter to complain. But
they were not uptight about the horrible behaviors being perpetrated upon the young native
girl in plain sight. Oddly, instead, they were upset because several of their food
items had been deformed. Buns were flattened, burgers had no meat and fries were served
mangled and broken in two. The customers were both puzzled and outraged and demanded satisfaction. Finally, after much consternation,
the manager started to explain that this was all part of an anti-bullying awareness campaign
to show just how easy it is for people to become ambivalent and ignore the plight of others
while at the same time becoming extremely defensive when they felt wronged. “Hopefully, you all now
realize that none of us should ever stand around complacent while others are being harmed.
Naturally, we will refill your orders and reimburse you your money and we thank you for
your participation and understanding.” But
while this was taking place, Cloud Red-Butterfly—with the noblest of intentions and
totally oblivious to the ongoing campaign, asked the three teenage males to please
leave the young lady alone. And
that’s when they called him a fucking prairie-nigger.
Dallas County Phone Calls by Daniel
G. Snethen I knew
a Native gal in the Dallas jail who called me, her Dad. Apparently,
I was the only father-figure she’d ever had. I
put money on her books so we could have our weekly phone
calls and so she could call her mother too. One
young black woman, a fellow inmate of my friend, was lonely and
apparently had no one to talk to on the outside
of prison. Amber gave her my number, and
before I knew it, I was talking to some young African American
woman from inside the Dallas County Jail. She
thought I was nice and funny too. Wanted me to check her status
on Facebook. I think she thought perhaps
we could hook up once she left County. I
checked her out, half my age, and a booty that’d make Sir
Mix-a-Lot’s anaconda smile. How the
hell was I going to hook up with her, there’s
a thousand miles separating Dallas, Texas and Dallas, South
Dakota.
Two Old Ladies Arrested for Feeding Feral Cats by Daniel
G. Snethen
Damn shame Yellow Mama is retired. Wetumpka
law enforcement is
in dire need of her assistance. Beverly
Roberts, 85 and Mary Alston, 61 were found guilty of feeding
feral cats near the courthouse lawn. Several
thousand dollars of damage was claimed by Elmore County
officials. Both cat molesters were fined,
arrested, sentenced and released on two years
of probation. Both claimed they weren’t really
feeding feral cats, but were capturing them to be neutered
thus reducing the feral cat problem plaguing parts
of the Nation. Apparently, it’s illegal to stand on
private County property enticing feral cats with a can of
Fancy Feast in your wrinkled hands. Besides,
such mutilation and the denial of a cat’s reproductive
rights just ought to be illegal. And apparently,
in Wetumpka, Alabama it is.
Her Name Isn’t Margo, but It Should
Be by Daniel G. Snethen She
never talks about feelings. It is as if they do not exist. If they do, they
are to be repressed. But how can I repress such things? Ours,
is clearly a nebulous relationship, obfuscated by shadowy concrete differences. I
am the Yang for her Ying. To most, I am a mystery shrouded in smoke. Best
understood thru Eastern mysticism. She helps stem
my rage. She is my soothing opiate. She completes me. To
her, I am a child—yet complicated. When I need her most—she knows. But
does she know why she knows? Does she really
know who she is? Does she really know who I am? Does she even
understand who we are? I doubt it, I doubt it, I absolutely doubt it. I
doubt she understands the answer is deeply spiritual—not empirical. She
doesn’t know that our essence should be inseparable, uncontainable. That
one cannot divide darkness from midnight, or hold mystery and love in a locked box. Like
time, we transcend all these things. But she knows not these truths and I dare
not tell for fear of losing her.
Yorick by Daniel G. Snethen I
stare into your eyeless sockets, remembering how I used to torture thee. How
I’d make you carry me barefoot through the creeping thorns infesting
the courtyard cobbles. How I would beat the hump on
your back with my wooden club urging you to greater speed. You loved me poor Yorick, and I treated
you as less than a dog. You were the court jester and I of royal
lineage. Your disregard was my birthright. You drug me from my castle room when a fire raged
mere feet from my door. Dove out through a window fifteen feet
to the frozen ground. Cracked your brainless skull and
broke your collar bone, but cushioned my fall. You watched over me, entertaining me with silly feats of
acrobatic antics as I lay sequestered away, quarantined from
the rest of humanity. Ah Yorick, you were an idiot to
have loved me so, and I, I was the royal buffoon.
In Search of Ghosts by Daniel G.
Snethen Near midnight, in search of ghosts, I visited
the memorial For the unnamed Katrina victims. I
felt no cold clamminess nor any bodily aches and pains. I
saw nothing, I sensed nothing, I felt nothing, out of
the ordinary. But when I visited Ground
Zero, during the dead of day, I smelled the stench of death.
Seven Hanging
Trees by Daniel
G. Snethen Seven giant gray
snags stood stoically erect in the Mississippi woods beside
the 1867 Coombs cabin. Under the shadow of darkness, I
witnessed eleven hooded silhouettes eerily dangling from ancient
tree limbs. The morning dawn almost
convinced me I was mistaken—almost.
My Addie by Daniel G. Snethen Her casket was natural wood and
beautiful. My twin sister was carefully loaded into the back of a U-Haul truck, nestled
behind what meager belongings she still owned.
Anything of any real value had already been lifted by faux-friends, grifters. Her
vehicle trailed behind on a dolly. They told me, the grifters
that is, that I couldn’t take Dawn’s car out of the state of Ohio…said
it was in probate and that it would be illegal. Acted shocked when they heard I was going
to transport her to South Dakota myself and were astonished to find that all it took was
a $5 permit to legally take a body across state lines. What I didn’t tell them is
that in the small print of the U-Haul contract was a disclaimer forbidding the transport
of a corpse. They didn’t believe me when I said I’d be gone by morning. I left
the quaint little town of Lebanon, Ohio during the dead of the night shortly after 2:00,
but not before first reporting a missing handgun from my sister’s belongings. Daddy
Grifter, an oily Pentecostal and his bipolar daughter questioned how I could know my sister
owned a handgun. Dawn told me she did. I found the holster and the ammo in her belongings,
but no firearm. The police said, she could have loaned it to someone. But I know better
and so does Jesus and no doubt, you do too. The magnitude
of this ordeal was unexpected. My son-in-law procured
a round trip flight for me with points. I expected a quick trip, albeit a sad one…
knowing the inevitable…but still I held hope and I knew Dawn would not expire before
I arrived. And I knew this, because Dawn was Dawn, and because she loved me. And well,
I loved her too. Saturday, January 22, 2022 along I-74 near exit
102 exactly 283 miles from Council Bluffs, where my daughter lived, an inside
dual had a blowout and there, Dawn and I were stranded on the shoulder of the
interstate at 4:32 in the late afternoon waiting for a tire exchange which had
to be contracted through U-Haul. For nearly three hours I waited,
barely noticing the traffic passing by, as I contemplated what would happen
if we had to unload the U-Haul before changing the tire. What would happen when Dawn was
discovered, openly sequestered beneath cover of the U-Haul, and then I realized
that Dawn and I had somehow unwittingly become interred into the grotesquery of
a William Falkner Southern Gothic novel. Dawn was my Addie and she was paying
me back for all the pranks I’d pulled over her the past 56 years. When I first
arrived at the airport in Ohio, I was picked up by a
preacher-man, the husband of Dawn’s self-proclaimed best friend. The bipolar one
had been beside Dawn the entire time. Had rehydrated Dawn and was carefully monitoring
everything. I questioned why they had not taken her to the hospital immediately upon first
discovering her failing condition. But they assured me, they knew what they were doing
and as a family unit had gone through the same process several times already of successfully
battling Covid. Still, I did not understand, and when Dawn’s oxygen level fell
dangerously low and they finally called the ambulance, I just trusted they were
doing their best…but now I know the truth…they were creatures of the lowest kind—grifters
and Pentecostals. My first inkling of their diabolical
nature was when I found out that Dawn’s best friend
was filing for medical power-of-attorney over Dawn while I was still in midflight. The
entire ordeal was surreal, entirely unfathomable and yet I know it was true. Dawn was there
and I was too and I believe I may have noticed Rod lurking in the shadows. It took less than seven minutes to completely change
two tires and be heading on down the road. No unloading of the U-Haul, no
opening of the door, just nearly three hours of antagonizing anxiety, followed
by a quick exchange of tires and nothing more. As I approached Council Bluffs,
Iowa, in great need of rest, I wondered why my two older
sisters had never informed me of Dawn’s earlier bankruptcy. Of how her best friend
used her. Ran up over $10,000 of credit card debt with the promise of paying her back.
Of how there had been an earlier falling out because they grifted her after using her as
a free babysitter, enticing Dawn to sell her home and move from Sioux Falls to
Lebanon, promising to pay her for taking care of Grandma and then accusing Dawn
of abuse and dismissing her with no job or place to stay. Why didn’t
my older sisters tell me this? If they had, perhaps
I would have been prepared upon arrival to Ohio. Instead, I walked into a buzzsaw. I arrived in Council Bluffs, Iowa at 6:30 Sunday
morning, slept for six hours and headed for Winner, SD at 12:55 in the
afternoon. I was tired, but I was focused. The funeral home and my brother were waiting
for me in Winner. They needed the body that evening in order to have a burial on Monday.
My mind was focused on many things, one of which was why? Why did Dawn reconcile with the
Ohio grifters…but the answer was obvious…Dawn was lonely and Dawn loved unconditionally.
There was nothing fake about her Christianity and she exemplified the commandment of loving
thy neighbor. She truly believed in forgiving seventy times seven times the sins of man…hadn’t
her Lord and Savior done the same for her? The needle
approached empty as I neared Tyndall, SD. A large buck
materialized as a phantom from the blackness of a South Dakota night, running head-on into
the side of the U-Haul. I did not stop, kept driving toward Tyndall, wondering how much
damage was caused, thanking God that the deer had not run into Dawn’s car. Oddly,
I noticed no discernible damage while filling the tank of the U-Haul truck. We arrived safely to Winner, South Dakota at
8:15 Sunday evening. Dawn made us sweat beneath her casket as I and my Parkinson’s
afflicted brother, my wife and my daughter and some poor laborer from the Funeral Home
struggled to extract her casket from the U-Haul truck. Dawn must have been enjoying the
carnival ride she endured during our final journey together. I’m sure she was laughing
at the hell I was enduring but I know too she was happy that I was saving her from the
demons who tried to keep her ensnared in a grifted Ohio hell.
Wereworm by Daniel G. Snethen After the early morning storms, Mr. Melon walked out
onto his concrete steps, witness to unbelievable carnage. Night crawlers were strewn about
everywhere. All of them appeared to be dead or dying. Some had managed to crawl upon the
upper level on his front porch, escaping the drowning rains and whatever else precipitated
such death the night before. Some had managed to wriggle halfway across his driveway, but
they too were twisted up, either in postmortem, or the slow twitching death throes of
the dying. Not one annelid could Melon find which was not harmed. A few of them appeared
to have succumbed to drowning, caused by the outbursts of torrential rains, but most were
inexplicably mutilated near their anterior ends, none of which had been visibly preyed
upon by predators or opportunistic scavengers. Two weeks earlier, during a
half-moon, Percy, an anorexic worm, had happened upon the underlying soil of a
burnt-up patch of dandelions which had been severely overdosed with poison from
an herbicide spill Mr. Melon had made when recharging his hand-sprayer. Percy consumed the tainted dirt, while recycling nutrients, and aerating
the soil as a vermiform is supposed to do. This time, however, the earth tasted unfamiliar
and Percy, already undernourished and not at all robust, became very ill. Sickness was
not new to poor Percy and had been his plight since hatching. Though there
were literally thousands of Percy's kind, residing in Melon's lawn, Percy was lonely and
had no family. All of his species were gender-fluid but that didn't matter when it
came to offering Percy love. He was shunned and shamed and never given the
chance to procreate, because of his diminutive size and sickly nature. After discovering thousands of contorted corpses, Mr. Melon's gaze fell
upon a wiggling deformed worm which caused him to laugh. "I'll be damned," he chuckled,
"there it is, the scrawniest, most pathetic-looking one of the whole entire bunch—and
it’s still crawling." That previous evening, though it
could not be seen, the moon was completely engorged, and its invisible moonbeams
had reacted with the weakened body of Percy, invigorating his musculature . . . metamorphosing
him into a robust creature of immoral turpitude. Lumbricus terrestris, the common earthworm, is a
hermaphroditic creature, and in his newly found vigor, Percy unleashed all of
his pent-up sexual frustration. In this morph, Percy could out-crawl, out-eat, and out-mate
all of his comrades. And Percy had no control, no inhibitions, and no willpower over his
newly formed obsessive-compulsive disorder, to have sex with whatever looked desirable.
Even the twigs beneath the boxelder tree were not safe from his amorous advances. And,
in the morning, Mr. Melon scratched his head at what he saw. Dead worms everywhere, but
only on his lawn, none in the neighbors' yards. All of his soil miners apparently dead,
except one pitiful example which surely would be dead before the day's end. And Percy, Percy was slowly dragging his pathetic form,
across the well-manicured lawn, with one goal in mind . . . to reach the neighbor's lawn
before nightfall for another session of nocturnal debauchery.
A Woman
and a Rabbit Daniel G. Snethen Hase
was a rabbit. A white rabbit. A very old white rabbit.
He hopped about my classroom chewing gum off the bottom of tables and desks. Eating paint
from the wall. Jumped up onto a desk and then a table and ate the bottom edges of old schoolhouse
maps which had been repurposed as window blinds. All of my students loved Hase, except
for one young lady, who for some odd reason had a phobia of hares. And Hase must have
known this, for whenever she was in class he would always hop to her desk, as
though he had some strange rabbit crush on her…and she hated it…feared it…so
much so, that whenever her class was in session, I’d have to banish poor Hase
to the wire cage like some hardened criminal. My mother loved animals,
all animals, especially rabbits. When she lived in the country, Mom had all
kinds of animals. Sheep, goats, cows (even a miniature one which she trained to
pull a cart), horses, ponies, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, turtles
and rabbits. But she did not like snakes, which I took great pleasure in catching
and showing her. She disliked bumble bees and would scream a blood- curdling cry at them
to scare them off while she was working in her garden…apparently it worked as I do
not recall her ever being stung by one. But what Mom hated most, and was very frightened
of, were spiders. She claimed she could smell a spider, even before she saw one. When she
was a little girl, her mother kept a spider in a jar and would chase her around the kitchen
table with it. Apparently, Grandmother got a great chuckle from this. But it is evident
to me now, that this caused life-long trauma for my mother. I regret the few
occasions I brought a spider home for mom to see. I was young and did not
really understand that irrational fear and trauma is not something one has any
control over. Forgive me, Mama.
I was a rascal, a rapscallion. Mother came to
expect anything from me. She once told me that nothing I did ever surprised her. She simply
came to expect the unexpected. Even when I told her I went swinging naked from the tire
swing while courting Anne, she laughed and said, “I’m not surprised.”
Mom claimed that I had multiple personalities, at least six or seven of them and when I
scoffed at the notion, she immediately replied, “That’s another one.”
Mom spent hundreds, no thousands, no tens of
thousands of hours laboring in the hot SD sun. She wore layers of clothing and a pink pith
safari helmet to try and stop the damaging rays of the sun, but in the end, all of those
long hours exposed to solar radiation took its toll upon her aged soul and she contracted
skin cancer. Horrible sores and tumors arose on her skin. Her bedding and mattress soaked
in blood and other bodily secretions which oozed from her compromised
integumentary system.
She lived alone then, several hours away from
me and the farm. Her final dog had died of diabetes, she buried Tisha in her back lawn.
Snooky the cat of 17 maybe 18 finally succumbed of old age and joined Tisha. Even the painted
turtle I’d given her was no longer. Mother was old and lonely and in pain and the
doctor wanted to put her on chemo-therapy, but Mom said, “That poison is worse than
the cancer. I just want to live as pain-free as I can and die when it is time.” And though some protested, I agreed with her. Her
health declined rapidly, as did her weight…and my rabbit, Hase, was getting thin
too. It became apparent to Mom that she could no longer live the solitary life she’d
gotten used to. We brought her home in her frail condition. I was working out a plan to
move her in with me but she was placed into a care facility and needed to rest and
recover before any such plans could be realized. I visited her. I read the
fairy tale The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig to her, changing
the ending and she exclaimed in a weakened gravely voice, “That’s not what
happened.” And I laughed, knowing that Mama wasn’t a bit surprised by my
antics. I helped her to the restroom, so that she could pee through her
catheter. It embarrassed her so, but I just reminded her of the many times she did
similar things for me as a baby and a child and reassured her that I loved her. I
fed her and she vomited on me and again she seemed chagrined but I laughed and said it
was payback for the many times I’d puked upon her, all the while my twin sister was
gagging in the background. Apparently, Dawn had a great disdain for vomit or being vomited
upon. That was the last time I saw my mother alive.
I went to my classroom only to find my dear Hase
dead in his cage. Some say a student had kicked him hard a few days before. I don’t
know, I hope not. Why are some people so cruel? I choose to believe otherwise. I choose
to believe that God was in control the entire time. Mother died that same day. The day
my rabbit died. I had a carrot box in my room and I put Hase in it. I transported Hase
back to the farm. The neighbor had opened a grave, the first and only one on Hill Top Cemetery.
Mom and I had already discussed this, and that is where she wanted to be buried. On
the grassy hill at the northern edge of the horse pasture where she used to lay
and rest and watch her sheep as they grazed. She thought this would be a
peaceful place, her favorite place for an eternal rest. And, I made it happen. No
one believed it could be done, not in such short order, but it was done and my mother
was laid to rest there but not before, under the cloak of darkness, when no one could see,
I took a ladder and a carrot box, with my rabbit, and buried Hase in the center of her
grave. And I’m pretty certain my mother was pleasantly surprised.
Cauliflower Ear by Daniel G. Snethen Great
was his pride. His hair long
and his words that of the Indigenous. Great
was his pride. He occupied the Stronghold. He squatted on
the stolen allotment of his Matriarch. Great
was his pride. He helped facilitate suicide prevention. Great
was his pride. His focus was on traditional teachings nearly
lost, like the throwing of the ball ceremony. Great
was his pride. He was an AIM warrior. He helped scatter the
ashes of Russell. Great was his pride. He had
many children. He had many Hunka daughters for whom he served as
surrogate father. But his wife, his wife had
cauliflower ear.
In Pursuit
of the Polyphemus Daniel G. Snethen I arrived at the mountain village of Bludgeon,
upon my blue draft-horse at the dead hour of midnight. The
gore was prevalent—impossible to ignore. The cranberry
snow, acrid with the smell of freshly spilled blood, glowed ominously, almost phosphorescent
beneath the Christmas moon. The lamp post had been uprooted and covered in oily blood,
crushed bone and brain matter from several bashed-in villagers' heads. The crazy old lady kept muttering, "The
Odyssey, the Odyssey." I tried questioning her
further, but her mental faculties seemed to have deserted
her entirely. All she could do was sit in a pile of rubble—incessantly rubbing the
center of her forehead, while manically cackling, "The Odyssey, the Odyssey." She was obviously
of no use to me and frankly I found her caterwauling quite grating—so I had the constable
lock her up for surveillance and my own personal peace of mind. None of the witnesses could clearly explain
what had happened. Confusion was contagious. The most coherent villager was a
diminutive redheaded lass of about eleven. In very proper English, she
articulated, "The unshorn behemoth and its Devil-eye reigned judgement and destruction
down upon us from its fiendish heart, interrupting our Yuletide celebration. It stank,
its hide resembled that of a mangy cur's and it frothed from its foam-flecked fetid jowls
like a hydrophobic wolf." Then she iterated that Master Ralph's arm had been bitten and
subsequently amputated by the apothecary, mere minutes after the attack, lest the rapidly
spreading infection reach the poor Master's heart. Even during incineration the arm seemed
to be quivering, almost growing—regenerating, before imploding upon itself, becoming
a pile of hot smoking ash. The Bludgeon
villagers insisted on my taking a breeding pair of ebony-coated
Groenedaels for my own personal protection and to assist me in my endeavor to track down
the monstrous killer. I named the male, Black Jack. His coat was long and had been well
kept by the family that gave him to me. It had an almost iridescent sheen to it, not unlike
that of the black feathers of the magpie, and in certain light he appeared almost
blue-green in color. His bitch, which
I named Midnight, was easily five kilograms lighter
than he. She had the most intense eyes I have ever witnessed. They looked like cold sapphire
ice and burned to the soul's core when stared into. She was friendly and gentle with me,
but I feared her just the same and knew, though I may be able to overcome the heavier more
muscular Black Jack in an unlikely battle between man and dog, that it was inconceivable
I would ever be able to keep her from harming or even killing me if she were,
for some reason, inclined to do so. Shortly after
a meal of venison and parsnip pie—washed down
with hard cider, I mounted my roan Percheron and followed my newly acquired canines as
they started tracking our nebulous slayer through the newly fallen Saint Crispin Eve's
snow. Judging from the villagers’
accounts and the distance between footprints, I calculated the evil denizen
we followed to be a minimum of two and a half meters in height and more probably closer
to three. Based upon how deeply its tracks were compacted, I doubted it had a mass of
less than two-hundred kilograms. It was a massive and dangerous quarry that we
sought, and I had considerable doubt I'd ever return to my family and country
cottage, but such was my vocation in life, and it kept my family clothed and
fed. Groenedaels aren't normally
prone to baying, when in pursuit of quarry, but as we approached closer to our fleeing
fiend, they became exponentially more agitated and began baying relentlessly. We
crowned a snow-covered bluff and confronted the beast which easily stood a
dozen hands taller than my blue roan Percheron. Greenish slobber gurgled from
its gaping mouth. Momentarily, it stood there in all of its stench and hideous
countenance, before making its attack. I could not help but be entranced by its single
large rectangular eye located just off center on the forehead above its mucous-draining
nostrils. "My God," I recalled, "that old lady was referencing Homer!" The hideous monster bared its yellowed fangs,
attacking my blue mount, dislodged and tumbling me headfirst into a drift of
snow. I barely heard the ghoulish growl of the one-eyed monster over the
cacophony of my baying hounds and the distressed neighing of my wounded steed as I
scrambled to my feet. But I did hear them and I wish I hadn't, because they haunt my every
sleeping moment. Blood spurted out, in streams of liquid crimson, from the Percheron's
jugular with each beat of its dying heart. Bathed in equine blood the
monstrosity, before me, eerily glowed beneath the moonlight
shimmering off a palate of red snow. Its growls echoed through the mountains and off it
lumbered through a cascade of avalanching snow. And once again the chase was on. Only this
time, I was afoot. Midnight took the charge, Black Jack followed closely and I
did my best to keep within hearing range of the baying Groendales as they tracked
our quarry up the dangerous escarpment of granite before us. As we approached the summit of the escarpment,
I noticed a stark difference in topography and temperature. At 6000 plus meters
above sea level we should have felt the effects of the frigid mountain air but
instead my clothes were soaked in sweat and the cloying air was filled with
vaporized steam which made seeing our enemy near impossible. There was no sign of ice
or snow and the cobble strewn plain at the summit was covered with verdant mosses and lichens
of myriad species. From the sound of their
frantic howling, I could tell that my dogs were quickly closing in upon the
one-eyed Cyclopean menace. It was difficult to see more than ten paces ahead of me because
of the hot humid steam geysering from out the many geological vents surrounding me. The
atmosphere smelled and tasted of sulfur and breathing under these conditions
was taxing and seemed an impossibility. I stopped to catch my breath and then I
heard the most blood-curdling combination of growls and grunts and howls my
ears had ever heard before. I rounded a massive moss-covered boulder only to find
the distorted figure of the Polyphemus, with its gigantic calloused hands, literally
tearing the head off Black Jack, whose mouth was still clenched ever so closely to the
jugular vein of the grotesquery before me. As I took aim with my blunderbuss,
the hideous thing turned quickly and hurled the decapitated
corpse of his vanquished foe, full on into the face of Midnight, knocking her down to the
ground mid-jump. He then picked up her steam and sweat-drenched body, and hurled her nearly
twenty-five yards into a large granite rock. You could hear her body thud and
the high-pitched crisp sound of ribs snapping upon impact with the monolith. And then it charged me. Standing in the path of that awkward freakish
locomotion of nature, unnerved me, nearly causing me to turn, tuck tail and run
like the coward I felt inside. But instead, I stood transfixed and focused,
waiting for it to close in upon me. Thirty, twenty-five, twenty, fifteen rods
before me, his rancid smell offensively permeating my nostrils stronger even than that
of the geysering sulfur inundating me, and then I touched the powder off. The force struck
the giant dead center in the chest and spun the monster around, but just like that of ancient
Mariner's, his body dropped not down. And
once again, this one-eyed thing fled, and once again
I trailed it, but this time I was encumbered by the weight of Midnight whose bruised body
lay draped across my shoulders. The terrain grew ever increasingly hot and spongy. The
atmosphere entirely vaporized. I could see no farther than a meter or two in front of me
but followed the laboring breath and rancid stench and ghoulish gibbering of this Homerian
nightmare I swore to kill. The earth beneath
my feet shifted softly at first. Then, it started to
shake with increasing intensity and soon the geysering was full-fledged. Plumes of pressurized
steam, as high as a hundred meters, shot off in rapid sequential fire encircling me. The
extreme temperature, caused by the scalding vapor, had become intolerable. It occurred
to me that perhaps I had unwittingly stumbled upon the brink of hell and that this evil
place was lair to the hell-spawn I hunted. A
rather small but deep caldera lay before me. I saw no
spewing geysers within its bowl, but steam, from geothermic activity, seemed to rise from
everywhere—creating low-lying ground fog, if you will. The monster was half-way down
the ancient volcanic dish and with renewed strength I closed in. And once again the gargantuan gargoyle-like
grotesquery whirled around more quickly than before and transfixed my gaze as
its oddly-shaped eye mesmerized me into a near narcoleptic state of hypnotic comatosis,
whilst I gazed into that blood-shot ocular upon its forehead. Midnight
struggled free of my weakened state and limping, attacked
the Polyphemus with a veracity not unlike that of the African hyena. But, she was too weak
and quickly her reinvigorated strength waned and she was soon caught mid-jump, midair and
squeezed so hard, by those Solomon Grundy-like arms, that the sound of her bones cracking,
reverberated off the volcanic walls of the collapsed caldera. And still I stood frozen in my tracks. The wicked grin of my victor showcased its chartreuse
mucous covered dentition. Slowly it approached me with its lidless eye which,
though frightful looking, I could not keep from staring at. This thing, this
hideous creature, this Cyclopean nightmare, this ghoulish living gargoyle, this Polyphemus
held me completely entranced by its wicked eye. I knew I was about to die. And still I
stared deep into that squarish orb. The colossus was almost
upon me when the stony earth began trembling and quaking with
phenomenal intensity. And just before his apish arms encircled me, the ground we stood
on shook with such great force, we both fell down all juxtaposed akimbo. My state of hypnosis
broken, I scrambled to my feet and engaged in a wrestling grapple with the hideous
creature. All the while, with each
passing moment, the earth quaked more violently. The volcanic
eruption, mere meters to our north, knocked both of us down. Smoke, fire, pressurized vapor
and magma spewed skyward from the volcanic opening. A river of living fire, of lava formed
where nothing flowed before and created its own river-channel as it coursed and
meandered its way to the opposite rim of the caldera. Again, I followed my foe with intent of extreme
prejudice. It was fleeter than I, but not by much, and then I had it quartered,
trapped against the river of fire, the proverbial river of Styx and there I
held this nightmare at bay with my blunderbuss. I took aim, triggering the flintlock,
but the powder did not ignite. Obviously, it had been compromised by exposure to the one
hundred percent humidity engulfing me. One final time this wicked
creature unleashed all its fury upon me. I bludgeoned it
with all my might, striking with the butt of my blunderbuss into its face. Several times
the beast nearly ripped my weapon from my hands but most doggedly I held on, continuing
to strike at its horrible eye. Instinct, not reason, told me this was my only chance to
survive. And I struck, and struck, and I struck again and again, and if I struck ten
times, I struck a hundred times. Finally, a blow must have glanced off the front
of its cranium catching the corner of his wretched eye. The Polyphemus let out a
bellow which sounded like a thousand banshees screaming in unison. The Cyclops rocked
backwards, stumbling over its clumsy feet. The monster reeled and tripped into the molten
lava, disappearing entirely—entirely that is, except for its rectangular eye—which
neither sank nor burned but rather floated: suspended in the stream of boiling
viscous lava. Amazingly, the lidless unblinking eye did not melt or succumb to
the extreme heat of the liquid fire, rather it seemed to metamorphosize into a
living sentient being all its own. And as I retreated backwards from the heat and steam
of melting stone, the creature, albeit only its diabolical eye, seemed to menacingly glare
at me—still bent on mesmerizing me, before floating out of view, as it coursed along
the smoking meandering river of liquid volcanic rock to sanctuary on the other side of
the mountain.
Candy-Colored Clown by Daniel
G. Snethen The
crushed blue velvet derby perched perilously upon the cotton-candy-pink hair of
the candy-colored clown. His baggy suit, white with
pink pinstripes, accentuated by the carnation and off-white colored
striping of his walking cane. It was a spectacle
to be seen— genderless and perpetually smiling a
death grimace reflecting from your mirroring eyes deep into his
cosmic eyes before consuming your spiritual
essence and licking your bloodied
spine.
Harbinger by Daniel
G. Snethen An
unkindness of ravens perched like blackened toads upon the denude outstretched
branches of several old-growth cottonwood trees. Each
with a closed eye, the other open, all knowing and emerald. Openly
reflecting the sojourn of my past, closed to the revelation of my pending
future. And I knew the entirety of the
world’s wisdom was watching, not judging, but watching
what it was I was about to do and I wondered: “did
it already know?” Like a swarming hoard of charcoal
locusts taking flight, its shadow obliterated the sun and all that
was hopeful within me.
Whitechapel Jack-Pudding by Daniel
G. Snethen Twenty-two
years before the Ripper, a jack-pudding terrorized the impoverished Whitechapel
District of London. Famous for his impressive features of
gastronomic indulgences, he devoured yard after yard of undercooked
blood sausages. When Scotland Yard found the
dead whores of Whitechapel, each had been eviscerated.
Dire
Wolf Consequences by Juliet Cook and Daniel G. Snethen The
dire wolf shuddered in the primordial dawn, changing,
transforming, metamorphosizing into a dreadful school bus driver, into a screaming 3rd grade teacher with diabolical fangs directed towards one
shy little girl. The cruel teacher barks, cancels recess, hideously instructs students to place their heads down on the
desks. She is prepared to lash out at anyone who moves against her and
bite or slash them in the neck.
I was the shy one. I couldn't move. I was
afraid to breathe. I didn't want her to hear me. I feared
I might get stomped or cut into
even tinier pieces. Unable to speak inside my own head.
Red Riding Hood hair covered in blood-red satin. Then the Huntsman, Little Red's father bursts through the door, wielding
a two-bladed axe. Screams "bitch," swings his axe and
cuts off my best friend's head
because I had breathed too loudly. Blood
splatters the chalkboard like malicious bite marks which
coagulate, then flow like crimson ink spelling out in perfect combination: "Here's Johnny!" as
the enraged father figure/evil teacher/bus driver spits in my face, screams at me for being
a finicky eater, insists I stick my pinky finger inside the pencil sharpener and
I do so—obediently, though it hurts. Then the entire class stares as I use the ground stump of my finger to retrace "Here's
Johnny," on the blackboard while
unintelligibly repeating: "redrum, redrum," beneath my whispered breath. Then the entire class morphs and changes into
costumed mates. Bears, wolves, mean grandmothers, substitutes, principals,
all
of them are holding sharpened pencils or knives pointed at me, all of them are aimed towards being in charge of sadistically
targeting me.
Daniel G. Snethen is an educator, naturalist, moviemaker,
poet, and short story writer from South Dakota. He teaches on the Pine Ridge Reservation
at Little Wound High School in the heart of Indian Country.
|
