Ron Koppelberger
Crusade
The spirits of careful animate revolution beguiled the courage of gateway distress and a powerful benediction. A blood value in pledges of novice approval, laudable by the blazon flags of rainstorm mothers and venerated spider weave, souls of sunshine spirit and chambers of shuddering custody.
A thunder of possessed blessing and the crusade of what need and desire give to the love of holy seals and soldiers in quest. The distance between bare compulsion and measurable realms of contemplation in the instant of crusade, the breath of a determined passion. The enduring gain of steep hollows and overtures of fateful vision, the guest in fields of rolling saffron array, in genuflection, a crusade in silent ferment and dandelion wine. The shroud of will in the time of velvet petals and bloody thorns, gone unto the illusory dream of tomorrow and beasts given the rule of restless abandon, a crusade in sated narration for the wont of a purpose and the whisper of a woman in love.
Ron Koppelberger
The Slightest Peek
She had left her father standing by the “Bearded Woman” and the “Snake Boy.” Her curiosity had gotten the better of her, the sign read, “Clowns and Magic Smiles!”. She stared at the curtain behind the caged display, it was red and yellow with black polka dots. What’s on the other side of that darn curtain she thought impatiently.
The seams of the closed curtain parted just a bit revealing a faint blue light. She moved to the center of the glass and the edge of the trembling curtain. Cupping her hands beside her face and against the window the little girl stared fervently into the recess and the blue light.
The room was small, a bed in the center and a chair with a mirror in front of it lay against the far side of the room. There was movement from the corner of the room, just to the left. The tinkling of carnival music filled the air around her and she looked eagerly toward the shifting shadows. Arrangements of roses and daisies sat on the dressing table and there was a red wig balanced on a slim gold mount. A figure paused near the hem of the curtain for a moment then the face. The little girl let out a blood curdling scream and stepped backward on shaky legs nearly peeing herself.
The face was shiny and round like a balloon, white grease paint bordered the full round face of the clown. His eyes, like fire, red and neon, glowing like bright red rubies and his nose was long like a carrot drooping below his chin, but the worst was his smile. It was huge and ominous, the teeth were jagged points and the inside of his mouth shown a gray sickly pallor. He smiled and it was then that she realized the grease paint was the actual color of his skin, white chapped and old like a full moon.
She stood there in shock staring at the clown, he stuck his tongue out at her and two pointed coils unraveled from between his lips. She screamed again and he laughed his laughter sounding like a thousand maniacal chuckles. He grinned again and pointed a long gnarled finger at her. The air was charged with an electric current and the smell of cinnamon filled her nose with the desires of an ancient monster, she shivered and said, “Noooooooooooooo!” through clenched teeth. He quit grinning then and a look of hatred filled his face. “Noooooooooooooo!” she said again as he slammed his head against the glass. She stepped back again as the glass cracked and a smear of blood appeared where his forehead had hit the glass. She turned from him an instant later looking for her father at the Snake Boys cage. He screamed behind her and she ran as fast as her legs would carry her directly into her fathers arms.
They walked away from the clown hand in hand. “Here you go honey.” her father said as he handed her a puff of cotton candy.
“Thanks Daddy.” she grinned the clown forgotten and the nightmare behind her.
Ron Koppelberger
Dead Circle
Wavering strands of green and yellow seaweed reached from around the edges of the stone circle. The stones were a greenish hue with tiny bits of bright red coral covering the deep recesses between each section of the circle. Distant from the thriving port city of St. Nathan the stones were a dark portal to another time, a time when ancient sailing vessels and pirates scouted the waters off the coast. The designs inscribed upon the surface of the stones were an arcane message to the wont of those who might find the need to open unbidden secrets, to the wont of searchers and treasure hunters alike.
Nate Dove swam in slow lazy circles around the circle of inscribed granite; his scuba tank had forty-five minutes left in it and he wanted to mark the spot for future explorations. He had searched for the massive granite circle most of his life, the portal for dark dreamers and the gods of ash and blood. Nate touched the surface of one of the stones, it was warm to the touch and beneath the surface a hum, a vibration, like a heartbeat throbbing with the pulse of the ocean and all the clandestined whispers of another age. A shadowy embrace enveloped him as he pressed his hand against the inscriptions and he was transported to another time, another place closer to the eye of creation.
Images flashed before his eyes, great gushing torrents of lava and towering mountains of ash. In the vision he saw distant vistas near the coastline and old remnants of fire. A group of men on the beach line, they were cooking fish over an open flame, “Food for the angels.” one of them said. The other man grunted and looked to the sea, “The stones will tell the beast to march.” as Nate dreamed of the men his eyes saw and the knowledge they presented to him was a silhouette in terror, the beast the men spoke of stood from the ocean beds on two gigantic legs, as tall as a skyscraper. He saw the men on the beach run and scream in terror as an enormous wave swallowed the tiny campfire and the beach line.
Nate shook his head is slow nods as he stared at the stones that formed the circle; it was dead it had to be he thought, a dead circle, dead creatures of old he prayed.
The stones began to glow a pale red luminescence as he pried at a loose rock near the center of the circle. In that moment Nate saw the bodies, old having died years and years ago the men had perished at the hands of the monster. What had brought the monster to the surface, what had driven it to kill the men; the visions weren’t answering his questions.
A deep rumbling sound came in waves beneath the surface of the ocean, deep within the ocean currents. Nate Dove pried at the stone in the center of the circle until it came loose. Tiny tendrils of silt and sand clouded the recess beneath the stone for a moment, then a flitter of gold. Nate reached down into the cavity and pulled out a long rope of gold with a medallion attached to it. Wiping the surface of the medallion clean he studied it with an eager appreciation.
The opening in the circle began to glow red with a pulsing strobe-like rhythm and then a bright red liquid smoke began to pour from the opening in the gahnite. Nate tried to back away and found that he couldn’t move, his oxygen tank had five minutes left in it and he began to panic flailing wildly as he tried to escape the pull of the stones.
In a final attempt to break free he placed the necklace back into the opening and replaced the stone. The pulsing increased and the circle began to crumble revealing plumes of crimson smoke. Nate screamed inside his mask and yanked free from the magnetic pull of the stones. Swimming upward he got to the edge of the speedboat and climbed in.
Nate jerked the mask from his face and cranked the engine speeding in the opposite direction of the roiling waters. From a distance Nate looked backward and saw a giant shadow that climbed across the sun and threw him into its cool silhouette.
Nate considered the dream for a moment as he headed up the coast away from the approaching hand of fate. They had known and soon St. Nathan would know that the circle was indeed alive and the fates had a surprise in store for them.
Ron Koppelberger
Half-Wit Savage
The breach was set for the sake of the fray, the lovers of life and the tender purveyors of unwavering magic. The savage, poor, the wild dogs of destiny and willful uproar, they stood in mute silence before the passage to what was an azure heaven, an alabaster and pearl dominion, separate by challenged attentions and safeties cause; it was the wisdom of ages and a moment behind the favor of currents and flow, time in flux.
Savages, a second in the past and the love of princesses, kings and angels forward, forward momentum the half-wit thought. He wondered for a moment and the seconds counted the space between his breaths. Tis our world unto the aftermath of what’s willed in the past, the days of our birth and the possible future of evolution.
“Come!” he spoke aloud, “Come my brothers for we own the toil of the blessed, be satisfied in the separation between us and them for our protectors and the forbearance of our cousins, for we shall not parish, unto the lead, unto the lead!” With that they breached the gulf by measure of a second, leaving the next half-wit wondering at the gate.
Ron Koppelberger
Sleeping Buffoon
The pause in their routine was prefaced by the rueful blend cruelty and composed group ethic. The cage was suspended by a short length of chain. Two by two, the floor was barbed and covered in blood, the blood of the buffoon and all of the predecessors of the buffoon. The cage door was latched with a heavy bolt and clasp.
The crowd of taunt expressionless onlookers milled and culled the experience, “A sleeping buffoon!” one of them called out.
“Tis a fare will-o-the-way.” the man shouted as he pressed his fingers against the gold crucifix about his neck, “Sleeping buffoon!” he said again as the crowd began to disperse.
The trial has lasted a few brief moments and in that time the chief magistrate had screamed and reasoned in pitch and balanced savagery. “His sin unto our town, be denied!” the buffoon had mistaken the princess Alarues for a common seamstress. He had asked her to sew a rend in his sash, and in further insult had offered her a pittance in exchange. She had screamed and menaced the buffoon from afar; he was indeed a traveler and a fierce Sheppard of communion from a land afar, gilded in glass and smoke, in emerald visions of greener pastures and fertile wheat. The princess had condemned him calling him a buffoon.
The royal guard had shackled him and in conviction they had delivered him to the head magistrate.
The buffoon slept in silent display and in the way of fate a passing companion unlatched his cage and tended to the buffoons wounds. Later they would return with an army, the buffoon no longer sleeping in sufferance, the prince and future king of Flurry Array, the circle, the knot of kingdoms, would seize the reigns and rule the whole.
In shifting ways of allegiance he would sleep each evening, dreaming only of fire and burning wheat, in the sleep of enchantment and dire futures in sovereign interval unto the turn of the tide.
He dreamed and grew dark in silhouette and stature finally feared by most, no longer a sleeping buffoon.
