Defeated

"I will avenge you, my brother in arms," Owain vowed solemnly, slicing open the palm of his hand to let his blood drip on Cynon's grave, "I will bring you justice; your soul peace. I will find the Black Knight and kill him," he whispered.

......

Sir Owain staggered back from the Black Knight, a sword through his chest, his breathing wet and labored as he struggled to rise from where he had fallen.

"No," he whispered, "it's not supposed to end this way," Owain said.

"No one defeats the Black Knight," the Knight declared as he delivered the final blow.

Sun and Moon

“Well, this is a fine mess,” Amaterasu said. She perched on the edge of a cloud and stared down at the mortals who were blearily going about their day, dragging their feet.

“They haven’t been sleeping,” Tsukiyomi said. He balanced a silver globe on one palm, spun it idly. “They’re not very good at sleeping when it’s so bright outside.”

Amaterasu tossed her head, and golden rays shimmered on the ground. “I can’t change who I am.”

“Neither can I,” Tsukiyomi said.

“What are we going to do? We can’t go through eternity never seeing each other.”

“Indeed.” Tsukiyomi sighed.

Calendar Reshuffle

“This is all your fault,” Ox said.

Rat perched on the bank of the river and cleaned his whiskers with delicate paws, shrugged innocently. “How?”

“You couldn’t even figure out how to lie to Lion?” Snake asked.

The rest of the Animals were scattered across the garden while Lion had a long chat with the Kitchen God about being the first animal in the calendar for the humans.

“I didn’t want to,” Rat said.

“She could have eaten you,” Rabbit pointed out.

“She didn’t,” Rat said.

Tiger shook her head. “Two big cats in one calendar? That’s a terrible idea.”

The Fruits of Acquiescence

“So we’re going out on Friday night?” Apollo asked.

Cassandra nodded. “Pick me up at eight?”

Apollo broke into a wide smile, then snapped the reins of his chariot, and the sun took off across the sky.

“What now?” Hecuba asked.

Cassandra leaned over the battlements of the city walls and watched the Greek soldiers hauling the giant wooden gift horse into place.

“I guess I should tell Father and the others that the horse is a trap,” she said.

Hecuba looked skeptical. “You’re a woman. Why would they believe you?”

“Because I can see things,” Cassandra said. “Important things.”

Out of the Box

"Didn't I tell you not to open that box!" Zeus thundered at Pandora.

"I was just curious," she said as she hung her head in shame, "all I let out was hope, charity, love, kindness, and all those other things. Aren't they good things?" she asked timidly.

"Yes they are," Zeus said, "but you also listened to the last voice in the box and let it out."

"It said it was a good thing too," Pandora defended herself.

"I suppose I can't get to mad at you," Zeus said.

"What did I let out of the box?" Pandora asked.

"Deceit."

Ascension of Isis

“Did you find it?” Horus asked.

Isis thought of the beautiful box, gold and cedar, inlaid with lapis lazuli and agate. She thought of the limbs and joints, muscles and sinews and bones, broken apart like puzzle pieces and laid gently on a cushion of linens and silks in that box.

She thought of the dark tomb, dug furtively on the sands, where the box had been lowered in the dead of night.

“No,” Isis said. “Osiris is gone forever.” Screaming in the underworld, in the afterlife.

Horus gazed up at the empty throne. After a few moments, Isis sat.

Impassioned Youth

I will rescue the fair Andromeda!" Perseus exclaimed as he entered the throne room of King Cepheus.

King Cepheus looked up from where he had been hunched over in despair at the fate of his only daughter, "and why would you do this?" he asked. He knew that Poseidon had decreed the death of his daughter.

"She is more beautiful than the glittering stars," Perseus declared, "more radiant than the sun, more lovely than the moon, More..."

King Cepheus glanced away from the impassioned youth out the window. Saw the monster devour Andromeda.

Perseus continued speaking.

"To late," Cepheus thought.

Discord

“Choose,” Aphrodite said.

Paris took a deep breath and studied the three goddesses. Athena offered wisdom, battle glory. Hera offered land. And Aphrodite, she offered...Helen. Of Troy.

Eris stood on the sidelines, tossing the golden apple up and down in one hand, grinning.

Paris glanced over his shoulder to where Helen was standing, and goodness gracious, she was beautiful.

“Who is it going to be?” Hera demanded. Her eyes flashed with impatience, with immortal power.

Paris studied the three women once more. Then he grinned, winked, and said, “I choose Eris.”

Eris dropped the apple.

Helen started to laugh.

Bad Hair Day

"Are you going to come out?" Persephone called through the door a second after knocking, "you're going to be late for school."

"I'm not going!" came the shouted reply.

Persephone jerked her head back in surprise, "why ever not?" she asked with a puzzled frown, "you always said you loved school."

"I love learning, I hate the people," the rich voice said, "besides, I can't go. I look positively terrible."

"It can't be all that bad Adonis," Persephone said as she turned the handle and opened the door.

"Yes it can," Adonis said mournfully.

Persephone gasped at his horrendous bedhead.

The Once and Future Queen

Merlin stared at the stone. Arthur looked at the sword for a little longer, shrugged, then stepped back.

“I don’t know why anyone thought I’d be king,” Arthur said. “I’m just an orphan after all.”

Merlin felt his heart climb into his throat. What now?

Then someone stepped out of the crowd of knights, golden-haired, noble-featured, beautiful, tall.

“I’ll give it a try,” Morgause said, and tugged.

The sword slid free.

Kay bowed first, followed by Ector, and Arthur bowed too. He whispered to Merlin,

“Can a girl be king, or will we have to call her Queen?”

Six Conflicts: VI

Denouement: Magic

The green waters of Aquae Sulis
Wash over him,
From crown to toe,
Warm and cleansing.
He breaks the surface,
Motion clean as a knife through flesh,
And he tips his head back,
Parts his lips in a breath,
A prayer to the stars.

He dresses as he did
At the last battle,
With his own hands –
Linen and gambeson,
Hauberk and pauldron,
Greaves and cuisses and gauntlets.
He smoothes his hands over the lines
Of his surcoat,
Of the blood-red and the dragon-gold,
And then he reaches for his helm.

The final battle is
Without opponent or spy,
Foe or troops.
It is for him alone,
And the voice calls
More urgently, pleading,
Come to me,
Free me,
They need you.

I need you.

He walks longer than before,
One foot in front of the other,
Head held high,
Gaze on the horizon,
Feeling the tug of destiny
Low in his belly,
Like the needle of a compass
Swinging toward Polaris.
Days and nights pass,
Cars roar by,
People yell and shout and cry,
What are you wearing?
Where are you going?
Are you mad?
But he ignores them all,
Because he can hear the call.

For a man to walk so,
Unsleeping, unstopping,
Without food or drink –
He knows the hunger and
Fatigue settling into his bones
Like the weight of his armor trebled –
The unnaturalness of it all is a sign.

Magic.

Like vanishing into thin air
With an icy blizzard for a wake.
Like razing an army with a handful of lightning.
Like summoning a lady –
Gleaming, glittering,
Beautiful beyond words –
From a lake.

The tower is in shambles,
A collection of rocks
Like a handful of pebbles thrown down
By a giant child
(Whose father he had likely slain).

The call tugs faster,
More insistent, vibrating
Through his blood like the
Buzz of battle.
He has Caledfwlch in his hand,
And he stands over the heap of stones,
Listening to the please please please
And hearing the song of the stars.

He drives the sword down,
Into the stone,
Into the earth,
And he knows that he can never
Pull the sword
From the stone again.

The ground quivers.
He casts about for balance,
A new sailor at sea,
And the song of the stars
Becomes real,
Dancing on air,
A weaving of notes
And whispers,
And then the earth opens,
Lips parted in a prayer toward the sky.

Emrys opens his eyes.
Rex quondam rexque futurus,
He says.
Arcturus holds out his hand.
Our people need us.

Six Conflicts: V

Society

The map is shiny-slick
Between his fingers,
Littered with tiny lines
And letters-numbers-words,
But he remembers
Broader maps of
Mountains-rivers-kingdoms
And he knows how to get
Where he's going.

Were he at his best –
Armored,
Weapon-strong,
Well-rested and well-fed
On freshly-caught venison
And thick stew from
The Chief Cook's hand –
He could march it in one day,
Imagine the steady
Thump-thump-thump
Of his knights and soldiers
Behind him
Beneath the fluttering penant
Of gules on a dragon passant.

But he is barely stronger
Than a boy,
Thin-limbed and frail
From sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.
So he folds the map into his pocket,
Seeks the skyline to divine
The compass point,
And he walks.

The grassy roadsides,
Gently-sloping hills,
Footpaths worn by marches previous –
They are his trail,
Cobbled together by questions,
Answers from a man outside a pub,
Puffing on a pipe
Who rolls his r's like the Sons of Orkney,
A group of giggling women-children
With painted faces and innocent-wide eyes.

Those lightning-fast machines,
Cars – steel and cold,
Wild beasts
Without the familiar
Affection and courage
Of a destrier raised from colt-hood –
Speed past,
Littering the air with
Mocking cries and
Honking horns
Like an army of jeering geese.

Only a madman would walk,
Or so these people think,
But then they do not remember
The long marches of tired men
In battered, blood-stained armor
That united this country.

He sleeps beneath the trees
And the stars –
Sky and Starlight –
Until uniformed enforcers,
More brutish, less trained
Than his shining ranks of
Knights upon knights,
Nudge him awake with their boots
And grunt for him to Move along, move along.

Why has he no food?
Why has he no clothes?
Why has he no money?
He is mad – he should be at home.
But he needs none of these things,
He explains, hands still, cautious.
They offer him help, assistance,
A bed for the night.

He cannot explain
That even a king
Can sleep in the dirt
Of his kingdom,
And a man on a quest
Need only be led
By the stars.

Six Conflicts: IV

Destiny

In the daily struggle of
get up
get out of bed
feet on the ground
push buttons
in the proper order
of one two three
red blue green
He forgets why he is
Awake.

Awake –
Not trapped in a cave
Beneath a winding sheet
Caged in rusting armor.
Awake –
Moving through a world
Of sound-light-air
And plastic-paper-electricity.

Destiny, he has heard
From the homeless man on the corner
Dirt-streaked and God-preaching,
Comes in visions
And dreams.
When he sleeps –
Back against the wall,
Clutching for Caledfwlch
With empty hands –
He does not dream.

He remembers –
Jenny, pretty Jenny,
All golden-haired and wide-eyed
And traitor-queen-wife;
Chasing arrows through
A brown-green undergrowth
For snarling, posturing Cei;
The wizened old man with the
Nut-brown, wrinkled face
Who was more handsome and
Youthful
Every day that dawned.

In the middle of the shop
He calls work –
Where he answers to
Oi, Pretty Boy
and not
My Liege –
He remembers the voice,
Whisper soft and piercing,
An arrow through his heart.
He remembers come to me
and your people need you.

He remembers
Stars and Sky,
Gentle fingertips brushing
His eyelids closed in a final
Farewell,
For the next time he sees 
Stars and Sky
It should be hello.

Aquae Sulis is the answer,
The place of prayer and
Cleansing before the
Old Gods.
Kingship is for the pure in heart,
And he has been empty of heart,
Empty of mind with the
Constant pressing of
Buttons buttons buttons.

He closes his eyes and remembers
The Voice
Calling Sire, and My Liege
and my friend.
He remembers the promise
He kept,
He gave.
When your people need you.

I will rise again.

Reviresco.

He leaves the buttons behind.

Six Conflicts: III

Technology

This modern world
- modern; he likes to roll the word
On his tongue
Like a sugary lozenge
That he unwraps with careful,
Weapon-scarred hands –
Is a curious combination of
Inaction and speed.

The pushing, tapping, poking
At buttons while seated and staring
At things bright and glaring
Is enough to drive him mad.
The rush of wind through his hair
- the ghost of fingers
in a hazy caress –
On the buses, trains, cars
Is an unexpected thrill,
The thrust of blood
Through his veins
In the last moments before the herald
Called Slay on.

He feels feeble, less of a man
To press a button and watch a fire burn
Than to perspire over the heave of an axe
And the minor thunder-crack of
Splitting logs.
He feels cheated,
Aching with unslaked vengeance
When police swarm a criminal,
A foolish boy who thought to
Take on a knight.

He is still a knight,
Armor or no armor –
He can hear the clamor
And screams,
Steel on flesh,
Arrows zipping through air
At Badon Hill
and Camlann's green.

A man's strength,
He ponders, and he misses
The comforting weight
Of a sword at his hip,
Like the familiar presence
Of Cafall trotting at his heels,
Is lost to the strength of machines.

The world is clean lines,
Too-bright lights,
Inhuman precision in
Razor-sharp corners on tables
And crow-flight straightness
In the legs of chairs.

The roughness of wood
From a man's uneven strokes
By blade on branch,
Curved to fit human hands
Is evidence of effort,
Blood, sweat and tears
Poured into the soil
Of the harvest of a man's labor.

Under cover of darkness
He roams the cool grass,
Barefoot to slip on dew,
Ears alert for the song of a
Grasshopper, the call of a
Bird, and winds his hands
In the motions of battles gone by.

By day he smiles,
Presses buttons,
Hands slow and clumsy
And deliberately gentle.
He learns to move to the unnatural
Thump, thump, imitation war-drums
Modern children call music
And ignore the constant noise –
Chatter, pings, flood of information –
But Albion sings in his blood,
And when he kneels in an open field,
He can feel her.

I am alive.

Six Conflicts: II

Character

She screamed first,
A maiden confronted by a dragon.
But he raised his hands,
The age-old gesture of surrender,
And spoke slowly, softly.

Her words were a tumble of vowels,
Foreign, incomprehenisble,
The song of water over rock.
She wore nearly nothing,
Boldened to show knees, elbows, throat,
And she carried
A man’s tools,
Metal, massive,
Cave-breaking.

He tried other languages
Rusty from disuse,
Infrequent use,
Disdain for boyhood tutors.

Her French was accented,
Awkward, filled with
Foreign sounds,
But the trip-hammer of his heart
Against his hauberk calmed
At her first, Je m’appelle Celine.

The hunger that overtook him –
Ripped through his limbs
Like lightning across the sky –
Overthrew any doubt
- guilt, awkwardness –
Of walking with a woman unchaperoned.

He followed her,
Wobbling fawn-like on legs
Unused to the smooth, stony black
She called road.

Her food was bright,
Soft, too sweet,
Too light,
And he fumbled at the shiny-smooth
Packages, at the parchment-thin glass
That crackled like popping fire.
But the hunger in his belly subsided.

Hands on skin
Made him shiver, blush
Like a lad at his first tumble,
But she was clinical, neat,
As she peeled his hauberk away from
His skin, eased the weight of battle
From his aching shoulders.

The things she called clothes –
And the whispering voice in the
Back of his skull that
Prodded at his thoughts
And curled at his ear
Like a lover's caress
Taught him words
Phrases,
Hello and jeans –
Were sturdy, strong,
Ill-fitting as if he were
Attempting his father's garb
Attempting his father's crown
When still just a boy.

Aquae Sulis
He was looking for.
Complete with scrubbing and
Praying motions,
Clumsy by his fighters' hands.

She pressed a map –
Shiny, colorful,
Roman tiles polished to gleaming
In sky-grass-earth
Blue-green-brown.

Bath, she called it.
Goodbye. She hugged him.
Good luck. She waved.
My King. She bowed.
He bowed.

No one's King.

Not yet.

I'm coming.

Six Conflicts: I

Self

It’s the call of two best friends
Sky and Stars
Who’d join hands
In a jar full of fireflies
And decorate the firmament with
Constellations.

It’s the sleep earned by kings
Fallen in battle
Whose nations are footnotes
And fodder for bard songs.

It’s the war of the two
Clamoring in his head.
The call begs him rise, come,
Step out of his stone-walled prison.
It’s a voice on the wind,
In the crashing waves on the sea.
It’s begging and pleading.

It echoes a memory,
A woman kneeling at his feet,
Sobbing,
I love you both.

Pleading tastes of ashes
On his lips,
And he wishes the sea
Would wash away the taste,
Replace salt for salt.

Come to me.

The lure of sleep is calm, lulling,
The sway of tall grass in the breeze,
The rough, solidarity of wheat
Between his fingertips
As he reaches out for a handful of field.
Sleep promises
A cocoon of warmth,
Sunlight on a spring day.

It echoes a memory,
The broken sound of men
Weeping, creaking in their armor,
The scratchy-warm half-comfort of the linen
Shroud they wrapped around him,
Round and round, winding,
Wound.

And then they lowered him
Into the ground.

Sleep forever.

Behind his eyelids,
In the hollow in his chest
Where his heart used to beat
Two voices clamor
For answers.

Come to me.
Sleep forever.

Sunlight breaks upon
Starlight.
Fireflies dissolve from between
Fingertips like
Wheat crushed in a gauntleted fist.

Voices clash,
And it’s a tug, tug, tug,
Of war,
Of strength,
Of wills,
Of ex calce liberatus

And he opens his eyes,
Rex quondam rexque futurus.

Your people need you.

Memories and Sentiments

They’d hovered on the edges of the cemetery, watching the priest spout his nonsense, the case workers and hired mourners do their bit. Casey had almost done his nut when he saw the Dragon lingering on the outskirts of the crowd, dressed in sombre black. What the hell right did he think he had, showing up to her funeral?

The message on her tombstone was pathetic, “Precious Daughter”, because she’d had no parents of which to speak. The newspaper had only garbled about what a good student she was and how unfortunate her childhood had been. Casey and Trick and the others exchanged glances, and they knew what they would do.

They managed to get halfway through Seal’s official obituary - cans of spray paint, a blank wall in Wan Chai - before the cops came, and then they ran, but they’d managed to say what they wanted to say.

Dearest Sister and Fists of Fury; chess and tea under the moonlight; That time at that place with those firecrackers; the Lion Dance on New Year’s. A smattering of memories and sentiments, epitaphs and slogans. Fought with the best, died like the rest.

When Casey and the others returned the next day, they saw that someone else had added to their work, a great red oriental dragon melting out of the smoke from a rising phoenix.

With Everything He Had

“What would he want us to say about him?” Tom drummed his fingertips on his knee and avoided looking at the others.

Dan strummed a chord on his guitar. “Maybe there’s a God above and all I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you...”

There were some thoughtful hums of assent. Rob had always loved the song, sung it lovingly from beneath the shadows on open mic night.

Emma cleared her throat. “How about something a little more epic?” She sang, “It’s the pain that cuts a straight line down through the heart. We call it love. We wrapped our arms around each other --”

Hugh threw a pen at her, his aim half-hearted. “Inappropriate, given how many of his aged aunts love him.”

Dan set his guitar aside, played a brief, minor glissando on the keyboard. “Well I’d rather bleed just to know why I die. Do you know why I die?”

“A little too direct, I suspect,” Tom said. He thought. Music was the only way to honor Michael and the life he’d led. None of them were talented enough to write a song for him, but they could sing one. As much as Michael had loved foreign music, the lyrics for this song had to count. He began humming a tune, one that had been hovering in the back of mind since they’d laid Michael’s wife Gina to rest a week earlier. One by one, the others began picking it up, and their gazes met as they caught onto the lyrics he was thinking of.

“...When you’re worn out and tired...when your heart has expired, oh lover, I’ll cover you...”

“He loved her with everything he had,” Emma said, “and he died for her. The world should remember that.”

(299 words)

Two Certain Things

“What’s that?” Jade asked.

Chase slid the paper across the table toward him. “Obituary.”

“For who?”

“JC.”

Jade blinked. “What?”

“Tomorrow at 1100, I’m scheduled for retrieval. I know the press has one prepared - they always do. But I’d appreciate it if they used this one.”

“That’s - morbid,” Jade said.

Chase smiled faintly. “The only two certain things are death and taxes.”

Jade scanned the document, brow furrowed. “Well,” he conceded, “it’s not bad. A touch impersonal, but --”

“It’s everything I put into being him, but it’s not me. Of course, I’m not the one who’s going to die.” Chase stood up. “I have to pack.”

***

Their PR manager was pale when Jade handed her the obituary.

“It’s what he’d want,” Jade said. “Something one of us wrote.”

Helen nodded. The others looked ready to cry.

Jade left the room.

***

The obituary ran in the newspaper the following morning. Jade reflected that, wherever Chase had gone to school, he’d learnt to write well.

JC sang before he could speak, and he could play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ before he could hold a fork. Family and friends will remember a bright-eyed boy whose every breath was a melody and whose single desire was to make the world smile. People might remember wildly shaggy hair, outrageous clothes, and a dreamy smile, but the world will remember his singular voice and his musical vision. Girls the world over screamed his name, but the people he loved most rounded out his life-long five-part-harmony. He is survived by his mother, Karen, and his father, Roy, a sister Heather, and his brothers - Tony, J, Joe, Chris, and Scoop. He lived to show the world its song, and he will live on in the rhythm of every heart touched by his music.

(300 words)

Excellence, Laughter, and Memories

Holly Finnegan, 17, of Ulster, died in the incident on the High Street on March 21. She was caught in the blast of a pipe bomb that killed five other people. Holly, “Hols” to her friends, was orphaned at age four in a car accident and raised by her uncle, Caomhin Finnegan, a mechanic at an independent garage in Ulster. He recalled how Holly, who had “lads callin’ round all hours of the day and night,” pitched in at the garage and “spent an entire Saturday helping [him] rebuild an engine.”

Holly, in her fifth form at St. Stephen’s College, was a prefect and house captain. She competed on the swim team, winning medals in the butterfly, on her house and school field hockey team, and on the cross country team. Her teachers recall that she was hardworking and helpful. Her friends recall that she was spirited.

“Everyone thought she was a good girl, and she was,” Aine said, “but she was wild. She danced, she partied - she lived.” Clusters of girls and boys who knew Holly gathered in the hallways at St. Stephen’s, crying and whispering, laughing and remembering Holly. One friend, Keith O’Connor, remembered solemnly, though with a twinkle in his eye, how he and Holly once switched all the sugar for salt in the teachers’ tea room.

Caomhin Finnegan has opened his house for a wake, to be held on March 25. Caomhin, Aine, Keith, and others at St. Stephen’s ask Holly’s friends to bring merriment, laugher, and memories of Holly before she’s laid to rest at Killare Hill Cemetery on March 26 at 11:00 a.m.

(271 words)