Avinder of the Companions (Short Fiction, Fantasy)

Avinder would have died, blood spilling into the snow alongside those of his brethren, slain by bandits on a nameless mountain pass, had it not been for the Companions. They seemed to arise from the flurry and mist like legends summoned and bound, made flesh by will and pain. The bandits were dispatched, the slush turning muddied and pink with their offal, the fires in their eyes gone dim. Avinder, whole but shaken, wrapped in scant furs and without purpose, watched them turn to walk away, paying him no more mind than the corpses he knelt among. He might have stayed and might have died had not one glance unlocked his knees and lifted his body. Without words he followed the Companions into the coming dark.

The travel was hard and Avinder was most unsuited for it. His stiff legs burnt, shards of fire dug into his flesh. But still he carried onward, following in their paces. It was true he had nowhere to go, but he could have broken away, made good time a man alone, moving down the mountain side. But who was he to complain of agony and pain, walking next to Gwyndal Skullsplittter, whom it was known had carried the barrow ill Aliis Maidenheart in his arms across the Edern Frost, not even stopping to sleep? Who brought her to the root of the Orn Glen? So he followed, and spoke nothing.

The first fight almost killed him. He had wanted to run, to hide in the brush and send his missives to the Earth Mother deep, but how could he be so craven standing next to Yorglyff Giantsblood, the mountain of a man with the heart of untempered iron, unbreakable? Yorglyff sent his hammer into the soft bodies of the slavers, and Avinder spied a man trying to send a blade into his ribs. Avinder, a stolen sword in hand, diverted the blow but nearly lost his eye. Al'Asharad, the moor, finished what Avinder could not with his slick curved blades, so foreign in this land of ice and frost, that seemed to sing of far off lands of dune and blazing sun. It was Al'Asharad who tended the wound, speaking in harsh chanting tongue and using strange herbs and incense. But the scar still split Avinder's face, over one eye and down one cheek, and he knew his skill at blades was worthless in this company.

But if Avinder could not aid the Companions, what use was he to them at all, why follow day after day in the tracks of their boots? He remembered the forest hunt of his youth, halfway between dream and waking, trailing the ghost white stag with the blood red velvet and sap red eyes through the Arroelms. He remembered the clean shot piercing it's heart, it's red spilling outward onto it's white. He took a hunting bow, and in the next battle put himself away from the flashing metal and put an arrow into the side of a swordsman. It didn't kill him, but it freed Gwyndal to rebuff the enemy's attack. Avinder, in this, could at least earn his way. He had no other choice, he knew.

And each arrow that sought flesh was born of need. The cost of failure urged his hand, missing could easily kill them all. He wasn't like these people, the Companions; he couldn't speak the magic words like the Twins who wove their spells into complex rhythms no other mage could ever master, unable to ever live so in time with another's footsteps, hands bound tight like maiden's weaving. He could not make great arcing circles with a hammer the size of a man, sowing men like wheat at harvest, crushing waves of men before his thunderous wake. He could not open his dream eye and see into the night's silky void, calling to things existing in places neither here nor there to do his bidding. He couldn't ride an elk down a collapsing mountain while matching blades with wild men, afire with the light of rising sun on steel. But sometimes he could stick an arrow where it was needed, and that had to be enough.

Avinder watched them move like gods around him, never keeping pace, humored like some small pet they had picked up at market. He held vigil as Al'Asharad conversed with the Spirit of Baldurisk, he was able to retrieve Gwyndal's sword in the heat of the Battle of Twains, he was able to eat with them by their fire and hear their stories, carry their secret sorrows. Some nights, amid the frost and stinging wind, he lay between the Twins, wrapped with their sorcerous heat, and was sure he could hear their hearts beating in tandem. Some nights he thought he almost saw the desert Djin that haunted Al'Asharad, the great black cloud with ember eyes and endless maw that kept him from his home and people. He saw things he never thought were possible, and sometimes he put an arrow where it needed to be. And that was enough. The cost of missing was too great, and his hand had to be true. He couldn't fail the Companions. Each battle he imagined the flesh of the men as the soft white fur of the stag, praying to Earth Mother that his aim was true and he'd find their heart. That the red that spilled into the white snow was collecting into the beating core of the Earth Mother, returning to the spirit stag's breast. After each skirmish he fashioned new arrows, thanking the Earth Mother for his life and the lives of those who'd brought him here as he made each arrow true, and knew tomorrow he'd again have to shoot them just as true or spill his own blood to the Arroelms instead of those he hoped to kill.

It was only when he brought down six men in the moment between breaths that they started using the name Avinder Heartpiercer. When he'd had to make that long shot across the gully to keep Ornica the Grey from being brought under they called him Avinder of the True Sight and looked up at him with the faces of children, speaking in whispers of how he had killed a demon to take its eye and use it as his own, how the red fingers of the white gloves he wore were stained with the fresh blood of the men he felled. But he knew the truth of it, that he was an ordinary man of ordinary kin, raised by woodsmen, and only did what he did because of the need, because there hadn't been a choice. He could only hope to not fail them, the Companions, Gwyndal of the blade and Yorglyff the mountain walker, Al'Asharad the dancer, Tiell and Tyr the soul bonded. But Avinder wasn't like them; he was only a man who did what he must.

Storm ★★★

My stomach turns itself into knots
Balling up like the riggings
Of a storm swept schooner
Tightening within my neck
Wringing like the hands of the priest father
Like the hands of the capsized mother
Over a hole six feet deep
But just three feet long

Carving a hole into my heart
A socket choked with roots
Cut open like nerves
Bleaching in the open air
Severed in the act
Of burying ourselves

And in only a moment
The failing structure collapses
And I dig into myself
Struggling to find air
As the weight of the world pours in
I splinter and split open
And am left raw and floating in the abyss
Yearning for surface

I feel my thoughts constricted
As I grope for roils of nothing
Breathless, dizzy and searing hot
But ultimately
I am as if an empty vessel
And I am rendered void
For in the end I am just a body
Still

Time

An old piece of (very short) prose I wrote back in 2011. Thought I would share it here, despite it not being poetry.

~~~~~~~~~~

When they finally mastered time they realized that the issues were not those of questionable paradoxes. In the end, it was not a concern that I might kill my own grandfather. No, we met our tentative wall much earlier when we realized the issues with displacement - like dropping a ball into a tub of water, of forcing it in and under. They were terrified of literally displacing the universe.

The fix came with the discovery and exploration of the extra positionary states of atoms. Using this new data, they could make travelling more like viewing the world through a glass sphere, or a large window - the things sent back existed in a strange “other” state, a quasi-dimensional super-space that hitched a ride alongside the main “real” plane. To those past peoples, it would be as if a ghost - ethereal, unseen, and unknown. Touching nothing, interacting with nothing. Everyone applauded and declared how amazing and smart human potential was.
But the cost was too great. We could not risk the destruction of matter - that was an uneasy precedent that humanity as a whole was unwilling to cross. So it was forbidden, written into law, at least until a better solution was found, a work around.

We were given medals, the scientists who made the machines, who did the research, who glimpsed, however briefly, into the past. But it wasn’t enough. I for one became entranced, addicted, obsessed. I used one of the machines before it was destroyed, the prototype. I entered myself into the slip of time. They didn’t know, so they didn’t call me back, return me to my own place in the universe. They destroyed the machine. That was my cost, my price for unfolding the hands of the clock.

And yet, as I exist, unraveled and barely conscious, now, I cannot feel regret. I will live these next years , and for who knows how long, until I reach the time I left, and even then I will continue on, and watch the future I left behind unfurl, unable to touch or taste or hold any of it in my arms.

But I don’t care. That is the cost I accept. For now I will sit by and cherish every second, watching you and I. Watching us meet, that chilly day in November, watching us fall in love, remembering the taste on my lips. Watching the love through my own eyes, oblivious. I know I will watch us grow older, how the story goes. Our children, our hopes and dreams.

But this time, I swear, this time I will be by your side as you die, like I had promised. I’ve got one more chance to make it right.

Burn ★★★★

I might admit to a feeling of uneasiness
If I was still capable of such things
If I could scrape free the blind from my eyes
Or raise the veil that clouds my thoughts

I miss him

His body is the cup my feelings spill into
Yet each drop sinks
Into a spiraling void
Endless and irrevocable
Twinkling like stars in the darkness
Until burning out

There is a flicker
Like a flame on the tip of my tongue
I could fall bodily into that
My entire self consumed inside of him
Burned alive or fading out
Emptied of context

But he is a winch that pulls me back

I want to wind my fingers through his hair
The way I want to twist myself
Into the patterns of his thoughts
Make a space for myself against his heartbeat

Imperfect

And now it's past midnight
But I'm dreaming awake
The miles between us
Begin to feel like my intestines unraveling
And I know I should sleep
But I'm going to him
Into the sickly night air
That dampens my shirt and thickens my breath

I feel like I'm underwater

I hear a buzzing
Like a blown out speaker
Twisting and chittering in the stillness
Above the droning cicadas
A dragonfly beats himself
Against the plastic dome
On the light above the stairwell
As if his body were tethered to it
Failing to break free of it's gravity

And from where I stand
I can see the floors above me
The lights for each floor
And dragonflies
Beating their dissonance
In a chorus like electric currents

I trace my eyes upward
Light to light
Until they disappear from view
Lost into inky sky
And a feeling climbs up the back of my throat

A second spanning countless moments passes
And I swallow my held breath
And continue to my car

He's waiting for me
Out there in the empty hollows

And it's time for me to return

Appeal ★★★★

It would appeal more to my sense of dramatics and poetics
If I could say that I were a poison in the veins of the world
The rivers of prosperity torn bereft
All turned to ruin at my touch
I could adorn myself with beautiful tragedy
And denigrate the horrible monster of myself

If only my endless good will did not hold me back
To be emperor of man if not for the sake of altruism

Still, I could pull open the wardrobe of my life
And dress myself in pains and agonies
Wrap failures around my shoulders
And weigh myself down in sorrow

It's not hard to see the world as shades of grey
To shed with childhood the conceit of good and evil
Left behind among tricycles and tops
Rests paramount malevolence
Replaced with only concern for self
And selfish need

But no one tells you that sometimes there is no right answer
That sometimes the best you can do
Is hurt less
Damage less

And I feel like a flame among moths
Feel the fragile moments fluttering at my lips
And burning to ash with my breath
Afraid to speak
They die all the same

And my feet grow heavier with the failures unavoidable
But knowing I couldn't have done better
Isn't freeing
Knowing that no one could have done better
Doesn't mend the time spent
Watching a world shatter in the glass of eyes
That are staring into your own
And feeling yours giving way

And there is a growing feeling
That nips and gnaws at my feet
As I walk in life's parting wake

That when my body finally turns to dust
And I stand at the spiral's end
In front of the host of angels
With skin as pure as milk and eyes that burn like suns
They will speak in tones like eternity collapsing
Saying it's not that you were bad
You just weren't good enough

For "Return Inside" ★★★★

It is like breathing

not in that it is uncontrolled

for in truth

I can manage my inhales and exhales

speed them up or slow them down

or still them completely

for a time.

Breath is so effortless and easy

in comparison.

Rather, it is like

the rise and fall of my diaphragm

as it pulls in life,

this vague crest and dip of ocean waves.

I feel the sense of myself

waxing and waning.

The worst part being,

I think,

the feeling of just regaining self,

whole and complete,

and sensing it being pulled away,

pulled out of me,

until I am left without words,

without movement.

The world dissolves

into shadows and monsters

and my body becomes numb and distant,

until I am floating in some silent sea

behind my eyes.

Whatever part that remains coherent

left floating out in some vast void

sending messages through membranes

and barricades,

dying before they reach my mouth,

wordless and motionless,

child-like and empty.

I cling to this thing I am 

so desperately

and I bite down panic

and the images that bubble up 

unbidden,

as if the filters inside me were failing,

sending me memories,

sending me visions,

the ideas of which become consuming

and frighten and churn and flay me open

I cannot fight back

not this.

I would take all of the pain,

endlessly for all of my days,

If I could surmise a way

to hold my breath.

------------------------------------------------

It always starts out so well

They are so understanding

While I wax erratic and clutch myself

Biting back gasps and shudders

They fetch warm blankets

Hot tea and medicine

And whisper sweet sympathies 

In time they grow used to the ordeal

Sit uneasy as I pull at the skin of my arms

As I drift into rigid silence

As I cry out and churn

They say nothing

It's not uncommon circumstance

This strange melodrama

And they wait for it to pass

While I yearn for soft hands

And soothing whispers 

I see it in their eyes first

The impatient irritation

My body arcs and rebels

And I worry and fret

And they wish it were over

That they were anywhere else

That they could walk away

and not watch me break 

The comments trickle out

You're exaggerating, doing it on purpose

Must you do this now?

Must you?

Outright anger, gritted teeth

This again? Still?

Can't you just stop

And I want to 

More than anything 

And I feel like such a useless burden

The loathing wells up in my throat

I fight my very existence

And like a drowning man

Sink deeper and deeper

Unable to breathe 

Reaching out for a rope, a line

Longing for a string of words

------------------------------------------------

It's a curse

I told him resolutely

And he looked up at me

With his hands still resting

On the abandoned lump of iron

He'd pried up from the earth

His hair an uneven grate

In front of icy pools

There was a quick falter

In his incorrigible smile

How do you mean?

I tore the fronds

From a fallen palm branch

Being so emotional

So all over the place

Every sorrow feels for me

A thousand times more

I want to be whatever it is

That means normal

But instead live knowing

that every morning

I wake under a shadow

For every triumph I have

It costs me more

And I am so tired of people

Always angry for things I can't help

And in turn me being angry at myself

For being who I am

His eyes fell

I know

He said

And of course it was true

He had lived his life

In and out of institutions

And was under the impression that

Of all the people he'd ever met

That my thoughts were most like his

He let the words settle

Into the cool night air

Letting the silence

and sodium lamplight

Move back into the space between us

He turned to me again

So the moonlight bathed his face

But because of those lows

We get to feel all the highs

The joys indescribable

And I think it's worth it

I nodded and wore a wry smile

I felt the ground beneath my feet

Letting myself get lost in the rhythm

That creates itself

When walking the wooden beams

Of railroad tracks

It's the little things isn't it

The sunlight falling through trees

And hot cider

When the cold creeps up under your cuffs

So why do you do it?

He asked

Try so hard I mean

Keep going

I wasn't sure

A hope of things to come

I guessed

That there will be sunsets and chocolates

And that all evil in the world can't last forever

You know

Once I abandoned hope

I told him

No, that's not true

I ran away from feeling anything

I became cynical and distant

Walled myself up

Abandoned my passions for half a year

I stared at the distant pinpoints

Scattered across the inky field of sky

I know what you say is true

I need to be myself

I'm a better person when I am

He grinned

So you keep on because of hope?

I laughed, reaching to take hold of him

More like a bull headed stubbornness

Not to let myself down

------------------------------------------------

I read recently

In the news

That the reason our brains grew so large

Is that our cells resist dying

Deny their natural cycles

Letting our neural pathways flourish

A schism in our make-up

has caused us to become

The tempered beast

The eminent cousin

But because our cells

Linger onto life

They say we are more prone

We humans

To cancer

to this malignant failure to cease

I am broken.

My neural pathology an unknown

I am aware only of the way it shapes me

Some deformation of my make-up

Causing the pain and spasms 

and sleepless night

The bleating days and drifting unaware

Without solace or coherent strands

To hold me in place

As if my mental structures grow unmanaged

Into chaos

The world I see is

sometimes what I think you see

Other times not

Or rather I see the same things

But with shifted interpretation

My mind distorts

Flattening, skewing, implying, eroding

Like being drugged

Or waking from a dream

I feel my own self or soul or person

In abstracted drifting consciousness

So many different selves, myself

This body; this mind

It has brought begrudging understanding

A delight in sensation

A love of experience

And also a fear

So frequently waiting just off stage

Tucked out of sight

Behind the sunshine and sweetness.

It defines me

Has sculpted me

with fine artist hands

Spun me from the aether

I am this.

An error of biology

With open eyes and quick smile

a strong will

And a heavy burden

A bedfellow to Sisyphus

I think there is something tragic

And beautiful

If what they say is true

That what makes us man

Is cancerous.

------------------------------------------------

I remember my father

holding a tiny silver pin

in his broad, full hands.

I watched him

as he drove it through the skin of his leg,

pulling it taut,

not flinching.

He looked up at me

saying,

see,

pain is just a sensation.

I was just a child,

with a mind like fresh clay,

and it settled like silt

on the bottom of a riverbed.

For many years it seemed

one of his oddities,

his strange teachings.

But I wonder now his intentions.

Because I also recall

the taut skin of my mother

as I massaged her swollen arms

I remember her

doubled over in pain

and mentally calculating

a shortest path

as every step brought agony.

I watch her fumble for words

this insurmountable woman 

who had faced down

and jury rigged 

the world.

Always with grace and compassion.

The genesis of my being.

And I worry.

Churning knots inside my skin.

Did he suppose?

That his sweet small child

would fail and twist inside?

That when he was gone

she would be left alone with this?

That blood to blood she would carry this burden?

Motives lost to the void.

All that is left

is to lay back in bed

and try to will it away.

Try another trick

another mental exercise

until swept up in shattering pain

I can only curl tightly in the sheets

and worry.

Things I Need ★★

Its time I'm off shopping
for the things I need
milk and bread
and a wedge of cheese
lettuce, songs
and bits of dreams
a bulb of garlic
and fresh mint leaves
the pale soft glimmer
of the moon at sea
the smell of winter
some gathered seeds
fish oil to keep
the memories
of a man in flannel
and torn up jeans
butter and boullion
and toiletries

the things I need

the things I need