The Garage Door

Twice he found the door to the garage open. But he lived alone and could not remember going into the garage for at least six months. Since that “day” he had refused to use the garage for any reason. He always parked on the street and used the front door for all occasions. He even had a few friends clear out the garage of any storage boxes and put them in the shed in the backyard. To have the door standing wide open was unnerving.

The first time he found it open it was just slightly ajar, as if someone had just come in and not closed it completely. He absentmindedly closed it and kept walking. It was not until he was half a dozen steps away that it struck him. Why was that door open? And then his mind raced. Perhaps it was not really open and just habit made him push on it as if it was open. But he could remember the distinct sound of the click when the door latch caught. No, he was certain that he had closed it. But how did it get open?

 By the end of the night he had convinced himself that the door was never really open. That it was a trick of the mind.

The second time it happened, he heard giggling. The door was wide open and the cool garage air was slipping slowly into the house. The giggle was clear as day and it made the hair on his neck stand on end. It sent chills down his spine and brought tears to his eyes.  He could not even walk the two steps down the hall from the kitchen to close the garage door. He slumped against the wall and slowly wiped away a tear.

A thought struck him. Perhaps someone was using the side door in the garage to gain access to the house and he had stumbled upon them coming or going. It frightened him to think someone could be in the house. He quickly grabbed a flashlight and a baseball bat from the coat closet by the front door. He made a thorough search of the house. Under the beds, in all the closets and bathrooms and even the kitchen pantry, he searched diligently, hopefully.  But he found nothing unusual. He was left with a wide open garage door and a giggle that brought back a flood of memories. What was he to do?

He could not face the open door and he did not have the emotional strength to close it. He wanted to call a friend but over the last six months he had alienated everyone and could think of not one single person that he wanted to call. He was stuck and frightened.

He set the baseball bat and flashlight on the kitchen counter. He cradled his head in his arms and sobbed quietly for a few moments. He felt the cool garage air whisping around his bare feet. He had to face his demons. He had to put it to rest. He stood determined, crossed the kitchen and stopped at the hall. He left the bat and light behind. They would serve him no good with whatever it was that he would find in the garage.

He took a step and paused, listening.  He took a second step and put a hand on the door knob. He knew that if he just swung the door closed it would not end the nightmare. He raised a hand to the light switch for the garage’s florescent light. He felt his heart racing. His breathes came in ragged gulps. How could a simple garage frighten someone so much? But it was not the garage that scared him. It was just a symbol of something much deeper. A pain, a memory, a day that would haunt him was what lay beyond that doorway.

He flicked on the light and stepped into the garage pulling the door closed behind him.  

Copyright 2011
David Corbet
All Rights Reserved

Erkulys and Uryon Fight the Monster of the Heart

The two stumbled out of town, Erkulys still drunk from a night of feasting, ribaldry, wenching, and wrestling. Uryon tried to shoulder some of Erkulys’ weight to help him walk straight. The large wrestler out-weighed Uryon by a few dozen pounds, but Uryon was taller.

Uryon wore a belt of leather, studded with precious gems. Many of them were dragon stones he had removed from the belly of the great beasts. On his hip, hung his twice-forged sword. It was forged first by the Master Maker in the Deep Forge hidden in the bowels of the earth. The second time it was shaped by the First craftsman, Tubal-cain. while his apprentice smiths, Bezalel and Oholiab, pumped the bellows in the sacred citadel of Hor. The sword was a perfectly crafted weapon, unbreakable, and never lost its edge. It could cleave through any armor and slice body and soul alike. Uryon wore it with pride and humility. It was a weapon of Champions and he was First Champion of the Nations.

Erkulys preferred using his hands to crush, smash and rip apart his prey. He was a master in over a dozen fighting and wrestling arts. He was also proficient in most weapons, as a true Hero should be. Erkulys was the foremost Hero of the day, although other younger heroes tried to challenge him to the title. None could defeat this brave Hero.

This was the time of Heroes and Champions, and also of monsters and things unspeakable. These two ventured off to encounter just such a thing.

“Erk, I think you have put on weight since last we walked together.” Uryon grunted as he struggled to keep Erk moving.

“Ey, I most surly did. I spent the last year eating and wenching in the far lands, beyond the Mount,” Erk belched and continued, “They have the best cream pies and ales one could wish for.” He stumbled in his step and then straightened up, burping a few more times. “Ey, ale and wine and drink from a root that would blind lesser men. And all of it more tasty than that swill they served us last night at the inn.” He staggered further along.

“Ha ha, that swill was enough to do you in. I told you we had many leagues to go today, to not drink so heavy.” Uryon chastised him.

“Just a moment.” Erk leaned over a short stone wall that sheltered a garden from the way. He vomited a stream so putrid it made Uryon, standing a dozen steps away, turn away in disgust. Erk then opened his leather breeches and let out a piss that ran like a river.

“I think you just killed that poor garden.” Uryon waved a hand in front of his nose.

“Nonsense. I only watered it and enriched the soil with liquids from the gods.” Erk bellowed and laughed. He tucked himself back into his breeches and staggered back to the way. “Now I can walk, almost.”

Uryon shouldered a leather bag and goaded Erk along. The sun was just breaking the horizon. “Let’s move slow. I don’t want you killing any more gardens and having the townsfolk cursing our names.”

“Seems like last night you had a few wenches screaming your name in delight.” Erk laughed again. Mirth came easy to this Hero.

Uryon laughed as well. “Yes they were. But today, I fear, they will be walking funny and cursing me none the less.”

The two laughed and stumbled toward the rising sun.

Now Available on the Kindle: Erkulys & Uryon

Copyright David Corbet 2011

November

Glistening white, unique and alone.

Drifting from high above to here below.

Settling one on another, building up

A landscape of white.

The empty, quiet world awaits

For that soft touch of frozen fingers,

Caressing the tree, the brush, the soil.

White drifting, wafting, floating.

Silence blanketed in muffled chills

Alone, unique, silent, wandering.

Come hushed stillness.

By David Corbet

Linden

Linden, Oil on Canvas.

Struggle

A constant struggle,

A tug, a shake, a quake.

A pull this way & then that way.

Up, down, in, out.

A constant struggle

Light & dark blending in

Strobe effects of smoky haze.

Reality is obscured & contrasted.

A constant struggle,

Tear stained smiles & false

Bravado to make it through

The day, fearing the night.

A constant struggle,

To awake each morning

Plod on, trod on, fallen on

Some meaningless soul.

A constant struggle,

To survive the day with

Music & lines on pages as

            The only solace.

David Corbet

Copyright protected

Blue Construct

click here for more of my art work

If you are not familiar with smashwords.com it is a pretty awesome site. They offer ebooks in most ebook formats. They do a good job in centralizing all the various ebook providers into one location. Not a bad idea. I have two books uploaded there. They also offer coupons which is another great idea. Watch for upcoming coupons for my books: One Year in the Mountains and Memoirs of a Super Criminal.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/86130

Hearing the song of Grey

            She sings sweetly in my ear and I wonder if the words spring from her soul. I wonder if I could be her muse. I wonder if she is as delicate and as kind as her voice. What would life be like at her side? It is a lost dream, one destined to never be fulfilled. Life always brings the unexpected and the unexplained. We must not wait for the evil to consume us but must be vigilant in our defense with good and righteousness. Lost dreams can bring evil, or they can be used to fertilize the truth of reality, of passion sought and won. Don’t let her sweet voice be the symbol of a failed existence, but as the rallying cry of great things, the standard bearer leading the charge into the darkness of swirling futures with out certainty. The prize is only won after the race is complete. Run to win, but not for the prize for it is fleeting and will not bring the strength to continue winning. Race to win; race to build the strength to race again, and again and again…

            Life is grey. Life is a blend of the rich darkness of utter blackness bringing decay and chaos and the pure white of truth and perfection. But the grey is not evil; it is necessary. Grey is the dawning of the new day when the world is filled with solemn silence preparing for the release of potential. Grey is the cloud that brings the nurturing rains from which all life springs. Grey is the blur of movement across the screen of life. Grey is life lived without regret, but with pain and joy in abundance. Grey is the willingness to risk pain to gain joy and love and all things good. With out grey there would be no depths of shadows, no horizon to run towards. Without grey the world would be simple and simplistic and naive and utterly boring. But very safe. Very safe, indeed.

            So how do we wade through the complexities of greyness which pervades life at every turn? We walk gently and securely with one hand on the white staff of truth. We keep our heart pure filled with passion ready to act with compassion towards neighbor and enemy alike. Those with the eyes to see can pierce the foggy greyness with clarity of sight. Those with the eyes to see are not held by the cryptic nature of the ever present grey. Right action, right direction becomes crystal clear and impossible to escape. But those without the sight are lost and confused, dismayed at the actions of others. They are held captive by their own fear, their own guilt. They fail and fall deeper into the dark blackness which hides below the grey waiting to pounce on the unaware. They cannot move towards the light, towards the white. But one cannot reach the white until they have gained the sight to move safely through the grey. So seek the sight which brings life, brings insight, brings clarity of thought and action. Take it and use it. Gain the white.

Almonds in the Wind.

            When giants tread on the miniature villages of the little people who live far, far below, they never hear the screams. Not even if they listened intently could they hear the screams of the little people. For to them, the little people never exist. They can’t exist. It is impossible, incomprehensible for there to be anyone else but themselves. Giant are giants and there are only giants. Little people are not, cannot be.

So are you a giant or a little person? Do you walk with a might stride killing fields and acres with each compression of the foot on earth? Does the earth shake with your coming and exhale liquid death once you have passed? Or are you the forgotten lot, those who cannot be, yet are? Does it matter? Can it matter? Giants will never know, never see the little people and therefore never pay them any heed. No matter what the little people do, no edifice, no construct will ever be seen by the giants. No matter how grandiose the project may appear to the little people it pales in comparison to the might and length of the giants. And so, what to do?

“Ha,” you cry, “that is a false analogy, an untrue metaphor. You speak lies in order to deceive. I have never seen a giant.”

“Ha,” you cry, “that is a false analogy, an untrue metaphor. You speak lies in order to deceive. I have never seen a little person.”

So speaker, are you a giant so you can see none larger than yourself, or are you giant that cannot see the little people? Or are you a little person repressing the largesse about you? Or maybe you are right. Maybe I am crazy, confused, turned inside out and hung to dry on the willow tree that smells like almonds, planted in the vineyard of the gods in order to trap the sheep in a state of perpetual confusion. Are you confused; are you a lost sheep drawn to the scent of almonds?

Ha, Ha. Now I have you. 

Here is a story that I wrote some years ago. 

Copyright 2011 David Corbet

{EAV_BLOG_VER:210c230e0442a109}

Cascadia Mountains, A sample chapter from my new novel.

It was a calm evening in the lush forest in Washington State. A group of men and women were spread out on a hillside, resting. Some were napping in the shade, others talking quietly in small groups. All of them were decked out in camouflage clothing, but they were not soldiers, at least not the typical government sanctioned corporate sponsored killers. Their camouflage was marred with peace signs, psychedelic swirls and other symbols of their army: eco-warriors.  

Off in the distance was a continual buzz of chainsaws, diesel engines and heavy equipment hard at work. Every once in a while a loud crash of a falling mighty pine, old growth that took hundreds of years to grow, brought the quiet group back to reality. It took hundreds of years to grow a forest only to be destroyed by greed in a few short years. It was their mantra driven home by their great leader. When a tree crashed down he looked up from his magazine and made eye contact with individuals of his army, driving home the point of why they were gathered on this mountainside. It was time to strike back for the good of the planet.

Their rugged leader sat leaning against a tree. He was doing “research” reading a popular tech magazine. “This is a tragedy,” he stated out loud to no one in particular but all those near listened. “Who would want to live their days hiding in a black box imagining the world, instead of actually going out into it?” Disgust was evident in his voice. “We must do something to save the human animal from its own destructive ways. It is not enough to save Mother Nature and only some of her offspring. We must be willing to save them all.”

He threw the magazine down. The radiant woman sitting next to him picked it up. Her brunette hair was bunched into dreadlocks that fell halfway down her back, green army pants and a brown tank top hugging her curves. She flipped open to the page the great man sitting beside her was reading.  The piece was titled “Fantasy is Fiction No Longer: Technology finally delivers the final frontier where the mind meets reality.” An Op-Ed piece by Frank Church. She scanned the article for the highlights.

Their leader stood and stretched as he addressed the crowd, his army. “We are going to need to do something about this. We cannot allow humanity to go down this path. Someone has to be the consciousness of the masses. They have been blinded by the mass produced media driven corporate greed which now wants to turn us all into nothing but simpletons, slumbering away in dream boxes, in coffins. If that is our future then we might as well be dead. No, we must wake them. All of them! But before we can wake them we have to stop the machines that make them slumber. Technology is the bane of modern human existence. But we are the warriors to rid the world of this monster and free humanity once more to be human. It is not enough to stand on the wall and defend the wilderness, we must move the army into enemy territory and take back what is rightfully ours.”

Passion and life emanate from his very being as he spoke. His audience was captivated and on fire for action. His charisma led the way for others to follow and blindly they did, trusting this great man to reestablish the natural balance of the world.

If it was his timing or just coincidence as he finished his impassioned oration the last of the chainsaws in the distance died off. Soon after, they heard the sound of diesel engines from the work trucks firing up and then motoring off into the woods.

The leader looked across the hillside at his army, a ragged bunch that had stood by him time and time again. He also looked over the beautiful natural scene around him, pine trees standing majestic, brush and flowers dotting the hillside and all of it illumined by the setting sun. He looked down at the stunning beauty reading the magazine. “Nadia, when this job is done I have a special mission for you.” She looked up into his green eyes and nodded. She would do anything for this man.

“Ok Army it is time to go to work. Today we protect these precious life-giving woods. Tomorrow we move to protect the feeblest animal of them all from itself, the human animal. You know the drill: move down in your squads smash anything human made, but do not harm any humans that may still be around. Move quickly, be stealthy. Meet at the rendezvous as planned, code word is ‘lightening bug’”

The hillside suddenly came alive with movement. Small groups of camouflaged troopers moved off towards the clear-cut area ahead. Half an hour later they converged on the site where the cutting equipment was stashed. Soon a new sound emerged from the forest floor. Instead of man against nature it was the distinct sound of man against machine: metal upon metal, rock against glass. After a mishap that caused a small forest fire they learned to not burn the machines.  But after the night’s attack of destruction and sabotage they might as well have been burnt. 

With their mission done, the army slowly slinked off into the night. They would meet up later to toast another victory and end the night with a bit of carousing at their campsite near a natural hot springs.  The leader watched from the hillside. It went smooth, as he knew it would. But his eyes were not on the destruction below but rather on the false sunrise on the horizon, the lights from the city, which reached all the way out here in the forest. Those lights would have to be extinguished someday. 

All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2011

David Corbet

This is the final image I used for the book cover for my first ebook: Memoirs of a Super Criminal. It is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites. The links at the top of the page can take you to either the kindle or the nook versions. Enjoy reading!

Published at Kindle and Nook

Memoirs of a Super Criminal is now available on the Kindle and the Nook. You can read sample chapters at either place and for more action there is a sample below.

Memoirs of a Super Criminal is now available on Amazon Kindle. I am working through the formatting to publish it on the Nook and at Smashwords. This has been a great adventure and a huge learning curve. Now onto another novel. What will it be? Check back for updates.

Memoirs of a Super Criminal Cover Art

These are three possible options for the cover of my new novel. Please leave a comment as to which one you like best and maybe a reason why. You can read a sample of my novel below this post.

Memoirs of a Super Criminal, excerpt.

An alleyway door clanged open and two men exited hurriedly. In the distance an alarm screeched and blared. The two men wore costumes. The one leading the way was dressed in all black with red gloves cut to look like flames. The other wore a simple gray jumpsuit with black military boots and a black mask. They both carried sacks.

“Hurry, fool, this way.” The leader said in earnestness.

“Don’t call me a fool. You tripped the alarm, not me.” The other angrily answered.

They neared the end of the alley and just before it turned left towards a side street, a dumpster crashed down to block their way. They both turned abruptly and saw him at the end of the alley; the red cape billowed out behind him.

They dropped their bags. The man in gray stepped against the wall and became invisible. The other raised his flame shaped gloved to defend himself but before he could shoot, a red blur was upon him.

Armageddon held the criminal by one arm. They were suspended a foot off the ground.

“Where is El Mag?” Armageddon whispered.

“Who the hell is that? Let go! You are crushing my arm!” The criminal cried.

“Tell me what I want to know or it will get worse,” Armageddon squeezed.

The criminal let out an agonizing squeal. “Stop, stop, stop! I don’t know who that is. Honest, stop!” The pain coursed down his arm. He could feel his bones slowly breaking.

Armageddon threw him to the ground and touched down lightly beside him. He reached down with both hands and grasped the criminal’s injured arm. He began to twist. The arm made a sickening sound as the bones broke and flesh tore.

The criminal screamed and clawed to be released. “Stop! I don’t know! Stop! Please!” He whispered in exasperation.

Armageddon had no sympathy. “Tell me, what you do know? Tell me now or I will rip your other arm off.” The criminal lay on the ground and whimpered.

Armageddon turned suddenly and looked over his shoulder. Laser bolts shot from his eyes and scorched a mark across the wall. A moment later a body fell to the ground, cut in two.

Armageddon looked back down at the man at his feet. His eyes glowed red. The criminal wet himself and cried harder. Just then a squad car pulled into the alley; blue and red lights cast shadows along the walls. Armageddon stood up and walked towards the car.

The police met Armageddon half way down the alley.

Armageddon addressed the police in an official voice. “Careful with that one. He has super powers. He can, could, shoot fire from his hands. The other one, he could turn invisible. I warned him twice to show himself and then gave a warning blast. I thought he might have been sneaking up behind me while I tried to subdue the other one. I guess I was off with my blast. Don’t worry I will file a full report as is my duty. Have a nice day officers.” Armageddon jumped into the air and flew away. His red cape billowed out behind him.

The lead officer grabbed his radio and called it in. The second officer inspected the scene. One body cut in two. The other one lay in a pool of blood with a limp hand ending in a mangled forearm cradled in his lap; pure hatred in his eyes as he glared at that red cape.

“What the hell happened?” The officer whispered to himself.

"Memoirs of a Super Criminal"

Copyright David Corbet 2011

Poetry

It has been some time since I posted here. Life kind of moves fast when you are not paying attention. So it is. But a fast life is not an empty life. I have been painting and writing. Every month on the first Friday I show my art work at Station Square in Old Town Pocatello.

I have also published a short collection of poems. It is currently available through Amazon Kindle. It is called One Year in the Mountains. I am working on a novel as well. It will be available in mid August.