Author: lewczyk

I think I wrote this in college. Some weirdly autobiographical details, like the main character’s summer job (was what I did). Also, there’s a unfinished poem version of this same story here. Click through to see my theory on how they relate.

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His name was George and he was a poet. That is — he liked to think of himself as one. He had always liked poetry, but had only in recent years discovered his talent for writing it. During his sophomore year at college, he had once devoted several weeks to intense writing, both poetry and fiction. He would type from the moment he awoke, until the moment he went to bed — with only occasional breaks for necessities.

He quit finally, when he came to the conclusion that neglecting his studies was not helping his grades. He looked so comical sitting cross-legged on his bed with his typewriter (his desk was too messy to be of use), that his friends had laughingly called him “the Second Cummings” (after the poet E. E. Cummings). He now thought of himself as ‘Second’.

He had written off-and-on that year, and the year after for fun and profit, though there was entirely too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter. With the desire in mind to remedy the situation, he had decided to get away from it all during the summer between his junior and senior years. He took whatever money he had left from the previous summer (he had worked filling drums of hydrogen peroxide in a chemical warehouse), borrowed a friend’s car, and headed out west toward Wyoming — trying to find the one idea for a novel that would put him in the big time.

This is the story of what happened next.

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He walked through the forest and the odor of pine. Around him, the long, straight trunks ended in caps of pine branches high overhead. The ground was flat, though slightly rising — a sharp contrast to the rough, mountainous country he had encountered previously.

The trees were widely spaced, allowing shafts of sunlight to slant in through the cool air. On the ground was a carpet of pine needles and occasional pine cones. High overhead, a raven could be heard, and in the distance, the hoot of an owl.

His clothes were dirty and ripped; his eyes were glassy, his breath came in clouds. His light brown hair hung down, unkempt; this boyish face sprouted several days’ growth of beard.

As he walked, his dragging feet dug uneven furrows in the pine needles. He slipped and began to slide as the ground fell away and sloped steeply down toward a gurgling stream visible through the trees. He scraped his arm on the way down, and came to rest by the side of the stream — his left leg submerged up to the knee.

He awoke some time later, shivering. His eyes focused on the stars twinkling above him. Where am I? he wondered — searching about him in the darkness. He rose to his hands and knees, teeth clenched at the soreness of his body. He coughed several times as he crawled stiffly from the stream. With his head hanging down, he stopped, panting, and tried to think back to how he got here. He remembered vaguely many days of aimless wandering through the pine forest, but before that — nothing.

Who am I?

Cautiosly, he searched his memory. Nothing there but pines and pine cones, occasional copses of gray-white aspen, elk, and days of walking through the cold with nothing to eat.

He had no wallet and no provisions. Rather than retracing his steps, he decided that his best course of action was to travel downstream looking for shelter for the night — and eventually, someone to help him.

He braced himself against a tree and stood up, pausing for his head to clear. He walked slowly downstream searching for a likely spot to spend the night.

He staggered down the street of the small village, his mind delirious with fatigue and hunger. He had travelled for days since the discovery of his amnesia. The ground had generally been dropping, and the air had become thicker and warmer. Finally, he had come across this village nestled in a heavily wooded valley. He had stumbled down into the village, and was now wandering down the main street. There was no one about.

He walked a bit further and collapsed beside the church. Somewhere, a clock struck two.

Second, his mind thought after the clock had rung the second time. His lips moved wordlessly. Second… coming? Of course, the Second Coming: I was sent to separate the bad from the good.

I’ll start tomorrow, he decided as he drifted off to sleep.

That night, he dreamed of angels.

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Not sure whether the main character died at the end — one interpretation of the phrase ‘dream of angels’ is someone dying.

“Boy! … Boy!” 

“The lad’s taken ill, sir,” the maid informed Mister Dorken, the master of the house.

“Taken ill? I’ll show him what ill is,” he grumbled, and started up the dark, rickety stairs.

“Oh, please be kind, sir!” the maid called after him.

The miser cursed as he made his way to the decrepit room that he rented — in return for the services of the orphaned boy as hand-servant. He pushed open the lockless door, and peered into the darkness of the dingy bedroom. 

А dark form was on the pallet in the corner. The miser retreated into the hall and took an already-lit lamp down from the wall. He raised the wick to increase the flame and once again entered the room. In the flickering glow of the lamp, he could see the boy tossing and mumbling on his pallet.

“If you’re play-acting, boy, I’ll…” but a closer look revealed the boy’s flushed face glistening with sweat.

The miser cursed for several seconds and, almost in answer to the miser, the boy said in clear voice: “And the winner is Bucknob!” The miser raised an eyebrow to this because Bucknob was the name of an acquaintance’s dog entered in tomorrow’s fights.

“What are you talking about, boy? If you’re faking I’ll…” But the rest of the boy’s utterances were incomprehensible mumblings. The miser heard a noise, and turned to the door to see the maid peering in. She cringed, and pulled back when he looked at her. He headed out, and the maid retreated from his path. “See to him,” he ordered as he started down the stairs.

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“Ha!” the miser cried as he entered the door the next evening.

“You’re in good good spirits, sir” the maid said tentatively — ready to retract her statement should the miser not approve.

Instead he replied, “Yes, I won at the fights this night.”

“Congratulations,” the maid said as she took his hat and coat.

“How’s the boy?” he asked.

“Better, sir. He seemed to be sleeping more peacefully the last time I looked in. Would you like me to check again, sir?”

“No, I’ll do it myself.” The miser climbed the stairs and entered the boy’s room. A lamp was already lit in one corner revealing the sleeping boy in another. The boy still looked ill, but the mumbling had stopped.

After a few minutes of waiting followed by several curses, the miser realized that he would probably hear nothing from the boy until he next took ill — and maybe not even then. The miser would visit the druggist tomorrow, he decided.

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Due to the drugs that the miser administered every morning, the boy remained in a deep fever for several weeks. He had the boy moved to his own private chambers, and had dismissed the maid. 

The boy’s predictions were not restricted to dog fights, so the miser made money much quicker than he had expected. He congratulated himself on his good fortune in having one such controlled case of prophesy close at hand.

Though the miser was feeding the boy as best he could, after a month and a half, the boy looked so thin and weak that he might pass away from this world.

One day, while debating on whether to awaken the boy and allow him to recuperate on his own — on the chance that another induced fever might give the same results, or to leave the boy be and get what he could out him before he die, the boy gave a shockingly different prophesy. As usual, it was a quote that the miser would hear again in the next 24 hours — “‘I have come back.’”

“What!?” the miser grew angry because only one one prophecy was given each evening, and this evening was wasted on this nonsense. “Why you little…” He rushed toward the boy and it seemed that almost as he touched him, the boy lay dead with a broken neck.

But what did the statement mean? Would the maid come back again? If so, he had better do something about the boy’s body. The miser took the body out to the yard and, by the darkness of the new moon, buried it under a large oak tree. Не then retired to his chambers musing about his misfortune.

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The miser was found three days thereafter, his undernourished body nearly disconnected from his head — his face presenting a horrible look of fright. No one could understand how he had become this way, for he had been seen but days before — nor could they explain the gaping hole under the large, now-fallen oak.

At some point, it should be understood that the silly stories with surprise endings are the ones I wrote when I was young.

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Science Officer Harris made his report directly to Lieutenant Morgan: “I have that recheck you wanted, sir. Everything is exactly as I said at first,” and then more officially —  “On behalf of the science department, I request that you give permission to reroute this expedition.”

But the lieutenant had already made his decision based on the previous report. “Do whatever you think is right, Officer Harris, and I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Yes, sir!”

If this decision turns out for the better, the lieutenant thought, I’ll get a promotion. And if it doesn’t, I’ll have saved time waiting for an answer. So either way, I’m set.

The original mission had been to investigate the possibility of life on planet Peregrin — named after the founder and commander of this expedition, Walter G. Peregrin. But now it seemed, after much careful testing and observation, that the next planet toward this sun had an infinitely better chance of having life — and thus a much better chance of intelligent life. The reason Peregrin was chosen was because a scout ship, nearly three years ago, had examined the planet — but had not detected this new planet because they had been on opposite sides of the sun at that time.

This new planet had conditions so close to their home planet it was unbelievable, but so as not to startle the natives (if there were any) they would not land — but would teleport two specimens up to the ship to bring back home. So the ship began its preparations…

The science department created a device which could measure learning capability. They reasoned that a specimen with great learning capability would have picked up a great deal of useful knowledge throughout its lifetime.

The day had come. Two specimens were picked up — and the expedition headed home.

Several months later, the expedition arrived back at their home planet — disillusioned. Their specimens had refused to cooperate, and had only given them trouble. Plus, the specimens had died shortly after their arrival on board the ship. This raised serious doubts, akin to fears, these people had had for many years — whether or not they themselves were the only truly intelligent race in the universe. Nevertheless on the expeditioners home planet, Partesiss, that day of contact would be remembered as the first (and possibly last) attempt to contact an intelligent race. But several months voyage away, on Earth, the day would be remembered as the day two infants disappeared from St. Joseph’s Hospital maternity ward.

Another story from my youth — with a disappointing number of (corrected) misspellings 🙁

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At decreasing intervals, the shrieks of a woman could be heard from the upstairs room. Though all in the downstairs hall hoped for the best, they knew that with no practiced midwife, the chances of both mother and child surviving the ordeal were scant. Even with a midwife, the chances were not much better. The shrieks came increasingly often, until finally they gave way to a continuous moan. Then there was silence.

After a time, the inn mistress came down the narrow stairs crying and smiling at the same time. Expectant faces turned toward her. “The mother is dead,” she announced, solemnly, confirming their fears, “but the child is a strong, healthy boy.” There were mixed emotions at the news. None thought to blame the inn mistress, who undoubtedly did her best to save the mother.

All knew the stories behind the fathering of the child. How a demon, maybe the devil himself, had raped a young farm maid. Much speculation had come up about whether the child would be human.

An old soothsayer from the same village, who had cared for the maid while she was carrying the child asked the unspoken question: “Is it — normal?”

Heads turned at the inn mistress’s delay in answering the old woman’s question. “Yes,” she said unconvincingly, “except that, it’s dark… black as the night,” she confessed in a rush.

The soothsayer excused herself to look at the baby and, as she mounted the stains, a loud crash was heard from above. Everyone rushed up the stairs to the room — only to find the window open and unbarred, and both mother and child missing. A howl could be heard in the distance.

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Many years later, when the memory of that night was forgotten, and those witnesses scattered by time — a hooded figure slipped in through the back of a small, seldom-visited tavern, and took a seat in a dark booth.

The coins were already on the table when the tavern master approached, and what drink the dark figure did order was left untouched. Soon, another slid into the booth across from the hooded figure and, studying his dark shape, also ordered — but did not drink.

The newcomer, a cunning looking man in his early thirties, had an animated conversation with the other, and then left —  leaving the figure alone with its thoughts. The figure sat for a time and, when the tavern master looked again after serving other customers, the booth was empty — with a few more coins on the table.

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A war soon broke out and, though fought for only a handful years, it left the surrounding principalities devastated. A huge ebony-skinned warrior took part in the battle — though it was hard to tell which side he fought for — if for any.

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Years past, civilizations rose and fell — and in their histories, many legends sprang forth about a black demigod who shaped the destinies of men.

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Many more years passed until finally this demon-spawn grew tired of trifling with short-lived men. He sought cure for his restlessness and, through the aid of a powerful sorcerer, projected himself into the past in the search of his father. He had never really known who his father was, and had always wondered about his own longevity. Now he would know.

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Upon arriving in the past, he searched the countryside around his birthplace for traces of his father. In his travels, he chanced upon a young maiden who he became enchanted with — and, one night, he came to her and lay with her. Afterwards, he recognized in her pale, frightened face — the face of his mother who, as one of the undead, had nurtured him through infancy. He laughed heartily at the irony, caring not as the maid slipped away into the night.

He had not only followed in his fathers footsteps, he had made them!