Making Up Mail Call

As most of you know that have been following the blog lately, I've been spending a lot of time over the course of the last month working on several projects and not having a ton of time to dedicate to the ol' blog.  Part of not being able to focus as regularly on the blog as I'd like meant that I missed several Friday Mall Call entries.  So, here's my cheap and pandering attempt to make up for several of those...

 

I receive about an email a week or so wondering if I only write long fiction or if I dabble in other forms such as poetry or short stories and the like.  Well, outside of the blog and the occasionally inebriated dirty limerick, I do scribble out the occasional short story or so.  Truth be told, I actually use short stories as a way to test out story ideas and see if there's actually any merit to the current tube of wonderful that's rolling around in my head or if I'm just experiencing writer's delirium and thinking that this latest pile of mental excrement may be worth more than a quick game of mental etch-a-sketch.

 

I wrote the following short story roughly a year ago as part of a writing group exercise and some of my peers like it enough to think I should consider publishing it.  It's not in a 100% polished form just yet, but I have to admit I'm sort of a fan of it myself.  So, for those of you who requested some of non-novel length work, consider this your long overdue (and as a reminder copyrighted and not to be reposted without permission) response. Let me know what you think!

 

There once was a man from Nantucket... nah, just kidding...

 

I Remember You

By Brian Pittman

The dirty concrete floor of the alleyway was cold, wet, and hard.  The brick and the wall against which he was propped as he tried to open his eyes was equally unwelcoming and yet the two in concert seemed to hold him as comfortably as any easy chair in which he’d spent a lazy afternoon.

The first thing he noticed was how difficult it was to open his eyes and focus.  Fog seemed to be rolling in fairly thickly down the alley floor from the street.  Still unable to truly use his eyes effectively, he noted how the fog seemed to roll and boil its way toward him in long tongues of white and grey.  He noticed that as he tried to focus on the fog as it curled itself into waves and shapes it would seem to melt away, only to return and re-form itself at the edges of his diminished sight.

He closed his eyes hard, his head swimming as if he’d both had too much to drink, gotten his ass kicked and slept way too long all simultaneously.   He opened them and snapped his head back so quickly in shock that he banged it off the unforgiving brick behind him.

There, immediately no more than two inches in front of his face, crouched a woman.

His eyes adjusted slightly to the fog.

The woman’s steel blue eyes stared directly into his, unblinking.  She continued to crouch, like a bright and shiny carrion bird, her head moving slightly as she examined him.  Her shock white hair was pulled into a tight ponytail that brushed against his torso languidly.

He blinked again.

She was sniffing him, his mind told him.  This stuck him as odd, but nowhere near as batshit as the realization that hit him next as she stood up in front of him.

She was wearing armor.

She was beginning to pace in front of him, arms crossed and fingers tapping her chin, as if deeply lost in thought.  He tried to stand and found very quickly that he seemed to lack both the initiative and strength to do so.  He had never felt so tired in his life.

It was about that time that he noticed he was soaking wet as if he’d been sitting or rolling in something wet for quite a while.  He reached down to check his shirt but was startled back into stillness when she spoke to him.

“Why,” she asked tersely?  “Why now?”

“What?”  It seemed all he could intelligently come up in response at the time.

“I demand to know you pathetic insect,” she hissed as she crouched down, leveling herself even with this face once again.  “Why did you?”

Granted he had to admit that woman as a general rule were confusing to him but this particular female was trying to either be obtuse or was just fucking nuts.  Either way, it had been a long night and he was tired of the charade.

“Look Xena,” he snarked dryly, “how but you just fucker on off to whatever comicon you fell out of and leave me in peace…”  He stood to leave again but this time stumbled as he fell back into his hard stone and brick seat.  He wiped his hands on his shirt, still finding it odd how wet his clothes were at the time.

“Tell me, why now,” she seethed as he suddenly realized that the fog around him was flowing in more and more thickly and she was now pointing the largest broadsword he had ever seen and that he could have sworn was merely mist seconds before directly at his jugular. Her voice had no inflection, he began to notice.  All of her words, threatening or inquisitive, were delivered with the same cold even tone.

“Why now WHAT you crazy bitch,” he spat with indignation.

“Why did you do this,” she continued cryptically?  “Why let this happen now?”

“Let what happen,” he spat emphatically?  This entire conversation was doing nothing but pissing him off and wasting his time, not to mention technically qualifying for one fuck of an assault charge.

She dropped the sword from his throat, his blurry vision barely registering the fact that it faded back into the mist as it left her hand.  She crouched yet again, this time mere millimeters from his face, leaving him unsure whether she intended to kiss him or further his berating.  He swung his right hand reflexively but grimaced in both shock and, surprisingly, pain as his hand passed through her as easily as the mist.

She smiled cruelly and pressed her apparently now very solid palm into his abdomen.  He gasped in agony as she pulled her hand back and wiped it across his face.

To his horror he realized that the wet sensation he'd been experiencing was actually blood.  His blood, and he was coated from mid chest down in it.

He tried to freak out, he even wanted to, deep down.  He wanted nothing more than to scream for help.  He didn't, however.  The groggy feeling he'd been fighting off began to dissipate as it was replaced with a peaceful feeling of calm.  The animal side of him, the primal side we all hide behind the trappings of our humanity, slowly allowed him to grasp what was happening.

"I'm dying, aren't I," he intoned?

"Yes," she replied flatly.

"Was it you," he asked, wondering if he was confronting his own murderer?

She sneered at him and resumed her crouch nearly instantly.  "If I had slain you, think you I would leave enough to question?"

He shook his head no.  At that moment his trademark sarcasm not only seemed inappropriate but likely fatal.

Still hovering on him, she repeated her question.  "Again, mortal, I ask you.  Why?"

"Not to anger you needlessly," he said coolly as he tried to make a soothing gesture with a gore soaked hand, "but I don't understand what you’re asking me.  Do you want to know why I let myself get hurt?"

"No imbecile," she spat.  "Why did you try to save them?"  She motioned wide with her gauntleted right hand.  There, still partially shrouded by the fog, lay the bodies of an elderly couple.  As he focused on them he noticed that the fog lifted slightly more and he could see they had been brutally stabbed, nearly eviscerated.  He started to wonder if that was what had befallen him as well.  Try as he could though, he could not remember.

"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about," he said smoothly.  "What happened to them? To me?"

She stood quickly and began to move off as if beginning to leave.

"HEY!" he screamed at her.

She spun back toward him.  As she stormed toward he saw anger flash across her face.  He also saw something else, though.  As she spun his direction he saw her form seemed to shift and phase as if covered in static.  He could have sworn he saw her hair change color as well but he wrote it off to his still slightly blurry vision.

"Fine," she hissed.  She reached her right hand down again and touched his blood stained forehead.

"See."

The day was no different than any other.  He'd just parked his car outside of the coffee shop around the corner from his house and was about to go inside when he heard the old woman scream from the back of the alley.  Not his business he'd thought.  Then she'd screamed again, begging for their lives.  He was no hero, in fact he'd avoided conflict so much in his life that avoidance qualified as a lifestyle decision.  For some incomprehensible reason his feet were moving into a trot and he was suddenly running and yelling down the alleyway.  Although slightly taller than average he was painfully thin so his attempt at a tackle only managed to spin the mugger, easily twice his heft, slightly off balance.  He watched in horror as the man smiled at him then opened the old man's throat ear to ear with one slash.  Rage overcame him and he lashed out, catching the mugger squarely on the jaw and dropping him to his knees.  The old woman screamed out a warning far too late as he saw the mugger's accomplice level the sawed off shotgun at him.  The blast hurtled him to the back wall of the alley.  Shock set in immediately, but it took him so long to pass out that he had time to watch as they took turns puncturing the woman's vital organs in alphabetical order, all the while admonishing her for not being smart enough to carry cash.

Reality settled back in front of him, mist and all, but now his companion was perched bird like on the corner of a dumpster at a ninety degree angle to his resting spot.  She seemed to be patiently, and also very much without any discernible movement, waiting for his answer.

"I don't know" he responded as truthfully as he could.

"Simpleton," she hissed as he noticed her seem to blur and fuzz slightly.  "Fool."  This time he was sure of it.  Her stark white hair had momentarily gone brown.  She also seemed to be beginning to noticeably lose her icy demeanor and was truly becoming angry with him.

The pain in his gut was nonexistent at the moment and he decided to be a bit more inquisitive.  After all, he reasoned she couldn’t do much worse than hasten his clearly imminent demise.

"So who exactly are you again?"

She phased once again as she descended from her perch in one smooth motion.  This time he clearly saw her with brown hair, wearing a simple cotton dress with flowers in her hair.  An instant passed and she was re-clad in the sterling armor, which in the now full moonlight was clearly designed to resemble a swan, her ghost pale hair swaying softly as her steel blue eyes blazed at him.  She stood full height and he felt his jaw drop in amazement.

"I am Valkyr," she said flatly.  "Chosen by the All-Father to take the worthy dead from the battlefield to Valhalla."

"Name's Bob Thorson," he quipped hurriedly lest the extremely hot yet possibly delusional woman in front of him catch on to his amazement or worse, reproduce that sword again.  "How they hangin' there Val?"

“You... doubt me” she roared?   His mocking clearly angered her, causing her to shift form randomly as she began to pace and rant wildly in front of him.

"Six hundred years," she ranted, "six hundred years of caring for heroes and serving the valiant and I am sent to attend a craven."  She lifted her head back and screamed skyward.  "Have I angered you All-Father?  What did your servant do? Why must you inflict him on me again?"

He was ready to light on the word again and finally get some answers when she shifted again, this time for over ten seconds, and began to swear at him profusely.

Realizations hit him harder than the blast from the shotgun in quick succession.  First she was swearing at him in Gaellic.  His grandmother had been from Scotland and he recognized a few of the choice words Val was using from the frequent tongue lashings he'd seen his grandfather receive when he was a boy.

The second realization was even more improbable.  Every time she flashed she began to seem more and more familiar, as if he'd seen her in a picture or in a movie.  It wasn't until her tirade that it became clear.  No matter how nuts it seemed, he knew this woman!

Things began to slowly add up in his brain, although the gaps that would force intuitive leaps to even try to make logical sense of the situation were so far they seemed almost sadly comical.

“So wait, let me see if I’ve got this right,” he snarked, unable to any control his mouth any further. “I fuck around and get myself at least most of the way killed doing something stupid and you’re pissed off because you think you’re six hundred years old and you’ve been sent to fetch me to Valhalla? “

His mouth clearly had the better of him at that point and he continued, unable to stop himself.  “Look lady, I’ve already figured out I know you from somewhere.  I don’t know what you gave me to make me so weak and how you staged all this but it is bullshit.  And just so we’re clear here, trying to be slick and calling someone stupider than a rotting sheep carcass in another language isn’t nearly as impressive when THEY KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SAYING! Whatever kind of freak show you’ve got going here just knock it the fuck off and…”

His voice trailed off as he saw her turn again and he saw a scar on her left arm, visible through the gaps in her armor.  He looked closer and realized it wasn’t a scar but a brand.  He could see where the flesh had puckered around the burn long ago.  “Wait,” he barked as he reached out and grabbed her by the arm.  This time, she was as solid as he was and the mists that had littered the alley floor were totally gone.  She didn’t phase again, not completely, but he watched as her eyes went from blue to green and her hair regained its previous chestnut color.

She was now standing full height against him, merely inches away, separated only by the grip he maintained on her arm.  “What is this mark,” he said insistently? “Why do I know you?”

With her free hand she reached her hip and withdrew the foot long horn that hung there from a thick braided cord.  “Drink,” she said to him softly, her eyes yielding further to their emerald appointment. She opened the mead horn to show him the amber fluid inside.

“Drink and remember.”

The raiding party had spotted the small village days earlier.  It had been simple enough to overwhelm them.  Three longboats had put ashore to draw their attention, while the other three had beached several leagues away and the thirty warriors inside had attacked simultaneously from the rear.  The men and boys old enough to hold a sword were slaughtered quickly, two saved to be blood-eagled to Odin the next day, and the women and children split amongst the warriors along with the stock and camp goods as the spoils of battle.

Hrothal, the leader of the war party, was ready to retire for the night when his men brought one of the captive women to him.  According to his men she had broken the neck of the man she’d been given to as a prize when he’d tried to rape her, but instead of dealing with her by the sword his men had brought her to him for his judgment.  The woman was beautiful but ferocious and Hrothal knew by the story that his men were more likely afraid that she would rest a sword from their hands and take their lives more than they were afraid to raise a blade to a captive without his say so.  Hrothal eyed the long brown hair and strong body of the woman in front of him and decided he would take it upon himself to break her as he had his horse, to tame the animal to his will.  He commanded his men to tie her to the center post of his tent and he would figure out how to deal with her later.

The woman proved to be a handful for Hrothal.  She tried to escape at any opportunity at first, oftentimes either injuring him or one of his guards in the process.  The guards wanted vengeance but he would never allow it.  In his mind, his will would be stronger than any foreigner they had conquered.  He was Thor-son, descended through the ages from the god of thunder himself, and no woman would fail to bend to his will.

Time passed slowly in those days.  It took six months before Hrothal was able to sleep soundly with her in his tent, tied to the main post or not.  During that time he never beat her or raped her, nor did he allow his men to do so.  She was wild and fierce and he was of a mind that if he could tame her to obey him than he would truly be seen as a man to be reckoned with.  The only harm that came to her by his hands was the occasional day without food or water as punishment for some misdeed and the brand on her upper left arm, the bindrune that marked her as his property.  By their law this mark meant no man save him would ever touch her but also it meant that everyone knew where she belonged and many times it would lead to her return to him after an escape attempt.

A year passed, then two.  Over time her attempts at freedom diminished in frequency then one day stopped altogether.  Somewhere in the first year he stopped tying her to the post every night.  It was sometime afterward that she was shown by someone who spoke her language how to care for his tent and keep his armor and clothes clean.  By the end of the second year she was even learning to speak their language and could have rudimentary conversations.  Her master had learned her name was “Roan” and that she was the daughter of the healer for her village before it was destroyed.  It even turned out she had some small skill in medicine and treated Hrothal’s wounds on more than one occasion.

It was during the fourth year of her life with Hrothal that Roan decided it was time to truly be free.  She had been a good slave and earned the trust of most in the camp so it was easy for her to steal a sword and hide it in his tent.  It had been after a council meeting that night when Hrothal had returned to his tent to sleep and encountered Roan, wearing mismatched pieces of old or childrens’ armor, leveling a sword at him as he entered.  It was no easy fight for either of them, nor did it end as either would have expected.  The following morning found both of them in need of bandages for minor wounds, but the following spring found them welcoming Hrothal’s first son into the world.

Season followed season and child followed child as time went on.  Twelve years almost to the day from when Hrothal had first taken Roan from her village a different set of warriors, bent on making a name for themselves, attacked Hrothal and his people in broad daylight just as the first snows of the year had began to fall.  Hrothal was wounded by an axe almost immediately.  As he faded in and out of consciousness he had seen Roan standing over him, sword in hand, defending her fallen husband and family with all of her rage until she was cut nearly in half by an enemy.  His own warriors had seen her fight and redoubled their efforts.  He lost Roan that day, as well as the use of his left arm, but Hrothal spent the rest of his very long life until he died in his bed wishing he had been able to stand beside her.

He opened his eyes again to reality, this time to see the Valkyrie that had been tormenting him gone and in her place sat the woman in the cotton dress with the long, flowing brown hair.

“I’ve been watching ye for six hundred years you stupid git,” she said as she polished off the rest of the mead from the horn.  “Life after life, year after year, living, growing and dying as one stupid whiny shit of a man after another.”  He noticed that her accent was fully prevalent by that point, although her brogue had too many long o’s and a’s to be purely Scottish.

“I used to root for you, doncha know,” she said.  “I figured ya had to man up at some point.  He’s a warrior I figured.  It’s got to come naturally.”  She stood up over him again, gesturing with the horn again for emphasis and spilling a considerable quantity of mead in the process.  “Don’t worry about that,” she smiled, “it never runs out anyway.”  Continuing to smile she dumped a good quantity on his head and continued her rant.

“Do you know you managed to make it through World War I without so much as a broken toe?  When you enlisted, well, I thought maybe now’s his time.  But no, you off and go be a bloody ass cook. Fuckin’ hell…”

He listened to her rant on about what a failure and coward he’d apparently been in multiple lives when he noticed his limbs were getting heavy again.  She continued to go on and on, recounting one inglorious deed of cowardice after another, until she stopped to take another belt from the horn.  “And right about 1940 is where I just started to hate your arse.  Even stopped paying attention to you.  Then today I’m told to be here at this fuckin’ alley and faith be damned who comes a-walkin’ in…”

His vision was beginning to blur again.  Something deep inside him told him she was telling the truth, no matter how improbable it seemed.  Something also told him it didn’t really matter whether she was truthful or not at this point.

He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to him.  “Roan,” he said softly.  The voice coming out of him wasn’t his own but still sounded familiar all the same.

“Aye love,” she said, “tis I. Tis your Roan. And tis you’re time as well it would seem.”

She stood beside him and her armor began to reappear.  Neither her eyes nor her hair changed, however, and her speech stayed the same as it had been for what seemed like hours.  She reached for him and stood him up on his feet with a sharp tug.  He found himself standing before her as his true self, the man from six centuries before who wished to die beside her in battle, as the body of the man he had been closed its eyes and breathed its last.

“Come love,” she cooed at him.  “There’s mead to be drunk and fights to be had and lies to be told.”

“And you to be had,” he intoned as he pulled her close.

“Ahh, and I believe you’ll be needing that tent pole again,” she said coyly as the rainbow appeared and they began their walk to eternity.