Ron Koppelberger
The Ritual
Iron Crosspoint acknowledged Crisp with a brash expression of trust. Crisp had firmly accepted Irons dedicated resolve. They would breach the veil, forgoing the murmur of immortal deserts and encroaching shades of evil.
Iron delivered the appropriate phrase and slashed the palm of his hand. A well of bright scarlet announced the advent of mortal conclusions. Crisp winced as Iron handed him the hilt of the duel edged blade.
“Yer next!” Iron said pointing to Crisps palm. Crisp closed his eyes and inhaled as he held his breath. With a violent slash his palm was laid open, crimson springs of coppery baptism flowed in rivulets and beaded confluence with the ritual.
Iron held his hand over the bone fragments that were scattered in the shape of a cross, Crisp did the same. The sun shone saffron gold amidst the bones; tiny puffs of dust arose from the arid ground as the blood spattered in gentle rhythm, a rhythm of passion and heartbeats, fury and anger and vengeance. The conviction of bond and infamy wore the lined faces of their determination. They paused in red ribboned whispers of release. The bones rearranged the disarray and a creature of purpose was borne. The anatomy of an enchanting allure in the embers of spirit, in tender devotion to the cause that drove them both. A shadow, a silhouette in shape, in symmetries of divinity and purpose, the legend lay bare in wrath and wonting songs of legend.
It arose from the desert sands and dust in the order of the brotherhood and the task at hand. Growling it flexed its sinew, its breath the incense of a thousand dreams and understanding purpose. The two men stepped back a few paces as the creature considered them. Crisp troubled the bleeding wound on his palm with a complaining grip, hands clasped he remembered the silence of the moment. An empty space filled with cascades of blood, dripping to the dry skeleton of the creature.
A bit of saliva fell to the desolate soil as the beast snapped its muzzle in fussy fanged hunger. Iron reclaimed the moment as he approached the creature.
“EEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!” it cooed. Touching its fur covered paw he intoned a Latin phrase. It moved forward and Iron saw the flames in its eyes. Fields in ash, burning, burning. In staid sober certainty Iron imagined his enemies falling, one by one.
“Burning saffron seas!” he muttered as they began moving westward toward their fate and the vengeance they would exact in fire.
Ron Koppelberger
The Circle
Rationed by burdens of reflection and the omission of pure recollection the secret was a tangled cleaving taboo, a dawn of rare breed, a velocity of ragged union. The sun he thought, the sun. Thrilled in spears of glory and hope, the sun. The embracing alliance and divinity of the fates called in perfect harmony.
He flexed his chapped hands, seeing, seeing the long nails and the growth of fur covering his hands, his paws, his body. Contracted by the skeletons of misery and the faith of crowns that spoke of allure, allure to the darkest realms of shadow and to the wont of seas in saffron gold. Ancient old gardens of naked passion and angels in flight.
He saw the circle of bloodied stones in a dream and the gathering of men. A fracture in the gloss of humanity, the aberration, men in delirium unsatisfied with the gift of wheat, of saffron and light, men of doubtless conviction, nevertheless hell and sin following. He saw the revelation of his purpose. He saw them in his dreams and nightmares, in evening twilight hunts and the glow of the full moon. They waited for the third coming of Eden, their calling, the advent of their damnation.
The stones, guarded by endless waves of wheat, the garden, the blessing, the spell of patience. The men would open the seal and the old garden would burn, and the lycanthrope would sense the wont of mortals in trespass. The stones, the palace of blood and dust, waiting for the blood rush of sacrifice. They would spill blood there, in the circle of rock and granite and the wolf would scream, scream for the angels to champion the secret place and the garden.
The men would destroy the saffron conclave, in their gathering of destruction, hate and greed……unto the advent of the last, the conflict between good and evil, war and eternal blessings.
Falling to his hands, changing he ran toward the endless eternal wheat. Perhaps a wolf can peruse the world he thought, perhaps.
Ron Koppelberger
Symbiotic
The benevolent knowledge of an independent seed the labor of an absurd schism and free will………even in symbiosis.
The fullness of the day was necessary to the ecology of Avion; Axion concealed his disdain with the piercing ache of sunshine showers and daffodil dreams. Avion whistled and hummed an old gospel hymn and Axion cringed. The vaguely occult twinkling of darkness touched axions lips as he muttered a curse. Avion slapped Axions hand in a high five gesture. “Cheer up Axion, it’s a beautiful day.”
Axion grimaced as his teeth ground in irritation. When Avion bent down to pluck a rose from the gentle rambling rose bush the sound of a blue jay screamed overhead. Axion bent in synchronous compliment to Avion. Axion caught the misty bouquet of Attar as Avion waved the perfect blossom under his nose. Avion smiled, “Come on brother, be good.” Axion chuckled and smiled back sheepishly. As they carried the newspaper into the house, hand in hand, the postal matron drove by and stared with a bemused fascination. The Siamese twins, the pair, one body and two very wonderfully functioning heads, turned and waved at the mail car as she drove by.
Ron Koppelberger
Lusty Cares
The necromancy was a passionate pastime in Truck Snarls pale-faced demeanor. He lusted in an elegant alliance with the wont of power, sex and pleasure, any pleasure. Truck sneered at the tiny auburn haired Daisy Chit. She was perched on the edge of the sofa as she baptized her tiny mouth with a splash of Canada Gold.
Truck felt a tense prickling across the nape of his thick bullish neck; he thought in waves of scarlet, a charcoal assessment, cauldrons and warlock amore’. He had memorized the invocation,
“Wills and thrills
Deem it in dreams
And tender seams
Give me yer turn and
Accept the magic’s
We burn.”
As he said the word burn he drew the Gillette stiletto across his hand. A fine spray of crimson followed the shaving blade in a misty arc as it splattered Daisy. They waited and measured the moments by the puddle of scarlet tears beneath Trucks palm.
Truck touched the edge of the blade and looked at Daisy. She was leaning back against the sofa staring at Truck, she whispered,” Come to me love…..,” Truck smiled and moved toward the couch. His palm print stained the beige cushion with red smears as he scooted up close to Daisy.
“ ye got some homespun for daddy Daisy?” Truck said as he kissed her full on the lips.
“ I got the best in beasts baby.” she sighed as his hand caressed her thigh.
The light grew dim and a gentle rumbling rain began to pour in cascades and buckets. Truck knew it was raining inside the house, nevertheless he was entranced by Daisys passionate response.
The air hummed and rumbled as Daisy called out in the throes of passion,
“Rage and downy allure
Come and be sure.”
Truck screamed a moment later as the house tore in two, a division of light and terror, of sylvan egress and whiskered demons in bloody raptures of Canada Gold and crimson smeared cushion.
Something huge, unbidden, unbridled and ancient reached through the rend in space, the torn half of Trucks space. Truck fought and screamed as the phantasm consumed him, as the specter of forever told a tale of obsidian shadow and gray ghost. He slipped and turned in tumult as the air closed around him; an instant later he was gone.
Daisy apologized to the empty space where Truck had been and sighed with a tired requiem. The day turned twilight and Daisy became a picture in ash as she walked through the shadows between what had been and what was a new world of contrasting wonder.
Ron Koppelberger
Ambitious Sashay
Anticipating the hour of promise and wedded victory, she acknowledged the passing seconds and the breath of a momentary pause. Prudence Array prayed in abeyance to the passing rhythm of her heart, her exhalations, “ I must be patient.” she whispered to the empty chair. Shifting in her seat the silk shirt clung to her bossom in a provocative curve of definition.
She touched the corner of her slightly down turned lips and thought. The phantom sanity of a dream, the substance of a real spirit, was it worth the wait, would her careful patience reward her with the treasures of a sated heart she pondered.
The clock on the wall read eleven fifty-five, exactly five minutes to midnight. Prudence adjusted the hem of her skirt and sighed. The day had been spent fervently endeavoring and preparing, a touch of cinnamon and a daisy in stew pots of ripe wine. She had sipped the concoction with thirsty desire and expectant drama. The potion and the essence of magic desires, the potion had to work, work for her and in gentle passions cured.
Prudence fingered the gold locket about her perfumed neck. It was shaped like a heart and latched in two unfolding compartments, each containing a picture. She opened the locket and stared at the photograph of her and her late husband. He was encouraging a gentle smile and an expression of boyish affection, trim with a rose in his lapel, he had been a handsome man. Prudence snapped the locket shut and looked at the clock again, one minute had passed, eleven fifty-six.
Candles in scarlet bouquets of mist burned in the tiny living room, enveloping the wants and aspirations of Prudence Array in shadow and dark flickering silhouette. She inhaled nervously nearly gasping, the magic of the potion, the potion made by careful hands, descried by the leather bound witches Grimoir, had to work, she had to have her husband, her love, the substance of her existence.
The spell promised the return of loves lost, crossing the boundary, the fray of what breaths and what sleeps in patient concerns of soul. She leaned close to the tan leather recliner, it had been her husbands favorite. She could see him, a glass of brandy and a cigarette burning in the crystal ashtray her mother had given them as a wedding gift. He would trace the line of the glasses edge with the tip of his finger, humming, sometimes reading the Sunday paper.
She looked at the clock again, another minute, another waiting second of desire for the smoke of the past. The potion had to work, it had to.
He had clutched at the velvet robe he was fond of wearing. A hiss of air had escaped from between his lips and in an instant he was dead. Prudence had struggled, struggled to coax his cooling body into the canopied oaken bed they shared. She saw herself and denied the vision as an illusion, the difference spoken of by her guilty apathy and suspicions of murder by petty collusion with tonics and secret flourishes of nightshade.
Prudence denied the deed as she prayed for another minute to pass. The witches potion had to work, she had to be with her husband again. The seconds passed and near midnight she fell unconscious with the hope that her husbands ghost would appear to forgive her, to grant her peace and the sanctity of an unbetraying heart. She slept and she dreamed in confusions of rose colored shadow, she dreamed the visage of her husband in alabaster and angel wings. He waved and a mixture of scarlet tears and fresh rain shower rained down and around her; in that moment, sometime after midnight, she was cleansed of her guilt.
She awoke the next morning and amended her stature to an ambitious sashay, a certain step in time with the forgiving nature of an angels heart and the lines of fate, more attuned to the love of a devoted wife.
Ron Koppelberger
Custom Built
The sky sang in revolutions of orange flame, a frayed twilight bleeding indigo shadows. The wind whispered secrets to the gathering of excited spectators, a gentle caressing consciousness in the way of those who desire the rave of an awareness, the purity of an affected miracle, a dream made substance and given the wide-eyed expectancy of a wonting crowd.
The clearing was secured by the pines and the briar scrub of a sylvan wild, the only egress a footpath, dusty, well traveled and foretelling the end of the trail.
Sable Style stood poised in the center of the clearing, surrounded by the denizens of Houghton Common. He smiled and paced the clearing, back and forth, back and forth. The crowd tittered in anticipation and Sable screamed, “ Tis in the company of dreamers and saints, by the lords of magic and the love of those who dare to embrace, watch and be amazed!” He crouched in readiness and then he threw himself to the ground. Plumes of dust flew up around him as he beat the dirt with his flailing limbs. The crowd swayed and whispered as Sable grunted and convulsed. Finally, his excited condition abated and he, once again, stood before them. The crowd oooohhhhhed and ahhhhaaaaaed for a moment as Sable stretched his arms upward. His checks were smudged with dirt and he had grown a pair of horns, twelve inches each. His cloths hung in tatters about his frame. “ The blessings of Houghton be tenfold with the mystery of the horned angel; you’ll prosper and the needs of a generation shall be met.” He sang in softly sibilant tones. The crowd hungry for the promise hoisted the demon onto their shoulders and carried him in bond to Houghton Common.
In the rise of Sable Style, Sunday gave notice and the towns fathers, the merit of a generation in desperate need, unbosoming wont, were tried as common criminals and taken to the gallows post.
Sable, in reflection, spoke to himself in conclusion, “They found the law of beast and demon for the wont of a moment, a breath of fire, a living sin at the cost of their souls and the wont of a generation.” In retrospect he realized he was custom built by the age of ignorance.
