Train to a New Town

That harsh and ashen wind couldn’t reach him here. Huffing through his gas-mask, he crept down the cracked concrete steps on tired, burning legs. He had been expelled from the bunker with little notice and only had enough time to bring a few essentials with him. Even so, his inventory gave him plenty of anxiety. A shoddy gas-mask did nothing to protect him from the radiation that almost certainly permeated everything around him. He didn’t see another living thing in the entire time he had been walking from the bunker’s vault door. Nearly 10 miles of dead city crawled past him, slow as the toxic clouds that crawled above, the dusty earth beneath his feet crunched like grainy snow beneath his heavy grey boots. If he had a weapon, he probably would have drawn it as he peered around the corners of the entryway of the tunnel, searching for signs of anyone who might have made a home underground, only to find stark darkness. His hand-cranked lantern made things better, but its light only went so far in providing comfort. The six cans of beans in his bag were on his mind. They weren’t going to be enough to survive on for very long. But food was only a fleeting concern as he realized that he had forgotten to bring water. 

He sat for some time in the abandoned subway station and wept. He should have known that his time in the relative safety of the bunker was limited, but he was naïve, and distracted by the perverse romance of the apocalypse. All those rich folks in the bunker clearly had plans, and many had known each other before the disaster. He only ended up there because of his sister, who he had been visiting, that let him join her and her friends in that rich man’s survival fantasy. The one who called himself the Overseer did not like them. New money, to be met with a raised brow and a sneer. One day, she fell ill. The next she was too ‘resource heavy’ to take care of. Then she was dead and he was detained in his room under the pretense of being potentially infected. No one told him what was going on until it was far too late. Then the Overseer came to visit him, wearing a hazmat suit as he sat across from him. He concluded that the only thing he could do was to condemn him to a summery banishment, saying it as though it was a merciful decision. He was given mere minutes to pack before being corralled to the entry of the vault and thrown out. 

Now, in this darkened tunnel, he choked on his own tears and felt hot blood rushing under his cheeks. His mask choked his sobs, making him dizzy as he let his situation get the best of him. It was hopeless. He stood and walked on, blinded by tears and foggy lenses, deeper into the old subway station, ignorant of any potential threats. What did it matter anyway? With no water he’d be dead in a matter of days. Less if the radiation is as bad as they had said it was in the bunker. He stumbled onto the platform that once hosted crowds of commuters, but now was home to nothing but dust and dead rats. He undid the straps of his mask, tired of it denying him a fully-fledged breakdown. Free from the protective smother of his gas-mask, he let out a mournful moan before once again collapsing into tears. It really was the end. Humanity had finally done it. The air smelled like rotten eggs floating in an over-chlorinated public pool. Not a single thing scurried in the darkness of the station platform. 

His sobbing would eventually give way to silent weeping. When his lantern flickered and ran out of power, he sat there in the dark for some time and listened. It hurt to breath, but he did what he could to steady himself. Eyes closed, he tried to meditate. Instead, he must have fallen asleep because the next thing he remembered was waking with a start. When he woke he realized just how sore he was. His bones ached in ways they hadn’t before. His fingers were tightly swollen in his gloves and his head felt the same way. He could feel a ringing reverberation through his body. It was a throbbing sort of feeling, pulsing across and into his skin. He was cold, but he was sweating. He cranked his lantern until light once again poured from it. When he stood, he stumbled, his legs buckling just slightly any time he put his weight on one too zealously. Was he always this weak? He couldn’t help but wonder to himself if taking the mask off had been a good idea, but he quickly reminded himself that it didn’t matter. He was not meant to survive his banishment. He hobbled his way down the platform to the end of the aisle, swinging his lantern around to peek into the darkest corners of the station. It was empty. There was still nothing but dust. Not even corpses to keep him company. Standing, he again closed his eyes, feeling tears coming, but in a moment, the urge subsided. There, with his eyes closed, he imagined that the light he could see through the veil of his eyelids was the sun, and when he opened his eyes, he would be home, sitting on his little porch, enjoying a sunny afternoon. He stood this way, holding on to that hopeful memory, knowing that if he opened his eyes, it would prove to be untrue. His sun was only his lantern. His porch was only this doomed platform. Then came a cough, a cough that he did not expect to come out of him, a whooping sort of dry cough that made him drop his lantern and double over. As it subsided he picked up the lantern to see blood on his gloves where he had covered his mouth. 

He walked along the tracks for quite some time, occasionally stopping either to cough, or to recharge his lantern. He lost track of time in those dark tunnels, talking to the walls as though they listened, telling them of how unfairly he had been treated, of how much he missed his sister and how he wondered if there were other bunkers out there. He walked until he reached another platform, just as derelict and empty as the last. Climbing onto the platform winded him, his wheezing causing him significant discomfort. Leaning against a support beam, he allowed his lantern to fizzle out. Exhausted and hopeless, he once again fell into sleep. He woke to a distant sound. In the dead quiet of the dark chamber, he poured what little focus he could muster into the noise. It was something like a hum. As he listened, he realized that it was coming closer! The closer the hum came, the more it sounded like an engine, grumbling through the tunnel. Soon enough, he could make out the clacking of wheels along steel tracks. Frantically he stumbled to stand and snatched up his lantern from the floor, cranking to revive the light. Then he heard it. A horn! Like the kind that signals the arrival of a train! In no time at all, a piercing light appeared around the bend of the dark tunnel that approached the stunned man who now stood feebly on the station platform. The train pulled around the bend, slowing down as he stared at the empty seats within the lit carriage. The train stopped with one set of doors right in front of him. They opened, inviting the exile on board. He stepped into the train and looked at all of the pristinely clean, empty seats in the railcar.

A soft and crackly voice spoke over the intercom and greeted him, “Welcome new passenger. Please take your seat.” 

He stood there stunned for just a moment before quietly shuffling to one of the seats by the window. Looking down at his own hands, he realized that his gloves were clean, no longer bloodied by his coughing. In fact, the urge to cough had died down entirely. He never thought he could miss sitting in the notoriously uncomfortable seats of the subway train, yet he here he was, overjoyed at the opportunity. The train’s brakes squealed out of place and the locomotive began to slowly leave the station. As he looked out of the window, he saw a ragged looking man staring vacantly at the train. The man was holding a lantern, but as the train began to depart, he dropped it. Pulling away from the station, the exile watched the ragged man collapse to the ground at the edge of the platform, his gaunt and familiar face lit by bluish light of the lantern. The train gained speed. The air no longer smelled like a rotten swimming pool.

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The Tale of the Immortal Shaman

Many moons ago, long before we learned the plow, our clan was watched over by a shaman of great power. In that time, the shaman’s role was far greater than the mere storyteller of today, tending to the ill, guiding the people in their times of need, and mediating disputes. In his great mastery of the magicks of the world he crafted a powerful potion that, after passing his lips, granted him an eternity of life. Arrowheads would split and shatter against his breast, illness and corruption evaded him, and age refused to draw near to him. Under his unwavering watch, our clan flourished. No others dared raid our camps, and his wise council kept the people of our clan united in harmony. For many generations, our people were happy and our bellies were full. But even for the immortal, good times do not last forever. Traders who once frequently came to them from the north, stopped suddenly and entirely. The wise and weary shaman sent his fastest scouts to learn of the cause. They returned with a strange and dreadful tale; they discovered a massive mountain of pale, misty blue ice that peered over the horizon of their narrow canyon valley. The path out of the valley was now blocked by this ice, ice that the eldest of the scouts promised rested atop the mountains only weeks prior.

The shaman did not worry at first. He had known that, at times, mountains shed their ice in a calamity not unlike a dust-storm. Though trade with the northerners enriched the clan for as long as even the shaman could remember, he knew that with their abundant resources and his careful leadership, they would outlast this slinking ice. It was not until the appearance of the old oracle of the wood that the shaman grew to worry. She was brought before the shaman roughly, as she had approached from the woodland of the south, home to the hostile and primitive tribes that once raided the storehouses of our people. When he realized who was before him, he bade his guards to leave and apologized to her profusely. Unaffected, or perhaps uncaring, the oracle-hermit delivered her message without regard for his apologies. She foretold of doom. The gods and the spirits of the land had taken notice of the shaman’s obscene undeath and set into place events to return things to balance. “The mountains will descend upon your people,” She told him, “The warnings were clear. The southern clans have all found ways to flee, but you in your arrogance ignored the signs. You chose to separate from bosom of the land and now, you and your progeny will pay the price. The gods do not take well to being cheated, nor do they know mercy for those they catch.”

Perhaps a long time ago, the shaman would have felt anger, or even fear at the grim messenger before him, but in his age he knew to heed the words of oracles. Her accusations were true. Long ago he ceased to be affected by the unpredictable tides of fate and since then he had allowed his attention of their omens to slip. He only asked her, “What can I do?”

Her response was somehow clear, but cryptic. “You must flee, as those you call primitive did before you. The children of your clan did not choose to defy fate. It was you who chose this for them. Lead them away from this valley and pray your redemption will come from theirs.”

“How can we flee?” He asked, “The mountains at our flanks are uncrossable. The forests to our south are foreign to us. The trees will devour us. And now the valley is blocked by ice.”

“Your trial has begun.” She said with a sorrowful look in her eyes, “You must hurry before the gods take their revenge in full.” They sat in silence for a few moments before she stood and spoke her final words, words that our clan repeats to this day whenever the fates take one of us away, “The Earth demands balance, and so it demands that men must die.” She left his tent. The shaman sat in silent thought. It was time to move again.

At that time, our clan hadn’t moved any significant distance in generations. The valley had been incredibly plentiful when they found it, and the shaman’s wisdom allowed them to keep it so. He thought that this would be the balance that would redeem his disobedience to fate. Due to the near-sedentary state of his people, they took the news of their need to move with difficulty. They gathered their things slowly, many struggling to leave behind the luxuries they couldn’t carry. While they dallied, the shaman made his way to the mountain of ice that seemed to loom closer to them with each passing day. He did not have to walk long to find it. The looming plateau was a massive block of stone and ice as wide as the mouth of the valley. It was almost gently sloped with the exception of the ice that reached up to his knees, which was sheer. The shaman listened carefully. The ice moaned faintly against his ear. He could sense it was moving towards them.

The shaman returned to our people and gathered the strongest men and the strongest clubs and hammers. The shaman brought his bronze adze, the only such metal implement in the clan, brought long ago by far-travelling merchants. The men marched to the ice and began the work of carving a set of crude steps into the largely gentle slope. They worked until the sun set, and again for the entirety of the next day. The shaman cut the last steps himself, his bronze pick the only tool able to shape the stone-like ice at the top of the plateau. When they were done, a roughly hewn staircase adorned the side of the icy mountain. At the top, he looked over the horizon and saw the ice stretching far as he could see. This journey will be hard. He shivered. This mountain seemed to draw cold air from high in the sky and send it cruelly cascading downwards.

The people of our clan loaded up their backs with supplies. Many carried their children in their arms. The mountain sent cold spirits into the anxious village, bringing with them an unnatural chill that most of our people had never experienced. Our clan followed the shaman to the mountain of ice with little resistance, as they were accustomed to following his orders and trusting his judgement. He, of course, was the first to set his foot on top of the ice again, followed closely by the young, strong men of the tribe. As our clan reached the summit, they saw that their journey had only begun and many began to despair. The cold was harsh and unfamiliar to the clan. As they regrouped atop the mountain, dark clouds began to brew above them as thin, frozen flakes gently fell to their feet.

The shaman led the group slowly, hoping to keep our vast numbers together, but the gods would not allow his trial to be so simple. The dark clouds above them turned from producers of benign specks of snow to angry, howling beasts, blowing harsh white winds into the eyes of our people. So long as the shaman’s voice boomed over the winds, the hearts of our people kept strong, but as soon as the storm began to drown his voice, panic began to set in. The quaver in the hearts of the masses broke into full fear when the storm came to fruition, the winds taking a thick and milky tone, stinging any exposed skin and soaking furs. No one could see further than the distance of their hands from their faces. The shaman could feel his control of the crowd slipping. He could feel the anarchy of fear brewing within our clan.

He tried to give commands to the young men around him to create a human perimeter around the tribe, to lend him their voices to lead the people, to help him, but they could not hear his words. The wind buffeted and fought each step forward, and screamed in the shaman’s ears. The snows funneled around his body and froze him deeply and bitterly. He turned to yell to his people, but found that they were no longer at his back.

It is said he wandered atop that mountain, lost in the storm meant just for him, for weeks, but the truth is, we do not know. We do not know how long he was lost atop that cursed hill. Many of our people became lost in that storm. Separated from the clan, either by bad luck or by weakness, they died in the cold. It was those that, like today, stood with the clan and held to the clan that survived and lived to tell this cautionary tale. Those of us that were left eventually found the other side of the mountain, at the mouth of the valley. At this end, it tapered off to the earth below with a softly sloped hill. As we approached the end, the storm cleared. We somber survivors climbed down the hill numbly and from our dwindling numbers established a sort of council composed of those who had been close to the shaman, surviving elders, and any who had useful skills or knowledge, including a man who was my forefather. They led the clan to new lands through clear and merciful weather.

In time, the clan settled in a place that could sustain it for some time. We knew we would have to move further soon, but the council wished to find the shaman, the man who had led our clan well for generations. The mountain was strange. Every day its shape changed ever so slightly and it moved little by little towards the heart of the valley that our people once called home. It took many days of searching, but one day, my own forefather heard a familiar call coming from the ice. Following the call, he came to a slim opening in the ice from which the eternal voice of the shaman bellowed. Blinded by the snow and thrown into confusion by the wind, the shaman had fallen into a crevasse deep in the ice. His legs, the shaman explained, were pinned, and he could not move. His hands could not grip. He complained of the cold and my forefather slid his own furs down to the shaman.

Entire crews of young men tried desperately to free the shaman from his trap, but their stone tools could not stand up to the rock-hard ice on top of this plateau. As the days passed, the shaman sunk deeper and deeper into the mountain, until he was all but invisible to the world. Then, there came storms, rains that kept our clan busy moving to higher ground and building better shelter. When the men returned to the shaman, the rift that held him was nearly closed. They called to him, but he did not answer. One by one, the men abandoned their former leader for dead, until only my forefather remained. He listened to the ice for a long time. As the sun began to set, my forefather called out one more time. To his surprise the shaman spoke. His voice was surprisingly clear, though he was no longer even visible through the ever-thinning entrance.

“This is my curse, trapped undying in this unholy ice.” He said, “The eternal punishment for my eternal hubris. I know and accept this now. I struggled against it when I fell, a struggle I’m sure only doomed me more. I struggled again when I heard you return for me, yet, since then the mountain has only pinned me further. Return to the others. Live well and tell them my tale. Let them know that the earth always returns to balance. The arrogant will of one man, no matter how great or just, will always work to destroy the integrity of his people. Trust only in the clan, the whole. Live together with this earth, or die in vain struggle against it. Remember this if you remember only a single thing; the earth demands balance, and so it demands that men must die.”

My forefather listened to these words and waited for more to come. When none did, he waited still. Night fell around him and the cold began to turn intolerable. The wind moaned for him to leave. He tried to call again, but received no reply. And so, he left. He told the clan of what he heard and they, in turn, bestowed upon him and his descendants the role of shaman. But my forefather was a wise man, and he listened well. He heeded the warning of the undying shaman trapped in the ice. He remembered his tale and told it, like he did many other fables and stories. He did it for the clan and only for the clan, never seeking glory, riches, or magic. He did this, as did his son, and his son after him. And here I am, doing the same. It is my humble service to our people. No longer do we seek to control this world, to cheat nature of her harvest, or lead our people to greatness. Now we are tasked with remembering. Remembering the warnings of our ancestors, the stories of our people, the lessons we have learned living here. Heed my words. Balance will always prevail no matter your power or your will. Always, it waits until the time is right to correct our wrongs. Always, it wins.

The Art of the Day

Everybody knows why pastry rules

But no one ever asked

Why

The cookie crumbles

Check ‘em out, how they grasp at the vivid

Baubles of us rich kids

Your effort if you wanna call it that,

Is not something I got

Respect for cuz if art

Means ducking under

Reason’s radar and woefully

Fabricating complexity

All to make a boy a touch closer

To trending, then hell,

You can do it all baby,

Without me.

               

It’s like that big famous museum

You know,

That one,

You see that shining lady over there, or that man with

Glittering eyes.

O! How they weep

For the hanging piece

It’s like the last bit of

A puzzle, But

It’s not

And all that proves it

Is that noise

When someone who

Really works

Vacuums the floor next door.

But hey I got my illusions too,

All tastes aside,

And since I’ve sworn

Up and down to take it

All very seriously,

Because I know I’m not allowed to laugh

About this n that

Or conflate honor with

Some dumbass

With a dictionary and an expensive camera

And a chip on his shoulder but,

Look, anyone can come home

From wherever to see

The sort of business us lesser

Grunts have been up to

From climbing peaks to digging pits

Both familiar and far and fun and not so much, but

My mind hasn’t changed

And though this is all a whole lot

Of fun

It really is

Undeniably

Stupid.

The Principles of Civilized Society

Let's see who walked into the wall, brick by brick always waiting until next Friday, whose high-pitched voice boxes chant old tabloid headlines, who yell ‘bozo’ at passersby while shakily chain smoking, whose whole lifetime seemed like a decade but had been six, who faded back into time to an era nearly as incomprehensible as this one, whose oil fields were looked at with deep hope and no one really had any notion of having nice teeth,

Who first molded bricks from the river Nile with hopes of something more sturdy than reeds and mud, whose innovative dentistry was still no match for ours, who crave barriers for a lie we made the mistake of giving a name, whose adrenaline rush is frankly both unfair and embarrassing, but useful in a pinch, and who hasn’t been in one of those?

But who guessed that those bricks would one day evolve to build for us great Giza and many, many walls, whose facades at times would be decorated,

Or painted with crude taunts, lives of their own, who were written by the young and the angry and bored officers of the law, whatever the difference may be, whose gap-toothed grins burned so many to death in too many ways to count, who bleed, or fall into shock, or vanish from the face of this Earth, whose veins aren’t showing like they used to, who in an uninspired twist of fate was, in a way, responsible for its own fate, whose bounty was too good to resist, who could never resist the pull of anything and collapse like neglected ancient tombs, whose hidden treasures were never good enough for the hands and mouths of men, who hunted, whose mysterious trauma could never be dealt with, who instead chose to fashion bricks and build palisades block by block in an uncompromised delirium, whose glue-huffing kinsmen have gotten well out of control, who first gave fear its cursed name and tricked us into idolatry,

Who rides on the broken backs of billions, too late for a four-star ending, we, who never trust gleaming white smiles, oh and just remember, if I may quote the Devil, it’s off to work, or it’s off to jail.