“Hello Russell,” the woman said; she didn’t shake his hand, Russell noted. “I’m Agent Dwyers, CIA. Do you remember me? We spoke yesterday. And this person next to me is Agent Kurt Byrne.” Both sat down in front of him on the black chairs in the small padded room of the psychiatric ward.

“I have a memory of your visit, yes,” Russell said. “That’s two of us with a delusion. Him I don’t remember seeing, are you sure he’s real?”

“What do you mean delusion? How can this guy be of any use, Dana? He’s a nutcase like everyone else in here. Let me slap him around and we’ll see if I’m real enough.”

“Relax Agent Byrne,” Dwyers replied, “Russell is not just just any nutcase, he’s a very special nutcase. Aren’t you, Russell?”

Russell remained silent and stared at the man, who stared back at him, clearly irked. “Well,” he finally said, “Maybe he’s real. Maybe he was here even yesterday, and we just didn’t notice him. Or maybe you and I are not real, and he’s here alone, imagining us.”

Agent Byrne threw his hands in the air and glared at his colleague, expectantly.

“Could be, could be,” Dwyers said, ignoring him, “Do you remember our conversation too?”

A nurse walked into the room with a tray and sat down next to Russell, who spontaneously offered his arm.

“So you remember that part as well. Yes, it was a nice conversation. It had some verbs in it, a lot of nouns albeit not many adjectives, except towards the end. Oh, and some parts were rather – intriguing.” He ignored the needle in his arm. Sometimes not seeing was the best way to avoid pain. Other times it made things worse.

“The intriguing parts, yes, ” Agent Dwyers insisted while Agent Byrne shook his head. “Do you remember what they were about?”

“Oh, you mean you don’t remember that part? Did I imagine them?” The nurse wiped his arm with some cotton imbued with alcohol, Russell let the vapours run up his sinuses.

“Oh, no, no, I just wanted to make sure you remembered correctly.”

“I see,” he rubbed his arm and let his gaze follow the cart as the nurse left the room. “Excuse me, did you just see this happen?”

“See what?” Dana Dwyers asked, she seemed determined not to lose her patience as she had the day before. The one named Kurt stood up and walked to the small barred window, growling his train of curses.

“Oh, nothing, nothing. Yes, the bit about that criminal you are hunting for was very interesting. How can he cause hallucinations in people without resorting to drugs, you asked. Could it be hypnosis, you asked.”

“Yes,” she waved for her colleague to sit back down again. It was a complex gesture, indicating both superiority in command and a vague threat of punishment to come, in case of insubordination. There was something else, too.

“Yes,” Russell repeated and smiled.

“Yes, and…?”

“And then a giant cockroach crossed the room, do you remember that too?”

“No… no, Russell, I think you made that bit up,” Dana sighed.

“Pity, that part, too, was quite interesting.”

“Cockroaches!” Kurt snorted as he sat down heavily, “How can this clown help us with our case? Half of what he sees ain’t real and the other half he can’t say straight.”

Russell brighened up at this definition of his condition. “You know? I think you’ve pretty much squared me out, Kurt. The problem is, well, the third half.”

“What would that be?” said Kurt.

“The half I don’t see. You two are lovers, aren’t you?”

The two agents stared back, dumbfounded.

“She’s your boss, and keeps the dominant role in the bedroom as well. You play rough and tough because you know it turns her on. Your colleagues never discovered anything of this except for the usual rumors which go around the building and which you, Dana, occasionally fanned to distract people from the truth. In a certain sense that is not too far removed from the hallucinations which have haunted me since I was born. Rumors in my brain which distract me from reality, whichever that may be. But my mind is broken, and I can sometimes see through the hallucinations, or see other people’s ones, or even not see them, but I know they’re there. I let them go freely, in and out of my breached conscience, and they have stopped bothering me long ago.”

“Ah… yes,” Dana took a deep breath, she was trying hard to maintain her cool. “You have done it again… I knew I shouldn’t have brought you, Kur… Agent Byrne, but you had to see what Russell is capable of.”

“Well, he’s good at guessing people out, I’ll admit to that,” Kurt said. His mask had dropped but he still was holding onto his dignity. “But still a patient in a mental hospital. How can he-”

“He has a natural gift for deduction and is an expert on hallucinations. So, Russell, you’ve had your fun… again. Could you please answer my questions now?” There, she was on the edge of losing her cool. It was not a good idea to let this happen with her boyfriend at her heel. Russell smirked. The woman knew exactly what she was doing when she brought her violent half along with her.

“The answer to both your questions is no. You can’t cause hallucinations in other people without drugs, not even with hypnosis.”

Agent Dwyers hung her head in defeat. Next to her, Agent Byrne straightened up a bit. Things were bound to change a little, in their crazy little relationship, Russell thought.

Both agents stood up at the same time and, without another word, left the room. A pity they didn’t wait long enough to let him find the words to complete his answer. You can’t cause hallucinations, he was going to say, but you can feed and encourage the ones people already have, make them see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear. Sometimes it worked, others it didn’t. The nurse, for example, that one didn’t work.

Where was he now? He looked around; his surroundings didn’t look like a padded room anymore, Dana had expected to find a madman in a psychiatric ward and that’s where he’d let himself be found. Brilliant woman; pity for her delusions on her dead lover. Russell touched his pockets and found a fat wad of bills. Of course it was the result of his most recent robbery but he was amazed nonetheless by the fact that for some reason it hadn’t disappeared. No need for action tonight, it seemed.

He stood up and the black tin can he’d been sitting on toppled over and rolled next to the other two. He wasn’t sure this abandoned warehouse was real, but the door appeared open to him, and he walked outside.

*******

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Refusing to pay attention to his complaining joints he calmly unrolled a red and brown woolen mat, as ancient as him and,  looking at the setting sun far off into the distance, sat down and lit his pipe. 

“You’ve come a long way to die old one.”- the voice sounded like boulders crumbling. Grey Deer took a long puff from his pipe before slowly turning round to face a very stern looking buzzard.

“You have no sense of tact, do you Mosau’u?”

The Death Spirit ruffled his feathers. “I thought I’d dress up for the occasion.” The voice seemed to come from an underground cave beneath the great bird.

Grey deer held the creature’s gaze. “But first, I have a request.”

“I know what you want Masichuvio and the answer is no. Little Tiponi’s time is due. I shall visit her after you.”

“You call me by my Hopi name, you listen to me!” The old man raised his voice slightly. “…or I will refuse to die.”

“That is unacceptable, the other gods will never allow it!” the underground boulders churned.

“Chrome poisoning is not natural, you must tell them her time isn’t due!”

“Only a warrior who completes an impossible task can postpone someone’s death and that’s final.” The spirit of death punctuated with a loud sqwawk.

Grey Deer stood up with surprising agility and faced Mosau’u, nose to beak. “Then give me a task now.”

The buzzard leapt back with a flap of wings. “Now?” Mosau’u looked around at the bare sandy top of the rocky pinnacle. He slowly turned his beak back to the old warrior with a new gleam in his eye.

“Very well, Masichuvio. Walk off this peak without falling. If you succeed, little Tiponi lives, if you fail…well you know what happens next.” The buzzard’s talons scraped the soil in anticipation.

“Walk off this?” the old man said, carefully making his way to the edge of the drop.

“Yes,” the rumble managed to sound gleeful.

“All right…” Grey Deer took a few steps out and turned around, suspended in mid-air, grinning.

“NO! That is impossible! Only spirits can-“

“Look behind you Mosau’u,” the old man said. The buzzard spun around and there, on the ancient mat, John Grey Deer’s body was still sitting and peacefully smiling at the horizon, a thin twirl of smoke could be seen, coming from the pipe resting in his lifeless hand.

“I think you should be the one to tell the other gods,” said Grey Deer’s spirit, “I’ll make an appearance at Tiponi’s house tonight. Enjoy your meal “

With a victorious warrior’s whoop, the old man disappeared, leaving the buzzard alone. Mosau’u stood gazing balefully at the dead man, all hunger gone. “Ahul and the others will be furious at this news,” the death spirit groaned and flew away, leaving the old smiling man’s body intact.

***

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She totally loathed Hungarian.

“It’s just a few sentences,” her boss, whom she also despised,  had said. “You can learn them in one afternoon, and we can impress our clients when they arrive tomorrow.”

It was now three hours to tomorrow, and the afternoon hadn’t brought anything but regret.

For instance, Tessa deeply regretted the one adjective she’d added in her resumè: ‘quick-learning’, a year earlier, and which had led her to be hired by Assist Insurance Inc. and promptly set to work. Officially as secretary, and unofficially as the company’s multi-tool. If anything new turned up, all her boss had to do was deploy the quick learner, she’d get things done. So now the new thing was a hefty contract with a Hungarian bridge construction company whose name alone would make your gums bleed, and which, for some reason, had decided to send a few members of its board all the way to Chicago, for a tour of Assist Insurance headquarters, which was stupid, Tessa thought, since there were no plans to build a bridge inside the building.

‘Now repeat!”

The sentence looked like what a cat would write on a keyboard, if it were tied up and slammed repeatedly over the keys. Tessa clicked the “listen again” button to hear the expert Hungarian speaker say the sentence again. It sounded like what the cat would say.

Tessa tried to repeat the ugly sounds. ‘Wrong!’ the screen flashed back at her, but still in cheerful colors.

She repeated the sentence again in a slightly louder tone. It was supposed to mean “Welcome to Chicago, We hope you had a pleasant flight from Hungary.” Not even ‘Hungary’ sounded like ‘Hungary’ in Hungarian, it was ‘Magyarországra’. 

‘Wrong!’

She listened to the sample again, it didn’t even sound like something a human mouth could pronounce. She did her best to replicate it, in an even louder voice.

‘Wrong!’

Furious, she grabbed the laptop screen by the sides, drew it close to her face and screamed the sentence once more, then grabbed the power chord and yanked it from the wall socket. 

It ripped, there was a bright electric arc and all the room went dark. There was a sharp smell. Ozone, she thought, although she had imagined it to smell differently. This was more of a rotten egg smell.

‘Wrong!’ said the screen of the laptop with battery-powered smugness.

Tessa felt her way to the socket. She pulled out what was left of the plug from the wall, to make sure there was no short-circuit.

Then, begrudgingly assisted by the light coming from the screen, she made it to the the electrical cabinet down the corridor near the entrance to her apartment. She flipped the circuit breaker back up and saw the light return to her living room.

Another thing she saw, as soon as she had taken a few steps, was the large, steaming, horned creature on her sofa.

“You know, I heard you the first time, no need to shout like that,” it said.

Tessa was so surprised she simply forgot to scream. Her legs went from under her and she found herself sitting on the floor.

“Now, don’t act so shocked,” it said as it rose from its seat, “you summoned me by my name. What were you expecting?” The creature’s horns were an inch away from scratching her ceiling.

“Wha… how… name?” Tessa stuttered.

“Jaar-Athoth, Fifth level demon. What is wrong with you? Did the summon backfire and send your brains off somewhere?”

“Su-summon?” Tessa realized she was hyperventilating and held  her breath for a few seconds. The monster stared at her quizzically with its black eyes and red irises. It looked down, as if to inspect her carpet.

Tessa exhaled slowly and took another, slower breath. “Summon?” she repeated, “I most certainly did not summon you. A Demon?”

Jaar-Athoth raised a clawed finger, which then turned downwards as he pointed to the floor.

“Excuse me,” he complained, “where is my pentacle?”

Tessa blinked her eyes at the sudden change of tone. “Pentacle?”
“Yes! Pentacle! Would you stop repeating what I say and start providing some answers? Because I’m beginning to question our current arrangement.”

Tessa did not like that sort of treatment, not from her boss, not from Hungarian clients, and most certainly not from a seven-foot tall, red-skinned horned beast.

“What?” she said, “What? You show up all of a sudden, whatever you are, steam up my living room, not to mention the rotten eggs, scare me half to death and you have demands?”

“Demands?” the demon thundered, “I have existential doubts! For example how did you manage to get me across without a pentacle of protection?”

“Well listen here!” Tessa shouted back, “I’m wondering too what sort of beast you are, if you need to be protected!”

Jaar-Athoth blinked at her in disbelief. “The pentacle should be there to protect your world, to enclose the portal so your reality doesn’t pour down into hell like hot cheese and especially to protect you from me, you nitwit!” His voice had become hoarse with all the shouting.

“Well I didn’t summon you, so no pentacle. Ha!”

The demon plopped back down on the sofa, which almost folded onto itself under his weight. “You have no idea of what’s going on…” he muttered, “…no pentacle…I don’t know how you pulled that trick.” 

He looked back at her, as if he was considering grounding her with no TV. “I could devour your soul, and then consume your body, you know that?”

That was hardly the type of conversation one was expected to have around a coffee table. 

“Oh?” Tessa said. The idea of her sharing the same room with a red-skinned beast from hell, now that she’d gotten over the initial surprise and anger,  was starting to gnaw at her. She began to feel the urge to escape.

“…but I won’t,” said Jaar-Athoth.

“Oh! Oh well, thanks…”

“At least not yet. I’m free, you see, unconstrained. And I suppose quite famous back where I’m from. Nobody’s had a summoning in, oh, at least three thousand years. You can imagine how bored we all were when, all of a sudden, I hear my name being called,” Jaar-Athoth grinned with the memory and Tessa could see the gleam of his white fangs. “You should have heard the cheers, and also the insults!”

“Jealous?” Tessa said.

“Livid green jealous. Hah!” The demon slapped his knee and stood up. “Well, off I go. I might be back, or not. Don’t know.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Outside. No pentacle remember? I am free to wreak havoc and bring hell back on earth. Oh the songs they’ll sing in my name down below. All off tune, of course.” He unfurled a pair of ridiculously small wings. “Mind if I use your window?”

“Ah, no problem…do you really have to do all those things?” Tessa said, but he had already leapt outside.

The room felt strangely empty now, but that’s how rooms probably feel after a horned giant moved out. Tessa had a strange feeling at the back of her head, something about unleashing a demon from hell, which may or may not be all her fault. She shrugged it off. There were more pressing matters at hand. She grabbed her laptop and shut off the stupid language learning program. It had turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. A quick search pointed her in the right direction. She grabbed her phone, navigated the app store to the correct download, paid the $4.99 and a few seconds later a new icon had appeared on her phone. ‘GlobalVoice’ it said. She tapped it, and a menu appeared. She selected input and output languages. Now the screen showed a microphone symbol. 

“Welcome to Chicago, We hope you had a pleasant flight from Hungary,” she said.

“Üdvözöljük Chicagóban, reméljük, kellemes járatot kapott Magyarországról“ the phone spoke back. 

“Nifty!” Tessa said, and went to sleep.

Twelve stories below, an increasingly bewildered Jaar-Athoth squealed as a high-speed car grazed him, the horn blaring haughtily. Fumes from the exhaust gases choked him, neon lights from the many street signs hurt his eyes. The demonic creature stood, wondering which other demon had preceded him, and had successfully turned earth into a living hell. 

***

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Matt Murphy is a private eye. When Matt investigates, cases get solved. Or shit gets real ugly. On good days he manages both.

Today he’s just got himself locked in a room by someone who shut the door behind him while he was exploring.  It’s a panic room so no windows… and the door is bullet proof.

Yep. The shitty part is moving along just fine.

The room’s not his, nor is the house around it. It’s his client’s. Miss Candy Kleinhart’s.

Miss Kleinhart came to him the evening before. “They want to kill me,” she said. Her pleading eyes did the rest.

That and five hundred a day plus expenses. Miss Kleinhart has the money. And the looks.

And now she’s safe and sound in a motel, and they don’t have her.

They have Matt Murphy, and Matt Murphy has a gun.

He knows what they’re thinking, he knows they wanna ask him where the hell he put the sexy bimbo, so he makes them feel confident. He lies down on a small sofa and waits. After a while a key softly jingles before unlocking the door.
There’s a creaky floorboard right in front of the sofa and when it creaks he springs up, grabs an arm and down the body comes under him. Pinned by his butt and his caliber nine. Both deadly weapons.

“Hell!” he says, “What are you doing here?”

It’s the sexy bimbo.

Miss Kleinhart says, “I got a call on my mobile. Thought you were in trouble.”

“We are now, they’re already in the house, or around it.” he looks at the open door.  Nobody there. Yet.

“What’s that hiss?” says Miss Kleinhart.

He looks up and sees the white smoke pouring out of the air vent. “Shit!” He pushes her out of the room and bounces backwards on the couch.
A split second later he emerges from the room trailing sweet smelling wisps.

“Did you breathe it?” she asks.

“A whiff. Run!”

They rush to the front door. Closed.

“Keys?” he says.

“They were in the door.”

“Gone now.” he says. His vision is blurring.

Multicolored flashlights outside. “They’re coming!” she shouts.

Matt fumbles for her hand. “Lead! Hide us!”. He has trouble thinking now, and he’s hallucinating.

A small herd of orange buffaloes gallop by his side. He hears a jingling noise with every step. The buffaloes start humming “jingle bells” to it.

Miss Kleinhart turns sharply right and they’re in a dark room. She closes the door and crouches behind him. “Can you shoot?”

“Think so,” he replies, “quarter past eleven,” he adds, the polite llama in a business suit thanks him and disappears.

Something in the back of his head nags at him.

“Footsteps!” she says. “Kill him!”

He lifts his shooter and points at the door, still the nagging feeling.

Miss Kleinhart screams as the door is flung open.

Matt Murphy drops his gun and holds his open hands high against the bright light.

“What!…  Why?” She shrieks.

“I don’t kill cops.”

A police officer is standing in the doorway. “An anonymous letter in my car windshield said a murder was being committed here.”

“Nearly so,” Matt replies.  He stands up, still woozy. “do you know this woman?”

“Yes. I’m investigating Candy Kleinhart’s business for fraud.”

“So you organized this so I could eliminate him and stop the investigation, right?” Matt says, but Miss Kleinhart remains silent until she’s handcuffed and ready to get into the police car, then she looks at him.

“How did you find out?”

“A lot of small things, but especially this:” he takes her by the shoulders and gives a good shake. The house keys concealed in her bra dance with the rest of its contents.

“Jingle Bells.” he says.

***

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Seven months.
That’s how long he’d been tending to the boiling cauldron. And Gibbin was not sure how long he’d need to continue.
The previous guy hadn’t lasted half as long and the first guy even less. The pay was decent, the food was plenty and the employer, Brazzo the Magnificent, was not so bad. But staring at the fireplace to make sure it never went out had just been too much for the others. Jazanitt, the kid before him, he’d been caught dozing, the fire just a breath away from fizzling out. He had his nose turned bright blue by the enraged magician. Gibbin shrugged. It was an easy job for him. Sure, he could have employed his time differently, getting his own place to stay, finding a girl…but all that could wait, surely.
Here, in the basement of the magician’s tower, he was learning important skills for his future. Maybe he’d be a magician too someday. He had learned so much already. Pity it all had to do with the very simple and menial task of keeping the stuff in the cauldron boiling, but soon, he was certain, he’d get past that bit and learn some more interesting magic.
The door to the basement swung open, a breeze snaked down the stairs and danced with the flames. Gibbin broke away from his own thoughts and made sure the fire was not going to go out.
“Gibbin, my boy!” exclaimed Brazzo, “Tomorrow’s the great day!”
“Really sir?”
“Absolutely.” The wizard descended the steps with his usual grandeur. He was followed by a servant with a stack of wood. “One full year Casimir’s Numinous Elixir of Industrious Displacement has been bubbling away, refining itself. By tomorrow at this time it shall be ready.”
“Oh!” This was the first time the wizard had actually told him what the stuff in the cauldron was. This obviously meant apprenticeship was at hand. “Er… displacement.” Gibbin repeated with a nod, not wanting to sound ignorant.
“Yes,” Brazzo said, then caught Gibbin’s eye and looked away again. “How are we for firewood?”
“Should last the night easily.”
“Well then this is to get us all the way to tomorrow afternoon, a full day from now, exactly.”
“Yes.” Gibbin had a vague idea of what time of day it was, and only caught a glimpse of the sky at random times, when the bedpan was full.
The servant dropped the wood on the floor, rather ungraciously Gibbin thought, and left the room without awaiting for further orders. Brazzo too, turned to leave.
Gibbin took a step forward, as he’d done nearly every time for the past month, always hesitating at the last moment. He wasn’t going to get many more chances though. It was time. “Master?” he said.
“Yes?” Brazzo turned, not missing the occasion to give his cape a flourishing toss.
“When my work here is done…” Gibbin ventured.
“Well then, my lad, you will be free once again, as I will have no more need for you!”
“Oh.”
“Aha,”Brazzo’s expression softened, the long white whiskers at the sides of his mouth angled away from the straight beard as the old wizard smiled. “I know that face. You need not worry because after seven months as my loyal servant, always looking after my precious experiment…”
Gibbin smiled as his heart filled once more with hope.
“…I shall pay you as agreed.”
“Oh.”
“Minus what I spent to feed you of course. Fatten you, in fact.” He prodded the boy’s stomach with his long, bony finger.
“Oh.”
“Now get to work, methinks your nose may change color!”
Gibbin turned and placed another log on the fire.
“And don’t forget to stir the elixir-”
“-every time it bubbles too much. Yes.” Gibbin sighed.
“Very well! Can’t wait for tomorrow!” the wizard applauded and climbed the stairs excitedly.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Gibbin stared at the yellow flames, cursing himself for thinking he’d be worth anything more than the servant who had brought in the wood. He shrugged his anger away. He wasn’t planning on letting the fire die out anyway. Who knows what the wizard would have done to him then. With a solemn promise to never let himself be fooled again, he placed enough wood to afford a few hours of sleep and curled up on the cot next to the fire.
He woke perfectly on time, he’d always been able to do that, as if he’d swallowed an hourglass, his mom would say. He put a hefty load of new wood on the ailing fire, used the bedpan and realized it was time to empty it. He gave one stern look at the fire, it was a professional look, between colleagues, and quickly ran upstairs and outside to empty the bedpan.
Brazzo’s tower was built on the seashore, not too far from Bleakham, It was pearly white and shimmered beautifully in the first rays of the morning.
Gibbin allowed himself a few seconds to take in the view before rushing back inside.
The cauldron was bubbling furiously.
Gibbin lunged for the long wooden ladle and gave the liquid a vigorous stir. Three drops of hot liquid flew up and splashed on his finger.
Before even thinking, he had already put the burning finger in his mouth.
He stood there for a while, staring at the cauldron with his finger like that. Slowly he removed it and looked at it. It was reddish and burned only slightly. There was a curious feeling in his mouth. Not a taste, just an aftertaste, which was odd. Oh well, he thought, such a small quantity won’t do anything, there’s a whole cauldron of this stuff. He went back to his cot to sit, trying not to worry too much, and at the same time feeling himself for any sign of the effects of the elixir.
He was still sitting, with his eyes slightly crossed in reflection when the door flew open. A strong breeze came down the stairs and all but extinguished the fire. Gibbin frantically started placing logs into the fireplace to keep it alive.
“Cut the flames! Cut the flames! It is time!” Brazzo came down waving his arms.
Gibbin started pulling logs away. He smothered the flames with ash.
“Come, come my boy, this is a momentous moment indeed! A most timely time!”
“Will you drink the Elixir?”
“Drink? No, child, not drink, I shall savor a few drops. Three to be precise.”
“All of this potion for just three drops?”
“Not any three drops. The first three. The rest of the potion is useless.”
“Oh,” Gibbin took a few steps towards the exit, but his curiosity prevented him from leaving just then. “So what will it do?”
“Can you keep a secret?” Brazzo said, eyeing the cauldron.
“Yes.”
“I really don’t know.”
“Oh.”
“My specialty are scrolls you see? But I came across one which was not a spell, but a recipe.”
“Casimir’s recipe.”
“Precisely, and Casimir’s known for his immensely potent elixirs and potions.” Brazzo took the ladle gingerly. “And his ridiculously extravagant titles. He is also known for often jumping straight to the ingredients and preparation, while entirely forgetting to put down a description of what the dang stuff does. Anyway it says ‘Elixir’ and ‘Numinous’ and I’m pretty sure it’s one of his good ones.”
“How can you know?”
“He adds ‘Deadly’ to the titles of the bad ones. Deadly bad, Numinous good. I have been dying of curiosity, and you’re making me waste time!” Brazzo had lost his patience. He reached into his robes and produced a small bag of coins. “Here’s your pay. Thank you, now begone!” The wizard grabbed his hand and put the bag in it.
Gibbin turned and started climbing the steps, planning to make a run for it as soon as he was out of sight.
“Wait!”
Gibbin’s blood froze.
“I’ll come up with you. I’ll do this later, it isn’t going anywhere and it’s probably too hot.”
The boy stared at the wizard as the old man passed by him, smiling absently.
“I thought you were so eager…” Gibbin muttered.
“I was, but now I’m not. Simple. I’ll let you out properly.”
He walked out of the tower and set himself on the path which led back towards Bleakham. When he turned around the wizard was still smiling and waving. He shrugged.

The town looked the same as always, nothing had changed in seven months. The roads were still dusty, the river still stank, and the people still ran around shrieking “Mountain troll! Mountain troll”.
No, that last bit was new. Alarmed, he hurried towards his home, it was on the opposite side of town, outside the city walls, where his father and mother were so busy loading the cart they barely greeted him.
“Son!” his father said, half out of breath, “help us out, we gotta move!”
“Hi!” his mother added, her face covered by the pile of laundry she was trying to hoist over the side. “Hurry.” That was the end of his welcome. He started loading the cart too.
“What’s going on?” he asked, caught in the excitement.
“Troll, headed this way.”
“Oh no.”
Trolls were giant blundering creatures which were too dumb to do anything else but walk in a straight line, trampling and attacking anything in their way. The only times they’d change direction was when faced with a significantly large obstacle, such as a reinforced wall, a cliff or another troll. In this third instance the change of direction usually happened after a vigorous exchange of insults in Troll language, along the lines of “Me kill you!” “Me kill you more!” “Ugly!” “Ugly you!” which would last until they both forgot where they’d come from in the first place.
A troll headed toward your house simply meant it was time to get a new house. Gibbin redoubled his efforts.
“Too late! Here he comes!” his father shouted. “Go get your sister!”
Gibbin bolted towards the house just as the bald, grey head of the troll became visible over the treetops. His sister was standing on her bed, looking out of the window at the trees.
“He’s kicking the trees down!” Farria was four but had good observation skills.
Gibbin grabbed her hand. “Let’s go!”
“No!” Farria said, shaking herself free. “I wanna stay another day, let’s go tomorrow!”
“Don’t be unreasonable!”
“No!” she screamed again, and ran into the living room.
“Farria!” Gibbin followed her. The room was empty.
There was a smashing sound outside.
He heard his father’s voice hollering over the noise “Gibbin! There’s no time!”
“She’s hiding!”
“Olanna! Pitchfork!” His father’s command to his mother was quick, resolute, and also stupidly hopeless. Gibbin called his sister’s name a couple of times before giving up. He grabbed the first thing that remotely resembled a weapon and ran to try and stop the unstoppable.
He had tears of despair in his eyes as he burst out of the house, holding a knitting iron like a dagger. His father was holding the pitchfork with both hands, but Gibbin could see nothing in front of him. He kept running. Suddenly his dad dropped the tool and leapt to the side with a yelp. A huge thing dropped from the sky and slammed into the ground where the man had been standing a minute ago. Gibbin realized, as he smacked into a huge toe, that it was the troll’s foot. He stabbed it blindly with his knitting iron.
All was silent. Gibbin looked up at the troll. The troll looked down at Gibbin, who was still furiously brandishing the knitting iron, bent into a pretzel.
“Hmm,” the troll grumbled, “hmmm…”
Gibbin closed his eyes tightly.
“Hmm. Do tomorrow this.” it turned around and went back the way it had come.
Gibbin, his mother and father watched incredulously as the creature disappeared into the distance.
“Bye mister bald troll!” Farria piped from the window.
“There she is now,” his father groaned.
His mother went back to the cart .“Well, I suppose the good news is we have a full day to move before he comes back.”
“He may forget where he wanted to go.” Gibbin looked at his burned finger. The redness had faded away. What was the name of that elixir?
“There’s more pressing matter at hand,” his father said cheerfully, “we haven’t seen our son in months and I’m sure he has some exciting tales to tell us about his apprenticeship with Brazzo the Magnificent. We must celebrate!” He put his hand on Gibbin’s shoulder, and his expression changed immediately.
“Although maybe not today,” his father added with a distant smile.
“Dad,” Gibbin said, “something did happen, so I need you not to touch me.”
“Why is that?”
“I have drunk the Elixir of Industrious Displacement.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have the power of numinous procrastination, I guess.”
“What?”
He touched his dad’s nose. “Do you want to listen to my answer now?”

“No, you’ll tell me tomorrow lad…oh shit.”
“Yep.”

***

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The post Tomorrow Lad and the Blundering Troll appeared first on Sci-fi humor Author Ian Lahey.

I can’t see you, I have no eyes.
I can’t hear you, I have no ears.
I can’t touch you.
I can’t remember you.
I can’t love you.
The void has taken everything from me.
Everything but the lingering thought of you.

Ellie opened her eyes for the first time, and all she could see was white.
“(She’s awake)”
She heard a voice, but she could not comprehend what it was saying.
“Where am I?”, she tried to say, but no sound came out of her lips.
As the white light faded away, she found herself face to face with a young man 

“(-a  I do?)”
She heard another voice, again, speaking in a language she could not understand.
“(Let me see.)”
Another face came into her sight, it was that of a wrinkly old man, his features were tense and his brows were arched as if he were mad, and yet she could clearly see kindness in those icy eyes of his.
“Doctor Ghaus.”
She found herself thinking.
And then again: “Father.”
“(Give me the key)”
Her creator spoke.
“(Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, we don’t know what will… I mean, if she starts to…)”
She watched as the old man closed his eyes, thinking.
“Father,” she tried to say.
Nothing.
He sighed, and opened his eyes again, now staring directly at her face with determination.
“(Give me the key, boy.)”
Her father moved out of the way, and she was left staring at nothing but a white wall.
She felt something in her back, like a tickle , and then something in her core shifted, like cogs in a clock; and then her upper back split vertically into two sections slowly rising up, almost as if they were wings.
Suddenly, a sharp pain took over her whole body. She felt herself trying to scream, but again she couldn’t.
“(Shit. This shit is more complicated than I remember.)”
“(Doc. , I think I heard something.)”
“(Shit.)”
Her father took a deep breath, and than another wave of pain took over her.
Again, she tried to scream.
“(Shit!)”
“(Doc.? I think they’re coming Doc.!)”
The sound of someone knocking on metal.
“(Work, damnit! Work!)”
A final wave of pain shook her to the core, and she heard a scream.
It took her a few seconds to realize it was hers.
“(Let us in!)”
She ignored the ominous voice as she concentrated on her hands instead; her own, moving, human hands, with fingers and nails and flesh.
It felt so strange, being able to move.
A loud thud.
A muffled voice from behind the door could be heard.
“(Damn it. Try again!)”
The young assistant’s eyes went wide.
“(Doc.?!)”
“(Shit. Shit. Shit.)”
There was something in their voices; something Ellie recognized as panic.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
The other two barely even had the time to throw her a perplexed glance before the door burst open.
“(Hands where we can see them!)”
A tall, muscular man pointed something at them, something that felt like danger.
Ellie saw her father and his assistant throwing their arms up high, an was quick to imitate the gesture.
Other two man came into the small room and restrained her companions as the large man pointed his gun at her forehead.
“(Oh my God…)” She heard sadness in his voice. “(Don’t! Please, please!)” her father cried but was quickly escorted out of the door along with the assistant, one of the armed men giving a nod to the one pointing the gun at her before closing the door.
“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” she asked.
The man looked surprised for a second, his muscles tensed and Ellie thought he was going to pull the trigger, but then he relaxed, albeit still pointing the gun at her.
“(Can you understand me?)”
Ellie squinted her eyes.
“(Can. You. Understand. Me.)” The man repeated the same exact sounds, only slower this time.
“What are you trying to tell me?”
The man sadly shook his head. He took a deep breath, and then, with shaky voice, he spoke again:
“(Doesn’t matter. Just… I’m sorry, kiddo.)” He looked her in the eyes. “(I promise you won’t feel anything.)”
And he pulled the trigger.

This short story was submitted by my daughter Sophia Lahey. The artwork for the post is hers as well. Please let us know what you think about it in the comments. Thank you.

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The post Everything but the lingering thought of you. appeared first on Sci-fi humor Author Ian Lahey.