nova fiction guest article #5

NOVA FICTION GUEST ARTICLE #5
#4 was just posted prior to this, my regular article posted in an hour.
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Sharon didn't bother to get up but the short haired White guy did. He was fast too. He had a black handled pocket knife that he flicked open as he jumped up. Sharon said through what looked to be a mouthful of General Tso's chicken "Chzzennn!" Short haired White Guy relaxed a bit, started to smile, then froze in place. So did Sharon. I didn't get it. I thought it was me so I said "Hi Sharon!" I looked at the Short Hair White guy and said "That was pretty cool." I liked the clicking sound the knife made when it opened. Sharon swallowed slowly and said "I hope he is with you."



"Huh?"



She jerked her head rapidly a couple times. I stared at her. She said exasperatedly "Behind you."



I turned around. "Hi Roy." He was standing in the doorway with a .45 in his hand. One them old ones from the war movies. I looked back at Sharon and said "This is Roy. He's joining us. Roy that's Sharon and I have no idea who the guy with the knife is."



Roy didn't move. Instead he said "Put the knife away." The Short Haired White guy did. I went sat down next to Sharon and asked "Can I have some of the chicken?"





Sharon rolled her eyes at my chicken request but nudged the box towards me."How was jail" she asked. "Fine. I wasn't there long. Can I use your fork?" She looked taken aback. "You want to use my fork?"



"Sure. Why not?"



"No reason. Hang on. I'll get you a clean one."



She stopped as she passed Roy and asked him if he wanted a bucket to sit on.



"That would be good. Thank you."



I watched her walk away. I looked away when she went around the corner and found both White Guys and Roy were staring at me. Short Haired White Guy had a faint smile. His buddy, if that's who he was, looked bored. Roy just looked tired. You want any chicken Roy?" He didn't want any. Instead he wandered off. Probably looking for the bathroom I thought. Every old person I ever knew, all three of them, had bad kidneys and had to pee all the time. So I asked Short Haired White Guy "What's your name?"



"Rick."



"Why are you here Rick?"



"Because I saw the video on youtube and recognized Sharon when I saw her walking down the street yesterday. Because I live two houses down. Because I have been unemployed for over 109 weeks." He stopped here and waited for a response from me. "What about you?" I asked the long haired version. He shrugged and said "Because...



I thought about what he just said and let it go for now. This was not the time and chastising rude people.





"What's that you're eating Rick?" I pointed at the box by him.



"Rice. It's all gone." He added "I like your staff. Cool head."



I had propped STAFF against the wall behind me. Having these things like STAFF and SWORD was cool and HE gave them to me and all but I was having a problem getting comfortable with them. "Yeah. I like it too. Roy added the head. HE gave me the staff."



Sharon was back and handed me a clean fork. I said a prayer of thanks out loud and dug in. She had also set up a bucket for Roy to sit on. We were going to have to get some furniture it looked like. She settled in and the BIG discussion began. I didn't say much about my adventures. That was fine with everyone. Sharon and Rick filled the conversational hole for us. At one point Sharon lit a candle which made the entire talking thing pretty cool for about ten minutes more than I could usually stand. I noticed Roy was yawning. Once he started I began which didn't pass unnoticed. Sharon saw me, laughed, and said "You want us to wrap it up Chosen?"



Before I could answer Rick jumped in with "But what are we going to do next? I mean I haven't heard a plan. I've got a few ideas that I would..." I cut him off. "You want a plan? I don't do plans. HE does plans. We make them happen." I stood up and grabbed STAFF from where it was leaning against the wall. You want a goal? To return America to the rule of HE who knows. To cleanse the land of of the parasites and all their work. To return to a sustainable lifestyle that doesn't kill the planet with poisons for profit. To cut the head off every snake we find starting with the bankers." All of a sudden I was tired. Really tired. So I said "Good Night" and left to see if I still had my sleeping bag.



I woke up from a dream where a man wearing a gunfighters holsters was coming after me. The guns were still holstered and he was smiling but that smile, it was not a happy smile. It was death and so was he. He was with a wolf who was growling like a chainsaw and I knew once he killed me the dog would gnaw on my bones. I sat straight up and looked around while my hand frantically searched for SWORD. It felt like it took forever to find it find where Sharon had set it but I calmed down once I had her in my hand. The sound was real and close. Very close, but once the panic had subsided I recognized it for what it was.



I set SWORD back down and sent my hand in search of what I thought of as the "Piss light." It was a key chain light that barely qualified as illumination when it was new. Now it was only good for showing me where the door was so I could find my way out to take a leak at night. Sometimes I used it as a quick night light too when I heard the sounds of claws scratching in the walls. Life after sundown was dark. Life in a basement room with out a window after dark was total darkness. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face until I made it out to the sliding glass door room.



I pressed the tiny light clicker and saw the outline of a body lying on the floor next to me. Roy had found a place to sleep and I had a new room mate. I felt like kicking him for snoring but I decided to go sit outside until I was sleepy again plus I wanted to see if Rick was still here. I really wanted to peek inside Sharon's room but decided not too. It wouldn't be right and I wasn't sure I wanted to know anyway. I made it through the main room and slid the sliding glass door open. No sign of Rick along the way either. I left the glass door open, it was cool outside and we could use some of that cool air inside.



I walked to the edge of the trees behind the house. My path through the night grass left a darker trail behind me as the dew clung to my legs and cooled them. It wasn't completely quiet out here. It's very rare that it is. The creatures of the night were out doing what they did and talking to each other or themselves as they did it. I found a place to sit and told myself to remember to look for ticks when the sun came up. I liked to pray at night. My reception seemed better. Probably because there was less prayer traffic clogging up the prayer pipes that led to HIM.



I knew I was supposed to kneel. I usually started that way but after a couple of hours it would became too uncomfortable and I would end up sitting. I knelt and looked up at the sky. There were hardly any stars as usual. What looked liked stars were planes and satellites I had been told. I still thought of them as stars, just really crappy ones. Man made stars were what they were. I asked HIM if it was possible that one day they would all be wiped from the sky and the heavens opened up to let the real stars, HIS stars, to shine through. I hadn't got a reply on that request yet. I wasn't in a hurry. HE would get around to it when HE had time.



I was kneeling and trying to pray. I say trying because I was having trouble focusing because my stomach had started to not hurt. Not hurt as in pain. I mean it felt full an achy. Plus I was seeing spots of light. Bright ones. I knew what this meant and it both scared me and made me happy. HE had come to me the first time and every time after just like this. Once it was the BIG ONE when I first found out WHO I was. The other two had just been whisperings that I couldn't remember and light shows that when I woke up made my head and body ache. This felt like a big one. I hoped it was. I needed guidance because I felt in over my head and scared. Too many people were in my life much too suddenly and too many feelings were boinging around in my head. None of which I was good at dealing with. Plus what was I supposed to do next?



Nothing happened right away. Over and over it seemed like I had to learn that HE did what he wanted when he felt like it. If it was supposed to make me feel small an unimportant it worked. I watched the little fireflies of light from HIM dance in the darkness with the real ones for awhile and tried to empty my mind and be patient. I was doing pretty good until I fell asleep. At least I think I feel asleep. I fell over with my face slamming into the grass and I remember thinking "That hurt." Followed by "Oh crap. I fell asleep on prayer duty. HE is going to be soooo mad if he was watching. He was watching. Who was I kidding. He was always watching. He was MAD too. HE was never very friendly. Why bother. We were SINNERS who had pissed him off.



I started twitching as he began touching me with his presence. Lights began going off in my brain. It was like being suspended in the sky, a human pinata, as every Fourth of July firework ever made was shot at me. I felt my bladder go. That felt good and bad at the same time. Mostly good. Then HE got tired of messing around and stepped inside my brain for real and I stepped out into HIS reality. I didn't like it. I had never been this far away from me before he jammed my programming I remember wondering if I was going to be coming back.



I think the black vortex that sucked me in was what really scared me then. That was just the warm up for what was to come. I remember screaming for my Mom. How stupid was that? Then everything went jumbly on me.



I am lying on a beach? The horizon is infinite and I am aware that I am just a speck of shit washed up on it. As important as a grain of sand and as big as one.



HE is there. HE is there!



I am still screaming. He tells me to "SHUT UP!" I do.



HE talks like boulders grinding. Part of me is surprised that I can understand him.



The sky lights up.



HE says "You have done well. You have taken the first step. I have given you your tools. USE THEM!"



A pause and then.



"KILL THEM. BURN THEM OUT AND HUNT THEM DOWN. I AM NOT LOVE. I AM. PURIFY AND CLEANSE. PURIFY AND CLEANSE. PURIFY AND CLEANSE."



I know I was screaming "Okay! Okay!" I wanted to cover my ears but I couldn't move my arms.



"PURIFY!"



And I saw flames. I saw buildings on fire. Buildings with names I recognized. Bank of America. Wells Fargo. Sandy Springs Bank. I saw the word CIT in white. The rest was being devoured by fire. I saw cell towers dropping like freshly chainsawed trees. I saw windows exploding in icy tears. I saw fire eating block after block of houses.



"CLEANSE!"



I saw a White man in a chair crying as his head was slowly cut off. I saw people of different races running around as masked men and women cut them down with automatic weapons. I felt the wave of HIS joy? Exaltation? Righteousness? They screamed and I screamed.



I yelled at HIM "No! Not this way!"



"YES!"



"YES!"



"YES!"



"THIS IS WHAT AWAITS YOU"



I saw a quiet street filled with Lemonade Girls. I saw a rolling green lawn and realized I was sitting on a porch. My hand was cold and I looked at it and saw a glass of lemonade. Three perfect ice cubes floated in it. Inside the house a woman sung softly to herself and each word was an arrow piercing my heart. I knew she sang for me, for her, for joy. I also knew she would come to me when I put down my glass of lemonade and walked through the screen door. She would come to me and I would hold her close. She would smell good and look up at me and I would know I was loved.



I told HIM "Okay. It shall be done."



"MAKE IT SO AND SHOW NO MERCY."





I don't know how long I had been lying there when I opened my eyes. I knew there was light and it hurt to see. So I shut them again. Someone was calling my name and I felt a hand on my shoulder. The voice, I recognized it now, was Sharon's. "Chosen. Chosen. Are you okay? Chosen?" Then the hand again touching and prodding me. "I'm fine." I told her. "More than fine. I know what HE wants."



"What? What did you say?"



I realized I had a face full of grass and something solid was tucked away inside my cheek. I bit down on it. Yes, it was crunchy and I spit the bug body into the grass. I was dry mouthed so that didn't work out all that well. I gathered my arms underneath me and pushed myself up ignoring the aches and pains I felt. I ignored them because they didn't matter. Nothing mattered because I was no longer the old me. I was the new me and this me didn't care. This me felt stronger and more focused. It felt like SWORD had been driven inside of me and instead of bone I had SWORD as the core of my being.



I was on my feet now. Sharon was there. She looked scared and concerned. I reached out and touched the side of her face lightly and told her "Thank you." My voice had even changed. It was raspier, darker, perhaps it even had a touch of boulders. "Another gift from him" I thought. Roy was there. He was standing one step behind Sharon and was scanning the woods behind me. The .45 was hanging in hand pointed down. He locked eyes with me for a second. I said "Roy." He didn't say anything. He nodded and went back to watching. Roy knew. We didn't need words. He had some of HIM inside now. He knew.



I wiped my face with my hand and felt a couple of things fall away from my skin when I did that. I didn't even look at what it was. I didn't care what it was.



"Where's everyone else?"



Sharon told me "Rick and his buddy are at his house. Are you sure you don't need anything? Come on. Let's get you back inside." She reached out to take me by the arm and help or steer me into the house.



"No." I told her. "Go get them and then bring me SWORD."



She looked hesitant. "Go!"



"Okay. I got it." She started walking through the grass. Hopefully towards Rick's house at a speed Roy could have matched. Roy saw that and yelled "Move your ass girl!" She shot him a dirty look but she put it in gear.



"Roy. Bring me STAFF and some water."



"Got it."



He was gone and I was alone but I wasn't.