Where Do You Get Your Inspiration From?

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Jeeze. I’m inspired by everything. Music, certain feelings and atmospheres. Things will simply snap into place in my thoughts and I’ll see very vividly what they’re producing.

We sit in the car awhile. It’s quiet. Dark. The rain runs down the windshield in little rivulets and rivers, an intricate little geography that draws in so much of my attention that I don’t realize she’s talking for a full minute.

I don’t ask her to repeat herself, much as I want to. She talks when she’s nervous, fiddles. I can see her rubbing her hands together, clasping and unclasping, looking out into the darkness. A lone streetlight down the road throws amber light over everything, everything wet and dark. More droplets racing down the glass.

She kisses me. I don’t fight it, or press back. I can feel the fear in it, this moment of reaching out. It feels like falling. Her big, brown eyes are damp. I’m afraid too. We watch each other, face to face. She looks tired, so tired— do I look like that? Is this what happens to people who—

The streetlamp flickers, and dies. We’re plunged into darkness. I can feel my heartbeat pulsing, my mouth is dry. I realize I can’t hear the rain falling on the car anymore, or see any tracing rivulets.

And then, from everywhere, is light.

This rifle was the Devil’s favorite. He slew legions of angels with it in the War of Heaven, hungry golden bullets that could crack universes and turn concepts into meaningless bundled words. It is beautiful. Metal so black it’s almost blue, refined onyx overlaid with silver, ivory.

You pulled it from dead hands. Victorious.

It feels perfect— familiar. Like an old friend. The sinking Sun descends and throws warm red light over everything, drowns this world in blood.

Somewhere deep down inside, you can’t help but feel that this weapon, this rifle— has been waiting for you.

I was just a boy. A young mind brimming with questions in a small town tucked away from the world by lonely willow-choked roads and thick swamps. Seems so long ago.

I remember the reverend, all red-faced and swollen above me, like an ugly moon. Angrier words that lashed out at the room beyond him, turned the crowd to a thrall with answers that even as a kid I knew were unsatisfactory. My mind knew only a future where it seemed that Man had triumphed over God. Man had walked on the Moon, and Man had split the atom for its Promethean gifts. Where was God, I had asked, completely serious, inside a Saturn V, or an H-bomb?

The lashings my father gave me for this heresy were not at all delivered in the form of sermon.

I still remember the day. Claustrophobic heat that drains your muscles. Turns every breath shallow lest you drown in humidity and sorrows. I skipped church now regularly, slipping away into all consuming greenery. My worn bag stuffed with the essentials for any young would-be apostate: warm bottles of Coke, smuggled turkey sandwiches, books about men trudging on red Martian sands, and a fishing pole. Perfect.

Somewhere far away cracked thunder as I caught glimpses of nasty thunderhead clouds between bayou canopy. Deep within me stirred superstitious fear of righteous lightning to drop me dead— but I pushed it away and continued the track, eager to pluck anything from the river. Each step through the muck lessened my worry, whistling.

The sky darkened. Deepened into bruised, ominous darkness. I felt the thunder in my belly. I grew frantic as any boy would, bravado and cheer as banished as the sun had been. Crashing through brush, trying to retrace my steps— something exploded. I was thrown. I could feel the heat of flame, sense fire in some primeval heart within my being as it sprang, ferocious and eager. Through half lidded eyes I glimpsed inferno. Struggled. Fought to stand.

I ran.

I hit something. Hard. Landed in the muck right on my rear just as rain began to pelt the good earth in droves. Lightning split the sky’s imitation of night, I scrambled, and looked up.

It was a woman. Tall as any man I’d ever met. Skin pale like moonlight, and hair pristinely golden and long, rippled with crimson wildfires and blue moss. Crowning her head were perfect, black antlers, elegant and regal. She was bare. My heart thudded in tandem to the storms song, and I was stuck fast, enraptured. Silvered eyes watched me— looked beyond me. To something I can’t possibly understand.

We started at one another. She tilted her head, just slightly. All around us the world creaked and groan as hungry wildfire snatched up everything in sight, turned all things living to choking ash. She was unfazed. Serene. I wept silent tears. Unblinking.

And then, without a sound, without so much as a breath— a single upheld pale hand closed, and the fire was gone. Thin, blackened trees whispered in the faintest breeze. Impossible. A miracle.

The woman— the goddess?— looked down at me in the mud. The silver eyes, a faint smile, and with quiet footsteps, disappeared into the tangle.

I’ve told no one else of this in my sixty years of life. Who would believe an old man about his forest savior? The fire was unwitnessed by anyone when I scrambled back into town, and my only greeting was a cuff on the head for missing another service.

My property, my home— it’s there. Built at the place I first witnessed something beyond explanation. And every night, under the rain or unblinking stars, I sit out on the deck, amidst a chorus of singing creatures shrouded in shadow. Waiting.

Hoping.

The primary visitor safari and campground of Jurassic Park: Arizona. Now featuring an open air display of the vicious Velociraptor!

The Thing That Came in Summer

The world changed. Boundaries shivered. Something that had been *right* became *wrong*, just for a moment, just long enough for the slightest passage. No fanfare, no drama, no lights and catastrophe. Just the motion. Just the transition. Easy. Simple. Welcoming.

The world slid around the visitor like so much smooth water becomes glassy and transparent moving quickly across river stones. Sharp-edged shards appeared suddenly— some breakage would always occur— but then it was over. Unnoticed.

This place was like the last one. A warm, comfortable night. Moonlight thrown down from a crescent slash across verdant growth, murmuring water not far away. Voices, maybe, but hidden as small living things sang their final climactic choruses in the omnipresent dusk. The *hum-hiss-chirps* came everywhere. In a multitude of directions.

*Opportunities*. All of them.

The thing lay still. Unmoving from its arrival. An impossible chill radiated off of the strange, glossy shell in shimmering waves. Steaming faintly like so much unnatural foggy streamers. Anyone nearby would’ve noticed their breath despite June heat. But already, icy tendrils and summoned flakes were dissipating, leaving only wet traces here and there, exposing the thing.

It tasted the air. Unseen cracks and pores flexed. Inhaled. Exhaled. Scented growth, sensed heat, tasted motion. Unnatural senses unfurled in an eerie kaleidoscope. Somewhere at the core of thing came excitement. Eagerness.

Something dark and wet shivered. Shook, slightly.

There were voices now— close. Everything else had fled away into the incoming darkness, birds flittered and squirrels dodging, insects silenced and stilled. So the voices came. Close. The thing had no need to detect their joy, no desire to catch the flirtatious tones. Words meant nothing but signifiers of life, mind, and potential.

The bodies neared. They shone warm, bright as stars, vivid with pheromones and heat. The thing spied deeper, elated at glimmering brain waves and lightning neuron-linkages, all awash in so many dancing colors. Memories. Thoughts. Feelings. Innate, ancient drives that were beautiful, striking. But they paled compared to the thing, felt tiny and childish to it’s own singular drive, the final purpose that even now came in increasing waves.

*So close*.

But the thing had to wait. Kept itself tidy, tight. Moonlight and sunset vestiges glinting in cool, cold rivulets across its chitinous exterior.

The voices were close.

Closer.

Closer.

Just *there*, just at the edge. They mingled and tangled, brought so much rising into the air. The thing knew it could not fight it’s instincts any longer.

It shivered. Shook.

And grew.