kingdom of god 5

When he did arrive it was at the settlement of Harar on the edge of the Siana River separating the Nain from the lands to the south. With the Urbana Mountains to the north, trappers would flood the settlement in winter before retreating southwards. This town sponsored by the Agency and corporations of the Guild would swell to hundreds during the cold months but upon Wade’s arrival it numbered only in the dozens. He trudged through the muddied streets and into the lone inn where he stamped out his feet and offered the innkeeper the golden ring for a seven night’s stay and he accepted. Wade slid the ring across the desk and the innkeeper took it.

“Is Serene in town?” Wade asked the man.

“She is,” said the innkeeper.

“Send her up and don’t overcharge me,” he warned.

Wade took the second floor room and minutes later Serene appeared at his doorstep. He invited her in and undressed her and took her to bed and when he was finished the two pale bodies laid side by side and he noticed a trinket dangling between her breasts.

“What is this?” Wade asked while inspecting the oddity.

“From Jonny,” she said and then sat up and took a cigarette.

“He gave it to you personally?”

“Of course not,” she explained. “I picked it up from a prospector when he was in town.”

The trinket was an open faced palm with two snakes intertwined in the middle with a ring of unity encircling it. Wade released the object back onto her chest. “You don’t believe in that shit do you?” he asked.

“People gotta believe in something don’t they?”

“No,” he said plainly.

She stamped out her cigarette and laid her head on his chest and ran her hand up his shoulder. “It’s just something I thought looked nice. It was only a payment,” she said.

“You fucked a man for that?”

“Not just for that.”

“Are they still saying he’s roaming the mountains?”

“Jonny?”

“Yes.”

“People are saying a lot of things darling. Can’t believe everything.”

“I didn’t say if you believed it.”

“Well I dont. No one comes back from the dead.”

Wade glared up at the bare ceiling before falling fast asleep and when he woke in the middle of the night, Serene was long gone.

TO BE CONTINUED…

kingdom of god 4

North to Nain was a day’s travel on water but the rivers to the east and west were polluted by thieves and robbers of the night which left Wade little choice but to travel overland. The roads were ruptured and shattered and the earth under the asphalt remained in upheaval from the shock of aerial bombardment and the land was festered with the corpses of timber and rusted steel. It was futile for thieves to rummage these parts. But miles ahead through the sun soaked fog, the wanderer saw a curious fellow scouring the naked fields. He momentarily corrected course to follow this itinerant hermit through the brush and through the sea of purpled phlox and arrived at the deserted town once owned by the Tollom Corporation. Wade lowered his rifle then marched forth and whether through disease or famine the dead lay untouched in their homes while the children were shot in the streets with the women mangled and skirts upturned. He stopped the old hermit as he rummaged through the corpses for any morsel of worth left in this decayed land.

“What happened here?” Wade asked the old man.

“What’s been happening,” the hermit said.

“What happened to Tollum?”

“I reckon he refused to sell.”

“Sell to whom?”

“The Shepherd.”

The old hermit moved from body to body and picked apart their swollen and bloodied remains and then burrowed into the abandoned homes and storefronts for anything not yet taken by thieves and the hermit would stash his findings into a brown leather satchel before resuming his ghoulish search. And Wade would watch the old man creep and slink around like a cat cautiously poking through a rubble of trash.

“Did you know these people?” he asked the hermit.

“No not really,” said the old man.

Then he found the body of a woman with breast exposed and belly cut open on the ground and he reached into her dress to retrieve a singular golden ring. He held the ring up and flashed his rotted teeth to signal his biggest find of the day then he dropped the ring into the satchel. Wade lowered his rifle and fired a round into the chest of the hermit and the bullet busted open his chest and the old man collapsed backward to the ground. He walked towards the hermit and when he saw that he was dead, Wade took the satchel and threw it around his shoulder.

It was two more days before he reached the edge of Nain.

TO BE CONTINUED…

kingdom of god 2

The two men marched the two women through the torched and upturned earth past charred trees and stones where echoes of the living had found their resting place. Though the dull and grey and blackened vestiges of bloodshed dotted the countryside, to the south remained a symbol of past and future. A village, or what seemed like one, aligned with stinging metal and men standing watch and looking towards the great abyss beyond. In the center of it all was a relic to law and order. Perhaps it was a courthouse before the days of the alleged war but to the women it was a tawdry reminder of a failed establishment.

The men pushed the women towards the harem where they were stripped and searched and issued new attire. When it was over, the man took the older woman aside.

“Where were you going?” he asked her.

“It’s…it’s difficult to explain,” she stammered.

“Will there be others coming through?”

“I don’t know.”

The man took out an old pack of cigarettes and offered the woman one. She refused. He placed one in his mouth and lit it. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Regina.”

“Regina. What did you do before this?”

“I’m a follower of Jonny.”

“Jonny? The magician?”

“He’s not a magician.”

“Well you know that he died in an attack many years ago.”

“He promised he’ll be back.”

“It’s hard to come back from being blown to smithereens.”

The man stamped out his cigarette and escorted the women to their quarters but before he left the woman Regina stopped him. “Why are you doing this to us?” she inquired.

“You are now property of the Milner Corporation,” he informed her. “The men executed. Were they your family?”

The woman nodded.

“According to law, we are permitted to liquidate men of fighting age,” he said. “You may not understand but as we told you, this is private land. When the war is over, everything that you saw will be fully developed into something greater than what it was before. There is a lot of money to be made. A future to restore.”

“But what will happen to us?”

“You needn’t worry,” the man said. “As women you will bear the future. You will be a part of something wonderful and in time you will understand.”

The women took their bedside. But before the man left, he stopped and turned around. “My name is Wade,” he said. “Welcome to the Promised Land.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

the kingdom of god 1

A speck meandering through darkness. Focus on it long enough and it becomes indistinguishable from the vacuum in which it sojourns. To notice it would seem like a blunder from an otherwise faultless maker. But It is on this canvas of blackened nullity where hopes and dreams reside. Where love and tribulation live side by side like paramours in the dead of night. Look a little closer and a tale will emerge. These chronicles are familiar to us but exist as abominations in the ceaseless void.

Every story must begin somewhere. And this one begins here.

Light puckers intermittently through the greyish mist and a man is huddled under mounds of filth and turnt up earth. He looks upon the valley beneath him like a god casting a shadow on his accursed domain and like a god he sees its few inhabitants as a foolish catch. “Travelers,” he murmurs to himself.

The other man grips his weapon and rejoices like a salivating leopard. “Day travelers,” he gleams.

The man stands up on his kingdomly mound and shouts to the transgressors below. “Halt!” he ordered. The travelers stop and see the specter of a figure several meters above them. There were four in the caravan and one and one attempted a flee. But the man with the weapon rifles a bullet over his shoulder and the young traveler freezes at the kicked up dirt before him.

The two men traverse down the mound to meet their visitors and both were brandishing weapons. They inform the travelers that they were in violation of the law for this was private land. “We are not from the Agency,” the first traveler informed them.

“I figured “ said the man.

“We are fleeing the latest strikes.”

“Where to?”

The traveler didn’t answer.

The man rummages through their belongings and finds little of interest. Just enough food and clothing sufficient for a journey. Then the man looks under the hood of a shrouded traveler. It was a woman.

“I’m taking her according to the law,” the man declared.

“She’s only 15,” said the other woman.

“I’m taking you too.”

“Please have mercy,” begged the traveler. “We have no weapons. We didn’t know this was private land!”

“I’m only doing what the law allows,” said the man.

“Then the law is dead!”

The two men slew the male travelers and gathered their remains. Then they calmed the women at gunpoint then escorted them out of the valley.

TO BE CONTINUED…

life ain’t fair

Yeah I hate living. It’s a cursed gift from the universe. And I think life sucks because everyone before you and me didn’t do shit to make the world a place worth living in. So sure, enjoy life because it’s the only one we’ll get. But also, it’s a responsibility.

So if your approach to living is to get what you can out of it then die: fuck you. If that’s the case, life really does lack meaning. But to bring purpose to our meaningless existence, then we gotta recognize our responsibilities to others and this planet.

Unfortunately I’m lazy. So this responsibility to do good is my burden to carry. If you think about it, I’m much like Jesus Christ: every good deed is like a nail in the flesh. And also like Our Lord and Savior, there WILL be a second coming.

Cuz I always come TWICE. And when I don’t, it’s cuz of the meds.

Anyways, it sucks to hear about Dwayne Haskins. I enjoyed his season as a starter for Ohio State…I mean, THE Ohio State University. It’s a shame his NFL career didn’t go as planned. Many blamed him personally for his failure in Washington. But then again, he was drafted by WASHINGTON, aka the Biggest Dumpster Fire in Sports. I’m convinced no one can succeed there.

Unfortunately, another young life senselessly taken 😞