I Am a Vine

I am a piece of one tendril of a vine, crawling up a brick wall. I cling to it, burrowing tiny rootlets into the brick, holding myself against the wall so I can grow further up. Nutrients flow into me. I keep only a portion, sending the rest onward, upward, to keep the tendril alive and to push new growth upward, toward the light.

There was a feeling of safety when I was nearer other tendrils. Massed together, we were strong, we could do anything. Now I only feel exposed.

The tendril ahead of me wants more fuel, but I feel a change in the supply of nutrients. I still have fuel for myself and to pass along, but I feel the pressure dropping. I sense change on the vine.

I push food onward even as supply dwindles. The vine behind me grows brittle. It has been cut, my source of food destroyed. I feel myself drying up, dying. I push food onward. A drop saved might keep me supple, alive, for another moment, and what I pass along feeds growth that will shortly die.

I push it on anyway, even as I dry out. What else can I do?

Into the Dark

“Stooooone-breeaaaakerrrr!”

The bellow accompanied the appearance of Orik, of clan Stonebreaker, as he burst through the tunnel wall. Striding across the rubble, he tossed aside the mighty pick-hammer that had performed the task, dropped his lantern-helmet on the ground, and lowered his armored bulk onto a rock. “Time for a smoke,” he boomed, one pipe of the hookah already sticking out through his bountiful, flowing beard.

Kort, of the Warbeard clan, looked at the new arrival without turning his body, and the many inscribed tablets woven into his beard jingled as he did. “The way you treat your equipment is unbecoming of a dwarf, Stonebreaker,” he said. “Put it away properly so you don’t shame your ancestors.” He looked back at the embers heating their cookpot. “And must you shout that warcry every time you cut a new tunnel?”

“Better than those invectives to great Marrok you cry out,” said the Stonebreaker. “‘By Marrok’s twisted testicles!’” he mimicked. But his wide grin never left his face, and he picked up and dusted off his pick with care.

“Were you followed?” asked the Spellforger. Six rune-inscribed tablets of stone circled his head, as they always did, and made the Stonebreaker lean away as the Spellforger leaned in, as they always did.

“We didn’t see a thing,” said the Stonebreaker.

The Spellforger harumphed. “Doesn’t mean you weren’t followed,” he said, before he turned back to the half-ruined carving he’d been examining before the Stonebreaker’s return.

“Orik,” said the Godbinder, handing over a bowl of hot stew as he filled it, adding a smile and a splash of whiskey. “Easy enough trip?”

“Plenty easy, Vasa.” He took the bowl and started eating with a spoon from his belt. “These young folk studied up. Not like the last bunch. These kids knew what they were doing.”

“Speaking of the kids,” the Godbinder paused and stroked a finger from his eyebatch down his beard. “Where are they?”

“Down the tunnel a ways,” said the Stonebreaker. “Told ‘em I had to scout the new tunnel to make sure it was clear of gloamlings before I brought ‘em along. Any time now they’ll figure out we went in a circle and catch me up.” He took another mouthful of stew, then another puff from the hookah. “As if I’d take ‘em anywhere near the poisonous little buggers.”

“The bite of a gloam kin is not venomous,” said the Wayfinder, “nor do they envenom their weapons.” She sat crosslegged near the fire, her spear across her lap.

“Course they are,” said the Stonebreaker. “They got their poison bite when the god Humeriel cursed the six forgotten dwarf lords for daring to brave his realm, and their clans became the gloamlings. ‘For all time shall your lineage be poisoned’ and all that.”

“The quote refers to the tainting of the clans, not actual poison,” said the Warbeard.

“Besides,” said Van, of clan Tinkersmith, “everyone knows it was the legendary smith Alor who forged the gloamlings from the souls of those dwarves who had doomed their souls. She alloyed them with shadow, so they’d not be seen, and cowardice, so they would flee the light. But she did her job too well, and the gloamlings learned the trick of invisibility. And being too fearful to craft their own goods, they steal ours.”

“Gloamlings can’t become invisible,” said the Spellforger.

“Sure they can,” said the Stonebreaker.

“If they could, we’d all already be meat hanging in their larders.” And the Spellforger looked at his companions, and then at all the shadowy corners of the tunnel, as though a gloamling would leap from it.

“Gloam kin do not eat dwarves,” said the Wayfinder, still staring off down the tunnel. “Though they do love the taste of our defeat. One wonders whence their enmity for us.”

“They’re pissed that we’re still dwarves and they’re not,” said the Tinkersmith, with a “Yeah!” from the Stonebreaker. “And they do eat dwarves,” she added. “I’ve seen skeletons--”

“My forebears have walked these tunnels and marked its secrets ways since the first dwarf carved himself from the living stone itself. We have seen all there is to--”

“Yes,” said the Warbeard, “All of our ancestors have traveled through the tunnels of the earth since our people were a people. Some of us remember what is and what has been better than others.” He eyed his massive shield, inscribed with family lore. “No reason to argue over legends and stories of the gloam.”

“Besides,” said the Spellforger, “Everyone knows a gloamling can crawl inside a dead dwarf and make him walk around until he starts to rot.” Shouts drowned him out, even as he yelled, “It’s true!”

“Legends and stories are good fun, but shouldn’t we be telling them with the young ‘uns here?” said the Godbinder. “Orik, shouldn’t they be here by now?”

“By Marrok’s braided butthairs,” cried the Stonebreaker, leaping up and upsetting his empty bowl. “What could have gotten to them?” He turned to look fearfully down the tunnel he’d made, and within moments, the others had all disappeared down the tunnel, weapons in hand. All but the Godbinder, who waited with the stationary Stonebreaker.

“Where are they?” asked the Godbinder.

“Behind that wall.” The Stonebreaker nodded at the wall behind the Godbinder.

“That was a good one,” said his friend. “Get ‘em back in here, and we can pretend they were here the whole time.”

“Got it in one,” said the Stonebreaker, standing up and hefting his massive pick-hammer.

“Stooooone-breeaaaakerrrr!”

Freedom

They met hanging out in the theater during lunch. The boy was shy but cared, the girl was direct and talked about forbidden topics. She wanted someone who appreciated her, he needed someone who broke the ice. They worked.

She had a long-time on-again, off-again. He was her weakness, and bad for her. She said as much, but she wore his ring even when they were off. The boy didn’t understand. Why not just walk away? She said he wouldn’t get it, and she was right.

They spent time together, but not much. He was too embarrassed of eyes and thoughts to officially date. She was fine with that, thinking of her on-again, off-again, wearing the ring no matter how much he wanted her to take it off, or how much she wanted to.

He couldn’t get past the ring. He stared at it, wondered if she would wear one that he gave her, knew that she wouldn’t.

One day he got her alone, held her hands, looked her in the eyes, and pulled the ring off. He thought it would free her. Instead, she took her hand away before he finished, and I guess it freed both of them.

Kiss, Like Formaldehyde

In a tiny back room in the library, in the dark of night, on a beaten old couch at a small table, I’m sitting with my boyfriend, and it’s as quiet as this paragraph makes it sound.

We’re only dating because I was interested in his roommate, but invited them both over to mask my intentions. Which is how I wound up in my dorm room watching a movie alone with this guy. We’re both shy, but somehow at the end of the night we were an item.

Which was elating only briefly, because he’s the product of a stereotyped Asian upbringing: He rarely speaks, is impossible to hear when he does, is entranced by the idea of romance and terrified of kissing. Him being too embarrassed to kiss even in complete privacy killed this relationship; I’m just chickenshit enough I’ve waited a month to bury it.

And now we’re in that first silent paragraph, and I know damn well what this room is for and he just sits there. The words “I want to break up” swell in my chest. They burble toward the surface, growing, where they are about to burst free... when he kisses me.

Well, shit.

Diced with Death

I thought I was really clever. I had it all worked out, how to avoid death. I had my dice: Specially carved from the knucklebones of a murderer, tried and executed, and dug up and carved all in one moonless night, a year and a day after his death. I kept them within reach at all times.

When Death did come, it was for the dumbest fucking reason. I choked on a piece of broccoli after congratulating myself for not dying falling down the stairs. I’d tripped at the top, see, but I knew enough about how to fall to roll with it and come out at the bottom with all my bones intact. Five minutes later, I take a big congratulatory bite of broccoli and then I’m choking and I panic and I’m on my knees and

And then I can breathe just fine, and I’m standing over my body. It’s still twitching, and I’m thinking that shouldn’t be so, I shouldn’t be officially dead until I’m officially dead, but

“We had to make time for your game.” Oh, thank god, it’s actually true. I fish my dice out of my pocket, but “You never win at dice.”

It’s because of the stakes, I explain. Death can’t just let people free to be alive again, so of course everyone loses when they set impossible stakes. So I make a different wager: He wins, I’m dead as normal. I win, I do his job for a year and a day. Death just smiled. He didn’t have a skull for a face, it turns out, just emaciated. Still a weird smile.

So we rolled, and he won. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. Was it just a roll of the dice? “No. You had it right. Bad stakes make for a bad game. But you had nothing to wager. If you’d found me while you were alive, maybe, but you let me find you. And by then, you have nothing left.

“C’mon, let me give you the tour.”

Train Related

Superman’s Dad was an important businessman. He worked in the city and worked very hard making sure that everyone in the city--actually, in the entire country!--had the stereo equipment that they needed.

He was also a stalwart aide to Superman. Superman’s Dad watched the jail and made sure Superman knew when bad guys were escaping. It was neverending work, since bad guys were always escaping from jail, and Superman’s Dad sometimes wished that someone would build a better mousetrap, but until they did, he would keep an eye on the jail.

More than anything else, Superman’s Dad was proud of his son, and also worried. He knew Superman did good, important work, but he also knew there was a lot of kryptonite out there, and a lot of evil geniuses. Even one was too many with a jail as leaky as theirs.

So, Superman’s Dad did what he had to, which was also what he enjoyed. He sold stereo equipment to everyone who needed it, and he helped out Superman. So as he rode the train to work, he read a book on prison design and another on superpowers. Maybe he would be the one to build the mousetrap.

Commuter Train

Cal missed Karen. He wished he knew where she’d gone, or why she’d left, or why she’d taken all his old football trophies. If she hadn’t cared about him, well, that was a surprise that stopped his heart like a fall into icewater. But not caring enough to stay in Will’s life was impossible to imagine.

He looked up as Will bumped into someone while playing Superman. He was so lively. Karen’s absence hadn’t hurt him yet. But Cal hadn’t been able to discuss it with Will so far. He didn’t know what to say. How do you tell your son that his mother might be gone? If she were dead, he’d be able to say she weren’t coming back, but he couldn’t even say that with confidence.

Cal retrieved Will, and went to apologize to the man Will had bumped into. Hetripped over a young woman’s foot on his way back, and he mumbled an apology to her, too. She reminded him a little of Karen.

Tonight, he would tell Will. He’d said that before, but this time he’d stop stalling and do it, and they’d go on together. That though made him feel better. Enough to go on.