Joseph Smith's Delusions

 Akshay and Jasraj were two of the angriest ghosts to ever walk the earth. In the early 1700’s, before their death, Akshay and Jasraj lived in what is now New York state. Boys of just 16, the twin brothers were walking back home from their first solo hunting trip when they heard the war cries of their father. They dropped the two wild turkeys they had just caught and ran to see what was happening. Again they heard their father’s yell, this time followed by a loud shot. Neither of them had heard the sound before, but they’d heard stories of the white man’s death sticks and feared the worst. 

They entered the clearing with their longhouse just in time to hear a second shot and see their father fall to the floor. “Where the hell are you going, Savage?” a large white man grabbed Akshay from behind. Jasraj ran to him but was grabbed by a second man. They struggled for their lives but the band of ten roaming devils subdued them and tied them each to a tree: arms bent back around trunks and hands bound tight.

Three men entered the longhouse and they heard their mother’s screams as her hiding place was discovered. Frantic with fear, they called for her, kicking their legs and pulling at their restraints. They saw a white man drag their mother out by her hair and rip off her clothes. Tears of grief streamed down their face as they saw ever one of the group of ten rape their mother. The final one put a knife to her throat and finished her off as he was finishing his pleasure. 

“I curse you! I curse you and all your people!” Akshay screamed in his language until his throat was raw.

These ten evil men laughed a mirthless, hysterical laugh. They didn’t know or care what the young man was saying. Years of war, disease, and famine had made them into the worst kind of bigot, sociopath devils. Every one of them planned to go home to their clueless wife and go to their church on Sunday. 

“Let’s be sure these young bucks don’t live to raid our village” said one white devil to another. “No need to kill these two too quickly,” the raider replied to his comrade. Laughing all the time, they took turns swinging at the boy’s kicking legs. When both boys had lost both legs, the invaders took the boys’ arms. Akshay and Jasraj both thrashed on the ground, losing much blood from every stump. One of the white men took their father’s spear and used it to pierce the side of both Akshay and Jasraj. Then the men set fire to the longhouse and they walked away laughing all the while, oblivious that the actual devils of hell were laughing with the victory of bringing all the earth closer to hell with the actions of these English tribal monsters.

Akshay heard his brother's tears but was too numb with rage to cry himself. ‘Why had his father moved them away from the tribe?’... ‘What good had the solitude been for their safety?’... He could feel the blood drain from him, but then, he could also feel his arms and legs. He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked back at the ground. He saw his lifeless body laying still on the earth. He stood up and looked at himself to find he was semi translucent but fully formed. His brother was still in the throes of death, but Akshay could see a hand where a hand should be. He grabbed his brother’s hand firmly and pulled him up to stand beside him.

“What are we?” Jasraj asked Akshay, looking at his own translucent hands. 

“We are ghosts of vengeance,” Akshay replied. “Come, let us see if we have the strength to bury mother and father.” They tried to lift their father’s corpse but their hands passed right through him. Jasraj started to cry. 

“It’s ok, my brother. It’s ok.” Akshay put his hand around Jasraj, finding they were still firm to each other. They couldn’t move the bodies, but they could fan the flames. Soon the whole glen was a blaze. They stood in the fire, feeling nothing but hearing and seeing everything. 

“I can’t go on…” Jasraj put his hands over his face and started to fade into white light. Akshay grabbed his brother's shoulders and shook him until he was solid again.

“We will not allow this, my brother. We will not allow these people to rape our land like they raped our mother.”

“But what can we do?”

“We’ll find a way.”

They found out they had to keep moving. As soon as they sat or lay down they’d hear the voices of their people calling them to the spirit world. ‘I will find a way to make these European invaders live in constant fear of the apocalypse they have caused…’ was the thought that kept Akshay moving. Eventually, Jasraj followed without resistance.

They learned much, floating through the world. They learned that many years before the white men conquered the oceans, the God of this world had been born in human form and was named Jesus. As was common at the time, and as is the way of heaven, Jesus was a homosexual polygamist who took twelve husbands. 

Just before he had been crucified by the occupying force of his people for “blasphemy”, one of his husbands had asked, “Master of love and passion, Master of my body and soul, when will you return to us in full glory and not just in this human form?”        

Jesus had replied, “Only when all the tribes live together in peace; when any child of any tribe can sleep through the night without fear of a thief in the night.” But after his gruesome death, people just continued to be filled with fear of the unknown and hate for people they saw as different from them. War after war, translation after translation, what he had said was all lost except for the “thief in the night” part. 

Akshay and Jasraj came back to New York in the year 1819. They knew they’d fade soon if they didn’t connect with a mortal soon to bring fear into the hearts of white men. That’s when they noticed Joseph Smith praying in the woods not far from where they had been murdered. They followed him for a while to discover he was a barely literate boy who read almost nothing but the bible. The religious questions that racked his brain were was God and Jesus the same being or two separate beings? What was the nature of God?

Akshay and Jasraj knew God was an eternal force that was simultaneously both completely human and completely non-human; that Jesus was just the human form of that force. But they also knew this Smith boy was desperate and vulnerable; that he could be used to make many of the English-American tribe become foolish people who isolated themselves into destruction. Vengeance was what held them to the world and so far as God's plan was a plan of benevolent indifference, they would be happy to prevent the second coming of Jesus with a group of people who lived in all the ways to prevent it.

So they lead Joseph Smith to the exact place of their murder. And there they racked him with the torment of hell. When he was calling in desperation to be saved, they knew they had him. So they appeared in the form of two white men: one with a white beard and one with a light brown beard. The “God” character had less lines so he was played by Jasraj who said, “This is my beloved Son, hear him.” And Akshay went on to tell Joseph he would re-write the bible and add a new book too. The new book was complete rubbish, but it was what was needed to make many white men feel a portion of the guilt that they, as a people, refused to feel. 

Jasraj faded shortly after Joseph Smith’s death. He was sure the work was done to satisfaction and needed to enter the spirit world to rest a time before being given a different body. 

Akshay stuck around. He enjoyed watching the Mormon parents tell the Mormon children that the world would end in terrible violence and there was nothing they could do about it besides isolate themselves with fear, food storage, and lack of political awareness. 

About a hundred and fifty years after first appearing to Joseph Smith, Akshay sat in the back row of a Mormon church. A fat white boy was followed to the podium by his fat white mother. The boy got a stool and the mother stood beside him. She whispered in his ear and he repeated the words into the microphone, “I love my family…” the young child muttered into the mic, “I know the church is true… I know Joseph Smith was a prophet… I know the Native Americans were cursed with brown skin and destruction for their wicked ways… I know God is a polygamist man on the planet Kolob… I know heterosexual polygamy is the way of God… I know I must be a good heterosexual polygamist if I want to avoid the terrible violence that will end the world any minute” The congregation clapped for him and the boy smiled with confusion and fright. ‘Why were these people clapping for the end of the world?’ was the thought that tainted the pleasure of acceptance from his tribe.

Akshay could see the confusion and fear, and he knew his work was done. He faded. Ready to be reborn on whatever planet God wanted him to be on.           

        

The thing about Thing

 Before Morticia met Gomez, she was a sullen girl who hated compliments. Most days she hated everyone and everything, but hid it with perfect posture and gentle gestures just like her mother had taught her to. She had just turned fourteen a few weeks before Theodore Morozov came to visit her father’s laboratory.

The doorbell rang its loud metallic shrill just as she was walking past the entrance way foyer, and more from boredom than curiosity, she decided to answer it. In her black and gray school uniform, with a single french braid tying back her long hair, she opened the door to an angry old man who was obviously dying and obviously determined to do it in the worst way.

“Hello, I’m here to see Dr Frankenstein. I have an appointment,” he said as he brushed past her in a determination bordering cruelty. He dropped his coat into Morticia’s arms and walked into the patient’s waiting room; very familiar with the Frankenstein mansion though Morticia had never seen him before. She held the coat for half a second before letting it drop to the floor. 

“Ehh..” Lurch said as he came in to pick up the coat and hang in the guest closet. 

“Lurch, have you seen that man before?”

“Ehh..” With a nod.

“Is he here for a body swap?”

“Ehh..” the nod was almost imperceptible, but Morticia didn’t need her psychic ability to read Lurch. She’d known him her whole life and his lack of words never meant a lack of character. 

“I’m going to watch this one, if father allows it.”    

*     *     *     *     *     *

Dr Frankenstein was in his laboratory doing the final checks on the new body freshly grown. It was his father, mad with genius and free from ethics, who had first discovered how to grow a clone stem cell into the form of a twenty year old body in just twenty days. But twenty days is still time for a developing brain to develop. What the young doctor remembered most from watching his father’s procedures was the new-born screams of the new bodies before they lost their heads for the paying customers. The screams were different in ways that showed the personality of the new life that was created just to die. All of them haunted his dreams. 

Despite his father’s disapproval of “needless sentiment”, Dr Frankenstein Jr had discovered a way to grow perfectly healthy bodies that were completely brain dead. They were healthy and strong, in almost any form the customer desired. And just drooled in a simple way from their first few breaths to their way to the execution chair. There were still risks, but it amazed him how many customers were eager to change almost everything despite the risks that were tripled when not using an exact clone. 

The customer that Lurch had just informed him now waited in the waiting room was a return customer who had been a friend of his father’s and had the same heartless sensibility. His exact clone was now ready to be born.      

Everything on the charts read correctly, so he pushed the button to drain the amniotic fluid and breathe life into the naked body that was the picture of perfect health.

*     *     *     *     *     *

Morticia took a seat in the waiting room across from the old man. She stared at him, counting the seconds until he felt the need to break the silence for his own comfort. She didn’t get past the count of three. 

“Are you familiar with how these procedures work?” Theodore’s skin was dry, cracked, and wrinkled, but his eyes held a self-contained fire.

“No…” Morticia lied, knowing this wasn’t the kind of man who wanted a lesson in anything.

“I was one of the first to have it done. I faked my own death and stole my own fortune from the parasites who thought they stood to inherit. Ha.. or what was left of it after your father took his cut! This will be my third time getting the swap. I was one of your grandfather’s first customers and one of his last. Is your father really as good as they say he is?”

“He’s a better man than his father was, like most boys seem determined to become.”

“Ha! Such wit from such a child! Do you not think girls want to become better than their mothers were?”

“I can’t speak for all girls, but I’d be happy to be much worse at everything my mother is good at.”  

“Get ready for disappointment then! Your mother was pretty but it’s clear to these old eyes that you’re blossoming into a rare beauty.”

“Some might say so.”

“My dear, anyone who says different is tragically delusional. Very soon there will be men killing each other just for the chance to be a thing in your possession. In ten years or so, I might come calling. It’s the heart that tells the brain how old it is, not the other way around. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see these wrinkles fade from my face. The society from this lifetime has grown burdensome, and I’m looking forward to the month of isolation to wait for the new body to grow new skin for my face.”

“If you’re lucky… did father tell you the success rate goes down with each repeat procedure?”

Just then her father entered the room. “Now Morticia! Don’t scare the old man who’s here to pay for your fancy schooling!”

“How many peasants have you experimented on so far? Has the success rate dropped below 90% for an exact clone?!” Theodore demanded of the doctor, deeply unsettled. 

“The experiments have been extensive and I assure you there is a 92% success rate for an exact clone. Now, if you’ll follow me, let’s begin?”

“I know the way.” Theodore brushed past the doctor, his strong right hand holding a cane that clicked on the stone floor. 

“Father, may I watch this one?” Morticia asked with her sweetest smile. 

“Will you promise not to unsettle the customer?”

“I make no such promise.”

“Alright, come along.” Dr Frankenstein was too frazzled today to argue with Morticia. A lot of investments were riding on this procedure being a success. Morticia had always taken an interest in his work and watched most of his experiments. 

As they entered the laboratory, Theodore was already sitting in the correct chair, next to the one that already held the naked body drooling in it. “Why is this one not screaming like the last two were?”

“I’ve made a very slight change to the brain chemistry just to prevent the screaming for your comfort. I assure you, good sir, that the body is healthy and ready to revitalize your formidable intelligence.” The doctor assured the nervous patient. 

“Did your father never tell you that screams are soothing to me?! You’ve made a mistake here if you think this is for my comfort.”

‘For my own comfort you old beast,’ is what Dr Frankenstein was thinking but knew it would be a mistake to say. “Shall we begin?” he asked in a confident voice.

“Yes, let’s get on with it. Let us spit in the face of death!”

Morticia took a seat at the work table that had bloody tools scattered on it. She loved watching these moments of death. Her father never seemed to see it, and she never mentioned it to him. But every time with a failed experiment, she saw the soul’s astral body step out of the physical body and either dissolve into white light or grow heavy with shadow and sink into the earth. She was on the edge of her seat with this one. Unsure if she wanted it to fail or succeed but excited nonetheless.

The metal powered by extraordinary batteries that harnessed lightning began to whir. Simultaneously, metal prongs grabbed onto the head of the old man and the clone just before metal blades came out the sides of the backrests for both chairs to decapitate the bodies. The old head was fit on the new body as a metal collar clamped around the neck to both provide an adhesive and the electric shock meant to revitalize. One shock… Two… Three. It was meant to revitalize on the first! 

“DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!” Dr Frankenstein was frantic as he tried to get the highest voltage that wouldn’t damage the brain. “Not this one! We can’t afford this today!”

Morticia knew the additional shocks were now pointless. She saw Theodore’s astral body stand up with a look of agony on its face. Already, it had begun to darken and sink. But Morticia had liked the old man and decided to try something new. She grabbed a bloody butcher knife off the table with her left hand and sauntered over to where the spirit stood in front of the dead head that sat on the dead body. With her right hand she reached into the astral body and took a firm grasp on the heart of the man. The rest of the spirit body followed in a trail as Morticia put the man’s heart inside the dead body’s right hand. With her right hand on top of his she trapped his spirit inside it. With miraculous dexterity and strength, she chopped the hand from the rest of the body. 

It failed and hit the floor. It lay there writhing with the overwhelming experience of having all five senses in a single hand. Morticia bent down to gently pick up and cradle the severed hand. 

“Morticia, what the hell is that?” Dr Frankenstein had stopped the resurrection attempts just in time to see Morticia sever the hand. 

She just smiled and spoke to the hand, “You’re coming with me, Thing.”

She walked out the room with the creature she owned. 

“Morticia?!...” her frazzled father was left wondering how much of the human had been left alive without the head. 

       

Pugsley Addams

 Wednesday had always been more interested in the dark arts - death and sorcery. Pugsley, however, was more interested in the practical things - life, power, money, control. 

“Get over here Lurch!” Puglsey yelled from his attic laboratory. Lurch stubbled up the stairs in his butler suit “Take off your clothes and get in the chair.” The bodies were easy to burn, but Pugsley liked to use the same suit 3 or 4 times before burning it. In a chair next to the one Lurch just sat in was another body, already dressed in a butler suit. Two electric rods came out the side of the wall on either side of Lurch’s neck. In just 2.7 seconds the electric wave cut off Lurch’s head and moved it to the next body. 

Lurch clothed currently got up and dusted himself while groaning. Lurch the headless now started death throws that were bound to last for an hour or two. “Now stop groaning Lurch, that was almost a record. We almost got past 2.5 seconds. But your brain did die for a full 1.3 second… before getting revived on the new body. At this point Lurch old man I think you’re just dying because you’re used to it.”

“...eehhh..” was the vocal reply and the motions indicated he needed to get back to his duties and did not want another death for another week. As promised by his workers’ union.

There was a knock at the door. “Enter” said Pugsley. And Morticia, enticing and sinister as always, floated into the room. “Pugsley darling, you’re not killing yourself until you’re at least 18. Then you can decide if you want to endure the pain that is life. Until then, I want you to know that I will know if you switch your own body.”

“Yes, but is death for less than 3 seconds really ‘death’ per se”

“It’s the rule you will live by for the foreseeable future.” Morticia’s hard grin was almost a threat and Puglsey understood a better time or no time of death would be needed to convince his mother. 

“Lurch, will you be a dear and prepare my bath?”

“Ehh.” Lurch’s affirmative nod and bow to Morticia appreciated the order in question form. Not long after that Morticia also floated out the room. First she had to check all the black rose potpourri she insisted on keeping in the attic. She made sure it was dead and dry enough then left with a frown that implied she was happy. Puglsey refused to open the windows when up there so Morticia was trying to smoke him out with fragrance. But she also left without searching any of his documents or getting in the way of his electrical lines. 

Ancestor on his mothers side, Dr Frankenstien had harnessed electrical energy to resurrect a body after first seeing how long a chicken’s body survived after decapitation. He theorized the head might survive a minute too and decided to harness lightning. Since then, the family has gained enormous wealth. They resurrected the dead for a moderate fee. The illuminati were their public outreach program. For other people who admitted science and power was the only way to become the right kind of demon. 

But lately he’d been watching a lot of Dexter and decided to not just live wildly, passionate and wait for war, as his father suggested, and decided that hero’s path murder might be the right kind of death that would be justifiable for an experiment gone wrong. Because if he caught the right kind of villain, painless execution might be the best judgment even after a successful experiment.  

The Anti-Mormon Choir

 Samantha was a petite Mexican-American woman with an hour-glass figure and large, natural breasts. Her feminine features and perfect ass weren’t always something she considered a blessing. Today was her 18th birthday and she was finally getting released from juvenile detention. 

A few years ago, against her better judgment, she’d agreed to a quinceanera just to make her mom happy. She’d put aside her black jeans and black makeup for one day to wear a ridiculous pink floof of a dress. She’d even let her aunt do her makeup and didn’t complain when she thought the over-zealous aunt made her look like a clown hooker. 

Then her cousin brought the wrong friend to the party and shit got real real quick. She’d just sat down to take a break from dancing and the dickhead man-child in his mid twenties sat way too close, smashing part of the dress and grinning like a wolf that was equal parts stupid and hungry. “Smile for me, babe. I bet you’re pretty when you smile.”

Nothing triggered Sam like ‘Smile for me’... ‘Why in the fucking fuck should I do anything for you shithead?!’ she thought.  

“Say something funny and maybe I will,” she replied.

“How about I do something you like instead,” he said, hardly closing his lips to keep on his joker face manic smile. He put his hand on her knee and started to move it up her thigh. He didn’t know she had had enough people pleasing this day to last a lifetime and pleasing a creepy stranger was absolutely not on the menu. He didn’t know they were at a table where an uncle had just finished a steak and left his steak knife. He looked up expecting coy embarrassment and got a steak knife in the eye. The man lost an eye and Sam lost the rest of her high school experience. It wasn’t her first offense and her mom and dad didn’t know what else to do besides send her away. 

But today she was leaving the Salt Lake City School for Troubled Young Women and couldn't be happier. She was agnostic, but had still been sent to the Mormon-run boarding school because that’s where her Mormon parents wanted to send her.

She was very excited to get to see men other than her father, but was still very happy to see her dad pull up to pick her up in his old truck. 

“Hello, my love! Are you happy to be free, ninita?”

Soon, she was working at Starbucks with Jenny, a childhood friend who’d helped her get the job there. What amazed Sam was how different Jenny was at work to when not at work. At work Jenny would wear pastels and smile at everyone; not at work she’d wear goth makeup and listen to heavy metal. Sam was ready to move from grunge to goth and ready to find the Salt Lake City that wasn’t advertised. 

“Have you ever sung in a choir?” Jenny asked one day out of nowhere. “The church choir, when I was a kid,” Sam replied. 

“Funny you say that, because you know Miguel’s the screamer in his band, well he’s looking to get a full choir for back up vocals: church choir style but goth fashion.” 

“Would I have to audition?” Miguel was hot as hell but Sam was a good friend so she was just looking to hook up with a few of Miguel's single friends.   

“No, not since you have choir experience. They’re making a video and want the choir to be as big as it can be for the space.” 

There were a few practices before the shoot, and Sam dressed up for every single one. She loved experimenting with different kinds of black and white makeup. She loved getting to see Will at every practice. He wore an old army jacket like an army of one. It was ironic to see an anarchist in a uniform.

The tattered jacket fit his broad shoulders well. His hair was unkempt but not messy. His face and hands were the right kind of rough. The best thing about him: he hardly ever smiled. He was the brother of the drummer, and all her other crushes seemed trivial after hearing his smooth baritone voice for the first time.  

“Remember,” Miguel was saying at the final practice, “this Sunday is the shoot. Black and white clothes and makeup. If you can’t do your own makeup, get someone else to do it. If we end up touring we’ll need a smaller choir. So think of this video as an audition for that.”

Sam was collecting her things to go change before work that evening when Will, bold as brass, walked right up to her. ‘Had he noticed her noticing him?!’ her mind was racing and her palms were sweating. 

“Hey…”

“Hey!..”

“You’ve got a great voice. And I love your makeup.” the broody baritone who didn’t like anything liked her! Her pussy went from moist to wet. 

“Oh thanks, I wouldn’t say I’m a makeup artist like Jenny, but I have fun with it.”

“”Jenny’s probably doing every loser’s makeup. I was wondering if you could do mine before we film.”

The morning before the video shoot, Sam was alone with Will in his apartment. She couldn’t believe her luck to be alone with this man who knew how to compliment without being pretentious; who knew how to keep a clean apartment that wasn’t too clean to be cozy.

She was going for a classic look with his makeup: just some foundation and a vertical black line accenting each eye. She’d just finished the eyes and was touching up the foundation.

“Are you ok bending over like that?”

“I’m fine. Are you ok wearing this much makeup? Is this a first for you?”

“It’s the first time I’ve had it done by a woman as beautiful as you.” Sam was blushing, but kept working. “If you want to, you can sit on my lap to get a better angle. You know, just so you don’t have to hunch over like that.”

Sam smiled and decided to go for it. Will was sitting on an upside down wooden crate. Part of the charm of his apartment was that most of his furniture was self made for whatever he could refurbish. Sam pretended to still be interested in nothing but the makeup as she straddled him and made herself comfortable.

“Is this ok?” he said as he started to rub her back. She replied by kissing him.

They were late to the shoot. Sam had to re-do her makeup. But Will, in an absolutely endearing way, left the smudged black lipstick all over his mouth.         

The Whiskey Wolf Curse

 Tonight was a full blood moon on November 1st; Samhain(sow’in) high holiday. 

Sandy Sulivan was good friends with Tim, Mark, and Adam. At least enough so to convince them to help him tonight with a blood magick curse.

“Where did you get this Rabbit?” Mark asked; frustrated his turn to carry the large cage for the large rabbit seemed to last longer than his friends’ turns. 

“I stole it from that pet store I told you about” Sandy replied, “It’s part of the spell now. The pet store wasn’t caring for its animals so I stole this one and released all the others. It was almost too easy to disable their security cameras and unlock their doors.”

“You’re an amazing hacker but if we’re going to build a website together we have to work together…” Tim started to ramble about the specifics of the business plan for the dating site/app they were planning on building together. 

“Here, carry tonight’s sacrifice,” Mark handed the cage to Tim, “we’ve got to appease Sandy’s blood lust before he comes back down to planet earth to make more definite plans with definite results.”

“This will work, I’m sure of it. If ever something like this could work under this moon would be the right time.” They walked on in silence for a while. Sandy and Adam were gay; Mark and Tim were bisexual. They were good friends who often saw each other naked, but rarely got sexual with each other. Less now that Tim had a girlfriend who thought he was straight.

They’d met when they were all on the same High School swim team. They’d always pushed each other to be better in a way where others might mistake their friendship for hate. Really, Mark was the glue that held them all together. The group had almost fallen apart after Sandy and Adam had dated for a short time then had a bad break up that almost ended their friendship. Mark was the one who’d told them all that racing alone is madness and if they wanted to race enemies better, they should have friends they could play with and race with. They had a special fishing trip with just the four of them and promised to be friends forever who gathered as a complete group regularly.       

Sandy was the one whose idea it was to meet every full moon to get drunk together. The Whiskey Wolves they called themselves. 

Now they were hiking through the Colorado rockies and were thankful for the unseasonably warm weather. The ritual didn’t have to be done naked but they all felt like it should be done naked.

“So the intention is to kill Yoweri Museveni?... Do you think it’s right to hold just him responsible for the whole country’s homophobia?” Adam broke the comfortable silence in a comfortable way. They all loved his mix of tenacity and tenderness. Each Whiskey Wolf loved themselves much and loved their friends more than themselves. Together, they were a dangerous combination. 

“Well, you know I’m against public execution,” replied Sandy, “but if witches have the power to move shadows in the shadows I do feel like they should. And he’s responsible for enough of the murderously violent homophobia there that the justice of the community will pass through us without turning us hateful. We won’t be murdering him, we’ll just be opening the gates for the spirits that already want him dead.”

This thought hung in the air around them as they walked deeper into the mountains. Eventually the trail was barely a trail and they went off it just around one bend to set up camp; not in view of the trail but not so far off it that it would be hard for their hung over asses to find in the morning. 

Like they’d done for each of their camping trips, they worked as a single unit as they formed a stone circle for a fire pit and began to gather and chop firewood.

“When do we eat?” Tim asked the group as Adam began to kindle the fire. 

“When do we drink? Is what I’m thinking.” Mark had decided to restrict his drinking to just with this group and was starting to feel the craving.

“I’ve got crackers, cheese, and jerky here,” Sandy said, rifling through his bag, “I’ve also got whiskey for tradition and to honor the blood moon I got a bottle of strawberry moonshine.”

“Snacks, please!” Tim asked, holding out his hand. Sandy took out the two large bottles and handed the bag to Tim. “Just don’t eat all the carrots or at least give a couple to the rabbit before you do.”

“Don’t we want it to die in fear?”

“Yea, fear but not hunger”

“I’m going to die of hunger if I don’t eat at least half of the supplies”

“You won’t get drunk with us right if you’re too full so take it easy”

“I know how to drink, but also we just walked up a mountain and I need energy to call the spirits,” Tim chowed down on some snacks but stopped just after hunger and just before full. He then whipped his hands in the dirt and reached for the bottle to take his first swig. Everything was just right. The fire became a blaze just as the sun was setting. The rabbit was crunching on a carrot; oblivious to its fate. The boys began to unwind and chatter like they’d always done; each one comfortable with taking the friendship to the new level of animal sacrifice. 

“Alright, let’s change.” Sandy had taken the lead for tonight, and the others were fine with it.

“Together or separate?” Mark asked

“Separately tonight. Just wolf skin and boots. It’s a warm enough night and a big enough fire.” So they left the rabbit cage sitting by the fire as they went off in different directions, each with their own backpack to change out of their human clothes and into their wolf witch habit. They each had a wolf skin that covered half their face and went down like a cape to cover half their back. Tonight they’d wear just that and shoes.  

Sandy was already drunk enough to feel the heaviness of his body. As he changed he thought about his recent trip to Uganda. His step dad was from there and had a brother there that his whole family had recently gone to visit. Sandy had always liked his step dad, but hadn’t expected to fall in love with his step cousin. Akello had been a lot like Adam but different in all the right ways. He was shy and sweet and had a vulnerability that Adam never had. 

They thought the affair had been secret, but Akello had kept some pictures on his phone that his mother found when snooping through his phone. His own mother turned him into the police. 

Just after getting back to Colorado, Sandy had found out about Akello’s arrest. He was completely distraught with shame and grief. Was this innocent young man suffering because the witch hunt had caught the wrong witch?!

Sandy had insisted his stepdad help him call the Ugandan jail that held Akello immediately. His step dad didn’t know the whole story but was happy to help Sandy get in touch with Akello.

Sandy didn’t understand the language but saw Ron’s usually sunny disposition fall to grief and his fear became palpable, “What is it?... What is it Ron?”

“Here, I found someone who speaks English” Ron handed Sandy the phone.

“Hello?...”

“Yes, hello. Are you calling about Akello the homo?”

“Yes. Please, can I speak with him?”

“No. Sorry no you can not. Akello the homo was beaten to death yesterday. Homos don’t last long here. They don’t belong here and the others know it.”

The matter-of-fact bigotry and cruelty shook Sandy to his core. Ron and Sandy’s mother had cried with Sandy for half a day. But they had gone back to their productive lives; Sandy’s anger craved the destruction of the hate that claimed the life of the most gentle man he ever knew.

Sandy was fully changed just as he started to hear the yips and howls of his friends. Mostly naked and hardly human, Sandy walked out of the woods. 

They danced, wrestled, and chased each other between well timed shots of alcohol. Eventually Sandy felt drunk enough to feel the wild inside him and let out a blood curdling howl that called the spirits to him. The others knew it was time and the circle closed around the fire. 

“Blood of my blood, feed this fire to curse my enemy” Sandy’s voice was deep and gutteral. 

“Who speaks for the people?” The others said in unison as they slowly circled the fire.

“I speak for the people”

“Who is that rabbit?”

“This rabbit is Yoweri Museveni”

“Yoweri Museveni… Yoweri Museveni… Yoweri Museveni… Yoweri Museveni…” The others chanted his name and continued to chant as Sandy reached into the cage and took the rabbit by the scruff of its neck.

“Yoweri Museveni! For your violence against the gentle you will burn in hell as this rabbit's body will burn in this fire!” He took the blade that was ritualistically placed in front of the fire. He held down the frantic rabbit and slit its throat as he looked into its eyes. In the corner of his eyes he saw shadows lengthen and take form. They danced with his friends; some human; some rabbit; some half and half. As the life faded from the animal in his hands a single shadow stretched through the fire and took form just on the other side. An evil human with an evil rabbit head looked at him with red eyes, “Ssay hiss Naame.”

“Yoweri Museveni” he whispered back, then threw the body into the fire and joined his friends in a wild dance that lasted until the early hours of the morning. Tonight things had been moved. They all hoped they’d been moved with enough power to avoid personal repercussions.          

 

Jam Band

 Richard Richardson was Trump's great grandson on his mother's side. He hated the politics but loved the money it got his family; right at the right time; right before class become immutable.

Now, as he came of age at 15, he got the first access to the accounts that had been his since the day he was born as American royalty. As part of the investment class he had been thinking for a while now how best to put the working class to work. He wanted to be known for more than just failed casinos and successful fanfiction online art - like his scam artist president convict predecessor.

So he came up with the idea of Jam Band; really as an excuse to be with his friends. Just like Zuckerberg who made an empire of being friend-zoned by hot girls and using that friendship to get their face in his book, Richie discovered an interesting atmosphere that day. For a while now livestream had been common tech: month or two of recording where every new day deletes the oldest day at midnight. But no one had really capitalized on the idea of screen pause where any moment could be a good photo or gif with the right background that identifies a bird themed brand. People loved to pose in front of famous backgrounds to make themselves gifs; why not attach a brand to a backdrop?

He had to create one that was easy to copy in uniform. The plan of his oceanographer cousin of a mermaid pool sauna restaurant did not go well. He wanted a building that could be reproduced in any city and start in his favorite city. So he started in an area of Brooklyn that had no restrictions on caged birds, and bought an entire floor of a building. The entire floor became the open cage with the only entrances being the emergency exit stairs and the elevator. The elevator attended by a person who would not take a person to that floor without ID to prove adulthood and a 5 dollar entrance fee. In the space that he first wanted to call Jailbird Café, he kept out of cage almost as many parakeets as the space could take; along with selling individual cages and other supplies. The joke for the advertisements was going to be "come get pooped on"; to have a soup, salad, and sandwich shop with sandwiches so good that even getting pooped on by a parakeet would not ruin it. With the idea was buy a parakeet and all the supplies if so inclined.

But rather than learn the violin himself, he decided to keep the bird concept and add to it the idea of Jam Band in order to hang out with his violinist friend Ryan who he was definitely in love with. So the gentry or or favored working peasants came to the floor for food, pictures, bird play, and possibly impromptu concertos by anything acoustic provided or brought. All he did was shorted the dining hall by a quarter for a good sized stage. On which he provided: piano; guitar; pan flute; steel hand pan drum; harp; two violin; viola, cello. The idea was hardly anyone would bring in a rare antique like an acoustic instrument, but many would come to play some provided on a stage.

Of course he'd have to politely rope off the area from 11pm to 7am to allow the birds to sleep. But he rightly wondered want kind of melody the birds would make after hearing human acoustic instruments all day. He was going to add a microphone for poetry or singing but also knew a violin alone would not attract Ryan and his pacifist music friends to the loud bird space. So, to further impress his beau, he put up an unplugged microphone with a sign on it: "No vocals please until everyone has a voice: NO MORE DEATH PENALTY" Because really Richie could not believe in these modern times the status quo was still to sacrifice criminals to the gods of conformity. Two wrongs don't make a right and everyone deserves a right to prove who they are right until god takes them and they define their rebirth. Also, he was in a club with Ryan that believed the same thing. He figured doing a protest rather than just brainstorming about possible protests might attract his attention.