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Post by rvm45 on Aug 15, 2020 14:22:12 GMT -6
Night Ranger
If I had met a haint in Old Kaintuck, I wouldn’t have been so nonplussed. I’d encountered haints on several different occasions in Old Kaintuck. The Indians called Kaintuck the “Dark and Bloody Ground” after all.
I had attended a revival in South-Western Kaintuck that lasted well after midnight. I’d driven over the river and through the woods and I was back on the civilized side of The Wide and Beautiful River when I encountered the Night Ranger—though I had no idea what she was called at that point in time.
I’d stopped at the all-night diner to get a bite to eat. The diner also sold soft drinks in bottles and cans to go. I was all out of Double Cola—or anything with caffeine and carbonation, for that matter.
My friend Vicente worked as a short-order chef at the diner and he was working the midnight-to-sunrise shift. Vicente’s nephew Cassadore had come to Indiana from the Mescalero reservation in New Mexico to visit and he often hung in the diner.
Vicente has a bad case of Munchausen syndrome—not Munchausen-by-proxy, that has eclipsed classic Munchausen so much that most don’t even remember that regular Munchausen Syndrome exists.
Vicente talks nonstop like a dude who eats Benzedrine tablets like M&Ms. He recasts himself in the roles from Arnold, Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone movies—with dashes of “Miami Vice”, “X-Files” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” thrown in.
The thing is, Vicente is a good man—always ready to help a friend. He’s not afraid to mix it up with his fists either. If you really listen to what he is saying in his bullshit stories—each one of them is a clever parable or allegory to help you with some dilemma or choice that you may be facing in life.
Cassadore says that in the olde tyme, Vicente would have been a medicine man—someone respected. Nowadays, most people regard Vicente as a buffoon. I’m not ashamed to call Vicente my friend.
Anyway, I was sitting on the corner of the luncheon counter so I had a clear view of the door. It wasn’t that I lived in dangerous times or had any enemies to speak of.
It is like Thoreau said about philosophers: what is the use of being a philosopher if you don’t live differently and better than non-philosophers? The same applies to being a pistolero.
Anyway, we were sitting and bullshitting happily. The owner didn’t care about loitering. It was that kinda place. Anyway, having a few extra men on hand on third shift, might discourage some would-be stick-up artist.
I guess that it was a little past 3:00 am…
That’s when the haint walked in. Kinda reminds me of Prince’s song, “Raspberry Beret”:
“That’s When I Saw Her; “OO, When I Saw Her; “She Walked in Through the “Out” Door…”
Only Despair didn’t walk in through the “out” door.
Despair was about 6-foot 5-inches tall. She had long straight ginger-colored hair. Her iris and sclerae were a glowing backlit golden color and she had vertical pupils like cat—or a snake.
She had long pointed ears that come even with the top of her head. Her face was relatively normal, though a bit masculine, but her teeth were all semi-pointy.
She was muscled like a female weightlifter or powerlifter—maybe like a taller Serena Williams.
Despair had great bat wings on her back, extra-long fingers that terminated in long fingernails, then there were her feet. She had oversized birdlike feet with four zygodactyl toes. The feet were maybe 15-inches, front-to-back, and each talon was as big as my middle-finger. Her skin was jet-black.
I’d seen her at Walmart late at night. Once, she’d been leaving as I walked into the convenience store to pay for my gas. This was my first chance to examine her in detail.
Her jeans were cut off about 6-inches below the knee. There were shiny robust metal zippers up the inside of both legs of her jeans…. Yeah, her feet would have been between the size of a volleyball and a basketball, even if she made a “fist.” No way her feet could pass through the legs of a normal pair of jeans.
“I want three orders of steak, fries and coffee. Bring me a pot and keep the coffee coming,” she said.
Her voice was deeper than any human’s, raspy and a bit unpleasant to hear.
“She’s black. You’re always rhapsodizing about the charms of black women. I’ll give you $200 if you ask her for a date,” Cassadore taunted.
“$500,” I said.
“$250,” Cassadore said.
“I’ll kick in $150—and your food is on the house,” Vicente agitated.
“On the house the next two times as well and her order on the house tonight,” I counter offered.
“Done! I gotta see this!” Vicente gloated.
The night ranger was facing the door, so I pulled out a chair on one side of the table and sat down.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” I asked.
“You already are,” she said.
She put a whole 8-ounce steak in her mouth at one time, then she chewed a half-dozen times and swallowed.
“What are you?” I asked.
“Is that any of your business?”
“Yea and nay. It is a legitimate gambit to start a conversation,” I argued.
“I’m a Night Ranger, since you must know. My name is ‘Despair’,” she said.
“My name is ‘Stillwater’,” I told her.
“How can you pass so freely among men, without garnering more attention?” I added.
“Most humans can’t see me most of the time. When I must interact with them, they perceive me as a human.”
“I see you.”
“You have the eyes. Your friends are Indians. The cook is a shaman, and his nephew is a buoyant warrior. You, on the other hand, are a clown. Tell your friends that you won your wager,” she said.
OO…Despair had super-hearing!
“Do you have any issue with that?” she asked Vicente and Cassadore in a venomous voice, while fixing them with a hostile glare.
“No! No!” They both stammered.
“I would like to see you again. Can you appear in daylight?”
I had to keep things going. That’s the way the Baraka works—you always have to push your luck to the limits at all times. If you don’t, the Baraka will desert you.
“I am a Night Ranger, not a damned vampire!”
She acted insulted.
“I go to church every Sunday. Afterwards, I go to a nice restaurant—but no place that you have to dress up for. I don’t do ties or suits. Would you like to join me? Can you go inside a church house?”
“Do you think that I’m infernal?”
Once again, she was insulted.
“I don’t know, now do I?”
“Can you read?” I added after a moment’s reflection.
“Yes!”
I fished my Bible out of my bag and flipped to 1 Corinthians 12:3.
“Read this aloud,” I said, handing her the Bible and pointing to the verse.
She wiped her hands and took the Bible. I wouldn’t expect mere contact with a Bible to cause any pyrotechnics, regardless of how infernal Despair might be. That is the stuff of Phantasy.
“Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost,” Despair quoted.
Demons cannot utter the words:
“Jesus is Lord.” Not even as an imbedded phrase in part of a larger quote.
Well, they might, if for some reason the Holy Ghost allowed them to for some special reason. The chance that the Holy Ghost would grant some demon special dispensation to say those words, in order to trip me up, were all-but-nonexistent. I mean, sometimes God’s ways are mysterious, but give me a break!
“Are you through?” she asked while returning my Bible.
She held out her hand for me to take.
“Come outside, I want to show you something. How can you go on a date, if you’re afraid to walk out into the parking lot with me?” she challenged.
“Your skin is cool,” I said.
“I’m not a zombie or cold blooded. My body temperature is 78-degrees,” she said.
Once we were in the parking lot, she turned to me.
“You’re a fool! What keeps me from killing you this moment?” she sneered.
“Well, I have a .45 caliber 1911A1, two Smith and Wesson .357 Magnums, two Buck lockback knives and a Western Bowie. Vicente has a .303 Enfield aimed at your head…
“Besides, I don’t think that you’re my match, even in a physical altercation. You are female, after all. You are female? Please, tell me that you’re female!” I said.
“Of course, I am female! You never cease to provoke me! This parking lot at 8:00 am this Sunday,” Despair said.
Then she leapt 25-feet straight into the air purely with leg power. When she unfurled her wings. They spread out much farther than they seemed to have the substance for, when they were folded on her back. They were 45 or 50-feet wide…
“I wanted you to see me fly,” she said.
Then with a couple of flaps of her giant wings, Despair flew high into the night sky and disappeared.
“That is something that you don’t see every day. Reminds me of when I worked for the government trying to keep a lid on the UFOs and the gray alien invasion…” Vicente restarted his bullshit rap as soon as I walked back into the diner.
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Post by rvm45 on Aug 15, 2020 14:31:39 GMT -6
Night E anger:
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Post by misterjimbo on Aug 15, 2020 18:22:04 GMT -6
That is hilariously different and curious. As a reader, but not a writer, I have no idea where to take this beginning for a chapter 2. I'm just disappointed that he harassed her and didn't let her eat supper. Would have served him right if she had punished him.
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Post by rvm45 on Aug 15, 2020 23:51:54 GMT -6
Friend, i was entranced by that picture, and had to write a story—but beyond first encounter, I'm a bit lost. I assumed that she had been eating for a while, before Cassadore came up with his crack-brained challenge, that their conversation was a bit less machine-gun like in person and that she continued to eat while she conversed. She is big and with big predator's teeth she might very well finish a steak in a few bits—notice how she ordered three plates. Stillwater isn't truly attracted by Despair, but he believes that she is potentially dangerous… And as long as it isn't too stupid or immoral, he believes that he is obligated to push his luck to the limit at all times… I'm wondering WHAT Night Rangers DO. The word "Ranger" and her filling up on food and coffee seems to indicate that she's on some sort of aerial patrol—but for what? EE…I'll be alone the next few days. Mt sister is going to Indianapolis for surgery. Maybe I'll get an inspiration. Isn't Cassadore an EVIL SOB for putting Stillwater up to antagonizing the Night Ranger!?! Friends like that… …..RVM45
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Post by 9idrr on Aug 16, 2020 21:37:20 GMT -6
Hope your sister's surgery goes well.
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Post by texican on Aug 18, 2020 21:06:13 GMT -6
rvm,
Isn't there to be a date Sunday at 8 pm?
That would be Chapter 2 and with you at the helm very interesting.
Texican....
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Post by smitty60 on Sept 1, 2020 16:06:36 GMT -6
He has a date with "her". Maybe a trip to the beauty salon. Shopping for a new dress. Some armor for him.?
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Post by rvm45 on Oct 27, 2020 14:52:15 GMT -6
Friends,
I made a few minor changes in Chapter I. You might want to re-read, but it ain't crucial.
Chapter Two
1599
Despair was waiting for me in the parking lot of the diner, just as she had promised. Only, she was perched atop a telephone pole, squatting like Rodin’s “Thinker.”
What the Hell? Most people couldn’t see her anyway.
“Do you think that going to church will do me any good? Do non-humans even have a soul?” Despair asked.
“I have no idea if you have a soul or not. Animals have souls though. It says so in ‘Ecclesiastes.’ I do know that the Bible says:
“‘Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,’
“There ain’t no ‘Ifs,’ ‘Ands’ or ‘Buts’ in that simple declarative sentence,” I replied.
“You take your scripture very literally,” Despair remarked.
“If the Bible isn’t God’s direct, literal and inspired word, then it isn’t even good toilet paper,” I said.
“Will anyone be able to see me as I am?” she asked.
“Some. Alejandro’s wife Ixtli is a lamia. About half the congregation can see her true form. That caused a little controversy, but hey…”
“Like Elder said, it wasn’t a lamia that tempted Adam and Eve, it was a serpent. Elder wouldn’t care if someone brought a talking kangaroo to church, if it would help fill-up the pews,” I said.
“I digressed. I don’t suppose your mystical camouflage is any better or worse than a Guatemalan lamia’s,” I said.
Despair shuddered.
“Lamias weird me out,” She said.
“Most of my church consists of black people. Do you have a problem with black people?” I asked her.
“No, just lamias. I don’t like lamias. Stillwater, have you asked yourself why I agreed to go on a date with you? It is obvious that you don’t find me even remotely attractive,” Despair said.
“I haven’t a clue. I’m real fuzzy about why I even asked you in the first place,” I replied.
“As much as I despise lamias, Night Rangers and lamias share one important characteristic: there are no male lamias and there are no male Night Rangers. Do you know how we carry on our species?”
“Parthenogenesis? Same-sex exchanges of DNA?” I speculated.
“Neither.”
“Do they find infant Night Rangers under cabbage leaves, or does the stork bring them?” I asked.
“Please! Be serious, Stillwater,” Despair said.
“I was a grown woman before Columbus’ great-grandfather was born. I’ve never known love and I’ve never nursed an infant at my breast. I can never have a child, unless I can persuade a human male to have me,” Despair said.
I started singing an Irish style ballad, that was written and performed by a Serbian band that specializes in Olde Irish Ballads:
“Bean Na Shi”
“Her Eyes are Like silver; “Her Hair is Like Gold. “She’s Never Been Young; “And She’ll Never Grow Old…”
“I am not a Sidhe! I was born. I was an infant. While I won’t grow old, I will die someday—in all probability. My mother and father have both long since gone on to their reward. Please, be serious. This is important to me,” Despair said.
“Well, I ain’t givin’ you a flat-out ‘No’, but you’ll have to let the notion steal up upon me gradually,” I said.
“There are rules. We are not forbidden to initiate courtship, but when we do, it almost never ends well. The events and the probabilities are just configured that way. You are a clown Stillwater, and you were aimed at me by a warrior and a shaman—that is an excellent omen! You are the first human that has ever approached me for a date. If I can’t have you, God knows how many centuries that I’ll have to wait until I get a second chance,” she said.
“I am flattered. You’re not endearing yourself to me, when you repeatedly call me a clown though. That is wearing very thin,” I told her.
“I’m sorry Stillwater. I can read things in the forefront of your mind. You read a military manual on leadership as a young boy and you’ve always remembered a single axiom from that book:
‘“A ‘figure of fun’ (i.e. what Despair calls ‘a Clown’)—can never rise to a position of leadership.’
“The olde tyme Apache, or the Vikings, would be astonished by that dictum. When conditions were primitive and harsh, a man who could joke and raise spirits was highly regarded,” she said.
“Clowns seem to have a strong buoyant aura and they rush to the forefront of battle. They are indefatigable and they have a knack of being in the right place at the right time. That makes them very hard to kill,” Despair said.
“Can you only have one child? Will all of your children be Night Rangers?” I asked.
“No, I phrase it that way because the first one is the one that I’m longing for. You cannot have a second, third, fourth child unless and until you have the first child. My male children will all be human—very superior humans. Many of the mythical ‘Demigods’ are probably hybrids of one sort or another. Most—85%—95% of the girls will be Night Rangers,” Despair said.
“This is interesting, but we’ve arrived. Let’s be nice and not talk about courtship, love, marriage and insertion exercises in God’s house,” I said.
Minister Brown walked over to greet us. He could see Despair’s true form. He was in the faction that favored letting Ixtli become a member of our church. Even if I didn’t know that, I could see his eyes widen slightly at the sight of her.
“Despair is a Night Ranger,” I introduced her.
Might as well get things like that right out in the open. He probably never heard of a Night Ranger. I hadn’t, but now he wouldn’t have to wonder.
“Are you two…?”
He let the question hang.
“We only met recently,” I said.
Several missionaries and church mothers greeted us. The olde tyme missionaries were big on wearing large ornate hats. In fact, such lady’s hats are still called “Missionary hats” in some circles. Nowadays, it is a bit of a rarity to see a missionary wearing a missionary hat.
Nonetheless, almost all womenfolk love to gossip.
Then Minister Shelly came by. He was absolutely clueless that Despair was a non-human. He’s a nice fellow, but not terribly perceptive.
People like Minister Shelly, they have eyes, but they don’t see. If I flat out told him that Despair and Ixtli were inhuman monsters, he would assume that I was either joking or being insulting, but he still wouldn’t see them as they are.
Certain circumstances can open some people’s seeing eye, though I’m not sure that everyone has that latent ability—maybe…
I later learned that there are some rather tedious ways to force an awakening, if it is worth going to the bother.
Then Alejandro and Ixtli came over to greet us. They have five children—two boys and three girls—twins and triplets. Only one of the little girls is a lamia.
Ixtli isn’t fat, but she is stout. I guess her waist is about 36-inches in diameter. Her serpent half is only about 18-feet long and it tapers rather abruptly.
I don’t understand the physics of it, but when Ixtli is in human guise, her serpent half seems to become semi-immaterial. She can go into places that she shouldn’t fit, but there are limits.
I fell to wondering how a lamia would kill. Their serpent half is too short and thick to be much use in constricting.
“Lamias have a gift for making and using bows and arrows. We farm and most of our food is vegetable in nature,” Ixtli told me with a smile.
Despair made a warding sign and hissed.
“I’ll thank you to stay out of my boyfriend’s thoughts,” she said to Ixtli.
“I can’t help it. He broadcasts his thoughts so strongly. If I wasn’t a happily married woman…”
“If you weren’t married. I’d consider you a potential rival. I’d find a big-ass hook and go sand leviathan fishing, using you for bait. You do kinda resemble a big-ass fishing worm…”
Alejandro pulled me to one side.
“Women can be catty. Monster women are far worse. Whenever they first meet, they have to exchange dominance reciprocals to establish mutual respect,” he said.
Alejandro has a PhD in anthropology and he specializes in non-verbal behavior.
“Leave them alone. They won’t fight…I don’t think. Have you seen the silver kitsune that Old Man Harrold is seeing?” Alejandro asked.
“Three-days older than God, Old Man Harrold is dating a kitsune!?!”
“He’s been getting younger, since he started travelling between alternate dimensions—but yeah, this old man—he played one, he played like he weighed a ton…”
“We’re still in the church parking lot. Let’s not sing ‘This Old Man’,” I said.
Of course, Old Man Harrold wasn’t the dope-smoking, dope-shooting old man with a fetish for tranny whores from the song…but still…
“Anyway, you should have seen the sparks when Ixtli met the silver kitsune,” Alejandro told me.
I could tell that he was flashing on “This Old Man.” That rap was written by a satyr/centaur hybrid and once you had it in your mind, it was hypnotic and hard to get rid of.
“Are you through having a pissing contest with Ixtli? I’m surprised that y’all became such good friends so quickly. I thought that you didn’t like lamias,” I said as I pulled her away.
“If you will promise to be nice through the rest of our date, I’ll give you a reward,” I told her.
“What kind of reward?” she asked greedily.
“I’ll give you a kiss—but there are several conditions,” I said, while regarding her jagged shark’s teeth dubiously.
“Don’t bite my tongue off. In fact, don’t bite me at all. Promise not to do anything that will cause me pain—and I’ll give you a proper goodbye kiss,” I said.
She strutted as if I’d promised her a Mercedes Benz like Janis wanted.
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Post by NCWEBNUT on Oct 27, 2020 15:30:55 GMT -6
Good to see more of this most interesting story rvm45, Thanks
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Post by bluefox2 on Oct 27, 2020 17:37:32 GMT -6
Uniquely different. Really curious to see where this goes.
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Post by texican on Oct 27, 2020 21:32:22 GMT -6
RVM,
Hads to look up 3 terms to understand where you are taking us.
lamia noun, plural la·mi·as, la·mi·ae [ley-mee-ee] for 1, 2. Classical Mythology. one of a class of fabulous monsters, commonly represented with the head and breast of a woman and the body of a serpent, said to allure youths and children in order to suck their blood. a vampire; a female demon.
sidhe pl n the sidhe the inhabitants of fairyland; fairies
Kitsune Kitsune in the literal sense is the Japanese word for fox. Foxes are a common subject of Japanese folklore; in English, kitsune refers to them in this context. Stories depict legendary foxes as intelligent beings and as possessing paranormal abilities that increase with their age and wisdom.Wikipedia
Night Ranger does not have a definition yet.
Thanks for the story.
Texican....
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Post by rvm45 on Oct 27, 2020 23:56:54 GMT -6
Here is a Lamia. "Bean Sidhe"—literally "Woman Faerie" is an alternate spelling of "Banshee." There are dozens of Irish Non-Humans. I've heard it argued that the "Bean a Shi" in the song is a somewhat different being from the Sidhe. A Banshee is ONE type of Sidhe. "Kitsune" often refers to a very old and powerful fox with 9-tails that can take on human form. …..RVM45 Sorry the Lamia Illustrations wont track. Go here: monstergirlencyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/LamiaKyubi no kitsune koei.fandom.com/wiki/Kyūbi
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Post by rvm45 on Oct 28, 2020 11:18:24 GMT -6
Chapter Three
3365
We ought to have gotten out of the church’s parking lot without further incident.
However, a couple of church mothers apparently decided that they had lived too long and decided to provoke Despair.
“First, we started welcoming white people. Then the Mexicans and the Guatemalans started coming. Then that snake-woman thing became a member, then that fox woman comes and now that crazy Stillwater brings a demon to church,” Mother Allen said.
Despair has super hearing and my hearing is well above average.
“I am a Night Ranger, not a demon. You are due to meet a demon in the flesh soon though. You should be praying and fasting to strengthen your spirit instead of wasting your time gossiping,” Despair told her.
Mother Brown—Minister Brown’s mother—came walking over to defuse the situation.
“I’m glad that you came to our church. I hope that you’ll come again. Are you going to have dinner with this nice young lady, Stillwater?” Mother Brown asked.
“I was going to take her to Linda Liu’s,” I said.
“I may see you there then,” Mother Brown.
“I am far older than you, old woman,” Despair bristled.
“It’s okay. Mother Allen provoked your friend and she’s still a little testy. Night Rangers tend to have a temper—kinda like the Klingons on television,” Mother Brown said.
“You don’t know me. How do you have any idea how old that I am?” Mother Brown said to Despair.
Then Mother Brown’s eyes turned solid black.
Despair leapt back and made a series of warding symbols. If I didn’t recognize them for what they were, I’d have thought that she was flashing gang symbols.
Mother Brown chuckled and petted Despair indulgently on the head, like she was a small child.
************ *************** ********************
“Do people who see you as a human, see you as a black woman or a white woman?” I asked, once we were back in my van.
“I don’t know. Why do you ask?” Despair said absently.
“The way you were flashing warding signs at Mother Brown, you looked like a gangsta. Maybe you should get some gold chains and some B boy clothing,” I said.
“Do you have any humans that go to your church?” Despair demanded.
“Isn’t Mother Brown human?” I asked.
“I don’t know. When I turn my inner-eye on her, all I see is a woman-shaped hole in time and space,” Despair said.
“What was that that you told Mother Allen? Can unclean spirits assume a fleshly guise?” I asked.
Unclean spirits—demons—are immaterial. They fill the air so thickly, that if they were material, they’d have to fly in holding patterns to avoid collisions.
People are quite capable of getting up to all sorts of wickedness all on their own. Nonetheless, Lucifer’s lieutenants are constantly egging people on.
At some level, it is unhealthy to inquire too deeply into daemonic doings.
I wasn’t sure if they had any power whatsoever in the physical world. I kinda doubted that they could even knock over an empty aluminum coke can. Their powers seem entirely mental.
“You suspected me of being a materialized demon. They can manifest—very rarely—under special circumstances. Even so, they’re not terribly formidable, in a physical sense. Their mental powers become drastically amplified when they are in the flesh though,” Despair said.
“Can you see the future?” I asked.
“Not as a general thing, thank God. I’m like you though. Occasionally I get a ‘Knowing’,” she said.
“I met Satan in the flesh once,” I said.
“He was manifesting in the shape of a fat middle-aged man with an ungodly large nose. He was using the alias ‘Sudikoff’,” I said.
“What happened?”
“He tried to tempt me. He didn’t offer me a gold fiddle though,” I said. “What did he offer you?”
“A dusky maiden and a job with a six-figure salary,” I said.
“What did you have to do?” Despair asked.
“Cut my hair and wear a suit and tie to work every day. It was only when I realized that I was seriously tempted, that I flashed on the fact that he was Lucifer and he came to tempt me,” I said.
“It is like when he took Jesus to the top of the mountain and offered him all of the Earth, if he would kneel and worship him. I’m not anywhere near as important as Jesus. Satan only offered me a small corner of the world to kneel to him,” I said.
“Still, that girl was mighty fine,” I said wistfully.
“You have me now,” Despair consoled.
“Yeah, about that—you told Ixtli that I was your boyfriend. When did our relationship progress to that point?” I demanded.
“Despair, I don’t care too much that you’re ungodly ugly. Don’t arch your back at me! By human standards, you are hideous. You had better be female though,” I said.
“I’m not like the old man in the Satyr’s rap. I don’t dig those tranny whores. You can walk away now, no harm, no foul. I won’t be the least bit understanding if you turn out to be male. There will be sad-singin’ and flower-bringin’,” I said.
“I told you that there are no male Night Rangers. If I was a male, where would I get these?” she said while brandishing her chest at me.
“Do you think that I got my tits the same place where RuPaul got his? Why are you so insistent on this? Is it a pretext to make me strip, so you can see me naked?” Despair said.
“I have never been lucky at love. Therefore, if you want to throw yourself at me, I can overlook a lot. Past experience tells me that when things start to go my way in courtship, that something inevitably screws it up. You being a man is the only thing that seems capable of screwing our relationship given your determination,” I said.
“Stillwater, I’m not male. I’m not! I’ll strip for you later and prove it, if you still have your doubts,” she said while looking downward in an embarrassed fashion.
“You are correct though. There is a big cranky worm in the apple that I’m offering you,” She said.
“I knew it.”
“A Night Ranger is highly toxic to humans. My blood or my saliva can kill a human. Even my sweat can make a human deathly ill. Right now, if you tried to make love to me, you’d die before you were halfway through,” Despair said.
“That kinda puts a crimp in our relationship,” I said.
“You can build up a tolerance to me. A kiss is the first step. When my saliva enters your mouth, you will go through the tortures of the damned—but you won’t die, unless your will is weak,” Despair said.
“I wish that I could meet your father,” I said.
“Don’t joke, Stillwater. Every time that you ingest a bit of my body fluids, the agony will increase dramatically. It isn’t for nothing though. Each infusion will increase your strength and your perception,” she said.
“It will also increase your lifespan a great deal,” she said while looking downward again.
“What is the problem now?” I asked.
“If you persevere long enough to be my mate, you could live for centuries—but you won’t be ageless like I am. Someday, I will inevitably be alone, unless I die first. It happened to my mother,” Despair said.
“Night Rangers can only have one mate in their lifetime. That is an ironclad rule.”
“I was a child of my father’s very old age. He passed away when I was a child. My brothers were human and middle-aged when I was born. They’re long gone. My mother and my sisters have fallen in battle. I am so alone in this world,” Despair said.
She could be deceiving me. She could be setting me up for something epic. Still, the Baraka demands that I push my luck to the limit. Anyway. She looked so sad and lonely, that I made the conscious decision to trust her fully.
There is no dishonor in having your trust betrayed, however inconvenient that it may be.
“Do you want to kiss me now?” I said.
“Heavens no! You will be incapacitated for three-to-five days. If we did it here, they would take you to the hospital. Let’s go to your Sunday celebration, then we should go to your place. I will stand and watch over you while you endure the trial,” Despair said.
‘Yeah, or maybe you want privacy to eat me or lay eggs in me, like those wasps who lay their eggs in paralyzed spiders,’ I thought.
Still, I had decided to trust her.
Time to go eat Bar Be Que at Linda Liu’s.
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Post by cavsgt on Oct 28, 2020 11:30:21 GMT -6
Not your normal story, LOVE IT. I am not normally a sci-fi reader as our world is weird enough but you have me hooked. THANK YOU
OH and by the way MOAR-MOAR
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Post by texican on Oct 28, 2020 15:56:54 GMT -6
So Stillwater has to approach loving only a bit at a time for too much is deadly, but a little is only sickening for four or five days, but the rewards are longer life and more mental abilities.
Seems like a fair trade. Pain for gain.
Thanks RVM.
Texican....
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Post by rvm45 on Oct 30, 2020 0:10:13 GMT -6
Chapter Four
4816
Linda Liu’s paternal Grandpa came from Taiwan. He was four when his folks settled into the Chinatown in San Francisco. He met and married a full-blooded Lakota Sioux woman who had left the reservation to seek her fortune in Kalifornia.
The pair migrated to Kaintuck for some obscure reason. Rumor had it, that Grandfather Liu was involved in some dicey shit—but not too dicey—and he moved away to get a fresh start.
Linda Liu’s maternal grandmother was from Jamaica. She was one of those 6-foot 5-inch black Amazons of Yoruba extraction.
She married a Mexican dude who was tall and dark—so Linda Liu’s mother looked much like her grandma.
So, anyway Linda Liu is the 3rd generation black woman in her family, who is well over 6-foot tall and weighs close to 300-pounds—a good solid muscular pro-football type 300-pounds.
She speaks English, Spanish, Tex-Mex and Japanese. She picked up her Japanese watching anime and she ends every sentence with “Dattebayo.”
Yeah, unfortunately, Grandpa Liu came to America at too early an age to remember much Cantonese or Mandarin.
Her restaurant specializes in Memphis style pit bar be que. There is bar be que pork, beef, mutton and chicken in the buffet—along with catfish, grits and hush puppies.
There is also kung pao chicken, General Tso chicken, rice and cabbage rolls…
There is also chili, jalapeño peppers, refried beans and corn and flour tortillas.
The food isn’t really fusion, unless you choose to make it so, by mixing stuff in odd combos on your plate—like I always do.
Anyway, Linda Liu is a member of our church—and human, so far as I know. Her restaurant is exceedingly popular with all of the black Pentecostal holiness churches—meetings lasting well into the afternoon is kinda traditional in C.O.G.I.C.
Some of the black Baptist churches also run their services kinda late.
Linda Liu met me at the door. She looked Despair up and down.
“Stillwater, I didn’t know that you swirled,” she said in a voice dripping with innuendo.
It was said in jest though. Linda Liu was not a petty small-minded person.
“After you get your food, go back to room 2. Old man Harrold is hosting a party. The tab is on him today. Does your friend need a cart?” Linda asked.
“How much do you eat, Despair? You’re a non-human, so there is no shame in having a non-human appetite—as long as you don’t eat any of the other guests. If you’re going to require more than a couple of plates of food though, Linda Liu will get you a small cart, so you won’t have to make so many trips back and forth,” I explained.
“Best get me a cart then,” Despair said.
There are five small private rooms at the back, where people host small family gatherings sometimes. There are also three larger private rooms upstairs.
It is inconvenient for folks to walk upstairs carrying plates loaded down with grub from the buffet, so if you charter a top room, it is catered—but you pay a premium for the privilege.
Not that I cared how much Despair ate. Still, while I ignore many inconsequentials, I like food, so I notice things having to do with food.
There went five jumbo fried chicken breasts onto one plate, two bar be que breasts and two boiled breasts onto another plate. She took maybe five pounds of bar be que mutton, a heaping plateful of jalapeño peppers…
“Damned nation! No wonder your saliva is toxic,” I said.
She piled up a couple of catfish steaks, a pile of grits and another plate of baked beans.
Someone once asked me, “Do you ever eat any vegetables?”
Yeah, but not at the buffet, with all that like good meat wanting me to get around it…
I saw a dude pushing a cart while pulling a second cart behind him…
Yeah, 7-foot 8-inches tall with bright blue skin, big fangs. and horns growing out of his forehead.
“Terry! You’re back from Jotuneim!” I said.
Terry is a blue oni. What possible business a blue oni might have with the frost giants in Jotunheim, I don’t like know. Asking too many questions in Murim can make you unpopular.
Rumor has it, that blue oni are just red oni that stayed too long in Jotunheim. Rumor also has it that the frost giant women have a thing about human men. You don’t show up at Bifrost and request passage to Jotunheim just because you want to try your luck hooking up with a frost giantess though.
“Are you here for Old Man Harrold’s business meeting?” Terry asked me.
“I heard that it was Old Man Harrold’s birthday party,” a yōkai with shamrock colored skin and vertical pupils commented. His teeth looked like God was out of everything but eye-teeth that day, so he just made do with a mouthful of eyeteeth.
His twin brother—who is identical, except that his skin is magenta rather than shamrock colored—spoke up:
“Old Man Harold “He Played One “He Played Like He Weighed a Ton…”
“You know damned good and well that that vulgar song wasn’t written about Old Man Harrold!” Ixtli snapped.
I nodded at Ixtli in greeting. I hadn’t heard her slither up.
“Well, of course you’d say that. You were invited to the party,” the green twin said.
Just then, the magenta twin caught sight of Despair.
“Brother! A Night Ranger!” Magenta said.
“Did you know a Night Ranger called ‘Torment’?” Shamrock asked.
“She was my sister. She’s dead now,” Despair said.
“We know. It was us who killed her. We tortured her and enjoyed her screams and her body for days,” Magenta said.
He grabbed his crotch obscenely when he mentioned “enjoying her body.”
That is a perfect example of why no one had any use for the Yōkai Twins.
They were little jockey-sized farts—weighing maybe 145-pounds each. I grabbed one by the throat with either hand, lifted their feet clear of the ground and started banging their heads together.
“Please Brother Stillwater! You will hurt your hands. Let me show you how to take care of weaklings like these,” Terry said.
Terry took Shamrock from me and twisted his head through 540-degrees and then threw him into the corner.
I broke Magenta’s neck less ostentatiously. Then I quickly extracted his eyes and then stabbed him with my “spirit sword.”
No! Not that! Get your mind out of the gutter!
I picked up my wooden spirit sword out of a bargain barrel at a flea market—well yeah, a Murim flea market.
The wood comes from a peach tree that grew in a garden at a Taoist temple. Afterwards, it had some Norse runes carved on it and it steeped for 27-years in basilisk bile. It really isn’t much of a sword, only having a double-edged blade of 14-inches long.
It is razor sharp, unbreakable and particularly efficacious at killing regenerative type yōkai.
Magenta turned to dust. See, if I had done that to begin with, I’d have lost the eyes.
Shamrock had just managed to get his head untwisted and was rising to his feet.
“Shamrock! You don’t mind if I rip out your eyes, do you? It’s not like you can use them where you’re going. Now see, none of this was necessary, if you just hadn’t had to taunt my girlfriend. You could have gone on having sex with your brother until Hell froze over,” I said.
Several low-ranking riff-raff type yōkai came running up, just as I had removed Shamrock’s eyes.
“Stillwater, don’t you dare kill my son!” Hammer said.
“Why not? I like already killed his brother,” I said, as I jabbed my wooden sword under his 7th rib and into his heart.
“OOPS!!! Damned Nation! I hate it when my hand slips and I kill a yōkai when I’m trying…to kill a yōkai…”
“Wait a minute, Hell belles! I didn’t screw up after all, I was trying to kill him, Whew! That’s a relief!” I said.
“Terry, do you want a pair of these eyes?” I asked.
“No thanks, I’m trying to quit,” Terry said.
“Despair? Ixtli?”
I was trying to be a gentleman.
“The eyes are of no use to me,” Despair said.
“I’m a vegetable-Arian,” Ixtli said—with her cart loaded with over 50-pounds of bar be que.
I don’t see how Linda Liu can afford to stay open, as many non-human gluttons as she serves.
“Stillwater, I’m warning you!” Hammer shouted.
“You’re right, Hammer! Never eat a yōkai eye without some sort of hot sauce!” I said while snagging a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce.
The eye squirmed in my hand when the hot sauce hit it.
“Yippie-Kie-Ayy!!!!”
“Hammer! Would you try to hold the noise down? I’m trying to enjoy a rare treat. You’d think that you wouldn’t want your own son’s eyes to be wasted,” I said.
I was just fillying with Hammer. Eating yōkai eyes is less gross than eating boiled eggs, but not by much. At least they don’t come out of a hen’s ass.
A yōkai eye will add about 15-years to your life expectancy and increase your psychic force by about 2%. That quantity of psychic force won’t turn you into Mandrake the Magician, but it is better gained than lost.
“Stillwater, I’ll kill you,” Hammer screamed.
“O, wait a moment, Hammer. Did you say something? Do you want to challenge me?” I said.
“Wait a moment.”
I laid my spirit sword to one side and started taking out pistols, knives, potions and talismans.
“Can you guard my stuff?” I asked Despair.
“I asked Terry to guard my things the last time I fought. He got excited and bent the barrel on my .44 Magnum into a pretzel. Barrels can be replaced, but pond and honor! He warped the frame as well,” I said’
I leaned close to Despair and told her conspiratorially:
“Thankfully, I didn’t survive that altercation anyway, so it didn’t matter that he wrecked my Smith and Wesson. Still, my poor little pistol did nothing to deserve such a gruesome fate,” I said.
“I gave you the ivory gripped Colt .44 Special Single Action that Admiral Byrd wore to Agartha, so we should be even,” Terry protested.
“Ach ja, that was a diplomatic mission and I don’t think that Byrd even drew his revolver in earnest while he was at the center of the Earth,” I said.
“Agartha? Do you mean that there really isn’t a Pellucidar?” Ixtli asked.
“Sure, there is, but that’s a different center of the Earth,” I told Ixtli.
“I grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs when I was a little girl,” Ixtli said.
I wish that Burroughs could have met a sympathetic Lamia like Ixtli. It might have led to a number of good stories.
“Pay attention to me!” Hammer thundered.
“Hammer, I’ll fight as I stand. I’ll take on your people one at a time or all together. Decide how y’all done want to die,” I said.
Just then, bolts of electricity started playing all up and down Despair’s body.
“Have all of you lost your minds!?! I am a Night Ranger! Do you think that I’m going to stand with my thumb up my ass and let you threaten my fiancé?” Despair thundered.
Just then, Grandpa Liu walked into the room.
Surely, the old boy must have dressed normally back when he was still making a living in the work-a-day world—or not.
Sometime along the way, Grandpa Liu started dressing in changpao and odd elf shoes with toes that turn up at the tips—wearing big ass japa beads and carrying a big vulture’s wing with the feathers dyed in fluorescent colors as a sort of swagger stick.
Grandpa Liu thinks he’s a bad ass because he can levitate a few feet off the ground. Big ass deal! I could do that too, if I had the ability! Still, he’s a pretty good old man—even if he is a wee-mite eccentric.
“The yōkai must have gotten much more powerful recently, if they feel that they’re bad ass enough to come into my daughter’s establishment and cause a disturbance. Leave—now!” Grandpa Liu commanded.
“O one more thing Hammer. The next time that I see you, will be the last time that I see you,” Grandpa Liu said.
“You!” Grandpa Liu said.
He slapped the back of my head in displeasure.
“Why do you have to be so reckless?”
“If I could get just two or three more yōkai eyes, I could cross the threshold and start to develop psychic powers,” I said.
“Three eyes?” he queried.
“Well, with four for sure,” I temporized.
“And do you believe that such things as psychic powers and yōkai actually exist?” Grandpa Liu asked.
“Terry, what do you think?” I asked.
“I’m a Yōma. I have no idea if yōkai exist,” Terry said.
“Despair?”
“I am a creature from the realm of nightmare,” Despair said.
“Ixtli?”
“It isn’t fair to ask me. I’m Indian and I have all sorts of primitive superstitions,” Ixtli said.
“Well, since none of my friends believe in the supernatural. I don’t guess that I do either,” I said.
“That is a good answer. There are thirteen yōkai eyes in this box. If you promise to quit deliberately provoking yōkai to harvest their eyes, I’ll let you have them,” Grandpa Liu said.
He pulled the box back just out of reach and said:
“If you eat them now, it will spoil your appetite. Wait until later,” Grandpa Liu said.
“Introduce me to your fiancé,” Grandpa Liu said.
‘'Her name is ‘Despair.’ I met her once a few nights ago. Today, she unilaterally promoted herself to my girlfriend and then less than an hour later, she promoted herself again. Now it seems that she is my fiancé,” I said.
“I have met some of your kinfolk. I knew your mother,” Grandpa Liu said.
“You are less than 100-years old. Anguish died almost 300-years ago,” Despair said suspiciously.
“Stillwater believes in haints and psychic powers, while you cling to primitive superstitions like time, space and causality. What is the younger generation coming to?” Grandpa Liu said.
“By the way, Despair isn’t going to eat your head like a praying mantis, nor is she wanting to lay eggs inside you. You’re a distrustful soul. Let’s go listen to Old Man Harold’s business proposition. Since the crazy old bastard started hanging around with that silver kyuubi no kitsune, he has started to believe in alternate dimensions!”
“Can we at least eat before we listen to his schizophrenic ravings?” Terry asked.
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Post by texican on Oct 30, 2020 23:49:01 GMT -6
rvm,
Seems like fun and action will follow the pair.
Thanks,
Texican....
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Post by millwright on Nov 14, 2020 18:51:02 GMT -6
I'd enjoy a little moar of this.
It's a bit different.
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Post by rvm45 on Nov 18, 2020 22:00:13 GMT -6
Friend.
I'll try to add some to "Night Ranger" soon.
….RVM45
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Post by rvm45 on Nov 29, 2020 11:49:07 GMT -6
Chapter Five
7234
‘With a Knick-Knack Paddy-Whack, Give a Dog a Smack, This Old Man Came Rolling Back!”
Not Old Man Harold though. He didn’t come rolling back. He did come slip-sliding back though.
We all ate first. That took almost three hours. With the capacity of some of the Outsiders—Despair, Ixtli and especially Terry, it necessitated many trips back and forth to the buffet.
In the meantime, I checked out Old Man Harold and his new girlfriend Leena.
Old Man Harold was about 93 or 94 or something. He was an ordinary dried-up prune of an old man and as mundane as they come.
I mean, what do you expect at his advanced age? Beside me, he was the only other Caucasian who was a regularly-attending member of our church—unless you want to count the Hispanics. I consider them Mestizos, not Caucasians, but I won’t argue the point. Who gives a shit!
His wife of almost 50-years was a black woman, but she had been gone for almost 20-years.
Now he was dating an Outsider. There seems to be a lot of that going around lately.
It didn’t seem to have done him any harm though. He looked like a long-haired man in his prime now, with broad shoulders and a trim waist.
He had the aura of an Outsider though.
Aura!?! Whisky Tango Foxtrot Mite!?!
Yeah, I ate till I was good and full, and every time I belched and got a bit more room, I ate another Yōkai eye. Four Yōkai eyes later, I was starting to develop psychic powers!
The Yōkai eyes that Grandpa Liu had gifted me were different. They had been pickled in a special elderberry wine that had ginseng, royal jelly, honey locust pods, rattlesnake venom, scorpions, sassafras root and God knows what else added to the wine.
Eating one of Grandpa Liu’s pickled Yōkai eyes was like eating 30 regular eyes—and they were faster-acting too.
I started seeing all sorts of psychedelic trailers and afterburners around things.
I checked out Old Man Harold’s new girlfriend.
Picture Elvira Mistress of the Dark, only done up in white and silver instead of black. Leena did keep her cleavage decently covered though—unlike Elvira.
Leena was about 5-foot 11-inches tall and maybe 165-pounds.
Leena had long platinum blond hair—though it didn’t come from any bottle. Her eyes had golden irises like a Weimaraner. Her skin was white—not Caucasian white—white like a Kabuki dancer.
Her lips and caruncle were jet black and when she opened her mouth to eat, her tongue and gums and other mouth lining was black.
What? My new perceptions were letting me observe things at hyper-speed.
‘This is some good shit!’ I thought as I popped another Yōkai eye into my mouth whole.
“Quit looking at that silver kyuubi no kitsune!” Despair shouted in my mind.
I am heterosexual, but only certain women appeal to me. I thought Eve the rapper was quite sexy. I admired Queen Latifa’s body, until I found out that she batted for the other team. I thought that Teagan Clive was quite hot in her prime.
Physically, Serena Williams is close to my ideal—if she was just a bit taller. Doesn’t matter how tall she is, I’ll never meet her.
Once, a fellow told me that if I thought Serena Williams was sexy, that I must be gay. He should have mastered eating with dentures by now…
I wasn’t the least bit turned-on by Leena. Honestly, I wasn’t the least bit turned on by Despair either. At least Despair had the air of something forbidden.
On one hand, I could see having a Night Ranger as my girlfriend. I mean, I had to close one eye, shade the other eye and squint way into the distance—and then maybe I could just barely see it…
Or maybe that was just a chimera.
However, there was no possible scenario where I became the henpecked boyfriend of a jealous creature—no way! I told Despair that, via our new link.
************* ************* ***************************
Old man Harold started speaking.
“One of the most important rules of business is:
“Buy low; sell high,” he began.
“Way back at the dawn of humanity, some enterprising soul discovered that things of no great value ‘here’ are quite rare and precious, if you can only transport them over to ‘there’,” he continued.
“I have come into a copy of ‘The Slip-Slider’s Manual’,” Old Man Harold began.
I had never heard of “The Slip-Slider’s Manual.” Terry, Despair and Alejandro were quite interested though. Grandpa Liu already knew what Old Man Harold meant to propose, so he was only paying polite attention.
“First of all, the manual is a system of mental and physical calisthenics that can greatly strengthen and rejuvenate the body. Once one’s inner and outer man is capable of enduring the strain, there are techniques to let one travel between worlds—alternate dimensions, as it were,” he said.
“The world that I am in touch with, has a rather quaint Victorian air. They call their planet ‘Earth’ the same as we call ours. There are still huge forested areas over there though. I call the place ‘Forest’ in my own mind, just to distinguish between ‘here’ and ‘there’,’’ He said.
“Forest does have venereal disease and some other bacterial infections. Penicillin, streptomycin, tetracycline and a few other drugs are quite valuable over there,” Old Man Harold said.
“I took the time to go through a top-ranked medical academy and become a doctor on Forest. Medical school is only three-years long on Forest. Of course, medicine there is primitive, so there is less to learn.”
“My practice is thriving and lately I have been introducing a few things and building factories on Forest,” he said.
“Amongst other things, I have a buggy works that turns out carriages with Ackermann steering. Mostly though, I turn out coal-tar dyes and sulfa drugs—along with a few primitive plastics like celluloid and Bakelite,” he said.
“You could say that I’m the equivalent of a multi-billionaire on Forest. Antibiotics have great value on Forest, so does amethyst, synthetic diamonds and moissanite. In fact, since they don’t have electricity or diamond encrusted abrasive wheels like we do, any sort of faceted gem is much more valuable over there,” Old Man Harold said.
“On the other hand, the wooly mammoths never went extinct on Forest. I am importing big tusks of mammoth ivory—brand new pristine tusks, not ancient cracked tusks—my tusks haven’t aged for thousands of years in the Siberian tundra. There are also huge abalone shells—more than big enough to make a stock for the largest pistol…”
“There are some old and very finely figured hardwoods—some of which don’t exist on Earth…”
“And some pharmaceutical-grade herbs like these,” Old Man Harold said.
He laid five 1000-year old ginseng on the table.
1000; 5000 and 10 000-year old ginseng is a bit of a misnomer. Hell’s belles and cockleshells! The giant redwoods aren’t quite 5000-years old. How in the seven burning Hells would something the size and capability of a sweet potato get left alone for 1000-years—let alone 5000 or 10 000-years?
The three “ancient” ginsengs are one of several especially potent sub-species that had the good fortune to grow in an especially favorable spot and got left alone for 80 to maybe 130-years.
It happens. Some of the geoducks that some mollusk-eaters dote on are 80 to 100-years old.
I wouldn’t eat any sort of mollusk, even if eating it would give me great bat wings like Despair’s and let me fly.
“I see that you’re interested, all of a sudden, Stillwater. You needn’t covet my 1000-year old ginseng. Here, I’ll gift you a 10 000-year ginseng,” he said.
He tossed me a 10 000-year old ginseng. The root alone would have weighed well over two-pounds, but this was the whole plant, including the stem and leaves.
Most of the action is in the big taproot, but the stems and leaves have some lesser uses as well.
10 000-year old ginseng is a powerful psychedelic. It grants insight. It increases one’s intellectual capabilities and it boosts one’s psychic powers.
Yippie-Kie-Ayy, Old Man Harold!
Well, only Outsiders and a few traditional healers would recognize the ancient ginseng and the other pharmaceuticals for what they were.
Mammoth ivory was a bit problematic too.
Some years ago, the numb-nuts banned all trade in ivory. Yeah, in the modern world, elephant herds need to be culled and trimmed. I’ve seen videos of elephants starving to death, because they had overgrazed their pasture.
The African nations could have game wardens joylessly cull the herds and then callously destroy the precious ivory and valuable leather, or they could sell hunting licenses to rich sportsmen and use the proceeds to benefit the country, the elephants and other wild game.
Seems like a “no-brainer” to me. I guess that’s why the Bambists dropped the ball so badly. They have no brains…
Anyway, ivory already in the US is grandfathered. Sometimes, someone will find an antique tusk or two somewhere, all ready to be turned into pistol grips, knife stocks, bracelets, pendants and brooches.
If you turn up seven or eight antique tusks every year—even if you have the psychic ability to find them via telepathy, someone from the gubmint will come to shut you down and file some sort of bullshit charges.
New walrus tusks are legal for Indians and Esquimaux to own, but not other people—but the natives can legally turn them into jewelry or objects d’art and sell them.
Hippo and boar’s tusks are both still legal at last account. I’ve read of some people laboriously replacing a damaged ivory piano key with a key made from a hippo tusk—all hippo tusks aren’t large enough to become a piano key…
Anyway, fossil mammoth ivory is exempt. Outside of the fact that all mammoth ivory is characteristically weathered and aged, the grain pattern between elephant and mammoth ivory is quite distinct.
Ach ja, though! When you start dumping 30 to 40 brand-new, unweathered and unaged mammoth tusks in the continental US every year, tongues will start to wag.
Old Man Harold also had tusks from an extinct species of giant walrus—and some mastodon ivory…
Mother of pearl grips were once quite popular. Never mind Patton’s dickheaded comments on mother of pearl. Patton was a hog-head who deliberately damaged his own soldier’s core of bushido by urging them to make survival a priority.
The thing is, the big oysters—large enough to make grips for a large pistol—are all but extinct. Eagle Grip Company has cornered the market, of the few remaining oyster beds that still turn out large shells.
Supply and demand, mien Herr! Unless you have an ungodly expensive, engraved and gold-plated pistol—if your pistol has contemporary mother of pearl grips, you will have more money invested in the grips than in the gun.
They’re bolloxing with synthetic opaline, but they’re not yet tuning out slabs of sufficient quality or thickness to make into pistol grips.
Also, a few very small-scale pistol makers have experimented with mother-in-law of pearl grips for little .25’s and .32’s—that is to say, pearl grips made from freshwater mussels…
Mollusks are nasty, dirty creatures. I used to didn’t mind the broad category. Then one day it dawned on me—mollusks are the kin of the dread adversary.
I remember once, when I was 4-years old, my father offered me some clam chowder. Maybe, if I had partaken of the unclean shit, I wouldn’t have such a horror of rank-and-file mollusks to this day. I guess that I was just lucky.
I had long admired a number of objects with mother of pearl embellishments, so somehow mother of pearl is grandfathered into the short list of things that I will touch.
I used to have a cowrie shell necklace that I liked and I often played with the pair of conch shells that my aunt owned.
Both conchs and cowries are snails—the dread adversary—along with slugs. I wouldn’t touch a conch shell or a cowrie shell with a 10-foot pole nowadays.
Anyway, an abalone is like a half-shelled oyster. I wasn’t sure if I could bring myself to touch something made from an abalone shell—probably.
The herbs and other pharmaceuticals would only be of interest to practitioners of alternate medicine, herbologists and alchemists.
EE…In Murim, “alchemist” is a chemist who uses things like 1000-year old ginseng and Yōkai eyes to make chemical concoctions.
Yeah, it is like:
“Hello FDA? I have a drug that I’d like you to put through a double-blind test. No, I’m not affiliated with any major drug company. No, actually I don’t like have a PhD from an accredited university—at least not from a university recognized by the mundane world…”
“Hello? Hello!?! Hello FDA!??! O Hell, knob-gobbling FDA!!!”
Sometimes—rarely—an alchemist will come up with a drug that could be of great benefit to mankind. It also needs to be something that can be synthesized from commonly available chemicals, without exotic and arcane ingredients…
And they’ll pass the chemical formula along to some soul who had the great patience to become a recognized pharmacy researcher in the glacially moving mundane world, in addition to becoming an alchemist in Murim.
Yeah, not from altruism. Of course, Murim members have quite a few vices. Altruism has never been one of their failings though.
The “beard” chemist will funnel a hefty kickback to the alchemist.
Anyway, Old Man Harold wanted us to become his distributors and drum up business, collect payment and act as enforcers and bodyguards when needed.
It sounded like a profitable arrangement.
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Post by texican on Nov 29, 2020 16:02:28 GMT -6
rvm,
Good chapter with branches that need to be explored. Additional chapters will help. (Hint.)
God bless us.
Texican....
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Post by rvm45 on Nov 29, 2020 17:26:21 GMT -6
rvm, Good chapter with branches that need to be explored. Additional chapters will help. (Hint.) God bless us. Texican....
Texican,
You're about my only regular commentator.
I had already started "The Slip-Slider's Manual" some time earlier. It was going to be a far more serious book about an Old Man who inherits a mystic manual and markets his Mammoth Ivory through Linda Liu and her enigmatic grandfather—who may have ties to the Triads and the Yakuza…
A lot of the book was going to be about the mechanics of finding old patents in their entirety and then creating factories to manufacture coal tar dyes and sulfa drugs—with little or no infrastructure to start with. Nuts and bolts stuff.
There was gong to be a Fox Spirit, but she was going to give Old Man Harold the manual and then discreetly disappear.
Old Man Harold used a number of pseudonyms—in Forest, he generally went by "Casúr Dubh"—literally "Hammer Black" or "Black Hammer" in Gaeilge. I HATE AUTOCORRECT!!!!!!!
As he says, he was paying tribute to Old Doc Hemmer—quite a local folkhero in some circles—and he transliterated "Hemmer" into "Hammer" and then translated it into Gaeilge.
Anyway, unfortunately, we now know least his first name—Unless, his Surname is "Harold" and his daddy named him "Old Man"!!!!
I meant for "The Slip-Slider's Manual" to be a good bit more serious—without mythical characters crawling out of the woodwork.
Note: Each slip-slider finds his own alternate world—and for a very long time, only he can go there. Old Man Harold can go to Forest and carry about a large Step-Van's worth of stuff each way, but it willl be 60 or 70-years before he can take even one person per trip to experience his world. {Slip-Sliders live a VERY LONG TIME.}
A a creature from the realm of nightmare though, Despair can travel to any world that she chooses to—including Forest—and take Stillwater with her…
Maybe, I could still write "The Slip-Sliders Manual" and just not mention how over the top his friends on Earth are…
Or maybe "T S-S M" Should also be weird over-the-top story too...
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Post by sniper69 on Nov 29, 2020 19:02:27 GMT -6
However you decide to write the slip siders manual - I'm sure it will be as good as your stories that I've read already. Thanks for sharing your writing.
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Post by rvm45 on Nov 30, 2020 15:03:14 GMT -6
Chapter Six
9532
“There is something about ‘The Slipslider’s Manual’,” Old Man Harold said.
“If I let you rifle through my copy, all that you would see, would be blank pages. You can only read your own copy. When you acquire your own copy, you will find a number, from 1-to-9 on the top inside corner of the front cover,” he said.
“That number, is how many copies of the manual that you have to make and to pass on to others. You have to copy the book by hand. No sort of mechanical copying will work. Never mind, if you aren’t a good draftsman or artist. The book will loan you the skill,” Old Man Harold said.
“My slip-slider’s manual said ‘8.’ Leena’s only said ‘3.’ Fortunately, I was one of the three. I have manuals for all of you, in exchange for you loaning me your expertise,” he said.
Well, let’s see: there was me, Despair, Terry, Alejandro, Ixtli, Grandpa Liu, Minister Brown and there was no number “8.”
“How long does it take to make a copy?” I asked.
“It doesn’t take long to make the actual copy, but you need to master the first five chapters before you’ll have the necessary psychic force to transcribe the book,” Old Man Harold said.
“That took me over 3-years to get to that point. Why, do you have someone in mind?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“There is no rule against me making extra copies, if I choose. See me later. I can’t let you have the extra one here though. It is earmarked for Linda Liu—and I must personally hand the book to a candidate to fulfill my obligation,” Old Man Harold said.
“First of all, I’m using a number of pseudonyms to run my businesses. How many of you knew Old Doc Hemmer, the veterinarian?” Old Man Harold asked.
Minister Brown raised his hand. Despair and Terry also knew him. I’d never met him, but I’d heard many of the stories that people tell about him.
“Well anyway, I decided to take ‘Hemmer’ as my name over there—to honor Old Doc Hemmer, since I was also going to be a Doctor myself now—but I transliterated it to ‘Hammer.’ Since I was on a roll, I translated it to Gaeilge,” he said.
“On Forest, I’m known as ‘Doctor Casúr Dubh’—literally, ‘Doctor Hammer Black’ or ‘Doctor Black Hammer.’ Unfortunately, no one on Forest speaks Gaeilge—or any Earthly language,” he said.
“None of you will be going to Forest anytime soon. The nascent slip-slider can only travel to one randomly selected world. It takes many decades to add other worlds. While I can transport tons of goods at one time—say, the contents of a big step-van—but not a semi-trailer or a boxcar—it will be at least 60 t0 80-years before I can take one of you to Forest,” he said.
“So, anyway, feel free to call me ‘Casúr Dubh’,” he said.
“O, and about copying and distributing the manuals—once that particular mission is accomplished, it opens the door to greater accomplishments,” Casúr said.
We talked a little more about the nuts and bolts of our business venture and then we dispersed.
“Yippie-Kie-Ayy!” Terry told me, with a big thumbs-up.
“Once I master ‘The Slip-Slider’s Manual’ I won’t have to pay that ruinous toll every time that I want to use Bifrost to go to Jotunheim and see Revna,” Terry said.
“You’re seeing a frost giantess?” I asked.
“We’d be married, but her clan is against it.” Terry said.
“Would you like me to go to Jotunheim and wipe out her clan for you?” I asked.
“What could you do against a frost giant?” Despair asked.
“I have a Barrett 82A1 along with some depleted uranium bullets steeped in giant scorpion venom, LSD-25 and zombie bile—I think that it will waste a few frost giants…”
“Never mind my .475 Linebaugh custom pistols and my spirit sword,” I said.
“Nah, she might be relieved at first, but in two or three centuries, she’d get to missing her family and I’d feel bad about having them exterminated,” Terry said.
“Besides, while I have no doubt that you could handle one frost giant clan, you don’t want the whole damned frost giant race chasing after you.” Terry said.
“Are there any benefits from eating frost giant eyes?” I asked—purely from curiosity.
“Balls,” Terry said.
“Beg your pardon!?!” I said.
“You eat a Yōkai’s eyes. Any type of mystic serpent, you eat the gallbladder. Birds—eat the heart and the liver. If you want to absorb a frost giant’s power, you have to eat his testicles,” Terry said.
“What if it’s a girl frost giant?” I asked.
“Who could kill a creature of such surpassing loveliness?” Terry said, with a distant look in his eyes.
“Why won’t they let you marry her?” I had to ask.
Terry held out his left fist with only the little finger extended—just slightly crooked.
I first saw that hand sign in an Australian movie I was watching late one night.
The Aussie husband demands to know why his Thai wife is leaving him. She gives him that sign and says in a heavily accented voice:
“Cause you got little bitty ding-a-ling!”
I’ve seen that sign several times since, in movies or videos set in Thailand.
“So, its true what they say about Oni. What is it any of her folks’ business if you even have one at all?” I said.
“Well, they say that eventually—even if it was 500-years from now—she would be unsatisfied. She’d go looking elsewhere and the clan’s honor would be besmirched,” Terry said.
All this while, Despair was writing on a notepad. She tore a sheet off and handed it to Terry.
“This is an alchemist that I know. She is very discrete. Don’t over-indulge in the medication she gives you, or you will have to forsake frost giantesses and start courting Titaness’s and female cyclops,” Despair said.
“What? Why are you staring at me? I’ve been around many centuries and I just know things,” Despair said.
“No, I was just wondering. I never met a cyclops. Are they bigger than a frost giant?”
“Nah, though the females are bigger than the males. Certain body parts are Brobdingnagian though. That’s one reason the male cyclops are always so pissed:
“I can’t get no; “SATISFACTION!!!” Despair quoted the song.
“Damned nation! I didn’t need to know that!” I said.
“You asked.”
“Terry, Old Man Harold—Casúr, I mean—didn’t say that you could use the manual to bypass Bifrost,” I said.
“Casúr doesn’t know everything and I’m sure that he knows things that he didn’t say,” Terry said.
He carefully secured the paper that Despair had given him, and went on his merry way.
He was singing:
“Does she walk? “Does she talk? “Does she come complete?
“She was pure like snowflakes “No one could ever stain “The memory of my angel “Could never cause me pain…”
O well; O Hell…
“You can have my book. As a Night Ranger, I don’t need a book to travel between worlds. Would you like to visit Forest soon and freak out Casúr?” Despair said.
“Casúr said that they will only work for the intended recipitent,” I said.
“Casúr handed it to me, so he gets credit for passing it out, but I haven’t yet opened it, so it isn’t imprinted to me,” Despair explained.
“You can have my book too. I don’t need a book to slip-slide and I couldn’t do the calisthenics with my non-human body anyway,” Ixtli said.
“Did you overhear the conversation with Terry just now? Please don’t spread that around,” I said.
“That he has love trouble with Revna? Who doesn’t know about that? About the other, I won’t spread it, but everyone knows about Oni,” Ixtli said.
O well; O Hell.
************ *************** **********************
I went by Vicente’s house.
Vicente is Indian. When I first got to know him, I’d be sitting in his front room and one of his Indian friends would come in without knocking. He’d sit looking angry, without saying a word.
Then in an hour or two or three, the man would get up and leave without having said a word the whole time.
“What’s with him?” I’d ask.
“I guess he didn’t have anything to say,” Vicente would say with an indifferent shrug.
At first, I thought that the Indians were reluctant to talk in front of a white man. Nah, Indians just have their own ways of doing things.
“Vicente has maybe 20-people living with him at any one time. He has a big-ass house that someone added four rooms to the attic, complete with elaborate dormers—so, the house has nine bedrooms—not counting the basement,” I explained.
“The house across the street came up for sale. It is almost a shotgun house—with one room off to one side—but it has a second story. Vicente bought the house and he turned the upper floor into a sort of den and retreat,” I continued.
The top was pretty much in the shotgun format—four rooms in a row and you had to go through one to get to the next.
Vicente’s oldest son had turned the two front-most rooms into a sort of retro psychedelic neo-hippie hangout with strobes, UV lights and psychedelic posters.
The back two rooms had knotty pine paneling, hardwood book cases and comfortable but old and shabby easy chairs—kinda like a sort of rundown English gentleman’s club—except one reading room had two double bunk beds in it and the other one had a double bed…
“If I went to Vicente’s house, and by some strange chance, no one was home…”
“If I needed a place to shower, I’d take a shower. If my clothes needed washing, I’d drape a blanket around myself and wash and dry them. If I needed food, I’d help myself. If I needed to crash, I’d pick a bed and crash,” I said to Despair.
“I have two or three other friends that I might do that with, but when they walked in, I’d feel the need to explain. I wouldn’t bother to explain to Vicente,” I said.
“Vicente has often said that when a man has more than he needs, he should be grateful if people think enough of him to come and share his bounty,” I said.
Once, I thought that I had Indian blood. Yeah, a lot of folks erroneously think that—but my forefathers had been in Southern Indiana for a good long while…
And honestly, miscegenation was really frowned upon back in those days and my kin back then, were the sort of poor white trash who wouldn’t care, since they were already looked down upon to the max.
And several of my close kin had dark complexions, raven hair, piercing brown eyes and big Indian noses.
Vicente looked at a picture of my grandmother one time, and he said that she looked Indian enough to have been featured on the buffalo nickel.
Nah, not me. I have blue eyes, red hair and a short but stout Celtic nose—but I thought that I had the blood. I felt connected to the Indians and I felt that I had a stake in their history.
Then those damnable DNA tests came out. I am Irish, Scots-Irish and Scandinavian—probably via Norse who migrated to Ireland. There wasn’t even 1% Indian blood.
I felt like the DNA test left a big hollow place inside me. Y’know, if I read about the olde tyme atrocities to the Indians now—it doesn’t move me as much as it once did. How upset can I be about something that happened before I was born and didn’t affect my blood kin?
Anyway, Vicente is still one of my best friends.
************ **************** *******************
Several of the Indians regarded Despair warily. A couple of them made warding signs in her direction.
‘Y’all done been Indians. Why are you using dwarven and Sidhe warding signs?’ I thought.
We found Vicente and Cassadore in the psychedelic lounge with a third fellow that I had never met before. He looked Indian.
Vicente looked at Cassadore when I walked into his lounge with Despair with me. Cassadore shrugged.
“This is ‘Sherman.’ He’s not Indian, but he’s a dream-walker nonetheless. You can speak freely in front of him.” Vicente said.
‘Well, I assumed that he was safe to talk in front of, just from the fact that he is allowed on the second floor of your second house,’ I thought
“I’m ‘Stillwater.’ This is ‘Despair’,” I said.
“You’re a Night Ranger! I have never encountered a Night Ranger outside the realm of nightmares,” Sherman enthused.
He had that sing-song intonation that you hear from all those Hindi bill-collectors that you hear on the phone. I fixed that! I no longer answer my phone!
He was Indian—just not a real Indian. He was an Indian from Bollywood land!
“I have a gift for each of you,” I said as I handed each of them a book.
“This is ‘The Slip-Slider’s Manual’!” Vicente said.
“I knew a fellow who inherited one of these when I was working for the Blue Archangel Security Corp,” he added.
“What happened?”
“He never returned from his first slip-slide. He was a good fellow,” Vicente said with a trace of sadness.
“I wouldn’t ask a friend to blunder into danger,” I said.
“No, all great opportunities carry certain risks,” Vicente said.
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Post by texican on Dec 2, 2020 0:26:46 GMT -6
rvm,
Stillwater and Despair going to other worlds now that they have the Slip-Slider Manual and have met the requirements?
Just how much trouble can these two get into?
Thanks, but need more chapters.
God bless us, America and President Trump.
Texican....
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