It’s so annoying when your ideas outstrip your talent.

Man have I got a great idea. Really. I mean it’s a great idea. Well, maybe it’s actually more of a great concept then an idea.

I have an idea for a story or series of stories that quite possibly use a standard horror critter in a way that would capture a problem in today’s world perfectly. And the bonus of it (for me at least) is that I can actually say something about life in America today. The thing is, I’m having a hell of a time with it.

See, this is such a perfect fit for this type of monster that it’s almost too hard to not have it be too obvious an allusion or analogy or to seem like the concept is being slammed into the face of the reader in a ham-fisted manner. I’m sure it can be done, but right now my skill as a writer is just running the idea in circles through my head, my notebook and my Word program.

What’s really tripping me up is creating the story in such a manner as to have the reader enjoy it without having the underlying symbolism hit them until some later time after they’ve finished the story. Flipside: I don’t want it to be so buried in the story as to be unnoticeable or irrelevant.

*sigh*

It’s so much easier writing tickets and reports. You never feel like a completely useless moron.

Until the End of Time

   Ok, I’m going to cheat here. We’re slammed as hell getting ready for General Assembly and the annual mess that it makes of downtown Richmond and the overtime is flowing freely. That’s a longwinded way of saying that I’m a bit busy right now. So, I’m putting up an old story as my first fiction piece here. This was actually written back in 1999 (shortly before I became a cop and sorta quit writing anything but tickets) and was shopped around to the various short fiction outlets as an old school fantasy. Fun bit was, every rejection that I got on it was just for that reason. I never got so much as one rejection notice on this one saying that it was a bad story. Every rejection letter that I got on it was that it was too old fashioned.

    Still, I like it because it has that vibe and I’ve got a slightly updated version (not referencing the dates that it does amongst other things) that’s now being shopped around. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy this version for now and feel free to give your thumbs up or thumbs down..

                                             Until the End of Time

   My great grandfather was always considered the family eccentric. I still liked to visit him though. I went to visit him that strange day a few months ago. It was on that day that he told me his terrible story.

   It was a nice day as winter days go. The sky had that strange winter gray that isn’t quite grey enough to be depressing but is pleasantly relaxing instead. The air was just cold enough to sting when the wind blew and it carried a faint scent of wood smoke on it. I walked up the steps to the front door of his old, one story, Colonial style house, shifted the small bag of groceries in my arms and knocked on the screen door.

   “Great granddad,” I yelled through the door.

   “Come in.”  The voice from inside the house was cold and flat but surprisingly strong for a man who had just past his one hundred and third birthday. I went inside and saw him sitting in his favorite chair and gazing out the window. He was a grand (pardon the expression) old sight. He didn’t quite seem his age. Old as he was, he was always strong and stout. And he was always healthy. I don’t think I ever remembered seeing him sick.

   Even now he held some of that strength. But it was hard for him. You could see it in his eyes when you spoke to him. I placed the groceries just inside the door and walked over to his chair. Without a word from either of us I picked up his empty water glass from the small table beside his chair, walked into the kitchen, refilled it, and brought it back to him. He glanced up at me for a moment as an acknowledgment of my actions before returning his gaze to the world outside.

   He was in one of his famous moods. And those moods had been getting more and more common of late. I knelt down beside him.

   “Wooden nickel for your thoughts, Gratey.” I called him Gratey. All the great grand-children did.

   “What?”

   “Wooden nickel for your thoughts. You look like you’ve got a lot of them today.”

   “I’m thinking of age, my child. Age, time and death.”

   I had gotten used to that answer. Still, I felt the need to go through the dance of giving him the next line that I had been giving him each time he gave that answer.

  “Age is gonna happen, Gratey. Death is gonna come. But life is now. Why don’t you think about that while you got it?”

   His usual response was to just stare at me. On that day’s visit he surprised me. He started talking.

   “And what do you know of it,” he asked. “What do you know of the time I have left?”

   It wasn’t a nasty tone he used. His tone seemed empty and resigned. Resigned to what I couldn’t have begun to understand.

  “Look at what you’ll get to see. We’re comin’ up on the big Two-o-o-o. I’d want to stick around for something that cool. And how many people get to say that they’ve lived to see two triple-o new years, even if you were too interested in playing with your feet to remember the last one.”

   “I’ll live to see it, my child,” he said. “I’ll live to see it and all the ones to follow until the end of time.”

   My mouth kind of moved for a moment, but I couldn’t seem to make it form any words.

   “Take a seat there, child.” He pointed towards the chair that sat opposite him. “I’m going to tell you a story that I’ve told no one else before. You won’t believe me. Not now at any rate.” He took a drink from his water glass. “Tastes good.”

   “What are you talking about,” I asked.

   “I was a soldier in my younger days. But before that I was a dumb punk who thought he was immortal. There was nothing that could stop me. Nothing. Ever. Well, not until I became a soldier. I got a first hand look at my mortality thanks to the First World War. I got a real close look at it.”

   He stopped speaking and stared out the window for what seemed forever. The silence was maddening but I couldn’t seem to speak. After a time he turned his attention back to me. He took a sip from his water glass and started speaking again.

   “You will never know how scared that made me. Death was everywhere. People were dying all around me and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stop it if it turned its gaze on me. I did things to survive that I can never make up for. I was a coward who would do anything to keep himself alive. Even let others die. But I made it through the war and I left the army when my time was up.

   I came home physically intact, but something had changed inside me. I was no longer the cocky punk who knew he was immortal that I had been before. I was just another mortal. For some reason, and I don’t know why, I just couldn’t live with that feeling.”

   “But, Gratey,” I said, “everybody goes through that somewhere along the line. We all know we’re gonna live forever until life comes along and kicks us in the head hard enough to tell us that we’re not. God knows I did.”

   “But it was different for me,” he said. “I don’t know why it was, I just knew I had to be immortal.”

   He took a sip from his water and took another long pause before speaking. “I began looking everywhere for something that I couldn’t identify. I just knew it was out there and that I would find it. And after four years of looking, I finally did. I found this crazy old China man who kept telling stories of some lost order to any damned fool who would listen. He kept going on about this hidden mountain temple in his homeland that held The Flower of Life.”

   “The Flower of Life,” I asked. My voice had that special tone of sarcasm in it that can only be made by a twenty-something who knows everything.

   “I told you he was a crazy old man,” he said. “But I was just as crazy by that point. It made sense to me. I made him tell me exactly where this temple was and decided that nothing would stop me from getting there.”

   “How come he knew where this thing was,” I asked. “And how come no one else went there.”

   “I don’t know,” he said. That sound of resignation hung heavy in his voice. “Life is strange. And it doesn’t explain itself for you as it goes along. Live a little longer and you’ll learn that. All I can tell you is that this is what happened.”

   He took another sip and another long pause before speaking.

   “I worked out a deal with a freight ship captain to work my way over seas on his ship. It was hard work.”

   “You were going to work your way over seas,” I interrupted. “That doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”

   “It was a different world, my child. Now do try and stop interrupting. It was hard work, but I didn’t mind. All I could think of was getting hold of this flower of life that I had been told so much about. ‘Eat one petal and you would live forever,’ he said. ‘Eat two and you would go insane.’

   “It was a long trip but we finally docked in China. I was lucky enough to pick a ship that ensured that I didn’t have to deal with anyone of an official nature when we docked. The captain was dabbling in illegal trades. It turned out that he took me on because he thought, desperate as I appeared to be, that I was on the run. He thought that I might make a good crew member. He explained this to me during the trip over. I agreed to stay on with him as the only other option I thought I had was going over the side. It was a threat implied rather then spoken, but it was there nonetheless. One night after after we docked, I stole several days’ food from the ship’s stores, slid down one of the anchor chains, and slipped quietly away into the night.”

    He let out a long, quiet sigh before continuing. “It took me a month of walking and hiding to get to the temple. It took longer to get there then I had thought it would and I almost didn’t make it. I didn’t know the language and had to steal food whenever I thought I could get away with it.”

   “How did you think that you were going to get this flower thing at the temple if you didn’t speak the language,” I asked.

   “I had learned the Chinese name for the flower from the old man. I can’t remember what it was now. It’s been too long. And I had a gun. I thought that that was all I needed.”

   “That was really well thought out,” I said. “This gun and this word should do it. They’re all I need. Right.”

   “Do you think,” he asked, “that you would know what someone wanted from you if they placed a gun to your head and said only the word “money” to you?”

   “Well… uh… yeah,” I answered. “I guess I would.”

   “Well that was my thinking at the time. Speak the Chinese words for the flower and point the international symbol for “give it to me” at them. I thought that it was all I needed.”

   He paused again. Then, very quietly, he muttered, “I wish I hadn’t been so smart.”

   “When I finally found the place, I marched right up to the temple yard. I was amazed that it had no guards or defenses or anything that could be used to fight off invaders. I almost turned around right then and there. There was no way that I could believe that a treasure of that magnitude could be kept in a place like this. The only thing that stood between me and the front door were a bunch of simps in bathrobes.”

   He stopped and shut his eyes tight for a moment. It almost seemed to me that the memories of that day were too much for him.

   “But then that fear gripped me,” he continued. “The one that consumed me back in the foxholes. Ragged, filthy, and tired, but armed with a fear born strength and determination, I marched up to one of the young men in the courtyard and fired my gun into the air. Every head turned in my direction. That got there attention. I then put my gun right up into the face of the young man in front of me and said the words the old man had taught me.

   “He just looked at me blankly for a moment. I cocked the hammer of my gun and said the words again. This time I tried as hard as I could to put the edge of death into my voice.”

   Great granddad stopped and placed his head into his hands. I moved toward him to comfort him but he held up one hand and waved me back.

   “I’m alright,” he said. “Please, sit back down. It was just one of those moments when you realize how great a fool you were at one time in your life and wish against all hope that you could wipe that moment away from the face of time. Now, where was I?”

   “Trying your best to scare a monk,” I answered.

   “Oh, yes,” he said. “It worked. He made a strange little cross between a nod and a bow and made a gesture that meant for me to follow him.

   “We went into the temple and walked through more and longer halls then I had thought could have been in there from looking at the place from the outside. I kept my gun trained right at the back of his head for the whole trip. I was too close to let some trick or trap stop me.

   “We entered into a large room lit by torches along its four windowless walls. There were a number of young men standing in the center of the room. My… guide… said something to them in Chinese. I pressed the barrel of my gun against the back of his head. He pointed toward the group as it parted and moved to the sides of the room.

   “I couldn’t believe what I saw. Seated on a mass of pillows and blankets had to be the oldest looking man I had ever seen.

   “There was an old black man that my friends and I would make fun of when I was younger. We’d ask really obnoxious questions about how he liked the boat ride over. He really looked that old. He looked like a spring chicken next to the man I saw in that temple.”

   He took another sip of water and a final pause. “I walked right up to him, raised my gun, and spoke the words. And then he shocked me. He spoke to me in English. This old man looks at me and says, ‘You do not want the flower, my son. You do not understand it. It is not for man to have. Go now.’

   “For a moment I was so shocked that he spoke English that I forgot about the flower. I said something that must have been intelligible because he answered the question that had suddenly flooded my thoughts. He looked at me and said, ‘I have met many of your people in my time.’ Then he tells me again to forget the flower and leave.

   “I couldn’t believe this old man. I screamed at him and told him that I would have the flower. I told him that I would have its gift. He just looked at my and said, ‘You do not want it. Go now.’

   Great granddad started getting extremely animated at that point. “I just could not believe this. My blood was boiling. I wasn’t going to take this treatment from him and I decided that it was about time my gun spoke for me. I turned towards one of the young monks and put a slug right into his heart.

   “I spun around and faced the old man once again. I told him that the next one to die would be him. He told me that it didn’t matter to him if I shot him and asked me, not told but asked me, one more time to leave!

   “My anger grew. I shot another monk and told him that I had four shots left and that one monk would die every minute that I didn’t have the flower. He looked at me straight into my eyes. I could feel him scrutinizing my soul with that gaze. Finally he waved a hand at one of the monks and said something to him. The monk walked up to the wall behind the old man and pushed against one of the stone blocks. It sank back into the wall and revealed a small cubbyhole.

   “The flower that he pulled from that hole was like no other I’ve ever seen before or since. He placed it on the floor in front of the old man. The old guy nodded at him and the monk plucked a single petal from the flower and held it out to me.

   “It felt too easy. I thought that it might be a trick. I thought that the thing being handed me might be poison and told him as such. He told me that it was no trick or poison. He assured me that it was the genuine article. I took the petal but warned him that I would blow his head off if I started to go down. He just stared at me. I put the petal in my mouth and swallowed.

   “I felt a strange warmth race through my body and ride through my bloodstream. The feeling that my entire body felt for the next several minutes put sex to shame. But I still didn’t trust the old man.

   “I pointed my gun at him and let him know it. I told him that I would come back here and kill them all if he had tricked me. He waved one of the monks over and spoke into his ear. The monk produced a large, wicked looking knife from under his robes.

   “The old man told me to hold out my hand. I asked him why. He told me that the petal would protect me from harm. The knife would be the proof I wanted.

   “My first thought was poison. But I had to know. And then it struck me. My gun! I’d seen muzzle flash burn skin during the war. I placed the end of the barrel against the palm of my hand and pulled the trigger. The flash burned the palm of my hand. The pain was incredible. My anger flashed hotter and I aimed my gun straight at the old man’s head.

   “But then I felt the warm feeling from before on my hand. I looked at it as the skin healed itself in less then a second. I just stared at my hand. I felt a smile cross my face. I was immortal. I was really immortal!

   “Oh, I emptied the remaining rounds into the ceiling while whooping and howling like an idiot. I threw my gun into the air and danced the jig of a mad man. The old man just looked at me. I walked over to him leaned over so that we were face to face. I let him know that I had won. I got what I wanted. Then I told him that he was a fool. He was some withered thing that I would never be. I would be alive and vibrant and young long after his wisdom was dead and he was a fool for treating this as some taboo thing when he could have eaten from it and lived forever.

   “Then he said two words that stopped me in my tracks. “I did,’ he said to me. “He stared into my eyes and spoke in a calm, even voice. ‘I told you that you did not understand the flower,’ continued the old monk. ‘One petal plucked and swallowed will give a man eternal life. You will not get sick, you can not be killed, and you will not die. All the things you wanted. All the things I wanted when I was a young man. I crept into this very chamber in the dead of night and stole a bite from the flower.’

   “Then the old man propped himself up and told me that he was over two hundred years old. I couldn’t believe it. It was a lie. How could it be the truth? I told him he was a liar. I told him that he never ate from the flower or never had the nerve to do so until he was an old man afraid to face his inevitable death.

   “And then he told me the thing that would haunt my nightmares from that point on. This little man looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘You do not understand the flower. Not dying is not the same as not aging. You will, as I did and do, continue to age. The time will come when you will have aged beyond your body’s ability to carry itself. Much as has mine. I am your future self. Look on me and remember. We will live and age until the end of time. Now go.’

   “I didn’t want to believe it. I backed out of the room, turned, and ran as fast as I could down the long halls that I had come through before and out into the light of day. I didn’t stop running until I collapsed almost a day later.

   “I found that sleep was no longer as important to me as it had once been and I didn’t need to eat if I didn’t want to. That came in handy by the time I’d found a harbor. I found a ship headed for England and hid myself away in a crate. At the English port, I did the same with a ship headed for New York. From there I walked home.

   “For a while I convinced myself that the old man had lied to me. I was immortal. I was young and immortal. But as the years marched on and I saw the signs of age, I knew he had spoken the truth.”

   Great granddad let out a lone sob and then looked at me with the most haunted expression I have ever seen in a human face. More so even then the faces I’d seen in photographs from war.

   “You tell me to think of life,” he spat. “You think of life. That is your gift. It is not mine. My only gift would be death. And for me, death is only a dream.”

We sat in silence for over an hour before I finally let myself out. It’s been over three months now, and I haven’t gone back to visit my grandfather since that day. Maybe I’ll work up the courage to go back there again, but somehow I doubt it.