Category: Fiction

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Poetry-Thing Thursday: A Horizon Ruined

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 3 Comments

A horizon ruined.
Fires ashen, blue and
red, white hot.

Nuclear winter,
snow-blackened cinder,
burns the souls of the not.

Man’s insanity,
manifests before me,
guns and bombs scream at their treat.

Overhead
birds of the dead,
prey upon the willing defeat.

No more air,
Earth’s frayed hair,
both decayed in madness.

And so I sit,
struggling with it,
for all I know is sadness.

What I have seen,
A thought only gleaned,
wolves in sheep’s clothing.

A literal moment,
atomic component,
>and with no foreboding.

A feeling was rushed,
by someone whom crushed,
a button without thought.

Now we are doomed,
forever entombed,
by what a few’s greed sought.

Bonus Story: Stronger Without Them

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Cold wind whipped snow and ice in drifts across a plain of white mounds and frozen boot-prints. The mounds were the size of a man tall, five or six men wide, and spotted the horizon for countless miles. The man was clad in furred leathers, well-insulated from the cold with only thick, wild hair and beard to shield his face. He planted each step with a stone’s determination. It made his resolve immovable. His head was kept upward, eyes small, squinted against the snow that pelted and plastered his face and furs, coated him with a fine layer.

His people had a legend, one that made the trek all the more unavoidable: if a man were to seek to rectify the past, he must first risk his future, his life, in the mounded flats. Only once he made it through, could he hope to seek out recompense for the slaughter of his wife and children. He made the journey alone, as a man should, was certain he would die before he found refuge in the Gods’ embrace. He refused to listen to reason from those in his tribe; the invaders, they said, were the ones to blame.

But he blamed the Gods. For millennia, their tribe had lived the way of the righteous, their gratitude and sacrifices never late nor without due praise or ritual. They had given to the Gods all that had been requested, earned nothing but their contempt in the process. He’d had enough. He was man, and no God– gracious or not– would keep him from seeking his bounty. The righteousness that compelled him forward was just as it had always been; with conviction of spirit, character.

The Gods had let the invaders come. In any case, had not prevented it. In the harsh of Winter, when their ardor was already dampened, his tribe had been half-slaughtered by the invaders clad in their fierce battle armor. With sword and musket alike, they pillaged, plundered, raped and conquered all they’d seen. It was only after their leader, in his bear skins and helm, was killed that the tribe had finally withdrawn.

The snows of the village were stained crimson like the hands of the Gods that had neither prevented nor appeared during the massacre to stop it. The seasonal perma-frost had been breached by the pyres of a dozen men, their women and children. What few did not die by the sword wished they had. Only the fear of reprisal in the after-life kept them from turning their weapons upon themselves. The echoes of men and their families wrenched billowed cries for absolution through the blizzard that came after the battle.

But he would no longer stand for it. They had done all the Gods had asked of them, more even, in the promise that the Gods would watch after them, protect them. They had failed. He would not. Once he found them, he would paint the hallowed grounds of their hidden refuge with their blood. He would bury his sword in their bellies for every life lost and given in vain. Then, satisfied with the carnage, he would turn the sword on himself to die alone, the Gods vanquished and his work done.

He had fought the cold and the snows for five days to cross the flats. Like others of his tribe, he’d taken to resting only to conserve his strength, eat stored morsels and drink from a water-skin. He was no fool, knew not to take the journey lightly. If he did, there would be no one left to avenge the fallen, seek retribution for the sacrificed.

By the sixth day, he stood before a clearing in the mounds where the storm that raged seemed not to exist. In that emptiness, the ground was stone, clear of snow. The mounds around its perimeter formed a wide circle open before him. A furious huff of hot breath blasted from above his white-covered beard, fogged the air with the fire of his heart and ready wrath. His last steps were even firmer than the thousands that had brought him here.

He stopped in the center of the clearing, in his tribal tongue, demanded an audience with his Gods. It was answered with an intense, blue glow of light that deposited three, elongated figures with bulbous heads and black-eyes before him.

“You seek an audience, primitive?” The center God asked.

He spat at their feet, then in his tribal tongue, barked, “You have forsaken us! Broken the bonds that bound us to your servitude. Your treachery must be answered for!”

“You speak of the battle passed,” the left-most God said.

“Yet there is little that can be done for the dead,” the right God said.

“No!” He shouted in defiance. “There is one thing that can repay us for their loss.”

“Blood.” The three chimed in unison.

“Your blood!”

He drew a thick blade from his side with a sound of metal that rang through the open air.

“You mean to stand against your Gods?” The middle God asked.

“I mean to seek vengeance for all the blood spilled in your name, both in sacrifice and in the battles past– those you failed to protect, as was your promise to our people.”

The three Gods fell silent, as if to speak mentally. Then the middle one spoke with a bargaining air about him, “We cannot resurrect the dead. What is is what what must be. But we can offer something for the sacrifice your people have given this winter, both from the battle and when we did not think to aid you.”

He was unconvinced, his mind unchanged. He demanded they speak, “And what is that?”

“Bountiful harvests,” the middle God said.

“Warmth and fertility,” the left God added.

“And strength and protection in the battles to come,” the right God finished.

He growled from his throat. In a quick charge, he launched himself at the middle God, kicked him backward to rebound at the gut of the left God. The blade slice deep at its belly to ooze green. The curiously-colored blood did not faze him– blood was blood and it was to be spilled. With an outward spin, he moved for the God at the right, buried the blade in its belly as he’d planned. More green spilled out, leaked from the God’s mouth. He twisted the blade, heard the crunch of soft bones, then pulled it back. The second God fell dead.

His blade dripped a trail toward the God that still lay dazed on the stone ground. He dropped a heavy knee to its chest as it eeked out a few, last words.

“We would have… given you anything, made you the most powerful tribe,” it said, barely drawing breath.

“Your cowardice and bargaining only weaken us.” He grit his teeth, “We will be stronger without you.”

Then, the blade plunged into the belly of black-eyed God. The bulbous head gave a shudder with a last, rattling breath. Its eyes shut. The smallest bit of green oozed from the God’s mouth as the tribal rose to his feet, readied to bury the sword in his own gut and finally end things. Instead, something compelled him to look at the carnage around him, his three Gods slain about it. His own words resonated deeper than he’d first realized.

He lifted the blade to examine it, “No.” He sheathed it, spat at them once more, “Enough has been lost to you. I will lead my people now. Protect them as you should have. I will show them they are strong– stronger even without you. Then no man, woman, nor child will ever think to play servant to your kind again.”

With a steadfast resolve, he turned away from the green-stained ground, and left the mysterious clearing to show his people the way.

Short Story: A Hero

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 2 Comments

If he knew nothing else in the whole world, at least he knew that today was a fine day to die. Alexander Ortiz was hardly the picture of genius or perfection, but even he knew of the nobility of self-sacrifice. As a matter of fact, that was the only thing that had compelled him forward, into the fire.

He’d kicked in a couple doors with year-old sneakers, was pretty sure at least a couple toes were broken. It hadn’t mattered then, and mattered even less now, half a decade later. He’d rushed through the small, two-bedroom apartment, heard the young girl’s frantic whimpers from a side bedroom. He made it to her with a vault over a couch, used the momentum to land, spring through an open doorway behind it.

She wasn’t more than twelve at the time her mother and father had been fighting out in the hallway of the apartment building. She’d moused out to see the commotion when her father barked something lewd at her. Her mother huffed as she skittered back inside. Alex made it to his front-door, sensed from the sound of the distant, unaided slam that she’d bolted back inside and into hiding.

In a way, he had always sympathized with her. Alex’s own parents had been the same, short-sighted type to marry out of lust. When that fiery passion flickered, it found new breath in the exhalation of rage and fury. Even so, it wasn’t what compelled him to scoop her up in his arms that day. That feat was achieved from adrenaline and what was right alone. She didn’t deserve to die, least of all so tragically.

She was a whimpering, sobbing mess of terror and smoke-induced hacking coughs when he carried her from the building. The firetrucks had just rolled up, but even he was certain it would have been too late for her by then. He dropped the tailgate of a truck, helped her to sit on it as she gasped for air through smoke-tarred lungs and tearful mucus.

Alex didn’t leave her side the whole time the fire truck fought the blaze and the paramedics ran their tests. He wasn’t sure she’d have let him had he tried: She was clearly terrified of everything– probably her own shadow too. Having her own personal hero beside her was the only way she contended with the IVs and oxygen mask that day.

Alex never felt like a hero, but that’s the funny thing about heroes; the real ones never feel that way. Even now, as he lay dying in the street from yet another “heroic” act, he didn’t feel like one. He’d once more done what was right, protected that young girl who’d now aged enough to be considered a teenager.

Alex had watched Amy blossom from a slim, pretty blonde girl to a full-grown young woman. Presently, her face hovered just above his, her blonde hair framing an angelic face of subtle angles and still-forming curves. She was still too shocked to cry, but her brown eyes glistened with water all the same. Her mouth moved in that same, almost caricatured way it did when she sang choral warm-ups.

Amy’s mouth had always opened a hair larger than normal, as if it needed the extra room to echo the depths within. It was an instantly endearing quality. Most of the younger girls would’ve called her a big mouth, but never had time for the timid loner that she turned out to be. Or at least, as she had been when Alex had first, formally met her and her mother.

It was a banquet-style dinner, with a ceremony from the mayor’s office to award Alex’s heroism. He figured most people would have been humbled, felt as if nobility, but the experience was too surreal for him. He merely ate dinner with the young girl and her mother, Sara, the location just a little more lavish than the burnt-out husk of their apartments, or the identical dingy hotel rooms they’d been assigned by the insurance company.

Alex took the stage with Amy and Sara in tow, was given the opportunity to say something. He began with a thank you, then cleared his throat to attempt formality. He deepened his voice for the podium microphone, managed a few words, “I-uh… was just in the right time and place, and did what I expect anyone would do.”

That was it. That was his speech. He ended with another thank you, re-took his seat to enjoy the dessert course with the two ladies that had accompanied him, and shook hands with a few civic leaders afterward.

Two things came of that day, tangentially related but equally as pointless as he lay in the hot street with pain in his guts and fading vision. The first was a series of job offers from every, local tech company in the region. The comp-sci grad suspected most of the companies just wanted “the Hero” on their payroll, regardless of his skill. It seemed all the more apt after the offers doubled from an interview released by the Associated Press that detailed most of his life’s story, and therefore his qualifications.

He eventually took a job in the metro-area to stay close to Amy and her mother. Despite the obvious age-gap, and what on-lookers would call perversion at a glance, the two grew to become close friends. Sara allowed it, if only for that fact that it seemed to keep her ex-husband, Grant, away. The custody battle that took place nearly immediately following the fire was tumultuous at best. Were it not for Alex, Sara eventually asserted, Amy would have likely gone through worse than she already had.

As it was, Amy rode out the next couple of years with ease. Thanks to the aid of her hero, and her mother’s growing attraction to him. It seemed inevitable the two would be forever inseparable. Apart from his obvious affection for Sara, Alex agreed with the assessment. He’d have liked nothing more than to protect Amy, watch her grow old, independent, confident. As it was, all good things had to end, Alex’s life included.

In his final moments, he was never quite sure what had happened save that his last act was surely of selflessness. In truth, Sara’s ex had never worked through the divorce’s effects. Where Grant’s ex-wife and daughter were moving on, living their lives, he wallowed in self-pity and the bottom of the every bottle on-hand. He’d attempted to force himself into their lives time and again, was finally stopped for good by a pair of restraining orders. The court kept his drunken abuse out of Amy and Sara’s lives, but steeped his rage in the frothing pity-party.

It was almost without warning that he’d appeared in front of the trio’s new home, ready to ruin their lives once more. Sara was already at the front-door of the house when Grant pulled up, stumbled drunkenly from the door of his junker. He raged and shouted, compelled Sara in to call the police while Alex hoped to defuse the situation. Amy followed, as much unwilling to leave her hero alone as she was to be without him.

Grant’s slurred anger manifested in a one-sided screaming match before it climaxed. Amy, in her way, quipped back with her learned, quick wits. It only further infuriated her would-be father. Alex’s even-toned request that Amy go inside sparked that spewing temper that raged within Grant. In a swift motion, he pulled a thirty-eight on his daughter.

A shot rang out through the day-light. The next moments were a series of flashes before Amy found herself hovering over Alex as he lay on the ground. Blood soaked her hands, hot beneath the pressure she instinctively applied to his gut. In the background, sirens screamed toward them over the sprint-stumble of her father’s drunken fleeing.

Alex managed a few, confused words before his head fell back against the pavement, the life drained from his eyes. In his final breath, he’d managed to piece together what had happened, but all the same, the breath left his lungs and the life left his eyes.

The eulogy given by the young woman was short, punctuated by the constant stream of silent tears that made their way down her face. “He always said he wasn’t a hero, that he had never been one. But he saved my life twice, and… and gave me a reason to live in between… everyday. He showed me love I’d been denied, simply because he knew what it felt like. Alex wasn’t a hero because he saved my life. He was a hero because he lived the way hero’s do; by being what they want to see in the world. By making it as it should be, and not accepting how it is. He was my hero most of all, but in a small way, he was a hero to all of us. He made the world that much more special, and safe, and loving than it was.”

Beneath the dates of birth and death, two lines are etched forever into stone, “Alexander Ortiz, A Hero.”

A sort of (not so) quick update.

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

So, it’s been a while since I’ve said anything directly to you, my dear readers. I tend to want my work to speak for itself and don’t have much to say otherwise anyhow. Today though, I thought I’d update everyone.

As promised, each week I’ve been posting new stories, poems, or chapters of novellas and the like. For now this will stay the same. I’ve been toying with the notion of adding another day of content, but I haven’t quite worked that out yet. Rest assured that I’m still working many hours every day to keep the content coming. As you may have noticed, there’s quite a wide variety as far as genres go. While I consider myself primarily a sci-fi author, I’m no stranger to working outside that genre. (Or even outside definable monikers altogether)

So, what’s this really about? Anything special to talk about? Or just more mindless ravings from the innards of madman? Little bit of both actually. I’d like to first say thank you to everyone that has read, continues to read, or is discovering my work for the first time. I love that the internet’s given all of us a place to share these things, and the power to do what we love. While I do intend to do more with other forms of work in the future, (Ie, Novels, traditional and/or self-publishing, etc) there will always be a commitment to this site.

On that note, I would like to say that I’m working on bringing purchasable, ebook formats of certain works to the digital marketplaces. It will take some time, but keep an eye out for forthcoming details. You might be thinking; Oh, but it’s free here, why would I pay for it then? Well simply, we’ve all got to eat. Even immortals like myself– though I generally prefer the hearts of vanquished foes.

Whatever is eventually compiled and up for purchase will remain free on the site, but e-books/sales will allow people that format, which is slightly more accessible and easy to read. Apart from eventually helping me upgrade the site to a real, paid version, this will also help me avoid bread-lines somewhat, if not entirely. (I mean, they’re so damned long nowadays!) There may also be some kind of crowd-funding venture in the future, but again, I’ll keep everyone updated if/when that happens.

So there’s the thing no-one really likes to talk about, but that I kinda’ have to broach. I’m not deluded to think I’ll end up with some crazy cash-flow or pile of gold, but I’d like to be able to provide the aforementioned, and unfortunately, can’t do it without at least some avenue of funding behind it.

Phew! Okay, that wasn’t so awful, was it? (I would like to reiterate: No-one should feel obligated to commit funds– or maybe they should, you know, if they’re the guilty type. In that case, shut up and give me money!)

Anywho, tomorrow’s another short story as usual for Tuesdays and there may be a bonus story this week, but I’m not certain yet. So thanks for reading, and don’t forget to keep an eye out for more updates. I’ll give more info when it’s relevant. For now, enjoy what’s here and what’s to come, and thanks for reading!

SMN