Post by Wilhelm Opens-the-Way on Jan 3, 2010 6:03:14 GMT -8
Suggested Listening: Mozart - Requiem - Lacrymosa
January 1st, 2010
New Years Day
4:40 AM PST
Just over the Oregon side of the Washington/Oregon State line
I don't even know his name.
The thought comes into my head as I strap a man's corpse into the driver's side of the van loosely enough that I can position myself on the half of the seat closest to the door.
Elsewhere, my packmate Ellis Rages-With-Machines is conducting a symphony written on the Weaver-spun strings, preparing the coroner's report from his laptop that will show that this man, whose name I don't know, who is responsible for killing three members of my fledgling Sept, simply Grasped his chest while crossing the bridge over the old Barnes Drive Quarry.
I am not there for the Howl of Mourning for the first victim. I don't see his torn body, returned to it's breed form. I am not there to recount how he was the first Garou to buy Holly and I a drink when we first arrived at the Mother's Tear.
Where did they take the bodies I wonder? Surely not behind the pub. To the place where the Caern will be? Some secluded woodland spot?
I grasp the door of the van closed with one hand and turn the key with the other, pressing the corpse's foot to the gas gently. I look up at my rig, The Yellow Brick Road as if to say goodbye, and pull out from behind it on the shoulder after I'm sure there are no cars nearby. It's still dark out, but the low gray clouds are painted a lighter gray at the horizon, reminding me that the day will be here soon, and with it, more passerby on the Westside Highway.
My Glasswalker packmate continues plays a dirge of zeros and ones from the cab of the rig. Subject: John Doe, Status, Deceased. Cause of Death, heart attack followed by significant injuries post-mortem. His fingers fly over his keyboard like a virtuoso at the ivories, almost a blur.
Three dead in less than ten seconds.
I jam my foot down on the accelerator hard. The van lurches forward. I grab the wheel in my right hand and barely keep the driver's door from closing with my left. I almost lose my grip on it. I watch the speedometer rise, hear the engine of the van protest the rapid shifting of gear ratios within it's cogs.
The second victim spoke in nudges and huffs, growls and the flicking of her ears. She had come to our pack, The Roadhouse Rollers with a sadness in her eyes. She was curious about us in the way only one so close to her wolf side could be. Fearless, full of hope and mirth. Had her alpha died instead of she, I had no doubt Holly Walks-With-Dreams would have asked her to join our pack. She almost felt like a part of it, as if she had simply been standing in the doorway deciding whether or not to go in. I imagined her small wolf body curled up on its side as the mourning howl was sung. I imagined the wind rustling her fur the only movement of her body, otherwise afflicted with the utter stillness of death.
With a final keystroke, Rages is done erasing the wounds from this man's body in the records of the human world. It is done as easy as a butcher wraps a bit of meat in paper then fastens it with rubber bands. This man's death is no more, replaced by sad a bit of fiction: Struggling to regain consciousness after arterial failure, John Doe lost control of his vehicle.
The van hits the barrier above the quarry cliff hard, and the sound of bursting concrete and sparking metal is as loud as a gunshot in the still night air. The van arcs out over the deep, sheer cliffs of the quarry and hangs in the night for an instant like a great wingless bird before nosing down and beginning it's inexorable descent. I feel my gut lurch at the sensation of free fall, and try to keep my balance as my body starts to slide back against the rear of the seat. The corpse floats in the air next to me. The roar of the engine turning without the wheels being connected to the earth is all I can hear. I grit my teeth, set both feet against the headrest and push open the door, then leap out into the air with all of the coiled might in my legs.
Three dead. I don't even know the name of the third. When Whisper spoke, there wasn't time.
Someone's name is called in the circle of Garou far away. Words of remembrance are spoken. I wonder if I'll ever get to know them.
Are tears shed? Do Kinfolk hold one-another in the firelight, weeping at the breaking of their hearts?
I do not know. I am not there. I make-believe that I can feel Holly's hand in mine.
Rages is surrounded by a free fall of data, diving into the sea of it. Somewhere a Police Precinct will know that there is nothing strange about the body. That John Doe has not been rent asunder by the claws of wolf-men, but by the rocks beneath the quarry lake. They will know that: the remains to be cremated by the Coroner, No further investigation needed.
I suck in a breath as the waters of the lake rushes toward me at a speed that I know could kill me if I strike it wrong. I open my mind to Luna, I call to the Reaching as my father taught me. I do not strike the water, rather I pass through its surface into Luna's shadow. My body dives into Umbral spirits, and comes out below the surface tension of the spirit lake as a wolf, the lithe Jackal of my Tribe.
The van goes down to the rocks without me like a four wheeled bullet. It parts the water with a terrific splash, the engine and front compartment strikes the jagged quarry floor and folds in upon itself. Air and fuel mix with fire and pressure, and the quarry shudders as its contents expend itself with a booming shock wave of fuel and fire that knocks rocks from the cliff walls and shakes flocks of night birds from their nests.
For a while, I let myself sink into the small lake of spirits, let them buoy me, swarm around me. Their world has been shaken with change from the other side of the real, and they swarm at me with bubbling questions. I swim to the surface and through it without answer and return once more to the real. Yet as my head breaks the surface of the fire-lit water I howl to the spirits:
"I do not know all the names of the dead," I tell them. "But I know this! I am Hannibal Relays-The-Truth, and I do not need to know! May my allies find their way back to the Cycle, and those who seek to harm my Sept can tell the Wyrm their names themselves when we send them back to it!!!"
January 1st, 2010
New Years Day
4:40 AM PST
Just over the Oregon side of the Washington/Oregon State line
I don't even know his name.
The thought comes into my head as I strap a man's corpse into the driver's side of the van loosely enough that I can position myself on the half of the seat closest to the door.
Elsewhere, my packmate Ellis Rages-With-Machines is conducting a symphony written on the Weaver-spun strings, preparing the coroner's report from his laptop that will show that this man, whose name I don't know, who is responsible for killing three members of my fledgling Sept, simply Grasped his chest while crossing the bridge over the old Barnes Drive Quarry.
I am not there for the Howl of Mourning for the first victim. I don't see his torn body, returned to it's breed form. I am not there to recount how he was the first Garou to buy Holly and I a drink when we first arrived at the Mother's Tear.
Where did they take the bodies I wonder? Surely not behind the pub. To the place where the Caern will be? Some secluded woodland spot?
I grasp the door of the van closed with one hand and turn the key with the other, pressing the corpse's foot to the gas gently. I look up at my rig, The Yellow Brick Road as if to say goodbye, and pull out from behind it on the shoulder after I'm sure there are no cars nearby. It's still dark out, but the low gray clouds are painted a lighter gray at the horizon, reminding me that the day will be here soon, and with it, more passerby on the Westside Highway.
My Glasswalker packmate continues plays a dirge of zeros and ones from the cab of the rig. Subject: John Doe, Status, Deceased. Cause of Death, heart attack followed by significant injuries post-mortem. His fingers fly over his keyboard like a virtuoso at the ivories, almost a blur.
Three dead in less than ten seconds.
I jam my foot down on the accelerator hard. The van lurches forward. I grab the wheel in my right hand and barely keep the driver's door from closing with my left. I almost lose my grip on it. I watch the speedometer rise, hear the engine of the van protest the rapid shifting of gear ratios within it's cogs.
The second victim spoke in nudges and huffs, growls and the flicking of her ears. She had come to our pack, The Roadhouse Rollers with a sadness in her eyes. She was curious about us in the way only one so close to her wolf side could be. Fearless, full of hope and mirth. Had her alpha died instead of she, I had no doubt Holly Walks-With-Dreams would have asked her to join our pack. She almost felt like a part of it, as if she had simply been standing in the doorway deciding whether or not to go in. I imagined her small wolf body curled up on its side as the mourning howl was sung. I imagined the wind rustling her fur the only movement of her body, otherwise afflicted with the utter stillness of death.
With a final keystroke, Rages is done erasing the wounds from this man's body in the records of the human world. It is done as easy as a butcher wraps a bit of meat in paper then fastens it with rubber bands. This man's death is no more, replaced by sad a bit of fiction: Struggling to regain consciousness after arterial failure, John Doe lost control of his vehicle.
The van hits the barrier above the quarry cliff hard, and the sound of bursting concrete and sparking metal is as loud as a gunshot in the still night air. The van arcs out over the deep, sheer cliffs of the quarry and hangs in the night for an instant like a great wingless bird before nosing down and beginning it's inexorable descent. I feel my gut lurch at the sensation of free fall, and try to keep my balance as my body starts to slide back against the rear of the seat. The corpse floats in the air next to me. The roar of the engine turning without the wheels being connected to the earth is all I can hear. I grit my teeth, set both feet against the headrest and push open the door, then leap out into the air with all of the coiled might in my legs.
Three dead. I don't even know the name of the third. When Whisper spoke, there wasn't time.
Someone's name is called in the circle of Garou far away. Words of remembrance are spoken. I wonder if I'll ever get to know them.
Are tears shed? Do Kinfolk hold one-another in the firelight, weeping at the breaking of their hearts?
I do not know. I am not there. I make-believe that I can feel Holly's hand in mine.
Rages is surrounded by a free fall of data, diving into the sea of it. Somewhere a Police Precinct will know that there is nothing strange about the body. That John Doe has not been rent asunder by the claws of wolf-men, but by the rocks beneath the quarry lake. They will know that: the remains to be cremated by the Coroner, No further investigation needed.
I suck in a breath as the waters of the lake rushes toward me at a speed that I know could kill me if I strike it wrong. I open my mind to Luna, I call to the Reaching as my father taught me. I do not strike the water, rather I pass through its surface into Luna's shadow. My body dives into Umbral spirits, and comes out below the surface tension of the spirit lake as a wolf, the lithe Jackal of my Tribe.
The van goes down to the rocks without me like a four wheeled bullet. It parts the water with a terrific splash, the engine and front compartment strikes the jagged quarry floor and folds in upon itself. Air and fuel mix with fire and pressure, and the quarry shudders as its contents expend itself with a booming shock wave of fuel and fire that knocks rocks from the cliff walls and shakes flocks of night birds from their nests.
For a while, I let myself sink into the small lake of spirits, let them buoy me, swarm around me. Their world has been shaken with change from the other side of the real, and they swarm at me with bubbling questions. I swim to the surface and through it without answer and return once more to the real. Yet as my head breaks the surface of the fire-lit water I howl to the spirits:
"I do not know all the names of the dead," I tell them. "But I know this! I am Hannibal Relays-The-Truth, and I do not need to know! May my allies find their way back to the Cycle, and those who seek to harm my Sept can tell the Wyrm their names themselves when we send them back to it!!!"
))
