Journey's End

[Worm of Despite]

Journey’s End
DAVID WILLIAMS




THIS IS A STORY that has been passed on to the generations in these parts; and now you have a part in it.

There was a house; a mere idea of a house in white planks, dressed along the fittings of a bank or sea; the shore was of white sand, the sea of sparkling blue; at the daylight it shone resplendent, dimming down to a shadow of itself at night; still and quiet, a practice in motionlessness.

A man, an old beggar, shambled into the shack. The door pushed open, light and dust scurrying in, the only sight from the shack’s windows the wind and the ocean’s waves; their sound curling about him as he slept.

At night there was such dark there were no windows and he awoke not knowing where he was. A sparkling mist rose over him, his hands shaking, face pale and damp; beads of his eyes looking dumbly without thought at the room’s endless ceiling; a groaning in his belly.

After awhile he slept or felt asleep, his shaking in the cold unceasing; the mist arcing about; arcing; standing and looking at him and out onto the ocean.

The walls shone blue; white.

He woke. The beggar looked at waves, sighed; night sightless black; the figure of his body holding a beer bottle or some variation of Wild Turkey.

He watched the sand spin in circles in the wind, very fine, and he thought of fishing with his father, of his old jacket and the gin he used to have. Buccaneer Blue it had been. He wanted some now; sand spired up, almost assuming form.

He scrunched his brow at it.


Near the beach’s other end was another tower of sand; but soon it was rain and he ran back into the shack.

The night fell with the rain; light dropping.

He walked to a window; a figure stood on the sand, standing between the land and water; luminescent and wind-shaped.

It coursed up; up; away.

Into nothing.


He slept.

The voices called like candle-lights.

He looked up with child’s fear at the ceiling.

The morning was a pale sky, limitless-beige.

The waves coming up like leaves, the tide so high it seemed heaven might burst and the sand leaning toward them.

He looked at his gin bottle—

Threw it into the waves, reeling up to heaven and eaten.



He woke. The sky a distant blue.

Mist marched; marched; on—

He ate raw fish.

A train called from who knows where.

He wondered slowly why he had left Chicago.

He slept, wind raking up and down the little cabin.

The spirit of mist walked toward him and dissipated.

Voices—wake; wake!


The tapping running up and down the cabin-shack; wind—

Howling, groaning—

Walter, the waves said. Walter.

My name’s not Walter, the beggar breathed.


A figure of mist walked toward the waves; walked away—


In day the sun rose bright, lapping silent.

Filling the axis of the sky; unbelievable.

Ferrying on its horizon the mist of ships in the sea.

Wind whipped as if eternally rounding itself, snapping silent.

The mist strode and skipped and quietly ate itself.

Smoke lingered where ships had been.

He took out the gin bottle and threw it at a wave, cursing his father.

Later he took shears and hacked his lanky begrimed hair.

He sat along the beach until the sun sank.


He woke in a pit of sand, wet and damp, sneezing.

He looked over the rim of the ocean; it over him.

Falling; falling—

What—what—


He looked and saw a blue figure; a—

The gin bottle lay at the water’s edge, by foam and sand.

He crawled to it; the figure was inside; inside—

In the bottle a clear blue:

He drank it slowly; hungrily.


Faint and tantalizing it entered him. His breath disappeared.

He woke inside the shack.

Still and shaking; unable to move.

The mist sitting on his chest.

Walter. Hello, it said.

You’ve been afraid for a long time.

Follow me to heaven.


The spirit hovered out of the shack, sparkling softly.

His body frozen; tight; tight.

He died slowly.


After a time his fingers moved.

He stood. Walter; the air breathed.

Walter; he looked and absently looked.

Blindly he strode into the water.


Walter.

Walter.




Journey’s End.
The end.

[deer of the dawn]

LF, I love this. I really cared about the beggar and his fate, which in the end seems a good one. And so atmospheric. Thanks.

[Worm of Despite]

Thanks, Deer.

I actually wrote it two years ago on paper but wasn't happy with it; then about a week ago I took it back out and found I was ready to change it. Took about 5 minutes.

I must say I'm mighty satisfied with it. I like the idea of a character whose story is essentially over; a setting that is overwhelmed with such an eerie and ephemeral texture that you wonder if the beggar's perception is messed up or if something really is happening supernatural.

Now: onto my zombie sequel, Scatterbrain 2!