Michael Scott Hand

Category: Stories

• Origin Stories

  Posted at 8:09 am by Michael, on January 10, 2022

  It has become vogue in this day and age that, before telling certain types of story, you should first tell the origins story of each character who takes place in the narrative.

  Looking backwards in this way it becomes possible, perhaps, or easier—at least—to comprehend how a person “came to be a way”.

  With this intention in mind, the characters begin somehow deconstructed into unformed lumps of clay, or plasticine; lumpish babes in swaddling cloth.

  And from these humble origins the characters become either great heroes, or villains, or sometimes neither, or both, or rise up against adversity or break against it like a boat against rocks.

  The story, in a way, becomes not a story about a thing but a story about a character. And we, the readers, are granted some insight into how that character was formed… how they became.

  This is certainly a valid and sometimes necessary way to tell a story.

  And yet… I wonder, what if we were to do away with that mode and instead chose to begin our story somewhere else. Perhaps right in its very centre, perhaps right at the critical moment upon which their decisions begin to become relevant.

  At such a moment of crisis—at that point of that critical mass—might we learn what we need to know about a character in a matter of moments, or seconds, or sentences?

  This too would be an origin story, perhaps, but of a different sort than those which came before. No longer need we know from where exactly our characters came, or how they came to be; we are merely with them.

  And in being with them, might we not come to a more immediate understanding of who that character is, not from the beginning, but a beginning.

  The truth is borne out in the words alone; of course we might start a story this way.

  Posted in Stories | 0 Comments

• No Longer the Same Tree

  Posted at 8:21 am by Michael, on December 16, 2021

  Nicholas approached the tree.

  The wind felt the same; it smelt the same. Was it the same? Was he inhaling his own breath, exhaled thirty years ago?

  Nicholas came beneath the shade of the tree and memories flickered all around him. Some would call them hallucinations, but he knows they are not real. A child cries out and the sound is swallowed by time.

  These are the tulpa of memory and remembering; these are the ghosts of people yet living.

  Nicholas touched the bark and it felt rough beneath his palm.

  How many lifetimes have you lead, old friend? Nicholas thought. How many have I?

  Deep within us are parts, perhaps, that existed then.

  But I am no longer the same man.

  And you are no longer the same tree.

  Is there sadness in these realisations? If so, then who do we grieve for—the tree or the boy?

  Or do we simply grieve for the past, an intangible slipping away?

  Does the alchemist grieve for the lead that is transmuted into gold?

  Posted in Philosophy, Stories | 0 Comments

• The Facility

  Posted at 9:01 am by Michael, on October 27, 2021

  The Facility came wholly into being at the exact moment that Event-X occurred.

  Such a sudden a violent discharge of creative energies threatened the tenous mind-fabric of the Host; such that a system was rapidly imagined into existence whereby these energies could be corralled and controlled.

  A series of monoliths were arranged upon a dry lake, each standing as tall as three men above the surface of the soil and extending as deep again below it. The monoliths pulse with blue light and it is forbidden to lay bare skin against them.

  At the centre of the monoliths stands the Facility, all grey concrete and glass and metal tubes. Watchtowers look out across the circular arrangement of the monoliths. Walkways and exterior stairs link the buildings together, of which there are at least one thousand.

  There is a mostly-empty carpark beside the Facility. There are, perhaps, two or three cars parked there.

  The staff inside the Facility are responsible for directing the flow of creative energies through the monoliths, such that no single one becomes overloaded or loses stability. Understanding the complex flows of these energies and the ways in which they interact with each other and within the monoliths is impossible

  A central nervous system of computers, switch-boards and control panels assist the staff, providing to-the-moment information on the status of the monoliths. A variety of switches, dials and keyboards are used to calibrate the functional equipment that maintains them.

  Due to its nature, Event-X is still occurring, is ever-occurring. Shockwaves of imagination ripple out from the monolith (now cracked), designated 11743. The building responsible for maintaining that monolith, which they call Building E, has always been sealed off.

  The transient energies that escaped the monolith upon its rupture had to be redirected many times before the Facility was stabilised. It is confirmed that the structural integrity of at least 15 monoliths surrounding 11743 were compromised by Event-X, though in reality this number is much higher.

  Upon achieving stability the Facility enters into a mode called Coherence. Gentle music plays from the elevators. There is the hum of electrical equipment and of air-conditioning. One member of staff, named Alonzo, repeatedly clicks his pen as he stares through a double-glazed window at a desert filled with monoliths.

  Beyond the monoliths there rises the curved, insubstantial reflection of the Sphere. Activated through Coherence, the Sphere is a shield that contains both the monoliths and the Facility. It is not certain whether the Sphere exists to protect the monoliths from outside corruption, or to protect outside corruption from what is contained within the monoliths.

  Nothing is supposed to exist beyond the Sphere, but it does. There is at least one wind-swept ghost town; at least one bar where an old man sits and drinks.

  Posted in Lore, Stories | 0 Comments

• The Old Man and the Standing Stone

  Posted at 8:50 am by Michael, on October 15, 2021

  There is a single standing stone near the pond where the old man goes to fish.

  The stone stands straight and still. It has collected moss in the indentations that the sun does not reach.

  Who brought it here and how and why? These questions once preoccupied the old man; but now he wanders instead of wonders.

  Up and down these gold-green hills he walks each day to the pond and casts his line into the placid water.

  The water takes on the appearance of the sky and the hills, like a mirror into a painting that ripples gently. And when the fishing line disturbs the water it is like the flourish of a paintbrush.

  The old man was someone else once; perhaps the stone was something else too.

  And the fish too, with their rainbow-coloured scales.

  The fish do not bite often and when they do the old man throws them back. When he does so, the reflected sky is disturbed for a moment—but only for a moment.

  As the sun rolls down the hills, grass once green is turned to gold and the shadows of the old man and the standing stone grow longer.

  The old man was someone else once, but he does not remember who. This thought does not disturb him, for now he wanders instead of wonders.

  The standing stone does neither.

  Posted in Philosophy, Stories | 0 Comments

• Metronome

  Posted at 9:58 am by Michael, on June 10, 2021

  They call him an artist because they don’t know what else to call him.

  He works alone in a white room with a mechanical metronome and an analogue video recorder on a tripod. He sits the metronome on a white cube and moves back to view it through the camera.

  He films the metronome for 3 hours 58 minutes. Until he runs out of tape. Later, he will inspect the video for any signs of movement, but find the metronome is still.

  Satisfied, he carefully (very carefully) turns the metronome so that he can switch it on. His fingers gently brush the dial and he sets it back in place. Now the metronome is swinging. Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack.

  He works with the sound (click-clack) at his back as he takes out the first full-sized VHS tape (click-clack) out of the video camera and places in another. The tape compartment shunts back into the body of the device with a satisfying clunk.

  Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack.

  The artist looks through the viewfinder and makes sure that the metronome is in focus (click-clack). He takes his eye away from the camera and watches the metronome with his naked eye. Then he looks at it through the viewfinder again. He continues doing this for some time, switching back and forth between views like a man stepping between dreams.

  Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack.

  He presses record and he can hear the tape start rolling through the camera. It is a plasticky, wet sound that he can only hear when he’s right up close. He carefully steps back from the camera (click-clack). A red LED is lit up next to word REC.

  The artist films the metronome for 4 hours and 2 minutes. Until he runs out of tape. Later, he will inspect the video for artifacts, seeking any deviation in the substance of time itself.

  He will not find any.

  Posted in Philosophy, Stories | 0 Comments

• The Rise

  Posted at 9:39 am by Michael, on May 13, 2021

  Light reflects from the foam at the peak of the waves. Silvery moonlight crosses the sand and paints in broad strokes the pale cement of the staircase. The hotel rises up in brave defiance of the roaring ocean, a monument of blinking lights and muffled music.

  Shadows cut into the light where it blooms, carving out the shapes of plants and straight edges, but here where the light spills free from each apartment it is a futile attempt at darkness.

  No stars can be seen in the sky here for the entire shore is lit by the dreamy haze of civilisation. It is as though the hotel has absorbed the very stars itself and now uses their components to form a building filled with living parts and pieces.

  A voice, the sound of laughter, a telephone. Electricity flows through the cables and out into lights that do not flicker: bright lights shining on white concrete.

  And there, on a high balcony a figure steps towards the shadow. His name is Stephen, though he has temporarily misplaced it. Something noxious found its way into his system earlier this night.

  A fight in a night club, words misspoken, a moment of violence as two groups moved against each other. There in the shadow-cloaked valleys of the club the boy sought bravery, yet found only Strife.

  Stephen’s lip is busted but he does not remember why. He remembers nothing and the darkness is calling to him. That vast roar of the ocean drowns out all other sounds. The wind whispers to him.

  Light blooms at the edge of his vision. Stephen tries not to notice it, but he does. Suddenly he is aware of the feeling of gravity that threatens to drag him down and shatter him against the cement.

  On the balcony beside his somebody is watching him. His head turns just enough to see Love. It is not a face he knows; the face is wearing a smile.

  He is gripped tightly from behind. A strong arm wraps around him and pulls him back from the edge. Somebody is swearing, somebody is laughing nervously, the music is still playing.

  The music is still playing.

  Posted in Stories | 0 Comments

• The Fall

  Posted at 9:10 am by Michael, on May 12, 2021

  Strife awakens with a busted lip. He does not remember who it was that wronged him, and he can hear voices… music. He feels the unfamiliar contours of his face. It is framed by long dark hair that hangs in curls.

  The music is getting louder. He opens his eyes and looks through the leaves of a potted plant. He can smell the ocean. His clothes hang loose, there is a chain around his neck. He stands slowly and exhales. Will he ever get used to this? No, there is no way.

  This body has sustained other injuries, he can feel bruises on his chest when the loose fabric of his shirt brushes against them. Inside he watches people dancing, they are in an apartment, separated from him by a pane of double-glazed glass.

  He does not watch them for long. He has seen their madness before. They writhe and thrash out of time with the music. Theirs is the celebration of a descent into hell. He turns away from the apartment. He can feel the music pushing him away, almost like a strong wind.

  Beyond the edge of the balcony is the sky and it is pure black. The light from the hotels has swallowed the stars until only blackness remains. Below the blackness of the night he can hear the waves rolling in and out; crash, hiss, roar.

  He steps up to the balcony. Behind him the glass door is drawn open and he hears a voice. Somebody claims that they know him, they call him Stephen. Strife does not turn around.

  He is standing on the very edge of the balcony now, arms outstretched. He can feel the height below him by its sense of absence—he does not know how far he will fall. The voice behind him implores him to get down. They call him Stephen again.

  He steps out across empty air and then he plunges. He is not immune to the effects of gravity, nor is he exempt from the sensation of neurological fire they call fear. But he is used to them.

  Stephen’s body falls and cracks against the pavement. Aside from the sound of the impact there is little other sound. There is music, there is the wind in the trees and there is the sound of the ocean.

  Yes, Strife thinks as he listens to that familiar sound. A pool of blood is forming around the body, a seeping darkness that collects in the cracks of the concrete and is directed by them in patterns like a network of canals.

  Strife travels with the shadow of the blood, he is no longer the body—was he ever? Distantly there are people yelling Stephen’s name. But he is not Stephen; he is not even Stephen’s blood.

  He is the shadow as it trickles down now, dark droplets lingering at the edge of a set of stone stairs. Again, Strife plunges down and there in the hidden corner where one step meets another he finds more shadow with which to build.

  Now Strife slinks along the sand, following the undulating weave of shadow that follows the dunes. The ocean grows louder and he seeks it out. The peaks of sand flatten and he slips easily now across shells, across dried out molluscs cast ashore.

  At first the foam touches him and it is there in the miniscule reflections of the hotel lights that Strife feels the closest thing that he might describe as discomfort. Must it follow him everywhere, that blasted light?

  He seeks a place between the bubbles, he plunges into the water as the wave recedes and thus he is carried back out into the vastness of black ocean. Down he travels, down, he becomes both the currents and the tide. He is vast now—so vast. The very darkness of the ocean meets with him and they become one.

  And thus Strife is carried once more into the realm of Styx, the deep dark below.

  Posted in Stories | 0 Comments

• A Pentacle Between Tentacles

  Posted at 10:16 am by Michael, on February 4, 2021

  The Norman Parker Wildlife Experience has a rare new species on display…

  Read:

  A Pentacle Between Tentacles (or PDF)

  Preview:

  So where I work’s ain’t exactly a zoo but it ain’t exactly not a zoo, if you catch my drift. It’s called the Norman Parker Wildlife Experience because that’s exactly what it is—an experience. People come along and get to see all sortsa critters they’d not normally see in their day-to-day.

  We got leopards and zebras and even a mean old elephant they call Frank that fell off the back of a circus wagon or something. There’s all sorts of stories about Frank, like they say he’s at least one-hundred years old, but I don’t believe it. We also have an aviary, an aquarium and a reptile house and though I’m not much of a fan of those snakes I wouldn’t mind them wrapped around my feet as a fancy pair o’ shoes.

  Posted in Stories | 0 Comments

• The Arrival

  Posted at 8:32 am by Michael, on January 20, 2021

  We watched the spaceships from our backyards. It was night, but the underlights of the ships made everything glow all fuzzy-like, like a garden party. The kids watched with us, I know we should’ve told ‘em to go back inside or something; to hide under their bed covers, or under their beds. But I’m not sure that really would’ve helped with anything.

  Sooner or later, they’re going to know the truth, that the planet earth had been invaded by aliens (extra-terrestrials Shaun calls ‘em as if there’s any difference) and it weren’t no invasion we were equipped to fight back against.

  By all accounts the invasion was over before it began.

  First, we saw the lights. Like so many stars coming home. Except they weren’t the same colour as stars, which mainly look so cold sittin’ out there in the distant dark. Yellow and red and orange were mostly the hues and they filled up the night sky something fierce!

  Experts on the TV news said that it was some sort of astrological event, involving the diffusion of particles from a disintegrated meteor being scattered by the earth’s atmosphere and refracting the light or some such nonsense. Shaun believed ‘em of course, he always believes the experts on the TV news.

  But that explanation didn’t hold for long. Because those meteorite particles just kept on gettin’ closer and closer til we was sure that humankind was about to go extinct like those big ol’ lizards did way back before Mary ‘n’ Joseph.

  Down they came, lower and lower and they brought their shadows with ‘em until finally shapes began to form around the lights, indistinct at first but now…

  My god… now.

  I ain’t never seen anything so grand or so terrifying. But let me tell you these spaceships aren’t like nothin’ I seen in one of them sci-fi picture shows. Those spaceships always look so sleek and perfect. Like tin cans jiggling on the end of fishing wire. Orbs and spheres and flying saucers, oh my.

  No sir, these spaceships look like nothing more than factories in the sky, and my Pa worked at Atwell Manufacturing so this gal knows what a factory looks like, if you please. And these spaceships are all girders and chimney stacks and pipes and metal grates and corrugated walls and vents and flashing blinkin’ lights all yellow and orange and red all lighting up the neighbourhood like a gosh-darn garden party.

  And here we all are just starin’ up at ‘em like slack-jawed fools as they slide across the sky, you can hear ‘em vibrating there in the sky. You can hear them rattling and shaking like an old car does when you’re driving it one last time to the wrecker’s yard.

  We can’t see the sky no more. And we ain’t seen no aliens yet. And the TV news isn’t working anymore, it just shows static and Shaun keeps trying to adjust the aerial like that’s going to help. There’s a radio on the kitchen table that is still working, but the folks on there don’t know what to say any better’n the rest of us know what to think.

  Crackle… fuzz… have you ever seen anything like it? Are these—aliens—or a more human menace?

  Darlin’ I thinks to myself as Jeremy’s little hand reaches up at clasps mine, his tiny little hand. I don’t know if he’s afraid or not. I don’t know if I’m afraid or not. But I do know that those ships-in-the-sky sure as hell ain’t no Communists.

  Next door’s son is a teenage lout and he’s up on the roof throwing trash up at the sky and callin’ out to ‘em like they can hear him. Somewhere else somebody is settin’ off firecrackers in a trash can. There’s a siren wailin’ somewhere in the distance. The closeness of the spaceships has squashed all the sounds of the neighbourhood together. Everything sounds like a muffled hub-bub. I can hear voices from three streets over, but I can’t tell what they’re sayin’.

  Shaun has gone to the garage, I can hear him rifling around in there for who-knows-what, that man always has to be doin’ somethin’  he ain’t never been content to just wait and see what comes next, but this time I don’t think we have much say in the matter—if we ever did.

  “Momma,” says Jeremy, squeezin’ my hand. “What’s gonna happen?”

  “Momma doesn’t know,” I tell him.

  Posted in Stories | 0 Comments

• Strife and the Terrible Feathered Thing

  Posted at 10:08 am by Michael, on January 13, 2021

  Strife, the one they call the Black Knight or the Man-Who-Can-Kill-Anything, clings to the rocks. With one hand he scoops up his shadow and uses it to form a pick—for this is his power, to command the bilious shadows that surround him into any shape he wishes.

  He uses his shadow to drag himself up the towering spire of rock, the eyrie of the Terrible Feathered Thing. Below him the Midlands spread out in all directions. The midlands are mostly desert, marked here and there by the vague twinkling of lights.

  Blocked from his view by the eyrie itself, yet commanding fully one quarter of the horizon, is the steep row of faded purple mountains; beyond them the churning tumult of the Cataclysm, forever raging; eternal.

  Nobody knows for sure when the Cataclysm happened, only that it did. The Dictator, in his hubris, broke the world—broke all worlds—but ultimately could not control that which he had wrought.

  Reality conflated, compressed, folded in on itself for a period of time that might have been one second or a billion years. And then, the cosmic detritus of everything was vomited back up, thrusting back into existence as a lance of solid energy, recreating all around it in a misshapen reconstruction of what-had-been.

  Such was the Everyworld birthed, a solar system carved out of space-time that contained all the multitudes of all the things that had ever existed. And out of those multitudes was born Strife, the Man-Who-Can-Kill-Anything, he of the living shadow; a living shadow now ascending to the top of an eyrie to kill a beast corrupted by the taint of man’s ultimate creation: the Swarm.

  In truth, Strife himself bore the taint. The shadows that he carried with him grew thicker with each kill. And so his power grew in direct proportion to his guilt. Such was the burden of Strife.

  With one forceful exhalation, he hoisted himself up and into the opening of the eyrie, a cave open to the sky except for a few jutting pillars of stone. It was obvious that the Terrible Feathered Thing had no natural enemies, or else it would have sought out a more secure place to roost.

  Yet Strife was the natural enemy of everything.

  The attacks had begun sometime in the past six months. Travellers on the long road that stretched from the Cross-Hatched Union of Dubloun to the standing city of Atreiska had gone missing. Cars, wagons and trucks were found piled up along the road. Any supplies the travellers had carried with them had been left, but there was no trace any bodies, human or horse or otherwise. Those few who had survived spoke of a looming shadow in the sky—the Terrible Feathered Thing—who was snatching travellers from the road and returning to its eyrie to consume them.

  And here, atop the jumbled spire of boulders arranged upon the horizon like some phallic harbinger of doom, Strife witnessed the remains of those who had been taken. Hundreds of skeletons, bones picked clean and broken. So many bones that they crunched underfoot as he walked. Hands, arms, legs, skulls—so many skulls. Rib cages and hips and twisted spines.

  A lesser man would have been cowed by the sight. But Strife was no mere man. Strife was the Great Adversary of Love, the darkness-in-the-darkness… and he had a job to do.

  The shadow in his hand still resembled a climbing pick, but now its shape altered to form a hatchet, a battle-axe, a sword, a sawed-off shotgun. With his free hand he gathered the shadows around himself and settled against a dark corner of the cave where he blended with the rocks.

  When the Terrible Feathered Thing returned, he would kill it. Of this, he had no doubt. Strife was not afraid of dying, for it had happened to him many times. In fact, death was his natural state and he would not have been here at all had it not been for the Dictator and his Cataclysm.

  But he was here, possessed with a sentience of his own. And in defiance of the shadows that swathed him, Strife, the Great Adversary, would keep on fighting.

  In the distance, drawing closer, a shadow loomed in the sky…

  Posted in Stories | 0 Comments

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