The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: The Builders

  • Secrets of Passages

    The door was stuck. Not the first time it’d happened to me but no less infuriating for it. There should have been an instruction card near to hand for the occasion so I thumbed on my flashlight app.

    The light popped on just above the bridge of my nose. I furrowed my brow so that the beam would be tighter. Less chance of it shining through the cracks around the door. I moved my head back and forth methodically.

    No card.

    Damn it, Boston. You’re crap at details.

    “It’s one of the Great Houses,” you told me. “That shit always works.”

    Not this time, apparently.

    I smooshed the the heel of my hand against my forehead to shut off the light. Now there was a chance this whole thing was some kind of trap. In the dark again, I ran my fingers up and down and around the frame. Along the top were two latches. Locked from the inside. I wondered who passed through here last and why there was a need to lock the door after.

    Some small effort was rewarded with both latches flipping open though neither wanted to. Rather than barging out, I listened for sounds of anyone near the other side of the door.

    Nothing.

    I pushed the door open a crack and waited. Still nothing. Deep breath, slow release and I went through.

    Nice hallway. I didn’t recognize the portraits on the wall opposite me. A quick glance left and right. I was alone in the hall.

    “Welcome.” A female voice. Nice. Quiet. Another voice and another until there was a mob of voices welcoming me. I was still alone in the hall. The dull red carpet, the white walls yellowing at the top, the brass sconces that needed dusting and the portraits were all the company I had.

    Of course, the portraits. The owner had infused the voices of the subjects into the house system. I supposed there’s a certain comfort in being surrounded by people you knew all the time. At least they’d never talk back.

    “Jimmy Cavanaugh,” a strong lady’s voice said. “I thought never to see you again.” (more…)

  • The Night of Many Names

    I’m not going to tell you a lot of things. The things I need to tell you, I will, but the rest you will have to trust in or disbelieve the entire thing. I don’t really care.

    Which is the first lie.

    I do care. I’m trying to tell you something that’s important. If I fail to convince you of the meat of this story, then I will have to try again. That will be dangerous. But someone needs to know.

    And that is the second truth I’ve revealed to you.

    Proceed with caution but proceed. It’s important.

    This is about a single night in the calendar that you’ve never heard of but which has as many names as cultures that are aware of it. It’s the Night of Many Names, the night when bad things happen to good people because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s unfortunate, but necessary. The herd must be culled. (more…)

  • Timber

    http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/common/files/catalogue/55/large/falseacacia%20_lr_nov092.jpgI held still.

    The forest all around me soughed with the gentle breeze and I closed my eyes and listened to the symphony of oaks and maples and larch and locust and poplar. Each leaf gave an individual sound, the wind breaking through the different shapes and sizes and positions. I understood the complexities of playing a clarinet or bassoon suddenly even though I’d never picked up a musical instrument in my life.

    Tools I understand. I’m a Builder. That’s why I was in the forest.

    *

    “You have to do this for me,” my brother said. He lay in a hospital bed dying of colon cancer. He was too young for this and younger than me. Life isn’t fair. “You have to.” His voice was not even a fourth what it had been when he was strong. Now it was reedy, full of too much air and almost hollow.

    He held on to my hand with a strength he’d always had but never showed.

    “I will, Ollie. I promise.” I hated this. I was crying and I didn’t want my little brother to see me crying. Our sister would have torn me up for showing emotion like that. Susan was a bitch but I loved her and Ollie more than almost anything. My own family were the only ones above them. I sniffed and stopped trying to hold back the tears.

    “I can’t go until you do, Jamie.” Ollie always had a penchant for gravitas and that’s what made him good at what he did. He could write copy like no one else and he had that shelf of awards to prove it.

    “I’ll go out there first thing in the morning,” I said. I sniffed again.

    Ollie nodded and let go of my hand. The drugs finally took him and let him rest.

    *

    Out in the hall I stopped to hug Ollie’s wife. We both cried and held tight to each other. In another world, I might have won her affection if I hadn’t met Marta around the same time. Charlene chose Ollie, picked him from all her suitors and made sure he knew just how much she loved him. Being a former Miss Texas USA, she attracted all sorts of men – and women – just by being in a room.

    “What does he want you to do?” She hadn’t put on any makeup and her face was blotchy from crying.

    “A small thing,” I said. I looked at the floor. “Tomorrow morning.”

    “Oh god.” Charlene wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Jesus.”

    I took a step back. “He’s sleeping now.”

    “You haven’t told me.”

    “What?” I shuffled to my left half a step.

    The glare she shot me withered away any resolve I might have had. Still, she didn’t need to know everything. I sighed.

    “There’s a tree out on our parents’ property. He wants me to use it in the house.”

    Her face melted from stern reproach to confusion. “I don’t understand.”

    “You don’t really have to, Char,” I said. “This is what he wants me to do for him.” (more…)