It isn’t easy being a viking, especially when you’re young and just learning the ways. Erik is one of this new generation: jaded and disillusioned, he’s in line for his clan’s throne but can’t bring himself to participate in his family’s history of pillaging and carnage. There has to be more to life then violence, but what is peace after Ragnarok? The land has been shrouded in overcast and rain for so long that it couldn’t be anything but the Age of Ragnarok: the end of the world – couldn’t it? Erik isn’t sure of anything, other then he has never seen the sun, and the weight of his first kill (a woman he refuses to rape during a raid) weighs heavily on him. This needs to stop: the Gods must be awakened from their slumber to bring back blue skies and the promise of a future of genuine change. A chance encounter with a seer gives him the push he needs: if he could find the Gjallarhorn – or, the Horn Resounding – on the mythical island of Hy-Brasil and blow it, the rainbow road to the Gods’ home of Asgard will open and the sound could end their quietus. Joined by the other able-bodied men of his tribe, Erik sets sail to uncharted territory and his destiny. Days pass. The men are restless for action and begin to doubt the validity of the stories they grew up with, which isn’t helped by a converted Christian priest who joins them and questions the old legends. They enter a fog patch and think they see a light in the sky. Is it the sun? Does it really exist? But it isn’t a sun at all: it’s a bauble hanging from the fearsome Dragon of the North! If this beast exists then surely their expedition cannot be in vain. Can our heroes escape?
Continue readingTag: loathing
bring back the clubbing rock

A short story for mature readers.
“A fantastical tale of a succubus and her new victim is not what it seems.”
A Long Time Ago, in an Age when middle income families couldn’t afford cell phones and elementary school computer labs housed Macintosh 128ks, there lived a Boy. This wasn’t a young man but a grown Boy who still worked at a labour-intensive warehouse picking orders into his thirties. He was bearded and bright-eyed and you could trace his Germanic roots all the way back to the time of the Vikings; if he wanted more from life then he was given, all he had to do was reach out and take it and it would be his. This was his family’s Gift. But the Boy didn’t feel the pleasure of youth he once used to and was frightened of the responsibility; and his own callous nature towards the Gift. He had a good life. A complicated one, but whose life didn’t have its share? And this Boy lived peacefully in a basement suite with his girlfriend of ten years, who loved him very much: so much that she still took him back after he had cheated on her. She had convinced him that life without her was unfruitful and he made the commitment that in the New Year he would be a better boyfriend: he would cut back on the drink; and he would stop stepping out with girls who fell outside the Rule Of Sevens.
Continue readingthe ark

take me back
A poem.
“human beings make mistakes!
‘he cried,
‘the climax to a long and troubled talk.
‘he couldnt keep it bottled in anymore.
‘what was it he said?
‘why was she so defensive?
“we all make mistakes!
“you most of all should understand that!
“you always go and do that
“what?
“make me think that you’ve changed when you haven’t.
‘you’re still the same self-righteous asshole
‘that you were at the start of the night.
“but who is he?
“who?
“this guy that you’re seeing? he’s just a friend right?
“yes i told you
“then why are you making such a big deal about it?
“i’m not i just don’t want to talk about it.
don’t blink
A poem for LMI.
last night,
i dreamt of us.
it was at a party.
you know,
like the ones you used to throw,
once again unsettled by no one i knew.
but i would if i kept looking,
and then i thought i had found you.
not even from across the room i turned to see you
sitting cross legged on the kitchen counter
just like how i had always pictured you,
ignoring me.
and this projection,
in due time it spoke like you,
carefree and senseless,
and i thought to myself
“i thought i had finally gotten over you.”
