Bruce Rich - Web/Graphic Designer, Music Producer, VJ
Will There Be an OK Electric 2011?
As some of you may remember, Novachild headlined at the Living Arts OK Electric music festival in years past. I also assisted with promotion, media relations and other minor details.
This year, I plan on picking up the ball where others have dropped it. This year, I have submitted an Event Proposal from Shadowbright Productions to handle the management of OK Electric 2011, naming myself as Event Manager and culling from the scene a few hand-picked persons to assist.
Wish me luck.
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
This year, I plan on picking up the ball where others have dropped it. This year, I have submitted an Event Proposal from Shadowbright Productions to handle the management of OK Electric 2011, naming myself as Event Manager and culling from the scene a few hand-picked persons to assist.
Wish me luck.
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
Comments
Homeward Bound
Another Novachild rarity, this time from February 2003. I was experimenting with Sawcutter a great deal back then, which is a fantastic piece of indie software for making on-the-fly weirdness. I miss using it, actually.
Homeward Bound by novachild
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
Homeward Bound by novachild
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
The Vagrant
Monday, August 01, 2011 Filed in: Writing
by Bruce Rich
This is part of a larger work - never finished.
The carousel world ran around and around and at the end trailed an ethereal vice with his aching mind stuck inside screaming.
The vagrant paced down 999th street under a gray rain, licking his chapped lips to taste the salt collected there. Drizzle mingled with the alkaline oil packed into his callused skin, crawling and sliding over his leathery corpse like a viscous membrane. Feeling like an unwashed corpse, he barely held onto consciousness amid the fragments of pain and soreness creeping from every muscle and joint. He dodged the swarm of haunted people like a codeine-afflicted Olympiad, motor functions playing evil pranks with the vagrant’s carefully planned footfalls.
Tripping on air, he fell onto the cold, wet concrete, crying out in pain as his cheekbone landed first. He heard a faint pop in his neck. Blood flowed into the gutter. As he swung himself back onto his feet, the grotesque, fantastic scenery jolted back into place. Sidewalk there. Building… there. Shoal of wicked nuns walking across the street beneath plastic raincoats. Yes, he was on top of things once again, and the fall seemed to have adjusted his trick vertibrae. Much better, he thought, wiping blood on his crusty sleeve.
Ghostly faces roamed menacingly through the flock, bodiless phantoms sporadically merging with shopping-cart queens with dirty hair and businessmen with waterproof watchfaces on their mind. Slick, pointy demons with pale and fleshy masks carved knowing eyes and crooked smiles into hapless, fleshy victims, pilfering their innocent bodies for instant, diabolical gratification. Non-corporeal spectres must have their addictions as well, he thought to himself while rubbing his cheek some more.
People liquefied in the vaporous distance of a rained-out inner city. Beneath black umbrellas, the busy throng of lunch-goers, bums and winos stranded themselves behind veils of shifted time. He was in another world, adjascent to this one but separate. The vagrant shook with a sort of cosmic claustrophobia. He needed a special kind of eyeglass to cope, but then again, owning another pair would give the adjascent-world conspiracy something else to place their spy bugs in. He didn’t need another spy bug.
Bright neon from a church sign bled through the silhouette before him. The new stranger exposed the pits and scars which mapped its face. Its lips were moving but he couldn’t identify a sound.
The face came closer, the voice became louder. Somewhere in time, an invisible hand was turning up the volume on this reality TV. The image stabilized before him, an old man in a green, double-knit suit shimmered to life on the sidewalk. He felt himself shaking at the thought of having to communicate anything. He couldn’t remember how.
The old man reached into an inside pocket, slowly bringing out a handful of change. “Take this, you filthy wretch. Go buy yourself something to make it all feel better.” He instinctively reached out a hand and caught the change before it fell to the dark sidewalk below. One of his fingers brushed the palm of the old man on accident. It felt cold, lifeless and not really there. He heard himself speaking at the other side of a canyon. “Do.. do you have a cigarette?”
The old man turned away, a disinterested feature carved into the round, pruny face. “Sorry, boy. Quit that habit years ago.” The man adjusted his tan fedora, raising an eyebrow to indicate the benefit of not having a cigarette.
“Bless you for the change, sir.” He spoke, not knowing why. The man nodded, gradually merging back into the crowd, drowning once again in the subtle clicks of high heels, taxi calls and rumbling automobiles. The cold, gray mist of rain became an onslaught of freezing water, and several paces away, the old man lit a fresh cigarette under an expensive umbrella, disappearing forever.
Dispirited, the vagrant slowed down to avoid another fall, feeling rather sore and defeated and wanting a smoke more than anything else in the world. Slung haphazardly over his frozen body was a tattered, dark-brown overcoat that hung down to his knees. He wondered where it came from. Checking the pockets, he discovered a crinkled packet of generic cigarettes and an old sad matchbook, emblazoned with a familiar convenience-store slogan. He fumbled for a cigarette, careful not to sling them into the mud, and he hid beneath a canopy to light it, forgetting the world around him. Thunder rolled high above.
Several blocks later his head began to clear, or was he merely getting used to the surreal time fracture around him? Twilight came and went, but his memory still hadn’t returned. He found himself standing sheepishly before a large, angled cinema sign, raindrops pelting gently off its ridges high above. He looked up, interested to see what was playing. A Kung-Fu triple feature, tickets 2 dollars each. He counted his change, pulling out pennies and pocket lint, to see if he had enough silver for a ticket.
Strolling up toward the box office, he gently flicked his cigarette onto the wet pavement and offered up his change. The snaggle-toothed creature behind the greasy glass peered through silvery, disdainful eyes, scratching a filthy gray beard and offering no compassion in his twisted gaze. “You’re a nickel short, bum. Go buy yourself a cheap forty and come back some other time.” The creature grinned, pushing his change back out of the money tray beneath the glass. The vagrant reached back into his pocket for the pennies, counted to five, and slammed them disruptively into the stainless-steel intendure.
“One ticket, please,” the voice that was not his whispered softly. Chuckling to itself, the ticket seller tore him a pass, dragging the coins back in and pretending to drop them into the register.
“Just keep it clean in there, sport,” it sneered. “We don’t want any more germs crawling around in them seats, you hear.” He shrugged off the taunting and stepped inside, slinging off his filthy coat and heading for the rest room.
The face in the mirror was not his own. He was sure of it, somehow. He rubbed the unshaven nubian cheek, feeling the grime and the dust embedded into the pores. The hands that didn’t belong to him twisted the water on, bringing warm lather up to his face in a refreshing wave. The ache of existence receded with the fresh sensation. He removed the battered, hunter-green stocking cap, tossing it onto the floor next to the jacket, and rubbed the short, black hair beneath. It needed a bit of cleaning, too, so he dipped his aching head into the grimy sink and rubbed the water in.
“What do you think you’re doing, boy,” leered a husky voice behind him. “This ain’t no bath house. This here’s a respected cinema and you’ve no business dirtying it up the way you are.” It was the aged creature that was perched behind the Box Office earlier, offering up more trouble than what the ticket was worth. He responded by reaching for a bundle of paper towels, quickly wiping the water from his head and discarding the waste. He turned to face the bullying stranger, streams of water dripping from his chin.
“I outta yank you right down, boy. What say you and me have it out?”
Silence. More paper towels being pulled from the dispenser.
“Nothin to say, eh?” The vagrant reached for his tattered waistcoat, eyes stinging with soapy residue, and suddenly the middle of his back was disrupted by a rather strong-willed punch from snaggle-tooth. He lost his balance and toppled toward the green-tile wall, knocking his already-bruised cheek against the trashbin on the long way down. It bled again.
“Want some more? I’ll give you some more.” He twisted around on the floor in shock, the headache returning from the depths and extending out into the rest of his body. He felt a strange, tingling sensation moving through his spine, tensing up the muscles along the way. He turned quickly, too quickly. The cowboy punch swung through the air in a wide, low arc, destined to land against his nose in a bone-crunching fashion.
Snaggletooth’s fist froze in mid-air.
The face behind the punch tangled in surprise. Tendons twisted and bones snapped apart in an unreal frenzy, and Snaggle-tooth turned deathly pale. The vagrant studied the pain in snaggle-tooth’s twisted features. The ticket-seller’s arm was frozen in the space between them, yet nothing visible blocked the punch.
The vagrant sat on the floor, eyes gleaming with an unreal innocence that burned into the ticket-seller’s brain. The air filled with an electric hum as snaggletooth vanished, leaving nothing but a fading stream of fire behind and a faint scream that wouldn’t leave the room. The Vagrant flung himself to his feet in a frenzy of movement and gathered up his jacket and hat, striding down the dimly-lit hallway toward Wu-Tang versus Shaolin Temple.
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
This is part of a larger work - never finished.
The carousel world ran around and around and at the end trailed an ethereal vice with his aching mind stuck inside screaming.
The vagrant paced down 999th street under a gray rain, licking his chapped lips to taste the salt collected there. Drizzle mingled with the alkaline oil packed into his callused skin, crawling and sliding over his leathery corpse like a viscous membrane. Feeling like an unwashed corpse, he barely held onto consciousness amid the fragments of pain and soreness creeping from every muscle and joint. He dodged the swarm of haunted people like a codeine-afflicted Olympiad, motor functions playing evil pranks with the vagrant’s carefully planned footfalls.
Tripping on air, he fell onto the cold, wet concrete, crying out in pain as his cheekbone landed first. He heard a faint pop in his neck. Blood flowed into the gutter. As he swung himself back onto his feet, the grotesque, fantastic scenery jolted back into place. Sidewalk there. Building… there. Shoal of wicked nuns walking across the street beneath plastic raincoats. Yes, he was on top of things once again, and the fall seemed to have adjusted his trick vertibrae. Much better, he thought, wiping blood on his crusty sleeve.
Ghostly faces roamed menacingly through the flock, bodiless phantoms sporadically merging with shopping-cart queens with dirty hair and businessmen with waterproof watchfaces on their mind. Slick, pointy demons with pale and fleshy masks carved knowing eyes and crooked smiles into hapless, fleshy victims, pilfering their innocent bodies for instant, diabolical gratification. Non-corporeal spectres must have their addictions as well, he thought to himself while rubbing his cheek some more.
People liquefied in the vaporous distance of a rained-out inner city. Beneath black umbrellas, the busy throng of lunch-goers, bums and winos stranded themselves behind veils of shifted time. He was in another world, adjascent to this one but separate. The vagrant shook with a sort of cosmic claustrophobia. He needed a special kind of eyeglass to cope, but then again, owning another pair would give the adjascent-world conspiracy something else to place their spy bugs in. He didn’t need another spy bug.
Bright neon from a church sign bled through the silhouette before him. The new stranger exposed the pits and scars which mapped its face. Its lips were moving but he couldn’t identify a sound.
The face came closer, the voice became louder. Somewhere in time, an invisible hand was turning up the volume on this reality TV. The image stabilized before him, an old man in a green, double-knit suit shimmered to life on the sidewalk. He felt himself shaking at the thought of having to communicate anything. He couldn’t remember how.
The old man reached into an inside pocket, slowly bringing out a handful of change. “Take this, you filthy wretch. Go buy yourself something to make it all feel better.” He instinctively reached out a hand and caught the change before it fell to the dark sidewalk below. One of his fingers brushed the palm of the old man on accident. It felt cold, lifeless and not really there. He heard himself speaking at the other side of a canyon. “Do.. do you have a cigarette?”
The old man turned away, a disinterested feature carved into the round, pruny face. “Sorry, boy. Quit that habit years ago.” The man adjusted his tan fedora, raising an eyebrow to indicate the benefit of not having a cigarette.
“Bless you for the change, sir.” He spoke, not knowing why. The man nodded, gradually merging back into the crowd, drowning once again in the subtle clicks of high heels, taxi calls and rumbling automobiles. The cold, gray mist of rain became an onslaught of freezing water, and several paces away, the old man lit a fresh cigarette under an expensive umbrella, disappearing forever.
Dispirited, the vagrant slowed down to avoid another fall, feeling rather sore and defeated and wanting a smoke more than anything else in the world. Slung haphazardly over his frozen body was a tattered, dark-brown overcoat that hung down to his knees. He wondered where it came from. Checking the pockets, he discovered a crinkled packet of generic cigarettes and an old sad matchbook, emblazoned with a familiar convenience-store slogan. He fumbled for a cigarette, careful not to sling them into the mud, and he hid beneath a canopy to light it, forgetting the world around him. Thunder rolled high above.
Several blocks later his head began to clear, or was he merely getting used to the surreal time fracture around him? Twilight came and went, but his memory still hadn’t returned. He found himself standing sheepishly before a large, angled cinema sign, raindrops pelting gently off its ridges high above. He looked up, interested to see what was playing. A Kung-Fu triple feature, tickets 2 dollars each. He counted his change, pulling out pennies and pocket lint, to see if he had enough silver for a ticket.
Strolling up toward the box office, he gently flicked his cigarette onto the wet pavement and offered up his change. The snaggle-toothed creature behind the greasy glass peered through silvery, disdainful eyes, scratching a filthy gray beard and offering no compassion in his twisted gaze. “You’re a nickel short, bum. Go buy yourself a cheap forty and come back some other time.” The creature grinned, pushing his change back out of the money tray beneath the glass. The vagrant reached back into his pocket for the pennies, counted to five, and slammed them disruptively into the stainless-steel intendure.
“One ticket, please,” the voice that was not his whispered softly. Chuckling to itself, the ticket seller tore him a pass, dragging the coins back in and pretending to drop them into the register.
“Just keep it clean in there, sport,” it sneered. “We don’t want any more germs crawling around in them seats, you hear.” He shrugged off the taunting and stepped inside, slinging off his filthy coat and heading for the rest room.
The face in the mirror was not his own. He was sure of it, somehow. He rubbed the unshaven nubian cheek, feeling the grime and the dust embedded into the pores. The hands that didn’t belong to him twisted the water on, bringing warm lather up to his face in a refreshing wave. The ache of existence receded with the fresh sensation. He removed the battered, hunter-green stocking cap, tossing it onto the floor next to the jacket, and rubbed the short, black hair beneath. It needed a bit of cleaning, too, so he dipped his aching head into the grimy sink and rubbed the water in.
“What do you think you’re doing, boy,” leered a husky voice behind him. “This ain’t no bath house. This here’s a respected cinema and you’ve no business dirtying it up the way you are.” It was the aged creature that was perched behind the Box Office earlier, offering up more trouble than what the ticket was worth. He responded by reaching for a bundle of paper towels, quickly wiping the water from his head and discarding the waste. He turned to face the bullying stranger, streams of water dripping from his chin.
“I outta yank you right down, boy. What say you and me have it out?”
Silence. More paper towels being pulled from the dispenser.
“Nothin to say, eh?” The vagrant reached for his tattered waistcoat, eyes stinging with soapy residue, and suddenly the middle of his back was disrupted by a rather strong-willed punch from snaggle-tooth. He lost his balance and toppled toward the green-tile wall, knocking his already-bruised cheek against the trashbin on the long way down. It bled again.
“Want some more? I’ll give you some more.” He twisted around on the floor in shock, the headache returning from the depths and extending out into the rest of his body. He felt a strange, tingling sensation moving through his spine, tensing up the muscles along the way. He turned quickly, too quickly. The cowboy punch swung through the air in a wide, low arc, destined to land against his nose in a bone-crunching fashion.
Snaggletooth’s fist froze in mid-air.
The face behind the punch tangled in surprise. Tendons twisted and bones snapped apart in an unreal frenzy, and Snaggle-tooth turned deathly pale. The vagrant studied the pain in snaggle-tooth’s twisted features. The ticket-seller’s arm was frozen in the space between them, yet nothing visible blocked the punch.
The vagrant sat on the floor, eyes gleaming with an unreal innocence that burned into the ticket-seller’s brain. The air filled with an electric hum as snaggletooth vanished, leaving nothing but a fading stream of fire behind and a faint scream that wouldn’t leave the room. The Vagrant flung himself to his feet in a frenzy of movement and gathered up his jacket and hat, striding down the dimly-lit hallway toward Wu-Tang versus Shaolin Temple.
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
Havia: The Last Human
Monday, August 01, 2011 Filed in: Writing
The last Human. This phrase pleased the king in one breath, and filled him with dread in the next. How could they be certain? And how could they go so far?
Endless lines of Humans, long since extinct from their homeworld, herded toward the massive steel structures under the prodding of Havian Sentinels; women, children, men all alike in their scrawny, half-starved state had crawled willingly into the bowels of welcome death. Some cities suffered from rioting due to the phasing out of their prime entertainment, but this seemed to have calmed upon the realization that there were no Human animals left to destroy. Secure in his private decision to retain one surviving Human among the many, Chalmo merely nodded at the book in the casing and called out to Bergan.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Take me to him.”
Bound, gagged and stinking in its own waste, the Human had been pushed beyond madness, starved into near-death and left as a broken husk on the cold, mossy floor. The tribulation had pleased everyone in the regime, at least outwardly, and the news carriers were greeted with joy throughout the Havian Empire, or so the reports stated by his informants. Old field maidens kissed his Royal Servicemen with glee, and children ran circles around the regiments, tossing with gaiety the hand-picked desert blossoms of their land. But the King was not so pleased, and as these thoughts circled within his awareness, he felt equally unsure as to why his feelings toward the creature had changed.
Guarding this rare obscenity was a troop of Sentinels, selected carefully by Chalmo and his military staff. The King motioned the guards to clear a path, and as he moved toward the bars, he could feel the inevitable shadow of Fate struggling to take hold. “Great Amo, not just now,” he prayed, whispering a curse to dispel the pain in his chest. Relief did not come, but neither did the passing.
He peered through the darkness of the bars, calling out passionately for the last Human by name. There came a ruffling of straw in the dimness, and then a silhouette emerged, stinking of decay and damp earth. The King felt unclean, as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks. His own sour perspiration mixed with the death-smell, causing him to heave a little.
“Are you alright, Majesty?” asked one of the guards.
“It is nothing. I merely ate too much for breakfast, and the smell is getting to me.” If Chalmo could cry like a Human, he would have done so. Instead, he simply lowered his head from sight of the creature and stepped back a pace. “I wish to be alone with it,” he said, detecting the trepidation in his voice. The guards seemed perplexed, probably wondering why the King, an important leader, would ever bother with such mundane matters. “I noticed your silence, Bergan. Do you not object to my sympathetic fancy?”
The tall, thin Sentinel bowed his head. “I would not object to anything which pleases you,” he replied in a saccharine voice.
“Somehow I think it’s just the opposite with you,” replied the King. “But no matter. Go away from me.”
“As you wish,” replied Bergan, restraining his bitterness. He turned on one heel and marched into the darkness.
The last human emerged from shadows and time stopped for the King.
A creaking hinge in the darkness brought him to attention. The King swiveled upon his hind toes, becoming a wraith of streaming coattails as he turned to face the intrusion. The swift movement betrayed his age, yet the torches flickering in the sudden draft were relatively unseen by his imperfect eyesight. Thick, dancing shadows played upon the cold, gray stone of the castle walls, but they were a blur to the king with out his spectacles. The abstract shapes conjured images of terror to match the incessant alarm buzzing inside his head. He felt old and afraid for the first time in centuries. The framed darkness beyond the door seemed to peer back at him.
Then there came a dark, bellowing fit of laughter from beyond.
“Who dares to intrude!” commanded King Chalmo’s roaring, steady voice. “I say, reveal yourself this very instant!” He composed himself in the dimness, and still no reply came. Reaching for the hilt of his sword in a trained movement, his nostrils suddenly flared against the scent of decay that poured in from the hallway. The room now reeked of death, a kind of death unknown upon the face of this dry, oceanless planet, for it was the smell of rotting sea creatures and sour, malignant weeds that seemed to solidify in the air around him. So foul and pungent was the odor that it plagued him with a retching fit, and the King spilled his evening meal onto the undignified cobbles beneath his aching feet.
Wiping his beard with one golden sleeve, the cold metal in the other hand called him to action. Chalmo flung the blade expertly toward the unknown target, expecting an impaling thud. The clanging sound that followed gave no relief. “You there, bring yourself into the light at once!” He shouted. “Guards, come quickly!”
It obeyed, but the guards, which should have been at post by his door, did not come to his immediate rescue. Perhaps they are already dead, or perhaps even conspiring against me. Ashram knows I probably deserve it. Thoughts such as these did little comfort in times of plight, yet they were astoundingly effective in stirring up the oppression that bellowed in his corpulent gut.
Almost silent whispers curled up from the hollow darkness. History will make you a great man, Chalmo. But you and I, we take the truth to our graves.
The silhouette migrated into the torchlight, a gleaming blade held taut in its dark-skinned fingers. Narrow, pitted eyes bore down upon him, revealing a whisper of white surrounding two jet-black pupils seemingly aflame with rage. The King stood speechless, weaponless, his eyes bulging in utter perplexity. He envisioned his dark, ancient blood dripping from that blade, that clenched fist of midnight black. “It cannot be,” he whispered, his frail wings shivering, his voice crackling with a lifetime of agitation and the heart in his chest skipping several vital beats. The sudden, electric pain of recognition immobilized his soul to the very core. His bowels moved of their own volition, and he found that he could not control the shaking, the tremendous trembling, which welled up within him like a sudden storm. “No. This cannot be!”
The shape moved closer still, blocking out the torchlight until the King was once again faced with the ominous shadow. Chalmo ran backward toward the far wall, tripping on his long, golden robe as he tried to drive his large, obese frame around and away from the approaching threat. He landed sideways on the cobblestone floor, with one arm twisted and fixed agonizingly beneath his large torso. His regal jaw had dislodged on impact, yet his powerful lungs accomplished a desperate slur of pleas from the crooked mouth that twitched of its own volition upon the floor. “Guards! Guards!” He screamed, closing his eyes to welcome death and infinity. His voice trailed off into sonar, followed by the familiar reverberation of guards trampling through the corridor beyond. But by the time the royal guards arrived at his door, the king was stiff and ghostly white, and his assailant was nowhere to be found.
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
Endless lines of Humans, long since extinct from their homeworld, herded toward the massive steel structures under the prodding of Havian Sentinels; women, children, men all alike in their scrawny, half-starved state had crawled willingly into the bowels of welcome death. Some cities suffered from rioting due to the phasing out of their prime entertainment, but this seemed to have calmed upon the realization that there were no Human animals left to destroy. Secure in his private decision to retain one surviving Human among the many, Chalmo merely nodded at the book in the casing and called out to Bergan.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Take me to him.”
Bound, gagged and stinking in its own waste, the Human had been pushed beyond madness, starved into near-death and left as a broken husk on the cold, mossy floor. The tribulation had pleased everyone in the regime, at least outwardly, and the news carriers were greeted with joy throughout the Havian Empire, or so the reports stated by his informants. Old field maidens kissed his Royal Servicemen with glee, and children ran circles around the regiments, tossing with gaiety the hand-picked desert blossoms of their land. But the King was not so pleased, and as these thoughts circled within his awareness, he felt equally unsure as to why his feelings toward the creature had changed.
Guarding this rare obscenity was a troop of Sentinels, selected carefully by Chalmo and his military staff. The King motioned the guards to clear a path, and as he moved toward the bars, he could feel the inevitable shadow of Fate struggling to take hold. “Great Amo, not just now,” he prayed, whispering a curse to dispel the pain in his chest. Relief did not come, but neither did the passing.
He peered through the darkness of the bars, calling out passionately for the last Human by name. There came a ruffling of straw in the dimness, and then a silhouette emerged, stinking of decay and damp earth. The King felt unclean, as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks. His own sour perspiration mixed with the death-smell, causing him to heave a little.
“Are you alright, Majesty?” asked one of the guards.
“It is nothing. I merely ate too much for breakfast, and the smell is getting to me.” If Chalmo could cry like a Human, he would have done so. Instead, he simply lowered his head from sight of the creature and stepped back a pace. “I wish to be alone with it,” he said, detecting the trepidation in his voice. The guards seemed perplexed, probably wondering why the King, an important leader, would ever bother with such mundane matters. “I noticed your silence, Bergan. Do you not object to my sympathetic fancy?”
The tall, thin Sentinel bowed his head. “I would not object to anything which pleases you,” he replied in a saccharine voice.
“Somehow I think it’s just the opposite with you,” replied the King. “But no matter. Go away from me.”
“As you wish,” replied Bergan, restraining his bitterness. He turned on one heel and marched into the darkness.
The last human emerged from shadows and time stopped for the King.
A creaking hinge in the darkness brought him to attention. The King swiveled upon his hind toes, becoming a wraith of streaming coattails as he turned to face the intrusion. The swift movement betrayed his age, yet the torches flickering in the sudden draft were relatively unseen by his imperfect eyesight. Thick, dancing shadows played upon the cold, gray stone of the castle walls, but they were a blur to the king with out his spectacles. The abstract shapes conjured images of terror to match the incessant alarm buzzing inside his head. He felt old and afraid for the first time in centuries. The framed darkness beyond the door seemed to peer back at him.
Then there came a dark, bellowing fit of laughter from beyond.
“Who dares to intrude!” commanded King Chalmo’s roaring, steady voice. “I say, reveal yourself this very instant!” He composed himself in the dimness, and still no reply came. Reaching for the hilt of his sword in a trained movement, his nostrils suddenly flared against the scent of decay that poured in from the hallway. The room now reeked of death, a kind of death unknown upon the face of this dry, oceanless planet, for it was the smell of rotting sea creatures and sour, malignant weeds that seemed to solidify in the air around him. So foul and pungent was the odor that it plagued him with a retching fit, and the King spilled his evening meal onto the undignified cobbles beneath his aching feet.
Wiping his beard with one golden sleeve, the cold metal in the other hand called him to action. Chalmo flung the blade expertly toward the unknown target, expecting an impaling thud. The clanging sound that followed gave no relief. “You there, bring yourself into the light at once!” He shouted. “Guards, come quickly!”
It obeyed, but the guards, which should have been at post by his door, did not come to his immediate rescue. Perhaps they are already dead, or perhaps even conspiring against me. Ashram knows I probably deserve it. Thoughts such as these did little comfort in times of plight, yet they were astoundingly effective in stirring up the oppression that bellowed in his corpulent gut.
Almost silent whispers curled up from the hollow darkness. History will make you a great man, Chalmo. But you and I, we take the truth to our graves.
The silhouette migrated into the torchlight, a gleaming blade held taut in its dark-skinned fingers. Narrow, pitted eyes bore down upon him, revealing a whisper of white surrounding two jet-black pupils seemingly aflame with rage. The King stood speechless, weaponless, his eyes bulging in utter perplexity. He envisioned his dark, ancient blood dripping from that blade, that clenched fist of midnight black. “It cannot be,” he whispered, his frail wings shivering, his voice crackling with a lifetime of agitation and the heart in his chest skipping several vital beats. The sudden, electric pain of recognition immobilized his soul to the very core. His bowels moved of their own volition, and he found that he could not control the shaking, the tremendous trembling, which welled up within him like a sudden storm. “No. This cannot be!”
The shape moved closer still, blocking out the torchlight until the King was once again faced with the ominous shadow. Chalmo ran backward toward the far wall, tripping on his long, golden robe as he tried to drive his large, obese frame around and away from the approaching threat. He landed sideways on the cobblestone floor, with one arm twisted and fixed agonizingly beneath his large torso. His regal jaw had dislodged on impact, yet his powerful lungs accomplished a desperate slur of pleas from the crooked mouth that twitched of its own volition upon the floor. “Guards! Guards!” He screamed, closing his eyes to welcome death and infinity. His voice trailed off into sonar, followed by the familiar reverberation of guards trampling through the corridor beyond. But by the time the royal guards arrived at his door, the king was stiff and ghostly white, and his assailant was nowhere to be found.
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
Havia: Kendel's Awakening
Monday, August 01, 2011 Filed in: Writing
Fragments of History Before The Fall
by Bruce Rich
Even at this early hour, Kendel’s mind reeled with possibilities.
The painting was of a face, doubtlessly feminine despite a mildly restrained whisper of androgyny. Soft, cinnamon brows sloped downward like thumbnail moons toward a small, pointy nose. Duplicated expertly over the ceiling surface, the face was a web of cleverly drawn doppelgangers blending into the shadows thrown by wooden arches above. Aroused by the image, Kendel threw aside the remaining cobwebs of sleep and stretched his weary limbs.
Everything fixed to the earth in Senkin Village embraced a soft-edged demeanor, from the puritanical spires of Adram’s Temple to the humblest public bath. His quarters were especially without exception. That is what I am, a curving surface, an artist’s intention, and I idle here in my dream-state while the Priests outside await the day when they may pray to me.
Kendel lit a candle to dispel the early-morning gloom, dreading another day of physical and mental training. His body, sore from months of exertion, screamed for a day of rest and massage, but he knew he must persevere. He worked the unpleasant stiffness from his shoulders with small, circular movements, and whispered to himself. “What new technique will the Mentor reveal today. Something truly terrifying, most likely. What I would give to have the pleasure of sheer inactivity.” Kendel felt a whisper of panic as the sunlight crept through the doorframe, slowly and inevitably. Soon, he would be forced to abandon the safety of his dark resting-place. Soon, the shadows would part to reveal Adram the Sun God spying from the door’s rough surface, a carved admonition placed there by the Mentor himself.
Kendel had an appetite for strange, unpopular facts and considered the old religion a barrier between the past and the future. The Books of the Apharand had been enlightening and inspiring, yet he yearned for the world to connect within him. He felt the currents of uncharted depths ,of greater truths, but he could not express them aloud
Reality. The Mentor was fond of this word. It was often used as a label to prevent more questions during teachings, but Kendel found that the word lost some of its meaning when he looked around. “Measure your reality, Kendel,” the Mentor would say. “Will you choose the measure of the Holy Word or the chaos of your soul?” Someday he may be King, but the sure path of betraying his destiny lie in the unspoken truths in which he often felt inside. Still, he persevered, hoping to someday find the answers to his inner confusion. Sometimes, the life of a simple farm worker beckoned him, but he knew that he could not betray destiny.
“You are a candidate for the crown of Chalmo,” the Mentor had spoken in a stern voice many years ago.
“The Holy Word is the measurement in which you must define yourself. The physical and spiritual training is the arena before the Judgment, and you will be required to bare yourself before them.” He was foretold of the difficulty of this path long before he had a choice, but over the years he had grown accustomed to the testing. If he was a reincarnation of that ancient King, it would explain many unique perceptions within him, and so he vowed at an early age his loyalty to the Priesthood, and to the troubled path ahead.
“Is your probe more or less accurate than the Holy Scriptures, Kendel?” He felt the trap in this statement but persevered. Awakening, they said, was gained by disciplined awareness.
The solid, disorderly grain of the wood beneath his callused toes reassured his disposition. He feared the coming agony of his sore muscles. His body, suddenly forced upright, felt as if it might snap under the pull of tight muscles beneath his flesh. Yet the grains in the wood floor proved that no amount of sanding could remove the original pattern. And even then dust remained. He would survive another day of sanding, and perhaps his Mentor would perceive his deeper grains today. And as it may be, he would have another glimpse at the copper-haired beauty he discovered in the orchard yesterday. What was her name? Tee-a? Teela? He couldn’t remember, but Kendel was fairly certain an apostrophe belonged in there somewhere.
Stretching his pale wings in the early morning, he yawned and awoke to the rising sun. The muffled sound of unhurried footsteps crunched into the pea gravel that he had placed outside his door. It was a trick offered by a young acolyte who was visited frequently by the Priest Shavoil. The Priest had a reputation for sneaking into the affairs of his students unannounced, and the sound of the gravel would alert the young acolyte, therefore denying the Priest the advantage of surprise. Eventually Shavoil caught onto the trick and began to approach barefoot.
Faint traces of yellow-green sunlight filtered through the base of the postern, bleeding a sunny tendril across the floorboards to the base of the wooden bedposts. The sunlight was divided by the shadow of feet beyond the door. Summons to breakfast usually jolted him out of bed, but Kendel’s internal clock was growing accustomed to this pattern by rousing him before the dreaded event.
The smells associated with morning roused his imagination. Fresh cooking and the fertilizer-scent of the fields beyond the Temple Ground mixed inside his nostrils, generating an awakening perfume and energizing his body. The cleaners would be dusting the Temple now, he thought, preparing for the usual daily ceremonies, wiping away the remnants of evening dust. Te’ea would be in the orchard now, picking the ripened fruits before the sun reached its morning peak.
He felt a surge of anxiety at the thought of food, reaching for sandals unconsciously, lacing them up and donning his cleanest robe. Kendel recognized the speed in his newly honed reflexes mirrored within these small, trivial preparations. Eagerness crept into his awareness, then doubt. “Another day for destiny. But I have yet to find my bearing, my reason. Am I creating excuses for the work that I feel must be done?”
The rapping came again, followed by a muffled voice that could not be easily deciphered. Apprentices were not allowed to enter, and they could stand for long moments without complaint. The apprentice would wait, relegating the knocking to a meditation while Kendel sat considering the consequences of approaching the courtyard.
Kendel straightened his robe with a few swift movements and greeted the apprentice. “Have I kept you waiting long enough?” He studied the features of the child before him. Soft, yellow eyes beginning to show signs of greater intelligence, round cheeks covered in flesh dawning a long journey into adulthood. The apprentice was the youngest in the village, yet something about this small boy in front of him spoke of great changes in the Senkin community. The Priesthood is not accustomed to bringing in such young blood for conditioning. Imagine one of these infant fighters in the coming collision with the Chalmions, he thought. They are hardening their ways, these Priests of old traditions, growing more and more desperate as the taxation from Chalmo increases. The farmers are containing the setbacks with increased efficiency in the harvest, but the Priests are nearly standing on their heads in preparations. Weeding out the young for their graininess, transplanting them into a future of darkness and violence.
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by Bruce Rich
Even at this early hour, Kendel’s mind reeled with possibilities.
The painting was of a face, doubtlessly feminine despite a mildly restrained whisper of androgyny. Soft, cinnamon brows sloped downward like thumbnail moons toward a small, pointy nose. Duplicated expertly over the ceiling surface, the face was a web of cleverly drawn doppelgangers blending into the shadows thrown by wooden arches above. Aroused by the image, Kendel threw aside the remaining cobwebs of sleep and stretched his weary limbs.
Everything fixed to the earth in Senkin Village embraced a soft-edged demeanor, from the puritanical spires of Adram’s Temple to the humblest public bath. His quarters were especially without exception. That is what I am, a curving surface, an artist’s intention, and I idle here in my dream-state while the Priests outside await the day when they may pray to me.
Kendel lit a candle to dispel the early-morning gloom, dreading another day of physical and mental training. His body, sore from months of exertion, screamed for a day of rest and massage, but he knew he must persevere. He worked the unpleasant stiffness from his shoulders with small, circular movements, and whispered to himself. “What new technique will the Mentor reveal today. Something truly terrifying, most likely. What I would give to have the pleasure of sheer inactivity.” Kendel felt a whisper of panic as the sunlight crept through the doorframe, slowly and inevitably. Soon, he would be forced to abandon the safety of his dark resting-place. Soon, the shadows would part to reveal Adram the Sun God spying from the door’s rough surface, a carved admonition placed there by the Mentor himself.
Kendel had an appetite for strange, unpopular facts and considered the old religion a barrier between the past and the future. The Books of the Apharand had been enlightening and inspiring, yet he yearned for the world to connect within him. He felt the currents of uncharted depths ,of greater truths, but he could not express them aloud
Reality. The Mentor was fond of this word. It was often used as a label to prevent more questions during teachings, but Kendel found that the word lost some of its meaning when he looked around. “Measure your reality, Kendel,” the Mentor would say. “Will you choose the measure of the Holy Word or the chaos of your soul?” Someday he may be King, but the sure path of betraying his destiny lie in the unspoken truths in which he often felt inside. Still, he persevered, hoping to someday find the answers to his inner confusion. Sometimes, the life of a simple farm worker beckoned him, but he knew that he could not betray destiny.
“You are a candidate for the crown of Chalmo,” the Mentor had spoken in a stern voice many years ago.
“The Holy Word is the measurement in which you must define yourself. The physical and spiritual training is the arena before the Judgment, and you will be required to bare yourself before them.” He was foretold of the difficulty of this path long before he had a choice, but over the years he had grown accustomed to the testing. If he was a reincarnation of that ancient King, it would explain many unique perceptions within him, and so he vowed at an early age his loyalty to the Priesthood, and to the troubled path ahead.
“Is your probe more or less accurate than the Holy Scriptures, Kendel?” He felt the trap in this statement but persevered. Awakening, they said, was gained by disciplined awareness.
The solid, disorderly grain of the wood beneath his callused toes reassured his disposition. He feared the coming agony of his sore muscles. His body, suddenly forced upright, felt as if it might snap under the pull of tight muscles beneath his flesh. Yet the grains in the wood floor proved that no amount of sanding could remove the original pattern. And even then dust remained. He would survive another day of sanding, and perhaps his Mentor would perceive his deeper grains today. And as it may be, he would have another glimpse at the copper-haired beauty he discovered in the orchard yesterday. What was her name? Tee-a? Teela? He couldn’t remember, but Kendel was fairly certain an apostrophe belonged in there somewhere.
Stretching his pale wings in the early morning, he yawned and awoke to the rising sun. The muffled sound of unhurried footsteps crunched into the pea gravel that he had placed outside his door. It was a trick offered by a young acolyte who was visited frequently by the Priest Shavoil. The Priest had a reputation for sneaking into the affairs of his students unannounced, and the sound of the gravel would alert the young acolyte, therefore denying the Priest the advantage of surprise. Eventually Shavoil caught onto the trick and began to approach barefoot.
Faint traces of yellow-green sunlight filtered through the base of the postern, bleeding a sunny tendril across the floorboards to the base of the wooden bedposts. The sunlight was divided by the shadow of feet beyond the door. Summons to breakfast usually jolted him out of bed, but Kendel’s internal clock was growing accustomed to this pattern by rousing him before the dreaded event.
The smells associated with morning roused his imagination. Fresh cooking and the fertilizer-scent of the fields beyond the Temple Ground mixed inside his nostrils, generating an awakening perfume and energizing his body. The cleaners would be dusting the Temple now, he thought, preparing for the usual daily ceremonies, wiping away the remnants of evening dust. Te’ea would be in the orchard now, picking the ripened fruits before the sun reached its morning peak.
He felt a surge of anxiety at the thought of food, reaching for sandals unconsciously, lacing them up and donning his cleanest robe. Kendel recognized the speed in his newly honed reflexes mirrored within these small, trivial preparations. Eagerness crept into his awareness, then doubt. “Another day for destiny. But I have yet to find my bearing, my reason. Am I creating excuses for the work that I feel must be done?”
The rapping came again, followed by a muffled voice that could not be easily deciphered. Apprentices were not allowed to enter, and they could stand for long moments without complaint. The apprentice would wait, relegating the knocking to a meditation while Kendel sat considering the consequences of approaching the courtyard.
Kendel straightened his robe with a few swift movements and greeted the apprentice. “Have I kept you waiting long enough?” He studied the features of the child before him. Soft, yellow eyes beginning to show signs of greater intelligence, round cheeks covered in flesh dawning a long journey into adulthood. The apprentice was the youngest in the village, yet something about this small boy in front of him spoke of great changes in the Senkin community. The Priesthood is not accustomed to bringing in such young blood for conditioning. Imagine one of these infant fighters in the coming collision with the Chalmions, he thought. They are hardening their ways, these Priests of old traditions, growing more and more desperate as the taxation from Chalmo increases. The farmers are containing the setbacks with increased efficiency in the harvest, but the Priests are nearly standing on their heads in preparations. Weeding out the young for their graininess, transplanting them into a future of darkness and violence.
Novachild on iTunes
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Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
Novachild Unreleased - Natural Exile (2005)
This actually did make it onto one of the versions of Weary Demons, but it was not circulated very wide (just one show), so I’m considering it ‘rare and unreleased.’ One of my favorites. Enjoy.
Natural Exile by novachild
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
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Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
Natural Exile by novachild
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation
Past Web Work
Found these backups of web sites I did several years ago on an old disc. Here they are for my portfolio. I’ve also added them to my Gallery.
Novachild on iTunes
Novachild on Amazon
Novachild on Twitter
Novachild on Facebook
Novachild on Bandcamp
Novachild on ReverbNation