Dave’s Anatomy: My History as a Writer #128: A Crazy Tale: "The Mechanical Horses from Shandong Province"

A Proper Victorian Lady

Most writers have story where they experiment, let go, let their imagination run wilder than they thought possible, and, sometimes, mix genres. A story I wrote back in 2013 titled “The Mechanical Horses of Shandong Province,” did just this. It’s the craziest story I ever penned. It was a steampunk/vampire/multicultural/alt-history/romance sort of story. It takes place in Edwardian era (the first decade of the Twentieth Century) in British India. It deals with a British colonial woman who is a vampire but also a scientist. She is trying to find a way to stop an invasion by Bhara Khan, a descendent of Genghis Khan who has conquered much of China and has his eyes on British India. And she is involved with a young man on the base. 

Unusual combination, but as a story it managed to work at least reasonably well, I think. Here is some of the basic plot. 

British Fortress in India

The reader learns early on that Catherine Travers is a vampire. The opening scene finds her cleaning up from dining on the blood of a victim she finds in the outback of India, transforming to a bat, and flying back to meet with her colleagues at the British garrison where she lives; the garrison also functions as a research laboratory. Catherine is working on development of the what she calls “cluster shells” (similar to our modern cluster bombs) that will, upon exploding, send out a swarm of smaller projectiles that will also explode. Bhara Khan’s cavalry is so skilled, and so numerous, that it can successfully charge into artillery or at machineguns. The British team is working frantically to develop a weapon that will stop him. Like many Victorians, Catherine was frightened of sex and had thought to live in celibacy until she crossed over to the vampire world. Besides unleashing a hunger for blood, it has unleashed her desire. She has found someone to supply it, a young man named Wesley, who is, the text notes, surprised at her violence and passion but satisfies her enough that they have stayed together. 

Sitting down with her colleagues, Catherine learns that they will receive a visit from Parnashri Navin, a local leader, and a priestess/courtesan who practices sacred sex. Though she does not tell the others there at the table, she knows Parnashri holds the key to defeating Bhara Khan. 

The two women met after Catherine became stranded after a train wreck. Frantic to find shelter from the sun, she hides a cave. She sees Parnashri dance in worship to Shiva and is mesmerized by her:  Catherine thought she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Her arms and legs were long, her torso slender and muscled. She had large round breasts, smooth, strong shoulders and a black glossy swath of hair where her legs met. Her feet, long and narrow, moved with grace and elegance and her body followed their flow. When they speak, Parnashri says she knows Catherine is a rakshasa, a vampire. She welcomes Catherine and receives her into her home and her temple. 

Parnashri tells Catherine of the impending invasion. She also says the Chinese have delivered a weapon they believe will defeat Bhara Khan’s cavalry. 

These are mechanical horses. They are not the kind one rides. They are weapons all in themselves. The Chinese engineers give her a demonstration. They set a large number of full-sized clay soldiers in a huge room and unleash the horses:  The things transformed to golden storms of violent motion. They reared, charged, leaped, and turned in circles, legs lashing out, bodies whirling, heads swinging from side to side, their broad hooves striking with lightning-flash motion. Catherine hardly breathed as she watched the mechanical devices reduce the clay figures to piles of shard in mere seconds. Catherine becomes convinced these devices can defeat Khan. But how can she convince the others at the research center of this? 

When she learns that Parnashri will visit the center, she begins to formulate a plan. The women there are aghast that a woman who practices prostitution will be their guest. Parnashri makes a good impression and offers to demonstrate the mechanical horses. One of the Englishmen insults the Indian woman (so rudely even the other British are shocked). Catherine storms off, but Eliot, the man who insulted Parnashri, follows her. He accuses Catherine of collusion with the Indians and threatens to reveal her relationship with Wesley. 

Parnashri

He does not know, of course, that she is a vampire and that when vampires feel threatened they react. Catherine turns into a wolf and kills Eliot.   

She reverts to her human form, smears herself with Eliot’ blood, and makes up a story about a wolf getting into the compound and attacking her and Eliot. As she walks under the moonlight with Wesley, her lover, she is confident, with this turn of circumstances, that the British will allow a demonstration of the mechanical horses, which the Chinese emperor has offered to supply them with for free. 

The story appeared in a now-defunct journal with the marvelous name, Professor Dobbs’ Historical Primer of the Extraordinary. It only ran one issue. As C. S. Lewis said of a story he had published in a discontinued newspaper, “I hope the book did not hasten its demise.” The story, crazy and quirky, had a limited readership, and, re-reading it, I liked it so much I may try to find another home for it. Sometimes crazy and quirky is good.  

If you are looking for a marvelous read, get a copy of my novella The Court of the Sovereign King. 

Happy reading.

Dave's Anatomy: My History as a Writer, #127: A Not-So-Good Story of a Not-So-Good Situation: The Third Nun's Tale

Commedian Johnny Carson, who hosted the Tonight Show for over twenty years, once gave some advice on how to respond when a proud parent introduces you to their ugly baby. You say, “Wow, that sure is a baby, isn’t it?” I’ve got a story like that, the one I’m going to discuss in this post, and the only thing I can say of it is, “Wow, that sure is a story, isn’t it?” The tale to which I refer is called “The Third Nun’s Tale.” Maybe my estimation of it is a little too harsh, since it was published in Separate Worlds, a now-defunct Canadian journal that took a couple of my stories a while back. "The Third Nun's Tale" had to have had some merit, I guess, for a journal to print it. But reading it now, I have to admit it was not one of my best efforts; and it underscores the old lesson that not everything you write is going to be stellar.

Geoffrey Chaucer

“The Third Nun’s Tale” drew on my knowledge of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. I have taught his Canterbury Tales many times. It is a series of stories of every sort told by a group of medieval people who are making a pilgrimage to the shrine of a saint. The tales are all about love—but love means different things to different people. A knight making the pilgrimage sees love in terms of chivalry. Some—a Miller, a Foreman, and other assorted rogues—tell dirty jokes, since love consists of getting laid. There are some nuns on the trip, and two of them tell stories suggesting that love consists of devotion to God, remaining a virgin, and living a life of chastity and self-denial. These are “The Prioress’s Tale,” and “The Second Nun’s Tale.” That gave me an idea. What if there was a nun who did not believe this, was not a virgin, and had been sexually exploited? What if her idea of love was different? Thus it was that I began to write “The Third Nun’s Tale.”

The Prioress

Griselda (also called Sister Lydia), is travelling with Madame Eglantine, her Prioress, and Rosemary, another nun. Eglantine is the name Chaucer gives the Prioress in his story; Rosemary is the name I gave the Second Nun. Griselda notes that on the way over Rosemary had argued with one of the other pilgrims (the Franklin), who said that if everyone lived in virginity the human race would cease to exist, since no one would have children. As Rosemary is waxing eloquent on the details of the debate she says she told the Franklin, “To lose virginity is to lose the key to Heaven.” This makes Griselda shudder. Even though she has take the three-fold vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience, she lost her virginity. And two men—both monks who discovered her secret—use her to fulfill their lusts and threaten to expose her lying about her purity if she accuses them.

As a girl, she began a sexual relationship with a young man named Joel. He and his family were secret Jews. Once after they had made love, she was discovered by a group of men who decided to do their will upon her. A monk is with them, and as he readies her for her ordeal, he notices semen running down her leg. He does not let the other men molest her, but makes her his own mistress.

Griselda/Sister Lydia

Later, a preacher comes to her church. His hellfire sermon frightens her into taking religious vows. She becomes a nun, lying about her disqualification. Marius, the monk, of course, knows this and regularly visits her, blackmailing her with the threat that he will expose her and have her burned at the stake. She reflects on this:  Griselda knew her whole life would be this way. Marius would exploit her and tell his friends about her. She would serve as their whore for the rest of her time in the convent—the rest of her life until he got tired of her and had her killed or until she got pregnant. If she got pregnant, they would let her bear the child and then burn her. Anger and frustration turned to sorrow.

Then she sees Joel, who tells her Marius plans to get rid of her by selling her to a brothel. He has arranged for two men to kidnap her. Joel instructs her not to resist them. He will rescue her. Sure to his word, she is kidnapped. Her abductors (who are very much like the Pardoner and the Summoner in Chaucer’s poem) take her to a tavern and tell her they plan to transport her to London and sell her there. Joel appears at that time and offers to buy her for more money than her kidnappers will receive selling her in London. He gives them gold and tells them where they will find more of it.

The story ends with Joel and Griselda living in Damascus, which welcomes Jews and Christians. They learn, later, that the two men who kidnapped her were both killed in retrieving the pile of gold Joel had informed them about. Joel and Griselda put down roots. Griselda sometimes longs for the snow and cold of England, wonders what happened to the Prioress and Rosemary—and wonders if their tales will ever be told.

The story referred to a lot of Chaucer:  “The Prioress’s Tale,” “The Second Nuns Tale,” “The Pardoner’s Tale” are all referenced in it. Several Chaucerian characters were named as well. It was a guy who taught medieval literature’s idea of a good time.

“The Third Nun’s Tale” was printed in Separate Worlds, which has closed, as many online journals have. Better, maybe, just to let that story rest.

Much better is my latest novella, The Court of the Sovereign King.  Purchase a copy of it here.

I would love to hear your comments. 

Dave’s Anatomy: My History as a Writer #125: Goddess Needed: “The Spirit of the Forest Cold"

Sword and Sorcery is the mainstay of fantasy writers. Tolkien set the standard with the Lord of the Rings trilogy and everyone follows suit, me no less than anyone else. I’ve written a few in the genre that reaches back into the middle ages and utilizes elements from that time, enhancing, adding to them, transforming them imaginatively.

“The Spirit of the Forest Cold” found its inspiration in a poem by the late Irish writer Seamus Heaney. The poem, called “Punishment,” focuses on the body of a young woman that was found in a peat bog in Germany. She had been hanged (or strangled); her body, weighted down with stones, had been thrown into the bog. Chemicals in such places often preserve the human body; several such bodies from the early Iron Age have been recovered in this way. The manner in which the young woman died suggests she had committed a crime that was considered heinous and, thus, was executed and denied a proper burial (Heaney suggests adultery). He relates her fate to the abuse and mistreatment of women in his own nation, who were stripped naked, had their heads shaved, and then were then handcuffed to bridges for the “crime” of associating with British soldiers.

Artist's reconstruction of bog girl's face.

The poem got me thinking of the unnamed woman whose body was found. What did she do? The corpse was of a very young woman, slender, probably from lack of food. Did she exchange sex for food? Why was she killed? I began a story that centers around a family. The reader sees them talking about the upcoming execution. The girl is being starved, kept in a cage, and the children of the town take great delight in tormenting her. One of the things they do is bring bread, tease her with it, and eat it in front of her. One boy in the village, Rolf, feels sorry from her, gives her his morning portion, and speaks kindly to her. After she is killed, he mourns for her. She appears to him in a dream and thanks him for his kindness.

Later, during a long, snowy winter, when food runs out, people claim to see the girl walking in woods. The elders of the village consider finding her body in the bog, removing it, and giving her a decent burial. One day Rolf meets the girl, Mathilda. She tells him, “The faerie folk revived my soul. They can do that for those who have died unjustly.” Furthermore, she tells him the elves have made her into a goddess Rolf has heard of:  The Spirit of the Forest Cold. And, eventually, she sends him on a quest.

She sends him to find Bertina, the woman who revealed Mathilda’s adultery so she was killed; and

Steroa

also to rescue Steora, a young warrior woman from Rolf’s village with whom he has fallen in love (and become intimate). Both are with the Franks, the enemies of the Saxons. Bertina has deserted to their side and accepted their religion. Steora was taken captive but has escaped, is on the loose, and the Franks are searching for her. Rolf makes a journey into Frankish territory.

He finds both Bertina (who has become a Christian nun) and Steora and manages to return them to the village just before an attack by the Franks descends upon it. The battle goes in favor of the Saxons, the Franks are repulsed. Rolf is recognized as a hero.

But he has lost Steora to a leader of his people. They are already married. Matilda appears and confronts Bertina, who repents of what she has done. Matilda says there is no more reason for anger and gives Bertina permission to marry Derik, the man over whom they had fought. Rolf is heartbroken by the loss of Steora but is made to remember there is another woman who loves him. Mathilda takes him into her home with the design of marrying him. The gods, she tells him, can be a bit stingy with granting immortality, but they admire him for keeping to the old faith and extol his bravery in battle. She thinks the request will be approved.

A few days later, the villagers find the body of Matilda, the rope still around her neck, in a bog a short distance from the place where they threw her in. Rolf asks her (in her goddess form) about this and she tells him that part of her spirit had detached itself and was the ghost people saw roaming the woods. Now, she says, that part of her can at last rest. The villagers bury her body in the ancestral burial ground and make sacrifices to atone for their treatment of her.

“The Spirit of the Forest Cold” appeared in Silver Blade. Read it here.

My latest novella, The Court of the Sovereign King, is available. Get a copy here.

I would love to hear your comments.

Dave’s Anatomy: My History As a Writer #124: Religion, Politics, and War: “The Saint”

I’ve often heard that politics and religion do not mix. Well, that’s a fairly new idea. In ancient times, if one nation defeated another, the explanation was that the God of the victorious nation was stronger than the god of the defeated one. Early on, Christians used the sword to spread the faith (e.g., Franks forcibly converting the pagan Saxons); Islam spread its faith by war. Christians and Muslims, and factions within those two religions, often fought against each other. Leaders used religion to drum up nationalistic fervor.

 Many early science fiction writers thought that religion would not be a part of the future—overlooking the fact that religion is part and parcel of the human race and has been around since our history began. In Arthur C. Clark’s Childhood’s End, religion fades away when a new race of being introduces Earth to matters that advance our evolution. In the early Star Trek series, religion was irrelevant. Then a funny thing happened on the way to Degoba. After Star Wars, with its Zen-like Force and  Zen-monk-like Jedi Knights, religion suddenly made a roaring comeback. Even the later Star Trek spin-offs, Voyager and Deep Space Nine, gave place to religion:  the Borg worshipped a mandala-like geometric pattern and the Bajorans were a very religious people.

I have no doubt that all the faith, good, evil, sincerity, hypocrisy, and politics that religion has brought about on Earth will also exist in a galaxy where space travel is possible. So in my sci-fi universe, religion exists as much as it presently does. Other races have their own faiths and, sometimes, convert to religions brought from Earth. I cannot be convinced that just because a man or woman can ride about in a spaceship they will not feel a longing for the Divine.

My story, “The Saint,” takes place in a future world where the Terran Alliance (Earth and its colony planets) is a major player. There are pro- and anti-Terran systems. One of the races that the Terrans and many of the others in the galaxy constantly fight is the Housali. The Housali are treacherous, technologically advanced, and completely unscrupulous. They often engage in espionage and are eager to use religion as a manipulative tool for furthering their political ambitions. 

In “The Saint,” special forces operative Laurissa Culdoon is sent on assignment to capture the leader of an insurgency. The insurgent, Justina Zita, has convinced the people of the planet that God has spoken to her and she is his appointed messenger. Laurissa has orders to capture her. With the help of a supporting platoon, she is able to defeat the force Justina is leading, kill her bodyguards, and knock her unconscious. 

In my sci-fi universe, the Terran (Earth) Alliance is dominated not by Europeans but by Indians. Hinduism the most widespread religion and Hindu culture the primary cultural force—though there is significant minority or Europeans and other races who also belong to the Alliance. Justine Zita’s insurgents have attacked Hindu temples, massacred clergy and committed outrages on renunciate women in ashrams (Hindu nuns). The Alliance knew that only by taking Zita out would they be able to end the violence of the insurgency. When Laurissa has captured the woman, she contacts her commanding officer, Kamala, to tell her the mission is accomplished.

After the capture, Laurissa learns that Zita is being mistreated. She talks to Kamala, whose life she once saved in battle, and asks if she will grant her a favor. Kamala, who owes Laurissa “obligation” because she saved her life, agrees. Laurissa asks to see the woman.

She finds that Zita has been stripped naked and is guarded by male guards. Kamala has filed a petition for a writ of torture—permission by the government and military to use torture on the woman; and they plan to execute her. Laurissa uses her influence with her friend Kamala to get clothes for Zita. They talk and Laurissa’s suspicions are proven true. She has female doctors examine the prisoner. They find hallucinogens in her system. She convinces her superiors that the Housali have used the woman. Hoping to stir up an insurgency on the planet, they have convinced her that God is speaking to her and she must lead a military effort to remove the Hindu influence form her planet. The hallucinogens make her hear voices she assumes are from God. The Housali also want her executed. If she is made a martyr, they realize, this will spur her follows to continue fighting.

A medical examination and “drying out” from the drugs she had been given makes Zita return to her old religion and repudiate her role as a military/spiritual leader. The insurgency is fully broken by this. Zita will not be executed but returned to her home planet, where the government will mediate between Hindu and Christian claims and concerns. Home with her husband and children, Laurissa recalls how religious violence on her old world had hurt her as well.

“The Saint” appeared in the anthology VFW: Veterans of Future Wars. It is available in print. Get a copy here.

The Court of the Sovereign King is a story of intrigue and perseverance. A young woman is taken in the annual levy, placed under a vow of chastity, and sent to serve in the Court of the Sovereign King. She soon knows the evil that dwells there. And it knows her. Get a copy here.

For additional titles, see my Writer's Page.

Dave’s Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #123: Vampires in Space: “Soil Samples.”

In high school, I read a collection of stories called Rod Serling’s Triple W:  Witches, Warlocks, and Werewolves. One story in particular fascinated me. Written by Joe E. Hensley, it was titled “Not Quite Human.” I never forgot the story, but I forgot the title, the name of the author, and the book in which I was published. It was forty years later (literally) that, with the help of the internet, I found it and got to read it again. It still impressed me after all that time. 

The story begins with the destruction of the earth. An alien race has destroyed Earth’s civilization and is about to report back that a new world is available for colonization. And something else will please the authorities on their home word:  miraculously, forty of the planet’s inhabitants somehow survived the attack. They are imprisoned on the ship and are being taken back for study. 

Soon, however, strange things begin to happen. A crewman commits suicide. You learn that the alien world is a repressive world. Anyone who makes a mistake is “exterminated.” The Captain of the ship will probably die due to what happened under his command. Soon others follow. The crew seems to be going mad. Everyone but the Captain is soon dead. The leader of the earth inhabitants that did not die tells the captain that this is because they are vampires. They were buried for centuries in the earth with stakes through their heart. “Your fire burned away the stakes,” he said, and they have revived. The story ends like this. But there is at least a hint that the vampires will force the captain to fly the ship home so they will have a new race of beings that can be their prey. 

This was the inspiration for a story I published called “Soil Samples.” Earth is not destroyed in my story. The aliens come as scouts. They land on earth, survey it, capture some its animals and collect samples of its plant life. They also bring soil samples in large boxes. During the course of the voyage, a wild boar gets loose and attacks one of the aliens. Bleeding badly, he climbs up on one of the boxes of dirt from Earth and dies of his wounds. Unfortunately for the crew of the ship, the blood revives remains embedded in the soil samples.

The Vampires—Rebecca, Hugh, Ethan, Mia, and Felicity—come from various eras. Like the creatures in “Not Quiet Human,” they have been revived—not by fire burning away the stakes in their heart, but by blood soaking down into the soil where they were buried. 

Rebecca transforms to a bat and flies about the ship. She hears someone speaking English, takes on her human-like form, and captures an alien woman, Devva. She tells Rebecca she has been inducted into the military to learn the English language. Rebecca tells her they need her help. She dresses in one of Devva’s extra uniforms and the two of them head back to the where other vampires are waiting. Devva decides to warn the crew when three of her fellow aliens appear. Rebecca makes short work of them and threatens to kill her if she betrays her again. Devva has noted that the earth beings are not harmed by the weapons of her people. 

She tells the group of vampires that the ship is monitored but puzzles that no one has seen them. Mia, a vampire who lived into the second millennia, suggests that just as they do not make reflections they also may not show up on camera. The vampires, aided by Devva, manage to take control of the ship. They learn of a rebellion going on. A prisoner on the ship is involved with the rebellion and will help them connect with rebel factions.

Rebecca

  

Rebecca feels badly that she has been so brutal with Devva and wonders why this human woman cooperated so much. Devva tells her that her sister got involved with the rebellion, was captured, tortured, and killed by the government. She has a family but despairs of ever seeing them again, knowing that because her sister was a rebel she will eventually be killed as well. Rebecca remembers how her crossing over into the world of vampires separated her from her husband and family. 

In the last scene, the ship is going to join other rebel ships. Their destination is the alien home planet—a new world on which the vampires can settle and find blood. 

“Soil Samples” appeared in Bloodbond, published by Alban Lake. Get a copy here.

For additional titles, check out my Amazon Page. Here is a link.

I would love to hear your comments.

Dave’s Anatomy: My History As a Writer,#122: Pagan Girl, Christian Guy, Clergyman from 1640: “How Great Our Joy.”

Robert Herrick

There is a hymn tune found in many American collections called “How Great Our Joy.” The name of the tune given in the upper right-hand corner of the psalter is “Herrick’s Carol.” I know quite a bit about the poet Robert Herrick because I did my Ph.D. dissertation on his religious poetry. Herrick was a poet but also (like George Herbert) an Anglican priest. Many people will not recognize his name, but two references bring him into popular culture: 1) he wrote the poem with the famous opening lines “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may”; 2) in the scene in Dead Poet’s Society where the character played by Robin Williams takes the boys he is teaching to the trophy room to show them photographs of graduates who have died long ago, Williams mentions Herrick and the concept of carpe deim, “seize the day,” which one finds quite a lot in Herrick’s poetry.

My story, “How Great Our Joy,” centers around the experience of two young people, Maxwell and Astraea. They work together at a school for special needs students. Both are musicians; in fact, Astraea does musical therapy. On occasion they play concerts together at the school are mutually respectful of each other’s mastery and competence. Maxwell is a Christian; Astraea is a pagan. One of Astraea’s pagan friends, Callie, finds out she does music with a Christian and unloads, telling her that Christianity has caused the deaths of more people than any other cause in history and that Christians burned nine million women at the stake in medieval Europe. She should not be associating with him in any way. “He wants to kill you,” she says. 

Astraea finds this absurd but asks Maxwell about it. He says these are common myths circulated by people who dislike Christianity and they are fabrications. When Astraea researches the claims, she finds he is correct. One night she and Callie go to a coffee bar. Maxwell, and a very beautiful young women, come on stage as the musical act for the night. Callie wants to leave, but Astraea wants to hear the concert. As they listen, she pines that the woman with Maxwell is so much more beautiful than she; these feelings make her realize she is attracted to him despite their religious difference. At intermission, she finds out the woman is Maxwell’s sister. Callie leaves. Maxwell and his sister talk with Astraea. He ends up asking her out. Despite opposition from her friends and parents, she begins dating him. 

Winter Solstice Celebration

He attends a Solstice Celebration with Astraea and her family; she goes to a Church service with him (it is near Christmas and she knows some of the carols they sing just from hearing them so much at this time of the year). Astraea feels love for Maxwell, but also realizes how much opposition and they are facing and the numerous complications that could derail their relationship. She wonders what she might do to show her love and hits upon a plan.  She goes to two people who are yoga adepts and unfolds it to them. They agree to help her. Since all points of time exist at the same time, they tell her, they can bring about what she has asked.

Robert Herrick's Church in Devonshire

Through the practitioners’ intervention, Astraea is able to transport her and Maxwell back in time, to the days of King Charles I, the 1630s, and the church of Maxwell’s favorite poet Robert Herrick. They attend a service at his church and, afterwards, get to meet him. When the service is over they help distribute food to poor parishioners. Herrick himself is charming, earthy, and sincere in his devotion—despite what she has read about him being an indifferent Christian or one whose loyalties to the old deities of Greece and Rome were greater than his allegiance to the Christian faith. She is certain her relationship with Maxwell can be fruitful—perhaps even end in their being married. They respect each other’s faith and can love each other and experience mutuality despite their differences.

The story appeared in  the journal Eternal Haunted Summer and was reprinted in the anthology Passion Beyond Words. Eternal Haunted Summer has archived the story and you can read it here. If you want a print copy, Passion Beyond Words is available here.

For additional books, check out my Amazon Page.

Also, for a good short story and a nice summer read, see my story "Azalea." One of the best I've written.

I would love to hear your comments.

Happy summer reading.

Dave’s Anatomy: My History as a Writer, #121: Writing As Revenge: “The Science Teacher

Illustration from "The Cask of Amontillado"

The nice thing about being a writer is that you can use your stories to take revenge of people who have wronged you in the past. You can write them up as characters. One meme on the internet read, “Don’t get on my bad side or I’ll write you as a character in my next novel.” True. People have done this, the most egregious example being Philip Pullman, who grew up in a religious home, became an atheist, and then gleefully kills God in the His Dark Materials trilogy. I did not set my sights that high, but I did go after a science teacher who did me a bad turn in seventh grade science class. He got turned into a character.

This particular teacher could not teach—like the coach in the Tank McNamara comic strips who cannot teach and does nothing but show films in the class, this particular teacher could not teach and also depended on films; that, reading in class, and his going on and on about taking notes, which you had to turn in once a week. “Taking notes” to him meant copying out of the book. In the story I say, the science teacher is one of those people they used to hire as teachers who were not qualified but got a job in a school because the baby boomer generation was crowding classrooms and anyone with a college degree who knew the basics of a subject could get hired to fill the gaps. This was also the case with my teacher.

I ended up disliking him because he yelled at me in class once for talking to a girl. I always loathed him after that. Thus the story evolved.

Lynda

Gary Parker wants to get revenge on his science teacher for yelling at him in class. The yelling, however, has more serious consequences than it did in my case. Three guys who don’t like Parker because he has long hair and plays in a rock band pick a fight with him over the incident. The parents of his girlfriend, Lynda, who have just been looking for an excuse to order her to break off the dating relationship, pounce. They split, Lynda meets another guy, ends up pregnant, goes to California to have the child, finds herself in an abusive marriage, and eventually commits suicide. Parker will go on to succeed as a popular singer. But he never forgets Lynda and he wants revenge. He remembers things he read in school:  Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” about revenge; and the lines in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Vengeance should know no bounds.” He learns that one of his former musicians, who had to leave the band due to a drug problem, is working for the teacher, helping to pour asphalt on driveways. He formulates a plot.

He gets his old friend, Frankie, stoned. The teacher returns from lunch drunk, as he usually does, and starts shouting at the stoned Frankie to dump the load of asphalt. Impaired by opiated hashish, Frankie pulls the lever too hard and dumps the whole load on the teacher.

Parker’s idea was that the teacher should be splashed with hot asphalt, maybe get some burn scars, and have those as a remembrance. Things turn out worse. He is not killed by the load of hot tar but is partially buried in the onrush of it and loses both of his legs. The danger of the situation catapults Frankie out of his drug-induced lethargy and he rescues the teacher. Frankie performs so capably no one imagines he was stoned; and witnesses who saw it happen testify that the teacher was drunk, yelled “Dump it!” and excoriated Frankie with racial slurs (Frankie is black). No punishment falls on him. Like Montresor in the Poe story, Parker is revenged “with impunity.” Frankie feels badly about what happened. Davis helps him kick drugs, get back in the music world, and he ends up succeeding as a session guitarist and recording artist, marries, and settles down to live comfortably. The science teacher goes back to work teaching. Parker says, at the end of the story, I’m satisfied with that. I like to imagine Lynda is as well. 

The story appeared in Indiana Horror Review, 2013. Order a copy here.

For more titles, see my Writer's Page.

Ever get even with someone? Tell me about it in a comment.

Happy reading.