Fiction – Page 64 – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog

Shaman Story Chapter 3 – Truth Like Wine

Shaman Story Chapter 3 – Truth Like Wine

Grandpa kneels on the ground and pats the freshly turned earth where he buried the cigarette, then looks up into the few cirrus clouds forming horsetails high in the blue sky. “People will come to you, asking you questions. Be careful what you tell them.”

“You said to always tell the truth.”

“To us. To me. To others…”

He lets it hang and I’m unsure. “Do you want me to lie to them?”

“No, Gio. Never that. Truth is like wine; a few sips and you smile and nod. Too much and you get a headache and your dinner goes plah on the floor.” He makes a funny face and I laugh, then gently turns me to face him. “You must tell the truth, Gio, but listen to them. Pay attention when you answer. They will let you know when they’ve had enough truth, then you stop.”

“How will they let me know?”

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Shaman Story Chapter 2 – Listen

Read Shaman Story Chapter 1 – What Do you do?

Shaman Story Chapter 2 – Listen

My grandfather taught me to listen.

Didn’t matter what people came to him for, he’d sit me on his lap, put a finger to my lips and whisper into my ear, “Ascolta.” Listen.

Have a sick child? Having a problem pregnancy? Is your horse lame? Your cow not producing milk? Is your husband a little worthless when it comes to his job in bed?

Come see Grandpa. He’s got the cure.

He got in trouble when women came to him because their husbands were impotent.

All those smiling women leaving the house? Today he’d be a YouTube sensation. Or on Oprah.

Or in court.

But he never did anything to them. Never even touched them. Sometimes he’d clap his hands, sometimes he wave his hands around in funny patterns, as if writing in the air.

Sometimes he’d close his eyes and hum some old Sicilian tune.

One time we were tending his roses in the garden behind the house. I pointed to the shed. “Do you want me to get the hose and sprinkler, Buppa?” Behind the shed, I heard the bees in the two hives Grandpa kept for honey.

He shook his head and held me close. “Close your eyes. What do you smell?”

Shaman Story Chapter 1 – What Do you do?

Hello!

Today we start a new work-in-progress, tentatively entitled Shaman Story. I’m shopping around for cover images. This one is from an issue of the journal Shaman.

Hope you enjoy.

(and do let me know what you think)

Shaman Story Chapter 1 – What Do you do?

I’ll call her ‘Jan’. She sat in my living room, in the blue lounger in the corner near the bookcase holding my journals, and her brow furrowed as she scanned the titles; Nature, Science, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Cybernetics and Human Knowing, Linguistics, and, of course, Shaman (it’s good to know if anybody’s getting close). I’m up early on Saturday mornings, before the house is awake. The dog comes downstairs with me, goes outside to do his business, then goes back up to bed with Cheryl. I have an hour, sometimes two, by myself to practice, to read, to ponder.

I stood and motioned Jan to join me in the center of the room, away from any furniture, away from any walls.

She looked up at me, her blue eyes wide, wary. She stared at an angle, not full on, her powdered, mascaraed face slightly askew, her eyes snapping to the front door and back, judging her escape.

She thought we were going to talk. Lots of them think we’re going to talk. We’re going to talk and exchange ideas and they’ll tell me about their experiences and I’ll tell them about mine and we’ll shake hands when we’re done and part as friends, thinking we’re equals.

It doesn’t work like that.

And she asked for this.

I never offer.

“Stand in front of me, about a foot back. And take off your heels.”

“No, I’m comfortable in them.”

As I noted, preparing her escape. “As you wish.”

I offered my hand, helping her up. She stared at my open palm. Her hand rose and stopped about an inch from mine, hovering. Her nose crinkled.

“They’re calluses.”

Her hand continued.

“Good. Relax. Close your eyes.”

I separated my spirit-body from me and moved it through her and up towards the ceiling.

She rocked back. Her smooth-palmed hands with her perfectly manicured nails reached out clasping empty air, her arms flailing like a martial arts parody, her Neiman-Marcus peasant blouse ballooned as she fell, the designer holes in her designer jeans exposed smoothly shaved and tanned thighs as she hit the floor.

She looked up at me. “You pushed me.”

“It’s the heels. Your vanity separated you from the earth.”

She stayed on the floor, not moving, not getting up, not offering me her hand.

“You pushed me,” she repeated.

I walked around her and opened the front door. She crab-walked from where she fell to the lounger, her eyes leaving me only long enough to grab her things, then stood. She held her bag and pocketbook in front of her, a lifeguard keeping her rescue buoy between herself and a beach drunk, and looked for other exits from my living room

I backed away from the door, leaving it open.

She left.

Allegory eZine Published “The Boy Who Loved Horses”

I’m honored, I’m flattered, I’m thrilled, and I hope everyone enjoys reading it.

The Boy Who Loved Horses is based on time spent working in the Kentucky Appalachians. Truly beautiful country with truly wonderful people who understood the meaning of “community.”

I am fortunate to be accepted by them.

I was born in a town like this. Mine’s on the eastern ridge and closer to Raleigh. My town had the same dirt roads, the same one-room wooden church, the same old store where you asked for things instead of getting them yourself, the same people but with different faces, the same old men carrying coon rifles, girls getting married when they’re thirteen and younger, having kids before they’re through being kids themselves, the same sense of what’s ours and what’s not. I left my town and got educated. Made it into the extension service. Decided to come back and help others in towns like mine. My education didn’t take all the hill out of me, though. Knew enough to carry a gun in case I got too close to a still. But it did take some of the hill away. I forgot about towns like this.

Take a read and let me know what you think.

The Boy Who Loved Horses is also in my Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires anthology.

Inheritors Chapter 14 – Seth Van Gelder, 212 Cavalos Era

What we’re denied in childhood we spend the rest of our lives searching for

Read Inheritors Chapter 13 – Seth Van Gelder, 211 Cavalos Era

Creator and above level members can download a PDF of this chapter to read offline

Inheritors Chapter 14 – Seth Van Gelder, 212 Cavalos Era

Raemond stood in her suit beside Seth on the same jump-station where Seth first entered Cavalos time. She made a few adjustments to the suit he wore. “You’re doing well, Seth. You wear it as if created a Traveler.” She nodded towards his power coupling as she grabbed her own. “Remember, after every jump, …”

“I know what you’ve told me. The suit needs to feed and this is the stall where it gets its meal.”

“Very good.”

“It is like everything else. Something from here is like something from there. A pattern here is repeated in a pattern there. Much of what you describe has been taught to me before.”

“Yes. I don’t know much about the Sacred Geometries you speak of but from what you say, had they thrived, the world would have taken a different path than this one.”

Seth smiled.

“You’re ready for your first solo jump. One more time to be sure. If your suit starts to ring…”

“…ask the watch who is coming.”

“If you need to go someplace you didn’t plan to go…”

“… ask the watch to access the Library.”

“If the suit is ringing but the watch says no one is coming…”

“Leave immediately. Someone else is using the same suit to access the same point in time and no single suit can exist penecontemporaneously beside itself in time. Enough of this.”

“All right. Do you have any idea where you’d like to go?”

“I have an idea, yes.”

“Tell me.”

His brow furrowed. “Is that necessary?”

“Certainly. Should something happen, we’ll want to know for salvage purposes.”

“But you told me the suit will return of its own should anything happen to the wearer.”

“Yes, it will. But sometimes the suits don’t have enough energy to make it completely home. When they do they exit the TimeStream where ever they run out of time. That’s why we need to log where everybody jumps. If the suit returns but the rider does not, then the rider has died somewhere in the past. If the suit returns with a new rider inside, there’s a chance something has happened, an accident maybe, somehow the rider got too far away from their suit and another, not knowing, took their place. Sometimes neither rider nor suit return and the Cavalos have to search the Library for accounts of mysteries or magicks or such.”

“Tell me, was a suit ever lost and never found?”

“One was. The Cavalos search for it still.”

“I see. That’s sad. I’m going back to my father’s house. I wish to let them know I am safe and well.”

“That’s nice, Seth. very nice. One last thing. Remember, should anything go wrong or any kind of emergency occur where you don’t know what to do, just push the watch crown all the way in. That’s an immediate return. Now let me give you one last visual inspection. ” She tapped his gloves, his boots, and hood, making sure each was correctly in place. “You must make sure you’re completely within your suit, though. If you’re not, not all of you will make the jump through time. Anything can jump with you, but the person initiating the jump must be completely within their suit. Good luck. I’ll be waiting right down there when you return. ” She walked down from the platform. Before she reached the bottom stair he was gone.

The platform, the pumpkin-gas air, the bursting orange clouds, the living houses and lawns, all slid away from him in a whirlwind of light and were replaced by the cold, dark, smoke-wicked flickering light of his father’s room and bed.

Seth removed his hood and held it under one arm until his eyes adjusted to the light.

There the old bull lay, beneath the curtains surrounding his bed, only his head and nightcap exposed, a yellowing puddle about his groin and a smell of bowels and refuse lying about his arse. Seth lit a candle from the lamp by the door and brought it close.