Strangels

I was sitting at a table, enjoying the slight chill in the air as I held my cup beneath my nose. The steam warmed the tip and the aroma of vanilla and honey made my mouth water. For the first morning of my retirement, I thought things were going well.

The first of them walked across the street and stopped a few cars down. She was beautiful in a way that I couldn’t have described the day before. All long, lean limbs and cute, captivating curves. I might not enjoy being alone, but it did make it easier to stare. Although as I looked at her clothing, an almost see through green sack of a dress with a pair of heavy, brown work boots and one spotted sock, I realized that everyone was staring at the woman.

When he friend appeared beside her, the woman at the next table gasped. I never asked if the gasp was due to him just appearing, and I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed him walking up, or if it was because the loose running shorts he was wearing left a portion of his anatomy hanging out down the leg. Honestly, I didn’t need to know. The man was so well built and gifted that I would have considered switching teams if he had asked.

I was lost in thought as a pair of children ran down the sidewalk. The little girl who was running from her brother came to a sudden stop when she saw the adonis standing in front of her. Her brother was distracted by the woman and did not stop. He plowed into his sister, knocking them both to the pavement in a tangle of skinned knees and bloody elbows.

As children often do, they began to scream and cry in response to their injuries. The whole of the little cafe’s patronage pulled their eyes from the visions of beauty to look upon the injured. The pair stepped toward the children, who ignored the beauties to focus upon their pains.

It might come as some surprise, but this is when things got weird.

The woman, her gown falling off of her to reveal far more than has ever been accepted as modest, knelt beside the girl and grabbed her face. She kissed the child full on the mouth before wetting her fingers in her mouth and then shoving one in each of the child’s ears. While giving the girl a double wet willy, the woman bent further forward and licked the blood from each of the child’s knees with a tongue that would have made an anteater proud.

The man, lowered his pants a bit around his bottom before squatting over the pursuing brother and lifting a single finger into the air. As he did, the sound of the gas he passed seemed to echo off the building behind me. I was aware of a car alarm going off, though at that moment I could not remember if it had been honking it’s warning before the fellow farted or not.

Both children were silent. The diners were silent. The passing pedestrians were silent. Even the cars were stopped at a red light. The only sound was that stupid car alarm.

The pair stood straight, and the sun reflecting off the windows illuminated them. For a moment, they were haloed in soft gold, then they each started walking in opposite directions. The children’s mother ran up to check on them and I looked back at the woman at the next table.

We made eye contact and I began to worry about her. She was pale, her lips a light blue, and I wondered if she would be able to keep her seat. Her eyes were wide and wild as she gulped like an old cartoon character. “The kids,” she whispered. “They were hurt from falling.”

I looked at them, and saw what the woman meant. No scrapes and no cuts. The boy looked nauseous and the little girl was wiggling her finger in her ear as if trying to dry it after swimming, but neither was bleeding anymore.

“It’s a miracle,” the woman said. Her words drew my attention back and I saw that she was clutching the cross hanging from her neck. “That was a miracle. They must have been angels.”

“Strange angels,’ I said, slurring the words together into a single unrecognizable one as I tried to make my brain and mouth work together after the spectacle. I licked my lips and cleared my throat before trying again. “Strange angels indeed.”

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Burning Man

Thomas knelt down so that his face was closer to the floor. The dim light wasn’t helping him, but from this distance the stain changed from an indistinct dark spot to an indistinct dark spot that smelled like blood. “Yup,” he said back over his shoulder. “This is fresh.”

A tall, heavy man walked past Thomas and put his hand against the door. He stood there for a moment and then looked down at his partner. “I don’t feel any heat. I think we are clear to move.”

Thomas heard a soft click as the big guy turned the knob. He also heard a whisper of something moving through the air above them.

The big guy went down with a grunt as another man appeared on top of him. Thomas threw himself backward as the falling man began to glow and Thomas’s friend began to scream.

A wave of heat rolled off the body of the demon that had been hanging above the door waiting on the men who had been following it. The creature’s body ignited cloth and hair as it’s temperature rose, dragging a high pitched scream out of the big man it had landed on.

Thomas looked up to see his friend’s body begin to blister and boil even as the wave of hot air that rolled towards him dried his own eyes out. He twisted to get his feet underneath him and ran for his life. Hating himself for leaving his friend, but knowing that he couldn’t have done anything to save him. He wondered why he had ever let anyone talk him into something like this as he rounded a corner and charged out of the loading dock door that they had cut open when the pair had entered the building.

“Alcohol,” he thought as he ran for the little footbridge between the factory and the park.

Thomas hit the bridge and thought he heard the sound of something moving behind him. He fought the urge to look over his shoulder. Instead, he simple leapt from the bridge and into the river. The cold water embraced him, smothering the wave of heat that had began to warm his back during his last few steps. Thomas flailed and struggled for a minute before getting back to the surface to float while allowing the current to carry him away from the bridge. That was when he looked.

He saw the two burning forms who were standing there, watching him float away. “Never again,” he said as the cold water carried him past the burning building that was his friends funeral pyre. He watched a third burning figure walk out, heading toward the bridge and he began to swim with the current, trying to put more distance between him and the things he had found. “Never again.”

Croning 101

It should come as no surprise to you, a seeker of knowledge and power, that there are prerequisites to almost all things. You were required to learn skills in a progressive order to be able to attain anything of real power. In fact the term, “climbing the ladder,” can be applied to all of the worthwhile pursuits in life.

However, it is also a well known fact that not all things can be mastered at once. Due to the inability of an arts practitioner to study all forms within any style, if for no other reason than the limits of time, there is an inevitable instance where you may find yourself lacking in some minor way from being able to continue your progression.

So, no matter what levels you attain in your chosen craft or what path you find yourself upon, the need to continue to study and refine some things that might seem to be basic or elementary will inevitably arise. For those times, we, the members of the “For Morons” press, are here for you.

While it may not seem to have been a valuable skill to obtain, the art of cackling is much more than merely a time honored tradition of old world witchcraft. It is in many ways, the mantra of a well rounded hag.

As you have no doubt discovered, obtaining a crone’s license requires an applicant to display aptitude in a minimum of five disciplines of magic. It also requires that the applicant demonstrate their skills in the arts of cursing, brewing and cackling. If you are reading this book, then it is likely you are among the many would be crones who have not developed this skill due to disdain of its humble origins.

Do not allow this simple skill to be dismissed so readily. The true power of a cackle is two fold. It not only influences your surroundings by adding the preconceived notions of those who hear it to your repertoire of skills and powers, it is also a point of focus and collection for the mystical energies you will use in all your endeavors.

In the later chapters of this book, we will discuss the history of cackling. Reviewing its origins and evolution over time. We will also go through guided meditations, exercises and rituals to help you focus on your cackle’s power.

But, as the author of this book, I believe you need to enjoy your work. You need to feel the rush and exhilaration of the powers that we, the crones of our art, have at our command. We are more than just old, dried up witches who meddle in the mundane. We are the deepest divers in the wells of power that forged the world. We are the last remaining guardians of the oldest of ways and after the toil and struggle of hours of practice we deserve the simple, unfettered joy of a good long cackle.

Let’s try one together, just for fun. Take a deep breath and pull in the anguish of broken hearts and lost connections. Bring into yourself the misery you have caused. Visualize the miasma of your previous work as choking smoke floating through the world and pull it into your lungs until it burns with bitter fire.

Throw your head back. Look up into the sky and imagine the old ones looking down upon you. Imagine their pleasure as the look up the destruction you will visit upon your enemies and hear their laughter as it shakes the foundations of reality.

Now, let it out. Laugh from deep in your gut. Laugh at the heros who will fail to stop you and at the true love you will ruin. Let your mirth roll out from you in a wave of fear and horror that children will whisper about with their heads tucked beneath blankets.

And now that you feel that tingling power which binds you with the crones of ages past, you are ready to proceed to chapter two, where we will discuss the practical application of a cackle in the completion of your hexcraft.