The Sheppard Who Cried Wolfgang

There once was an unfortunate Sheppard by the name of Wolfgang. He haunted and ruled the sheep herds in the plains of Selecdor from only his tenth birthday. He arrived atop of the towering ranges already physically adept for a child and bearing a seemingly transparent purpose - he felt he was born for his cause. This young Wolfgang teeming with optimism vowed to dedicate his life to the maintenance of the Kingdoms plains to ensure the economic and powerful ascension of his village which sat not far down the valley. He would guard this land - and his people would prosper. Wolfgang vowed to do them and his Queen proud. He sat on the highest rock at the highest point of the mountains at dawn every morning and screamed at the top of his lungs – “This I’ll defend! This I’ll defend!” He felt his role was incredibly important.

But as years of solitude living in his modest stable in the hills wore on, as did demeanour. Grim occupational hazards began taking its toll, and pessimism and negativity became seeding into his core set of values. Little or next to no recognition from the Queens village was given to Wolfgang for his tireless work up there on the mountainous plains, and as a consequence his dwindling morale began to compromise his once ambitious ways.

As his mental stability declined, his physical appearance also began to slump alongside with it. His face, once cherubic and handsome was now gnarly and crevassed. His soft skin was now akin to sour leather, and the traditional Queens Country Sheppard loin cloths he used to don proudly were once tight and brilliant - alas now saggy and lacklustre. Sad Wolfgang began to inherit the same spirit that was strewn across the desolate countryside which provided his continual surroundings.

At dawn one morning Wolfgang decided to save his breath, for the first time in twenty years. He just stared down at the Queen’s bustling village – he realised how long had gone by since he had been back. He strangely cursed at the mere sight of it. His ponder had changed to that not of the subtle envied eyes of yesteryear, but now with a glare of newfound alienation.

*

His only human contact from the village was from a group of peasants who trekked up the ranges to gather the matured sheep and cows ready to slaughter for food and trade. It usually was a weekly pick-up for the peasants, but inconsistencies on Wolfgang’s end began to develop where the peasants would arrive with Wolfgang or his herd were nowhere to be seen. The peasants then would have to return home empty-handed, much to the dismay of the diplomats of the village. The peasant’s failed objectives began to take its toll on the scheduling for future trips.

Wolfgang on these occasions had either deliberately taken the herd a few hours east to avoid them, or he was simply hiding from the peasants in the forest devising plans to ambush them with only the petty intention of giving them the biggest fright of their lives. He never went through with it though, because as much as the hypothetical entertained him, he never wanted anyone of his people to be mad at him. Wolfgang wanted to see how much they needed him, to see if there was any reaction to his AWOL’s. His ego for years had been deprived to the point bone-dryness, and recognition seemed to be the antidote that would free his ever-darkening solitary mind.

The order-givers at the village took a punt after a few weeks and re-sent the peasants. Wolfgang didn’t relent and just sat in the bushes with his herd waiting for his visitors. After a few hours he was watching the four peasants ride up on their horses. “Look at them, they don’t have a clue”. He thought to himself with dark, glassed-over eyes. He didn’t either, in terms of making sense of what his mind was conjuring up.

The three peasants’ unbeknowingly searched the high-plains to no avail. Wolfgang could see them shaking their heads in frustration because his absence. The peasants decided to rest for awhile before heading back to the village bearing the news of another unsuccessful journey, and chose their spot in the adjacent field to the small forest where Wolfgang was hiding. Wolfgang peered on through the trees only about twenty metres away.

“There is something definitely wrong with that boy.” exclaimed the oldest peasant. “Just because he’s up here don’t mean he can stop working like the rest of us.”

“Hear here. Too much time up these parts got that boy not right upstairs.” Second peasant said finishing with soft taps to his head with his finger.

 “That strange Wolfgang weren’t right to begin with - you gotta know something going tits-up when you send an unstable ten-year-old up these mountains... Probably that deranged mother of his played a part too.” Third peasant replied solemnly.

“Poor son of a...”

“YOU PILLOCKS! I CAN HEAR EVERY WORD YOUR SAYING!” Wolfgang came screaming out of the woods with his herd stick firmly in grip, and a dark rage engraved in his face.

The peasants hadn’t even a chance to move before the charge from Wolfgang was enforced by a brutal connection from an almighty swing that made the second peasants head crack. He fell instantly dead to the ground. The oldest peasant reached for his small carving knife in defence, but by then Wolfgang’s second swing was already in motion, and it cracked down on the old man through the meat of the stick like a hammer - fractured skull, another instant death. The last peasant was up and moving around with quick agility anticipating Wolfgang’s next potentially deadly blow. Wolfgang stared him down with wild eyes and made a deliberate move left to force the peasant to parry right, close to where the oldest victim lay. In one fell swoop, Wolfgang in one hand picked up the dead peasants carving knife, and made a surging lunge towards the faltering third peasant and plunged the blade deep into his neck. Unlike the previous two, he took a few seconds to cough and sputter blood before he rolled over and perished.

Wolfgang stood panting at the scene with both his weapons still in hand. Reality hadn’t set in because his body was still pumping pure adrenaline. He had never felt so alive. Maybe this was his new reality. His mind started to click back into practicality-mode. “I have to get rid of the bodies.” it said.

It took Wolfgang around three hours to bury the bodies in the most barren, uninhabited valley on the mountain. He kept their inventory at the site of the bloodshed. He returned to it close to sunset and rummaged through it. He wasn’t expecting much, three lowly peasants’ day packs weren’t exactly going to be a treasure trove. But then again he wasn’t expecting one of them to pull a knife out at him, either. The first two bags produced nothing but a few canteens of water and half loafs of stale bread, but in the third he pulled out a fairly glorious looking horn. “Must have been in case of emergencies” he thought with dark irony. He gave it a restricted test, and it worked quite well. Then his next thought hit him like a lightning bolt, and he just stood there with a grim smile. “Perfect.” He said quite smugly.

Over the next couple of days, Wolfgang played perfect Sheppard, fulfilling all his duties with a subdued efficiency that only an earnest Sheppard could do. He was just laying the groundwork, - he had figured that the village’s tactic to enquire about the three missing peasants wouldn’t necessarily be a confrontational one, and that the possibility of fringe surveillance to spot any guilty activity was far more probable.

Wolfgang was right. The village had their reeve watch his actions for a week and report back with any strange behaviour. The reeve returned to the village with almost nothing to conclude apart from the fact that Wolfgang looked quite a bit different from the last time he saw him all those years ago, and that it was most likely the peasants fell down the Norwest bluffing cliff face - where many travellers had made the same doomed shortcut. Wolfgang seemed to be in the clear.

A few weeks had since gone by after the killings, and Wolfgang was feeling pretty confident about the non-consequence of the situation, which needless to say - didn’t really have Wolfgang with much of a guilty conscience about it either - quite the contrary actually. He enjoyed venting that dark anger brewing inside him out on the peasants, and he even started letting in the odd fanatical thought of doing it again. He knew the odds of getting away with another murder would be close to impossible, so he just let his dark isolated mind play out what he planned to do next instead.

*

Wolfgang waited for a completely windless day, which up in the mountains is quite a rare occurrence. With his tongue, he wet his index every morning until the one day the moisture remained. “Finally” he remarked. His plans were in motion.

At the top of the mountain, he sat at the highest rock, on the highest peak like he used to every morning, and softly pressed the gold-rimmed horn on to his pursed lips and inhaled. He blew the oxygen from every orifice in his body into the horn, and it shook the mountains, hillsides, and the plains flowing alongside away with its extravagant piercing call that echoed far beyond the village and into the overlapping counties. The sound abruptly awoke every living creature far and wide, and translated to the men in the village that there was a pending episode of foul play somewhere amidst their Queen’s land.

Wolfgang sensed an amazing sense of exuding power after the blowing of the horn. He just became the sole creator of instilling extensive unrest. “All because of me!” he thought gleefully. He ran down the mountain to watch the next events unfold with a giddy little skip in his step.

The cavalry that started making the trip up the mountains only half an hour since the horn was heard included all their best men. They were equipped with swords, sabres, muskets, carbines, and newly acquired Hawken rifles made in recent trades. They would have had even more artillery if Wolfgang had been meeting his quotas with the herds - leather trading was proving very lucrative for the village among the other colonies. It took the cavalry just over an hour to venture up the Selecdor valley to Wolfgang’s mountain.

The Commander of the cavalry saw Wolfgang sitting on a large rock almost nonchalant. “You there Sheppard!” he barked. “Did you release the sound of the horn?”

“Why yes sir, I did.” replied Wolfgang casually getting up from the rock.

“Well, good God! What is it then?!” demanded the thick-moustached Commander.

Wolfgang paused.

“...Wolves! I thought I saw a gang of wolves coming around the...”Wolfgang tried to reply feebly.

“WOLVES!?” There was clear disappointment in his thundering tone. “Well whereabouts boy? Did you see where the pack went?”

“Well...not really sir...” Wolfgang tried to sell his story only to be cut off again.

“BLOOD-Y-HELL! We the Queens Army, rush up here on a whim for some FOOLISH Sheppard who saw some imaginary wolves!” The commander was looking at his right hand men almost comically, but mostly in an angered disgust. The entire cavalry was staring down at this little timid, inconvenient Sheppard.

Wolfgang didn’t take his comments gracefully.

“The next time you sound that horn, you make it dead sure you’ve seen something boy!” the Commander finished booming. He ordered two trackers to survey the valley, and then spun his horse around aggressively and led his men back down the mountain.

*

Wolfgang watched the cavalry ride down the plains until they were little dots in the landscape. His petty little plan had got him in trouble and undoubtedly ruined his already diminished reputation. To make matters worse he started thinking that this morning’s antics were going to ignite debates and theories as to his involvement in the missing peasants. He was spiralling into a terribly negative mental rut. Then a moment of absolute absurdity hit him. But as he was under such a thick facade of false redemption; he hadn’t the perspective to realise it.

His sick, sad idea of false redemption was another issuing of the horn. The Commander’s scathing words of stupidity about Wolfgang were beginning to make complete sense. Wolfgang strode up to the highest rock, on the highest peak, with poorest of judgement. He picked up the shiny gold-rimmed horn and without any hesitation, blew the hardest he could.

The sound seemed even louder than before. It truly pounded across the land.

The message sent from the Commander’s ear to its brain forced the oxygen in his lungs to expel. The entire cavalry stopped dead in their tracks.

“What do we do Sir? It could just be that stupid Sheppard dicking us around again.” asked Right Hand Man.

“Don’t you think I’m aware of that?!” snapped the Commander. “He gets the benefit of the doubt! Let’s go, quickly!” They cantered at full speed back up the mountain.

Wolfgang sat back on his rock watching the dots reversing and returning. He had no strategy. He just wanted another chance to make matters sit more favourably for him, or rather, his ego. He just remained sitting peacefully and watched the men on their horses racing back to him, as it was the only satisfaction he was going to receive from the second coming.

“They’re all here because of me.” He thought.

*

As soon as the Commander got a peek over the ridge that gave visibility to where Wolfgang was sitting, he spat. He could see Wolfgang had flown another false flag. He saw red. The Commander kicked his spurs into his horse and rode so fast he separated himself from his crew.

“SHEPPARD BOY! What is your explanation for this?!” the Commander screamed.

“Well, sir, I swear the wolves came back again.” Wolfgang said in such a ridiculously unconvincing tone.

“They just came across the ridge about half an hour you left...”

BANG! BANG!

Wolfgang was stopped short again by the Commander, but this time by two quick-fire shots from the carbine to his temple and chest. He died instantly.

“Annoying prick.” exclaimed the Commander.

The rest of the cavalry arrived.

“Sir?” queried Right Hand Man as he looked down at Wolfgang’s body.

“The boy was no good up here anymore men” he declared. “Even in future, if he were to ever tell the truth, nobody believes a liar.”

The King's Men

The guns burrowed into the soldiers’ gentle arms, triggers suckling on twitchy fingers as the men cradled the weapons to their chests. They marched single file through the twisting lanes of the bazaar, their boots dull with the dust that rose with each footstep. Every now and then the soldiers would stop to look under a table or pull down the faded cloths of some forgotten textile stall, but they never seemed to find anything.

From his rooftop perch he watched the soldiers through narrow eyes. He waited until they turned a corner before swinging to the ground and following them from a safe distance.

He frowned as they poked through Alhzeim’s old fish-shop, and bit his tongue as he heard them smashing the abandoned vases in Kindiri’s glassware outlet. The soldiers’ boots crunched easily over the shards of glass, but his sandals were more wary as he tiptoed after them.

The men weren’t difficult to follow. They made a lot of noise and never strayed from the bazaar’s main path. He preferred to clamber through the adjacent back alleys, catching glimpses of the soldiers through cracked windows, sometimes losing sight of them altogether.

Crouching behind a crumbling wall he watched as they eventually arrived at the edge of the marketplace and stopped to have a smoke.

After a few minutes one of the soldiers got to his feet and started shouting and kicking at the sand and pointing at a building just outside the bazaar, so they stubbed out their cigarettes and started walking again, their faces round and shining with sweat. The building stood by itself with clumps of hay strewn about outside.

He shivered.

*

Back straight, arms folded, face unsmiling; he stood behind the palace gates, trying not to fiddle with the medals pinned to his jacket. His eyes strained to see into the night.

Behind him, the King’s palace was wrapped in a thick darkness, except for in the courtyard where a lone candle burned.

“See anything, sir?” whispered a voice to his left, further along the palace wall.

“No,” he sighed, not turning his head. “Still nothing.”

“But, sir, we’ve been out here for hours,” the voice said. “Are they running late?”

“No,” he said again.

“But, sir-”

“But nothing!” he hissed. “Discipline. Discipline, respect, protection.”

The night was quiet for a moment.

“Sorry, father- sir,” said the voice eventually. “I am not used to being this still for so long. But I am thankful for this opportunity – this honour – sir, to prove myself as one of the King’s Men. I really-”

The voice gasped.

Cursing his poor eyesight, he wondered what had interrupted the voice. He peered into the night, and slowly a few glowing spots on the horizon eased into focus.

He blinked.

The pricks of light grew larger. He thought he could hear singing.

“Sir?”

The light oozed across the sky until it dripped from the stars and the singing got louder and the drums beat quicker and the people danced harder; and with a surge, the parade was upon him, pressing in on him from all sides; and he clutched to the bars of the gate, desperate to not get swept away; and slowly the procession ebbed through the open gates and into the courtyard of the palace where a lone candle was joined by countless lanterns which spread light across the square like a creeping blush.

Inside the palace gates the singing eased to a stop and the courtyard was quiet once again.

*

The chestnut-brown mare was running wild in her stall, crashing into the walls and stomping her hooves on the ground. Her eyes rolled wildly from side to side. The soldier frowned, nodding and whispering to the horse as he approached her stall.

High amongst the rafters of the stables he watched as the soldier tried to calm the beast.

He brushed a fly from his face.

He’d followed the soldiers from the bazaar to the stable and had slipped in through the back door, climbing above the stalls to his dusty lookout. The other soldiers were poking around near the back of the shed, but this one couldn’t seem to leave the horse alone.

The soldier moved closer to the horse, still whispering to her. The soldier showed the horse his empty palms, and, with gentle hands, slowly undid the gate to the mare’s stall.

It seemed to have worked: the horse had stopped charging about and was soberly eyeing the soldier as he entered her stall.

Using his arms to balance himself he moved across the beams in the rafters until he stood directly above the horse.

He held his breath.

The soldier smiled, running his hands through the horse’s knotted mane. The soldier turned, looking for his companions, when the horse bit down hard on his hand.

“Aiiii!” the soldier shouted, slapping the horse away.

The horse backed into the corner of the stall, its eyes wide, as the soldier collected his rifle and pointed the barrel at the horse’s head.

*

Turning to look at the group of people huddling in the courtyard, he allowed himself a rare smile. It was the final night of the week-long city festival. He watched as a middle-aged woman, her skin darkened by the sun, approached the palace walls with her daughter.

The festival celebrated the city’s date of settlement and a time of renewed hope. The King’s grandfather, a proud, young warrior, had led a small band of followers out of the war-torn West and into the desert.

The woman nodded and her daughter laid a woven basket of fresh bread at the foot of the wall. They knelt before the towering structure.

They trudged for seven days and seven nights across the desert in search of food and water. Not everyone was strong enough; those they left behind, clawing in the sand. The King’s grandfather encouraged and coerced and bullied those remaining to keep marching, but even he was tiring. As the sun crossed the sky his footsteps grew shorter and clouds of doubt cast shadows across his heart.

The daughter copied her mother’s actions, clasping her hands together and rocking back and forth on her knees.

On the seventh night the King’s grandfather admitted defeat and he vowed to deliver his followers from their suffering. He sharpened his blade as the sun rose.

*

With a shout he dropped from the rafters onto the back of the horse, ignoring the way the soldier’s eyes bulged and his mouth hung open. He kicked at the horse, urging it to run, as the soldier fumbled with his gun; but the mare was old and her coat was patchy and she was slow to react; and he expected to hear the shot, the gunshot that still sang with his father’s voice; then the horse was on top of the soldier, and the stable was a haze of human limbs and unforgiving hooves; and then, impossibly, they were bursting out of the stables and into the sweet, fresh air, galloping along a path that he hadn’t travelled in a long time.

The old palace gates stood in the distance.

*

The daughter craned her neck as her gaze travelled up the sides of the wall and past the ornate ellipses that were carved into the arches.

But as the King’s grandfather prepared himself to free his people from their torment, the rising sun revealed something in the distance.

Finally, the daughter’s eyes settled on the golden egg that was seated on top of the wall. Its shell gleamed with the reflection of her face.

An enormous egg, a gift from the giants, so large that thirty men with outstretched arms could not encircle it, lay embedded in the sand. Forgetting his weariness the King’s grandfather ran to the egg, driving his sword through the shell and licking the sweet yolk from the blade’s sharpened edge.

Her lips moved in unison with her mother’s as she stared at the golden egg. With a final bow, she rose and returned to the centre of the courtyard where the lanterns still burned.

As his people fell upon the egg and gave thanks to the desert giant that had saved them, the King’s grandfather made his decision. Framed by the locks of the low-hanging sun he declared that the mysterious egg would be the foundation for their city. This was where they would settle.

*

He dismounted from the horse and clutched the bars of the gate as he’d seen his father do so many years ago. The gates had forgotten how to shine. They opened with a screech.

Discipline.

He cast a look over his shoulder. The desert was empty but he knew the soldiers couldn’t be far behind.

“That was a good run, eh?” he said, patting the horse as he led her through the gates. He tried not to look at what the palace had become.

“Over here,” he said to the horse as they walked together through the courtyard to the palace walls.

“It symbolised everything our city stood for. Hope. New beginnings. The people used to come and celebrate for days and days. Singing, dancing, offerings… and I was one of the King’s men. My father was the head guard, you see.”

The horse’s tail swished from side to side.

“I just had to see it one last time.”

Respect.

He shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked up at the palace wall. His mouth went dry. The egg was not there.

“No,” he whispered to himself, his hands balling up into fists. “No, no!”

He fell to his knees in the sand, clawing at the desert, when his hand brushed against something cold beneath the surface.

The horse came closer, nuzzling into his shoulder.

Scooping the sand away, a smile spread across his face. He stood, holding his discovery up to the sun. A cracked piece of the golden egg shone.

Protect.

He dug around the area quickly, excavating the other fragments of the egg, until he had all the pieces in front of him. He set to work trying to join them, using different pieces in different combinations. Calmly, he tried to slide the pieces into place, and, when that didn’t work, tried forcing the pieces into position. He pleaded with the horse and swore at the desert, but try as he might, he simply couldn’t put the egg together again.

St John's Fire

Fields ruffled with the wading of laborers under the closing day. Sweat filled brows as poppies filled baskets. Far off the shore, red waters carried vessels from the lowlight horizon to the port of Calcutta. Resting among the ship’s berths, a still St John Rivers played memories of England he’d held. And those he could not shrug.
St John took no advantage of the plenty space he’d afforded himself with his initial purchase of a companion cabin. He lay as coldly as the space beside him, and his mind became as absent once he slept.
Arriving with daybreak, St John joined fellow shipmates outside for orientation and begin a briefing with a voice which crisped through the air.
“On behalf of the Church Mission Society, I welcome you to Calcutta. Our joint effort with the East Indian Company, who has been so generous as to help finance our station here, will see us carry through the work of God.”
A procedural applause followed from the monochrome palette of uniforms. Each cloak and gown did their best to show ignorance of the blanketing heat. With a steely ignorance above all others’, St John continued his address.
“This land is strange to us. It is strange to God. It is our purpose to correct this.”



Shortly thereafter, carriages arrived to carry businessmen to Chowringhee and missionaries alike to the mission established just outside of town. Acres upon acres, ant-like servants toiled the fields. A content St John absorbed the view from his carriage window, and added to his pleasure was his speaking with quartermaster Charles Frederickson.
“How tirelessly they work. It is the light of God which gives them vigor.” St John concluded.
“The taskmasters do an excellent job instilling them with it.” agreed Charles.
“I shall only hope for such fervor from the mission.”
“Oh, you may come to expect it.”
“I’m afraid I do not understand.”
“We have many newcomers stationed now who became widowers following trade disagreements.”
“And they are accepting of their vocation?”
“They’ve labor experience;” Charles began “rice fields, prior to their razing.”
“Razing?” pressed St John.
“For our poppy fields, of course. We need no supply of rice here; we get more than enough of it from China.”
St John smiled learnedly “And of their commitment?”
“Dear St John, our great God’s glory saved them from heathen practices through which many would have been sentenced to join their partners at their funeral pyres.” Frederickson’s words gave St John paleness.
“To cast themselves into the pits of hell... such barbarism should perish all doubts of our work here.”
He withdrew a hard, dark journal with pen and pocket inkpot. “I shall make note of this for my prayers,” St John began to scratch, unperturbed by the Caravan’s rumbling across Chitpur road. Taking in prideful breath, he fixed himself a smile.
“But it is such happy news, to be gifting them with fulfilling work and the comfort of mourning.”



On the yet unpaved grounds of the mission was waiting a field of Hindu widows, heads looking downward to the bags at their naked feet. St John made his inspection amid a soft hum of sobs.
Some of the younger girls glanced up at him, for he was a man of impressive features: radiant blonde hair, eyes of the ocean and a forlorn kindness in his frame of elegance. He was, also seemingly, a man of humility, and made it a point not to indulge in vanities they’d seen before. It gave him ill to see this vanity in himself and especially in others who’d not taken to modesty.
“Hair untied... Indecent gowns... Gold.” Disappointed words assessed the women. Raving black manes clung to shoulders flaunted in salwars and shaadi as if to occasion. Smooth cream skin dared bare itself in the rich drapery of hair and silk. Sun-gleamed hoops nestled in the looseness of nostrils and lobes, coin belts slung around the fat of their hips. St John wiped his bothered brow in an about turn and he inquired as to the contents of a woman’s basket.
“We were told to bring all we could with us”, explained one woman, humbly offering her basket.
“Indeed. You’ll be parting with it all the same. You have by the afternoon to relinquish your possessions and jewellery.” St John rifled through the contents, spilling out salads of bejewelled chains onto the weeds of the camp’s British dirt. Therein lay also a book St John recognized from his studies as a Hindu holy book and the women recognized a hideous, saddening disdain in his face.
“We shall have a bonfire to commemorate the passing of this wickedness tonight. God has sent you on your way.” He spoke his truest words. “Please hand over your Vedas to the maids who will come round.” St John promptly turned away to make arrangements with mission staff.



In his office, St John worked steadfast, marking away documents until news of commotion was called to his attention. He was diligent in his resolution of disputes and desires, empowered as he was by God and granted the request to be spoken with. The widows had arranged for a representative to speak with St John. The bearer of trusts and hopes entered, her outline unspoiled by her Hindu dress and backlit in soft dusk.


St John pretended to notice merely her presence alone.
“Rest assured you won’t have to be wearing that come tomorrow morning when your
uniforms arri-”
“I am not here to talk about these things, but other things. Holy things.”
“Wonderful, we’ll be having our first sermon tomorrow afternoon. Best to get things to a quick start, of course.”
“We are unhappy. We miss our husbands. We do not want to be without our books, they help us remember them.”
“Your husbands are dead. You may mourn them as you like as you pray in the love of God.”
“You are not married? You could not speak so cruel if you were.”
“Cruel!” St John tasted the word sourly. “What a wicked girl you are to speak with such contempt of me, how disagreeable! I have denied myself the luxury of marriage and its trifles. My path is joined by the love of God. The very God who has saved you!”
“Saved? Traded. One god for another, and a difference of caste to one of class. “


St John collected himself and took the utmost of his brand of sympathy toward her. “I understand,” he claimed “you are not a Christian girl yet and are in need of time. You did not have the privilege of being touched by God, raised as you were in the Indian lands. I shall give you, widows, this time, during which you shall learn the wondrous love of God and accept Him as your master. I cannot express how pained I am that you would have caught only glimpses of God’s greatness up until now. Rest assured, please, that you will have the fullest of Christian teachings cleansing your uneducated minds and your impudent hearts.”

The unblinking woman could only dip her head as she made to part backwards out the door.

“Oh, and-” St John stopped her.

“...please inform the others of your punishment for the unrest you’ve caused among the staff. As an act of spiritual enrichment you are to build the pyre yourselves. Thank you.”

The woman’s coal eyes stared in a moment of loss, and her body followed the slow turn of her head outside.

“Will you speak with them?” He tested.

“Yes.

I will speak with them.”



In the night, St John saw the widows working busily at the pyre with the vigor he saw on the fields. His head shook with a triumphant nod, observing their embrace of humility. How well they cooperated and how large a pyre they’d built, dedicated as drones to serve a queen, and how he admired the sight. The fire was started and the women gathered round, feeding the flames of purity with Vedas. How well things did turn out, and how well God had rewarded his perseverance!
His head shook again with the call to sleep and he retired for the night.


Ashes glittered
Under new morning
The blaze had snuffed
The widows with it.

The chaser

My rewrite is based on the movie called 'The chaser' which is a very popular Korean movie and the plot line of the original movie has been edited with some ideasfrom 'Robinson crusoe' and also has been set in the time line of early european settlement.

“Land Ho!”

The welcoming of the sea breeze mixed with the fresh air with the hint of pine blew into the port side. As the Ex-Officer of the English Navy who have been ordered leave, gets off the planks of the colonial boat starts off in his journey to make a living in the new found land.

Sir Robinson an Ex-Navy officer, now runs a "whore house" in the middle of the new settlement. As there are a lot of women hungry sailors the business was a boom. Even the local residents frequently came and went. The employees of the house were always attracting customers off the streets and the port side.

"Hey you handsome! Do you wanna take a load off with me in there?"

And so the business carried on prosperously, until the employees started to go missing one by one.

Then one day,

"Emily! WHERE THE HELL IS EMILY?! AND WHERE IS CHERI?! WHERE IS THE REST?!"

"Um, they haven't come back from their last run."

The pattern that the employees went missing was found to be related to a suspicious letter written by a single person who always asked in the letter that the lady should come to his place, and each time a letter would come back to the house saying that the woman had enough of the prostitution and is going to quit. In the beginning Sir Robinson thought that the women just ran away, but then he started thinking that the man behind this series of event was actually taking his employees and selling them off for his own profit. Hence forth, Sir Robinson formed a theory of his own, it was a theory that the customer whom called the women was directly related to the disappearance of his employees. In accordance to his theory he starts to investigate the trails of the woman who went missing last. After a days worth of looking for trails he came across the carriage that Emily had taken. As he approached the carriage and was reaching his hand out to open the carriage, a man came forth and they ended sprawling to the ground.

"Oww, whats a man doing in this carriage?!"

At that moment Sir Robinson got a strong scent of rosemary off the man. Rosemerry was the smell of the perfume that Emily used. Soon as this thought crossed his mind, Clinton (which is Sir Robinson's first name) was sure this man was the culprit behind the missing women; his employees.

"Where is Emily? Where is Cheri?! Where did you take my girls?!"

"I don't think i want to answer those questions."

"God have mercy on you! for I will choke the answer I want right from your body!"

The name of the man Clinton bumped into was 'Charlie'. After the subtle conflict between them, Charlie was arrested and taken in to custody by the local Sheriff and was asked a series of questions related to the locations of the missing women.

"Where are the women that you called for?"

Then Charlie answered, "They are dead and sound asleep in the bottom of the sea." , and as he said it there was not a single hint of guilt on his face except for the cold detached smile of a killer.

"So did you hit them with a chisel or hammer them with it?"

"Used the hammer, of course"

"Why did you kill them like that?"

"I choked them and used knives but they were too painful. I saw how pigs were killed and did the same and hang them on the wall"

"What?"

"Pardon?"

"Hang what?"

"Their bodies, of course"

"And then?"

"You know that muscle behind the ankles?"

"The Achilles tendon?"

"Yes!"

"I sliced it with a knife"

"Of the dead body?"

"Yes"

"Why?"

"To drain out the blood otherwise they’re too heavy to lift"

"That’s right, that’s how the corpses get lighter"

"So what did you do next?"

"Leave it around for a day, drain out all the blood and mess then i axed the bodies and carried them out to sea"

"Where about did u drop them?

"Here and there"

As the conversation ended, the listeners were left without words and for Clinton it seemed that Charlie was enjoying every last thought of his doing. So forth, the sheriff and his men took up Charlie and carried him away. Just as he was about to be confined in a temporary cell to wait for his death, he shouted out;

"There’s still one more that I didn't finish, she should still be in the store house by the lighthouse!"

This reached the ear of Clinton who was sitting where he was in the very beginning of the inquiry, then suddenly there was a spark of hope for his mission, and as fast as he heard the news he left out the door in hopes that Emily, his niece was still holding her life from the whims from the grim reaper.

Meanwhile on the shoreline near the lighthouse, a girl with raggedy tags of clothes hanging just covering up her body was limping towards the port. There was no sight of any living things, at least no sight of any men. Her body could not even gather the strength to bring her voice out to call for help. It was just barely managing to make her move forward. A moment later the girl arrives by a wharf near the main port and as she comes to stop a fisherman calls out to the girl.

"Good day Emily. Hah? Oh Jesus christ! What Happened to you?!”

“Ahh…”

As Emily fell, out of exhaustion the fisherman just caught her before she hit the ground.

“Oh my… What in the world happened to you, poor girl”

As he laid her to rest in his boat she grumbled something faintly but it was so faint he could not hear it. Soon as he was sure she was comfortable laid down, he quickly set out to find a doctor.

Soon after Emily woke up, it was dark now. She wondered how long she has been sleeping. The last thing she remembered was seeing the old man George who came back from his daily fishing round. And soon as she stepped out into the open she remembered why she was in this ragged clothes and why she was in pain and why she needed to quickly get out sight and find safety. Across the other side of the wharf in a jail cell window she saw the man who she has been afraid to meet. He was staring at her with the same eyes when she lost consciousness in the store house. The facial expression which showed amusement and frustration like when a child stepped on a worm to kill it but sees that it would not die straight away. While she was reminding herself of this cruel man’s actions, a chilling voice came across the wharf.

“Emilyyy, I see that your back. I will come meet you shortly just wait there for ME!”

The sensation that Emily felt was beyond terrifying, she quickly ran off the boat and into the street even though it was just merely limping away from this ‘devil’.

For Charlie, the sight of seeing Emily made his skin jump. He was excited like a dog on a chase on a hunting trip, longing to sink it’s fangs into the skins of its prey. This in turn stimulated Charlie to get out this cement block of walls to start his own chase for prey. The prey would be Emily. First to get out of here he had to devise a plan. A plan that would distract the guards long enough for him to escape and find Emily. Fast as he reacted to this situation, a plan was formed inside his mind. And as he planned he spoke out quietly.

“First I will fake sick, it’s the most obvious trick in the book but it will work, I will grab the guard’s throat and rip it out. Then wait for the other one to come by and strike him in the head with the baton the fat one had”

As the whispering continued, the fat guard that was by the cell said;

“Hey crazy fool! Stop yammering to yourself and shut up so I can get some sleep”

“Oh yes Sir, I am very sorry for the disturbance, but before I close my mouth and let you wonder back into your sleep, can you do me a favour?”

“Can you check if the locks on my hands are properly locked? To me it feels like I can take my hands out of it anytime I please.”

With this the guard was aroused and thought if he listened to this blabbering fool that he will be quite and let him go back to his comfortable little chair which both sides of his buttocks covered up so all you could see was four wooden legs sticking out of this man’s bottom.

The guard approached the cell and opened the door and slowly walked towards the serial killer, he bent down to check on the shackles and as he was fidgeting, Charlie saw his chance and bit the man’s throat rendering him from screaming. In a instant the guard was lying on the floor with a chunk missing from his throat. The killer now had a chance, the other guard was now no obstacle, with the shackles now gone and the hard steel baton in his position the next was no longer anything to fumble over.

Soon Charlee was out in the streets leaving behind a burning jail house with two dead bodies that will never be found as they will be burnt to ashes. Even with all the commotion in the streets he did not pay attention to them. All there was in his head was where could have Emily gone. So he faded into the shadow of the night searching for Emily.

Emily was now on the outskirts of the port, heading towards the one and only place where she will feel safe. As she continued to go west, where the house she left from, she heard shouting from behind her.

“Fire! Fire! The jail house is on fire!”

“There’s no sight of anyone inside, did they all get out?”

There in the area where she last saw the man who tried to kill her was up in flames. The flames were now bright as the morning sun, a chilling sensation ran down her spine. Somehow she knew he had escaped. Her mind wanted to believe that the man was caught up in the fire and had died for all he deserves but her heart knew better. That man was alive and right now he was searching for her. She hastily ran into the nearest abandoned building and hid in a closet far in the corners of the house. No sooner than she closed the door of the closet she heard quick footsteps near the door of the house, he was mumbling something to himself. The voice became clearer as the being approached. Out of fear and anxiety she slowly opened the door, enough for her to see who the person is while concealing herself in the darkness of the closet. What she saw nearly stopped her heart. The man who she wanted to believe to be dead was standing in the middle of the room.

Charlie was now standing in the middle of a abandoned house. He was now far out reach from the town’s people. He can now sit down to think where his prey would be heading. The only place where he can think of that the girl called ‘Emily’ would go to was the house where he first called her from. However, in the state she was in, she could not have gone too far from this place. But where could she be? He was now walking back and forth from one end of the house to the other. As he paced himself across the hallway he heard a creak down the hall. Then it crossed his mind. If he was a wounded girl who can only use one leg to support herself and rely on walls or posts to keep herself straight, she should be very wary now and would need a place to rest, and the best place to rest while hiding from her chaser would be an abandoned building. However, he contradicted himself that it will be unlikely that the very girl he was after was in the same house as he was. But just in case, he headed towards the dark end of the hall way, as he approached the end he saw a closet big enough for a person to fit in.

Slowly he approached her hiding spot. There was nowhere to go, if he opens this door, then she will be finished. Emily was panicking now; she closed her eyes and felt her heart was beating faster than the wings of a humming bird. Her mind was racing trying to think of a way to get out of this situation. At the same time she was praying to god to have mercy upon her. She opened her eyes; the man was now few feet away from reaching her location. She needed a miracle. One step at a time, one by one he drew closer. Soon he was close enough to reach out and open the door to the closet. His hands were now closing on the door knob. The slowly opened and the eyes of a cold and dark natured man stared intensely into her soul.