skonen_blades

He’s walking into autumn.
He’s living an eclipse.
He’s half human and half sunset.
The light that burns half as bright burns twice as long.
Or so he hopes.
Playing dead so well he’s gone full method actor.
This is his impression of a clothesline.
Call him Canadian scarecrow.
Call him paused at seconds before impact.
Call him slow motion.
The tortoise and the hare were running two different races.
Slow and steady doesn't win.
It's just satisfied with less.
His version of failure is 8/10ths of the world's version of success.
It's hard not to look up to someone as tall as him.
The beard has all the answers, the age has all the wisdom.
He’s a 'used condom is half-full' kind of guy.
This is his impression of an empty bucket.
Watch him be parking lot.
Watch him be low tide.
The living embodiment of a discarded air guitar.
He has the gift of depression that never stops giving.
He can't breathe underwater but he can hold his breath for 45 years.
Let's flip a coin and disappear before it lands, he says.
Let's climb into Schroedinger's box and snuggle up with that cat, he says.
He embarrasses his mirror.
The universe is a predator that's picking on someone else these days.
Either that or he doesn’t feel the blows anymore.
He’s a pillow fight in a war zone.
He’s aging into irrelevance and maybe the most alarming thing about it is that he doesn’t mind.
No panic.
Just patient sinking.
Just love for friends.
Just quiet desperation.
Just tombstone lullabies for an old man.
Don't get him wrong.
He loves life and he’s not going anywhere.
It's just that he’s put down roots in the path of a forest fire.



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He is the cloud hauler.

A tall man with long arms. The year is 1865. He is dressed in a well-cut black suit. The suit itself is creased shiny at the joints with inattention, and he is dusty.

For the moment.

While most men in this time ride horses, the cloud hauler rides a bicycle. A heavy monster with large springs under the saddle, it is a dark metal steed that will not shy at lightning or bolt at thunder.

His legs are thick and his carriage, while lean, is well muscled.

He’s paid well for what he does. His throwing arm is respected in the six towns he services on the coast. His accuracy with a knife or ax is legend.

His accuracy with a lasso, however, is whispered with disbelieving awe. The tales need faith to be believed. None scoff outright but few dare to lend the claims full credence. They shake their heads with a smile and go about their daily business.

He is a tall tale for children. Whatever bar he’s in, he only drinks water. The cloud hauler’s small eyes glint darkly, set in a face made of shrewd silence. His is a solitary existence.

The cloud hauler, when called on, is summoned by telegraph. He rides out to the town in question, his wheels spinning up dust and leaving the trail of twin snakes in the dirt behind him.

Whether called on to relieve a drought or pre-empt a flooding, the process is the same.

He must throw his lasso up onto a jut of the thunderhead, the cloudprow, the cumulus spur, and tie the other end to his bicycle. Then with great will and strength of focus, he must pedal slowly forward in the desired direction. The rope will be taut and his jaw will clench with the effort. His legs will shake at the inches gained.

His feet must not touch the ground as he pedals away for if he does, the electrical current pounding its way down the rope will go to ground through him and render him a cinder.

The cloud will try to stay, much as a petulant child would be dragged away from a fair. It will retain its cohesion so long as its simple intelligence remains fat with rain, lightning and dark intent.

The cloud hauler must drag the cloud to a clear patch of uninhabited prairie. There, the cloud can lose attention and become distracted by separate notions. The sun will dissipate it as it loses the reasons for its zeal. The cloud will lighten, drift into smaller wisps, and stop crying. It will no longer strike the ground beneath it.

The smaller elements of cloud will drift without care, seeking each other out in the fullness of time until a critical mass will once again churn electricity and hatred for the towns beneath itself and the cycle will start again.

The cloud hauler may only touch the ground after the lightning and rain has stopped and not before. Soaked and wild-haired, he will put his feet down, reborn and cleaner that most in this age, and pedals quickly but aimlessly back to town for payment. This is the only time he smiles.

He thinks to himself of a time where the cities outnumber the miles of clear prairie with great fear. He will not live to see it but he wonders how those future cityfolk will deal with rainclouds.



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He wasn’t the only hit man I ever met with a sense of humour but he was the funniest. Whenever he was going to kill a mark, he said that he was “going to a meeting”.

He dressed immaculately in black suits and crisp white shirts. Walking down the street in the financial district, he blended in like a tiger’s stripes in tall grass. He looked exactly the same as all the other businessmen.

He had this absent smile on his face at all times. His head nodded to an imperceptible beat. He laughed easily and often. The whole gig just tickled him.

Something was broken inside of him. I’d never once seen him twitch with something that could have been called remorse or reflection. He drank a lot but never seemed to get drunk.

They pulled him out of the river last week. I’ll always miss his eccentricity. The new guy that they hired as his replacement always stares. He thinks he’s hardcore. He speaks softly and it feels like an intrusion to ask him to repeat himself.

He has no style and I don’t trust him. He’s going to fuck up a job one day and I hope it’s not a job that I’m on.



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