Erzählungen des Maskenzug

David M. Buhajla ~ Linda Imbler ~ Henri Bergotte

 

 

 

David M. Buhajla
The Nature of One Man’s Exile

 

I sat by my campfire on the grassy plains of the Puszta, collar tight against the cold wind, forgotten for the past two days by everyone that I had ever known. I stirred the embers of my fire, which brewed the eggshells and thick black Turkish coffee that I had stolen from the village a few miles behind me (I didn’t have the balls yet to steal a car). The smoke of the fire and the pungent aroma of the thick coffee wafted up, taken away by the wind and the deep gloom of the night.

Miserable, I cursed my fortune and the book that had led to my exile and to my current state of destitution. I knew that I had to find a way to get back to the States, but I was invisible to everyone that I came in contact with, their eyes glazed and unseeing as I passed, deaf to my screams and unfeeling to my touch, even when the locals bumped into me on dusty village streets. I couldn’t even make a phone call without the person at the other end hanging up, thinking that I had just hung up on them. Plus, none of my credit cards worked because I didn’t seem to belong to the world any longer, or the world to me.

Stirring the fire again with my stick, I looked up as a figure appeared from the darkness and stepped into the light of my fire. I leapt up and backed away as the figure approached and I saw that the man was short and dressed in muddy and dripping rags. The long tangles of his black hair reached down to his waist, caked with mud and grit. He smelled like damp forest loam after a rain. His wrinkles betrayed his age and his eyes were set deep in the sharp Asiatic angles of his face as he looked into my own eyes. He carried a filthy canvas sack. Hope and dread intermingled in my mind as I realized that he could see me.

And then he spoke to me.

It was the old, sibilant hiss of the Csángó dialect of Hungarian, spoken only in the ancient Magyar enclaves in the Bacău area of Moldavia, which I understood. And that understanding made the world spin. I sat down hard, my teeth banging together as the man reached into the sack. He pulled out a book, a book that was all too familiar to me, a book that I had purchased and deciphered and had sent me into exile from humanity.

The book of Heinrich-Helmut von Stellmacher.

It was the tool of the white stag god, who had helped found the Huns and Magyars, and who had won a game of chance against the gods of all the peoples of the world. The white stag that could erase the existence from the minds of everyone anyone he pleased.

The old man whispered and gibbered hidden wisdom and ancient rites as the fire blazed and the smoke danced. The words of the ancient Magyar tongue became too quick for me to understand, but whose meaning pierced my thoughts and made pictures that I could see.

I saw the forgotten ones. Mithra and Isis. Coyote and Bear. Quetzalcoatl and Loki. All quivering and blazing anew in their rebirth. I saw them as my campfire winked out and as the wind began to roar down from the north, scattering my camp and knocking my coffee pot to the earth. My vision narrowed and turned yellow as I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me.

As I passed out, the old man left me with one last word.

Szélkirály. King of the Wind.

***

I woke up the next morning to the sound of children’s voices. I sat up and saw three Magyar children standing a good twenty feet away from me, staring at me with wide brown eyes, whispering to each other. They could see me and I could see them. And then I knew. Like many other things in the world the night before, I had just been reborn.

 

 

 

David M. Buhajla is a writer and poet living in Arkansas with his wife Marci, daughter Maya, and son Judah. His work has been published in DM, Counterexample Poetics, Sex and Murder, Rose and Thorn Journal, The Horror Zine, The Gloaming Magazine, Death Head Grin, and the “Winter Canons” anthology from Midwest Literary Magazine.

 

 

 

Linda Imbler

Queen of Cups

 

“I love her and she in turn loves me,”  Jonathan insisted to his roommate Glenn.  “She is one of the most caring and compassionate people I have ever known.”

 

Glenn snorted.  His response less than encouraging to this romantic heart.  “The woman is deceitful and calculating.  When you can no longer offer her what she seeks, she will be gone.”

 

“You don't know what you're talking about,”  protested Jon.  “She's kind and honest.”

 

“You can't see past her duplicity, her dishonesty, if you will.  She will cause you real emotional hurt, my friend.  Please understand, I am really trying to protect you from your own vulnerability,”  remarked Glenn. 

 

“Again, you are confused. A loving woman on my side and by my side.  Someone faithful and true,”  said Jon, in an attempt to refute.

 

Glenn again sighed, becoming more exasperated as he asserted to Jon,  “Your contentment is false. Your sense of security is false. She is faithless.  Are you truly not aware of her clandestine  encounters  with other men when she thinks you are otherwise occupied?  Yes, to your face she appears to show love and warmth solely to you.  But again for the most selfish of reasons.  You have things she wants.  She is a poser.  Again, I say faithless.  She flatters you and makes you believe.  But she has no more concern for your well-being then she does for anyone else’s.”

 

“Now you're just being ridiculous!”  Jon exclaimed.  Then, he added in a boastful manner,  “I have, of course confronted her on this issue.  We have had an open, frank  discussion on the matter of her supposed, Oh, how I hate to emote the quote marks,  ‘dishonesty”' and ‘disingenuousness.’ The last time we talked about it, she was so hurt by the accusation she started to cry.”

 

“Jon, I beg of you, do not fall for the crocodile tears.  That does you no service.  You are the only nurturer here.  Whatever she wants, you give her.  Meanwhile, while you are busy attending to other things, she seeks excitement with others in ways not loyal to you.  I do not understand how you can remain unaware of the deceptions she exhibits.  Her treachery will be your total undoing and you will suffer greatly.  Please, hear me on this.”

 

Through the reinforced window in the door,  Head Nurse, Ms. Whitcomb,  watches this exchange.  She turns to the newest nurses’ aide, Mr. Felix,  and remarks,  “He's been staring at that old daguerrotype for 30 minutes.  That thing is at least 150 years old  and so faded you can barely tell what that woman looked like.”  Mr. Felix probes,  “He couldn’t possibly have known her.  Is she an ancestor?”

 

“I don't know for sure,” she answers with great concern in her voice.  “His schizophrenia makes it quite difficult to communicate with him on a rational basis.  He's extremely disassociated from reality.  I hate that he's always alone in that room, but….”

 

“She really does love me,” whispered Jonathan once again to Glenn.

 

 

 

Linda Imbler is the author of several poetry books including The Weather In My Head , Doubt and Truth, and Precious Vibrations.  Her published works include the poems “Tomb,” “Man in the Bath,” and “Hands.” “  Her poetry has been called evocative, provocative and beautiful.  She is also trying her hand at short fiction.  This writer, yoga practitioner, and acoustic guitar player resides in Wichita, Kansas.

 

 

 

Henri Bergotte

The Crow Congress

There is a band of crows which roosts outside my bedroom window. I guess you would call it a murder if you were so linguistically inclined. I call it a congress, and I shall explain why.

Every morning, at approximately 6am, these crows roost on the two large trees out back of my apartment building. The trees themselves are located in the neighbor's yard and have grown taller than the monotone two-story building which I presently call my home.

 

The trees have many branches, some of which reach out to greet the shingles of my roof, inadvertently creating swinging bridges for the squirrels to navigate at all times of the day. When they traverse the terrain you can hear the patter of their scurrying – little furry Santas hoarding nuts and such for Christmas supper.

 

And when these branches are not serving as causeways, they majestically double as the halls of congress: long and slender, a deep mahogany brown, seating aplenty and fit for kings. And so it is that as the sun rises the crows gather in this canopy and discuss the planned events of the day, the happenings of the day before, and most importantly, how to keep me from a comfortable sleep. It's quite similar to our human congress really, lot's of talk and all for the purpose of making the life of the citizen more difficult.

 

There are exclamations and declarations, inundations of debate; squawking and screaming, talons pointed like little fractured fingers amidst the rustle of midnight feathers made clear by the rising light. And, perhaps as the rule of all congresses, every spectacle ends with a recess.

 

The only conclusion being that the crow congress shall convene the next day, a great Sisyphean movement waged early in the morning just as the sun's broken nails scratch the surface of the day.