Danny Wilborn

(An excerpt from a new piece of writing I'm working on, a prospective book titled "Danny Wilborn". The cover photo is also a piece made by me using 3D graphics program Blender. Both the story and the image above are my personal property and are not to be used without express permission from me. Enjoy!)

Danny Wilborn

By Christopher Hunt

Chapter 1

     What was it with this woman? She not only expected me to act as if I was listening, she actually assumed that I should listen; to use a significant part of my active brain to process her sound waves and retain their slight significance. It was like first grade all over again (well, actually, it was like every year of school I had ever had) except now I knew exactly how to mimic the enrapt fascination my teachers openly desired.

     I figured it out a few years ago and ever sense I have gained both my teachers A’s and their twisted adoration. It was all a fake of course. I still never listened and they still hated me deep down. Not for unreasonable causes had this malice boiled down to a potent degree, under the surface of smiling faces and obscurely insincere complements.

     It started when I first walked into the doors of Grade School. Holding my mom’s hand, an action I came to realize most adults expected of the average, nervous and insecure five year old. I had talked to the principle with a subdued voice, freezing up at appropriate times and exuding the mannerisms of my age class perfectly. I had prepared for this day for years, five to be exact, and still was not ready to deal with the absolute stupidity I encountered. I knew that I was a virtual alien when compared to my fellow 1^st graders and had expected the waves of complete naiveté and dullness that spread through-out the students. But I had not considered that adults could be so impossibly dense. They were, after all, grade school teachers, but that did not give them an excuse to be completely purblind. (I later learned that yes, it did, but at this point I was expected to learn from blocks and needed to keep the reality of their humanity firmly placed in the forefront.)

     I hated spending my days stuck in a room full obtuse children and even more thick teachers. Despite all my efforts to always present an affable air, my contempt and frustration soaked through. It was inevitable that my relationship with the teachers would suffer. Faster than I predicted I had offended and angered every teaching staff member in the school. They despised my obvious superior brain power and I became most hated.

     With no one to talk to and no one to appreciate the vast intellect that so readily showcased itself in my speech and writing, I slowly receded and talked less and less, spending more time in my own head. A few years passed and I learn how to cope. If my ideas were useless on the outside then I would just use them on the inside. I came up with a way to shut out all outside sensors of the conscious mind and then run away with thoughts, brilliantly displayed in my mind’s-eye. I had to alter this approach slightly, for my teachers ever-expected me to absorb there blathering. After a few days I figured out how to listen and interpret with another portion of my sub-conscious, leaving me free to travel away and explore the world with an un-grounded perspective.

Chapter 2

     The song of war was mighty in the air: the crash of death and the roar of fire. Sir William Leofrick swung his blade, joining the song of ciaos. Then raising it in defiance, he bellowed his cry of home and country. Slashing left and right, Leofrick hewed a path of lifelessness through the mass of claws and teeth, driving on to the end. He ran clear and swiftly scalded to the top, a massive rock protruding like a contusion from the plain. Sprinting along the crest with great strides he made a mighty leap and buried his blade deep in the dragon’s breast.   

#

     “Danny, would you kindly grace us with your attention for one moment.” Damn!

 “Yes Ms. Grace. X= 42.”

The day had barely started and I was already drifting off, losing my engrossed if-not-slightly blank, air. I had always found math to be too much of a bore to spend much thought on it. Ms. Grace gave me a seemingly kind smile and moved on. The only subject I found truly engaging, and sometimes even instructive, was history. Mr. Rothberg was a highly energetic and eccentric teacher. He was one of the only people I had ever gotten along with in school, something that might be called friendship. With math and English in the morning and history, geology, and PE in the after-noon I drifted until lunch, woke up for a couple of hours of eating and Roman politics, and then drifted again until the final bell.

      As I walked for the front entrance someone called my name, I turned.

“Danny, hey, Danny, are you free next Saturday evening? I got some more books you would like and I want to show you a newly added piece to my collection.”

I loved spending time at the Rothberg’s. They were some of the only people I knew who respected me.

“Yes, I would be honored to be a guest at your abode this coming Saturday evening”

I said. He flashed a brilliant, somewhat crazed smile and chuckled at my word choice.

“Great, if you want you can stay through dinner too.”

#

     Mom always picked me up. I never remember anyone ever driving me home from school except her and I don’t expect anyone ever will. It was our time together; the twenty minutes of our day were she didn’t have anything to clean and I did not feel obliged to drift away. We usually talked about small and unimportant things, but we did talk. I got to vent off some of my pent up ideas and she got to complain about some girl-friend of hers who had lost her cat. It was just nice to sit there with a conscious being that did not judge, did not critique, but simply listened and sometimes, ever so often, sympathized.

#

     The most average house, on the most average street, in the most average neighborhood possible would seem unique and artistic if you compared it to mine. Of course there was nothing to compare my house to for at least two miles around so nobody ever made the ghastly mistake of doing so. You see, I live in a house that is so similar to each and every-one around it that I sometimes still get all the way into the refrigerator before realizing that I had chosen the wrong front door, again. Every house was a deathly off-white, with dark red trim and front walks that seemed to go somewhere. The subdued landscaping and non-existent lawns made the ten foot stretch of pavement seem much more grand that it should have been. A sky-blue mailbox in-between the driveways and the wonderland walks set off the whole thing, making the neighborhood seem just that much more fantastic.

     I hoped out of the car and made my way through the front door, up the stars and into my room. I dropped my bag and grabbed Layamon's Brut off my desk, stuffing it in my back pocket as I headed for the stairs. Slamming into the landing and slipping through the kitchen for a granola bar, I jogged through the back door and around the side, past the neighbor’s house, and along the next few streets.

      The hole had always been there and I sometimes wondered why maintenance never fixed it. It was a place where three boards had rotted enough to break off a few feet from the ground. I laid down and started shuffling through, my belt getting snagged halfway. He was stuck. His legs pinned between the still-warm body and the blood soaked earth. Struggling one last time he lifting enough weight to pull free and crawled out from under the wing. The sun, fulgent in all her majesty, brushed his cheeks, defying the bloody pyrography she enlightened. Leofrick stood and grabbed a spike; slowly working his way up the carcass. It was harder than battle its-self, this. The scales roughed and burned his exposed skin as he was pressed flat by fatigue.

     He made the accent and finding even footing, he stood to see the outcome of battle strewn about. There was movement, and at first the shuffling and occasional quick flurries were undistinguishable. The earth was a writhing mass of severed limbs, foreign body parts and the shrieking half-dead. Several moments past, the noise died down and all movement stopped. Slowly and then faster, growing, growing, a roar spread across the field, raising from the filth, from the death, a hope was found again. The men who could walk, walked, the men who could not were carried as the yell transformed into a cheer, sung by all. The deep bass of old men, veterans of life and war alike, the youths, recently children, the old and young all calling in respect and adoration the name of the one who delivered victory: “Leofrick, Leofrick, Leofrick”.

 He scrambled down to join his men, his brothers of the blade.

“William! Seeing you alive brings great joy to my heart”

“And you as well my friend.”

He embraced his general, a fierce reunion not absent of tears nor laughter.

“This day will surely be written down in history”

A jubilant youth proclaimed.

“Undoubtedly it will, but not for me. You have shown great strength today, uncommon among mortals. No greater foe could we face and still claim victory. Let us finish this, for day will soon join the dead and light is much needed”.

     The injured were cared from the killing grounds and the stiffs to a pile for burning. The strange, already pulicous, were separated from the human and destroyed. They all gathered in kind and manner fitting to the time and sang the song of morning. The flames flashed high and the men’s osela were cast in, joining them to their honor and fulfilling their final fyrd. After all had completed their rites, the men prepared for day’s-closing and moved to clean ground, to their tents. Two men stood as final, somber watchmen, staring down the last flickers of the feasting fire, as if it deny there meaning. 

     “Left as last standing, left to see the death damming and non to free our minds till mornings blaze.”

“Yes, true to word and deed, but must ye fell the mountain with one breath?”

William sighed before answering.

“I am bound to these men, my soul alive only with their frosting pant and pounding vitality. There love is my passion, there hope is my fight and purely through monstricide do we find both reason and completion. ”

“Such truth again but is it not better to be ignorant than stupid, wiser to be blind than dead?”

“Dead, you say? I am not one to grow intimate with mandrakes willingly but yes, blindness would be a welcome friend”

They turned and left the ashes in silence, brooding on the morose milieus.

     William limped away into darkness and found his canopy, striping he washed the congealed blood off his arms and face, the rose water finally bringing inspiration for forgetfulness and peace. He lay down and I pulled out Layamon's Brut, munching on the granola bar. The thick trunk at my back was unmoved by a soft breeze that tumbled leaves and carried bird song.

Chapter 3

     “So Danny, Cliff tells me you might need help with writing a few scenes for your script.”

Conversations over food should be regulated by a metronome; you never seem to get the timing right between the question and the bite. Swallowing hard and remembering why food was supposed to be chewed, I answered.  

“I think I’ll be OK; I have the rough outline and most of the scenes flattened-out. When I’m done you could look over it for me if you want.”

I concealed my watering eyes by turning to a minimal refraction angle in-line with the celling-light.

“I would love to, more potatoes?”

She asked, smiling.

“Yes please”

We ate in silence for a moment and I soothed my stinging throat with copious amounts of water, supplied by a suspecting Mrs. Rothberg, the pitcher having to be refilled. It really was an excellent meal, the smoked ribs, green beans, and mashed potatoes meshing excellently with sparkling apple-juice. We wandered from my dad’s work, to politics, and ended on a delicious blueberry cobbler topped with a recent archeology dig in the Middle East, another great mixture.

     After dinner, Mr. Rothberg and I entered the grand armory, a small wood-paneled room near the back of the house. Three of the walls were hung with tapestries and various pieces of armor and weaponries. In one corner stood an item that was obviously new, a full suite of armor, complete with cuirass, spaulders, gauntlets, greaves, and a great helm. It looked ancient.

“When?”

I asked in surprise that evidently pleased him.

“The last piece came in just a few days ago and, let me see. Well, I’ve had that first piece for over two years now, yes, and the helm cost me a plane ticket, two essays, and couple thousand dollars.”

“You never told me!”

“Yes, well, I wasn’t sure if it would all come together and-” “It’s fantastic!”

 I said. Walking closer I breathed in smell of old leather and oil. How many times was a life saved by these relics of antiquity? What brave souls were lost through there inadequacy?

     By the time we had thoroughly debated the age and origin of the pieces and I had picked out my next few books to borrow, my dad had arrived.

“I’ll see you Monday Danny!”

“Yea, thanks.”

I said.