La Danza de la Muerte: Seven Stories, page 1
La Danza de la Muerte
Seven Stories
by
Donald Jacob Uitvlugt
Collection copyright © 2017 Donald Jacob Uitvlugt.
All rights reserved.
(The Afterward, which lists the first appearances of each story in this collection, is to be considered an extension of this copyright page.)
Cover designed by Safari Heat.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
La Noche de Los Muertos
Devil Eye
Gifts of the Morrígan
Rites of Spring
SW Vampire ISO Drinking Companion
My Mother, The Superhero
La Santa Muerte
Afterward
About the Author
Preface
by Joseph Devon
I’ve never written a foreword before so this will be new for all of us. I suppose what I should do is give some background on how I know Donald and some thoughts on his work.
I first met Donald when he was competing in a weird little project known as The Writer’s Arena. The Writer’s Arena was born online as the result of me and a few friends of mine deciding that we had too much time on our hands. The concept is simple: two authors would be given the same prompt and have to write a short story in two weeks to match it. Their stories would be published and judged and there would be votes and the whole thing would play out like those reality TV shows where chefs take on challenges. The entire idea was crazy—believe me, I know, as I was the poor guy running it.
The amount of work it required was ludicrous, which was why it was such a plus when Donald began to act as one of our regular judges. His breakdowns of the stories each week were always refreshing, and week after week our readers followed along as Donald gave his opinion, insight, and ultimately his verdict on our authors’ stories. During this time, Donald did what I always love to see any artist do, he grew.
His prose grew tighter, his voice livelier, his confidence bolder. I had the opportunity to actually battle Donald twice in the arena. Technically we wound up tying: I won The Plant Battle and he won The Camera Battle. But those are just the stats and they don’t tell the whole picture.
The fact is that I lost overall. By the time Donald had entered the arena for his third time, he had become one of our most formidable authors. He came into The Camera Battle and absolutely clobbered me. I had put forth what I thought to be a pretty good story. But Donald’s was unexpected and wholly realized. It played with structure and tone and artfully drew a creepy little slideshow out into a terrifying tale. His trademark mix of the surreal and the horrific was firmly in place and he was tackling topics much larger in scope than many, and he was doing so with aplomb.
All of this made me very excited to learn that Death was going to be the overriding topic of Donald’s collection of short stories. It seemed a suitable topic for Donald’s unique take on the world. And, true to form, all of the stories in this collection examine the morbid through lenses I would never have come up with.
Death is scattered all throughout these page, but it almost never comes as a simple end to someone’s life. It comes personified as a lover and a friend at times. For many of us, Death is something to be feared and dreaded, so naturally some of Donald’s characters attempt to cheat Death. We even get an immortal wondering what the big deal with life is, anyway; too much of a good thing never seems to work out does it? And, in my favorite story, death does come as the finality to someone’s life, but it is a superhero’s life. Someone literally stronger and better than normal humans, someone who lived as a god on earth, but eventually death visits them and it is a touching moment indeed watching that superhero’s son dealing with their parent’s passing.
Insane plants, soothing aliens, vampires with ennui, Donald proves again and again that no archetype is safe and that all ideas should be turned on their heads. Do superpowers make death any easier to handle? Is death the curse that we see it as? What scares us more, the journey it represents, or the idea that someone we love might make that journey and leave us here, on this side, all alone?
These aren’t easy questions and you won’t find easy answers in here. What you will find, though, is Donald’s steady hand guiding an imagination on fire as he explores the conundrum of death and presents us with many new angles and moments to ponder. You’ll find a curious mind at work peeling back the veil of mortality. You’ll find, in other words, a whole heap of truly excellent stories.
Joseph Devon was born in northern New Jersey and currently resides in New York City. After deciding that he did not want to pursue any normal career paths, Joseph Devon chose to become an author. He has been an avid self-publisher since 2000 with his novel The Letter. His urban fantasy series starring Matthew and Epp currently includes the novels Probability Angels and Persistent Illusions. He is known for getting himself mixed up in crazy writing projects. In addition to TheWritersArena.com, one can see the results of his adventurous “26 Stories in 52 Weeks” experiment at his website: www.josephdevon.com.
Introduction
Death is all around us.
Those of us in the so-called developed world like to ignore this fact. We live our lives at an ever more frenetic pace, as if somehow death won’t catch up with us if we just move fast enough. If we think about death at all, it’s only when a loved one passes or when trying to explain the loss of a pet to a child. The rest of the time we ignore death, often in surprisingly active ways.
A sequence of closed rooms keep us from remembering that meat does not magically appear shrink-wrapped on store shelves but comes from a once-living animal. We relegate the sick, the dying, and the dead of our own kind to special buildings and make sure not to learn too much about the charms and potions the doctors and morticians use inside. We send our elderly to special homes so we don’t have constant reminders of our own mortality before our eyes.
We expend every effort to willfully ignore the fact that each and every last one of us is dying at the rate of one day per day. Some of us faster.
The cultures of other times and places do not share this ignorance. Medieval Europe had a long tradition of contemplating death, summarized by the Latin phrase memento mori. Translated literally, this means “remember to die.” The Turkish holy fool Nasreddin Hodja reportedly contemplated his own mortality by lying down in graveyards, imagining his future. When he finished his meditation, he startled passersby on several occasions when he rose among the tombs.
The Black Death brought with it another cultural contemplation of mortality to late medieval Europe: the danse macabre or Totentanz. Elaborate fresco sequences and humbler woodcut prints depicted a formal line dance in which Death partners with everyone in society, from pope and emperor down to peasant farmer and child.
Death is the great equalizer.
The danse took on new life in the early twentieth century, in the work of printmaker José Guadalupe Posada. Most famous of these prints is that of La Calavera Catrina, depicting an upper-class woman in European-style clothing with a skull head. Satirical prose accompanies the picture, reminding us that no matter what airs a person may put on in life, he or she too will die. Death has revolutionary power.
Such artwork wedded with the Catholic observation of All Souls’ Day gave birth to the visual language of the Día de los Muertos. On a day filled with flowers and sugar skulls, families feast in graveyards. On this day above all days, life and death are not binary opposites but two phases of a single existence. Our deceased loved ones are closer than we sometimes let ourselves think. Death is perhaps not an enemy to be feared but simply a travel guide.
In one way or another, each of the stories in this collection is a meditation upon death. Please take the time to slow down and enjoy them. As you read, you may hear soft strains of music sound in your ear. Don’t be afraid. It’s only the music of la danza de la Muerte.
We are already dancing the dance, whether we want to or not. Millions have danced it before us. It’s my hope that these stories might even help you learn a step or two.
La Noche de Los Muertos
Tonight was La Noche de Los Muertos on planet Oscuro. As the sun set, the heavy mists that swirled around the planet gave off a faint green glow. Riposa Barros watched as a hush fell over the human visitors to Oscuro. Moments before the group of desperate seekers, cynical reporters and the idle curious had been like any other crowd. A bubble of noise on this lonely planet. But now they knew. Each of the dozen-odd years Riposa had been here, the crowd always knew when it started and fell silent.
The Calacas were coming.
One heard them before one saw them. A susurrus felt in the back of the brain, almost an absence of sound rather than a sound. They came through the glowing mists, impossibly tall figures, Goya-esque elongations the off-white color of old bones. They wore no clothes. They had no distinguishing sexual characteristics at all. Even a trained xenologist like Riposa had trouble telling the difference between individuals. They moved toward the unsettled human crowd, children’s drawings of skeletons come to life.
Save for the skulls. The Calacas had no eyes, no nose, only two shallow depressions and a pinched peak the same bone color as the rest of their form. Their mouths were roughly oval, with dozens of bone squares that fluttered in the black opening. In all the years she had studies the creatures, Riposa had never heard the Calacas speak. At least not as humans spe ak.
The Calacas moved with purpose, the crowd parting to let them through. Occasionally one of them would stop at a waiting human and rest the rounded stump of a hand on the person’s shoulder. There seemed to be no reason why one was chosen and another not. A man who minutes ago was a half-drunk gawker might be chosen when a woman whose eyes glowed with belief might be passed by.
At last the hundred or so Calacas had all chosen. Guiding their humans with a gentle pressure on the shoulder, the Calacas moved back into the mists. The pairs disappeared into the soft green glow two by two. Leaving those left behind to wonder, as Riposa always wondered, why that one and not me. A question the Calacas never answered.
* * *
The brave and dashing Captain of the Fleet
Once boldly went where others feared to tread;
He sailed the stars, a girl in every port,
But now he sails the lonely void instead.
The Calaca led Noya Aleser deep into the swirling mists, until it seemed the entire universe consisted of only her and the strange creature. It stopped so suddenly that Noya almost bumped into its skeletal frame. The Calaca turned to face her. Noya could sense its expectation, although there was no expression on its face. With some embarrassment, Noya realized what it wanted. She fished in her travel pack for a moment, and then held out her husband’s golden rank pin.
A long tongue so purple as to be almost black snaked its way out of the Calaca’s mouth. The three lobes at the end of the tongue picked up the insignia. Noya fought against the impulse to snatch her hand away, even though the tongue never quite touched her hand. At last the tongue withdrew into the Calaca’s mouth, taking the pin with it. Its tile teeth swirled and fluttered as if it were savoring the taste of the pin. And then the promised change happened.
It was like a vidscreen receiving a transmission from a distant station. The Calaca blinked dark and flickered and glowed so brightly that Noya had to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, there stood before her Captain of the Fleet Abbas Aleser, Order of the Golden Cluster, deceased. Her husband.
Noya stared at him, speechless. The replication was perfect. The same brown hair, parted on the left. The same stunning blue eyes. The same dimples on his cheeks, the same rakish smile. She could even ignore the fact that he wasn’t breathing.
“Noya.”
Noya felt her heart melt as it always did when he said her name. It was why she always forgave his long absences and ignored the rumors of his women out among the stars.
“They meant nothing to me. Momentary distractions. You’re the one I always come home to.”
Except for the time he didn’t. Lost in space, the admiral had said. A hero, a credit to the service. He had left her the last time and was never coming back.
“Forget about that. Let’s enjoy what time we have this night. Give me a chance to make it right. Give me a chance to give you a proper goodbye.”
Noya fell against her husband’s chest and cried as his arms wrapped around her.
* * *
The Lady Widowed Young could still turn heads
And wealthy suitors strove to catch her eye.
She married and divorced, but can’t escape
The embrace of Death no matter how she tries.
No one had been more surprised than Dasras Mudali when one of the Calacas chose him and drew him into the mists. He had been there to vid the selection and interview people afterwards. None of the chosen had ever talked to the media about their experiences, but he knew they would talk to him. He was famous.
And now he was given the chance to see it all in person. He was going to make a fortune. Sell the footage to the news feeds. Auction it off to the highest bidder. And the interview and speaking fees afterwards.
He kept his handheld vidcam trained on the back of the Calaca’s head. He hoped the lighting was good enough. He had refused the offer of a cameraman when he took this assignment. A handheld would give the piece a more intimate feel, he had argued. More money for him when he got his story. It reminded him of the days when he was just starting out. A traveling journalist working on spec.
He was so lost in the past that he didn’t realize the Calaca had stopped. He trembled in spite of himself at his near contact with the creature. Creepy things. Its eyeless face seemed to stare at Dasras. He panned the handheld slowly up and down its body. Gruesome. The masses would eat this up.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have an offering for you. Perhaps you’d like to say something to the viewing public?”
Quicker than Dasras could react, the thing’s tongue reached out, snatched his vidcam from his hand and pulled it into his mouth. Dasras blinked in disbelief and then cursed. The handheld vidcam had been a gift, from his mother. Her old one, mind you, bit it had certainly helped him get his sta―
Dasras’s eyes grew wide at the form now standing in front of him. A full head smaller than he was, yet she always made Dasras feel like he was six years old.
“Dasri, I’m very disappointed in you.”
Dasras’s back went stiff. “You’re not real. You’re a figment of my imagination. A trick of the aliens.”
The image of his mother dabbed at her eyes, the folds of her chin shaking in sobs Dasras knew to be fake. “A fine way to talk to the woman who bore you in her womb for nine months. I may be dead, but I would have thought I still deserved your respect.”
“Respect? When father died, you went traipsing across the universe, chasing after every billionaire within three decades of your age. Either way.” Dasras took a breath, his face flushed, his pulse pounding. If it was just a trick, why was he getting so angry?
“That money put you through University. I even gave you your first vidcam when you threw that all away to go into journalism. And I see the thanks I get.”
“I am not having this conversation. I refuse to believe in you.”
But the visitation of his mother stayed with Dasras all night.
* * *
The Playboy flew from star to golden star,
Each wonder seemed more boring than the last.
When wealth and privilege proved to not suffice,
He found his final stop was quite a blast.
Wu Xi Wang smiled like a little girl as the Calaca led her into the glowing mists. This was way better than her travel agent had promised. So atmospheric. The strange environment of an alien planet. The creepy skeletal form of the Calacas. And now she had been chosen by one of the creatures for their weird ritual.
This was too cool. An Jin was going to be so jealous.
Xi Wang waited for a long time in front of the Calaca. She had heard rumors about what would happen next, but she had no offering for the alien. She hadn’t expected to be chosen. But then again, no one knew why some people were chosen and others not. She had paid a lot of money to be here. It was only right that the alien recognize all the sacrifices and inconveniences she had endured to get to this backwater nothing of a planet.
She shifted on her feet, the silence weighing on her more and more. Much longer and this would get tedious. She watched the Calaca, looking for some sign of emotion. Some sign of something. It just looked at her blankly, and that unsettled her more than the silence.
At last its tongue lashed out. Xi Wang shivered as the Calaca took the earring from her right ear. That didn’t make any sense. Her earrings had been a gift from An Jin, her younger brother. He had been enjoying a galactic cruise and now was on a ship heading for Old Earth to visit their grandmother.
Xi Wang stared as the Calaca flickered into An Jin’s form. So the stories were wrong. The aliens could take forms other than those of the dead. Even as the thought occurred to her, Xi Wang knew it was wrong. An Jin was dead. She let out a cry of grief, a cry swallowed up by the mists.
* * *
Riposa watched the Calacas walk into the mists with their chosen. She had been here over twelve years, studying the aliens on their own world. Over twelve years, and she still had no idea why one was chosen and another left.
