Post by bushwick on Nov 30, 2008 20:23:13 GMT
The Great Wizard of Rustington
by Noah Brown
by Noah Brown
Darren's power had been increasing over the past few months, and he was positive he'd finally paid his dues. He'd performed more complex rites over time, and whilst the effects hadn't been seismic, he'd felt them all the same. Up until now, all his work had been flashy and inconsequential. He hadn't really dug into the other side and affected change – at least, not change on a global scale.
Darren Hynam felt outside of himself, somehow distant and ghostly. He wore a burgundy sweatshirt emblazoned with 'Sweater Shop', now spattered, that seemed to dwarf his narrow-shouldered frame. He had a small head with big lips, dark eyes and dark cropped hair. His large plastic frames and thick lenses gave him the appearance of an owl. As he sat sprawled on his old sofa, freshly stained from the night's ritual, his mind did its best to order the events of the previous few hours. He shivered, drifting further back into the months, near years of obsession that had led to the definitive act. The Ceefax news blankly flickered on the portable TV screen on the floor in front of him, seeming to mock his abilities. He had a few hours yet. It wouldn't have happened straight away, surely. He had time.
The yoghurt factory had started to slim down its workforce in 1996, and in August of that year Darren had lost his job. They'd outsourced a lot of production, so Darren was left at his mum's with no work and a little redundancy money, having been there since he left school in 1990. Over the years, he had gradually gone raving less and less, the drugs no longer having the same effect on him and the whole thing becoming a little tired. From his former obsession came his new one, which began with him taking greater and greater interest in aspects of 'new age' spirituality. Darren had been a keen enthusiast for technology, and not the most popular or sociable lad from school, so was inevitably an 'early adopter' when it came to the Internet. Soon he was delving into all manner of new age forums, his studies straying to areas of magic and paganism. Darren was a real product of the 'Second Summer Of Love', and in some woolly way wanted his efforts to alleviate the suffering of the world.
Darren soon became a student of the occult with a voracious appetite for knowledge, attending fairs across the country and picking up contacts across the world. His drug intake had crept up again, but no longer the mass-market hedonism of his raving days. Now he was a connoisseur, sourcing the finest peyote, Mexican mushrooms and yage from his contacts on the web. They made his increasingly elaborate rituals burn with significance and really settle into his mind. They seemed to somehow 'stick' in the atmosphere for hours afterwards, as if he was developing a psychic photograph in a darkroom.
The cat hadn't been too bad. He was not the biggest fan of blood, but after the initial revulsion, he actually began to enjoy the proceedings. His studies had migrated over the months to the practices of the ancient Aztecs and Mayans, alternated with his growing obsession with Obeah and the dark arts of Africa. To any open-minded serious student who'd got beyond the 'Occult/New Age' section in Waterstones, sacrifice was a reality. A necessity, even, something linking their modern day efforts to thousand of years of human magical endeavour. The terrier and the rabbit had both increased the resonance. Darren could really feel the link with the Ancients, brought on by the feel of dog's innards slippery against his fingers. Over the months he had become more and more comfortable with sacrifice, but only as a tool for the eventual greater good, never for vulgar self-indulgence.
Darren pushed his large glasses up his nose with bloody fingers. There was still no newsflash. He was beginning to feel a surging disappointment, but checked it. His will was a powerful force, and he could not lose it. 'To forfeit one, for the lasting life of many others'. His own flesh and blood, his brother's son. It was half-term, and Darren had known his nephew would be playing in the streets just a few miles away at his home in Littlehampton. Darren had promised him a few goes on his Nintendo Wii.
The reality was an old Super Nintendo made a couple of years before his nephew's birth. He wasn't playing it for long.
Darren started to breathe erratically. He was becoming a lot less calm. His reasons had been selfish, really. Maybe that's why it hadn't seemed to have worked. Ending the war in Iraq and the total surrender of the Taliban. A noble aim, but an expensive, arrogant folly for a practitioner with a little experience. It would have been a great occasion in the journey to world peace, but it wouldn't have brought his half-brother Jerome back. Their mother had been torn to pieces by his death, and didn't look like ever really recovering. The whole thing had been horrible. Darren never wanted another family to go through what they had. Little Aaron would have happily given up his life for that, Darren felt sure, but he hadn't had time to explain it to him. The sirens were deafening now. Darren shook and his face showed the clarity of the situation, as he realised he'd been absent-mindedly weighing up his nephew's severed leg, tapping the roughly-torn shank in his upturned left palm. It had never been enough.
As the door was kicked down and the big men started yelling, Darren remembered the enormous, bottomless vats of chocolate mousse back at the yoghurt factory and started to shriek his tears.
Still, you compose a sentence well. Which is half the task done of becoming a writer.