guest editor’s note

What we create, why we create, and how we create are pieces of the puzzle that makes up the human condition and existence. This is true of observing art in a museum and of seeing a mural painted on a local downtown building. It is true of the greatest books ever written and of the journals filled with lines upon lines of poetry many of us kept tucked under a pile of books in our teenage-self bedrooms. What we create as human beings is more than just a poem, a photograph, a story, an essay, or a painting. It is part of us and remains as such throughout our lives. That is what I hope you feel as you read these works and view the art in this collection. Let them become part of you as they have been a part of the writers and artists that created them.

When Courtney asked me if I wanted to be the editor for this special online literary and art edition that Our Jackson Home was creating, I was more than happy to oblige. From my days of writing poems and short stories as a child many years ago to my current MFA program at the University of the South, creating and writing have been a part of my life for many years. But what I love more than creating my own art is seeing what those around me create, often trusting us to see their innermost selves and the world as they view it. When choosing what would go into this collection, I wanted to take the time and care to read and study each one just as the authors took the time to create their vision through their works. I allowed myself to become an observer of their worlds, whether that was a downtown Jackson coffee shop, a world unknown, or a world oceans away. I was taken through their emotions, their lives, and their memories with such care, and I can only hope that I did that justice in my selections. We had an overwhelming response to this opportunity, and I hope that we are able to make this happen again in the future because what I have learned is that through this, I have seen the heart and soul of Jackson that truly makes it Our Jackson Home.

Thank you to Courtney Searcy and to everyone who submitted something. It was truly a wonderful experience to see the creators and creativity of the Jackson community.

–Kristy Sherrod, Guest Editor

Kristy Sherrod has had a love of writing since a simple short story assignment was given to her in the 7th grade, where she promptly decided to write a horror themed short story. She has been writing in multiple genres ever since. Her no-nonsense approach to writing focuses on a variety of topics including Southern-based (especially West Tennessee based) short stories, personal essays, women’s equity, social justice, religion, travel, nature, and local topics of interest. Kristy has taught literature, creative writing, technology, and law in her 15 years as an educator and currently works as an Instructional Coach at South Side High School with the Jackson-Madison County School System. She graduated in 2002 from Lambuth University, and holds two education graduate degrees from Freed-Hardeman University. Kristy also holds a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Southern California and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the Sewanee School of Letters at The University of the South.

poetry

You’re so strong
You’re such a strong person
I wish I was strong like you
These words (although appreciated) hit shallowly as I stand dumbfounded that people believe they apply to me
but I
I have no belief that they are true.
Years of survival mode, trauma piled on trauma pushed deep within the chasm in my chest, created a monster that thrives on chaos and madness - eating through peace like a starving child
It keeps my mind from still waters where respite resides - churns up the deep - clouds my thoughts and hides the truth.
The truth
I am afraid of being alone.
Not alone - as in lonesome or in solitude - but alone with myself - my ego, my two sided coin of a heart that once shone in the light but has been tempest tossed- worn and etched by waves that have overwhelmed me, drowned me and pounded me low -beneath the flood of self proclaimed doubt and shame, overwhelmed by should haves and could haves and maybes.
Strong would have said no,
Strong would have walked away,
Strong would have not been subjected, dejected, rejected and overthrown from a platform of safety.
No, I am not strong - I am fortified - fortified by wisdom, fortified by grace, fortified because I know where my strength lies,
Not in myself but in the one who formed me, the one who knew my path, the one who created me to endure it, to survive it and to share it with those who are less fortunate than I - The ones that are drowning with no hope of surviving alone.
Native of Jackson TN, Union Alumni and mother of four, Kimberly Evans has always had a passion for the literary arts, fine arts and languages and enjoys creating whenever her schedule allows.
Greetings from Jackson, Tennessee.
-the mural that watches me from inside turntable coffee counter
summer evenings are hot, murky
the sticky stain of Southern sweat
stays with you, your textiles
ruined silks in shades of chartreuse-
libations lining the base of pots, terracotta
as whimsical vines cascade aimlessly
over their rims searching for the pot of gold-
happy endings avoided

elusive as New York, Heron
much like the average teen yearning for adulthood,
horrified of what the journey would reveal
courthouse square riddled with reminders
of history's flaws, triumphs-
imperfect images form blockades
alongside concrete giants confederate martyrs
bearing the ridicule of a failed coup d'etat

eyes wide open as Gil gives me the nod
because Whitey's on the moon and the city
is at odds over of public education, seeking
to be mutually exclusive
still Eliza Wood traipses through the spirits
of visitors, intrigued by horrific tales
stand in the shadow of Carl's blue suede
records spin while Super Wolf serenades
the Queen, LaSalle's blues gives us something
to pine over
as we question downtown's views.
A native of Orange Mound, Tennessee, Chandra Maclin is a lifelong learner, and an avid writer. The West Tennesse educator enjoys traveling and sports. She's a member of various organizations including The Griot Collective of West Tennessee.
Do you remember in the summer
We picked blackberries behind my house
Until the sky turned purple
Like the stains around our mouths
In the glow of a jar of lightning bugs
We thought we would never leave
Do you remember in the fall
Friday nights and stadium lights
Sneaking out of windows
To bonfires in the filed
Nervous smiles and butterflies
I finally held your hand that night
Do you remember in the winter
When we saw that play downtown
Across from the Greyhound station
We walked along past the courthouse
Christmas Eve with my grandmother
After breakfast at that old country store
Do you remember in the spring
We drove north for strawberries
They looked like seeded rubies
We couldn’t wait for weekends at the festival
But you left town in the summer
And I haven’t seen you since
Yesterday, someone asked me if I remembered
When the columns were still trees
I said that I did
There used to be blackberries there
Daniel Deschenes was born and raised in Jackson, Tennessee. He hopes to help those struggling with addiction to better understand their disease through writing. In his spare time, Daniel likes black coffee, spooky movies, and Stephen King paperbacks
Losing Faith
You mentioned that due to faulty wiring, you'd vacated the vintage house
you'd lived in so long. I’d always admired its tidiness: clean gutters,
a swept porch, touched-up paint. As we chatted you kicked your toe
at a stinging nettle sprouting through a crack in the sidewalk.
The vehemence of the gesture surprised me.
After we spoke, a clamor of distant fire engines erupted
following a muffled boom. I didn’t investigate, busy tending
my garden. I found myself wondering how old houses are rewired—
how much time the task takes, what tools and skills are required—
certain that restoration would be worth the work.
Witnesses placed you at the fire—said when you saw smoke seeping
from a window in your old house, instead of hollering for help
you lit a stick of dynamite and tossed it inside. So much for the slow,
painstaking work of preservation. Craving the thrill of destruction,
you wanted only to watch that house burn to the ground.
Patricia L. Hamilton, author of the poetry collection The Distance to Nightfall (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2014), is a professor of English at Union University. She won the 2015 and 2017 Rash Award in poetry and has received three Pushcart Prize nominations. Recent work has appeared in Slant, The Ekphrastic Review, Prime Number Magazine, Plainsongs, Reformed Journal, and Innisfree Poetry Journal.
“Now you are a broken seal, a scarlet stain upon the earth”
Che sanza speme vivemo in disio
I.
אדמה
adamah
When dust was dust
and only dust,
Broiling, bending, beneath earth’s broken crust
Without possibility, without recollection and shape,
“It is good.” He said.
But that was then,
Into the blind world let us now descend.
II.
אדם
adam
In the Scythian wild, bound in chains,
The trickster potter bellows his grievances
To the oceanids,
non ciascun segno
É buono, ancor che buona sia la cera.
Fire!
The brown stench of sepia carpet stains
“No smoking allowed”
Bought another pack at Pandora’s Tobacco on 3rd and 5th.
“Emphymesa’s average life expectancy is 5 years.”
A cigarette smolders in between sofa cushions—
Numbed, she fumbles, slumps and forgets.
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
III.
דם
dam
A trampled rose underfoot left an inveterate
Stain on your sole, but you pressed on
Dragging the rose-blood across the desiccated earth
Assuming the soil is mute, petrified by drought,
Assuming the soil is a stranger to the rose, unfeeling.
J’ai plus de souvenirs que si j’avais mille ans.
J’ai plus de souvenirs…
J’ai plus…
Grace Mullin is a local writer with a love for acorn squash soup. When she isn’t writing, you can find Grace teaching literature to high school students or listening to podcasts while baking sourdough.
My anxiety is a Chihuahua
It snarls and shudders at threats, real and imagined.
It’s a tiny terror, an outsized demand on my energy.
I didn’t choose this creature; it just showed up one day
With no discernable purpose.
It barks and yips at the doorbell.
What if someone wants to visit?
It barks and yips at the phone.
What if it’s bad news?
It barks and yips at my music..
SHUT UP YOU STUPID DOG.
But once I recognized it as a Chihuahua
I could talk back to it.
Yes, I might get off the interstate at the wrong exit.
Now hush, dog.
Yes, that stranger might be too cheerful and talkative.
Now hush, dog.
Yes, something horrible might happen.
SHUT UP, YOU STUPID DOG.
You can just sit there and tremble and be quiet and I’ll feed you your diet of intrusive thoughts and high adrenaline television and when we get home.
I could fight the Chihuahua, but that won’t work. Anxiety plays dirty.
So I put it in a cute outfit and tote it around with me.
When I remember my anxiety is a Chihuahua,
I know I will tend my tiny, unchosen companion and keep it calm
As best I can
And know that it’s not the boss of me.
Mostly.
Mary Beth Eberle Current pastor of Grace UMC, and formerly a language teacher of almost 20 years, Mary Beth likes being lost in her thoughts and doing whatever seems interesting at the time. She and her family live in the country with lots of animals and thankfully no Chihuahuas.
(for Prof. Rogers)
His office was a confessional: a straight-backed chair
facing his, the room ringed with rows of books (he’d probably
read them all) like silent witnesses. Twice a year
I’d slink through the door and drop my backpack, knee bouncing
while he skimmed my course list for next semester (had to
sign off on it). He stared through wireframes and into me
in search, I suppose, of potential. “What,” he would ask,
“have you been reading?” And I (too ashamed to admit
I no longer picked up books if they weren’t for class)
fumbled and declared my love for Homer, Beowulf—all things
covered in World Lit I. He looked back at my course list.
“Then you’d like 19th century Russian realists. Read
Anna Karenina over the summer.”
I thought I knew better, so I didn’t. But now
Russian has become a byword. Fierce-eyed triumphs lie
in waste on the altar of a tyrant’s ambitions and I think
perhaps it is time to read Anna Karenina.
Stephanie Traylor has been a Jackson dweller since 2011. Some of her favorite things are early morning sunlight, the smell of her church, a cup of hot decaf coffee in the evening (with or without dessert), and her feline companions. She likes her hopes, dreams, and feelings like she likes her Sonic drinks: large.
Saturday morning
Me and Coletrain
Doing our thang
Him blowing the beat
Me tapping my feet
Jazz me in the morning
all day long
Mercer Me
Jazz for me!
Monk my funk
It’s a Coltrane thang
Some other blues
Miles in blue and green
Jazz me
Hampton vibes; wild
Horns make me Dizzy
I take 5, after I take 6
After 7
til round midnight
Jazz me
Lalah as has her way
Ferrell hands keys to
Nina who sings
of fruit in trees
Minnie ripples a note
Jazz me
A Manhattan transfer
To A Harlem hootch
And some Ella and Cab and Billie
Pearl too, after hours
when speaking is easy
Jazz me
Some Jureuue scattting with
George as he Ben-
Some notes on his finder
Jazz me
While Wayman tends tha bass
Art holds the Message
Charlie parks it
Jazz me
rhythm arranged by Q
Handcocked, Waylumed, Marsalis’d
Jazz me as I Dream in pieces
About home
and beats that ring my soul
Jazz me
As I and fly with Mother’s pioneers
Nduduzo carries me there
On a night cloud of notes
Somi makes them soft as my pillow
On a Stormy Monday
Like Stan, I Getz it
Jazz me
Like a Cannonball
Mercy, mercy, Mercy
Just
Jazz me.
About Bill Marable
My mother used to say “self boasts is self scandalizing.” She implored my 9 siblings and I to let our good deeds and accomplishments speak for themselves. Therefore, I am not going to say that I am an aspiring poet. However, on the contrary, I will say that my poetry has been published in several publications over the years including: The Coffee House Letters (Lambuth College), The Skinny Poetry Anthology and most recently The Pierian Literary Journal (Albany State University).
I’ve amassed a number of “Honorable Mentions” in poetry contest locally as well as on the National level: The 2019 Nubianpoets.com National Poetry Month Contest, and the Jackson State Community College ‘Spilled Ink’ 2022 edition.
But, I also garnered a number of rejections over the years as well.
More than thirty years ago, I joined The Griot Writers Association in Jackson, TN which was a local poetry workshop. Over the years the organization as evolved into The Griot Collective of West Tennessee and is spearheaded by James E. Cherry. The monthly workshops have been a great learning tool and Cherry encouraged the members to seek other avenues to help enhance our writing skills.

Elaina Fuller is a local multimedia artist whose work often features themes of the domestic, everyday life, womanhood, and motherhood. Her work highlights everyday moments that become special when captured at just the right moment, or with just the right lighting.

NONFICTION

For mama and all the voices past.
For many, it’s just a bottle. It seems old, so one might be deceived about monetary value. I know better. It’s just old, and its value comes from the intangible, the figurative, making the artifact priceless to my family and especially to me, its most recent guardian. The design is simple enough: an empty, translucent bottle with a stopper that is uniquely functional, neither cork nor screw-top exactly but impenetrable nonetheless and fused in place as is necessary for its ultimate purpose: piecrusts. Well, to be clear, a rolling pin. I grew up with this bottle and its palpable significance. As the story goes, the bottle itself is the only artifact we have left from my great-grandmother. Throughout my childhood, the bottle lay shrouded in mystery and carefully tucked away from the haphazard, tumultuous grasps of curious children except for once a year when it seemed to beckon all female representatives of the tribe for a two-day ritual: Thanksgiving. Each year, the bottle would be ceremoniously unveiled and dutifully guarded as a relic of mythical proportions by the members of the oldest living generation. At first, I was more curious about what would happen if misfortune befell the delicate device and would spend most of Thanksgiving concocting tales of tragic, symbolic destruction as both the bottle and the woeful protagonist battled against their fateful demise. But curiosity and misunderstanding eventually led to respect, admiration, and a desire to wield the famed talisman of our clan.
Thus, I determined to learn the craft, master the technique, and become the awe-inspiring maker of the piecrust—an honor bestowed upon only the worthiest of progeny. Even as a child, I knew that any failure in this esteemed position was tantamount to sacrilege, but I would ultimately learn that this role symbolizes the weight of our tradition, our collective history, and our profound responsibility for the survival of our definitive nature and characteristic ideals. I spent a decade as my mother’s apprentice, but I never reached mastery and would not make it through a Thanksgiving without needing her help, her direction, her unfailing rescue. Now, however, my mother is gone. I am now the only one left who knows how to make the piecrusts, and the famed relic has passed to me. However, after my mother’s passing, the bottle only served to mockingly force a critical inventory and the conclusion that I simply was not worthy. I began to see my reflection in its frame, distorted like carnival glass, highlighting every fault, shortcoming, and insecurity. I put it away not out of care or protection but out of contempt. Thanksgiving, however, eventually came and with it obligation. We resolved to honor the Thanksgiving ritual as our duty, our ultimate homage to my mother and the generations who went before her. I, however, continued out of a failing sense of responsibility coupled with an unrelenting memory of a promise, my last promise to my mother: “we’ll take it from here.” The words were originally said with unfailing resolve, but two short months of harsh reality had weakened the refrain. I had no desire to be the master anymore.
Yet, as my mother’s daughter, I persisted, fumbling and anxious at first. I wielded the mighty talisman—the full weight finally realized. My hands began sifting, kneading, correcting, and seasoning, painfully aware that one set of hands would no longer gently cover my own to guide technique, demonstrate consistency and texture associated with each phase of the process. My jaw set, my shoulders squared, and my brain could only focus on reminding my body to breathe. Hope Shelby’s daughter cannot fall apart; there is a dinner to make and children to teach and stories to tell and a family to serve. So, I endured, vigorously, almost cathartically, as every physical motion evoked and forcibly processed memories and sentiments I had been trying to subdue, to silence. Eventually, I began to function adeptly with hands and instincts and knowledge that were not my own but rather belonged to every woman in my family who had wielded that bottle, negotiated that sifter, manipulated those ingredients until at last the voices of our ancestors seemed to whisper, “stop, baby girl. It’s ready,” and in that moment I emerged as my mother’s daughter: Jessica Hope Shelby; I bear her name and her very essence is woven in my frame—maker of the piecrusts, keeper of the stories, and guardian of the generations.
Jessica Plunk I am the proud mother of three extraordinary children--Shelby, Hayden, and Andrew--and the wife of Chad Plunk, a diligent and compassionate man. I am also a passionate, dedicated educator for Jackson Madison County School system. I've served as a teacher for the past 13 years, achieving many professional accolades but more importantly being continually transformed by the plight and perseverance of each generation of students.

FILM STILL | Angela D. Lee

Angela D. Lee is a professor, designer and artist. She uses video installation and photography to create work about ancestry, identity and the search for a Homeplace.

fiction

Rembey Uhuru studied the cliffs and rock faces. A thick fog was collecting along the mountain trail, masking the cliffs and crevasses around them in a blanket of white. There were five hundred Steel Saviors at her back, following her lead. All of them were mounted, except Rem and the tired laborers trudging along in the rear, pulling the reins of pack mules carting building materials and supplies for the garrison, paid with only vague promises of sentence reduction or pardons.
“How much longer until we reach the valley? Don’t tell me we’ll have to camp on rocks again,” Sir Oakley said in a typical Eroklind drawl.
“I do not think so,” Rem said.
“You do not think so? What’s that supposed to mean? Can you not know for sure? I thought you people were experts at this,” Sir Oakley said.
“Think you could lead us through the mountains, Oak,” Elder Lucian asked. “We’ll get there when we get there. Just follow our guide and mind the gaps.”
“If it wasn’t for this fog, we could see where we’re going. This mountain range is huge. There are bound to be faster ways to get through,” Oakley said with a frustrated huff.
Of course there are faster ways.
She didn’t dare show the Saviors the tunnels underneath the mountains. As children, Rem and her friends used to play hide and seek in its dark, narrow corridors. Sometimes her younger brother, Romelu, would try to play along with the older kids, but always ended up getting lost and scared in the darkness. She would have to leave her friends to find him before their father found out what they were doing. She longed for the days when getting into trouble for adventuring was her biggest worry.
If they knew about the catacombs, they would only flood this land faster.
The Steel Saviors forced a treaty upon her father, High Chief Ramsey Uhuru, though they might as well have held a knife to his throat. Now all of the Uhuru lands were swarmed with white people wearing red and blue crosses and stars. Unlike the Searran traders or gypsy medicine men, the Eriks came to take over, plow the land, and construct their castles. The first settlers wasted no time bringing their “civilization” to Rem’s people. Spreading servitude and disease, leaving burning villages in their wake and calling it peace.
“The mountains are alive. They shift and move their passageways as they see fit,” Rem said. “They decide who enters the Forbidden Garden, not us.”
“That’s all you people ever talk about. Everything is alive. Everything has a spirit,” Oakley said. The loudmouthed knight was short and stubby but swelled with confidence atop a horse.
“Why do you call it the Forbidden Garden,” Alder asked, galloping his horse forward to catch up with his liege. Alder was Sir Oakley’s squire, a Xhokha boy no older than fifteen. The Steel Saviors would steal the strong and healthy boys from conquered Steppe clans, as they had done with Romelu. Alder was taken while still at his mother’s breast and carried to look of his Xhokha clan but knew none of their culture, not even his birth name.
“Alder, you know yer people have superstitions about everything,” Sir Oakley said. “You can’t as much pluck a blade of grass without them bemoaning the ground. Like that comet the night before we left. The mallies swore up and down that it was a bad omen. I piss on their omens.”
“I heard a washerwoman tell some children the Garden was filled with monsters who protect the trees,” Alder said. “How are we going to build anything if we can’t cut the trees down?”
Elder Lucian laughed at that.
“Ah, the innocence of youth. I’ve heard those tales myself. You have nothing to fear, young squire, we have the protection of God on our side,” said Elder Lucian, clutching the silver bell around his neck. He looked too young to be a cleric, his face wasn’t yet wrinkled like the others and he moved with a spryness his clergymen peers did not possess.
She heard tales of Elder Lucian before their march. A man wholly devoted to his god, a man the knights followed without question. Until today, Rem managed to keep her distance, as nothing is more dangerous than a man who speaks for the gods.
“I’m curious to learn the nuances of your people’s culture, Rembey. If we find common ground we can surely end the animosity between Eroklind and the Steppe people. So much hostility and resentment on both sides.”
“The Steel Saviors rode into our land with swords and torches,” Rem said. “Your knights burned entire villages and killed thousands.”
“My child, you must understand, God granted us dominion over all lands. If you were more open-minded-”
“How open-minded would you be after having your family killed and your land snatched from under your feet?”
“To my knowledge, there are no laws here regarding land ownership, and your people are not as helplessly innocent as you make them out to be. Long before the crusade, many crimes were committed against our missionaries. Your people brought this upon themselves. The Steel Savior must protect God’s congregation, and like it or not, you’re aiding God’s will by seeing us through these mountains.”
“I know what your god demands, blind commitment and blood. Without a common enemy to conquer, your congregation will turn on each other and consume itself. I will happily lead you to the end of the earth to expedite that inevitability.”
“I too was angsty youth. Tell me, how old are you, Rembey?”
“Twenty.”
“And still unmarried? Such a waste, with those hips,” Lucian said. “Perhaps that’s why your father sent you off with us. To find a proper Erik suitor. You’re quite the treasure, after all, the key to the Steppe with a proper understanding of our tongue.”
“My people understand your language more than you realize,” Rem said. “We have been forced to sit through your bullshit Holy Order sermons for years.”
Sir Oakley rushed his horse between Rem and Elder Lucian.
“Do you want me to shut her up? I won’t ride idly by while some mally disrespects our God and our mission,” Oakley said to Elder Lucian, staring knives into Rem. “In Eroklind, women are taught to be respectful and mild-mannered towards men. Especially men of God. You are here to serve. You should be thankful for our protection.”
“This is not Eroklind,” Rem said. “But I am thankful. I am thankful I was not born in a culture where women are little more than possessions. Every white woman I have seen has been barefoot and with child.”
Oakley spurred his horse in front of Rem, forcing her to halt. The wild thought of fleeing crossed her mind. She could rip this bastard from his horse and ride away. Even on the mountain trails, she could easily lose the envoy, but the thought of Home being put to the sword kept her still.
“Listen here, you bitch. We won. You mallies lost,” Oakley said, spitting at Rem. He drew his sword and aimed the tip at her face. “Understand?”
Don’t say it.
“I understand,” Rem said, noticing the knight’s horse dancing dangerously close to the edge of a steep crevasse. “I understand if you bear your steel at me again, I’ll take that knife on your belt and shove it down your throat. Now get back in formation before you hurt yourself.”
Oakley gnashed his teeth and swung his blade at Rem, his face red with anger.
“My lord, don’t,” Alder shouted, spurring his horse between them.
The sudden movement startled Oakley’s stallion, causing his beast to rear back in surprise. The knight screamed for help as his horse lost traction against the loose rock underfoot and slipped off the cliffside, disappearing into the fog. The bloody crunch of beast, man, and metal crashing echoed through the mountainside soon after.
Elder Lucian began reciting a prayer while Alder stared down the cliffside, his mouth gaping open. The members of the envoy close enough to witness the accident stood motionless, waiting to be given orders.
“Once we reach the garrison, I will send men to recover Sir Oakley,” Elder Lucian said after finishing his prayer.
“You cannot retrieve a body from a crevasse. He’s lost, forever–”
“We will give Sir Oakley proper sending and burial. One deserving of a knight with his devotion and faith,” Elder Lucian said in a threatening tone Rem didn’t know he was capable of producing. “And when we get to camp, you will be punished for your blasphemous provocation.”
Elder Lucian called for help and two knights rode to the front, both of them clad in identical red, white and blue surcoats, one holding a long pike and the other bearing the Steel Savior’s stars and bars standard.
“Holy knights, collar and leash this woman. We can’t have her escaping before atoning for her sins. Oh, and remove her shoes. She must feel God’s earth beneath her feet.”
The first knight produced a leather collar from his saddlebag and laced it around Rem’s neck, still damp with the sweat of some poor soul who wore it before her, securing it to his saddle with a short, thick rope. A second knight removed her boots before binding her wrists with cold, iron shackles.
“Now walk in silence, girl, as you should have before,” Elder Lucian said. “If you speak another word, I’ll have your barbed tongue cut out and drag you by that golden ring in your nose.”
The remaining descent was quiet, arduous, and painful. Her feet were raw, bloody pulps by the time they reached the Forbidden Garden. Luckily its soft grass was more forgiving than the rocky terrain of the mountains. The fog following their caravan had yet to subside, however, masking the vast land in an orange cloud once dusk settled in. Elder Lucian announced they would not be making camp, rather they would continue throughout the night until they reached the Steel Savior garrison. Rem heard grumbling behind her but no clear voice of dissent as they trudged on well into twilight.
“Worry not, the guidance of God will light our path now.”
Torches would help more.
The fog refused to concede, making the slow march through the valley seem no different than the trek through the mountain, with the only light stemming from the scant few torches behind her.
Rem was resigned to her fate, knowing all too well what would happen when they reached the Steel Savior camp. She hoped her death would be swift and clean, but that was not the Saviors’ way. First, they would strip her down and put her in a cage. She would be given false opportunities to repent, but it would only be met with increasingly brutal flagellation. Rem would never give them the pleasure of hearing her beg for mercy. She would remain unapologetic and unwavering and would die a proud Uhuru, unbowed and unbroken.
I will curse their bloodthirsty god and ask them the names of every child they killed in his name. The Uhuru will never live as complacent livestock. We are the hunters.
Rem heard noises over the hill, but these weren’t the typical sounds of an encampment. It was the sound of heavy horses and the rising roar of a warcry.
“We’re not far now, my sons,” Elder Lucian said. “I can hear our brothers on the other side of the hill–”
As the words left Elder Lucian's mouth he was struck in the neck by an arrow and before anyone could react a hundred more arrows rained down from the darkness.
Shadows riding horses crashed into their envoy. The first shadow took Elder Lucian through the chest with his blade, followed by what looked to be a hundred more, clad in chain armor, breastplates, and steel helmets, wielding lance and spears and flame, all wearing surcoats of red, white, and blue. Another shadow impaled the man to her right, taking him off his horse while still tethered to the rope and collar locked at Rem’s neck, pulling her flat on her back. The shadows threw pitch firebombs in every direction, pushing the barrier of darkness back by the light of burning wagons, horses, and screaming men. Neither soldier nor slave was immune to the massacre. The shadows levied vicious blows upon the once hardened travelers, now nothing more than sobbing infants crying for their mothers, feebly waving their hands and soiling themselves. Some men tried to fight back, but most turned tail and fled, but none were unable to outrun the darkness at their heels. A storm of lance and steel and arrow and fire engulfed every possible direction, consuming and killing with all the force of an unforgiving act of nature.
Rem tried to get to her feet but the rope tightened and dragged her back. She rolled to her knees, choking and trying to catch her breath through the sound of screams and burning flesh. The rope tightened again, pulling her into a spoked wagon wheel. She heard the loud crack of her leash snapping on the other side, then felt the tension release as she lost consciousness.
Austin Brown I was a juvenile and adolescent delinquent. After getting out of jail at 19, I worked as a movie theater projectionist and line cook until I was saved by being hired as a chef at ComeUnity Cafe. Despite barely passing high school, I’ve always loved reading about history and writing stories. This is a chapter from a novel that I’ve been writing for years.