James's Strange Eons

Ted stood at the top of the well, stick in one hand, arms crossed over his chest. The well had been more than half grown over with weeds and vines, and they'd spent nearly an hour pulling it all back, revealing the rotten wood that still only half covered it. They'd broken off and pulled back as much of the wood as they could. The wood was sick with the slick, wet rot of having been submerged in stagnant water for too long - alternately hard and liquid, uneven in its decay. Their hands and shirts were covered with the stink of it, and JC had a streak of it across his forehead.   Ted had taken up his position the first time they saw something stir under the water. He gripped the stick loosely in his fist. It was a good stick - it was solid pine and fit neatly in his fist. He had left it out in a chalk circle under the full moon for three nights, and had hidden it under his pillow for two more, whispering to it wicked fantasies of rage and violence. He hadn't hit an

"You care too much what other people think," Ted said, whipping the stick off into the woods. "You can't be so nice that no one hurts you, Jay. People don't 'get what they deserve' - they get what they get."  JC hauled his bike upright and threw one leg over it. "I know." "Do you? Cuz you spent a lot of time trying to be nice to that Archon-loving jerk. Time that could've been spent getting closer to the King." JC looked down at his meaty 8-year old hands gripping the rubber of his bike-handles. "I'm not nice so they won't hurt me, Ted."  "That's a load of poop."  JC stared at his hand, tightening on the handle. "I care what people think because if I don't the whole thing unravels. If you don't care what other people think, the only thing that's left is what I think. If I don't care what other people think, they stop mattering. They stop being people and just becom

Ted leaned the BMX bike against the wall of the shed, seeing JC's bike laying splayed on the ground a few feet away. He took a moment to root around in the undergrowth of the spindly pine near-by, getting himself a stout branch about a foot and a half in length. He gave it an experimental swing. JC was too trusting with too much belief in a just universe that would preserve the well intentioned. Ted was under no such illusions. A hundred backyard brawls over the course of his six years of life had cured Ted of that dangerous optimism. He knew that behind every smiling child was a ravenous wolf looking for an excuse.  He walked around the corner of the shed, and saw JC kneeling on the ground, looking at a small construction of sticks and twine. At a quick glance it looked like an attempt at making a Tee-pee for action figures, but as Ted got closer he could start to make out the knots and lashes. There was a disturbing pattern woven into the twine, and the knots evoked a gut-ch