---

 

enjoy this writing from Allan Onik in the free Down in the Dirt 2014 PDF file chapbook: Major Arcana (click on the front cover image or the title text to download the free PDF file)				You can also order this as a 2014 6" x 9" perfect-bound paperback ISBN# book! Click on the cover spread for the book Major Arcana

Order this writing in the book What Must be Done (a Down in the Dirt July - Dec. 2014 collection book)		get the 372 page July - Dec. 2014 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Death

Allan Onik

    Alfred walked the carnival in the night. Striped tents littered the landscape, and dust blew in the air from the dirt ground.
    “I can’t believe you talked me into this Sebastian,” Alfred said to the butler next to him, “this place is filthy.”
    Alfred wore a red silk suit. The butler wore a tuxedo.
    “Master,” Sebastian said, “even billionaires can enjoy a little fun and games every now and then. With your diagnosis, you may not have much longer for fun. So lighten up! Besides, there’s a reason I dragged you here besides cotton candy. You’ll see. You’ve been a good master to me, and I owe you.”
    “Not much longer eh? I’ll never die. Pancreatic cancer or no.”
    “Sir, you aren’t being very realistic. Let’s go play.”

    Alfred watched a strong man lift a 1000 lb. bar over his head. He ate cotton candy and popcorn, pizza and gumdrops and pie. He watched a lizard man lick a sword, and a woman rest in a glass coffin full of live rats. He noted countless clowns of all different personas. A magician did wondrous tricks in front of him. He saw fire dancers spinning and twirling their fire sticks. He played darts and won a pink, stuffed Teddy Bear. He bobbed for apples and Sebastian threw pie in his face.

    “I’ve never had so much fun in my life!” Alfred cried at the end of the night, “I’m a tired old man. Lets go back to the Manor.”
    “You can’t go back yet, Master. You’ll miss the best part of the fair! It’s the main reason I brought you here.”
    “What on earth are you talking about?”
    “Follow me, sir.”
    Sebastian led the Billionaire to the outskirts of the fair. He pointed to a small wagon that read “Free Psychic Readings.”
    “A psychic?” Alfred cried, “I don’t believe in such nonsense.”
    “Master, she’s one of the best! It took me weeks to track her down. She travels all over the country, and gives readings for free! She’ll give you a reading that’ll change your mind about mystics. That I guarantee.”
    “Well, I suppose.”

    “Alfred. I knew you would come. I can see everyone that’s coming years before they come in. That’s how it works you know. For me at least. All of us are different. And some of us are fakes. Though I can assure you I’m not.”
    Alfred noted that the room glowed blue. He couldn’t spot a blue light bulb.
    “My butler brought me here,” Alfred said. “He seems to think you have some power. I don’t normally believe in the mystical. But tell me, if you can, why am I here?”
    “Alfred,” the Seer said, “your aura glows as a rarity. Think of your parents when you were a child, living at your family’s Manor. The love Alfred! The Creator loves you just as your mother and father did. And now Death looms.”

    The Seer flipped a card off the top of the deck. An image of a skull-faced knight riding a horse covered the card.
    “Death? You know about the cancer? I’m not going to die! I don’t care what the doctors say, or the two faced scum, or the butler. Something like that can’t happen to me, only to others.”
    “You fear and deny Death because it is a great unknown. But Death is not an end Alfred! It is just a change! Like water that dries from a river and goes to the clouds, to be rained again into the river—life is a cycle. All who are born must die. You will drop your body, pass into The Gap, and be born again into a new body! Do not resist, it will only make things worse. Change is for the best, and even the very powerful must fall before The Creator.”
    “I suppose an old man can have his fancies then, even if they are futile.”
    “We are all beings of light Alfred, and we must accept life’s cycles. Time for home, and rest.”

    The Mystic packed up her wagon. Cards were put in order, candles blown out. She put her crystals in their cases, and a cover over her roses. When she opened her boxcar door she could see a rare forest spirit in the distant woods. And then she noticed it. Next to her generator a briefcase sat with a wax-sealed envelope on its top. She laid the case down and opened up the envelope. A card inside read:

    Thank you. My Master is at peace.
    —Sebastian

    Finally, she opened the case. It was stacked entirely with 100-dollar bills.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...