The Last Story in the Tale

The Complete Story

This was all in the old west or some long time ago. It was a night after the rain, and there it was a mysterious chill in the air. It was an odd night. There was starlight, and green grass in blue light. Where did they all come from? There were three tired looking men sitting around a campfire, and there was the wild plains all around them; blade of turquoise grass dancing in the wind.

They smoked cigarettes and stared into the fire.The young one, almost still yet a teenager. He stares into the fire and thinks of thunder and soul.

He holds his gun against the campfire, and fires.

In days much younger than then, the young man was only a boy. Their father was driving a cart. His mother was there, and the horse drew forward on that dirt road.

The young man who then was only a boy sat in the cart with his sisters, his father sitting upfront with his mother sitting beside him.

They made it past field and prairie of dull green grass and unremarkable territories, and mysterious whispering in the air.

The cart wheeled into town, and his father stared at the road instead of the buildings around him. The boy looked out around him, the town, the people, and the sun hit his eye and he fell back in his seat in a daze.

The boy laid his head against his mother's chest, and she looked out at the dirt road, and saw the saloon and all the things that company it.

"I don't see why women have to dress like that," she said and she stroked the boy's hair. He heard his father's cough, and he fell into a dream.

There was the smell of smoke and the sound of snoring. The young man sat beside the campfire, reminiscing about the days long past. It was still night, but almost morning and the chill had not yet left the air.

It was days before he was staring out at the horizon. He alone in the wind out in the plains and the grass and the trees dancing in the wind. He saw the sky change colors, and breathed the lonely smoke of a cigarette he rolled clumsily himself, sometimes even, he woke up in the mornings whiskey drunk. This was it now. His destiny.

In the rainy morning, he awoke half-drunk, half-ashamed. The field were covered in some mists, and a feeling of bewilderment had set in him.

Mud under his boots as he walked some many miles, alone. His clothes wet and damp. His mind somewhere else.

He stole a gun from a prospector that had gone into town. It was all so easy. He slept into an old motel. He lingered peculiarly on a cigarette. No one would know. He thought to himself.

In the dawn, he awoke to empty streets, besides for a horse and a black man in a pork pie hat. He heard the black man whistling to himself, and saw him carrying a coffin.

The young man stopped and poured himself a glass of water.

There was the wind and a long awoken heat set in. It was barely alive.

There was a day; there was an afternoon she told him his father was not his father. No one knew how to play the piano. He stepped into the living room. There was nothing there for him. It was one evening he he found himself in the bed of a prostitute.

"Oh you're hopeless," she said and the hue of her legs were all covered in lingerie and lace, and his suicidal revelries were almost forgotten. "It's just the way things are going to have to be," she said

"I think you enjoy it," he said.

"What's that?" she asked.

"I think you enjoy watching me suffer," he said darkly and a cold wind had settled into the room.

She handed him his slacks, "I need you to go."

"You always have the upper hand," he left with his belt still dangling from his waist.

He was a killer now, there was no going back. In a second, in a flash, he held out his gun and said, "I'm going to kill you now."

It was a rush of air to his head, and a scent of blood caught in still air. He had to hide in bushes, spent nights sleeping in trees, and mornings and evenings stealing water and drink.

The sun rose and set in the land of empty sand and distant wind. It was desert. He was alone. The night was coming, and he felt quite scared. It was a feeling that left him as nearly as quickly as it came.

"It possesses me. I have you in my soul. I can't get my mind off of you." she said this as he watched his pulse, and felt something terrible in him.

He walked alone a long time, he did not know what he would become.