Call of the Muse

I’m recently enticed by a call for submissions issued by The Dark London and Transmission Roundhouse entitled “A curation of audio works from new producers”, serendipitously appearing the day I joined a podcasters support group.

It’s fate, right? I’m thinking about podcasting a novel, and some outfit throws out an opportunity to practice. May 17 deadline. Not impossible.

Now to make a decision — straight-up reading, dramatic reading, or full-on radio play?

Maybe you can help with that. Short story draft appended. Comments invited.

The Mark

            Monica walked in darkness; the only light to be seen that which was coming from herself. Am I glowing?

It was the first time she noticed it. Wisps of fog curled around her ankles. A nice touch, she thought. Spooky.

Leather scraped against bare thighs. She recognized the garment as a Tunica, worn by Roman soldiers in the time of Christ. How did I know what it’s called?

Her hand brushed the pommel of a short sword — a Gladius — the grip slick with condensation. Monica envisioned drawing from the scabbard, only to have the weapon slip from her grasp. Words bounced against thick air. “Whoever’s doing this, it’s less funny by the second.”

She fixed a doorway in her mind’s eye, now countless steps past. There’d been a border, decorated in a language she didn’t recognize. Probably said ‘Abandon hope, ye who enter’. Why did I wander away from the others?

She flexed wings, hesitant about taking flight. I’d lose sight of the ground.

Monica felt a bout of panic coming on. She tugged at a coarse leather strap spanning her left shoulder, securing hammered bronze sheet front and back.

Am I really an Angel?

She shook her wings. They seemed authentic enough.

Her hand touched a nametag, stuck to the breastplate of her armor, and peeled it off.  It said “Hello, I’m __”.  Monica was in cursive, as if written with a Sharpie. They’d all laughed about it, the newly arrived, confused by their predicament. “An artifact of the previous life”, a man in her group said, meant to be “familiar, comforting.” Monica was not comforted. It felt like a cruel joke. She folded the label until she couldn’t bend it anymore, allowing it to slip out of her fingers.

She walked on until she tripped, almost fell, staggered upright and realized what was in her path. Train tracks.

She heard a rumble in the near distance, spied a headlight approaching. “Oh my God, are you kidding me?”

One hand went to her mouth. “Sorry.” Monica stepped off the railbed, strangely calmed by the sheer kitsch of it all. She muttered to the One she hoped was listening, half penitent, the other half defiant. “It’s cliché, but I’m not as scared as I was. So, thank you, I guess.”

A light rail transit engine with a faded paint job lumbered out of the mist. It rolled leisurely past, slow enough for her to take a good look. The operator’s booth was unoccupied. There was only one coach in tow. And now it’s creepy again.

Monica stood on tiptoes as the train squeaked to a stop. The interior was well-lit, windows too high off the ground to see if there were passengers on board.

The center door hissed open. A perforated platform unfolded. Monica looked left and right. “What? Do you expect me to get on? I don’t think I am.”

She waited, cold seeping through sandals, bare toes starting to hurt. The train rolled forward a few inches, and stopped again.

The percussive report from airbrakes made her want to jump back. Instead, she leapt forward, shouting out a change of heart. “Wait! I’m coming.”

Fingers wrapped around a boarding handle. Two more steps and she was through the door.

The interior was shabby but clean. Her chest fluttered at the sight of a lone passenger near the back, a petite gentleman, slender, clean shaven with shiny hair combed straight back, dressed impeccably in what might have been a designer suit, a dark purple tie and crisp white shirt. He wiggled fingers at her. “Hello. Are you Monica?”

“Yes.” Wild, carelessly formed thoughts leapt unbidden to her tongue. “Why don’t you have wings?”

He looked at his hands, countenance blurred. “They were taken from me.”

Monica brought shoulders forward, embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have asked.” She curled wings around as though to hide in them, and spoke to the matter that reason and doctrine dictated she should be most afraid of in the moment. “I hope you won’t tell me your name is Lucifer. That would be upsetting.”

He returned a thin smile. “I repented my sins long ago; I wish I could tell you I was forgiven. Perhaps I was, perhaps not.”

Monica felt sick. Her legs trembled. She steadied herself against seats on either side. Words followed in gasps. “Then why are you here, if not to take me to Hell?”

“I dreamed of a woman dressed like a Roman soldier and woke on a train.” He shrugged. “I imagine we’ve been given a task, but I have no idea what it might be.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” He shook his head. “You’re frightening yourself with this gloomy setting. Perhaps later I can teach you to master your feelings.”

Monica’s mood roller-coastered. She had a sensation that her emotions might indeed be under control, but not by her. She waved a hand in the air. “Isn’t this your doing?”

“No. You’re dominant in this place. I would prefer …” His end of the car became extravagantly modern. Day overcame night. They traveled through verdant hills, but only for a moment.

As the tableau faded, she looked away. “That’s not what I expected from you.”

His eyes sought hers. “That’s because you don’t know me.”

The man rose to his feet with graceful elegance. “I must leave, but someone will join you later, I’m sure of it.”

He tugged at a sleeve to show a bracelet of ornately engraved gold billet encircling his wrist. “I might look different the next time you see me. You’ll know me by this.”

The train lurched to a stop. Monica ran to a window, expecting to spy a hideous landmark where the Devil might choose to disembark a train, but it was pitch black outside. Harsh words came to her lips. Anguish consumed her spirit. Her legs grew too weary to hold her any longer.

It took practice to fold wings in a way that allowed her to sit. The train clacked on, rocking from side to side, and she was, eventually, lulled to sleep.

Monica woke with breath trapped in her airway, eyes dry and sticky. She raised a hand to her face — there was a bracelet tattooed around her left wrist. She had seen one just like it, a short time before, made of gold, worn by an Angel who’d been cast out of Heaven.

Her skin wasn’t sore, giving rise to the hope that it wasn’t permanent. She rubbed at it with her sleeve.

But the Mark was there to stay.

Image by starbright from Pixabay