Fiction: With Feeling

On By Charlie BrooksIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Previously published in Inner Sins and Fiction Magazine.

What do I feel?

“Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.”

It’s not a game of pretend. He makes sure of that. I turn to the audience and smile. They’re all silhouettes, their features drowned out by the glare of the stage lights. Even so, somewhere in the back I can see tiny points of red light playing in one man’s eyes.

My smile widens as I feel the emotion swell inside me, filling me up like air in a balloon. I giggle softly for a moment like a little girl with a piece of candy. The more cynical adult in me wants to retch, but she’s tiny now, overshadowed by the sudden glee burning its way through my soul. With a ballerina’s twirl, I turn back to Prospero.

“On the bat’s back do I fly
After summer merrily:
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.”

Another giggle. Another gag from the real me, locked away in a tiny cell somewhere in my mind. Prospero begins his speech, but all eyes are still on me. They watch my every movement, noting the nuances of my body language as though Shakespeare somehow makes more sense when I point my toes. This is what I do, and what I love: I steal scenes. Avery has talent as Prospero, but I’m what everyone is here to see. He just doesn’t feel the play the same way I do. He can’t; no one can, and that’s what makes me so unique.

I smile again as I begin the next line. I couldn’t be happier.

And yet when I take my bow and the crowd stands up to applaud me, I can’t help but tremble a little.

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Comics & Quests: Catspaw

On By Charlie BrooksIn Comics, Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

Many a gaming group knows the frustration of not being able to get everyone together on a regular basis. Often, the solution involves splitting the party; some PCs engage in the adventure at hand, while others are missing on other errands. This seems to be a feel that the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comic was going for. In “The Spirit of Myrrth,” our centaur friend Timoth was notably absent (as was Agrivar). Now, in “Catspaw,” he’s back but the rest of the group, save his buddy Onyx, are out.

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Fiction: The Winner

On By Charlie BrooksIn FictionLeave a comment

Originally published in The Lyndon Review

Lil and I had been fighting for about two months. Even if one of us did win an individual battle, it proved to be only a cosmetic victory, patching our relationship for a few hours or maybe even a day at a time before the well-stocked armies of our tempers clashed again. In the realm of the purely physical she outmatched me every time, beating her fists against my torso and sinking her nails into my arms while I stood motionless, unwilling to retaliate. My best bet was to make her cry early on, to hurt her with words so quickly that her temper would overload like an exploding boiler and send her running out of the room wailing. When I managed this feat I could always wait to the count of sixty before following her and apologizing, making for a teary-eyed and blissfully quiet session of makeup sex and a nap before the next battle. When I didn’t manage to avoid the attack I had to wait for her to exhaust herself, which could take some time because throwing a punch required remarkably little energy from her. When she left the house in a rage I would take my defeat out on whatever inanimate object presented itself. Through this post-loss ritual I managed to throw a portable phone through the thinly plastered wall and blind myself by crumbling the metal frames of my glasses into a ball and tossing them into the pile of uncollected debris next to the brooms.

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Doctor Who: An Unearthly Pilot

On By Charlie BrooksIn FilmLeave a comment

In November 1963, the world got its first taste of Doctor Who. The first serial, often known by the name of its first episode “An Unearthly Child,” brought a pair of schoolteachers to a junkyard to investigate a strange student of theirs and wound up sending them careening through space and time. It set the formula for many stories to come, served as a key moment in the character arc of the mysterious Doctor, and is generally a must-watch for those who want to get a feel for the classic series.

What makes “An Unearthly Child” so great? Here’s my take on a few of the key elements.

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Fiction: Posthumous

On By Charlie BrooksIn FictionLeave a comment

Originally published in Toasted Cheese.

I find myself trapped in a Looney Tunes cartoon. Try to get away from the wascally wabbit and he always pops up right behind you.

I run up the stairs to my apartment, slam the door, and slide the deadbolt into place. On cue, I hear her voice behind me, calm and sweet while I’m red-faced and out of breath.

“Hello, Joe.”

It’s Eddie, actually, but I won’t let that ruin the joke for her. I turn around and put my back to the door. She shakes her head slightly, apparently bored with our game but amused to see the effort I’ve put into it. She has a round face that’s just a breath away from being considered chubby and long brown hair. Her black business suit is contrasted by her pair of white jogging sneakers—apparently she opts for comfort rather than professionalism when it comes to footwear.

Oh yeah… she’s also completely transparent. Ghosts tend to be that way.

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Comics & Quests: The Spirit of Myrrth

On By Charlie BrooksIn Comics, Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

The start of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comic book line presented an epic tale in which a motley crew of do-gooders overcame their differences to stop an evil wizard from overrunning the land. It was a good introduction to the setting and our heroes, but it was the sort of giant epic quest that, quite frankly, does not play to D&D‘s strengths.

That’s not to say that D&D can’t be about epic quests and heroism, but a role-playing game is a unique place where group storytelling, whimsical jokes, and unlucky die rolls meet. That combination creates an off-beat sort of tale that stands apart from other fantasy literature. The second story of the comic book line, “The Spirit of Myrrth,” feels more like something that players would experience at a table. Here we find a portal to the underworld, a giant skeleton, and a group of jesters willing to kill to get the respect they think they deserve.

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Fiction: High Society

On By Charlie BrooksIn FictionLeave a comment

Orignally published in Garbled Transmissions.

We laid naked together in her parents’ barn, watching the skies through the holes in the roof.

“Tell me about it again,” said Tracy. Brown hair fell over the olive skin of her face as she sat up. Her eyes glittered like a pair of emeralds in the evening light.

I didn’t move. My body was young, but she still had a way of wearing me out. I looked at her sleepily and smiled. “It’s all just memories from childhood. I don’t even know if they’re real.”

“Come on, Dakota.” Her voice took a pleading tone, knowingly baiting me. “Just tell me a little.”

With a resigned sigh, I gave a nod. “I only remember bits and pieces of my real home—the home I had before the white man put my people on the move. But the land was open there, and the air was crisp. Just breathing gave you energy to run, swim, and hunt. It was a land of freedom, a land of possibilities, where you could do anything. Nature walked right next to you, so close that you could touch it. But we never took from it, besides what we needed for food and clothing. We were too thankful to hurt the earth that had given us so much.”

She smiled a reckless smile that did remind me a little bit of my old home back east. “And was it green?”

I breathed in and brushed her hair out of her face. “During the spring, it was even greener than your eyes.”

Tracy rolled her eyes at my stale cliché, but kept her smile. She dropped, getting a grunt of surprise as she landed heavily on top of me. Then she rolled onto her back and curled up, pulling my arms over her body and turning me into a red-skinned coat. Her eyes watched what little we could see of the stars, and her breath came out as a deep purr.

“It won’t be long until I’m out from under my daddy’s thumb. Then I’m gonna go east and see the green for myself. You’ll join me, won’t you Dakota?”

Since she couldn’t see me, I didn’t try to smile. I swallowed and gave a small shudder as I thought of going back there, a stranger again in a new land. “We’ll see,” I said.

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