Blarobbarg

David was panicking. He was nearly as familiar with these trees and this ground as he was with his own body. He knew its dips, its hidden hollows, its scars and pains. But whoever this was following him—whatever it was? He couldn’t shake it. He would try dipping to the left or the right, and an arrow (his own arrow, he realized bitterly) would land directly in front of him.

He had the terrible feeling that this was retribution. This was no serial killer. This was Santa Muerte, the manifested form of Death herself, hunting him like the animal he knew, deep down inside, he was. He muttered prayers, desperate prayers, for forgiveness in between ragged breaths. He prayed to be absolved of his sins before he was taken.

His many, many sins.

Then: Snap. And a sickening crack. And for the second time tonight, he let out a terrible, animalistic yell, and dropped.

He gripped blindly at his right foot and discovered a small trap gripping foot. His sense of reason, already clouded by terror, evaporated completely. He whimpered and limped forward.

There was no one left to outrun. It was just him and Lady Death, coming to collect.

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Blarobbarg

He had been back in Kentucky for two years, but he may as well have gotten back yesterday. He’d done nothing but drink and barely hold down part-time gigs with friends of friends the whole time. He’d burned nearly all his bridges and had little left to lose.

The Sons of the White Wolf were right there waiting for him. Their tenets—power through force, survival of the fittest—were quite attractive to a man down on his luck with a tendency to live through impossible situations. They welcomed him in like he was a prodigal son, and embraced him, and set to work correcting his errors. First to go was his vague tolerance of people who looked different than him. His old army buddies who spoke Spanish were revealed to be double agents. They were working against the nation by destroying it from within. The blacks were tools for the Jews, trying to destabilize the major cities to take control.

It was brilliant. It all made sense. And David, one of the lucky few, was blessed enough to be let in on the secret. He stopped answering the phone when his brother called. He had new brothers now.

He was elated when they he was informed that he was one step away from proving his devotion to the cause and that, if he could prove his strength, he would be given more valuable revelations of higher orders, by magnitudes.

He stared at the group of black-clad men around him and smiled like he had just won the lottery.

“I’d do anything for the Sons of the White Wolf. What do I have to do?”

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Blarobbarg

Minutes went by and the only sound David heard was his own gasping for air and cries of pain with every step he took on his injured foot. He wasn’t trying to hide any longer. Why bother?

He limped on. After about half an hour of silence, he began to believe that he had, somehow, survived this brush with the void. Perhaps Santa Muerte had decided he had suffered enough? Or maybe he wasn’t worth her time?

He began to see the faint outline of the access road he had come in from. He was too tired and injured to celebrate openly, but he rejoiced inside. He knew that, as soon as he exited the woods into the clearing, his grandfather’s truck would be waiting for him. He picked up the pace by a microsecond and turned the corner.
The truck was gone.

From behind, he heard an engine turn over and roar to life, and he recognized the sound like the voice of a beloved family member.

He turned to it as the brights flashed in his face, and instinctively, he covered his eyes with his one good hand. He realized the mistake he had made as he felt his ribs, and innumerable other small bones, crack. The back of his head hit gravel, and he realized through the ringing in his ears that he was done running.
His assassin climbed out of the truck and he heard, but did not yet see, light boots trudge deliberately over the loose stones in his direction. The figure stepped in front of the lights and David squinted enough to make out what he was looking at.

She was a woman. She had a dark complexion and short, brown hair. She was wearing camouflage and carried a shotgun. She was much shorter than he. Her face was impossible to make out in the glare.

There was, for a moment, a curtain of stillness between them. He, a body broken and abused on the ground, she, a goddess of pain. He tore the veil with strangled questions, in a voice he barely recognized: “Who are you? Why are you doing this to me? What did I ever do to you?”

She remained like a statue for a full minute before responding. Her voice was icier than the November cold that surrounded them.

“There ain’t no rapists allowed in these parts.”

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Blarobbarg

David never knew who she was. She was just a random pick at a random bar in middle of nowhere Appalachia. She was short, with a knee-length black dress on, her dark, curly hair pulled back in a bun. She was wearing a gold cross necklace, but instead of Christ, there was a robed figure, with a skeletal face. She was one of them… which made it so much more appropriate. He struggled to act like a gentleman, attempting to compose himself when he knew what was to come. She didn’t particularly mind. She was used to awkward, sad men. Hell, everyone out here was awkward and sad, herself included.

When her legs got wobbly, and her head swirled, she knew something was wrong, but it was too late.

He got her out of the bar and into his truck.

He took her out into an empty holler.

He got what he wanted and proved once and for all, he was strong.

He took a few pictures to prove to his brothers and left her on the side of the road. He got cheers and shots, and was given a hasty tattoo on his left breast: a wolf head over an iron cross. He had never felt so proud, so powerful, so free. He was never going to die.

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ziggywas

wow. i really liked that patton track. knew about him from a crumb story and i kinda thought it was like museum music or something and that it would never interest me. how strange.
couple of other stuff i clicked are too heavy for my ear....

Blarobbarg

Patton was an AMAZING musician. Truly, a wondrous artist. Shockingly. I'm glad you enjoyed. Check out other Delta blues from the time period, I love it.

And yeah, I love extreme metal. I'm aware it ain't for everyone. Glad you tried anyway!

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Blarobbarg

In a moment of wild desperation, David threw his Papaw’s knife at Death. It flew past her lamely and she didn’t bother flinching. She stepped forward onto his chest, forcing his breath out.

He didn’t have a chance to breathe back in before she took the shot.


David’s grandfather lay on the hospice bed. The lung cancer would take him away in another day or two.

Almost inaudibly, he rasped to his grandson, “Davy, you make good choices for me when I’m gone, alright? Make your Papaw proud.”

David choked down a sob.

“I will.”

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Blarobbarg

Here's my top albums of the year so far. I've been listening to a lot of pop and pop adjacent stuff, which has always been unusual for me, but maybe I'm mellowing out as I slide into my thirties and fatherhood?

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Blarobbarg

There's a lot I regret about growing up in the church world. There's a lot of bull**** self-hatred involved with thinking that I'm an evil, sinful being by my very nature. It took me WAY longer than anyone else to figure out basic science, like the concept of evolution. I've grappled with feeling insecure, unsure of myself, and literally responsible for the lives and eternal souls of everyone around me.

One thing I do NOT regret was the act of singing with a bunch of people at least once a week for extended periods of time.

You know, so many philosophical questions about existence just don't matter to me much these days, and the ones that do just aren't as big of a deal as they were. My beliefs are firmly grounded in tangible reality- and while the songs I grew up around are all quite untethered to a humanist worldview, there is something transcendentally beautiful about a bunch of folks- most of them not trained in any formal musical sense- getting together and singing, the music lifting them up into emotional ecstasy, encountering a big universal truth together and responding to it.

I was raised Charismatic, and in our circles, that meant that musical services were often jazz-like in their meandering nature, totally unrehearsed, and built around group improvisation. Songs would lengthen by one, two, five, SEVEN minutes, the changes built up and destroyed only to be built again, vocalists alternating between choruses and bridges and wordless vocalizations, percussionists (like myself) just losing themselves in the rhythm. I still find the act of playing this sort of spontaneous music, and singing with a bunch of people, profoundly religious... I'm not entirely sure what that means these days, but I do like it. That's enough for me.

All that is to say that I'm still a fan of a lot of church music, or religious music in general. Maybe I'll start posting my favorite religious music and why it feels meaningful to me still.

This song is what I'm currently jamming to. Maybe it's a bias against my own heritage, but I find that black gospel music is often musically superior to white-centered CCM. It seems to have a deeper musical and spiritual tradition, and the quality of the musicians and singers is often impeccable. The vocals in this song, ESPECIALLY at the end (holy ****) are something to behold. Just listen to the high notes that choir hits at the climax, it's a-****ing-mazing.

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The Batlord

Do you ever wonder if Calvinism is in fact correct? Do you ever wonder if determinism is true regardless of whether or not Christianity says so?

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