The Temple of Lore, Works of the Schola Options

[Black Hand]

This thread is for the stories of the members of Order of the Schola, for any questions you may have please click on the following link.

http://chorrol.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3495

ANYTHING that is not a story or poem or whatever should be posted on the link that was just provided. Thank you, not trying to be mean, just trying to keep our sacred temple clean. Now then, an explanation.

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The Temple of Lore is a sacred sanctum of tomes, dreams, thoughts, abstracts, histories, stories, poems, and the written word.

It exists in the twilight, between reality and fantasy, it embraces all forms and images that attempt to define it. It is perception, and the perciever.

There exists an order of men, commonly known to the masses as the Writers Guild, more accurately called the Order of the Schola who have mastered this twilight abstract in the form of storytelling, they alone have the power to transcend to the Temple of Lore, and contibute and take from its threads of knowledge.

They exist amongst us as Journalists, Bards, Old Men sitting on a porch with a glass of lemonade recanting old experiences. If you ask nicely, and your lucky to find the chosen few, a Schola can breathe life into any illusion, any thought.

[canis216]

All right, here's something totally different from me. This is part of a larger story which is a work in progress, the working title being "Monsoon Season". Yes, real-world stuff here. Crazy. Constructive criticism welcome--I'm writing this with intent to publish in an environmental literature journal my department puts out.

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A modest little fire burns in the night, casting its amber glow upon red rock, interrupted by the odd shadow. The smell of juniper is on the air, drifting past my nostrils and up into the brilliant near-blinding sky, riddled with starry pinpricks and punctures. I’m trying to brew some Mormon tea, trying to stay awake just a little longer, at least until I can brew the next batch. The fire burning steadily, under control, I set a light framework grill over the flames, and a kettle atop the grill. Then I sit upon a rock, front facing the fire, back to the red stone overhang under which I’ve laid my sleeping bag.

Somewhere in the south, from one of the lonely prominences overlooking a tangled maze of canyons and gulches, the long pan-tonal wail of a coyote pierces the cold. I look up from the fire, expecting… I don’t know what. Perhaps one of these days I will understand the call, and know precisely what the solitary coyote means when he broadcasts his lament, joy, or both, across the mesas. In any case, I cannot help but reply, throwing my face up to the sky, trying to translate my hopes and fears into the coyote’s alien tongue.

“Would you shut up?!” The shout comes from another campsite, on the other side of the creek, where a dog is now baying his own rejoinder to the night. Well, that’s fine, I’m thinking, I can be quiet. Steam rises from the kettle—my beverage is ready. I pull it off the fire, setting it upon the nearby picnic table to cool for a moment. The night is quiet again, the dogs and people finally giving into the cold and the darkness, the somnolence of desert stars. I’m ready to try my concoction now, pouring a measure of the brew into a clear plastic mug and raising it to my lips. It is terribly bitter, and terrible, but it’s not that bad. It will do quite well, I think.

Later, much later, I slip into an uneasy sleep—uneasy because, in reality, it is my dreams that are broken occasionally by stretches of fitful rest, goddamned memories haunting my mental circuitry like some sort of loop that I just can’t find my way out of. I see a rolling creek in the great blue misty mountains of east, rolling and tumbling over boulders and rocks and worn-smooth slopes of gray stone. There’s a girl too, same one as ever, swimming in her white T-shirt, the sort of thing that drives a man to write bad poetry. And there I am, standing on a rock above the pool of cool mountain water, fumbling with my own shirt, trying not to stare or at least not to look like I’m staring. She looks up from the water, flashing a grand and intoxicating smile, and calls up to me, “Come on in. The water’s fine.” And all I can say is, “I’m sure it is.”

This post has been edited by canis216: Jan 2 2007, 02:44 AM