-Flash Fiction by Billy Ray Chitwood-

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

He stared at the ceiling as he reclined on the big bed, his naked body stretched straight, seeking relief from his back pain.

“It’s been years, my son, since your last confession. I hear desperation in your voice. Is the Church your last bastion of hope?”

A mournful smile of contrition and watery eyes looked upward to the ceiling. He would play both parts of this little satire from his soul, not mocking the billions of people who habitually practiced their faith in a Deity, rather, an awkward attempt at an anodyne for his pain.

“Yes, Father, on all accounts…” a back spasm interrupted his soliloquy and he sought another position on the bed. He was too tightly wound and needed to move his limbs in some exercises the cute young lady in physical therapy had insisted he practice each day.

Finally, he found some relief and continued with his conversation with the ‘Holy Father’ there in the center of his ceiling. “Yes, Father, many years, and, in conflicting ways, a lifetime ago, yet, now, here, as the filmstrip of my earthly adventure unveils itself to me, my weekly spiritual visits to your Church seems not so far away.”

The man was almost ready to hear a reply. Not to be, he continued.

“So, on to my confession, Father, one, I fear will take more than a few ‘Hail Marys’ and a heavy penitence to absolve.” The man closed his eyes and his face took on a grimace.

“I confess to one of Man’s oldest of the seven sins, Pride. All my life I’ve taken umbrage with people who sully me, sometimes, in simple remarks that attempt to jest and tease. Perhaps that sin comes from a youthful disconnect with family and a poor quality of life. This sin has cost me friends and love connections. It is also truth to say it is the least of my sins.

“I confess to an earlier life rife with excessive sensual pleasures, Lust/Debauchery of the wicked and most wild, orgy-filled, salacious kind. I sought out and experimented with life’s underworld of Bacchus-plus drug madness. There were moments of intense euphoria, gratification, and immoral depravity.

“And, when the days and nights of playing Nero’s mad fiddle ended, there were tears, self-recrimination, times for soul-wrenching and no resolutions: preparation-time, it could be said, for the next ‘big toot’.

“I confess, Father, to periods of Envy, of Sloth, of Gluttony, and of Greed.

“There remains one more sin, Father, that of Wrath. I have saved it for the final portion of my confession because there was a prelude of most, if not all, the seven virtues before its denouement… a period in my life of happiness so fulfilling, so real, that it seemed my life had found its right and true moral compass.

“Having run the gamut of my ‘fiddling’ days, I sought to find a more righteous purpose in my life. A friend of mine who had been lost in the same forest of shame as I invited me to go to church with him on a beautiful Sunday morning in June. After smiling stupidly at the idea, I decided to go…to see how the ‘moral half’ lived.

“Are you still with me, Father? Have I lost you in my recount of decadence?”

The man could almost see the Father’s smile. “How could I not? What with such an interesting life you present to me?”

“You, Father, speak with a forked tongue. You must know it’s the fires of hell I’m destined for!

“Whatever, at the beautiful church with my friend, I met Maureen, a woman of remarkable beauty I felt destiny had placed in my path. We both felt a Karmic bonding and began a long relationship which ended in marriage.

“Our love was pure and, by any standard, storybook. We danced in the moonlight and worked every day at our jobs, saved our money and became wealthy, mostly by her artistic talent and her huge following. We were together all the moments we were not working or at a painting exhibition.

“We had a baby boy who died in his sixth month of a tumor.

“Maureen and I were devastated by Brian’s death, but, for her, there was an emptiness she could not fill. She began drinking. She stopped painting, and fate pulled her from me into the arms of another man. She was still trying to fill the void left by Brian.

“We began to argue, our spats becoming an ugly, yet another obtrusion to our love.

“Last night, Maureen arrived home after midnight, clearly in the mood for another spat. I pleaded with her to go to bed. She became infuriated with me and began slapping me. The slaps made me angry, and I tried to wrap my arms around her to carry her off to bed. She stomped my foot with the heel of her shoe and pushed me backward. I began to fall and grabbed her wrist instinctively to secure my footing. Then, she, too, began to fall, and I let go so she could get her footing. Her head banged loudly into the granite counter in our bar area and she went down onto the carpet, blood spreading out in a profuse flow from the gash... Maureen died last night, Father.”

The man could almost hear the sorrow in the Father’s voice, see the pain on his face through a small imagined window in a small imagined confessional.

On the bed, as tears flowed from the man’s eyes, he saw a pale shadowy figure, an apparition, Maureen, her arms extended toward him, her sad tearful eyes and still beautiful face beckoning to him.

The man’s face was covered in tears, his voice gagging and pitiful gasps, as he thrust the butcher knife upward into his heart.

The bedroom was silent in its darkness as the two wraiths walked across the room toward a beckoning light to eternity.

Flash Fiction by Billy Ray Chitwood

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Tags / technology/ games/ Freedom

A Man With Lots On His Mind

Was Einstein Right?

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”

Okay, perhaps it is natural that an aging crustacean (as in ‘Crab’!) like me should be writing a post like this…you know how we are: grumpy, bitching and moaning about this and about that. But, know what? We have never been here in this place!

This place?

This place in the chronology of humankind! This place where cell phones are accessories to killing people on our streets and highways…this place where a romantic dinner is interrupted by the musical chime-ring of the latest ‘carry along do-it-all’ world data gatherer and communication gadget that everyone just has to have – sort of like the past when we tried to keep up with the Jones or Smiths…this place where the intellectually informed folks who maybe ought to know what is happening in their country and world are not making the rounds so much…this place where the new games on these weirdly-wired gadgets show the blood and gore of our imaginary kills…

You know this place of which I speak, and, yes, technology has its upside – the dictionary is there in your pocket or your purse to check the big word someone used while trying to impart something boring and unimportant. That little gadget can allow you to really blast someone you do not like, call her/him names, make threatening and obscene remarks, and you can even do it anonymously. What a sweet deal! You can be the bully without getting punched in the nose!

Oh, there are a few who are not so addicted to this great technology of ours that they have time to see,for real, armies clashing around the world…they have time to see the ineptness of our own governments in forming goals and objectives for countering the new world of terrorists – or, should I be politically in​correct and say ‘Radical Islamic terrorists’? Well, you know of whom I speak, those creepy crawling bugs that have been around for thousands of years spewing their hatred and genocidal actions, vowing to kill all infidels and to rule the world…

Yes, those of you playing your bloody computer monster games, those terrorists are infiltrating our countries, our cities, and the minds of our youth, finding it easier and easier to corrupt and dislodge great historical principles and wisdom, ‘shredding’ documents and laws by which generic man has lived in hope and security.

We have made many ​blunders in our living and in our pacts with certain ideologies​… We have given too much to those who would wish us harm and death — and, perhaps, taken too much. We have misread the tea-leaves of history too often. We have made noble efforts to make our country and the world a better place. Despite our blunders, we are the bold and the good of Everyman and Everywoman. Are we now to somehow prove to the world of the distressed we were frauds in our ideals?

Dar​ned tootin! I’m talking about America and all the Freedom-Loving countries around the globe, the civilized societies of the world​. the greatest nations on​ earth. We all thought that was the case. Do we not still?

​Most citizens of suppressed​ countries in the world look toward ​we Liberty-Lovers. perhaps with envy, secretly hoping and maybe praying that they someday, with our support, monetary and otherwise, will be free to chase their dreams, live with not so much fear in their hearts.

We got to this place somehow, maybe through all the doubling, re-doubling, and outright explosion of knowledge that brought us tremendous growth in technology – and those cursed chatty cell phones…wonderful inventions but easy substitutes for our real selves. Scientific knowledge and technology are good but it seems in so many ways we are making them bad. This place in which we find ourselves can be very scary and depressing. We need government leaders of grand vision and wisdom who can ignite that greatness that I felt and saw during the greatest generation, leaders who do the peoples’ business without posturing and wavering with the tools Science and Technology have provided. We do not have to stay in this place! We need to kill the ‘terrorist bugs’ that are attempting to fulfill their ‘virginal’ quests.

We might find Einstein was partially right in his observation…but, idiots, we are not, even those using the cell phones, playing their games and forgetting how to socialize without cell phone messaging.

We are, after all, the Freedom-Loving people of the World. As our English, Jewish, and all international brethren of freedom might intone in Winston Churchill’s fashion, “Let’s show these [terrorist] buggers what we have!”

By Billy Ray Chitwood 

https://www.billyraychitwood.com

https://twitter.com/brchitwood

about.me/brchitwood

No forked tongue,

Only the truth.

I slept with dragons

In my youth.

Lust and Ladies,

Along with booze,

Their fiery breaths

Bade me to choose.

Now, the end is near,

And I seek redemption.

Hot dragons whisper

Harshly, ‘No exemption’.

Flashing before me in

Giant reptilian themes,

I toss on a rumpled bed

Of ignominious dreams.

So, brothers of the bond,

Hearken to my broken life.

Seek love and nobility

In the arms of your wife.

Avoid the paths before you

That lead to Dragon caves

And sleep not with them

To reach dishonored graves.

Billy Ray Chitwood – February 17, 2017s

Please visit my Website, view my books of mystery and romance, read some of my book reviews and blogs, and some author comments.

http://billyraychitwood.com

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The flashlight fell from my feeble fingers into the fast- moving current of Campers Creek.

In the moonless darkness, my body trembled with the awful cold and uncertainty of the moment.

Uncertainty?

How did I know this was Campers Creek?

I was here with my club-footed cousin so many years ago…why do I remember that piece of my past and not this part of my present?

Why did I have a flashlight?

How did I get to the middle of this fifty-yard wide swirl of water?

Why am I here?

Why do I hear faint screams in my ears that sound demonic – and, yet, somehow familiar?

What is my name?

I can’t think of who I am!

Who do I know?

I was here with my club-footed cousin so many years ago…why do I remember that piece of my past and not this part of my present?

Did I just say that?

Why do I not know where to go?

Who is the woman whose image keeps flashing before me?

What do I do?

My God!

Has the world gone mad?

Flash Fiction by: Billy Ray Chitwood – 3/6/17

Please visit my Website, preview my 14 books, reads some book reviews and author comments: http://billyraychitwood.com

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So, tis an author

You wish to be!

And, why, I ask,

Do you come to me?

Because, I write so

Much, you say,

So many pretty lines

Throughout the day.

True, it is my passion;

It must be so for you.

Yet, with fervent zeal,

Words at times flow few,

Bringing fitful malaise,

Wasteful lingering doubt,

A brain inactive and dull,

And depressing flameout.

I mean not to dampen

Your dream of writing

But there are few who

Will find it requiting.

Then, if you are like me

And write for the soul,

No matter the repulsive foe,

You have ultimate control.

©Billy Ray Chitwood – March 24, 2017

Please visit my Website, preview my 14 books, read some reviews and author comments:

https://billyraychitwood.com

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Why is it so? This mystical longing, this wanderlust, this soul odyssey?

There are so many parts that make up this mortal body: the part that takes me to moments of happiness and joy, like love’s ecstatic swoons; the part that cries in the sadness of a child’s suffering, the madness of evil-doers, the movies that convey tragedies of loss; the part that yearns for new surroundings – desert, mountain, seaside territories – while knowing the respite and serenity will be but temporary.

But, then, the question is begged. I know full-well the answer. Along with the baffling DNA, the early mobility of childhood, a displaced family, and some steady diet of emotional soup, I am what I am. The good fortune for me: I did not go too far toward the ‘dark side’…that is, crime was never an option. Something innate, a good mother’s nurturing, kept me somewhat wholesome. Well, there was some naughtiness along the way, says he, tongue in cheek.

Crime and evil do fascinate me – the serial killers, mothers who torture and/or kill their children, psychopaths, sociopaths, all those who blame everyone around them for their degenerate natures.

So, I take my unsophisticated microscope to the bizarre news accounts of the day and write fictional accounts of the abductions, homicides, and felonious natures of the willful pursuits.

​The funny thing, in those lines and between those lines that I write, there is self-discovery. I see pieces of me, bits of anger, anxiety, frustration, and even my ruling romanticism. The anger and frustration is of course directed toward the evil I’m fictionally chronicling. The anxiety, plus occasional tears, come with the depiction of those unsuspecting characters who have been killed, maimed, and emotionally disabled.

Writing is my therapy, my ‘sofa time’ on the psychiatrist’s sofa. After a considered good session on the laptop, my elation shows its self. There is a sweet sense of release and accomplishment. In re-reading the sections I’ve written, I am often elated and sometimes mumble to myself: ‘Did I write that’? There’s a feeling that an invisible hand has taken over the keyboard…a euphoric buzz, if you will, that a particular chapter, paragraph, phrase, can stimulate me so much.

'Soul's Odyssey' came to me as the title for post, and I wanted to share it with my fellow authors. For me, I think the title fits. Perhaps it does for you as well. My best wishes to all who peck the keys and create…

Billy Ray Chitwood – April 25, 2017

Hope you can stop by my Website and preview my 14 books of different genres, see some books reviews, some author comments, and read some other posts: https://billyraychitwood.com

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I was taken from disturbed darkness

Out into the frantic light of life,

Taken from the safety of the womb

And an often dark and jarring strife.

*

The humble journey I began came

With incipient turmoil and doubt,

Subtle remorse and terrible guilt

That, with me, I carried about.

*

With youth behind I wore my badges

Of courage, deceit, and self-doubt.

Tasting the beguiling fruits of Eden

And sipping from the Bacchus spout.

*

My Odyssey was not without the

Pain of guilt and sincere remorse.

Oh, no! My mind’s black closet

Choked and stifled me in due course.

*

Then came a forgotten Deity Who

Brought me to my misguided sense,

Gave me another chance at Faith,

And bade new Love to commence.

*

So, here, in the quietness of this

Meadow green, I vow to schemes

Of Worship those worthy paeans

Of Soul on these acres of dreams.

©Billy Ray Chitwood – April 18, 2017

Please visit my Website, preview my books of mystery, suspense, thriller, romance, history, memoir, read some book reviews and comments by the author. https://billyraychitwood.com

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