Seeing the shuffling man across the street gave him pause. The man didn’t appear a threat, or even put any interest towards him. As the man shuffled, Jensen noticed the man slid his left foot slowly behind his right, barely lifting it out of the dust. He dragged a world of misfortune forward, the heaviness of his situation bowing him further down with every shuffle. Every step, every move down the street seemed to shift the darkness of the world with him.

Jensen looked down, wanting to avoid any chance of eye contact with the man as he walked. As Jensen stared down at his feet, an itch started in his brain. Why not stare down this downtrodden man? How was that man all the way across the street going to do anything about it?

Drawing in a short breath long on confidence, he looked back up. Inches from his face stared the shuffling man, a twinkle in his eye and a broad, blood-soaked smile. “Friend,” the man said, “this right here is why you don’t stare.”

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Copyright 2025 Russell Dickerson. All rights reserved.

It is not that the fish was particularly bright. It once tried to eat a single krill double its size, after all, thinking it was a somehow tiny squid. It’s not even a carnivore. But instinct told it to move to the left a half second before the barracuda blasted through the same spot.

The fish swam along as if nothing had happened, while the other other fish returned from their wild dive out of way. They marveled at this incredible specimen, so gifted to preternaturally move out of the way in time. They watched the fish proudly swim along without a care in the world, headlong into the reef that impaled it.

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Copyright 2025 Russell Dickerson. All rights reserved.

In the light of the morning he could see it. Hovering quietly just behind the barbs of the corner bushes, it held its place. The silence left an odd feeling in his stomach. This close to the road he should hear people driving by, mere yards behind the shape in the bushes. He should feel the wind flowing through the yard, and the sounds of the neighborhood. All was still, all was silent.

Moving slightly out of the door, he thought he should feel something, anything. His fingers left the door frame behind as he slowly let the screen close behind him. Waiting on the porch was as silent and still as before. But now he noticed a denseness of air. The temperature seemed chillier, and as he looked around he noticed the shape no longer hovered in the bushes. In his ear, a quiet voice asked, “are you really here?”

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Copyright 2025 Russell Dickerson. All rights reserved.

Dread was the start of the Show. Intricately dark and spun with old horrors invigorated, the Chorus heralded the beginning of what once was and what would be again.

The patrons shrank, the audience reeled, the Ushers left speechless and torn. Companies of extras flowed around a finite point in an infinite darkness. The player rose among them, a yellowed form stooped as he rose from the dark.

Confident in the loathing around him, shifting left, he lowered a hollowed eye toward the Crowd before him. Beckoning. Calling. Letting them accept the darkness already seething in their souls.

Spinning through a gabled flame, he stretched higher atop the gathered throng. None looked up as the flow of men moved inward towards the outflow of others damned to the infinite.

The ancient cotters raised their hands towards the rising foulness, wanting to ascend but denied the right.

The rising hands stopped. The flow in and out halted. All looked up, turning to the halting bastard on high. As it looked down on the damned it screamed, “all must fall. None shall rise. Let the blood fall, and reign anew.”

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Copyright 2025 Russell Dickerson. All rights reserved.

Why, it’s the oil, they cry,
explaining their war of sorrows.

We need it for our wholeness,
something all of us borrows.

They started it anyway,
we only wanted what’s ours.

We wanted to Run! Run! Run!
and for that we needed great cars.

Who cares if someone was hurt
they aren’t of our cares.

They could never be of us!
What, not that each of them dares.

We fought to get our share,
they didn’t need oil anyway.

Our superiority demanded we win,
and no one else would get a say.

It’s the oil, you see, it allows us to lie.

In our greed and in our hate, it’s clear
that everyone else need die.

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Copyright 2025 Russell Dickerson. All rights reserved.

He picked himself off the ground for the second time in as many hours. He could never get used to being thrown down in the dirt, or punched in the gut, or locked in a chest, no matter how many times it happened.

He stood up, his vantage point rising while his emotions fell further. He was in no condition now to present himself. He closed his eyes as visions of revenge and retribution filled his head, his dark visage triumphantly standing tall over his tormentors. He basked in the fiery glow of a thousand cuts returned to sender.

He opened his eyes and drew in a shaky breath, knowing that retribution would never come.

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Copyright 2025 Russell Dickerson. All rights reserved.