Foolishness

By Michaela, age 14

Foolish Men.

This story is about brilliance and the absence of it. In short this is a tale of foolishness. And if humanity it a foundation of mistakes and the absence of brilliance causes foolishness. Then surely aren’t we all idiots.

The protagonist of this story will die in the end as a result of fraternizing with foolish men.

“I have an offer for yeh” Yelled the Child Gambler, his voice was like a nails on a chalk board or the plague. “Come on yeh ain’t still mad about the village urchin!”

No answer.

The Temple servants stared at him, eyes as milky as the soulless eye of the sky, staring at you in its cover of darkness. The moon I mean the moon.

It’s just ten times more dramatic if I said the soulless eye of the sky, but I suppose reality is just as dramatic. If I truly wanted to scare you which truly I do I’d have pointed out that the fact that the temple servants have not a drop of blood in their bodies, there simply bags of bones and flesh.

But the soulless eye of the sky is just more dramatic.

“What’re yeh lot lookin’ at aye” The child gambler growled at the two men. They stared at him like statues, he grumbled and pulled out a lighter and cigar.

“Your filth is not welcome hear” Screeched the tallest temple servant as the rest lifted their spears.

“Well what else am I supposed to do, make polite conversation” He smirked, teeth blackened with more than just cigar ash. “Maybe if yer call yeh master I’ll cool it”

They scrunched there nose up at him as they lifted their spears higher the child gambler let out a germ ridden cough and dropped his cigar. “Alright, don’t get your knickers in a twist” "Troglodytes! Arcus sure knows a thing or too about decorating" The Child Gambler grumbled, staring at the place, he was sure it was the right place. Its not everywhere you see a Palace so august, sparking in the sunlight like the glazed teary eyes of infants, crafted to look like it was fit for a god, tall as a sky scraper- and sky scraper is the right word the as the top of the pointy obsidian sword of a cross, scraped the sky as if it were trying to erase all the blue from it, leaving a dull grey and bright white ball of burning gas making every surface boiling hot.

Illuminatimg every ur face, with blinding light, he swore almost every plant in his garden looked like it was made of solid gold. But as he rubbed his eyes a few times, till they were slightly more bloodshot than their natural state he noticed the light had nothing to do with it.

He walked up to the gardens, and plucked a single clover and gave it a pinch. Gold. Twinkling and glittering in a spectacle of reflected garden.

The entire garden was made of solid gold. He pocketed a few grass stubs and walked back. "It's urgent Mate tell him I have a proposition"

“If your offer is anything like the village girl I suggest you take your leave” A voice rasped right behind the Child gambler, he jumped shuddering so hard his cigar fell from his grimy hands. “The vultures seem to be craving fresh meat this day”

“My ruddy cigarette” The Child gambler groaned, fiercely picking at the stubs on his chin. If you asked him if he was afraid, he’d probably stab you with the knife he slept with for safety. “Wish you wouldn’t do that yeh holy terror”

 The Monk of Helyiuss, was not a holy terror. He was everything and anything but holy, he glided up the obsidian stare case with the grace of a raindrop sliding off a glass window. His robe was a chilling black, the black of tombstones and pre-root canals. It covered his eyes, the eyes no one had seen without suffering a delightfully gory death.

He was so clean. Not clean like a shiny new pair of doc Martins or shiny like a polished tea set but clean like bleach stained lungs or clean like eye balls scrubbed of their pupils.

In contrast was the Child Gambler. I suppose you can guess the meaning of his name, he wasn’t clean like The Monk. He was dirty and yes I mean dirty like the scene of a crime and dirty like the bottom of a shoe. His tattered coat pocketed the lives of the innocent and stank like cigarettes and over indulgence.

“Come off it, yeh ol’ hag” He grumbled, picking at a dark hair so ferocious a dot of blood stained his fingers. The first bath he had in a while. “I told you the brat something of a bad habit”

“Is that what you call arson now, a bad habit” The Monk asked, “In that case your murder by my men will be nothing more of bad manners.”

He turned, not a swish in the air just the flash of his darker than black cloak. He was turning to the doors.

“Now come on Arcus,-

“DO NOT ADRESS ME BY THAT NAME” His voice usually a like a pillow – a pillow being used to suffocate of course – now echoed across the solid gold Gardens, so terrifying that one could hear the soft trink of his vibrating syllables on the precious metal.

The Child Gambler waved his had dismissively, “Knew that’d take the piss outta yah” He muttered under his breath.

“Look I gon’ be straight with yah all powerful Monk man- he heard a low growl from the billows of his silky black hoof- I’m desperate here”

“Aren’t you always” The Monk said almost jeeringly, he shook his head a ghost of a grin appearing on his haggard features. “So disappointing so... wasteful, my my what would the oracle thing of their star pupil”

The Child gambler shot his head up a shot of pain like adrenaline surged in him instantly and as fast as it came it left.

“Tears of Hercules! your not still bitter about that are you” He yelped throwing his hand in the air, “No one wants this little rut, he’ll have his throat slit by nightfall if I don’t get him off my hands! Yer a priest ain’tcha! Have mercy on the innocent!”

The silence was so awfully loud.

“Sympathy... For a child Ferdinand?” The Monk near chuckled, “I expected better”

The Child Gambler snorted at this, in fact he began laughing, hysterically. Like a madder man that he was so famously infamous for being. Walking, slowly to The Monk stopping only when the temple servants pointed their spears to his throat.

He stared at them disdainfully but sighed and pulled down his tattered coat sleeve, revealing a gold bracelet. With the head of dragon wrapped around his bony wrist, diamonds inserted in its head a small ring in mouth.

Golden Bull dragon Bracelet.

The temple servants did not waver, did bit move at all in fact they pressed the jilts of their spears slightly more forcefully into his throat so that if he made anymore sudden movements, death would open his cold embrace for the man.

 But The Monks reaction was instantaneous, he jumped back, not gracefully but like a fattened mouse in the face if two starving infant kittens.

“Do... N-not use the way if the dragon in vain!” He said breathlessly, his haggard face contorted with so much discomfort you’d think he was the one with the curse of Nyomiseus. “Put your weapons down, idiots”

The two temple servants looked at each other and for a moment behind their all white eyes you could see a shadow of a lost pupil. A lost person.

“DOWN I SAY” He yelled, his hand which had been clutched within each other the entirety of the conversation suddenly unclasped and pushed down with the force of a man throwing another to the ground.

Along with his fists the two temple servant fell to the ground, landing hands digging into the marble, writhing with a jerking pain. One of then had began clutching the razor sharp stares so hand, he sliced right through it as if we're butter, blood from their scraped knees dying the brilliant white of his robes.

The Monk did not look back.

Their spears fell with a clutter onto the marble floors, and they futily tried to grasp at them as if their little sticks could defend power of The Monk. One thing was for sure Child Gambler did not try to hide his grin.

“You lie! You lie” The Monk accuses about to lift his arms and separating his hand quickly, the spears lift in the air again with a set target The Child Gambler, so does The Child Gambler he raises his fingers rather lazily and several golden roses pluck themselves and point to the man, The Monk turns his hand to the man’s raised palm and puts hiss hand down, trembling in outrage.

“You and I both know I am a fool, but “I even I am not brain dead enough to lie about such” The Child Gambler says softly, “I assure you this is a good deal, not a charity case, this boy.... Is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, well not since-well Madam Kane”

The Monk went stiff.

“D-Do y-you me-mean he has the Metamo-

“Shh, Shh, shut your big mouth will yeh- He reached into his tattered coat and pulled out a new cigar- I don’t trust your little henchmen”

The Monk looked at the two servants as if he’d just noticed them groaning and clutching their robes on the ground. “They are servants of my temple”

The Child gambler took out his lighter and lit his new cigar crouching to look at the pathetic men on the ground. He took a puff and blew it directly into one their faces.

The servant he did this too growled and tried to reach for his spear, but The Child Gambler was too quick he kicked it away and gave the man a swift kick as well for good measure.

“They – He began getting off the floor with a satisfied grin – are intruders to the... let’s call it an ‘organisation’ hmm?” He barked out in untamed laughter. “But yes, this runt has it”

A silence fell across the two, it slithered through the pain blown temple servants and positioned itself between the two, grasping frantically at any sign or memory or sign of a memory of sound. “Very well”

The Child Gambler grinned and from his coat brought out a small vile of a well vile looking green gas. He poured the contents on the marble floors.

Slowly but surely the bony structure of an underfed boy began materialising, the first of his features to appear from the mist, a mischievous yellow toothed grin and two grey as storm loud eyes.

When he was fully recovered, old clothes, holding a blatantly obvious stolen bag in hand, The Child Gambler gave him a sharp nudge into the direction of the temple.

He stumbled onto the stairs, catching himself before he fell flat on the sharpened stairs.

His eyes darted from both temple servants on the ground, then to The Monk, then to the giant ornamental Palace of a temple, then to the disgustingly golden gardens.

He took one last look at The Child Gambler, giving him a curt nod. The Child Gambler did not nod back but scowl either he just puffed put out the cigar he had on the feathery soft grass if the temple.

But the boy knew what it meant, goodbye.

He turned back to The Monk and gave him a winning smile, The Monk nearly smiled back. But then, he noticed something about the boy his teeth were slowly replacing themselves, no longer crooked and yellow but turning a startling white aligned into perfect rows of glistening manipulation

His grey eyes, a sparkling blue and spiky black hair now a fluffy cotton wool white. Even with the alterations, his grin still carried malicious intent and there was no shapeshifting the outline of his bones on his ashen skin.

The Monk let out a warbled gasp as the put his hand out, with the confidence of someone who is not a new product Of The Child Gambler.

The Child Gambler barked in laughter. “Tha’s my boy aye Arcus bloody brilliant just spectacular! - The Monk flinched but said nothing – now ‘ow does 25 shillings sound?”

Perhaps you have forgotten my earlier promise, this story is long and long stories often leave readers forgetful blobs of passage skimming. But for the sake of the glorified repetitive value, I will remind you.

The protagonist of this story will die as a result of fraternizing with foolish men.

I urge you to stop reading more than ever, in truth I should have warned you that this story is bit meant to make you feel happy or feel good. It is meant to upset you and make you uncomfortable.

If you are still here, I want you to know I judge you and everything you stand for with a magnificent sense of passion. However I have warned you.

Our protagonist, the one who is to die, you’ve met him. Only a fragment if him however, him in all his glory is an entirely different paragraph I am far too lazy to write for you.

You. Of all people you except me to write paragraphs for you.

Anyhow, let me continue before I get bored or decide to leave. He is the boy from the mist, the fresh produce The Child Gambler wished to sell for a mere 25 shillings. He is the one with the grin that has slaughtered and seduced alike.

The one with the power I cannot speak of for enemies lurk everywhere, and the crooks and corners of letters in a page make excellent hiding places.

I fact there is nit much I can speak of, you know he is to die but that is only at the end if the story and as a rule of thumb stories must begin at the beginning and end at the end.

But perhaps I can tell you this; when the boy who is to die walks into The Monks temple, he shall already be halfway dead.