Here are a few samples of my writing. Let me know if you’d like to see more!
Anderos
Anderos let the flames lick up his arm. He looked on as the lone tongue devoured his green skin, the branching veins, that pattern which covered his whole body, now yellowing, and crumpling into char. He had lit a small fire on his right arm’s fin, the leaf-like material barely catching at first, with how much mist covered the city. Amphitheaters and towers and many high houses rose up from below, their marriage of graceful curves and domes accented by gigantic bird-of-paradise turrets or spires. He looked on at his burning arm-fin. It wouldn’t grow back till spring. And no matter what he burned away, the pattern would remain – living on in every cell of his body, the dendritous veins, hungry for photosynthesis.
Damned, Dirty Dogs
A carnivorous pack of card-dealing canines sat around a poker table. Frenchies, Great Danes, St. Bernards. Damned, dirty dogs. You could barely see a thing, there was enough smoke in the room to kill an asthmatic terrier. Big bulldog sits puffing in the center, sitting pretty, chips stacked around him so high he can hardly see the mutts acrossed the table. He was smoking his Cuban furiously, billowing the stuff around the room like a goddamn steam engine, fueled by whiskey, pumping all these devious thoughts up the chimney, into his little head, like how do I cheat this big bastard of a Great Dane to my right out of his kid’s biscuits. I forgot to say there were biscuits all over the table at this point. Just like all over it. You’d see everyone get hungry every once and a while, so they’d eat a few, forgetting about the game. The boys were always hungry, which meant for the first inning you could count on it to be tight, nobody really got ahead.
But then you had Bingo, this bulldog with an ass like an Ottoman cushion, who’d somehow got the sea lion’s share of the pot. Little did they know, he had a slipper in his belly. Just scarfed it up that morning. And it wasn’t goin nowhere for hours. He hadn’t even touched his horde of dog biscuits – not even a nibble. Bingo was in it to win it.
Gotta break a leg here – who can I get out? Who’s sleepin’ with the fishes? Bingo thought to himself.
“Your turn to deal, boyo. Don’t throw up your lead okay? We’re all wishing the best for ya, sincerely,” a chihuahua said from atop a fuck ton of cushions at the other end of the table. All of the dogs were propped up like humans, on their butts. Every once and a while they would fall over.
Bingo swallowed and sweated in the many folds of his fine fur. He was a real fatass, but he was beautiful. Did Grudo know something? His leg started shaking.
“You’re gonna get the hand you deserve, wise guy,” Bingo barked, shuffling the deck and resisting the urge to eat just one of the little mountain of treats in front of him.
“Hold on there, Bingo. You’ve got a card tucked in the back of your collar,” said the Great Dane in a mournful, wry sort of tone, like he was English or something, or went to college. If that’s a tone.
“I do not,” said Bingo, outraged. But indeed he had four aces tucked into the back of his collar. Now, which trick do I pull, he mused to himself, feeling the stack and searching his 3-week memory for a juicy play to win it all.
Cicero
I am Cicero. You may be wondering why I, an old monk, wander these halls each night. Be not afraid, my friend. I simply love the taste of an old wine, deep into the slumberous phases of the night, when sleep casts a spell to make men lay dumb like animals. My hope is that you may find this note, here on the barrel in sommelier’s cell, and it sets your heart at ease, so you too may rest just like your men.
You are dead. We will bring sabers and fire tonight to kill you.
You are young, my boy, and so misguided. Are you angry that I, in my old age, took refuge down here from this cruel world, out of fancy for a few sips of wine each night? Tsk tsk. Forgive an old man’s folly. Now, you may be upset that your men, no matter how handsomely armored in plate and mail, or emboldened by wine or fire, fall asleep, one by one, as they enter my domain – your wine cellars, I mean – and this, I understand.
This, I admit, must be frightening.
But you see, I like not to be seen when I drink your wine. I am a private man. And so I must put them to sleep. To be frank with you, it is a mercy to be asleep at such an hour, when men are robbed even of the power of speech. You must forgive me, and be a good host.
How enchanting it is to correspond with you in such a way… letters left on a barrel, in a candlelit cell, both of us sitting on the stool and picking up the quill, staring into the shadows as we imagine what the other’s face might look like. How curious of you to reply.
I wonder if we shall meet some night.
We will find you
You will? My friend! Well if you do, please do bring a cask of Amontillado. You have such a collection of rare vintages, but the Amontillado, though a dry wine, is sweet to these old lips. It’s really the only thing I miss from the old days.
Die, vile creature. May your forked tongue burn in hell. You seek to play with me by writing. Why? Your punishment will only be more cruel with each word you write. God has a special place for thieving monks.
Now, Montenegro… what would Calcifo think of you? Such hateful words. He was a poet, no?
You don’t know Calcifo. You found a few poems down there in the dark? A journal? Clever creature. Tell me where you heard that name, and I may spare you from chopping your manhood off when I give you your punishment.
My friend, I do not need poems to read the love scrawled so passionately upon your heart.
***
My friend? It has been many days.
Last night, a boy came down to visit me. He seemed lost. So I helped him.
Give me my son back you devil. We have the Signori Di Notti above you now, and they will stay till this thing is done. You have been hearing their boots above you, haven’t you? Tremble, coward. They will come to you with silver daggers and take turns at your throat.
Your son is safe, never fear. He was sleepwalking tonight, so I sent him back upstairs.
Last chance to leave my cellars.
Montenegro, my dear friend, is this the thanks I get for teaching your son secret things, things that will put ruby rings on his fingers, charm beautiful women, make it so that when he rows down the canals in your gondola one day, dressed richly in red doublet, the people throw their favors to him like a king?
Haven’t I always done what is best for your family? Your grandfather was not so ungrateful. He always left such a sweet, saccharine vintage out for me at the end of the night.
Dear to me, he was. Like a son.
Leave us be.
You are being a fool, boy. I am sad to say it, but it is true. Last night I met your Signori di Notti all dressed in steel, just like you promised… but curiously, with beeswax in their ears. So rude of them to sneak up on me like that. Mistrustful. You must have heard that in such times, the candles flicker, and men change with the shadows… you may find them not as you remember them. Let that be a lesson for you. A tired and thirsty monk asks only a small indulgence of his host. But he will not suffer fools. Tread carefully, my friend.
Get out of MY HOME if you truly are any sort of friend, friend, friend as you say so mockingly, monster.
Have you read this poem called “Secret Flame?” It is by Calcifo.
Calcifo is dead. LONG DEAD.
Here. I have left it on the stool. Or what was left of the stool after you smashed it. Please do not try to burn this cell again. I enjoy our talks.
How? How, creature, and why? I read every word Calcifo wrote. And yet you bring him to life beyond the grave. Have you been studying his poems, I want to ask, but I know, as you must know, that every last one of them is locked away in a drawer in my study. I must have checked them a hundred times in the last month, since you have been sucking any joy out of my existence. How, just tell me how, though I know not why I beg of a demon. How can you write in his hand, even with the metaphor of the deer, which he resorted to far too often, how?
And who told you our secret?
He is here with me. Come tonight for a glass of wine, and meet him.
I’m no fool, send another poem, send a letter and a lock of his hair. Give me proof.
He misses you, Montenegro.
You will put me to sleep. I will dream and it will be like entering a labyrinth of crimson silk and masks and flowers and darkness. My grandfather told me more than you think, when I was a boy. I won’t dream forever like him.
We must dream to visit beautiful worlds, Montenegro. Tell me: is a portrait a lie? What is the real world? Dream, and discover.
Tonight, you will come to me. And Calcifo will be yours eternally.
***
Dear Old Monk, who lives in the darkness of our cellar. My husband did not return from his wine cellars seven days past, and I know you called him to you, you must have, and so at last I have decided I am not afraid and I will write to you here, where my husband snuck down to each night foolishly after his first warning, telling himself you wouldn’t reply, secretly hoping you would.
You have taken him now I know. How I thought my heart could never go on beating the night you took my son. But you returned him. And how I thought my faith in God would never return after I saw what you did to the brave men of the Signori di Notti when I went looking for him the first night – they were monsters. Lion’s heads, arms of the octopus growing from their backs, even one a feathered falcon-man with wings. Not only this, but your cruelty was ingenious, too, as they spoke no languages, or none I had ever heard, save for a man with skin of gold like an automaton. He knew only Latin, and spoke only in ancient poems I could make no sense of.
God knows why I write to you… perhaps to calm my nerves… God knows why I haven’t abandoned him…
… And yet, my faith in God burns ever brighter in my breast tonight. And hatred is fanning it, higher and higher.
I know of my husband’s transgressions in his youth, so do not think to blackmail me there. I love him, and his heart divided between God’s children. He has loved me well.
Give him back to me. We will give you anything save for my son.
***
I see. You only speak to men? Then I will no longer speak as a woman. You have seven days to give him back. My brother and his men will soon be here, and they are cunning, not like my husband’s fools you put to sleep, or the fancy-dressed Signori di Notti you made your playthings. My brother’s men know how to kill a rat. We will burn this place to the ground if we don’t get him back.
Choose wisely, and quickly.
My words are not idle like my husband’s.
***
I saw you last night.
You see, the beeswax was not quite enough to save my husband’s men, was it? So I discovered a few more tricks. Now you can never see me coming.
***
Foolish monk. You think I would let my son sleep unguarded? You think I would not spirit him away, and place a doll in his bed each night, the second I left you my threat? I have seen your blood now. My brother has many men, we do not care that we lose a few, we will have more hidden in the rooms every night. And in new places throughout the manor – what fun for you!
I have seen your blood. You are weak.
***
Tomorrow night, you burn. You know that already, though, don’t you? You knew it the moment you discovered your precious prisoner was missing. That’s right – he did not simply wander off. I have my husband. And I don’t care that he is mad – how clever of you to tell him some story to repeat to me if captured, that you alone can soothe his madness.
But alas, in vain.
Now, after those endless hours in the darkness, listening for you at each corner for eternities, tripping over your monstrous creations, smearing ourselves with your wine – now we have won.
I have won.
I pity you. Fire is a slow death and agonizing. I will go down and save a cask, something dry but just a little sweet, like Amontillado, to remember you by. But, that is a lie. No one will remember you. Not me, not my son, no one.
***
***
***
By Christ, so many memories here…
A wealth of wines! What I’ve found so far:
- La Lagrima di Christo x 7 casks
- Cinqueterre x 3 bottles
- Montefiaschoni x 9 cases, God be good!
- Prosecho of Histria x 14, if you can believe it
- Cecubum and Falernum from the Kingdom of Naples x Many, but a few broken
Can’t believe I’m back. I wish mother was here.
Here I am, writing to you. Tasting the wine you once shared with my father, no doubt. How many years has it been… growing up far away in the Tuscan countryside… and for all of them, I’ve dreamed of finding my way back to you, to those rosy memories of stories by candlelight, and hide and seek in the dark of the wine cellars. Now ruined, some great fire? and flooded too.
I know that no one will answer me, but still I write, water up to my calves, and heart galloping. For just a chance to see a glimpse of you. Hear a footstep. Discover some old note, written in your
Richard Freeland 