F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Desert

Garden of the Gods

by

Is One Ever Truly Alone? Arches National Park, Utah, © 2009, F. P. Dorchak
Is One Ever Truly Alone? Arches National Park, Utah, © 2009, F. P. Dorchak

This story was started back in 1994. Apparently, I never finished it. And it stopped right where you started wanting some answers!

And, once again, I never remember having written this piece.

It’s thinkey and weird…and rather metaphysical…but I like where it ended up. I had to create the last half page or so of the story. That, in itself, I also found “metaphysical.” I mean, Future Me has come to help out Past Me (I wrote this post the same time I’d written up the guest post in that link) in finishing this story! I find this quite fascinating on a synchronistic and a writing level….

There is a Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and (of course) all kinds of hiking in Colorado and Utah (myself or a family member took the above photo in Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah; we we’ve been to Moab a couple of times mountain biking and sightseeing over the years). I’m sure Garden of the Gods inspired me to write this…at least its title…but I’m not sure I’d yet been to Moab when I’d first written this in 1994. Anyway, I think it’s a cool story and actually reminds me of another story I’d read long ago…but can no longer pinpoint. The elements of this story seem very familiar to me on “another level” that I can’t quite explain….

The last time we’d been to Moab mountain biking…I’d actually gotten lost on a trail. It wasn’t for very long, but it was not a good feeling—I’d never in my life been lost before or since. It was later in the day, and my wife and I were coming up on the end of the trail we’d been on (I believe it was Gemini Bridges…), and just up ahead was a short loopback that would have returned us back on the same trail in. My wife wanted to stop; said I should just go on up ahead and finish the trail. So I figured…stay on the trail up a short ways…follow the loop around the recessed destination—just five minutes. But as I looped back around, I found there were no signs. The trail was marked going in…but not so much going out…and I took a wrong “branch” of the “Y.”

Just five minutes.

Famous last words.

I even had a map. It was next-to-useless (it wasn’t a USGS topo map—I’ll never to do that again). The map did not match up with the terrain nor trail. So I biked around for

(just five minutes…)

about a half hour or so, before I was able to backtrack (and it was getting late in the day)…I had finally passed another biker who’d directed me back on the proper path.

Talk about your flying expletives.

And to make things worse?

My wife had gotten a flat tire…and I hadn’t been there for her.

Of course she’d wondered where the hell I’d been, can’t blame her there…but another had come by and helped her. I’d later passed the guy, who’d told me he’d helped her. I thanked him and told him what’d happened.

Just five minutes….

Yeah.

Anyway, I believe all this happened after having written the story…but, curiously, in my mind…it all feels linked….

This story has never been published.

 

Garden of the Gods

© 1994 F. P. Dorchak

The old man lay still. Near delusional. Had been that way since….

Eyes closed and still…heart…barely…beating…body…useless, withered.

Legs broken.

He lay in the dark in a place desiccated from a dryness that sucked every last vestige of moisture from the air. His body. Even sound seemed decayed…hollow. The surrounding rock weighed heavily…the crevasse crushing…there barely enough room even for his deteriorated form.

How long ago had it been since he’d crawled in here?

Too long…no interest…remembering…mind…wandering….

The old man lay between life and death…his consciousness not firmly rooted in either. Yet his mind worked…carefully…slowly…trying to recall a singular event. Trying…desperately…to recall the time…when he’d unwittingly stumbled into

Another place?

Another

(a place of gods)

dimension?

…lonely…mysterious….

Never to be found again.

 

It had happened lifetimes ago when his body had still been strong and able.

His resolve granite.

Age hadn’t mattered then…he’d been young.

He’d been in the great southwest, lost during a hike into the rock and heat of the desert. Sunburned and thirsty, he’d foundered through a hidden ravine and come out the other side into a wonderland of white-and-red vertical rock. The sun was setting and cast monstrous shadows across their faces. Yucca and other scrub dotted the terrain; trees unknown to him reach up from the earth like ancient, arthritic fingers scraping at the sky.

He’d collapsed to the ground. Checked his water supply. Enough to wet his lips and that was it. Reluctantly, he sipped the last drops, was ready to toss the canteen away in anger at his own stupidity in getting lost when he’d heard it.

A rustling, grinding sound.

Holding onto the canteen, he got up. Searched the rock. The grinding stopped, replaced by a softer, gentler trickling…

Water.

The hiker got up and rushed across the scree, slipping more than once.

Water.

Food he could do without for now, but water he’d die without. He already felt himself growing ever more lethargic, stiff. Near nauseous—

Water.

The sound drew him unerringly to it source. Water he’d hoped was real and not the delusion of a dying mind. He’d scurried about a small outcropping of rock and came upon the

Cool, crisp, flowing water!

Out from the very pores of a red rock itself.

He’d dove at it…sucking it directly from the rock face…cupping his hands he splashed the precious fluid to his parched lips.

It’d initially hurt parting his lips so much, cracking open dried skin, but he brought the water up and swallowed greedily. A huge knot of the frigid fluid got caught midway down his throat and he coughed it out, grimacing in more pain. For something so life-giving and necessary, it was sure running him through the ringer….

 

It was now darker from the setting sun, and he’d finished cleaning his clothes and washing himself. Felt more like he should…hydrated, rested. Filled his canteen before going to sleep for the night.

He looked about him.

It was still warm, but not so unbearable as midday. He’d considered continuing…were it not for the weariness of his body. He didn’t think he could get very far in his present condition and deemed a night’s sleep more important.

After all, did he not now have all the water he would ever need?

Did he not now have shelter to weather the merciless sun?

The only thing he lacked…was food.

At one time all he needed was water, but now his stomach growled.

Collecting sticks for a fire, he pondered his next step…when a large hare jumped out before him. It sat on a rock not ten feet away.

The hiker carefully crouched and placed his sticks down before him…stared at the meaty beast. It stared back, motionless except for its twitching nose. The hiker searched the dirt around him for a stone.

Water.

Now food.

He pitched the rock at the animal.

It hit the rabbit square in its head, propelling it over the side of the rock it had sat upon. The man got up, withdrawing his knife from its sheath. On the other side of rock he found it. One leg twitched but momentarily.

He fell upon it.

 

He’d stuffed the steaming pieces of cooked rabbit into his pack and looked out his cave. Early morning should have looked bright, but the day appeared dull, overcast. The heat of the day seemed subdued. Collecting the rest of his things, he’d thrown on his pack and given himself a once-over, checking his gear. Satisfied, he left the cave for the expected heat of the day…

But what he’d found sent shivers up his spine.

Instead of overcast skies and heat, he found it was still night…a full moon overhead.

He looked to his watch…but it was smashed.

Had he lost his mind?

Had he slept into the next night?

All these thoughts flooded him…but the end result was that he couldn’t possibly stay here forever…

Could he?

Some kind of Fate had brought him here and here he must deal with it…at least until he could make his way back to the world he knew.

The facts were that it was cool, dark, and he had food and water—his canteens and pack full with both. He needed to return home.

Resolved to restart his homeward sojourn, he left the security of his cave for the uncertainty of the dark.

He climbed down the boulders and loose rock, down to the water that still flowed mightily from the very pores of the red rock. He looked back and up to his deserted shelter—somewhat surprised that he could no longer

(go back)

find it.

Could he find it again…actually climb back up there just for paranoia’s sake?

But he’d already slept in it. Eaten there. Of course it was there.

Somewhere.

Knock it off, he told himself. Of course it’s still there. It has to be—

Like the water. That came out from the rock.

He shot a glance towards the miniature geyser.

Yes. Still there. Stuck a hand into it.

Cold.

You’ve just been out in the desert too long, that’s all.

He dropped his hand and turned away.

But in which direction should I go?

He looked from where he’d come…to where he was headed. There was plenty of light from the moon, but there was no—

Path.

He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Moments ago he’d have sworn there was no path, but now…as if it had rolled itself out just for him…

(this is insane!)

It was there.

The hiker took two steps onto it as if testing it for solidity. Plenty solid. Plenty real. Plenty there.

There was an actual clearing of stone and brush—as if stone and brush had actually parted just for him—the earth packed down as if having been traveled before.

By whom? By what?

The hiker stepped onto the path.

Images of an old man filled his head. A man in pain…damaged.

A shudder ran through him. Made him dizzy.

This was not just…not just any old man—

Him?

A future him?

The old man lay still…eyes closed…heart…barely…beating…body useless…broken beyond repair. He lay in the dark in a place that looked remarkably

Like this one.

How long had he been there?

An accident…a horrendous fall. Crawled out of the ruthless, mid-day sun with broken legs into a tiny rock fissure.

Where no one would ever find him.

How long had he lain there?

Too long…alone…never to be found—

Yet the younger him had found him.

And the younger him desperately tried to recall how he’d gotten here…where he was now…had unwittingly stumbled into

Another dimension?

A place of gods?

Never to be found again?

No.

He was strong…capable. Fed and watered. He would make his way out.

And if he truly was tied to this man…this old man…if that old man really was him…he would take him with him.

Together they would both leave.

The young hiker couldn’t tell if it was all in his mind…or like the water, cave, and rabbit…but he looked down and saw a rough-hewn field stretcher…with a leather strap.

He wasted no time.

In his mind’s eye he carefully picked up the old him…and gently positioned him upon the stretcher. He grabbed the leather strap at the end of wooden handles and looped it up and over—around—his shoulders, lifting one end of the stretcher. Shifting his pack and gear…he stepped out onto the path.

Never once did he look back.

The rocks smiled.

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Entombed…Resurrection…Unbound….

by

These prose poems I did for Hallowe’en in 2012. I tried to do something every week for that month that year, trying to get into the Hallowe’en spirit, and I did—and it was fun! When I created these, I’d challenged myself to write one a week “off the cuff,” with no planning. I had a basic idea of what I’d wanted…thinking back to my favorite mummy movies and lore…and sat down once a week for three weeks and just wrote what came out of me….

Instead of again serializing these, here are all three of them together.

 

 

Entombed

No Passing

No Time

Only Now…

A life to painfully pine

 

No cherished sound

Nary a precious peep

No Human touch

Only deeply troubled sleep

 

The weight of antiquity

Crush of stone

Wrapped and tightly bound

I, forever alone

 

Profane death

Ancient desiccation

I eternally atone

A heinous transgression

 

Within Ba enslaved

My Ka everlastingly to pay

Darkness, imprisonment

This tomb within which I lay

 

Dreams of lands

Dreams of much

Freedom, exotic scents

A silken, tender touch

 

Flesh against flesh

Heart against heart

My love for another

Us One, torn apart

 

Dreams of wind

Sounds it makes

Through breezy palms

Its balmy path takes

 

Forever to dream

Forever to yearn

Forever to remember

This anguish I’ve earned

 

There is only now!

My life to pine!

Oh, agonized passing!

Eternally, endless Time….

 

Rise!

Resurrection

Weight of Silence

Density of Confinement

Eternal damnation

My immortal pronouncement

 

Unable to breathe

Never to move

Yet comes from above

Abominations to prove!

 

I stir!

 

I rise!

 

I push off centuries

Against all choice

I am awakened

Strange magic, strange voice

 

Resistant to movement

I exit my sentence

That into which I awaken

A land of no acquaintance

 

I go where I know not

Without consideration

I go where I’m beckoned

Imprisoned, another iteration

 

Bound as I am

In ancient tatters I hang

Movement I am bidden

Insulting life that once sang

 

The shuffling the dragging

The unyielding yoke

To others am I sent

And commanded to choke

 

Heavy my heart!

Bloody my tide!

Forced to take lives

To which I have strived!

 

Control I have not

Miss my dreams and my sleep

Thee who awaken me

I wish not company keep

 

Their bidding I do

But know here, know true

Thee who has clutched me

I am coming for you.

 

egyptian-mummies-2

Unbound

Tortured and aching

Relentless my quest

The bidding of another

Endless unrest!

 

As I shuffle and I let

This blood that I spill

Stronger I grow

More powerful my will

 

I cannot continue!

Unrelenting murder!

My captor has controlled me

But this time no longer!

 

He commands, he directs

I do, I turn

But this time is different

His dominion I spurn!

 

He shouts and invokes

Fights and he strikes

But in the end crippled

My might is what frights

 

I dispatch as I have

To all dead before him

Then turn to a flame

And insert my forelimb

 

I cannot return

Now free from possession

To once again anguish

In my ancient obsession

 

I give up my being

Once and for all

By my own hand do it

Oh, will of gods befall

 

Free!

 

I am released!

Into the afterlife fly

I find my true love

And in her arms

Die.

 

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St. Vincent

by

Bless Us All. Every One. (Image by CC BY 4.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
Bless Us All. Every One. (Image by CC BY 4.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

I follow a belief system that is not traditional. I don’t say I follow “XYZ” because I don’t like attributing labels to what I believe in. But some of its concepts can be quite a reach for many: that we create and control our own lives, not a divine being (though I feel the Divine Being is the medium, love, and impetus for our very existence). That we are not at the mercy of others…but attract into our lives all that we get…that we set up our own challenges…and one statement in particular really inspired this particular story…

I think you’ll figure out which statement.

This story was originally published in Black Sheep #40, the April-May 2001 issue.

Saint Vincent

© F. P. Dorchak, 1995

 

Vince ground his booted-heel into the Arizona sand, thoroughly pulverizing the beetle beneath it.

“Must have been your time to go…just like me.”

I raise my head and look up to the scorching sun, smell the fumes of my still-burning Camaro, and feel the heat where I stand. “Why’s everyone so afraid of dying? It’s just part of living.”

I lift my dusty .44-caliber, Dan Wesson to eye level and blow off loose sand. I look it over. What was really responsible here? Me, or this miraculously crafted piece of stainless steel? This wonder of human engineering?

I chuckle.

What a work of art, indeed, from its utilitarian lines to its perfect heft and balance. I drop my hand and weapon back to my side and think about the trooper burning away within the remains of her vehicle and mine. I hadn’t meant to kill her, but she came at me and I just didn’t want to go. Yet. I probably did her a favor. She would have died some other time, under the hand of one who didn’t care nearly as much as I did.

At least I meant well.

I limp away from Route 93 towards the jagged precipice ahead. I stop and turn one last time to consider the wreckage of my ‘67 Camaro and the trooper’s brand new Camaro. Life can be so funny sometimes.

Must’ve been her time.

 

So why doesn’t anything matter?

We’re born, we die; if we’re lucky, we get laid now and then…maybe have a family or two…pay taxes from a job we more often than not can’t stand…then die. I’m not finding any answers, damn it, and I’m damn near the end of my rope—

I move off the pavement.

Vince climbed ever higher up the crags, his gun tucked into the rear of his jeans, waves of heat radiating off the rocks and sand beating into him. He sucks in thick gulps of air into aching, straining, lungs…

Where had I first heard—or read—it? The statement still plagues me like a festering wound: Fact is official fiction.

I mean, who comes up with this shit?

All my life I struggle…try to do the right thing…be the nice guy…and I’m told that everything, everything I’ve ever believed in, everything I’ve ever worked for…is false?

Fact is official fiction, all right.

If we make it all up, then what’s right (is there even a “right”)? Are we actually alive or mere characters? Me killing someone isn’t really killing since I’m not really taking anyone’s life—it’s all an illusion, fiction. There isn’t even a God because we make it all up.

Try to prove it otherwise.

Faith doesn’t work because we create that, too—sure, we create the ideas as well as the substance. It’s all part of how life works—am I the only one who sees this? But, no, it gets better, since we made up this idea of killing, now we must create the idea that if you kill someone—an untruth to begin with—you have to pay for it—another untruth.

Why? Why?

So am I really crazy…or is crazy just another made-up fallacy? And if I’m not real, then others can’t do a damned thing to me, right (and I can’t do a damned thing to them, either)?

Look at me so far: I’ve told my boss to go to hell (punched out the idiot, in fact) then robbed an all-night supermarket. So, several hundred miles, four days, and three dead bodies later, here I am, stuck out in the middle of the Arizona desert, drying up from the summer sun, and hungrier than a circling buzzard.

Yet, here I am.

Vince climbs higher, but never sees, or hears, the Arizona troopers below who block off the road. His mind swarms with tortured, philosophical arguments full of possibilities, probabilities, and inspirations. Finding a particularly good handhold, he pulls himself up and finds a ledge large enough to allow him to stretch out…but which also extends back out of the reach of the sun under an outcropping of rock.

I pull myself onto the ledge and enjoy the feel of the rock. I sense how it reaches out to me as I grab for it. I smell the dryness and timeliness of the earth. Even though my fingers, arms, and legs scream with pain, I enjoy where I’m at and how I’ve gotten here. I settle in on my ledge and stretch out. “So what have I really done?” I casually ask the rock walls. “Have I really robbed anyone…really killed anyone?” If there’s nothing to rob, then I didn’t really commit the crime, now, did I? If there’s nothing to kill, then I didn’t really commit a crime there either, did I?

Then why do I feel so damned guilty?

How can it all feel so genuine if it’s all so illusional? I feel like I’m watching myself—or someone else is—like I’m a-I’m a character in a book, or a movie. I feel like there’re these gigantic faces peering down at me from some ungodly distance….

Why can’t I figure this out?

In a sudden burst of anger, I toss my weapon away—only to realize a moment later what I’ve done—but it’s too late. I watch as my beautiful piece of utilitarian artistry flips and sails through the air…end over end, roll after roll…until (ages later) it clatters and bounces and discharges twice off the rocky escarpment below. The discharges echo wildly and I continue to watch stupidly, even after it has settled quietly somewhere in the rubble below.

“So…what did that mean?” I again ask the rocky walls.

Did that have any significance? Was that just some random act of man, God, or nature? Someone or something guiding me? Why would I do such a thing—and furthermore, would I require further use of the weapon? If no one’s ever really killed what need do I have of the thing?

If there‘s no death, then do I need to fear for my life? Do I need a killing machine to protect a life that can’t be taken away—

This is all so damned confusing.

Why is this happening to me? Am I missing something? Getting a vital part of the equation all fouled up and confused?

I fold my legs before me and clasp them with my hands. I look about. Feel the gentle breeze that softly caresses my skin—it doesn’t care what I have or haven’t done. I enjoy my solitude—that I’m alone on this ledge—just me, nothing else, and revel (did I actual use that word?) in the fact that I got myself here. I never would’ve considered doing something like this before, climbing sheer rock walls.

I try to relax, and inhale deeply; close my eyes. When I reopen them, I notice some strange little creature, like a scorpion, but without that menacing, curving, tail, curiously checking me out. It also doesn’t seem to know what I’ve done, what I’m capable of. It cautiously approaches; stops. Comes a little closer…then again stops. It’s quick. We look at each other. I know not what this thing is, and curiously enough, feel no need to kill it.

Why is that?

I reach out to it and it scurries back a step or two, then stops. I keep my hand where it is, and it reapproaches…pauses…then touches my skin.

I feel nothing.

It takes a tentative step or two with its little legs up onto my hand—then scurries the rest of the way up. I lift my hand to eye level and examine it. Whatever it is, it, too, is magnificently crafted and suited to whatever is its purpose. I smile, but suddenly feel sad, and lower my hand back to the dirt ledge. I allow the creature to hop off and continue on in its adventures.

Maybe I’ve misinterpreted everything. Maybe—

I consider suicide.

Launching myself from this ledge to soar like my gun, until I, too, strike the rubble below…but know I could never do such a thing.

Is suicide different from so-called “natural” death?

If fact is fiction, and we make up everything, then doesn’t that also apply to death, that we choose our own time of passing? If this is so, then how is suicide any different from dying from a heart attack? Either way we take our own lives. Could it be our own perceptions that make things right or wrong…our intents—

This is too weird. If I’ve figured it all out, then what am I still doing here? There has to be more…has to be something I’ve missed….

I again close my eyes and lay back against the rock.

“Oh, God—if there is a You—this feels soooo good.”

No deadlines…no hassles…no worries—current philosophical dilemmas notwithstanding. I feel like that book, Catch-22. How can I say I’m crazy, because if I say I am, am I? I wish I had that book here, now, I never did finish it.

I shuffle my hands through the dirt alongside me and touch something unexpected for my surroundings of sand and stone. I look down and find a paperback novel. I pick it up and read its title.

Catch-22.

It’s a worn copy…just like the one I last remembered reading.

“Wait a minute…this…this can’t be…unless—”

At that precise moment a rifled bullet slams through Vincent’s forehead, fired from the muzzle of an Arizona State Trooper’s rifle, and Vincent achieves sainthood. It was also then that I realized I was telling my own story…and that though I was a character in that story—as are any of us—characters need to care about themselves, just as readers need to care about them. It’s not about nothing—or even fiction—it’s about love, emotion, and experience—all that and more. It’s what each story means to each individual, each character. We all get out of our stories what we put into them. This is my story.

What’s yours?

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