The Nymph meets Satan

A nymph with eyes as blue and sparkling as Venus weaves her web-like hair in her grotto. Her remarkable talent catches the attention of an intruder to her home. At once she recognizes Satan and trembles at his presence. 'Forgive me,' he murmurs, 'am I interrupting?' Not able to express anything intelligiable, she gasps and makes her escape.

The Headmaster

Enter our hero - the demure headmaster. He stands proudly at the school entrance, the wind softly combing his hair. Like a pirate on shipwreck, he waves his baton like a sword, making certain that no one profanes this holy ground - his school.

Witch doctor

A hellish witch doctor urges death to sting once more. In a necromantic trance he reads conjurations from bloodied parchment. 'Who can boast that the dead will rise once more through the One who saves?' he hissed, 'I come to take life away!'

The Centurion's Vision

The centurion mounted his horse and gazed at the battlefield drenched in red liquid. He lived by the adage that in order to sanctify the land, blood had to be shed. In numbing horror he rode on. Each soporific gallop lulled him into sleep where he imagined his horse to be a unicorn and the bloody fields, green pastures.

No Man Is An Island (but every one is a ship)

The game of leapfrog is a metaphor for life. The honest man seeks to soar over the arrogantly erect head of skulduggery - in his youth avoiding becoming its victim and in his adulthood becoming its practitioner. The wax on the candle burns low as each private Ulysses approaches his turning point at the Cape of Good Hope. Does he follow the buzz of the wasp as it flaunts both a holy flag and a dangerous weapon, or the gentle strains of the orchestra leading the other direction? The inconstant tide and wind provide no clues as to which course leads to the edge of the world and inescapable drop into Hell and which one leads to new and hopeful possibilities.

Exorcism

A limp body, with zero signs of life, sways back and forth as the priest tries to evacuate the demons holding her. Under a crisp moon, there was that feeling uglier than a rat, and in it one could hear angel wings fluttering. The exorcism is a success.

Beethoven's virtue

No one could see the virtue behind his icy mask. Each day inside his heart the chorus sang of a Utopia all men desire. This was the symphony #9 - his leviathan achievement. He consecrated every note to a higher realm. And when Beethoven died, his virtue was well-known indeed.

A Panther in Atlantis

With a debonair stride, the brazen panther made his way into the massive temple to begin the rejuvenation of Atlantis.

The Breathing Pines

In a deformed yet practical way, we made our way across the foothills to reach the pine located at ground zero and grab a quick breath of air.

Symphony of Fish

The Mayans caused severe damage to the landscape while playing a symphony of adagio tones and ignoring the stir of others in a hustle to follow the fish downstream.

Work interrupted

A Sanskrit scholar translates the holy text with his usual cunning. He feels the heavens open wide and each word he reads is like eating the sweetest honey. He gently massages the words in crimson ink on parchment paper. Just then, clamourous school boys run by his window and he at once shrivels, leaving half the text untranslated.

The Country Opera House

The tycoon grins as much as his unlit cigar will allow, the mercenary clutches his cell phone like a starting pistol, and the effeminate man applauds with excessive enthusiasm as the orchestra finishes. Outside, only the scarecrow, face frozen in idiot grin and shoulders in perpetual shrug, sees the meteor carrying the pre-prehistoric, Cydonian secrets of Mars blaze brilliantly for a split second and disappear.

The Thinker

An unusual man paced the Rodin gallery, carefully studying his 'Thinker' with his monacle. He thinks he knows what the thinker understands. Centuries ago, my grandmother Eve profaned God's plan by her disobedience. This was not to be the end of mankind. God finds a way back to man, even if men no longer look. One man had his baptism on the road to Damascus, another in a museum.

Kitchen violence

The kitchen door opens and I find myself sinking into a crater of vice. With a smooth knife, I quickly lance a nearby fruit - a violent end for an innocent apple.

Charon

My lumbering guide paddles ploddingly through the moats surrounding Purgatory. As we approach Hell, he slugs brew from his tankard, hardly noticing the gallery of souls degenerating into animals. Finally the jagged shore and murky sludge brings us to the debonair Satan.

The Nothing That Is Not There

"Follow the blowing leaves," the wind said as I walked alone, "And I will kindle the memories in the stones on which you tread. I have ruffled the fur of the beast as it trod upon their backs, carried and diluted the sound of the lonely yodel, sent the tamoshanter of the fresh-faced and hopeful girl soaring among the tree limbs, seen many become determined, desperate, inspired, afraid, frantic, and finally, silent, until only the stones and I remained."

The mint grabs

A boney fence surrounds the witch's hovel. On her porch, a small terra-cotta pot promulgates sweet-smelling mint. It's leafy-green arm reaches starboard for the next passerby. A boy picks a small leaf and whoosh! - the hag's revenge!

Evening meal

A seething Dracula cannot rest until he has his bloody banquet. Quickly he runs to his horseless carriage, his umbrella seeping rain. He zeros in on his next victim. He salivates seeing her young veins. Then at last he is satiated.