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I Wanna Play A Game…

By Emmanuel Williams

September 23, 2026

“Teddy,” she called. “Dinner!”

Teddy could be heard waddling down the hall upstairs, soon he’d reach the stairs, and take them one by one. If he could move faster, he didn’t see a reason to. Afflicted with Down Syndrome, his motor skills were underdeveloped, and his feet were short and therefore made his steps even shorter. 

When he finally entered the room, his mother looked upon his flattened face with eagerness, and a small scowl of disapproval. He sat down, and she poured him a bowl of soup from the pot, lingered at the counter for a moment, he thought she might be seasoning it, then she brought it over, and set the bowl before him before returning to the cabinet for a bowl for herself. 

He had waited for her to sit, and then said “pray mommy”.

“Of course, Teddy. Close your eyes,” she replied. “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come…” she paused. Tears began welling up in her eyes. “Thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven…” Sniff. “Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those…” she stared at Teddy, who innocently remained eyes closed. “… who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…” her hand shook. She was excited now. “Amen.”

“Amen,” Teddy said.

Ally watched as he dug in, oblivious. It only took a spoonful or two, and Teddy seized. Falling off of his chair and onto the floor. She watched him spasm until he no longer could. And dragged him, saliva soaking the table rug, then the hardwood floor, into the basement, where she kicked the body down, and locked the door behind her.

That was Monday. Tuesday night, his middle school teacher called and asked where Teddy had been. She simply hung up the phone. She didn’t owe anyone a goddamn explanation.

One week later, she awoke in the night. She had slept peacefully the last week, so this was highly unusual. She got up to check the doors were still locked. The back door wasn’t. It smelled of chloroform for 60 seconds while the rag sat squashing her nostrils…

Ally awoke slowly, shaking off the chemical. Someone had placed her in an armchair. Her legs and arms were free, but her head was stuck in a box with a chain around her neck. From the shoulders up, she was trapped in place. When she screamed, a video automatically played on a television set far across the concrete room.

A clown appeared with red spirals on its pale cheeks, a puppet’s mouth, hair black and parted like Fredrick Douglass, and a 3 piece black suit with a white button up beneath a red bowtie, and a red napkin in its breast pocket. Another voice spoke, and the puppet jaw moved. It sounded like an ailing, baritone old man. But its words were clear as they cut through the spacious room.

“Hello Allissa. I want to play a game. The chain around your neck is connected to a pulley system in the ceiling. You have five minutes to find the key to unlock the padlock beneath the device around your head. Or hang for what you’ve done. Make your choice…”

The video ended, the screen went black. But at the same time, the chain started receding into the ceiling, pulled by gears of some sort. All she could think to do was scream, and she did. Long, and loud.

“Help me! Somebody help me!!! Please God, help me! Please…” she began to sob and kick, scratching frantically at the glass box, and pulling on the padlock. 

Finally she looked around her, and spotted the key on the ground about a foot from her right ankle. She tried to stretch, but the chain around her neck had grown extremely tight. She spared a look upwards, and saw the chain ascending like a vertical tightrope. 

She couldn’t look back down, her decision to look up had thinned out her neck, and the chain had grown tighter around it. Until it was lifting her out of the chair. Up she went, her feet were now on the seat, but only her toes could touch it. She began to swing as she gradually lost consciousness, and blood from her neck began to fill the glass box.

Finally, the chain had pulled her all the way to the ceiling, and still hadn’t stopped. The glass broke, sticking in her face and clavicles as her head squeezed against the ceiling, and the chain retracted completely, leaving both head and body squeezed brutally apart, to fall to the floor below, sloppily bouncing off of the chair as blood sprayed out from where her head was missing.

*

Shadowy Figures

By Emmanuel Williams

September 23, 2026

The mountain stood tall over the village where the Happy Folk lived. They all saw the strange men in camouflage and dark glasses come to the village. What was the purpose of these strange figures who were only known as shadowy figures by the Happy Folk. Blind as they were, it was all they knew of them.

And when one of them, Barry, went to sleep, he dreamed of a bright sunny sky as he ran through the fields with his beloved. 

But one of the shadows had knocked him down, and he lost sight of his beloved as she ran past him toward the mountain, where the spirit known as Monkey lived.

He tried to move, to rejoin his beloved in their frolic and carelessness, but he was pinned, and paralysed in equal measure.

The shadow produced a shovel from nowhere, and shoved it deep into Barry’s chest. He felt the metal slice his skin, but no injury was visible. Until the shovel was removed and with it came a sheet of gray silk. It was endless.

And the shadow pulled on this sheet, yanking Barry off the ground pull after pull. Overhead the clouds moved in, and gathered over the shadowy figure’s head. Lightning crashed as Barry awoke suddenly, with tears falling tangibly along his cheeks and off his chin. And onto the floor where they echoed thunderously.

Finally he heard the roar of the Monkey.

A bright light pierced the sky, and fire swept through Barry’s home, and engulfed him before he dissolved into ashes.

*

“Once upon a time, at the foot of a great mountain

There was a town where the people known as Happyfolk lived

Their very existence a mystery to the rest of the world

Obscured as it was by great clouds

Here they played out their peaceful lives

Innocent of the litany of excess and violence

That was growing in the world below

To live in harmony with the spirit of the mountain called Monkey was enough

Then one day, Strangefolk arrived in the town

They came in camouflaged, hidden behind dark glasses

But no one noticed them, they only saw shadows

You see, without the truth of the eyes, the Happyfolk were blind

Fallin’ out of aeroplanes and hidin’ out in holes

Waitin’ for the sunset to come, people goin’ home

Jump out from behind them and shoot them in the head

Now everybody dancing the dance of the dead

The dance of the dead, the dance of the dead

In time, Strangefolk found their way

Into the higher reaches of the mountain

And it was there that they found the caves

Of unimaginable sincerity and beauty

By chance, they stumbled upon the place where all good souls come to rest

The Strangefolk, they coveted the jewels in these caves above all things

And soon they began to mine the mountain

It’s rich seam fueling the chaos of their own world

Meanwhile, down in the town, the Happyfolk slept restlessly

Their dreams invaded by shadowy figures digging away at their souls

Every day people would wake and stare at the mountain

Why was it bringing darkness into their lives?

And as the Strangefolk

Mined deeper and deeper into the mountain, holes began to appear

Bringing with them a cold and bitter wind

That chilled the very soul of the Monkey

For the first time, the Happyfolk felt fearful for

They knew that soon the Monkey would stir from it’s deep sleep

And then came a sound, distant first, that grew into castrophany

So immense that it could be heard far away in space

There were no screams

There was no time

The mountain called Monkey had spoken

There was only fire, and then nothing

Oh, a little town in the USA, your time has come to see

There’s nothing you believe you want

But where were you when it all came down on me?

Did you call me? No…”

-Gorillaz, “Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head”, Demon Days (2005)

*

It Belongs To Us

By Emmanuel Williams

September 23, 2026

“How years ago in days of old
When magic filled the air
T’was in the darkest depths of Mordor
I met a girl so fair
But Gollum, the evil one
Crept up and slipped away with her
Her, her, yeah
Ain’t nothing I can do, no

I guess I keep on rambling”

-Led Zeppelin, Ramble On (1969)

*

Along the path to Mordor, Sam and Frodo walk the stones and dirt in bare feet, with barely a morsel to share between them. Rains fall, and snow melts. They have grown weary. 

One day, Frodo asks Sam to stay behind and guard the ring, which he places about his own neck, and waits at the last camp. As he sits next to the fire, a bright light appears in the distance. Coming closer. Alerted, Sam raises his head above the small flames, and it is a woman. A woman in white cloth, shining brightly against the dark rock of the mountains. Soon she is upon him.

“Greetings young hobbit,” she says. “I am Yilel.”

“I am Samwise Gamgee,” said Sam. “But you are not to be here. If Mr. Frodo comes back and sees that I am disturbed, well he will be quite displeased, I tell you that.”

“I am not your enemy, Samwise,” Yilel says. “I come to share your food, and keep you company on such a lonely night.”

“ You do not know what you ask,” said Sam. “What evil is this?”

The girl moves closer to him, and before he can protest, kisses him softly on the mouth.

Eyes still closed, Sam is overcome.

“Yes, you can keep me company,” he says. And there they laid together, next to the fire. 

“This is pretty,” said Yilel. Lying on Sam’s naked leg. He doesn’t feel the cold around him as she touches the necklace of the one ring forged by Sauron to rule all rings in all the realms in a hidden contract.

“You take it,” said Sam. “I have another one, where did it go?”He removed the necklace from his own neck and placed it upon the girl’s. She marveled at it as he fumbled around in his seat looking for the other he had mentioned.

“Shhh…” said Yilel, settling him with another kiss. Then she slipped her hand between his thighs, and they rested there until Sam fell asleep.

He dreamed of a small, thin, cursed creature named Gollum, who discovered the two of them there, and, eager to reunite with his precious ring, grabbed the nearest, heaviest rock, and bent over Sam. 

“Give us the precious!”

And Gollum brought the rock down upon the sleeping Samwise Gamgee, and took the girl his prisoner. Dragging her sleeping body off and into the night.

“It’s ours,” said Gollum. “The precious belongs to us! Hobbits thinks they can steal it from us. We has it now, yes. We has it now.”

Sam awoke to Frodo shaking him awake.

“Sam! Sam! It’s only a dream!”

“Oh, Mr. Frodo. Thank God you’re here.”

“Sam.”

“Yes, Mr. Frodo.”

“Sam, where’s the ring?”

*