The daily short story is where you'll find original tales written by me. Free and nonags, for your reading pleasure. Adult themes apply sometimes but not too gratuitiously. Thanks for stopping by. Now here is,

Demons in the Present : PART ONE

This story contains erotic elements but it’s aesthetic and tasteful. For it is the far distant future, and 2 dimensions are colliding...

Imogen retreated into the shadows. The moon was crumbling. Prophet Herod had seen it trailing parmesan-like dust, through the observatory telescopes. This had been ongoing some months. In the catacombs of the cathedral’s foundations, she sought the warrior philosopher, Imotaeus.

You, are you lost, or have you come for to witness the hand of God?

The voice called from behind her.

I’ve come to beseech the one who reposes in shadow, is it you, wise Imotaeus?

She turned, but so did he, slipping behind the pillars and in the gloom they cast.

What is work if a lock restrained it?

What do you mean?

If force shot from my outstretched hand and killed the great prophet, what would it be called?

Injustice, tragedy?

You were not paying attention. Magnetism, radiation, forces bound to the planets by their flywheeling, abrading energies. And their shapers, those sensitive to them. As in sensitivity there is work, and so, times. Who are you?

Herod has a granddaughter. I am called Imogen.

The sun had shifted as they talked, and she beheld his form.

The body you see is bound, m’lady. A vessel of spirits. Thus are our thoughts, and every action, under scrutiny of the divine. So does our flesh leaven with faith, and irrigating it is breath and blood, desiring the latter, regulated by the former.

He approached her, her hand went up to her blushed cheek and it adhered, peeling it off her face like a shard of pottery. Internally, she was hollow and a hot whistling wind escaped the gash. Imotaeus took it from her and placed it back. Her hands against the coarse hair of his chest. His lips, slanted and his eyes topped by thick, dark brow hair, they saw into her soul. Here, we are all of this nature.

Imogen pushed away, she hoisted her gown and ran towards the palace.

On the moon, Europa, Professor Becky Dee and the man most knew simply as Plunk, were in mating ritual. To ensure optimal fertility, decide the expression of their child’s genetics, weed out AI imposters. And Felix watched, chin on carpet, from beneath the couch, concerned at his masters’ grappling. Eventually, Plunk overturned Becky’s lock, spread, and entered her, barely so, their muscles, straining taut as he shot off his seed.

For humanity was a dying species. AI had reduced itself to the pico scale and permeated the earth. Bodies now adapted to the cleansing radiation of Jupiter, as UV destroyed viruses, bacteria, radio waves so suppressed the intelligent machines. And canines were being primed to be successors of man’s empire of the stars. Felix remembered with pangs of humility, the black-cassocked InterFaith pastor who cradled him towards the lander as meteorites exploded around them, the accelerated evolution on the hectic and dangerous moon, Maelstrom, where he was born and first whelped.

... END OF PART ONE

What if?

Aren’t you a writer? Came a sophisticated voice from the far end of the bar.

Why yes, I said, toes wiggling in my loafers.

You’re ChenKuang Yap! I’m Jonathan, pleased to meet you!

And yourself.

I’ve been dying to ask you something -and it weighs heavy on my heart. What’s it like being yeller?

I was actually expecting a question on my stories but I will answer anyway. Being yeller... every time I look at my skin, it’s like I have a disease, and I mentally have to fight the fear off. Also, I try really hard at things that come naturally to others. And the Folks, they must be trapped in a discarded early draft of The Analects.

But what’s it really like? In the you-know-what, Jonathan whispered. Have you ever had a white woman?

If this is gonna carry on, so be it. Think of the negative publicity it might cause if it stopped wrong. Jon, you’re right, many yeller fellers don’t think things through well, we don’t have natural confidence. Much of China was once swamp. We could have built Venice writ-large but the hexagrams of the I-Ching held a different future for us. And as for white women, I think of them as vanilla -the universally-loved flavor.

Jonathan stared at me. He scratched his beard. But what do you dream of? He asked earnestly.

I like watches, luxuries, being pampered. Sometimes, I wonder to myself what it would be like to be served coffee / wine at the Patek Philippe boutique in Kuala Lumpur as I browse their collections. Us yellers, we’re all smitten by wealth and the trappings of respect. Mao was right to burn all those books. We weren’t ready to imagine -to fantasize. In essence, as yellers -it wasn’t our time to rise.

My daughter is a fan of your stories. She reads them every day. What would you say to her, as a role model?

When I was young, living in Kuala Lumpur, we often hit the night market where Dad would buy pisang emas. He loved banana. And what we couldn’t finish, Mom turned into rich cakes. She also sew and altered most of our clothes herself. Kids are a lot like leftover bananas and outgrowing pajamas. When young, we’re all too sweet and spoil easily unless we are mixed with a different philosophy, a foundation of wheat flour / eggs -what have you. And the awkwardness of being clothed with stitches made for expanding later on. I got my first good shoes from an Adidas seconds bargain bin before I left school. I wore good shoes in college, and now I’ve added a respectable hat -I’m a writer. People care about what I say. Wheat flour, and eggs -they’re the universal aspects of wisdom.

Jonathan looked like someone who’d just smelled a wild boar spit roasting. I sensed he had a lot on his mind. A lot to tell me about how his world was very different. Instead, he seemed to be regulating his breathing.

Okay! He exclaimed with a pat on the bar top. We shook hands and I autographed a monogrammed napkin for him with a caricature of myself and the date we met.

I watched him saunter out the bar. Against the glare of the evening sun, it seemed like he had golden wings. And I wondered about many things. Things I’d done unworthy, things I’d not considered worthy doing. How I got where I was now despite. And I began to write a new story: What If?

He Was Never Real

Far away ‘cross the fields, by the sea
A prisoner waits to be freed
Long ago the dragon’s breath
Turned with his wrath, the tide of frays

“Excuse me, I’m Sir William -I mean Surr... Billy. What would your name be?”

“Sir William, Billy? I must be Emma, no Emerald. She stifled a good-natured laugh”

Billy frowned. "Where am I?”

“This is Sydney”

“Very good, but what is the date?”

“It’s just about 2027, January 1st ”

“And you see, about now, there is a great dragon to appear”

“And swallow Jesus? William, Billy -that is the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard. Are you even Christian?”

“I was -before the Crusades”

“You know you could be my knight in shining armor...”

She took off his helmet and it was heavier than she thought.

“Oops!” It fell from her hands, rolling into the water of the bay.

“Never mind,” Billy said, “All I need is the blessed sword”

He drew the tongues of fire and held it aloft.

The party gave way around him and the Spirit-filled blade. Emma felt weak in her knees, “How can we help you?”

“Somewhere here is the Ancient Serpent”

“In Sydney -on New Year’s Day?”

The crowd re-gathered around ‘Billy’. They stroked his armor and poured cocktails down his throat. Pretty girls kissed his cheeks as the festive celebrations went on.

Fireworks lit the sky in crackles, followed by huge booms.

Billy knelt, hands on the hilt of his sword. He bowed his head and prayed. Someone draped her panties over his shoulder but he was unfazed by the ‘favor’.

“Emma,” he said, “What if I told you I wasn’t real -I wasn’t here?”

“Nothing can tell a person they’re dreaming”

“What if the dragon appeared and I slew it?”

“What if we never woke up?”

They looked at one another.

“We shouldn’t have talked, Billy -William, Sir, whatever you’re really called”

“Then I must be on my way”

“Wait, this pub is the Red Dragon and it sits between the beast of the sea and the beast of the land”

She pointed out the iconic sculptures set up not so long ago, and the sign above the watering hole. It was registered ‘66-6’.

Sir William wiped the sweat off his lips on the panties / favor and grimaced. Everything fit but the place itself.

“What goes on here in Sydney?”

“We were a colony. Once all of us were in chains...”

Sir William prayed again, thanking the Lord for delivering these thieves.

Emma frowned, “that was a long time ago”

“Better late than never”

“Emerald, I will remember you”

“Who said I was real?”

And it happened that over that day, many were raised from the dead, one by one, Emma and a friend dove into the waters of the bay and found the knight’s helmet. There was a stone sarcophagus covered in silt, and on it, inscribed his name. The cover was ajar and it was empty.

One who drew the tongues of fire
A lone warrior brave
To the depths of the dungeon descended he
To a sword lost in a cave, that’d end the dragons’ days

That afternoon, she prayed -and it was for the first time in many years. “God if indeed you are real, please listen...”

Encounter

Aliens, flying saucers, you ever seen those for real? No, said Jerry. But I’d seen a lotta people blasted to bits. Kabul, Basra, Damascus, Kyiv - that’s enough proof for me. That? That we’re not going home. A short pause. Sir, y’know, ever wonder why some UFOs wobble as they fly, others, they switch directions fast as lightning? I mean it’s unreal -whole thing’s fishy. Aliens, their eyes, so huge, their heads… this big, he gestured.

In The War of the Worlds, the Martians were killed by friendly bacteria. Your question should be: why aren’t they all dead by now?

Add that to: where do they all come from?

They’ve always been here, some of them are supernatural, one species helping the next adapt to the planet.

So the ones in the wobbly saucers, they’re the slaves?

A lot of what you’ve heard is a deception. Tom checked the sunset time on his wrist GPS -we're early, make the rim, set up, then we wait. He was the older of the two, Area 51 -was there, ditto the autopsy video. Jerry stared at his partner, how old was he really? His wavy hair was graying and his skin had no doubt seen better days -the weapons specialist he was to assist.

The sun was fast slipping below the horizon and the glow from the crater grew menacing. In the dim, Tom handed Jerry the legs. Each one telescoped hundreds of meters, they lashed them down, dangling over the fiery pit like fishing rods. Jerry hauled out the transducer -the heaviest piece of gear. Tom plugged it into the lead leg.

What if we’re wrong about the Aliens -that they’re friendly? Jerry, if they truly were, they would’ve helped us, whereas they waited for our empires to crumble, our weapons, technology to be used against one another, our spirits to grow weak. Gospel is what they truly fear. And we’re supposed all to be antichrists by now? Is God an alien too? Tom ignored him.

With all due respect, sir, we’re sitting ducks up here, top of this peak, with your spider contraption. Say we don’t make it, he whispered to himself. Jerry’s arms shook as he scanned the sky with his Eyearrs. Fast-moving blue lights spun out of the dense clouds, wherein large dark forms drifted incognito. Shit, boss, they’re here! But Tom waited, serene -they’re curious, which means they’re more into laughing at us.

Then a sudden wind, vibrations began to shake the ground, click-clacking the volcanic rocks beneath their feet. They looked at one another, two ordinary men against superior beings, technology from another world. The rattling came stronger and the crater, buffeted by gusts of wind, as flashing orbs overflew them. Jerry felt warm seep through his underpants. Tom appeared lost in thought. Psi attacks or none, the spider-like weapon sipped the magma, turning into a miniature sun. They looked away from the glare, careening down the sides of the volcano. Lashes of plasma flailed into the clouds. Explosions shattered the sky. Alien orbs blasted the mini star to no avail. It rose into the sky, spitting, crackling. And the mysterious shapes in the clouds withdrew.

Jerry, lying prone, dropped the AI-enhancing binoculars, wheezing. Tom beside him, cradled his arm. A singed slash through his jacket. The enormity that they’d just unleashed. It started raining milky pink hail.

The Brocade Purse

First of all, apologies for the last story that was short. This will be longer, about something I always wanted to tell. Now, enjoy the tale, as we travel back in time to 1995,

‘Those were the best times of my life,’ it was a lyric from a Bryan Adams song. Yea, those of us in the ‘easy passage’ A-Levels program would soon be heading for the UK, and into reputable British universities.

I pondered this from my bed in the psych ward, surrounded by gentle yet somewhat ‘off’ minds. And on my wrist, my favorite moonphase watch. I loved the complication that predicted the ungainly 29.5 day lunar cycle. Maybe I was indeed mad albeit for defending myself from certain death -a lunatic who lost control, they considered me -a liar, even more.

It took two snakes to know one another. She and her stark angel eyes, a neckline that buttoned flat above her navel. In later years, I realized what she was and why my lotus reacted so, a snake herself, astrologically, emotionally. She’d coil her arm about anybody’s waist thicker than hers. The heart attack on the chartered bus I was lucky to have survived.

But the days spent in psych ward were peaceful. It was a place of calm. I was up early, perhaps the effect of having the only timepiece. There was a lack of mirrors for some reason but plenty of plastic chairs which we used to gather round who had prophecy. I made friends there, I’d never forget. It was like seeing someone’s still beating heart, watching it sink back in, the flesh closing up around it, every time you thought of them.

And in the midst of the scuffle, I let my lotus go. So too Grandma’s brocade purse. Made of hundreds of tiny beads stitched onto black silk. It had cost me my degree, and by then, her sanity. To find ourselves trading places, passing one another on a transport, in a station, on a platform going opposite ways. It was 25 years later, and we were 50. The benefits of having a church -people who look out for you, when are you going to come clean, Lian?

But she was rich, as she got into her Lambo, her sanity hanging by a thread. The contract was broken, all the pills and jabs she’d taken on me, her willing hostage. Even as the wind in Aberdeen had picked up, sweeping my long hair about my tortoise shell glasses, and I ducked into a gallery up a slope of road. Was I free of her? I stared at my Casio as the seconds then the minutes, and the hours, then the years swept by, and it was 1995 again, if I had the chance to do it different? What then does ‘now’ mean? The sum of everyone’s choices, the tapestry we agreed on that she slashed in a fit of rage. And in the cathedral, the slabs of colored glass, I clutched the brocade purse. The house had sold for 2 million Pounds.

And the wheels of prophecy sounded like the grating whir of a bicycle chain. The snakes, older and wiser, shared the tree. She got her medical degree from Grenada. And I went on to write a killer game I gave away free. There are reasons for everything, she said. The serpent, the wisest of animals. Among the beads of the brocade are palpable decisions certain women easily read. But it was mine to give. And I slipped it into my sling pack. Down the Tesco aisles, a slew of products the mad company had custom made. I hesitated over them, and my heart began to show, as heads turned towards my face which broke out in a shy smile.

The Unstruck Chord

It was hectic as lords and ladies of the court found their places around the harpsichord. And the young composer, smiling and eager, took many bows. Soon he would begin. Beside him, a beautiful young soprano in a mint and peach gown. She whispered something in his ear, and they absconded together into an adjoining suite.

There is a traitor in our midst, she whispered, in a thick accent, and handed him a folded letter. She looked at him suspiciously -as if he were a suspect as well. Then uproarious clapping and calls for his name came flooding in. He looked himself in a mirror, and strode out confidently.

The title of the piece was ‘The Betrayal of Judas’ and a small ensemble accompanied the harpsichordist. He flicked his coat and sat upon the stool. The opening bars were played and the conductor cued the vocals. To his trained fingers, the music was easy, and it seemed like everything faded into the background as he played autonomously. ‘Are you the assassin or otherwise his target?’ It was written in Latin. He remembered the murder of Caesar. Et tu Brute.

The piece began its crescendo towards the fatal kiss. Hands turned the page of their brochures as the vocals peaked, it was like shrieking and there were worried whispers in the background, shuffling feet.

What do the people say? A voice announced, for I am captain of the Royal Guard. Is the Tsar to be king no more? The harpsichordist turned, mid song, and it was the final chord of the cadenza -it simply was not played. He stood up. Long live the King, he shouted.

There was a fracas in the palace. And someone in a black velvet cloak sneaked out, accompanied by elderly women. It was of utmost importance, said the captain of the guard, as revolutionaries stormed the chamber. They dragged him to the keyboard and made him play the unstruck chord. It was noted he resisted till the last. Godspeed Anastasia.

The Magic Paintbrush

Hinoki listened to the sermon, and God breathed into face of the man he had formed and it became alive, even so a living soul.

He had not much English to understand the story of Adam and Eve, the account of creation. But he knew, as any Asian guy knew, the face is where it all happens. Worship, downcasts, embarrassments, they all showed through one’s face.

What was special in God’s breath?

But he was a student of sculpting, not divinity. And one day, his professor took him aside. There’s something I created, he said, together with versioning AI if you must know. And the elderly academician showed him the brush.

It looked just like any ordinary no. 12 watercolor brush, with a taper and a pointy tip. Whatever you paint will come alive, if you really put your heart and soul into it. And this is your canvas. Hinoki reached out and touched it —nearly invisible in its 3 dimensions, it resisted his fingers as they passed through.

*put all your heart and soul into it*

Perhaps that was what ‘breathe’ meant. When we breathe, a lot chain-happens. Not so much drink or eat, but breathe. It affects the whole body. And he decided to begin creating. He started with a few ‘cute’ characters.

The AI understood his deft strokes as he rounded the invisible cube canvas, and soon he had made a little flying rat. He made a crawling beetle centaur, and a mini, red-furred Sasquatch.

These, he played with, then allowed to roam the studio-lab, not thinking to put out any food or water, nor to give any instructions, commands to them, he stowed the brush and went home.

Hinoki wondered about the next day, at the AI art lab. What would he create next?

You’re not serious! The professor stared in amazement at the 3 creatures his student had made. We'd not been able to fully animate anything up till you arrived -certainly not overnight. Hinoki fed his creations a vegan taco and soda water, waiting for the punchline. In the end, he asked - what would you now like me to paint?

Hinoki, you must create GOD. The command winded him like a punch to the gut and he collapsed into a swivel chair. The professor held him by his hands and made him promise to give it his best shot. Cameras would be rolling. And the versioning AI had updated itself to the factorial of all permutations in between. Theoretically it should be possible.

But what did God look like? An old man with a white beard and flaming eyes? A gentle son of man in the prime of his life? To create our Creator… that would take some study.

I was a creator, thought the young sculptor. A successful one. His works peered at him quizzically as their master wracked his brains over the assignment.

What is God but He who creates? Hinoki decided to draw himself -a perfect version of himself. Each time, the AI would re-version itself, and he would sit back, let his clones breathe life into ever more powerful versions of themselves.

At the 6th iteration, there came a blinding light from within the frame of the 3D canvas. The building shook and fire alarms and sprinklers went off. The light struck everyone dead, except Hinoki. Hinoki #7. My son, it said. Father, replied the remaining Hinoki.

Phantom of the Ocarina

He hadn't had a night emission since forever. It must have been something she had done with him, somehow infused his subconscious with, the night before bed.

'Surprise, it's your birthday! Close your eyes...'

He had felt her thru her oversized slinky tee shirt, as she covered his face from behind. She was a thick-hipped, big haired woman of 26. He could feel her bristles grate against the small of his back, against the waistband of his pajama bottoms.

The static from her Barbie-like hair.

The small hours of dawn found him roused, blinking away his sleep, on his side, waters pulsing through tingling flesh. Slow throbs, seconds apart that seemed to stretch interminably, as some primal instinct kept him frozen to the bed. He wondered about the mess he would discover later, now seeping along his thigh.

A light came on behind him, a shadow from the doorway swept across his body. He thought he heard a stifled giggle escape a nose, fingers scouring those bristles, and decided he would keep perfectly still so she wouldn't find out.

But the final spasms were shallower, more insistent and he pushed against the sheets, back arched and gasping.

He heard the door swing shut urgently, the shadow receding with it as if on frantic tiptoe.

Breakfast was quiet, even serious. He put a capsule of coffee into the coffeemaker, and it spurted strands of brown stringy liquid into the glass below. A valve opened and hot water gushed over it. She gazed thoughtfully at him, the machine, fingers peeling a large Cavendish. He watched her lay it on her dish, raw and slightly corn-textured. Breathed in hard as she sliced it up with the blade of her spoon. Coffee cup rattling in his left hand, slid down onto the table haphazardly, gripping its edge to seat himself.

He peered at his roommate. Thus far, their relationship had been, by default, platonic. Accordingly, he kept her femininity at arms length and she, being more confident for it, knew what she could have and touch. The privileges of the self-controlled.

'So, have you finished your song yet?'

'Which one?'

'The one with the whistling over where you sing, “…see through to her coffee eyes” and so on’

'You mean the one with the backing ocarina—'

'Yeah, because I borrowed it. I came last night to put it back'

'Yes, I noticed'

'It has a nice texture -so many holes. Tell me what "coffee eyes" are'

The starchy banana smulched over her gums from one cheek to another. He sipped the bitter roast. And he wondered if her suggestive eating was gratitude or just something people with smaller mouths, wrists and ankles had to make do with.

'You know, you can keep the ocarina'

No reply, just hesitant chewing.

'Why?' She asked at length.

'I've always wanted one with 2 chambers -that way you can go higher'

There was silence as she averted her eyes.

'So, could I then also borrow it?'

Demons in the Present : PART ONE

Phantom of the Ocarina

About Me

I'm a self published author living in Petaling Jaya. I was born in Canberra and have since retired at the age of 50. Feel free to e-mail me at chnkngyp@gmail.com on anything you're curious about. Thanks for dropping by! View my books on Amazon, and my novella 'iS' published with Partridge.

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