Morgan Sinclair, Chpt. 3

Morgan awoke in a dream, or so it felt.

Light flooded his vision, and coalesced into a vastly different world before him.  Tall cliffs rose on either side of him.  Wind raged through the narrow pass in which he stood, carrying with it the salty smell of the ocean, the metallic tinge of blood, and the stench of human decay and excrement.  His vision was narrowed by the heavy metal helmet that curved around the arch of his brow and down the bridge of his nose.  The wind chilled his sweaty skin and brought sand to abrade his exposed flesh.  A large, circular shield of bronze held fast to his left arm, hugged to his torso.  He carried a tall spear in his right that extended upward nearly two feet above his own head.  His chest was clad in a thin chest plate that left his arms bare.  A short blade, perhaps two or two and a half feet in length from hilt to tip, hung from his waist, clanking against the armored battle dress that adorned his lower half.  Shin protectors were strapped over the rough cowhide sandals that laced up his calves to the knee.
            The sky overhead roiled with dark clouds, rays of sun graced the landscape through patches in the dense cloud across the horizon.  Morgan watched, an observer, through the eyes of another.  This he knew, for his body reacted without conscious will, as though reflexively.  The shield hefted higher, and he began to march.  Around him, ranks of men, before and behind, marched in unison; their eyes were hardened and emotionless, their bodies knotted with muscle and adorned with scar tissue.  The ground was uneven beneath his feet as he trod onward.  He looked beneath his soles to find the faces of the dead.  Enemies, he knew, somehow.  Moans and cries of pain were silenced as the weight of hundreds of soldiers crushed those unfortunate enough to have survived the onslaught underfoot.  Morgan, in his observant consciousness, felt a wave of revulsion, but this body he inhabited did not share the stomach churning feeling.  He returned his gaze forward to see them approach the mouth of the canyon.  A call to halt boomed between the massive walls on either side, and at once, obediently, the mass of soldiers planted their feet, raising their shields, and hefting their spears.  Morgan’s own shield went up and his grip changed upon the wicked javelin he held.

Three ranks from the front, Morgan could see, now, beyond the mouth of the canyon.  A vast legion stood beyond the walls to meet them.  He glanced around at his comrades, acknowledging in defeat that their numbers paled in comparison to the vast army that comprised the battlefield unto the horizon.  Distant drums pounded, resounding from the enemy, intending to incite fear, but, with another glance around, he saw that the soldiers surrounding were unfazed.  They were steel, forged in the fires of conflict.  A call bellowed towards them in a language he could not understand, and the massive army before them began to advance.  Slowly at first, and then more quickly, until advancing upon them was a tsunami of flesh and honed metal.  Their war cries, a million echoes, were deafening as they bounced in the canyon.  The ranks around Morgan tightened and braced for impact.  In a moment of clarity, Morgan knew where he must be.  Knowledge rose unbidden to his mind from history classes he had taken, and from his own interest in ancient mythology.

Thermopylae.  There could be no other place.  The legendary battle in which 300 Spartan warriors stood against an invading Persian army a million vast.  Fear crept into his consciousness as the invaders drew nearer.  No more than a hundred yards now.  His small force held their ground, soldiers of stone blocking passage.  The pass they guarded would serve to funnel the opposing force, rendering the bulk of their numbers useless in large scale assault.  Only the war of attrition to come, the pitting of undisciplined, but fresh front-line fodder against the progressively tiring Spartans would spell disaster.

With a resounding howl, an echoing clank of metal on metal, and the squelch of splitting, punctured flesh, the two forces collided with tectonic force.  Morgan observed bewildered as each rank braced the one before it to resist the Persian invasion.  As he dug his left shoulder down to further brace his large shield, his right arm lashed out over the heads of his comrades to impale an unlucky foe.  Quickly as he had struck, he retracted his harpoon, sending flecks of gore and muscle tissue to spatter his own face and the bodies of those before him.  He roared, reveling in the glory of his first kill of the battle.  Despite the acrid taste of adrenaline in his throat, Morgan felt, before he saw, blackness begin to swallow his field of vision.  Through the progressively blackening haze, his weapon stabbed and lunged again and again, scoring victim upon victim.  Before long, his vision faded completely, and he lapsed into unconsciousness, sung to sleep by the raucous song of clashing swords, shields, and spears.

The emphatic honk of a car horn returned Morgan Sinclair to reality.  He raised the lids he hadn’t known had been covering his eyes.  They felt heavy, as though waking from a deep sleep, and he found himself standing at the edge of the sidewalk, as though preparing to cross the street, his hand clasped on the post of a street light.  He was, to a moderate degree, confused as to the events that had just occurred.  Morgan glanced around to see one person, a young woman, walking away from him, but peering over her shoulder at him, suspicious.  Looking down, Morgan saw that he was still dressed in hospital scrubs, the incessant shade of blue that had dominated his existence for the past five days.

It had been two more days, after his initial encounter with Lily, before the hospital had been confident enough to release him.  The doctor had scheduled him to return in two weeks to check the progress of his healing.  Lily, the fiery haired angel, had returned each day subsequent to their meeting, partially, he knew, to check his condition as per her duty, but also to converse with him casually and at length.  As his clothes had been left in bloody rags from the events of his accident, they had returned his effects to him and graced him with a pair of scrubs to wear.  A reminder he could keep of his pleasant times in the blue partition of the ward.
            Pleasant, he thought with a mental laugh.  What a joke.  What he had not received upon his departure was the necklace Lily had relieved him of while he lay in his morphine induced stupor.  But in Morgan’s mind, he had lost that sometime during the night of his attack.  The doses of pain medication had been reduced during the length of his stay, now having dwindled to a Vicodin prescription held crumpled in Morgan’s pocket.

Beneath the overcast sky outside the hospital door, Morgan inhaled deeply, falling in love with the air that wasn’t tainted by the scent of cleaner.  Ironically, his first effort was to wriggle a mangled pack of Marlboro Blend 27 cigarettes from the front pocket of his scrubs, and put one to his lips.

“You know those things will kill you.” The voice came from behind him, speaking both matter-of-factly, and carrying a jovial tone.  He turned and glanced over his shoulder to see Lily approaching from several paces behind.  He offered a short laugh and returned to lighting his cigarette.  After pausing to take a drag, he answered.
            “If I’m still alive by the time these things come back to haunt me, I clearly didn’t live epically enough.”
            She grinned.  “Fair enough.”  Lily crossed the distance between them and stood beside Morgan, shoulder to shoulder.
            “Thanks for helping maintain my sanity,” Morgan commented lightly.
            “No problem,” she replied with another smile.  “Waiting for someone to take you home?”  He laughed wistfully.
            “No, if I held my breath for someone to pick me up, I definitely wouldn’t need to worry about these cigarettes.  I don’t live too far away.”  He took another drag and exhaled slowly, sending streams of smoke spiraling from his nostrils.  “I should get going, though.  It is a bit of a walk.”  She nodded and gave him a light embrace, the mark of a friendship having been forged during the extent of his hospitalization.  He returned the embrace.

“How about that dinner sometime soon?” he asked.  She pulled back to meet his gaze.

“It’s against policy to date a patient,” she replied with a half-smile.  Her message was clear enough as she pressed a piece of paper firmly into his palm before releasing her hold.

“I suppose that means I should heal quickly,” Morgan said as she turned to walk inside.  Her only response was a furtive glance before she was swallowed maw of the hospital that salivated disinfectant.  He filed the piece of paper in his pocket with his crumpled prescription, and began trudging along toward his little piece of suburbia a couple miles to the north.  Due to the slight influence of the painkillers, the street before him was sluggish to follow his gaze.  The only way Morgan could describe the town surrounding him was to say it was cute, but it would be spoken mirthlessly and sans any fuzzy feelings the word implied.  Put plainly, it was boring.  Devoid of activity or entertainment for the younger generation.  As he traversed the sidewalk, cars passed calmly by, weaving through the latticework of streets between buildings, none of which were more than four stories high.

Winter winds under a mottled gray sky brought a chill to the air.  Dead leaves littered the streets, swirling in dervishes with each passing vehicle.  As he walked, he checked his watch.  The large face, mounted on an even larger band, read 12:15 PM.  Approaching a busy intersection, he slouched against a nearby light post.

The next thing he knew, he was awoken by the emphatic honk of a car horn.  His eyelids were heavy as though awaking from a deep sleep.  He looked around; finding himself still perched up against the streetlight, subject to the curious, suspicious glance of a young woman who had clearly walked past just moments before he came to.  Morgan glanced down at his watch.  It read 2:24 PM.
            Holy shit, where had the time gone?  His last memory before the intensely vivid dream episode was nearly two hours previous.  Have I really been standing here for that long?  Morgan stood confused for another moment, before bewilderedly wandering onward across the street.  His mind’s eye was a cinema playing the dream—was it a dream?—on repeat.  What had spawned such a sensory vividness within his mind, and of a topic so non-sequitur to his life?

The rest of the walk passed quickly as Morgan walked in a dissociated trance, lost in thought.  Again and again, he played through the events of his crash, the attack, and now the waking dream he had just experienced.

A half hour later, Morgan reached the steps that led into his house.  The lights within were dim, the blinds drawn.  He sighed as he turned the knob and crossed the threshold, all too familiar with what he knew he would find inside.  A narrow set of stairs yawned upwards before him.  Gray daylight filtered through the closed blinds, illuminating the innards of the house in a mottled light, robbing it of any hue.  Morgan rambled up the stairs to his room where he stripped out of the scrubs.  The room was clean, fastidiously organized, at the least.  Posters of various musical acts blanketed the walls.  A large bookshelf loomed in the shadowy corner, stuffed to capacity with books from various genres.  He grabbed a set of clothes; dark jeans, a black t-shirt, and gray hoodie, from his closet, and meandered into the bathroom.

Morgan leaned on the counter over the sink, surveying himself in the mirror.  It was almost as though a different person was looking back at him.  Having eaten little in his hospital stay, fed fluids constantly through an intravenous drip, he had lost weight.  His face was gaunt and hollow.  Days of hygienic disregard had left a dusting of thick facial hair covering his chin, neck, and cheeks.  After turning the shower to a scalding hot temperature, he shaved, the activity made awkward with only one good arm.

Fifteen minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom, showered, dressed, and refreshed.  Downstairs in the living room, he found what he had come to accept as normal, but had never gotten particularly accustomed to.  His father sat in the middle of the dark room, the only real light emanating from the television.  The man had always had problems with addiction, be it alcohol, cigarettes, or harder substances.  Come to think of it, his mother had as well, but she had excused herself from their lives several years prior in an attempt to help herself.  Morgan never knew what she had run from, whether it was both of them, just his father, her addiction, or other personal issues she had never confided in him.  In retrospect, it should not have come as much of a surprise at it had at the time, but at the tender age of thirteen, losing a parent was a fairly inconceivable idea.  Like most, Morgan had dealt with the unreasonable feelings of guilt at her absence, and his father had only gotten worse from there.  Morgan had remained blissfully unaware of the addiction hitherto her departure, but ignorance became more and more difficult to maintain.  His father had been wrapped in the constrictor coils of addiction, moving progressively downward in a spiral of increasingly potent intoxicants.  Formerly a respectable, well-paid computer programmer, he had lost his job a year ago in the face of his grief and substance abuse as he slipped from achieving his goals.  Initially dismayed, Morgan had tried to find help, find solace, but his stubborn father would not be reached.  Before long, he had accepted it as inevitable, and focused on maintaining his own quality of life in any way he could.  Fortunately the small suburban house in which they resided had been paid off prior to the termination of his dad’s employment.  Life savings and retirement funds had supported them for a while, but dwindled quickly in the face of wanton spending on narcotics.  His father now, somehow, retained the presence of mind to apply for welfare and unemployment, which Morgan was sure would soon be gone as well.  Groceries, the majority of which were consumed by Morgan, were purchased by his low paying job as a night shift stock manager at the local grocer.

The man, or the shell that was left, sat hunched in the middle of the couch, half lidded eyes fixated on the television screen.  There was no telling how long he had remained there, motionless.  Strapped loosely, forgotten, around his bicep was a length of rubber tubing that acted as a tourniquet.  On the floor by his feet laid a lighter, and a discarded hypodermic needle.  A large spoon, the handle bent around to be easily held by a shaky hand, sat on the table, crystallized remnants of a solution dusted the bowl of the utensil.  So it was heroin this week.  Morgan sighed.  It was always something different.  He had seen transitions from marijuana, to cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, heroin, and even methamphetamine.  In all honesty, Morgan was surprised the man was still alive.  He had attempted to enroll him in rehab, even call the cops, but the stubborn, idiotic, man always managed to slip through the cracks, returning to his oceanic trench of drugs and despair.

Morgan walked carefully into the living room, into his father’s field of vision.  It was a pathetic sight.  The man’s skin was sallow, a yellowing pale in hue.  Sweat beaded his brow and unshaven upper lip.  Stubble consumed his hollow cheeks and chin.  Long ago, Morgan had stopped feeling guilt or sorrow for the man who had once been his father, now he felt only pity and contempt.  The man was slow to acknowledge the presence of his son.

“Morgan,” finally came the croaking whisper from his parched throat.  “Where have you been?”  He spoke slowly, as though it was a great effort to undertake.

“I’ve…I’ve been busy,” Morgan responded.  The man might have acknowledged him with a barely perceptible nod, perhaps not.  Either way, he had returned to his world of demons and television, with nothing left to say.  He had failed to notice the giant cast that encompassed his son’s arm.  Failed to notice the bruises, the hospital bracelet.  Morgan sighed again and left the room, retreating to his bedroom.  He was tired, exhausted; both in a mental and physical sense, but as he laid on his bed—not bothering to pull back the tautly drawn sheets—he knew sleep would not come to him.  This was by no means an unusual occurrence.  Due to his graveyard work shift, his sleep schedule was irregular at best.  More often than not bordering on the insomniac.

Again, images of his crash, of his attack, flooded his mind.  The sensation of insanity crept further and further into his mind as he lay staring at his ceiling, until he could bear it no more.

Morgan scooted off his bed, and reached beneath it to withdraw a shoe box.  From inside he pulled a Heckler and Koch USP .45 handgun.  A relic of his father’s that he had confiscated and hid in lieu of his rare but dangerous drug induced rages.  He pushed the full magazine into place, checked to ensure the safety was on, and left a round unchambered, before stuffing it into the back of his waistband.  It was past time to return to the site of his attack and verify his sanity, or insanity.

A local bus dropped him across town, where it would be a short walk to the edge of the forest.  For the second time in less than as many weeks, Morgan found himself tromping through the underbrush.  Dead leaves crunched underfoot as he searched.  The musky odor of bark and decaying foliage filled his nostrils.  The winter winds blew through the treetops scattering leaves, pinecones, and small branches to litter the forest floor.

For two hours, Morgan’s endeavor bore no fruit.  The early sunset, characteristic of the season, advanced quickly in the late afternoon.  The deep orange of the sinking sun blazed through the barren trees, casting long shadows across the ground which seemed to yearn and grasp for Morgan like spindly fingers.  Finally, and predominantly by sheer luck, he discovered the gaping hole in the earth from which he had emerged the victor of a life or death struggle.  Painted in hues of orange, red, and black, it looked like a bloodied maw; the wooden boards that had once concealed it broken, like the jagged, rotten teeth of a carnivore.  Morgan gave a quick glance over his shoulder to watch the golden-orange orb begin to sink below the mountains in the distance.  He gave an involuntary shudder as a chill skittered the length of his spine.  Fear, borne of memory, rose within him, accompanied by the all too familiar bitterness of bile in his throat.  His hand absently brushed the pistol in his waistband before he calmed himself with a shake of his head and a few deep breaths.

Into the pit he descended, slowly, testing each decayed step before putting his full weight on it.  He stepped gingerly onto the dirt floor.  Since the roof had been forcibly opened, nature had begun to consume the room and turn it into any other hole in the ground.  Leaves littered what had been a cleanly swept stone floor.  In the fading daylight, the inside of the sanctum was nearly too dark to see.  Morgan cursed himself silently for not having the presence of mind to bring a flashlight.  He never would have imagined the search would take this long.  Pausing a moment to let his vision adjust to the darkness, a vague shape sparked his memory.  In hues of mottled black and blue, the form of a desk materialized.  Atop the desk sat the form of a long unused oil lantern.  Perhaps it still worked.  Morgan reached his hands out before him, feeling his way forward.  Suddenly, his foot caught on something, invisible in the black, and he sprawled forward.  The fall dealt him a glancing blow to the forehead as he struck the leg of a chair.  Morgan swore.  It hurt, but undoubtedly was not a critical injury.  He slowly pushed himself to his feet, and spidered his hands across the desk until he found the base of the lamp.  He seized it from the desk and scrounged in his pocket for the lighter he always kept on his person.  With a flick of the flint, the small flame lit up the corner of the room.  Morgan carefully opened the door to the lantern, and set the feeble flame to the wick.

Mercifully, the fire took, the lantern blazed to life; illuminating the small room, and casting harsh shadows.  Now that he had light, his mind had begun to wonder what he had tripped over, and answered the question even before he turned to look.  The wolf.  The monster.  Whatever it had been.  Morgan slowly turned, and lowered the lantern to the floor.  Indeed, there it was, the wolf-thing.  It had injured him for the last time, tripping him.

It was nothing like the creature in his memories, from his nightmares.  It was not the giant beast with knives for canines, talon-like claws, cold intelligence, and murderous intent.  What lay before him, however, was unusual.  It was a beast unlike any Morgan had, personally, seen before.  The creature looked more like a normal, pack-hunting, moon-howling wolf, if it had been fed from birth with steroids.  Morgan judged it based on his scant knowledge of dogs, and saw it to be at least the size of the biggest Newfoundland he had ever seen.  Weighing in at one-hundred-eighty, perhaps two hundred pounds, possibly more.  It was coated head to foot in a long black fur that was matted and missing in spots.  Even in death the beast looked mad, mad in both meanings, angry and insane.  Its mouth was agape, the fangs, though not as terrifying as memories served, still stretched to the length of Morgan’s longest finger.  The eyes, rolled partially back in their sockets, held large irises of a vibrant ice-blue.  The light glinted off something silver in the creature’s mouth.  The knife.  The curved blade that Morgan had slain the wolf with.  After a moment of hesitation, Morgan reached uncertainly into its mouth and grasped the hilt to tear the blade free.  As the knife came out, Morgan saw the flesh where the blade penetrated, had turned from a pinkish gray to a cauterized, dead black.  The flesh had shriveled, as though burned.  Sufficiently perplexed and weirded out, Morgan’s curiosity was sated, and he turned to leave back to whence he came.

For some reason, unbeknownst to him, he stopped as he reached the ladder, and turned back to the room, holding the lantern high.  Beneath the desk, past the overturned chair that had assaulted Morgan earlier, came a dull glint that flickered with the light.  Morgan’s brow furled.  He walked to the desk, making sure to step over the body of the beast.  Crouching by the desk he placed the lantern down, and grew only more confused at what he found.

A book.  It was an old hand bound book with a leather cover.  The small button clasp on the cover had glinted in the lantern light, its partially rusted surface still held enough luster to shine.  On the cover a phrase was painstakingly engraved into the leather.

Be wary of what you wish,

Forever was never as desirable

As it was in my dreams.

Augustus Godfrey

Morgan raised an eyebrow and glanced inside.  The handmade paper was covered in refined, handwritten script.  He placed the book under the crook of his arm and returned to the ladder.  He took a deep breath as he broke ground, as though he had been held underwater.  Above him, thick clouds roiled, and thunder bellowed in the distance.  Morgan turned to look at the mysterious, underground domain for a last time, before he threw the lantern back in, letting it shatter on the floor and ignite.  The blaze began to spread as the oil leaked out and spread across the floor.  Quickly, it reached the desk and chair and the fire began to devour the small room.  The desk, the dead body, everything.  Nobody should ever be subjected to the nightmare Morgan had been through.  He would make sure of that.  The inevitable rain would quench the fire.

Hefting the book and sliding the blade through his belt, Morgan turned and began his trek back home.

Morgan Sinclair, Chpt. 2

            Demons and ghosts swam in alternating seas of darkness and light in Morgan’s mind’s eye.  Vague flashes of traumatizing memory haunted his sleep, if it could be called sleep at all, into fits of restless unconsciousness.  Between bouts of darkness, light flooded his vision in flurried episodes of faceless doctors and nurses hovering over him, dressed head to foot in blue scrubs and offending the senses with the heinous smell of disinfectant.  After what seemed like an eternity, he finally awoke to the shrill, monotonous beep of an electrocardiograph.  Before he even opened his eyes, Morgan knew he could be no other place than the local hospital.  He absolutely loathed hospitals, but it was a drastic improvement to where he had expected to be going when he was last conscious.

            As his eyelids fluttered open, Morgan was momentarily blinded by the overhead lights.  Black spots dotted his vision, and his first impulse was to vomit.  Fortunately, the doctors and nurses had the presence of mind to plan for that possibility.  A large bucket was placed strategically on the floor next to his bed.  He wretched, though little came up.  Again and again, until he was simply dry heaving, spasming unfortunately in his hospital gown.  Tears sprang unbidden to his eyes from the convulsions.  Morgan wiped them away, and spat the bitter taste of regurgitation from his mouth.  As he lay on his bed, regaining his breath, the pleasant touch of cool skin brushed the crook of his arm.  Again, Sinclair forced his eyes open to see a young nurse checking the integrity of the intravenous needle in his arm.  A hard white cast enveloped his other arm, the one he had broken, from palm to bicep, anchoring it in place.  Christ, he thought, transfixing his gaze to an indiscriminate spot on the ceiling.  She was, in a word, stunning; and she had just witnessed everything.  The young woman looked up from her clipboard.  Her auburn hair was pulled into a severe ponytail, leaving only wisps of bangs to fall and frame her face.  Light brown freckles dusted her alabaster skin generously across the bridge of her nose, cheeks, and lips.  Morgan was sure they were to be found elsewhere on her body as well.  Light blue curtains, a different shade than her scrubs, hung all around, cordoning off his bed.  The small partition of hospital was cluttered with equipment, most of which he could not begin to venture a guess as to their respective purposes.  Everything was a shade of blue, except for the white tile floor.  It was almost maddening, especially when combined with that putrid disinfectant smell.
            “Feeling better?” she asked.  The question seemed sincere, but Morgan thought he detected an undertone of amusement.  He disregarded the notion.
            “I hope you save some judgment for second and third impressions,” he answered dejectedly, answering her question with a small shrug.  She laughed; a sound Morgan could happily get used to.

            “I reserve all judgment while in uniform, Mr. Sinclair,” she replied with a smile.
            “Morgan,” he corrected as he rubbed his face to clear the cobwebs from his mind.  “What’s your name?”
            “Lily,” she replied.  “You had us a bit worried there for a bit.  How are you feeling?””

            “Lily,” he echoed.  “Pretty name.  Put simply, I feel like I’ve been hit by a car.”
            “Apt simile,” she mused.  “The police found your car at the bottom of an embankment over on Route 23 a few hours after you were brought in.  But the aching will be due to the absence of the morphine we’ve been introducing into your system via the IV.  I actually came in to give you another dose, but since you were awake, I thought you might be able to answer some questions while you’re coherent, if the pain isn’t too much to bear.”  The moment Lily mentioned his vehicle, memories began to coalesce.  The fragments that had plagued his dreams, his nightmares, for the extent of his unconsciousness began to piece together.

“Just a dull ache,” Morgan reassured.  “You said I was brought in, how long have I been out?”

She nodded.

“Three days.  Damned lucky too.  You were brought in by one of the locals around three in the morning; a hunter who’d gone out early to set snares.”

“Lucky,” Morgan said with an amused sigh, “That’s one word for it, I suppose.”
            “Well, considering the alternative,” Lily replied with a grin.  He offered a coughing laugh that sent pain shooting through his ribs.  With his good arm he clutched his side, taking shallow breaths as not to exacerbate the pain.
            “Broken ribs,” she confirmed.  “Two broken ribs, to be exact, plus a double compound fracture of both the radius and ulna.  There was also a minor concussion, and extraneous bumps and bruises.”  Morgan took in the extent of his injuries in silence.
            “You’d lost a lot of blood when you were brought in,” Lily continued.  “No transfusion, but a heavy drip to replenish the lost fluids.”  Morgan remained silent, waiting, waiting for her to mention one more thing.  After a brief pause, she did: “And then, there was the bite-marks, almost punctured your left lung.  All in all, some pretty bizarre injuries when combined.  Do you have any recollection as to what happened?”  The dull ache that resonated through every fiber of his being was slowly escalating.  Morgan bit down on his lip, ignoring the pain and collecting his thoughts to continue.  His memory was still foggy, and the pain was dampening his powers of recollection.
            Morgan exhaled sharply, “Might need that next dose here soon,” he said emphatically.  She waited for him to continue.  Lily gazed intently at him, peering through eyes of emerald.  They were as beautiful as the rest of her, with starbursts of brown radiating from the iris, folding beautifully into green.  He could see the intelligence that lay behind them, and also the hunger.  Hunger for what, though, Morgan was unsure.
            “I know how the story starts,” he began, “but the end is really anyone’s guess.”  She remained silent, willing him to keep talking.

“I remember the car crash.  There was a car in the oncoming lane, swerving all over the road.  Drunk, I think.  I swerved to avoid him and ended up going over the edge and down the bank into the woods,” he told her.  She jotted notes on her clipboard.

“When I came to,” he continued, “I remember my arm felt like it was on fire.  The door was jammed and I had to kick it open.  I grabbed my jacket from what was left of the back seat and tore it to make my sling, and wrapped my arm to try and stop the bleeding.  My first thought was to get back to the road and signal for help, but after a few tries, I found that the embankment I’d gone over was too steep to climb, especially crippled as I was.”
            “That’s when you came up with the idea to trek through the woods?” she inquired.  Morgan gave a brief laugh and scratched his head.
            “Uh, yeah,” he responded.  “In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea.”  Lily shrugged.
            “Maybe, maybe not, but either way, you’re alive, and that decision might be the reason for it.”  He pondered her statement for a moment before she prompted him to continue.
            “After that, God, I had to be walking for an hour or two at least; kept tripping over random stuff and stumbling.  It was cold as hell.  I came to a clearing in the forest, and that’s when I was attacked.”
            “Attacked by what?” she asked as she kept writing, not looking up.  Morgan blew out a long sigh.
            “I’m not quite sure.”
            “Can’t remember?”
            “That isn’t it.”
            “Then what’s the problem?”
            “I don’t know if it was the pain making me hallucinate, but I’m pretty sure it was a wolf,” he told her hesitantly.  She shrugged, “That isn’t unbelievable, there have been wolves recorded in the area, though they don’t typically attack people.”

“Yeah, but this was unlike anything I’ve seen.  It was huge.  Enormous.  As I remember it, it was bigger than anything I think science would admit exists.”  Lily looked thoughtful for a moment, and then replied, “Perhaps the fear and injury did exacerbate your perception of what attacked you, but something got to you, no doubt.”
            “Yeah,” Morgan replied absently, his mind wandering elsewhere.  He couldn’t explain what he’d seen, and he wouldn’t try, lest he sound crazy.  Nothing more was said on the matter.  He left out the frightening things he had noticed during his struggle with the monster: the creature’s grotesque claws, the bright eyes of ice, the height and bipedal capabilities, the sinister intelligence he had seen beneath the monster’s gaze.

A throbbing pain brought Morgan back from his reverie.  The dull ache had intensified to a roar of agony that coursed through his body.
            “As lovely as it has been, Lily, having our chat, I think I could really use some pain killers right about now,” Morgan requested through gritted teeth.  She nodded, “Of course.”  She left to retrieve the anesthesiologist.  A young man stepped through the blue curtained veil a few moments later, bearing a syringe and vial of, what Morgan assumed to be, Morphine.  With the deft skill of someone who had routinized the procedure, he depressed the plunger on the hypodermic needle and withdrew the liquid.  Any bubbles were tapped out before he introduced the drug into his intravenous feed.  Within moments, a warm, euphoric feeling of contentment began to spread through his body.  Morgan felt his eyelids grow heavy.  Lily stepped back into the room as the anesthesiologist exited.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” she asked gently, laying a cool hand on his forearm.

“Your number?” Morgan requested with a drunken slur.  Lily laughed.
            “I think that’s the morphine talking,” she replied with a bright smile.  Morgan made the effort to shrug before falling silent.  The last image he recalled before closing his concrete eyelids was that of the fiery haired angel he had awoken to, and her piercing emerald eyes.

Lily had returned just as the anesthesiologist had left to watch the battered form of Morgan Sinclair fall back into the drug addled stupor and sleep that he had lived in for the past three days.  Talking with him had been somewhat enlightening, for she had been curious as to his tale since he was brought in.  She smiled briefly to herself at the sight of his dark hair falling haphazardly about his eyes, and listened as his breathing resumed a slow rhythmic thrum punctuated by the drumbeat of the electrocardiograph.  There was something unique about him, exactly what it was, she could not pinpoint.  Untying his hospital gown, she checked the dressing that covered the vicious bite wound to his torso.  Lily ran a finger across the semicircle of bandages, and thought back to their conversation.  The large beast, he had claimed that assaulted him.  Large, no doubt.  Its size was unquestionable when she observed the spacing of the teeth and the size of the jaw it would have taken to leave such a large area affected.  Was it excitement that began to bubble within her?  She knew it shouldn’t be, but nonetheless, there it was.  This attractive, and unlucky, young man before her.  Undoubtedly, she was excited for what developments would surface within the next few weeks for him, if here suspicions were correct.  A new sight caught her eye, though, as she went to tie his gown closed.  Beneath the light blue fabric, a small necklace rose and fell with each breath.  Lily pulled on a single latex glove and unfastened the necklace—a small silver crooner-era microphone on a matching silver chain—from his body.  Beneath it, an ugly rash had begun to form, flushing his chest a deep red.  The skin that lay beneath, as well as the surrounding flesh, looked as though it was dried and cracking, nearly flaking.  Again, she smiled to herself; this confirmed her suspicions surrounding the bite wound.  In a day, perhaps less, the rash would heal, she knew, but then his troubles had only just begun.  His troubles, or his opportunity, however he chose to see it.

All things aside, Lily was intrigued by this young man, if only by what little she had seen of how he conducted himself.  She wasn’t blind, when Morgan had first laid eyes on her he had been momentarily taken aback, surprised at her beauty.  It was not unusual for her to be visually devoured by amorous men.  Everywhere she went eyes followed her, caressing her auburn hair, toned stomach, shapely hips, and supple bosom.  Lily took no offense to this, nor found it belittling or irritating.  Men were visual creatures, and would ogle, regardless of her wishes.  There was simply no sense in getting worked up over it.  It did, however, irk her when people made assumptions rooted in her physical appearance.  Often, individuals would speak to her as though she possessed the vapidity, the vacuousness, that plagued many a pretty girl.  Morgan had assumed nothing, except perhaps small inferences to fuel his desires.  Whether or not they were true remained to be seen.  He had spoken to her in the manner of an intellectual equal, letting her fill the pigeonhole, should one appear.  She liked that, he was genuine at the least.  Further interaction with him would be worth waiting for, she surmised.

Lily slid the necklace into a pocket in her scrubs, and checked the small digital watch on her wrist.  The numbers turned over to strike four in the afternoon.  Perfect, it was the end of her shift.  The redheaded vixen, as Morgan would have described her, if only in the confines of his own mind, retreated to the locker room to exchange her scrubs for her clothes.  After a vigorous washing of her hands, she clocked out and ventured out of the hospitals automated front door into the overcast daylight.
            Wasting no time, Lily strode to across the street designated for emergency drop offs, to a payphone nearby.  After punching in the digits, the phone rang twice before being answered.
            “Hello,” came the solemn monotone greeting.
            “Father,” she acknowledged.  “I believe I’ve found one.”  The voice on the other end didn’t respond immediately.
            “How certain are you?” the man asked.
            “I am quite sure,” she responded.

“Well done.  Keep a weather eye.”
            “Yes, Father,” she said.  The line disconnected.  Lily hung the phone in its cradle, and walked out into the daylight.

A hundred miles away, a man walked down a long dimly lit hall.  The wood floor beneath his feet clacked and groaned under his heavy footsteps.  Short in stature, he stood at five feet eight inches, and was rather rotund.  A mesh=backed trucker style hat covered a mane of scraggly dark hair.  The man was apprehensive, not scared, but definitely nervous to arrive at his destination.  Sweat slicked the skin beneath his bushy beard.  As he reached the end of the hallway, a heavy wooden door blocked his path.  It was ornately adorned and boasted a large brass knocker.  The man paused a moment before grasping the handle to rap loudly on the door.
            A single word answered him.

“Enter.”  The word was spoken as a command, carrying an air of indomitable authority.  It also was spoken with a heavy Scottish accent.  The man twisted the doorknob and stepped through the portal, shutting the door behind him.  There was a single man inhabiting the small room beyond the door.  He sat, shrouded in shadow, behind a large desk of mahogany.  The Scot behind the desk tapped the fingers of his right hand on the table in a slow rhythm that echoed sinisterly in the dominating darkness.
            “What news do you bring me?” the Scot asked, his voice was deep, bordering on the baritone.  The man in the hat failed to reply at first, his eyes were transfixed to the Scot’s right hand in horror and twisted fascination.  The skin that wrapped his fingers was withered and gnarled, scarred as though he had been severely burned.  His fingernails had been removed, and replaced with silver talons filed to a razor point.  The man forced his eyes from the Frankenstein hand.
            “Sir,” he began with a slight stutter that he quickly rectified.  “A new demon has spawned.”
            “You are certain?” he spoke slowly, menacingly, whether by nature or practice.
            “Quite,” the man affirmed.  “I heard the howls myself.”

Sasquatch 2012: The Experience

               It is three in the afternoon and my palms are sweating against the steering wheel.  Since crossing the mountains, the temperature has only increased steadily.   I have been waiting with my passenger for over an hour in a seemingly endless line to arrive at our destination.  The line inches forward, thousands of attendees piled into thousands of vehicles wait before and behind us.  This is the beginning of the mass bonding experience we are about to undergo.  At this point, the 315 dollar price ticket I paid for the festival seems like a gross overcharge.  Little did I realize that, in retrospect, the culminating four day event would be well worth the hundreds spent and more.
                The first obvious aspect to leave attendees awestruck was the view.  The enormous stage, positioned precariously on the face of the cliff overlooking the Gorge.  Expanding and twisting for miles, it is a sight to behold.  Even after darkness falls, there is a feeling of immensity, of vastness, that lingers, making the spectacle on stage even more epic.
                The first night, for us, held performances by STRFKR, Explosions in the Sky, and Pretty Lights.  STRFKR took the stage first, playing in the Banana Shack, the giant tent that was home to the majority of the electronica performances.  With strobes flashing and giant screens flashing flowing warping visuals of neon color, the crowd, comprised mostly of heavily inebriated individuals, was transfixed and transformed into a single mass of movement.  The night calmed down as we meandered across the path to attend Explosions in the Sky at the Bigfoot stage, the second largest stage at the festival.  The ambient rock that ebbed and flowed from the stage, accompanied by an equally great visual light and fireworks, was universally impressive.  Not just in the quality of the music, but the emotion it imparted upon the crowd.  It flowed over the barriers of culture and language to touch everyone attending.  Even this, however, paled in comparison to the headliner of that night, Pretty Lights.  Upon the immense Sasquatch stage, a single individual choreographed a show that ventured to turn the entire crowd, several thousand at least, into an extension of his stage.  Stage lighting, strobes and colored flood lamps illuminated the roiling, boiling, sea of people that was the audience.  From the beginning of the show, the audience took the show into their own hands.  With each drop of the bass, thousands upon thousands of glowsticks were thrown into the air to rain down all around, again and again.  After the show concluded, the party did not, into the early morning people raged, elated, drunk, and undoubtedly under the influence of various other substances.
                The next day the campsites were abuzz, many people recovering from the intoxicated stupors they had survived the night before.  Many abided by the mantra, there are two ways to avoid a hang over: Don’t drink, or don’t stop.  And so the inebriation resumed early in the morning, and would carry on through the rest of the weekend.  It was a time and place to disregard all inhibitions.  The second night was another immense show, culminating with the performance of Jack White, a man who has reincarnated himself in many a musical fashion: The White Stripes and the Raconteurs, amongst many others.  I was struck with a thought, during his set, that he could truly be considered a Rock Star, in the most hardcore sense of a grungy, possibly drug addled individual, that lives and breathes music.  Starkly contrasting many of the prima donnas that take the stage these days claiming rock star fame.  He was brought to life under the glow of teal lights.
                The third day was spent wandering, alone, walking and observing.  Taking in the surroundings, the beauty, the people, who were almost as entertaining to watch as the shows themselves.  That afternoon and evening, such acts as Beirut and Bon Iver took stage.
                The fourth and final night, however, was another night of extraordinary performances.  Tenacious D took stage to be greeted by a wild crowd, yelling and screaming approval and excitement.  They did not disappoint.  The majority of the audience, myself included, sang along to timeless classics such as Tribute, Fuck Her Gently, and Double Team, while behind the duo stood a giant phallus painted as a phoenix.  And the end of the show, it lowered its head and ejaculated confetti across the front few rows of attendees.  It was a phenomenal performance, followed up by the equally spectacular Beck.  No better set of bands on the ballot for Sasquatch 2012 could have culminated the event.
                Sasquatch was an intense event, from which I had no preconception of what to expect, but left having had a more spectacular experience than I ever would have expected.  The hundreds of dollars sacrificed were worth it twice, three times, over.  The only thing I can admit to being disappointed about is having to wait a whole year before I can experience it again.

Morgan Sinclair, Chpt. 1

           The wind raged overhead, rushing and roaring through the gaps and hollows of the surrounding forest; screeching eerily, like a cornered beast of the night.  Morgan Sinclair, tattered and bloody, took pause at the sound emanating from the darkness.  He slumped against the thick trunk of an evergreen as a chill skittered down his spine.  Morgan's ragged attempts to breathe deeply and calm his racing heart were lost in the cacophony of the frigid gale.  Cold was beginning to set in, bone-deep, rendering the fingers of his right hand devoid of feeling.  The white of bone peaked from beneath the cloth of a makeshift sling, the result of a compound fracture in his left forearm.  Never had he been so thankful for anything as he was now for his unusually high pain tolerance.  At the beginning of his desperate woodland trek, he had staunched the blood flow and painstakingly crafted the sling.  Even so, the loss of blood had begun to tinge the edges of his vision black.  Hypothermia, too, was a risk, but the constant movement was keeping that temporarily at bay.  Morgan rose from his slump against the tree, forcing his weary body to press onward, lest he lapse into unconsciousness and shock in the depths of this god forsaken forest.

            Leaves and small bits of debris blew in a dervish about him, striking the broken cadence of a handbeat drum against the trees.  Then, again, from the great maw of inky darkness all around, came the scream of the wind; a wraith come to devour him.  Tattered, hobbled, and bleeding, a thought rose unbidden to his mind:  many a carnivorous creature numbered the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest.  Despite the wind, could the metallic scent of his blood draw a ravenous nocturnal terror upon him?  The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end again.  Adrenaline born of fear rushed through his body, spurring him into motion.  Morgan propelled himself onward as fast as his wounds would allow.

            The full, pale, disk that hung in the cloudless sky filtered through the treetops, offering little light to navigate by.  Fortunately, Morgan knew he needed only to keep a straight course to ultimately reach civilization.  The absence of light did, however, leave him stumbling over fallen logs and branches in his fearful frenzy.  For the third time in as many minutes, his toe caught a rigid lip of bark, sending him sprawling to the dirt.  Morgan's fingers curled into the dried dead leaves as he pushed himself up.

            Midway to his feet, he froze.  Crunch.  The noise came from behind him; twigs and leaves snapping and disintegrating under a heavy foot.  Morgan closed his eyes, convincing himself that it had merely been the wind; that his fears were irrational.  Just as his heartbeat began to slow, he heard it again: Crrunchh.  Louder this time, closer behind him.  This time the noise was followed by another.  A shuddering snort, like that of a winded horse.  Hot air blew chillingly across his neck, leaving him frozen.

            Morgan Sinclair whirled around, good arm raised, and unleashed a loud bellow.  He was greeted only with darkness.  Fear and injury were causing him to hallucinate, he concluded.  Nevertheless, he was shaken, and needed to hurry.  The cold was growing in intensity, the chill brought by the wind pierced through his thin layers.  His teeth chattered so loudly that he could swear the town he was stumbling toward could hear them.

           

            Sinclair had been walking for more than an hour when he reached a clearing in the wood.  The sky overhead was cloudless, glittering stars winked at him through his hazy vision.  The pale white moon hung high in the night, full and white, casting a ghostly light on his surroundings.  He was weary, fading now at an exponential rate.  Morgan dropped to his knees, his mind imploring him to lay down upon the dried leaves and sleep; to succumb to eternity.  He slumped to the ground, but as his eyes flitted closed, swimming between life and unconsciousness, something brought him back.  Something petrifying. Something terrifying.

            A howl.  The voice of a wolf on the hunt.

            Aroooooo!  In his current predicament and state, the sound was almost demonic to Morgan.  Again the howl came, bounding and echoing through the wood, coming, seemingly, from all directions at once.  He sat up, eyes wide, and exhaled sharply, his worst fears had been realized: he was being stalked.  Morgan could feel his heart thumping against his chest, as if a monster within was trying to beat its way out.  A new noise invaded the frightening orchestra, barely audible, but infinitely more horrifying.  Emanating from the treeline behind him, he heard a grunting growl, a forceful exhale.  Morgan turned, expecting a horde of creatures come to feast on his flesh.  Again, he was met with only darkness.  He scanned the treeline, a glint caught his eye.  The moonlight above reflected off two large eyes, peering at him from the black.  As though sensing his gaze, the creature began to move.  Slowly, methodically, menacingly, the beast advanced into the light of the moon.  Whatever nightmare he had been expecting, it wasn't this.  It had to be another hallucination.  From his blurry gaze, the beast stood on two powerful hind legs, stilting it to nearly eight feet in height.  It was covered from head to foot in a matted black fur, spiked and wild.

            It dropped to its forepaws, now advancing on four limbs, its long forelegs extended into broad shoulders, knotted with ropy muscle.  A throaty growl reverberated all around Morgan, sending fear and gooseflesh spidering across his body.  Even on all fours, the beast stood four and a half feet tall at the shoulder.  It peered at him through a pair of luminous eyes of ice blue.  Emotionless eyes, mad eyes, the eyes of a killer.  Even from a distance, the smell of the beast’s mangy coat, musky and sour, assailed his nostrils, bringing water to his eyes.

            Morgan couldn't move.  His injuries, compounded with his sheer terror, paralyzed him.  The creature growled again, its upper lip curling back to reveal canines the length of Morgan's palm.  Saliva dripped from its cavernous maw.  With a mad snarl, the beast's shoulders bunched in preparation, and it leapt.  The burly, manged figure covered thirty feet as if it were an inch with its bound.  All Morgan could do was cringe and brace for impact.

            The impact, however, never came.  Morgan peeked fearfully through fluttering eyelids, only to be assaulted by a wash of hot, rancid breath.  His field of vision was dominated by the monster's long snout, teeth bared in an almost perverse smile.  A viscous gob of saliva fell from its lips to land on his tattered jeans.  Sinclair sprang into action, scrambling backwards across the dead foliage in a scuttling, hobbled, reverse crabwalk, as quickly as his injuries would allow.  The beast stalked after him, slowly, menacingly.  Desperately, he looked for a weapon, something to defend himself, anything.  Fallen leaves were all that was within his reach.  The beast reared back to its full height, towering over Morgan like Goliath over David, and reached a long, sinewy arm towards him.  To his horror, he saw that it was not a wolf's paw that loomed ever closer, but a grotesque, black hand, capable of wrapping halfway around his skull.  Each long finger was topped by a vicious looking talon.  Morgan screamed as the creature hauled him bodily from the ground, raising him to eye level.

            In a flash, the monster lashed out, clamping its powerful jaws down.  White hot pain spread through his body as the fangs penetrated him at the pectoral muscle and just beneath his shoulder blade.  He screamed again as his vision swam in agony.  Raising his good hand, Morgan struck back, thrusting his thumb deep into the wolf monster's left eye.  There was an audible pop as the eyeball burst under the pressure, oozing fluid to mingle with the blood filling the ragged socket.  It released its jaws, unleashing a blood curling roar of pain and anger, and threw him like a rag doll.  Morgan tumbled fifteen feet through the air before crashing back to the dirt, landing mercifully on his uninjured arm.  A sharp pain blossomed in his mouth, he had bitten his tongue in the fall.  The bitter, metallic taste of blood and bile filled his mouth.  Dazed, all he could do was watch, in defeat, as the beast turned and approached with renewed malice.  Thick, dark blood flowed from the creature's ruined eye socket as it reached again for Sinclair's helpless form.

            Suddenly, as the horrible claw secured itself around his leg, a loud crack of splintering wood echoed through the clearing, and the beast, oddly, fell.  Straight into the ground it seemed, pulling Morgan with it.  Both fell nearly ten feet before hitting the ground hard.  Stunned, Morgan looked around, bewildered.  In the moonlit darkness, he could make out four walls, a desk and an old oil lamp.
            “What the fuck?” he cursed, attempting to clamber to his feet.  But the beast recovered first, grabbing him and flinging him against the wall.  It held him pinned over the desk, eyes bright with murder, and almost more terrifying, a carnal intelligence.  Morgan lowered his head in defeat, a plump tear rolling down his cheek, when he spied something laying atop the desk he was suspended over.  Something shining in the moonlight, something silver.  A blade.  A short, wicked looking cutlass; and it was just out of reach.  The beast bared its fangs, savoring the kill to come.  He could feel its hot breath on his face and neck, humid and stifling.  Morgan reached longingly for the knife, his fingertips brushing the handle.  The giant black maw opened, deadly canines ready to finish him, when he managed to tug the handle into his grasp.  As the fangs came down, he jammed the blade upward, driving it home through the monster's upper palate.  Thick blood, black in the moonlight, poured over his hand.  For an instant, it froze, stunned, and then it howled a bone-chilling howl, its features withering, like paper beneath a flame.  In an attempt to unleash another bellowing roar, the blood filling the wolf-thing’s mouth cut its voice short, to an angry, sputtering gurgle. Contorting and cracking, the beast released its grip and stumbled backwards, trying to work the knife free.  To no avail, after seconds of frantic movements, the wolf fell to the ground, slain.  Morgan hit the desk hard, and wasted no time jumping over the creature's giant body, and clambering up a set of rickety stairs that led above ground, from the mysterious room beneath the forest.

            His breath was ragged, his wounds, both old and new, plagued him.  No more than ten minutes later, struggling to keep pressing on to civilization, darkness stole his vision, and Morgan Sinclair fell into the abyss of unconsciousness, unsure if he would ever awaken.

National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY)

            NFFTY, the National Film Festival for Talented Youth, has been a snowballing success since its advent in 2007.  Created by Jesse Harris, Jocelyn R.C., and Kyle Seago, NFFTY began as a one-night festival into an annual artistic masterpiece that holds the title of the largest youth film festival in the world.  In 2012, the festival ran from April 26^th to April 29^th, and was host to 222 films from 30 different states and 20 different countries.  Over 200 filmmakers, accompanied by 10,000 guests and film enthusiasts were in attendance.  The party kicked off on the night of April 26^th with an opening ceremony and premier at Seattle's Cinerama Theater, followed by a gala held at the waterfront aquarium.  Six short films were premiered the first night, which impressed upon many unsuspecting guests the level of creativity and ingenuity the young film visionaries possessed.  All of the films shown were conceptualized, written, directed, and captured by individuals 22 years old or younger.
            After the festivities of the opening ceremonies had concluded, conversation with various attendees quickly made apparent the admiration and, possibly, disbelief, of the quality of the artistry of the films.  One of the six movies that premiered on April 26^th, titled En Route, struck the audience with an introductory scene containing a massive plane crash.  Metal debris, twisted and mangled, littered a blackened, scorched field on which fires blazed.  An ambulance pulled up and a lone paramedic stared in horror at the tragedy.  This scene, created using computer generated images, easily rivaled the graphic quality of many multi-million dollar box office movies.  More incredibly still, En Route was created on a Spartan budget of three-thousand dollars.  NFFTY hosted a wide spread of categories, from horror to animation, music videos, and everything in between. 

            While 2012 was NFFTY's sixth year running, it was the inaugural year for the Future Film Expo, hosted at the Seattle Center, where colleges, sponsors, and personalities from all walks of the film world attended to participate in workshops and discussion panels.

            This year, the largest festival to date, sponsors such as Bing, XBOX, and Expedia made the exceptional experience possible.  The National Film Festival for Talented Youth is a non-profit organization and relies on the donations of corporations and individuals to continue running and providing workshops and other services for young filmmakers everywhere.

            The festival's motto, “Film starts here”, without a doubt sums it up.  It is a phenomenal experience to attend, and the very future of our film industry is rooted in the brilliant young minds that present their films.  Your donations, large or small, are instrumental in the continuation of this event, so please, film fans everywhere, donate to help the NFFTY legacy continue.  No amount is too little, and every little bit helps.  You can donate here: http://www.nffty.org/donate

            Witness part of the experience with the videos below:

            “Designed Around You” 2012 Volvo Short Film winning entry: http://www.nffty.org/nffty-updates/watch-2012-volvo-short-film-contest-winner

            Winning entry for Best Music video: LA by Tim Hendrix http://vimeo.com/38096445

            Festival Recaps day by day: http://www.nffty.org/festival-highlights/watch-nffty-2012-daily-recap-videos

            Once again, donations keep the incredible NFFTY experience alive:  http://www.nffty.org/donate

Bronze Radio Return

Enter: Bronze Radio Return, a new age blast from the retro era. Turn up your hi-fi stereos for the return of that lo-fi experience that has been absent from the new music scene for far too long.

Bronze Radio Return started long before the members coalesced into the Mumford & Sons-caliber act listeners enjoy today. Frontman Chris Henderson recalls the old bronze tube radio he grew up listening to in his father's art studio. The seed of the vintage music certainly flourished with the nurturing and refining of the band's sound, which they describe as “an intersection of roots music, folk, and rock.”

When asked how they would describe their own music, Henderson responded with a very apt analogy:

“Sometimes I think about our music like the chili my mom makes. Its got all your standard ingredients:    meat, beans, and tomatoes. Those are like the roots influence in our sound. It's the heart of the music, but when everything else gets added, your taste buds sometimes forget it's even there. On top of the standard ingredients goes a bunch of various spices, mustards, and wines. To me, the spices are what each band member brings to the table. Hopefully, like my mom's chili, when it all gets put together you stop focusing on the individual ingredients and enjoy it all together as its own entity.”

Without a doubt, Bronze Radio Return offers listeners a healthy does of delicious audio chili to sweep them back to some of the most significant eras of rock and blues of this century; taking influence from artists like Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, and Buddy Guy.

Hailing from Hartford, Connecticut, the group was subject to excellent reviews from listeners. Their first album, entitled Old Time Speaker, landed them in the College Music Journal's, or CMJ's, top 200 album chart. Their hard work, both writing and touring, earned them opportunities to play with and for many distinguished individuals in the music community and out. Henderson commented on some of their best experiences to date:

“We have been fortunate enough to share the stage with some really accomplished people. A few that stand out for me would be playing for President Obama in Bridgeport, CT last year. The energy was wild and it was really cool to be that close to the president. If I were to mention another, I would say opening for Buddy Guy [an aforementioned influence for the band] was a close second. We had all listened to him growing up and were totally awestruck by his presence.”

The group has since released a second album, entitled SHAKE! SHAKE! SHAKE!, maintains the band's reputation for great vintage sound and eloquent song writing. The title track of their new album, introduces a percussion of foot stomps and hand claps invokes a vision of crowd participation, stomps and claps echoing through the venue while band and listener alike revel in the music.

Bronze Radio Return is a reckoning force in the upcoming annual film festival “NFFTY”. NFFTY, or the National Film Festival for Talented Youth, is the largest film festival for youths in the world. In 2012, the festival is being held in Seattle during the last week of April, and will host 222 films from 30 states and 20 countries. Along with other Audiosocket artists, Bronze Radio Return is featured prominantly, and is the featured artist in NFFTY's festival trailer, as well as a participant commercial for Volvo. Both videos can be viewed here:

Festival Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6DE0geUEj8

Volvo Spot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlK66_6kytI&feature=youtu.be