Donovan's Scourge

By Richard H. Schweitzer

It would not be accurate to claim that Nature is unhappy, or even has that capacity. Maybe it does, maybe it does not. Like all living things, however, it does have the ability to defend itself.

Donovan was an innocent. The opening salvo of an long, slow attack for which man would have no defense. Collateral damage in a war no one knew was being waged, until it was too late.

Or was it simply evolution taking an unexpected turn at a junction no one knew existed. In the end, what happened to Donovan would open our eyes, but the only thing we would learn was to be ready, and to be frightened.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard H. Schweitzer
• Release date: Nov 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465702227

Richard H. Schweitzer

Richard H. Schweitzer is an aging fledgling storyteller, and a denizen of various Los Angeles-based coffee shops and tolerant restaurants. He grew up a military brat, he has long since dropped the "military." Being the son of a sailor, he grew up in various locations throughout the known accessible universe. Mostly Texas and California. His own military experience was unremarkable, though he wrote a lot of songs while he was avoiding subordination and perfecting his skills in temporal homicide. "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity..." (Thoreau). His literary interests lean toward books with words; speculative fictional science and historical fantasy.

Book preview

DONOVAN’S SCOURGE

by

Richard Schweitzer

Copyright 2011 a TinDog Entertainment Stuff production

Smashwords Edition

Sometimes, when a bird cries out,

or the wind sweeps through a tree,

or a dog howls in a far-off farm,

I hold still and listen a long time.

My world turns and goes back to the place

where, a thousand forgotten years ago,

the bird and the blowing wind

were like me, and were my brothers.

My soul turns into a tree,

and an animal, and a cloud bank.

Then changed and odd it comes home

and asks me questions.

What should I reply?

~Hermann Hesse~

Seed of Hope

No one remembers when it happened. No one can. Life is so enduring that memory can be transitory. Still, it's embedded somewhere in the rudimentary consciousness of each tree that at one time a being called Man had walked upon and even ruled the Earth. They know that it was a bad time. Not remember— know.

But that's over. Long over. Now they just appreciate. Survival—life—is assumed. They love the warmth that rays down from above. They thrive on the moisture and other things from the Earth that they can’t, or have no need, name. They grip the Earth harder than they ever have in the past. They possess it more fully than any creature ever could. They don't remember— but they know…

#

The need was great. The despair was genetic. Over tens of thousands of years the trees themselves had finally developed a defense. Their natural state of existence, their immobility and esoteric, circumscribed consciousness left few options. The instinctual intelligence of the Mind-net conceived of the only possible solution and many decades later seeds were born.

Not common seeds— small particles of biological engineering that fell to earth from leaves decomposing on the soil.

And then, one portentous day, near where a stream rushed under the ground, one of these seeds made its way into the earth. It was not the first to fall, but it was the first that mattered.

It slipped into the watery promulgation and joined the pursuit, molecule after molecule, drop by drop, into the body of Man.

James

James just couldn't take anymore. The more pregnant Annie got, the more his life changed. He knew he should be happy and in the beginning he was. He was ready for the child and all the ways that would alter his life, but he wasn’t ready for the change in his wife.

He was not prepared for the reality that being with-child could change someone so dramatically. It would never have occurred to him. Now he knew the truth. Now he knew the cliché wasn't just pretentious empathy.

For all intents and purposes, he too was pregnant.

Beer might help, at least for a while; Annie being asleep and he being at the end of his proverbial rope.

He walked the three blocks to He's Not Here. Darts and beer, that's what he needed.

The girl behind the bar pulled a draft and placed it on the bar in front of him.

Busy night, huh? He said, noticing that he was the only patron in the pub.

Whaduhya want after midnight on a Tuesday night, dancin' in the streets?

You play darts?

Sorry. Boss comes in and catches me out of my playpen he'll keep my tips for the company picnic. She smiled; something was troubling her new customer.

Let me guess. She said.

He nodded resignedly; he would rather forget it all for a couple hours. But not wanting to be rude, he quietly acquiesced.

Job?

He pursed his lips and shook his head. If only.

Family? She continued without much conviction. She obviously knew where she was going and wasn't surprised when he shook his head again.

Girlfr… She glanced at his