Tall Tales Of Gods, Demons And Superstitions

By Ari Abraham

In Tall Tales of Demons, Gods and Superstitions, mythological creatures and supernatural phenomena invade the everyday lives of people around the world. Angels and demons conspire in the streets of London, Death drops in at a New York City laundromat, and phantoms lure children in the forests of Amazonia, while the author himself runs into smoky sirens and Mephistophelian hawkers. But ultimately, these are tales of humanity—its loves, its passions, and its brutality.

At times mordant, philosophical, tender, and downright macabre, Ari Abraham’s collection of short stories uses the fantastical to reveal the mysteries hidden in real life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Antipodes
• Release date: Oct 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9780996659901

Book preview

1

Beginnings

Iglanced over at my watch; the face screamed back in blinking red, 04:00. My eyes drifted to the half-finished glass of Amstel that sat in front of me on the bar. I felt like Raoul Duke when the reptiles and lizards accosted him in that Las Vegas bar. The only difference was that he is a character of fiction and I’m not. As for the drugs, well… Chaos surrounded me and all I was looking for was some way to anchor myself within the madness.

The only thought that filled my mind was, How am I going to write again? My very presence right then, in that bar on Ippokratous, was an escape from the blank page.

How did I get here? A dear colleague of mine knew of my struggle to write. He suggested I come out and live life for a few weeks. I had sailed to the islands, contemplated my neurosis beneath olive trees. At the moment recollected here, I had spent the best part of the night partying with rock stars post-gig.

Despite being in the warm climes of Athens, the fog of London hung over me as I was still bereft of inspiration. As a lover of mythology and ancient gods, one would think I would be ecstatic to be in the city that extols for you to ‘live your myth.’ Alas, I could muster nothing more but a vain sense of trepidation.

I can see you are shopping, eh? My reverie was jarred by Greek-accented English filling my ear. I turned and found the drummer of the band sitting next to me, a diabolical grin filling his visage from cheek to cheek.

Pardon me?

In this bar, you are exotic. You are shopping and they are watching. His eyes roved over the bountiful supply of stunning women that were fawning about in the establishment. Everyone likes exotic. He got off the bar stool and melted back into the crowd.

I closed my eyes and thought of home. That would have been the easy answer, to seek comfort in the arms of a stranger for the night but it would not render me a story, a tale to tell. If anything, it would only serve to wither away my words even further.

I took another sip of my Amstel, letting the cool beer do its job at pushing me further into the oblivion where I so often chance upon a tale worth telling. It was at this precise moment that I felt the air change and looked to my left.

Pale skin, jet-black hair, and lipstick like blood. She had the air of someone from Kolonaki: entitled, haughty, but the pretense masked a mystery and foreboding those women never possessed. I was tongue-tied and I had no idea why. All language had abandoned me and I was simply left with my primal senses and urges. My entire being yearned to lay all my worries before her and have her envelop me.

Her hands slipped into the tiny clutch she had with her. She pulled out a stack of what seemed to be business cards, albeit a tad smaller. Still silent with not a word, she slid them across the bar to me.

And what are these? I asked, curious.

Her eyes dared me to look and I was compelled to do so, as if she had bewitched me into submission like some vampire. I picked up the first one. On the front was a photo of what looked like a tavern set within a wooden shack. I flipped the card over and on the back it simply read Aksai Chin.

You’re going to need to explain to —

She was no longer there. In fact, she was nowhere to be found within the joint. I leapt off my bar stool and dove into the seething crowd, searching for her. It was a futile exercise. She was gone.

I returned to London morose. I felt leaving Athens with nothing on the page rendered me an abject failure, the entire trip a mere folly. I fell back into my old habits of waking in the morning, staring at the blank screen, reading and watching movies in a vain attempt to gain some inspiration and then falling into a deep slumber perchance to dream something worth writing about.

A month later I was at my desk, rummaging through one of my satchels when I found the stack of cards. I sat all day pondering them, one by one, city by city. One of the cards was of the very city I lived in, the photo being that of Wardour Street in Chinatown.

Before I knew it I had begun to write. Feverishly typing at my computer, I worked for almost two hours and there before me was the first decent thing I had written in months. It then struck me that the woman in the bar must have been one of the muses. Was she the famous Calliope, or Clio, or was it Erato? She must have been Urania with her knowledge of places. My meager sense of logic had no other way of interpreting the mysterious and chance encounter.

I wrote of every city on those cards hoping to encounter her once again. I long to ask her so many questions but alas, I have yet to find her. All that remains is the inspiration that lies of her memory as I write.

And so it begins at home. In London, of course…

2

One Night On Wardour Street

It was freezing when Legion emerged onto The Strand from Charing Cross station. Rush hour traffic bruised the cold air, mixing it with fumes and that incessant city hum. He watched as the black Hackney carriages pulled into the station courtyard and debated taking one, but decided against it. He fancied a walk in the brisk winter air. He made a left onto The Strand and headed in the direction of Trafalgar Square.

The pavement was rammed with the usual mix of people heading home from work and tourists searching out yet another mediocre restaurant to stumble into and partake in shoddy culinary mishaps while resting their tired feet. He absorbed the cacophony of urban hymnals as he crossed onwards into the square, one eye watching the traffic pour down onto Whitehall and The Mall.

He moved quickly across the square, running up the steps, the