Tales from Bleak Metal Falls

By Donte Kirby

Donte Kirby's Tales from Bleak Metal Falls is an anthology of stories featuring mischievous teens Chastity, Oswald, and Robert as they stumble through adolescence and get into misadventures with Aztec, Lovecraftian, and Yoruba gods. If the trio hopes to save the town of Bleak Metal Falls from destruction, not only will they have to uncover prete

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: May 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885041850

Book preview

Contents

Author’s Note

Breaking and Entering

The Things We Lose for Love

The Coral Crown

The Family Hearth

Web of Tales

A Deal’s A Deal

Carnival of Dread

The Truth

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

In December of 2018, I swore in as a Peace Corps volunteer in Rwanda.

Before that it’s three months of training, learning, and uncertainty. The whole thing can feel like driving up to a cliff on the back of a worn-out pickup truck to jump across a valley as experts with worn wings attach some new ones to your back. Lessons on the language, learning how to live on your own from a host family, and the support from family and friends back home give you confidence; you’re gonna make it over the cliff. The experienced vets attaching the wings assure you they will work, and that it’s gonna feel like you’re gonna hit the ground after jumping off the cliff, but that’s the Peace Corps Valley. Trust us they say; you’ll make it to the other side like thousands of people before you.

Then you come to the edge of the cliff and take the leap of faith. You’re headed to your new home for the next two years, and you’re flapping those wings with feathers of lesson plans, some language and cultural skills, and a lot of faith and youthful enthusiasm. You’re going to be a part of and do work greater than yourself.

Anyone who’s done the Peace Corps knows that once you get to your post, it can be an isolating experience. Especially after the initial adjustment period is over and it’s not your first time fetching water anymore or the first time cooking on the imbabura or the first time at the market. No more adapting to a different language, culture, routine. It’s all new and going a thousand miles a minute—until it’s not. It’s just Tuesday.

You get into a rhythm and find your footing. Then comes the surprising amount of down time. More time to yourself than the constant hustling tempo of life in the States allows. A lot of time for reflection. A lot of time to indulge in your hobbies. I had more time with myself than I knew what to do with.

The options to fill the time were limited. It was either write or consume the vast amounts of media accumulated from other volunteers, dubbed the Peace Corps library. I remember listening to Anansi Boys written by Neil Gaiman and loving it. American Gods had the same mythology as Anansi Boys and was by the same writer, so reading it next should have been a no-brainer. I listened to it but bounced off; I thought this was maybe because the voiceover work of Anansi Boys had brought the characters to life in a way I didn’t expect. So, reading American Gods was the next step, but even with hours of downtime, the occasional moments of no electricity, and only a fully charged Kindle to my name, I still couldn’t get into it. I was into the show—or at least I was propelled for an episode or two by the performance of Orlando Jones as Anansi—but I started feeling a trend.

Both stories were by Neil Gaiman, so I knew it wasn’t about the writing. And both stories had the character Anansi, yet while one resonated with me, I could never finish the other. I wanted more of what grabbed me in Anansi Boys. Then Tomi Adeyemi sat me down with her novel Children of Blood and Bone. That novel solidified what I was searching for in my own short stories about three youths who kept getting into misadventures with eldritch gods, the stories I’d been writing since my sophomore year at Temple University.

In the end, like many authors, I wanted to write the stories I’d wanted to read as a kid. And although in 2020 a lot of industries said they wanted to center Black stories, those stories were and still are few and far between. I decided to use these three mischievous characters in a new way. Not only did I want to see them survive eldritch horrors, but I also wanted them to annoy and learn from African and Aztec Gods and Goddesses. And maybe while those three fumbled through their adventures, I’d be able to delve deeper into African mythologies, celebrate different cultures in the African diaspora, and get a grasp on experiences as I was fumbling through the Peace Corps.

Short stories about Cthulhu morphed into stories about Chantico, the goddess of warriors and the family hearth. The dubious Mr. N became the devious Eeshu. The horror and insanity of trying to comprehend beings beyond us still exists but is now tempered by the lessons and heart of mythologies passed down through generations. I don’t know these figures like I should; the stories of Oshun don’t come to my mind as quickly as Aphrodite, but one day they will.

I decided to pivot and write stories that used gods from African and Aztec mythologies. I wanted to experience more gods of the African diaspora. And maybe more than that, I wanted to process my experience with the Peace Corps and Rwanda—a life-affirming experience to say the least but filled with peaks and valleys.

I felt most isolated during the valleys and lows of my experience in the Peace Corps when I was wrestling with the pressures of how much of an impact I could realistically make. These crises of faith in myself, in organizations, and the possibility of finding a place in this world felt insurmountable alone. But just as the youths in my stories feel isolated and scared when they deal with these larger-than-life figures alone, together they have the power to overcome them.

Writing this short story anthology about Chastity, Robert, and Oswald confronting eldritch horrors and their own shortcomings and then watching them come out stronger on the other side gave me a world to wrestle with my own ideas of authority, friendship, and faith both in people and myself. I got to see what it would be like to take the world by the cojones like Chastity, or to express myself unabashedly like Robert, or to be inquisitive to a fault like Oswald. This was a world in which I could grapple with some hard truths and control the outcome.

Realizing authority figures can be flawed and that many don’t grow up, they only get older, can be a hard pill to swallow. But it goes down smoother when you realize the agency you have in these situations. And for me, writing was a way to exercise that agency. Friends, fellow Peace Corps volunteers, and the connections I’d made in my Rwandan community helped me navigate everything the world was throwing at me. As the expression goes, No man is an island.

If there’s one lesson I want to impart to my readers, it is that no matter what you’re facing, you can’t do it all by yourself. Despite popular depictions of authors producing full works single-handedly, this book wasn’t made by myself. Editors, both friends and professional; mentors and contemporaries; and a community of connections have helped cultivate this book.

A good friend once said, You gotta be corny before you can pop.

It’s friends, family, and everyone in between who provide the energy and inspiration for those kernels to expand into fully realized stories. For it to all come into an anthology of fables. These stories are the closest I can get to distilling my experience, putting it in a neat little bow, and presenting it for more than it’s worth. The process of writing and learning about these gods was a personal way to explore faith, friends, and the lessons we need to learn in order to treat each other better. It was how I explored connection and—in some cases—the lack of connection to cultures, people, and even with myself.

Rwanda was the catalyst for these adventures, but these aren’t stories about the land of a thousand hills or the confessions of a jaded Peace Corps volunteer (there’s an Instagram for that). These are stories about growing up, making mistakes, learning from them, and showing that falling down isn’t so bad—especially when you get up a better version of yourself than before.

This is a short story anthology for those who like a little humor with their supernatural horror, have argued what Pokémon would be like in real life, and enjoy a good moral at the end of a tale. For those who can’t get enough of Anansi, wonder about Oshun, or are intrigued by the idea of having Tezcatlipoca—Aztec god of the night—as your gym teacher, this is the book for you. This anthology is for readers who get lost in daydreams, know a swing can take you to outer space if you try hard enough, and believe there’s nothing better than good times with good friends.

If all that sounds like your jam, see you in Bleak Metal Falls.

Breaking and Entering

The three delinquents stood in front of Bleak Metal Falls High School with determination written all over their faces.

You ready, boys? Chastity asked.

She stood head and shoulders above the gangly boy with a brown curled head to her left and the stocky boy with auburn locs to her right. Both boys nodded yes. "Are—you—ready—for—this?" she repeated.

Yeah … yeah, said Oswald. As long as we stick to the plan—in and out before the sun sets.

Robert gave a thumbs up, then thought for a second about how one thumb might not be enough for Chastity, so he raised the other along with both big toes.

Of course, you are, said Chastity, punching Oswald in his twig-like arm. She turned on her heel to face the boys with an about face that would make a seasoned drill sergeant salute. She sized up her cadets. Wouldn’t matter if you weren’t. Oswald gulped as Chastity paced to and fro. Because, you see, boys. Today, this day, we make history.

Don’t you mean erase history? asked Oswald, fiddling with the rim of his glasses.

Shut up, Oz. That’s exactly what I meant. Today, we swipe three pink slip–filled folders and give ourselves a clean slate. High school doesn’t need to know about the time Robert squirted milk so hard out his nose he fainted. Or when you recited timetables up to like the fifties and stalled class until lunch. Man, good times, good times.

Robert rolled his eyes at Chastity in a way that said, And you had no embarrassing moments in middle school? Not one? The boy didn’t speak but never had a problem expressing himself.

As the trio sat on the grassy knoll looking at the school, younger kids gave them a wide berth. Chastity’s reputation preceded her.

She’s never embarrassed by anything she does, Robert, said Oswald. She forgot to mention eighty percent of the times we got suspended it was a Chastity Jimenez scheme gone awry. He started running them down on his fingers. The food fight incident of ’04 that almost got us expelled or, worse, turned into homunculus. The skipping school debacle spring of ’03. That old man in the forest with the wooden teeth had me believing we’d be on Santa’s naughty list forever. The no-homework strike our first year in middle school. I thought my GPA would never recover from those two semesters. Thank god for extra credit.

Robert nodded in agreement, pushing a frosted rose-tipped loc out of his eye.

Live by the sword; die by the sword, Oz. Live or die. Then Chastity flicked a lens of Oswald’s glasses and said, Let’s move out, boys.

The crème-colored brick of Bleak Metal Falls High School loomed large over the trio as they made their way around to the back of the building, Chastity leading the way and Robert bringing up the rear. The sun was still doing its job at 6:00 p.m. and covered the back of the building in shadow.

Bobby, give me a boost, said Chastity. The open window was within arm’s length of Chastity, but Robert got to his knees and did what he was told without question. Both boys saw that gleam in her eyes—a gleam that ignored reality as it was, in favor of Chastity’s vision. A gleam responsible for their pink slip–bloated files.

Once Chastity was inside, Robert and Oswald hopped in after her. The inside of the school was colored orange as the sun leaked in through the doors of classroom windows. The creaks and scratches of mice running through the pipes, lockers, and the cafeteria had Oswald’s head on a swivel. The air was stale and musty from the doors being closed all summer.

Step one: complete, said Oswald, using his inside voice.

Shhh, said Chastity. This is a stealth caper. We take the files, burn ’em, and no one is none the wiser. Poof: none of the mistakes of our early days in middle school weigh us down in our freshman year of high school.

Robert grabbed Chastity by the shoulder just as she was about to make her way through the marble-topped lab desks toward the door. He made various hand signals that Chastity vaguely understood until he used a whole hand to point forward and mouthed, Roger that?

Chastity nodded and pointed two fingers at her eyes then signaled with one finger to the door. Over and out.

The leader of the trio tiptoed toward the door of the classroom and peeked into the hallway. Blue lockers lined the empty hall. Not a soul in sight, Chastity whispered.

Is the coast clear? asked Oswald. I don’t want to get caught by Principal Al. He makes the hairs on the back of my neck crawl. And rumor is his detentions steal—