[LNHY/ACRA] The Daily Super Short-Short Story #30

Saxon Brenton saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au
Thu Oct 7 02:26:56 PDT 2004


The Daily Super Short-Short Story #30
 
A Devil Came Down to Georgia 12
 
Last Time: Damian told Martin he was one of the Teenaged Giant 
Halfbreed Angels.
 
     "A Teenaged Giant Halfbreed Angel!?" repeated Martin in shock. 
"But..."
     "You're only 5 foot 8?" suggested Damian.
     Martin glared at the sock. "The Nephilim were monsters that were 
wiped out in the Flood."
     "Well, yes, technically: Teenaged Giant Halfbreed Fallen Angels," 
admitted Damian, deftly sidestepping the bulk of Martin's protest and 
also forcing the Writer to go back and modify the phrase that he'd 
cut'n'pasted.
     A Nephilim, thought Martin with growing disquiet. That would 
explain the monstrous changes and... cancerous instability of form... 
Oh God, this wasn't some bit of bad luck on the random superpowers 
table. The soul within is mirrored by the body without...
     "No," the young man snapped at himself in debate. "All sin 
is redeemable through the love of God."
     "All *human* sin," corrected Damian gently. Inwardly the wondersock 
felt regret and irritation. He wished he could risk passing off a few 
paranoid notions into the monkey boy's head as his own thoughts, but it 
seemed that the human was sensitive enough to recognise that sort of 
tampering for what it was. Phooey. Still, there was lot to be said for 
being able to project angst and let them make up their own. "After all," 
Damian continued, "you're not exactly human..."
     "I'm human enough," countered Martin - but not, Damian noticed, with 
much heat.
     "Maybe, maybe not. It kind of depends on how occult characteristics 
are carried as recessive traits, I suppose. But it sure looks as though 
it responds to... uhm... bloodlust," he said, adding the last as if with 
reluctance.
     "Bloodlust?" was the nervous reply.
     "You only managed to get some sort of control when you were 
attacking someone... er, defending yourself," Damian clarified.
     Martin only half heard him. He was trying to remember exactly what 
had happened to the Nephilim. It wasn't really clear. The Flood was 
supposed to have wiped them out. But other versions of the story in the 
Apocrypha had them slaughtered by angels. He shuddered. Suddenly, being 
pursued by mutant-hunting giant robots seemed so much more preferable. 
Being on the receiving end of some Old Testament style whup-ass by winged 
shock-troops with flaming swords was orders of magnitude scarier.
     But, yeah. Bloodlust. That made sense, didn't it? If he was a 
Teenaged Giant Halfbreed Fallen Angel, then it made sense that his powers 
were of the most debased type. Nothing *constructive* could possibly 
become of them...
     "Oh sweet Je..." began Martin, and found he couldn't say the name. 
An instant of cold panic overtook him. Was he that far gone? He tried 
to say the 23rd Psalm. That, too, died on his lips. The young man 
collapsed into a ball and began to sob. Damian let him cry himself into 
exhaustion and, eventually, sleep.
 
Tomorrow: Damian's tactical mistake.
 
The Daily Super Short-Short Story series and the wondersocks created by 
Arthur Spitzer, and used with belated permission.
 
The Teenage Giant Halfbreed Angels epithet for the Nephilim/Nephalim 
cooked up by Andrew Perron.
 
-----
Saxon Brenton    University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
     saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au 
The Eyrie Archives of Russ Allbery which collect the online superhero 
fiction of the rec.arts.comics.creative newsgroup can be found at:
     http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/



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