Time
Release Retribution
a short story by
Charles Copeland
When you're a cold, calculating monster (let's be honest here and
call it what it is, no political correctness here, and honesty means
monsters, by nature, can never be anything other than that — even if
a monster learns to write poetry, the poems that come out of it were
still written by a monster, so let's not try to fuzzy that fact into
something it's not. We're not talking about a furry little Easter
bunny here, unless that same little bunny runs around eating people
every night when no one's looking) you tend to remember key points
in life, and they're rarely shiny bright ones that involve flowers
and candy. They're almost always memories of revenge and
calculations that led inevitably to conquest of some sort or
another.
While the question is still very much fresh in my memory, I have
to ask it: what if you were a shark that was allergic to sea food?
What's that look for? I'm just asking . . .
Anyhow, nearly all of my most guarded memories — the ones for
which I would sacrifice good, wholesome memories so that the
"others" may survive — are those of violence and blind rage, like
the rage I have for writing long hand, for example. That day on the
phone with Othello Rothschild is one of those memories. My
grandfather once taught me that the most efficient method of
attacking your enemy is by gouging out a permanent place in the
section of his brain where his fears live to haunt him in his sleep.
Which is why the conversation went in the direction it did — the way
I chose.
When any conversation — ever — involves my wife, it's my
business. So when Othello Rothschild told her to tell me to stay
out of it and she handed me the phone, well, it became more than
just my business. It also became the means by which to uphold my
oath as a United States Army Ranger. When I heard him scream "You
don't know who you're fucking with!" I took it as a formal
declaration of war. And as all my enemies well know, I always
respond with brutal force.
And I have never failed to respond.
When I told him, repeatedly, that he knew where I lived and I
challenged him to show himself in MY environment, I did so for two
tactical reasons. First, I didn't know where he lived (no one knows
the precise location of the Rothschild family), or else I might have
felt obligated to take the fight to him. Second, the most potent
military offense always dictates tricking the enemy into leaving his
fortified high ground and walking right into the fire fight. The
more often you challenge your enemy, the more likely it is that
he'll forfeit and eventually offer a truce.
Which was just exactly what he did.
In truth, I've never hoped for anything more than that day when I
hoped he would show his face in my domain. Over the years I've
studied all the laws pertaining to justifiable homicide, and only if
I stuck to the letter of the law could I ever expect to kill him
inside my home and hope to get away with it. That was what I'd hoped
for, because there would've been no way for anyone to stop me from
destroying him. When he didn't show up by midnight, though I knew he
had already forfeited already, I admitted to myself and to my wife
that I was disappointed.
I'd already practiced the statement I was prepared to give to the
homicide detectives.
It would've given me immense amounts of pleasure to knock him
unconscious, lay him out on the floor, and then crush his face right
into the back of his skull with the steel shank and heel of my
combat boots. After all, he had threatened my wife following a
simple car accident near our home. He even went so far as to call
her at home to further inflame the situation. He told her he had
every intention of making her disappear. I would never let that
happen — not by anyone’s hands. I didn't care that he was part of
the world ruling Rothschild elite banking family.
I might even have kept one of his canine teeth, the way Africans
keep teeth from lions that they kill — they make necklaces out of
them. I wouldn't have crafted any kind of jewelry out of his teeth,
but I would have kept it as a memento.
After all, how many people on Planet Earth can claim that they've
slain one of the members of the Illuminati and gotten away with it?
Brutal, I know, but that's what monsters are.
Too bad he heeded all of the warnings that must have flashed
within the deepest recesses of his mind.
But he will NEVER forget that day . . .
Especially now that I know where he lives . . .
Charles gives advice to a young writer
Hi, Mr. Copeland,
I'm a savage fan of all your work. I'm a new writer, you might say,
in that I just started writing less than a year ago. I'm 14 years
old. I've tried to mimic your style of writing, coming straight from
the heart, so to speak. My problem, however, stems from something
much more compelling than WHAT to write. I'm having real trouble
with HOW to write.
I've become locked inside a world plagued with problems with style
and technique, and this has led me to wishes that my work would
write itself, as yours so often does. If you might be so kind as to
offer me some solutions to my difficulties, I don't feel I'd have
the necessary words to use to repay you with compliments. But I can
assure you that you'd earn a lifelong fan and someone who would
defend you and your work at every turn.
I'm not naïve enough to assume you're not too busy to accommodate
me. But if you should find a few extra minutes in your day, I will
be forever in your debt. My questions will follow below, and you
have my undying gratitude in advance.
Sincerely,
Donald Bretton
DONALD BRETTON:
I've read A Song of Independence so many times I can't begin to
count them all. May I ask how you came up with such intense
material? I'm aware that you had to write a lot of it "off the cuff"
in order to beat a deadline, but is that how the ideas jelled or did
it all happen some other way? Given the number of stories comprising
ASOI, was it originally intended to be a grouping of shorter works,
or was that a last minute decision?
CHARLES COPELAND: Those are some of the questions I get hit with
all the time, so they've become somewhat the easier ones to answer,
which makes it better for you and me at the same time. ASOI was
always meant to be a grouping of shorter pieces which, by
themselves, tell stories which might well stand on their own but,
when strung together like popcorn on a Christmas tree, link to form
a larger work in progress. I wanted the reader to be able to
completely focus on a single story at a time, really digest the
characters and the overall tone and theme for each story, and then
work them all in with the ones immediately following. Once the
reader has a solid grasp on the myriad of things happening in one
story, the rest act on the ones which came before, almost in a
consequential sense. How I came up with the material, however, is
another story entirely. After September 11th of 2001, story ideas
pretty well sought me out, instead of the other way around. Because
there was just so much carnage and devastation that day, so many
plots evolved around themselves, both in real life and in my own
fictional creation. I suppose I'd have to sum it up by saying that
real life situations, having been realized that day, dealing with
ancient plans to cause exactly what we saw in all those events,
begged to be told in fact-based-fiction. So while I had to beat a
deadline, it wasn't one that spurred me into action. The plot for
the book grew out of the overall vision shown with the linking
together of each story.
DONALD BRETTON: I spend a great deal of time wondering how to
get over bouts of self-conscious feelings of doubt in my abilities.
I recall you having mentioned the same thing in an interview you did
back in 2005. How were you able to overcome your feelings of
self-doubt in your writing? Do you suffer from writer's block? When
you begin each new writing project, how do you approach it from an
inspirational point of view?
CHARLES COPELAND: It's hard for me to believe you're only 14,
with such a grasp of the English language. And your thought process,
I'm not afraid to say, rivals most of the legends in fiction. The
greatest minds in writing history have all suffered from feelings of
self-doubt, sprinkled with heavy doses of self-inspired apathy, so
it's no wonder it would happen to you as well. Never fear. All these
things happen, and while they are not meant to be overcome, there
are many ways to "soldier on" in your writing without becoming
bogged down in all that self-consciousness. The first thing you've
got to realize is this: YOU ARE DONALD BRETTON, and that means you
only need to worry about what affects you. What plagues other
writers may bounce right off of you, leaving you able to blast past
it and focus on other issues. But what makes it so important to
realize that you are you is that when you do realize it, and I mean
REALLY realize it, you'll lighten up on yourself a bit and come to
understand more about yourself and your own writing style. Once
you're able to sit back and stare your self-consciousness in the
face, you'll realize it's not something that needs to be fed with
worry. It's a process that happens to all of us, and it's one that,
years from now, you'll almost recognize as being another form of
your writing-self. Call it your alter ego. It requires feelings of
inadequacy because, without it, your work would devolve into
arrogance and grandiose visions of self-worth. Once you cross that
line and begin thinking you're the greatest thing to happen to
fiction since the invention of the genre itself, you're lost. I know
it sounds silly, but you actually NEED to feel somehow unable to
live up to your own standards. Once you "understand" your feelings
of self-doubt, you'll find your own writing pace and work more
closely within parameters you set for yourself. So, shortening a
rather long answer, it's not meant for you to overcome. If you get
cocky, your writing will show it. And once your Ideal Reader sees
it, you're finished. Writing from the heart means just that ...
write as if you're telling your story to just your Ideal Reader,
hoping to make just enough impact as to leave the reader happy to
have read your work. If you can hit that as your target, your job
will be complete.
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