Rytius Records (Substack Edition), Ch. 23

Chapter 23. Recommencation

23. Recommencation

The rain had stopped freezing because the drops were too large. There were no washerwomen washing nor fishermen fishing, because the rivers had risen past their banks, and the waters flowed over the footbridges. Ritius accompanied Prince Feelharmonica to the tower for an inspection, and the road up the mountain was treacherous, slick with loose mud from the earth moved for the tower’s construction, and so the drivers drove slowly, and they were killed by long-distance snipers. The bodyguards rallied to defend their masters, but they were quickly dispatched, also from afar. Ritius and Feelharmonica exited their trucks with their arms raised for the captain of the assault team to lead them into a blasted cave nearby, where Prince Razorbeem awaited. He told Ritius that he wanted Ritius to watch and learn how a prince behaves. He had one of his men hold his brother’s head out, pulling him by the top of his Afro, and then he asked his brother if he had any last words, and as his brother was preparing to deliver his last words, Razorbeem shot him in the back of the head, demolishing his face. He told Ritius that no warrior can live without a prince, and that Ritius sprouted too late, in the wrong place, only to be cut down, like a watermelon seedling in the middle of a lawn before mowing day. Ritius may have stood a chance had he tossed Razorbeem from the swing or the like before Razorbeem learned to speak. Consider that this motherfucker named himself some mean intimidating shit like Razorbeem at or around the age of 6. He led Ritius outside, and they walked to the tower structure, where his men tied Ritius to one of its beams. He had his men gut Ritius with their swords. They then set fire to the tower and the entire built near environs, whether tower or ruin or squatted domicile. The fires fought the waters, and the waters always win, but in a building, the fire can race ahead of the water, setting more aflame than is put out long enough to burn it down. That’s what happened to the tower, and the electrical wires strung alongside it collapsed into the sloping canyon below, where they set fires to trash and trees and caused a three-car vehicle collision.

Map of unknown origin. From Passaic River Basin.

Razorbeem’s crack squadron fled the scene while Razorbeem radioed his man at the Little Falls dam to loose the flood gathered since his lieutenant at Great Falls had done the same minutes before. That Little Dam lieutenant did so, and the sovereignty of New Ark was drowned in flood once more, its final oblivion. That flaming tower toppled into the Great Notch, and those wires sparked fires across the light forest there, which spread. The fires fought the waters, and the waters won.

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