Scarecrow Gods Read Online Free PDF

his body was connected by a nylon harness.
    With his right hand he reached to the rod and punched the start button. The rod began to move in slow monotonous arcs, his body seeming to fly behind the rod as it made its circles within the tank, stirring the offal beneath him. Maxom watched as the feathers and guts and rotten pieces of chicken were stirred to the surface, the tiny white maggots rising to the top. Heads and beaks, morose glazed eyes rippled as the surface tension of the chicken soup broke. Maxom inhaled the fresh clean air of the outside through his mask as he guided the stirrer, adjusting the circles to better allow the maggots to breathe.
    If it weren’t for the fishermen who craved the tiny beasts, Maxom never would have had a job. They paid a premium for the maggots and associated creatures, understanding that it was these plump morsels that the fish truly craved. Most were shocked when they learned that every chicken plant had a Maggot Man. After all, why waste good maggots.
    And if it weren’t for the horrid little creatures he’d never make his $9.00 per hour, union wages. And if it weren’t for these nasty things that fed on death, he’d never be called Maggot Man. It was a trade-off of sorts.
    He stared at the million undulating forms and was reminded of the rice he’d last eaten in Vietnam.
    * * *
    Maxom was powerless to stop the dream.
    His vision was completely obscured by a thick white fog. More than the mere billowing vagueness of dreams, he recognized the fog as the ever-pervading mist from the mountain village where he’d died and risen again.
    Maxom heard the sounds of movement through the vagueness. At first it was only a few disparate voices, tired, yet ready to start a new day. The smell of burning wood drifted to his nostrils. He heard the clanking of metal, evidence of a morning fire and someone’s breakfast. Not his, of course, but someone’s. He’d already eaten twice this week and his rice soup was another few days in coming.
    Soon, the sounds were everywhere as the villagers began the mundane tasks of starting their day. As he listened, the mist lightened a little and he could see farther in front of him—something he didn’t want to do. Hearing was enough. Seeing would tear him apart. Maxom tried to close his eyes, but he had no control over his muscles. As was the commandment of all his dreams, his dictatorial Id had deemed Maxom’s interaction unnecessary. He was to be an observer, not a participant. Even if it was his own dream. Even if it was what really happened.
    He screamed within his sleeping mind. He wanted to wake now. He’d experienced enough. It was as if he was falling from a great height. It was said that if you ever completed the fall you’d never awake and if you did, it would be as a dead man. Watching the mist unfold the shapes before him was just like falling. He knew that if he waited until it cleared, he would die again. He’d already died so many times.
    Please, not again.
    For Bernie waited within the fog. Ready to accuse him. Place the blame for the pain. For his death. For his decomposition.
    It wasn’t Maxom’s fault that they’d been captured.
    Both of them would’ve preferred dying. There was never a moment in their lives when they’d ever contemplated an existence as parodies of Western values. Never once did they believe they’d become living symbols of all that was terrible about America, hanging on the cross like a never-dying Jesus, savior by warning the mountain people not to help, to ignore Samaritanship, to forget the humanness of compassion.
    The mist cleared a little more. Maxom begged to wake up. He shrieked for the dream to end.
    He’d first met Bernie at Fort Bragg during a bar brawl at the Green Beret Sport Parachute Club. They’d punched each other on their respective chins and admired the way that the other refused to fall. Two more times they’d tried, corded triceps rippling with the effort, and two more times each had