The 13th Sign

Carson Albion Private Eye was once again walking the streets of LA.

Not on a case.

Well maybe a case of rum when he got back to the office.

No, he was going out for dinner which he'd then take back to his office.

His dinner habits consisted entirely of take-out.

One night Chinese, next night Japanese, night after that Vietnamese, then Thai, then Indian, then Korean, then Italian, then Mexican. And then the process would begin again...

Tonight was Chinese food night.

And Carson Albion was headed to his favourite Chinese food take-out restaurant The Ming Lantern.

He ordered the lemon chicken, the ginger beef, the sweet and sour pork and fried rice.

After receiving his complimentary fortune cookie which he put in the bag, Albion once again headed out into the night.

As he walked down the street, a familiar voice greeted him, "Hey Albion."

It was Lt. McQuinn of the LAPD.

"Lt.," Albion nodded back, "you look like you've had a busy night."

"Into the paddy wagon with the others," Lt. McQuinn directed two constables who were bringing down a body in a body bag from an upstairs apartment.

The constables put the body into the back of the paddy wagon where a whole bunch of other bodies in body bags were stacked.

"That's the 13th dead astrologer tonight," Lt. McQuinn explained to Carson Albion, "ever since the New Astrology emerged en masse last week with the 13th sign Ophiuchus the serpent-bearer being introduced and everyone's astrological sign being bumped around, some people haven't taken kindly to their new signs and have ended up killing their personal astrologers as a result. This has resulted in one big headache for the LA homicide department. We don't know who to look for in terms of suspects. Whether we should be looking at the old astrological signs of potential suspects or the new signs."

"That would be a problem all right," Albion had to admit.

"I guess all the rehab clinics in Hollywood are going extra crazy at the moment too," McQuinn said, "with thousands of stars and celebrities checking themselves in saying that now their sign has been changed, they're having more trouble than ever with coming to terms with who they are."

"Makes me glad I'm not a regular guest on the Oprah Show," Albion stated.

"Me too," McQuinn agreed.

Albion walked down the street carrying his bag of Chinese food while McQuinn got a call on his car radio saying that a split personality astrologer was holding a gun to his own head and threatening to kill himself unless he went back to being a Gemini.

Albion passed by the Starstruck Motel on the way back to his office.

He stopped when he noticed a man in a turban standing on the second floor outside walkway of the motel. The man played a musical instrument and a snake was rearing its head from the top of a basket.

The man then picked up the snake and kicked his way into a motel room.

This didn't look good.

Albion removed his gun from his trenchcoat pocket and ran up the stairs.

He then entered the room where the man with the snake had kicked the door open.

The man stood on the bed atop a screaming woman holding the snake in his hands and ready to drop the snake on top of her.

The man in the darkened silhouette of the motel room looked like the figure of Ophiuchus the snake bearer- the 13th sign.

Albion fired a shot at the man and the man fell back off the bed.

Before dying, the man's last words were, "I guess this means I won't be getting my green card."

The snake then crawled out of the dead man's hands and put its venomous cobra head on the bed where once again the woman screamed.

The cobra's head was blown away with a single shot from Albion's gun.

The woman in a short black lingerie night dress threw herself into Albion's arms and planted kisses all over him.

Albion returned the favour.

After several intense hours of lovemaking on the bed, the woman said she should really call her parents back home and let them know how she was doing.

The woman was Jade Priyanka Sen a rising young Bollywood starlet from Mumbai, India who had come to Hollywood to expand her acting portfolio.

The dead man with the dead snake was her abusive ex-boyfriend who had followed her from India to America.

"I really should be getting my clothes on," the woman smiled at Carson Albion before kissing him good-bye.

"I guess I should get back to the office and eat my Chinese food before it starts getting cold," Albion picked up the bag marked The Ming Lantern.

He walked out into the LA night and headed back to his office.

He ate his dinner and drank a bottle of rum and opened his complimentary fortune cookie.

The fortune said,

YOUR DESTINY IS NOT IN THE STARS.
YOU MAKE YOUR OWN DESTINY.

Albion crumpled up the small piece of paper and thought to himself, more people should really be getting fortune cookies from The Ming Lantern.

There might have been less dead bodies on the streets of LA tonight.




-The 13th Sign
A short story
by Christopher Dracul Van Helsing
written Monday, January 17th, 2011

The Last Concert of Maestro McCready

The Last Concert of Maestro McCready
A short story written by Christopher Dracul Van Helsing
Friday evening, January 14th, 2011.


At an inn in the Scottish Highlands, Maestro McCready sipped a small glass of malt whisky.

He had been the conductor of a large symphony orchestra in England.

A very successful career he had had too.

Directing the music of the ages.

How he had loved it.

Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Chopin.

To make these men's music come alive for a new generation.

He had succeeded in that.

He would probably be still doing that.

But the onset of cancer had put an end to that.

He wasn't given much time left by his physicians in London.

So he had come home to the Scottish Highlands as his final place of sojourn before being called on that final journey that all of us must take.

The inn door opened.

A group of teen-aged school kids had entered the inn along with a bus driver.

"We cannot go further in this weather," the bus driver spoke to the inn keeper, "the snow is blinding. Can we spend the night here?".

"Certainly," the innkeeper said, "I have a few rooms available. And I've got some blankets and sleeping bags so that some can bunk together in the sitting room."

"Thanks," the bus driver said.

"Where were you headed?" the innkeeper asked.

"Down to Edinburgh," the bus driver replied, "this is a school orchestra from Saint Ninian's School. We were hoping to compete tonight in the National Finals. But the weather made it impossible."

Maestro McCready looked over at the kids' faces and he could see their disappointment.

"Their music teacher Mr. Henderson made it to Edinburgh all right," said the driver, "he took his own car so he's there but without an orchestra to conduct."

"And we're an orchestra without a conductor to conduct us," sighed one young girl.

"If only the judges could hear us, they'd know we're really really good," said the boy, "we don't care about winning. We just want people to know that we're good. That just because we come from what many would call the backwaters of Scotland doesn't mean we don't know how to play good music."

"Do any of you have cell phones with cameras?" Maestro McCready asked.

Practically all of the children put up their hands.

"And you have your instruments and music sheets with you?" Maestro McCready queried.

The children nodded.

"Well then you can play here in the sitting room and I'm sure our dear innkeeper here or your bus driver could film it and upload it to YouTube and someone could notify the judges at the competition in Edinburgh." Maestro McCready smiled.

"But we have no one to conduct us," said the girl.

The innkeeper smiled and introduced his distinguished guest, "This is Maestro Martin McCready who is a professional symphony conductor."

Some of the children looked at Maestro McCready in awe for they had heard of him.

"What piece were you going to play at the competition?" Maestro McCready asked.

"The Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony," one of the boys answered.

"Get everything set up," the Maestro smiled as he stood up, "I shall go to my room and put on my Conductor's clothes. And then I'll come down and we'll play to the world Beethoven's Ode To Joy like it's never been played before, shall we? We'll indeed make this melody a true ode to joy."

Maestro McCready went up to his room and hurriedly dressed.

When he returned downstairs, the innkeeper and the innkeeper's wife and the bus driver all held cell phone cameras.

Maestro McCready stood in front of the small podium that had been set up for him and bowed to the children and then turned and bowed to the cell phone cameras.

He tapped his baton on his sheet music and started conducting.

Outside the blowing howling winds of northern Scotland seemed to be joining in the sheer joy of that moment and to be singing the lyrics of that immortal Ode:

Yes, even if He calls but one soul
His own in all the world...

All the world's creatures
Draw joy from nature's breast;
...

She gave us kisses and wine
And a friend loyal unto death;
She gave lust for life to the lowliest,
and the Cherub stands before God.


Joyously as His suns speed
Through Heaven's glorious order,
Hasten, brothers, on your way,
Exulting as a knight in victory.

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter fire imbibed,
Heavenly, thy sanctuary.

Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss for all the world!
Brothers! above the starry canopy
A loving father must dwell.

Can you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy.
Above the stars He must dwell.


The Maestro then raised his baton in one final moment of triumph.

The young orchestra ceased playing.

There was silence in the room for about a minute.

Then the innkeeper and his wife and the bus driver broke into thunderous applause.

The orchestra and the Maestro stood up and bowed.

Then the kids gathered excitedly around the Maestro and thanked him for conducting them.

That night was a joy filled night as the young orchestra drank hot chocolate with the Maestro and ate the delicious oatmeal cookies made by the innkeeper's wife.

Then as the clock chimed 10 PM, the bus driver suggested it was time for bed.

Maestro McCready went up to his room.

He asked the innkeeper not to call him early in the morning.

And he asked the innkeeper to deliver his good-byes to the young orchestra on his behalf.

Early the next morning, the young orchestra rose and went to Edinburgh to engage in sight-seeing if not competition.

They were a happy group as the bus set off.

It was wise of Maestro McCready to ask not to be awakened early.

For he had been called out of this world during the night and his departure might have dampened the children's spirits.

Yes, even if He calls but one soul...

For in that moment of playing, in that brief concert captured on cell phone web cam, he had become the children's friend.

... a friend loyal unto death.

As for the orchestra, although they did not win the competition, they were given honourable mention and a special commendation by the judges for their efforts in putting on a concert in a small Highlands inn in adverse weather conditions far from the site of the competition.

Hasten, brothers, on your way,
Exulting as a knight in victory.

And of course, the biggest surprise of all was the video uploaded to YouTube went viral overnight all around the globe and soon everyone in the world had heard of the tiny Saint Ninian's School Orchestra that had been conducted by Maestro McCready in what would turn out to be his last performance.

Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss for all the world.

As for Maestro McCready, he had managed to fulfill every musician's secret dream- that one's last and very final performance would be one's greatest performance!

... and the Cherub stands before God.

... Seek him above the starry canopy.

Jack O' Hare In Dreams of The South Pacific

Dracul Van Helsing awoke to find himself in a small boat sailing towards a tropical island in the South Pacific.

"How are you, my friend?" Jack O' Hare asked him as his ears moved up and down while he munched a carrot.

"Jack, you can talk," Dracul was astonished.

"In dreams I can," Jack replied.

"This is but a dream?" Dracul was disappointed.

"Yes, a dream which both of us are in," Jack said, "why an island in the South Pacific are you dreaming of?".

"Well," Dracul replied, "one of my favourite movies of all time was the 1958 film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific which was based on James A. Michener's book Tales of The South Pacific. Since then one of my dreams has been to dream of visiting a beautiful South Pacific island where I fall in love with one of the beautiful woman islanders that happens to one of the characters in the movie as the song Happy Talk is being sung."

"This then explains the dream," Jack noted as he started to munch on some lettuce, "a pleasant way to start the new year of 2011."

Dracul noticed a beautiful woman standing in a red skirt with a gold floral pattern standing on the beach and waving and smiling at him.

"Too bad it's but a dream," Dracul sighed.

"Well," Jack smiled at him, "maybe someday your dreams will come true."

One can only hope.

New Year's Day With Jack O' Hare

Jack O' Hare perked up his big ears
All the noisy fireworks were gone
peace at last had come with dawn
all the partygoers were now home in their beds
with ice packs atop their throbbing heads.

And so 2011 had begun
this earth passing
yet another full course around the sun.

His friend Dracul had told him,
2011 is the Year of the Rabbit.

Jack grinned,
"The Year of the Rabbit?".

It was going to be a very good year.


-New Year's Day With Jack O' Hare
a poem written January 1st 2011
by Christopher Dracul Van Helsing

And So Another Year Has Past

Good-bye and good riddance 2010.