Glorify Bad (ON HOLD)

Preface

Intro.

Autumn had come around again. The nights inched closer and engulfed the sky earlier than it had in the summer. The trees blended together in shades of reds, yellows and oranges that created an ocean of intention throughout Michigan. The dead leaves cloaked the streets and sidewalks, putting the season at its absolute peak. The plummeting temperatures didn't bother Caleb too much, who was seventeen at the time this autumn had come.

Caleb Tucker, an introvert of a boy would spend these nights with Great Uncle Clyde, a spiritual, pot-smoking sixty something year old man with a pepper colored beard that hid most of his face and neck. Great Uncle Clyde was stern about the spiritual pull that gravitated around us from mother Earth herself. Caleb thought it was a bunch of bullshit though, since Great Uncle Clyde was a junkie who could only sleep with exactly 16 dream catchers over his headboard. Although he was a man of complete insanity, he knew everything there was to know about phasing.

Phasing, the dreadful and aching process from your human body to your spirit body, often left Caleb contemplating suicide and begging Great Uncle Clyde for some sort of forgiveness. He never gave into him though, neither of them did. Caleb was too hard headed to see through Great Uncle Clyde's manipulative comments about the way he phased.

"Now what the hell was that, boy?"

I'm trying.

"Ain't I teachin' you anything, boy?"

I told you, I'm trying.

"Get the hell back up and do it again."

We've been at this for hours.

"We'll out here all night if we have to, boy!"

I didn't ask to be this way.

Caleb never said that last part, though. As much as he wanted to hate his spiritual body and express it, he knew Great Uncle Clyde would disapprove of him. It was in his blood, in his genes, and in his soul. Great Uncle Clyde could never forgive him for putting to shame in something that was made in his DNA. Great Uncle Clyde was Caleb's father's Uncle, a man Caleb had never met. He left him and his mother and sister when he was just an infant, knowing nothing about his spiritual self and how to control it. Great Uncle Clyde knew he held the blood of a 'Shifter' because he was the only male in the family (It was some sort of recessive trait). A Shifter was a fancy name to replace werewolf that Great Uncle Clyde didn't like too much. He said the term 'werewolf' was a derogatory term and to 'never let anyone put you down like that.'

It didn't matter too much to Caleb what it was called or who called him what. The only barrier stopping him from completely forgetting his spiritual self was Great Uncle Clyde himself; forcing Caleb to wake up hours before sunrise and take him to the back woods of the small town Great Uncle Clyde lived in. It was still dim in the morning, the sky would just be turning a light shade of blue above the trees, providing enough light to see where they were walking between the trees.

"Here is good."

They normally stopped about a hundred feet or so from the road where Great Uncle Clyde's faded-red rusty pickup truck sat. Caleb would strip down to nothing, leaving his clothes in the passenger seat of the truck. Great Uncle Clyde would give a signal, a sort of nod or 'go ahead' gesture. Caleb would take the deepest breath, and hope he wouldn't fuck it up as he usually did.

It would go back and forth; human to spirit, human to spirit, human to spirit for hours until Great Uncle Clyde was satisfied. His bones cracking and transitioning could be heard echoing throughout the morning, which was why Great Uncle Clyde drove him so far out of town. Caleb would scream in agony until his spirit body was in full form. As soon as that ecstasy hit his spirit body, which was almost like a sigh of relief, Great Uncle Clyde would make him shift back into his human body and start again. Caleb normally arrived back to Great Uncle Clyde's home with sores and aches in his shoulders and head, which were the body parts that had the most phasing. Great Uncle Clyde dragged him out to the forests again the next day, too, and he would phase until satisfaction.

"It gets easier." He would say.

Caleb never felt the same faith as Great Uncle Clyde did, who was a Shifter as well. Great Uncle Clyde had no problem with phasing. He could phase in the blink of an eye and phase back just as quickly. Caleb, who had only been phasing for a few years, hadn't felt any sort of progress. It felt as if his body were being set on fire each and every time he phased. Caleb wasn't one to have faith, though. He believed either you were great at something, or you should give up on trying. Great Uncle Clyde would take Caleb out into the backyard when he knew Caleb's faith had faded and laid him down in the grass on the nights where the skies where the clearest. Great Uncle Clyde would point out the constellations and tell stories about Shifters and their culture. Even though Caleb radiated with uninterest, he tuned into the stories and history of Shifters, wanting to know about his own people and his own past.

"Shifters come in two kinds." he would say. "The ones who were born, and the ones who were bitten. Like us, we were born with the blood of a Shifter, meaning we can phase when and however we please. If you were bitten by a Shifter, the only choice is by full moon."

Even though Caleb kept his usual stone face, he often felt grateful for being born a Shifter and not bitten.

"Bitten Shifters ain't around any more. No Shifters now-a-days want to deal with the rabid-ass werewolves at full moon and make themselves known. Shifters are pretty damn stern with keepin' themselves a secret."

Caleb knew that, though. He made a promise to Great Uncle Clyde to never speak of his gift to anyone or anything.

"You know, this is who we are. This is who you are." he would end the night with. "Somethin' out there," he would point among the lights of constellations. "put us here for a reason. We got to find that reason."