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The Hope of Reese Grymodion

Posted on 8/12/2014

by Paul Fallavollita “Reese Grymodion, it’s almost as if you’re the Devil incarnate,” my ex-girlfriend Tara announced as she stormed out two weeks ago.  Oh, how I wish, I thought.  I love it when attempts to introduce balance into a system result in its radical distortion.  It validates me as a black magician.

When I wasn’t crawling among the stacks in the campus library, I retreated to Room 1109 of the Goaz Residence Hall.  My home doubled as a laboratory where I strove to unlock the vault containing “humanity’s” negativity in between my classes at the University of Massachusetts - New Dana.  The day before Valentine’s Day I’d shown Tara my 188 page paper titled “Nature, Form, and National Socialism.”  It was amusing to hear her use the phrase “too sympathetic” as if it weren’t a compliment.

Tara must have complained to someone. Gang members donning caps embroidered with the “Galinas 16” logo bounded up the stairwell toward my room, brandishing lead pipes.  I heard them refer to me as “Suspect 33” amidst the broken English.  The gang operated under a tacit agreement with the local police, who had informed the student body that leaving to go home during this latest period of civil unrest would be considered an act of “trespassing.”

I was in the middle of a ritual when they came for me. I combined a bottle labeled C101 with the contents of another marked C2 and poured the fluid into a burlap sack atop my trapezoidal table, finally inserting a grayish-pink parchment containing runes written in red ink.  I took a deep swig of apple liquor and arranged five candles on the floor, forming the points of a pentagram.  I signed the back of a two-dollar bill with my full name using a fresh pen, lit it, and touched it to the bag.  A column of green flame rose for an instant.  Fascination with the dark side does not mean total indulgence, but necessitates control and discipline so one is not held in bondage to the appetites.  Yet I could not content myself to forever look upon the fruits around me without partaking one last time.

I’ve since had ample opportunity and desire to meditate on the better days of my childhood--the honey stand I’d opened on the roadside, the edge of the rock well pool I’d balance upon as I walked in circles, and the fragrant cedar smell of my mother’s perpetually locked wood chest of drawers.

Now, there’s only the chain link fence to peer through with the hope that attempts at creating balance might again run awry.


Paul Fallavollita, 36, grew up in Massachusetts but moved to the South as fast as he could. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and Political Science at Loyola University New Orleans and his Master of Arts in Political Science from Purdue University, specializing in International Relations, Political Theory, and English (Theory and Cultural Studies). Jesuit-trained, Fallavollita believes writing is the key to the human mind, and he became interested in the flash fiction medium as a means of holding a broader audience in light of the shortened attention span of we moderns. Suspecting that C.G. Jung was on to something about the collective unconscious that links our people, Fallavollita often incorporates themes and symbols from dreams into his writing. His work explores the dark and magical side of European man, the active threat of the global surveillance state, and the plight of our youth who find themselves in the midst of a world robbed from them before they were born. He currently works in the financial services industry and enjoys watching movies, spending time with friends, and playing with his cat, Mocha. He can be contacted via email here.