The Eternal Duel

Chris Conidis

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In the town of Ashwillow, nestled beneath a perpetually amber sky, two men named Elias Grange and Victor Bellows lived as sworn enemies. Their feud was so storied that it etched its way into the very bark of the town's old oaks, twisting them into writhing shapes that seemed to hiss their names in the wind. The origin of their hatred was long forgotten—some said it began over a misplaced shovelful of dirt in a shared garden, others whispered it was the result of a single, cutting word at a town meeting. Whatever the cause, it metastasized until the two men became flames feeding on the oxygen of each other's ire.

Elias was the wind, blustering and howling, scattering seeds of discontent wherever he went. Victor was the stone, unyielding and cold, sinking beneath the surface of his anger but erupting in eruptions of volcanic rage. They battled in every conceivable way: building fences taller and taller to outdo each other, spreading rumors like plagues in the marketplace, and even sabotaging the other's rain barrels during dry summers.

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When Elias died one winter morning, the snow fell with a curious smirk, as though the town itself believed the feud had ended. But death only sharpened the edges of Victor's hatred. At Elias' funeral, Victor whispered, "Even in the ground, you’ll rot the wrong way."

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And so it was.

 

 

Within a week of Victor’s own passing, the townsfolk noticed strange happenings. Elias and Victor’s graves, planted side by side like seeds of discord, began shifting. The earth heaved and buckled, as though the two corpses were wrestling beneath the soil. On moonlit nights, muffled curses and the sound of fists colliding with bone echoed from the cemetery, sending stray dogs howling into the hills.

The first to see the full spectacle was Old Maggie, who had spent decades tending the graves. She swore to her dying day that Elias and Victor’s ghosts were visible in the mist, translucent fists flying, eyes blazing like coals of resentment. They fought over boundaries marked only by shadows, drawing lines in the fog that dissipated the moment they turned their backs.

"You’ll not have the last word!" Elias’ ghost bellowed one night, his form flickering like a guttering candle.

"I’ll carve it into your tombstone myself!" Victor spat back, his ectoplasm hardening into a blade that Elias swatted away with a spectral shovel.

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Their feud became a fixture in the town, as much a part of Ashwillow as the autumn leaves or the slow chime of the clocktower. Children dared one another to spend a night near the graves; poets came to witness the spectacle, calling it "a drama etched in the air."

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But the duel refused to conclude.

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Years passed. The cemetery grew overgrown, yet the fighting persisted. The men’s spirits, trapped in a loop of fury, began to change. Their outlines blurred until they became indistinguishable from the mist itself. Their shouts turned into the howling wind, their blows into the creaking of branches. They fused with the landscape, forever bound in their futile battle.

One evening, a young historian came to town, curious about the tale of Elias and Victor. She brought with her a notebook, her pen scratching furiously as she wandered through the cemetery. Finding the overgrown graves, she paused, listening to the faint murmurs of their eternal quarrel.

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“Why do they fight?” she asked aloud, her breath forming little clouds.

The wind, carrying a thousand whispers, responded: “To remember they once lived.”

The historian left, and the graves continued their slow dance of dissent, the earth grinding with the weight of their struggle. Their feud, stripped of purpose, had become a metaphor for all human folly—anger that outlasts reason, boundaries drawn on shifting sands, and battles waged long after the combatants have forgotten the prize.

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And so, Elias and Victor remain, part of the land now, eternal and unresolved. Ashwillow sleeps, but the wind sighs, the trees groan, and the world remembers: even death cannot bury the living rage of men.